The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Secret Societies refer to organisations who keep their existence hidden from the rest of the world. These are usually seen as wielding considerable power, often reaching the highest echelons of society and their influence is almost always malign. Such societies are believed to be highly secretive about their existence and will frequently kill those who betray their code or find evidence of their existence.
On screen and in fiction, such secret societies are frequently ascribed to running vast criminal networks. In genre material, other such societies can be found searching for magical/occult artefacts or running secret gladiatorial games.
For more detail and an overview of the genre see the Theme Essay Films About Secret Societies.
David Fincher tackles Chuck Palahniuk’s novel about secret brawling clubs. Maybe the only major studio film with an openly anarchist manifesto. Brilliant, incendiary, all over the map plotwise and thoroughly unique
Classic film and one of Roman Polanski’s finest works, the comically paranoid story of a housewife who increasingly comes to believe that the child she is pregnant with was fathered by The Devil
One of the classic films from producer Val Lewton concerning a secret society of Satanists. An oppressive atmosphere of gloom and morbidity hangs over the film and, as always with Lewton, it comes with striking directorial effects that play on the imagination
Extremely satisfying German medical thriller about a secret society that conducts illicit experiments. The film comes with a torturous suspense and goes way out on a limb in the gore department
One of the most conceptually ingenious tv mini-series ever created concerning a quest for objects from a mysterious hotel room that have been imbued with amazing powers.
An astonishingly bleak John Frankenheimer film in which a disillusioned middle-aged man is contacted by a secret organisation that rejuvenates him to become Rock Hudson
Michel Ocelot is one of the great underrated animators of the world. Here he makes an exquisite tribute to the Belle Epoque featuring appearances from names of the era and decked out in Steampunk inventions
The film that put the term Torture Porn on the map. Eli Roth determines to push boundaries with one of the most brutal films ever seen in mainstream release in the tale of tourists made prisoners at an East European hostel for paying clients to torture
Starkly effective Georgian-made film about a young man in need of money being drawn into an underground gambling ring that bets on games of Russian Roulette
This is one of the most twisted films I have ever come across in recent years in which a couple have their home invaded by a clown who makes them into his sexual playthings
A smart, intelligent tv mini-series that conducts a murder mystery that ranges between the 1890s and 2050s, before arriving at an ingenious and clever SF explanation
Undeniably effective film set in Manchester where a young man is drawn into a secret world of people that live on the edges of society and enjoy eating human flesh.
Fascinating directorial debut from Spanish director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo about a man drawn into an underground society where people bet on the luck quotient of others
Strong and effective film in which Daisy Edgar-Jones becomes involved with Sebastian Stan who then imprisons her intending to sell her flesh as meat
Ana Asensio, a Spanish immigrant, writes, directs and stars in a story about a cash-strapped Spanish immigrant who is forced to seek employment in a secret society in order to make ends meet (*)
Fifty girls have been abducted and are paired off and forced to fight to the death with their bare hands in an arena – essentially Saw by way of Girlfight. A tautly streamlined and grittily effective effort that succeeds modestly well at everything it sets out to do
The film that Hitman should have been concerning a secret world of super-powered assassins, revved up by out of this world visuals from Timur Bekmambetov
A spy action film starring Gal Gadot as a double agent. The film had its air stolen by Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning, nevertheless is filled with exhilarating action sequences and should have had a higher profile
Another of the DC Universe Original Animated Movies, this devoted to the character of Batman’s son Damian. Solid action, a well moving plot that makes good use of its characters, adding to a decent entry even if it is not up among the best of these animated DC films
Unfriended had a unique novelty approach – everything took place in one take where the film screen was a computer screen. You wonder what a sequel can add to this. The surprise is that we get a film even better than the original
Eccentrically oddball comedy in which a man discovers that his strange roommate may be a comic-book super-villain
Underrated film in which a woman in an asylum insists that her baby has been stolen from her womb and that she has psychic powers. Or equally possibly she is delusional. This sits on an ambiguous fence with some subtlety
