The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Shock film in which director Tod Browning depicts the lives of the deformities at a circus, casting real-life freaks in the roles. This was banned for many years before being discovered as a cult classic
A slasher film with a novelty (gimmicky?) premise where the Final Girl and the hulking killer of the show end up swapping bodies. Essentially a conceptual mash-between a slasher film and Freaky Friday
The long promised crossover between the Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street films, this seems caught in a juggling act that fails to satisfy the requirements of either franchise
The sixth of the A Nightmare on Elm Street films, sold with the gimmick of a 3D release. New director Rachel Talaly refuses to take the material seriously and turns the show into an absurd cartoon
An Australian thriller about a girl who takes an editing job because she needs the money only to realise that what she is asked to work on are snuff movies. The film follows her descent into a dark and disturbed state of mind
Thriller where widow Darlanne Fluegel and radio talkback host Richard Belzer team up to hunt a serial killer shooting people on the L.A. freeways
A low-budget entry in the 2000s fad for true-life serial killer films. This is based on William Bonin who around the L.A. freeways in a van and abducted and killed young men
From the heyday of the 1980s VHS release, a cheap psycho film in which maniac James Courtney (later Michael Myers in the Halloween reboot) pursues a young actress around the desert
Alfred Hitchcock’s second-to-last film, a thriller with Jon Finch as a man on the run wrongly hunted as a serial killer. Hitchcock is on superb form and his dark humour perfectly tuned
Strong and effective film in which Daisy Edgar-Jones is charmed becomes involved with Sebastian Stan, only for him to imprison her, intending to sell her flesh as meat
New Zealand comedy in which a teenage daughter discovers that her father Temuera Morrison is a modern-day Maori cannibal cultist. Everything is given a very broad playing
The killer crocodile/alligator film has not had a great track record (with only a couple of exceptions). This is not one of those exceptions and quickly sinks into risibility
A copy of John Carpenter’s Halloween that proved a big success and spawned a long-running series of sequels. Both films created the slasher film, which came to overrun horror in the 1980s, although this is a cruder film than Halloween
Another 1980s horror remake that had much potential. However, this proves to be just another Friday the 13th film by the numbers, albeit with a bigger budget, and widely misses the mark
The second of the Friday the 13th films. This was the point where the formula of the series slipped into place and Jason emerged to become an invincible killing machine
Third of the Friday the 13th films, shot in the brief fad for 3D films in the early 80s. This is also the one where Jason adopts his trademark hockey mask
The fifth and arguably the worst of the Friday the 13th films. Jason is resurrected and engaged in much butchering, before an end reveals it was someone else altogether
The seventh of the Friday the 13th films, this tries to add some novelty with a heroine who has psychic powers but is mostly the same thing as before
The eighth of the Friday the 13th films that offers the novelty of taking a revived Jason to New York City. Actually, one of the better entries in the series, which plays his encounters with New York locals for some amusement
The fourth Friday the 13th film, called the final chapter in an effort to kill the series off, only to be such a success this was rescinded in the next film. Joseph Zito directs with more style than usual
Another in the spate of social media horror films, this is a blatant copy of Unfriended, albeit mashed up with Ring to create the idea of a cursed newsfeed. This is also the lamest of the bunch
A modest and well directed psycho-thriller from the Anglo-horror cycle with Susan George as a babysitter stalked by a deranged Ian Bannen
A slasher movie that takes place on the set of a slasher movie. Director Israel Luna has an idea that you feel could have been far cleverer than the way it ends up being presented on screen
Slick well made film that successfully transplants the vampire to modern suburbia. Made with a top-drawer arsenal of effects, including taking a leaf from An American Werewolf in London and showing a detailed man into bat transformation
Another 1980s horror remake that resurrects and changes the original to little purpose. This fails to understand that what was original in 1985 lacks much alongside other contemporary vampire films
Supposedly a sequel to the 2011 Fright Night remake but more a loose reworking of the original. This conducts some novel variations such as making Jerry Dandridge into a woman, but is also one of the worst directed horror films in some time
Sequel to Fright Night, this basically rehashes what went before but introduces Jerry Dandridge’s sister. This does come with the benefit of some way-out stylistic effects from director Tommy Lee Wallace
Before The Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson flopped badly with this ghost comedy. Jackson allows his obsession with the effects technology to take over at the expense of much else and provides little that is funny
One of the early films of French director Jean Rollin who gained a cult following for his vampire films that offer a near-plotless blend of artily surreal imagery and erotica
Classic film from the 1970s Nature’s Revenge fad with a group gathered for a party on an island finding that flora and fauna all around has become malevolent and turned against humanity
