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"And the characters realized it, leading to the single most sensible line ever uttered in any horror film." I think that statement alone proves how scary the ship was. Still, fantastic video.

I'd like to put an honorable mention out there for the Borg Cubes, especially as they're originally presented in *Q Who?* They were held back a little by the 1990 TV budget, but they still have an absolutely skin-crawling atmosphere. The ambience, the weird cavernous chambers, the way borg drones just walk around and completely ignore the boarding party until they make a move, the little servo noises as they walk past, it's all so creepy. And then on the outside, the way the cube just hangs there with no clear forward, backward, bridge, or any sort of identifying marks, but you somehow know it's just watching and waiting... ugh, it's perfect.

Personally, the spookiest ship, heck, the scariest ship is the Shadows's spider ships...they are creepy to the extreme, and are one of the few ships that just creep me out whenever they appear on screen.

Bit of a weird honorable mention here but... the TARDIS. Most of the time you never leave the console room, but nearly every time an episode is set solely on the TARDIS itself, you get a sense of how unknowably *vast* it really is. And the fact it can dissolve, assemble and rearrange its rooms means that however carefully you explore it, you'll never actually know just how deep those corridors go.

An honorable mention from my end: the Anubis from The Expanse. The introduction of the protomolecule, the creepy atmosphere, and edge-of-your-seat, slow-burn tension throughout the episodes it appeared in made it one of, if not the, creepiest ships I've seen in science fiction. Of course, having said that, I can't disagree with any of the choices you made. Happy Halloween, nerds! :)

I'm not sure whether or not it's technically a "ship," and it's definitely not in a horror movie - but as a kid, V'ger in Star Trek: The Motion Picture really got to me. It was so big, so powerful, and so clearly *alien,* and all the _Enterprise_ crew could do was keep advancing toward and into it, slowly, completely at its mercy, hoping that whatever-it-was didn't suddenly decide to squish them all like itty bitty bugs.

For me, the Discovery One from 2001: A Space Odyssey is by FAR the spookiest spaceship. Cold, harsh, calculated, nothing human about the ship; and HAL is fracking terrifying. Also, honorable mention to the Borg Cubes because of their bionic/organic appearance so similar to the Alien hive in Aliens.

If the Event Horizon isn’t on this list then I will be annoyed.

This really should have been a top 10, there are so many spooky ships you left out. The space hulks of 40k, the shadow vessels of Babylon 5 that utilize semi-conscious humans as CPUs in a torturous state for millennia, to the indescribable weirdness of Borg cubes. Quite a few unhonored mentions

That mention of the Ishimura in Dead Space 2 really caps the reason as to why the Ishimura deserves the top spot. While the Ishimura in Dead Space 1 was all sorts of scary already, the Dead Space 2 Ishimura combines nostalgia with the kind of spookiness you get from something that's very clearly under construction, similar to what you get when you say visit trespass a construction site in the dead of night. It doesn't help that the flashbacks remind you that beneath all that renovation are the memories of the horrible things that happened on the Ishimura, further adding to the creepiness factor.

I think the one reason why the USS Cygnus from The Black Hole doesn't rate higher is because it was a Disney film, and they had to walk a fine line between being creepy and still being family-friendly. Even so, the script had some wonderful touches, like the humanoids having a funeral for one of their fallen comrades or the android gardener with a limp--as Ernest Borgnine's character puts it, "Why create a robot with a limp?" When you find out the reason, it makes Reinhardt that much scarier...

Something I need to add about the #1 ship is that, while the actual details of the layout are dictated by what they want the audience to experience, the overall design still gives the impression of a ship that might have been rather nice to serve on. The corridors are open and full of navigation and maintenance labels, the quarters seem comfortable, the medical deck is clean and well-lit, and the oxygen and food facilities double as recreational parks!

The Shadow ships from Babylon 5, is one of my votes and should be mentioned. It's not just the spider shape that creep most people out, but the mystery of first contact. Then the realization they are crewed by living psychics and that they a nearly unstoppable.

