A Letter to Momo (2011)
Anime about the oddball friendship between a teenage girl and three goblins. Reminiscent of My Neighbor Totoro, it is a film about a girl’s feelings for her parents that eventually becomes greatly affecting
A Cat in Paris (2011)
French film that was nominated for the 2011 Best Animated Film at the Oscars. Cute but over-rated, the film is all highly stylised hand-drawn caricature that looks great but never works very hard to engage in terms of its characters
Resident Evil: Retribution (2012)
Another unnecessary entry in a creativity-handicapped series, the continuing popularity of which is baffles. This shuffles through the familiar moves, brings back several familiar characters but only leaves me asking why I have invested some nine hours of time following this series
Toys in the Attic (2009)
Czech stop-motion animated film – imagine Toy Story film reworked by Jan Svankmajer set in a world of toys made up of scavenged junk. On the minus side, the design is the whole of the film and it never much animates the characters or fairytale story
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
Frankenstein (2011)
Danny Boyle’s stage adaptation, broadcast live on movie screens, wrings up some unique changes on the classic tale. The role of Frankenstein and creation alternated between Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller
The Fabulous World of Jules Verne (1958)
Czech Jules Verne adaptation that conducts an extraordinary blend of animation and live-action. Maybe the purest evocation of Steampunk that has ever been placed on screen. A work of underappreciated genius
Rebirth of Mothra (1996)
One of the worst among the usually worthwhile Japanese monster movie revivals of the 1990s. Much of the film is played down at an inanely silly children’s movie level, with there only being the requisite mass destruction effects to enliven the show
Je T’aime, Je T’aime (1968)
French New Wave SF film from director Alain Resnais about a time machine. The idea of a protagonist travelling at random through his own memory is predictive of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five
Dracula II: Ascension (2003)
The first of two sequels to Dracula 2000. This is based around the idea of trying to scientifically examine a vampire’s body, sort of a vampire film by way of CSI
Ring Around the Rosie (2006)
This starts out as a seeming ghost story without creating much tension then features Tom Sizemore going psycho, before arriving at one of the most confusing of all attempts to conduct an M. Night Shyamalan twist ending
Never Too Young to Die (1986)
Completely insane 1980s spy film – a madcap mahsup of elements including James Bond gadgetry, mad scientists, action and splatter served up with not a shred of realism. The crowning glory is a completely OTT Gene Simmons as a cross-dressing super-villain
Reign of Assassins (2010)
Chinese-made Wu Xia film – sort of a flying swordsman variant on A History of Violence. This comes on an impressive scale but also plays down the action element and leaves all the flying swordsman moves sitting on the fence as being possibly mundane
The Black Sleep (1956)
The very last gasp of the 1930s/40s mad scientist film, a swansong that brings together an amazing cast from the era including Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney Jr, John Carradine, Basil Rathbone and Tor Johnson. Slightly better produced than most of the era’s cheapies
Chain Letter (2010)
Ridiculous film that seems to want to say something about modern technological interconnectivity but has simply grafted it onto a slasher formula. while being bsurdly ill-informed about its subject
The Time Traveller: The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2010)
A live-action film based on a popular Japanese young adult novel that has been filmed multiple times before. This is a rather dull film that fails to do anything terribly interesting with its time travel premise
The Photon Effect (2010)
Passable amateur-made superhero film clearly inspired by DC’s The Flash. While the film is written with some at times snappy dialogue and has two good lead actors, it suffers from spotty digital effects
War of the Worlds (2005)
Where the legend of The Asylum and their low-budget mockbusters began, this was a cheap modernised version of the H.G. Wells novel that was released a day before the Spielberg film. Despite cheap effects, this adheres closer to Wells than Spielberg did and is better written than most Asylum product
Pig (2010)
A Backwoods Brutality entry from the increasingly underrated Adam Mason where the entire film has been shot in a single take. Often brutal but much of the film seems monotonous with indulgent improvised performances allowed to dominate the show
Night of the Living Dead Reanimated (2009)
