The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Magic Spells are incantations and rituals to affect Magic. Spells are frequently found inscribed on scrolls and involve reciting a series of arcane phrases or hand movements. A spell frequently can also require the use of a staff or a Potion, or the assemblage of various obscure items (bat’s wings, eye of newt etc). It may need to be conducted in a magic circle inscribed with protective runes and symbols.
Magic spells serve many purposes. They can be conjurations of some force or entity; they can open Portals; they can enact transformations such as human into animal or reverse age; lift or enact curses; or repel evil.
A children’s fantasy adventure that never strays beyond the environs of an American high school and comes with the lowbrow slapstick, excruciating comic caricatures and incredibly bad effects
A blatant copy of The Craft where a new girl gets wound up into occult rites going on in a sorority house. Featuring porn star Ron Jeremy as a Catholic priest
Unexpectedly excellent film where an elderly Satanist couple abduct a pregnant woman in order to incarnate their grandson in her unborn child. This deflates the cliches in a series of alternately funny and wild twists
Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell make their third Evil Dead film. The series hit a peak with the delirious balance of horror and comedy in the second film but here the comedy over-balances and becomes too broad
One of the more amusing titles in the gonzo zombie title mashup fad. On the other hand, this takes itself surprisingly seriously and, while well made, never fully goes for broke
McG has now become the new inheritor of the title of worst director currently at work in Hollywood, as amply evidenced in this ridiculous film starring Samara Weaving as a Satanist babysitter
Early effort from one of the Pang Brothers Oxide, who only directs one of the episodes in this trio of Thai ghost stories. The other director’s grasp of horror effect is often crude and amateurish
Sequel to the earlier Barbie animated film Barbie Fairytopia. Extremely colourful but essentially a fantasy version of a teenage girl high school drama that quickly slips into pre-packaged formula
The first in a long series of animated films based on Mattel’s girl’s doll Barbie. This casts Barbie as a lead in an adaptation of The Nutcracker ballet
The third animated film based on the popular girl’s doll Barbie. This places Barbie into Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake in an okay telling, if one that suffers from the usual limited animation of Mainframe’s early films
DC Universe Animated film that is adapted from an Elseworlds story that offers up an alternate 1920s version of Batman who is fighting up against H.P. Lovecraft entities
Strippers and zombies Japanese style. An entry into the Gonzo Japanese Splatter film fad. Cheaply made, with surprisingly little nudity and a whole lot of tongue-in-cheek splatter
Disney live-action comedy with Peter Ustinov as the ghost of a resurrected pirate who comes to the aid of an ailing collage track team
One of wittiest titles of the 2000s zombie revival fad – the suggestion of a high school love story gone really wrong. This actual film is a surprisingly ordinary and unexceptional effort
A real head-scratcher from Pixar that seems to have been pitched as a cross between Braveheart and Disney’s Brother Bear. The usual Pixar humour and polish makes for a mostly amiable film but never lifts the show out of a lame duck premise
Fan parody/homage of H.P. Lovecraft that comes waist-deep in references and jokes. The film is an amateur effort made with a painful cheapness in some areas; nevertheless it is clear that the team are really into making it and their enthusiasm carries the film
An Irish horror film that generates undeniably mysterious atmosphere after a family move into a new house and the teenage daughter disappears after going down into the cellar
Ostensibly about occultist Aleister Crowley reincarnating in the present, this overflows with mad ideas involving quantum physics, VR, alternate worlds and a heap of classic references – and moreover, is written by the lead singer of Iron Maiden
A Disney animated film whose classic stature has been overrated. The fairytale is too familiar to hold much interest, while the cutsie talking animals get to take over proceedings
Live-action remake of the Disney animated film. This varies little from the well-worn elements of the story to the point of over-familiarity but director Kenneth Branagh manages a lush and beautifully staged effort
This may possibly win the award for the all-time most ridiculous premise for a film. It tries to outdo Sharknado by offering up a storm of killer clowns
The second live-action tv adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books (in fact combining two books). This is uneven and oddly padded but beautifully produced
A smart and well cast film about a quartet of modern teen high school girls who form a coven of witches. This starts well but loses it in an overblown second act
Blumhouse revival of/sequel to The Craft, the film about a quartet of teenage witches. This updates the original to the modern era in ways the original never did
Work of Russian horror that heads into pleasingly dark places as a woman enacts a love spell to bring her boyfriend back to her where you just know that something horrible is going to happen
