After Midnight (2019)
A wonderful maybe monster movie. Jeremy Gardner falls to pieces after his girlfriend leaves. At the same time, he is certain a monster is lurking outside while everyone else thinks he is losing it.
The Plot Against America (2020)
You might be inclined to dismiss on the basis of its title as some of lunatic fringe YouTube conspiracy video. But what we actually have is a strong and powerfully written alternate history mini-series based around the idea of Charles Lindbergh becoming US President in 1940 and the country’s subsequent slide into fascism
Scoob! (2020)
An animated film revival of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? This also makes an misguided attempt to build a shared universe among assorted Hanna-Barbera characters
Fertilize the Blaspheming Bombshell! (1992)
This was a Troma release during the period where they made a point of selling films with outrageous attention-getting titles. One only wishes there was a film on show worthy of such
Dangerous Game (1987)
Australian film in which a psychopathic cop pursues a group of teens who break into a department store after hours. A debut film for Stephen Hopkins who went on to a successful career as a Hollywood director.
Mythica: The Iron Crown (2016)
This was the fourth in the surprisingly good Mythica series of low-budget epic fantasy films funded via Kickstarter. This proves to be the best of the series yet
Ghost House (2017)
Modest effort in which Scout Taylor-Compton becomes possessed by an evil spirit while in Thailand. Nothing groundbreaking but this creates reasonable atmosphere
Monster Party (2018)
This has an interesting premise where a trio of house burglars break into a mansion during a dinner party only to stumble into a support group for serial killers
Butt Boy (2019)
Every so often a film stops you dead in your tracks with its WTF premise. This is one such – a film about a man who develops a fetish for sticking objects up his ass and causes household objects, pets and children to disappear up there
Sea Fever (2019)
The title suggests more a sea adventure but this is a surprisingly good monster movie about the crew of a fishing vessel attacked by a sea creature and infected by parasites.
Justice League Dark: Apokolips War (2020)
The DC Comics animated version of an Avengers film where they put every superhero under their roof on screen at once, including Justice League Dark, the regular Justice League, Suicide Squad and Teen Titans
Unforgettable (2017)
A psycho-thriller that hearkens back to the Fatal Attraction and the copycats it inspired where a newly engaged Rosario Dawson has to deal with her fiance’s vengeful ex, an ice cold Kathrine Heigl
Cut Shoot Kill (2017)
Low-budget horror film in which a novice actress signs on to star in a low-budget slasher film only to find the director appears to be killing off people for real
The Doll Master (2004)
South Korean film that creates decidedly eerie and an uncanny atmosphere as various guests are invited to a doll museum where the creations appear to be coming to life to kill
Killer Nerd (1991)
This gained a minor cult in which an abused nerd snaps as a result of constant humiliations and goes on a killing rampage. Tony Radloff gives an extraordinary performance
Bleach (2018)
The live-action adaptation of a manga about a teenager who inherits the powers of Soul Reaper and is thrust into a battle against monstrous supernatural entities
Radioflash (2019)
Film in which the entire US Western seaboard falls into social chaos after being hit an EMP burst focusing on one girl’s journey to safety across anarchic territory
The Lodge (2019)
An entry from the revived Hammer Films directed by duo who made Goodnight Mommy. A slow burn of a film about cabin fever and fragmenting psychology often reminiscent of The Shining
Possessor (2020)
The second film from Brandon Cronenberg, a fascinatingly original work about body-hopping assassins
The Maze (1953)
William Cameron Menzies built a standout genre reputation with films like Things to Come and Invaders from Mars. This is a haunted house film, albeit with an ending that goes into WTF territory. Menzies was also a production designer and his films come with a design scheme superbly attuned to the mood of the film
The Worm Eaters (1977)
A film that comes with such a level of psychotronic dementia that it may seriously damage your sanity concerning the relationship between a man and his pet worms
Womb (2010)
The finest film made yet on the subject of cloning. A beautifully directed film that deals with the tricky ethical issues when Eva Green decides to give birth to a clone of her lover Matt Smith and raise him as her son.
