Schizoid (1980)
Feb 13, 2024Psycho Film
An early release from Cannon Films, a psycho film featuring a very weird Klaus Kinski as a sinister psychologist
Christopher Lloyd
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)
Aug 17, 2000Intergalactic Adventures
Leonard Nimoy steps into the director's chair of the third Star Trek film and his doing marks the shift of the films from intergalactic adventuring into the regulars engaged in a safe, easy set of adventures playing to fan audiences
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai: Across the Eighth Dimension (1984)
Apr 16, 1999Funky Inventor Hero vs Alien Invaders
An object lesson in how to create an instant cult film – exceedingly eccentric, a commercial failure at the box-office, it instantly receiving a fan clique – all without it ever being a particularly great film
Back to the Future (1985)
May 9, 1999Time Travel
This was a huge hit at the time and has become one of the most indisputable pop culture artifacts of its era. The film takes a clever time travel plot and infuses it with an effortless energy to prove a considerable winner
Legend of the White Horse (1986)
May 31, 2023Magical Horse/Dragon
Christopher Lloyd and Dee Wallace star in one of the tattiest of 1980s fantasy films about a magic horse that is really a dragon. This is killed by some abysmal effects.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988)
May 9, 2001Toon Detective Story
Groundbreaking film that hilariously imagines an alternate world where cartoon characters live alongside humans. The energy and creativity of the film is superlative
Track 29 (1988)
Aug 29, 2001Surrealism
This collaboration between Nicolas Roeg and Dennis Potter results in a mind-boggling blurring of dream, reality, symbolism and sexual obsession. A name cast are allowed their heads and go wild
Back to the Future Part II (1989)
Jul 6, 1999Time Travel
The first of the Back to the Future sequels has a whiplash ingenuity that propels us through several different scenarios, including a trip to the future, a dark alternate present and requiring Michael J. Fox to duck unseen in and around the margins of the first film
Back to the Future Part III (1990)
Aug 6, 1999Time Travel
Third of the Back to the Future films, which takes everything back in time to the Old West. Probably the slightest of the trilogy, this nevertheless goes out with a rousing farewell
The Addams Family (1991)
Apr 1, 1999Kinky Perverse Family
The big screen version of the 1960s tv series and Charles Addams' cartoons is a highly enjoyable Hollywood Halloween Party, a chance for name actors to put on costume and ape life with a ghoulish, mildly perverse, moderately subversive spin
Addams Family Values (1993)
Aug 8, 1999Kinky Perverse Family
Sequel to the live-action Addams Family film that reunites the same cast who fine-tune their roles, while the black comedy has an even more barbed bite second time around
Angels in the Outfield (1994)
May 1, 2000Angels Aid Baseball Team
Disney remake of the old light fantasy film in which angels step in to aid a losing baseball team. This is pitched to family audiences and holds a surprisingly ardent evangelical message
The Pagemaster (1994)
Aug 31, 2004Adventures in the Land of Fiction
Amiable if lightweight film where a live-action Macaulay Culkin gets animated and has a series of adventures in a Land of Fiction where he must pass through various classic stories
Anastasia (1997)
Mar 31, 1999Animation/Amnesiac Russian Royal
Considerable return to form for animator Don Bluth even if the story of the Russian Royals he is telling is based on a hoax and manages to entirely excise any mention of the Communist Revolution
Quicksilver Highway (1997)
Jul 14, 2010Horror Anthology
The perpetually awful Mick Garris inflicts adaptations of Stephen King and Clive Barker stories on us in what looks like an unsold pilot for a horror anthology tv series
My Favorite Martian (1999)
Sep 5, 2004Alien Visitor Comedy/TV Series Remake
The big screen remake of the 1960s sitcom about a wacky alien visitor. However, this all of the original's amusements promptly gets buried under frenetic slapstick and cheap CGI gags
Alice in Wonderland (1999)
Jun 30, 2003Alice in Wonderland TV Adaptation
A fairly reasonable tv mini-series adaptation of Lewis Carroll – a version that excels in terms of design and in using The Jim Henson Workshop to bring the Wonderland creatures to life
Baby Geniuses (1999)
Apr 1, 1999Intelligent Baby Conspiracy
Film set around the premise that babies are secretly geniuses and talk in their own language. This makes a beeline for pee and poop jokes and seems to think we should applaud it for the cutsieness of seeing babies doing adult things
When Good Ghouls Go Bad (2001)
Feb 5, 2015Children's Halloween Film
Halloween film for children from the pen of horror author R.L. Stine of Goosebumps fame. The children's horror story (and tv movie) is filled with many insipid and formulaic entries but this is a decent one that is not unafraid to scare people
The Tale of Despereaux (2008)
Jan 11, 2008Animation/Talking Animal Adventures
Appealingly old-fashioned film about chivalry and heroism, much quieter than the other animation out there but this still holds its own
Meteor (2009)
Jul 2, 2024Impending Meteor Collision
Disaster TV mini-series where assorted well-known faces fight through the chaos to prevent an impending meteor strike
Piranha (2010)
Aug 28, 2010Killer Fish
Another in the fad for 70s/80s remakes where Alexandre Aja for once captures the spirit of Joe Dante's 1978 original by planting tongue in cheek and wading in with mind-bogglingly gory enthusiasm
The Witches of Oz (2011)
Jun 2, 2014Wizard of Oz Sequel/Modernisation
Sequel/modernisation (it is confusing what) to The Wizard of Oz relocated in New York. This tv mini-series may be the cheapest work ever served up bearing the Oz name and flounders amid the shabbiness of its effects and utter lack of magic its director conjures
In/Sight (2011)
Mar 2, 2017Clairvoyance Thriller
There are few fantastic themes more tired than the clairvoyant thriller – a standard murder mystery where the detective just intuits all their deductions psychically. Apart from a couple of interesting twists, this is no different
Piranha 3DD (2012)
May 26, 2012Killer Fish
Sequel to the Piranha remake. Much the same as before but up one cup size. Well not really, the sequel is more like a joke that was funny the first time that becomes belaboured in the retelling
Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014)
Aug 23, 2014Graphic Novel Adaptation/Ultra-Violent Film Noir Tales
Robert Rodriguez makes his return to Frank Miller's classic film noir-styled graphic novels. You keep expecting this to hit in with the astonishing freshness the first film did. Rodriguez and Miller give us more of the same amazing visuals but there is the feeling it is no longer original and new
Blood Lake: Attack of the Killer Lampreys (2014)
Apr 27, 2015Animals Amok
From The Asylum, the same company behind Sharknado. The major surprise is that this is a monster movie that doesn't place tongue-in-cheek and aim as absurdly as possible. Average in all regards
Back in Time (2015)
Dec 13, 2015Documentary About the Back to the Future Trilogy
Fan-produced documentary about the making of the Back to the Future trilogy. The filmmakers get face time with almost everybody involved. Far less interesting are the scenes dealing with DeLorean restoration
I Am Not a Serial Killer (2016)
Nov 6, 2016Teenage Serial Killer vs Shapechanging Monster
Unique and quite remarkable film about a teen in a nowhere town who recognises the traits of a serial killer in himself and then discovers that aging neighbour Christopher Lloyd is actually a shapechanging monster
Muse (2017)
May 18, 2018Man Haunted by Supernatural Muses
Jaume Balaguero has become one of the most promising of modern Spanish genre directors, principally on the basis of the [Rec] films. However, this supernatural mystery that resembles one of Dario Argento's Three Mothers films fails to quite come together