Madagascar (2005)
Enjoyably silly DreamWorks animated film concerning a group of talking zoo animals that are released into the wilds of Africa for the first time. This spawned a series of sequels
D.E.B.S. (2004)
An extremely witty parody of Charlie’s Angels (that also tapps the whole Austin Powers spy spoof fad). This amusingly rewrites the tv show in terms of lesbian attraction
Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb (1971)
Hammer Films adapt Bram Stoker’s Jewel of the Seven Stars about a revived mummy queen. A troubled production that ended up being one of Hammer’s never-quite-rans
Total Recall (1990)
Adaptation of a Philip K. Dick story is killed by being turned into an Arnold Schwarzenegger action vehicle and by director Paul Verhoeven’s burying the reality bending subtleties of the story under bludgeoning ultra-violence
Batman Begins (2005)
After Joel Schumacher killed off the cinematic Batman franchise, Christopher Nolan successfully revives it, bringing back the dark, psychologically brooding superhero and telling a Batman origin story
Jungle Moon Men (1955)
Former Tarzan star Johnny Weissmuller plays himself in a routine studio backlot jungle adventure that uncreditedly steals the plot from H. Rider Haggard’s She
Doppelganger (1993)
Horror film in which Drew Barrymore is haunted by a doppelganger. Before allowing the film to collapse into incomprehensibility, director Avi Nesher creates some fascinatingly weird images
Toolbox Murders (2003)
After a decade-long slump, Tobe Hooper started to show he still had what it took with this remake of the 1980 slasher film
Guard from the Underground (1992)
An early Kiyoshi Kurosawa film, this starts out as a peculiar deadpan comedy about an office filled with strange characters before emerging as a slasher film of sorts as a hulking security guard eliminating people
Face/Off (1997)
A John Woo directed action film with the improbable premise where FBI agent John Travolta and terrorist Nicolas Cage end up surgically swapping faces and then taking over the other’s identity
Someone is Watching (1999)
Okay psycho-thriller where Stefanie Powers is stalked in her new apartment while her son develops a mysterious imaginary companion
The Thief of Baghdad (1961)
Dull remake of the classic Arabian Nights film that casts Steve Reeves and tries to make it into a Hercules peplum adventure
Raat (1992)
One of the rare Bollywood ventures into horror, a blatant copy of The Exorcist. You have to praise the film for trying out every effect in the book in an effort to get a jump but the result ends up being so overwrought it produces almost no effect at all
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
Laserblast (1978)
One of the first films to come out exploiting the success of Star Wars – a badly made teen underdog fantasy in which bullied Kim Milford takes revenge after finding an alien raygun
Mortuary Academy (1988)
Intended as a horror riff on the phenomenally popular Police Academy series, this sets a series of gags in as bad a taste as possible around the locale of a mortuary
Anatomie (2000)
Extremely satisfying German medical thriller about a secret society that conducts illicit experiments. The film comes with a torturous suspense and goes way out on a limb in the gore department
The Amityville Horror (2005)
Remake of the 1979 film that still persists with the claim that the Amityville hoax was true. This embellishes the rather dull original with the baggage of trick effects of the modern horror film
Dracula’s Daughter (1936)
The first of the sequels to Universal’s Dracula this time without Bela Lugosi. A much better film in every way. creating a fine sense of atmosphere. Arguably the first lesbian vampire film.
Split Second (1992)
A mishmash of Alien copy and supernatural serial killer film set in a drowned future London with a script that makes no real sense. The film’s buddy cop relationship starring Rutger Hauer does have its amusements.
