The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
David Cronenberg’s absolute masterpiece of the perverse with Jeremy Irons giving a tour-de-force performance(s) as twin gynaecologists who descend into drug addiction, obsession and madness
A 79 year-old David Cronenberg returns with one of his best films, a synthesis of his major themes in an extraordinary and perverse look at a future where surgery has become performance art. This site’s best film of 2022.
Absolutely fascinating David Cronenberg film that swims with a heady mix of ideas that blur tv, reality and the human body
David Cronenberg film that takes place in a limousine and consists of a surreal drift through a near-future world in the midst of economic collapse, observing it with darkly brilliant, razor-sharp agitprop dialogue
An excellent conceptual SF film, a directorial debut for Vincenzo Natali with six people trapped in a labyrinth of identical rooms some of which contain death traps where they must solve the puzzle to find the way out
Vincenzo Natali’s second film, a cool and superbly disquiet thriller about corporate brainwashing and espionage that comes with a series of Philip K. Dick-ian reality bending twists
Splendidly original and completely off the wall work of stylised animation from Sylvain Chomet
A sublimely funny comedy about a group in a habitat who have been selected to roleplay the astronauts on a Mars mission
Enormously entertaining David Cronenberg film about psychic powers. Cronenberg is fascinated with the conceptua possibilities and creates some sensational set-pieces
David Cronenberg tackles J.G. Ballard’s controversial novel, creating a fascinatingly perverse work that ventures into a world where people become sexually aroused by car crashes
A hugely underrated film that depicts the brutal collapse of society that occurs when the entire world is affected by a plague that causes blindness. Directed in strong and powerful images
A strong and powerful depiction of historic Inuit culture in the Arctic Circle, which has been shot and acted by Inuit people. Included here because of some Magical Realist elements.
Excellent Canadian-made End of the World film where actor/director Don McKellar eschews lavish big-budget spectacle for a wry, often haunting series of characters studies about how people meet the end
Quirky and wittily clever film from Vincenzo Natali, director of Cube, where two characters wish themselves into a blank white void filled with literally nothing
David Cronenberg’s first commercial release, a vivid work about parasites that turn the residents of an apartment building into sexual fetishists. Cronenberg has set out to shock while beneath that he creates fascinating metaphors about sex
Bruce McDonald makes a standout fim with Stephen McHattie as a radio dj dealing with a zombie infection that inhabits the English language that breaks out in the town around him
Brandon Cronenberg makes an impressive writing-directing debut, taking up the thematic reins of his father’s earlier films in a darkly satiric future escalation of contemporary celebrity culture
The most original treatment of the zombie film in some time. Rather hilariously, what we get is a film about a girl being pursued by a single zombie (at a walking pace) and the slow relationship she develops with it
One of David Cronenberg’s great early films. Fueled by a messy divorce Cronenberg was going through, it is set around a radical psychological institute that encourages people to manifest their repressed angers through their bodies
Guy Maddin has perfected a blend of silent movie stylistics and hilariously surreal melodrama. This is a Guy Maddin film on acid, a sumptuously madcap fantasia of visuals wound around a tapestry of tall tales
Guy Maddin was hired by the Documentary Channel to make a documentary about his hometown Winnipeg and turns it into a surreal confabulation of fact and tall tale
Director Bruce McDonald and writer/star Don McKellar make an hilariously eccentric road movie as McKellar takes a trip down the title route with a dead body while pursued by The Devil
Low-budget film about a girl who starts to find bruises on her body that progress until every part of her body is rotting and falling apart. A minimalist film where everything other than the slow observation of the girl’s physical decay has been stripped away – with incredibly raw effect
The third film from Guy Maddin film. This feels like a parody/homage to German Expressionism all filmed on deliberately unreal sets and purple dialogue played with an hilarious deadpan
Guy Maddin’s reinterpretation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula as a ballet and silent movie is an extraordinarily creative work while remaining far more faithful to the original story than many other film versions do
Film that depicts an alternate world where women have gained the upper-hand and men are a disappearing minority. This proved an unexpected delight, a mockumentary that comes in perfect and side-splitting deadpan, not to mention explores its premise with absolutely logical regard
From Denys Arcand, a strong and powerful examination of all differing aspects of sexuality in the 1990s via a crosscut of characters, including a serial killer also in the mix
At age 81, David Cronenberg is still on great form with this perversely fascinating work about the development of a technology that places cameras inside graves to observe corpses as they decay
