The Exterminating Angel (1962)
An acclaimed surrealistic film from Luis Buñuel in which a group of people attend an upper-class dinner party but then find themselves inexplicably unable to leave the room
The Hunt for Red October (1990)
The first and best Tom Clancy adaptation about a hi-tech Soviet submarine whose captain goes rogue. Director John McTiernan conducts the undersea maneuverings with gripping psychological tension
Excalibur (1981)
The definitive film version of the Arthurian legends. John Boorman gives us a magnificent and soaring work of beautiful impassioned imagery that delves deep into the rich mythology of the cycle
East of Piccadilly (1940)
An obscure British thriller about murders in an apartment building of eccentric tenants. This turns into something really quite strange
The Electronic Monster (1960)
The very first dreamscape film, prefiguring many other films that have taken up the theme, most notably Inception. By contrast this is a dull affair that lets most of the possibilities slip through its hands.
Dracula (1931)
The classic adaptation of the Bram Stoker novel that made Bela Lugosi into a horror icon and created the image of the vampire in dinner-suit and with East European accent. For all its stature, it is a dull and talky film and Lugosi is overwrought
Faust (1994)
Czech animator Jan Svankmajer offers up his wonderfully bizarre part-live-action, part-Claymation interpretation of the classic story of Faust and his pact with The Devil
Duel (1971)
The first film from Steven Spielberg, a tv movie that was released to theatres. Spielberg demonstrates style to spare in the gripping tale of a lone man on the road who finds himself stalked and followed by a murderous truck
Island of Terror (1966)
Director Terence Fisher made his name at Hammer Films but in the 1960s broke away to make a trilogy of SF films. This features the novelty of a giant virus creature but Fisher fails to generate much suspense
The Eye Creatures (1965)
Larry Buchanan must count as one of the all-time bad movie directors and in this ultra-cheap alien invader film, in itself a remake of Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957), he is true to form
Kiss of the Vampire (1962)
One of the more overlooked of the Hammer vampire films. This doesn’t feature Christopher Lee or Peter Cushing but does some reasonable things in its own right
Resident Evil (2002)
Based on the survival horror videogame, this was the first in a surprisingly popular series of films. It also presaged a major return of the zombie film during the 2000s/10s, even if this only treads where George Romero went better before
The Brave Little Toaster to the Rescue (1997)
The first of two Brave Little Toaster sequels, this plays more along the lines of a regular animated film formula but has its charms
The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars (1997)
Third of the Brave Little Toaster films, this takes the talking appliances to Mars and comes with an appealingly zany sense of humour
The Boston Strangler (1968)
A high-profile studio film based on the real-life Boston Strangler murders. This is liberal with the facts but Tony Curtis giving one of his best performances as Albert DeSalvo
The Seduction (1982)
Ultra-trashy thriller with Morgan Fairchild as a tv newsreader stalked by next-door neighbour Andrew Stevens where she engages in the title seduction to eliminate him. A really bad film
The Watcher in the Woods (1980)
Problem ridden Disney ghost story with a science-fiction rationalisation that never quite comes together on screen
Village of the Damned (1995)
Director John Carpenter did amazing things with his remake of The Thing but was not able to replicate such with his remake of Village of the Damned, which misses the taut atmosphere of the 1960 film
Ewoks and the Marauders of Endor (1986)
Follow-up to The Ewok Adventure, a tv movie released to theatres internationally. This is a better film than its predecessor that even captures something of the Star Wars spirit on occasions
Forbidden Planet (1956)
A classic of 1950s SF that creates one of the most well remembered screen robots. An uncredited adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, there are few other films that devote so much attention to creating a sense of wonder
Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002)
The second of George Lucas’s Stars Wars prequels is no particular improvement. The romance is stiff and awkward, badly written while the effects sequences seem to be running out of new things to do and so just up the scale of what has happened before with so much going on it reaches a point of visual overload
Crime Zone (1989)
A low-budget SF-action film produced by Roger Corman with David Carradine as a police chief in a dystopian future who becomes wound up in the lives of two young lovers on the run
Escape to Witch Mountain (1975)
Disney live-action film with two psi-powered kids on the run. A popular hit that seems to have been mostly construed around a series of novelty effects set-pieces
Tarzan’s Hidden Jungle (1955)
