A.li.ce (1999)
Anime/Dystopian Future/Time Travel
This was the first anime film made in CGI, an ambitious SF film involving a time travel plot and a struggle against a machine-dominated future
Films of 1999
The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland (1999)
Children's Film/Small Furry Creature's Adventures
A rather slight film spinoff red-furred Elmo, the popular character from Sesame Street. A film designed for very young children.
After Alice (1999)
Clairvoyant/Serial Killer Thriller
Kiefer Sutherland is a detective investigating a serial killer who finds he is having clairvoyant dreams. A fairly routine thriller on all counts.
Alice in Wonderland (1999)
Alice in Wonderland TV Adaptation
A fairly reasonable tv mini-series adaptation of Lewis Carroll – a version that excels in terms of design and in using The Jim Henson Workshop to bring the Wonderland creatures to life
Alien Arsenal (1999)
Power-Suit Superhero Kids
A banal David De Coteau directed kid’s film about two teens who find an arsenal of alien equipment and put the suits on to become superheroes
Alien Cargo (1999)
Paranoia-Inducing Alien Virus
Alien crossbred with The Crazies. Jason London and Missy Crider are crewmembers on a spaceship affected by an alien contaminant that makes them turn homicidal
The All New Adventures of Laurel & Hardy in “For Love or Mummy” (1999)
Two Idiots vs a Mummy
Bizarre effort in which actors play Laurel and Hardy who are engaged in a comedic caper against a mummy. The film is all excruciating knockabout slapstick
American Movie: The Making of Northwestern (1999)
Documentary About the Making of an Amateur Horror Film
An unexpectedly hilarious documentary focused on regional filmmaker Mark Borchardt whose amateur filmmaking methods approach something of an Edward D. Wood Jr
Ancient Evil: Scream of the Mummy (1999)
Revived Aztec Mummy
A cheap and tattily made film from regular genre director David DeCoteau concerning a revived Aztec mummy. This had nothing at all to add to the genre.
The Apartment Complex (1999)
Apartment Building of Weird Tenants
Tobe Hooper makes a film where Chad Lowe becomes the supervisor an apartment building filled with strange tenants. However, Hooper misses the intended black comedy tone by a mile
Artificial Lies (1999)
Psycho-Thriller
Psycho-thriller in which Daphne Zuniga is a woman accused of the murder of her psychiatrist and may or may not have been faking her mental illness
Asterix and Obelix Vs. Cesar (1999)
Comic-Book Character
The first of the live-action films based on the famous comic-books set during the Roman period, starring Gerard Depardieu who seems born to play the part of Obelix
The Astronaut’s Wife (1999)
Alien Possession
Charlize Theron becomes paranoid and suspects her space shuttle astronaut husband Johnny Depp of returning possessed by an alien. Essentially an SF version of Rosemary’s Baby
Audition (1999)
Twisted Love Story/Sadism and Torture
The film that made the world pay attention to Takashi Miike. Starting out as a seeming love story, this culminates in some of the most brutal and hard-to-watch torture scenes ever committed to film
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999)
Spy Movie Spoof
The second of the Austin Powers films is less sharp in its parody of the James Bond film and more focused on a series of broad scatological gags. Mike Myers owns the show in a trio of entertainingly gregarious performances
Babel (1999)
Children's Film/Millennial Apocalypse
An inane French/Canadian-made children’s film about three cute creatures that come to help a boy stop the resurrection of the Tower of Babel on the eve of the millennium
Baby Geniuses (1999)
Intelligent Baby Conspiracy
Film set around the premise that babies are secretly geniuses and talk in their own language. This makes a beeline for pee and poop jokes and seems to think we should applaud it for the cutsieness of seeing babies doing adult things
The Bare Wench Project (1999)
Softcore Blair Witch Spoof
Following the success of The Blair Witch Project, this was an excruciatingly lame softcore parody with a group of girls tramping in the woods finding almost any excuse to undress and conduct sex-related takes on Blair Witch
