The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
This was where the world took notice of Tim Burton in his second film. This throws the standard ghost story on its head with the dead trying to exorcise the living. The show is dominated by Burton’s wild set-pieces and Michael Keaton’s OTT title performance
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 first of the Hellraiser sequels. This lacks Clive Barker’s original dark obsessive vision but is worthwhile in its own right, expanding the scope of the story out into a magnificent vision of Hell
Sequel to the cute robot film pushes the cutsie elements to a nauseatingly anthropomorphished extreme, having it spout smartass colloquialisms and erasing even basic credibility
Critters was an entertaining ripoff of Gremlins. This sequel alas draws that appeal thin by being placed in the directorial ham fists of the perpetually awful Mick Garris
Fourth in the popular hopping vampire saga that spawned six films and an uncredited copycat series, all blending a manic mix of comedy, fantastique moves and Eastern beliefs
The first and best of Don Coscarelli’s Phantasm sequels, one that creates an eerie twilight zone ambience that sits between dream and reality
One of the spate of H.P. Lovecraft adaptations that came out in the late 80s/early 90s. This feels like an effort by earnest amateurs but does take its Lovecraft seriously unlike most of the other films of this cycle.
Makeup effects artist Stan Winston takes the director’s chair and creates one of the truly original monsters of the 1980s. Several sequels followed
A popular thriller in its day about a cop tracking a serial killer (played by Brat Packer Judd Nelson). This prefigures The Silence of the Lambs in some interesting ways. Several sequels followed
Sequel to Fright Night, this basically rehashes what went before but introduces Jerry Dandridge’s sister. This does come with the benefit of some way-out stylistic effects from director Tommy Lee Wallace
A cult anime about a demon war on Earth and a half-demon child who has been born in the body of a teenager. This quite takes you aback with its extremes of violence and sexual fetishism
One of the first of the modern wave of darkly romantic vampire films that became the in-thing in the 1990s. This is occasionally effective but was eclipsed by later entries
An appealing bittersweet film based around the improbable premise of a young girl finding what she believes is one of Santa’s reindeer. In a genre that usually deals in sugary sentiment, this has a much more rewarding downbeat realism
An incredibly bad Canadian-made sequel to Food of the Gods about a scientist who devises a growth hormone that accidentally creates a horde of giant rats
Tim Burton borrows from the dark brooding graphic novels of the era and gives us a beautiful, stunningly designed film that digs deep into the psychological recesses of the masks and funny faces
The fifth of the A Nightmare on Elm Street films offers up the same old thing but director Stephen Hopkins enters at an inspired level that transforms the set-pieces with a genuine weirdness
A weak follow-up to the hit original that essentially killed off any further Ghostbusters sequels. Most of the the cast are back but the plot and proceedings feel like a walk-through for all involved.
The eighth of the Friday the 13th films that offers the novelty of taking a revived Jason to New York City. Actually, one of the better entries in the series, which plays his encounters with New York locals for some amusement
The first of Albert Pyun’s kickboxing killer cyborg films featuring Jean-Claude Van Damme who was largely unknown at the time. Pyun creates wall-to-wall action but there is almost nothing else to the film
The first of the Back to the Future sequels has a whiplash ingenuity that propels us through several different scenarios, including a trip to the future, a dark alternate present and requiring Michael J. Fox to duck unseen in and around the margins of the first film
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
An okay Stephen King adaptation that does nothing particularly wrong but lacks the impact that has caused people to regard the novel as one of the best of King’s works
Extraordinary directorial debut from Japan’s Shinya Tsukamoto, a frenetic, fetishistic and surreally deranged vision of man-machine fusion that feels like David Lynch having gone away and done a crash reading course of William Gibson
This is not even a sequel The Amityville Horror but a cheaply and tattily made Canadian effort seeking to sell itself using the name. The first in an industry of films employing some relevance to Amityville
William Shatner tries to emulate the success had by Leonard Nimoy in directing a Star Trek film but falls on his face, badly overstressing the comedy elements and delivering the worst of the Classic Trek films
The fourth and one of the worst of the numerous Amityville films. This reduces everything to a series of crude and increasingly more preposterous, eventually laughable, shocks
Roger Corman produces a blatant copy of Alien with a group of people being pursued around a desert laboratory by a rubbery mutant creature
1990s VHS SF/action with David Carradine as a future cyborg bounty hunter on the run with a wrongly convicted girl while hunted by his own side
Third of the Indiana Jones films. This comes with all the breakneck action sequences and Sean Connery doing a fine comic turn as Indiana’s irascible father but also plays to a much greater slapstick emphasis
The beginning of the big Disney renaissance of the 1990s. An adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale that is conducted with an enormous degree of energy, colour and good cheer
Wes Craven’s adaptation of DC’s Swamp Thing was not a very good film. This sequel has been handed over to prolific B-budget hack Jim Wynorski who shows he is unable to take any of it seriously
