The Wrath of Becky (2023)
Becky was a modest effort with Lulu Wilson as a thirteen year-old violently fighting off home invaders. This is a sequel with her up against white supremacists
The Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Mummy (1964)
This is surely one of the great exploitation titles of all time. Another Mexican wrestling superhero film where a duo of woman wrestlers take on the Aztec Mummy from another Mexican horror series
The Wretched (2019)
The biggest box-office hit six weeks in a row in 2020, albeit during Corona lockdown. This gets some extremely creepy effects in that managed to work on a jaded viewer
The Wyvern Mystery (2000)
BBC tv adaptation of Gothic potboiler by J. Sheridan Le Fanu with newlywed wife Naomi Watts facing an evil squire and mad women in a big gloomy house
W (1974)
Okay stalker psycho-thriller designed as a vehicle for the British model Twiggy that after a slow start eventually develops some sharp twists and surprises
W The Movie (2008)
Not to be confused with the Oliver Stone film, this is a surrealist satire on the George W. Bush presidency
Wait, Wait, Don’t Kill Me (2020)
Film about a virus that causes people to become dehydrated and turn into zombies
Wake Wood (2011)
Another entry from the revived Hammer Films, an intelligent and effective variant on Pet Semetary that manages to delve into some dark and chilling places
Waking Life (2001)
A unique and very original animated film from Richard Linklater where a character wanders through a dream, encountering various people and their different philosophical outlooks
Walking With Dinosaurs (2013)
Walking With Dinosaurs was an amazing documentary series that recreated prehistoric life with CGI animation. By contrast. the film spinoff is a cutsie animated film with talking dinosaurs. It is a film that is killed by the decision to let the dinosaurs talk with smartass one-liners and contemporary in-jokes
Wall-E (2008)
A near-dialogueless story of a lonely robot clearing up junk in the aftermath of civilisation. This is surely Pixar’s most endearing film to date where they are operating at the peak of their creativity
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (2024)
Aardman Animation give Wallace and Gromit their second film outing
Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)
Aardman Animation spread the seemingly universal appeal of their Wallace and Gromit short films out onto the big screen with deliriously nonsensical results
Wandering Rose (2014)
Neither of this film’s titles do it justice – Wandering Rose seems either about a girl who hitchhikes or is very promiscuous, while Demon Baby pushes it over into a devil pregnancy film. What we instead have is a film set in the Scottish Highlands that creates a great sense of dis-ease, even if it never fully delivers on it
Wanted (2008)
The film that Hitman should have been concerning a secret world of super-powered assassins, revved up by out of this world visuals from Timur Bekmambetov
War Between the Planets (1966)
One of the various Italian space operas of the 1960s from director Antonio Margheriti. This has a certain colourful ambition despite frequently being let down by cheap effects
War Machine (2026)
The military action film is a genre that does nothing for me. But this does have a furious, survival-oriented pace as it pits Alan Ritchson and a detachment of soldiery up against an alien killer robot
War of the Colossal Beast (1958)
Bert I. Gordon makes a sequel to The Amazing Colossal Man. The film cheats where a good chunk of running time is padded with footage from the original
War of the Dead (2011)
The Nazi zombie film has enjoyed a revival in recent years, this is one entry in the genre from Finland made with a reasonable grit and realism
War of the Gargantuas (1966)
From Ishiro Honda, the creator of Godzilla, this bizarrely features two giant Frankenstein monsters battling it out. A fairly typical Japanese monster movie of its era featuring cheesily ridiculous rubber monsters, copious mass destruction and a largely irrelevant human element
War of the Planet of the Apes (2017)
The third film in the rebooted Planet of the Apes series. The motion capture effects are at an absolute peak of the art and the motion capture performances astonishing. The whole film almost seems to consist of heart-tugging moments to make you go “aww”
War of the Satellites (1958)
An early film from legendary B movie producer/director Roger Corman. This is an alien invasion film but has been twisted out of shape to exploit the fascination with satellites after the launch of Sputnik several months before the film came out
War of the Worlds (2005)
Where the legend of The Asylum and their low-budget mockbusters began, this was a cheap modernised version of the H.G. Wells novel that was released a day before the Spielberg film. Despite cheap effects, this adheres closer to Wells than Spielberg did and is better written than most Asylum product
