Cathy’s Curse (1977)
From the great era of Canuxploitation, an entertainingly ridiculous film about a possessed child wreaking psychic havoc and an often absurd series of deaths against those who are mean to her
Horror
The Catman of Paris (1946)
A blatant but far more pedestrian copy of Cat People in which a man has blackouts during which he suspects he turns into a catman who is wanted by police for a string of murders
Catnado (2022)
We’ve had Sharknado. Now comes Catnado, an anthology about storms of cats. This contains episodes so pitiful and ineptly made that this enters into the unwatchable
Cat’s Eye (1985)
An anthology of three Stephen King stories, this comes out with extremely variable results where what were originally a series of tight and mordant tales end up strangely overblown
Cats Kill (2017)
Low-budget psycho film where Cat who lives in the Catskills decides she wants to hunt tourists from the big city
The Cave (2005)
This big-budget film came out the same year as The Descent and is a very similar work about a cast of name explorers in a vast network of underground caves being hunted by monsters
Caved In (2006)
One of the spate of underground horror films that came out in 2005 including The Descent and The Cave. This is a B-budget wannabe obviously shot in a studio. The addition of giant beetles takes it into the cheesily ridiculous
The Cell (2000)
The dreamscape film was given extraordinary life by Tarsem Singh in his directorial debut who transforms a fairly ordinary script with visuals and costuming that is out of this world
The Cell 2 (2009)
Sequel to Tarsem Singh’s The Cell that feels made by people who haven’t even seen the original. The original’s fascinating journey into dream terrain is replaced by a dull psychic with a link to a serial killer plot
Cell 213 (2011)
A muddled allegorical redemption drama with Eric Balfour sentenced to a maximum security prison where he is haunted by hallucinations
Cell (2016)
Adaptation of the Stephen King novel about zombies created by a cellphone signal. Critically panned but this kicks in with a sensational opening scene and overspills with more fascinating ideas than it has room to deal with
The Cellar (1989)
A low-budget 1980s film where a family buy a house in the desert only to find that there is a Native American demon imprisoned in the cellar
The Cellar (2022)
An Irish horror film that generates undeniably mysterious atmosphere after a family move into a new house and the teenage daughter disappears after going down into the cellar
Cello (2005)
The huge success of J-horror films like Ringu and Ju-on: The Grudge in the 2000s was copied right around the Asian region. This was one of several K-horror (South Korean) ghost stories produced during this period
Censor (2021)
A horror film set among the UK’s Video Nasties censorship controversy of the 1980s. Niamh Alger works for the censorship board and is drawn into a disturbed state of mind by material she uncovers
Cerberus (2005)
Cerberus, the three-headed dog that guards the entrance to Hades in Greek myth, is appropriated to become the focus of a standard md-00s CGI monster movie
Cerebrum (2022)
A young man recuperates from a brain injury while tended by his father. As he tries to piece together what happened, we discover we are in the midst of a Frankenstein-type film
Chain Letter (2010)
Ridiculous film that seems to want to say something about modern technological interconnectivity but has simply grafted it onto a slasher formula. while being bsurdly ill-informed about its subject
Chain Reactions (2024)
A documentary that interviews five people, including Stephen King and Takashi Miike, about the influence that The Texas Chain Saw Massacre had on their lives. The results are fascinating and illuminating
Chained (2012)
Jennifer Lynch, daughter of David, makes an extraordinary work about the relationship between a serial killer and his young male companion. A film that eschews big dramatics with startling effect. Vincent D’Onofrio gives one of his best performances
The Chair (1989)
One of a spate of killers returned from the electric chair films that came out around the time of Wes Craven’s Shocker. The film is all build-up and almost no delivery, although is enlivened by an undeniable sense of humour
Chamber of Horrors (1966)
TV pilot about two waxworks curators tracking a mad killer, this was deemed too gruesome for audiences and released to theatres with the addition of a William Castle-like promotional gimmick
The Changed (2021)
Tony Todd heads a B-budget body snatchers film about a neighbourhood being taken over by beings that promise a great transformation
The Changeling (1980)
An old-fashioned ghost story with George C. Scott as a widowed composer who moves into a haunted house. This generates spookiness with quite a reasonable degree of effectiveness
Chapter 27 (2007)
A True Crime film based on the shooting of John Lennon. This is anchored by a strong performance from Jared Leto as shooter Mark Chapman that draws you into a disturbed headspace
Charlie Charlie (2016)
Charlie Charlie was supposedly an oracular game that made headlines when a satiric site claimed that teenagers were being killed playing it and some news sites took this seriously. This is a pathetic and feeble film made exploiting the game’s five minutes of notoriety
Charlie Says (2018)
