Project Shadowchaser III (1995)
Shapechanging Killer Android
Third in the series about android terrorists, this is now about an amok android on a spaceship
Machines Amok
Machines Amok refers to any kind of machine that rebels against humanity. Machines can be anything from Robots and Androids, Artificial Intelligences and Super-Computers, to vehicles (see Fantastical Vehicles) and even tv sets, home appliances and killer lawnmowers.
Frequently, a machine developing Artificial Intelligence and the ability to think for itself is a cause for it to go amok. In other cases, it is a programming error, a simple accident or an outside force like a lightning bolt, sabotage or alien influence.
Machine rebellion can range from all-out war with machines seeking to exterminate humanity, their wanting freedom from being treated as a slave class to them developing a personality and seeking to lead their own lives. In the horror genre, we have a number of malevolent or possessed vehicles and appliances.
Pulse (1988)
Malevolent Electrical Appliances
Modest and underrated film where the electrics all around start conspiring against people with murderous intent
R.O.T.O.R. (1988)
Android Cop Amok
An astoundingly bad low-budget RoboCop copy about an android motorcycle cop that goes amok
The Refrigerator (1991)
Possessed Refrigerator
A film about a possessed refrigerator!
Resident Evil (2002)
Videogame Adaptation/Lab Complex of Zombies
Based on the survival horror videogame, this was the first in a surprisingly popular series of films. It also presaged a major return of the zombie film during the 2000s/10s, even if this only treads where George Romero went better before
Resident Evil: Extinction (2007)
Videogame Adaptation/Post-Holocaust Zombies
Third of the Resident Evil films. This expands the scale of action to show the entire world destroyed by the virus but for all that and a decent budget, director Russell Mulcahy fails to push the elements to a suitable head of steam
Resident Evil: Retribution (2012)
Videogame Adaptation/Complex of Zombies and Mutants
Another unnecessary entry in a creativity-handicapped series, the continuing popularity of which is baffles. This shuffles through the familiar moves, brings back several familiar characters but only leaves me asking why I have invested some nine hours of time following this series
Robot Carnival (1987)
Anime Anthology of Robot Tales
One of the earliest works from Katsuhiro Otomo, the cult director of Akira, although he only contributes one episode to an anthology of anime tales with the common theme of robots. The collection contains some impressive and visually striking episodes
Robot Overlords (2014)
Earth After Invasion by Alien Machines
While the title sounds like a cheesy faux B movie, this a surprisingly serious work. Taking undeniable influence from tv’s The Tripods , it is a YA work about the fight to free Earth following a machine invasion that proves far more entertaining than anything one expects of it
Robot Revolution (2015)
Nanoswarm Amok in an Apartment Building
Micro-budgeted SF film where a nanoswarm is accidentally released, taking over an apartment building and reprogramming technology
Robotapocalypse (2021)
The Machine Revolution
Rather entertaining film from The Asylum about the machine revolution that overspills with madcap technological invention
Robowar (1988)
Amok Cyborg
From Italy, a blatant copy of Predator – only where instead of a military unit being hunted through the jungle by an alien, they are hunted by a copycat of RoboCop
Rogue Warrior, Robot Fighter (2016)
The Machine Revolution/Space Opera
A pneumatically inflated heroine fights the machines amid a standard array of space opera and post-apocalyptic future tropes
Roujin Z (1991)
Anime/Rampaging Hospital Bed
Katsuhiro Otomo written anime that functions as a parody of the school of Transformer robots as the artificially intelligent hospital bed of a geriatric becomes a giant ramshackle colossus rampaging through the city
Runaway (1984)
Police Amok-Robot Squad
Michael Crichton’s books and films are always run through with a fear of technology run amok. Here Crichton makes an enjoyably straightforward directorial outing about a police squad set up to stop runaway robots,
Saturn 3 (1980)
Robot Amok
Ambitious if not entirely successful film with Harvey Keitel building a robot that proceeds to go amok on a moonbase inhabited by Kirk Douglas and Farrah Fawcett
Screamers (1995)
Evolved Androids/Planetary Journey/Philip K. Dick Adaptation
Modest and underrated Philip K. Dick adaptation that builds reasonable atmosphere during its journey across a planet and doubt as to who among the party might be one of a breed of evolving androids
Screamers: The Hunting (2009)
Evolved Androids/Planetary Survival
Disappointing sequel to the modest original that does little but revisit and re-run the first film’s scenario with little to add to it
The Shaft (2001)
Killer Elevator
The English-language remake of the Dutch film The Lift about a killer elevator. Starring a then unknown Naomi Watts in a role that would probably embarrass her now
Simulant (2023)
Rogue Androids
Another in the spate of recent A.I. films of the 2010s/20s. Here one can buy android replacements for one’s late spouse but someone is hacking and causing them to go rogue
Singularity (2017)
Giant Robots Obliterate Humanity
John Cusack as a super-villain unleashing an army of giant robots against humanity – what’s not to like? Well maybe the entire film, which fails to leave no Machines Amok cliche unturned. Cusack gives a performance through gritted teeth no doubt at the atrocious dialogue he has to utter
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004)
Retro SF Adventure/Flying Ace Hero
Superlative film that recreates an imagined world of 1930s retro sf filled with flyer heroes, giant robots and stunning Art Deco designs.
