Phoenix DVD Blog

The Resident Evil films are a strange franchise for me because, while I own and have watched the complete series, there is really only one film that has always stood out clearly in my memory. The first one. Released in 2002, Resident Evil felt like a proper video game brought to life. It had confined spaces, locked doors, underground laboratories, strange creatures appearing from nowhere and the constant feeling that something was waiting around the next corner to kill you. You could almost imagine holding the controller while watching it. The films that followed gradually moved further away from that feeling and became bigger, louder and much more action-orientated, but Milla Jovovich remained the constant throughout the entire series. She was very well cast as Alice and, whatever you think of the direction the franchise eventually took, it is difficult to imagine these films without her. If you enjoy darker franchises built around monsters, survival, ruined worlds and characters wh...

Some movie franchises begin with a huge budget, an established name and plans for several sequels. Riddick did almost the opposite. It began with a relatively small science-fiction horror film built around a hostile planet, a group of survivors and something extremely dangerous waiting for the darkness. That film was Pitch Black , and for me it remains one of the most distinctive science-fiction movies of its era.

Some films simply feel bigger than others. I do not mean bigger budgets, longer running times or more computer-generated armies filling the screen. A true epic needs scale, sweeping landscapes, powerful music, historical conflict and a central character caught between different people, loyalties or causes. The best epics lift me before the story has even fully begun. Their musical scores alone can create a swell of emotion in my chest that is difficult to describe. Add an excellent surround-sound system and suddenly the entire house knows that something important is happening on screen. These are not films I watch once and forget. Every few months, I feel the need to put one of them on again, especially now, when Hollywood seems to be producing fewer and fewer films that feel genuinely worth watching. This is only one side of my film collection. For more recommendations built around different genres, occasions and moods, visit Movie Picks for Every Mood – 5-Film Lists from a Lifelong C...

Sometimes, you do not need another algorithm telling you what is popular. You just need a bit of inspiration from someone who has spent years watching, collecting and rewatching films. Streaming platforms give us more choice than ever, but that does not always make choosing easier. In fact, it can make it worse. You scroll past hundreds of films, open a few descriptions, add something to a watchlist and then end up watching nothing at all. That is where these lists come in. I have put together a growing collection of five-film picks built around particular moods, genres and times of year. These are not random titles pulled from a catalogue. They are films I remember, enjoy, own, or believe are worth making time for. Whether you want a Christmas film, an old-school comedy, a dependable drama or something with a bit more action, this page should help you find something worth watching without spending half the evening scrolling. 5 Essential Family Films for Christmas Christmas films are o...

Some movie franchises are not exactly cheerful comfort viewing. They are full of monsters, aliens, vampires, predators, infected cities, blood, shadows, collapsing worlds and characters who usually have a fairly rough time of it. And yet, these are the franchises I keep coming back to.

Some films arrive at the right age and stay with you forever. For me, Alien and Aliens were two of those films. A friend gave me copies around the same time I was watching all the other films that seemed far too big, violent, scary or exciting for a 12-year-old to fully process. But that was part of the thrill. You were not just watching a film. You were being introduced to a whole new kind of cinema. Alien was scary, dark, strange and very cool. It felt like a complete introduction to space alien horror. Then Aliens came along and took the same story into a much bigger world of soldiers, weapons, colonies, fear, survival and all-out action. Those two films left an indelible mark on me. But the Alien series did not stop there. It changed shape again and again. Horror. Action. Prison drama. Sci-fi weirdness. Cloning. Prequels. Engineers. Androids. Corporate greed. Body horror. Mythology. Legacy sequels. Some entries are loved. Some are argued over. Some are still unfairly dismissed. But...

Some films arrive at exactly the right time in your life. For me, Predator was one of them. I didn’t first see it in the cinema. I didn’t rent it properly. I didn’t even watch it under ideal conditions. I saw it on a VHS tape that had been recorded from a multichannel box many years ago by a school friend. He was the person who introduced me to a whole world of 18-rated action and sci-fi films well before my time. Alien. Predator. Aliens. Die Hard. Terminator. And many more. Predator also has one of the more obvious crossover paths in sci-fi horror, because sooner or later the series was always going to collide with Alien. The Alien vs Predator films are messy, uneven and nowhere near the best of either franchise, but I still have a soft spot for them. If you want to follow that side branch, I looked at it separately in my Alien vs Predator post . Original sci-fi artwork created for a Phoenix DVD Blog guide to the Predator movies in order. Looking back, I probably shouldn’t have been w...