The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Timeloops are when individuals are trapped in a small pocket of time (usually a day, sometimes a matter of hours or even until the person is killed) where they are forced to repeat the same events over and over. When they wake again, the events repeat exactly as before.
Usually the protagonist (and sometimes a companion or companions) are the only ones who are aware these events are repeating while all others participate as though everything was normal. The story usually follows the infinite variations that can occur with each repeat of the scenario.
The timeloop theme was started with Groundhog Day (1993), a comedy in which Bill Murray replays the same day every day. The theme has proven surprisingly fruitful since then with there being numerous comedies, Romantic Comedies and serious works ranging from Young Adult to Slasher Films and Action Films. Explanations for the timeloop can range from science-fictional devices or in many cases none at all.
Another variant on the Groundhog Day theme with characters trapped in a timeloop. This come with an SF rationale and contains the plot in a single location while spinning each repeat through some smart twists
Balls-to-the-wall horror from Turkey. It is not clear what is going on for much of the film about police investigating a house filled with Devil worshippers but you cannot deny that it pulls out all stops
Essentially Groundhog Day for teenage girls as Zoey Deutch finds herself trapped in a timeloop living the same day at high school over and over. The film finds a reasonable emotional depth but some of Zoey’s concerns do seem just a little trivial
You don’t think the mix of cartoonishly over-the-top action and a Groundhog Day timeloop scenario would work but this proves your assumptions wrong in highly entertaining ways
Remarkable little film where a couple go for a jog only to find they are trapped on the same stretch of trail in the woods by the lake where time starts looping around on itself in strange and increasingly sinister ways
The rarity of a summer blockbuster with smarts – think Groundhog Day reworked by way of Battle Los Angeles. The timeloop idea is dealt with in clever ways making for an action film driven by an original sf story
Nominally a sequel to Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead’s first film Resolution, this concerns a strange cult but expands outwards to involve a mind-boggling array of backwoods timeloops and reality blurrings
A completely mad and all over the place film with Sam Rockwell as a time traveller (or madman) arrived at a diner to recruit six people on a mission to save the world from an evil A.I.
Winning comedy with Bill Murray trapped in a timeloop and forced to repeat the same day over. Murray is at a career-peak best and served by a great script. The surprise is how much the timeloop theme was copied by subsequent films
Happy Death Day seemed a gimmicky marriage between Groundhog Day and a slasher film. This sequel is a far better film that places some funny and quite clever spins on the previous film
A Christopher Landon film released by Blumhouse. This has been conceived as a mash-up between Groundhog Day and a slasher film with a girl who wakes up every day to be pursued by a masked killer
Vincenzo Natali tackles the ghost story, turning everything on its head in a series of mind-boggling twists. One of the few post-Sixth Sense films to take the film’s big twist as its starting point and build from there
A Young Adult film that comes with a highly original premise concerning the aftermath of a catastrophe that has left ghostly figures trapped in timeloops repeating the same moves
Fascinating Mexican film in which characters become trapped in the same limited stretch of space. It is striking watching them forced to repeat the same things over and over
An interesting film shot during Covid lockdown, all filmed on an IPhone, about a woman caught in a timeloop where she keeps repeating through various scenarios
One of a growing number of horror takes on Groundhog Day with the unique premise of a serial killer trapped in a timeloop where he kills everybody but must change his ways to escape
Anime that is a variant on Groundhog Day about a town that becomes caught in a time pocket following an industrial accident with the residents forced to live in the same day
The fourth variant on the Groundhog Day timeloop theme one to come out in the space of 12 months, this nevertheless wrings some charms from the premise
Palm Springs was one of the funniest and most delightful variants on the Groundhog Day timeloop theme. This is a French language remake that relocates the story to the Moroccan desert
Comedic variant on Groundhog Day where Marlon Wayans wakes up naked in an elevator on his wedding day and is forced to repeat the same hour over and over as he tries to get to the church
A timeloop film with a difference where Mary-Louise Parker takes pills that help her go back and relive the previous five days as she seeks to find ways to travel back even further
Variation on the Groundhog Day timeloop theme, this has two people trapped on the same day at a wedding. Of all the copies, this is a delight that has a really hilariously madcap creativity
Low-budget occult film about guests at a motel trapped in a mysterious twilight zone. A work sits between the cheap and occasionally effective
Low-budget film that was clearly trying to ride on the coattails of Ridley Scott’s Alien prequel Prometheus. This tells an almost interesting story about a timeloop and gets full marks for winding in the Greek myth of Prometheus
A Japanese-made variant on the oft-used Groundhog Day timeloop theme. This pushes well into horror movie territory with a group of teenagers trapped in a typical school day and facing a monster figure pursuing them
Groundhog Day with drug addicts – a familiar timeloop scenario that makes for a reasonable story about redemption and reconciliation
Modest and halfway reasonable variant on Groundhog Day with a group of people caught in the same loop of time where everything manages to go wrong each time
Tom Tykwer’s visually inventive variant on the alternate timelines theme with Franka Potente trying to replay events to save her boyfriend’s life
The second film from Duncan Jones, this places Jake Gyllenhaal through a Groundhog Day scenario as he is forced to relive the same eight minutes in order to find who planted a bomb on a train
Soldiers are trapped climbing an endless set of stairs in a timeloop that forces them to revisit a battlefield atrocity
Animated film that is gore-drenched and certainly not for children. Imagine The Belko Experiment conceived as a videogame where the heroine has to survive an office of people trying to kill her while aliens bet on the outcome
Superb horror film filled with ingenious twists in which Melissa George boards an abandoned luxury liner only to become caught in a timeloop
Michiel Huisman is an air traffic controller who discovers that small inconsequential things are repeating themselves every day and that he is being drawn to reenact a fatal incident. A beautifully made film that arrives at an ending that leaves you scratching your head in puzzlement
The film adaptation of the popular videogame where a group enter a lodge and become caught in a timeloop where they face horrors and are killed and then resurrected to face them again