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
Outrageous New Zealand-made effort that fondly recalls the 1980s splatter comedies of Sam Raimi, Peter Jackson et al. This often feels like former teen metalheads looking back and puncturing the pretensions of their youth
This has an appealing premise – the children of all the Disney villains have grown up and go to school together. This is promptly killed by the awfulness of the film itself, which is essentially High School Musical set in the Disney universe
Horror film in which a young mute boy discovers a book that contains a spell that offers one’s greatest wish, only for he to summon a djinn
One of the better films from Charles Band – an uncredited homage to Marvel’s Dr Strange. The film captures a wonderful atmosphere of esotericism and Jeffrey Combs is perfect as the sorcerer superhero
Scott Derrickson acquits himself well taking on one of Marvel’s magician superhero. He replicates well the psychedelic esoterica that gained the comic book a cult following and Benedict Cumberbatch anchors the show perfectly
Doctor Strange was one of the better MCU films. Here Sam Raimi takes over in the director’s chair. This readily delves into multiverse themes but requires a major crash course in a plethora of Marvel tv series to follow
The first of Amicus’s horror anthologies. The stories are rehashes of five popular horror tropes, all united by Peter Cushing as the title doctor telling the fortunes of five passengers on a train carriage
Sequel to a largely forgotten fantasy series. While never transcending formula, this fares somewhat better than the previous sequel largely because CGI effects have advanced since the original
Adaptation of an H.P. Lovecraft story in which Sandra Dee is lured by a young Dean Stockwell in order to summon Elder Gods. This seems like it has potential but befalls plodding, nondescript direction
An adaptation of the H.P. Lovecraft short story. While more faithful to the story than the earlier 1969 adaptation, the film is very cheaply made and collapses into the frequently ridiculous
Charming anime from Hayao Miyazaki’s son Goro about a young girl adopted into a witch’s strange household. The occasion where Studio Ghibli made the switch over to computer animation
Excruciatingly awful take on Cinderella, which overruns the fairytale with hip contemporary in-jokes and pop culture references, shredding any suspension of disbelief in its desire to appeal to a modern teen cool
The film debut of the horror hostess Elvia (Cassandra Peterson), a good natured film containing more bimbo jokes, double entendres and bad puns than one thought possible
Ferociously paced low-budget hit that put the names of Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell on the map. What made the film a cult hit was Raimi’s full tilt pace and entertainingly over-the-top splatter effects
One of the few remakes of the 00s/10s that delivers the goods. While messing around with the plot set-up with mixed results, this quickly goes for broke to create a satisfying show on most accounts
Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell return in a sequel to their earlier low-budget cult hit. With a far better budget this time, Raimi goes completely over-the-top with a delirious silliness that will bring tears to the eyes
The fifth film in the Evil Dead series. This comes with the selling point of being a female-led sequel and offers a much more serious and gore-drenched take than previous entries
Who Framed Roger Rabbit? popularised the idea of the toon where cartoon characters mingle with humans. This was exploitation director Fred Olen Ray’s take where a stripper is possessed by a demonic toon
1980s horror with Clint Howard as a bullied military cadet who uses a computer to help decipher an occult tome whereupon he gains powers that allow him to enact vengeance on his tomentors
Modestly effective zombie film set during the US Civil War. This eschews the usual gore-drenched zombie attacks in favour of a nicely achieved story about one man’s internal journey through the apocalypse
Low-budget ingenue effort with pretensions to being more, this produces some occasionally nifty effects that quickly weary and only seem to hold up a thoroughly hackneyed B horror movie plot
Animated film where fairies face the threat to their forest posed by a logging operation. Preachy message-making that is all but a recruitment film for Greenpeace and the Sierra Club
One of Rankin-Bass’s animated films, this has an ambitious epic fantasy plot with original themes about the line between science and magic, although this is undone by Rankin-Bass’s limited animation
An anthology of blackly funny tales, including episodes directed by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, all centred around Tim Roth as a long-suffering hotel bellboy
Strong and effective film about a grieving mother who is introduced to an occult ritual than can claimedly resurrect her dead son, a journey that takes her into very dark places
The concluding chapter of the trilogy of live-action Fullmetal Alchemist films, this follows the manga’s storyline closely and brings the series to an epic conclusion
Follow-up to Ghostbusters: Afterlife, reuniting that film’s mix of new and classic cast. However, this becomes a plotting juggle that is often straining to find somewhere to include everyone
