The Starving Games (2013)
Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, behind parody films like Epic Movie, Meet the Spartans and Disaster Movie, turn to The Hunger Games. There is all the usual inanity and celebrity mocking of their films, although they do seem to make a film that is only marginally less moronic than usual
Stasis (2017)
A low-budget film that mixes the rebels from the future premise of The Terminator with the story of a disembodied soul trying to get back to their own body. Too low-budget to make the idea work.
Status Update (2018)
Light fantasy comedy in which a teenager gets a magical cellphone that causes whatever he types into his status update to come true
Stay Alive (2006)
This comes with the completely nonsensical premise of Countess Bathory having been reincarnated inside a videogame. Needless to say it is one that the film does nothing to make credible or even indicate it has read anything about the historical Countess Bathory
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
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
The Stepfather (2009)
Disastrous remake of the classic 80s horror film, which comes shorn of its biting satire on Family Values and turned into just another teen horror film
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
The Story of Mankind (1957)
Laughable Irwin Allen film that conducts a tour of human history via stock footage as Vincent Price’s The Devil holds a heavenly tribunal to judge humanity for inventing the atomic bomb
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
The Strangeness (1985)
One of the first women-directed horror films. Also one of the first on the subject of people venturing underground and encountering cave monsters
Strangers (1990)
Australian thriller that is a blatant copy of Fatal Attraction
The Strangers: Chapter 1 (2024)
The Strangers was one the sleeper hits of the 2000s. This is the first chapter in a three film reboot. On the minus side, it has been handed over to Renny Harlin, who should be on any worst directors list
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
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
The Strongest Man in the World (1975)
The third of Disney Dexter Reilly films in which teen inventor Kurt Russell creates a super-strength cereal
Subservience (2024)
Another android gone amok film with former sex symbol Megan Fox cast as an android nanny who starts defying her programming
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
The Summer of Massacre (2011)
The unique idea of an anthology made up of five different slasher tales. Unfortunately, the film’s only raison d’etre is serving up serial gore scenes, which have the effect taken out of them because they are all conducted digitally and look biologically preposterous
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (2026)
Sequel to the animated The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which was the second highest grossing film of 2023. From the people behind the Despicable Me films, this exists as little more than eye candy for five-year-olds
Superhero Movie (2008)
A Scary Movie-styled parody of the early 00s spate of superhero films, this has a few amsingly on-target spoofs of its targets (especially Spider-Man) but is mostly scattershot
Supernova (2005)
Disaster TV mini-series about the end of the world due to the sun about to go supernova. Cliche plotting, canned action scenes and bad science ensue
Supersonic Man (1979)
A cheap Spanish-made copy of the first Christopher Reeve Superman film
Superstition (1982)
Fairly negligible film about a family who move into a house to face the vengeance of a witch
Surviving Evil (2009)
South African-shot film that pretends to be set in The Philippines. Utterly generic on every level, the film seems to be about Filipino vampire monsters but everything is vaguely sketched
The Survivor (1981)
Australian-made adaptation of a James Herbert novel with Robert Powell as a airline pilot who is haunted following a crash. In the director’s chair, actor David Hemmings kills all atmosphere
Swarm (2007)
A blatant copy of Snakes on a Plane featuring mutated ants aboard a plane. Without the other film’s tongue-in-cheek approach, this collapses into absurdity
The Swordsman (1992)
Action film starring Lorenzo Lamas as a detective drawn into underground fight clubs while discovering a mystic sword owned by Alexander the Great
T.I.M. (2023)
We have had a spate of films in the last few years about androids and A.I. This has to count as the first film about an android stalker
