The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Hell is the place in The Afterlife where those who are sinful and wicked in their mortal existence are damned to suffer throughout eternity. Hell is the dominion that is ruled over by The Devil and his legions of Demons. It is usually depicted as a realm of fire.
The most distinctive depictions of Hell came in the various film versions of Dante’s Inferno (1308-21) where Hell is seen as a series of circles where the damned are tortured in a manner befitting their sins in life.
By and large with a couple of exceptions, Light Fantasy films of the 1940s avoided depiction of Hell and The Devil. Since then there have been various depictions, often in a comedic vein. There have been a number of depictions of Hell in a horror context. It in itself is rarely visited but people are constantly coming across doorways and gateways leading to it, summoning demons or The Devil, or banishing others there.
There has been some depictions of Heaven from different cultures, notedly Chinese and Japanese, as well as Hades from Greek Mythology, and even few depictions of Hell in a science-fiction context.
One of the earliest films from Charles Band. In the years following, Band went onto produce and occasionally direct a great many often enterprisingly cheap low-budget genre films – this is not one of them
Classic film about a lawyer arguing in court to save a man who has sold his soul to The Devil. On screen, this is turned into a highly entertaining sentimentalised Frank Capra-type film about American greatness
Saw series director Darren Lynn Bousman makes a rock musical about a war between a gaudily exotic Heaven and Hell. A full-length expansion of Bousman’s earlier short film
One of the films from the 1940s fad for light afterlife fantasies in which mobster Paul Muni is sent back from Hell by The Devil in the body of a respectable judge to create mischief
Horror film where Ashlyn Yennie wakes up in a hospital filled with sinister happenings including people being maimed and then regenerated
The Brothers Dowdle made the standout The Poughkeepsie Tapes but this is a sub-Da Vinci Code archaeological mystery that is little more than a Halloween haunted house attraction in the Paris catacombs
One of the key films of cult Italian director Lucio Fulci, a gore-drenched but plotlessly incoherent mishmash about zombies emerging as the gates of Hell are opened
The two time-travelling slackers are back after nearly thirty years and the film amusingly sees them having reached uneasy middle-age. But was the wait worth it?
The sequel to Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure where the first film’s humour gets lost amid repetition and blown up by a big-budget. William Sadler’s Death however proves a scene-stealer
Disney’s attempt to join the post-Star Wars SF boom proved a flop that flounders in bad writing and ponderous pretensions. On the other hand, it is almost worth watching for the stunning design and effects
This was Hollywood’s first film featuring an all-Black cast, a musical in which enjoys from both Heaven and Hell come down to engage in a war over a man’s soul
An Irish horror film that generates undeniably mysterious atmosphere after a family move into a new house and the teenage daughter disappears after going down into the cellar
My introduction to Wu Xia – imagine some vision of Kwaidan as directed by Sam Raimi, filled with sensationally beautiful and out of this world imagery and completely nutsoid fantastical battles with ghosts and demons
One of the key films in the cult of Lucio Fulci, a zombie film driven by a series of gore-drenched set-pieces. On the other hand, there is the complete lack of a plot holding everything together
Heavily disappointing remake of the Ray Harryhausen film where the replacement of Harryhausen’s stop-motion animation with CGI fails to achieve any magic
Adaptation of DC’s Hellblazer comic-book that gets the Hollywood treatment where all of the character’s background and look has been thrown out and the part badly miscast with Keanu Reeves
The Dc Comics character John Constantine was made into an animated web series that was compiled as this film. One is quite taken aback at how much more edgy and adult this is than most of DC’s animated offerings
An extraordinary find, the first ever feature film, a depiction of Dante’s Inferno and a descent down to visit the damned in Hell conducted with an incredible ambition for the time the film was made
Silent movie version of Dante’s classic poem. Dante is suborned into a miser’s redemption story but it is the wild mediaeval visions of Hell and the tortures of the damned we have come to watch the film for
Dante Aligheri’s famous poem is dragged down to a tatty morality play with Spencer Tracy as a carnival barker running an Inferno exhibit. The film is worth watching for its stunning hallucinatory vision of Hell
Modernised version of the classic journey though Hell conducted with cardboard puppets – a uniquely appealing experiment peppered with a number of biting contemporary jibes
One of the better films to emerge from Full Moon, the story of a female demon who escapes to Earth and becomes a vigilante defender of the innocent. Rather well done with Angela Featherstone being particularly otherworldly
The underrated Victor Salva, director of Jeepers Creepers, takes on the deviltry and occult film where with his ability to conjure eerie jumps and outlandish images produces something original and out of this world
Incredibly unfunny comedy in which a teenager sells his soul to the Devil. As The Devil, Kevin Pollak lets all stop loose in a mind-bogglingly over-the-top performance
A Woody Allen film in which he plays a writer on his way to receive an award. The film drifts in and out of a series of vignettes and stories he has written, including a number of fantastic interludes, with highly amusing effect
