The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
This concerns depictions of Communism on screen. Communism is a development of Marxism that believes the state should mandate that all persons are economically equal and earning the same eliminating class divisions. This was a popular ideology that took over Russia in 1917 and spread to China, Cuba and many parts of Eastern Europe.
In almost all examples here, Communism refers to Soviet Communism, although there are some depictions of Chinese Communism. During the era of the Cold War, the Soviet Union was regarded as a great ideological threat to the freedom of the USA and other Western countries. This filtered through to genre cinema in many ways.
1950s genre cinema is filled with many examples of the fear of Communist infiltration, even scenarios where God and aliens step in to help overthrow the Soviet Union. Spy Films are rife with stories of East-West espionage.
Following the Cuban Missile Crisis, there were a number of films concerned with the outbreak of nuclear war. Such fears extended well into the 1980s with right-wing fantasies about the Soviet overthrow of the USA.
Films of the Space Race Era tended to show cooperation between the two countries as being a necessity on the High Frontier of space although some of these also saw Cold War tensions as extending well into the future.
The Post-Soviet era features a number of spy films set in its aftermath or backdated to before the era. Of more recent there have been a number of Alternate History films set in and around the Cold War.
During this period, the Soviets also produced a number of genre films, mostly concerning the Space Race. These are listed under Soviet Cinema.
Considerable return to form for animator Don Bluth even if the story of the Russian Royals he is telling is based on a hoax and manages to entirely excise any mention of the Communist Revolution
Animated adaptation of George Orwell’s fable that was intended as a satire of the Soviet Union. Being rendered as cutsie children’s animation necessarily bluntens the book’s bite
The Asylum’s mockbuster version of Godzilla vs Kong that features a giant-sized chimpanzee and gila monster facing off against one another
Perhaps the strangest film Mickey Rooney ever made, a comedy in which he is a prospector caught in an atomic explosion and afterwards gains the ability to cause things to explode
The second of the two-part animated adaptation of Frank Miller’s classic graphic novel. The film is staged as a series of epic confrontations between iconic DC characters and written with a dark bite to emerge much more satisfying than the first part
A British film that jumps into a full flight Reds Under the Bed hysteria concerning the discovery of Communist Chinese saboteurs building a vast network of tunnels beneath the USA
One of Francis Ford Coppola’s earliest films. Roger Corman has obtained rights to a Russian-made space expedition film and handed it over to Coppola who added a few extra scenes to repackage for US audiences
French-Belgian adult animated film in the gonzo trippy vein of Ralph Bakshi and Bill Plympton – a visually madcap satire of science-fiction tropes and 1980s East-West tensions, full of wackily surreal visuals
Third of the Harry Palmer spy films starring Michael Caine, which were made as a more grounded alternative to James Bond. Unfortunately, this has been placed in the hands of Ken Russell who overblows everything with a giddy eatravagance
The first MCU film to emerge since the Great Pause of the pandemic, the question is whether one of the least interesting characters in The Avengers can carry a film all by herself
The last gasp of the Cold War nuclear film. A tv movie that features Martin Landau is the US President who tries to stop an accidental Russian nuclear release escalating into full-out war
Buried in a space capsule. A one-man show that takes place entirely in an orbiting space capsule with the stranded British astronaut alternately seeking aid and about to be shot down by both the US and Soviets
Big-budgeted spy thriller with Gregory Peck as a scientist who poses as a defector to Communist China. This never enervates much as a thriller but its recreations of Communist China are amazing
This offers one of the most fascinating settings for a detective story – the Soviet Union at the height of Stalinist oppression – and borrows the story of true-life Soviet serial killer Andrei Chikatilo
Produced not long after 2001: A Space Odyssey, this is one of the smartest and best of the super-computer takes over the world films, directed with a tight economy and written with a snappy wit
One of the flops from Disney’s live-action heyday with Michael Crawford as a comic-book artist who gets to bring his inventions to life after being thrust into a spy caper
An early Robert Altman film about the planning and launch of a Moon Landing starring then unknown James Caan and Robert Duvall. The most realistic depiction of a space launch up to that point.
