The Jungle Book 2 (2003)
From the late 90s/early 00s period where Disney were churning out cheap sequels to their animated classics of yesteryear, a wholly unnecessary continuation of The Jungle Book
Curdled (1996)
A Quentin Tarantino produced black comedy about a forensic cleaner that is charmed by a serial killer who has returned to the crime scene. An indie film that not many people saw at the time.
The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)
One of the greatest of all 1950s SF films in which average man Grant Williams begins to shrink in size. A film that is as much an effects tour-de-force as it is an existential allegory about a man in an alien universe
The Ghost and Mrs Muir (1947)
One of the most beautiful of all 1940s light fantasy films about the sweet and tender relationship between widow Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison as the ghost of the sea captain in the house she moves into
Hush … Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964)
Robert Aldrich’s successor to What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? with Bette Davis on the receiving end this time. This is arguably a superior film with a tightly contorted psycho-thriller plot and a decaying Southern setting
Everyone Says I Love You (1996)
Woody Allen makes a musical. It is Allen in a much lighter mood than he was in the early 1990s and the film comes with some appealingly eccentric and often downright surreal touches
Hyper Sapien: People from Another Star (1986)
This is a derivative and dull copy of E.T. about two alien kids and pet who run away from their family on The Moon and found by a teenage cowboy on a ranch in rural Wyoming
House of the Long Shadows (1983)
Cannon Films make an Old Dark House film that brings together an aging Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Vincent Price and John Carradine. This denoted the end of the Anglo-horror era but is not nearly as worthy as you feel it should have been
The Illustrated Man (1969)
An anthology that adapts three stories from Ray Bradbury’s short story collection but does so with singularly heavy-handed regard. The best aspect of the film is the framing story with a brooding Rod Steiger in the title role.
Twins of Evil (1971)
The third and best of Hammer’s Karnstein trilogy, which features twin sisters Madeline and Mary Collinson as vampires. This works due to a strong hand from director John Hough and Peter Cushing on fine form as a witchfinder
Independence Day (1996)
The film that made Roland Emmerich’s name as a specialist in mass destruction spectacle. At heart, this rehashes a 1950s alien invasion film on a big-budget and adds blatantly sentimentalised American flag-waving
Steel (1997)
Widely ridiculed adaptation of the DC Comics superhero featuring Shaquille O’Neal that slips down to a simplistic level of Saturday morning cartoons inanity
Fatal Instinct (1993)
An occasionally amusing Airplane-styled spoof of film noir and psycho-thrillers, including parodies of then recent films like Basic Instinct and Fatal Attraction, among others
Phenomenon (1996)
Positive upbeat film in which John Travolta gains a supermind after seeing a light in the sky. For all its featuring a man with superior intellectual abilities, this is ironically a film that deals in simplistic black-and-whites
Daredevil (2003)
One of the early efforts among the surge of Marvel Comics adaptations on the big screen in the early 2000s. A disappointing adaptation that feels more like a series of posed comic-book panels than it ever does a movie
Cybertech P.D. (1995)
At face value, this seems to be no more than a Lorenzo Lamas action film for video release, but it surprises one and becomes a quite reasonable Cyberpunk film that conducts a smart airing of the tropes
Kaos (1984)
An anthology adapted from the stories of Sicilian writer Luigi Pirandello directed by the Taviani Brothers. The stories include a werewolf episode and a ghost story
Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959)
The success of Disney’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea created a spate of Jules Verne’s adaptation. Here Verne’s tale of explorers in an underground realm has been turned into an absurdly colourful adventure
Howling IV: The Original Nightmare (1988)
The Howling was a witty and genre savvy werewolf film; this is one of several all-terrible sequels. The plot tiresomely rehashes the first film and the only point of note are the variably effective wolf transformation effects
Watership Down (1978)
Neglected today, this adaptation of Richard Adams’ classic novel about a quest among rabbits was one of the finest animated films of its era. This is frequently heartbreaking and touches on darker emotions that Disney and most other family films regularly sanitise.
