The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Supernatural Retribution concerns a sense of justice enacted by non-corporeal agencies. This may be someone that has been murdered or wrongly killed who rises from the grave or returns as a ghost to exact vengeance against those responsible. In other cases, the wronged dead can possesses another person or even an inanimate object.
In other examples, the retribution can take the form of Curses that exact justice against the children, family members, even descendants of the guilty party or entire towns, many years later. Or the form of retribution may simply be an invisible force that affects people that have disturbed a tomb or sacred cultural object.
Stories of Supernatural Retribution are common in Anthology Films, which frequently feature stories in which somebody has gotten away with a crime only for the sting in the tale to be that they have reckoned without ….
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
Sequel to the hit multi-director anthology has a less high-profile line-up of directors, nor hits the astonishingly perverse heights of its predecessor. As always some entries never do much but the film finds its stride in the last few episodes
Lucio Fulci attained a cult following for his horror films. This reads like a tatty copy of Dario Argento’s Suspiria that has been bizarrely married to the psychic coma patient premise from Patrick
Amicus Films venture into the haunted house genre with a newlywed Stephanie Beacham haunted by a disembodied hand but atmosphere is weakened by the constant reaching for crude shock effect
One of the best of the horror anthologies from UK’s Amicus Films. This adapts four stories from Robert Bloch, which are all tales told by the inmates of the titular asylum and settle in with chill effectiveness
Brazil’s Ze do Caixao or Coffin Joe is one of the most evil characters ever created on film, spearheaded by director/star Jose Mojica Marins’s contempt for the weak and catalogue of brutalities and blasphemies
The perpetually terrible Mick Garris is allowed loose on another Stephen King book where he promptly reduces a subtle, ambiguous ghost story to a series of lunging pop-up scares without any concept of atmosphere or nuance
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
A modestly successful Bollywood horror film that becomes a copy of The Exorcist but does generate a reasonable degree of atmosphere
The great Mario Bava directs a horror anthology of three tales, delivering each with considerable spooky atmosphere. The standout among these is The Wurdulak with Boris Karloff as a vampire preying on his family.
An interesting little film from Adam Mason that starts out seeming a variant on The Hitcher with Andrew Howard as a drifter taunting a couple on a desert highway before morphing into something very strange
Blaxploitation homage designed as a vehicle for Snoop Dogg. Essentially a version of A Nightmare on Elm Street with Snoop as a pimp come back to haunt those who killed him
Indie film that channels a Lost Highway vibe in which Douglas Smith searches for a missing girlfriend Jena Malone and then wakes up in an entirely different life where he cannot be certain which life is real and which a dream
Bizarre Mexican film about a resurrected warlock who transforms into a bat creature to take retribution against the descendants of those who burned him at the stake
This borrows a good deal of its essentials from The Keep in the tale of German soldiers during World War II being haunted as they take refuge in a bunker
The Car concerning a possessed car is one of the forgotten films of the 1970s. Why it has produced a sequel 42 years later is a scratch of the head. Not that the two films even resemble one another
The huge success of J-horror films like Ringu and Ju-on: The Grudge in the 2000s was copied right around the Asian region. This was one of several K-horror (South Korean) ghost stories produced during this period
One of a spate of killers returned from the electric chair films that came out around the time of Wes Craven’s Shocker. The film is all build-up and almost no delivery, although is enlivened by an undeniable sense of humour
Thai horror film with the interesting idea of ghosts emerging out of a movie screen. This has a couple of undeniably spooky moments but is still just another of the numerous copies of the basics of Ring
Stephen King and George Romero collaborate on a horror anthology made as homage to the EC Comics, telling five tales that replicate the blacker-than-black sense of humour (and even the visual look) of the comic-book with hilarious results
The sequel to the hit George Romero-Stephen King horror anthology. This misses the original’s black humour by a mile and instead becomes overblown and filled with shrill unlikable characters
A third entry in the Creepshow series but made without the involvement of George Romero (or Stephen King). This tries to give more of the same but is abysmally made on all counts
The third of the Crow films has a more substantial story than the second but is killed by a director who has no feel for the atmosphere created by the other films
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
Overshadowed by the tragedy of star Brandon Lee’s death on set, this is a beautifully dark and glistening Gothic tale of a murdered youth revived from the dead to attain vengeance against his killers. Several lesser sequels followed
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
The first sequel to The Crow extends the look of the original into an amazingly lit Goth designer world. However, the plot (an early work from David S. Goyer) is no more than a rehash of the first film
TV movie that was an early effort from celebrated producer Aaron Spelling, concerning an occult conspiracy surrounding a couple who inherit a farmhouse
Dreary film in which Vincent Price is a magistrate who is haunted by a manifestation of The Devil for his witch persecutions. The publicity falsely tried to sell this as an Edgar Allan Poe adaptation.