Tales from the Hood 3 (2020)
Tales from the Hood was a horror anthology made by African American filmmakers that worked familiar horror themes in around race issues. It has developed a small cult reputation. This was the second of two sequels
Tammy and the T-Rex (1994)
One of the films that came out in the aftermath of Jurassic Park, notable only for the absurdity of its premise wherein teen Paul Walker’s brain is transplanted into an animatronic dinosaur body and he struggles to reconnect with girlfriend Denise Richards
Target Earth (1998)
Alien invasion tv movie that mostly consists of cliches borrowed from the then success of tv’s The X Files
Tarot (2024)
A horror film based around the phenomenon of tarot cards, a surprise that nobody has done so before
Tarzan the Ape Man (1981)
Tarzan turned into a tedious softcore work designed to highlight the talent-free Bo Derek in a state of undress. This directly remakes the 1932 Johnny Weissmuller film – the original was an adventure classic, this is just an expensive nudie film
The Tattooist (2007)
Incredibly tepid New Zealand horror film about an American tattooist who unleashes evil forces after he appropriates Samoan cultural tattoos
Teardrop (2022)
The director of the I Spit on Your Grave remake makes a low-budget film about a haunted Western ghost town
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)
This reboot of the pop culture icons of 80s/90s is an ugly failure on almost every level. The Turtles I remember were hip, funky and bubbled with boyish enthusiasm; these Turtles seem sinister oversized creations, while the film’s adrenalised over-production and emphasis on grit seems to have missed the essential element of fun
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (1993)
The third of the original live-action Turtles films is a lazily conceived affair that transplants the Turtles back in time to feudal Japan in a plot that rips off The Seven Samurai
Tekken: A Man Called X (2014)
Nobody seemed to care about Tekken, the 2010 film based on the popular videogame. Despite that, this is a sequel – albeit one that has almost nothing to do with the first film. This consists of nothing more than a series of efficiently unmemorable action scenes and a plot that makes no real sense
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.
Temptress (1995)
Erotic horror film made by Playboy where Kim Delaney is possessed by an incarnation of Kali
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)
After the highs of James Cameron’s first two Terminator films, this was a crashing disappointment. Schwarzenegger is back but his performance has become self-parody and the uninspired action sequences are accompanied by some terrible effects
Terminator Genisys (2015)
A hodgepodge of competing elements – an aging Arnold Schwarzenegger, a soft reboot, alternate timelines, reintroduction of the familiar, twists to the familiar – that make no sense on a narrative level, least of all come anywhere near what James Cameron delivered back in the first two films
Terror in the Wax Museum (1973)
Creaky old film that feels like it belongs in the 1940s about a series of murders at a wax museum. It does have a great cast line-up of genre veterans
Terror Train (2022)
Terror Train starring Jamie Lee Curtis was one of the classics of the original slasher film fad. This is a remake
Test Tube Teens from the Year 2000 (1994)
Charles Band film directed by David DeCoteau, a lame softcore comedy where two guys travel back from a future where sex is outlawed and end up in a girl’s boarding school
Texas Chainsaw (2013)
A Texas Chainsaw sequel in 3D with chainsaws and gore coming out at the screen seems the complete antithesis of the raw savagery of the original. The result is like a formulaic modern slasher, while the film is wrecked by a ridiculous reversal of sympathies in the last half
Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022)
The ninth Texas Chainsaw Massacre film, this offers the intriguing idea of Leatherface vs millennials
That Eye, The Sky (1994)
Strange Australian film set in the Outback with Peter Coyote as an ambiguous stranger who claims to have been sent from God
The Haunting of M. (1979)
A dull and mannered ghost story that makes a good effort at period atmosphere but places almost nothing into attempting to produce anything spooky
The Thief of Baghdad (1978)
The fourth film version of the Arabian Nights adventure, a tv movie released theatrically in some parts.