Surprised that the Borg Cube wasn't mentioned. The dark alien interior and the air of inherent menace add wonderfully to the effect of "wrongness" of the Borg and their Collective.

I loved Event Horizon. Made me uncomfortable the entire time and I never felt like there was any hope or escape.

0:54 USS Cygnus from "The Black Hole" (1979) 2:18 Elysium from "Pandorum" (2009) 4:10 Event Horizon from "Event Horizon" (1997) 6:26 UCSS Nostromo from "Alien" (1979) 7:35 Collector Vessel from "Mass Effect 2" Game (2010) -Honourable Mention. 8:10 USG Ishimura from "Dead Space" Game (2008)

The Dark Aster from Guardians of the Galaxy and the Reever ships from Firefly/ Serenity always creeped me out.

Nostromo was a spooky ship even without the alien on the prowl. It has such a claustrophobic feel to it.

The Black Hole: the only Disney movie to give me nightmares as a kid.

One of the spooky ships I'd have to go with, aside from the already stated ones, is the Destiny from Stargate Universe. The show really gave it a horror vibe in the first season, between the sand creature, the AI system giving people hallucinations, and the fact it was a dark, mysterious rust bucket that is flying so far from Earth. The derelict Ancient ships and some of the Wraith ships in SGA also give off that vibe too. Besides Stargate, the ships from System Shock 2 are creepy AF too.

I appreciate the inclusion of the Collector cruiser and dead Reaper from Mass Effect. Both are definitely a fantastic kind of creepy and unknown, making you look around at every detail, jump at every movement, cringe at all the horrible things you see there. The Collectors are clearly more physical horror, stacking corpses and melting people alive and all that, but the Reaper is purely psychological. You literally go insane just by being around it, even though it's been dead for so long.

Shadow ships from B5 and wraith hives from SGA

One that blows most of these out of the water is the TARDIS, which is especially unusual because its the hero ship. But we see in episode's like The Doctor's Wife, when it gets taken over by House, and Journey to the Center of the TARDIS, when it gets mad that one of the salvage crew stole something, that the TARDIS is basically an eldritch abombination that could probably give LOvecraftian entities a run for their money if it ever had enough of saving the universe.

Have to add the Derelict from Alien with the Space Jockey, mummified in its chair. Also, the derelict ship graveyard from the Space:1999 episode ‘Dragon’s Domain’ is still terrifying, especially when you dock with one of the ships.

Something else that makes the Collector ship scary is the sound. If you turn the music down, you can hear the ambient noise of the ship. EDI has just told you that everything is powered down and there are no life signs. Why do I hear screaming every so often? Adds to the haunted house atmosphere.

Nothing in space is scarier than the Shadow ships from Babylon 5.

The engineer ships in Alien and Prometheus are even spookier. Giant alien ships filled with mystery and of creepy alien design.

Shadow ships from Babylon 5 are the spookiest. The screaming sound they make, the mystery surrounding their existence then their near invulnerability, at first. They definitely deserve a strong mention here.

The ship in Lifeforce which is used for a limited amount of time definitely has a sinister inside and outer appearance

The shadow's ships....

Finally the Cygnus gets mentioned. Though a full episode about this one would be appreciated.

I absolutely loved The Black Hole as a child. Still love that intro music, and for its time holy crap.

No one has mentioned The Black Fortress from Krull. The exterior is an imposing hybrid of mountain and gothic cathedral. The interior is surreal, and it's more like you're inside the Beast's body itself, with the very walls trying to consume you.

More honorable mentions: The alien spaceship(s) found on LV-426 in Ridley Scott's movies Alien (1979) and Prometheus (2012), and the alien (vampire) spaceship in Tobe Hooper's Lifeforce (1985).

