The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
The first of two sequels to the live-action Fullmetal Alchemist. The first felt uninspired but this and the third film expand the saga and its storyline out with considerable depth
Film spinoff from the popular anime tv series that seems caught between a film and a tv episode. While the film reaches for epic scale, the usual run of power blasts, there is nothing that we haven’t seen before
One of the Disney animated portmanteaus of the 1940s featuring stories about a circus bear and a retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk starring Donald, Mickey and Goofy
BBC mini-series adaptation of Raymond Briggs’ classic children’s book about a secret underworld of bogeys who love all that is filthy and disgusting and their encounter with a human family
Second tv version of the Raymond Briggs book about a secret society of bogeys who love all that is filthy and disgusting, This cheats when it comes to the bogeys but goes all out on the disgustingness of their lifestyle
Excruciating CGI cute animals film where animals gang up to stop Brendan Fraser redeveloping their forest. Essentially a 1970s Nature’s Revenge film by way of the slapstick family-friendly violence of Home Alone
Oddball and whimsical – welcome to the world of Miranda July who serves up a quirky relationship drama peopled with talking cats, conversations with The Moon and time-freezing abilities
Undeniably entertaining Filipino action film that tries to throw in everything including time travel, post-holocaust action, adventure quests, magical artifacts, lost worlds, Nazis and dwarves
Imagine a Tom Cruise Mission: Impossible spy caper played out with talking guinea pigs. Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, no less, this offers appealingly energetic silliness
Truly amazing William Randolph Hearst financed film about a weak US President who is influenced by angels and ruthlessly cracks down on law and order
Passable children’s fantasy film where the young deposed prince of a kingdom gains the aid of a magical creature that grows bigger each time it eats metal
David Fincher film in which Michael Douglas is wound into a conspiracy that makes him doubt everything around him. Fincher creates paranoia but the story eventually becomes an improbably contrived house of cards
Where the first live-action Garfield film approximated the original comic-strip and its focus on a cat delivering sarcastic lines, this sequel pitches everything down to the level of an inane children’s film
Big screen version of the massively popular Garfield comic-strips in live-action with a CGI talking Garfield. Here Garfield has been tacked onto a plot that feels assembled from every other talking animals film
Animated film spun off from the Garfield comic-strips in which Garfield emerges out into the real world. A cute premise that the film fails to develop
Made not long after The Da Vinci Code was huge, a similar archaeological mystery centred around an amnesiac Christina Ricci and a sinister buried church dating back to The Crucifixion
Film with people trapped in a mysterious labyrinth, which may be Hell, where they are required to eliminate one another in order to survive. Aka Game of Assassins
The first film version of the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, one of the tales associated with the Arthurian legends. An obscure, little seen version starring singer Murray Head as Gawain
Modest and well-made British children’s tv mini-series about the mysterious psychic connection between two twins each unaware of the other’s existence
An anthology of short anime pieces from five different directors. Episodes range from traditional anime and Cyberpunk to mind-expanding surrealism
This advertises itself as the first live-action Steampunk film. What we get is like a Victorian version of The Librarians with two adventurers hunting mythical artifacts while armed with steam weapons
Likeable live-action adaptation of the animated series, which was construed as a parody of Tarzan. The sight gags work well and the creature effects are accomplished
An early Brian De Palma film, a wonderfully nonsensical work in an absurdist vein where Tom Smothers drops out of the corporate world to become a tap dancing magician under the tutelage of Orson Welles
A popular hit in which Patrick Swayze is killed and becomes a ghost. Bruce Joel Rubin’s script has enormous fun in interpreting aspects of the ghost story from the ghost’s point-of-view.
