Star Trek Halloween movies? Consider these scary scenes.
Few if any film critics or audiences would classify any Star Trek movie as a “horror movie.” Star Trek: First Contact arguably comes closest. It brought the Borg to the big screen in a way that mades their horrifying, zombie-like nature scarier than it ever had been on television. And as I argued in this space earlier this month, Star Trek: Nemesis also comes close, since it tracks, in broad strokes, the plot and themes of the vampire novel Dracula by Bram Stoker.
But even First Contact and Nemesis are mostly big-scale space operas, emphasizing sci-fi action and Star Trek’s values of resilience, friendship, and optimism about the future. If you want to watch movies this Halloween that undeniably belong to the horror genre, you’ll want to check out the classic Universal monsters, the Hammer studios catalogs, or something from one of Hollywood’s several frightening slasher or supernatural franchises.
At the same time, certain moments make for great Star Trek Halloween viewing. Here are some suggestions of scenes to watch as you wait for trick-or-treaters to ring your doorbell.
Star Trek Halloween viewing is there when you look through a horror lens
When you watch Star Trek movies through a horror movie lens, you’ll start noticing moments that could qualify as Star Trek Halloween scenes.
Consider the transporter accident near the beginning of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, for instance. It doesn’t last long, but it’s long enough for us to see that poor Commander Sonak and his companion (in Gene Roddenberry’s novelization, Vice Admiral Lori Ciana) are “beaming up” as horrific, misshapen mockeries of their true form. Starfleet Command’s report that “what we got back didn’t live long—fortunately” can still send a chill down the spine.
Certainly, David Fein, producer of this year’s 4K restoration of the Director’s Edition of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, thinks the scene was meant to be and needs to be horrifying. As Fein told Cinemablend about the scene’s sound design:
"I’ll tell you exactly what I told my sound department… ‘It should definitely be a nails on a chalkboard level of tension,’ but I also said, ‘Imagine if you were in the most horrible pain of your life and you needed to scream just to get it out, but you had no way, no orifice, to even scream. What would it sound like if, finally, you could make some sound, what would that sound be?’ It’s funny, I talk about it, and the hairs on the back of my neck still stand up."
The Motion Picture has other scary moments, too. The Enterprise crew reacts with horror as they watch the destruction of Epsilon IX. V’Ger’s probe invades the Enterprise bridge as a column of blinding energy and burns Commander Chekov’s hand. And the ship’s brief trip through a wormhole is scary. Dr. McCoy even says the only casualties after the incident are his wits—“as in ‘frightened out of, captain, sir.”
When looking for horror moment in Star Trek movies, we might also think about monsters like Commander Kruge’s snarling dog-thing in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, or the grotesque, overgrown worm Kruge wrestles to its death on the Genesis Planet.
Another hair-raising moment occurs in the generally lighthearted, rambunctious romp that is Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. As the mysterious space probe moves past Spacedock, Starfleet’s giant orbital facility goes dark, as have the starships whose paths the probe has crossed. It’s a dramatic and dire demonstration of the probe’s destructive power.
But let’s look at three Star Trek Halloween scenes from the frightful—I mean, the final frontier.
The Ceti eels invade Chekov and Terrell’s ears (Star Trek II)
When I talk with non-Star Trek fans about Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, they tend to remember three things about it most: the death of Spock, Wiliam Shatner’s iconic “Khan!” scream, and “those things Khan put in people’s ears.”
“Those things” are indeed memorable. Star Trek had shown us ugly creatures before, but Khan’s use of the Ceti eels against Captain Terrell and Chekov was one of the franchise’s earliest forays into full-on horror. This scene deserves to be atop any list of Star Trek Halloween viewing.
Allan Asherman’s 1982 behind-the-scenes book The Making of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan devotes a full eight pages to the design and use of the Ceti eel props. Asherman quotes producer Robert Sallin on the terrifying critters’ origin: “… [W]hat we needed was something that would get a really visceral reaction from the audience …. I said we need something that’s really slimy and just totally disgusting” (page 125).
Mission more than accomplished! The Ceti eel puppets ILM designed and operated are immediately terrifying to behold, especially with their sharp pincers and quickly lashing tongues. And the moment when the Ceti eel’s gooey larva actually slips into Chekov’s ear canal was so unsettling that, when the film first aired on ABC, the network television censors snipped it (along with the eel’s corresponding exit later in the movie).
