Primate (2025)
Johannes Roberts is a director that has been producing some solid work since the 2000s. Here he makes a film about a rabid killer chimpanzee that ratchets up some great tension
We Bury the Dead (2024)
The zombie film underwent a major revival in the 2000s but by the mid-2020s a horde of low-budget copycats has exhausted most creative possibilities. This shows there is still some originality to be found
Dead Dudes in the House (1989)
Known under various titles including Dead Dudes in the House and The House on Tombstone Hill, a film about a group of young people who go to renovate a house but find themselves trapped inside being killed
Farmhouse (2008)
A film about a couple who break down on a country road and seek help at a sinister farmhouse, before everything turns into Torture Porn territory. And then things get weird
The Lost Missile (1958)
A film from the heyday of Cold War hysteria made not long after the launch of the first ICBM about a mysterious hypersonic missile of possibly alien origin that terrorises the US
The Whispering Star (2015)
The very strange Japanese director Shion Sono makes a film about an intergalactic package delivery android, although this is anything but a regular SF film. Filmed in the Fukushima Exclusion Zone.
Hatchet for the Honeymoon (1970)
Mario Bava essentially created the giallo film. Here he returns to the genre with an entry about an man obsessed with killing brides that comes filled with exquisitely stylish surroundings and directorial set-pieces
Osiris (2025)
Soldiers in the middle of a warzone are abducted by aliens and wake up aboard an alien facility. An interesting set up that dissolves into massive amounts of artillery fire and action
The Housemaid (2025)
An airport psycho-thriller that feels like wannabe Gillian Flynn that has been mounted as a vehicle for the talent-handicapped Sydney Sweeney. The whole plot hangs on a believability stretching mid-film twist revelation
Anaconda (2025)
Anaconda was a CGI monster movie that has subsequently gained a bad movie reputation. The idea of a comedy remake about conducting a remake of the film just seems a little too cutely meta
Doomsday Meteor (2023)
Another enterprising low-budget disaster movie from The Asylum about a meteor on a collision course with the Earth. The great Joe Roche is on script and creates an amazingly almost plausible scenario
Absolute Zero (2006)
A Syfy Channel disaster movie based around the scientifically nonsensical idea of the Earth’s pole undergoing a magnetic shift and temperatures being reduced to absolute zero
The Medium (2021)
A Thai possession film shot Found Footage. This takes place among very different cultural rituals, which makes a welcome difference to the cliches that dominate Western possession films, and builds up to something quite out there
Tarzan in Manhattan (1989)
Comedy take on the Tarzan character with Joe Lara playing Tarzan who comes to New York and promptly proves to be a fish out of water. The filmmakers were likely inspired by the then recent hit of Crocodile Dundee
A Nightmare Wakes (2020)
One of several films based on the famous writer’s workshop at Villa Diodati in 1816 and the meeting with Lord Byron, Percy Shelley and Dr Polidori that led to Mary Shelley writing Frankenstein
Mr Crocket (2024)
A wonderfully grotesque and sinister film about a failed children’s show host who returns from Hell as a boogeyman come to snatch children away from bad parents. Think Death to Smoochy meets A Nightmare on Elm Street
Zootopia 2 (2025)
Zootopia was one of Disney’s freshest animated works in a decade largely marked only by mediocrity. This is a sequel where the fantastically original world of the first film slips into being just another Disney IP
Greenland: Migration (2026)
Greenland was a disaster movie on the familiar theme of a comet colliding with the Earth. This is a desultory sequel where the survivors emerge from the shelters to now have to survive in a changed post-apocalyptic world
Guess What Happened to Count Dracula? (1971)
A forgotten effort made during the 1960s/70s resurgence of the vampire film. One of the first films to depict Dracula in the present-day. The answer to the title question is that he is now running a nightclub in L.A.
