The Mad Monster (1942)
A poverty row mad scientist film where a magnificently sinister George Zucco turns his gardener into a werewolf. A copycat that was made not long after Universal’s The Wolf Man
Horror
The Mad Room (1969)
One among the spate of 1960s psycho films with Stella Stevens dealing with her brother and sister, one of whom is a killer
The Maddening (1995)
Rather trashy thriller in which Mia Sara is imprisoned by backwoods couple Burt Reynolds and Angie Dickinson
Madhouse (1974)
An attempt to copy the Dr Phibes films with Vincent Price as a horror actor facing a series of killings on the set of his comeback film
Mads (2024)
A French horror film shot all in a single unbroken take as a deadly infection spreads all around town and we follow various people as they try to survive in the midst
Maggie (2015)
If the phrase ‘Arnold Schwarzenegger zombie film’ doesn’t get you excited, you’re visiting the wrong site. This is surprisingly good, the complete opposite of anything we expect of Schwarzenegger or a zombie film
Magic (1978)
Muchly under-appreciated film with Anthony Hopkins as a performer dominated by his ventriloquist’s dummy. Great direction from Richard Attenborough, fantastic script and performances
The Magician (1926)
Considered a lost classic of silent cinema for many years, this is a film loosely based on occultist Alesiter Crowley and was considered a daring work that delved into taboo areas
The Mailman (2004)
Appealingly sordid little film with Rob Arbogast as a psychopathic mailman who reads people’s mail and blackmails them with information
The Majorettes (1986)
An entry in the slasher film made by several alumni from the original Night of the Living Dead. Someone is killing the girls of the high school’s cheerleading squad
Making Contact (1986)
Roland Emmerich’s second film, a confused oddity that seems to be trying to model itself as a Spielberg film about a kid who gains psychic powers and whose toys come to life
Malediction (1990)
A Bert I. Gordon film with Robert Forster as a P.I. hired to search for a missing girl before finding she was mixed up with a modelling agency and the occult
Malefique (2002)
Effective and unusual French film in which four prisoners in a jail cell discover an occult tome in the walls and start reading its spells thinking it can offer a means of escape
Malibu Shark Attack (2009)
Every B killer shark movie of recent years has tried to become as absurd as possible in (a la Sharknado), but this is one that plays itself seriously and generates okay tension in places
Malicious (2018)
Another film with a sinister adjectives for titles we have had since Insidious. This concerns a pregnant woman finding that the fetus she is carrying has been replaced by an evil spirit.
Malignant (2021)
After overseeing a growing list of worthless sequels and spinoffs, James Wan is back in the director’s chair and goes batshit crazy with this film where Annabelle Wallis is taken over by an evil twin
Mama (2013)
A Guillermo Del Toro produced ghost story that fails to go anywhere. The promise of the film’s trailer falls apart in the hands of a novice director who blows all of his scares
Mama Dracula (1980)
Produced not long after the success of Young Frankenstein, a Belgian-made parody of the vampire film that falls into excruciating slapstick. Louise Fletcher is absurdly miscast as Countess Dracula
Man Bites Dog (1992)
One of the very first Found Footage films, an hilarious Belgian-made black comedy with Benoit Poelvoorde as a cheerful serial killer who demonstrates his techniques to a film crew
The Man in Half Moon Street (1945)
Effort from the heyday of mad science cinema about a scientist who has perfected an immortality treatment. Better budgeted than most of the other cheapies of the era and better written, although suffers from a slow talkiness
Man in the Attic (1953)
The fourth film version of The Lodger with Jack Palance as a new tenant that a family believe might be Jack the Ripper This has neither the style or the melodrama that the previous versions did
The Man in the Shadows (2017)
At the time of reviewing Rodney Ascher’s sleep paralysis documentary The Nightmare, I commented it would make fascinating material for a horror film. This Canadian micro-budgeted feature is one of the first to try and is interesting, even if it never truly grapples with its ideas
The Man in the White Van (2023)
A fake True Crime film. This is loosely to the point of almost non-existently based on a serial killer who stalked victims in a van in 1970s Florida. This is blown up into a Duel wannabe with the van prowling everywhere
Man Made Monster (1941)
An overlooked latter day Universal monster movie with Lionel Atwill on wonderfully demented form as a mad scientist who turns Lon Chaney, Jr. into an electrified human dynamo
Man-Thing (2005)
The bastard child among the spate of pre-MCU Marvel Comics adaptations during the mid-2000s, a film based on their swamp-dweller that throws out most of the comic-book
The Man Who Changed His Mind (1936)