War of the Worlds (2005)
Steven Spielberg remakes the classic H.G. Wells alien invasion story, liberally rewriting it for the post-9/11 world. Not Spielberg’s best film but a more than solid work on most grounds
War of the Worlds (2025)
An adaptation of H.G. Wells’ classic alien invasion novel modernised into the era of mass data surveillance and social media. Shot in the Screenlife process where the film screen becomes a computer screen
War of the Worlds 2: The Next Wave (2008)
Sequel to The Asylum mockbuster version. Sequelising H.G. Wells is a daunting prospect and not too surprisingly this throws much of Wells out and creates its own film, which is undercut by a typical Asylum low budget
War of the Worlds: Goliath (2012)
Sequel to the H.G. Wells novel that imagines a fascinating alternate history that might have occurred following the Martian invasion. The clear appeal has been creating a series of scenes showing humanity tackling invading tripods in giant Steampunk manned robots
War of the Worlds: The Attack (2023)
The idea of H.G. Wells’ classic alien invasion novel rewritten with a Young Adult focus makes you cringe but the idea works in its own way
Warcraft (2016)
Adapted from the videogame, this is a third hand rehash of the basics of Tolkien. Secondly, it looks like a giant CGI cartoon where almost anything interesting about the world has been sidelined in favour of fantasy action
WarGames (1983)
This was the first film to ever depict the internet with Matthew Broderick as a teen innocent hacker who accidentally hacks in and triggers a nuclear alert thinking he is playing a computer game
WarGames: The Dead Code (2006)
WarGames was a thriller that was way ahead of its time; this sequel is no more than video fodder exploiting recognition factor that reduces the original to hacker movie cliches in a technically ill-informed and incoherent plot
Warhead (1996)
Routine action film about the attempts to stop a rogue general who has hijacked a nuclear missile silo
Warhunt (2022)
A supernatural variant on Overlord where G.I.’s during WWII enter the Black Forest and encounter something supernatural
Warlock (1989)
Richard E. Grant is a witchfinder who pursues warlock Julian Sands through a time vortex into the present day. David Twohy’s script takes all the Old Wives’ tale aspects of Middle Ages superstition seriously to immensely entertaining regard
Warlock: The Armageddon (1993)
Julian Sands returns in a sequel to Warlock where the frequently unserious effects of director Anthony Hickox turn it into a silly comic-book of a film
Warlock: The End of Innocence (1999)
Third and final of the Warlock films where Julian Sands is replaced by Bruce Payne
Warlord 3000 (1993)
Shabbily made copy of Mad Max 2 that plays out with minimal action
Warlords (1988)
B-budget director offers up a copy of Mad Max 2 and peppers it with plentiful tongue-in-cheek exploitation elements stirred with undeniable vigour
Warlords of Atlantis (1978)
Not one of the Doug McClure Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptations but by the same people and in the same vein. Thanks to a particularly inventive script this is the best of these lost world adventures
Warm Bodies (2013)
The idea of a Twilight copy where the lead male is a zombie seems an utterly lame idea before one sat down to watch this. That said, the film manages to make its peculiarly incongruous mix of teen romantic film, zombie film and comedy work for it
Warning (2021)
An anthology film that has been intended in the same vein as tv’s Black Mirror, offering a series of dark reflections of technological changes
Warning from Space (1956)
The first Japanese entry in the great alien invader fad of the 1950s. Nothing great but it does boast the awesomeness of starfish-shaped aliens
Warnings (2003)
A blatant copy of M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs even down to the near-identical title and a similar plot about crop circles appearing on a farm presaging an alien invasion
Warriors of Future (2022)
One of the most intensive and exciting action films of recent with humanity engaged in a furious battle with plants and killer robots
Warriors of Virtue (1997)
Fantasy film set in a magical otherworld defended by martial arts wielding kangaroos
Wasting Away (2007)
Horror comedy told from the perspective of four friends who are unaware they have been transformed into zombies. The contrast of their reactions with everybody else as they flee in terror is mildly amusing for awhile but this is essentially a one-gag film
Watcher (2022)
Nicely chilling film in which Maika Monroe believes that the person in the apartment opposite might be stalking her
Watchers (1988)
Dean R. Koontz adaptation in which Corey Haim adopts an unusually intelligent dog unaware it is part of a genetically engineered killing machine. Produced by Roger Corman who spun out a series of sequels.
