The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
The Occult and Black Magic refers to the dark magical arts, demonology and associated practices. This covers much the same area as what is listed under Devil Worship but comes with no practice of the worship of Satan and associated attempts to give birth to his son.
Those who dabble in the occult will still worship and attempt to summon demons or sacrifice innocents. They also use ritual magic, are constantly attempting to call powers, enact rites or are engaged in the quest for objects of power (Occult Artefacts).
As with Satanists, occultists are prone to wearing black and/or scarlet red hooded robes and gather in secretive covens. Occultists frequently form Secret Societies and will infiltrate positions of power and influence.
Hammer film, not as well known as some of their other works, from a Nigel Kneale script that creates some effect in its story of schoolteacher Joan Fontaine moving to a sleepy English village and finding the locals engaged in witchcraft
Entry in the Anglo-horror cycle with a resurrected witch and an imported Lon Chaney Jr presiding over deviltry in a sleepy English village
A remake of the 1980s horror Witchboard. The original was just a VHS release and here is given a better budgeted workover, but disappears among a host of ouija-titled films of recent years
1970s British film about two sisters being drawn into the coven of witches. This comes with much in the way of softcore nudity but there is a surprising degree of innocence about all of it
Third of the V/H/S films, all horror anthologies in the Found Footage style. While the other two were fairly hit and miss, this is extremely good. Each of the four stories sits among the very best episodes among the current crop of multi-director horror anthologies
Jaume Balaguero of [Rec] fame returns with an occult horror where a woman on the run is drawn into sinister happenings at an apartment
One of the few films to come out after George Romero where zombies are still associated with voodoo. Spanish horror star Paul Naschy writes and plays three roles in a film that comes with a wild mix of cross-cultural ideas
Sequel to the classic Karen Black-starring horror anthology tv movie with Lysette Anthony starring in a trio of horror tales
After a decade-long slump, Tobe Hooper started to show he still had what it took with this remake of the 1980 slasher film
Very obscure horror anthology re-edited from episodes of a Canadian tv series featuring names like John Hurt, Charles Gray and Keir Dullea.
The first film featuring DC Comics; Teen Titans, a spinoff from the Teen Titans animated series
The work on which the cult of director Dario Argento was built. The film consists of a series of extravagantly arty deaths at a girls boarding school, although comes without any real plot connecting this
A horror comedy starring the Foo Fighters where the band’s antics sit alongside some entertainingly outrageous gore
Another unsold Gene Roddenberry tv pilot, this would have made for a potentially worthwhile series involving Robert Culp and Gig Young as occult investigators
Another in the spate of multi-director anthologies that have become popular in recent years – The ABCs of Death, V/H/S et al. This is set around the common locale of a desert highway where all five tales hover in an eerie twilight zone where the everyday world has stepped over into the uncanny
A film where a violinist is drawn in to the mystery of a piece of classical music with occult properties, this is a classy and well-made production above the mill of the average horror film
The third film adapted from the Stephen King short story, which dispenses with connection to the other films and now concerns occult forces in an Arctic base
Entry in the spate of 1970s occult films, purportedly written by a real witch, that offers a sometimes comical portrait of the everyday life of a warlock
A piece of filler horror that is utterly generic in every respect about travelers entering a sinister East European village where the locals are up to no good
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
YouTube film reviewer Chris Stuckmann makes a directorial debut with this film about the investigation into a mysterious disappearance where he makes a work that is well above the often familiar material it deals with
A completely deranged film from Hong Kong’s Shaw Brothers involving the resurrection of a dead wife to exact retribution. Full of ghost sex, gore and madcap creature effects
Rather funny comedy about Satanists and a virginal pizza girl who is chased as their intended victim. This comes with a bizarrely akilter sense of humour that reminds of Martin Scorsese’s After Hours
A multi-director horror anthology where all the directors are Latin American
Two couples on a road trip start to experience sinister happenings after witnessing a devil worship ceremony. Essentially Kalifornia meets Race with the Devil, this develops some modestly creepy effect
Jenn Wexler directs a film about thugs taking over a girls’ boarding school that pleasingly subverts your expectations of everything it is going to be at every turn
Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby was a classic film that popularised the modern interest in occult and deviltry on film; this sad remake is something that only parrots the cliches that have set in in the ensuing 46 years and clumsily mishandles all of Polanski’s comically edgy paranoia
Classic film and one of Roman Polanski’s finest works, the comically paranoid story of a housewife who increasingly comes to believe that the child she is pregnant with was fathered by The Devil
Alien scripter Dan O’Bannon jumps aboard the 80s/early 90s fad for H.P. Lovecraft adaptations is this directorial outing that eventually develops quite reasonable effect
This BBC tv mini-series starts out seeming a mystery about the disappearance of a child as the investigating heroine makes the jolt realisation that she is the missing child, before the show edges over into occult conspiracy. Very nicely written and beautifully directed with a line-up of standout performances
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
The Stan Winston directed Pumpkinhead was one of the genuinely original monster movies of the 1980s. This was the first of several video-released sequels
Fascinatingly bizarre psychotronic film about an innocent drawn into the secrets of sexual witchcraft. Bad filmmaking on almost every level
