The Alien Factor (1978)
Film from low-budget director Donald M. Dohler about escaped alien zoo animals amok in rural Maryland. The film has the benefit of some good creature effects
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999)
George Lucas’s return to the Star Wars series after a sixteen year absence and a build-up rivaled only by the Second Coming. Instead most audiences went away disappointed. Lucas has used the interim to push the technology to its heights but the story and characters are lacking
Hercules Returns (1993)
Excrutiatingly unfunny Australian film that has taken an old Italian 1960s Italian Hercules film and redubbed it with a comedy rifftrack
Anna to the Infinite Power (1982)
A modest and quite well written children’s film about a gifted twelve year-old (Martha Byrne) who gradually discovers that she is a clone
Trekkies (1997)
A mind-boggling and frequently hilarious documentary that charts the eccentricities of Star Trek fandom, profiling the lives of several fans and how the fandom is part of their lives
Alien3 (1992)
Third of the Alien films, a directorial debut for David Fincher. A better film than was perceived at the time, this explores new character depths, while Fincher imprints his own visual style on the film
Phantasm II (1988)
The first and best of Don Coscarelli’s Phantasm sequels, one that creates an eerie twilight zone ambience that sits between dream and reality
The Beastmaster (1982)
Don Coscarelli, director of the culty Phantasm, made this as part of the early 1980s sword and sorcery fad with Marc Singer as a muscular hero who has the ability to communicate with animals
Bad Blood (1982)
Film based on true-life New Zealand mass murderer Stanley Graham, a disenfranchised farmer who became a local hero after shooting several police and inspiring a massive manhunt
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1989)
Terry Gilliam’s adaptation of the adventures of the world’s greatest liar was another problem ridden Gilliam production that emerges as an absurd, colourful spectacle filled with a dizzying greatness of imagination
Anguish (1987)
Strange Spanish-made film about a mother-dominated psycho, which is also a film being watched in a theatre by an audience that is being stalked by another psycho
The Angel Levine (1970)
An obscure oddity in which elderly Jewish man Zero Mostel finds Harry Belafonte in his home insisting that he is an angel sent to help
Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein (1973)
An outrageous gore-drenched version of the Frankenstein story that frequently ventures into bad taste. Despite his name in the title, Andy Warhol had nothing to do with the film
The Asphyx (1972)
A very underrated and almost completely ignored film from the great Anglo-horror cycle in which Victorian scientists are on a quest to capture the spirit of death
The Big Bus (1976)
Intermittently amusing parody of the disaster movie set aboard an atomically-powered luxury bus where everything proceeds to go wrong. The better parody of the genre would have to wait for Airplane
Mighty Joe Young (1998)
The original Mighty Joe Young was a wonderfully underrated giant ape film. This is a remake conducted in the post-Jurassic Park era that adds CGI but holds none of the magic of the original
Six-String Samurai (1998)
Gonzo comedy set in alternate world where a samurai-sword wielding Buddy Holly wanders through a post-apocalyptic present
Aliens (1986)
James Cameron’s follow-up to Alien is one of the few sequels that matches its predecessor. Adding a troupe of Marines, Cameron creates a powerhouse of a film that sustains itself with seat-edge tension throughout
Airwolf (1985)
The pilot for a tv series that was theatrically released outside of the US. A blatant copy of Blue Thunder, this concerns the hijacking and retrieval of a hi-tech helicopter
Angel (1984)
Trashy film about a regular high school student who leads a double life as a hooker on Hollywood Boulevard who becomes targeted by a serial killer. Several sequels followed.
Conquest of Space (1955)
George Pal’s successor to Destination Moon imagines one step further – an expedition to Mars. Where Destination Moon had a bold unfettered optimism, this is killed off by an ending that falls prey to typical 1950s fear and anxiety
Amazon Women on the Moon (1987)
An anthology of comedy skits from several different directors including Joe Dante and John Landis. The result is fairly scattershot with moments of occasional humour falling between laughs that do not come off
The Killer Condom (1996)
Beyond the wilfully ridiculous title, this is a surprisingly entertaining and funny film that lampoons monster movies in general concerning a monstrous condom on the attack.
