The Whisperer in Darkness (2011)
An H.P. Lovecraft adaptation that makes exacting effort to get the mood and period setting right
Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon (2021)
Ana Lily Amirpour, director of A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, returns with a film about a psychic girl and the eccentric grifters that accumulate around her
Justice League: Warworld (2023)
Another of the animated DC Comics films in which various of their regular characters find themselves incarnated in simulated combat arenas
Insidious: The Red Door (2023)
The fifth film in the Insidious series. This time Patrick Wilson returns to the franchise and takes the director’s chair, showing he has been taking some lessons from James Wan
Assassin (2023)
Another of the low-budget films Bruce Willis made before his retirement, this has a plot about body-hopping assassins that has surprising similarities to Possessor
Supersonic Man (1979)
A cheap Spanish-made copy of the first Christopher Reeve Superman film
Thor: God of Thunder (2022)
A low-budget mockbuster from The Asylum designed to jump aboard the bandwagon of Marvel’s Thor: Love and Thunder
Row 19 (2021)
Spooky Russian film about a haunted plane flight, this recalls something of The Twilight Zone’s famous Nightmare at 20,000 Feet episode
Side Effect (2020)
Another work of Russian dark fantasy where a man asks a witch for a spell to help his wife, only to get very different results than intended
The Door Into Summer (2021)
Robert Heinlein’s time travel novel gets a surprisingly faithful adaptation from Japan. This keeps the story’s double structure that tells one story and then with considerable conceptual dexterity reveals another hidden in the margins
The Black Spider (2022)
A standout Swiss-made film, an exceptionally well written work about a pact made with the devil by a mediaeval village that unleashes a plague of spiders and other curses upon them
The Little Mermaid (2023)
Disney’s original The Little Mermaid was an enormously fresh film. This is the live-action remake that came out amid much controversy and is inevitably a lesser shadow of the original.
They Cloned Tyrone (2023)
A wonderfully paranoid film where drug dealer John Boyega discovers illicit mind control experiments are being conducted on a ghetto neighbourhood and that he is one in a series of clones
Outpost III: Rise of the Spetsnaz (2013)
Outpost was a modestly effective Nazi zombie film. This was the second of two sequels, a prequel that goes back to depict the original Nazi experiments
Extracted (2012)
An undeniably imaginative SF film in which scientist Sasha Roiz to invent a device to view memory only for things to go wrong and become trapped in someone else’s memories
Without Warning (1994)
Made for the anniversary of the Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds broadcast, a tv movie that simulates a a live newscast as alien craft arrive around the world
Long Story Short (2021)
A light fantasy comedy from Australia in which Rafe Spall finds he is moving ahead through his life one year at a time every few minutes
The Outwaters (2022)
An ultra cryptic Found Footage film about mysterious happenings in the desert
The Flash (2023)
Despite a poor box-office performance and a troubled production behind the scenes, it is a surprise what a good film this is, easily outstripping the last half-dozen MCU films put together
Bird Box: Barcelona (2023)
Bird Box was a hit on Netflix and this is a sequel. The talented Pastor Brothers take the basics of the original and actually make a much better film out of them filled with fine tension
The Evil Next Door (2020)
The Ghost Story is a genre has felt overused and its clichés churned to a point of exhaustion. All of that said, this Swedish film delivers the goods and conjures an extremely spooky mood
Dead Rising: Watchtower (2015)
Dead Rising was another zombie survival horror videogame from the creators of Resident Evil. Although nowhere near the popularity of the Milla Jovovich films, this was the first of two films based on the game
Detention of the Dead (2012)
Another entry in the zombie comedy field. This has essentially been conceived as a retread of The Breakfast Club but with the addition of zombies
