Genre mash-ups

Iron Man director Jon Favreau's new film, 'Cowboys & Aliens', is out this week. Like its title suggests, it's an odd mash-up of the traditional movie favourites - the western and the sci-fi. And you don't get many of those, do you ('Jonah Hex' was so bad it doesn't count)?

In fact, you don't get many big Hollywood films that mix up such contrasting genres at all. And why not? Some of our favourites splice two different types of movie together, after all...

Titanic (disaster/romance)
The sinking of the world's biggest ship and the deaths of over 1500 people apparently wasn't quite dramatic enough for James Cameron. He had to make one of the most tragic historical events into a romantic epic as well. Greedy, greedy man.

[See also: Read our 'Cowboys and Aliens' review]

Back to the Future 3 (comedy/sci-fi/western)
'Cowboys & Aliens' isn't the only sci-fi/western, though. Marty McFly's third outing saw the time-traveller whizz back to 1885 and the wild west. It trumps the Daniel Craig/Harrison Ford effort though by throwing comedy into the mix as well. If only Doc had been a zombie and it could've been a record breaker...

From Dusk Til Dawn (crime/vampire/horror)
Robert Rodriguez's Mexico-set number starts out like a crime/road movie and, with Quentin Tarantino's script, does a pretty good job as one for the first 45 minutes. And then all Hell breaks loose. Quite literally. Halfway through, everyone turns into vampires and start killing each other. So mad you couldn't have seen it coming with binoculars.

Psycho (crime/horror)
Alfred Hitchcock's stone-cold classic starts life as a heist movie, with Janet Leigh stealing a huge whack of cash from her employer and driving to her lover. Along the way she stops at a motel. But not just any motel. This is the Bates' Motel... Villain turns victim as we watch the movie slowly twist into a macabre horror - the kind Hollywood had never seen before. So mad that people in the 60's wouldn't have seen it coming with two pairs of binoculars.

[See also: Meet the surreal superheroes from around the world]

Deathwatch (war/horror)
War is horrible enough, without this... Jamie Bell stars as Private First Class Charlie Shakespeare, a British WW1 soldier fighting in the trenches who, with his company, encounter a evil and supernatural force more terrifying than German gunfire.

Shaun of the Dead (zombie/horror/comedy)
The romantic zombie comedy (or 'Rom-zom-com') is perhaps the rarest of all genre crossovers. And it's a pretty safe assumption to say that even if wasn't, Simon Pegg's 2004 effort would never be bettered. Everybody loves this film and its massive ambition. If only their disappointing follow-up 'Hot Fuzz' had a hook as good. Or some jokes.

Weird Science (comedy/sci-fi)
There were few more successful and trusted directors in the 1980's than John Hughes. When the man behind 'National Lampoon', 'The Breakfast Club' and 'Sixteen Candles' wants to make a teen comedy/sci-fi about two kids who make 'the perfect woman', you let him. When he wants to make 'Curly Sue' six years later, you don't. 'Curly Sue' kind of mixed genres itself. It was 'terrible' and 'dreadful' at the same time.

Blade Runner (film noir/crime/sci-fi)
Ridley Scott's classic is ostensibly an out-and-out science fiction flick. But once you've got your head around the sci-fi landscape (the film was based on Philip K. Dick's 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?'), you're basically watching a film noir crime thriller. Harrison Ford's your Humphrey Bogart good guy, Rutger Hauer your Jimmy Cagney baddie. Darkness and light. Evil and good.

Kill Bill (action/anime/ninja/thriller/horror)
It's almost as if Tarantino was dared to blend as many genres as possible for this two-part revenge epic. To have melded so many styles and types of film into one and for the end product to be so good is a hugely impressive feat. It is a little disappointing that he couldn't fit a cowboy or alien in it though.

Can you think of any other examples of movie genres crossing over? If so, what are your favourites? Let us know below...

'Cowboys & Aliens' is in cinemas now.

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