Cinefantastique Online

Peter has had a lifelong love of horror and science fiction film since picking up his first issue of Famous Monsters when he was eight. He has particular affection for Universal classics, Hammer Films and anything Godzilla. Based in Toronto Peter has been a professional writer for over twenty years. His company GAP Training produces custom training programs for clients such as General Motors.

HOUSE (or Hausu in its native Japan) is one film that truly defies description. Combining elements of the horror genre, an experimental film, and advertising commercials, it channels a unique dreamlike quality. Perhaps the strangest thing about HAUSU is that it was a big commercial hit in Japan when it was first released. Hated [...]

In the hot summer of 1960, one of the few places that had air conditioning in the small town where I lived was the local movie theater. That summer we went to the movies a lot. I can’t remember if it was during THE BELLBOY or THE ALAMO, but there was a preview for William [...]

The transfer of the film onto Blu-ray is excellent, and the interactive exploration of the behind-the-scenes experience is more interesting than the film itself.

The concept of a single artesian working away in monkish solitude might seem quaint by today’s standards – think of the end credit roll on Avatar with its thousands of digital effects technicians – but Ray Harryhausen was able to create a wonderful world of monsters and myths using nothing more than his hands and [...]

There are the classics of bad cinema – PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, THE ROBOT MONSTER, THE GIANT CLAW – and the contemporary examples – BATTLEFIELD EARTH, HOWARD THE DUCK, TROLL 2, and everything by Uwe Boll.
And then there is BIRDEMIC SHOCK AND TERROR…
The art of making a bad film is akin to paving [...]

By Peter McGarvey
You know it’s going to get grim when the film opens with a murky bat symbol against boiling black clouds.
And THE DARK KNIGHT is grim, unrelentingly so. Christopher Nolan’s second round in the Batman saga is the most fully realized superhero film ever made and certainly the most literate. The story this time [...]

It’s been a great month for Hammer fans.  Columbia just released the Icons of Adventure box set of four Hammer adventure films – Stranglers of Bombay, Pirates of Blood River, Terror of the Tongs and Devil Ship Pirates.  Despite the terrible cover art, this is an amazing package of never-before-on-DVD films. Now, our friends over [...]

What were they thinking at Warner Brothers?  Take a 1960’s Japanese cult cartoon, lavish it with a huge budget and pray that it will find an audience. The result: a film that one Toronto reviewer proclaimed, “is like having someone vomit a bellyful of skittles at you for two and a half hours, and only slightly [...]

Originally commissioned by the Sci Fi Channel, the new two-part A&E television adaptation of Michael Crichton’s novel has much broader canvas on which to tell its story than the 1971 feature film directed by Robert Wise. stronger science fiction and horror elements. There are actually some interesting and intriguing ideas here but they tend to get lost in the morass of confusing subplots. Director Mikael Saloman. tries to up the ante with good looking effects and lots of action, but unfortunately, there is no real suspense and very little claustrophobia.

Director Frank Darabont has made a cottage industry out of bringing Stephan King stories to the screen. In the past he has done big-budget adaptations of THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION and THE GREEN MILE. Finally released from prison he decided to adapt THE MIST, a short story from King’s Skeleton Crew collection. The fact that THE [...]

Up to now, Legend films is best known for the excellent colorized versions of Ray Harryhausen’s Columbia films. They have also worked with Harryhausen on colorizing SHE and THINGS TO COME. Recently, they licensed a package of films from Paramount including some horror and fantasy titles that they are bringing to DVD for the first [...]