Violent Shit (1989)
Boundary-pushing film that consists almost entirely of very enthusiastic splatter and gore scenes. Amateurishly shot on video nevertheless this gained a cult following and produced sequels
The Beyond (2017)
A highly ambitious film about a mysterious alien portal that appears in Earth orbit and the attempts to explore what is on the other side
Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on The Exorcist (2019)
Documentary where director William Friedkin sits down for a fascinating, insightful look at the making of The Exorcist
Witness Infection (2020)
Unexpectedly rather funny comedy that combines Mafia on a witness protection program and zombies
BigBug (2022)
French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet of The City of Lost Children and Amelie fame returns with an appealingly eccentric, beautifully designed comedic take on the machine revolution
Station Eleven (2021-2022)
A beautifully-made post-apocalyptic story told as a mandala of threads and surprise connections that stretch over twenty years
Asylum of Fear (2018)
A crew of reality tv paranormal investigators are hired to investigate a haunted abandoned asylum. This sort of film has been done numerous time before.
The Refrigerator (1991)
A film about a possessed refrigerator!
Bullet Head (2017)
A film with a great set-up where three criminals on the run (which include Adrien Brody and John Malkovich) take refuge in a warehouse only to find they are trapped with a maddened killer dog
LX 2048 (2020)
A film I went into with no expectation that quickly creates a fascinating future and offers some ingeniously original treatments of cloning and Virtual Reality themes
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
Meander (2020)
This may be the most claustrophobic film ever made about a woman trapped inside a labyrinth of narrow tunnels and crawlspaces that house a series of death traps
Devil’s Gate (2017)
This comes with a great initial set-up as it becomes apparent that law enforcement investigating a missing woman are dealing with alien abductions
The Ghost of Slumber Mountain (1918)
An early film from Willis O’Brien, the creator of King Kong, where a man finds a telescope that offers a view of the prehistoric past
The Mummy (1959)
After their enormously successful revival of Dracula and Frankenstein, Hammer Films and Terence Fisher turned to revive the mummy film, all with the bold, vivid effect of their early films
Bloodthirsty (2020)
Promising film about an ingénue singer under the control of a Svengali-esque record producer who is struggling against giving in to her true werewolf nature
Kandisha (2020)
Directors Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury made the brutally extreme Inside. Here they return with what feels like an unofficial copy of Candyman about a vengeful boogeywoman
Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022)
The ninth Texas Chainsaw Massacre film, this offers the intriguing idea of Leatherface vs millennials
Aileen Wuornos: American Boogeywoman (2021)
Another variant on the fad for True Crime based movies, this is a film that purports to tell of the early years of true-life serial killer Aileen Wuornos where she is played by Peyton List
The Last Boy (2019)
Low-budget film set following the collapse of society about a boy who goes on a quest for the place where wishes can be fulfilled
Isle of the Dead (2016)
A zombie film produced by The Asylum that appropriates the name of the Val Lewton classic (and Arnold Bocklin’s painting) but is actually a low-budget copy of Resident Evil
Tintorera (1977)
One of the better killer shark copycats made in the immediate aftermath of Jaws, this approaches the familiar in unexpected ways
The Other Side of the Door (2016)
From Johannes Roberts, the director of 47 Meters Down and other works, an undeniably spooky variant on Pet Sematary set in Mumbai as a mother unwittingly resurrects her late son’s spirit
Max Reload and the Nether Blasters (2020)
Videogamers fight a demonic entity unleashed from a 1980s game. A film that is far more fun that you expect and comes loaded with videogaming in-jokes
