The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Remake of the Ozploitation film where the original’s Most Dangerous Game scenario set in a dystopian future is lamely rewritten as a reality tv show and another Hunger Games ripoff. The original was fairly terrible; this has a lack of conviction in most regards that makes it even worse
The second in a series of Hong Kong slapstick action caper comedies where the action is maintained at such a madcap and dementedly over-the-top pace that it frequently heads into orbit
A British horror anthology made up of three stories from director Michael Armstrong. As always the episodes are variable but the episode with the killer Punch and Judy dolls stands out
A 1980s film that was sold around a single air bladder makeup effects scene where a man swells up and explodes from a snakebite. That and the entirely risible premise of Oliver Reed as a billionaire who has a psychic link with a giant snake
Planetary adventure in the Star Wars vein with a few shakes of the junkyard future look of Mad Max 2. This was made to exploit the short-lived early 80s 3D revival fad
Low-budget producer Roger Corman jumped aboard the Star Wars sf bandwagon with Battle Beyond the Stars then took all the effects scenes and wrote another entire film around them with Space Raiders
Adaptation of the Ray Bradbury novel about a sinister circus come to town and one of the films that get Bradbury right principally because Bradbury himself wrote the script
Film about premonition of an airline disaster and the survivor being haunted in the aftermath. Not dissimilar to the James Herbert adaptation The Survivor, this goes in predictable directions while never being entirely clear what is happening
Classic from the heyday of the slasher film. While the plot only recycles Friday the 13th, everything else is above average from the characterisations to the novelty deaths, before the film reaches one of the great unforgettable endings of the cycle
A mind-bogglingly bad film that has absolutely nothing to do with H. Rider Haggard and is a post-holocaust film with Sandahl Bergman as an Amazonian warrior. The film is made with a bizarreness that may cause mental damage
A completely deranged film from Hong Kong’s Shaw Brothers involving the resurrection of a dead wife to exact retribution. Full of ghost sex, gore and madcap creature effects
Fred Olen Ray is one of the most prolific genre directors. This film about a cursed Indian graveyard was made earlier in his career. Olen Ray hasn’t exactly become a good filmmaker since but his subsequent films are at least made with a overall competence and a sense of humour, which this lacks
A disappointing end to George Lucas’s original Star Wars trilogy. The script lazily wraps up loose ends while sidelining the new characters introduced the last time, and the climax rehashes the climaxes of the two other films
Straggler in the 1970s Animal Amok genre about a small South Carolina town under attack by killer dogs. This was done better elsewhere by films like The Pack and i>Cujo. Made in short-lived 3D fad so we get dog snouts poking out the screen
Lucio Fulci was a cult Italian horror director. This was the only occasion that Fulci visited the SF film, a low-budget ripoff of Rollerball by way of Mad Max featuring futuristic gladiatorial games
Promisingly ambitious animated SF film that tries to catch some of the trippy qualities of Heavy Metal where the impressive quality of animation is let down by a juvenile story about a rock band in a post-holocaust future
Philip Kaufman’s adaptation of Tom Wolfe’s book about the astronauts of the Mercury Space Program comes out halfway between admiration of the sheer ballsiness of the astronauts and buying into the flag-waving nationalism the Space Race represented.
Witty and overlooked parody of the superhero with Alan Arkin as a retired superhero trying to get back into the game. Made before superhero films became big and has a number of charms that were ahead of its time
Psycho did not need a sequel but this does a scrupulous and exacting job, bringing back Anthony Perkins and paying a great deal of homage in many small details. The script comes with a considerable cleverness
French film about a tv gameshow where contestants are pursued by armed hunters. Much of this was copied by the subsequent The Running Man but this conducted the idea first and better
A venture into the slasher film from hack Spanish director Juan Piquer Simon that features utterly surreal bad dialogue and copious amounts of blood
TV mini-series remake of The Phantom of the Opera starring Jane Seymour that rewrites and rearranges much of the story to negligible effect
Bob Fosse’s riveting biopic of murdered Playmate Dorothy Stratten with Eric Roberts giving his best performance ever
Made-for-tv disaster movie released to theatres about the attempts to rescue a plane that becomes trapped in orbit
The thirteenth James Bond film. the fifth for Roger Moore. While the preceding entry had tried to trim back the cartoonish excesses of the Moore era, it is back to business as usual here. The film frequently feels divorced from the remotest shred of realism
John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John went stellar in Grease. The same flopped when they reteamed in this comedy where they are caught in a bet between God and The Devil
Cleverly made Woody Allen mockumentary in which he plays a human chameleon who has managed to appear in the margins of historical events
Acclaimed classic of 1980s Italian horror where a mysterious typewriter ribbon leads a writer in search of zones where the dead can return to life
Italian cheapie that has become regarded as a bad movie classic. This starts out as a Conan the Barbarian ripoff before, in a twist lifted from Teenage Caveman, we learn we are in a post-apocalyptic future
Modestly made alien contact film that came out not long after Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind
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
Absolutely fascinating David Cronenberg film that swims with a heady mix of ideas that blur tv, reality and the human body
Very popular mini-series during its day (that was followed by a tv series) concerning the alien invasion and occupation of Earth, this has an utter banality that fails on almost every level – as human drama, science and even basic plausibility
One of the more cheesily entertaining among the Italian-made ripoffs of Mad Max 2 during the 1980s (as well as more than a few dashes of Escape from New York). The film works up a moderate head of steam
Steven Spielberg, Joe Dante, John Landis and George Miller came together to make this homage to tv’s The Twilight Zone. The episodes are variable but the standout is Miller’s Nightmare at 20,000 Feet
Appealingly quirky film that pays homage to the alien invaders genre of the 1950s as filtered through post-E.T. sensibilities where the invaders still live in a fifties timwarp
One of the numerous Mad Max imitators made in Italy. Directed by notorious adult director Joe D’Amato who pushes the material further than the other entries do
Ridiculous, splatter-heavy Australian-made film about a prison camp where prisoners are offered their freedom in a run while pursued by armed hunters
Cheap and tatty copycat of Raiders of the Lost Ark shot in the short-lived 1980s 3D revival fad
Earnest, sincere film where deaf Timothy Bottoms receives an operation that allows him to hear again, as well as builds an A.I.