From the Paz Brothers who previously made Jeruzalem, a new take on the legend of the golem that offers an interpretation of the idea very different to any previous film version
The second film spun off from R.L. Stine’s popular horror stories promotes the wonderfully evil ventriloquist’s dummy Slappy to principal nemesis. The rest of the film is predictable but Slappy deserves his own series
Another in the spate of animated fairytale parodies that came out in the wake of Shrek, this subjects Cinderella to an excruciating barrage of pop-culture jokes and one-liners
Deranged entry in the 80s fad for heavy metal horror films where a band are resurrected from the dead to play an all-important concert, while fighting off conservative townspeople and a very much alive Adolf Hitler
The second of the Harry Potter films and better than its predecessor. Chris Columbus has his tendency to overblown effects more in check but that does leave the film more dependent on J.K. Rowling’s contrived deus ex machina plotting
The penultimate chapter in the Harry Potter series surprisingly strips out most of the effects and is much slower, more character driven, while moving the saga towards an epic conclusion
I’ve never been a huge fan of the Harry Potter series but the final chapter rounds out the boy wizard saga in rousing style, mounting an epic-sized battle and finding characters depths that hold some of the best writing of the series
Fourth of the Harry Potter films and one that feels much more seamless and sure of itself as a story. The problem is the absurd contrivation of J.K. Rowling’s weak story that wheels out every sports movie cliche in the book
Sixth of the Harry Potter films, this feels like a step back from what its predecessor built up. The film suffers from trying to cram all of J.K. Rowling’s book into its running time and ends up being frustratingly mannered
The fifth and in my opinion the best of the Harry Potter films. It is the first film where we see the darkening of emotions and the children growing up as storm clouds gather. Much of the show is stolen by Imelda Staunton
The third Harry Potter film where it seems all that it took for the series to become quite good was the exit of the perpetually banal Chris Columbus and the entry of a new director in Alfonso Cuaron
The first of the Harry Potter films. The first is the weakest and lumbers due to being placed in the hands of the perpetually banal Chris Columbus who allows visual effects wow and simplistic emotional cues to dominate
As part of their attempt to sell everything including the family silver, Disney make a sequel to their witch comedy, bringing back the three original actresses who are now looking a lot longer in the tooth
A Disney live-action film that engenders no believability in its basic premise. Much of the show is regarded as an opportunity for Bette Midler to steal the limelight and play to over-the-top excess
Film with an interesting B movie cast line-up where a film crew inadvertently end up enacting rituals from a book that resurrect a corpse while shooting at a mansion
Modestly effective Blaxploitation take on House on Haunted Hill that concerns voodoo rites being conducted in a big old Southern mansion
Eli Roth is a director associated with the Torture Porn cycle and one does a double-take at him making a family-friendly film. The results emerge somewhere between Harry Potter and a Goosebumps film
H.P. Lovecraft is a cult horror writer whose work brims over with a sense of cosmic dread. One of the most bizarre Lovecraft film adaptations is this work of children’s animation featuring a young Lovecraft
The second in a series of animated children’s films about the young H.P. Lovecraft and his encounters with the various denizens of the Cthulhu mythos
The third of the trilogy of animated films from Arcana Studios based around the adventures of a young H.P. Lovecraft
A blatant attempt to copy Ray Harryhausen’s The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, night down to employing the same lead actors and director, but this fails through shoddy stop-motion animated effects
This BBC adaptation of Susanna Clarke’s book about rival 19th century magicians kicks J.K. Rowling completely out of the ring. A beautifully staged costume drama, written with a superb Austen-esque dryness of wit
The DC Comics animated version of an Avengers film where they put every superhero under their roof on screen at once, including Justice League Dark, the regular Justice League, Suicide Squad and Teen Titans
This has a winning concept – live-action roleplayers are forced to face a demon they accidentally conjure. Only it becomes a one-joke film with characters delivering mock mediaeval dialogue in falsettos
Hong Kong kung fu films of the 1970/80s contains some bizarre crosshatches in a search for novelty. Here a kung fu practitioner takes on a sorcerer who raises ghosts and even Count Dracula to fight
The greatest of all Japanese ghost stories. This is an anthology that tells four stories. Each is made with an extraordinary visual flair and great attention to colour, lighting and design
Disney’s original The Little Mermaid was an enormously fresh film. This is the live-action remake that came out amid much controversy and is inevitably a lesser shadow of the original.
