The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Diabolical Pacts are pacts made with The Devil or one of his minions. There have been numerous screen depictions of such pacts, both in a Light Fantasy and comedic vein or a horror context. Usually this entails a contract, which is commonly written in blood.
A diabolical pact entails selling one’s soul to The Devil for some gain in the here and now. Frequently, the story will entail how The Devil will contort or offer an interpretation of the wording of the agreement to cheat the user and leave them disappointed.
The most famous Pact with the Devil story was that of Faust who sold his soul to The Devil for the love of a woman, which has undergone numerous screen interpretations.
A micro-budgeted production shot in a trailer in the woods with a cast of two that sits in a fascinatingly ambiguous place about whether the central character has sold his soul or gone off his psychiatric meds
Classic film about a lawyer arguing in court to save a man who has sold his soul to The Devil. On screen, this is turned into a highly entertaining sentimentalised Frank Capra-type film about American greatness
A variant on the Pact with the Devil story as a rock group conduct a Faustian deal with Malcolm McDowell’s Devil, leading to their meteoric rise to fame and debauchery
Considerable return to form for animator Don Bluth even if the story of the Russian Royals he is telling is based on a hoax and manages to entirely excise any mention of the Communist Revolution
Dazzling mash-up of 1940s film noir and the horror genre. One of the most beautifully filmed of all horror films, Alan Parker creates a bygone world with a visual sensuality that constantly edges over into the fantastic
The second film from The Pact director Nicholas McCarthy. What is happening is kept deliberately vague and elliptical – as you are trying to piece everything together, McCarthy manages to pull some incredibly eerie jolts
One of the films from the heyday of the Filipino exploitation cinema fad. John Ashley makes a pact with the Devil,up in another man’s body and periodically turns into what is a werewolf in all but name
British comedy made with an acerbic bite featuring Dudley Moore as a hapless loser who makes a pact with Peter Cook’s Devil to win the love of his life but has the wording of each wish contorted around on him
US remake of the British comedy where Brendan Fraser is a schmuck who sells his soul to The Devil who then twists around the wording of each wish. The bite of the original is lacking in a comedy that has to spell everything out for the audience.
Osama Tezuka is a cult figure in anime and manga – what is less well known is that he also made adult animation. This, about a woman’s temptation by The Devil in mediaeval France, is a mind-boggling array of psychedelia and eroticism
A standout Swiss-made film, an exceptionally well written work about a pact made with the devil by a mediaeval village that unleashes a plague of spiders and other curses upon them
A darkly funny Hal Hartley film set on the eve of The Millennium as Jesus Christ wanders about Manhattan having doubts whether to unleash the Biblical Apocalypse
From David Keating who made Wake Wood, this falls into the Folk Horror genre and becomes a well-made variant on Rosemary’s Baby as a schoolgirl accepts a Devil’s Deal to save her father
Before the films, this was an earlier BBC tv mini-series version of the C.S. Lewis book, one of a series of four adaptations. This is faithful to the story but suffers from impoverished effects
The film adaptation of C.S. Lewis’s book sought to appeal to audiences for the Lord of the Rings films but between Lewis’s heavy-handed Christian allegories and Andrew Adamson’s inexperience as a director fails to fly
The Dc Comics character John Constantine was made into an animated web series that was compiled as this film. One is quite taken aback at how much more edgy and adult this is than most of DC’s animated offerings
Enigmatic Manoel de Oliveira film that may be about wife Catherine Deneuve making a pact with The Devil to dispose of the woman husband John Malkovich is attracted to. Or maybe not
One of Walter Hill’s finest films that sets out in search of the soul of blues music, featuring a superlative performance from Joe Seneca as an aging bluesman who wants back the soul he traded to The Devil for success
Musical where an ordinary guy sells his soul to become a star baseball player. Choreographed with exuberance by the great Bob Fosse, including a seduction number that proved controversial for the era
Incredibly unfunny comedy in which a teenager sells his soul to the Devil. As The Devil, Kevin Pollak lets all stop loose in a mind-bogglingly over-the-top performance
Dreary Disney live-action comedy with Bill Cosby as The Devil who tasks hapless Elliott Gould with trying to find redemption by collecting three souls
An indescribable, completely insane Southern road movie about soul collectors. Somewhere between The Dukes of Hazzard as redone by Guy Ritchie or Quentin Tarantino and the Southern blues film Crossroads
Despite a premise that sounds more like the punchline of a lawyer joke – The Devil played by Al Pacino is a high-price lawyer in New York – this is lushly produced, played seriously and comes with surprising theological depths
Beautifully pure-hearted French Wartime allegory set during the Middle Ages about The Devil tempting mortals into damnation via affairs of the heart
A modernised version of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray where a male model transfers his image to a photograph that ages while he remains immortal
Mike Flanagan mini-series that expands on the story to incorporate a host of other Poe stories. More like another of Mike Flanagan’s cross-generational ghost stories by way of tv’s Succession with a lot of Poe-esque margin notes
