The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
A ghost is a person whose spirit continues to live on following death in non-corporeal and insubstantial form (as opposed to other more physical forms of undead such as vampires and zombies). Hauntings refers to ghostly phenomena – films featuring ghosts and/or haunted houses and other places.
A common plot in a many ghosts stories is of the living investigating a haunted place to find who the ghost was and achieving a form of exorcism by aiding them in complete their Unfinished Business and depart.
The haunted house is a long-standing tradition and concerns the investigation of a large old gloomy mansions. More modern variants have tried numerous other form of dwelling from suburban houses to hotels, supermarkets, ships and submarines.
There is the misconception that the ghost story and haunted house film originated in the 1930s. The first Hollywood effort was not until well into the 1940s and the genre did not fully develop until the 1950s/60s, reaching a peak in the 1970s.
The 1980s brought the introduction of visual and makeup effects. The 1990s/2000s introduced the Found Footage investigation of the haunted house. In the 2000s onwards, the ghost story has become so prolific that it is rare to find efforts that stand out from the formula and cliches.
There is also the Asian ghost story – see Asian Horror – where hauntings tend to be less centred around dwellings and more about personal vengeance and the grievances.
The depiction of ghost stories is so numerous that this topic has been split between actual ghost stories (here) and those that depict ghosts in a comedic or other vein – for which see Ghosts in Light Fantasy
Another remake we never asked for. Considering that this had the entire CGI revolution to conceive of the afterlife journey and merely has to top Joel Schumacher, it is amazing how dull and uninteresting this emerges as
There is a heap of crappy low-budget killer clown films. However, I couldn’t quite bring myself to entirely dislike this entry about a supernatural killer clown, which does produce a number of jumps
Paco Plaza has become one of the premiere names in Spanish horror due to the [Rec] films. Here he attempts to follow in the footsteps of The Conjuring with a film based on a supposedly true supernatural incident in 90s Madrid but fails to make a terribly interesting work
Film that takes place with the heroine confined to a hospital bed unable to move as a malevolent ghost enters her room
A horror film that was the biggest box-office hit ever in Indonesia as a family tragedy stirs up hauntings and the occult. A follow-up to an earlier 1970s film that has become a cult hit.
The best film that Blumhouse have produced to date. A ghost story as much as it becomes a relationship drama of incredibly authentic emotion that is beautifully made
The question you ask going in is after seven Japanese films and a tv series, a Korean film and two previous English-language films, what is left for filmmakers to wring out a third American The Ring film? The answer seems to be not much – just a rehash of the basics for the 18-25 crowd
I was intrigued a few years ago about whether such a thing as the Islamic horror film existed and shortly after we had A Girl Walks Alone at Night. This could be considered an Iranian version of The Babadook and is a spooky and well made show about a woman slowly descending into fear and superstition
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
An absolutely hilarious parody of the Found Footage film about a film crew trying to conduct a shoot in a haunted house. This comes with mind-spinning levels of meta-fiction
Found Footage horror that unimaginatively rehashes The Blair Witch Project with a trio of people equipped with videocameras wandering around a supposedly haunted forest in Romania
Comedy about a man with ghosts in his home who invites in a so-called ‘ghost assassin’ before it becomes increasingly apparent he is completely nuts. Less a horror comedy than an eccentric bromance gone wrong
The Blair Witch Project was genuinely innovative. It is a surprise that we never saw a string of sequels. Adam Wingard finally does here but at a time when the Found Footage genre feels played out of moves
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
The haunted house film is a genre that has been mined to a point of almost complete creative exhaustion. This Kate Beckinsale starring effort is about as formulaic, by the book and forgettable as the genre gets
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
Film about Japan’s legendary Suicide Forest that comes rich in a sense of original mythology. All possibilities are wrung out by incredibly tepid direction that fails to deliver anything remotely scary
