Space horror
In space no one can hear you scream
... unless you are in a spaceship or you've left your suit mike open or the filmmakers don't give a damn about physics and decide it'd make a cool scene.
Basically horror films that take place onboard spaceships or on alien (and often hostile) planets - a sub-genre of the sci-fi horror cross-genre. It does see to grade into sci-fi action or thrillers at the edges (especially where people are being hunted down and killed off one-by-one, for example).
Obviously Alien had a big impact on the scene, leading to numerous cheap rip-offs, but there is another phenomena which About.com highlight: "In horror movies, going into space seems to be the equivalent of a sitcom adding a cute little kid to the cast in a last-ditch effort to revitalize the series" and you can see plenty of examples here - once you've jumped the shark in your horror franchise where do you go? Space, that's where. I expect Final Destination 8 to be sub-titled: "Final Frontier".
http://horror.about.com/od/horrorthemelists/tp/outerspacehorror.htm
I do love such films - many moons ago when I was a much smaller Emperor for a birthday treat I asked to watch a couple of videos - Alien and Dark Star. However, this was back when VCRs were just appearing - they were as big as a medium-sized herbivore and there were only a few thousand in the country, so my Dad had to haul home the one from his school and then we had to venture out to the dark and seedy video rental shop (that managed to cling on even after a large video rental store opened up down the road, just because of the atmosphere and selection of movies).
Also-rans: There are some that didn't quite make the list: Lifeforce, as not much of the horror elements are set in space, and Dark City, as the space angle is the twist ending and doesn't influence the rest of the film.
Further reading:
* In Space, No One Can Hear You Scream: Outer Space Horror Movies - http://horror.about.com/od/horrorthemelists/tp/outerspacehorror.htm
* The curse of outer space horror movies - http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/18925/the-curse-of-outer-space-horror-movies
* The Astro-Horror! The Astro-Horror! Apollo 18 and Its Cinematic Kin - http://www.wired.com/underwire/2011/09/astro-horror-movies/
Galaxy of Gore: 10 Must-See Horror Flicks Set in Space - http://www.wired.com/underwire/2012/10/top-10-space-horror/
See also: Military science-fiction as there is plenty of crossover where space marines have to take on the terrors of the spaceways.
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