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.
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.
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
A British mini-series that offers an ingenious modernised reconeptualisation of the vampire genre, depicting the activities of a secret agency of vampire hunters
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
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.
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
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
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
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 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
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
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
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
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.
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
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 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
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
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
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
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
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 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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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 Japanese horror film that winds a convoluted plot involving stolen corpses, a blackmarket in organ harvesting, split personality, twins and religious cults
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
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
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
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
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
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
In his follow-up to Manborg, Steven Kostanski abandons the affectionate homages to 1980s video-released genre films he has specialised in so far. A homage to the works of H.P. Lovecraft, this should be seen for the utterly wild and outlandish makeup effects that Kostanski delivers
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
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
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
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.
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 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
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
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
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Heather Thomas starring film about the discovery of a laboratory that has created a vampire virus
Modest Australian film where Chantal Contouri is introduced to a secret vampire society that keeps human beings as cattle
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
Really, Kevin Smith?!? A film wherein a mad lunatic transforms another man into a walrus? While you can applaud Smith’s completely out there leap off into Human Centipede territory, you feel unsure whether you should be reacting in shock or laughter at the absurdity of the premise
A Spanish film with a wonderfully ick and queasy premise where a man and a woman wake up in bed together to find they have been surgically attached at the waist
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
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
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
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
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
Third of the Saw films and the point where director Darren Lynn Bousman places the series’ focus on grim gore-drenched sadism and torture
Cult Anglo-horror film with a series of vampire killings that lead to Vincent Price trying to replace bureaucrats with androids
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
A blatant copy of Hostel featuring tourists caught aboard a train in Ukraine that runs an organ-harvesting operation
One of the first films about a medically rationalised vampire concerning a doctor who discovers pills that turn him into a vampire monster
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
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
Belgian film that starts out as a blackly funny work about a cut-price East European hospital before seguing into a zombie film
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
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
Psycho-thriller with Lisa Zane as a nurse seeking vengeance for the death of her father
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
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
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
South Korean film about a doctor with shamanistic powers, this starts out seeming to be a horror film before becoming something different altogether
Action film with Thomas Ian Griffith tracking the killers of his brother to Poland and uncovering an organ harvesting scheme run by Rutger Hauer
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
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
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
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
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 where Ashlyn Yennie wakes up in a hospital filled with sinister happenings including people being maimed and then regenerated
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
Film that takes place with the heroine confined to a hospital bed unable to move as a malevolent ghost enters her room
The second theatrical spinoff from The X Files, a dismally dull entry where one wonders how the people who created one of the great tv shows of the 1990s got it all wrong
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
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
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
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
Film created by Finnish heavy metal performer Mr Lordi that takes place in a hospital that seems to exist in a haunted twilight zone