Ted Bundy (2002)
True crime film from Matthew Bright based on serial killer Ted Bundy. Bright remains very faithful to the details of the case and he and star Michael Reilly Burke delve into the psychopathic mindset with considerable effect
Jeepers Creepers II (2003)
This was Victor Salva’s first sequel to his hit Jeepers Creepers. This is an intensely uncanny and much superior work to the first that heads into outlandish places
Killer Crocodile 2 (1990)
A sequel to Killer Crocodile, which was a dreary Italian-made Jaws ripoff. Here another radioactive waste mutated crocodile stalks people. Indifferently made.
The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
Tim Burton and Henry Selick combine on this stop-motion animated fantasy made in Burton’s characteristcially eccentric style, a beautifully stylised and dark fantasy in which assorted Halloween denizens invade Christmas
Timeline (2003)
Michael Crichton adaptation that flopped at the box-office. Crichton tells a story about time travel to the Mediaeval period where he spends a good deal of time researching the era. The film ditches all of this to make no more than an historical film with an SF gimmick
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)
A remake of Tobe Hooper’s landmark classic that presaged a host of inferior 70s/80s horror remakes throughout the 2000s/10s. What we have is now a different film although not entirely an uninteresting one
Help! I’m a Fish (2000)
Okay if never standout Danish-made attempt to copy a Disney animated film concerning the underwater adventures of three children transformed into fish
Critical Mass (2000)
Low-budget Fred Olen Ray action film is another variant on Die Hard with security guard Treat Williams foiling a terrorist hijacking of a nuclear power plant. For some reason this also includes reuse of footage from Terminator 2
Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over (2003)
The third in the series is no longer even a Spy Kids film but a Virtual Reality videogame film. Robert Rodriguez has some fun creating the virtual worlds but the parody that the other films engaged in is missing
The Baby (1972)
The story of a grown man with the mind of a child is launched into with a spectacularly over-the-top tackiness that has to be seen to be believed. Middle-aging Ruth Roman let all stops out in a Baby Jane-type performance
Carry On Screaming (1966)
Twelfth of the popular British comedy series, here the Carry On team conduct a bawdy farce on the Hammer horror film that was all the in-thing at the time
Nemesis Game (2003)
Frustratingly enigmatic film where student Carly Pope is drawn into a game of mysterious clues where people are being killed
Monstersdotcom (2003)
Video-released compilation of above average horror short films all set around the titular website
Dead Season (2003)
Oddball psycho-thriller from low-budget director Ron Ford about a series of killings and games of suspicion occurring in and around an off-season bed and breakfast
Peter Pan (2003)
Live-action remake of the classic story this has some lovely moments but also feels over-produced and adds unnecessary adult psychological motivations to the mix
Brother Bear (2003)
One of the flop Disney animated films of the 2000s, set among the Inuit with the head-scratching premise of a warrior who is transformed into a bear
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
The weakest of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films. This is the most variant from the source material and the one where Jackson allows his tendency to visual effects bloat to take over
Aladdin and the King of Thieves (1996)
The second of two video-released sequels to Disney’s Aladdin that brings back Robin Williams as the genie and goes madcap with the pop culture jokes
When Worlds Collide (1951)
Classic George Pal produced effects spectacular where Earth faces destruction in the face of collision with an oncoming planet and the efforts to build an ark so that some might survive
The War Game (1965)
Peter Watkins stark, brutal mockumentary about a nuclear strike on England, this was banned from the BBC and still makes for harsh viewing today
Scary Movie 3 (2003)
David Zucker takes over the reins of the franchise from the Wayans Brothers. With a lack of big scary movies in 2002 to parody, the film takes a scattershot approach, parodying any film at all
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
The first sequel to The Terminator where James Cameron returns with the biggest budget for a film at the time. Cameron harnesses then top-drawer CGI technology to create one of the most original nemeses in any SF film
Hardware (1990)
Richard Stanley film where killer robot invades and takes over a girl’s apartment. Stanley transforms the film into an astonishing vision of pure unfiltered Cyberpunk. One of the most visually dazzling directorial debuts of its day
The Secret Kingdom (1997)
This is an appealingly strange Charles Band produced children’s film about a kid who discovers a miniature magical kingdom that is located under the kitchen sink
The Witches (1990)
Nicolas Roeg and Jim Henson collaborate on an adaptation of a Roald Dahl book. Roeg leaves the grotesquerie and gleeful malice intact making this one of the best Dahl adaptations
The Terminator (1984)
One of the 2-3 most influential SF films since 1980. James Cameron creates a barrelling powerhouse of a film, all lorded over by Arnold Schwarzenegger as the relentless killer machine in the role that defined his career
Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003)
Joe Dante makes a toon film winding in dozens of cameos from Warner Brothers cartoon characters. The results prove enormously playful and creative. Infinitely more creative and fun that the Space Jam films
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
Black Scorpion: Ground Zero (1996)
The second of the low-budget Roger Corman produced films made for cable featuring Joan Severance as a black vinyl-clad masked superheroine
Hail Mary (1984)
A controversy-laden Jean-Luc Godard film that offers an irreverent modern-day retelling of the Immaculate Conception. An amusing idea that vanishes under Godard’s pretensions
Underworld (2003)
This stirs a bunch of elements from the late 90s vampire film and dark poses from the graphic novel to create a slick vampire action film. Several sequels followed.
