The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
The Asylum’s Multi-Headed Shark Attack series hasn’t quite hit the sense of delirious absurdism that their Sharknado films did – the only gimmick the series has is to keep adding heads to the shark. On the other hand, a scene where where the shark emerges onto land walking on two of its heads will have you rolling on the floor in laughter
Low-budget film about a team of FBI ghost hunters investigating an abandoned prison where mysterious things are going on
An early mockbuster from The Asylum that came out the same day as The Omen remake, this conducts a blatant copy of The Omen on a low-budget
The film that made the name of M. Night Shyamalan and still a strong and spooky story despite the variability of Shyamalan’s offerings since then. What made the film a classic was its twist ending, something that has been relentlessly copied by numerous genre films since
Not to be confused with the Stephen King story collection, this is about a film crew shooting a film in an abandoned asylum about murders conducted there who discover a trove of snuff movies whereupon the director becomes obsessed with recreating them
Kate Hudson becomes a care-aid on an old Southern mansion and finds voodoo at work. Director Iain Softley piles on the Southern atmosphere but only strains at horror effect
An almost respectable film from David DeCoteau about a journalist uncovering the disappearance of a gay man in a town that eliminates those who do not conform to its wholesome lifestyle
Pedro Almodovar’s exquisitely lush homage to the mad surgeon fiilm Eyes Without a Face features a superb left field twist to become an extraordinary meditation on gender and identity
A considerable word of mouth hit, this generates a very spooky atmosphere with highly unusual shooting techniques
A serial killer film that is fairly strong stuff, starring Ted Raimi as a killer who skins his victims and wears their bodies. This pushed the censorship envelope considerably back in its day. With Ricki Lake as an innocent housewife who befriends Raimi
A big-budget revival of the werewolf film set amongst warring werewolf clans of bikers. Produced by Stan Winston and with an interesting cast line-up
Peter Cushing-Christopher Lee vehicle from Amicus with Cushing as a collector who obtains the Marquis de Sade’s possessed skull. One of the more over-rated Anglo-horror films, this feels more like an episode from one of their anthologies than a full film
Brazilian film about a possessed skull that inhabits a man to lay a gore-drenched trail across the city
A low-budget amateur-made zombie film that treads where hundred of other copycats have before. It sets itself apart from these very slightly in that it makes effort to chart a relationship between the leads and in that the zombies behave in puzzlingly non-traditional ways
Unexceptional South African slasher film with members of a band being stalked on a farm by a masked killer in order to provide a harvest of blood
A German-made copy of the Backwoods Brutality cycle that only rehashes clches and frequently verges on the amateurish in execution
The title is misleading – we expect some kind of internet based horror film but the show telescopes down to being no more than a Backwoods Brutality effort. On the other hand, it is not taking itself too seriously and some of the twists become entertainingly absurd
A giallo film about a killer who is murdering adulterous women. Standard material but some of the film’s dated sexual attitudes cause quite a double take today
A cheap and very poorly made British variant on the slasher film with much unintentional laughter potential, including a 36 year-old Caroline Munro cast as a teenager
Reasonable copy of The Silence of the Lambs with Scott Glenn as an FBI agent tracking a killer obsessed with Noah’s Ark
A hardcore and irredeemably nasty film, this has the aesthetic of a snuff movie and features lots of scenes of victims tortured and vomiting
Simon Pegg produces/stars in a comedy spoofing the British boarding school tradition – but with the addition of monsters running around
Another entry in the notorious Italian cannibal genre of the 70s. As with most of this genre, the film delights in pushing everything to gore-drenched extremes
A horror film about a pair of possessed jeans!
