The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
An adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe story produced by Roger Corman. Alas giving it to exploitation director Jim Wynorski, who likes to add really well stacked women to everything does, kills all of Poe’s atmosphere
Released for the fiftieth anniversary of the Manson Killings, this details the attacks on Sharon Tate by the Manson Family. The film expands on the claim that Tate had a precognitive dream about what was going to happen
A ghost story that takes place between two eras set aboard the real-life cruise liner Queen Mary, this conducts a variant on the ghost ship story with some reasonable effect
One of the tatty ghost stories made by The Asylum, sold with the association of famous haunted locations or murders. Minor moments of interest if you are prepared to wade through the over-hyped shocks
From the Golden Age of TV Movies, a name cast line-up arrive at a luxurious resort only to become trapped there and caught up in increasingly mysterious happenings
French thriller about police investigating a killer who is infecting victims with the bubonic plague and leaving Mediaeval clues, all part of an elaborate revenge scheme
BBC produced film with Helen Mirren as a housewife who believes her husband might be a serial killer. Despite promise, this never digs in like a good thriller should
An appealingly witty comedy where two losers set out to become vampire hunters with fumblingly inept results. Written and played with a snappy, sarcastic appeal
A bizarre pseudo-documentary from the silent era that claims to recount a history of Satanism and witchcraft. Much of the film’s thesis is spurious but the results are facsinating
A low-budget film about a university hazing in a haunted house that goes wrong. This overspills with genre tropes to eventually arrive at an appealing ridiculousness
A derivative and fairly lacklustre entry in the 1980s slasher film that is clearly imitative of Halloween featuring a killer who stalks brides-to-be
Henry Rollins is a man who may be immortal. Sort of like a dark version of The Man from Earth, this is made by the wittily phlegmatic indifference of Rollins’s performance and fascinatingly littered clues about who he might be
This feels like one of the numerous copies of Saw with eight people locked in a warehouse with video cameras implanted in their foreheads and told to that only one of them can leave alive
Modest and effective horror film about a teenager who starts to gains expanded mental abilities – but where this also appears to unleash monsters
Ghost story in which Trish Van Devere moves into her late aunt’s house where she is wooed by a handsome stranger while being haunted by a mysterious hearse
This is a film that manages to be both a slasher film and a romantic comedy, two genres that do not at all seem to go together but are made to with undeniably appealing results
One thing you don’t associate with Uwe Boll is a concern for social issues. Made in the aftermath of Columbine, this is an early Boll film that is a surprisingly solid attempt to address the scourge of US school shootings
Highly confused psycho-sexual thriller in which Jennifer Jason Leigh inherits a nightclub and begins to experience hallucinations after moving in. It is not at all clear what is going on
Fascinating British film about pacts with an ambiguous Devil figure. The film largely exists to push protagonist Jim Sturgess into as many morally uncomfortable places as possible
Film about a high-school stalker from Chris Sivertson, who breathes life into the cliches and has good central performances on hand to make the familiar plot seem fresh
A bizarre thriller where a husband and wife are imprisoned in a luxury house and forced upon threat of torture to improve their marriage
A cheap and tatty horror film set in a haunted asylum that was one of several similar films in the early 2000s that set out to exploit the then newly arrived fad for reality tv
From the creators of Reno 911, a comedy spoofing possession, exorcism and diabolical pregnancy cliches. This assembles material that feels as though it should have been funnier than it is
We have had several horror films set around Halloween haunts in recent years. This effort produced by Gale Anne Hurd is well above average and generates quite a degree of tension
The Adams Family have been one of the most interesting creative talents in recent years – a family who perform all the functions on their films. Here they reinvent the Alien-inspired monster movie with highly entertaining results
An entry in the 1980s slasher movie fad and featuring Linda Blair. Here a group of students are forced to spend a night in an old dark house. Slightly better than the average
This was one of the entries from the 1980s heyday of the Italian zombie film where people were copying Dawn of the Dead but pushing everything to a gore-drenched extreme
