The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Deformity and Disfigurement refers to characters afflicted with bodily deformities and/or disfiguring appearances. There is the common association made that that which is ugly, horrific and unappealing to look at should be shunned, or that is it represents some form of moral degeneracy.
In the horror film, deformity and disfigurement is commonplace. Often horror films feature characters that become afflicted with wasting diseases and mutations or are maddened as a result of scarring in some accident. Mad Surgeons also have a frequent fixation with grafting faces taken from others onto their disfigured wives and daughters.
There are also a number of works that create sympathy for the disfigured and outcast – as in the various versions of Beauty and the Beast, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and the more modern versions of The Phantom of the Opera.
Deformity and disfigurement are frequently the character traits that affect Super-Villains and their henchpeople – villains with hook hands or eye patches are commonplace. Often the hurt over their disfigurement will create a psychic split that will leave a villain seeking Revenge against those associated. There are a lesser number of heroes afflicted with disfigurement with examples such as Darkman and Deadpool.
Largely overlooked, this is the first version of the story in colour and has a lavishness that the previous versions lacked. On the minus side, Anthony Quinn’s Quasimodo is no more than a simpleton lacking in pathos
A Disney animated film that turns Victor Hugo’s classic oft-filmed novel about Quasimodo, a misshapen figure of pity, into a slightly ugly teenager who now comes accompanied by talking gargoyles
One of Disney’s cheaply produced video sequel to their animated film made during the 1990s/2000s. This one actually emerges as superior to the original
From the director of Hellbound: Hellraiser II, this is an unfunny monster comedy that plays out like it is trying to be a live-action version of the Hotel Transylvania films
Fascinatingly lurid B movie clearly influenced by Horrors of the Black Museum about women being hypnotised to mutilate themselves. This achieves a rather compulsive atmosphere
A rather interesting horror film in which both the heroine and the heroine of the story she is reading are stalked by a disfigured madman, as the boundary between fiction and reality begins to dissolve
A quite indescribable animated film from the great Bill Pympton, this largely consists of a series of bizarre and surreal, often outrageous, transformations and juxtapositions
One of the great ridiculous titles of all time. It’s a shame there’s nothing that comes anywhere near matching it in this tatty, poorly made film about a fortune teller turning men into disfigured, hypnotised slaves
The sixth and one of the better Friday the 13th films. This time the usual formula of the series is conducted with an undeniable sense of humour
This is an adaptation of the DC comic-book character of a supernatural avenging Western gunslinger that fails to burn with the grim mood it should have
A disturbing Japanese film about a man in a motorised wheelchair (played by a real disabled actor) who turns serial killer and begins to enact revenge for petty injustices
A film about a teen whose face kills anyone who looks at him. This is a romantic comedy that overspills with originality, quirkiness and a really dark sense of humour.
Another low-budget H.P. Lovecraft adaptation, this abandons all but the bare bones of the story to create a work about abominable experiments lurking in the halls of an abandoned asylum
Fascinating film from Brad Anderson where Christian Bale is subject to a series of reality blurrings. What hangs over the show most of all is Bale’s intensely physical performance for which he lost a third of his body weight to turn himself into an anorexic shell of a human
Adaptation of a Victor Hugo historical novel about a man with his face surgically altered into a grin – an image that later inspired Batman’s The Joker. This has clearly been intended to imitate Lon Chaney’s grotesque performances of this era and is exquisitely made by the great Paul Leni
The first in a series of films starring Robert Z’dar as an hulking, deformed ex-cop seeking revenge. Not as effective as the sequels but is lifted above the routine by a quirky Larry Cohen script
Standout sequel to Maniac Cop, the best of the series, where Larry Cohen turns in a remarkable script and William Lustig delivers incredible action sequences
The third of the Maniac Cop films had production problems and now feels more like a regular slasher film, although is still boosted by a characteristically witty Larry Cohen script
The people behind Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey deliver a horror version of the nursery rhyme. Here Mary becomes a middle-aged woman living in the woods with a hulking son who has a lamb’s head
Mad scientist film from poverty row studio PRC with George Zucco in a Bela Lugosi role as a madman injecting his enemies with doses of acromegaly
The third of the Mortal Kombat animated films. This abandons inter-dimensional kombat and takes place in a post-apocalyptic world, focused around the blind swordsman Kenshi
Another effort in the sad slide into shabby amateurishness that marked that latter years of Tobe Hooper’s career, a muddled effort set around a mortuary involving body-snatching fungus and deformed relatives in the crawlspaces
An anthology of comedy skits that sets out to be in as bad taste as possible – you are left astounded how far a film has to go to offend in this post-South Park era. That and wondering if the producers had kidnapped some of the stars’ family members to force them to participate
Another of the films from gimmick master William Castle – a classic work of Grand Guignol in its story of a man with a permanently frozen Joker-like grin, which Castle fills with memorable shock effects
