The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
B movie in which John Agar is possessed by a glowing alien brain, this unfortunately fails to live up to either its lurid vigour or its bad movie reputation
All over New York City, virgins are being molested by aliens that lurk in the subway tunnels and seek them for breeding purposes. One of the worst genre films of the 1980s
John Sayles responded to E.T. – The Extra-Terrestrial and its suburban middle-class fantasy with this wry comedy in which a mute Black alien visitor (Joe Morton) arrives in Manhattan
Anime in which Tokyo is covered by a mysterious energy bubble of alien origin and of a group of defiant youths who live on in its midst until the appearance of a mystery girl
In the aftermath of Star Wars, the comic-book/serial hero was revived in this heavily Star Wars influenced remake that was released theatrically and then served as the pilot of a tv series
Yorgos Lanthimos has become a director of acclaim in recent years. Here he remakes the Korean film Save the Green Planet where crazy conspiracy theorist Jesse Plemons abducts CEO Emma Stone insisting she is an alien
Video-released spinoff of the Toy Story films featuring Buzz Lightyear in an adventure. Although released under the Pixar name, the animation is all cheaply produced by a Chinese studio
A bad movie classic. Ewa Aulin is an alien innocent who passes through a series of sexual encounters. Based on a satirical novel, this mostly serves as the opportunity for several name stars to give embarrassingly bad performances
Throwback to the 1950s SF film where alien body snatchers take over the nurses of a hospital. This fails to find the right cheesily absurd tone needed
The one other SF film made by Phil Tucker, the director of Robot Monster. An alien invader effort made to capitalise on the Space Race with aliens trying to sabotage rocket launches
The MCU offers up their first superheroine with very unexceptional results. A competent enough effort but DC’s Wonder Woman easily blows everything this tries to do out of the water
This is a completely demented Hong Kong film about alien body snatchers who are hiding in an apartment building on Earth
From the era of Disney live-action comedies, this involves assorted slapstick tomfoolery as various parties try to aid or capture a telepathic alien cat that is stranded on Earth
Classic bad movie in which astronauts land on The Moon and encounter an all-female society. Some really datedly war of the sexes politics play out amid the laughably impoverished sets and effects
Doug Liman’s adaptation of a Young Adult series that was problem-ridden behind the scenes. This certainly creates an interesting scenario set on a planet where men’s thoughts are visibly manifest
Head-scratching animated oddity from Disney that adapts the talking animal fairytale only to throw in a series of bizarre plot elements that end up as an alien invasion story
Arthur C. Clarke’s book is one of the all-time SF classics; this mini-series adaptation counts as one of the biggest book-to-film abortions in the SF genre handled by people who know nothing about SF
Follow-up to the 2000 tv mini-series adaptation of Dune, this adapts Frank Herbert’s two books sequels, Dune Messiah and Children of Dune. The production lacks the depth of its predecessor
Another adaptation of Journey to the West. Coming from Jeffrey Lau, a director who specialises in rowdy, slapstick films, this is the most nutso adaptation of the story ever, winding in everything from alien visitors and Transformers
Mini-series adaptation of a novel by John Wyndham, best known for The Day of the Triffids, concerning a young boy who develops an invisible alien companion. Imagine a version of Harvey retold by way of E.T.
