The Wild Robot (2024)
A winning animated film about a robot trying to find its way among the animals on an island. Tender and heart-warming, the sort of film that Pixar used to do so well
Speak No Evil (2024)
The Danish original was a darkly brilliant film about guests in a home of people who step over boundaries. This is the English-language remake from Blumhouse that lacks the same dark bite
Mistress Frankenstein (2000)
The Frankenstein film, which deals with grave robbing and hideously scarred corpses, seems an unlikely choice for adult movie treatment. This is one of the offerings
Cerebrum (2022)
A young man recuperates from a brain injury while tended by his father. As he tries to piece together what happened, we discover we are in the midst of a Frankenstein-type film
Ripper Untold (2021)
Another take on the Jack the Ripper murders that has been conducted on a low-budget. This is not uninteresting but the ‘untold’ part of the title is an untrue claim
Pyewacket (2017)
Chillingly effective film where a teenage girl casts a spell to kill her mother, only to become terrified and try to turn back what she has unleashed
Alienoid: Return to the Future (2024)
The second part of the Korean time-hopping/alien invasion film where many of the plot strands from the extremely confusing first film are at least wrapped up
Alienoid (2022)
A South Korean SF film that comes with a wide canvas involving alien invasion, time hopping between two eras and some epic action in possibly one of the most head-scratching plots seen in some time
You Can’t Run Forever (2024)
The 2020s have seen a surprise upsurge in films about people being pursued by attackers. This is another about a teen girl flees pursued by a J.K. Simmons as a business professor who suddenly goes psycho
Joker: Folie a Deux (2024)
Joker was a huge hit with Joaquin Phoenix winning an Academy Award for his role. This sequel emerged to very mixed reception, partly due to its rejection of the first film and then heading off to become a musical
Transformers One (2024)
Since Michael Bay retired from the series, The Transformers films have been looking for new directions. This ventures into animation to tell a Transformers origin story
Horny Teenagers Must Die! (2024)
A slasher film that certainly grabs your attention with a sensationalistic title. While not without occasional amusements, this is mostly amateurish
Pillow Party Massacre (2023)
A well made tribute to the 1980s slasher film with characterisations and performances that make much rounded characters than usual
Dream a Little Dream (1989)
One of the forgotten entries in the mid-1980s spate of bodyswap comedies where elderly Jason Robards finds himself in teenager Corey Feldman’s body. This suffers from a very confused script
Never Let Go (2024)
Alexandre Aja film with Halle Berry and sons at a cabin in the woods facing an evil force outside. A work that screws with what we think is going on
Satan’s Little Helper (2004)
From Jeff Lieberman, a wonderfully malicious film where a young kid befriends and ends up aiding a serial killer on Halloween
Natty Knocks (2023)
A Halloween horror from a director with a reasonable genre association, this establishes its genre bona fides but then shoots itself in the foot
L’Atlantide (1921)
The first and best film version of a classic story about an expedition finding the city ruled by an immortal queen in the desert. This was shot in the real locations and comes with a stunning sense of expansiveness
The Return of Dr Mabuse (1961)
The first of five West German-made sequels featuring Fritz Lang’s great criminal mastermind Dr Mabuse, who this time is masterminding a plot to create mind controlled zombies
All You Need is Death (2023)
A unique and original Irish variant on the Folk Horror genre about a couple who become wound up into the obsessive quest for a cursed folk song and the effect it has
Alien: Romulus (2024)
Despite a director that has spent a career making bad sequels to other people’s franchises, you have to admit this is an Alien sequel emerges better than you expect it to do
The Substance (2024)
An absurdly over-the-top film where aging Demi Moore takes a serum that turns her into a youthful Margaret Qualley. A ridiculous film that for some reason did well at awards season
G-Loc (2020)
SF film with Stephen Moyer as a spaceship survivor who boards a ship with the crew mysteriously dead and becomes caught up in interplanetary politicking
The Apocalypse (1997)
The title is a cheat as this is not about the End of the World, merely a film about a spaceship on a collision course with Earth. Essentially Die Hard aboard a spaceship
Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? (1972)
From the great and overlooked Curtis Harrington, a Grand Old Dames film with Shelley Winters going mad in the Baby Jane vein. This also becomes a modernised retelling of Hansel and Gretel
Homunculus (1916)
Fascinating silent German serial undeniably influenced by the Frankenstein story about an artificial being who proves soulless, swears vengeance against his creator and becomes a dictator
#ShakespearesShitstorm (2020)
Troma launch into their parody of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, producing what may be their bad taste masterpiece to date
Robot Dreams (2023)
An utterly charming film, all told without dialogue, about a dog living in 1980s New York who purchases a robot as its new best friend
