The House By the Cemetery (1981)
One of the key films in the cult of Lucio Fulci. Imagine a version of The Amityville Horror with the addition of zombies, mad scientists and a gore-drenched death every few minutes
The House Next Door (2006)
A largely routine haunted house film where Lara Flynn Boyle plays a wife who becomes certain that the house next door is parasitic and preys upon people’s minds
House of 1000 Corpses (2003)
Rob Zombie’s debut film was propelled into an infamy it didn’t deserve it was banned by its distributor. Zombie only slavishly rehashes The Texas Chain Saw Massacre with a constant posturing for shock effect that becomes tiresome
House of Dark Shadows (1970)
The first film based on the cult Gothic tv soap opera Dark Shadows, this is designed to highlight the series breakout character of Jonathan Frid’s vampire Barnabas Collins
House of Mirrors (2012)
Low-budget psycho-thriller about amnesia that tries hard in many areas but fails to generate enough contortion in terms of plot twists to make the show work
The House of Seven Corpses (1973)
Film with an interesting B movie cast line-up where a film crew inadvertently end up enacting rituals from a book that resurrect a corpse while shooting at a mansion
The House of the Dead (1978)
Not to be confused with the Uwe Boll videogame adaptation, this is an obscure but not entirely uninteresting horror anthology from the 1970s that tells several tales set around a funeral parlour
House of the Long Shadows (1983)
Cannon Films make an Old Dark House film that brings together an aging Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Vincent Price and John Carradine. This denoted the end of the Anglo-horror era but is not nearly as worthy as you feel it should have been
The House of the Spirits (1993)
A star-studded but ponderous adaptation of Isabel Allende’s cross-generational family saga set in an unnamed South American republic that comes with Magical Realist elements
The House on Sorority Row (1982)
A slasher film from the classic 1980s heyday set during a party at a sorority house. This has been praised as being one effort that is well above the rest of the genre.
House on the Edge of the Park (1980)
From the director of Cannibal Holocaust, Ruggero Deodato, comes this home invasion thriller that rips off The Last House on the Left. This was listed as a Video Nasty back in the day
House Red (2022)
Intriguing and well made film where two tourists seeking to patch up a troubled relationship volunteer at am Italian vineyard – only to find sinister things going on
The House That Vanished (1973)
Spanish director Jose Larraz gained a small cult reputation for his work amidst the 1970s Anglo-horror cycle. This is a psycho film where a model is stalked after witnessing a murder
The House That Would Not Die (1970)
A routine haunted house film that was made as a tv movie,. One of the several early genre works made by celebrated tv producer Aaron Spelling.
The House Where Evil Dwells (1982)
US-made ghost story set in Japan with a couple moved into a house haunted by a dead samurai, his wife and her lover. Not a patch on any of the classic Japanese kaidan eiga
Housebound (2014)
An NZ-made haunted house comedy that runs through a frenzied array of genre plot devices, a couple of minor jumps and some easy middle-of-the-road laughs leaving you feeling there should have been more to it
The Housemaid (2025)
An airport psycho-thriller that feels like wannabe Gillian Flynn that has been mounted as a vehicle for the talent-handicapped Sydney Sweeney. The whole plot hangs on a believability stretching mid-film twist revelation
The Houses October Built 2 (2017)
Sequel to The Houses October Built with the same group touring Halloween haunts encountered sinister figures beneath the masquerade as everything starts happening all over again
The Houses October Built (2014)
A Found Footage film with a camera crew searching Halloween attractions for the most extreme haunt only to find something else. The film has a certain effect where we are not entirely sure what is real
Housewife (2017)
Turkish director Con Evrenol made a splash with the horror film Baskin; this was his follow-up, an often head-scratching film about a housewife who is drawn into the mind-bending activities of a sinister cult
Hover (2018)
From the title and poster, you get the impression this is a future-set film about hoverboards or drones. Instead we have a near-future film involving agri-business conspiracy where euthanasia is dispatched by corporate lackeys
How I Became a Super-Hero (2020)
The title suggests either a comedic take on the superhero film or a teen film about a kid discovering superpowers. The least thing you expect this to be is a French police thriller about a unit investigating super-powered crimes
How I Live Now (2013)
While the title suggests a self-help manual about someone going to live off the land, this depicts an imaginary invasion of England similar to Red Dawn having been pitched as a Young Adult work
How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)
Ron Howard’s live-action adaptation of the Dr Seuss story visually embraces the nonsense absurdism but the charms get buried beneath the lavish production polish. Jim Carrey saves the day as The Grinch however.
