The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Revenge is a frequent motivating factor in genre cinema. Here an individual sets out to achieve a sense of personal justice for wrongs and injuries that they believe were done to them. It should be noted that this is a motivation that can be used for both heroes and villains.
Horror films are rife with villains who will often concoct elaborate revenge schemes, usually to eliminate those who have harmed them and often in ways that achieve an ironic just desserts. With Super-Villains, revenge will often be the cause of a psychic split that causes them to enact a crusade against all types of people associated. In some cases, this come about as a result of something that has resulted in Deformity and Disfigurement.
In many cases, the coin will be flipped and the person on such a vengeance trail will be regarded as the hero. There are a number of films where characters track down and eliminate those responsible, even superheroes who become revenge-obsessed crusaders such as Batman and The Punisher.
Another less pleasant variant is the Rape Revenge Film, which depicts women who have been raped taking up arms and bloodily eliminating all men responsible for their assault.
For films where revenge is enacted supernaturally or from beyond the grave see Supernatural Retribution.
Companion piece of James Gunn’s Superman, this met a very mixed reception. Part of its problem is that it wants to create a cynical version of the virtuous Supergirl we are familiar with and trash her image
Another version of the Sweeney Todd legend. Rather than a musical, this is a straight horror version, produced on low-budget. Here we learn that Sweeney is on a mission to kill off members of the aristocracy
Mamoru Hosoda conducts the bizarre notion of an anime version of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. It is a Hamlet that Shakespeare would barely recognise, following a heroine as she makes a journey across the afterlife
A strong and intelligent multiverse film filled with some great twists where a woman travels across multiple worlds to track down and kill different versions of the man who murdered her daughter
An effective slow burn film that settles in with the promise of being a standard entry with a babysitter being stalked on Halloween night. However, this proves to turn all your expectations on their head
A remake of the 1992 film that starred Rebecca De Mornay as a psychopathic babysitter who enters a household seeking revenge. This updates the story for the 2020s, although is no less a conservative version than the original
From the people behind the Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey films, a horror version of Cinderella. And yes, the glass slipper is used to stab people
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
The original The Crow is a cult classic. This long-planned remake from the perpetually terrible Rupert Sanders was an ill-advised move from every angle that gets just about everything from the mood to the conception of its character wrong
Becky was a modest effort with Lulu Wilson as a thirteen year-old violently fighting off home invaders. This is a sequel with her up against white supremacists
A Spanish slasher film reminiscent of I Know What You Did Last Summer, albeit rewritten for the Cancel Culture era, where a clown-masked killer eliminates their way through members of a book club
A Mexican-made variant on one of the Saw films where a group of diverse people are locked into a room and must select one of their number to die otherwise everybody will be killed
Eli Roth’s homage to the slasher film that comes with a dark sense of humour and a series of novelty deaths that rival the best of the 80s slasher heyday
A well made tribute to the 1980s slasher film with characterisations and performances that make much rounded characters than usual
David Gordon Green and Jamie Lee Curtis return to round out their highly underwhelming Halloween reboot trilogy. By now, this feels like a Halloween film in name only
From writers of several Saw films and The Collector, a film about teens under attack in the woods where it is unclear what is going on oe who they are facing for most of the film
A variation on The Most Dangerous Game that comes with a nasty feminist agenda where women are hunted by men who feel a disappearing sense of entitlement
Robert Eggers, the director who made The Witch and The Lighthouse, makes a violent, primal Viking film steeped in Norse mythology
The fifth film of the Found Footage horror anthology series, including one episode that is among the best of the series so far
Superlatively moody and well written film that winds a young Edgar Allan Poe into an occult murder mystery
Raw and undeniable brutal film in which a plus-size teenage girl forms a relationship with a serial killer after he abducts her tormentors
Hilariously black horror comedy that works as a sublime satire of fine dining – with a nasty sting underneath
Terror Train starring Jamie Lee Curtis was one of the classics of the original slasher film fad. This is a remake
Edgar Wright creates a dazzlingly stylish recreation of 1960s London in a work with Thomasine McKenzie as a modern girl haunted by ghosts of the era’s dark underside
Directorial outing from the creator of Final Destination about bystanders who are witness to a murder but do nothing and are afterwards killed by a possible supernatural agency
I don’t enjoy watching these rape and revenge films. Continuing to make sequels showing abuse definitely crosses an exploitative line. After 41 years, director Meir Zarchi and star Camille Keaton re-team to make a sequel to the original
Blumhouse production with Octavia Spencer as a stalkery mad woman who befriends a group of teens in an elaborate revenge plot. Quite what people though they were making is a scratch of the head
Quite the most insane film I have seen in recent memory. The rivalry between two classical music students reminds of Black Swan albeit wound up to the histrionic level of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, all added to the most pleasingly twisty mess-with-your assumptions script
Eli Roth’s remake of the classic Charles Bronson vigilante film is an ugly affair. In an era where school shooting are a weekly scourge in the US, do we really need another fantasy about one man becoming empowered and sorting things out with a gun?