Classic Boris Karloff mad scientist effort in which he plays a scientist who invents a device that allows him to swap minds into different bodies. All the usual Gothic fear-filled view of science from this era, but rather well made and with Karloff on fine form
The Man Who Haunted Himself (1970)
A pre-James Bond Roger Moore plays a mild-mannered businessman who finds his life overrun by a malevolent doppelganger
The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot (2018)
Full marks for one of the great deliberately ridiculous titles of all time. The film itself is an oddity that almost seems intended to confound your expectations of it
The Man Who Laughs (1928)
Adaptation of a Victor Hugo historical novel about a man with his face surgically altered into a grin – an image that later inspired Batman’s The Joker. This has clearly been intended to imitate Lon Chaney’s grotesque performances of this era and is exquisitely made by the great Paul Leni
The Man Without a Body (1957)
This came out two weeks before Hammer Films had their first success with The Curse of Frankenstein. Where Hammer discovered the future of British horror, this is no more than a dreary quota quickie that has possibly the most lunatic scheme of any British horror film involving the revival of Nostradamus’s severed head
Mandy (2018)
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 Mangler (1995)
The single worst Stephen King adaptation ever made. Director Tobe Hooper fails to approach the story of a possessed laundry press with the same drollness that King did and inflates it into something ridiculous
Manhater (2005)
Low-budget film about a demon slaughtering a woman’s ex’s. Despite being made by industry professionals, this looks like an amateur-made film
Manhattan Baby (1982)
Lucio Fulci film about a series of supernatural deaths caused by an Egyptian amulet. An incoherent and plotless mess filled with random supernatural effects and occasional gore scenes
Manhunter (1986)
The very first Hannibal Lecter film. Under Michael Mann, this comes with a stylistic flourish very different to what the films became when Anthony Hopkins took the role
Maniac (1963)
One of the psycho-thrillers made by Hammer Films during the early 1960s. The absurdly contrived plot is blatantly borrowed from Les Diaboliques, although eventually produces passable tension
Maniac (1980)
Muchly reviled slasher film that has undeniable effect in its determination to go all the way. I would argue that it is actually a far better film than Friday the 13th
Maniac Cop (1988)
The first in a series of films starring Robert Z’dar as an hulking, deformed ex-cop seeking revenge. Not as effective as the sequels but is lifted above the routine by a quirky Larry Cohen script
Maniac Cop II (1990)
Standout sequel to Maniac Cop, the best of the series, where Larry Cohen turns in a remarkable script and William Lustig delivers incredible action sequences
Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence (1992)
The third of the Maniac Cop films had production problems and now feels more like a regular slasher film, although is still boosted by a characteristically witty Larry Cohen script
Maniac (2012)
Controversial remake of the 1980 psycho film. The remake’s unique take is that everything is shot in first-person from the point-of-view of the killer.
The Manitou (1978)
The one moment of triumph from director William Girdler who takes a work that sits just on the threshold of schlock and transforms into something incredibly eerie with an injection of H.P. Lovecraft and American Indian mysticism
The Manor (2021)
Barbara Hershey plays an aging woman who moves into a retirement home. The film then develops an edgy paranoia about possibly supernatural happening around her
Manos Returns (2018)
Manos: The Hands of Fate is considered one of the worst films of all time. 42 years later some of those involved in the original decided to make a sequel that manages to be just as bad a film
Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966)
Regarded as one of the worst films ever made, more than anything this is just dull and boring. The plot concerns a couple straying into a desert home where a warlock is about to be resurrected
Man’s Best Friend (1993)
Film about a dog that has been experimentally crossbred with DNA from other animals that proceeds to go amok. The film proceeds to collapse into the completely ridiculous
The Mansion of Madness (1973)
A standout adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s The System of Dr Tarr and Professor Fether where a visitor to an asylum discovers the patients are masquerading as the doctors
Mansion of the Doomed (1976)
This first film from B-budget producer Charles Band, a blatant copy of Eyes Without a Face with mad surgeon Richard Basehart abducting women and transplanting their eyeballs into his blind daughter
The Manster (1959)
Fascinatingly torrid US-Japan production about a man who develops a second head on his shoulder that takes over his personality
Mantis in Lace (1968)
A 1960s LSD film where a stripper kills men while under the influence. Mostly this is just a series of nudie scenes that go on and on without any plot
Mara (2018)