F.W. Murnau’s version of the classic tale of an aging scholar selling his soul to the Devil is one of the most fabulous pieces of pure cinema to come out of the German Expressionist era
Czech animator Jan Svankmajer offers up his wonderfully bizarre part-live-action, part-Claymation interpretation of the classic story of Faust and his pact with The Devil
Alexander Sokurov, the director behind Russian Ark, turns to the classic story about a man who sells his soul to The Devil. A very different version than we are used to that takes place in an earthy, cluttered Mediaeval world
Brian Yuzna’s adaptation of the cult comic-book is a disappointment that has tamed down any of the censorship-pushing controversy the original had and emerges as no more than a standard dark avenging superhero film
The third of the Fear Street films, this takes the story back to a 17th Century filled with absurdly modern attitudes and offers an explanation that ties everything together
This was made not long after Wes Craven’s Shocker, a film in which detective Lou Diamond Phillips faces a serial killer who comes back from the gas chamber and hop between bodies
Film adaptation of Marvel Comics’ demon superhero emerges as a far better film than it had the right to be where the risibility of the image of a motorcycle-riding demon hero is made to work through some vivid and way-out effects
Ridiculous sequel to the Marvel Comics adaptation with an indifferently written script assembled from cliches, forgettable action scenes and Nicolas Cage giving one of his silliest performances in ages
Low key horror in which a teenager finds his brother has traded his soul to demonic forces. This is modestly effective, where those involved are engaged in a clear effort to make it work
Ghost story in which Trish Van Devere moves into her late aunt’s house where she is wooed by a handsome stranger while being haunted by a mysterious hearse
Fascinating British film about pacts with an ambiguous Devil figure that largely exists to push protagonist Jim Sturgess into as many morally uncomfortable places as possible
After a disastrous reboot of the Hellboy franchise, Millennium Media get it right by employing the comic’s creator on script, taking the series into wildly creative directions with Hellboy up against Appalachian folk horrors
Director Bruce McDonald and writer/star Don McKellar make an hilariously eccentric road movie as McKellar takes a trip down the title route with a dead body while pursued by The Devil
The idea of a horror film set around US football kind of leaves you scratching your head – the two don’t seem to go together. Produced by Jordan Peele, this comes out somewhere between Any Given Sunday and The Neon Demon
Lightweight comedy in which a nerd makes a pact with The Devil to have the perfect male body
Comedy where a nerdy teen signs a diabolical pact that offers cool and the girl of his dreams
This wouldn’t be a Terry Gilliam if it wasn’t cursed by bad luck being affected by the death of star Heath Ledger. It’s the most Gilliam-esque film in some years where Gilliam and his designers leap off into deliriously madcap surrealism
A billionaire traps his children in his mansion with him in the belief that something is trying to kill him as it slowly eliminates their numbers
This conducts a perfect simulation of a 1970s tv talkshow as a demonic possession occurs live on air
One of the last gasps of the Anglo-horror cycle, this sets assorted deviltry and a series of Omen-styled novelty deaths in an English mansion
Nancy Allen plays a futures trader who is offered the chance for success if she will trade her soul
Earlier less well known adaptation of the C.S. Lewis book made for tv. This is far more faithful to the original story than some of the other films but is badly hampered by crude and primitive animation that results in an exceedingly simplistic rendering of the story
Indonesia’s Timo Tjahjanto has emerged as a Must Watch director on the basis of his jaw-dropping brutal action films plus assorted ventures into horror. Here he pays homage to the 1980s horror films in particular to The Evil Dead
Adaptation of a classic Gothic novel about a priest who faces diabolic temptations in the form of a woman disguised as a novice monk
The Monk is a sordid classic of 18th Century Gothic literature, filled with crazed lusts and Catholic guilt and damnation. However, in the hands of French director Dominik Moll, all the tortured sexuality has been watered down and the story stuffed as a costume drama
Anodyne adaptation of a weaker Stephen king novel about a curio shop that sells objects that cause people to become obsessed in so doing wreaking havoc in a small town
Riding on his fame as Freddy Krueger in the Elm Street films, actor Robert Englund made his directorial debut here but the film is lumbered with the lame concept of a demonic phone line
The best of the Welcome to Blumhouse films set among the rivalry of two sisters at a highly competitive music school where one gets an occult text allowing her an advantage
On the back of popularity of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical and the Elm Street films, Robert Englund was cast in this version where the emphasis is on the slasher element, which works far better than you might think
Predating The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Brian De Palma conducts a very funny parody of The Phantom of the Opera (and several other horror films) as a glitter rock musical
From producer Dan Curtis, creator of tv’s Dark Shadows and The Night Stalker, an adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s novel about a libertine who remains eternally youthful while his debaucheries are transferred to a portrait. This has to count as the best version of the story to date.
