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.
Val Lewton’s classic work of psychological ambiguity about a woman who believes she is turning into a panther. Lewton’s ingenuity was to leave the actuality of the monster one that was merely suggested
One of the key films from the legendary Val Lewton, this exploits a topical interest in voodoo. As with Lewton’s films, this sits in an ambiguous place that leaves the actuality of the supernatural uncertain
Excellent film from Carl Dreyer, the director of Vampyr director set during the time of witch persecutions about a woman who believes she has the powers of a witch. Everything is told with a beautifully subtle ambiguity
One of the classic horror films from producer Val Lewton. The studio gave Lewton orders to make a sequel to his first hit Cat People but he confounded this by making an entirely different film about invisible playmates that has no cat people
One of the classic psychological horror films from producer Val Lewton. This is a slightly less effective Lewton work featuring Boris Karloff on a plague-ridden island unsure if a vampire creature is responsible
A blatant but far more pedestrian copy of Cat People in which a man has blackouts during which he suspects he turns into a catman who is wanted by police for a string of murders
A fearful Peter Lorre is chased about by the disembodied hand of his late employer. A classic psychological horror film that has borrowed more than a few leaves from Val Lewton
Classic Christmas film with Edmund Gwenn as a man who is placed on trial after he insists he is the real Santa Claus
One of a number of films based on the most famous of all Japanese ghost stories. This is a adaptation made in the neo-realist style of the period that was released in two parts
Wonderfully charming classic with James Stewart who has an invisible 6’3″ rabbit companion. The film proves absolutely winning with its standing up in favour of the right to be eccentric
An amiable venture into the light fantasy films that were popular during this era., Here angels come down and intervene to aid a baseball team on a losing streak
One of the better copies of Cat People, an Anglo-horror film with Barbara Shelley coming to believe that she is the inheritor of a family curse that causes her to turn into a big cat
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
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
Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw is a classic ghost story that hovers in a state of ambiguity as to whether the ghosts are real or in the heroine’s imagination. Of the multiple film versions, this is the best and most authentic to the story
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
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
A strange and fascinating Swedish film about a lonely security guard’s obsessive love affair with a mannequin, which duly comes to life. Or does it? The film sits in a place of ambiguity whether he is imagining it or not
This is the finest haunted house film of all. In Robert Wise’s hands, the ghosts are unseen and only ever psychological and suggested – the results are terrifying. Adapted from Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House
One of the works of the celebrated Ingmar Bergman with Max Von Sydow as an artist tormented by insomnia who starts to slip into disturbing hallucinations where he (and we) can not be certain what is being seen is real
Mario Bava essentially created the giallo film. Here he returns to the genre with an entry about an man obsessed with killing brides that comes filled with exquisitely stylish surroundings and directorial set-pieces
An obscure oddity in which elderly Jewish man Zero Mostel finds Harry Belafonte in his home insisting that he is an angel sent to help
One of the least known of George Romero’s films. Made not long after Rosemary’s Baby, this concerns itself with bored suburban housewives dabbling in witchcraft. Aka Season of the Witch
1970s television produced some remarkable genre works. One of the best was this – a work of eerie tension as scientists conducting experiments at a remote laboratory find something unseen is toying with them
Fascinating, little seen film with Joel Grey giving an amazingly captivating performance as a possibly fraudulent psychic offering to help a murder investigation
George Romero’s vampire film is one of his most remarkable films. In contrast to the cliches, the vampire here is a pale teen with an unhealthy obsession contrasted with a religious extremist who demands he be exorcised.
A Peter Straub adapted ghost story that sits in an ambiguous state about whether Mia Farrow is seeing her dead daughter or going mad. This comes influenced by Don’t Look Now
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
Big serious film about reincarnation that places the arguments for into a courtroom setting. Director Robert Wise and a young Anthony Hopkins fail to do much with a talk-heavy script
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
Fascinating Australian film in which Robert Powell plays an enigmatic stage magician who may or may not have real powers who comes to influence a politician’s family
In his second film as director, Oliver Stone ventures into the disembodied hand theme. An amazingly OTT Michael Caine plays a cartoonist who believes the hand he lost in an accident is exacting vengeance against his enemies
Film that is supposedly based on a true story which Barbara Hershey are her family are harassed by a poltergeist. This contains the notorious scene where Hershey is raped by the entity
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
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.
A beautifully sweet and tender film where teenager Lucy Deakins moves to a new home and befriends Jay Underwood, the autistic boy next door who dreams of being able to fly
Justifiably obscure 1980s video release that has been intended as a copy of The Evil Dead concerning possible Viking berserker spirits amok in backwoods Utah. Cheap and routine on almost all counts
A strangely affecting SF film that takes place entirely in a hotel room with Bill Paterson as a journalist in a Jordanian war zone and Tilda Swinton who insists she is an alien android
A peculiarity from Cannon Films that was a flop, a comedy in which a weird teenager believes he is an alien and suddenly attracts the attention of a bunch of UFO cultists
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.
