The Alien Agenda: Endangered Species (1997)
Alien Takeover Anthology
The second of Kevin J. Kindenmuth’s surprisingly good compilations of video shorts around the loose theme of alien invasion and takeover
Films of 1997
The Alien Agenda: Under the Skin (1997)
Alien Takeover Anthology
The third and least satisfying of the otherwise above average compilation films on the theme of alien invasion from Kevin J. Lindenmuth and other directors
Alien: Resurrection (1997)
Alien Sequel
The fourth of the Alien films. French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet comes on board and delivers a comic-bookish run through of a Joss Whedon script that overspills with too many ideas
American Perfekt (1997)
Road Movie Psycho-Thriller
A surprisingly good road movie psycho-thriller focusing on various people travelling a desert highway where it becomes apparent that one of them is a serial killer
An American Werewolf in Paris (1997)
Modern Werewolf
Sequel to An American Werewolf in London, which copies the set-up with a different city but misses all of the sense of humour, even fails to offer anything like the classic transformation effects
Anaconda (1997)
Giant Snake
A film crew in the Amazon headed by Jennifer Lopez encounter a giant snake. Mounted as a CGI monster movie in the aftermath of Jurassic Park, this has scripting that frequently descends into the ludicrous
Anastasia (1997)
Animation/Amnesiac Russian Royal
Considerable return to form for animator Don Bluth even if the story of the Russian Royals he is telling is based on a hoax and manages to entirely excise any mention of the Communist Revolution
The Apocalypse (1997)
Spaceship on a Collision Course with Earth
The title is a cheat as this is not about the End of the World, merely a film about a spaceship on a collision course with Earth. Essentially Die Hard aboard a spaceship
Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery (1997)
Spy Movie Spoof
The first of Mike Myers’ Austin Powers films is at times extremely silly and scatological but does offer a knowing and witty parody of the James Bond films. The result became a cult phenomenon
Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life (1997)
SF Writer-Philosopher Documentary
Documentary about controversial philosopher/SF writer Ayn Rand. Her life is treated in exhaustive detail but the documentary-makers seem too enamoured of their subject matter to find any critical distance
Batman and Mr Freeze: SubZero (1997)
Comic-Book Superhero/Animation
The second of the animated Batman films, a Mr Freeze story timed to come out at the same time as Joel Schumacher’s Batman & Robin atrocity. This treats the Mr Freeze story with far more respect than that film
Batman & Robin (1997)
Comic-Book Superhero
Possibly the worst film ever made on a big studio budget, Joel Schumacher’s follow-up to Tim Buton’s standout Batman films where he turns everything into an absurd Day Glo realm with a script for two year-olds, campy puns and badly overacting super-villains
Black Circle Boys (1997)
Teenage Satanists/True Story
Modest and effective portrait of troubled youth as a teen is drawn into a group who have sworn allegiance to Satan. The film is driven by an intense compelling performance from Eric Mabius as the group’s leader
The Borrowers (1997)
Miniature People Adventures
Amiable adaptation of Mary Norton’s books about a family of miniature people that live in hiding in a human house. Aimed for big scale effects and slapstick set-pieces but sufficiently engaging nevertheless
Bram Stoker’s Legend of the Mummy (1997)
Revived Mummy
Low-budget and cheap looking adaptation of a lesser-known Bram Stoker novel The Jewel of the Seven Stars. This was clearly made to capitalise on Stoker’s name following the success of Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Bram Stoker’s Shadowbuilder (1997)
Shadow Demon
One of several films that came out after the success of Bram Stoker’s Dracula claiming Stoker’s above their title despite slim or no connection. That said, this is a modestly effective film about a demon that exists in the shadows
The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars (1997)
Animation/Talking Appliances
Third of the Brave Little Toaster films, this takes the talking appliances to Mars and comes with an appealingly zany sense of humour
The Brave Little Toaster to the Rescue (1997)
Animation/Talking Appliances
The first of two Brave Little Toaster sequels, this plays more along the lines of a regular animated film formula but has its charms
The Butcher Boy (1997)
Disturbed Irish Childhood
Neil Jordan makes a film about an abusive childhood that actually ends up asking us to cheer on the central character’s emergence as a murderer. Maybe the most cheerfully entertaining film ever made about child abuse.
