The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
A recently rediscovered work that was sold as a lost George Romero film. Romero was hired to make a film about the plight of the elderly and creates a surreal allegorical work set around an amusement park
Italian thriller that attained some censorship controversy when it came out. Minsy Farmer is an assistant coroner haunted and obsessed by the corpses she tends
An exquisitely dreamlike erotic fairytale from cult director Walerian Borowczyk, a variant on Beauty and the Beast involving the liaison between a girl and a beast.
Louis Malle’s one and only venture into the French New Wave – a baffling work set around social collapse as a young girl wanders a farmhouse encountering unicorns, talking animals and various surreal happenings
This adaptation of a Harlan Ellison story is a B-budget delight that zings with witty dialogue and a young, unknown Don Johnson giving a very funny performance as the titular boy roaming the post-apocalyptic landscape with his dog
William Castle production about the discovery of a species of insects that can start fires. Easily dismissable as a schlock film but it has an intelligence and eerie insect photography that make it more than that
Ralph Bakshi’s satiric animated depiction of African-American life in 1970s conceived as a parody of Song of the South was greeted with such controversy that it nearly derailed his career
From the Films That Could Never Get Made Today file – an exploitation classic about an obese woman who goes on a killing spree. This comes with a level of derangement that leaves you puzzled why this has never become a cult classic
The little-seen final film from Hammer director John Gilling, an Anglo-horror styled work about resurrected Knights Templar
A Mexican entry in the haunted house genre, featuring a group of girls who inherit a place haunted by an aunt and her black cat. Strikingly rich in terms of set design
Largely forgotten tv movie from a Robert Bloch script. Curtis Harrington creates a fascinatingly creepy atmosphere that blends film noir with mysterious happenings involving voodoo and the resurrected dead
Satiric hit produced by Roger Corman, a spoof of Rollerball, with David Carradine as a driver in a futuristic road race where points are won by running down pedestrians. Also featuring a young unknown Sylvester Stallone
Big-budget Satanism film that came out during the mid-70s occult film fad, this promptly collapses into a bad movie through many unintentionally absurd touches and a nonsensical screenplay
The final film from legendary 1950s SF producer George Pal, an adaptation of the celebrated 1930s pulp hero Doc Savage. Alas, this is given the campy unserious tone of tv’s Batman, which utterly wrecks the show
Disney live-action film with two psi-powered kids on the run. A popular hit that seems to have been mostly construed around a series of novelty effects set-pieces
A giallo film from Umberto Lenzi, best known for creating the Italian cannibal film but Lenzi’s direction is crude and lacking style in comparison to the others working in this genre
Latter day Anglo-horror film from Freddie Francis that assembles many Hammer regulars in a story where Peter Cushing keeps a cannibalistic son on his country estate
From Bill Rebane, a film about a rampaging giant spider (having emerged from a black hole we are told). This has a bad movie reputation, although on most accounts it emerges as strictly average
Australian historical film that seems unsure what it wants to be and takes a long, meandering time before ever arriving at being the horror film it announces itself as
This is possibly the most bizarre entry in the history of the cinematic Superman – a filmed adaptation of Superman Broadway musical. This has to be seen to be believed
The killer shark film that became the No 1 box-office hit of all time and put Steven Spielberg’s name on the map. A powerhouse of seat-edge tension, filled with great performances and the young Spielberg with an incredible grasp of his craft
Rather funny Woody Allen film where he takes to spoofing Russian literature and does some hilarious visual gags and one-liners. Comes with minor fantasy elements including spoofing The Seventh Seal
Splendidly lurid and schlocky psycho film 1970s style with Erik Stern having the time of his life and giving an amazingly demented performance in the title role(s)
The first of the Monty Python films, a wickedly funny, willfully nonsensical take on King Arthur and the knightly quest. Contains many classic Python gags
The fourth of the Blind Dead films from Spanish director Amando de Ossorio. The film, concerning Knights Templars who were blinded and have returned as zombies, have gained a modest cult
Experimental film about the last man left on Earth after a nuclear war who develops a series of imaginary companions
Voted the Best Australian film of all time, Peter Weir creates an incredibly haunting mystery about four girls who disappear while on said picnic. A film full of unexplained answers that remains just beyond your fingertips
This has been conceived as a 1970s car chase film mashed up with the 1970s fad for Satanism and occult where two couples in an RV inadvertently witness a devil worship ceremony and are pursued
High-profile film of its era that was mounted with an A-budget sheen. Beyond that, the film is made with the sedate predictability of a tv movie – it takes the hero half the film to work out what the title tells us
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
Classic work of dystopian SF set in a future where an ultra-violent sport has been created to pacify the masses
Pier Paolo Pasolini’s adaptation of the work by the Marquis de Sade is a catalogue of depravities and tortures and one of the most disturbing films ever made
David Cronenberg’s first commercial release, a vivid work about parasites that turn the residents of an apartment building into sexual fetishists. Cronenberg has set out to shock while beneath that he creates fascinating metaphors about sex
A remake of the classic film noir psycho-thriller. Now the story is conducted in colour and with a name star cast but misses all the atmosphere the original had by a wide mile
Ira Levin’s original novel wherein the men of a town replace their wives with subservient android duplicates seems to have its satiric point blunted when it comes to the film adaptation
The third of the films based around Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry’s Genesis II concept where a cryogenic sleeper awakes in a post-apocalyptic world
A giallo film about a masked man killing models. This comes with an attention-grabbing title that proves more sensational than most of what happens in the film
The third of Disney Dexter Reilly films in which teen inventor Kurt Russell creates a super-strength cereal
Animated parody of the Tarzan films made with a very adult sense of humour that was banned in several countries as a result
Ken Russell’s adaptation of The Who’s hit album is filled with gloriously mad, glitter rock excess and wildly over the top acting in the ways that only Russell ever managed
Classic tv movie that is a horror anthology offering a trio of tales all featuring Karen Black. The first two items are okay but the one that made the film into a cult item was the third episode with Black being chased through her apartment by an evil doll
An early example of the post-apocalyptic action film with Yul Brynner as a lone fighter hired to defend a peaceful community
Another bizarre werewolf movie title collusion from the 1970s era that produced such as Werewolves on Wheels and The Boy Who Cried Werewolf. The film is never quite up to making the notion of hippies vs werewolves work with the amusement of its title
An adult film about aliens that visit Earth to repopulate their own species and abduct women during sex whereupon they stimulate them with the penises that come out of their mouths