The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Fantastic Cinema often features real people that existed (or are still living) incorporated into a story. For films that dramatise the life stories of real people see Biopics and True Stories. In the case of notorious killers see True Crime Films.
These include cameos from real-life people in stories that takes place in an historical setting or encountered during time travel stories. Alternate History Films often include very different versions of familiar faces.
There are also some more fanciful stories like where famous figures such as Abraham Lincoln and Billy the Kid fight zombies and vampires. Other stories resurrect famous faces from the dead. This also includes satirical and deliberately ridiculous entries.
For more detail and an overview of the genre see the Theme Essay Real-Life People in Fiction.
Seth Grahame-Smith’s original book was a witty historical joke that retold the events of Lincoln’s life as a secret history involving vampires. The film somehow misses the joke and turns everything into a ridiculously over-the-top action film
A halfway decent Asylum film that emerges better than the film it is ripping off, the overblown Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter. The film does the historical crossover aspect with some ingenuity
Bizarre effort in which actors play Laurel and Hardy who are engaged in a comedic caper against a mummy. The film is all excruciating knockabout slapstick
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 ridiculous American conservative satire that turns Dickens’ A Christmas Carol into a heavy-handed farce where a Michael Moore lookalike is made to see the error of his liberal ways
Anaconda was a CGI monster movie that has subsequently gained a bad movie reputation. The idea of a comedy remake about conducting a remake of the film just seems a little too cutely meta
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
Bizarre family film in which Russian princess Anastasia travels through time to the present day and discovers mall culture
Stunning tv mini-series adaptation of Tony Kushner’s award-winning play about the impact of the AIDS crisis on gay culture in the 1980s, which becomes a surreal fantasy filled with appearances of angels and ghosts
James Wan is one of the finest directors currently at work in the horror genre. The produced by James Wan credit is a less enthusiastic prospect and had consisted of total dogs spinning off more popular works.
Film spinoff of the cult animated tv show. This feels like a film overtaken by the effort of trying to be surrealistic, wacky, scatological etc more than it is ever a film that creates gag that are funny
This comes with an insane mash-ups of ideas – modern day Frankenstein monster is thrown back in time to the Civil War (in a process that also creates multiple copies) and ends up fighting on the Northern side
Jules Verne’s classic adventure novel is turned into a comedy vehicle for Jackie Chan. One of Chan’s biggest flops, an overblown turkey packed with celebrity cameos and replacing Verne’s adventure with incredibly unfunny slapstick
Luc Besson has made some phenomenal action films but I just can’t seem to get into his trilogy of children’s films. This was the third. A silly effort written down to a very juvenile level and padded with inane humour
Adaptation of the popular videogame that is lumbered with the game’s inherently uncinematic premise where people only sit around and watch what has already happened in the past
Fourth of the live-action films adapted from the Asterix comic-books with Gerard Depardieu as Obelix. This replicates the absurdist historical wit of the originals while poking fun at the foibles of the British
The second of the live-action Asterix films starring Gerard Depardieu, this is a visual delight that gets the comic-book’s nonsensical visuals down perfectly
The first of the live-action films based on the famous comic-books set during the Roman period, starring Gerard Depardieu who seems born to play the part of Obelix
The third of the live-action Asterix films starring Gerard Depardieu as Obelix. This faithfully replicates the look and visuals of the original comic-books as the two head off to the Olympics
One of several animated films based on the popular comic-book characters Asterix and Obelix made by Dargaud Films
The best among the films made from the Asterix comics. This delivers the characters and the visual humour the way they should be, plus leaves the sly satiric wit of the originals intact with side-splitting results
A CGI animated film based on the popular comic-book character Asterix. After numerous other adaptations, this was the first of the Asterix films to be written directly for the screen
One of the sillier among the animated Asterix films maintained at a high-level of slapstick and with badly dubbed voices that do not suit the characters
A real oddity among the Batman animated films – one where the basics of the Batman mythos are translated into Aztec culture at the time of the arrival of the Conquistadors
Less a film than a phenomenon, there is something ironic about a doll that is accused of promoting negative body standards ending up leading a women’s movement. Moria has just one or two issues with this.
