The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
A film that creates a unusual atmosphere where Christina Ricci lies on a morgue slab and a puzzle over whether is dead or alive. Certainly different if not fully satisfactory
Steven Seagal tries to extend his career by taking on the zombie film. However, this is routine on all levels, although to its advantage Seagal is not on screen much
Using the framework of an SF film, told from the perspective of a devastated future, this is a documentary about Global Warming, although one that falls short of making a convincing argument
Following on from his reworking of The Wizard of Oz in Tin Man, this is a tv mini-series where Nick Willing rather fascinatingly reinterprets Alice in Wonderland in SF terms
Homage to 1950s SF films, in particular It Came from Outer Space and The Blob, made not as a parody but as an affectionate tribute to the era with everything played seriously
A family film about a group of kids discovering alien invaders in their attic. A film that is largely construed around a series of slapstick set-pieces.
The first of the sequels to Alvin and the Chipmunks. Marginally less grating than the first film but that’s being relative – all the things that one hated the first time are back
The first two of these films did ingenious things but now the inspiration is showing through and these films are starting to seem more like a personal fantasy on the director’s part
An exquisitely directed homage to giallo cinema – a fascinating work that has been stripped of almost all dialogue that takes place on a purely visual level of sensation and body movement
A modern noir-styled thriller about a man who descends into the underground world of fetish. This nether stirs a sufficiently torrid mix nor makes its plot very clear
Ron Howard and Tom Hanks follow up their adaptation of The Da Vinci Code by turning to an earlier Dan Brown novel concerning conspiratorial goings-on in The Vatican but the show collapses amid absurdly contrived plotting
Adaptation of a novel by Splatterpunk authors Skipp and Spector, this sits halfway between being a monster movie and an erotic thriller. Disowned by its director who hides behind a pseudonym
Lars von Trier made this deeply unfathomable film after a bout of severe depression. Claimedly a work of misogyny, it features Willem Dafoe trying to deal with a deranged Charlotte Gainsbourg
This was the second of Luc Besson’s Minimoys films, partly animated children’s films set in a world of miniature creatures. Here the charms of the first film seem thinly stretched
Disappointing live-action film from anime director Mamoru Oshii of Ghost in the Shell fame, construed as nothing beyond a live-action videogame with kick-ass girls engaged in serial combat encounters
This animated theatrical remake of the old Astro Boy cartoon series is nicely made, although the film often feels over-simplistic in its scripting and use of cliches
Film about asylum inmates that goes for a gonzo approach but becomes an unwatchable mix of student artistic pretensions played out at a level of shrill caricature
One of the more amusing titles in the gonzo zombie title mashup fad. On the other hand, this takes itself surprisingly seriously and, while well made, never fully goes for broke
James Cameron’s film was a smash phenomenon. Cameron has relocated the plot of Dances With Wolves on another planet and uses motion capture to create one of the most dazzlingly realised alien worlds on film
Sequel to the French action hit. The plot shuffles the same basic elements around but it is the action we have come for, which is slow to start but soon kicks into exhilarating high gear
Alexandre Dumas’s classic adventure story is turned into an animated vehicle for Barbie with genders reversed and an absurdly upbeat Girls Can Do Anything vibe. Being a kid’s film, the girl Musketeers are no longer allowed to wield swords
Another animated Barbie film, this appropriate the name of the Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale and makes it now about a fairy who preaches conservation. As these films go, this is one of the better made and comes with quite a degree of colour
Japanese film about teams that engage in combat tournaments with hordes of Smurf-like creatures. This spends too much time on its high school drama cliches but eventually finds the dementia of its concept at the climax
This was the second of the films spun off from the 2000s Battlestar Galactica revival series, and ingeniously retells the events of the series as seen through the eyes of the Cylons
Cheaply made attempt to turn the fairytale into a fantasy adventure where Beauty becomes a kick-ass heroine who joins the Beast in defeating an evil lord and witch
Documentary made about Troll 2, which is considered a strong contender for the worst film ever made. The attempt to talk to all those involved in the making of the film proves absolutely hilarious
This gets full marks for an attention-grabbing title. Unfortunately, it is the most interesting thing about the film that otherwise only offers up plentiful bikini-clad girls but routine slasher mechanics
Horror film with an interesting cast line-up about a group on a weekend getaway who play a boardgame that serves to bring out secrets and hidden desires
