Stay Out of the Fucking Attic (2020)
A team of house movers find they are working for infamous Nazi doctor Josef Mengele who has an attic full of deformed mutations
Stay Tuned (1992)
Unfunny comedy in which husband and wife John Ritter and Pam Dawber are trapped in Hell, which consists of various parodies of popular tv shows
Stealth (2005)
Action film about an artificially intelligent fighter plane that goes amok. Rob Cohen directs in all the cliches of the genre and the seeming need to have something spectacular happening every few minutes
Steamboy (2004)
Sixteen years after making Akira, Katsuhiro Otomo returns to direct a full-length anime, making a Steampunk work that is dazzling in its epic quality and vistas of mass destruction
Steampunk Samurai Biker Chick (2012)
I must admit to being drawn in by the title, but this proves to be a massive cheat. What we get is a painfully cheap future action film
Steel (1997)
Widely ridiculed adaptation of the DC Comics superhero featuring Shaquille O’Neal that slips down to a simplistic level of Saturday morning cartoons inanity
Steel and Lace (1990)
A killer android/cyborg film from the genre’s 1990s heyday with a tasteless concept where a raped woman kills herself and is then resurrected as an avenging cyborg. A bizarre melding of killer cyborg film and I Spit on Your Grave
Steel Dawn (1987)
Patrick Swayze vehicle that uncreditedly relocates the Western Shane into a post-holocaust setting
Stepfather II (1989)
Sequel to the hit psycho-thriller. Terry O’Quinn is back and on fine form but this just repeats the original, bumps up the number of killings with extra gore to become no more than a B psycho film
Stepfather III (1992)
A shabby sequel where the classic original where Terry O’Quinn is replaced by another actor and everything reduced to no more than a routine slasher film
Stephanie (2017)
Akiva Goldsman is the single worst screenwriter in Hollywood with a line of genre atrocities to his name. In his second directorial outing, blow me down if Goldsman doesn’t make a halfway decent film, a cryptic film about a young girl facing unseen monsters amid a possible invasion
Stereo (1969)
The very first film from David Cronenberg. An incredibly experimental work even today, which consists of people wandering the halls of a university and the soundtrack of voices discussing psychic powers experiments in a dryly funny parody of an academic paper. Fascinatingly oblique
Stickman (2017)
The Slender Man film proved instantly forgettable. This copycat is an incredibly spooky show that should have enjoyed that film’s success
Stigmata (1999)
This seems caught between offering an earnest theological debate about Catholicism and being a standard possession film. The results are not entirely uninteresting
Still Small Voices (2006)
TV movie in which Catherine Bell is a 911 operator who receives calls from a ghostly child
Stir of Echoes (1999)
Enormously underrated directorial effort from screenwriter David Koepp in which Kevin Bacon gains the ability to see the dead. A film filled with some genuinely spooky moments
Stir of Echoes: The Awakening (2007)
Stir of Echoes was a spookily effective film. Alas in this sequel, we go from Kevin Bacon as a medium to Rob Lowe as a haunted Iraq War veteran amid a series of routine pop-up scares
Stitch! The Movie (2003)
Cheaply made video-released sequel to Lilo & Stitch, which is only a rehash but does surprisingly reunite all the voice talents
Stoker (2013)
The English-language debut from South Korea’s Park Chan-wook is a supremely controlled film, more like a period arthouse film than drenched in the buckets of gore we expect of Park … Essentially a reworking of Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt, a film that takes place all in smouldering tensions
Stonados (2013)
Another cheap Syfy Channel disaster movie – this one featuring a tornado that rains boulders that explode upon landing. Everything runs to the usual formula plotting and cheap CGI effects of these types of movies
Stone Cold Dead (1979)
A dull Canadian-made police procedural with detective Richard Crenna on the trail of a sniper that is killing prostitutes
Stonehenge Apocalypse (2010)
Cheaply made Syfy Channel attempt to copy Roland Emmerich’s 2012 that jumps aboard wacky Erich von Daniken nuttiness but fails to create a worthy End of the World drama due to cut-price effects
Stopmotion (2023)
A film about a stop-motion animation filmmaker who descends into a dark and obsessive state of mind
Storage 24 (2012)
British effort that proves to be no more than another copy of Alien – set in a warehouse of storage lockers. The film never consists of anything beyond a crashingly ordinary regurgitation of the moves used by an endless number of Alien copies
Storks (2016)
This did nothing for me in the pre-release. Watching it, it proves far more enjoyable than expectation. It is very baby-centric but it does have a frequently off-the-wall sense of humour that is rather appealing
Storm of the Century (1999)
One of the best Stephen King tv mini-series with Colm Feore as a mysterious stranger who manipulates and turns an entire town against themselves
Storm Planet (1962)
Modestly effective Soviet SF film about an expedition to Venus where the cosmonauts encounter a wild and colourful planet of plants and prehistoric wildlife
Storm Warning (2007)
An Australian-made variant on the Backwoods Brutality cycle where a whitebread couple on a sailing trip are tortured by hicks. Nothing beyond the cliches or remarkable about this.
