Black Water (2007)
Although overshadowed by the same year’s Rogue, this is another Australian killer crocodile film that racks up a remarkable degree of raw, seat-gouging tension in managing to confine its cast of three to a tree for the duration
Amateur Porn Star Killer 2 (2008)
Sequel to Shane Ryan’s disturbing snuff Found Footage film. This works with the same effectiveness as the original, where the videography is transformed via a dreamily beautiful series of experiments with editing and colour
The Devil’s Advocate (1997)
Despite a premise that sounds more like the punchline of a lawyer joke – The Devil (Al Pacino) is a high-price lawyer in New York – this is lushly produced, played seriously and with surprising theological depths
Paperhouse (1989)
One of the most sophisticated and intelligent of the 80s copies of A Nightmare on Elm Street with a rich central idea about a girl who can enter the world of her own drawings
Dr Dolittle: Tail to the Chief (2008)
The second of the video-released Dr Dolittle films featuring his teenage daughter Kyla Pratt. This is marginally better and less excruciating in its humour than its predecessor Dr. Dolittle 3 was
I’m Not Harry Jenson. (2009)
A New Zealand-made film about a crime writer joining a party tramping through the bush as the group starts to be killed off by one among their number
Drag Me to Hell (2009)
Sam Raimi chose to follow up his hugely successful Spider-Man trilogy with this incredibly silly film about Gypsy curses. Raimi piles on ridiculous shock effects that become so over-the-top that the film ends up somewhere in orbit
Trail of the Screaming Forehead (2007)
From Larry Blamire, a deliberately ridiculous spoof of the 1950s alien invasion film. Blamire’s dialogue and the deadpan with which everybody plays is frequently hilarious
Thirst (2009)
Park Chan-wook film in which he rewrites the French literary classic Therese Raquin with the addition of a vampire priest with most effective results
TinkerBell (2008)
The first in a series of Disney video-released films based around the Peter Pan fairy who is now reconceived as a contemporary Can Do girl
The Scorpion King: Rise of a Warrior (2008)
Prequel to The Scorpion King. Unfortunately director Russell Mulcahy allows his broad hand with comedy free reign and the plot is overrun by glib character banter and constant flip modern one-liners
WarGames: The Dead Code (2006)
WarGames was a thriller that was way ahead of its time; this sequel is no more than video fodder exploiting recognition factor that reduces the original to hacker movie cliches in a technically ill-informed and incoherent plot
Hellboy Animated: Blood and Iron (2007)
The second of two animated Hellboy spinoffs, this renders what might have been impressive superheroics had they been conducted in live-action down at the level of children’s animation
Ponyo on a Cliff By the Sea (2008)
Probably the least great of Hayao Miyazaki’s films. The plot feels recycled from The Little Mermaid while Miyazaki’s recurrent themes seem more perfunctory and the film lacks many of the beautiful contrasts of epic and fragile he specialises in
Moon (2009)
SF film with Sam Rockwell as a lone man stationed on The Moon discovering the truth of his existence, this gained much word of mouth when it came out
The Limits of Control (2009)
Cryptic and baffling Jim Jarmusch film with Isaach De Bankole as a mysterious assassin who passes through a series of enigmatic and surreal conversations
City of Ember (2008)
Excellent Young Adult adapted work about teenagers in a vast underground city coming to an awareness of the forgotten surface world. The underground world is a production designer’s marvel
Best Worst Movie (2009)
Documentary made about Troll 2, which is considered a strong contender for the worst film ever made. The attempt to talk to all those involved in the making of the film proves absolutely hilarious
April Fool’s Day (2008)
One of the worst among the 00s fad for remakes of 80s horror films. The original is abandoned all bar the name and becomes an I Know What You Did Last Summer-type slasher peopled by unlikeable teens
Get Smart (2008)
There seems something crushingly redundant about conducting a big screen revival of tv’s Get Smart in the era after Austin Powers. The film is a middle-of-the-road comedy that never finds the zaniness of the original
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)
Sixth of the Harry Potter films, this feels like a step back from what its predecessor built up. The film suffers from trying to cram all of J.K. Rowling’s book into its running time and ends up being frustratingly mannered
Zombie Strippers! (2008)
One of the more entertaining entries among the gonzo zombie film, this offers precisely what its title promises in an appealingly trashy, sarcastic and suitably gore-drenched blend
Roadgames (1981)
A standout Australian psycho-thriller with Stacy Keach as a truck driver who believes he has seen a killer on the highway. Director Richard Franklin creates a series of astonishing set-pieces.