Spider-Man 2 (2004)
Comic-Book Superhero
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 (*)
Star Trek – The Motion Picture (1979)
AI Encounter
Long-awaited revival of the tv series on the big screen. While this has a mixed fan reception, it is well worth re-evaluation. It is the only one of the Trek films that reaches for epic, mind-expanding places to find something of a 2001: A Space Odyssey
Stealth (2005)
Artifically Intelligent Fighter Plane Amok
Action film about an artificially intelligent fighter plane that goes amok. Rob Cohen directs in all the cliches of the genre and the seeming need to have something spectacular happening every few minutes
Subservience (2024)
Robot Nanny Amok
Another android gone amok film with former sex symbol Megan Fox cast as an android nanny who starts defying her programming
Summer Wars (2009)
Anime/Amok A.I./Family Saga
Beautifully made Mamoru Hosoda film about a rogue A.I. taking over a social media network. A film that is also a heartwarming work about family togetherness
Superintelligence (2020)
Artificial Intelligence Comedy
We have had some standout A.I. films in the last few years. This is comedy variant where Melissa McCarthy is befriended by an A.I. who adopts the voice of James Corden
Superman III (1983)
Comic-Book Superhero
The nadir of the Christopher Reeve Superman films, one where the desire to add a comedy element in the form of Richard Pryor overtakes and wrecks what is already a random and unfocused plot
T.I.M. (2023)
Android Stalker
We have had a spate of films in the last few years about androids and A.I. This has to count as the first film about an android stalker
The Terminator (1984)
Time-Travelling Killer Android
One of the 2-3 most influential SF films since 1980. James Cameron creates a barrelling powerhouse of a film, all lorded over by Arnold Schwarzenegger as the relentless killer machine in the role that defined his career
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
Time-Travelling Killer Androids
The first sequel to The Terminator where James Cameron returns with the biggest budget for a film at the time. Cameron harnesses then top-drawer CGI technology to create one of the most original nemeses in any SF film
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)
Time-Travelling Killer Androids
After the highs of James Cameron’s first two Terminator films, this was a crashing disappointment. Schwarzenegger is back but his performance has become self-parody and the uninspired action sequences are accompanied by some terrible effects
Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)
Time-Travelling Killer Androids
The sixth Terminator film that boasts the return of both James Cameron and Linda Hamilton to the franchise. After the troughs of Terminator: Genisys, this makes one forget about the last three sequels
Terminator Genisys (2015)
Time-Travelling Killer Androids
A hodgepodge of competing elements – an aging Arnold Schwarzenegger, a soft reboot, alternate timelines, reintroduction of the familiar, twists to the familiar – that make no sense on a narrative level, least of all come anywhere near what James Cameron delivered back in the first two films
Terminator Salvation (2009)
War Against the Machines
The fourth Terminator film is slightly better than you would expect of something directed by the empty-headed McG. There are some undeniably spectacular action sequences, although the film still stands too much in the shadow of what has gone before
Tetsuo II: Body Hammer (1992)
Man-Machine Fusion
Shinya Tsukamoto makes a better budgeted sequel to his breakthrough hit. The first film was a masterpiece of guerilla filmmaking but the same frenzied fetishism is missing here
Tetsuo: The Bullet Man (2009)
Man-Machine Fusion
Shinya Tsukamoto’s third Tetsuo film is a disappointingly commercial concession that waters down all of the surrealism and wild sexual fetishism that made the first film so amazing
Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989)
Man-Machine Fusion
Extraordinary directorial debut from Japan’s Shinya Tsukamoto, a frenetic, fetishistic and surreally deranged vision of man-machine fusion that feels like David Lynch having gone away and done a crash reading course of William Gibson
Transcendence (2014)
Scientist's Mind Uploaded Into a Machine
