Hunted (2020)
Solidly effective Belgian film about a woman fleeing through the woods from a killer who wants to make snuff movies. One of several films about people hunted in the woods to come out around the same time
Hunter Hunter (2020)
A solid and well-made film that creates quite a reasonable tension as a family that live in the woods deal with a lurking wolf. What is going on sits in an interesting state of ambiguity.
Hunter Prey (2010)
An SF film with minimal resources – just two characters in a desert – that deliver a modest variant on the Enemy Mine scenario about an alien and human enemy stranded on a planet
Hunter’s Blood (1986)
A quite reasonable Backwoods Brutality item with a group who go hunting in backwoods Oklahoma but stir up the inbred poachers and end up being hunted themselves
Hunting Ava Bravo (2022)
A decent variant on The Most Dangerous Game with a woman forced to survive with her bare hands while pursued by a hunter, this places emphasis on the psychological interplay between hunter and hunted
Hush (1998)
Histrionic thriller that reminds of the various copies of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? in which pregnant Gwyneth Paltrow has evil mother-in-law Jessica Lange trying to steal her baby
Hush (2008)
A British psycho-thriller that draws much from Steven Spielberg’s Duel with its story of a motorist trying to rescue his girlfriend after she is abducted by a never-seen truck driver
Hush (2016)
A Mike Flanagan film that keeps you in a state of seat-edge tension. The premise is a simple one – a deaf woman is terrorised by a killer waiting outside her house – but Flanagan delivers it with electrifying effect
Hush … Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964)
Robert Aldrich’s successor to What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? with Bette Davis on the receiving end this time. This is arguably a superior film with a tightly contorted psycho-thriller plot and a decaying Southern setting
Husk (2011)
An intent seriousness fails to disguise a ridiculous premise – a haunted cornfield where interlopers are made to sit at a sewing machine to sew burlap masks that turn them into undead scarecrows
Hyper Sapien: People from Another Star (1986)
This is a derivative and dull copy of E.T. about two alien kids and pet who run away from their family on The Moon and found by a teenage cowboy on a ranch in rural Wyoming
Hypersleep (2022)
A film of reality bending conceptual twists about a psychiatrist tending cryogenically frozen prisoners who then wakes to find that he has become one of the prisoners
Hypnotic (2023)
Robert Rodriguez makes a film with Ben Affleck as a detective dealing with a man who can control others’ minds. However, this develops into a mind twister of considerable reality bending proportions
Hypothermia (2011)
A Larry Fessenden produced monster movie that takes place around a hundred square feet of a frozen-over lake with people being hunted by a monster beneath the ice
The H-Man (1958)
Monster movie from Godzilla creator Ishiro Honda featuring a glowing blob that dissolves humans. Mostly a routine policier that is spiced up every so often by novelty effects of people melting
The H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival – North (1999)
A festival of H.P. Lovecraft short films held in Vancouver, which display a quality and faithfulness to the original texts that far outstrips the professional efforts being made elsewhere
The Hair of the Beast (2010)
Quebecois (French-speaking Canadian) historical werewolf film. The plot proves entertaining in its whisplash reversals, although the film’s provision of a werewolf falls down amid some ratty CGI effects
The Halfway House (1944)
A very nicely made British Wartime film about an ensemble of varied characters gathered at a ghostly inn that comes to have an effect on all of them
The Hamiltons (2006)
An indie horror film about a strange and disturbing family of adult children. The whole film hangs on an interesting mid-film conceptual revelation
The Hand (1981)
In his second film as director, Oliver Stone ventures into the disembodied hand theme. An amazingly OTT Michael Caine plays a cartoonist who believes the hand he lost in an accident is exacting vengeance against his enemies
The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992)
One of the thrillers influenced by Fatal Attraction with Rebecca De Mornay giving an ice cold performance as a nanny who infiltrates a family seeking revenge for the death of her husband.
