The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
This refers to themes that derive from Biblical and Christian sources. The Bible is divided into two parts – The Old Testament concerning Adam and Eve, their fall from the Garden of Eden, Noah and The Flood, Moses and God’s covenant with the Jewish people, and The New Testament concerning the life of Jesus Christ and his death on the cross to deliver humanity from sin.
For Jewish belief see Judaism. Christianity concerns the belief in God, of Jesus Christ’s sacrifice to deliver humanity from sin and the adherence to a moral code. There are many different interpretations and sects within this – the major one covered here is Catholicism. For films depicting faith in action or critical of religion see Religion in Fantastic Cinema; for strange breakaway groups see Cults.
Many popular ideas in genre cinema derive from the Christian tradition – of an afterlife where the virtuous go to Heaven and the evil and sinful go to Hell. In Heaven, God the creator of the universe lives, and is tended by Angels. Hell is commanded by The Devil, the prime source of evil in Christendom, who command hordes of Demons.
A large number of genre tropes derive from these ideas including stories of angelic intervention, demonic possession, people making Diabolical Pacts to sell their soul, of Miracles from the hand of God. The Vampire Film makes use of the prime Christian symbol, the crucifix, as an icon of power that can drive a vampire away.
There is the popularity of films about the Biblical End Times Prophecies as depicted in The Book of Revelations. The first of these was The Omen (1976) concerning the Antichrist, the coming battle of Armageddon and the Rapture where all true believers are taken up to Heaven. There have also been a number of films concerning the return of Jesus, people who are thought to be Jesus or the retelling of aspects of the story in modern times.
It should be added that the use of these elements in stories do not necessarily denote that the people writing and making them is a Christian believer. One needn’t be a regular church attendee, for instance, to write a story about using a crucifix to fight off a vampire. For films made by Christian believers for other believers and/or to proselytize to non-believers see Christian Cinema.
The first full length Edgar Allan Poe film from D.W. Griffith of The Birth of a Nation fame. Rather than Roger Corman’s brooding Gothicism, Griffith waters Poe’s melancholia down to a banal Christian morality play
One of the strangest films of the 1940s, featuring Clark Gable, Joan Crawford and others as a group of Devil’s Island escapees who realise during the course of their journey that one of the company is Jesus Christ
An amiable venture into the light fantasy films that were popular during this era., Here angels come down and intervene to aid a baseball team on a losing streak
One of the classic works from Ingmar Bergman, uncreditedly remade by Wes Craven as The Last House on the Left, with Max Von Sydow as a virtuous farmer who is driven to vengeance after three youths rape and kill his daughter
Droll, elegant camp masterpiece with Vincent Price giving the best performance of his life as a deformed madman employing the Biblical Plagues of Egypt as a motif to take revenge against the surgeons who killed his wife
Classic anti-war film with Timothy Bottoms as a limbless, sightless soldier in a hospital bed as his mind wanders between hallucinations, visions of the afterlife and attempts to communicate with the medical staff
An Acid Western was a Western made with a psychedelic trippiness. Directed by Robert Downey Jr’s father, this is a surreal work about a Christ-like visitor in a zoot suit who turns up in a Western town
This is where all the cliches of Devil Children began. A big hit among the 1970s occult boom, this is essentially Sunday tabloid Christianity – a lurid, doom-filled take on Book of Revelation End Times prophecies that moves with a slick polish and a series of schlocky deaths every few minutes
An Italian exploitation copy of The Omen industrialist Kirk Douglas fighting the coming of the Anti-Christ. Here bizarrely enough The Beast manifests as a nuclear power plant
The Monty Python team’s finest hour, a wickedly irreverent spoof on Christianity that contains some of their most side-splitting gags
Earlier less well known adaptation of the C.S. Lewis book made for tv. This is faithful to the book but is badly hampered by primitive animation and an exceedingly simplistic rendering of the story
Ray Bradbury’s book about the human colonisation of Mars is an SF classic for its wistful, nostalgic poetry. This tv mini-series adaptation is killed by a lumbering director who over-explains Bradbury’s imagery in the most literal ways
The definitive film version of the Arthurian legends. John Boorman gives us a magnificent and soaring work of beautiful impassioned imagery that delves deep into the rich mythology of the cycle
Steven Spielberg and George Lucas’s homage to the adventure films of the 1940s was a huge hit in its day, spawning several sequels and many imitators. The film is pure action and adventure, delivered with enormous charm and wit
A bizarre Italian film that recounts the Biblical story of Adam and Eve and then follows on from their banishment from Eden and into the wilderness where they encounter dinosaurs, cavemen and wild beasts
One of the early films from Paul Verhoeven, an amusingly blasphemous tale that draws more than a little from Don’t Look Now with gay writer Jeroen Krabbe becoming wound into the dealings of femme fatale Renee Soutendijk
One of the most excruciatingly painful films ever made – a softcore comedy in which God and The Devil make a bet to replay the Garden of Eden by reincarnating Adam and Eve throughout history. Filled with ghastly over-the-top performances and much eye-rolling innuendo
A very strange film where widow Adrienne Barbeau finds an amnesiac Keir Dullea on a Greek island who shows mysterious abilities and may have come from the future
A controversy-laden Jean-Luc Godard film that offers an irreverent modern-day retelling of the Immaculate Conception. An amusing idea that vanishes under Godard’s pretensions
An extraordinary Argentinean film about a patient in his asylum who insists that he is an alien and has genteel affect on the inmates. Later uncreditedly ripped-off as K-PAX.
