The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Genre Homage refers to films where directors and writers make constant in-jokes and in-references to other genre works.
This can include everything from naming characters after genre directors, actors, places, organisations or characters; including cameo appearances from regular genre actors and directors; placing posters or having clips from films playing on tv in the background; scenes that affectionately recreate or spoof ones from other films; and quoting or parodying lines of dialogue. Many of the films listed as Remakes or Parody are or contain extensive homages, with remakes frequently including cameos from actors from the original.
The first genre homage was probably the opening number Science Fiction Double Feature in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). Some directors fill their films with homages – the most recurrent being Joe Dante, Brian De Palma, Adam Green, Fred Olen Ray and Rob Zombie, while the works of Quentin Tarantino contain or are constructed as elaborate homages to bygone eras of filmmaking. The most elaborate of genre homages are the Scream films and their take on the slasher film.
After his assorted teenage monster films, producer Herman Cohen made this about a resentful studio makeup effects artist who takes revenge by using his makeups to turn teens into mind-controlled monsters
Film spinoff from tv’s The Munsters, a likeable knockabout farce featuring the original cast
Absolutely delightful stop-motion animated homage to the Universal Famous Monsters, which places tongue perfectly in cheek
This offers the amusing idea of a softcore parody of the old Flash Gordon serials. A surprisingly well-made film in terms of effects but the jokes often seems belaboured amid the witless mugging
The very first film from John Landis, a rather amusing spoof of revived caveman films, As with many of Landis’s films, has a substantial level of playful in-joking and genre in-referencing. Mostly, it plays out with an appealingly nonsensical absurdity
Mel Brooks’ finest moment, a witty stylistic homage to and spoof of the Universal Frankenstein films. A great cast are on perfect form all around.
Predating The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Brian De Palma conducts a very funny parody of The Phantom of the Opera (and several other horror films) as a glitter rock musical
The No 1 cult film of all time, more a phenomenon than a film, a demented glitter rock homage to mad science cinema and 50s sf films run through with celebration of a gender-bender joie de vivre
Horror host John Stanley directs a film with an amusing premise where a famous horror actor known for playing a vampire turns out to be a vampire for real, causing problems when he turns up for a convention
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
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
The second film from Joe Dante. Mounted as a quickie copy of Jaws by producer Roger Corman, Dante succeeds in peppering it with a lot of sly jokes and genre in-references
A clever little psycho film concerning a killer who is obsessed with classic movies. This was doing the movie-inspired psychos thing way before Scream and with quite a degree of ingenuity
Brian De Palma’s homage to Psycho. With De Palma at absolute peak form, this is dazzlingly stylish in its directorial set-pieces and comes with an often outrageous sexual pathology
Steven Spielberg and George Lucas’s homage to the adventure films of the 1940s was a huge hit in its day, spawning several sequels and many imitators. The film is pure action and adventure, delivered with enormous charm and wit
The film that made the name of Joe Dante who fills it with a barrage of werewolf movie references and in-jokes. The film’s reputation rests on an amazing mid-film effects sequence where a man transforms into a wolf
Appealingly quirky film that pays homage to the alien invaders genre of the 1950s as filtered through post-E.T. sensibilities where the invaders still live in a fifties timwarp
Psycho did not need a sequel but this does a scrupulous and exacting job, bringing back Anthony Perkins and paying a great deal of homage in many small details. The script comes with a considerable cleverness
Cannon Films make an Old Dark House film that brings together an aging Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Vincent Price and John Carradine. This denoted the end of the Anglo-horror era but is not nearly as worthy as you feel it should have been
The film about malicious creatures that was the runaway box-office hit of 1984. Director Joe Dante runs amok like a schoolboy with a chemistry kit and gleefully trashes the wholesome innocence of producer Steven Spielberg’s E.T. – The Extra-Terrestrial
Pee-Wee Herman is someone who polarises crowds to love or extreme hate. The was the first film from Tim Burton who seems charmingly attuned to the kitsch banality of Pee-Wee’s universe
Joe Dante’s successor to Gremlins and a box-office flop. This nevertheless evokes a genteel sense of wonder in its story with Ethan Hawke and River Phoenix as teen inventors who build a backyard spaceship
