Document of the Dead (1989)
A documentary about George Romero that was filmed during the shooting of Dawn of the Dead. Originally made as a teaching aid for a film school class before being given commercial release
Camelot (1967)
The Arthurian legends become the basis of this filmed version of a musical by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe. On screen with a name cast, the film is slow and stodgy
Timebomb (1991)
Action film from Avi Nesher that comes with a solid and satisfying punch. Michael Biehn is a mild-mannered clockmaker who suddenly discovers he is a brainwashed assassin
Servants of Twilight (1991)
Dean R. Koontz adaptation with Bruce Greenwood as a private detective drawn into helping a woman protect her child from crazed cultists that believe he is the Antichrist
Disclosure (1994)
It is telling that the only film made about workplace sexual harassment up to this point is one that painted the male as a victim. This adaptation of a Michael Crichton book came mired in controversy
Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990)
Film spinoff from the Tales from the Darkside tv series, this is an anthology of three horror tales, the result is a surprisingly slick and well made film
Vamp (1986)
Very 80s film that feels like Martin Scorsese’s After Hours rewritten with vampires set around vampire nightclub. The comedy is uneven but there is is a striking performance from Grace Jones as the vampire
Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (1983)
A disappointing end to George Lucas’s original Star Wars trilogy. The script lazily wraps up loose ends while sidelining the new characters introduced the last time, and the climax rehashes the climaxes of the two other films
Highlander II: The Quickening (1991)
Probably THE worst sequel ever made. The script’s treatment of continuity to the first film is utterly incoherent, while director Russell Mulcahy and most of the cast go at it with unrestrained OTT excess
Cube (1997)
An excellent conceptual SF film, a directorial debut for Vincenzo Natali with six people trapped in a labyrinth of identical rooms some of which contain death traps where they must solve the puzzle to find the way out
Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest (1995)
The third of the films based on the Stephen King short story, this moves the locale to the city but is otherwise based around a series of completely ridiculous makeup effects every few minutes
Tales from the Crypt Presents Demon Knight (1995)
Film spinoff from the popular Tales from the Crypt horror anthology tv series but with more gore effects, this is competently done but does nothing to distinguish itself
The Shining (1980)
Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Stephen King’s novel throws much of the book out but has duly become a classic. Jack Nicholson goes grandly mad amid Kubrick’s stupendous production and unsettling set-pieces
Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris (1999)
An extraordinary reworking of the Japanese kaiju series with stunning CGI effects sequences. This set a new standard and is among the best of the modern Japanese monster movies
Goldfinger (1964)
The third of the James Bond films and the point where everything that has been defined as the formula of the series – the gadgets, the villains, the henchmen, the cars, the world domination plots – falls into place perfectly
Mars Attacks! (1996)
Tim Burton makes a film based on the old Topps bubblegum card series about Martian invaders, which becomes an affectionately goofy tribute to 1950s alien invasion cinema
The Horror of Frankenstein (1970)
The fifth and worst of Hammer’s Frankenstein films. In a play for younger audiences, Peter Cushing was dumped in favour of Ralph Bates in a retelling of the original and an unfunny comedic approach
Digimon: The Movie (2000)
The first film from Mamoru Hosoda based on a tv series that was a blatant attempt to copy the Pokemon phenomenon and concerning cute creatures that live on the internet
Chain Reaction (1996)
Thriller with Keanu Reeves wrongfully accused and on the run from authorities in the quest for a process that creates cheap energy from water. A rehash of director Andrew Davis’s The Fugitive mostly construed around its set-pieces
Dreams (1990)
It is some surprise that Akira Kurosawa’s only full venture into fantastic cinema was with his penultimate film here. A beautifully filmed anthology of eight tales, including several ghost stories and two anti-nuclear parables
I.K.U. (2000)
Described as a cyberporn fantasy, a quasi-pornographic film set in a Cyberpunk future where androids are designed to consume sexual experience
Roujin Z (1991)
Katsuhiro Otomo written anime that functions as a parody of the school of Transformer robots as the artificially intelligent hospital bed of a geriatric becomes a giant ramshackle colossus rampaging through the city
Angels in the Outfield (1951)
An amiable venture into the light fantasy films that were popular during this era., Here angels come down and intervene to aid a baseball team on a losing streak
Martin (1976)
George Romero’s deconstruction of the vampire film is one of his most remarkable films. In contrast to vampire cliches, all we get is a pale teen with an unhealthy obsession contrasted with a religious extremist who demands he be exorcised.
