The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
The third and best of Pierce Brosnan’s outings as James Bond. All the aspects of the formula are contained within a strong plot and Sophie Marceau proves a standout in a role that combines both villain and love interest
The first sequel to Wishmaster and better than the ones that would follow but still not a patch on the imaginative makeup effects in the original
Star Wars meets Top Gun – a concept it is surprising no one has thought of before – but alas this film adaptation of the popular videogame only regurgitates the cliches of either film
The big screen remake of the 1960s Western/spy mashup tv series is transformed into an overblown and painfully unfunny Will Smith vehicle that loudly signals it is taking none of itself seriously
Likeably eccentric Coming of Age story set in England during the 1970s at the height of the punk era where, among the usual other very funny travails, the protagonist’s father starts demonstrating unusual psychic abilities
Third and final of the Warlock films where Julian Sands is replaced by Bruce Payne
This has the novelty of a monster that is an evolving fusion of machinery and organics. While it is all directed with much noise and fury, it is ultimately no more than another copy of Alien
Essentially a frothy British romantic comedy version of Weird Science where a girl manifests the perfect guy. The VR aspect is no more than a trendy buzzword appropriated as explain-all
Sequel to Roland Emmerich’s Universal Soldier, this brings back Jean-Claude Van Damme but otherwise substitutes a brain dead plot that has him facing an evil A.I.
Dull serial killer thriller with Andrew McCarthy tracking a killer that has a Catholic fixation
Unrelated to Robert Louis Stevenson, this is a bafflingly surrealist parody of a 1940s thriller
Pixar’s sequel to their first film and arguably an even better work where they get the plaintive emotion, character arcs and witty humour down perfect
Reasonable psycho-thriller where landlord Lindsay Crouse takes on increasingly deranged tenant Zoe McClellan
Canadian-made parody of a cheesy 1950s SF film that emerges more wittily amusingly than most Deliberately Bad SF Films
Another Japanese horror film that stands heavily in the shadow of Ringu. Directed without much style and often uninteresting to the point of being dull, it is hard to tell from this that you are watching a film that inspired eight sequels
A throwaway direct-to-dvd release about time travellers come back to view famous disasters that rises above low expectations to develop an occasionally interesting plot
Michael Crichton was hot as a result of Jurassic Park. Although mostly seen as an historical spectacle, this is an adaptation of his novel that attempts to retell the legend of Beowulf with Vikings against Neanderthals
Roland Emmerich produced Virtual Reality film that toys with some ideas that almost make it a great SF film before cliches and a bad twist ending take over
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
Troma film in which Lloyd Kaufman turns his own autobiography into a Troma film where the results emerge as something akin to Ed Wood as remade by John Waters
Essentially a South Korean version of Se7en with police tracking a killer dumping severed body parts around the city, all of which lead to a mystery woman
Scream writer Kevin Williamson’s one and only directorial outing, a playful thriller in which Katie Holmes and fellow students imprison a teacher who has marked down her grades
This Disney animated adaptation treats the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel with surprising respect and faithfulness for the most part where the addition of talking animals even works for it. Fun and with a great deal of creative energy, one of the better films from the 90s Disney renaissance
Spike Lee film set during the Son of Sam killings, although Lee seems less interested in the true crime aspect than the social reaction and various storylines of his characters
Canadian-made black comedy about a ring that can revive the dead
Taking its its cue from the mix of animatronics and CGI in Babe, this is a live-action adaptation of the E.B. White book. A sweet and charming film about a family that adopts a little mouse boy that proved an unexpected hit
One of the best Stephen King tv mini-series with Colm Feore as a mysterious stranger who manipulates and turns an entire town against themselves
Enormously underrated directorial effort from screenwriter David Koepp in which Kevin Bacon gains the ability to see the dead. A film filled with some genuinely spooky moments
This seems caught between being an earnest theological debate about Catholicism and a standard possession film. The results are not entirely uninteresting
George Lucas’s return to the Star Wars series after a sixteen year absence and a build-up rivaled only by the Second Coming. Instead most audiences went away disappointed. Lucas has used the interim to push the technology to its heights but the story and characters are lacking
A theatrical release spun off from tv’s cult absurdist/scatological show. Not as sophisticated as later seasons of the tv series but with a raucously wacky bite that is frequently hilarious
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
Okay psycho-thriller where Stefanie Powers is stalked in her new apartment while her son develops a mysterious imaginary companion
Tim Burton adapts the classic Washington Irving ghost story, although throws most of it out, to make his own beautifully designed period piece spearheaded by another eccentric Johnny Depp performance
The film that made the name of M. Night Shyamalan and still a strong and spooky story despite the variability of Shyamalan’s offerings since then. What made the film a classic was its twist ending, something that has been relentlessly copied by numerous genre films since
Very silly romantic comedy in a Magical Realist vein where Sarah Michelle Gellar gains magical cooking abilities. Like Water for Chocolate did this better.
