Make it so! Star Trek: First Contact (1996) is a Horror Movie

Hello again! Welcome to the latest edition of Everything But Bone. This article is a little different from my previous ones, because we are finding horror in one of the biggest science fiction franchises of all time, Star Trek. Science Fiction and horror are two genres that both encompass many subtypes. They do crossover and have created some classics, such as Alien (1979), Cronenberg’s The Fly (1986), The Thing (1982), Terminator (1984), and of course the Mother of the Genre: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

But Rachel, you might be thinking, where is the horror in Star Trek? Even in the idealized future, the Federation has to deal with some messed up things.  And even while the franchise stays pointedly within science fiction, there are plenty little moments of horror when you go looking.  Charlie X removing a woman’s face. Khan putting the Ceti Eels into Chekov and Captain Tyrell’s ears. Captain Archer and crew finding a ship full of violent zombie Vulcans. I’m sure any Trekkie worth their salt can think of more.

However, horror in Star Trek is exemplified by the 1996 feature film First Contact, the second movie to have the Next Gen crew on the big screen. And for those wondering, First Contact is an even numbered Star Trek movie, so it’s one of the good ones. And I argue it is a horror movie as well. Okay maybe 50 percent of it is, but more on that later.

First Contact has Captain Jean-Luc Picard (the always amazing Patrick Stewart) facing his hated enemy, the evil cybernetic hive mind the Borg. After their near defeat by Starfleet, the Borg slip back in time and take over humanity in the past. The Enterprise-E follows and discover that the Borg have traveled to 2063 to stop First Contact from happening. That’s when Zephram Cochrane’s warp capable ship is noticed by the Vulcans (Mr. Spock’s people), establishing Earth’s future in space.

But that’s basically First Contact’s B-plot, and it’s the weaker of the two. Which leads us to my big beef with the film, it is tonally inconsistent. Viewers pinball back and forth between the humorous a la Star Trek IV (The one with the whales) story of Riker, Troi, and Geordi trying to get Cochrane into space, and Picard, Data, and Worf fighting the terrifying walking existential crisis that is the Borg.  And while watching the movie again for this article, I was surprised to realize just how often the switch happens.

This is why I am only going to talk about the Borg taking over the Enterprise. Since their first appearance in the Next Gen episode “Q Who,” the Borg have remained my (and many fans) favorite Star Trek villains. And like any good horror movie monster, the Borg have “rules.” All drones are connected to the hive mind. The Borg will ignore you if you do not pose an immediate threat. They never need to run to catch you, they just keep walking. And most of all, they are ready to assimilate everyone into their collective. Listen to their “welcoming” message.

With the bigger budget of a film, the Borg are creepier than on TV. Their fleshy parts look rotted and slimy, and for the first time I wondered how bad they must smell. The inherent body horror of the Borg is as messed up as it can be for a PG-13 rating. Limbs cut off and replaced, eye balls removed, and then there is what happens to Data…

As every Star Trek film needs a villain, the Borg gain a representative here, the Borg Queen. Played with soft spoken evil by Alice Krige, the Borg Queen was invented because merely having a drone talk with Picard and Data wasn’t going to be as interesting. She has one of the more unique introductions. Her head and spine are lowered down into her body, and it’s all very cenobite-lite.

But I think the freakiest Borg body horror moment happens with Data (Brent Spiner), the android who wants to be human. After being captured by the collective, the Borg Queen tries to grant his wish as part of torturing him. Skin is grafted onto his arm and face, allowing Data to feel the pleasure and pain of having flesh. Yeah, it’s just Brent Spiner with some of his makeup off, then you remember that the Borg took that skin off of Data’s doomed crewmates.

First Contact gives Picard, already an iconic character to begin with, a chance to join the pantheon of horror heroes. While the film is a sequel to the Next Gen series, the story is accessible to newcomers thanks to some (if a little clunky) exposition. Like Ellen Ripley with the Alien, Picard is traumatized by a previous experience with the Borg, where he was assimilated as Locutus (Latin-ish for “the one who speaks.”)  He must choose between revenge or doing the right thing for his crew and humanity as a whole.

Since this is a Star Trek film about facing a hated enemy, a character gets to quote Moby Dick. Unlike Khan repeating Captain Ahab’s dying curse as his own, it is the hero, Picard, who nearly goes off the rails. Stewarts delivery of “NO!” might have gone memetic, but who really cares? It works, and it gets better to remember that Stewart would play Ahab in a made for TV miniseries two years later

Lastly, the sequence that says horror to me the most is the firefight with the Borg on the Enterprise’s deck 16. It’s claustrophobic and dark, and the crew is dealing with an enemy that cannot be reasoned with and quickly adapts to their weapons. It’s the T-800 and the Xenomorph put together.

And there are a few other moments worth mentioning here, the audio only battle with the Borg is disturbing. Worf and Picard fighting the drones on the deflector dish is nothing but a slice of perfect tension out of a slasher. On two less horrible notes, Afre Woodard is strong here as Lily Sloane, a resident from the 21^st century who gets caught up in the battle. And there’s the blink and you miss it appearance of Adam Scott as one of Worf’s bridge officers.

To my fellow Star Trek loving horror fans, rewatch First Contact as a horror movie. It does make the disconnection between the A and B plots worse, but the Borg vs Captain Picard and crew becomes more chilling. Can we just make an edit where we don’t have to watch the fun Earth shenanigans?

Resistance is futile.