Mission Galactica: The Cylon Attack (1979)
Episodes of the original Battlestar Galactica tv series that were recut and screened theatrically for international audiences
Cherry 2000 (1987)
Overlooked work of considerable charms, this mashes the setting of Mad Max 2 and the plot of The African Queen with a sense of oddball humour. The show is stolen by Melanie Griffith as a tough wasteland tracker
Condorman (1981)
One of the flops from Disney’s live-action heyday with Michael Crawford as a comic-book artist who gets to bring his inventions to life after being thrust into a spy caper
City of Pirates (1983)
Surrealist film from Raul Ruiz that proves a tedious, drawn-out ramble through disconnected images and non-sequiturs
Psycho Beach Party (2000)
Based on an off-Broadway play, this is a drag parody of the beach party movie. It does dig into the squeaky clean image of the genre but never seems a particularly funny parody
The Mad Magician (1954)
Vincent Price had success as the mad waxworks curator in the 3D horror House of Wax. This cheap copycat casts Price as a mad stage magician and is also served up in 3D
Carousel (1956)
A Rodgers and Hammerstein musical that has gained a classic status. On the other hand, it doesn’t resonate so well today in its story about the redemption of a wife-beater.
The Day of the Dolphin (1973)
George C. Scott is a marine biologist who has taught dolphins to speak but faces the military want to take his research. A serious work that all hinges on whether one is willing to accept the idea of dolphins talking in squawky voices
Bride of Re-Animator (1990)
Sequel to the cult splatter hit of Re-Animator, directed by the original’s producer Brian Yuzna. Jeffrey Combs, Bruce Abbott and David Gale are back. This has some amazing effects work but lacks the first film’s outrageous black humour
The Laughing Policeman (1973)
A gritty US-made adaptation of a Swedish thriller with Walter Matthau and Bruce Dern as detectives investigating a machine-gun murder spree aboard a bus
Thomas in Love (2000)
Belgian film shot in the first person about an extreme agoraphobic who seeks to cultivate relationships with other people online
Count Yorga, Vampire (1970)
One of the better efforts among a spate of attempts to modernise the vampire that came out the 1970s. Robert Quarry gives a witty, urbane performance in the title role. A sequel followed.
Wicked Stepmother (1989)
The worst film from the usually great Larry Cohen, an unfunny comedy in which a household is taken over by a witch. Bette Davis quit soon into shooting and is replaced partway through by Barbara Carrera
Jeepers Creepers (2001)
Creepy film about a brother and sister who are pursued on a road journey by a supernatural creature that drives a truck. This became a word of mouth hit and was followed by several sequels
Sleeper (1973)
An hilarious Woody Allen film in which he plays a contemporary man cryogenically unthawed in the 22nd century. This satirisises SF cliches and contains some side-slitting comedy sequences
I Walked with a Zombie (1943)
One of the key films from the legendary Val Lewton, this exploits a topical interest in voodoo. As with Lewton’s films, this sits in an ambiguous place that leaves the actuality of the supernatural uncertain
Maniac Cop II (1990)
Standout sequel to Maniac Cop, the best of the series, where Larry Cohen turns in a remarkable script and William Lustig delivers incredible action sequences
Demons (1985)
Italian horror directed by Lamberto Bava and produced by Dario Argento, an Evil Dead-inspired work about the possessed dead taking over a cinema, all conducted with a ferocious enthusiasm
The Temp (1993)
A Fatal Attraction copycat in which executive Timothy Hutton finds that seductive temp secretary Lara Flynn Boyle is killing off all rivals at his firm. This has the reputation as a Golden Turkey classic.
