The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
This looked promising but is no more than an unoriginal rehash of the cliches of the Mad Max film – at heart a Western with only token effort made to rewrite the elements in SF terms – and no greater ambition beyond being cable filler
Second of the sequels to David Cronenberg’s Scanners, this features Liliana Komorowska who becomes crazed after taking a scan suppressant drug
The first of a series of poorly made sequels to David Cronenberg’s Scanners. Cronenberg’s ideas have been stripped down to no more than a series of head-exploding effects
Enormously entertaining David Cronenberg film about psychic powers. Cronenberg is fascinated with the conceptua possibilities and creates some sensational set-pieces
The best budgeted of Guy Maddin’s films, a renaissance of his familiar kitsch surrealism and silent movie homages
Not that the title gives you any reason to expect it but this is actually a vampire film, one of the rare entries in a genre that is looking very anemic these days. An original and quite interesting smalltown take that resembles George Romero’s Martin and Let the Right One In
Alien invasion film set around the so-called Roswell Incident. Faux science-fiction written by cliche the entire way
A bad movie classic. A vanity project for Canadian heavy metal star/bodybuilder Jon-Mikl Thor who plays a heavy metal star who takes frequently his shirt off to pose while his band are killed by demonic forces (represented by the screen’s maybe worst ever puppet effects) as they try to record an album
Promisingly ambitious animated SF film that tries to catch some of the trippy qualities of Heavy Metal where the impressive quality of animation is let down by a juvenile story about a rock band in a post-holocaust future
A quite good but little seen Backwoods Brutality film from the great era of Canuxploitation with overtones of Deliverance as hikers in the wilderness are harassed by mysterious figures who play taunting psychological games
A Syfy Channel monster movie that seems made with a smidgen more care than their usual B movie output
A plague has killed off all adults. In the ruins, two girlfriends venture into the domain ruled by the tyrannical football jocks to rescue one’s brother
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
The Backwoods Brutality film given an LGBT spin where a lesbian couple run afoul of backwoods rednecks
Groundhog Day with drug addicts – a familiar timeloop scenario that makes for a reasonable story about redemption and reconciliation
Routine variant on the psycho child theme, which heads into rather dubious territory when it leads us to think a series of killings are being conducted by an autistic child
Syfy Channel film that seems to offer the intriguing premise of a Modernised Little Red Riding Hood but only deals with this in the vaguest ways. Otherwise this is a standard werewolf film and contains maybe the crappiest CGI wolf transformation scenes ever
A reasonable arthouse hit, this tells the story of a cursed violin through five different periods of history
Serial killer thriller about an FBI team who realise they are hunting a killer who targets other serial killers
Heather Thomas starring film about the discovery of a laboratory that has created a vampire virus
Chris Sarandon is a writer who becomes embroiled in solving a series of murder that mimic his own books. An okay set-up that rarely moves beyond the unfolding of cliches
Animated film based on the popular computer game. On screen, this emerges as essentially an instantly forgettable variant on one of the Star Wars prequels retooled for the Under Tens with the emphasis all on frenetic slapstick and visual eye candy
Actor Jay Baruchel directs a film in which a comic-book artist bases a graphic novel on a true-life serial killer only to find that the killer has returned and is imitating his work
This is the one of worst films to come out in the gonzo killer shark fad – it is surely the killer shark genre’s equivalent of The Room. The effects hit a level of terribleness not seen since Birdemic, the rest is full of ridiculous continuity gaffes, bad acting and bad dialogue
This comes with a fascinatingly original premise – man wakes up with complete amnesia and finds that he has the ability to kill anyone within thirty feet of him. The case of a film that holds attention with a captivating and unusual plot and a series of constant whiplash reversals
The Soska Sisters take on remaking the classic David Cronenberg film about a woman with a blood-drinking skin graft who leaves a trail of rabid victims. The sisters smartly update the original, bringing a host of new ideas to bear
The fourth film from David Cronenberg, a clear (although by no means uninteresting) attempt to repeat the success of Shivers with Marilyn Chambers as a woman with a vampiric skin parasite that turns victims into maddened killers
Difficult to find 1970s Canadian-made occult film that doesn’t quite live up to expectation. Mostly it is a police procedural and the devil worship cult angle only emerges as a left field ending in the last ten minutes.; Not tight enough as a detective story to fully work
