Zombie Hunter (2013)
Zombie Film
Post-apocalyptic zombie action played with a tongue-in-cheek comic-book tone. Plus Danny Trejo as a badass zombie-hunting priest
Films of 2013
The Zero Theorem (2013)
Dystopian Future/The Meaning of It All
This is Terry Gilliam largely going back to revisit Brazil, albeit having been updated to the 2010s and the era of the internet. A renaissance of many Gilliam themes, nevertheless this feels like one of his slighter works
Young Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea Dragon (2013)
Historical Detective/Flying Swordsmen Fantasy
Tsui Hark delivers a prequel to his 2010 Detective Dee film. This takes the character back far more to his original nature as a Chinese equivalent of Sherlock Holmes. That is if you can imagine Sherlock Holmes taking place as a flying swordsman film filled with sea monsters and wildly fantastic martial combat scenes (*)
The World’s End (2013)
Alien Body Snatchers Comedy
Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, the trio behind Shaun of the Dead, return to conduct a very similar effort – the story of a pub crawl that is affectionately mocking the characters’ nowhere lives, before taking an abrupt dogleg turn to become a comedic take on the alien body snatchers film
World War Z (2013)
Zombie Apocalypse
You wonder what this can do with such an overworked genre as the zombie apocalypse. It is not a film that reinvents the wheel for the genre but spins the basics out into an exciting, international locale hopping survival story
World of Cars: Planes (2013)
Disney Animation/Talking Aircraft
A spinoff from Pixar’s Cars series (although is not in itself a Pixar film but comes from Disney) that sets out to do the same with anthropomorphic planes. Amiable, even likeable but more a wannabe that seems like it is trying to be than actually hits the cleverness and creative heights of Pixar
The Wolverine (2013)
X-Men Spinoff Film
While this received a good deal of fan buzz, I must admit to being disappointed. It strips much of the superheroics and mutant cameos of the other X-Men films until it feels more like a Westerner in Japan thriller like Black Rain or even a routine film noir plot that happens to be cast with Wolverine
Wolf Creek 2 (2013)
Australian Backwoods Brutality
Greg McLean and John Jarratt return to the Australian Backwood Brutality saga of Wolf Creek for a second outing that is just as effective as the first. McLean often pushes the material into black humour and creates at least one sequence that makes for genuinely uncomfortable watching
Witching and Bitching (2013)
Town of Witches Comedy
Spanish director Alex de la Iglesia makes what is essentially a comedy version of From Dusk Till Dawn albeit with witches instead of vampires. This has one of the funniest openings I’ve seen in some time but thereafter dissipates into broadly farcical and overlong runnings around
Willow Creek (2013)
Bigfoot Found Footage Film
Not at all the film you’d expect for a film directed by stand-up comedian Bobcat Goldthwait – a Found Footage film about Bigfoot. Based on Goldthwait’s record as an actor, you expect this to get batshit crazy, but it instead heads into Blair Witch territory with rather effective results
Wer (2013)
Werewolf Film
From the director of The Devil Inside comes a werewolf film that wants to convince us it might not be a werewolf and a Found Footage film that is only pretending to be a Found Footage film. The result is a crappily photographed film that takes a long time to ever unleash its werewolf
We Are What We Are (2013)
Family of Cannibals
English-language remake of the Mexican film, this version made by Jim Mickle who made the fine Stake Land. This version is far less cryptic about what is happening but is more muted and takes far longer to ever arrive at being a horror film, although delivers an effectively brutal ending
Warm Bodies (2013)
Zombie Romantic Comedy
The idea of a Twilight copy where the lead male is a zombie seems an utterly lame idea before one sat down to watch this. That said, the film manages to make its peculiarly incongruous mix of teen romantic film, zombie film and comedy work for it
Walking With Dinosaurs (2013)
Animation/Talking Dinosaurs
Walking With Dinosaurs was an amazing documentary series that recreated prehistoric life with CGI animation. By contrast. the film spinoff is a cutsie animated film with talking dinosaurs. It is a film that is killed by the decision to let the dinosaurs talk with smartass one-liners and contemporary in-jokes
V/H/S/2 (2013)
Anthology of Found Footage Horror Tales
Sequel to the modest success of V/H/S, an anthology of short Found Footage horror films featuring a different line-up of genre directors. The episodes are competent at best, none standout and mostly forgettable
Vamp U (2013)
Vampire Frat Comedy
The entirely unappealing notion of a vampire frat rat comedy, The film is agonisingly unfunny on almost every level, while Adam Johnson’s professor may count as possibly the wimpiest and most non-threatening vampire in the history of cinema
