Black Sunday (1960) – Review

Mario Bava’s Black Sunday isn’t just a horror film; it’s a gothic nightmare painted in the stark contrasts of light and shadow. With witches, vampires, bronze death masks, and Barbara Steele’s unforgettable stare, it’s the kind of movie that crawls under your skin and lingers. Part fairy tale, part fever dream, this was the film that announced Bava as a master of the macabre.

In 17th-century Moldavia, Princess Asa Vajda (Barbara Steele) and her lover Javutich (Arturo Dominici) are sentenced to death for witchcraft by Asa’s own brother, Prince Griabi. She doesn’t go quietly, though Asa vows vengeance upon her brother’s descendants, because when you’re a vampiric witch, that’s just how you roll. The executioners slam bronze death masks with spikes into Asa and Javutich’s faces, but before they can be burned at the stake, a storm blows through and puts the fire out. This illustrates a very important lesson.

 

Always double-check the weather before scheduling your witch-burning.

Two centuries later, a carriage carrying Dr. Choma Kruvajan (Andrea Checchi) and his younger assistant Dr. Andrej Gorobec (John Richardson) breaks down in—you guessed it—Moldavia. With nothing better to do, they poke around the local crypt, where Kruvajan manages to (a) smash a protective cross, (b) break Asa’s death mask, and (c) spill his own blood onto her corpse. Congratulations, doctor, you’ve just won “Most Irresponsible Tourist of the Year.” Outside, they meet the striking Katia Vajda (Barbara Steele again, pulling double duty), who lives nearby with her father and brother Constantine (Enrico Olivieri). Gorobec, naturally, falls head over heels in gothic love.

 

“You’re not a descendant of a vampiric witch, are you?”

Thanks to Kruvajan’s clumsy blood donation, Asa begins reviving and telepathically calls to Javutich, who rises from his grave like a corpse auditioning for the cover of a metal album. Javutich heads to the Vajda castle, where poor old Prince Vajda (Ivo Garrani) clutches a crucifix in terror. The prince’s heart gives out from sheer fright, and Constantine calls for Kruvajan, who never makes it to his patient. Instead, Javutich drags him to Asa’s crypt. The witch works her hypnotic magic, turning Kruvajan into her thrall. Soon, the good doctor is helping Asa’s cause, casually removing crucifixes and smoothing the way for Javutich’s murderous return.

 

“Javutich, you will make an excellent Renfield.”

As Asa grows stronger, her plan takes shape: drain Katia of her life to fully restore herself. When Gorobec notices that Kruvajan mysteriously abandoned his patient before his death, he investigates. A local girl helps him piece together that Kruvajan’s escort was none other than the centuries-dead Javutich. With the help of a priest, Gorobec discovers Kruvajan’s undead corpse and gives him the old nail-through-the-eye treatment. Meanwhile, Javutich seizes Constantine and tosses him into the castle’s handy pit (every castle has one, right?), then drags Katia to Asa for the final sacrifice.

 

An evil minion’s work is never done.

The climax unfolds in true gothic fashion: Asa drains Katia’s youth and tries to trick Gorobec by claiming she is Katia, while the real Katia lies helpless. But Asa forgets one key prop—the crucifix around Katia’s neck. Gorobec realizes his mistake and exposes Asa’s true, skeletal form. The villagers arrive with torches in hand, the priest leads them in righteous burning, and Asa finally goes up in flames. Katia awakens, radiant and alive, and falls into Gorobec’s waiting arms because nothing says “romantic happy ending” like almost being drained by your centuries-dead witch ancestor.

 

“Father, is there rain in the forecast tonight?”

Stray Observations:

• Bronze spiked masks hammered into faces? That’s one way to say, “We take witchcraft seriously in Moldavia.”
• Kruvajan is the worst kind of horror-movie tourist: breaks sacred relics, spills blood, unleashes witches. Honestly, the guy’s lucky he didn’t start the Black Plague by sneezing on an old coffin.
• Asa’s resurrection ritual boils down to: “Step 1: wait 200 years. Step 2: hope a clumsy doctor cuts himself nearby.” Not exactly a foolproof plan, but hey, it works.
• Mario Bava was originally a cinematographer, and it shows. Half the time, the lighting is more menacing than the villains.
• Katia and Asa both being played by Barbara Steele was genius. It also suggests that in this family, the gene pool just keeps cloning Barbara Steele. (Not that anyone’s complaining.)

 

Two Steeles for the price of one.

