The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
The announcement of the remake of The Haunting was followed by this remake of the 1959 William Castle film, which turns out far more unpretentious and altogether more fun than the bloated flop of The Haunting
The first of two video-released sequels to From Dusk Till Dawn, this spins the premise to have a group of robbers at siege from police inside a bank vault as they are attacked by vampires
Sequel to the animated Heavy Metal that failed to attract the same cult audience that its predecessor did. Telling only one story instead of several, it only offers a routine space opera adventure
One of the strangest film homages one has come across – an almost complete scene-for-scene remake of Jaws but with the shark substituted by a killer tree being hunted through a park by rangers
Mary Harron takes on Bret Easton Ellis’s controversial work about a yuppie serial killer and refines it to a blackly funny satire on 1980s pop culture and corporate greed
One of the head-scratching animated oddities produced by Disney during the 2000s. Not unlikeable, the story concerns a self-centered Aztec emperor who is transformed into a llama
The first full-length Claymation film from the UK’s Aardman Animations. With typical Aardman eccentricity, this is a parody of a WWII escape film conducted with talking chickens
By the time of this third film and the departure of screenwriter Kevin Williamson, creativity in the Scream series seems to be flagging even though this has critic-proofed itself by calling itself a parody of a sequel
The third of the Japanese Ringu/Ring films. A new director means a different approach but what also becomes apparent is that the original was never intended as a series and the attempts to further draw it out result in a confusing mishmash of ideas
B-budget mix of giant animal film and submarine drama with impoverished effects and a script only notable for its ludicrous improbabilities
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.
Sequel to the live-action 101 Dalmatians remake. This brings back Glenn Close as Cruella DeVil and proves a far more enjoyable film that its predecessor
A gripping and particularly well conceived planetary survival story. The film that launched Vin Diesel’s career and he has never been better than as the lethal, tight-lipped serial killer Riddick
Jack Frost, not to be confused with the Michael Keaton film of the same name, was an amusing horror comedy about a killer mutant snowman. This is a sequel that takes Jack to a beach resort in Hawaii
The third in a series of Biblical End Times films withGary Busey as a decent cop who wakes up in a future ruled by the Anti-Christ. The heavy-handed slinging of Bible verses makes this hard-going for anyone who is not a believer, while the conspiratorial tone frequently verges on nuttiness
The Japanese Ju-on/The Grudge is one of the most popular modern kaidan eiga series, having produced fourteen films to date. This was the very first of the series
Film based on the enormously popular roleplaying game, this appears to have been quickly thrown together in advance of The Lord of the Rings films but is a shabby effort filled with some disastrous off-tone casting
The dreamscape film was given extraordinary life by Tarsem Singh in his directorial debut who transforms a fairly ordinary script with visuals and costuming that is out of this world
This spins the old plot about a clairvoyant dream of an airline disaster out as a teen horror film based around a series of bizarre novelty deaths. This became the first in a franchise of popular horror films.
