Fat Ass Zombies (2020)
Another zombie film that comes with a deliberately ridiculous title, even if the title ends up being a misnomer. This site’s choice for the worst film of 2020
A Glitch in the Matrix (2021)
Rodney Ascher, who made the wacko Room 237, makes another fascinating documentary that discusses the theory that we might all be living in a virtual simulation
Cosmoball (2020)
A Russian SF film about humans who have been selected to participate in an intergalactic sports tournament. This feels that it has been construed as an anti-Alita: Battle Angel and has some stunning design work
Lust for Dracula (2004)
Very strange softcore vampire film that conducts an all-girl retelling of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. One or two okay erotic scenes but this befalls a quick shooting schedule
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
Jack the Ripper (2016)
A girl sets out to solve the Jack the Ripper killings to free her innocently convicted brother. This is no more, no less factual than any other version but conducts a fine period recreation of Victorian England
In Fabric (2018)
From Peter Strickland who is fast developing a cult name, this is on one level a horror film about a killer dress; on another level, it is a captivating film of textures and surrealistic deadpan humour
Vampires vs. The Bronx (2020)
Essentially a US version of Attack the Block with vampires instead of aliens, this is a smart, fun effort that adapts the vampire film to local hood culture
Army of the Dead (2021)
Zack Snyder makes a zombie heist film that if nothing else overspills with interesting ideas and a comic energy that goes along way to forgiving Snyder for trashing George Romero in Dawn of the Dead
Smiley Face Killers (2020)
A film based on the so-called Smiley Face Killings, a series of theorised true-life serial killings. With a script by Bret Easton Ellis of American Psycho fame
Like Share Follow (2017)
Fatal Attraction smartly updated for the generation that invented the term ‘YouTube influencer’ with Keiynan Lonsdale as an influencer stalked by a psycho fan Ema Horvath
976-Evil II (1991)
A sequel to 976-Evil, Robert Englund’s directorial debut about a demonic phone line. This is an almost entirely unrelated work that is now about a killer with astral projection powers
Get a Life! (2012)
The William Shatner directed documentary can be a unique beast. Here he makes a quite reasonable effort to examine what is at the heart of Star Trek fandom
Dilili in Paris (2018)
Michel Ocelot is one of the great underrated animators of the world. Here he makes an exquisite tribute to the Belle Epoque featuring appearances from names of the era and decked out in Steampunk inventions
Good Samaritan (2020)
Directorial outing from the creator of Final Destination about bystanders who are witness to a murder but do nothing and are afterwards killed by a possible supernatural agency
The Woman in the Window (2021)
Slickly produced psycho-thriller that comes mired in controversy, featuring Amy Adams as an agoraphobe who maybe witnesses a murder.
Little Fish (2020)
Beautifully understated film set in a world where a plague is causing people to lose their memories, following Olivia Cooke whose husband Jack O’Connell gradually succumbs
The Rizen (2017)
Amnesiac persons wake up in a bunker filled with monstrosities. Sort of H.P. Lovecraft served up as a low-budget variant on Resident Evil
Gog (1954)
Underrated 1950s SF film, a murder mystery as the equipment at a space research laboratory tries to kill people. Contains the first ever depiction of a computer virus
Turtle Power: The Definitive History of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)
Documentary charting the rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles phenomenon from independent comic-book to the animated series, toys and live-action films
Yummy (2019)
Belgian film that starts out as a blackly funny work about a cut-price East European hospital before seguing into a zombie film
Detroit Driller Killer (2020)
An uncredited remake of Abel Ferrara’s The Driller Killer, this is the single worst film I have seen in the last few years. It is surely the horror equivalent of The Room
In the Earth (2021)
Ben Wheatley has become a cult director in recent years with films like Kill List and High Rise. Here he conducts his own unique take on Folk Horror. A film shot during the Covid lockdown
Wendy (2020)
Director Benh Zeitlin made an extraordinary debut with Beasts of the Southern Wild. In his follow-up, he does striking things in making a modernised Peter Pan and transplanting the story to Louisiana