Boundary-pushing film that consists almost entirely of very enthusiastic splatter and gore scenes. Amateurishly shot on video nevertheless this gained a cult following and produced sequels
A quirky hit that jumped aboard the 1980s popularity of time travel themes and laid into them with an appealingly offbeat eccentricity. The film that propelled Keanu Reeves onto become a star
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
The first of two OVA sequels to the anime classic Legend of the Overfiend, this lacks the perverse imagery of the original
A delightful Disney film about the adventures of a group of kids who are accidentally miniaturised and have to make their way across a now giant-sized backyard. The effects are top-notch and the film pure and unabashed fun
From the heyday of the 1980s VHS release, a slasher film with the requisite group of partying teens being stalked by a psychopathic, devil-worshipping police officer
The third in the Christmas slasher series where the killer’s brother is resurrected like a Frankenstein monster and develops an obsession with a blind girl. Played with far more seriousness than it deserves
One of the better animated films from Don Bluth that sets up a likeable arc in the relationship between a redeemable mobster dog who returns from Heaven and a young girl
The first Sleepaway Camp was a classic of the slasher film for its unforgettable ending. This was the second of two back-to-back shot sequels starring Bruce Springsteen’s younger sister Pamela as the murderous Angela
The 17th Godzilla film and the second of the modern era where Toho started to employ top drawer effects. Toho created a new nemesis, the plant monster Biollante, although this was not popular with the public
An Italian exploitation ripoff of Jaws with a group of environmentalists in South America dealing with a killer crocodile that has been made giant size by radioactive waste
The first in a series of killer doll films from Charles Band, which has generated some ten sequels. The original has an undeniable atmosphere
Richard E. Grant is a witchfinder who pursues warlock Julian Sands through a time vortex into the present day. David Twohy’s script takes all the Old Wives’ tale aspects of Middle Ages superstition seriously to immensely entertaining regard
Routine executed killer comes back from the electric chair film made to exploit the success of Wes Craven’s Shocker. In some places this was sold as another of the House films
Sequel to the hit psycho-thriller. Terry O’Quinn is back and on fine form but this just repeats the original, bumps up the number of killings with extra gore to become no more than a B psycho film
Sequel to the sensational A Chinese Ghost Story, this reunites the principal talents and actors but is not quite as snappy as the original, placing more of an emphasis on comedy
The first Child’s Play felt like an incredibly silly film. However, this first sequel takes the same elements and constructs them into a much tighter, better package
A far less successful sequel to the mega-hit of Gremlins where director Joe Dante brings the gremlins to Manhattan and allows the silliness to go completely over-the-top and into orbit, even breaking the fourth wall
The first of the long-running series of sequels to Full Moon’s Puppetmaster, this is essentially a rerun of the first film
The third of the Prom Night films, a direct follow-on from the second in which Mary Lou becomes a campy Freddy Krueger-like villain firing off bad puns amid her dispatches
The first live-action spinoff of the comic-book and animated series still holds up well two decades later. Little of the manic barrage of pop culture has dated, there are some excellent animatronics that allow the Turtles to engage in a series of high-energy fights and more importantly emerge as distinctive characters
From regular horror director Brian Yuzna, a sequel to the Christmas slasher films series. This is quite possibly not only the weirdest Christmas film ever made but the weirdest Christmas horror film ever made
The first in a highly enjoyable series of flying swordsman films produced by Tsui Hark. The series hit its peak with the second film but this is an enjoyably energetic and busy effort in its own
The third of the Texas Chainsaw films where the rights have now been inherited by New Line Cinema and the brutality of the original promptly watered down to MPAA standards
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
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
A sequel to the teen psychic powers comedy Zapped! that takes things even more crass and vulgar
A highly entertaining effort from Charles Band and Full Moon Productions directed by Albert Pyun featuring Tim Thomerson as a hard-boiled miniature alien cop come to Earth
Frank Henenlotter takes the commercial route and makes a sequel to his no-budget cult film. A bigger budget allows the film to become a comic variant on Freaks featuring a series of way-out makeup effects
Qurkily appealing Cyberpunk film in which a female bodyguard and a male pleasure android must make a journey across a post-apocalyptic wasteland
Sequel to the madcap Hong Kong fantasy Peacock King with Gloria Yip as a hell demon trying to adjust to living on Earth, which then turns into a comedy variant on Gremlins
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
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
With a script co-written by Frank Miller, this sequel comes in as a leaner work that abandons the campier excesses of its predecessor while expanding on its ideas with considerable ingenuity
A sequel to Killer Crocodile, which was a dreary Italian-made Jaws ripoff. Here another radioactive waste mutated crocodile stalks people. Indifferently made.
