Devil Times Five (1974)
One of the original evil children films and undeniably effective too with a group of people snowed in at a mountain lodge being hunted by four malevolent children
Devil’s Due (2014)
A Found Footage film that seeks to overhaul the Satanic impregnation film a la Rosemary’s Baby. Both the Found Footage and the Satanic impregnation genres feel well-mined by now and this fails to offer anything new
Devil’s Triangle (2021)
An adventure potboiler from The Asylum about the crew of a plane who pass through the Bermuda Triangle to end up in Atlantis just as the Atlanteans prepare to declare war on the surface world
Devil’s Workshop (2022)
This comes with an intriguing premise in which a struggling actor consults a demonologist to prepare for a role and agrees to spend a weekend with her during which she decides to exorcise him
Devils of Darkness (1965)
British-made vampire film that very much trying to copy the style of Hammer Films. This has colour and moments of undeniable style that stand out but lacks it in other crucial areas.
Devil’s Gate (2017)
This comes with a great initial set-up as it becomes apparent that law enforcement investigating a missing woman are dealing with alien abductions
Devour (2005)
Routine horror film about students being drawn to an internet site that is controlled by The Devil and is then driving them to kill others and themselves
Devs (2020)
Alex Garland directed-written tv mini-series that grasps at big ideas about the meaning of it all concerning a computer that can track every particle and predict past and future. This emerges as one of the finest SF work of the last few years
Diabolik (2021)
A remake of the great and underrated film and Italian comic-book about a masked super-thief who constantly outwits the authorities, this comes with style and wit to spare and strikes the note perfectly
Diabolik Chi Sei? (2023)
The third of the new series of films based on the cult Italian comic-book about a masked super-thief. This entry goes back to offer us a Diabolik origin story
Diabolik: Ginko Attacks (2022)
The 2021 Diabolik was a witty and stylish revival of the cult Italian comic-book about a masked super-thief. This was the first of the sequels, albeit with a different actor playing the title role
Diabolique (1996)
Les Diaboliques is one of the great all-time thrillers. This remake, designed to highlight a post-Basic Instinct Sharon Stone, is an abortion that rewrites the classic twist ending for something upbeat
Diamonds Are Forever (1971)
The seventh James Bond film where Sean Connery was inveigled back to the role with a heft salary increase. However, the result is the worst of all the Connery Bonds with an incoherent plot and uneven action scenes
Diary of a Madman (1963)
Vincent Price is an upstanding 19th Century magistrate who is possessed by a spirit known as The Horla. An interesting treatment of possession themes made prior to The Exorcist
Diary of the Dead (2007)
George Romero returns to zombies, making a Found Footage film. After the disappointment of Land of the Dead, he delivers the goods here, while making powerful political points about modern media
Dick Barton Strikes Back (1949)
From the early days of Hammer Films, one of several films based on Dick Barton, a popular radio hero. A progenitor of the spy movie with the title hero trying to prevent foreign agents unleashing a deadly sonic ray
Dick Dynamite: 1944 (2023)
A gonzo parody of WWII heroics a la Inglourious Basterds with the addition of Nazi zombies, over-the-top splatter and some decidedly non-PC humour, this proves an enormously entertainingly comic-book of a film
Dick Tracy (1937)
This is a standout serial based on the famous comic-book detective, featuring some of the best of all serial cliffhangers and action set-pieces, not to mention wonderfully creative super-science inventions
Dick Tracy (1945)
Feature film version of the popular comic-book detective that led to three sequels. Here the stylised look of the comic-book comes out resembling a regular crime drama but the film is not uninteresting
Dick Tracy (1990)
The Warren Beatty directed and starring adaptation of the popular newspaper comic-strip detective proved a flop. Beatty creates a highly stylised world and peoples it with an all-star cast but fails to invest the world with any depth
Dick Tracy’s Dilemma (1947)
