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)
An underwater adventure movie about a submarine that ventures to explore the depths. This tries to emulate 2001: A Space Odyssey but 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)
Thriller with Olivia de Havilland as a wheelchair-ridden woman who is tormented after three hoodlums break in to her house while 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
Asylum (1972)
One of the best of the horror anthologies from UK’s Amicus Films. This adapts four stories from Robert Bloch, which are all tales told by the inmates of the titular asylum and settle in with chill effectiveness
Dark Asylum (2001)
Modestly effective psycho film with Paulina Porizkova pursued through a deserted asylum by escaped serial killer Larry Drake
On Borrowed Time (1939)
Unique light fantasy film in which aging Lionel Barrymore manages to imprison Death in a tree in his backyard
The Returning (1990)
A New Zealand-made ghost story that hardly seems to have been seen by anybody. The film shuffles around cliches from 1970s ghost story tv movies but only dissembles them into an embarrassingly silly film where very little of substance is directed with a ludicrously overwrought intensity
Queen of the Damned (2002)
Film adaptation of the third of Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles, this reduces Lestat to no more than a posturing teenage bad boy and Rice’s languidly romanticised vampires to a laughably pretentious Goth music video
Ice Age (2002)
This begat an interminable number of tedious sequels. However, the original is a still likeable and appealing animated film about a group of prehistoric talking animals migrating with the onset of an Ice Age
Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
The second of the Star Trek: The Next Generation films where series regular Jonathan Frakes takes the director’s chair and delivers an exciting adventure, showing an excellent hand with the special effects. Far more satisfying than the previous film
Megaforce (1982)
From the director of Smokey and the Bandit, an SF film about an international action team who go into action in hi-tech vehicles. This was a big bomb in its day and widely ridiculed.
Tarzan’s Desert Mystery (1943)
The eight of the Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan films. The same formula as before but in a desire for novelty the action is relocated to North Africa
The Lost Boys (1987)
Popular 80s vampire film that suffers the curse of Joel Schumacher. A promising opening dissolves into posturing cool, flashy visuals with zero substance underneath
The Fly (1958)
A teleporter accident causes a scientist to swap head and arm with a fly. This requires you to suspend believability but is otherwise one of the classic monster movies of the era. Several sequels and a remake followed.
Like Water for Chocolate (1992)
Charming and delightful Mexican venture into Magical Realism concerning a daughter frustrated in finding her true love who throws herself into cooking that brings out her suppressed emotions
Cinderfella (1960)
The popular fairytale has the sexes reversed and is reworked as a comedy vehicle for Jerry Lewis, although the upshot of this is that we get a Cinderella who is now a near-imbecilic Beverly Hills stepchild
The Perils of Pauline (1967)
Pearl White was the original serial heroine in The Perils of Pauline. During the 1960s Batman craze, the serial was revived as this campy comedy
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939)
The first in a series of Sherlock Holmes films starring Basil Rathbone, who became the definitive Holmes for many years, and a reasonable adaptation of the Arthur Conan Doyle novel
Silent Tongue (1994)
A directorial outing from actor/playwright Sam Shepard set in the West as Richard Harris buys an Indian daughter for his son River Phoenix
The Bat People (1974)
Rather ridiculous film where Stewart Moss is bitten by a bat and afterwards turning into a bat creature. Not a terribly interesting film – it takes three-quarters of the show for him to work out what the title tells us
The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)
The first of the insipid Muppet movies made following Jim Henson’s death, directed by his son Brian. This twists the Muppets out of shape to fit them into a retelling of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol
The Man Who Sued God (2001)
Australian comedy where Billy Connolly sues God for all the supposed Acts of Gods on insurance forms
Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence (1992)
The third of the Maniac Cop films had production problems and now feels more like a regular slasher film, although is still boosted by a characteristically witty Larry Cohen script
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993)
Theatrically released film based on the 1990s animated Batman tv series. This allows the series to stretch its wings and do things it never could on tv, although the creation of a new super-villain never quite comes off
Seconds (1966)
An astonishingly bleak John Frankenheimer film in which a disillusioned middle-aged man is contacted by a secret organisation that rejuvenates him to become Rock Hudson
Toys (1992)
Genuinely eccentric Barry Levinson film that plays out as a post-Reaganite version of Willy Wonka and features some of the most amazing sets ever designed for a film.