Casper: A Spirited Beginning (1997)
Friendly Ghost
The first of the video-released sequels to the Casper the Friendly Ghost film, this is played down to children and comes with much in the way of slapstick
A Chinese Ghost Story: A Tsui Hark Animation (1997)
Hong Kong Supernatural Fantasy/Animation
A Chinese Ghost Story was a classic in Hong Kong cinema, followed by two sequels and then animated spinoff sold in the West under the name of series producer and cult director Tsui Hark
Club Vampire (1997)
Vampires
Set around a secret society of vampires, this is a strong contender for the worst vampire film ever made. It suffers badly from a directorial approach that is unsure if it is taking things seriously
Conceiving Ada (1997)
Ada Byron Biopic/Ada Recreated in Cyberspace
Rather muddled film that seems to want to be a biopic of Ada Byron but ends up with her (as played by Tilda Swinton) recreated in cyberspace
Conspiracy Theory (1997)
Flaky Conspiracy Theorist Comedy/Thriller
This should have been a witty film – Mel Gibson as a conspiracy nut who discovers one of his theories is true and is hunted by government agents – but the result is a confused mess that turns into an overblown action vehicle
Contact (1997)
Communications from Space
Carl Sagan’s novel about SETI is inflated into a big budget film determined to impress even though the story did not need it. Sagan’s interesting debate about religion and science is emasculated so as not to offend any religious groups
Cube (1997)
Mysterious Labyrinth
An excellent conceptual SF film, a directorial debut for Vincenzo Natali with six people trapped in a labyrinth of identical rooms some of which contain death traps where they must solve the puzzle to find the way out
Cure (1997)
Hypnotism Murders
The film that brought Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa to attention. Set around a series of hypnotism murders, this is, as with Kurosawa’s films, cryptic and frequently inexplicable but has an undeniable uncanniness
Deceiver (1997)
Police Interrogation Psycho-Thriller
A police interrogation film that becomes a psycho-thriller as suspect Tim Roth turns the interrogation back on the detectives. Despite a strong cast, the film eventually strains plausibility
Deconstructing Harry (1997)
Writer's Self-Analysis Comedy
A Woody Allen film in which he plays a writer on his way to receive an award. The film drifts in and out of a series of vignettes and stories he has written, including a number of fantastic interludes, with highly amusing effect
The Devil’s Advocate (1997)
The Devil is a Lawyer
Despite a premise that sounds more like the punchline of a lawyer joke – The Devil (Al Pacino) is a high-price lawyer in New York – this is lushly produced, played seriously and with surprising theological depths
DNA (1997)
Genetically-Engineered Monster
Another variant on Alien – a monster movie with Mark Dacascos as a doctor facing a genetically engineered insect monster in the jungles of Borneo
The Empty Mirror (1997)
Adolf Hitler Reminisces
A bizarre film that features Adolf Hitler sitting around in the afterlife joined by Sigmund Freud and others as he reflects on his image
Epsilon (1997)
Alien Visitor in the Australian Outback
A film from Rolf de Heer, a director who makes highly unusual works and should be better known than he is. In this, an alien woman befriends a man after she appears in the Australian Outback
Erotic Ghost Story – Perfect Match (1997)
Hong Kong Erotica/Heavenly Bunny Women
Film posing as a sequel in the Hong Kong-made Erotic Ghost Story series, this consists of random sexual encounters and comic interludes without much connecting plot
Event Horizon (1997)
Haunted Spaceship
Paul W.S. Anderson puts together a well-produced and atmospheric copy of Alien, However, this also comes with a premise – spaceship returns after travelling through Hell – that is nonsensical
Eve’s Bayou (1997)
Backwater Louisiana Childhood/Voodoo
Actress Kasi Lemmons directs a strong African-American Coming of Age story set in a backwater Louisiana town, one where voodoo is a regular part of the culture
Face/Off (1997)
Action/Surgical Identity Exchange
A John Woo directed action film with the improbable premise where FBI agent John Travolta and terrorist Nicolas Cage end up surgically swapping faces and then taking over the other’s identity
FairyTale: A True Story (1997)
Photos of Fairies/"True Story"
A nicely produced film based on the true-life Cottingley Fairies hoax in the 1920s where two girls produced photos supposedly of fairies that convinced some people. Despite the original being a hoax, the film wants to convince us that the fairies were real
