The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Hypnotism is the existing ability of one person (a hypnotist) to place another in a trance-like state. Various means are used to achieve this from patterns of light, a pendulum, being asked to stare into the hypnotist’s eyes and the ever reliable fob watch on a chain. A hypnotic state resembles sleep but where the subject is alert and extremely susceptible to commands. In such a state, the hypnotised subject can be given orders, made to believe something is happening or recall a memory before being brought out of the trance. At the end of a session, they can be told to forget what happened or commands can be implanted to be triggered at a later point.
Hypnotism is often regarded as a form of Mind Control. In genre works, Super-Villains are often outfitted with great abilities to control the minds of others and get people to unquestioningly follow their orders. There are also a number of films featuring sinister hypnotists using their abilities to nefarious purpose.
Another use of hypnotism is in stories of Reincarnation where people are regressed to where they can supposedly recall details of their previous lives. This emerged from a real world account – see The Search for Bridey Murphy (1956) – after which a fascination with past lives regression bled over into a number of genre films. Hypnotism is also used as a tool to help people recall accounts of Alien Abduction.
This live-action film version of the cult Gerry Anderson puppet series is a disaster. Great effort is made to replicate the look of the original but the film is killed by the choice to rewrite everything as a modern formula kid’s movie
The eighth and last of Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe adaptations. Some claim this tale of possession by a late wife is the best but it feels an uninspired rehash of the plot elements from Corman’s other Poe films.
Animated film based on the popular comic-books co-directed by the comic-book’s creators René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo,. This is disappointingly weak animation that substitutes slapstick cartoon gags for the comic’s more sophisticated humour
Another of Guy Maddin’s surreal kitsch films all delivered in deadpan prose, this boasts more of a name cast than usual for Maddin
George Romero and Dario Argento collaborate on an anthology, each adapting an Edgar Allan Poe tale. Either director leaves you with high expectations but the results are very mixed
An early Roger Corman film that stirs a fascinating mix of elements involving hypnotic regression, witchery, time travel and appearances from The Devil
Lionel Atwill and Fay Wray star in a film about a mad scientist conducting a series of vampire bat killings. A minor but watchable entry in the Golden Age of Horror.
This may quite possibly be the worst vampire film ever made – a children’s film about a boy and a cute vampire dog. Being a children’s film, the vampire dog is not allowed to drink blood so has to have a ravenous hunger for red jelly! The slapstick is excruciating and the film painful on every level
The third of the fifilms with Christopher Lee as the Chinese super-villain Fu Manchu and generally the point the series started to go downhill
Unremarkable and largely forgotten video release with former teen heartthrob Leif Garrett investigating appears of a mysterious figure that encourages people to suicide
One of Herschell Gordon Lewis’s splatter films about a stage magician who cuts up women on stage and real life. The film makes mind boggling plays between reality and illusion