A trio of alt girls do urban exploring and walk into a war between a grumpy, retired Santa and Krampus
Amateur-made grunge vampire film that has some interesting ambitions but ultimately does not make enough about its story clear
A group of social media influencers fall prey to a vampire and are required to call on the help of grizzled vampire hunter Thomas Jane
Jaume Balaguero delivers this dark and gripping psycho-thriller about a likeable building manager who enjoys secretly playing cruel games and making life miserable for his tenants
Sleepaway Camp with its unforgettable twist ending stood out in the wasteland of most 80s slasher films. This was the first of four sequels where Bruce Springsteen’s younger sister inherits the role of Angela. While the original stood out, this merely slips into unmemorable formula
The first Sleepaway Camp was a classic of the slasher film for its unforgettable ending. This was the second of two back-to-back shot sequels starring Bruce Springsteen’s younger sister Pamela as the murderous Angela
Classic from the heyday of the slasher film. While the plot only recycles Friday the 13th, everything else is above average from the characterisations to the novelty deaths, before the film reaches one of the great unforgettable endings of the cycle
Not to be confused with the Woody Allen film, this is a modern slasher film that pays homage to its 1980s counterparts – in particular, the sorority house slasher as a maniac who deep-breathes down the phone stalks assorted co-eds. Unexceptional in all regards
Julia Roberts plays a wife fleeing from an abusive and psychopathic husband (a darkly urbane Patrick Bergin in a quite demoniac performance) in this psycho-thriller that was a considerable hit in its day. Slick and beautifully photographed, this sustains a commendable head of tension
A Spanish film that comes with overtones of I Walked with a Zombie and Patrick where a comatose wife starts to take control of the mind of the nurse who is tending her
One of the more routine of Dario Argento’s giallo psycho-thrillers. The artily stylistic set-pieces are disappointingly average and even the plot relatively straightforward
Clearly influenced by A Nightmare on Elm Street, this is a film about an executed killer who returns as a dream boogeyman who transforms from a flow of sand
Tim Burton adapts the classic Washington Irving ghost story, although throws most of it out, to make his own beautifully designed period piece spearheaded by another eccentric Johnny Depp performance
Slender Man is the fascinating idea of an internet meme that has crossed over to become an urban legend in the real world; this is the film version. This held the potential to be something very uncanny but chooses to play everything incredibly safe and middle-of-the-road
A documentary about the slasher film, which interviews various directors and actors behind the films about the genre’s origins and rules
Another version of the popular figure from Japanese urban legend, which has appeared in a number of films. This is an anthology where four Japanese directors have come to L.A. to shoot a series of strictly average short horror tales, not all of which feature the Slit Mouth Woman
James Gunn directs a film about body-snatching alien slugs that proves enormous fun and comes packed to the edges with numerous genre references and homages
An adaptation of an Ira Levin thriller that has been turned into a blatant copy of Basic Instinct featuring Sharon Stone in more steamy scenes in a plot involving video voyeurism in an apartment building
A sloth is adopted as the mascot of a sorority house and proceeds to go on a killing spree. This emerges as entertainingly tongue-in-cheek
Killer slug movie from hack Spanish director Juan Piquer Simon where the sole notable aspect amid the cheapness of the production is some very gory deaths
Another of the recent films on the topic of sleep paralysis that one watches with the hope that it might do some justice to the topic
Supposedly a feminist parody of the slasher film but one has doubts. For one, the film is lacking in discernible irony and otherwise no different from the other slasher films of the era bar the fact it was directed by a woman
The original feminist slasher film gets the remake treatment with interesting results
The Slumber Party Massacre was an mundane and unmemorable slasher entry; this is a nonsensical sequel that tries to turn it into a copy of A Nightmare on Elm Street. Contains some of the bizarrely ridiculous scenes to ever take part in any slasher film of the era
Second film to follow-on from The Slumber Party Massacre. While the original was a straight-up slasher film, the second became completely ludicrous as it veered off in trying to copy the A Nightmare on Elm Street films but this returns to the slasher basics for a vigorous workout of the formula