The zombie film of the 2010s has become marked by a search for the most bizarre and incongruous title/conceptual mash-ups. True to its promise, the film pits several WWE wrestlers up against zombies, alas the creativity begins and ends with the mild amusement of the title concept
Horror anthology featuring four ghost stories from Thai directors. While all the segments vary in approach and style, this is a spooky and above average effort with the real standout being the final segment with an air hostess aboard a plane with a dead body in the midst of a storm
Superlatively moody and well written film that winds a young Edgar Allan Poe into an occult murder mystery
Visually stunning Russian film with a clairvoyant and a police inspector teaming up to solve a series of occult murders in 19th Century St Petersburg
Riding on his fame as Freddy Krueger in the Elm Street films, actor Robert Englund made his directorial debut here but the film is lumbered with the lame concept of a demonic phone line
A film shot during Covid lockdown that creates a great sense of isolation with a man locked inside a possibly haunted apartment
The fourth of the Blind Dead films from Spanish director Amando de Ossorio. The film, concerning Knights Templars who were blinded and have returned as zombies, have gained a modest cult
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
Ridiculous cheap 1980s video release about a witch burned at the stake returned as a New Wave punkette to claims souls
German low-budget film about a resurrected sorcerer, this goes out on a wild edge, winds everything up to 15 on the dial and positively wades in blood, gore and torture scenes
Anthology of three H.P. Lovecraft tales from directors Christophe Gans, Brian Yuzna and Shusuke Kaneko. For claiming such a quintessentially Lovecraftian title as this, you feel that it should have been more than it is
In one’s efforts to track down all Edward D. Wood Jr’s films, one finally comes to Necromania, which was believed lost for many years … This turns out to be a pornographic film, consisting of little more than serial sex scenes, this far less interesting because it lacks all of Wood’s typical gaffes and ineptitudes
A mind-bogglingly deranged example from the largely unexplored arena of Indonesian exploitation cinema as an American woman becomes involved with local witchcraft
After 27 years, Dario Argento finally rounds out his Three Mothers trilogy begun way back with Suspiria but the underwhelming results give all evidence of his having lost his mojo
Modestly creepy adaptation of a Stephen King short story about a boy who realises that his grandmother is a witch who made a deal with a backwoods entity
A clear attempt to copy Rosemary’s Baby made with extraordinary stylishnessas Jacqueline Bisset believes husband Alan Alda’s body has been stolen by a dead man
Regarded as one of the worst films ever made, more than anything this is just dull and boring. The plot concerns a couple straying into a desert home where a warlock is about to be resurrected
A Bert I. Gordon film with Robert Forster as a P.I. hired to search for a missing girl before finding she was mixed up with a modelling agency and the occult
Considered a lost classic of silent cinema for many years, this is a film loosely based on occultist Alesiter Crowley and was considered a daring work that delved into taboo areas
In this homage to the 1970s occult film, Rob Zombie tones back the posturing shock effect of his earlier films and creates atmosphere. Eventually though, Zombie creates a film that feels coiled to unleash something bad but falters
Clive Braker’s third and final outing as a director. Barker is trying to tell an occult detective story but fails to get any of the mood that film noir operates by
A Folk Horror film where Scout Taylor-Compton visits the South in search of the parents she never knew only for cultists in black robes and animal masks to surround the house
The second of the films based on Dolores Redondo’s police procedurals, this heads into an admirably dark and perverse place with plenty of jolt twists
One of the last gasps of the Anglo-horror cycle, this sets assorted deviltry in an English mansion along with a series of novelty deaths that trying to compete with The Omen
A really shoddily Greek made film that imports Peter Cushing and Donald Pleasence in a story concerning a cult of minotaur worshippers who are snatching tourists in a Greek village
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
A New Zealand-made horror film with Karl Urban as an anthropology lecturer who debunks the occult who is targeted and forced to go on the run from a Satanist cult
An perfect example of 1970s exploitation cinema – a regional film made with no budget, a no-name cast and with all emphasis on the luridly sensationalistic. A crappy, badly made film on all counts
A TV movie that has been construed as a blatant copy of Carrie where innocent Kay Lenz moves into a sorority house and finds occult goings-on around her
Dario Argento’s sequel to Suspiria, the second film in his Third Mothers trilogy. This is an even better work where Argento delights in sadistic and beautifully artistic imagery almost entirely free of any plot
A Found Footage film about a tv crew investigating Lovecraftian cultists who are trying to raise an elder god. This makes an okay stab but is distinctly hampered by a low budget
Argentinean horror film about a tv interview with a black magician where things then proceed to start going wrong. Shot in a dense black-and-white and claustrophobic mock-up of an old tv show
Word of mouth hit that has in its fingertips the capacity to be a great horror film. Moments of intense spookiness and an awards-worthy performance from Toni Colette but Ari Aster has an unfocused script
This Polish film starts out seeming like a possession film set in a monastery but rather pleasingly keeps turning all the expectations on their head with increasingly wilder effect
The first of Guillermo Del Toro’s adaptations of Mike Mignola’s comic-book about a demon superhero. Not as good as the sequel, the film’s ace in the hole is Ron Perlman in the title role
An adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe story produced by Roger Corman. Alas giving it to exploitation director Jim Wynorski, who likes to add really well stacked women to everything does, kills all of Poe’s atmosphere
Animated film directed by Rob Zombie that feels like an episode of Ren & Stimpy made by someone with an unhealthy obsession with horror and exploitation movies and stripper bars
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.