Under the Skin (2013)
Mysterious Alien Visitor
Fascinating film with Scarlett Johansson as an alien visitor luring male hitchhikers. The film is beautifully made but frustratingly opaque in terms of explanations for what is happening. indeed, feels like a science-fiction film that has been stripped of any easy science-fiction handholds
Under the Rainbow (2013)
Romantic Comedy/Modernised Fairytales
No relation to the disastrous Chevy Chase film, a French romantic comedy that has modernised retellings of various fairytales wound into the plot, often being deflated or turned on their head
Turbo (2013)
Animation/Racing Snail
The 24th film from DreamWorks Animation – the studio that once offered a reasonable challenge to Disney is now starting to slip into the bland formula of competitors like Blue Sky. While passable, this feels like a film substantially lacking in originality and where you can predict its every move
Thor: The Dark World (2013)
Marvel Comics Norse God Superhero
Sequel to Thor that earranges the same basic elements much more satisfyingly than the first film – the actors (with the exception of a tranquilised Natalie Portman) seem more at home in their roles and a director who is more confident with the effects and superheroics. That said, it is starting to feel like Marvel is shuffling the same plot ingredients around between films
This is The End (2013)
End of the World Comedy
Several well-known actors hole up in a Hollywood mansion as the Biblical Apocalypse hits. While at first seeming a self-congratulatory exercise, this emerges as a raucously funny ensemble drama where each of the actors play to great strength. Seth Rogen may yet earn forgiveness for The Green Hornet
30 Nights of Paranormal Activity with the Devil Inside the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2013)
Genre Spoof
Another crude and witless genre parody in the vein of Jason Friedberg-Aaron Seltzer of Epic Movie, Disaster Movie et al notoriety. I there is anything worse than that it is surely a failed attempt to imitate them
13 Eerie (2013)
Zombie Film
A zombie film from the director who subsequently went on to make the WolfCop films. The one thing this has going for it are some convincing zombie makeups and exxxxtremely gory splatter effects
13/13/13 (2013)
Mass Insanity Outbreak
The Asylum made 11/11/11 and 12/12/12 and released them on said dates. Despite running out of exploitable months in the year, they then released a third film here
These Final Hours (2013)
End of the World
Excellent Australian End of the World film. Think On the Beach by way of Last Night. The visions of social collapse are astonishingly raw, while the centre of the film is the emotional journey between a man and a child
Texas Chainsaw (2013)
Backwoods Brutality
A Texas Chainsaw sequel in 3D with chainsaws and gore coming out at the screen seems the complete antithesis of the raw savagery of the original. The result is like a formulaic modern slasher, while the film is wrecked by a ridiculous reversal of sympathies in the last half
Tarzan (2013)
Jungle Hero/Animation
An animated version of the Tarzan story shot in the motion capture process. Some of the modernisations might have Edgar Rice Burroughs turning in his grave, nevertheless the animation is excellent and the film works well as a technologically upgraded version of the Disney film
The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (2013)
Anime/Japanese Fairytale
Studio Ghibli adaptation of a classic Japanese folktale from Hayao Hiyazaki’s mentor Isao Takahata. This is a slower, very different film than Hayao Miyazaki’s, the animation designed like a traditional Japanese woodprint. Never quite soars like Miyazaki’s films do but not without its charms
Superman Unbound (2013)
Comic-Book Superhero/Animation
One of the best among the incredibly underrated animated DC Comics films. A beautifully character-driven venture into the Superman mythos where Brainiac gets a magnificently theatric airing, while Supergirl undergoes some astonishing revisions
Super Buddies (2013)
Talking Dogs with Superpowers
Excrutiatingly unwatchable live-action film in which trained animals have all been dubbed with smartass voices. In the nominal plot, a group of dogs gain superpowers, which becomes dragged out into a series of witless slapstick scenes, all overrun with agonisingly hip and unfunny one-liners
Stripped (2013)
Found Footage/Party Trip Gone Wrong
A Found Footage film where a group on a party weekend to Las Vegas call a brothel that promises to do anything – only to enter into full Hostel territory
The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears (2013)
Giallo Homage
Intended as a homage to giallo cinema, this strips everything else away until the film exists as only a series of fragmentary images and sensations designs to provoke and tease
