Josie and the Pussycats (2001)
A live-action film based on the animated tv series about a girl rock band who originally appeared in Archie comics, this gets buried under its own efforts to be cutely ironic
Journey to the Beginning of Time (1955)
One of his earlier efforts from the great Karel Zeman wherein four boys journey through prehistory. Not the equal of Zeman’s later work, it feels more like an illustrated museum tour than a dramatic film
Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D (2008)
This family friendly adaptation of the classic Jules Verne novel was made to highlight the 3D process and throws most of the book out to essentially become Jules Verne the theme park ride
Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons (2013)
Director/actor Stephen Chow is one of the undisputed comedy geniuses of Hong Kong cinema. Alas, he comes astray with this version of the classic Chinese legend
Journey to the West: Demon Chapter (2017)
A sequel to Stephen Chow’s Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons. Directed by the legendary Tsui Hark who leaps in with wildly fantastic regard but is also forced to incorporate Chow’s slapstick
Ju-on (2000)
The Japanese Ju-on/The Grudge is one of the most popular modern kaidan eiga series, having produced fourteen films to date. This was the very first of the series
Ju-on: The Beginning of the End (2014)
The tenth of the Japanese Ju-on/The Grudge series. Newcomer Masayuki Ochiai has some effective touches but the series is running out of original moves
Judge Dredd (1995)
The film adaptation of the cult comic-book looks great in terms of design but misses the comic’s satiric sense of humour and simply becomes a thudding Sylvester Stallone action vehicle
Judgment Day (1998)
Coming out the same year as Deep Impact and Armageddon, this was another oncoming asteroid collision film – one that has been bizarrely crosshatched with a ‘hood drama
Jumanji (1995)
A popular Robin Williams starring hit about a boardgame that unleashes jungle-themed chaos in a small town. A cute effects-driven idea that ultimately becomes an incredibly safe fantasy
Jumanji: The Next Level (2019)
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, the reboot of the 90s Jumanji, was a box-office success. That mandated a sequel. The central problem is where exactly does a film about characters sucked inside a videogame go with its premise?
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017)
A revival of Jumanji. The original’s boardgame is now a videogame that sucks the players inside. The adventure elements are routine but the film’s has comedic fun with its bodyswapped characters
Jumper (2008)
Doug Liman makes a film that has a great concept – a secret world of people with the mental ability to teleport anywhere – that emerges as no more than a slickly polished effort that does nothing with its premise
Jungle Moon Men (1955)
Former Tarzan star Johnny Weissmuller plays himself in a routine studio backlot jungle adventure that uncreditedly steals the plot from H. Rider Haggard’s She
Jungle Woman (1944)
The second of Universal’s trilogy that began with Captive Wild Woman, starring the exotic Acquanetta as a woman who transforms into an ape. Mostly routine
Jung_E (2023)
Train to Busan director Yeon Sang-ho turns his hand to making an SF film about the attempts to perfect an android soldier and the fight to complete and control it
The Juniper Tree (1990)
The singer Björk appears in the adaptation of a fairytale by the Brothers Grimm about witchcraft in mediaeval Iceland
Jurassic Park III (2001)
Steven Spielberg handed the directorial reins of the series over to Joe Johnston and this emerges as a better film than The Lost World was, even if it is only ever arranged around a series of effects set-pieces
Jurassic School (2017)
The Asylum offer up their own mockbuster copy of the Jurassic World films, an amiable children’s film where a young boy hatches a dinosaur egg he finds
Jurassic World: Dominion (2022)
This was the sixth film in the Jurassic Park/World franchise and offers very much a return to the familiar. It at least also shakes several familiar things up
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)
Fifth of the Jurassic Park films. Industrial Light and Magic do their usual excellent job but this time the film is just recycling the same thing as before with minimal change
Just Another Pandora’s Box (2010)
A demented Jeffrey Lau comedy that seems to have no limits on how silly it is willing to be, while parodying just about every other film made around the same time
Just Cause (1995)
Sean Connery stars as a law professor in a courtroom thriller about a wrongly convicted man. However, this gets sidetracked into being a The Silence of the Lambs copycat
Just Imagine (1930)
This was one of the first US films to depict the future. It is essentially Metropolis having been remade as a Broadway musical with an emphasis on comedy
Just Like Heaven (2005)
An odd light fantasy romcom where Mark Ruffalo is suddenly haunted by the ghost of Reese Witherspoon as she lies in a comatose state on life support
Justice League (2017)
Zack Snyder completes his run through DC superheroes with mixed results. The introduction of the characters works well but Snyder too readily throws established continuity out the window, while the visual dourness becomes tedious
Justice League Dark (2017)
We are familiar with the Justice League but this gives us an alternate League whose members have supernatural abilities or are versed in dealing with the occult.