The Invisible Guardian (2017)
The first in a trilogy of Spanish detective thrillers adapted from Dolores Redondo concerning ritual child killings, a serial killer and a local Bigfoot type creature lurking in the background
Between Worlds (2018)
Nicolas Cage career from the mid-2010s gives all impression he has chosen projects for the full-on dementia value. Here he lets all stops go as the spirit of his late wife possesses the body of the teenage daughter of the woman he is seeing
Devs (2020)
Alex Garland directed-written tv mini-series that grasps at big ideas about the meaning of it all concerning a computer that can track every particle and predict past and future. This emerges as one of the finest SF work of the last few years
Lifechanger (2018)
A unique and original variation on the bodyswap theme, told from point-of-view of an entity that passes through various bodies in a murderous spree as it tries to make its way back to the girl it loves
Three Dangerous Ladies (1988?)
Very obscure horror anthology re-edited from episodes of a Canadian tv series featuring names like John Hurt, Charles Gray and Keir Dullea.
Outback Vampires (1987)
One of the most head-scratchingly bizarre efforts among the great Ozploitation fad – a comedy about vampires in an Australian Outback town
Pussy Kills (2017)
Another woman seeks vengeance film, sort of a female version of The Crow where the heroine wears PVC catsuit, fishnets and cat ears. A film made with a cod-grindhouse aesthetic hoping to get by on a certain trash movie sensibility
Camera Obscura (2017)
Modest horror film in which a photographer obtains a camera that predicts deaths before they happen – only to then find it predicts his wife’s death
Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion’s Revenge (2020)
An animated film revival of the Mortal Kombat videogame franchise. This does a quite reasonable reworking of the basics, while leaving you blown away with the ultra-violent excesses of the action
Fantasy Island (2020)
The big screen remake of the popular 70s/80s tv series about an island that makes guests fantasies come true. In the hands of Blumhouse, this has now been turned into a horror film
Corona Zombies (2020)
A Charles Band film that has the distinction of being the first film released during the Corona Virus Pandemic. You watch out of curiosity of how the usual logistics of filmmaking deal with quarantine and social distancing
Transylvania Twist (1989)
A Roger Corman produced horror parody that conducts send ups of most of the horror icons of the 1980s – Freddy Krueger, Pinhead, Michael Meyers etc – without being particularly funny
Pod (2015)
Mickey Keating film in which two siblings go to help a brother who appears in mental distress and claims to have imprisoned a monster in his basement
Creep (2014)
An improvisational project shot between actor Mark Duplass and friend Patrick Brice, a two person handheld-shot film where videographer Brice is hired by an over-friendly Duplass who becomes increasingly disturbed
The Darkest Minds (2018)
Adapted from a series of Young Adult books concerning a group of children with psychic powers on the run in a dystopian future, this failed to find the audience it sought
The Turning (2020)
Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw is considered one of the greatest of all ghost stories. This new film version has been placed in the hands of Floria Sigismondi, considered one of top contemporary music video directors. What could possibly go wrong?
Gretel & Hansel (2020)
Osgood Perkins emerges as a top director in this dark and extremely adult interpretation of the fairytale. There is nothing about this that can be viewed as a children’s tale any longer
Brahms: The Boy II (2020)
Sequel to The Boy in which a nanny was hired to tend a sinister doll. Now in what is clearly an attempt to imitate the Annabelle franchise, the doll gains life
The Black Rider: Revelation Road (2014)
The third Revelation Road film, this offers the bizarre novelty of a faith-based Mad Max copy with divinely inspired action hero David A.R. White cruising the post-apocalyptic wastelands in the aftermath of The Rapture
Repli-Kate (2002)
Comedy released under the National Lampoon banner in which a nerdy student accidentally creates a clone of his object of desire. This feels like a mash-up between Weird Science and a frat rat comedy
Malefique (2002)
Effective and unusual French film in which four prisoners in a jail cell discover an occult tome in the walls and start reading its spells thinking it can offer a means of escape
Vivarium (2019)
A real mindscrew of a film in which Imogen Poots and Jesse Eisenberg are a couple who enter a strangely unreal suburb of identical houses and find they can’t leave. Then things start to get really strange.