This offers the novelty of being the world’s first Ukrainian zombie film. Being made in the midst the Russian invasion, this lays into Soviet Russia and its failings with a scathing regard
The first film in 24 years from Alejandro Jodorowsky, a surreal journey through his own childhood. Gone is Jodorowsky, the mad prophet of El Topo, replaced by a warm, wryly self-reflexive Jodorowsky looking back in on his own life
This is an enjoyable low-budget homage to the Indiana Jones film that comes with a number of knowing references to the genre and the addition of a clever time travel plot
A classic of the 1950s Golden Age of SF, featuring Michael Rennie as an alien visitor film who comes to make a warning about the need to make peace. This stands at the start of the Atomic Age with a stark urgency
Stanley Kubrick decided the only way to make a film about nuclear war was to resort to black comedy. Aided by three sidesplitting performances from Peter Sellers, the result are mercilessly funny
The inevitable adult version of Count Dracula. Beyond the obvious, this is halfway watchable, having a sense of humour and even a story, which plays out as a straight version of Love at First Bite
Excellent film based on the true life Russian serial killer Andrei Chikatilo who preyed upon children. Malcolm McDowell giving a standout performance in the title role
Work of incredibly stark tension set amidst post-Cuban Missile Crisis nuclear anxieties with the US trying to recall a bomber that has been accidentally dispatched to drop an atomic bomb on Moscow
Live tv broadcast remake of the 1960s Cold War nightmare about an accidental nuclear release over Russia, now with an all-star cast. This proves far more suspenseful and expertly played than one might have thought
An all-time favourite based on the notion of a journey through the human body via a miniaturised submarine, an idea that comes with a sublime poetry despite the sometimes dodgy effects and plot holes
Clint Eastwood directs/stars in a standout thriller about the theft of a hi-tech fighter plane from inside the Soviet Union. The USSR is shown with paranoid effect and there is an exhilarating climax with the plane in flight
A Russian mockumentary that purports to tell the story of a Soviet expedition to The Moon in 1938. This conducts an exceptional mimicry of the style of the Soviet propaganda film
The very first film ever made about UFOs. This is fascinating as a work about UFOs made before all the other claptrap about abductions, impregnations etc came in. The film itself is rather dull
One of the early films from Anglo-horror director John Gilling, this takes place in a fictional Soviet republic and features experiments to create a race of super-children
Modestly effective tv mini-series about the crew of a British submarine in the 1980s being taken over by the ghosts from a World War II submarine
The 17th James Bond film, the first featuring Pierce Brosnan who gives a dazzlingly ruthless performance. The series is rebooted and takes the opportunity to reconstruct the mythos in terms of modern politics in ways that often take you aback
A Russian attempt to create their own equivalent of an Avengers film. The results emerge surprisingly better than you expect and with some standout effects
An ingenious mockumentary about the development of a time travel machine. This takes place as a ‘documentary’ discussing the invention but the cleverness is in seeing how small details keep changing in the background
The first and best Tom Clancy adaptation about a hi-tech Soviet submarine whose captain goes rogue. Director John McTiernan conducts the undersea maneuverings with gripping psychological tension
This Canadian effort about Soviet super-soldiers unfrozen in the present-day feels like one of a bunch of cheap direct-to-video copies of Universal Soldier that came out in the late 1990s
This was the third of the notorious Ilsa films featuring a hyper-sexed Dyanne Thorne. This locates everything in Russian where she is the commandant torturing the prisoners of a Soviet gulag
The fourth of the Indiana Jones films, returning after a 19 year gap to general disappointment. Largely a film about Indy getting old, this tries but the action scenes pale against what the series was in its heyday
An amazing Communist Scare film from the 1950s depicting a Soviet invasion and atomic bombing of the US. This writes its fears of the Communist treat in loud and red-bloodedly alarmist tones