A unique homage to Night of the Living Dead wherein the original has been recreated with a bewildering range of artwork and short pieces of animation from dozens of different artists, even scenes conducted by sock puppets and animated Barbie dolls
The Projectionist (1971)
A Secret Life of Walter Mitty for movie lovers wherein a milquetoast projectionist daydreams himself into a variety of movie scenarios as an inept superhero. Quirkily charming if never more than a single idea. Something you feel should have been a cult film
The Pit and the Pendulum (1991)
Stuart Gordon’s adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe story gets full marks for being set during the Spanish Inquisition. On the other hand, Gordon’s unserious splatter heavy approach and a campy performance from Lance Henriksen deflates the material
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
An indisputable classic fantasy … a gorgeous sparkling fantasy that made full use of Technicolor in an era dominated by black-and-white and is told in such bold and earnestly heartfelt tones that it becomes the nearest we have to a piece of genuine American mythology
4:44 Last Day on Earth (2011)
Abel Ferrara makes an End of the World film that hardly ever leaves the characters’ apartment and in which almost nothing happens. Considering the angry, bleak work of his heyday, you cannot wonder if the 60 year-old Ferrara has lost his mojo
V/H/S (2012)
An anthology of five short Found Footage horror films each from a different director. As with any anthology these are variable in tone but are on the whole mostly effective and contain a number of alternately unearthly and spooky moments
The Sorcerer and the White Snake (2011)
Hong Kong director Ching Siu-Tung returns with a Wu Xia film made with extravagant Chinese backing. Wu Xia of the 00s have slowly taken to CGI and Ching readily adapts his moves to this with often breathtaking effect
The Possession (2012)
Based on the urban legend surrounding a dybbuk box that turned up on an EBay auction, although the film throws this out to conduct an utterly generic possession story. Despite the novelty of drawing on Judaic mythology, the film still trades in the same tired cliches as the Christian exorcism film
Grace (2009)
A disturbingly effective story of a mother who gives birth to a baby that is not human. An immensely assured directorial debut that eschews cliche horror effect and becomes a chilling study in psychological disintegration
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
Dracula Blows His Cool (1979)
Excruciating West German-made vampire sex comedy (that doesn’t feature Count Dracula despite the title). Painful and agonisingly unfunny comedy routines directed by someone who has no idea how to set them up
My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done (2009)
A collaboration between Werner Herzog and David Lynch makes for an exceedingly strange film, involving matricide, mental illness and ostriches – and all apparently based on a true life murder
Ghost Month (2007)
Low-budgeted independent US film that sets a ghost story around Chinese rituals. You can admire the serious ambition but the film only provides scares that are utterly tame
Captain America II (1979)
Another of the mostly disastrous Marvel tv adaptations of the 1970s. Captain America is sidelined for much of the show. This does conduct the coup of casting Christopher Lee as the villain but criminally gives him nothing to do
The Apparition (2012)
This feels like an amateur film made on a big budget that consists of utterly tepid scares where the director fails to do anything not borrowed from a dozen other ghost stories
Attack Girls’ Swim Team vs. the Undead (2007)
You feel that a film about lesbian Japanese schoolgirls vs zombies should have been more interesting. The zombies barely mount to a dozen and the director seems more preoccupied by his softcore predilections
The Summer of Massacre (2011)
The unique idea of an anthology made up of five different slasher tales. Unfortunately, the film’s only raison d’etre is serving up serial gore scenes, which have the effect taken out of them because they are all conducted digitally and look biologically preposterous
The Fall of the House of Usher (1979)
Maybe the worst Edgar Allan Poe adaptation ever, a version made for tv that fails utterly to project any of Poe’s gloom and despair, while a badly overacting Martin Landau is disastrously miscast as Roderick Usher
The Dunwich Horror (2009)
An adaptation of the H.P. Lovecraft short story. While more faithful to the story than the earlier 1969 adaptation, the film is very cheaply made and collapses into the frequently ridiculous
Earth’s Final Hours (2011)
A Syfy Channel disaster film that creates a fascinating if scientifically dubious end of the world premise about a white hole but spends the show on the routine stuff of car chases and gunfights
Seconds Apart (2011)
