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Mad Science - Technology Gone Bad

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Metropolis (1927)

Directors: Fritz Lang

Writers: Thea von Harbou

Stars: Brigitte Helm, Alfred Abel, Gustav Fröhlich

Story: In a futuristic city sharply divided between the working class and the city planners, the son of the city's mastermind falls in love with a working class prophet who predicts the coming of a savior to mediate their differences.

Other Films In Series: None.

1920s
Frankenstein (1931)

Directors: James Whale

Writers: Mary Shelley (novel), Peggy Webling (play), Garrett Fort & Francis Edward Faragoh (screenplay)

Stars: Colin Clive,  Mae Clarke,  Boris Karloff  

Story: An obsessed scientist assembles a living being from parts of exhumed corpses.

Other Films In Series: Bride of Frankenstein (1935), Son of Frankenstein (1939), The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942), Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943), House of Frankenstein (1944), House of Dracula (1945)

 

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1930s
Island of Lost Souls (1932)

Directors:  Erle C. Kenton

Writers: H.G. Wells (novel), Waldemar Young & Philip Wylie (screenplay)

Stars: Charles Laughton,  Bela Lugosi,  Richard Arlen

Story: An obsessed scientist conducts profane experiments in evolution, eventually establishing himself as the self-styled demigod to a race of mutated, half-human abominations.

Other Films In Series: The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977), The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996)

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The Invisible Man (1933)

Directors: James Whale

Writers: H.G. Wells (novel), R.C. Sherriff (screenplay)

Stars: Claude Rains,  Gloria Stuart,  William Harrigan

Story: A scientist finds a way of becoming invisible, but in doing so, he becomes murderously insane.

Other Films In Series: The Invisible Man Returns (1940), The Invisible Woman (1940), Invisible Agent (1942), The Invisible Man's Revenge (1944), The Invisible Man (2020)

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Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)

Directors: Victor Fleming

Writers: Robert Louis Stevenson (novella), John Lee Mahin (screenplay)

Stars: Spencer Tracy, Ingrid Bergman, Lana Turner

Story: Dr. Jekyll allows his dark side to run wild when he drinks a potion that turns him into the evil Mr. Hyde.

Other Films In Series: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1908), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1912), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1913), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920), Charles Haydon's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931), The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (2006),

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1940s
The Fly (1958)

Directors: Kurt Neumann

Writers: George Langelaan (story), James Clavell (screenplay)

Stars: David Hedison,  Patricia Owens,  Vincent Price

Story: A scientist has a horrific accident when he tries to use his newly invented teleportation device.

Other Films In Series: Return of the Fly (1959), Curse of the Fly (1965), The Fly (1986), The Fly II (1989)

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1950s
The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1962)

Directors: Joseph Green

Writers: Rex Carlton (original story), Joseph Green (screenplay)

Stars: Jason Evers, Virginia Leith, Anthony La Penna

Story: A doctor experimenting with transplant techniques keeps his girlfriend's head alive when she is decapitated in a car crash, then goes hunting for a new body.

Other Films In Series: None.

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1960s
The Stepford Wives (1975)

Directors: Bryan Forbes

Writers: Ira Levin (novel), William Goldman (screenplay)

Stars: Katharine Ross, Paula Prentiss, Peter Masterson

Story:  Joanna Eberhart has come to the quaint little town of Stepford, Connecticut with her family, but soon discovers there lies a sinister truth in the all too perfect behavior of the female residents.

Other Films In Series: Revenge of the Stepford Wives (1980), The Stepford Children (1987), The Stepford Husbands (1996), The Stepford Wives (2004)

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1970s
The Brood (1979)

Directors: David Cronenberg

Writers: David Cronenberg

Stars: Oliver Reed, Samantha Eggar, Art Hindle

Story:  A man tries to uncover an unconventional psychologist's therapy techniques on his institutionalized wife, amidst a series of brutal murders.

Other Films In Series: None.

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Altered States (1980)

Directors: Ken Russell

Writers: Paddy Chayefsky

Stars: William Hurt, Blair Brown, Bob Balaban

Story: A Harvard scientist conducts experiments on himself with a hallucinatory drug and an isolation chamber that may be causing him to regress genetically.

Other Films In Series: None.

