The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Parody (in the sense used on this site) is a form of Comedy that spoofs other works. Usually in parodies, a particular work or entire genre is taken where its elements and tropes are comically exaggerated or punctured. The most common parodies here are of other films and tv shows, sometimes of other media like books and comic-books.
The superhero parody began with tv’s Batman (1966-8) and its deliberate puncturing of the tone of the comic-book. This begat a long line of superhero parodies, even a mini-spate of ones about superheroes with no powers. Other genres to have attracted a sizeable number of parodies has been the Vampire Film and the Slasher Film.
The British Carry On films of the 1960s took a different genre with each film and played it for raucous farce. Mel Brooks cornered the field on parodies during the 1970s, spoofing a different movie genre with each film. Airplane (1980) popularised the spoof movie and created a number of copycat comedies based around spoofing either genres or individual films. The parody of the individual film is also frequently the stuff of short sketches on tv comedy shows.
The 2000s saw the popularity of the Scary Movie franchise, which spoofed assorted horror films, repeating them with a series of crude and vulgar gags and led to many imitators. This led to the rise of directors Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer whose line of empty-headed and inane gags based on recent hits took the genre to its nadir.
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
Big hit for Pixar and director Brad Bird, a witty spoof of the superhero film that shows a superhero family trying to deal with everyday life. Enormously good-natured fun all around
Joe Dante pays homage to Fantastic Voyage, the classic film about a submarine journey through the human body. Here Dante plays it as a screwball comedy but his in-jokey style failed to catch on with audiences
A lumbering, stagebound adaptation of Stephen Sondheim musical that lamely dips into the fairytale parody that Shrek and other films tapped far more engagingly over a decade ago
Extremely silly and at times undeniably funny spoof on Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde – here Dr Jekyll becomes a coke addict who snorts his formula and turns into a swinger with a giant afro
Spy movie parody with Rowan Atkinson as an inept agent who is constantly tripping over his own feet. It is Austin Powers reconceived as a Mr Bean film but offering little that is funny.
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
A demented Jeffrey Lau comedy that seems to have no limits on how silly it is willing to be, while parodying just about every other film made around the same time
A much better sequel that gives the characters a thorough workover while making clever play out of the contrasts of masked superhero and reality that ran through the first film
One of several films around the same time about wannabes without powers playing at being superheroes. Matthew Vaughn delivers a film that falls between witty deflation of and a celebration of nerdy fantasy
Beyond the wilfully ridiculous title, this is a surprisingly entertaining and funny film that lampoons monster movies in general concerning a monstrous condom on the attack.
Fourth and final of the Killer Tomatoes films by which time the slight appeal of the original concept has been well and truly worn out
This was the third of the Attack of the Killer Tomatoes films. This hits an appealingly silly and wilfully ridiculous note that makes it the best of the sequels.
The infamous miscalculated Dino de Laurentiis remake of King Kong where the stop-motion is replaced by Rick Baker in an ape suit, while the fairytale romance is replaced by Jessica Lange as a flower child who cracks jokes
Pitched as a parody of the martial arts moves in The Matrix and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. In actuality, this is a witless and unfunny comedy that only takes a 1970s martial arts film and dubs it with a laughtrack
A big flop but highly underrated Arnold Schwarzenegger film, a sophisticated meta-fiction that views the cinema screen as another dimension and wittily deflates action cliches
In the same vein as Grindhouse, an anthology that consists of two longer stories set around the gimmick of a tv horror host playing a double-bill, along with several mocked-up parody trailers
This seems to want to do for the lesbian vampire film what Shaun of the Dead did for the zombie film. Alas, the film makes its appeal fairly and squarely into the crude, sexism of British lad culture
An undeniably amusing Irish comedy in which a drunken dimwit ends up being transformed into a vampire. The film comes working at you in its goofy way
The director of Tucker and Dale vs Evil returns with a comedy that spoofs The Omen about an average guy trying to step-parent the Anti-Christ child
