The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Medical Horrors are concerned with the horrors of surgery and hospitals. One can also view specific variants of this under the themes Mad Surgeons and Mad Scientists.
The mad surgeon has been with us since the French Eyes Without a Face (1959) concerning a surgeon obsessed with abducting women to graft their faces onto his own daughter. This produced a number of copies. There have been assorted other films about surgeons of dubious sanity.
There is another whole body of films that concern themselves with haunted hospitals or hospitals where sinister activities or experiments are going on. Another popular theme concerns illegal Organ Harvesting schemes.
One of the last directorial outings from cult director Larry Cohen. Comic-book artist Eric Roberts is wound up in trying to trace a mysterious ambulance that is abducting women into illicit experiments
Canada’s twin sisters Jen and Sylvia Soska’s second film is set in the dark underground of body modification,. Like an episode of tv’s Nip/Tuck with a Suicide Girls ethos. Not perfect but an impressive maturation
Extremely satisfying German medical thriller about a secret society that conducts illicit experiments. The film comes with a torturous suspense and goes way out on a limb in the gore department
A far less effective sequel to the hit German medical thriller that neglects both the tortuous suspense and grisly horror that made the first film into a stand out
Horror film where Ashlyn Yennie wakes up in a hospital filled with sinister happenings including people being maimed and then regenerated
Brandon Cronenberg makes an impressive writing-directing debut, taking up the thematic reins of his father’s earlier films in a darkly satiric future escalation of contemporary celebrity culture
From Walter Hill, one of the legendary action directors, comes what is either the most edgy or tasteless concepts for a revenge film – Michelle Rodriguez is a hitman who seeks revenge after having gender reassignment surgery forced on him
Horror film conceived around having creepy things happening around a hospital, less so in terms of any rationale. What the film does have in its favour is that it is exxxtremely gory
The first film from prolific horror and exploitation director Jesus Franco to which he would later make four sequels. This is a blatant copy of the French Eyes Without a Face served up with little directorial flair
Action film with Thomas Ian Griffith tracking the killers of his brother to Poland and uncovering an organ harvesting scheme run by Rutger Hauer
A standout modern variant on the Frankenstein film where two women conspire to cross waaay over medical ethic lines to revive a child from the dead
Brad Anderson, director of Session 9 and The Machinist, makes a great horror film with Michelle Monaghan as a mother trying to cope with her son’s sudden taste for blood
An obscure effort from the early days of the Anglo-horror cycle. A medical vampire effort and a Hammer imitator with lavish production values and memorable characters that easily sits up alongside Hammer’s better work
Screenwriter Eric Red directs a film where Jeff Fahey receives an arm transplant only to find it gaining a life of its own as he is hunted by a the donor, a killer wanting to recollect his body parts
One of the classic films of producer Val Lewton, a loose adaptation the historical story of the 19th Century body snatchers Burke and Hare. Robert Wise is on fine form as director and Boris Karloff gives one of his best performances.
David Lynch’s daughter Jennifer directs a film about a surgeon who abducts a woman and amputates her limbs to make her love him. A critical bomb, it is a not uninteresting work about woman’s desire handled with more taste than you would think
An unofficial copycat of the Filipino-made Blood Island from exploitation director Al Adamson, a trashy mix involving a dictator’s transplanted brain, Frankenstein monsters and a perverted dwarf
Classic Z budget film about a severed head in a laboratory that has plenty to place it in the bad movie category but is made with such a perverse panache that it is hard to dislike
The third in a trilogy of satirical films from director Lindsay Anderson and star Malcolm McDowell, this takes a biting crosscut of British society as a hospital prepares for a royal visit
Throwback to the 1950s SF film where alien body snatchers take over the nurses of a hospital. This fails to find the right cheesily absurd tone needed
The first film from Peter Weir, a deadpan black comedy in which a man comes around from a car crash to find himself in a small town that subsists by creating car crashes
Flush from the success of The Andromeda Strain and Westworld, Michael Crichton directed this medical conspiracy thriller, which returns to the fear of science themes that runs throughout his work
TV mini-series remake of the Michael Crichton medical thriller that pointlessly changes and over-extrudes a tight and effective original, while director Mikael Salomon adds absurd red herrings and keys away major surprises well in advance
Early Anglo-horror film that seems to be trying to push a story about a 19th century doctor (Boris Karloff)’s discovery of anaesthetic gas out of shape and make it into a horror story.
