Mega Time Squad (2018)
There have been some very sophisticated time paradox films in recent years. At complete contrast, this is a comedy that has a great deal of fun with the premise of a guy and assorted temporal copies of himself running about
Dead Dicks (2019)
An off-the-wall film with a unique premise about an apartment where every time somebody is killed another copy of them emerges out of a hole in the wall
Villains (2019)
A film with a wonderfully eccentric and offbeat sense of humour where Bill Skarsgård and Maika Monroe are inept criminals fleeing after a robbery who end up prisoners of a psychopathic couple
Death of Me (2020)
Darren Lynn Bousman is a director that leaves me wondering why he keeps attracting money to make films. Here he makes a work about a couple caught up in sinister rituals while tourists in Thailand
The Wolf of Snow Hollow (2020)
A film directed by actor Jim Cummings about a small Utah town that is facing a series of werewolf attacks. This works surprisingly well due to a series of witty and well-rounded characterisations
Willy’s Wonderland (2021)
A horror film premised around Nicolas Cage beating the crap out of a series of possessed animatronic robots, a fairly blatant copy of the Five Nights at Freddy’s videogame
Archive (2020)
One of the better in the fad for Artificial Intelligence films we have had since the 2010s with Theo James trying to place his late wife’s consciousness into an android body
High School Girl Rika, Zombie Hunter (2008)
The Gonzo Japanese Splatter Film offers a wild array of splatter, bio-transformations and an obsession with schoolgirls’ panties. This is a low-budget entry that offers something akin to a zombie-hunting equivalent of Buffy
Chrysalis (2008)
An adaptation of a Ray Bradbury story set in an environmentally collapsed future as scientists at a research station debate over what to do when one of their colleagues transforms into a chrysalis
MPD Psycho (2000)
Takashi Miike tv mini-series with a mind-bogglingly confusing plot involving a split personalitied detective, possession, a terrorist pop star and barcodes imprinted in eyeballs
Hell Fest (2018)
We have had several horror films set around Halloween haunts in recent years. This effort produced by Gale Anne Hurd is well above average and generates quite a degree of tension
The Rental (2020)
James Franco’s younger brother Dave makes a very impressive directorial debut in a taut psycho-thriller of sharp adept twists about two couples whose weekend getaway is torn asunder by guilty secrets and a lurking psycho
Bliss (2021)
Quite an entertaining film based on the conspiracy theory that we are all living in The Matrix where Owen Wilson and Salma Hayek become wound up in virtual simulation
Greenland (2020)
There seems something redundant in 2021 with the world in the grip of a very real apocalypse about watching an old-fashioned mass destruction disaster movie about an oncoming comet impact
Starship Apocalypse (2014)
Sequel to Starship Rising, a space opera that does some amazing things with effects on a next-to-no budget
Starship Rising (2014)
Modest space opera from British director Neil Johnson that achieves things with its effects on a low-budget that easily rivals A-budget films
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1978)
Adaptation of the Sherlock Holmes novel made as a comedy vehicle for Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. Given the duo’s reputations as comics, the results are fairly excruciating
Monstrum (2018)
South Korean attempt to make a Wu Xia film with swordsmen up against a hulking monster
Sword Master (2016)
One of the lush, beautifully produced modern Wu Xia (flying swordsmen) films. Produced and written by the legendary Tsui Hark
Saint Maud (2019)
Highly acclaimed film about a nurse’s descent into madness and religious hallucinations
A-X-L (2018)
Outside of animation, there has never been a decent genre film about cute dogs. This film about a robot dog is no exception. The surprise is that this is produced by the normally respectable David S. Goyer
Shadow in the Cloud (2020)
Chloe Grace Moretz stars in a quite reasonable WWII-set story about gremlins amok aboard a plane
WolfWalkers (2020)
The third film from Irish animator Tomm Moore, a beautiful Princess Mononoke-like tale of a girl’s friendship with persecuted werewolves in the forest
Road Train (2010)
Australian film that takes a big bite out of Duel with a group of people being pursued through the Outback by a truck-trailer that appears to be fueled by human blood
Johnny English Strikes Again (2018)
Rowan Atkinson in his third outing as the inept spy. Atkinson is a talented comic but these Johnny English films, which are like less sophisticated versions of Peter Sellers’ Inspector Closeau, are the least of his comedy incarnations
Robert the Doll (2015)
