The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
In scientific terminology, mutation is a change in the DNA of an individual or organism. It is one of the principal factors responsible for the Evolution of a species – where genetic changes are carried through multiple generations and those changes that are best adapted to survival come to predominate. Ever since the concept of DNA was understood, genre fiction has latched onto the possibilities of mutation with great enthusiasm.
1950s SF was filled with numerous examples of mutants, usually of the three-eyed and scaly-skinned variety, that would appear in the aftermath of a Nuclear Holocaust. Mutation also has the ability to create superhumans, frequently those with Psychic Powers. Equally it can have hideous side effects and turn humans into all manner of monsters, hybrids or deformed oddities.
Mutation is frequently the given cause when it comes to Monster Movies where atomic energy or genetic experiments have the ability to turn regular-sized creatures into Giant Animals – this is particularly so in the fad for Atomic Monster Movies.
Mutation is also often the cause of a superhero gaining their powers in a Superhero Film – indeed, almost the entire Marvel pantheon of superheroes owes their powers to mutagenics – where it can create a great range of abilities. Just as equally it can also serve as the origin for a Super-Villain.
Early Peter Greenaway film where in typically eccentric fashion he tells a series of absurd stories about survivors of a mysterious event who names all begin with Fall who have begun to mutate and develop an obsession with birds
After several other film incarnations that went nowhere, The Fantastic Four make their first appearance in The MCU. The film creates a wonderful retro world of 1960s futurism based on their original comic-books for them to inhabit
The film version of the comic-book that was made by Roger Corman intended to never be released. This has a reputation as a bad movie and is extremely impoverished adaptation but is more authentic to the comic-book than other big-budget films
One of the big hits among the spate of Marvel Comics adaptations in the 2000s. This has a very mixed reputation but brings the comic-book team to life in a reasonable effort
Despite all the hate this received, I am maybe the only person out there that liked it. It is three-quarters of a good film that strips the Four of costumes and tells a character-driven story about people dealing with powers
The 2005 Fantastic Four was an amiable entry among the Marvel Comics adaptations of the 2000s. This sequel substitutes lowbrow comedy and renders the great character of the Silver Surfer as a CGI cartoon
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
TV mini-series sequel to Stephen King’s Firestarter that now sees Charlie McGee in her twenties played by Marguerite Moreau. The story feels under-plotted and over-padded
British-made SF film that is undeniably influenced by The Quatermass Xperiment about a test pilot turned into a mutated monster after flying above the upper atmosphere
The Bird Flu Epidemic was a brief panic over an influenza outbreak that infected humans; this seems to little concern the film that blows it up into a horde of large mutant birds that attack humans
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
One of the numerous copies of Alien. This was produced by Roger Corman, which means more of an exploitation emphasis – the alien is three times the size, there is more of a T&A emphasis and the effects are cannibalised from his other films
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
After the cult success of Re-Animator, Stuart Gordon, Jeffrey Combs and most of the principals returned with a further H.P. Lovecraft adaptation. More outrageously over-the-top splatter effects but this is somewhat the lesser
An ultra low-budget film about a man on a space journey returning to Earth to find it invaded by aliens. This tries to do Mad Max and Star Wars on the budget of about $1.99
One of the early films from Anglo-horror director John Gilling, this takes place in a fictional Soviet republic and features experiments to create a race of super-children
An unsold Gene Roddenberry tv pilot that is a fascinating almost-ran. Roddenberry rehashes Star Trek by way of Buck Rogers in a post-holocaust setting. This could have made for a worthwhile series
Fascinating film interviewing people about the jobs they are forced to take in an economically collapsed future. Despite a minuscule budget, this has the grip of strong, intelligent SF
Charlie Steeds is a low-budget British director who has shown reasonable promise. Here he makes an H.P. Lovecraft homage about a submarine expedition that awakens Cthulhu on the ocean floor
Much disliked English-language version of Godzilla from Roland Emmerich is a more watchable film than one might think. Emmerich does well when the film allows him to do what he does best – being a big, budget, massively scaled epic of mass destruction
The 28th Godzilla film, made for the series fiftieth anniversary and bringing every monster ever created by Toho together for a massive battle. The results are immensely satisfying
Scott Derrickson film with a captivatingly original premise – a sniper is assigned to a guardhouse overlooking a gorge filled with mysterious monsters and ends up in a forbidden relationship with his counterpart across the divide
This received a lot of bad flak, including from star Ryan Reynolds, but I’m not one of the haters. There is the terrible CGI suit and a miscast Reynolds but it does get a good deal of the comic-book mythos right
A surprisingly good little film about a group of friends being infected by parasites escaped from a laboratory. Confidant assured horror filmmaking with some way out effects.