The Perfect Wife (2001)
Psycho-thriller with Shannon Sturges as a woman who marries Perry King with the intent of destroying his life
The Little Prince (1974)
Director Stanley Donen conducts a star-studded musical adaptation of Antoine De Saint-Exupéry’s children story about an innocent alien prince come to Earth but with ponderous results
Firestarter Rekindled (2002)
TV mini-series sequel to Stephen King’s Firestarter that now sees Charlie McGee in her twenties played by Marguerite Moreau. The story feels under-plotted and over-padded
The Gore Gore Girls (1972)
One of Herschell Gordon Lewis’s splatter films about a killer who is targeting strippers. Lewis’s splatter outrageously over-the-top set-pieces are the only reason to watch
Siesta (1987)
This directorial debut for Mary Lambert is a stylish but empty-headed erotic mystery that eventually settles for a fantastical twist ending
White Noise (2005)
Ghost story about so-called Electronic Voice Phenomenon with Michael Keaton as a widower being contacted from beyond by his late wife. A film that achieves some quite reasonable spooky effect
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005)
The last of George Lucas’s Star Wars prequel trilogy and the last opportunity for him to get it right, which he generally does. The effects are expert but are not allowed to dominate as much as they did previously and the focus has come back onto the story and Anakin’s transformation into Darth Vader
Motel Hell (1980)
Studio-backed attempt to enter the Backwoods Brutality genre ends up as an uncertain black comedy that fails to push the envelope anywhere near what its models do
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
Shrunken Heads (1994)
Another film from Charles Band’s Full Moon Production centred around dolls – in this case, three murdered youths who are resurrected as flying shrunken heads. A film that never quite lives up to the outlandishness of its premise
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
Targets (1968)
Early film from a young Peter Bogdanovich loosely based on sniper Charles Whitman. Bogdanovich creates something chilling in his depiction of a cleancut kid who goes on a sniping spree for no clear reason
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 absurdist wit and blows everything up with big-budget effects and a pitch to American audiences
First Light (1992)
Dreary action film with Michael Paré as a soldier with the army’s psychic warfare unit who is sent on a mission to rescue a girl from the hands of terrorists
The Lift (1983)
A Dutch film about a killer elevator that gained some attention when it came out. This generates some reasonable suspense but it also has a plot that drags considerably
The Rosary Murders (1987)
Extremely good thriller from an Elmore Leonard script with Donald Sutherland as a Catholic priest who tries to stop a serial killer without violating the sanctity of the confessional
Pieces (1983)
A venture into the slasher film from hack Spanish director Juan Piquer Simon that features utterly surreal bad dialogue and copious amounts of blood
The Pacifier (2005)
Vin Diesel seemed to fairly much kill his career off with this excruciating comedy in which he deflates his tough guy persona by playing off a bunch of kids
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
Kate’s Addiction (1999)
A psycho-thriller in the vein of Fatal Attraction with Kari Wuhrer stalking best friend Farrah Forke insisting they are meant to be together as a lesbian couple
Dark Water (2005)
The English-language remake of Hideo Nakata’s ghost story made by Walter Salles. This version is surprisingly faithful to the original but entirely miscues Nakata’s jolt ending
Dark Water (2002)
Hideo Nakata made the highly influential Ringu but his other films have been uneven. This ghost story is one of his few follow-ups that comes near recapturing the same uncanny mood
Barbie Fairytopia (2004)
The previous Barbie animated films had adapted various fairytales but this casts her as a fairy in a magical kingdom – simplistic, but one of the most colourfully animated of Mainframe’s Barbie films
Alone with a Stranger (2000)
Excellent psycho-thriller in which family man William R. Moses has his life taken over by an evil twin. Filled with a series of gripping unexpected twists and tensions
The Return of Dracula (1958)
One of the first contemporary Dracula films. Compared to Christopher Lee’s first appearance as Dracula the same year, this is dull, plodding and without atmosphere where Dracula looks like no more than a door-to-door salesman
Deranged (1974)
One of the better among several films based on the activities of the true-life body snatcher and necrophile Ed Gein. Roberts Blossom gives an amazingly creepy performance
Wired (1989)
Flop and muchly hated biopic of John Belushi that turns his life into a bad farce. Included here for the presence of an angel that guides Belushi through his life
Robots (2005)
Enjoyably likeable animated film from Blue Sky Studios set in a world inhabited by robots. Lots of visual invention and madcap slapstick
Pom Poko (1994)
Delightful and charming Studio Ghibli film about shape-changing raccoons that blend with humanity when their forest is threatened
