6 Degrees of Hell (2012)
A horror film set around a haunted house attraction that is made with near-total amateurishness. The film seems to have multiple plots happening all at once and becomes impossible trying to figure out what is happening
The Terrornauts (1967)
SF effort from the UK’s Amicus Films with an ambitious plot about communication from the stars that manages to prefigure films like Contact and 2001. On the other hand, the film fails is in its pitiful and utterly inadequate special effects
Macabre (1958)
The first of William Castle’s films set around outrageous promotional stunts – here he took an insurance policy out against audience members dying of fright. The film entirely belies its promise to scare an audience to death
R.I.P.D. (2013)
This feels like someone has simply copied the idea of a secretive law enforcement agency from
Wizards of the Lost Kingdom (1984)
A painfully cheap entry in the 1980s fad for sword and sorcery films.
The Conjuring (2013)
Supposedly based on a true story. A film that feels written entirely by cliches taken from every other haunting and exorcism film, but you cannot deny that director James Wan generates a more than fair degree of spooky atmosphere
The Vulture (1967)
Possibly the most conceptually demented film to come out of the 1960s-70s Anglo-horror cycle – one part The Fly, one part a witch’s retribution film about a man who transforms into a vulture creature after teleporting into his ancestor’s grave whereupon he is driven to enact a centuries old curse
A Virgin Among the Living Dead (1973)
One of the films from cult director Jesus Franco, one effort among Franco’s mostly cheap output where his mix of softcore erotica and pretensions towards artiness were at their most inspired. On the other hand, the film is written with a randomness that makes it impossible to understand anything that is happening
The Loved Ones (2009)
Australian black comedy about a guy imprisoned to be a girl’s perfect prom date. The film takes to horror with enthusiasm and is owned by two fantastic performances from the women of the show
Berserker: The Nordic Curse (1987)
Justifiably obscure 1980s video release that has been intended as a copy of The Evil Dead concerning possible Viking berserker spirits amok in backwoods Utah. Cheap and routine on almost all counts
A Fire in the Sky (1978)
TV movie about an impending asteroid collision that was intended as a copy of the big-budget disaster movie Meteor but is actually a far better film. The science and Civil Defence reaction is written with an impressive credibility
V/H/S/2 (2013)
Sequel to the modest success of V/H/S, an anthology of short Found Footage horror films featuring a different line-up of genre directors. The episodes are competent at best, none standout and mostly forgettable
Pacific Rim (2013)
Giant mecha robots beating the crap out of giant monsters – what’s not to like? In comparison to the Transformers films, Guillermo Del Toro looks to find the soul of the robot jock – in essence, Transformers for grown-ups
The Poughkeepsie Tapes (2007)
Another Found Footage film, a mix of interviews and video footage supposedly recorded by a serial killer. Despite some initial amateurishness, the film soon gets a disturbing grip on you in depicting the astonishing cruelty and fiendishness of the killer
Scared to Death (1980)
A blatant copy of Alien (one of the first of many such), albeit brought down to Earth. Novice director William Malone, later to make House on Haunted Hill, is a far cry from Ridley Scott
The Dark Crystal (1982)
The film that Jim Henson chose to make as successor to The Muppets. An astonishing technical leap beyond Muppetry to create an entire fantasy world in living, breathing detail all only inhabited by puppets
Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals (1977)
A bizarre cross between the softcore Emmanuelle films and the Italian cannibal film. It seems perverse to be watching beautiful bodies one minute and next showing their insides being spilled
Vampire Hookers (1978)
Filipino exploitation film that has a reputation as something more trashy than it is. A dull and aimless effort where an aging John Carradine delivers a largely incoherent performance as the head vampire
When Time Becomes a Woman (2012)
How interesting can a film be that consists of nothing more than two people talking? The answer is surprisingly good. Boasting that it is Jordan’s first SF film, this produces an extraordinary series of conceptual reversal twists while never venturing beyond being a man and a woman talking on a beach
The Brass Teapot (2012)
Comedy with a head-scratching premise where a couple discover a teapot that produces money whenever they hurt themselves. Such a loopy premise could work as a black comedy but this plays itself as a frothy light fantasy
Planzet (2010)