The Fifth Element (1997)
Space Opera/Showdown Against Ultimate Evil
A big-budget space opera from Luc Besson. This offers a dazzlingly designed future but the plot is an inane hodgepodge of bad SF elements with a tone that flails between action and camp
Flubber (1997)
Absent-Minded Professor Remake
Remake of Disney’s The Absent-Minded Professor where the charms of the original are buried under an excess of twee – where the professor now gets a cute robot assistant and the flubber becomes sentient
Full Metal Yakuza (1997)
Yakuza Cyborg
An early work from Takashi Miike, an ultra-violent comic-book variant on RoboCop about a Yazkuza enforcer who is incarnated in a cyborg body and goes seeking revenge
Full Tilt Boogie (1997)
The Making of From Dusk Till Dawn
A documentary shot during the making of From Dusk Till Dawn, which gets to the heart of the issues in ways most making of documentaries don’t
Funny Games (1997)
Sadism and Torture
Brutal Michael Haneke film where a family’s weekend getaway becomes a nightmare when two boys enter the house and proceed to torture and kill them. Haneke adds a level of meta-fiction that taunts the viewer’s participation
The Game (1997)
Reality Games
David Fincher film in which Michael Douglas is wound into a conspiracy that makes him doubt everything around him. Fincher creates paranoia but the story eventually becomes an improbably contrived house of cards
Gattaca (1997)
Genetically-Engineered Dystopia
The first film from Andrew Niccol, a smart work set in a dystopian future where genetic engineering has perfected the human species and those who are born naturally are doomed to an underclass
George of the Jungle (1997)
Cartoon in Live-Action/Jungle Hero Parody
Likeable live-action adaptation of the animated series, which was construed as a parody of Tarzan. The sight gags work well and the creature effects are accomplished
Habit (1997)
Modern Vampire
Larry Fessenden film in which he also plays a man who gets into a relationship with a vampire woman. Low key and with an emphasis on kitchen sink realism, leading to some quite striking scenes
Habitat (1997)
Human-Plant Mutations
Baffling mix of teen drama and eco-SF film set in an ozone depleted future with Tcheky Karyo engaged in a series of human-plant mutations that transform him into a swarm of insects
The Hanging Garden (1997)
Gay Man's Childhood/Ghosts
A Canadian film about a gay man returning home and revisiting his childhood after ten years away that ends up in a weird series of parallel realities
Hemoglobin (1997)
Family Secrets/Monsters
Dan O’Bannon scripted film that is uncreditedly based on an H.P. Lovecraft story about family horrors and creatures lurking beneath the graveyard. Aka Bleeders
Hercules (1997)
Disney Animation/Greek Mythology
Disney animated film from the same duo behind Aladdin. As with that film, the Greek myths are subjected to an annoying barrage of hip modern jokes and pop culture references
Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves! (1997)
Miniaturised Adventures
The second sequel to Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. Things are feeling uninspired by this point and this just repeats the first film except makes it the adults who are miniaturised
Hostile Intent (1997)
Backwoods Brutality
An oddity that seems to start as a film about IT espionage and then becomes a survival horror with a paintball team on a corporate retreat being hunted through the woods
I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)
Slasher Film
Kevin Williamson’s follow-up to Scream. There is not quite the same witty game-playing but this is still an above-average slasher film with a reasonable cast and more-than-adequate suspense generated
I Married a Strange Person (1997)
Bizarre Surrealist Animation
A quite indescribable animated film from the great Bill Pympton, this largely consists of a series of bizarre and surreal, often outrageous, transformations and juxtapositions
Jack and the Beanstalk (1997)
Animation/Fairytale
An adaptation of the fairytale from Martin Gates, a largely unknown British animator. This embellishes the traditional telling of the story considerably
Jack Frost (1997)
Killer Snowman
A film about a killer snowman. Conceived as a one-liner spouting villain and outfitted with a series of novelty Christmas-themed deaths, this does not take itself too seriously with rather appealing results
Justice League of America (1997)
Comic-Book Superheroes
Painfully bad attempt to incarnate the comic-book team as live-action tv pilot where the characters are played for comedy in an attempt to mimic the then success of Friends