Field of Dreams (1989)
Beautiful fantasy where Kevin Costner hears a voice that directs him to build a baseball diamond in his cornfield where dead players to return to life. A genteel fantasy filled with nostalgia for lost Americana and the 1960s
Wolf (1994)
Reasonable box-office hit that offers a stripped-back werewolf film with minimalist effects as milquetoast Jack Nicholson suddenly discovers the beast within
The Changeling (1980)
An old-fashioned ghost story with George C. Scott as a widowed composer who moves into a haunted house. This generates spookiness with quite a reasonable degree of effectiveness
Teenage Caveman (2001)
Larry Clark remakes the old Roger Corman film and makes a beeline for his usual proclivities about teenagers having sex in a fairly outrageous post-apocalyptic work
Body Snatchers (1993)
Abel Ferrara’s remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers is an overlooked film that settles in with an undeniable creepiness that is just as effective as the earlier versions. The metaphor for the pod people is more diffuse in this one but that does not mitigate the film’s effect
Psycho III (1986)
Well worthwhile Psycho sequel directed by Anthony Perkins himself who makes an assured, even at times dazzling debut. The film has a playfulness and outrageousness that quite takes you aback
Obsession (1976)
Brian De Palma with Paul Schrader on script make a homage to Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo with Cliff Robertson wandering Venice believing he has found the reincarnation of his late wife
Sky Bandits (1985)
Preposterous Australian-made Indiana Jones ripoff involving alien artifacts and Easter Island that would be a bad movie classic if it were not so absurdly entertaining
Sinbad: Beyond the Veil of Mists (2000)
An early CGI animated film conducted on a cut-price budget that tells further adventures of Sinbad
Ghostbusters II (1989)
A weak follow-up to the hit original that essentially killed off any further Ghostbusters sequels. Most of the the cast are back but the plot and proceedings feel like a walk-through for all involved.
Halloween II (1981)
The first sequel to Halloween, with Michael Myers pursuing Jamie Lee Curtis through a hospital. John Carpenter’s suspense is replaced by slasher hackery but in retrospect this is a lot better than the subsequent sequels
The Day of the Triffids (1962)
The first film version of John Wyndham’s novel about a catastrophe that renders most of the population blind and leaves them prey to lethal plants. This is killed by variable effects and the abandonment of much of the book
The Flight That Disappeared (1961)
Film in which a plane in whisked outside of space and time and the passengers are placed on trial from the children of the future for their part in designing nuclear weapons
Slaughter of the Innocents (1993)
Reasonable copy of The Silence of the Lambs with Scott Glenn as an FBI agent tracking a killer obsessed with Noah’s Ark
The Mothman Prophecies (2002)
Genuinely creepy film supposedly based on a true story in which Richard Gere investigates a phenomenon known as the Mothman and starts to receive visions, time blurrings and much in the way of uncanny happenings. A film that leaves you with a sense of something unearthly happening just beyond your grasp
Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams (2002)
The second of Robert Rodriguez’s Spy Kids films is slightly the lesser of its predecessor – it makes the mistake of stripping out the gadgets – but is still fun and has the wacky surrealism Rodriguez gave the first film
Metropolis (2001)
Stunning anime remake of Metropolis based on an Osasmu Tezuka. The visuals and particularly the design are overwhelming – like a Cyberpunk film set in a stylised Art Deco world
Kung Pow: Enter the Fist (2002)
Pitched as a parody of the martial arts moves in The Matrix and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. In actuality, this is a witless and unfunny comedy that only takes a 1970s martial arts film and dubs it with a laughtrack
Chamber of Horrors (1966)
TV pilot about two waxworks curators tracking a mad killer, this was deemed too gruesome for audiences and released to theatres with the addition of a William Castle-like promotional gimmick
Final (2001)
Indie SF film where Denis Leary wakes up as patient in a psychiatric institution while he insists he has been awoken from cryogenic suspension in a future where he is awaiting execution
Dead Ringers (1988)
David Cronenberg’s absolute masterpiece of the perverse with Jeremy Irons giving a tour-de-force performance(s) as twin gynaecologists who descend into drug addiction, obsession and madness
Impostor (2002)
An adaptation of a Philip K. Dick short story in which Gary Sinise plays a man who is dragged away by security accused of being an android replacement that has a bomb implanted inside him
Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001)
From regular genre director Christophe Gans, this is a head-scratching mix of French historical drama, monster movie and imported Wu Xia action moves
Unidentified Flying Objects: The True Story of Flying Saucers (1956)
Fascinating quasi-documentary from the early days of the UFO phenomenon, made before all the nonsense about Greys, abductions, alien impregnation etc came in, which gives it a sober groundedness than many more polished productions lack
The Thing (1982)
John Carpenter at the peak of his career, remaking The Thing from Another World as a wild and phantasmagoric film steeped in paranoia that proved to be the absolute epitome of the era’s fad for air-bladder transformation effects
Red Planet Mars (1952)
One of the most bizarre of 1950s Communist Fear films in which humanity begins to receive radio message from God on Mars. The film’s politics are hysterical today.
