The Monkey King 2 (2016)
Sequel to the earlier The Monkey King, which was fun but this is altogether a better film. While the first film was more prelude to Journey to the West, this sets out on the journey and tells one of its stories. Directed with an immensely assured command of the live-action and CGi elements
The Strange Possession of Mrs. Oliver (1977)
An The Exorcist copy made as a tv movie – where The Exorcist shocked audiences with barf bag theatrics and obscenities, this merely has Karen Black shucking her staid fashion sense and buying a sexy red dress. Rather peculiarly, this becomes a possession story as women’s self-actualisation drama
Outpost: Black Sun (2012)
Outpost was a solid and reasonably effective rehashing of the Nazi zombie theme; this was the first of two sequels. The first had a formula that seems difficult to mess up but this does – it’s over half the film before we get zombies after which we get Just the Same As Before and little more
Caved In (2006)
One of the spate of underground horror films that came out in 2005 including The Descent and The Cave. This is a B-budget wannabe obviously shot in a studio. The addition of giant beetles takes it into the cheesily ridiculous
Hot Bot (2016)
The Polish Brothers make some great Midwestern dramas but seem out of their depth trying to make a comedy about a sex robot. that comes out an embarrassingly unfunny variant on Weird Science
Lights Out (2016)
The James Wan produced (as opposed to directed) film is a dubious prospect. You cannot deny that this film about creatures in the dark does make an audience jump but I felt that I’d seen everything before
Star Trek: Beyond (2016)
Gene Roddenbery created a tv series that was about boldly going, confronting different ways of life. The choice to hire the director of The Fast and the Furious films to helm the film made for the show’s 50th anniversary says how wrong-headed the reboot series has become – all about cool young leads and hurtling effects sequences
Mythica: A Quest for Heroes (2014)
A surprisingly good effort to emerge from the arena of fan-made Kickstarter funded filmmaking. Essentially, a group of fans have brought their mutual love of playing Dungeons and Dragons to life but the film, while low-budgeted, places a great deal of care into the characters and building of the world
Holy Hell (2015)
An outrageously demented low-budget film guaranteed to offend nearly everybody. This takes inspiration from Hobo With a Shotgun with a Catholic priest wielding a gun seeking revenge
Last Girl Standing (2015)
This asks the question of what happens to the final girl after a slasher film. This is less a slasher film than a work about post-traumatic stress before reaching a jaw-dropping ending
Bigfoot Ate My Boyfriend (2016)
A miracle of $1.98 no-budget film-making, this Bigfoot comedy shouts out its sheer good nature from every pore. It is a film that wears its shortcomings with pride, while the director and cast have a great comic timing
The Love Witch (2016)
Beguiling work about a modern witch that becomes a heady swim of provocative ideas about gender issues that is never less than captivating and the most gorgeously colour coordinated films you will ever see
The Purge: Election Year (2016)
The Purge was a routine film that caught on with audiences but the premise lacks the legs to be a franchise – for one, it is based on a future scenario that has zero plausibility. This makes paper-thin stabs in terms of social issues but all interest evaporates when the guns start blazing
Ghostbusters (2016)
There was a lot of hate centred on this for recasting what is considered a classic film with an all-girl cast. It emerges mostly likeably, no better, no worse on the whole, where the new ensemble make a solid showing
All Through the House (2015)
A strong and effective reworking of the psycho Santa slasher film. This conducts a well-oiled rehearsal of all the slasher tropes and delivers exactly what we expect of it
Harvest Lake (2016)
This starts out seeming a backwoods horror before plants in the woods start erotically influencing the characters, resulting in a series of provocative scenes that combine plants and sex
She Kills (2016)
Positively the most insane, offensive and over-the-top film I have seen in some time. A bride finds she has a vagina possessed by Satan and uses it to go all I Spit on Your Grave on the gang who ate her husband on her wedding night, resulting in an outrageous splatter bloodbath
Hell Town (2015)
This has a witty idea – a parody of a soap opera combined with a slasher film. This is amusing, but the rest of the film consists of frenzied caricatures and a dearth of laugh out loud moments
Slit Mouth Woman in L.A. (2014)
Another version of the popular figure from Japanese urban legend, which has appeared in a number of films. This is an anthology where four Japanese directors have come to L.A. to shoot a series of strictly average short horror tales, not all of which feature the Slit Mouth Woman
Equals (2015)
