The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
From the title and poster, you get the impression this is a future-set film about hoverboards or drones. Instead we have a near-future film involving agri-business conspiracy where euthanasia is dispatched by corporate lackeys
Concerning a catastrophe of never-explained nature, this follows two men – Theo James and a bad-ass Forest Whitaker – across a landscape where society is visibly collapsing
The third of the trilogy of animated films from Arcana Studios based around the adventures of a young H.P. Lovecraft
A Young Adult film that comes with a highly original premise concerning the aftermath of a catastrophe that has left ghostly figures trapped in timeloops repeating the same moves
Set in the aftermath of an unspecified apocalypse, this is a film about the oddball friendship that grows between misanthropic Peter Dinklage and pixie-ish Elle Fanning
The anime Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade was a fascinating play of metaphors that mixed terrorism and Little Red Riding Rood. This is a live-action remake from South Korea
From Peter Strickland who is fast developing a cult name, this is on one level a horror film about a killer dress; on another level, it is a captivating film of textures and surrealistic deadpan humour
An action film set aboard the International Space Station, which has been converted into a prison to house terrorists, who proceed to hijack it, turning the station into a suicide missile headed towards Earth
Pixar’s venture into sequels has resulted in works playing off past successes that are lesser than their originals. This came with much anticipation but it too must be counted as another disappointment
After two fairly good initial entries, the Insidious series began its downward slide. Here new director Adam Robitel’s clumsy jumpshocks are a far cry from the eerie effects James Wan pulled off
Wes Anderson is at his best when he does stop-motion animation as in Fantastic Mr. Fox and here. Essentially a Disney talking animals animated film where the animals talk like real people, this comes with considerable charm
Rowan Atkinson in his third outing as the inept spy. Atkinson is a talented comic but these Johnny English films, which are like less sophisticated versions of Peter Sellers’ Inspector Closeau, are the least of his comedy incarnations
A smart and intelligent SF film where two brothers both inhabit the same body and then both fall for the same woman. Great acting from Ansel Elgort in the titles role(s)
Fifth of the Jurassic Park films. Industrial Light and Magic do their usual excellent job but this time the film is just recycling the same thing as before with minimal change
Rather good British-made low-budget take on Jurassic Park, which conducts its variation with an undeniable sense of humour. One of the better films from low-budget director Andrew Jones
This is a misleadingly titled film that features no Krampus and is actually a low-budget Christmas slasher that has been renamed by the distributor. Poorly made on all accounts.
Slasher film in which a group of unlikeable teens on Springbreak are slaughtered by backwoods hicks in the Everglades. Sold as a sequel to Lake Fear despite neither film being connected in any way
The sixth of the Sharknado films, this has the usual crew fighting sharknados throughout history. With this comes the recognition there is nowhere more ridiculous and over-the-top for the series to go
It is unclear if if this is a sequel or remake of Tsui Hark’s Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain, nevertheless this sits a confident stride between artful choreography and comedic interplay
Leprechaun was a hit of the VHS era. This, the eighth of the films, was made to celebrate the series’ 25th anniversary and contains many tributes to the original
A unique and original variation on the bodyswap theme, told from point-of-view of an entity that passes through various bodies in a murderous spree as it tries to make its way back to the girl it loves
Not the Disney film, but a live-action film only loosely based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale. Not much more than a nicely made average film but one conducted with evident care
Adaptation of a ghost story from Sarah Waters, an author who usually specialises in literary Victorian lesbian bodice rippers. The ghost story is an overmined genre but this is a not uninteresting venture into the field
A modern-day vampire film set at a time when vampires have revealed themselves to the world. This is shot as Found Footage film as a tv crew go to interview a brood of vampires
Strong and effective retelling of the Lizzie Borden story starring Chloe Sevigny that builds out a fascinating plausible scenario for how the murders might have happened
Based on an acclaimed book, once to be directed by David Cronenberg. This opened to bad reviews but is not uninteresting. A near future setting, precognitive dreams and Amber Heard as a sizzling femme fatale
A unique film about a woman who is pursued by a demon that loves her. The film is made in a challenging style that requires considerable adeptness to follow but proves rewarding
Another film with a sinister adjectives for titles we have had since Insidious. This concerns a pregnant woman finding that the fetus she is carrying has been replaced by an evil spirit.
