It’s rare that fan films can present a premise for a simple concept that can be stretched in to a feature length film. It’s also rare that a fan film that can pay tribute to a beloved icon while also adding a creative twist to it that gives it a special flair that fans would love. “Pac-Man: The Movie” by James Farr changes the concept of Pac-Man while also adding a new flavor to it that works wonders. Pac-Man is, of course, the iconic video game from the eighties about a yellow disc eating pegs and avoiding various colored ghosts. What director Farr and Steelhouse Digital do is add a science fiction twist to it that’s not only incredibly entertaining but pretty damn brilliant.
Tag Archives: Fantasy
Prehysteria! (1993)
Hey, during the big dinosaur craze of the nineties, owning your own dinosaur was something almost every kid dreamt of. Owning your own miniature dinosaurs was just the icing on the cake that Charles Band and Full Moon pinpointed with accuracy. Sure “Prehysteria!” is one of almost two dozen films in the Full Moon library about miniatures of some kind, but “Prehysteria!” succeeds in being a novel family film. Granted, it’s cheesy as all hell, but in the context of the nineties, it gives kids their ideal fantasy: Owning and befriending their own pet dinosaurs. Dinosaurs with their own sweet personalities, to boot!
Masters of the Universe (1987)
We could have had Star Wars meets Conan the Barbarian. There’s monsters and machines aplenty in the “He-Man” mythos! There’s villains and demons and mystical storylines in the franchise. Except we’re given He-Man in the Hood! This is a man who comes from a civilization with unusual machines, and magic, and war weapons, and he can’t get over the fact that there’s a place that sells meat on bones for human consumption. There’s literally a scene where Teela, Man at Arms, and He-Man marvel at a bucket of chicken and ribs they found at the local restaurant. This is clearly not what we He-Man fans originally envisioned. Of course, that didn’t stop me from watching it at least a thousand times when I was a child, but “He-Man” deserved a space epic the size of “Star Wars” and instead we get so little of it. I’m not asking much from a franchise built solely around selling toys, but there is a lot of mythological potential for making a He-Man movie.
Underworld: Awakening (2012)
What cruel irony that the latest subtitle for the mediocre “Underworld” series is called “Awakening” since for the most part I found myself incapable of staying awake through the majority of it. If you’re looking for a cure for insomnia and don’t want medication, put on “Underworld: Awakening” and you’ll definitely be out like a light within ten minutes. After writing off the series and expanding her horizons, Kate Beckinsale comes crawling back to her husband’s film series that made her a star and reprises the role of Selene. Still one of the most one-dimensional and cardboard action heroines of contemporary genre cinema, Selene is back yet again this time on the run from pretty much everyone. After years of the war between the vampires and the lycans (ugh), the human race has finally caught on.
Aladdin (1992)

Back in 1992, my family and I went to see “Aladdin” when it premiered in theaters. Many years ago, it was one of the best movie going experiences of my life, simply because as an experience, “Aladdin” succeeds in entertaining. As a movie it’s one of the sleekest and most memorable entries in the animated Disney library thanks to its wonderful voice acting and snappy musical numbers. Before “The Lion King” introduced us to Hakuna Matata, it was hard to think of an ear bug more memorable than “Friend Like Me” as sung by the Genie. Many years passed, “Aladdin” is still one of the more top notch efforts from Disney Animated studios, even if it does manage to show its wrinkles two decades later.
The Cabin in the Woods (2012)
We’ve all seen it so many times that I kind of get angry when a filmmaker sends me their latest horror opus and it’s comprised of the same premise. A bunch of teenagers have commandeered a cabin in the woods for the weekend, and decide that they want to get away for a few days of beer drinking and misdeeds of the sexual nature. While there they discover that the cabin houses a bunch of secrets that could be their undoing. And it’s all being manipulated by a secret government lab hidden underneath the cabin, manipulating every single moment of their weekend like a game of chess. Ah, but that’s not the whole story.
The Girl and the Ghost (2012)
Destiny and the hope for something amazing after we die, play a heavy role in animator Jacob Drake’s short film “The Girl and the Ghost.” While the film is essentially a short tale about friendship and being there for someone at their darkest times, the film itself feels like a hope that we’re not finished once we’ve passed on. There must be something beyond this world. We can all hope for that. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to continue our journey. Fates collide one night when young Annabella refuses to sleep, convinced that evil monsters are in her closet.