Storm Warriors (2009)
The Pang Brothers are some of the most exciting genre directors in the world. Here they take on the Wu Xia film and make a sequel to The Storm Riders that feels fuelled by too many viewings of 300
Stormbreaker (2006)
Film adaptation of a popular series of Young Adult books about a teenage spy. Made not long after the Austin Powers films, this seems unable to decide if it is being serious or a parody
Story of Ricky (1991)
An outrageous Hong Kong prison film that comes filled with mind-bogglingly over-the-top splatter effects
Stowaway (2021)
In the vein of realistically grounded space movies such as Gravity and The Martian, a solidly effective film concerning the crew of a Mars mission who discover a stowaway aboard
Straight on Till Morning (1972)
A psycho film (as opposed to one of their psycho-thrillers) from Hammer Films where innocent and unworldwise Rita Tushingham arrives in London only to be lured in by ice cold killer Shane Briant
Strait-Jacket (1964)
William Castle psycho-thriller made to exploit the successes of both PsychoWhat Ever Happened to Baby Jane? with an axe-wielding Joan Crawford letting all stops go
Stranded (1987)
This is essentially E.T. by way of The Desperate Hours where aliens on the run take a family hostage
Stranded (2013)
Roger Christian was art director on Alien but will always be remembered as director of the notorious Battlefield Earth. Here he is stuck making a cheap, tatty and frequently incomprehensible copy of Alien about alien impregnation
Strange Behavior (1981)
Modestly effective film in which teens in a small town go berserk and begin killing people as a result of experiments being conducted at the university psychology department
Strange Cargo (1940)
One of the strangest films of the 1940s, featuring Clark Gable, Joan Crawford and others as a group of Devil’s Island escapees who realise during the course of their journey that one of the company is Jesus Christ
Strange Circus (2005)
Japanese director Shion Sono has emerged as an increasingly worthwhile name in recent years. This is an admirably twisted and perverse work that leaves you quite flabbergasted
Strange Darling (2023)
An incredibly refreshing and original psycho film, made with a furious energy. Every bit of the way it is constantly messing with us and turning everything we think is going on on its head
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
Strange Holiday (1945)
Arch Oboler makes a film in which Claude Rains returns from a holiday to find a Nazi government has overtaken the USA
Strange Invaders (1983)
Appealingly quirky film that pays homage to the alien invaders genre of the 1950s as filtered through post-E.T. sensibilities where the invaders still live in a fifties timwarp
Strange Magic (2015)
George Lucas’s venture into animation was critically pilloried. It’s not bad, just no different from a formula film like Rise of the Guardians or Epic. From the man who made Star Wars, you had higher expectations
Strange New World (1975)
The third of the films based around Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry’s Genesis II concept where a cryogenic sleeper awakes in a post-apocalyptic world
Strange World (2022)
Disney’s 61st animated film. A lost world adventure that emerges as Fantastic Voyage by way of Avatar
Strangeland (1998)
80s outrage rocker Dee Snider writes and stars in this horror film where he plays a freakish serial killer who is demonised by parents
Stranger from Venus (1954)
A British-made ripoff of The Day the Earth Stood Still. Slow, plodding and talky without the action ever seeming to move beyond the confines of a country pub
Stranger on the Third Floor (1940)
Cited as the first film noir, this is a fascinating psycho film about a man tormented by guilt over convicting the wrong man
Stranger Than Fiction (2006)
Quite reasonable meta-fiction where a surprisingly subdued Will Ferrell discovers he is a character in a novel and tries to rebel against his fate
Strangers (1990)
Australian thriller that is a blatant copy of Fatal Attraction
Strangers on a Train (1951)
One of the most darkly engrossing of Alfred Hitchcock’s thrillers, a classic about two strangers who make a murder pact after meeting on a train. Where any other director would have made a straight thriller, Hitchcock lingers on the mordant humour with unnerving effect
Strangers Online (2010)
Passable attempt to return to the heyday of the 1990s erotic thriller. Made on the cheap side, this does an okay job of covering the basics until an improbable denouement
Strangest Dreams: Invasion of the Space Preachers (1990)