Before the films, this was an earlier BBC tv mini-series version of the C.S. Lewis book, one of a series of four adaptations. This is faithful to the story but suffers from impoverished effects
A much more elevated version of an Omen-styled Biblical End Times film with Demi Moore worried if her child can save the world
The second of the BBC’s tv adaptations of C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books, the slightest of the works where the story is reduced to two half-hour episode
This was the third of the four BBC tv adaptations of C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books. The tv versions treats the books with quite reasonable faithfulness but suffer from extremely cheap looking effects
This was the fourth and final, as well as the best of the BBC’s tv adaptations of C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books, which works well enough despite the impoverished production values
Erotic horror as the demon Lilith attempts to take over a fashion magazine
Part of an attempt to revive the Blaxploitation film, a gospel horror film of sorts in which a young African-American divinity student fights the demon Temptation
Remarkable film with Mimi Rogers as a grieving widow who is drawn into the certainty that the Biblical Rapture is about to occur
Reasonable copy of The Silence of the Lambs with Scott Glenn as an FBI agent tracking a killer obsessed with Noah’s Ark
A John Hughes written remake of the classic Christmas film where a man (Richard Attenborough) claiming to be Santa ends up tried in court.
Christian film in which Sean Patrick Flanery is a recovering rock musician who fights to rescue his girlfriend from the clutches of a music promoter who is the Ant-Christ
Disney remake of the old light fantasy film in which angels step in to aid a losing baseball team. This is pitched to family audiences and holds a surprisingly ardent evangelical message
The Stand is regarded as Stephen King’s best novel, an epic that depicts the final showdown between good and evil in the aftermath of civilisation. The mini-series adaptation was alas placed into the ham fists of one of King’s worst adapters. Mick Garris
Film spinoff from the popular Tales from the Crypt horror anthology tv series but with more gore effects, this is competently done but does nothing to distinguish itself
Standout film about angels warring on Earth that dispenses with any cutsie depiction of angels. Several sequels followed.
Classic serial killer film from David Fincher, a superb effort from the casting to a script that seems weighted by the moral ills of the 20th Century to the unforgettable twist ending
Remake of The Bishop’s Wife with Denzel Washington as an angel come to aid an overworked pastor but falling for his wife Whitney Houston
Despite a premise that sounds more like the punchline of a lawyer joke – The Devil (Al Pacino) is a high-price lawyer in New York – this is lushly produced, played seriously and with surprising theological depths
Quirkily appealing Canadian fish out of water comedy where John the Baptist is sent to present-day Newfoundland just before the turn of the millennium to prevent the End of the World
Uneven New Zealand-made film where a girl meets a mystery man who claims that he is Jesus Christ
A darkly funny Hal Hartley film set on the eve of The Millennium as Jesus Christ wanders about Manhattan having doubts whether to unleash the Biblical Apocalypse
An okay sequel to the angel wars film The Prophecy, the first of several. As in the previous film, a returning Christopher Walken steals the show and gets all the best lines
Katsuhiro Otomo overseen anime about the discovery of Noah’s Ark, an alien artifact that gives a child vast psychic powers in a swathe of destruction not dissimilar to Akira
An obscure joke from Alex Cox that has he and Miguel Sandoval as two businessman who go to dinner but keep passing through different cities
The second animated film from DreamWorks, an impressively produced retelling of The Book of Exodus and the story of Moses.
