The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
The Ambiguously Fantastic refers to works that create a deliberate uncertainty about whether elements of the fantastic exist or not. They raise the suggestion that it could exist or equally that it might be all in a protagonist’s imagination or there may be a more mundane explanation for what is going on.
Sometimes this may result in a Rationalised Fantasy where the end of the story pulls back to deliver a mundane explanation for seemingly fantastical events, or everything is revealed to be conclusively in someone’s imagination. Just as equally, a work may leave the ambiguity unresolved.
The most common examples of this might be whether ghosts and hauntings are real. Efforts included here also leave doubt about the actuality of monsters, aliens, angels, reincarnation, miracles, witchcraft and deviltry, UFOs, werewolves, or claims that someone is an alien or time traveller.
The classic Ambiguously Fantastic story was Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw (1898), which has been multiply filmed, in which we could not be certain if the central character was seeing ghosts or it was all just in her imagination. On film, the classic Ambiguously Fantastic films were the works of Val Lewton, beginning with Cat People (1942) in which we could not be certain if the heroine really could turn into a panther or it was just her superstitions and the imaginings of others.
This conducts a perfect simulation of a 1970s tv talkshow with David Dastmalchian as a host who tries to expose/debunk a demonic possession before things go wrong live on air
Quite good New Zealand made film about mysterious happenings during a hike into the bush, where what is happening is kept in a state of careful ambiguity
Blair Witch Project co-director Eduardo Sanchez makes a film that sits in a fascinatingly ambiguous place as to whether a wife is being haunted/possessed or is mentally disintegrating
Muchly under-appreciated film with Anthony Hopkins as a performer dominated by his ventriloquist’s dummy. Great direction from Richard Attenborough, fantastic script and performances
One of Woody Allen’s slighter films about rationalist Colin Firth who is debunking medium Emma Stone but becomes convinced of her powers as romance sparkles
Ingmar Bergman film about a travelling magic show. Bergman is fascinated with the power that illusionists hold and what happens behind the mask. A spellbinding film that is more haunted that most genre films
An extraordinary Argentinean film about a patient in his asylum who insists that he is an alien and has genteel affect on the inmates. Later uncreditedly ripped-off as K-PAX.
Beautifully written film about an immortal. The result is an entirely captivating SF film whose whole effect emerges simply from people sitting in a living room talking
Fascinating, little seen film with Joel Grey giving an amazingly captivating performance as a possibly fraudulent psychic offering to help a murder investigation
This has been called the unluckiest film ever made – there is even an entire documentary devoted to the collapse of a prior version. Here Terry Gilliam’s film about people on delusional quests finally emerges with the glory he always intended it to be
Adapted from a David Gerrold book, this is essentially the Adam Sandler adopts a kid film Big Daddy by way of K-PAX and its ambiguous alien visitor
George Romero’s deconstruction of the vampire film is one of his most remarkable films. In contrast to vampire cliches, all we get is a pale teen with an unhealthy obsession contrasted with a religious extremist who demands he be exorcised.
Classic Christmas film with Edmund Gwenn as a man who is placed on trial after he insists he is the real Santa Claus
A John Hughes written remake of the classic Christmas film where a man (Richard Attenborough) claiming to be Santa ends up tried in court.
Fine film that deserves wider recognition with Jeff Goldblum as a man in an asylum who claims to be The Devil
Interesting attempt to rewrite Carmilla for the Twilight crowd. In fact, this is a film that features more credible teenage girls and is far more successful as a horror film and at creating uncanny mood than the Twilight films were
Film about an escaped killer and teenagers stalked on a haunted stretch of road. A film that creates mystery about what is happening only to reach a frustrating non-resolution. Without the well-known name of Bruce Davison, this would only be low-budget amateur film
Albert Brooks film with Sharon Stone as a Greek muse. This suggests a Woody Allen whimsy crossed with something of Robert Altman’s The Player and its satire on Hollywood with real-life celebrities playing themselves
Alexandre Aja film with Halle Berry and sons at a cabin in the woods facing an evil force outside. A work that screws with what we think is going on
Classic occult film from former Val Lewton associate Jacques Tourneur that sits in a wonderfully ambiguous place where we cannot be certain whether the supernatural is real or imagined
Excellent film about an academic who discovers his wife is a witch. A film that delves into a psychological place between rationalism and belief with stark effect
Promising film about two people at a mine in the desert affected by what would appear to be the drill having dug all the way down to Hell. The film plays a corny idea seriously and sits in an interestingly ambiguous place about what is going on.
