Jill the Ripper (2000)
A quite good thriller where Dolph Lundgren plays a detective who is drawn into a underworld of sadomasochistic sex during the hunt for a female serial killer
Unman, Wittering and Zigo (1971)
David Hemmings stars in a well written thriller about a school teacher whose pupils confess to a murder and engage in a series of psychological games with him
The Invisible Monster (1950)
A twelve chapter serial about the hunt for The Phantom, a criminal who operates with the use of a ray that can render him invisible
The Forgotten One (1989)
An often subtle ghost story where widower Terry O’Quinn moves into a new house where he becomes involved with the ghost of the woman who lived there
Nightmare Detective (2006)
A clearly more commercial film from cult Japanese director Shinya Tsukamoto of Tetsuo: The Iron Man fame. This draws influence from Ring but this lacks much of the obsessive drive of Tsukamoto’s other films
Hereafter (2010)
Clint Eastwood tackles the afterlife in a drama following multiple storylines. A film made with earnest serious ambition but one where Eastwood finds surprisingly little to say about the issue
Metamorphosis (2010)
Wildly experimental South Korean adaptation of the Kafka story about a man turning into an insect – a film shot entirely by the director in bed with the camera pointed at his feet
Christmas on Mars (2008)
Has there ever been a good film combining the concepts of ‘Christmas’ and ‘Mars’? A film made by cult band The Flaming Lips about the first colonists on Mars as they celebrate Christmas
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010)
Winner of this year Cannes Palme d’Or, this is a Thai ghost story .where director Apichatpong Weerasethaku creates an intensely haunted atmosphere at times, although the film itself remains vague and elusive in terms of plot
L.A. Zombie (2010)
Whether we asked for it or not, director Bruce LaBruce gives us the world’s first gay pornographic zombie film in which a zombie finds it can revive the dead by having sex with them
The Diamonds of Metro Valley (2010)
Crime film that takes place amid cardboard sets and toy robots. A puzzlingly surreal effort that seems more suited to an MTV clip for an indie band than a full-length film
Repeaters (2010)
Groundhog Day with drug addicts – a familiar timeloop scenario that makes for a reasonable story about redemption and reconciliation
American Grindhouse (2010)
A documentary that charts the history of exploitation cinema and covers much ground generally informatively despite the odd omission of some key works and players
Snow White (2009)
An amazing reinterpretation of the classical fairytale as modern ballet for adults. This does amazing things to reinvent the original and is visually extraordinary
Transfer (2010)
A strong and intelligent science-fiction film about a future where the aging buy younger bodies from the Third World to transfer their minds into
The End of the Animal (2010)
Fascinating no-budget South Korean film about a mysterious catastrophe and an even more mysterious godlike stranger who appears in its aftermath. Enigma like the best of Andrei Tarkovsky
Altitude (2010)
Essentially a feature version of The Twilight Zone‘s classic Nightmare at 20,000 Feet episode, this generates some remarkable tension with a group trapped in mid-air in a small plane before a lame twist ending
Rubber (2010)
The best killer car tire film ever – a monster movie spoof wound in so many layers of meta-fiction that it is positively side-splitting. The smartest and funniest monster movie in ages
Cold Fish (2010)
From cult director Shion Sono, a typically bizarre and gore-drenched Japanese black comedy about tropical fish salesmen, serial killings and the reclamation of traditional male pride
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (2009)
The first of the sequels to Alvin and the Chipmunks. Marginally less grating than the first film but that’s being relative – all the things that one hated the first time are back
Inception (2010)
Christopher Nolan’s The Matrix. Concerning an action theme that invade people’s dreams, this is a bold, brilliantly original SF film driven by ideas – a film that succeeds beautifully on all levels
Woman on Top (2000)
Frothy work of Magical Realism with Penelope Cruz as a woman whose cooking weaves a magical spell
Ultimate Avengers II (2006)
Follow-up to the previous animated Marvel Comics film featuring The Avengers, this serves to introduce Black Panther to the screen for the first time
Tell-Tale (2009)
