The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
The Bollywood horror film is a rare and strange beast – what other horror film would you see that comes with song and dance numbers? This is a Bollywood possession film where, despite the use of local colour and custom, it is surprisingly still drawn from the cliches created by The Exorcist
Yet another entry that nobody asked for in a conceptually threadbare series that nobody seems to like … passably better than the last two sequels due to some ok action moves but still empty-headed in terms of ideas
Marlon Wayans treads the same territory as the Scary Movie films in this parody take on Paranormal Activity. Most of the film is pitched as a series of crude lowest common denominator gags
A sequel to Batman Ninja, which offered an anime treatment of Batman. This gives us a bizarre alternate Yakuza-ruled Japan with versions of the Justice League working for them
From the late 90s/early 00s period where Disney were churning out cheap sequels to their animated classics of yesteryear, a wholly unnecessary continuation of The Jungle Book
Wes Craven makes a film based on the DC Comics character but reduces the mood of the original to something cartoonish. One of Craven’s worst films
The first of Uwe Boll’s videogame adaptations and the beginning of his bad director reputation. This is a zombie film by the numbers but it was at the forefront of zombie film revival of the 2000s
Supposedly a second sequel to John Carpenter’s Vampires but of little connection otherwise, this is a film of uneven effect about warring vampire clans in Thailand
Ape vs Monster was The Asylum’s mockbuster take on Godzilla vs Kong. This is a sequel that takes a few leaves from Godzilla’s Mechagodzilla and pits the giant ape up against a giant robotic ape
The third of Universal’s Dracula films in which Dracula travels to Louisiana in search of a wife. A flabby Lon Chaney Jr makes a poor replacement for Bela Lugosi, while the script seems improbably stitched together – despite the title, the film features Dracula, not his son
This was a revival of Disney’s Herbie the Love Bug films. Here it becomes a vehicle for Lindsay Lohan who is cast as a racing driver but is missing all the cute charms the original films had
The Leprechaun films were a cheap ripoff of the Freddy Krueger films. This supposed revival bears nothing whatsoever to do with the originals and doesn’t even seem the same type of film anymore
The Hamiltons was an unusual film about a strange family who were eventually revealed to be vampires. By the time of this sequel, all the interesting elements of the original have been eliminated and all that we have is a film of tired poses that fails to add anything to the overworked vampire genre
Following John Carpenter’s departure from the Halloween series, the sequels begin their progression into a series of interchangeable slasher films in which Michael Myers is inevitably released to kill anew
The Hobbit became Peter Jackson’s equivalent of the Star Wars prequels and this is the weakest work he has produced under the J.R.R. Tolkien banner. Five picaresque chapters of the book are extruded into bloated set-pieces
A massive hit in South Korea about a firefighter’s journey through the afterlife and the trials he must undergo. On the other hand, the director seems to be trying to turn a moral redemption story into a superhero film
Disaster mini-series based around the great belief that a super-earthquake will come and pitch most of California into the ocean. Despite devoting some four hour of screen time to it, the drama feels painfully padded at times, while the special effects sequences come out as not very special
he second of two cheap video-released sequels to the Jean-Claude Van Damme film. This has the novelty of featuring Burt Reynolds as the bad guy
Uwe Boll gained a reputation as the world’s worst director on the basis of his videogame adaptations. Prize exhibit was Alone in the Dark, which abandons the game and is a series of action scenes without explanatory rationale
The fourth of the Halloween sequels where the series is by now is no more than a crudely directed slasher film, a far cry from John Carpenter’s eerily suspenseful original
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
As part of their attempt to sell everything including the family silver, Disney make a sequel to their witch comedy, bringing back the three original actresses who are now looking a lot longer in the tooth
The seventh of the live-action Transformers films, the second made after Michael Bay stepped down from the director’s chair
Cheaply made video-released sequel to Lilo & Stitch, which is only a rehash but does surprisingly reunite all the voice talents
Rowan Atkinson is a very funny man but try as I might I cannot get into these Johnny English films – they seem at best lame Austin Powers castoffs with gags designed for the single digit age range
Roland Emmerich returns with more of the same. The problem is how to top the first film and here everything is so big and with so much happening that it cannot be taken in and slips into tedium
The first sequel to the massive success of Jurassic Park where Steven Spielberg returns to direct with a script that seems a mishmash of loose ends that only weakly rehashes the original
Film about a monstrous blob that devours everything in its path. This has become a 1950s B movie classic more through its chessiness value, not to mention theme of teenage rebellion, than necessarily being a great film
The fifth of Michael Bay’s Transformers films. This comes with more of an outright comedy focus than any of the other films where Bay seems to be second-guessing his critics and spoofing his own peccadilloes in quote marks, only to produce the silliest entry in the series yet
The Strangers was an incredibly eerie home invasion story that has become a modern classic. This is the second chapter in a trilogy of reboot films that have been handed over to the perpetually terrible Renny Harlin
Supposedly a The Texas Chain Saw Massacre prequel that offers us a Leatherface origin story. The least Texas Chain Saw-like of the sequels and eventually a far cry from the original