The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (2025)
A remake of the 1992 film that starred Rebecca De Mornay as a psychopathic babysitter who enters a household seeking revenge. This updates the story for the 2020s, although is no less a conservative version than the original
The Handmaid’s Tale (1990)
The original version of the Margaret Atwood novel made way before the tv series. This aims in the general direction but is more a film that achieves a sense of disquiet rather than the true horror of its’ heroine’s situation in this world
The Hands of Orlac (1924)
Classic German silent film about a pianist who receives hand transplants and believes they are possessed. Superbly stylised direction from The Cabinet of Dr Caligari director Robert Wiene and with Conrad Veidt putting his all into the contorted mime work
The Hands of Orlac (1960)
The third film and least version of the classic horror story about a pianist who receives hands transplanted from a murderer and is driven mad believing they are possessing him
The Hanging Garden (1997)
A Canadian film about a gay man returning home and revisiting his childhood after ten years away that ends up in a weird series of parallel realities
The Happening (2008)
M. Night Shyamalan came majorly unstuck with this catastrophe film where humanity is driven to mass suicide by plant pollens. The idea is interesting but Shyamalan gets lost in vagueness and loopy mysticism
The Happiness of the Katakuris (2001)
Completely madcap film from Takashi Miike, a black comedy about a family who run a guesthouse where the guests keep dying. This comes replete with musical numbers and Claymation sequences
The Happy Ghost (1984)
A popular Hong Kong hit in its day where a schoolgirl gains a ghostly scholar as an invisible companion, resulting in a series of slapstick sequences. Several sequels followed
The Happytime Murders (2018)
Jim Henson’s son Brian trashes his father’s legacy, showing puppets getting up to very adult things we never saw on The Muppet Show. Peter Jackson did it even more outrageously in Meet the Feebles
The Harbinger (2022)
A standout work concerning a demon that invades dreams and then erases all memory of the person in others. Shot during Covid lockdown and haunted by an incredible sense of isolation
The Hatching (2016)
There feels like there should be something tongue-in-cheek about the idea of a killer crocodile film set in the British lakelands. Surprisingly, this plays itself seriously
The Haunted Airman (2006)
Robert Pattinson (before he was a recognised name) as a convalescing pilot during WWII who is haunted by demonic spiders in an adaptation of a book by occult writer Dennis Wheatley.
The Haunted Cop Shop (1987)
A madcap Hong Kong comedy that takes more than a few leaves from the Mr Vampire films with cops fighting off vampires in a haunted police station. A popular hit.
The Haunted House of Horror (1969)
The haunted part of the title is misleading but this is an attempt to update the Old Dark House thriller of the 1930s and 40s to the midst of Swinging 60s London and featuring a youth cast
The Haunted Mansion (2003)
Lightweight film based around the Disney theme park attraction that becomes a Eddie Murphy comedy where he and his family enter a big old mansion that proves to be haunted
The Haunted Palace (1963)
This was ostensibly another in Roger Corman’s series of Edgar Allan Poe adaptations with Vincent Price possessed by his ancestor. This only borrows Poe’s title and instead adapts an H.P. Lovecraft story.
The Haunted Strangler (1958)
A split-personality killer film from the early days of the English horror cycle that fails through fundamentally absurd psychology and a hammy performance from Boris Karloff
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
The Haunting (1963)
This is the finest haunted house film of all. In Robert Wise’s hands, the ghosts are unseen and only ever psychological and suggested – the results are terrifying. Adapted from Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House
The Haunting (1999)
The original 1963 version of The Haunting was a masterpiece of unseen psychological horrors. This, in which all of the psychological horrors are replaced by loud and unsubtle CGI bombast, is one of the worst remakes of all time
The Haunting in Connecticut (2009)
Another supposed true-life ghost story, an early case by Ed and Lorraine Warren. The film exists as a progression of pop-up scares that through the need to keep producing effect produces no effect at all.
The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia (2013)
The Haunting in Connecticut was a reasonable success in the claim to being a true story ghost story stakes. This is a sequel, seemingly unaware that Connecticut and Georgia are about a thousand miles apart
The Haunting of Bly Manor (2020)
Mike Flanagan follows up the hit of The Haunting of Hill House with a mini-series that adapts another classic work The Turn of the Screw out into a similar kind of cross-generational ghost story. The results are extraordinary
The Haunting of Hell House (1999)
An Irish shot adaptation of a Henry James ghost story that was repackaged by Roger Corman to take advantage of the release of the remake of The Haunting
The Haunting of Hill House (2018)
The original The Haunting is the finest ghost story ever made. One was sceptical that this remake as a tv mini-series of ten 50 minute episodes would come anywhere near that. Happily, Mike Flanagan proved me wrong.