The first of the Gordon Scott Tarzan films although it does little to vary from the well-established formula of the previous eighteen entries
Virtuosity (1995)
Director Brett Leonard started the fascination with Virtual Reality off with The Lawnmower Man but shot himself in the foot with this absurd braindead follow-up in which Denzel Washington pursues a madly OTT Russell Crowe as an android serial killer
Drop Dead Fred (1991)
Sort of Harvey remade by way of Beetlejuice wherein Phoebe Cates’s childhood imaginary companion returns to wreak havoc. A film that makes a beeline for mud-pie throwing and general anarchy
Embrace the Darkness II (2001)
Embrace the Darkness was a surprisingly good work of vampire erotica. This, the first of two sequels, seems more interested in being a horror film than erotica
Spider-Man (2002)
A huge hit and one of the key influences that created the box-office dominance of Marvel Comics in the 2000s/10s. A fine incarnation of the comic-book, Sam Raimi brings it to life with exhilarating web-slinging scenes but overdoes the winsome innocence of Peter Parker
Gwendoline (1984)
From the director of Emmanuelle, this is an adaptation of an adult comic-book that replays the lost city adventure with the addition of a mind-boggling softcore fetishism
Postmortem (1998)
Albert Pyun jumps aboard the post The Silence of the Lambs serial killer thriller fad with a routine that has Charlie Sheen as a writer in Glasgow being taunted by the killer he wrote a book about
The Breed (2001)
A vampire film with an original premise, a buddy cop film where a vampire and human partner are paired together in a world where vampires are revealing their presence to humans for the first time
The Last Starfighter (1984)
One of the sillier films made in the aftermath of Star Wars. It is recycling third hand cliches and reduces these to simplistic fantasies of military heroism for the videogame generation
Solaris (1972)
Called the Russian 2001. Andrei Tarkovsky makes one of the great SF films, a haunting ghost story set on a space station as an alien planet below drives the crew mad with recreated doppelgangers of their loved ones
To Die For (1989)
One of the first of the modern wave of darkly romantic vampire films that became the in-thing in the 1990s. This is occasionally effective but was eclipsed by later entries
Ernest Saves Christmas (1988)
This was the second of Jim Varney’s Ernest P. Worrel comedies. It sees Santa Claus looking for a replacement and Ernest coming to the aid amid a series of comic shenanigans
Electric Dreams (1984)
Lightweight, rather silly effort where Lenny Von Dohlen’s home computer becomes sentient and the two compete for the love of neighbour Virginia Madsen
The Horn Blows at Midnight (1942)
A screwball comedy with Jack Benny as a trumpeter send down from Heaven to Earth to blow the Last Trumpet who ends up getting distracted by a series of comic mishaps
Francis (1950)
This was the first in a series of excruciating comedies that pairs hapless Donald O’Connor with Francis, a talking mule. Six sequels followed
Taxi Driver (1976)
Possibly the best film made by Martin Scorsese. A disturbing vision of urban psychosis set in a morally festering New York City where the psycho, Robert De Niro’s title character who spills over with pent-up violence, actually becomes the hero of the show
Erik the Viking (1989)
Terry Jones of Monty Python fame makes a comedy with Tim Robbins as a non-violent Viking on a quest to bring about Ragnarok. A film that seems to think it is funnier than it ends up being
Dragonfly (2002)
Kevin Costner believes his late wife is trying to communicate with him. Comedy director Tom Shadyac makes his first serious film but it is so respectable and with all the horror element bled out of it as to be dull
Jungle Woman (1944)
The second of Universal’s trilogy that began with Captive Wild Woman, starring the exotic Acquanetta as a woman who transforms into an ape. Mostly routine
Krull (1983)
A big-budget fantasy film made too much in the shadow of Star Wars by people with little understanding of the genre. The fantasy elements feel leaden and fail to take any imaginative flight
Photographing Fairies (1997)
One of two films that came out in 1997 about the Cottingley Fairies Hoax. In comparison to the other, FairyTale: A true Story, this expands the premise out into a remarkable study of altered perception
Arcade (1994)
A quickie effort made by Albert Pyun for Charles Band’s Full Moon Productions to exploit the Virtual Reality themes popularised by The Lawnmower Man, concerning a malevolent VR videogame
2001: A Space Travesty (2000)
Supposedly an Airplane-styled movie parody that takes on 2001: A Space Odyssey (although this soon gets forgotten), this is one of the most painfully unfunny films ever made
18 Again (1988)
One of the spate of 1980s bodyswap comedies a la Big, Vice Versa and Like Father, Like Son in which octogenarian George Burns swaps bodies with his teenage grandson Charlie Schlatter
Melies Cinemagician (2011)