I would like to put forward the Sprianza from the Priests of Mars series. There are plenty of haunted ship contenders in that series, but given that the ark mechanicus is ostensibly the hero ship and it is basically a giant AI, it gets pretty spooky at times between the unexplored corridors lower down the radiation zones, the Surprise murder robots and at least one eldar boarding party. It's pretty spooky

I could only think of the Ishimura and the Event Horizon. Im glad the Nostromo got in the list as my Alien mind went blank plus it features the perfect organism

I want an honorable mention for the Shadow ships (B5) and the Borg (Star trek). *Shadow ships* You can’t walk around but the shadow ships use psychics (now humans) as a component and just having them around makes them scream in your head. They are powerful, cloak and are so scary biological because they can absorb even fighters into themselves. They use this to bring from fighters into the battle so they even have some valid tactical threat as well l: Until the weakness is found they are terrifying for the characters. *Borg Cube* The fear factor of this species has been a bit diminished by over exposure but think about what they are - machines devouring humanity (consider all sentiments humanity for this paragraph). They are machines that are so powerful that they don’t care about being sleek hulls to slide though space with physics - they don’t care about that and just move as fast as they like. They destroy fleets by cutting them up and rip apart the useful bits of planets because they want the raw materials. If you destroy half of it, it gets better. Inside is a labyrinthine maze of corridors of tech mmaking a person feel like they have entered a the belly of a machine - a literal technological nightmare . The borg drones are people as good as dead. They exist to serve the machines. They are stripped of emotion, Curiosity, and even the will to live. They are zombies of technology humans they have been absorbed by the machine losing everything that makes you human and arguably even the soul. And it is embodied in that ship. And when they see you they tell you your only course of action- “We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own … Resistance is futile. ” -that shiver you feel readings that showing you why they belong on this list.

Sadly I notice this list stems mostly from the inside of various ships, which makes more sense but wasn't quite what I was expecting. It's no wonder why the Shadow Vessels from Babylon 5 weren't necessarily considered, but while the Shadow Vessels never had an inside, as far as we've seen, they are plenty terrifying in their own psychological way. Babylon 5 was brilliant at this and I just think the Shadow Vessels were a sort of crown-jewel of that cosmic horror effect, the Shadows overall are pleasantly terrifying. Great list all the same.

Really good list. My sixth, would probably be a two-for-one: The Von Braun and the UNN Rickenbacker from System Shock 2.

So happy to see the Cygnus on here. I adore that ship. I think the only time it's really *spooky* is when they're circling around it with the spotlight for quite a long time, and then suddenly it lights up, and it's just gorgeous. But when we get inside, 'spooky' is replaced by 'unease,' which they manage to maintain right up until the third act. It's just *vast* and so empty and yet well lit that it's a little overwhelming, while still reminiscent of a gothic cathederal, and I'm always a sucker for a scary movie that tries not to cheat by turning the lights off. Much as you mentioned the clean bits of the Nostromo are necessary for making the dingy rest of it scarier, likewise, Dr. Reinhardt's own quarters are much smaller, with human dimensions, and warm touches like wood paneling and oil paintings and so on, in opposition to the big, empty, spooky techno-gothic church outside with zombie monks wandering around. For me, the best part is the shot of the captain finding the crew's quarters, which are all identical, all lack doors, like a monk's cell, all have closets full of uniforms and pictures of families and stuff, and they just stretch on forever.

A possible honorable mention is the Ultra probe from the season one episode of "Space:1999", "Dragon's Domain"; although, it is spooky for the alien that invades it, not for the ship, itself.

Glad to see the Cygnus on this list! It's a great example of Space Gothic. All those vast open spaces, empty, silent and dimly lit; it's like exploring a cathedral. Or a tomb.

The _"Mona Lisa"_ from the Halo short story of the same name. A derelict freighter found near Installation 04. An escape pod, whose sole occupant is a dying, blood-soaked prison inmate babbling about how he "won't come back". None of the marines sent to investigate the ship are named Sgt. Johnson. What could go wrong?

I know it isn't exactly a ship, per se, but the atmosphere of the Space Hulk Olethros in the game Space Hulk Deathwing is really well designed. Maybe not the spookiest ship because you're a terminator, but the ship and inhabitants, from the perspective of an average human, are terrifying.

I would suggest an honorable mention: The SDF1 from Robotech when the Terrans were first examining it. Dark, giant corridors and hatchways, an attack by a giant automoton, a 60 foot humanoid skeleton, one member being disected by the ship's active technology and the time dilation.