Mary Harron directs a film about Charles Manson and his Family, taking the perspective of the Manson Girls. The best of several films about the Manson Killings. Former Doctor Who Matt Smith makes a hypnotically fascinating Manson
Charlotte’s Song (2015)
There is potential to the premise here – a dark horror riff of sorts on The Little Mermaid in a 1930s Depression era setting – but it is squandered by an unimaginative script and direction
Chatroom (2010)
English-language film from Ring director Hideo Nakata that finds a vibrant means to depict internet communication in a thriller about people meeting on a chatroom being wound into a series of psychological games
Cheap Thrills (2013)
A man offers two down-on-their-luck guys a series of increasingly more extreme bets for money. This sets out to defy taboos and good taste, largely succeeding by pushing into some alternately grotesquely funny and nauseating territories
Chemical Wedding (2008)
Ostensibly about occultist Aleister Crowley reincarnating in the present, this overflows with mad ideas involving quantum physics, VR, alternate worlds and a heap of classic references – and moreover, is written by the lead singer of Iron Maiden
Chernobyl Diaries (2012)
This has the fascinatingly original idea of setting a horror film inside the exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear accident. The location is unique and the film generates a fair and reasonable tension
Cherry Falls (2000)
Witty and rather funny slasher film in which the killer targets virgins in a community. The genre’s usual tropes about the chaste girl surviving are turned on their head in rather hilarious ways
Cherry Tree (2015)
From David Keating who made Wake Wood, this falls into the Folk Horror genre and becomes a well-made variant on Rosemary’s Baby as a schoolgirl accepts a Devil’s Deal to save her father
Child 44 (2015)
This offers one of the most fascinating settings for a detective story – the Soviet Union at the height of Stalinist oppression – and borrows the story of true-life Soviet serial killer Andrei Chikatilo
The Child (1977)
Forgotten effort from the heyday of devil children films (The Exorcist, The Omen et al). This takes place in a backwoods setting and has a director who is determined to pile on atmosphere frequently to the point of overkill
Child of God (2013)
Actor James Franco directs an adaptation of a novel about a necrophile serial killer by Cormac McCarthy. Any McCarthy adaptation is doomed by an inability to visually replicate his incredible prose but Franco tries valiantly
The Children (1980)
Night of the Living Dead-influenced cheapie about zombified children wearing black nailpolish who blow their parents up with deadly hugs. This has no ambition beyond providing entertainingly preposterous meltdown effects every few minutes
The Children (2008)
Rather well-made British entry where two families at a Christmas get-together find their respective children have inexplicably turned against them with murderous results. This draws the tensions out to a sustained siege with undeniably effective results
Children of the Corn (1984)
A fifteen page Stephen King story about a patricidal child cult has spawned this film, nine sequels and a remake. Not a very good film, this is stuck with padding a very slight original out to a full-length film
Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice (1992)
The second of the films spun off from the Stephen King short story. This is better that its predecessor, premised around a series of novelty deaths and offering some explanations for what is happening
Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest (1995)
The third of the films based on the Stephen King short story, this moves the locale to the city but is otherwise based around a series of completely ridiculous makeup effects every few minutes
Children of the Corn: The Gathering (1996)
The popularity of the Children of the Corn franchise – eleven films spun out of a sixteen page Stephen King story – baffles one. This is the fourth film, its greatest distinction being that it stars a then unknown Naomi Watts
Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror (1998)
Quite who the audience for these Children of the Corn films is that they keep making more of them is a mystery. This was the fifth of eleven films and at least better than the last two entries
Children of the Corn (2009)
This remake of the Stephen King short story (this time with a script from King himself) is a much better film than the earlier 1984 version or any of its numerous sequels
Children of the Corn (2020)
The Stephen King short story only runs to 16 pages. This is the eleventh film spinoff to date (which runs at about one film per 1.4 pages of story). Unlike the other sequels, this claims to be an origin story
Children of the Night (1991)
One of a trio of films produced by Fangoria magazine, this concerns a town overrun by vampires but swings uncertainly between moments of effectiveness and a campy silliness
The Child’s Eye (2010)
The Pang Brothers were for a time some the best directors in the horror genre. This is one of their slighter efforts, a misguided venture into 3D. Seen flat, it still holds an undeniable amount of the eerie atmosphere they specialise in
Child’s Play (1972)
Not to be confused with the Chucky films, this is a little-seen film about a series of sadistic games played by pupils that targets other pupils in a Catholic boys’ boarding school
