Red One (2024)
Essentially Christmas the Action Film featuring Dwayne Johnson as Santa’s bodyguard going into action accompanied by Chris Evans as a nerdy hacker when Santa is abducted
Red Planet (2000)
One of a spate of scientifically grounded Mars movies that came out in 2000, featuring a space mission crew stranded on the planet
Red Planet Mars (1952)
One of the most bizarre of 1950s Communist Fear films in which humanity begins to receive radio message from God on Mars. The film’s politics are hysterical today.
Red Riding (2009)
Depending on how you saw this, this is either a UK tv mini-series or three separately released films. Taking place over a decade, the three stories have a common locale and overlapping characters in the story of the hunt for a serial killer and the battle against a corrupt police department in Yorkshire
Red Riding Hood (1987)
One of the cheap fairytale adaptations that Cannon Films made during the 1980s
Red Riding Hood (2011)
Catherine Hardwcke’s adapts the fairytale as a dark adult fantasy where there has been the clear intention to pitch it to Twilight audiences but the results are surprisingly good
Red Room: The Forbidden King Game (1999)
Extremely twisted Japanese film that plays out like a conceptual mix of Saw and Fear Factor (even though it predates either) wherein contestants are locked in a room and get to challenge each other to engage in more and more extreme acts against the other
Red Sands (2009)
Essentially a variation on The Keep updated to the contemporary US occupation of Afghanistan. A film that one watches with no high expectation but proves to be a slow burner that eventually develops an eerie atmosphere
Red Shift (1978)
TV adaptation of the acclaimed novel by Alan Garner of the mysterious connections between three stories that take place in different historic eras
Red Snow (2021)
This has the amusing idea of being a Martin for the Twilight era where a writer of vampire romances not at all modelled on Stephenie Meyer encounters a real vampire
Red Sonja (1985)
A disappointing adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s warrior woman character. This is beautifully designed but suffers from a non-acting Brigitte Nielsen in the title role and an insulting need to water the toughness of the character down
Red Sonja (2025)
Following the disastrous Brigitte Nielsen film, a new version of Robert E. Howard’s Amazonian warrior woman has been promised since the late 2000s. It finally emerges here from the same people behind the revivals of Hellboy and the Jason Momoa starring Conan
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
Red State (2011)
Kevin Smith discovers a newfound maturity in this work about a religious cult. Smith subdues his adolescent humour in a series of darkly laced dramatic twists, while the show is capped by some great performances
Red Team (2000)
Serial killer thriller about an FBI team who realise they are hunting a killer who targets other serial killers
Red Water (2003)
B killer shark films where environmentalists, oil rig workers and drug dealers converge on a Louisiana river where a shark lurks
Red, White & Blue (2010)
A disturbingly effective film that starts as a character study of people on the edge before eventually segueing into a savage revenge drama. The film astonishes you with its bared rawness, its uniquely condensed narrative and eventually the harrowing brutality of its ending
Red: Werewolf Hunter (2010)
Syfy Channel film that seems to offer the intriguing premise of a Modernised Little Red Riding Hood but only deals with this in the vaguest ways. Otherwise this is a standard werewolf film and contains maybe the crappiest CGI wolf transformation scenes ever
Redcon-1 (2018)
An action film about soldiers on an expedition into a zombie-filled quarantine zone. This comes with a furious pace that feels more as though you are watching a videogame than a film
Redline (1997)
Standard action film made interesting by the choice of its setting in a post-Soviet Russia Cyberpunk future
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
Redux Redux (2025)
A strong and intelligent multiverse film filled with some great twists where a woman travels across multiple worlds to track down and kill different versions of the man who murdered her daughter
Reeker (2005)
An initially low-assumption film that rapidly becomes highly watchable thanks to some way out jumps and creature appearances that propel it into real WTF territory. Where it falters is its arrival a well and truly cliched twist ending but the ride there is undeniably memorable
Reflection in a Dead Diamond (2025)
An extraordinarily stylised homage to the 1960s spy movie, which strips everything down to a series of provocative, stylised high-end fashion poses. The visuals in the film are quite extraordinary
Reflections of Murder (1974)
This tv movie was the first English-language remake of the classic French thriller Les Diaboliques. It follows the original closely and still works effectively, although being shot in colour rather than black-and-white lacks the stark tension. Sam Waterston gives a performance of amazing cruelty as the husband