This is intended as a deliberately bad parody of a 1950s SF film. It is a fairly silly effort that almost ends up being too well made for its own good to mimic the originals that weren’t even trying
Joe Dante makes a toon film winding in dozens of cameos from Warner Brothers cartoon characters. The results prove enormously playful. Infinitely more fun that the Space Jam films
Rather funny Woody Allen film where he takes to spoofing Russian literature and does some hilarious visual gags and one-liners. Comes with minor fantasy elements including spoofing The Seventh Seal
Genial and very likeable spoof of Dracula and the vampire film that succeeds where other works have failed and is very funny. George Hamilton steps into the role of Dracula with debonair charm
Extremely funny Steve Martin comedy where he plays a neurosurgeon who falls in love with a brain in a jar
A miracle of no-budget filmmaking made on a budget of $1000. A homage/parody of 80s/90s cyborg action films with some extremely accomplished effects posing and a sidesplitting ear for the era’s dialogue
Tim Burton makes a film based on the old Topps bubblegum card series about Martian invaders, which becomes an affectionately goofy tribute to 1950s alien invasion cinema
Peter Jackson‘s second film, what might be called The Muppet Show by way of John Waters, an inspired work of puppet depravity that makes a beeline for bad taste
The painfully unfunny films of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer are a random assortment of films of the last six months run over with crude and vulgar jokes. In this case, they take on parodying principally 300
Monster movie parody that spoofs a number of classic films, including King Kong where it takes the title literally and the monster makes off with the hero, giving the film a certain LGBT relevance in its day
Comedy about stupid alien visitors largely construed as a vehicle for popular British comedy duo Mel Smith and Griff Rhys-Jones. Some witty SF in-jokes among a haphazard script
An anthology of comedy skits that sets out to be in as bad taste as possible – you are left astounded how far a film has to go to offend in this post-South Park era
Fairly silly comedy in which housewife Susan Blakely discovers that she is turning into a werewolf. This varies between the over-the-top and the oddly amusing line
A superhero parody about a group of reject superheroes with useless powers. Despite moments of amusement, this fails to quite come off
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
Following the highly successful Animal House, this was the second of the films made using the name of the satirical magazine National Lampoon and is a feeble parody of the slasher film
An excruciatingly unfunny spoof of Men in Black that was shoved out using the name of National Lampoon magazine. A painful viewing experience.
This has the amusing idea of casting a Last People on Earth film with two Valley Girls. This starts well but the film seems to run out of steam halfway through
Alien body snatchers comedy that feels less like a film than an extended fanboy in-joke
A really funny parody of Japanese monster movies. Sublimely silly nonsense
A flop theatrical film spinoff from the Get Smart tv series with Don Adams’ Maxwell Smart trying to stop a bomb that renders people naked
Sequel to the Eddie Murphy remake of The Nutty Professor. That film’s tour-de-force was a scene with Murphy playing all the members of his family. Here the family have been brought to the fore. Murphy’s performance and the effects are expectedly great but the plot is all over the place
An early work from South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone about a Mormon who becomes a porn star and then turns superhero
One of the more amusing of the numerous James Bond copies of the 1960s featuring James Coburn as agent Derek Flint, this plants tongue in cheek and cheerfully spoofs the whole spy fad
The slasher film only really came into existence in 1980 but was so prolifically milked that by even two years later it had spawned its own sub-cycle of parodies. This hits in with a wacky anything goes absurdity but, aside from an amusing Carrie spoof, little of it is funny
Pearl White was the original serial heroine in The Perils of Pauline. During the 1960s Batman craze, the serial was revived as this campy comedy
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
The second film from Joe Dante. Mounted as a quickie copy of Jaws by producer Roger Corman, Dante succeeds in peppering it with a lot of sly jokes and genre in-references
Widely rididculed attempt to market Gilbert & Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance as a teen pop film by way of The Blue Lagoon. A mind-spinning film that seems to have no limit on how silly it is prepared to be, including numerous anachronistic contemporary pop culture in-jokes and fourth-wall breaking gags
A one-gag animated film that essentially reverses the plot of E.T, and has a human astronaut stranded on a planet of aliens and adopted by one boy. More likeable than it has a right to be.
