Psychic Experiment (2010)
A film overstuffed with mad ideas and genre cameos about psychic experiments that have unleashed a series of other-dimensional entities
Horror
Psycho (1960)
One of the defining classics of the genre, enormously influential, muchly imitated and parodied and possibly the most over-analysed film ever. Alfred Hitchcock expertly creates a creepy psycho-thriller in which he delights in lulling us and undermining expectation
Psycho (1998)
Over Gus Van Sant’s shot-for-shot remake of Psycho, there hangs the single question of “Why?” The result seems a futile conceit, one only designed to infuriate those who regard the original in such high esteem
Psycho II (1983)
Psycho did not need a sequel but this does a scrupulous and exacting job, bringing back Anthony Perkins and paying a great deal of homage in many small details. The script comes with a considerable cleverness
Psycho III (1986)
Well worthwhile Psycho sequel directed by Anthony Perkins himself who makes an assured, even at times dazzling debut. The film has a playfulness and outrageousness that quite takes you aback
Psycho Beach Party (2000)
Based on an off-Broadway play, this is a drag parody of the beach party movie. It does dig into the squeaky clean image of the genre but never seems a particularly funny parody
Psycho Girls (1986)
The debut of Canadian director Gerard Ciccoritti who should have become more well known, this goes for broke and becomes splendidly deranged
Psycho Shark (2009)
aka Jaws in Japan. A Japanese entry in the Gonzo Killer Shark Film fad
PsychoCop (1989)
From the heyday of the 1980s VHS release, a slasher film with the requisite group of partying teens being stalked by a psychopathic, devil-worshipping police officer
Psychomania (1963)
Interestingly torrid 1960s psycho-thriller featuring a number of then unknown faces
Psychomania (1973)
Hard to find Anglo-horror effort that has been long considered an item of must-see fascination for its premise of an undead biker gang, including the central image of the gang leader erupting from the grave on his motorcycle. The film unfortunately has a prosaic dullness that belies such imaginative wildness
Psychopaths (2017)
From the increasingly rising genre name of Mickey Keating. This feels less like a film than a series of short films edited together (expertly so), all on the theme of people gleefully engaged in murder
Psychos (2017)
Three abduction survivors seek out the house where they were imprisoned years before. A cheaply made revenge film is turned on its head in an improbable M. Night Shyamalan-esque conceptual reversal
Pulse (2001)
From Japan’s Kiyoshi Kurosawa, a ghost story that creates an incredibly haunted atmosphere. As with most of Kurosawa’s work, dazzling ideas sit alongside a murky and impenetrable plot where you are baffled trying to make sense of what is happening
Pulse (2006)
As part of the mid-00s fad for English-language remakes of Japanese horror films, Kiyoshi Kuroawa’s unfathomable but undeniably creepy internet horror is reworked as a standard teen film
Pulse 2 (2008)
This was the first of two sequels to the Wes Craven scripted Pulse, the English language version of Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s intensely spooky film about ghosts from the internet
Pumpkinhead (1988)
Makeup effects artist Stan Winston takes the director’s chair and creates one of the truly original monsters of the 1980s. Several sequels followed
Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings (1994)
The Stan Winston directed Pumpkinhead was one of the genuinely original monster movies of the 1980s. This was the first of several video-released sequels
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
Puppet Master II (1990)
The first of the long-running series of sequels to Full Moon’s Puppetmaster, this is essentially a rerun of the first film
Puppetmaster (1989)
The first in a series of killer doll films from Charles Band, which has generated some ten sequels. The original has an undeniable atmosphere
Puppetmaster III: Toulon’s Revenge (1991)
The third of Full Moon’s Puppet Master films, this is a prequel that explores Andre Toulon’s origins in Nazi Germany
Pussy Cake (2021)
An Argentinean film where the four members of a girl rock band are forced to deal with a zombie outbreak
Pussy Kills (2017)
Another woman seeks vengeance film, sort of a female version of The Crow where the heroine wears PVC catsuit, fishnets and cat ears. A film made with a cod-grindhouse aesthetic hoping to get by on a certain trash movie sensibility
Puzzle (2014)
This starts as a standard Japanese high school drama but takes a turn for the twisted where it doesn’t exactly venture into Saw territory but certainly somewhere that has taken inspiration from it. Alas, everything gets lost in a second half that is burdened by an excessively complicated and non-linear plot
Pyewacket (2017)
Chillingly effective film where a teenage girl casts a spell to kill her mother, only to become terrified and try to turn back what she has unleashed
The Pyramid (2014)
A monster movie where the major distinction is that the monster is drawn from Ancient Egyptian mythology and the locale is an unearthed pyramid. The film is too conceptually slim to do much with such an interesting background but it does deliver some solid jumps
The Pyx (1973)
Difficult to find 1970s Canadian-made occult film that doesn’t quite live up to expectation. Mostly it is a police procedural and the devil worship cult angle only emerges as a left field ending in the last ten minutes.; Not tight enough as a detective story to fully work
Q – The Winged Serpent (1982)