The third of the films based on the famous comic-book detective Dick Tracy, this is far more successful at obtaining the larger-than-life feel of the comic-book than earlier entries
Die (2010)
A blatant copy of Saw, albeit without the Torture Porn sadism, with people imprisoned in a cellar forced to kill one another. An oddly unconvincing film that fails to generate any tension or even conviction
Die Another Day (2002)
Pierce Brosnan’s final outing as James Bond lacks the sharpness of the preceding entries and is hampered by Halle Berry who is given great presence but nothing to do. Despite which this has some of the best action scenes of any Bond film
Die Cheerleader Die (2008)
Hands down, this is the worst slasher film ever made. Seemingly shot by amateurs who have never held a video camera before and acted by those who have no prior experience, this is a painful viewing experience
Die Screaming Marianne (1971)
Pete Walker was one of the most underrated directors of the 1970s Anglo-horror wave. This was his first film. Compared to Walker’s later works, this is more a psycho-thriller that sits on the borderline of being horror
Die, Monster, Die! (1965)
Adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Color Out of Space, directed by Roger Corman’s production designer Daniel Haller that draws on the look and mood of Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe films
Digby, The Biggest Dog in the World (1973)
British children’s film in which a dog is made giant sized after being fed a growth formula by scientist Spike Milligan. Amiable but nothing great
Digging Up the Marrow (2014)
Adam Green, director of the Hatchet films, makes a Found Footage film about the search for an underground world of monsters. The monsters, when seen, are quite imaginative
Digimon: The Movie (2000)
The first film from Mamoru Hosoda based on a tv series that was a blatant attempt to copy the Pokemon phenomenon and concerning cute creatures that live on the internet
Digital Man (1995)
Fairly average 90s SF/action video release about soldiers hunting an amok military android before realising the androids have also infiltrated their troupe
Dilili in Paris (2018)
Michel Ocelot is one of the great underrated animators of the world. Here he makes an exquisite tribute to the Belle Epoque featuring appearances from names of the era and decked out in Steampunk inventions
Dinosaur (2000)
The first full computer animated film from Disney. It feels like someone decided to give the Jurassic Park dinosaurs their own film, mixed up with the plot of The Land Before Time
Dinosaur Hotel (2021)
A head-scratching oddity from the people behind Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey with people enter in a reality tv show where they are hunted by dinosaurs within the confines of a hotel
Dinosaur Island (1994)
A collaboration between B-budget hacks Fred Olen Ray and Jim Wynorski. Made not long after Jurassic Park, the two have simply made one of their usual softcore T&A films and slapped the word dinosaur on it
Dinosaurus! (1960)
A low-budget effort but amiable effort about dinosaurs and a caveman that are revived on an island. The cheap effects, culminating in a battle between a dinosaur and a crane, have some imagination
Dinoshark (2010)
One of the earliest entries in the gonzo killer shark fad, predating Sharknado even. This comes produced by Roger Corman and concerns a prehistoric shark that is revived
Dinotopia (2002)
A TV mini-series based on the popular illustrated books by James Gurney about the discovery of a lost land where dinosaurs have evolved into their own civilisation
Diplomatic Siege (1999)
One of the numerous action films to use a variant on the Die Hard scenario (with an added nuclear threat). For once, this has an okay script and a sense of humour but is killed by a fatal miscasting of its two leads
Director’s Cut (2016)
A mind-bogglingly meta film that starts out as a regular crime thriller before it gets invaded and taken over by psycho fan Penn Jillette who abducts the star and is determined to write himself in as the hero
Dirty Harry (1971)
The film that made Clint Eastwood’s name. He is a rule-bending cop who decides he has to defy the system in his pursuit of a psycho (a thinly disguised version of the then active Zodiac Killer)
Dirty Weekend (1992)
Enjoyably sordid Michael Winner film in which Lia Williams is an woman who starts to eliminate the abusive men in her life. As to be expected with Winner, this gets trashy in quick course