Reign in Darkness (2002)
Australian vampire action that feels like a single pose that has been inspired by too many watchings of The Matrix
Reign of Assassins (2010)
Chinese-made Wu Xia film – sort of a flying swordsman variant on A History of Violence. This comes on an impressive scale but also plays down the action element and leaves all the flying swordsman moves sitting on the fence as being possibly mundane
Reign of Chaos (2021)
Low-budget film that takes an ambitious conceptual grasp in its story of deities and daughters of goddesses warring in the ruins of civilisation
Reign of Fire (2002)
This has the interestingly original premise of being set in a post-apocalyptic world where revived dragons have eliminated most of humanity. The show is stolen by Matthew McConaughey in wild man mode
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
Reincarnation (2005)
Takashi Shimizu, creator of the Ju-on/The Grudge series, makes a film about an actress who becomes haunted after taking a role based on a true-life murder
Relative Fear (1994)
Routine variant on the psycho child theme, which heads into rather dubious territory when it leads us to think a series of killings are being conducted by an autistic child
Relaxer (2018)
Mind-bogglingly surreal, almost indescribable film from Joel Potrykus as a slacker attempts to complete a videogame sitting on a couch as assorted things including the Y2K apocalypse happen around him
Relentless (1989)
A popular thriller in its day about a cop tracking a serial killer (played by Brat Packer Judd Nelson). This prefigures The Silence of the Lambs in some interesting ways. Several sequels followed
Relic (2020)
A beautiful slow burn of a film that avoids almost any labels one tries to apply. It could be a film about dementia, it starts out seeming like a work about a haunted house but refuses to adhere to any of the tropes and instead heads for a remarkable and unique place of its own
Rememory (2017)
Film about a device that can record and play back memory. This comes with a reasonable cast but the great disappointment is the idea is never used for anything more than a mundane murder mystery
Reminiscence (2021)
Lisa Joy, co-creator of tv’s Westworld, directs a work of future noir in an ingenious plot involving a memory recording device and Hugh Jackman obsessed with a missing woman
Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (1985)
Film adaptation of the popular Destroyer novels about a martial arts super-spy that proves enjoyably tongue-in-cheek. Clearly launched as an attempt to make another James Bond type series, this was not successful but is so appealing you wish had it been
Remote Control (1988)
A film that comes with a lame premise about aliens distributing a video of a 1950s SF film that turns people into mind-controlled killers all as prelude to an invasion
Renaissance (2006)
Dazzling French animated Cyberpunk film shot in the performance capture animated process and then rendered in striking two-tone black-and-white
Renfield (2023)
Twilight fairly much killed the vampire film. This is the first of two big-budget offerings of 2023 that aims to turn that around
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
Repeat Performance (1947)
Unusual fantasy film where a woman is allowed to replay the last year again and tries to prevent it ending in her shooting her husband
Repeaters (2010)
Groundhog Day with drug addicts – a familiar timeloop scenario that makes for a reasonable story about redemption and reconciliation
Repentance (2014)
A film with identity disorder – the title and promotion makes it seem a revenge-action film only for it to conduct a number of strange doglegs and eventually arrive at a plot wherein life coach Anthony Mackie is tied up in the cellar by Forest Whitaker who feeds his inspirational lines back at him
Replace (2017)
Undeniably creepy film co-written by Richard Stanley about a woman with a skin condition who finds she can only return to normal by stealing the skin from others
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
Replicant (2001)
Halfway reasonable Jean-Claude Van Damme film in which he plays the clone of a serial killer who is brought to life in attempt to track down the original
Replicas (2018)
Whatever you want to say about his acting ability, Keanu Reeves represents a cool and has smarts in the projects he takes on. So when he takes a producing role as here, you feel it is a project you should pay attention to. Instead, the cloning film that he makes is absolutely laughable and should contend for an award for the SF film with the least plausible science in it
Repligator (1996)
A film about a teleportation experiment that has the unforeseen effect of turning men into woman and then into human-alligator hybrids. We are in extremely bad movie stakes here
Repo Chick (2009)
Alex Cox sequelizes his off-the-wall cult hit Repo Man but only turns it into an amateurish, meandering effort that is only trying to be wacky and cultish
Repo Man (1984)
Alex Coz’s surreal cult film with Emilio Estevez as an L.A. punk working as a repo driver who gets wound into the hunt for a car with radioactive aliens in the trunk
