The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Resurrection refers to various means of bringing people back from the dead. Films where treatments of theme fall into large groupings have been given their own entries – see https://www.moriareviews.com/theme/frankenstein-films, Zombies, Vampires and Mummies. This topic deals with every other form of return from the dead that does not fall into these categories.
There are numerous methods proposed for the resurrection of the dead from the miraculous to the scientific, from formulas to magic potions, Voodoo and black magic to Indian burial grounds. Mad Scientists were frequently engaged in resurrection experiments invariably with catastrophic results.
Individuals from time to time spontaneously (or by divine or unexplained) purpose return from the dead, usually to exact Supernatural Retribution or sometimes with comic purpose. Persons who return from the dead in non-corporeal form are ghosts and are discussed under Hauntings and Ghost Stories and Ghosts in Light Fantasy.
The third of Universal’s Frankenstein films, the last to feature Boris Karloff as the monster and the last good entry before the sequels became formulaic. Shot with the clear influence of German Expressionism, this is filled with memorable characters and some great performances
Few people today have an idea of what a huge name comic-book creator Will Eisner was. This was an unsold tv pilot adaptation of Eisner’s most famous creation, the masked hero The Spirit. The pilot is not a very successful effort but at least it makes an effort to get many of the details and zany spirit of the comic right
A real head-scratcher. Legendary comic-book writer Frank Miller directs an adaptation of the famous Will Eisner comic-book. A completely madcap film that deserves to be rediscovered as a cult classic
Leonard Nimoy steps into the director’s chair of the third Star Trek film and his doing marks the shift of the films from intergalactic adventuring into the regulars engaged in a safe, easy set of adventures playing to fan audiences
I had mixed feelings about J.J. Abrams’ reboot of Star Trek This time around the actors seem more at home in the characters and the plot works a good deal better (for the most part), while Abrams creates a hurtling effects spectacle that is the most action-oriented of the Trek films
John Carpenter abandons horror to make one of the better E.T.-inspired cute and cuddly alien visitor films. The film’s grasp of science is sometimes shaky but the film gains an enormous amount from Jeff Bridges’ performance as the alien trying to adjust to being in a human body
Bizarre horror about an actress trying to get her big break in Hollywood that takes all manner of strange turns as she becomes infected and starts physically decaying. More explanation about what is going on would have helped no end but the film still arrives in memorably perverse territory
Another entry in the popular Folk Horror revival of the 2020s, this is a superb slow burn film that operates essentially as a British Pet Sematary
A killer android/cyborg film from the genre’s 1990s heyday with a tasteless concept where a raped woman kills herself and is then resurrected as an avenging cyborg. A bizarre melding of killer cyborg film and I Spit on Your Grave
Jose Mojica Marins, the cult Brazilian director/actor best known as the demoniac undertaker Ze do Caixao/Coffin Joe, presides over a hotel where the guests meet sinister fates
Canadian-made black comedy about a ring that can revive the dead
The first film on the theme of zombies from the American Civil War. Not too badly made and with an unusual cast line-up including Nichelle Nichols as a drill sergeant
A ridiculously off the wall and heartwarming film. Imagine a crosshatch between Weekend at Bernie’s and Cast Away – where Wilson the beachball is replaced by Daniel Radcliffe as a farting talking corpse
Made on the coat-tails of Conan the Barbarian, this is a low-budget sword and sorcery film that crackles with the essence of Robert E. Howard. The first film from regular genre director Albert Pyun
Amicus adapts several stories from the notorious EC Comics as one of their anthology films. Missing is EC’s black humour but this is a worthwhile Amicus anthology
Horror anthology with a specific focus around African-American issues. This conducts a fine revival of the anthology genre and delivers a series of episodes that are all solid and well above-average horror tales
An anthology of Halloween-themed horror tales, all from different genre directors, including some interesting high-profile names. The results are uneven with the film providing a couple of amusing segments but nothing truly standout
Feels like an early 80s copy of Carrie about a bullied teenage girl taking supernatural revenge – that and the plot of I Know What You Did Last Summer … A slick but largely superficial effort with little legs beyond its teen audience, although Jenna Dewan injects some sizzle into the role of the nerd girl turned bad girl
The fifth of Hammer’s Dracula films and by general consensus the last worthwhile entry. New director Peter Sasdy brings something fresh and this has an interesting plot that digs beneath Victorian hypocrisy
