The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Interesting attempt to rewrite Carmilla for the Twilight crowd. In fact, this is a film that features more credible teenage girls and is far more successful as a horror film and at creating uncanny mood than the Twilight films were
From prolific British producer Scott Jeffrey/Scott Chambers, this is a supernatural retribution film that was sold as a Krampus film even though there is no Krampus in it
There was undeniable shock value watching this BBC mini-series with 1960s sex symbol Diana Rigg cast as a venomous middle-aged woman with murder on her mind
The Adams Family are one of the most impressive genre talents of recent years. It has been fascinating watching them explore a dark version of American folk horror – this goes into their darkest places yet
After 27 years, Dario Argento finally rounds out his Three Mothers trilogy begun with Suspiria. However, the underwhelming results give all evidence of his having lost his mojo
One in a series of popular British drag comedies of the era, this imports Bela Lugosi as a mad scientist for a series of frenetic and none-too-funny goings-on that make little sense
A psycho-thriller in which Jamie Lee Curtis is cast as a psychopathic mother who is determined to get her boys back from her ex, even exhorting to murder to do so
This was made parody of the 1970s Backwoods Brutality cycle and revels in cartoonish bad taste. One of the very first films produced by Lloyd Kaufman, later of Troma fame
This has nothing in common with the 1980 film it is based on and we instead we get a home invasion film. Darren Lynn Bousman of Saw sequel fame shows that brutality and torture are all he has in his arsenal
Genuinely creepy film supposedly based on a true story in which Richard Gere investigates a phenomenon known as the Mothman and starts to receive visions, time blurrings and much in the way of uncanny happenings. A film that leaves you with a sense of something unearthly happening just beyond your grasp
A completely ridiculous slasher film about a maniac attacking around a camping ground. Featuring a no-name cast, this frequently collapses into the laughable
A strong contender for the worst Blair Witch copy AND the worst Amityville film ever made. This has the feel of a home movie made by a husband and wife and is laughable in its failings
One of several horror films made after Mickey Mouse entered into public domain. Here Mickey is a half-human hybrid slaughtering victims at a deserted fairground
Another of the Mickey Mouse horror films that emerged when the character entered public domain. This features a Mickey Mouse masked killer pursuing teens through an amusement arcade
Takashi Miike tv mini-series with a mind-boggling plot involving a split personalitied detective, possession, a terrorist pop star and barcodes imprinted in eyeballs
An overlooked effort where Kevin Costner, in a surprisingly dark and undeniably effective turn, plays an everyday man who has a dark side as a serial killer. A very impressively outing on all levels
A nicely made Stephen King adaptation about a teen who starts to receive text message from beyond the grave. From Ryan Murphy, the producer behind tv’s Glee and American Horror Story
Another of the gimmick films from William Castle – a work of Grand Guignol in its story of a man with a permanently frozen Joker-like grin, which Castle fills with memorable shock effects
A New Zealand-made ghost story where single girl Heather Bolton buys a second-hand car only to find it is haunted, while at the same time she is harassed by a stalker
While the title makes this sound like a family-friendly film about Santa’s wife, whereas this is actually a another low-budget Christmas slasher film
In his second film, director Abel Ferrara turns the rape-revenge film on its head with Zoe Tamerlis as a mute woman who begins shooting men after she is raped
A Ron Bonk film misleadingly sold with connection to the notorious Italian cannibal film, concerning the tenants of an apartment building under siege by a mysterious cult
Group of friends are attacked by a horde of albinoid creatures – this is the whole of the film. The director’s obsession with undressed girls at every opportunity gets in the way of what could have been a decent film
The first film from Jim Mickle, a tense and effective work of horror about the residents of an apartment building under siege from rat-human hybrids
British film that locates a Texas Chain Saw Massacre-type show in an urban setting, featuring a couple who maintain a family of imprisoned captives. This delves down into a genuinely disturbed headspace
The original mummy film starring Boris Karloff. Unlike the sequels where the mummy became a slow, shuffling creature, this is a subtle classic with haunted mood.