Dystopian film about a future where emotion is forbidden – this owes much to George Lucas’s THX 1138, right down to the blinding white-on-white look. The film is also hobbled by a non-acting Kristen Stewart
Cell (2016)
Adaptation of the Stephen King novel about zombies created by a cellphone signal. Critically panned but this kicks in with a sensational opening scene and overspills with more fascinating ideas than it has room to deal with
Synchronicity (2015)
An ambitious film reminiscent of Twelve Monkeys, this has a time traveller venturing into the past and a conceptual jigsaw as he intersects with and has to hide in the margins of events in his own timeline
The Monitors (1969)
Comedy about aliens who have invaded Earth and keep broadcasting commercials to tell how wonderful life is. You feel like this should be great satire but instead the film flounders about without any plot tapping a 60s counter-culture vibe before finding it doesn’t have anything to say
Spider-Man Strikes Back (1979)
The 1970s Spider-Man tv series was a miserable failure at live-action superheroics, little more than a crime show with a costumed hero. This was the best of three theatrically released films edited from it with the plot of students building an atomic bomb has an undeniable real world credibility
Deluge (1933)
The world’s first disaster movie concerning a worldwide flood. This has some extremely impressive effects for the era showing New York being drowned. Less interesting are the dramatics in the ruins
The Abandoned (2015)
A film that creates a genuinely haunted mood, something that is aided immensely by an amazing location and some fine, well developed characterisation between the two principals
The BFG (2016)
Steven Spielberg adapts the Roald Dahl story. Despite the film bombing at the box-office, it is one of considerable charms. Spielberg doesn’t produce another E.T. but then he hasn’t delivered another Hook either
The Legend of Tarzan (2016)
A reasonable attempt to revive Tarzan. Tthis could almost be a sequel to Greystoke with more of an emphasis on adventure. Alexander Skarsgård broods his way through the title role.
The Carrier (2015)
Interesting and well-made variant on the plague outbreak drama set aboard an airliner as a handful of people flee a pandemic sweeping the world only to have to deal with infection on board and the need to land to refuel
Gold (1934)
A work from the great era of German Expressionism. This concerns an engineering process that can turn lead to gold and contains some amazing effects, as well as Brigitte Helm from Metropolis as a seductress
Siren of Atlantis (1948)
The Hollywood version of L’Atlantide about men encountering the impossibly desirable queen of Atlantis in the desert. This was made as a vehicle for famously non-acting Maria Montez but has some fine sets and a brooding quality that makes it not uninteresting
The Mysterious Island (1929)
The first film adaptation of Jules Verne’s sequel to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The original book is a desert island adventure story; the film throws all that out and has a story about Captain Nemo encountering a race of merpeople
The Shallows (2016)
A killer shark that is less Jaws and more a survival film in the vein of 127 Hours. A well worthwhile effort that uses every cinematic trick in its arsenal to provide a nail-bitingly intense adrenaline workout
The Neon Demon (2016)
Nicolas Winding Refn makes a horror film set in the L.A. modelling world. A film of hypnotic surfaces that glitter with a troubling undertow, the result is like Valley of the Dolls as remade by Dario Argento
Independence Day: Resurgence (2016)
Roland Emmerich returns with more of the same. The problem is how to top the first film and here everything is so big and with so much happening that it cannot be taken in and slips into tedium
Sacrifice (2016)
This comes with much promise – rune-covered bodies found on a remote island, ritual murders and a secret society that believe they are the descendants of Celtic supermen – that you wonder what caused the filmmakers to let it slip through their hands
Aragami (2003)
An action film that takes place in a single room. A samurai is invited to dine by a mysterious host who reveals he is an immortal monster and believes they have been destined to fight
Dracula, Father and Son (1976)
Almost certainly this is the one Christopher Lee Dracula film you will never have heard about. This was a French comedy made not long after Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein, spoofing the Dracula film
Hans Crippleton: Talk to the Hans (2014)
A painfully unfunny endurance test created by star Kevon Ward centred around the deformed, imbecilic hillbilly he played at Halloween shows. The film is little more than people playing morons in silly voices
Re-Kill (2015)
The zombie film has become creatively exhausted of recent – this is one original treatment, mocked up as a reality tv show like Cops, following soldiers into infestation zones, all interspersed with a series of witty commercials
Hush (2016)
A Mike Flanagan film that keeps you in a state of seat-edge tension. The premise is a simple one – a deaf woman is terrorised by a killer waiting outside her house – but Flanagan delivers it with electrifying effect