One of the best and most original ghost stories in some time, a mini-series for the BBC set in the 1890s, this does remarkable things in entirely turning the genre on its head
Haunted house story that is not substantially different from the 7000 on this site. This has some novel twists in that it focuses on an old man afraid to go out of doors who appears to open up a supernatural doorway as he sleeps
This seems to be shaping up to be another entry in the over-saturated low-budget haunted house film. While never straying too far from this, this does throw in some interestingly strange twists
The James Wan produced (as opposed to directed) film is a dubious prospect. You cannot deny that this film about creatures in the dark does make an audience jump but I felt that I’d seen everything before
Adaptation of a story fragment that Edgar Allan Poe left unfinished upon his death. The original (only two pages long) gives little more than a setting but this builds out into an okay period ghost story
A ghost story directed by Osgood Perkins. Essentially a two-person show where all the atmosphere is provided by haunting voicover narration but this has undeniable effect
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
From the director of The Last Exorcism Part II, a title that does nothing to suggest a horror film. All we get is a ghost story that does an M. Night Shyamalan shift into an improbably contrived fugue state drama
Completely ridiculous killer clown film with a theatre haunted by clowns where nothing makes any sense. Even more absurdly, it becomes a preachy diatribe in favour of the right to gun ownership
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
An undistinguished low-budget haunted house effort that was quickly retitled to jump aboard the bandwagon of James Wan’s The Conjuring films
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
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
The intriguing idea of a haunted radio signal. A ghost story that does something different telling an ambitious double-stranded story even if it fails to pull it off with complete satisfaction
South Korean horror film that generates a more than effectively creepy atmosphere. The downside is that you reached the end of the show with no clear idea what is going on and why things are happening
Greg McLean has made an impressive name with the Wolf Creek films and Rogue. In his first US film, he delivers a disappointing and utterly generic haunted suburban house film
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
This feels like mostly a series of horror tropes – ghost hunters with cameras in an abandoned building, backwoods occultists wanting the heroine’s baby – shuffled without originality
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
This has a great premise – a camera crew revisiting the site of a cult mass suicide stir up the ghosts of the cult members – and a director who I always maintained had much untapped potential. Alas, the finished result seems to slip by his hands
If you want a genuinely scary spook show that will make you jump out of your seat, you would not go wrong with this. On the other hand, the Conjuring films with their claims to true stories of peddle superstition and fabricate most of their so-called facts
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
Darren Lynn Bousman is the director most associated with the Saw sequels and its Torture Porn excesses. His other films have been lacking. This comes with one of the most off the wall premises one has seen
A film that creates a genuinely haunted mood, something that is aided immensely by an amazing location and some fine, well developed characterisation between the two principals
Though this received a reasonably high-profile release from Blumhouse, it transpires as no more than a Found Footage film about the haunting of a high-school play
Beautifully made Australian ghost story that creates a strong sense of eerie disquiet as psychologist Adrien Brody realises that all of his patients are dead and is prompted to go on a journey to uncover forgotten things from his past
A haunted house film from Andrew Jones, who makes an okay but very low key film – the spookiest it ever gets is a phantom record player. Things are lifted by a modest M. Shyamalan-esque twist
An anthology of Halloween-themed horror tales, all from different genre directors, including some interesting high-profile names. The results are uneven with the film providing a couple of amusing segments but nothing truly standout
This doesn’t have James Wan directing and is a far less interesting ghost story before doing a repeat venture into the beyond. On the plus side, incoming director Leigh Whannell does generate a fair degree of eerie tension
Any Found Footage film about people venturing into a haunted forest cannot help but draw comparison to the progenitor of the genre, The Blair Witch Project. This comes up with some sufficiently original twists and spooky moments, even if it is eventually unbuckled by its pretensions
