Cocoon (1985)
Ron Howard film clearly inspired by the success of E.T.. This story about seniors being rejuvenated after swimming in a pool that has an alien pod in it received critical kudos during its day but the film operates as a simplistic and naive wish-fulfillment fantasy
Cocoon: The Return (1988)
A dreadful sequel to the Ron Howard hit Cocoon about seniors encountering aliens. This misses all the interesting potential of a sequel and drowns in schmaltz and unfunny comedy routines
Code 46 (2003)
A standout Michael Winterbottom film set in a fascinatingly detailed and well conceived future dominated by genetic laws where Tim Robbins and Samantha Morton conduct an illicit affair
Code 8 (2019)
One of the few original, non-comic book based superhero films of the 2010s set in a world where those with powers are treated as a minority. This is essentially a heist film but with the addition of super-powers
Code 8: Part II (2024)
The Canadian-made Code 8 was one of the few non-comic book adapted superhero films of recent years. This is a sequel where a bigger budget has been afforded to the superheroics
Coffin Homes (2021)
From director Fruit Chan, director of the great Dumplings, a film that takes a satiric jab at Hong Kong’s rental shortage crisis and concerns haunted apartments
Coherence (2013)
Fascinating conceptual SF film about a dinner party where people find they are dealing with multiple alternate versions of themselves where minute choices have been made differently. The film twists and turns into an immensely satisfyingly pretzel
Cold Blood (2005-2006)
One of the best copies of The Silence of the Lambs, a British tv mini-series in which police must seek the help of imprisoned serial killer Matthew Kelly, who delivers a great performance in the role
Cold Blood: The Last Hurrah (2007)
The fifth and final of the Cold Blood films, brings Matthew Kelly’s serial killer back but still lacks the gripping tension of the first two films
Cold Creek Manor (2003)
Mike Figgis, the director of Leaving Las Vegas, visits the Backwoods Brutality genre in this Southern Gothic, but despite a top drawer cast, this never does more than stir lukewarm cliches
Cold Fever (1995)
Eccentric road movie where a Japanese salaryman travels to Iceland for a funeral ceremony for his parents. Filled with ravishing landscapes and quirkily surreal encounters
Cold Fish (2010)
From cult director Shion Sono, a typically bizarre and gore-drenched Japanese black comedy about tropical fish salesmen, serial killings and the reclamation of traditional male pride
Cold Harvest (1998)
This is a competent but unremarkable action movie variation on the Mad Max film set in the aftermath of a plague as Gary Daniels must guide a group with an immunity through the wastelands
Cold Heaven (1991)
Nicolas Roeg was one of the great directors of the 1970s, making works like Performance and Don’t Look Now. This was one of Roeg’s last films where Mark Harmon is killed in an accident but makes a miraculous resurrection
Cold Skin (2017)
While The Shape of Water took attention, there was 2017’s other film about sex between human and fish people. From Xavier Gens, a a Lovecraftian tale about men in a lighthouse engaged in a fierce battle against amphibians
Cold Souls (2009)
Indie film in which Paul Giamatti goes to a company that specialises in removing the soul only to have his stolen. An SF film that feels like a Woody Allen comedy minus the one-liners
Cold Storage (2026)
David Koepp is the high-profile screenwriter of Jurassic Park and other works. Here he adapts his own novel about a deadly fungus that overruns a storage facility into a wonderfully snappy horror show
Colin (2008)
Zombie film made on a shoestring micro-budget from the point-of-view of a young man as he transforms into a zombie. The guerrilla approach results in an amateurism but also a work made with more imagination than you expect
Collateral Beauty (2016)
Gigantic flop starring Will Smith and a reasonable cast line-up that has the most ridiculous screenplay ever written. Mostly a positive inspirational drama about grief but does definitely arrive at a bizarre fantastical ending
Colonials (2023)
A low-budget film with some very accomplished effects that takes place in a devastated future as a Martian colonist returns to find what has happened to Earth
Color Me Blood Red (1965)
One of Herschell Gordon’s Lewis’s splatter films, this readily rips off the plot basics of Roger Corman’s A Bucket of Blood as an artist starts to paint using human blood
Color of Night (1994)
