The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Mind Control is the ability to take control of the minds of other people and direct them to do one’s bidding.
The most common form of mind control is Hypnotism where a skilled adept (a hypnotist) can place a subject into a sleep-like trance and command them to do their will. Mind Control can also be a Psychic Power and is frequently the ability of some Super-Villains.
Mad Scientists and Spy Films frequently devise devices that can control the behaviour of others. Alien Invaders often seek to control individuals or sections of the populace to do their bidding, sometimes with the use of implants.
There is also the real-world fascination with Brainwashing where an individual is subject to a series of sensory deprivations and other techniques to make them pliant and programmable to suggestion. Other methods deal with the use advertising and mass media to influence minds.
Cinematic revival of the old Rocky and Bullwinkle series having the two animated characters emerge into the real (live-action) world. A film that you feel should have been funnier and more energetic than is
B-budget director Fred Olen Ray makes a Women in Prison film set in space. Known under several different names, this is another of Olen Ray’s bimbo pictures where he plants tongue well in cheek
A sequel to the teen spy comedy. This moves the action to England but amplifies everything else into inanely loud and noisy slapstick action
Luigi Cozzi directed quickie designed to copy the success of Alien. As with many Italian films of this era, it has largely been conceived around plentiful provision of gore and little else
Unsold tv pilot that was clearly made as a quick cash-in on Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Produced by Quinn Martin, responsible for many classic 70s tv shows, who has simply rehashed his The Invaders
A family film about a group of kids discovering alien invaders in their attic. A film that is largely construed around a series of slapstick set-pieces.
Indie superhero comedy that reads a good deal funnier on paper than it ever produces laughs on screen. The production lacks the budget to produce more than a handful of cheap superheroic digital effects
A fine film from The Blair Witch Project co-director Eduardo Sanchez about the tensions among a group of friends who hold a captured alien in their garage that then begins to affect them
A surprisingly good conceptual SF film concerning a man trying to deal with a series of increasingly more surreal jumps in which he finds his body is being hijacked
While there is little doubt that Edgar Wright would have made a much better film, this emerges with an engaging likeability. Less epic superheroics, this plays out more as a caper comedy where a good ensemble and comedic playing carry the show
Shinji Aramaki’s immediate sequel to his reboot of the Appleseed franchise. This lacks the visually stunning qualities of its predecessor and seems more conceptually muddled but Aramaki eventually gets it together
Another of the low-budget films Bruce Willis made before his retirement, this has a plot about body-hopping assassins that has surprising similarities to Possessor
Adaptation of the popular videogame that is lumbered with the game’s inherently uncinematic premise where people only sit around and watch what has already happened in the past
A real Grade Z film. A mind-boggling stew involving John Carradine conducting mad science experiments, technical gaffes aplenty, spy capers featuring Tura Satana and even M.A.S.H.‘s Wayne Rogers on script
Second in the trilogy of Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptations starring Doug McClure. This opens with the fabulous invention of the drilling mole but the arrival at the earth’s core look cheap and tatty
The idea of Jennifer Lopez in a transformer suit kicking robot ass has an outlandishness to it. The surprise is that this is a really good, well written SF film of planetary survival
The title is misleading as the film doesn’t feature any robots but a group of mind-controlled assassins. An entry in the mid-1960s spy film fad from cult exploitation director Jess Franco
The culmination of one of the most ambitious cinematic exercises ever conducted, with Marvel weaving storylines through several films to finally merge here with flawless regard. The characters get far more depth than in all of their previous films
Batman’s first screen appearance in a fifteen-chapter serial. This is a dull, impoverished adaptation, which sees Batman and Robin rewritten in the service of the US government fighting a Japanese invasion force
Another of the DC Universe Original Animated Films. This is less a Batman film than a Batman Family film, a mixed effort that sidelines Batman for much of the show