A Russian attempt to create their own equivalent of an Avengers film. The results emerge surprisingly better than you expect and with some standout effects
Monster movie from Godzilla creator Ishiro Honda featuring a glowing blob that dissolves humans. Mostly a routine policier that is spiced up every so often by novelty effects of people melting
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
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
Baffling mix of teen drama and eco-SF film set in an ozone depleted future with Tcheky Karyo engaged in a series of human-plant mutations that transform him into a swarm of insects
After being hired by The Thing remake and having his work replaced by CGI, makeup effects artist Alec Gillis made his own homage. With modest resources, he does a far better job of capturing the outlandishness of the original
This was ostensibly another in Roger Corman’s series of Edgar Allan Poe adaptations with Vincent Price possessed by his ancestor. This only borrows Poe’s title and instead adapts an H.P. Lovecraft story.
Madcap film that offers a wacky take on the post-apocalyptic action film with Roddy Piper as one of the last fertile men in a world that has been overrun by mutant frogs
Dan O’Bannon scripted film that is uncreditedly based on an H.P. Lovecraft story about family horrors and creatures lurking beneath the graveyard. Aka Bleeders
A film from Duffer Brothers creators of tv’s Stranger Things. This is a fallout shelter drama where the Duffers create a strong paranoid mood but kill the film with a ridiculous twist ending
1950s B movie, one of several inspired by The Quatermass Xperiment on the theme of mutating astronauts/scientists. Nothing hugely standout from the average, although the creature certainly lives up to the hideous description
Sequel to the 2006 remake of Wes Craven’s Backwoods Brutality classic (not to be confused with the sequel that Craven made to his original), this is premised around a series of extremely gory set-pieces
Wes Craven’s Backwoods Brutality classic gets a gore-drenched makeover from Alexandre Aja. One of the better amid the 2000s fad for horror remakes where the original is dragged into the modern day in some interesting ways
A Backwoods Brutality film that becomes quite gore-drenched. Written by its leading man Paul Logan who casts himself as a perfect action hero wading in to kick hillbilly ass
A Z movie classic that combines some of the most absurd looking mutant monsters ever created with the era’s fad for beach party movies, including appearances from a wannabe Beach Boys band
Bong Joon Ho, the South Korean director of Snowpiercer and Parasite, delivers his own version of a monster movie that certainly comes with a difference
An early entry among the pre-MCU surge of Marvel Comics films in the early 2000s sees Ang Lee taking on The Incredible Hulk. Not Lee’s best film, this was slighted at the time but is worth reconsideration
An animated Marvel Comics adaptation that is actually two separate stories involving The Incredible Hulk, who battles respectively Wolverine and Thor
Godzilla creator Ishiro Honda makes a film about a meek man who gains the ability to transform into a mist and promptly becomes a bank-robbing super-villain
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
Monster movie featuring mutant fish monsters come onto land to breed with women. Absurdly entertaining, this at least brings the interspecies lust in films like The Creature from the Black Lagoon out into the open
The finale of the saga comes with a tough, gritty edge that make it the best directed of the series. On the other hand, it builds well only to arrive at an ending that goes oddly sideways and throws sympathies to the wind
The third film version of Richard Matheson’s book is only a remake of the previous version The Omega Man. Crucially, this throws out the essence of the book for a far less interesting piece about Will Smith fighting mutants in the ruins
The theatrically released pilot film for the 1970s/80s tv series based on the Marvel Comic that tells the Hulk’s origin story. This is one of the better episodes of the otherwise banal series
Sequel to the Ang Lee Hulk with Edward Norton inheriting the roles of Bruce Banner. Ang Lee gave the first film a visual brio but this often seems by the numbers
The very first ever team-up between Marvel Comics characters on the screen in which Bill Bixby’s Hulk meets Thor. The film has a camp reputation because of its Thor who resembles a Swedish bodybuilder
Throwback to 1950s films like The Quatermass Xperiment with Alex Rebar as an astronaut infected with a condition that causes his flesh to melt. A B movie boosted by great melting effects from Rick Baker