Stranded (2013)
Alien Impregnation
Roger Christian was art director on Alien but will always be remembered as director of the notorious Battlefield Earth. Here he is stuck making a cheap, tatty and frequently incomprehensible copy of Alien about alien impregnation
The Story of My Death (2013)
Casanova Meets Dracula
This film’s pitch line – Casanova meets Dracula – had me in the door in an instant, yet the film is a maddeningly dull one – slow, plotless with talky scenes that drag on for minutes at a time. The film has no interest in depicting Casanova the famous lover, while he and Dracula never even talk together
Stonados (2013)
Disaster Movie/Tornado of Explosive Boulders
Another cheap Syfy Channel disaster movie – this one featuring a tornado that rains boulders that explode upon landing. Everything runs to the usual formula plotting and cheap CGI effects of these types of movies
Stoker (2013)
Sinisterly Charming Uncle
The English-language debut from South Korea’s Park Chan-wook is a supremely controlled film, more like a period arthouse film than drenched in the buckets of gore we expect of Park … Essentially a reworking of Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt, a film that takes place all in smouldering tensions
The Starving Games (2013)
The Hunger Games Parody
Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, behind parody films like Epic Movie, Meet the Spartans and Disaster Movie, turn to The Hunger Games. There is all the usual inanity and celebrity mocking of their films, although they do seem to make a film that is only marginally less moronic than usual
Star Trek: Into Darkness (2013)
Intergalactic Adventures
I had mixed feelings about J.J. Abrams’ reboot of Star Trek This time around the actors seem more at home in the characters and the plot works a good deal better (for the most part), while Abrams creates a hurtling effects spectacle that is the most action-oriented of the Trek films
Spiders (2013)
Giant Spiders
When you approach this in terms of exactly what it promises to be – a revival of the good old B movie standard of the giant spider film – this proves absurdly entertaining and with some surprisingly good CGI spider effects
Sparks (2013)
Superhero Film
Low-budget superhero that co-opts the cod-film noir look from Sin City. Alas the film has an excessively sprawling and complicated plot, while the film noir style looks like no more than cheap pastiche reduced to cliche poses by well-meaning amateurs
Space Pirate Captain Harlock (2013)
Anime/Space Opera
The brooding space pirate Captain Harlock is one of the famous anti-heroes in manga and anime. Harlock gets a big screen revamp here from Shinji (Appleseed) Aramaki, one of the most amazing of modern anime directors, who delivers a series of epic space battles with a breathtaking beauty
Soul (2013)
Taiwanese Horror Film/Possession
Taiwanese horror film about an elderly man who finds another soul is inhabiting his son’s body. A very different sort of possession story. While the horror element peters out in its third act, the film creates a very mysterious atmosphere and a series of tight thriller tensions and complications
Snowpiercer (2013)
Train Containing the Last Survivors of Humanity
One of the most original science-fiction films of recent years. Set aboard a train where the last survivors of humanity circle a frozen globe, this is less an action film than something like Runaway Train turned into a unique conceptual breakthrough story, all rent through with a fierce parable about social revolution
The Smurfs 2 (2013)
Cute Blue-Skinned Creatures
The first film was vaguely passable but this is an agonising piece of commercial product that has reduced everything to lazy slapstick sequences, cutsie laughs and smartass lines played for the single-digit age groups
Skinwalker Ranch (2013)
Found Footage/Unexplained Phenomena
A reasonably effective and spooky Found Footage film set around the unexplained phenomena at the real-life Skinwalker Ranch
616 Paranormal Incident (2013)
Ghost Hunters Investigate a Haunted Prison
Low-budget film about a team of FBI ghost hunters investigating an abandoned prison where mysterious things are going on
Short Peace (2013)
Anime Anthology
An anthology of short anime pieces from various directors, including creator Katsuhiro Otomo, the cult creator of Akira. The four episodes vary from historical to fantasy to futuristic warfare and, as with any anthology, vary in quality from the okay to the watchable
Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! (2015)
Storm of Sharks/Deliberately Bad Film
Sharknado was an instant bad movie phenomenon; the first sequel felt a forced attempt to copy that. The good news is that with the third entry, the series gets the balance of tongue in cheek absurdity just right
Sharknado (2013)
Storm of Sharks/Deliberately Bad Film