Mario Bava’s direction is the real sorcery here. Also known as Mask of Satan, this film plays like a gothic painting come to life, every shot dripping with atmosphere. The stark black-and-white cinematography, with its pools of darkness and sudden bursts of torchlight, turns the Moldavian countryside into a cursed landscape. Faces become masks of terror, crypts twist into labyrinths of shadow, and every frame feels gallery-worthy, both beautiful and suffocating. The opening execution, with its ritual of mask and hammer, sets the tone: horror as mood and atmosphere rather than cheap thrills. Even when the story drifts into pulp, the imagery is so hypnotic you hardly notice—you’re too busy getting lost in cobwebs, candlelight, and the sense that evil is creeping in from the screen’s edges.

 

Gothic horror, like no other.

The pacing is deliberate, but Bava sustains dread through pure visual storytelling. Gothic horror isn’t about rushing scares; it’s about atmosphere seeping into your bones. Shadows stretch like claws, castles brood under storm clouds, and even bats on strings gain weight through sheer conviction. Bava leans into theatricality, making each moment feel staged on a haunted proscenium. The result isn’t just horror, it’s operatic horror, conducted by a maestro who knows the true fear lies in mood, not mechanics.

 

Behold, the Uber of the Damned.

And then there’s Barbara Steele, delivering the performance that made her a legend. As Asa, she’s sensual and menacing, her eyes burning through close-ups that became iconic. Her dubbed voice hardly matters; her presence overwhelms. As Katia, she glows with fragile innocence, the perfect gothic ingénue. Steele balances both roles with uncanny precision, giving the film its villainous fire and tragic heart. Around her, John Richardson is a noble if bland hero, Andrea Checchi a memorably foolish Kruvajan, and Arturo Dominici a magnificently brooding Javutich who could win any cape-swishing contest. But make no mistake—this is Steele’s stage, and everyone else orbits her dark star.

 

Barbara Steele is the definition of dark beauty.

In conclusion, Black Sunday is the kind of horror film that reminds us why we still use the word “classic.” It isn’t just the story—though curses, crypts, and witchy vengeance never get old—it’s the way Bava paints it with his camera, every shot dripping with atmosphere. Barbara Steele became an icon because of this movie, and Bava cemented himself as one of the great horror stylists. Over sixty years later, the film still casts a spell, its gothic chills as timeless as the witch it resurrected.

The Ghost (1963) – Review

Riccardo Freda’s The Ghost is an elegant, gothic slice of Italian horror that manages to be both gloriously atmospheric and gloriously silly at the same time. Starring Barbara Steele in one of her many doomed-wife roles, the film dresses up jealousy, greed, and betrayal in velvet drapes and candlelit corridors. It’s the kind of movie where everyone whispers about death in a castle that’s practically wallpapered with cobwebs, yet no one ever stops to wonder if maybe moving out of the place would solve half their problems.

We open in “Scotland, 1910,” which looks suspiciously like Italy with some dry ice and a couple of kilts in storage. Doctor Hichcock (Elio Jotta), our resident wheelchair-bound madman, spends his days injecting himself with poison because, apparently, medicine in 1910 meant trying to kill yourself until it made you stronger. His housekeeper, Catherine Wood (Harriet Medin), moonlights as a séance medium, because of course she does. I guess if you’ve got a creepy castle, you’ve got to make rent somehow. Doctor Charles Livingstone (Peter Baldwin) is stuck babysitting this whole circus, tasked with giving the poison shots like some sort of unpaid intern at Evil Mayo Clinic.

 

Could someone please check his credentials?

Meanwhile, Margaret Hichcock (Barbara Steele) has had it up to here with her husband’s “Hey, maybe poison is the cure!” lifestyle. So, she does what any sensible gothic wife would do: she starts shacking up with Livingstone, the only other eligible man within candlelit distance. She bats her giant Barbara Steele eyes, says, “Please murder my husband,” and Livingstone shrugs and says, “Sure, why not.” A little skipped antidote later, Hichcock is six feet under, and our adulterous duo are already picking out curtain fabrics and divvying up the inheritance.

 

“This isn’t going to bite us in the ass later, right?”