An inane French/Canadian-made children’s film about three cute creatures that come to help a boy stop the resurrection of the Tower of Babel on the eve of the millennium
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 Omen and imitators had been exploiting Biblical End Times prophecies for years but this is one that approaches it from a Christian perspective. The film also started a wave of serious faith-based films that employed name actors in order to carry them to crossover audiences
Disney’s sequel to Fantasia comes weighted with a sense of its own self-importance – the first theatrical release of the new millennium. However, it fails to produce much that has the stature of the original
The second in a series of Biblical End Times films from Canada’s faith-based Cloud Ten Pictures, this offers the peculiarity of the Anti-Christ appearing in Virtual Reality
Quite reasonable serial killer thriller, undeniably influenced by Se7en, with Christopher Lambert tracking a killer who believes he can resurrect Christ
Frank Darabont had a hit with the Stephen King adaptation The Shawshank Redemption. Here he makes another King adaptation about a Death Row inmate with healing powers
Adaptation of the best-selling Christian book series about the Biblical End of the World. There is a mini-industry of these films and, if one can stomach the preachiness, this is not entirely bad
The third in a series of Biblical End Times films withGary Busey as a decent cop who wakes up in a future ruled by the Anti-Christ. The heavy-handed slinging of Bible verses makes this hard-going for anyone who is not a believer, while the conspiratorial tone frequently verges on nuttiness
The third of the Prophecy films with Christopher Walken as the angel Gabriel. This time the wry humour and interplay of ideas of the other films feels more thinly drawn
An interesting attempt to bring Dracula into the modern day – the film that Dracula A.D. 1972 should have been. An unknown Gerard Butler makes a captivatingly magnetic Dracula
This is one of the great wacky titles of all time. The film has its deliberately ridiculous amusements but soon fails to provide an interesting enough show to live up to its title
Thriller in which Antonio Banderas is a Catholic priest dispatched to Jerusalem to deal with the apparent archaeological discovery of Jesus Christ’s body
Sequel to the Biblical End Times/Antichrist film The Omega Code, this dispenses with preaching faith but still slips into absurdity
The second of the Kirk Cameron Biblical End Times films. On one hand, these are quite competently made B movies; on the other the fundamentalist message is unpalatable
This holds the novelty of being a Christian time travel film but plummets into bad movie stakes when it has a 19th Century professor travel into the present to become appalled at seeing couples kiss on tv and lingerie in store … A great idea for a comedy but then you realise the film is serious
Luc Besson scripted sequel to the serial killer thriller The Crimson Rivers. However, in director Olivier Dahan’s hands, this emerges as a empty-headed series of shock images and random action scenes
Perhaps the strangest film on Chuck Norris’s cv – the film where Chuck plays an angel. A work of Christian horror where Chuck’s son Mike plays a decent man trapped in a sinister Western town of devil worshipping children
Made not long after The Da Vinci Code was huge, a similar archaeological mystery centred around an amnesiac Christina Ricci and a sinister buried church dating back to The Crucifixion
Mel Gibson wants to give us a film that shows Jesus’s suffering leading up to the Crucifixion but has taken it to such an extreme that he has actually created a Torture Porn film that gives the Saw and Hostel franchises a run for their money
A mind-boggling surrealist retelling of the life of Jesus (where the role has been cast with a woman). Crammed with strange imagery and symbolism. Very off the beaten track
The film adaptation of C.S. Lewis’s book sought to appeal to audiences for the Lord of the Rings films but between Lewis’s heavy-handed Christian allegories and Andrew Adamson’s inexperience as a director fails to fly
The third of the Left Behind films with Kirk Cameron facing the Biblical End of the World and the Antichrist. This travels well down into bad movie territory
The novelty of the first Christian horror film. As opposed to much of the message-heavy tripe that usually gets peddled in this niche market, this is actually well structured with a number of interesting ambiguities and engaging as a story for the better part
Ron Howard directed film version of Dan Brown’s best-selling book. This is historical nonsense woven into a fancifully absurd conspiracy theory where Howard does no more than offer an illustrated version of the book
The classic 1976 Anti-Christ film is given the remake treatment. The production look slick but quickly disappears into forgettability
Reasonable budgeted film about a series of Biblical plagues being visited upon a rural Louisiana town. An interesting set up that flounders amid a confused script
Made by Walden Media following the success of their The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, a well-made adaptation of a Christian children’s book even if it sits uncertainly between gentle realism and the push to make it a fantasy film
Sequel to Bruce Almighty in which Steve Carell is transformed into a modern-day Noah. This was pitched to the Christian audiences but feels like a series of lame gags playing on Noah and the Ark devoid of any biblical context
Beautifully written film about an immortal. The result is an entirely captivating SF film whose whole effect emerges simply from people sitting in a living room talking
The second of the Narnia films. Director Andrew Adamson seems so intent on copying Peter Jackson that the film becomes all epic fantasy flourishes and battle scenes to the exclusion of all else – even much of C.S. Lewis’s book
Pascal Laugier makes one of the most horrific films to emerge from France in the 00s. Scenes of grim torture sit alongside a plot that twists like a pretzel and messes with almost everything we take for granted
An almost interesting low-budget film with artistic pretensions that invokes the mythic Christian figure of Prester John
Alex Proyas seemed a promising genre director during the 1990s. Here Nicolas Cage finds a time capsule that predicts a series of disasters, before the film tangents off into a strange Biblical End of the World scenario
Serial killer thriller that brims with much Biblical imagery about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and passes through assorted increasingly improbable twists without much affect
Not very funny comedy from Harold Ramis and Judd Apatow where Jack Black and Michael Cera are cavemen who stumble through many incidents from the Old Testament
An absurd film where angels conduct a war on Earth, which comes amid much in the way of gunfire and creature effects. Directed by a former visual effects supervisor.