Larry Cohen is a cult director and this, which concerns a Quetzalcoatl bird amok in New York City, is the best of his films, peppered with side-splitting dialogue and Michael Moriarty giving the performance of a lifetime
Quarantine 2: Terminal (2011)
A sequel to Quarantine, the English-language remake of [Rec]. Abandoning the Found Footage concept, and indeed much continuity, to the other films, this is nothing more than a standard zombie film set inside an airport terminal
Quarantine (2008)
English-language remake of the Spanish Found Footage film [Rec]. A lesser work but in the hands of John Erick Dowdle one of the few English-language horror remakes that stands up to the original
Quarantine LA (2013)
Zombie film with a party of survivors trying to make it through a zombie-infested L.A. to safety
The Queen of Black Magic (2019)
Kimo Stamboel, one half of the Mo Brothers, solo directs a film about an orphanage where deviltry and horrors are stirred on a return visit by children who were raised there
Queen of the Damned (2002)
Film adaptation of the third of Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles, this reduces Lestat to no more than a posturing teenage bad boy and Rice’s languidly romanticised vampires to a laughably pretentious Goth music video
The Quick and the Undead (2006)
Exactly as the title suggests, a mash-up between the zombie film and a Western (albeit relocated to a post-apocalyptic future) – and one that plays itself surprisingly seriously
Quicksilver Highway (1997)
The perpetually awful Mick Garris inflicts adaptations of Stephen King and Clive Barker stories on us in what looks like an unsold pilot for a horror anthology tv series
The Quiet Ones (2014)
Another offering from the revived Hammer Films. Like a few films of recent, this claims to be based on a true story – a parapsychological experiment conducted in the 1970s – but throws almost every detail out the window to substitute a well-worn bag of horror tricks
A Quiet Place in the Country (1968)
Strange, artistically stylised almost giallo film with Franco Nero as a frustrated artist blurring into visions from the past
Quills (2000)
Philip Kaufman conducts a biopic of the Marquis de Sade (played by a manic Geoffrey Rush) and how he continued to publish despite being confined to an asylum. This then becomes a debate about modern censorship
Raat (1992)
One of the rare Bollywood ventures into horror, a blatant copy of The Exorcist. You have to praise the film for trying out every effect in the book in an effort to get a jump but the result ends up being so overwrought it produces almost no effect at all
Raaz (2002)
The rarity of a Bollywood horror film. This blatantly steals the plot of What Lies Beneath but spins it through the Bollywood formula with the addition of songs and much implied sensuality to create something unique
Raaz Reboot (2016)
For some reason, The Exorcist is hugely popular in Bollywood horror – this is the fourth in a series of otherwise unrelated films about possession. The film conducts its borrowings not unentertainingly and is boosted by a script that turns what we think is happening on its head with quite a degree of dexterity
Rabid (1977)
The fourth film from David Cronenberg, a clear (although by no means uninteresting) attempt to repeat the success of Shivers with Marilyn Chambers as a woman with a vampiric skin parasite that turns victims into maddened killers
Rabid (2019)
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
Rabies (2010)
Billed as Israel’s first horror film, this is more a dark and violent film that delights in taking a crosscut of characters and mercilessly putting the screws on them
Race with the Devil (1975)
This has been conceived as a 1970s car chase film mashed up with the 1970s fad for Satanism and occult where two couples in an RV inadvertently witness a devil worship ceremony and are pursued
The Rage: Carrie 2 (1999)
Misguided attempt to make a sequel to Carrie, this reduces that film’s cry of the downtrodden to petty teen bitcheries, while the psychic eruptions are absurd, the complete antithesis of anything Brian De Palma directed
Raggedy Man (1981)
Beautifully shot Sissy Spacek starring work of American nostalgia set in rural 1940s Texas that takes a turn into Southern Gothic in its last quarter
Raiders of the Lost Shark (2015)
This is the one of worst films to come out in the gonzo killer shark fad – it is surely the killer shark genre’s equivalent of The Room. The effects hit a level of terribleness not seen since Birdemic, the rest is full of ridiculous continuity gaffes, bad acting and bad dialogue
Raising Cain (1992)
Brian De Palma made a return to his trademark psycho-thriller for the first time in several years but the benchmarks of the genre were now The Silence of the Lambs and Basic Instinct and De Palma’s wildly contorted plot and flourishes of style for their own sake seem dated
Raman Raghav 2.0 (2016)
Everyone has a certain idea of what Bollywood cinema is – romantic interludes and elaborate song and dance numbers no matter the genre. This is one Bollywood film that defies convention – based on a true-life Mumbai serial killer, it comes with a harsh realism and features an electrifying central performance
Rampage (1987)
Overlooked film from William Friedkin in which Michael Biehn as a lawyer prosecuting a serial killer. Not without some effective horror moments but Friedkin is more interested in examining the legal justification for the death penalty
Rampage: The Hillside Strangler Murders (2006)
