The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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
Takashi Miike makes a sequel to his earlier superhero film filled with his typically eccentric touches
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
A sequel to the teen psychic powers comedy Zapped! that takes things even more crass and vulgar
A psychic powers film like Carrie having been reduced to the crass high school comedy of something like Porky’s
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 (*)
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
Troma film about a group of trampers attacked by a Yeti only for one of the group to discover gay love with the Yeti
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
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.
Third of the Xtro films, none of which are related to one another, this features the discovery of aliens at an abandoned military base
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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
Ti West returns with a fascinatingly charged psycho film that takes place on the shoot of a 1970s porn film
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
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
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
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
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 sequel that has been arranged for the sole purpose of serving up a series of gory dispatch set-pieces every few minutes
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
Sequel to the Clash of the Titans remake. Much the same as before except with bigger monsters and more CGI spectacle that washes over you with all the substance of the light from a disco ball
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
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
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 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?
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
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
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.
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
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
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
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
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.
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
The Witch: Part 1 – Subversion was an impressive South Korean psychic powers film. This is Part 2
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 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
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 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
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
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
Wim Wenders’ exquisitely lovely film about angels that hover over West Berlin invisibly observing the human condition. One of the most beautiful of all paeans to the human condition.
A Roald Dahl children’s film that has become a cult classic, set in a deliriously nonsensical world with Gene Wilder give a sinisterly threatening performance in the title role
Fine little tale of an introverted man who befriends a horde of rats and uses these to gain comeuppance. A hit that presaged a host of Animals Attack films throughout the 1970s.
Sold as a sequel to The Wicker Man, although works as more of an update and expansion of its themes. Received a muted reception but is a not entirely uninteresting film, if nowhere near the league of the original
Classic horror film that imagines a secret world of pagan rites existing into the modern day. As much a classic for its colourful creation of a folk culture as it is for an unforgettable ending
The first half of a two-part adaptation of the hit Broadway musical that is a prequel to The Wizard of Oz, showing The Wicked Witch’s origin story
The second half of the film adaptation of the musical Wicked. This essentially operates as Wizard of Oz fanfiction and substantially wrenches the characters and backstories from the 1939 film out of shape to write its own story
A sSequel in name only to White Noise, this is a very silly film with Nathan Fillion returning from a near-death experience able to see the auras of those about to die
Ghost story about so-called Electronic Voice Phenomenon with Michael Keaton as a widower being contacted from beyond by his late wife. A film that achieves some quite reasonable spooky effect
Strong and absorbing serial killer thriller with Ally Walker tracking a killer who severs children’s hands
When a Strange Calls is one of the overlooked entries of the original slasher fad but was quite a hit in its day. This is a forgotten sequel that does some undeniably interesting things with the basics.
The original babysitter stalker film based on a short film that was then expanded out to feature-length following the success of Halloween
A hit for novelist Michael Crichton who made his directorial debut here. Themes of machines going amok run throughout Crichton’s work and here he comes up with the ingenious idea of a Western simulation playground using androids that proceed to turn against the humans
Seventh of the A Nightmare on Elm Street films where Wes Craven returns to direct the most remarkable of all the sequels, an extraordinary meta-fiction that takes place in the real world
The third of Spanish star Paul Naschy’s films about the werewolf Waldemar Daninsky. This becomes a crossover where Daninsky meets up to fight Countess Bathory
John Hughes cornered a certain 80s market on teen angst with films like The Breakfast Club. He also made this head-scratching oddity in which two nerds create the perfect woman
The first Weekend at Bernie’s had the lame concept of two jerks forced to pretend that their boss’s body was still alive. For the sequel, the body is resurrected by voodoo
Robert Rodriguez appears to have gotten the oversized non-event that was Alita: Battle Angel out of his system by making another of his seat of the pants home movies – this is less Spy Kids than Superhero Kids – and brings back one element Alita forgot, a sense of fun
Sequel to Anthony Hickox’s Waxwork, which ups the number of horror homages but suffers a low budget
The second part of DC Universe Animated Original Movies’ adaptation of Alan Moore’s classic graphic novel, the most faithful screen adaptation yet
An animated adaptation of Alan Moore’s classic, genre defining comic-book, this is the most faithful treatment to date
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
Dean R. Koontz adaptation in which Corey Haim adopts an unusually intelligent dog unaware it is part of a genetically engineered killing machine. Produced by Roger Corman who spun out a series of sequels.
Entry from they heyday of Hong Kong’s Wu Xia cycle. By this point, the moves had become so over-the-top the film verges on the cartoonish, all with rather entertaining results
Third and final of the Warlock films where Julian Sands is replaced by Bruce Payne
Julian Sands returns in a sequel to Warlock where the frequently unserious effects of director Anthony Hickox turn it into a silly comic-book of a film
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
WarGames was a thriller that was way ahead of its time; this sequel is no more than video fodder exploiting recognition factor that reduces the original to hacker movie cliches in a technically ill-informed and incoherent plot
This was the first film to ever depict the internet with Matthew Broderick as a teen innocent hacker who accidentally hacks in and triggers a nuclear alert thinking he is playing a computer game
Sequel to The Asylum mockbuster version. Sequelising H.G. Wells is a daunting prospect and not too surprisingly this throws much of Wells out and creates its own film, which is undercut by a typical Asylum low budget
Released just before the Spielberg film, this was an adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel set in the Victorian period that attempts to tell the story as it was written. The film has ambition way beyond the resources at hand but you cannot help but applaud what it tries to do
Where the legend of The Asylum and their low-budget mockbusters began, this was a cheap modernised version of the H.G. Wells novel that was released a day before the Spielberg film. Despite cheap effects, this adheres closer to Wells than Spielberg did and is better written than most Asylum product
The third film in the rebooted Planet of the Apes series. The motion capture effects are at an absolute peak of the art and the motion capture performances astonishing. The whole film almost seems to consist of heart-tugging moments to make you go “aww”
From Ishiro Honda, the creator of Godzilla, this bizarrely features two giant Frankenstein monsters battling it out. A fairly typical Japanese monster movie of its era featuring cheesily ridiculous rubber monsters, copious mass destruction and a largely irrelevant human element
Bert I. Gordon makes a sequel to The Amazing Colossal Man. The film cheats where a good chunk of running time is padded with footage from the original
Prequel to the Chinese spectacular about the construction of an engineering project to move the Earth, this comes with some epic-sized effects sequences
Chinese attempt to make a Roland Emmerich-type mass destruction spectacle about the moving of the Earth. Much effects spectacle but the film suffers from plain absurd science
Aardman Animation give Wallace and Gromit their second film outing
The film that inspired the popular tv series. As always with Irwin Allen, stolid dramatics, bad science and colourful spectacle
Fourth of the original Star Trek films jumps on board the popularity of time travel themes following Back to the Future to have the regulars time travel back to the present for a series of amiable, easy comic encounters
Russian-made adaptation of a classic horror story that takes place as an exquisitely stylised 19th Century Gothic fantasy world but is a head-scratchingly incoherent mishmash on a plotting level
Hilarious French comedy where a filthy Mediaeval knight and his servant are transported into the present-day