The Thinning (2016)
Another variant on the Young Adult dystopia a la The Hunger Games and Divergent films, concerning a future where that who fail standardised school tests are executed to keep the population down. The blandness of approach utterly feels to grapple with the ideas at play
Thirst (1998)
Rather dull plague outbreak drama tv movie based around a deadly outbreak at a water filtration plant
Thomas and the Magic Railroad (2000)
Theatrical film spinoff from the Thomas the Tank Engine tv series using several imported American actors
A Thousand Words (2012)
Eddie Murphy’s presence is not enough to lift the lame premise of this comedy where he is given a curse where he has a thousand words to say before he dies … a film that has a soggy marshmallow heart rather than one that lets Murphy loose to do what he does best
Three Businessmen (1998)
An obscure joke from Alex Cox that has he and Miguel Sandoval as two businessman who go to dinner but keep passing through different cities
Thunderbirds (2004)
This live-action film version of the cult Gerry Anderson puppet series is a disaster. Great effort is made to replicate the look of the original but the film is killed by the choice to rewrite everything as a modern formula kid’s movie
Thy Neighbor’s Wife (2001)
One of the erotic thrillers made after Basic Instinct, essentially an ripoff of The Hand That Rocks the Cradle where a vengeful Kari Wuhrer becomes a nanny seeking vengeance for the death of her husband
Time Lapse (2001)
Action film in which an agent tries to prevent a nuclear arms deal after being given a memory-erasing drug
The Time Machine (1978)
Largely forgotten adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel made for tv. While other versions place the story in Victorian England, this has been Americanised – where the time traveller is a weapons designer and journeys back to the Wild West. What kills the film is a painful cheapness
Time Under Fire (1997)
Unimaginative time travel/action film that plays out like
Timeline (2003)
Michael Crichton adaptation that flopped at the box-office. Crichton tells a story about time travel to the Mediaeval period where he spends a good deal of time researching the era. The film ditches all of this to make no more than an historical film with an SF gimmick
Tom and Jerry: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (2017)
The Tom and Jerry cartoons have the distinction of being considered the most violent ever. The question is why anybody considered why we needed an animated remake of Willy Wonka but with the addition of Tom and Jerry
The Tomb (1985)
Film from B-budget director Fred Olen Ray that is sold in a way that would have you believe it is a copy of Raiders of the Lost Ark but in reality is no more than a dull and cheap revived mummy queen film
The Tomorrow War (2021)
Chris Pratt is recruited to fight an alien invasion in a war across time in a big-budget film that flounders in its own ridiculousness
Tooth Fairy (2010)
From the top wrestling superstar in the world in the early 00s to movie action hero to being dressed in a pink tutu with fairy wings, it is hard to believe that Dwayne Johnson’s box-office star would have ever recovered from this family film embarrassment that sees him cast as a fairy
The Tortured (2010)
A couple abduct and torture a paedophile who killed their son. Hard to tell if this is an edgy out-there film or the most tasteless concept that Torture Porn cinema has tried so far. Alas, a banal tv movie handling kills any possibility of the former
Traces of Red (1992)
A disappointingly poor copy of Basic Instinct with Lorraine Bracco giving a really bad performance as the Sharon Stone equivalent who may be killing people around detective James Belushi
The Transformers: The Movie (1986)
Animated theatrically released spinoff from the original Transformers tv series. The film mostly serves to highlight the considerable number of characters where to the uninitiated it is frequently difficult to tell one side from the next.
Transit 17 (2019)
Belgian zombie film about a military unit assigned to travel through zombie-infested territory to rescue a girl who has an immunity
The Trial of Tony Blair (2007)
Political What if scenario that sees British Prime Minister Tony Blair being publicly shamed and then placed on trail for his part in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The biting points are undone by the film being directed in a tone of strident farce
Tribulation (2000)
The third in a series of Biblical End Times films withGary Busey as a decent cop who wakes up in a future ruled by the Anti-Christ. The heavy-handed slinging of Bible verses makes this hard-going for anyone who is not a believer, while the conspiratorial tone frequently verges on nuttiness
Trog (1970)
A revived caveman effort that is fairly terrible on all accounts. This has gained bad movie status because it features Joan Crawford as a scientist in her last theatrical role
A Troll in Central Park (1994)
Incredibly insipid animated film from Don Bluth about a kind-hearted troll that relocates to Central Park. This feels like a wannabe Disney film that is merely going through the moves.