A French zombie film that is about as far removed from a zombie film as it possible to get – the dead inexplicably return to life not to eat the flesh of the living but calm and detached where society’s problem is how to let them return to their previous lives
A horror anthology featuring episodes from three Asian directors originally titled Three. The better known Three … Extremes was a sequel whereupon this was retitled and re-released as Three Extremes II
Not a time travel film as the title leads you to expect but a Chinese copy of Raiders of the Lost Ark where you expect they were trying to call it ‘tomb raiders’. The director is also the production designer leading to a gorgeously designed film but also one of constant action postures almost entirely lacking in substance
Following the success of Dr Terror’s House of Horrors, this was the second of Amicus’s trademark horror anthologies with Burgess Meredith as a carnival barker showing people their fates
Film about a heavy metal star resurrected from the dead. This sets out spoofing fundamentalist paranoias about backwards masking but soon ends up all over the place and fails to take itself serously
Sequel to the classic Karen Black-starring horror anthology tv movie with Lysette Anthony starring in a trio of horror tales
An action film variant on the thriller D.O.A. where Ethan Hawke plays an assassin who is resurrected from the dead and has 24 hours to bring down the corrupt corporation who betrayed him
With the success of the Edgar Allan Poe adaptations starring Vincent Price, this was a copycat attempt that cast Price in a trio of tales adapted from another writer of American horror stories, Nathaniel Hawthorne
George Romero and Dario Argento collaborate on an anthology, each adapting an Edgar Allan Poe tale. Either director leaves you with high expectations but the results are very mixed
Film about an undead military veteran from director William Lustig and a script by the great Larry Cohen that unevenly digs into patriotic sentiment with black regard
The first of two cheap Universal Soldier sequels made in Canada with Matt Battaglia inheriting Jean-Claude Van Damme’s role
he second of two cheap video-released sequels to the Jean-Claude Van Damme film. This has the novelty of featuring Burt Reynolds as the bad guy
The first studio film from Roland Emmerich, a loud, noisy action featuring Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren as Vietnam Vets resurrected as super-soldiers
The fifth of the Universal Soldier films reuniting both Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren, while being given a tough, brutal action punch by director John Hyams
Sequel to Roland Emmerich’s Universal Soldier, this brings back Jean-Claude Van Damme but otherwise substitutes a brain dead plot that has him facing an evil A.I.
Rather drab and cheap Japanese horror film about a disfigured actress who returns to life as a hairy vampire creature to exact vengeance. Not without its schlocky appeals, the hairy vampire bride looks more funny than threatening
Completely insane Japanese film that wades in gore while playing everything up at a level of demented cartoonish absurdity. Possibly the most delirious movie-watching fun it is possible to have
Tsui Hark scripted/produced Wu Xia effort that shuffles the familiar tropes about without seeming too enervated
The second of Amicus Films’ adaptations from EC Comics, a follow-up to their earlier Tales from the Crypt and one of their weaker horror anthologies with the episodes much more variable in overall quality
This has a great premise – a camera crew revisiting the site of a cult mass suicide stir up the ghosts of the cult members – and a director who I always maintained had much untapped potential. Alas, the finished result seems to slip by his hands
One of the few films to come out after George Romero where zombies are still associated with voodoo. Spanish horror star Paul Naschy writes and plays three roles in a film that comes with a wild mix of cross-cultural ideas
The popular V/H/S series, an anthology of Found Footage horror tales, is revived for a fourth entry
The fifth film of the Found Footage horror anthology series, including one episode that is among the best of the series so far
The sixth entry among the popular multi-director anthology series, this includes episodes from Scott Derrickson among others but is also one of the weaker of the V/H/S films overall
Adam Green has enjoyed some success with the Hatchet films; this is the fourth entry in the series … Most of the other films have consisted of not much more than buckets of gore and a host of genre cameos – here though, Green adds a considerable sense of humour to the mix
Less well known adaptation of the Frankenstein story that can arguably be considered the most faithful of all the film versions
An madcap new version of the Mary Shelley story where everything is turned up to an overwrought 11 on the dial. How more nutzoid can you get than a version where Igor the hunchback (a completely miscast Daniel Radcliffe) is the main character?
