Aaron’s Blood (2016)
The vampire film is looking rather anemic in the post-Twilight era. This is one decent effort about a father trying to save his son who has received a blood transfusion from a vampire
Horror
Ab-Normal Beauty (2004)
Oxide Pang, one half of the Pang Brothers. goes solo to make a film about an obsessive girl who enjoys photographing death and her journey into a very disturbed mental space
Abandon (2002)
Psycho-thriller that should have gotten better notice than it did. Katie Holmes plays an A-student at an Ivy League college who is stalked by a missing ex. Slick and coolly written, before arriving at an effective twist ending
The Abandoned (2006)
Spanish film about a woman travelling to her family home on the Russian steppes that creates a very haunted atmosphere. On the other hand, the twist ending has borrowed too much M. Night Shyamalan
The Abandoned (2015)
A film that creates a genuinely haunted mood, something that is aided immensely by an amazing location and some fine, well developed characterisation between the two principals
Abattoir (2016)
Darren Lynn Bousman is the director most associated with the Saw sequels and its Torture Porn excesses. His other films have been lacking. This comes with one of the most off the wall premises one has seen
Abbott and Costello Meet Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1953)
The third of Abbott and Costello’s comedic meet ups with the Famous Monsters – in this case a series of lowjinks as they encounter Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (played by Boris Karloff)
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)
The most well remembered of Abbott and Costello’s films. Universal had shuffled their Famous Monsters through several team-ups and here decided to play them for outright laughs. Undeniably likeable
Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955)
Abbott and Costello’s fourth and final meeting with the Famous Monsters. However, this is a desultory outing where nobody seems to be making much of an effort
Abby (1974)
A Blaxploitation copy of The Exorcist – so blatant that it was sued for copyright infringement. Worth seeing for its entertaining absurdities including the climactic exorcism held on a disco dancefloor
The ABCs of Death (2012)
Unique anthology that offers 26 episodes from different directors, each ending with a death. The episodes vary wildly in quality but a sufficient number ignore all good taste and/or travel waaaay across taboo lines
ABCs of Death 2 (2014)
Sequel to the hit multi-director anthology has a less high-profile line-up of directors, nor hits the astonishingly perverse heights of its predecessor. As always some entries never do much but the film finds its stride in the last few episodes
Abigail (2024)
From the duo behind the Scream reboot films, a thriller about the kidnap of a young girl in the vein of From Dusk Till Dawn that abruptly pivots to become a vampire film
Abominable (2006)
This offers the novelty of a Bigfoot film by way of Hitchcock’s Rear Window where wheelchair-ridden witnesses Bigfoot preying on a house of girls. This generates a reasonable degree of tension
The Abominable Dr Phibes (1971)
Droll, elegant camp masterpiece with Vincent Price giving the best performance of his life as a deformed madman employing the Biblical Plagues of Egypt as a motif to take revenge against the surgeons who killed his wife
The Abominable Snowman (1957)
An early Hammer film from a script by Quatermass creator Nigel Kneale and shot in black-and-white about the search for the Yeti. This creates modest atmosphere
The Abomination (1986)
An amazingly bad movie from the VHS era where a woman is exorcised by a televangelist and coughs up a tumor, which crawls out of the trash and possesses her son, driving him to kill and bring bodies home to feed the tumor
Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter (2012)
Seth Grahame-Smith’s original book was a witty historical joke that retold the events of Lincoln’s life as a secret history involving vampires. The film somehow misses the joke and turns everything into a ridiculously over-the-top action film
Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies (2012)
A halfway decent Asylum film that emerges better than the film it is ripping off, the overblown Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter. The film does the historical crossover aspect with some ingenuity
Abraham’s Boys (2025)
Adaptation of a Joe Hill story where Van Helsing has relocated to California and is trying to teach his sons about the art of vampire hunting as his wife becomes infected by a vampire bite
The Absent (2011)
Ingenue slasher film from Sage Bannick about a teacher finding his pupils are being killed, this eventually settles down as an old hat evil twin plot
Absentia (2011)
The first genre film of Mike Flanagan. A fascinating film about creatures that may be abducting people. The film sits on an ambiguous line that leaves much in doubt, while achieving some strikingly subtle, understated directorial effects
Absolution (1981)
Obscure but worthwhile psycho-thriller with Richard Burton as a priest at a Catholic boy’s school dealing with a pupil playing taunting psychological games
Accidental Exorcist (2016)
A low-budget but nevertheless at times quite funny version of an exorcism film, one that throws out all the tired clichés of the genre
Acid Head: The Buzzard Nuts County Slaughter (2011)
Tony Watt strikes again with another of wilfully bad, agonisingly unwatchable films. All the bad acting, plotlessly rambling scenes and random exploitation movie homages that one expects of a Tony Watt film
Addicted to Murder (1995)
Strong and intelligent low-budget vampire film from Kevin J. Lindenmuth that plays with a fascinating ambiguity in the story of a man obsessed with a mystery woman who is making him kill
