Saw V (2008)
Fifth of the Saw films. By now the series has developed such a complicated backstory it is difficult following how it all pieces together
Horror
Saw VI (2009)
Sixth time around and the backstory is starting to become so excessively complicated it is hard to follow what is going on. All the gruesome torturings now seem passe, although this does redeem itself somewhat in making a few black digs at the medical health industry
Saw X (2023)
The Saw series is back and this has been getting some of the best reviews of any entries in the series
Scalps (1983)
Fred Olen Ray is one of the most prolific genre directors. This film about a cursed Indian graveyard was made earlier in his career. Olen Ray hasn’t exactly become a good filmmaker since but his subsequent films are at least made with a overall competence and a sense of humour, which this lacks
The Scarecrow (1982)
Fine Coming of Age story set in 1950s New Zealand with John Carradine as a sinister stranger come to town
Scarecrows (1988)
An overlooked effort from the direct-to-VHS era concerning itself with a field of undead scarecrows. Amid the numerous zombie and splatter effects efforts of the day that were being churned out, this settles in with an unusual atmosphere that is often hard to shake
Scared Stiff (1953)
Remake of the earlier Bob Hope Old Dark House comedy The Ghost Breakers now made as a vehicle for the duo of Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin. Probably overly long and takes forever to arrive at the haunted house but has some occasionally amiable comedic moments
Scared Stiff (1987)
An incredibly bad film from the heyday of the VHS era. The incoherent plot involves hauntings and a voodoo curse before arriving at a totally surreal ending
Scared to Death (1947)
Bela Lugosi poverty row cheapie where he plays a sinister hypnotist. The only film Lugosi made in colour
Scars of Dracula (1970)
The sixth of the Hammer Dracula films and generally regarded as the low point of the series. It feels as though nobody involved seemed to be making an effort anymore.
Scary Movie (2000)
The first in a popular series of comedies, this spoofs the recent hits of Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer in the most vulgar and witless way possible
Scary Movie 2 (2001)
The first of the Scary Movie sequels. The Wayans Brothers extend the gag beyond the slasher movie to take on the ghost story and exorcism film while aiming squarely for Lowest Common Denominator humour
Scary Movie 3 (2003)
David Zucker takes over the reins of the franchise from the Wayans Brothers. With a lack of big scary movies in 2002 to parody, the film takes a scattershot approach, parodying any film at all
Scary Movie 4 (2006)
Fourth of the Scary Movie films and the usual crude inanity, although under David Zucker the movie parodies have expanded well beyond what can be labelled scary movies any longer
Scary MoVie (2013)
Just when you thought that this witless and unfunny series has died off, it drags itself out of mothballs for another outing. As with the other entries, it is a bunch of recent movies overrun with crude, moronic gags
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019)
Based on the popular series of children’s horror tales, this Guillermo Del Toro written/produced effort borrows the idea from the Goosebumps film of having the stories come to life and the idea from Stranger Things and It with a group children fighting against them. On screen, the finished result never quite seems as much as it promises to be
Scary Tales (2001)
A low-budget horror anthology that is rough around the edges but shows promise
Scary True Stories (1991-2)
A trio of Japanese tv movies that retell supposedly true life ghost stories
Scary Movie (2026)
The Wayans Brothers and most of the regulars return to revive the franchise to make more crude farce of the Scream and Halloween revivals and other horror films to come out in the last few years
The Scenesters (2009)
A side-splittingly funny spoof of Found Footage films as a crime scene video crew uncover evidence of a serial killer and decide to make a documentary about it
Schizo (1976)
UK. 1976. Crew Director/Producer – Pete Walker, Screenplay – David McGillivray, Photography – Peter Jessop, Music – Stanley Myers, Makeup Supervisor – George Partleton, Art Direction – Chris Burke. Production Company – Peter Walker (Heritage) Ltd. Cast Lynne Frederick (Samantha Gray Falconer/Jean Longmarsh), Jack Watson (William Haskin), John Leyton (Alan Falconer), Stephanie Beacham (Beth), John […]
Schizoid (1980)
An early release from Cannon Films, a psycho film featuring a very weird Klaus Kinski as a sinister psychologist
Schock (1977)
The last film from the great Mario Bava – an uncanny effort filled with some strikingly spooky scenes that leaves you uncertain whether what we are seeing is a haunting, a possession or is taking place in a mad woman’s fraying mind
Schramm (1993)
Jörg Buttgereit made the notorious NEKRomantik films and is a director about an uncompromising and determined to outrage as possible. This inevitably falls in the shadow of NEKRomantik but is a grim and disturbing in its own right in its kitchen sink depiction of the life of a serial killer
Scissors (1991)
Impressive psycho-thriller from Frank De Felitta that plays out with the silent logic of a nightmare as a young unknown Sharon Stone finds herself a prisoner in an apartment
Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse (2015)
There is something appealing to the film’s premise – of boyscouts with their knowhow and do-gooder mentality being the best equipped to survive the zombie apocalypse.But this a film not nearly as clever as it thinks it is being
