Celebrate Halloween By Watching Some of Our Favorite STAR TREK Homages to Horror
Images: Paramount / Universal.
OCTOBER 31, 2023 - Happy Halloween, Trekkies!! I know you are all going to have a very Spoocky day (get it… like Spock :)).
To kick off your wonderfully festive day I’ve compiled a list of Halloween/spooky tropes we see throughout Star Trek and the episodes we see them in. I already made a list of the scariest episodes but this article is for the Star Trek fans who still wish to celebrate Halloween, but aren’t necessarily into horror.
Zombies
Star Trek: Enterprise season 3 episode 5 “Impulse”
In this episode Captain Archer and his crew come across a Vulcan Cruiser inside an asteroid field. The crew are very surprised when they find the Vulcan crew “alive” inside the cruiser. This episode is your typical zombie infection episode with a large amount of Star Trek’s iconic moral queries. Overall a great episode to get you into the Halloween Spirit.
Frankenstein’s Monster
Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 7 Episode 16 “Thine Own Self”
In this episode, Data suffers amnesia due to the radioactive material he is transporting. He ends up stumbling his way into a pre-warp civilization. They of course take him in, but the radioactive material Data was carrying causes many of the townspeople to become sick and see Data as a monster. Though Data doesn’t directly harm people in this episode the parallels to Mary Shelly’s monster are very clear.
Ghosts
Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 7 Episode 14 “Sub Rosa”
Sub Rosa is probably one of the weirdest Star Trek episodes of all time. I cannot commend it for being a good episode, but it is definitely weird enough to be entertaining. Plus it has ghosts in it so it made the list.
In this episode, Dr. Crusher attends her grandmother’s funeral and she finds a lamp that inexplicably draws her in. The lamp turns out to be possessed by a ghost. A ghost named Ronin, who has been seducing the minds and cohabiting the bodies of the women in Beverly's family for generations. Beverly is effectively seduced by her grandmother’s ghost in this episode, it really doesn’t get weirder than that.
Werewolves
Star Trek: The Original Series Season 2 Episode 7 “Wolf in the Fold”
This episode isn’t technically a werewolf episode, if anything it’s a Jack the Ripper episode, however when I first watched it I assumed it was a werewolf-esque episode and we’re sticking with that. Also it has “Wolf” in the title.
In this episode, Scott is accused of mass murder but yet has no memory of committing any of the murders. His DNA is all over the crime scenes, so he must have done it, right? After much investigation it is determined that Scott was actually possessed by an ancient being that kills women and feeds on their fear. That same ancient being also possessed Jack the Ripper!
Demon Possession
Star Trek: Deep Space 9 Season 5 Episode 5 “The Assignment”
After returning from an away session Keiko’s body is possessed by an alien life form that forces O’Brian to do its bidding through threatening to kill his wife. This episode actually takes a really interesting stance on possession that we don’t see in a lot of horror. Most of the time when someone is possessed the demon/entity will just use their body to perform whatever evil deeds they desire. However, in this episode, the demon uses Keiko as a way to get to O’Brian, which I think is quite clever.
Aster is a fresh face to Daily Star Trek News, joining the ranks as a contributing writer. Though he may be young, he self-describes as a hardcore nerd, lover of cheese sticks and niche internet discourse. Outside of his long-time obsession with Star Trek, Aster is an avid cosplayer, crocheter, and Catan enthusiast who is attending school for technical theater and design. He's very excited to debut in his "professional nerd career" and finally put all his obscure nerd facts to good use.
