The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
A striking variant on the vampire film full of rich metaphor. Set against the backdrop of Oxford university, this explains vampirism as a psychological condition brought on by sexual impotence and academic pressure
From an early script by S. Craig Zahler, this is an incredibly brutal and harrowing work about a group of cooks trapped inside an asylum for the criminally insane during a power cut
Hideo Nakata, director of Ring, offers his take on reality tv shows – where contestants are locked up Big Brother-style and encouraged to kill one another. The film comes with much homage to classic murder mysteries
Mad scientist Bruce Dern creates a two-headed transplant. Unlike The Thing with Two Heads from the same company, this lacks an appreciable sense of its own absurdity
One of the great ridiculous titles of all time. It’s a shame there’s nothing that comes anywhere near matching it in this tatty, poorly made film about a fortune teller turning men into disfigured, hypnotised slaves
The novelty of the only film ever made in Esperanto. Featuring a young William Shatner as a man who stumbles into a village of demonic temptresses
A film about a shapeshifting demonic rapist. This is far more tastefully presented than its premise would suggest, in fact comes with he plodding sedateness of a tv movie
A zombie film from Venezuela in which a lone doctor struggles to survive after a train of mutated rabies spreads throughout the countryside. A solid entry in the genre.
Forget about the ostensible explanation about outbreaks of Lyme Disease in the script, this is another zombie film in all but name even if the phrase is never mentioned
Dario Argento’s sequel to Suspiria, the second film in his Third Mothers trilogy. This is an even better work where Argento delights in sadistic and beautifully artistic imagery almost entirely free of any plot
A French film that ratchets up quite a reasonable degree of scary tension in taking a kitchen sink view as spiders overrun a low-income Paris apartment building
A standout thriller full of sharp whiplash twists that features Cassandra Naud as a murderous psycho who targets social media influencers and then steals their identities
Influencer with Cassandra Naud as a psycho who targets and then impersonates social media influencers was a modest hit, filled with a series of sharp whiplash twists. This is a sequel
A horror film in which billionaire Bob Gunton traps his children in his mansion with him in the belief that something is trying to kill him as it slowly eliminates their numbers
An entry in the slasher film fad that features a young, fresh-faced and stunning Daphne Zuniga being stalked around a mall during a sorority hazing prank
A TV movie that has been construed as a blatant copy of Carrie where innocent Kay Lenz moves into a sorority house and finds occult goings-on around her
A remake of the 1978 tv movie about occult rituals in a girl’s sorority house. This is a film that feels directed and written without any real involvement by those responsible.
From regular horror director Brian Yuzna, a sequel to the Christmas slasher films series. This is quite possibly not only the weirdest Christmas film ever made but the weirdest Christmas horror film ever made
Australian historical film that seems unsure what it wants to be and takes a long, meandering time before ever arriving at being the horror film it announces itself as
A ghost story from Ti West that gains its effect from a quiet, mundanely understated approach and existing in an ambiguous place where we cannot be sure whether manifestations are real or in the imagination
John Landis sets out to do for the vampire film what he did with the werewolf film in An American Werewolf in London, giving us Anne Parillaud as a vampire who preys on Mafia
Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw is a classic ghost story that hovers in a state of ambiguity as to whether the ghosts are real or in the heroine’s imagination. Of the multiple film versions, this is the best and most authentic to the story
Low-budget adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth about a town where the locals have become mutant fish people, which has been weirdly mashed up with a girls boarding school story
Horror film where Jesse Metcalfe has himself committed to an asylum to rescue his sister but comes up against Peter Stormare conducting mad science experiments turning inmates into zombies
The most difficult to watch of the films to come out of French Extremism about a pregnant woman pursued by a mystery woman determined to tear the baby from her womb
Found Footage film involving something (it is never clear) stalking people around disused cellars. Direction consists of a handheld camera vaguely waved in the direction of what is happening
