Journey to the Center of the Earth (1999)
Hallmark TV mini-series version of the Jules Verne novel that keeps faith to the book for the most part before heading off on some colourfully exotic adventures
Dark Island (2010)
This feels like a mockbuster thrown together to exploit the popularity of the tv series Lost concerning an island haunted by a sinister cloud of smoke. The scenario quickly collapses into absurdity.
Temptation (2009)
An all-girl lesbian vampire film that sets out to reclaim the genre that had previously existed as a focus of male titillation and tell it as a story of women’s empowerment
Freeway (1996)
Matthew Bright’s extraordinary modernisation/trashing of Little Red Riding Hood who becomes Reese Witherspoon’s juvenile delinquent who goes hitchhiking and is targeted by serial killer Kiefer Sutherland
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
An excellent remake of the Cold War classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The original has now been smartly retooled for the 1970s and slots right into the Me Generation era with paranoia perfectly intact
The Footstep Man (1992)
A New Zealand-made film where a sound effects artist is haunted by the ghost of a woman who steps out of a biopic about Henri Toulouse-Lautec that he is editing
The Great Alligator (1979)
A belated Italian-made attempt to jump aboard the bandwagon and copy Jaws with a giant alligator hunting people on an island
Atlantis: Milo’s Return (2003)
Another shabby Disney video-released sequel, in this case to Atlantis the Lost Empire. The result looks like three episodes of an unsold tv series slapped together to sell as a film
Shrek Forever After (2010)
The fourth of the Shrek films. By this point, the freshness and originality of the first film has been buried under animated film formula, while the plot is a tired rehash of It’s a Wonderful Life
Silk (2006)
Fascinating and original Taiwanese film about scientists investigating a haunted house and employing various methods to trap the ghosts
Toy Story 3 (2010)
After such high standards with the previous two films, there is considerable onus on Pixar when it comes to this third entry nevertheless they manage to wring some strong and effective new twists on the familiar
Horrid (2009)
A low-budget regionally made film about a zombie outbreak. This does better than most of the vast horde of low-budget zombie films that came out in the late 2000s
Stitch! The Movie (2003)
Cheaply made video-released sequel to Lilo & Stitch, which is only a rehash but does surprisingly reunite all the voice talents
Virginia Creepers (2009)
Documentary about the phenomenon of the tv horror host
Pet Shop (1995)
A painfully bad Charles Band production for children about a strange couple that set up a pet shop selling alien creatures
Ondine (2009)
Neil Jordan directs a beautifully earthy Irish fairytale in which Colin Farrell fishes up a possible selkie woman
The Medallion (2003)
Flop Jackie Chan film that tries to recapture some of his Hong Kong heyday with Jackie in a quest for a boy and medallion with magical powers
Martyrs (2008)
Pascal Laugier makes one of the most horrific films to emerge from France in the 00s. Scenes of grim torture sit alongside a plot that messes with almost everything we take for granted
Jonah Hex (2010)
This is an adaptation of the DC comic-book character of a supernatural avenging Western gunslinger that fails to burn with the grim mood it should have
The Day of the Triffids (2009)
Disappointing tv mini-series remake of the John Wyndham novel about England overrun by killer plants. This abandons most of the book’s sociological portrait for cliche melodramatics
Black River (2001)
Modest and quite effective Dean R. Koontz adaptation in which Jay Mohr is trapped in a small town run by an A.I. that does everything it can to prevent him from leaving
Easter Bunny Kill! Kill! (2006)
Admirably sordid slasher film, an early effort from Chad Ferrin, that quickly gets twisted and comes up with an amusing line-up of lowlifes and an Easter bunny masked killer
The Trumpet of the Swan (2001)
Animated film based on a book by Charlotte’s Web author E.B. White about a trumpet-playing swan
The Fantastic Four (1994)