Darkness (2002)
From Jaume Balaguero, a film that assembles a decent cast and broods with suggestions of a haunted house and occult conspiracies but never does much to let it pay off
Boogeyman (2005)
A film that has been construed almost entirely as a series of spooky jumps and hyped suspense scenes with nothing in the way of rhyme, reason or connecting rationale. Produced by Sam Raimi
Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Mini-series that reconstructs the old Battlestar Galactica into smart and intelligent SF with strong characters, a gritty realism and sensational effects. A tv series followed and became one of the best SF shows of the 2000s
Assault on Precinct 13 (2005)
Fair-to-reasonable remake of John Carpenter’s low-budget 1976 film about a handful of staff in a police station under siege from gangs outside. Much of the original has undergone change
Mama Dracula (1980)
Produced not long after the success of Young Frankenstein, a Belgian-made parody of the vampire film that falls into excruciating slapstick. Louise Fletcher is absurdly miscast as Countess Dracula
How to Steal the World (1968)
The eight and last of the films recut from episodes of tv’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E.. This starts to show the strain of trying to make what were originally designed as tv episodes work as feature films
Delirious (1991)
Comedy in which John Candy wakes up inside the world of the tv soap opera he writes. This feels like it misses most of the possibilities inherent in its idea
Doomsday Man (1998)
Thriller with Esai Morales as a virologist called out of retirement to track down his brother James Marshall who has gone rogue and stolen vials of a deadly bacteriological agent
Vampire Circus (1972)
Fascinating vampire film from the latter days of Hammer Films, this tries to do something different to the usual
Seed of Chucky (2004)
The fifth and most enjoyable of the Chucky films, this amplifies the black humour to an outrageously funny level, while conducting an hilarious meta-fiction with Jennifer Tilly playing herself
Twice-Told Tales (1963)
With the success of the Edgar Allan Poe adaptations starring Vincent Price, this was a copycat attempt that cast Price in a trio of tales adapted from another writer of American horror stories, Nathaniel Hawthorne
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
Rose Red (2002)
A Stephen King scripted tv mini-series about the investigation into a haunted house. This is not quite a classic in the vein of its model The Haunting but is a solid and effective entry
Rollercoaster (1977)
1970s disaster movie with George Segal tracking Timothy Bottoms as a mad bomber blowing up rollercoasters
The Ring Two (2005)
Sequel to The Ring, the English-language remake of Ringu. The filmmakers have returned to the source and brought in original director Hideo Nakata only to produce one of the most disappointing of all the Ringu/Ring films
Mr Vampire II (1986)
The first of several sequels to the hopping vampire hit. While the original was an adept and clever blend of fantasy and comedy, this promptly heads for loud and noisy slapstick
Embalming (1999)
A Japanese horror film that winds a convoluted plot involving stolen corpses, a blackmarket in organ harvesting, split personality, twins and religious cults
Visitors (2003)
Strong return to genre material for Australian director Richard Franklin with Radha Mitchell as a yachtswoman in a round the world race facing ghosts on board that may well all be in her imagination
The Shaggy Dog (1959)
The first of Disney’s live-action comedies, a comic variant on the werewolf story with Tommy Kirk turning into a dog. Mildly amusing but later efforts would do this type of comedy better
Constantine (2005)
Adaptation of DC’s Hellblazer comic-book that gets the Hollywood treatment where all of the character’s background and look has been thrown out and the part badly miscast with Keanu Reeves
Complicity (2000)
A so-so adaptation of an Iain Banks novel featuring Jonny Lee Miller as a crusading journalist who becomes involved in the hunt for a serial killer who is tied to his own past
Barbie of Swan Lake (2003)
The third animated film based on the popular girl’s doll Barbie. This places Barbie into Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake in an okay telling, if one that suffers from the usual limited animation of Mainframe’s early films
Asunder (1998)
A formulaic copy of Fatal Attraction. The difference here is that the sexes have been reversed and the key parts cast with African-American actors
Beyond the Time Barrier (1960)
B budget film from Edgar G. Ulmer that was made quickly to exploit the success of George Pal’s The Time Machine concerning an Air Force pilot who is thrown through time into a mutant ruled future
As Time Goes By (1988)
A very eccentric Australian film about a man wound into solving a temporal paradox by aliens who time travel in a greasy spoon diner
Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)
The second film from John Carpenter, a powerful and effective work about a handful of police and prisoners trapped in a police station at siege from an all-out assault by gang members outside