Deep Impact (1998)
Big serious attempt at creating an asteroid collides with Earth film, this came out the same year as Armageddon. Despite arraying much acting talent and effects artistry, this disappears into a melodramatic blandness
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
Temmink: The Ultimate Fight (1998)
Dutch film set in a future where Jack Wouterse is a prisoner who is offered a chance to fight to the death in televised gladitorial combat
Flesh Feast (1970)
It’s anybody’s guess what possessed Veronica Lake, a great screen beauty of the 1940s, to return to screens playing a Nazi mad scientist having created flesh-eating maggots. A true Z film if there ever was
Too Many Ways To Be No. 1 (1997)
Predating Sliding Doors, this hard-boiled Hong Kong gangster film from Wong Kar-wai did the whole alternate timelines theme first
Daddy’s Girl (1996)
A formulaic evil child psycho-thriller where young Gabrielle Boni kills to protect her perfect adopted family. At least young Boni conjures an effective nastiness on screen
The Giant Spider Invasion (1975)
From Bill Rebane, a film about a rampaging giant spider (having emerged from a black hole we are told). This has a bad movie reputation, although on most accounts it emerges as strictly average
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
Beauties of the Night (1952)
Delightful and completely charming Rene Clair comedy about a daydreamer. A much better version of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty than either of the official film adaptations
Bad Taste (1988)
Peter Jackson first appeared with this no-budget splatter comedy. A miracle of DIY filmmaking, the film plays out like a live-action Roadunner cartoon where the creativity of Jackson’s home-made gore effects is positively ingenious
The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953)
A classic of the genre for a number of reason – it was the film that kicked off the 1950s fad for atomic monsters, featuring an archetypal story about a dinosaur brought back to life by atomic tests. It also featured among the very first screen credits for both Ray Bradbury and stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen
Dead Fire (1996)
Action film set aboard a space station that houses cryogenically frozen survivors of a devastated Earth as C. Thomas Howell tries to stop a mad Matt Frewer
eXistenZ (1999)
David Cronenberg tackles Virtual Reality themes in an interestingly mind-bending work. Cronenberg has some interesting takes but this ended up being overshadowed by the phenomenon that was The Matrix the same year
Themroc (1973)
Anarchic French film entirely without dialogue as a group of people in an apartment begin to revert to pre-civilised behaviour
Battletruck (1982)
A fairly blatant copy of Mad Max 2, although this is one of the better-made and budgeted. Crucially what is lacking is much in the way of the action that made Mad Max a hit
Spontaneous Combustion (1990)
The start of Tobe Hooper’s decline wherein he borrows the basics of Firestarter in a really bad film with a madly overacting Brad Dourif as a pyrokinetic
Sliver (1993)
An adaptation of an Ira Levin thriller that has been turned into a blatant copy of Basic Instinct featuring Sharon Stone in more steamy scenes in a plot involving video voyeurism in an apartment building
Whispers in the Dark (1992)
Smart and tightly wound psycho-thriller as psychotherapist Annabella Sciorra is wound into the murder of a patient
Saviour of the Soul 2 (1992)
Sequel to their earlier Wu Xia film, although having nothing in common with it. All the moves are pushed to a level of cartoonish absurdity that proves amazingly silly
Within the Rock (1996)
Low-budget Alien copy directed by makeup effects artist Gary J. Tunnicliffe with a plot that prefigures Armageddon as drillers uncover an alien nasty on an asteroid
Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace (1996)
The Lawnmower Man was far from a classic but this sequel has an absurdity that pushes it into extremely bad movie stakes with Matt Frewer as a messiah trying to move everybody into cyberspace
The Incredible Melting Man (1977)
Throwback to 1950s films like The Quatermass Xperiment with Alex Rebar as an astronaut infected with a condition that causes his flesh to melt. A B movie boosted by great melting effects from Rick Baker
What Dreams May Come (1998)
Vincent Ward is one of the least recognised great directors in the world. Here he creates an extraordinary vision of the afterlife in which he employs CGI to create a world that resembles classic artworks brought to life
A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1999)
Amid Kenneth Branagh’s dynamic cinematic revival of Shakespeare in the 1990s, there was this all-star adaptation of Shakespeare’s whimsy about fairy enchantments
She Starts the Fire (1992)
Madcap Hong Kong comedy variant on Firestarter where Chingmy Yau has a curse that she starts fires when aroused
The Wizard of Gore (1970)
One of Herschell Gordon Lewis’s splatter films about a stage magician who cuts up women on stage and real life. The film makes mind boggling plays between reality and illusion
The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant (1971)
Mad scientist Bruce Dern creates a two-headed transplant. Unlike The Thing with Two Heads from the same company, this lacks an appreciable sense of its own absurdity
The Mummy (1999)
Nominal remake of the Boris Karloff The Mummy, which has now been inflated into a big budget Indiana Jones adventure. Stephen Sommers lets the film overspill with CGI spectacle but the exercise is deflated by a jokey, unserious attitude