This is supposedly an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s story The Tell-Tale Heart but it throws out all semblance to the story and instead tells a possessed transplant limb tale
Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010)
Four films in and clear evidence that the Resident Evil series needs to be retired. This consists of tediously borrowed action moves now presented in 3D and a plot of random dead ends that make little sense
New Alcatraz (2002)
Gimmicky B-budget film about a hi-tech future prison built at the South Pole. Thus has been thrown together with a giant snake amok plot. A passably routine effort
Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole (2010)
Zack Snyder makes an exquisite motion-capture animated film for adults about talking owls. This has a story that comes with a sweeping mythic arc
Slugs: The Movie (1988)
Killer slug movie from hack Spanish director Juan Piquer Simon where the sole notable aspect amid the cheapness of the production is some very gory deaths
The Night Chronicles 1: Devil (2010)
Clever concept of five people trapped in an elevator where one of them is The Devil. One of the better films to come out under the much debased name of M. Night Shyamalan who lends his name as producer
The Man From Earth (2007)
Beautifully written film about an immortal. The result is an entirely captivating SF film whose whole effect emerges simply from people sitting in a living room talking
Nightmare Castle (1965)
Classic work of the 1960s Italian Gothic cycle featuring Barbara Steele, shot in beautifully brooding black-and-white and with a remarkable sadomasochistic undertow
Enemy Mind (2010)
A modest and effective low-budget reworking of the classic Enemy Mine delivered with a quite reasonable intelligence and professionalism
Nanny McPhee & the Big Bang (2010)
I never much cared for Nanny McPhee. This is a sequel that replicates the original in fairly much the same amount mix of plot elements, slapstick sequences and nonsensical absurdism
The Human Centipede (First Sequence) (2009)
An astonishingly perverse work where a mad surgeon abducts three people intending to connect their bodies as a single digestive tract. This is a work that pushes itself into truly warped territory
Sadisterotica (1969)
A film from cult exploitation director Jesus Franco that combines a masked thief and a killer artist plot but emerges tawdrily, not to mention has nothing whatsoever to do with the suggestive title
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009)
This wouldn’t be a Terry Gilliam if it wasn’t cursed by bad luck – the death of star Heath Ledger. It’s the most Gilliam-esque film in some years where Gilliam and his designers leap off into deliriously madcap surrealism
The Last Exorcism (2010)
An exorcism film made Found Footage-style with Patrick Fabian as a conman exorcist. This is constantly confounding everything one expects of the genre with considerable cleverness
T.M.A. (2009)
Czech-made haunted house story that does not vary far from the traditional basics but generates a sparse but modest atmosphere
Idiocracy (2006)
A film about stupid people that for once actually is funny. This a raucous but often biting satire where Luke Wilson wakes up in the year 2025 to find that the stupid have inherited the future
Piranha (2010)
Another in the fad for 70s/80s remakes where Alexandre Aja for once captures the spirit of Joe Dante’s 1978 original by planting tongue in cheek and wading in with mind-bogglingly gory enthusiasm
Alien Contamination (1980)
Luigi Cozzi directed quickie designed to copy the success of Alien. As with many Italian films of this era, it has largely been conceived around plentiful provision of gore and little else
[Rec] 2 (2009)
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Lesser sequel to the Spanish Found Footage zombie film [Rec] that repeats the original to variable effect but needlessly breaks up the single camera point-of-view
Mom and Dad Save the World (1992)
Films about stupid people are rarely funny – this concerns a whole planet of stupid people. Despite reasonable production values, there is little that raises even a mild smile in this comedic take on Flash Gordon
The Land That Time Forgot (2009)
A low-budget modernised version of the Edgar Rice Burroughs book about a group ending up on a lost island where dinosaurs still roam. Slightly better than usual for The Asylum
Universal Soldier: The Return (1999)
Sequel to Roland Emmerich’s Universal Soldier, this brings back Jean-Claude Van Damme but otherwise substitutes a brain dead plot that has him facing an evil A.I.