Herbie Rides Again (1974)
This was the second and best of Disney’s Herbie the Love Bug films. Here the entire show hits an inspired height of nonsensical absurdity in terms of cars doing wacky things
The Cat O’Nine Tails (1971)
Dario Argento’s third film as director sees him firmly in giallo thriller territory, delivering a series of extravagantly arty and sadistic set-pieces as James Franciscus tries to find clues to a killer’s identity
Jubilee (1978)
Early Derek Jarman film that acts as a snapshot of the 70s punk movement, a rambling indulgent treatise that depicts a future England that has collapsed into anarchy
The Neverending Story (1984)
A popular fantasy film of the 80s that sits just between the imaginative, particularly when it comes to some its creature effects and design work, and the mawkish. It also comes with an intriguing level of meta-fiction that delivers some odd messages
Last Action Hero (1993)
A big flop but highly underrated Arnold Schwarzenegger film, a sophisticated meta-fiction that views the cinema screen as another dimension and wittily deflates action cliches
Darby O’Gill and the Little People (1959)
This leprechaun fantasy is one of the best and most underrated live-action films Disney ever made. The effects are at a peak of the era and the film plays with a sublime charm that proves absolutely winning
Diamonds Are Forever (1971)
The seventh James Bond film where Sean Connery was inveigled back to the role with a heft salary increase. However, the result is the worst of all the Connery Bonds with an incoherent plot and uneven action scenes
The Day After (1983)
From Nicholas Meyer, a TV movie (released theatrically in some countries) that was considered controversial in its day for its no-holds-barred depiction of a nuclear attack on the US
The Lion King (1994)
One of the best films to come out of Disney’s animation renaissance during the 1990s, this uses all the studio as its disposal to create a work that is epic in its scope
Jumanji (1995)
A popular Robin Williams starring hit about a boardgame that unleashes jungle-themed chaos in a small town. A cute effects-driven idea that ultimately becomes an incredibly safe fantasy
Kate & Leopold (2001)
Lightweight and likeable Meg Ryan romcom in which she is romanced by a chivalrous and perfectly mannered Hugh Jackman travelled through time from the 19th Century
Jennifer Eight (1992)
A psycho-thriller in which Andy Garcia plays a detective who is trying to protect/romance blind Uma Thurman from a serial killer who targets blind women
Westworld (1973)
A hit for novelist Michael Crichton who made his directorial debut here. Themes of machines going amok run throughout Crichton’s work and here he comes up with the ingenious idea of a Western simulation playground using androids that proceed to turn against the humans
Dream Demon (1988)
Jemma Redgrave is a socialite who is plagued by nightmares that take over her life. A British attempt to copy A Nightmare on Elm Street that collapses into a muddle of symbolism and reality-blurring dreams
Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius (2001)
Amiable animated film about a juvenile inventor that only serves to show how more polished Pixar’s films are by comparison
Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life (1997)
Documentary about controversial philosopher/SF writer Ayn Rand. Her life is treated in exhaustive detail but the documentary-makers seem too enamoured of their subject matter to find any critical distance
Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. (1966)
The second of the theatrically released Doctor Who films intended to highlight the popularity of The Daleks, this is an improvement in that it dispenses with the first film’s buffoonish comedy elements
The Devil and Max Devlin (1981)
Dreary Disney live-action comedy that casts Bill Cosby as The Devil who tasks a hapless Elliott Gould with trying to find redemption by getting three innocents to sell their souls
Scream and Scream Again (1970)
Cult Anglo-horror film with a series of vampire killings that lead to Vincent Price trying to replace bureaucrats with androids
Destiny (1921)
An early Fritz Lang film clearly influenced by D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance in which Death offers a woman visions of her and her lover reincarnated throughout different eras of history
Girlfriend from Hell (1989)
An inane comedy in which a wimpy teenager goes on a date with Liane Curtis who then becomes possessed by The Devil who is pursued by a chaser of devils
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
Peter Jackson wowed the world with this first part of his adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s trilogy. This is epic filmmaking and one that shows Jackson in full command of his craft
Godzilla Vs. King Ghidorah (1991)
The eighteenth Godzilla film and one of the best of the modern era. This has the most conceptually audacious plot of any Godzilla film and overflows with wild ideas involving time travel and changing the timeline
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
This caught on in a big way with the public, created a fascination with serial killers and forensic psychology and was nominated for a host of awards. Personally, one finds it one of the more overrated films of modern vintage
X (1996)
Anime involving a superheroic battle for the fate of the world. Dazzling eye candy but too many characters and subplots make things confusing
Godzilla (1954)
The very first Godzilla film. Essentially a copy of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, it has incredibly stark effect despite the primitiveness of the effects. In it you can see Japanese nation struggling to expiate the pain of the Atomic Bomb.
E.T. – The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
Perhaps the greatest children’s film ever made, the story of the affection between a lonely boy and a stranded alien. Steven Spielberg paints in beautiful, tender emotions from the heart that can only not touch the most cynical