The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
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
Another of the cheap made-for-video Disney animated sequels that were made during the 1990s/2000s, they tries to get by on association with its predecessor’s name
When 20th Century Fox began their Planet of the Apes reboot series, director Mark Polonia quickly jumped in with his own Z-budget mockbuster take. Several sequels followed
Another killer shark film from The Asylum, the people behind the Sharknado. This is a sequel to their earlier Planet of the Sharks and takes placed in a Waterworld-styled drowned future
Disney film where an animated fairytale princess emerges into the real world to become Amy Adams. This becomes the opportunity to wittily puncture the unreal world of the Disney fairytale
Nominally a sequel to Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead’s first film Resolution, this concerns a strange cult but expands outwards to involve a mind-boggling array of backwoods timeloops and reality blurrings
Hong Kong film that blends gauzy erotica and supernatural (although no ghosts despite the title). Not as a good as the first sequel (one of several that followed) due to crude direction
The third and least interesting of the Hong Kong series that blends erotica and the supernatural. Unlike the other films, this takes itself mostly seriously
The second and best in the series of Hong Kong films filled with wonderfully tongue-in-cheek erotica and a series of entertainingly over-the-top fantastical set-pieces
John Carpenter’s sequel to Escape from New York falls too much in the shadow of its predecessor, nevertheless has some effective moments of its own, with Carpenter in particular creating a satiric fundamentalist future
One of the key films from John Carpenter with Kurt Russell giving his best ever performance, a slick exciting action film that imagines a future Manhattan Island having been transformed into a lawless prison
Third of the original Planet of the Apes films. This is an enjoyable take that brings the talking apes back in time to the present-day and where the emphasis is more on comedy
The most high-profile of three identically titled films to come out around the same time all based around the popularity of escape rooms. This generates fair tension and has a certain WTF quality as the characters pass through each scenario
Sequel to the 2019 Escape Room. This repeats everything that its predecessor did but bigger and more elaborate to the point that basic believability goes out the window
Disney live-action film with two psi-powered kids on the run. A popular hit that seems to have been mostly construed around a series of novelty effects set-pieces
A Marvel Comics offering that is an adaptation of a team created by the greatest comic-book writer/artist of all time. On screen however, this emerges with strangely flat and moribund results
Sequel to Bruce Almighty in which Steve Carell is transformed into a modern-day Noah. This was pitched to the Christian audiences but feels like a series of lame gags playing on Noah and the Ark devoid of any biblical context
The first in a series of film reboots of the Neon Genesis Evangelion anime tv series. Epic animation but you need to the part of the fanbase of the original to understand what is going on
The second of the Neon Genesis Evangelion reboot films, this gets the essentials right and delivers some stunningly epic anime action scenes
Third of the Neon Genesis Evangelion reboot films. These films are frustrating – filled with stunning scenes of mecha battling cryptic alien machines but baffling as to what is going on
This was the fourth film in the Neon Genesis Evangelion reboot film series and concludes the saga. Rather than offering any answers or solution to the cryptic world we are in, this opts for a major letdown of a wrap-up
From Charles Band, this features a possessed marijuana bong that sucks those that imbibe inside into the simulation of a stripper bar where they lose their souls. Several sequels followed.
Ferociously paced low-budget hit that put the names of Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell on the map. What made the film a cult hit was Raimi’s full tilt pace and entertainingly over-the-top splatter effects
Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell return in a sequel to their earlier low-budget cult hit. With a far better budget this time, Raimi goes completely over-the-top with a delirious silliness that will bring tears to the eyes
The fifth film in the Evil Dead series. This comes with the selling point of being a female-led sequel and offers a much more serious and gore-drenched take than previous entries
This was the third of Hammer’s Frankenstein films. A usually overlooked entry in the series, this is made into something vivid and quite memorable by Freddie Francis’s direction
A landmark classic of the horror genre, a film whose take on demonic possession and exorcism laid down a series of tropes that are still present over five decades later. A gruelling and intensive horror story into the bargain
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
In much the same way as they did with Halloween, Blumhouse and director David Gordon Green offer up a sequel to The Exorcist on the original’s fiftieth anniversary. The results are a bizarre scratch of the head
One will go out on a limb and argue that William Peter Blatty’s sequel is actually a far superior work to the original The Exorcist, one that substitutes a literate theological detective story for barf bag theatrics and contains at least one real out there jump
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
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
The Pang Brothers are in this author’s opinion some of the finest genre directors in the world. This sequel to their breakout hit The Eye is an even better film that achieves some genuinely haunted moments
The third and weakest of the Pang Brothers’ The Eye films, this has occasional moments of spookiness but mostly feels made up of leftover ideas that didn’t make it to the other films
The first and best of the series of films featuring Christopher Lee at his ice cold best as the Chinese super-villain Fu Manchu. This was made at the height of the Anglo-horror cycle and employs the production values to superlative regard.