This has a witty idea – a parody of a soap opera combined with a slasher film. This is amusing, but the rest of the film consists of frenzied caricatures and a dearth of laugh out loud moments
Another of the family efforts from The Adams Family – John Adams, Toby Poser and daughters. This is a unique and original film about modern witches living in backwoods New York
Hysterically bad film where Chuck Norris turns one-man fighting machine and goes all out to save the world from the Anti-Christ calling down the Armageddon
The first of the Hellraiser sequels. This lacks Clive Barker’s original dark obsessive vision but is worthwhile in its own right, expanding the scope of the story out into a magnificent vision of Hell
The first of Guillermo Del Toro’s adaptations of Mike Mignola’s comic-book about a demon superhero. Not as good as the sequel, the film’s ace in the hole is Ron Perlman in the title role
The second of two animated Hellboy spinoffs, this renders what might have been impressive superheroics had they been conducted in live-action down at the level of children’s animation
The first of two animated Hellboy spinoffs with the live-action actors returning to voice their parts. This is the better of the two animated films, developing a weirdness as it takes Hellboy inside a Japanese spirit realm
A mind-bogglingly wacky entry in the gonzo Japanese splatter film featuring a crazed bloodbath as Japan is overrun by zombies. This goes frequently nuts featuring vehicles and plans made up of zombie bodies
Frequently ridiculous low-budget horror film set in a Western recreation town where the owner has resurrected his daughter from the dead
This Polish film starts out seeming like a possession film set in a monastery but rather pleasingly keeps turning all the expectations on their head with increasingly wilder effect
The return of director of Pontypool should be anticipated. But this kills a near-foolproof premise – masked children come after a heroine on Halloween night wanting her unborn baby – with a pink lighting scheme
Typical 1990s video release with mad scientist John Saxon creating zombie experiments amid entertainingly gooey meltdowns and a title intended to make you think this is a Hellraiser film
Unrelated in any way to the slasher film Prom Night, this plants tongue in cheek as it tries to imitate the A Nightmare on Elm Street films in its story of a vengeful undead prom queen
The Hellraiser sequels begin their descent to mediocrity. Clive Barker’s original vision of dark, forbidden pleasures has been watered down and the Cenobites become little more than campy variations on Freddy Krueger
The fifth Hellraiser sequel and the only one among the last four worth watching. It brings back Ashley Laurence but abandons the Cenobites for a fascinating series of reality bending games
Seventh and worst of the Hellraiser films. Clive Barker had departed three films ago and the copyright taken by a company that specialises in cheap sequels. This blurs reality and illusion so much it makes no sense
The film that put the name of Clive Barker on the map. A work of considerable imagination where Barker delves into forbidden pleasures and fuses the film with S&M imagery for the memorable creations of the Cenobites
A valiant attempt to remake Clive Barker’s glistening and brilliant original that only emerges as a better made version of one of the sequels. This has a disappointing tameness that would never have inspired a series of sequels
Fourth of the Hellraiser films. This attempts to tell a story set in three different eras but was subject to much studio interference that waters the vision down to something forgettable
The eighth of the Hellraiser films. By now a long way from Clive Barker’s original vision and no more than a haunted house story where the Cenobites occasionally turn up. With a young unknown Henry Cavill
Fifth and best of Hellraiser sequels after Clive Barker bowed out. Scott Derrickson made his directorial debut here and infuses the series with some of the wild imagery and perverse darkness that Barker gave the original
The ninth Hellraiser sequel. Most of the others are a far call from Clive Barker’s original. This demonstrates that all hope is not lost in a wild and imaginative opening sequence
The ninth of the
A Pakistani copy of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Backwoods Brutality film, all served up with reasonable vigour. It is fascinating seeing the genre tropes translated between different cultures
Dan O’Bannon scripted film that is uncreditedly based on an H.P. Lovecraft story about family horrors and creatures lurking beneath the graveyard. Aka Bleeders
An immensely disturbing film loosely based on serial killer Henry Lee Lucas. John McNaughton directs with a chillingly understated ordinariness and Michael Rooker has never been better in a role.