Cruising (1980)
Controversial William Friedkin film in which Al Pacino plays a straight cop who must go undercover in New York’s gay leather and S&M community to hunt a serial killer. This holds back little in its portrayal of the scene.
Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter (1966)
Notorious Z movie made as companion piece to Billy the Kid Versus Dracula in which the famous outlaw encounters Frankenstein’s granddaughter and her creations
Grim Prairie Tales (1990)
An interesting, if not completely successful, attempt to revive the horror anthology – in this case with four tales that all take place in a Western setting
Ghoulies IV (1993)
The fourth and final of the Ghoulies films. This one comes from B-budget hack Jim Wynorski who seems to not be taking any of the show seriously
Impulse (1984)
Reminiscent of George Romero’s The Crazies, this is a subtle, low key film about a small town as it is affected by a toxic waste leak that causes mass insanity
Millennium (1989)
Film adaptation of a time travel novel by John Varley, one of the finest SF writers in the world, that ends up bluntening and dumbing the story down
The Whispering (1995)
Unremarkable and largely forgotten video release with former teen heartthrob Leif Garrett investigating appears of a mysterious figure that encourages people to suicide
The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967)
Roman Polanski misfired with this vampire comedy intended as a spoof of Hammer Films. Beautifully produced but comedy is not Polanski’s forte and the film seems to consists of much slapstick running around
Timerider: The Adventure of Lyle Swann (1982)
Rather slight film with the amusing concept of a present-day motorcyclist thrown back in time to the Old West
Eraserhead (1977)
The first film from David Lynch, a surrealist work that is one the cult films of all-time. A masterpiece of mood that swims in an atmosphere of dream and Freudian symbolism of cryptically inscrutable meaning
Flight to Mars (1951)
1950s SF film about an expedition to Mars. This fails to find anything interesting to happen once there where the astronauts do no more than engage in romances with the Martian women
The Phantom of the Paradise (1974)
Predating The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Brian De Palma conducts a very funny parody of The Phantom of the Opera (and several other horror films) as a glitter rock musical
Day of the Dead (1985)
The third and most undervalued of George Romero’s original trilogy of zombie films, an explosively bared to the bone series of apocalyptic confrontations containing some of the best performances and writing in any of his films
A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy (1982)
One of Woody Allen’s slighter films, a sexual rondeau set at the turn of the 20th Century, although mostly riffing on Allen’s familiar sexual neuroses. Contains minor fantasy elements.
Orgazmo (1997)
An early work from South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone about a Mormon who becomes a porn star and then turns superhero
Memories (1995)
An anthology made up of three short films all adapted from the works of Katsihiro Otomo of Akira fame, of which Otomo also directs one of the segments
Monster Island (1981)
Supposedly an adaptation of Jules Verns’s Mysterious Island from low-budget Spanish director Juan Piquer Simon, one that gives the impression nobody actually read the book
15 Minutes (2001)
Thriller about two killers who become inspired by tabloid tv and decide to sell tapes of their crimes to tv. This becomes a heavy-handed, tub-beating rant of disgust against modern media
Death Becomes Her (1992)
Robert Zemeckis film about an immortality treatment that digs a knife into Hollywood beauty treatments with a blackly funny knife. Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn have huge fun playing to the gallery and upstaging one another
Black Magic Woman (1991)
Essentially Fatal Attraction with voodoo in which Mark Hamill engages in an affair with Apollonia and breaks it off only to find a voodoo curse has been placed on him
BrainWaves (1982)
Ulli Lommel film in which Suzanne Love undergoes experimental brain surgery only to start receiving memories from the donor, a woman who was murdered
Creepshow II (1987)
The sequel to the hit George Romero-Stephen King horror anthology. This misses the original’s black humour by a mile and instead becomes overblown and filled with shrill unlikable characters
The Eternal (1998)
Michael Almereyda conducts a unique take on the mummy film dispensing with all the cliches in the eerie story of a Druidic mummy unearthed from an Irish peat bog
The Atomic Kid (1954)
Perhaps the strangest film Mickey Rooney ever made, a comedy in which he is a prospector caught in an atomic explosion and afterwards gains the ability to cause things to explode
Message from Space (1978)
Japanese attempt to jump aboard the Star Wars fad, a vigorous and colourful retelling of The Seven Samurai as a space opera
Deathtrap (1982)