A ridiculous action film from Cannon Films written by and starring Chuck Norris in which he singlehandedly arms himself and defeats a Communist invasion of the USA
Timo Vuorensola’s follow-up to Iron Sky. It is hard to believe that a film with a premise that combines Nazis on the Moon with alien lizard people from the hollow core of the Earth could go wrong
Neil Marshall was a highly promising genre name a few years ago on the basis of The Descent. Here he returns with a film about soldiers facing alien hybrid monsters in Afghanistan
A film from the heyday of Cold War hysteria made not long after the launch of the first ICBM about a mysterious hypersonic missile of possibly alien origin that terrorises the US
Genial and very likeable spoof of Dracula and the vampire film that succeeds where other works have failed and is very funny. George Hamilton steps into the role of Dracula with debonair charm
John Frankenheimer film. concerning a Communist plot for creating a brainwashed assassin, Frankenheimer shoots with stark and blackly funny effect and this has duly become a cult classic
Released three months after the Moon Landing, this was a big-budget film depicting a space mission disaster that leaves three astronauts marooned in orbit
An effort from the heyday of the 1970s disaster movie that was a big flop when it came out. Widely ridiculed for its bad special effects, it is a film I am partially prepared to defend, it setting aside the usual soap opera dramatics of these films to make an interesting parable about Cold War tensions. It also prefigures Armageddon with its plot of trying to divert a meteor on a collision course with Earth
Murder mystery set on a moonbase. Aside from assuming the Soviet Union would exist in the future and the datedness of its technology, this creates a surprisingly credible lunar environment set amid East-West tensions. Brigitte Nielsen even gives something approaching a performance
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 legendarily awful spy movie where assorted characters run around a ranch in ethnic disguise trying to stop a Russian who is unleashing a rabbit that contains a deadly virus
The thirteenth James Bond film. the fifth for Roger Moore. While the preceding entry had tried to trim back the cartoonish excesses of the Moore era, it is back to business as usual here. The film frequently feels divorced from the remotest shred of realism
Gonzo killer shark film that gets full marks for an entertainingly ridiculous title but is real bad movie material on all accounts
Amid the mostly silly output of James Bond copies in the 1960s, this is one that comes with a sharp satiric bite in which president’s analyst James Coburn finds himself caught in the midst of a series of conspiracies
Gimmick master William Castle makes an SF films about scientists engaged in simulations and mental probing to obtain secrets from a man’s mind
The fourth and final of Nigel Kneale’s Quatermass stores, which shows the professor as an old man in decaying future Britain trying to deal with an alien force manifest through ancient megaliths. A surprisingly bleak and cynical end to the saga but still with the greatness of Kneale’s writing
Massively ambitious Clive Cussler adaptation about the attempts to raise the wreck of the Titanic, which became one of the most over-budgeted flops of its day. The actual raising of the Titanic looks utterly magnificent but the rest of the film remains sunken amid murky underwater photography that looks like children’s toys shot in a bathtub
A really strange comedy where John Ritter is dragged away by Jim Belushi who claims to be a spy supposedly dealing with aliens
Ridiculous red-blooded, flag-waving film in which the Soviets invade the USA and a group of high-school teenagers maintain a lone guerilla campaign
One of the most bizarre of 1950s Communist Fear films in which humanity begins to receive radio message from God on Mars. The film’s politics are hysterical today.
A reasonable arthouse hit, this tells the story of a cursed violin through five different periods of history
Standard action film made interesting by the choice of its setting in a post-Soviet Russia Cyberpunk future
Philip Kaufman’s adaptation of Tom Wolfe’s book about the astronauts of the Mercury Space Program comes out halfway between admiration of the sheer ballsiness of the astronauts and buying into the flag-waving nationalism the Space Race represented.