The best animated film Disney ever made, created as a work of art with animation set to classical music. The segments vary between abstraction, comic eccentricity and evocations of nightmare. The results are magical.
Disney’s sequel to Fantasia comes weighted with a sense of its own self-importance – the first theatrical release of the new millennium. However, it fails to produce much that has the stature of the original
Spinoff from the Harry Potter films – unlike those, written directly for the screen and feels more like it belongs there. The US locations open the story up, while the magic creatures and new ensemble cast prove a delight
The first Fantastic Beasts was a welcome opening up of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter universe and offered something fresh in the series. This is a more mixed bag where it feels like it is back to business as usual for Rowling
Third of the Fantastic Beasts films, this comes as a mix of ennui with the franchise and promise. It feels like about right now would be a good time to retire the series
One of the big hits among the spate of Marvel Comics adaptations in the 2000s. This has a very mixed reputation but brings the comic-book team to life in a reasonable effort
The 2005 Fantastic Four was an amiable entry among the Marvel Comics adaptations of the 2000s. This sequel substitutes lowbrow comedy and renders the great character of the Silver Surfer as a CGI cartoon
Wim Wenders returns to angels in this sequel to Wings of Desire, along with most of the cast. Again Wenders delivers a work of haunting beauty about the angels invisibly looking in on humanity
The Fast and the Furious series has escalated from films about illegal street racing to essentially superhero films involving ridiculous stunt work that defies the laws of physics. This takes the characters into orbit
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
A rather funny comedy about the making of a disaster-laden low-budget horror film where the filmmaking style depicted makes Ed Wood’s films seem like works of art
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 second of the R.L. Stine adapted Fear Street films, this one takes the action back to 1978 where it then becomes a vigorous homage to the slasher film
The first of the Fear Street films, somewhat more adult than the usual R.L. Stine adaptations. This can be considered the first Woke era slasher film
Follow-up to the R.L. Stine-based Fear Street films of a couple of years back, this conducts a not bad homage to the 1980s slasher film and gets the period setting right
A smartly funny monster movie with various people at siege in a bar and under attack by creatures. This takes great delight in puncturing the cliches of the genre. Two sequels followed.
Feast was an enjoyable monster movie that came with tongue planted in sarcastic cheek. This was the first of two sequels but by now the snappy sarcasm of the original is feeling thinly drawn
Work of softcore erotica about an alien woman who comes to Earth to catalogue human sexual experience. Consists of lots of tasteful glossily photographed tumblings with only the slimmest of plots connecting
Animated film where fairies face the threat to their forest posed by a logging operation. Preachy message-making that is all but a recruitment film for Greenpeace and the Sierra Club
The third and by general consensus the weakest of The Omen films. It fails to deliver its promise of depicting the Armageddon but Sam Neill gives a performance of magnificently dark charisma as the grown-up Damien
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.
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
The first of the sequels, this has a group receiving bizarre deaths after receiving a premonition that prevents a deadly pile-up on the highway. It reveals the problems of creating a sequel to a film that was never intended to be a series
The original creative team behind the Final Destination series, James Wong and Glen Morgan, return for this sequel but only provide a routine series of bizarre novelty deaths following the premonition of a rollercoaster disaster
The series drags another entry out set around the premonition of a bridge collapse. This one is played with such an enthusiasm for the bizarrely improbable deaths that it is one of the best of the sequels
A return to the Final Destination franchise after fourteen years, this comes with an undeniable sense of humour, producing a series of highly entertaining despatches to make the best entry in the series so far
Pixar have never been the same since giving in to sequelitis but this sequel to Finding Nemo does recapturing some of their heyday. Not perfect but this has a winning array of new characters and some delightfully madcap comic set-pieces
An unabashed delight among the Pixar films about a fish parent on a quest to find his missing son. This comes with an extraordinarily vibrant palette of colours and a line-up of winningly eccentric characters
The adaptation of the Stephen King novel with Drew Barrymore giving a fantastic performance as a young girl with pyrokinetic powers on the run as she is hunted by a sinister government agency
TV mini-series sequel to Stephen King’s Firestarter that now sees Charlie McGee in her twenties played by Marguerite Moreau. The story feels under-plotted and over-padded
Did the world ask for a prequel to the events of The Omen, explaining how Damien was born etc? It’s not an issue that has given me sleepless night, but it is a question the film sets out to answer anyway
Blumhouse have handed the reigns of The Purge series to African-American filmmaker Gerard McMurray who takes the opportunity to get political and drag the series into the era of Black Lives Matter
The Asylum, the company behind the Sharknado phenomenon, made 2 Headed Shark Attack. Figuring the only way to top that was to keep adding more heads we had 3 and now 5 Headed Shark Attack