A blatant copy of Basic instinct with psychologist Bruce Willis getting involved with Jane March as his patients start being murdered. Much bare flesh but the film is killed by ludicrous plot twists
Color Out of Space (2019)
Richard Stanley made one of the most exciting directorial debuts with Hardware. Welcomely returning after a long absence, he is one of the few directors to mainline the essence of H.P. Lovecraft’s cosmic horrors
Colossal (2016)
Nacho Vigalondo film with a head-scratchingly wacky premise – Anne Hathaway finds that a giant monster mimics her movements. Vigalondo plays this surprisingly seriously and spins it through some appealing twists
Colossus: The Forbin Project (1969)
Produced not long after 2001: A Space Odyssey, this is one of the smartest and best of the super-computer takes over the world films, directed with a tight economy and written with a snappy wit
Coma (1978)
Flush from the success of The Andromeda Strain and Westworld, Michael Crichton directed this medical conspiracy thriller, which returns to the fear of science themes that runs throughout his work
Coma (2012)
TV mini-series remake of the Michael Crichton medical thriller that pointlessly changes and over-extrudes a tight and effective original, while director Mikael Salomon adds absurd red herrings and keys away major surprises well in advance
Coma (2019)
An extraordinary Russian film that takes place in a uniquely designed dreamworld shared by people in comas. This has an imagination and conceptual grasp that rivals Inception
Combat Shock (1986)
Film about a Vietnam Veteran snapping and going over the edge that gained acclaim when it came out. More a work of grim social realism than horror, it is frequently amateurish but contains an undeniably bleak charge
Come Back to Me (2014)
At the outset, this seems to be either a routine stalker or a clairvoyance film. On the other hand, it is driven by an undeniable WTF component and definitely arrives at bizarrely left field explanation
Come Drink With Me (1966)
A classic from Hong Kong’s Shaw Brothers that is credited with being the first flying swordsman film. This contains some great action scenes even if the flying swordplay element is minor
Come Play (2020)
This is a surprisingly good film that generates quite a degree of spooky eeriness concerning a child on the autism spectrum and the sinister entity inside his tablet that just wants to be his friend
Come True (2020)
A Canadian-made horror film about a teenage runaway who signs into a mysterious dream institute that conduct experiments that open up something disturbing inside her
Comet (2014)
From Mr Robot creator Sam Esmail, this is supposedly set in a parallel universe but is merely a relationship drama that quickly disappears into a puff of its own cutely ironic, self-admiring dialogue
Comforting Skin (2011)
Canadian film about a girl’s strange obsessive relationship with her talking tattoo. The idea has been done before but the film and fine performances give it life
Comic Book: The Movie (2004)
An hilarious mockumentary directed by Mark Hamill set at the San Diego Comic Con, this spoofs various aspects of comic-book fandom and includes assorted celebrities sending themselves up
Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope (2011)
Documentary-maker Morgan Spurlock of Super-Size Me fame visits the San Diego Comic-Con and follows several attendees but comes away finding surprisingly little to say about the nature of fandom
Coming Soon (2008)
Thai horror film with the interesting idea of ghosts emerging out of a movie screen. This has a couple of undeniably spooky moments but is still just another of the numerous copies of the basics of Ring
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
Committed (1991)
A variant on Edgar Allan Poe’s The System of Dr Tarr and Professor Fether with Jennifer O’Neill as a woman wrongly committed to an asylum before discovering it has been taken over by the inmates
Communion (1976)
A psycho-thriller that has gained a modest cult reputation. This comes seeped in Catholic guilt and director Alfred Sole delivers twists and turns with a fine hand. Featuring a young Brooke Shields in her film debut.
Communion (1989)
Film adaptation of writer Whitley Strieber’s true-life claims to have been abducted by aliens. I am not sure if the film convinces us of Strieber’s claims but what is interesting is the thoughtful way it examines the phenomenon
Companion (2025)
A smart and extremely clever variant on Androids/A.I. themes with Sophie Thatcher as a sex android who gains self-awareness and independence. A great script filled with hilarious whiplash twists.