Another Japanese horror film that stands heavily in the shadow of Ringu. Directed without much style and often uninteresting to the point of being dull, it is hard to tell from this that you are watching a film that inspired eight sequels
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
Another cheap Disney made-for-video-release sequel. This at least offers the novelty of an alternate retelling of Cinderella but everything transpires predictably
A low-budget post-apocalyptic action film featuring the almost completely forgotten martial arts and (non)-actor Ron Marchini who must venture out into the ruined city to rescue three girls
Fourth and final of the Swedish live-action films based on Astrid Lindgren’s child heroine Pippi Longstocking
Takashi Miike’s One Missed Call was one of the more popular of the Ringu-influenced Japanese ghost stories, concerning a viral curse passed by cellphone calls. This was the second Japanese sequel
This is regarded as one of the worst sequels ever made, featuring many of the actors but with John Boorman stepping in as director. It’s an incomprehensible mishmash of ideas but not without some laudable elements
Third in the series about android terrorists, this is now about an amok android on a spaceship
By tthis third film, the Death Race series is straining trying to find something original to do with a ry limited premise. The Death Race now takes place in the South African desert but the action scenes prove monotonous
Prequel to The Exorcist concerning the young Father Merrin. Production company Morgan Creek dumped Paul Schrader’s original version of the film and brought in the perpetually terrible Renny Harlin to make something scarier but Harlin’s pop-effects remain tepid
Disney make a sequel to Moana, their venture into Pacific Island mythology
Sequel to the British sex comedy Percy about the world’s first penis transplant in which the central character is now the last fertile man on Earth
The second of the video-released Dr Dolittle films featuring his teenage daughter Kyla Pratt. This is marginally better and less excruciating in its humour than its predecessor Dr. Dolittle 3 was
The first sequel to The Asylum’s Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus and marginally a better film. This is less sparing with the cheap effects, while in every other regard it plants tongue-in-cheek and tries to make a virtue out of the sheer ridiculousness of the action
Disappointing sequel to the modest original that does little but revisit and re-run the first film’s scenario with little to add to it
A sequel to Alexandre Aja’s Mirrors that abandons most of the basics of the first film and strips everything down to a series of gory, novelty deaths
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
More from James Wan’s The Conjuring Universe, this places more focus on mood and atmosphere than The Nun’s ludicrous jump effects
Five Nights at Freddy’s, adapted from the popular videogame and featuring Josh Hutcherson fighting off killer animatronics, was a runaway success for Blumhouse. This is a sequel
The first of two sequels to The Santa Clause with Tim Allen as Santa Claus, this benefits from a bigger budget
Mark L. Lester’s follow-up to his earlier The Class of 1982 about a teacher forced to adopt vigilante actions in a lawless classroom. In the interim, The Terminator came out and this now has killer android schoolteachers
The Lion King was one of the worst of the live-action Disney remakes. Now comes this prequel
Low-budget film about a team of FBI ghost hunters investigating an abandoned prison where mysterious things are going on
Low-budget director Fred Olen Ray makes a softcore variation on Fatal Attraction with a vengeful Shauna O’Brien obtaining a job as the babysitter with the married man who jilted her
Inane Disney Channel film with twin sisters Tia and Tamera Mowry as sisters who didn’t know it who discover they are witches. A film that has zero interest in its fantasy elements and is entirely taken up by airhead teenage airhead natter
The first of several sequels to the hopping vampire hit. While the original was an adept and clever blend of fantasy and comedy, this promptly heads for loud and noisy slapstick
This was the second of Luc Besson’s Minimoys films, partly animated children’s films set in a world of miniature creatures. Here the charms of the first film seem thinly stretched
Luc Besson has made some phenomenal action films but I just can’t seem to get into his trilogy of children’s films. This was the third. A silly effort written down to a very juvenile level and padded with inane humour
Lavalantula with Steve Guttenberg facing giant fire-breathing spiders was a modestly enjoyable creature feature. This sequel feels like a Sharknado wannabe with shittier effects and an unfunny sense of humour
Having to sit through the Mowray twins airhead natter again in a sequel to their early Disney Channel film feels the equivalent of nails being scratched on a blackboard
Another shabby Disney video-released sequel, in this case to Atlantis the Lost Empire. The result looks like three episodes of an unsold tv series slapped together to sell as a film
The fourth in the series of films about a series of deaths for survivors after premonition of disaster at a speedway. This is shot in 3D but the novelty death set-pieces have become preposterous
A low-budget Italian sword-and-sorcery film, one of a host of such films that came out following the success of Conan the Barbarian. This was the third entry in the Ator series starring Miles O’Keeffe
The second film from Ayn Rand’s libertarian fantasy. This gets more into the meat of Rand’s ideas (wherein the wealthy decide to ignore an undeserving world) and is even more ridiculous than the first film
This jumps aboard the zombie bandwagon borrowing the title of George Romero’s classic but has almost nothing in common with it
The third of the trilogy of films adapted from Ayn Rand’s absurd fantasy wherein the leaders of the business world decide to go on strike because they don’t feel appreciated enough