This arrived as the same instant full-born bad movie cult sensation. Although you cannot help but feel that the people who ridiculed the film are missing out on the joke – in not seeing that it has been made as something intentionally absurd
The Secret Village (2013)
Sinister Town
A low-budget film about a journalist’s modern-day investigation into a secret village located near Salem, Massachusetts that results in paranoia and suspicious treatment by the locals
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013)
Daydreamer's Fantasies
Ben Stiller’s remake of the unfunny Danny Kaye vehicle about an impractical daydreamer has no more depth than an inspirational postcard and takes a long time to deliver it
Scavengers (2013)
Space Opera
A low expectation effort, a space opera about the crew of a salvage vessel, that ends up being quite a bit better than the B-budget film it is
Scary MoVie (2013)
Genre Spoof
Just when you thought that this witless and unfunny series has died off, it drags itself out of mothballs for another outing. As with the other entries, it is a bunch of recent movies overrun with crude, moronic gags
Saving Mr. Banks (2013)
The Making of Mary Poppins
Dramatisation of the prickly relationship between P.L. Travers, the creator of Mary Poppins, and Walt Disney during the making of the 1964 film. While the true story may have been cleaned up somewhat, this is a film of enormous charms that is largely made through a triumphant performance from Emma Thompson
Safe Haven (2013)
Romantic Film/Fantastic Twist Ending
Weepie romantic chick flick adapted from a Nicholas Sparks novel, included here for a fantastic twist ending. Sparks has stolen much of his plot from Stephen King’s Rose Madder. Even as such, wife-beating as the backdrop to a romance casts a distasteful shadow over the exercise
The Sacrament (2013)
Sinister Cult/Found Footage
Ti West, a rising name in horror in the last few years, makes a film about the activities of a sinister cult. Soon into the film, you realise that he is actually conducting a modern Found Footage retelling of the infamous Jonestown mass suicide of the 1970s
RPG (2013)
Deadly Elimination Game in Avatar Bodies
A Hunger Games wannabe with elderly people forced to eliminate one another while inhabiting young avatar bodies inside a virtual simulation. It is a long time since I have encountered a film where the fundamental premise makes no sense whatsoever when you look at it logically
Rise of the Fellowship (2013)
Lord of the Rings Gaming Nerds on a Road Trip
From the film’s poster, you could easily mistake this for a generic fantasy film – instead, we get a film about gaming nerds on a road trip. Much is drawn from Fanboys and this is not a particularly funny variant, although there are occasionally cute scenes that mimic Lord of the Rings
R.I.P.D. (2013)
Afterlife Police Force
This feels like someone has simply copied the idea of a secretive law enforcement agency from
Riddick (2013)
Planetary Survival
The third Riddick film abandons the dark space opera of the less popular Chronicles of Riddick and tries to return to the planetary survival story of Pitch Black. Despite the effort showing at times, the film gets to be a good deal of fun when it gets to the scenes of Riddick outwitting the mercenaries
Revelation Trail (2013)
Zombie Western
Quite well made effort that throws zombies into a Western setting
Revelation Road: The Sea of Glass and Fire (2013)
The Biblical Rapture
Not wishing to insult anyone’s beliefs but Christian cinema has produced some really bad films. With such lowered expectations, this Rapture film approaches halfway watchable with a story that somewhat resembles Mad Max 1 about a biker seeking vengeance against a decent man
Revelation Road: The Beginning of the End (2013)
The Biblical Rapture
One of a number of faith-produced films we have had since the late 90s that concern themselves with the arrival of The Rapture – this one even spawned a trilogy. This is passable if you can palate the relatively light sermonising and at least better written that the Left Behind films
A Resurrection (2013)
Murdered Teen's Supernatural Retribution
Supernatural retribution film with school counselor Mischa Barton dealing with a murdered teen maybe returned from the dead to kill the bullies responsible
Real (2013)
Dreamscape Film
A Japanese-made variant on the dream incursion theme of Inception. Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa is noted for his bafflingly surrealistic horror films but in working in a genre like science-fiction that requires an implied explainability, he makes a far less interesting film
Raze (2013)
Abducted Girls Forced to Fight to the Death
Fifty girls have been abducted and are paired off and forced to fight to the death with their bare hands in an arena – essentially Saw by way of Girlfight. A tautly streamlined and grittily effective effort that succeeds modestly well at everything it sets out to do
Rapture-Palooza (2013)
Biblical End Times Comedy
