Combining sci-fi and horror has generally been a mixed bag across the board, even if many genre-benders have found massive success, or at the very least cult status. There’s also been plenty to have flown completely under the radar, though, but the drum for 2018’s Swedish effort Aniara is being banged for anyone willing to listen.
Made on a minuscule budget of under €2 million (the equivalent to a little over $2 million at today’s exchange rates), co-writers and directors Pella Kågerman and Hugo Lilja drew their inspirations from the epic 1950s poem of the same name, which narrates the story of an intergalactic passenger vessel being caught off-course while escaping the destruction of Earth, plunging the crew into an existential struggle.
Unfolding over a number of years, the feature-length adaptation deals with claustrophobia, paranoia, murder, suicide, cults, big questions about the place of humanity in the universe, and plenty more besides. It’s perhaps not the most obvious point of comparison to make, but a Reddit thread attempting to ignite interest in Aniara has name-dropped Alien and Event Horizon as spiritual contemporaries, which is admittedly more than enough to pique interest.
While the lo-fi intergalactic escapade isn’t quite on the same level as the aforementioned duo in terms of atmosphere, intensity, and outright blood and guts, the thematic similarities are easy enough to pick up on. As a whole, sci-fi/horror hybrids have been consistently inconsistent, but Aniara is unquestionably one of the most immersive and innovative to come along in a while.