This was the second film set around the real-life Clown Motel in Nevada. Despite which this is not another killer clown films and is focused around the awakening of vengeful Native American spirits
Makeup effects man John Carl Buechler directs a film about a resurrected prospector come to enact vengeance against those seeking his gold claim
Frank De Felitta was mostly known for writing the novel that became Audrey Rose. He directs this tv movie where intellectually handicapped Larry Drake is killed by a lynch mob only to return from the dead as a scarecrow
Formulaic horror film about an avenging supernatural hag known as the Tooth Fairy. Much of the premise is borrowed from A Nightmare on Elm Street
In his immediate follow-up to Saw, James Wan turns to the old possessed ventriloquist’s dummy theme. The result is not quite another Saw but Wan does deliver a number of very creepy moments
A 1980s VHS released horror about a series of novelty killings at a health spa. This contains some entertainingly bizarre death and a surprise number of later to be famous faces
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
Miles Doleac is better known as an actor but also has a number of credits as a director. Here he both directs and stars as a former priest haunted by an exorcism gone wrong
The first of Amicus’s horror anthologies. The stories are rehashes of five popular horror tropes, all united by Peter Cushing as the title doctor telling the fortunes of five passengers on a train carriage
Welsh director Caradog James impressed with his previous film The Machine. Here he makes a horror film concerning an urban legend about an old crone haunting those who disturb her, but fails to do anything notable
Australian film about an Aborigine bracelet taken from an archaeological dig exerting supernatural retribution in the present for a mass murder in the past
A variant on the horror anthology film that manages to let the potential in its three stories fall through its hands. Narrated by Rod Serling, creator of tv’s classic anthology series The Twilight Zone, who must’ve needed the money
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
The second of the R.L. Stine adapted Fear Street films, this one takes the action back to 1978 where it then becomes a vigorous homage to the slasher film
The first of the Fear Street films, somewhat more adult than the usual R.L. Stine adaptations. This can be considered the first Woke era slasher film
Excellent slow burn film that becomes a work of Folk Horror. This is focused around preparations for a dinner party joined by a mystery waitress where you just know things are going to go badly wrong
A halfway reasonable film from The Asylum where passengers in the midst of a plane trip realise part way through that their flight is haunted
John Carpenter’s immediate successor to Halloween is a suspenseful and scary ghost story about undead sailors descending on a small town in a fog bank, even if the narrative logic holding everything together is thin
One of the worst among the 2000s fad for remakes of 70s/80s horror films. John Carpenter’s 1980 original has been transformed into a teen horror film where the spookiness collapses into frequently ridiculous shock effects
Another in the spate of social media horror films, this is a blatant copy of Unfriended, albeit mashed up with Ring to create the idea of a cursed newsfeed. This is also the lamest of the bunch
One of the more underrated horror anthologies featuring an aging Vincent Price as narrator. All four stories are equally strong and venture into some pleasingly dark and grisly places
A bad movie classic. Plenty of hysterically funny dialogue and one of the most ridiculous looking movie monsters of all time – a possessed tree (where the film also manages to wind in the 1950s obsession with atomic monsters)
Though this received a reasonably high-profile release from Blumhouse, it transpires as no more than a Found Footage film about the haunting of a high-school play
Another effort from the Golden Age of kaidan eiga (Japanese ghost story films) during the 1950s-60s. While this assembles the essentials of the genre, it is only delivered in terms of a series of strident and unsubtle pop-up effects
Big-budget studio adaptation of Peter Straub’s novel about four aging men who tell ghost stories to exorcise their past. This strips many of the book’s storylines and never seems to make any of its attempts to scare pay off
Japanese ghost story based on a kabuki play that has been filmed numerous times. Much more character and story driven than modern kaidan eiga, this builds to a grim and spooky climax with undeniable effect
A cryptic ghost story based on a novel by Watership Down author Richard Adams, featuring Meg Tilly as a newlywed bride who is haunted by events from her past
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
An interesting, if not completely successful, attempt to revive the horror anthology – in this case with four tales that all take place in a Western setting
The English-language remake of Ju-on: The Grudge, this has the good sense to retain the original’s director Takashi Shimizu. The script makes more sense and Shimizu replicates the same eerie scares
Follow-up to The Grudge, the English-language remake of the Japanese horror film. Although original Japanese director Takashi Shimizu is present, this is one of the weaker Ju-on/Grudge films
This was ostensibly another in Roger Corman’s series of Edgar Allan Poe adaptations with Vincent Price possessed by his ancestor. This only borrows Poe’s title and instead adapts an H.P. Lovecraft story.
