Green Lantern (2011)
This received a lot of bad flak, including from star Ryan Reynolds, but I’m not one of the haters. There is the terrible CGI suit and a miscast Reynolds but it does get a good deal of the comic-book mythos right
Cell 213 (2011)
A muddled allegorical redemption drama with Eric Balfour sentenced to a maximum security prison where he is haunted by hallucinations
The Ward (2010)
John Carpenter returned to the director’s chair after more than a decade but failed to light the world on fire. Carpenter makes what you could call a ghost story version of Girl, Interrupted. The scares are tame and the film is hamstrung by an improbable M. Night Shyamalan twist ending
Super 8 (2011)
J.J. Abrams makes a homages to 8mm filmmaking and the films of his youth – you could easily imagine this as a Steven Spielberg-produced film of the era. On the other hand, after the obsessive secrecy in pre-release, the results emerge as underwhelming
Drifter: Henry Lee Lucas (2009)
Film based on real-life serial killer Henry Lee Lucas and his exaggerated claims to have killed hundreds of victims. Starring Antonio Sabato, Jr in the title role
The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya (2010)
Extraordinary anime where the members of an after school club secretly harbour great powers. From there, this expands out with reality-bending scope
Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011)
Sequel to DreamWorks hit animated film, this does little more than repeat its predecessor. The detail and texture is amplified to a work of art, although you cannot help but wonder if the under tens care about this
Bleading Lady (2010)
Ryan Nicholson makes an amusing slasher film that takes place on a horror movie set where the set driver is a fan of the scream queen star and decides to start eliminating people to start making the film go his way
The Troll Hunter (2010)
Hilarious Norwegian-made Found Footage film about a documentary team investigating a man who claims to hunt giant trolls. Played in complete deadpan
X: First Class (2011)
An X-Men origin story that serves as the occasion to recast the series with younger actors. This works far better than the previous two films, integrating the characters in a strong story, although is quiet at the superheroic action
Midnight in Paris (2011)
Appealingly lightweight whimsy from Woody Allen in which Owen Wilson keeps timeslipping between the present and 1920s Paris to meet the artistic/literary greats
Macabre (2009)
An Indonesian copy of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre that is one of the most enthusiastically gore-drenched bloodbaths in ages. This announced directors Kimo Stamboel and Timo Tjahjanto to the world
The Tree of Life (2011)
Terrence Malick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, maybe the best work yet about the great Lost American Childhood yet – a film that doesn’t seem to be about anything but has far more to say than almost all other multiplex films
Bong of the Dead (2011)
A film about a marijuana crop that is grown using zombie brains as fertiliser. This starts with a promising gonzo zombie film tone but never quite sustains its approach
Hardwired (2009)
This has the promising idea of a corporate-ruled future where people receive advertising implants but soon dissolves into the equivalent of a B-budget hacker thriller
Machete Maidens Unleashed! (2010)
A documentary about the US exploitation film industry in the Philippines in the 1970s filled with mind-boggling anecdotes that uncover a wild west of unregulated filmmaking
Burke & Hare (2010)
Lavishly produced, reasonably historically authentic retelling of the story of the grave robbers from John Landis, which also becomes a wasted opportunity that turns the story into a comedy where the title characters are just two likeable schmucks
Alpha and Omega (2010)
A contender in the animation stakes that never rises above formula and cutsie slapstick. Against its many competitors, it offers up only B-budget animation
Valhalla Rising (2009)
A Viking film from Nicolas Winding Refn. Rather than being made in the sense of any historical film this is almost a mystical arthouse work, a work haunted by the austerity of its primal landscape
Return of the Living Dead: Necropolis (2005)
Shabbily made hanger-on to the 00s zombie fad that would have gained zero attention without its pedigree name. This completely misses the black humour of the original
Doman Seman (2009)
A bizarre and entirely incomprehensible Japanese urban fantasy. I reached the end with no idea what this film’s string of strange happenings was about at all
Brain Dead (2007)
Not to be confused with the Peter Jackson Braindead, although the similarity of titles only emphasizes how weak and unfunny this 1980s splatter homage comedy is in comparison
Galaxis (1995)
A really bad copy of The Terminator featuring an Amazonian Brigitte Nielsen as an alien come to Earth to stop an evil intergalactic warlord
Defcon 2012 (2010)
Amateur low-budget production about mysterious happenings in the aftermath of an alien invasion. This has many ideas but none of them much coalesce into a plot
Priest (2011)
This spends much effort creating an imaginative future where priests battle vampires who are banished to reservations only to do nothing with it other than reach for the tropes of the Western
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)
The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise is revived for a fifth outing. There is a new director in Rob Marshall but bar an energetic comic opening, he never does much that hits the zany heights of the previous entries
Nine Miles Down (2009)
Promising film about two people at a mine in the desert affected by what would appear to be the drill having dug all the way down to Hell. The film plays a corny idea seriously and sits in an interestingly ambiguous place about what is going on.