Anime that has clearly been modelled along the lines of Neon Genesis Evangelion Initially, the animation is conducted with a dazzlingly realistic textured look but once the giant robot action scenes take over, these seem increasingly absurd in their anthropomorphism
Lake Mungo (2008)
An Australian Found Footage film about a haunting. Rather than the intense spookiness of Paranormal Activity, this is more a mockumentary that is constantly turning what we expect is going on on its head
Despicable Me 2 (2013)
Despicable Me was a charming lightning in the bottle hit. Here Illumination Entertainment merely recycle the familiar and already the cute sweetness and gags of the original are starting to feel like processed formula
Extraterrestrial (2011)
This, the second film from Nacho Vigalondo, is a head-scratcher, Though it is ostensibly an alien invasion film, Vigalondo instead creates a comedy of errors
Chained (2012)
Jennifer Lynch, daughter of David, makes an extraordinary work about the relationship between a serial killer and his young male companion. A film that eschews big dramatics with startling effect. Vincent D’Onofrio gives one of his best performances
The Pact (2012)
Modestly effective film about a haunted suburban house. Debuting director Nicholas McCarthy produces a number of accomplished and eerie scares that stand him as a promising new name. The film weakens in the last act when trying to tie everything together with an improbable rationale
Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland (1989)
Anime film based on Winsor McCay’s celebrated comic strip about a boy’s adventures in dreams. Despite a script from Ray Bradbury, the film waters the comic-strip down to the formula of the modern children’s film
Torment (1986)
Very obscure and forgotten psycho film from the 1980s that, while not aiming particularly high in its horizons, nevertheless manages to generate a reasonable tension and creepiness
Black Rock (2012)
Wilderness survival horror in the same vein as Deliverance but with a Chick Flick spin. This starts promisingly but director/star Katie Aselton fails to push the survival scenes for anything dramatic
Creep Van (2012)
Imagine a slasher movie version of Duel – a film about an unseen driver and a van outfitted with a series of novelty killing attachments. A film driven by its gore set-pieces that tends to drag when it comes to the comedy relief
Night of the Demons (2009)
Another pointless remake of an 80s horror film. The original was a cheap Evil Dead ripoff driven by cheesy effects; this provides more professional effects but only becomes a slickly produced assemblage of cliches we have seen dozens of times before
Alligator II: The Mutation (1991)
The 1980 Alligator was amusing but this hardly one of the sequels the world was burning to see. An utterly formulaic copy that is killed by impoverished giant alligator effects
World War Z (2013)
You wonder what this can do with such an overworked genre as the zombie apocalypse. It is not a film that reinvents the wheel for the genre but spins the basics out into an exciting, international locale hopping survival story
Monsters University (2013)
Pixar’s creative decline began they started making these sequels. A disappointing prequel to Monsters, Inc. that recycles the cliches of the Revenge of the Nerds films and is lacking in the humour or cuteness we expect
Clonehunter (2009)
SF neo-noir that suffers from a painfully low budget (particularly when it comes to its CGI) but transcends this with a consistently intelligent story and a world created with a reasonable sense of verisimilitude
Murder By Moonlight (1989)
Murder mystery set on a moonbase. Besides assuming the USSR would exist in the future, this creates a surprisingly credible lunar environment set amid East-West tensions. Brigitte Nielsen even gives a performance
Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death (1989)
The film that Bill Maher would prefer to forget. Beyond the deliberately absurd title, this is an amusing spoof of the jungle adventure and contains a far cleverer degree of wit than you expect
The Final Storm (2010)
Uwe Boll seems to be improving. Here he has abandoned action for a character-driven drama about the appearance of an ambiguous stranger heralding the Biblical end of the world
Red: Werewolf Hunter (2010)
Syfy Channel film that seems to offer the intriguing premise of a Modernised Little Red Riding Hood but only deals with this in the vaguest ways. Otherwise this is a standard werewolf film and contains maybe the crappiest CGI wolf transformation scenes ever
Nude Nuns with Big Guns (2010)
Film in the faux grindhouse style created by Tarantino and Rodriguez made as homage to the so-called nunsploitation genre. While operating on a low-budget, this has a great pulp energy that delivers in aces on all three title promises
Man of Steel (2013)
