The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Remakes are previous cinematic works that are given a new interpretation. Almost always the works being remade are popular works in a previous era that have stayed in the public imagination. A remake is an attempt to revitalise the property for a new era.
A remake will update an older work, changing many of the references for a contemporary relevance. It will offer more sophisticated effects and contemporary stars. It is common in films of the late 2010s/2020s for older works to be remade with some of the leading roles gender-flipped or raceswapped. In the majority of cases, the remake fails to have the effect the original had on audiences in that the earlier work was very much a phenomenon that belonged to its era, although there are some exceptions.
It is also worth discussing a remake vs an adaptation. We usually talk about remakes applying to previous successful cinematic works. However, when we refer to a work that was popular before becoming a film or there have been multiple film versions, a new film version is simply referred to as a new adaptation. Nobody ever talks about a remake of Hamlet (1603) or Pride and Prejudice (1813), for instance.
Variants include popular tv series being given film remakes – see Based on TV, or popular foreign-language films being given English-language remakes – see English-Language Remakes. Other types of remakes include animated films and tv being remade in live-action – see Animation in Live-Action.
A side piece of terminology that has come into use in the 2000s is the idea of a reboot where a popular ongoing series is usually revived and reworked in some way or simply an ongoing series is given a new actor and/or a continuity reset.
One of the best horror films of the 1980s, a grippingly suspenseful work where C. Thomas Howell is caught in a series of taunting psychological games across the interstate after offering psychopathic hitcher Rutger Hauer a ride
Classic French psycho-thriller that is gripping in its psychological games before reaching an unforgettable twist ending. It has been twice remade and its plot much imitated by others but never bettered
One of the greatest of all 1950s SF films in which average man Grant Williams begins to shrink in size. A film that is as much an effects tour-de-force as it is an existential allegory about a man in an alien universe
The finest film to come out of 1950s SF cinema, concerning an invasion of pods that replicate people but for their emotions. The sense of paranoia and psychological tension is unsurpassed
This is the finest haunted house film of all. In Robert Wise’s hands, the ghosts are unseen and only ever psychological and suggested – the results are terrifying. Adapted from Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House
Perhaps the greatest of all monster movies, one that has attained iconic status. A masterpiece of stop-motion animation, it imbues Kong with character and attains a delicate fairytale-like atmosphere
John Carpenter at the peak of his career, remaking The Thing from Another World as a wild and phantasmagoric film steeped in paranoia that proved to be the absolute epitome of the era’s fad for air-bladder transformation effects
Peter Jackson’s dream project, a remake of the 1933 film, and his finest work as a filmmaker. Jackson builds the original out considerably and his command of the effects gives us something quite dazzling
Classic film and one of Roman Polanski’s finest works, the comically paranoid story of a housewife who increasingly comes to believe that the child she is pregnant with was fathered by The Devil
One of the most extraordinary works ever made for tv. From the pen of Dennis Potter, a mini-series that blends film noir, meta-fiction and autobiography
One of the great tv series of the 1980s, a powerful and incisive snapshot of Thatcherite England, the backroom politics of the nuclear power industry and the environmentalist movement. A brilliantly written show featuring great performances
One of the defining classics of the genre, enormously influential, muchly imitated and parodied and possibly the most over-analysed film ever. Alfred Hitchcock expertly creates a creepy psycho-thriller in which he delights in lulling us and undermining expectation
My introduction to Wu Xia – imagine some vision of Kwaidan as directed by Sam Raimi, filled with sensationally beautiful and out of this world imagery and completely nutsoid fantastical battles with ghosts and demons
Called the Russian 2001. Andrei Tarkovsky makes one of the great SF films, a haunting ghost story set on a space station as an alien planet below drives the crew mad with recreated doppelgangers of their loved ones
Absolutely extraordinary directorial debut from actor Charles Laughton who transforms the story of an evil preacher (Robert Mitchum) pursuing two children into something approaching a stylised Expressionist fairytale
The first screen adaptation of Dracula and one of the most amazing of all vampire films, a German Expressionist fairytale that exists in haunted netherworld through which stalks the crepuscular figure of Max Schreck
The film that created the modern zombie genre, that took a creature from voodoo and reinvented at a something stumbling and wanting only to devour flesh. George Romero creates a horror film that shoots out all cozy, established convention
An excellent remake of the Cold War classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The original has now been smartly retooled for the 1970s and slots right into the Me Generation era with paranoia perfectly intact
