Mirror Mirror (2012)
Tarsem Singh makes a Snow White film. Tarsem’s sets, costumes and visuals are expectedly exquisite and extravagant but all is unwound by a campy, unserious approach
Mother Riley Meets the Vampire (1952)
One in a series of popular British drag comedies, this imports Bela Lugosi as a mad scientist for a series of frenetic and none-too-funny goings-on that make little sense
John Carter (2012)
While the film bombed, it emerges as a fairly good and faithful, lavishly produced adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ swashbuckling planetary adventure
Silent House (2011)
Haunted house film that comes with the novelty of being shot entirely in one take. This delivers some okay but never standout jumps but in the end you appreciate it more for its technical novelty than producing scares
Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2012)
Ridiculous sequel to the Marvel Comics adaptation with an indifferently written script assembled from cliches, forgettable action scenes and Nicolas Cage giving one of his silliest performances in ages
We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)
Almost an arthouse variation of the evil psycho child thriller but one stripped of thriller tropes and told in terms of an alternately striking and hauntingly elliptical tableaux of impressionistic images
Kidnapped (2010)
Spanish home invasion thriller that comes with a moderate degree of brutality and tension but ultimately feels more like a set of choices in a survival horror videogame than an engaging thriller
The Lorax (2012)
Animated Dr. Seuss adaptation that emerges as occasionally cute but little that rises above formula. The original story holds a pro-environmentalist message that is laid on with a trowel in the film
The Lost Future (2010)
This feels like a remake of the Roger Corman post-holocaust cavemen cheapie Teenage Caveman. It cannot escape that at heart it is never more than a B movie about caveman fighting mutants
The Wicker Tree (2011)
Sold as a sequel to The Wicker Man, although works as more of an update and expansion of its themes. Received a muted reception but is a not entirely uninteresting film, if nowhere near the league of the original
Gone (2012)
This feels like a post-Silence of the Lambs thriller with Amanda Seyfried as an abduction survivor trying to find her missing sister. The film never rises above the cliches of the genre
Morlocks (2011)
Not as you might assume an adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine but another cheap and tatty Syfy Channel production that grafts Wells’ Morlocks onto the formula for their typical monster movie
Restless (2011)
The oddity of an emo romance from indie director Gus Van Sant about an alienated teenager with a ghost companion who falls for a girl dying of cancer. Needless to say, the film’s mopey romance between oddball outsiders and Van Sant’s aimless improvisational style never quite gel
The Prodigies (2011)
French animated film about a group of kids with psychic powers going amok. Is okay at what it does but had much of its thunder stolen by the more recent and more spectacular Chronicle
A Thousand Words (2012)
Eddie Murphy’s presence is not enough to lift the lame premise of this comedy where he is given a curse where he has a thousand words to say before he dies … a film that has a soggy marshmallow heart rather than one that lets Murphy loose to do what he does best
Dr. Strange (1978)
Forgotten, unsold tv pilot based on the Marvel Comics sorceror superhero. Unlike other Marvel tv properties of this era, this has an imaginativeness in its reach for esoteric spaces that favourably compares to the comic-book original
Father’s Day (2011)
Troma film that ventures back into their regular bad taste territory. This often feels like a film that never coheses into a particularly clear idea of what it is trying to do, possibly the result of six different directors
Asylum Seekers (2009)
Film about asylum inmates that goes for a gonzo approach but becomes an unwatchable mix of student artistic pretensions played out at a level of shrill caricature
The Scorpion King 3: Battle for Redemption (2012)
The best of an otherwise lightweight, throwaway series. Roel Reiné directs some good action scenes, even if the hackneyed plotting never lets the show rise to anything more than average
The Woman in Black (2012)
The revived Hammer Films visit the classic British ghost story tradition. This is impeccably mounted but the film offers nothing more than a series of disappointingly superficial boo moments of zero impact
Endhiran (2010)
A rare Bollywood venture into science-fiction – a completely madcap android intelligence/amok film that features some wildly imaginative action scenes, all set amid typical Bollywood song and dance/romance numbers
The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) (2011)
Sequel to the original that pushes into even more perverse territory. This throws some amusing spins on the original, creating a unique protagonist, while also contriving to exist inside an extremely disturbed headspace
Chronicle (2012)
Essentially a Found Footage version of a teen underdog discovers psychic powers film like The Fury or Akira. Nothing original, just a novelty of approach conducted with conviction
Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012)
Sequel to Journey to the Center of the Earth, a supposed adaptation of Jules Verne’s Mysterious Island and a consistently silly, nonsensical film that operates at the level of a children’s cartoon
Keyhole (2011)
A disappointment from Guy Maddin where he abandons his trademark surrealism and makes what feels like cross between a haunted house film and a 1940s crime drama by way of the French New Wave
Scream for Help (1984)
Often wrongly pegged as a slasher film, this is more of a 1940s psycho-thriller with slasher sensibilities. The notorious Michael Winner directs with typically crude and unsophisticated effect
Underworld: Awakening (2012)
Yet another entry that nobody asked for in a conceptually threadbare series that nobody seems to like … passably better than the last two sequels due to some ok action moves but still empty-headed in terms of ideas
Hostel Part III (2011)
Third in the Hostel series, an indifferent piece of formula hackwork minus Eli Roth where suspension of disbelief is constantly being disrupted by absurdly contrived scenes
Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked (2011)
It may say how doomed the Western world is that people have paid to watch three films so far all centred around these annoyingly cutsie helium-voiced chipmunks. This is marginally less annoying that the preceding two
The Darkest Hour (2011)
An alien invasion film set in Moscow. This is nothing more than a special effects vehicle about how the culturally self-absorbed twentysomething computer geeks and party girls save the world
Batman: Year One (2011)
Animated adaptation of the classic Frank Miller graphic novel, this is dark, psychologically brooding, far more adult than the children’s niche it is sold to, and with producer Bruce Timm and his team at the top of their game
Bag of Bones (2011)
The perpetually terrible Mick Garris is allowed loose on another Stephen King book where he promptly reduces a subtle, ambiguous ghost story to a series of lunging pop-up scares without any concept of atmosphere or nuance
The Exterminator (1980)
Vigilante film with a cult reputation that was banned in places because of its ultra-violence. The film is a mix of Taxi Driver and Death Wish, mostly centred around a series of gory despatches
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011)
The best of Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible films to this point. The live-action directorial debut of Pixar director Brad Bird proves an inspired move and Bird gets all the gadgetry just right along with a series of sensational action sequences
At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul (1964)
Brazil’s Ze do Caixao or Coffin Joe is one of the most evil characters ever created on film, spearheaded by director/star Jose Mojica Marins’s contempt for the weak and catalogue of brutalities and blasphemies
Ligeia (2009)
Modernised adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe story. Poe might be turning in his grave with visits to fetish clubs added to the mix but mostly the film befalls a low-budget and tepid delivery
Don’t Look Up (2009)
Fruit Chan conducts an English-language remake of a Japanese horror film. A confused and hokey effort about a haunted film set that is only centred around the provision of schlock effects
The Devil Inside (2012)
Another Found Footage variant on an exorcism film. This was a big box-office hit but only ends up repeating the tired cliches of the exorcism and possession genre
Dante 01 (2008)
Finally, the answer to what happened to Marc Caro after parting ways with Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Caro directs what would appear to be a darkly lit and confusing variation on The Green Mile set on a space station
Mark of the Devil (1970)
Another depiction of the Middle Ages witch persecutions that becomes a catalogue of the cruelties enacted – Torture Porn way back before anybody ever invented the term
Mr. Sardonicus (1961)
Another of the films from gimmick master William Castle – a classic work of Grand Guignol in its story of a man with a permanently frozen Joker-like grin, which Castle fills with memorable shock effects
Neverland (2011)
Following Tin Man and Alice, another of Nick Willing’s ingenious rewritings and rationalisations of classic children’s tales in science-fiction terms. Here the essentials of Peter Pan are transported to another planet
Surviving Evil (2009)
South African-shot film that pretends to be set in The Philippines. Utterly generic on every level, the film seems to be about Filipino vampire monsters but everything is vaguely sketched
The People vs. George Lucas (2011)
Documentary about Star Wars fandom that critically takes on George Lucas’s merchandising and disappointment with the prequels
Outside Satan (2011)
In the vein of Pasolini’s Teorema, French director Bruno Dumont makes a film about an ambiguous visitor who may be capable of miracles. Slow, very opaque but eventually rewarding
Mr. Tree (2011)
Film about the life of a possibly handicapped man in rural China that takes a veer into total fantasy in the latter half. A head-scratching oddity that I failed to get a handle on