Invasion of the Bee Girls (1973)
From on an early script by Star Trek director Nicholas Meyer, this is an entertainingly tongue-in-cheek effort where women use a serum to turn into deadly bee creatures
Track 29 (1988)
This collaboration between Nicolas Roeg and Dennis Potter results in a mind-boggling blurring of dream, reality, symbolism and sexual obsession. A name cast are allowed their heads and go wild
The Devil-Doll (1936)
Tod Browning film in which Lionel Barrymore is an escaped convict who disguises himself as an old woman where he takes revenge using people shrunken to the size of dolls
Dragonslayer (1981)
An overlooked fantasy film. Although the spirit of Star Wars stands over it, it offers a dark and gritty vision of the Middle Ages and soars with a full flight of fantasy with some stunning dragon effects
Ghosts of Mars (2001)
John Carpenter returns to cinema screens amid the 2000-1 spate of Mars movies. Despite promise, this ends up being not much more than his early film Assault on Precinct 13 relocated on Mars
The Beast in the Cellar (1970)
Variant on the Mad Relative Locked in the Attic/Cellar film made as part of the British horror cycle. Unfortunately, this plods where it should have developed tension
Child’s Play (1972)
Not to be confused with the Chucky films, this is a little-seen film about a series of sadistic games played by pupils that targets other pupils in a Catholic boys’ boarding school
Men in Black (1997)
A huge box-office hit, this is a witty comedy that turns the UFO conspiracy of The X Files on its head with the heroes part of an organisation that covers up the existence of aliens
Songs from the Second Floor (2000)
From Swedish director Roy Andersson, a series of plotless, surreal vignettes pitched with black humour
Wolfen (1981)
Adaptation of a Whitley Strieber book about intelligent wolves hunting in New York City from Michael Wadleigh, the director of Woodstock … The film tends to bury Strieber’s straightforward horror story under social concerns as though wanting to distance itself from the horror label
The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989)
Peer Greeaway’s finest film, an elegant, surrealistic satire on fine dining with Michael Gambon as the mob boss owner of a restaurant with Helen Mirren as his unfaithful wife
Virtual Sexuality (1999)
Essentially a frothy British romantic comedy version of Weird Science where a girl manifests the perfect guy. The VR aspect is no more than a trendy buzzword appropriated as explain-all
Purple People Eater (1988)
An inanely awful film based on the Sheb Wooley song. This is a really lame copy of E.T. in which a young Neil Patrick Harris forms a band with the title alien
The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
The first sequel to the massive success of Jurassic Park where Steven Spielberg returns to direct with a script that seems a mishmash of loose ends that only weakly rehashes the original
Batman (1966)
A film spinoff from the popular 1960s Batman tv show starring Adam West. At half-an-hour twice a week, the series was an enjoyable piece of surrealistic zaniness but its appeals seem stretched at feature-length
The Beast With Five Fingers (1946)
A fearful Peter Lorre is chased about by the disembodied hand of his late employer. A classic psychological horror film that has borrowed more than a few leaves from Val Lewton
The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976)
Fourth of the Peter Sellers Pink Panther films, this lets all restraints go and becomes completely madcap
Dick Tracy (1990)
The Warren Beatty directed and starring adaptation of the popular newspaper comic-strip detective proved a flop. Beatty creates a highly stylised world and peoples it with an all-star cast but fails to invest the world with any depth
Session 9 (2001)
Borrowing the Blair Witch aesthetic, Brad Anderson makes a highly effective minimalist horror film about a group of working men encountering something during the clean-up operation of an abandoned asylum
The Others (2001)
Alejandro Amenabar directed ghost story made not longer after The Sixth Sense that works with nicely subtle effect and arrives at an unexpected twist ending that turn the standard haunted house tale on its head
Night of the Demons 2 (1994)
Sequel to a film that few people remember, this is all campy one-liners and gory set-pieces conducted with a silliness that boggles the mind
When Strangers Appear (2001)
Excellent thriller set around a roadside diner where Radha Mitchell becomes caught between parties hunting the other where seems to be who they appear
Osmosis Jones (2001)
The Farrelly Brothers make a part-animated, part-live action film that is set inside slob Bill Murray’s body where the cells and body functions are all talking characters
Seance (2000)
Japan’s Kiyoshi Kurosawa conducts a remake of the British thriller Seance on a Wet Afternoon. Where the original was a mundane film that depicted a kidnap scheme involving a fake medium, Kurosawa builds this out as an actual ghost story
20 Million Miles to Earth (1957)
One of the film from legendary stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen, featuring one of his finest creations The Ymir, an alien monster from Venus that rampages throughout Rome
The Bulldog Breed (1960)
In the 1960s, a number of popular comics made films about the Space Race. This was a vehicle for Norman Wisdom, a minor British comic of the era, and has him enrolled in the Navy and launched into orbit
Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later (1998)
The seventh Halloween film, made for the original’s twentieth anniversary. This erases continuity to the other sequels and has Jamie Lee Curtis alive and pursued by Michael Myers again. Better than most of the other sequels.
Casino Royale (1967)
During the James Bond craze of the 1960s, the only Ian Fleming novel not owned by Albert R. Broccoli was turned into a giant farce. The film has five directors, a host of stars (including three playing Bond) and is an incoherent mess
Gate II (1990)
A superior sequel to the modest The Gate. This borrows from H.P. Lovecraft and delves into the area of cursed wishes that turn on the wisher, all with imaginative results
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Steven Spielberg and George Lucas’s homage to the adventure films of the 1940s was a huge hit in its day, spawning several sequels and many imitators. The film is pure action and adventure, delivered with enormous charm and wit
Death Valley (1982)
Essentially a slasher movie version of Witness where a family driving through Death Valley are pursued by a killer after the young son sees his face
The Dark Half (1993)
George Romero’s adaptation of a Stephen King novel with writer Timothy Hutton haunted by an evil alter ego. Underrated and quite possibly the King adaptation that is the most faithful to its source material
Gulliver’s Travels (1939)
The second animated film ever made, an adaptation of Jonathan Swift’s novel (although only the first section in the miniature land of Lilliput). This comes with enormous visual invention
Ginger Snaps (2000)
Witty, wryly sarcastic modern take on the werewolf film where two teenage sister become affected – sort of like a remake of I Was a Teenage Werewolf by way of Ghost World. Two sequels followed.