This sold itself as the first Iraqi horror film, which it isn’t quite (more accurately a film made by an expatriate), although it is rooted in the mythology of the region
Guillermo Del Toro takes on the Victorian ghost story. What we get is the most gorgeously designed and costumed haunted house film ever but where the excess scenography actually distracts from producing any boo moment
Friends on Springbreak break down after taking a detour where they encounter creepy towtruck driver Tom Sizemore and drunkenly summon the spirit of a murdered woman
This seems a generic ghost story. The second half has the protagonist’s dead girlfriend trying to stop him seeing another woman and becomes a descent into obsession that works rather well
It has become an overused phrase in this site’s critical arsenal to say “yet another 70s/80s remake that is inferior to the original”. The 1982 Poltergeist was one of the great ghost stories of the era; this hits all the beats and with bigger effects but fails to find any of the haunted mood of the original
James Wan has an exemplary track record in one’s opinion, you think this would extend to anything he produces. Here all we get are series of tired haunted house cliches before a twist ending that makes no real sense
This gives all appearance to being another copy of Insidious – a ghost story with an evil-sounding adjective for a title. The film settles in in predictable ways; then throws the ghost story angle on its head with a surprise SF twist
Solidly atmospheric effort concerning a middle-aged couple who buy a house with sinister forces lurking in the basement. This builds to an admirably gore-drenched climax
A ghost story that is directed by a married couple who shoot the film in their own apartment and also play a family as they start to be affected by a malign presence
The haunted house genre has become so overused t feels mined out of original moves. Despite a better cast line-up, this follows all the familiar paths, even if it arrives at a quite different ending
New Zealand-made film about a trio of parapsychologists investigating a reputedly haunted farmhouse. This treads very familiar ground and ultimately suffers from a sedate approach
A bafflingly incoherent effort – quite what it is about I am at a loss to explain. The sole distinction it has that it was repackaged from its anonymous original title to market it on the tail of Blumhouse’s Ouija: Origin of Evil despite the fact an ouija board only briefly features at the start
For supposedly the Paranormal Activity series final entry, this offer the novelty of the first Found Footage film in 3D – a gimmick that signals the series is out of fresh ideas. Moreover, the series’ look via watching security cameras has been de-emphasised in favour of another CGI driven ghost story
The second-to-last film from legendary Z-budget filmmaker Ted V. Mikels. The title is a misnomer and the film is more about a woman discovering her abilities as a medium. Despite having been making films since the 1960s, Mikels has improved none in quality
One of the films from the most promising Mickey Keating. Darling owes a great deal of debt to Roman Polanski’s Repulsion but Keating very effectively drags us into a disturbed mental space
Troubled teenager is sent to a reform camp only to find he has raised a force that is exacting brutal vengeance against his bullies. This feels like one of the underdog gets supernatural comeuppance films that we had after Carrie but is rather well made on all fronts
The original had some undeniably effective jumps but suffered from a lack of explanatory rationale but this makes for a shaky house of cards when the same arbitrary happenings are extended for a sequel
Director Paul Solet made an incredibly creepy debut film Grace. His follow-up has Keir Gilchrist imprisoned on home detention with an ankle bracelet only to find the house is haunted
The Enfield Haunting is a supposedly true-life haunting that most audiences are familiar with from The Conjuring 2; this is an earlier tv mini-series treatment that offers a more realistically grounded telling
One out of some thirty odd films using the Amityville name. This concerns a girl who inherits a haunted theatre in the town of Amityville
A ghost story from Studio Ghibli – although rather than any Western equivalent that sets out to scare the pants off us, this is a sweetly tender story of friendship between two girls. The result more than capably approaches some of Hayao Miyazaki’s best
A sequel to the 2012 ghost story from the revived Hammer Films, this adds precisely nothing to the original, has nothing to say and nothing in its directorial arsenal that is not a tiresomely over-cliched jump – you just ask, why was this film even made?