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)
Psycho-thriller featuring a mad Bette Davis torturing her sister Joan Crawford. This held considerable shock at the time for seeing two former glamorous Hollywood stars beyond their glory days and going nuts. The film’s success inspired a whole fad of imitators
Dinosaurus! (1960)
A low-budget effort but amiable effort about dinosaurs and a caveman that are revived on an island. The cheap effects, culminating in a battle between a dinosaur and a crane, have some imagination
Hide and Seek (2005)
A variant on the sinister child’s invisible companion theme. A fine cast has been assembled but the film goes and kills itself with a lame twist ending
The Trial (1993)
All-star adaptation of the Franz Kafka novel that gets a far better sense of the book’s black ironies than the previous Orson Welles version
House of Flying Daggers (2004)
Building on the international success of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dagger, Zhang Yimou made the lush, exquisitely dreamy Wu Xia film Hero and then immediately after made this equally visually dazzling follow-up
It’s Alive III: Island of the Alive (1987)
The third of Larry Cohen’s killer mutant baby films that began with the cult It’s Alive. Cohen’s humour is again present but the film feels like a hodgepodge of ideas left over from the other films
Mauvais Sang (1986)
The second film from Leos Carax, a near-future set romance that bursts with freshness and originality
King Solomon’s Mines (2004)
A Hallmark TV mini-series version of the classic H. Rider haggard adventure novel that suffers from a non-acting Patrick Swayze badly miscast as Allan Quatermain
Cube2: Hypercube (2002)
The first sequel to Vincenzo Natali’s fine conceptual puzzlebox film. This expands out on the idea, having a cube that bends through time and space, and has a certain fascination if not as much as the original did
Blood Sucking Freaks (1976)
Film that gained a notoriety for its scenes of a stage magician torturing and mutilating people. This seems fueled by a nasty misogyny involving the degradation and killing of women.
Battle of the Worlds (1961)
Early 1960s Italian space opera from Antonio Margheriti about a rogue planet on a course towards Earth. Not nearly as interesting as it suggests it is going to be.
Slapstick of Another Kind (1982)
Another failed attempt to film the works of Kurt Vonnegut where Vonnegut’s ironic pessimism ends up as witless slapstick chaos on screen
Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (1940)
The third of the Flash Gordon serials, not quite at the heights of the previous two but with a colour and exoticism that was head and shoulders above the other serials of the era
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004)
Superlative film that recreates an imagined world of 1930s retro sf filled with flyer heroes, giant robots and stunning Art Deco designs.
The Seventh Sign (1988)
A much more elevated version of an Omen-styled Biblical End Times film with Demi Moore worried if her child can save the world
Jack and the Beanstalk: The Real Story (2001)
TV mini-series co-produced by Hallmark Entertainment and The Jim Henson Company that offers an intriguing deconstruction of the fairytale that reverses the traditional sympathies
Universal Horror (1998)
Documentary about the Golden Age of Horror at Universal Studios during the 1930s and 40s (although it does touch on works from other studios too). The topic is covered with an impressive degree of detail
Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold (1986)
This is a sequel to Cannon Films’ excruciating camp version of King Solomon’s Mines. Richard Chamberlain and Sharon Stone are back. This is a marginal improvement but far from a good film
Black Mask 2: City of Masks (2002)
Tsui Hark takes over the directorial reins of the sequel, filling it with much more fantastical elements, pitting the hero against a mad scientist and his mutant creations in a series of wild martial arts scenes
Black Circle Boys (1997)
Modest and effective portrait of troubled youth as a teen is drawn into a group who have sworn allegiance to Satan. The film is driven by an intense compelling performance from Eric Mabius as the group’s leader
Journey to the Center of Time (1967)
A very cheaply made film (actually a remake of The Time Travelers) about a research laboratory propelled through time. Most of the historical scenes are represented by stock footage
D.A.R.Y.L. (1985)
Barret Oliver plays an android boy on the run from his creators who shelters with a human family. This promptly employs all the cliches of the post-E.T. film
Crimes of Passion (1984)
Team-up between Ken Russell and Anthony Perkins with both in full-on lunacy mode. Kathleen Turner gives her best performance ever as a fashion designer moonlighting as a hooker who is stalked by Perkins as a psycho priest
Return of the Fly (1959)
The first of the sequels to the original The Fly where the scientist’s son begins his own experiments
Peacemaker (1990)
Entertaining B-budget variant on The Hidden with a woman caught between an alien aw enforcement officer and fugitive criminal both of whom offer contradictory stories