Watchers II (1990)
The first of three sequels to the Dean R. Koontz adaptation about an intelligent dog, although for each sequel producer Roger Corman has just remade the book
Watchmen (2009)
Zack Snyder’s adaptation of Alan Moore’s groundbreaking graphic novel is exceedingly faithful to the original. Often called unfilmable, Snyder articulates the material in ways that quite surprise
Watchmen: Chapter I (2024)
The first of a two-part animated adaptation of Alan Moore’s classic, genre defining comic-book. This is the most faithful treatment to date, right down to replicating the comic panels
Watchmen: Chapter II (2024)
The second part of DC Universe Animated Original Movies’ adaptation of Alan Moore’s classic graphic novel, the most faithful screen adaptation yet
Watchtower (2001)
Modest psycho-thriller about the psychological games between a psychopathic lighthouse keeper (a fine Tom Berenger) and his young assistant
Watermelon Man (1970)
From Melvin Van Peebles who made the first Blaxploitation film, a satire in which a white man wakes up to find he has turned black. This takes a savage bite out of race relations but ends up without teeth in being distracted by Godfrey Cambridge’s raucous loudmouth performance
Watership Down (1978)
Neglected today, this adaptation of Richard Adams’ classic novel about a quest among rabbits was one of the finest animated films of its era. This is frequently heartbreaking and touches on darker emotions that Disney and most other family films regularly sanitise.
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
Waterworld (1995)
The most expensive film ever made at the time, a Kevin Costner epic in which he is a lone mariner in a drowned world where survivors cling to shantytowns floating on the surface. Essentially a Mad Max film located on water.
Wavelength (1983)
Modestly made alien contact film that came out not long after Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Waxwork II: Lost in Time (1992)
Sequel to Anthony Hickox’s Waxwork, which ups the number of horror homages but suffers a low budget
Waxworks (1924)
A classic of the silent German Expressionist era, telling three tales throughout history – about the Caliph of Baghdad, Ivan the Terrible and Jack the Ripper – all set around the locale of a wax museum
Way … Way Out (1966)
Comedy in which Jerry Lewis and Connie Stevens are forced to marry to go to The Moon. The sexual politics play out pretty embarrassingly today
We Are Still Here (2015)
Solidly atmospheric effort concerning a middle-aged couple who buy a house with sinister forces lurking in the basement. This builds to an admirably gore-drenched climax
We Are the Flesh (2016)
There are few films that you can accuse of crossing over taboo lines and keeping going without compromise. This Mexican film has been construed as a catalogue of depravities; on the other hand, the lack of even a nominal plot soon causes this to lapse into repetitive tedium
We Are the Night (2010)
Slick and visually exciting German vampire film that recaptures something of the chic sumptuousness of The Hunger. Perhaps The Hunger by way of Sex and the City set in a world of conspicuous fashion consumption where vampirism represents women’s ultimate empowerment
We Are What We Are (2010)
Grimly fascinating Mexican film about the activities of a family of cannibals. The film keeps you intrigued because it only drops suggestions about what is happening, leaving it up to us to piece solutions together, although the eventual lack of answers is frustrating
We Are What We Are (2013)
English-language remake of the Mexican film, this version made by Jim Mickle who made the fine Stake Land. This version is far less cryptic about what is happening but is more muted and takes far longer to ever arrive at being a horror film, although delivers an effectively brutal ending
We Are Zombies (2023)
A zombie comedy from the Quebecois trio who were responsible for Turbo Kid, this takes place in a world where zombies are less a horde than an annoyance who have been relegated to the fringes of society
We Bury the Dead (2024)
The zombie film underwent a major revival in the 2000s but by the mid-2020s a horde of low-budget copycats has exhausted most creative possibilities. This shows there is still some originality to be found
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
We Have a Ghost (2023)
Christopher Landon, director of Happy Death Day and Freaky, makes a comedy about a family who turn the ghost in their house into a viral sensation
We Hunt Together (2020)
BBC mini-series about two lovers on a killing spree that works through some great performance and engaging character arcs
We Need to Do Something (2021)
A horror film made as an allegory for Covid with a family trapped inside a bathroom without supplies as a mysterious catastrophe happens outside their door
We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)