Cop (1988)
A James Ellroy-adapted crime thriller with James Woods giving a very disturbed performance as an unhinged detective on the trail of a serial killer
The Nature of the Beast (1995)
From Jeepers Creepers director Victor Salva, a gripping road movie thriller that owes somewhat to The Hitcher with a series of psychological games between Lance Henriksen and hitcher Eric Roberts where we can never be sure what is what
The Dentist (1996)
Brian Yuzna plays on everybody’s fear of the dentist in this outrageously nasty film top-lining Corbin Bernsen in wildly over-the-top mode as a psychopathic dentist amid a series of imaginatively sadistic dental-themed dispatches
Faust: Love of the Damned (2000)
Brian Yuzna’s adaptation of the cult comic-book is a disappointment that has tamed down any of the censorship-pushing controversy the original had and emerges as no more than a standard dark avenging superhero film
The Humanoid (1979)
One of several cheap Italian copies that were made after the success of Star Wars starring Richard Kiel as a peaceful intergalactic police inspector who is mutated into a killer humanoid
Shaolin Soccer (2001)
Hilarious Stephen Chow directed/starring film where he parodies The Matrix et al with Buddhist monks using flying martial arts moves to aid a failing soccer team
Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
Classic film and one of Roman Polanski’s finest works, the comically paranoid story of a housewife who increasingly comes to believe that the child she is pregnant with was fathered by The Devil
The Ice Pirates (1984)
A space opera that was made in the aftermath of Star Wars. It is a magpie collage of influences that are not always the most coherently presented and given a comic emphasis
The House of Seven Corpses (1973)
Film with an interesting B movie cast line-up where a film crew inadvertently end up enacting rituals from a book that resurrect a corpse while shooting at a mansion
The Running Man (1987)
This adapts one of Stephen King’s Richard Bachman novels but the book is sidelined to become an Arnold Schwarzenegger action comic-book on the oft-used theme of a future where people compete in televised gladiatorial games
Hudson Hawk (1991)
Madcap slapstick caper comedy with Bruce Willis as a cat burglar. This was a massive box-office flop at the time but remains a lunatically out-of-control mess that is frequently hilarious
Ghost Ship (1952)
From the era of the quota quickie, this is a dreary British ghost story about a couple who buy a yacht before realising it is haunted. From Anglo-horror director Vernon Sewell.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
An absolute horror classic, a film that has been conceived as a harrowing assault on one’s nerves. This has become a landmark genre classic and led to numerous sequels and copies but rarely any that matched the original
Destination Moon (1950)
The film that started the great 1950s age of science fiction. A bold exciting work from George Pal and Robert Heinlein that says the Moon is our to conquer and lays out a credible road map about how to do so
Solaris (2002)
Steven Soderbergh’s English-language remake of Andrei Tarkovsky’s epic SF film. Soderbergh trims Tarkovsky’s long-windedness and makes the plot tighter, more intimate but this still emerges as a lesser version than the original
Jungle Book (1942)
Lush and beautifully produced live-action adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s Mowgli stories. In comparison to the studio backlot Tarzan films of the era, this is in colour, builds entire jungle sets and even goes on location in India
The Adventures of Pluto Nash (2002)
Huge flop comedy for Eddie Murphy in which he plays a nightclub owner on The Moon. There is an almost good SF film hiding inside and depiction of a surprisingly detailed Lunar culture but the unnfunny comedy elements kill it
The Power (1968)
The second-to-last film produced by the legendary George Pal, concerning people hunted by a psychic supermind
Knights (1993)
Another of Albert Pyun’s post-apocalyptic kickboxing cyborg films. The film consists of almost nothing but action scenes as pint-size Kathy Long and a cyborg Kris Kristofferson battle warlord Lance Henriksen
Rope (1948)
Alfred Hitchcock conducts an experiment in shooting a film in only eight takes. Based on the true-life Leopold-Lowe case where two gay students murdered a child as an exercise in moral superiority.
The Night Has Eyes (1942)
James Mason stars as a brooding composer who may be a murderer in this Gothic thriller
Bloodstone: Subspecies II (1993)
The second in a series of low-budget vampire films from Charles Band and Full Moon Productions. Nothing much to write home about.
