The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
The vampire film is looking rather anemic in the post-Twilight era. This is one decent effort about a father trying to save his son who has received a blood transfusion from a vampire
Found Footage film that cleverly borrows more than a few leaves from An American Werewolf in London with two tourists in Europe where one is bitten and transformed by a vampire
This takes its title literally – it is made by a woman director and there are no men on screen. The result is somewhere between The Descent and The Blair Witch Project with an undeniably surprise twist ending
Modest, low-budgeted British film about people trying to survive in the aftermath of a catastrophe. A zombie film that has borrowed a few leaves from A Quiet Place
A zombie apocalypse that occurs via social networking sites??? To the film’s credit, it makes such a wacky idea plausible but the low-budget leads to a zombie apocalypse that mostly occurs off-stage
A genre-melding oddity that starts as an earnest recreation of a 1950s rock‘n’roll movie, before introducing a series of bizarre mutations and some fascinating mid-film twists. Most audiences didn’t get this but it is unusually different
Fine film in which a young couple’s idyllic getaway to the title location becomes a nightmare as the ocean produces a fog that starts to create mutations
Another copy of The Thing where a team of archaeologists in the frozen north unearth an object being 20,000 years old from a barrow that proceed to affect the team and cause mass insanity
Austrian-made film about people being attacked by mutant creatures on a mountainside. This has the cheesily absurd feel of a 1980s B movie and has some fun producing creature effects
The first film from Eli Roth, which proved a solid hit, one that gets back to gore-drenched horror basics. Not quite the classic it was acclaimed but delivers the goods and with a strong dose of wryly sarcastic humour
A remake of Eli Roth’s first film? Why, given that the original only came out 14 years ago, is anybody’s guess. This literally recycles the original’s script but is deaf to its sarcastic humour of the original
The first sequel to Eli Roth’s film, directed by a then unknown Ti West who subsequently tried to have his name removed. The gore effects look cheap and cheesy and the film misses the comedic angle of the original
Eli Roth’s Cabin Fever had a surefire premise – a series of gory meltdowns with tongue planted in cheek. It is a puzzle then why two sequels, despite reasonable directors at the wheel, have managed to completely miss these basics
A Roger Corman produced cheapie about genetically engineered dinosaurs that was quickly rushed out to exploit the success of Jurassic Park. Corman went on to make two sequels
Set in the midst of a deadly infection that has wiped most of the country out, the film is extremely well written, focusing on harsh moral choices that the characters must make. Chris Pine is cast as a less-than-heroic lead
Modestly effective effort about a woman who contracts an infection that causes her to physically decay. The horror comes in watching the heroine’s progressive physical decomposition.
Contracted was a modestly effective film that depicted its heroine’s progressive meltdown due to a deadly infection. This is a sequel so sub-par you doubt it would even been released without connection to the first film
A very funny film about a horde of zombie schoolchildren. Co-written by Saw‘s Leigh Whannell, this has a great deal of fun deflating zombie cliches and is wittily on the ball in its characterisations of the teachers
Madness/zombie outbreak film set in a radio station as a talkback host watches the catastrophe unfurl outside. This only cheaply goes where the far superior Pontypool did first
South Korean anthology containing a trio of tales on the theme of the end of the world. The standout is the middle segment, a very Asimovian tale wherein a robot claims to have logically attained Buddhist enlightenment
Low-budget SF film about a space expedition from Mars to Earth where before you can say Solaris the crew start to experience hallucinations of their loved ones. Sort of The Crazies in space
Found Footage film about various people in the woods in the aftermath of a UFO crash. Essentially The Blair Witch Project with UFOs instead of a backwoods haunting
This has the novelty of being shot guerilla-style at Disneyland and Disney World without official permission. Nothing prepares you for the amazingly dark work you get, a surreal hallucinatory drift through the park’s underbelly
This makes a generic plot – friends trapped at a cabin in the woods by creatures outside – work by stripping things to the basics and generating a reasonable rollercoaster of suspense
A surprisingly good little film about a group of friends being infected by parasites escaped from a laboratory. Confidant assured horror filmmaking with some way out effects.
