Fantasy Films:
Unlike science fiction films that base their content upon some degree of scientific truth,take the audience to netherworld, fairty-tale places where events are unlikely to occur in real life. In mythological or legendary times, they transcend the bounds of human possibility and physical laws. Fantasy films are often in the context of the imagination, dreams, or hallucinations of a character or within the projected vision of the storyteller. Fantasy films often have an element of magic, myth, wonder, escapism, and the extraordinary. They may appeal to both children and adults, depending upon the particular film.In fantasy films, the hero often undergoes some kind of mystical experience, and must ask for aid from powerful, superhuman forces on the outside. Ancient Greek mythological figures or Arabian Nights-type narratives are typical storylines. Flying carpets, magic swords and spells, dragons, and ancient religious relics or objects are common elements. Bizarre and imaginary, invented lands include sci-fi worlds, unreal worlds, fairy tale settings, or other whimsical locales. The earliest sci-fi writers (H. G. Wells and Jules Verne) created fantastic worlds and/or journeys - the subject matter of many fantasy films. Typically, the predominant characters in fantasies are princes or princesses. Some fantasy-type films might also include quasi-religious or supernatural characters such as angels, lesser gods, or fairies. Or they include the gnomes, dwarves and elves of legend. Odd phenomena, physical aberrations, and incredible characters (sometimes monstrous characters that represent the divine or evil spirits, or fabulous magicians and sorcerers) are incorporated into fantasy films, and often overlap with supernatural films. They are often inspired or taken, however remotely, from myth or legend. They fill us with a marvelous sense of awe and touch off deep primal emotions.
Fantasy films are most likely to overlap with the film genres of science fiction and horror. When the narrative of a fantasy film tends to emphasize advanced technology in a fantastic world, it may be considered predominantly a science fiction film. Or when the supernatural, fantasy forces are specifically intended to frighten the audience, a fantasy film falls more within the horror genre. Over the years, the subject of fantasy has thoroughly entertained us. The earliest fantasy films combined science fiction with visions of the future. Some of the earliest were Georges Melies' fantasy silent film about a trip to the Moon, Voyage Dans La Lune (1902), Fritz Lang's expressionistic Metropolis (1927, German) with a nightmarish view of toiling urban workers, and producer Alexander Korda's Things to Come (1936). Director Merian C. Cooper's great prehistoric fantasy film King Kong (1933) took viewers to Skull Island with a fearsome hairy Beast created by Willis H. O'Brien's marvelous stop-motion animation. Frank Capra's wonderful philosophical romantic fantasy Lost Horizon (1937) brought a group of plane crash survivors to the fabled and idyllic Shangri-La hidden within a snowy Tibetan mountain pass. Comic strip hero Flash Gordon (Buster Crabbe), with his love interest Dale Arden (Jean Rogers), was the subject of many serialized, multi-part films, including Flash Gordon: Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars (1938).
Works Cited:
http://www.filmsite.org/fantasyfilms.html
Zombie Films
One of my personal favorite minor sub-genre category is zombies. Zombie films usually take place in a post-apocalyptic world where a region is infested with mindless humans who are usually infected with some type of disease that makes them like that. They are usually seen in science-fiction and horror films where the plot of the film is a group of uninfected running from a group of zombies. In these zombie movies, a character usually turns into a zombie by being bitten and it all goes downhill from there. Zombie films have been dated back since 1932, in one of the first zombie films White Zombie (1932). One of my favorite zombie films is Dawn of the Dead (2004), directed by Zach Snyder. This film is about a group of survivors who have to camp out in a mall to keep away from the infected zombies. Another one of my favorite zombie films is 28 Weeks Later (2008), directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo. This film takes place in a quarantined city in London after a zombie invasion had taken place several years before. Everyone in the center starts turning into zombies and a sister along with her brother do all that they can to survive the zombie attacks. Zombie films have been around for many years and were very popular in the 1970s with the use of bad make up jobs and stupid plots. Directors have taken a more modern approach now-a-days to truly convince the audience that these zombies are real.
Comic-Book Action Films
Many of the highest-grossing films fall under the category of comic-book action. A comic-book action film is a film that is made based off a comic-book that usually involves a superhero or group of superheroes with some type of supernatural ability. They also usually have a plot in which a superhero must save the world from some villain with evil mastermind plans for something to go wrong. These films usually take place in a trilogy but many of the famous superheroes have films that exceed that amount. There are many comic-book action films with famous superheroes but the most famous comic-book action films are the Superman or Batman films which were created after the DC Comics. The first superman film was released in 1978 and was titled Superman. From there, Superman has been a major icon for the comic book world and there has also been many more films about Superman including the most recent Superman film Superman Return (2006). Many people have also debated over the Batman movies to be the most popular. The first official Batman film was titled Batman (1966) which was directed by Leslie H. Martinson and starred the famous Adam West. The Batman movies have been very famous since then and there are still films about Batman as of today. My personal favorite Batman film is Batman Forever (1995) with the very famous Jim Carrey playing the Riddler. Comic-book action films have continued to amaze its audience with the fact that these regular human-beings just like us can acquire super powers and save the world from the fictional villains seen in these films.
