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.
CLOVERFIELD has apparently been the recipient of a great deal of Internet hype, which I must confess, I was totally unaware of. In fact, I almost skipped seeing the film, thinking it might be just another awful fifties monster on the loose rip-off. However, on the basis of hearing that Phil Tippett’s Berkeley studio was …
32 years ago today, on December 24, 1975, we lost an artist many would agree was the the greatest film composer to ever set music to celluloid images: Bernard Herrmann. It’s also amazing that such a distinguished composer spent so much of his time working on movies of the fantastique. Remember, that Herrmann was composing during a time when genre films …
Director Francis Coppola stopped by the beautifully remodeled Sundance Kabuki Cinemas in San Francisco December 22 to answer questions from the audience after a screening of his lyrical new movie, YOUTH WITHOUT YOUTH. It is based on an allegorical novel by the Romanian philosopher, Mircea Eliade, and Coppola shot it (quite gorgeously) on locations throughout Romania. Coppola’s remarks offered …
Read More “Francis Ford Coppola on YOUTH WITHOUT YOUTH "A Tapestry of Illusion"”
I think digital 3-D offers an opportunity to do something as profound for today’s movie going audiences as the introduction of color and sound. This is the next big thing, and I think people are going to respond to really high quality 3-D images. Animated films and fantasy films really benefit from 3-D. You get …
Read More “Supernal Dreams: Lucas and Cameron high on Digital 3-D movies”
Warner Bros. long in the works re-make of I AM LEGEND hits theaters this Friday, and I found myself rather surprised to find it quite a sensation, as I truly expected it to be the typical Hollywood case of dumbing down the original novel. Of course, this third big screen version is still not very …
I recently watched John Brahm’s Hangover Square, a film I have long wanted to see, mostly due to hearing it’s superb score and piano concerto by Bernard Herrmann. Thanks to the beautiful new Fox DVD set of three John Brahm films, which also includes The Lodger (with music by Hugo Friedhofer) and The Undying Monster (with music …
Read More “Supernal Dreams: BERNARD HERRMANN score inspires SWEENEY TODD”
Joe Dante began his writing career in the sixties for Castle of Frankenstein magazine, and I think it would be safe to say that COF was quite influential on most of the writers who eventually ended up writing at Fred Clarke’s Cinefantastique magazine. However, Dante began his actual filmmaking career in the trailer dept. of …
Christopher Lee has been delighting aficionados of the genre since his appearance in Hammer’s Curse of Frankenstein fifty years ago. Since that time, Lee has gone on to enjoy the kind of late career success that eluded most of the other big genre movie stars. Unfortunately, the flip side to all the renewed interest in …
Read More “Supernal Dreams: CHRISTOPHER LEE – Now you see him… Now you don't”
With Warner Bros. impending release of I Am Legend, I recently checked out The Omega Man with Charlton Heston, the second abortive attempt at bringing Richard Matheson’s classic end of the world novel to the screen. That brought to mind a piece by columnist Marilyn Beck, claiming that Charlton Heston wanted to make the movie after …
Read More “Supernal Dreams: Richard Matheson on I AM LEGEND”
Ray Harryhausen and his films probably appeared on the cover of Cinefantastique more than any other person in the history of the magazine, so I thought it would be nice to update CFQ’s extensive past coverage of Harryhausen’s career with this interview which covers three of Ray’s recent projects: his two beautifully illustrated volumes from Billboard Books, written …