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
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
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
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
Willow (1988)
Outside of the Star Wars and Indiana Jones films, George Lucas has not had much success. This epic fantasy was a big flop where Ron 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-jokey 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. This does the slasher movie formula rather well while digging into Christmas sentiment with a savage 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 also 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)
A film spinoff from tv’s The Munsters, a likeable knockabout farce featuring the original cast that takes the characters to England and has them enter a car race
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 in the shadow of its predecessor, but has some effective moments of its own, with Carpenter in particular creating a satiric fundamentalist future
Invisible Strangler (1984)
A painfully bad film about a jailed killer who uses astral projection powers to become invisible and leave his cell to take revenge on those who convicted him
Transylvania 6-5000 (1985)
Painfully unfunny comedy from Mel Brooks writer Rudy De Luca with journalists Jeff Goldblum and Ed Begley Jr encountering monsters while on assignment in Transylvania
Vertigo (1958)
Considered one of Alfred Hitchcock’s greatest films, this is a study in obsession and features a reincarnation plot. What works more so than the contrived plot twists is Hitchcock’s expert direction, all thunderously brooding mood and lush Technicolor dreaminess
Identity (2003)
John Cusack leads a star cast line-up in what appears to be a slasher where a group of people gathered at a motel are being killed by someone among their number. Big conceptual twists then ensue
The Island at the Top of the World (1974)
An underrated and quite magnificent lost world adventure from Disney with an airship crew in search of a lost Viking world in the Arctic. Contains some absolutely stunning effects work for the era.
Watchtower (2001)
Modest psycho-thriller about the psychological games between a psychopathic lighthouse keeper (a fine Tom Berenger) and his young assistant
Amityville 1992: It’s About Time (1992)
The sixth film based around The Amityville Horror, although by now connections to the original are minimal and this only concerns a mysterious clock taken from the house
Deep Red (1994)
A confused and incomprehensible film in which Michael Biehn is drawn in to the hunt for a girl whose blood contains an immortality virus
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 Manster (1959)
Fascinatingly torrid US-Japan production about a man who develops a second head on his shoulder that takes over his personality
Cronos (1993)
The very first film from Guillermo Del Toro, a unique take on the vampire film concerning an aging antique dealer who finds a clockwork device that rejuvenates but leaves him with a taste for blood
Cannibal Ferox (1981)
Along with Cannibal Holocaust, this was the most notorious and extreme of the Italian cannibal film fad of the 70s/early 80s. The film becomes a catalogue of violent savageries that are not recommended for the faint of heart
Death Wish II (1981)
The first of several sequels to the hit Charles Bronson vigilante film, the first under Cannon Films. While the first film had some interesting things to say, this mostly repeats the original while taking some turns to the nastily exploitative
Leonard Part 6 (1987)
Bill Cosby was massive on tv during the 1980s but when he tried to move to film it resulted in this bizarre flop of a gonzo spy comedy starring Cosby as a retired agent forced to return to the field
Jason and the Argonauts (1963)
Stop-motion animator Ray Harruhausen takes on Greek Myth and creates one of his finest works. Harryhausen’s effects are at the absolute peak of their game and he delivers some astonishing creations
House (1986)
Amiably silly haunted house film with William Katt fighting rubbery pop-up monsters. This doesn’t take itself too seriously. A minor hit that produced three sequels.
The Wasp Woman (1959)
Roger Corman cheapie clearly influenced by The Fly in which a woman becomes a creature after using a beauty product derived from wasp venom
Dragonworld (1994)
One of the better films produced by Charles Band. Despite variable dragon effects, this is a children’s film that captures a genteel sense of innocence
Tombs of the Blind Dead (1971)
The first in a series of films from Spanish director Amando de Ossorio about blind Knights Templar zombies. De Ossorio is clearly influenced by Night of the Living Dead but creates considerable atmosphere
Jekyll and Hyde … Together Again (1982)
Extremely silly and at times undeniably funny spoof on Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde – here Dr Jekyll becomes a coke addict who snorts his formula and turns into a swinger with a giant afro
Isle of the Dead (1945)
One of the classic psychological horror films from producer Val Lewton. This is a slightly less effective Lewton work featuring Boris Karloff on a plague-ridden island unsure if a vampire creature is responsible
Village of the Giants (1965)
Bert I. Gordon, who spent most of his career making giant animal and people films, makes a film about giant rock’n’rolling teenagers. Supposedly adapted from a novel by H.G. Wells
Yog – The Monster from Outer Space (1970)
One of the more forgettable films from Godzilla creator Ishiro Honda about an alien entity taking the form of giant animals on a Pacific island
Young Sherlock Holmes (1985)
Steven Spielberg produced film about an adolescent Sherlock Holmes often feels like it is Holmes being pitched as an Indiana Jones adventure but comes with some beautifully made touches
Dead of Night (1945)
Celebrated British horror anthology, which tells five ghost stories and tales of the supernatural. All are strong stories with The Ventriloquist’s Dummy segment in particular having become regarded as a classic
