Fractured (2013)
Film about an amnesiac man trying to piece his disturbing past together amid a series of surreal nightmares. This ends up not nearly as interesting as you feel it could have been
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
Frailty (2001)
A directorial outing from Bill Paxton, a strikingly original film quite unlike anything else where Paxton plays a man who has religious visions and invokes his sons to murder what he calls demon
Francis (1950)
This was the first in a series of excruciating comedies that pairs hapless Donald O’Connor with Francis, a talking mule. Six sequels followed
Francis Goes to the Races (1951)
The second in a surprisingly popular series of comedies about Francis the talking mule, this involves Donald O’Connor and Francis in a series of hijinks set around horse racing track
Frankenfish (2004)
A fairly routine cable monster movie about people dealing with a series of attacks by genetically-engineered killer fish that are loose in the bayous
Frankenhooker (1990)
Frank Henenlotter of Basket Case fame modernises the Frankenstein film Here Frankenstein creates a body out of parts from Time Square hookers. Amusing but eventually a film where the humour is too broad
Frankenpimp (2009)
Possibly THE worst film ever made. Tony Watt throws an mash-up of exploitation elements together in an incomprehensible plot. A film that made me want to hammer a nail through my eyeball rather than keep watching
Frankenstein ’80 (1972)
This Italian exploitation film was one of the first attempts to try modernising the Frankenstein film. Thus Frankenstein is a doctor stealing corpses from the morgue at a modern hospital
Frankenstein (1931)
The classic version of Mary Shelley’s tale that left the indelible image of Boris Karloff as the dull monster with bolts in its neck. Director James Whale draws on German Expressionist designs to create one of the landmark classics of the genre
Frankenstein (1973)
An obscure tv movie version of Mary Shelley made by producer Dan Curtis. This suffers cheap production values but is the most faithful version of the book up to that point
Frankenstein (2004)
TV mini-series that tries to conduct a rigorously faithful adaptation of Mary Shelley’s book and largely succeeds apart from some minor changes. On the other hand, none of the period setting or story much comes to life
Frankenstein (2011)
Danny Boyle’s stage adaptation, broadcast live on movie screens, wrings up some unique changes on the classic tale. The role of Frankenstein and creation alternated between Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller
Frankenstein (2015)
This is an intriguing low-budget film that sets out to offer a modernised retelling of Mary Shelley. If nothing else, it gives the oft-told story a very different spin than usual
Frankenstein (2025)
Guillermo Del Toro tackles his long-planned adaptation of Frankenstein. An exquisitely designed and costumed film that is a feast for the eyes where Del Toro determines to wring out new angles on an oft told tale
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
Frankenstein 2000 (1992)
Supposedly a modernised version of Frankenstein, although what a story about a woman in a coma who uses psychic powers to resurrect a slow-witted handyman to exact revenge has to do with Mary Shelley’s classic is anybody’s guess
Frankenstein and Me (1996)
A charming Coming of Age story about kids who think they have discovered the Frankenstein monster. Comes packed with numerous genre homages and quotes
Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974)
Hammer’s seventh and final Frankenstein film and the last great film that the studio would make. Everyone is back on top form – Peter Cushing at his icily arrogant best and director Terence Fisher delivering a stirring show
Frankenstein Conquers the World (1966)
One of the strangest of Japanese monster movies in which the heart of the Frankenstein monster is caught in the Hiroshima atomic blast and grows into a giant boy
Frankenstein Created Woman (1967)
The fourth of Hammer’s Frankenstein films and the most conceptually wild with Frankenstein conducting soul transplants, including transferring his assistant’s soul into a woman’s body
Frankenstein Island (1981)
Jerry Warren was surely a rival of Edward D. Wood Jr as a bad filmmaker although less well-known. This, which was his last film, is possibly the worst Frankenstein film ever made
Frankenstein Legacy (2024)
One of the spate of Frankenstein films to emerge in the 2023-4 period, this conducts an ambitious period-set follow-up to the original Mary Shelley story on a low budget
Frankenstein Meets the Spacemonster (1965)
A film with a bad movie reputation where a NASA android returns to Earth damaged and goes amok where it tackles alien invaders come to Earth to abduct women
Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943)
The first film in which Universal teamed-up their in-house monsters, leading to several other monster bashes throughout the decade. For all that, this fails to make any interesting use of the title set-up
Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969)
The fifth of Hammer’s Frankenstein films and the absolute pinnacle of the series. Terence Fisher is on the peak of his form and turns in a series of directorial set pieces that are quite masterful