But alas, wills are tricky little beasts, and Hichcock had the foresight to edit his with all the charm of a booby-trapped treasure map. Margaret gets the castle and some furniture, but only a sliver of the real fortune; the jewels and cash are conspicuously absent. Catherine pipes up that the missing key to the loot is buried with hubby, because who doesn’t keep track of what dead men carry in their pockets? Cue a midnight field trip to the family crypt, where romance takes the form of prying open your husband’s coffin with your lover. And of course, once the corpse is disturbed, things start going bump in the night: spooky whispers, shadowy figures, and Barbara Steele looking fabulous while pretending to be terrified.

 

It’s gothic horror 101.

Margaret unravels fast. Catherine convinces her that Livingstone has been hiding the missing jewels, “evidence” turns up in his bag, and Margaret straight-razors him in a jealous frenzy. Then the real shock: Doc Hichcock strolls back in, very much alive, revealing he only used a mild dose of curare that’s now paralyzing her. He shoots Catherine to frame Margaret, but accidentally drinks the suicide gin she’d mixed for herself. Margaret smashes the antidote, laughing, while Hichcock seals himself in a secret chamber. When the police arrive, they find only Margaret—paralyzed, cackling, and promptly arrested for Catherine’s murder.

 

“We all go mad sometimes.”

Stray Observations:

• The movie was marketed in the U.S. as a sequel to Freda’s The Horrible Dr. Hichcock, even though the characters and storylines don’t really connect. But hey, gothic branding sells!
• Barbara Steele is once again married to a brooding creep who spends his free time plotting either her death or her possession. At this point, it’s basically her 1960s brand.
• Doctor Livingstone is introduced as a competent young doctor… and spends the rest of the movie making the worst decisions possible.
• The two lovers stop Doctor Hichcock from committing suicide multiple times, but later they plot his murder. I’m starting to think these two are not all that bright.
• Catherine was Hichcock’s accomplice in this whole gaslighting scheme, but he murders her as an extra nail in his cheating wife’s coffin. What a dick.
• Hichcock walking out of the shadows, suddenly “cured,” is one of those horror twists that’s equal parts chilling and hilarious.

 

“I’m the master of gaslighting.”

Freda knew his way around gothic horror, and The Ghost is proof that atmosphere can often carry a film further than logic. The castle interiors drip with candlelight, shadows, and creeping fog, courtesy of Raffaele Masciocchi’s excellent cinematography, with every frame boasting that perfect “haunted oil painting” quality you’d almost want to hang on your wall, preferably in a hallway designed to unsettle guests. Unfortunately, what Freda giveth in visual flair, the dubbing immediately taketh away: the English-language track is more inept than ever, with voices that sound either oddly flat or unintentionally comedic, often killing the gothic tension by making you wonder if anyone’s lips were actually connected to the dialogue or if the actors were moonlighting in a broom closet recording booth.

 

“Doctor, why don’t any of us have Scottish accents?”

That said, Freda’s sense of pacing is stronger here than in some of his other films, balancing long stretches of melodrama with sudden jolts of horror—razor attacks, apparitions, poisonings—that make the film feel both grandly operatic and satisfyingly pulpy. His staging of Barbara Steele’s descent into paranoia is especially effective, utilizing mirrors, shadows, and bursts of violence to keep us guessing whether guilt, ghosts, or both haunt her. Most importantly, he never lets the Gothic mood collapse into parody. Even when the script flirts with outright silliness, his firm-handed direction and confidence in the material ensure that The Ghost feels like a genuine continuation of the Italian gothic wave that flourished in the early ’60s.

 

This film gets bonus points for atmospheric hauntings.

Barbara Steele, as always, is the linchpin. With those enormous, haunted eyes and a face that can shift from fragile victim to lethal predator in seconds, she elevates The Ghost from creaky melodrama to something hypnotic. As Margaret, she is conniving, passionate, and ultimately undone by her own greed. Yet, Steele infuses her with such vulnerability that you can’t help but root for her—even as she’s slashing her lover to bits with a razor. Her true gift lies in embodying both the gothic heroine and the femme fatale at once; few actresses could cry, scheme, seduce, and cackle with equal conviction, but Steele makes it look effortless. In the end, she becomes the film’s true ghost—not the pale spectre of Dr. Hichcock, but a woman trapped between roles, doomed to wander the candlelit corridors of Italian horror cinema forever.

 

Barbara Steele is the poster girl for toxic relationships.