Scre4m (2011)
Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson return to the Scream franchise to turn out the fourth and best sequel yet. The opening scene alone is the funniest one has seen in a film in some time
Scream (1996)
Wes Craven and scriptwriter Kevin Williamson make a witty homage to the 1980s slasher film, turning the genre on its head by having the characters perfectly aware they are in a horror film and of the genre’s cliches
Scream 2 (1997)
Wes Craven’s Scream was a clever and witty homage to/deconstruction of the slasher film of the 1980s; for the sequel, he and Kevin Williamson naturally turn to deconstructing the slasher sequel
Scream 3 (2000)
By the time of this third film and the departure of screenwriter Kevin Williamson, creativity in the Scream series seems to be flagging even though this has critic-proofed itself by calling itself a parody of a sequel
Scream 7 (2026)
The Scream series drags itself for another sequel but at least performs a course correction by bringing back original screenwriter Kevin Williamson in the director’s chair, along with appearances of many past cast
Scream (2022)
Following the recent reboot of the Halloween franchise, many of the original cast and a new directorial team resurrect Wes Craven’s Scream franchise in some undeniably appealing ways
Scream for Help (1984)
Often wrongly pegged as a slasher film, this is more of a 1940s psycho-thriller with slasher sensibilities. The notorious Michael Winner directs with typically crude and unsophisticated effect
Scream of the Banshee (2011)
An utterly formulaic Syfy Channel filler monster movie about the resurrection of a banshee. A film that is only based around the provision of effects-driven dispatches every few minutes
Scream Pretty Peggy (1973)
A psycho-thriller that offers up the plot of Jane Eyre by way of Psycho. With Bette Davis rising to form as an alcoholic mother
Scream Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street (2019)
A documentary that discusses the gay subtext in A Nightmare on Elm Street Part II: Freddy’s Revenge and how lead actor Mark Patton claims it ruined his career
Scream VI (2023)
The sixth entry in a series that began as a smart and clever parody/deconstruction of the slasher film. Now this has become just another teen franchise film that has forgotten all the meta margin notes.
Screaming in High Heels: The Rise and Fall of the Scream Queen Era (2011)
Documentary about the so-called Scream Queen phenomenon – a series of cheap horror films from the late 80s/early 90s made for the video market featuring a series of starlets who readily got naked and kicked ass. This interviews the principal players and covers the genre with a reasonable degree of insightful candour
Screams of a Winter Night (1979)
Obscure horror anthology from the great era of regional drive-in cinema. The stories lose any potential due to incredibly dreary direction
Screamtime (1983)
A British horror anthology made up of three stories from director Michael Armstrong. As always the episodes are variable but the episode with the killer Punch and Judy dolls stands out
Se7en (1995)
Classic serial killer film from David Fincher, a superb effort from the casting to a script that seems weighted by the moral ills of the 20th Century to the unforgettable twist ending
Sea of Dust (2008)
An almost interesting low-budget film with artistic pretensions that invokes the mythic Christian figure of Prester John
Sea of Love (1989)
Standout thriller with great scripting and performances where detective Al Pacino goes undercover in the dating scene to track a killer and comes up against a sultry Ellen Barkin
Seance (2000)
Japan’s Kiyoshi Kurosawa conducts a remake of the British thriller Seance on a Wet Afternoon. Where the original was a mundane film that depicted a kidnap scheme involving a fake medium, Kurosawa builds this out as an actual ghost story
Seance (2021)
Adam Wingard’s regular scriptwriter Simon Barrett directs a revival of the girls’ boarding school ghost story. I had very high expectations of this
Séance: The Summoning (2011)
Fairly by-the-books possession and exorcism film that does have the novelty of playing out in a morgue and where the entire cast has been pared down to four. There also seems an earnest strain of belief in Christianity/Catholicism that runs throughout
Season of the Witch (2011)
Medieavel fantasy action film with Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman assigned to escort a witch who may be able to deliver the land from the Black Plague. The wider moral issues of the film are buried under action and CGI
The Seasoning House (2012)
This starts out as a socially conscious drama about East European sex slavery. As directed by a makeup effects artist, the film seems to tepidly avoid the raw and brutal impact the material holds, before finally revealing its true nature as an imprisonment and revenge horror
Seconds Apart (2011)
A wonderfully cool film about malevolent twins with psychic abilities. that is an astonishingly assured effort where the various set-pieces come with the confidence of a director who has been working in the genre for years
Secret Beyond the Door (1948)
Fritz Lang made this psychological thriller during his American period – a retelling of the Bluebeard story by way of Rebecca. Lang delivers an times stunning evocation of film noir
The Secret of Crickley Hall (2012)
Ghost story BBC mini-series adapted from a novel by horror writer James Herbert that unfolds between two different eras. With an amazing cast of Before They Were Famous names.
