The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
A live-action adaptation of the popular animated series, one of the spate of such films made after the live-action The Flintstones. Amiably silly and frequently slapstick fun that proves to be exactly what one expects of it
The one and only fiction film made by documentary-maker Michael Moore of Fahrenheit 9/11 fame, a broad farce concerning an imaginary war declared on Canada by the USA for political purposes
One of the first depictions of an android on film, a madcap British comedy of manners about the creation of an android woman
Spanish comedy produced to celebrate the turn of the millennium in which the fates of several people wind together on the eve of the end of the century
Whether you loved or hated the crude and raucous, un-PC stoner/fratboy humour of Ted, Seth MacFarlane is back with exactly the same mix here. This manages to be offensive in an amiably inoffensive, even occasionally quite funny, way
A light fantasy comedy with Lucas Donat as the inheritor of a Scottish castle that is haunted by a ghost and the problems faced when the castle is sold to be shipped to America
Another of the films from the East Side Kids/Bowery Boys, a prolific comedy act of the era. Here the boys set out to bust a fake medium racket during the course of which they are aided by a ghost
British quota quickie that is a likeable light fantasy comedy about a haunted Scottish castle and comes peopled with a cast of eccentrics
An overrated classic that is nevertheless an undeniable fixture of 1980s pop culture. Overlong, it is largely carried through Bill Murray’s lazy sarcasm and the sterling work from the visual effects team
This was the second of Jim Varney’s Ernest P. Worrel comedies. It sees Santa Claus looking for a replacement and Ernest coming to the aid amid a series of comic shenanigans
Albert Brooks directed/starring comedy in which he plays a man in the afterlife on trial, required to defend the dull and ordinary life he led, at the same time as he begins a romance with Meryl Streep
There was a lot of hate centred on this for recasting what is considered a classic film with an all-girl cast. It emerges mostly likeably, no better, no worse on the whole, where the new ensemble make a solid showing
Sequel to Ghostbusters that was far better received than the 2016 reboot, giving us a new generation of ghostbusters. This succeeds largely by playing the nostalgia card for all it can
The film debut of the horror hostess Elvia (Cassandra Peterson), a good natured film containing more bimbo jokes, double entendres and bad puns than one thought possible
The third of Jim Varney’s Ernest films where he is mistaken for a wanted criminal who is his double – only to go to the electric chair and this to cause his body to become magnetised
A rather charming comedy in which two nerds find an angel fallen knocked down by an orbiting satellite. Much silliness but Emmenualle Beart has an otherworldly loveliness as the angel
Werewolf films were all the thing around 1980-1 with hits like The Howling and An American Werewolf in London. This is cult director Larry Cohen’s often extremely silly but not entirely unamusing comedy take
A directorial debut from Woody Allen co-writer Marshall Brickman, an offbeat comedy where scientists hypnotise Alan Arkin into believing he is an alien
An Airplane/Naked Gun styled parody of The Silence of the Lambs
Amiably good natured if unchallenging comedy where Dawn French engages in a relationship with an alien visitor
Remake of the earlier Bob Hope Old Dark House comedy The Ghost Breakers now made as a vehicle for the duo of Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin. Probably overly long and takes forever to arrive at the haunted house but has some occasionally amiable comedic moments
Peter Sellers’ last film and usually lambasted by his fans. Spoofing the great villain, Sellers indulges his penchant for playing multiple roles and the result is some likeable silliness
Amiable comedy adapted from an Oscar Wllde story with Charles Laughton as a ghost condemned to walks the family castle for his cowardice. Contains much Wartime comedy about the clash between British and American cultures
