The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Spike Jonze addresses virtual relationships in this story of a romance between a man and an A.I. A film that is astonishing in its freshness, naturalness and avoidance of any of the cliches that have dogged other treatments.
Sensational drama with Sandra Bullock as an astronaut trapped in orbit. The film is scrupulous and thorough about portraying being in space scientifically accurately and the dramatic set-pieces are gripping in tension
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
A film about the origins of Doctor Who made for the series’ 50th anniversary. This comes packed with pieces of fanservice and origins of various iconic aspects. David Bradley gives a wonderfully nuanced and moving performance as William Hartnell
Reboot of the Ghost in the Shell series in a quartet of prequel stories. This funnels the essence of Cyberpunk superbly, creating a dazzling world with cyborgised security services fighting terrorists hacking people’s brains
A fascinating documentary about one of the most amazing films never made – director Alejandro Jodorowsky’s planned adaptation of Dune in the mid-1970s
Robert Rodriguez turns his earlier action film into an insanely creative comic-book overflowing with SF devices (and homages). The casting alone is side-splitting and Rodriguez’s visual absurdism wins the day
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
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
Israeli film about a parent who abducts and tortures a man they believe responsible for killing their child. This proves immensely entertaining with its whiplash plot reversals and hilarious pepperings of black humour
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
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
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
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
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
Denis Villeneuve slips into a very Cronenbergian vein to deliver a film about Jake Gyllenhaal and a mysterious doppelganger. A fascinatingly oblique and cryptic work, just as long as one does not require that it comes with any easy explanations
This has the novelty of being shot guerilla-style at Disneyland and Disney World without permission. Nothing prepares you for the amazingly dark work you get, a surreal hallucinatory drift through the park’s underbelly
The first film in 24 years from Alejandro Jodorowsky, a surreal journey through his own childhood. Gone is Jodorowsky, the mad prophet of El Topo, replaced by a warm, wryly self-reflexive Jodorowsky looking back in on his own life
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
A fascinating and well told work about artificial intelligence and mind upload. If the third act falls into disappointingly cliched patterns, this is nearly three-quarters of a strong and intelligent science-fiction film
Fascinating conceptual SF film about a dinner party where people find they are dealing with multiple alternate versions of themselves where minute choices have been made differently. The film twists and turns into an immensely satisfyingly pretzel
One has difficulty with the notion of a Found Footage Frankenstein film, although the film does credibly justify this. That said, the film offers up a series of genuinely phantasmagoric and out of this world creations
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
A cryptically surreal Dutch film that comes with hilariously black deadpan effect as we watch a homeless man inveigle his way into a household and take over before starting to eliminate people.
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
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
English variation on the Backwoods Brutality film that almost entirely takes place inside a car as a couple become lost and are taunted by unseen figures. This generates an incredible degree of ominous foreboding
A very clever mockumentary retelling of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds that ingeniously blends existing WWI war footage with CGI to show soldiers fighting off invading Martian tripods
The second of the two-part animated adaptation of Frank Miller’s classic graphic novel. The film is staged as a series of epic confrontations between iconic DC characters and written with a dark bite to emerge much more satisfying than the first part
Larry Fessenden makes what seems a formula teens in peril film. Once he gets his cast stranded in a sinking boat menaced by a giant fish and debating who to throw overboard, he develops some remarkably brutal tensions
Essentially a classical music version of Phone Booth with Elijah Wood trapped at a grand piano in front of a concert audience by a sniper. The results prove quite gripping
Fascinating film about a group of people who are abducted by aliens and forced to run around a course where their heads will explode if they stop or are too slow
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
Amid the 2010s spate of fairytales rewritten as dark adult fantasies, this was a quite good mockbuster copy from The Asylum. From the director of Sharknado, this is Hansel and Gretel by way of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
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
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
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
One of the few remakes of the 00s/10s that delivers the goods. While messing around with the plot set-up with mixed results, this quickly goes for broke to create a satisfying show on most accounts
Unusual and interesting ghost story that draws heavily on Don’t Look Now and proves fascinating in its teasing maze of visual clues, before heading off into a surreal game of identity exchange
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
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 second film from Neill Blomkamp. As in District 9, he starts out making a savage and biting social critique about social privilege and financial elites only to let the film descend into action moves in the third act
Andrew Niccol, a director of smart conceptual sf, seems mismatched on an adaptation of a Stephenie Meyer novel but Niccol tones down Meyer’s overripe teen romance to deliver a smart take on the alien body snatchers genre
These rape-revenge films leave you wanting to conduct the moral equivalent of taking a shower after watching them. This sequel to the 2010 remake also ends up being undeniably brutal and effective
Set in a future where libraries have armies fighting against the militarised forces of censorship. The social scenario strains credibility but this Japanese Young Adult film works well
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
British tv mini-series ghost story that takes place across three different eras – in 1944, 1975 and 2012. More of a mystery than a scare show but drawn with a beautifully wistful feel for place and time