Zack Snyder’s reboot of Superman leaves you irritated in the first half of the film at its throwing chunks of comic-book canon out the window and the second half bored with the mass destruction orgy that drags on
Dark and Stormy Night (2009)
Larry Blamire, a director who specialises in genre parodies, takes on the Old Dark House thriller. Not quite up there with Blamire’s funniest films, nevertheless, the film conducts some amusing spoofs of the form
This is The End (2013)
Several well-known actors hole up in a Hollywood mansion as the Biblical Apocalypse hits. While at first seeming a self-congratulatory exercise, this emerges as a raucously funny ensemble drama where each of the actors play to great strength. Seth Rogen may yet earn forgiveness for The Green Hornet
Amityville: The Evil Escapes (1989)
The fourth and one of the worst of the numerous Amityville films. This reduces everything to a series of crude and increasingly more preposterous, eventually laughable, shocks
Castle of Evil (1966)
At initial face value, this appears to be a 1960s revival of the Old Dark House film with a hooded figure killing a cast assembled at gloomy old mansion, but then takes a turn for the bizarre with an unexpected science-fiction twist mid-film
Adventures of a Teenage Dragonslayer (2010)
A children’s fantasy adventure that never strays beyond the environs of an American high school and comes with the lowbrow slapstick, excruciating comic caricatures and incredibly bad effects
The Purge (2013)
Film based around the improbable concept of a future where on one night of each year all crime including murder becomes permissible. While this promises a rich vein of satire, the film only emerges as a variant on Straw Dogs
After Earth (2013)
Enough with the M. Night Shyamalan bashing. Here Shyamalan pulls off a solid and interesting planetary adventure where the only real misstep is that much of the film rests on the non-acting shoulders of Jaden Smith
Faceless (1987)
Cult exploitation director Jesus Franco pays homage to the mad surgeon films of his heyday. Essentially one of Franco’s Dr Orloff films by way of the sadistic despatches of the giallo film
Electroma (2006)
Full-length film made by the French electronic music duo Daft Punk based around the robot guises the band adopts. Resembles an extended student film and feels exactly like an SF version of The Brown Bunny
The Philadelphia Experiment (2012)
This Syfy Channel production can’t seem to decide if it is a sequel or a remake of the 1984 film. Michael Paré turn up in both versions but goes from being the hero to a menacing heavy. The original had its moments but this is generic and routine in all ways
Jack Brooks, Monster Slayer (2007)
This leads to you expect a horror comedy but spends half its running time in build-up with no comedy or monster slaying, although does deliver on this with an entertaining effects-heavy climax
The Barrens (2012)
Saw series Darren Lynn Bousman downplays sadism in favour of a psychologically ambiguous film about a series of attacks possibly conducted by the Jersey Devil
ATM (2012)
Thriller from the screenwriter of Buried that seeks to imitate that film’s containment drama in having three characters trapped inside an ATM booth by a killer outside
Epic (2013)
The animated films of Blue Sky Studios (the people behind the Ice Age sequels) have become so formulaic they have been drained of any spark of originality or creativity. This feels more like a series of test-marketing cues than a film
Flu Bird Horror (2008)
The Bird Flu Epidemic was a brief panic over an influenza outbreak that infected humans; this seems to little concern the film that blows it up into a horde of large mutant birds that attack humans
Necromentia (2009)
Drawing very clear influence from Clive Barker and Saw, this is a delve down into perverse fetish, gateways to Hell and bizarre hallucinations. After watching the film through twice, I still remain confused to what it was all about
Flying Swords of Dragon Gate (2011)
Tsui Hark, a key figure of the modern Wu Xia cycle, makes a lushly extravagant, Chinese-backed flying swordsman epic. Featuring a wide canvas of characters who come together in a series of very entertaining playoffs
The Lords of Salem (2012)
In this homage to the 1970s occult film, Rob Zombie tones back the posturing shock effect of his earlier films and creates atmosphere. Eventually though, Zombie creates a film that feels coiled to unleash something bad but falters
Would You Rather (2012)
The old party game about choosing between two difficult decisions is spun out into a rather lame attempt to make another Saw. Given a generic commercial handling, the film fails to get inside the psychological tension of its life and death decisions
Deadheads (2011)