Shadow ships from Babylon 5.

The alien ship from the Space:1999 episode 'Dragon's Domain' scared the hell out me as a kid. It's literally floating in a space graveyard with dozens of other ships...the nightmare on board is terrifying.

By the God-Emperor Event Horizon IS a prequel to 40K and there's nothing anyone can say to change my mind.

IMO, Veger (Voyager 6) From Star Trek's first major motion picture. It has all the look and makings of an on coming storm including lightning flashing somewhere within. It began as a simple exploration ship that vanished in 'what was' called a black hole. It returned as a sentient juggernaut determined to return all the data it had obtained to the 'creator' who had died centuries before.

I'm in my 60s and the first terrifying spaceship that I remember was from the film 'It, The Terror From Beyond Space. '

Those Mass Effect ships you mentioned ALWAYS give me the heebie-jeebies even though I know whats going to happen. The look, the music, it all makes it so damn atmospheric.

An excellent list, but it should have been longer. I would also suggest the Borg Cube from Star Trek, Shadow vessels from Babylon 5. Wraith hive ships from SGA, the Engineer ship from Prometheus and the Mona Lisa from Halo.

Honorable mention from me. The Von Braun and UNN Rickenbacker from System Shock 2. Most scary thing for me was that allot of ppl said something like " i am sorry" before shot and scary friendly droid helpers....

the Elysium reminds a lot of the Laconian ships from The Expanse books with its eerie mixture of natural and man-made elements. It looks more like it was grown rather than built

Thank you SO MUCH for the shout-out to the USG Ishimura. This game blew my mind when it came out, and still is a masterpiece of making a spaceship a character in and of itself. Deep Space never gets old, and a great part of that is the gritty realism of a working ship caught up in a nightmare. I don't think any game or movie has done it better. I'll never forget playing Deep Space 2, and the moment when the Ishimura is revealed, knowing I'm going to have to go back inside. The anticipation and outright dread of that thought alone, even before you actually went in, says all you need to know.

The collector ship from Mass Effect 2 is the spookiest for me, and a big part of that is the eerie music when you first enter the ship.

My Expanse addiction is obligating me to mention the first time we see the Laconian ships in Persepolis Rising. The consistent mention of organic looking asymmetry and bonelike structure and the tone of total defeat felt by the roci crew and the reader made me go, wow, this is a bit of a horror story. The ships lose that feel in later books, but I really enjoyed the sense of terror for that book.

A personal theory of mine was that Event Horizon and The Black Hole are set in the same universe. The FTL drive developed for Event Horizon was suppressed after the survivors returned, but Reinhardt accidentally stumbled upon it again with the Cygnus. The endings of the two films hit very similar story beats (no spoilers).

Always got creeped out by the truth and reconciliation. It was unsettling the first time you fight through it then downright terrifying the second time through

I feel that an Honorable Mention would go to the RAS Prosecutor from Star Wars: Republic Commando. In that game, the mission of the four veteran Clone Commandos of Delta Squad is to investigate the fate of this Republic Assault Ship that had been lost for two weeks and had been discovered so far away from its original mission. As the Deltas investigate, they find butchered and slaughtered clone troopers, heavy damage all over the ship, and inevitably the unsettling revelation of a Trandoshan/Separatist Alliance.

I missed ships that are just spooky as they are. Not because there where spooky things on the ship. Like the first actual hyperdrive interdiction by a thargoid in Elite Dangerous. Or when there suddenly appears a Xenon I in your back in X4. Or the thill one got by exploring the levels in the Decent. Or the massive whale tube from Enterprise, because you could do nothing to prevent it's cause. I would be scared to death in such a situation.

Any Space Hulk from 40k.

Event Horizon was so spooky all around that they could have set it in a giant beach ball and it would still creep me out. Mass Effect reapers may have ended up suffering really badly from power shrink but man Sovereign was good for two games.