Disaster Movie (2008)
The movie parodies of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, which consist of crude, witless gags run over replication of scenes from films of the last twelve months, are painfully unfunny. This doesn’t even spoof the disaster movie
Disclosure (1994)
It is telling that the only film made about workplace sexual harassment up to this point is one that painted the male as a victim. This adaptation of a Michael Crichton book came mired in controversy
Disclosure Day (2026)
Steven Spielberg makes a thoughtful return to the theme of alien contact. Rather than the rosy optimism of Close Encounters and E.T., he seems to have embraced the dark conspiratorial view of The X Files
Discontinued (2022)
We’ve all heard the theory that we might be living in The Matrix. This asks the question of what happens when it is announced that the simulation is being shut down
Disenchanted (2022)
Enchanted in which Amy Adams played an animated fairytale princess entering the real world was a reasonable hit. This is the long-planned sequel that reunites the principals but feels like a joke that belabours in the retelling
Disquiet (2023)
Jonathan Rhys Meyers wakes up in a hospital as strange hallucinatory and nightmarish things start to happen. The fact that this is a deathdream film becomes very obvious
Distortions (1987)
Shabbily made psycho-thriller where Piper Laurie tries to scam niece Olivia Hussey out of an insurance payout at the same time as Olivia starts to see visions of her dead husband
District 9 (2009)
Neill Blomkamp’s first film starts well as a strong, highly politicised work about human-alien prejudice. However, Blomkamp loses steam about halfway through where it feel as though he didn’t know where to take the story
Disturbia (2007)
A hackneyed rehash of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window where Shia LaBeouf is a teenager on home detention spying with a pair of binoculars who realises that his neighbour might be a serial killer
Disturbing Behavior (1998)
A smart and modestly enjoyable film that plays like a high school version of The Stepford Wives where troubled students are being brainwashed and turned into preppy high-achievers
Ditch Day Massacre (2016)
Passable low-budget slasher film that looks as though it is was shot in the director’s home. Somehow the title, which refers to a day when a group of teens decide to ditch school, fails to stand among the great holiday-titled slashers
Ditto (2000)
A South Korean film that came out around the same time as Frequency and has an almost identical premise about two people who start talking by radio while separated in time by twenty years.
Divergent (2014)
Designed as a copycat of The Hunger Games, this Young Adult film as a modest hit. The premise is fundamentally implausible as human psychology – and when there’s no basic credibility, you cease to care about the contrived dramatics
Djinn (2013)
Tobe Hooper’s career since 1990 felt like a slide down into talentless amateurism. In his last film, Hooper tries to create an Islamic horror film, shooting and casting in the Middle East but slips into hackwork
DNA (1997)
Another variant on Alien – a monster movie with Mark Dacascos as a doctor facing a genetically engineered insect monster in the jungles of Borneo
DNA (2004)
Forensic thriller in which Tom Conti is a CSI who discovers evidence that he might have conducted a series of killings while in a fugue state
DOA: Dead or Alive (2006)
Videogame adaptation that emerges as a conceptual combination of Charlie’s Angels (2000) – a trio of girls, in kickass poses and jaw-droppingly scanty costumery – and Mortal Kombat
Doc of the Dead (2014)
Documentary about the popularity of zombie films, this covers the history of the genre in reasonable depth, even examines the historical origins and provides an amusing glimpse into the zombie’s pervasion of popular culture
Doc Savage – The Man of Bronze (1975)
The final film from legendary 1950s SF producer George Pal, an adaptation of the celebrated 1930s pulp hero Doc Savage. Alas, this is given the campy unserious tone of tv’s Batman, which utterly wrecks the show
Doctor Death, Seeker of Souls (1973)
A fascinatingly torrid 1970s film about a magician who seeks to perfect the secret of resurrecting the dead by transferring souls. It doesn’t take long before things become quite twisted.