Second in the trilogy of animated films dealing with Bruce Wayne’s son Damian who becomes the new Robin – this also adapts the massive Court of Owls crossover event, which provides a fascinating new nemesis for Batman
Robert Zemeckis film about an immortality treatment that digs a knife into Hollywood beauty treatments with a blackly funny knife. Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn have huge fun playing to the gallery and upstaging one another
The directorial debut for Brian Yuzna, this has a satiric and weirdly paranoid tone but what makes the film is its sensational display makeup effects involving a secret society of shapeshifting orgiasts
Animated adventure given over to Catwoman that comes with an appealing sense of humour that easily erases all memory of the Halle Berry film
Catholic horror film starring Heath Ledger miscast as a priest that flopped upon release. Despite confusion about how to sell the film, this is a fascinating piece of theological horror that plays out with an unusually strong and original script
This comes with an interestingly large canvas wherein an innocent chauffeur is drawn into wars between secret vampire clans that run Los Angeles
A Belgian film about a girl who moves in with her boyfriend and uncovers sinister secrets as she investigates the disappearance of the previous tenant
The first of several tv movies that later became the basis of a tv series about a team that collect mythic artifacts. An unapologetic copy of the Indiana Jones films on a lesser budget and surprisingly more fun than I expected it to be
An animated film based on both the Legion of Super-Heroes and Supergirl
Modest Australian film where Chantal Contouri is introduced to a secret vampire society that keeps human beings as cattle
In an era where horror has become safe and mainstream, where content is specifically marketed to PG-audiences, this film about a killer that strikes on Halloween comes with a ferocious gore-drenched enthusiasm
The Marvel onslaught continues with the resurrection of a martial artist superhero character from the 1970s, which becomes an energised action vehicle
A French police procedural where detectives are plunged into a series of bizarre murders involving a child sacrifice cult and a folk boogeyman. From the directorial duo who started the whole French Extremism movement with Inside
A satiric film based on Spike Lee’s idea of the Magical Negro, an African American who exists to deliver wisdom or magical influence to white people. This gets in some deftly amusing punches at US race relations
The most high-profile of three identically titled films to come out around the same time all based around the popularity of escape rooms. This generates fair tension and has a certain WTF quality as the characters pass through each scenario
A spinoff from the film version of Daredevil, this gives the comic-book character of the super-assassin Elektra her own film. This does not have a very good rap but comes with the benefit of some solidly exhilarating action scenes
A bizarre thriller where a husband and wife are imprisoned in a luxury house and forced upon threat of torture to improve their marriage
Film from low-budget director Rene Perez where a hitman who wears a beaten steel mask is pitted up against a hulking backwoods killer
This has the amusing idea of being a Martin for the Twilight era where a writer of vampire romances not at all modelled on Stephenie Meyer encounters a real vampire
This comes with much promise – rune-covered bodies found on a remote island, ritual murders and a secret society that believe they are the descendants of Celtic supermen – that you wonder what caused the filmmakers to let it slip through their hands
Actress Olivia Wilde creates a variant on The Stepford Wives set in an idyllic 1950s town where the women seem to be prisoners. Wilde is making a point about women’s issues but the plausibility of her SF scenario falls apart
A blatant copy of Saw, albeit without the Torture Porn sadism, with people imprisoned in a cellar forced to kill one another. An oddly unconvincing film that fails to generate any tension or even conviction
Ron Howard directed film version of Dan Brown’s phenomenally best-selling book. The book is historical nonsense woven into a fancifully absurd conspiracy theory (that people at the time managed to take seriously); Howard does no more than offer an illustrated version of the book
A film based on the so-called Smiley Face Killings, a series of theorised true-life serial killings. With a script by Bret Easton Ellis of American Psycho fame
Part of the attempt to reboot the G.I. Joe film series into a shared universe, this is a kinetically driven martial arts film
An oddity among the animated Batman films. This seems less another Batman film – Bruce Wayne gets more screen time than Batman, for instance – than it does a homage to the 1970s martial arts film
Big screen adaptation of the popular comic-strip superhero. This aims for the tone of an old fashioned serial adventure and is nicely mounted but crucially never comes to life.