Justice League Dark: Apokolips War (2020)
The DC Comics animated version of an Avengers film where they put every superhero under their roof on screen at once, including Justice League Dark, the regular Justice League, Suicide Squad and Teen Titans
Justice League: Doom (2012)
A relative disappointment among the mostly excellent animated DC superhero films, this pits each member of the Justice League with a matching super-villain only who seemingly kills them off
Justice League: Gods and Monsters (2015)
An alternate world take on DC Comics characters, who are much more morally ambiguous – Superman is General Zod’s son and Batman’s role is taken by Man-Bat and is an actual vampire
Justice League: Throne of Atlantis (2015)
Not so much a Justice League film as an Aquaman origin film, which at least conducts a character oft regard as a DC laughing stock with suitable dignity
Justice League vs the Fatal Five (2019)
A DC Universe Original Animated Movie that introduces the Legion of Superheroes, their nemeses The Fatal Five and an assortment of new Justice League members to widen diversity
Justice League: War (2014)
Another of the DC Universe Animated Films that rewrites the Justice League into DC’s New 52 continuity reboot. This changes the character’s origins and designs to little point
Justice League: Warworld (2023)
Another of the animated DC Comics films in which various of their regular characters find themselves incarnated in simulated combat arenas
K-PAX (2001)
Kevin Spacey is a mysterious patient in a psychiatric institution who makes possibly true claims to be an alien. An uncredited ripoff of the far superior Man Facing Southeast
Kaboom (2010)
Gregg Araki film that centres around sexually conflicted university student Thomas Dekker and his various liaisons amid witches, a doomsday weapon, cults and premonitions
Kamikaze (1986)
An early film written/produced by Luc Besson concerning a scientist driven crazy by tv announcers who invents a device that can kill people as they appear live on tv
Kamikaze 1989 (1982)
A detective thriller set in a near-future Germany. Arthouse director Rainer Werner Fassbinder plays the detective. This came out three weeks before Blade Runner prefigures what was later called Cyberpunk
Kandisha (2020)
Directors Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury made the brutally extreme Inside. Here they return with what feels like an unofficial copy of Candyman about a vengeful boogeywoman
The Karate Killers (1967)
One of the appealingly colourful theatrical films edited together from the tv series The Man from U.N.C.L.E. – although surprisingly given the title this is not a martial arts film
Karla (2006)
Film based on true-life serial killing couple Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka. This could have been another Monster but it feels like a film that played everything safe in terms of its content
The Keep (1983)
Adaptation from a best-selling horror novel about Nazis battling an ancient evil. Michael Mann lavishes amazing visuals on the film but almost entirely sidelines the horror element
Keep Watching (2017)
A Found Footage film about a family who finds everything they do is being filmed by hidden cameras before their home is invaded by masked figures
Keeping Mum (2005)
Comedy in which reverend Rowan Atkinson’s home is invaded by murderous nanny Maggie Smith. A promisingly black idea ends up being delivered as a quaintly mumsy British rural comedy
Keyhole (2011)
A disappointment from Guy Maddin where he abandons his trademark surrealism and makes what feels like cross between a haunted house film and a 1940s crime drama by way of the French New Wave
Kidnapped (2010)
Spanish home invasion thriller that comes with a moderate degree of brutality and tension but ultimately feels more like a set of choices in a survival horror videogame than an engaging thriller
Kids vs Aliens (2022)
The director of Hobo with a Shotgun returns with a film about a group of kids caught up in the midst as aliens invade a party put on while their parents are away
Kiki’s Delivery Service (2014)
NOT the Hayao Miyazaki film but a live-action version based on the same books, made by Takashi Shimizu of the Jun-on/The Grudge films fame. Replicating Miyazaki in live-action is a futile endeavour
Kill and Kill Again (1981)
From they heyday of the 1970s martial arts film, karate champion James Ryan must reunite the old gang to take on a super-villain who wants to enslave the world with a mind control drug derived from potatoes
Kill Theory (2009)
This has clearly been conceived as Saw by way of Big Brother in which a group of teens are imprisoned in a house and forced to eliminate one another until only one remains
Killdozer (1974)
This tv movie’s premise – “a killer bulldozer” – has had it slotted into bad movie stakes. It was clearly intended as a copy of Duel and its killer truck premise but lacks Steven Spielberg as director
Killer Book Club (2023)