Ghost story that does an excellent job in creating an incredibly haunted and unusual atmosphere. On the other hand, the film falls apart during the second half where it heads in another direction altogether and leaves one entirely unclear what is going on
Classic British adaptation of the Alexander Pushkin’s story about a soldier who seeks the secret of selling one’s soul for a winning hand at cards
Carmen Ejogo’s daughter is bitten by a snake, a stranger heals her only for Carmen to then be told she has to kill somebody else in payment
This is essentially The Most Dangerous Game transplanted into the setting of an Agatha Christie whodunnit with Samara Weaving marrying into a family of privilege only to find her wedding night requires her to engage in a deadly game of Hide and Seek
One of the cheap fairytale adaptations that Cannon Films made during the 1980s
Alec Baldwin’s financially troubled modernised remake of The Devil and Daniel Webster comes to the screen as a compromised vision
Reasonable adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s stories about a Puritan warrior, an entry in the 00s sword-and-sorcery fad that comes with a welcomely dark edge
Sequel to the Stephen King adapted film about hoodlums resurrected from the dead, this descends into an incredible silliness. Featuring a teenage Hillary Swank
Very disappointing film adaptation of Todd MacFarlane’s cult comic-book where all of the moody darkness emerges with one-dimensional effect as little more than The Punisher with horns
The Stand is regarded as Stephen King’s best novel, an epic that depicts the final showdown between good and evil in the aftermath of civilisation. The mini-series adaptation was alas placed into the ham fists of one of King’s worst adapters. Mick Garris
The Stand is in my opinion Stephen King’s greatest book. The question is whether this new mini-series version will improve on the laughably failed 1994 version
One of the best Stephen King tv mini-series with Colm Feore as a mysterious stranger who manipulates and turns an entire town against themselves
Classic German silent film where a man sells his shadow, which then becomes a malevolent doppelganger that torments his life
A classic of the German Expressionist era about a poor student who sells his shadow to The Devil, only to have it become a malevolent doppelganger. As with much of the work to emerge from this era, the film manages directorial effects that still look amazing today
One of the greatest of all fantasy films. A reasonable percentage of you are going to switch off when I use the word ballet but I urge you to bear with me and discover this stunningly cinematic Technicolor epic that uses sets in extraordinary ways that no other film ever has
The third and best of Hammer’s Karnstein trilogy, which features twin sisters Madeline and Mary Collinson as vampires. This works due to a strong hand from director John Hough and Peter Cushing on fine form as a witchfinder
An early Roger Corman film that stirs a fascinating mix of elements involving hypnotic regression, witchery, time travel and appearances from The Devil
Set in a British boarding school/military academy, this starts out seeming like a ghost story but does a mid-film flip to reveal something else altogether is going on. I held out promise but between a low budget and a contrived end explanation this fails to work
The novelty of the first Christian horror film. As opposed to much of the message-heavy tripe that usually gets peddled in this niche market, this is actually well structured with a number of interesting ambiguities and engaging as a story for the better part
Another excruciatingly bad mock exploitation film from Tony Watt who may well be the world’s worst filmmaker
Third and final of the Warlock films where Julian Sands is replaced by Bruce Payne
A strong and imaginative horror/Western hybrid set aboard a train before the realisation that it is travelling to Hell. Deft characterisations and some tight, electric confrontations make this work well
The Adams Family have made a series of striking horror films in recent years. This is an impressive work set around a circus, a cross-country murder spree and dark magic