The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Bollywood refers to a group and style of films made in India. The term Bollywood is a fusion of Bombay (the former name for Mumbai) and Hollywood. In the West, Bollywood is used to refer to all Indian cinema but in India only refers to films made in Mumbai, while there are other film industries that cater to different ethnic/language groups.
Bollywood also refers to a distinctive style – one where every film (no matter the genre) seems to include colourful and energetic musical numbers and dance sequences, and where a romantic element is wound into every film. (Although in recent years this is not always the case). Bollywood films also tend to run much longer than Hollywood counterparts with not many having running times less than 2½ hours.
Bollywood Cinema is known for blatantly stealing the plots from popular Hollywood films. That said, Bollywood genre cinema is in a minority. There have been an increasing number of Bollywood horror films since the 1990s, less so works of science fiction.
Bollywood film that is a blatant copy of Back to the Future with the young hero going back in time to prevent his parents from divorcing. Lame comedy routines but some extremely colourful song and dance numbers
Bollywood conducts a reasonable attempt to make its own equivalent of the zombie film in this mini-series about people at siege from undead British colonial soldiers awakened
A modestly successful Bollywood horror film that becomes a copy of The Exorcist but does generate a reasonable degree of atmosphere
A rare Bollywood venture into science-fiction – a completely madcap android intelligence/amok film that features some wildly imaginative action scenes, all set amid typical Bollywood song and dance/romance numbers
A reality bending Bollywood film in which a wheelchair-ridden woman videogame designer is haunted by mysterious events, although quite what is all about is a very good question
Another multi-director horror anthology – in this case a quartet of horror stories from Bollywood directors that comes with one standout episode in particular
David Lynch’s daughter Jennifer is a much better director than she is given recognition for. She disowned this work about a snake goddess taken on human form nevertheless creates a film that is equal parts lushly sensual and madcap lunacy
A comedy involving murder and ghosts set in London’s Little India. An exceedingly lightweight comedy that never does anything unexpected with its material
Bollywood SF film that is like a version of Shyamalan’s aliens film Signs with a few dashes of The Mouse That Roared, all played as a comic farce with much singing and dancing
This is the Bollywood version of E.T.. That is if one can imagine an E.T. with singing, dancing and romantic scenes. A simplistic but popular hit that spawned several sequels
An epic Indian-made film based around the foundation text of Hinduism, concerning the saga of two warring and the intercession of the gods in these matters
A Bollywood film about an invisible superhero, this is sparing on effects but should be seen for the lunatic entertainment value it offers, including several surreal song and dance numbers and much frenetic slapstick
Magical Realist film with Aishwarya Rai running a spice bazaar where she is able to tell fortunes
Indian film set in a future where female infanticide has become so widespread there are no longer any women. A fundamentally implausible idea is treated with some conviction
The Bollywood horror film is a rare and strange beast – what other horror film would you see that comes with song and dance numbers? This is a Bollywood possession film where, despite the use of local colour and custom, it is surprisingly still drawn from the cliches created by The Exorcist
A rare Indian venture into the horror film, this is a haunted house film of modest effect that suddenly becomes a whole lot more watchable when it pulls a major M. Night Shyamalan-esque twist on us
Bollywood remake of a ghost story that comes with one of the cleverer M. Night Shyamalan conceptual reversal twists
Absolutely fascinating Bollywood venture into science-fiction. A comedic variant on the theme of the blankly innocent alien visitor trying to make sense of human culture, this has a daringly ambitious bite in tackling the topic of religion and delivering some sharply pointed barbs
A Bollywood venture into science-fiction that does a reasonably impressive job of trying to mount CGI superheroics … on the other hand, the plot deals in simplistic black-and-whites and draws on models of SF two decades out of date
One of the rare Bollywood ventures into horror, a blatant copy of The Exorcist. You have to praise the film for trying out every effect in the book in an effort to get a jump but the result ends up being so overwrought it produces almost no effect at all
The rarity of a Bollywood horror film. This blatantly steals the plot of What Lies Beneath but spins it through the Bollywood formula with the addition of songs and much implied sensuality to create something unique
For some reason, The Exorcist is hugely popular in Bollywood horror – this is the fourth in a series of otherwise unrelated films about possession. The film conducts its borrowings not unentertainingly and is boosted by a script that turns what we think is happening on its head with quite a degree of dexterity
Everyone has a certain idea of what Bollywood cinema is – romantic interludes and elaborate song and dance numbers no matter the genre. This is one Bollywood film that defies convention – based on a true-life Mumbai serial killer, it comes with a harsh realism and features an electrifying central performance
An anthology of regional folktales from the author who would appear to be India’s equivalent of the Brothers Grimm. After a slow start, the four interwoven tales rather pleasingly segue into horror territory and the film works with some undeniable effect
An early CGI animated film conducted on a cut-price budget that tells further adventures of Sinbad
An Indian horror film about a folk tale of a witch spirit the Stree, this was a popular success that was then built out into an Indian version of The Conjuring Universe
A Bollywood take on the android/A.I. themes, where a roboticist falls for an android girl and tries to have her accepted by his family
Forget everything you think you know about Bollywood cinema and watch this – none of the regular cliches apply here. What we have is a beautifully made and frequently quite unearthly work about a man conducting a hair-raising venture down into a pit inhabited by a demon to obtain a fortune in gold coins
Seventh of the V/H/S Found Footage horror anthologies, this is one of the best with a number of the episodes venturing into SF and others that feature some genuinely outlandish moments
A blatant Bollywood copy of Oldboy, often scene-for-scene