Addicted to Murder: Tainted Blood (1998)
This was the second in Kevin J. Lindenmuth’s trilogy of modern vampire films, which comes with much subtle effect and a strong character-driven story, a kitchen sink tale about a newborn vampire
The Addiction (1995)
Abel Ferrara takes on the vampire film and delivers a work loaded with weighty, nihilistic philosophical meditations and creates startling reinventions of vampire imagery
Aenigma (1987)
Lucio Fulci attained a cult following for his horror films. This reads like a tatty copy of Dario Argento’s Suspiria that has been bizarrely married to the psychic coma patient premise from Patrick
Afflicted (2013)
Found Footage film that cleverly borrows more than a few leaves from An American Werewolf in London with two tourists in Europe where one is bitten and transformed by a vampire
Afraid of the Dark (1991)
Quiet a remarkable film – on one level ostensibly a psycho-thriller about a killer targeting blind women before conducting a unique reversal of perception to reveal something else altogether
After Midnight (1989)
Modest and effective horror anthology from the two brothers responsible for Pitch Black and the Ewoks tv movies. Featuring a quarter of stories, all of them are strong efforts generating a more than reasonable degree of tension throughout
After Midnight (2019)
A wonderful maybe monster movie. Jeremy Gardner falls to pieces after his girlfriend leaves. At the same time, he is certain a monster is lurking outside while everyone else thinks he is losing it.
Aftershock (2012)
Film in which Eli Roth does everything else except direct. Set in the aftermath of a Chilean earthquake, this feels more like a disaster movie than the horror film it is awkwardly squeezed into being
Against the Dark (2009)
Steven Seagal tries to extend his career by taking on the zombie film. However, this is routine on all levels, although to its advantage Seagal is not on screen much
The Aggression Scale (2012)
I always maintained that when you stop looking at it in terms of G-rated slapstick, Home Alone was an incredibly violent film – this is Home Alone reconceived as an ultra-violent modern home invasion thriller
Aileen Wuornos: American Boogeywoman (2021)
Another variant on the fad for True Crime based movies, this is a film that purports to tell of the early years of true-life serial killer Aileen Wuornos where she is played by Peyton List
The Alchemist (1983)
One of the earliest films from Charles Band. In the years following, Band went onto produce and occasionally direct a great many often enterprisingly cheap low-budget genre films – this is not one of them
The Alchemist Cookbook (2016)
A micro-budgeted production shot in a trailer in the woods with a cast of two that sits in a fascinatingly ambiguous place about whether the central character has sold his soul or gone off his psychiatric meds
Alex Cross (2012)
Reboot of James Patterson’s criminal profiler books makes the mistake of hiring an action director. Tyler Perry lacks the genius mental agility Morgan Freeman previously brought to the role but Matthew Fox does crazy well
Alferd Packer: The Musical (1996)
The first film from South Park‘s creator Trey Parker, a willfully absurd musical based on the story of a true-life cannibal. Amateurish but worth seeing by completists
Alice in Murderland (2010)
This came out the same time as Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. The idea of Alice twisted into a horror film holds an irresistible appeal but this is an amateurish mess than squanders its potential
Alice in Terrorland (2023)
Following Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey and its trashing of a classic children’s character, a horror version of Alice in Wonderland where the heroine has dark, hallucinatory visions of the book’s characters
The Alien Dead (1980)
The second film from Fred Olen Ray who has become a prolific B-budget director since. This is a zombie film, a copy of the original Dawn of the Dead, slapped with a SF title to popularise on the then recent success of Alien
Alison’s Birthday (1979)
Australian-made film about a heroine being drawn into occult conspiracies around her that only treads where Rosemary’s Baby went before
#Alive (2020)
A charming and delightful South Korean zombie film about the friendship that grows across the gap separating them between a nerd trapped in an apartment and a girl in the building opposite during a zombie outbreak
All Cheerleaders Die (2001)
The first film of directors Lucky McKee and Chris Sivertson, concerning a troupe of cheerleaders who are killed and resurrected from the dead. The two later returned to conduct a better-budgeted remake
All Cheerleaders Die (2013)
Directors Lucky McKee and Chris Sivertson conduct a remake of their earlier film about resurrected cheerleaders. The question might be why – both have demonstrated they can do far better than this
All Fun & Games (2023)
Teenagers in Salem are forced to play a game where their lives are forfeit and they become possessed by a cursed knife dating from the witch trials
All Girls Weekend (2016)
This takes its title literally – it is made by a woman director and there are no men on screen. The result is somewhere between The Descent and The Blair Witch Project with an undeniably surprise twist ending
All Hallows’ Eve (2013)
From the director of the Terrifier films, a horror anthology in which a babysitter and kids sit down to watch a mysterious videotape on Halloween night. The first screen appearance of Art the Clown
All the Boys Love Mandy Lane (2006)
Quite why this received a theatrical release is a major scratch of the head. A slasher film that is slickly put together but beneath that a work of thorough ordinariness
All Through the House (2015)
