The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Human-Animal Hybrids refer to humans that have some characteristic of an animal. This is different from Animal Transformation where humans transform into animal form, the most common of these being the werewolf. As the name suggests, hybrids exist somewhere between human and animal where it is usually a permanent condition.
Human-Animal Hybrids are common in mythology and folklore with figures such as the centaur, the faun and the various animal-headed gods of Ancient Egyptian Mythology.
The horror film features assorted hybrids created by Mad Scientists, the most notable being the Beast People created by Dr Moreau in H.G. Wells’ The Island of Dr Moreau (1896), which has been multiply filmed. The Fly (1958), featuring the merging for a human and a fly after a teleportation accident, created a brief fad for animal hybrids in the late 1950s.
Another source of hybrids is in the Superhero Film, which features various superheroes and super-villains with animal characteristics, the most well-known of these being Spider-Man.
The animated revival of the Addams Family was a mixed affair. All of the same creative personnel and voice talents return here for a sequel, which takes the Addams Family on a road trip
This is another one of Robert Rodriguez’s home made children’s films that takes off in a wackily gonzo manner. The results are uneven but often cutely appealing
B movie with Beverly Garland venturing into the swamps in search of her missing husband to find a scientist has transformed him into an alligator hybrid
The reasoning behind rebooting the Spider-Man franchise after ten years and only three films is a puzzle. That said, this offers an edgier origin story than Sam Raimi’s take and Andrew Garfield makes for a fine Spider-Man
One of the best among the modern Marvel Comics screen adaptations. All involved are at the absolute peak of their game and the balance of superheroic action, humour and tragedy makes you cheer at how well they get it right
One-gag comedy where Rob Schneider receives transplants of various animal parts and ends up exhibiting animal behaviours – usually at the most inopportune time
An award-winning and highly acclaimed French film set in a world that is affected by a series of mutations where people are transforming into animal hybrids
Poverty row cheapie with Bela Lugosi as a mad scientist transformed into an ape-man after an experiment gone wrong who goes out hunting victims for their spinal fluids with his pet gorilla
Yes, a film about an invasion by space chickens, which are represented by hand puppets. Words fail me on this one. This is painful to watch. My Worst Film of 2023.
This is more of a Suicide Squad than a Batman film. Based on the popular Arkham videogames, this a Justice League-type adventure but with super-villains where the emphasis is on dark humor and gleeful mayhem
Tsui Hark takes over the directorial reins of the sequel, filling it with much more fantastical elements, pitting the hero against a mad scientist and his mutant creations in a series of wild martial arts scenes
A conte cruel that delights in piling humiliations onto obnoxious rich kid Chris Elliott who is shanghaied aboard a ship. This comes in an absurdist vein not dissimilar to the works of producer Tim Burton
Lucio Fulci departs from the splatter genre to make a venture into the Italian sword and sorcery film of the era. As with any Fulci film, this is expectedly plotless and incoherent but with occasional moments of imagination
Larry Buchanan was a director whose output rivalled Edward D. Wood Jr in quality. This film about an expedition into the bayous encountering a mad scientist creating human-crocodile hybrids registers fairly poorly on most counts
More from the world’s cuddliest super-villain and those manic ritalin-deprived kids that are the Minions. Is there are life and creativity left in a franchise that has been milked for six films now?
A film from the heyday of the mad scientist film in which George Zucco turns an ape into a human being. Zucco is on marvellously demented form as the title doctor
One of a spate of remakes of old AIP titles conducted in 2001, this spins the original giant spider amok film out into a superhero-gone-wrong take on Spider-Man
A standout tv mini-series that updates old mad scientist clichés into the era of Jane Goodall as scientist Charles Dance creates a human/gorilla hybrid child and tries to raise it as his own son
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
Dino de Laurentiis climbed aboard the Star Wars fad with this remake of the classic serial. Against expectation, the film’s campy tone and eye-popping sets and costumes work and it has become an audience favourite
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.
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.