Unrelated in any way to the slasher film Prom Night, this plants tongue in cheek as it tries to imitate the A Nightmare on Elm Street films in its story of a vengeful undead prom queen
A Clint Eastwood directed/starring Western in which he plays a gunslinger who turns up in a town and exposes the guilty secrets of the townspeople in what is eventually revealed to be a supernatural twist
One doesn’t have high expectations of a Syfy Channel film. On the other hand, director Sheldon Wilson surprises and creates a highly original monster and moments of considerable tension
Routine executed killer comes back from the electric chair film made to exploit the success of Wes Craven’s Shocker. In some places this was sold as another of the House films
A compilation of short horror films from Denmark
An incredibly good adaptation of the Sherlock Holmes story. Thought lost for many years, this was made at the height of German Expressionism and has a vividness that other adaptations lack
Hammer Films’ one and only Sherlock Holmes adaptation. It is beautiful to see the opulence of early Hammer productions brought to bear giving the story unusually effective life
Another adaptation of the Sherlock Holmes quasi-supernatural mystery. This is also one of the worst ever thanks to the wildly over-acted, scenery chewing performance from Matt Frewer, badly miscast as Holmes
Amiably silly haunted house film with William Katt fighting rubbery pop-up monsters. This doesn’t take itself too seriously. A minor hit that produced three sequels.
A routine haunted house film that was made as a tv movie,. One of the several early genre works made by celebrated tv producer Aaron Spelling.
A film about a small town affected by a killer hubcap. This gives strong vibes of Quentin Dupieux’s hilarious Rubber, although surprisingly enough this plays the concept seriously
A standout adaptation of the oft-filmed kaidan eiga (Japanese ghost story) Yotsuya Kaidan/The Yotsuya Ghost Story. A beautifully filmed classic version of the story
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
Film version of a classic play about an inspector who calls to expose the sins of a wealthy family and their involvement in the death of a girl. Comes with a fantastical twist in the tale.
From the acclaimed Simon Rumley comes this true crime drama about the execution of an innocent man and the supposed curse he placed on all who condemned him
One of a duo of spinoff films made to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Ju-on/The Grudge series. Seven films in and the series is starting to resemble much of a muchness
The better of two spinoff films made for the tenth anniversary of the Ju-on/The Grudge series. The series is suffering over-familiarity, but this manage to create moments of uncanny spookiness
The tenth of the Japanese Ju-on/The Grudge series. Newcomer Masayuki Ochiai has some effective touches but the series is running out of original moves
Unsettlingly spooky Japanese ghost story from Takashi Shimizu that spawned a number of sequels, reboots and English-language remakes. This was the third of the films and superior to all that came after
Takashi Shimizu’s follow-up to the international hit of Ju-on: The Grudge. These Ju-on films become repetitive after a time but you cannot deny that Shimizu delivers the spooky goods here
A ridiculous supernatural action film where a madly overacting David Keith plays an executed killer returned from the dead to seek revenge against cop Martin Kove
Australian horror that sets out to combine US models like A Nightmare on Elm Street and a few dashes of Poltergeist with the idea of an Aborigine curse but emerges as poorly executed
Directors Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury made the brutally extreme Inside. Here they return with what feels like an unofficial copy of Candyman about a vengeful boogeywoman
An exquisitely haunted Japanese ghost story from the muchly overlooked Kaneto Shindo that conjures some moments of genuinely otherworldly atmosphere as two ghost women take vengeance against samurai
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
At contrast to the forgettable James Wan produced version around the same time, this Guatemalan film spins the Latin America folktale as a parable about those behind historic atrocities being haunted
A rather effective effort about a Mysterious Stranger locked in a cell who proceeds to expose the dark secrets of everybody around him, before a completely whacked ending
A film shot during the Covid lockdown, following a police detective who conducts an investigation into deaths caused by supernatural entities unleashed amid the isolation
An hilarious parody of the slasher film in which an undead lumberjack invades a Bible camp, slaughtering the teens in a series of over-the-top deaths to use their blood as syrup on his pancakes
One of the more unusual Japanese monster movies, one that operates just as much a samurai film, concerning the stone god of a mountain that awakens to defend downtrodden peasants
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
The Pang Brothers, two of the most exciting genre directors in the world, have their distinctive style swallowed up in their bland US mainstream debut produced by Sam Raimi
A sequel to Alexandre Aja’s Mirrors that abandons most of the basics of the first film and strips everything down to a series of gory, novelty deaths
Alexandre Aja film about haunted mirrors. Aja is more a director of physical horror and seems less attuned to the supernatural mood
From the same people who made Demonic Christmas Tree, this is a supernatural retribution film that was sold as a Krampus film
A nicely made Stephen King adaptation about a teen who starts to receive text message from beyond the grave. From Ryan Murphy, the producer behind tv’s Glee and American Horror Story
After the successes of Japanese ghost stories like Ringu and Ju-on: The Grudge, the phenomenon was copied right around the Asian region. This is a South Korean ghost story set in Vietnam concerning a haunted painting.
Classic work of the 1960s Italian Gothic cycle featuring Barbara Steele, shot in beautifully brooding black-and-white and with a remarkable sadomasochistic undertow
One of the most influential horror films of the 1980s, creating a series of dream horror copycats. Before the campy, makeup effects driven sequels kicked in, Wes Craven’s original creates a genuinely unearthly series of nightmare jumps