The Asphyx (1972)
Capturing the Spirit of Death
A very underrated and almost completely ignored film from the great Anglo-horror cycle in which Victorian scientists are on a quest to capture the spirit of death
Spirits
Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (2001)
Inuit Legend and Culture
A strong and powerful depiction of historic Inuit culture in the Arctic Circle, which has been shot and acted by Inuit people. Included here because of some Magical Realist elements.
Battle League Horumo (2009)
Combat Tournaments with Miniature Creatures
Japanese film about teams that engage in combat tournaments with hordes of Smurf-like creatures. This spends too much time on its high school drama cliches but eventually finds the dementia of its concept at the climax
Beauty and the Beast (2014)
Fairy-Tale
Adaptation of the fairytale that takes place in an exquisitely dreamy sumptuousness – a stunningly designed, costumed and photographed world that has a genuine magic. However, the motion-capture animated Beast looks far too much like a CGI effect
The Blue Bird (1976)
Fairy-Tale
A ghastly fairytale adaptation. Classic Hollywood director George Cukor took several stars to shoot in the Soviet Union and the results look like a badly choreographed amateur pantomime, lacking in any essential whimsy
Bugmaster (2006)
Wandering Exorcist/Manga Adaptation
Akira director/creator Katsuhiro Otomo returns with this live-action manga adaptation about a wandering exorcist. Very different to any of Otomo’s anime, this is much quieter and rooted in Japanese folklore but has some undeniably way out scenes
Cemetery of Splendor (2015)
Thai Supernatural
Critical favourite that he is, I find Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s have some incredibly eerie, haunted moments. But these sit alongside banal, uneventful happenings that never seem to intersect in a plot
A Christmas Carol (1938)
Miser's Redemption
A fine classic cinematic adaptation of the oft-filmed Charles Dickens tale about the redemption of a miser, starring Reginald Owen as Scrooge
A Christmas Carol (1984)
Miser’s Redemption
Well-made and extremely faithful adaptation of Charles Dickens’s perennial Christmas story starring George C. Scott as Scrooge. This brings out story elements other versions skip over
A Christmas Carol (1999)
Miser's Redemption
For my money, the best adaptation of the multiply-filmed Charles Dickens tale. Patrick Stewart is a great Scrooge and the film respects the story, giving its milieu and central character life as a tale for adults
A Christmas Carol (2004)
Miser's Redemption Musical
TV movie version of the oft-filmed Charles Dickens tale featuring Kelsey Grammer as a very theatrical Scrooge. This tells the story as a musical but also manages to be surprisingly faithful to the original
A Christmas Carol (2009)
Miser's Redemption/Animation
Robert Zemeckis’s motion-capture animated adaptation of the Charles Dickens classic. The tale has gone through so many adaptations, it fee;s an uphill battle to find anything new in the story no matter the technical quality of the film
A Christmas Carol (2019)
Miser's Redemption/Dark Adult Retelling
A tv mini-series that offers a dark, adult and definitely not family friendly version of the oft-filmed Charles Dickens tale that reinvents the original in quite astonishing ways
Cold Fever (1995)
Quest to Iceland/Magical Realism
Eccentric road movie where a Japanese salaryman travels to Iceland for a funeral ceremony for his parents. Filled with ravishing landscapes and quirkily surreal encounters
Djinn (2013)
Islamic Horror Film/Haunted Apartment Block
Tobe Hooper’s career since 1990 felt like a slide down into talentless amateurism. In his last film, Hooper tries to create an Islamic horror film, shooting and casting in the Middle East but slips into hackwork
Dreamkeeper (2003)
American Indian Myths and Legends
Beautifully made and written Hallmark tv mini-series directed by Steve Barron that brings to life a variety of different Native American myths and legends
Fantasia 2000 (1999)
Disney Animation and Music Anthology
Disney’s sequel to Fantasia comes weighted with a sense of its own self-importance – the first theatrical release of the new millennium. However, it fails to produce much that has the stature of the original
Fear Clinic (2015)
Experimental Fear Treatment Opens Up Other Dimension
Film spun out from a web series. Robert Englund as a mad psychiatrist who creates a machine that helps people confront their phobias that somehow opens a doorway to creatures from another dimension
Forest Warrior (1996)
Environmental Ghost Warrior
Near laughable film in which Chuck Norris is cast as the guardian spirit of a forest preaching eco-friendly attitudes to kids and inspiring them to stand up against loggers
The Great Yokai War (2005)
War in the Realm of Japanese Spirits
Takashi Miike jumps aboard the mid-00s fad for secondary world fantasy films, creating a realm of spirits where he and his makeup and creature effects team go absolutely wild
How to Save Us (2014)
Mysterious Borderland Zone
Intensely mysterious film that resembles something of Stalker. This consists of a man venturing into a deserted Tasmania that has been taken over by spirit beings in search of his missing brother
The Journals of Knud Rasmussen (2006)
Inuit Culture and First Meeting with Europeans
The second film from Inuit director Zacharias Kunuk who made Atanarjuat about a Danish anthropologist charting the lives of the Inuit as they are in the process of assimilation by Westerners
Kwaidan (1964)
Japanese Ghost Story Anthology
The greatest of all Japanese ghost stories. This is an anthology that tells four stories. Each is made with an extraordinary visual flair and great attention to colour, lighting and design
Longing for the Rain (2013)
Woman's Mystery Dream Lover
Intriguingly different Chinese film about a wife who develops a mystery dream lover and the havoc this wreaks in her life. Largely a work about female desire, this seems to want to be a horror film
Man-Thing (2005)
Marvel Comics Adaptation/Creature in the Swamps
The bastard child among the spate of pre-MCU Marvel Comics adaptations during the mid-2000s, a film based on their swamp-dweller that throws out most of the comic-book
A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy (1982)
Period Sexual Rondeau Comedy
One of Woody Allen’s slighter films, a sexual rondeau set at the turn of the 20th Century, although mostly riffing on Allen’s familiar sexual neuroses. Contains minor fantasy elements.
