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)
A 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 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)
A psycho-thriller in which Jamie Lee Curtis is cast as a psychopathic mother who is determined to get her boys back from her ex, even exhorting to murder to do so
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
The Hitcher (1986)
One of the best horror films of the 1980s, a grippingly suspenseful work where C. Thomas Howell is caught in a series of taunting psychological games across the interstate after offering psychopathic hitcher Rutger Hauer a ride
I Spy (2002)
Painfully unfunny big screen revival of the 1960s spy tv series. This has been reduced to a series of plotless gags that involve Eddie Murphy and Owen Wilson doing nothing except bickering with each other
The Spirit of the Beehive (1974)
Visually extraordinary Coming of Age story set during the Spanish Civil War in which a young girl imagines seeing the Frankenstein monster
Saint Clara (1996)
Israeli film co-directed by Ari Folman about a girl with precognitive powers. After a great opening, the film loses all real dramatic impetus
High Plains Drifter (1973)
A Clint Eastwood directed/starring Western in which he plays a gunslinger who turns up in a town and exposes the guilty secrets of the townspeople in what is eventually revealed to be a supernatural twist
The Heavenly Kid (1985)
Lightweight fantasy film with Lewis Smith as a 1950s rocker who is sent back from the afterlife to act as a guardian angel to help a nerdy Jason Gedrick stand up for himself
Mouse on the Moon (1963)
Charming sequel to The Mouse That Roared where the world’s smallest country decides to launch a mission to the Moon and accidentally end up winning the Space Race
Da (1988)
Charming work of autobiography filled with some great performances in which Martin Sheen remembers his childhood in Ireland with an irascible father. Also a ghost story.
The Outsider (1996)
Low-budget film that steals the premise of Westworld in the story of an amusement park that recreates the world of 1940s film noir with androids, which proceed to go amok
New Eden (1994)
SF film with Stephen Baldwin sentenced to life on a prison planet where he becomes saviour to a small peaceful community
The Legend of Hell House (1973)
While holding similarities to The Haunting, this is a strong, intelligent film about parapsychologists investigating a haunted house. Filled with eerie scares and a standout Richard Matheson script
2103: The Deadly Wake (1996)
Low-budget SF film about a ship at sea carrying a cargo of convicts, toxic waste, a deadly virus and a killer android
The Manitou (1978)
The one moment of triumph from director William Girdler about a resurrected Indian medicine man. Girdler creates something incredibly eerie that blends H.P. Lovecraft and American Indian mysticism
Rock and Rule (1983)
Promisingly ambitious animated SF film that tries to catch some of the trippy qualities of Heavy Metal where the impressive quality of animation is let down by a juvenile story about a rock band in a post-holocaust future
Dirty Weekend (1992)
Enjoyably sordid Michael Winner film in which Lia Williams is an woman who starts to eliminate the abusive men in her life. As to be expected with Winner, this gets trashy in quick course
Spider (2002)
David Cronenberg film that subjectively takes place in the mind of mentally ill Ralph Fiennes, a bewildering film with no easy handholds
The Dark Eyes of London (1939)
Adaptation of an Edgar Wallace novel in which Bela Lugosi leads a blind institute whose donors are being murdered. More a crime thriller that has been twisted into being a horror film to fit Lugosi’s presence
Olivier, Olivier (1992)
Agnieszka Holland drama about the sudden return of a boy who went missing several years earlier, although may well be an impostor. Contains minor fantasy elements
Night of the Ghouls (1960/1983)
A once lost Edward D. Wood Jr film with police investigating a fake medium scam being run out of a haunted house
Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)
Werner Herzog conducts a remake of the silent German classic with Klaus Kinski as Dracula. A very different film to the original but quite unique in Herzog’s individualistic way
Nightmare Alley (1947)
Classic film starring Tyrone Power as an ambitious carnival barker who has success with a mind-reader act. Filled with great film noir atmosphere and a doomed sense of fate at play
Our Man Flint (1966)
One of the more amusing of the numerous James Bond copies of the 1960s featuring James Coburn as agent Derek Flint, this plants tongue in cheek and cheerfully spoofs the whole spy fad
Hercules in New York (1970)
A not terribly funny parody of the Italian-made Hercules films of the 1960s. This is mostly known for featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger (billed as Arnold Strong) in his first acting role
The Hidden (1987)
This was a minor cult hit at the time and concerns an alien that hops between human host bodies while having the invincibility of a Terminator. The idea is played with considerable panache and directed with great flair
The Hot Chick (2002)
Adam Sandler produced film that is a variant on the bodyswap standard in which Rob Schneider and Rachel McAdams switch bodies. Much crass humour ensues in between a good-naturedly all-inclusive message