One of the most beautiful of all 1940s light fantasy films about the sweet and tender relationship between widow Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison as the ghost of the sea captain in the house she moves into
Another of the films from the East Side Kids/Bowery Boys, a prolific comedy act of the era. Here the boys set out to bust a fake medium racket during the course of which they are aided by a ghost
Riding high on the success of The Cosby Show, Bill Cosby flopped on cinema screens with this comedy where he appears as a father who returns as a ghost to sort out his children’s lives
A light fantasy comedy with Lucas Donat as the inheritor of a Scottish castle that is haunted by a ghost and the problems faced when the castle is sold to be shipped to America
From Andrew Lau, director of Infernal Affairs, a weepy Hong Kong comedy about a man caught up in a romantic quandary from his previous reincarnation
An early film from Willis O’Brien, the creator of King Kong, where a man finds a telescope that offers a view of the prehistoric past
Film adaptation of Marvel Comics’ demon superhero emerges as better than it had the right to be. The risibility of the image of a motorcycle-riding demon hero is made to work through some vivid and way-out effects
Ridiculous sequel to the Marvel Comics adaptation with an indifferently written script assembled from cliches, forgettable action scenes and Nicolas Cage giving one of his silliest performances in ages
Hong Kong supernatural film about a new tower block that is haunted because its feng shui is out. This goes well beyond the initial fantasy it starts out as being into moments of out-and-out dementia
A ghost story in which the ghost is played by someone beneath a sheet with two eyeholes. It’s an idea that seems too goofy to work outside of an episode of Scooby Doo. I do like being proved wrong and this ended up my Best Film of 2017
Director/screenwriter David Koepp proves that comedy is not his forte in this light fantasy in which Ricky Gervais emerges from anaesthesia to find that he can now see ghosts
Light fantasy comedy with Audrey Landers as a writer who befriends the ghost of a starlet played by real-life sister Judy Landers
An overrated classic that is nevertheless an undeniable fixture of 1980s pop culture. Overlong, it is largely carried through Bill Murray’s lazy sarcasm and the sterling work from the visual effects team
There was a lot of hate centred on this for recasting what is considered a classic film with an all-girl cast. It emerges mostly likeably, no better, no worse on the whole, where the new ensemble make a solid showing
A weak follow-up to the hit original that essentially killed off any further Ghostbusters sequels. Most of the the cast are back but the plot and proceedings feel like a walk-through for all involved.
Sequel to Ghostbusters that was far better received than the 2016 reboot, giving us a new generation of ghostbusters. This succeeds largely by playing the nostalgia card for all it can
Follow-up to Ghostbusters: Afterlife, reuniting that film’s mix of new and classic cast. However, this becomes a plotting juggle that is often straining to find somewhere to include everyone
An erotic film starring Donald Trump – I kid you not! A legendarily awful Bo Derek film where she is a widow who searches the world for the perfect body for her late husband’s ghost to reincarnate in
A lightweight Italian comedy of errors where Sophia Loren and husband move into a mansion being offered cheaply only to find it is haunted by the ghosts of the previous owners
From the period when Matthew McConaughey was coasting through romcoms without making any effort. This rewrites A Christmas Carol where playboy McConaughey is visited by the ghosts of three ex’s
Ben Wheatley produced film that soon becomes a first order mindfuck. An detective undercover in therapy could just be a mentally ill man with delusions of being a detective or just as equally be having his reality manipulated
For the most part, this plays out as a mundane drama about someone with a terrible deformity – similar to The Elephant Man or Mask – but who also has daydreams in which he is a giant
A modestly made BBC mini-series concerning a boy who discovers he has the titular gift of clairvoyant visions and how those around him try to exploit this
An uncommon misstep from Sam Raimi. Despite the fact he has a sterling cast onboard and a script from Billy Bob Thornton, the medium thriller plot rehashes comes out fairly bland
An inane comedy in which a wimpy teenager goes on a date with Liane Curtis who then becomes possessed by The Devil who is pursued by a chaser of devils
Unbreakable was M. Night Shyamalan’s everyday superhero film. Here he merges the characters from Unbreakable and Split to create his own shared universe. This could in effect be the kitchen sink version of The Avengers
A live-action version of Cinderella starring Leslie Caron. This is a rather staid version with ballet sequences where the magic and romance never much ignites
Classic film from Edward D. Wood Jr, an hilarious pseudo-documentary where Wood earnestly tries to make a case for transvestism. This has bad movie moments that are utterly surreal.