One of the more underrated horror anthologies featuring an aging Vincent Price as narrator. All four stories are equally strong and venture into some pleasingly dark and grisly places
After the cult success of Re-Animator, Stuart Gordon, Jeffrey Combs and most of the principals returned with a further H.P. Lovecraft adaptation. More outrageously over-the-top splatter effects but this is somewhat the lesser
One of the best of the Amicus horror anthologies. All of the episodes are strong, well cast and well directed. The third episode offers a particularly funny comic take on the exorcism film
Strong and effective film about a grieving mother who is introduced to an occult ritual than can claimedly resurrect her dead son, a journey that takes her into very dark places
Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino combine forces on a film that begins as a getaway thriller and then abruptly morphs into a vampire film. This has a smart edginess to it but the vampire scenes have not dated well
The first of two video-released sequels to From Dusk Till Dawn, this spins the premise to have a group of robbers at siege from police inside a bank vault as they are attacked by vampires
The second and best of the From Dusk Till Dawn sequels. This takes the story back and retells it in a Western setting where it offers some clever twists on the original
Disappointing attempt, based on a Alan Moore graphic novel, to depict the Jack the Ripper killings. The film feels over-produced and slides off the cliff by throwing its weight behind one of the more ludicrous and implausible Ripper theories
A bad movie classic. Plenty of hysterically funny dialogue and one of the most ridiculous looking movie monsters of all time – a possessed tree (where the film also manages to wind in the 1950s obsession with atomic monsters)
Western based around the idea of Jack the Ripper having relocated out West whereupon he becomes a standard slasher-styled maniac. Featuring Charles Bronson ringer Robert Kovacs as the hero
A horror film stripped to the basics – just two characters at siege in a farmhouse from creatures that lurk in the dark – not even any explanation of what the creatures are
A tv mini-series where Lindsay Wagner has a near-death experience and is then haunted by people come back from the dead to kill her. From the author of The Howling
Xavier Gens delivers a French copy of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. This is largely by the numbers excepting for a gore level raised to what must be a maximum for the genre
Kevin VanHook, otherwise a visual effects artist, directs a vampire hunter film that looks like a low-budget copy of better works like Blade and Vampires
Swedish film about vampires at a smalltown hospital and vampire pills thought to be party drugs that spread around the town. This is made with an uneven sense of black humour
Not to be confused with the Disney animated film, this is a harrowing survival drama from Adam Green about three characters trapped in mid-air on a ski chairlift
A film based on true-life serial killer Robert Hansen who would fly girls out into the Alaskan wilderness and then hunt them. Nicolas Cage is the dogged detective up against John Cusack as the killer
A psycho-thriller featuring Bo Derek as an agoraphobic wife dealing with the shock of seeing her husband murdered only to then find that his body has disappeared
Documentary about the so-called World’s Worst Director Uwe Boll. We get fascinating insight into Boll’s filmmaking methods, while the documentary fearlessly tackles the controversies associated with its subject
A documentary about the life of cult Italian horror director Lucio Fulci that is a mix of talking heads interviews and scenes where an actor reenacts aspects of Fulci’s life
A Peter Straub adapted ghost story that sits in an ambiguous state about whether Mia Farrow is seeing her dead daughter or going mad. This comes influenced by Don’t Look Now
Werewolf films were all the thing around 1980-1 with hits like The Howling and An American Werewolf in London. This is cult director Larry Cohen’s often extremely silly but not entirely unamusing comedy take
A documentary shot during the making of From Dusk Till Dawn, which gets to the heart of the issues in ways most making of documentaries don’t
This came out the same year as Peter Jackson’s overrated Heavenly Creatures, although wasn’t as recognised, but is a much better, more socially realistic version of the lesbian lovers-killers theme
Forgotten Canadian film about a series of murders around a former funeral home that has been converted into a guest house. Released at the height of the slasher cycle but this comes more in the vein of Psycho
Tobe Hooper makes a slasher film that is well above the average and one of his better films. Taking place in a carnival haunted house, Hooper shakes the slasher tropes up with undeniably freakish effect at times
Brutal Michael Haneke film where a family’s weekend getaway becomes a nightmare when two boys enter the house and proceed to torture and kill them. Haneke adds a level of meta-fiction that taunts the viewer’s participation
Michael Haneke’s English-language remake of his earlier home invasion film has a sense of pointlessness to it. But in following the original so closely, it also cannot help but work where it did
Brian De Palma returns to psychic powers themes in this successor to Carrie, but this is a much more sprawling and often incoherent narrative with only occasional moments of De Palma’s directorial flourish
This was the fourth (or maybe the fifth) of the Spanish films in the popular series about the wolfman Waldemar Daninsky starring Paul Naschy. Also one of the shabbiest of the series.
