Meet the Applegates (1991)
Rather funny satiric comedy about a family of insects who set up house in suburbia posing as humans
The Awful Dr Orloff (1962)
The first film from prolific horror and exploitation director Jesus Franco to which he would later make four sequels. This is a blatant copy of the French Eyes Without a Face served up with little directorial flair
Night in Paradise (1946)
Overblown production featuring Turhan Bey as the storyteller Aesop engaged in a romantic adventure
The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle (2000)
Cinematic revival of the old Rocky and Bullwinkle series having the two animated characters emerge into the real (live-action) world. A film that you feel should have been funnier and more energetic than is
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
A classic of the 1950s Golden Age of SF, featuring Michael Rennie as an alien visitor film who comes to make a warning about the need to make peace. This stands at the start of the Atomic Age with a stark urgency
RoboCop 3 (1993)
The third Robocop film killed the series off with a disastrous decision to go for a PG rating and pair Robocop with a cute kid
Tempest (1982)
Paul Mazursky conducts a contemporary version of the Shakespeare play set in the Greek islands, which serves to give the original a potent resonance
Legend of the Overfiend (1989)
A cult anime about a demon war on Earth and a half-demon child who has been born in the body of a teenager. This quite takes you aback with its extremes of violence and sexual fetishism
Mission: Impossible II (2000)
The second of Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible films where he has the smarts to hire John Woo as director who brings his customary stylish flair with action to transform the film into something exhiliraing
Chicken Run (2000)
The first full-length Claymation film from the UK’s Aardman Animations. With typical Aardman eccentricity, this is a parody of a WWII escape film conducted with talking chickens
The Swan Princess (1994)
Nicely animated film from Richard Rich that tells the story of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake in which a princess is turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer
Flash Gordon (1980)
Dino de Laurentiis climbed aboard the Star Wars fad with this remake of the classic serial. Against expectation, the film’s campy tone and eye-popping sets and costumes work and it has become an audience favourite
The Breakthrough (1994)
A film about the scientific efforts to explore the afterlife, this suffers from too many good ideas and not enough of the effects needed to convey its journey
Open House (1987)
Shabby entry in the slasher genre with a radio talkback host receiving calls from a killer who is slaughtering female realtors
Ben (1972)
Sequel to the hit killer rat film Willard, which brings back the scene-stealing bad rat but kills the film off by pairing him with a nauseatingly cute kid
Jack the Giant Killer (1962)
A blatant attempt to copy Ray Harryhausen’s The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, night down to employing the same lead actors and director, but this fails through shoddy stop-motion animated effects
Howard the Duck (1986)
This adaptation of the cult Marvel comic-book from Lucasfilm should have been a classic but went tail-feathers up in a big way such that it became the term used for a film that bombs for years afterwards
The Silent Flute (1978)
Bizarre Bruce Lee conceived conceived martial arts film, a bizarre allegorical work of philosophy steeped in inscrutable Zen epigrams
Snow White: A Tale of Terror (1997)
Beautifully made and very adult version of the fairytale, which seems determined to play up the terror aspect of the title, resulting in a work that seems a long way away from Disney
Slave of the Cannibal God (1978)
Another entry in the notorious Italian cannibal genre of the 70s. As with most of this genre, the film delights in pushing everything to gore-drenched extremes
Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone (1983)
Planetary adventure in the Star Wars vein with a few shakes of the junkyard future look of Mad Max 2. This was made to exploit the short-lived early 80s 3D revival fad
Practical Magic (1998)
Chick Flick with Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock as two sisters from a family of witches. The film never really settles on a consistent tone between comedy, thriller or romance and veers all over the place
No Escape (1994)
Big-budget action film that essentially rewrites Papillon in SF terms. Martin Campbell has a good eye for widescreen action but the film is only drawn in cliches.
