The Ultimate Warrior (1975)
Aug 15, 2011Post-Holocaust
An early example of the post-apocalyptic action film with Yul Brynner as a lone fighter hired to defend a peaceful community
Stephen McHattie
Death Valley (1982)
Aug 5, 2001Slasher Road Movie
Essentially a slasher movie version of Witness where a family driving through Death Valley are pursued by a killer after the young son sees his face
Theodore Rex (1995)
May 24, 2010Cop and Dinosaur Partner
Disastrous flop that tries to do a Lethal Weapon buddy cop film by way of Jurassic Park and gives us a film about a cop with a dinosaur partner!
The Covenant (2006)
Oct 21, 2007Teen Male Witches
Ridiculous film from the perpetually awful Renny Harlin about teen male witches that feels like a gender-swapped version of The Craft cast with pretty boys and directed amid absurdly overblown effects
Kaw (2007)
Apr 12, 2023Killer Raven Attacks
A halfway reasonable Syfy Channel film with people under attack by treacheries of ravens. This homages The Birds, including featuring an aging Rod Taylor, to modest effect
Pontypool (2008)
May 4, 2011Zombie Film/Deadly Contagion in the English Language
Bruce McDonald makes a standout fim with Stephen McHattie as a radio dj dealing with a zombie infection that inhabits the English language that breaks out in the town around him
2012 (2009)
Nov 14, 2009The End of the World/Disaster Movie
Roland Emmerich mass destruction spectacle loosely based around the supposed Mayan prophecies about the end of the world in 2012. Mostly just an excuse for massively scaled disaster sequences.
Watchmen (2009)
Mar 8, 2009Comic-Book Superheroes
Zack Snyder's adaptation of Alan Moore's groundbreaking graphic novel is exceedingly faithful to the original. Often called unfilmable, Snyder articulates the material in ways that quite surprise
Red: Werewolf Hunter (2010)
Jun 16, 2013Werewolf Film
Syfy Channel film that seems to offer the intriguing premise of a Modernised Little Red Riding Hood but only deals with this in the vaguest ways. Otherwise this is a standard werewolf film and contains maybe the crappiest CGI wolf transformation scenes ever
Immortals (2011)
Nov 19, 2011Greek Myth
A venture into Greek myth retelling the story of Theseus and the labyrinth. Tarsem Singh, a director with a visually extraordinary eye, lavishes everything on the sets and costumes. One film of the 3D overkill fad that needs to be seen in 3D
Exit Humanity (2011)
Mar 1, 2013American Civil War Zombie Film
Modestly effective zombie film set during the US Civil War. This eschews the usual gore-drenched zombie attacks in favour of a nicely achieved story about one man's internal journey through the apocalypse
Eddie the Sleepwalking Cannibal (2012)
May 5, 2013Sleepwalking Cannibalism/Black Comedy
Rather peculiar film about a man who becomes a cannibal whenever he sleepwalks and an artist who finds inspiration at the sight of the dead bodies. This taps a rich vein of black comedy
A Little Bit Zombie (2012)
May 22, 2012Zombie Comedy
Amiable Canadian entry in the oversaturated market of the zombie comedy that emerges sort of as a Judd Apatow film with zombies and produces the occasional smile if few laughs
The Tall Man (2012)
Nov 25, 2012Child Abducting Boogeymen/Conceptual Reversal Twister
Pascal Laugier returns with this fascinating effort about a small town subject to child abductions by a possible boogieman. A film that is as blatantly manipulative as it is ingenious in its way-out twists and turns where everything we assume is going on at the outset is eventually turned completely on its head
Haunter (2013)
Mar 30, 2014Ghost Story
Vincenzo Natali tackles the ghost story, turning everything on its head in a series of mind-boggling twists. One of the few post-Sixth Sense films to take the film's big twist as its starting point and build from there
Wolves (2014)
Jul 19, 2015Werewolf Film
Evidently intended to be a werewolf equivalent of the Star Wars saga in in its epically contorted familial struggles, this sits just between the stylish and another classic monster repackaged for the teen crowd and cast with handsome good-looking faces
Lizzie Borden Took an Ax (2014)
Nov 24, 2016True Crime
Lizzie Borden is one of the more fascinating figures in True Crime. This is very accurate to the details of the case; alas it gets the most sensational aspect over soon in and bogs down in the minutiae of the trial
The Dark Stranger (2015)
May 28, 2018Boogeyman Emerges from a Graphic Novel
This comes with an original idea where a troubled girl starts drawing a graphic novel that mirrors her own life only for the characters to emerge into the real world. Less horror than a dark allegorical fantasy
Pay the Ghost (2015)
Jul 14, 2017Man Searches for His Supernaturally Abducted Son
Nicolas Cage has never had a good relationship with the horror genre – remember The Wicker Man and Vampire's Kiss? This gives all impression it was designed for the 50c bargain bins, in which Nic tries to save his missing son in what amounts to a supernatural version of Taken
Awakening the Zodiac (2017)
Nov 13, 2017Hunting the Zodiac Killer in the Present Day
This comes with a great hook – a couple buy up the contents of a defaulted storage locker only to find film reels taken by The Zodiac Killer, leading them on a pursuit of his identity
Mother! (2017)
Dec 16, 2017Surreal Allegorical Drama
Darren Aronofsky's surreal drama wildly divided critics and was a box-office flop with general audiences. Naturally, what I thought the film was about was completely different to what Aronofsky stated it was about
Death Wish (2018)
Sep 22, 2018Vigilante Film
Eli Roth’s remake of the classic Charles Bronson vigilante film is an ugly affair. In an era where school shooting are a weekly scourge in the US, do we really need another fantasy about one man becoming empowered and sorting things out with a gun?
Rabid (2019)
Oct 26, 2019Parasitic Skin Graft
The Soska Sisters take on remaking the classic David Cronenberg film about a woman with a blood-drinking skin graft who leaves a trail of rabid victims. The sisters smartly update the original, bringing a host of new ideas to bear
Dreamland (2019)
Aug 8, 2021Crime Thriller with a Vampire
Bruce McDonald, who directed the standout Pontypool, makes a crime film where Stephen McHattie plays both a hitman and a heroin-addicted trumpet player. For head-scratching reasons, the film also includes a vampire