A low-budget film about an evil doll that was made not long after Annabelle came out and boasting a similar Based on a True Story claim. Four sequels have followed
Tarzoon, Shame of the Jungle (1975)
Animated parody of the Tarzan films made with a very adult sense of humour that was banned in several countries as a result
Perfect Skin (2018)
Thriller in which a girl is abducted and imprisoned by a mad tattooist who wants to use her body as a work of art
Come Play (2020)
This is a surprisingly good film that generates quite a degree of spooky eeriness concerning a child on the autism spectrum and the sinister entity inside his tablet that just wants to be his friend
Outside the Wire (2021)
There have been some impressive works about A.I. in the last few years. This plays out as Ex Machina by way of Training Day and is only notable in its ridiculous implausibility
Sky Sharks (2020)
This has been conceived as the ultimate modern exploitation film featuring Nazi zombie piloting flying sharks. Think Iron Sky by way of Sharknado. The results are highly entertaining
The Lost World (2001)
A TV mini-series adaptation of the Arthur Conan Doyle lost world story, this has been produced by the BBC as a glorious period adventure with CGI dinosaurs
The Dark Sleep (2013)
A no expectation adaptation of an H.P. Lovecraft’s Dreams of the Witch-House from a director down the low-budget end of the spectrum that does some surprisingly modest things
Bad Samaritan (2018)
Roland Emmerich’s former writer Dean Devlin makes a film where a burglar discovers that David Tennant is a serial killer holding a girl prisoner and sets out to rescue her. Tennant does an entertaining turn as a bad guy
Aniara (2018)
Film based on a full-length Swedish SF poem that concerns the despair, emptiness and strange societies that emerge among those aboard a spaceship that is thrown off course
Coma (2019)
An extraordinary Russian film that takes place in a uniquely designed dreamworld shared by people in comas. This has an imagination and conceptual grasp that rivals Inception
The Lurker (2019)
Scout Taylor-Compton stars in a slasher about a killer stalking the cast of a high school play. She plays with a professionalism but the rest feels like an amateur production
P.G. Psycho Goreman (2020)
The great and underrated Steven Kostanski makes another of his homages to the 1980s VHS era. This has a winning concept where kids befriend an intergalactic dark lord
#Alive (2020)
A charming and delightful South Korean zombie film about the friendship that grows across the gap separating them between a nerd trapped in an apartment and a girl in the building opposite during a zombie outbreak
Downrange (2017)
Japanese director Ryuhei Kitamura creates a gripping survival thriller about a group of friends driving home who become trapped on a small stretch of road by a sniper
Blue Remembered Hills (1979)
I have said it before and will say it again – Dennis Potter was the greatest writer to ever work in television. This is his classic work depicting childhood where all the roles of the children are played by adults
Bonnie & Clyde Vs. Dracula (2008)
This comes with the interestingly original idea of having the real-life outlaws Bonnie and Clyde come up against Count Dracula. The main thing against the film is a low budget
Ouija Shark (2020)
Another in the spate of deliberately ridiculous killer shark films concerning a ghost shark that emerges from an ouija board
Run. (2020)
Well constructed thriller where a wheelchair-confined teenager discovers that her mother is up to sinister purpose and attempts to escape despite her lack of mobility
Synchronic (2019)
Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead have become one of the most underrated indie genre voices. Here they make a film where Anthony Mackie discovers a drug that causes people to travel through time
Batman: Soul of the Dragon (2021)
An oddity among the animated Batman films. This seems less another Batman film – Bruce Wayne gets more screen time than Batman, for instance – than it does a homage to the 1970s martial arts film
Batman Unlimited: Animal Instincts (2015)
An animated Batman film that is essentially an extended commercial based on a line of toys wherein Batman fights super-villains that have an animal motif
The Shuttered Room (1967)
One of the more obscure H.P. Lovecraft adaptations based on an unfinished pastiche, not widely seen but well worth reconsideration
Monster Hunt 2 (2018)
Sequel to Monster Hunt, an audience pleasing comedy about a couple and a cute monster that became the biggest hit in Chinese box-office history. This offers more of the same
The Gift (1990)
A modestly made BBC mini-series concerning a boy who discovers he has the titular gift of clairvoyant visions and how those around him try to exploit this
Flashburn (2017)
Reality bending film where an amnesiac Sean Patrick Flanery wakes up in a warehouse and learns he is a scientist who holds the antidote to a pandemic. But all is not it seems.