Part of a cluster of strong strong and powerful depiction of the outbreak of nuclear war that came out in the mid-1980s. This avoids melodrama by staying focused on a family’s attempts to cope
Typical of the hard-boiled thrillers/action films Charles Bronson made during the 1980s for Cannon Films. This borrows the basics from Dirty Harry with Bronson as a cop required to bend the rules to stop a psycho
80s slasher film about a teenage temptress who leaves a trail of dead men around her. An impressive cast but the film sits on a very dubious line
The nadir of the Christopher Reeve Superman films, one where the desire to add a comedy element in the form of Richard Pryor overtakes and wrecks what is already a random and unfocused plot
A vigorous copy of the Mad Max post-apocalyptic action film made by the underrated Cirio H. Santiago
Underrated film with Peter Weller as a Wall Street banker who has his life overturned in trying to deal with a tenacious, seemingly hyper-intelligent rat that invades his home
One of a number of Italian-made copies of Mad Max 2 from Enzo G. Castellari. This is cheap and in some of the writing and dialogue frequently laughable
A bizarre Italian film that recounts the Biblical story of Adam and Eve and then follows on from their banishment from Eden and into the wilderness where they encounter dinosaurs, cavemen and wild beasts
Lucio Fulci departs from the splatter genre to make a venture into the Italian sword and sorcery film of the era. As with any Fulci film, this is expectedly plotless and incoherent but with occasional moments of imagination
Joe D’Amato directs one of the numerous 80s Italian Mad Max 2 copies. One of the very first films to depict televised human bloodsports later popularised by the likes of The Running Man and The Hunger Games
An early entry in the Wu Xia genre, filled with wildly over-the-top martial arts and swordplay sequences. One of the first films from Ching Siu-Tung, later a major Hong Kong action choreographer.
Luc Besson made his directorial debut with this remarkable film. At a time when everybody was making copies of Mad Max 2, Besson demonstrates a poetry in depicting a post-apocalyptic world where people have lost the ability to speak
The great William Friedkin, the director of The Exorcist and other works, had a flop with this unfunny Chevy Chase and Sigourney Weaver comedy about arms dealing and the efforts to obtain a robot plane
David Cronenberg adapts a Stephen King novel with Christopher Walken waking from a coma with clairvoyant abilities. An okay film if one that lacks the personal intensity and rich themes of Cronenberg’s original works
From Nicholas Meyer, a TV movie (released theatrically in some countries) that was considered controversial in its day for its no-holds-barred depiction of a nuclear attack on the US
Slasher film that is more like an Agatha Christie whodunnit, this comes with an appealing level of meta-fictionality. Mostly, it is an actor’s film and has been set-up to allow its name cast to do amazing things
One of the more underrated Stephen King adaptations about a rabid killer dog. Director Lewis Teague turns the last 40 minutes with Dee Wallace and son trapped in a car by the dog into an extended climax of grueling tension
Surrealist film from Raul Ruiz that proves a tedious, drawn-out ramble through disconnected images and non-sequiturs
From the heyday of the slasher film, this seems to be trying to conduct a slasher version of Deliverance. Largely forgotten today and unremarkable but for an amazing cast of before-they-were-famous faces
John Carpenter takes on Stephen King’s novel about an evil car and a boy’s relationship with it with dynamic results. The film is made by Carpenter’s slick direction and a series of sensational effects set-pieces
A parody of British boys adventure stories like Biggles and Bulldog Drummond. This is made with a manic silliness that eventually becomes rather entertaining.