Chillingly effective film where a teenage girl casts a spell to kill her mother, only to become terrified and try to turn back what she has unleashed
The debut of Canadian director Gerard Ciccoritti who should have become more well known, this goes for broke and becomes splendidly deranged
The third of the Prom Night films, a direct follow-on from the second in which Mary Lou becomes a campy Freddy Krueger-like villain firing off bad puns amid her dispatches
Entry amid the 1980s slasher fad featuring Jamie Lee Curtis. A fairly dreary effort that comes with much disco dancing footage
A shabby Canadian police procedural with David Birney as a detective hunting a killer who is targeting prostitutes
A documentary about the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe phenomenon. This covers everything from the origins of the toys through the animated series to the live-action film
Another Uwe Boll videogame adaptation, a satire where Zack Ward sets out on a shooting spree. Boll sets out to offend as many people as possible but somehow forgets to make any of it funny
The second film from Brandon Cronenberg, a fascinatingly original work about body-hopping assassins
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
This is one of a plethora of hard-to-differentiate apart ghost stories that have littered the dvd shelves in recent years, frequently copying Insidious in appropriating a sinister-seeming adjective as title. There is not a single directorial or musical cue, sound effect or line of dialogue that doesn’t feel like a cliche
Canadian-made thriller about the accidental release of a deadly plague from a laboratory. This is rather dull and never does anything that does not retread cliches
A likeable animated adaptation of Astrid Lindgren’s popular children’s character from the Canadian company Nelvana
Creepy and surprisingly well-made Canadian horror film in which a mentally disturbed David Hewlett has a strange relationship with an anatomical dummy that directs him to kill.
This Syfy Channel production can’t seem to decide if it is a sequel or a remake of the 1984 film. Michael Paré turn up in both versions but goes from being the hero to a menacing heavy. The original had its moments but this is generic and routine in all ways
A fascinating documentary about animator Richard Williams that principally focuses on the tragic failure of Williams’s lifework The Thief and the Cobbler, which would have been the most ambitious hand drawn film ever made
One of the numerous ‘vs’ films that came out after Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus, this is actually a B-budget fantasy adventure made for cable. This is not particularly bad, just routine and uninspired on all counts where the budget cramps any of its imaginative horizons
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
Strange Canadian children’s film about a boy who goes bald and is then given a peanut butter solution that causes wild uncontrolled hair growth
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
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
Canadian film about a woman alone in a cabin that has a set-up that seems to be heading in the direction of an effective horror film about cabin fever and/or paranoia – only for things to then get completely baffling as to what is happening
Another in the spate of deliberately ridiculous killer shark films concerning a ghost shark that emerges from an ouija board
A sequel to the Gonzo Killer Shark film Ouija Shark, this goes even crazier
Bruce LaBruce made the world’s first gay pornographic zombie film with L.A. Zombie. This was an earlier trial run, less a porn film and more down around the level of a student art film
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
A Syfy Channel film about the present-day discovery of a lost, still extant 19th Century village that has conducted a deal to preserve themselves by annually sacrificing someone to an ogre
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
Supposedly an adventure based on an untold story from The Odyssey, an entry among the fantasy adventure films made for cable filler in the 2000s
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
Tony Watt, who gets my nomination as the world’s worst filmmaker, does the laughtrack trick of taking a film – in this case, the original Nosferatu – and running his usual inane sound effects and excruciating bad acting over the top
Post-holocaust film made by and starring Canadian First Nations people. While the film uses the aftermath of a civilisation as a setting, it never seems that interested in exploring it. The film peters out in an uninteresting resoution and features some appallingly pretentious dialogue
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
Documentary about KNB EFX Group, one of the premiere makeup effects companies in contemporary Hollywood. Although nominally focused around KNB and their history, the documentary principally profiles Greg Nicotero, the N of the group
The novelty of a dance film about the end of the world in a giant flood
Underwater adventure movie that tries to emulate 2001: A Space Odyssey, this has a bad movie reputation