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
Albert Pyun film that takes place entirely in a warehouse where a woman is taken prisoner by a man who may or may not be an alien. As with much of Pyun’s output from this period, this is cheap and eventually incoherent
Paul Hogan became a huge international star with the Crocodile Dundee films. He next went on to appear in this oddity star as an aging ex-con who believes he is an angel
Fine film that deserves wider recognition with Jeff Goldblum as a man in an asylum who claims to be The Devil
Adrian Lyne became one of the most visually exciting directors of the 1980s. Here he makes an afterlife film that swings between moments of greatness and a script that seems very confused about what is happening
Terry Gilliam’s finest moment, a modernised knightly quest where radio dj Jeff Bridges is dragged into helping homeless man Robin Williams find the Holy Grail. A film made by its performances and warm and eventually soaring characterisations
Director Bruce McDonald and writer/star Don McKellar make an hilariously eccentric road movie as McKellar takes a trip down the title route with a dead body while pursued by The Devil
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 John Hughes written remake of the classic Christmas film where a man (Richard Attenborough) claiming to be Santa ends up tried in court.
Strong and intelligent low-budget vampire film from Kevin J. Lindenmuth that plays with a fascinating ambiguity in the story of a man obsessed with a mystery woman who is making him kill
Enigmatic Manoel de Oliveira film that may be about wife Catherine Deneuve making a pact with The Devil to dispose of the woman husband John Malkovich is attracted to. Or maybe not
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
Kenneth Branagh emerged as an director with his dynamic cinematic Shakespeare adaptations. In this lavish production, he attempts no less than a definitive version of what is regarded as Shakespeare’s greatest play
Stunning, emotionally raw work from Lars von Trier with Emily Watson as a wife in a small religious community who is driven to extremes of masochistic self-sacrifice in the belief she is saving her husband’s life
Carl Sagan’s novel about SETI is inflated into a big budget film determined to impress even though the story did not need it. Sagan’s interesting debate about religion and science is emasculated so as not to offend any religious groups
Ghost story effectively relocated to Glasgow apartment building with a solo mother terrorised by something supernatural. Filled with social 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
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
Uneven New Zealand-made film where a girl meets a mystery man who claims that he is Jesus Christ
A festival of H.P. Lovecraft short films held in Vancouver, which display a quality and faithfulness to the original texts that far outstrips the professional efforts being made elsewhere
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
A film about mysterious happenings on a farm in the Australian Outback that creates an intensely haunted mood concerning something that might be lurking out there
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
Martin Scorsese returns to the vision of urban hell he gave us in Taxi Driver with Nicolas Cage as an ambulance driver haunted the dead he sees. Powerful, blackly funny at times, if not quite up there as another Taxi Driver
Clever and intelligent comedy where Marisa Tomei finds the perfect man (Vincent D’Onofrio) who also claims to be a time traveller from the future. The film sits in an appealing state of ambiguity about whether this is true
Film where recovering addict Balthazar Getty is dragged into an underworld of vice by mysterious stranger Peter Weller
The always interesting Michael Almereyda conducts a modernised version of the Shakespeare play where Ethan Hawke’s anguish at inheriting a corporation plays out against a barrage of modern media
One of a series of films that borrow their titles from old 1950s films, this abandons any connection to the original end of the world film and concerns a boy who may be causing an alien monster to appear
A directorial outing from Bill Paxton, a strikingly original film quite unlike anything else where Paxton plays a man who has religious visions and invokes his sons to murder what he calls demon
Indie SF film where Denis Leary wakes up as patient in a psychiatric institution while he insists he has been awoken from cryogenic suspension in a future where he is awaiting execution
Kevin Spacey is a mysterious patient in a psychiatric institution who makes possibly true claims to be an alien. An uncredited ripoff of the far superior Man Facing Southeast
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
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
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
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
Beautifully made and exquisitely directed film with Nicole Kidman as a widow who meets a ten-year-old boy who claims to be the reincarnation of her late husband
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
Luc Besson makes a charming and funny film where a suicidal loser is aided by a tall and statuesque Rie Rasmussen who claims to be an angel sent to help him sort his life out
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
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
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
Robert Pattinson (before he was a recognised name) as a convalescing pilot during WWII who is haunted by demonic spiders in an adaptation of a book by occult writer Dennis Wheatley.
One of the last films from William Friedkin, an astonishingly deranged descent into paranoia and madness, featuring an alarming performance from a young, unknown Michael Shannon
From The Blair Witch Project co-director Daniel Myrick, a film about two paramedics abducted into a crazed UFO cult who believe their delivery is coming
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
Made by Walden Media following the success of their The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, a well-made adaptation of a Christian children’s book even if it sits uncertainly between gentle realism and the push to make it a fantasy film
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
An Australian Found Footage film about a haunting. Rather than the intense spookiness of Paranormal Activity, this is more a mockumentary that is constantly turning what we expect is going on on its head
Variation on Invasion of the Body Snatchers with body-snatching doppelgangers emerging from mirrors. Directed with an impressive air of subtle, brooding disquiet, this manages to run up some reasonable twists on an oft-told tale
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
A Clive Barker adaptation taken from the name of his story collection. While not uninteresting, it emerges as a haunted house story that eschews genre cliches for an everyday approach and never quite delivers its punches
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
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.
Uwe Boll seems to be improving. Here he has abandoned action for a character-driven drama about the appearance of an ambiguous stranger heralding the Biblical end of the world
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
Essentially a feature version of The Twilight Zone‘s classic Nightmare at 20,000 Feet episode, this generates some remarkable tension with a group trapped in mid-air in a small plane before a lame twist ending
Adult actress Tori Black plays a straight role as a hooker who goes to a meet with a client in a motel room where claims that he is a werewolf
Low-budget UFO/alien abduction film that mostly this just retreads familiar material, although it does evince a certain interesting state of rubber reality about what is happening
A couple on a getaway to an uninhabited island on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef find the island may be haunted