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable – Chapter 1 (2017)
The cinematic madman Takashi Miike takes on a live-action adaptation of one of Japan’s longest running mangas concerning high-school teenagers with powers and unique hairstyles
Dinosaur Hotel (2021)
A head-scratching oddity from the people behind Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey with people enter in a reality tv show where they are hunted by dinosaurs within the confines of a hotel
R.I.P.D. 2: Rise of the Damned (2022)
A sequel to R.I.P.D. that tells an origin story of how the sheriff character played by Jeff Bridges in the original became an afterlife enforcement officer
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (2023)
The seventh of the live-action Transformers films, the second made after Michael Bay stepped down from the director’s chair
Asteroid City (2023)
Wes Anderson’s quirky individualistic films can be an acquired taste. This is set in a stunningly designed retro 1950s town as various oddball characters intersect in between the appearance of an alien visitor
How I Became a Super-Hero (2020)
The title suggests either a comedic take on the superhero film or a teen film about a kid discovering superpowers. The least thing you expect this to be is a French police thriller about a unit investigating super-powered crimes
The Machine Girl (2008)
Another highly entertaining entry in the Gonzo Japanese Splatter Film about a schoolgirl who seeks revenge with her arm stump replaced by a Gatling gun
Dick Tracy (1937)
This is a standout serial based on the famous comic-book detective, featuring some of the best of all serial cliffhangers and action set-pieces, not to mention wonderfully creative super-science inventions
Robotapocalypse (2021)
Rather entertaining film from The Asylum about the machine revolution that overspills with madcap technological invention
Warhunt (2022)
A supernatural variant on Overlord where G.I.’s during WWII enter the Black Forest and encounter something supernatural
Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3 (2023)
Third of the Guardians of the Galaxy films, this successfully recaptures the nature of the goofy ensemble comedy caper that made the first film such a winner but seemed to be missing in the second
The Ritual Killer (2023)
A film that stands much in the shadow of Se7en and the serial killer thriller with Morgan Freeman tracking a ritual African killer
Rampo (1994)
Beautifully made arthouse film about the real-life Japanese horror writer who becomes wound up in in enigmatic meta-fiction with his own creation
Camp Blood (2000)
The first in a surprisingly prolific series of slasher films, which has produced some fourteen sequels at current count. Made on a micro-budget, this vigorously homages the 1980s basics
Shrooms (2007)
A group of friends travel to Ireland and go on a tour searching for magic mushrooms. In between assorted drug hallucinations, someone or thing begins slaughtering the group
The Fall of Usher (2021)
Not an adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe story but a film about a man in a troubled state of mind that comes filled with numerous Poe references
Deus (2022)
This has distinct overtones of 2001: Space Odyssey and Event Horizon about an expedition to Mars to investigate a mysterious black sphere – only to find that it offers a gateway to Heaven
Mr. Harrigan’s Phone (2022)
A nicely made Stephen King adaptation about a teen who starts to receive text message from beyond the grave. From Ryan Murphy, the producer behind tv’s Glee and American Horror Story
Venus (2022)
Jaume Balaguero of [Rec] fame returns with an occult horror where a woman on the run is drawn into sinister happenings at an apartment
Evil Toons (1992)
Who Framed Roger Rabbit? popularised the idea of the toon where cartoon characters mingle with humans. This was exploitation director Fred Olen Ray’s take where a stripper is possessed by a demonic toon
The Noah (1975)
Experimental film about the last man left on Earth after a nuclear war who develops a series of imaginary companions
Baby Blood (1990)
A wildly deranged and gore-drenched ride. Imagine Rosemary’s Baby with an Alien chesburster where a woman is impregnated by a parasite that maintains a monologue as it urges her to kill and drink blood to feed it.
