The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
This refers to any films concerning journeys within the Solar System with the exception of more popular venues such as The Moon, Mars and Venus, which all get their own separate entries.
Journeys of Space Exploration, while plentiful in genre cinema, have tended to focus on the immediate neighbours Mars and Venus. Mercury and the outer planets have not been visited as much, although there are some examples. The most common destinations are Jupiter and Saturn, each no doubt due to their distinctive looks and features.
One or two films of the 1950s/60s era of Space Exploration featured landings on these worlds but most depictions come adherent with modern known scientific realities. Some films feature explorations and colonisation of Jupiter and Saturn’s moons, while alien objects or artefacts have been known to turn up in their orbits.
The asteroid belt is another locale. There are some films about asteroid mining, although asteroids that appear in genre works are usually ones whose paths are disturbed sending them on a collision course with Earth, along with assorted meteors and comets.
There have been a several works dealing with the discovery of a Counter-Earth – a planet that is in the same orbit as Earth on the opposite side of the sun, where this is frequently (unscientifically) seen as a parallel or mirror Earth. There are also one or two other works dealing with the discovery of a tenth planet.
In the same vein as Gravity and The Martian, this depicts spaceflight with scrupulous scientific regard. Essentially Apocalypse Now in space with Brad Pitt on a mission to Neptune to find his father who has gone rogue
The Asylum’s mockbuster answer to the Tom Cruise film Edge of Tomorrow, which has very little to do with it other than both featuring an alien invasion. A film created with more ambition than budget to convey it
There have been a host of works about artificial intelligence in recent years. This is a worthwhile entry in the field about the relationship between a man and an android on a space mission
Alien crossbred with The Crazies. Jason London and Missy Crider are crewmembers on a spaceship affected by an alien contaminant that makes them turn homicidal
Another of the DC animated films, based on a work that reinterpreted Superman. This is somewhat bitsy in condensing a 12-issue series to a 73-minute film but holds some moments of great writing
Genre-bending film that mixes B movie space opera cliches with rock’n’roll and a David Lynch-ian sense of surrealism. Interesting but the film left me scratching my head trying to get a handle on it
Film based on a full-length Swedish SF poem that concerns the despair, emptiness and strange societies that emerge among those aboard a spaceship that is thrown off course
An indie hit starring/co-written by Brit Marling that is a well-played mumblecore drama about redemption and loneliness. On the other hand, the central premise of a mirror Earth is preposterous science-fiction
A film that relentlessly celebrates its own brainlessness. Michael Bay directs an asteroid collision film amid plenty of loud noise, mass destruction, flag-waving patriotism and resolute heroism
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 fifth of the Gamera films, Japanese monster movies that are made for children. This abandons the relative realism of the earlier films for a colourful silliness with frequently lunatic results
One of Francis Ford Coppola’s earliest films. Roger Corman has obtained rights to a Russian-made space expedition film and handed it over to Coppola who added a few extra scenes to repackage for US audiences
The Asylum’s mockbuster take on Avatar: The Way of Water, which ingeniously exploits the fact that Saturn has a moon called Pandora. The rest is a low-budget body snatchers film
A highly ambitious film about a mysterious alien portal that appears in Earth orbit and the attempts to explore what is on the other side
The feature film spinoff of a cult anime tv series
The perfect film for the Covid era. A devastatingly on the ball satire on the ineptitude of people’s response in the face of an extinction level threat to the Earth from an oncoming comet as government agencies tries to minimise the news
Incredibly cheaply made film about astronauts on a spaceship to Venus who survive the destruction of the Earth. So cheap that most of the film takes place on two sets
Gerry Anderson was best known for his puppet tv shows. This was his first film with live actors based around the absurd notion of a space expedition to a planet on the far side of the sun that is a mirror opposite of the Earth
A groundedly realistic film about an expedition to search for life on Europa that that emerges as a disappointment coming soon after the similar space-based Gravity
Paul W.S. Anderson puts together a well-produced and atmospheric copy of Alien, However, this also comes with a premise – spaceship returns after travelling through Hell – that is nonsensical
One among a sub-genre of 1950s outer space sex fantasies where astronauts encounter all-women planets and sort them out with some good lovin’, Cat Women of the Moon is held as the Z movie of this genre but this is an even cheaper
An ultra low-budget film about a man on a space journey returning to Earth to find it invaded by aliens. This tries to do Mad Max and Star Wars on the budget of about $1.99
