The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
This refers to films that are made to highlight makeup effects. That is to say films featuring physical transformations, Splatter and Gore and unique methods of dismemberment, icky meltdowns, physical creature effects and other forms of bodily transformation.
The Planet of the Apes films and The Exorcist (1973) led to a fascination with their effects. The late 1970s/early 80s brought a cluster of films beginning with Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Friday the 13th (1980) that highlighted a series of unique and protracted methods of despatch and these caught on with horror audiences of the day.
There was also the Air Bladder Transformation fad of the early 1980s begun with The Howling (1981) and An American Werewolf in London (1981) where we saw characters transform into werewolves in minute detail. Other films depicting similar transformations followed.
Horror magazines of the day, in particular Fangoria, treated makeup effects artists such as Tom Savini, Rick Baker, Rob Bottin, Tom Burman, Dick Smith, Stan Winston and Greg Cannom as superstars. The cult popularity of these artists became such that their names could be promoted on the poster of a film, while a number of makeup effects artists were even able to make their own directorial debuts.
The genre had largely died down by the 2000s where the replacement of physical transformations with more cheaply produced digital transformations and CGI gore has become the industry standard. Despite this, there are still a number of exceptions that rely on old-school effects.
An amazingly bad movie from the VHS era where a woman is exorcised by a televangelist and coughs up a tumor, which crawls out of the trash and possesses her son, driving him to kill and bring bodies home to feed the tumor
John Landis brings the werewolf film into the modern era with this revisionist work where a modern character is forced to confront it as real, while depicting the transformation with an arsenal of top-drawer effects.
Sequel to An American Werewolf in London, which copies the set-up with a different city but misses all of the sense of humour, even fails to offer anything like the classic transformation effects
The first of The Amityville Horror sequels and a far more entertaining film than its predecessor by abandoning the pretence at telling a true story and adding a possession plot and makeup effects to the mix
This was the third of the Amityville films, released amid the early 1980s 3D revival. Nothing more than the usual except for various things popping out of the screen
The sixth film based around The Amityville Horror, although by now connections to the original are minimal and this only concerns a mysterious clock taken from the house
Film about a group of friends lost in the woods who take refuge in a cabin while being hunted by a creature. This is generic, produces some jumps but is dogged by unconvincing creature effects
A wendigo film, this comes with impressive prospect and backed by no less names than Guillermo Del Toro and David S. Goyer
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
You feel that a film about lesbian Japanese schoolgirls vs zombies should have been more interesting. The zombies barely mount to a dozen and the director seems more preoccupied by his softcore predilections
The long-awaited return of Frank Henenlotter, the cult director of Basket Case fame, with a film about people with mutant genitalia – a work that proves extraordinary in its mind-bogglingly perverse imagery
Peter Jackson first appeared with this no-budget splatter comedy. A miracle of DIY filmmaking, the film plays out like a live-action Roadunner cartoon where the creativity of Jackson’s home-made gore effects is positively ingenious
Frank Henenlotter takes the commercial route and makes a sequel to his no-budget cult film. A bigger budget allows the film to become a comic variant on Freaks featuring a series of way-out makeup effects
The third of Frank Henenlotter’s Basket Case films but by this point the perverse wit of the original has become replaced by a cartoonish absurdity
Remarkable little no-budget film from Frank Henenlotter about the relationship between a man and the deformed, psychopathic torso of his severed Siamese twin
Modest entry among the early 1980s fad for air bladder transformation effects with Paul Clemens transforming into a cicada creature. Philippe Mora creates some solid directorial set-pieces
The first film from Jackie Kong, who made the hilarious Blood Diner, concerning a cheesily ridiculous atomic mutant monster loose in a small town
From prolific genre director/producer Brian Yuzna, a film about the drowned residents of a town that was flooded by a dam construction now emerging to exact vengeance on the living