The 2007 Inside in which a pregnant mother is pursued by a woman with a pair of scissors was one of the most brutal viewing experiences amid the French Extremism fad. This is the English-language remake
On a pure plot level, this is largely a generic haunted house story but director James Wan creates an eerie atmosphere and manages to undeniably jangle the audience’s nerves on a number of occasions
James Wan proves himself one of the finest directors in the horror genre with this sequel to his 2010 film. The plot is trimmed to deliver an effective scare show and Wan again produces a series of eerie and unworldly jumps
This doesn’t have James Wan directing and is a far less interesting ghost story before doing a repeat venture into the beyond. On the plus side, incoming director Leigh Whannell does generate a fair degree of eerie tension
After two fairly good initial entries, the Insidious series began its downward slide. Here new director Adam Robitel’s clumsy jumpshocks are a far cry from the eerie effects James Wan pulled off
The fifth film in the Insidious series. This time Patrick Wilson returns to the franchise and takes the director’s chair, showing he has been taking some lessons from James Wan
Christopher Nolan’s second film, an English-language remake of a Norwegian thriller. The action is relocated to Alaska and gets the addition of Robin Williams as a serial killer but is far less effective than the original
This sell itself as Anthony Hopkins in another Hannibal Lecter-like role. Rather than Silence of the Lambs, this emerges more as The Shawshank Redemption by way of Gorillas in the Mist
British psycho-thriller that is a little too laidback to work but does eventually put some effective twists on its audience
James Franco co-directs and stars as a sinister psychiatrist in a 19th Century asylum who subjects patients to drugs and mind control so they can play in elaborate orgies. Supposedly based on a true-life incident
An enigmatic and baffling Canadian-made film about a man who goes to life in the woods where something (possibly imaginary) seems to be taunting him. This eventually leaves audiences confused what is happening
Most of the attention this drew at the time was over the controversy of casting Tom Cruise as the vampire Lestat; otherwise Neil Jordan conducts an excellent adaptation of the Anne Rice novel
One of spate of near-identical films that all came out in the same year where Scout Taylor Compton’s boat is taken over by drug smugglers who force her to dive into shark-infested waters to retrieve drugs
A South Korean entry in the fad for Asian ghost stories that were popular in the 2000s following the successes of Ring and Ju-on/The Grudge. This later underwent remake as Alexandre Aja’s Mirrors
A slasher film set in a supermarket! This proliferates in a series of cut/uncut versions and has an amazing cast line-up, including acting appearances from Sam Raimi and most of his regular troupe
High hopes for this third film from Juan Carlos Fresnadillo emerge as no more than Boogeyman with shallow artistic pretensions and is a disappointingly middle of the road work
The haunted house genre has become so overused t feels mined out of original moves. Despite a better cast line-up, this follows all the familiar paths, even if it arrives at a quite different ending
From on an early script by Star Trek director Nicholas Meyer, this is an entertainingly tongue-in-cheek effort where women use a serum to turn into deadly bee creatures
An perfect example of 1970s exploitation cinema – a regional film made with no budget, a no-name cast and with all emphasis on the luridly sensationalistic. A crappy, badly made film on all counts
A low-budget cheapie starring Bela Lugosi as a widower who goes into a trance and starts killing women after having visions of his late wife’s ghost
The first in a trilogy of Spanish detective thrillers adapted from Dolores Redondo concerning ritual child killings, a serial killer and a local Bigfoot type creature lurking in the background
A painfully bad film about a jailed killer who uses astral projection powers to become invisible and leave his cell to take revenge on those who convicted him
Karyn Kusama returns to screens with a film about a sinister dinner party. This resides in usual horror effects than it takes place in brooding, unsaid things and a palpable sense of something terrible about to happen
A woman discovers she is related to an aristocratic family but sinister secrets lurk. The film hangs on a big twist that is extremely obvious to anyone who has seen enough horror films
A New Zealand-made horror film with Karl Urban as an anthropology lecturer who debunks the occult who is targeted and forced to go on the run from a Satanist cult