Last Year in Marienbad (1961)
An extraordinary work from the French New Wave filled with incredible visuals as lovers drift through an ornate hotel where memory and time itself seems to shift
Mr Wrong (1985)
New Zealand-made ghost story where Heather Bolton buys a second-hand car only to find it is haunted
Miracle on 34th Street (1994)
A John Hughes written remake of the classic Christmas film where a man (Richard Attenborough) claiming to be Santa ends up tried in court.
The Sacrifice (1986)
Andrei Tarkovsky’s final film, a slow and weighty meditation upon questions of faith as one man prays to turn back a nuclear holocaust
Freddy vs. Jason (2003)
The long promised crossover between the Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street films, this seems caught in a juggling act that fails to satisfy the requirements of either franchise
Frankenstein (1931)
The classic version of Mary Shelley’s tale that left the indelible image of Boris Karloff as the dull monster with bolts in its neck. Director James Whale draws on German Expressionist designs to create one of the landmark classics of the genre
Blue Velvet (1986)
One of the key David Lynch films in which cleancut college kid Kyle MacLachlan finds a severed human ear and is drawn into a dark underworld of S&M lorded over by a maniacally deranged Dennis Hopper
Left Behind (2000)
Adaptation of the best-selling Christian book series about the Biblical End of the World. There is a mini-industry of these films and, if one can stomach the preachiness, this is not entirely bad
Elf (2003)
Jon Favreau directed Christmas film premised entirely around the premise of 6’3″ Will Ferrell as an ungainly Christmas elf. The film works entirely to the extent one has a tolerance for Ferrell’s screen presence.
House II: The Second Story (1987)
The first sequel to House, this is largely unrelated to its predecessor and plays itself with a sense of humour to emerge as the superior film. Now a skull opens doorways in the house into different eras
Jacob’s Ladder (1990)
Adrian Lyne became one of the most visually exciting directors of the 1980s. Here he makes an afterlife film that swings between moments of greatness and a script that seems very confused about what is happening
Jetsons: The Movie (1990)
A theatrical film version spun off from The Jetsons, the popular Hanna-Barbera animated tv series about a space age family. Not too much has changed since the 1960s
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
Sentimental Frank Capra film that had become a Christmas classic where an angel shows depressed everyman James Stewart the alternate world that would happen if he had never been born
When the Bough Breaks (1994)
Strong and absorbing serial killer thriller with Ally Walker tracking a killer who severs children’s hands
The Return of Captain Invincible (1983)
Witty and overlooked parody of the superhero with Alan Arkin as a retired superhero trying to get back into the game. Made before superhero films became big and has a number of charms that were ahead of its time
American Cyborg: Steel Warrior (1992)
A routine post-apocalyptic action film with Nicole Hansen as the last fertile woman on the run hunted by killer cyborgs while being protected by Joe Lara
Project Shadowchaser III (1995)
Third in the series about android terrorists, this is now about an amok android on a spaceship
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
Enjoyably tongue-in-cheek pirate swashbuckler based on the Disney theme park that proved an enormous hit and spun off a series of sequels, as well as giving Johnny Depp one of his iconic roles
Lara Croft, Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (2003)
The first Tomb Raider film was empty-headed but a hit but the series was then killed off by this sequel. Angelina Jolie’s performance is detached from human emotion and the action sequences ludicrous
Black Thunder (1998)
Low-budget action film that blatantly rehshes the plot of Firefox with Michael Dudikoff as a pilot recruited to go into enemy territory and steal back a hi-tech plane
Black Scorpion (1995)
Following Michelle Pfeiffer’s turn as Cat Woman in Batman Returns, this was a copycat from Roger Corman in which Joan Severance becomes a black vinyl clad superheroine exacting justice
Barb Wire (1996)
Enjoyably silly comic-book adaptation with a pneumatically-inflated Pamela Anderson playing the titular bounty hunter in an anarchic future. You cannot complain that this is a film that delivers exactly what it promises
The Nude Bomb (1980)
A flop theatrical film spinoff from the Get Smart tv series with Don Adams’ Maxwell Smart trying to stop a bomb that renders people naked
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
S1m0ne (2002)
Andrew Niccol makes a comedy in which down-on-his-luck film director Al Pacino obtains a computer program for simulating a performance and creates a virtual actress, hoodwinking the public into believing she is a real person.