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1980s
Re-Animator (1985)

Directors: Stuart Gordon

Writers: H.P. Lovecraft (original story), Dennis Paoli, William Norris & Stuart Gordon (screenplay)

Stars: Jeffrey Combs,  Bruce Abbott,  Barbara Crampton

Story: A dedicated student at a medical college and his girlfriend become involved in bizarre experiments centering around the re-animation of dead tissue when an odd new student arrives on campus.

Other Films In Series: Bride of Re-Animator (1990), Beyond Re-Animator (2003)

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Chopping Mall (1986)

Directors: Jim Wynorski

Writers: Jim Wynorski, Steve Mitchell

Stars: Kelli Maroney, Tony O'Dell, Russell Todd

Story: Eight teenagers are trapped after hours in a high tech shopping mall and pursued by three murderous security robots out of control.

Other Films In Series: None.

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The Fly (1986)

Directors: David Cronenberg

Writers: George Langelaan (short story), Charles Edward Pogue (screenplay)

Stars: Jeff Goldblum, Geena Davis, John Getz

Story: A brilliant but eccentric scientist begins to transform into a giant man/fly hybrid after one of his experiments goes horribly wrong.

Other Films In Series: The Fly (1958), Return of the Fly (1959), Curse of the Fly (1965), The Fly II (1989)

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From Beyond (1986)

Directors: Stuart Gordon

Writers: H.P. Lovecraft (short story), Brian Yuzna (adaptation)

Stars: Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, Ted Sorel

Story: A group of scientists have developed the Resonator, a machine which allows whoever is within range to see beyond normal perceptible reality. But when the experiment succeeds, they are immediately attacked by terrible life forms.

Other Films In Series: None.

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Jurassic Park (1993)

Directors: Steven Spielberg

Writers: Michael Crichton

Stars: Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum

Story: During a preview tour, a theme park suffers a major power breakdown that allows its cloned dinosaur exhibits to run amok.

Other Films In Series: The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), Jurassic Park III (2001), Jurassic World (2015), Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018), Jurassic World: Dominion (2022)

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1990s
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994)

Directors: Kenneth Branagh

Writers: Mary Shelley (novel), Steph Lady (screenplay)

Stars: Robert De Niro, Kenneth Branagh, Helena Bonham Carter

Story: When the brilliant but unorthodox scientist Dr. Victor Frankenstein rejects the artificial man that he has created, the Creature escapes and later swears revenge.

Other Films In Series: None.

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Screamers (1995)

Directors: Christian Duguay

Writers: Philip K. Dick (short story "Second Variety"), Dan O'Bannon (screenplay)

Stars: Peter Weller, Roy Dupuis, Jennifer Rubin

Story: On a distant planet ravaged by war, scientists have created the perfect weapon: a blade-wielding, self-replicating race of killing devices known as Screamers. But man's greatest weapon has continued to evolve, and now it has devised a new mission: to obliterate all life.

Other Films In Series: Screamers: The Hunting (2009)

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The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996)

Directors: John Frankenheimer, Richard Stanley

Writers: H.G. Wells (novel), Richard Stanley (screenplay)

Stars: David Thewlis, Marlon Brando, Val Kilmer, Fairuza Balk

Story: After being rescued and brought to an island, a man discovers that its inhabitants are experimental animals being turned into strange-looking humans, all of it the work of a visionary doctor.

Other Films In Series: Island of Lost Souls (1932), The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977)

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Event Horizon (1997)

Directors: Paul W.S. Anderson

Writers: Philip Eisner

Stars: Laurence Fishburne, Sam Neill, Kathleen Quinlan

Story: A rescue crew investigates a spaceship that disappeared into a black hole and has now returned...with someone or something new on-board.

Other Films In Series: None.

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Disturbing Behavior (1998)

Directors: David Nutter

Writers: Scott Rosenberg

Stars: James Marsden, Katie Holmes, Nick Stahl

Story: The new kid in town stumbles across something sinister about the town's method of transforming its unruly teens into upstanding citizens.

Other Films In Series: None.