A highly controversial Gaspar Noe film that is all told in reverse chronological order, depicting the rape of Monica Bellucci and violent revenge by her husband Vincent Cassel
The first and best screen adaptation of H.G. Wells’ novel The Island of Dr Moreau. Wells was not happy but Charles Laughton is a great Moreau and the film develops a remarkable sexual undertow
One of the classic psychological horror films from producer Val Lewton. This is a slightly less effective Lewton work featuring Boris Karloff on a plague-ridden island unsure if a vampire creature is responsible
A zombie film produced by The Asylum that appropriates the name of the Val Lewton classic (and Arnold Bocklin’s painting) but is actually a low-budget copy of Resident Evil
One of four cheap and tatty Mexican films made by Boris Karloff just before his death. Here Karloff plays a Caribbean plantation owner obsessed with voodoo rituals
Irish horror film about a series of deadly parasites amok on a rural farm. Playing like a serious version of the NZ comedy Black Sheep (but with cows), this has a grim, grimy atmosphere to it that does produce some undeniable effect
Ten different filmmakers from around the world combine to make an anthology of eight horror stories set during the Covid lockdown
Stephen King adapted mini-series and one of the best. A dark Coming of Age tale, Tim Curry makes an unsettling Pennywise (in doing so popularised the figure of the killer clown)
I far preferred the 1990 mini-series to the cinematic remake of the Stephen King book. This emerges as a lesser copy of tv’s Stranger Things, which did the whole 80s nostalgia/horror story far better
I had mixed feelings about the first part Andy Muschietti’s adaptation of Stephen King’s novel. The second part here is a better film, although it too eventually gets buried in over an hour’s worth of Muschietti’s jumpshocks
Undeniably effective horror about a deadly shapeshifting phantom that gets passed by sexual contact. Imagine Ring by way of a Larry Clark film. This creates rather good unsettlingly uncanny atmosphere
This was the first of Larry Cohen’s sequels to his killer mutant baby film It’s Alive. Here Cohen uses the occasion to expand the themes in richer depth and makes a work that stands up as well as the original
A US-made film from an East Indian director who draws on his cultural background in the story of a girl haunted by a demon from Hindu myth
The most original treatment of the zombie film in some time. Rather hilariously, what we get is a film about a girl being pursued by a single zombie (at a walking pace) and the slow relationship she develops with it
This feels as though the director, frustrated with lack of financing, grabbed a camera and shot a film around his home. This generates a modest creepiness but falls apart at a credibiity-stretching ending
The last few years have seen the slasher film conduct some odd conceptual crosshatches – this offers a mash-up between a slasher film and It’s a Wonderful Life
Larry Buchanan is a director on a par with Edward D. Wood Jr. This, not to be confused with the 1974 killer baby film, is his best film. Buchanan creates a perverse obsessiveness that is fascinating to watch
The film about a killer mutant baby that made the name of director Larry Cohen who developed a cult following. Cohen infuses it with rich imagery and dark sense of humour. Several sequels followed
Larry Cohen’s 1974 cult classic about a killer mutant baby gets the remake treatment. Even though Cohen co-writes the script here, the remake manages to wring anything interesting out of the original
The third of Larry Cohen’s killer mutant baby films that began with the cult It’s Alive. Cohen’s humour is again present but the film feels like a hodgepodge of ideas left over from the other films
An LGBT romance featuring fantastic performances from Juno Temple and Riley Keough before they became better known names. This also acts as an ambiguous monster movie
An over-the-top New Zealand-made Gothic horror with Alexis Arquette and Sarah Smuts-Kennedy as psychically connected brother and sister who set out on a quest to find their parents, killing all in the way
This leads to you expect a horror comedy but spends half its running time in build-up with no comedy or monster slaying, although does deliver on this with an entertaining effects-heavy climax
Jack Frost, not to be confused with the Michael Keaton film of the same name, was an amusing horror comedy about a killer mutant snowman. This is a sequel that takes Jack to a beach resort in Hawaii
A film about a killer snowman. Conceived as a one-liner spouting villain and outfitted with a series of novelty Christmas-themed deaths, this does not take itself too seriously with rather appealing results