A Spanish slasher film reminiscent of I Know What You Did Last Summer, albeit rewritten for the Cancel Culture era, where a clown-masked killer eliminates their way through members of a book club
Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988)
Killer clown film directed by the Chiodo Brothers best known for their makeup effects who come up with an appealing arsenal of sinister clown figures. On the other hand, the film is a one-note joke
Killer Mountain (2011)
You would not be mistaken for thinking this a regular mountaineering drama – and that’s how half of the film transpires. Then it gets weird and introduces everything from monsters to Ancient Astronauts
The Killer Nun (1979)
Notorious Video Nasty, a key work in the Nunsploitation genre with Anita Ekberg as a drug addicted nun who kills her patients. Apparently based on real life
Killer Pad (2008)
Directorial outing from Robert Englund who makes the horror equivalent of a frat comedy where three guys rent a palatial home and throw a party as a portal to Hell opens in the basement
Killer Party (1986)
Canadian entry from the classic era of slasher films that hits some occasionally effective notes that sit between horror and prank. The last 10 minutes take an abrupt dogleg turn to become an Evil Dead copy
Killer Sofa (2019)
A New Zealand-made horror comedy. Oddly this is not, as the title might suggest, about a possessed sofa but a possessed recliner chair
Killer Tomatoes Eat France (1992)
Fourth and final of the Killer Tomatoes films by which time the slight appeal of the original concept has been well and truly worn out
Killer Tomatoes Strike Back! (1991)
This was the third of the Attack of the Killer Tomatoes films. This hits an appealingly silly and wilfully ridiculous note that makes it the best of the sequels.
The Killing Machine (1994)
Action film with Jeff Wincott as a resurrected hitman who makes the discovery that AIDS has been artificially manufactured
The Kindred (1986)
1980s makeup effects vehicle with students uncovering mad science experiments in an old house. The effects get the better of the cast, most notedly a horrendously over-acting Rod Steiger
King Arthur (2004)
A big-budget version of the Arthurian legends that makes dubious claim about being rooted in historical fact. The fantasy elements are stripped out and what we have is more of an historical spectacle
King Arthur: Excalibur Rising (2017)
A passable B-budget film that came out in anticipation of Guy Ritchie’s King Arthur: Legend of the Sword. This is actually an Arthurian sequel, featuring Arthur’s son inheriting the sword.
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017)
Guy Ritchie’s take on the Arthurian legends is an awkward beast that comes out as half wannabe Michael Bay film giddy with CGI delirium and half one of Ritchie’s typical Man’s Man caper films
King Cobra (1999)
A very routine B-budget film in which Erik Estrada and Pat Morita face a giant animatronic snake. This was billed as Anaconda 2 in some places.
The King of the Kickboxers (1991)
VHS era martial arts film with Loren Avedon as a US detective who is sent undercover to infiltrate the kickboxing tournaments held in Thailand by snuff movie-makers
King of the Rocket Men (1949)
Twelve chapter serial that introduced the character of the Rocket Man who appeared in several subsequent adventures. This has an enthusiastic pulp naivete but ends up mostly routine
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 Kingdom of Crooked Mirrors (1963)
A Soviet equivalent of Alice in Wonderland or even more so Alice Through the Looking Glass where a young girl ventures into a fantasy on the other side of the mirror
Kite (2014)
English language adaptation of an anime. The original was controversial for its copious sex and violence; here we get an anodyne action movie that is no more than The Punisher cast with a teenage girl
A Knight in Camelot (1998)
A modernised version of Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court with Whoopi Goldberg as a physicist who time travels back to Camelot
Knight Moves (1992)
Christopher Lambert and Diane Lane star in a thriller about a serial killer who treats his victims like a chess game and has turned an entire isolated island into a chessboard
Knights (1993)
Another of Albert Pyun’s post-apocalyptic kickboxing cyborg films. The film consists of almost nothing but action scenes as pint-size Kathy Long and a cyborg Kris Kristofferson battle warlord Lance Henriksen
Knights of Badassdom (2013)
This has a winning concept – live-action roleplayers are forced to face a demon they accidentally conjure. Only it becomes a one-joke film with characters delivering mock mediaeval dialogue in falsettos
Knock Knock (2015)
Eli Roth home invasion thriller where two malicious girls turn family man Keanu Reeves’ life upside down. Roth creates a strong opening but hits the peak of the film not too far in and thereafter loses direction
Knowing (2009)