The Matrix (1999)
A film that was as groundbreaking when it came out as Star Wars was in its day. The Wachowskis create a defining work on Virtual Reality themes and do so with a sublime cool and a series of breathtaking action moves that blew everybody away
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
All That Jazz (1979)
Dance choreographer/director Bob Fosse makes an autobiographical film in which dance choreographer (played by Roy Scheider) reflects on his life to the Angel of Death
The Amazing Mr Blunden (1972)
This Victorian-set children’s film has not been widely seen and has gained a small cult reputation for many years with its ambitious plot involving a ghost story and time travel
The Prince of Egypt (1998)
The second animated film from DreamWorks, an impressively produced retelling of The Book of Exodus and the story of Moses.
Urban Legend (1998)
Following the success of Scream, this was an attempt to make an upmarket slasher film based around the motif of urban legends in the same way that Scream used 1980s slasher films. It is a stretch to make urban legends fit in some cases but director Jamie Blanks delivers reasonable tension
Hero at Large (1980)
Comedy where John Ritter is an actor dressed in a superhero costume for a promotion who then starts to fight crimes for real. The first of several comedy films about superheroes who have no powers.
Airplane II: The Sequel (1982)
Airplane was a parody of the disaster movie that proved a hit. This was a sequel that takes the action aboard the space shuttle and contains many SF in-jokes to generally lesser effect
Repossessed (1990)
This wants to conduct an Airplane styled parody of The Exorcist to which extent it conducts the coup of casting a grown-up Linda Blair
The Comeback (1978)
One of the films from Pete Walker, a greatly underrated director working in the British horror film in 1970s, in which pop star Jack Jones retreats to a country house only to be stalked by a psycho
The Nosferatu Diaries: Embrace of the Vampire (1995)
Vampire erotica that is largely premised around seeing Alyssa Milano take her clothes off and little else
Back to the Future (1985)
This was a huge hit at the time and has become one of the most indisputable pop culture artifacts of its era. The film takes a clever time travel plot and infuses it with an effortless energy to prove a considerable winner
Arthur 2: On the Rocks (1988)
A completely ignored sequel to Arthur, the non-genre comedy hit with Dudley Moore as an alcoholic millionaire. Included here because butler John Gielgud turns up as a ghost
And You Thought Your Parents Were Weird (1991)
Children manage to incarnate the soul of their late father inside a robot body. A children’s film where the title is the most imaginative thing about the show.
It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955)
An early film from cult stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen. Here he seems to have been given orders to copy the basics of his earlier The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and offers up the tale of a giant atomically-mutated octopus
Heartbeeps (1981)
This is considered the film that torpedoed Andy Kaufman’s film career – a dippy romance between two robots. This gets very silly but the film has undeniable charms
Making Mr Right (1987)
A Susan Seidelman romantic comedy where Ann Magnuson finds the answers to her love life with android John Malkovich after being assigned to teach him human behaviour
Rub Love (1998)
Stylish but not always coherent South Korean near-future thriller about a comic-book artist, a hit woman and an amnesia drug
Entrapment (1999)
Caper thriller with the gimmick of being set on the turning of the millennium, this is otherwise an empty-headed exercise where slick marketing triumphs over credible scripting over even connection between the leads
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
An American Tail (1986)
The second animated film from Don Bluth made under the aegis of Steven Spielberg’s Amblin. This tells the American immigrant story, albeit casts it with cartoon mice
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1972)
A live-action film adaptation of Alice in Wonderland that conducts a passable run through of Lewis Carroll with the supporting characters populated by an all-star British cast
Prom Night III: The Last Kiss (1990)
The third of the Prom Night films, a direct follow-on from the second in which Mary Lou becomes a campy Freddy Krueger-like villain firing off bad puns amid her dispatches
Blast from the Past (1999)
A comedy with the amusing premise where Brendan Fraser is raised in a nuclear fallout shelter since the Cuban Missile Crisis and emerges into the present for the first time, mistaking it for a post-apocalyptic world
One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961)
The last really good animated film made during Walt Disney’s lifetime and for the next couple of decades. Filled with cuddly anthropomorphism and charmed delights
Babes in Toyland (1961)
The Disney musical version of a story that takes place among the denizens of fairytale. Some visual nonsense but the film dies a slow lumbering death amid the sugary sentiment
Andy Warhol’s Dracula (1973)
Companion piece to Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein, a duo of horror films sold with Andy Warhol’s name for some reason. Dracula is revamped with a good deal of sex and gore but not uninterestingly so.