James Wan proves himself one of the finest directors in the horror genre with this sequel to his 2010 film. The plot is trimmed to deliver an effective scare show and Wan again produces a series of eerie and unworldly jumps
This starts out offering a fine astrophysically credible depiction of Mars only to reach for the playbook of Alien cliches to essentially become Zombies on Mars
A fascinating Spanish film about a worldwide apocalypse created by a plague that makes the entire population mortally afraid of going out of doors
A surprisingly good low-budget film that places zombie into the mediaeval period amid the Black Death. From Mark Atkins, one of the directors who usually work for The Asylum – his best film to date
A documentary about Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki that offers fascinating insight into the working processes of the amazingly genteel, often frank Miyazaki who seems a fount of youthful vigour
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
A film based on true-life serial killer Robert Hansen who would fly girls out into the Alaskan wilderness and then hunt them. Nicolas Cage is the dogged detective up against John Cusack as the killer
A much better sequel that gives the characters a thorough workover while making clever play out of the contrasts of masked superhero and reality that ran through the first film
A strong, intelligent DC Universe animated film set in an alternate timeline where the histories of various familiar DC characters have turned out radically different
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
Enough with the M. Night Shyamalan bashing. Here Shyamalan pulls off a solid and interesting planetary adventure where the only real misstep is that much of the film rests on the non-acting shoulders of Jaden Smith
Found Footage film that cleverly borrows more than a few leaves from An American Werewolf in London with two tourists in Europe where one is bitten and transformed by a vampire
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 (*)
Time travel film that feels like a romantic comedy version of The Time Traveler’s Wife (with Rachel McAdams in the same role in both films). Played with a good deal of feelgood warmth and likeability by all
A man just out of jail leaves his wife after an argument and starts hitch-hiking. And then things start to get really weird
Actor James Franco directs an adaptation of a novel about a necrophile serial killer by Cormac McCarthy. Any McCarthy adaptation is doomed by an inability to visually replicate his incredible prose but Franco tries valiantly
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
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
The Found Footage horror film quickly became worn out. However, this effort about the investigation into a haunted church in the English countryside manages to generate some quite reasonable atmosphere
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
Attempt to create another Twilight franchise that quickly becomes the anti-Twilight, shucking the pro-chastity message for a decidedly inflammatory stance against small-minded Christian prejudice
Brazilian animated film that comes with a lovely simplicity – all jagged washes of colour, characters as simple lines, endless patterns and a minimalist plot – out of which it manages to weave an incredibly pretty eye candy
A halfway reasonable film from The Asylum with the military trying to appropriate werewolves for weapons purposes. A good premise despite so-so-effects work
This Spanish film about a cannibal serial killer is almost exactly the opposite of anything we expect of a horror film – a film of muted silences filled with lurking secrets. A fascinating work
A man offers two down-on-their-luck guys a series of increasingly more extreme bets for money. This sets out to defy taboos and good taste, largely succeeding by pushing into some alternately grotesquely funny and nauseating territories
The films of Bill Plympton have gained a cult following for their absurdist humour and surreal animation. This is Plympton’s take on relationships, a wild fantasia of imagery and transmogrifications that is a world away from Disney/Pixar offerings
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
In the same vein as Sharknado, another absurdly entertaining gonzo shark attack film concerning sharks that swim through the snow to attack skiers at a mountainside resort
Quirky film shot as though a mockumentary from the 1970s about a conference where programmers compete against computer chess programs that starts to get into some puzzlingly weird SF territory
Waltz With Bashir director Ari Folman adapts a work by Stanislaw Lem into a conceptually challenging part-animated film concerning a virtual actress and a future where the populace lives inside a drug-induced mass hallucination
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
In her first English-language debut, French director/writer/actress Marina de Van delivers a variant on Carrie, albeit rewritten as a tale about child abuse. Oblique, quiet but undeniably effective when de Van pulls her punches
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
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
Quite well made effort that throws zombies into a Western setting
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
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
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
Vincenzo Natali tackles the ghost story, turning everything on its head in a series of mind-boggling twists. One of the few post-Sixth Sense films to take the film’s big twist as its starting point and build from there
Modestly effective effort about a woman who contracts an infection that causes her to physically decay. The horror comes in watching the heroine’s progressive physical decomposition.
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
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
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
What gives the expectation of being a formulaic animated film about a prehistoric cave family instead comes with a fresh and naturalistic sense of humour that proves oddly appealing
Documentary about the making of Night of the Living Dead. This covers the making of the film, although George Romero is the only person from it interviewed. Far more potent is the documentary’s pinpointing of the film’s cultural influence
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
The first sequel to the box-office juggernaut. The surprise is that it spends defies most of the things that made the first film, not to mention has made one of the year’s biggest box-office hits into a parable for Marxist revolution
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
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
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
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
A very odd Folk Horror film set among two backwoods hillbilly families whose lives are dominated by a pit in the woods they worship
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