Dracula Rising (1992)
The 1990s brought us the darkly romantic vampire spearheaded by Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula. This was a Roger Corman produced bandwagon jumper on the trend
The Hound of the Baskervilles (2000)
Another adaptation of the Sherlock Holmes quasi-supernatural mystery. This is also one of the worst ever thanks to the wildly over-acted, scenery chewing performance from Matt Frewer, badly miscast as Holmes
2036 Origin Unknown (2018)
An SF film where a remote probe lands to Mars uncovers a mysterious artefact of possible alien origin on the Martian surface. And then things start getting weird.
Troma’s War (1988)
The nearest that Troma Films ever made to an epic, their biggest budgeted film ever, a satiric war film, albeit conducted with their usual cartoon splatter effects and bad taste humour
Locked (2025)
A thriller in which Bill Skarsgård is a petty thief who break into a SUV only to become trapped inside and psychologically tormented by the vehicle’s owner Anthony Hopkins
The Girl in the Trunk (2024)
A thriller that comes with an identical premise to the earlier Trunk about a girl who is abducted and locked inside the trunk of a car from where she tries to affect an escape from her abductor
Fixed (2025)
An animated film from Genndy Tartakovsky, director of the Hotel Transylvania films, that is a really quite filthy and hilarious story of a dog about to have its testicles removed who goes on one last adventure
Mother of Flies (2025)
The Adams Family have become one of the most impressive genre talents in recent years. It has been fascinating watching them explore a dark version of American folk horror – this takes them into the darkest places they have visited yet
Body Puzzle (1992)
A giallo from Lamberto Bava, whose father Mario formulated the essentials of the genre. Joanna Pacula finds a killer leaving body parts in her home, along with notes signed by her dead husband
Seven Blood-Stained Orchids (1972)
A not bad giallo film from Umberto Lenzi, the director who created the notorious Italian cannibal film. Antonio Sabato [Sr] tries to trace the identity of a killer in black who leaves a silver pendant at each murder
The Call (2020)
A South Korean film that remakes The Caller about a girl who finds she can make phone calls across time to another woman only to find that the caller is a psychopath who begins to wreak havoc with her timeline
Plus One (2013)
An interesting and unusual film where teens attending a house party find that it has been invaded by doppelgangers of themselves who are taking over their lives
The Specials (2000)
An obscure parody about a team of inept and dysfunctional superheroes that was one of the earliest works from a then unknown James Gunn (who not only writes but stars as one of the superheroes)
Time Addicts (2023)
This is an Australian film where two crystal meth addicts find a drug that transports them through time. While keeping itself contained to a single location, this emerges out into a cleverly constructed time paradox
Nefarious (2023)
A psychologist is sent in to interview a killer facing execution who makes the claim he is possessed by a demon. Despite being made by the people behind God’s Not Dead, this is actually a well-made and captivating film
Rabbit Trap (2025)
Another entry in the burgeoning Folk Horror genre, a moody work about a couple of musicians living in the Welsh countryside in the 1970s who befriend a very mysterious boy who shows them the secrets of the landscape
Rituals (1977)
A quite good but little seen Backwoods Brutality film from the great era of Canuxploitation with overtones of Deliverance as hikers in the wilderness are harassed by mysterious figures who play taunting psychological games
The Naked Vampire (1970)
The second in the works of arty vampire erotica that gained French director Jean Rollin a cult following. The surreal visuals and in particular the costuming make for mind-boggling visuals
Straight on Till Morning (1972)
A psycho film (as opposed to one of their psycho-thrillers) from Hammer Films where innocent and unworldwise Rita Tushingham arrives in London only to be lured in by ice cold killer Shane Briant
The Invisibles (2024)
This has an intriguingly original concept where milquetoast Tim Blake Nelson wakes up to find he has faded away and become invisible to other people – and then finds a secret world of other similar Invisibles
Predator: Badlands (2025)
The ninth Predator film. This changes the mix quite considerably from the usual alien huntsman vs human prey formula we have had so far. It also offers a return to the Alien universe, although not quite what we expect