John Carpenter’s all-time classic, the film that created the slasher film and has been much imitated, not to mention multiply sequelised and remade. None of these however come anywhere near recapturing Carpenter’s eerie spookiness
The third and most undervalued of George Romero’s original trilogy of zombie films, an explosively bared to the bone series of apocalyptic confrontations containing some of the best performances and writing in any of his films
Classic psycho-thriller with Robert Mitchum (who was never better) as an ex-con determined to take revenge against lawyer Gregory Peck. Stark and superbly sustained psychological suspense
Debate will always rage as to whether this was directed by Tobe Hooper or executive producer Steven Spielberg. It doesn’t alter the fact that it is a superlative rollercoaster of a ghost story that doesn’t always make sense but pulls its effects off flawlessly
The first and still the best version of the story. Made when The Phantom was a horror story rather than a weepie romance, everything from Lon Chaney’s performance to the amazing Gothic design and directorial set-pieces is classic
Classic film that has gained a cult reputation, this creates a superbly eerie and haunted atmosphere as a woman moves to a new town and finds herself surrounded by mysterious figures
Val Lewton’s classic work of psychological ambiguity about a woman who believes she is turning into a panther. Lewton’s ingenuity was to leave the actuality of the monster one that was merely suggested
Many of the people involved in the 1933 King Kong came back together to create another giant ape film. Much overlooked, this is one of the masterpieces of stop-motion animation
Robert Wise’s standout adaptation of Michael Crichton’s first novel about scientists trying to contain a virus brought back from space. This does a very faithful job of capturing Crichton’s fascination with the science
A classic of the 1950s Golden Age of SF, featuring Michael Rennie as an alien visitor film who comes to make a warning about the need to make peace. This stands at the start of the Atomic Age with a stark urgency
Psycho-thriller featuring a mad Bette Davis torturing her sister Joan Crawford. This held considerable shock at the time for seeing two former glamorous Hollywood stars beyond their glory days and going nuts. The film’s success inspired a whole fad of imitators
A remake of the great and underrated film and Italian comic-book about a masked super-thief who constantly outwits the authorities, this comes with style and wit to spare and strikes the note perfectly
The film that put the name of Clive Barker on the map. A work of considerable imagination where Barker delves into forbidden pleasures and fuses the film with S&M imagery for the memorable creations of the Cenobites
Classic German silent film about a pianist who receives hand transplants and believes they are possessed. Superbly stylised direction from The Cabinet of Dr Caligari director Robert Wiene and with Conrad Veidt putting his all into the contorted mime work
Terry Gilliam remakes the classic short film La Jetee as one of the most impressive of modern time travel films with an exceptional plot that is built around a sophisticated time paradox
Classic 1940s afterlife fantasy with Spencer Tracy as a pilot killed in action who is sent back as a guardian angel. This works fantastically well due to a great character arc and a sharp Dalton Trumbo script
The very first Godzilla film. Essentially a copy of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, it has incredibly stark effect despite the primitiveness of the effects. In it you can see Japanese nation struggling to expiate the pain of the Atomic Bomb.
Strong and dramatically absorbing Swedish thriller featuring one of the most original and provocative heroines on screen in some time. A word of mouth hit that later underwent a lesser English-language remake
George Romero’s successor to his cult hit of Night of the Living Dead. Romero creates a very different film, one that takes place in a mall and comes with a level of droll satire. A bigger budget allows him to push things to gore-drenched extremes
Work of incredibly stark tension set amidst post-Cuban Missile Crisis nuclear anxieties with the US trying to recall a bomber that has been accidentally dispatched to drop an atomic bomb on Moscow
A hit for novelist Michael Crichton who made his directorial debut here. Themes of machines going amok run throughout Crichton’s work and here he comes up with the ingenious idea of a Western simulation playground using androids that proceed to turn against the humans
Brutal Michael Haneke film where a family’s weekend getaway becomes a nightmare when two boys enter the house and proceed to torture and kill them. Haneke adds a level of meta-fiction that taunts the viewer’s participation
This has become legendary as the Worst Film Ever Made. Maybe it is but the audience that celebrates its technical gaffes, the purple prose and bizarre bheind-the-scenes stories has contrarily made it one of cultish fascination
Ferociously paced low-budget hit that put the names of Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell on the map. What made the film a cult hit was Raimi’s full tilt pace and entertainingly over-the-top splatter effects
David Cronenberg remakes the 1958 film, transforming its improbable scenario into a fascinating study of biological transformation with Jeff Goldblum genetically mutating into a fly hybrid. Kafka’s Metamorphosis with a lot more slime.
