The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Just when you thought that this witless and unfunny series has died off, it drags itself out of mothballs for another outing. As with the other entries, it is a bunch of recent movies overrun with crude, moronic gags
Fourth of the Scary Movie films and the usual crude inanity, although under David Zucker the movie parodies have expanded well beyond what can be labelled scary movies any longer
David Zucker takes over the reins of the franchise from the Wayans Brothers. With a lack of big scary movies in 2002 to parody, the film takes a scattershot approach, parodying any film at all
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
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
The sixth of the Hammer Dracula films and generally regarded as the low point of the series. It feels as though nobody involved seemed to be making an effort anymore.
The directorial debut of William Malone later to make House on Haunted HillAlien (one of the first of many such), albeit brought down to Earth. As a novice director, Malone is relatively crude and far removed from the masterful style of Ridley Scott
Second of the sequels to David Cronenberg’s Scanners, this features Liliana Komorowska who becomes crazed after taking a scan suppressant drug
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
Enormously entertaining David Cronenberg film about psychic powers. Cronenberg is fascinated with the conceptua possibilities and creates some sensational set-pieces
The fourth and last of a series of low-budget sequels to David Cronenberg’s Scanners, also the worst of the bunch featuring a series of absurd head-exploding effects
Third of the sequels to Scanners, this stars Daniel Quinn as a police officer who discovers scanner abilities
The Saw series is back and this has been getting some of the best reviews of any entries in the series
Sixth time around and the backstory is starting to become so excessively complicated it is hard to follow what is going on. All the gruesome torturings now seem passe, although this does redeem itself somewhat in making a few black digs at the medical health industry
Fifth of the Saw films. By now the series has developed such a complicated backstory it is difficult following how it all pieces together
Fourth of the Saw films, the third under Darren Lynn Bousman who has placed an increasing emphasis on torturous extremes at the expense of credible plotting
Supposedly the final chapter of the Saw saga – where the sole novelty on offer is gore and body parts coming out the screen in 3D. This is conducted with a tired lack of effort that makes for tedium-inducing watching
Third of the Saw films and the point where director Darren Lynn Bousman places the series’ focus on grim gore-drenched sadism and torture
The first sequel to the sleeper success of Saw where Darren Lynn Bousman inherits the director’s chair but delivers a film that lacks the torturous suspense that James Wan gave the original
Forget the grim and sadistic sequels that followed, this low-budget directorial debut from James Wan is a masterwork that conjures unbearable dread and tension in its study of characters forced to consider the horribly inconceivable
Sequel to their earlier Wu Xia film, although having nothing in common with it. All the moves are pushed to a level of cartoonish absurdity that proves amazingly silly
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
There has very rarely been a good killer bee movie. This is one exception, a directorial effort from no less than the creator of Mission: Impossible that gains its effectiveness by using real rather than optical bees
A horror film that was the biggest box-office hit ever in Indonesia as a family tragedy stirs up hauntings and the occult. A follow-up to an earlier 1970s film that has become a cult hit.
The eight of Hammer’s Dracula, the second-to-last they would make and the last featuring Christopher Lee. This follows on from the previous film Dracula A.D. 1972 in featuring Dracula in the present day and at least does more with the idea than that film did
Another of the films from the Mexican wrestling superhero Santo where he and his friend Blue Demon encounter assorted Famous Monsters raised by a mad scientist
Popular film with Tim Allen as a regular family man who is forced to become Santa. Several sequels followed.
