The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Spanish film about a woman travelling to her family home on the Russian steppes that creates a very haunted atmosphere. On the other hand, the twist ending has borrowed too much M. Night Shyamalan
The directorial debut of Spain’s Alex de la Iglesia, a planetary adventure about a group of mutant terrorists that comes with a bizarrely wacky sense of humour
Strange Spanish-made film about a mother-dominated psycho, which is also a film being watched in a theatre by an audience that is being stalked by another psycho
2013 brought a spate of doppelganger films. This was overshadowed by the more high-profile Enemy and The Double. Here Sophie Turner plays a schoolgirl who finds her life being overtaken by a mysterious double
Big-budgeted Spanish-made zombie film based on a best-selling book. Very much a post-Covid depiction of the zombie apocalypse, this rehashes the familiar basics capably well
Spanish Found Footage film about the investigation of a haunted woods during which almost nothing happens, before a left-field twist ending that makes little sense
This Blade Runner-influenced work about robots that develop artificial intelligence is exceptional, featuring a particularly captivating last half with Antonio Banderas journeying with strangely alive robots
The first film from prolific horror and exploitation director Jesus Franco to which he would later make four sequels. This is a blatant copy of the French Eyes Without a Face served up with little directorial flair
Spain’s Alex de la Iglesia has become a specialist in comedies with a dark bite. This centres around a crosscut of characters trapped inside a bar during the outbreak of a deadly infection
A visually extraordinary True Crime film based on the story of a Spanish woman who may or may not have abducted and killed a string of children in the 1910s
From prolific genre director/producer Brian Yuzna, a film about the drowned residents of a town that was flooded by a dam construction now emerging to exact vengeance on the living
Nicolas Cage career from the mid-2010s gives all impression he has chosen projects for the full-on dementia value. Here he lets all stops go as the spirit of his late wife possesses the body of the teenage daughter of the woman he is seeing
The second sequel to the cult splatter hit Re-Animator is a superior effort to its predecessor, getting the original’s sense of black humour down pat and arriving at a memorably apocalyptic climax
Bird Box was a hit on Netflix and this is a sequel. The talented Pastor Brothers take the basics of the original and actually make a much better film out of them filled with fine tension
Antonio Banderas is a writer with a block, Jonathan Rhys Meyers a sinister stranger who moves in. Lots of tense psychological games between the two begin only for the film to almost immediately blow the premise
Cryptic Spanish film that eventually coalesces into a unique time travel story, like a more enigmatic version of Timecrimes as we watch pieces of a beautifully wrought temporal jigsaw puzzle slot into place
This borrows its set-up from Phone Booth with Ana da Armas barricaded into a laundromat from a taunting killer outside. You think that is where everything is going but then the film pulls a left field twist on us
A Spanish-made adaptation of the classic lesbian vampire story Carmilla that modernises the story and inflates it with much eroticism and surrealistic imagery
Made not long after the success of The Witchfinder General, a film based on the notorious historical figure of Judge Jeffreys. In the hands of exploitation director Jess Franco, the historical account is sidetracked by sado-sexual scenes
Jess Franco is a cult director, having mostly specialised in exploitation and horror. Here he turns his hand to the early 80s slasher film. The result was listed as a Video Nasty in the UK
A thriller with Ryan Reynolds buried in a coffin where the camera remains inside with him for the entire running time. This must be commended for its rigour in generating suspense while never cheating on its idea
This Spanish film about a cannibal serial killer is almost exactly the opposite of anything we expect of a horror film – a film of muted silences filled with lurking secrets. A fascinating work
While The Shape of Water took attention, there was 2017’s other film about sex between human and fish people. From Xavier Gens, a a Lovecraftian tale about men in a lighthouse engaged in a fierce battle against amphibians
Spanish-made film that feels like a mash-up of Annabelle and The Nun about the communion doll belonging to a girl who went missing that appears and curse everyone it touches
Christopher Lee was inveigled to play the title role in what was advertised as an adaptation of the book as Bram Stoker wrote it. While this was somewhat true, such ambitions befell the cheapness of exploitation director Jess Franco
A copy of the Hammer Dracula films starring Spanish horror legend Paul Naschy. Naschy makes an okay but mundane Dracula, while the film never seems much more than lots of running around an abandoned asylum and softcore tumblings
The little-seen final film from Hammer director John Gilling, an Anglo-horror styled work about resurrected Knights Templar
Stuart Gordon returns to adapt H.P. Lovecraft for a third time. As before, Gordon allows Lovecraft’s unspeakable terrors to be eclipsed by creature effects but the results are nothing too memorable
The second film from Spain’s Alex de la Iglesia, a comedy poking fun at Biblical End Times prophecies. Quite a promising idea that eventually dissolves into a caper comedy
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
One of Guillermo Del Toro earliest films – a ghost story set at an orphanage during the Spanish Civil War. Eerie supernatural scenes sit alongside a surprisingly rich swim of symbolism
The fifth film where cult Spanish horror actor Paul Naschy played the werewolf Waldermar Daninsky. Here Waldemar is pitted up against Dr Jekyll with Naschy playing both Waldemar and Mr Hyde
Spanish film that prefigures the subsequent A Quiet Place concerning an island where anybody who makes a noise is killed. This fails to use its premise in any interesting way.
