The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Yes, someone made a horror version of the much loved children’s character. Imagine The Texas Chain Saw Massacre where Leatherface has been replaced by Winnie-the-Pooh
Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey offered a horror version of the much loved children’s character. This is more of the same with a bigger budget
The first of the sequels to Wishmaster and better than the ones that would follow, although still not a patch on the imaginative makeup effects in the original
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
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
Rather enjoyable effort about an evil djinn that grants cursed wishes. Directed by makeup effects artist Robert Kurtzman, this has been designed to highlight various effects. Three sequels followed.
The Witch: Part 1 – Subversion was an impressive South Korean psychic powers film. This is Part 2
Way back before Blumhouse’s Ouija and the subsequent cheap ouija-titled films, there was the 80s horror Witchboard, which proved popular enough that it produced two sequels starting with this
A passable 80s horror in which Tawny Kitaen summons an evil spirit via an ouija board. That was a sufficient hit on video shelves that two sequels followed and then a remake.
Sequel/modernisation (it is confusing what) to The Wizard of Oz relocated in New York. This tv mini-series may be the cheapest work ever served up bearing the Oz name and flounders amid the shabbiness of its effects and utter lack of magic its director conjures
An indisputable classic fantasy … a gorgeous sparkling fantasy that made full use of Technicolor in an era dominated by black-and-white and is told in such bold and earnestly heartfelt tones that it becomes the nearest we have to a piece of genuine American mythology
Making dubious claim to be based on real-life, this courted considerable controversy with its violence. Essentially an Australian Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Greg McLean readily pushes things to extremes
Greg McLean and John Jarratt return to the Australian Backwood Brutality saga of Wolf Creek for a second outing that is just as effective as the first. McLean often pushes the material into black humour and creates at least one sequence that makes for genuinely uncomfortable watching
Although it wasn’t the first werewolf film, this is the one the created all the mythology of the werewolf film – full moons, silver bullets etc – while the wolfman went on to join the pantheon of Universal Famous Monsters.
While this received a good deal of fan buzz, I must admit to being disappointed. It strips much of the superheroics and mutant cameos of the other X-Men films until it feels more like a Westerner in Japan thriller like Black Rain or even a routine film noir plot that happens to be cast with Wolverine
The revived Hammer Films visit the classic British ghost story tradition. This is impeccably mounted but the film offers nothing more than a series of disappointingly superficial boo moments of zero impact
A sequel to the 2012 ghost story from the revived Hammer Films, this adds precisely nothing to the original, has nothing to say and nothing in its directorial arsenal that is not a tiresomely over-cliched jump – you just ask, why was this film even made?
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory has become a cult classic. This offers a Willy Wonka origin story but seems to be far too nice a work that is missing the dark bite of the original
A spinoff from Pixar’s Cars series (although is not in itself a Pixar film but comes from Disney) that sets out to do the same with anthropomorphic planes. Amiable, even likeable but more a wannabe that seems like it is trying to be than actually hits the cleverness and creative heights of Pixar
Becky was a modest effort with Lulu Wilson as a thirteen year-old violently fighting off home invaders. This is a sequel with her up against white supremacists
Sequel to the Clash of the Titans remake. Much the same as before except with bigger monsters and more explosions … flash and spectacle that washes over you with all the substance of the light from a disco ball
This is surely one of the great exploitation titles of all time. Another Mexican wrestling superhero film where a duo of woman wrestlers take on the Aztec Mummy from another Mexican horror series
A sequel that has been arranged for the sole purpose of serving up a series of gory dispatch set-pieces every few minutes
Passable effort that copies that basics of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre with a group of stranded teens running afoul of an in-bred family
A reimagining of the long-running Wrong Turn series of Backwoods Brutality films, this does imaginative things with the set-up and emerges as the best of the series so far
The much-anticipated sequel to the Gal Gadot starring Wonder Woman is a highly divided success, partly due to an inane plot centred around a magic wishing stone
Sequel to the cult Australian zombie film, this refines the first film and exists as even more of a visual comic-book – all that seems missing is dialogue that comes in comic balloons
Australian zombie film that comes with a hyperactive fierceness and energy that reminds of early Sam Raimi or Peter Jackson. On the minus side, the zombie genre is now so creatively strip-mined that the film never offers anything original
Ti West returns with a fascinatingly charged psycho film that takes place on the shoot of a 1970s porn film
An X-Men origin story that serves as the occasion to recast the series with younger actors. This works far better than the previous two films, integrating the characters in a strong story, although is quiet at the superheroic action
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.