Adapted from an Ira Levin play, this is an hilarious parody of the whodunnit with Michael Caine and Christopher Reeve engaged in a series of games trying to outsmart the other amid a series of brilliant whiplash reversals
Curse of the Fly (1965)
The second sequel to the original The Fly, which does feature more teleporter accidents and mutations but for some reason no fly hybrids this time
Around the World Under the Sea (1966)
Inspired by Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, this was one among the spate of 1960s underwater adventures. Passable adventure following a team on a quest to plant earthquake sensors on the ocean floor
The Mexican (2001)
Romantic comedy pairing Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts as separated lovers in a plot involving Mob shenanigans and a cursed pistol. The two never click and give unmemorable performances
King Kong Escapes (1967)
Toho Films obtained the rights to King Kong to pit him against Godzilla in King Kong Vs Godzilla and then made this entertainingly silly sequel where Kong fights a robot copy of himself
The Luck of the Irish (1948)
This was the first Hollywood film about leprechauns, although quite a different work than those that followed. American Tyrone Power encounters a leprechaun on a trip to Ireland
The Deadly Bees (1967)
An Amicus film directed by Freddie Francis and with a script by Robert Bloch that proves the dictum that there is no such thing as a good killer bee movie
Xtro (1982)
A British-made copy of Alien that has been construed as a series of bizarre images and scenes that make no real sense – even the title is given no explanation
The Curse of the Cat People (1944)
One of the classic horror films from producer Val Lewton. The studio gave Lewton orders to make a sequel to his first hit Cat People but he confounded this by making an entirely different film about invisible playmates that has no cat people
Tales of Mystery and Imagination (1968)
Trilogy of Edgar Allan Poe tales from three European directors. Roger Vadim’s opening episode drags but both Louis Malle and Federico Fellini deliver standout works in their respective segments
Superstition (1982)
Fairly negligible film about a family who move into a house to face the vengeance of a witch
Little Monsters (1989)
A very likeable children’s film about a boy befriending the monsters under his bed. Made with a gleefully malicious anarchy and some great creature effects
Mary Poppins (1964)
Disney classic that is mostly a series of dance and effects sequences strung together without any real plot nevertheless is conducted with a dizzying absurdism and perfect charm that never wears out its welcome
Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp’s Adventure (2001)
Disappointing video-released sequel to the classic Disney animated film where the engaging characters of the original have become settled down parents
Mad Bomber in Love (1992)
A rather amusing Australian black comedy made very low key starring Craig Pearce as a mad bomber who makes all of his flatmates prisoner
Perdita Durango (1997)
Spinoff of characters featured in David Lynch’s Wild at Heart and a greatly underrated film for Alex de la Iglesia. this pushes into even darker and more anarchic places than Lynch did, featuring outlaw lovers who are black sorcerers on a trail of murder and kidmap
Dreamchild (1985)
Dennis Potter scripted film with the great Coral Browne as the aging Alice Liddell, who inspired the fictional Alice in Wonderland, who imagines the creatures come to life to show her the hidden message in the book
Def by Temptation (1990)
Part of an attempt to revive the Blaxploitation film, a gospel horror film of sorts in which a young African-American divinity student fights the demon Temptation
Eliminators (1986)
One of the more enjoyable films from Charles Band’s Empire Productions, a comic-book of a film that assembles an action team of various abilities on an adventure up against a mad scientist
Critters 3 (1991)
The third of the Critters films and in my minority opinion the best of the series generating some reasonable suspense. Featuring the film debut of a teenage Leonardo DiCaprio
Planet of the Vampires (1965)
Cult Italian horror director Mario Bava makes an SF film where explorers find an alien planet where aliens possess the dead (not vampires despite the title). In many ways a precursor of Alien
Quatermass (1979)
The fourth and final of Nigel Kneale’s Quatermass stores, which shows the professor as an old man in decaying future Britain trying to deal with an alien force manifest through ancient megaliths. A surprisingly bleak and cynical end to the saga but still with the greatness of Kneale’s writing
Jaws: The Revenge (1987)
The widely ridiculed fourth Jaws film. This is at least better than the third film, having one of two okay shark attack scenes but the melodramatics are drawn out and tedious
The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958)
The second of Hammer’s Frankenstein films and a fine work that finds positively ingenious ways to continue on from its predecessor. Terence Fisher and the production team are all on top form.
