The Internet Is Arguing if Alien Is a Horror Movie

All movies have a genre, that handly classification that gives the viewer some sense of what they might expect from the film. If a film gets the “comedy” genre label, viewers might expect it to be funny. If a film gets the “drama” label, viewers might expect something more somber and perhaps more emotional. But some movies could be more than would genre or fans could be in disagreement over what genre a film belongs in. This is something that is seen every year around the Christmas holiday when fans take to social media to debate the merits of Die Hard as a Christmas movie. Now, the internet is debating another film’s genre by discussing whether Alien is a horror movie or not.

The debate kicked off when Elle Hunt, a freelance writer whose work appears in such publications as The Guardian, took to Twitter with a poll to settle an argument: is Alien a horror film? She asked respondents to also give reasons to support their answers. As of writing, over 88,000 people have responded with nearly 94 percent of those responses indicating that yes, it’s a horror film.

Of course, the replies to the poll are where the debate really comes in. While Hunt seems to think that Alien is not a horror film because it is set in space, most were willing to give the film the horror designation but also indicated that it was more than just that and even offered specific reasons why the film fits certain subgenres of horror. Even Kevin Smith got in on the discourse, breaking down how he sees all the films in the Alien franchise.

Released in 1979, Alien is directed by Ridley Scott and stars Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm, and Yaphet Kotto. The film follows a space merchant vessel who receives a distress signal and responds, despite the protest of some on the crew. What they end up finding is a mysterious life form that ends up attacking the crew, setting off a terrifying series of events. The film is categorized as both horror and sci-fi on IMDb, but the internet has quite a few thoughts on the matter.

Read on for just some of the discourse around whether Alien is a horror movie or if it belongs to another genre of film instead below and be sure to let us know your take in the comments.

Horror is not defined by setting

Why not both?

Maybe it’s suspense

This fascinating take

Monster movie

Ripley is a Final Girl

Jaws has entered the discourse

Space horror

Haunted house

And then there’s this