Classic adaptation of the John Wyndham novel about the women in a sleepy English village being impregnated and producing emotionless alien children with vast psychic powers. This translates the paranoia of US alien invasion films with considerable effectiveness
One of the most influential horror films of the 1980s, creating a series of dream horror copycats. Before the campy, makeup effects driven sequels kicked in, Wes Craven’s original creates a genuinely unearthly series of nightmare jumps
The film that started it all. This takes what could have been a jokey premise and delivers it in bold, exciting stokes. What elevates the film is Rod Serling’s script. filled with embittered soliloquies that become a biting commentary on the human condition, before the film reaches one of the great cinematic twist endings
The original and greatest of all SF serial adventures and a huge influence on George Lucas. Despite the primitive effects, this still has a marvellously rousing imagination that stands up today. Two serial sequels followed
Thailand’s Pang Brothers proved themselves some of the best horror directors in the world with this eerie film in which a woman starts to see the dead after receiving corneal implants. Several sequels and an English-language remake followed
Great psycho-thriller with Terry O’Quinn as a man determined to marry into the perfect family who then slaughters the family when they fail to meet expectations. This digs into 80s Family Values with scabrous regard
The first and best screen adaptation of H.G. Wells’ novel The Island of Dr Moreau. Wells was not happy but Charles Laughton is a great Moreau and the film develops a remarkable sexual undertow
This adaptation of H.G. Wells’ classic novel was one of the best films from 1950s SF producer/director George Pal. The time travel is depicted with considerable wondrousness and standout effects for the era
An Arabian Nights adventure that offers up one of the purest blends of fantasy and romance of its era. Filled with stunning directorial set-pieces and magnificent sets and all shot in colour.
The Hollywood remake of The Hands of Orlac, a classic with Colin Clive as a pianist who believes he is possessed after receiving hands transplanted from a killer. With a fascinatingly demented performance from Peter Lorre
John Frankenheimer film. concerning a Communist plot for creating a brainwashed assassin, Frankenheimer shoots with stark and blackly funny effect and this has duly become a cult classic
Electrifyingly ultra-violent film from Park Chan-wook who ably borrows from Takashi Miike. The film equally becomes a conceptual twister as the protagonist is forced to go on a reality-bending quest through his own life.
A classic Old Dark House thriller from director James Whale, a droll comedy of wonderfully stylised Gothic mood and featuring a near-perfectly cast line-up of eccentrics creeping about
Fritz Lang’s visionary work was something way ahead of it time and is one of the few silent films still screened today. The film’s politics are naive but Lang’s visions of the city of the future and the first screen robot are vivid.
Stunning anime remake of Metropolis based on an Osasmu Tezuka. The visuals and particularly the design are overwhelming – like a Cyberpunk film set in a stylised Art Deco world
The first and best version of the oft-told story in which shipwreck survivors are forced to survive with their bare hands while being hunted by a mad Russian aristocrat
Fritz Lang was an extraordinary director of the silent era and this was his first sound film. Peter Lorre gives an amazingly craven performance as a child murderer who becomes hunted by the criminal underworld
Werner Herzog conducts a remake of the silent German classic with Klaus Kinski as Dracula. A very different film to the original but quite unique in Herzog’s individualistic way
The original mummy film starring Boris Karloff. Unlike the sequels where the mummy became a slow, shuffling creature, this is a subtle classic with haunted mood.
An absolute horror classic, a film that has been conceived as a harrowing assault on one’s nerves. This has become a landmark genre classic and led to numerous sequels and copies but rarely any that matched the original
Classic horror film, later remade as House of Wax, with Lionel Atwill giving a wonderfully mad performance as a waxworks curator who covers murdered bodies in wax
Gripping psychological thriller in which a niece suspects that Robert Montgomery who has charmed her aunt may be a psychopathic killer
Gripping Danish thriller in which morgue attendant Nicholaj Coster Waldau finds a serial killer is playing games with him. Filled with paranoia, sharp twists and lashings of black humour
The Hollywood remake of Fritz Lang’s film about how the criminal underworld hunts a child killer. Lang’s film is a classic but this comes with visuals maybe even superior to Lang’s version
Excellent Australian-made Nature’s Revenge film with a couple on a weekend at a beach at siege from nature. Like the film’s obvious model The Birds, the attack occurs for never-specified reasons
One of the most raw and savage films ever made, this sits on a dividing line between true horror and exploitation as we experience Camille Keaton being raped with no detail spared before exacting a brutal revenge
Excellent film from Alejandro Amenabar in which a handsome playboy finds himself in the midst of a baffling series of reality flips before arriving at an SF twist ending
Dennis Potter was the greatest writer to ever work in televisio. This mini-series is one of his most celebrated works, featuring characters bursting out into lip-synched Golden Oldie songs, making biting contrast to their downbeaten lives
Overshadowed by the tragedy of star Brandon Lee’s death on set, this is a beautifully dark and glistening Gothic tale of a murdered youth revived from the dead to attain vengeance against his killers. Several lesser sequels followed
Sentimental Frank Capra film that had become a Christmas classic where an angel shows depressed everyman James Stewart the alternate world that would happen if he had never been born
The film about a killer mutant baby that made the name of director Larry Cohen who developed a cult following. Cohen infuses it with rich imagery and dark sense of humour. Several sequels followed
The very first alien invader film of the 1950s. Maybe or maybe not directed by Howard Hawks, this has a dramatic urgency and tight tension that makes it stand head and shoulders above most of the films that came after
Unsettlingly spooky Japanese ghost story from Takashi Shimizu that spawned a number of sequels, reboots and English-language remakes. This was the third of the films and superior to all that came after
Wes Craven’s first film, a savage shock to the system about a group of psychopaths that brutalise two girls. With this, Craven inaugurated the Backwoods Brutality film; this is still one of the best of the cycle
Alfred Hitchcock’s third film about a family who believe their lodger might be a killer. This was made during the silent era but Hitchcock uses extraordinary visual tricks that blow you away
One of the inspired delights from Disney’s live-action era, a hit that became the template for their subsequent live-action films. The scenes with flying vehicles and basketball teams are entirely charming.