Happy Hunting (2017)
Solid, well made variant on The Most Dangerous Game human hunting scenario with an alcoholic man fighting for his life in a small border town that holds an annual hunt to eliminate the socially worthless
Night Monster (1942)
Entertaining and quite well made potboiler with Bela Lugosi and Lionel Atwill skulking around a big old mansion as someone or thing starts killing people off
Asterix: The Secret of the Magic Potion (2018)
A CGI animated film based on the popular comic-book character Asterix. After numerous other adaptations, this was the first of the Asterix films to be written directly for the screen
They’re Inside (2019)
Found Footage film where filmmakers find they are being stalked by other people with cameras. Essentially a Found Footage version of The Strangers
Years and Years (2019)
Exceptionally written UK mini-series from Doctor Who producer Russell T. Davies following a diverse family throughout the 2020s that become a projection of current trends turned nightmarish
Voyagers (2021)
The promising idea of a generation ship story, although you realise soon in that this has been conceived as no more than Lord of the Flies in space
Justice Society: World War II (2021)
The Justice Society of American was the first comic-book superhero team, bringing together all the heroes at DC Comics of the day. This is an animated film devoted to them
Atomic Rulers of the World (1965)
The US release of several short Japanese films featuring the superhero Starman. Cheap and entertainingly absurd, filled with tatty superheroics and laughable science
The Tulse Luper Suitcases Part 3: From Sark to the Finish (2004)
The third and final of Peter Greenaway’s Tulse Luper films, a sprawling mock biography that is more like a mad multi-media art installation than a film, filled with digressions, endless lists and obscure jokes
Geo-Disaster (2017)
A disaster movie mockbuster from The Asylum that was intended to exploit the (non)-success of Geostorm. Directed by the writer of the Sharknado films
The Mummy Rebirth (2019)
Low-budget film that would very much like it if we mistook it for one of the Brendan Fraser Mummy films
The Hole in the Ground (2019)
An Irish film that creates quite a reasonable degree of atmosphere in its story of a mother who believes her son has been replaced by something else
Mortal Kombat (2021)
A reboot of the film series adapted from the popular videogame. Produced by James Wan, this emerges as a kinetic and enjoyable effort that has clearly designed to introduce an ongoing franchise
Stowaway (2021)
In the vein of realistically grounded space movies such as Gravity and The Martian, a solidly effective film concerning the crew of a Mars mission who discover a stowaway aboard
The Haunted Cop Shop (1987)
A madcap Hong Kong comedy that takes more than a few leaves from the Mr Vampire films with cops fighting off vampires in a haunted police station. A popular hit.
Octopus II (2001)
Sequel to the ridiculous Octopus, this is slightly less cheap but no less absurd in its premise of a giant octopus attacking New York
Alone (2017)
A French variant on The Quiet Earth adapted from a comic-book about a group of young people who wake up to find themselves alone in a deserted city
Wounds (2019)
Iranian director Babak Anvari impressed with Under the Shadows. This is his follow-up where barman Armie Hammer’s life is turned upside down after he picks up a sinister cellphone
Deerskin (2019)
Another of the strange surreal deadpan films from Quentin Dupieux about a man who buys a deerskin jacket that then speaks and urges him to eliminate everybody else who is wearing a jacket
The Father (2020)
A film that received great acclaim at awards season. Anthony Hopkins is a dementia-ridden senior and we experience his state of mind subjectively in a constantly shifting sense of what is real
Lapsis (2020)
Wonderfully Kafka-esque film about a man who takes a job laying cable for a new internet company only to find himself in a system of nightmare rules and regulations
Bad Ronald (1974)
From the Golden Age of TV Movies, a film where Scott Jacoby hides in the cubbyhole of the wall of his home after he accidentally kills someone and then develops a fixation on the family that move in
Nice Girls Don’t Explode (1987)
Charmingly nonsensical comedy variant on Firestarter where a girl’s dating life is a nightmare due to her causing things to spontaneously combust when she becomes emotionally aroused
Ilsa, The Tigress of Siberia (1977)
