Cybertracker 2 (1995)
In this sequel to Cyber Tracker, Don ‘The Dragon’ Wilson is a police officer fighting a criminal mastermind who is attempting to replace world leaders with android duplicates
Cyborg (1989)
The first of Albert Pyun’s kickboxing killer cyborg films featuring Jean-Claude Van Damme who was largely unknown at the time. Pyun creates wall-to-wall action but there is almost nothing else to the film
Cyborg 2087 (1966)
The film that inspired The Terminator! Michael Rennie plays a cyborg who travels back in time to prevent a machine-dominated future coming about, while being hunted by two killer androids sent back to stop him
Cyborg Cop (1993)
A low-budget action copy of RoboCop starring David Bradley as a DEA agent up against drug lord John Rhys-Davies who has transformed his brother into a cyborg
Cyborg Cop II (1994)
From the height of the 90s RoboCop copycat video release, a sequel that this time pits DEA agent David Bradley up against an army of rogue cyborgs
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
Cyborg She (2007)
A Japanese romantic comedy about a lonely nerd who falls in love with a cyborg girl that has time travelled back from the future
Cyborg X (2016)
From Arrowstorm Entertainment, a low-budget company that make highly professional films. Here they have even roped Danny Trejo into playing a role in a passable attempt to replicate a 1990s Albert Pyun post-holocaust cyborg film
Cyborg2: Glass Shadow (1993)
Sequel that abandons that mindless chop suey of Albert Pyun’s Cyborg and reconstructs it into a halfway reasonable Cyberpunk film. A then unknown Angelina Jolie plays the cyborg
Cyborg3 (1994)
The second of Michael Schroeder’s sequels to Albert Pyun’s Cyborg both of which are better than the original. This does interesting things with the hokey idea of a pregnant android.
Cyclone (1987)
B-budget hackmeister Fred Olen Ray makes a hi-tech vehicle fantasies that reads as a cheap attempt to do Blue Thunder with a motorcycle instead of a helicopter. Cheap action but what an amazing cast line-up
Cypher (2002)
Vincenzo Natali’s second film, a cool and superbly disquiet thriller about corporate brainwashing and espionage that comes with a series of Philip K. Dick-ian reality bending twists
The Cabin in the Woods (2012)
Joss Whedon scripted work that is less a horror film than a meta-horror film that is constantly deconstructing the genre and subverting its cliches. A rare genre entry less about visceral impact than it has brains to spare
The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1919)
Classic film that was groundbreaking for its designs – all distorted and angular sets, exaggerated shadows – that became defined as German Expressionism and its tale of a sinister hypnotist
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (2005)
A remake of the silent German Expressionist classic that replicates the unique look and sets. Interesting, although it now emerges more like a film noir with artistic pretensions than the avant garde work the original was
The Cable Guy (1996)
Ben Stiller directed comedy with Jim Carrey playing a stalkerish cable installer who makes Matthew Broderick’s life a misery. Carrey’s fans didn’t seem to want to see him play psycho and this was his only flop of this period
The Call (2013)
A formulaic psycho-thriller from the usually worthwhile Brad Anderson with Halle Berry as a 911 call operator who answers a call from an abducted Abigail Breslin that feels like a cable thriller ended on the big screen
The Call (2020)
A South Korean film that remakes The Caller about a girl who finds she can make phone calls across time to another woman only to find that the caller is a psychopath who begins to wreak havoc with her timeline
The Call Up (2016)
This has the interesting idea of a group of people selected to take place in a live-action videogame only to find themselves trapped in a The Belko Experiment scenario.
