The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Eli Roth-produced remake of the Herschell Gordon Lewis splatter film Two Thousand Maniacs, this plants tongue in cheek, is fairly and squarely aimed at a frat boy audience and unapologetic about piling on copious amounts of gore and naked breasts
Sequel to the outrageously gory 2001 Maniacs, although here the horror comedy balance spills over into absurd farce and cheap gore effects. Crucially, the film seems cheaper and less polished, more messy and random in terms of its arrangements
One of the better of Herschell Gordon Lewis’s cheap splatter films, set in a Confederate town that exists in a timewarp and slaughters all outsiders
In the vein of films like Phone Booth and Buried, a Conceptual Containment Thriller with a group of people trapped in a sauna with the heat being turned up. From the director who later made Landmine Goes Click in this same vein
A British-made tv movie about a female stalker. What sets this above Fatal Attraction and the other copies is that it is based on a true story
A New Zealand made serial killer thriller that emulates The Silence of the Lambs but becomes distracted by directorial effect
A British mini-series that offers an ingenious modernised reconeptualisation of the vampire genre, depicting the activities of a secret agency of vampire hunters
Undeniably effective ghost story where Sandra Oh plays a woman who is haunted by the ghost of her abusive traditional mother
Roger Corman produced film where Brooke Adams realises that something sinister might be happening with her pregnancy
Scriptwriter David S. Goyer takes the director’s choice to make a possession film. The one distinction here is that Goyer draws from Jewish mythology, otherwise this feels like another canned teen horror film
Film about a woman who moves into a new apartment and is haunted by a little ghost boy. Follows the plotting for the ghost story genre to a completely tried and true formula and with wholly unremarkable results
A production from Amicus founder Milton Subtosky in the style of the horror anthology that made the company’s name
Film about an undead military veteran from director William Lustig and a script by the great Larry Cohen that unevenly digs into patriotic sentiment with black regard
An early Roger Corman film that stirs a fascinating mix of elements involving hypnotic regression, witchery, time travel and appearances from The Devil
Appealingly quirky homemade zombie film that launched the career of Australia’s Spierig Brothers. The two demonstrate a considerable inventivity when it comes to the visual and makeup effects, which they created all themselves
Xavier Gens makes an undeniably entertaining big-budget film about killer shark amok in the Seine
Modestly effective psycho-thriller with Charlie Sheen in his first psycho role as a fireman who snaps under the pressures of everyday life and threatens his neighbour
A film about children and monsters under the bed. You expect this to be a kid’s film but the surprise is that it is played adult the whole way with undeniably effective results
I was intrigued a few years ago about whether such a thing as the Islamic horror film existed and shortly after we had A Girl Walks Alone at Night. This could be considered an Iranian version of The Babadook and is a spooky and well made show about a woman slowly descending into fear and superstition
Sequel to Graveyard Shift with a vampire appearing on a vampire film set and taking over the role in the film
If there ever was a genre actually called grindhouse, this is a prime example. A sordid little film about an undertaker and two diner owners killing spree to drum up business and serve the remains as the special of the day n the diner
A really quite spooky film about a series of audio recordings send to a podcast that seem to contain evidence of a possession. A film that almost entirely has its effect relayed by sound
This stirs a bunch of elements from the late 90s vampire film and dark poses from the graphic novel to create a slick vampire action film. Several sequels followed.