Room for Rent (2019)
Modest and well-made film where Lin Shaye has the time of her life as an elderly widow who rents out her room and becomes attached to her tenant in disturbing ways
Betaal (2020)
Bollywood conducts a reasonable attempt to make its own equivalent of the zombie film in this mini-series about people at siege from undead British colonial soldiers awakened
The Craft: Legacy (2020)
Blumhouse revival of/sequel to The Craft, the film about a quartet of teenage witches. This updates the original to the modern era in ways the original never did
Rent-a-Pal (2020)
Horror film about a downtrodden man tending a dementia-ridden mother who encounters a video friendship service where Wil Wheaton proves a cheery but increasingly disturbing new best friend
The House on Sorority Row (1982)
A slasher film from the classic 1980s heyday set during a party at a sorority house. This has been praised as being one effort that is well above the rest of the genre.
Flying Disc Man from Mars (1950)
Twelve-chapter serial that offers one of the first ever depictions of an alien invader on screen. The results are oddly mundane in comparison to the onslaught of great 1950s alien invasion films that came only a couple of years later
Tyrannosaurus Azteca (2007)
This comes with an intriguingly original concept – that Spanish Conquistador Hernan Cortes during his conquest of Mexico came up against dinosaurs
Amityville Exorcism (2017)
Prolific Z-budget director Mark Polonia makes something like the 18th film with Amityville in its title. This one concerns possessed lumber (!) from the Amityville house
We Can Be Heroes (2020)
Robert Rodriguez appears to have gotten the oversized non-event that was Alita: Battle Angel out of his system by making another of his seat of the pants home movies – this is less Spy Kids than Superhero Kids – and brings back one element Alita forgot, a sense of fun
Soul (2020)
Pixar film with a head-scratchingly odd plot but also one of the better efforts of the divided post-2010 period that goes a long way towards recapturing the things they did so well in their heyday
The Midnight Sky (2020)
George Clooney starred in Gravity and now directs/stars in his own scientifically grounded space film about the last man trying to communicate with a surviving space mission following a catastrophe event on Earth
Bloody Moon (1981)
Jess Franco is a cult director, having mostly specialised in exploitation and horror. Here he turns his hand to the early 80s slasher film. The result was listed as a Video Nasty in the UK
The Dead Pit (1989)
A typical 80s film with a mad doctor resurrecting the dead in the abandoned wing of an asylum amid gory makeup effects. The first film from Brett Leonard who next went on to make The Lawnmower Man
Future Hunters (1986)
Undeniably entertaining Filipino action film that tries to throw in everything including time travel, post-holocaust action, adventure quests, magical artifacts, lost worlds, Nazis and dwarves
Revolt (2017)
Modestly effective film with an amnesiac soldier trying to make his way across Africa in the aftermath of an alien invasion. Featuring some fine and well staged effects
Satanic Panic (2019)
Rather funny comedy about Satanists and a virginal pizza girl who is chased as their intended victim. This comes with a bizarrely akilter sense of humour that reminds of Martin Scorsese’s After Hours
Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)
The much-anticipated sequel to the Gal Gadot starring Wonder Woman is a highly divided success, partly due to an inane plot centred around a magic wishing stone
Becky (2020)
Essentially Home Alone as a horror film where Lulu Wilson gives a standout performance as a child who fends off a home invasion by escaped criminals led by Kevin James in a surprisingly effective villainous turn
The Driver (2019)
Zombie action film that features Mark Dacascos driving through the post-apocalyptic landscape in a luxury car looking for a home for his daughter
We Hunt Together (2020)
BBC mini-series about two lovers on a killing spree that works through some great performance and engaging character arcs
Possum (2018)
British horror film that develops a sense of uncanniness that resembles an Eraserhead at times with a man haunted by a puppet and giant spiders. The mood is unsettling, least of all that we are never sure what is real or taking place in the character’s head
Tone-Deaf (2019)
Dark, sardonic comedy where Amanda Crew rents a house to get away for a weekend only to face a murderous Robert Patrick. The humour is barbed and quite hilarious
Subferatu (2020)
Comedy about a shipwrecked crew that are rescued by a German U-boat that is carrying a vampire on board
Rim of the World (2019)
McG, one of the more empty-headed of modern mainstream directors, makes a big effects-heavy, Young Adult alien invasion film, a genre that has never enjoyed any success. To no surprise, this did not either
A Christmas Carol (2019)
A tv mini-series that offers a dark, adult and definitely not family friendly version of the oft-filmed Charles Dickens tale that reinvents the original in quite astonishing ways
Unholy Night (2019)
Modest and well-made low-budget anthology of Christmas horror tales from three Canadian filmmakers
Lady Krampus (2018)
This is a misleadingly titled film that features no Krampus and is actually a low-budget Christmas slasher that has been renamed by the distributor. Poorly made on all accounts.