Hello Again (1987)
A frustratingly insipid light fantasy comedy with Shelley Long as a housewife who returns from the dead where she proceeds to turn the life of her family into chaos
Hero (1980)
Adaptation of the Finn Mac Coll legend, filmed in Gaelic with a cast that learned their lines by rote. An interesting idea that suffers a painful amateurism
Strange Days (1995)
A Kathryn Bigelow directed Cyberpunk film scripted by James Cameron concerning an illicit technology that can replay memories. This offers a powerful vision of a socially divided L.A. on the eve of the millennium
The Sound Barrier (1952)
David Lean conducts a fictional account of the efforts to build a plane that breaks the sound barrier
I Can’t Sleep (1994)
Claire Denis makes a film loosely based on the activities of a true-life drag performer/serial killer. However, she seems uninterested in developing plot or suspense
Jason X (2001)
The tenth Friday the 13th film. This tries to add novelty as Jason is thawed out in the future aboard a space station to slaughter anew. Featuring no less than David Cronenberg as a victim
Heaven Only Knows (1947)
A 1940s light fantasy with Robert Cummings as an angel comes down in a Western town to help bad guy outlaw Brian Donlevy redeem his ways
The Scarecrow (1982)
Fine Coming of Age story set in 1950s New Zealand with John Carradine as a sinister stranger come to town
The House in Nightmare Park (1973)
Amidst the Anglo-horror cycle of the 1970s, there was this throwback to the 1940s styled Old Dark House comedy. Made as a vehicle for comedian Frankie Howerd, this only demonstrates how creaky the genre was
Man’s Best Friend (1993)
Film about a dog that has been experimentally crossbred with DNA from other animals that proceeds to go amok. The film proceeds to collapse into the completely ridiculous
Morons from Outer Space (1985)
Comedy about stupid alien visitors largely construed as a vehicle for popular British comedy duo Mel Smith and Griff Rhys-Jones. Some witty SF in-jokes among a haphazard script
Race with the Devil (1975)
This has been conceived as a 1970s car chase film mashed up with the 1970s fad for Satanism and occult where two couples in an RV inadvertently witness a devil worship ceremony and are pursued
Repo Man (1984)
Alex Coz’s surreal cult film with Emilio Estevez as an L.A. punk working as a repo driver who gets wound into the hunt for a car with radioactive aliens in the trunk
Phantasm III (1994)
The third of Don Soscarelli’s Phantasm films reunites many of the regulars and goes some way towards offering explanations for everything
The Land Before Time III: The Time of the Great Giving (1995)
Third of The Land Before Time animated films about talking dinosaurs, made for very young children
Logan’s Run (1976)
Dystopian SF mounted on a big budget by people that don’t have a clue what they are doing. This creates one of prettiest depictions of the future of any film of this era but it is only a surface deep depiction
Killer Tomatoes Eat France (1992)
Fourth and final of the Killer Tomatoes films by which time the slight appeal of the original concept has been well and truly worn out
Dementia 13 (1963)
The second film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, a psycho-thriller made for Roger Corman where Coppola shows the glimmerings of style that made him a major director a decade later
Puppetmaster III: Toulon’s Revenge (1991)
The third of Full Moon’s Puppet Master films, this is a prequel that explores Andre Toulon’s origins in Nazi Germany
Piranha II: Flying Killers (1981)
The film that James Cameron would prefer we forget about. A nominal sequel to Joe Dante’s enjoyable tongue-in-cheek Piranha, this misses that film’s sense of humour and lets the show sink amid absurd effects
Young Frankenstein (1974)
Mel Brooks’ finest moment, a witty stylistic homage to and spoof of the Universal Frankenstein films. A great cast are on perfect form all around.
The Tuxedo (2002)
Part of the sad depths that Jackie Chan’s career sank to after he was discovered by Hollywood. This is a spy film parody where he is a cabbie who places on a hi-tech tuxedo that turns him into a super-agent
Hawk the Slayer (1980)
British-made sword and sorcery adventure in the early 80s fantasy cycle. This suffers from a cheap and impoverished budget that makes everything look tatty
Second Time Lucky (1984)
One of the most excruciatingly painful films ever made – a softcore comedy in which God and The Devil make a bet to replay the Garden of Eden by reincarnating Adam and Eve throughout history. Filled with ghastly over-the-top performances and much eye-rolling innuendo
The Hearse (1980)
Ghost story in which Trish Van Devere moves into her late aunt’s house where she is wooed by a handsome stranger while being haunted by a mysterious hearse
Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
Francois Truffaut adapts Ray Bradbury’s novel about a dystopian future where books are burned. Truffaut finds different things in the story than Bradbury did but creates a beautiful film
Hell Night (1981)
An entry in the 1980s slasher movie fad and featuring Linda Blair. Here a group of students are forced to spend a night in an old dark house. Slightly better than the average
Heaven Can Wait (1943)
An entry in the 1940s light fantasy films in which compulsive womaniser Don Ameche arrives in the afterlife where he tells his life story to The Devil