The sixth of the Halloween films, the fifth with Michael Myers. By now John Carpenter’s original eerie suspense has been reduced to crude slasher movie payoffs. This tries to add some nonsense about druidic cults
Unrelated to the Michael Myers saga, John Carpenter tried to use the Halloween name to launch an original horror series. The plot is a baffling mix of Celtic magic and hi-tech but Tommy Lee Wallace creates some way out effects scenes
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
A low-budget adaptation of the H.P. Lovecraft story Dreams in the Witch House about a student who moves into a house with occult geometry and stirs dark forces
Classic silent film from the German Expressionist period in which a rabbi brings to life a creature made of clay (played by Paul Wegener), which then proceeds to go amok
The third of the Blind Dead films about the zombies of blind Knights Templar. This is set aboard a ghost ship at sea and is said to have later influenced John Carpenter’s The Fog
A superior sequel to the modest The Gate. This borrows from H.P. Lovecraft and delves into the area of cursed wishes that turn on the wisher, all with imaginative results
Modest horror film of the 1980s where kids inadvertently open a demonic gateway. Like a juvenile version of Poltergeist, this comes with the bonus of some fairly good effects
Strong and effective film about a grieving mother who is introduced to an occult ritual than can claimedly resurrect her dead son, a journey that takes her into very dark places
Low-budget ingenue effort with pretensions to being more, this produces some occasionally nifty effects that quickly weary and only seem to hold up a thoroughly hackneyed B horror movie plot
A low-budget 80s film about a town where the locals are in thrall to a Satanist who has demanded the souls of 103 children
A film about backwoods occult that comes with much H.P. Lovecraft influence. An inngenue film made by several unknowns who later became key figures at Industrial Light and Magic
Saw series director Darren Lynn Bousman delivers a loopy cross between The Number 23 and an occult film whose sole selling point is the significance of the date it was released
An adaptation of the H.P. Lovecraft short story. While more faithful to the story than the earlier 1969 adaptation, the film is very cheaply made and collapses into the frequently ridiculous
Adaptation of an H.P. Lovecraft story in which Sandra Dee is lured by a young Dean Stockwell in order to summon Elder Gods. This seems like it has potential but befalls plodding, nondescript direction
For their seventh Dracula films, Hammer introduced Dracula to the present-day. The result was a wild mishmash where Christopher Lee plays second fiddle to Hammer’s belated attempts to jump aboard the Swinging 60s youth scene
Another of the ‘don’t __’- titled entries of the 1970s. This is a bizarre bad movie about teenage runaways in L.A.’s Griffith Park who fall prey to flesh-eating immortals
Full Moon production that offers the novelty of bringing together their Dollman and Demonic Toys franchises, although nearly a third of the film is comprised of recycled footage from said films
Here Nick Willing makes an initially promising film but this becomes a disjointed muddle involving hypnotism, serial killers and occult conspiracy. Not to be confused with the Stephen King adapted film
Jason Connery directs a film that draws upon the basics of The Keep about soldiers venturing into a tomb in Iraq where they awaken a great evil housed there
New Zealand-made WWII horror film with a set-up – Nazis encountered occult forces in a bunker – that draws heavily on The Keep. Modestly effective and gore-drenched
From Australian director Sean Byrne who made the splendidly twisted The Loved Ones, this starts out a heavy metal horror film that broods with occult imagery and a sense of bad things about to explode
One of the classic works from Hammer Films and Terence Fisher, often regarded as one of their finest moments. In this adaptation of a Dennis Wheatley novel, Christopher Lee (in a rare heroic role) fights Satanists
Film where New Orleans detective Brian Krause investigates a series of ritual killings before finding he is dealing with devil worshippers and that he is a destined John Constatine-like figure
Yes, exactly what the title announces – a film about a possessed killer Christmas tree. A rather amusing Christmas horror entry from prolific low-budget British producer Scott Jeffrey/Scott Chambers
From Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury, an incredibly spooky film, almost all of which is shot underwater, about two divers discovering a haunted house at the bottom of a lake
Director Rob Savage made a splash with the Zoom horror film Host. His second film here is an insanely crazed horror film that is shot from the point-of-view of a dashcam
A film about a woman’s journey to a convent of sinister secrets that is aswim in religious imagery, although the film itself eventually proves to be all imagery with no coherent plot
This is an absolutely fascinating film about the efforts to perfect an occult ritual. It feels as though the filmmakers have dispensed with Hollywood cliches and has researched the real thing