The Top 10 Best Eco-Horror Movies
Eco-Horror Movies Show Why We Should Avoid the Wrath of Mother Nature.
There are a shocking number of people who haven’t grasped the dangers of climate change, which is why I’ve made a list of the best eco-horror movies to show what happens when mother nature gets pissed. Not to be confused with killer animal films or run-of-the-mill disaster flicks, eco-horror movies feature the earth itself turning on the protagonists. In other words, they’re filled with maniacal plants, diabolical fungi, and some downright rude chromista. Laugh all you want at these untraditional antagonists, but you might not be laughing so hard once you get a look at the movies that made this list. These films might range from spine-chilling to gut-wrenching, but all of them serve as “gentle” reminders that we could stand to be kinder to our planet. So, sort the recycling and get your carbon footprint under control, because only “the green” will survive this list of the top 10 best eco-horror movies.
10. The Ruins
The first rule to surviving eco-horror movies is that the most beautiful things in nature also tend to be the most deadly. There are a lot of plants out there that are toxic, but the vines in The Ruins are way more proactive when it comes to killing humans. Set in Mexico, the film follows a bunch of college kids who get up to typical gringo shenanigans by visiting an off-limits pyramid out in the middle of the Mexican jungle. They realize they should have stayed on the tour bus when they discover the pyramid has been quarantined by the locals because of the man-eating vines covering it. Fair warning, The Ruins gets pretty gruesome at times, but mother nature has never been squeamish when it comes to blood.
9. Silent Night
There’s been an uptick in eco-horror movies in recent years as filmmakers desperately plead with the masses to stop killing the planet. In fact, Silent Night is just one of the three-and-a-half films on this list released in 2021 (I’ll explain later). Set in England, Silent Night seems like a Christmas movie at first, as a family welcomes guests for a typical Christmas Eve dinner. However, it quickly takes a turn into Christmas horror territory when it’s revealed that they’ve all made a pact to spend one last evening together before taking state-issued suicide pills. The reason is that the earth has released a cloud of gas that is toxic to humans and it’s quickly covering the planet. Heads up, this film dishes out heavy helpings of existential terror as characters struggle with the choice of killing themselves painlessly or facing an agonizing death at the hands of the cloud. Spending Christmas with your family doesn’t sound quite so bad now, does it?
8. Unearth
The next entry on this list of eco-horror movies goes out to all those people out there that still think fracking is completely harmless to the environment. Screened at the Fantasia International Film Festival in 2020, Unearth wasn’t released in the U.S. until 2021 (hence the “half” I mentioned earlier). The film follows two families of farmers struggling to make ends meet in rural Pennsylvania. In a desperate move, one family leases their land to a fracking company, and that’s when things get really bad. It turns out that the Earth doesn’t like being forced to release oil and natural gas for humans. So, it releases a cloud of lethal fungi spores instead. Contaminating the air and the water, the spores take root in both families with nightmarish results. Unearth is a harsh reminder that we need to invest in green energy before it’s too late.
7. Gaia
Good news, fungi fans! This list of eco-horror movies features plenty of murderous mushrooms from around the world. From Pennsylvania, we travel to The Garden Route of South Africa for Gaia. The film follows a park ranger (Monique Rockman) who becomes injured by a trap deep in the Tsitsikamma forest. Fortunately, she’s rescued by a survivalist and his son. Unfortunately, the dad (Carel Nel) is an absolute nutter going on about humanity’s comeuppance being neigh upon them for poisoning the Earth. The thing is that the old man might not be as crazy as he seems. Well, he is crazy, but he’s not wrong, because the Forest has produced a fungus that consumes human’s alive while controlling their nervous system. In other words, moldy zombies. Despite some wonky digital effects, Gaia is a thought-provoking warning that nature giveth but also taketh away.
6. The Superdeep
Next up, this list of eco-horror movies heads to Mother Russia for some good old-fashioned Cold War terror. The Superdeep draws inspiration from the fact that the largest discovered organism is a fungus with a massive connected underground network. The Superdeep takes this idea one step further by asking, what if there was an even bigger fungus underground that was lethal to humans. Writer/director Arseny Syuhin drew a lot of inspiration from John Carpenter’s The Thing and that’s never a bad thing. The film follows a group of military personnel and scientists who are sent to investigate why communication suddenly stopped at a research station located in the Kola borehole. What they discover is a nightmare that is sure to delight fans of body horror who love good old-fashioned practical effects.