Cheaply made and mind bogglingly bizarre Quebecois film about a Martian who takes two children on a journey around the world at Christmas
Has there ever been a good film combining the concepts of ‘Christmas’ and ‘Mars’? A film made by cult band The Flaming Lips about the first colonists on Mars as they celebrate Christmas
The sequel to Pitch Black where Vin Diesel’s serial killer now becomes the hero of the show and the original planetary survival story is expanded out into an ornate Gothic space opera
Hong Kong director/writer Stephen Chow is the star of his own highly creative comedy films. Here in one of his quieter films, Chow conducts a comedy take on E.T. – The Extra-Terrestrial
The first sequel to Chocky, the classic mini-series about a boy with an alien invisible companion, this expands the concept out with the introduction of other children
Steven Spielberg’s film about alien contact was every bit as big as Star Wars in 1977. The whole film is the equivalent of sitting gazing up at a starry sky wondering if we are alone and built up to the wondrous climactic appearance of the UFOs
A dreadful sequel to the Ron Howard hit Cocoon about seniors encountering aliens. This misses all the interesting potential of a sequel and drowns in schmaltz and unfunny comedy routines
Ron Howard film clearly inspired by the success of E.T.. This story about seniors being rejuvenated after swimming in a pool that has an alien pod in it received critical kudos during its day but the film operates as a simplistic and naive wish-fulfillment fantasy
Film spinoff of a Dan Aykroyd skit on Saturday Night Live about a family of aliens ho attempting to maintain ordinary suburban life on Earth The film has a really wacky sense of humour, which is probably why it was a box-office flop
Carl Sagan’s novel about SETI is inflated into a big budget film determined to impress even though the story did not need it. Sagan’s interesting debate about religion and science is emasculated so as not to offend any religious groups
A low-budget 1950s SF film with John Carradine as a mysterious, shadowy alien visitor. This borrows a good many of its ideas from The Day the Earth Stood Still
Another among the shoddy last films Bruce Willis-made before retirement, an SF film about a rogue military team that decide to declare war on aliens. This is laughable in terms of military tactics
A Russian SF film about humans who have been selected to participate in an intergalactic sports tournament. This feels that it has been construed as an anti-Alita: Battle Angel and has some stunning design work
High-concept Jon Favreau directed film that has a winning title concept, overflows with star power and is made on a big budget. But the script feels like it had no idea what to do after setting up its title conceptual mash-up
A not very funny science-fiction spoof that has been intended in the vein of Airplane/Flying High but sending up Alien – one where the creature also gets to sing.
A surprisingly likeable Gremlins copycat concerning an invasion by a horde of malicious alien creatures. An enjoyable popcorn muncher that has produced four sequels.
Critters was an entertaining ripoff of Gremlins. This sequel alas draws that appeal thin by being placed in the directorial ham fists of the perpetually awful Mick Garris
The third of the Critters films and in my minority opinion the best of the series generating some reasonable suspense. Featuring the film debut of a teenage Leonardo DiCaprio
For reasons known only to those involved, Critters, the quintessential 1980s VHS series about malicious creatures, has been revived for another sequel but with unmemorable results
Film about an expedition through the jungles of the Yucatan to investigate a Mayan pyramid that is revealed to contain alien artefacts. This ventures well inside wacky fringe science theories
An absurd monster movie that was started by Tobe Hooper who walked off set whereupon it was completed by another director whereupon SF elements were added to sell it as a copy of Alien
Rather enjoyable action film that conducts an amusing spin on Lethal Weapon buddy cop formula with Dolph Lundgren taking on an intergalactic drug dealer
An action movie inspired by tv’s The X Files involving space shuttle pilots returned to Earth possessed by aliens. The emphasis is more on action scenes than a coherent plot
From Alex Proyas and David S. Goyer, this has an astonishing conceptual audacity in its plot dealing with shifting realities and transplanted memories, making it arguably the finest science-fiction film of the 1990s
Former effects supervisor Scott Stewart surprises here in producing a carefully restrained alien abduction film that focuses on the incursion of the inexplicable into the everyday
A low budget indie film about a spaceship crashlanded on an alien planet that is no more than a glorified fan film that features a level of effects that are extremely well accomplished