Only (2019)
A film made for the era of Coronavirus crisis if there ever was one. This concerns a worldwide plague that kills all women where Freida Pinto may be the left woman left alive. What is uncannily predictive is the film’s images of empty streets and supermarket shelves, people huddled in quarantine and social distancing
Bloodshot (2020)
That starts out seeming a standard mindless action film in which Vin Diesel is resurrected as an augmented super-soldier only for everything we assume to get turned on its head in interesting ways
Underwater (2020)
Throwback to late 80s/early 90s films like The Abyss and Sphere with the crew of a sub-oceanic station fighting off a monster. Generic in plot terms bit directorially this is an intense and claustrophobic ride
H (2002)
A South Korean copy of The Silence of the Lambs where detectives find that a serial killer imprisoned in a cell is somehow causing others to continue his trail of killings
Rocktober Blood (1984)
The first in a cluster of mostly terrible 80s films that tried to incorporate horror and rock music, this concerns a rock star sent to the electric chair after a killing spree who now appears to return from the dead
Medea (1969)
The controversial Pier Paolo Pasolini makes a film based on Medea – the wife of Jason (of Jason and the Argonauts fame), from Greek myth, not to be confused with Tyler Perry’s films, Contrary to the way she is usually portrayed on screen as Jason’s love interest, there is another whole story where she is a vengeance-crazed witch who slaughters their children after he leaves her for another woman
The Little Stranger (2018)
Adaptation of a ghost story from Sarah Waters, an author who usually specialises in literary Victorian lesbian bodice rippers. The ghost story is an overmined genre but this is a not uninteresting venture into the field
Onward (2020)
The 22nd animated film from Pixar and also the least successful (being released only a week before theatrical chains closing down due to Coronavirus). This has an appealingly quirky and original concept not unakin to Bright that takes place in an alternate reality where magic creatures live in a world akin to our own
Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn (2020)
The DC comic-book Birds of Prey is hijacked to become a vehicle for Harley Quinn, the breakout character from Suicide Squad. Margot Robbie gives the impression she has zero interest in making a film for comic-book fans
The Platform (2019)
A stunningly allegorical film that falls somewhere between Cube and High-Rise where people are trapped in a prison and forced to fight over food as a banquet table passes down the levels each day, resulting in a society where those at the top claim superiority over those below.
Dante’s Inferno (1924)
Silent movie version of Dante’s classic poem. Dante is suborned into a miser’s redemption story but it is the wild mediaeval visions of Hell and the tortures of the damned we have come to watch the film for
Three on a Meathook (1972)
A great example of the lurid sensationalism with which films of the so-called grindhouse era were sold, designed with a go-for-broke trashiness intended to get you in the door, something that is promptly let down by the shoddiness of the film itself
Clown (2019)
The Asylum’s mockbuster version of It: Chapter Two. From Eric Forsberg, one of the better directors to emerge from The Asylum, this involves a group of teens being pursued around a funhouse by a killer clown.
He’s Out There (2018)
Cabin in the Woods drama with Yvonne Strahovski and her children terrorised by a hulking masked maniac. Tension and suspense that feels served by a conveyor belt
Cats (2019)
The film version of the smash Andrew Lloyd Webber musical phenomenon was widely ridiculed. Seen, it is a colourful and absorbing entity and by no means as bad as its rap gives it
The Invisible Man (2020)
Blumhouse deliver an invisible man, although one that has nothing to do with H.G. Wells or the previous invisible man films. Indeed, this feels like an invisible man film that doesn’t even want to be about an invisible man at all.
The Hunt (2020)
Controversial variant on the human bloodsports plot of The Most Dangerous Game but where liberals hunt conservatives. A film with a darkly satiric bite that sets out to offend people on both sides of the political fence
Jack and the Beanstalk (1952)
Abbott and Costello take on the fairytale as a vehicle for their usual inanities. This is the only film the two made in colour and financed it themselves, but is not one of their more inspired offerings.