Bartok the Magnificent (1999)
Talking Bat's Adventures/Animation
Animator Don Bluth conducts a spinoff from his previous film Anastasia, focusing on the adventures of the talking bat sidekick
Bats (1999)
Killer Bats
There has yet to be a decent killer bat movie. This redresses the balance somewhat by offering up CGI bat effects but otherwise falls prey to a cliche-ridden script
Being John Malkovich (1999)
Portal Into Actor's Head/Absurdism
Hilariously eccentric Spike Jonze-Charlie Kaufman collaboration in which John Cusack finds an office building that has a portal that takes someone through into actor John Malkovich’s head. The wacky spins that the script places on the idea are ingenious
Beowulf (1999)
Epic Legend
An adaptation of the classic epic legend Beowulf that bizarrely recasts the story as a Christopher Lambert-starring action movie and sets it in a post-apocalyptic future
Bicentennial Man (1999)
Robot Gains Self-Awareness/Isaac Asimov Adaptation
Isaac Asimov may not have been the best science-fiction writer ever but his stories buzzed with challenging ideas. In the hands of Chris Columbus, one of Asimov’s robot stories is reduced to mawkish sentimentalism
The Blair Witch Project (1999)
Found Footage/Backwoods Haunting
This shot-on-video film that became a word of mouth sensation with many people believing they were watching real video footage of a trio lost in haunted woods by a witch. Of course, what nobody knew at the time was this was creating the Found Footage film
Blast from the Past (1999)
Out of the Nuclear Fallout Shelter Comedy
A comedy with the amusing premise where Brendan Fraser is raised in a nuclear fallout shelter since the Cuban Missile Crisis and emerges into the present for the first time, mistaking it for a post-apocalyptic world
Blood Dolls (1999)
Demented Puppetmaster
Another of Charles Band’s doll horror films a la the Puppetmaster and Demonic Toys films. Here Band goes totally gonzo and makes one of the strangest films of his entire career
Bloody Murder (1999)
Slasher Film
A modern slasher film that slavishly rehashes Friday the 13th. Routine on most counts, excepting perhaps the oddity of it being made by a director/producer of Christian films
Bolt Neck (1999)
High School Frankenstein
The amusing idea of the Frankenstein story relocated to a modern high school – and with no less than later-to-be superstar Ryan Reynolds as the monster
The Bone Collector (1999)
Serial Killer Thriller
Serial killer thriller with Denzel Washington as Jeffrey Deaver’s quadriplegic profiler Lincoln Rhyme and Anjelina Jolie as a rookie cop who becomes his aide
Bone Daddy (1998)
Serial Killer Thriller
One of the serial killer thrillers made following The Silence of the Lambs. Rutger Hauer is a medical examiner who publishes a book about an unsolved serial killer case only to bring the killer out of retirement
Breakfast of Champions (1999)
Kurt Vonnegut Adaptation
Disappointing adaptation of the Kurt Vonnegut novel from Adam Rudolph that substitutes Vonnegut’s satire for clumsy, ham-fisted farce that never gives us any clear idea what it is satirising
Bridge of Dragons (1999)
Action Film/Atemporal Kingdom Setting
A Dolph Lundgren starring action film about a coup in a kingdom that exists as an oddly atemporal mix of clashing historical periods
Bringing Out the Dead (1999)
Urban Hell/Haunted Ambulance Driver
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
The Bumblebee Flies Anyway (1999)
Experimental Medical Treatments
This feels like a weepie Disease of the Week drama where Elijah Wood is an amnesiac placed in a hospital ward of terminal patients before the film arrives at an SF conceptual twist
Candyman: Day of the Dead (1999)
Boogey Man
The second and so far final of the Candyman sequels, a routine entry with Baywatch starlet Donna D’Errico as a descendant of Candyman who is pursued by Tony Todd
Chill Factor (1999)
Action Chase/Chemical Weapons
An inane action film that sets out to copy Speed with Skeet Ulrich and a motormouth Cuba Gooding Jr forced to drive an ice cream truck filled with chemical weapons