Dracula’s Widow (1988)
Christopher Coppola is worlds apart in talent from his uncle Francis. Here he directs a weak vampire film with Sylvia Kristel in the title role and transformation effects that look datedly cheesy today
Vampires Suck (2010)
The movie parodies of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer witlessly run a series of crude, unfunny gags over films and celebrities of the previous twelve months vintage. Here they take on the Twilight series
The Giant Gila Monster (1959)
A cheap and impoverished entry in the 1950s fad for giant animal movies with the giant monster being unconvincingly represented by an optically enlarged lizard
Tarzan Escapes (1936)
Third of the Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan films, the point where the formula of the series started to kick in
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)
An Edgar Wright directed comic-book adaptation made in a bewildering restless visual style that feels like two different films happening at once, one a sweet nerd romance and the other a completely gonzo superhero film
Frostbite (2006)
Swedish film about vampires at a smalltown hospital and vampire pills thought to be party drugs that spread around the town. This is made with an uneven sense of black humour
Universal Soldier: Regeneration (2009)
The fifth of the Universal Soldier films reuniting both Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren, while being given a tough, brutal action punch by director John Hyams
Dead Hooker in a Trunk (2010)
The debut film from the Soska Sisters – a demented road movie – is scrappy, all over the place and highly uneven but shows the two are definitely going places
Brainjacked (2009)
A low-budget film wherein a teenager falls under the influence of a mad scientist who drills open heads to implant mind control chips. This makes a beeline for gory splatter effects
Necropolis (1987)
Ridiculous cheap 1980s video release about a witch burned at the stake returned as a New Wave punkette to claims souls
Cannibal Girls (1973)
Legendary Canucksploitation film from Ivan Reitman about a cannibal hotel. This has gained a cult reputation. Seen it seems to lack the essential trashiness that justifies its reputation
Manhattan Baby (1982)
Lucio Fulci film about a series of supernatural deaths caused by an Egyptian amulet. An incoherent and plotless mess filled with random supernatural effects and occasional gore scenes
Splinter (2008)
A surprisingly good film that generates a great deal of tension in the story of a group of people trapped inside a gas station by a deadly plant infection that takes over bodies
The Vintner’s Luck (2009)
Whale Rider director Niki Caro makes an uneven film about a 19th Century peasant who is inspired to make wine by an angel
The Amazing Colossal Man (1957)
One of the better of Bert I. Gordon’s B movies of the 1950s. This was rushed out not long after The Incredible Shrinking Man and displays some imagination despite cheap effects
Brave New World (1998)
TV movie adaptation that conducts a hatchet job on Aldous Huxley’s dystopian novel where his vision of a conditioned class structure is turned into an allegory about a media-saturated world
Uncle Sam (1997)
Film about an undead military veteran from director William Lustig and a script by the great Larry Cohen that unevenly digs into patriotic sentiment with black regard
It Happens Every Spring (1949)
A comedy in which Ray Milland is cast as a chemistry professor who becomes a baseball star after inventing a wood-repelling chemical
Going Postal (2010)
A disappointing tv mini-series adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novel, which has been (largely) played as a straight adventure with the usual Pratchett comedy taking a backseat
The Wolves of Willougby Chase (1989)
Criminally neglected Victorian children’s fantasy. Superbly designed with a beautifully dark and much more adult emotional range than a regular children’s film
WW 3 (2001)
A routine biowarfare outbreak thriller that holds a fascination in that it imagines the attacker to be al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden two months before 9/11
Santa Sangre (1989)
Near indescribable mix of horror, hallucination, surrealism and tormented sexuality – quite possibly cult director Alejandro Jodorowsky at his best
Charlie St. Cloud (2010)
A banal Zac Efron starring attempt to rewrite The Sixth Sense for the mopily sensitive teenage Gothic Chick Lit audience weaned on Twilight with Efron as a cemetery groundskeeper who talks to the dead
Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore (2010)
Cats & Dogs was amiable but this sequel struggles against the irritatingly cutsie elements that have come to dominate this mini-genre of live-action talking animals films
The She-Creature (1956)
A strange mix of 1950s hypnotic regression fad and AIP B monster movie elements that has undeniable mood and verve
Survival of the Dead (2009)
George Romero’s sixth and final zombie film where he writes characters and a script with much more of a richness of theme than he did in the last two entries
Starship Troopers (1997)
Travesty of Robert Heinlein’s classic SF novel from Paul Verhoeven. Heinlein’s philosophical argument for militarism is junked in favour of blackly comic mindless violence
High Plains Invaders (2009)
Predating Cowboys & Aliens, this is an amusingly titled Western/alien invasion crosshatch that plays itself surprisingly seriously and is better than one might assume
Solomon Kane (2009)