Melies Cinemagician is a special screening of a selection of films from Georges Melies presented by Vancouver’s Vancity Theater to celebrate the 150th anniversary of his birth. The show was a live performance involving a score composed especially for the event, displays of conjuring tricks and a magic lantern show. The same year also saw […]
Earth Girls Are Easy (1989)
Wackily funny SF musical with Jeff Goldblum, Damon Wayans and Jim Carrey as aliens who land in the San Fernando Valley. Directed by Julien Temple with a giddily effervescent silliness
Gamera, The Guardian of the Universe (1995)
Here Shusuke Kaneko revived the Gamera series of the 1960s/70s with a series of stunning effects. The result promptly set a new standard for the Japanese monster movie
Silver Bullet (1985)
Overlooked but not entirely unworthwhile Stephen King adaptation about the hunt for a werewolf preying on a small town
Wrong is Right (1982)
A sprawling international political thriller/satire about stolen nuclear weapons starring Sean Connery as a journalist
Black Friday (1940)
A peculiar mixture of 1940s mad scientist and gangster film in which Boris Karloff transplants a mob boss’s brain into the body of a mild-mannered English professor
Scary Tales (2001)
A low-budget horror anthology that is rough around the edges but shows promise
The Sword and the Sorcerer (1982)
Made on the coat-tails of Conan the Barbarian, this is a low-budget sword and sorcery film that crackles with the essence of Robert E. Howard. The first film from regular genre director Albert Pyun
Moonraker (1979)
The eleventh James Bond film and one that sees that series trying to compete with the success of Star Wars and taking Roger Moore into orbit. One of the most spectacular productions of the series, it is also killed by a cartoonish unserious tone
Earthquake (1974)
Disaster movie in which Los Angeles is devastated by an earthquake Size 7 on the Richter scale. Despite a script by Mario Puzo, author of The Godfather, this is the usual soap opera melodramatics
Fatal Pulse (1987)
Entry in the 1980s slasher fad with a manic killing women at a sorority house that comes with a Jekyll and Hyde rationale. Shabbily made on all counts and often repellent in its nastiness
Thunderbird 6 (1968)
The second of the films spun off from the Gerry Anderson puppet tv series and a much better dramatically sustained film than its predecessor
Wild in the Streets (1968)
Satiric 1960s Youth Revolution film where a rock star becomes US President, reduces the voting age and everyone over thirty is placed in a concentration camp
The Fury (1978)
Brian De Palma returns to psychic powers themes in this successor to Carrie, but this is a much more sprawling and often incoherent narrative with only occasional moments of De Palma’s directorial flourish
Mad Max 2 (1981)
A sequel that makes an extraordinary leap over its predecessor. It created an entire genre of films – even its own design and clothing aesthetic – and is one of the most kinetic, exciting action films ever made
976-Evil (1988)
Riding on his fame as Freddy Krueger in the Elm Street films, actor Robert Englund made his directorial debut here but the film is lumbered with the lame concept of a demonic phone line
Ambition (1991)
Thriller with Lou Diamond Phillips as a writer who manipulates a paroled killer with the intention of driving him to kill again and writing a book about it
King Kong Lives (1986)
Everybody hated the 1976 remake of King Kong but Dino de Laurentiis has the chutzpah to produce a sequel and the results are absolutely awful, full of scenes guaranteed to have an audience rolling in the aisle
Love & Human Remains (1993)
From Denys Arcand, a strong and powerful examination of all differing aspects of sexuality in the 1990s via a crosscut of characters, including a serial killer also in the mix
Lucky Encounter (1992)
A frenetic Hong Kong slapstick comedy about hoodlums trying to obtain a stash of money from a house that is inhabited by a ghost boy
Limit Up (1989)
A VHS era light fantasy Nancy Allen plays a futures trader in Chicago who is offered the chance for business success if she will trade her soul
The Bank (2001)
Smart and intelligent Australian thriller about the invention of a stockmarket prediction formula. This digs its teeth into the banking industry with considerable bite
Kafka (1991)
Steven Soderbergh’s second film was this flop pseudo-biopic that places Franz Kafka (Jeremy Irons) alongside mad scientist elements and German Expressionist homages but fails to find much of Kafka’s paranoid mood
Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn (1983)
Early Charles Band film made in the mid-80s 3D revival fad. A cheap planetary adventure that feels like a collage of other SF films around at the time, most notably Star Wars and Mad Max 2
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
The No 1 cult film of all time, more a phenomenon than a film, a demented glitter rock homage to mad science cinema and 50s sf films run through with celebration of a gender-bender joie de vivre
Crash and Burn (1990)
Charles Band film that gives the impression it is a Transformers-type film. While a Transformer does appear in a few scenes, this settles down to be more of a killer android whodunit.