A True Crime film based on the Hillside Stranglers case, or at least the arrest of one of the killers. From a director who makes True Crime films but throws out the facts and makes up his own story about what happened
Rampo Noir (2005)
Anthology of tales adapted from Japanese horror writer Edogawa Rampo. The various directors push the stories into an admirably perverse and disturbed space
Random Acts of Violence (2019)
Actor Jay Baruchel directs a film in which a comic-book artist bases a graphic novel on a true-life serial killer only to find that the killer has returned and is imitating his work
Range 15 (2016)
This is a crowdourced film made by military veterans who set out with the idea of creating better military characterisations in films. Bizarrely enough, they turn to the zombie comedy to do so and the result is the crassest, most willfully offensive zombie film ever made
The Ranger (2018)
Slasher film with a diabolically funny sense of humour as a psychopathic park ranger stalks a group of partying punks
The Rape of the Vampire (1968)
Director Jean Rollin gained a cult following with his erotically fetishised, strikingly poetic vampire films, of which this was the first. Viewing the film today, one has more than a few problems with the title
Rasputin The Mad Monk (1966)
Hammer Films turn the historical story of Rasputin and his influence over the Russian throne into a horror film. Although they treat history liberally, this is a vivid film with an intense performance from Christopher Lee
Rat Man (1988)
An Italian exploitation film about models in the Caribbean being hunted by a vicious rat-monkey hybrid. Some occasionally gory deaths but not much happens
The Rats Are Coming! The Werewolves Are Here! (1972)
Maybe one of the great exploitation titles of all time quickly telescopes down to a near-unwatchable film from Andy Milligan. A Victorian-set werewolf film with rats thrown in to capitalise on the success of Willard
Rattlers (1976)
An entry in the 1970s Animals Attack cycle about a small desert town under attack by rattlesnakes
Rattlesnake (2019)
From the promising Australian director Zak Hilditch. Carmen Ejogo’s daughter is bitten by a snake, a stranger heals her only for Carmen to then be told she has to kill somebody else in payment
The Raven (1915)
Silent movie based on the life of Edgar Allan Poe. Today we’d call it a biopic, although it readily departs into fantasy with Poe having drunken visions of the raven, ghosts and the afterlife
The Raven (1935)
An entertainingly madcap screen pairing of Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi with the latter as a Poe-obsessed surgeon who has built a house of Poe-inspired torture devices
The Raven (1963)
The fifth of the Roger Corman Edgar Allan Poe films. By this point, there was a clear desire for some novelty so this one is played as a comedy between duelling magicians
The Raven (2012)
This has the great idea of pitting Edgar Allan Poe against a serial killer imitating his stories but instead produces a desultory murder mystery that has done only the most cursory reading about Poe and is ill-informed about the historical period
Ravenous (1999)
Film about the soldiers at a fort on the American frontier who have descended to cannibalism. A good set-up falls apart due to a comedy treatment
Raven’s Hollow (2022)
Film that features a young Edgar Allan Poe fighting a supernatural menace known as The Raven
Raw (2016)
Undeniably shocking French film about a vegetarian girl who is required to eat raw animal meat during a university hazing ritual and thereafter becomes obsessed with eating human flesh
Rawhead Rex (1986)
Early Clive Barker adaptation made just prior to his gaining fame with Hellraiser about a the revival of a monstrous pagan pagan that suffers from shabby treatment and a rubbery monster
Raze (2013)
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
Razor Blade Smile (1998)
Modern vampire movie that aims for a chic sophistication amid poses borrowed from MTV and other films
Razorback (1984)
Russell Mulcahy, a director fresh from success on the early days of MTV, returned to his native Australia to make this extraordinary variant on the Animals Attack film. Mulcahy piles on amazing photography, turning the landscape into something otherwordly
Re-Animator (1985)
This was one of the classic 1980s splatter films. Stuart Gordon throws most of H.P. Lovecraft’s tone out the window and goes for hilariously black comedy served up with outrageously over-the-top effects
Re-Elected (2020)
Horror comedy about an attack by the zombies of resurrected former US Presidents
Re-Kill (2015)
The zombie film has become creatively exhausted of recent – this is one original treatment, mocked up as a reality tv show like Cops, following soldiers into infestation zones, all interspersed with a series of witty commercials
Re/Member (2022)
A Japanese-made variant on the oft-used Groundhog Day timeloop theme. This pushes well into horror movie territory with a group of teenagers trapped in a typical school day and facing a monster figure pursuing them
Ready or Not (2019)
This is The Most Dangerous Game in the setting of an Agatha Christie whodunnit. Samara Weaving marries into a family of privilege only to find her wedding night requires her to engage in a deadly game of Hide and Seek
Ready or Not: Here I Come (2026)
Ready or Not was a reasonable hit with audiences. Now Samara Weaving and the same creative team are back with a sequel that expands the game and polishes the black humour to a point of perfection
Realms (2017)
Two Americans fleeing an armed bank robbery with hostages take refuge at a house that they discover it is haunted. A vy the numbers effort before arriving at a confused twist ending.
