The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Unique anthology that offers 26 episodes from different genre directors, each ending with a death. The episodes vary wildly in quality and approach but a sufficient number ignore all good taste and/or travel waaaay across taboo lines
Seth Grahame-Smith’s original book was a witty historical joke that retold the events of Lincoln’s life as a secret history involving vampires. The film somehow misses the joke and turns everything into a ridiculously over-the-top action film
A halfway decent Asylum film that emerges better than the film it is ripping off, the overblown Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter. The film does the historical crossover aspect with some ingenuity
Film in which Eli Roth does everything else except direct. Set in the aftermath of a Chilean earthquake, this feels more like a disaster movie than the horror film it is awkwardly squeezed into being
A mockbuster from The Asylum that sets out to copy Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit such that Jackson and co sued, forcing The Asylum to change the title in several territories
I always maintained that when you stop looking at it in terms of G-rated slapstick, Home Alone was an incredibly violent film – this is Home Alone reconceived as an ultra-violent modern home invasion thriller
Reboot of James Patterson’s criminal profiler books makes the mistake of hiring an action director. Tyler Perry lacks the genius mental agility Morgan Freeman previously brought to the role but Matthew Fox does crazy well
The Asylum’s mockbuster version of Prometheus where they have settled for giving us Predator as a Found Footage film (with a good few doses of Ancient Astronauts nuttinesss)
Another cheap Syfy Channel disaster movie. With the sheer amount of these films, many have been straining to come up novelty threats – you cannot deny the idea of a tornado of alien origin holds your attention
Low-budget British alien invasion film shot in a hyperkinetic style using as many social collapse cliches as possible. Jean-Claude Van Damme turns up to deliver explanations for everything
Indie superhero comedy that reads a good deal funnier on paper than it ever produces laughs on screen. The production lacks the budget to produce more than a handful of cheap superheroic digital effects
The reasoning behind rebooting the Spider-Man franchise after ten years and only three films is a puzzle. That said, this offers an edgier origin story than Sam Raimi’s take and Andrew Garfield makes for a fine Spider-Man
Canada’s twin sisters Jen and Sylvia Soska’s second film is set in the dark underground of body modification,. Like an episode of tv’s Nip/Tuck with a Suicide Girls ethos. Not perfect but an impressive maturation
Michael Paul Stephenson of Best Worst Movie fame makes a documentary about people who turn their homes into Halloween haunts. While lacking the freakshow aspect of Best Worst Movie, this is a likeable effort that follows its subjects in perfecting their art
A painfully cheap film that feels like an amateur effort that was accidentally given a dvd release. Essentially Resident Evil but with killer robots instead of zombies, this shouts its impoverishment from every scene
Brandon Cronenberg makes an impressive writing-directing debut, taking up the thematic reins of his father’s earlier films in a darkly satiric future escalation of contemporary celebrity culture
This feels like an amateur film made on a big budget that consists of utterly tepid scares where the director fails to do anything not borrowed from a dozen other ghost stories
Giant fire-breathing spiders invade New Orleans. A passably entertaining film of its type made for the Syfy Channel with effects that are above-average and it taking itself seriously
Found Footage film as survivors from a commercial airliner that has crashed on a top secret government test site find themselves hunted by mysterious creatures
Fourth of the live-action films adapted from the Asterix comic-books with Gerard Depardieu as Obelix. This replicates the absurdist historical wit of the originals while poking fun at the foibles of the British
Gravity presaged a big upsurge about scientifically realistic space films. Coming out only a few months before, this concerns a lone astronaut on a space mission to Europa that goes wrong
The second film from Ayn Rand’s libertarian fantasy. This gets more into the meat of Rand’s ideas (wherein the wealthy decide to ignore an undeserving world) and is even more ridiculous than the first film
The third of the trilogy of films adapted from Ayn Rand’s absurd fantasy wherein the leaders of the business world decide to go on strike because they don’t feel appreciated enough
Thriller from the screenwriter of Buried that seeks to imitate that film’s containment drama in having three characters trapped inside an ATM booth by a killer outside
The culmination of one of the most ambitious cinematic exercises ever conducted, with Marvel weaving storylines through several films to finally merge here with flawless regard. The characters get far more depth than in all of their previous films
The first Avengers film came with a massive anticipation in seeing the characters come together and the snappiness of their interplay; here this seems more flat, while the rest is overrun by wall-to-wall action
This is a romance film with conceptual ambitions that starts out by killing the heroine in the first scene and then has she and the guy meeting in lucid time-travelling dreams
This promises the amusing idea of a sarcastic 00s take on The Breakfast Club but emerges as no more than a glorified episode of Scooby-Doo, in a plot about punishing the children of privilege
A strong contender for the most ridiculous killer shark ever made – something that should have occurred to the producers about the point of the film’s premise of a shark hunting people in a supermarket
Saw series Darren Lynn Bousman downplays sadism in favour of a psychologically ambiguous film about a series of attacks possibly conducted by the Jersey Devil
Despite the title, this is no relation to tv’s Bates Motel or the Psycho franchise but a slasher film set around a famous Pennsylvania Halloween haunted house attraction. The film otherwise displays a general but unremarkable competence
The first of a two-part animated adaptation of the classic graphic novel ever written. The film lacks the same impact because, firstly, it is an incomplete story, and secondly, Frank Miller’s ideas have now become so much part of the modern Batman
Just when the zombie genre seemed to be creatively exhausted, this is one of the freshest takes in some time. This does nothing radical with the basics, just offers a series of wry, sharply written vignettes as two bored slackers greet the apocalypse
Taking inspiration from Battle Los Angeles, this is another shakycam-shot war film but with the intriguing idea of being focused around human soldiers trapped behind alien enemy lines
Adaptation of the Battleship boardgame that emerges at best as wannabe Michael Bay. Imagine Pearl Harbor mashed up with a Transformers film and lots of bone-headed glorification of American militarism
Web-series/film prequel to the 2003-9 revival of Battlestar Galactica with a rookie Commander Adama arriving aboard the Galactica. Easily one the best of the Galactica spinoff films to date
Barry Levinson becomes one of the few name directors to venture into the Found Footage genre and soberingly portrays the outbreak of an ecological catastrophe from multiple viewpoints
Extraordinary Sundance breakout hit that sits between a portrayal of a unique backwoods culture and a Magical Realist child’s eye viewpoint. A quite amazing film that announces one of the freshest directorial voices to emerge in ages
Imagine Brian De Palma’s Blow Out by way of Barton Fink. Set around the sound recording of a giallo horror, this mounts an impressive spiral down into claustrophobia and paranoia, even if it is never quite the horror film it keeps trying to be
This is a Found Footage film that features a film crew interviewing a crazy hermit who claims to have the carcass of a Bigfoot and naturally enough encountering the real thing
For the stew of elements this throws together – a famous unsolved murder case, ghosts, a blind psychic killer, possession, a sinister psychiatrist – it is surprising how dull the film that emerges is
Wilderness survival horror in the same vein as Deliverance but with a Chick Flick spin. This starts promisingly but director/star Katie Aselton fails to push the survival scenes for anything dramatic
A reboot of the Jason Bourne series with Jeremy Renner replacing Matt Damon. The exhiliratingly kinetic action scenes are watered down, while the plot lacks the same focus. The first of the series to enter genre territory however
An ambitious film in its depiction of a near-future Russia and satire on the media. The latter half has the hero undergo a mystical experience and discover that advertising brands are living entities that feed on human need
Comedy with a head-scratching premise where a couple discover a teapot that produces money whenever they hurt themselves. Such a loopy premise could work as a black comedy but this plays itself as a frothy light fantasy
A real head-scratcher from Pixar that seems to have been pitched as a cross between Braveheart and Disney’s Brother Bear. The usual Pixar humour and polish makes for a mostly amiable film but never lifts the show out of a lame duck premise
Perhaps the best thing about this is that the Twilight saga is finally ended. This provides a moderately spectacular showdown but also wraps its plotlines up with absurd deus ex machina wimp outs and an infuriating twist ending
A parody of the Twilight series, which feeds the films through the vulgar and sophomoric gags of the Scary Movie type film parody
Neil Jordan makes a vampire film that stands at marked contrast to Twilight and Jordan’s earlier Interview with the Vampire. Jordan stamps the class of a mature filmmaker on what might have been a lesser work in another’s hands
Joss Whedon scripted work that is less a horror film than a meta-horror film that is constantly deconstructing the genre and subverting its cliches. A rare genre entry less about visceral impact than it has brains to spare
A Canadian film where a corrupt politician makes the slow realisation that he is a character inside a film. The comedy heads for obvious places at times but the film is carried by the originality and amusement of its premise
This French film is an uncredited copy of Peggy Sue Got Married wherein director/star Noemie Lvovsky a dissatisfied divorcee who is propelled back to her high school graduating year and gets to relive her life choices
People are locked in a facility and undergoing biological meltdowns. A film that is driven by a series of wild effects at regular intervals but falls down when it comes to its poorly constructed mystery
Jennifer Lynch, daughter of David, makes an extraordinary work about the relationship between a serial killer and his young male companion. A film that eschews big dramatics with startling effect. Vincent D’Onofrio gives one of his best performances
This has the fascinatingly original idea of setting a horror film inside the exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear accident. The location is unique and the film generates a fair and reasonable tension
Essentially a Found Footage version of a teen underdog discovers psychic powers film like The Fury or Akira. Nothing original, just a novelty of approach conducted with conviction
The trailer tries to build this up as a venture into a fantasy world. In reality, all that the film is is a documenting of several of Cirque du Soleil’s acts connected by a thin-to-non-existent story
Irish-British production that depicts the social housing estates of Glasgow as a desolate netherworld inhabited by mutant children. Undeniably effective but the depiction of children of urban ghettos requires you to tune out any liberal instincts
A cross-historical epic from The Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer. An uneven film driven more by its determination we view it as an epic. Surely a studio publicist’s nightmare, it grasps at the meaning of it all yet eludes telling audiences what it is about
Beyond the title, this is a straightforward take on the modern zombie comedy. It is undeniably trying to be another Shaun of the Dead, at which it proves consistently amusing and likeable
Disappointing sequel to the Torture Porn film The Collector. The captivating premise of an ordinary house turned into a series of deadly traps is gone, while the sadistic, gore-drenched set-pieces are tame and unimaginative
TV mini-series remake of the Michael Crichton medical thriller that pointlessly changes and over-extrudes a tight and effective original, while director Mikael Salomon adds absurd red herrings and keys away major surprises well in advance
Animated venture into Midwestern Gothic that has been a fifteen-year work for one-man band Chris Sullivan. A film that is at once brilliantly original but also tedious where its focus on the minutiae of character’s lives seems to go on forever
David Cronenberg film that takes place in a limousine and consists of a surreal drift through a near-future world in the midst of economic collapse, observing it with darkly brilliant, razor-sharp agitprop dialogue
Australian effort that seems to follow the path of Aliens/Resident Evil with soldiers venturing into a laboratory of amok monsters before a Philip K. Dick-ian twist on what we think is happening
Imagine a slasher movie version of Duel – a film about an unseen driver and a van outfitted with a series of novelty killing attachments. A film driven by its gore set-pieces that tends to drag when it comes to the comedy relief
The late 2000s brought a spate of giant crocodile amok films that included some really good efforts like Rogue and Black Water. This is a belated entry from China, featuring some surprisingly good CGI effects
The Dark Knight is a hard act to follow and Christopher Nolan almost does but not quite. The story has flaws, notably in keeping Batman off-screen for half the film. Tom Hardy’s Bane dominates the show, while Catwoman is surprisingly subdued and Bruce Wayne gets dragged into the Occupy Era
Tim Burton’s slide into mediocrity continues with this comedic update of the cult Gothic soap opera tv series, which is now played at a level of cartoonish unseriousness that resembles the Addams Family
One among the vast shuffling horde of zombie films that has deluged the genre since the mid-00s. This is an average entry in the field, competently made and with a plot that you feel could have served as an entire season of The Walking Dead
Completely insane Japanese film about man-eating killer sushi. A film that has a whacko anything goes lunacy to it, resulting in some of the most surreally crazed monster movie scenes that this author has seen in some time
By the time of this third film, the Death Race series is buckling under the strain of trying to find something original to do with a very limited premise. The Death Race now takes place in the South African desert but the action scenes prove incredibly monotonous
Another entry in the zombie comedy field, this is essentially a retread of The Breakfast Club but with the addition of zombies
Another Found Footage variant on an exorcism film. This was a big box-office hit but only ends up repeating the tired cliches of the exorcism and possession genre
Darren Lynn Bousman, the director best known for the Saw sequels, makes a musical about a circus set in Hell through which three damned souls pass, enacting updated versions of various of Aesop’s Fables
Disappointingly, this turns out not to be about the famous pioneer expedition that turned to cannibalism but a modern slasher film that takes place near where the incident occurred
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
Hard to describe what an utter disappointment Dario Argento’s take on the oft-filmed Bram Stoker work is. Argento seems to have entirely lost the mojo and visual flair that made him a cult name. Thomas Kretschmann makes for the screen’s mellowest Dracula
Typical Syfy Channel creature film with people encountering giant fire-breathing genetically-engineered wasps in the jungles of Belize
A new version of the Judge Dredd comic-book. More faithful than the previous Sylvester Stallone version, this comes with a satisfyingly visceral kick, yet a low-budget means that we see little of Dredd’s satiric future
The third film based on the roleplaying game. The previous two films were forgettable but for a throwaway effort, this is surprisingly good, taking a far darker tone than the usual sword-and-sorcery adventure and adding considerable moral complexity
Rather peculiar film about a man who becomes a cannibal whenever he sleepwalks and an artist who finds inspiration at the sight of the dead bodies. This taps a rich vein of black comedy
The amusing idea of (some chapters of) the classic Chinese legend Journey to the West retold in contemporary terms. This makes for some amusing interpolations, while also acting as a social critique of modern-day Chinese society
Entirely charming French animated film from the directors of A Town Called Panic. This is a children’s film that comes with a beautiful simplicity, a duo of winning characters and some side-splitting visual gags
This gave the impression that is was going to venture deep inside Cronenbergian territory but instead, we have a darkly fascinating work set in the world of scientific research
Third of the Neon Genesis Evangelion reboot films. These films are frustrating – filled with stunning scenes of mecha battling cryptic alien machines but baffling as to what is going on
Darkly subversive film about an alienated teenage girl, this digs its teeth into family values and depicts the uncomfortableness of puberty. On the other hand, this is only rarely the horror film others have reviewed it as
An undeniably imaginative SF film in which a scientist invents a device to view memory only to become trapped in someone else’s memories
Modestly creepy film about a group of subjects locked in a hospital as part of a drug trial that proceeds to go wrong
Dark Horse Entertainment film that traipses through a tired serial killer plot that comes out resembling a weak episode of CSI before a frankly unbelievable twist ending
Featuring Simon Pegg as a paranoid writer seeing sinister happenings everywhere, this should have been a darkly funny comedy in the vein of early Coen Brothers but the film winds everything up to a shrilly hysteric fever pitch
Willfully cryptic and baffling South Korean film that only ends up being dull and confusing. Disappointingly, the big denouement reveals that all we have is another copy of The Sixth Sense with pretensions to meaningfulness
Supposedly a documentary about the Frankenstein story but no more than a glorified dvd extra to accompany the Danny Boyle stage production of Frankenstein. This covers the life of Mary Shelley but almost entirely sidesteps the Frankenstein cinematic legacy
Tim Burton’s stop-motion animated expansion of his 1982 short film has a winning concept – a parody of the Universal Frankenstein films with a teenage boy resurrecting his dog
New Zealand comedy in which Temuera Morrison plays a modern-day Maori cannibal cultist. Everything is given a very broad playing
This has the amusing idea of mashing the zombie film up with the Guy Ritchie gangster film, although is never quite as amusing as it sounds nor ever hits the comic-bookishly over-the-top posturing of Ritchie’s films
The William Shatner documentary can be a unique beast. Here he makes a quite reasonable effort to examine what is at the heart of Star Trek fandom
A beautifully shot b/w homage to exploitation films that feels like a 1950s rock‘n’roll musical injected with a host of gonzo elements including aliens, UFOs and the resurrected dead
Ridiculous sequel to the Marvel Comics adaptation with an indifferently written script assembled from cliches, forgettable action scenes and Nicolas Cage giving one of his silliest performances in ages
Fascinating sf film interviewing people about the jobs they are forced to take in an economically collapsed Canada. Despite a minuscule budget, this has the grip of strong and intelligent science-fiction