Child’s Play (1988)
The very first of the Chucky films. At the time, this seemed a very silly and at times ridiculous killer doll film and not the basis of an ongoing series of sequels that have lasted more than three decades
Child’s Play (2019)
The controversial remake of Child’s Play where Chucky is no longer possessed but become an artificially intelligent smart toy. This seems to misconstrues everything that the fanbase of the series celebrates by a mile
Child’s Play 2 (1990)
The first Child’s Play felt like an incredibly silly film. However, this first sequel takes the same elements and constructs them into a much tighter, better package
Child’s Play 3 (1991)
The third and probably the least regarded of the Chucky films. This for some reason takes place in a military academy. The outrageous black humour of the later entries is absent and in its place a mean-spirited sadism
Chillerama (2011)
In the same vein as Grindhouse, four filmmakers have come together to make an anthology of spoof horror films that homage the drive-in tradition. Good taste is left well behind and the results are both outrageous and funny
Chinese Speaking Vampires (2021)
The vampire film has been looking for new directions in the post-Twilight world. This is an oddity about Chinese vampires that turn victims into fluent Mandarin speakers
Choose or Die (2022)
A British horror film in which people open an old 1980s videogame that is cursed and forces them to make horrible choices concerning the deaths of people around them
Chop (2011)
A man is abducted by a stranger who proceeds to remove his limbs in an effort to make him remember the terrible crime he committed. This suggests an incredibly grim film. Surprisingly enough, it is a comedy
Chopper Chicks in Zombietown (1991)
That rarity of rarities – a quite good Troma film. The zombies are not up to much but the titular girl motorcycle gang are surprisingly well rounded characters
Christina’s House (1999)
Modest film with Allison Lange being stalked by one of the men in her life. A film that vies between false jumps and moments of reasonable atmosphere
Christine (1983)
John Carpenter takes on Stephen King’s novel about an evil car and a boy’s relationship with it with dynamic results. The film is made by Carpenter’s slick direction and a series of sensational effects set-pieces
Christmas Evil (1980)
One of the original Psycho Santa films. Usually pegged as another Christmas slasher film, rather what we have is a film that draws us into a disturbed headspace that operates on a unique fairytale morality about punishing the naughty
A Christmas Horror Story (2015)
An anthology that offers a quartet of Christmas horror stories, including ones of zombified elves and a Krampus monster. Hosted by William Shatner who plays a radio talkshow host in the wraparound
Chronicles of an Exorcism (2008)
This has the distinction of being the very first Found Footage possession and exorcism film. This has become commonplace since but is quite different in its treatment than subsequent efforts
Chupacabra (2003)
An incredibly bad monster movie supposedly based around the Latin American urban legend of the Chupacabra. So cheaply made it can’t even afford CGI
Chupacabra Terror (2005)
A monster movie that is entirely by the book and undistinguished in any way except for its eye-raisingly gimmicky capsule premise ‘Chupacabra Loose on a Cruise Liner’
The Church (1989)
Originally intended as a Demons sequel, director Michele Soavi decided to head in more arty directions. Imagine a Demons sequel mounted with the artistic ambitions of producer Dario Argento’s Three Mothers films
Cinderella Game (2016)
Bizarre Japanese copy of Battle Royale by way of American Idol where a group of schoolgirls from a singing competition are trapped on an island where they must play a deadly card game
Cinderella’s Curse (2024)
From the people behind the Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey films, a horror version of Cinderella. And yes, the glass slipper is used to stab people
Cinderella’s Revenge (2024)
A horror version of Cinderella where she gets to stab people with the glass slipper. This also features several modernisms where instead of a pumpkin coach, the fairy godmother conjures up Elon Musk to drive Cinderella to the ball in a Tesla
Circle Line (2023)
A quite good monster movie from Singapore about people trapped down the disused brand of an underground railway line where they are hunted by a monster
Circus Kane (2017)
Film from Fred Olen Ray’s son Christopher where a group of people have to survive the death traps in the house of a circus master. Christopher reveals himself as a Rob Zombie wannabe on an impoverished budget
Circus of Horrors (1960)
Fascinatingly sordid film from the early days of the English horror cycle in which Anton Diffring is a mad surgeon obsessed with facial disfiguration hiding as a circus master and arranging a series of circus-themed deaths for his failed experiments
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant (2009)
Adaptation of a series of Young Adult books that should have emerged as Harry Potter made with the sensibilities of a Tim Burton. But the result fails to come to life in Paul Weitz’s hands
Citadel (2012)
Irish-British production that depicts the social housing estates of Glasgow as a desolate netherworld inhabited by mutant children. Undeniably effective but the depiction of children of urban ghettos requires you to tune out any liberal instincts