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024)
After 36 years and several abortive attempts, Tim Burton, Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder reunite to make a sequel to Beetlejuice, but the essentials that fired up the young Burton now feel as they come by the numbers
Hellboy: The Crooked Man (2024)
After a disastrous reboot of the Hellboy franchise, Millennium Media get it right, employing the comic’s creator on script, taking the series into wild directions with Hellboy up against Appalachian folk horrors
The Shadow of the Cat (1961)
A film from the early days of the Anglo-Horror cycle about the greedy relatives seeking a will being killed by a possibly supernatural cat
Perceval le Gallois (1978)
From Eric Rohmer, a director of the French New Wave, an adaptation of stories from the Arthurian legends, made in a decidedly eccentric style
The Stolen Airship (1967)
Another of the delightful Steampunk adventures from Karel Zeman that blend animation and live-action in unique ways
Terrifier (2016)
A variation on the killer clown film that does rack up quite a degree of tension and pushes the material for something edgy. A popular hit that has produced two sequels.
Appendage (2023)
In a similar vein to James Wan’s Malignant, a film with a heroine who has a malignant twin force its way out of a wound in her side and proceed to take over her life
Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)
In his third cinematic outing, Deadpool gets into the multiverse game, creating a hilarious team-up with Wolverine and a crossover with an assortment of other cancelled Marvel franchises
Salem’s Lot (2024)
The Stephen King novel about a small town that is invaded by a vampire and is population taken gets its third screen adaptation in this film treatment. The 1979 mini-series is still the best version
Premonition (1972)
The first film from the acclaimed Alan Rudolph, a hippie era nightmare where smoking marijuana causes people to have disturbing visions of sinister figures
Moonchild (1972)
A film about strange happenings at a mission where all the characters may be reincarnations. A film of the hippie era that gets lost in mysticism and trippiness
Delirium (1987)
The great Mario Bava was the man who essentially created the giallo film. Here his son Lamberto makes an entry, which rehashes much of Mario’s seminal Blood and Black Lace, albeit more crudely
Lu Over the Wall (2017)
An appealingly charming anime about the friendship between a lonely boy and a mermaid. She gains legs whenever music is playing and they form a pop band together
Stalker (1979)
One of the greatest of all SF films from Andrei Tarkovsky about a mysterious zone filled with enigmatic alien phenomena at the centre of which exists a room that can grant one’s heart’s desire
Breathe (2024)
Film set in a harsh future as people struggle to survive in a world where oxygen supplies have been reduced to near zero. An okay film that suffers from an implausible premise
Apartment 7A (2024)
Did we need a prequel to the events of Rosemary’s Baby? The original one of the defining classics of the horror genre. Under producer Michael Bay Apartment 7A is just more IP churn
In a Violent Nature (2024)
A uniquely original film. Almost an arthouse take on a slasher film where we are placed in the hulking killer’s shoes and the rest of the show takes place in abstract brushstrokes
I Came By (2022)
Form the fine and underrated Babak Anvari, a tight thriller about a duo of graffiti artists who get more than they planned for when they break into the home of a psycho Hugh Bonneville
Hounded (2022)
Another variant on The Most Dangerous Game scenario. This has the amusing idea that the British aristocracy, having had fox hunts cancelled on them, have taken up hunting the working class and immigrants
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
Murder in Space (1985)
TV movie that had a unique selling point – a whodunit set aboard an international space mission – where viewers were invited to guess who the killer was
The Laughing Dead (1989)
A crazed Evil Dead-styled film directed by sf/horror writer S.P. Somtow about modern-day Aztec sacrifices, this makes a beeline for bizarrely over-the-top gore effects
The Long Shadow (2023)
An exhaustive and very accurately detailed tv mini-series based around the Yorkshire Ripper, a serial killer who targeted prostitutes in the north of England between 1975 and 1981
Afraid (2024)
The first film to come out following the advent of generative A.I. From American Pie director Chris Weitz, an evil A.I. film that arrives with all the hysteria of villagers with burring torches in a Frankenstein film
Hell Hole (2024)
The Adams Family have been one of the most interesting creative talents in recent years – a family who perform all the functions on their films. Here they reinvent the Alien-inspired monster movie with highly entertaining results
Who is Bill Rebane? (2021)
A fascinating documentary devoted to a largely forgotten B-budget sf/horror director and his body of films
Rondo and Bob (2020)
A documentary about Rondo Hatton, the 1940s horror actor who suffered acromegaly, and Robert Burns, the eccentric art director from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
Infestation (2009)
A throwback to the 1950s giant bug film, a humorous effort with a group of people trying to survive in the aftermath of an insect invasion. From Mel Gibson’s production company, no less!
