Series: Film / TV

Phenomena directed by Dario Argento

Not to be confused with the 1996 John Travolta movie Phenomenon, Dario Argento’s Phenomena was released 11 years earlier, in January 1985. The film comes freighted with a mixed reputation — some seem to feel it is the Italian director’s worst, while others opine that it is his last great effort — although Argento himself has declared it to be his favorite film amongst his 19 to date; indeed, he has called Phenomena, his ninth picture as a director, “my most personal film.”

The Gorgon directed by Terence Fisher

Just one of the pictures that Hammer Films turned out in 1964, out of an eventual eight, The Gorgon finds the famed studio dipping into the well of Greek mythology for the first time, to come up with still another solid horror entertainment. The film, besides reuniting Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee (the two would ultimately appear in a whopping 22 pictures together!), also showcased the talents of director Terence Fisher, who would helm 27 films for the House of Hammer by the end of his career (including such beloved pictures as Four-Sided Triangle,

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind directed by Hayao Miyazaki

After an event alluded to as the Seven Days of Fire, civilization as we know has been destroyed and humanity’s remaining population scattered into isolated communities. Most of the globe is overrun by toxic jungles that produce spores deadly to human beings, and explorers must use gas-masks to protect themselves whenever they venture out into the wilderness.

Added danger comes from the insect life that now dominates the earth, particularly those known as the Ohmu. They look rather like giant pill-bugs with bulbous eyes that change colour depending on their moods,

La Belle et la Bête directed by Christophe Gans

If you’re going to adapt the fairy tale of “Beauty and the Beast”, you’d best make sure you do it properly, because you have to live up to the bar set by Jean Cocteau’s 1946 black-and-white film and Disney’s 1991 animated version — both classic films in their own right.

There’s also a challenge in adapting the original material, which essentially involves a loving father giving up his daughter to a monster to save his own skin, and a young girl being wooed by a terrifying beast who emotionally blackmails her into staying with him by insisting he’ll die without her.

The Walking Dead directed by Michael Curtiz

Offhand, I cannot think of another actor who gave us a more impressive run of films in the horror genre than Boris Karloff did in the 1930s. Starting with the sensation that was 1931’s Frankenstein, Boris continued to appear, year after year, in films for Universal, Columbia and (English studio) Gaumont that are now deemed eternal classics in the genre. In 1935 alone, the so-called “King of Horror” appeared in The Black Room, The Raven, and Bride of Frankenstein,

Winter’s Tale by Akiva Goldsman

I made a point of watching Akiva Goldsman’s Winter’s Tale AFTER reading the book upon which it’s based, knowing that stories are usually considered better on the page than as filmic adaptations. But having completed Mark Helprin‘s novel of the same name, I was left pretty bewildered as to how on earth the transition from book to screen would take place.

The trailers would have you believe that Winter’s Tale is a bittersweet time-travelling love story (perhaps a more fairytale-esque version of The Time Traveller’s Wife),