A version of the Baron’s tall tales from the great, underrated Karel Zeman. Zeman’s dizzying blend of live-action, animation and cutouts and deadpan absurdism is perfect, resulting in the best Baron Munchausen film to date
Hollywood noir from the Coen Brothers, this takes us inside the crumbling mental state of a screenwriter in the 1930s. Like a David Lynch remake of Day of the Locust, this comes rich in the Coens’ black uncomfortable humour
Hilariously eccentric Spike Jonze-Charlie Kaufman collaboration in which John Cusack finds an office building that has a portal that takes someone through into actor John Malkovich’s head. The wacky spins that the script places on the idea are ingenious
Animated version of the Roald Dahl tale about the friendship between a young girl and a Big Griendly Giant, this is simply made but has an appealing mix of eccentricity and sweet charms
Steven Spielberg adapts the Roald Dahl story. Despite the film bombing at the box-office, it is one of considerable charms. Spielberg doesn’t produce another E.T. but then he hasn’t delivered another Hook either
From the director of Trump vs the Illuminati, gonzo animation where Bigfoot and several resurrected historical figures fight off invading aliens that include Stalin, Aleister Crowley and Anubis
The two time-travelling slackers are back after nearly thirty years and the film amusingly sees them having reached uneasy middle-age. But was the wait worth it?
A quirky hit that jumped aboard the 1980s popularity of time travel themes and laid into them with an appealingly offbeat eccentricity. The film that propelled Keanu Reeves onto become a star
This has a reputation as a bad movie classic. The attention grabbing novelty mash-up transforms the Western outlaw into a hero to combat Dracula (a hammy John Carradine)
For the stew of elements this throws together – a famous unsolved murder case, ghosts, a blind psychic killer, possession, a sinister psychiatrist – it is surprising how dull the film that emerges is
Luigi Cozzi’s return to screens after 26 years, a head-scratchingly bizarre effort overloaded with ideas about parallel worlds, cosmic journeys and homage to the early cinema of Georges Melies and others
The second in Uwe Boll’s trilogy adapted from the videogame, this plays out as a mix of Western and vampire hunter film and is marginally better than Boll’s usual standards
Uwe Boll sets out to offend everybody in a film founded on making constant insults about its’ plus-size heroine’s weight and bad jokes about the Holocaust, including the Boll playing a comic Hitler
This comes with the interestingly original idea of having the real-life outlaws Bonnie and Clyde come up against Count Dracula. The main thing against the film is a low budget
Big-budget thrillers with Nazi villains were popular in the 70s. This pits acting legends Laurence Olivier and Gregory Peck on opposite sides in a conceptually ingenious plot about the attempts to clone Hitler
Francis Ford Coppola remakes and reinvents Dracula, transforming the text of Bram Stoker’s book into a sensual, visually ravishing film with lush production values that make you gasp in excitement
Maggie Gyllenhaal’s reinterpretation of The Bride of Frankenstein is the first spectacularly bad film of the 2020s. Jessie Buckley gives an absurdly unrestrained performance and the film’s tone veers all over the place
Probably the least satisfying of Terry Gilliam’s films that turns the real-life fairytale authors into scam ghost hunters in an adventure. Purportedly the subject of behind the scenes troubles, the film never quite comes to life on screen
This sounds more like a tabloid headline “Elvis and JFK vs a mummy in a retirement home” than it does a film. It is however a work of considerable ingenuity from Phantasm series director Don Coscarelli
A revival of the Nazi zombie fad, which essentially becomes a First Person Shooter film as someone wearing a GoPro camera runs through a bunker dispatching zombies
Lavishly produced, reasonably historically authentic retelling of the story of the grave robbers from John Landis, which also becomes a wasted opportunity that turns the story into a comedy where the title characters are just two likeable schmucks
Classic work of 1960s Italian Gothic cinema. Director Antonio Margheriti rises above himself to create a vividly spooky atmosphere, while at the centre of the show is the haunted otherworldly looks of Barbara Steele
Cult Italian horror director Lucio Fulci plays himself, a horror director being driven to hallucinations and acts of murder by the violence he directs in his films
Ostensibly about occultist Aleister Crowley reincarnating in the present, this overflows with mad ideas involving quantum physics, VR, alternate worlds and a heap of classic references – and moreover, is written by the lead singer of Iron Maiden
In the same vein as Grindhouse, four filmmakers have come together to make an anthology of spoof horror films that homage the drive-in tradition. Good taste is left well behind and the results are both outrageous and funny
A horror version of Cinderella where she gets to stab people with the glass slipper. This also features several modernisms where instead of a pumpkin coach, the fairy godmother conjures up Elon Musk to drive Cinderella to the ball in a Tesla
Indie film in which Paul Giamatti goes to a company that specialises in removing the soul only to have his stolen. An SF film that feels like a Woody Allen comedy minus the one-liners
Waltz With Bashir director Ari Folman adapts a work by Stanislaw Lem into a conceptually challenging part-animated film concerning a virtual actress and a future where the populace lives inside a drug-induced mass hallucination
The third of the theatrically released films spun off from the original Battlestar Galactica. This is compiled from episodes of the dire follow-up series Galactica 1980 where the show relocates to contemporary Earth
Carl Sagan’s novel about SETI is inflated into a big budget film determined to impress even though the story did not need it. Sagan’s interesting debate about religion and science is emasculated so as not to offend any religious groups
Not another of Hammer’s Dracula films despite the title. This still builds on the brand name but is instead their loose adaptation of the story of the infamous blood-bathing Elizabeth Bathory.