Mansquito (2005)
B-movie in which a chemical spill at a lab causes a mass murderer to turn into a giant mosquito hybrid. An efficient cobbling of cliches that comes out as a B budget variation n The Fly.
What Keeps You Alive (2018)
Colin Minihan is an up and rising genre directors well worth keeping an eye. Here he makes a taut and effective survival story where a woman is hunted by her wife who turns psychopathic after a getaway to a cabin in the woods
The Grudge (2020)
The fourteenth Ju-on/The Grudge film, a reboot of the 2004 English language version from Sam Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures. This was dumped by its distributor and received some terrible reviews
Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
The concluding chapter of the third trilogy of Star Wars films. After the critically divided The Last Jedi, J.J. Abrams opts for a return to the safety of familiarity and nostalgia
Swallow (2019)
A film of considerable creepy fascination where Haley Bennett has married into a family of wealth and develops an obsession with eating objects. This heads into an area of disturbed psychology that is quite unsettling
Night of the Blood Beast (1958)
Roger Corman’s brother produces a low-budget film that borrows a few leafs from The Quatermass Xperiment in its story of an astronaut who returns having been resurrected from the dead by alien invaders.
Screamtime (1983)
A British horror anthology made up of three stories from director Michael Armstrong. As always the episodes are variable but the episode with the killer Punch and Judy dolls stands out
Vampire Boys (2011)
This is essentially intended as a gay version of Twilight and features a near-identical plot in which a vampire fixates on a youth and decides he is his true love.
Teen Titans Go! To the Movies (2018)
Film spinoff from the animated tv series Teen Titans Go! This hits in with an hilairous barrage of one-liners wickedly spoofing the superhero genre and jokes at DC Comics canon
Truth or Dare (2018)
Jeff Wadlow made the smart Cry Wolf, a slasher film about a campus game turned deadly. In this Blumhouse production, he has simply remade that with a different game where the killer is now a demonic curse
Sonic the Hedgehog (2020)
After a disastrous fan reception of its initial trailer, the film of the videogame arrives on screen. The surprise is that for such a zero expectation film and one that defies the engagement of any of your braincells it is as much fun as it is.
Fractured (2019)
Brad Anderson makes a paranoid nightmare as Sam Worthington takes his daughter to a hospital only for her to go missing and he to encounter a Kafka-esque bureaucracy that insists she doesn’t exist
Weird Woman (1944)
The first of several adaptations of Fritz Leiber’s novel Conjure Wife about witchcraft being conducted between rivalry faculty wives in academia. The best version of the story is still the second one Night of the Eagle but this has some eerie moments and great performances
Cello (2005)
The huge success of J-horror films like Ringu and Ju-on: The Grudge in the 2000s was copied right around the Asian region. This was one of several K-horror (South Korean) ghost stories produced during this period
Nightmare in Blood (1977)
Horror host John Stanley directs a film with an amusing premise where a famous horror actor known for playing a vampire turns out to be a vampire for real, causing problems when he turns up for a convention
Revenge (2017)
Another woman takes revenge against men film. You would think that this being directed by a woman would be less exploitative than usual but oh boy this one goes off the rails into the demented
Spies in Disguise (2019)
Animated film that has the madcap premise of a top spy (voiced by Will Smith) transformed into a pigeon. A film that comes with such a level of comedic energy that it makes you think all hope is not lost for Blue Sky Studios, the makers of the interminable Ice Age films.
Jumanji: The Next Level (2019)
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, the reboot of the 90s Jumanji, was a box-office success. That mandated a sequel. The central problem is where exactly does a film about characters sucked inside a videogame go with its premise?
