Mutant on the Bounty (1989)
This has a cute title pun but otherwise is a feeble SF comedy
Mutant Vampire Zombies from the ‘Hood (2008)
There is a great title and the germ of a good idea here – two rival street gangs and a white cop are forced to set aside their difference and cooperate to deal with the zombie apocalypse. Alas, as a directorial outing from the writer of the Sharknado films, this emerges cheaply and tattily
Mute (2018)
Duncan Jones has become a director of promise in the last few years. Here he appropriates the Blade Runner look to make a futuristic neo-noir but the result never quite works. The noir plot never sufficiently keys in, while the derivative future setting is of no real relevance to the story
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
My Best Friend is a Vampire (1987)
1980s comedy in which teenager Robert Sean Leonard is bitten by a vampire on a one-night stand an has to deal with the complications of turning into one while keeping it a secret at school
My Best Friend’s Exorcism (2022)
Possession film that is quite a bit more than the light fluffy Young Adult film the title makes it seem, boosted by a great performance from Amiah Miller
My Bloody Valentine (1981)
Classic from the heyday of the slasher film, an effort that was clearly designed to exploit another holiday title in the wake of the successes of Halloween and Friday the 13th. This snappily adapts the slasher formula and does better than most of its ilk in serving it back up
My Bloody Valentine (2009)
Another in the fad for remakes of 70s/80s films. where the 1981 slasher film gets reworked if this did not come with the 3D gimmick, it would be no more than a routine direct-to-dvd release
My Boyfriend’s Back (1993)
Rather silly and not particularly funny Disney comedy in which a teenager returns from the dead as a zombie and nobody seems to notice any difference. Does contain a number of before-they-were-famous names
My Demon Lover (1987)
The title sounds like that of an erotic horror film but all that we get is an inane teen comedy in which Scott Valentine turns into a demon whenever he gets turned on
My Favorite Martian (1999)
The big screen remake of the 1960s sitcom about a wacky alien visitor. However, this all of the original’s amusements promptly gets buried under frenetic slapstick and cheap CGI gags
My Friend Dahmer (2017)
A film based on serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer that focuses not on his crimes but his last year of high school before he began his killing spree. Based on a graphic novel written by Dahmer’s best friend, this is a surprisingly sympathetic portrait of the extremes of social isolation
My Heart Can’t Beat Unless You Tell It To (2020)
In the best tradition of George Romero’s Martin, a kitchen sink vampire film focused around a family trying to protect a sickly sibling
My Life as a Fairytale: Hans Christian Andersen (2001)
TV mini-series that purports to tell a biography of fairytale author Hans Christian Andersen only to freely rearrange or outrighly invents aspects of Andersen’s life
My Little Eye (2002)
One of the best of several horror films that came out immediately following the advent of the reality tv show in the early 2000s. Director Marc Evans creates a sense of clammy claustrophobia.
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
My Name is A By Anonymous (2011)
Shane Ryan is one of the most underrated independent directors out there. Here he retells the story of true-life teen murderer Alyssa Bustamante as part of a Larry Clark-type film about troubled youth. Not always an easy work but holds undeniable effect
My Neighbor Totoro (1988)
Possibly the most perfect of all Hayao Miyazaki’s anime, a work about childhood featuring an array of charmingly eccentric creatures. It is a film of absolutely magical charms beneath which lies a swim of adult emotions that children’s films rarely touch upon
My Old Ass (2024)
At first glance, this film about a teenager meeting her future self seems too cute and lightweight, but emerges as something extraordinary
My Science Project (1985)
Disney film about a group of teens who find that heart of a UFO that opens up a time warp at their high school
My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done (2009)
As might be expected, a collaboration between Werner Herzog and David Lynch makes for an exceedingly strange film, involving matricide, mental illness and ostriches – and all apparently based on a true life murder. Very strange, if in the end it only produces a puzzled scratch of the head
My Soul to Take (2010)
A misfire from the usually reliable Wes Craven, this drearily traipses through a slasher/supernatural plot that lacks any surprises or Craven’s characteristic atmosphere
My Stepmother is an Alien (1988)
1980s icon Kim Basinger displays unexpected comedy talents in this tale where she is an alien romancing Dan Akyroyd. Throwaway fluff but it has a comedic silliness that is undeniably appealing
My Super Ex-Girlfriend (2006)
Unfunny Ivan Reitman comedy with Luke Wilson being stalked by his psychotic superheorine ex Uma Thurman
My Winnipeg (2007)
Guy Maddin was hired by the Documentary Channel to make a documentary about his hometown Winnipeg and turns it into a surreal confabulation of fact and tall tale
My World Dies Screaming (1958)