The seventh X-Men chapter arrives with a certain ennui. Bryan Singer creates some epic scenes but the sprawling ensemble and the series’ ragged continuity makes it hard to invest in the characters, while the new villain looks like a B movie wizard and the mass destruction climax comes surprisingly by the book
Despite the bad press surroundings this, I failed to find it as bad as other reviewers. It’s a solid if not standout entry in the series with some fine superheroic action sequences
It is nice to see Bryan Singer regain his form after several years lull. The plot is nothing world-shattering but it is nice to see a character-driven X-Men, while Singer delivers the superheroics with a cheer-out loud elan that most of the sequels missed by a wide margin
After the disaster of X-Men: The Last Stand, the decision was made to give a whole film over to the series’s most popular character, Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, and to go with a prequel that told his origin story. Largely a film that exists as a series of superheroic action scenes
Brett Ratner inherits the X-Men franchise from Bryan Singer for the third film in the series and promptly killed it off (after this point everything became prequels featuring Young X-Men). Ratner’s handling of the superheroic action lacks Singer’s exhilaration or any affinity for the characters
Bryan Singer’s immediate sequel to X-Men, this ups the number of new mutant characters, although only sporadically manages to kick in with the spectacular superheroic action sequences the first film had
A British-made copy of Alien that has been construed as a series of bizarre images and scenes that make no real sense – even the title is given no explanation
Xtro was cheesily ridiculous Alien copy. This is a sequel that bears nothing in common with the original beyond the title. In between the two films, we had Aliens so there is now a plot about soldiers hunting the creature with biiig guns. Nothing bad, just an uninspired rehash of the standard Alien copy
Third of the Xtro films, none of which are related to one another, this features the discovery of aliens at an abandoned military base
One of the most brainless action films ever made. This has the laughable notion of trying to make a James Bond film but recasting it with Vin Diesel as an extreme sports junkie. Everything about the film is absurd.
xXx, with Vin Diesel as an extreme sports junkie version of James Bond, was ridiculous. This second sequel surprisingly turns out halfway watchable, keeping the stunts moving fast and introducing an ensemble to build this out as a Fast and the Furious-type franchise
Troma film about a group of trampers attacked by a Yeti only for one of the group to discover gay love with the Yeti
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
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 (*)
A psychic powers film like Carrie having been reduced to the crass high school comedy of something like Porky’s
A sequel to the teen psychic powers comedy Zapped! that takes things even more crass and vulgar
Enjoyable sequel to Jumanji and actually a much superior film in the hands of Jon Favreau. This expands the idea of the Jumanji boardgame that brings things from a jungle to life to a space theme
Takashi Miike makes a sequel to his earlier superhero film filled with his typically eccentric touches
Head-scratching effort from Japan’s Takashi Miike about a schoolteacher who gains superpowers after putting on a costume from his favourite superhero tv series. Miike never seems to be mounting a parody, while the film is too low-budgeted to ever work in terms of kick-ass superheroic action
A WTF am I watching film where a performing freakshow troupe led by Pervo the Clown are pursued around a farm by topless zombie women
Enjoyable zombie comedy that has been regarded as a classic by many and contains an appealing nonchalant sense of humour and some great performances, even if it owes much to Shaun of the Dead
Zombieland has been elevated to the status of a classic of the zombie genre; I found it enjoyable but probably overrated by people who haven’t seen enough other works in the genre. The question going into this sequel is whether it can strikes the same notes.
Zoombies, based around the idea of zombified versions of zoo animals, was a modest hit for The Asylum. While announcing itself as a sequel, this actually acts as a prequel explaining the origin of the zoombie outbreak
A really good Disney animated film set in a world that imagines what might happen if animals lived in cities, this is an ingenious reworking of the talking animals premise that overflows with visual ingenuity and warm humour
Zootopia was one of Disney’s freshest animated works in a decade largely marked only by mediocrity. This is a sequel where the fantastically original world of the first film slips into being just another Disney IP
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 modern beginnings of Wu Xia and the flying swordsman film. Tsui Hark creates a totally nutso film filled with wild martial arts battles with demonic forces. The results are out of this world