Charlie Says (2018)
Mary Harron directs a film about Charles Manson and his Family, taking the perspective of the Manson Girls. The best of several films about the Manson Killings. Former Doctor Who Matt Smith makes a hypnotically fascinating Manson
Brightburn (2019)
The rather interesting idea of Superman retold as a horror movie featuring a character that is Superman in all but name who goes over to the dark side instead of becoming a paragon of truth, justice and the American way
The Raven (1915)
Silent movie based on the life of Edgar Allan Poe. Today we’d call it a biopic, although it readily departs into fantasy with Poe having drunken visions of the raven, ghosts and the afterlife
Amelia 2.0 (2017)
The theme of Mind Upload is waiting for the one film to come along and define its theme. This, in which a comatose wife’s body is loaded into an android body, is not that film and only reaches for cliches
Catacombs (1988)
An almost quite good film from Charles and Albert Band’s Empire Productions about imprisoned evil stirring beneath a monastery. The build-up is well done and the film only falters at a weak ending
Leprechaun Returns (2018)
Leprechaun was a hit of the VHS era. This, the eighth of the films, was made to celebrate the series’ 25th anniversary and contains many tributes to the original
The Car: Road to Revenge (2019)
The Car concerning a possessed car is one of the forgotten films of the 1970s. Why it has produced a sequel 42 years later is a scratch of the head. Not that the two films even resemble one another
Shazam! (2019)
Adaptation of the superhero comic is played for comedy, making it very different in emphasis to the other films in the DCEU. The boy into man transformation is played up as essentially Big with superpowers – with appealing results
Pet Sematary (2019)
Remake of the Stephen King novel that opened to very divided reaction. The surprise about the film is bar one central aspect it is surprisingly faithful to the book. On the other hand, the changes make the crucial difference
Frankenstein: Day of the Beast (2011)
What is there that a new version of Frankenstein can offer? This low-budget effort strips everything down to simply a monster movie about the creature pursuing Frankenstein on his wedding night
I Saw What You Did (1988)
TV movie remake of a 1960s psycho-thriller about two girls making prank calls and uttering the title phrase – only to inadvertently call a killer. The premise makes a lot more sense updated to the 80s
Saturday the 14th (1981)
Friday the 13th so changed the horror genre that within two years it produced two four parodies of its title. From Roger Corman, this is more of an occasionally amusing parody of classic monster movies than the slasher film
The Stand (1994)
The Stand is regarded as Stephen King’s best novel, an epic that depicts the final showdown between good and evil in the aftermath of civilisation. The mini-series adaptation was alas placed into the ham fists of one of King’s worst adapters. Mick Garris
Death House (2017)
This comes with the winning idea of being conceived as a horror version of The Expendables bringing back an amazing line-up of horror actors from principally the 80s. Alas, the film itself as an incoherent mess
Dumbo (2019)
Another in the spate of live-action remakes of Disney animated films – one of four to be released in 2019 alone. This comes from Tim Burton who reconceives as Dumbo as another of his oddball outsiders.