Smile was a sleeper hit about a viral curse and created a reasonable spooky atmosphere. The surprise is that this sequel manages to still deliver the goods too
Horror film about a viral curse that bends the victim’s sense of reality and illusion, this settles in with some undeniably creepy effect
This is essentially Candyman rewritten for the internet generation about a boogeyman that appears to kill the person on the other end if you type a phrase three times
A film based on the so-called Smiley Face Killings, a series of theorised true-life serial killings. With a script by Bret Easton Ellis of American Psycho fame
As with numerous examples in the zombie and killer shark film of recent, the idea has been to parody an existing title with the addition of a monster and a pun on the original’s title. Essentially what we have is a Scary Movie-like parody of the true-life rapper tale Straight Outta Compton but with the addition of a giant snake
Purportedly this was dreamed up by scriptwriters over drinks trying to think of the most ridiculous pitch they could make. The result was advertised as a deliberately bad movie and became a modest hit
The first of The Asylum’s mockbusters intended as a soundalike copy of Snakes on a Plane, this ends up defeated by low-budget and one of the most absurd premises of any film in recent memory
Trashy Australian psycho-stalker film set in the world of fashion modelling that was bizarrely passed off as a copy of Halloween in the US
A werewolf comedy that takes place on the set of a zombie film. Comes with much in the way of homage to An American Werewolf in London
An interesting early psycho film with an unbalanced Arthur Franz driven to jealousy and picking up a rifle and shooting women whenever he sees couples together
Rapper Snoog Dogg fails badly at branding himself as a horror anthology host, while the stories prove nothing to write home about either
Amidst the spate of modern gonzo killer shark films, this is one of the worst – terrible acting, pitiful effects – but the saddest thing is that it isn’t there are worse entries than this
Psycho-thriller with Erika Eleniak and Monika Schnarre trapped in a snowbound cabin
International production based on a series of books about a Norwegian detective. This flopped badly and was called confusing. Mostly, it is a serial killer thriller that fails to hold you gripped with its unfoldings
Underrated and quite brilliant film about a series of true-life Australian serial killings, this has an extraordinary dangerousness in the way it observes highly disturbing things with calm detachment
Arguably the world’s first Found Footage film, this gained a notoriety by conducting a scam that tried to sell it as a real snuff movie
The directorial debut for Brian Yuzna, this has a satiric and weirdly paranoid tone but what makes the film is its sensational display makeup effects involving a secret society of shapeshifting orgiasts
Film made without dialogue about haunted happenings at a cabin in the woods that attains quite a haunted atmosphere
Film about premonition of an airline disaster and the survivor being haunted in the aftermath. Not dissimilar to the James Herbert adaptation The Survivor, this goes in predictable directions while never being entirely clear what is happening
Dean R. Koontz adapted mini-series about plane crash survivors and psychic powers that comes with a series of wild twists that the script fails to offer adequate explanation for
Daniel Myrick, one of the co-directors of The Blair Witch Project, conducts a remake of a Danish-Swedish ghost story, relocating it to Lousiana. Myrick does nothing remarkable with the material, even at the twist ending, largely treading in the safety of antebellum cliches
An Austrian film shot entirely using a GoPro camera where a team investigating an abandoned farm uncover Nazi artifacts and an evil that seems to possess the lead character
Troubled teenager is sent to a reform camp only to find he has raised a force that is exacting brutal vengeance against his bullies. This feels like one of the underdog gets supernatural comeuppance films that we had after Carrie but is rather well made on all fronts
Okay psycho-thriller where Stefanie Powers is stalked in her new apartment while her son develops a mysterious imaginary companion
A thoroughly demented low-budget exploitation homage about demonic rapists that only falls down when it comes to a cliched twist end
One of the lesser known John Carpenter films, a tv movie in which Lauren Hutton is stalked by a neighbour spying on her from the apartment building opposite
Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead have become must-watch directors in the last decade. This film, which was shot in their apartment during Covid lockdown, becomes the ultimate conspiracy theory rabbit hole
