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 references and in-jokes. The film’s reputation rests on an amazing mid-film 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)
Early silent film in which a motorcar travels so fast that it heads into orbit. One of the films from Walter R. Booth, a British imitator of Georges Melies, The effects are less sophisticated than Melies developed around this point but the film 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. The film is staged as a series of epic confrontations between iconic DC characters and written with a dark bite to emerge much more satisfying than the first part
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)
Another instance of a computer game or film franchise turning to anime to conduct a spinoff. While Mass Effect has an impressive reputation on the console screen, the film here is a dull piece 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 is the lesser, lacking the perverse sexual imagery of the anime. It does feature the wildly fantastical action scenes typical to HK fantasy of this era but this has been conducted on a low-budget and looks rubbery (*)
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 up a bimbo movie take on Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. Where the original was an early feminist parable, Olen Ray offers up 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)
Beautifully made children’s film that is a refreshing change from most of the formulaic product released in the US mainstream. 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
Castle of Blood (1964)
Classic work of 1960s Italian Gothic cinema. Director Antonio Margheriti rises above himself to create a vividly spooky atmosphere, while at the centre of the show is the haunted otherworldly looks of Barbara Steele
Ghost Machine (2009)
A Virtual Reality/horror film about a malevolent spirit incarnated inside a videogame. This churns all the Virtual Reality cliches as though nothing had changed since the tide of shabby 1990s Lawnmower Man copies
Asterix and Obelix: God Save Britannia (2012)
Fourth of the live-action films adapted from the Asterix comic-books with Gerard Depardieu as Obelix. This replicates the absurdist historical wit of the originals while poking fun at the foibles of the British
Camille Rewinds (2012)
This French film is an uncredited copy of Peggy Sue Got Married wherein director/star Noemie Lvovsky a dissatisfied divorcee who is propelled back to her high school graduating year and gets to relive her life choices
The Colony (2013)
This creates a fascinatingly different future – a world of grim survivalism amid a new Ice Age in the aftermath of Global Warming. The look of the film is fantastic, only to fritter it on an action focus and Mad Max cliches
Jennifer (1978)
A blatant ripoff of Carrie about a tormented girl who takes psychic revenge using snakes. Without Brian De Palma in the director’s chair, this only looks like a cheap tv movie
Vamp U (2013)
The entirely unappealing notion of a vampire frat rat comedy, The film is agonisingly unfunny on almost every level, while Adam Johnson’s professor may count as possibly the wimpiest and most non-threatening vampire in the history of cinema
Atlas Shrugged II: The Strike (2012)
The second film from Ayn Rand’s libertarian fantasy. This gets more into the meat of Rand’s ideas (wherein the wealthy decide to ignore an undeserving world) and is even more ridiculous than the first film
Dracula (2012)
Hard to describe what an utter disappointment Dario Argento’s take on the oft-filmed Bram Stoker work is. Argento seems to have entirely lost the mojo and visual flair that made him a cult name. Thomas Kretschmann makes for the screen’s mellowest Dracula
The Miracle (1959)
A ridiculously melodramatic Catholic historical drama wherein a statue of the Virgin Mary comes to life to take the place of a nun so she can run off and woo a young Roger Moore … A lushly made canvas but otherwise absurdly overwrought piety
Evil Dead (2013)
One of the few remakes of the 00s/10s that delivers the goods. While messing around with the plot set-up with mixed results, this quickly goes for broke to create a satisfying show on most accounts
Dellamorte Dellamore (1994)
Cult Italian film with Rupert Everett as a cemetery keeper facing the resurrected dead. This has an hilariously off-the-wall mix of black, deadpan humour and artiness, plus Everett at his laconic best
Berserk (1967)