An occasionally amusing Airplane-styled spoof of film noir and psycho-thrillers, including parodies of then recent films like Basic Instinct and Fatal Attraction, among others
The third and one of the better of the generally insipid Muppet movies produced following Jim Henson’s death. This tells the story of Gonzo’s origins as an alien where the film borrows spoofs the then-popularity of tv’s The X Files
Madcap Hong Kong comedy variant on Firestarter where Chingmy Yau has a curse that she starts fires when aroused
Amiably lightweight 80s comedy in which average teenage underdog Robyn Lively gains magical abilities and the complications these create
The first of the insipid Muppet movies made following Jim Henson’s death, directed by his son Brian. This twists the Muppets out of shape to fit them into a retelling of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol
Comedy about stupid alien visitors largely construed as a vehicle for popular British comedy duo Mel Smith and Griff Rhys-Jones. Some witty SF in-jokes among a haphazard script
Comedy take on the Tarzan character with Joe Lara playing Tarzan who comes to New York and promptly proves to be a fish out of water. The filmmakers were likely inspired by the then recent hit of Crocodile Dundee
Intended as a horror riff on the phenomenally popular Police Academy series, this sets a series of gags in as bad a taste as possible around the locale of a mortuary
Fourth in the popular hopping vampire saga that spawned six films and an uncredited copycat series, all blending a manic mix of comedy, fantastique moves and Eastern beliefs
Film spinoff from the long-running animated tv series. The familiar gags are there but show feels awkward extruded out to a full-length plot. You keep feeling the film should have been more than it is.
Peter Sellers comedy where the smallest country in the world invades the USA and ends up accidentally winning
Christopher Landon, director of Happy Death Day and Freaky, makes a comedy about a family who turn the ghost in their house into a viral sensation
The third and final film to date directed, written by and starring Yahoo Serious where he plays an accident prone man obsessed with alien life
Typical Old Dark House comedy of the 1940s, which has been welded to the formula of the Our Gang comedies with a bunch of kids engaged in a comedic antics in a scary mansion peopled by apes, dead bodies and a sinister scientist
Third in the popular series of Hong Kong hopping vampire films. As in the previous entry, a frenetic slapstick element dominates
One of the wacky inventor live-action comedies Disney made in the 1960s, a sequel to The Misadventures of Merlin Jones where Tommy Kirk variously adopts a chimpanzee and tries to sleep-coach football jocks
A Hong Kong take on RoboCop with Sally Yeh as crimefighting android. Though produced by and also starring Tsui Hark, a very silly slapstick element comes to dominate what are otherwise imaginative action sequences
The only film that Marilyn Monroe will be written about for on this site. A classic screwball comedy about the accidental discovery of a formula that causes all who take it to revert to adolescence. Much madcap malarkey ensues but it does get very silly
We have had some standout A.I. films in the last few years. This is comedy variant where Melissa McCarthy is befriended by an A.I. who adopts the voice of James Corden
Comedy about a shipwrecked crew that are rescued by a German U-boat that is carrying a vampire on board
One of the forgotten comedies from UK’s Ealing Studios, this rails against the evils of the then new medium of television where The Devil contrives to make people miserable by getting them to watch tv
Occasionally amusing comedy where a group of fans set out to rescue the heroine’s unrequited crush from a house of vampires
Clearly an attempt to copy the success of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, this is a comedy with time travellers visiting the 1970s. Lots of 70s pop culture and faces without any of it being funny
Here gimmick master William Castle turns his attention away from the usual into making a light fantasy comedy about a family who buy a house inhabited by ghosts