In conclusion, The Ghost is a lush, gothic melodrama dripping with atmosphere, intrigue, and Barbara Steele’s inimitable presence. Riccardo Freda directs with visual flair, Masciocchi’s cinematography provides painterly gloom, and the story twists itself into the kind of operatic betrayal that only Italian horror could pull off. Yes, the dubbing is hilariously bad, and yes, the plot occasionally feels like it was scribbled on the back of a séance invitation, but the mood is strong enough to forgive the flaws. For fans of Steele or of Italy’s gothic cycle, this is a must-watch cobwebbed gem.

The Horrible Dr. Hichcock (1962) – Review

Italian gothic horror hit a strange, decadent stride in the early 1960s, and The Horrible Dr. Hichcock stands as one of the more infamous examples. Directed by Riccardo Freda and shot with moody precision by cinematographer Raffaele Masiocchi, the film bathes its sordid tale in the velvet shadows of Victorian London. With its striking imagery and the presence of horror icon Barbara Steele, it’s both a quintessential gothic melodrama and a uniquely Italian contribution to the genre.

The story begins in London, 1885, where the “celebrated” Dr. Bernard Hichcock (Robert Flemyng) is the kind of surgeon who probably should’ve limited himself to scalpels and anatomy charts instead of dabbling in bedroom theatrics. His idea of marital bliss with wife Margaretha (Maria Teresa Vianello) involves dosing her with a special drug that slows her heartbeat to a crawl so he can indulge in his macabre funeral roleplay fantasies. Shockingly, this doesn’t go well—turns out that playing doctor with actual syringes is a bad plan. One night, he gets the dosage wrong, and oops—straight to the crypt she goes. Instead of reviewing his medical notes or, say, admitting his colossal mistake, Hichcock takes the coward’s way out: he buries his wife, locks the door on his mistakes, and skips town for twelve years. Because nothing says “coping with guilt” quite like abandoning your mansion and hoping time just smooths everything over.

 

Who knew chemically-induced necrophilia could end badly?

When he finally slinks back to London, he’s got a shiny new wife in tow, Cynthia Hichcock (Barbara Steele), who honestly deserves way better than this fixer-upper of a mansion. The place comes pre-furnished with peeling wallpaper, an unsettling aura of mildew, and a housekeeper, Martha (Harriet Medin), whose idea of “hospitality” seems to be lurking ominously in doorways. Cynthia, ever the polite bride, tries to make the best of it, but she quickly realizes something’s rotten in the state of Hichcock Manor. She hears bumps in the night that no amount of plumbing excuses can explain, catches fleeting glimpses of ghostly women drifting through the halls in billowing nightgowns, and notices her husband displays an enthusiasm for coffins that goes way beyond the casual Victorian norm.

 

“What we got here is your standard Lady in White.”

Of course, the big reveal is that Margaretha never actually died—she’s been tucked away in the castle all this time, lingering in a ghastly, drug-ravaged state like a gothic houseplant badly in need of watering. Far from the radiant wife she once was, she’s now a shadowy husk, wheezing and wasting away in darkened chambers. Dr. Hichcock, in his infinite wisdom (and utter lack of morals), dreams up a solution straight out of the mad-scientist handbook: siphon off Cynthia’s youth and blood to restore his first wife’s beauty. Cynthia, quickly realizing she’s been cast in the “human sacrifice” role of this twisted love triangle, does everything she can to survive. By the end, the whole sordid affair spirals into flames, screams, collapsing ceilings, a dashing hero to the rescue, and all the Victorian chaos you could possibly want.

 

So, a happy ending?

Stray Observations:

• The film was released in the U.S. as The Horrible Dr. Hichcock, while in Italy it was L’orribile segreto del Dr. Hichcock because, apparently, “horrible” is the universal marketing hook.
• A year later, Freda gave us The Ghost—same stars, same “Hichcock” name tag, but plot-wise it’s about as related as Dracula and Scooby-Doo.
• The “overdose” scene is staged with near-operatic melodrama; Hichcock doesn’t check his wife’s pulse more than once before rushing her to burial. Perhaps not the best physician.
• Characters spend a lot of time wandering the house by candlelight, even though gas lamps clearly exist in this version of Victorian London.
• Cynthia moves into a mansion filled with cobwebs, locked doors, and creepy servants, yet seems surprised when bad things happen.
• Martha, the housekeeper, is basically the prototype for every horror movie servant who knows where all the bodies are buried, or not buried, as the case may be.
• There’s an ominous black cat that stalks the halls of the manor house, as if it had wandered in from an Edgar Allan Poe story.

 

We even get a little taste of The Premature Burial.

