Mythica: The Iron Crown (2016)
Epic Fantasy Adventure
This was the fourth in the surprisingly good Mythica series of low-budget epic fantasy films funded via Kickstarter. This proves to be the best of the series yet
Films of 2016
The Neon Demon (2016)
Horror Film in the L.A. Modelling World
Nicolas Winding Refn makes a horror film set in the L.A. modelling world. A film of hypnotic surfaces that glitter with a troubling undertow, the result is like Valley of the Dolls as remade by Dario Argento
Nerve (2016)
Internet Site That Offers Deadly Challenges
This is like an online version of 13 Sins about an internet site that pushes people to take increasingly more outrageous and eventually deadly dares. One of the new thrillers centred around social media that seeks to adopt its visual look, this is slickly polished and aimed direct to the teenage demographic
Night of Something Strange (2016)
Zombie-Creating Sexually Transmitted Disease
Film about a zombie-creating sexually transmitted disease that feels like it was made by a bunch of drunken adolescents trying to out-gross each other after an all-weekend beer party. A film that is readily ventures into bad taste and is prepared to offend
Nine Lives (2016)
Man Trapped in the Body of a Cat
Your mind struggles to process the premise of Nine Lives – where Kevin Spacey finds himself in the body of a cat. It seems a variation on the earlier Oh Heavenly Dog in which Chevy Chase was reincarnated as Benji. Some cute effects but what a lightweight effort for an actor of Spacey’s calibre
1920 London (2016)
Bollywood Possession Film
The Bollywood horror film is a rare and strange beast – what other horror film would you see that comes with song and dance numbers? This is a Bollywood possession film where, despite the use of local colour and custom, it is surprisingly still drawn from the cliches created by The Exorcist
Norm of the North (2016)
Animation/Talking Polar Bear
As animated films go, there are few that feel like a constructor set of pieces copied from every other film than this. Audiences found the adventures of a twerking polar bear lacking too and it made a record for the lowest weekend gross for an animated film ever
The Northlander (2016)
Post-Holocaust
Post-holocaust film made by and starring Canadian First Nations people. While the film uses the aftermath of a civilisation as a setting, it never seems that interested in exploring it. The film peters out in an uninteresting resoution and features some appallingly pretentious dialogue
The Offering (2016)
Occult Happenings
Singaporean film that offers an assemblage of cliches elements from various horror films in a mishmash of hauntings, possession, occult happenings and ominous Biblical portents that make little sense in terms of explanatory rationale
Officer Downe (2016)
Undead Cop/Graphic Novel Adaptation
Comic-book adaptation about a cop that is resurrected from the dead to take on the toughest assignments. Feels like a throwback to an 80s film like Maniac Cop or Dead Heat where the film is killed by the tiresomely cliched appropriation of the faux grindhouse aesthetic
Operation Avalanche (2016)
The Faking of the Moon Landing/Found Footage
This takes the old conspiracy theory about the Moon Landing being faked by tv and rather hilariously is a Found Footage film being shot by two filmmakers who have been tasked with fabricating the Moon Landing
The Other Side of the Door (2016)
Resurrected Ghost Child
From Johannes Roberts, the director of 47 Meters Down and other works, an undeniably spooky variant on Pet Sematary set in Mumbai as a mother unwittingly resurrects her late son’s spirit
The Other Side of the Mirror (2016)
Darker Version of Alice in Wonderland
This sets out to offer a dark take on Alice in Wonderland but leaves you scratching you head. At most the Wonderland characters take a lot of drugs, along with a haphazard mix of scenes from the book cheaply shot
Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016)
Ouija Board Unleashes Malevolent Spirits
Blumhouse’s Ouija didn’t get many good reviews but they proceeded with a prequel here. This is automatically the better film from the outset by employing Mike Flanagan, behind amazing works like Absentia, Hush and The Haunting of Hill House, as director, even if it comes out as one of Flanagan’s lesser works
Ozark Sharks (2016)
Killer Shark Film
A surprisingly amiable entry in the gonzo killer shark genre from director Misty Talley who seems to be making this her own genre niche
Pandemic (2016)
Zombie First Person Shooter Found Footage Film
While the title leads you to expect a plague outbreak film, you soon discover this is a zombie film. What it is is a Found Footage film mounted as a First Person Shooter film at which you have to admit that it launches into action with considerable gusto and ferocity
Pandorica (2016)
Post-Holocaust
This comes with a premise that holds interest – it many years after the collapse of civlisation where three youth are taken into the woods on a rite of passage only to encounter someone from another tribe fleeing with an object that makes the possessor a god – a handgun
Paradox (2016)
Time Travel Experiment Goes Wrong
There have been some ingenious time paradox films in recent years, this is a modest low-budget offering in which a scientist travels one hour into the future only to find everybody at the lab has been killed. Returning in time, he tries to stop everything from happening.