Low Life (2011)
Long-winded French film largely about criticising the country’s problematic immigration and asylum seeking system. This also has a B plot about a series of cursed documents
Creature (2011)
An enthusiastic B movie that takes its ridiculous premise of a group of friends encountering an alligator man lurking in the backwoods Louisiana swamps far too seriously for its own good
Garfield Gets Real (2007)
Animated film spun off from the Garfield comic-strips in which Garfield emerges out into the real world. A cute premise that the film fails to develop
Frankenfish (2004)
A fairly routine cable monster movie about people dealing with a series of attacks by genetically-engineered killer fish that are loose in the bayous
Frat House Massacre (2008)
Supposedly a slasher film that purports to tell the truth about university fraternity rites, the delves into depicting hazing rituals with gory relish
The Temptation of Dr Antonio (1962)
Federico Fellini’s episode of the anthology Boccacio 70 in which a giant size Anita Ekberg steps off a billboard to tempt a moralist with lust
The Prize of Peril (1983)
French film about a tv gameshow where contestants are pursued by armed hunters. Much of this was copied by the subsequent The Running Man but this conducted the idea first and better
The Witches (1966)
Hammer film, not as well known as some of their other works, from a Nigel Kneale script that creates some effect in its story of schoolteacher Joan Fontaine moving to a sleepy English village and finding the locals engaged in witchcraft
Aelita (1924)
Silent film depiction of a journey to Mars from the early days of the Soviet Union that makes for an interesting curiosity piece. The arrival on Mars contains some imaginative sets and costumes
Wishmaster: The Prophecy Fulfilled (2002)
The fourth and final of the Wishmaster films, which by this point had become cheap and tattily made affairs that are pale shadows of the original
Creepshow III (2006)
A third entry in the Creepshow series but made without the involvement of George Romero (or Stephen King). This tries to give more of the same but is abysmally made on all counts
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)
David Fincher’s English-language remake of the Swedish film is capably made but a lesser shadow of something that worked perfectly the first time. In particular, Rooney Mara is no substitute for Noomi Rapace
The Adventures of Tintin (2011)
Steven Spielberg makes a solid effort to bring Hergé’s much loved comic-book character to life in this motion-capture animated effort. This plays free and easy with the original stories but generally gets the spirit of the comics right
Vixen Highway 2006: It Came from Uranus! (2010)
Another excruciatingly bad mock exploitation film from Tony Watt, who may well be the world’s worst filmmaker. This mixes killer women, aliens, UFOs, Mafia into an incomprehensible mix
Lord of the Flies (1990)
Remake of William Golding’s classic work about boys stranded on a desert island descending into barbarism where the book is disastrously Americanised in a clodding adaptation that misses the original’s rich swim of symbolism
Hugo (2011)
Martin Scorsese’s venture into making a children’s film is a beautiful production but must have been a studio nightmare – while they try to sell it as a magical fantasy film, Scorsese wants to pay tribute to silent filmmaker Georges Melies
Atlas Shrugged (2011)
The first in a three part film adaptation of Ayn Rand’s novel that makes a heavy-handed and frequently tub-thumping argument for the virtues of selfishness and despisal of any rules of fairness
Arthur Christmas (2011)
An animated collaboration between Aardman and Sony Pictures Anomation. This has a good deal of eccentric charm that overcomes one’s dislike of the cloying sentiment of most Christmas films
Birdemic: Shock and Terror (2008)
The new contender for the Worst Film Ever Made, this fully lives up to its reputation, full of astounding technical ineptitudes, bad acting and hilarious one-liners. A blatant ripoff of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds
11-11-11 (2011)
Saw series director Darren Lynn Bousman delivers a loopy cross between The Number 23 and an occult film whose sole selling point is the significance of the date it was released
The Shrine (2010)
A piece of filler horror that is utterly generic in every respect about travelers entering a sinister East European village where the locals are up to no good
Lethal Target (1999)
Conceptually odd mix of an erotic film and a standard copy of Alien. This come with the peculiarity of steamy encounters sitting alongside chestburster scenes
YellowBrickRoad (2010)
Not much to do with The Wizard of Oz – more like The Crazies by way of The Blair Witch Project, this creates a genuinely unsettling otherworldly mystery before entering into decidedly disturbed headspace
Metropolis (1927)
Fritz Lang’s visionary work was something way ahead of it time and is one of the few silent films still screened today. The film’s politics are naive but Lang’s visions of the city of the future and the first screen robot are vivid.