Yet another zombie comedy. Essentially a zombie bromance where it gains its life from its two characters’ motormouth performances. The humour sits halfway between goofy silliness and the occasionally amusing
The Howling (1981)
The film that made the name of Joe Dante who fills it with a barrage of werewolf movie in-references. The film’s reputation rests on an amazing effects sequence where a man transforms into a wolf
The Hideous Sun Demon (1959)
1950s B movie, one of several inspired by The Quatermass Xperiment on the theme of mutating astronauts/scientists. Nothing hugely standout from the average, although the creature certainly lives up to the hideous description
Sinbad the Sailor (1947)
The very first Sinbad film. Douglas Fairbanks Jr is cast to capitalise on the swashbuckling name of his father. It is odd seeing a Sinbad film that eliminates fantasy adventure in favour of talk, although it eventually mounts a likeably energetic show
The Psychic (1977)
A blatant copy of Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now from cult Italian director Lucio Fulci. Here Don’t Look Now reduced to no more than a dull clairvoyant murder mystery
The Strange World of Planet X (1958)
1950s British science-fiction entry that draws influence from the Quatermass films. While the title(s) leads you to expect an alien invasion entry, it is in actuality more of a British copy of a giant insect film. A routine effort that is eventually done in by utterly impoverished giant insect effects
Tokyo Gore Police (2008)
One among the 00s spate of gonzo Japanese splatter films. The film exists as a series of outlandishly over-the-top and absurdly entertaining splatter and bizarrely cartoonish bio-mechanoid transformation
Errors of the Human Body (2012)
This gave the impression that is was going to venture deep inside Cronenbergian territory but instead, we have a darkly fascinating work set in the world of scientific research
Star Trek: Into Darkness (2013)
I had mixed feelings about J.J. Abrams’ reboot of Star Trek This time around the actors seem more at home in the characters and the plot works a good deal better (for the most part), while Abrams creates a hurtling effects spectacle that is the most action-oriented of the Trek films
The Cell 2 (2009)
Sequel to Tarsem Singh’s The Cell that feels made by people who haven’t even seen the original. The original’s fascinating journey into dream terrain is replaced by a dull psychic with a link to a serial killer plot
The ? Motorist (1906)
Walter R. Booth was a British imitator of Georges Melies. In this early silent film, a motorcar travels so fast that it heads into orbit. Less sophisticated than Melies but this still has its charms
The Monster of Piedras Blancas (1959)
Minor and largely undistinguished 1950s monster movie. The monster is a blatant copy of The Creature of the Black Lagoon and similarly has biologically improbable designs on the heroine. Routine on all accounts
Bates Motel (1987)
Not the tv series, this is an unsold earlier tv pilot that attempted to spin a series off from Psycho, An ill-conceived disaster, the film’s clumsy
direction could not be further away from Alfred Hitchcock if it tried
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)
The first live-action spinoff of the comic-book and animated series still holds up well two decades later. Little of the manic barrage of pop culture has dated, there are some excellent animatronics that allow the Turtles to engage in a series of high-energy fights and more importantly emerge as distinctive characters
The Hair of the Beast (2010)
Quebecois (French-speaking Canadian) historical werewolf film. The plot proves entertaining in its whisplash reversals, although the film’s provision of a werewolf falls down amid some ratty CGI effects
Life and Death of Porno Gang (2009)
Overshadowed by the much more controversial A Serbian Film, a similar Serbian film about the world of snuff movie-making. This is more character-driven although is no less shocking in its own way
Vampire Bride (1960)
Rather drab and cheap Japanese horror film about a disfigured actress who returns to life as a hairy vampire creature to exact vengeance. Not without its schlocky appeals, the hairy vampire bride looks more funny than threatening
Citadel (2012)
Irish-British production that depicts the social housing estates of Glasgow as a desolate netherworld inhabited by mutant children. Undeniably effective but the depiction of children of urban ghettos requires you to tune out any liberal instincts
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns Part II (2013)
The second of the two-part animated adaptation of Frank Miller’s classic graphic novel. More satisfying than the first part, this where the story comes into its own
Eddie the Sleepwalking Cannibal (2012)
Rather peculiar film about a man who becomes a cannibal whenever he sleepwalks and an artist who finds inspiration at the sight of the dead bodies. This taps a rich vein of black comedy