Yet another entry that nobody asked for in a conceptually threadbare series that nobody seems to like … passably better than the last two sequels due to some ok action moves but still empty-headed in terms of ideas
I am at a loss to understand who the audience for the Underworld films is – they are films devoid of minimal requirements like plotting and seem to only exist as a series of forgettable action sequences and interchangeable Gothic poses by characters in black leather – and yet we keep getting more of them
The second of the Underworld films where Len Wiseman gets a bigger budget and amplifies the CGI and action sequences,. On the other hand, the characters and story are so stripped to a minimum you lose track of why things are happening
Third of the Underworld films, a prequel to the previous entries. In truth, it is just the same as the others – lots of kinetic action moves and Gothic poses with little in the way of plot
A Found Footage film that gets political – in this case, featuring a group of American vigilantes torturing Mexican illegal immigrants. Not quite full on Torture Porn but holds a darkly barbed bite
One of the first few werewolf films ever made, this takes place at a big old mansion and is a murder mystery whodunnit about who might be the werewolf
One of the very last gasps of the great era of mad scientist films from the 1940s. Despite assembling a great cast of genre regulars, this never does much to stir its pot – the mad scientist’s scheme is vague and the film almost never ventures outside of a single house
A psycho-thriller that hearkens back to the Fatal Attraction and the copycats it inspired where a newly engaged Rosario Dawson has to deal with her fiance’s vengeful ex, an ice cold Kathrine Heigl
One of the most unique films in some time – everything takes place across social media (chat sessions, video calls) where the cinema screen is the computer screen. A fairly average supernatural retribution story that generates reasonable tension
Unfriended had a unique novelty approach – everything took place in one take where the film screen was a computer screen. You wonder what a sequel can add to this. The surprise is that we get a film even better than the original
Set in a British boarding school/military academy, this starts out seeming like a ghost story but does a mid-film flip to reveal something else altogether is going on. I held out promise but between a low budget and a contrived end explanation this fails to work
The first film to go into wide US release during Covid lockdown with Russell Crowe snapping and turning psycho after a road rage incident. Much better than the lukewarm reception it received, this is a quite reasonable variant on Duel
Adaptation of a James Herbert book about a deafmute girl who suddenly speaks and performs miracles, which may have a sinister cause
Modest and well-made low-budget anthology of Christmas horror tales from three Canadian filmmakers
From writers of several Saw films and The Collector, a film about teens under attack in the woods where it is unclear what is going on oe who they are facing for most of the film
A couple on a getaway to an uninhabited island on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef find the island may be haunted
One of the earliest ghost stories made by Hollywood, a slow and old-fashioned effort where the scares are psychological
One of the spate of South Korean ghost stories that came out in 2000s. While made with undeniable directorial style, the two hour running time drags and the plot is often unclear what is happening
The Hollywood remake of the South Korean ghost story A Tale of Two Sisters that waters down and reduces the effectiveness of the original to generic shocks
Documentary about the Golden Age of Horror at Universal Studios during the 1930s and 40s (although it does touch on works from other studios too). The topic is covered with an impressive degree of detail
Classic, wonderfully twisted Tod Browning film with Lon Chaney as an armless circus performer who lusts for Joan Crawford
Forgotten and not terribly interesting B movie about an expedition to the Caribbean in search of a missing explorer encountering a mad scientist engaged in experiments involving native sacrifices and local fungi
Psycho-thriller where husband and wife Kurt Russell and Madeleine Stowe are terrorised by psycho cop Ray Liotta
David Hemmings stars in a well written thriller about a school teacher whose pupils confess to a murder and engage in a series of psychological games with him
A parody of the slasher film with an amusing central idea – what if a slasher maniac found a love interest and wanted to give up hacking and slashing to be with them?
One of the spate of H.P. Lovecraft adaptations that came out in the late 80s/early 90s. This feels like an effort by earnest amateurs but does take its Lovecraft seriously unlike most of the other films of this cycle.