Frankenstein Reborn (2005)
One of the early films from The Asylum, this offers a modernised retelling of Frankenstein where some interesting attempts to find modern-day equivalents for parts of the story befall one of their usual low-budgets
Frankenstein Unbound (1990)
Roger Corman disappointed with his return to the director’s chair after twenty years. He adapts a Brian Aldiss novel about a time-traveller meeting both Mary Shelley and Dr Frankenstein
Frankenstein Unlimited (2009)
A series of short film interpretations of the Frankenstein story, with interpretations ranging from BDSM to kung fu and modern police procedural
Frankenstein’s Army (2013)
One has difficulty with the notion of a Found Footage Frankenstein film, although the film does credibly justify this. That said, the film offers up a series of genuinely phantasmagoric and out of this world creations
Frankenstein’s Bloody Terror (1968)
Not a Frankenstein film but a werewolf film. Spanish actor Paul Naschy debuts his signature role of the wolfman Waldemar Daninsky. Naschy would return to the role nine times, as well as play most of the classic horror characters
Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks (1974)
A trashy European exploitation version of the Frankenstein story that involves Frankenstein reviving a cavemen, a perverted dwarf and plentiful nude bodies
Frankenstein’s Daughter (1958)
A Z-budget effort that taps the 1950s teenage monster fad, producing a number of ridiculous dialogue howlers and a female monster that induces laughter whenever it turns up on screen
Frankenstein: A Modern Myth (2012)
Supposedly a documentary about the Frankenstein story but no more than a glorified dvd extra to accompany the Danny Boyle stage production of Frankenstein. This covers the life of Mary Shelley but almost entirely sidesteps the Frankenstein cinematic legacy
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
Frankenstein: The True Story (1974)
The ‘true story’ bit is contentious but this tv mini-series was the first production to take the Frankenstein story back to the way Mary Shelley told it. Lavishly produced and with a fantastic cast
Frankenweenie (2012)
Tim Burton’s stop-motion animated expansion of his 1982 short film has a winning concept – a parody of the Universal Frankenstein films with a teenage boy resurrecting his dog
Frankie Freako (2024)
Makeup effects artist Steven Kostanski has become a fine director in recent years. Here he makes a Gremlins-styled film about a 1-900 number that unleashes a mischievous goblin
Franklyn (2008)
A fascinating series of interwoven stories, one of which is set in a religion-dominated dystopian future. An intriguing puzzle that arrives at a surprise left field ending
Frat House Massacre (2008)
Supposedly a slasher film that purports to tell the truth about university fraternity rites, the delves into depicting hazing rituals with gory relish
Freaked (1993)
Wonderfully nonsensical film directed by Alex Winter of Bill and Ted fame about the lives of a group of mutant freaks. Amazing makeup effects, a bizarre sense of humour and several well-known actors spoofing themselves
Freakier Friday (2025)
The 2003 Freaky Friday was one of the better Disney remakes with Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan giving inspired performances as mother and daughter who swap bodies. The two reunite for a sequel here
Freaks (1932)
Shock film in which director Tod Browning depicts the lives of the deformities at a circus, casting real-life freaks in the roles. This was banned for many years before being discovered as a cult classic
Freaks (2018)
Not to be confused with Tod Browning’s shock classic, this starts with a mind-bending quality that leaves you wondering WTF is going on, before logically and ingeniously unfolding as a psychic powers film
Freaky (2020)
A slasher film with a novelty (gimmicky?) premise where the Final Girl and the hulking killer of the show end up swapping bodies. Essentially a conceptual mash-between a slasher film and Freaky Friday
Freaky Friday (1976)
The original version of the Disney live-action comedy with mother Barbara Harris and a young Jodie Foster as her daughter who swap bodies for one day. The performances are hilarious and this is filled with witty deadpan gags
Freaky Friday (2003)
Enjoyable remake of the 1970s Disney comedy about a mother and daughter who swap bodies. Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan nail the swapped roles to perfection
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
Fred Claus (2007)
A Christmas film with Vince Vaughn as Santa’s younger brother, a petty street hustler. A promising sarcastic tone falls into easy predictable routines and characters arcs
Freddy vs. Jason (2003)
The long promised crossover between the Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street films, this seems caught in a juggling act that fails to satisfy the requirements of either franchise
Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)
The sixth of the A Nightmare on Elm Street films, sold with the gimmick of a 3D release. New director Rachel Talaly refuses to take the material seriously and turns the show into an absurd cartoon
Free Birds (2013)
Animated film designed for the US Thanksgiving holiday. With a completely insane plot involving turkeys travelling back in time to stop turkeys being served at the first Thanksgiving