The Haunting of M. (1979)
A dull and mannered ghost story that makes a good effort at period atmosphere but places almost nothing into attempting to produce anything spooky
The Haunting of Morella (1990)
An adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe story produced by Roger Corman. Alas giving it to exploitation director Jim Wynorski, who likes to add really well stacked women to everything does, kills all of Poe’s atmosphere
The Haunting of Sharon Tate (2019)
Released for the fiftieth anniversary of the Manson Killings, this details the attacks on Sharon Tate by the Manson Family. The film expands on the claim that Tate had a precognitive dream about what was going to happen
The Haunting of Winchester House (2009)
One of the tatty ghost stories made by The Asylum, sold with the association of famous haunted locations or murders. Minor moments of interest if you are prepared to wade through the over-hyped shocks
The Hawk (1993)
BBC produced film with Helen Mirren as a housewife who believes her husband might be a serial killer. Despite promise, this never digs in like a good thriller should
The Hazing (2004)
A low-budget film about a university hazing in a haunted house that goes wrong. This overspills with genre tropes to eventually arrive at an appealing ridiculousness
The Hearse (1980)
Ghost story in which Trish Van Devere moves into her late aunt’s house where she is wooed by a handsome stranger while being haunted by a mysterious hearse
The Heavenly Kid (1985)
Lightweight fantasy film with Lewis Smith as a 1950s rocker who is sent back from the afterlife to act as a guardian angel to help a nerdy Jason Gedrick stand up for himself
The Heroic Trio (1993)
Enormously entertaining and hilariously tongue-in-cheek Hong Kong action film featuring three popular actresses as superheroines who go into action in a series of wildly over-the-top moves
The Heroic Trio II: Executioners (1993)
A disappointing sequel to the madcap Hong Kong superheroines film. This reunites the principal cast members but seems to miss all the fun of its predecessor
The Hidden (1987)
This was a minor cult hit at the time and concerns an alien that hops between human host bodies while having the invincibility of a Terminator. The idea is played with considerable panache and directed with great flair
The Hidden II (1994)
The Hidden was a wittily enjoyable hit about body-hopping aliens. This is a cheap sequel that substantially reuses material from the first film, while missing everything that made the original work
The Hide (2008)
A psycho-thriller about birdwatching? Adapted from a stage play, this takes place on a single set consisting of only two men in a hut talking. The nuances of dialogue hold great subtlety and the film arrives at an effective twist ending
The Hideous Sun Demon (1959)
1950s B movie, one of several inspired by The Quatermass Xperiment on the theme of mutating astronauts/scientists. Nothing hugely standout from the average, although the creature certainly lives up to the hideous description
The High Crusade (1994)
Roland Emmerich produced comedy about a group of crusaders abducted by aliens where their bumbling ends up accidentally winning a space war. A promising idea rendered as idiotic knockabout farce.
The Hills Have Eyes (1977)
The second film from Wes Craven, a classic in the 1970s Backwoods Brutality cycle with a family stranded in the desert as they come under attack from a family of cannibals lurking in the hills
The Hills Have Eyes (2006)
Wes Craven’s Backwoods Brutality classic gets a gore-drenched makeover from Alexandre Aja. One of the better amid the 2000s fad for horror remakes where the original is dragged into the modern day in some interesting ways
The Hills Have Eyes II (2007)
Sequel to the 2006 remake of Wes Craven’s Backwoods Brutality classic (not to be confused with the sequel that Craven made to his original), this is premised around a series of extremely gory set-pieces
The Hills Have Eyes Part II (1985)
Wes Craven makes a sequel to his earlier Backwoods Brutality classic but the result is a mess that is all over the place and counts as one of Craven’s worst films
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
The Hillside Strangler (2004)
Excellent film based on true-life serial killers Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono with C. Thomas Howell and Nicholas Turturro giving electrifying performances in the respective roles
The History of Future Folk (2012)
Aliens come to Earth and form a bluegrass band! The basic idea holds an undeniable appeal but the film seems caught between wanting to be a B-movie parody and an indie film that takes itself seriously
The History of Metal and Horror (2022)
A documentary that explores the intersection between heavy metal music and horror and the frequently intertwined relationship of the two
The History of Time Travel (2014)
An ingenious mockumentary about the development of a time travel machine. This takes place as a ‘documentary’ discussing the invention but the cleverness is in seeing how small details keep changing in the background
The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy (1981)
The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was a multi-media phenomenon that developed a cult. The tv series with a less-than-stellar BBC budget is not the best incarnation of these but gets Douglas Adams’ humour right
The Hitcher (1986)
One of the best horror films of the 1980s, a grippingly suspenseful work where C. Thomas Howell is caught in a series of taunting psychological games across the interstate after offering psychopathic hitcher Rutger Hauer a ride
The Hitcher (2007)
Another disappointing remake of an 80s horror film, this misses the gripping suspense and everything that worked about the 1986 original and turns it into just another teen horror film
The Hitcher II: I’ve Been Waiting (2003)
The Hitcher was a classic of 1980s horror. This is a cheap and indifferently made sequel that brings back C. Thomas Howell but misses all of the seat-edge suspense of the original
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (2005)
The big-budget film version of The Hitch Hiker’s Guide phenomenon is a disaster that fumbles Douglas Adams’s humour and blows everything up with big-budget effects and a pitch to US audiences
The Hive (2014)
This comes with an interesting idea about an infection that links all the infectees together into a gestalt of shared memories even if the delivery is uneven
The Hoarder (2015)
Solid effort about two girls who venture into a storage facility only to unleash a creature. Filled with reasonable and effective tensions, not to mention a surprise mid-film twist that makes it into something else
The Hobbit (1977)
Generally overlooked animated adaptation of the J.R.R. Tolkien book made for tv by Rankin-Bass. This keeps to the text very faithfully – more so than Peter Jackson – and is only let down by some limited animation
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)
Peter Jackson returns to J.R.R. Tolkien and epic-sized adventure in the first of his Hobbit films. The visual sweep is there but the film feels over-extruded and over-burdened by its own self-importance.
