The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
The 30th film from Pixar, a strange take on Avatar where a young conservationist enters a robotic beaver body in order to venture out among the animals. Directed with a good deal of likeably snappy humour
A screwball comedy with Jack Benny as a trumpeter send down from Heaven to Earth to blow the Last Trumpet who ends up getting distracted by a series of comic mishaps
An Alexandra Aja adaptation of a Joe Hill novel that comes with a diabolical glee as Daniel Radcliffe develops a set of devil horns and finds everyone confessing their deepest secrets to him
Animated adaptation of the Dr Seuss book is an amiable effort that captures a certain zaniness but ultimately seems to be forcing Seuss’s slim original to inhabit the formula of the modern animated film
Adam Sandler produced film that is a variant on the bodyswap standard in which Rob Schneider and Rachel McAdams switch bodies. Much crass humour ensues in between a good-naturedly all-inclusive message
An excruciating comedy built out of the basics of Mr Ed where Bobcat Goldthwait gives an imbecilic performance as an idiot who inherits a talking horse
A variant on the much more charming Mad Monster Party?, an animated film featuring cute cuddly versions of the Famous Monsters (Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, wolfman etc) with Adam Sandler voicing Dracula
I had little enthusiasm for this, I tend to like my classic monsters serious rather than defanged – these Hotel Transylvania films are so watered down, Dracula doesn’t even get to drink blood
I’m not a fan of the Hotel Transylvania films and their reduction of the Famous Monsters to slapstick yocks. This is exactly the same as the preceding films, no better, no worse and with only minute plotting difference
Minus Adam Sandler this time, the Hotel Transylvania series trots out a fourth entry. Here, in some search for novelty on what has gone before, the monsters are turned back into humans
One of the works of the celebrated Ingmar Bergman with Max Von Sydow as an artist tormented by insomnia who starts to slip into disturbing hallucinations where he (and we) can not be certain what is being seen is real
An anthology of stop-motion animated shorts set around the same house. Each episode is quite different but all three stories strike an admirably dark and absurdist tone and are beautifully made
Building on the international success of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dagger, Zhang Yimou made the lush, exquisitely dreamy Wu Xia film Hero and then immediately after made this equally visually dazzling follow-up
A star-studded but ponderous adaptation of Isabel Allende’s cross-generational family saga set in an unnamed South American republic that comes with Magical Realist elements
Eli Roth is a director associated with the Torture Porn cycle and one does a double-take at him making a family-friendly film. The results emerge somewhere between Harry Potter and a Goosebumps film
Warm and appealing film filled with great performances that takes place across two generations of an Italian-American family. An obsession with Catholic miracles takes over in the second half, although the film remains ambiguous to their actuality
A World War II comedy from Richard Lester that heads into a wild absurdism, a film that is both brilliant and numbingly noisy. Most did not get the surreal blacker-than-black tone and the film was not a success
Ron Howard’s live-action adaptation of the Dr Seuss story visually embraces the nonsense absurdism but the charms get buried beneath the lavish production polish. Jim Carrey saves the day as The Grinch however.
An hilarious black comedy written with a biting savagery where advertising executive Richard E. Grant has his life taken over by a ruthless boil on his shoulder
One of the most beautifully made formula animated films of recent vintage but at the end of the day no more than a film that is by the numbers where the artistry is unsupported by the banal script
Popular animated adaptation of a children’s book. This hits all the right story arcs and in sufficiently likeable measure to work amiably. Two sequels and a live-action remake followed.