There is irresistible appeal to the idea of a comedy that conducts a spoof of the Biblical Rapture. Despite a script from one of the Bill and Ted writers, this emerges as a remarkably unfunny film that consists of about an hour of Craig Robinson delivering crude sexual innuendos
The Rambler (2013)
Surreal Road Movie
A man just out of jail leaves his wife after an argument and starts hitch-hiking. And then things start to get really weird
Quarantine LA (2013)
Zombie Film
Zombie film with a party of survivors trying to make it through a zombie-infested L.A. to safety
The Purge (2013)
Future That Permits One Night of Lawlessness
Film based around the improbable concept of a future where on one night of each year all crime including murder becomes permissible. While this promises a rich vein of satire, the film only emerges as a variant on Straw Dogs
Prisoners of the Sun (2013)
Egyptian Tomb-Raiding Adventure/Ancient Astronauts
The director of Battlefield Earth teams up with Uwe Boll to deliver a sub-Indiana Jones adventure about venturing into an Egyptian pyramid in search of Ancient Astronauts. The tomb raider cliches are so tired and creaky that the film fails to generate any excitement
Prisoners (2013)
Vigilante Parent Tortures Child Abduction Suspect
Dark and gripping thriller from Denis Villeneuve about child abductions and a distraught parent who decides to torture a suspect to find their whereabouts.; Superbly well written thriller that raises some big contemporary issues about the legitimacy of torture. Both Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal give utterly convincing performances
Poseidon Rex (2013)
Revived Dinosaur
As formula monster movies go, this stands out from the rest – it takes itself seriously, has a better budget than usual, which allows some luxurious location shooting in Belize, and a better standard of effects
The Poltergeist of Borley Forest (2013)
Haunting
A film that sat on the shelf and was then retitled to capitalise on the release of the Poltergeist remake despite featuring no poltergeists … A routine run through the well and truly worn modern ghost story cliches with no originality and little atmosphere
Plus One (2013)
Doppelgangers Invade a House Party
An interesting and unusual film where teens attending a house party find that it has been invaded by doppelgangers of themselves who are taking over their lives
Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters (2013)
Greek Myth in the Present Day
This sequel is marginally better than the first film (largely due to Chris Columbus no longer being in the director’s chair), being more dramatically engaged and with effects that feel less like random eye candy. That still doesn’t disguise the fact that the Percy Jackson series is no more than a lightweight and forgettable Harry Potter knockoff
The Penny Dreadful Picture Show (2013)
Horror Anthology
Not to be confused with the recent tv series Penny Dreadful, this is another in the recent spate of multi-director horror anthologies – The ABCs of Death, V/H/S films etc. Directed with a retro vibe, the episodes are expectedly uneven but better than might be expected from the hands involved
Patrick (2013)
Psychic Coma Patient
This remake of the Australian classic about a coma patient with psychokinetic powers is astonishingly bad. Richard Franklin’s stylish scares are replaced by laughably overwrought sequences
Patema Inverted (2013)
Anime/Two Worlds With Gravity in Opposing Directions
This anime has a surprising number of similarities to Upside Down, which was released one year earlier, both being set in two different worlds where gravity in each operates in the opposite directions and of the forbidden relationship between a boy and a girl from either world
Paranormal Asylum (2013)
Ghostbusters Investigate a Haunted Asylum
Loosely set around the legend of Typhoid Mary with ghostbusters investigating an abandoned asylum. One of a host of films that automatically relegate themselves to B movies by borrowing the prefix ‘Paranormal’, this sits between the amateurish and occasionally interesting
Pacific Rim (2013)
Giant Mecha Robots vs Giant Monsters
Giant mecha robots beating the crap out of giant monsters – what’s not to like? In comparison to the Transformers films, Guillermo Del Toro looks to find the soul of the robot jock – in essence, Transformers for grown-ups
Oz: The Great and Powerful (2013)
The Wizard of Oz Prequel
Sam Raimi’s prequel to The Wizard of Oz is now; the story of how a conman fools an entire land rather than of an innocent girl just trying to find her way home. The reconceptualisation of Oz comes with a colourful sweep
The Oxbow Cure (2013)
Woman Isolated Alone in a Cabin
Canadian film about a woman alone in a cabin that has a set-up that seems to be heading in the direction of an effective horror film about cabin fever and/or paranoia – only for things to then get completely baffling as to what is happening
