The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Cryogenics (sometimes referred to as cryonics) is the science of freezing the human body in a suspended state and then reviving it at a later period.
In science-fiction, cryogenics is used as a means of dealing with lengthy space voyages – there are a number of stories where astronauts wake from sleep to find things gone wrong.
Another popular story is of the cryogenic sleeper who wakes up in a changed future or the present-day, which includes popular characters like Buck Rogers and Captain America. Cryogenics is also seen as a popular means of punishing criminals.
Fantasy regularly deals with suspended animation as in the story of Cinderella pricking her finger and going to sleep for a hundred years. Also popular have been a series of films dealing with dinosaurs and cavemen revived after being frozen in ice.
For more detail and an overview of the genre see the Theme Essay Films About Cryogenics and Suspended Animation.
Anthology of three H.P. Lovecraft tales from directors Christophe Gans, Brian Yuzna and Shusuke Kaneko. For claiming such a quintessentially Lovecraftian title as this, you feel that it should have been more than it is
A film about a scientist trying to perfect a genetic engineering process. This turns into a strange SF reworking of the classic ghost story The Turn of the Screw
One of the more disappointing of the Marvel Comics adaptations. Despite all the elements assembled, this never comes to life in director Joe Johnston’s hands and takes forever to get into action
Yet another entry that nobody asked for in a conceptually threadbare series that nobody seems to like … passably better than the last two sequels due to some ok action moves but still empty-headed in terms of ideas
This has an intriguing premise where a group awake from cryogenic suspension with their memories blank as someone among their number now begins killing them
This Canadian effort about Soviet super-soldiers unfrozen in the present-day feels like one of a bunch of cheap direct-to-video copies of Universal Soldier that came out in the late 1990s. The film generates remarkably little in the way of action of excitement
Disappointingly tatty rendering of the famous comic-book strip as a low-budget Roger Corman production. Vampirella is missing her distinctive costume and Talisa Soto comes nowhere near the comic-book character’s statuesque voluptuousness
The major distinction this has is as starring murdered Playboy Playmate Dorothy Stratten. An SF comedy made in the aftermath of Star Wars where Stratten is an android on a ship voyage romancing her human commander
Low-budget director Albert Pyun, best known for his kickboxing cyborg action films of the 1990s, conducts a micro-budgeted adaptation of an H.P. Lovecraft story about a scientist who fends off death by keeping their room chilled
Cheap and fairly terrible adaptation of the Marvel Comics superhero from low-budget director Albert Pyun. The superheroics look impoverished and Matt Salinger makes a dopey-looking Steve Rogers
Unimaginative time travel/action film that plays out like
Westernised homage to Wu Xia and the Shaw Brothers film with an American teen transported back to Ancient China, this has all the thrill of junior-grade martial arts tournament
It is hard to find SF films that come with a bigger conceptual grasp. This has distinct overtones of 2001: Space Odyssey and Event Horizon about an expedition to Mars to investigate a mysterious black sphere – only to find that it offers a gateway to Heaven
A softcore erotic version of the popular fairytale. Largely the film gets the fairytale over and done with in the first eight minutes and thereafter focuses on the erotic tumblings of Beauty awakened in the present-day
This seemed to have a lot of promise in its set-up of Adam Driver crashlanded in Earth’s prehistoric past fighting off dinosaurs
Completely ridiculous mix of The Terminator and Die Hard where, for no clear reason, an android terrorist decides to take hostages in an office building and the FBI’s only hope is a cryogenically unfrozen football player
Another of The Asylum’s mockbusters, intended to come out the same time as M. Night Shyamalan’s After Earth. This feels like a cheap planetary adventure that recycles Avatar and Planet of the Apes
SF/action film with a ludicrous premise with a future prison where criminals are turned into holograms with one lone cop facing an escaped inmate in a hologram body
An excruciatingly unfunny teen comedy with Brendan Fraser as a caveman who is unfrozen in the present-day. The film served to introduce Fraser and Pauly Shore, one of the most annoying figures to ever appear on screen
Forgotten 1980s obscurity about aliens come to Earth in search of rock music that feels like someone attempted to conduct a version of Grease for the Star Wars crowd. Filled with utterly excruciating slapstick humour and bland songs from bands that nobody has heard from again
Possibly the worst film ever made on a big studio budget, Joel Schumacher’s follow-up to Tim Buton’s standout Batman films where he turns everything into an absurd Day Glo realm with a script for two year-olds, campy puns and badly overacting super-villains