Sequel to the Eddie Murphy remake of The Nutty Professor. That film’s tour-de-force was a scene with Murphy playing all the members of his family. Here the family have been brought to the fore. Murphy’s performance and the effects are expectedly great but the plot is all over the place
The second of Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible films where he has the smarts to hire John Woo as director who brings his customary stylish flair with action to transform the film into something exhiliraing
A shabby video-released sequel to DragonHeart (the first of several). Although this is quite clearly not being made with the services of Industrial Light and Magic this time
One of the more likeable among the 2000s fad for low-budget CGI monster movies, this is aided considerably by a sense of humour and a line-up of oddball characters
The first in a popular series of comedies, this spoofs the recent hits of Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer in the most vulgar and witless way possible
Yoshiaki Kawajiri, director of Ninja Scroll and Wicked City, steps in to make a sequel(?)/reboot(?) to the cult 1985 anime with visually enthralling regard
Fifth and best of Hellraiser sequels after Clive Barker bowed out. Scott Derrickson made his directorial debut here and infuses the series with some of the wild imagery and perverse darkness that Barker gave the original
The third of the Crow films has a more substantial story than the second but is killed by a director who has no feel for the atmosphere created by the other films
The second entry in a surprisingly prolific series of low-budget films – currently running to fifteen films – that homage the 1980s slasher film
Fifth film in the series starring Warwick Davis as a malevolent leprechaun dispatching bizarre novelty deaths. In a bizarre novelty twist, this sets the leprechaun loose in the world of rap
An entertainingly violent Japanese comic-book of a movie in which a classroom of school pupils is abandoned on an island with weapons to eliminate one another. Frequently cited as the inspiration for The Hunger Games
The 24th Godzilla film where Godzilla faces a giant prehistoric dragonfly. While the modern Godzilla films have readily adopted CGI and animatronics, the effects here are much more variable
The first in a surprisingly prolific series of slasher films, which has produced some fourteen sequels at current count. Made on a micro-budget, this vigorously homages the 1980s basics
In a whole bunch of ways this – plausibility being a big one of them – is a bad film. On the other hand, it does boast an entertaining array of giant spiders all emerged from a space shuttle crash
Takashi Miike’s Dead or Alive was a Yakuza film with a gonzo ending. In this sequel, Miike brings back the same two actors and makes it ALL gonzo
The much lambasted but not entirely uninteresting sequel to The Blair Witch Project. Documentary director Joe Berlinger adds a fascinating layer of meta-fiction that winds in the real-world reaction to the first film
Sequel to the Christopher Lambert starring future prison film, this relocates the action to an orbiting space station. Less brainless than its predecessor if in the end no more than average
Another adaptation of the Sherlock Holmes quasi-supernatural mystery. This is also one of the worst ever thanks to the wildly over-acted, scenery chewing performance from Matt Frewer, badly miscast as Holmes
Sequel to the live-action The Flintstones film. Whether we asked for it or not, this offers up a Flintstones origin story where we see familiar elements of the series fall into place
The Bare Wench Project was an inane softcore parody of The Blair Witch Project. This is the first of four sequels in which another troupe of girls go wandering in the woods while finding almost any opportunity to take their clothes off
Paul Verhoeven uses CGI effects to revamp the invisible man film with amazing results. On the other hand, Verhoeven’s penchant for sex and violence overkill quickly emerges with distasteful results
The third of the Prophecy films with Christopher Walken as the angel Gabriel. This time the wry humour and interplay of ideas of the other films feels more thinly drawn
Adaptation of the best-selling Christian book series about the Biblical End of the World. There is a mini-industry of these films and, if one can stomach the preachiness, this is not entirely bad
The fourth Highlander film sets out to merge the film and tv series, bringing together Christopher Lambert and Adrian Paul. This only produces a continuity nightmare that is a headache trying to follow
Tobe Hooper delivers an entry amid the early-00s vogue for B-budget CGI monster movies, drawing clear inspiration from Lake Placid. Hooper had not made a good film since the 1980s and this does little to reverse the path of mediocrity
One of the video-released sequels to their animated films that Disney made in the 90s/00s, this slavishly imitates its predecessor but does have a likeable line-up of supporting characters
Extremely satisfying German medical thriller about a secret society that conducts illicit experiments. The film comes with a torturous suspense and goes way out on a limb in the gore department
A strong well-made French thriller that comes with the influence of Se7en involving murders on a mountainside glacier and a secretive boarding school with ties back to the Nazi era
Sequel fairly much in name only to Urban Legend and barely at all about urban legends, this has the amusing idea of taking place at a film school and features a number of sly asides. This alas befalls routine direction
Video-released spinoff of the Toy Story films featuring Buzz Lightyear in an adventure. Although released under the Pixar name, the animation is all cheaply produced by a Chinese studio
Inferior sequel to the modest Devil in the Flesh which had Rose McGowan as a psychopathic schoolgirl. Recast with Jodi Lyn O’Keefe, this is now a routine slasher effort
An interesting attempt to bring Dracula into the modern day – the film that Dracula A.D. 1972 should have been. An unknown Gerard Butler makes a captivatingly magnetic Dracula
The second and best of the From Dusk Till Dawn sequels. This takes the story back and retells it in a Western setting where it offers some clever twists on the original
Bryan Singer’s dynamic and exciting adaptation of the Marvel Comic title fairly much kicked off the massive fad for Marvel superheroes in the 00s/10s. This was also the film that mad Hugh Jackman into an international superstar.