A Simple Wish (1997)
Ghastly children’s film with Martin Short as an inept fairy godmother. Inanity ensues where there seems no ceiling on how over-the-top performances are allowed to go
Too Tired to Die (1998)
Quirky indie film where a man encounters various strange people after learning he has 24 hours left to live
Revenge of the Creature (1955)
The first sequel to The Creature from the Black Lagoon where The Creature is brought back to civilisation. Director Jack Arnold again creates sympathy and pathos for the monster
Monkeybone (2001)
Henry Selick’s first venture into live-action in which Brendan Fraser becomes trapped in a bizarre afterlife while a mischievous monkey steals his body
Scared Stiff (1987)
An incredibly bad film from the heyday of the VHS era. The incoherent plot involves hauntings and a voodoo curse before arriving at a totally surreal ending
Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)
Unrelated to the Michael Myers saga, John Carpenter tried to use the Halloween name to launch an original horror series. The plot is a baffling mix of Celtic magic and hi-tech but Tommy Lee Wallace creates some way out effects scenes
Trauma (1993)
Another giallo thriller from Dario Argento filled with all the wild bursts of imagination, bizarre plot twists and set-pieces we have come to expect from him
Tales from the Crypt (1972)
Amicus adapts several stories from the notorious EC Comics as one of their anthology films. Missing is EC’s black humour but this is a worthwhile Amicus anthology
It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958)
Although others can be cited, this is the film that inspired Alien. It seems to have been conceived in terms of putting The Thing from Another World aboard a spaceship. A B movie no denying but well constructed
Cross Fire (2000)
Japanese director Shusuke Kaneko turns his attention to the pyrokinesis theme. Thanks to Kaneko’s expertise with effects, this becomes the best film on the firestarter theme yet
Friday the 13th (1980)
A copy of John Carpenter’s Halloween that proved a big success and spawned a long-running series of sequels. Both films created the slasher film, which came to overrun horror in the 1980s, although this is a cruder film than Halloween
Down to Earth (2001)
Remake of Heaven Can Wait/Here Comes Mr Jordan as a vehicle for comedian Chris Rock where the heavenly body mix-up now becomes about a black man ending up in a white man’s body
Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man (1991)
The novelty of a Cyberpunk biker film, this is an efficient actioner and assemblage of paper-thin cliches and poses with almost nothing of substance beneath them
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
Third of the Indiana Jones films. This comes with all the breakneck action sequences and Sean Connery doing a fine comic turn as Indiana’s irascible father but also plays to a much greater slapstick emphasis
Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968)
The fourth of Hammer’s Dracula films. There is a certain amount of silliness to the plot but new director Freddie Francis is on fine form. Christopher Lee is not given much to do
Invisible Invaders (1959)
A B budget 1950s alien invasion film that cuts cost by having the invasion represented by stock footage and the resurrected dead in a series of images that prefigure Night of the Living Dead
Jaws (1975)
The killer shark film that became the No 1 box-office hit of all time and put Steven Spielberg’s name on the map. A powerhouse of seat-edge tension, filled with great performances and the young Spielberg with an incredible grasp of his craft
Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943)
The first film in which Universal teamed-up their in-house monsters, leading to several other monster bashes throughout the decade. For all that, this fails to make any interesting use of the title set-up
Wicked City (1987)
Anime from Yoshiaki Kawajiri about a war with a demon dimension that falls halfway between H.P. Lovecraft and a hard-boiled detective thriller and brims over wit fascinatingly pathological sexual imagery
Upworld (1991)
The most bizarre of the variants on the buddy cop film that came out after Lethal Weapon in which Anthony Michael Hall is partnered with a gnome. Directed by makeup effects man Stan Winston and an embarrassment to all involved
Two Evil Eyes (1990)
George Romero and Dario Argento collaborate on an anthology, each adapting an Edgar Allan Poe tale. Either director leaves you with high expectations but the results are very mixed
Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988)
The seventh of the Friday the 13th films, this tries to add some novelty with a heroine who has psychic powers but is mostly the same thing as before
Se7en (1995)
Classic serial killer film from David Fincher, a superb effort from the casting to a script that seems weighted by the moral ills of the 20th Century to the unforgettable twist ending
WereWolf of London (1935)
Hollywood’s first werewolf film. Largely overlooked and overshadowed by The Wolf Man with Lon Chaney Jr, it takes an approach to the subject that is not uninteresting
House of Frankenstein (1944)
The second of Universal’s team-ups of their in-house monsters and superior to the first of these, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man. Despite some imaginative moments, the script has a stitched-together improbability
House of Dracula (1945)
The third of Universal’s monster bashes, a successor to the previous House of Frankenstein. These Universal crossovers felt contrived in their reasons to bring the monsters together but this works better than the others
The Doctor and the Devils (1985)
Anglo-horror director Freddie Francis returned to make this period adaptation of an old Dylan Thomas script about the body snatchers Burke and Hare. A literate script boosted by a fine cast