Film about ghosthunters investigating a reputedly haunted California winery. The scares are about as generic and forgettable as they come, although the end takes a very strange left field turn
An NZ-made haunted house comedy that runs through a frenzied array of genre plot devices, a couple of minor jumps and some easy middle-of-the-road laughs leaving you feeling there should have been more to it
Nick Willing is a genre director who has consistently impressed. Here he ventures into the English ghost story where your expectation is that he is going to turn the genre on its head – only he doesn’t
Sequel to the hit multi-director anthology has a less high-profile line-up of directors, nor hits the astonishingly perverse heights of its predecessor. As always some entries never do much but the film finds its stride in the last few episodes
From the director of Excision, another film that satirically digs its claws into middle-class values but there is the feeling we have seen all of this before and the film fails to provide anything funny. Added to this is a barely scary ghost plot the film occasionally remembers to get back to
This starts out as a haunted house film then veers off to become a possession story. A tepid effort filled with by-the-numbers jumps that bites off a far more ambitious twist ending than it is capable of adequately delivering
Another version of the popular figure from Japanese urban legend, which has appeared in a number of films. This is an anthology where four Japanese directors have come to L.A. to shoot a series of strictly average short horror tales, not all of which feature the Slit Mouth Woman
A ghost story that borrows quite a few touches from Assault on Precinct 13 in its tale of a haunted police station. Director Anthony DiBlasi spends his time on accumulating atmosphere with considerable effectiveness
Ghost story from one of the directors of the Saw sequels that settles in with halfway reasonable build-up, before being killed off by an improbable left field twist ending
Bollywood remake of a ghost story that comes with one of the cleverer M. Night Shyamalan conceptual reversal twists
Ghost story that does an effective job of generating dread and eerieness while also existing in a place that leaves you unsure whether it is all not just occurring inside the lead character’s fraying sanity
Blumhouse horror film based around the Parker Brothers boardgame. Modern multiplex horror films don’t come more generic than this. On the other hand, you cannot deny that debuting director Stiles White creates some occasionally quite spooky moments, it’s just that the rest of the show comes entirely by the numbers
The most sustained film Takashi Miike has made in some time. In this case, he adapts Yotsuya Kaidan, the most famous of all Japanese ghost stories, which has been filmed multiple times, but rather than offer a straight telling also adds a layer where the story comes to replay itself among the actors in the play
The Pact was a modest and rather effective ghost story about a serial killer hiding inside the walls of a house. This seems to be straining to find some way to justify any relevance a sequel – for one, where do you go with the premise? Another killer hiding inside a different family home?
The tenth of the Japanese Ju-on/The Grudge series. Newcomer Masayuki Ochiai has some effective touches but the series is running out of original moves
A film about three American girls who are haunted by a vengeful child spirit while in Thailand. Another post-Insidious film that uses a sinister adjective as title
A modern ghost story that aims for a slow, delicate atmosphere. Noble ambitions but what we end up with is a film that fails to produce any boo moment that makes us leap out of our seats
A cabin in the woods horror made with an ineptitude of execution. This sets out to rip off The Evil Dead but becomes one shock effect after another that runs into an incomprehensible mass like a bad nightmare
The Brothers Dowdle made the standout The Poughkeepsie Tapes but this is a sub-Da Vinci Code archaeological mystery that is little more than a Halloween haunted house attraction in the Paris catacombs
James Wan proves himself one of the finest directors in the horror genre with this sequel to his 2010 film. The plot is trimmed to deliver an effective scare show and Wan again produces a series of eerie and unworldly jumps
New Zealand director David Blyth directs a ghost story that draws on Chinese supernatural. Blyth seems to be straining to generate anything vaguely spooky
Sequel to the modest success of V/H/S, an anthology of short Found Footage horror films featuring a different line-up of genre directors. The episodes are competent at best, none standout and mostly forgettable
Hideo Nakata will always be known as the director of the original Ring. Here he revisits the kaidan eiga in the story of a haunted apartment but the show falls apart after a confusing Sixth Sense-type twist mid-film
Supposedly based on a true story. A film that feels written entirely by cliches taken from every other haunting and exorcism film, but you cannot deny that director James Wan generates a more than fair degree of spooky atmosphere
Marlon Wayans treads the same territory as the Scary Movie films in this parody take on Paranormal Activity. Most of the film is pitched as a series of crude lowest common denominator gags
Horror film where a group of people end up at an abandoned motel where the secrets they have are turned back on them
Vincenzo Natali tackles the ghost story, turning everything on its head in a series of mind-boggling twists. One of the few post-Sixth Sense films to take the film’s big twist as its starting point and build from there
Another supposedly based on a true story ghost story, although the absurdity of plotting makes this a nonsense. The film quickly slides to the irredeemably banal without a single spooky moment
The Haunting in Connecticut was a reasonable success in the claim to being a true story ghost story stakes. This is a sequel, seemingly unaware that Connecticut and Georgia are about a thousand miles apart
A film that sat on the shelf and was then retitled to capitalise on the release of the Poltergeist remake despite featuring no poltergeists … A routine run through the well and truly worn modern ghost story cliches with no originality and little atmosphere
The Found Footage horror film quickly became worn out. However, this effort about the investigation into a haunted church in the English countryside manages to generate some quite reasonable atmosphere