The second sequel to the cult splatter hit Re-Animator is a superior effort to its predecessor, getting the original’s sense of black humour down pat and arriving at a memorably apocalyptic climax
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
A horror comedy that goes the next logical step and turns Black Friday shoppers into a zombified horde. With Bruce Campbell as a store worker who steps into the fray
An enthusiastically gore-drenched New Zealand comedy about mutant sheep, this favourably harkens back to the heyday of Peter Jackson’s early splatter films
The original 1958 The Blob gets a full makeover via some sensational state-of-the-art animatronics and makeup effects with impressive results. A much superior work to the original in all ways
Austrian-made film about people being attacked by mutant creatures on a mountainside. This has the cheesily absurd feel of a 1980s B movie and has some fun producing creature effects
One of the great deliberately ridiculous horror comedy titles of all time. The film itself telescopes down to an ordinary police procedural with no pharaohs, just an Egyptian serial killer
Australian splatter film where a series of drug tests causes people to start melting down. A largely plotless film arranged around a series of gooey meltdown effects
Abel Ferrara’s remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers is an overlooked film that settles in with an undeniable creepiness that is just as effective as the earlier versions. The metaphor for the pod people is more diffuse in this one but that does not mitigate the film’s effect
Part of the 80s/90s fad for makeup effects driven popcorn horror – in this case, actually directed by an effects artist. The film moves slow as molasses but the giant zombie poodle and zombie Phyllis Diller do compensate
A Clive Barker adaptation taken from the name of his story collection. While not uninteresting, it emerges as a haunted house story that eschews genre cliches for an everyday approach and never quite delivers its punches
Mad psychologist creates a giant brain about the size of a small car that controls minds and is hungry to devour people. A deliriously entertaining film that seems to embody the essence of the cheesy makeup effects driven 1980s horror film
One of Peter Jackson’s early films, which is maybe the funniest zombie comedy ever made. This becomes a work of unparalleled genius in the glorious gore-drenched excesses it reaches for
Francis Ford Coppola remakes and reinvents Dracula, transforming the text of Bram Stoker’s book into a sensual, visually ravishing film with lush production values that make you gasp in excitement
Sequel to the cult splatter hit of Re-Animator, directed by the original’s producer Brian Yuzna. Jeffrey Combs, Bruce Abbott and David Gale are back. This has some amazing effects work but lacks the first film’s outrageous black humour
The first film from Eli Roth, which proved a solid hit, one that gets back to gore-drenched horror basics. Not quite the classic it was acclaimed but delivers the goods and with a strong dose of wryly sarcastic humour
A remake of Eli Roth’s first film? Why, given that the original only came out 14 years ago, is anybody’s guess. This literally recycles the original’s script but is deaf to its sarcastic humour of the original
The first sequel to Eli Roth’s film, directed by a then unknown Ti West who subsequently tried to have his name removed. The gore effects look cheap and cheesy and the film misses the comedic angle of the original
Eli Roth’s Cabin Fever had a surefire premise – a series of gory meltdowns with tongue planted in cheek. It is a puzzle then why two sequels, despite reasonable directors at the wheel, have managed to completely miss these basics
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
Stuart Gordon had a cult hit with Re-Animator and much of the rest of his career felt like his attempting to repeat that. Here he re-teams with many of the Re-Animator personnel for what is essentially a rehash of a 1960s Italian Gothic film
The remake of Cat People. In the hands of Paul Schrader, all the ambiguity is made overt and the film becomes one of Schrader’s allegories for tormented sexuality. On its own terms, this is an often smoulderingly sensual work
People are locked in a facility and undergoing biological meltdowns. A film that is driven by a series of wild effects at regular intervals but falls down when it comes to its poorly constructed mystery
Ridiculous film that seems to want to say something about modern technological interconnectivity but has simply grafted it onto a slasher formula. while being bsurdly ill-informed about its subject
Night of the Living Dead-influenced cheapie about zombified children wearing black nailpolish who blow their parents up with deadly hugs. This has no ambition beyond providing entertainingly preposterous meltdown effects every few minutes