How to Make a Monster (1958)
After his assorted teenage monster films, producer Herman Cohen made this about a resentful studio makeup effects artist who takes revenge by using his makeups to turn teens into mind-controlled monsters
How to Make a Monster (2001)
Horror movie about computer game designers dealing with a motion-capture suit that has gained life and is trying to kill them. This has nothing in common with the 1950s film beyond the title
How to Steal the World (1968)
The eight and last of the films recut from episodes of tv’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E.. This starts to show the strain of trying to make what were originally designed as tv episodes work as feature films
How to Talk to Girls at Parties (2017)
Though the title seems more suitable to a book of pick-up lines, this is about a romance with an alien visitor set during the punk era. John Cameron Mitchell adapts a Neil Gaiman story but seems to have forgotten the comedy elements
How to Train Your Dragon (2025)
With Disney having remade most of their animated catalogue in live-action, other studios are now getting in on the act with this live-action remake of How to Train Your Dragon
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019)
One of the most beautifully made formula animated films of recent vintage but at the end of the day no more than a film that is by the numbers where the artistry is unsupported by the banal script
Howard Lovecraft and the Frozen Kingdom (2016)
H.P. Lovecraft is a cult horror writer whose work brims over with a sense of cosmic dread. One of the most bizarre Lovecraft film adaptations is this work of children’s animation featuring a young Lovecraft
Howard Lovecraft and the Kingdom of Madness (2018)
The third of the trilogy of animated films from Arcana Studios based around the adventures of a young H.P. Lovecraft
Howard Lovecraft and the Undersea Kingdom (2017)
The second in a series of animated children’s films about the young H.P. Lovecraft and his encounters with the various denizens of the Cthulhu mythos
Howl (2021)
A low-budget film directed by lead actress Michele Martin that sets out to conduct a modernised retelling of Little Red Riding Hood in which she becomes a wolf
Hubcap (2021)
A film about a small town affected by a killer hubcap. This gives strong vibes of Quentin Dupieux’s hilarious Rubber, although surprisingly enough this plays the concept seriously
Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person (2023)
I was sold on this from the title. A droll Canadian (Quebec-made) vampire comedy about a vampire girl who cannot bring herself to kill and a suicidal teenager who becomes her willing victim
The Humanoid (1979)
One of several cheap Italian copies that were made after the success of Star Wars starring Richard Kiel as a peaceful intergalactic police inspector who is mutated into a killer humanoid
Humongous (1982)
Canadian-made slasher film from the director of the original Prom Night. This mixes slasher standard with a variant on the Mad/Deformed Relative in the Attic plot but mostly seems terminally dull
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)
A Disney animated film that turns Victor Hugo’s classic oft-filmed novel about Quasimodo, a misshapen figure of pity, into a slightly ugly teenager who now comes accompanied by talking gargoyles
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 (2014)
The third The Hunger Games film starts in with a more brooding complexity but with the book being split in two parts, the story feels more thinly drawn and comes to an abrupt end just when it starts to get interesting
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (2023)
The Hunger Games was one of the biggest franchise of the 2010s. Here a number of the key talents return to make a prequel to the events, telling a story from the early days of the Hunger Games
The Hungover Games (2014)
In the vein of the Scary Movies films, this offers the amusing idea of a mash-up between The Hunger Games and The Hangover where the characters are forced into a death match against characters from other media franchises
The Huntsman: Winter’s War (2016)
Sequel to Snow White and the Huntsman. Despite low expectations, this emerged better than one thought it would. It has a better director and seems much more at home being an epic fantasy than the first film
Husk (2011)
An intent seriousness fails to disguise a ridiculous premise – a haunted cornfield where interlopers are made to sit at a sewing machine to sew burlap masks that turn them into undead scarecrows
The Hyperions (2022)
The rarity of an original screen superhero film, this takes place in a Retro 1970s setting as former superheroes conduct a heist to get their badges of power back
Hypersleep (2022)
A film of reality bending conceptual twists about a psychiatrist tending cryogenically frozen prisoners who then wakes to find that he has become one of the prisoners
Hypnotic (2023)
Robert Rodriguez makes a film with Ben Affleck as a detective dealing with a man who can control others’ minds. However, this develops into a mind twister of considerable reality bending proportions