Film spinoff of Batman Beyond, an animated tv series set in the future as a youngster inherits a hi-tech Batsuit from an aging Bruce Wayne. The film resurrects The Joker but fails to do anything interesting with the character
Tim Burton’s superlative duo of Batman films were wrecked after Joel Schumacher took up the director’s chair and turned the films into giant camp fests. Here he allows a madly overacting Jim Carrey and Tommy Lee Jones loose as the villains
Animated adaptation of the classic Batman comic-book story, this places the Batman/Cat Woman relationship centre stage to give her the most substantial workout of any film
Someone figured out Adam West and Burt Ward, Batman and Robin from the 1960s Batman tv series, were still around and put them in this animated film that replicates the look of the show and pays homage to its willful silliness
The Long Halloween Part One was one of the best DC animated films in some time, now comes the concluding chapter, which alas fails to fulfill the promise that the first film showed
A film spinoff from the animated The Batman tv series, this offers a great title match but proves a disappointment. Moreover, it has to twist comic-book canon to make the plot work
Godzilla director Ishiro Honda makes a colourfully entertaining space opera about Earth’s battle to fight off an alien invasion force on The Moon
This has the interesting idea of mind-controlled people being used as shooters in a live-action videogame. However, the rest of the film is a routine low-budget action film
Harry Harrison’s Bill the Galactic Hero is hands down the funniest science-fiction book of all time; it is painful watching it rendered in the hands of Alex Cox who has only the budget and resources of an amateur film
A remake of the work that has been cited as the first slasher film. This is less a horror film than a horror film that has been hijacked by a political agenda, delivered with a relentlessly loud and damning misandrist tone
The first MCU film to emerge since the Great Pause of the pandemic, the question is whether one of the least interesting characters in The Avengers can carry a film all by herself
An impressively large-scale SF film about a military sortie into an area of western Russian that is all that is left unaffected after aliens create a worldwide power cut
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
A low-budget film wherein a teenager falls under the influence of a mad scientist who drills open heads to implant mind control chips. This makes a beeline for gory splatter effects
The fourth Captain America film, where Anthony Mackie now takes over the shield and costume. And you really need to have been following MCU continuity to make sense of much of what is going on
The film adaptation of a popular radio series about a Westerner who has trained in the Eastern mystic arts and uses his powers to create illusions in the fight against crime. One of the first screen superheroes.
After 23 years, Aardman Animation make a sequel to their first feature film. Another chicken caper film where they try to capture some of its dotty charms and largely succeed
Bruce Lee popularised the kung fu genre but then died. Welcome to the Brucespolitation phenomenon where for several years we had Bruce lookalikes appearing in copycat works. Several Bruce imitators appear here as his clones
Atomic became the explain-all buzzword for almost every monster movie of the 1950s.This is the novelty of the one and only atomic zombie film, although at heart is no more than a 1940s mad scientist film
This was the third of the Cube films but has nothing new to add to the mix except a focus on the technicians monitoring the operation and the addition of gore effects
The film that inspired The Terminator! Michael Rennie plays a cyborg who travels back in time to prevent a machine-dominated future coming about, while being hunted by two killer androids sent back to stop him
Vincenzo Natali’s second film, a cool and superbly disquiet thriller about corporate brainwashing and espionage that comes with a series of Philip K. Dick-ian reality bending twists
The second of the theatrically released Doctor Who films intended to highlight the popularity of The Daleks, this is an improvement in that it dispenses with the first film’s buffoonish comedy elements
This offers the novelty of being the world’s first Ukrainian zombie film. Being made in the midst the Russian invasion, this lays into Soviet Russia and its failings with a scathing regard
Adapted from a series of Young Adult books concerning a group of children with psychic powers on the run in a dystopian future, this failed to find the audience it sought
A sometimes amateurish film about people at a B&B surrounded by zombies. This takes a horror comedy tone and gets very gory. Not to mention features an amazing cast