Leigh Whannell, James Wan’s BFF and co-writer on the Saw and
A film where four girls on a weekend getaway undergo a home invasion. It soon becomes apparent that this is a film homaging I Spit on Your Grave
Nicolas Cage goes all Death Wish and slaughters a cult that murdered his wife. A regular revenge film is transformed by director Panos Cosmatos into something bizarrely primal
Takashi Miike’s 100th film, the adaptation of a manga about an immortal samurai. Miike bookends the film with awesome sequences with his hero battling hundreds of opponents but the film in between drags
Another woman seeks vengeance film, sort of a female version of The Crow where the heroine wears PVC catsuit, fishnets and cat ears. A film made with a cod-grindhouse aesthetic hoping to get by on a certain trash movie sensibility
A film about a former alien abductee pottering endlessly about a cabin in order to lure the aliens who took her and take revenge. A film that is about as close to total amateurism as possible to get
Another woman takes revenge against men film. You would think that this being directed by a woman would be less exploitative than usual but oh boy this one goes off the rails into the demented
A fascinating Chinese version of The Phantom of the Opera, transplanted from a Parisian opera house of the 19th Century to a film being shot in an abandoned theatre in the 1930s. On the other hand, this version makes the most radical changes to the story of any of the Phantom films
Another in the spate of multi-director horror anthologies with each episode here being set around a holiday. As with these films, some of the episodes work well, some end with a puzzled WTF and most fall somewhere in between
The Bollywood horror film is a rare and strange beast – what other horror film would you see that comes with song and dance numbers? This is a Bollywood possession film where, despite the use of local colour and custom, it is surprisingly still drawn from the cliches created by The Exorcist
Passable low-budget slasher film that looks as though it is was shot in the director’s home. Somehow the title, which refers to a day when a group of teens decide to ditch school, fails to stand among the great holiday-titled slashers
Positively the most insane, offensive and over-the-top film I have seen in some time. A bride finds she has a vagina possessed by Satan and uses it to go all I Spit on Your Grave on the gang who ate her husband on her wedding night, resulting in an outrageous splatter bloodbath
From Walter Hill, one of the legendary action directors, comes what is either the most edgy or tasteless concepts for a revenge film – Michelle Rodriguez is a hitman who seeks revenge after having gender reassignment surgery forced on him
From Troma films, this is an anthology made up of twelve Christmas-themed short horror films for what supposed leading indie directors – so acclaimed I’ve only heard of two of them before
A film that sells its premise in three words. Essentially a variant on Phone Booth, this keeps a character trapped on a landmine unable to move and keeps piling on torturous twists from there
Harsh and brutal work written by Bret Easton Ellis of American Psycho fame wherein a group of jocks harass and tear apart the life of Bella Heathcote after she accidentally blinds the leader’s eye in the process of rejecting his advances
Troubled teenager is sent to a reform camp only to find he has raised a force that is exacting brutal vengeance against his bullies. This feels like one of the underdog gets supernatural comeuppance films that we had after Carrie but is rather well made on all fronts
From the generic title, this seems no more than another film about a girl seeking revenge for years of captivity a la I Spit on Your Grave. On the other hand, things are quickly turned on their head in unexpected ways
This starts as a standard Japanese high school drama but takes a turn for the twisted where it doesn’t exactly venture into Saw territory but certainly somewhere that has taken inspiration from it. Alas, everything gets lost in a second half that is burdened by an excessively complicated and non-linear plot