This has been called the unluckiest film ever made – there is even an entire documentary devoted to the collapse of a prior version. Here Terry Gilliam’s film about people on delusional quests finally emerges with the glory he always intended it to be
Full marks for one of the great deliberately ridiculous titles of all time. The film itself is an oddity that almost seems intended to confound your expectations of it
Nicolas Cage goes all Death Wish and slaughters a cult that murdered his wife. A regular revenge film is transformed by director Panos Cosmatos into something bizarrely primal
Manos: The Hands of Fate is considered one of the worst films of all time. 42 years later some of those involved in the original decided to make a sequel that manages to be just as bad a film
Olga Kurylenko deals with a demon that appears to those affected by sleep paralysis. Another sleep paralysis horror film that only tepidly dips into the subject
Mary Poppins was one of the greatest of all Disney live-action films, made with nonsensical charm and has become a much loved favourite. As part of the ongoing firesale that involves resurrecting almost all of their properties, this is a sequel. Its an exacting replication/homage to the original but that is the problem – it is a recapturing rather than seems to create its own sparkle
Indonesia’s Timo Tjahjanto has emerged as a Must Watch director on the basis of his jaw-dropping brutal action films plus assorted ventures into horror. Here he pays homage to the 1980s horror films in particular to The Evil Dead
Big budget about a giant prehistoric killer shark film. This is like a Sharknado film with its sense of its own risibility perfectly under cap, played seriously and mounted as a series of spectacular shark attack sequences
The Asylum’s low-budget mockbuster copy of The Meg, which is an irony in that The Meg was really an Asylum killer shark film with an A-budget. Two sequels followed.
There have been some very sophisticated time paradox films in recent years. At complete contrast, this is a comedy that has a great deal of fun with the premise of a guy and assorted temporal copies of himself running about
This is a Russian dark fantasy that has been misleadingly titled as a mermaid film in English release. It in fact concerns an avenging rusalka water spirit who haunts a small lake
Sequel to Mimesis, which had people trapped in a simulation of Night of the Living Dead, where this time people are trapped in a recreation of Nosferatu
Intelligent and absorbing thriller where a freak storm allows a woman to communicate with the past only to inadvertently create a new timeline where her life is very different
Mamoru Hosoda film nominated for the Best Animated Film at Academy Awards. A young boy jealous at the arrival of a baby sister is visited by her future self and travels through time to meet his family at different periods
The sixth of the Mission: Impossible films. Not the best of the series but Tom Cruise and associates have everything polished to an expertly honed formula by now and the film is a kinetic ride of intensive and often jaw-dropping action sequences
The Monkey King films are a series of extraordinary works that exists somewhere between CGI and live-action and have a lushness of design. That is balanced against a dated plot that basically rehashes Cat Women of the Moon
Sequel to Monster Hunt, an audience pleasing comedy about a couple and a cute monster that became the biggest hit in Chinese box-office history. This offers more of the same
This has an interesting premise where a trio of house burglars break into a mansion during a dinner party only to stumble into a support group for serial killers
South Korean attempt to make a Wu Xia film with swordsmen up against a hulking monster
Peter Jackson written-produced film that creates a fascinatingly original world. As always with a Jackson film, all the fun is in the massively scaled effects sequences and the design of the world. Alas, Jackson is not as well attuned in the story department, which often drags up corny cliched scenes
A biopic of Paula Maxa, the real-life star of Paris’s Grand Guignol Theatre. The Grand Guignol specialised in plays depicting gory on-stage deaths and she was killed on stage an estimated 10,000 times during her career. Here the biopic elements are blended with a mystery in which she is targeted by a serial killer
A strong contender for the worst Blair Witch copy AND the worst Amityville film ever made. This has the feel of a home movie made by a husband and wife and is laughably ridiculous in its failings
This Andy Serkis directed version of The Jungle Book with motion capture animated animals had its thunder stolen by the more high-profile Disney remake of 2016 but is a far superior film
While the title makes this sound like a family-friendly film about Santa’s wife, this is actually a Christmas slasher film
Duncan Jones has become a director of promise in the last few years. Here he appropriates the Blade Runner look to make a futuristic neo-noir but the result never quite works. The noir plot never sufficiently keys in, while the derivative future setting is of no real relevance to the story
The Asylum’s mockbuster answer to the J.J. Abrams’ produced Overlord concerning GIs on a mission behind enemy lines encountering Nazi mad science. Passably well made for the most part
A modestly effective film about a group of deserting soldiers during the Napoleonic Wars who enter a haunted forest
The second film from the director of Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead about demon hunters. A great deal has been expanded on the creature effects and in building the film’s mythology.