This was the third of the notorious Ilsa films featuring a hyper-sexed Dyanne Thorne. This locates everything in Russian where she is the commandant torturing the prisoners of a Soviet gulag
Rattlesnake (2019)
From the promising Australian director Zak Hilditch. Carmen Ejogo’s daughter is bitten by a snake, a stranger heals her only for Carmen to then be told she has to kill somebody else in payment
The Ninth (2019)
Visually stunning Russian film with a clairvoyant and a police inspector teaming up to solve a series of occult murders in 19th Century St Petersburg
Thunder Force (2021)
Melissa McCarthy, along with Octavia Spencer as her best friend, is a comic screw-up who obtain superpowers
The Siren (2019)
Perry Blackshear is a director more people should know about. Here in his fascinatingly minimalist way he makes a film about the relationship between a man and a deadly mermaid creature
Infinity Chamber (2016)
A reality bending film about a man held in an automated prison where he must outsmart the prison’s A.I. in order to affect an escape
Hell (2011)
A Roland Emmerich produced film that takes place in a future that has been catastrophically affected by a ten-degree rise in temperatures worldwide
13 Demons (2016)
Director Daniel E. Falicki’s Alien Implant made my Worst of 2017 list. This is one of his earlier, equally terrible films about a boardgame that possess its players
The Dawn (2019)
A passable variant on the usual haunting and possession cliches overloaded with Catholic imagery before becoming a surprise unofficial prequel to a classic horror series
Get Duked! (2019)
A rather funny comedy about four misfit youths on a wilderness survival course in the Scottish Highlands who run afoul of human hunters and pagan sacrifice
Godzilla vs. Kong (2021)
One of fantastic cinema’s great titles bouts is a spectacular effects show. At the same time, it also has one of the single most ridiculous script I have ever come across in the entire time I have been running this site
Chaos Walking (2021)
Doug Liman’s adaptation of a Young Adult series that was problem-ridden behind the scenes. This certainly creates an interesting scenario set on a planet where men’s thoughts are visibly manifest
Motor Home Massacre (2005)
Ridiculous backwoods slasher film featuring a no-name cast that frequently collapses into the laughable
Test Tube Teens from the Year 2000 (1994)
Charles Band film directed by David DeCoteau, a lame softcore comedy where two guys travel back from a future where sex is outlawed and end up in a girl’s boarding school
Red Sonja, Queen of Plagues (2016)
Surprisingly good animated revival of Robert E. Howard’s warrior woman with a script by comic-book writer Gail Simone that gets the character just right
Above the Shadows (2019)
A unique and highly original take on the invisibility film where Olivia Thirlby becomes invisible because people no longer notice her until she meets one person who does
Curse of the Blind Dead (2020)
A revival of the popular 1970s Blind Dead series about Knights Templar zombies. In this era of zombie films homages and remakes, it is a surprise nobody has thought to do so before
Host (2020)
The first major genre film made during the Covid lockdown, a modestly effective work that borrows the basics of Unfriended for a story about a séance being held over a Zoom call
Doors (2021)
Multi-director anthology about a series of mysterious portals that appear around the world, this creates a sense of something genuinely alien and otherworldly
The Vagrant (1992)
Directorial outing from makeup effects artist Chris Walas who created the Gremlins and Cronenberg’s The Fly. This Bill Paxton as a Yuppie who buys a home and is driven paranoid as it keeps being invaded by a vagrant
Demons (2017)
Miles Doleac is better known as an actor but also has a number of credits as a director. Here he both directs and stars as a former priest haunted by an exorcism gone wrong
Armed Response (2017)
Behind the generic action movie title, this is an SF about a unit of soldiers led by Wesley Snipes venturing into an automated prison to investigate the death of personnel by an unknown force
The Kid Who Would Be King (2019)
Joe Cornish gained much buzz with Attack the Block. His follow-up film concerns a kid who inherits Excalibur. Cornish has fun translating elements of the Arthurian legends to the present-day
This Was America (2020)
A film that offers the depiction of a totalitarian future USA where Donald Trump has refused to leave office. This was made at the end of Trump’s first term and before his second term return to power.