One of the first films to copy William Castle’s gimmick and filmed in Psychorama wherein frightening images and words were subliminally projected on the screen. The plot where a newlywed wife has a recurrent dream of a sinister house only for it to be the one they move into has a disappointingly mundane rationale
Mysteries of the Gods (1976)
A William Shatner-hosted documentary based on the works of pseudo-science author Erich von Daniken and his claims that various archaeological mysteries were created by alien visitors
Mysterious Island (1951)
A serial adaptation of Jules Verne’s classic survival story about escapees aboard a hot-air balloon who wash up on a desert island. To the regular story, this sees fit to add hostile natives, pirates and invading aliens from Mercury
Mysterious Island (1961)
Amid the fad for Jules Verne adaptations of the 1950s/60s, we had this version of Verne’s desert island story, which has been pumped up with the addition of giant-size Ray Harryhausen animals and insects
Mysterious Island (2005)
Hallmark tv mini-series adaptation of Jules Verne’s desert island drama featuring no less than Patrick Stewart as Captain Nemo. This sinks badly amid incredibly shoddy giant animal digital effects
Mystery Men (1999)
A superhero parody about a group of reject superheroes with useless powers. Despite moments of amusement, this fails to quite come off
Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933)
Classic horror film, later remade as House of Wax, with Lionel Atwill giving a wonderfully mad performance as a waxworks curator who covers murdered bodies in wax
Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie (1996)
Film spinoff from tv’s Mystery Science Theater 3000 and its deplorable habit of inserting jokes into old films. Here it is the turn of This Island Earth, which is a far better film than the attempt to send it up here
Mystery Train (1989)
Dry and typically laconic trio of tales from Jim Jarmusch all set around characters at a Memphis hotel on the same night. Included here for one episode featuring the appearance of a ghost Elvis
Mystics in Bali (1981)
A mind-bogglingly deranged example from the largely unexplored arena of Indonesian exploitation cinema as an American woman becomes involved with local witchcraft
Mythica: A Quest for Heroes (2014)
A surprisingly good effort to emerge from the arena of fan-made Kickstarter funded filmmaking. Essentially, a group of fans have brought their mutual love of playing Dungeons and Dragons to life but the film, while low-budgeted, places a great deal of care into the characters and building of the world
Mythica: The Darkspore (2015)
Mythica: A Quest for Heroes was a fan-made epic fantasy film made with a high degree of creativity and professionalism; this sequel is slightly the lesser but still maintains the high degree of quality
Mythica: The Godslayer (2016)
The fifth of the surprisingly good Mythica fan-produced series that has consistently made a strong, rousing variant on the Epic Fantasy tropes on a low budget
Mythica: The Iron Crown (2016)
This was the fourth in the surprisingly good Mythica series of low-budget epic fantasy films funded via Kickstarter. This proves to be the best of the series yet
Mythica: The Necromancer (2015)
The third of the surprisingly good Kickstarter financed Mythica films. This marks a changeover of directors in the series and is slightly the lesser but still does highly imaginative things with a low-budget
The ? Motorist (1906)
Early silent film in which a motorcar travels so fast that it heads into orbit. One of the films from Walter R. Booth, a British imitator of Georges Melies, The effects are less sophisticated than Melies developed around this point but the film has its charms
The Machine (2013)
A fascinating and well told work about artificial intelligence and mind upload. If the third act falls into disappointingly cliched patterns, this is nearly three-quarters of a strong and intelligent science-fiction film
The Machine Girl (2008)
Another highly entertaining entry in the Gonzo Japanese Splatter Film about a schoolgirl who seeks revenge with her arm stump replaced by a Gatling gun
The Machinist (2004)
Fascinating film from Brad Anderson where Christian Bale is subject to a series of reality blurrings. What hangs over the show most of all is Bale’s intensely physical performance for which he lost a third of his body weight to turn himself into an anorexic shell of a human
The Mad Genius (1931)
John Barrymore as a ballet master who controls and dominates pupil Marian Marsh. This was clearly made as an attempt to replicate the success that Barrymore had playing more or less exactly the same type of role in the earlier Svengali
The Mad Ghoul (1943)
An entry from the great era of mad scientist films wherein George Zucco turns his assistant into a zombie so he can steal his fiancee. Despite a wonderfully mad performance from Zucco, the effort is prosaic and routine, while the zombie gets to do almost nothing throughout
The Mad Magician (1954)
Vincent Price had success as the mad waxworks curator in the 3D horror House of Wax. This cheap copycat casts Price as a mad stage magician and is also served up in 3D
The Mad Monk (1993)
Madcap Hong Kong comedy starring Stephen Chow as a man sent back down from the afterlife to get three people to repent of their ways. Full of deliriously crazed action and slapstick