The Matrix Revolutions (2003)
Third of The Matrix sequels and the weakest of the series. This offers one showstopping effects sequence, on the other hand it also leaves a host of unanswered questions dangling
Erotic Ghost Story II (1991)
The second and best in the series of Hong Kong films filled with wonderfully tongue-in-cheek erotica and a series of entertainingly over-the-top fantastical set-pieces
Final Combination (1994)
Thriller with Michael Madsen as a detective searching boxing clubs for a serial killer. This has one of the most inanely ridiculous scripts one has seen in some time
HellBound (1993)
Hysterically bad film where Chuck Norris turns one-man fighting machine and goes all out to save the world from the Anti-Christ calling down the Armageddon
Frailty (2001)
A directorial outing from Bill Paxton, a strikingly original film quite unlike anything else where Paxton plays a man who has religious visions and invokes his sons to murder what he calls demon
Tintin and the Blue Oranges (1965)
The second in a duo of live-action French-language adaptations of Herge’s famous comic-book character, which gets the resemblance to the characters almost perfect
Spacecamp (1986)
This comes with the unappealing concept of ‘Teenagers Trapped in Orbit in the Space Shuttle’ and vies between cliche and passable treatment
Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (1985)
Film adaptation of the popular Destroyer novels about a martial arts super-spy that proves enjoyably tongue-in-cheek. Clearly launched as an attempt to make another James Bond type series, this was not successful but is so appealing you wish had it been
Blood: The Last Vampire (2000)
Stunning Mamoru Oshii-prodcued anime short about a vampire girl who operates as an American agent eliminating vampires in post-War Japan
City Beneath the Sea (1971)
Irwin Allen offers a variant on Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea in this film about an underwater city. A tv pilot that was foisted onto international audiences as a theatrical film after it failed to be picked up as a series
Willow (1988)
Outside of the Star Wars and Indiana Jones films, not much else that George Lucas has made has been a success. This Ron Howard-directed epic fantasy proved to be a big flop where Howard’s lightweight touch fails to make a one-dimensional plot fly
Meridian (1990)
A much better than usual film from Charles Band, an erotic fairytale in which Sherilyn Fenn becomes involved with a circusmaster and his twin brother who turns into a werewolf
Innerspace (1987)
Joe Dante pays homage to Fantastic Voyage, the classic film about a submarine journey through the human body. Here Dante plays it as a screwball comedy but his in-joke heavy style failed to catch on with audiences
Repulsion (1965)
A work of considerable brilliance from a young Roman Polanski with Catherine Deneuve as a woman slipping into madness in an apartment over the course of a weekend. What makes the film particularly disturbing is Polanski’s lack of a blurring line between reality and hallucination
Son of Frankenstein (1939)
The third of Universal’s Frankenstein films, the last to feature Boris Karloff as the monster and the last good entry before the sequels became formulaic. Shot with the clear influence of German Expressionism, this is filled with memorable characters and some great performances
Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984)
Not the first but the most famous of the psycho Santa films. At the time, it was just another slasher film exploiting a holiday title. However, this does the slasher movie formula rather well while digging into Christmas sentiment with a bite that takes you aback
The Unnamable (1988)
One of the spate of H.P. Lovecraft adaptations that came out in the late 80s/early 90s. This feels like an effort by earnest amateurs but does take its Lovecraft seriously unlike most of the other films of this cycle.