Superman: Red Son (2020)
A very different take on the Superman story that asks What if Superman had grown up in the Soviet Union rather than in the US and become a paragon of Communist virtue
The Possessed (1977)
This was a copy of The Exorcist made for tv. Unable to replicate that film’s gross-out effects, all that we get is a girl’s boarding school beset by supernatural fires. An amazing cast line-up, including an unknown Harrison Ford as a teacher having an affair with a pupil before getting set on fire
The Abomination (1986)
An amazingly bad movie from the VHS era where a woman is exorcised by a televangelist and coughs up a tumor, which crawls out of the trash and possesses her son, driving him to kill and bring bodies home to feed the tumor
Pin (1988)
Creepy and surprisingly well-made Canadian horror film in which a mentally disturbed David Hewlett has a strange relationship with an anatomical dummy that directs him to kill.
Shanghai Fortress (2019)
A Chinese attempt to create an alien invasion film epic mass destruction in the vein of Independence Day and Michael Bay
Daniel Isn’t Real (2019)
A horror film that delves into pleasingly dark places as a man finds that his life is being taken over by his childhood imaginary companion that he realises wants to possess his body
Dolittle (2020)
This revival of the classic children’s character who can speak to animals took a critical battering but I kind of liked it. It has a completely madcap slapstick tone and more crucially returns to the stories and banishes any bad memory of Eddie Murphy
Charlie’s Angels (2019)
The second big screen revival of the hit 1970s tv series. Essentially a Girl Power version of one of the Mission: Impossible films, which turns what was originally a girl-fronted detective show into a spy caper featuring SF gadgetry
The Tell-Tale Heart (1960)
Adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe story about a guilty murderer haunted by the beating of the victim’s heart. A not uninteresting effort written by Brian Clemens, the creator of tv’s The Avengers that aims for dark psychological mood
Frankenstein 1970 (1958)
Boris Karloff became an icon of horror after appearing as the monster in the 1931 Frankenstein. This was the only time he played Baron Frankenstein, appearing as his modern descendant using an atomic reactor to bring his creation to life
Mega Shark vs Kolossus (2015)
The fourth of The Asylum’s Mega Shark films and the best of the series where they get the balance of tongue-in-cheek absurdity just right and the low-budget effects prove surprisingly good
Boo! 2 A Madea Halloween (2017)
Tyler Perry is an accomplished impressionist but his two Halloween comedies appropriate elements of the horror film while having no interest in the genre. Here all the horror elements only serve to deliver a lecture on child rearing
Farmageddon (2019)
Aardman Animation return with a sequel to Shaun the Sheep Movie. More of the same absurdly nonsensical capers and gags, this comes with much in the way of homage and in-jokes to classic SF films
Frozen II (2019)
Frozen was the most successful animated film of all time. It also felt the most formulaic and least inspired Disney film of the 2000s. As part of Disney’s new business policy of recycling everything, this is a sequel.
Black Christmas (2019)
A remake of the work that has been cited as the first slasher film. This is less a horror film than a horror film that has been hijacked by a political agenda, delivered with a relentlessly loud and damning misandrist tone
Patrick Still Lives (1980)
Patrick was a modest Australian film about a bedridden coma patient exhibiting physic powers. This is an unofficial Italian-made sequel made way back before anyone coined the term mockbuster. This has no compunctions about aiming for the completely trashy – and all the more entertainingly for it
Larva (2005)
Monster movie about larvae emerging from genetically engineered cattle feed and becoming giant bat-like creatures. When a film casts Rachel Hunter as a corporate lawyer, it is not exactly aiming for believability
Toomorrow (1970)
Film that feels construed to blend 60s rock films post The Beatles and an intergalactic trippiness post 2001: A Space Odyssey where alien try to abduct a rock band. From the producer of the James Bond films and the man who created The Monkees
Rideshare (2018)
Jumping aboard the contemporary fad for companies like Uber, this concerns a psychopathic driver who sarcastically ridicules his customer before proceeding to kill them. Pleasingly dark and twisted and decidedly u-PC at times
Jojo Rabbit (2019)
The story of a young Nazi boy who has Adolf Hitler as an imaginary companion gained awards acclaim but swings between Hogan’s Heroes slapstick and a tender story about overcoming racial prejudice