Cinefantastique Online

You are browsing the archives of 2008 February.

THE LOST – a low-budget independent film that has been figuratively lost in distribution limbo since its completion in 2005 – finally finds its way into the Laemmle’s Sunset 5 Theatre in West Hollywood, California, for a one-week run starting today. Based on a book by Jack Ketchum, who is listed as one of the executive producers, this blood-stained, [...]

PENELOPE – the modern fairy tale about a young woman who must find true love to overcome a curse which had her born with the snout of a pig – opens today. The film has earned a 56% approval rating in a survey of 54 reviews (30 fresh, 14 rotten). That is just shy of [...]

This retelling of the epic poem about a monster-slaying hero unites computer-generated imagery with live-action performances through the magic of motion-capture. Unfortunately, the marriage breeds a bizarre hybrid, as strange (if not quite as ghastly) as the half-human, half-demon Grendel that haunts the first act. Like that hideous monster, BEOWULF is an almost inexplicable mutant mishap,  as if [...]

THE POLAR EXPRESS wants to be a whimsical Christmas fantasy, but the spirit of Christmas gets taken for a ride and pummeled by a series of pointless action scenes that pad the running time while adding nothing to the story. The basic idea is simple: A young boy has reached the age when he’s beginning [...]

By John W. Morehead of TheoFantastique
“You’re traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind; a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That’s the signpost up ahead – your next stop, the Twilight Zone!”

Without doubt one of the classic television programs from the late 1950s [...]

Known as NIGHT OF THE DEMON in its native England, this 1957 adaptation of “Casting the Runes” by noted ghost story practitioner M.R. James has a deserved reputation as one of the most intelligent and thoughtful horror films ever made. The screenplay by Charles Bennett (with an assist from producer Hal. E. Chester) effectively updates [...]

Most viewers no doubt realize that the recent Oscar-winning film, SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET, is based on a stage musical by Stephen Sondheim, but they might be surprised to learn that the Sweeney Todd story predates the musical by over a century. It has been adapted to stage and screen many times, [...]

Here we are for another glimpse of this week’s DVD highlights. For the past couple months, there has been a bit of a post-Christmas dry spell as far as exciting sci-fi, fantasy, and horror home video releases. Thankfully, that seems to be coming to an end this week, with the release of two high-profile theatrical [...]

This is a splatter-filled tale that feels like a throwback to ‘80s direct-to-video horror, when a bunch of prosthetic makeup covered in blood was all you needed to make a low-budget movie. The minimal story is about a mad scientist (WISHMASTER’s Andrew Divoff) who creates a plague that unleashes an unstoppable rage in its victims. After an [...]

The debut of the thriller VANTAGE POINT easily took first place at the weekend box office with $24-million, pushing last week’s top films, JUMPER and THE SPIDERWICK CHRONICLES down a notch a piece.
JUMPER landed at #2 with $12.6-million, yielding a two-week total fo $56.21-million.
SPIDERWICK wove its way to #3 in its sophmore session, earning $12.6-million, which added up to [...]

I did not bother to watch the Oscar telecast last night, because as a lifelong devotee of cinefantastique, I just could not summon up the enthusiasm to care about an awards show that almost totally ignored the great work seen in science-fiction, fantasy, and horror films last year (which I detailed in this post). Barely any [...]

This is a fine horror-thriller that displays most of the strengths of writer-director Neil Marshall’s debut effort, the werewolves-vs.-grunts flick DOG SOLDIERS: it’s about a band of people (in this case, six female cave explorers) in an isolated location confronting a ravenous pack of man-eating monsters. There is a simlar sense of group dynamics, with [...]

Excellent werewolf pic was “too British” to get a U.S. theatrical release
By Steve Biodrowski
With Neil Marshall’s DOOMSDAY scheduled for release on March 14, now seems an appropriate time to take a look back at his feature film debut, one of the best all-out, no-apologies, hell-bent-for-leather horror films to emerge from the beginning of the 21st century—a [...]