The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
One of a spate of films featuring flyer heroes that were popular in the era. Adapted from a comic-book created by an actual World War I flying ace, this is a thirteen chapter serial but proves rather crudely made today
An early Soviet-made film that does an extraordinary job in depicting the launch of a rocket to The Moon. Fascinating to see in terms of its incredible ambition and the things it gets right
Tod Browning film in which Lionel Barrymore is an escaped convict who disguises himself as an old woman where he takes revenge using people shrunken to the size of dolls
The first of the sequels to Universal’s Dracula this time without Bela Lugosi. A much better film in every way. creating a fine sense of atmosphere. Arguably the first lesbian vampire film.
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
Boris Karloff-Bela Lugosi pairing from the heyday of mad science cinema. The science is portrayed with a fascinating and fearful Gothic awe, which leads to some captivatingly directed scenes
Classic Boris Karloff mad scientist effort in which he plays a scientist who invents a device that allows him to swap minds into different bodies. All the usual Gothic fear-filled view of science from this era, but rather well made and with Karloff on fine form
From the brothers who made the classic White Zombie, a similar film about an expedition to Cambodia to find the secret of creating zombies
NOT the Tim Burton film, this is one of several earlier versions of the Sweeney Todd story. Crudely made, it is lit up by the lurid melodramatics of the forgotten British horror actor Tod Slaughter
Third of the Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan films, the point where the formula of the series started to kick in
From a script by H.G. Wells, this comes with a visionary sweep that depicts the building of a scientific utopia but equally suffers from dull and heavy-handed polemical dialogue
Not to be confused with the hit tv series, this features Boris Karloff as a wrongly executed man come back from the dead to exact justice