The Perfection (2018)
Quite the most insane film I have seen in recent memory. The rivalry between two classical music students reminds of Black Swan albeit wound up to the histrionic level of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, all added to the most pleasingly twisty mess-with-your assumptions script
Night Fright (1967)
An incredibly dreary film about an alien monster menacing a small town. The alien invasion cinema equivalent of watching paint dry. Unseen during its original release, it was then resurrected in the VHS era as an E.T. copy called E.T.n – The Extra-Terrestrial Nasty
Eat Locals (2017)
A vampire film directed by actor Jason Flemyng set around a group of vampires at siege in a farmhouse from a unit of vampire hunters. The vampire film is looking a little tepid post-Twilight era and this does little to turn the genre around
Be Afraid (2017)
When Rodney Ascher’s incredibly uncanny documentary The Nightmare came out, I predicted sleep paralysis would become a new theme for horror. This starts as a sleep paralysis film but veers off to become something else
Anna and the Apocalypse (2017)
This claims to be the first zombie musical. Surprisingly enough, it isn’t. A cute idea but you have the sense the only musical the filmmakers had seen beforehand was High School Musical
The Witch: Part 1 – Subversion (2018)
Don’t be fooled by the witch part of the title, this is actually a South Korean film about psychic powers. This follows the path of a standard psychic powers film about the gifted on the run a la The Fury and Firestarter before an ending that turns the genre on its head
I Am Mother (2019)
A unique and original fallout shelter drama from Australia that sits in an interesting place of ambiguity. What makes the film stand out is its unique robot design
The Silence (2019)
This was dismissed as a copy of a A Quiet Place and had an almost identical plot about survivors sheltering from creatures that attack the smallest sound. In actuality, this was based on a book that predates A Quiet Place
Solis (2018)
In the vein of realistic space films like Gravity and The Martian, this is a lower-budgeted effort about a man in an escape pod on a collision course with the sun and the attempts to rescue him
Headgame (2018)
This feels like one of the numerous copies of Saw with eight people locked in a warehouse with video cameras implanted in their foreheads and told to that only one of them can leave alive
Murder in the Air (1940)
The only Ronald Reagan film that will ever be reviewed on this site. An air adventure story typical to the era where Reagan pays a treasury agent who tries to bust a fifth column of agents trying to steal a raygun
Attack of the Adult Babies (2017)
A heist film that ends up in a mansion filled with grown-men who have diaper fetishes. And then things get really bizarre. Some films are so wild and insane they attain cult status. And then there are the wannabes
Pokemon Detective Pikachu (2019)
Live-action film version of the popular videogame phenomenon, this is capably made but almost entirely content free for anyone with an age in the double digits
The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (2018)
This has been called the unluckiest film ever made – there is even an entire documentary devoted to the collapse of a prior version. Here Terry Gilliam’s film about people on delusional quests finally emerges with the glory he always intended it to be
Good Omens (2019)
TV mini-series based on the Neil Gaiman/Terry Pratchett novel that spoofs The Omen and Biblical End Times prophecies. The series is very close to the book as though it didn’t want to edit any precious gag
Pandorica (2016)
This comes with a premise that holds interest – it many years after the collapse of civlisation where three youth are taken into the woods on a rite of passage only to encounter someone from another tribe fleeing with an object that makes the possessor a god – a handgun
Einstein’s God Model (2016)
A conceptually wild film about the use of a device that can contact the dead that winds in the use of Thomas Edison’s spirit phone, modern physics and multiverse theory in something uniquely different
Comix: Beyond the Comic Book Pages (2016)
Documentary about the comic-book that ends up trying to address everything and being so hopelessly watered down it feels like an attempt to explain everything to someone who has never read a comic-book before
The Haunting of Sharon Tate (2019)
Released for the fiftieth anniversary of the Manson Killings, this details the attacks on Sharon Tate by the Manson Family. The film expands on the claim that Tate had a precognitive dream about what was going to happen
Captive State (2019)
A highly politicised films that takes place several years after an alien invasion and concerns the resistance against them. However, the aliens feature very little and the film resembles more of a ‘hood drama
Captain Marvel (2019)
The MCU offers up their first superheroine with very unexceptional results. A competent enough effort but DC’s Wonder Woman easily blows everything this tries to do out of the water
The Curse of La Llorona (2019)
An extension of The Conjuring universe with a film based on the Mexican legend of the crying woman La Llorona. This killed by the director’s constant straining for effect
The Great Martian War: 1913-1917 (2013)
A very clever mockumentary retelling of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds that ingeniously blends existing WWI war footage with CGI to show soldiers fighting off invading Martian tripods
The White King (2016)
An acclaimed semi-autobiographical novel about a childhood growing up under Soviet rule is filmed translated to a near-future dystopian setting
Parasites (2016)
This reverses the sympathies of films like Deliverance and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Rather than having people tortured by backwoods hicks, one man is forced to survive on a brutal run for his life through the more disreputable parts of L.A. while hunted by homeless.
