10 Cult Sci-Fi Movies About Environmental Revenge

Nature hit back ! That ’s the share base of these 10 eco - horror movies we ’ve compiled in honor ofGarbage Week , all narration of terrible penalization that transpire when the surround lashes out against evil , wasteful , and destructive humans . Read on , and be warned : Mother Earth is growing weary of your mother fucker .

10. Day of the Animals

After a sober hatchway crawl that let us know the things in this movie could happen “ in the penny-pinching future ” if we do n’t curb our dependency to aerosol nebulizer cans ( and thereby lay off depleting the ozone bed ) , we meet a mathematical group of tramper whose gamey - height adventuring means they ’ll encounter animals whose propinquity to read sliced ozone layer makes them extremist - aggressive . Wolves , bird , snakes , scum bag , and other wild animal cause all mode of mayhem , but ultimately the humans — specially an exuberantly overact , unnecessarily shirtlessLeslie Nielsen , as a would - be rapist whose plan of attack is thwarted by a madden bear — predictably prove to be the worst monster of all .

9. Phase IV

Artist Saul Bass ’ striking , graphic style made a huge impact on Hollywood . you may see his employment oniconic movie posters(Vertigo , The Shining ) , as well as in some of film ’s most memorable rubric sequence ( just one exercise : the disjointed words in the scuttle credits ofPsycho , which instantly jell the film ’s unsettling tone ) . Though he directed several trunks ( including Oscar - winning short doc Why Man Creates ) , Bass made just one feature , and it ’s an left over one : 1974 ’s Phase IV .

After ostensibly receiving a subject matter from outer space , a desert ant colony morphs into a hive mind capable of sudden violence , though their main focus is building towers , craw circles , and other complex body part . A brace of curious scientists set up a lab to study and confront the ants , which seem to be prepping for something monolithic . But these are n’t the rampaging , ray giants of Them ! ; instead , the ant are bear witness to be methodical and intelligent , a portraiture greatly help by set of extreme close - up shot enamor by wildlife photographer Ken Middleham . Overall , Phase IV is remarkably beautiful and thoughtful for a “ critters go wild ” film , plainly thanks to Bass ’ visual mastery , as well as the story ’s embracing of the cosmic unknown region .

8. The Happening

One day , out of nowhere , pile suicides begin materialise — ending the life of people who were not know to be demoralize or otherwise at risk . Yep , beforeBird Box , there was M. Night Shyamalan ’s 2008 retaliation thriller , in which pissed - off industrial plant start wafting mind - controlling neurolysin around to teach the irresponsible , uneconomical human universe some very tough lessons .

The canonical story bears more than a run resemblance to a 1950s sci - fi drive - in flick , the tonicity ( despite all those deaths ) isoddly campy , and star Mark Wahlberg ( playing a very earnest science instructor ) is either preposterously miscast or absolutely cast to be one more chemical element inThe Happeningthat just seems ever - so - slightly out of place . It ’s not a good film by any means ( though it will sure have a long life as a midnight movie)—but it certainly hue plants with a level of scarily random power that few sci - fi story have before or since .

7. The Food of the Gods

Despite what the above trailer will have you think , H.G. Wells ’ fingerprints are only very faintly detectable on B - motion-picture show maestro Bert I. Gordon’sdelightfully trashy The Food of the Gods . The 1976 sacking has an ensemble cast that somehow includes both Hollywood fable Ida Lupino and cult thespian Marjoe Gortner ( Google him ) , and it takes shoes on an detached island where a mysterious meaning ( see : the title ) has set out ooze from the primer , making animals and louse that consume it alarmingly tremendous . ( The Wells narrative offered a scientific discipline - gone - wild explanation for the meaning ; the movie skips over that and just bustle about to the part about giant animals rising up against human oppressors . )

Most of the joy of watching The Food of the Gods follow from reckon the “ especial effects”—really , old - school trick picture taking that makes it search like regular - sized doer are face off with elephantine - ass chickens , WASP , and ( in the movie ’s most unintentionally hilarious sequence ) stinkpot . But amid all the silliness , it does kind of make you consider what could happen if Earth ’s most base beast suddenly gained a huge size of it vantage on us .

6. Godzilla vs. Hedorah

In 1971 ’s Godzilla vs. Hedorah ( also known by its evocative substitute title , Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster ) , the King of the Monsters pivots to being a genius for humankind , a ready to hand circumstance indeed when the combination of a contrary exotic andEarth ’s nastiest pollutiongenerates a repulsive , shape - pitch creature that ’s hellbent on total annihilation . A nautical biologist and his young son ( who hap to be a Godzilla fanboy ) , along with the rest of Japan , are truly alarmed by a sudden outbreak of poisonous sea fauna — particularly when they form a massive organism the tike dub “ Hedorah ” ( from “ hedoro , ” the intelligence for “ sludge ” in Japanese ) , which make to the air and starts vaporize mass ( and thin at least one furious kitty ) with its toxic emissions .

The scientist is able to figure out a direction to soften the creature , but finally only Godzilla is able to take it down . Godzilla vs. Hedorah hand over a potent warning about pollution ( the Smog Monster hungrily feeds on manufactory smokestacks ) , but it ’s also a movie that see the Big grand utilize his atomic breath to film through the air like a jetpack , and contains a hilariously random “ psychedelic acid freak - out in the dance lodge ” tantrum . A profits - win , in other words .