Enzo G. Castellari’s sequel to his Escape from New York ripoff 1990: The Bronx Warriors and a most more polished and entertaining B action movie
Highly ambitious film for its day, this concerns a memory-recording device that manages to accidentally record the experience of someone dying. Well worth seeing today, including being one of the first films to depict the internet
Charles B. Pierce, a director who gained a cult with his films for 1970s drive-in audiences, makes a sequel to his earlier pseudo-documentary The Legend of Boggy Creek about the hunt for a Bigfoot creature
Dan O’Bannon scripted film about a hi-tech helicopter, this crackles with great writing and some immensely exciting aerial action scenes from director John Badham
The first film from Jackie Kong, who made the hilarious Blood Diner, concerning a cheesily ridiculous atomic mutant monster loose in a small town
This was the third of the Amityville films, released amid the early 1980s 3D revival. Nothing more than the usual except for various things popping out of the screen
One of the earliest films from Charles Band. In the years following, Band went onto produce and occasionally direct a great many often enterprisingly cheap low-budget genre films – this is not one of them
An Italian exploitation film that blatantly copies the plot of Mad Max 2. It offers the benefit of some vigorous action scenes and English-language dubbing that is out of this world
Animator Ralph Bakshi collaborates with fantasy illustrator Frank Frazetta to make a fine and underrated sword and sorcery film that comes with a vigour that puts in the best spirit of Robert E. Howard
One of the early films from Paul Verhoeven, an amusingly blasphemous tale that draws more than a little from Don’t Look Now with gay writer Jeroen Krabbe becoming wound into the dealings of femme fatale Renee Soutendijk
The first film from low-budget hack Jim Wynorski. How can you resist the absurd B-budget mix of a trio of very well-endowed women kicking ass, martial arts action, women’s prison scenes and mad scientist super-villains
Rogue James Bond film made outside the regular series due to a complicated copyright battle. Sean Connery was inveigled back the role and this has some standout casting that is a welcome relief from the unserious Roger Moore films
Obscure work of Soviet era SF. Clearly influenced by Stalker, this concerns an investigation into a mysterious alien zone that has left astronauts with psychic powers. Most of the film drowns in endless discussion and an almost complete lack of drama
The third and last of the Monty Python films, a variety of skits that are variously outrageous and frequently leave behind all good taste
Early Charles Band film made in the mid-80s 3D revival fad. A cheap planetary adventure that feels like a collage of other SF films around at the time, most notably Star Wars and Mad Max 2
A B-budgeted hit from the video era concerning a possessed housewife. This is a film that has only ever been construed around the provision of cheap makeup effects at regular intervals, all of which hold an undeniable entertainment value in their cheesy ridiculousness
Extremely funny Steve Martin comedy where he plays a neurosurgeon who falls in love with a brain in a jar
Cheap and feeble-minded invisible man comedy that was made as part of the short-lived early 80s 3D fad. The first starring role from Steve Guttenberg
A comedy in which Sigmund Freud’s ghost pops up to offer advice to psychologist Dudley Moore after he falls in love with patient Elizabeth McGovern
Enigmatic New Zealand-made film that takes place in an incredibly haunted landscape about the disappearance of an anthropologist searching for a lost tribe
A Dutch film about a killer elevator that gained some attention when it came out. This generates some reasonable suspense but it also has a plot that drags considerably
A big-budget fantasy film made too much in the shadow of Star Wars by people with little understanding of the genre. The fantasy elements feel leaden and fail to take any imaginative flight
Adaptation from a best-selling horror novel about Nazis battling an ancient evil. Michael Mann lavishes amazing visuals on the film but almost entirely sidelines the horror element
The second sequel to the hit killer shark film. This is shot with gimmick of the early 80s 3D revival fad but this has the effect of reducing Steven Spielberg’s masterful suspense to a series of novelty pop-up shocks
The debut film from Tony Scott was a commercial flop but is a sumptuous, elegant, beautifully filmed work that is often a case of style over substance. It is nevertheless a challenging attempt to create a modern day vampire film
One of the better copies of Conan the Barbarian featuring Laurene Landon as a warrior woman. This is actually a better screen incarnation of Red Sonja than the subsequent film version
Cannon Films make an Old Dark House film that brings together an aging Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Vincent Price and John Carradine. This denoted the end of the Anglo-horror era but is not nearly as worthy as you feel it should have been
Given lavish period settings and featuring a sterling cast line-up of British talent from the day, this is probably the most faithful film adaptation of the Conan Doyle story
An incredibly bad Hercules film from Cannon Films made in Italy by Luigi Cozzi. This was the immediate aftermath of Star Wars so we get a bizarre attempt to rework Greek mythology as science-fiction
Italian-made entry in the early 80s fantasy fad, a sometimes well made, sometimes sprawling Mediaeval saga about love between opposing sides of the conflict
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
Beautiful and underrated animated fantasy film about an apprentice magician who protects the last unicorn. This has a maturity that most animated fantasy lacks
Highly enjoyable Canadian-made parody of bad 1950s B movies that throws in everything from alien invaders to zombies and splatter. And is a musical to boot!
A once lost Edward D. Wood Jr film with police investigating a fake medium scam being run out of a haunted house