Messages Deleted (2010)
In his last ever produced screenplay, cult director Larry Cohen turns in a wonderfully playful script with Matthew Lillard as a screenwriting lecturer harassed by a killer only to find real-life doesn’t obey the same rules that screenplays do
Astro (2018)
A film about alien visitors, transcendental states of mind and sinister government agencies. This boggles the mind in terms of laughable writing and all-round bad filmmaking
Fatman (2020)
Amusingly dark Christmas film where a kid hires a hitman to kill Santa after receiving a lump of coal in his Christmas stocking. Featuring Mel Gibson as a grumpy Santa struggling with modern economic realities
Iron Mask (2019)
Sequel to the Russian-made horror film Viy, this is an historical fantasy with a big budget that mounts spectacular effects sequence and provides name stars, even if the results are utterly bizarre
Ghosts of War (2020)
US soldiers arrive at a chateau in Nazi-occupied France during World War II that appears to be haunted. In a conceptual reversal twist, everything is not what it seems
Wu Dang (2012)
Martial Arts/Wu Xia fantasy with various people involved in a competition while hunting for a fabled sword
Lazer Team 2 (2017)
Lazer Team was an easy predictable comedy about four screw-ups that accidentally obtain parts of an alien power suit. This sequel is all the same gags on rinse and repeat.
Emmanuelle the Private Collection: Emmanuelle vs Dracula (2004)
One of the series of softcore Emmanuelle films based on an erotic memoir, which had led to some seventy films so far. Here the originally true-life character of Emmanuelle encounters Count Dracula
Clown (2014)
The first film from Jon Watts, director of the Tom Holland Spider-Man films, and produced by Eli Roth, about a clown costume that possesses the wearer. You have to admire the film for the ballsiness with which it was made
I Think We’re Alone Now (2018)
Set in the aftermath of an unspecified apocalypse, this is a film about the oddball friendship that grows between misanthropic Peter Dinklage and pixie-ish Elle Fanning
The Owners (2020)
Maisie Williams and an aging Sylvester McCoy in a film about house burglars who break in to a home to discover sinister things afoot
Freaky (2020)
A slasher film with a novelty (gimmicky?) premise where the Final Girl and the hulking killer of the show end up swapping bodies. Essentially a conceptual mash-between a slasher film and Freaky Friday
Love and Monsters (2020)
A nerdy guy sets out across a post-apocalyptic wasteland filled with giant animals to be with the girl of his dreams. This sound promising in description but suffers an identity crisis on screen
Light Blast (1985)
From the director of the original Inglorious Bastards, an action film with Erik Estrada as a cop pursuing a blackmailing scientist who has a powerful laser weapon
Playing With Dolls: Bloodlust (2016)
The second in a trilogy of slasher films about people being staked by a maniac at a backwoods cabin while everything is secretly being filmed by tv cameras
The Moment After (1999)
One of a cluster of faith-based films made around the turn of the millennium dealing with the biblical apocalypse and The Rapture, this has not dated well
King Charles III (2017)
A near future film that with eviscerates the royals with biting savagery as it depicts Prince Charles becoming the King of England and clashing with the government of the day
2067 (2020)
Australian film in which Kodi Smit-McPhee heads through a time portal to save a polluted world resulting in a time paradox that ties back to his childhood. This had promise but badly lets down on its premise
Tenet (2020)
After delays, Christopher Nolan’s unique time travel film is with us, a dense challenging work that plays like an intellectual version of a James Bond film
Superintelligence (2020)
We have had some standout A.I. films in the last few years. This is comedy variant where Melissa McCarthy is befriended by an A.I. who adopts the voice of James Corden
Cowboys vs Vampires (2010)
A horror movie set around a modern day Western recreation town that was quickly retitled on the tail of Cowboys vs Aliens. It’s debatable though whether it does actually feature any vampires
Area 51 (2011)
Not to be confused with the Oren Peli Found Footage film. Sean Connery’s son Jason directs a film where a host of alien nasties imprisoned at Area 51 manage to escape