A strong and effective reworking of the psycho Santa slasher film. This conducts a well-oiled rehearsal of all the slasher tropes and delivers exactly what we expect of it
All You Need is Death (2023)
A unique and original Irish variant on the Folk Horror genre about a couple who become wound up into the obsessive quest for a cursed folk song and the effect it has
Alleluia (2014)
The story of the true-life killers Martha Beck and Raymond Fernandez, most famously adapted into The Honeymoon Killers, gets a retelling from Fabrice du Welz with a modern updating
Alligator (1980)
Amid the spate of post-Jaws Animals Amok films, this, which comes armed with a John Sayles script and plays on the urban legend of baby alligators flushed into the sewers, was a rather enjoyable effort that plants tongue in cheek
Alligator II: The Mutation (1991)
The 1980 Alligator was amusing but this hardly one of the sequels the world was burning to see. An utterly formulaic copy that is killed by impoverished giant alligator effects
Almost Dead (1994)
This a dull ghost story in which Shannen Doherty plays a parapsychological researcher who believes she is seeing the ghost of her mother everywhere
Alone (2007)
Thai ghost story about a woman haunted by the ghost of her dead conjoined twin sister. This produces a mix of jumps that fall between the effective and routine but falls apart in a contrived twist ending
Alone (2020)
English-language version of the Korean zombie film #Alive about a guy stranded in an apartment during the zombie apocalypse trying to communicate with the girl across the street
Alone (2020)
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
Alone (Don’t Grow Up) (2015)
A French-Spanish film in which a group of troubled youths escaped from a reform centre only to discover that all the adults around them have become zombies
Alone in the Dark (1982)
Horror film in which a group of maniacs escape from an asylum set out to track down the new psychiatrist. This starts with tongue amusingly planted in cheek and contains a great cast line-up
Alone in the Dark (2005)
Uwe Boll gained a reputation as the world’s worst director on the basis of his videogame adaptations. Prize exhibit was Alone in the Dark, which abandons the game and is a series of action scenes without explanatory rationale
Alone with a Stranger (2000)
Excellent psycho-thriller in which family man William R. Moses has his life taken over by an evil twin. Filled with a series of gripping unexpected twists and tensions
Alp (2016)
Another venture into the sleep paralysis theme. A film that has an amateurism on every level and looks as though it made by people who failed the first year of a film school program
Alpha Girls (2013)
A blatant copy of The Craft where a new girl gets wound up into occult rites going on in a sorority house. Featuring porn star Ron Jeremy as a Catholic priest
The Alphabet Killer (2008)
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
Altar (2014)
Nick Willing is a genre director who has consistently impressed. Here he ventures into the English ghost story where your expectation is that he is going to turn the genre on its head – only he doesn’t
Altergeist (2014)
Film about ghosthunters investigating a reputedly haunted California winery. The scares are about as generic and forgettable as they come, although the end takes a very strange left field turn
Altitude (2010)
Essentially a feature version of The Twilight Zone‘s classic Nightmare at 20,000 Feet episode, this generates some remarkable tension with a group trapped in mid-air in a small plane before a lame twist ending
Alyce (2011)
The director of Zombie Strippers! offers up Alice in Wonderland as a modern urban tale that becomes an allegory for a drug-induced journey into a disturbed headspace
Amateur Porn Star Killer (2007)
Extraordinary Found Footage film from Shane Ryan shot from the viewpoint of a killer as he seduces and kills a girl. A quasi-pornographic film that makes us question our own complicity in what we are watching
Amateur Porn Star Killer 2 (2008)
Sequel to Shane Ryan’s disturbing snuff Found Footage film. This works with the same effectiveness as the original, where the videography is transformed via a dreamily beautiful series of experiments with editing and colour
Amateur Porn Star Killer 3: The Final Chapter (2009)
The first two of these films did ingenious things but now the inspiration is showing through and these films are starting to seem more like a personal fantasy on the director’s part
Ambition (1991)
Thriller with Lou Diamond Phillips as a writer who manipulates a paroled killer with the intention of driving him to kill again and writing a book about it
Amer (2009)
An exquisitely directed homage to giallo cinema – a fascinating work that has been stripped of almost all dialogue that takes place on a purely visual level of sensation and body movement
American Conjuring (2016)
An undistinguished low-budget haunted house effort that was quickly retitled to jump aboard the bandwagon of James Wan’s The Conjuring films
American Fetish (2009)
A modern noir-styled thriller about a man who descends into the underground world of fetish. This nether stirs a sufficiently torrid mix nor makes its plot very clear
American Gothic (1987)
Horror film about a heroine imprisoned by a family who insist on absurdly outmoded traditional values. Mostly an opportunity for the cast, led by Rod Steiger as the family patriarch, to go completely over-the-top
American Grindhouse (2010)
A documentary that charts the history of exploitation cinema and covers much ground generally informatively despite the odd omission of some key works and players
An American Haunting (2005)
Film based on the supposed real-life Bell Witch Haunting of the 19th Century. Director Courtney Solomon’s constant efforts to make us jump become so tedious that they produce no effect at all.