This is a film that leaves you in two minds – one that is constantly going wow at the animated artistry and detail before us; the other that is realising that this is yet another formula animated film
With Disney having remade most of their animated catalogue in live-action, other studios are now getting in on the act with this live-action remake of How to Train Your Dragon
H.P. Lovecraft is a cult horror writer whose work brims over with a sense of cosmic dread. One of the most bizarre Lovecraft film adaptations is this work of children’s animation featuring a young Lovecraft
The second in a series of animated children’s films about the young H.P. Lovecraft and his encounters with the various denizens of the Cthulhu mythos
The third of the trilogy of animated films from Arcana Studios based around the adventures of a young H.P. Lovecraft
A low-budget film directed by lead actress Michele Martin that sets out to conduct a modernised retelling of Little Red Riding Hood in which she becomes a wolf
This Hayao Miyazaki film about a girl who becomes assistant to a mysterious magician is not quite in the same league as Princess Mononoke or Spirited Away but has the sublime beauty, eccentric characters and tender charms that all his work does
Madcap slapstick caper comedy with Bruce Willis as a cat burglar. This was a massive box-office flop at the time but remains a lunatically out-of-control mess that is frequently hilarious
One of the Coen Brothers’ strangest films – imagine a homage to a 1940s Howard Hawks film conducted on giant oversized sets like something out of Brazil with a blacker-than-black sense of humour and angels in the mix
Martin Scorsese’s venture into making a children’s film is a beautiful production but must have been a studio nightmare – while they try to sell it as a magical fantasy film, Scorsese wants to pay tribute to silent filmmaker Georges Melies
A Disney animated film that turns Victor Hugo’s classic oft-filmed novel about Quasimodo, a misshapen figure of pity, into a slightly ugly teenager who now comes accompanied by talking gargoyles
One of Disney’s cheaply produced video sequel to their animated film made during the 1990s/2000s. This one actually emerges as superior to the original
One of the better copies of Conan the Barbarian featuring Laurene Landon as a warrior woman. This is actually a better screen incarnation of Red Sonja than the subsequent film version
A completely madcap gonzo comedy that all takes place without dialogue, the live-action equivalent of a Looney Tunes cartoon. One of the most unique and creative films I have seen in some time
A lightweight comedy in which nerd Steve Levitt makes a pact with The Devil to have the perfect male body but soon comes to regret his decision
The premise of a group of adventurers seeking artifacts from fairytales has mild possibilities but is given zero conviction by anybody involved. A sub-Indiana Jones adventure that was made as a tv pilot
Sequel to Snow White and the Huntsman. Despite low expectations, this emerged better than one thought it would. It has a better director and seems much more at home being an epic fantasy than the first film
Chuck Norris’s son Mike directs a laughably ridiculous faith-based film where a miraculous child appears, come to heal the people of an impoverished, drought-ridden town
The title leads you to expect a variation on Jack the Giant Slayer but instead we get a very good story about a troubled girl who believes in giants. Very similar to A Monster Calls, this is carried by a fantastic performance from 15 year old Madison Wolfe
A quite indescribable animated film from the great Bill Pympton, this largely consists of a series of bizarre and surreal, often outrageous, transformations and juxtapositions
Charming and delightful film starring Veronica Lake as a witch burned at the stake who returns to life in the present to make life miserable for her judge’s descendant Frederic March
An almost unclassifiably strange film about fandom for a weird 1990s tv show, this seems to be heading for David Lynch territory and becomes an allegory for trans identity
A Young Adult film that comes with a highly original premise concerning the aftermath of a catastrophe that has left ghostly figures trapped in timeloops repeating the same moves
A very lightweight made-for-tv comedy where a nerdy teen signs a pact with a desperate agent of The Devil who offers him cool and the girl of his dreams
This begat an interminable number of tedious sequels. However, the original is a still likeable and appealing animated film about a group of prehistoric talking animals migrating with the onset of an Ice Age
The first in a series of interminable sequels to Blue Sky Studios’ animated prehistoric adventure. Everything has a tediousness that feels as though it is created by a script generating computer
Another of Blue Sky Studios’ interminable animated sequels to its likeable original about prehistoric talking animals. This has little substance beyond a kinetic rush from one gag to the next