Attack of the 50 Foot Camgirl (2022)
B budget director Jim Wynorski makes another of his bimbo films, a parody of Attack of the 50 Foot Woman where a cam girl is turned giant size after eating GMO food
Portals (2019)
Produced by Bloody Disgusting, an anthology from different directors about a series of mysterious alien portals that appear around the world
Trunk (2023)
Gripping German thriller with a woman abducted and imprisoned in a car trunk. Like Buried, this takes place entirely inside the trunk with her using her phone to try to get help
The Crow (2024)
The original The Crow is a cult classic. This long-planned remake from the perpetually terrible Rupert Sanders was an ill-advised move from every angle that gets just about everything from the mood to the conception of its character wrong
Starve Acre (2023)
Another entry in the popular Folk Horror revival of the 2020s, this is a superb slow burn film that operates essentially as a British Pet Sematary
Lady, Stay Dead (1981)
An Australian psycho film that gained a fascination, being called sleazy and sordid upon its release. Which of course makes it a must see for Moria
Out of the Body (1989)
A cheapie from cult Ozploitation director Brian Trenchard-Smith about a man having clairvoyant visions of an astral killer
Body Count (1986)
The director of the notorious Cannibal Holocaust, Ruggero Deodato, takes on making a slasher film. This seems full of possibilities but the results treads familiar ground
Atragon (1963)
Ishiro Honda, the director of Godzilla, makes a colourful dventure film about a super-submarine battling an undersea empire in the vein of other works of the era like Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
Battle for Pandora (2022)
The Asylum’s mockbuster take on Avatar: The Way of Water, which ingeniously exploits the fact that Saturn has a moon called Pandora. The rest is a low-budget body snatchers film
Attack on Titan (2022)
Not to be confused with the Japanese manga/anime of the same name, this is a space opera from The Asylum, which boasts some very good effects on a budget
Baghead (2023)
Horror film about a mysterious creature in the cellar with a bag over its head that can bring a dead loved one back to life for two minutes, but where use of this comes with a price
Borderlands (2024)
Eli Roth adapts the popular videogame and corrals a surprisingly high-profile cast in a knockabout planetary adventure. Alas, that met a very mixed reception and was widely regarded as a bad movie
Kinds of Kindness (2024)
Yorgos Lanthimos has become a critically celebrated name in recent years. Here he has made an anthology of three surreal tales that come in his customary black deadpan
The Visitor (2022)
Blumhouse production where Finn Jones moves to a small town and finds the portrait of the town’s founder is a ringer for him
Evil Altar (1988)
A low-budget 80s film about a town where the locals are in thrall to a Satanist who has demanded the souls of 103 children
Zombie Women of Satan (2009)
A WTF am I watching film where a performing freakshow troupe led by Pervo the Clown are pursued around a farm by topless zombie women
Prodigy (2017)
An excellent film about a psychologist sent in to assess a child who reveals phenomenal intelligence and psychic powers
Death Rider in the House of Vampires (2021)
Punk/metal rocker Glenn Danzig directs his own film, a vampire Western. This comes filled an amazing line-up of genre cameos, while Danzig casts himself as a bad-ass vampire outlaw
Aporia (2023)
Excellent low-key time travel film where Judy Greer is faced with the choice of eliminating the drunk driver who killed her husband from the timeline – only to end up with unexpected results
Trap (2024)
M. Night Shyamalan film with Josh Hartnett as a serial killer caught up in a police sting being held at a rock concert
Doctor Jekyll (2023)
The revived Hammer Films takes on adapting Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde with Eddie Izzard playing the role as a trans woman. This offers some amusing modernisations of the familiar, oft-filmed story
Guardians of the Tomb (2018)
A tomb raiding adventure about the venture into a tomb filled with deadly spiders in search of an immortality serum. A Chinese-Australian-co-production.