The best of the Welcome to Blumhouse films set among the rivalry of two sisters at a highly competitive music school where one gets an occult text allowing her an advantage
A couple of years ago, the hauntingly eerie Absentia made Mike Flanagan into a must-watch director; this is his follow-up – the story of an evil mirror that, while slightly the lesser of Absentia, conducts some undeniably effective games of reality and illusion
In the vein of Pasolini’s Teorema, French director Bruno Dumont makes a film about an ambiguous visitor who may be capable of miracles. Slow, very opaque but eventually rewarding
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
Very strange New Zealand-made film that starts out seeming to be an abduction thriller and then turns into an even stranger ghost story that we cannot be sure is happening or all in the heroine’s imagination
Creepy and surprisingly well-made Canadian horror film in which a mentally disturbed David Hewlett has a strange relationship with an anatomical dummy that directs him to kill.
British horror film that develops a sense of uncanniness that resembles an Eraserhead at times with a man haunted by a puppet and giant spiders. The mood is unsettling, least of all that we are never sure what is real or taking place in the character’s head
An appealing bittersweet film based around the improbable premise of a young girl finding what she believes is one of Santa’s reindeer. In a genre that usually deals in sugary sentiment, this has a much more rewarding downbeat realism
Horror director Brian Yuzna jumps aboard the alien abduction and impregnation theme that was popular at the time thanks to tv’s The X Files. All of Yuzna’s films have a fascination with sexual perversity so here the emphasis is placed on the impregnation
Chillingly effective film where a teenage girl casts a spell to kill her mother, only to become terrified and try to turn back what she has unleashed
Adaptation of an autobiographical Philip K. Dick book that he wrote in an attempt to make sense of a series of bizarre hallucinations, this long-rumoured film manages, despite a low-budget, to mainline the brain-twisting nature of Dick’s writing better than any other adaptation
Strong, well-written film from Buried director Rodrigo Cortes about investigators of psychic frauds encountering a possibly real example. This takes a welcomely sceptical, rationalist perspective, has a great cast and fine build-up but alas falls apart in a lame twist ending
Chinese-made Wu Xia film – sort of a flying swordsman variant on A History of Violence. This comes on an impressive scale but also plays down the action element and leaves all the flying swordsman moves sitting on the fence as being possibly mundane
A beautiful slow burn of a film that avoids almost any labels one tries to apply. It could be a film about dementia, it starts out seeming like a work about a haunted house but refuses to adhere to any of the tropes and instead heads for a remarkable and unique place of its own
This should be mandatory viewing after watching The Exorcism of Emily Rose. While that film rewrote the tragedy of Anneliese Michel as a film about possession, this German-made production sets things straight and tells a story about a girl with mental health issues
Rebecca Hall gives an extraordinary performance of disturbed psychology as a woman dealing with a man from her past who may have eaten her child
Quirky indie film about a possibly deluded man who advertises for a time travel companion. The actuality of the time travel element is kept ambiguous and this plays out as a relationship drama that overflows with charm and freshness
A bizarre South Korean comedy about a businessman who is imprisoned by a possibly crazed man who insists that he is an alien. Things sit in an absurdly funny ambiguity. Later remade by Yorgos Lanthimos as Bugonia
Uneven New Zealand-made film where a girl meets a mystery man who claims that he is Jesus Christ
The last film from the great Mario Bava – an uncanny effort filled with some strikingly spooky scenes that leaves you uncertain whether what we are seeing is a haunting, a possession or is taking place in a mad woman’s fraying mind
Film where recovering addict Balthazar Getty is dragged into an underworld of vice by mysterious stranger Peter Weller
A film from the early days of the Anglo-Horror cycle about the greedy relatives seeking a will being killed by a possibly supernatural cat
M. Night Shyamalan delves into the crop circle phenomenon and makes an alien invasion film. At this point his films were predicated on big conceptual surprises and this comes out as a damp squib when we find out what is going on
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