This is not a film, it is a money-making machine in the guise of a film aimed squarely at undiscerning family audiences that plays to familiar characters and comic routines and has minimal difference to the preceding three Ice Age films
I hate the Ice Age films and their tediously extruded adventures. The opening sequence here and its ignorance of even basic science is the most inane thing in the entire series
An enormously entertaining Hong Kong variation on Highlander in which two rival swordsmen are frozen in a glacier and then awakened in the modern day
An absolutely delightful comedy from Maurizio Nichetti, a parody of Bicycle Thieves, which becomes a meta-fiction where the characters emerge from the screen and enter the modern world
Another of Bill Pympton’s unique animated films, all stylised artwork and surreal juxtapositions. This is a dialogueless film about a mean-spirited man who suddenly gains a set of angel wings
A wildly anarchic fantasy where Malcolm McDowell leads an armed revolution against the petty tyranny of a British boy’s boarding school. The first in a trilogy of social commentary films for director Lindsay Anderson
Ryan Reynolds and director John Krasinski combine to make a film about imaginary companions, an appealingly quirky effort where a young girl befriends a large furry invisible creature
A modernised retelling of the Cinderella story that is set in the Paris fashion world starring with Jennifer Grey as a lowly seamstress falling for self-important fashion designer Rob Lowe
Nicely made seasonal tv movie where cynical Ally Walker has her life turned around by the appearance of her childhood self (Hayden Panettiere)
This came out the same year as The Prestige and has a very similar plot with Edward Norton as a stage magician in 19th Century who may have real powers and the rivalry over a woman
Charlie Kaufman’s mind-bending, head-scratcher about road trips, weird dinner conversations and shifting identity blurrings as what we assume become increasingly more surreal as the film goes on
A fascinatingly enigmatic work from Robert Altman, an artily experimental film in which the identities of five people together at a countryside cottage begin to shift and blur
A film based on the album by Finnish symphonic metal group Nightwish that takes place inside the allegorical mental terrain of a dying rock star. This collapses into the over-inflated amateur symbolism of a music video
This wouldn’t be a Terry Gilliam if it wasn’t cursed by bad luck – the death of star Heath Ledger. It’s the most Gilliam-esque film in some years where Gilliam and his designers leap off into deliriously madcap surrealism
Eddie Murphy in another of the lame flops that marked his career in the 2000s where he plays a stockbroker who gets stock tips from his daughter’s imaginary companion
A venture into Greek myth retelling the story of Theseus and the labyrinth. Tarsem Singh, a director with a visually extraordinary eye, lavishes everything on the sets and costumes. One film of the 3D overkill fad that needs to be seen in 3D
South Korean film that replays the same story three times with slight differences, all featuring Isabelle Huppert as a different woman. Told with a rather charming sense of humour and a playful meta-fiction
In one of his more mainstream films, Neil Jordan takes a leaf from Eyes of Laura Mars as Annette Bening gains psychic insight into the mind of serial killer Robert Downey Jr
Disney’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea created a fad for Jules Verne adaptations throughout the 1950s/60s. Disney returned to Verne in this colourfully absurd adventure with children on a globe-spanning hunt for their missing father
There are few fantastic themes more tired than the clairvoyant thriller – a standard murder mystery where the detective just intuits all their deductions psychically. Apart from a couple of interesting twists, this is no different
Paul W.S. Anderson adapts a George R.R. Martin fantasy story but somehow still manages to make it into another Resident Evil copy still starring Milla Jovovich
Uwe Boll strikes again! Sequel to his passable earlier epic fantasy, which is dragged down by a lack of action and the need to provide star Dolph Lundgren with a series of excrutiating witticims
A Uwe Boll film that feels as though he didn’t cared about what he was making. You’d have to go back to the Italian sword-and-sorcery films of the 1980s to find a more shoddy work of epic fantasy
Another of Uwe Boll’s videogame adaptations and one of his better. Boll is seeking to emulate the 00s epic fantasy fad and succeeds with some great action choreography from Ching Siu-Tung
Based on an old Joss Whedon script about two people who discover they can see through the other’s eyes and talk mentally. A low-key film that acts as a bare stage allowing the two characters to interact
Dogme 95 film about a woman convicted to prison who has miraculous healing abilities. There are undeniable similarities to The Green Mile but this uses them to delve into issues of faith
