The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
From cult director Edgar G. Ulmer, a film ostensibly pitched as a sequel to the Jekyll and Hyde story focused on his daughter where it is revealed that Dr Jekyll was actually a werewolf!
Prolific exploitation director Jess Franco makes an entry in the early 1970s fad for lesbian vampire films. This has more softcore erotic content than other entries, although the Dracula part of the title is a misnomer
One of several Elizabeth Bathory films that came out at the same time, this has gained a cult reputation. Delphine Seyrig gives a marvellously arch performance, while director Harry Kumel films with a gorgeous and dreamy colour palette
A passable variant on the usual haunting and possession cliches overloaded with Catholic imagery before becoming a surprise unofficial prequel to a classic horror series
George Romero’s successor to his cult hit of Night of the Living Dead. Romero creates a very different film, one that takes place in a mall and comes with a level of droll satire. A bigger budget allows him to push things to gore-drenched extremes
Zack Snyder debuts with a remake of the cult George Romero film. While this has a bigger budget, it is missing is the satire and gore-drenched effects that made the original memorable. This inspired the mid-2000s zombie film revival
By its very title, this is a mummy film that is trying to exploit Dawn of the Dead. Once the mummies are revived this is to all intents and purposes another in the fad for extremely gory Italian zombie films
Halfway reasonable effort from the usual creative dead zone of the made-for-Syfy Channel film concerning the apocalyptic emergence of hordes of demonic creatures
A cheap 1970s Nature’s Revenge film that blatantly borrows all the essentials of The Birds in the story of a group of trampers in the High Sierras coming under attack by wildlife due to an ozone hole.
The second film from Spain’s Alex de la Iglesia, a comedy poking fun at Biblical End Times prophecies. Quite a promising idea that eventually dissolves into a caper comedy
The third and most undervalued of George Romero’s original trilogy of zombie films, an explosively bared to the bone series of apocalyptic confrontations containing some of the best performances and writing in any of his films
A remake of George Romero’s third and most underrated zombie film, This came out as part of the 2000s revival of the genre but majorly miscalculates the original and emerges as wrong in just about every way
Made during the mid-2000s zombie revival, this is a cheap, badly made film that tries to cling to any kind of relevance to the George Romero name. If anything it is more like a sequel to Night of the Living Dead than to Day of the Dead
One of a growing industry of zombie films that leech off the George Romero name. This remakes Romero’s Day of the Dead, which means it cherry picks key elements and rearranges them in a different way but lacks everything else that Romero offered
An enjoyably entertaining film featuring Jamie Foxx and Dave Franco as vampire hunters. This plays out as a comic buddy film mixed with a series of wildly charged action scenes
Timur Bekmambetov’s sequel to Night Watch comes with a much better budget and the same wild visuals, although is slightly the lesser film
Australia’s The Spierig Brothers create a strong and original scenario for a vampire film set in a future where vampires have killed almost all the humans and the blood supply is now running out.
