While HBO Max, Netflix, Prime Video, and Hulu make you pay for a subscription to access their roster of content, free streamers like Tubi do not. And, as time has gone on, Tubi has built up an increasingly impressive assortment of content that can be viewed for the price of zero as long as you can sit through some commercials (which, by the way, most of those aforementioned paid streamers make you do as well if you’re on their base level tier). For the spooky movie season, there are quite a few choice selections, including the wonderfully fun original Fright Night and Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
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Tubi has an equally impressive lineup of sci-fi content. Some of them have found their audience, e.g. Real Steel, Highlander, The Fifth Element, and A Scanner Darkly. But what about the sci-fi movies that deserve to have their fanbase expanded? Three of those follow, and you might enjoy giving them a shot.
1) The Arrival
Charlie Sheen is perhaps most well-known for his time on Two and a Half Men (not to mention how his time on that show came to a fiery end), but prior to that he was a movie star. And some of those movies, like Red Dawn, Young Guns, and Wall Street, were extremely popular and remain as such.
But, while it got a sequel, The Arrival was not one of those popular movies. It is, however, a fairly intriguing science fiction conspiracy thriller. Sheen plays radio astronomer Zane Zaminsky, who learns of the existence of extraterrestrials only to have his career taken away from him and to have shady government officials following him at every turn. The Arrival is worth a stream for its narrative’s lean nature, even when it’s delving into big topics, as well as the work by Sheen, which is some of his best. Like 1993’s Fire in the Sky, it’s a movie for alien invasion fans who aren’t necessarily interested in big, explosive set pieces like the ones that fill out Independence Day‘s runtime.
2) Body Snatchers
Abel Ferrara has had one of the more intriguing careers of any auteur. While he typically embraces neo-noir, he’s never seemed comfortable playing over and over again in the same genre. He jumps around, and whether it’s the crime genre (Bad Lieutenant and King of New York), the slasher subgenre (The Driller Killer), or the vampire film (The Addiction), he always leaves his very particular stamp.
He did the same with his adaptation of Jack Finney’s 1955 novel The Body Snatchers. Unfortunately, it is mostly forgotten, with most being quicker to remember the 1956 movie or the 1978 rendition starring the late Donald Sutherland. But Ferrara’s 1993 take is nearly as effective, with the brilliant core concept of having the body snatching alien invasion take place on a military base, where everyone is pretty hesitant to show great emotion on a normal day. Body Snatchers is often unsettling, unpredictable, and is coated in a reddish visual aura that makes you feel as though you’re watching a fever dream come to life. Toss in some phenomenal work by Meg Tilly and Forest Whitaker and it’s very much worth any sci-fi horror fan’s time.
3) The Endless
Directed by and starring Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, The Endless tells the tale of two brothers (named Justin and Aaron) who receive a videotape from the camp they went to as youths. However, their memory of their time at Camp Arcadia wildly differs, with Justin believing it to be a cult. They return to Camp Arcadia only to see that none of its members have aged in the past 10 years, but that’s just the beginning of the weirdness they’re about to experience.
This low-budget sci-fi scare fest is impressive in both its ambition and ability to keep the audience’s attention even as it takes some wild narrative swings. This movie makes a fine companion piece on double feature night to something like Color Out of Space, starring Nicolas Cage. The Endless is the type of sci-fi movie that has great appeal to those who want unwavering attention paid to developing characters who feel like members of the real world. This even when those individuals are dealing with something as substantial as the alteration of the supposedly linear nature of life. There’s nothing like a time loop to make you understand what is really important in one’s existence.
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