Rest in Peace (1982)
Forgotten 1980s horror where Meg Tilly accepts a dare to spend a night in a mausoleum as a powerful psychic returns to life
Play Misty for Me (1971)
Clint Eastwood’s directorial debut is a psycho-thriller that prefigures Fatal Attraction with Eastwood playing a radio DJ who is stalked by a deranged Jessica Walter
Passionate Revenge (1996)
Low-budget director Fred Olen Ray makes a softcore variation on Fatal Attraction with a vengeful Shauna O’Brien obtaining a job as the babysitter with the married man who jilted her
Multiplicity (1996)
Harold Ramis followed up the hit of Groundhog Day with this amiable comedy in which Michael Keaton is an overworked husband who creates several clones of himself to help with the workload
Mercano the Martian (2002)
A satiric Argentinean animated film about a Martian left stranded abandoned on Earth after the crash of his flying saucer, this then begins to poke fun at internet culture
Love is a Treasure (2002)
A Finnish art project that consists of five episodes that subjectively depict stories of women with mental illness with strikingly surreal effect
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)
The much hated adaptation of the Alan Moore graphic novels. It is undeniable fun watching the crossover between various fictional Victorian characters, while the production design is amazing
The Decay of Fiction (2002)
An experimental film where a camera wanders through an abandoned hotel over which fragments of film footage have been overlaid suggesting a hotel inhabited by ghosts of former residents
Orphee (1950)
Jean Cocteau’s beautiful modernisation of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice updated to post-War France
Beauty and the Beast (1946)
Jean Cocteau makes one of the greatest of all fantasy films and the finest of all fairytale adaptations, elaborating the original story out with a visual magic that still manages to dazzle audiences today
Adventures of Captain Marvel (1941)
A twelve-chapter serial based on the comic-book superhero who these days is known as Shazam. Often regarded as one of the best of all serials, this has some decent action scenes and cliffhangers
Spies Like Us (1985)
Unfunny John Landis film with Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd as two bumbling CIA agents. This aspires to being one of the Bob Hope-Bing Crosby Road films but only arrives at inane slapstick
Split Infinity (1992)
Christian-made family film where a girl travels back in time to 1929 to help save the family farm
Surviving the Game (1994)
Blatant copy of Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Hard Target and both in turn from The Most Dangerous Game. Here Ice-T is a homeless man forced to flee hunters and survive with his bare hands.
Iron Warrior (1986)
A low-budget Italian sword-and-sorcery film, one of a host of such films that came out following the success of Conan the Barbarian. This was the third entry in the Ator series starring Miles O’Keeffe
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)
In attempting to capture the surreal, paranoiac drug haze of Hunter S. Thompson’s counter-culture classic, Terry Gilliam’s adaptation becomes a rambling, self-indulgent mess of tripped-out visions that go on and on
The Fan (1996)
A dense, visually afire film from the great Tony Scott starring Robert De Niro as a sports fan who snaps from the pressures of ordinary life and then stalks baseball star Wesley Snipes
The Wicker Man (1973)
Classic horror film that imagines a secret world of pagan rites existing into the modern day. As much a classic for its colourful creation of a folk culture as it is for an unforgettable ending
The Island (1980)
Novelist Peter Benchley’s name was huge as a result of Jaws. One of the less successful Benchley adaptations about the discovery of a lost society of pirate descendants who prey on shipping in the Bermuda Triangle
Scanner Cop II: Volkin’s Revenge (1995)
The fourth and last of a series of low-budget sequels to David Cronenberg’s Scanners, also the worst of the bunch featuring a series of absurd head-exploding effects
The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies (1964)
One of the great ridiculous titles of all time. It’s a shame there’s nothing that comes anywhere near matching it in this tatty, poorly made film about a fortune teller turning men into disfigured, hypnotised slaves
The Innocents (1961)
Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw is a classic ghost story that hovers in a state of ambiguity as to whether the ghosts are real or in the heroine’s imagination. This is the best of the film versions
The Return of Count Yorga (1971)
Count Yorga, Vampire was a minor success that started a spate of modern-day vampire films. This was a slightly lesser sequel that has the same droll wit but gets sidetracked in the middle sections
Dawn of the Mummy (1981)
By its very title, this is a mummy film that is trying to exploit Dawn of the Dead. Once the mummies are revived this is to all intents and purposes another in the fad for extremely gory Italian zombie films
Bulletproof Monk (2003)
Painfully derivative US-made attempt to jump aboard the popularity of Wu Xia following The Matrix and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. There are talented people involved who should have known better
Timecop (1994)
Film featuring Jean-Claude Van Damme as a temporal police officer. While you expect another time travel action film, this has quite a deal more sophistication in the scripting department than you expect
Lost in La Mancha (2002)
Fascinating documentary about the making of Terry Gilliam’s never completed The Man Who Killed Don Quixote and how everything fell apart due an extraordinary run of bad luck
Lon Chaney: A Thousand Faces (2000)
A documentary about the legendary silent actor Lon Chaney who was the original Phantom of the Opera among other horror roles. Chaney would undergo incredible physical transformations for each role