Film with a literally off-the-wall premise in which Ryan Kwanten is trapped in a rest stop bathroom with a Lovecraftian deity that speaks through a glory hole in the next stall
One of the less remembered Disney live-action films starring the children from Mary Poppins who join their grandfather in a road journey caper to help a gnome
Surely the most outlandish film premise ever slung together for an animated film – a version of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet conducted between talking garden gnomes in rival backyards
An ‘illustrated film’ – essentially comic-book panels with voiceover narration. The story about gods inhabiting a burned-out future is far more ambitious than can be crammed into the film
This could be considered the Michael Bay version of Ancient Egyptian mythology, a film buried under numbing CGI overkill. For all that, Alex Proyas gives it a loopy grandeur that you can’t entirely dislike
A disappointing tv mini-series adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novel, which has been (largely) played as a straight adventure with the usual Pratchett comedy taking a backseat
One of Hollywood’s misguided attempts to appropriate the Wu Xia film. This is turned into an Eddie Murphy comedy vehicle where neither his live wire presence nor the fantasy elements gel together
The attempt to create another Lord of the Rings went astray with this adaptation of Philip Pulllman’s fantasy series, which cut many of the core elements of the books so as not to offend religious conservatives
A depiction of the lives of Buddhist orphans in remote Myanmar, this also has a number of Magical Realist elements. What the film lacks in big dramatics, it makes up for with some genteel and lovely imagery
The second of Ray Harryhausen’s Sinbad films, an Arabian Nights adventure. Made as a vehicle for Harryhausen’s stop-motion effects, which are stunning. Everything about the film is classic
A modernised version of the Goldilocks fairytale, which now comes with the addition of an environmentalist subplot and where the bears are made into an endangered species
Pixar have never been the same since they slipped into the easy familiarity of sequelitis. This is essentially a boy and his dog story but played out with a dinosaur and a caveboy, but also an alternate history tale
The film where Keanu Reeves plays an angel. Directed/written by and starring Aziz Ansari as a hapless gig worker who Keanu’s angel’s tries to help only to accidentally swap the lives of Ansari and tech bro Seth Rogen
TV mini-series based on the Neil Gaiman/Terry Pratchett novel that spoofs The Omen and Biblical End Times prophecies. The series is very close to the book as though it didn’t want to edit any precious gag
Biopic of A.A. Milne that tells the story of how he came up with his most famous creation Winnie the Pooh. The film takes some time to warm to, but eventually opens up with some heartwarming charms
A really cheaply made and nauseatingly cute ripoff of Babe about a boy who discovers he can talk to a pig
I enjoyed Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast books far more than J.R.R. Tolkien. Alas, the sublime texture and eccentricity is completely missing in this BBC tv version, which aims for colourful silliness
The modern cinematic madman Takashi Miike makes a uniquely original work that starts out like a Yazkuza film, before taking a turn into the completely surreal and arriving at an admirably twisted ending
An Acid Western was a Western made with a psychedelic trippiness. Directed by Robert Downey Jr’s father, this is a surreal work about a Christ-like visitor in a zoot suit who turns up in a Western town
One of the most delightful films produced during the 1960s-80s lean years of Disney animation. This was not a success but delivers a film of winning charms about a mouse equivalent of Sherlock Holmes
The second of the Muppet films made when Jim Henson was alive and one of the best, this bubbles with a double level of sly grown-up humour that many of the later post Henson entries miss
Matt Damon helps defend the Great Wall of China against invading monsters. Directed by Zhang Yimou, this should be seen for its breathtaking visuals – vast battle scenes, lavish costumes – but you wish there had been more than that
Takashi Miike jumps aboard the mid-00s fad for secondary world fantasy films, creating a realm of spirits where he and his makeup and creature effects team go absolutely wild