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
Ferocious Planet (2011)
Passable film about the accidental opening of a portal that transports a laboratory to an alien world teeming with monstrous creatures
Breaking Dawn Part 1 (2011)
The point where the Twilight series collapses under its pretensions and draws every detail of its wedding out for an excruciating hour. A series that has been all about preaching chastity then segues into Right to Life advocacy
Evil Things (2009)
Another Found Footage entry about a group of people being stalked. This generates some passable tension and one or two surprises
Superheroes (2011)
Fascinating documentary portrait of a series of individuals who dress up in costume and set out to be real-life superheroes
Melancholia (2011)
Lars von Trier’s exploration of his depression continues in this nihilistic end of the world film. It is bleak and relentless but the characters are opaque in their motivations. Somehow I prefer von Trier back in agent provocateur mode
Immortals (2011)
A venture into Greek myth retelling the story of Theseus and the labyrinth. Tarsem Singh, a director with a visually extraordinary eye, lavishes everything on the sets and costumes. One film of the 3D overkill fad that needs to be seen in 3D
Happy Feet Two (2011)
George Miller had a charming and delightful hit with his dancing penguin film Happy Feet. He returns to make a sequel here that merely tries to repeat the same
The Muppets (2011)
Surprisingly fun revival of the Muppets that reboots the series after the insipid entries of the last few years and succeeds by going back to recapture the sly double-level of humour that Jim Henson patented
Hellraiser: Revelations (2011)
The ninth of the
Puss in Boots (2011)
Spinoff of the popular Antonio Banderas voiced character from the Shrek sequels, this is lightweight and amiable but can be quickly forgotten
Nightbreed (1990)
The second directorial film from Clive Barker is a hugely ambitious work concerning the discovery of a city of monsters – containing some extraordinary makeup creations – but proved a box-office flop
Erotic Possessions (1999)
An erotic film in which Shauna O’Brien is possessed by the spirit of an actress from the 1940s who sets out to win the big role she missed out on in her previous life
Take Shelter (2011)
Strong and effective film with Michael Shannon as a man who has precognitive vision of a terrible coming storm and tries to build a shelter while everyone around him thinks he is going mad
Battle of Los Angeles (2011)
This was The Asylum’s mockbuster take on Battle Los Angeles, a rehash of alien invasion cliches but with modestly more vigour than most of their efforts
Strangers Online (2010)
Passable attempt to return to the heyday of the 1990s erotic thriller. Made on the cheap side, this does an okay job of covering the basics until an improbable denouement
In Time (2011)
Niccol has a smartness that makes him a must-watch director. Considerable conceptual dexterity has gone into this variant on Logan’s Run set in a future in which time is regarded as a currency
Scream of the Banshee (2011)
An utterly formulaic Syfy Channel filler monster movie about the resurrection of a banshee. A film that is only based around the provision of effects-driven dispatches every few minutes
Dream House (2011)
Maybe one of the worst cases of a trailer ruining the film by giving away the big mid-film surprise. The film itself is an absurdly contrived Shutter Island copy that has nothing else up its sleeve beyond its big surprise
The Future (2011)
Oddball and whimsical – welcome to the world of Miranda July who serves up a quirky relationship drama peopled with talking cats, conversations with The Moon and time-freezing abilities
A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas (2011)
The third film in the series of stoner comedies trips off into gonzo genre territory. A relentlessly and unashamedly vulgar film that also manages to be occasionally quite funny
Johnny English Reborn (2011)
Rowan Atkinson is a very funny man but try as I might I cannot get into these Johnny English films – they seem at best lame Austin Powers castoffs with gags designed for the single digit age range
Arrietty (2010)
Studio Ghibli tackle Mary Norton’s classic books about a miniature family that live inside the walls of a house. Norton’s essential Englishness translates surprisingly well to anime and the results are quite magical
Letters from the Big Man (2011)
Maybe the world’s first serious, non-horror, non-cutsie Bigfoot film – an interesting film based on eyewitness accounts that seeks a genteel understanding between the two species
Donovan’s Echo (2011)
Film about clairvoyance and predestination that owes much to Don’t Look Now. Unfortunately, this reduces everything to the prosaic level of a tv movie thriller
Comforting Skin (2011)
Canadian film about a girl’s strange obsessive relationship with her talking tattoo. The idea has been done before but the film and fine performances give it life
Paranormal Activity 3 (2011)
The Paranormal Activity series still manages to produce a reasonable amount of eerie scares and jumps a third time around, although by now the claim to still being found footage is starting to strain credulity
Hamlet (2011)
After some 150 other films, you have to wonder what another version of Hamlet has to offer. This Canadian adaptation does little other than updating the setting to the 1940s
Kooky (2010)
Czech puppet fantasy about a toy’s journey through a forest filled with a bizarre menagerie of creatures that are both cutely affecting and sinisterly threatening in the Maurice Sendak vein
The Fairy (2011)
Entirely charming film about a woman who claims to be a fairy. In the best tradition of Jacques Tati, this consists of a series of deliriously nonsensical sight gags that become an utter delight