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.
Version of the Jekyll/Hyde story starring Spencer Tracy and with Ingrid Bergman as the dancehall girl he liaises with. This has been made in the vogue for Freudian psychology so the transformation is tricked out with dubious symbolism
Whose bright idea was it to give us kid versions of The Avengers (ostensibly their children)? While Marvel have had an unparallelled string of hits on the big screen in the 00s, their attempts to replicate the successes that rival DC have had in animation have been a dismal failure
A misfire from the usually reliable Wes Craven, this drearily traipses through a slasher/supernatural plot that lacks any surprises or Craven’s characteristic atmosphere
Takashi Miike’s One Missed Call was one of the more popular of the Ringu-influenced Japanese ghost stories, concerning a viral curse passed by cellphone calls. This was the second Japanese sequel
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
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
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
A variant on the sinister child’s invisible companion theme. A fine cast has been assembled but the film goes and kills itself with a lame twist ending
Tim Burton’s superlative duo of Batman films were wrecked after Joel Schumacher took up the director’s chair and turned the films into giant camp fests. Here he allows a madly overacting Jim Carrey and Tommy Lee Jones loose as the villains
Disappointing remake of Brian De Palma’s 1973 Siamese twins psycho-thriller that changes many elements and crucially lacks De Palma’s stylistic showmanship
This starts out was as a film about multiple personality disorder with several scenes that catch your attention before it drifts into a muddle of confused supernatural themes
A blatant copy of Basic instinct with psychologist Bruce Willis getting involved with Jane March as his patients start being murdered. Much bare flesh but the film is killed by ludicrous plot twists
The reboot of the Mummy series emerges as a wannabe Michael Bay film where even star Tom Cruise plays second banana to the CGI eye candy. Equally, an attempt to jumpstart a shared universe out of Universal’s Famous Monsters with the inclusion of Dr Jekyll seems awkward
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
Another in the fad for remakes of 70s/80s films. where the 1981 slasher film gets reworked if this did not come with the 3D gimmick, it would be no more than a routine direct-to-dvd release
A tawdry erotic thriller copy of Basic Instinct where psychologist Rebecca De Mornay is drawn in to become involved with possible stalker Antonio Banderas
Surrealist film from Raul Ruiz that proves a tedious, drawn-out ramble through disconnected images and non-sequiturs
Probably the worst film adaptation of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, this opts for a trashy sordidness with a lunatically over-the-top Anthony Perkins in the centre of the show
Incredibly shabby film about residents of a Texas boarding house being killed by a supernatural dog
A shabby Canadian police procedural with David Birney as a detective hunting a killer who is targeting prostitutes