The film version of the comic-book that was made by Roger Corman intended to never be released. This has a reputation as a bad movie and is extremely impoverished adaptation but is more authentic to the comic-book than other big-budget films
The Green Hornet (1974)
The Green Hornet was a tv series based on the radio and serial masked hero. Following Bruce Lee’s ascent to superstardom, three episodes of the series were re-edited as a feature film
Cyborg Cop III (1995)
A completely ridiculous action film (that features no cyborg cops) and instead concerns the attempts to create an army of cyborgs using insect DNA
Blackwater Valley Exorcism (2006)
In the aftermath of the huge success of The Exorcism of Emily Rose, this was another supposedly true account of an exorcism. Made on a low-budget, this fails to surmount the cliches of The Exorcist
Vampire’s Kiss (1988)
Bizarre comedy where Nicolas Cage is a literary agent who believes he is a vampire. Cage gives the most absurdly over-the-top performance ever put on film
Sliding Doors (1998)
Popular Gwyneth Paltrow hit that spawned a series of films that follow a woman’s alternate life pathways
Unknown Island (1948)
Routine B-budget lost world fantasy with a group of explorers stranded on an island filled with dinosaurs
The Silencers (1996)
Action film made at the height of the popularity of tv’s The X Files with Jack Scalia fighting off the Men in Black
Scared Stiff (1953)
Remake of the earlier Bob Hope Old Dark House comedy The Ghost Breakers now made as a vehicle for the duo of Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin. Probably overly long and takes forever to arrive at the haunted house but has some occasionally amiable comedic moments
Thrill Seekers (1999)
A throwaway direct-to-dvd release about time travellers come back to view famous disasters that rises above low expectations to develop an occasionally interesting plot
Trouble in Mind (1986)
Alan Rudolph makes a modern film noir that takes place in a vaguely futuristic setting. Starring Kris Kristofferson and Divine
Mad Detective (2007)
Quite the maddest Hong Kong film once has ever seen featuring a detective who can see people’s inner personalities. No film in recent memory has led such a delirious dance with an audience
Fun (1994)
This came out the same year as Peter Jackson’s overrated Heavenly Creatures, although wasn’t as recognised, but is a much better, more socially realistic version of the lesbian lovers-killers theme
Equinox (1992)
A follow-up to Alan Rudolph’s Trouble of Mind, a work of neo-Film Noir in a futuristic setting where Matthew Modine plays twins who are drawn into underworld dealings
The Stalker’s Apprentice (1998)
British tv psycho film that works through a multi-layered plot of dexterous twists and a handsomely engaging lead actor
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010)
Adaptation of the popular videogame that ventures into Arabian Nights adventure, this was a box-office flop. It swashbuckles entertainingly but Jake Gyllenhaal feels badly miscast as a buffed adventure hero
Dante’s Inferno (2007)
Modernised version of the classic journey though Hell conducted with cardboard puppets – a uniquely appealing experiment peppered with a number of biting contemporary jibes
Bowery at Midnight (1942)
Low-budget film with Bela Lugosi as a respectable psychology professor who disguises himself as someone running a soup kitchen from which he runs a criminal operation and keeps zombies
Blow Out (1981)
One of Brian De Palma’s most stylish psycho-thrillers, featuring John Travolta as a sound engineer who becomes targeted after he accidentally records evidence of a political assassination
Femme Fatale (2002)
Brian De Palma makes a return to the classic psycho-thrillers where he made his name, shouting virtuoso directorial flourish from the rafters and pulling off an amazingly contrived plot
Five Children and It (2004)
Adaptation of a classic British children’s book made by Jim Henson Productions where children discover a sand fairy that grants wishes. The film is largely centered around creating slapstick chaos
Theodore Rex (1995)
Disastrous flop that tries to do a Lethal Weapon buddy cop film by way of Jurassic Park and gives us a film about a cop with a dinosaur partner!