The survival in shark infested waters film has emerged as its own genre niche in the last few years. This is an all-girl variant with a bridal party stranded and trying to make it to shore
One of Herschell Gordon Lewis’s film, this features a totally demented plot involving a man who develops psychic powers and his encounters with witches and LSD trips
Passable but slight tv movie adaptation of a Stephen King short story about a teacher facing undead pupils
Sequel to the Stephen King adapted film about hoodlums resurrected from the dead, this descends into an incredible silliness. Featuring a teenage Hillary Swank
The third film adapted from the Stephen King short story, which dispenses with connection to the other films and now concerns occult forces in an Arctic base
This seems a variant on the plot about a cult pursuing a child for their purposes but expectations soon get twisted on their head in interesting ways
To Die For was a forgettable effort, most notably as one of the first films to feature the darkly romantic vampire. This sequel recasts the part with the impossibly handsome Michael Praed and is a far more successful assemblage of the elements
The third of Universal’s Dracula films in which Dracula travels to Louisiana in search of a wife. A flabby Lon Chaney Jr makes a poor replacement for Bela Lugosi, while the script seems improbably stitched together – despite the title, the film features Dracula, not his son
Bizarre musical monster bash with singer Harry Nilsson as Dracula’s son and Ringo Starr as Merlin. A film that seems to have no real clue what it is doing beyond friends having a good time. Nilsson makes surely the screen’s least threatening Dracula, while this is the worst film from the usually great Freddie Francis
The third of Universal’s Frankenstein films, the last to feature Boris Karloff as the monster and the last good entry before the sequels became formulaic. Shot with the clear influence of German Expressionism, this is filled with memorable characters and some great performances
A film where a violinist is drawn in to the mystery of a piece of classical music with occult properties, this is a classy and well-made production above the mill of the average horror film
A David DeCoteau film that comes with one of the great exploitation titles of all time but is otherwise a cheap Scream Queen vehicle about a demonically possessed bowling trophy
A Roger Corman produced slasher film, which spawned two sequels. The plot draws heavily on Halloween and comes with all the usual scenes of co-eds being stalked by a maniac escaped from an asylum
Loose remake of the 1980s slasher film The House on Sorority Row, competently made but in the end this never sufficiently surmounts the routine
Taiwanese horror film about an elderly man who finds another soul is inhabiting his son’s body. A very different sort of possession story. While the horror element peters out in its third act, the film creates a very mysterious atmosphere and a series of tight thriller tensions and complications
A French police procedural where detectives are plunged into a series of bizarre murders involving a child sacrifice cult and a folk boogeyman. From the directorial duo who started the whole French Extremism movement with Inside
This is essentially The Sixth Sense rehashed as a teen horror film and conducted without any finesse – here you can see the twist ending coming miles in advance
There have been great films about unseen threats before (Cat People, The Haunting) but in this case the idea of an invisible monster is just the excuse for a cheap film to avoid any special effects. It has been a long time since I have seen a film so mind-numbingly boring and dull
Another in the spate of multi-director anthologies that have become popular in recent years – The ABCs of Death, V/H/S et al. This is set around the common locale of a desert highway where all five tales hover in an eerie twilight zone where the everyday world has stepped over into the uncanny
A beautifully evocative Walter Hill film where National Guard soldiers on training manoeuvres are hunted through the Louisiana swamps after accidentally shooting at Cajun locals
I was sold from the point of reading the premise where an all-girl punk band is abducted, surgically given weapons attachments and forced to fight in an arena
A 1980s film that was sold around a single air bladder makeup effects scene where a man swells up and explodes from a snakebite. That and the entirely risible premise of Oliver Reed as a billionaire who has a psychic link with a giant snake
Independently made 1970s monster movie. The film came along about ten months too early to be be part of the great spate of B movies that copied Alien and so draws on the earlier model of The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Nothing exceptional
A darkly funny Danish film about a couple who accept an invite to visit another couple who seem to have no boundaries, before everything gets nasty