Third of the Santa Clause films starring Tim Allen as Santa where his reality is upended by the evil Jack Frost
The first of two sequels to The Santa Clause with Tim Allen as Santa Claus, this benefits from a bigger budget
TV movie where Jenny McCarthy plays Santa’s daughter who takes over the family business
The third in a popular series of films about a Little League baseball team, this involves a time travel element
One of the best Stephen King adaptations made as a tv mini-series concerning a town overrun by vampires. Director Tobe Hooper excels himself, staging the book in terms a series of captivating set-pieces
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
The two most popular Japanese horror franchises come together to fight it out. Both series work on the provision of intensely uncanny effect but brought together the result is diluted at best
The thirteenth film in the Ring/Ringu franchise. The question is whether the return of original director Hideo Nakata to the franchise can revitalise the series
The original Ring was a classic, an eerie ghost story that was a success that spawned a series of copies right around the Asian region. Here the Ring cycle has been rebooted in a heavy letdown that abandons all of the creepy atmospherics of the original for a series of pop-up CGI effects
This is a wholly unnecessary sequel to Donnie Darko, featuring the same bafflingly inexplicable time-blurring things happening to his sister but without the same culty weirdness
Classic film and one of Roman Polanski’s finest works, the comically paranoid story of a housewife who increasingly comes to believe that the child she is pregnant with was fathered by The Devil
A Stephen King scripted tv mini-series about the investigation into a haunted house. This is not quite a classic in the vein of its model The Haunting but is a solid and effective entry
Disney are now doing what Lucasfilm did with their novels in the 80s and spinning adventures off from even minor background characters. This is a grittier Dirty Dozen adventure but still recycles the same basic elements
The No 1 cult film of all time, more a phenomenon than a film, a demented glitter rock homage to mad science cinema and 50s sf films run through with celebration of a gender-bender joie de vivre
A bad movie classic. As the title explains, we get a revived mummy pitted against an actor in a ridiculously clunky tin man suit. Third in the Mexican-made Aztec Mummy series, the biggest ripoff is that 3/4 of the film consist of footage recycled from the preceding films
The third Robocop film killed the series off with a disastrous decision to go for a PG rating and pair Robocop with a cute kid
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 popular hit that spins the cyborg cop theme through a Cyberpunk future, while director Paul Verhoeven piles on excesses of violence and black humour. A darkly funny satire of Reaganite America, this is an entertainingly slick comic-book of a movie
A low-budget film about an evil doll that was made not long after Annabelle came out and boasting a similar Based on a True Story claim. Four sequels have followed
Sequel to the earlier The Rizen with the group of people trapped inside a labyrinth of Lovecraftian horrors
Amnesiac persons wake up in a bunker filled with monstrosities. Sort of H.P. Lovecraft served up as a low-budget variant on Resident Evil
Reboot of the classic franchise, a loose remake of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. Thanks to some remarkable CGI effects, the apes entirely outshine the humans
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
This feels like someone has simply copied the idea of a secretive law enforcement agency from
A sequel to R.I.P.D. that tells an origin story of how the sheriff character played by Jeff Bridges in the original became an afterlife enforcement officer
I hate the utterly formulaic films of Blue Sky Studios, the ones behind the endless Ice Age sequels. That said, this is one of their more enjoyable – despite a plot that is amazingly busy trying to reintroduce characters from the first film, the screen overflows with colourful exuberance
A Blue Sky Studios animated film set around a talking macaw and his journey to the wilds of Brazil for the first time to mate and repopulate the species. Familiar cliched story arcs conducted with a good deal of colour
The question you ask going in is after seven Japanese films and a tv series, a Korean film and two previous English-language films, what is left for filmmakers to wring out a third American The Ring film? The answer seems to be not much – just a rehash of the basics for the 18-25 crowd
Sequel to The Ring, the English-language remake of Ringu. The filmmakers have returned to the source and brought in original director Hideo Nakata only to produce one of the most disappointing of all the Ringu/Ring films
The second of the Japanese Ring/Ringu films where director Hideo Nakata improves over the original with a series of eerie scares if a frequently incomprehensible mishmash of story ideas
This is the English-language version of the Japanese horror Ring and actually a much better and far spookier film, where the new script gives the story more depth
Kaidan eiga (Japanese ghost story) that was a huge hit, spawning several sequels and an English-language remake, plus a horde of imitators. For all its reputation, the film is often crude, nevertheless does evince an eerie atmosphere
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
The third Riddick film abandons the dark space opera of the less popular Chronicles of Riddick and tries to return to the planetary survival story of Pitch Black. Despite the effort showing at times, the film gets to be a good deal of fun when it gets to the scenes of Riddick outwitting the mercenaries
Cheaply made video sequel to the Macaulay Culkin Richie Rich based on the popular comic-book character, this steals the basic plot of It’s a Wonderful Life
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
The first sequel to The Creature from the Black Lagoon where The Creature is brought back to civilisation. Director Jack Arnold again creates sympathy and pathos for the monster
The second of Hammer’s Frankenstein films and a fine work that finds positively ingenious ways to continue on from its predecessor. Terence Fisher and the production team are all on top form.