The third of the films based on the Stephen King short story, this moves the locale to the city but is otherwise based around a series of completely ridiculous makeup effects every few minutes
The popularity of the Children of the Corn franchise – eleven films spun out of a sixteen page Stephen King story – baffles one. This is the fourth film, its greatest distinction being that it stars a then unknown Naomi Watts
The very first of the Chucky films. At the time, this seemed a very silly and at times ridiculous killer doll film and not the basis of an ongoing series of sequels that have lasted more than three decades
The first Child’s Play felt like an incredibly silly film. However, this first sequel takes the same elements and constructs them into a much tighter, better package
The third and probably the least regarded of the Chucky films. This for some reason takes place in a military academy. The outrageous black humour of the later entries is absent and in its place a mean-spirited sadism
Mark L. Lester’s follow-up to his earlier The Class of 1982 about a teacher forced to adopt vigilante actions in a lawless classroom. In the interim, The Terminator came out and this now has killer android schoolteachers
One of the essential Troma films, this seems to have been conceived as Rock’n’Roll High School with Evil Dead-styled makeup effects and lots of moronic bad taste humour
The first sequel to the Troma hit and with all of the usual bad taste and moron humour you associate with a Troma film, but also better produced then most their films
A directorial debut from one of the writers of the Saw sequels, a Torture Porn film that has a highly unusual set-up about a burglar stumbling into a family home that has been turned into a death trap by a serial killer
Stephen King and George Romero collaborate on a horror anthology made as homage to the EC Comics, telling five tales that replicate the blacker-than-black sense of humour (and even the visual look) of the comic-book with hilarious results
The sequel to the hit George Romero-Stephen King horror anthology. This misses the original’s black humour by a mile and instead becomes overblown and filled with shrill unlikable characters
A third entry in the Creepshow series but made without the involvement of George Romero (or Stephen King). This tries to give more of the same but is abysmally made on all counts
Actor David Keith directs an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Color Out of Space. Unfortunately the focus on cheesy and ridiculous effects quickly takes the exercise down into Grade Z territory
A sequel entirely unrelated to The Curse only worth seeing for a series of entertaining entertainingly ridiculous effects where a man’s arm transforms into a mutant snake
Stuart Gordon returns to adapt H.P. Lovecraft for a third time. As before, Gordon allows Lovecraft’s unspeakable terrors to be eclipsed by creature effects but the results are nothing too memorable
George Romero’s successor to his cult hit of Night of the Living Dead. Romero creates a very different film, one that takes place in a mall and comes with a level of droll satire. A bigger budget allows him to push things to gore-drenched extremes
The third and most undervalued of George Romero’s original trilogy of zombie films, an explosively bared to the bone series of apocalyptic confrontations containing some of the best performances and writing in any of his films
A remake of George Romero’s third and most underrated zombie film, This came out as part of the 2000s revival of the genre but majorly miscalculates the original and emerges as wrong in just about every way
Made during the mid-2000s zombie revival, this is a cheap, badly made film that tries to cling to any kind of relevance to the George Romero name. If anything it is more like a sequel to Night of the Living Dead than to Day of the Dead
After writing the huge hit of Alien, Dan O’Bannon next went onto this strange zombie film in which the people of a small town fail to stay dead
Made not along after the success of Lethal Weapon, this offers a wacky spin on the buddy cop formula having a cop paired with a zombie. The mildly amusing notion is killed by the excruciating comedy relief of Joe Piscopo
An enthusiastic Irish-made copy of the George Romero zombie film that vies between the amateurish and occasional moments of interest
A typical 80s film with a mad doctor resurrecting the dead in the abandoned wing of an asylum amid gory makeup effects. The first film from Brett Leonard who next went on to make The Lawnmower Man
The Nazi zombies from Norway are back in a better film than the first that is far more polished, the black humour more outrageous and the splatter effects are at the top of their game
A revival of the Nazi zombie film that comes from Norway! A hugely gore-drenched effort from Tommy Wirkola that soon plants tongue very much in cheek.