Film about a series of sensationalistic murders at a circus. Producer Herman Cohen is clearly trying to replicate the success of his Horrors of the Black Museum. Joan Crawford chews the scenery in grand style as the circus owner
Beast of Blood (1971)
Third of the Filipino-shot Blood Island films. This has a slow first half before getting to what we expect of a Filipino monster movie – an overacting mad scientist, a cheesy monster, schlocky gore and gratuitous toplessness
Tamara (2005)
Feels like an early 80s copy of Carrie about a bullied teenage girl taking supernatural revenge – that and the plot of I Know What You Did Last Summer … A slick but largely superficial effort with little legs beyond its teen audience, although Jenna Dewan injects some sizzle into the role of the nerd girl turned bad girl
The Unearthly (1957)
One of the very last gasps of the great era of mad scientist films from the 1940s. Despite assembling a great cast of genre regulars, this never does much to stir its pot – the mad scientist’s scheme is vague and the film almost never ventures outside of a single house
The Croods (2013)
What gives the expectation of being a formulaic animated film about a prehistoric cave family instead comes with a fresh and naturalistic sense of humour that proves oddly appealing
The Pyx (1973)
Difficult to find 1970s Canadian-made occult film that doesn’t quite live up to expectation. Mostly it is a police procedural and the devil worship cult angle only emerges as a left field ending in the last ten minutes.; Not tight enough as a detective story to fully work
The Host (2013)
Andrew Niccol, a director of smart conceptual sf, seems mismatched on an adaptation of a Stephenie Meyer novel but Niccol tones down Meyer’s overripe teen romance to deliver a smart take on the alien body snatchers genre
Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006)
What starts out as a seeming mockumentary about a serial killer turns into an hilarious deconstruction of the tropes and cliches of the slasher film. Imagine a film like Man Bites Dog crossbred with Scream
G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013)
You can’t complain that this is not exactly what you expect it to be – two hours of cartoonish action during which the brain singularly fails to engage. This is less unapologetic about being a military fantasy than the first film
Bangkok Haunted (2001)
Early effort from one of the Pang Brothers Oxide, who only directs one of the episodes in this trio of Thai ghost stories. The other director’s grasp of horror effect is often crude and amateurish
The Man in Half Moon Street (1945)
Effort from the heyday of mad science cinema about a scientist who has perfected an immortality treatment. Better budgeted than most of the other cheapies of the era and better written, although suffers from a slow talkiness
The Gruesome Death of Tommy Pistol (2011)
Aramis Sartorio (aka porn actor Tommy Pistol) directs/stars in this anthology, a trio of Hollywood horror tales where everything is aimed at the farcical bad taste level of a Troma film
Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning (2012)
Sixth entry in the series, this throws out all the themes the previous sequels operated by and feels like a Universal Soldier film written by Philip K. Dick with utterly fascinating results. John Hyams hits in with a brutal intensity that shows he is one of the most exciting up and coming action directors
Shadowland (2010)
A low-budget vampire film that at least tries to be original. Has a worthwhile leading lady and a chase plot that keeps it going past some of its amateurishness, but in the end it never quite goes far enough
First on the Moon (2005)
A Russian mockumentary that purports to tell the story of a Soviet expedition to The Moon in 1938. This conducts an exceptional mimicry of the style of the Soviet propaganda film
The Ghoul (1933)
Creaky but atmospheric British film where Boris Karloff dies but is brought back from the dead by an Egyptian jewel to stalk his heirs through a big old mansion
The Collection (2012)
Disappointing sequel to the Torture Porn film The Collector. The captivating premise of an ordinary house turned into a series of deadly traps is gone, while the sadistic, gore-drenched set-pieces are tame and unimaginative
Children Who Chase Lost Voices from the Deep (2011)
Makoto Shinkai conducts a flawless capturing of Hiyao Miyazaki’s style – the clean simplicity of the animation, reverence for nature, the tender intimacy of the characters – in this beautifully animated work about the discovery of an underground realm
Seven Footprints to Satan (1929)