The Vanishing (1988)
A grippingly good Dutch thriller about a husband who becomes obsessed following the disappearance of his wife, while at the tame time we also get a parallel plot about the comically jolly serial killer responsible
The Bride With White Hair (1993)
Classic Hong Kong Wu Xia film featuring much aerial swordplay and lushly dressing/lighting but also a work of wildly uneven tone
Splice (2010)
A genetically engineered creature film from Vincenzo Natali, this ventures into some fascinating places but ultimately returns to Frankenstein science territory
Furry Vengeance (2010)
Excruciating CGI cute animals film where animals gang up to stop Brendan Fraser redeveloping their forest. Essentially a 1970s Nature’s Revenge film by way of the slapstick family-friendly violence of Home Alone
Iron Man 2 (2010)
Iron Man was very enjoyable. True to typical superhero sequel form, this complicates the original by introducing so many new villains and characters that it becomes an overcrowded narrative juggling act
Someone’s Knocking at the Door (2009)
A thoroughly demented low-budget exploitation homage about demonic rapists that only falls down when it comes to a cliched twist end
Trick ‘R Treat (2008)
Disappointing Bryan Singer produced horror anthology set around Halloween where its potential is frequently dragged down by over-emphatic direction
Fido (2006)
Charmingly droll film that posits an alternate version of the 1950s where zombies have been domesticated. This has a perfect sense of mood and admirable deadpan playing by all involved
Written By (2009)
Unique venture into meta-fiction by Wai Ka Fai that creates fascinatingly wound layers of fiction and reality that eventually become so complex that one gets lost
House (1977)
Very strange Japanese ghost story that has been rediscovered as a cult classic. It resembles a film like Willy Wonka turned into a haunted house film where the intention seems to have been to be a bizarre and wacky as possible
The Unborn (2009)
Scriptwriter David S. Goyer takes the director’s choice to make a possession film. The one distinction here is that Goyer draws from Jewish mythology, otherwise this feels like another canned teen horror film
Identified Flying Object (1985)
Low-budget director Ulli Lommel makes a film about a teen who befriends an artificially intelligent rogue military helicopter in what becomes E.T. by way of Blue Thunder
Harrison Bergeron (1995)
Adaptation of a Kurt Vonnegut story about a future where everyone must be average wherein Vonnegut’s farcical satire is completely misjudged and played straight
Roswell: The Aliens Attack (1999)
Alien invasion film set around the so-called Roswell Incident. Faux science-fiction written by cliche the entire way
The Island of Lost Souls (1932)
The first and best screen adaptation of H.G. Wells’ novel The Island of Dr Moreau. Wells was not happy but Charles Laughton is a great Moreau and the film develops a remarkable sexual undertow
The Midnight Meat Train (2008)
One of the best Clive Barker adaptations. Japan’s Ryuhei Kitamura brings a masterful assurance with the horror elements and does gore in astonishingly new and unrealised ways
The Magical Land of the Leprechauns (1999)
Lively and undeniably likeable Hallmark mini-series that celebrates Irish myth. Giddily silly nonsense conducted with a boisterous energy
A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
Yet another in the fad for 19870s/0s horror remakes, a merely efficient revival that reduces the wild, outré scares of Wes Craven’s original to conveyor belt shocks
Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009)
Sequel to the 1994 Street Fighter film based on the videogame, this provides the wall-to-wall action that the first film needed but falls down with a wimpily miscast heroine
Puss in Boots (1999)
An obscure animated version of the classic fairytale that comes with excruciating puns, much slapstick and has clearly been animated on a low budget
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009)
Strong and dramatically absorbing Swedish thriller featuring one of the most original and provocative heroines on screen in some time. A word of mouth hit that later underwent a lesser English-language remake
Snapshot (1979)
Trashy Australian psycho-stalker film set in the world of fashion modelling that was bizarrely passed off as a copy of Halloween in the US
Franklyn (2008)
A fascinating series of interwoven stories, one of which is set in a religion-dominated dystopian future. An intriguing puzzle that arrives at a surprise left field ending
Inkheart (2008)
Another failed attempt to start a fantasy franchise. However, the interesting premise of someone who can bring fictional characters to life ends up going goes precisely nowhere
Beverly Hills Body$natchers (1989)
Unfunny comedy set around a morgue where a mad doctor has found a process to resurrect the dead. Sort of like Night Shift crossbred with a PG-rated version of Re-Animator
Temptress (1995)
Erotic horror film made by Playboy where Kim Delaney is possessed by an incarnation of Kali
Mothra (1962)
The most successful of the original monster movies Toho made after the success of Godzilla, the only one to spawn its own sequels, and one of the best kaiju eiga of the era
DNA (2004)
Forensic thriller in which Tom Conti is a CSI who discovers evidence that he might have conducted a series of killings while in a fugue state