Classic anime space opera adventure made not long after Star Wars and filled with moments of glorious visual poetry including the conceptually absurd image of a spacegoing train
Japanese comedy with various humans and aliens interacting around an interstellar burger restaurant on the road from Earth, although none of it seems that funny
This could be considered the Michael Bay version of Ancient Egyptian mythology, a film buried under numbing CGI overkill. For all that, Alex Proyas gives it a loopy grandeur that you can’t entirely dislike
Cannon Films adaptation of John Norman’s series of books. The books come with heavy BDSM content but this is a planetary adventure about a professor transported to become a hero on a barbarian planet
One of the other films from Godzilla creator Ishiro Honda. This has been incorrectly identified as a Japanese giant monster film but is mostly a colourful space opera about a rogue planet
Cheesily entertaining film about a crew aboard a space station fighting off an alien monster. Cited as one of the films that influenced Alien. With a screenplay co-written by Batman co-creator Bill Finger
I hate the Ice Age films and their tediously extruded adventures. The opening sequence here and its ignorance of even basic science is the most inane thing in the entire series
A space film set aboard a NASA space mission as two stranded astronauts debate whether to surrender to mutual attraction. In contrast to realistically grounded efforts such as Gravity, The Martian et al, this is a comedy
Georges Melies’ successor to A Trip to the Moon featuring a journey to the sun by astronauts aboard a combination train-submarine-dirigible. A charming whimsy with remarkably technically accomplished effects for the era
Throwback to 1950s films like The Quatermass Xperiment with Alex Rebar as an astronaut infected with a condition that causes his flesh to melt. A B movie boosted by great melting effects from Rick Baker
This could be Christopher Nolan’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. But where Kubrick was cold and oblique, this is a 2001 with a heart. A pleasure to see a film rooted in credible science and dealing with high concept SF
A Japanese SF film with Sonny Chiba as superhero fighting off alien invaders. This has a tatty cheapness that takes it well and truly places into bad movie territory.
Despite the title, this is not set on Jupiter’s moon but is strictly earthbound. It is one of the new genre of Cli-Fii (or Climate Fiction) works set in an interesting environmentally devastated future
A low-budget SF film that prefigures Solaris and displays some imagination as astronauts land on a planet to find familiar things recreated from their memories
The Wachowskis set out to make a space opera adventure in the Star Wars vein. As always, the elevate every genre they take on and the film is packed with astonishing action sequences and wild, mind-expanding ideas
The first film from Bert I. Gordon, known for his cheap giant animal films through the 1950s. This concerns a space expedition to a planet inhabited by dinosaurs – cue Gordon’s usual cheap effects
An adaptation of the Olaf Stapledon novel that depicts the future evolution of humanity billions of years into the future. This defies every rule of good filmmaking and is still a spellbinding film
French film about Earth endangered by an oncoming moon and how only one man can save the world. This seemed it might be something culty – before the mind-bogglingly bizarre science becomes apparent
An impressively designed Quebecois sf film where it is it is sad to see so much artistry lavished on something completely nonsensical and utterly woolly-headed in terms of its ideas
Lars von Trier’s exploration of his depression continues in this nihilistic end of the world film. It is bleak and relentless but the characters are opaque in their motivations. Somehow I prefer von Trier back in agent provocateur mode
Melies Cinemagician is a special screening of a selection of films from Georges Melies presented by Vancouver’s Vancity Theater to celebrate the 150th anniversary of his birth. The show was a live performance involving a score composed especially for the event, displays of conjuring tricks and a magic lantern show. The same year also saw […]
George Clooney starred in Gravity and now directs/stars in his own scientifically grounded space film about the last man trying to communicate with a surviving space mission following a catastrophe event on Earth
The sixth Godzilla film, the first where the series combines elements of space opera – a typical entry of the era and colourfully entertaining about it too
Obscure work of Soviet era SF. Clearly influenced by Stalker, this concerns an investigation into a mysterious alien zone that has left astronauts with psychic powers. Most of the film drowns in endless discussion and an almost complete lack of drama
Muchly ridiculed Hammer film that was billed as a ‘Space Western’. Once one gets past that it is actually a far more interesting film than it suggests
Early silent film in which a motorcar travels so fast that it heads into orbit. One of the films from Walter R. Booth, a British imitator of Georges Melies, The effects are less sophisticated than Melies developed around this point but the film has its charms