Conquest (1983)
Lucio Fulci departs from the splatter genre to make a venture into the Italian sword and sorcery film of the era. As with any Fulci film, this is expectedly plotless and incoherent but with occasional moments of imagination
Of Unknown Origin (1983)
Underrated film with Peter Weller as a Wall Street banker who has his life overturned in trying to deal with a tenacious, seemingly hyper-intelligent rat that invades his home
God Told Me To (1976)
One of the key films in the cult of director Larry Cohen, this throws in a mind-bending mix involving an androgynous alien messiah, random shootings, alien abduction and Catholicism
YatterMan (2009)
Takashi Miike conducts a live-action adaptation of a 1970s anime tv series with completely madcap results. The effect is like drowning in multi-coloured candyfloss flavoured with LSD
Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010)
One of the best of the animated Batman films, telling the story of the overlooked Robin Jason Todd and his resurrection as the villain Red Hood, a film that has an adult tone and comes with immensely exciting action scenes
Phone (2002)
South Korean jump aboard the Ringu phenomenon about a series of haunted phone calls that works well through a clever ending
The Mailman (2004)
Appealingly sordid little film with Rob Arbogast as a psychopathic mailman who reads people’s mail and blackmails them with information
Jack Frost (1998)
One of the most bizarre family films ever conceived in which father Michael Keaton is killed and returns from the dead in the body of a snowman to be near his family
Thirst (1979)
Modest Australian film where Chantal Contouri is introduced to a secret vampire society that keeps human beings as cattle
Rio (2011)
A Blue Sky Studios animated film set around a talking macaw and his journey to the wilds of Brazil for the first time to mate and repopulate the species. Familiar cliched story arcs conducted with a good deal of colour
The House Next Door (2006)
A largely routine haunted house film where Lara Flynn Boyle plays a wife who becomes certain that the house next door is parasitic and preys upon people’s minds
Thor (2011)
The film adaptation of Marvel Comics’ The Mighty Thor is placed in the hands of Kenneth Branagh who delivers an okay film, if one where he never quite seems at home with the superheroic action
Half Moon (2010)
Adult actress Tori Black plays a straight role as a hooker who goes to a meet with a client in a motel room where claims that he is a werewolf
Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil (2011)
A wholly unnecessary sequel to Hoodwinked!, this again runs the fairytale characters over with modern quips and pop culture references
Kaboom (2010)
Gregg Araki film that centres around sexually conflicted university student Thomas Dekker and his various liaisons amid witches, a doomsday weapon, cults and premonitions
Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951)
Exquisitely shot Technicolor fantasy in which Ava Gardner is romanced by James Mason as the Flying Dutchman, cursed to eternally sail the seas
Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus (2009)
The Asylum’s first venture into the gonzo shark movie that would spin off a series of sequels and culminate in the Sharknado phenomenon. Despite one of the great attention grabbing titles of all time, this is an unmemorable affair
Arthur and the Revenge of Maltazard (2009)
This was the second of Luc Besson’s Minimoys films, partly animated children’s films set in a world of miniature creatures. Here the charms of the first film seem thinly stretched
Pontypool (2008)
Bruce McDonald makes a standout fim with Stephen McHattie as a radio dj dealing with a zombie infection that inhabits the English language that breaks out in the town around him
Antibodies (2005)
German serial killer thriller that owes more than a small debt of inspiration to The Silence of the Lambs. That said, it also does its own interesting and original thing
A Serbian Film (2010)
Possibly the most extreme film ever made, a venture into the underground of Serbain snuff filmmaking. A film that holds back from breaking no taboo and ventures into exceedingly disturbing places
A Perfect Getaway (2009)
David Twohy has shown himself a standout screenwriter and director with the Riddick films but came unstuck with this effort where tourists in Hawaii come to believe their traveling companions are wanted killers. A film killed by far-fetched twists
Death Race 2 (2010)
The first of three sequels (actually a prequel) to Paul W.S. Anderson’s Death Race, this gives the origins of Frankenstein and the Death Race. This rehashes much of the first film as generic direct-to-dvd fodder
The Satan Bug (1965)
One of the first films about biowarfare, a tightly effective techno-thriller from John Sturges
Fail Safe (2000)
Live tv broadcast remake of the 1960s Cold War nightmare about an accidental nuclear release over Russia, now with an all-star cast. This proves far more suspenseful and expertly played than one might have thought
Scre4m (2011)
Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson return to the Scream franchise to turn out the fourth and best sequel yet. The opening scene alone is the funniest one has seen in a film in some time
