Scanners (1981)
May 5, 2003Psychic Powers
Enormously entertaining David Cronenberg film about psychic powers. Cronenberg is fascinated with the conceptua possibilities and creates some sensational set-pieces
Michael Ironside
Visiting Hours (1982)
Jan 9, 2015Slasher Film
Taut and effective effort from the heyday of the slasher film, one of several films on the theme of a woman newscaster being stalked by a psycho. A young Michael Ironside goes to town on the role of the psycho and plays to the gallery with nastily effective results
Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone (1983)
Jun 19, 2000Planetary Adventure
Planetary adventure in the Star Wars vein with a few shakes of the junkyard future look of Mad Max 2. This was made to exploit the short-lived early 80s 3D revival fad
V: The Final Battle (1984)
May 4, 2009Alien Invasion
Follow-up to the popular V mini-series, this is an absurd melodrama that is made up of incredibly bad science-fiction writing and directed with zero plausibility
Murder in Space (1985)
Oct 1, 2024Murder Mystery Aboard a Space Mission
TV movie that had a unique selling point – a whodunit set aboard an international space mission – where viewers were invited to guess who the killer was
Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II (1987)
Feb 17, 2003Prom Queen's Supernatural Retribution
Unrelated in any way to the slasher film Prom Night, this plants tongue in cheek as it tries to imitate the A Nightmare on Elm Street films in its story of a vengeful undead prom queen
Watchers (1988)
May 31, 2001Intelligent Dog/Dean R. Koontz Adaptation
Dean R. Koontz adaptation in which Corey Haim adopts an unusually intelligent dog unaware it is part of a genetically engineered killing machine. Produced by Roger Corman who spun out a series of sequels.
Total Recall (1990)
Jun 18, 2005Virtual Memories/Reality Bender/Action
Adaptation of a Philip K. Dick story is killed by being turned into an Arnold Schwarzenegger action vehicle and by director Paul Verhoeven's burying the reality bending subtleties of the story under bludgeoning ultra-violence
Highlander II: The Quickening (1991)
Mar 21, 2001Immortal Combat/Dark Future
Probably THE worst sequel ever made. The script’s treatment of continuity to the first film is utterly incoherent, while director Russell Mulcahy and most of the cast go at it with unrestrained OTT excess
The Vagrant (1992)
Apr 1, 2021Yuppie Tormented by a Homeless Man
Directorial outing from makeup effects artist Chris Walas who created the Gremlins and Cronenberg's The Fly. This Bill Paxton as a Yuppie who buys a home and is driven paranoid as it keeps being invaded by a vagrant
Forced to Kill (1993)
Nov 10, 2006Action/Backwoods Brutality
A modestly effective action film written by/starring stuntman Corey Michael Eubanks where he is forced by backwoods hicks to compete in bare-knuckle fights
The Killing Machine (1994)
Feb 3, 2008Action/Manufactured AIDS Virus Coverup
Action film with Jeff Wincott as a resurrected hitman who makes the discovery that AIDS has been artificially manufactured
Kids of the Round Table (1995)
Dec 21, 2000Boy Finds Excalibur
A Canadian children's film that does a modest, amusing job of updating the Arthurian legends to the modern day as Merlin appears to a young boy and gives him Excalibur
Starship Troopers (1997)
Jul 29, 2010War with Aliens
Travesty of Robert Heinlein's classic SF novel from Paul Verhoeven. Heinlein's philosophical argument for militarism is junked in favour of blackly comic mindless violence
A Twist of Faith (1999)
Jan 7, 2006Catholic Serial Killer Thriller
Dull serial killer thriller with Andrew McCarthy tracking a killer that has a Catholic fixation
The Omega Code (1999)
Jul 5, 2002Christian Anti-Christ Film
The Omen and imitators had been exploiting Biblical End Times prophecies for years but this is one that approaches it from a Christian perspective. The film also started a wave of serious faith-based films that employed name actors in order to carry them to crossover audiences
Heavy Metal 2000 (2000)
Oct 8, 2000Adult Animation/Space Opera