Brian De Palma is one of the most stylish directors in the world. In this documentary, he candidly reflects on his career, wryly accepts his flops and recounts the witty anecdotes from behind the scenes
A Marquis de Sade biopic that was problem ridden behind the scenes. The result is an incoherent mess on screen that feels as though it is being handled by several different directors, each with a different idea about what is happening
The Dead was one of the better modern zombie films, depicting the African continent as it succumbed to the zombie apocalypse. This offers nearly the same story but moves the locale to India
A zombie film that stands out from shuffling horde by dint of the fact that it takes place in Africa and is a survival horror work that takes itself seriously rather than tongue-in-cheek. Low key but achieves some often haunted effect
Psycho-thriller with Gregory Hines as a radio talkback host dealing with a psychopathic caller who plays a series of taunting games with him
Madness/zombie outbreak film set in a radio station as a talkback host watches the catastrophe unfurl outside. This only cheaply goes where the far superior Pontypool did first
A sometimes amateurish film about people at a B&B surrounded by zombies. This takes a horror comedy tone and gets very gory. Not to mention features an amazing cast
After writing the huge hit of Alien, Dan O’Bannon next went onto this strange zombie film in which the people of a small town fail to stay dead
This could easily be called Cowboys vs Zombies. A low-budget effort that is tame on the zombie front but makes great effort and is served by some well-drawn characters
The Gonzo Japanese Splatter Film is a genre filled with gore, madcap combat moves, bizarre bio-mechanoid transformations. This concerns itself with a game of baseball that has become a blood-drenched combat sport
Stunningly photographed yachtboard psycho-thriller with Nicole Kidman (in her first major film performance) and husband Sam Neill taken prisoner by a psycho Billy Zane. Produced by George Miller
The second of British director Andrew Parkinson’s remarkable kitchen sink zombie films about people trying to deal with ordinary life while transforming
Largely forgotten tv movie from a Robert Bloch script. Curtis Harrington creates a fascinatingly creepy atmosphere that blends film noir with mysterious happenings involving voodoo and the resurrected dead
Jim Jarmusch is one of the foremost American independent directors and here makes his first zombie comedy. The question is is what can he bring to a genre that has been in full-on self-parody mode since Shaun of the Dead
Known under various titles including Dead Dudes in the House and The House on Tombstone Hill, a film about a group of young people who go to renovate a house but find themselves trapped inside being killed
This starts out seeming like a Backroads Brutality film with an innocent family being attacked after taking a side road detour, only to end in increasingly stranger supernatural territory
One of the German krimi films of the 1960s, regular police procedurals piled with so many weird elements they become works of the bizarre. Adapted from an Edgar Wallace novel about murders managed from an institute for the blind
South Korean ghost story that has borrowed most of its moves from the J-horror cycle – Ring, The Grudge et al. A relatively anodyne treatment is enlivened by a twist ending that draws heavily on The Sixth Sense
Karen Moncrieff directs a strong and powerful drama that tells five stories of the women whose lives are affected by a serial killer. The film has an amazing ensemble cast who deliver sterling performances
Made not along after the success of Lethal Weapon, this offers a wacky spin on the buddy cop formula having a cop paired with a zombie. The mildly amusing notion is killed by the excruciating comedy relief of Joe Piscopo
The debut film from the Soska Sisters – a demented road movie – is scrappy, all over the place and highly uneven but shows the two are definitely going places
One of Shane Meadows’ harsh depictions of life in the English Midlands with Paddy Considine as a former soldier turned vigilante eliminating bullies who killed his intellectually handicapped brother
An enthusiastic Irish-made copy of the George Romero zombie film that vies between the amateurish and occasional moments of interest
Sam Raimi gave some money to independent filmmaker J.R. Bookwalter to see what he would do. The result is a modest and gory if amateurish copy of George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead
Celebrated British horror anthology, which tells five ghost stories and tales of the supernatural. All are strong stories with The Ventriloquist’s Dummy segment in particular having become regarded as a classic
A very unique and unsettling variant on the zombie film wherein a soldier killed in combat in Vietnam is brought back from the dead by the pleading of his parents but returns not quite the same as before
Another variant on the set-up of the team of ghostsbusters investigating a haunted locale with videocameras that has been done to death in recent years
A typical 80s film with a mad doctor resurrecting the dead in the abandoned wing of an asylum amid gory makeup effects. The first film from Brett Leonard who next went on to make The Lawnmower Man
The fifth and last of Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry films, the weakest of the series. Dirty Harry comes up against a betting pool on celebrity deaths and a killer who decides to help it along
David Cronenberg’s absolute masterpiece of the perverse with Jeremy Irons giving a tour-de-force performance(s) as twin gynaecologists who descend into drug addiction, obsession and madness
Dead Rising was another zombie survival horror videogame from the creators of Resident Evil. Although nowhere near the popularity of the Milla Jovovich films, this was the first of two films based on the game
New Zealand-made film about a trio of parapsychologists investigating a reputedly haunted farmhouse. This treads very familiar ground and ultimately suffers from a sedate approach
Oddball psycho-thriller from low-budget director Ron Ford about a series of killings and games of suspicion occurring in and around an off-season bed and breakfast
One among the vast horde of zombie films that has deluged the genre since the mid-00s. An average entry in the field, competently made and with a plot that could have served as an entire season of The Walking Dead
An erotic thriller where detective Shannon Tweed must go undercover as a call girl to find a killer eliminating girls at the agency. A blatant copy of Basic Instinct
The zombie film is feeling very played out these days. This is a no expectation entry (even the title seems utterly generic) that proves an unexpected delight, filled with endearing characterisations
In his immediate follow-up to Saw, James Wan turns to the old possessed ventriloquist’s dummy theme. The result is not quite another Saw but Wan does deliver a number of very creepy moments
The Nazi zombies from Norway are back in a better film than the first that is far more polished, the black humour more outrageous and the splatter effects are at the top of their game
A revival of the Nazi zombie film that comes from Norway! A hugely gore-drenched effort from Tommy Wirkola that soon plants tongue very much in cheek.