Okay low-budget effort about creatures that lurk in the dark invading an apartment building. This produces a number of effective jolts, although never does anything to explain its monsters
An interesting little film from Adam Mason that starts out seeming a variant on The Hitcher with Andrew Howard as a drifter taunting a couple on a desert highway before morphing into something very strange
Live-action English-language remake of the anime short about a demon-hunting vampire girl. The original is reduced to no more than a series of slick by-the-numbers action poses
Catherine Breillat, a director known for her full-on explorations of sexuality, takes on an adaptation of the French fairytale about a multiple wife murderer
A Clive Barker adaptation taken from the name of his story collection. While not uninteresting, it emerges as a haunted house story that eschews genre cliches for an everyday approach and never quite delivers its punches
Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly adapts a Richard Matheson story about a couple who are offered a terrible choice by a stranger but delivers a bafflingly incomprehensible film
A low-budget film wherein a teenager falls under the influence of a mad scientist who drills open heads to implant mind control chips. This makes a beeline for gory splatter effects
A low-budget film based on the life of serial killer Ted Bundy starring Corin Nemec. This stays to the facts of the case more than some of director Michael Feifer’s other True Crime films
The first sequel to Eli Roth’s film, directed by a then unknown Ti West who subsequently tried to have his name removed. The gore effects look cheap and cheesy and the film misses the comedic angle of the original
Fine Swiss-made SF film where cryogenic sleepers are awoken aboard a deep space mission to find someone is killing the crew and even that the very purpose of their mission may be a lie
Set in the midst of a deadly infection that has wiped most of the country out, the film is extremely well written, focusing on harsh moral choices that the characters must make. Chris Pine is cast as a less-than-heroic lead
Unjustly slammed psycho-thriller with Renee Zellweger as a social worker dealing with an evil child. Comes with undeniable tensions and a superbly malevolent performance from Jodelle Ferland
Sequel to Tarsem Singh’s The Cell that feels made by people who haven’t even seen the original. The original’s fascinating journey into dream terrain is replaced by a dull psychic with a link to a serial killer plot
This remake of the Stephen King short story (this time with a script from King himself) is a much better film than the earlier 1984 version or any of its numerous sequels
Robert Zemeckis’s motion-capture animated adaptation of the Charles Dickens classic. The tale has gone through so many adaptations, it fee;s an uphill battle to find anything new in the story no matter the technical quality of the film
Hearkening back to the spirit of 1980s B budget killer cyborg/android movie, an entertainingly preposterous film in which a girl biker gang are pitted against a mad scientist and his army of killer androids
Adaptation of a series of Young Adult books that should have emerged as Harry Potter made with the sensibilities of a Tim Burton. But the result fails to come to life in Paul Weitz’s hands
SF neo-noir that suffers from a painfully low budget (particularly when it comes to its CGI) but transcends this with a consistently intelligent story and a world created with a reasonable sense of verisimilitude
Phil Lord and Chris Miller, later directors of The Lego Movie, create an animated film that is a delight with its nonsensical visions of a town inundated by weather phenomena made of food
Indie film in which Paul Giamatti goes to a company that specialises in removing the soul only to have his stolen. An SF film that feels like a Woody Allen comedy minus the one-liners
A directorial debut from one of the writers of the Saw sequels, a Torture Porn film that has a highly unusual set-up about a burglar stumbling into a family home that has been turned into a death trap by a serial killer
The welcome return of stop-motion animator Henry Selick, the director of The Nightmare Before Christmas and at his wildly imaginative and darkly menacing best in an adaptation of a book by Neil Gaiman
Actress Julie Delpy directs/stars in an adaptation of the Countess Bathory story. In trying to pitch itself as a work of historical feminism and having sympathy for Bathory, this downplays the considerable horror element of the story
Micheal Bafaro is a justifiably obscure director whose entire career has been built on recycling other horror films. This is his version of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, which is passable until a Sixth Sense-styled twist ending
Larry Blamire, a director who specialises in genre parodies, takes on the Old Dark House thriller. Not quite up there with Blamire’s funniest films, nevertheless, the film conducts some amusing spoofs of the form
Disappointing tv mini-series remake of the John Wyndham novel about England overrun by killer plants. This abandons most of the book’s sociological portrait for cliche melodramatics
Australia’s The Spierig Brothers create a strong and original scenario for a vampire film set in a future where vampires have killed almost all the humans and the blood supply is now running out.