A film that has been sold on the basis of its deliberately ridiculous title concept – that of alien invaders attempting to take over the airwaves by posing as televangelists
Strangler of the Swamp (1946)
A film from the famous poverty row studios of its era that has gained a certain cult reputation. The film transcends its cheapness to create an undeniable spooky atmosphere in its tale of a ghostly revenant, even if the cult has tended to overstate its effectiveness
Straw Dogs (1971)
Strong and powerful formative entry in the Backwoods Brutality genre where Dustin Hoffman and wife Susan George stir up locals in a small Cornwall town and are forced to mount a brutal siege after he shelters a man hunted by a lynch mob
Straw Dogs (2011)
Another wholly unnecessary remake that waters the raw savagery of the original down to a safe tepidness. Everything that the original set down has now become formulaic
Stream (2024)
Horror film with a substantial cast of genre veterans where Jeffrey Combs imprisons guests in a hotel and livestreams as a group of killers compete to rack up the most creative kill
Stree (2018)
An Indian horror film about a folk tale of a witch spirit the Stree, this was a popular success that was then built out into an Indian version of The Conjuring Universe
Stree (2018)
An Indian horror film about a folk tale of a witch spirit the Stree, this was a popular success that was then built out into an Indian version of The Conjuring Universe
Stree (2018)
An Indian horror film about a folk tale of a witch spirit the Stree, this was a popular success that was then built out into an Indian version of The Conjuring Universe
Stree (2018)
An Indian horror film about a folk tale of a witch spirit the Stree, this was a popular success that was then built out into an Indian version of The Conjuring Universe
Street Fighter (1994)
Based on the popular videogame, you cannot complain that this is exactly what you expect – wall-to-wall action, comic-book heroes and villains. The complaint might be that the action is never particularly enervated and the film lacks anything beyond that
Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009)
Sequel to the 1994 Street Fighter film based on the videogame, this provides the wall-to-wall action that the first film needed but falls down with a wimpily miscast heroine
Street Trash (1987)
Low-budget, almost entirely plotless film about a cheap liquor that starts causing the bums in the area to meltdown. A film that in lieu of anything else readily dives into bad taste
Streets (1990)
Gritty urban drama with Christina Applegate as a teenage runaway on the mean streets of L.A. harassed by a psycho cop
Strigoi (2009)
The first vampire film actually made in Romania, although this. more a film about petty corruption and decades old disputes with vampirism coming to represent corrupt land ownership than anything to do with classic movie vampires
Striking Distance (1993)
Action thriller with Bruce Willis as a river patrol detective hunting a serial killer
Strings (2004)
Absolutely extraordinary film that takes place in a world inhabited by marionettes on strings, something that is built out into a complex metaphor and worldview
Strip Nude for Your Killer (1975)
A giallo film about a masked man killing models. This comes with an attention-grabbing title that proves more sensational than most of what happens in the film
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
Stripped to Kill (1987)
The very first film with the plot of a woman cop going undercover in a strip club. The police procedural plot and psycho element takes a very clear backseat to the stripper set-pieces, some of which are imaginatively staged. On the plus side, the film is directed by a woman
Strippers vs. Werewolves (2012)
Probably the next logical move after Zombie Strippers! Alas, where we should have had a fast, funny and sarcastic genre entry, the humour in this British entry becomes painfully belaboured in its constant unfunny efforts to get laughs
Stryker (1983)
A vigorous copy of the Mad Max post-apocalyptic action film made by the underrated Cirio H. Santiago
Stuart Little (1999)
Taking its its cue from the mix of animatronics and CGI in Babe, this is a live-action adaptation of the E.B. White book. A sweet and charming film about a family that adopts a little mouse boy that proved an unexpected hit
Stuart Little 2 (2002)
The sequel to Stuart Little proves as equally likeable as its predecessor
Stuart Little 3: Call of the Wild (2005)
The third of the Stuart Little films, this one animated instead of its live-action predecessors
