Cinefantastique Online

Author of Horror Film Directors and Science Fiction Film Directors (both from McFarland).

THE WASP WOMAN was producer-director Roger Corman’s attempt to cash in on the success of THE FLY (1958), and although it looks cheap and chintzy, having been shot in five days on a $50,000 budget, it nevertheless has aspects of interest. Historically, it is significant because it is the first film Corman directed for [...]

Early episodes offer engaging characters, memorable dialogue, and social commentary.
So far, the new season of TRUE BLOOD, loosely based on Charlaine Harris’ novel Club Dead, has continued two trends of the Alan Ball’s series: it maintains the high quality of the previous seasons, and it gets further away from Harris’ original Sookie Stackhouse storyline.
For those [...]

I didn’t see BLOOD AND ROSES when it was originally released; I first encountered it while reading early books on genre films, where it was  mentioned very favorably, and I was particularly haunted by the image of a man in a bat-mask with spread wings bending over a beautiful woman, which appeared in the book The [...]

Perhaps because director Chris Columbus directed the first two HARRY POTTER films, many critics compared PERCY JACKSON & THE OLYMPIANS: THE LIGHTNING THIEF to the hugely successful POTTER series and found it wanting. In many ways, that is an unfair comparison, as Rick Riordan’s best-selling series never had the maturity and emotional complexity of R.K. [...]

Despite assembling a number of very talented performers and production people, CIRQUE DU FREAK: THE VAMPIRE’S ASSISTANT is almost a study in how not to launch a successful film franchise.  Based on the first three books in Darren Shan’s young adult vampire series, Paul Weitz’s film adaptation is a promising stew that never quite blends.
At the heart [...]

When Richard Matheson’s novel Hell House came out in 1971, its fusion of traditional haunted house elements with explicit sex and violence was quite shocking, as most horror novels prior to William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist avoided graphic material in favor of suggesting the shudders. While not up to the high standard of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting [...]

RUBY was one of the last horror films by Curtis Harrington, who directed  several  notable “horror of personality” films in the 1960s (e.g., GAMES, WHAT”S THE MATTER WITH HELEN) and the atmospheric piece NIGHT TIDE. Although RUBY is not up to that level of achievement (thanks to interference from a producer who wanted an exploitation horror [...]

For kaiju(i.e. Japanese Giant Monster movies) fans, this double-bill of two of the best non-Godzilla movies represents a must-have. Featuring both the original Japanese and the revised American versions, this double-disc DVD presents these kaiju classics with the respect they have never before received on U.S. shores.
While Rodan went on to become Godzilla’s sidekick in [...]

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When NIGHTMARE CITY was released in the U.S. in 1983, it was shorn of 4 minutes of footage and retitled CITY OF THE WALKING DEAD (not to be confused with Fulci’s CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD). Blue Underground has seen fit to re-issue the out-of-print Anchor Bay widescreen DVD release of Umberto Lenzi’s low-budget [...]

Like Rodney Dangerfield, evil scientists’ minions get no respect, and IGOR, the MGM-released animated film from ’s Sparx Animation Studios (staffed mainly by Vietnamese artists), addresses the concept while suffering from it at the same time. Lacking a strong family hook to entice an audience to a non-Disney cartoon, IGOR has been unceremoniously dumped onto [...]

Fringe film-making can be a fascinating subject, and certainly many of the subjects of Kirk Lodes’ book Cheesy, Sleazy, Mixed-Up Astro-Zombies: The 100 Worst Actors and Directors of All Time are deserving of greater critical attention. Unfortunately, this isn’t the book that brings a balanced look at the strengths and weaknesses of the filmmakers it [...]