An obscure parody about a team of inept and dysfunctional superheroes that was one of the earliest works from a then unknown James Gunn (who not only writes but stars as one of the superheroes)
Mel Brooks parodies the Star Wars films. As with most Brooks films, the humour is broad and scattershot but occasionally amusing
One hardly greets the attempt to generate another entry out of this franchise with any enthusiasm. This mostly consists of tired and familiar gags, where maybe the most generous compliment you can pay is that it is better than Men in Black II was
Old Dark House comedy set around the antics of big band leader Kay Kyser. Starring several horror names of the day – Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi and Peter Lorre
Stephen Chow has proven himself a comic genius in his directorial works of the 90s/00s. Unfortunately, as he has gained mainstream acclaim, his films have started to disappear under their big-budgets. This is sort of a version of Splash! by way of the fad for madcap Hong Kong slapstick
Nora Ephron romantic comedy with John Travolta cast as angel who is a slob. A rather aimless shapeless comedy that thinks it is funnier than it is
This has an irresistible premise – of doing for 1970s tv SF what GalaxyQuest did for Star Trek – parodying the sets, costumes and cliches. On the other hand, the superb conception fails to ever play out as comedy and the film centres around a series of singularly dull personal dramas
Kevin Smith’s follow-up to Tusk slides off the cliff somewhere between Johnny Depp’s incredibly silly performance, a nemesis you can’t take seriously and what largely becomes a vanity exercise in nepotism – Smith and Depp creating a vehicle to highlight their daughters
Comedy about aliens who have invaded Earth and keep broadcasting commercials to tell how wonderful life is. You feel like this should be great satire but instead the film flounders about without any plot tapping a 60s counter-culture vibe before finding it doesn’t have anything to say
The title and the description of a space station crew dealing with a mutating runner duck gives the expectation of something wacky – what we get is more like a variant on Dark Star, a comedy set around the boredom of life on a space station and a 1970s era episode of Doctor Who
Not very funny comedy from Harold Ramis and Judd Apatow where Jack Black and Michael Cera are cavemen who stumble through many incidents from the Old Testament
Frenetic Hong Kong comedy about fairy enchantments involving all the cast undergoing gender reversals
Comedy about a cop from the future who joins the present-day force where he is partnered with a cop thawed out from the 1960s. This is a premise that should have been funny but emerges as something like Sledge Hammer cast with the characters from Dumb and Dumber
Sequel to Disney’s The Absent-Minded Professor that only unimaginatively shuffles around the same elements and lacks the inspired touch of the first film
Disney live-action comedy where Dean Jones accidentally creates a duck that lays golden eggs
After making the groundbreaking anime Akira, Katsuhiro Otomo then chose to direct this oddity – a live-action comedy about a frustrated Yakuza enforcer trying to evict an apartment of foreigners that turns into a horror film in its last third
Madcap screwball comedy with Danny Kaye required to pose as his dead twin brother who is then taken over by his ghost during a trial
An earlier silent version of The Wizard of Oz, which twists the story considerably out of shape as a vehicle for the slapstick comedy of star Larry Semon who plays The Scarecrow
A werewolf comedy that takes place on the set of a zombie film. Comes with much in the way of homage to An American Werewolf in London
Films about stupid people are rarely funny – this concerns a whole planet of stupid people. Despite reasonable production values, there is little that raises even a mild smile in this comedic take on Flash Gordon
The third Muppets film, the last Jim Henson would be involved with, this shows them putting on a Broadway show
Eccentric 80s frat rat/surfer comedy – part of the weird joke is that there never was a Surf I. Eddie Deezen is a mad scientist turning surfers into zombies with a soda made of industrial waste.