Gunhed (1989)
A live-action Japanese-made mecha/transformer film that creates a dark industrial world as setting and fills it with some stunning effects
Killer Crocodile (1989)
An Italian exploitation ripoff of Jaws with a group of environmentalists in South America dealing with a killer crocodile that has been made giant size by radioactive waste
The Locals (2003)
A New Zealand-made horror film in which two friends find themselves trapped in a small rural town where the dead keep returning to life
The Day Time Ended (1980)
A B-budgeted film made not long after Close Encounters of the Third Kind about a family on a ranch encountering mysterious alien phenomena. An early Charles Band produced film
The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane (1977)
A psycho-thriller with a difference where Jodie Foster plays a teenager with secrets who maintains the pretence of living with her late father while fending off a pedophile Martin Sheen
Circuitry Man (1990)
Qurkily appealing Cyberpunk film in which a female bodyguard and a male pleasure android must make a journey across a post-apocalyptic wasteland
The Green Slime (1968)
Cheesily entertaining film about a crew aboard a space station fighting off an alien monster. Cited as one of the films that influenced Alien. With a screenplay co-written by Batman co-creator Bill Finger
The Unseen (1981)
A variant on the Mad Relative Locked in the Cellar/Attic film that turns out to be surprisingly well made
Things to Come (1936)
From a script by H.G. Wells, this comes with a visionary sweep that depicts the building of a scientific utopia but equally suffers from dull and heavy-handed polemical dialogue
Russian Ark (2002)
Extraordinarily ambitious film all shot in a single take at the former St Petersburg Winter Palace where the camera drifts dream-like from room to room and in and out of periods of Russian history. More n illustrated art and history program than a dramatic film but beautiful to watch.
Isle of the Snake People (1971)
One of four cheap and tatty Mexican films made by Boris Karloff just before his death. Here Karloff plays a Caribbean plantation owner obsessed with voodoo rituals
Patrick (1978)
Fine Australian from Richard Franklin that jumps aboard the popularity of Carrie concerning a coma patient who demonstrates psychic powers
Munster Go Home (1966)
Film spinoff from tv’s The Munsters, a likeable knockabout farce featuring the original cast
Revelation (1999)
The second in a series of Biblical End Times films from Canada’s faith-based Cloud Ten Pictures, this offers the peculiarity of the Anti-Christ appearing in Virtual Reality
Agent Cody Banks (2003)
Another of the spy parodies that emerged following Austin Powers. Frankie Muniz is a high school teenager who is recruited as a spy. This proves a mildly amusing set-up that is delivered with surprisingly little wit
A Town Has Turned to Dust (1998)
Adaptation of an old Rod Serling script about racial prejudice and lynch mobs. The original was a non-genre work that took place in a Western setting but this has transplanted the milieu to an alien planet.
28 Days Later (2002)
Danny Boyle’s sleeper hit presaged a big return for the zombie film during the 2000s/2010s. Not a bad film even if Boyle is conducting major borrowings from other works like The Day of the Triffids and Day of the Dead
Just Imagine (1930)
This was one of the first US films to depict the future. It is essentially Metropolis having been remade as a Broadway musical with an emphasis on comedy
Prison (1987)
An early film from Renny Harlin made for Charles Band concerning a haunted prison. Features an unknown Viggo Mortensen in one of his earliest roles
Robotrix (1991)
Hong Kong-made copy of RoboCop where Amy Yip has her mind transferred into a cyborg body to track a mad scientist
Freaky Friday (2003)
Enjoyable remake of the 1970s Disney comedy about a mother and daughter who swap bodies. Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan nail the swapped roles to perfection
The Fly (1986)
David Cronenberg remakes the 1958 film, transforming its improbable scenario into a fascinating study of biological transformation with Jeff Goldblum genetically mutating into a fly hybrid. Kafka’s Metamorphosis with a lot more slime.
The Arrival (1996)
An alien invasion and takeover film that was clearly inspired by the success of tv’s The X Files. This is a smart effort that emerges as something unworldly in David Twohy’s hands
It Conquered the World (1956)
One of the early directorial films from Roger Corman, a surprisingly vigorous and well written variant on the alien body snatcher film featuring one of the memorable alien creations of the era
Finding Nemo (2003)
An unabashed delight among the Pixar films about a fish parent on a quest to find his missing son. This comes with an extraordinarily vibrant palette of colours and a line-up of winningly eccentric characters
White Dog (1982)
A controversial film at the time it came out where Kristy MacNichol adopts a stray dog she accidentally runs down only to find it has been trained by racists to kill African-Americans
Escape from L.A. (1996)
John Carpenter’s sequel to Escape from New York falls too much in the shadow of its predecessor, nevertheless has some effective moments of its own, with Carpenter in particular creating a satiric fundamentalist future