Kichiku (1997)
Student Revolutionary Group's Turmoils/Splatter
A disturbing Japanese film about a student revolutionary group and their internal turmoils, which descend into violence and bloodshed as the leader pushed them to torture and bloodshed
The Kingdom II (1997)
Haunted Hospital/Black Comedy
Follow-up to Lars von Trier’s haunted hospital mini-series The Kingdom. The story is continued, although the plot seems rickety and either drops elements or veers off on other tangents as though it is being made up as people go along
Kiss or Kill (1997)
Australian Road Movie Psycho-Thriller
Fine Australian psycho-thriller about a couple on the run from an accidental murder. This comes with sharp twists and ambiguities and a great sense of humour
Kiss the Girls (1997)
Serial Killer Thriller
The first film adapted from James Patterson’s books about forensic profiler Alex Cross, featuring standout performances from Morgan Freeman (cast as Cross) and Ashley Judd
Kull the Conqueror (1997)
Sword and Sorcery
Disappointing adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s other barbarian hero. Cast with Kevin Sorbo, it comes out as Kull: The Legendary Journeys and the material is killed by the filmmakers taking an unserious approach
The Land Before Time V: The Mysterious Island (1997)
Animation/Talking Dinosaurs
The fifth of The Land Before Time animated films about talking dinosaurs, all having been made for very young children
The Landlady (1997)
Psycho Middle-Aged Woman
Witty psycho-thriller with Talia Shire giving the performance of a lifetime as a psychopathic landlady who becomes fixated on a handsome border
Last Lives (1997)
Alternate World Criminal/Action
B-budget action film in which C. Thomas Howell is caught up in a chase when an escaped criminal from an alternate timeline abducts his wife.
Legion (1998)
Soldiers vs Alien Nasty
Well-made Alien copy that seems to have been conceived as a crosshatch between The Dirty Dozen and The Thing where the creature remains mostly psychological
Liar Liar (1997)
Man Cursed with a Truth-Telling Wish Comedy
A film with a children’s movie premise – an amoral lawyer is forced to be honest for a day when his kid makes a wish – is over-taken by Jim Carrey in full over the top mode
A Life Less Ordinary (1997)
Kidnapping & Angelic Intervention Comedy
Danny Boyle eccentricity with Ewan McGregor as an inept kidnapper and Cameron Diaz as his more astute abductee. A head-scratching comedy that also throws gun-toting angels into the mix
A Little Bit of Soul (1997)
Longevity Drug and Satanism Black Comedy
Australian black comedy about research into longevity and Satanism. The film has a great cast but hits a shrilly hysteric pitch without ever being funny
Lost Highway (1997)
Identity Exchange/Surrealism
A bafflingly surreal yet compulsive David Lynch film in which Bill Pullman and wife receives mysterious threatening videotapes and Bill then inexplicably turns into Balthazar Getty
The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
Genetically Engineered Dinosaurs Amok
The first sequel to the massive success of Jurassic Park where Steven Spielberg returns to direct with a script that seems a mishmash of loose ends that only weakly rehashes the original
The Love Bug (1997)
Cute Car/Disney Comedy
TV movie revival of Disney’s Herbie films and one of the better sequels, playing around with the concept and even adding a Herbie origin story
Men in Black (1997)
Alien Coverup Conspiracy Agency
A huge box-office hit, this comedy turns UFO conspiracy of
Mimic (1997)
Evolved Insects
This was the second film from Guillermo Del Toro, a modest and quite good Alien copy with Mira Sorvino hunting evolved insects in the New York subway tunnels
Misbegotten (1997)
Psycho Sperm Donor
From a Larry Cohen script, a side-splitting effort with Kevin Dillon as a psychopathic sperm donor who forcibly intrudes into the life of his baby’s mother
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997)
Interdimensional Combat/Videogame Adaptation
Sequel to the Mortal Kombat film. While the first film was fun, here anything resembling plot has been stripped away to concentrate on fight scenes such that the film blurs into a single shapeless action sequence
MouseHunt (1997)
Men vs an Intelligent Mouse
The directorial debut of Gore Verbinski, this harnesses Babe-styled animatronics to essentially create a live-action Tom and Jerry cartoon with two comic villains being outwitted by a seemingly unkillable mouse
The Night Flier (1997)
Tabloid Journalist Tracks Vampire/Stephen King Adaptation