Parasites (2016)
Killer Homeless People
This reverses the sympathies of films like Deliverance and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Rather than having people tortured by backwoods hicks, one man is forced to survive on a brutal run for his life through the more disreputable parts of L.A. while hunted by homeless.
Passengers (2016)
Cryogenic Sleepers Awake Aboard a Space Voyage
The gratifying pleasure of a solid conceptually-driven science-fiction film – all based around the premise of “what if a cryogenic sleeper woke up halfway through a deep space voyage?” and the moral choices he must make. Strong, intelligent character-driven science-fiction and possibly the best designed film of the year
Pee-Wee’s Big Holiday (2016)
Overgrown Adolescent's Nonsense Adventures
Pee-Wee Herman is a deliberately annoying character that is either adored or intensely loathed by audiences. This third film closely follows the structure of the first film with Pee-Wee in a series of nonsense adventures on a cross-country journey
Peelers (2016)
Strippers vs Zombies
There have been a surprising number of films in recent years offering up the combination of zombies and strippers. Although what we have is never quite specified as zombies, this offers up strippers kicking zombie ass with a great deal of gore-drenched relish
The Perfect Weapon (2016)
Action Film/Dystopian Future
Steven Seagal makes an SF film. Even more bizarrely, Seagal plays the villain for one of the few times in his career, namely the dictator of a dystopian future. An overweight and aging Seagal has a handful of scenes philosophising, while the bulk of the film is a super-soldier plot carried by others
Personal Shopper (2016)
Possible Ghost Story/Mystery Texter
Olivier Assayas’s high-profile but wildly critically divided work feels as though it has several competing plots circling around Kristen Stewart – a ghost story, one about a mystery texter and briefly a murder mystery – which feel incomplete and unfinished and only maybe intersecting with one another
Pet (2016)
Man Abducts the Girl He is Obsessed With
This seems to be shaping up to be a modern variant on The Collector in which Dominic Monaghan abducts the object of his desire and locks her in a cage beneath the dog shelter where he works. From there the film starts to twist expectations on their head
Pete’s Dragon (2016)
Boy and Invisible Dragon/Disney Remake
Another Disney remake that hardly resemble its source – the original was light slapstick with a big cartoon dragon, this is a sober wild child story where the dragon is now an endangered species
Phantasm: Ravager (2016)
Dream Horrors/Other-Dimensional Grave Robbers
Phantasm was a cult hit with its eerie otherworldly dream horrors. It spawned four sequels of which this is probably the last given that Angus Scrimm died earlier this year. The series peaked a couple of films ago and here the regulars pander to a comfortable familiarity without adding anything new to the mix
Phantom of the Theatre (2016)
Chinese Version of The Phantom of the Opera
A fascinating Chinese version of The Phantom of the Opera, transplanted from a Parisian opera house of the 19th Century to a film being shot in an abandoned theatre in the 1930s. On the other hand, this version makes the most radical changes to the story of any of the Phantom films
Piranha Sharks (2016)
Gonzo Killer Shark Film
Part of the gonzo shark film’s ongoing quest for the most ridiculous title mash-up, this involves a horde of genetically engineered shark-piranha hybrids loose in New York City
Planet of the Sharks (2016)
Drowned Future/Killer Sharks
Another gonzo killer shark from from The Asylum who made the Sharknado films. Played somewhat more seriously than other entries, this has been conceived as Waterworld with killer sharks
Playing With Dolls: Bloodlust (2016)
Slasher Film
The second in a trilogy of slasher films about people being staked by a maniac at a backwoods cabin while everything is secretly being filmed by tv cameras
Poignant (2016)
Haunting
This is one of a plethora of hard-to-differentiate apart ghost stories that have littered the dvd shelves in recent years, frequently copying Insidious in appropriating a sinister-seeming adjective as title. There is not a single directorial or musical cue, sound effect or line of dialogue that doesn’t feel like a cliche
Prevenge (2016)
Psychopathic Pregnant Woman
Directed by and starring actress Alice Lowe, this comes in a blackly funny vein. Lowe plays a pregnant woman driven by the voice of her baby as she starts dispatching everything from sleazy men to those who annoy her
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016)
Jane Austen Retold with Zombies
Based on the book that led a publishing phenomenon in which literary classics are mashed up with monsters, this has the difficult balancing act – that of making Jane Austen’s Regency romance sit alongside zombies – nevertheless manages to play both with an impeccably straight-face