Adaptation of a Salman Rushdie novel that acts as a superhero film of sorts about a secret war between people with unique powers set against the backdrop of 20th Century Indian history
Another of the surreal films from Guy Maddin, involving incest, strange love triangles and transplanted hands, all shot of which has been shot as a silent movie
The second film from David Cronenberg. Despite the SF title, this is more a work of arthouse surrealism where Cronenberg spends the film documenting strange behaviours in an hilarious deadpan tone that mimics a scientific paper
The second film from Brandon Cronenberg, a fascinatingly original work about body-hopping assassins
The very first film from David Cronenberg. An incredibly experimental work even today, which consists of people wandering the halls of a university and the soundtrack of voices discussing psychic powers experiments in a dryly funny parody of an academic paper. Fascinatingly oblique
A considerable word of mouth hit, this generates a very spooky atmosphere with highly unusual shooting techniques
One of several films that came out around the same time, including Super and Kick-Ass, about ordinary people who believe they superheroes. Woody Harrelson gives a winning performance as the comically inept title character
Another of Guy Maddin’s surreal kitsch films all delivered in deadpan prose, this boasts more of a name cast than usual for Maddin
A miracle of no-budget filmmaking made on a budget of $1000. A homage/parody of 80s/90s cyborg action films with some extremely accomplished effects posing and a sidesplitting ear for the era’s dialogue
The zombie film is feeling very played out these days. This is a no expectation entry (even the title seems utterly generic) that proves an unexpected delight, filled with endearing characterisations
This takes the old conspiracy theory about the Moon Landing being faked by tv and rather hilariously is a Found Footage film being shot by two filmmakers who have been tasked with fabricating the Moon Landing
Underrated film with Peter Weller as a Wall Street banker who has his life overturned in trying to deal with a tenacious, seemingly hyper-intelligent rat that invades his home
The first of two sequels to the Canadian werewolf film. This takes place with the surviving sister placed in a rehab facility and is the best of the trilogy, even better than the first film was in its writing and characters
Third of the Ginger Snaps films, a prequel set during the pioneer era with Emily Perkins and Katharine Isabelle again as sisters taking refuge at a fort under attack by werewolves. The scene-setting and atmosphere of foreboding is superlative
Witty, wryly sarcastic modern take on the werewolf film where two teenage sister become affected – sort of like a remake of I Was a Teenage Werewolf by way of Ghost World. Two sequels followed.
George Romero’s sixth and final zombie film where he writes characters and a script with much more of a richness of theme than he did in the last two entries
Fascinating film interviewing people about the jobs they are forced to take in an economically collapsed future. Despite a minuscule budget, this has the grip of strong, intelligent SF
An appealingly politicised variant on the Backwoods Brutality film in which two rogue US border guards decide to set up their own home Guantanamo Bay … not Torture Porn but an effectively brutal study on the effect of torture
This came out the same year as Peter Jackson’s overrated Heavenly Creatures, although wasn’t as recognised, but is a much better, more socially realistic version of the lesbian lovers-killers theme
Denis Villeneuve slips into a very Cronenbergian vein to deliver a film about Jake Gyllenhaal and a mysterious doppelganger. A fascinatingly oblique and cryptic work, just as long as one does not require that it comes with any easy explanations
Fine studied Atom Egoyan thriller in which Elaine Cassidy, a teenage runaway from Ireland, is offered a home and befriended by Bob Hoskins who is a serial killer who targets runaways
Pascal Laugier returns with this fascinating effort about a small town subject to child abductions by a possible boogieman. A film that is as blatantly manipulative as it is ingenious in its way-out twists and turns where everything we assume is going on at the outset is eventually turned completely on its head
A unique and original variation on the bodyswap theme, told from point-of-view of an entity that passes through various bodies in a murderous spree as it tries to make its way back to the girl it loves
Fine and underrated Sf film set in a future where memory recording devices are commonplace with Robin Williams as a man whose job is to edit these for funeral services
Unexpectedly excellent film where an elderly Satanist couple abduct a pregnant woman in order to incarnate their grandson in her unborn child. This deflates the cliches in a series of alternately funny and wild twists
An interesting and worthwhile attempt to retell the epic legend of Beowulf but to give it grounding as an historical work. Filmed in Iceland with an international cast
Highly enjoyable Canadian-made parody of bad 1950s B movies that throws in everything from alien invaders to zombies and splatter. And is a musical to boot!
