The Sci-Fi genre was not the only reason by which Star Trek has to be remembered. In fact, this series is a full pack of horror genre too. This combination truly depicts that Star Trek lacks nothing at all to mesmerize its audiences.
Certainly, a movie based on a space theme without having some spooky element or scenes is quite incomplete. Star Trek fulfilled this wish of their viewers tremendously.
Though Star Trek is not remembered for its horror segments, it doesn’t mean you won’t witness a series of few disturbing episodes. During its journey of 55 years to this day, Star Trek has provided audiences with many thrilling episodes by portraying the horror genre in between space-thrillers. It is really the entertainment that the whole family can enjoy.
However, if you haven’t started with this series, it is highly recommended to check out Streamingrant’s guide of Star Trek movies in order to watch to get the full experience of horror meets Sci Fi.
So, without further discussion, let’s look at some of the scariest episodes of Star Trek as rated by the audience.
1. Catspaw – (Episode 7 – Season 2)
This episode is one of the successful attempts at scaring audiences in the series history. This episode contains all kinds of scary Halloween iconography that anyone could ever think of, such as spooky witches, moldering castles, cobwebs, skeletons, etc.
The episode was quite fascinating, as well as spooky for the audience.The episode shows that an alien wizard named Korob and his witchy minions tried to infiltrate the crew as Spock and Kirk were chained to the wall in a room.
Kirk’s interactions with Sylvia are mildly entertaining. However, the show is basically predictable, and each piece of its disjointed puzzle survives and dies. It’s Well as a light fun; just don’t expect much content.
2. Night Terror – (Episode 17 – Season 4)
It was probably the most psychologically arresting episode and it also features the scariest episode in the entire series. In this scene, after discovering the missing spacecraft, they only find one survivor and start experiencing hallucinations.
It’s amusing to watch the gang so sleep-deprived that all seem like hallucinations, and the walking dead provide at least one such frightening picture, in which Crusher is in a chamber full of dead bodies that they suddenly go insane as sitting on a chair.
The most terrifying scene is when doctor Crusher was investigating the Morgue alone in the room full of dead bodies and all the surrounding bodies sit upright without making a sound. It was really a nightmare because who wouldn’t get frightened after seeing this kind of scenario.
3. Conspiracy – (Episode 24 – TNG Season 1)
Conspiracy sticks out through Star Trek: The Next Generation’s first series. In addition, it stands apart from the vast majority of Star Trek canon, seeming consistently goriest.
It was the goriest episode Star Trek ever came up with and can only be remembered for one thing: the exploding head and chestburster scene of aliens that comes right after it. This episode also experiences some mutation of its own development. Perhaps this episode contains some psychologically disturbing scenes which make it memorable, but one should not put this with a full tummy.
4. The Man Trap – (Episode 1 – Season 1)
The man trap was a start of the scary theme of the series, though the plot has some loopholes but still this episode was quite memorable. In this episode it can be seen that shape shifters survive salt tablets but the horror part is when the audience gets to know that these tablets can draw Salt from people’s bodies leaving the host dead as well as red ring-like molting on the host face. Ahhhh!!!!! Indeed a scary sight.
It’s a scenario in which the viewers gets invited to celebrate the murder of the last member of a species, and in which Kirk and Spock have no qualms about killing an old artefact.
5. Schism-TNG (Episode 5 – Season 6)
According to most trekkies, the most horror episode title belongs to “schisms“. It was the fifth episode of the next generation.
This episode sets the unsettling fear among the entire crew when they all start hallucinating like missing some hours of their life. After the series of incidents like when one of the crew members died and another one got missing, the crew notices they have all been the part of a collective and well-planned abduction by a creepy race of aliens.
The most disturbing scene was when the revelation that Rike has had his limbs amputated and reattached was simply horrifying. Mystery, drama and the escalating tension made this episode the scariest one.
6. Genesis – (Episode 19 – Season 7)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCXUjxJY1Ck
Do not watch this episode if you are afraid of lizards, spiders or other horrible creatures.
The episode starts when Picard and Data notice that the entire crew has acted weird, after a T-cell affects the crew members in their absence.
This causes de-evolution of crew members and they convert into the various monstrous animals, such as Worf drools toxic venom, Troi converted into the horrible fish man and the most frightening was when one of them transformed into a giant spider. In short, the entire ship was giving the sight of a monster circus which almost gave Picard a heart attack when he returned.
Conclusion:
Though this was not a horror genre show, its scary scenes made you believe that it’s a horror show. This show was, however, full of surprises as we explored it the more we fell in love with this show.
Star Trek serves as both a nostalgic excursion for those who remember and a pleasant, on-the-go sci-fi film for Trekkie novices.
This series has many other horror scenes, some of them are explained above. This series was a full pack of mystery, thriller, horror and sci-fi, which made it the longest running show too. If you are a fan of these kinds of genre bender dramas, then this can be your treat to watch.