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
Scanners III: The Takeover (1992)
Second of the sequels to David Cronenberg’s Scanners, this features Liliana Komorowska who becomes crazed after taking a scan suppressant drug
The Tie That Binds (1995)
Usually a scriptwriter, Wesley Strick makes a reasonable directorial debut in this psycho-thriller about a white trash couple killing those in their way to getting back the daughter that was taken away from them
All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989)
One of the better animated films from Don Bluth that sets up a likeable arc in the relationship between a redeemable mobster dog who returns from Heaven and a young girl
Alakazam the Great (1961)
Anime version of the classic tale Chinese legend Journey to the West made Osamu Tezuka, this comes with a fast-paced action and is undeniably likable
Blood Beach (1980)
Rather forgettable film about a monster devouring people from beneath the sands of a beach that at least comes with the benefit of a tongue-in-cheek approach and some amusing characterisations
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
The Dentist 2 (1998)
In this sequel to their earlier film, director Brian Yuzna and star Corbin Bernsen return to the role of the psychopathic dentist and successfully tap the same outrageously sadistic nastiness and black humour once again
Nemesis 2: Nebula (1995)
The first of several sequels Albert Pyun made to Nemesis. This copies The Terminator with bodybuilder Sue Price being pursued through East Africa by killer androids
Android (1982)
Witty and quite charming low-budget SF film with Don Opper as a gawky android on a space station trying to understand the human condition amid the arrival of escaped convicts
Body Melt (1993)
Australian splatter film where a series of drug tests causes people to start melting down. A largely plotless film arranged around a series of gooey meltdown effects
The Revenge of the Teenage Vixens from Outer Space (1986)
Excruciating and painfully unfunny attempt to make a deliberately bad SF film with alien vixens attempting to take over a high school
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
Alphaville (1965)
Surrealistic cinematic joke from French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard that mashes up film noir and SF where hard-boiled detective travels to another planet represented by contemporary Paris
Virus (1999)
This has the novelty of a monster that is an evolving fusion of machinery and organics. While it is all directed with much noise and fury, it is ultimately no more than another copy 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
Americathon (1979)
This seems like it had all the elements to be a biting satirical crosscut of the 1970s in which the US President holds a telethon to keep the country from going bankrupt but flounders in a series of unfunny skits
Bad Moon (1996)
Eric Red directed film with Michael Paré as a werewolf fighting a territorial dispute with his sister’s dog. Slight effort that suffers from crappy morphing werewolf transformation effects
Philadelphia Experiment II (1993)
A sequel to The Philadelphia Experiment where Brad Johnson is thrown into an alternate timeline where the Nazis have overtaken the USA
Alien (1979)
One of the most influential films on this site, producing a host of sequels and making the careers of all involved. At heart, a simple monster on a spaceship film, it is made into a classic through Ridley Scott’s relentless suspense and H.R. Giger’s design work
Bronx Warriors II (1983)
Enzo G. Castellari’s sequel to his Escape from New York ripoff 1990: The Bronx Warriors and a most more polished and entertaining B action movie
Gods and Monsters (1998)
Biopic of James Whale, director of the Frankenstein/Bride of Frankenstein. Whale’s movies are used to echo a tale of friendship between the aging gay Whale (Ian McKellan) and his straight gardener (Brendan Fraser)