Hypothermia (2011)
A Larry Fessenden produced monster movie that takes place around a hundred square feet of a frozen-over lake with people being hunted by a monster beneath the ice
I Am Legend (2007)
The third film version of Richard Matheson’s book is only a remake of the previous version The Omega Man. Crucially, this throws out the essence of the book for a far less interesting piece about Will Smith fighting mutants in the ruins
I Am Omega (2007)
A mockbuster from The Asylum that was intended to capitalise on the release of I Am Legend and in fact gets much more of the essence of the original Richard Matheson novel than the official film did
I, Robot (2004)
Disappointing adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s Robot stories. The film pays token acknowledgement to Asimov’s characters and universe and mostly seems interested in spectacular effects set-pieces
I Saw the Devil (2010)
Overrated South Korean revenge thriller about a detective obsessively pursuing a serial killer that has a mild level of ultra-violence going for it but otherwise fails to grip or dig into a psychological darkness
I Saw What You Did (1965)
Gimmick master William Castle turns to making a psycho-thriller about two teenage girls making prank calls and uttering the title phrase – only to inadvertently call a man who has just killed his wife
I Saw What You Did (1988)
TV movie remake of a 1960s psycho-thriller about two girls making prank calls and uttering the title phrase – only to inadvertently call a killer. The premise makes a lot more sense updated to the 80s
I Sell the Dead (2008)
Odd film about 19th Century body snatchers that is like a low-budget version of a Burke and Hare story. This develops a sense of humour and starts to go in some very strange directions
I Spit on Your Grave III: Vengeance is Mine (2015)
These I Spit on Your Grave films have considerable brutal effect. On the other hand, by the time of this second sequel to a remake, it does seem exploitative watching the heroine being abused again because the previous films made money
I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998)
The sequel to I Know What You Did Last Summer. This misses the playful humour and twists of Kevin Williamson’s script and becomes no more than a routine slasher movie
I Think We’re Alone Now (2018)
Set in the aftermath of an unspecified apocalypse, this is a film about the oddball friendship that grows between misanthropic Peter Dinklage and pixie-ish Elle Fanning
I Was a Teenage Faust (2001)
A very lightweight made-for-tv comedy where a nerdy teen signs a pact with a desperate agent of The Devil who offers him cool and the girl of his dreams
Ibiza Undead (2016)
British lad culture take on the zombie film. Think a version of Shaun of the Dead inhabited by guys around the age of 20 whose only real concerns is getting laid and wasted. The constant vulgarity becomes tiresome
Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009)
Another of Blue Sky Studios’ interminable animated sequels to its likeable original about prehistoric talking animals. This has little substance beyond a kinetic rush from one gag to the next
The Ice Pirates (1984)
A space opera that was made in the aftermath of Star Wars. It is a magpie collage of influences that are not always the most coherently presented and given a comic emphasis
Ice (1998)
A made-for-tv disaster movie about a new Ice Age. This uncannily prefigures the scenario of Roland Emmerich’s big budget, high-profile The Day After Tomorrow
Ice Twisters (2009)
Another formula Syfy Channel disaster movie based around a scientifically improbable meteorological premise. This does at least make the characters work with more of a sparring vigour than usual
If Looks Could Kill (1991)
Way back before Austin Powers, the James Bond/spy movie parody began here with this silly effort in which teenager Richard Grieco is propelled into an international spy caper
If You Were the Last (2023)
A space film set aboard a NASA space mission as two stranded astronauts debate whether to surrender to mutual attraction. In contrast to realistically grounded efforts such as Gravity, The Martian et al, this is a comedy
Ignition (2001)
An action film set against the backdrop of a new Moon mission where Bill Pullman plays a US marshal assigned to protect judge Lena Olin whose life is under threat
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
Illang: The Wolf Brigade (2018)
The anime Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade was a fascinating play of metaphors that mixed terrorism and Little Red Riding Rood. This is a live-action remake from South Korea
The Illusionist (2006)
This came out the same year as The Prestige and has a very similar plot with Edward Norton as a stage magician in 19th Century who may have real powers and the rivalry over a woman
The Illustrated Man (1969)
An anthology that adapts three stories from Ray Bradbury’s short story collection but does so with singularly heavy-handed regard. The best aspect of the film is the framing story with a brooding Rod Steiger in the title role.