Completely insane Japanese film about man-eating killer sushi. A film that has an anything goes lunacy, resulting in some of the most surreally crazed monster scenes this author has seen in some time
David Cronenberg adapts a Stephen King novel with Christopher Walken waking from a coma with clairvoyant abilities. An okay film if one that lacks the personal intensity and rich themes of Cronenberg’s original works
Not to be confused with the Stephen King novel/film. A zombie film with a military focus that appropriates the basics of Escape from New York as a tactical unit is sent into an infestation zone to retrieve an antidote
Amid the overused zombie genre, this hits in with a considerable originality. The story of teenagers who find a zombie girl and keep her imprisoned for sexual purposes soon enters a disturbing headspace
Yet another zombie comedy. Essentially a zombie bromance where it gains its life from its two characters’ motormouth performances. The humour sits halfway between goofy silliness and the occasionally amusing
An Amicus film directed by Freddie Francis and with a script by Robert Bloch that proves the dictum that there is no such thing as a good killer bee movie
An early Wes Craven film about a series of killings among an Amish-like cult led by Ernest Borgnine. Craven’s eerie dream horrors sit alongside a confusing script
A dully directed imitator of A Nightmare on Elm Street, although a series of highly contrived twists eventually reveal that there are no dream horrors after all
James Herbert was a writer of extraordinary ferocity and gore-drenched extremes. This is an adaptation of his first book The Rats where all the ferocity has been watered down to a standard Animals Amok film
Wes Craven was hot as a result of A Nightmare on Elm Street but badly lucked out with this ridiculous film in which a teenager raises his girlfriend from the dead by planting a computer chip from a robot in her brain
A really bad low-budget film jumping aboard the Folk Horror bandwagon where construction work at a summer camp stirs druidic rituals from the past
Another variant on The Most Dangerous Game with an unarmed man on the run against armed hunter(s). This was made just after Rambo came out so it becomes one lone man fighting an entire army with his bare hands.