Christina’s House (1999)
Psycho-Thriller
Modest film with Allison Lange being stalked by one of the men in her life. A film that vies between false jumps and moments of reasonable atmosphere
A Christmas Carol (1999)
Miser's Redemption
For my money, the best adaptation of the multiply-filmed Charles Dickens tale. Patrick Stewart is a great Scrooge and the film respects the story, giving its milieu and central character life as a tale for adults
A Clean Kill (1999)
Subjective Truths Psycho-Thriller
Psycho-thriller that borrows from Rashomon and leaves us unsure if Roxana Zal is a stalker or an innocent caught up in a murder plot by the married man she was having an affair with
Criminal Lovers (1999)
Modernised Hansel and Gretel
An early film from Francois Ozon, this offers a modernisation of Hansel and Gretel where the two are teenage lovers on the run before the story turns into a remarkable gay coming out parable
Dangerous Attraction (1999)
Psycho-Sexual Thriller
A passable psycho-sexual thriller that copies Fatal Attraction and Basic Instinct with Andrea Roth caught between two men, one of who seems to be stalking her
Dead or Alive (1999)
Gonzo Yakuza Film
A Yakuza film from Takashi Miike filled with ultra-violence and casual perversity before Miike goes nuts in a totally gonzo ending. Two unrelated sequels followed from Miike
Deal of a Lifetime (1999)
Pact with the Devil Comedy
Incredibly unfunny comedy in which a teenager sells his soul to the Devil. As The Devil, Kevin Pollak lets all stop loose in a mind-bogglingly over-the-top performance
Deep Blue Sea (1999)
Genetically-Engineered Killer Sharks
A killer shark film by way of Jurassic Park. The perpetually terrible Renny Harlin creates something almost watchable that vies between moments of tension and those that collapse into the entertainingly absurd
Desecration (1999)
Catholic Nightmare
This is a surreal and plotless Catholic horror film from Dante Tomaselli that seems full of fairground horror house jumps and overloaded with tortured Catholic imagery but makes no real sense
Deterrence (1999)
Impending Nuclear War
Thriller with Kevin Pollak as the US President caught at a diner by a blizzard where he is faced with the choice of launching a nuclear war on Iraq
Diplomatic Siege (1999)
Action Film/Nuclear Threat
One of the numerous films from the video era to use a variant on the Die Hard scenario (with an added nuclear threat). For once an action film driven by an okay script and a sense of humour but killed by a fatal miscasting of its two leads
The Divine Ryans (1999)
Family Saga/Father's Ghost/Surreal Dreams
Canadian family saga told through the eyes of a young boy growing up amid a strange extended Newfoundland family. Featuring a number of fantastical elements.
Doctor K (1999)
Faith Healer Surgeon
South Korean film about a doctor with shamanistic powers, this starts out seeming to be a horror film before becoming something different altogether
Dogma (1999)
Angel War/Catholic Irreverence
Kevin Smith bends his individualistic sense of humour towards making a film about Catholicism. Smith’s irreverent humour caused controversy when the film came out, although this is also an interesting and thoughtful work
Doug’s 1st Movie (1999)
Animation/Children's TV Series Spinoff
Film spinoff of a popular children’s animated tv series Doug. The story has the title character befriending a local lake monster
Dreamtrips (1999)
Virtual Reality Dreamscapes
A Virtual Reality film that came out the same year as The Matrix and prefigures the dreamscape themes of Inception. Despite the possibilities, this has a dreary pace that very nearly approaches falling asleep
Dudley Do-Right (1999)
Cartoon in Live-Action
Live-action film adaptation of the old animated tv show with Brendan Fraser in the title role, this drowns in excruciating slapstick and one-dimensional pantomime caricatures
8MM (1999)
Snuff Movie Thriller
This seeks to be another Se7en, adapting a script by Se7en writer Andrew Kevin Walker and employing the same visual style in the story of Nicolas Cage delving into a seedy underworld in search of a snuff movie.