A film based around real-life YouTube influencer Brian ‘Faze Rug’ Awadis as he buys a new mansion only to move in and find his neighbours are an alley of sinister clowns
TV mini-series that turns the discovery of Tutankamun’s tomb into an Indiana Jones adventure. But everything is played with a constant barrage of one-liners and action sequences so silly you can’t take any of the show seriously
Ron Howard directed film version of Dan Brown’s best-selling book. This is historical nonsense woven into a fancifully absurd conspiracy theory where Howard does no more than offer an illustrated version of the book
This gets full marks for an attention grabbing title – outside of that it has the cheap shabbiness of a Troma film, substituting a gonzo sarcasm and plentiful bad taste and gore for many of the filmmaking basics
Modernised version of the classic journey though Hell conducted with cardboard puppets – a uniquely appealing experiment peppered with a number of biting contemporary jibes
One of several Elizabeth Bathory films that came out at the same time, this has gained a cult reputation. Delphine Seyrig gives a marvellously arch performance, while director Harry Kumel films with a gorgeous and dreamy colour palette
Droll British comedy where Jane Horrocks gets the advice from the ghosts of famous murders about disposing of her controlling mother
Deadpool was an hilarious breath of fresh air amid the Marvel Comics adaptations. This sequel is even better, with the self-deflating, fourth-wall breaking humour even funnier and more slickly polished action
Robert Zemeckis film about an immortality treatment that digs a knife into Hollywood beauty treatments with a blackly funny knife. Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn have huge fun playing to the gallery and upstaging one another
Mockumentary that caused outrage at the time in depicting the assassination of then-sitting US President George W. Bush. This does not hold back in some damning political punches
Jess Franco rips off Ken Russell’s The Devils, although surely only Franco could take a story about nuns being tortured and witches burned at the stake and turn it into a work of softcore erotica
Tsui Hark returns to form in this lush Chinese-backed historical drama where his wildly fantastical martial arts combine with the story of the true-life detective De Renjie/Detective Dee
The third of Tsui Hark’s films based on the historical figure of De Renjie/Detective Dee. While the other films were rooted in a relative realism, Tsui lets all restraints loose here and goes way over the top
Adam Green, director of the Hatchet films, makes a Found Footage film about the search for an underground world of monsters. The monsters, when seen, are quite imaginative
Michel Ocelot is one of the great underrated animators of the world. Here he makes an exquisite tribute to the Belle Epoque featuring appearances from names of the era and decked out in Steampunk inventions
A mind-bogglingly meta film that starts out as a regular crime thriller before it gets invaded and taken over by psycho fan Penn Jillette who abducts the star and is determined to write himself in as the hero
Rather enjoyable latter day Hammer Film, which plays its title pun surprisingly seriously. Ralph Bates and Martine Beswick are perfectly matched as the gender-changing Dr Jekyll
This revival of the classic children’s character who can speak to animals took a critical battering but I kind of liked it. It has a completely madcap slapstick tone and more crucially returns to the stories and banishes any bad memory of Eddie Murphy
Dracula gets an origin story for Universal’s Famous Monsters shared universe. Vlad the Impaler, one of the great tyrants of history, gets rewritten as an honourable warrior and decent family man
Dennis Potter scripted film with the great Coral Browne as the aging Alice Liddell, who inspired the fictional Alice in Wonderland, who imagines the creatures come to life to show her the hidden message in the book
It is some surprise that Akira Kurosawa’s only full venture into fantastic cinema was with his penultimate film here. A beautifully filmed anthology of eight tales, including several ghost stories and two anti-nuclear parables
Stephen King adapted mini-series in which James Franco finds a mysterious door that leads back to 1960 and sets out to prevent the assassination of President Kennedy
A bizarre film that features Adolf Hitler sitting around in the afterlife joined by Sigmund Freud and others as he reflects on his image
A film about Elizabeth Bathory living in the present day, this comes with the suggestion of erotic allure but disappointingly proves to be a pose without much substance
Witty and very charming retelling of Cinderella that strips out all of the fantasy elements and substitutes a pseudo-historical realism. The cast positively shine.