Titan A.E. (2000)
Very nicely made space opera from animator Don Bluth, operating from a Joss Whedon script, that unfortunately proved a big box-office flop
Star Trek – The Motion Picture (1979)
Long-awaited revival of the tv series on the big screen. While this has a mixed fan reception, it is well worth re-evaluation. It is the only one of the Trek films that reaches for epic, mind-expanding places to find something of a 2001: A Space Odyssey
Hamlet (2000)
The always interesting Michael Almereyda conducts a modernised version of the Shakespeare play where Ethan Hawke’s anguish at inheriting a corporation plays out against a barrage of modern media
Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)
The second and most underrated of the Planet of the Apes films. For a time it repeats the original but gains considerable imagination and a striking satiric bite with the introduction of the mutants
Mighty Joe Young (1949)
Many of the people involved in the 1933 King Kong came back together to create another giant ape film. Much overlooked, this is one of the masterpieces of stop-motion animation
Cameron’s Closet (1988)
VHS era horror about a demon that appears out of a young boy’s closet and kills all who threaten him. Mostly this is an excuse to serve up novelty deaths
Lisa and the Devil (1972)
The last great film from Mario Bava, an exquisitely dreamy giallo/haunted house film that had the ignomity of being butchered and made into an Exorcist copy when it came out
Me Myself I (1999)
An Australian variant on Sliding Doors in which single woman Rachel Griffiths suddenly finds herself in an alternate timeline where she is now married and has kids
Scary Movie (2000)
The first in a popular series of comedies, this spoofs the recent hits of Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer in the most vulgar and witless way possible
The Brain That Wouldn’t Die (1962)
Classic Z budget film about a severed head in a laboratory that has plenty to place it in the bad movie category but is made with such a perverse panache that it is hard to dislike
Dark Star (1974)
John Carpenter’s first film, made as a student project in collaboration with an also unknown Dan O’Bannon. A send-up of the boldly going space exploration of Star Trek, this features a ship where the crew are going stir crazy. The results are hilarious
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
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
Terror is a Man (1959)
This has the distinction of being the film that started off the Filipino exploitation industry. A fairly blatant copy of H.G. Wells’s The Island of Dr Moreau, it is mostly routine
M (1931)
Fritz Lang was an extraordinary director of the silent era and this was his first sound film. Peter Lorre gives an amazingly craven performance as a child murderer who becomes hunted by the criminal underworld
The Dead Zone (1983)
David Cronenberg adapts a Stephen King novel with Christopher Walken waking from a coma with clairvoyant abilities. An okay film if one that lacks the personal intensity and rich themes of Cronenberg’s original works
Passion of Mind (2000)
This has the intriguing idea of two Demi Moore’s living on either side of the world, each dreaming that they are the other but the premise pans out as no more than a routine Chick Flick
The Black Cat (1990)
This has next-to-nothing to do with Edgar Allan Poe. Instead, Luigi Cozzi makes a giallo thriller that makes claims to be the unofficial third chapter of Dario Argento’s at that point unfinished Three Mothers trilogy.
The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)
This and The Horror of Dracula the following year set Hammer Films on the map. A remake of Frankenstein very different to the 1931 version that comes in vibrant colour and places Peter Cushing’s ruthlessly amoral Baron at the centre of the show
Abbott and Costello Go to Mars (1953)
Abbott and Costello take time out from comic hijinks with the Famous Monsters to go to Venus (despite the title) and engage in various datedly sexist gags with a planetful of women
Carrie (1976)
The very first Stephen King adaptation, a hit that made King’s name. Brian De Palma directs with flamboyant visuals that make you gasp but the film would be nothing without its amazing central performances from Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie
The Believers (1987)
Big serious film about Santeria religion that readily delves into the voodoo side of it as detective Martin Sheen and his family are targeted by cultists
Children of the Corn (1984)
A fifteen page Stephen King story about a patricidal child cult has spawned this film, nine sequels and a remake. Not a very good film, this is stuck with padding a very slight original out to a full-length film
Army of Darkness (1992)
Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell make their third Evil Dead film. The series hit a peak with the delirious balance of horror and comedy in the second film but here the comedy over-balances and becomes too broad
L’Atlantide (1992)