Riccardo Freda, often considered one of the fathers of Italian horror, directs The Horrible Dr. Hichcock with an operatic flair that elevates its lurid subject matter. Freda’s command of gothic atmosphere, echoing through candlelit hallways, mist-choked graveyards, and blood-red interiors, lends the film an eerie grandeur. Though the narrative edges into pulp excess, his direction grounds it with a tone of heightened melodrama rather than camp, making the horror feel tragic rather than ridiculous.

 

Having a maid like Martha will always result in tragedy. 

Raffaele Masiocchi’s cinematography is arguably the film’s greatest strength. His use of chiaroscuro shadows, deep reds, and painterly compositions recalls Mario Bava’s work, but with a colder, more clinical edge befitting the story’s surgical themes. The camera lingers on ornate candelabras, velvet-draped coffins, and Steele’s luminous face, creating an atmosphere that feels simultaneously lush and suffocating. Masiocchi transforms what might have been a tawdry exploitation picture into something closer to a macabre art film.

 

Who doesn’t love secret corridors bathed in eerie colour?

Within the horror genre, The Horrible Dr. Hichcock occupies a transitional space between Hammer’s gothic revivals and the more surreal, graphic excesses of Italian horror in the late 1960s and ’70s. It’s not as boundary-pushing as later giallo or as shocking as Lucio Fulci’s work, but its blending of gothic tropes with psychological morbidity was influential. Freda helped lay the groundwork for directors like Bava and, later, Argento, establishing Italian horror as both stylistically distinct and more daring than its Anglo counterparts.

 

Daring and vastly dark.

And then there’s Barbara Steele, the undisputed queen of gothic horror, sweeping in like she owns every cobweb in the mansion. As Cynthia Hichcock, she spends most of the film wandering dark corridors in fabulous gowns, wide-eyed and terrified, yet still managing to look like she’s posing for a haunted Vogue spread. Steele’s talent lies in making “screaming victim” feel layered; she’s vulnerable, yes, but also defiant, giving Cynthia just enough backbone to stand up to Robert Flemyng’s doom-and-gloom doctor. Honestly, the plot may be about Hichcock and his ghastly hobbies, but Steele is the reason you keep watching. She doesn’t just star in the movie…she is the movie, and Italian horror knew it.

 

No one does terrified quite like Barbara Steele.

In conclusion, The Horrible Dr. Hichcock is both an elegant gothic melodrama and a grimly unsettling horror film, brimming with style, atmosphere, and a sense of doomed romance. While its plot occasionally tips into absurdity, Freda’s direction, Masiocchi’s cinematography, and Steele’s performance elevate it beyond pulp into the realm of classic Italian horror. For fans of gothic cinema, it remains a must-watch: a candlelit nightmare stitched together with beauty, dread, and unforgettable imagery.

Alice in Wonderland (2010) – Review

Say what you will about Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, but its massive box office success kicked open the door for Disney to start strip-mining their animated classics for live-action updates like it was a gold rush, and subtlety had already left town. What began as a single “visionary reimagining” quickly became a corporate strategy. And here we are, still digging through the consequences.

Victorian London: a place where grief is quietly swallowed, individuality is politely discouraged, and apparently every young woman’s worst nightmare is being proposed to by a man named Hamish Ascot (Leo Bill). Alice Kingsleigh (Mia Wasikowska), still reeling from her father’s death and plagued by dreams that feel a little too specific to be random, finds herself cornered at a garden party that doubles as an ambush engagement. Just as her life threatens to calcify into a polite prison, she spots a waistcoat-wearing white rabbit checking his pocket watch like he’s late for a union meeting. Naturally, she follows him down a rabbit hole, because ignoring strange mammals has never been her strong suit. After a series of size-altering snacks that would make a nutritionist faint, she squeezes through a door into a world that looks like a fever dream curated by Hot Topic.

 

“So, this is what LSD is like.”

Welcome to Underland, a place where everyone immediately recognizes Alice except Alice herself, which is either charming or deeply unsettling, depending on your tolerance for destiny narratives. She meets a parade of vaguely familiar oddities: Tweedledum and Tweedledee (Matt Lucas pulling double duty), the jittery White Rabbit (Michael Sheen), a cryptic Caterpillar named Absolem (Alan Rickman), and a general sense that she’s wandered into a prophecy she forgot to RSVP to. Apparently, she’s destined to kill the Jabberwocky and overthrow the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter), which feels like a lot to drop on someone who just turned down a marriage proposal ten minutes ago. Before she can process any of this, she’s chased by the Bandersnatch and a squad of Red Knights led by the perpetually smirking Knave of Hearts (Crispin Glover). Everyone gets captured except Alice, because the plot still needs her.