Alien body snatchers comedy that feels less like a film than an extended fanboy in-joke
Rather charming effort where the Famous Monsters – Dracula, the Frankenstein Monster, the Wolf Man, The Mummy, The Creature – are revived and pitted against a group of kids. The film has a great deal of affection for the originals and the encounters are delightful
Joe Dante pays homage to Fantastic Voyage, the classic film about a submarine journey through the human body. Here Dante plays it as a screwball comedy but his in-joke heavy style failed to catch on with audiences
Cult exploitation director Jesus Franco pays homage to the mad surgeon films of his heyday. Essentially one of Franco’s Dr Orloff films by way of the sadistic despatches of the giallo film
The film debut of the horror hostess Elvia (Cassandra Peterson), a good natured film containing more bimbo jokes, double entendres and bad puns than one thought possible
A film that comes with a lame premise about aliens distributing a video of a 1950s SF film that turns people into mind-controlled killers all as prelude to an invasion
Groundbreaking film that hilariously imagines an alternate world where cartoon characters live alongside humans. The energy and creativity of the film is superlative
A film about the alien invasion of a movie theatre that is screening an all-night marathon of old films. This has been constructed around clips of old 1950s sf films
Wackily funny SF musical with Jeff Goldblum, Damon Wayans and Jim Carrey as aliens who land in the San Fernando Valley. Directed by Julien Temple with a giddily effervescent silliness
This is intended as a deliberately bad parody of a 1950s SF film. It is a fairly silly effort that almost ends up being too well made for its own good to mimic the originals that weren’t even trying
A Roger Corman produced horror parody that conducts send ups of most of the horror icons of the 1980s – Freddy Krueger, Pinhead, Michael Meyers etc – without being particularly funny
A far less successful sequel to the mega-hit of Gremlins where director Joe Dante brings the gremlins to Manhattan and allows the silliness to go completely over-the-top and into orbit, even breaking the fourth wall
This was the third of the Attack of the Killer Tomatoes films. This hits an appealingly silly and wilfully ridiculous note that makes it the best of the sequels.
Todd Haynes’ first film, three stories, two of which are fantastic … Being Haynes’ first film, this is less polished than his later work but circles through familiar themes of social outsiders, gay identity and recreations of previous cinematic styles, including one segment that is a mocked-up 1940s mad scientist film
Surprisingly good modern slasher film set in a movie theatre during a festival of old horror films. The films come with surprisingly affectionate and well done recreations of old gimmick films, and the slasher sequences a more than reasonable style
One of the not-quite-rans in Woody Allen’s oeuvre, a homage to Franz Kafka and German Expressionism with Allen as a mousy clerk caught up in the hunt for a strangler
This sequel to Flesh Gordon, the R-rated parody of the Flash Gordon serials, feels like a joke that is belaboured in the retelling. The film does have a crass level of nonsensical absurdity that proves amusing
Sequel to Anthony Hickox’s Waxwork, which ups the number of horror homages but suffers a low budget
Part of the late 80s/early 90s fad for deliberately bad SF films, this has plentiful references to Plan 9 from Outer Space but little that is funny
Joe Dante film set during the Cuban Missile Crisis about a childhood in B movie fandom and with John Goodman paying homage to filmmaker William Castle
One really good killer robot film, featuring a lethal non-humanoid machine and directed with a ferociity that resembles the best of James Cameron. This has similarities to Hardware that came out earlier
B-budget director Fred Olen Ray makes an invisibility comedy with impoverished effects. Olen Ray’s usual parade of bimbos and cynical one-liners is kept under restraint and this made as a children’s film
Fred Olen Ray offers up a bimbo movie take on Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. Where the original was an early feminist parable, Olen Ray offers up a giant woman whose only motivation is wanting a bigger set of breasts
A charming Coming of Age story about kids who think they have discovered the Frankenstein monster. Comes packed with numerous genre homages and quotes
Wes Craven and scriptwriter Kevin Williamson make a witty homage to the 1980s slasher film, turning the genre on its head by having the characters perfectly aware they are in a horror film and of the genre’s cliches
Wes Craven’s Scream was a clever and witty homage to/deconstruction of the slasher film of the 1980s; for the sequel, he and Kevin Williamson naturally turn to deconstructing the slasher sequel
Rather enjoyable effort about an evil djinn that grants cursed wishes. Directed by makeup effects artist Robert Kurtzman, this has been designed to highlight various effects. Three sequels followed.