The US release of several short Japanese films featuring the superhero Starman. Cheap and entertainingly absurd, filled with tatty superheroics and laughable science
A sequel to The Blob, although this plays everything for comedy. The one and only film directed by actor Larry Hagman, no less than J.R. Ewing of Dallas fame
Sequel to the outrageously gory 2001 Maniacs, although here the horror comedy balance spills over into absurd farce and cheap gore effects. Crucially, the film seems cheaper and less polished, more messy and random in terms of its arrangements
Sequel to Under Siege in which Steven Seagal was a lone individual in a Die Hard scenario defending a battleship against a terrorist takeover; this is the same but with Seagal defending a train
Michael Winner makes a prequel to the classic, multiply filmed psychological ghost story The Turn of the Screw but erases all the ambiguity in his clodding and unsubtle direction
From the producers of The Matrix, an adaptation of the classic comic-book about a lonely rich kid now made as a vehicle for Macaulay Culkin
A sequel to the earlier H.P. Lovecraft adapted film The Unnamable. Despite having a bigger budget, this is no more of an improvement over its predecessor
B-budget director Fred Olen Ray makes an invisibility comedy with impoverished effects. Olen Ray’s usual parade of bimbos and cynical one-liners is kept under restraint and this made as a children’s film
Rather confused film about people on a therapy retreat to confront their fears who then have to deal with a wooden dummy that has maybe come to life
The third of the Fear Street films, this takes the story back to a 17th Century filled with absurdly modern attitudes and offers an explanation that ties everything together
The first of two cheap Universal Soldier sequels made in Canada with Matt Battaglia inheriting Jean-Claude Van Damme’s role
An Italian exploitation film about gangs fighting in the ruins of a future New York. Director Enzo G. Catsellari has ripped off both Escape from New York and The Warriors
The eighth of the Hellraiser films. By now a long way from Clive Barker’s original vision and no more than a haunted house story where the Cenobites occasionally turn up. With a young unknown Henry Cavill
A sequel to 976-Evil, Robert Englund’s directorial debut about a demonic phone line. This is an almost entirely unrelated work that is now about a killer with astral projection powers
Fourth of the A Nightmare on Elm Street films. Under Renny Harlin’s hand, the unworldly atmosphere of Wes Craven’s original is replaced by moments of incredible silliness
Third of the Underworld films, a prequel to the previous entries. In truth, it is just the same as the others – lots of kinetic action moves and Gothic poses with little in the way of plot
The second of the Underworld films where Len Wiseman gets a bigger budget and amplifies the CGI and action sequences,. On the other hand, the characters and story are so stripped to a minimum you lose track of why things are happening
From the director of Trump vs the Illuminati, gonzo animation where Bigfoot and several resurrected historical figures fight off invading aliens that include Stalin, Aleister Crowley and Anubis
I am at a loss to understand who the audience for the Underworld films is – they are films devoid of minimal requirements like plotting and seem to only exist as a series of forgettable action sequences and interchangeable Gothic poses by characters in black leather – and yet we keep getting more of them
The first and worst of the A Nightmare on Elm Street sequels. The dream logic becomes incoherent, while the film is twisted out of shape to become a bizarre gay Coming Out parable
A completely ignored sequel to Arthur, the non-genre comedy hit with Dudley Moore as an alcoholic millionaire. Included here because butler John Gielgud turns up as a ghost
Skyline was a modest alien invasion film; this is a long-planned sequel. The new director has simply turned it into an action film and tediously deals with every alien encounter with gunfire, stunts and explosions
Ridiculous disaster movie where air hostess Lauren Holly must deal with serial killer Ray Liotta while trying to land the plane
The first of several sequels to the hit Charles Bronson vigilante film, the first under Cannon Films. While the first film had some interesting things to say, this mostly repeats the original while taking some turns to the nastily exploitative
The third entry in a franchise that seems to be stretching to find anything to do with its premise beyond the first film. Everyone involved seems to have only turned up to collect a paycheque and be going through the motions in a show that entirely coasts by solely on your familiarity with the characters
TV movie remake of Virginia Andrews’ best-selling Gothic melodrama about children imprisoned in an attic. Even if more faithful to the book, this is no better than the 1987 film
In this sequel to Cyber Tracker, Don ‘The Dragon’ Wilson is a police officer fighting a criminal mastermind who is attempting to replace world leaders with android duplicates
Made during the mid-2000s zombie revival, this is a cheap, badly made film that tries to cling to any kind of relevance to the George Romero name. If anything it is more like a sequel to Night of the Living Dead than to Day of the Dead
The first of the sequels to Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. Featuring the first screen appearance of George Clooney.
Alex Cox sequelizes his off-the-wall cult hit Repo Man but only turns it into an amateurish, meandering effort that is only trying to be wacky and cultish
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
Four films in and clear evidence that the Resident Evil series needs to be retired. This consists of tediously borrowed action moves now presented in 3D and a plot of random dead ends that make little sense
The second of the theatrically released Doctor Who films intended to highlight the popularity of The Daleks, this is an improvement in that it dispenses with the first film’s buffoonish comedy elements