 

Beware, Johnny Depp ahead!

Alice’s survival tour continues with a visit to the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp), the March Hare (Paul Whitehouse), and the Dormouse (Barbara Windsor), whose tea party feels less like nonsense and more like chaos with a production budget. The Hatter fills her in on the Red Queen’s hostile takeover of Underland, because nothing says whimsical fantasy like a regime change. When the Red Knights crash the party, the Hatter sacrifices himself so Alice can escape, proving he’s either noble or just tired of Depp’s accent. She’s then guided by Bayard the Bloodhound (Timothy Spall) to infiltrate the Red Queen’s castle, where Alice adopts the deeply convincing alias of “Um.” Surprisingly, this works. She navigates palace intrigue, dodges unwanted advances from the Knave, and learns the Vorpal Sword is hidden in the Bandersnatch’s den, because of course it is.

 

Fantasy MacGuffin…check!

After a daring retrieval mission and a quick act of kindness involving returning the Bandersnatch’s stolen eye, Alice finally links up with the White Queen (Anne Hathaway), who operates her kingdom like a vegan witch with boundary issues. Meanwhile, Absolem goes full self-help guru and reminds Alice that she’s been here before, back when it was still called Wonderland and childhood trauma hadn’t set in. Armed with self-belief and a sword, Alice faces the Jabberwocky (Christopher Lee) in a climactic battle staged on a chessboard, because symbolism is free. She wins, naturally, decapitating the beast and ending the Red Queen’s reign. Order is restored, villains are exiled, and Alice is handed a vial of magical dragon blood that functions like a one-use exit button. She returns to the real world, rejects Hamish again (good call), and decides to become a trade entrepreneur heading to China, because nothing says personal growth like colonial-era business ventures. A butterfly Absolem lands on her shoulder, just in case you forgot the metaphor.

 

“I’ll be seeing you in the sequel.”

Stray Observations:

• Alice spends half the movie insisting it’s a dream while actively participating in a revolution. Commitment to denial is impressive.
• The entire prophecy hinges on Alice remembering something she forgot, which feels like a cosmic clerical error.
• The Red Queen keeps a court full of people with fake, enlarged heads, and no one questions the long-term neck damage.
• The Knave of Hearts thinks flirting during an execution threat is a winning strategy. Bold, if nothing else.
• The White Queen refuses to harm living creatures but has no issue outsourcing violence. Morality, but make it selective.
• The Hatter’s accent wanders more than Alice does.
• The Jabberwocky is voiced by Christopher Lee, a man whose voice alone deserves its own credit line, and the first thing Alice does is slice off its tongue. Somewhere, a film historian just felt a disturbance in the force.
• Alice defeats a monster she’s never fought before after one pep talk. Years of knight training are apparently overrated.

 

It’s nice when you’re handed a plus twelve plot contrivance.

The film’s origin story is almost more compelling than what ended up on screen. Screenwriter Linda Woolverton, going through a rough stretch of life that included personal loss and upheaval, latched onto a striking image: Alice at a crossroads, spotting the White Rabbit and choosing to follow him despite everything. It’s a genuinely powerful concept, rooted in uncertainty and the pull of destiny. Disney heard “fantasy epic with brand recognition” and greenlit it faster than you can say “merchandising.” Tim Burton was brought in as the obvious choice, because if you’re going to revisit Wonderland, you might as well hand the keys to someone who’s built a career out of making the strange feel oddly sincere.

 

“You can find us at your local Disney Store.”

Burton’s direction is exactly what you’d expect, for better and worse. Visually, it’s a feast of twisted whimsy, gothic flourishes, and digitally enhanced oddities that feel like they escaped from one of his sketchbooks. The world of Underland has texture and personality, even if it sometimes looks like it’s drowning in CGI polish. His style gives the film a distinct identity, but it also leans heavily into familiar territory. You’ve seen this brand of off-kilter before, just with different hats and paler faces. There’s imagination here, no question, but it occasionally feels like Burton is remixing himself rather than discovering something new.

 

Could Tim Burton be developing a big head, as well?