This has a cute title pun but otherwise is a feeble SF comedy
Rather tedious throwback to the 1940s mad scientist film in which Donald Pleasence is turning people into plant mutations and pawning his mistakes off to the circus
Classic horror film, later remade as House of Wax, with Lionel Atwill giving a wonderfully mad performance as a waxworks curator who covers murdered bodies in wax
Entertaining and quite well made potboiler with Bela Lugosi and Lionel Atwill skulking around a big old mansion as someone or thing starts killing people off
A above average entry in the recent trend of horror anthologies featuring episodes from different directors, including Joe Dante and Mick Garris, featuring at least a couple of standout entries
One of the films seeking to exploit the fad for Edgar Allan Poe adaptations started by Roger Corman in the 1960s. This has nothing to do with the Poe story and mostly shuffles around the familiar elements of the cycle
Excellent film from Alejandro Amenabar in which a handsome playboy finds himself in the midst of a baffling series of reality flips before arriving at an SF twist ending
This has the feel of a fairytale where Christina Ricci plays a girl who suffers from a hereditary curse that has left her with a pig-like snout
Quite the most insane film I have seen in recent memory. The rivalry between two classical music students reminds of Black Swan albeit wound up to the histrionic level of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, all added to the most pleasingly twisty mess-with-your assumptions script
Remake of the Stephen King novel that opened to very divided reaction. The surprise about the film is bar one central aspect it is surprisingly faithful to the book. On the other hand, the changes make the crucial difference
This amusingly updates the story of The Phantom of the Opera to have the Phantom lurking in a modern mall. Cheesily entertaining 1980s horror coasting by on the coattails of the massive success of the musical adaptation where the most amusement comes in the gorily over-the-top despatches
The first and still the best version of the story. Made when The Phantom was a horror story rather than a weepie romance, everything from Lon Chaney’s performance to the amazing Gothic design and directorial set-pieces is classic
The second film version of the story, lavishly remaking the classic 1925 Lon Chaney version in sound and colour. Alas, all this serves to do is stuff and mount the story. With the addition of a sympathetic backstory and cast with a wimpily diminutive Claude Rains, Chaney’s magnificently mad Phantom comes across like an indignant fox terrier
Hammer Films’ attempt to update the classic story went astray – the Paris opera becomes a dreary English repertory house and Terence Fisher misses the tale’s grandeur
TV mini-series remake of The Phantom of the Opera starring Jane Seymour that rewrites and rearranges much of the story to negligible effect
On the back of popularity of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical and the Elm Street films, Robert Englund was cast in this version where the emphasis is on the slasher element, which works far better than you might think
Lush tv mini-series with Charles Dance as the Phantom, this stands too much in the shadow of the then recent Lloyd Webber musical and its making The Phantom into a romantic figure as opposed to a horror icon
Dario Argento takes on The Phantom and welcomely rescues it from musical romance and returns it to being a horror film. Despite a beautifully mounted production, Julian Sands’ Phantom is too weak and wimpy
The long-planned film adaptation of The Phantom musical emerges as disaster under Joel Schumacher. The Phantom’s presence has all been watered down and the film exists as no more than a series of scenographic poses
Predating The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Brian De Palma conducts a very funny parody of The Phantom of the Opera (and several other horror films) as a glitter rock musical
A fascinating Chinese version of The Phantom of the Opera, transplanted from a Parisian opera house of the 19th Century to a film being shot in an abandoned theatre in the 1930s. On the other hand, this version makes the most radical changes to the story of any of the Phantom films
Surprisingly good modern slasher film set in a movie theatre during a festival of old horror films. The films come with surprisingly affectionate and well done recreations of old gimmick films, and the slasher sequences a more than reasonable style
The Punisher (2004) with Thomas Jane was a dud among the 2000s Marvel Comics adaptations. Here the role is recast with Ray Stevenson and director Lexi Alexander gets the dark, violent tone of the comic-book right
Absurd space exploration fantasy where men encounter an all-women planet and proceed to put them in their place. The film has a Plan 9 from Outer Space-level badness and the appallingness of the sexual politics makes you do a double-take today
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
Beautifully shot Sissy Spacek starring work of American nostalgia set in rural 1940s Texas that takes a turn into Southern Gothic in its last quarter
Anthology of tales adapted from Japanese horror writer Edogawa Rampo. The various directors push the stories into an admirably perverse and disturbed space
Sondra Locke directs an odd little fable about a boy with rat-like features but the result never quite comes off
An entertainingly madcap screen pairing of Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi with the latter as a Poe-obsessed surgeon who has built a house of Poe-inspired torture devices
One of the films featuring the Mexican masked wrestler Santo. A rehash of Mystery of the Wax Museum/House of Wax with Santo facing a mad waxworks curator who is using human bodies as exhibits