Olga Kurylenko deals with a demon that appears to those affected by sleep paralysis. Another sleep paralysis horror film that only tepidly dips into the subject
Marabunta (1998)
A routine made-for-tv movie where a small Alaskan town comes under attack as it is overrun by a legion of marabunta ants
Marian, Again (2005)
Strong and effective UK tv thriller where Stephen Tompkinson becomes obsessed with the girlfriend who went missing years earlier after he thinks he sees her again
The Mark of Cain (1985)
An obscure Canadian-made thriller about an evil twin
Mark of the Devil (1970)
Another depiction of the Middle Ages witch persecutions that becomes a catalogue of the cruelties enacted – Torture Porn way back before anybody ever invented the term
Mark of the Vampire (1935)
Dracula director Tod Browning reteams with Bela Lugosi in a remake of the silent London After Midnight. A vampire film that has much atmosphere but is ruined by a ridiculous ending
Markham (2020)
British-made homage to H.P. Lovecraft that has some of the most stunning black-and-white photography seen in some time but I am still trying to puzzle out what the film was actually about
Marquis de Sade (1996)
A biopic of the Marquis de Sade that is not uninteresting but suffers from being produced by Roger Corman on one of his usual B-budgets
The Marsh (2006)
Okay ghost story in which Gabrielle Anwar rents a haunted farmhouse. Forest Whitaker turns up as a neighbouring occult expert
Marshland (2014)
A strong and tightly wound police procedural, not unreminiscent of the first season of True Detective. What makes the plot stand out is the beautifully desolate setting of the remote Spanish marshlands
The Marsupials: The Howling III (1987)
Third of The Howling films where director Philippe Mora travels to Australia to show us marsupial werewolves. A conceptually wild mix that fails abysmally due to cheap effects and Mora not taking things seriously
Martin (1976)
George Romero’s vampire film is one of his most remarkable films. In contrast to the cliches, the vampire here is a pale teen with an unhealthy obsession contrasted with a religious extremist who demands he be exorcised.
Martyrs (2008)
Pascal Laugier makes one of the most horrific films to emerge from France in the 00s. Scenes of grim torture sit alongside a plot that messes with almost everything we take for granted
Martyrs (2015)
Martyrs was one of the most grimly disturbing films of the 2000s; this English-language remake, which waters everything down and rewrites the ending to have one of the girls bursting in to save the other with a shotgun counts as surely one of the great all-time cinematic bad ideas
Martyrs Lane (2021)
Director Ruth Platt creates a beautifully subtle and delicate ghost story
Mary Had a Little Lamb (2023)
The people behind Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey deliver a horror version of the nursery rhyme. Here Mary becomes a middle-aged woman living in the woods with a hulking son who has a lamb’s head
Mary Reilly (1996)
This took a critical drubbing at the time it came out with everybody laughing at Julia Roberts’ Irish accent but is a revisionist take on the Jekyll/Hyde story, all told through the eyes of Dr Jekyll’s maid and an extremely good version of the story
Mary Shelley (2017)
Biopic of Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. This is a women-written and directed work so the film places an interesting feminist slant on her story meaning that she wrote the book less to address themes about science and hubris than because she was in an unhappy marriage
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994)
An adaptation of Frankenstein made as companion piece to Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Kenneth Branagh creates a lush production but the attempts to emulate Coppola’s sensuality go awry
The Mask (1961)
Film that has a minor cult reputation for its cheaply trippy 3D hallucination scenes. Outside of that, The Mask (not to be confused with the Jim Carrey film) is a dull variant on the Dr Jekyll story in which a ritual mask causes the wearer’s dark side to emerge
The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932)
Boris Karloff plays the super-villain Fu Manchu, giving a performance of calculating evil in a film of great pulp thrillers
Masque of Red Death (1989)
Dull and dreary version of the Edgar Allan Poe story especially when placed in contrast to producer Roger Corman’s definitive 1964 version
The Masque of the Red Death (1964)
The seventh of Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe adaptations and usually the best regarded. Vincent Price is at his most cruel and the film looks incredibly sumptuous thanks to a young Nicolas Roeg on camera
The Masque of the Red Death (1989)
Disappointingly, not an adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe story but more of a Poe-themed slasher film about a masked killer dressed as the Red Death
Massacre at Central High (1976)
Classic 1970s exploitation film about a new kid in high school who takes violent reprisals against bullies. The film comes with surprising levels of allegory.