The Purge: Election Year (2016)
Future That Permits One Night of Lawlessness
The Purge was a routine film that caught on with audiences but the premise lacks the legs to be a franchise – for one, it is based on a future scenario that has zero plausibility. This makes paper-thin stabs in terms of social issues but all interest evaporates when the guns start blazing
Raaz Reboot (2016)
Bollywood Possession Fim
For some reason, The Exorcist is hugely popular in Bollywood horror – this is the fourth in a series of otherwise unrelated films about possession. The film conducts its borrowings not unentertainingly and is boosted by a script that turns what we think is happening on its head with quite a degree of dexterity
Raman Raghav 2.0 (2016)
True-Life Mumbai Serial Killer
Everyone has a certain idea of what Bollywood cinema is – romantic interludes and elaborate song and dance numbers no matter the genre. This is one Bollywood film that defies convention – based on a true-life Mumbai serial killer, it comes with a harsh realism and features an electrifying central performance
Range 15 (2016)
Zombie Comedy
This is a crowdourced film made by military veterans who set out with the idea of creating better military characterisations in films. Bizarrely enough, they turn to the zombie comedy to do so and the result is the crassest, most willfully offensive zombie film ever made
Ratchet & Clank (2016)
Animation/Videogame Adaptation
Animated film based on the popular computer game. On screen, this emerges as essentially an instantly forgettable variant on one of the Star Wars prequels retooled for the Under Tens with the emphasis all on frenetic slapstick and visual eye candy
Raw (2016)
Cannibalism
Undeniably shocking French film about a vegetarian girl who is required to eat raw animal meat during a university hazing ritual and thereafter becomes obsessed with eating human flesh
Realive (2016)
Cryogenic Sleeper Awakes
Strong and worthwhile film about the first man woken from cryogenic suspension in the future. A film from Alejandro Amenabar’s regular co-writer, the writer of Open Your Eyes
Recovery (2016)
Search for a Missing Cellphone Leads to a Sinister House
A film that starts with the premise of teenage girls looking for a party and then going in search of a missing cellphone doesn’t do much to enthuse me. On the other hand, things pick up when the search leads them to a strange house
Red Sonja, Queen of Plagues (2016)
Warrior Woman/Sword and Sorcery
Surprisingly good animated revival of Robert E. Howard’s warrior woman with a script by comic-book writer Gail Simone that gets the character just right
The Red Turtle (2016)
Animation/Castaway Befriends Turtle Woman
Studio Ghibli’s first ever international co-production. A desert island castaway fantasy, this makes interesting comparison to the recent Robinson Crusoe/The Wild Life, even if both films are poles apart in style. This is dialogueless, spare and contained with a minimalism of plot and drama
The Remains (2016)
Haunted House
The haunted house genre is one that has become thoroughly exhausted by overuse in recent years. This puts the elements together with a professional assemblage but is essentially no different to the 347 other haunted house films that this site has seen in the last twelve months
Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016)
Videogame Adaptation/Post-Holocaust Zombies
The Resident Evil films are designed for people who were introduced to drama via the Xbox, action sequences that can be assembled in random order and where it doesn’t matter what happens. I watched this, the sixth and final entry, with next-to-no enthusiasm but then quite unexpectedly it starts to work
Restoration (2016)
Possible Haunting/Body Predation
A film directed by actor Zack Ward – his best known role was probably as Postal Dude in Uwe Boll’s Postal. Not a terribly interesting film – it starts as a ghost story before this proves to be a red herring and then meanders around without much direction
Rillington Place (2016)
True-Life Serial Killer
BBC mini-series based on true-life serial killer John Reginald Christie that was earlier filmed as the classic >i>10 Rillington Place. Tim Roth steps into the role and the show adopts an exacting feel for the period to portray Christie’s crimes with considerable effect
Robinson Crusoe (2016)
Animation/Desert Island Castaway with Talking Animals
Robinson Crusoe is a classic adventure story about a man shipwrecked on a desert island. It has no fantastic content but this is a bizarre animated version where Crusoe is aided by the talking animals that inhabits the island amid much slapstick shenanigans
Robot Wars (2016)
Found Footage Cyberpunk Film