A strong and unusual Swedish vampire film that is less a horror film than one about friendship between a boy and the very strange girl next door who we gradually realise is a vampire
An acclaimed mini-series about a frumpy woman taking gleeful revenge on the husband who abandoned her. Essentially Fatal Attraction rewritten with a feminist manifesto with hilariously barbed results
The last really good animated film made during Walt Disney’s lifetime and for the next couple of decades. Filled with cuddly anthropomorphism and charmed delights
The idea of a zombie film all shot in a single take. This proves a novelty amusement but then the film spins this on its head and becomes positively ingenious.
The original, Roger Corman’s zero budget film about a killer plant is an hilarious black comedy that has become a cult favourite and remains his most well remembered film
Roger Corman’s no-budget comedy about a killer plant is remade as a multi-million dollar musical with top-drawer effects. Missing is the original’s black comedy but this has many appealingly eccentric delights of its own
An excellent conceptual SF film, a directorial debut for Vincenzo Natali with six people trapped in a labyrinth of identical rooms some of which contain death traps where they must solve the puzzle to find the way out
A teleporter accident causes a scientist to swap head and arm with a fly. This requires you to suspend believability but is otherwise one of the classic monster movies of the era. Several sequels and a remake followed.
Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, Guillermo Del Toro’s remake of the 1947 film noir tale about a fake clairvoyant is an exquisite piece of mood and design
Mini-series that reconstructs the old Battlestar Galactica into smart and intelligent SF with strong characters, a gritty realism and sensational effects. A tv series followed and became one of the best SF shows of the 2000s
One of the best Stephen King adaptations made as a tv mini-series concerning a town overrun by vampires. Director Tobe Hooper excels himself, staging the book in terms a series of captivating set-pieces
The very first Stephen King adaptation, a hit that made King’s name. Brian De Palma directs with flamboyant visuals that make you gasp but the film would be nothing without its amazing central performances from Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie
A Roald Dahl children’s film that has become a cult classic, set in a deliriously nonsensical world with Gene Wilder give a sinisterly threatening performance in the title role
A classic animated film. A delightful film about a young pig that seeks to change his fate and gets aid from a spider that can spell. A theatrical outing for Hanna-Barbera, creator of tv’s The Flintstones et al
Classic film that was groundbreaking for its designs – all distorted and angular sets, exaggerated shadows – that became defined as German Expressionism and its tale of a sinister hypnotist
Abel Ferrara’s remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers is an overlooked film that settles in with an undeniable creepiness that is just as effective as the earlier versions. The metaphor for the pod people is more diffuse in this one but that does not mitigate the film’s effect
George Romero’s most underrated film, filled with disturbing images as the population of a town are driven crazy by a bio-weapon spill The first and also the best of a number films on the theme of outbreaks of mass insanity
Stunning Mamoru Oshii-prodcued anime short about a vampire girl who operates as an American agent eliminating vampires in post-War Japan
Classic horror film that imagines a secret world of pagan rites existing into the modern day. As much a classic for its colourful creation of a folk culture as it is for an unforgettable ending
Standout thriller with Kim Stanley as a medium who fakes a child kidnapping with husband Richard Attelborough to prove her powers
The film that defined the Old Dark House genre with spooky thrills as people are stalked around a big mansion. Expatriate German director Paul Leni brings an extraordinarily sophisticated arsenal of visual tricks to bear