Based on the book that led a publishing phenomenon in which literary classics are mashed up with monsters, this has the difficult balancing act – that of making Jane Austen’s Regency romance sit alongside zombies – nevertheless manages to play both with an impeccably straight-face
Fairly silly fairytale parody with a prince transformed into a frog trying to find a modern girl to give him the kiss of true love
A Secret Life of Walter Mitty for movie lovers wherein a milquetoast projectionist daydreams himself into a variety of movie scenarios as an inept superhero. Quirkily charming if never more than a single idea. Something you feel should have been a cult film
Based on an off-Broadway play, this is a drag parody of the beach party movie. It does dig into the squeaky clean image of the genre but never seems a particularly funny parody
A spectacularly terrible film. Designed to exploit the 1976 remake, this offers up a sex-reversed parody of King Kong – only the Kong producers didn’t see that way and sued to stop the film being released. Robin Askwith, the star of the softcore Confessions films, engages in a romance with a female Kong amid excruciating puns
I had a lot of liking for Disney’s Wreck-It Ralph, a depiction of the inside of a videogame from the viewpoint of the characters. This expands the concept to the internet. Despite being the ultimate product placement film, this also rather appealingly shows Disney poking fun at themselves
Fascinatingly terrible effort from cult Z-movie maker Ray Dennis Steckler that appears to have been made as a parody of tv’s Batman but comes filled with a mind-boggling ineptitude and classic bad movie dialogue
The sort of film that might make Troma radioactive green with envy they didn’t make it concerning a giant rampaging ass. Mind-boggling and willing to be stupid and in frequent bad taste
This wants to conduct an Airplane styled parody of The Exorcist to which extent it conducts the coup of casting a grown-up Linda Blair
Witty and overlooked parody of the superhero with Alan Arkin as a retired superhero trying to get back into the game. Made before superhero films became big and has a number of charms that were ahead of its time
The first of the sequels to Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. Featuring the first screen appearance of George Clooney.
Excruciating and painfully unfunny attempt to make a deliberately bad SF film with alien vixens attempting to take over a high school
The No 1 cult film of all time, more a phenomenon than a film, a demented glitter rock homage to mad science cinema and 50s sf films run through with celebration of a gender-bender joie de vivre
Nothing indicates how miscalculated this remake is than the fact it has been placed in the hands of the director of the High School Musicals and sundry Disney Channel fodder
The best killer car tire film ever – a monster movie spoof wound in so many layers of meta-fiction that it is positively side-splitting. The smartest and funniest monster movie in ages
Friday the 13th so changed the horror genre that within two years it produced two four parodies of its title. From Roger Corman, this is more of an occasionally amusing parody of classic monster movies than the slasher film
The first in a popular series of comedies, this spoofs the recent hits of Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer in the most vulgar and witless way possible
The first of the Scary Movie sequels. The Wayans Brothers extend the gag beyond the slasher movie to take on the ghost story and exorcism film while aiming squarely for Lowest Common Denominator humour
David Zucker takes over the reins of the franchise from the Wayans Brothers. With a lack of big scary movies in 2002 to parody, the film takes a scattershot approach, parodying any film at all
Fourth of the Scary Movie films and the usual crude inanity, although under David Zucker the movie parodies have expanded well beyond what can be labelled scary movies any longer
Just when you thought that this witless and unfunny series has died off, it drags itself out of mothballs for another outing. As with the other entries, it is a bunch of recent movies overrun with crude, moronic gags
The Wayans Brothers and most of the regulars return to revive the franchise to make more crude farce of the Scream and Halloween revivals and other horror films to come out in the last few years
The very first film from John Landis, a rather amusing spoof of revived caveman films, As with many of Landis’s films, has a substantial level of playful in-joking and genre in-referencing. Mostly, it plays out with an appealingly nonsensical absurdity
Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson return to the Scream franchise to turn out the fourth and best sequel yet. The opening scene alone is the funniest one has seen in a film in some time
Wes Craven and scriptwriter Kevin Williamson make a witty homage to the 1980s slasher film, turning the genre on its head by having the characters perfectly aware they are in a horror film and of the genre’s cliches
Wes Craven’s Scream was a clever and witty homage to/deconstruction of the slasher film of the 1980s; for the sequel, he and Kevin Williamson naturally turn to deconstructing the slasher sequel
By the time of this third film and the departure of screenwriter Kevin Williamson, creativity in the Scream series seems to be flagging even though this has critic-proofed itself by calling itself a parody of a sequel
Following the recent reboot of the Halloween franchise, many of the original cast and a new directorial team resurrect Wes Craven’s Scream franchise in some undeniably appealing ways
German animated film about the adventures of Snow White’s Seven Dwarves. Lightweight and trivial, this feels like it has come along ten years too late to the fad for fairytale parodies and mash-ups we had in the mid-2000s with films like Shrek and Hoodwinked!
