The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
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
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
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.
Canadian-made film about an afterlife encounter group where people are condemned to continually relive the circumstances that led to them being there
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
The first sequel to Vincenzo Natali’s fine conceptual puzzlebox film. This expands out on the idea, having a cube that bends through time and space, and has a certain fascination if not as much as the original did
This was the third of the Cube films but has nothing new to add to the mix except a focus on the technicians monitoring the operation and the addition of gore effects
Slasher film that is more like an Agatha Christie whodunnit, this comes with an appealing level of meta-fictionality. Mostly, it is an actor’s film and has been set-up to allow its name cast to do amazing things
Micheal Bafaro is a justifiably obscure director whose entire career has been built on recycling other horror films. This is his version of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, which is passable until a Sixth Sense-styled twist ending
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
A passable psycho-sexual thriller that copies Fatal Attraction and Basic Instinct with Andrea Roth caught between two men, one of who seems to be stalking her
This feels like a mockbuster thrown together to exploit the popularity of the tv series Lost concerning an island haunted by a sinister cloud of smoke. The scenario quickly collapses into absurdity.
A horror film made by Canada’s indigenous Metis people that concerns a group of women on a therapeutic wilderness trek are stalked and attacked by a monster
This comes with an original idea where a troubled girl starts drawing a graphic novel that mirrors her own life only for the characters to emerge into the real world. Less horror than a dark allegorical fantasy
A film that comes with an interesting sounding premise where a woman ventures through a doorway into a labyrinth world of interconnected rooms and ends up in a fight against the ruling theocracy
This imagines a future where people have become so absorbed in online communication that they live in isolated cubicles. An interesting idea that the film does zero to make believable
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
Action film set aboard a space station that houses cryogenically frozen survivors of a devastated Earth as C. Thomas Howell tries to stop a mad Matt Frewer
The debut film from the Soska Sisters – a demented road movie – is scrappy, all over the place and highly uneven but shows the two are definitely going places
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
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
James Herbert was a writer of extraordinary ferocity and gore-drenched extremes. This is an adaptation of his first book The Rats where all the ferocity has been watered down to a standard Animals Amok 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
Film about a ghost ship haunted by Nazi atrocities. This gives the impression it was made to highlight a series of novelty deaths styled after the then-recent hit of The Omen
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
A remake of the popular 1980s sword and sorcery film that was originally produced by Roger Corman. This version is directed by makeup effects artist Steven Kostanski who fills it with an amazing range of creature effects
Actor David Hewlett directs a B-budget film where a team of convicted hackers are sent to clean out the computers on a spaceship only to come up against a malevolent A.I.
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
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
The return of the talented Steve Barron after a decade’s absence in a film that was shot in my own backyard (literally). Disappointingly, all we get is a work that unimaginatively rehashes cliches about amok A.I.s
This starts as a Death Wish-styled vigilante film of interesting ambiguities, before abruptly turning into a psycho film. The latter half generates some undeniable tension but the film feels it needed more than that
Neill Blomkamp, the director of District 9, returns with a possession film that uniquely takes places in Virtual Reality as Carly Pope must use a device that enters her comatose mother’s dreamspace
The bizarre story of a man who believes his young daughter is the reincarnation of a NASA astronaut. The film makes great claim that it is based on a true story but fails to make a compelling argument for its case
A blatant copy of Saw, albeit without the Torture Porn sadism, with people imprisoned in a cellar forced to kill one another. An oddly unconvincing film that fails to generate any tension or even conviction
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.
Modernised version of the Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde story starring Dougary Scott. The principal novelty here is that the bulk of the story takes place in a courtroom as Hyde is placed on trial for murder
Canadian actress Valerie Buhagiar directs a film about a mother and son fleeing an abusive relationship. The surprise is beyond the film’s arthouse ambitions is that it is a regular ghost story
Film about clairvoyance and predestination that owes much to Don’t Look Now. Unfortunately, this reduces everything to the prosaic level of a tv movie thriller
Horror film from regular Canadian genre director Micheal Bafaro about a group of friends who enact a curse in which they are pursued and killed by a mannequin come to life
Modest and conceptually packed B-budget action film in which a motley team are sent to break into a bunker that has been hijacked by a scientist who is threatening to fire nuclear missiles
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
Bruce McDonald, who directed the standout Pontypool, makes a crime film where Stephen McHattie plays both a hitman and a heroin-addicted trumpet player. For head-scratching reasons, the film also includes a vampire
A Virtual Reality film that came out the same year as The Matrix and prefigures the dreamscape themes of Inception. Despite the possibilities, this has a dreary pace that very nearly approaches falling asleep
Another Syfy Channel low-budget disaster film. This creates a fascinating if scientifically dubious end of the world premise about a white hole but spends the show on the routine stuff of car chases and gunfights
Rather peculiar film about a man who becomes a cannibal whenever he sleepwalks and an artist who finds inspiration at the sight of the dead bodies. This taps a rich vein of black comedy
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
This Canadian film is a mishmash of hauntings, psychic powers, ghost hunters, possibly imaginary friends and End of the World prophecies that fails to make the slightest sense
This is a Canadian-made remake of the Alyssa Milano-starring erotic vampire film The Nosferatu Diaries: Embrace of the Vampire. For some reason, this is now minus the erotica and emerges as tepid
A comedy in which office staff working overtime gradually realise their efforts are in preparation for the end of the world. This needed more of a dark bite to fully work but has occasional amusement