Aramis Sartorio (aka porn actor Tommy Pistol) directs and stars in this anthology, a trio of Hollywood horror tales where everything is aimed at the farcical bad taste/gross out level of a Troma film
A zombie film (of sorts) from Mexico, although it could just as easily be about a man infected with a flesh-eating bacteria. A zombie film in which almost nothing happens, we just sit watching a man getting ill
At last a good film spun off from the Halo videogame (and produced Ridley Scott!). This offers a tough story of planetary survival as stranded soldiers fight to be the ones to escape aboard a two-person ship
This comes with an interesting idea about an infection that links all the infectees together into a gestalt of shared memories. From the director of Brightburn
Classic horror film influenced by Night of the Living Dead about hippies turned into zombies by rabies infected meat pies
Less the usual people being hunted by alien nasties in darkened corridors standard than ‘The Crazies in Space’ but the film is crippled by a fatal lack of tension and suspense, even anything much happening
Irish horror film about a series of deadly parasites amok on a rural farm. Playing like a serious version of the NZ comedy Black Sheep (but with cows), this has a grim, grimy atmosphere to it that does produce some undeniable effect
This received good reviews but audiences were confused by a title and promotion that led them to expect a horror film. The confusion exists because it isn’t a horror film but a plague outbreak/fallout shelter drama – at which this serves as an okay offering but nothing standout
Halfway reasonable Syfy Channel film with people under attack by treacheries of ravens, this homages The Birds to modest effect
This starts out offering a fine astrophysically credible depiction of Mars only to quickly reach for the playbook of Alien cliches to essentially become Zombies on Mars. As long as one accepts the hackneyed premise for what it is, the film generates more than reasonable tension
French horror film shot all in a single unbroken take as a deadly infection, possibly a zombie outbreak, spreads all around town
If the phrase ‘Arnold Schwarzenegger zombie film’ is not capable of getting you excited, then you’re visiting the wrong site. This is surprisingly good, the complete opposite of anything we expect of either a Schwarzenegger or zombie film, where he can even be said to be giving a serious performance for once
A cross between The Belko Experiment with its murderous elimination game in an office and George Romero’s The Crazies as workers in an office is infected by a virus that causes them to lose their inhibitions. Made with dark relish
Very cheaply made film about a deadly mold going amok at a laboratory, which is only notable for some gory meltdown effects and the filmmaker’s laughable lack of knowledge about contamination procedures
One of Jack Arnold’s lesser films, a Jekyll and Hyde story where a scientist finds himself reveting to a caveman after scraping his hand on a prehistoric coelacanth
After the disastrous misstep of The Green Hornet, Michel Gondry returns to the surreal whimsy of The Science of Sleep. A film where Gondry delights in scene after scene of visual nonsense and serving up all the appealingly capricious silliness he can muster – creativity for creativity’s sake alone
Promising film about two people at a mine in the desert affected by what would appear to be the drill having dug all the way down to Hell. The film plays a corny idea seriously and sits in an interestingly ambiguous place about what is going on.
A man surveilling a woman finds strange goings-on and becomes infected by something. This is essentially Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation played as a horror film; alas, while this does a fine job in the build-up, it lacks a third act that explains anything at all
This travels into very similar places to Roman Polanski’s The Tenant – a paranoid tale about a man surrounded by very strange apartment neighbours. Apart from adding some reality blurring SF twists to the mix, this does little more than churn cliches
The second directorial outing of a young Charles Band, this is essentially an earthbound version of Alien. Not a very good film, the principal reasons to watch are some cheap effects and a young Demi Moore
One of the films from cult director Jean Rollin. This is a zombie film, clearly influenced by Night of the Living Dead, but with a uniquely French spin – the zombies are caused by drinking toxic wine
Steven Spielberg’s daughter Destry makes her directorial debut with a confused mix of an imprisonment thriller and a zombie film, albeit a zombie film that only produces a single zombie
Todd Haynes’ first film, three stories, two of which are fantastic … Being Haynes’ first film, this is less polished than his later work but circles through familiar themes of social outsiders, gay identity and recreations of previous cinematic styles, including one segment that is a mocked-up 1940s mad scientist film
Bruce McDonald makes a standout fim with Stephen McHattie as a radio dj dealing with a zombie infection that inhabits the English langage