The Secret of Dr Orloff (1964)
Prolific exploitation director Jesus Franco creates a sequel to his first horror film about a mad scientist creating a mind-controlled man that he sends to go out and kill strippers
Secret Smile (2005)
Creepy UK tv mini-series with David Tennant as a psycho boyfriend obsessed with Kate Ashfield
The Secret Village (2013)
A low-budget film about a journalist’s modern-day investigation into a secret village located near Salem, Massachusetts that results in paranoia and suspicious treatment by the locals
Secret Window (2004)
Stephen King adaptation with Johnny Depp as a writer in a cabin in the woods harassed by mysterious stranger John Turturro. Screenwriter David Koepp directs a marvellously chill Turturro with lots of twisty surprises
The Secretary (1995)
One of a series of Fatal Attraction copycats, a psycho-thriller where Mel Harris has her life torn apart by psycho secretary Sheila Kelley
Secrets of a Psychopath (2015)
Director Bert I. Gordon was at his heyday in the 1950s, making cheap giant monster films like The Amazing Colossal Man and Earth vs the Spider. Gordon returns here at the age of 93 (making him one of the world’s oldest directors) with this rather sordid little psycho film
The Sect (1991)
A film written/produced by Dario Argento, an occult giallo in the vein of his Three Mothers films in which a teacher is surrounded by a series of occult happenings and deaths
The Seduction (1982)
Ultra-trashy thriller with Morgan Fairchild as a tv newsreader stalked by next-door neighbour Andrew Stevens where she engages in the title seduction to eliminate him. A really bad film
See No Evil 2 (2014)
The Soska Sisters make a sequel to the 2006 slasher film. You cannot help but think that a sequel to such an average film is the sisters batting well below their capabilities. The surprise is that in their hands the result follows such traditional genre patterns
See No Evil (1971)
Tense psycho-thriller with Mia Farrow as a blind woman stalked through her home by a killer who has slaughtered her family
See No Evil (2006)
Modern slasher film where the sole note of distinction is the wrestler known as Kane cast as the hulking killer. Outside of a moderate level of brutality in the despatches, there is little here that stands out from the genre’s cliches in any way
See No Evil: The Moors Murders (2006)
True Crime mini-series based on the infamous Moors Murders of the 1960s and one that seems determined to conduct the least interesting account of the murders possible
Seed (2007)
Uwe Boll ventures into Torture Porn territory with this tale of a brutish serial killer who returns from the electric chair on a trail of vengeance against his condemners
Seed of Chucky (2004)
The fifth and most enjoyable of the Chucky films, this amplifies the black humour to an outrageously funny level, while conducting an hilarious meta-fiction with Jennifer Tilly playing herself
Seeding of a Ghost (1983)
A completely deranged film from Hong Kong’s Shaw Brothers involving the resurrection of a dead wife to exact retribution. Full of ghost sex, gore and madcap creature effects
Seizure (1974)
The first film from Oliver Stone and a head-scratching puzzle as a writer is haunted by various supernatural figures from out of his imagination
Selfie from Hell (2018)
The selfie is such a concept of the moment that I suppose someone had to make the first selfie horror film. The film suffers conceptual confusions and what starts out akin to something like Ring slides into more of a variant on The Den with sinister strangers stalking the heroine online
Sella Turcica (2010)
Horror film about a soldier returned home from conflict strangely ‘changed’ reminiscent of the classic Dead of Night. From the director of August Underground films.