Denzel Washington as an enigmatic Man With No Name wandering the post-holocaust apocalyptic landscape. This follows the cliches of the genre before it bizarrely morphs into a Biblical allegory partway through
Another lacklustre entry in the banal Lord of the Rings Lite franchise from C.S. Lewis’s books, a plodding run of the mill fantasy adventure for the most part. The mediocre reception killed off interest in the series
Bill Zebub is a micro-budgeted filmmaker who contends to be the most offensive filmmaker of all time. Yes, the film features a zombie Jesus who spends his time violating women who parade in a state of undress
Cheap Syfy Channel CGI disaster spectacle about runaway plant roots – from the Garden of Eden, no less – growing to endanger the entire planet. Utterly formulaic and seeming to consist of no more than canned pieces of cliche action
A Christian-made film based on the intriguing idea of Satan on trial in a courtroom. A film that in its bad acting, laughable dialogue and lack of conviction rivals The Room in bad movie stakes. The usually worthwhile Malcolm McDowell, who for some reason also produces, gives one of his worst performances
Saw series director Darren Lynn Bousman delivers a loopy cross between The Number 23 and an occult film whose sole selling point is the significance of the date it was released
Terrence Malick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, maybe the best work yet about the great Lost American Childhood yet – a film that doesn’t seem to be about anything but has far more to say than almost all other multiplex films
Sold as a sequel to The Wicker Man, although works as more of an update and expansion of its themes. Received a muted reception but is a not entirely uninteresting film, if nowhere near the league of the original
A film about the Easter Bunny that comes remarkably devoid of any significance of the meaning of Easter and only consists of the usual smartass talking animal antics
The third film in the series of stoner comedies trips off into gonzo genre territory. A relentlessly and unashamedly vulgar film that also manages to be occasionally quite funny
A muddled allegorical redemption drama with Eric Balfour sentenced to a maximum security prison where he is haunted by hallucinations
One of a number of faith-produced films we have had since the late 90s that concern themselves with the arrival of The Rapture – this one even spawned a trilogy. This is passable if you can palate the relatively light sermonising and at least better written that the Left Behind films
Not wishing to insult anyone’s beliefs but Christian cinema has produced some really bad films. With such lowered expectations, this Rapture film approaches halfway watchable with a story that somewhat resembles Mad Max 1 about a biker seeking vengeance against a decent man
Film with people trapped in a mysterious labyrinth, which may be Hell, where they are required to eliminate one another in order to survive. Aka Game of Assassins
There is irresistible appeal to the idea of a comedy that conducts a spoof of the Biblical Rapture. Despite a script from one of the Bill and Ted writers, this emerges as a remarkably unfunny film that consists of about an hour of Craig Robinson delivering crude sexual innuendos
Darren Aronofsky’s adaptation of the Biblical legend was mired in controversy. I can only applaud his decision to defy those who claim ownership of the story and set out to make an interesting film. Yet Noah remains an epic that never seems to quite fill the screen and a human drama that never quite comes to life
Scott Derrickson’s supposed true-life account of a NYPD cop turned exorcist rehashes every hackneyed possession cliche the horror genre has, yet there comes a point where the film attains an odd conviction
On the scale of weird movies, this is about as out there as it gets – Ryan Reynolds has conversations with his cat and dog who urge him to cut people’s heads off, which continue to talk as he keeps them in his refrigerator. A mind-bogglingly warped film and quite brilliant in its dark funniness when you work out what is going on