Rather funny British-made parody on Backwoods Brutality cliches where a work group of a team-building exercise ending up hunted by East European locals
One of the more amusing and better made Troma films – their take on the superhero fad of the early 90s featuring a Japanese-themed superhero
A warm parody/tribute to the George Romero zombie films that saw the emergence of Simon Pegg as a star. It also saw the zombie film move towards a more comedic emphasis, although few subsequent entries come with such good-natured humour
Before this was spun out into a series of ho-hum sequels, the original was an animated film that burst with a freshness and a series of winning voice characterisations
Shrek was a fresh and original hit. The first of four insipid sequels, this seems to merely coast by on our liking of the characters while upping the fairytale parody
The fourth of the Shrek films. By this point, the freshness and originality of the first film has been buried under animated film formula, while the plot is a tired rehash of It’s a Wonderful Life
The third of the Shrek films settles in with a formulaic blandness where the characters turn up more because everyone expects them to than the film finds much for them to do
An Airplane/Naked Gun styled parody of The Silence of the Lambs
A directorial debut from Woody Allen co-writer Marshall Brickman, an offbeat comedy where scientists hypnotise Alan Arkin into believing he is an alien
Film spinoff from the long-running animated tv series. The familiar gags are there but show feels awkward extruded out to a full-length plot. You keep feeling the film should have been more than it is.
An hilarious Woody Allen film in which he plays a contemporary man cryogenically unthawed in the 22nd century. This satirisises SF cliches and contains some side-slitting comedy sequences
As with numerous examples in the zombie and killer shark film of recent, the idea has been to parody an existing title with the addition of a monster and a pun on the original’s title. Essentially what we have is a Scary Movie-like parody of the true-life rapper tale Straight Outta Compton but with the addition of a giant snake
Purportedly this was dreamed up by scriptwriters over drinks trying to think of the most ridiculous pitch they could make. The result was advertised as a deliberately bad movie and became a modest hit
This has an irresistible premise – of doing for 1970s tv SF what GalaxyQuest did for Star Trek – parodying the sets, costumes and cliches. On the other hand, the superb conception fails to ever play out as comedy and the film centres around a series of singularly dull personal dramas
Mel Brooks parodies the Star Wars films. As with most Brooks films, the humour is broad and scattershot but occasionally amusing
Possibly the most absurd notion to hit superhero cinema – a film in which the hero’s power is to fling spaghetti from his fingertips and hides his identity behind a paper bag. A low-budget, no-effects indie comedy with a deadpan sense of humour not likely to be everybody’s taste but I found downright hilarious
An obscure parody about a team of inept and dysfunctional superheroes that was one of the earliest works from a then unknown James Gunn (who not only writes but stars as one of the superheroes)
Styled in the same movie parody style vein as Airplane, this digs into the spy movie, although in actuality it is more of a scattershot spoof of films of then-recent vintage. Leslie Nielsen found regular employ in these types of film
Robert Rodriguez has a huge amount of fun by recasting James Bond antics with kids. The film was a success that spawned several sequels
The second of Robert Rodriguez’s Spy Kids films is slightly the lesser of its predecessor – it makes the mistake of stripping out the gadgets – but is still fun and has the wacky surrealism Rodriguez gave the first film
The third in the series is no longer even a Spy Kids film but a Virtual Reality videogame film. Robert Rodriguez has some fun creating the virtual worlds but the parody that the other films engaged in is missing