A sequel to Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer that lacks the raw and disturbing quality of its predecessor both in its direction and in the recasting of anonymous Neil Giuntoli as Henry
Beautifully filmed, intimate work about a woman’s attempts to eke out survival in the woods in the aftermath of an unspecified apocalypse
Word of mouth hit that has in its fingertips the capacity to be a great horror film. Moments of intense spookiness and an awards-worthy performance from Toni Colette but Ari Aster has an unfocused script
Standout film with a very creepy Hugh Grant making two Mormon missionary girls a prisoner in his home. The script for this is so playful and audaciously challenging in its ideas that it blows you away.
One of Chuck Norris’s action films made for Cannon Films during his 1980s heyday. This is a rather forgettable police procedural where Chuck is cast as a detective hunting an escaped serial killer
Cabin in the Woods drama with Yvonne Strahovski and her children terrorised by a hulking masked maniac. Tension and suspense that feels served by a conveyor belt
Incomprehensible New Zealand film about a group of camp counselors being haunted by something as they run through the woods
Backwoods Brutality Chilean style. This has the look and feel of a lost 1970s film that some people insist on calling grindhouse. Not the most polished work but this does deliver assorted brutality, gore and cannibalism
A psycho-thriller about birdwatching? Adapted from a stage play, this takes place on a single set consisting of only two men in a hut talking. The nuances of dialogue hold great subtlety and the film arrives at an effective twist ending
A 1980s slasher film that takes place in a furniture store after hours. The film has the novelty of featuring a gay killer – and the results are really quite bizarre
A variant on the sinister child’s invisible companion theme. A fine cast has been assembled but the film goes and kills itself with a lame twist ending
A Dean R. Koontz adaptation from the director of The Lawnmower Man, this is a numbingly predictable film in which Jeff Goldblum returns from the dead to find he has a psychic link with a serial killer
A psycho film with an original premise – Gary Busey as a psycho who builds a hidey-hole in the attic of a house where he spies on and tries to manipulate the lives of the family living there
The Gonzo Japanese Splatter Film offers a wild array of splatter, bio-transformations and an obsession with schoolgirls’ panties. This is a low-budget entry that offers something akin to a zombie-hunting equivalent of Buffy
The film that made the world take notice of Alexandre Aja. Aja serves up a brutal and gore-drenched variant on the Backwoods Brutality film, although things fall apart in an absurd twist ending
Robert Harmon made the classic The Hitcher, but failed to ever follow up on it. This is the sole work that ever came close – a beautifully tense series of games between Jim Caviezel and a motorised killer on the backroads
A film of legendarily bad proportions where a group of Country and Western singers end up in a haunted house. Despite casting some famous horror actors, this is more interested in its excruciating country performances
Sequel to the 2006 remake of Wes Craven’s Backwoods Brutality classic (not to be confused with the sequel that Craven made to his original), this is premised around a series of extremely gory set-pieces
The second film from Wes Craven, a classic in the 1970s Backwoods Brutality cycle with a family stranded in the desert as they come under attack from a family of cannibals lurking in the hills
Wes Craven’s Backwoods Brutality classic gets a gore-drenched makeover from Alexandre Aja. One of the better amid the 2000s fad for horror remakes where the original is dragged into the modern day in some interesting ways
Wes Craven makes a sequel to his earlier Backwoods Brutality classic but the result is a mess that is all over the place and counts as one of Craven’s worst films
A Backwoods Brutality effort that is somewhat better than usual thanks to a darkly acerbic David J. Schow script that constantly subverts the expectations of the genre
One of the early mockbusters from The Asylum about a in-bred family of cannibals that live in a cave. This was made to come out the same time as the remake of The Hills Have Eyes
Excellent film based on true-life serial killers Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono with C. Thomas Howell and Nicholas Turturro giving electrifying performances in the respective roles
