The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Hinduism is one the primary religions of India and is considered the oldest religion in the world. It comes with a series of rituals of worship, festival, clothing and pilgrimage (which can vary greatly between region and factions), a belief in Reincarnation and non-meat eating.
Hinduism has a complex series of creation myths and a godhead that is made up of the Trimurti of personalities – Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver and Shiva the destroyer. Underneath this are a number of other gods, the most popular of which to Westerners is the goddess Kali, who is often portrayed as a force of evil.
Outside of Bollywood Cinema, which as a rule rarely delves into matters religious, Western cinema remains woefully ignorant of Hinduism as a religious/cultural tradition, instead resorting to cliches of yogic masters and obscure traditions, snake charmers, personifications of Kali or snake goddesses and thuggee cults.
Perhaps the concepts from Hinduism that have filtered through into modern use are the idea of the avatar (in actuality a manifestation of godhead) and the practice of yoga.
Taking a leaf from The Wachowskis with The Animatrix, DC went to Japan and hired a bunch of anime directors to deliver an anthology of six different animated Batman stories
Adaptation of a Lord Dunsany story, this has an appealingly eccentricity – a film told as a series of after dinner conversations about a man recalling his past life as a dog – that works with winning charms
Little seen Merchant Ivory film directed by Nicholas Meyer set during the British Raj in India with Pierce Brosnan as a British officer who goes undercover to investigate the Thuggee cults
Latter day Anglo-horror film from Freddie Francis that assembles many Hammer regulars in a story where Peter Cushing keeps a cannibalistic son on his country estate
The second of Ray Harryhausen’s Sinbad films, an Arabian Nights adventure. Made as a vehicle for Harryhausen’s stop-motion effects, which are stunning. Everything about the film is classic
After the success of The Beatles film A Hard Day’s Night, The Fab Four were quickly packaged in this follow-up. The free-wheeling amiability of that film has become a surreal plotless absurdity where nothing seems too silly
David Lynch’s daughter Jennifer is a much better director than she is given recognition for. She disowned this work about a snake goddess taken on human form nevertheless creates a film that is equal parts lushly sensual and madcap lunacy
Steven Spielberg and George Lucas’s first sequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark is like a single 118 minute rollercoaster ride without let-up in terms of action, although is far less polished in the scripting department
A US-made film from an East Indian director who draws on his cultural background in the story of a girl haunted by a demon from Hindu myth
A fairly blatant copy of Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book stories – even more so of the then recent 1994 live-action Disney remake – all having been conducted on a B-budget
An epic Indian-made film based around the foundation text of Hinduism, concerning the saga of two warring and the intercession of the gods in these matters
Entertaining and quite well made potboiler with Bela Lugosi and Lionel Atwill skulking around a big old mansion as someone or thing starts killing people off
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
A Bollywood venture into science-fiction that does a reasonably impressive job of trying to mount CGI superheroics … on the other hand, the plot deals in simplistic black-and-whites and draws on models of SF two decades out of date
The first film from Oliver Stone and a head-scratching puzzle as a writer is haunted by various supernatural figures from out of his imagination
Erotic horror film made by Playboy where Kim Delaney is possessed by an incarnation of Kali
The second of Amicus Films’ adaptations from EC Comics, a follow-up to their earlier Tales from the Crypt and one of their weaker horror anthologies with the episodes much more variable in overall quality