With the commercial success of their 1965 film Gamera the Giant Monster, the Daiei studio were quick to commission a sequel. This second Gamera film benefitted from a slightly bigger budget and a colour presentation, as well as what was seen as … Continue reading REVIEW: Gamera vs Barugon (1966)
Audiences around the world know Godzilla – and the best audiences like him as well. Most people will also be aware that Godzilla is not the only giant monster to demolish Japanese cities on screen: in the Toho studio’s own … Continue reading REVIEW: Gamera the Giant Monster (1965)
Coma, a Russian science fiction thriller, bets big on some impressive visual effects while telling an enjoyable mish-mash of Inception and The Matrix that weaves in more than a few clever ideas of its own. By no means a masterpiece, it is still … Continue reading REVIEW: Coma (2020)
I have a complicated relationship with Man of Steel, Zack Snyder’s 2013 big screen reboot of Superman. In the cinema I liked it, albeit with some caveats. On home video I felt the other way around: that those earlier caveats crippled the … Continue reading REVIEW: Man of Steel (2013)
It is the near future. Jiang Feng (Huang Bo) is a resentful author in the middle of a divorce. In a fit of pique he visits the Master of Memory centre to have the memory of his marriage electronically extracted … Continue reading REVIEW: Battle of Memories (2017)
It can be tough being a short film. While shorts act as valuable opportunities for filmmakers to hone their craft or experiment with technique, there are precious few outlets for audiences to ever see them – usually premiering at a … Continue reading FANTASIA REVIEW: Double Helix (2021)
An attempt by an independent theatre company to expand into filmmaking appears to have resulted in one of the best science fiction films of recent years. Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes is an instant cult classic, and represents a dizzying … Continue reading FANTASIA REVIEW: Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes (2020)
August sees the return of the Fantasia International Film Festival, arguably the world’s premier screening event for science fiction, fantasy, horror, and other unusual genre cinema. Celebrating its 25th anniversary, this year’s festival is offering its Canadian audiences unprecedented online … Continue reading Eight films to watch at Fantasia Film Festival 2021
Describing a particularly surreal film as a ‘head trip’ is par for the course, but it feels particularly appropriate for Brandon Cronenberg’s Possessor (2020), a science fiction film about a professional killer literally taking a ride inside other people’s minds. … Continue reading REVIEW: Possessor (2020)
There is a persistent rumour that Walt Disney Studios forced a name change on their 2012 science fiction epic John Carter of Mars to simply John Carter because they believed audiences were not interested in films about Mars. The supposed proof? The failure of … Continue reading REVIEW: Mission to Mars (2000)
FictionMachine 