The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Animal Transformation refers to humans that have the ability to transform into animals. (Very occasionally we have accounts of animals that transform into humans). This is a common plot in fantasy works and fairytales where people can be transformed into animals against their will or as the result of a curse.
In horror, there is the popular theme of the werewolf, which gets its own page under Werewolf Films, although there are numerous works involving people transforming into panthers, snakes, flies and alligators, among others. In Mad Scientist Films, scientists are frequently transforming people into animal form or creating hybrids.
Another common usage is in Superhero Films where superheroes or super-villains can have a superpower that allows them to transform into animals.
The third of Ray Harryhausen’s Sinbad films, this came out the same year as Star Wars and Harryhauden’s stop-motion animated creatures look much more flat in comparison
An incredibly bad Italian-made Sinbad adventure starring Lou Ferrigno that is laughable in its dialogue and acting and incredibly tatty in its budget pinching
This feels like a copy of the Harry Potter films set at a school for trainee superheroes. Alas after the set-up of its premise, the film appears at a loss of what to do and falls back on insipid cliches
Another of the DC Universe Original Animated Movies, this devoted to the character of Batman’s son Damian. Solid action, a well moving plot that makes good use of its characters, adding to a decent entry even if it is not up among the best of these animated DC films
If you don’t know who Karel Zeman is, you need to check out his films – he is quite one of the most extraordinary directors in his blend of live-action and animation. Zeman’s later films are pure animation and tend to be overlooked but are not uninteresting.
Italian giallo with a professor in Budapest investigating a cult of spider worshippers
Animated film that has the madcap premise of a top spy (voiced by Will Smith) transformed into a pigeon. A film that comes with such a level of comedic energy that it makes you think all hope is not lost for Blue Sky Studios, the makers of the interminable Ice Age films.
One of the masterpieces of Hayao Miyazaki, a gentle, beautiful work of anime set in an afterlife bathhouse where Miyazaki’s range of extraordinary creatures and quiet tenderness finds something that Western fantasy rarely ever comes near
Throwback to the mad scientist film with modern makeup effects in which scientist Strother Martin injects Dirk Benedict with a serum that turns him into a snake man
Matthew Vaughn adapts a Neil Gaiman book in this undeniably appealing fantasy that comes with a story of epical sweep that vies between fantastic imagination and broad humour
Illumination Entertainment, the company behind the Despicable Me films, make an animated film based on the popular videogame franchise. The result was the second highest grossing film of the year
Nicely animated film from Richard Rich that tells the story of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake in which a princess is turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer
Forgettable Disney animated film telling the story of King Arthur’s boyhood where the Arthurian legends are sidelined in favour of talking animals and slapstick
Hayao Miyazaki’s son Goro more than capably takes up his father’s mantle in a anime beautiful adaptation of one of Ursula K. Le Guin’s later Earthsea books
Film spinoff from the animated tv series Teen Titans Go! This hits in with an hilairous barrage of one-liners wickedly spoofing the superhero genre and jokes at DC Comics canon
Here the less-than-serious Teen Titans Go! conduct an Into the Spider-Verse-type crossover with their serious counterparts from the multiverse
The Teen Titans get their first solo film in the DC Universe Original Animated Movies. A reasonable adventure based on a classic comic title that works with a good story and characterisation, even if some of it has an adult flavour that makes you wonder who the audience is
The first film featuring DC Comics; Teen Titans, a spinoff from the Teen Titans animated series
Amiably lightweight 80s comedy in which average teenage underdog Robyn Lively gains magical abilities and the complications these create
A retelling of the Shakespeare play, which had been updated to the midst of the American Civil War with some interesting results
Hallmark mini-series set in a world 200 years after the classic fairytales have occurred, this wittily deflates or contrasts classic story elements with the present-day
A horror anthology featuring episodes from seven different directors. As with other anthologies, the episodes vary in quality, ranging between the so-so, the mostly quite good and one standout segment
An Arabian Nights adventure that offers up one of the purest blends of fantasy and romance of its era. Filled with stunning directorial set-pieces and magnificent sets and all shot in colour.
This was the 25th Pixar film and becomes in effect a Pixar-ised version of The Incredible Hulk about a young girl who transforms into a red panda whenever she gets upset
Really, Kevin Smith?!? A film wherein a mad lunatic transforms another man into a walrus? While you can applaud Smith’s completely out there leap off into Human Centipede territory, you feel unsure whether you should be reacting in shock or laughter at the absurdity of the premise
Follow-up to the previous animated Marvel Comics film featuring The Avengers, this serves to introduce Black Panther to the screen for the first time
Lavishly made Greek myth adventure, an adaptation of The Odyssey with Kirk Douglas as Ulysses/Odysseus
An early Roger Corman film that stirs a fascinating mix of elements involving hypnotic regression, witchery, time travel and appearances from The Devil
aka The Fantastic Adventures of Unico Japan. 1981. Crew Director – Toshio Hirata, Screenplay – Masaki Tsuji, Based on a Story by Osamu Tezuka, Producer – Shintaro Tsuji, Music – Ryo Kitayama, Art Direction – Akio Sugino. Production Company – Sanrio. Plot The gods are jealous of the young unicorn boy Unico who can bring […]
Fascinating vampire film from the latter days of Hammer Films, this tries to do something different to the usual
Inspired by an autoccorrect error, this is deliberately ridiculous film about a priest who transforms into a dinosaur to fight evil, A film made with a full awareness of its own absurdities where the ineptitude of the shoestring effects adds to the charm.
Possibly the most conceptually demented film to come out of the 1960s-70s Anglo-horror cycle – one part The Fly, one part a witch’s retribution film about a man who transforms into a vulture creature after teleporting into his ancestor’s grave whereupon he is driven to enact a centuries old curse
Roger Corman cheapie clearly influenced by The Fly in which a woman becomes a creature after using a beauty product derived from wasp venom
Exactly as the title suggests, a film in which a girl is transformed into a weredeer after a bite from a deer. Surprisingly enough, the film plays itself seriously
A sweet and quite lovely anime where a girl befriends the boy she pines after being offered a mask that transforms her into a cat body – only to then have her own body stolen
Nicolas Roeg and Jim Henson collaborate on an adaptation of a Roald Dahl book. Roeg leaves the grotesquerie and gleeful malice intact making this one of the best Dahl adaptations
Robert Zemeckis’s remake of the Roald Dahl story and Nicolas Roeg film proves a head-scratching effort that misfires on almost every cue
Sequel/modernisation (it is confusing what) to The Wizard of Oz relocated in New York. This tv mini-series may be the cheapest work ever served up bearing the Oz name and flounders amid the shabbiness of its effects and utter lack of magic its director conjures
The much-anticipated sequel to the Gal Gadot starring Wonder Woman is a highly divided success, partly due to an inane plot centred around a magic wishing stone