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Hollow Man (2000)

Directors: Paul Verhoeven

Writers: Gary Scott Thompson, Andrew W. Marlowe

Stars: Kevin Bacon, Elisabeth Shue, Josh Brolin

Story: When the leader of a team of scientists volunteers to be the test subject for their experiment in human invisibility, he slowly unravels and turns against them, with horrific consequences.

Other Films In Series: Hollow Man II (2006)

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2000s
The Cell (2000)

Directors: Tarsem Singh

Writers: Mark Protosevich

Stars: Jennifer Lopez, Vince Vaughn, Vincent D'Onofrio

Story: An FBI agent persuades a social worker, who is adept with a new experimental technology, to enter the mind of a comatose serial killer in order to learn where he has hidden his latest kidnap victim.

Other Films In Series: The Cell 2 (2009)

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Resident Evil (2002)

Directors: Paul W.S. Anderson

Writers: Paul W.S. Anderson

Stars: Milla Jovovich,  Michelle Rodriguez,  Ryan McCluskey

Story: A special military unit fights a powerful, out-of-control supercomputer and hundreds of scientists who have mutated into flesh-eating creatures after a laboratory accident.

Other Films In Series: Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004), Resident Evil: Extinction (2007), Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010), Resident Evil: Retribution (2012), Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2017), Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2022)

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The Butterfly Effect (2004)

Directors: Eric Bress, J. Mackye Gruber

Writers: J. Mackye Gruber, Eric Bress

Stars: Ashton Kutcher, Amy Smart, Melora Walters

Story: Evan Treborn suffers blackouts during significant events of his life. As he grows up, he finds a way to remember these lost memories and a supernatural way to alter his life by reading his journal.

Other Films In Series: The Butterfly Effect 2 (2006), The Butterfly Effect 3: Revelations (2009)

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Timecrimes (2007)

Directors: Nacho Vigalondo

Writers: Nacho Vigalondo

Stars: Karra Elejalde,  Candela Fernández,  Bárbara Goenaga

Story: A man accidentally gets into a time machine and travels back in time nearly an hour. Finding himself will be the first of a series of disasters of unforeseeable consequences.

Other Films In Series: None.

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Splice (2009)

Directors: Vincenzo Natali

Writers: Vincenzo Natali, Antoinette Terry Bryant

Stars: Adrien Brody,  Sarah Polley,  Delphine Chanéac

Story: Genetic engineers Clive Nicoli and Elsa Kast hope to achieve fame by successfully splicing together the DNA of different animals to create new hybrid animals for medical use.

Other Films In Series: None.

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Triangle (2009)

Directors: Christopher Smith

Writers: Christopher Smith

Stars: Melissa George, Joshua McIvor, Jack Taylor

Story: The story revolves around the passengers of a yachting trip in the Atlantic Ocean who, when struck by mysterious weather conditions, jump to another ship only to experience greater havoc on the open seas.

Other Films In Series: None.

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Frankenstein's Army (2013)

Directors: Richard Raaphorst

Writers: Richard Raaphorst

Stars: Robert Gwilym, Hon Ping Tang, Alexander Mercury

Story: Toward the end of World War II, Russian soldiers pushing into eastern Germany stumble across a secret Nazi lab, one that has unearthed and begun experimenting with the journal of one Dr. Victor Frankenstein.

Other Films In Series: None.

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2010s
Ex Machina (2014)

Directors: Alex Garland

Writers: Alex Garland

Stars: Alicia Vikander,  Domhnall Gleeson,  Oscar Isaac

Story: A young programmer is selected to participate in a ground-breaking experiment in synthetic intelligence by evaluating the human qualities of a breath-taking humanoid A.I.

Other Films In Series: None.

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A Cure For Wellness (2016)

Directors: Gore Verbinski

Writers: Justin Haythe

Stars: Dane DeHaan, Jason Isaacs, Mia Goth

Story: An ambitious young executive is sent to retrieve his company's CEO from an idyllic but mysterious "wellness center" at a remote location in the Swiss Alps, but soon suspects that the spa's treatments are not what they seem.

Other Films In Series: None.

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Get Out (2017)

Directors: Jordan Peele

Writers: Jordan Peele

Stars: Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Bradley Whitford

Story: A young African-American visits his white girlfriend's parents for the weekend, where his simmering uneasiness about their reception of him eventually reaches a boiling point.

Other Films In Series: None.

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