Finding Dory (2016)
Pixar have never been the same since giving in to sequelitis but this sequel to Finding Nemo does recapturing some of their heyday. Not perfect but this has a winning array of new characters and some delightfully madcap comic set-pieces
Angry Birds (2016)
A film based on a mobile app surely counts as a world first. Mostly this is the equivalent of switching one’s brain off and spending an hour-and-a-half watching cartoons for the single digit age group
Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny & Girly (1969)
Freddie Francis was one of the key players of the 1960s/70s Anglo-horror cycle – he always claimed that this was his favourite film, although it has seen little distribution. The film consists of an annoyingly giggly scenes of adults running around playing children’s games
Meatball Machine (2005)
In the late 2000s, Japan has produced a series of films drenched in gore, featuring absurd creature effects and action moves; this was the first of them – a wonderfully cartoonish film with rival bio-mechanoid creatures fighting
The Night Caller (1965)
This has the most ridiculous premise of any alien invasion film – an alien is abducting women from ads for models placed in girlie magazines – but is played with a stone-faced seriousness that defies you to laugh
Privilege (1967)
Peter Watkins is the most underrated director of the 1960s – his films are fiercely anti-establishment attacks that come with an extraordinary incendiary charge. This mockumentary depiction of a near future where the government uses a rock star to manipulate the public rings even more true today
The Conjuring 2 (2016)
If you want a genuinely scary spook show that will make you jump out of your seat, you would not go wrong with this. On the other hand, the Conjuring films with their claims to true stories of peddle superstition and fabricate most of their so-called facts
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
Dear Mr. Gacy (2010)
Fascinating true story about a college student who struck up a correspondence with serial killer John Wayne Gacy and fashioned himself according to Gacy’s victim profile so as to get closer to him
Graduation Day (1981)
Another entry from the slasher heyday, appropriating a holiday as title. This is fairly tatty as the lowered standards of the slasher genre go, although the cast contains some interesting names in retrospect
Spermula (1976)
Rather of an oddity – a French adult film about women from the future that in the aftermath of Star Wars was re-edited to become a film about alien women visitors come to kill off the human species via sex. Often directed with an artiness that proves far more than you expect
The Strange Case of Doctor Rx (1942)
One of the mad scientist films of the era – or perhaps more correctly a murder mystery/comedy with an identity disorder. This features an amazing cast, including bad guy Lionel Atwill as a sinister doctor and Shemp Howard, of Three Stooges fame, as a comic-relief detective
Scintilla (2014)
A modest effort that has studied well at the Ridley Scott school of people being stalked in the dark. The film produces a genuinely unearthly and alien creation. The main problem is that the film is severely underwritten and fails to do much after coming up with such an original creature
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (2016)
Nobody has good things to say about the 2014 reboot of the Turtles. This sequel is stuck with its legacy – giant over-sized Turtles that lacked the cuteness of the originals; bitchy non-acting Megan Fox – but comes out winningly by doing one thing – emulating the spirit of the original cartoon series
X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)
The seventh X-Men chapter arrives with a certain ennui. Bryan Singer creates some epic scenes but the sprawling ensemble and the series’ ragged continuity makes it hard to invest in the characters, while the new villain looks like a B movie wizard and the mass destruction climax comes surprisingly by the book
It (1990)
Stephen King adapted mini-series and one of the best. A dark Coming of Age tale, Tim Curry makes an unsettling Pennywise (in doing so popularised the figure of the killer clown)
Where Have All the People Gone (1974)
One of the first films about a mysterious catastrophe that empties the world of all but a handful of survivors that formed the template of later films like The Quiet Earth
The Escapist (2008)
This is principally a prison escape drama, at which it works well with a strong ensemble cast. It also has a left field ending that reveals it is a fantasy film, which remains its least satisfying aspect
The Strange World of Coffin Joe (1968)
Brazil’s Jose Mojica Marins became a cult figure for his Coffin Joe films; this is an anthology sold under the Coffin Joe banner. Without the Coffin Joe presence, all we have is a series of not very well directed pieces that linger on perversity, although the final segment does stand out memorably
Batman vs. Robin (2015)