Fascinating Mexican film in which characters become trapped in the same limited stretch of space. It is striking watching them forced to repeat the same things over and over
Another of Quentin Dupieux’s gonzo, surreal comedies where a married couple buy a house and find it has a portal that takes them twelve hours into the future, while making them younger
An appealingly silly blend of live-action and animation where Don Knotts plays a downtrodden clerk obsessed with fish who falls into the ocean and becomes a porpoise
Doris Wishman has become celebrated for her work in nudies – tamer films made before the arrival of the porn film. This concerns a creepy guy who finds a doll that he can use to make women undress
A quite delightful film from former Muppeteer Frank Oz in which a boy receives the gift of a magic cabinet that brings his toy Indian and any other toy that is placed inside it
At age 80, Harrison Ford returns for what looks like being the last ever Indiana Jones film. It’s not perfect but when you compare to all the other contemporary franchises, this still has the good old adventure spirit
Third of the Indiana Jones films. This comes with all the breakneck action sequences and Sean Connery doing a fine comic turn as Indiana’s irascible father but also plays to a much greater slapstick emphasis
Steven Spielberg and George Lucas’s first sequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark is like a single 118 minute rollercoaster ride without let-up in terms of action, although is far less polished in the scripting department
High concept action film not dissimilar to Highlander with Mark Wahlberg discovering that he is a reincarnated soul engaged in a secret war through the ages
An ingenue film about a dream journey that is made with undeniable imagination. However, the eventual allegory makes it a work that thinks it far more profound than it ends up being
Another failed attempt to start a fantasy franchise. However, the interesting premise of someone who can bring fictional characters to life ends up going goes precisely nowhere
David Lynch’s last theatrical films and probably the most divided of Lynch’s films. Another delve into cryptic surrealism that arrives at no clear plot destinations or clues about what is going on
One of the most extraordinary films ever made about psychic powers concerning a group of children who discover remarkable talents to move objects but then that one among their number has used the power to kill
Inside Out, set around the personified emotions in a girl’s head, was one of the breaths of fresh air among Pixar’s slip into terminal sequelitis during the 2010s. Now it gets its own sequel
Pixar have slumped into terminal sequelitis during the 2010s – this was only the second original work they have made during that time. While not perfect, it goes regains the creative heights from five years earlier
Film version of a classic play about an inspector who calls to expose the sins of a wealthy family and their involvement in the death of a girl. Comes with a fantastical twist in the tale.
A cryptic surrealist full-length film from The Brothers Quay set at an enigmatic butler training school. Beautifully designed and photographed.
Fascinating directorial debut from Spanish director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo about a man drawn into an underground society where people bet on the luck quotient of others
A Magical Realist film sets against the harsh backdrop of a dreary present-day urban Dublin as two boys befriend the mythical horse Tir na Nog and go on a cross-country journey
A lumbering, stagebound adaptation of Stephen Sondheim musical that lamely dips into the fairytale parody that Shrek and other films tapped far more engagingly over a decade ago
Ricky Gervais co-directs and stars in a comedy set in an alternate world where everybody tells the truth and he discovers he is the one person who can lie and how this proceeds to change the world
David S. Goyer directed remake of a Swedish film about a teenager stuck in a disembodied state between life and death. Despite Goyer’s sterling resume as a screenwriter, this fails to work
This has an intriguingly original concept where milquetoast Tim Blake Nelson wakes up to find he has faded away and become invisible to other people – and then finds a secret world of other similar Invisibles
Sequel to the Russian-made horror film Viy, this is an historical fantasy with a big budget that mounts spectacular effects sequence and provides name stars, even if the results are utterly bizarre
Martial arts film from legendary Hong Kong action coordinator Yuen Wo Ping (behind the fight scenes in The Matrix). Essentially a Wu Xia version of Robin Hood and worth watching for Yuen’s amazing action scenes
A low-budget Italian sword-and-sorcery film, one of a host of such films that came out following the success of Conan the Barbarian. This was the third entry in the Ator series starring Miles O’Keeffe