Free Enterprise (1998)
Two SF fans encounter real-life idol William Shatner. A film that writes about fandom knowingly and comes with an hilarious series of in-jokes and asides. Not to mention features Shatner parodying his own image
Free Guy (2021)
Ryan Reynolds discovers he is a character inside a videogame. This has a conceptual ingenuity and originality and is the most fun and outrightly enjoyable mainstream film seen of recent
Freedom Strike (1998)
Michael Dudikoff-starring action film about the use of advanced technology during a Middle Eastern war as Syrian terrorists hijack and threaten to fire US nuclear missles
Freefall (2014)
György Pálfi, the Hungarian director of the wonderfully twisted Taxidermia, returns with a series of Buñuel-esque vignettes that sometimes hit a darkly absurdist note
Freejack (1992)
Emilio Estevez is snatched into the future and pursued for his body by bounty hunter Mick Jagger in an SF film that makes no sense at all. A film more worth watching for some bizarrely awful performances
Freelance (2024)
An Australian thriller about a girl who takes an editing job because she needs the money only to realise that what she is asked to work on are snuff movies. The film follows her descent into a dark and disturbed state of mind
Freeway (1988)
Thriller where widow Darlanne Fluegel and radio talkback host Richard Belzer team up to hunt a serial killer shooting people on the L.A. freeways
Freeway (1996)
Matthew Bright’s extraordinary modernisation/trashing of Little Red Riding Hood who becomes Reese Witherspoon’s juvenile delinquent who goes hitchhiking and is targeted by serial killer Kiefer Sutherland
Freeway II: Confessions of a Trickbaby (1999)
Matthew Bright’s even better sequel to Freeway where he conducts an outrageous and quite brilliant modernisation of Hansel and Gretel now recast with two juvenile delinquents on the run
Freeway Killer (2010)
A low-budget entry in the 2000s fad for true-life serial killer films. This is based on William Bonin who around the L.A. freeways in a van and abducted and killed young men
Frenzy (1972)
Alfred Hitchcock’s second-to-last film, a thriller with Jon Finch as a man on the run wrongly hunted as a serial killer. Hitchcock is on superb form and his dark humour perfectly tuned
Frequency (2000)
Intelligent and well written film where freak weather conditions allow a son to communicate with his late father by radio across thirty years in time. Where the film starts to get interesting is when this creates unexpected changes in the present
Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel (2009)
Science-fiction fans go time travelling in this British film that offers a good many wry fannish in-jokes mixed with a modestly clever time travel scenario
Fresh (2022)
Strong and effective film in which Daisy Edgar-Jones is charmed becomes involved with Sebastian Stan, only for him to imprison her, intending to sell her flesh as meat
Fresh Meat (2012)
New Zealand comedy in which a teenage daughter discovers that her father Temuera Morrison is a modern-day Maori cannibal cultist. Everything is given a very broad playing
Freshwater (2016)
The killer crocodile/alligator film has not had a great track record (with only a couple of exceptions). This is not one of those exceptions and quickly sinks into risibility
Friday the 13th (1980)
A copy of John Carpenter’s Halloween that proved a big success and spawned a long-running series of sequels. Both films created the slasher film, which came to overrun horror in the 1980s, although this is a cruder film than Halloween
Friday the 13th (2009)
Another 1980s horror remake that had much potential. However, this proves to be just another Friday the 13th film by the numbers, albeit with a bigger budget, and widely misses the mark
Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)
The second of the Friday the 13th films. This was the point where the formula of the series slipped into place and Jason emerged to become an invincible killing machine
Friday the 13th Part III in 3D (1982)
Third of the Friday the 13th films, shot in the brief fad for 3D films in the early 80s. This is also the one where Jason adopts his trademark hockey mask
Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning (1985)
The fifth and arguably the worst of the Friday the 13th films. Jason is resurrected and engaged in much butchering, before an end reveals it was someone else altogether
Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988)
The seventh of the Friday the 13th films, this tries to add some novelty with a heroine who has psychic powers but is mostly the same thing as before
Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)
The eighth of the Friday the 13th films that offers the novelty of taking a revived Jason to New York City. Actually, one of the better entries in the series, which plays his encounters with New York locals for some amusement
Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)
The fourth Friday the 13th film, called the final chapter in an effort to kill the series off, only to be such a success this was rescinded in the next film. Joseph Zito directs with more style than usual
Fried Barry (2020)