Strange but by no means uninteresting film that takes several weird doglegs going from biker parties to a possession film and then a home invasion by seemingly resurrected 1950s rockers
Dark and definitely not sentimental Christmas film with David Harbour as a cynical Santa repelling a home invasion. This does not let down on the violent half of the title
The only horror film ever made in Communist Russia. Adaptation of a classic story about a monk sequestered with the body of a woman for three nights, the film creates an undeniable atmosphere and mounts to a wildly fantastical climax where he must face all the minions of Hell
Russian-made adaptation of a classic horror story that takes place as an exquisitely stylised 19th Century Gothic fantasy world but is a head-scratchingly incoherent mishmash on a plotting level
In his follow-up to Manborg, Steven Kostanski abandons the affectionate homages to 1980s video-released genre films he has specialised in so far. A homage to the works of H.P. Lovecraft, this should be seen for the utterly wild and outlandish makeup effects that Kostanski delivers
Essentially a 1940s mummy film with a voodoo priest resurrected in the present and stalking the reincarnation of his love. In English translation, this has been thrown together with a meaningless word salad title to appeal to the era’s fads for Blaxploitation and exorcism films
Another entry from the revived Hammer Films, an intelligent and effective variant on Pet Semetary that manages to delve into some dark and chilling places
Not to be confused with the hit tv series, this features Boris Karloff as a wrongly executed man come back from the dead to exact justice
An early film from legendary B movie producer/director Roger Corman. This is an alien invasion film but has been twisted out of shape to exploit the fascination with satellites after the launch of Sputnik several months before the film came out
Julian Sands returns in a sequel to Warlock where the frequently unserious effects of director Anthony Hickox turn it into a silly comic-book of a film
The first Weekend at Bernie’s had the lame concept of two jerks forced to pretend that their boss’s body was still alive. For the sequel, the body is resurrected by voodoo
Halloween film for children from the pen of horror author R.L. Stine of Goosebumps fame. The children’s horror story (and tv movie) is filled with many insipid and formulaic entries but this is a decent one that is not unafraid to scare people
Behind the lurid title, this concerns a mad scientist sacrificing women to a plant in his basement … This came out the same year as Hammer Films burst onto the English horror scene and by comparison is a plodding affair with no greater ambition than being a 1940s Bela Lugosi cheapie
Fine animated version of the DC Comics superheroine that gets the character just right and tells the story in a way that eclipses all previous filmed versions
Brett Ratner inherits the X-Men franchise from Bryan Singer for the third film in the series and promptly killed it off (after this point everything became prequels featuring Young X-Men). Ratner’s handling of the superheroic action lacks Singer’s exhilaration or any affinity for the characters
Mel Brooks’ finest moment, a witty stylistic homage to and spoof of the Universal Frankenstein films. A great cast are on perfect form all around.
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
Acclaimed classic of 1980s Italian horror where a mysterious typewriter ribbon leads a writer in search of zones where the dead can return to life
A very low-budget film from regular genre director J.R. Bookwalter about a police officer who is resurrected from the dead by a voodoo priest
Bill Zebub is a micro-budgeted filmmaker who contends to be the most offensive filmmaker of all time. Yes, the film features a zombie Jesus who spends his time violating women who parade in a state of undress