Could it be too hard to go wrong in making a film about a doomsday cult hunting people through a subway tunnel? Apparently it is and after a promising beginning, the film churns the cliches with little tension
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
This is fake SF, an animated film that has no interest in its concept, one that exists solely as a series of pop culture jokes, cutsie supporting characters, thrills and feelgood epiphanies
A film about Elizabeth Bathory living in the present day, this comes with the suggestion of erotic allure but disappointingly proves to be a pose without much substance
A bland Canadian police procedural with detective Alexandra Paul investigating a woman who is killing the men who bullied and harassed her
This rehashes I Spit on Your Grave by way of The Crow with a heroine who is raped and killed and then becomes resurrected as a supernatural avenger
David Cronenberg tackles Virtual Reality themes in an interestingly mind-bending work. Cronenberg has some interesting takes but this ended up being overshadowed by the phenomenon that was The Matrix the same year
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
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
One of the worst of Uwe Boll’s videogame adaptations. This consists of action sequences slung together with random indifference and badly mismatched casting
Troma film that ventures back into their regular bad taste territory. This often feels like a film that never coheses into a particularly clear idea of what it is trying to do, possibly the result of six different directors
A film about a sinister small town with secrets and Bigfoot creatures lurking around in the background. Quite what is going on any more than that is unclear
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
The Soska Sisters made a splash on the genre scene a few years ago. Here they make a tribute/follow-up to Night of the Living Dead but produce an utterly safe work that is the antithesis of the edginess that gained them a name
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
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
Uwe Boll seems to be improving. Here he has abandoned action for a character-driven drama about the appearance of an ambiguous stranger heralding the Biblical end of the world
Canadian film set in a dystopian future where private use of cars has been banned and Darren McGavin is among the aging car aficionado who race custom cars in defiance of the authorities
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
Possibly THE worst film ever made. Tony Watt throws an mash-up of exploitation elements together in an incomprehensible plot. A film that made me want to hammer a nail through my eyeball rather than keep watching
A charming Coming of Age story about kids who think they have discovered the Frankenstein monster. Comes packed with numerous genre homages and quotes
A series of short film interpretations of the Frankenstein story, with interpretations ranging from BDSM to kung fu and modern police procedural
Makeup effects artist Steven Kostanski has become a fine director in recent years. Here he makes a Gremlins-styled film about a 1-900 number that unleashes a mischievous goblin
A psycho-thriller featuring Bo Derek as an agoraphobic wife dealing with the shock of seeing her husband murdered only to then find that his body has disappeared
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
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
Forgotten Canadian film about a series of murders around a former funeral home that has been converted into a guest house. Released at the height of the slasher cycle but this comes more in the vein of Psycho
Gore-drenched French-Canadian film where teens play a board game that forces them to kill a select number of people lest their heads explode
Modest horror film of the 1980s where kids inadvertently open a demonic gateway. Like a juvenile version of Poltergeist, this comes with the bonus of some fairly good effects
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
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
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.
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
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
Slasher film that comes with the interestingly original setting of a college dorm webcam porn site. Unfortunately, the film takes an awfully safe and tasteful route in delivering it
An incredibly bad Canadian-made sequel to Food of the Gods about a scientist who devises a growth hormone that accidentally creates a horde of giant rats
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
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
Another Found Footage horror film with a reality tv ghostbusting team investigating a haunted asylum. The Found Footage genre quickly became exhausted and this only treads where others have gone before
Stylish New Wave film about an existential vampire taxi driver meeting a woman film director who has received a terminal diagnosis. From the underrated Gerard Ciccoritti
Film about a series of gory deaths at a bowling alley, this really pushes an envelope of good taste. This gained attention for makeup effects artist Ryan Nicholson and was the cause of much censorship controversy
This Canadian film is a modernised telling of Hansel and Gretel where the witch becomes a man with possibly paedophile intent. A film seems to want to go into dark places but gives them an utterly tepid treatment
Baffling mix of teen drama and eco-SF film set in an ozone depleted future with Tcheky Karyo engaged in a series of human-plant mutations that transform him into a swarm of insects
Quebecois (French-speaking Canadian) historical werewolf film. The plot proves entertaining in its whisplash reversals, although the film’s provision of a werewolf falls down amid some ratty CGI effects
After some 150 other films, you have to wonder what another version of Hamlet has to offer. This Canadian adaptation does little other than updating the setting to the 1940s
A Canadian film about a gay man returning home and revisiting his childhood after ten years away that ends up in a weird series of parallel realities
From SF writer Jim Munroe who made the impressive Ghosts With Shit Jobs, a micro-budgeted work set in a post-cyberpunk future where the fascination lies in the casually littered assumptions around the edges
Slasher film from the 1980s heyday directed by the once great J. Lee Thompson. This drags drearily where the only going for it are some novelty splatter effects and a twist ending that makes no sense whatsoever
Adaptation of a Kurt Vonnegut story about a future where everyone must be average wherein Vonnegut’s farcical satire is completely misjudged and played straight
Vincenzo Natali tackles the ghost story, turning everything on its head in a series of mind-boggling twists. One of the few post-Sixth Sense films to take the film’s big twist as its starting point and build from there
One thing you don’t associate with Uwe Boll is a concern for social issues. Made in the aftermath of Columbine, this is an early Boll film that is a surprisingly solid attempt to address the scourge of US school shootings