Stephen King’s version of I Spit on Your Grave. What kills the film is the plot device that involves the heroine having imaginary conversations with dead bodies and her GPS
Sequel to the Lifetime channel adaptation of Virginia C. Andrews’ Flowers in the Attic. Andrews’ prolific output of Gothic melodramas are really the horror equivalent of daytime soap operas. Though marginally better, this drowns in the same stultifying blandness as its predecessor
A smart and boundary pushing Found Footage film in which a regular joe wins a competition and is selected as an actor on a porn film only to be pushed to snapping point
These rape-revenge films leave you wanting to conduct the moral equivalent of taking a shower after watching them. This sequel to the 2010 remake also ends up being undeniably brutal and effective
This rehashes I Spit on Your Grave by way of The Crow with a heroine who is raped and killed and then becomes resurrected as a supernatural avenger
Uwe Boll makes a big issue film about the subprime mortgage crisis. The film is packed by Boll with messages but comes down to being a variant on Death Wish with its blue-collar hero on a shooting rampage against bankers
Spike Lee’s English-language remake of Oldboy is an abortion. Where Park Chan-Wook directed the original with an insane energy, whereas Lee only delivers a formula action film and fumbles the ending
Another pointless 70s remake that replicates the 1976 Carrie almost scene for scene but misconstrues the material by a mile. Crucially, it comes without the sensational casting that made the original, nor a Brian De Palma at the helm
Unique anthology that offers 26 episodes from different directors, each ending with a death. The episodes vary wildly in quality but a sufficient number ignore all good taste and/or travel waaaay across taboo lines
This starts out as a socially conscious drama about East European sex slavery. As directed by a makeup effects artist, the film seems to tepidly avoid the raw and brutal impact the material holds, before finally revealing its true nature as an imprisonment and revenge horror
Canada’s twin sisters Jen and Sylvia Soska’s second film is set in the dark underground of body modification,. Like an episode of tv’s Nip/Tuck with a Suicide Girls ethos. Not perfect but an impressive maturation
An early film from Ron Bonk misleadingly sold with connection to the notorious Italian cannibal film, concerning the tenants of an apartment building under siege by a mysterious cult
This promises the amusing idea of a sarcastic 00s take on The Breakfast Club but emerges as no more than a glorified episode of Scooby-Doo, in a plot about punishing the children of privilege
In the vein of films like I Spit on Your Grave and especially Baise-Moi, two girls go on a killing spree against rapists and asshole men. Undeniably interesting but this gets sabotaged by the film’s gaping moral blindspots
The unique idea of an anthology made up of five different slasher tales. Unfortunately, the film’s only raison d’etre is serving up serial gore scenes, which have the effect taken out of them because they are all conducted digitally and look biologically preposterous
A man is abducted by a stranger who proceeds to remove his limbs in an effort to make him remember the terrible crime he committed. This suggests an incredibly grim film. Surprisingly enough, it is a comedy
A disturbingly effective film that starts as a character study of people on the edge before eventually segueing into a savage revenge drama. The film astonishes you with its bared rawness, its uniquely condensed narrative and eventually the harrowing brutality of its ending
The harrowing 1970s raped woman on a revenge spree film is given the remake treatment, although is watered down in many key areas. The revenge scenes however are played up for a particular nastiness
An appealingly nasty little film where a celebrity chef imprisons and tortures a scathing food critic. Produced by Larry Fessenden.