H.P. Lovecraft’s Monster Portal (2022)
Low-budget film about a woman who inherits a British country estate to find someone has opened a portal to unleash entities. One of several low-budget films of late to appropriate Lovecraft’s name
The Mitchells vs. the Machines (2021)
A surprise delight, an animated film that overspills with madcap creative energy concerning a misfit family on a road trip who come up against the machine revolution
The Portable Door (2023)
A story about an apprentice at a mysterious company that deals with magic, this could well serve as a fix for those wanting something more of the Harry Potter franchise
Rubikon (2022)
Austrian film where three people aboard a space station survive a toxic cloud that obliterates all life on Earth below
Rootwood (2018)
A copy of The Blair Witch Project with a trio of filmmakers trekking into the woods with cameras in search of The Wood Devil
Arrest Bulldog Drummond (1938)
One of a series of Hollywood films based on popular British adventurer hero Bulldog Drummond. This throws Drummond into the midst of a plot to obtain a raygun
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
Minor Premise (2020)
Fascinating film that conjures something of Primer in which a scientist creates a machine that splits his personality into ten parts
Captain Nova (2021)
An appealing Danish-made film in which a pilot travels back in time from the future to save the world from environmental disaster but finds she is now stuck in her twelve year-old body
Missile to the Moon (1958)
A remake of the classic bad movie Cat-Women of the Moon in which explorers to the Moon encounter an all-women society. Things do not improve in the bad movie stakes here
Warriors of Virtue (1997)
Fantasy film set in a magical otherworld defended by martial arts wielding kangaroos
Trouble Every Day (2001)
Acclaimed director Claire Denis makes a quite out there film in which people are obsessively driven to devour others during the act of sex
Among the Living (2022)
Modest, low-budgeted British film about people trying to survive in the aftermath of a catastrophe. A zombie film that has borrowed a few leaves from A Quiet Place
Restart the Earth (2021)
A Chinese attempt to make a Michael Bay mass destruction spectacular depicting an Earth that has been overrun by massive plant growth
Hypnotic (2023)
Robert Rodriguez makes a film with Ben Affleck as a detective dealing with a man who can control others’ minds. However, this develops into a mind twister of considerable reality bending proportions
There’s Something Wrong With the Children (2023)
Quite decent Blumhouse film in which children suddenly go bad and begin playing malicious, murderous games with adults
Castle in the Air (1952)
British quota quickie that is a likeable light fantasy comedy about a haunted Scottish castle and comes peopled with a cast of eccentrics
Ju-on (2000)
The Japanese Ju-on/The Grudge is one of the most popular modern kaidan eiga series, having produced fourteen films to date. This was the very first of the series
Realive (2016)
Strong and worthwhile film about the first man woken from cryogenic suspension in the future. A film from Alejandro Amenabar’s regular co-writer, the writer of Open Your Eyes
Mayflower II (2020)
An hilariously bad film in which Christians launch a space mission to flee a Bible-censoring dystopia on Earth
Afterlife of the Party (2021)
From the director of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, a light fantasy film in which a party girl dies but is sent back from Heaven to find closure with people in her life
Vesper (2022)
Visually extraordinary film set in an environmentally devastated future, this place enormous creativity into depicting a strange, very alien world
Nocebo (2022)
Film that develops a Folk Horror vibe as Eva Green hires a nanny with mysterious healing powers. The horror version of Mary Poppins
13/13/13 (2013)
The Asylum made 11/11/11 and 12/12/12 and released them on said dates. Despite running out of exploitable months in the year, they then released a third film here
Legend of the White Horse (1986)
Christopher Lloyd and Dee Wallace star in one of the tattiest of 1980s fantasy films about a magic horse that is really a dragon. This is killed by some abysmal effects.