The zombie genre has become creatively overused and exhausted in recent years but this French entry plays with an appealing originality, sort of like a low-key version of Dawn of the Dead where a man builds a Parisian apartment building into his own paradise
A above average entry in the recent trend of horror anthologies featuring episodes from different directors, including Joe Dante and Mick Garris, featuring at least a couple of standout entries
Another in the fad for horror films about escape rooms we have had in the last few years, this concerns a possibly haunted venue and reaches an interestingly odd ending
Another spinoff from The Conjuring films. James Wan is one of the finest horror directors of the 2010s but has had difficulty imparting his skills to the directors of the films he has produced. This feels like a fairground haunted house show of tedious and repetitive pop-up shocks that runs free of any connection to a plot
Big, no-expense-spared Disney production of the fairytale. The film is stunning to look at it in terms of design and costuming but has a simplicity that leaves little for adults to engage with
J.J. Abrams’ produced film about soldiers encountering Nazi mad science experiments during WWII. Despite a decent budget thrown at it, this was a box-office failure. It may be that in a genre where we have gravitated to films about Nazi zombies and Nazi moonbases, this was just too tame
Pacific Rim wasn’t Guillermo Del Toro’s best film but it was a fun attempt to imagine giant Japanese mecha robots battling giant monsters. This is a sequel but without Del Toro it is reduced to no more than one of Michael Bay’s Transformers films
From Isaac Ezban in his English-language debut, a cleverly and pleasingly contorted film where a group of friends discover a mirror that leads to a parallel timeline
From the director of Attack of the Lederehosen Zombies, a slasher film set at a rave event
Former Doctor Who Matt Smith is absurdly miscast as someone who can speak the language of zombies. The film does nothing to make the premise believable.
Thriller in which a girl is abducted and imprisoned by a mad tattooist who wants to use her body as a work of art
Quite the most insane film I have seen in recent memory. The rivalry between two classical music students reminds of Black Swan albeit wound up to the histrionic level of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, all added to the most pleasingly twisty mess-with-your assumptions script
Beatrix Potter wrote genteel stories of talking animals in the English countryside. This is a film so astonishingly awful in its treatment of the source material – it feels like someone drunkenly urinating on Beatrix Potter’s gravestone for lulz. The No 1 contender for Worst Film of 2018
The Picnic at Hanging Rock with its hauntingly unsolved mystery is considered one of the greatest Australian films of all time; this mini-series in six one-hour parts drags every beat of the story out and pads the slim original with so many other character mini-dramas and backstories that the mystery is drowned out
An interestingly strange film with Mia Wasikowska as a disturbed hooker and Christopher Abbott as a man who plans to kill her
Grippingly intense thriller with a couple trapped in an empty swimming pool along with a hungry crocodile
British horror film that develops a sense of uncanniness that resembles an Eraserhead at times with a man haunted by a puppet and giant spiders. The mood is unsettling, least of all that we are never sure what is real or taking place in the character’s head
Gonzo killer shark film that gets full marks for an entertainingly ridiculous title but is real bad movie material on all accounts
Shane Black, a writer-director with a reasonable cult following, makes the sixth Predator film (he also appeared as an actor in the original). Black shakes the series up, introduces a number of new ideas and makes an okay entry
Strong and effective Bigfoot horror film from makeup effects artist Patrick Magee. The film is never better than when Magee is in his element, creating a uniquely designed Bigfoot that is capable of blending into its surroundings unnoticed
I can’t say the premise of this – a gold prospecting story located in space – did much for me. Contrary to expectation, this is a surprisingly good planetary adventure that does a fine job creating an alien world with minimalist effect and telling a strong character-driven story
From the director of Train to Busan, this starts out as a psychic powers film before becoming a South Korean superhero film. Made with a nicely grounded realism that makes refreshing contrast to the bombast of the MCU et al.