Insidious (2010)
On a pure plot level, this is largely a generic haunted house story but director James Wan creates an eerie atmosphere and manages to undeniably jangle the audience’s nerves on a number of occasions
Hanna (2011)
A film about a genetically tinkered teenage girl assassin that never lives up to its potential. Saoirse Ronan is great in the title role but director Joe Wright never gives the action scenes the kick they need
The Face of Another (1966)
A neglected Japanese classic. This is a haunting existential meditation on identity as a man loses his face in an accident but is then granted a lifelike mask
Vinyan (2008)
The second film from Belgian director Fabrice Du Welz is an intensely haunted albeit enigmatic journey into Southeast Asian jungles in search of a missing child
Your Highness (2011)
The epic fantasy quest film is well due a parody, unfortunately this majorly unfunny effort written by its leading man Danny McBride only makes a beeline for the witless and vulgar
Eulogy for a Vampire (2009)
A gay vampire film set in a monastery. This suffers from a vague and confusing narrative and feels like a film that should have been more interesting than it is
Tangled (2010)
Disney fairytale Lite. The story of Rapunzel gets hiply modernised and is now no more than a cute adventure/romance about a handsome rogue and a girl who has magical hair. Eminently forgettable Disney animation.
Hop (2011)
A film about the Easter Bunny that comes remarkably devoid of any significance of the meaning of Easter and only consists of the usual smartass talking animal antics
Sorority Row (2009)
Loose remake of the 1980s slasher film The House on Sorority Row, competently made but in the end this never sufficiently surmounts the routine
Against the Dark (2009)
Steven Seagal tries to extend his career by taking on the zombie film. However, this is routine on all levels, although to its advantage Seagal is not on screen much
Sucker Punch (2011)
Bizarrely uncategorisable film from Zack Snyder that seems a mix of Girl, Interrupted and Inception
Hobo With a Shotgun (2011)
Another of the Grindhouse mock trailers gets it own film. This hits in with a wonderfully enthusiastic B movie energy and buckets of gore that remind of early Peter Jackson
Paul (2011)
Hilarious Simon Pegg-written homage to science-fiction fandom and alien visitor cinema. imagine Starman recast with two science-fiction fans and tv’s sarcastically wisecracking ALF (voiced by Seth Rogen)
Limitless (2011)
Bradley Cooper in a film about a drug that provides about heightened intelligence. In truth this is a film how becoming a baked drug addict can give you the feeling you can change the world
The Butcher, The Chef and the Swordsman (2010)
Pitched as another Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, this has multiple stories, a cluttered look and a bizarreness that comes out more like a Wu Xia version of Scott Pilgrim vs the World
I Saw the Devil (2010)
Overrated South Korean revenge thriller about a detective obsessively pursuing a serial killer that has a mild level of ultra-violence going for it but otherwise fails to grip or dig into a psychological darkness
Sea of Dust (2008)
An almost interesting low-budget film with artistic pretensions that invokes the mythic Christian figure of Prester John
Seeing Heaven (2010)
A gay version of Don’t Look Now – a film that takes forever to go anywhere and fails to wind its twists up to anything interesting
Tomorrow When the War Began (2010)
An Australian version of Red Dawn – prettily mounted but feels more like Dawson’s Creek Goes to War than it has does a realistic war film
Portal (2009)
Low-budget occult film about guests at a motel trapped in a mysterious twilight zone. A work sits between the cheap and occasionally effective
Tekken (2010)
Another videogame adapted film, this has almost entirely been conceived around a series of slick fight sequences and little else
It Came from Outer Space II (1995)
It Came from Outer Space was one of the classics of the 1950s SF film. Here it was resurrected as a cable-made sequel. Without Jack Arnold or Ray Bradbury on board, the results are dreary
Source Code (2011)
The second film from Duncan Jones, this places Jake Gyllenhaal through a Groundhog Day scenario as he is forced to relive the same eight minutes in order to find who planted a bomb on a train
The Blood of Fu Manchu (1968)
The fourth of the Christopher Lee-starring Fu Manchu films and the point the series was handed over to exploitation director Jess Franco and started to go badly downhill
The Plague Dogs (1982)
Almost completely ignored at the time of its release, an animated masterpiece where Martin Rosen, the director of Watership Down, adapts another Richard Adams about two escaped laboratory animals. This has an incredible and at times dark emotional range far away from Disney
Red Riding Hood (2011)
Catherine Hardwcke’s adapts the fairytale as a dark adult fantasy where there has been the clear intention to pitch it to Twilight audiences but the results are surprisingly good
Rango (2011)
Gore Verbinski makes an eccentrically different animated homage to the Western, all cast with talking animals. The animation comes from Industrial Light and Magic and is quite unlike any other animated film.