Genocidal Organ (2017)
An extraordinary anime adapted from Project Itoh, a conceptually challenging work concerning a villain who can manipulate language to drive populations to genocide
Ascendant (2021)
A variant on Buried, which had Ryan Reynolds trapped in a coffin for the duration, featuring a girl trapped in an elevator as it conducts high-speed rises and drops, all before a bizarre left field SF ending
Wifelike (2022)
This is like a version of The Stepford Wives updated to the era of Ex Machina and the modern A.I./android film
The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)
Illumination Entertainment, the company behind the Despicable Me films, make an animated film based on the popular videogame franchise. The result was the second highest grossing film of the year
V/H/S/99 (2022)
The fifth film of the Found Footage horror anthology series, including one episode that is among the best of the series so far
Sharktopus vs Whalewolf (2015)
Third of the Sharktopus films from Roger Corman, an entry in the series that is making no longer making any effort to take itself seriously
The Boogie Man Will Get You (1942)
Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre make an unexpectedly great comic pairing in this mad scientist screwball comedy that comes with an exhaustingly madcap pace
The Librarian: Return to King Solomon’s Mines (2006)
The second of The Librarian tv movies featuring Noah Wyle as an Indiana Jones-modelled adventurer in search of mythical artifacts – here a map to King Solomon’s Mines
He Dreams of Giants (2019)
Lost in La Mancha was a documentary charting the collapse Terry Gilliam’s The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. Gilliam later finished the film and brought the same documentary-makers back to chart the process here
Evil Dead Rise (2023)
The fifth film in the Evil Dead series. This comes with the selling point of being a female-led sequel and offers a much more serious and gore-drenched take than previous entries
The Pope’s Exorcist (2023)
A film based on the true-life figure of the Vatican’s official exorcist Father Gabriele Amorth this could have been great but descends into tedious hokum
The Embalmer (1965)
Early variation on the giallo film with a frogman abducting people from the canals of Venice and then preserving their bodies as statues
The Kingdom of Crooked Mirrors (1963)
A Soviet equivalent of Alice in Wonderland or even more so Alice Through the Looking Glass where a young girl ventures into a fantasy on the other side of the mirror
The Green Hornet (1940)
The first screen appearance of the masked superhero The Green Hornet in a thirteen-chapter serial that was adapted from a popular radio series. Later remade as a tv series and feature film.
Night of the Animated Dead (2021)
A remake of the original zombie film Night of the Living Dead conducted in animation
Torn Hearts (2022)
Rather good film featuring Married … With Children’s Katey Sagal who gives a splendidly deranged performance in the full Baby Jane mode as an aging Country and Western star
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)
A new film based on the role-playing game. The first film several years ago is poorly regarded. This is an attempt to reboot a film series but suffers badly from being handed to two comedy directors and their flip treatment
Renfield (2023)
Twilight fairly much killed the vampire film. This is the first of two big-budget offerings of 2023 that aims to turn that around
The Toymaker (2017)
The third of the Robert the Doll films. Here Andrew Jones takes a few leaves from the Puppet Master films in creating an origin story set during the Nazi era
The Monster and the Girl (1941)
Mad scientist film in which George Zucco transplants an executed man’s brain into a gorilla’s body whereupon the ape-man proceeds to exact revenge against those who wrongly convicted him
The Living and the Dead (2016)
One of the best and most original ghost stories in some time, a mini-series for the BBC set in the 1890s, this does remarkable things in entirely turning the genre on its head
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
Crabs! (2021)
An amusingly tongue-in-cheek horror comedy that is a throwback to the1950s featuring an attack by giant crabs. With some surprisingly good crab effects too.
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.
Peter Pan and Wendy (2023)
Disney conduct a live-action remake of their Peter Pan and promisingly place it in the hands of David Lowery, director of A Ghost Story and The Green Knight
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
Alice in Wonderland (1985)
From Irwin Allen, the creator of Lost in Space etc, a tv version of Alice in Wonderland, conceived as an all-star musical that comes out as ponderous and leaden in Allen’s hands
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1980)
A tv movie version of the classic ghost story by Washington Irving and the most faithful version of the story to date. With a young Jeff Goldblum as Ichabod Crane
The Wasteland (2021)
A standout Spanish film about a 19th Century family at remote house in the midst of a great plain who are under attack by monsters that may just as easily exist in the mind
Incredible But True (2022)
Another of Quentin Dupieux’s gonzo, surreal comedies where a married couple buy a house and find it has a portal that takes them twelve hours into the future, while making them younger