The Mad Monster (1942)
A poverty row mad scientist film where a magnificently sinister George Zucco turns his gardener into a werewolf. A copycat that was made not long after Universal’s The Wolf Man
The Mad Room (1969)
One among the spate of 1960s psycho films with Stella Stevens dealing with her brother and sister, one of whom is a killer
The Maddening (1995)
Rather trashy thriller in which Mia Sara is imprisoned by backwoods couple Burt Reynolds and Angie Dickinson
The Magic Carpet (1985)
Amiable Danish-made Arabian Nights fantasy for children that has the benefit from being shot on location in Turkey
The Magic Crane (1993)
Another entry in the Wu Xia cycle. By this time most of the moves of the genre have been used so this goes to wild extremes to find some type of originality
The Magic Faraway Tree (2026)
Adaptation of a book by famous children’s writer Enid Blyton about a series of adventures in a magical tree. Blyton would be turning in her grave at some of the changes and modernisations
The Magic Legs (1989)
A rare venture into kung fu cinema made in Mainland China
The Magic Sword (1962)
One of the better films from B-budget dircetor Bert I. Gordon, a fantasy adventure where Gordon produces some decent effects
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
The Magician (1926)
Considered a lost classic of silent cinema for many years, this is a film loosely based on occultist Alesiter Crowley and was considered a daring work that delved into taboo areas
The Magician (1958)
Ingmar Bergman film about a travelling magic show. Bergman is fascinated with the power that illusionists hold and what happens behind the mask. A spellbinding film that is more haunted that most genre films
The Magnetic Monster (1953)
One of the most unique 1950s atomic monster movies – in which the monster is an amok radioactive isotope. Low-budget SF film that is pushed into the decidedly watchable by a driving documentary-like urgency and in being one of the few 1950s SF films reasonably grounded in scientific methodology
The Magus (1968)
Complex and often baffling film in which Michael Caine is on a Greek island where he placed at the centre of a series of enigmatic reality charades by Anthony Quinn
The Mailman (2004)
Appealingly sordid little film with Rob Arbogast as a psychopathic mailman who reads people’s mail and blackmails them with information
The Majorettes (1986)
An entry in the slasher film made by several alumni from the original Night of the Living Dead. Someone is killing the girls of the high school’s cheerleading squad
The Man (1972)
Strong political What IF drama from a Rod Serling script that has James Earl Jones as the first Black President of the USA (something that did not occur in reality for another 36 years with Barack Obama)
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
The Man From Earth: Holocene (2017)
The Man from Earth built up a reasonable reputation with a simple concept – a 14,000 year old man tells his life story that comes with a killer of a twist. This sequel far less interestingly becomes a detective story about a group of students trying to find if their professor is the same character
The Man from Planet X (1951)
One of the earliest 1950s alien visitor films, although here the alien is peaceful and humanity the aggressor. A moodily effective entry from cult director Edgar G. Ulmer.
The Man in Half Moon Street (1945)
Effort from the heyday of mad science cinema about a scientist who has perfected an immortality treatment. Better budgeted than most of the other cheapies of the era and better written, although suffers from a slow talkiness
The Man in the Shadows (2017)
At the time of reviewing Rodney Ascher’s sleep paralysis documentary The Nightmare, I commented it would make fascinating material for a horror film. This Canadian micro-budgeted feature is one of the first to try and is interesting, even if it never truly grapples with its ideas
The Man in the White Suit (1951)
Classic Ealing comedy where Alex Guinness causes social disruption when he invents a suit that never wears out or gets dirty
The Man in the White Van (2023)
A fake True Crime film. This is loosely to the point of almost non-existently based on a serial killer who supposedly stalked victims in a van in 1970s Florida
The Man Who Changed His Mind (1936)
Classic Boris Karloff mad scientist effort in which he plays a scientist who invents a device that allows him to swap minds into different bodies. All the usual Gothic fear-filled view of science from this era, but rather well made and with Karloff on fine form
The Man Who Could Work Miracles (1937)
H.G. Wells scripted film with Roland Young as a man who suddenly finds he can perform miracles
The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)
Nicolas Roeg’s film featuring David Bowie as an alienated alien visitor to Earth, a film that is equal amounts brilliance and pretentious distractions
The Man Who Haunted Himself (1970)
A pre-James Bond Roger Moore plays a mild-mannered businessman who finds his life overrun by a malevolent doppelganger
The Man Who Invented Christmas (2017)
Among the fad for biopics about writers and the origins of famous stories, this, about Charles Dickens and the creation of A Christmas Carol, is the most lunatic – and that’s not counting the blatant lie of the title