Zack Snyder’s Justice League (2021)
Zack Snyder’s original cut of Justice League is a magnificent work that restores much character depth and story. I would far rather watch this than any of the recent MCU films
Sator (2019)
A strikingly original work of folk horror that creates an incredibly haunted and uncanny atmosphere of mysterious things lurking in the backwoods
The Violent Kind (2010)
Strange but by no means uninteresting film that takes several weird doglegs going from biker parties to a possession film and then a home invasion by seemingly resurrected 1950s rockers
Freeway Killer (2010)
A low-budget entry in the 2000s fad for true-life serial killer films. This is based on William Bonin who around the L.A. freeways in a van and abducted and killed young men
Spirits of the Air, Gremlins of the Clouds (1987)
The first film from Alex Proyas who once seemed a director of great promise with The Crow and Dark City, this seems to be trying to create a Mad Max post-apocalyptic film as a student art film
Better Watch Out (2016)
An extremely good film that starts out seeming like a standard stalked babysitter effort before everything gets turned on its head with most pleasing results
Cosmic Sin (2021)
Another among the shoddy last films Bruce Willis-made before retirement, an SF film about a rogue military team that decide to declare war on aliens. This is laughable in terms of military tactics
The Barge People (2019)
A surprisingly reasonable effort that relocates the Backwoods Brutality film to England with people menaced by mutant creatures emerged from the rural canals
Boss Level (2020)
You don’t think the mix of cartoonishly over-the-top action and a Groundhog Day timeloop scenario would work but this proves your assumptions wrong in highly entertaining ways
Wrong Turn (2021)
A reimagining of the long-running Wrong Turn series of Backwoods Brutality films, this does imaginative things with the set-up and emerges as the best of the series so far
The Next Voice You Hear … (1950)
A film that could have only been made in the 1950s where the voice of God suddenly appears on the radio around the world. Starring later-to-be US First Lady Nancy Reagan
Killer Pad (2008)
Directorial outing from Robert Englund who makes the horror equivalent of a frat comedy where three guys rent a palatial home and throw a party as a portal to Hell opens in the basement
Superman: Requiem (2011)
A feature-length Superman fan film made as homage to the Christopher Reeve films. You have to applaud the film for sterling effort even if it comes woefully short in trying to create its superheroics on a $20,000 budget
Post Apocalyptic Commando Shark (2018)
Gonzo killer shark film that gets full marks for an entertainingly ridiculous title but is real bad movie material on all accounts
Before the Fire (2020)
Released in March 2020 just before the arrival of Covid-19, this makes an uncanny prediction about the US being affected by a nationwide pandemic
Raya and the Last Dragon (2021)
The 59th animated film from Disney emerges as a modest effort with a cross-Asian cultural focus that eventually builds a strong character arc
Tom and Jerry (2021)
Tom and Jerry are revived in a part-animated, part-live action toon film although come missing the ultra-violence of the original cartoons
Dragonwasps (2012)
Typical Syfy Channel creature film with people encountering giant fire-breathing genetically-engineered wasps in the jungles of Belize
Rogue River (2012)
Imprisonment thriller where a woman finds herself confined by deranged husband and wife Bill Moseley and Lucinda Jenney
Age of Dinosaurs (2013)
A modestly effective Jurassic Park copy from The Asylum with genetically-revived dinosaurs loose in L.A. and featuring better than usual effects
Slaughterhouse Rulez (2018)
Simon Pegg produces/stars in a comedy spoofing the British boarding school tradition – but with the addition of monsters running around
I Trapped the Devil (2019)
Low-budget film that absorbs you in an intensive headspace as family members visit a reclusive brother who claims to have The Devil locked in the cellar
Lizzie (2018)
Strong and effective retelling of the Lizzie Borden story starring Chloe Sevigny that builds out a fascinating plausible scenario for how the murders might have happened
The Reckoning (2020)
A few years ago, Neil Marshall seemed a major genre director on the rise with The Descent. Here he returns with a film about the historic witch persecutions
The Deeper You Dig (2019)
Modest and quite well made film entirely shot, produced and acted by the Adams Family who have gone on to make a series of other striking horror films. This concerns a man haunted by a ghost after he kills a girl
Monster Hunter (2020)
Resident Evil series director Paul W.S. Anderson and star Milla Jovovich return with an adaptation of another popular videogame series
The Stand (2020-2021)
The Stand is in my opinion Stephen King’s greatest book. The question is whether this new mini-series version will improve on the laughably failed 1994 version
Among the Shadows (2019)
A film about the internecine in-fighting among werewolf clans and a werewolf P.I. in a near-future European Union. With Lindsay Lohan as the EU President’s wife!
Retribution (1987)
Interestingly watchable 80s film where a man becomes possessed by a disembodied soul that sets out seeking revenge against its killers. With lots of entertainingly lurid despatches