Affectionately made road trip film about four Star Wars fans on a journey to break into Skywalker Ranch. Packed with lots of witty fannish in-jokes and cameos, this comes out as enjoyable if broad at times
Wim Wenders returns to angels in this sequel to Wings of Desire, along with most of the cast. Again Wenders delivers a work of haunting beauty about the angels invisibly looking in on humanity
Disappointing film version of Robert Harris’s excellent novel depicting an alternate history where the Nazis won World War II. On screen, the book is watered down and given an upbeat happy ending
Beautiful fantasy where Kevin Costner hears a voice that directs him to build a baseball diamond in his cornfield where dead players to return to life. A genteel fantasy filled with nostalgia for lost Americana and the 1960s
It’s anybody’s guess what possessed Veronica Lake, a great screen beauty of the 1940s, to return to screens playing a Nazi mad scientist having created flesh-eating maggots. A true Z film if there ever was
A New Zealand-made film where a sound effects artist is haunted by the ghost of a woman who steps out of a biopic about Henri Toulouse-Lautec that he is editing
Roger Corman disappointed with his return to the director’s chair after twenty years. He adapts a Brian Aldiss novel about a time-traveller meeting both Mary Shelley and Dr Frankenstein
Two SF fans encounter real-life idol William Shatner. A film that writes about fandom knowingly and comes with an hilarious series of in-jokes and asides. Not to mention features Shatner parodying his own image
Supposedly a sequel to the 2011 Fright Night remake but more a loose reworking of the original. This conducts some novel variations such as making Jerry Dandridge into a woman, but is also one of the worst directed horror films in some time
One of a series of Jules Verne adaptations that were popular in the 1950s about a Victorian-era Lunar rocket launch, this starts with great promise but loses impetus once it gets into orbit
This has the great idea of paranormal investigators investigating the home of real-life serial killer John Wayne Gacy. Alas, Gacy is of zero relevance and the film no more that a tatty Found Footage effort
Satiric Roger Corman film in which a gas kills everyone in the world over the age of 25. Corman indulges his droll and surreal sense of humour in what amounts to a parody of his own films
Pascal Laugier emerged as a most promising director with Martyrs. All of his films hang on improbably contrived twists. This starts out as a home invasion film not unakin to The Strangers but nothing is as it seems
An erotic film starring Donald Trump – I kid you not! A legendarily awful Bo Derek film where she is a widow who searches the world for the perfect body for her late husband’s ghost to reincarnate in
Classic BBC live broadcast tv special where a camera crew investigate a haunted house. Cited as one of the first Found Footage films, this does some ingenious things blending fact and fiction and messing with its audience
Sequel to Full Moon’s The Gingerdead Man, this one has been made as an hilariously meta-fictional self-parody, spoofing Full Moon Studios and their films
The first in a trilogy of Russian dark fantasy films featuring the real-life horror writer Nikolai Gogol as an occult detective investigating a series of supernatural mysteries
A film based on the hugely popular children’s horror series. The film creates a story where the creatures from all the books are unleashed. This is fun to watch, yet what we ultimately have is easy, undemanding horror for family audiences
The second film spun off from R.L. Stine’s popular horror stories promotes the wonderfully evil ventriloquist’s dummy Slappy to principal nemesis. The rest of the film is predictable but Slappy deserves his own series