Overrated South Korean revenge thriller about a detective obsessively pursuing a serial killer that has a mild level of ultra-violence going for it but otherwise fails to grip or dig into a psychological darkness
Not to be confused with Robin of Batman fame, this is an indie film about a teenage vigilante. Not always the most accessible film but eventually works in a quietly effective way
Another in the spate of gonzo Japanese splatter films. A cartoony OTT vigilante film with a Gothic schoolgirl avenger, featuring ridiculous action and splatter set-pieces
Film in the faux grindhouse style created by Tarantino and Rodriguez made as homage to the so-called nunsploitation genre. While operating on a low-budget, this has a great pulp energy that delivers in aces on all three title promises
Imagine Baise-Moi or Thelma and Louise by way of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert – a film that hits a perfect note in terms of tongue-in-cheek spirit
A disappointing remake of the harrowing Wes Craven classic where the violence has been tamed down and the film is entirely missing the irony of the original’s savage ending
Full-length follow-up to Hard Revenge, Milly and the same mix of ferocious action and over-the-top splatter. Despite a large budget, this is marginally the lesser in sheer entertainment
Vigilante film where Gerard Butler exacts revenge against the justice system while imprisoned in a jail cell. The dispatches become entertainingly improbable to the point that Butler almost becomes a Batman villain in all but name
Another highly entertaining entry in the Gonzo Japanese Splatter Film about a schoolgirl who seeks revenge with her arm stump replaced by a Gatling gun
The Punisher (2004) with Thomas Jane was a dud among the 2000s Marvel Comics adaptations. Here the role is recast with Ray Stevenson and director Lexi Alexander gets the dark, violent tone of the comic-book right
Ferociously entertaining Japanese film about a cyborg-enhanced heroine on a revenge trail. Mostly a series of ridiculously over-the-top action moves combined with copious degrees of blood
Film about a series of gory deaths at a bowling alley, this really pushes an envelope of good taste. This gained attention for makeup effects artist Ryan Nicholson and was the cause of much censorship controversy
Although the character names have been changed, this is based on the book sequel to Death Wish. Saw director James Wan goes for broke on the grim vigilantism and turns in an immensely satisfying work
Serial killer thriller that eventually emerges as I Spit on Your Grave reimagined as a police procedural. Much effort is made to portray a grim urban environment but little to engage as a thriller, although Selma Blair owns the show as the avenged woman in the latter third
French thriller about police investigating a killer who is infecting victims with the bubonic plague and leaving Mediaeval clues, all part of an elaborate revenge scheme
Neil Jordan teams up with action producer Joel Silver to make a vigilante film where Jodie Foster starts toting a gun against thugs on the streets after the murder of her fiancé
British vigilante film that strains at issues of social relevance but only ends up parroting Death Wish cliches
Tim Burton takes on the film version of the Stephen Sondhiem musical about a murderous barber, featuring Johnny Depp in the title role. But disappointingly, Burton still makes the same film he always does
Building on the successes of the Hannibal Lecter films, this is a prequel that goes back sets out to tell an origin story of how the young teenage Hannibal came to be who he was during World War II
Tough brutal British film where a group of youth offenders are hunted while on a wilderness survival course on an island
Animated film from Denmark about a man who goes on an ultra-violent crusade against the porn industry over the loss of innocence of his young niece
A blatant Bollywood copy of Oldboy, often scene-for-scene
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 third of The Crow sequels, starring a miscast Edward Furlong as a resurrected trailer park kid. This has a bad movie ridiculousness that killed the series off
Mel Gibson produced film where a Hollywood actor becomes fed up with paparazzi and begins eliminating them
Amid the huge surge of Marvel Comics adaptations in the early 2000s, there came this version of The Punisher. Cast with Thomas Jane, the film is tepid and singularly lacking in the grim, dark avenging violence of the comic-book
One of Shane Meadows’ harsh depictions of life in the English Midlands with Paddy Considine as a former soldier turned vigilante eliminating bullies who killed his intellectually handicapped brother
Electrifyingly ultra-violent film from Park Chan-wook who ably borrows from Takashi Miike. The film equally becomes a conceptual twister as the protagonist is forced to go on a reality-bending quest through his own life.
James Wong and Glen Morgan, the duo behind Final Destination, remake the 1971 film about a man and his rats. However, this is set in a stylised 1940s world with a caricatured performance from Crispin Glover that causes the film to lack any credibility
Alex Cox, director of the cult Repo Man , was once a name of some promise but he has instead spent more than two decades making increasingly obscure and amateurish films. His adaptation of a Jacobean revenge drama into a near-future setting improves this none despite a great cast line-up
One thing you don’t associate with Uwe Boll is a concern for social issues. Made in the aftermath of Columbine, this is an early Boll film that is a surprisingly solid attempt to address the scourge of US school shootings
TV mini-series remake of the Stephen King novel, which restores many aspects of the book not in the 1976 film. Unfortunately, Brian De Palma has been replaced by a tv director who regards it as just another assignment
A highly controversial Gaspar Noe film that is all told in reverse chronological order, depicting the rape of Monica Bellucci and violent revenge by her husband Vincent Cassel