Errors of the Human Body (2012)
May 18, 2013Rogue Scientific Experiments
This gave the impression that is was going to venture deep inside Cronenbergian territory but instead, we have a darkly fascinating work set in the world of scientific research
XYZ Films
The Rambler (2013)
Sep 28, 2022Surreal Road Movie
A man just out of jail leaves his wife after an argument and starts hitch-hiking. And then things start to get really weird
Raze (2013)
Apr 24, 2015Abducted Girls Forced to Fight to the Death
Fifty girls have been abducted and are paired off and forced to fight to the death with their bare hands in an arena – essentially Saw by way of Girlfight. A tautly streamlined and grittily effective effort that succeeds modestly well at everything it sets out to do
These Final Hours (2013)
Nov 5, 2014End of the World
Excellent Australian End of the World film. Think On the Beach by way of Last Night. The visions of social collapse are astonishingly raw, while the centre of the film is the emotional journey between a man and a child
Frankenstein’s Army (2013)
Feb 22, 2014Found Footage Frankenstein Film
One has difficulty with the notion of a Found Footage Frankenstein film, although the film does credibly justify this. That said, the film offers up a series of genuinely phantasmagoric and out of this world creations
Killers (2014)
Jan 13, 2017Friendship Between Two Serial Killers
The second film from Indonesia's Mo Brothers follows the internet friendship between a serial killer and another he decides to mentor in the ways of killing. The Mo's take to the material with a dark relish
Life After Beth (2014)
Sep 6, 2014Zombie Romantic Comedy
Billed as a ‘zom-rom-com', Dane DeHaan deals with girlfriend Aubrey Plaza who has returned from the dead. The film has a quirky appeal even if it is never quite as funny as it promises to be
Spring (2014)
Nov 3, 2014Human-Immortal Mutant Relationship Drama
Fascinatingly original monster movie – a wild mix of H.P. Lovecraft, The Man from Earth and Before Sunrise. A beautifully realised work that leaves you with the sense of not knowing what to expect from one minute to the next
Stage Fright (2014)
Jun 23, 2014Slasher Musical
A slasher musical??? The mind does a double takes trying to process the incongruity of the genre mash-ups. That said, this works exceedingly well – neither compromising on the slasher aspects, yet equally delivering some clever and witty musical numbers
Tusk (2014)
Jan 19, 2015Man Surgically Transformed Into a Walrus
Really, Kevin Smith?!? A film wherein a mad lunatic transforms another man into a walrus? While you can applaud Smith's completely out there leap off into Human Centipede territory, you feel unsure whether you should be reacting in shock or laughter at the absurdity of the premise
Dead Snow 2 (2014)
Jan 11, 2015Nazi Zombies
The Nazi zombies from Norway are back in a better film than the first that is far more polished, the black humour more outrageous and the splatter effects are at the top of their game
Stung (2015)
Feb 19, 2016Giant Mutated Wasps
Likeable variant on the giant bug film – concerning giant mutated wasps, no less. This is largely predicated around some accomplished creature effects and having something gooey happening every few minutes
Baskin (2015)
Aug 28, 2016Turkish Horror/House of Devil Worshippers
Balls-to-the-wall horror from Turkey. It is not clear what is going on for much of the film about police investigating a house filled with Devil worshippers but you cannot deny that it pulls out all stops
ARQ (2016)
Oct 20, 2017Timeloop
Another variant on the Groundhog Day theme with characters trapped in a timeloop. This come with an SF rationale and contains the plot in a single location while spinning each repeat through some smart twists
Operation Avalanche (2016)
Oct 23, 2016The Faking of the Moon Landing/Found Footage
This takes the old conspiracy theory about the Moon Landing being faked by tv and rather hilariously is a Found Footage film being shot by two filmmakers who have been tasked with fabricating the Moon Landing
The Void (2016)
Apr 16, 2017Hospital of Horrors/H.P. Lovecraft Homage
In his follow-up to Manborg, Steven Kostanski abandons the affectionate homages to 1980s video-released genre films he has specialised in so far. A homage to the works of H.P. Lovecraft, this should be seen for the utterly wild and outlandish makeup effects that Kostanski delivers
Yoga Hosers (2016)
Nov 26, 2016Slacker Comedy/Cloned Miniature Nazi Soldiers
Kevin Smith's follow-up to Tusk slides off the cliff somewhere between Johnny Depp's incredibly silly performance, a nemesis you can't take seriously and what largely becomes a vanity exercise in nepotism – Smith and Depp creating a vehicle to highlight their daughters
Holidays (2016)
Aug 7, 2016Horror Anthology
Another in the spate of multi-director horror anthologies with each episode here being set around a holiday. As with these films, some of the episodes work well, some end with a puzzled WTF and most fall somewhere in between
Mom & Dad (2017)
Mar 4, 2018Mass Insanity Where Parents Try to Kill Their Children
A captivating variant on the mass insanity film where parents are frenziedly driven to kill their children. As the murderous father, Nicolas Cage gives a performance where he lets all stops go, while director Brian Taylor, formerly one half of Neveldine/Taylor, makes a rather watchable film
iBoy (2017)
Apr 22, 2017Teen Gets the Power to Mentally Access Internet Traffic
A British film about a teen who gets a cellphone embedded in his head and develops the ability to tap into cellular and internet traffic. The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes with an admirably gritty edge
I Kill Giants (2017)