A South African variant on a film like Starman where a man is inhabited by an alien and stumbles through a series of encounters on the seedier side of life
Friend Request (2016)
Another in the spate of social media horror films, this is a blatant copy of Unfriended, albeit mashed up with Ring to create the idea of a cursed newsfeed. This is also the lamest of the bunch
Friendship’s Death (1987)
A strangely affecting SF film that takes place entirely in a hotel room with Bill Paterson as a journalist in a Jordanian war zone and Tilda Swinton who insists she is an alien android
Fright (1971)
A modest and well directed psycho-thriller from the Anglo-horror cycle with Susan George as a babysitter stalked by a deranged Ian Bannen
Fright Flick (2011)
A slasher movie that takes place on the set of a slasher movie. Director Israel Luna has an idea that you feel could have been far cleverer than the way it ends up being presented on screen
Fright Night (1985)
Slick well made film that successfully transplants the vampire to modern suburbia. Made with a top-drawer arsenal of effects, including taking a leaf from An American Werewolf in London and showing a detailed man into bat transformation
Fright Night (2011)
Another 1980s horror remake that resurrects and changes the original to little purpose. This fails to understand that what was original in 1985 lacks much alongside other contemporary vampire films
Fright Night 2 (2013)
Supposedly a sequel to the 2011 Fright Night remake but more a loose reworking of the original. This conducts some novel variations such as making Jerry Dandridge into a woman, but is also one of the worst directed horror films in some time
Fright Night Part 2 (1989)
Sequel to Fright Night, this basically rehashes what went before but introduces Jerry Dandridge’s sister. This does come with the benefit of some way-out stylistic effects from director Tommy Lee Wallace
Fritz the Cat (1972)
The first X-rated animated film. Ralph Bakshi’s first film, taken from Robert Crumb’s cartoons, this is hilariously raunchy as the titular talking cat takes a strung-out but often sharply politicised journey through 1960s counter-culture
Frodo is Great … Who is That!!? (2004)
Documentary devoted to a fan following that grew up around Bret McKenzie who had only a single shot appearance as an elf in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Frog Dreaming (1986)
Modest Australian-made children’s film that imports Henry Thomas riding on the success of E.T. as a teen inventor finding a lake purported to contain a creature from Aborigine legend
Frogs (1972)
Classic film from the 1970s Nature’s Revenge fad with a group gathered for a party on an island finding that flora and fauna all around has become malevolent and turned against humanity
From a Whisper to a Scream (1987)
One of the more underrated horror anthologies featuring an aging Vincent Price as narrator. All four stories are equally strong and venture into some pleasingly dark and grisly places
From Beijing with Love (1994)
Way before Austin Powers, Hong Kong director/star Stephen Chow made the funniest of all James Bond parodies with this deliriously madcap comedy
From Beyond (1986)
After the cult success of Re-Animator, Stuart Gordon, Jeffrey Combs and most of the principals returned with a further H.P. Lovecraft adaptation. More outrageously over-the-top splatter effects but this is somewhat the lesser
From Beyond the Grave (1974)
One of the best of the Amicus horror anthologies. All of the episodes are strong, well cast and well directed. The third episode offers a particularly funny comic take on the exorcism film
From Black (2023)
Strong and effective film about a grieving mother who is introduced to an occult ritual than can claimedly resurrect her dead son, a journey that takes her into very dark places
From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)
Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino combine forces on a film that begins as a getaway thriller and then abruptly morphs into a vampire film. This has a smart edginess to it but the vampire scenes have not dated well
From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money (1999)
The first of two video-released sequels to From Dusk Till Dawn, this spins the premise to have a group of robbers at siege from police inside a bank vault as they are attacked by vampires
From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman’s Daughter (2000)
The second and best of the From Dusk Till Dawn sequels. This takes the story back and retells it in a Western setting where it offers some clever twists on the original
From Hell (2001)
Disappointing attempt, based on a Alan Moore graphic novel, to depict the Jack the Ripper killings. The film feels over-produced and slides off the cliff by throwing its weight behind one of the more ludicrous and implausible Ripper theories
From Hell It Came (1957)
A bad movie classic. Plenty of hysterically funny dialogue and one of the most ridiculous looking movie monsters of all time – a possessed tree (where the film also manages to wind in the 1950s obsession with atomic monsters)
From Hell to the Wild West (2017)
Western based around the idea of Jack the Ripper having relocated out West whereupon he becomes a standard slasher-styled maniac. Featuring Charles Bronson ringer Robert Kovacs as the hero