John Carpenter’s first film, made as a student project in collaboration with an also unknown Dan O’Bannon. A send-up of the boldly going space exploration of Star Trek, this features a ship where the crew are going stir crazy. The results are hilarious
Low-budget UFO/alien abduction film that mostly this just retreads familiar material, although it does evince a certain interesting state of rubber reality about what is happening
An alien invasion film set in Moscow. This is nothing more than a special effects vehicle about how the culturally self-absorbed twentysomething computer geeks and party girls save the world
A low-budget film about a group of soldiers crashed on another planet where they find themselves hunted by an alien. This channels the basics of Predator
A classic of the 1950s Golden Age of SF, featuring Michael Rennie as an alien visitor film who comes to make a warning about the need to make peace. This stands at the start of the Atomic Age with a stark urgency
An interesting if uneven remake of the 1950s SF classic from Scott Derrickson that smartly updates the story from the Atomic Age to a post-9/11 era where it now delivers a modern environmental warning
A mockbuster from The Asylum that was released three days before the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still. While some of The Asylum’s mockbusters have their amusements, this is cheaply and indifferently made
A B-budgeted film made not long after Close Encounters of the Third Kind about a family on a ranch encountering mysterious alien phenomena. An early Charles Band produced film
Jim Jarmusch is one of the foremost American independent directors and here makes his first zombie comedy. The question is is what can he bring to a genre that has been in full-on self-parody mode since Shaun of the Dead
Fan filmmaking back from the day when filmmakers struggled with technologies like Super 8, a film driven by its makers’ immense enthusiasm and some surprisingly good creature effects, making one of the few highly original variations on the Alien alien
The Death of Superman is still is the top-selling comic-book title of all-time after 25 years. This was the first half of a two-part animated adaptation of the storyline, which brings it to life with a fair and reasonable telling
Albert Pyun film that takes place entirely in a warehouse where a woman is taken prisoner by a man who may or may not be an alien. As with much of Pyun’s output from this period, this is cheap and eventually incoherent
An enterprising B-budget copy of Alien from prolific director Fred Olen Ray, this amusingly transfers the basics of Alien down to Earth and replaces the crew of the Nostromo with Charles Napier as a tough, grizzled LAPD cop
A B movie that essentially locates The Thing from Another World underwater with an alien monster invading a sub-oceanic research laboratory. Not dissimilar to a host of B movie copying Alien in the 80s/90s
A two-part episode of the Gerry Anderson tv series Space: 1999 that was repackaged as a feature film to take advantage of the late 1970s post-Star Wars SF boom
The 20th Toho monster movie where the studio decided to gather Godzilla and all the other monsters under their roof together for a massive tag team brawl. Disappointingly, the monsters are upstaged by space opera elements for long sections
A film with insane creativity and spilling over with snide pop culture wit. Like a mash-up of Bad Kids Go to Hell, John Dies at the End and Back to the Future written by a love child of Kevin Williamson and Diablo Cody
British entry in the 1950s alien invader genre with a female invader come to Earth to select male breeding specimens. The invader looks like a dominatrix from outer space who comes accompanied by a ridiculous robot
Steven Spielberg makes a thoughtful return to the theme of alien contact. Rather than the rosy optimism of Close Encounters and E.T. , he seems to have embraced the dark conspiratorial view of The X Files
Neill Blomkamp’s first film starts well as a strong, highly politicised work about human-alien prejudice. However, Blomkamp loses steam about halfway through where it feel as though he didn’t know where to take the story
This was the first of two Doctor Who movies produced during the height of Dalekmania during the 1960s. Alas a comedy element in the form of the asinine buffoonery of Roy Castle is allowed to dominate and kills the show off
A peculiarity from Cannon Films that was a flop, a comedy in which a weird teenager believes he is an alien and suddenly attracts the attention of a bunch of UFO cultists
A highly entertaining effort from Charles Band and Full Moon Productions directed by Albert Pyun featuring Tim Thomerson as a hard-boiled miniature alien cop come to Earth
There is undeniable interest to the idea of Dracula in the future but all we get is a standard Alien copy with Dracula on a spaceship. The acting and dialogue frequently enters into the absurd
Disastrous and miscalculated live-action Hollywood version of the anime series. which turns the characters into just regular teenagers. Nobody involved seems to be making any effort.