Ricardo Montalbán “sells” the audience on these beasties’ lethal potential as he describes what they will do to Chekov and Terrell. Walter Koenig and Paul Winfield, respectively, respond with convincingly frightened performances. And composer James Horner’s score completes the sequence’s nerve-wracking effect with discordant, screeching strings worthy of Bernard Herrman’s score for Psycho.
Star Trek (2009) paid homage to the Ceti eels by having Nero shove a “Centaurian slug” down Captain Pike’s throat. While a nice tip of the hat, it pales in comparison to Khan’s use of the Ceti eels, surely the most stomach-churning moment in any Star Trek movie.
Kirk finds McCoy in Spock’s quarters (Star Trek III)
Apart from the Borg turning the Enterprise-E into a “haunted house” of sorts in Star Trek: First Contact, the spookiest our favorite starship has ever felt is in this scene in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, earning it a spot on a Star Trek Halloween “playlist.”
Once Admiral Kirk orders the security guards outside Spock’s cabin to silence the alarm, an eerie silence settles over the scene. Composer James Horner’s score brings in quiet, high strings in a tentative, trembling statement of Spock’s motif.
Kirk turns on the lights, but they are dim, leaving plenty of space for shadows. William Shatner plays the moment perfectly, as if he were walking through a graveyard on a moonlit Halloween night, his eyes wide with tension and anxiety.
An unseen Leonard Nimoy delivers a pleading, accusatory message from Spock in a rasping voice—a plea for help from some “great beyond.” When we see someone or something sitting in Spock’s chair, the room’s gloom obscuring their face, we could almost believe Spock’s shadow is haunting his cabin.
The scene’s big reveal comes when Kirk grabs Bones by the shoulders and swings him into the light. And then we have to give kudos to DeForest Kelley for keeping the creepy mood going. Looking disheveled and drained, McCoy gives the cryptic command to “climb the steps of Mount Seleya” and to “remember” before collapsing in Kirk’s arms.
From its first moments to its last, Admiral Kirk’s entry into Spock’s “haunted” quarters remains one of the most haunting scenes in any Star Trek movie. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve watched Star Trek III over the decades, but this scene never fails to give me the shivers.
Chancellor Gorkon is assassinated (Star Trek VI)
Supernatural horror often steals the show at Halloween—”ghosties and ghoulies and long-leggedy beasties and things that go bump in the night,” as the old Scottish prayer puts it. But the older I get, the less the idea of make-believe monsters frightens me, because the more I realize this world has no shortage of real-life horrors to throw at us.
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country spotlights one such horror: politically motivated violence. The sequence in which Starfleet personnel (as we will learn) beam aboard Kronos One and kill Chancellor Gorkon (David Warner) and several other Klingons is one of the most tense and terrifying sequences in any Star Trek film, and there’s nothing supernatural about it.
It does, however, showcase a fair amount of visual effects. Gorkon’s assassination was the first extended zero-gravity action sequence we ever saw in a Star Trek production. It’s filled with striking images of weightlessness. The disruptor floating out of one Klingon’s holster. Another Klingon’s severed arm spinning lazily in mid-air. And, of course, those globules of purple-pinkish Klingon blood drifting above it all, colliding into each other, only to splatter on the deck plates once artificial gravity is restored.
In his 2009 memoir The View from the Bridge, director and co-writer Nicholas Meyer recalls how clearly he envisioned this sequence in his mind’s eye:
"I was giving myself goose bumps. Thus far, I [had been] thinking in my role as screenwriter. Now I felt a tap on my shoulder from my alter ego, the director, demanding to know how the hell I thought an effect of floating blood bubbles (of any color) was going to be achieved (page 205)."
As it turned out, Meyer needn’t have worried. The zero-G murder of Chancellor Gorkon is compelling and frightening, aided and abetted by composer Cliff Eidelman’s ominous, Gustav Holst-inspired score.
Nearly 31 years after Star Trek VI premiered, politically motivated violence haunts the U.S. now more than ever. May the franchise’s vision of diversity, cooperation, and peace motivate us to reject this terror and work to keep such scary stuff only on the silver screen.
What are your suggestions for Star Trek Halloween movie viewing? Let us know in the comments below!