Outpost III: Rise of the Spetsnaz (2013)
Nazi Mad Science Experiments
Outpost was a modestly effective Nazi zombie film. This was the second of two sequels, a prequel that goes back to depict the original Nazi experiments
Only Lovers Left Alive (2013)
Vampire Film
Individualistic indie director Jim Jarmusch tackles the vampire film. Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston are fantastically well paired as the two bored title lovers. Beautifully filmed but, typical of Jarmusch, one where not a lot happens
100° Below 0 (2013)
Disaster Movie/New Ice Age
Syfy Channel disaster movie about a mass volcanic eruption plunging Europe into an instant Ice Age. All the usual potted formulaic drama and cheap effects – the absurdity of the film is surely demonstrated by the fact that people wander about in the midst of -100 degree temperatures in t-shirts
Oldboy (2013)
Imprisonment and Revenge
Spike Lee’s English-language remake of Oldboy is an abortion. Where Park Chan-Wook directed the original with an insane energy, whereas Lee only delivers a formula action film and fumbles the ending
Odd Thomas (2013)
Eccentric Clairvoyant-Medium/Dean R. Koontz Adaptation
At first glance, Stephen Sommers and Dean R. Koontz seem strange bedfellows, but oddly enough it works – Koontz gives Sommers more story than he is used to working with and surprisingly it is the likeable characters and mind-boggling quirks of plot at the forefront rather than Sommers’ usual CGI bombast
Oculus (2013)
Evil Mirror
A couple of years ago, the hauntingly eerie Absentia made Mike Flanagan into a must-watch director; this is his follow-up – the story of an evil mirror that, while slightly the lesser of Absentia, conducts some undeniably effective games of reality and illusion
Oblivion (2013)
Post-Holocaust Deserted Earth/Conceptual Breakthrough
This falls short of being a great science-fiction film by a hairs breadth. Not the big space/action film it was sold as, more a Philip K. Dickian conceptual breakthrough film that seems to have borrowed large chunks of its set-up from Moon
Nurse 3-D (2013)
Psycho Nurse
A splendidly trashy film that throws all good taste to the wind The title role is played by a sizzling, substantially undressed Paz de la Huerta. While deficient in acting ability, she delivers an hilarious voiceover
Nothing Left to Fear (2013)
Sinister Small Town
A horror film produced by Slash of Guns’n’ Roses fame about a family moving to a new town only to find they have been brought there for a sinister purpose
No Tell Motel (2013)
Haunted Abandoned Motel
Horror film where a group of people end up at an abandoned motel where the secrets they have are turned back on them
Neverlake (2013)
Haunted Italian Lake
Italian-made film centred around a haunted lake that sits just between earnest amateurism and promising ambition. Features a range of mysterious happenings that you leave you for some time wondering what is going on before these are pulled together in a surprise ending
Movie 43 (2013)
Anthology of Bad Taste Comedy Skits
An anthology of comedy skits that sets out to be in as bad taste as possible – you are left astounded how far a film has to go to offend in this post-South Park era. That and wondering if the producers had kidnapped some of the stars’ family members to force them to participate
The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (2013)
Secret World of Magic Amid the Everyday
A Young Adult fantasy adaptation that fells a Harry Potter wannabe repackaged with the brooding teen romanticism of the Twilight series, all under a director whose indifferent handling fails to animate any of the material
Mood Indigo (2013)
Wackily Surreal Romance
After the disastrous misstep of The Green Hornet, Michel Gondry returns to the surreal whimsy of The Science of Sleep. A film where Gondry delights in scene after scene of visual nonsense and serving up all the appealingly capricious silliness he can muster – creativity for creativity’s sake alone
Monsters University (2013)
Pixar Animation/Monsters in the Closet
Pixar’s creative decline has been the point they started making these sequels to their hits. This is a disappointing prequel to Monsters, Inc. that largely recycles the cliches of the Revenge of the Nerds films and seems lacking in any of the wacky humour or moments of cuteness we expect of a Pixar film
Miss Zombie (2013)
Japanese Zombie Film
A remarkable little Japanese zombie film about a family who adopt a zombie maid. This is shot kitchen sink style and becomes a study in the way her blank presence begins to affect everyone around her
Mindscape (2013)
Therapist Journeys Inside People's Memories
It would be safe to say that without Inception there would be no Mindscape, which involves people entering memories rather than dreams but is similar in many other ways. Where this fails is in having no interest in the sf potential of the idea beyond using it as springboard for a thriller plot