Fan filmmaking back from the day when filmmakers struggled with technologies like Super 8, a film driven by its makers’ immense enthusiasm and some surprisingly good creature effects, making one of the few highly original variations on the Alien alien
Horror anthology with the novelty where all of the stories are horror versions of fairytales. Particularly amusing is the second episode, a modernised version of Little Red Riding Hood
A 1980s VHS released horror about a series of novelty killings at a health spa. This contains some entertainingly bizarre death and a surprise number of later to be famous faces
The first horror film from New Zealand, a gore drenched effort about a mad scientist creating zombies. Directed by much energy even if it suffers a complete lack of plot
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
A remake of the popular 1980s sword and sorcery film that was originally produced by Roger Corman. This version is directed by makeup effects artist Steven Kostanski who fills it with an amazing range of creature effects
An entertaining B-budget film about malevolent toys from low-budget producer Charles Band, known for the Ghoulies and Puppetmaster films. One of the first works from screenwriter David S. Goyer
Italian horror directed by Lamberto Bava and produced by Dario Argento, an Evil Dead-inspired work about the possessed dead taking over a cinema, all conducted with a ferocious enthusiasm
Brian Yuzna plays on everybody’s fear of the dentist in this outrageously nasty film top-lining Corbin Bernsen in wildly over-the-top mode as a psychopathic dentist amid a series of imaginatively sadistic dental-themed dispatches
In this sequel to their earlier film, director Brian Yuzna and star Corbin Bernsen return to the role of the psychopathic dentist and successfully tap the same outrageously sadistic nastiness and black humour once again
George Romero returns to zombies, making a Found Footage film. After the disappointment of Land of the Dead, he delivers the goods here, while making powerful political points about modern media
Christopher Coppola is worlds apart in talent from his uncle Francis. Here he directs a weak vampire film with Sylvia Kristel in the title role and transformation effects that look datedly cheesy today
Sam Raimi chose to follow up his hugely successful Spider-Man trilogy with this incredibly silly film about Gypsy curses. Raimi piles on ridiculous shock effects that become so over-the-top that the film ends up somewhere in orbit
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
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
A landmark classic of the horror genre, a film whose take on demonic possession and exorcism laid down a series of tropes that are still present over five decades later. A gruelling and intensive horror story into the bargain
A medical horror film concerning a disfigured surgeon killing his way through a hospital as he seeks revenge. This is notable for its degree of gore-drenched sadism
An earlier effort from Shion Sono that concerns itself with hair extensions that take over and kill their host. More straightforward than many of Sono’s other works but the outlandish of the effects make the film
Brian Yuzna’s adaptation of the cult comic-book is a disappointment that has tamed down any of the censorship-pushing controversy the original had and emerges as no more than a standard dark avenging superhero film
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
The long promised crossover between the Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street films, this seems caught in a juggling act that fails to satisfy the requirements of either franchise
The sixth of the A Nightmare on Elm Street films, sold with the gimmick of a 3D release. New director Rachel Talaly refuses to take the material seriously and turns the show into an absurd cartoon
A copy of John Carpenter’s Halloween that proved a big success and spawned a long-running series of sequels. Both films created the slasher film, which came to overrun horror in the 1980s, although this is a cruder film than Halloween
Another 1980s horror remake that had much potential. However, this proves to be just another Friday the 13th film by the numbers, albeit with a bigger budget, and widely misses the mark
The second of the Friday the 13th films. This was the point where the formula of the series slipped into place and Jason emerges to become an invincible killing machine
Third of the Friday the 13th films, shot in the brief fad for 3D films in the early 80s. This is also the one where Jason adopts his trademark hockey mask
The fifth and arguably the worst of the Friday the 13th films. Jason is resurrected and engaged in much butchering, before an end reveals it was someone else altogether
The seventh of the Friday the 13th films, this tries to add some novelty with a heroine who has psychic powers but is mostly the same thing as before
The eighth of the Friday the 13th films that offers the novelty of taking a revived Jason to New York City. Actually, one of the better entries in the series, which plays his encounters with New York locals for some amusement
The fourth Friday the 13th film, called the final chapter in an effort to kill the series off, only to be such a success this was rescinded in the next film. Joseph Zito directs with more style than usual