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014)
After two bloated and over-padded Hobbit films, Peter Jackson finally gets it together and produces what everyone was expecting him to deliver, even if it means dragging one battle scene out to last an entire film
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)
The Hobbit became Peter Jackson’s equivalent of the Star Wars prequels and this is the weakest work he has produced under the J.R.R. Tolkien banner. Five picaresque chapters of the book are extruded into bloated set-pieces
The Hole (1998)
Tsai Ming-Liang film made to celebrate the millennium about the taunting relationship that grows between a man and a woman affected by a hole left between their apartments by a plumber
The Hole (2001)
British psycho-thriller about teenagers trapped inside a bunker. This does an interesting mid-film twist to offer an entirely different version of the story but never rises above the middle-of-the-road
The Hole (2009)
One of the less known films of Joe Dante. A 3D work that just predates Avatar, it is a YA horror story in the vein of The Goonies or Dante’s own Explorers crafted with care and an affection for the characters
The Hole in the Ground (2019)
An Irish film that creates quite a reasonable degree of atmosphere in its story of a mother who believes her son has been replaced by something else
The Hollow (2015)
One doesn’t have high expectations of a Syfy Channel film. On the other hand, director Sheldon Wilson surprises and creates a highly original monster and moments of considerable tension
The Hollywood Strangler Meets the Skid Row Slasher (1979)
A film from cult director Ray Dennis Steckler about psychos lurking around Hollywood Boulevard. Things get admirably twisted, while the work is a unique time capsule of the period
The Holy Mountain (1973)
A key work in the cult of Alejandro Jodorowsky in which he plays a character called The Alchemist who guides a group on a mystical awakening. Surreal, challenging and mind-expanding
The Holy Virgin Versus the Evil Dead (1991)
Hong Kong horror/fantasy that appropriates the Evil Dead name for a wild plot about the manifestation of an ancient deity
The Home (2025)
A ridiculous film where petty criminal Pete Davidson is given a job at a retirement home only to discover that sinister activities are occurring all around him. From the director of The Purge films
The Honeymoon Killers (1970)
A film based on true-life killers Martha Beck-Raymond Fernandez who lured and killed women from Lonely Hearts ads. This comes with an incredible rawness and an unforgettable performance from Shirley Stoler
The Horde (2009)
This could be The Raid reconceived as a zombie film (and a few borrowings from Assault on Precinct 13). This never reinvents the basics, just delivers a ferociously entertaining, bared to the bone zombie survival film
The Horde (2016)
A Backwoods Brutality film that becomes quite gore-drenched. Written by its leading man Paul Logan who casts himself as a perfect action hero wading in to kick hillbilly ass
The Horn Blows at Midnight (1942)
A screwball comedy with Jack Benny as a trumpeter send down from Heaven to Earth to blow the Last Trumpet who ends up getting distracted by a series of comic mishaps
The Horrible Sexy Vampire (1970)
Work of 1970s Euro horror from Spain that comes influenced by the Hammer Dracula films. The rather dreary film on show belies the sensational promise of the English-language title
The Horror at 37,000 Feet (1973)
TV movie that combines the mid-air disaster film of Airport with the 1970s occult fad with a line-up of name actors dealing with druidic stones that exude evil in the midst of a plane flight
The Horror of Frankenstein (1970)
The fifth and worst of Hammer’s Frankenstein films. In a play for younger audiences, Peter Cushing was dumped in favour of Ralph Bates in a retelling of the original and an unfunny comedic approach
The Horror of It All (1964)
For all that Hammer’s Terence Fisher was raised to the status of cult director, there are efforts such as this unfunny Old Dark House comedy that reveal that he was not always on form
The Horror of Party Beach (1964)
A Z movie classic that combines some of the most absurd looking mutant monsters ever created with the era’s fad for beach party movies, including appearances from a wannabe Beach Boys band
The Horror Show (1989)
Routine executed killer comes back from the electric chair film made to exploit the success of Wes Craven’s Shocker. In some places this was sold as another of the House films