Actor Thomas Dekker directs a film in which Rory Culkin travels home for a funeral and finds disturbing revelations about his past. This circles around weird happenings without going anywhere
Film with a class of teenagers a class of teenagers on a field trip is pursued through a haunted carnival by a mythical boogeyman
Dramatisation of the Jack the Ripper murders that resembles a cheap British quota quickie but musters some okay gaslit atmosphere. Alas, the film has done little research on the details of Ripper casefile
A version of the Jack the Ripper killings from cult exploitation director Jess Franco starring Klaus Kinski. Neither Franco or Kinski are up to much. The film’s resemblance to the facts of the Ripper case is close to zero
TV mini-series made for the 100th anniversary of the Jack the Ripper killings. While the show adheres more to the facts of the case of any filmed work up to that point and to have uncovered new evidence, it should be considered fiction
A girl sets out to solve the Jack the Ripper killings to free her innocently convicted brother. No more, no less factual than any other version but it conducts a fine period recreation of Victorian England
One of the directors of the Saw sequels surprises with this film where a family’s attempts to conduct a cult deprogramming as masked cultists surround the house prepared to do anything to get their recruit back
This comes with a fantastic pitch – it was released on the centenary of the Jack the Ripper killings and features a Ripper copycat operating in the present. Alas, this becomes a massive wasted opportunity
One of the least known of George Romero’s films. Made not long after Rosemary’s Baby, this concerns itself with bored suburban housewives dabbling in witchcraft. Aka Season of the Witch
Adrian Lyne became one of the most visually exciting directors of the 1980s. Here he makes an afterlife film that swings between moments of greatness and a script that seems very confused about what is happening
Another remake that nobody asked for. The 1990 film is reworked in a script that ditches almost all of the afterlife themes and instead seems to want to be a film about veterans addicted to reality-blurring drugs
A completely ridiculous thriller with Kevin Kline playing a fireman-detective who is tracking a serial killer. It is hard to tell if it was intended as a comedy but it managed to attract an impressive cast list
This may count as the worst horror film to be released in the entire 80s VHS era. The plot concerns a man who is left a strange jar that causes a series of terrifying hallucinations
The ninth of the Friday the 13th films and the most variant and fun of the series. This cheerfully turns expectations on their head and readily punctures the series cliches
The sixth and one of the better Friday the 13th films. This time the usual formula of the series is conducted with an undeniable sense of humour
The tenth Friday the 13th film. This tries to add novelty as Jason is thawed out in the future aboard a space station to slaughter anew. Featuring no less than David Cronenberg as a victim
The killer shark film that became the No 1 box-office hit of all time and put Steven Spielberg’s name on the map. A powerhouse of seat-edge tension, filled with great performances and the young Spielberg with an incredible grasp of his craft
The best of the mostly worthless Jaws sequels. With a bigger budget, the shark attacks are more spectacular but there is nothing akin to the sustained suspense of the first film’s extended climax
The second sequel to the hit killer shark film. This is shot with gimmick of the early 80s 3D revival fad but this has the effect of reducing Steven Spielberg’s masterful suspense to a series of novelty pop-up shocks
This seems to have been slung together as a mash-up of Jaws and the 1970s fad for occult films. Ridiculous and badly made on all levels, no more so than the climax with a giant snake conducting a devil worship ceremony
The widely ridiculed fourth Jaws film. This is at least better than the third film, having one of two okay shark attack scenes but the melodramatics are drawn out and tedious
A Blaxploitation film where decent law student Glynn Turman is possessed by the spirit of J.D., a petty hood who was shot in the 1940s and now sets out to take revenge
Having been promised for a long time, this is the third of Victor Salva’s Jeepers Creepers films. Filled with some unworldly jumps, this is also the slightest of the Jeepers Creepers trilogy
Creepy film about a brother and sister who are pursued on a road journey by a supernatural creature that drives a truck. This became a word of mouth hit and was followed by several sequels