On the Nose (2001)
Irish-made comedy with Robbie Coltrane who has a Aborigine head in a jar that can predict horse races
Bram Stoker’s Legend of the Mummy (1997)
Low-budget and cheap looking adaptation of a lesser-known Bram Stoker novel The Jewel of the Seven Stars. This was clearly made to capitalise on Stoker’s name following the success of Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Wilder Napalm (1993)
Quirkily eccentric comedy written by Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan about two feuding brothers with pyrokinetic abilities
Horror Hospital (1973)
Bizarre entry from the Anglo-horror cycle with Michael Gough as a mad scientist creating zombies and driving a deadly armoured Rolls Royce
House of Darkness (1947)
A minor British ghost story about a composer who looks in and sees the lives of the inhabitants of a haunted house replayed. This comes with some modest effect
The Hills Have Eyes Part II (1985)
Wes Craven makes a sequel to his earlier Backwoods Brutality classic but the result is a mess that is all over the place and counts as one of Craven’s worst films
From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money (1999)
The first of two video-released sequels to From Dusk Till Dawn, this spins the premise to have a group of robbers at siege from police inside a bank vault as they are attacked by vampires
The Golden Child (1986)
One of Hollywood’s misguided attempts to appropriate the Wu Xia film. This is turned into an Eddie Murphy comedy vehicle where neither his live wire presence nor the fantasy elements gel together
How I Won the War (1967)
A World War II comedy from Richard Lester that heads into a wild absurdism, a film that is both brilliant and numbingly noisy. Most did not get the surreal blacker-than-black tone and the film was not a success
Thunderbirds Are Go (1966)
The first of the films spun off from Gerry Anderson’s cult puppet tv series. Not a completely successful transition but it is, as always with an Anderson production, worth watching for what the Andersons do best – making amazing models and blowing them up
The Howling II (1985)
The first of a string of bad follow-ups to Joe Dante’s classic. Sybil Danning plays the werewolf queen and displays her impressive chest measurements, while Christopher Lee was somehow persuaded to appear
Willard (1971)
Fine little tale of an introverted man who befriends a horde of rats and uses these to gain comeuppance. A hit that presaged a host of Animals Attack films throughout the 1970s.
Nothing But the Night (1972)
The one and only film produced by Christopher Lee’s production company, this sets up an interesting premise about a mysterious orphanage but fails to quite make it work
Queen of Blood (1966)
Another of Roger Corman’s films reusing footage from Soviet SF films. Director Curtis Harrington gives the tale of a spaceship crew who bring on board an alien vampire woman an eerie otherworldliness
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)
Disney’s adaptation of Jules Verne’s novel is a lavishly produced period adventure. This became the definitive version of the book and inspired a string of other period-set Verne adaptations over the next decade
Martians Go Home (1990)
A majorly unfunny film about the arrival of aliens in Hawaiian shirts that do bad stand-up comedy routines and tell everybody’s embarrassing secrets
The Ring (2002)
This is the English-language version of the Japanese horror Ring and actually a much better and far spookier film, where the new script gives the story more depth
Prehysteria! 2 (1994)
The second and worst of Albert and Charles Band’s dinosaur films made for children, this suffers from the most pitiful and immobile effects of any film of the era
Love and Death (1975)
Rather funny Woody Allen film where he takes to spoofing Russian literature and does some hilarious visual gags and one-liners. Comes with minor fantasy elements including spoofing The Seventh Seal
Lord of Illusions (1995)
Clive Braker’s third and final outing as a director. Barker is trying to tell an occult detective story but fails to get any of the mood that film noir operates by
Casper Meets Wendy (1998)
The second of the video-released sequels to Casper where this time he crosses over to meet Wendy the Good Little Witch as played by Hilary Duff
The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973)
The eight of Hammer’s Dracula, the second-to-last they would make and the last featuring Christopher Lee. This follows on from the previous film Dracula A.D. 1972 in featuring Dracula in the present day and at least does more with the idea than that film did
Monkey Shines (1988)
Disappointing George Romero film about a paraplegic man’s psychic link with his monkey that then comes to enact his suppressed anger. A fine idea drowns in shrill moral characterisations.
The Silencers (1966)
The first and probably the least worst in a series of James Bond copycat films starring Dean Martin as agent Matt Helm. Martin plays the part as a tipsy lounge lizard and the film comes stuffed with excruciating double entendres
The Missing (2003)
Ron Howard makes a Western that has some horror overtones featuring an evil Indian sorcerer. In the hands of a classic director like John Ford this could have been an epic work but Howard’s plodding predictability kills interest
Fist of the North Star (1995)
The live-action English-language adaptation of the Japanese manga/anime that comes off as a muddled post-holocaust action film that doesn’t know what it wants to be
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.