Tokyo Ghoul (2017)
Live-action adaptation of a manga about a teenager who becomes part of a secret world of flesh-eating ghouls. The set-up comes with some imagination but the film suffers from an uninvolving story and a reliance on unconvincing CGI
Greta (2018)
Director Neil Jordan delves into the psycho-thriller with Chloe Grace Mortez being stalked by over-friendly senior Isabelle Huppert. Jordan makes an often contrived script into a gripping ride
Us (2019)
Jordan Peele’s follow-up to the massive hit of Get Out. This is a doppelganger film where the metaphors that Peele is trying to make are not entirely clear but what you cannot deny is that he demonstrates considerable assurance as a genre director
Batman vs Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2019)
An animated crossover where you cannot help but think that the two styles of either – a grim loner who lives in a dark milieu vs a team of manic teenagers spouting surfer speak – are only going to end up clashing
We’ve Forgotten More Than We Ever Knew (2016)
Cryptic film about a couple wandering a post-apocalyptic terrain who discover an untouched and still working apartment tower. Less a work of SF than one of baffling surrealism
Otto; or, Up With Dead People (2008)
Bruce LaBruce made the world’s first gay pornographic zombie film with L.A. Zombie. This was an earlier trial run, less a porn film and more down around the level of a student art film
Oceans Rising (2017)
Disaster movie from The Asylum set around global warming. Notable for two things – the wackiness of the scientist’s scheme to save the planet by creating black holes, and the cheapness of the production, which does almost everything it can to avoid effects shots
Tilt (2017)
Somewhat reminiscent of The Shining, this a film about a documentary-maker suffering creative block who descent into dark and disturbing mental spaces
The Wandering Earth (2019)
Chinese attempt to make a Roland Emmerich-type mass destruction spectacle about the moving of the Earth. Much effects spectacle but the film suffers from plain absurd science
St Agatha (2018)
Saw series director Darren Lynn Bousman makes a film set at a convent for unwed mothers in the 1950s. Is there any chance this might be a work about institutional cruelty or the plight of unwed mothers in the era? Hardly, all it really is is Bousman inflicting a series of tortures on the girls
Most Beautiful Island (2017)
Ana Asensio, a Spanish immigrant, writes, directs and stars in a story about a cash-strapped Spanish immigrant who is forced to seek employment in a secret society in order to make ends meet (*)
Freaky Friday (2018)
The fourth film version of the Disney comedy about a mother and daughter who swap bodies for one day. This was made for the Disney Channel and comes as a grating teen musical
Iron Sky: The Coming Race (2019)
Timo Vuorensola’s follow-up to Iron Sky. It is hard to believe that a film with a premise that combines Nazis on the Moon with alien lizard people from the hollow core of the Earth could go wrong
Apostle (2018)
Gareth Evans, the director of The Raid films, makes a film about the search for a missing sister among a cult. The film borrows from The Wicker Man, before a climactic dive into full-on gore and sadism
Embers (2015)
An often hauntingly made film set in a world where the populace is affected by periodic amnesia and memory resets. Memento in effect recast as an apocalyptic story
Interstellar Wars (2016)
Directed by low-budget actress Marlene Mc’Cohen, this is both an alien invasion and a zombie apocalypse film. A film where the skill gap and budget falls well short of what is needed to make a film work
Recovery (2016)
A film that starts with the premise of teenage girls looking for a party and then going in search of a missing cellphone doesn’t do much to enthuse me. On the other hand, things pick up when the search leads them to a strange house
Clowntergeist (2017)
There is a heap of crappy low-budget killer clown films. However, I couldn’t quite bring myself to entirely dislike this entry about a supernatural killer clown, which does produce a number of jumps
Temple (2017)
The kaidan eiga or Japanese ghost story has a fine tradition on screen and there are some excellent films. The Western-made Japanese ghost story is a far less successful prospect. This is one effort concerning three tourists who travel to a haunted Japanese temple
Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018)
I had a lot of liking for Disney’s Wreck-It Ralph, a depiction of the inside of a videogame from the viewpoint of the characters. This expands the concept to the internet. Despite being the ultimate product placement film, this also rather appealingly shows Disney poking fun at themselves
Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (2019)
Documentary-maker Joe Berlinger makes an exactingly detailed recreation of the Ted Bundy case, while Zac Efron abandons teen pin-up roles and steps into the title role with unnerving likeness
The Prodigy (2019)
In this space of three films, Nicholas McCarthy has risen to the top of this site’s Up and Coming Directors to watch list. On a script level, this is a standard Evil Child film but is made something worth watching by McCarthy’s directorial jumps
The Ice Cream Truck (2017)
A horror film about a psycho ice cream truck driver prowling a suburban neighbourhood. The film is made appealing by its characterisation of the heroine
Hack House (2017)
Not a film about computer hackers living together as you initially think but a slasher film set in a halfway house for violent offenders. An original setting but the film does nothing terribly interesting
Gorenos (2016)
Low key horror in which a teenager finds his brother has traded his soul to demonic forces. This is modestly effective, where those involved are engaged in a clear effort to make it work
A Horrible Way to Die (2010)
Adam Wingard has been a director on the rise in the last few years, although his films often feel as though they could have been more than they are. This mumblecore serial killer film is his most satisfying and fully achieved work so far
Tomb Invader (2018)
The Asylum’s mockbuster response to the theatrical reboot of Tomb Raider. This is cut-priced and features globe-spanning adventures that never travel outside of California
Zoe (2018)
Films about androids and artificial intelligence have taken off in the 2010s. This comes produced by Ridley Scott who made Blade Runner, the defining classic on the theme; on the other hand, it ends up in the hands of a director who specialises in relationship dramas
What Men Want (2019)
A gender-swapped remake of What Women Want in which Taraji P. Henson gets the ability to read men’s thoughts. Henson displays no talent for comedy and this is a spectacularly unfunny film
Cam (2018)
This comes with the intriguingly original premise where Madeline Brewer is a camgirl performer on an adult site who finds that her life has been hijacked by a doppelganger
Redneck Zombies (1989)
Classic title from Troma Films, quite possibly the first ever gonzo zombie film, this also counts as one of the worst zombie films ever made
Day of Reckoning (2016)
Halfway reasonable effort from the usual creative dead zone of the made-for-Syfy Channel film concerning the apocalyptic emergence of hordes of demonic creatures
Massacre on Aisle 12 (2016)
This calls itself a horror comedy and is set in a hardware store on Christmas Eve as the staff fall to murderous squabbling after the discovery of a dead body and large sum of money
Moth (2016)
A Hungarian-made Found Footage horror film with vague claims to being about the Mothman. This only goes where The Blair Witch Project trod before, although subverts it in a twist ending (8)
Avengers Grimm: Time Wars (2018)
Released at the same time as Avengers: Infinity War, this was a mockbuster from The Asylum involving a team-up between fairytale characters. The third in their Avengers Grimm series
Unfriended: Dark Web (2018)
Unfriended had a unique novelty approach – everything took place in one take where the film screen was a computer screen. You wonder what a sequel can add to this. The surprise is that we get a film even better than the original
High Life (2018)
The title suggests a film about stoners more than about a space mission. From acclaimed director Claire Denis, this is less the space realism of Gravity and more akin to Solaris and its mission crew falling apart
Mowgli (2018)
This Andy Serkis directed version of The Jungle Book with motion capture animated animals had its thunder stolen by the more high-profile Disney remake of 2016 but is a far superior film
Val Lewton: The Man in the Shadows (2007)
Val Lewton produced a body of works beginning with Cat People that are the finest horror films of the 1940s. This is a documentary that looks at Lewton’s life and films in detail, produced and narrated by no less than Martin Scorsese
Joker’s Wild (2016)
Completely ridiculous killer clown film with a theatre haunted by clowns where nothing makes any sense. Even more absurdly, it becomes a preachy diatribe in favour of the right to gun ownership
The Daughter of Dracula (1972)
Prolific exploitation director Jess Franco makes an entry in the early 1970s fad for lesbian vampire films. This has more softcore erotic content than other entries, although the Dracula part of the title is a misnomer