Dreary Disney live-action comedy that casts Bill Cosby as The Devil who tasks a hapless Elliott Gould with trying to find redemption by getting three innocents to sell their souls
This has an insane plot about Satanists stealing the Shroud of Turin to clone a body to incarnate The Devil and a priest possessed by the archangel Michael wading into action with a glowing sword
Classic 1970s porn film about a spinster condemned to Hell who is sent back to the world to experience the lusts of the flesh. Made back at a time when the people involved seemed to care about making a good film as well
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
Ingmar Bergman comedy in which The Devil sends Don Juan to tempt a vicar’s wife. A minor Bergman entry where he seems unsuited to directing comedy and allows his usual weighty philosophical preoccupations to intrude
Essentially a supernatural version of a 1970s car chase movie with Nicolas Cage as a motorist who has escaped from Hell to settle a score. This makes a play for the trashy and absurd and comes out all the more entertaining for it
The 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
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
Troma film that ventures back into their regular bad taste territory. This often feels like a film that never coheses into a particularly clear idea of what it is trying to do, possibly the result of six different directors
F.W. Murnau’s version of the classic tale of an aging scholar selling his soul to the Devil for youth and love is one of the most fabulous pieces of pure cinema to come out of the German Expressionist era
One of Rankin-Bass’s animated films, this has an ambitious epic fantasy plot with original themes about the line between science and magic, although this is undone by Rankin-Bass’s limited animation
Cultishly bizarre, deliberately offbeat and wacky film that was made as a vehicle for the band Oingo Boingo. More a film you admire for its determination to be strange than anything else
Film about an amnesiac man trying to piece his disturbing past together amid a series of surreal nightmares. This ends up not nearly as interesting as you feel it could have been
Film with people trapped in a mysterious labyrinth, which may be Hell, where they are required to eliminate one another in order to survive. Aka Game of Assassins
A popular hit in which Patrick Swayze is killed and becomes a ghost. Bruce Joel Rubin’s script has enormous fun in interpreting aspects of the ghost story from the ghost’s point-of-view.
TV mini-series based on the Neil Gaiman/Terry Pratchett novel that spoofs The Omen and Biblical End Times prophecies. The series is very close to the book as though it didn’t want to edit any precious gag
The first of the Hellraiser sequels. This lacks Clive Barker’s original dark obsessive vision but is worthwhile in its own right, expanding the scope of the story out into a magnificent vision of Hell
The Hellraiser sequels begin their descent to mediocrity. Clive Barker’s original vision of dark, forbidden pleasures has been watered down and the Cenobites become little more than campy variations on Freddy Krueger
The fifth Hellraiser sequel and the only one among the last four worth watching. It brings back Ashley Laurence but abandons the Cenobites for a fascinating series of reality bending games
The film that put the name of Clive Barker on the map. A work of considerable imagination where Barker delves into forbidden pleasures and fuses the film with S&M imagery for the memorable creations of the Cenobites
Fourth of the Hellraiser films. This attempts to tell a story set in three different eras but was subject to much studio interference that waters the vision down to something forgettable
Fifth and best of Hellraiser sequels after Clive Barker bowed out. Scott Derrickson made his directorial debut here and infuses the series with some of the wild imagery and perverse darkness that Barker gave the original
The ninth of the
An incredibly bad Hercules film from Cannon Films made in Italy by Luigi Cozzi. This was the immediate aftermath of Star Wars so we get a bizarre attempt to rework Greek mythology as science-fiction
Known under a host of different titles, this is one of the better Italian Hercules films of the 1960s. The great Mario Bava adds vivid atmosphere. With Christopher Lee as the villain
A witty afterlife comedy, a modernised retelling of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice where Chad Lowe drives down the highway to hell to rescue his girlfriend
After his extraordinary breakthrough with Tetsuo: The Iron Man, Shinya Tsukamoto went onto make this altogether lighter film about demon hunters, filled with bizarrely wacky imagery and way-out effects
Lars von Trier, who I would argue is the best director at work in the world, makes a film about a serial killer. The results, as you might expect from von Trier, are outrageous, blackly funny and challengingly provocative
A very lightweight made-for-tv comedy where a nerdy teen signs a pact with a desperate agent of The Devil that offers him cool and the girl of his dreams
A fascinating Japanese film that imagines a man having to descend into Hell, designed along the lines of Dante’s Inferno, to save the soul of his loved one. The depiction of Hell is filled with luridly surreal scenes
One of the DC Universe Original Animated Movies. Though sold as a Justice League film, this principally serves to introduce the Teen Titans to the animated universe. Despite your expectation of a very crowded film, this works well with its juggle of characters
Directorial outing from Freddy Krueger himself Robert Englund who makes the horror equivalent of a frat comedy where three guys rent a palatial home and throw a party as a portal to Hell opens in the basement
The experiment to bring someone back from the dead has been trod many times before – think something that falls somewhere between Flatliners and Pet Semetary – and this only rehashes it in tired and unimaginative ways