Embalming (1999)
Blackmarket Organ Legging/Sinister Cult
Japanese horror film that winds a convoluted plot involving stolen corpses, organ harvesting, split personality and religious cults
End of Days (1999)
The Devil Returns to Earth at The Millennium/Action Film
Arnold Schwarzenegger takes on The Devil on the eve of the millennium. This is essentially The Omen having been reworked as a big-budget action movie
Entrapment (1999)
Millennial Caper Thriller
Caper thriller with the gimmick of being set on the turning of the millennium, this is otherwise an empty-headed exercise where slick marketing triumphs over credible scripting over even connection between the leads
Entropy (1999)
Filmmaker's Surreal Autobiography
An autobiographical film from music video and film director Phil Joanou, this comes with a number of surreal fantastical touches
Erotic Possessions (1999)
Erotica/Ghostly Possession
An erotic film in which Shauna O’Brien is possessed by the spirit of an actress from the 1940s to win the big role
Escape from Mars (1999)
Expedition to Mars
One of several Mars movies that came out around 1999-2000, this concerns the first manned expedition and their efforts to survive after being stranded on the Martian surface
Eternal Revenge (1999)
Woman Takes Revenge on Men
A bland Canadian thriller with detective Alexandra Paul investigating a woman who is killing the men who bullied and harassed her
eXistenZ (1999)
Virtual Reality
David Cronenberg tackles Virtual Reality themes in an interestingly mind-bending work, which ended up being overshadowed by The Matrix the same year
Existo (1999)
Fundamentalist Dystopia/Musical Satire
A witty musical satire set in a future USA that is under a fundamentalist dystopia concerning a revolution led by assorted leftist activists, drag performers and artists
Eye of the Beholder (1999)
Psycho-Sexual Thriller
A strange thriller in the Basic Instinct-mold with surveillance expert Ewan McGregor obsessed with tracking serial killer Ashley Judd, while haunted by the imaginary companion of his daughter
Fantasia 2000 (1999)
Disney Animation and Music Anthology
Disney’s sequel to Fantasia comes weighted with a sense of its own self-importance -the first release of the new millennium. However, it fails to produce much that has the stature of the original
Fear Runs Silent (1999)
Backwoods Horrors
Backwoods horror that starts well, keeping its menace ambiguous but collapses into a mishmash of pretensions and amateurish symbolism
Felicia’s Journey (1999)
Psycho-Thriller
Fine studied Atom Egoyan thriller in which teenage runaway Elaine Cassidy is befriended and offered a home by Bob Hoskins who is a serial killer
Fight Club (1999)
Brawling Clubs/Anarchist Revolution/Split Personality
David Fincher tackles Chuck Palahniuk’s novel about secret brawling clubs. Maybe the only major studio film with an openly anarchist manifesto. Brilliant, incendiary, all over the map plotwise and thoroughly unique
The 4th Floor (1999)
Disturbed Apartment Neighbour
A thriller that develops quite a degree of eerie suspense as Juliette Lewis moves into a new apartment and finds she is surrounded by some very strange neighbours
Freeway II: Confessions of a Trickbaby (1999)
Modernised Hansel and Gretel/Juvenile Delinquent Drama
Matthew Bright’s even better sequel to Freeway where he conducts an outrageous and quite brilliant modernisation of Hansel and Gretel now recast with two juvenile delinquents on the run
From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money (1999)
Bank Robbers vs Vampires
The first of two video-released sequels to From Dusk Till Dawn, this spins the premise to have a group of robbers at siege from police inside a bank vault as they are attacked by vampires
GalaxyQuest (1999)
Star Trek Parody
An extremely funny parody of Star Trek that sends up both the show, the actors and the fandom. A very witty and knowing script that has definitely been written by fans
Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris (1999)
Japanese Monster Movie
Extraordinary reworking of the Japanese kaiju series with stunning CGI effects sequences. This set a new standard and is among the best of the modern Japanese monster movies
Gemini (1999)
Evil Twin
Cult Japanese director Shinya Tsukamoto makes a period-set work about a good upstanding doctor haunted by his twin. Tsukamoto returns to his favourite topic of the repressed and this emerge as his version of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Godzilla 2000 (1999)
Japanese Monster Bash
The 23rd Godzilla film where the effects were at such a peak for the genre that this became the first Godzilla film to be given a US theatrical release in fifteen years
The Green Mile (1999)
Miracle-Healing Death Row Inmate/Stephen King Addaptation
Frank Darabont had a big hit with the Stephen King adaptation The Shawshank Redemption. This, another King adaptation concerning a Death Row inmate with healing powers, seems an attempt to repeat the same
The H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival – North (1999)