Fascinating film about a cult centred around a woman who claims to come from the future. Featuring an ethereal performance from a then unknown Brit Marling, the film remains ambiguous about her claims. Less a script than a series of often emotionally raw scenes that have been improvised between the actors
Before the likes of Defendor, Kick-Ass and Super, there was this, one of the best comedies about superheroes with no powers. The film loves screwing with its audience and comes with a series of mind-bending flips between drug hallucination and subjective view of the superpowers in action
Michael Crichton was hot property after the success of Jurassic Park but this was one flop. A by no means uninteresting film about a group of scientists in an underwater habitat making contact with an alien lifeform
Roger Christian was art director on Alien but will always be remembered as director of the notorious Battlefield Earth. Here he is stuck making a cheap, tatty and frequently incomprehensible copy of Alien about alien impregnation
Strong and effective film with Michael Shannon as a man who has precognitive vision of a terrible coming storm and tries to build a shelter while everyone around him thinks he is going mad
Sequel in name only to Cloverfield, this takes place in a survival shelter where an unspecified catastrophe has happened outside but we cannot be certain what or even if anything at all. Okay but films like Take Shelter and The Divide did this much better
Agnieszka Holland film with Ed Harris as a Catholic priest who has lost his faith who is asked defend the authenticity of a supposed miracle
Bizarre but undeniably brilliant Terry Gilliam film about a young girl in the cornfields of the Midwest who builds a fantasy out of the sometimes disturbing things around her
Ambiguous ghost story in which Peter Gallagher sees and talks to his late wife Michelle Pfeiffer. Written by hit tv producer David E. Kelley (The Practice), this frequently disappears into its own self-congratulatory dialogue
Indie film that seems a mix of A Field in England and The Picnic at Hanging Rock. The first half contains some very realistic scenes of people getting wasted on drugs but the second as characters set out along a path in the woods that leads to Hell proves frustratingly elusive
Another version of Henry James’ classic psychological ghost story updated to the 1960s where the subtleties of the original are rendered in terms of crude effects
A BBC adaptation of the classic oft-filmed Henry James ghost story in which we cannot be sure whether the ghosts are real or exist inside the heroine’s imagination. This treats some aspects of the story liberally but gets the essence of the story right
Steven Spielberg, Joe Dante, John Landis and George Miller came together to make this homage to tv’s The Twilight Zone. The episodes are variable but the standout is Miller’s Nightmare at 20,000 Feet
Appealingly eccentric comedy set in the American Midwest where supermarket cashier Cindy Williams gains a cult following after preaching that the UFOs are coming
A really quite spooky film about a series of audio recordings send to a podcast that seem to contain evidence of a possession. A film that almost entirely has its effect relayed by sound
A couple on a getaway to an uninhabited island on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef find the island may be haunted
An interesting adaptation of the classic lesbian vampire story Carmilla. This modernises and relocates it to Middle America and plays the vampirism with a psychological ambiguity
Ghost story effectively relocated to Glasgow apartment building with a solo mother terrorised by something supernatural. Filled with social realism
The second film from Belgian director Fabrice Du Welz is an intensely haunted albeit enigmatic journey into Southeast Asian jungles in search of a missing child
Strong return to genre material for Australian director Richard Franklin with Radha Mitchell as a yachtswoman in a round the world race facing ghosts on board that may well all be in her imagination
Strongly reminiscent of The Innocents, Emilia Clarke from Game of Thrones plays a nanny arriving at an estate to tend a boy who claims to hear his dead mother’s voice in the stone walls.
A standout Spanish film about a 19th Century family at remote house in the midst of a great plain who are under attack by monsters that may just as easily exist in the mind
A horror film made as an allegory for Covid with a family trapped inside a bathroom without supplies as a mysterious catastrophe happens outside their door
A beautifully subtle and ambiguous film about a pioneer woman alone in a cabin on the American Frontier where she is haunted by demons of the prairies that may all be in her mind
This may be or may not be a werewolf film. What we have is a work that is long on mood and much ambiguity as a man hides in the English countryside from a crime he has conducted