The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Bodyswap is a term used on this site to refer to films where characters swap their minds into different bodies. Usually the body the person finds themselves in is someone who is very different to their self.
Variations include where people swap age; where men and women swap gender; where characters find themselves in a body of a different race; or where people are transferred into the bodies of animals.
Most of the treatments here are light comedy but there are also a number of horror treatments concerning brain transplants and body hijacking. There are also various SF versions that take place in futures where people regularly switch into ‘sleeves’. There have also been a number of variations in the genre of Surrealism.
The one and only film produced by Christopher Lee’s production company, this sets up an interesting premise about a mysterious orphanage but fails to quite make it work
The fourth of The Prophecy films about war between angels, the first to be made without Christopher Walken with Sean Pertwee as a detective in Bucharest who is drawn in
French Cyberpunk film with a detective investigating the murder of an illegal immigrant girl and finding a blackmarket in stolen and transplanted memories
Adam Sandler does more acting than usual in the story of a shoemaker who transforms into the wearer whenever he puts on a pair of shoes. A throwaway premise that attracts a surprisingly high-profile cast
A very lame comedy with Chevy Chase as a private detective working in London who is killed and is then reincarnated in the body of a dog (now played by superstar dog Benji)
Your mind struggles to process the premise of Nine Lives – where Kevin Spacey finds himself in the body of a cat. It seems a variation on the earlier Oh Heavenly Dog in which Chevy Chase was reincarnated as Benji. Some cute effects but what a lightweight effort for an actor of Spacey’s calibre
A lightweight comedy in which nerd Steve Levitt makes a pact with The Devil to have the perfect male body but soon comes to regret his decision
The 2003 Freaky Friday was one of the better Disney remakes with Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan giving inspired performances as mother and daughter who swap bodies. The two reunite for a sequel here
Emilio Estevez is snatched into the future and pursued for his body by bounty hunter Mick Jagger in an SF film that makes no sense at all. A film more worth watching for some bizarrely awful performances
The fourth film version of the Disney comedy about a mother and daughter who swap bodies for one day. This was made for the Disney Channel and comes as a grating teen musical
Tarsem Singh is one of the most extraordinary visual stylists at work today. The disappointment here is that he has abandoned this to make a regular chase and shootout film that any other director could have. What we get is an uncredited rehash of the Rock Hudson film Seconds stripped down to an action film
Another of the low-budget films Bruce Willis made before his retirement, this has a plot about body-hopping assassins that has surprising similarities to Possessor
One of the films that came out in the aftermath of Jurassic Park, notable only for the absurdity of its premise wherein teen Paul Walker’s brain is transplanted into an animatronic dinosaur body and he struggles to reconnect with girlfriend Denise Richards
Tales from the Hood was a horror anthology made by African American filmmakers that worked familiar horror themes in around race issues. It has developed a small cult reputation. This was the second of two sequels
Shazam! was one of the more enjoyable DCEU superhero offerings, placing a light-hearted spin on the superheroics. This is the sequel
A film directed by actor Zack Ward – his best known role was probably as Postal Dude in Uwe Boll’s Postal. Not a terribly interesting film – it starts as a ghost story before this proves to be a red herring and then meanders around without much direction
Australian-made film about a heroine being drawn into occult conspiracies around her that only treads where Rosemary’s Baby went before
Incomprehensible surrealism from director Raul Ruiz about a doctor sent to investigate a village where miracles occur with commonplace regularity
Ageswap fantasy in which middle-aged Matthew Perry is rejuvenated as a teenage Zac Efron. A glib fantasy that seems made by abstinence campaigners