The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)
Muppet Movie
The first of the insipid Muppet movies made following Jim Henson’s death, directed by his son Brian. This twists the Muppets out of shape to fit them into a retelling of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol
Night of Dark Shadows (1971)
Dark Shadows Movie
The second and better of the films spun off from tv’s Dark Shadows. At last the show gets production values and atmosphere that do it justice, although the series cult figure of Barnabas Collins does not appear
Nomads (1986)
Urban Phantoms
John McTiernan directs Pierce Brosnan is a film about phantom street gangs that creates an incredibly haunted mood
Princess Mononoke (1997)
Anime/Epic Fantasy
Stunning work of fantasy from Hayao Miyazaki. Made on an epic-sized story canvas and with a breathtaking beauty, this is one of the few original screen works to capture something of the nature and scale of written epic fantasy
Red Sonja (1985)
Warrior Woman/Sword and Sorcery
A disappointing adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s warrior woman character. This is beautifully designed but suffers from a non-acting Brigitte Nielsen in the title role and an insulting need to water the toughness of the character down
Scrooge (1951)
Miser's Redemption
This is usually regarded as one of the best versions of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, a British-made production starring Alistair Sim
Scrooge (1970)
Miser's Redemption Musical
Musical adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol starring Albert Finney as Scrooge, this is made on a big budget, leading to an extravagant and often over-produced film
Scrooged (1988)
Modernised A Christmas Carol
A modernised version of A Christmas Carol that seems to have been construed in the shadow of Ghostbusters right down to casting Bill Murray as Scrooge
Spectral (2016)
Soldiers vs Spirit Beings
Highly original piece that works as a supernatural version of Black Hawk Down with a unit of soldiers cut off in rebel territory and surrounded by spirit beings. Grippingly effective both in terms of the tension and a script that treats the phenomenon with scrupulous rationalism
The Spirit of the Beehive (1974)
Spanish Childhood/Ghost of the Frankenstein Monster
Visually extraordinary Coming of Age story set during the Spanish Civil War in which a young girl imagines seeing the Frankenstein monster
Spirited Away (2001)
Anime/Afterlife Bathhouse
One of the masterpieces of Hayao Miyazaki, a gentle, beautiful work of anime set in an afterlife bathhouse where Miyazaki’s range of extraordinary creatures and quiet tenderness finds something that Western fantasy rarely ever comes near
The Tempest (1979)
Shakespeare Adaptation
Derek Jarman’s take on Shakespeare’s play filled with weird imagery and staged like a journey through a haunted house where all the players are verging on madness
The Tempest (2010)
Shakespeare Adaptation
Version of the Shakespeare play that gives us a female Prospero (Helen Mirren) but is otherwise surprisingly faithful. Director Julie Taymor opens the play up with considerable visual extravagance
Tropical Malady (2004)
Thai Anthology/Ghost Tiger
An early film from Apichatpong Weerasethakul, two tales – the first a gay love story, the second about a ghost tiger
Under the Shadow (2016)
Iranian Woman Haunted By a Djinn
I was intrigued a few years ago about whether such a thing as the Islamic horror film existed and shortly after we had A Girl Walks Alone at Night. This could be considered an Iranian version of The Babadook and is a spooky and well made show about a woman slowly descending into fear and superstition
Wraiths of Roanoke (2007)
Unsolved Mystery/ Malevolent Phantoms
B-budget Syfy Channel outing that attempts to answer the true-life Unsolved Mystery of the lost colony at Roanoke. Unfortunately, the film’s answers are no more interesting than a bunch of Viking spirits, while the film generates little atmosphere or anything beyond rudimentary historical conviction
Youth Without Youth (2007)
Man Regains His Youth
Francis Ford Coppola film that came out the same time as The Case of Benjamin Button where Tim Roth regains his youth after being hit by a lightning bolt