While it can be fascinating to try and create a completely unique fantasy realm in which to set a story, it is very difficult because of the languages, geography, and other various world-building that has to be done before stories can be told in their own world.
Related:Franchises That Changed Creative Hands For The BetterFor this reason, many films are set in the real world but usefantastical elements and characters.This type of film is called urban fantasy and has been popularized due to fantasy concepts being easier to explain to an audience if some of the characters in the film aren’t in the know about the fantastical concepts either.
7Big Trouble In Little China
Director John Carpenter is a master of the strange and unusual, and his works starring Kurt Russell are all legendary for various reasons.Big Trouble In Little Chinawas Carpenter’s way of spoofing many of the martial arts action movies of the time, and making fun of the “white savior” ideas that other filmmakers had about those films.
Jack Burton is a truck driver who gets mixed up in a battle against an ancient sorcerer called Lo Pan in Chinatown. There areseveral sorcerers and a lotof magic all told within the confines of real-life Chinatown, makingBig Trouble In Little Chinaa prime case of how urban fantasy works as a genre.
6Harry Potter Series
Although many consider the Wizarding World to bea fantasy realm of its own, theHarry PotterandFantastic Beastsfilms are still set within the confines of the real world, they just introduce places hidden from the view of normal humans where the fantastical creatures and magic users can live and learn in peace.
Despite that, there are many sequences, particularly in the laterHarry Potterfilms and theFantastic Beastsfilms, set in and around muggles and the human world. These films are prime urban fantasy because they began with the lead learning about the magical elements along with the audience.
5The Crow
Showcasing the grittier, darker side of urban fantasy films,The Crowis about a young guitarist who rises from the dead one year after he and his fiancé were brutally murdered to seek revenge. The powers he gains as he becomes a spirit of vengeance are like those of a dark superhero,and it is fascinatingto see this early cinematic version of such a dark take on the superhero genre.
The film was the last to star Brandon Lee before his untimely death on-set, and while it managed to be a success at the time and spawned three sequels, it has been relatively forgotten about today by all but a small cult following in the wake of so many other superhero films being released.
4Highlander
A classic urban fantasy film,Highlanderwas made in 1986 and features Christopher Lambert as an immortal from Scotland who had walked the Earth for centuries, fighting and killing other immortals as they all know that there can only be one left to absorb the great power of all the immortals through history.
Related:Fantasy Movies With Awesome World-BuildingBeing pursued by the police, who do not understand the eons-old conflict between these various immortal beings helps make this an obvious case of how magical elements would conflict with the real world. It is a great and memorable story that still has a cult classic status today for the unique fantasy ideas it utilized.
3Day Shift
One of the more recent examples of urban fantasy,Day Shiftsets Jamie Foxx’s vampire hunter up against an army of Vampires that are trying to set up shop in Los Angeles. Establishing a market for Vampire teeth and a union for Vampire hunters was a great way to bring Vampire fighting into the 21st century, and it made for a hilariously fun action film.
Foxx is on top form and the way he goes about his work, trying to get enough money to pay for his family in a realistically blue-collar manner, but with Vampire killing as his profession, makes for a strange blend of family melodrama and comedic-action-fantasy popcorn thriller in this Netflix film.
2Onward
It is easier to set an animated film in a completely fantastical realm, and so it was somewhat surprising to see Disney Pixar setting one of theirs in an urban fantasy world. This world is the same as the modern one, but instead of humans, the world is filled with all manner ofdomesticized fantasy creatures.
The story ofOnwardis about two brothers going on an adventure to try and bring their dead father back to see them for one day only. Instead of succeeding with their first attempt at the spell, they only bring his legs back and are forced to race against the clock to fix him before it is too late. The film is a beautiful family tale set within the larger confines of this intriguing fantasy world.
1What We Do In The Shadows
Taika Waititi is mostly known today for his major Hollywood successes likeThor: RagnarokandJojo Rabbit. However, his name came to prominence before those projects for his mockumentaryabout Vampires living inmodern-day New Zealand.
What We Do In The Shadowsis absolutely hilarious and deserves recognition for the subversive way it blends the ludicrous nature of the Vampires and other magical creatures with the real world, and the results are as ludicrously fun as they are completely realisticfor how these creatureswould fare today.