The title is a massive cheat as there is only a single robot that turns up in a single fight scene. The film has the distinction of being the world’s first Found Footage Cyberpunk film about a mystery box that creates mass insanity when opened
The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let’s Do the Time Warp Again (2016)
Gender-Bender Rock Musical/Frankenstein Spoof
Nothing indicates how miscalculated this remake is than the fact it has been placed in the hands of the director of the High School Musicals and sundry Disney Channel fodder
Rogue One (2016)
Star Wars Prequel
Disney are now doing what Lucasfilm did with their novels in the 80s and spinning adventures off from even minor background characters. This is a grittier Dirty Dozen adventure but still recycles the same basic elements
Rogue Warrior, Robot Fighter (2016)
The Machine Revolution/Space Opera
A pneumatically inflated heroine fights the machines amid a standard array of space opera and post-apocalyptic future tropes
Rupture (2016)
Woman Abducted Into a Series of Mysterious Experiments
Puzzling and enigmatic film in which Noomi Rapace is a regular mom who is abducted and forced to take place in a series of experiments by a group of people who may not even be human
Sacrifice (2016)
Ritual Murders/Secret Society
This comes with much promise – rune-covered bodies found on a remote island, ritual murders and a secret society that believe they are the descendants of Celtic supermen – that you wonder what caused the filmmakers to let it slip through their hands
Sadako vs Kayako (2016)
Ring/Grudge Series Crossover
The two most popular Japanese horror franchises come together to fight it out. Both series work on the provision of intensely uncanny effect but brought together the result is diluted at best
Satanic (2016)
Pursuit by Satanists
Two couples on a road trip start to experience sinister happenings after witnessing a devil worship ceremony. Essentially Kalifornia meets Race with the Devil, this develops some modestly creepy effect
Sausage Party (2016)
Animation/Talking Supermarket Produce
The most demented premise of the year – an animated film about the lives of the talking produce in a supermarket. This is crude, rude and guaranteed to offend (as might be expected from a Seth Rogen penned vehicle); it is also one of the funniest and cleverest films of the year
Science Fiction Volume One: The Osiris Child (2016)
Planetary Adventure
A film naming itself after an entire genre either has massive ambition or huge pretensions. Beyond the grandiose title, this is not much more than a better budgeted version of an 80s planetary adventure
The Secret Life of Pets (2016)
Animation/Talking Animals
I really enjoyed Illumination Entertainment’s debut film Despicable Me but thereafter they just seemed to slip into formula and following what every other animation studio is. Despite low initial enthusiasm, they regain their form here, doing nothing radically out of the ordinary but producing a modestly engaging work
The Sector (2016)
Alternate World Criminal
Variant on the alternate world hopping theme where a bounty hunter finds the person he is pursuing is an alternate world criminal. The film’s budget is way too low to do any justice to either the theme or the setting after the collapse of civilisation
Seoul Station (2016)
Animation/South Korean Zombie Film
Train to Busan was a massive breakout hit from South Korear. Overlooked in the buzz was this animated prequel from the same director released at the same time. The zombie film and animation are an uneasy mix but this works well, if not with the same kick as Train to Busan
Shadow People (2016)
Haunting
Husband and wife find their new home in the countryside to be haunted. A ghost story that is not up to much before what has become one of the biggest cliche endings in the book
The Shallows (2016)
Killer Shark/Survival Horror
A killer shark that is less Jaws and more a survival film in the vein of 127 Hours. A well worthwhile effort that uses every cinematic trick in its arsenal to provide a nail-bitingly intense adrenaline workout
Sharkansas Women’s Prison Massacre (2016)
Gonzo Killer Shark Film
Another entrant in the fad for gonzo killer shark film. This gets some award for combining the killer shark film, the women’s prison film and the cabin in the woods horror standard
Sharkenstein (2016)
Gonzo Killer Shark Film
Z-budget director Mark Polonia makes a cheap and ridiculous variant on the gonzo killer shark film about a Nazi mad scientist creating a Franken-shark that comes with Hitler’s brain placed into it
Sharknado: The 4th Awakens (2016)
Storm of Sharks/Deliberately Bad Film
The bad movie hit of Sharknado was a surprise to everyone and spawned sequels. By this point, creativity appears to have dried up – essentially, the Sharknado series has jumped the shark
She Kills (2016)
Woman with a Vagina Possessed by Satan