I’m Not Harry Jenson. (2009)
A New Zealand-made film about a crime writer joining a party tramping through the bush as the group starts to be killed off by one among their number
Imaginaerum (2012)
A film based on the album by Finnish symphonic metal group Nightwish that takes place inside the allegorical mental terrain of a dying rock star. This collapses into the over-inflated amateur symbolism of a music video
Imagine That (2009)
Eddie Murphy in another of the lame flops that marked his career in the 2000s where he plays a stockbroker who gets stock tips from his daughter’s imaginary companion
Immaculate (2024)
A horror film where Sydney Sweeney stars as a virginal nun who appears to be experiencing an immaculate conception. This is only a slightly better version of The Nun
Immortal Sins (1992)
A Roger Corman produced erotic horror in which Cliff De Young inherits a castle in Spain where he is tempted by a witch who appears in his dreams
In Dreams (1999)
In one of his more mainstream films, Neil Jordan takes a leaf from Eyes of Laura Mars as Annette Bening gains psychic insight into the mind of serial killer Robert Downey Jr
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
In Search of Darkness II: A Journey Into ’80s Horror Continues (2020)
A follow-up to the documentary about the 1980s horror film, this deals with some of the lesser-known and overlooked works that were not covered the first time around
In Search of Lovecraft (2008)
A Found Footage film about a tv crew investigating Lovecraftian cultists who are trying to raise an elder god. This makes an okay stab but is distinctly hampered by a low budget
In/Sight (2011)
There are few fantastic themes more tired than the clairvoyant thriller – a standard murder mystery where the detective just intuits all their deductions psychically. Apart from a couple of interesting twists, this is no different
In the Blink of an Eye (2026)
Former Pixar director Andrew Stanton, known for Finding Nemo, Wall-E and John Carter, makes a cross-historical work in the vein of Cloud Atlas that takes place between prehistory, the present and the future
In the Trap (2019)
Film about a man in his home fearful of demonic forces attacking those around him, this comes with decent atmosphere and at least one highly effective twist
Incarnate (2016)
Ever since The Exorcist, filmmakers have been recycling the same cliches for the last forty years. This slings the cliches together with the dream incursion concept from Inception, which makes things somewhat interesting
Incident at Raven’s Gate (1988)
An enigmatic film from director Rolf de Heer where a town in the Australian Outback is haunted by strange lights and other mysterious unexplained phenomena
Incoming (2018)
An action film set aboard the International Space Station, which has been converted into a prison to house terrorists, who proceed to hijack it, turning the station into a suicide missile headed towards Earth
Incredible But True (2022)
Another of Quentin Dupieux’s gonzo, surreal comedies where a married couple buy a house and find it has a portal that takes them twelve hours into the future, while making them younger
The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Sequel to the Ang Lee Hulk with Edward Norton inheriting the roles of Bruce Banner. Ang Lee gave the first film a visual brio but this often seems by the numbers
The Incredible Hulk Returns (1988)
The very first ever team-up between Marvel Comics characters on the screen in which Bill Bixby’s Hulk meets Thor. The film has a camp reputation because of its Thor who resembles a Swedish bodybuilder
Incredibles 2 (2018)
Pixar’s venture into sequels has resulted in works playing off past successes that are lesser than their originals. This came with much anticipation but it too must be counted as another disappointment
Incubus (1982)
A film about a shapeshifting demonic rapist. This is far more tastefully presented than its premise would suggest, in fact comes with he plodding sedateness of a tv movie
Independence Day (1996)
The film that made Roland Emmerich’s name as a specialist in mass destruction spectacle. At heart, this rehashes a 1950s alien invasion film on a big-budget and adds blatantly sentimentalised American flag-waving
Independents’ Day (2016)
The Asylum’s mockbuster answer to Independence Day: Resurgence, a rehash of Independence Day on a cheaper budget. The desire to copy the title has forced some plotting oddities onto the film
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
The fourth of the Indiana Jones films, returning after a 19 year gap to general disappointment. Largely a film about Indy getting old, this tries but the action scenes pale against what the series was in its heyday
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
Infection (2005)
Albert Pyun makes an alien body snatchers film that has been shot Found Footage style and takes place entirely from the viewpoint of the dashcam camera of a police car
Infini (2015)
An Australian effort that is less the usual people being hunted by alien nasties in darkened corridors standard than ‘The Crazies in Space’. Crippled by a fatal lack of tension and suspense
Infinitum: Subject Unknown (2021)
An interesting film shot during Covid lockdown, all filmed on an IPhone, about a woman caught in a timeloop where she keeps repeating through various scenarios
Infinity Chamber (2016)
A reality bending film about a man held in an automated prison where he must outsmart the prison’s A.I. in order to affect an escape
Inhabited Island (2008)
Russian adaptation of a classic Soviet-era SF novel from the Srugatski Brothers that plays what was originally a complex social allegory out as an effects extravaganza