Reaper (1998)
Chris Sarandon is a writer who becomes embroiled in solving a series of murder that mimic his own books. An okay set-up that rarely moves beyond the unfolding of cliches
The Reaping (2007)
Reasonable budgeted film about a series of Biblical plagues being visited upon a rural Louisiana town. An interesting set up that flounders amid a confused script
[Rec] (2007)
![[Rec] (2007) poster](https://moriareviews.com/rongulator/wp-content/uploads/rec-2007-poster-3.jpg)
Furious and highly engaging Spanish Found Footage film about the infected dead taking over an apartment building. Three sequels and an English-language remake followed
[Rec] 2 (2009)
![[Rec] 2 (2009) poster](https://moriareviews.com/rongulator/wp-content/uploads/rec-2-2009-poster.jpg)
Lesser sequel to the Spanish Found Footage zombie film [Rec] that repeats the original to variable effect but needlessly breaks up the single camera point-of-view
[Rec]3: Genesis (2012)
![[Rec]3 Genesis (2012) poster](https://moriareviews.com/rongulator/wp-content/uploads/rec-3-genesis-2012-poster.jpg)
Third entry in the Spanish Found Footage series. The Found Footage look is abandoned soon in but this decides to have fun and turns out the gore-drenched goods
[Rec]4: Apocalypse (2014)
![[Rec]4 Apocalypse (2014) poster](https://moriareviews.com/rongulator/wp-content/uploads/rec-4-apocalypse-2014-poster.jpg)
The fourth film in the [Rec] series. This abandons the Found Footage look but without it, all we have is just another zombie film, nevertheless this builds to an intensively gore-drenched climax
The Reckoning (2020)
A few years ago, Neil Marshall seemed a major genre director on the rise with The Descent. Here he returns with a film about the historic witch persecutions
Recovery (2016)
A film that starts with the premise of teenage girls looking for a party and then going in search of a missing cellphone doesn’t do much to enthuse me. On the other hand, things pick up when the search leads them to a strange house
Rectuma (2003)
The sort of film that might make Troma radioactive green with envy they didn’t make it concerning a giant rampaging ass. Mind-boggling and willing to be stupid and in frequent bad taste
Red Blooded American Girl (1990)
Heather Thomas starring film about the discovery of a laboratory that has created a vampire virus
Red Dragon (2002)
Following the success of the Hannibal Lecter films, Dino de Laurentiis smartly repackaged Thomas Harris’s earlier novel as a Hannibal Lecter prequel
Red Letters (2019)
A film about occult detectives investigating a missing police officer. This then conducts a mid-film bait and switch on us as to what it is about and actually becomes a faith film
The Red Queen Kills Seven Times (1972)
A giallo film where a family curse about the vengeance of a red queen starts being enacted with a mystery figure bumping off relatives following the reading of a will
Red Riding (2009)
Depending on how you saw this, this is either a UK tv mini-series or three separately released films. Taking place over a decade, the three stories have a common locale and overlapping characters in the story of the hunt for a serial killer and the battle against a corrupt police department in Yorkshire
Red Room: The Forbidden King Game (1999)
Extremely twisted Japanese film that plays out like a conceptual mix of Saw and Fear Factor (even though it predates either) wherein contestants are locked in a room and get to challenge each other to engage in more and more extreme acts against the other
Red Sands (2009)
Essentially a variation on The Keep updated to the contemporary US occupation of Afghanistan. A film that one watches with no high expectation but proves to be a slow burner that eventually develops an eerie atmosphere
The Red Shoes (2005)
South Korean horror film about a pair of high-heeled shoes that take over their owner. Some okay jumps in a standard K-horror ghost story
Red Snow (2021)
This has the amusing idea of being a Martin for the Twilight era where a writer of vampire romances not at all modelled on Stephenie Meyer encounters a real vampire
Red State (2011)
Kevin Smith discovers a newfound maturity in this work about a religious cult. Smith subdues his adolescent humour in a series of darkly laced dramatic twists, while the show is capped by some great performances