Peter Cushing plays a surgeon who devises an advanced technique to restore his wife’s burn-disfigured face – only to find he must kill to maintain it. An Anglo-horror effort that borrows the basics of Eyes Without a Face/Les Yeux Sans Visage
Another of the surreal films from Guy Maddin, involving incest, strange love triangles and transplanted hands, all shot of which has been shot as a silent movie
The second film from David Cronenberg. Despite the SF title, this is more a work of arthouse surrealism where Cronenberg spends the film documenting strange behaviours in an hilarious deadpan tone that mimics a scientific paper
A 79 year-old David Cronenberg returns with one of his best films, a synthesis of his major themes in an extraordinary and perverse look at a future where surgery has become performance art. This site’s best film of 2022.
From Gore Verbinski, director of The Ring and the first three Pirates of the Caribbean films, a film about a sinister health sanatorium. A beautiful looking film but it is a long time before we ever find out what is going on
Film created by Finnish heavy metal performer Mr Lordi that takes place in a hospital that seems to exist in a haunted twilight zone
David Cronenberg’s absolute masterpiece of the perverse with Jeremy Irons giving a tour-de-force performance(s) as twin gynaecologists who descend into drug addiction, obsession and madness
Horror film set in the haunted tunnels beneath an abandoned hospital that seems all horror posturing without the benefit of an actual plot
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
Jonathan Rhys Meyers wakes up in a hospital as strange hallucinatory and nightmarish things start to happen. The fact that this is a deathdream film becomes very obvious
Anglo-horror director Freddie Francis returned to make this period adaptation of an old Dylan Thomas script about the body snatchers Burke and Hare. A literate script boosted by a fine cast
A darkly funny take on the slasher film with Larry Drake standing out in a memorable performance as the title mad doctor. This delivers more medical novelty deaths and bad puns than one believed possible
South Korean film about a doctor with shamanistic powers, this starts out seeming to be a horror film before becoming something different altogether
This has an intriguing set up involving a child with an autoimmune condition that makes him allergic to everyday air and his journey to a sinister medical institute, before a completely WTF twist
A Japanese horror film that winds a convoluted plot involving stolen corpses, a blackmarket in organ harvesting, split personality, twins and religious cults
Darkly subversive film about an alienated teenage girl, this digs its teeth into family values and depicts the uncomfortableness of puberty. On the other hand, this is only rarely the horror film others have reviewed it as
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
Solid and effective thriller in the vein of Coma where ER doctor Hugh Grant finds himself in the midst of a conspiracy involving illicit medical experiments at the hospital where he works
Classic French thriller about a mad surgeon who abducts women to graft their faces onto his disfigured daughter. The film has a rare visual poetry combined with moments of horror that are still effective decades later
A neglected Japanese classic. This is a haunting existential meditation on identity as a man loses his face in an accident but is then granted a lifelike mask
Modestly creepy film about a group of subjects locked in a hospital as part of a drug trial that proceeds to go wrong as some of the group have an adverse reaction and turn crazed
Brad Anderson makes a paranoid nightmare as Sam Worthington takes his daughter to a hospital only for her to go missing and he to encounter a Kafka-esque bureaucracy that insists she doesn’t exist
This Italian exploitation film was one of the first attempts to try modernising the Frankenstein film. Thus Frankenstein is a doctor stealing corpses from the morgue at a modern hospital
Sober realistic True Crime film based on the story of Charlie Cullen, a nurse in New Jersey that killed some 400 patients, injecting them with lethal doses of drugs
A disturbingly effective story of a mother who gives birth to a baby that is not human. An immensely assured directorial debut that eschews cliche horror effect and becomes a chilling study in psychological disintegration
A festival of H.P. Lovecraft short films held in Vancouver, which display a quality and faithfulness to the original texts that far outstrips the professional efforts being made elsewhere