Dollman (1990)
A highly entertaining effort from Charles Band and Full Moon Productions directed by Albert Pyun featuring Tim Thomerson as a hard-boiled miniature alien cop come to Earth
The Land Unknown (1957)
A 1950s B movie where a US Navy team discovers a prehistoric lost world in the Antarctic where dinosaurs from prehistory still roam. This unfortunately befalls shoddy effects
Mimic 2 (2001)
This was the first of two sequels to Guillermo Del Toro’s intelligent insect film Mimic, although this has now becomes more of a regular and unexceptional monster movie
The Atomic Submarine (1959)
A low-budget but surprisingly reasonable mix of submarine drama and 1950s alien invader film with a submarine crew tracking a flying saucer
Brazil (1985)
Terry Gilliam’s satire on Nineteen Eighty-Four is a darkly brilliant work – it is a madly out of control film but is filled moments of wild imagination and black-than-black humour than make it an unnerving ride
She (1965)
Hammer Films conduct an adaptation of the classic H. Rider Haggard adventure story about the discovery of a lost city and its immortal queen but the epic spectacle never much comes to life
Blood (2000)
One of the most impressive overhaulings of the vampire theme in recent years in which vampirism is treated as an addiction in which humans become hooked on the vampire’s blood
Live and Let Die (1973)
The eighth James Bond film and Roger Moore’s debut in the role. This is one of the most variant Bond films also incorporating Blaxploitation and voodoo elements
Runaway (1984)
Michael Crichton’s books and films are always run through with a fear of technology run amok. Here Crichton makes an enjoyably straightforward directorial outing about a police squad set up to stop runaway robots,
Dick Tracy’s Dilemma (1947)
The third of the films based on the famous comic-book detective Dick Tracy, this is far more successful at obtaining the larger-than-life feel of the comic-book than earlier entries
Blankman (1994)
One of the original superheroes with no powers comedies, a not particularly funny variant based on a Saturday Night Live sketch. Written by and starring Damon Wayans.
The Boy Who Could Fly (1986)
A beautifully sweet and tender film where teenager Lucy Deakins moves to a new home and befriends Jay Underwood, the autistic boy next door who dreams of being able to fly
On the Beach (1959)
The first major film confronting nuclear war full on with the world’s last survivors gathered in Australia. Slightly ponderous today but nevertheless full of potent imagery
Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies (1999)
The first of the sequels to Wishmaster and better than the ones that would follow, although still not a patch on the imaginative makeup effects in the original
Jurassic Park III (2001)
Steven Spielberg handed the directorial reins of the series over to Joe Johnston and this emerges as a better film than The Lost World was, even if it is only ever arranged around a series of effects set-pieces
Killer Instinct (2000)
A reasonable B-budget slasher film in which teens accept a dare to spend a night in an abandoned asylum only for someone to have rigged the facility with traps and start stalking them
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)
The definitive version of the Jekyll/Hyde story in this author’s opinion, winning a Best Actor Oscar for Fredric March. Rouben Mamoulian uses some unique directorial effects and laces the show with a strong undercurrent of repressed sexuality
The Crimson Rivers (2000)
A strong well-made French thriller that comes with the influence of Se7en involving murders on a mountainside glacier and a secretive boarding school with ties back to the Nazi era
Thunderball (1965)
The fourth James Bond film and crippled by the misfortune of coming just after Goldfinger, which defined the formula and became the peak of the series. By contrast, this is stuck with having to make everything bigger and more spectacular
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001)
Despite being made by the same company, this has absolutely nothing to do with the Final Fantasy videogame. It is a visually stunning work of anime that takes place on an epic scale set after Earth has been invaded by spirit beings
Dr No (1962)
The first of the James Bond films. While the formula of the series is not quite established yet, this is a slick exciting work that did a number of groundbreaking things and created some iconic images
Digby, The Biggest Dog in the World (1973)
British children’s film in which a dog is made giant sized after being fed a growth formula by scientist Spike Milligan. Amiable but nothing great
Oni Baba (1964)
A classic Japanese ghost story (kaidan eiga) about two women who survive by preying on passersby. This adopts the lyrical realism of the era and builds to reach an incredibly haunted conclusion
Damien: Omen II (1978)
The first of the sequels to The Omen, this follows Damien through his teenage years as he comes into his powers. Mostly though, the film seems to exist to stage more bizarre novelty death scenes
Scary Movie 2 (2001)
The first of the Scary Movie sequels. The Wayans Brothers extend the gag beyond the slasher movie to take on the ghost story and exorcism film while aiming squarely for Lowest Common Denominator humour
Appleseed (1988)
The first anime film to be based on the manga, this is set in a future where the heroine is the head of a heavily armoured SWAT team fighting terrorists. Several different incarnations followed.