One of the greatest of all 1950s SF films in which average man Grant Williams begins to shrink in size. A film that is as much an effects tour-de-force as it is an existential allegory about a man in an alien universe
An appealing comedy remake of The Incredible Shrinking Man with Lily Tomlin as a housewife who starts to shrink after exposure to household cleaning products. One of the better films from the usually terrible Joel Schumacher
A deranged madcap film produced by the Shaw Brothers featuring an enhanced superhero fighting off a bizarre menagerie of monsters commanded by an alien princess
Low-budget adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth about a town where the locals have become mutant fish people, which has been weirdly mashed up with a girls boarding school story
From on an early script by Star Trek director Nicholas Meyer, this is an entertainingly tongue-in-cheek effort where women use a serum to turn into deadly bee creatures
Film about giant crabs amok that feels like a throwback to a certain kind of 1950s monster movie. This plays itself remarkably seriously for the most part only to fall apart right at the end
Irish horror film about a series of deadly parasites amok on a rural farm. Playing like a serious version of the NZ comedy Black Sheep (but with cows), this has a grim, grimy atmosphere to it that does produce some undeniable effect
This was the first of Larry Cohen’s sequels to his killer mutant baby film It’s Alive. Here Cohen uses the occasion to expand the themes in richer depth and makes a work that stands up as well as the original
The film about a killer mutant baby that made the name of director Larry Cohen who developed a cult following. Cohen infuses it with rich imagery and dark sense of humour. Several sequels followed
Larry Cohen’s 1974 cult classic about a killer mutant baby gets the remake treatment. Even though Cohen co-writes the script here, the remake manages to wring anything interesting out of the original
The third of Larry Cohen’s killer mutant baby films that began with the cult It’s Alive. Cohen’s humour is again present but the film feels like a hodgepodge of ideas left over from the other films
This leads to you expect a horror comedy but spends half its running time in build-up with no comedy or monster slaying, although does deliver on this with an entertaining effects-heavy climax
Jack Frost, not to be confused with the Michael Keaton film of the same name, was an amusing horror comedy about a killer mutant snowman. This is a sequel that takes Jack to a beach resort in Hawaii
A film about a killer snowman. Conceived as a one-liner spouting villain and outfitted with a series of novelty Christmas-themed deaths, this does not take itself too seriously with rather appealing results
Second of the Bruce Timm animated films based on DC’s Justice League, this has been construed as a Mirror Universe take that pits the Justice League up against villainous versions of themselves
A relative disappointment among the mostly excellent animated DC superhero films, this pits each member of the Justice League with a matching super-villain only who seemingly kills them off
A really cheap and unconvincing post-apocalyptic action film starring forgotten martial arts star Ron Marchini as a lawman fighting off mutant crazies to obtain a power crystal
1980s makeup effects vehicle with students uncovering mad science experiments in an old house. The effects get the better of the cast, most notedly a horrendously over-acting Rod Steiger
One of the first films to come out exploiting the success of Star Wars – a badly made teen underdog fantasy in which bullied Kim Milford takes revenge after finding an alien raygun
A fitfully amusing H.P. Lovecraft fanboy comedy. Lovecraft, a noted conservative, would likely have deplored the idea of the nerd comedy but this gets the flavour of Lovecraft’s works down better than most
Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart bid farewell to the X-Men franchise. One of the strongest films in the series, having been stripped of superheroics and allowed to play out as a character drama
From Rian Johnson, a time travel film that is uneven but is mostly conducted with considerable cleverness and intelligence. One of the few multiplex films driven by plot and some clever twists rather than action
This feels like a remake of the Roger Corman post-holocaust cavemen cheapie Teenage Caveman. It cannot escape that at heart it is never more than a B movie about caveman fighting mutants