Frustratingly enigmatic film where student Carly Pope is drawn into a game of mysterious clues where people are being killed
Film that assembles interesting a number of SF elements and twists but is killed by its delivery as a pretentious indie film
Solid time travel film about a man who struggles to find a way back to his love as her ex keeps changing the timeline so she doesn’t leave him
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
Classic from the heyday of the slasher film, an effort that was clearly designed to exploit another holiday title in the wake of the successes of Halloween and Friday the 13th. This snappily adapts the slasher formula and does better than most of its ilk in serving it back up
Thriller where student Nicole Eggert begins to have clairvoyant visions leading her to an abducted girl
TV movie that had a unique selling point – a whodunit set aboard an international space mission – where viewers were invited to guess who the killer was
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
Another of the Mickey Mouse horror films that emerged when the character entered public domain. This features a Mickey Mouse masked killer pursuing teens through an amusement arcade
This has the mildly amusing idea of taking the idea of films like Dracula vs Frankenstein et al one step further and actually pitting various classic monsters against one another in a wrestling match. Beyond its mimicry of televised wrestling though, there is almost nothing else to the film
Low-budget action film with Dolph Lundgren as a modern-day Knights Templar tasked with preventing The Devil returning to Earth at the millennium
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
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
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
Unrelated to the Bill Murray film in anything but name, this is a moronic teen summer camp comedy in which Patrick Dempsey is aided in trying to lose his virginity by angel Sally Kellerman
An hilariously bad film in which Christians launch a space mission to flee a Bible-censoring dystopia on Earth
Film about a monster hunter from the 1940s thawed out in the present-day. This appears to have been made as a tv pilot
Film that has a minor cult reputation for its cheaply trippy 3D hallucination scenes. Outside of that, The Mask (not to be confused with the Jim Carrey film) is a dull variant on the Dr Jekyll story in which a ritual mask causes the wearer’s dark side to emerge
Okay ghost story in which Gabrielle Anwar rents a haunted farmhouse. Forest Whitaker turns up as a neighbouring occult expert
An impressively designed Quebecois sf film where it is it is sad to see so much artistry lavished on something completely nonsensical and utterly woolly-headed in terms of its ideas
An obscure Canadian-made thriller about an evil twin
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 amusing idea of a mimicry of a Bear Grylls-type wilderness survival reality show – but with the addition of a monster.
At the time of reviewing Rodney Ascher’s sleep paralysis documentary The Nightmare, I commented it would make fascinating material for a horror film. This Canadian micro-budgeted feature is one of the first to try and is interesting, even if it never truly grapples with its ideas
Likeable Canadian-made children’s film where Mark Harmon and kids come to rescue of a lake monster
A ghost story that is directed by a married couple who shoot the film in their own apartment and also play a family as they start to be affected by a malign presence
This starts out seeming like it is going to be a regular Backwoods Brutality film about a regular family threatened by hicks before expectations are abruptly turned on their head
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
An overlooked homage to the slasher film. This doesn’t set out to parody, deconstruct or subvert the tropes, rather is just a well-made and affectionate tribute to the genre’s 1980s heyday
A dull Quebec-made about the discovery of how a pharmaceutical company is conducting illicit experiments to create an artificial womb to breed embryos
Set in a nowhere New England town where fisherman Colm Meaney discovers a moss with miracle-healing properties. Sort of a Magical Realist version of The Shipping News
A psycho-thriller with a difference where Jodie Foster plays a teenager with secrets who maintains the pretence of living with her late father while fending off a pedophile Martin Sheen
Amiable Canadian entry in the oversaturated market of the zombie comedy that emerges sort of as a Judd Apatow film with zombies and produces the occasional smile if few laughs
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
Conceptually odd mix of an erotic film and a standard copy of Alien. This come with the peculiarity of steamy encounters sitting alongside chestburster scenes
From Cody Calahan who made Antisocial, a reasonable modernisation of the Jekyll and Hyde story with a girl at war for ownership of her own body with an evil alter ego
A film about the Manson Family killings told through the eyes of one of Manson Girls Leslie Van Houten. This becomes a savage and biting indictment of 1960s social morality