The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
The world we live in exists in three-dimensions – the x and y axes on a flat surface make up the first two dimensions, while depth adds a third. Time is commonly referred to as a fourth dimension. Mathematics describe the possibility of far more dimensions than that. Fantastic cinema has run with that and created the idea of other dimensions as some kind of alternate reality.
Quite what other dimensions are in genre cinema is never clearly defined. As in Rod Serling’s classic opening narration for The Twilight Zone (1959-63), the fifth dimension appears to be simply a place where strange, unexplained things occur and no more details are offered than that.
Other dimensions can be places that experiments open up to unleash aliens or Lovecraftian entities. There can be strange Alternate Realities or simply different worlds and planets where people become trapped or venture into for adventures. Occasionally they can be other dimensions in the mathematical sense – places that have strange geometric and topographical landscapes.
Zack Snyder’s original cut of Justice League is a magnificent work that restores much character depth and story. I would far rather watch this than any of the recent MCU films
Charles Band returns to H.P. Lovecraft and conducts a low-budget remake of From Beyond, which he had memorably overseen back in the 80s with Stuart Gordon
Multi-director anthology about a series of mysterious portals that appear around the world, this creates a sense of something genuinely alien and otherworldly
Sony’s Spider-Man franchise ingeniously competes with Marvel’s shared universe by bringing all their previous incarnations of Spider-Man together
The second of the Mortal Kombat animated films, this continues into another tournament, introducing a bewildering array of characters from the games amid a high degree of violence and bloodshed
A reboot of the film series adapted from the popular videogame. Produced by James Wan, this emerges as a kinetic and enjoyable effort that has clearly designed to introduce an ongoing franchise
The Marvel onslaught continues with this resurrection of a martial artist superhero character from the 1970s. Amid the mostly ho-hum MCU offerings of the 2020s, this becomes an energised action vehicle
A valiant attempt to remake Clive Barker’s glistening and brilliant original that only emerges as a better made version of one of the sequels. This has a disappointing tameness that would never have inspired a series of sequels
Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead have become must-watch directors in the last decade. This film, which was shot in their apartment during Covid lockdown, becomes the ultimate conspiracy theory rabbit hole
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are resurrected in a new animated film that feels like a watered-down fix designed for Ritalin-deprived youth
Rodrigo Gudiño, editor of Rue Morgue magazine, directs a horror film with strong Lovecraftian overtones about a portal opened at a mysterious cabin in the woods
Low-budget film about a woman who inherits a British country estate to find someone has opened a portal to unleash entities. One of several low-budget films of late to appropriate Lovecraft’s name
The animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse proved an unexpected success. This sequel builds on that ups the artistic quality of the original to something quite extraordinary
In a seeming competition for the most ridiculous killer shark of all time, Z budget director Mark Polonia gives us a film about a mummy shark revived from an Egyptian pyramid
Ben Wheatley has gained a cult following in recent years with films like Kill List and High Rise. Here he sets out to make a deliberately low-tech multiverse film that becomes a real head-scratcher
James Gunn’s almost completely successful reboot of the cinematic Superman, the first film perhaps that comes with a total confidence in the comic-book source and where Gunn is not afraid to be goofy
A sequel to the 2021 revival of the film series based on the videogame and a much more satisfying film than its predecessor. The first film was all origin story, but this plunges us into the actual kombat itself
A fascinating word-of-mouth hit based on a YouTube series about the exploration of a labyrinth of extra-dimensional office rooms built on an eerily alien design scheme