Film set in a small 19th Century Orthodox Jewish village struggling to deal with the modern world, featuring Noah Taylor as a fool troubled by visions of The Devil
Spookily effective Japanese ghost story about a mother’s pilgrimage around a series of shrines to raise her daughter’s spirit from the dead
Killer shark from the 1990s heyday. This works passably as the B movie it is intended as, while the last third turns into the schlockily absurd with the insertion of two different corrupt conspiracy elements and action movie chases
Alien invasion film set around the so-called Roswell Incident. Faux science-fiction written by cliche the entire way
The second of the Japanese Ring/Ringu films where director Hideo Nakata improves over the original with a series of eerie scares if a frequently incomprehensible mishmash of story ideas
The second in a series of Biblical End Times films from Canada’s faith-based Cloud Ten Pictures, this offers the peculiarity of the Anti-Christ appearing in Virtual Reality
This was the seventh of Full Moon’s most popular series, the Puppet Master films. This goes back to tell how young Andre Toulon (Greg Sestero) originally created the puppets
Quite reasonable serial killer thriller, undeniably influenced by Se7en, with Christopher Lambert tracking a killer who believes he can resurrect Christ
Extremely twisted Japanese film that plays out like a conceptual mix of Saw and Fear Factor (even though it predates either) wherein contestants are locked in a room and get to challenge each other to engage in more and more extreme acts against the other
Film about the soldiers at a fort on the American frontier who have descended to cannibalism. A good set-up falls apart due to a comedy treatment
Misguided attempt to make a sequel to Carrie, this reduces that film’s cry of the downtrodden to petty teen bitcheries, while the psychic eruptions are absurd, the complete antithesis of anything Brian De Palma directed
An obscure animated version of the classic fairytale that comes with excruciating puns, much slapstick and has clearly been animated on a low budget
Dennis Hopper plays a retired detective brought in to hunt a serial killer who targets victims via a campus game
Fred Olen Ray and Don ‘The Dragon’ Wilson combine forces on a low-budget action film about psychic powers. The action scenes are competent but the film lacking in the script department
From Kirikou director Michel Ocelot, an anthology of animated fairytales that prove quite delightful
Early film from Danish director Anders Rønnow-Klarlund. This starts out as a plague outbreak drama and then does a bizarre mid-film twist to become a possession film
The second of the animated films spun off around the Pokemon phenomenon and an altogether better film than its predecessor due to some imaginative animation
A quirkily enjoyable horror Western about children searching for their parents and ending up in a town that exists in an afterlife netherworld populated by an assortment of weird creatures
Biopic about controversial philosopher/SF writer Ayn Rand or at least one that focuses on the extra-marital affair she had throughout her life. Given that the film is based on a book by other man’s wife, it does come with the odd axe to grind
An abduction thriller that draws much influence from The Silence of the Lambs with Adrien Brody as a smooth criminal genius manipulating his interrogator
The Omen and imitators had been exploiting Biblical End Times prophecies for years but this is one that approaches it from a Christian perspective. The film also started a wave of serious faith-based films that employed name actors in order to carry them to crossover audiences
Roman Polanski makes a return to Rosemary’s Baby territory in this work with Johnny Depp as a rare book collector on the trail of an occult tome. Polanski great a great sense of sinister forces surrounding Depp but the film reaches an unsatisfying ending
Sequel to the 1996 CGI The Adventures of Pinocchio, this is a shabby and drearily made piece of filler that unimaginatively shuffles around the basic elements of the first film without making an effort at all
Beautifully made Thai film about a husband whose wife dies in childbirth but where he refuses to let go of her ghost
The first film from Spanish director Jaume Balaguero, an adaptation of a Ramsey Campbell novel about a mother trying to rescue her daughter from a child sacrifice cult
A superhero parody about a group of reject superheroes with useless powers. Despite moments of amusement, this fails to quite come off
Big screen remake of the 1960s sitcom about a wacky alien visitor that promptly gets buried under frenetic slapstick and cheap CGI gags
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
The third and one of the better of the generally insipid Muppet movies produced following Jim Henson’s death. This tells the story of Gonzo’s origins as an alien where the film borrows spoofs the then-popularity of tv’s The X Files
Nominal remake of the Boris Karloff The Mummy, which has now been inflated into a big budget Indiana Jones adventure. Stephen Sommers lets the film overspill with CGI spectacle but the exercise is deflated by a jokey, unserious attitude
One of a cluster of faith-based films made around the turn of the millennium dealing with the biblical apocalypse and The Rapture, this has not dated well
Standout film featuring Owen Wilson as a genteel serial killer
Amid Kenneth Branagh’s dynamic cinematic revival of Shakespeare in the 1990s, there was this all-star adaptation of Shakespeare’s whimsy about fairy enchantments. An okay adaptation but it is eclipsed by other superior versions of the story
Luc Besson takes on the Joan of Arc story with then wife Milla Jovovich in the title role but in Besson’s hands it becomes a crazed historical action film that unquestioningly accepts Joan’s visions as real
Australian variant on Sliding Doors where single woman Rachel Griffiths finds herself in an alternate timeline where she is married and has kids
A film that was as groundbreaking when it came out as Star Wars was in its day. The Wachowskis create a defining work on Virtual Reality themes and do so with a sublime cool and a series of breathtaking action moves that blew everybody away
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
Ambitious Wu Xia film set among Chinese immigrants to the US where director Andrew Lau takes to the fantastical action with some flair
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
Lively and undeniably likeable Hallmark mini-series that celebrates Irish myth. Giddily silly nonsense conducted with a boisterous energy
Conceptually odd mix of an erotic film and a standard copy of Alien, which does have peculiarities of steamy encounters sitting alongside chestburster scenes
A mini-series where a group of people aboard a train go into suspended animation and emerge to find a devastated world
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
CGI monster movie with a family under attacks by over-sized komodo lizards
Film in which Erik Estrada and Pat Morita face a giant animatronic snake
Animated remake of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical. Now with the addition of fantasy elements.
A psycho-thriller with Kari Wuhrer stalking best friend Farrah Forke insisting they are meant to be together
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
Affected indie film about hitmen guarding an alien creature that topples over with ridiculous effects and attempts to be cool
The first animated film from Brad Bird is a sweet and lovely piece about the friendship between a young boy and a giant robot
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
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
Film about mysterious happenings on a farm in the Australian Outback that creates an intensely haunted mood
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
Nicely made seasonal tv movie where cynical Ally Walker has her life turned around by the appearance of her childhood self (Hayden Panettiere)
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
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
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
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
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
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 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
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
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