David Lowery has emerged as a director to watch in the last few years. Here he conducts a beautifully sparse and more ambiguous take on the legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Frank Darabont had a hit with the Stephen King adaptation The Shawshank Redemption. Here he makes another King adaptation about a Death Row inmate with healing powers
One of the most gorgeous and beautiful of all Hong Kong fantasy films A lush, dreamy work of Wu Xia from Tsui Hark filled with wild, fantastical martial arts scenes
A documentary about arthouse director and regular genre contributor Peter Greenaway. This takes an alphabetical look through Greenaway’s themes and offers some peculiar insights into him as a person
The film about malicious creatures that was the box-office hit of 1984. Director Joe Dante runs amok and gleefully trashes the wholesome innocence of producer Steven Spielberg’s E.T. – The Extra-Terrestrial
A less successful sequel to the mega-hit of Gremlins where director Joe Dante brings the gremlins to Manhattan and allows the silliness to go completely over-the-top and into orbit, even breaking the fourth wall
Osgood Perkins emerges as a top director in this dark and extremely adult interpretation of the fairytale. There is nothing about this that can be viewed as a children’s tale any longer
Maybe the definitive Tarzan film, one that drops the pulp adventure and recasts the story as British arthouse theatre. Superbly mounted and cast. Christopher Lambert has never better in the title role
A X-rated, West German-made film that blends together several fairytales in a very adult adaptation. The result should be seen for its sheer bizarreness
Another entry among 2012’s spate of Snow White films following Mirror Mirror and Snow White and the Huntsman. this was a low-budget mockbuster copycat from The Asylum
After Ron Howard’s over-produced version of the Dr Seuss story, one looked to Illumination Entertainment, the animation company behind the Despicable Me films, to do the story right
Winning comedy with Bill Murray trapped in a timeloop and forced to repeat the same day over. Murray is at a career-peak best and served by a great script. The surprise is how much the timeloop theme was copied by subsequent films
A tomb raiding adventure about the venture into a tomb filled with deadly spiders in search of an immortality serum. A Chinese-Australian-co-production.
Guillermo Del Toro offers up a more adult take on the classic children’s story in this beautifully made stop-motion animated film. Winner of that year’s Academy Award for Best Animated Film
An adaptation of Jonathan Swift’s classic book (or at least the first section) starring Richard Harris as Gulliver, this has been conducted as a mix of live-action and animation
Jonathan Swift’s classic tale of a man in a land of miniature people is turned into a comedy vehicle for Jack Black and outfitted with a series of vulgar and pop culture gags
The second animated film ever made, an adaptation of Jonathan Swift’s novel (although only the first section in the miniature land of Lilliput). This comes with enormous visual invention
Classic 1940s afterlife fantasy with Spencer Tracy as a pilot killed in action who is sent back as a guardian angel. This works fantastically well due to a great character arc and a sharp Dalton Trumbo script
From the director of Emmanuelle, this is an adaptation of an adult comic-book that replays the lost city adventure with the addition of a mind-boggling softcore fetishism
This Canadian film is a modernised telling of Hansel and Gretel where the witch becomes a man with possibly paedophile intent. A film seems to want to go into dark places but gives them an utterly tepid treatment
A new film based on the epic legend of Siegfried, which gives it a grounded historical realism and tells it in terms of the mud, moral ambiguity and backstabbing in-politicking of tv’s Game of Thrones
A controversy-laden Jean-Luc Godard film that offers an irreverent modern-day retelling of the Immaculate Conception. An amusing idea that vanishes under Godard’s pretensions
A very nicely made British Wartime film about an ensemble of varied characters gathered at a ghostly inn that comes to have an effect on all of them
Locke as a ghost story. A really good film that takes place during a car journey as a married couple race off to help their daughter who has had an accident. A tight, twist-filled script with some great performances
Kenneth Branagh emerged as an director with his dynamic cinematic Shakespeare adaptations. In this lavish production, he attempts no less than a definitive version of what is regarded as Shakespeare’s greatest play