A Blumhouse film adaptation of the videogame that was a considerable hit at the box-office. Josh Hutcherson plays a security guard at a pizza parlour who faces killer animatronics come to life
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 original and greatest of all SF serial adventures and a huge influence on George Lucas. Despite the primitive effects, this still has a marvellously rousing imagination that stands up today. Two serial sequels followed
Dino de Laurentiis climbed aboard the Star Wars fad with this remake of the classic serial. Against expectation, the film’s campy tone and eye-popping sets and costumes work and it has become an audience favourite
The third of the Flash Gordon serials, not quite at the heights of the previous two but with a colour and exoticism that was head and shoulders above the other serials of the era
The second of the Flash Gordon serials, which relocates action to Mars following the popularity of Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds broadcast. The film has a wonderful imagination that far outshines the tattiness of usual serial production values
This offers the amusing idea of a softcore parody of the old Flash Gordon serials. A surprisingly well-made film in terms of effects but the jokes often seems belaboured amid the witless mugging
This sequel to Flesh Gordon, the R-rated parody of the Flash Gordon serials, feels like a joke that is belaboured in the retelling. The film does have a crass level of nonsensical absurdity that proves amusing
The first in what later became a fad for replicating cartoon tv series as big-budget live-action films, this does an exacting live-action version of the Hanna-Barbera series
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
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
A teleporter accident causes a scientist to swap head and arm with a fly. This requires you to suspend believability but is otherwise one of the classic monster movies of the era. Several sequels and a remake followed.
David Cronenberg remakes the 1958 film, transforming its improbable scenario into a fascinating study of biological transformation with Jeff Goldblum genetically mutating into a fly hybrid. Kafka’s Metamorphosis with a lot more slime.
Sequel to the David Cronenberg remake of The Fly directed by that film’s effects creator Chris Walas. This reduces Cronenberg’s obsessive bodily transformation film into just another monster on the loose tale
Kiyoshi Kurosawa is a director who specialises in cryptic spooky horror films. This is a sequel to his earlier alien invasion film Before We Vanish about aliens come to steal concepts from people’s minds
In this, the fifth film in The Purge series, the scenario becomes even more interestingly political, becoming a satiric take on MAGA America and the Capitol Riots
Stuart Gordon, a cult director on the basis of Re-Animator, ventures into making an SF action film set in a futuristic prison. The film has a bone-headed script that feels like it is only rehashing cliches from every SF 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
47 Meters Down, with two sisters trapped underwater in a shark cage with a failing supply of air, didn’t require a sequel. Here we get two different sisters trapped underwater with a limited air supply and surrounded by sharks
Disney animated film from the fallow period of the 1970s/early 80s. This concerns the friendship between a talking fox and a hound tempered by the knowledge they will grow into enemies. An okay effort if not up the heights of the studio’s classics
This was the first in a series of excruciating comedies that pairs hapless Donald O’Connor with Francis, a talking mule. Six sequels followed
The second in a surprisingly popular series of comedies about Francis the talking mule, this involves Donald O’Connor and Francis in a series of hijinks set around horse racing track
The classic version of Mary Shelley’s tale that left the indelible image of Boris Karloff as the dull monster with bolts in its neck. Director James Whale draws on German Expressionist designs to create one of the landmark classics of the genre
Hammer’s seventh and final Frankenstein film and the last great film that the studio would make. Everyone is back on top form – Peter Cushing at his icily arrogant best and director Terence Fisher delivering a stirring show
One of the strangest of Japanese monster movies in which the heart of the Frankenstein monster is caught in the Hiroshima atomic blast and grows into a giant boy
The fourth of Hammer’s Frankenstein films and the most conceptually wild with Frankenstein conducting soul transplants, including transferring his assistant’s soul into a woman’s body
The first film in which Universal teamed-up their in-house monsters, leading to several other monster bashes throughout the decade. For all that, this fails to make any interesting use of the title set-up
The fifth of Hammer’s Frankenstein films and the absolute pinnacle of the series. Terence Fisher is on the peak of his form and turns in a series of directorial set pieces that are quite masterful
Not a Frankenstein film but a werewolf film. Spanish actor Paul Naschy debuts his signature role of the wolfman Waldemar Daninsky. Naschy would return to the role nine times, as well as play most of the classic horror characters
The 2003 Freaky Friday was one of the better Disney remakes with Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan giving inspired performances as mother and daughter who swap bodies. The two reunite for a sequel here
Enjoyable remake of the 1970s Disney comedy about a mother and daughter who swap bodies. Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan nail the swapped roles to perfection
The long promised crossover between the Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street films, this seems caught in a juggling act that fails to satisfy the requirements of either franchise