Excellent and underrated film about a caveman unthawed in the Arctic where attempts are made to help him adjust. This conducts the a creaky old story with modern scientific and anthropological realism
A uniquely original film. Almost an arthouse take on a slasher film where we are placed in the hulking killer’s shoes and the rest of the show takes place in abstract brushstrokes
Controversially charged Canadian film in which Molly Parker plays a mortuary assistant who develops an obsession with having sex with corpses. Played with more taste than synopsis would lead you to think
Canada’s twin sisters Jen and Sylvia Soska’s second film is set in the dark underground of body modification,. Like an episode of tv’s Nip/Tuck with a Suicide Girls ethos. Not perfect but an impressive maturation
The second film from Inuit director Zacharias Kunuk who made Atanarjuat about a Danish anthropologist charting the lives of the Inuit as they are in the process of assimilation by Westerners
Extraordinary Brandon Cronenberg film about a fictional country where those convicted of crimes can have clone copies executed in their place, leading to an tourist underworld where all crimes are permissible
A Canadian entry made soon into the zombie movie revival of the mid-00s and before the copycats started to become tediously familiar and the genre turned to self-parody. This delivers a solid rehash of the essentials – IMHO a better job that Zack Snyder did in Dawn of the Dead
Rue Morgue magazine editor Rodrigo Gudiño makes his directorial debut with an old-fashioned ghost story that is a slow, moody ambiguous single-person drama
A breath of originality in a decade overrun with Mad Max copies, a clever and original little film in which the crew of a space station return to Earth after the nuclear holocaust
A genre-melding oddity that starts as an earnest recreation of a 1950s rock‘n’roll movie, before introducing a series of bizarre mutations and some fascinating mid-film twists
We have had a few UFO Found Footage films, most of which are rehashes on The Blair Witch Project with aliens instead of backwoods hauntings. This is one entry that produces a series of eerie jumps
A reasonable and effective Canadian entry in the 1970s Backwoods Brutality cycle with Brenda Vaccaro on a weekend getaway with a boyfriend as they are brutaised by three petty hoods
One of the better entries among the 1980s slasher film cycle – and even featuring the era’s quintessential heroine Jamie Lee Curtis. Essentially Halloween aboard a train, at which the film does the basics of the genre with perfect competence and undeniably stylish photography
Grave Encounters was an unremarkable Found Footage film. This much smarter sequel takes its lead from Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 in being a meta-fiction that investigates the phenomenon of the first film
Fascinating true story about a college student who struck up a correspondence with serial killer John Wayne Gacy and fashioned himself according to Gacy’s victim profile so as to get closer to him
The second film from Guy Maddin, which comes with all of his familiar homages to German Expressionism and silent cinema, wrapped up in a surrealist plot of hilarious melodrama and side-splittingly deadpan dialogue
An off-the-wall film with a unique premise about an apartment where every time somebody is killed another copy of them emerges out of a hole in the wall
Canadian-made parody of a cheesy 1950s SF film that emerges more wittily amusingly than most Deliberately Bad SF Films
The great and underrated Steven Kostanski makes another of his homages to the 1980s VHS era. This has a winning concept where kids befriend an intergalactic dark lord
From Isaac Ezban in his English-language debut, a cleverly and pleasingly contorted film where a group of friends discover a mirror that leads to a parallel timeline
Modest and underrated Philip K. Dick adaptation that builds reasonable atmosphere during its journey across a planet and doubt as to who among the party might be one of a breed of evolving androids
There have been a surprising number of films in recent years offering up the combination of zombies and strippers. Although what we have is never quite specified as zombies, this offers up strippers kicking zombie ass with a great deal of gore-drenched relish