Repo Men (2010)
SF film set in a future where agents are sent to repossess artificial organs when the owner’s fall behind on payments. Sort of Sicko by way of Logan’s Run but lacking the necessary sense of black humour to work
Repo: The Genetic Opera (2008)
Saw series director Darren Lynn Bousman conducts a futuristic Gothic rock opera. A film of constant posturings where Bousman demonstrates remarkably little affinity for either music or sf … a musical that feels made by people who are tone deaf
Repossessed (1990)
This wants to conduct an Airplane styled parody of The Exorcist to which extent it conducts the coup of casting a grown-up Linda Blair
Reptilicus (1961)
Incredibly shabbily made Danish copy of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms about a dinosaur revived in Copenhagen
Repulsion (1965)
A work of considerable brilliance from a young Roman Polanski with Catherine Deneuve as a woman slipping into madness in an apartment over the course of a weekend. What makes the film particularly disturbing is Polanski’s lack of a blurring line between reality and hallucination
Requiem (2006)
This should be mandatory viewing after watching The Exorcism of Emily Rose. While that film rewrote the tragedy of Anneliese Michel as a film about possession, this German-made production sets things straight and tells a story about a girl with mental health issues
Requiem (2018)
This BBC tv mini-series starts out seeming a mystery about the disappearance of a child as the investigating heroine makes the jolt realisation that she is the missing child, before the show edges over into occult conspiracy. Very nicely written and beautifully directed with a line-up of standout performances
Requiem for a Vampire (1972)
The fourth of the works of arty vampire erotica from cult director Jean Rollin. Rollin has discovered more in the way of plot by this point, while the film has a beautifully dreamy fairytale-like quality
Resident Evil (2002)
Based on the survival horror videogame, this was the first in a surprisingly popular series of films. It also presaged a major return of the zombie film during the 2000s/10s, even if this only treads where George Romero went better before
Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010)
Four films in and clear evidence that the Resident Evil series needs to be retired. This consists of tediously borrowed action moves now presented in 3D and a plot of random dead ends that make little sense
Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004)
The first of the Resident Evil sequels and a better film than its predecessor, getting in a series of spectacular, if at times ridiculously silly, action sequences
Resident Evil: Damnation (2012)
The second of the Resident Evil anime films. This is set before the release of the T-Virus and focuses on origin stories for some of the characters
Resident Evil: Degeneration (2008)
The first in a series of anime films that were produced by Capcom, the creators of the Resident Evil videogames, and intended to run parallel to the live-action films. I was never a big fan of the live-action films. The question is – does Resident Evil work better in the anime format?
Resident Evil: Extinction (2007)
Third of the Resident Evil films. This expands the scale of action to show the entire world destroyed by the virus but for all that and a decent budget, director Russell Mulcahy fails to push the elements to a suitable head of steam
Resident Evil: Retribution (2012)
Another unnecessary entry in a creativity-handicapped series, the continuing popularity of which is baffles. This shuffles through the familiar moves, brings back several familiar characters but only leaves me asking why I have invested some nine hours of time following this series
Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016)
The Resident Evil films are designed for people who were introduced to drama via the Xbox, action sequences that can be assembled in random order and where it doesn’t matter what happens. I watched this, the sixth and final entry, with next-to-no enthusiasm but then quite unexpectedly it starts to work
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
Resolution (2012)
Starting out as a gritty intervention drama, for some time this is not even a horror film. In the background are suggestions of increasingly more disturbed happenings until the film becomes something eerily cryptic – sort of The Evil Dead by way of The Picnic at Hanging Rock
Rest in Peace (1982)
Forgotten 1980s horror where Meg Tilly accepts a dare to spend a night in a mausoleum as a powerful psychic returns to life
Restart the Earth (2021)
A Chinese attempt to make a Michael Bay mass destruction spectacular depicting an Earth that has been overrun by massive plant growth
Restless (2011)
The oddity of an emo romance from indie director Gus Van Sant about an alienated teenager with a ghost companion who falls for a girl dying of cancer. Needless to say, the film’s mopey romance between oddball outsiders and Van Sant’s aimless improvisational style never quite gel