Sequel to the David Cronenberg remake of The Fly directed by that film’s effects creator Chris Walas. This reduces Cronenberg’s obsessive bodily transformation film into just another monster on the loose tale
Wonderfully nonsensical film directed by Alex Winter of Bill and Ted fame about the lives of a group of mutant freaks. Amazing makeup effects, a bizarre sense of humour and several well-known actors spoofing themselves
Live-action adaptation of the popular manga and anime series. Despite having a reasonable budget thrown at it and treating the source material with fathfulness, this looks awkward on the screen
A low-budget adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth. That is if you can imagine Lovecraft’s story about fish people mating with humans relocated to a California AirBNB
A throwback to the 1950s giant bug film, a humorous effort with a group of people trying to survive in the aftermath of an insect invasion. From Mel Gibson’s production company, no less!
Low-budget adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth about a town where the locals have become mutant fish people, which has been weirdly mashed up with a girls boarding school story
From on an early script by Star Trek director Nicholas Meyer, this is an entertainingly tongue-in-cheek effort where women use a serum to turn into deadly bee creatures
The second film adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel following The Island of Lost Souls. This has remade with a decent budget but the story’s primal charge has been cleaned up
A legendary cinematic train wreck filled with behind the scenes stories of fired directors and star egos. Despite all of this, this remake of the H.G. Wells novel emerges as a well made and watchable film
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
The Wachowskis set out to make a space opera adventure in the Star Wars vein. As always, the elevate every genre they take on and the film is packed with astonishing action sequences and wild, mind-expanding ideas
Ken Russell adapts a Bram Stoker novel about a snake cult. In Russell’s hand, Stoker’s serious work is turned into a campy over-the-top comedy overloaded with worm and phallic symbols
A standout Icelandic film about a couple on a rural farm who adopt a sheep-human hybrid child and treat it as their own child. With Noomi Rapace as the wife.
B-movie in which a chemical spill at a lab causes a mass murderer to turn into a giant mosquito hybrid. An efficient cobbling of cliches that comes out as a B budget variation n The Fly.
The people behind Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey deliver a horror version of the nursery rhyme. Here Mary becomes a middle-aged woman living in the woods with a hulking son who has a lamb’s head
In between the hugely successful Young Adult adaptations of the 00s/10s there has been another trail of YA adaptations that never made it beyond one film. Adapted from a YA series by crime writer James Patterson about a group of kids with wings, this is an exceedingly lacklustre production
William Cameron Menzies built a standout genre reputation with films like Things to Come and Invaders from Mars. This is a haunted house film, albeit with an ending that goes into WTF territory. Menzies was also a production designer and his films come with a design scheme superbly attuned to the mood of the film
A Danish black comedy where the humour is delivered in perfect pitch deadpan. Imagine a version of The Island of Dr Moreau as directed by Giorgos Lanthimos of Dogtooth and The Lobster fame
Sony’s attempts to wring everything possible from the Spider-Man copyright in order to compete with the MCU continue with this film devoted to the Spider-Man vampire villain
One of several horror films based around Mickey Mouse now that the character has entered into public domain. Here Mickey Mouse is a half-human hybrid slaughtering victims at a deserted fairground
The first film from Jim Mickle, a tense and effective horror work about the residents of an apartment building under siege from rat-human hybrids
Sequel to the 1999 The Mummy. Here Stephen Sommers amplifies everything in that film by a factor of ten where the constant bombardment by the spectacular reaches an point of absurd overkill
A Mexican film about a scientist who turns his son into an ape man that goes amok. A 1940s mad scientist film with the addition of modern exploitation elements. Listed as a Video Nasty in the UK.