Ridley Scott’s promised prequel to Alien. The first half creates epic mystery but the answers provided are not nearly as interesting as promised, while the latter half disappointingly settles for doing the Alien standard with decidedly lesser effect
A monster movie where the major distinction is that the monster is drawn from Ancient Egyptian mythology and the locale is an unearthed pyramid. The film is too conceptually slim to do much with such an interesting background but it does deliver some solid jumps
![[Rec] (2007) poster](https://www.moriareviews.com/rongulator/wp-content/uploads/rec-2007-poster-3.jpg)
Furious and highly engaging Spanish Found Footage film about the infected dead taking over an apartment building. Three sequels and an English-language remake followed
![[Rec] 2 (2009) poster](https://www.moriareviews.com/rongulator/wp-content/uploads/rec-2-2009-poster.jpg)
Lesser sequel to the Spanish Found Footage zombie film repeats the original to variable effect but needlessly breaks up the single camera point-of-view
![[Rec]3 Genesis (2012) poster](https://www.moriareviews.com/rongulator/wp-content/uploads/rec-3-genesis-2012-poster.jpg)
Third entry in the hit Spanish Found Footage series. Not the origin story it promises to be, is the one entry in the series that decides to have fun. The Found Footage look is abandoned soon in, nevertheless it turns out the gore-drenched goods and is peopled with a range of amusingly eccentric characters
![[Rec]4 Apocalypse (2014) poster](https://www.moriareviews.com/rongulator/wp-content/uploads/rec-4-apocalypse-2014-poster.jpg)
The fourth film in the [Rec] series. This abandons the Found Footage look but without it, all we have is just another zombie film. As such, you don’t feel that it adds anything substantial to the [Rec] series, nevertheless builds to an intensively gore-drenched climax
An action film about soldiers on an expedition into a zombie-filled quarantine zone. This comes with a furious pace that feels more as though you are watching a videogame than a film
Another film that has suddenly gained a whole lot more relevance between when it was made and the Corona Virus plague currently affecting us. The title suggests more a sea adventure but this is a surprisingly good monster movie about the crew of a fishing vessel attacked by a sea creature and infected by parasites.
Horror film about a soldier returned home from conflict strangely ‘changed’ reminiscent of the classic Dead of Night. From the director of August Underground films.
Surprisingly good film that generates a great deal of tension in the story of a group of people trapped inside a gas station by a deadly plant infection that takes over bodies
Bizarre horror about an actress trying to get her big break in Hollywood that takes all manner of strange turns as she becomes infected and starts physically decaying. More explanation about what is going on would have helped no end but the film still arrives in memorably perverse territory
Roger Christian was art director on Alien but will always be remembered as director of the notorious Battlefield Earth. Here he is stuck making a cheap, tatty and frequently incomprehensible copy of Alien about alien impregnation
Not a title that automatically suggests a horror film – and even if it does, you automatically think of the locale for a 1980s slasher film. What we get is a Spanish-made effort about a madness-inducing infection – a modestly and tightly contained effort that twists around on itself with considerable vigour
Standout Russian SF/horror that undeniably captures something of The Thing with scientists encountering a monster in the depths of a deep drilling project
Strange film where Tilda Swinton creates three copies of herself
Low-budget film about a girl who starts to find bruises on her body that progress until every part of her body is rotting and falling apart. A minimalist film where everything other than the slow observation of the girl’s physical decay has been stripped away – with incredibly raw effect
Okay borrowing from the set-up of The Thing about an outbreak of flesh-eating prehistoric insects at an Arctic research station
A Body Horror film that creates some undeniably ick effect where Dave Franco and Alison Brie play a couple who experience an infection that causes their bodies to start fusing into one whenever they touch
This reboot of the film series adapted from the popular videogame franchise is a mixed affair. On the plus side, the perpetually non-acting Angelina Jolie is replaced by Alicia Vikander who gives Lara Croft living, breathing emotions and actually gets to do engage in some proper tomb raiding
Effort from the near-ubiquitous Blumhouse that is constantly confounding expectations – a plague outbreak drama but not quite, a zombie film but not quite. In the end, not a great or groundbreaking film but certainly a modest one that takes things in some interesting and original directions
Horror comedy told from the perspective of four friends who are unaware they have been transformed into zombies. The contrast of their reactions with everybody else as they flee in terror is mildly amusing for awhile but this is essentially a one-gag film
Unexpectedly rather funny comedy that combines Mafia on a witness protection program and zombies