This has the most ridiculous premise of any alien invasion film – an alien is abducting women from ads for models placed in girlie magazines – but is played with a stone-faced seriousness that defies you to laugh
I have raved elsewhere about Czech director Karel Zeman and his amazing blends of live-action and animation. This, his adaptation of a lesser-known Jules Verne work, is not quite up there with his earlier films but is an enjoyably colourful knockabout adventure
A West German-made film where a space mission to Jupiter returns only for the crew to find the Earth deserted. This captures something of the original Planet of the Apes in its better moments
The film‘s Space Western idea aside – the plot is High Noon transplanted into orbit – this is a solid and well-made science-fiction film with Sean Connery as a long marshal on Jupiter’s moon Io
Ambitious if not entirely successful film with Harvey Keitel building a robot that proceeds to go amok on a moonbase inhabited by Kirk Douglas and Farrah Fawcett
Classic SF film from effects man Douglas Trumbull, one that spins 2001: A Space Odyssey with a conservationist bent. Slightly loopy in terms of its science, the design and effects have a grandeur
Quite a good film about a space expedition where the crew members on a mission to Saturn fall into an increasing paranoia and inability to tell what is real due to the drugs used in the hypersleep process
Ambitious SF film about a space expedition to save the Sun, this bombed at the time but is not uninteresting
In the vein of realistic space films like Gravity and The Martian, this is a lower-budgeted effort about a man in an escape pod on a collision course with the sun and the attempts to rescue him
This low-budget British effort seems to be making a good start as a film that deals with space travel realistically only to bog down in one of the most incomprehensible plots one has ever sat through
South Korean space opera about a crew of space junk collectors. If the Star Wars series wanted to find a director to create fresh and exhilarating effects scenes, they need look no further than here
Stuart Gordon takes a lame concept – a trucker film set in space – and makes something far more enjoyable than one expected with most of the cast getting into the spirit of the exercise
Adam Sandler plays a lone astronaut who befriends an alien. This falls somewhere between E.T. and Interstellar
Essentially a tv movie version of the Gerry Anderson film Doppelganger in which an astronaut comes around to find he is on a Counter Earth. The premise, an alternate history of sorts, is nonsensical and even then the film abandons it soon in to become a variant on The Fugitive
Danny Boyle and Alex Garland make a big serious SF film about a solar expedition, which works with great scientific rigour until the shows heads off at a tangent and falls apart in the latter third
An expedition is sent to Titan to investigate a ship that has failed to return and what has happened to its missing crew
SF effort from the UK’s Amicus Films with an ambitious plot about communication from the stars that manages to prefigure films like Contact and 2001. On the other hand, the film fails is in its pitiful and utterly inadequate special effects
Spacegoing film that follows the crew aboard a space station as they survive the destruction of the Earth
Conceptually highly ambitious SF film about humans being biologically modified in order to be able to live on Saturn’s moon Titan. After a highly promising beginning, the film falls apart in a badly cliched unethical scientist and lab experiment amok ending
The greatest science-fiction film ever made? Stanley Kubrick goes against all convention – the film is slow, has no clear story and reaches an enigmatic ending and yet it is a work of brilliance, both visually and in terms of effects technology
2001: A Space Odyssey did not need a sequel but this fits the bill surprisingly well. A warmer and much more human film than Stanley Kubrick made, this has some of the very best effects of its era.
Among the 1950s/60s spate of Jules Verne films, this was an adaptation of one of Vernr’s lesser-known works Hector Servadac/Off on a Comet. That said, all the but the notion of people swept up on a comet is thrown out and the rest played as a prehistoric lost world adventure
Jaume Balaguero of [Rec] fame returns with an occult horror where a woman on the run is drawn into sinister happenings at an apartment
Another excruciatingly bad mock exploitation film from Tony Watt, who may well be the world’s worst filmmaker. This mixes killer women, aliens, UFOs, Mafia into an incomprehensible mix
Chinese attempt to make a Roland Emmerich-type mass destruction spectacle about the moving of the Earth. Much effects spectacle but the film suffers from plain absurd science
One of the various Italian space operas of the 1960s from director Antonio Margheriti. This has a certain colourful ambition despite frequently being let down by cheap effects
The first Japanese entry in the great alien invader fad of the 1950s. Nothing great but it does boast the awesomeness of starfish-shaped aliens
Low-budget Alien copy directed by makeup effects artist Gary J. Tunnicliffe with a plot that prefigures Armageddon as drillers uncover an alien nasty on an asteroid