A film based on true-life serial killer John Wayne Gacy. This adheres to the facts for the most part but is also one of the dullest of the mid-00s spate of serial killer biopics
This has the great idea of paranormal investigators investigating the home of real-life serial killer John Wayne Gacy. Alas, Gacy is of zero relevance and the film no more that a tatty Found Footage effort
One of the most unique horror films in some time, an entirely original South African film work where forestry works encounter a living forest entity come to life around them
Though this received a reasonably high-profile release from Blumhouse, it transpires as no more than a Found Footage film about the haunting of a high-school play
The Gallows was a Found Footage film about a haunted high school play. Blumhouse have yet to have a success to which they are not willing to spin out a sequel
Gore-drenched French-Canadian film where teens play a board game that forces them to kill a select number of people lest their heads explode
A reality bending Bollywood film in which a wheelchair-ridden woman videogame designer is haunted by mysterious events, although quite what is all about is a very good question
One of the psycho-thrillers made by he great and underrated Curtis Harrington during the 60s/70s. The film draws much from Les Diaboliques, right down to casting its leading lady. Harrington delivers suspense with an expert hand
The tough hard-boiled Korean gangster film is a genre of its own. This uniquely has a detective and a crime kingpin deciding to join forces to track down a serial killer. Slated for remake by James Wan
This has the amusing idea of mashing the zombie film up with the Guy Ritchie gangster film, although never quite hits the comic-bookishly over-the-top posturing of Ritchie’s films
Fascinating Blaxploitation vampire film. In contrast to the more popular and cheesier Blacula, this is arty, oblique, almost an experimental film that manages to offer a unique take on the vampire film
A zombie film made not long after Night of the Living Dead with a wild premise – the prisoners on a chain gang get high inhaling formaldehyde, which causes them to rise from the dead after being shot in an escape attempt
A fascinating tv movie about the discovery of a race of demons. This has gained a cult reputation because of its uncanny atmosphere and the eerily unworldly title characters
Modest horror film of the 1980s where kids inadvertently open a demonic gateway. Like a juvenile version of Poltergeist, this comes with the bonus of some fairly good effects
A superior sequel to the modest The Gate. This borrows from H.P. Lovecraft and delves into the area of cursed wishes that turn on the wisher, all with imaginative results
Cult Japanese director Shinya Tsukamoto returns to his favourite topic of the repressed. This emerges as his version of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in a period-set work about an upstanding doctor haunted by his twin
One of the lesser films made by the director of The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, Robert Wiene. Wiene employs the same stark angular sets and exaggerated shadows in the tale of a predatory femme fatale
George A. Romero was hired to make the first Resident Evil film but was abruptly fired and we ended up with films we did. This is a documentary that sets out to find what happened
A zombie comedy that comes with a mildly amusing premise – where people stage an intervention to stop their friend eating people. This feels a single gag drawn-out as a full length film
Mike Flanagan tackles one of the most difficult Stephen King books from a logistics perspective – the book has only one character who is handcuffed naked to a bed for the duration – but pulls it off with great faithfulness
Zombie film about a small town overrun as people are infected with a virus from a fallen satellite. Familiar stuff conducted with a little more care than usual
Amid the 2010s spate of multi-director horror anthologies a la The ABCs of Death, V/H/S etc, this is a trio of tales from all German directors, the most well known of which is Jörg Buttgereit of Nekromantik infamy
One of the notorious 1970s Nazisploitation films, this Italian-made entry is one work that crosses way over taboo lines and makes for extreme watching
A rather funny comedy about four misfit youths on a wilderness survival course in the Scottish Highlands who run afoul of human hunters and pagan sacrifice
A rehash of The Stepford Wives recast along racial lines. It is a surprise to see a mainstream horror hit with a strong message about racism, not that Jordan Peele neglects the horror element either
Don Knotts was a popular comic of the era who specialised in a craven fearfulness. Here he plays in a haunted house comedy. Beyond Knotts’ comedic antics, the film never seems very interested in the haunted house aspect
The 1939 Bob Hope comedy remake of The Cat and the Canary was a big hit; here he and Paulette Goddard are put through the same in what is all but a sequel. Hope is on top form again
New Zealand director David Blyth directs a ghost story that draws on Chinese supernatural. Blyth seems to be straining to generate anything vaguely spooky
Another effort from the Golden Age of kaidan eiga (Japanese ghost story films) during the 1950s-60s. While this assembles the essentials of the genre, it is only delivered in terms of a series of strident and unsubtle pop-up effects
The third of the Blind Dead films about the zombies of blind Knights Templar. This is set aboard a ghost ship at sea and is said to have later influenced John Carpenter’s The Fog
Modest effort in which Scout Taylor-Compton becomes possessed by an evil spirit while in Thailand. Nothing groundbreaking but this creates reasonable atmosphere
Fine spooky Thai film about two doctors who set out to scientifically prove the existence of ghosts in a series of experiments that venture waaay over ethical boundaries
Low-budgeted independent US film that sets a ghost story around Chinese rituals. You can admire the serious ambition but the film only provides scares that are utterly tame
The fourth of Universal’s Frankenstein films where Lon Chaney Jr inherits the role of the monster and makes it into a stumbling brute that lacks the pathos of Boris Karloff. The plot recycles what has now become the cliches of the series
One of a number of films based on the most famous of all Japanese ghost stories. This is a adaptation made in the neo-realist style of the period that was released in two parts
The most obscure among the classic horror titles produced by Val Lewton – a beautifully stark and haunted piece about a man trapped at sea aboard a ship with a murderous captain
From the era of the quota quickie, this is a dreary British ghost story about a couple who buy a yacht before realising it is haunted. From Anglo-horror director Vernon Sewell.
This was a big-budget revival of the ghost ship theme by Dark Castle Entertainment about a salvage crew encountering a ghost vessel. Visual effects tend to trump spooky atmosphere
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
Another multi-director horror anthology – in this case a quartet of horror stories from Bollywood directors that comes with one standout episode in particular