A wonderfully cool film about malevolent twins with psychic abilities. that is an astonishingly assured effort where the various set-pieces come with the confidence of a director who has been working in the genre for years
Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984)
Maybe the definitive Tarzan film, one that drops the pulp adventure and recasts the story as British arthouse theatre. Superbly mounted and cast. Christopher Lambert has never better in the title role
ParaNorman (2012)
Stop-motion animated children’s film from Laika that demonstrates a willingness to be scary. The film starts to move out of the amiably likeable after around the halfway point when it begins to play a number of horror tropes against expectation to deliver a reasonable message about fear and prejudice
Special (2006)
Before the likes of Defendor, Kick-Ass and Super, there was this, one of the best comedies about superheroes with no powers. The film loves screwing with its audience and comes with a series of mind-bending flips between drug hallucination and subjective view of the superpowers in action
The Odd Life of Timothy Green (2012)
On one level, this sets out to be a warm-hearted fantasy about the appearance of a magic child to a childless couple. On another possibly unintentional level, it is a rather unlikeable film about how two parents continually force a child to conform to the social expectations of those around them
Dark Age (1987)
Undeniably influenced by Jaws, this Australian effort is the first ever killer crocodile film. Nothing extraordinary, although the film does have an interesting subtext about the conflict between European and Aborigine cultures
The Martian Chronicles (1980)
Ray Bradbury’s book about the human colonisation of Mars is an SF classic for its wistful, nostalgic poetry. This tv mini-series adaptation is killed by a lumbering director who over-explains Bradbury’s imagery in the most literal ways
Blubberella (2011)
Uwe Boll sets out to offend everybody in a film founded on making constant insults about its’ plus-size heroine’s weight and bad jokes about the Holocaust, including the Boll playing a comic Hitler
Grimm’s Snow White (2012)
Another entry among 2012’s spate of Snow White films following Mirror Mirror and Snow White and the Huntsman. this was a low-budget mockbuster copycat from The Asylum
The Bourne Legacy (2012)
A reboot of the Jason Bourne series with Jeremy Renner replacing Matt Damon. The exhiliratingly kinetic action scenes are watered down, while the plot lacks the same focus. The first of the series to enter genre territory however
Iron Sky (2012)
Finnish filmmaker Timo Vuorensola makes a conceptually wild film about invasion by Nazi flying saucers from the Moon. Stunning quality effects on a minuscule budget that rival the work of professional houses
Maniac (1963)
One of the psycho-thrillers made by Hammer Films during the early 1960s. The absurdly contrived plot is blatantly borrowed from Les Diaboliques, although eventually produces passable tension
Robot & Frank (2012)
Surprisingly warm and genteel story about the relationship between an aging cat burglar and a robot. For once, no cliches about robots becoming intelligent or discovering feelings but simply a credible piece extrapolated from contemporary robotics
Long Weekend (2008)
Pointless remake of the cult Australian Nature’s Revenge film. This takes place amid some gorgeously shot natural scenery, is very faithful to the first film but seems to entirely miss the paranoid tone
The Watch (2012)
An uninspired comedy about a neighbourhood watch encountering alien invaders that falls somewhere between Ghostbusters and The ‘Burbs. The film’s virtues lie less in the weak premise than in the director allowing the stars to freely improvise with occasionally funny results
Total Recall (2012)
I was never a particular fan of the Schwarzenegger original and this improves on it somewhat. This is far better conceived as an action film with some amazing Cyberpunk designs. On the other hand, the two decades interim has made the story’s Philip K. Dick-ian reality bendings seem commonplace
Ruby Sparks (2012)
The Little Miss Sunshine directors follow their hit up with a film about a writer who brings his ideal woman to life. Scriptwriter Zoe Kazan sparkles in the title role but the film never pushes its central concept too much beyond being a quirkily sweet indie romance
Jersey Shore Shark Attack (2012)
Rather funny parody of tv’s Jersey Shore by way of a shark attack film. A film that one watches with zero expectations but proves hilarious by planting tongue entirely in cheek
Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)
Extraordinary Sundance breakout hit that sits between a portrayal of a unique backwoods culture and a Magical Realist child’s eye viewpoint. A quite amazing film that announces one of the freshest directorial voices to emerge in ages