Madness/zombie outbreak film set in a radio station as a talkback host watches the catastrophe unfurl outside. This only cheaply goes where the far superior Pontypool did first
A revival of the Nazi zombie film that comes from Norway! A hugely gore-drenched effort from Tommy Wirkola that soon plants tongue very much in cheek.
One of several films that came out around the same time, including Super and Kick-Ass, about ordinary people who believe they superheroes. Woody Harrelson gives a winning performance as the comically inept title character
Danish film that is largely an uncredited remake of Straw Dogs (and a far better effort than the official remake a couple of years later). This has a dark, unrelenting bite that savagely indicts a racism at the heart of modern Denmark
Neil Marshall’s The Descent was a ferociously effective horror film that proved a sleeper success. This is an unnecessary sequel that only offers up a limited variation on the same jumps
Jason Connery directs a film that draws upon the basics of The Keep about soldiers venturing into a tomb in Iraq where they awaken a great evil housed there
Neill Blomkamp’s first film starts well as a strong, highly politicised work about human-alien prejudice. However, Blomkamp loses steam about halfway through where it feel as though he didn’t know where to take the story
A film about a bunch of boorish lads gleefully eliminating zombie women. A comedy this may well be but doesn’t disguise the fact the film’s sympathies are clearly with the guys making crude innuendos and feeling downtrodden by women
The film that announced Yorgos Lanthimos to the world, a black deadpan comedy about a father who has prevents his family from going into the world outside and their bizarre ways of interpreting everything that happens
A bizarre and entirely incomprehensible Japanese urban fantasy. I reached the end with no idea what this film’s string of strange happenings was about at all
French actress-director Marina de Van makes a film about a woman who finds her identity being occluded by someone else’s life. de Van creates a superbly paranoid sense of dis-ease that compares favourably to Polanski’s The Tenant
Fruit Chan conducts an English-language remake of a Japanese horror film. A confused and hokey effort about a haunted film set that is only centred around the provision of schlock effects
Beautifully produced version of the Oscar Wilde story about a libertine who becomes immortal by transferring his soul into a portrait. This easily stands out as one of the best film versions of the story to date
Interestingly odd attempt to update and relocate Dracula to present-day Hollywood. This has promise despite a low-budget but eventually flounders amid a non-linear story and an entirely confused ending
Sam Raimi chose to follow up his hugely successful Spider-Man trilogy with this incredibly silly film about Gypsy curses. Raimi piles on ridiculous shock effects that become so over-the-top that the film ends up somewhere in orbit
Disastrous and miscalculated live-action Hollywood version of the anime series. which turns the characters into just regular teenagers. Nobody involved seems to be making any effort.