Doctor Dolittle (1967)
This gets the nonsensical absurdity of the original Doctor Dolittle stories far more than the Eddie Murphy version. On the other hand, this was the era of Mary Poppins and this is made as a lumbering musical
Doctor Jekyll (2023)
The revived Hammer Films takes on adapting Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde with Eddie Izzard playing the role as a trans woman. This offers some amusing modernisations of the familiar, oft-filmed story
Doctor K (1999)
South Korean film about a doctor with shamanistic powers, this starts out seeming to be a horror film before becoming something different altogether
Doctor Mordrid (1992)
One of the better films from Charles Band – an uncredited homage to Marvel’s Dr Strange. The film captures a wonderful atmosphere of esotericism and Jeffrey Combs is perfect as the sorcerer superhero
Doctor Plague (2026)
A British thriller where detective Martin Kemp has to deal with a series of murders conducted by someone in a plague doctor mask, which supposedly replicate the Jack the Ripper killings
Doctor Sleep (2002)
Here Nick Willing makes an initially promising film but this becomes a disjointed muddle involving hypnotism, serial killers and occult conspiracy. Not to be confused with the Stephen King adapted film
Doctor Sleep (2019)
Mike Flanagan, one of the most exciting genre names in recent years, takes on Stephen King’s book sequel to The Shining, managing the daunting balancing act of both adapting the book and turning it into a sequel to the Stanley Kubrick film
Doctor Strange (2007)
One among a handful of animated films based on Marvel Comics properties, this conducts a passable telling of the origin story of the Sorcerer Supreme
Doctor Strange (2016)
Scott Derrickson acquits himself well taking on one of Marvel’s magician superhero. He replicates well the psychedelic esoterica that gained the comic book a cult following and Benedict Cumberbatch anchors the show perfectly
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)
Doctor Strange was one of the better MCU films. Here Sam Raimi takes over in the director’s chair. This readily delves into multiverse themes but requires a major crash course in a plethora of Marvel tv series to follow
Doctor X (1932)
One of the classics of mad scientist cinema. A wonderful potboiler of elements with Fay Wray and Lionel Atwill on the track of a cannibal killer who has created an artificial flesh. From the director of Casablanca, no less
Document of the Dead (1989)
A documentary about George Romero that was filmed during the shooting of Dawn of the Dead. Originally made as a teaching aid for a film school class before being given commercial release
Dofus – Book 1: Julith (2015)
Animated film spun off from a popular French online gameworld, which had also previously spawned an animated tv series. The results are amiably engaging with a sense of humour that makes the show
Dog Soldiers (2002)
The first film from Neil Marshall. Essentially a version of Walter Hill’s Southern Comfort but with soldiers being hunted by werewolves instead of Cajuns. Marshall directs with a satisfying ferocity.
Doghouse (2009)
A film about a bunch of boorish lads gleefully eliminating zombie women. A comedy this may well be but doesn’t disguise the fact the film’s sympathies are clearly with the guys making crude innuendos and feeling downtrodden by women
Dogma (1999)
Kevin Smith makes a film about Catholicism. Smith’s irreverent humour caused considerable controversy when the film came out, although this is also an interesting and thoughtful work that does make a number of thoughtful theological points
Dogora the Space Monster (1964)
One of the overlooked Japanese monster movies directed by Godzilla’s creator Ishiro Honda concerning a giant alien blob that appears in the sky and sucks up coal and diamonds
Dogs (1977)
Another in the 1970s fad for Animals Attack films. This features David McCallum facing off against hordes of dogs that turn on humanity with killing intent
Dogtooth (2009)
The film that announced Yorgos Lanthimos to the world, a black deadpan comedy about a father who has prevents his family from going into the world outside and their bizarre ways of interpreting everything that happens
Doin’ Time on Planet Earth (1988)
A peculiarity from Cannon Films that was a flop, a comedy in which a weird teenager believes he is an alien and suddenly attracts the attention of a bunch of UFO cultists
Dolittle (2020)
This revival of the classic children’s character who can speak to animals took a critical battering but I kind of liked it. It has a completely madcap slapstick tone and more crucially returns to the stories and banishes any bad memory of Eddie Murphy
Dollman (1990)
A highly entertaining effort from Charles Band and Full Moon Productions directed by Albert Pyun featuring Tim Thomerson as a hard-boiled miniature alien cop come to Earth
Dollman Vs. the Demonic Toys (1993)
Full Moon production that offers the novelty of bringing together their Dollman and Demonic Toys franchises, although nearly a third of the film is comprised of recycled footage from said films
Dolls (1987)
Following his success with Re-Animator, Stuart Gordon went on to make this film about a dollmaker and his malevolent dolls. The doll effects are eniably effective but the film’s appeal to a child-like fairytale morality is uneven
Dolly Dearest (1991)
A copycat possessed doll film that came out in the aftermath of the Child’s Play films. A routine effort about an evil spirit uncovered in a Mexican mine that inhabits a child’s doll.