The cast is a mixed bag, which is putting it kindly. Mia Wasikowska makes for a perfectly serviceable Alice, grounding the film with a performance that doesn’t collapse under the weight of green screens and prophecy talk. Helena Bonham Carter goes all in as the Red Queen, delivering a delightfully unhinged performance that knows exactly how ridiculous it is. Anne Hathaway’s White Queen, on the other hand, floats through the film with an ethereal detachment that reads less as mystical and more as mildly sedated. Then there’s Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter. At this point in his career, Depp seems convinced that every role benefits from a splash of Jack Sparrow, and here it turns into a distracting cocktail of accents and mannerisms. There’s a fine line between quirky and exhausting, and he spends most of the film tap-dancing over it.

 

The level of cringe is off the charts. 

As an adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s work, the film takes a very loose approach, which is a polite way of saying it turns nonsense into a conventional hero’s journey. Carroll’s stories thrived on absurdity, wordplay, and a kind of narrative anarchy that refused to be pinned down. This version trades that in for prophecy, destiny, and a climactic sword fight. It’s not inherently a bad choice, but it does strip away much of what made the original material unique. Compared to Disney’s animated classic, which embraced the chaos and leaned into the surreal, Burton’s film feels oddly structured, like Wonderland has been forced to attend a screenwriting seminar and come out with a three-act arc.

 

This version of Wonderland has a lot more ennui.

In conclusion, Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland is a film caught between imagination and obligation. It wants to honour the spirit of Carroll’s work while also delivering a crowd-pleasing fantasy adventure, and the result is something that never fully commits to either. There are moments of visual brilliance and performances that understand the assignment, but they’re weighed down by a narrative that feels more dutiful than inspired. It’s not a disaster by any stretch, but it’s also not the definitive Wonderland it aims to be. What it undeniably is, though, is a turning point for Disney, proving that audiences would show up in droves for reimagined classics, even if the magic feels a little processed.

Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016) – Review

2016’s Alice Through the Looking Glass arrived with all the confidence of a film that assumes you’ll be dazzled into submission, and all the substance of a screensaver. What should have been a whimsical return to Wonderland instead feels like a contractual obligation stretched to feature length. Even worse, it somehow takes a world built on imagination and renders it aggressively dull.

For three years, Alice Kingsleigh (Mia Wasikowska) has been off living a far more interesting movie, captaining a ship across the China Sea and pulling off manoeuvres that would make seasoned naval officers question their life choices. In her opening scene, she threads a full-rigged vessel through jagged rocks while being chased by pirates, because apparently physics and basic maritime hierarchy took the day off. Her crew, a group of men who in any historical context would mutiny before lunch, instead follow her with unwavering loyalty. Tragically, this is not a dream sequence, which raises uncomfortable questions about why the film’s most engaging material exists purely to be abandoned.

 

“Has anyone seen Jack Sparrow?”

Returning to London, Alice discovers that her ex-fiancé, Hamish Ascot (Leo Bill), has taken control of his late father’s company and now wants her ship in exchange for not rendering her and her mother (Lindsay Duncan) homeless. This subplot lands with all the urgency of paperwork. It exists purely to shove Alice back toward Wonderland, which she enters by following a butterfly (Alan Rickman) through a mirror, because wanting to go there simply isn’t motivation enough. Once back, she finds her old companions hosting what can only be described as a collective emotional breakdown, centred on the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp), who has decided his long-dead family might still be alive.

 

Johnny Depp, more annoying than mad.

Alice attempts to apply logic, which in this universe is treated like a hate crime. When she dares to say something is impossible, the Hatter spirals further, declaring she isn’t “his Alice” and beginning a slow theatrical shutdown. The White Queen (Anne Hathaway), who continues to float through scenes like a sentient porcelain doll, sends Alice to consult Time (Sacha Baron Cohen), an entity who explicitly tells her that altering the past is impossible and will destroy everything. Naturally, Alice responds by stealing the Chronosphere, the device controlling all time, because nothing says “hero” like ignoring the one rule that keeps reality intact.

 

“I should introduce you to Marty McFly.”

What follows is a time-hopping detour through events nobody asked to revisit, including the Red Queen’s (Helena Bonham Carter) origin story, which reveals her oversized head is the result of both a childhood accident and a lifetime of bad emotional processing. Alice becomes convinced she can fix everything by changing one moment from the past, despite repeated warnings that this is a catastrophically bad idea. Meanwhile, Time spends most of the film desperately trying to stop her from breaking existence, which ironically makes him the closest thing the story has to a responsible adult.

 

“I don’t need to be mature, I’m the protagonist.”