Apr 1, 2018Girl Believes in Giants
The title leads you to expect a variation on Jack the Giant Slayer but instead we get a very good story about a troubled girl who believes in giants. Very similar to A Monster Calls, this is carried by a fantastic performance from 15 year old Madison Wolfe
Apostle (2018)
May 17, 2019Sinister Cult
Gareth Evans, the director of The Raid films, makes a film about the search for a missing sister among a cult. The film borrows from The Wicker Man, before a climactic dive into full-on gore and sadism
The Most Assassinated Woman in the World (2018)
Oct 28, 2019Real-Life Grand Guignol Theatre
A biopic of Paula Maxa, the real-life star of Paris's Grand Guignol Theatre. The Grand Guignol specialised in plays depicting gory on-stage deaths and she was killed on stage an estimated 10,000 times during her career. Here the biopic elements are blended with a mystery in which she is targeted by a serial killer
Mandy (2018)
Feb 24, 2019Man's Revenge Trail Against a Cult
Nicolas Cage goes all Death Wish and slaughters a cult that murdered his wife. A regular revenge film is transformed by director Panos Cosmatos into something bizarrely primal
The Prodigy (2019)
May 10, 2019Evil Child/Reincarnated Serial Killer
In this space of three films, Nicholas McCarthy has risen to the top of this site's Up and Coming Directors to watch list. On a script level, this is a standard Evil Child film but is made something worth watching by McCarthy's directorial jumps
Color Out of Space (2019)
Jan 24, 2020H.P. Lovecraft Adaptation/Mutations from Space
Richard Stanley made one of the most exciting directorial debuts with Hardware. Welcomely returning after a long absence, he is one of the few directors to mainline the essence of H.P. Lovecraft's cosmic horrors
Vivarium (2019)
Apr 13, 2020Couple Trapped in a Strange Suburb
A real mindscrew of a film in which Imogen Poots and Jesse Eisenberg are a couple who enter a strangely unreal suburb of identical houses and find they can't leave. Then things start to get really strange.
Code 8 (2019)
Sep 13, 2021Superpowered Heist Film
One of the few original, non-comic book based superhero films of the 2010s set in a world where those with powers are treated as a minority. This is essentially a heist film but with the addition of super-powers
Alone (2020)
Jul 3, 2022Survival Thriller/Woman Flees an Attacker
Survival thriller in which a woman is abducted by a man but affects an escape where she must then make a harrowing run through the woods while pursued by him
Archive (2020)
Feb 26, 2021Mind Upload Into an Android Body
One of the better in the fad for Artificial Intelligence films we have had since the 2010s with Theo James trying to place his late wife’s consciousness into an android body
The Silencing (2020)
Jul 18, 2021Hunt for a Serial Killer
Thriller where Nikolaj Coster Waldau is the alcoholic manager of a game preserve who becomes drawn in to the search for a serial killer who hunts girls
The Deep House (2021)
May 13, 2022Haunted House Underwater
From Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury, an incredibly spooky film, almost all of which is shot underwater, about two divers discovering a haunted house at the bottom of a lake
The Exorcism of God (2021)
Mar 27, 2023Possession and Exorcism Film
A possession and exorcism film from Mexico, this draws on the same tired and overly worn clichés that have been around since The Exorcist but offers some interesting twists
Stowaway (2021)
Apr 30, 2021Stowaway Aboard a Mars Mission
In the vein of realistically grounded space movies such as Gravity and The Martian, a solidly effective film concerning the crew of a Mars mission who discover a stowaway aboard
Prisoners of the Ghostland (2021)
Sep 24, 2021Gonzo Post-Apocalyptic Film
Nicolas Cage’s career choices in recent years have taken him into serious psychotronic headspace. Shion Sono is a director whose film's inhabit demented territory. It seemed inevitable that the two should meet up on screen
Dual (2022)
Feb 12, 2023Woman Must Fight a Death Duel with Her Clone
Film in which a dying Karen Gillan has a clone made of herself only to make an unexpected recovery and be forced into a televised duel to death with the clone for ownership of her life
Nocebo (2022)
Jun 2, 2023Mysterious Nanny/Folk Horror
Film that develops a Folk Horror vibe as Eva Green hires a nanny with mysterious healing powers. The horror version of Mary Poppins
Humane (2024)
May 10, 2024Future Euthanasia
David Cronenberg’s daughter Caitlin makes her directorial debut with a film set around a family dinner in a future where the world has decided to euthanize the world population by twenty percent
Code 8: Part II (2024)
May 29, 2025Superpowers Film
The Canadian-made Code 8 was one of the few non-comic book adapted superhero films of recent years. This is a sequel where a bigger budget has been afforded to the superheroics
Redux Redux (2025)
Jul 17, 2026Multiverse Film
A strong and intelligent multiverse film filled with some great twists where a woman travels across multiple worlds to track down and kill different versions of the man who murdered her daughter
Ash (2025)
Aug 3, 2025Hostile Alien Planet/Alien Nasty
The rapper turned filmmaker Flying Lotus directs a copy of Alien with an amnesiac crewmember of a ship landed on a hostile planet where the crew are hunted by an alien nasty
Osiris (2025)
Feb 15, 2026Alien Abduction/Warfare
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
Hallow Road (2025)
Mar 8, 2026Haunted Car Journey
Locke as a ghost story. A really good film that takes place during a car journey as a married couple race off to help their daughter who has had an accident. A tight, twist-filled script with some great performances