I'd say the Derelict from Alien is even _more_ creepy than the Nostromo, because to quote Cat: _What is it?_ Everything about it gives me the creeps, from the dank, ribcage-like structure to the surrealness of the pilot's seat itself. It's like he's... _Biologically fused_ to the control interface?? Now _that_ is a ship I can call alien.

Thank you for having the Event Horizon on the list! I saw this movie in the theater many years ago and it actually made me jump. Getting a scare from a movie is incredibly rare, and I loved it!

We need to have an Event Horizon video, but about the ship itself.

For me, the spookiest ship is the Vector from Star Wars. “Death Troopers” is a really good book in general not just in the Star Wars expanded universe.

I think something that should've been touched on for the Event Horizon is the fact that drive and chamber itself also evokes the image of the true appearance of "angels" with strange halos and multiple sets of eyes. Truly unsettling when added to the chapel feel of the crew section.

Id like to nominate the Nostalgia for Infinity from the book Revelation Space by Alistair Reynolds. There is something really creepy about a ship that is infected by some unknown contagion which is slowly melding its captain and ship together, turning the ship biological. IIRC there are spaces in that ship filled with bodily fluids and organs.

My favorite is the Homeworld Cataclysm Beast. That whole game was nuts off the scale fun and spooky for an RTS game.

Let's not forget the time ship in Sphere but only one ship I know of screams. That is the Shadows ships that literally look like a spider from hell.

Homeworld: Cataclysm video game. The Beast was a bio-mechanical virus that would dissolve and reduce the crew to gore. On the sides of the ship, you could see the red from the remains. Vessels would be able to talk using those same remains to speak to other ships (essentially zombie ships that would go after you). Plus it could easily spread using various means, giving the sense of death as they try to close in on you.

Not nearly spooky enough for this list but the initial stages onboard the ISA Cassandra from Killzone: Shadow Fall kept me on edge a lot more than I expected. Something about the ship’s atmosphere, the biohazard warnings and piles of corpses killed by the bioweapon, the darkness. I half expected a necromorph to pop out at me which kept making me more nervous when it never did.

Borg Cubes and Wraith Cruisers from SG Atlantis were pretty unnerving. That ME mission made me crap myself the first time I played it lol. Every corner you turned you expected a jumpscare. Phenomenal mission design.

The Nostromo from 1979 movie Alien is my favorite. It's dark and shadowy even before things get bloody. With stuff dripping and things dangling, clanking, and hissing all on its own.

Too bad the Von Braun from System Shock 2 did not make this list. I really loved the horror/ thriller atmosphere of that ship

i thought the wraith hive ships from stargate atlantis knowing what happens in those hive always added a sense of horror to it for me,

First one that came to my mind was the one from Pandorum. Since it's already in the list, let me mention the abandoned Republic Cruiser from Republic Commando. Great ambience specially at the beginning.

You know, weirdly, I'd pitch some of the locations from Red Dwarf as good horror locale's, including Big Red herself. When that show decides it wants to dip into horror, it has the same industrial, grimey vibe as the top ships here. Shoutout to the Prison Complex where they are being chased around by the Agonoid/Simulant in "Justice", though, got great atmosphere during the actual chase.

The Prosecutor from Republic Commandos. The first part of that mission scared me a lot as a kid.

From Star Trek ENT: The Seleya & Vaankara From Farscape: The Zelbinion

I was just about to start watching a review for The Sojourn V1 after listening to V3 and then I get a notification for this... You're not spying on me now, are you Spacedock? I love the Sojourn btw, I only hate that I had to wait so long for V3 and now I have to wait again for V4.

This list looks a lot like mine! I'd have included the first Reaver ship from the Firefly pilot. The dread its presence in space instills is chilling.

Pandorum was SUCH a good movie. I feel it's unfairly underrated.

The Borg don’t get a mention? Every time you see their utilitarian geometric constructs on screen, they’re terrifying. This is especially true in the 2-parter Scorpion. When they first discover the vessel where the Borg have been dismembered and used as building blocks by the Undine. The inside of a Borg cube is terrifying at the best of times, but this was on another level.

