Horror, Fantasy & Science Fiction Films
News, reviews, interviews, retrospectives, and editorials that take you behind the scenes of horror, fantasy, and science fiction films
David Lynch has often been quoted describing ERASERHEAD as “a dream of dark and troubling things.” Since that 1978 debut, he has gone on to adapt his dream-like sensibility to far more accessible narrative structures. No matter how arresting the imagery is in The Elephant Man and Dune, and no matter how weird things get in …
Read More “Interview: Barry Gifford Deciphers David Lynch's Labyrinthine "Lost Highway"”
This 1997 effort from David Lynch (co-written with Barry Gifford) is one of the director’s better efforts, but it failed to earn the same rapturous critical reception as BLUE VELVET. Reviewers seemed to see only a rehash of familiar Lynchian motifs, and ignored how expertly orchestrated and synthesized the themes had become in this film. …
By Dan Cziraky Is there some law that only DC Comics can make decent film adaptations of their comic books? After striking out with DR. GIGGLES and TANK GIRLS, Dark Horse Comics tries again, this time with futuristic female mercenary BARB WIRE. David Hogan’s film stars Pamela Anderson Lee’s breast, derriere, legs, and face. There …
“intense depiction of very bad weather”* Well, the film is out, and the reviews are in. Predictably, the critics carping over TWISTER’s alleged failings have proved that they don’t appreciate the wonders of cinema magic, for this movie is a wonder to behold. Working from a simple premise (storm chasers pursue tornadoes in the hope …
JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH may be fashioned from a variety of film-making techniques, but there is one intangible element that holds the film together: pure imagination. Springing to life first in the fertile mind of author Roald Dahl and then planted like a seed in the equally fertile mind of stop-mo¬tion director Henry Selick, …
Don’t be surprised if, much like the titular fruit, you feel you’ve been cast adrift in this live-action/stop-motion animated adaptation of the Roald Dahl children’s classic. The story of a boy’s fanciful trip to New York City, accom¬panied by the insect inhabitants of a massive peach, seems to have been a victim of an historic …
Existential angst in the form of cyberpunk anime from Japan. A form of artificial intelligence has become self aware, and now it`s seeking a way to escape from cyberspace into the real world. Ironically, the special forces tracking it down are formerly human beings whose bodies and brains have been so enhanced with modern technology …
It is no masterpiece, but after some of the schlock seen this year, it is nice to see a science-fiction horror film that delivers. Basically, this is “ALIEN on Earth,” featuring some of the best on-screen visualizations of H.R Giger’s work since Ridley Scott piloted the Nostromo to stratospheric box office success. The hunt-and-chase plot …
“Sugar” and “Spice” are not opposites. So why are they the names of Two-Face’s girlfriends (Drew Barrymore and Debi Mazar), when everything about him is supposed to be split into opposing dichotomies? Apparently, “Leather” and “Lace,” the monikers used in the script, were deemed to suggestive for the family audience Warner Brothers was trying to …
“Paradigm” was just another word for a model, but as scientists used it, the term meant something more, a world view. A larger way of seeing the world. Paradigm shifts were said to occur whenever science made a major change in its view of the world. -Michael Crichton, JURASSIC PARK In his novel Jurassic Park, …
Read More “JURASSIC PARK: Michael Crichton on Adapting his Novel to the Screen”