Red Riding Hood (1987)
One of the cheap fairytale adaptations that Cannon Films made during the 1980s
The Trial of Tony Blair (2007)
Political What if scenario that sees British Prime Minister Tony Blair being publicly shamed and then placed on trail for his part in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The biting points are undone by the film being directed in a tone of strident farce
Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009)
Another of Blue Sky Studios’ interminable animated sequels to its likeable original about prehistoric talking animals. This has little substance beyond a kinetic rush from one gag to the next
Prey (2004)
Obscure Australian film about people being hunted by a mythical creature known as The Yowie
The Nines (2007)
Fascinating directorial debut from screenwriter John August that tells three stories about Ryan Reynolds who gradually makes mind-boggling discoveries about the nature of reality
Mary Reilly (1996)
This took a critical drubbing at the time it came out with everybody laughing at Julia Roberts’ Irish accent but is a revisionist take on the Jekyll/Hyde story, all told through the eyes of Dr Jekyll’s maid and an extremely good version of the story
Lost Boys: The Tribe (2008)
After 21 years, this was the first of two sequel to The Lost Boys, featuring return performances from Corey Feldman and Corey Haim and, yes, surfer vampires
Lonely Hearts (2006)
Film based on true-life killers Martha Beck and Raymond Fernandez who preyed on victims through the lonely hearts column. Directed by the investigating detective’s grandson.
Barbie as The Princess and the Pauper (2004)
Here the Barbie films turn to Mark Twain’s classic (non-fantasy) tale of rags and riches and spins it as a fairytale This has the same blank, plastic style of the early Barbie films and is otherwise bland
Mongrel (1982)
Incredibly shabby film about residents of a Texas boarding house being killed by a supernatural dog
Cherry Falls (2000)
Witty and rather funny slasher film in which the killer targets virgins in a community. The genre’s usual tropes about the chaste girl surviving are turned on their head in rather hilarious ways
Justice League: The New Frontier (2008)
Animated Justice League film, which adapts a comic-book storyline that reconceived the various DC superheroes as they were back in the era of their original creation
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)
The first of Michael Bay’s Transformers sequels has even better effects and more copious mass destruction to the point it washes over you without any effect
The Ruins (2008)
One film that defies the dictum that there has yet to be a decent killer plant film, this does a reasonable job of developing out tension in its story of teens encountering malevolent flora at a South American pyramid
Son of Dracula (1943)
The third of Universal’s Dracula films in which Dracula travels to Louisiana in search of a wife. A flabby Lon Chaney Jr makes a poor replacement for Bela Lugosi, while the script seems improbably stitched together – despite the title, the film features Dracula, not his son
The Sandlot: Heading Home (2007)
The third in a popular series of films about a Little League baseball team, this involves a time travel element
Two of a Kind (1983)
John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John went stellar in Grease. The same flopped when they reteamed in this comedy where they are caught in a bet between God and The Devil
My Mom’s a Werewolf (1989)
Fairly silly comedy in which housewife Susan Blakely discovers that she is turning into a werewolf. This varies between the over-the-top and the oddly amusing line
The Phantom of the Megaplex (2000)
A Disney Channel film, this has the amusing idea of translating The Phantom of the Opera to a modern multiplex and telling it as a children’s story
The Deaths of Ian Stone (2007)
Extremely confusing film in which Mike Vogel keeps waking up in different lives where he is pursued by creatures. Sort of like Dark City reconceived as a horror film.