Zombies of Mass Destruction (2009)
The social metaphors of George Romero’s original zombie films has been missing from the modern equivalents. This takes them up again with great enthusiasm, making a critique of USA attitudes post 9/11, hammering its message home with all the subtlety of a 26-point headline
Boy Wonder (2010)
Not to be confused with Robin of Batman fame, this is an indie film about a teenage vigilante. Not always the most accessible film but eventually works in a quietly effective way
What Women Want (2011)
Chinese remake of the romcom where Mel Gibson was suddenly able to hear women’s thoughts. A second time over, the premise seems slight while the film crucially fails to create much passion between its two stars
Revenge of the Blood Beast (1965)
The first film from Witchfinder General director Michael Reeves. A blatant copy of Mario Bava’s i>Black Sunday that is done in by its cheapness, a lack of anything interesting happening and mismatched comedy elements
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
Tucker and Dale vs Evil (2010)
An amusing parody of the Backwoods Brutality film where the hillbillies are likeable innocents and the college kids end up killing themselves in a series of bizarre accidents. Amusing, although in the end is only a one-joke film
All-Star Superman (2011)
Another of the DC animated films, based on a work that reinterpreted Superman. This is somewhat bitsy in condensing a 12-issue series to a 73-minute film but holds some moments of great writing
Tarzan the Ape Man (1981)
Tarzan turned into a tedious softcore work highlighting the talent-free Bo Derek. This directly remakes the 1932 Johnny Weissmuller film – the original was an adventure classic, this is just an expensive nudie
The Awakening (2011)
A classic British ghost story that produces an exceedingly haunted atmosphere at times, although falls apart in a highly contrived M. Night Shyamalan twist ending
Ice Age: Continental Drift (2012)
This is not a film, it is a money-making machine in the guise of a film aimed squarely at undiscerning family audiences that plays to familiar characters and comic routines and has minimal difference to the preceding three Ice Age films
The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
The Dark Knight is a hard act to follow and Christopher Nolan almost does but not quite. The story keeps Batman off-screen for half the film. Tom Hardy’s Bane dominates the show, while Catwoman is surprisingly subdued
My Name is A By Anonymous (2011)
Shane Ryan retells the story of true-life teen murderer Alyssa Bustamante as part of a Larry Clark-type film about troubled youth. Not always an easy work but holds undeniable effect
Pit and the Pendulum (1961)
The second of Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe films with Vincent Price. This feels too much as though Corman was trying to make another House of Usher, nevertheless it creates its own thunderously overwrought atmosphere, even if it has little to do with the Poe story
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
To Rome with Love (2012)
Another film amid Woody Allen’s European renaissance, four tales all set around the gorgeously shot location of Rome. The stories are on the slight side and it is lesser Allen but there is great casting and moments where Allen is on good form
Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012)
The End of the World seems the least likely backdrop for a romantic comedy. Newcomer Lorene Scafaria seems less interested in depicting social collapse than in making an insipid romcom road movie with two leads who fail to strike up any connection
Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos (2011)
Film spinoff from the popular anime tv series that seems caught between a film and a tv episode. While the film reaches for epic scale, the usual run of power blasts, there is nothing that we haven’t seen before
The Woman in the Fifth (2011)
European arthouse film that feels like it should have been a horror film. This starts well but when it veers into genre territory, its big twist has been done by too many genre films of recent and holds nothing interesting in its treatment
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
Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter (2012)
Seth Grahame-Smith’s original book was a witty historical joke that retold the events of Lincoln’s life as a secret history involving vampires. The film somehow misses the joke and turns everything into a ridiculously over-the-top action film
Red Lights (2012)
Strong, well-written film from Buried director Rodrigo Cortes about investigators of psychic frauds encountering a possibly real example. This takes a welcomely sceptical, rationalist perspective, has a great cast and fine build-up but alas falls apart in a lame twist ending
Xombies 3D (2011)
