If you like your horror to have a hint of mystery to it too CONSTANTINOS PSILLIDES has some suggestions as to what to watch next

While horror films/series are not my preferred cup of tea (excuse me for wanting to sleep at night), if I were to choose a horror subgenre it would always be the claustrophobic horror/sci fi one. A setup where the characters have nowhere to go, there is no escape, so eventually they have to face the monster that lurks among them. John Carpenter’s enduring masterpiece The Thing, an unusual cross between horror/thriller and mystery/whodunit, has been an inspiration for this kind of movie and series, which is how we ended up with Silent Sea, that dropped on Netflix a few weeks ago. Here’s a list of series/movies to check out if you too liked The Thing.

Silent Sea

The Korean entertainment industry just keeps churning them out! The latest addition is called Silent Sea and tells the story of a world in the near future where water has become a scarce resource due to climate change turning oceans into deserts. Unbelievable, I know.

In an effort to turn the tide (heh), the Korean government sends a group of scientists led by Song Ji-An (played by Bae Doo-Na, who at this point I believe has a contractual agreement to appear in everything produced in Korea) to retrieve a sample from the abandoned Balhae station on the Moon. The reason for abandoning the station was never known but once the astronauts gain access to the station, they quickly discover that they are not alone. Throw in the mix a government cover-up and crew member who is not who he/she says he/she is and you have a great series to binge!

The Mist

No horror list can exist without something written by Stephen King. In this case, we turn to The Mist, the series available on Netflix. Based on the short story by the same name, The Mist tells the story of a rural city in Maine (it’s King, of course it’s Maine) that is suddenly enveloped by a thick mist. This mist however turns out to be much more than a weather phenomenon, as people who go into it meet a violent end. Soon, people who are trapped in various locations around the city find themselves fighting on two fronts: the monsters hiding in the mist and the monsters among them.

Shutter Island

Directed by Martin Scorsese over a decade ago, the Shutter Island movie is an amazing thriller that still holds up to this day. Frequent collaborator Leonardo Di Caprio stars as US Marshall Teddy, who visits an asylum on Shutter Island to investigate the disappearance of one of the patients. Along with his partner, played by Mark Ruffalo, Teddy soon discovers that the asylum is used for advanced treatments and that not everyone is who they say they are.

Nightflyers

While this series had everything going for it, it ended up being a flop, only appropriate for friends of the sci/horror genre even though it was based on a short story by George RR Martin, who was just coming off the success of a little-known series you might have heard of, called Game of Thrones. SyFy threw money at the series, but it unfortunately fizzled. It was cancelled after one season and if you are getting into it, a bit of warning as it ends on a sort of cliffhanger. Since Netflix acquired the right from SyFy they might be planning season 2 but this is unlikely.

Nightflyers tells the story of an ill-fated mission in the distant future trying to contact alien life forms. As with all other entries, one of the crew harbours a secret that ends up spiraling out of control, leading a to a full blown massacre and unimaginable horror in a setting where there is nowhere to hide.