The Caller (1987)
Unexpectedly good film with Madolyn Smith as a woman living alone in a cabin in the woods and Malcolm McDowell as a caller where the two engage in a series of cat and mouse games where nothing is what it seems
The Caller (2011)
A horror version of Frequency where Rachelle Lefevre has phone conversations across time with a disturbed woman who then starts causing people to disappear and altering the timeline. Cleverly told and with some chilling twists
The Calling (2014)
Modest serial killer thriller – imagine one of the numerous Silence of the Lambs copies crossbred with Fargo. The film’s quiet pace soon segues into an absorbing thriller plot, while Christopher Heyerdahl gives a fine performance as the killer
The Canal (2014)
Ghost story that does an effective job of generating dread and eerieness while also existing in a place that leaves you unsure whether it is all not just occurring inside the lead character’s fraying sanity
The Canterville Ghost (1944)
Amiable comedy adapted from an Oscar Wllde story with Charles Laughton as a ghost condemned to walks the family castle for his cowardice. Contains much Wartime comedy about the clash between British and American cultures
The Cape Canaveral Monsters (1960)
The one other SF film made by Phil Tucker, the director of Robot Monster. An alien invader effort made to capitalise on the Space Race with aliens trying to sabotage rocket launches
The Captains (2011)
Documentary where William Shatner interviews the actors who played the captains in the other incarnations of Star Trek. The entire show is hijacked by the Shatner ego as he constantly overrides his interview subjects
The Capture of Bigfoot (1979)
From Bill Rebane, this was a cheap and dreary Bigfoot film, one of a spate of similar low-budget efforts made for drive-in audiences during the 1970s
The Car (1977)
Someone seems to have had the idea of combining Steven Spielberg’s killer truck film Duel with The Exorcist to produce an absurdly entertaining film about a possessed car
The Car: Road to Revenge (2019)
The Car concerning a possessed car is one of the forgotten films of the 1970s. Why it has produced a sequel 42 years later is a scratch of the head. Not that the two films even resemble one another
The Card Player (2004)
A disappointingly tame giallo thriller from Dario Argento about a poker-playing serial killer. Disappointingly, Argento has cut back on all his arty and sadistic murder set-pieces
The Care Bears Adventure in Wonderland (1987)
The third of the Care Bears film conducts a crossover with Alice in Wonderland, although it is an adaptation that is liberal in its treatment of Lewis Carroll to say the least
The Caretaker (2008)
Average slasher film that is nothing standout about teens being stalked in the midst of a Halloween prank. Jennifer Tilly turns up in a campy performance.
The Carpenter (1988)
Odd effort that features Wings Hauser as a polite and charming ghostly handyman who romances the heroine while despatching the people around her. Not a great film but Hauser has never been better
The Carpenter’s Son (2025)
A horror film about the life of Jesus as a child. That’s not quite what we end up getting but it is enough to give this a bizarre freakshow appeal and get this site watching. Behind that though, this is surprisingly traditional
The Carrier (2015)
Interesting and well-made variant on the plague outbreak drama set aboard an airliner as a handful of people flee a pandemic sweeping the world only to have to deal with infection on board and the need to land to refuel
The Cars That Ate Paris (1974)
The first film from Peter Weir, a deadpan black comedy in which a man comes around from a car crash to find himself in a small town that subsists by creating car crashes
The Case of the Whitechapel Vampire (2002)
One of a series of cheap Canadian-made made Sherlock Holmes tv movies featuring a wildly overacting Matt Frewer who makes possibly the worst screen Holmes ever
The Cassandra Crossing (1976)
From the heyday of the disaster movie, an all-star cast head up a big scale drama about a train where a passenger is carrying a deadly plague, only for the train to be shunted all across Europe
The Castle of Fu Manchu (1969)
The fifth and final of the Fu Manchu films with Christopher Lee as the super-villain Fu Manchu. The last two were made by exploitation director Jess Franco and only worth watching for Lee’s icily autocratic presence
The Cat (1992)
This is a completely demented Hong Kong film about alien body snatchers who are hiding in an apartment building on Earth
The Cat and the Canary (1927)
The film that defined the Old Dark House genre with spooky thrills as people are stalked around a big mansion. Expatriate German director Paul Leni brings an extraordinarily sophisticated arsenal of visual tricks to bear
The Cat and the Canary (1939)
The classic Bob Hope comedy version of the Old Dark House play. Probably overrated, this has a creaky affected atmosphere and laughs but fails to hold a candle to the far superior and more stylish silent version
The Cat and the Canary (1978)
The fourth film version of the classic Old Dark House thriller, remade in the vein of the recent success of Murder on the Orient Express with an all-star cast of the day
The Cat Creature (1973)
TV movie about an Ancient Egyptian cat vengeance curse. The cast was culled from 1940s genre films and the material feels just as old despite a script from Psycho author Robert Bloch
The Cat Creeps (1946)
An Old Dark House thriller that has the distinction of being the last horror film made during Universal’s Golden Age of Horror. The results are creaky and impoverished looking
The Cat from Outer Space (1978)
From the era of Disney live-action comedies, this involves assorted slapstick tomfoolery as various parties try to aid or capture a telepathic alien cat that is stranded on Earth
The Cat in the Hat (2003)
Adaptation of the Dr Seuss book made following the success of Ron Howard’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas. The book is dragged down into noisy slapstick chaos, capped by a badly unrestrained Mike Myers as The Cat