Fourth film version of The Hands of Orlac about a pianist who receives hand transplants from a murderer and believes they are possessing him. Compared to the first two versions, this is dull and prosaic
Classic German silent film about a pianist who receives hand transplants and believes they are possessed. Superbly stylised direction from The Cabinet of Dr Caligari director Robert Wiene and with Conrad Veidt putting his all into the contorted mime work
The third film and least version of the classic horror story about a pianist who receives hands transplanted from a murderer and is driven mad believing they are possessing him
This has the promising idea of a corporate-ruled future where people receive advertising implants but soon dissolves into the equivalent of a B-budget hacker thriller
Sequel to the original that pushes into even more perverse territory. This throws some amusing spins on the original, creating a unique protagonist, while also contriving to exist inside an extremely disturbed headspace
The first two Human Centipede films are masterpieces of twisted extremes. The third entry goes astray in giving the show over to Dieter Laser in one of the most over-the-top performances ever unleashed
An astonishingly perverse work where a mad surgeon abducts three people intending to connect their bodies as a single digestive tract. This is a work that pushes itself into truly warped territory
Scottish director Lawrie Brewster, a promising newcomer on the genre horizon, has obtained the rights to revive the Amicus Films name and conducts a strong homage to the studio’s signature anthology film
Mad scientist Bruce Dern creates a two-headed transplant. Unlike The Thing with Two Heads from the same company, this lacks an appreciable sense of its own absurdity
What should have been a modest conceptual SF story about people coming to discover the true nature of the world they live in is killed by being turned into an loud and over-inflated Michael Bay action vehicle
Classic anti-war film with Timothy Bottoms as a limbless, sightless soldier in a hospital bed as his mind wanders between hallucinations, visions of the afterlife and attempts to communicate with the medical staff
Danish tv mini-series co-directed by Lars von Trier set in a haunted hospital. This comes with a blacker-than-black sense of humour in its interwoven character strands plus moments that are genuinely eerie
Follow-up to Lars von Trier’s haunted hospital mini-series The Kingdom. The story is continued, although the plot seems rickety and either drops elements or veers off on other tangents as though it is being made up as people go along
Lars von Trier returns to finish off his haunted hospital saga The Kingdom after a 25 years absence, despite the death of several principals, and again milks the same darkly hilarious vein
The Hollywood remake of The Hands of Orlac, a classic with Colin Clive as a pianist who believes he is possessed after receiving hands transplanted from a killer. With a fascinatingly demented performance from Peter Lorre
The one moment of triumph from director William Girdler who takes a work that sits just on the threshold of schlock and transforms into something incredibly eerie with an injection of H.P. Lovecraft and American Indian mysticism
Barbara Hershey plays an aging woman who moves into a retirement home. The film then develops an edgy paranoia about possibly supernatural happening around her
Mike Flanagan horror mini-series adapted from Christopher Pike’s book, this is set around a group of patients in a hospice who form a group to tell each other horror stories
Film that takes place with the heroine confined to a hospital bed unable to move as a malevolent ghost enters her room
The second in the works of arty vampire erotica that gained French director Jean Rollin a cult following. The surreal visuals and in particular the costuming make for mind-boggling visuals
This has a similar scenario to Michael Bay’s The Island but also at 180 degree remove – where Bay was loud and bludgeoning, this approaches the idea as a subtle British childhood pastoral
A above average entry in the recent trend of horror anthologies featuring episodes from different directors, including Joe Dante and Mick Garris, featuring at least a couple of standout entries
A splendidly trashy film that throws all good taste to the wind The title role is played by a sizzling, substantially undressed Paz de la Huerta. While deficient in acting ability, she delivers an hilarious voiceover
Psycho-thriller with Lisa Zane as a nurse seeking vengeance for the death of her father
This had its entire plot ripped off as Michael Bay’s The Island. Without Bay’s action overkill, this is by far the better film, working as a fascinating mystery set-up that leads to an ingenious twist