Not wishing to insult anyone’s beliefs but Christian cinema has produced some really bad films. With such lowered expectations, this Rapture film approaches halfway watchable with a story that somewhat resembles Mad Max 1 about a biker seeking vengeance against a decent man
One of a number of faith-produced films we have had since the late 90s that concern themselves with the arrival of The Rapture – this one even spawned a trilogy. This is passable if you can palate the relatively light sermonising and at least better written that the Left Behind films
The second in a series of Biblical End Times films from Canada’s faith-based Cloud Ten Pictures, this offers the peculiarity of the Anti-Christ appearing in Virtual Reality
Silent Hill was one of the best videogame film adaptations and created a genuinely uncanny atmosphere. That film’s director returns to the franchise here with more of the same but misses the mark
Cult director Larry Cohen makes a sequel to the Stephen King mini-series but throws most connection out to make his own wry, occasionally amusing vampire film
Among the cheap video-released sequels to their classics Disney made during the 00s, this Peter Pan sequel emerges as halfway reasonable
Cheaply made sequel to the remake of House on Haunted Hill that turns it into a teen film dominated by gore set-pieces
The third sequel to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Usually reviled by fans, this is not unworthwhile, capped by a genuinely insane performance from a then-unknown Matthew McConaughey
Dan O’Bannon’s Return of the Living Dead came with a cheerfully black cynicism that was a wonderfully fresh alternative to George Romero amid the 1980s zombie fad – this sequel has a painfully unfunny lameness that could not sit at more removed extreme to that
Shabbily made hanger-on to the 00s zombie fad that would have gained zero attention without its pedigree name. This completely misses the black humour of the original
Brian Yuzna’s entry is the only worthwhile effort among the sequels to Dan O’Bannon’s Return of the Living Deadwhere Yuzna adds an original plot about a zombie girlfriend and the film is spiked with perverse imagery
Spinoff of Night of the Living Dead that emerged from a complicated copyright split with George Romero. Director Dan O’Bannon substitutes black humour to deliver an hilariously different take
Way back before Peter Jackson, there was another whole era of Tolkien adaptations, including this animated adaptation of the third book, which is a peculiar oddity if nothing else
The first of the sequels to Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. Featuring the first screen appearance of George Clooney.
The first of the sequels to the original The Fly where the scientist’s son begins his own experiments
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
A weak video-released spinoff of Disney’s Aladdin that began Disney’s habit throughout the 90s/00s of generating cheap sequels to their animated classics
A Japanese monster movie with a difference. The second in a trilogy of films about a giant stone deity that awakens to defend villagers in trouble
Not a sequel to Doctor X despite the title, The main footnote this has is that it stars Humphrey Bogart as a vampire lab assistant. Halfway reasonable despite a bad reputation.
The first of five West German-made sequels featuring Fritz Lang’s great criminal mastermind Dr Mabuse, who this time is masterminding a plot to create mind controlled zombies
The second of the films made about the Chinese super-villain Fu Manchu, the first made in sound. This is where the film series started to find itself, turning in some superlative thrills and a wonderful battle of wits between hero and villain. Pulp thrills at their best
Count Yorga, Vampire was a minor success that started a spate of modern-day vampire films. This was a slightly lesser sequel that has the same droll wit but gets sidetracked in the middle sections
Sequel to Disney’s Escape to Witch Mountain with the psi-powered alien kids up against a villainous Christopher Lee and Bette Davis
This was the seventh of Full Moon’s most popular series, the Puppet Master films. This goes back to tell how young Andre Toulon (Greg Sestero) originally created the puppets
A reboot of the Resident Evil film series under a new director with Johannes Roberts who abandons the previous action poses for a far darker and more visceral survival horror approach
The Resident Evil films are designed for people who were introduced to drama via the Xbox, action sequences that can be assembled in random order and where it doesn’t matter what happens. I watched this, the sixth and final entry, with next-to-no enthusiasm but then quite unexpectedly it starts to work
Another unnecessary entry in a creativity-handicapped series, the continuing popularity of which is baffles. This shuffles through the familiar moves, brings back several familiar characters but only leaves me asking why I have invested some nine hours of time following this series
Third of the Resident Evil films. This expands the scale of action to show the entire world destroyed by the virus but for all that and a decent budget, director Russell Mulcahy fails to push the elements to a suitable head of steam
The first in a series of anime films that were produced by Capcom, the creators of the Resident Evil videogames, and intended to run parallel to the live-action films. I was never a big fan of the live-action films. The question is – does Resident Evil work better in the anime format?
The first of the Resident Evil sequels and a better film than its predecessor, getting in a series of spectacular, if at times ridiculously silly, action sequences
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
Based on the survival horror videogame, this was the first in a surprisingly popular series of films. It also presaged a major return of the zombie film during the 2000s/10s, even if this only treads where George Romero went better before
Alex Coz’s surreal cult film with Emilio Estevez as an L.A. punk working as a repo driver who gets wound into the hunt for a car with radioactive aliens in the trunk
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
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