The sixth film version of a classic lost world story about explorers finding Atlantis and its immortal queen in the desert. This is a more mundane version that waters down the fantastic elements
Lust for a Vampire (1971)
The second of Hammer’s Karenstein films based on the lesbian vampire story Carmilla. This is killed by its laughable unsubtlety and an air of adolescent masturbatory fantasy
Burnt Offerings (1976)
A theatrical film directed by 1970s genre tv producer Dan Curtis. This has the intriguing idea of a house that acts as a psychic vampire. In all other respects, this plays out as a standard haunted house story
Bedazzled (1967)
British comedy made with an acerbic bite featuring Dudley Moore as a hapless loser who makes a pact with Peter Cook’s Devil to win the love of his life but has the wording of each wish contorted around on him
Black Christmas (1974)
Many argue that this is the original slasher film – and it does the whole formula a good deal better than many of those that came along a few years later, having some wry characterisations and a sardonic sense of humour
The Brother from Another Planet (1984)
John Sayles responded to E.T. – The Extra-Terrestrial and its suburban middle-class fantasy with this wry comedy in which a mute Black alien visitor (Joe Morton) arrives in Manhattan
Carnosaur (1993)
A Roger Corman produced cheapie about genetically engineered dinosaurs that was quickly rushed out to exploit the success of Jurassic Park. Corman went on to make two sequels
The Curse (1987)
Actor David Keith directs an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Color Out of Space. Unfortunately the focus on cheesy and ridiculous effects quickly takes the exercise down into Grade Z territory
Dead-End Drive-In (1986)
A remarkable little film from Australian director Brian Trenchard-Smith set in a satiric future where teens find they are trapped in a drive-theatre used as a prison for troubled youth
Blood and Roses (1960)
Roger Vadim conducts a very sofctore adaptation the classic vampire story Carmilla but this seems pallid and bloodless in contrast to the Hammer Films of the same period, not to mention their later adaptations of the same story
Hundra (1983)
One of the better copies of Conan the Barbarian featuring Laurene Landon as a warrior woman. This is actually a better screen incarnation of Red Sonja than the subsequent film version
The Evil Dead (1981)
Ferociously paced low-budget hit that put the names of Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell on the map. What made the film a cult hit was Raimi’s full tilt pace and entertainingly over-the-top splatter effects
Masque of Red Death (1989)
Dull and dreary version of the Edgar Allan Poe story especially when placed in contrast to producer Roger Corman’s definitive 1964 version
Alice in Wonderland (1933)
Studio adaptation that freely mixes elements from Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass and features an all-star cast line-up, this works far better than the purists would have it
The Invisible Kid (1988)
An inane invisibility film that plays out as no more than a crude 1980s teen makeout comedy with the addition of invisibility gags
Super Mario Bros. (1993)
The first film to be adapted from a videogame and inauspiciously one of the worst. This is a film made on a decent budget that seems to have set out to be as stupid and brainless as possible
Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971)
Rather enjoyable latter day Hammer Film, which plays its title pun surprisingly seriously. Ralph Bates and Martine Beswick are perfectly matched as the gender-changing Dr Jekyll
DragonHeart (1996)
This places an amusing spin on the standard dragon fantasy, having the dragon and its would-be slayer team up to fool the peasantry out of money. The Sean Connery-voiced dragon looks like a big CGI cartoon
Hercules (1958)
The hugely successful film that started the Italian peplum cycle featuring muscle-builder heroes in togas. This is rather stolid and strips much of the fantasy out of the Greek legends, nevertheless has its own pulp spectacle
Bad Influence (1990)
Fine Curtis Hanson psycho-thriller in which dull yuppie James Spader befriends charismatic psychopath Rob Lowe and is drawn into a series of taunting psychological games
Believe (2000)
A children’s ghost story that is written with uncommon depth and care and directed with reasonable effect
Un Chien Andalou (1928)
Famous surrealist short film made as a collaboration between Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali, full of the shock juxtapositions and symbolism you associate with either
Dinosaur (2000)
The first full computer animated film from Disney. It feels like someone decided to give the Jurassic Park dinosaurs their own film, mixed up with the plot of The Land Before Time
Donovan’s Brain (1953)
The second version of the multiply filmed novel by Curt Siodmak about a malevolent brain in a tank. Its greatest distinction is featuring later to be First Lady Nancy Davis Reagan as the heroine
The Silver Brumby (1993)
Adaptation of a classic Australian children’s story about a breed of mythic horses. Starring an unknown Russell Crowe.