Stuart Gordon, the cult director of Re-Animator, turns his hand to making a live-action Transformers film way back before anybody had ever head the name Michael Bay
Completely obscure, this is fairly terrible on almost every level – an effort about a rock singer given the gift by an alien woman of a special frequency that creates peace when he sings. This would be a guaranteed bad movie classic if anybody else had ever heard about it
Incredible Communist fear film largely made up of stock footage that urges the US to build a strong missile defence as the Soviet Union arms itself to attack
Another formulaic Syfy Channel B-budget disaster film. The film’s sole distinction is a more outlandish premise than usual – where the storm appears initially to be caused by a UFO that has been shot down
Guillermo Del Toro makes monster movies with sympathy for the monster. This is his take onThe Creature from the Black Lagoon where the romance between creature and heroine is brought out to centre stage
Another gonzo killer shark film from The Asylum, makers of Sharknado films, this features the entertaining absurdity of evolved humanoid Soviet sharks living on the Moon
Gonzo comedy set in alternate world where a samurai-sword wielding Buddy Holly wanders through a post-apocalyptic present
Unfunny John Landis film with Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd as two bumbling CIA agents. This aspires to being one of the Bob Hope-Bing Crosby Road films but only arrives at inane slapstick
Strong intelligent SF film where a cosmonaut returns from a space mission with an alien parasite attached. On one level, not too different to a host of Alien copies but the difference is all in the approach
The tenth of the James Bond films, the third for Roger Moore. This determines to be spectacular in terms of international locales, effects and sets. It was also the point where the Moore Bond films started to become giant cartoon spectacles of the absurd
The last of the classic Star Trek films. Nicholas Meyer, who made the last good Trek film The Wrath of Khan, returns to give the characters a moving send off, while the plot that reenacts the fall of the Berlin Wall with the Klingons gives the films a political immediacy that was missing since the tv series
Fourth of the Tom Clancy Jack Ryan films, which performs a confusing continuity reset to recast the role with the younger Ben Affleck. The film’s release was delayed by 9/11, which makes the plot about nuclear terrorism on US soil seems absurdly tame in retrospect
A very different take on the Superman story that asks What if Superman had grown up in the Soviet Union rather than in the US and become a paragon of Communist virtue
Fourth of the Lex Barker Tarzan films. Barker is less stiff in the role but this is otherwise as formulaic as they come. The distinction this has is that it is one of the few films that mention Tarzan’s origins and that it features a Communist villain
György Pálfi directs an anthology mad up of three stories where the emphasis is on dark, gross-out humour
Cinema’s first cuddly, friendly robot that is programmed according to Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics, predating Forbidden Planet’s Robbie the Robot. A modest overlooked film of the 1950s SF era
A classic of 1950s Reds Under the Bed anti-Communist hysteria in which aliens give selected humans capsules capable of obliterating all life, which quickly pits East against West in a race to obtain them. Clearly influenced by The Day the Earth Stood Still, this is better than most
2001: A Space Odyssey did not need a sequel but this fits the bill surprisingly well. A warmer and much more human film than Stanley Kubrick made, this has some of the very best effects of its era.
Charming Claymation animated adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale from Russia that manages to be a mordant satire on Communism into the bargain
The final outing as James Bond for a visibly aging Roger Moore, the fourteenth Bond film all told. One of the more anonymous among the giant unserious cartoon shows the Moore Bond films became
Zack Snyder’s adaptation of Alan Moore’s groundbreaking graphic novel is exceedingly faithful to the original. Often called unfilmable, Snyder articulates the material in ways that quite surprise
Comedy in which Jerry Lewis and Connie Stevens are forced to marry to go to The Moon. The sexual politics play out pretty embarrassingly today
One of the first Reds Under the Bed hysteria films of the 1950s where a man stumbles on a small town where a Communist fifth column are conducting biowarfare experiments as part of a planned invasion
A routine biowarfare outbreak thriller that holds a fascination in that it imagines the attacker to be al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden two months before 9/11