The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (2018)
This has been called the unluckiest film ever made – there is even an entire documentary devoted to the collapse of a prior version. Here Terry Gilliam’s film about people on delusional quests finally emerges with the glory he always intended it to be
The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot (2018)
Full marks for one of the great deliberately ridiculous titles of all time. The film itself is an oddity that almost seems intended to confound your expectations of it
The Man Who Laughs (1928)
Adaptation of a Victor Hugo historical novel about a man with his face surgically altered into a grin – an image that later inspired Batman’s The Joker. This has clearly been intended to imitate Lon Chaney’s grotesque performances of this era and is exquisitely made by the great Paul Leni
The Man Who Stole the Sun (1979)
An anarchic Japanese film where a school teacher builds an atomic bomb and then begins blackmailing the authorities with his demands
The Man Who Sued God (2001)
Australian comedy where Billy Connolly sues God for all the supposed Acts of Gods on insurance forms
The Man Who Wasn’t There (1983)
Cheap and feeble-minded invisible man comedy that was made as part of the short-lived early 80s 3D fad. The first starring role from Steve Guttenberg
The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001)
Coen Brothers black comedy with Billy Bob Thornton as an anonymous barber in the 1940s on the receiving end of life’s cruelties as he becomes involved in a blackmail scheme and murder
The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)
Ninth and weakest of the James Bond films. Ian Fleming created a great nemesis in the assassin Scaramanga and the film casts it with Christopher Lee – only to fail to write the role interesting enough for Lee to fill
The Man with the Iron Fists (2012)
RZA of rap group Wu-Tang Clan fame (with the aid of Eli Roth and Quentin Tarantino) makes a dual acting/directing appearance with this homage to Shaw Brothers martial arts films … not quite the genuine article but a solid effort where RZA certainly doesn’t embarrass himself
The Man with the Iron Fists 2 (2015)
I had a liking for RZA’s Shaw Brothers homage The Man with the Iron Fists more than most other critics.This sequel has been handed over to a generic action direction, which certainly leaves it more slickly polished than the original but also quickly forgettable
The Man with Two Brains (1983)
Extremely funny Steve Martin comedy where he plays a neurosurgeon who falls in love with a brain in a jar
The Man Without a Body (1957)
This came out two weeks before Hammer Films had their first success with The Curse of Frankenstein. Where Hammer discovered the future of British horror, this is no more than a dreary quota quickie that has possibly the most lunatic scheme of any British horror film involving the revival of Nostradamus’s severed head
The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
John Frankenheimer film. concerning a Communist plot for creating a brainwashed assassin, Frankenheimer shoots with stark and blackly funny effect and this has duly become a cult classic
The Manchurian Candidate (2004)
Remake of the classic Cold War thriller from Jonathan Demme that has been updated for the era of George W. Bush
The Mandalorian and Grogu (2026)
A spinoff film from The Mandalorian tv series, this is the best film set in the Star Wars universe this side of the 2000s for the simple reason that it has invested in characters rather than slavish fanboy callbacks
The Mandela Effect (2019)
Dramatised film based on the popular conspiracy theory that people are living in an alternate timeline where their memories have been edited and that we are all living in a simulation a la The Matrix
The Mangler (1995)
The single worst Stephen King adaptation ever made. Director Tobe Hooper fails to approach the story of a possessed laundry press with the same drollness that King did and inflates it into something ridiculous
The Mangler 2 (2001)
Tobe Hooper’s The Mangler was one of the worst of all Stephen King adaptations and this is modern sequel generating of the worst order where the Mangler now becomes an A.I. and a computer virus
The Manhattan Project (1986)
Teen thriller where Christopher Collett decides to build an atomic bomb for the school science prize
The Manitou (1978)
The one moment of triumph from director William Girdler who takes a work that sits just on the threshold of schlock and transforms into something incredibly eerie with an injection of H.P. Lovecraft and American Indian mysticism
The Manor (2021)
Barbara Hershey plays an aging woman who moves into a retirement home. The film then develops an edgy paranoia about possibly supernatural happening around her
The Mansion of Madness (1973)
A standout adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s The System of Dr Tarr and Professor Fether where a visitor to an asylum discovers the patients are masquerading as the doctors
The Manster (1959)
Fascinatingly torrid US-Japan production about a man who develops a second head on his shoulder that takes over his personality
The Map of Tiny Perfect Things (2021)
The fourth variant on the Groundhog Day timeloop theme one to come out in the space of 12 months, this nevertheless wrings some charms from the premise