Monster on the Campus (1958)
One of Jack Arnold’s lesser films, a Jekyll and Hyde story where a scientist finds himself reveting to a caveman after scraping his hand on a prehistoric coelacanth
Robot Jox (1990)
Stuart Gordon, the cult director of Re-Animator, turns his hand to making a live-action Transformers film way back before anybody had ever head the name Michael Bay
And Soon the Darkness (1970)
Overlooked psycho-thriller from Robert Fuest, director of the Dr Phibes films, about a girl whose friend goes missing while on a cycling tour through France. Fuest does an great job in making the French countryside into something sinister
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
Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park (1978)
A Hanna-Barbera film based around 70s rock group Kiss where they are cast as superheroes fighting a mad scientist who operates from an amusement park with an army of android duplicates
Mad Max (1979)
The first of the Mad Max films and a considerable jolt if one comes to it after any of the sequels. This is an altogether different film – a grim and violent road movie more in the vein of Death Wish
Carry On Spying (1964)
This was the eighth of the Carry On films. The popular British comedy series turn their bawdy sights to conducting a spoof the James Bond film during the height of the spy movie fad
The Hills Have Eyes (1977)
The second film from Wes Craven, a classic in the 1970s Backwoods Brutality cycle with a family stranded in the desert as they come under attack from a family of cannibals lurking in the hills
High Spirits (1988)
Neil Jordan has shown himself as an excellent director elsewhere but seems to have little aptitude for comedy when it comes to this raucous knockabout farce about a haunted castle
The Vault of Horror (1973)
The second of Amicus Films’ adaptations from EC Comics, a follow-up to their earlier Tales from the Crypt and one of their weaker horror anthologies with the episodes much more variable in overall quality
Tommy (1975)
Ken Russell’s adaptation of The Who’s hit album is filled with gloriously mad, glitter rock excess and wildly over the top acting in the ways that only Russell ever managed
Horror Express (1972)
Wonderfully madcap film with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing travelling aboard the Trans-Siberian Express in the 1900s realising they are facing a body-hopping alien
Hot to Trot (1988)
An excruciating comedy built out of the basics of Mr Ed where Bobcat Goldthwait gives an imbecilic performance as an idiot who inherits a talking horse
Vampirella (1996)
Disappointingly tatty rendering of the famous comic-book strip as a low-budget Roger Corman production. Vampirella is missing her distinctive costume and Talisa Soto comes nowhere near the comic-book character’s statuesque voluptuousness
Ghost Ship (2002)
This was a big-budget revival of the ghost ship theme by Dark Castle Entertainment about a salvage crew encountering a ghost vessel. Visual effects tend to trump spooky atmosphere
The Thief of Baghdad (1978)
The fourth film version of the Arabian Nights adventure, a tv movie released theatrically in some parts.
The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984)
The third Muppets film, the last Jim Henson would be involved with, this shows them putting on a Broadway show
The Oracle (1953)
British quota quickie, a comedy about a man who discovers an oracle in a well that gives him tips on horse races
Prehysteria! (1993)
In the aftermath of the success of Jurassic Park, Albert and Charles Band quickly responded with this children’s dinosaur film that contains some of the most pitiful effects in any film of this era
Mother’s Boys (1994)
Thriller with Jamie Lee Curtis as a psychopathic mother determined to get her boys back from her ex
Deep Rising (1998)
Early Stephen Sommers film that feels like it has been mounted as Alien meets Titanic. Between the ridiculous one-dimensional writing and Sommers’ CGI overkill, this heads well into bad movie material
Death Machine (1995)
One really good killer robot film, featuring a lethal non-humanoid machine and directed with a ferociity that resembles the best of James Cameron. This has similarities to Hardware that came out earlier
Dead Air (1994)
Psycho-thriller with Gregory Hines as a radio talkback host dealing with a psychopathic caller who plays a series of taunting games with him
The Nutty Professor (1963)
Jerry Lewis is either a low him or hate him figure; whatever the case, one should give this, his best film, a chance … It is Lewis offering his own comedic spin on the Jekyll/Hyde story, which contains a great performance on his part as he swings between a socially inept nerd and smooth lounge singer
Quatermass and the Pit (1967)
The third and in the opinion of many the best of Hammer’s Quatermass films in which Nigel Kneale introduces a conceptually wild array of ideas about Martians, race memory, psychic powers and The Devil
Whale Rider (2002)
Magical Realist tale set among New Zealand’s native Maori peoples concerning a young girl’s cautious defiance of traditions
Institute Benjamenta; or This Dream People Call Human Life (1995)
A cryptic surrealist full-length film from The Brothers Quay set at an enigmatic butler training school. Beautifully designed and photographed.
Diabolique (1996)
Les Diaboliques is one of the great all-time thrillers. This remake, designed to highlight a post-Basic Instinct Sharon Stone, is an abortion that rewrites the classic twist ending for something upbeat
Savage (1995)
Bizarrely incomprehensible film from Avi Nesher set in a Cyberpunk future in which Olivier Gruner is turned into a Neanderthal superhuman by aliens living in cyberspace
Hero and the Terror (1988)
One of Chuck Norris’s action films made for Cannon Films during his 1980s heyday. This is a rather forgettable police procedural where Chuck is cast as a detective hunting an escaped serial killer
Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II (1987)
Unrelated in any way to the slasher film Prom Night, this plants tongue in cheek as it tries to imitate the A Nightmare on Elm Street films in its story of a vengeful undead prom queen