Amid the vast horde of low-budget zombie films of the 00s, this Norwegian effort in 3D emerges as possibly the worst. It has no discernible plot, while the gore only consists of cheap digital overlays that looks like Monty Python cutout animation
The Divide (2011)
Tough and brutal depiction of the collapse of civilised order among a group of survivors of a nuclear holocaust holed up in a cellar. This holds an incredibly bleak depiction of human nature
Eden Log (2007)
Cryptic and baffling French art science-fiction film involving strange happenings at a laboratory where we never get any explanations about what is going on
Summer Time Machine Blues (2005)
Witty and enormously clever Japanese time travel film. This readily homages Back to the Future but has a great deal of original fun of its own creating a series of hilarious temporal conundrums. One of the most entertaining films I have seen in some time
Beyond the Black Rainbow (2010)
A homage to 1970s SF cinema, full of trippy journeys through transcendental space and white antisceptic corridors. In aiming for this look, the film also forgot a small thing like a plot or coherent explanation of what is happening
Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)
Quirky indie film about a possibly deluded man who advertises for a time travel companion. The actuality of the time travel element is kept ambiguous and this plays out as a relationship drama that overflows with charm and freshness
Mariko Rose the Spook (2009)
A strange Japanese film in which a suicidal lesbian receives relationship advice and from the ghost of a drag queen
The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)
The reasoning behind rebooting the Spider-Man franchise after ten years and only three films is a puzzle. That said, this offers an edgier origin story than Sam Raimi’s take and Andrew Garfield makes for a fine Spider-Man
Intruders (2011)
High hopes for this third film from Juan Carlos Fresnadillo emerge as no more than Boogeyman with shallow artistic pretensions and is a disappointingly middle of the road work
The Tortured (2010)
A couple abduct and torture a paedophile who killed their son. Hard to tell if this is an edgy out-there film or the most tasteless concept that Torture Porn cinema has tried so far. Alas, a banal tv movie handling kills any possibility of the former
The Omega Man (1971)
The second film version of I Am Legend, this rewrites the book’s vampires as mutants and abandons its mood of paranoia for a fantasy of hippie utopia and Charlton Heston in square-jawed action hero mode
Ted (2012)
Comedy about a foul-mouthed talking teddy bear. This gets its laughs from much scatological, decidedly non-PC humour that occasionally manages to be funny, especially when it comes to some of the 80s pop culture jokes
Who Can Kill a Child? (1976)
Fine Spanish-made killer children film inspired by The Birds where children inexplicably turn and kill adults. This has developed a modest cult and works with frequently unsettling effect
House of Mirrors (2012)
Low-budget psycho-thriller about amnesia that tries hard in many areas but fails to generate enough contortion in terms of plot twists to make the show work
Chillerama (2011)
In the same vein as Grindhouse, four filmmakers have come together to make an anthology of spoof horror films that homage the drive-in tradition. Good taste is left behind and the results are outrageously funny
Mother’s Day (2010)
This has nothing in common with the 1980 film it is based on and we instead we get a home invasion film. Darren Lynn Bousman of Saw sequel fame shows that brutality and torture are all he has in his arsenal
Brave (2012)
A real head-scratcher from Pixar that seems to have been pitched as a cross between Braveheart and Disney’s Brother Bear. The usual Pixar humour and polish makes for a mostly amiable film but never lifts the show out of a lame duck premise
The House of Usher (1960)
The first and best of Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe adapations with Vincent Price. Corman was piggybacking on the Gothic revival sparked by Hammer Films and creates a superbly brooding work that is the best adaptation of the story yet
Tarzan the Ape Man (1932)
The first of the Johnny Weissmuller films and where the cinematic Tarzan was essentially formed. The film changes Edgar Rice Burroughs conception in many ways but is a superbly exciting adventure in its own right, while the Tarzan/Jane romance is played with an oddball sweetness
Ra. One (2011)
A Bollywood venture into science-fiction that does a reasonably impressive job of trying to mount CGI superheroics … on the other hand, the plot deals in simplistic black-and-whites and draws on models of SF two decades out of date
A Monster in Paris (2011)
A charming French-made animated film about a genteel singing monster. Nothing profound but this is beautifully animated and sweetly appealing in all the right places