The Cat O’Nine Tails (1971)
Dario Argento’s third film as director sees him firmly in giallo thriller territory, delivering a series of extravagantly arty and sadistic set-pieces as James Franciscus tries to find clues to a killer’s identity
The Cat Returns (2002)
Studio Ghibli anime in which a girl saves the life of a cat only to be drawn into a world of cats where a cat prince decides she will be his bride
The Catman of Paris (1946)
A blatant but far more pedestrian copy of Cat People in which a man has blackouts during which he suspects he turns into a catman who is wanted by police for a string of murders
The Cave (2005)
This big-budget film came out the same year as The Descent and is a very similar work about a cast of name explorers in a vast network of underground caves being hunted by monsters
The Cell (2000)
The dreamscape film was given extraordinary life by Tarsem Singh in his directorial debut who transforms a fairly ordinary script with visuals and costuming that is out of this world
The Cell 2 (2009)
Sequel to Tarsem Singh’s The Cell that feels made by people who haven’t even seen the original. The original’s fascinating journey into dream terrain is replaced by a dull psychic with a link to a serial killer plot
The Cellar (1989)
A low-budget 1980s film where a family buy a house in the desert only to find that there is a Native American demon imprisoned in the cellar
The Cellar (2022)
An Irish horror film that generates undeniably mysterious atmosphere after a family move into a new house and the teenage daughter disappears after going down into the cellar
The Chain Reaction (1980)
An Australian film from many of the people behind Mad Max about the cover-up of a nuclear accident. Essentially The China Syndrome with the addition of car chases
The Chair (1989)
One of a spate of killers returned from the electric chair films that came out around the time of Wes Craven’s Shocker. The film is all build-up and almost no delivery, although is enlivened by an undeniable sense of humour
The Chairman (1969)
Big-budgeted spy thriller with Gregory Peck as a scientist who poses as a defector to Communist China. This never enervates much as a thriller but its recreations of Communist China are amazing
The Change-Up (2011)
A raucous and eminently predictable variant on the bodyswap comedy that also manages to be expertly played by leads Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds and pulls off some genuine laugh-out-loud moments
The Changed (2021)
Tony Todd heads a B-budget body snatchers film about a neighbourhood being taken over by beings that promise a great transformation
The Changeling (1980)
An old-fashioned ghost story with George C. Scott as a widowed composer who moves into a haunted house. This generates spookiness with quite a reasonable degree of effectiveness
The Changeover (2017)
Adaptation of a book by NZ author Margaret Mahy. Mahy has a sublimely poetic turn of phrase in the writing but the film strips the book down to the point we get no more than a by-the-numbers Young Adult work
The Child (1977)
Forgotten effort from the heyday of devil children films (The Exorcist, The Omen et al). This takes place in a backwoods setting and has a director who is determined to pile on atmosphere frequently to the point of overkill
The Child’s Eye (2010)
The Pang Brothers were for a time some the best directors in the horror genre. This is one of their slighter efforts, a misguided venture into 3D. Seen flat, it still holds an undeniable amount of the eerie atmosphere they specialise in
The Children (1980)
Night of the Living Dead-influenced cheapie about zombified children wearing black nailpolish who blow their parents up with deadly hugs. This has no ambition beyond providing entertainingly preposterous meltdown effects every few minutes
The Children (2008)
Rather well-made British entry where two families at a Christmas get-together find their respective children have inexplicably turned against them with murderous results. This draws the tensions out to a sustained siege with undeniably effective results
The China Syndrome (1979)
Strong and effective dramatic film released only three weeks before the real-life Three Mile Island nuclear accident. Jane Fonda and Michael Douglas play a tv camera crew caught in the midst of a nuclear reactor meltdown
The Chosen One: The Legend of the Raven (1998)
Hilarious film in which Carmen Electra gets resurrected as a superheroine via American Indian magic. Filled with hilarious white trash bitcheries
The Christmas Martian (1971)
Cheaply made and mind bogglingly bizarre Quebecois film about a Martian who takes two children on a journey around the world at Christmas
The Christmas That Almost Wasn’t (1966)
An incredibly dreary Christmas film directed by actor Rosanno Brazzi where the South Pole in bought by a miser (played by Brazzi) and Santa ends up being evicted
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (1989)
The second of the BBC’s tv adaptations of C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books, the slightest of the works where the story is reduced to two half-hour episode
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008)
The second of the Narnia films. Director Andrew Adamson seems so intent on copying Peter Jackson that the film becomes all epic fantasy flourishes and battle scenes to the exclusion of all else – even much of C.S. Lewis’s book
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005)
The film adaptation of C.S. Lewis’s book sought to appeal to audiences for the Lord of the Rings films but between Lewis’s heavy-handed Christian allegories and Andrew Adamson’s inexperience as a director fails to fly
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, & The Wardrobe (1988)
Before the films, this was an earlier BBC tv mini-series version of the C.S. Lewis book, one of a series of four adaptations. This is faithful to the story but suffers from impoverished effects