Complicity (2000)
A so-so adaptation of an Iain Banks novel featuring Jonny Lee Miller as a crusading journalist who becomes involved in the hunt for a serial killer who is tied to his own past
Compulsion (2024)
Director Neil Marshall once had great promise but his recent work has become fairly tatty. Here he and lead actress, the controversy-laden Charlotte Kirk, have fun making a throwback to the 1990s erotic thriller
Computer Chess (2013)
Quirky film shot as though a mockumentary from the 1970s about a conference where programmers compete against computer chess programs that starts to get into some puzzlingly weird SF territory
Conan the Barbarian (1982)
Adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s pulp adventure stories and the film that made Arnold Schwarzenegger a star. The script from Oliver Stone takes unevenly from Howard but director John Milius gives the film a brutal, primal majesty
Conan the Barbarian (2011)
This revival of Conan the Barbarian is a dismal effort that gets little of what made the character work, while Jason Momoa gives little impression he is taking proceedings seriously
Conan the Destroyer (1984)
This sequel to Conan the Barbarian makes the mistake of watering the primal brutalism down to a PG rating and what results ends up being a pedestrian comic-book adventure
Conceiving Ada (1997)
Rather muddled film that seems to want to be a biopic of Ada Byron but ends up with her (as played by Tilda Swinton) recreated in cyberspace
Condorman (1981)
One of the flops from Disney’s live-action heyday with Michael Crawford as a comic-book artist who gets to bring his inventions to life after being thrust into a spy caper
Coneheads (1993)
Film spinoff of a Dan Aykroyd skit on Saturday Night Live about a family of aliens ho attempting to maintain ordinary suburban life on Earth The film has a really wacky sense of humour, which is probably why it was a box-office flop
Congo (1995)
Following the success of Jurassic Park, a host of other Michael Crichton books were filmed, including this not entirely successful but not uninteresting work where Crichton attempts to modernise the lost world adventure
Conquest (1983)
Lucio Fulci departs from the splatter genre to make a venture into the Italian sword and sorcery film of the era. As with any Fulci film, this is expectedly plotless and incoherent but with occasional moments of imagination
Conquest of Space (1955)
George Pal’s successor to Destination Moon imagines one step further – an expedition to Mars. Where Destination Moon had a bold unfettered optimism, this is killed off by an ending that falls prey to typical 1950s fear and anxiety
Conquest of the Earth (1981)
The third of the theatrically released films spun off from the original Battlestar Galactica. This is compiled from episodes of the dire follow-up series Galactica 1980 where the show relocates to contemporary Earth
Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972)
The fourth of the original Planet of the Apes films, this cuts back on the humour and makes a stark parable for the Civil Rights movement with the apes rebelling against humanity in a revolution
Consecration (2023)
Christopher Smith was a highly promising director several years ago with Creep, Triangle and Black Death. Here he returns with a film about sinister happenings in a convent
Conspiracy Theory (1997)
This should have been a witty film – Mel Gibson as a conspiracy nut who discovers one of his theories is true and is hunted by government agents – but the result is a confused mess that turns into an overblown action vehicle
Conspirators of Pleasure (1996)
Cult Czech stop-motion animator, Jan Svankmajer makes an eccentrically surreal live-action film that focuses on a variety of different people who have strange fetishes
Constantine (2005)
Adaptation of DC’s Hellblazer comic-book that gets the Hollywood treatment where all of the character’s background and look has been thrown out and the part badly miscast with Keanu Reeves
Constantine: City of Demons (2018)
The Dc Comics character John Constantine was made into an animated web series that was compiled as this film. One is quite taken aback at how much more edgy and adult this is than most of DC’s animated offerings
Consuming Spirits (2012)
Animated venture into Midwestern Gothic that has been a fifteen-year work for one-man band Chris Sullivan. A film that is at once brilliantly original but also tedious where its focus on the minutiae of character’s lives seems to go on forever
Contact (1997)
Carl Sagan’s novel about SETI is inflated into a big budget film determined to impress even though the story did not need it. Sagan’s interesting debate about religion and science is emasculated so as not to offend any religious groups
Contagion (1987)
Not a pandemic film despite the title, an obscure oddity from the great era of Ozploitation where a man undergoes a series of strange experiences as he is drawn to a mystery house in the backwoods
Contagion (2011)
Steven Soderbergh turns to making a plague outbreak film that uncannily predicted a great deal of what happened when Covid-19 struck. A reasonable star cast line-up suborn themselves to a cool sober script
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
Contaminated Man (2000)
Thriller with Peter Weller as an aging man who is infected with a bio-agent that causes anyone he comes in contact with to bodily melt down within a matter of seconds
Contracted (2013)
Modestly effective effort about a woman who contracts an infection that causes her to physically decay. The horror comes in watching the heroine’s progressive physical decomposition.