Positively the most insane, offensive and over-the-top film I have seen in some time. A bride finds she has a vagina possessed by Satan and uses it to go all I Spit on Your Grave on the gang who ate her husband on her wedding night, resulting in an outrageous splatter bloodbath
She Wolf Rising (2016)
Werewolf Scream Queen
There is a good idea for a film in here somewhere where a fan joins Scream Queen Tiffany Shepis playing a Scream Queen tracking down the print of her werewolf movie before finding she is a real werewolf. But the presentation is an utterly confused mishmash
Shelley (2016)
Malevolent Surrogate Pregnancy
Danish film about an immigrant agreeing to become a surrogate mother only to believe she is inhabited by something malevolent. This does well in the build-up but a crucial failure to put a finger on what is going on makes for a frustrating experience
Shin Godzilla (2016)
Giant Atomic Monster
The 29th of the Japanese Godzilla films. Coming after the longest gap in the series to date, this functions as a complete reboot of the original. Godzilla is reconceived as a fearsome creation amid epic mass destruction and what are hands down the best effects of any film in the series
Sinbad and the War of the Furies (2016)
Modernised Arabian Nights Adventure
The Asylum attempt a modern-day Sinbad film – one where Sinbad uses a cellphone and sets sail to L.A. aboard a regular yacht. This is so cheap that it has even been stripped of all the exotic creatures
Sing (2016)
Animation/Talking Animal Singing Competition
I have lowered expectations of animated films these days but was surprised what an effortlessly engaging film this is. Essentially a version of American Idol but recast with talking/singing animals, it is a film that bursts with confidence and its own natural energy from every pore
Sinister Squad (2016)
Team-Up Between Fairytale Villains
The Asylum made Avengers Grimm as a copycat of The Avengers films, featuring a team-up of fairytale heroines, and so for the release of Suicide Squad they made this sequel featuring a team-up of fairytale villains. Both films are utterly incomprehensible and require you to essentially ignore the originals
Siren (2016)
Unearthly Woman Creature with a Mesmerising Song
Four guys on a stag night encounter a mysterious nightclub that features a woman with a mesmerising and unearthly song. The feature length expansion of the V/H/S segment Amateur Night, this is a film that is rather pleasingly driven by a series of wild and outlandish images
Siren Song (2016)
Greek Sirens in the Present Day
Not to be confused with the more high-profile
Slash (2016)
The World of Slash Fandom
Film that concerns itself with slash – a form of fan fiction that imagines sexual relationships between the two male leads of various film and tv series. Some passable discussion of the fandom has been grafted onto a Coming of Age story in ways that only awkwardly gel
Sleight (2016)
Street Magician
We’ve had films about stage magicians in the last few years from The Prestige to Now You See Me; this has the novelty of focusing on a young street magician against the backdrop of L.A.’s drug culture. The film takes a very strange leap off the deep end into SF territory in the last quarter
Somnus (2016)
Space Mission Problems/The End of the World
This low-budget British effort seems to be making a good start as a film that deals with space travel realistically only to bog down in one of the most incomprehensible plots one has ever sat through
Space Cop (2016)
Cop from the Future Comedy
Comedy about a cop from the future who joins the present-day force where he is partnered with a cop thawed out from the 1960s. This is a premise that should have been funny but emerges as something like Sledge Hammer cast with the characters from Dumb and Dumber
Spaghettiman (2016)
Gonzo Superhero Film
Possibly the most absurd notion to hit superhero cinema – a film in which the hero’s power is to fling spaghetti from his fingertips and hides his identity behind a paper bag. A low-budget, no-effects indie comedy with a deadpan sense of humour not likely to be everybody’s taste but I found downright hilarious
Spectral (2016)
Soldiers vs Spirit Beings
Highly original piece that works as a supernatural version of Black Hawk Down with a unit of soldiers cut off in rebel territory and surrounded by spirit beings. Grippingly effective both in terms of the tension and a script that treats the phenomenon with scrupulous rationalism
Stake Land II (2016)
Post-Apocalyptic World of Vampires
Stake Land, set in a beautifully wintry post-holocaust world where vampires had taken over, one of the best films from Glass Eye Pix. This is a sequel that reunites most of the same elements from the original but fails to ignite them as memorably as the first film did
Star Trek: Beyond (2016)
Intergalactic Adventures