Reasonable adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s stories about a Puritan warrior, an entry in the 00s sword-and-sorcery fad that comes with a welcomely dark edge
The House on Skull Mountain (1974)
Modestly effective Blaxploitation take on House on Haunted Hill that concerns voodoo rites being conducted in a big old Southern mansion
J.D.’s Revenge (1976)
A Blaxploitation film where decent law student Glynn Turman is possessed by the spirit of J.D., a petty hood who was shot in the 1940s and now sets out to take revenge
Screamers: The Hunting (2009)
Disappointing sequel to the modest original that does little but revisit and re-run the first film’s scenario with little to add to it
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (2010)
A live-action film based on the titular segment from Fantasia. From Jerry Bruckheimer meaning that it is a film of empty-headed special effects that fails to conjure any magic of its own
Despicable Me (2010)
An animated effort about a mad scientist and three orphans. One entered this with zero expectation only for it to unexpectedly emerge as a side-splitting and completely charming pleasure
Predators (2010)
Despite being hamstrung with Adrien Brody in Action Hero mode, this is a hard-edged film that goes some way to rescue the Predator franchise from its novelty crossovers with Alien(s)
The Last House on the Left (2009)
A disappointing remake of the harrowing Wes Craven classic where the violence has been tamed down and the film is entirely missing the irony of the original’s savage ending
Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974)
Vastly over-praised French New Wave film that is a ghost story of sorts. Three hours plus of tediously protracted happenings that don’t seem to be about anything at all
A Study in Terror (1965)
Largely forgotten Sherlock Holmes entry that was the first film to pit Holmes against Jack the Ripper. Both sides are treated with respect amid lush production values
Quicksilver Highway (1997)
The perpetually awful Mick Garris inflicts adaptations of Stephen King and Clive Barker stories on us in what looks like an unsold pilot for a horror anthology tv series
Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead (2006)
Troma film that has maybe the silliest movie title ever. This sets out to be so persistently moronic and wilfully offensive that it eventually attains a delirious absurdity
The Phantom of the Opera (1962)
Hammer Films’ attempt to update the classic story went astray – the Paris opera becomes a dreary English repertory house and Terence Fisher misses the tale’s grandeur
Meet Mr Lucifer (1953)
One of the forgotten comedies from UK’s Ealing Studios, this rails against the evils of the then new medium of television where The Devil contrives to make people miserable by getting them to watch tv
Fangs (2001)
This is a B-budget film about genetically engineered killer bats where the usual is boosted by a sense of humour and a line-up of eccentric characters
Disaster Movie (2008)
The movie parodies of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, which consist of crude, witless gags run over replication of scenes from films of the last twelve months, are painfully unfunny. This doesn’t even spoof the disaster movie
The Eclipse (2009)
Not to be confused with the Twilight sequel, this is a quiet, modestly made Irish ghost story set around a literary festival where the strongest parts are the characters and performances
Eclipse (2010)
The third of the Twilight films. This extrudes the dramatic irresolution of the last film’s cliffhanger – should Bella marry Edward or does she really love Jacob? – with over-padded momentousness
Twitch of the Death Nerve (1971)
A giallo thriller from Mario Bava that is often regarded as the prototype of the slasher film. The film borrows from Agatha Christie with people isolated on an island being killed amid Bava’s artily extravagant set-ups
The Destructors (1968)
An entry amid the 1960s spy fad that suffers a pedestrian dullness. A stocky Richard Egan seems miscast as a playboy spy up against a bikini designer villain who seeks a powerful laser weapon
Superman/Batman: Public Enemies (2009)
An animated film that seems premised on not much more than bringing various obscure DC Comics characters out of mothballs for one giant-sized punch up
Transylmania (2009)
A excruciatingly unfunny film that feels like one of Abbott and Costello’s monster bashes played as a crass frat comedy
The War of the Worlds (2005)
Released just before the Spielberg film, this was an adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel set in the Victorian period that attempts to tell the story as it was written. The film has ambition way beyond the resources at hand but you cannot help but applaud what it tries to do
User Friendly (1990)
Oddball New Zealand-made comedy with various characters in pursuit of a statuette with rejuvenative properties
Riverworld (2010)
The second tv mini-series of Philip Jose Farmer’s classic SF novels trashes the books just as badly as the first attempt. The premise and characters are indifferently rewritten, while the show is churned out by a director with a tatty indifference to what he is making
Mr. Nobody (2009)
Jaco Van Dormael film that reaches for epic ideas in a story about multiple life pathways and a babble of ideas taken from physics but fails to assemble them in a way that makes much sense
The Last Airbender (2010)
Live-action film adaptation of the popular animated tv series, this was widely seen as a disaster for M. Night Shyamalan. I am one of the few that liked the film for Shyamalan’s superbly designed world