The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Abbott and Costello’s fourth and final meeting with the Famous Monsters. However, this is a desultory outing where nobody seems to be making much of an effort
Modest and occasionally atmospheric 1950s B-budget alien invasion film where the title is explained as the alien’s ability to control animals, making this arguably the first Animals Amok film
Edward D. Wood Jr film with Bela Lugosi creating a race of atomic supermen in the swamps. One of Wood’s more competent films that is an enjoyable variant on mad scientist film that Lugosi spent the 1940s making
George Pal’s successor to Destination Moon imagines one step further – an expedition to Mars. Where Destination Moon had a bold unfettered optimism, this is killed off by an ending that falls prey to typical 1950s fear and anxiety
Atomic became the explain-all buzzword for almost every monster movie of the 1950s.This is the novelty of the one and only atomic zombie film, although at heart is no more than a 1940s mad scientist film
A copy of Cat People in which a group of G.I.s violate a Malaysian temple and are subsequently haunted by a mysterious snake woman. This achieves some modest atmosphere
One of the first films from Roger Corman. Set among a group of survivors in the immediate aftermath of the nuclear holocaust, Corman blatantly steals the plot from Five and adds a mutant monster to the mix
Classic French psycho-thriller that is gripping in its psychological games before reaching an unforgettable twist ending. It has been twice remade and its plot much imitated by others but never bettered
A live-action version of Cinderella starring Leslie Caron. This is a rather staid version with ballet sequences where the magic and romance never much ignites
An early film from cult stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen. Here he seems to have been given orders to copy the basics of his earlier The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and offers up the tale of a giant atomically-mutated octopus
One of his earlier efforts from the great Karel Zeman wherein four boys journey through prehistory. Not the equal of Zeman’s later work, it feels more like an illustrated museum tour than a dramatic film
Former Tarzan star Johnny Weissmuller plays himself in a routine studio backlot jungle adventure that uncreditedly steals the plot from H. Rider Haggard’s She
The first film from Bert I. Gordon, known for his cheap giant animal films through the 1950s. This concerns a space expedition to a planet inhabited by dinosaurs – cue Gordon’s usual cheap effects
A Disney animation classic about two talking dogs from different walks of life who fall in together. It is impossible not to be charmed by the plaintive delights and sweetly romantic tenderness of the film
Absolutely extraordinary directorial debut from actor Charles Laughton who transforms the story of an evil preacher (Robert Mitchum) pursuing two children into something approaching a stylised Expressionist fairytale
Carl Dreyer, the Danish director of Vampyr and The Passion of Joan of Arc, is one of the least well-known great directors. This, his second-to-last film, concerns itself with the nature of religion and miracles. A very weighty Bergman-esque piece, it arrives at an astonishing ending
A rather dull 1950s atomic monster movie about a series of bodies that are found on a seashore that lead to a scientist who has created a radioactive mutant monster
The first of the Quatermass films and the first major genre hit for Hammer Films. Nigel Kneale creates a literate work of science-fiction horror about a returned astronaut mutating after exposure to an alien fungus
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
Them! had created the 1950s fad for giant atomically enlarged insects. Here Jack Arnold, one of the most celebrated genre directors of the 1950s, makes a giant spider film and much better than most of the era’s other giant bug films
The first of the Gordon Scott Tarzan films although it does little to vary from the well-established formula of the previous eighteen entries
Beautifully colourful 1950s SF film about scientists who are abducted to take part in a war between two alien species
A British quota quickie with a fascinating central idea of a scientist who has slipped several seconds out of phase in time and can answer questions before they are asked