An Old Dark House film from the silent era. Haxan director Benjamin Christensen turns the mansion into a fantastical netherworld and creates a compulsive atmosphere of weird and fascinating happenings that is is only marred only by a contrived mundane ending
Per Aspera Ad Astra (1981)
Soviet-made science-fiction film about a mysterious female alien visitor. The set-up intrigues for a time but the directorial delivery is dull and prosaic, while the mystery about who the alien woman is sidetracked by a long-winded interplanetary adventure in the second half
The Call (2013)
A formulaic psycho-thriller from the usually worthwhile Brad Anderson with Halle Berry as a 911 call operator who answers a call from an abducted Abigail Breslin that feels like a cable thriller ended on the big screen
Stereo (1969)
The very first film from David Cronenberg. An incredibly experimental work even today, which consists of people wandering the halls of a university and the soundtrack of voices discussing psychic powers experiments in a dryly funny parody of an academic paper. Fascinatingly oblique
Chariots of the Gods (1970)
Documentary based on the book by Erich von Daniken and his much ridiculed theories that aliens visited Earth in the past and evidence of this can be found in ancient texts, inscriptions and monuments
Stoker (2013)
The English-language debut from South Korea’s Park Chan-wook is a supremely controlled film, more like a period arthouse film than drenched in the buckets of gore we expect of Park … Essentially a reworking of Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt, a film that takes place all in smouldering tensions
Slave Girls (1967)
One of a handful of prehistoric adventure films made by Hammer Studios. This eschews the stop-motion animated dinosaurs of their earlier One Million Years B.C. but does give the stage to Martine Beswick who injects a sizzling dose of sexuality and camps a silly plot up by playing to the hilt
The Flesh and Blood Show (1972)
One of the earlier films from British director Pete Walker, a whodunnit with a psycho stalking the cast of a theatrical rehearsal. Walker doesn’t stint on the flesh but proves tamer than usual when it comes to the blood
The Suicide Shop (2012)
French animated film that is about as far from children’s entertainment as it is possible to get – a mordantly dark comedy that operates in similar territory to The Addams Family in its tale of a family that operates a shop selling items of despatch to the suicidally minded
The Last Exorcism Part II (2013)
Sequel to the sleeper 2010 Found Footage hit. Alas, this is a sequel that understands almost nothing about what made the first film so original and is just a possession film that comes utterly by the numbers
Oz: The Great and Powerful (2013)
Sam Raimi’s prequel to The Wizard of Oz is now; the story of how a conman fools an entire land rather than of an innocent girl just trying to find her way home. The reconceptualisation of Oz comes with a colourful sweep
Killer Bees (1974)
TV movie that does nothing to dispel the dictum that there has never been any such thing as a good killer bee film. As always, the effects let the show down and the rest of the piece is slow going and talky
George’s Intervention (2009)
A zombie comedy that comes with a mildly amusing premise – where people stage an intervention to stop their friend eating people. This feels a single gag drawn-out as a full length film
Crescendo (1970)
One of Hammer Films’ psycho-thrillers. Unlike the others, this is in colour where it loses much of the edgy tension the others had from shooting in b/w. The plot is slow to kick in but does produce some worthwhile twists
Escape from Planet Earth (2013)
This is fake SF, an animated film that has no interest in its concept, one that exists solely as a series of pop culture jokes, cutsie supporting characters, thrills and feelgood epiphanies
Sleep Tight (2011)
Jaume Balaguero delivers this dark and gripping psycho-thriller about a likeable building manager who enjoys secretly playing cruel games and making life miserable for his tenants
Strippers vs. Werewolves (2012)
Probably the next logical move after Zombie Strippers! Alas, where we should have had a fast, funny and sarcastic genre entry, the humour in this British entry becomes painfully belaboured in its constant unfunny efforts to get laughs
Exit Humanity (2011)
Modestly effective zombie film set during the US Civil War. This eschews the usual gore-drenched zombie attacks in favour of a nicely achieved story about one man’s internal journey through the apocalypse