Nominal remake of the Boris Karloff The Mummy, which has now been inflated into a big budget Indiana Jones adventure. Stephen Sommers lets the film overspill with CGI spectacle but the exercise is deflated by a jokey, unserious attitude
The reboot of the Mummy series emerges as a wannabe Michael Bay film where even star Tom Cruise plays second banana to the CGI eye candy. Equally, an attempt to jumpstart a shared universe out of Universal’s Famous Monsters with the inclusion of Dr Jekyll seems awkward
After their enormously successful revival of Dracula and Frankenstein, Hammer Films and Terence Fisher turned to revive the mummy film, all with the bold, vivid effect of their early films
Low-budget film that would very much like it if we mistook it for one of the Brendan Fraser Mummy films
Sequel to the 1999 The Mummy. Here Stephen Sommers amplifies everything in that film by a factor of ten where the constant bombardment by the spectacular reaches an point of absurd overkill
In a seeming competition for the most ridiculous killer shark of all time, Z budget director Mark Polonia gives us a film about a mummy shark revived from an Egyptian pyramid
The third of the Brendan Fraser Mummy films that feels like it has no point other than to steal $10 from your hand and give you a bucket of content free mental popcorn in return
This was the fourth and final of Universal’s Mummy films starring Lon Chaney Jr. However, by this point the series had become trapped in a series of repetitive plot moves
This was the fourth and second to last of Universal’s Mummy films with Lon Chaney Jr in the role of Kharis. By now the series has been reduced to a well-worn formula
The first and best of Universal’s Mummy sequels with Tom Tyler in the role, this achieves modest atmosphere
The third of Universal’s Mummy films where Lon Chaney Jr inherits the role of Kharis
Freddie Francis was one of the key players of the Anglo-horror cycle – he claimed this was his favourite film. The film consists of giggly scenes of adults running around playing children’s games
Film about an escaped killer and teenagers stalked on a haunted stretch of road. A film that creates mystery about what is happening only to reach a frustrating non-resolution
A film spinoff from tv’s The Munsters, a likeable knockabout farce featuring the original cast that takes the characters to England and has them enter a car race
Rob Zombie conducts a big-screen remake of The Munsters and surprisingly enough makes his best film yet
After the successes of Japanese ghost stories like Ringu and Ju-on: The Grudge, this was a South Korean ghost story set in Vietnam concerning a haunted painting.
A lavish production that has the fictional character of Sherlock Holmes solving the real-life Jack the Ripper murders, even if the eventual resolution opts for one of the more far-fetched Ripper theories
A police procedural thriller with Sandra Bullock as a burned-out detective investigating two teenagers who have decided to commit a murder as an experiment in amorality
A giallo film with occult overtones centred around the discovery of an Etruscan tomb. As a series of murders occur, the heroine may be the reincarnation of an ancient high priestess
A tv movie based on the true-life murder of hitchhiker Peter Falconio and the trial by media of his girlfriend Joanne Lees, the same murders that became the basis of Wolf Creek
Spanish film about a group of people gathered at a mansion as spooky happenings begin happening and people are killed off
A psycho film about a serial killing photographer who stalks Las Vegas, this goes way out of its way to offend people but collapses under its determination to be edgy
This throws out all of the Edgar Allan Poe story except for the title and the ape and instead makes a Bela Lugosi mad scientist film. An entertainingly lurid affair strongly influenced by German Expressionism
Highly entertaining film with Lionel Atwill as a wonderfully mad zookeeper who uses his collection of wild animals to kill those who threaten to expose him
Jaume Balaguero has become one of the top Spanish genre directors. However, this supernatural mystery that resembles one of Dario Argento’s Three Mothers films fails to quite come together
Underrated director John ‘Bud’ Cardos does extremely creating a smalltown atmosphere simmering with Southern bigotry, before the film erupts into a more standard toxic waste zombies outbreak film
A prime example of the gonzo Japanese splatter film, filled with mind-boggling anatomical rearrangements and attachments, the screen awash with blood and everything directed with a mad cartoonish energy
There is a good idea here – rival street gangs and a white cop are forced to cooperate to deal with the zombie apocalypse. Alas, this directorial outing from the writer of the Sharknado films emerges cheaply
Rather tedious throwback to the 1940s mad scientist film in which Donald Pleasence is turning people into plant mutations and pawning his mistakes off to the circus
A gripping directorial debut for Anthony Waller where a mute assistant on a film set in Moscow witnesses the shooting of a snuff film and is targeted by the Russian underworld
Comedy where teenager Robert Sean Leonard is bitten by a vampire on a one-night stand and has to deal turning into a vampire himself while keeping it a secret at school
A possession film that is quite a bit more than the light fluffy Young Adult film the title makes it seem,. Boosted by a great performance from Amiah Miller
From the heyday of the slasher film, an effort designed to exploit another holiday title after the successes of Halloween and Friday the 13th. This adapts the formula better than most of its ilk
Another in the fad for remakes of 70s/80s films. where the 1981 slasher film gets reworked. If this did not come with the 3D gimmick, it would be no more than a routine direct-to-dvd release
Not particularly funny Disney comedy in which a teenager returns from the dead as a zombie and nobody seems to notice any difference. Does contain a number of before-they-were-famous names
A film based on serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer’s last year of high school before he began his killing spree. Based on a graphic novel written by Dahmer’s best friend, this is a surprisingly sympathetic portrait of social isolation
In the best tradition of George Romero’s Martin, this is an ordinary kitchen sink vampire film focused around a family trying to protect a sickly sibling
One of the best of several horror films that came out immediately following the advent of the reality tv show in the early 2000s. Director Marc Evans creates a sense of clammy claustrophobia.