Film that seems to be trying to cram in as many exploitation elements as possible from UFOs to spree killers, zombies, Women in Prison and rock’n’roll
Robert Rodriguez directs from a script by Scream writer Kevin Williamson. This wittily deconstructs the 1950s alien body snatchers film by way of The Breakfast Club
Passable B-budget film about an alien-possessed motorcycle
Two SF fans encounter real-life idol William Shatner. A film that writes about fandom knowingly and comes with an hilarious series of in-jokes and asides. Not to mention features Shatner parodying his own image
Scream writer Kevin Williamson’s made his directorial debut with this playful thriller in which Katie Holmes and fellow students imprison a teacher who has marked down her grades
An extremely funny parody of Star Trek that sends up both the show, the actors and the fandom. A very witty and knowing script that has definitely been written by fans
This comes with the clever and uniquely original premise that asks what would happen if during the making of the 1922 Nosferatu actor Max Schreck turned out to be a real vampire
By the time of this third film and the departure of screenwriter Kevin Williamson, creativity in the Scream series seems to be flagging even though this has critic-proofed itself by calling itself a parody of a sequel
Based on an off-Broadway play, this is a drag parody of the beach party movie. It does dig into the squeaky clean image of the genre but never seems a particularly funny parody
One of the strangest film homages one has come across – an almost complete scene-for-scene remake of Jaws but with the shark substituted by a killer tree being hunted through a park by rangers
This spins the old plot about a clairvoyant dream of an airline disaster out as a teen horror film based around a series of bizarre novelty deaths. This became the first in a franchise of popular horror films.
Tim Burton’s much disliked remake. Certainly, the ape makeups are superb. While Burton touches many points with the original, he has dropped the biting satire in favour of adventure, while the ending left everyone scratching their heads
Melanie Lynskey stars in a New Zealand road movie that becomes a meta film interrogating the imagery of the American road movie
Low-budget director Fred Olen Ray makes a head-scratching crosshatch between a plague outbreak film and an Animals Amok film with a town being attacked by snakes infected with a deadly virus
The second film outing of US horror hostess Elvira, which is construed as a parody/homage to the Roger Corman-Vincent Price Edgar Allan Poe films. Everything is overrun with Elvira’s cheesy puns and double entendres
Pierce Brosnan’s final outing as James Bond lacks the sharpness of the preceding entries and is hampered by Halle Berry who is given great presence but nothing to do. Despite which this has some of the best action scenes of any Bond film
The first film from Eli Roth, which proved a solid hit, one that gets back to gore-drenched horror basics. Not quite the classic it was acclaimed but delivers the goods and with a strong dose of wryly sarcastic humour
This has the interestingly original premise of being set in a post-apocalyptic world where revived dragons have eliminated most of humanity. The show is stolen by Matthew McConaughey in wild man mode
Joe Dante makes a toon film winding in dozens of cameos from Warner Brothers cartoon characters. The results prove enormously playful and creative. Infinitely more creative and fun that the Space Jam films
The first of the sequels, this has a group receiving bizarre deaths after receiving a premonition that prevents a deadly pile-up on the highway. It reveals the problems of creating a sequel to a film that was never intended to be a series
Rob Zombie’s debut film was propelled into an infamy it didn’t deserve it was banned by its distributor. Zombie only slavishly rehashes The Texas Chain Saw Massacre with a constant posturing for shock effect that becomes tiresome
Superlative film that recreates an imagined world of 1930s retro sf filled with flyer heroes, giant robots and stunning Art Deco designs.
Stephen Sommers conducts a big-budget rehash of a 1940s Universal monster bash. A film so overloaded with CGI bombast and general overkill it becomes utterly absurd.