Ryan Nicholson makes an amusing slasher film that takes place on a horror movie set where the set driver is a fan of the scream queen star and decides to start eliminating people to start making the film go his way
Modest story about a catastrophic countrywide powercut – rather than depicting a widespread apocalypse, the film is a character-driven piece focused around two sisters living on their own at a cabin in the woods
Despite the title, this is a horror film that takes place in a mine (albeit one where the former inmates of an asylum lurk). This plays out fairly well by a set of familiar genre tropes and delivers a solid degree of tension
Sequel to the modest He Never Died with Henry Rollins as an immortal. Women get equal time here in a ferocious performance from Olunike Adeliyi that quite takes you aback
Essentially a feature version of The Twilight Zone‘s classic Nightmare at 20,000 Feet episode, this generates some remarkable tension with a group trapped in mid-air in a small plane before a lame twist ending
Charmingly droll film that posits an alternate version of the 1950s where zombies have been domesticated. This has a perfect sense of mood and admirable deadpan playing by all involved
Found Footage film that cleverly borrows more than a few leaves from An American Werewolf in London with two tourists in Europe where one is bitten and transformed by a vampire
A lavish and ambitious production that has the fictional character of Sherlock Holmes solving the real-life Jack the Ripper murders, even if the eventual resolution opts for one of the more far-fetched theories about The Ripper’s identity
Modest and well-made low-budget anthology of Christmas horror tales from three Canadian filmmakers
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
Modestly effective zombie film set during the US Civil War. This eschews the usual gore-drenched zombie attacks in favour of a nicely achieved story about one man’s internal journey through the apocalypse
In his last ever produced screenplay, cult director Larry Cohen turns in a wonderfully playful script with Matthew Lillard as a screenwriting lecturer harassed by a killer only to find real-life doesn’t obey the same rules that screenplays do
A charming Coming of Age story about kids who think they have discovered the Frankenstein monster. Comes packed with numerous genre homages and quotes
One of the better copies of Basic Instinct with detective Ellen Barkin being tempted as she investigates a serial killer who is targeting women who were involved with a lesbian call girl
Very difficult to find, this is film that has existed in legend – an erotic film with Vanity as a model on a desert island who becomes involved with an ape. Beautifully filmed and Vanity (who spends much of the show nude) is jaw-dropping
Canadian family saga told through the eyes of a young boy growing up amid a strange extended Newfoundland family. Featuring a number of fantastical elements.
Documentary about the so-called World’s Worst Director Uwe Boll. We get fascinating insight into Boll’s filmmaking methods, while the documentary fearlessly tackles the controversies associated with its subject
The first attempt to film the works of cult Cyberpunk author William Gibson met with very mixed success, nevertheless is a modest effort that does mainline the essence of Gibson’s world
Modestly effective effort about a man whose body is slowly fading away and becoming invisible. A film carried by some fine effects sequences, this derives its frisson from the gradual revelation of what is happening but loses it when the mundane subplots take over in the second half
A witty parody of the giallo film from members of Canada’s Astron-6 collective who are proving themselves the masters of a certain type of movie spoof
A modest and surprisingly well thought out SF film set in a future where swapping bodies is commonplace only for a man to find his original body has been stolen
Film about a monster hunter from the 1940s thawed out in the present-day. This appears to have been made as a tv pilot
A superior sequel to the modest The Gate. This borrows from H.P. Lovecraft and delves into the area of cursed wishes that turn on the wisher, all with imaginative results