A film that bites off some Big Ideas from the transhumanist movement – A.I., nanotechnology, and especially Mind Upload – and fails to do anything with them except for reach for hoary cliches of Frankenstein science. A film that, despite its self-importance, ends up as only a better budgeted version of The Lawnmower Man
Transmorphers: Fall of Man (2009)
Asylum Mockbuster/Alien Robot Invasion
Transmorphers was The Asylum’s mockbuster copy of Michael Bay’s Transformers and one of their better films. When Bay released his sequel Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, The Asylum also made this prequel
Tron (1982)
Journey into Cyberspace
A flop in its day, nobody at the time saw how revolutionary this was in that it predicted the idea of cyberspace and the internet. The design of the world inside the computer all in candy apple colours and geometric shapes is extraordinary
Tron Ares (2025)
Adventures in Cyberspace
Tron was a genuinely groundbreaking work. It is hard to describe how ill conceived this sequel is where we have gone to predicting the idea of cyberspace to a fight over a glorified 3D printer
Tron Legacy (2010)
Adventures in Cyberspace
Tron was a groundreaking work that predicted the advent of cyberspace. Three decades on, this sequel never does anything as imaginative, although advances in effects technology allow for a dazzling reinvention of The Grid
Trucks (1997)
Vehicles Amok/Stephen King Adaptation
Remake of the same Stephen King short story that formed the basis of Maximum Overdrive about trucks turning against humanity … Why remake a work that was poorly regarded first time around is a good question but this actually emerges as the better version
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Stargate/Amok AI/Human Evolution/Space Mission
The greatest science-fiction film ever made? Stanley Kubrick goes against all convention – the film is slow, has no clear story and reaches an enigmatic ending and yet it is a work of brilliance, both visually and in terms of effects technology
The Twonky (1953)
Possessed TV Set from the Future Comedy
Arch Oboler makes this madcap comic where milquetoast Hans Conreid’s life is turned upside down when his tv set becomes possessed by a mischief-making robot from the future
Universal Soldier: The Return (1999)
Undead Super-Soldiers/Action
Sequel to Roland Emmerich’s Universal Soldier, this brings back Jean-Claude Van Damme but otherwise substitutes a brain dead plot that has him facing an evil A.I.
V/H/S/Beyond (2024)
Anthology of Found Footage Horror Tales
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
The Vindicator (1986)
Killer Cyborg
Canadian film about a man rebuilt inside a cyborg body. What started as a Frankenstein film is turned into a copy of The Terminator
Virtual Combat (1995)
Virtual Characters Come to Life/Action
Completely ridiculous martial arts SF film with Don ‘The Dragon’ Wilson as a future cop fighting a videogame character incarnated in the real world
Virtual Girl (1998)
Virtual Sex Program Amok
One of the numerous Virtual Reality films to come out in the mid-90s, this seems undecided whether it wants to be an SF or an erotic film
Virtuosity (1995)
Android Serial Killer
Director Brett Leonard started the fascination with Virtual Reality off with The Lawnmower Man but shot himself in the foot with this absurd braindead follow-up in which Denzel Washington pursues a madly OTT Russell Crowe as an android serial killer
Virus (1999)
Lethal Alien Bio-Machine
This has the novelty of a monster that is an evolving fusion of machinery and organics. While it is all directed with much noise and fury, it is ultimately no more than another copy of Alien
WarGames: The Dead Code (2006)
Teen Hacker Thriller/Amok A.I.
WarGames was a thriller that was way ahead of its time; this sequel is no more than video fodder exploiting recognition factor that reduces the original to hacker movie cliches in a technically ill-informed and incoherent plot
Westworld (1973)
Android Amusement Park Amok
A hit for novelist Michael Crichton who made his directorial debut here. Themes of machines going amok run throughout Crichton’s work and here he comes up with the ingenious idea of a Western simulation playground using androids that proceed to turn against the humans
Y2K (2024)
The Y2K Bug/Machines Amok
Film that imagines what might have happened if the Y2K Bug had occurred and resulted in a machine revolution