The idea of a horror film set around US football leaves you scratching your head – the two don’t seem to go together. Produced by Jordan Peele, this comes out somewhere between Any Given Sunday and The Neon Demon
One of the worst films ever made – a parody of The Blair Witch Project that mostly consists of various rappers (including Eminem and Vanilla Ice) incoherently improvising a series of monologues about said witch
After his extraordinary breakthrough with Tetsuo: The Iron Man, Shinya Tsukamoto went onto make this altogether lighter film about demon hunters, filled with bizarrely wacky imagery and way-out effects
David Lynch’s daughter Jennifer is a much better director than she is given recognition for. She disowned this work about a snake goddess taken on human form nevertheless creates a film that is equal parts lushly sensual and madcap lunacy
A documentary that explores the intersection between heavy metal music and horror and the frequently intertwined relationship of the two
Argentinean horror film about a tv interview with a black magician where things then proceed to start going wrong. Shot in a dense black-and-white and claustrophobic mock-up of an old tv show
A non-fiction film about Alfred Hitchcock and the making of Psycho. The script does a great job nailing the psychological undertows and the parts are brought to life with several tour-de-force performances
One of the best horror films of the 1980s, a grippingly suspenseful work where C. Thomas Howell is caught in a series of taunting psychological games across the interstate after offering psychopathic hitcher Rutger Hauer a ride
Another disappointing remake of an 80s horror film, this misses the gripping suspense and everything that worked about the 1986 original and turns it into just another teen horror film
The Hitcher was a classic of 1980s horror. This is a cheap and indifferently made sequel that brings back C. Thomas Howell but misses all of the seat-edge suspense of the original
This comes with an interesting idea about an infection that links all the infectees together into a gestalt of shared memories even if the delivery is uneven
Solid effort about two girls who venture into a storage facility only to unleash a creature. Filled with reasonable and effective tensions, not to mention a surprise mid-film twist that makes it into something else
Another of the Grindhouse mock trailers gets it own film. This hits in with a wonderfully enthusiastic B movie energy and buckets of gore that remind of early Peter Jackson
Irish director Damian McCarthy impressed a good deal with Oddity. In his equally spooky follow-up, writer Adam Scott travels to a hotel in Ireland only to become trapped in a haunted suite
The fourth of Abbott and Costello’s films, a knockoff of the then recent hit of the Bob Hope remake of The Cat and the Canary involving much comedic running around a supposedly haunted mansion
This has quite a few similarities to the underrated The Wind with Sarah Paulson as a mother in the 1930s Dustbowl seeing possible supernatural figures amid the dust storms, which could just as easily be fraying sanity
British psycho-thriller about teenagers trapped inside a bunker. This does an interesting mid-film twist to offer an entirely different version of the story but never rises above the middle-of-the-road
One of the less known films of Joe Dante. A 3D work that just predates Avatar, it is a YA horror story in the vein of The Goonies or Dante’s own Explorers crafted with care and an affection for the characters
An Irish film that creates quite a reasonable degree of atmosphere in its story of a mother who believes her son has been replaced by something else
Another in the spate of multi-director horror anthologies with each episode here being set around a holiday. As with these films, some of the episodes work well, some end with a puzzled WTF and most fall somewhere in between
One doesn’t have high expectations of a Syfy Channel film. On the other hand, director Sheldon Wilson surprises and creates a highly original monster and moments of considerable tension
Although effort is made to sell this as a horror film and there are some ghosts, this is far more of a missing woman thriller. A directing/writing debut for Guisela Moro who plays the abducted woman
Construed by prolific B movie hack Fred Olen Ray around its two stars – Gunnar Hansen, the original Leatherface, and Scream Queen Linnea Quigley, this hits a perfect note between bimbos, tongue-in-cheek and cheap gore