Second in the trilogy of animated films dealing with Bruce Wayne’s son Damian who becomes the new Robin – this also adapts the massive Court of Owls crossover event, which provides a fascinating new nemesis for Batman
The Darkness (2016)
Greg McLean has made an impressive name with the Wolf Creek films and Rogue. In his first US film, he delivers a disappointing and utterly generic haunted suburban house film
Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016)
Sequel to the 2010 Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland. This has even less in common with Lewis Carroll’s book sequel than its predecessor did – a total of two scenes. The sets and effects are just pretty eye candy
Birth of the Living Dead (2013)
Documentary about the making of Night of the Living Dead. This covers the making of the film, although George Romero is the only person from it interviewed. Far more potent is the documentary’s pinpointing of the film’s cultural influence
Space Raiders (1983)
Low-budget producer Roger Corman jumped aboard the Star Wars sf bandwagon with Battle Beyond the Stars then took all the effects scenes and wrote another entire film around them with Space Raiders
Oasis of the Zombies (1981)
One of the original Nazi zombies films with zombies protecting an oasis that hides a gold treasure. This was made by prolific exploitation director Jess Franco meaning that much of the film’s potential is drowned in cheap production values and bad dubbing
The Mind of Mr. Soames (1969)
This comes with a great premise – a man is woken from a coma for the first time and is forced to deal with the world with the mind of a newborn infant. A clear attempt to copy Charly, this would be a great vehicle for a modern character actor but suffers from stodgy unimaginative handling
Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016)
The Kung Fu Panda series are films for couch potatoes – martial arts films with a hero who proclaims the virtues of laziness, overeating and goes into combat with an self-inflated sense of his own awesomeness
Men & Chicken (2015)
A Danish black comedy where the humour is delivered in perfect pitch deadpan. Imagine a version of The Island of Dr Moreau as directed by Giorgos Lanthimos of Dogtooth and The Lobster fame
Criminal (2016)
Everything indicates this should have been a hit – an impressive star line-up, big polished action sequences – only it tanked. Much has been assembled in the service of a hackneyed idea where the memories of an FBI agent are implanted into criminal Kevin Costner
Psycho-Pass (2015)
Film spinoff of an anime series about a future police force that uses a system to monitor the brains of the populace for the potential to commit crime. Reminiscent of Minority Report, this is not uninteresting, although falls short of being another Appleseed or Ghost in the Shell
Tarzan’s Peril (1951)
The fifteenth of the MGM/RKO Tarzan films and third starring Lex Barker. What makes this stand out is that it was the first Tarzan film to go and shoot in Africa, otherwise it follows exactly the same well-worn formula as before and has one of the worst screens Janes ever
Games (1967)
One of the psycho-thrillers made by he great and underrated Curtis Harrington during the 60s/70s. The film draws much from Les Diaboliques, right down to casting its leading lady. Harrington delivers suspense with an expert hand
Strangler of the Swamp (1946)
A film from the famous poverty row studios of its era that has gained a certain cult reputation. The film transcends its cheapness to create an undeniable spooky atmosphere in its tale of a ghostly revenant, even if the cult has tended to overstate its effectiveness
Sharkansas Women’s Prison Massacre (2016)
Another entrant in the fad for gonzo killer shark film. This gets some award for combining the killer shark film, the women’s prison film and the cabin in the woods horror standard
When Animals Dream (2014)
Beautifully low key Danish werewolf film (even if the term is never mentioned throughout) that takes place in a tiny seaside village as a girl tries to understand her transformations, the film is quiet and often takes place in silences rather than dialogue, its horror understated with striking effect
Tale of Tales (2015)
A trio of tales from the world’s oldest fairytale collection – but quite different to anything you expect … While there is all the magic, ogres and princesses, this is a beautifully lush film made for adults and less about simple homilies that about fate and its cruel twists
Norm of the North (2016)
As animated films go, there are few that feel like a constructor set of pieces copied from every other film than this. Audiences found the adventures of a twerking polar bear lacking too and it made a record for the lowest weekend gross for an animated film ever
Moon Rainbow (1983)
Obscure work of Soviet era SF. Clearly influenced by Stalker, this concerns an investigation into a mysterious alien zone that has left astronauts with psychic powers. Most of the film drowns in endless discussion and an almost complete lack of drama
Deathmaster (1972)