Largely forgotten tv movie from a Robert Bloch script. Curtis Harrington creates a fascinatingly creepy atmosphere that blends film noir with mysterious happenings involving voodoo and the resurrected dead
An early film from Jess Franco in which an exotic dancer is turned into a mind-controlled assassin who lures and kills victims with her six-inch long fingernails as part of a revenge scheme
Steven Spielberg makes a thoughtful return to the theme of alien contact. Rather than the rosy optimism of Close Encounters and E.T. , he seems to have embraced the dark conspiratorial view of The X Files
Dr Mabuse is one of the great villains of cinema. Fritz Lang was one of the greatest directors of the silent era and his first Mabuse film is extraordinary where Lang indulges in visual tricks that still look sensational today
The second version of the multiply filmed novel by Curt Siodmak about a malevolent brain in a tank. Its greatest distinction is featuring later to be First Lady Nancy Davis Reagan as the heroine
Low-budget film directed by a former soldier about a troupe of mercenaries sent into the woods to round up vagrants who find they are fighting against a dragon
In the 1950s Bert I. Gordon specialised in cheap giant insect films. Here he takes H.G. Wells’ name in vain and jumps aboard the 1970s Animals Amok cycle but still makes another shoddy film about giant ants
A Marvel Comics offering that is an adaptation of a team created by the greatest comic-book writer/artist of all time. On screen however, this emerges with strangely flat and moribund results
The adaptation of the Stephen King novel with Drew Barrymore giving a fantastic performance as a young girl with pyrokinetic powers on the run as she is hunted by a sinister government agency
One of Stephen King’s best books is given a new film workover by Blumhouse. Keith Thomas made a standout directorial debut with The Vigil, but this is a disaster, one of the worst of all King adaptations
Not to be confused with Tod Browning’s shock classic, this starts with a mind-bending quality that leaves you wondering WTF is going on, before logically and ingeniously unfolding as a psychic powers film
Film somewhere between Counterstrike and The Running Man where convicts are controlled as avatars inside a live-action videogame. A difficult to believe premise that is pumped up with hyper-adrenalised action visuals
This was the seventh of the 1960s Gamera films and one of the worst of the series. By now, the film is pitched entirely to juvenile audiences, while the effects are pitiful
A rehash of The Stepford Wives recast along racial lines. It is a surprise to see a mainstream horror hit with a strong message about racism, not that Jordan Peele neglects the horror element either
One of the key films in the cult of director Larry Cohen, this throws in a mind-bending mix involving an androgynous alien messiah, random shootings, alien abduction and Catholicism
A completely mad and all over the place film with Sam Rockwell as a time traveller (or madman) arrived at a diner to recruit six people on a mission to save the world from an evil A.I.
Third of the Guardians of the Galaxy films, this successfully recaptures the nature of the goofy ensemble comedy caper that made the first film such a winner but seemed to be missing in the second
Another low-budget film that appropriates H.P. Lovecraft’s name above its title. From low-budget director Chad Ferrin who previously ventured into Lovecraft with The Deep Ones
Sequel to The Asylum’s spendidly grotesque Hansel & Gretel, this pits the two characters against one another for contrived reasons to justify its title but is just cheaply made
Anime set in a disquiet utopia where the populace is monitored by cyber implants. Almost completely eschewing the usual action scenes of sf anime, this tells a strong, intelligent and character-driven story
Another of Albert Pyun’s cyborg films set around a kickboxing competition where Pyun seems to have cut costs by using real competition footage with dramatically dull results
Typical 1990s video release with mad scientist John Saxon creating zombie experiments amid entertainingly gooey meltdowns and a title intended to make you think this is a Hellraiser film
A French film about a teenager who buys a demonic cellphone and is able to use it to enact comeuppances against the people in his life. A 976-Evil for the cellular era
A screw-up finds he has an implant in his head threatening dire things if he does not follow instructions, resulting in his gaining godlike powers
The 30th film from Pixar, a strange take on Avatar where a young conservationist enters a robotic beaver body in order to venture out among the animals. Directed with a good deal of likeably snappy humour
A highly entertaining Herman Cohen production where Michael Gough plays a mad crime writer who employs a series of cruel sensationalistic deaths for his victims