Michael Winner directs a film about a sinister apartment building but his typical crude and heavy-handed style fails to conjure anything remotely scary
A horror film made as homage to the classic Freaks, this is a fascinatingly sordid work set during the vanished era of the carnival sideshow
Robert Rodriguez’s adaptation of Frank Miller’s graphic novels is groundbreaking and one of the most visually adventurous films in years. A trio of film noir-styled tales where he sets out to replicate the look of Miller’s comic panels
Robert Rodriguez makes his return to Frank Miller’s classic film noir-styled graphic novels. You keep expecting this to hit in with the astonishing freshness the first film did. Rodriguez and Miller give us more of the same amazing visuals but there is the feeling it is no longer original and new
One of the most extraordinary works ever made for tv. From the pen of Dennis Potter, a mini-series that blends film noir, meta-fiction and autobiography
Disastrous Hollywood version of Dennis Potter’s classic tv mini-series where a hospitalised Robert Downey jr fantasises a dream world of 1940s film noir
A German-made copy of the Backwoods Brutality cycle that only rehashes clches and frequently verges on the amateurish in execution
Caroline Thompson, a regular Tim Burton scriptwriter, directs a uniquely revisionist version of the fairytale in which she digs in to explain the origins of many of the familiar aspects of the story
One of Herschell Gordon Lewis’s film, this features a totally demented plot involving a man who develops psychic powers and his encounters with witches and LSD trips
The third of Universal’s Frankenstein films, the last to feature Boris Karloff as the monster and the last good entry before the sequels became formulaic. Shot with the clear influence of German Expressionism, this is filled with memorable characters and some great performances
A very disappointing film adaptation of Todd MacFarlane’s cult comic-book where all of the moody darkness emerges with one-dimensional effect as little more than The Punisher with horns
A remake of the classic film noir psycho-thriller. Now the story is conducted in colour and with a name star cast but misses all the atmosphere the original had by a wide mile
The last of George Lucas’s Star Wars prequel trilogy and the last opportunity for him to get it right, which he generally does. The effects are expert but are not allowed to dominate as much as they did previously and the focus has come back onto the story and Anakin’s transformation into Darth Vader
Japanese director Shion Sono has emerged as an increasingly worthwhile name in recent years. This is an admirably twisted and perverse work that leaves you quite flabbergasted
The unique idea of an anthology made up of five different slasher tales. Unfortunately, the film’s only raison d’etre is serving up serial gore scenes, which have the effect taken out of them because they are all conducted digitally and look biologically preposterous
Them! had created the 1950s fad for giant atomically enlarged insects. Here Jack Arnold, one of the most celebrated genre directors of the 1950s, makes a giant spider film and much better than most of the era’s other giant bug films
Zack Snyder’s adaptation of the classic Frank Miller graphic novel about the Greek battle of Thermopylae. In replicating the look of the original’s panels, Snyder pushes what would otherwise be a standard historical film into something extraordinarily stylised and fantastic
Less a 300 sequel or prequel than a parallel story, this offers much the same as before but in 3D and with naval instead of land combat. Seeing Zack Snyder’s amazing visuals repeated all over again, all the poses and hyper-masculinity now seem to bubble with an inherent risibility.
By the numbers Backwoods Brutality where a woman is imprisoned by crazed backwoods fundamentalists in order to bear them a child
A excruciatingly unfunny film that feels like one of Abbott and Costello’s monster bashes played as a crass frat comedy
An adult and frequently horrific retelling of the Cinderella story from the Ugly Stepsister’s point-of-view
One of the very last gasps of the great era of mad scientist films from the 1940s. Despite assembling a great cast of genre regulars, this never does much to stir its pot – the mad scientist’s scheme is vague and the film almost never ventures outside of a single house
Classic, wonderfully twisted Tod Browning film with Lon Chaney as an armless circus performer who lusts for Joan Crawford
A parody of the slasher film with an amusing central idea – what if a slasher maniac found a love interest and wanted to give up hacking and slashing to be with them?
A variant on the Mad Relative Locked in the Cellar/Attic film that turns out to be surprisingly well made
The English-language remake of Open Your Eyes, starring Tom Cruise. The Spanish version is still the superior of the two but this stays surprisingly faithful to the original
One of the few films to come out after George Romero where zombies are still associated with voodoo. Spanish horror star Paul Naschy writes and plays three roles in a film that comes with a wild mix of cross-cultural ideas
A fine example of the Italian Gothic cycle of the 1960s that overruns the screen with brooding Gothic dungeons, visually stunning colour schemes, a mad nobleman and Christopher Lee as a sinister manservant
Nicolas Roeg and Jim Henson collaborate on an adaptation of a Roald Dahl book. Roeg leaves the grotesquerie and gleeful malice intact making this one of the best Dahl adaptations
Robert Zemeckis’s remake of the Roald Dahl story and Nicolas Roeg film proves a head-scratching effort that misfires on almost every cue
Tsui Hark delivers a prequel to his 2010 Detective Dee film. This takes the character back far more to his original nature as a Chinese equivalent of Sherlock Holmes. That is if you can imagine Sherlock Holmes taking place as a flying swordsman film filled with sea monsters and wildly fantastic martial combat scenes (*)