Robert Quarry gained a fame in the early 70s and was regarded as the American Christopher Lee on the basis of the Count Yorga films. This was one of the works he made where he plays the leader of hippie cult who is a vampire
The Meat Puppet (2012)
Low-budget psycho film that nevertheless comes out as interestingly twisted. Keith Collins makes for a disturbing central character, obsessed with seducing women, boasting to us about his methods, then imprisoning them and serving up their flesh as meat for he and his aunt
The Girl in the Photographs (2015)
The last film that Wes Craven is credited with (as producer) – a slasher film more that is interesting than most. Not to mention features an outrageously obnoxious performance from Kal Penn
Dudes & Dragons (2015)
This sets out to parody the Lord of the Rings fantasy. Or at least you think that is what it is trying to do. All suspension of disbelief is killed by a series of grating and anachronistic quips
Captain America: Civil War (2016)
Less Captain America 3 than The Avengers 3 – the entire film has been conceived as a massive superheroic punch-up. The results move with an exhilarating pace, but the Russo Brothers haven’t yet mastered Joss Whedon’s hand with character humour
Containment (2015)
A variant on the plague outbreak drama with a difference. It begins with a man waking to go about his workday only to find he has been glued into his apartment and the film logically expands out from there
An Angel for Satan (1966)
A small masterpiece of 1960s Italian Gothic cinema. Exquisitely moody black-and-white photography with Barbara Steele as the ideal of a Gothic dominatrix twisting men around her finger and setting a town against itself
Abandon (2002)
Psycho-thriller that should have gotten better notice than it did. Katie Holmes plays an A-student at an Ivy League college who is stalked by a missing ex. Slick and coolly written, before arriving at an effective twist ending
The Devil Commands (1941)
Boris Karloff mad scientist film with a fear of science at the most extreme of any work of this era. What seems absurd is the film’s belief that doom will be brought by a device that is nothing more than an EEG machine
He Never Died (2015)
Henry Rollins is a man who may be immortal. Sort of like a dark version of The Man from Earth, this is made by the wittily phlegmatic indifference of Rollins’s performance and fascinatingly littered clues about who he might be
Yakuza Apocalypse (2015)
Japan’s Takashi Miike gained a cult with a series of films that went to extremes or crossed way over taboo lines; his films from the mid-2000s have become more experiments that produce a head-scratching “huh?”. Case in point being this Yakuza vampire film that frequently feels like much of it was being made up on the spot
Pee-Wee’s Big Holiday (2016)
Pee-Wee Herman is a deliberately annoying character that is either adored or intensely loathed by audiences. This third film closely follows the structure of the first film with Pee-Wee in a series of nonsense adventures on a cross-country journey
Backwater (2015)
For the most part a standard variant on the staple of people being stalked through the backwoods. Things are buoyed up by an effective twist but that fails to excuse the fact that almost nothing happens
Spawn of the Slithis (1978)
Independently made 1970s monster movie. The film came along about ten months too early to be be part of the great spate of B movies that copied Alien and so draws on the earlier model of The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Nothing exceptional
The Boneyard (1991)
Part of the 80s/90s fad for makeup effects driven popcorn horror – in this case, actually directed by an effects artist. The film moves slow as molasses but the giant zombie poodle and zombie Phyllis Diller do compensate
The Brides Wore Blood (1972)
Obscure 1970s horror that generates a certain creepy effect with four girls gathered at a big old house for sinister purpose. before going sidewise during the second half amid a profusion of competing tropes
Roboshark (2015)
Another in the fad for deliberately ridiculous shark movies following in the wake of Sharknado. With immensely entertaining regard, this offers up sharks invading Starbucks, swimming through malls, eating Bill Gates and even going on Twitter
11.22.63 (2016)
Stephen King adapted mini-series in which James Franco finds a mysterious door that leads back to 1960 and sets out to prevent the assassination of President Kennedy
The Huntsman: Winter’s War (2016)
Sequel to Snow White and the Huntsman. Despite low expectations, this emerged better than one thought it would. It has a better director and seems much more at home being an epic fantasy than the first film
Dracula vs. Frankenstein (1970)
This was one several different films with the same title that came out around the same time. This painful effort comes from Spanish horror star Paul Naschy who plays his signature role of the wolfman Waldemar Daninksy
Maid-Droid (2008)
Really odd, even at times touching, Japanese film about a man’s thwarted attempts to have sex with his android maid