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.
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
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
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
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 muddled allegorical redemption drama with Eric Balfour sentenced to a maximum security prison where he is haunted by hallucinations
A horror film about the life of Jesus as a child. That’s not quite what we end up getting but it is enough to give this a bizarre freakshow appeal and get this site watching. Behind that though, this is surprisingly traditional
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
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
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
Thriller in which Antonio Banderas is a Catholic priest dispatched to Jerusalem to deal with the apparent archaeological discovery of Jesus Christ’s body
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
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
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
A faith-based film that comes with a great hook where a time-traveller seeks to go back and kill Jesus, eliminating Christianity from history
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
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
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
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