Rodrigo Cortes, who made the fine Buried, directs a Young Adult horror, which is produced by no less than Twilight author Stephenie Meyer, concerning supernatural happenings at a girl’s boarding school.
One of several Dracula vs Frankenstein crossover films that came out in the early 1970s. This version comes from cult exploitation director Jesus Franco but squanders the opportunities of a great title match
This was one several different films with the same title that came out around the same time. This painful effort comes from Spanish horror star Paul Naschy who plays his signature role of the wolfman Waldemar Daninksy
Quite creepy Spanish film where the elderly everywhere without any explanation begin to act disturbed and turn on the young
This, the second film from Nacho Vigalondo, is a head-scratcher, Though it is ostensibly an alien invasion film, Vigalondo instead creates a comedy of errors
Spanish film set in a dystopian future where physical contact between the sexes is outlawed and rebels discover forbidden broadcasts. This becomes overrun by its pretensions
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
A black comedy from Alex de la Iglesia about murder and rivalry in a department store, where the killer becomes advised by the ghost of those he has killed
Spanish comedy produced to celebrate the turn of the millennium in which the fates of several people wind together on the eve of the end of the century
Not a Frankenstein film but a werewolf film. Spanish actor Paul Naschy debuts his signature role of the wolfman Waldemar Daninsky. Naschy would return to the role nine times, as well as play most of the classic horror characters
This was the fourth (or maybe the fifth) of the Spanish films in the popular series about the wolfman Waldemar Daninsky starring Paul Naschy. Also one of the shabbiest of the series.
The third of the Blind Dead films about the zombies of blind Knights Templar. This is set aboard a ghost ship at sea and is said to have later influenced John Carpenter’s The Fog
Essentially a classical music version of Phone Booth with Elijah Wood trapped at a grand piano in front of a concert audience by a sniper. The results prove quite gripping
Paco Plaza, best known for the [Rec] movies, returns with an unsettlingly effective film about a girl forced to tend her grandmother only to find increasingly sinister things going on
A Euro vampire film that exists under several different titles. Andrew Prine goes to an island after the death of his father only to disturb the tomb of a vampire queen
Work of 1970s Euro horror from Spain that comes influenced by the Hammer Dracula films. The rather dreary film on show belies the sensational promise of the English-language title
Wonderfully madcap film with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing travelling aboard the Trans-Siberian Express in the 1900s realising they are facing a body-hopping alien
A Spanish horror film that develops some reasonable effect in its story about a writer who moves to a small town only to find the locals are keeping sinister secrets
From the almost unknown Narciso Ibañez Serrador, this is essentially a giallo thriller made with the lush sensibilities of a Hammer film. Set in a girl’s boarding school, this substantially prefigures Suspiria
One of the better copies of Conan the Barbarian featuring Laurene Landon as a warrior woman. This is actually a better screen incarnation of Red Sonja than the subsequent film version
A Roger Corman produced erotic horror in which Cliff De Young inherits a castle in Spain where he is tempted by a witch who appears in his dreams
The original Apt Pupil, an extraordinary study in cruelty about a Nazi war criminal confined to an iron lung and the way his past cruelties influence a teenage boy reading his journals
The 2007 Inside in which a pregnant mother is pursued by a woman with a pair of scissors was one of the most brutal viewing experiences amid the French Extremism fad. This is the English-language remake
Fascinating directorial debut from Spanish director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo about a man drawn into an underground society where people bet on the luck quotient of others
High hopes for this third film from Juan Carlos Fresnadillo emerge as no more than Boogeyman with shallow artistic pretensions and is a disappointingly middle of the road work
The first in a trilogy of Spanish detective thrillers adapted from Dolores Redondo concerning ritual child killings, a serial killer and a local Bigfoot type creature lurking in the background
Produced by Guillermo Del Toro, this Spanish film is an extremely good work about a blind woman stalked by a killer, featuring a script of sharp twists and grippingly suspenseful directorial set-pieces
Spanish home invasion thriller that comes with a moderate degree of brutality and tension but ultimately feels more like a set of choices in a survival horror videogame than an engaging thriller
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 giddy madcap, frequently over-the-top and entirely ridiculous Spanish film in which Melinda Clarke’s tongue is possessed by an alien whereupon the tongue starts killing people
A solid Spanish variant on the Backwoods Brutality cycle in which a man driving through the countryside is shot at and pursued by mysterious hunters with rifles
A fascinating Spanish film about a worldwide apocalypse created by a plague that makes the entire population mortally afraid of going out of doors
The second of the films based on Dolores Redondo’s police procedurals, this heads into an admirably dark and perverse place with plenty of jolt twists
One of the better copies of Night of the Living Dead, a Spanish film where an agricultural pesticide causes the dead to rise from their graves in rural England
Spanish director Amando De Ossorio gained a cult for his Blind Dead films. Here he makes a film about The Lorelei, a woman who sits on the banks of The Rhine tempting men to their deaths