Festival of H.P. Lovecraft Short Films
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
The Haunting (1999)
Haunted House
The original 1963 version of The Haunting was a masterpiece of unseen psychological horrors. This, in which all of the psychological horrors are replaced by loud and unsubtle CGI bombast, is one of the worst remakes of all time
The Haunting of Hell House (1999)
Supernatural Retribution
Irish shot adaptation of a Henry James ghost story that was repackaged by Roger Corman to take advantage of the release of the remake of The Haunting
House on Haunted Hill (1999)
Haunted House
The announcement of the remake of The Haunting was cannily followed by this remake of the 1959 William Castle/Vincent Price. Where The Haunting turned out a bloated flop, this emerges as far more unpretentious and an altogether more fun film
Idle Hands (1999)
Possessed/Disembodied Hand
Surely the first slacker horror film in which teenager Devon Sawa’s hand becomes possessed. A comedy that should have been a lot funnier than it is
If You Believe (1999)
Woman Meets Her Childhood Self
Nicely made seasonal tv movie where cynical Ally Walker has her life turned around by the appearance of her childhood self (Hayden Panettiere)
In Dreams (1999)
Clairvoyance Thriller
Neil Jordan takes a leaf from Eyes of Laura Mars as Annette Bening gains psychic insight into the mind of serial killer Robert Downey Jr
In the Winter Dark (1999)
Mysterious Creatures in the Australian Outback
Film about mysterious happenings on a farm in the Australian Outback that creates an intensely haunted mood
Inspector Gadget (1999)
Cyborg Cop/Cartoon in Live-Action
A live-action adaptation of the popular animated series, one of the spate of such films that came out after the live-action The Flintstones. Amiably silly and frequently slapstick fun that proves to be exactly what one expects of it
Instinct (1999)
Killer Anthropologist
This makes all effort to sell itself as Anthony Hopkins in another Hannibal Lecter-like role. Rather than any Silence of the Lambs copy, this undergoes several bizarre dogleg turns to emerge more as The Shawshank Redemption by way of Gorillas in the Mist
The Iron Giant (1999)
Animation/Friendly Giant Robot
The first animated film from Brad Bird is a sweet and lovely piece about the friendship between a young boy and a giant robot
The Item (1999)
Hitmen Guard an Alien Creature
Affected indie film about hitmen guarding an alien creature that topples over with ridiculous effects and attempts to be cool
Journey to the Center of the Earth (1999)
Underground Adventures/Jules Verne Adaptation
Hallmark TV mini-series version of the Jules Verne novel that keeps faith to the book for the most part before heading off on some colourfully exotic adventures
Kate’s Addiction (1999)
Psycho Stalker
A psycho-thriller with Kari Wuhrer stalking best friend Farrah Forke insisting they are meant to be together
The King and I (1999)
Animation
Animated remake of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical. Now with the addition of fantasy elements.
King Cobra (1999)
Giant Snake
Film in which Erik Estrada and Pat Morita face a giant animatronic snake
Komodo (1999)
Giant Lizards Amok
CGI monster movie with a family under attacks by over-sized komodo lizards
Lake Placid (1999)
Giant Killer Crocodile
David E. Kelley, better known as a high-profile tv producer, turns his hand to writing a killer crocodile film, although the result never ends up satisfying either as a monster movie or the jokey tone Kelley wants to take
The Last Train (1999)
Train Crash Survivors Emerge into a Post-Apocalyptic World
A mini-series where a group of people aboard a train go into suspended animation and emerge to find a devastated world
Lethal Target (1999)
Erotica/Alien Infection
Conceptually odd mix of an erotic film and a standard copy of Alien, which does have peculiarities of steamy encounters sitting alongside chestburster scenes
The Magical Land of the Leprechauns (1999)
Leprechaun Fantasy
Lively and undeniably likeable Hallmark mini-series that celebrates Irish myth. Giddily silly nonsense conducted with a boisterous energy
Magnolia (1999)
Interwoven Stories/Unexplained Phenomena
The third film from Paul Thomas Anderson, a series of occasionally interlinking stories and character sketches, featuring some great performances from name actors. Underlining everything is a fascination with the inexplicable and the works of Charles Fort
A Man Called Hero (1999)
Hong Kong Martial Arts Fantasy
Ambitious Wu Xia film set among Chinese immigrants to the US where director Andrew Lau takes to the fantastical action with some flair
The Mating Habits of the Earthbound Human (1999)
Alien Anthopolgist Studies Human Mating Behaviour
There is an appealingly satiric concept here – a parody of a nature documentary looking at human mating rituals from an alien perspective where everything is constantly being misinterpreted in terms of an animal behaviour – but what emerges is mostly a one-gag film