The Dam (2025)
This offers the novelty of being the world’s first Ukrainian zombie film. Being made in the midst the Russian invasion, this lays into Soviet Russia and its failings with a scathing regard
Puppet Master 4 (1993)
The fourth in Charles Band’s most popular series about a group of malevolent dolls. This turns the dolls into good guys and adds an Ancient Egyptian deity who despatches a Terminator robot against them
House IV (1992)
The fourth and last in the series of 1980s horror comedies that began with House produced by Friday the 13th director Sean S. Cunningham. This brings the first film’s William Katt back to round the series out
Die Screaming Marianne (1971)
Pete Walker was one of the most underrated directors of the 1970s Anglo-horror wave. This was his first film. Compared to Walker’s later works, this is more a psycho-thriller that sits on the borderline of being horror
Tobor the Great (1954)
Cinema’s first cuddly, friendly robot that is programmed according to Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics, predating Forbidden Planet’s Robbie the Robot. A modest overlooked film of the 1950s SF era
Freelance (2024)
An Australian thriller about a girl who takes an editing job because she needs the money only to realise that what she is asked to work on are snuff movies. The film follows her descent into a dark and disturbed state of mind
Darkgame (2024)
A film about a snuff site that broadcasts a torture gameshow live on the web. This is a thriller that feels as though made by people who know nothing about the internet or law enforcement procedure
Jules (2023)
Likeable comedy variant on E.T. – The Extra-Terrestrial in which senior citizen Ben Kingsley befriends an alien visitor after its UFO crashes in his backyard. Few films are made with such an acute awareness of aging
Wicked: For Good (2025)
The second half of the film adaptation of the musical Wicked. This essentially operates as Wizard of Oz fanfiction and substantially wrenches the characters and backstories from the 1939 film out of shape to write its own story
Please Don’t Feed the Children (2024)
Steven Spielberg’s daughter Destry makes her directorial debut with a confused mix of an imprisonment thriller and a zombie film, albeit a zombie film that only produces a single zombie
Older Gods (2023)
An original work that conjures a fantastic sense of ominous Lovecraftian cosmic horror as a man is haunted by a cult whose purpose is to wake a slumbering deity that is dreaming all of reality
H.P. Lovecraft’s Cool Air (2006)
Low-budget director Albert Pyun, best known for his kickboxing cyborg action films, conducts a micro-budgeted adaptation of an H.P. Lovecraft story about a scientist who fends off death by keeping their room chilled
Gawain and the Green Knight (1973)
The first film version of the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, one of the tales associated with the Arthurian legends. An obscure, little seen version starring singer Murray Head as Gawain
The Haunting of Morella (1990)
An adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe story produced by Roger Corman. Alas giving it to exploitation director Jim Wynorski, who likes to add really well stacked women to everything does, kills all of Poe’s atmosphere
The Phantom of the Opera (1990)
Lush tv mini-series with Charles Dance as the Phantom, this stands too much in the shadow of the then recent Lloyd Webber musical and its making The Phantom into a romantic figure as opposed to a horror icon
The Mouse Trap (2024)
Another of the Mickey Mouse horror films that emerged when the character entered public domain. This features a Mickey Mouse masked killer pursuing teens through an amusement arcade
Mouse of Horrors (2025)
One of several horror films based around Mickey Mouse now that the character has entered into public domain. Here Mickey Mouse is a half-human hybrid slaughtering victims at a deserted fairground
Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 (2025)
Five Nights at Freddy’s, adapted from the popular videogame and featuring Josh Hutcherson fighting off killer animatronics, was a runaway success for Blumhouse. This is a sequel
Deathstalker (2025)
A remake of the popular 1980s sword and sorcery film that was originally produced by Roger Corman. This version is directed by makeup effects artist Steven Kostanski who fills it with an amazing range of creature effects
The Beast Within (2024)