Tron Ares (2025)
Tron was a genuinely groundbreaking work. It is hard to describe how ill conceived this sequel is where we have gone to predicting the idea of cyberspace to a fight over a glorified 3D printer
Troubled Waters (2006)
Thriller starring Jennifer Beals as an FBI agent who receives clairvoyant visions during the hunt for an abducted girl
Turbulence (1997)
Ridiculous disaster movie where air hostess Lauren Holly must deal with serial killer Ray Liotta while trying to land the plane
Turistas (2006)
A blatant copy of Hostel about tourists in Brazil being abducted into an organ harvesting scheme. Director John Stockwell seems distracted by filming diving scenes
Turkey Shoot (1983)
Ridiculous, splatter-heavy Australian-made film about a prison camp where prisoners are offered their freedom in a run while pursued by armed hunters
Turkey Shoot (2014)
Remake of the Ozploitation film where the original’s Most Dangerous Game scenario set in a dystopian future is lamely rewritten as a reality tv show and another Hunger Games ripoff. The original was fairly terrible; this has a lack of conviction in most regards that makes it even worse
The Turning (2020)
Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw is considered one of the greatest of all ghost stories. This new film version has been placed in the hands of Floria Sigismondi, considered one of top contemporary music video directors. What could possibly go wrong?
The Tuxedo (2002)
Part of the sad depths that Jackie Chan’s career sank to after he was discovered by Hollywood. This is a spy film parody where he is a cabbie who places on a hi-tech tuxedo that turns him into a super-agent
Twisted (2004)
Disappointing Philip Kaufman thriller where detective Ashley Judd finds she is dealing with a serial killer who is obsessed with her
Twitches (2005)
Inane Disney Channel film with twin sisters Tia and Tamera Mowry as sisters who didn’t know it who discover they are witches. A film that has zero interest in its fantasy elements and is entirely taken up by airhead teenage airhead natter
Twitches Too (2007)
Having to sit through the Mowray twins airhead natter again in a sequel to their early Disney Channel film feels the equivalent of nails being scratched on a blackboard
Two of a Kind (1983)
John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John went stellar in Grease. The same flopped when they reteamed in this comedy where they are caught in a bet between God and The Devil
UFO: Target Earth (1974)
Interest in UFO phenomena peaked in the 1970s with numerous books seriously studying it and twice as many crackpot ones. While there had been various flying saucers in 1950s alien invasion cinema, this obscure and rather dull oddity was the first fictional film investigating the phenomena
Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (1995)
Sequel to Under Siege in which Steven Seagal was a lone individual in a Die Hard scenario defending a battleship against a terrorist takeover; this is the same but with Seagal defending a train
Underdog (2007)
Excruciating and unfunny live-action version of the animated tv series about a superpowered dog. Everything is now run over with lame slapstick and smartass one-liners
Underworld: Blood Wars (2016)
I am at a loss to understand who the audience for the Underworld films is – they are films devoid of minimal requirements like plotting and seem to only exist as a series of forgettable action sequences and interchangeable Gothic poses by characters in black leather – and yet we keep getting more of them
Underworld: Evolution (2006)
The second of the Underworld films where Len Wiseman gets a bigger budget and amplifies the CGI and action sequences,. On the other hand, the characters and story are so stripped to a minimum you lose track of why things are happening
Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009)
Third of the Underworld films, a prequel to the previous entries. In truth, it is just the same as the others – lots of kinetic action moves and Gothic poses with little in the way of plot
Universal Soldier II: Brothers in Arms (1998)
The first of two cheap Universal Soldier sequels made in Canada with Matt Battaglia inheriting Jean-Claude Van Damme’s role
The Unknown Terror (1957)
Forgotten and not terribly interesting B movie about an expedition to the Caribbean in search of a missing explorer encountering a mad scientist engaged in experiments involving native sacrifices and local fungi
The Unnamable II: The Statement of Randolph Carter (1993)
A sequel to the earlier H.P. Lovecraft adapted film The Unnamable. Despite having a bigger budget, this is no more of an improvement over its predecessor
The Unquiet (2008)
There is a certain potential to the concept of two rival teams, parapsychological debunkers and a tabloid tv crew, researching a reputedly haunted prison. Only a couple of years later, this would have been mandatorily made as a Found Footage film but suffers from a director with no aptitude for atmosphere
V (1983)
Very popular mini-series during its day (that was followed by a tv series) concerning the alien invasion and occupation of Earth, this has an utter banality that fails on almost every level – as human drama, science and even basic plausibility