A sequel to the earlier H.P. Lovecraft adapted film The Unnamable. Despite having a bigger budget, this is no more of an improvement over its predecessor
There is a certain potential to the concept of two rival teams, parapsychological debunkers and a tabloid tv crew, researching a reputedly haunted prison. Only a couple of years later, this would have been mandatorily made as a Found Footage film but suffers from a director with no aptitude for atmosphere
Steven Soderbergh shoots a film on an iPhone. Claire Foy is wrongly incarcerated in an asylum only to be followed by a stalker posing as an orderly where her pleas for help taken as evidence of delusion
A variant on the Mad Relative Locked in the Cellar/Attic film that turns out to be surprisingly well made
Modestly effective effort about a man whose body is slowly fading away and becoming invisible. A film carried by some fine effects sequences, this derives its frisson from the gradual revelation of what is happening but loses it when the mundane subplots take over in the second half
A film with an ingenious premise where a nearly blind woman must rely on a total stranger to guide her by her phone through the woods while avoiding a pursuer
The film adaptation of the popular videogame where a group enter a lodge and become caught in a timeloop where they face horrors and are killed and then resurrected to face them again
Gregory Hoblit has proven a fine director but this film about a site showing murders live on the internet feels like an hysterical rant about the dangers of the internet masquerading as a thriller
An interesting adaptation of the classic lesbian vampire story Carmilla. This modernises and relocates it to Middle America and plays the vampirism with a psychological ambiguity
Irish horror about a couple who inherit a house with faerie creatures at the end of the garden
A Jaws copy made by regular Roger Corman scriptwriter Charles B. Griffith. Shot on the cheap in the Philippines and featuring a fish of unidentified species attacking a holiday resort, this is one of the most miserably cheap Jaws copies that came out during this era
Ghost story effectively relocated to Glasgow apartment building with a solo mother terrorised by something supernatural. Filled with social realism
Following the success of Scream, this was an attempt to make an upmarket slasher film based around the motif of urban legends in the same way that Scream used 1980s slasher films. It is a stretch to make urban legends fit in some cases but director Jamie Blanks delivers reasonable tension
The third of the Urban Legend films, unconnected to any of the previous two. This lamely tries to stretch the thin premise out to a story of high school supernatural vengeance
Sequel fairly much in name only to Urban Legend and barely at all about urban legends, this has the amusing idea of taking place at a film school and features a number of sly asides. This alas befalls routine direction
The use of a designer drug causes a small island to descend into mass insanity – this is essentially The Crazies repackaged as a slick empty-headed thriller for teen audiences. The various scenes of madness are frequently laughable and the film arrives at possibly the most ridiculous twist ending one has ever seen
The first of two OVA sequels to the anime classic Legend of the Overfiend, this lacks the perverse imagery of the original
Jordan Peele’s follow-up to the massive hit of Get Out. This is a doppelganger film where the metaphors that Peele is trying to make are not entirely clear but what you cannot deny is that he demonstrates considerable assurance as a genre director
Surreal Japanese horror film in which the world is taken over by spiral patterns. A strange and trippy film.
Seventh of the V/H/S Found Footage horror anthologies, this is one of the best with a number of the episodes venturing into SF and others that feature some genuinely outlandish moments
A reasonable film clearly influenced by Hostel with Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale as a married couple who sign into a backroads motel used to shoot snuff movies
Passable sequel (or rather prequel) to the remote motel snuff movie thriller Vacancy. Even though a throwaway effort, it manages to build an okay head of steam
Directorial outing from makeup effects artist Chris Walas who created the Gremlins and Cronenberg’s The Fly. This Bill Paxton as a Yuppie who buys a home and is driven paranoid as it keeps being invaded by a vagrant
Val Lewton produced a body of works beginning with Cat People that are the finest horror films of the 1940s. This is a documentary that looks at Lewton’s life and films in detail, produced and narrated by no less than Martin Scorsese
Following the revival of the slasher film with the success of Scream, this was a slick but forgettable studio copycat set around a Valentine’s Day motif
There is considerable conceptual ambition to this – a giallo homage, most of which takes place inside a limo. Charitably, you call it is a micro-budgeted collision between Cosmopolis and The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears, alas the film lets narrative fragment into incoherence in the latter half
