The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
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
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
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
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
The first animated film from Brad Bird is a sweet and lovely piece about the friendship between a young boy and a giant robot
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
From Kirikou director Michel Ocelot, an anthology of animated fairytales that prove quite delightful
An unexpectedly hilarious documentary focused on regional filmmaker Mark Borchardt whose amateur filmmaking methods approach something of an Edward D. Wood Jr
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
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
Standout film featuring Owen Wilson as a genteel serial killer
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
Australian variant on Sliding Doors where single woman Rachel Griffiths finds herself in an alternate timeline where she is married and has kids
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Film about mysterious happenings on a farm in the Australian Outback that creates an intensely haunted mood
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 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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Quite reasonable serial killer thriller, undeniably influenced by Se7en, with Christopher Lambert tracking a killer who believes he can resurrect Christ
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
A psycho-thriller with Kari Wuhrer stalking best friend Farrah Forke insisting they are meant to be together
Japanese horror film that winds a convoluted plot involving stolen corpses, organ harvesting, split personality and religious cults
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
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
Beautifully made Thai film about a husband whose wife dies in childbirth but where he refuses to let go of her ghost
Lively and undeniably likeable Hallmark mini-series that celebrates Irish myth. Giddily silly nonsense conducted with a boisterous energy
Ambitious Wu Xia film set among Chinese immigrants to the US where director Andrew Lau takes to the fantastical action with some flair
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
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
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
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
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
Reasonable psycho-thriller where landlord Lindsay Crouse takes on increasingly deranged tenant Zoe McClellan
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.
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
Unrelated to Robert Louis Stevenson, this is a bafflingly surrealist parody of a 1940s thriller
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
Canadian-made parody of a cheesy 1950s SF film that emerges more wittily amusingly than most Deliberately Bad SF Films
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
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
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
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
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 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
Dennis Hopper plays a retired detective brought in to hunt a serial killer who targets victims via a campus game
Nicely made seasonal tv movie where cynical Ally Walker has her life turned around by the appearance of her childhood self (Hayden Panettiere)
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Okay psycho-thriller where Stefanie Powers is stalked in her new apartment while her son develops a mysterious imaginary companion
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
An autobiographical film from music video and film director Phil Joanou, this comes with a number of surreal fantastical touches
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
This seems caught between being an earnest theological debate about Catholicism and a standard possession film. The results are not entirely uninteresting
David Cronenberg tackles Virtual Reality themes in an interestingly mind-bending work, which ended up being overshadowed by The Matrix the same year
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
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
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
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
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
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
A superhero parody about a group of reject superheroes with useless powers. Despite moments of amusement, this fails to quite come off
Canadian-made black comedy about a ring that can revive the dead
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
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
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 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
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
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
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
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
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