Massacre on Aisle 12 (2016)
This calls itself a horror comedy and is set in a hardware store on Christmas Eve as the staff fall to murderous squabbling after the discovery of a dead body and large sum of money
Matador (1986)
Cheerfully outrageous early Pedro Almodovar black comedy where virginal Antonio Banderas confesses to a series of murders conducted by his death obsessed lawyer
Matriarch (2022)
A wonderfully creepy Folk Horror film in which Jemima Rooper returns to her home town after many years and finds very strange things happening
Matthew Blackheart (2002)
Film about a monster hunter from the 1940s thawed out in the present-day. This appears to have been made as a tv pilot
Matthew Hopkins – Witchfinder General (1968)
Stark and effective film based on a true-life historical figure, this sets out to depict the barbarism of the 17th century witch hunts. Vincent Price plays seriously and the film is all the more effective as a result
Mausoleum (1983)
A B-budgeted hit from the video era concerning a possessed housewife. This is a film that has only ever been construed around the provision of cheap makeup effects at regular intervals, all of which hold an undeniable entertainment value in their cheesy ridiculousness
MaXXXine (2024)
Ti West and Mia Goth round out their trilogy of films begun with X with a psycho film set in 1980s Hollywood
May (2002)
Almost unclassifiable work from Lucky McKee that plays out as a gonzo love and rejection story featuring an alienated Angela Bettis before an end that tips over into horror
May the Devil Take You: Chapter Two (2020)
May the Devil Take YouThe Evil Dead. Here Timo Tjajjanto makes a sequel and goes absolutely demented
May the Devil Take You (2018)
Indonesia’s Timo Tjahjanto has emerged as a Must Watch director on the basis of his jaw-dropping brutal action films plus assorted ventures into horror. Here he pays homage to the 1980s horror films in particular to The Evil Dead
Mayhem (2017)
A cross between The Belko Experiment with its murderous elimination game in an office and George Romero’s The Crazies as workers in an office is infected by a virus that causes them to lose their inhibitions. Made with dark relish
The Maze (1953)
William Cameron Menzies built a standout genre reputation with films like Things to Come and Invaders from Mars. This is a haunted house film, albeit with an ending that goes into WTF territory. Menzies was also a production designer and his films come with a design scheme superbly attuned to the mood of the film
Me and My Mates vs. the Zombie Apocalypse (2015)
An Australian zombie comedy. The basic premise sets a bunch of lads and their cheerfully Neanderthal, sexist, beer-drinking, sports loving ways up against the zombie apocalypse
The Meat Puppet (2012)
Low-budget psycho film that nevertheless comes out as interestingly twisted. Keith Collins makes for a disturbing central character, obsessed with seducing women, boasting to us about his methods, then imprisoning them and serving up their flesh as meat for he and his aunt
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
The Medusa Touch (1978)
Film in which hospital patient Richard Burton seems able to will terrible things to happen with psychic powers
Meeting Evil (2012)
A surprisingly good variant on The Hitcher (albeit set in urban environs) where Samuel L. Jackson does the unique Samuel L. Jackson sarcastic badassery with demoniac results as a psychopathic stranger who takes hapless family man Luke Wilson for a ride leaving a trail of bodies
Megaboa (2021)
In the vein of their Mega Shark films and Mega Python vs Gatoroid, The Asylum make a monster movie about a giant-sized snake. Cheesy with a B movie competence.
Memories of Murder (2003)
Early film from Bong Joon-ho, a true crime work about the investigation into a rural Korean serial killer
Men (2022)
Alex Garland has become a must watch name since Ex Machina and Devs. Here he ventures into an intriguing mix of folk horror and gender politics
Men Behind the Sun (1988)
One of a rare handful of films that can be considered the most extreme ever made, this a catalogue of the true-life atrocities and experiments inflicted on prisoners during the Japanese occupation of Manchuria in WWII. An intensely uncomfortable watch not recommended for the faint-hearted
The Menu (2022)
Hilariously black horror comedy that works as a sublime satire of fine dining – with a nasty sting underneath
The Mephisto Waltz (1971)
A clear attempt to copy Rosemary’s Baby made with extraordinary stylishnessas Jacqueline Bisset believes husband Alan Alda’s body has been stolen by a dead man
Mercy (2000)
One of the better copies of Basic Instinct with detective Ellen Barkin being tempted as she investigates a serial killer who is targeting women who were involved with a lesbian call girl
Mercy (2014)
Modestly creepy adaptation of a Stephen King short story about a boy who realises that his grandmother is a witch who made a deal with a backwoods entity