The Bumblebee Flies Anyway (1999)
This feels like a weepie Disease of the Week drama where Elijah Wood is an amnesiac placed in a hospital ward of terminal patients before the film arrives at an SF conceptual twist
Amateur Porn Star Killer (2007)
Extraordinary Found Footage film from Shane Ryan shot from the viewpoint of a killer as he seduces and kills a girl. A quasi-pornographic film that makes us question our own complicity in what we are watching
Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters (2007)
Film spinoff of the cult animated tv show. This feels like a film overtaken by the effort of trying to be surrealistic, wacky, scatological etc more than it is ever a film that creates gag that are funny
The Invisible (2007)
David S. Goyer directed remake of a Swedish film about a teenager stuck in a disembodied state between life and death. Despite Goyer’s sterling resume as a screenwriter, this fails to work
Believers (2007)
From The Blair Witch Project co-director Daniel Myrick, a film about two paramedics abducted into a crazed UFO cult who believe their delivery is coming
Land of the Lost (2009)
Big screen revival of the children’s lost world tv series that is now a loud and excruciating Will Ferrell vehicle that reduces the original into lowbrow farce. A majorly unfunny bomb on every level
Zombie Holocaust (1980)
One of the most extreme films among the early 1980s fad for Italian zombie films, which it also manages to merge with the Italian cannibal film. Beyond the provision of gore effects, there is not much else to the film
Terminator Salvation (2009)
The fourth Terminator film is slightly better than you would expect of something directed by the empty-headed McG. There are some undeniably spectacular action sequences, although the film still stands too much in the shadow of what has gone before
Ultimate Avengers (2006)
The first of several animated films based on Marvel Comics properties, this does a solid job in adapting Mark Millar’s The Ultimates, a retelling of The Avengers origin story
Tarzan Finds a Son (1939)
Fourth of the Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan films, the point where John Sheffield’s Boy enters the series because the Hays Code required that Jane could not get pregnant
Target Earth (1954)
An entry from the 1950s alien invader film fad. This starts well with survivors finding themselves in a deserted city but takes a nosedive with the introduction of a clunky robot
Bailey’s Mistake (2001)
Strange Disney tv movie in which widow Linda Hamilton moves to a small town where the people seem able to do magic
Lesbian Vampire Killers (2009)
This seems to want to do for the lesbian vampire film what Shaun of the Dead did for the zombie film. Alas, the film makes its appeal fairly and squarely into the crude, sexism of British lad culture
Timber Falls (2007)
By the numbers Backwoods Brutality where a woman is imprisoned by crazed backwoods fundamentalists in order to bear them a child
The Mist (2007)
Frank Darabont delivers one of the best Stephen King adaptations where the story of people at siege in a supermarket from unseen creatures in a mystery fog outside becomes a study in fear and prejudice. With one of the great unforgettable endings
Contact (1997)
Carl Sagan’s novel about SETI is inflated into a big budget film determined to impress even though the story did not need it. Sagan’s interesting debate about religion and science is emasculated so as not to offend any religious groups
Wristcutters: A Love Story (2006)
Oddball film set in an afterlife for suicides. You keep expecting the film to burst out into a vein of rich black comedy that never comes and you are left with a film that feels as though it is being eccentric for the sake of it.
In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (2007)
Another of Uwe Boll’s videogame adaptations and one of his better. Boll is seeking to emulate the 00s epic fantasy fad and succeeds with some great action choreography from Ching Siu-Tung
The Space Children (1958)
One of the less remembered films from Jack Arnold who directed a number of 1950s SF classics in which the children of rocket engineers are used by an alien force to sabotage a space launch. Not one of Arnold’s greats but still a modestly effective work.
Gunheavy (2008)
Ingenue effort from debuting director Angelo Lopes depicting soldiers in combat in the ruins of civilisation
Night at the Museum 2 (2009)
Sequel to the Ben Stiller hit offers more of the same with a bigger museum and more exhibits come to life but little else
Life or Something Like It (2002)
Bland romantic comedy with a miscast Angelina Jolie as a tv newswoman who receives a prophecy of her death and begins to reconsider her life
Knowing (2009)
Alex Proyas seemed a promising genre director during the 1990s. Here Nicolas Cage finds a time capsule that predicts a series of disasters, before the film tangents off into a strange Biblical End of the World scenario
Barbie as Rapunzel (2002)
The second of the animated Barbie films, this casts her as the title character in the popular Brothers Grimm fairytale, which has been considerably embellished. This suffers the glassy plasticity of the early Mainframe films
Angels & Demons (2009)
Ron Howard and Tom Hanks follow up their adaptation of The Da Vinci Code by turning to an earlier Dan Brown novel concerning conspiratorial goings-on in The Vatican but the show collapses amid absurdly contrived plotting
Star Trek (2009)
J.J. Abrams revives the Star Trek franchise by recasting it with younger faces and rewriting continuity. But in the appeal to a hipper, sexier vibe, it feels a long way from Gene Roddenberry’s creation – nowhere in evidence is the original’s concern with galactic politics and social issues of the day
The Tingler (1959)
The finest moment from gimmick master William Castle with Vincent Price as a coroner searching for a parasite that feeds on fear. Full of Castle’s luridly sensationalistic effects and containing the first portrayal of an LSD trip on screen.