Big Top Pee-Wee (1988)
Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure proved a quirky hit and so Pee-Wee was spun out in this sequel. This lacks the zany touch of Tim Burton in the director’s chair, nevertheless has its own moments
Monster from the Surf (1965)
Another Z movie attempt to join the 1960s beach party movie fad with the additions of monsters that ends up being fairly ridiculous on all counts
13 Ghosts (1960)
One of the films from gimmick master William Castle, a more routine ghost story that eventually opts for a mundane ending and was sold with the gimmick of Ghost Viewer glasses. Later remade as Thir13en Ghosts
Baise-Moi (2000)
Splendidly nasty French film that feels like Thelma and Louise by way of Natural Born Killers where two women pick up guns and go on a shooting spree against men who are abusive jerks. Directed by two women and cast with porn actresses, this holds little back
They Live (1988)
John Carpenter makes an alien invasion film that works as a biting satire of Reaganomics in which aliens are manipulating reality to increase their profit shares in Earth
The Punisher (1990)
Dolph Lundgren’s The Punisher is minus his trademark t-shirt and the film takes considerable liberties with the source material but this is a hugely entertaining action comic-book of a film with hilariously tongue-in-cheek dialogue
Deathwatch (1980)
Quietly understated French SF film set in a future where all illness has been abolished and a woman becomes a media sensation when she is diagnosed with a terminal condition
Cats & Dogs (2001)
Here the cutely appealing idea of a talking animals film conducted in live-action a la Babe has been blended with a tongue-in-cheek spy adventure. The results are enjoyably silly
Simon (1980)
A directorial debut from Woody Allen co-writer Marshall Brickman, an offbeat comedy where scientists hypnotise Alan Arkin into believing he is an alien
The Terminal Man (1974)
Adaptation of a Michael Crichton book about an experimental neurological implant that ends up going amok. This adopts the blinding white-on-white look that has chilling effect in the early hospital sections but stifles the drama when it is extended to the real world too
Dr Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs (1966)
Italian-made sequel to the campy Vincent Price starring Dr Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine. Directed by the usually great Mario Bava and overrun by the buffoonish clowning of Italian comics Franco and Ciccio
Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)
The second of the Friday the 13th films. This was the point where the formula of the series slipped into place and Jason emerged to become an invincible killing machine
The Dark (1979)
An absurd monster movie that was started by Tobe Hooper who walked off set whereupon it was completed by another director whereupon SF elements were added to sell it as a copy of Alien
The Philadelphia Experiment (1984)
Based on a non-fiction, fringe science book that makes claims that the US Navy conducted experiments that turned a ship invisible during WWII, this spins the idea out into a modest time travel story
Vampire Vermont (2000)
Low-budget video release about a group of people holed up in a house preyed on by a vampire. Passable but never amounts to much
The Phantom of the Opera (1925)
The first and still the best version of the story. Made when The Phantom was a horror story rather than a weepie romance, everything from Lon Chaney’s performance to the amazing Gothic design and directorial set-pieces is classic
The Resurrected (1992)
Alien scripter Dan O’Bannon jumps aboard the 80s/early 90s fad for H.P. Lovecraft adaptations is this directorial outing that eventually develops quite reasonable effect
Equinox (1970)
A film about backwoods occult that comes with much H.P. Lovecraft influence. An inngenue film made by several unknowns who later became key figures at Industrial Light and Magic
Dr Petiot (1990)
French film about true-life serial killer Marcel Petiot, a respectable doctor who operated a lifeline for Jewish refugees during WWII only to kill them
The Dunwich Horror (1969)
Adaptation of an H.P. Lovecraft story in which Sandra Dee is lured by a young Dean Stockwell in order to summon Elder Gods. This seems like it has potential but befalls plodding, nondescript direction
Die, Monster, Die! (1965)
Adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Color Out of Space, directed by Roger Corman’s production designer Daniel Haller that draws on the look and mood of Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe films