The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
An obscure Japanese film about a backwoods motel where things get very strange – the hosts slaughtering the guests, a zombie wandering around. The film comes with a decided WTF element to it, the least of which is actually trying to work out what is going on
Another instance of a computer game or film franchise turning to anime to conduct a spinoff. While Mass Effect has an impressive reputation on the console screen, the film here is a dull piece that only comes in around the level of a production line animated tv episode
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
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
The second of the Resident Evil anime films. This is set before the release of the T-Virus and focuses on origin stories for some of the characters
The original Ring was a classic, an eerie ghost story that was a success that spawned a series of copies right around the Asian region. Here the Ring cycle has been rebooted in a heavy letdown that abandons all of the creepy atmospherics of the original for a series of pop-up CGI effects
Mamoru Hosoda proves himself as one of the major directors in anime with this tender, lovely and enormously affecting work about a mother raising two werewolf children.
This anime has a surprising number of similarities to Upside Down, which was released one year earlier, both being set in two different worlds where gravity in each operates in the opposite directions and of the forbidden relationship between a boy and a girl from either world
Hideo Nakata will always be known as the director of the original Ring. Here he revisits the kaidan eiga in the story of a haunted apartment but the show falls apart after a confusing Sixth Sense-type twist mid-film
Released at the same time as Iron Man Three, this seems set to reverse the lacklustre string of Marvel animated films by employing an anime director. There are action scenes that kick every other Marvel animated film out of the park and lots of Marvel fanservice cameos even if it still doesn’t quite come together
An anthology of short anime pieces from various directors, including creator Katsuhiro Otomo, the cult creator of Akira. The four episodes vary from historical to fantasy to futuristic warfare and, as with any anthology, vary in quality from the okay to the watchable
Studio Ghibli adaptation of a classic Japanese folktale from Hayao Hiyazaki’s mentor Isao Takahata. This is a slower, very different film than Hayao Miyazaki’s, the animation designed like a traditional Japanese woodprint. Never quite soars like Miyazaki’s films do but not without its charms
Fascinating documentary about Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki … Although there is not much coverage of his older material, this offers fascinating insight into the working processes of the amazingly genteel, often frank Miyazaki who seems a fount of creativity and youthful vigour
Fahrenheit 451-esque work set in a future where libraries have to create private armies to defend themselves from the highly militarised forces of censorship. I had some major problems with the credibility of the social scenario but this Japanese Young Adult film works rather well on screen
A Japanese-made variant on the dream incursion theme of Inception. Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa is noted for his bafflingly surrealistic horror films but in working in a genre like science-fiction that requires an implied explainability, he makes a far less interesting film
The brooding space pirate Captain Harlock is one of the famous anti-heroes in manga and anime. Harlock gets a big screen revamp here from Shinji (Appleseed) Aramaki, one of the most amazing of modern anime directors, who delivers a series of epic space battles with a breathtaking beauty
Shion Sono is a director who has gained cult acclaim in recent years. This astonishes with the brashness of his approach, set among the street gang warfare of the near future where all of the dialogue is delivered in rap. On the other hand, the film lacks the budget to sustain such energy
Reboot of the Ghost in the Shell series in a quartet of prequel stories. This funnels the essence of Cyberpunk superbly, creating a conceptually dazzling world with cyborgised security services fighting terrorists hacking people’s brains
The Japanese Ju-on/The Grudge series has produced twelve different films to date – this was the tenth of them. Newcomer Masayuki Ochiai has some effective touches but the series is running out of original moves
A ghost story from Studio Ghibli – although rather than any Western equivalent that sets out to scare the pants off us, this is a sweetly tender story of friendship between two girls. The result more than capably approaches some of Hayao Miyazaki’s best
Shinji Aramaki returns to the Appleseed franchise for a third time with this prequel. Though it abandons the Cyberpunk milieu, Aramaki crafts action scenes with a stunning realism
NOT the Hayao Miyazaki film but a live-action version based on the same books, made by Takashi Shimizu of the Jun-on/The Grudge films fame. Replicating Miyazaki in live-action would seem a futile endeavour from the outset and expectedly this lacks the sweet emotional uplift of his version
Live-action adaptation of a manga about the war between factions of body-snatching parasites that are capable of rearranging their host’s bodies. This plays out as a madcap version of The Thing relocated to a Japanese high school and filled with wild, outlandish transformation effects
I went to see this on the description that called it a horror film about premonitions of disaster but far less interestingly it is a fictional attempt to analyse people’s attempts to grieve over the Fukushima Disaster – not uninteresting but with little interest in being a fantastic film
This starts as a standard Japanese high school drama but takes a turn for the twisted where it doesn’t exactly venture into Saw territory but certainly somewhere that has taken inspiration from it. Alas, everything gets lost in a second half that is burdened by an excessively complicated and non-linear plot
This begins fantastically well – the appearance of a mysterious alien object that paralyses everybody who looks upon it – only to take a major nosedive in its second act where we promptly realise that the filmmakers didn’t have a clue where to take the story after that
The most sustained film Takashi Miike has made in some time. In this case, he adapts Yotsuya Kaidan, the most famous of all Japanese ghost stories, which has been filmed multiple times, but rather than offer a straight telling also adds a layer where the story comes to replay itself among the actors in the play
Another version of the popular figure from Japanese urban legend, which has appeared in a number of films. This is an anthology where four Japanese directors have come to L.A. to shoot a series of strictly average short horror tales, not all of which feature the Slit Mouth Woman
Sequel the demented Attack of Titan with its wild images of humanity under attack from mindless giants that bite their heads off, which was shot back-to-back and released a few months later
The live-action adaptation of a popular manga series, this comes with a completely WTF premise about humanity defending itself from an invasion by a horde of misshapen giants that like to bite people’s heads off
Film spinoff of an anime series about a future police force that uses a system to monitor the brains of the populace for the potential to commit crime. Reminiscent of Minority Report, this is not uninteresting, although falls short of being another Appleseed or Ghost in the Shell
Sweet and tender anime about a young girl who has a curse placed on her that causes her to lose her voice and how this actually allows everyone around her to voice things they don’t say.
Fascinatingly original anime set in an alternate history Steampunk version of Victorian England that has developed a technology based on Frankenstein’s corpse resurrection experiments
Japanese comedy with various humans and aliens interacting around an interstellar burger restaurant on the road from Earth, although none of it manages to be that funny
Japanese film about a cyborg-enhanced bounty hunter chick. Sort of like RoboCop but played with a softcore focus
Japan’s Takashi Miike gained a cult with a series of films that went to extremes or crossed way over taboo lines; his films from the mid-2000s have become more experiments that produce a head-scratching “huh?”. Case in point being this Yakuza vampire film that frequently feels like much of it was being made up on the spot
If Hayao Miyazaki ever follows through on his threat to retire, the one most likely inheritor would be Mamoru Hosoda. This is a perfectly enjoyably film that is sort of The Karate Kid by way of Disney’s The Jungle Book
Parasyte Part 1 was a manga adaptation filled with wild effects sequences – imagine The Thing relocated to a Japanese high school. This sequel is an even better film that expands the characters and ideas in quite fascinating directions
Anime set in a disquiet utopia where the populace is monitored by cyber implants. Almost completely eschewing the usual action scenes of sf anime, this tells a strong, intelligent and character-driven story
Another anime film in the Ghost in the Shell series, this was a theatrically released fifth episode of the Ghost in the Shell: Arise reboot series
Bizarre Japanese copy of Battle Royale by way of American Idol where a group of schoolgirls from a singing competition are trapped on an island where they must play a deadly card game
The two most popular Japanese horror franchises of the last 15 years come together to fight it out. Both series work on the provision of intensely uncanny effect but brought together the result is diluted at best, while aspects have to be altered in order to make the two merge together in one story
Another of the gonzo Japanese splatter films about a schoolgirl who tries to go about her schoolday while fighting off mutant cyborgs with the chainsaw she carries
The 29th of the Japanese Godzilla films. Coming after the longest gap in the series to date, this functions as a complete reboot of the original. Godzilla is reconceived as a fearsome creation amid epic mass destruction and what are hands down the best effects of any film in the series
Studio Ghibli’s first ever international co-production. A desert island castaway fantasy, this makes interesting comparison to the recent Robinson Crusoe/The Wild Life, even if both films are poles apart in style. This is dialogueless, spare and contained with a minimalism of plot and drama
Makoto Shinkai is a rising name of acclaim in anime. This starts as a regular light and fluffy piece about a boy and a girl who keep waking up in each other’s bodies but then expands out into a wholly different story, gaining unexpected emotional depths as it does
Takashi Miike delivers a completely madcap film about evolved cockroaches on Mars being fought by astronauts who take doses of mutagenic serum to give them insect-based super-powers
Anime film released to accompany the latest version of the computer game. This is dazzling, epic-sized animation, mocapped in photorealistic detail that wows the eye on a scale that Western animators never come near. Less convincing is the setting that mixes standard fantasy with modern technology
The third film from former Studio Ghibli employee Hiromasa Yonebayashi. Yonebayashi is seen as the carrier of Hayao Miyazaki’s mantle, so much do his films look like lost Miyazaki works. This is sweet and amiable, even if it never hits the emotional heights Miyazaki does
An appealingly charming anime about the friendship between a lonely boy and a mermaid. She gains legs whenever music is playing and they form a pop band together
Meatball Machine was a film filled with bizarre bio-mechanical transformations battling it out. It started off the gonzo Japanese splatter genre, filled with mind-boggling mutations, over-the-top splatter, a surreal sense of humour and an obsession with schoolgirls in panties. This is a sequel. directed by that film’s effects creator
The idea of a zombie film all shot in a single take. This proves a novelty amusement but then the film spins this on its head and becomes positively ingenious.
Kiyoshi Kurosawa is a director who specialises in cryptic spooky horror films. This is a sequel to his earlier alien invasion film Before We Vanish about aliens come to steal concepts from people’s minds
Live-action adaptation of the popular manga and anime series. Despite having a reasonable budget thrown at it and treating the source material with fathfulness, this looks awkward on the screen
Cinematic madman Takashi Miike takes on a live-action adaptation of one of Japan’s longest running mangas
The 30th Japanese Godzilla film, this is the first anime Godzilla film and the first in a trilogy. More disappointingly, it is more a space opera and planetary adventure than it is ever a Godzilla film
Japan’s Kiyoshi Kurosawa is known for his intensely uncanny and bafflingly cryptic horror films. Here he makes an alien invasion film, although a minimalist and very different one that proves quite fascinating
Live-action adaptation of a manga about a teenager who becomes part of a secret world of flesh-eating ghouls. The set-up comes with some imagination but the film suffers from an uninvolving story and a reliance on unconvincing CGI
An extraordinary anime adapted from Project Itoh, a conceptually challenging concerning a villain who can manipulate language to drive populations to genocide
Takashi Miike’s 100th film, the adaptation of a manga about an immortal samurai. Miike bookends the film with awesome sequences with his hero battling hundreds of opponents but the film in between drags
Japanese director Ryuhei Kitamura creates a gripping survival thriller about a group trapped on a small stretch of road by a sniper
The live-action adaptation of a popular anime and manga, this takes place in an alternate history version of Japan where samurai fight following an alien invasion
This gets full marks for a WTF set-up, an anime that imagines Batman and most of the villains transplanted back to feudal Japan. There is fun to seeing the familiar characters reinterpreted in terms of Japanese imagery
The live-action adaptation of a manga about a teenager who inherits the powers of Soul Reaper and is thrust into a battle against monstrous supernatural entities
The concluding chapter in the trilogy of Godzilla anime films. This reintroduces two familiar monsters but takes a long time to build to the monster bash we have come to see