Very 80s film that feels like Martin Scorsese’s After Hours rewritten with vampires set around vampire nightclub. The comedy is uneven but there is is a striking performance from Grace Jones as the vampire
The entirely unappealing notion of a vampire frat rat comedy, The film is agonisingly unfunny on almost every level, while Adam Johnson’s professor may count as possibly the wimpiest and most non-threatening vampire in the history of cinema
Dismissed at the time as a copy of Young Frankenstein even though it had been made earlier, this is a none too funny vampire comedy featuring David Niven as Dracula
One of the first films about a medically rationalised vampire concerning a doctor who discovers pills that turn him into a vampire monster
A vampire movie from the creators of Hill Street Blues, the greatest tv cop show ever made??? The mind boggles as to the possibilities and wonder what amazing creative possibilities they could put on it – alas, the show only ends up staying with the tried and true
Technically not a vampire film at all, rather about a kind and caring serial killer with a blood-drinking fetish who frequents suicide support boards looking for victims. A remarkable film, shot in a plain, unaffected manner and managing to discover an extraordinary intimacy between the characters
One has zero enthusiasm for this, which has been sold as Twilight meets Harry Potter. Defying expectation, it is written with a sarcastic amusement puncturing its own seriousness and has a great performance from its leading lady, if in the end it is too weighted down by story exposition needed to set up its sequels to ever open up dramatically
Lionel Atwill and Fay Wray star in a film about a mad scientist conducting a series of vampire bat killings. A minor but watchable entry in the Golden Age of Horror.
This is essentially intended as a gay version of Twilight and features a near-identical plot in which a vampire fixates on a youth and decides he is his true love.
Rather drab and cheap Japanese horror film about a disfigured actress who returns to life as a hairy vampire creature to exact vengeance. Not without its schlocky appeals, the hairy vampire bride looks more funny than threatening
Fascinating vampire film from the latter days of Hammer Films, this tries to do something different to the usual
Revival of the Hong Kong hopping vampire film phenomenon of the late 80s as personified by the Mr Vampire films. This lacks the slapstick silliness of the originals but settles in with a goofy nuttiness, getting some winning charms out of the romance between mortal and hopping vampire girl
Not to be confused with tv’s i>The Vampire Diaries, this is a British film that sets out to reconstruct the lesbian vampire film within the frame of modern LGBT relationships. It is also Found Footage, an early and rather amateurish variant, but not without some effect
Completely insane Japanese film that wades in gore while playing everything up at a level of demented cartoonish absurdity. Possibly the most delirious movie-watching fun it is possible to have
Freddie Francis was one of the finest stylists of the Anglo-horror cycle. Here he makes a comedy spoofing the vampire film that comes out feeling like Benny Hill routines running around a big castle
Filipino exploitation film that has a reputation as something more trashy than it is. A dull and aimless effort where an aging John Carradine delivers a largely incoherent performance as the head vampire
Cult anime about a monosyllabic vampire hunter moving across a hallucinatory post-apocalyptic dispatching mutants and vampires
Yoshiaki Kawajiri, director of Ninja Scroll and Wicked City, steps in to make a sequel(?)/reboot(?) to the cult 1985 anime with visually enthralling regard
An odd mismatch of talent where Wes Craven directs Eddie Murphy as a vampire who arrives in present-day New York. Craven and Murphy seem to drown either;s distinctive voices out
The first in Hammer’s trilogy of lesbian vampire films, an adaptation of the classic story Carmilla. Unfortunately in Hammer’’s hands, the story’s subtlety is killed by an emphasis on softcore titillation
Low-budget video release about a group of people holed up in a house preyed on by a vampire. Passable but never amounts to much
John Carpenter revitalises the vampire film with a sharp action edge as James Woods heads a team of vampire hunters. Woods gives a ferociously determined performance way above and beyond the call of duty
Low-budget independently made film that manages to effectively use a singe warehouse location to suggest a gateway to Hell
Bizarre comedy where Nicolas Cage is a literary agent who believes he is a vampire. Cage gives the most absurdly over-the-top performance ever put on film
Sequel to John Carpenter’s Vampires given over to his regular associate Tommy Lee Wallace, this looks tatty in trying to replicate the action sequences on a B-budget and with the script holes showing through