Dolores (2016)
A model maker is hired to build a miniature of a famous actress’s house but then finds the model is capable of influencing reality. An ingenious premise that plays out with near-perfection
Doman Seman (2009)
A bizarre and entirely incomprehensible Japanese urban fantasy. I reached the end with no idea what this film’s string of strange happenings was about at all
Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist (2005)
Paul Schrader’s original version of Exorcist: The Beginning that was junked by the producers. This is a far more subtle telling of the same story that eschews shock effect in favour of a moral struggle of the soul
Dominique (1978)
A creaky old-fashioned psycho-thriller – one that draws heavily on Les Diaboliques and a contrived plot to drive somebody crazy – that came out the same year as Halloween and feels a whole world apart
Domino (2005)
Tony Scott directs a biopic of true-life bounty hunter Domino Harvey that becomes a totally madcap film (including fantasy elements) thanks to a lunatically out of control script from Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly
Don’t Answer the Phone! (1980)
Fairly average 1980s slasher film – the first on the theme of a killer calling into a radio talkback host. This delves with enthusiasm into voyeurism, while Nicholas Worth has clear fun as the psycho of the show
Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (2011)
Guillermo Del Toro produced cinematic remake of a 1970s tv movie, this creates a good deal of creepy mood and atmosphere with Katie Holmes as a mother who finds goblins in the cellar, but never pushes any of it in a way that jolts audiences in their seats
Don’t Breathe (2016)
This, which is sort of The People Under the Stairs by way of Wait Until Dark, was greeted with terms like ‘an instant classic’. It is a well-oiled machine that produces some undeniable jumps but little remains in memory after it is over
Don’t Breathe 2 (2021)
Don’t Breathe was a surprise hit with its story of kids invading a home only to be hunted by blind man Stephen Lang. This is a sequel that bafflingly reverses all the sympathies
Don’t Deliver Us From Evil (1971)
A film that was the cause of much censorship controversy when it came out where two teenage girls decide to become devil worshippers and engage on a spree of cruel and malicious acts
Don’t Fuck in the Woods (2016)
This gets the award for the ballsiest title of any horror film of recent While the slasher film of the 00s has become much more chaste, this doesn’t let down on the plentiful nudity. At the same time, it is also a smartly self-aware horror film
Don’t Fuck in the Woods 2 (2022)
Don’t Fuck in the Woods was a reasonably smart slasher film that came with an attention-grabbing title. This is a sequel that introduces body-snatching parasites to the mix
Don’t Go in the House (1979)
A film from the slasher era – the scenes of the psycho of the show incinerating victims with a flamethrower were the cause of censorship controversy. Less a slasher film and more a psycho film, this pushes into some disturbing headspace
Don’t Go in the Woods (1981)
One of the ‘don’t __’- titled entries of the 1970s/80s. This was an entry in the decade’s popular slasher cycle with a hulking manic stalking trampers in the backwoods