Sensational hit that introduced most of the West to the Wu Xia film. Directed with elan by Ang Lee, there comes a sublimely graceful poetry in the film’s imagery of sword combatants dancing up walls and flying through the air
A modest and reasonably effective psycho-thriller about a brother and sister who are adopted after the death of their parents only to find their step-parents have sinister intent
Embrace the Darkness was a surprisingly good work of vampire erotica. This, the first of two sequels, seems more interested in being a horror film than erotica
Steven Spielberg handed the directorial reins of the series over to Joe Johnston and this emerges as a better film than The Lost World was, even if it is only ever arranged around a series of effects set-pieces
Teens on a road trip play a practical joke using an old CB radio but prank a psychopathic truck driver. A film where director John Dahl delivers the goods with considerable style
Before this was spun out into a series of ho-hum sequels, the original was an animated film that burst with a freshness and a series of winning voice characterisations
This was the first of two sequels to Guillermo Del Toro’s intelligent insect film Mimic, although this has now becomes more of a regular and unexceptional monster movie
One of the less successful films of the Disney renaissance of the 90s/00s. Disney has never done well with animated SF. That aside, this a very nicely animated Steampunk adventure
Here the cutely appealing idea of a talking animals film conducted in live-action a la Babe has been blended with a tongue-in-cheek spy adventure. The results are enjoyably silly
Sequel to the ridiculous Octopus, this is slightly less cheap but no less absurd in its premise of a giant octopus attacking New York
Peter Jackson wowed the world with this first part of his adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s trilogy. This is epic filmmaking and one that shows Jackson in full command of his craft
Third of the films in the Tremors series, which have held up surprisingly well in their balance of creature effects and a considerable sense of humour. This adds a series of twists to the premise that are positively hilarious
The 25th Godzilla film which employs director Shusuke Kaneko who had done amazing things reviving the Gamera franchise. Kaneko doesn’t quite deliver the epic expected of him but does produce an amazing effects spectacle
The Wishmaster series was a franchise based around a series of novelty effects wherein a malevolent djinn turned wishes against the wisher. This third entry is the utter nadir of the series
Tobe Hooper’s The Mangler was one of the worst of all Stephen King adaptations and this is modern sequel generating of the worst order where the Mangler now becomes an A.I. and a computer virus
The first film adaptation of the popular videogame is a film largely premised around the personality of Angelina Jolie. Outside of that, the film is a half-baked series of plot ends and action scenes taken from better films
The first of the Scary Movie sequels. The Wayans Brothers extend the gag beyond the slasher movie to take on the ghost story and exorcism film while aiming squarely for Lowest Common Denominator humour
A sequel to the Eddie Murphy Dr Dolittle remake. This is still an insult to the original stories but under director Steve Carr at least proves a more amiable comedy than the first film did
Robert Rodriguez has a huge amount of fun by recasting James Bond antics with kids. The film was a success that spawned several sequels
The immediate sequel to The Silence of the Lambs. Anthony Hopkins is back but Jodie Foster is not. Ridley Scott takes the director’s chair and creates a slick film but it lacks the compulsive grip the original held
A low-budget horror anthology that is rough around the edges but shows promise
Sequel to the Biblical End Times/Antichrist film The Omega Code, this dispenses with preaching faith but still slips into absurdity
A strong and worthwhile serial killer thriller mini-series from the BBC with a killer targeting victims with the names and professions of the apostles
Disappointing video-released sequel to the classic Disney animated film where the engaging characters of the original have become settled down parents
The first of the Harry Potter films. The first is the weakest and lumbers due to being placed in the hands of the perpetually banal Chris Columbus who allows visual effects wow and simplistic emotional cues to dominate