Mars Needs Moms (2011)
Motion-capture animated version of a popular children’s book. The title suggests a 1950s B movie and the subtext doesn’t bear close examination but the results are engagingly put together
Beastly (2011)
The interesting idea of the fairytale Beauty and the Beast retold in a modern high school setting. Despite itself, the film manages to wring a reasonable sincerity out of the premise
Battle Los Angeles (2011)
Essentially this is a big-budget alien invasion film like Independence Day having been reconceived as a gritty, shakycam-shot war movie along the lines of Saving Private Ryan
Summer Wars (2009)
Beautifully made Mamoru Hosoda film about a rogue A.I. taking over a social media network. A film that is also a heartwarming work about family togetherness
The Mangler 2 (2001)
Tobe Hooper’s The Mangler was one of the worst of all Stephen King adaptations and this is modern sequel generating of the worst order where the Mangler now becomes an A.I. and a computer virus
Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance (2009)
The second of the Neon Genesis Evangelion reboot films, this gets the essentials right and delivers some stunningly epic anime action scenes
I Spit on Your Grave (2010)
The harrowing 1970s raped woman on a revenge spree film is given the remake treatment, although is watered down in many key areas. The revenge scenes however are played up for a particular nastiness
The Haunted World of El Superbeasto (2009)
Animated film directed by Rob Zombie that feels like an episode of Ren & Stimpy made by someone with an unhealthy obsession with horror and exploitation movies and stripper bars
Shelter (2010)
This starts out was as a film about multiple personality disorder with several scenes that catch your attention before it drifts into a muddle of confused supernatural themes
The Devil’s Chair (2006)
Solid offering from the increasingly underrated Adam Mason that takes more than a few leaves from Hellraiser with a ghostsbusting team investigating occult happenings in an abandoned asylum
Far Cry (2008)
One of the worst of Uwe Boll’s videogame adaptations. This consists of action sequences slung together with random indifference and badly mismatched casting
The Return (1981)
Influenced by Close Encounters of the Third Kind, this is a strange film about UFOs and cattle mutilations. Explanations are not always clear but the film boasts a great cast
The Well (1997)
An incredibly spooky film about two woman on an Australian outback farm that believe they are haunted by a dead body in the well
Saw 3D (2010)
Supposedly the final chapter of the Saw saga – where the sole novelty on offer is gore and body parts coming out the screen in 3D. This is conducted with a tired lack of effort that makes for tedium-inducing watching
Supernatural (1933)
Carole Lombard plays an heiress who becomes possessed by the spirit of an executed murderess. From the Brothers Halperin who were behind >i>White Zombie
Seedpeople (1992)
Full Moon Entertainment produce a cheapo B-budget copy of Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Drive Angry (2011)
Essentially a supernatural version of a 1970s car chase movie with Nicolas Cage as a motorist who has escaped from Hell to settle a score. This makes a play for the trashy and absurd and comes out all the more entertaining for it
The Roommate (2011)
Tame psycho-thriller that plays out as a teen version of Fatal Attraction or Single White Female where Minka Kelly gets a psychopathic dorm roommate in Leighton Meester
I Am Number Four (2011)
Produced by Michael Bay and directed by the perpetually insipid D.J. Caruso, this is no more than a Young Adult high school version of Disney’s Witch Mountain films concerning an alien teenager with psi powers
Terror from the Year 5000 (1958)
1950s B movie about time travel experiments that produce a deadly woman from the future. Nothing standout but Salome Jens has an otherworldly presence as the woman