Space Sweepers (2021)
South Korean space opera about a crew of space junk collectors. If the Star Wars series wanted to find a director to create fresh and exhilarating effects scenes, they need look no further than here
Anything for Jackson (2020)
Unexpectedly excellent film where an elderly Satanist couple abduct a pregnant woman in order to incarnate their grandson in her unborn child. This deflates the cliches in a series of alternately funny and wild twists
The Spectre (1963)
A work of brooding Italian Gothic, a loose sequel to The Terror of Dr Hichcock. Featuring oodles of atmosphere and the genre’s indisputable queen Barbara Steele as a wife haunted by a dead husband
Frankenstein Island (1981)
Jerry Warren was surely a rival of Edward D. Wood Jr as a bad filmmaker although less well-known. This, which was his last film, is possibly the worst Frankenstein film ever made
She (1925)
The most lavish of the silent screen adaptations of H. Rider Haggard’s classic, multiply filmed adventure novel about the discovery of a lost city ruled over by an immortal queen
The Enchanted Cottage (2016)
A modern remake of an old play filmed twice before about a magical cottage that allows plain and disfigured lovers who stay there to see the other one as beautiful
The Superdeep (2020)
Standout Russian SF/horror that undeniably captures something of The Thing with scientists encountering a monster in the depths of a deep drilling project
Nightmare Alley (2021)
Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, Guillermo Del Toro’s remake of the 1947 film noir tale about a fake clairvoyant is an exquisite piece of mood and design
Boys from County Hell (2020)
Spiritedly entertaining vampire film, this transplants the basics of the genre to rural Northern Ireland with wry and highly amusing results
Left Behind II: Tribulation Force (2002)
The second of the Kirk Cameron Biblical End Times films. On one hand, these are quite competently made B movies; on the other the fundamentalist message is unpalatable
The People Who Own the Dark (1976)
Spanish film about a group of orgiasts at a villa who survive a nuclear explosion outside but are then held at siege from an attack by blinded villagers
When Michael Calls (1972)
TV movie that comes with a great opening hook – a family receive phone calls from a brother who died 15 years earlier
Nightworld (2017)
This is a horror film that comes with one of the most captivating and original build-ups of any film seen of recent. A man is hired to simply watch a locked doorway – only to then finding things moving
Catwoman: Hunted (2022)
Animated adventure given over to Catwoman that comes with an appealing sense of humour that easily erases all memory of the Halle Berry film
The 355 (2022)
Female-led spy/action film that serves everything up in an enjoyably kinetic mix with likeable characters. Not wheel reinventing but more enjoyable than most Hollywood product
Memoria (2021)
Apichatpong Weerasethakul is a darling of the arthouse and makes bafflingly cryptic films with a very haunted mood. This features Tilda Swinton in search of a series of mysterious sounds
The Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Mummy (1964)
This is surely one of the great exploitation titles of all time. Another Mexican wrestling superhero film where a duo of woman wrestlers take on the Aztec Mummy from another Mexican horror series
Slumber (2017)
Another of the recent films on the topic of sleep paralysis that one watches with the hope that it might do some justice to the topic
Kronos (1957)
A 1950s alien invader film that is driven by the quite imaginative image of a giant black alien cube marching across the countryside devouring all forms of energy
Alien Invasion: S.U.M.1 (2017)
An enigmatic film set in a future where aliens have invaded the Earth as a lone soldier is sent to crew a remote post and imagines he is seeing things
Cowgirls vs Pterodactyls (2021)
This gets you watching with its deliberately ridiculous title but once you do, you soon wish you hadn’t. Winner of this site’s Worst Film of 2021.