Fairly silly comedy in which housewife Susan Blakely discovers that she is turning into a werewolf. This varies between the over-the-top and the oddly amusing line
The weakest of the Muppet movies where they are turned into the characters in a retelling of The Wizard of Oz
Fourth of the Scary Movie films and the usual crude inanity, although under David Zucker the movie parodies have expanded well beyond what can be labelled scary movies any longer
Very 80s film that feels like Martin Scorsese’s After Hours rewritten with vampires set around vampire nightclub. The comedy is uneven but there is is a striking performance from Grace Jones as the vampire
Oddball New Zealand-made comedy with various characters in pursuit of a statuette with rejuvenative properties
A Disney version of Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court where the story of a man thrown back in time to Camelot is dragged into the era of Star Wars with the addition of space shuttles and androids
A series of parody sketches based around the popularity of Weird Al Yankovic who plays the owner of a struggling cable tv station
Martin Lawrence directs and stars in a comedy variant on Fatal Attraction in which he has the role of a player who is stalked by a psycho Lynn Whitfield
The East Side Kids, a popular comedy group during the 1940s/50s, conduct a variant on the Old Dark House film featuring a sinisterly lurking Bela Lugosi … The East Side Kids’ films were made on impoverished budgets – this one of their better but still aimlessly circles around creaky and dated gags
Pearl White was the original serial heroine in The Perils of Pauline. During the 1960s Batman craze, the serial was revived as this campy comedy
Director Paul Bartel and a reasonable name cast make a comedy about the sex lives of the Beverly Hills elites
Widely rididculed attempt to market Gilbert & Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance as a teen pop film by way of The Blue Lagoon. A mind-spinning film that seems to have no limit on how silly it is prepared to be, including numerous anachronistic contemporary pop culture in-jokes and fourth-wall breaking gags
This has a certain cuteness to its premise – of seeing a bunch of classic videogames brought to life. Beyond that, Pixels is a one gimmick film that suffers from two people whose films I hate – the perpetually banal Chris Columbus and the irritatingly smug presence of Adam Sandler
Rather silly and plotless Hong Kong comedy with Chow Yun Fat as a CIA agent encountering a magical girl at a monastery in China
Film based on a Saturday Night Life sketch with Lance Crouther as a superhero who speaks a nonsense babble
One of the popular Beach Party comedies of the 1960s. Tommy Kirk turns up as a bumbling Martian to romance Annette Funicello
Chick Flick with Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock as two sisters from a family of witches. The film never really settles on a consistent tone between comedy, thriller or romance and veers all over the place
One of a popular spate of 80s/90s Hong Kong ghost comedies where a man gets the aid of an annoying ghost girl as he pursues the woman of his dreams
The Wayans Brothers and most of the regulars return to revive the franchise to make more crude farce of the Scream and Halloween revivals and other horror films to come out in the last few years
Comedy where real-life husband and wife Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick play a couple who are so passionate they start fires whenever they have sex
Comedy that comes comes with a winning concept – clueless hipsters try to get away from their social media devices for a weekend only to find the Earth has been invaded by aliens
An Abbott and Costello comedy. Not one of their monster bashes but a variant on the light comedy that had been popular in the last decade with Lou as an 18th Century ghost haunting Bud Abbott in the present. Can’t say I am a big fan of their humour, most of the slapstick that seems dated today
The Three Stooges travel through time to take on the Italian muscleman film in a never particularly funny comedy
Friday the 13th so changed the horror genre that within two years it produced two four parodies of its title. From Roger Corman, this is more of an occasionally amusing parody of classic monster movies than the slasher film
The Three Stooges join a number of other comics of this era in taking on the space race. Well they only briefly venture into orbit and mostly this can be described more as a slapstick haunted house comedy with alien invaders
Most of the comics of the 1960s made a film dealing with the Space Race and here it is the turn of Don Knotts. Lots of bumbling slapstick ensues in this hardly inspiring entry
Comedy released under the National Lampoon banner in which a nerdy student accidentally creates a clone of his object of desire. This feels like a mash-up between Weird Science and a frat rat comedy
The one and only solo outing from Lou Costello of Abbott and Costello fame made after the duo’s split-up and just before Lou’s death. The film is essentially a comedy remake of the previous year’s Attack of the 50 Foot Woman in which Lou’s newlywed wife abruptly becomes a giant
Sequel to the live-action Scooby-Doo, this is at least a better film than its predecessor, being more polished in its slapstick and effects but still has no more ambition beyond being a silly no-brain film
British quota quickie, a comedy about a man who discovers an oracle in a well that gives him tips on horse races
Lightweight French bodyswap comedy where aging rocker Alain Chabat and mousy bureaucrat Daniel Auteuil end up sharing the same body