Thank dude, the Cygnus is awesome, we should have more ships that are just large and open, most ships in scifi look like a small room inside

Anyone remember the Guild Heighliner from Lynch‘s Dune? Sure, we didn’t get to see much of it during the movie, but a massive black, shimmering tube with a gate for the smaller ships that looks like a deep black pit, framed with golden ornaments. And especially the area where the navigators ‘work’ …

How can the Shadow ship not be on this list? "It was jet-black. A shade of black so deep, your eye just kind of slides off it. And it shimmered when you looked at it. A spider, big as death and twice as ugly. When it flies past, it's like you hear a scream in your mind." Warren Keffer

The Shadow ships of Babylon V have no interior but they deserve an honorable mention.

I think the Von Braun from System Shock 2 is up there too. Between the isolation, the mutated crew, and... something else (not to spoil), it's a pretty creepy setting.

A friend watched Event Horizon while sick. Had a 105° temp, started hallucinating that he was in the walls of the ship. He's still screams in his sleep sometimes.

i think the Wraith Ships from Stargate are pretty spookie aswell!

YES YES YOU DID IT! ISHUMIRA FROM DS2 WAS ONE OF MY WORST EXPERIENCES I HAD IN MY LIFE!

Another honourable mention, at least, must be the UNN Von Braun from System Shock 2. Like Citadel station in the first game, once SHODAN really gets going it's a place that absolutely wants to take any and all opportunities to kill you, and anyone you think might be able to help you is in fact an evil computer in a flesh-mask. That, and murderous cyborg nannies and killer psychic monkeys.

Dead Space really nailed the spookiness vibe, for me. When I first played it I even had a piece of sweetcorn pop from my bum. I'd got shorts on as it was a hot summer day, so I left the piece of sweetcorn on the chair. As I went home I pointed to my chair and said "I'll leave that. I don't want it". My mate looked at it, frowned, and asked what it was. I pointed at my bum as I left the room and said "it came out of there. You can have it. If you don't want it, throw it away, I won't mind". Just then his dog, Keith, a tiny chihuahua, walked up to the chair and ate the piece of vegetable, looking gratefully at me as he enjoyed the small morsel of food. My mate frowned at me as I said "see? He gets it!" That was a good day. Thanks for the reminiscence.

I have some honorable mentions. One of the freakiest of ships for me was a ship from the WarHammer 40,000 Universe, I can't remember the name of it but is was Human ship with an entire complement of space Marines and crew aboard her when she disappeared into the warp and didn't show up again until several hundred years later, old rusted and although still ornate with its neo gothic style as all human WarHammer warships are; she was totally corrupted by the warp and the forces of darkness and it showed not only on the outside but definitely on the inside, and the overall effect is outright spine chilling, the other ship (okay, not just one ship, but a group of ships) I want to mention are the Reaver ships from the movie Serenity. The way those reavers "decorate" their ships, with the uneaten remains of their victims, and knowing just how manically violent and insane their occupants are fills you with a sense of panic and a visceral, instinct driven need to flee makes those ships perhaps the scariest of all. they are much different than the ships you're talking about, which are creepy but appear to be regular ships and only after you board them do you discover you're in for some serious pain and fear, but the Reaver ships inspire that fear and uncontrollable need to flee just by showing up, because it is already known what is inside of them and their reputation precedes them. that is all. Oh BTW I liked your choices very much and I think I have to agree with your choices too, excepting the two more that I mentioned, but for the life of me I cannot remember the name of the Warhammer ship, I want to say that it was in the game with Inquisitor Eisenhorn in it, but I cannot remember correctly if it truly is or if it's from another game.

This makes me wish we got that canceled Yuuzahn Vong arc in the Clone Wars.

I tried to play Dead Space. I _wanted_ to play Dead Space. But following Clarke while he slouched around hunched over like an abused pet made my back hurt. Especially since his life bar was integrated into the spine of his armor. But I have to agree with you. My favorite ship for spookiness will always be the Nostromo, but the Ishimura does it better.

Event Horizon is one of the few horror movies that actually scared me.