Hotel Transylvania: Transformania (2022)
Minus Adam Sandler this time, the Hotel Transylvania series trots out a fourth entry. Here, in some search for novelty on what has gone before, the monsters are turned back into humans
Chompy and the Girls (2021)
Hilariously bizarre film with people dealing with an entity that is man with a massive mouth that is intent on swallowing an army of identical little girls
Sand Sharks (2012)
This was made just before Sharknado turned the killer shark film into something deliberately ridiculous and is an entertainingly tongue-in-cheek B movie that has a perfect sense of its own limitations
The X from Outer Space (1967)
A wannabe entry in the Japanese monster movie, this has the distinction of featuring possibly the most ridiculous monster to ever turn up in one of these films
Howard Lovecraft and the Kingdom of Madness (2018)
The third of the trilogy of animated films from Arcana Studios based around the adventures of a young H.P. Lovecraft
Manos Returns (2018)
Manos: The Hands of Fate is considered one of the worst films of all time. 42 years later some of those involved in the original decided to make a sequel that manages to be just as bad a film
Vicious Fun (2020)
Horror comedy set around the wonderfully appealing idea of a support group for serial killers
Eternals (2021)
A Marvel Comics offering that is an adaptation of a team created by the greatest comic-book writer/artist of all time. On screen however, this emerges with strangely flat and moribund results
Sing 2 (2021)
Sing had the cute idea of American Idol-like competition conducted with talking animals. This equally likeable sequel expands the scale of things and takes the show to the talking animal equivalent of Las Vegas
Lost Continent (1951)
Low-budget film with scientists in search of a downed rocket who encounter a prehistoric lost world of dinosaurs on an island plateau
Everything Beautiful is Far Away (2017)
An indie film about a man, a woman and a robot head who meet and conduct a journey together across a desert at some point after it seems that civilisation has collapsed
Sakuya, The Slayer of Demons (2000)
Japanese film about a demon-slaying girl samurai. The creatures effects and world-building mythology gone into this is quite extraordinary
Carmilla (2019)
A new version of J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s classic, multiple filmed lesbian vampire story. This retells the story in dreamy Victorian surroundings
Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made (2020)
This must have been a marketing nightmare for Disney – a film about a kid who operates as a private detective along with his polar bear imaginary companion. The result has an oddball charm
Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)
Sequel to Ghostbusters that was far better received than the 2016 reboot, giving us a new generation of ghostbusters. This succeeds largely by playing the nostalgia card for all it can
The Night (2020)
A modestly effective Iranian horror film where a married couple become trapped in a hotel of shifting realities. One of the few films that favourably compares to the mood of The Shining
Santo and Blue Demon vs the Monsters (1970)
Another of the films from the Mexican wrestling superhero Santo where he and his friend Blue Demon encounter assorted Famous Monsters raised by a mad scientist
The Twilight People (1972)
Filipino exploitation film from the director of Blood Island films, an uncredited adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The Island of Dr Moreau about a mad scientist creating beast people
Sharkenstein (2016)
Z-budget director Mark Polonia makes a cheap and ridiculous variant on the gonzo killer shark film about a Nazi mad scientist creating a Franken-shark that comes with Hitler’s brain placed into it
The Student of Prague (1913)
Classic German silent film where a man sells his shadow, which then becomes a malevolent doppelganger that torments his life
The Map of Tiny Perfect Things (2021)
The fourth variant on the Groundhog Day timeloop theme one to come out in the space of 12 months, this nevertheless wrings some charms from the premise
Don’t Look Up (2021)
The perfect film for the Covid era. A devastatingly on the ball satire on the ineptitude of people’s response in the face of an extinction level threat to the Earth from an oncoming comet as government agencies tries to minimise the news
Encanto (2021)
One of the best Disney animated films in some time. Set around a Colombian American family that have hereditary magic powers and live in a magical house, this comes with an enormous degree of colour and energy
Stickman (2017)
The Slender Man film proved instantly forgettable. This copycat is an incredibly spooky show that should have enjoyed that film’s success
Blind Date (1984)
Thriller where a blind man is given a device that allows him to see sounds and then obtains evidence of a serial killer. Featuring a number of before-they-were-famous names
Director’s Cut (2016)
A mind-bogglingly meta film that starts out as a regular crime thriller before it gets invaded and taken over by psycho fan Penn Jillette who abducts the star and is determined to write himself in as the hero