An uncommonly effective film that takes place in the aftermath of an invasion by creatures with ultra-sensitive hearing where the survivors must maintain an existence that requires not making the slightest sound. Director (also lead actor) John Krasinski uses the set-up to create unbearable tension
The idea of Dwayne Johnson facing a giant gorilla in an adaptation of a 1980s arcade game doesn’t exactly shout out Academy Award material; on the other hand, appreciated as a zero expectation cartoon of a film and the mindless mass destruction spectacle it is, this works in a goofily entertaining way
Slasher film with a diabolically funny sense of humour as a psychopathic park ranger stalks a group of partying punks
Steven Spielberg adapted Ernest Cline’s book about a massive virtual treasure hunt through 1980s pop culture trivia. The film winds up the pop culture references by a factor of ten, but misses the book’s compulsive readability
An action film about soldiers on an expedition into a zombie-filled quarantine zone. This comes with a furious pace that feels more as though you are watching a videogame than a film
Mind-bogglingly surreal, almost indescribable film from Joel Potrykus as a slacker attempts to complete a videogame sitting on a couch as assorted things including the Y2K apocalypse happen around him
Whatever you want to say about his acting ability, Keanu Reeves represents a cool and has smarts in the projects he takes on. So when he takes a producing role as here, you feel it is a project you should pay attention to. Instead, the cloning film that he makes is absolutely laughable and should contend for an award for the SF film with the least plausible science in it
This BBC tv mini-series starts out seeming a mystery about the disappearance of a child as the investigating heroine makes the jolt realisation that she is the missing child, before the show edges over into occult conspiracy. Very nicely written and beautifully directed with a line-up of standout performances
Jumping aboard the contemporary fad for companies like Uber, this concerns a psychopathic driver who sarcastically ridicules his customer before proceeding to kill them. Pleasingly dark and twisted and decidedly u-PC at times
A copy of The Blair Witch Project with a trio of filmmakers trekking into the woods with cameras in search of The Wood Devil
Saw series director Darren Lynn Bousman makes a film set at a convent for unwed mothers in the 1950s. Is there any chance this might be a work about institutional cruelty or the plight of unwed mothers in the era? Hardly, all it really is is Bousman inflicting a series of tortures on the girls
This looked promising but is no more than an unoriginal rehash of the cliches of the Mad Max film – at heart a Western with only token effort made to rewrite the elements in SF terms – and no greater ambition beyond being cable filler
The Scorpion King films are such a low expectation series that it is hard to drum up enthusiasm for a fifth entry. The rehashes stock sword and sorcery cliches and passes its time forgettably
The selfie is such a concept of the moment that I suppose someone had to make the first selfie horror film. The film suffers conceptual confusions and what starts out akin to something like Ring slides into more of a variant on The Den with sinister strangers stalking the heroine online
Sequel to Gnomeo & Juliet, which retold Shakespeare with garden gnomes. This for some reason adds a garden gnome Sherlock Holmes to the mix. The high speed whirring you hear is probably Arthur Conan Doyle rotating in his grave,
The Asylum’s Multi-Headed Shark Attack series hasn’t quite hit the sense of delirious absurdism that their Sharknado films did – the only gimmick the series has is to keep adding heads to the shark. On the other hand, a scene where where the shark emerges onto land walking on two of its heads will have you rolling on the floor in laughter
Simon Pegg produces/stars in a comedy spoofing the British boarding school tradition – but with the addition of monsters running around
A trio of alt girls do urban exploring and walk into a war between a grumpy, retired Santa and Krampus
Slender Man is the fascinating idea of an internet meme that has crossed over to become an urban legend in the real world; this is the film version. This held the potential to be something very uncanny but chooses to play everything incredibly safe and middle-of-the-road
As with numerous examples in the zombie and killer shark film of recent, the idea has been to parody an existing title with the addition of a monster and a pun on the original’s title. Essentially what we have is a Scary Movie-like parody of the true-life rapper tale Straight Outta Compton but with the addition of a giant snake
A werewolf comedy that takes place on the set of a zombie film. Comes with much in the way of homage to An American Werewolf in London
In the vein of realistic space films like Gravity and The Martian, this is a lower-budgeted effort about a man in an escape pod on a collision course with the sun and the attempts to rescue him