Fascinating film from Brad Anderson where Christian Bale is subject to a series of reality blurrings. What hangs over the show most of all is Bale’s intensely physical performance for which he lost a third of his body weight to turn himself into an anorexic shell of a human
A Guillermo Del Toro produced ghost story that fails to go anywhere. The promise of the film’s trailer falls apart in the hands of a novice director who blows all of his scares
Film about children hiding in big old house of secrets following the death of their mother. Filled with all manner of fascinating secrets and twist revelations
A strong and tightly wound police procedural, not unreminiscent of the first season of True Detective. What makes the plot stand out is the beautifully desolate setting of the remote Spanish marshlands
Cheerfully outrageous early Pedro Almodovar black comedy where virginal Antonio Banderas confesses to a series of murders conducted by his death obsessed lawyer
Spanish-Argentinean animated film about the miniature players of a table football game come to life. The animation is not the high-end quality of most theatrical releases but passable; everything plays out to to fairly predictable sports movies cliches
It would be safe to say that without Inception there would be no Mindscape, which involves people entering memories rather than dreams but is similar in many other ways. Where this fails is in having no interest in the sf potential of the idea beyond using it as springboard for a thriller plot
Intelligent and absorbing thriller where a freak storm allows a woman to communicate with the past only to inadvertently create a new timeline where her life is very different
An adaptation of a classic 18th Century Gothic novel about a priest who faces diabolic temptations in the form of a woman disguised as a novice monk amid much tortured guilt and damnation
The story of the relationship between a giant monster and a boy whose mother is dying of cancer, this is perhaps the darkest children’s film ever made. Adapted from an award-winning illustrated book
Supposedly an adaptation of Jules Verns’s Mysterious Island from low-budget Spanish director Juan Piquer Simon, one that gives the impression nobody actually read the book
Spanish film about a group of people gathered at a mansion as spooky happenings begin happening and people are killed off
Jaume Balaguero has become one of the most promising of modern Spanish genre directors, principally on the basis of the [Rec] films. However, this supernatural mystery that resembles one of Dario Argento’s Three Mothers films fails to quite come together
The first film from Spanish director Jaume Balaguero, an adaptation of a Ramsey Campbell novel about a mother trying to rescue her daughter from a child sacrifice cult
The fourth of the Blind Dead films from Spanish director Amando de Ossorio. The film, concerning Knights Templars who were blinded and have returned as zombies, have gained a modest cult
Spain’s Pastor Brothers have been rising genre name in the last few years. This is a psycho film concerning an unemployed man forced out of his apartment who returns to manipulate the life of the new tenant
This Nacho Vigalondo film prefigured Unfriended with everything taking place on a computer screen. A far more adventurous film with a wildly entertaining plot about celebrity stalking
Excellent film from Alejandro Amenabar in which a handsome playboy finds himself in the midst of a baffling series of reality flips before arriving at an SF twist ending
Spanish film about a lone girl on a space mission who has never met another human being and her sudden awakening to the real nature of her world. To say more is to give the film’s on big surprise away. Alas after revealing this, the film seems at a loss what to do next
A Spanish ghost story that effectively eschews modern jumpshock tactics in favour of subtle old-fashioned scares
Critically acclaimed Guillermo Del Toro film set during the Spanish Civil War where a young girl finds the entrance to a dark realm. This plays like a very dark version of the Narnia films
Nacho Vigalondo scripted film that seems like a mix between a girls’ boarding school story and an SF film like The Island, all directed with amazingly over-ornamented costuming and design scheme not seen on screen since at least The Cell
Spanish film about a group of orgiasts at a villa who survive a nuclear explosion outside but are then held at siege from an attack by blinded villagers
Spinoff of characters featured in David Lynch’s Wild at Heart and a greatly underrated film for Alex de la Iglesia. this pushes into even darker and more anarchic places than Lynch did, featuring outlaw lovers who are black sorcerers on a trail of murder and kidmap
This seems to be shaping up to be a modern variant on The Collector in which Dominic Monaghan abducts the object of his desire and locks her in a cage beneath the dog shelter where he works. From there the film starts to twist expectations on their head
In the same vein as The Conjuring films, a film about a true-life Spanish team of paranormal investigators
A venture into the slasher film from hack Spanish director Juan Piquer Simon that features utterly surreal bad dialogue and copious amounts of blood
Raw and undeniable brutal film in which a plus-size teenage girl forms a relationship with a serial killer after he abducts her tormentors
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.
The Platform offered a striking allegory with a prison where a banquet table of food moved down 300 levels each day. This is a sequel
A stunningly allegorical film that falls somewhere between Cube and High-Rise where people are trapped in a prison and forced to fight over food as a banquet table passes down the levels each day, resulting in a society where those at the top claim superiority over those below.
Strong and intelligent Spanish film that readily homages Philip K. Dick in its mind-expanding story of a science-fiction fan being contacting aliens