The Halloween season is a perfect time to reflect upon the relationship between the science fiction and horror genres — two popular genres, along with fantasy, that are often lumped together thematically in book and video stores. One explanation could be that the fantastical nature of sci-fi and horror involves events, people and places that defy current thinking on the laws of nature, science, physics and geography. The classic yarns of these genres tell stories allegorically that have a deeper metaphorical meaning, yet retain enough sense of humanity that we can still relate to the characters or situations.
While sci-fi tends to appeal more to the analytical sides of our brains, horror goes for our throats, our hearts, and pushes the emotional buttons that make us hide under the covers with the lights on. Therefore, it only makes sense that Star Trek would often blend the two, creating tales of science fiction that include the elements and archetypes of horror.
There are a number of common horror archetypes, from vampires and the undead to nightmarish creatures shuffling in the dark ready to prey on the unsuspecting. Over the course of 600-plus episodes and ten movies, Star Trek has explored some of the most familiar horror themes, but in highly unconventional ways. The following are some of the strange and spooky tales that Star Trek has served up over the years
Vampires
At the heart of the vampire legend is the notion of non-human beings who need to steal a vital essence (blood) from humans to survive. They also possess stronger powers than normal humans, powers of thought-control and also shape-shifting abilities.
The very first episode of Star Trek to hit the airwaves in 1966, "The Man Trap," featured a creature that neatly fits the description of a vampire, with the difference being that it hailed not from Earth but from planet M-113. Later dubbed a "salt-vampire," the creature had strong hypnotic powers that helped it to lure its prey. Part of what made the experience so disturbing for Dr. McCoy was that the creature had, like traditional vampires, invaded a private part of McCoy's life by making him see what appeared to be his former lover, Nancy Crater.
Another take on the vampire myth was seen in the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Favorite Son." The Taresians didn't need blood or salt from Harry Kim, they instead needed his DNA to help propagate their own race; a process that literallly sucks the lifeforce out of the victim. There's also a nod to the horror-movie notion of something terrible lurking inside a beautiful package; what could be more appealing to a young man like Kim than a planet filled with beautiful women who seemingly want him? But the price, ultimately, is a grisly death.
Back in the Original Series, the vampire myth is turned on its ear to help define a new kind of life form that audiences might not be familiar with. In "Obsession," the creature that craves plasma fits the definition of a vampire in every aspect except for its non-corporeal nature. Again, Star Trek takes something familiar to audiences and tweaks it to show that in space, or on other worlds, danger can come in many forms.
Frankenstein
Mary Shelley's 1818 novel "Frankenstein" gave the world a new nightmare to consider: the artificially created intelligent creature. Invented creatures were nothing new — Jewish mythology has had the Golem for centuries — but the notion of a being that exists completely on its own, with its own sense of independent self, quickly became a staple of science fiction and has become a recurrent theme in Star Trek.
Starting with the TOS episode "What Are Little Girls Made Of?," Star Trek began its examination of artificial intelligence. In this twist on the Frankenstein story, Dr. Roger Korby, who seems to be a budding Dr. Frankenstein, creates androids with the help of Ruk, an android holdover from a long-dead civilization. The story changes when we discover that not only does Korby create inhuman creatures that resemble humans, he has lost his own humanity by housing his own mind in an android's body.
Other episodes of TOS featured androids and robots infused with sentience, including the Earth probe Nomad that had somehow combined with an alien intelligence in "The Changeling" as well as the androids played strictly for laughs in "I, Mudd."
Taking exploration of artificial intelligence to another level, Star Trek: The Next Generation featured an android character in its main cast. Data quickly became a fan favorite and his seeming lack of humanity became a springboard for stories that explore many of the same themes that Shelley's "Frankenstein" did over 150 years earlier.
One episode, "Thine Own Self," started life as a straight-out "Data as Frankenstein" pitch to the writers. After Data is stranded on a planet, suffering from memory loss due to a crash, he is soon blamed for an outbreak of sickness amongst the planet's primitive society. The spread of radiation emanating from the debris of his crash is the real reason for the outbreak, but neither Data nor the villagers are aware. Complete with angry mobs baying for blood, this episode is a true "Frankenstein" on another world.
In the episode "The Measure of a Man," the rights of a created being are dissected and examined from several perspectives, as Picard must defend Data to prevent him from being treated as Starfleet property. In the episode "The Offspring," Data himself steps into Dr. Frankenstein's shoes by creating his own daughter, Lal. The results of Data's paternal instincts that inspired his creation may not be "horror" in the classic sense, but Lal's demise certainly contains elements of classic tragedy.
Also, in Star Trek, not all artificial life is constructed of tangible matter. The holodeck has produced its share of sentient life, from Professor Moriarty of TNG's "Elementary, Dear Data" and "Ship in a Bottle" to Voyager's Doctor and the sentient holograms seen in "Flesh and Blood" and, in a revisit-with-a-twist of the aforementioned "Measure of a Man," the Voyager episode "Author, Author."
Evil Children
The Original Series had several themes that were explored in multiple episodes, one of them being the notion of scary, disturbing children. Judging books by their covers has never been wise in the Star Trek universe, be it the seemingly innocent titular character of "Charlie X," the old-souled children of "Miri" or the powerfully demonic group of youngsters from "And the Children Shall Lead." Initially, they may all appear innocuous, but the results of their situations speak otherwise, from the faceless crewmember Charlie Evans left in his wake (one of Star Trek's most haunting images) to the bloodied Kirk on Miri's planet.