Fairly silly comedy in which housewife Susan Blakely discovers that she is turning into a werewolf. This varies between the over-the-top and the oddly amusing line
Shane Ryan retells the story of true-life teen murderer Alyssa Bustamante as part of a Larry Clark-type film about troubled youth. Not always an easy work but holds undeniable effect
A collaboration between Werner Herzog and David Lynch makes for an exceedingly strange film, involving matricide, mental illness and ostriches – and all apparently based on a true life murder
A misfire from the usually reliable Wes Craven, this drearily traipses through a slasher/supernatural plot that lacks any surprises or Craven’s characteristic atmosphere
A William Castle-styled gimmick film where frightening images were subliminally projected on the screen. The plot where a newlywed wife has a recurrent dream of a sinister house has a disappointingly mundane rationale
Film made during World War II about the locals of small English town dealing with a haunted mine and uncovering a Nazi infiltration plot
Classic horror film, later remade as House of Wax, with Lionel Atwill giving a wonderfully mad performance as a waxworks curator who covers murdered bodies in wax to serve as his exhibits
A mind-bogglingly deranged example from the largely unexplored arena of Indonesian exploitation cinema as an American woman becomes involved with local witchcraft
This creates an intriguingly uncanny atmosphere in the story of a teenage girl who keeps seeing a strange goblin creature but nobody will believe her. The last half far less interestingly turns into a variant on E.T. with her racing to protect the creature
Beautifully moody black-and-white vampire film from Michael Almereyda. A modernised reworking of Dracula’s Daughter
Film that takes place with the heroine confined to a hospital bed unable to move as a malevolent ghost enters her room
Vivid, well written production from George Pal with Charlton Heston as the owner of a South American plantation who faces an unstoppable horde of marabunta ants that are devouring everything in their path
The second in the works of arty vampire erotica that gained French director Jean Rollin a cult following. The surreal visuals and in particular the costuming make for mind-boggling visuals
This was the first film from ultra low-budget director Larry Buchanan, a nudie about a witch burned at the stake who rises to seek vengeance against the descendants of her persecutors
Obscure almost interesting film where Robert Culp drops out of city life, renovates a possibly haunted house before being drawn into a surreal Free Love fantasia
The first film from Spanish director Jaume Balaguero, an adaptation of a Ramsey Campbell novel about a mother trying to rescue her daughter from a child sacrifice cult
Following the highly successful Animal House, this was the second of the films made using the name of the satirical magazine National Lampoon and is a feeble parody of the slasher film
A Halloween horror from a director with a reasonable genre association, this establishes its genre bona fides but then shoots itself in the foot
Oliver Stone film with Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis as a couple on an ultra-violent mass murder spree. Stone gets heavy-handedly preachy but directs with an excess of style that proves enormously entertaining
From Jeepers Creepers director Victor Salva, a gripping road movie thriller that owes somewhat to The Hitcher with a series of psychological games between Lance Henriksen and hitcher Eric Roberts where we can never be sure what is what
About the only ‘vs’ titled zombie film to take itself seriously. I have no time for films about the glory of military heroism, but this must be commended as one of the few films where the soldiers feel like a real trained combat unit
A modestly effective film from the increasingly underrated Stuart Brennan about a group of deserting soldiers during the Napoleonic Wars who enter a haunted forest
Drawing very clear influence from Clive Barker and Saw, this is a delve down into perverse fetish, gateways to Hell and bizarre hallucinations. After watching the film through twice, I still remain confused to what it was all about
Anthology of three H.P. Lovecraft tales from directors Christophe Gans, Brian Yuzna and Shusuke Kaneko. For claiming such a quintessentially Lovecraftian title as this, you feel that it should have been more than it is
German low-budget film about a resurrected sorcerer, this goes out on a wild edge, winds everything up to 15 on the dial and positively wades in blood, gore and torture scenes
Ridiculous cheap 1980s video release about a witch burned at the stake returned as a New Wave punkette to claims souls
Anodyne adaptation of a weaker Stephen king novel about a curio shop that sells objects that cause people to become obsessed and in so doing wreaks havoc throughout a small town
A psychologist is sent in to interview a killer facing execution who makes the claim he is possessed by a demon. Despite being made by the people behind God’s Not Dead, this is actually a well-made and captivating film
The second film from the director of Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead about demon hunters. A great deal has been expanded on the creature effects and in building the film’s mythology.
Jörg Buttgereit’s sequel to his shocking necrophilia film
From German director Jörg Buttgereit, a shocking and full-on film about necrophilia that defies all taboos and holds little back. This has a raw, in our face shock value that hits direct to the gut
Nicolas Winding Refn makes a horror film set in the L.A. modelling world. A film of hypnotic, glittering surfaces with a disturbing undertow – the result is like Valley of the Dolls as remade by Dario Argento
Very typical 1980s horror film steeped in an enthusiasm for the genre that makes a beeline for cheesy mutant monster effects
This is like an online version of 13 Sins about an internet site that pushes people to take increasingly more outrageous and eventually deadly dares. One of the new thrillers centred around social media that seeks to adopt its visual look, this is slickly polished and aimed direct to the teenage demographic
One of the better films from Charles Band’s Full Moon Productions set amid voodoo rites in the American South and creating an atmosphere of exotic/erotic mystery
Alexandre Aja film with Halle Berry and sons at a cabin in the woods facing an evil force outside. A work that screws with what we think is going on