The Dude in Me (2019)
A South Korean film where a tough gangster and a bullied teenager end up swapping bodies whereupon the gangster ends up transforming the teen’s life by employing gangland tactics in the school playground
Dude, Where’s My Car? (2000)
A bizarrely surreal, anything goes comedy as two bros set out to find their car after a night partying. This feels like Repo Man as though directed by the Farrelly Brothers after they had inhaled a few bongs
Dumbo (2019)
Another in the spate of live-action remakes of Disney animated films – one of four to be released in 2019 alone. This comes from Tim Burton who reconceives as Dumbo as another of his oddball outsiders.
Dungeons & Dragons (2000)
Film based on the enormously popular roleplaying game, this appears to have been quickly thrown together in advance of The Lord of the Rings films but is a shabby effort filled with some disastrous off-tone casting
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)
A new film based on the role-playing game. The first film several years ago is poorly regarded. This is an attempt to reboot a film series but suffers badly from being handed to two comedy directors and their flip treatment
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
The Dustwalker (2019)
A zombie film of sorts in which the people of an Australian outback town are taken over by an alien force. A zombie film that seems to be trying not to be a zombie film.
The Dyatlov Pass Incident (2013)
The Dyatlov Pass Incident has gained a fascination as an unexplained mystery. Here Renny Harlin makes a Found Footage film that heads for full on conspiracy theory explanations
Dylan Dog: Dead of Night (2010)
US film adaptation of a cult Italian comic-book about a private eye who investigates the supernatural, this comes out like a weak episode of tv’s Angel where a potential worthwhile idea descends to lame humour
Eagle Eye (2008)
Shia LaBeouf ends up on the run from the FBI in a conspiracy involving an A.I. A thriller about the surveillance society that, despite much sound and fury, finds almost nothing to say about its subject
The Eagle Shooting Heroes (1993)
A Hong Kong Wu Xia film from Jeffrey Lau that is near plotless and made at a madcap level of slapstick comedy that is frequently exhausting.
Early Man (2018)
Claymation film from Aardman Animations that is in effect a prehistoric comedy like The Flintstones or The Croods mixed up with a sports film, but is Aardman’s slightest work so far
Earth Abides (2024)
Earth Abides is a classic novel that essentially defined the theme of survival in the aftermath of the collapse of civilisation. This is a TV mini-series adaptation of the book but badly fumbles it
Earth Star Voyager (1988)
TV mini-series that came out hoping to ride the coattails of Star Trek: The Next Generation but looks dated barely ten years later. Somehow the idea of teenagers on a space mission didn’t get many audiences enthused
Earth to Echo (2014)
Found Footage film that nostalgically homages, if not outrightly borrows, from E.T.. It does build a sense of wonder well but then dissolves into far too much near-identical running around
Earth vs. the Spider (2001)
One of a spate of remakes of old AIP titles conducted in 2001, this spins the original giant spider amok film out into a superhero-gone-wrong take on Spider-Man
Earthrise (2014)
Low-budget SF film about a space expedition from Mars to Earth where before you can say Solaris the crew start to experience hallucinations of their loved ones. Sort of The Crazies in space
Earth’s Final Hours (2011)
Another Syfy Channel low-budget disaster film. This creates a fascinating if scientifically dubious end of the world premise about a white hole but spends the show on the routine stuff of car chases and gunfights
East Meets West (2011)
Hong Kong comedy designed to bring together an ensemble of local stars. The film starts out about the efforts to reunite a band and turns into a wacky effort where everybody discovers they are avatars of deities
East of Piccadilly (1940)
An obscure British thriller about murders in an apartment building of eccentric tenants. This turns into something really quite strange
Eat Locals (2017)
A vampire film directed by actor Jason Flemyng set around a group of vampires at siege in a farmhouse from a unit of vampire hunters. The vampire film is looking a little tepid post-Twilight era and this does little to turn the genre around
Eaten Alive (1977)
The first film that Tobe Hooper made immediately after The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, a dementedly OTT Southern Gothic with Neville Brand as a backwoods motelier serving up his guests to the crocodiles
Eating Miss Campbell (2022)
The sight of the normally super-offensive and un-PC Troma Films trying to adjust to the post-#MeToo and Cancel Culture era while making a film about high school cannibalism is a bizarre one indeed
Eating Raoul (1982)
Paul Bartel’s black comedy where he and Mary Woronov play a snobby couple who pose as kinksters to lure swingers and then kill them off. all to fund setting up an exclusive restaurant
Eclipse (2010)
The third of the Twilight films. This extrudes the dramatic irresolution of the last film’s cliffhanger – should Bella marry Edward or does she really love Jacob? – with over-padded momentousness
Ed Gein (2000)
A film based on true-life necrophile killer Ed Gein starring Steve Railsback. While accurate to the case, this suffers a crucial tameness of spirit when it comes to depicting Gein’s activities
Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield (2007)
