Downdraft (1996)
Modest and conceptually packed B-budget action film in which a motley team are sent to break into a bunker that has been hijacked by a scientist who is threatening to fire nuclear missiles
How to Get Ahead in Advertising (1989)
An hilarious black comedy written with a biting savagery where advertising executive Richard E. Grant has his life taken over by a ruthless boil on his shoulder
Magic in the Mirror (1996)
One of the best children’s films from Charles Band, an utterly bizarre effort about a world through a magic mirror ruled by talking ducks
The Enchanted Cottage (1945)
An old-fashioned weepie melodrama about a cottage that allows a disfigured soldier and a plain woman to find love where the magic there allows them to see the other as perfect
Nemesis 3: Time Lapse (1995)
The third of Albert Pyun’s Nemesis films about time-travelling cyborgs – not much plot just action scenes and some moments of undeniable strangeness
Magic in the Mirror: Fowl Play (1996)
Sequel to the delightfully madcap Magic in the Mirror set in a world of talking ducks
Proteus (1995)
Shabby copy of Alien with shipwreck survivors facing a genetically engineered monster on an oil rig
The Prophecy (1995)
Standout film about angels warring on Earth that dispenses with any cutsie depiction of angels. Several sequels followed.
The Hanging Garden (1997)
A Canadian film about a gay man returning home and revisiting his childhood after ten years away that ends up in a weird series of parallel realities
Kissed (1996)
Controversially charged Canadian film in which Molly Parker plays a mortuary assistant who develops an obsession with having sex with corpses. Played with more taste than synopsis would lead you to think
Doin’ Time on Planet Earth (1988)
A peculiarity from Cannon Films that was a flop, a comedy in which a weird teenager believes he is an alien and suddenly attracts the attention of a bunch of UFO cultists
The Eighteenth Angel (1998)
David Seltzer, the screenwriter of The Omen, recycles himself here where Rachael Leigh Cook is caught up in the coming Biblical End of the World around the turn of the millennium
Prehysteria! 3 (1995)
The third and probably the best of the children’s dinosaur films from Charles Band where the pitiful effects are at least compensated for by an eccentric sense of humour
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
The Monkey’s Uncle (1965)
One of the wacky inventor live-action comedies Disney made in the 1960s, a sequel to The Misadventures of Merlin Jones where Tommy Kirk variously adopts a chimpanzee and tries to sleep-coach football jocks
Saludos Amigos (1942)
The novelty of an animated Disney travelogue. Pitched to the South American market, the four stories see Donald Duck and Goofy visiting various locations
Molom, A Legend of Mongolia (1995)
Gentle affecting film about a boy learning Buddhist life lessons as he journeys across Mongolia with an old man
Judge and Jury (1996)
A ridiculous supernatural action film where a madly overacting David Keith plays an executed killer returned from the dead to seek revenge against cop Martin Kove
Sometimes They Come Back … Again (1996)
Sequel to the Stephen King adapted film about hoodlums resurrected from the dead, this descends into an incredible silliness. Featuring a teenage Hillary Swank
Michael (1996)
A Nora Ephron romantic comedy with John Travolta cast as angel who is a is less than angel-like slob. A rather aimless shapeless comedy that thinks it is funnier than it is
The King and I (1999)
Don Bluth conducts animated remake of the classic Rodgers and Hammerstein musical memorably incarnated with Yul Brynner. Now the story comes with the addition of fantasy elements
Prettykill (1987)
A shabby Canadian police procedural with David Birney as a detective hunting a killer who is targeting prostitutes
The Rapture (1991)
Remarkable film with Mimi Rogers as a grieving widow who is drawn into the certainty that the Biblical Rapture is about to occur
Never Talk to Strangers (1995)
A tawdry erotic thriller copy of Basic Instinct where psychologist Rebecca De Mornay is drawn in to become involved with possible stalker Antonio Banderas
Magic in the Water (1995)
Likeable Canadian-made children’s film where Mark Harmon and kids come to rescue of a lake monster
Three Wishes (1995)
This is a 1950s Coming of Age story with Patrick Swayze as a mysterious stranger dispensing wisdom, before the film arrives at a very peculiar fantastic ending
Saving Grace (1998)
Uneven New Zealand-made film where a girl meets a mystery man who claims that he is Jesus Christ
Return from Witch Mountain (1978)
Sequel to Disney’s Escape to Witch Mountain with the psi-powered alien kids up against a villainous Christopher Lee and Bette Davis
Now You See Him, Now You Don’t (1972)
The second of Disney’s Dexter Reilly films with Kurt Russell as a teen genius who invents an invisibility formula
Peter Pan (1953)
One of the animated Disney classics, if probably an overrated film. It throws slapstick and derring-do together in a likeable package
The Mouse That Roared (1959)
Peter Sellers comedy where the smallest country in the world invades the USA and ends up accidentally winning
October 32nd (1992)
Cheap and tatty variant on the Arthurian legends with people trying to prevent a reincarnated sorcerer obtaining Excalibur
The Return of Dr X (1939)
Not a sequel to Doctor X despite the title, The main footnote this has is that it stars Humphrey Bogart as a vampire lab assistant. Halfway reasonable despite a bad reputation.
Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World (1998)
One of the better among the cheap video-released sequels to their animated films Disney released during the 1990s/2000s, this actually works better than the original
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
Leapin’ Leprechauns! 2 (1996)
Sequel to the Charles Band produced children’s film Leapin’ Leprechauns!, this is a superior film that gets much darker and ventures into the underworld
Mindbender (1996)
The worst film from the legendary Ken Russell, a ridiculously bad biopic of the Israeli psychic Uri Geller. Geller was a fraud but the film treats all his claims as though they are to hysterical effect
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
Josh Kirby … Time Warrior! Last Battle for the Universe (1996)
The sixth and last of the Josh Kirby time-travelling juvenile adventures produced by Charles Band and the best of the series, which takes a trip into Josh’s past
Cat Swallows Parakeet and Speaks (1996)
Baffling and pretentious Canadian-made surrealist film with Scheherazade (from Arabian Nights) in a psychiatric asylum making up stories all derived from tabloid headlines
Leapin’ Leprechauns! (1995)
Likeable film for children from Charles Band about an American family who inherit a property in Ireland inhabited by leprechauns
Richie Rich (1994)
From the producers of The Matrix, an adaptation of the classic comic-book about a lonely rich kid now made as a vehicle for Macaulay Culkin
Project Shadowchaser II (1994)
Sequel to the ridiculous Project Shadowchaser, which has another android terrorist this time take over a nuclear power plant