The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Split Personality, or to give it its technical name Multiple Personality Disorder and more recently Dissociative Identity Disorder, concerns individuals who have a condition where they periodically manifest one or more different personalities. This is a real world phenomenon and there have been a number of non-fiction works about people affected with such a condition.
Split Personality entered the Psycho-Thriller with Norman Bates and Psycho (1960) and there have been numerous other examples of split personality psychos. The Other (1972) created a unique twist where we had two twins, one good and one bad, before a twist ending reveals that one of them only exists in the other’s mind. Similar kinds of Conceptual Reversal Twists where characters are revealed to be inside someone’s head have been popular since.
The most famous fictional Split Personality was Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Dr Jekyll is an upstanding doctor who invents a potion that brings out his evil side that proceeds to rampage forth conducting wanton mayhem. This has been filmed multiple times – for which see Jekyll and Hyde Films. Another example would be the Batman villain Two-Face who is a physically divided personality with one side of his face scarred, one regular and his personality split between good and evil.
Dull and unimaginative Silent Hill sequel that only revisits what went before. The first film had an uncanny otherworldly atmosphere but the sequel reduces everything to no more than pop-up Clive Barker
Haunted house film that comes with the novelty of being shot entirely in one take. This delivers some okay but never standout jumps but in the end you appreciate it more for its technical novelty than producing scares
Disappointing remake of Brian De Palma’s 1973 Siamese twins psycho-thriller that changes many elements and crucially lacks De Palma’s stylistic showmanship
Quite a good film about a space expedition where the crew members on a mission to Saturn fall into an increasing paranoia and inability to tell what is real due to the drugs used in the hypersleep process
A huge hit and one of the key influences that created the box-office dominance of Marvel Comics in the 2000s/10s. A fine incarnation of the comic-book, Sam Raimi brings it to life with exhilarating web-slinging scenes but overdoes the winsome innocence of Peter Parker
M. Night Shyamalan’s name took a nosedive throughout most of the 2000s (although I am prepared to defend him) but he received some of his best notices in years with his collaborations for Blumhouse, This split personality thriller, anchored by a tour-de-force performance(s) from James McAvoy, continues the upward trend
80s slasher film about a teenage temptress who leaves a trail of dead men around her. An impressive cast but the film sits on a very dubious line
Jean Renoir is considered one of the greatest of all film directors – this is his only venture into genre material, a version of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Though Renoir seems disinterested in making a horror film, he offers up the most faithful interpretation of the story on screen to date
Quite evidently modelled on Se7en even to the lookalike title, this is the novelty of a Christian serial killer thriller. The results are quite strange to say the least
Classic tv movie that is a horror anthology offering a trio of tales all featuring Karen Black. The first two items are okay but the one that made the film into a cult item was the third episode with Black being chased through her apartment by an evil doll
For a time Kevin J. Lindemuth had a reasonable place making direct-to-video films and anthologies. This is a solidly effective video-released anthology of horror tales
Hammer Films had great success with their revivals of Dracula and Frankenstein and went on to adapt other classic horror stories. Here they take on the Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde story as a scientist unleashes his evil personality within
The first of several animated films based on Marvel Comics properties, this does a solid job in adapting Mark Millar’s The Ultimates, a retelling of The Avengers origin story
Follow-up to the previous animated Marvel Comics film featuring The Avengers, this serves to introduce Black Panther to the screen for the first time
The Hollywood remake of the South Korean ghost story A Tale of Two Sisters that waters down and reduces the effectiveness of the original to generic shocks
The first sequel to the passable Venom. Next to Batman & Robin, this could be a strong contender for the worst big-budget superhero film ever made
A Spanish thriller about the investigation into mysterious payment made to an executed killer, which is then followed by a series of copycat killings that mimic those conducted by the dead killer
John Carpenter returned to the director’s chair after more than a decade but failed to light the world on fire. Carpenter makes what you could call a ghost story version of Girl, Interrupted. The scares are tame and the film is hamstrung by an improbable M. Night Shyamalan twist ending
This is a superbly written and directed work of Southern Gothic that consists of three interwoven tales that gradually expose dark family secrets
Takashi Miike makes a sequel to his earlier superhero film filled with his typically eccentric touches