Send Help (2026)
Sam Raimi returns with a desert island drama but things soon get twisted. Think Cast Away by way of Misery – but where Annie Wilkes gets to be the sympathetic heroine
The Sender (1982)
Excellent and overlooked film with Kathryn Harrold as a psychiatrist trying to deal with the fact that one of the patients in an asylum has vast psychic powers
The Sentinel (1977)
Michael Winner directs a film about a sinister apartment building but his typical crude and heavy-handed style fails to conjure anything remotely scary
Seoul Station (2016)
Train to Busan was a massive breakout hit from South Korear. Overlooked in the buzz was this animated prequel from the same director released at the same time. The zombie film and animation are an uneasy mix but this works well, if not with the same kick as Train to Busan
Separation (2021)
William Brent Bell, director of The Devil Inside and The Boy, returns with a ghost story where a widower and daughter are haunted by his ex-wife
A Serbian Film (2010)
Possibly the most extreme film ever made, a venture into the underground of Serbain snuff filmmaking. A film that holds back from breaking no taboo and ventures into exceedingly disturbing places
A Serial Killer’s Guide to Life (2019)
Essentially a women’s version of Fight Club, a black comedy about a girl being dragged on a killing spree by a murderous life coach
Serial Mom (1994)
One of John Waters’ more mainstream films with Kathleen Turner as a gleefully murderous housewife
Serpent (2017)
South African thriller that borrows much of its premise from Buried as a married couple camping in a remote gorge are trapped inside their tent with a deadly snake – only for secrets in the marriage to prove just as deadly
The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988)
One of Wes Craven’s best films. Loosely based on true-life book by botanist Wade Davis who set out to find the drug that creates zombies, Craven delves into Haitian voodoo in a striking blend of dream and horror
Serpent’s Lair (1995)
A supernatural version of Fatal Attraction where Jeff Fahey is lured into an affair with a neighbour who is a succubus
Servants of Twilight (1991)
Dean R. Koontz adaptation with Bruce Greenwood as a private detective drawn into helping a woman protect her child from crazed cultists that believe he is the Antichrist
Session 9 (2001)
Borrowing the Blair Witch aesthetic, Brad Anderson makes a highly effective minimalist horror film about a group of working men encountering something during the clean-up operation of an abandoned asylum
7 Below (2012)
Modest name cast, including a highly entertaining Val Kilmer, in a film about a group of strangers brought together at a mysterious backwoods house
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
Seven Footprints to Satan (1929)
An Old Dark House film from the silent era. Haxan director Benjamin Christensen turns the mansion into a fantastical netherworld and creates a compulsive atmosphere of weird and fascinating happenings that is is only marred only by a contrived mundane ending
Seven Mummies (2006)
Horror film where escaped convicts wander into a Western ghost town where a gold treasure is guarded by mummies
The Seventh Sign (1988)
A much more elevated version of an Omen-styled Biblical End Times film with Demi Moore worried if her child can save the world
The Seventh Victim (1943)
One of the classic films from producer Val Lewton concerning a secret society of Satanists. An oppressive atmosphere of gloom and morbidity hangs over the film and, as always with Lewton, it comes with striking directorial effects that play on the imagination
7500 (2014)
Takashi Shimizu has done commendable work on the Ju-on/The Grudge films and so I anticipated his taking on the airplane-board horror genre. Only he delivers a surprisingly middle-of-the-road handling before reaching a cliched twist ending that truly deserves to be put out to pasture
78/52 (2017)
The shower scene in Psycho is probably the most famous single scene in cinema history. The idea of an entire documentary devoted to analysing a single scene is a bit of a head scratcher at first but quickly the analysis of film’s context and the hidden meaning of shots proves completely fascinating
Severance (2006)
Rather funny British-made parody on Backwoods Brutality cliches where a work group of a team-building exercise ending up hunted by East European locals
Severed (2005)
A Canadian entry made soon into the zombie movie revival of the mid-00s and before the copycats started to become tediously familiar and the genre turned to self-parody. This delivers a solid rehash of the essentials – IMHO a better job that Zack Snyder did in Dawn of the Dead
The Severed Arm (1973)
A classic attention-grabbing title from the heyday of the exploitation film … After receiving a severed arm in the mail, a group of friends realise that a former friend has come seeking revenge for when they were trapped down a mine and agreed to cut off his arm because they had nothing to eat
Severed Ties (1992)
Film with a mad scientist creating an army of disembodied arms, this could have been a demented classic but just emerges as cheap
Sexcula (1974)
While this Canadian obscurity gives the appearance of being a 70s sex vampire film, it is in fact an X-rated Frankenstein spoof. While the film is not without its moment of complete dementia (mostly involving sex scenes with a gorilla), it eventually fragments into narrative incomprehensibility
Sexual Predator (2001)
An erotic thriller that stars Angie Everhart as a probation officer who is drawn into the web of her client Richard Grieco who may or may not be a serial killer
Shadow Hours (2000)
Film where recovering addict Balthazar Getty is dragged into an underworld of vice by mysterious stranger Peter Weller
Shadow Hunter (1993)
Directed by the underrated J.S. Cardone, this features Scott Glenn in a fine performance trying to track Indian sorcerer Benjamin Bratt
Shadow in the Cloud (2020)
Chloe Grace Moretz stars in a quite reasonable WWII-set story about gremlins amok aboard a plane
Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
Considered one of Alfred Hitchcock’s greatest films, this centres around Joseph Cotten as the favourite uncle who comes to town as his niece increasingly suspects that he may be a serial killer