Eve’s Bayou (1997)
Actress Kasi Lemmons directs a strong African-American Coming of Age story set in a backwater Louisiana town, one where voodoo is a regular part of the culture
The Tiger’s Tail (2006)
John Boorman makes a film where Brendan Gleeson has his life taken over by a doppelganger
Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009)
From the period when Matthew McConaughey was coasting through romcoms without making any effort. This rewrites A Christmas Carol where playboy McConaughey is visited by the ghosts of three ex’s
Fright (1971)
A modest and well directed psycho-thriller from the Anglo-horror cycle with Susan George as a babysitter stalked by a deranged Ian Bannen
Manhunt of Mystery Island (1945)
A fifteen chapter serial about a villain who uses an atomic device to transform into a dead pirate captain. Filled with some wonderfully exciting action set-pieces and cliffhangers
Dead Sexy (2001)
An erotic thriller where detective Shannon Tweed must go undercover as a call girl to find a killer eliminating girls at the agency. A blatant copy of Basic Instinct
Flight of Fury (2007)
A blatant copy of the Clint Eastwood film Firefox where Steven Seagal is sent to retrieve a hi-tech stealth bomber that has been stolen by a rogue colonel
The Wizard of Mars (1965)
Low-budget film about an expedition to Mars The novelty the film holds is that it attempts to rework The Wizard of Oz in SF terms
V: The Final Battle (1984)
Follow-up to the popular V mini-series, this is an absurd melodrama that is made up of incredibly bad science-fiction writing and directed with zero plausibility
Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children (2005)
Not a seventh sequel to Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, this adapts the videogame of the same name. Dazzling anime action but is take-no-prisoners with explanations about what is happening to non game players
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)
After the disaster of X-Men: The Last Stand, the decision was made to give a whole film over to the series’s most popular character, Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, and to go with a prequel that told his origin story. Largely a film that exists as a series of superheroic action scenes
Badlands (1973)
Terrence Malick’s first film, very loosely based on the murder spree of Charles Starkweather, albeit one where Malick reinvents Starkweather and girlfriend Caril Fugate as innocents adrift in the great American landscape
Siegfried (1924)
The first of a two-part silent Fritz Lang film based on the Teutonic legend. Lang directs with an epic visual majesty that rivals today’s Lord of the Rings films
Serendipity (2001)
Romance film where John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale meet and leave their details on random items in the belief luck will bring them back together
They Came Back (2004)
A French zombie film that is about as far removed from a zombie film as it possible to get – the dead inexplicably return to life not to eat the flesh of the living but calm and detached where society’s problem is how to let them return to their previous lives
Guilty as Charged (1991)
Black comedy in which Rod Steiger sets up a private prison to execute the guilty that get away. Halfway between a vigilante film and a gonzo comedy, this never settles on what it wants to be and only comes out a frenetic farce
Thicker Than Water The Vampire Diaries Part I (2008)
Strong and well written independent film about a vampire family trying to survive in the modern world
Wicked Little Things (2006)
Despite being pitched as a zombie film, this is more of a ghost story featuring undead children who were killed in a mine disaster. Director J.S. Cardone does well with the horror elements
Passport to Pimlico (1949)
Charming post-War Ealing Studios comedy where the London suburb of Pimlico declares themselves a separate country
Primeval (2007)
One of several killer crocodile films that came out in 2007. This has some big-budget CGI effects but is cliched and was overshadowed by far better entries from the same year with Rogue and Black Water
The Luck of the Irish (2001)
A Disney Channel film where Ryan Merriman discovers that he is the child of leprechaun parents. A mad pastiche of Irish culture, related to the earlier film in name only
17 Again (2009)
Ageswap fantasy in which middle-aged Matthew Perry is rejuvenated as a teenage Zac Efron. A glib fantasy that seems made by abstinence campaigners
Dragonball: Evolution (2009)
Disastrous and miscalculated live-action Hollywood version of the anime series. which turns the characters into just regular teenagers. Nobody involved seems to be making any effort.
Race to Witch Mountain (2009)
Revival of the Disney Witch Mountain films of the 1970s. Now the films have been dragged into the post-X Files era and flashy effects added to negligible result
Synecdoche, New York (2008)
Mind-bending Charlie Kaufman meta-fiction in which Philip Seymour Hoffman creates a vast theatre project that drags on for years and starts to merge into his own life
The Uninvited (2009)
The Hollywood remake of the South Korean ghost story A Tale of Two Sisters that waters down and reduces the effectiveness of the original to generic shocks
Youth Without Youth (2007)
Francis Ford Coppola film that came out the same time as The Case of Benjamin Button where Tim Roth regains his youth after being hit by a lightning bolt
Genius Party Beyond (2008)
An anthology of short anime pieces from five different directors. Episodes range from traditional anime and Cyberpunk to mind-expanding surrealism
Species: The Awakening (2007)
Fourth entry in the Species series where at least the series seems to have gravitated to the arena of the trashily absurd B movie it belongs
Thirst (1998)
Rather dull plague outbreak drama tv movie based around a deadly outbreak at a water filtration plant