The film briefly detours into an asylum subplot when Alice is institutionalized for talking about Wonderland, a sequence that serves no purpose other than to toss in a reference to “female hysteria” and pad the film’s running time. It is introduced, resolved, and immediately forgotten, suggesting even the script lost interest halfway through. Eventually, Alice returns to Wonderland, discovers the Hatter’s family was never dead but merely captured and shrunk into an ant farm, because anything remotely sensible was not invited.

 

At what point are we supposed to care for any of this?

In the climax, paradoxes are triggered, characters begin rusting into oblivion, and all of Wonderland collapses because Alice did exactly what she was told not to do. She narrowly resets time at the last second, saving everyone and facing zero consequences for nearly destroying reality. The Hatter reunites with his family, the White Queen apologizes for a childhood lie that apparently shaped the entire conflict, and Alice returns home to start a shipping company with her mother, because the film suddenly remembers it began as a business drama, while bravely ignoring the facts of this era.

 

“Have you forgotten that this is bloody London in 1875?”

Stray Observations:

• Alice commanding a loyal crew of hardened sailors like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Either she’s the greatest leader in maritime history or everyone onboard lost a bet.
• Alan Rickman’s final film role is as a butterfly leading Alice back into chaos. The man deserved better, and somehow still brings more dignity to this than the script ever manages.
• Alice proudly claims she can believe six impossible things before breakfast, yet the moment the Hatter suggests his family might be alive, she suddenly becomes the world’s leading authority on realism. Consistency clearly did not make the journey through the looking glass.
• “You can’t change the past.” Fair enough. “But you can absolutely shatter the fabric of time and existence.” Solid rules, no notes.
• The time travel detour gives us younger versions of the characters, because nothing says compelling storytelling like turning everyone into Muppet Babies.
• Hollywood’s unstoppable urge to explain everything. Mystery? Gone. Imagination? Also gone. But hey, now we know why the Red Queen has a big head, so that’s…something.
• The asylum subplot appears, does its damage, and vanishes like a bad dream no one wants to discuss.
• The Hatter’s family being alive completely undercuts the emotional stakes the film pretends to build.
• Characters act shocked when paradoxes happen after deliberately creating paradoxes. Did this film even have a screenwriter?
• The White Queen apparently forgets she commands an army and instead opts for the classic strategy of “let’s all just run over there ourselves and see what happens.”

 

“Military aid is for losers.”

The film’s biggest issue is that it mistakes noise for imagination. Lewis Carroll’s work thrives on playful nonsense, but here everything is overexplained, overdesigned, and emotionally hollow. The time travel element reduces Wonderland to a checklist of backstory revelations, none of which deepen the characters in any meaningful way. Instead of embracing chaos, the film tries to impose structure, and in doing so, drains the setting of its identity. It’s like watching a theme park attraction pause every five minutes to explain how the rides were built, completely missing why anyone showed up in the first place.

 

A place defined by absurd logic somehow becomes predictable.

Visually, the film is a downgrade from its predecessor. Where the first movie at least had striking imagery to distract from its narrative issues, this one feels oddly flat and synthetic. The environments blur together into a digital haze, lacking the distinctiveness needed to make Wonderland feel like a place worth revisiting. It resembles a very expensive screen saver that forgot to include anything memorable beyond the fact that it’s constantly in motion. When even the spectacle feels tired, there’s not much left to cling to.

 

How much CGI noise can one put up with?

The cast fares little better. Mia Wasikowska seems stranded, playing a protagonist whose decisions make less sense the longer the film continues. Johnny Depp, who was already pushing the limits of tolerable in the previous film, escalates his performance into full-blown irritation, turning the Hatter into a hyperactive distraction rather than a character. Anne Hathaway leans harder into exaggerated mannerisms, while Helena Bonham Carter does what she can with material that reduces her to a punchline. Sacha Baron Cohen emerges as the unexpected highlight, largely because he appears to understand he’s in a different movie and chooses to play it with a hint of grounded frustration.

 

“I’ll see you on Fleet Street, Mister Todd.”

In conclusion, Alice Through the Looking Glass is a rare kind of failure: a fantasy film that forgets how to be imaginative. It replaces curiosity with exposition, whimsy with noise, and emotional stakes with empty spectacle. What should have been a playful return to a beloved world instead feels like a hollow echo, assembled without any clear reason to exist beyond brand recognition. Even by the already questionable standards of live-action remakes, this one struggles to justify its own presence