Cry of the Bewitched (1956)
Fascinatingly torrid Mexican-made film about voodoo, which prefigures much of The Serpent and the Rainbow with striking effect
First Knight (1995)
A version of the Arthurian legends that has stripped out Merlin and all of the magic and mounted it as an historical romance. With Sean Connery as King Arthur and Richard Gere as Lancelot
Dracula (1979)
Lushly produced, big-budget adaptation of Bram Stoker starring Frank Langella that places much more of a romantic emphasis on the story than any other version. Here is the beginning of the darkly romantic vampire film
Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)
Superb adaptation of the George Orwell novel that was actually shot in the months and year that the book takes place. Orwell’s future is imagined as a bleak post-War dystopia given life by a superlative cast
Psyched By the 4D Witch (A Tale of Demonology) (1972)
Fascinatingly bizarre psychotronic film about an innocent drawn into the secrets of sexual witchcraft. Bad filmmaking on almost every level
Moon Zero Two (1969)
Muchly ridiculed Hammer film that was billed as a ‘Space Western’. Once one gets past that it is actually a far more interesting film than it suggests
Premature Burial (1962)
The third of Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe films, the only one without Vincent Price. Here Ray Milland develops a fearful obsession of being buried alive
The Mad Monk (1993)
Madcap Hong Kong comedy starring Stephen Chow as a man sent back down from the afterlife to get three people to repent of their ways. Full of deliriously crazed action and slapstick
Doomwatch (1972)
The film spinoff of a 1970s British tv series about a group who investigate scientific and ecological abuses. The film depicts an outbreak of aromegaly on an island near where growth stimulants have been dumped.
Kwaidan (1964)
The greatest of all Japanese ghost stories. This is an anthology that tells four stories. Each is made with an extraordinary visual flair and great attention to colour, lighting and design
The Scorpion King (2002)
Back when Dwayne Johnson was a wrestler billing himself as The Rock, this was a forgettable sword and sorcery effort spun off from his appearance in The Mummy Returns. This led to a surprising number of sequels
Ugetsu Monogatari (1953)
Classic Japanese kaidan eiga (or ghost story). Made not long after Akira Kurosawa’s new realism in Japanese cinema, this comes with a superb formalism as it slowly moves over into the supernatural
Devil in the Flesh 2 (2000)
Inferior sequel to the modest Devil in the Flesh which had Rose McGowan as a psychopathic schoolgirl. Recast with Jodi Lyn O’Keefe, this is now a routine slasher effort
Deal of a Lifetime (1999)
Incredibly unfunny comedy in which a teenager sells his soul to the Devil. As The Devil, Kevin Pollak lets all stop loose in a mind-bogglingly over-the-top performance
Spirited Away (2001)
One of the masterpieces of Hayao Miyazaki, a gentle, beautiful work of anime set in an afterlife bathhouse where Miyazaki’s range of extraordinary creatures and quiet tenderness finds something that Western fantasy rarely ever comes near
The Neptune Factor: An Undersea Odyssey (1973)
Underwater adventure movie that tries to emulate 2001: A Space Odyssey, this has a bad movie reputation
The Time Machine (2002)
Remake of the classic H.G. Wells novel that comes with the novelty of being directed by Wells’s great-grandson. More disappointingly it prefers to merely remake the 1960 film rather than return to the book
Les Diaboliques (1955)
Classic French psycho-thriller that is gripping in its psychological games before reaching an unforgettable twist ending. It has been twice remade and its plot much imitated by others but never bettered
Holocaust 2000 (1977)
An Italian exploitation copy of The Omen industrialist Kirk Douglas fighting the coming of the Anti-Christ. Here bizarrely enough The Beast manifests as a nuclear power plant
Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time (1991)
Excruciating sequel to The Beastmaster that transports Marc Singer’s Dar to contemporary L.A. The whole film is wrecked by an attitude that seems unable to take the proceedings seriously.
Deadly Friend (1986)
Wes Craven was hot as a result of A Nightmare on Elm Street but badly lucked out with this ridiculous film in which a teenager raises his girlfriend from the dead by planting a computer chip from a robot in her brain
Dagon (2001)
Stuart Gordon returns to adapt H.P. Lovecraft for a third time. As before, Gordon allows Lovecraft’s unspeakable terrors to be eclipsed by creature effects but the results are nothing too memorable
Night of the Lepus (1972)
A film with a premise – giant killer rabbits – that is sunken entirely the failure to make a series of photographically enlarged rabbits look threatening
King of the Rocket Men (1949)
Twelve chapter serial that introduced the character of the Rocket Man who appeared in several subsequent adventures. This has an enthusiastic pulp naivete but ends up mostly routine
The Monster That Challenged the World (1957)
Average entry in the atomically enlarged animal cycle of the 1950s concerning a giant mutated mollusc on the attack
Lady in a Cage (1964)
A home invasion thriller starring Olivia de Havilland as a wheelchair-ridden woman who is brutalised and tormented after three hoodlums break in as she is trapped in an elevator cage during a power cut
Beware! The Blob (1972)
A sequel to The Blob, although this plays everything for comedy. The one and only film directed by actor Larry Hagman, no less than J.R. Ewing of Dallas fame