This was the fourth animated film from Pixar and is a winning and delightful Maurice Sendakian tale about the monsters in the closet and their friendship with a young girl
Tsui Hark’s follow-up to Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain the film that popularised Wu Xia cinema. The point where Tsui discovered CGI and latches onto it to do more than just show flying swordsmen but create an exquisitely dreamy world of pure fantastique imagination
The tenth Friday the 13th film. This tries to add novelty as Jason is thawed out in the future aboard a space station to slaughter anew. Featuring no less than David Cronenberg as a victim
A thoroughly overrated cult classic. A baffling mixture of precognition, time travel, sinister talking bunnies and 1980s satire. What this doesn’t do is ever fall together into a coherent explanation about what is going on
Creepy film about a brother and sister who are pursued on a road journey by a supernatural creature that drives a truck. This became a word of mouth hit and was followed by several sequels
This has a promising set-up – a series of Jack the Ripper copycat killings taking place in a modern criminology class – that turns out as no more than a standard slasher film
Sequel to the 1999 The Mummy. Here Stephen Sommers amplifies everything in that film by a factor of ten where the constant bombardment by the spectacular reaches an point of absurd overkill
A huge hit and one of the key influences that created the box-office dominance of Marvel Comics in the 2000s/10s. A fine incarnation of the comic-book, Sam Raimi brings it to life with exhilarating web-slinging scenes but overdoes the winsome innocence of Peter Parker
The 26th Japanese Godzilla film, the fourth pitting him against Mechagodzilla. After a slow first hour, the film delivers all the exhilarating mass destruction sequences we expect of it as the monsters go head to head
Likeable Disney animated film about a young misfit Hawaiian girl who befriends an unruly alien creature. This has a good deal of oddball energy and humour that makes it rather appealing
Utterly insipid family film about an orphan kid who is given a magical set of sneakers that turn him into a basketball star who is “like Mike [Jordan].” Little more than a glorified commercial for the NBA
The second of the Kirk Cameron Biblical End Times films. On one hand, these are quite competently made B movies; on the other the fundamentalist message is unpalatable
A B-budget horror film about an agoraphobic woman who is unable to go over of her apartment who then finds that it is haunted by a ghost
Sequel that turns a witty original into overblown slapstick that never consists of anything more than absurd gags with aliens and technology popping up from behind everyday objects
Another in the interminable softcore Blair Witch parodies with a group of minimally talented and clothed bimbos wandering around the woods and failing to take proceedings seriously
The second of Robert Rodriguez’s Spy Kids films is slightly the lesser of its predecessor – it makes the mistake of stripping out the gadgets – but is still fun and has the wacky surrealism Rodriguez gave the first film
A sequel that has almost no connection to the original and has Mila Kunis as a psychopathic student trying to get into a prestigious criminal profiling course
Thailand’s Pang Brothers proved themselves some of the best horror directors in the world with this eerie film in which a woman starts to see the dead after receiving corneal implants. Several sequels and an English-language remake followed
Sequel to John Carpenter’s Vampires given over to his regular associate Tommy Lee Wallace, this looks tatty in trying to replicate the action sequences on a B-budget and with the script holes showing through
The fourth and final of the Wishmaster films, which by this point had become cheap and tattily made affairs that are pale shadows of the original
The second of George Lucas’s Stars Wars prequels is no particular improvement. The romance is stiff and awkward, badly written while the effects sequences seem to be running out of new things to do and so just up the scale of what has happened before with so much going on it reaches a point of visual overload
The last of the films spun off from Star Trek: The Next Generation and a dismal flop that killed the film series off. Tom Hardy as a bad guy Romulan is a cardboard threat while the uninspired plot rehashes The Wrath of Khan