Film based on the exploits of necrophile killer Ed Gein that throws the facts up in the air and essentially makes up its own story, while the role is miscast with a hulking Kane Hodder
Eden Log (2007)
Cryptic and baffling French art science-fiction film involving strange happenings at a laboratory where we never get any explanations about what is going on
Edgar Allan Poe’s Lighthouse Keeper (2016)
Adaptation of a story fragment that Edgar Allan Poe left unfinished upon his death. The original (only two pages long) gives little more than a setting but this builds out into an okay period ghost story
Eight Legged Freaks (2002)
Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin turn their attentions to revamping the 1950s giant insect film. They bring top-drawer effects to bear but everything else plays to standard formula
The Eighteenth Angel (1998)
David Seltzer, the screenwriter of The Omen, recycles himself here where Rachael Leigh Cook is caught up in the coming Biblical End of the World around the turn of the millennium
Electric Dreams (1984)
Lightweight, rather silly effort where Lenny Von Dohlen’s home computer becomes sentient and the two compete for the love of neighbour Virginia Madsen
The Electric State (2025)
This is a film that had the capacity within its hands to be a classic work about A.I. and robotics. Adapted from the art of Simon Stålenhag and directed by the Russo Brothers who were behind the last two Avengers films
Electroma (2006)
Full-length film made by the French electronic music duo Daft Punk based around the robot guises the band adopts. Resembles an extended student film and feels exactly like an SF version of The Brown Bunny
The Element of Crime (1984)
The first feature film from Lars von Trier, a crime thriller set in a futuristic Europe. There are glimmers of the visual style von Trier would develop but the film also badly drags
Elf (2003)
Jon Favreau directed Christmas film premised entirely around the premise of 6’3″ Will Ferrell as an ungainly Christmas elf. The film works entirely to the extent one has a tolerance for Ferrell’s screen presence.
Elvira’s Haunted Hills (2001)
The second film outing of US horror hostess Elvira, which is construed as a parody/homage to the Roger Corman-Vincent Price Edgar Allan Poe films. Everything is overrun with Elvira’s cheesy puns and double entendres
Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals (1977)
A bizarre cross between the softcore Emmanuelle films and the Italian cannibal film. It seems perverse to be watching beautiful bodies one minute and next showing their insides being spilled
Embrace of the Vampire (2013)
This is a Canadian-made remake of the Alyssa Milano-starring erotic vampire film The Nosferatu Diaries: Embrace of the Vampire. For some reason, this is now minus the erotica and emerges as tepid
Embrace the Darkness II (2001)
Embrace the Darkness was a surprisingly good work of vampire erotica. This, the first of two sequels, seems more interested in being a horror film than erotica
The Emerald Forest (1985)
John Boorman film with Powers Boothe searching for his son who has been snatched by Indians in the Amazon. A mystical film, the first to bring issues of deforestation of the Amazon rainforest to public attention
The Emoji Movie (2017)
An animated film that bizarrely speculates that the emojis in your text messages are actually living entities that have lives inside the phone. A not-too-well-thought out concept that leaves you with strange questions about its world
The Emperor’s New Clothes (1987)
One of the shabby fairytales produced by Cannon Films. Here the clear and simple moral sting of the Hans Christian Andersen original disappears under buffoonish comedy
The Enchanted Cottage (2016)
A modern remake of an old play filmed twice before about a magical cottage that allows plain and disfigured lovers who stay there to see the other one as beautiful
The Encounter (2015)
Found Footage film about various people in the woods in the aftermath of a UFO crash. Essentially The Blair Witch Project with UFOs instead of a backwoods haunting
End of the Line (2007)
Could it be too hard to go wrong in making a film about a doomsday cult hunting people through a subway tunnel? Apparently it is and after a promising beginning, the film churns the cliches with little tension
The End We Start From (2023)
Jodie Comer is a new mother who travels through an England that has been devastated by catastrophic flooding. Not dissimilar to The Road but less bleak
Ender’s Game (2013)
I will defend Orson Scott Card as an exceptional science-fiction writer, his controversies aside. While this is an extremely faithful adaptation of his book, it works unevenly as a film and never soars dramatically
Endgame (1983)
Joe D’Amato directs one of the numerous 80s Italian Mad Max 2 copies. One of the very first films to depict televised human bloodsports later popularised by the likes of The Running Man and The Hunger Games
Enemy Mine (1985)
SF film with Dennis Quaid and Louis Gossett Jr as human and alien who are enemies but are forced to cooperate to survive after crashlanding on a hostile alien planet
Entrails of a Virgin (1986)
Welcome to the bizarre and decidedly politically incorrect world of the Japanese pinku film. Words fail me on this one, which concerns a demonic rapist that attacks a porn film shoot
Epic (2013)
The animated films of Blue Sky Studios (the people behind the Ice Age sequels) have become so formulaic they have been drained of any spark of originality or creativity. This feels more like a series of test-marketing cues than a film
Epidemic (1987)
