How idiocyncratic is Christopher Campbell’s list of the 13 best sci-fi and fantasy films of 2013? Here’s your first clue. His number one film was actually released in 2009 – it just took him four years to get around to seeing it.

Here’s your second clue. If you postulated that someone would put both The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and Europa Report on his list of the best films of the year, would you expect him to rank Peter Jackson’s epic behind an outer space Blair Witch Project? Campbell is full of surprises like that. He really loves Europa Report:

Disregard any stigma attached to the found footage idea (even though this film makes the best reasoning for that idea since the climactic fight in Chronicle), and Europa Report is an easily enjoyed and constantly chilling interplanetary mission movie about a crew traveling to the titular moon of Jupiter, where there seems to be signs of life. This smart, modestly budgeted yet perfectly realized effort should be the antidote for all who hated Prometheus (I love both, actually), as well as to all the bloated sci-fi movies we got from Hollywood this year (including another co-starring Sharlto Copley), but it still doesn’t seem to be catching on as the sleeper hit it ought to be. Having been a fan of director Sebastian Cordero for a while, I can only wish this is at least a stepping stone to him becoming the Ecuadorean Alfonso Cuaron. Very interestingly, The History of Future Folk co-director Jeremy Kipp Walker was a producer on this very different kind of sci-fi film.

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian for the link.]