American Mary (2012)
Canada’s twin sisters Jen and Sylvia Soska’s second film is set in the dark underground of body modification,. Like an episode of tv’s Nip/Tuck with a Suicide Girls ethos. Not perfect but an impressive maturation
American Movie: The Making of Northwestern (1999)
An unexpectedly hilarious documentary focused on regional filmmaker Mark Borchardt whose amateur filmmaking methods approach something of an Edward D. Wood Jr
The American Nightmare (2000)
Interesting and worthwhile documentary that focuses on the six key and most influential horror films of the 1970s and interviews their makers in depth
American Perfekt (1997)
A surprisingly good road movie psycho-thriller focusing on various people travelling a desert highway where it becomes apparent that one of them is a serial killer
American Psycho II: All American Girl (2002)
A sequel that has almost no connection to the original and has Mila Kunis as a psychopathic student trying to get into a prestigious criminal profiling course
American Psycho (2000)
Mary Harron takes on Bret Easton Ellis’s controversial work about a yuppie serial killer and refines it to a blackly funny satire on 1980s pop culture and corporate greed
American Satan (2017)
A variant on the Pact with the Devil story as a rock group conduct a Faustian deal with Malcolm McDowell’s Devil, leading to their meteoric rise to fame and debauchery
The American Scream (2012)
Michael Paul Stephenson of Best Worst Movie fame makes a documentary about people who turn their homes into Halloween haunts. While lacking the freakshow aspect of Best Worst Movie, this is a likeable effort that follows its subjects in perfecting their art
An American Werewolf in London (1981)
John Landis brings the werewolf film into the modern era with this revisionist work where a modern character is forced to confront it as real, while depicting the transformation with an arsenal of top-drawer effects.
An American Werewolf in Paris (1997)
Sequel to An American Werewolf in London, which copies the set-up with a different city but misses all of the sense of humour, even fails to offer anything like the classic transformation effects
Amityville II: The Possession (1982)
The first of The Amityville Horror sequels and a far more entertaining film than its predecessor by abandoning the pretence at telling a true story and adding a possession plot and makeup effects to the mix
Amityville 3-D (1983)
This was the third of the Amityville films, released amid the early 1980s 3D revival. Nothing more than the usual except for various things popping out of the screen
Amityville: The Evil Escapes (1989)
The fourth and one of the worst of the numerous Amityville films. This reduces everything to a series of crude and increasingly more preposterous, eventually laughable, shocks
Amityville 1992: It’s About Time (1992)
The sixth film based around The Amityville Horror, although by now connections to the original are minimal and this only concerns a mysterious clock taken from the house
The Amityville Asylum (2013)
Another of the unofficial sequels that bear slim to no resemblance to the Amityville Horror hoax. This is a cheaply made and not terribly scary British effort set in a asylum supposedly built on the site of the Amityville house
Amityville Cult (2021)
Another film that appropriates the Amityville name for an otherwise unrelated film concerning a man who inherits a house in the town, digs into the past and soon finds a devil worship cult all around him
The Amityville Curse (1989)
This is not even a sequel The Amityville Horror but a cheaply and tattily made Canadian effort seeking to sell itself using the name. The first in an industry of films employing some relevance to Amityville
Amityville Exorcism (2017)
Prolific Z-budget director Mark Polonia makes something like the 18th film with Amityville in its title. This one concerns possessed lumber (!) from the Amityville house