Lawrence Kasdan directs an adaptation of the Stephen King novel about a group of men on a weekend get together in the woods who find themselves in the midst of an alien invasion
A bizarrely surreal, anything goes comedy as two bros set out to find their car after a night partying. This feels like Repo Man as though directed by the Farrelly Brothers after they had inhaled a few bongs
David Lynch disowned his film version of the classic Frank Herbert SF novel. However, Lynch may be incapable of making a bad film and this, while acting freely with the book, has a visual grandeur that makes it highly watchable
This TV mini-series remake of the Frank Herbert novel is much more faithful to the essence and complexity of the book, even if it lacks the visual resplendence of the film versions
Modestly well made low-budget planetary survival film about a pilot crashlanded on a hostile world. An entire space opera that was shot in the director’s apartment during the Covid-19 lockdown
Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s classic SF novel comes with a determination to give the story and its richly detailed world faithful life on screen. Villeneuve adapts freely in many areas but gets the complexity of the saga
The second part of Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s classic SF novel Dune, this delves more deeply into the world of the Fremen, although starts to diverge more from the book
A zombie film of sorts in which the people of an Australian outback town are taken over by an alien force. A zombie film that seems to be trying not to be a zombie film.
Wackily funny SF musical with Jeff Goldblum, Damon Wayans and Jim Carrey as aliens who land in the San Fernando Valley. Directed by Julien Temple with a giddily effervescent silliness
Found Footage film that nostalgically homages, if not outrightly borrows, from E.T.. It does build a sense of wonder well but then dissolves into far too much near-identical running around
Cult stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen jumps aboard the 1950s flying saucer fad, making one of the era’s better alien invader films, climaxing in some great scenes with the saucers demolishing much of Washington D.C.
The original Emmanuelle was a supposedly autobiographical memoir about the sexual dalliances of a bored wife in Thailand. Here Emmanuelle is now abducted by aliens for further encounters
Found Footage film about various people in the woods in the aftermath of a UFO crash. Essentially The Blair Witch Project with UFOs instead of a backwoods haunting
A thorough embarrassment on Christopher Lee’s resume – an early Charles Band film in which Lee is a stranded alien inhabiting the cloned body of priest in a convent of nuns
I will defend Orson Scott Card as an exceptional science-fiction writer, his controversies aside. While this is an extremely faithful adaptation of his book, it works unevenly as a film and never soars dramatically
SF film with Dennis Quaid and Louis Gossett Jr as human and alien who are enemies but are forced to cooperate to survive after crashlanding on a hostile alien planet
A film from Rolf de Heer, a director who makes highly unusual works and should be better known than he is. In this, an alien woman befriends a man after she appears in the Australian Outback
This is fake SF, an animated film that has no interest in its concept, one that exists solely as a series of pop culture jokes, cutsie supporting characters, thrills and feelgood epiphanies
Disney live-action film with two psi-powered kids on the run. A popular hit that seems to have been mostly construed around a series of novelty effects set-pieces
Perhaps the greatest children’s film ever made, the story of the affection between a lonely boy and a stranded alien. Steven Spielberg paints in beautiful, tender emotions from the heart that can only not touch the most cynical
A Marvel Comics offering that is an adaptation of a team created by the greatest comic-book writer/artist of all time. On screen however, this emerges with strangely flat and moribund results
A groundedly realistic film about an expedition to search for life on Europa that that emerges as a disappointment coming soon after the similar space-based Gravity
Comedy directed by Chris Matheson, co-writer of the Bill and Ted films, about two not very bright alien invaders. Imagine Dumb and Dumber meets Earth Girls Are Easy. A film that is wilfully silly
Ivan Reitman comedy that is essentially a rehash of his earlier hit Ghostbusters but where instead of ghosts he has a team investigating rapidly alien lifeforms at a meteor crash site
Crass attempt by George Lucas to further milk the Star Wars phenomenon with a tv movie (released to theatres outside the US) given over the Ewoks from Return of the Jedi
Follow-up to The Ewok Adventure, a tv movie released to theatres internationally. This is a better film than its predecessor that even captures something of the Star Wars spirit on occasions
Joe Dante’s successor to Gremlins and a box-office flop. This nevertheless evokes a genteel sense of wonder in its story with Ethan Hawke and River Phoenix as teen inventors who build a backyard spaceship
Group of twentysomethings go to a cabin in the woods, are abducted and attacked by E.T.s. I wanted to like this but there is something generic and interchangeable about everything that is happening
Larry Buchanan must count as one of the all-time bad movie directors and in this ultra-cheap alien invader film, in itself a remake of Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957), he is true to form