The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
George Romero’s underrated classic gets a makeover amid the 00/10s fad for remakes of 70s/80s horror films. Alas, Romero’s modest classic about a madness-inducing biospill has a big-budget thrown to emerge as just another zombie film
A horror movie set around a modern day Western recreation town that was quickly retitled on the tail of Cowboys vs Aliens. It’s debatable though whether it does actually feature any vampires
From cult director Shion Sono, a typically bizarre and gore-drenched Japanese black comedy about tropical fish salesmen, serial killings and the reclamation of traditional male pride
This Australian thriller has a captivating premise – pregnant women are abducted, C-sectioned and imprisoned where they must fight to the death to get their children back
Heavily disappointing remake of the Ray Harryhausen film where the replacement of Harryhausen’s stop-motion animation with CGI fails to achieve any magic
This claims to adapt a Chinese fairytale that was the basis for Cinderella. Nicely made but what you get is a cultural portrait with occasional Magical Realist elements more than anything like the traditional fairytale
Another lacklustre entry in the banal Lord of the Rings Lite franchise from C.S. Lewis’s books, a plodding run of the mill fantasy adventure for the most part. The mediocre reception killed off interest in the series
The Pang Brothers were for a time some the best directors in the horror genre. This is one of their slighter efforts, a misguided venture into 3D. Seen flat, it still holds an undeniable amount of the eerie atmosphere they specialise in
English-language film from Ring director Hideo Nakata that finds a vibrant means to depict internet communication in a thriller about people meeting on a chatroom being wound into a series of psychological games
A banal Zac Efron starring attempt to rewrite The Sixth Sense for the mopily sensitive teenage Gothic Chick Lit audience weaned on Twilight with Efron as a cemetery groundskeeper who talks to the dead
Ridiculous film that seems to want to say something about modern technological interconnectivity but has simply grafted it onto a slasher formula. while being bsurdly ill-informed about its subject
Cats & Dogs was amiable but this sequel struggles against the irritatingly cutsie elements that have come to dominate this mini-genre of live-action talking animals films
Pitched as another Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, this has multiple stories, a cluttered look and a bizarreness that comes out more like a Wu Xia version of Scott Pilgrim vs the World
Film about a girl and her autistic brother trapped inside a house with a tiger, this proves an unexpectedly really good. It avoids the cliches of the Animals Amok genre and derives superb hair-raising tension from the set-up
Lavishly produced, reasonably historically authentic retelling of the story of the grave robbers from John Landis, which also becomes a wasted opportunity that turns the story into a comedy where the title characters are just two likeable schmucks
A thriller with Ryan Reynolds buried in a coffin where the camera remains inside with him for the entire running time. This must be commended for its rigour in generating suspense while never cheating on its idea
Not to be confused with Robin of Batman fame, this is an indie film about a teenage vigilante. Not always the most accessible film but eventually works in a quietly effective way
Entirely unrelated to the forgettable 1973 film, this is a children’s film for the Nickelodeon Channel. Merely adequate but no more. Brooke Shields seems to be having the time of her life vamping it up with Bela Lugosi accent
Denzel Washington as an enigmatic Man With No Name wandering the post-holocaust apocalyptic landscape. This follows the cliches of the genre before it bizarrely morphs into a Biblical allegory partway through
Low-budget film that conjures a weird psychotronic atmosphere and features some out-there killings even if it fails to fully sustain it
Ryan Nicholson makes an amusing slasher film that takes place on a horror movie set where the set driver is a fan of the scream queen star and decides to start eliminating people to start making the film go his way
Award-winning Darren Aronofsky film about the rivalry between two ballerinas. At heart though, this is no more than a Brian De Palma psycho-thriller with pretensions
Powerful film from Christopher Smith set during the Middle Ages about a group on a journey to a village where a priestess can purportedly raise the dead. The film’s skewering of faith in an unforgettable ending is stunning
An appealingly nasty little film where a celebrity chef imprisons and tortures a scathing food critic. Produced by Larry Fessenden.
From prolific B-budget director Fred Olen Ray, this is a softcore parody of the Indiana Jones films
Strippers and zombies Japanese style. An entry into the Gonzo Japanese Splatter film fad. Cheaply made, with surprisingly little nudity and a whole lot of tongue-in-cheek splatter
A homage to 1970s SF cinema, full of trippy journeys through transcendental space and white antisceptic corridors. In aiming for this look, the film also forgot a small thing like a plot or coherent explanation of what is happening
One of the best of the animated Batman films, telling the story of the overlooked Robin Jason Todd and his resurrection as the villain Red Hood, a film that has an adult tone and comes with immensely exciting action scenes
Japanese film that true to its title offers pits ninja against alien creatures. The film plants tongue considerably in cheek as it offers up a series of wildly fantastique action scenes and creature effects
Spanish Found Footage film about the investigation of a haunted woods during which almost nothing happens, before a left-field twist ending that makes little sense
Luc Besson has made some phenomenal action films but I just can’t seem to get into his trilogy of children’s films. This was the third. A silly effort written down to a very juvenile level and padded with inane humour
Studio Ghibli tackle Mary Norton’s classic books about a miniature family that live inside the walls of a house. Norton’s essential Englishness translates surprisingly well to anime and the results are quite magical
Another cheap Syfy Channel disaster movie featuring a cold wave that freezes everything in its path. As expected, this ignores basic science while offering cut-price digital mass destruction effects
Another pointless 1970s remake, in this case of the little-known British psycho-thriller about two tourists stalked in the French countryside (now transplanted to Argentina) with ho-hum results
A film from genre regular Brian Yuzna that takes place in Indonesia with people at siege on a fishing platform as it comes under attack by a sea monster. One of the films made in the 3D process following the huge success of Avatar
A documentary that charts the history of exploitation cinema and covers much ground generally informatively despite the odd omission of some key works and players
Essentially a feature version of The Twilight Zone‘s classic Nightmare at 20,000 Feet episode, this generates some remarkable tension with a group trapped in mid-air in a small plane before a lame twist ending
A contender in the animation stakes that never rises above formula and cutsie slapstick. Against its many competitors, it offers up only B-budget animation
Tim Burton takes on Lewis Carroll but Carroll gets lost beneath Burton doing his usual quirky eccentric thing and a plot that seems to want to turn Alice’s adventures into a modern epic fantasy
This came out the same time as Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. The idea of Alice twisted into a horror film holds an irresistible appeal but this is an amateurish mess than squanders its potential
A children’s fantasy adventure that never strays beyond the environs of an American high school and comes with the lowbrow slapstick, excruciating comic caricatures and incredibly bad effects
Bollywood film that is a blatant copy of Back to the Future with the young hero going back in time to prevent his parents from divorcing. Lame comedy routines but some extremely colourful song and dance numbers