Predatory Monsters
A deep and dark fear that horror stories and movies love to exploit is the fear of being prey — be it a Great White shark or Jack the Ripper, horror tales often revolve around humans being chased down by strange creatures for food or other purposes. Classic sci-fi horror films such as "The Thing" or "Alien" thrive on the concept of a group of people in a remote, inescapable place being slowly picked off, one by one.
"The Devil in the Dark" is one of Star Trek's most frightening episodes, playing on that deep down fear of the unknown by showing a creature that can move through solid rock as easily as air. The early scenes in the episode are truly harrowing, and the non-humanoid appearance of the Horta makes it all the more terrifying. What makes the episode a great science fiction story is the turnabout, where the monster suddenly, believably, becomes a creature we feel compassion and understanding for.
The concept of emotion as the object of a creature's hunt is shown in "Wolf in the Fold," where fear is the meat upon which the "Redjac" creature feeds. Here, humans and other humanoids exist to be preyed upon, with their intense emotions harvested for the creature's nourishment. That description also fits the cloud-like entity in "Day of the Dove," perpetuating hatred in order to feed off of it.
The TNG episode "Genesis" made the crew itself both the predators and the prey. Thanks to a synthetic T-cell which has created a retrovirus, the crew devolves back to their primordial roots, reducing the Enterprise to a hunting ground for the more powerful creatures such as Worf. Not only is the concept of predators who were once trusted friends frightening, but the notion of losing one's humanity to return to a more primal state is unsettling as well.
Ghosts
Be they real or otherwise, ghosts and specters of the dead have always been a staple of horror stories. In science fiction, stories tend to have a scientific explanation that solves a ghostly riddle, rather than rely on the supernatural to explain away strange events.
In "The Tholian Web," the crew believes Kirk is dead and are frightened by his apparition when he appears to them. As the audience we know he's not a ghost, but his crew doesn't and apparently ghosts are just as scary in the 23rd century as they are today. In the TNG episode "Sub Rosa," Ronin plays the part of a ghost who has been connected to the women in Beverly Crusher's family for 800 years, but is revealed to be an anaphasic lifeform. And Captain Janeway herself is led to believe she's a ghost in "Coda," but of course she was just being fooled by a non-corporeal parasite who wanted to eat her mind.
In "That Which Survives," Losira may not be an actual ghost — she's ultimately revealed to be a piece of technology — but her deadly touch makes her all the more fearsome. She represents a long-dead civilization, and is therefore the closest thing to a ghost that civilization has. Other takes on long-dead civilizations making themselves felt from beyond the grave include the TNG episode "The Inner Light," the Voyager episode "Memorial" and the Enterprise episode "Extinction."
Sometimes, ghosts may simply be created for a good story. Or not. In "The Haunting of Deck Twelve," Neelix tells the Borg children a tale of a "ghost" on Deck 12 of Voyager while the ship is enveloped in darkness to save power. The impressionable youngsters are enthralled. In the end, he tells them he made the whole thing up, but soon after we learn that an entity has been released into space from the ship. Spooky indeed.
Possession/Zombies
Demonic possessions, as seen in films like "The Exorcist," are also fairly frequent in Star Trek. In some cases it's voluntary, such as "Return to Tomorrow" when Kirk, Spock and Dr. Ann Mulhall allow Sargon, Henoch and Thalassa to inhabit their bodies. But in most cases the possession is forced upon the innocent, such as in "The Lights of Zetar" when Lt. Mira Romaine is taken over by non-corporeal beings, TNG's "Power Play" when prisoners of a non-corporeal penal colony take over the bodies of Data, Troi and O'Brien, or DS9's "The Assignment" when Keiko O'Brien is taken over by a Pah-wraith.
The Enterprise episode "Impulse" featured one of the more unsettling situations ever in Star Trek when a ghost ship of Vulcans, transformed by Trellium-D poisoning into zombie-like shells of their former selves, are bent on murdering Archer and his away team. For beings that have always promoted an image of calm resolve, to see packs of them on the prowl is a terrifying image to say the least.
Generic Halloween
Of course, any Halloween or horror discussion involving Star Trek would be incomplete without mentioning the Original Series episode "Catspaw," which featured all the trademark Halloween elements, from Scotty and Sulu becoming mindless zombies to black cats, witches and warlocks, all within a gothic castle with torture chambers. For pure Halloween fun in the classic sense, this is the ultimate "horror" Star Trek episode.
But perhaps the scariest, most menacing villain in the Star Trek universe is one that brings together elements from almost all the archetypal horror monsters. The Borg walk like zombies; they turn others into their kind by puncturing their victims' necks like the fangs of a vampire; they possess their victims like demons, stealing their individuality; and certainly their piecemeal, semi-technological anatomies are reminiscent of Frankenstein. For sheer chills and thrills, "Star Trek: First Contact" has to rank up there with "Alien" as a classic sci-fi/horror combo.
As Star Trek carries on into the future, it will continue with its unique blend of science fiction and other genres. And since Star Trek is all about exploring the unknown, horror and suspense will always find their way into the stories yet to come.