Lars von Trier’s second and most obscure film. Made on a shoestring budget, it is mostly about two filmmakers trying to make a film about a plague outbreak but does burst out into a fantastic shaggy dog ending
Equals (2015)
Dystopian film about a future where emotion is forbidden – this owes much to George Lucas’s THX 1138, right down to the blinding white-on-white look. The film is also hobbled by a non-acting Kristen Stewart
Equilibrium (2002)
While Kurt Wimmer’s film with Christian Bale as an enforcer in a dystopian future attained some acclaim when it came out, it feels like it is comprised of a collage of cliches borrowed from every other dystopian film
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
Equinox (1992)
A follow-up to Alan Rudolph’s Trouble of Mind, a work of neo-Film Noir in a futuristic setting where Matthew Modine plays twins who are drawn into underworld dealings
Eraser (1996)
The publicity machine made a big effort to convince us we were a more serious Arnold Schwarzenegger film but it is business as usual. The spectacular action scenes are frequently undercut by their absurd improbability
Ernest Scared Stupid (1991)
The fourth of Jim Varney’s Ernest P. Worrel comedies. This pits Ernest in a series of knockabouts routines against a troll that is resurrected on Halloween
Erotic Ghost Story III (1992)
The third and least interesting of the Hong Kong series that blends erotica and the supernatural. Unlike the other films, this takes itself mostly seriously
Escape from Mars (1999)
One of several Mars movies that came out around 1999-2000, this concerns the first manned expedition and their efforts to survive after being stranded on the Martian surface
Escape Room (2017)
One of at least three identically titled films coming out around the same time based around the popularity of escape rooms. This has a group trapped in a room with an unleashed demonic force
Escape Room (2017)
This was debatably the first of three films that came out around the same time with the same title. Here a group find themselves in an escape room facing nasty deaths in each room
Escape Room: Tournament of Champions (2021)
Sequel to the 2019 Escape Room. This repeats everything that its predecessor did but bigger and more elaborate to the point that basic believability goes out the window
Escape the Field (2022)
This comes with a near-identical premise to the Stephen King adaptation In the Tall Grass where a group of people are trapped in an endless cornfield
Escape to Witch Mountain (1975)
Disney live-action film with two psi-powered kids on the run. A popular hit that seems to have been mostly construed around a series of novelty effects set-pieces
Eternal (2004)
A film about Elizabeth Bathory living in the present day, this comes with the suggestion of erotic allure but disappointingly proves to be a pose without much substance
The Eternal Daughter (2022)
This received acclaim on the arthouse circuit. Tilda Swinton plays both the daughter and her mother who go to stay a hotel that may be haunted. Everything hovers in a state of ambiguity
Eternals (2021)
A Marvel Comics offering that is an adaptation of a team created by the greatest comic-book writer/artist of all time. On screen however, this emerges with strangely flat and moribund results
Europa Report (2013)
A groundedly realistic film about an expedition to search for life on Europa that that emerges as a disappointment coming soon after the similar space-based Gravity
Evangelion 1.0: You Are (Not) Alone (2007)
The first in a series of film reboots of the Neon Genesis Evangelion anime tv series. Epic animation but you need to the part of the fanbase of the original to understand what is going on
Evangelion 3.0: You Can (Not) Redo (2012)
Third of the Neon Genesis Evangelion reboot films. These films are frustrating – filled with stunning scenes of mecha battling cryptic alien machines but baffling as to what is going on
Evangelion: 3.0+1.01 Thrice Upon a Time (2021)
This was the fourth film in the Neon Genesis Evangelion reboot film series and concludes the saga. Rather than offering any answers or solution to the cryptic world we are in, this opts for a major letdown of a wrap-up
Event 16 (2006)
A homemade New Zealand film that attempts to pull an ambitious time travel story that takes place in multiple era with temporal police intervening after a scientist invents a time portal
Event Horizon (1997)
Paul W.S. Anderson puts together a well-produced and atmospheric copy of Alien, However, this also comes with a premise – spaceship returns after travelling through Hell – that is nonsensical
Every Home Should Have One (1970)
A vehicle for Marty Feldman, a peculiar comedy where he plays an advertising executive who has Walter Mitty-like sexual fantasies
Every Time I Die (2019)
Film with an interestingly original premise where a guy is murdered and then inhabits the bodies of a group of friends as he tries to expose the killer
Everything Beautiful is Far Away (2017)
An indie film about a man, a woman and a robot head who meet and conduct a journey together across a desert at some point after it seems that civilisation has collapsed
The Evil (1978)
Classic 1970s haunted film – at least the ending reveals otherwise. While most haunted house films focus on creating spooky atmosphere, this has been designed as a copy of The Omen driven by a series of bizarre novelty deaths
Evil Altar (1988)
A low-budget 80s film about a town where the locals are in thrall to a Satanist who has demanded the souls of 103 children
Evil Bong (2006)
From Charles Band, this features a possessed marijuana bong that sucks those that imbibe inside into the simulation of a stripper bar where they lose their souls. Several sequels followed.