Sequel to the animated Heavy Metal that failed to attract the same cult audience that its predecessor did. Telling only one story instead of several, it only offers a routine space opera adventure
Ignition (2001)
Nov 21, 2014Action Thriller
An action film set against the backdrop of a new Moon mission where Bill Pullman plays a US marshal assigned to protect judge Lena Olin whose life is under threat
The Shaft (2001)
Jan 16, 2024Killer Elevator
The English-language remake of the Dutch film The Lift about a killer elevator. Starring a then unknown Naomi Watts in a role that would probably embarrass her now
The Machinist (2004)
Aug 5, 2005Anorexia, Sleeplessness and Reality Blurrings
Fascinating film from Brad Anderson where Christian Bale is subject to a series of reality blurrings. What hangs over the show most of all is Bale's intensely physical performance for which he lost a third of his body weight to turn himself into an anorexic shell of a human
Reeker (2005)
May 9, 2017Hunted by an Unearthly Creature
An initially low-assumption film that rapidly becomes highly watchable thanks to some way out jumps and creature appearances that propel it into real WTF territory. Where it falters is its arrival a well and truly cliched twist ending but the ride there is undeniably memorable
The Alphabet Killer (2008)
Aug 7, 2011Search for a True-Life Serial Killer
This claims to be based on an unsolved true-life serial killer case from the 1970s, although dumps all but a handful of facts in favour of a B-movie thriller plot about a detective with mental illness
Terminator Salvation (2009)
Jun 6, 2009War Against the Machines
The fourth Terminator film is slightly better than you would expect of something directed by the empty-headed McG. There are some undeniably spectacular action sequences, although the film still stands too much in the shadow of what has gone before
Hardwired (2009)
Jun 2, 2011Satiric Corporate Future/Advertising Brain Implants
This has the promising idea of a corporate-ruled future where people receive advertising implants but soon dissolves into the equivalent of a B-budget hacker thriller
X: First Class (2011)
Jun 5, 2011Comic-Book Superheroes/Origin Prequel
An X-Men origin story that serves as the occasion to recast the series with younger actors. This works far better than the previous two films, integrating the characters in a strong story, although is quiet at the superheroic action
Ice Soldiers (2013)
Apr 16, 2014Revived Soviet Super-Soldiers
This Canadian effort about Soviet super-soldiers unfrozen in the present-day feels like one of a bunch of cheap direct-to-video copies of Universal Soldier that came out in the late 1990s
Extraterrestrial (2014)
Jul 3, 2015Aliens Attack in the Backwoods
Group of twentysomethings go to a cabin in the woods, are abducted and attacked by E.T.s. I wanted to like this but there is something generic and interchangeable about everything that is happening
Desecrated (2015)
Oct 28, 2016Psychopathic Hunter
Yet another effort about teens running around the backwoods being stalked by a madman. This does better than most with the psycho of the show being an original character, given an intense, domineering performance from Gonzalo Menendez
Synchronicity (2015)
Jul 15, 2016Time Paradox
An ambitious film reminiscent of Twelve Monkeys, this has a time traveller venturing into the past and a conceptual jigsaw as he intersects with and has to hide in the margins of events in his own timeline
Turbo Kid (2015)
Oct 23, 2015Retro 80s Parody of Post-Holocaust Films
There is a fantastically witty idea here – a low-tech parody of the 1980s post-holocaust film – but one that seems in search of an accompanying film. The film overspills with retro ephemera and stylistic jokes but I wish there had been more to it beyond the hook of the initial joke
Bloodthirsty (2020)
Feb 28, 2022Female Werewolf
Promising film about an ingénue singer under the control of a Svengali-esque record producer who is struggling against giving in to her true werewolf nature
Dracula: The Original Living Vampire (2022)
Oct 17, 2022Dracula Adaptation
The Asylum conduct their own version of Bram Stoker's Dracula and this becomes one of the most radical screen adaptations of the story to date, swapping genders of characters