This is a werewolf film with a difference. Everything comes with an ambiguity that is seen through the eyes of a young child trying to make sense of what is happening to her father
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1943)
One amid the popular fad of Arabian Nights adventures made by Hollywood during the 1940s. Here the story of Ali Baba is subverted to become a swashbuckling romantic adventure
Night of the Seagulls (1975)
The fourth of the Blind Dead films from Spanish director Amando de Ossorio. The film, concerning Knights Templars who were blinded and have returned as zombies, have gained a modest cult
The Alpha Test (2020)
Another film on the topic of androids and A.I.’s run amok. This concerns a robot maid that ends up rebelling against her human owners and turning murderous due to conflicting orders
Hagen (2024)
A new film based on the epic legend of Siegfried, which gives it a grounded historical realism and tells it in terms of the mud, moral ambiguity and backstabbing in-politicking of tv’s Game of Thrones
The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (2025)
A remake of the 1992 film that starred Rebecca De Mornay as a psychopathic babysitter who enters a household seeking revenge. This updates the story for the 2020s, although is no less a conservative version than the original
Keeper (2025)
An Osgood Perkins film where Tatiana Maslany joins her boyfriend at his cabin in the woods for the weekend as she starts to experience visions and see creatures
Don’t Open Till Christmas (1984)
The 1980s slasher fad brought a number of ventures into the Christmas slasher film, which has grown into its own genre niche since then. This is one British entry in the genre about a killer targeting people dressed as Santa
There’s Something in the Barn (2023)
This is a Norwegian film based on the Scandinavian folklore figure of the barn elf, a household spirit that can turn malevolent if upset. The film becomes in essence a Nordic version of Gremlins
A Creature Was Stirring (2023)
An interestingly strange and undeniably different film where two teens break into a house at Christmas time to find a mother who keeps her daughter confined lest the creature inside her get free
Bagman (2024)
Colm McCarthy, who previously directed the standout The Girl With All the Gifts, returns with a film about a man being haunted by a boogeyman out of his childhood that snatches children in a bag
The Running Man (2025)
Edgar Wright conducts a remake of The Running Man and takes it more back to the original Stephen King book than the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger film, while adding a level of biting modern commentary
The Carpenter’s Son (2025)
A horror film about the life of Jesus as a child. That’s not quite what we end up getting but it is enough to give this a bizarre freakshow appeal and get this site watching. Behind that though, this is surprisingly traditional
Once Upon a Crime (2023)
A very strange Japanese-made blend of fairytale and detective story that takes place in the realm of fairytale where Little Red Riding Hood turns detective to solve a murder at Cinderella’s ball
Cinderella (1977)
This was one of the earliest films from Charles Band who has since gone on to become a prolific producer/director of low-budget films. Here Band offers a very adult take on the Cinderella fairytale
The Oracle (1985)
From cult director Roberta Findlay, this is a film about a haunted ouija board. What is going on doesn’t make a lot of sense but Findlay serves up a series of bizarre deaths that prove entertainingly absurd
Dracula, Prisoner of Frankenstein (1972)
One of several Dracula vs Frankenstein crossover films that came out in the early 1970s. This version comes from cult exploitation director Jesus Franco but squanders the opportunities of a great title match
The Pod Generation (2023)
SF film that plays out like it should be an episode of Black Mirror where Emilia Clarke and Chiwetel Ejiofor play a couple who sign up for a process where a baby can be gestated and born externally inside an egg
Bone Face (2025)
Quite a good whodunit that takes place in the aftermath of a standard slasher set-up where police pursue the killer to an all-night diner and realise that one of a group of people there is the killer
Tron Ares (2025)
Tron was a genuinely groundbreaking work. It is hard to describe how ill conceived this sequel is where we have gone to predicting the idea of cyberspace to a fight over a glorified 3D printer
Shelby Oaks (2024)
YouTube film reviewer Chris Stuckmann makes a directorial debut with this film about the investigation into a mysterious disappearance where he makes a work that is well above the often familiar material it deals with