Adaptation of a book by famous children’s writer Enid Blyton about a series of adventures in a magical tree. Blyton would be turning in her grave at some of the changes and modernisations
Effective and unusual French film in which four prisoners in a jail cell discover an occult tome in the walls and start reading its spells thinking it can offer a means of escape
A work of Arthurian sequelia made for the Syfy Channeal featuring Arthur’s daughter inheriting the sword. This has the feel more of a series of B-budgeted D&D wilderness encounters churned out without much effort rather than being a fantasy work that soars
After their enormously successful revival of Dracula and Frankenstein, Hammer Films and Terence Fisher turned to revive the mummy film, all with the bold, vivid effect of their early films
A revival of the Leslie Nielsen starring Naked Gun films, which were a parody of the hard-boiled detective film. With Liam Neeson playing Nielsen’s son. Featuring a surprising degree of SF content
Classic occult film from former Val Lewton associate Jacques Tourneur that sits in a wonderfully ambiguous place where we cannot be certain whether the supernatural is real or imagined
Film concerning a warlock resurrected in the body of a scarecrow seeking revenge. This is conceived around a series of novelty makeup effects but director Jeff Burr treats the material seriously and with reasonable results
An amazing breakout hit from Russia, a film that is busy to the point of overcrowding with ideas and its’ director’s visual excess but delivers the goods in ways that make your jaw drop
A film shot during Covid lockdown that creates a great sense of isolation with a man locked inside a possibly haunted apartment
Likeable film made by fans about a ninja team formed to deal with a zombie onslaught
Obscure, little seen but beautifully made Magical Realism film set amongst witches and romantic rivalry in Mexico
Outrageously whacked Hong Kong film that prefigures The Toxic Avenger in having a downtrodden hero jump into a pool of oil and emerge as an avenging superhero made of oil. Crudely made and pitched, the film’s novelty all lies in the bizarreness of its title character
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
The 22nd animated film from Pixar and also the least successful (being released only a week before theatrical chains closing down due to Coronavirus). This has an appealingly quirky and original concept not unakin to Bright that takes place in an alternate reality where magic creatures live in a world akin to our own
Nicolas Roeg returns to screens after a long absence in what would be his last film, a Fay Weldon adaptation about pagan rites, pregnancy and witchcraft that manages to sound far wilder in synopsis than how Roeg directs it all on screen
Chillingly effective film where a teenage girl casts a spell to kill her mother, only to become terrified and try to turn back what she has unleashed
Horror comedy about an attack by the zombies of resurrected former US Presidents
Jenn Wexler directs a film about thugs taking over a girls’ boarding school that pleasingly subverts your expectations of everything it is going to be at every turn
Rather funny comedy about Satanists and a virginal pizza girl who is chased as their intended victim. This comes with a bizarrely akilter sense of humour that reminds of Martin Scorsese’s After Hours
Just when you thought that this witless and unfunny series has died off, it drags itself out of mothballs for another outing. As with the other entries, it is a bunch of recent movies overrun with crude, moronic gags