The 4th Floor (1999)
A thriller that develops quite a degree of eerie suspense as Juliette Lewis moves into a new apartment and finds she is surrounded by some very strange neighbours
Beloved (1998)
Adapted from an award-winning Toni Morrison novel, this is an African-American ghost story that comes with Serious Drama written all over it. Produced by/starring Oprah Winfrey, the film was overlooked at the major award but is a stunning, emotionally raw work
Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 (2000)
The adaptation of the alien invasion novel by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard starring John Travolta is a completely ridiculous film that was laughed off screens and is regarded as a classic bad movie
Cool World (1992)
Animator Ralph Bakshi jumps aboard the Who Framed Roger Rabbit? bandwagon with a toon film in which a Jessica Rabbit-like cartoon character is dragged into the real world whereupon she is played by Kim Basinger
The Land Before Time (1988)
Likeable but lightweight talking dinosaur film. This aims to be a prehistoric Bambi but never quite finds the depth. A large number of video-released sequels followed
Flesh Gordon (1974)
This offers the amusing idea of a softcore parody of the old Flash Gordon serials. A surprisingly well-made film in terms of effects but the jokes often seems belaboured amid the witless mugging
Opera (1987)
This may well be the finest of Dario Argento’s giallo thrillers. Set around the production of an opera, this offers a series of murder set-pieces staged with an artistry that is as extraordinary as their sadism
Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1990)
The third of the Texas Chainsaw films where the rights have now been inherited by New Line Cinema and the brutality of the original promptly watered down to MPAA standards
The Son of Kong (1933)
The 1933 King Kong is a landmark classic Yhis sequel was quickly produced soon after its success,. While the original created a monster movie fairytale, this plays everything for maximum cuteness – it is essentially King Kong mounted as a children’s film
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994)
An adaptation of Frankenstein made as companion piece to Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Kenneth Branagh creates a lush production but the attempts to emulate Coppola’s sensuality go awry
Not Of This Earth (1988)
The Roger Corman 1950s cheapie about a mystery man who proves to be an alien space vampire is remade as a vehicle for Traci Lords. The script is essentially the same but with the addition of a lot of topless women
King Ralph (1991)
A comedy where the Royal Family is wiped out and vulgar American nightclub singer John Goodman inherits the crown. Much comedic play between American vulgarity and British ceremony ensues.
The Blue Man (1985)
Canadian-made horror from the heyday of the VHS era about psychic vampires terrorising people via astral projection in order to steal their bodies
The Land That Time Forgot (1974)
The first in a trilogy of prehistoric lost world adventures based on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novels, all starring Doug McClure. Despite variable effects, this is a well-made adventure with a strong script
Starman (1984)
John Carpenter abandons horror to make one of the better E.T.-inspired cute and cuddly alien visitor films. The film’s grasp of science is sometimes shaky but the film gains an enormous amount from Jeff Bridges’ performance as the alien trying to adjust to being in a human body
Zapped Again (1990)
A sequel to the teen psychic powers comedy Zapped! that takes things even more crass and vulgar
Eyes Without a Face (1959)
Classic French thriller about a mad surgeon who abducts women to graft their faces onto his disfigured daughter. The film has a rare visual poetry combined with moments of horror that are still effective decades later
Vampire Hunter D (1985)
Cult anime about a monosyllabic vampire hunter moving across a hallucinatory post-apocalyptic dispatching mutants and vampires
Angel on My Shoulder (1946)
One of the films from the 1940s fad for light afterlife fantasies in which mobster Paul Muni is sent back from Hell by The Devil in the body of a respectable judge to create mischief
Rawhead Rex (1986)
Early Clive Barker adaptation made just prior to his gaining fame with Hellraiser about a the revival of a monstrous pagan pagan that suffers from shabby treatment and a rubbery monster
The Possession of Joel Delaney (1972)
This predates The Exorcist in its possession themes where Perry King becomes possessed by the spirit of a Puerto Rican killer
Household Saints (1993)
Warm and appealing film filled with great performances that takes place across two generations of an Italian-American family. An obsession with Catholic miracles takes over in the second half, although the film remains ambiguous to their actuality
Heavy Metal (1981)
Cult animated film that adapts several stories from the adult fantasy comic-book Metal Hurlant/Heavy Metal. These vary but in its better moments that has a trippy cult hallucinatory quality
I Spit on Your Grave (1978)
One of the most raw and savage films ever made, this sits on a dividing line between true horror and exploitation as we experience Camille Keaton being raped with no detail spared before exacting a brutal revenge
Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971)
English horror film influenced by both the witch persecution themes of The Witchfinder General and the early 70s witchcraft film. Well made but that doesn’t quite disguise an unstructured screenplay
Riders to the Stars (1954)
An film from the early days of the Space Age about the attempts to capture meteorites to use as building for rockets. The basic premise is scientifically preposterous but the film is not uninteresting
In Like Flint (1967)
Sequel to the James Coburn-starring Our Man Flint, one of the James Bond parodies of the 1960s. Unlike its predecessor, this one is less interested in the humour and seems to be taking the silliness seriously
Harlequin (1980)
Fascinating Australian film in which Robert Powell plays an enigmatic stage magician who may or may not have real powers who comes to influence a politician’s family