The second of the anime Godzilla films and a much more successful film than its predecessor. The reconceptions of some of the classic monsters has a dazzling ambitiousness while Godzilla appears with all the ferocity it should have had in the first film
Beautifully made Mamoru Hosoda film that was nominated for the Best Animated Film at Academy Awards about a young boy jealous of the loss of parental attention that the arrival of a baby sister brings who is then visited by her future self and travels through time to meet his family at different periods in time
Japanese film that has overtones of Sliding Doors as a man finds he leads two different parallel lives
From Makoto Shinkai who made Your Name., a lovely anime about a girl who can control the weather
One Cut of the Dead was one of the freshest and most hilariously original takes on the zombie film of recent. This is a sequel
The thirteenth film in the Ring/Ringu franchise. The question is whether the return of original director Hideo Nakata can revitalise the series
Charming anime from Hayao Miyazaki’s son Goro about a young girl adopted into a witch’s strange household. The occasion where Studio Ghibli made the switch over to computer animation
A sweet and quite lovely anime where a girl befriends the boy she pines after being offered a mask that transforms her into a cat body – only to then have her own body stolen
Robert Heinlein’s time travel novel gets a surprisingly faithful adaptation from Japan. This keeps the story’s double structure that tells one story and then with considerable conceptual dexterity reveals another hidden in the margins
Japanese remake of the Vincenzo Natali film where a group of people wake up in mysterious labyrinth of identical cubed rooms filled with death traps
A beautiful anime from Momoru Hosoda that retells Beauty and the Beast and spins it in SF terms as tale about a girl who finds fame as a singer in Virtual Reality
Takashi Shimizu, the director of the Ju-on/The Grudge films, conducts an adaptation of a manga about a man who undergoes a trepanning operation and emerges able to see people’s inner traumas given symbolic expression
A Japanese-made variant on the oft-used Groundhog Day timeloop theme that pushes things well into horror movie territory
Beautifully made anime about a young girl and a three-legged chair on a quest to close a series of portals across Japan and prevent unimaginable chaos emerging
Reboot of the old Japanese superhero series, conducted with the epic scale, mass destruction and dazzling effects of the more recent Godzilla films
The concluding chapter of the trilogy of live-action Fullmetal Alchemist films, this follows the manga’s storyline closely and brings the series to an epic conclusion
Peculiar but very nicely made anime about a group of children who go on a fantastical journey in an abandoned apartment building that is washed away to sea
Multiverse films are all the in-thing in superhero films right now. This anime is a treatment of multiverse themes far away from superheroics that works beautifully in its sophistication of ideas
Anime in which Tokyo is covered by a mysterious energy bubble of alien origin and of a group of defiant youths who live on in its midst until the appearance of a mystery girl
An amusing take on the Japanese Monster Movie that takes place in the aftermath of a monster battle as various government agencies debate what do with the carcass of a giant monster lying in the countryside
The first of two sequels to the live-action Fullmetal Alchemist. The first felt uninspired but this and the third film expand the saga and its storyline out with considerable depth
The 33rd Japanese Godzilla film and the one to receive the greatest acclaim of any in the series so far, including the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. This takes the series back to the beginnings
The twelfth film from Hayao Miyzaki at age 82, a quasi-autobiographical if a slightly less classic work. A renaissance of many Miyazaki themes as a boy follows a heron though into a strange fantasy otherworld
A very strange Japanese-made blend of fairytale and detective story that takes place in the realm of fairytale where Little Red Riding Hood turns detective to solve a murder at Cinderella’s ball
Anime that is a variant on Groundhog Day about a town that becomes caught in a time pocket following an industrial accident with the residents forced to live in the same day
A reboot of the classic Japanese tv series about a superhero who goes into action on a motorcycle using a suit to transform into a grasshopper being
A Japanese entry in the Gonzo Killer Shark film fad with sharks invading a hot springs and emerging out of hot tubs. This has been greeted as a new cult movie
A spinoff prequel to the Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films that takes the option that several other film/videogame franchises have of Going Anime