Thale (2012)
Fascinating Norwegian film about the discovery of a mysterious girl who it gradually becomes apparent is not human … The first 20 minutes are a superb piece of scene-setting but the rest of the film consists of not much more than people sitting around a cellar waiting for something to happen
Iron Man Three (2013)
A major disappointment. Stripping the superhero of the show of his suit makes for no more than a regular action hero, while the film’s reduction of Iron Man’s No 1 villain to a cardboard threat ranks down alongside a Batsuit with nipples
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
The Ghost Cat of Otama Pond (1960)
Another effort from the Golden Age of kaidan eiga (Japanese ghost story films) during the 1950s-60s. While this assembles the essentials of the genre, it is only delivered in terms of a series of strident and unsubtle pop-up effects
Teorema (1968)
Pier Paolo Pasolini makes a film in which a Christ-like visitor appears, seduces all the members of an upper-class family and departs, leaving their lives changed. A fascinating study in the effects of religion on ordinary lives
The Millennium Bug (2011)
The Y2K Problem was a now largely forgotten social apocalypse that never happened so why someone is making a film about it now is a scratch of the head. This is a Backwoods Brutality film that abruptly jumps tracks to become a monster movie
Mass Effect: Paragon Lost (2012)
While Mass Effect has an impressive reputation on the console screen, this is a dull anime spinoff that only comes in around the level of a production line animated tv episode
Joe’s Apartment (1996)
A bizarrely off-the-wall film in which Jerry O’Connell obtains a cheap apartment in New York City only to then find that he is sharing it with singing cockroaches
Wicked City (1993)
Live-action version of a manga that was previously made as an anime. This Hong Kong-made version lacks the perverse sexual imagery of the anime but does feature the wildly fantastical action scenes of HK fantasy
Vampire Dog (2012)
This may quite possibly be the worst vampire film ever made – a children’s film about a boy and a cute vampire dog. Being a children’s film, the vampire dog is not allowed to drink blood so has to have a ravenous hunger for red jelly! The slapstick is excruciating and the film painful on every level
Wraiths of Roanoke (2007)
B-budget Syfy Channel outing that attempts to answer the true-life Unsolved Mystery of the lost colony at Roanoke. Unfortunately, the film’s answers are no more interesting than a bunch of Viking spirits, while the film generates little atmosphere or anything beyond rudimentary historical conviction
Project: Metalbeast (1994)
Typical 1990s video-released effort that stands out by dint of a far-out idea – a cyborg werewolf – even if in the end the film does nothing with it and everything only boils down to a standard monster movie that takes everything from the Alien playbook
Scary MoVie (2013)
Just when you thought that this witless and unfunny series has died off, it drags itself out of mothballs for another outing. As with the other entries, it is a bunch of recent movies overrun with crude, moronic gags
Salvage (1979)
Pilot for a forgotten short-lived tv series starring Andy Griffith as a junk dealer who decides to mount his own expedition to The Moon. Snappily written and pulls its premise off with a reasonable degree of plausibility
Attack of the 60 Foot Centerfolds (1995)
Fred Olen Ray offers his take on Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. Where the original was a feminist parable, Olen Ray has a giant woman whose only motivation is wanting a bigger set of breasts
Alfie the Little Werewolf (2011)
Film version of a popular series of Dutch children’s books. The lonely bespectacled werewolf boy is the most adorable sight, while the film is a sweetly gentle delight, not making a single wrong misstep
Oblivion (2013)
This falls short of being a great science-fiction film by a hairs breadth. Not the big space/action film it was sold as, more a Philip K. Dickian conceptual breakthrough film that seems to have borrowed large chunks of its set-up from Moon
Moon Man (2012)
A children’s film that comes with a sweet simplicity and an enormous freshness, while the animation is rendered with a considerable beauty that makes it just as much a film for adults
Ghost Story of Yotsuya (1959)
Japanese ghost story based on a kabuki play that has been filmed numerous times. Much more character and story driven than modern kaidan eiga, this builds to a grim and spooky climax with undeniable effect
Spiders (2013)
When you approach this in terms of exactly what it promises to be – a revival of the good old B movie standard of the giant spider film – this proves absurdly entertaining and with some surprisingly good CGI spider effects