The first of three sequels to the Dean R. Koontz adaptation about an intelligent dog, although for each sequel producer Roger Corman has just remade the book
The first and best Tom Clancy adaptation about a hi-tech Soviet submarine whose captain goes rogue. Director John McTiernan conducts the undersea maneuverings with gripping psychological tension
A wildly deranged and gore-drenched ride. Imagine Rosemary’s Baby with an Alien chesburster where a woman is impregnated by a parasite that maintains a monologue as it urges her to kill and drink blood to feed it.
Sequel to the cult splatter hit of Re-Animator, directed by the original’s producer Brian Yuzna. Jeffrey Combs, Bruce Abbott and David Gale are back. This has some amazing effects work but lacks the first film’s outrageous black humour
Second film to follow-on from The Slumber Party Massacre. While the original was a straight-up slasher film, the second became completely ludicrous as it veered off in trying to copy the A Nightmare on Elm Street films but this returns to the slasher basics for a vigorous workout of the formula
Third of the Back to the Future films, which takes everything back in time to the Old West. Probably the slightest of the trilogy, this nevertheless goes out with a rousing farewell
A 1990s video release, a variant on Carrie where a bullied teen girl enacts vengeance against tormentors with the aid of a cursed mirror
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
A superior sequel to the modest The Gate. This borrows from H.P. Lovecraft and delves into the area of cursed wishes that turn on the wisher, all with imaginative results
Sam Raimi created one of the few original screen superheroes with Darkman, essentially a superhero film where The Joker (by way of The Phantom of the Opera) is the hero of the piece
Predator was one of the better Alien/Aliens copies of the 1980s. This sequel does little more than serve the same up all over again bar the substitution of a near-future L.A. for the jungle but manages to generate a reasonably intensive ride out of the action
Sequel to The Neverending Story made with a better budget. This delivers some amazing sets and creature designs but is killed with a script that discards the metaphors and complex level of meta-fiction of the original
The third of Full Moon’s Puppet Master films, this is a prequel that explores Andre Toulon’s origins in Nazi Germany
Charming and delightful Hong Kong erotic comedy about a scholar who sets out on a journey of sexual freedom
A sequel to the Mannequin, the inane comedy about a romance with a storefront dummy come to life. Here Kristy Swanson plays a princess who is turned into a statue before being awoken in the present
The 1980 Alligator was amusing but this hardly one of the sequels the world was burning to see. An utterly formulaic copy that is killed by impoverished giant alligator effects
The eighteenth Godzilla film and one of the best of the modern era. This has the most conceptually audacious plot of any Godzilla film and overflows with wild ideas involving time travel and changing the timeline
To Die For was a forgettable effort, most notably as one of the first films to feature the darkly romantic vampire. This sequel recasts the part with the impossibly handsome Michael Praed and is a far more successful assemblage of the elements
Amblin make a sequel to An American Tail minus the involvement of Don Bluth this time. The story now becomes an amiable animated parody of a Western
Probably THE worst sequel ever made. The script’s treatment of continuity to the first film is utterly incoherent, while director Russell Mulcahy and most of the cast go at it with unrestrained OTT excess
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
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
This caught on in a big way with the public, created a fascination with serial killers and forensic psychology and was nominated for a host of awards. Personally, one finds it one of the more overrated films of modern vintage
The first of a series of poorly made sequels to David Cronenberg’s Scanners. Cronenberg’s ideas have been stripped down to no more than a series of head-exploding effects
This was the third of the Attack of the Killer Tomatoes films. This hits an appealingly silly and wilfully ridiculous note that makes it the best of the sequels.
Another wackily improbable entry in Hong Kong’s Wu Xia cycle featuring all the wildly fantastical and way over-the-top moves that the genre is renowned for
This gained a minor cult in which an abused nerd snaps as a result of constant humiliations and goes on a killing rampage. Tony Radloff gives an extraordinary performance
Steven Spielberg’s long-planned live-action version of Peter Pan emerges as a sequel that asks the question “What would happen if Peter Pan grew up?” Unfortunately, the results are not one of Spielberg’s better films
The sixth of the A Nightmare on Elm Street films, sold with the gimmick of a 3D release. New director Rachel Talaly refuses to take the material seriously and turns the show into an absurd cartoon
Passable but slight tv movie adaptation of a Stephen King short story about a teacher facing undead pupils
The third of the Critters films and in my minority opinion the best of the series generating some reasonable suspense. Featuring the film debut of a teenage Leonardo DiCaprio
The first in a series of vampire films from Charles Band and Full Moon Productions. Several sequels followed.
Roger Corman produced film where Brooke Adams realises that something sinister might be happening with her pregnancy