Fine Australian from Richard Franklin that jumps aboard the popularity of Carrie concerning a coma patient who demonstrates psychic powers
This remake of the Australian classic about a coma patient with psychokinetic powers is astonishingly bad. Richard Franklin’s stylish scares are replaced by laughably overwrought sequences
An incredibly spooky film set at a hospital during a power cut as a nurse on night duty finds ghostly things stirring in the building
The fourth film from David Cronenberg, a clear (although by no means uninteresting) attempt to repeat the success of Shivers with Marilyn Chambers as a woman with a vampiric skin parasite that turns victims into maddened killers
The Soska Sisters take on remaking the classic David Cronenberg film about a woman with a blood-drinking skin graft who leaves a trail of rabid victims. The sisters smartly update the original, bringing a host of new ideas to bear
Robert Rodriguez made his first film for $7000 and repeats the same here to show anyone can do it. The result is a wild, mind-bending work loosely based on his own experience as a human test subject in drug trials
Heather Thomas starring film about the discovery of a laboratory that has created a vampire virus
SF film set in a future where agents are sent to repossess artificial organs when the owner’s fall behind on payments. Sort of Sicko by way of Logan’s Run but lacking the necessary sense of black humour to work
Saw series director Darren Lynn Bousman conducts a futuristic Gothic rock opera. A film of constant posturings where Bousman demonstrates remarkably little affinity for either music or sf … a musical that feels made by people who are tone deaf
Silent Hill was one of the best videogame film adaptations and created a genuinely uncanny atmosphere. That film’s director returns to the franchise here with more of the same but misses the mark
The second of Hammer’s Frankenstein films and a fine work that finds positively ingenious ways to continue on from its predecessor. Terence Fisher and the production team are all on top form.
Third of the Saw films and the point where director Darren Lynn Bousman places the series’ focus on grim gore-drenched sadism and torture
Sixth time around and the backstory is starting to become so excessively complicated it is hard to follow what is going on. All the gruesome torturings now seem passe, although this does redeem itself somewhat in making a few black digs at the medical health industry
Cult Anglo-horror film with a series of vampire killings that lead to Vincent Price trying to replace bureaucrats with androids
An astonishingly bleak John Frankenheimer film in which a disillusioned middle-aged man is contacted by a secret organisation that rejuvenates him to become Rock Hudson
David Cronenberg’s first commercial release, a vivid work about parasites that turn the residents of an apartment building into sexual fetishists. Cronenberg has set out to shock while beneath that he creates fascinating metaphors about sex
One of the best of all filmed videogame adaptations. Christophe Gans creates a creepy and unworldly atmosphere, along with a series of genuinely outlandish creature effects
Dull and unimaginative Silent Hill sequel that only revisits what went before. The first film had an uncanny otherworldly atmosphere but the sequel reduces everything to no more than pop-up Clive Barker
Pedro Almodovar’s exquisitely lush homage to the mad surgeon fiilm Eyes Without a Face features a superb left field twist to become an extraordinary meditation on gender and identity
A German thriller about a newlywed couple in the US where the husband is abducted and the wife’s attempts to find him take her into the midst of an illicit organ harvesting operation
Horror film in which Tom Cavanagh goes into hospital for a routine procedure only to emerge with his leg amputated amid increasingly more surreal things happening around the hospital
This is supposedly an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s story The Tell-Tale Heart but it throws out all semblance to the story and instead tells a possessed transplant limb tale
Adaptation of a Michael Crichton book about an experimental neurological implant that ends up going amok. This adopts the blinding white-on-white look that has chilling effect in the early hospital sections but stifles the drama when it is extended to the real world too
Ray Milland is a dying white racist millionaire who has hit head transplanted onto the shoulders of a Black man. A film that sees the absurdities of its premise and plants tongue in cheek.