Stuck (2007)
Stuart Gordon, the cult director of Re-Animator, makes a film based on a bizarre true incident where a woman ran a homeless man down and drove home with him still impacted through the windshield of her car
Studio 666 (2022)
A horror comedy starring the Foo Fighters where the band’s antics sit alongside some entertainingly outrageous gore
Stuff (1999)
Canadian-made black comedy about a ring that can revive the dead
Stung (2015)
Likeable variant on the giant bug film – concerning giant mutated wasps, no less. This is largely predicated around some accomplished creature effects and having something gooey happening every few minutes
Subferatu (2020)
Comedy about a shipwrecked crew that are rescued by a German U-boat that is carrying a vampire on board
Sublime (2007)
Horror film in which Tom Cavanagh goes into hospital for a routine procedure only to emerge with his leg amputated amid increasingly more surreal things happening around the hospital
Subliminal Seduction (1996)
Ian Ziering stars in a B-budget ripoff of The Stepford Wives where he discovers that a computer company is encoding brainwashing messages in a videogame
Submerged (2005)
Steven Seagal submarine action where he tackles a terrorist who has perfected mind control techniques
Submersion of Japan (1973)
A thinking person’s disaster movie depicting Japan’s sinking into the ocean
Subservience (2024)
Another android gone amok film with former sex symbol Megan Fox cast as an android nanny who starts defying her programming
Subspecies (1991)
The first in a series of vampire films from Charles Band and Full Moon Productions. Several sequels followed.
Suburban Gothic (2014)
From the director of Excision, another film that satirically digs its claws into middle-class values but there is the feeling we have seen all of this before and the film fails to provide anything funny. Added to this is a barely scary ghost plot the film occasionally remembers to get back to
Sucker Punch (2011)
Bizarrely uncategorisable film from Zack Snyder that seems a mix of Girl, Interrupted and Inception
Sufferrosa (2011)
Billed as the world’s first interactive film, although it falls well short of what one expected. his involves film noir homage, mad scientists and sinister rejuvenation institutes but lacks any real narrative, just feels like a series of random information pop-ups and flickering MTV graphics
Suicide Club (2002)
Japanese horror film that launched the name of Shion Sono and is attention grabbing but proves an unfathomable mix of mass suicides, mysterious websites that predict deaths and a pop band seemingly controlling it all
Suicide Squad (2016)
This team-up of C-list DC super-villains proved a surprise hit. The script is all over the place but Margot Robbie owns the screen as the gleefully insane Kewpie Doll gone wrong Harley Quinn
Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay (2018)
A DC Universe Original Animated Movie given over to Suicide Squad. Clearly inspired by the live-action film, this goes overboard on the super-villains present, having three entire teams running around to general confusion, while striking a very odd tone in its pitch for an R-rating
Suing the Devil (2011)
A Christian-made film based on the intriguing idea of Satan on trial in a courtroom. A film that in its bad acting, laughable dialogue and lack of conviction rivals The Room in bad movie stakes. The usually worthwhile Malcolm McDowell, who for some reason also produces, gives one of his worst performances
Suitable Flesh (2023)
An H.P. Lovecraft adaptation, this is a venture into bodyswap horror that proves immensely entertaining ride
Summer Camp (2015)
Not a title that automatically suggests a horror film – and even if it does, you automatically think of the locale for a 1980s slasher film. What we get is a Spanish-made effort about a madness-inducing infection – a modestly and tightly contained effort that twists around on itself with considerable vigour
Summer of 84 (2018)
The second film from the trio that made Turbo Kid. This taps 80s nostalgia focusing on a group of kids who believe a neighbour may be a serial killer but was overshadowed by tv’s very similar Stranger Things
Summer of Fear (1978)
An early, little known Wes Craven film originally shot for tv in which Linda Blair believes that that cousin who comes to stay might be a witch
Summer of Sam (1999)
A Spike Lee film, a fictional work set during the real-life Son of Sam killings, although Lee seems less interested in the true crime aspect than the various storylines of his characters