Alex Proyas seemed a promising genre director during the 1990s. Here Nicolas Cage finds a time capsule that predicts a series of disasters, before the film tangents off into a strange Biblical End of the World scenario
Koi … Mil Gaya (2003)
This is the Bollywood version of E.T.. That is if one can imagine an E.T. with singing, dancing and romantic scenes. A simplistic but popular hit that spawned several sequels
Komodo (1999)
A CGI monster movie directed by a former Industrial Light and Magic visual effects supervisor that features a family under attacks by over-sized komodo lizards
Krampus (2015)
Drawing on the Teutonic traditions of the anti-Santa, this gleefully wades into anti-Christmas spirit. Although never as much as it promises to be, it does astonish at a major studio releasing such a dark film right on Christmas season
Krampus: The Reckoning (2015)
Another low-budget Krampus film. However, this is more if an evil vhild film with Krampus as a boogeyman that occasionally pops up to kill people on her behalf
Kryptic (2025)
As the title suggests, this is cryptic. Chloe Pirrie wanders off in the woods, encounters a mysterious Bigfoot creature and afterwards experiences a baffling identity exchange
Kull the Conqueror (1997)
Disappointing adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s other barbarian hero. Cast with Kevin Sorbo, it comes out as Kull: The Legendary Journeys and the material is killed by the filmmakers taking an unserious approach
Kung Fu from Beyond the Grave (1982)
Hong Kong kung fu films of the 1970/80s contains some bizarre crosshatches in a search for novelty. Here a kung fu practitioner takes on a sorcerer who raises ghosts and even Count Dracula to fight
Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016)
The Kung Fu Panda series are films for couch potatoes – martial arts films with a hero who proclaims the virtues of laziness, overeating and goes into combat with an self-inflated sense of his own awesomeness
Kung Fu Panda 4 (2024)
The fourth entry in DreamWorks popular animated series, which by now is just another entry in the series that is coasting by on recognition factor, while offering minimal difference
Kung Fu Traveler (2017)
A Chinese version of The Terminator if you can imagine the android as the hero who travels back in time to learn a lost form of kung fu in order to prevent an alien invasion
L.A. Zombie (2010)
Whether we asked for it or not, director Bruce LaBruce gives us the world’s first gay pornographic zombie film in which a zombie finds it can revive the dead by having sex with them
L: Change the World (2008)
Spinoff from the Japanese Death Note films from Ring director Hideo Nakata featuring the weird detective L. L was a scene-stealer but this fails to come up with an interesting enough plot for him
Labyrinth (2012)
Christopher Smith is an underrated genre director but his first venture into tv is disappointing cross-historical quest for the Holy Grail story that reads like warmed over Da Vinci Code
Lady and the Tramp (2019)
Another Disney animated film rehashed in live-action. At which the best compliment you can pay this is that it is at least better than the same year’s remake of The Lion King was
Lady Frankenstein (1971)
One of several continental Frankenstein films of the 1970s, concerning Frankenstein’s daughter. This tries to imitate Hammer Films on a lesser budget and with more nudity
Lady of Csejte (2015)
Another film about Countess Bathory, although this returns to the historical record rather than makes her as a vampire. Killed by being told through the eyes of two kids and a ridiculously tame account of Bathory’s activities
Lady, Stay Dead (1981)
An Australian psycho film that gained a fascination, being called sleazy and sordid upon its release. Which of course makes it a must see for Moria
The Lair (2022)
Neil Marshall was a highly promising genre name a few years ago on the basis of The Descent. Here he returns with a film about soldiers facing alien hybrid monsters in Afghanistan
The Lair of the White Worm (1988)
Ken Russell adapts a Bram Stoker novel about a snake cult. In Russell’s hand, Stoker’s serious work is turned into a campy over-the-top comedy overloaded with worm and phallic symbols
Lake Eerie (2016)
This seems to be shaping up to be another entry in the over-saturated low-budget haunted house film. While never straying too far from this, this does throw in some interestingly strange twists
Lake Placid (1999)
David E. Kelley, better known as a high-profile tv producer, turns his hand to writing a killer crocodile film, although the result never ends up satisfying either as a monster movie or the jokey tone Kelley wants to take
Lancelot du Lac (1974)
French director Robert Bresson’s take on the Arthurian legends, stripped of nobility and magic. I’m not part of the critical cult around Bresson. Films that are dull and lifeless are not about spiritual yearning just dull
The Land Before Time IV: Journey Through the Mists (1995)
The fourth of The Land Before Time animated films about talking dinosaurs, having been made for very young children