Citizen Vigilante (2026)
Uwe Boll makes a return to filmmaking. The side of Boll that most people never appreciated was him angry at social issues. With a charismatic Armie Hammer in the lead, Boll gets angry about the European refugee crisis
City of the Dead (1959)
An effort from the early days of the Anglo-horror cycle about a town ruled by a reincarnated witch. This comes drenched in a good deal of heavy black-and-white atmosphere
City of the Living Dead (1980)
One of the key films in the cult of Lucio Fulci, a zombie film driven by a series of gore-drenched set-pieces. On the other hand, there is the complete lack of a plot holding everything together
Clark Ashton Smith: The Emperor of Dreams (2018)
A documentary made about Clark Ashton Smith, a largely unknown but greatly acclaimed author of weird fiction. Smith was a contemporary of and influence on H.P. Lovecraft
Class of Nuke ‘Em High (1986)
One of the essential Troma films, this seems to have been conceived as Rock’n’Roll High School with Evil Dead-styled makeup effects and lots of moronic bad taste humour
Class of Nuke ‘Em High Part II: Subhumanoid Meltdown (1991)
The first sequel to the Troma hit and with all of the usual bad taste and moron humour you associate with a Troma film, but also better produced then most their films
A Classic Horror Story (2021)
Italian horror film that comes with many homages to classic horror films, wound together in a Folk Horror plot that satisfyingly delivers the goods
Claws (1977)
This was made as a fairly blatant mockbuster copy of Jaws. This is basically Jaws on dry land with a bear instead of a shark and an assonant soundalike title Claws instead of Jaws
Clay (2007)
Ron Bonk is a director out there making modern exploitation films that often push some fairly outrageous edges. This psycho effort was one of his earlier films
Clay Pigeons (1998)
Small town murder/psycho film where an initially promising black sense of humour soon loses its head of steam. On the other hand, a talented cast keeps the fiim going
A Clean Kill (1999)
Psycho-thriller that borrows from Rashomon and leaves us unsure if Roxana Zal is a stalker or an innocent caught up in a murder plot by the married man she was having an affair with
The Cleaning Lady (2018)
Director Jon Knautz and actress Alexis Kendra made the quite impressive Goddess of Love and reteam for this film where Alexis befriends the disturbed, disfigured cleaning lady of the title
Cleopatra’s Second Husband (1998)
Modestly effective indie psycho-thriller in which a couple develop a twisted psycho-sexual relationship with their unwelcome tenants
The Climax (1944)
Made to exploit leftover sets from the 1943 Phantom of the Opera, this is a magnificent colour production that has Boris Karloff as an obsessive surgeon who fixates on a beautiful young opera singer
The Clinic (2010)
This Australian thriller has a captivating premise – pregnant women are abducted, C-sectioned and imprisoned where they must fight to the death to get their children back
The Clovehitch Killer (2018)
Excellent, superbly written thriller loosely based on the B.T.K. killer story where a teen believes his father (Dylan McDermott in a great performance) might be a serial killer
Clown (2014)
The first film from Jon Watts, director of the Tom Holland Spider-Man films, and produced by Eli Roth, about a clown costume that possesses the wearer. You have to admire the film for the ballsiness with which it was made
Clown (2019)
The Asylum’s mockbuster version of It: Chapter Two. From Eric Forsberg, one of the better directors to emerge from The Asylum, this involves a group of teens being pursued around a funhouse by a killer clown.
Clown in a Cornfield (2025)
The killer clown film has become its own genre niche since the remake of It, offering assorted wacky genre mash-ups. This is a better budgeted entry than usual from the director of the cult Tucker and Dale vs Evil
Clown Kill (2016)
A British effort where a girl working late in an office building who is stalked by a creepy clown. Made with an incredibly amateurism, this is possibly the worst entry in the killer clown genre
Clown Motel (2019)
There have been a spate of killer clown films in the last few years almost none of which have escaped being cheap and crappy. This one is based around the real-life clown motel in Nevada
Clownado (2019)
This may possibly win the award for the all-time most ridiculous premise for a film. It tries to outdo Sharknado by offering up a storm of killer clowns
Clownhouse (1989)
An incredibly eerie and haunting killer clown film from Victor Salva. This is one of the few films that capture something of the spooky suspense of John Carpenter’s Halloween
Clowntergeist (2017)
There is a heap of crappy low-budget killer clown films. However, I couldn’t quite bring myself to entirely dislike this entry about a supernatural killer clown, which does produce a number of jumps
Club Vampire (1997)
Set around a secret society of vampires, this is a strong contender for the worst vampire film ever made. It suffers badly from a directorial approach that is unsure if it is taking things seriously
Cobra (1986)
From Cannon Films, a Sylvester Stallone action vehicle with a near-fascistic view of law enforcement that proves to be an absurd comic-book of a film that is preposterously entertaining