If you had to put Alien into ONE genre, what would you choose: Horror or Sci-Fi?

Alien: Sci-fi or horror?

  • It's clearly sci-fi! Spaceships and deep-space travel and extraterrestrials and shit!

  • It's obviously horror! People trapped and hunted by a terrifying, murderous creature!


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I was just recently having a discussion with @sickc0d3r about what genre Alien belongs in, if you can only choose one. Is it PREDOMINANTLY a sci-fi film or a horror film?

Just imagine it's 1999 again and you're working in a video store. There's a horror section. And a sci-fi section. You have to go with one or the other. Where do you put Alien?

What say you Sherdog?
 
Survival horror? Overpowered scary creature vs weak human, running around shook trying to survive. Closer to horror I guess.
 
Survival buddy comedy. This thread is setup to be a never ending shadowpriest argument. Theres never any point at the end.
 
Well, it's both, but if i had to choose one.
Aliens was a sci-fi action more than a sci-fi horror while alien was more a sci-fi horror. Either way, both films were sci-fi.

So sci-fi
 
Well, it's both, but if i had to choose one.
Aliens was a sci-fi action more than a sci-fi horror while alien was more a sci-fi horror. Either way, both films were sci-fi.

So sci-fi

This is my perspective as well. I feel like at its core, it is fundamentally a sci-fi film before it's anything else.
 
I consider it obviously a horror movie, but would put it in the sci-fi section of my theoretical video store.

It's both, and impossible to classify as just one or the other.
 
You could put JP in a sci fi section as well

But I wouldn't

It would go under Drama/Adventure
 
Alien is horror, no big focus on the space or sci-fi parts of the universe, just a tight, claustrophobic ship and one bad alien.
 
You could put JP in a sci fi section as well

But I wouldn't

It would go under Drama/Adventure

Yeah, JP's a mash-up of a lot of genres. But if subjecting it to the video store test, I would probably put it in the Action/Adventure section.

I actually have thought a lot in the past about how I'd distill it down to its core genre and it requires some real thought.
 
Horrorscaryalienstoryathon is he correct genre
 
Yeah, JP's a mash-up of a lot of genres. But if subjecting it to the video store test, I would probably put it in the Action/Adventure section.

I actually have thought a lot in the past about how I'd distill it down to its core genre and it requires some real thought.

Well I used to work at the Big B

I think we put all the Alien movies into the horror section even Aliens

The reasoning is that we wanted to keep all the Alien films next to each other so customers could find them easiler
 
Not much of a thought on this one, which may be bad but its horror.

The location and what the killer is is truly what inserts sci fi.

Thinking further, i thought of the effect of the movie. Horror is meant to scare, whereas sci fi doesnt intentionally. Which gives you nightmares? Horror and this movie could and does do that.
 
It's equally Horror and Sci Fi. It's kind of a meaningless discussion.
 
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