5. Prophecy

John Frankenheimer ( The Manchurian Candidate , Black Sunday ) directed this 1979 thriller about a New York City physician ( Robert Foxworth ; Rocky ’s Talia Shire Colorado - stars as his wife ) who goes on assignment for the EPA and head to a remote forest to inquire a nation dispute . tenseness are running sky - high between a sleazy logging caller that ’s manner more focussed on profits than anything else and the local Native American biotic community . All mark point to the logging society ’s paper mill contaminate the river with chemicals , have flagitious harm to wildlife .

But things take a turn for the nightmarish when a mutant bear dead seem , at once embody a tribal fable about a vengeful forest emotional state while also wear away on any human that beat in its way of life . Prophecy has some beautiful scene , thanks to its British Columbia fix , and it tries to be a cautionary tarradiddle that play everything as straight as potential … while also being a puppet feature about a comedically superstrong mutant bear ( which suspiciously resembles a person in a hairless bear costume that ’s been hosed down with stage blood ) , a actual force-out of nature so haphazardly destructive it rips through lumberman , kid , and the Native activists who are actually trying to protect its turf .

4. The Bay

With producer like Orem Peli ( Paranormal Activity ) and Blumhouse ’s Jason Blum , and Oscar - get ahead managing director Barry Levinson ( Rain Man ) at the helm , The Bay has an unusually full-bodied pedigree for a find - footage revulsion film . Even if you hate that genre in oecumenical , The Bay is really rather well - executed , and it boasts some gloriously gross special effects . It ’s framed as an exposé of an event that ’s been totally covered up by the government and use dissimilar video sources and point of view to distinguish its tale , though a telly reporter who was a surviving eyewitness ( played by Kether Donohue ) provides a narrative focal point .

Three year prior , on what should ’ve been a merry Fourth of July , residents of a Maryland beach town are suddenly cut down by a strange plague . Except what ’s causing whale , crashing blisters is n’t some dreadful newfangled disease — it ’s an invading sponge bed as the “ tongue - eating louse , ” freshly A-one - sized thanks to an teemingness of toxic pollution in the piss . make matter worse , there ’s every indication that the peril was known to a select few ( including the townspeople city manager ) who choose not to admonish anybody . That ’s as monstrous as the eventual burying of the report , but the most memorable part of The Bay are 100 pct anytime we see someone ’s furuncle pulsate and give way to a creepy - crawly in search of its next juicy human host .

3. Long Weekend

This 1978 thriller ( it was remade in 2008 , but stick with the original for maximal lo - fi unease ) takes place in Australia and offers convincing evidence to back up the idea that the commonwealth ’s wildlife has its own particular tang of brutality . In the pillowcase of Long Weekend , however , you may hardly blame nature for turn against its human invaders . Though they ’re barely on speaking terms , Peter and Marcia pack up for a weekend lam on an isolated beach , push aside a “ Keep Out ” sign and disrespect all manner of aboriginal plant and fauna from the instant they get . Their casual trashing of nature range from things like tossing cigarette butts into the brush and driving their motortruck on the pristine Amandine Aurore Lucie Dupin , to actually kill animals and bad ( in one heart - wring panorama , Marcia smashes an eagle egg as the female parent wench set mournfully overhead ) .

Long Weekend builds its menace slow but steady ; as the couple ’s kinship gets more and more strained , mostly due to the worked up luggage they ’ve brought with them , the wild grows more and more threatening . Long Weekend is unique on this inclination because these animals have n’t been mutated or genetically change in any way — they’re just asserting themselves , all at once , on a couple of asshole outsiders who absolutely have it come .

2. Alligator

I ’m singling out 1980 ’s Alligator here , but I picked it as a representative of several other “ oops , we contaminated the animals ” moving picture , which do n’t vary too much in plot butare all over the single-valued function in terms of furious creatures . A young Robert Forster stars as a Chicago copper investigating account of a giant alligator lurking in the sewers . In true urban legend manner , the gator ’s there because some jerk flush his kid ’s exotic raw pet down the toilet a few years prior . In true sci - fi horror fashion , the critter has become gilbert - normous because of a steady diet of pets , wayward humans , and , oh yeah , laboratory rat that were used to screen a sketchy agrarian increase hormone .

As an added bonus , once the alligator makes its inevitable jailbreak from the sewer , it rampage through a fancy wedding company attended by the movie ’s casting of villainous snobs , fling tablecloths around and snacking on various guest — admit the mayor of Chicago ! Other advocate movies in a like nervure — which is to say , featuring beast and insect that become monsters as a direct resultant of human race mucking around in scientific discipline science lab — admit rabbit terror epical Night of the Lepus , New Zealand ignominious comedy Black Sheep , Joe Dante ’s Piranha , Bong Joon - ho ’s The Host , and Guillermo del Toro ’s Mimic .

1. The Last Winter

Underrated horror director Larry Fessenden ’s best film to appointment is thischilling thrillerabout an environmentalist ( James LeGros ) who butts heads with the macho drawing card of an rock oil company ( Ron Perlman ) when he suggest that clime change may be compromise a remunerative plan to practice on a protect part of the Arctic . It gets worse when workers begin succumbing to poisonous raw gas emissions , but what at first seems like an interpretable serial of cataclysm gets spooky as hell when ominous apparition — Earth ’s ghosts , it seems , summoned to defend an angry , weary planet — begin meting out their own marque of supernatural frontier justice .

For more , make certain you ’re following us on our new Instagram @io9dotcom .

GodzillaThe Happening