Arbor Demon (2016)
Horror film about a couple camping in the woods who are menaced by something lurking outside their tent. A solid film that develops some passable suspense and eventually enters Folk Horror territory
Escape Room (2019)
The most high-profile of three identically titled films to come out around the same time all based around the popularity of escape rooms. This generates fair tension and has a certain WTF quality as the characters pass through each scenario
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019)
One of the most beautifully made formula animated films of recent vintage but at the end of the day no more than a film that is by the numbers where the artistry is unsupported by the banal script
Watership Down (2018)
BBC tv mini-series remake of the classic Richard Adams novel about talking rabbits on a quest. To get it over with, the animation is not the high-end quality that we have been spoiled with by Pixar et al. On the other hand, what remains is an excellent faithfully told version of the story
Toxic Shark (2017)
Another in plethora of gonzo killer shark films viz Sharknado concerning a mutated shark that spews a plume of toxic waste. Not the bottom of the barrel, an adequately made B movie that takes itself relatively seriously
Bad Kids of Crestview Academy (2017)
Sequel to the sarcastically amusing Bad Kids Go to Hell, which is set at the same school a few years later as someone starts eliminating people in detention
Stasis (2017)
A low-budget film that mixes the rebels from the future premise of The Terminator with the story of a disembodied soul trying to get back to their own body. Too low-budget to make the idea work.
Tanya’s Island (1980)
Very difficult to find, this is film that has existed in legend – an erotic film with Vanity as a model on a desert island who becomes involved with an ape. Beautifully filmed and Vanity (who spends much of the show nude) is jaw-dropping
The Night Eats the World (2018)
The zombie genre has become creatively overused and exhausted in recent years but this French entry plays with an appealing originality, sort of like a low-key version of Dawn of the Dead where a man builds a Parisian apartment building into his own paradise
Goosebumps 2 (2018)
The second film spun off from R.L. Stine’s popular horror stories promotes the wonderfully evil ventriloquist’s dummy Slappy to principal nemesis. The rest of the film is predictable but Slappy deserves his own series
Glass (2019)
Unbreakable was M. Night Shyamalan’s everyday superhero film. Here he merges the characters from Unbreakable and Split to create his own shared universe. This could in effect be the kitchen sink version of The Avengers
Welcome to Marwen (2018)
Robert Zemeckis of Back to the Future and Forrest Gump fame makes a film of the true-life story of Mark Hogancamp who recovered from a brutal assault by building a fantasy village of dolls. The results are bizarre where Zemeckis seems more interested in making a Sucker Punch-like fantasy where the dolls come to life
Lucid Dream (2017)
The South Korean version of Inception with a man using a device that allows him to enter his and others memories in search of overlooked clues to the abductor of his son
Charlie Charlie (2016)
Charlie Charlie was supposedly an oracular game that made headlines when a satiric site claimed that teenagers were being killed playing it and some news sites took this seriously. This is a pathetic and feeble film made exploiting the game’s five minutes of notoriety
Tarzan’s Savage Fury (1952)
Fourth of the Lex Barker Tarzan films. Barker is less stiff in the role but this is otherwise as formulaic as they come. The distinction this has is that it is one of the few films that mention Tarzan’s origins and that it features a Communist villain
Hammer Horror: The Warner Bros Years (2018)
Documentary about UK’s Hammer Films that focuses on the handful of films that were produced in collaboration with Warner Brothers. Each is discussed in thoughtful detail
Reign of the Supermen (2019)
Second half of the two-part animated adaptation of The Death of Superman, which depicts the aftermath where Metropolis is puzzled over the appearance of four impostors all claiming to be the real Superman
Godzilla: The Planet Eater (2018)
The concluding chapter in the trilogy of Godzilla anime films. This reintroduces two familiar monsters but takes a long time to build to the monster bash we have come to see
BumbleBee (2018)
Spinoff from the Transformers films. As though all it took was a change of director, this is a small sweet film that has more in common with E.T. as opposed to Michael Bay’s mass destruction spectaculars