Pizza (2014)
Bollywood remake of a ghost story that comes with one of the cleverer M. Night Shyamalan conceptual reversal twists
The Swarm (2020)
Not the classic Irwin Allen bad movie but a work of disturbed psychology about a woman who develops an unhealthy obsession with feeding locusts blood and turning them into a killer swarm
The Matrix Resurrections (2021)
One of The Wachowskis returns to the world of The Matrix and rather wittily turns it into an anti-blockbuster about her reluctance to do so
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021)
A reboot of the Resident Evil film series under a new director with Johannes Roberts who abandons the previous action poses for a far darker and more visceral survival horror approach
Aces Go Places II (1983)
The second in a series of Hong Kong slapstick action caper comedies where the action is maintained at such a madcap and dementedly over-the-top pace that it frequently heads into orbit
Ghost Chasers (1951)
Another of the films from the East Side Kids/Bowery Boys, a prolific comedy act of the era. Here the boys set out to bust a fake medium racket during the course of which they are aided by a ghost
The Exorcism of Anna Ecklund (2016)
Low-budget possession and exorcism supposedly based on a true story that cycles through most of the tropes of the genre. An earlier version of the same “true-life” possession depicted in The Ritual
Mother/Android (2021)
A directorial outing from Mattson Tomlin, a screenwriter on the rise of recent, Chloe Grace Moretz is a pregnant woman struggling to survive in the aftermath of the android rebellion
Antlers (2021)
A wendigo film, this comes with impressive prospect and backed by no less names than Guillermo Del Toro and David S. Goyer
A Boy Called Christmas (2021)
Gil Kenan dips into motion-capture animation to make this charming and likeable Christmas film that in effect tells a Santa Claus origin story, one that works without drowning in saccharine sentiment
Mrs. Claus (2018)
While the title makes this sound like a family-friendly film about Santa’s wife, this is actually a Christmas slasher film
Bikini Jones and the Temple of Eros (2010)
From prolific B-budget director Fred Olen Ray, this is a softcore parody of the Indiana Jones films
The Loch Ness Horror (1982)
Z-budget filmmaker Larry Buchanan makes a Loch Ness Monster film. As with Buchanan’s other films, this is so painfully cheap it is a Loch Ness monster films that never travels beyond California state
Shark Week (2012)
Killer shark film from The Asylum in a plot where a druglord forces people to fight various sharks – sort of Survivor but with sharks instead of elimination rounds
The Velvet Vampire (1971)
From cult director Stephanie Rothman, a provocative and intriguing entry in the 1970s lesbian vampire film
Werewolves Within (2021)
A werewolf film that is quite unlike anything you expect when you hear the term videogame adaptation
Silent Night (2021)
Maybe the best Christmas movie ever. Maybe also the bleakest as a group of friends gather to celebrate Christmas dinner before the end of the world
The Vigil (2019)
Standout film set among the Orthodox Jewish community where a man sitting an all-night vigil with a corpse finds it possessed by a demonic force that starts toying with him
Zombie Cop (1991)
A very low-budget film from regular genre director J.R. Bookwalter about a police officer who is resurrected from the dead by a voodoo priest
30 Days of Night: Dark Days (2010)
Sequel to the modestly effective Alaskan-set vampire film 30 Days of Night, this holds up surprisingly well for something that gives all indication of being a throwaway video sequel
Gutterballs (2008)
Film about a series of gory deaths at a bowling alley, this really pushes an envelope of good taste. This gained attention for makeup effects artist Ryan Nicholson and was the cause of much censorship controversy
The Widow (2020)
Russian dark fantasy and horror has emerged as one of the most exciting genres in recent years. This incredibly spooky little film is a Russian equivalent of The Blair Witch Project
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
In the Trap (2019)
Film about a man in his home fearful of demonic forces attacking those around him, this comes with decent atmosphere and at least one highly effective twist
Till Death (2021)
This had me sold from its one sentence description – Megan Fox is a wife trying to escape hired killers while handcuffed to her husband’s corpse
Settlers (2021)
A story about the harsh conditions suffered by a family of colonists on Mars
The Killer Nun (1979)
Notorious Video Nasty, a key work in the Nunsploitation genre with Anita Ekberg as a drug addicted nun who kills her patients. Apparently based on real life
Shortcut to Happiness (2003)
Alec Baldwin’s financially troubled modernised remake of The Devil and Daniel Webster comes to the screen as a compromised vision
The Tripods [Season 1] (1984)
Classic tv mini-series about rebellion in a future where Earth is controlled by giant alien tripod machines, this still holds up as something great today