The Curse of the Mayans (2017)
Film about an expedition through the jungles of the Yucatan to investigate a Mayan pyramid that is revealed to contain alien artefacts. This ventures well inside wacky fringe science theories
Live Animals (2008)
A film made not long after the advent of the Torture Porn fad in which a group of friends are imprisoned on a farm to be broken and sold into slavery
Stripped (2013)
A Found Footage film where a group on a party weekend to Las Vegas call a brothel that promises to do anything – only to enter into full Hostel territory
Sole Survivor (1970)
One of the most original variants on the deathdream film where pilots crashed in the desert come to the realisation they are dead
Disquiet (2023)
Jonathan Rhys Meyers wakes up in a hospital as strange hallucinatory and nightmarish things start to happen. The fact that this is a deathdream film becomes very obvious
The Breach (2022)
Rodrigo Gudiño, editor of Rue Morgue magazine, directs a horror film with strong Lovecraftian overtones about a portal opened at a mysterious cabin in the woods
Lord of Misrule (2023)
William Brent Bell, director of The Devil Inside and The Boy, makes a Folk Horror film. This borrows much from The Wicker Man and only seems Folk Horror by cliche
Inside Out 2 (2024)
Inside Out, set around the personified emotions in a girl’s head, was one of the breaths of fresh air among Pixar’s slip into terminal sequelitis during the 2010s. Now it gets its own sequel
Longlegs (2024)
Osgood Perkins has been a director on the rise in recent years. This was his fourth film where he makes a serial killer thriller featuring a verrrry weird Nicolas Cage in the title role
Space Wars: Quest for the Deepstar (2022)
An enjoyable low-budget modern space opera that ably conjures the knockabout spirit of a host of low-budget 1980s Star Wars knockoffs
The Galaxy Destroyer (1986)
An ultra low-budget film about a man on a space journey returning to Earth to find it invaded by aliens. This tries to do Mad Max and Star Wars on the budget of about $1.99
Watchers II (1990)
The first of three sequels to the Dean R. Koontz adaptation about an intelligent dog, although for each sequel producer Roger Corman has just remade the book
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 History of Metal and Horror (2022)
A documentary that explores the intersection between heavy metal music and horror and the frequently intertwined relationship of the two
Hundreds of Beavers (2022)
A completely madcap gonzo comedy that all takes place without dialogue, the live-action equivalent of a Looney Tunes cartoon. One of the most unique and creative films I have seen in some time
Twisters (2024)
Sequel to Twister, the Michael Crichton written film about tornado chasers, this updates the story to the 21st Century and aims for much more in the way of mass destruction spectacle
Watchmen: Chapter I (2024)
An animated adaptation of Alan Moore’s classic, genre defining comic-book, this is the most faithful treatment to date
Dorian (2003)
A modernised version of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray where a male model transfers his image to a photograph that ages while he remains immortal
Golem (1980)
Not an adaptation of the oft-filmed story from Jewish legend about the creation of a creature of clay but a Polish SF film set in a slightly dystopian future featuring the possible creation of artificial people
Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan (2011)
A documentary devoted to the life and films of stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen whose films, which include the Sinbad films and Jason and the Argonauts, have gained a cult following
Babycall (2011)
Pål Sletaune is a Norwegian director who deserves more attention for his reality-bending surrealism. Here mother Noomi Rapace moves into new apartment where ghostly screams come through the baby monitor and she soon finds that she cannot be sure what is real