Okay but nothing standout Stephen King adaptation with Miguel Ferrer as a tabloid journalist covering a series of killings before realising he is tracking a vampire
Nirvana (1997)
Cyberpunk
Strong and intelligent Cyberpunk film with Christopher Lambert dealing with a videogame character that has come to life
The Nurse (1997)
Psycho Nurse
Psycho-thriller with Lisa Zane as a nurse seeking vengeance for the death of her father
Open Your Eyes (1997)
Reality Bender
Excellent film from Alejandro Amenabar in which a handsome playboy finds himself in the midst of a baffling series of reality flips before arriving at an SF twist ending
Orgazmo (1997)
Mormon Porn Star Superhero
An early work from South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone about a Mormon who becomes a porn star and then turns superhero
Paws (1997)
Talking Dog
Australian-made children’s film about a kid who creates a computer program so his dog can talk where it then becomes voiced by Billy Connolly
Perdita Durango (1997)
Outlaw Lovers/Santeria Sorceror
Spinoff of characters featured in David Lynch’s Wild at Heart and a greatly underrated film for Alex de la Iglesia. this pushes into even darker and more anarchic places than Lynch did, featuring outlaw lovers who are black sorcerers on a trail of murder and kidmap
Perfect Blue (1997)
Anime/Psycho-Thriller
The directorial debut of Satoshi Kon, overseen by Katsuhiro Otomo, an anime concerning a troubled Japanese pop singer being cyber-stalked by a doppelganger
Photographing Fairies (1997)
Fairies and Altered Perception
One of two films that came out in 1997 about the Cottingley Fairies Hoax. In comparison to the other, FairyTale: A true Story, this expands the premise out into a remarkable study of altered perception
Pippi Longstocking (1997)
Anarchic Girl/Animation
A likeable animated adaptation of Astrid Lindgren’s popular children’s character from the Canadian company Nelvana
The Postman (1997)
Post-Holocaust
Kevin Costner directs David Brin’s post-holocaust tale as an epic Western. Most audiences ridiculed the film’s ardent flag-waving but you cannot deny that Costner makes a stirring and undeniably interesting film
Prince Valiant (1997)
Sword and Sorcery/Comic-Strip Adaptation
The classic comic-strip receives a disastrous film adaption where director Anthony Hickox plays everything for campy silliness
Princess Mononoke (1997)
Anime/Epic Fantasy
Stunning work of fantasy from Hayao Miyazaki. Made on an epic-sized story canvas and with a breathtaking beauty, this is one of the few original screen works to capture something of the nature and scale of written epic fantasy
Quicksilver Highway (1997)
Horror Anthology
The perpetually awful Mick Garris inflicts adaptations of Stephen King and Clive Barker stories on us in what looks like an unsold pilot for a horror anthology tv series
Rebirth of Mothra II (1997)
Japanese Monster Bash
After their successful revival of Godzilla in the 1990s, Toho revived Mothra for a series of standalone battles, albeit with a very juvenile focus made for children. This was the second and better of the three films
Redline (1997)
Near Future Russia Thriller
Standard action film made interesting by the choice of its setting in a post-Soviet Russia Cyberpunk future
The Relic (1997)
Monster Movie
This is a copy of Alien with a monster hunting people through darkened corridors and is generic in all regards, although you have to admit that Stan Winston creates an original monster and the film generates reasonable suspense
Retroactive (1997)
Timeloop
Modest and halfway reasonable variant on Groundhog Day with a group of people caught in the same loop of time where everything manages to go wrong each time
RocketMan (1997)
Idiot Joins a NASA Mars Mission
Unfunny comedy in which Harland Williams plays a bumbling idiot who is recruited to take part in a NASA Mars landing mission. Slapstick inanity results.
The Saint (1997)
TV Series Remake/Thief Hero
Big screen revival of the famous playboy spy falls flat due to the miscasting of Val Kilmer in the title role where Kilmer’s attempts to adopt disguises and accents throughout becomes risible. The thriller plot is nothing to get excited about.
Scream 2 (1997)
Slasher Sequel Parody/Deconstruction
Wes Craven’s Scream was a clever and witty homage to/deconstruction of the slasher film of the 1980s; for the sequel, he and Kevin Williamson naturally turn to deconstructing the slasher sequel
The Second Jungle Book: Mowgli & Baloo (1997)
Jungle Boy
Lesser budgeted sequel to the 1994 remake of The Jungle Book, which actually comes closer in tone to the original Rudyard Kipling stories