A rather funny horror comedy based around the concept of a livestream conducted from a haunted house – all of which proceeds to quite hilariously go wrong
Horror anthology with the novelty where all of the stories are horror versions of fairytales. Particularly amusing is the second episode, a modernised version of Little Red Riding Hood
A work of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? inspired Grand Dame Guignol with Agnes Moorehead as a Southern matriarch whose relatives are eliminating one another in the hunt for the family fortune
Fascinating true story about a college student who struck up a correspondence with serial killer John Wayne Gacy and fashioned himself according to Gacy’s victim profile so as to get closer to him
Low-budget film about a killer and his teenage apprentice. The film benefits from a well-seasoned Brad Dourif and Jeremy Sumpter, the grown-up Peter Pan, who gives a fine brooding performance
This comes with the winning idea of being conceived as a horror version of The Expendables bringing back an amazing line-up of horror actors from principally the 80s. Alas, the film itself as an incoherent mess
A mockbuster copy of Death Wish that gains its novelty from the casting of Robert Kovacs, an actor who could be a dead ringer for the late Charles Bronson, who is naturally cast as a lone man with a gun cleaning up the streets of scumbags
Film about cannibalistic survivors of a cave-in who lurk in the tunnels beneath the London Underground, this has gained a reasonable cult following over the years
Uniquely original Japanese horror film adapted from a manga concerning a book that kills anyone whose name is written in it. This has spawned several sequels and an American remake. The show is stolen by the supremely weird Kenichi Matsuyama
The English-language remake of the popular Japanese franchise from Adam Wingard. This essentially remakes the first film and is adequate in its own right but no patch on either of the original Japanese films
The second of the Japanese Death Note films, released almost back-to-back with the first. This is an even better film than its predecessor, delighting in the twists and turns in the games as Light and his nemesis L outwit each other
Darren Lynn Bousman is a director that leaves me wondering why he keeps attracting money to make films. Here he makes a work about a couple caught up in sinister rituals while tourists in Thailand
Quentin Tarantino’s less interesting half of the Grindhouse double-bill. Tarantino makes a film about a psycho stuntman but gets sidetracked by referencing 1970s car chase movies
Punk/metal rocker Glenn Danzig directs his own film, a vampire Western. This comes filled an amazing line-up of genre cameos, while Danzig casts himself as a bad-ass vampire outlaw
Another action movie variant on The Most Dangerous Game with Chuck Norris’s son Mike facing hunters on a remote island. Featuring a cast made up of the relatives of more famous actors
Although the character names have been changed, this is based on the book sequel to Death Wish. Saw director James Wan goes for broke on the grim vigilantism and turns in an immensely satisfying work
Film about a ghost ship haunted by Nazi atrocities. This gives the impression it was made to highlight a series of novelty deaths styled after the then-recent hit of The Omen
A 1980s VHS released horror about a series of novelty killings at a health spa. This contains some entertainingly bizarre death and a surprise number of later to be famous faces
A film from low-budget producer/director Charles Band about a trio of horror podcasters who come across a vampire that livestreams its kills on the internet, only for their attention to bring it after them
Horror film set in the haunted tunnels beneath an abandoned hospital that seems all horror posturing without the benefit of an actual plot
Essentially a slasher movie version of Witness where a family driving through Death Valley are pursued by a killer after the young son sees his face
The first horror film from New Zealand, a gore drenched effort about a mad scientist creating zombies. Directed by much energy even if it suffers a complete lack of plot
A Jean-Claude Van Damme action vehicle set in a prison that becomes an interestingly stylised realm in a wild plot featuring serial killers and organ harvesting schemes
A reasonable and effective Canadian entry in the 1970s Backwoods Brutality cycle with Brenda Vaccaro on a weekend getaway with a boyfriend as they are brutaised by three petty hoods
The original vigilante film that spawned several sequels. This is crudely aimed at one’s red-blooded nature – to get one enraged at the lowlifes that would attack a man’s family and then cheer on seeing said lowlifes being blown away
Eli Roth’s remake of the classic Charles Bronson vigilante film is an ugly affair. In an era where school shooting are a weekly scourge in the US, do we really need another fantasy about one man becoming empowered and sorting things out with a gun?
The first of several sequels to the hit Charles Bronson vigilante film, the first under Cannon Films. While the first film had some interesting things to say, this mostly repeats the original while taking some turns to the nastily exploitative
Outrageous New Zealand-made effort that fondly recalls the 1980s splatter comedies of Sam Raimi, Peter Jackson et al. This often feels like former teen metalheads looking back and puncturing the pretensions of their youth
Robert Quarry gained a fame in the early 70s and was regarded as the American Christopher Lee on the basis of the Count Yorga films. This was one of the works he made where he plays the leader of hippie cult who is a vampire
A Mexican-made variant on one of the Saw films where a group of diverse people are locked into a room and must select one of their number to die otherwise everybody will be killed
A police interrogation film that becomes a psycho-thriller as suspect Tim Roth turns the interrogation back on the detectives. Despite a strong cast, the film eventually strains plausibility
Little seen Merchant Ivory film directed by Nicholas Meyer set during the British Raj in India with Pierce Brosnan as a British officer who goes undercover to investigate the Thuggee cults