The Adam Sandler comedy and its pitch to the most vulgar common denominator is an acquired taste. This not very funny effort casts Sandler as The Devil’s Son
Painfully dull and uneventful film where almost nothing happens – and even when it does, there seems no clear reason why it is happening. The film is almost redeemed by an effective twist ending ripped off from The Sentinel
Fascinating artifact from the silent era. One of the original Italian muscleman films in which the titular strongman is whisked down to Hell where efforts are made to seduce him into staying
Madcap Hong Kong comedy starring Stephen Chow as a man sent back down from the afterlife to get three people to repent of their ways. Full of deliriously crazed action and slapstick
Produced on a budget of $1000, this is a miracle of no-budget filmmaking. Intended as a homage to/parody of 80s/90s cyborg action films, this contains some extremely accomplished effects posing and a sidesplitting ear for the era’s dialogue cliches
One of the forgotten Ealing comedies, a weak effort that rails against the evils of the then new medium of television
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 […]
Reboot of the videogame-adapted film series emerges as a kinetic and enjoyable effort clearly designed to introduce an ongoing franchise
Drawing very clear influence from Clive Barker and Saw, this is a delve down into perverse fetish, gateways to Hell and bizarre hallucinations. After watching the film through twice, I still remain confused to what it was all about
Erotic horror as the demon Lilith attempts to take over a fashion magazine
Riding on his fame as Freddy Krueger in the Elm Street films, actor Robert Englund made his directorial debut here but the film is lumbered with the lame concept of a demonic phone line
Promising film about two people at a mine in the desert affected by what would appear to be the drill having dug all the way down to Hell. The film plays a corny idea seriously and sits in an interestingly ambiguous place about what is going on.
A sequel to the Gonzo Killer Shark film Ouija Shark, this goes even crazier
Chris Columbus seeks to emulate the success of the Harry Potter films with this adaptation of a Young Adult series about the children of Greek gods. The film falls apart due to Columbus’s typical banal cues and effects overkill
A sequel to R.I.P.D. that tells an origin story of how the sheriff character played by Jeff Bridges in the original became an afterlife enforcement officer
Sequel to the madcap Hong Kong fantasy Peacock King with Gloria Yip as a hell demon trying to adjust to living on Earth, which then turns into a comedy variant on Gremlins
Christmas horror film with wrestler Bill Goldberg playing a demonic version of Santa Claus
Two couples on a road trip start to experience sinister happenings after witnessing a devil worship ceremony. Essentially Kalifornia meets Race with the Devil, this develops some modestly creepy effect
Musical adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol starring Albert Finney as Scrooge, this is made on a big budget, leading to an extravagant and often over-produced film
Michael Winner directs a film about a sinister apartment building but his typical crude and heavy-handed style fails to conjure anything remotely scary
A theatrical release spun off from tv’s cult absurdist/scatological show. Not as sophisticated as later seasons of the tv series but with a raucously wacky bite that is frequently hilarious
Very disappointing film adaptation of Todd MacFarlane’s cult comic-book where all of the moody darkness emerges with one-dimensional effect as little more than The Punisher with horns
Unfunny comedy in which husband and wife John Ritter and Pam Dawber are trapped in Hell, which consists of various parodies of popular tv shows
Mind-bogglingly bizarre documentary that conducts a tour of the bizarre practices of Chinese religion
Tales from the Hood was a horror anthology made by African American filmmakers that worked familiar horror themes in around race issues. It has developed a small cult reputation. This was the second of two sequels
Horror anthology with a specific focus around African-American issues. This conducts a fine revival of the anthology genre and delivers a series of episodes that are all solid and well above-average horror tales
Ghost story that seems to be intended to play to a more literary level than most of its contemporaries
The second and more sophisticated of the Ze do Caixao/Coffin Joe films with director Jose Mojica Marins as a diabolic undertaker who delights in inflicting a catalogue of tortures on the weak-minded
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
Low-budget independently made film that manages to effectively use a singe warehouse location to suggest a gateway to Hell
The directorial debut of Ryuhei Kitamura. A film premised on the idea of mashing the John Woo-styled gangster film up with the gore-drenched George Romero zombie film.
The fifth film of the Found Footage horror anthology series, including one episode that is among the best of the series so far
A strong and imaginative horror/Western hybrid set aboard a train before the realisation that it is travelling to Hell. Deft characterisations and some tight, electric confrontations make this work well
Vincent Ward is one of the least recognised great directors in the world. Here he creates an extraordinary vision of the afterlife in which he employs CGI to create a world that resembles classic artworks brought to life
Italian horror film featuring David Hasselhoff and Linda Blair that has little going for it bar some imaginatively gruesome deaths
Lush, visually extravagant Chinese-made Wu Xia film, shot with an epic widescreen eye that looks amazing. It falls down somewhat when the two leads become replaced by CGI and only look like the avatars from a videogame