Almost an arthouse variation of the evil psycho child thriller but one stripped of thriller tropes and told in terms of an alternately striking and hauntingly elliptical tableaux of impressionistic images
We Summon the Darkness (2019)
A film that feels as though it is written by someone who is a fan of 80s heavy metal bands and was there during the day. This throws Satanic ritual sacrifice into the equation and rather enjoyably turns everything we think is going on on its head
We’re All Gonna Die (2024)
A giant alien tentacle has appeared in the sky and randomly teleports to different locations. This concerns two oddball characters caught in one of these shifts and the quirky road journey they embark upon
We’re Back! A Dinosaur’s Story (1993)
Juvenile animated film from Amblin Entertainment concerning dinosaurs whose intelligence is raised to human level and they are let loose in the present-day
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
Weapons (2025)
Captivating and original film from Zach Cregger about a town that is affected by the mysterious disappearance of a class of children. One film where you definitely can’t predict where things are going
Weathering With You (2019)
From Makoto Shinkai who made Your Name., a lovely anime about a girl who can control the weather. An odd premise about orphans that soon develops unusual and unexpected depths
Wedlock (1991)
SF action where Rutger Hauer is sentenced with a collar that will explode if he moves 100 yards apart from Mimi Rogers
Weekend (1967)
Jean-Luc Godard’s classic of the French New Wave where a couple’s journey into the countryside for the weekend becomes increasingly more surreal and anarchic
Weekend at Bernie’s II (1993)
The first Weekend at Bernie’s had the lame concept of two jerks forced to pretend that their boss’s body was still alive. For the sequel, the body is resurrected by voodoo
Weird Science (1985)
John Hughes cornered a certain 80s market on teen angst with films like The Breakfast Club. He also made this head-scratching oddity in which two nerds create the perfect woman
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
Welcome to Blood City (1977)
Clearly influenced by the original Westworld, this is an interesting film about people waking up inside a computer-simulated Western town. Without realising it, this was the very first film to depict Virtual Reality
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
Welp (2014)
Belgian Backwoods Brutality effort concerning a boy scout troupe who run afoul of a mysterious feral child and hunter in the woods near their campsite. Defying many of the expectation of the genre, this provides a series of often unearthly images
Wendigo (2001)
Early film from Larry Fessenden about a family and a Native American spirit. Much brooding build-up but not much payoff (*)
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
Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior (2006)
Disney Channel film where a modern teenager finds she is the reincarnation of a martial arts warrior
Wer (2013)
From the director of The Devil Inside comes a werewolf film that wants to convince us it might not be a werewolf and a Found Footage film that is only pretending to be a Found Footage film. The result is a crappily photographed film that takes a long time to ever unleash its werewolf
Weredeer (2022)
Exactly as the title suggests, a film in which a girl is transformed into a weredeer after a bite from a deer. Surprisingly enough, the film plays itself seriously
Werewolf in a Girls’ Dormitory (1961)
Despite one of the great exploitation titles of all time, this collapses into a dreary dullness the moment one actually sits down to watch it
Werewolf in a Womens Prison (2006)
This is exactly what it sounds like – a blend of werewolf film and the women in prison exploitation genre with expectedly lurid and entertaining focus. A film that makes no pretence it is being serious, which actually becomes its redeeming quality
WereWolf of London (1935)
Hollywood’s first werewolf film. Largely overlooked and overshadowed by The Wolf Man with Lon Chaney Jr, it takes an approach to the subject that is not uninteresting
Werewolf Woman (1976)
A classic from 70s Euro trash cinema. The title is misleading as this is not about a female werewolf but more akin to Cat People about a disturbed woman who thinks she has turned into a werewolf at the thought of sex
Werewolves (2024)
A werewolf film with an original idea and a furious action movie sensibility
Werewolves of the Third Reich (2017)
I was hooked into watching the film from the sensationalism from the title but this is a disappointment due to the attempts to provide World War II setting and werewolf transformation effects on a low budget
Werewolves on Wheels (1971)
The werewolf underwent some bizarre title mashups in the 1970s. This has the amusing idea of mashing the werewolf film up with the biker film. The results are played surprisingly seriously.
Werewolves Within (2021)
A werewolf film that is quite unlike anything you expect when you hear the term videogame adaptation