Contracted: Phase II (2015)
Contracted was a modestly effective film that depicted its heroine’s progressive meltdown due to a deadly infection. This is a sequel so sub-par you doubt it would even been released without connection to the first film
Convergence (2015)
This has an interesting set-up concerning mysterious happenings in a hospital where it is gradually revealed the characters exist in a limbo caught between Heaven and Hell even if it never does the idea justice
Cool World (1992)
Animator Ralph Bakshi jumps aboard the Who Framed Roger Rabbit? bandwagon with a toon film in which a Jessica Rabbit-like cartoon character is dragged into the real world whereupon she is played by Kim Basinger
Coonskin (1975)
Ralph Bakshi’s satiric animated depiction of African-American life in 1970s conceived as a parody of Song of the South was greeted with such controversy that it nearly derailed his career
Cooties (2014)
A very funny film about a horde of zombie schoolchildren. Co-written by Saw‘s Leigh Whannell, this has a great deal of fun deflating zombie cliches and is wittily on the ball in its characterisations of the teachers
Cop (1988)
A James Ellroy-adapted crime thriller with James Woods giving a very disturbed performance as an unhinged detective on the trail of a serial killer
Copycat (1995)
Strong and effective serial killer thriller that was overlooked by the success of the same year’s much more high profile Se7en. Sigourney Weaver and Holly Hunter give excellent performances in a finely tuned script
Coraline (2009)
The welcome return of stop-motion animator Henry Selick, the director of The Nightmare Before Christmas and at his wildly imaginative and darkly menacing best in an adaptation of a book by Neil Gaiman
Corbin Nash (2018)
Film about a tough guy detective settling into the destined role of a monster hunter. With lots of dark streetwise urgency and Corey Feldman proving unexpectedly entertaining in drag as the lead vampire
Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel (2011)
Documentary about legendary B-budget director/producer Roger Corman, although this is more of an awe-struck tribute that disappointingly fails to venture into any of the stories of notorious cheapness and cost-cutting practices attributed to Corman
Corona Zombies (2020)
A Charles Band film that has the distinction of being the first film released during the Corona Virus Pandemic. You watch out of curiosity of how the usual logistics of filmmaking deal with quarantine and social distancing
Corpse Bride (2005)
Tim Burton’s successor to The Nightmare Before Christmas where Burton co-directs another venture into stop-motion animation that takes place in a similar dark and beautifully stylised world
Corrective Measures (2022)
Another of the last films made by Bruce Willis before his retirement. This one has a watchable central idea and is set around the idea of a prison for super-villains even if Bruce is not up to much
Corridors of Blood (1958)
Early Anglo-horror film that seems to be trying to push a story about a 19th century doctor (Boris Karloff)’s discovery of anaesthetic gas out of shape and make it into a horror story.
Corruption (1968)
Peter Cushing plays a surgeon who devises an advanced technique to restore his wife’s burn-disfigured face – only to find he must kill to maintain it. An Anglo-horror effort that borrows the basics of Eyes Without a Face/Les Yeux Sans Visage
Cosmic Sin (2021)
Another among the shoddy last films Bruce Willis-made before retirement, an SF film about a rogue military team that decide to declare war on aliens. This is laughable in terms of military tactics
Cosmic Voyage (1936)
An early Soviet-made film that does an extraordinary job in depicting the launch of a rocket to The Moon. Fascinating to see in terms of its incredible ambition and the things it gets right
Cosmoball (2020)
A Russian SF film about humans who have been selected to participate in an intergalactic sports tournament. This feels that it has been construed as an anti-Alita: Battle Angel and has some stunning design work
Cosmopolis (2012)
David Cronenberg film that takes place in a limousine and consists of a surreal drift through a near-future world in the midst of economic collapse, observing it with darkly brilliant, razor-sharp agitprop dialogue
Cosmos (2019)
Strong and intelligent SF film about amateur astronomers who receive radio signals from space indicating existence of alien life. A film made with a remarkable economy – most of it takes place inside a car – and rooted in good science
Count Dracula (1970)
Christopher Lee was inveigled to play the title role in what was advertised as an adaptation of the book as Bram Stoker wrote it. While somewhat true, this befell the cheapness of exploitation director Jess Franco
Count Dracula (1977)
The most faithful version of Dracula to date. A BBC mini-series that adapts the book as a no-nonsense costume drama and even shoots in the mentioned locations, giving the impression of the story taking place as Bram Stoker visualised it
Count Dracula’s Great Love (1972)
A copy of the Hammer Dracula films starring Spanish horror legend Paul Naschy. Naschy is an Dracula but the film is never much more than assorted runnings around an abandoned asylum and softcore tumblings
Count Yorga, Vampire (1970)
One of the better efforts among a spate of attempts to modernise the vampire that came out the 1970s. Robert Quarry gives a witty, urbane performance in the title role. A sequel followed.
Countdown (1967)
An early Robert Altman film about the planning and launch of a Moon Landing starring then unknown James Caan and Robert Duvall. The most realistic depiction of a space launch up to that point.
Countdown (2019)
This feels like the Final Destination franchise updated for the mobile user generation concerning a sinister app that predicts how long the user has to live
Counter Clockwise (2016)
The time paradox film has always been one of the most ingenious and conceptually challenging SF films in recent years with the likes of Timecrimes and Predestination. This is a B-budgeted variant
Countess Dracula (1971)
Not another of Hammer’s Dracula films despite the title. This still builds on the brand name but is instead their loose adaptation of the story of the infamous blood-bathing Elizabeth Bathory.
Countess Dracula’s Orgy of Blood (2004)
Donald F. Glut is famous as a genre historian and novelist. Here he directs an erotic vampire film. Despite the title, Count Dracula doesn’t feature much but we get Paul Naschy in one of his few English language films
Cowards Bend the Knee, or The Blue Hands (2003)
Another of the surreal films from Guy Maddin, involving incest, strange love triangles and transplanted hands, all shot of which has been shot as a silent movie
Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (2001)
The feature film spinoff of a cult anime tv series