Ira Levin’s original novel wherein the men of a town replace their wives with subservient android duplicates seems to have its satiric point blunted when it comes to the film adaptation
Frank Oz conducts a remake of The Stepford Wives, which becomes a broad comedy take on the gender wars in the modern world
Sequel to the 1994 Street Fighter film based on the videogame, this provides the wall-to-wall action that the first film needed but falls down with a wimpily miscast heroine
Adapted from a Young Adult series of books, this is a bland and utterly superficial film about a secret society of monster-hunting babysitters
The English-language remake of the Georgian 13 Tzameti about underground Russian Roulette gambling. This has an impressive cast line-up but lacks the stark tension of the original
I was very impressed with Daniel Stamm’s previous film The Last Exorcism; this was his follow-up – a brutal English-language remake of a Thai film where people are offered the challenge of engaging in increasingly more malicious and extreme acts to win large sums of money
Adaptation of the popular videogame that is lumbered with the game’s inherently uncinematic premise where people only sit around and watch what has already happened in the past
This reboot of the film series adapted from the popular videogame franchise is a mixed affair. On the plus side, the perpetually non-acting Angelina Jolie is replaced by Alicia Vikander who gives Lara Croft living, breathing emotions and actually gets to do engage in some proper tomb raiding
Did we need a prequel to the events of Rosemary’s Baby? The original one of the defining classics of the horror genre. Under producer Michael Bay Apartment 7A is just more IP churn
A clone of Donald Trump battles The Illuminati and the Egyptian god Anubis on Mars before travelling to Hell to sort out The Devil. The sheer dementia of the premise alone has one sitting down to watch
Difficult to find 1970s Canadian-made occult film that doesn’t quite live up to expectation. Mostly it is a police procedural and the devil worship cult angle only emerges as a left field ending in the last ten minutes.; Not tight enough as a detective story to fully work
Modern vampire movie that aims for a chic sophistication amid poses borrowed from MTV and other films
A girl moves into a new and welcoming apartment complex only to be imprisoned and tortured by her neighbours into following the code of moral precepts by which they live
Did the world ask for a prequel to the events of The Omen, explaining how Damien was born etc? It’s not an issue that has given me sleepless night, but it is a question the film sets out to answer anyway
Eli Roth’s sequel to his earlier hit, this emerges as a pallid copy of its predecessor, having merely changed the sexes of the protagonists and lacking the original’s gut-churning impact
A Found Footage film with a camera crew searching Halloween attractions for the most extreme haunt only to find something else. The film has a certain effect where we are not entirely sure what is real
Remake of a 1978 tv movie about occult rituals in a girl’s sorority house. A film directed and written without any real involvement by those responsible.