Restoration (2016)
A film directed by actor Zack Ward – his best known role was probably as Postal Dude in Uwe Boll’s Postal. Not a terribly interesting film – it starts as a ghost story before this proves to be a red herring and then meanders around without much direction
Resurrected (2023)
This has a fascinating premise where the Catholic Church develops a resurrection process, before one priest starts to see a darker conspiracy beneath. Shot in the Screenlife process where the film screen becomes a computer screen
Resurrection (1980)
Slow sincere film in which Ellen Burstyn becomes a faith healer following a car crash
Resurrection (1999)
Quite reasonable serial killer thriller, undeniably influenced by Se7en, with Christopher Lambert tracking a killer who believes he can resurrect Christ
Resurrection (2022)
Rebecca Hall gives an extraordinary performance of disturbed psychology as a woman dealing with a man from her past who may have eaten her child
Resurrection Man (1998)
Strong and effective film set against the backdrop of The Troubles in Northern Ireland in the 1970s depicting a gang of psychopaths that killed and tortured people on the streets
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
Retribution (2006)
Kiyoshi Kurosawa attempts to give the J-horrors of Ring and The Grudge a run for their money and creates an intensely haunted film. As with much of Kurosawa’s films, this also comes with a deeply unfathomable plot
Retro Puppetmaster (1999)
This was the seventh of Full Moon’s most popular series, the Puppet Master films. This goes back to tell how young Andre Toulon (Greg Sestero) originally created the puppets
Retroactive (1997)
Modest and halfway reasonable variant on Groundhog Day with a group of people caught in the same loop of time where everything manages to go wrong each time
Return from Witch Mountain (1978)
Sequel to Disney’s Escape to Witch Mountain with the psi-powered alien kids up against a villainous Christopher Lee and Bette Davis
Return of Giant Majin (1966)
A Japanese monster movie with a difference. The second in a trilogy of films about a giant stone deity that awakens to defend villagers in trouble
Return of the Fly (1959)
The first of the sequels to the original The Fly where the scientist’s son begins his own experiments
Return of the Killer Tomatoes! (1988)
The first of the sequels to Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. Featuring the first screen appearance of George Clooney.
Return of the Living Dead (1985)
Spinoff of Night of the Living Dead that emerged from a copyright split with George Romero. Director Dan O’Bannon substitutes black humour to deliver an hilariously different take
Return of the Living Dead III (1993)
Brian Yuzna’s entry is the only worthwhile effort among the sequels to Dan O’Bannon’s Return of the Living Deadwhere Yuzna adds an original plot about a zombie girlfriend and the film is spiked with perverse imagery
Return of the Living Dead Part II (1988)
Dan O’Bannon’s Return of the Living Dead came with a cheerfully black cynicism that was a wonderfully fresh alternative to George Romero amid the 1980s zombie fad – this sequel has a painfully unfunny lameness that could not sit at more removed extreme to that
Return of the Living Dead: Necropolis (2005)
Shabbily made hanger-on to the 00s zombie fad that would have gained zero attention without its pedigree name. This completely misses the black humour of the original
Return to House on Haunted Hill (2007)
Cheaply made sequel to the remake of House on Haunted Hill that turns it into a teen film dominated by gore set-pieces
Return to Never Land (2002)
Among the cheap video-released sequels to their classics Disney made during the 00s, this Peter Pan sequel emerges as halfway reasonable
Return to Oz (1985)
Almost forgotten Disney-made sequel to The Wizard of Oz, this takes a far darker outlook than the version you knew
Return to Pontianak (2001)
Singaporean film about tourists experienced haunted spirits in the jungle, this owes much to The Blair Witch Project
Return to Silent Hill (2026)
Silent Hill was one of the best videogame film adaptations and created a genuinely uncanny atmosphere. That film’s director returns to the franchise here with more of the same but misses the mark
Returner (2002)
Japanese SF film that makes a rather enjoyable magpie collage out of a Terminator time travel action plot married to John Woo and Matrix action stylistics
Revealer (2022)
This sells you with its concept – a stripper and a religious fundamentalist are trapped together in a peepshow as the apocalypse occurs – and works surprisingly well
Revelation (1999)
The second in a series of Biblical End Times films from Canada’s faith-based Cloud Ten Pictures, this offers the peculiarity of the Anti-Christ appearing in Virtual Reality
Revelation Road: The Beginning of the End (2013)
One of a number of faith-produced films we have had since the late 90s that concern themselves with the arrival of The Rapture – this one even spawned a trilogy. This is passable if you can palate the relatively light sermonising and at least better written that the Left Behind films