Evil Eye (2020)
Blumhouse film where a Westernised Indian girl rejects her traditional mother’s fears about her new boyfriend being a bad man reincarnated only for them to come true
Evil Toons (1992)
Who Framed Roger Rabbit? popularised the idea of the toon where cartoon characters mingle with humans. This was exploitation director Fred Olen Ray’s take where a stripper is possessed by a demonic toon
Evolution (2001)
Ivan Reitman comedy that is essentially a rehash of his earlier hit Ghostbusters but where instead of ghosts he has a team investigating rapidly alien lifeforms at a meteor crash site
The Ewok Adventure (1984)
Crass attempt by George Lucas to further milk the Star Wars phenomenon with a tv movie (released to theatres outside the US) given over the Ewoks from Return of the Jedi
The Executioners (2018)
A film where four girls on a weekend getaway undergo a home invasion. It soon becomes apparent that this is a film homaging I Spit on Your Grave
Exorcism at 60,000 Feet (2020)
A possession film set on an airplane. This sets out to parody exorcism movie cliches but makes a beeline for outrageous bad taste humour. It does include a great cast of genre regulars
The Exorcism of Anna Ecklund (2016)
Low-budget possession and exorcism supposedly based on a true story that cycles through most of the tropes of the genre. An earlier version of the same “true-life” possession depicted in The Ritual
The Exorcism of God (2021)
A possession and exorcism film from Mexico, this draws on the same tired and overly worn clichés that have been around since The Exorcist but offers some interesting twists
The Exterminator (1980)
Vigilante film with a cult reputation that was banned in places because of its ultra-violence. The film is a mix of Taxi Driver and Death Wish, mostly centred around a series of gory despatches
The Exterminators of the Year 3000 (1983)
An Italian exploitation film that blatantly copies the plot of Mad Max 2. It offers the benefit of some vigorous action scenes and English-language dubbing that is out of this world
Extinction (2018)
At first glance, this seems a routine alien invasion film. However, this becomes a whole lot more watchable with a mid-film twist that turns what is going on on its head
Extraterrestrial (2011)
This, the second film from Nacho Vigalondo, is a head-scratcher, Though it is ostensibly an alien invasion film, Vigalondo instead creates a comedy of errors
Extraterrestrial (2014)
Group of twentysomethings go to a cabin in the woods, are abducted and attacked by E.T.s. I wanted to like this but there is something generic and interchangeable about everything that is happening
Extremity (2018)
Horror film from the rising name of Anthony DiBlasi set around an extreme haunt, a Halloween horror show that pushes everything beyond people’s limits
The Eye 10 (2005)
The third and weakest of the Pang Brothers’ The Eye films, this has occasional moments of spookiness but mostly feels made up of leftover ideas that didn’t make it to the other films
The Eye (2008)
An English-language remake of the ghost story from the Pang Brothers follows the other film faithfully but in terms of atmosphere is a pallid copy of the original
Eye of the Cat (1969)
Psycho-thriller where derelict Michael Sarrazin is taken home by Gayle Hunnicutt and gets wound up in a series of games between her and batty aunt Eleanor Parker
Eyeball (1975)
A giallo film from Umberto Lenzi, best known for creating the Italian cannibal film but Lenzi’s direction is crude and lacking style in comparison to the others working in this genre
Eyes of a Stranger (1981)
Entry from the heyday of the slasher film. Better plotted than most of its ilk, largely because it steals the plot from Hitchcock’s Rear Window. Featuring a teenage Jennifer Jason Leigh in her first film role