A Chinese-made attempt to make a disaster movie with a crosscut of characters aboard a luxury airliner. What causes the film to plummet down into the ridiculous is the addition of a horde of mutant cats
Bigfoot film made by two brothers using a non-professional cast and crew, which emerges better than you might expect and generates passable tension
A nerdy guy sets out across a post-apocalyptic wasteland filled with giant animals to be with the girl of his dreams. This sound promising in description but suffers an identity crisis on screen
Luc Besson makes a preposterously entertaining work where drug mule Scarlett Johansson develops superhuman mental capabilities – sort of if you imagine Limitless reconceived as an action film
Charles and Albert Band had a success with the H.P. Lovecraft adapted Re-Animator; their attempt to replicate that with another Lovecraft story is lacking Stuart Gordon’s splattery black humour
The original Filipino exploitation classic, this pumps the 1940s mad scientist film up with gore, toplessness and tropical locations. A reasonable hit but surprisingly dull and sedate despite
Another of the films spun off from Sony’s hold on the Spider-Man copyright, this has been called the worst Marvel Comics superhero film ever. This also bears next-to-no resemblance to its comic-book counterpart
B-movie in which a chemical spill at a lab causes a mass murderer to turn into a giant mosquito hybrid. An efficient cobbling of cliches that comes out as a B budget variation n The Fly.
One of the better among the current fad for Young Adult dystopian SF works post-The Hunger Games. This dispenses with dystopian Coming of Age stories and gives us a fascinating conceptual mystery even if the answers prove underwhelming
A sequel to Meatball Machine, the film that started the gonzo Japanese splatter genre, filled with wild mutations, over-the-top splatter, a surreal sense of humour and an obsession with schoolgirls in panties
An Italian exploitation film intended to take advantage of the 80s makeup effects revolution of the day as a scientist injects himself with an untested serum and transforms into a monster
Disney live-action comedy where Dean Jones accidentally creates a duck that lays golden eggs
Produced by Wes Craven and his son, this started as a third Hills Have Eyes film but ends up a generic Alien copy with a mutant monster hunting people in a desert laboratory
One of three films produced by Fangoria magazine, this takes place in a post-holocaust wasteland of crazies and is certainly gore-drenched but unfortunately only churns cliches
Steven Spielberg takes on Philip K. Dick in a much grittier film than he usually makes. In the strong and intelligent script, Tom Cruise is an officer on a police force that predicts crime before it happens only to then be hunted by his own side
Possibly the worst film to be made out of the 1950s giant bug cycle concerning giant wasps marauding in Africa. All the dramatic scenes are composed of scenes cannibalised from other adventure films, while the effects have a shoddiness that frequently reduces you to laughter
Video-released compilation of above average horror short films all set around the titular website
Not as you might assume an adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine but another cheap and tatty Syfy Channel production that grafts Wells’ Morlocks onto the formula for their typical monster movie
A ridiculously stupid giant bug film, albeit not unentertainingly so. This is a monster movie that has been premised solely on the provision of ridiculous creature effects every few minutes and very little else that one can take seriously beyond that
The first film from Jim Mickle, a tense and effective horror work about the residents of an apartment building under siege from rat-human hybrids
One of the handful of films from the underrated 70s/80s director John ‘Bud’ Cardos. Cardos does extremely creating an usual smalltown atmosphere simmering with Southern bigotry, before the film erupts into a more standard toxic waste zombies outbreak film
Long-planned project that creates an interesting future scenario, epic action, an array of Dirty Dozen characters but emerges as surprisingly trivial
A very different to the current SF boom in Chinese cinema at the moment, this is a Cyberpunk film about the construction of mutant fighters
The gonzo Japanese splatter film is one of the insanely demented corners of genre cinema today. This is a prime example, filled with mind-bogglingly perverse anatomical rearrangements and attachments, the screen is awash with blood and everything directed with a mad cartoonish energy