The eight and last of the films recut from episodes of tv’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E.. This starts to show the strain of trying to make what were originally designed as tv episodes work as feature films
A mindless action film made for video as a copy of Universal Soldier in which FBI agent Bryan Genesse comes up against soldiers turned into programmed killers via implanted chips
One of several cheap Italian copies that were made after the success of Star Wars starring Richard Kiel as a peaceful intergalactic police inspector who is mutated into a killer humanoid
Robert Rodriguez makes a film with Ben Affleck as a detective dealing with a man who can control others’ minds. However, this develops into a mind twister of considerable reality bending proportions
Obscure title that when seen is revealed to be a surprisingly well-made (in places) homage to the 1950s alien invasion genre and replication of the era’s style of filmmaking
Low-budget director Ulli Lommel makes a film about a teen who befriends an artificially intelligent rogue military helicopter in what becomes E.T. by way of Blue Thunder
Pixar’s venture into sequels has resulted in works playing off past successes that are lesser than their originals. This came with much anticipation but it too must be counted as another disappointment
Divergent, the first entry in this Young Adult dystopian series, a poor man’s Hunger Games, failed the “I can’t hold any suspension of disbelief” test. This offers more of the same, plus lots of random effects sequences
A completely ridiculous film that throws in an incomprehensible mix of an amok A.I.’s that takes over a stealth plane, UFOs, mind control and military conspiracy and proves badly made on every single count
Classic of the 1950s alien invader genre in which a young boy discovers that the adults around him are being taken over by Martian invaders. Director William Cameron Menzies makes striking use of sets to further a sense of alienation
Tobe Hooper’s remake of the 1950s alien invaders classic for Cannon Films has much better effects and more technical proficient than the original but misses any of its paranoid, alienated mood
One of the early directorial films from Roger Corman, a surprisingly vigorous and well written variant on the alien body snatcher film featuring one of the memorable alien creations of the era
Rowan Atkinson is a very funny man but try as I might I cannot get into these Johnny English films – they seem at best lame Austin Powers castoffs with gags designed for the single digit age range
The second part of the epic three film animated adaptation of the classic DC Comics title Crisis on Infinite Earths concerning a battle across the DC multiverse
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
From they heyday of the 1970s martial arts film, karate champion James Ryan must reunite the old gang to take on a super-villain who wants to enslave the world with a mind control drug derived from potatoes
A cheesily bad alien invader film from the 1950s that seems to be trying to throw every element in SF of the era into the mix from mind controlling aliens to atomic monsters
The most ridiculous work to bear Kong’s name – an animated film with songs where Kong has two buddies who says “dude” and “bro” a lot and Kong fights the lizard people from Atlantis
A 1950s alien invader film that is driven by the quite imaginative image of a giant black alien cube marching across the countryside devouring all forms of energy
The first screen version of Donovan’s Brain about a brain in a jar exerting mental control over a man’s will. This has been considerably changed to become one of the era’s mad scientist films
A heist film set in a near-future USA where a group of criminals are preparing a last big caper before the activation of a mind control device that will make crime impossible
One of the earliest 1950s alien visitor films, although here the alien is peaceful and humanity the aggressor. A moodily effective entry from cult director Edgar G. Ulmer.
Remake of the classic Cold War thriller from Jonathan Demme that has been updated for the era of George W. Bush
Animated film set in a dystopian near-future Europe of constant surveillance where even people’s heads are monitored
The third screen adaptation of John Wyndham’s book, previously filmed as Village of the Damned, this gives the story an update in some interesting ways
A remake of the classic bad movie Cat-Women of the Moon in which explorers to the Moon encounter an all-women society. Things do not improve in the bad movie stakes here
Ana Lily Amirpour, director of A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, returns with a film about a psychic girl and the eccentric grifters that accumulate around her
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