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair (1990)
This was the fourth and final, as well as the best of the BBC’s tv adaptations of C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books, which works well enough despite the impoverished production values
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1989)
This was the third of the four BBC tv adaptations of C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books. The tv versions treats the books with quite reasonable faithfulness but suffer from extremely cheap looking effects
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010)
Another lacklustre entry in the banal Lord of the Rings Lite franchise from C.S. Lewis’s books, a plodding run of the mill fantasy adventure for the most part. The mediocre reception killed off interest in the series
The Chronicles of Riddick (2004)
The sequel to Pitch Black where Vin Diesel’s serial killer now becomes the hero of the show and the original planetary survival story is expanded out into an ornate Gothic space opera
The Church (1989)
Originally intended as a Demons sequel, director Michele Soavi decided to head in more arty directions. Imagine a Demons sequel mounted with the artistic ambitions of producer Dario Argento’s Three Mothers films
The Circle (2017)
Hollywood tries to make a big message film about online mass surveillance but renders anodyne straw arguments. Meanwhile, back in the real world you cannot help but think things the film depicts things might happen very different
The City & The City (2018)
The first of China Mieville’s works to be adapted to the screen, a detective story set in two cities that exist in the same geographic space but where each act as their own country. This misses as much as it succeeds
The City of Lost Children (1995)
The almost indescribable second film from Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet of Delicatessen fame, a Dicekensian street urchin fantasy that takes place in a stunningly designed almost-familiar world filled with eccentric characters
The City Under the Sea (1965)
The title of Edgar Allan Poe’s poem is appropriated in an effort to appeal to the 1960s fad for Poe film adaptations, otherwise this is an unrelated work about a lost underwater city ruled by Vincent Price.
The Civil Dead (2022)
A laidback slacker comedy where a man is befriended by the ghost of a school friend who proves annoyingly needy and won’t go away
The Cleaning Lady (2018)
Director Jon Knautz and actress Alexis Kendra made the quite impressive Goddess of Love and reteam for this film where Alexis befriends the disturbed, disfigured cleaning lady of the title
The Climax (1944)
Made to exploit leftover sets from the 1943 Phantom of the Opera, this is a magnificent colour production that has Boris Karloff as an obsessive surgeon who fixates on a beautiful young opera singer
The Clinic (2010)
This Australian thriller has a captivating premise – pregnant women are abducted, C-sectioned and imprisoned where they must fight to the death to get their children back
The Clone Master (1978)
One of the earliest film treatments on the subject of cloning, this comes with an intelligent and well written script in which Art Hindle creates twelve copies of himself. The original Orphan Black if you like.
The Clones (1973)
One of the very first films dealing with cloning. This starts off well with a man’s discovery that a double has stolen his identity but thereafter becomes a long drawn-out pursuit thriller
The Clones of Bruce Lee (1980)
Bruce Lee popularised the kung fu genre but then died. Welcome to the Brucespolitation phenomenon where for several years we had Bruce lookalikes appearing in copycat works. Several Bruce imitators appear here as his clones
The Clovehitch Killer (2018)
Excellent, superbly written thriller loosely based on the B.T.K. killer story where a teen believes his father (Dylan McDermott in a great performance) might be a serial killer
The Cloverfield Paradox (2018)
The third of J.J. Abrams’ Cloverfield films. This is set on a space station thing and has an alternate timeline plot but seems disinterested in little more than creating a bizarre effect every few minutes
The Cobbler (2014)
Adam Sandler does more acting than usual in the story of a shoemaker who transforms into the wearer whenever he puts on a pair of shoes. A throwaway premise that attracts a surprisingly high-profile cast
The Coffin (2008)
Thai entry in the Asian horror fad. A film that has a premise but little beyond that. It feels like it is being too nice to push its audience in any way with all the supernatural manifestations eventually blurring into a sameness
The Cold Equations (1996)
Film adaptation of a classic SF short story about a pilot having to make tough choices about a stowaway on a space mission. The story gets mangled in the need to expand it to feature length
The Collapsed (2011)
A family try to make it through the woods in the aftermath of a mysterious catastrophe while hunted by something unseen. Sort of a zombie apocalypse film without any zombies where the terrors are psychological
The Collection (2012)
Disappointing sequel to the Torture Porn film The Collector. The captivating premise of an ordinary house turned into a series of deadly traps is gone, while the sadistic, gore-drenched set-pieces are tame and unimaginative
The Collector (1965)
Adaptation of a John Fowles novel where shy Terence Stamp makes Samantha Eggar a prisoner so she can love him. Made not long after Psycho, this tries similar but becomes more of an Odd Couple comedy
The Collector (2009)
A directorial debut from one of the writers of the Saw sequels, a Torture Porn film that has a highly unusual set-up about a burglar stumbling into a family home that has been turned into a death trap by a serial killer
The College-Girl Murders (1967)
One among the series of German krimi films adapted from Edgar Wallace about a series of murders at a girls college. Shot with wonderfully lurid and colourful schemes