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.
Halfway reasonable Stephen King adapted tv mini-series. This has been placed in the directorial hands of King’s worst adapter Mick Garris who at least holds his worst tendencies in check
Timur Bekmambetov’s sequel to Night Watch comes with a much better budget and the same wild visuals, although is slightly the lesser film
Anime where a mysterious other-dimensional stranger aids future rebels. This has a wonderfully ornate Gothic feel but an entirely confusing plot
Screenwriter Akiva Goldsman gives us an utterly mangled version of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series that has little resemblance to the books, yet makes little sense if you haven’t read them
A no expectation adaptation of an H.P. Lovecraft’s Dreams of the Witch-House from a director down the low-budget end of the spectrum that does some surprisingly modest things
The first sequel to Vincenzo Natali’s fine conceptual puzzlebox film. This expands out on the idea, having a cube that bends through time and space, and has a certain fascination if not as much as the original did
Animator Ralph Bakshi jumps aboard the Who Framed Roger Rabbit? bandwagon with a toon film in which a Jessica Rabbit-like cartoon character is dragged into the real world whereupon she is played by Kim Basinger
Studio Ghibli anime in which a girl saves the life of a cat only to be drawn into a world of cats where a cat prince decides she will be his bride
Adaptation of the Dr Seuss book made following the success of Ron Howard’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas. The book is dragged down into noisy slapstick chaos, capped by a badly unrestrained Mike Myers as The Cat
Fan parody/homage of H.P. Lovecraft that comes waist-deep in references and jokes. The film is an amateur effort made with a painful cheapness in some areas; nevertheless it is clear that the team are really into making it and their enthusiasm carries the film
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
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
Disney animation and Marvel Comics come together; Marvel loses and most of the comic-book is tossed out the window and this becomes a simple story about a boy and his robot story before settling into familiar sueprheroics
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
An interestingly odd film where a videographer looking for a story investigates homeless man Joe Manganiello’s claims to being a superhero, which may or may not be true
A banal David De Coteau directed kid’s film about two teens who find an arsenal of alien equipment and put the suits on to become superheroes
Following on from his reworking of The Wizard of Oz in Tin Man, this is a tv mini-series where Nick Willing rather fascinatingly reinterprets Alice in Wonderland in SF terms
An object lesson in how to create an instant cult film – exceedingly eccentric, a commercial failure at the box-office, it instantly receiving a fan clique – all without it ever being a particularly great film