Gene Roddenbery created a tv series that was about boldly going, confronting different ways of life. The choice to hire the director of The Fast and the Furious films to helm the film made for the show’s 50th anniversary says how wrong-headed the reboot series has become – all about cool young leads and hurtling effects sequences
Storks (2016)
Animation/Taking Birds
This did nothing for me in the pre-release. Watching it, it proves far more enjoyable than expectation. It is very baby-centric but it does have a frequently off-the-wall sense of humour that is rather appealing
Suicide Squad (2016)
Team-Up of DC Comics Super-Villains
This team-up of C-list DC super-villains proved a surprise hit. The script is all over the place but Margot Robbie owns the screen as the gleefully insane Kewpie Doll gone wrong Harley Quinn
Swiss Army Man (2016)
Castaway Befriends a Talking Corpse
A ridiculously off the wall and heartwarming film. Imagine a crosshatch between Weekend at Bernie’s and Cast Away – where Wilson the beachball is replaced by Daniel Radcliffe as a farting talking corpse
Sword Master (2016)
Wu Xia Film
One of the lush, beautifully produced modern Wu Xia (flying swordsmen) films. Produced and written by the legendary Tsui Hark
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (2016)
Comic-Book Superheroes
Nobody has good things to say about the 2014 reboot of the Turtles. This sequel is stuck with its legacy – giant over-sized Turtles that lacked the cuteness of the originals; bitchy non-acting Megan Fox – but comes out winningly by doing one thing – emulating the spirit of the original cartoon series
10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)
Trapped in a Survival Shelter/Mysterious Catastrophe
Sequel in name only to Cloverfield, this takes place in a survival shelter where an unspecified catastrophe has happened outside but we cannot be certain what or even if anything at all. Okay but films like Take Shelter and The Divide did this much better
Terra Formars (2016)
Mutated Insects on Mars
Takashi Miike delivers a completely madcap film about evolved cockroaches on Mars being fought by astronauts who take doses of mutagenic serum to give them insect-based super-powers
Terrifier (2016)
Killer Clown
A variation on the killer clown film that does rack up quite a degree of tension and pushes the material for something edgy. A popular hit that has produced two sequels.
They’re Watching (2016)
Found Footage/Superstitious East European Village
The Found Footage genre has become fairly much strip-mined of all possibilities and I felt little enthusiasm for yet another. That said, this film about a reality tv crew in a heavily superstitious East European village, proves surprisingly well made and entirely wins you over with a bravura climax
The Thinning (2016)
Future Education System Eliminates Failed Students
Another variant on the Young Adult dystopia a la The Hunger Games and Divergent films, concerning a future where that who fail standardised school tests are executed to keep the population down. The blandness of approach utterly feels to grapple with the ideas at play
13 Demons (2016)
Evil Boardgame
Director Daniel E. Falicki’s Alien Implant made my Worst of 2017 list. This is one of his earlier, equally terrible films about a boardgame that possess its players
31 (2016)
Human Hunting Survival Game
Rob Zombie featuring people abducted and forced to play in a deathsport game. This is largely a re-run of House of 1000 Corpses, while both films in turn draw heavily on The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. As always, Rob Zombie has a following but also switches large swathes of his audience off
Time Raiders (2016)
Tomb-Raiding Adventures
Not a time travel film as the title leads you to expect but a Chinese copy of Raiders of the Lost Ark where you expect they were trying to call it ‘tomb raiders’. The director is also the production designer leading to a gorgeously designed film but also one of constant action postures almost entirely lacking in substance
Time Renegades (2016)
Shared Vision Across Time/Hunt for a Killer
South Korean film that borrows the premise of the film Frequency in having two characters separated across twenty years have clairvoyant dreams of the other’s life and combining forces to stop a killer
Time Toys (2016)
Super-Powered Toys from the Future
Children’s film with the promising idea of kids finding a bunch of toys from the future that grant them amazing abilities unaware they have world-destroying potential.; The idea is alas watered down to the blandness of family formula and the limited conceptual horizons of a low budget
Train to Busan (2016)
Zombies on a Train
The zombie film has become an overworked vein in the last few years. This South Korean film does nothing to reinvent it, just contains the drama aboard a train but manages to create a grippingly intense epic of the genre