One Missed Call: Final (2006)
Takashi Miike’s One Missed Call was one of the more popular of the Ringu-influenced Japanese ghost stories, concerning a viral curse passed by cellphone calls. This was the second Japanese sequel
Three Extremes II (2002)
A horror anthology featuring episodes from three Asian directors originally titled Three. The better known Three … Extremes was a sequel whereupon this was retitled and re-released as Three Extremes II
Cargo (2009)
Fine Swiss-made SF film where cryogenic sleepers are awoken aboard a deep space mission to find someone is killing the crew and even that the very purpose of their mission may be a lie
Skinner (1993)
A serial killer film that is fairly strong stuff, starring Ted Raimi as a killer who skins his victims and wears their bodies. This pushed the censorship envelope considerably back in its day. With Ricki Lake as an innocent housewife who befriends Raimi
West of Hell (2018)
A strong and imaginative horror/Western hybrid set aboard a train before the realisation that it is travelling to Hell. Deft characterisations and some tight, electric confrontations make this work well
The Legend of Ochi (2025)
Quite a good A24 release that brings together an impressive cast as a young girl discovers and determines to protect a magical creature. This channels the essence of E.T. and tugs all the heartstrings it can
Bugonia (2025)
Yorgos Lanthimos has become a director of acclaim in recent years. Here he remakes the Korean film Save the Green Planet where crazy conspiracy theorist Jesse Plemons abducts CEO Emma Stone insisting she is an alien
Ed Kemper (2025)
A film based on true-life serial killer Ed Kemper. Director Chad Ferrin made the terrible Pig Killer, a true crime film that got everything wrong about its subject. Here however Ferrin gets it right and makes one of his best films yet
Werewolf in a Womens Prison (2006)
This is exactly what it sounds like – a blend of werewolf film and the women in prison exploitation genre with expectedly lurid and entertaining focus. A film that makes no pretence it is being serious, which actually becomes its redeeming quality
Wolf Garden (2023)
This may be or may not be a werewolf film. What we have is a work that is long on mood and much ambiguity as a man hides in the English countryside from a crime he has conducted
Doctor Death, Seeker of Souls (1973)
A fascinatingly torrid 1970s film about a magician who seeks to perfect the secret of resurrecting the dead by transferring souls. It doesn’t take long before things start becoming quite twisted.
The Psychotronic Man (1979)
A film about psychic powers. The one distinction the film has is that its name inspired Michael Weldon in the creation of the psychotronic film cult. The actual film proves a major letdown
Virgin Witch (1971)
1970s British film about two sisters being drawn into the coven of witches. This comes with much in the way of softcore nudity but there is a surprising degree of innocence about all of it
Survive (2024)
A French catastrophe film where the Earth’s poles abruptly reverse, transforming what was ocean into a desert. A survival film that is based on a premise that is fundamentally scientifically absurd
Coyotes (2025)
Colin Minihan has been a director on the rise in recent years. Here he makes an amusing film about Justin Long under siege in his home by killer coyotes that manages a deft blend of fine tension and humour
Good Fortune (2025)
The film where Keanu Reeves plays an angel. Directed/written by and starring Aziz Ansari as a hapless gig worker who Keanu’s angel’s tries to help only to accidentally swap the lives of Ansari and tech bro Seth Rogen
Dead Zone (2022)
Not to be confused with the Stephen King novel/film. A zombie film with a military focus that appropriates the basics of Escape from New York as a tactical unit is sent into an infestation zone to retrieve an antidote
Zombie Killers Elephants Graveyard (2015)
Another entry among the zombie revival fad of the 2000s/10s, this should be commended for taking an epic and ambitious scope in its story, enough it feels to fuel multiple seasons of The Walking Dead
Lost City Raiders (2008)
A conceptually peculiar mix of Indiana Jones and Waterworld about tomb raiding adventures in a drowned future and the quest for Moses’s staff to turn back the rising waters
Sauna (2008)
A dark and mysterious historical fantasy about cartographers mapping the Finnish-Russian border who arrive at a mysterious village and an enigmatic stone sauna in the forest