A very strange Japanese-made blend of fairytale and detective story that takes place in the realm of fairytale where Little Red Riding Hood turns detective to solve a murder at Cinderella’s ball
Gonzo killer shark film that gets full marks for an entertainingly ridiculous title but is real bad movie material on all accounts
A film about a teleportation experiment that has the unforeseen effect of turning men into woman and then into human-alligator hybrids. We are in extremely bad movie stakes here
The first of the sequels to the original The Fly where the scientist’s son begins his own experiments
A British entry in the 1980s splatter comedy. An aimless comedy about idiotic hayseed yokels with occasional moments of bloodletting and a half-human, half-goat creature running about
The Mexican masked wrestler superhero Santo faces Frankenstein’s daughter who wants his blood to perfect her rejuvenation serum in this entertainingly madcap outing
A Gonzo Killer Shark film about a social media influencer bitten by a radioactive shark who becomes a shark-human hybrid
Another gonzo killer shark film from The Asylum, makers of Sharknado films, this features the entertaining absurdity of evolved humanoid Soviet sharks living on the Moon
Third of the Sharktopus films from Roger Corman, an entry in the series that is making no longer making any effort to take itself seriously
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
This directorial debut for rapper Boots Riley is a very funny satire on telemarketing that becomes increasingly more surreal as it goes on. Imagine something like Spike Lee around the point of Do the Right Thing mixed with the absurdist humour of Kurt Vonnegut
Mel Brooks parodies the Star Wars films. As with most Brooks films, the humour is broad and scattershot but occasionally amusing
The first big screen incarnation of the Marvel Comics character, the theatrically released pilot for a dreary tv series starring Nicholas Hammond that stripped Spider-Man down to being no more than a superpowered detective in a tv cop show
A huge hit and one of the key influences that created the box-office dominance of Marvel Comics in the 2000s/10s. A fine incarnation of the comic-book, Sam Raimi brings it to life with exhilarating web-slinging scenes but overdoes the winsome innocence of Peter Parker
Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire get it just right in the second entry in their trilogy of Spider-Man films. The writing team deliver a fantastic Soul of the Superhero script while Raimi delivers some superheroic action sequences that are about as exciting as it is possible to get (*)
Last and by general opinion the least of the Sam Raimi-Tobey Maguire Spider-Man films. With three super-villains present, the plot feels as though it is bursting at the seams juggling the various origin stories and ongoing dramas, although Raimi still delivers some solid superheroic action scenes
Sony’s reboot of the Spider-Man franchise bursts with a freshness and creative energy. This is also a Spider-Man that has integrated with the MCU with the script kowtowing to Marvel at every point
Sony’s Spider-Man franchise ingeniously competes with Marvel’s shared universe by bringing all their previous incarnations of Spider-Man together
The third and last of the theatrically released films recut from the 1970s live-action Spider-Man tv series. The near sleep-inducing plot takes Nicholas Hammond’s Spider-Man to Hong Kong
This team-up of C-list DC super-villains proved a surprise hit. The script is all over the place but Margot Robbie owns the screen as the gleefully insane Kewpie Doll gone wrong Harley Quinn
A DC Universe Original Animated Movie given over to Suicide Squad. Clearly inspired by the live-action film, this goes overboard on the super-villains present, having three entire teams running around to general confusion, while striking a very odd tone in its pitch for an R-rating
This is poorly regarded by fans of the original cult comic-book, nevertheless has a zany, anarchic energy and surreal sense of humour that is hard to dislike
Takashi Miike delivers a completely madcap film about evolved cockroaches on Mars being fought by astronauts who take doses of mutagenic serum to give them insect-based super-powers
This has the distinction of being the film that started off the Filipino exploitation industry. A fairly blatant copy of H.G. Wells’s The Island of Dr Moreau, it is mostly routine
Melissa McCarthy, along with Octavia Spencer as her best friend, is a comic screw-up who obtain superpowers
Poorly made psycho-sexual thriller where Richard Grieco becomes a predator after getting an injection of feline DNA
Filipino exploitation film from the director of Blood Island films, an uncredited adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The Island of Dr Moreau about a mad scientist creating beast people
Seventh of the V/H/S Found Footage horror anthologies, this is one of the best with a number of the episodes venturing into SF and others that feature some genuinely outlandish moments
Robert Rodriguez appears to have gotten the oversized non-event that was Alita: Battle Angel out of his system by making another of his seat of the pants home movies – this is less Spy Kids than Superhero Kids – and brings back one element Alita forgot, a sense of fun
Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey offered a horror version of the much loved children’s character. This is more of the same with a bigger budget
A film that comes with such a level of psychotronic dementia that it may seriously damage your sanity concerning the relationship between a man and his pet worms
A bad movie classic about a scientist turning himself into a fish monster and trying to get fish to walk and take over the Earth. Filled with prize bad movie writing, laughable effects and a ridiculously cheesy monster suit
Gonzo killer animal and zombie films have been hugely popular in recent years – it was probably inevitable they meet. This comes with the deliriously ridiculous image of zombified human-beaver hybrids on the attack