Follow-up to the 2014 US-made Godzilla. This introduces other monsters from the Japanese series and tries to create a shared universe. However, when the film is all massively-scaled mass destruction, it seems hard to root for the monsters
Christopher (Creep, Triangle, Black Death) Smith has become one of the most underrated genre directors so I was anticipating his first venture into tv but this disappointingly feels like only a commercial project. The cross-historical quest for the Holy Grail story reads like warmed over Da Vinci Code
Unbreakable was M. Night Shyamalan’s kitchen sink superhero film. Here he merges the characters from Unbreakable and Split to create his own shared universe. This could in effect be the kitchen sink version of The Avengers
One of the last gasps of the Anglo-horror cycle, this sets assorted deviltry and a series of Omen-styled novelty deaths in an English mansion
One of the spate of Frankenstein films to emerge in the 2023-4 period, this conducts an ambitious period-set follow-up to the original Mary Shelley story on a low budget
Guy Ritchie makes an adventure film that pays homage to Indiana Jones and a host of other works concerning the quest for the Fountain of Youth. A superficial film killed by its constantly distracting flip banter
Amid the 2010s spate of multi-director horror anthologies a la The ABCs of Death, V/H/S etc, this is a trio of tales from all German directors, the most well known of which is Jörg Buttgereit of Nekromantik infamy
Sequel to Mimesis, which had people trapped in a simulation of Night of the Living Dead, where this time people are trapped in a recreation of Nosferatu
Richard Elfman film about chic vampires who have become an elite living in Hollywood. Despite promise and some interesting ideas, this is ruined by an atrociously overacting cast
The one and only film produced by Christopher Lee’s production company, this sets up an interesting premise about a mysterious orphanage but fails to quite make it work
Sequel to the 2019 Escape Room. This does everything its predecessor did bigger and more elaborate to the point that basic believability goes out the window
The first film adaptation of the popular videogame was a big hit. It is a film largely premised around the personality mystique of Angelina Jolie. Outside of the Jolie presence, the film is a half-baked series of plot ends and action scenes taken from better films
Low-budget action film with Dolph Lundgren as a modern-day Knights Templar tasked with preventing The Devil returning to Earth at the millennium
A mini-series based on the classic comic-book masked hero but the attempts to modernise The Phantom for the post-Dark Knight era seem bizarrely awkward
A remake of the work that has been cited as the first slasher film. This is less a horror film than a horror film that has been hijacked by a political agenda, delivered with a relentlessly loud and damning misandrist tone
Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby was a classic film that popularised the modern interest in occult and deviltry on film; this sad remake is something that only parrots the cliches that have set in in the ensuing 46 years and clumsily mishandles all of Polanski’s comically edgy paranoia
Brian Yuzna’s adaptation of the cult comic-book is a disappointment that has tamed down any of the censorship-pushing controversy the original had and emerges as no more than a standard dark avenging superhero film
TV mini-series that turns the discovery of Tutankamun’s tomb into an Indiana Jones adventure. But everything is played with a constant barrage of one-liners and action sequences so silly you can’t take any of the show seriously
James Franco co-directs and stars as a sinister psychiatrist in a 19th Century asylum who subjects patients to drugs and mind control so they can play in elaborate orgies. Supposedly based on a true-life incident but considerably embellished, this fails entirely at making its setting convincing
A heist film that ends up in a mansion filled with grown-men who have diaper fetishes. And then things get really bizarre. Some films are so wild and insane they attain cult status. And then there are the wannabes
This feels like one of the numerous copies of Saw with eight people locked in a warehouse with video cameras implanted in their foreheads and told to that only one of them can leave alive
High concept action film with Mark Wahlberg discovering that he is a reincarnated soul engaged in a secret war through the ages
Remake of the classic tv movie with Shannen Doherty investigating her sister’s death among deviltry in a girl’s school
Third in the Hostel series, an indifferently piece of formula hackwork minus Eli Roth where suspension of disbelief is constantly being disrupted by absurdly contrived scenes that tweak with audience expectation
Ron Howard and Tom Hanks follow up their adaptation of The Da Vinci Code by turning to an earlier Dan Brown novel concerning conspiratorial goings-on in The Vatican but the show collapses amid absurdly contrived plotting
The reboot of the Mummy series emerges as a wannabe Michael Bay film where even star Tom Cruise plays second banana to the CGI eye candy. Equally, an attempt to jumpstart a shared universe out of Universal’s Famous Monsters with the inclusion of Dr Jekyll seems awkward
The premise of a group of adventurers seeking artifacts from fairytales has mild possibilities but is given zero conviction by anybody involved. A sub-Indiana Jones adventure that was made as a tv pilot
The second of three sequels to The Stepford Wives. I found the original implausible on any level and this is quadrupled when you get to replacing their children with android duplicates. A film that has been generated without anybody sitting and thinking about the premise on a practical level