Reasonable low-budget revived dinosaur film with not bad CGI effects and an often witty, genre savvy script
Witty and enormously clever Japanese time travel film. This readily homages Back to the Future but has a great deal of original fun of its own creating a series of hilarious temporal conundrums. One of the most entertaining films I have seen in some time
An extraordinary example of the fan film where Finnish filmmakers created a parody of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Babylon 5, with effects that rival those of A-list studio fare made on their home computers
A remake of the silent German Expressionist classic that replicates the unique look and sets. Interesting, although it now emerges more like a film noir with artistic pretensions than the avant garde work the original was
Rob Zombie’s sequel to House of 1000 Corpses and a more polished film, probably Zombie’s best. On the other hand, Zombie’s nihilistic worldview and sympathy for the psychopaths does take one aback.
This has a bad reputation but Bryan Singer does a wonderful job in bringing Superman back to the screen in a version surprisingly reliant on the Christopher Reeve films. The superheroics soar and Kevin Spacey makes for the best screen Lex Luthor ever
The original creative team behind the Final Destination series, James Wong and Glen Morgan, return for this sequel but only provide a routine series of bizarre novelty deaths following the premonition of a rollercoaster disaster
What starts out as a seeming mockumentary about a serial killer turns into an hilarious deconstruction of the tropes and cliches of the slasher film. Imagine a film like Man Bites Dog crossbred with Scream
James Gunn directs a film about body-snatching alien slugs that proves enormous fun and comes packed to the edges with numerous genre references and homages
This was Adam Green’s homage to the Friday the 13th series that comes with the virtue of a high level of gore and a sense of humour. This was subsequently spun out to several sequels
Quentin Tarantino’s less interesting half of the Grindhouse double-bill. Tarantino makes a film about a psycho stuntman but gets sidetracked by referencing 1970s car chase movies
From Larry Blamire, a deliberately ridiculous spoof of the 1950s alien invasion film. Blamire’s dialogue and the deadpan with which everybody plays is frequently hilarious
Robert Rodriguez’s half of the Grindhouse double-bill where Rodriguez makes an hilariously tongue-in-cheek zombie film with great absurd comic energy and packed with witty cameos from various stars
Another inferior entry in the mid-00s fad remake of 70s/80s horror films. Whereas John Carpenter gave us Michael Myers as evil incarnate, Rob Zombie gives us Michael Myers as a misunderstood and unloved kid
A Pakistani copy of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Backwoods Brutality film, all served up with reasonable vigour. It is fascinating seeing the genre tropes translated between different cultures
Riding at a peak during the mid-2000s, cult director Michel Gondry made this head-scratcher where he eccentrically devotes an entire film to homemade amateur fan filmmaking – all with appealingly wacky results
Likeable film made by fans about a ninja team formed to deal with a zombie onslaught
Affectionately made road trip film about four Star Wars fans on a journey to break into Skywalker Ranch. Packed with lots of witty fannish in-jokes and cameos, this comes out as enjoyable if broad at times
Westernised homage to Wu Xia and the Shaw Brothers film with an American teen transported back to Ancient China, this has all the thrill of junior-grade martial arts tournament
A unique homage to Night of the Living Dead wherein the original has been recreated with a bewildering range of artwork and short pieces of animation from dozens of different artists, even scenes conducted by sock puppets and animated Barbie dolls
A one-gag animated film that essentially reverses the plot of E.T, and has a human astronaut stranded on a planet of aliens and adopted by one boy. More likeable than it has a right to be.
Cutley appealing DreamWorks animated film that brings together a bunch of oddball creatures clearly intended as an affectionate homage to various 1950s sf films
Homage to 1950s SF films, in particular It Came from Outer Space and The Blob, made not as a parody but as an affectionate tribute to the era with everything played seriously
An exquisitely directed homage to giallo cinema – a fascinating work that has been stripped of almost all dialogue that takes place on a purely visual level of sensation and body movement
A revival of the Nazi zombie film that comes from Norway! A hugely gore-drenched effort from Tommy Wirkola that soon plants tongue very much in cheek.
Rob Zombie’s follow-up to his Halloween remake is a better film and closer to what the previous film should have been but his approach is still based on callous brutality than John Carpenter’s eerie suspense
Science-fiction fans go time travelling in this British film that offers a good many wry fannish in-jokes mixed with a modestly clever time travel scenario
The fourth in the series of films about a series of deaths for survivors after premonition of disaster at a speedway. This is shot in 3D but the novelty death set-pieces have become preposterous