Horror, Fantasy & Science Fiction Films
Veteran CFQ journalist Lawrence French takes you deep into the dark and dreamy world of horror, fantasy, and science fiction films.
THE TIME TRAVELER’S WIFE is a wildly romantic love story that can easily be seen as an exercise in the old surrealist concept of L’ Amour Fou, the kind of mad love that defies all the conventions of society. In this film, it is made even more surrealistic by the additional twist of two lovers …
Criterion’s Blue-ray and DVD edition of Alain Resnais’ LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD is now out, right on the heels of the 87-year old director’s latest film, WILD GRASS , which has received rave reviews at the recent Cannes film festival. Unfortunately, given the sad state of foreign film exhibition in America, it seems probable that like most of Resnais’ last eight films, WILD GRASS will not even be distributed to American cinemas! Luckily, Kino Video has recently put four of the missing Resnais films out on DVD. With that in mind, we offer some notes on selected Resnais films with themes that relate to cinefantastique.
Christopher Lee is celebrating his 87th birthday today, and it appears that the icon of screen terror is busier than ever. He has finished roles in several movies that have yet to be released, including a large part opposite Colin Farrell in TRIAGE, directed by Danis Tanovic (an Oscar winner for NO MAN’S LAND). He …
I think films (like Terminator Salvation) strive to achieve in two areas: On a very visceral level, bringing you a lot of special effects explosiveness and fun, because that is what you want from a Terminator movie, but also, it will have more resonance if you have interesting themes. We have a theme about the …
Read More “Terminator Salvation – Science Fiction Film Review”
If you asked me what I thought Ray’s greatest achievement was, I’d say that in my mind it has been his whole life, his entire career. He is the finest animator that ever existed. —Ray Bradbury Ray Harryhausen’s latest book, A Century of Stop Motion Animation (Watson–Guptill) arrived in bookstores last November without much fanfare; …
I’m quite sure the new re-make of Wes Craven’s The Last House on the Left will immediately raise questions about whether we really needed to re-visit this violent revenge story. I was certainly never a fan of the original movie, which I found to be nearly unwatchable, mostly due to its amateurish acting and camerawork, …
Read More “Supernal Dreams: Wes Craven on 'glorifying violence' in "Last House on the Left"”
Mystery is the essential element in every work of art. I will never grow tired of repeating this. –Luis Bunuel to Elena Powinatowska, 1961 “Luis Bunuel’s The Milky Way has the form of a lovely fantasy … a livelier fantasy than The Wizard of Oz. ” –Vincent Canby, The New York Times In 2006 I …
Read More “Supernal Dreams: Jean-Claude Carriere on Luis Bunuel's Sublime Fantasy, "The Milky Way"”
As is usual for animated films, CORALINE was completely storyboarded, allowing for a great deal of thought about where the camera should go for each and every one of its approximately 1,500 shots. This careful pre-planning allowed director Henry Selick to come up with some beautiful camera moves (and angles), as well as determine the …
Read More “SUPERNAL DREAMS: CORALINE in 3-D "looks so much better with the glasses!"”
Henry Selick’s film of Neil Gaiman’s book ranks alongside the classics of fantasy filmmaking 10 years ago, in February, 1999, Cinefantastique celebrated the 100th anniversary of stop-motion with the publication of a special double issue. At the time, it looked very much like stop-motion might be poised to go the way of the dinosaur, as …
Read More “Supernal Dreams: Enter the enchanted world of CORALINE”
Having recently received a copy of Richard Klemensen’s Little Shoppe of Horrors magazine devoted to the history of Amicus films ( #20), I found myself absolutely delighted. What we get in 100 beautiful pages is essentially a a book length study as written by Amicus expert Philip Nutman. In fact, in a way, it’s too …
Read More “Supernal Dreams: Little Shoppe of Horrors #20 – A History of Amicus films”