Clive Barker adaptation about a disturbed university researcher who pushes an experiment into people’s fears to extremes. This takes some time to start going anywhere but does eventually deliver the horrific goods
Film based on real-life serial killer Henry Lee Lucas and his exaggerated claims to have killed hundreds of victims. Starring Antonio Sabato, Jr in the title role
An adaptation of the H.P. Lovecraft short story. While more faithful to the story than the earlier 1969 adaptation, the film is very cheaply made and collapses into the frequently ridiculous
Not to be confused with the Twilight sequel, this is a quiet, modestly made Irish ghost story set around a literary festival where the strongest parts are the characters and performances
Gaspar Noe’s hallucinatory Day-Glo vision of a soul’s departure into the afterlife all shot in first-person perspective. This could be a 2001: A Space Odyssey for the trance culture generation
A gay vampire film set in a monastery. This suffers from a vague and confusing narrative and feels like a film that should have been more interesting than it is
The second of the Neon Genesis Evangelion reboot films, this gets the essentials right and delivers some stunningly epic anime action scenes
Another Found Footage entry about a group of people being stalked. This generates some passable tension and one or two surprises
An existential puzzlebox of a film where a group of job interviewees are locked in a room and asked to work out what the question is. A fascinating conceptual film that falls somewhere between Cube and Saw
Wes Anderson makes a delightful detour into stop-motion animation in this Roald Dahl adaptation, a droll caper comedy enacted by talking animals who are all characterised with typical Anderson eccentricities
The fourth in the series of films about a series of deaths for survivors after premonition of disaster at a speedway. This is shot in 3D but the novelty death set-pieces have become preposterous
This makes a fictitious claim to be a dramatisation of alien abductions that took place in Alaska. This creates something that is undeniably interesting before shooting itself in the foot by heading into Ancient Astronauts territory
Possibly THE worst film ever made. Tony Watt throws an mash-up of exploitation elements together in an incomprehensible plot. A film that made me want to hammer a nail through my eyeball rather than keep watching
A series of short film interpretations of the Frankenstein story, with interpretations ranging from BDSM to kung fu and modern police procedural
Science-fiction fans go time travelling in this British film that offers a good many wry fannish in-jokes mixed with a modestly clever time travel scenario
Another 1980s horror remake that had much potential. However, this proves to be just another Friday the 13th film by the numbers, albeit with a bigger budget, and widely misses the mark
Imagine a Tom Cruise Mission: Impossible spy caper played out with talking guinea pigs. Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, no less, this offers appealingly energetic silliness
Film somewhere between Counterstrike and The Running Man where convicts are controlled as avatars inside a live-action videogame. A difficult to believe premise that is pumped up with hyper-adrenalised action visuals
Napoleon Dynamite director Jared Hess visits the same territory with this comedy in which teenager Michael Angarano has his manuscript stolen by SF writer Jemaine Clement
A zombie comedy that comes with a mildly amusing premise – where people stage an intervention to stop their friend eating people. This feels a single gag drawn-out as a full length film
A Virtual Reality/horror film about a malevolent spirit incarnated inside a videogame. This churns all the Virtual Reality cliches as though nothing had changed since the tide of shabby 1990s Lawnmower Man copies
From the period when Matthew McConaughey was coasting through romcoms without making any effort. This rewrites A Christmas Carol where playboy McConaughey is visited by the ghosts of three ex’s
Stephen Sommers make a film based on the popular action toy line. Barring one exhilarating sequence in the middle, this consists of lots of sound and CGI fury amounting to very little at all
Dario Argento makes a disappointing return to the giallo thriller where he made his name. With Argento’s characteristic murder set-pieces having been toned down, the results are nothing special
Strong and dramatically absorbing Swedish thriller featuring one of the most original and provocative heroines on screen in some time. A word of mouth hit that later underwent a lesser English-language remake
A disturbingly effective story of a mother who gives birth to a baby that is not human. An immensely assured directorial debut that eschews cliche horror effect and becomes a chilling study in psychological disintegration
The DC Universe Original Animated Movies conduct a solid and worthwhile animated retelling of the Green Lantern origin story, which delves into all the aspects of the mythos
The Ju-on/The Grudge series has spawned thirteen films to date. This was the second sequel to the English-language remake but by this point everything disappears into formulaic scares
Rob Zombie’s follow-up to his Halloween remake is a better film and closer to what the previous film should have been but his approach is still based on callous brutality than John Carpenter’s eerie suspense