Dr M (1990)
Claude Chabrol updates Fritz Lang super-villain Dr Mabuse to a millennial West Berlin where Alan Bates is a tv mogul who masterminds a mass suicide cult via messages hidden inside advertising
Mute Witness (1995)
A gripping directorial debut for Anthony Waller where a mute assistant on a film set in Moscow witnesses the shooting of a snuff film and is targeted by the Russian underworld
Leslie, My Name is Evil (2009)
A film about the Manson Family killings told through the eyes of one of Manson Girls Leslie Van Houten. This becomes a savage and biting indictment of 1960s social morality
Kick-Ass (2010)
One of several films around the same time about wannabes without powers playing at being superheroes. Matthew Vaughn delivers a film that falls between witty deflation of and a celebration of nerdy fantasy
Hell Asylum (2002)
A cheap and tatty horror film set in a haunted asylum that was one of several similar films in the early 2000s that set out to exploit the then newly arrived fad for reality tv
The Hills Run Red (2009)
A Backwoods Brutality effort that is somewhat better than usual thanks to a darkly acerbic David J. Schow script that constantly subverts the expectations of the genre
Idiots and Angels (2008)
Another of Bill Pympton’s unique animated films, all stylised artwork and surreal juxtapositions. This is a dialogueless film about a mean-spirited man who suddenly gains a set of angel wings
Slasher (2007)
A German-made copy of the Backwoods Brutality cycle that only rehashes clches and frequently verges on the amateurish in execution
Python (2000)
One of the more likeable among the 2000s fad for low-budget CGI monster movies, this is aided considerably by a sense of humour and a line-up of oddball characters
Blindness (2008)
A hugely underrated film that depicts the brutal collapse of society that occurs when the entire world is affected by a plague that causes blindness. Directed in strong and powerful images
An American Werewolf in Paris (1997)
Sequel to An American Werewolf in London, which copies the set-up with a different city but misses all of the sense of humour, even fails to offer anything like the classic transformation effects
The Bloody Judge (1970)
Made not long after the success of The Witchfinder General, a film based on the notorious historical figure of Judge Jeffreys. In the hands of exploitation director Jess Franco, the historical account is sidetracked by sado-sexual scenes
A Town Called Panic (2009)
Film made entirely with stop-motion animated plastic toys and with a sublimely nonsensical absurdiism that has more hilarity and creativity than most mainstream animated fare you will see all year
Treasure Island (1999)
Unrelated to Robert Louis Stevenson, this is a bafflingly surrealist parody of a 1940s thriller
Woodenhead (2003)
Strange surrealist New Zealand made film that emerges as a Brothers Grimm fairytale as directed by a David Lynch or a Guy Maddin
Storm Warning (2007)
An Australian-made variant on the Backwoods Brutality cycle where a whitebread couple on a sailing trip are tortured by hicks. Nothing beyond the cliches or remarkable about this.
The Shout (1978)
A film of fascinating ambiguities that stars Alan Bates as a mystery man who appears to John Hurt and demonstrates a killing shout he learned among the Aborigines
Invasion Earth: The Aliens Are Here (1988)
A film about the alien invasion of a movie theatre that is screening an all-night marathon of old films. This has been constructed around clips of old 1950s sf films
Troubled Waters (2006)
Thriller starring Jennifer Beals as an FBI agent who receives clairvoyant visions during the hunt for an abducted girl
Ferngully: The Last Rainforest (1992)
Animated film where fairies face the threat to their forest posed by a logging operation. Preachy message-making that is all but a recruitment film for Greenpeace and the Sierra Club
Hot Tub Time Machine (2010)
A raucous and vulgar, if at times undeniably funny, comedy where John Cusack and three friends use a hot tub at a resort that causes them to travel back in time to the 1980s.
How to Train Your Dragon (2010)
Popular animated adaptation of a children’s book. This hits all the right story arcs and in sufficiently likeable measure to work amiably. Two sequels and a live-action remake followed.
Fanboys (2008)
Affectionately made road trip film about four Star Wars fans on a journey to break into Skywalker Ranch. Packed with lots of witty fannish in-jokes and cameos, this comes out as enjoyable if broad at times
I Am Omega (2007)
A mockbuster from The Asylum that was intended to capitalise on the release of I Am Legend and in fact gets much more of the essence of the original Richard Matheson novel than the official film did
S. Darko (2009)
This is a wholly unnecessary sequel to Donnie Darko, featuring the same bafflingly inexplicable time-blurring things happening to his sister but without the same culty weirdness
Sympathy (2007)
Beautifully tightly wound thriller that takes place in a hotel room between a bank robber, his hostage and an escaped convict where nothing is what it seems
Beyond Re-Animator (2003)
The second sequel to the cult splatter hit Re-Animator is a superior effort to its predecessor, getting the original’s sense of black humour down pat and arriving at a memorably apocalyptic climax