The Alien Saga (2002)
Documentary about the making of the Alien series (although only covers the first four films). Contains some fascinating behind-the-scenes footage and anecdotes, interviews and cut material
Alienate (2016)
An alien invasion film with a more character driven focus than most, telling the story through the eyes of a husband and wife separated across different states as he tries to get back home
Alienoid (2022)
A South Korean SF film that comes with a wide canvas involving alien invasion, time hopping between two eras and some epic action in possibly one of the most head-scratching plots seen in some time
Alienoid: Return to the Future (2024)
The second part of the Korean time-hopping/alien invasion film where many of the plot strands from the extremely confusing first film are at least wrapped up
Aliens in the Attic (2009)
A family film about a group of kids discovering alien invaders in their attic. A film that is largely construed around a series of slapstick set-pieces.
Aliens vs Titanic (2017)
Full marks for the title. Rather than any spacegoing version of Titanic, we have a spaceship named Titan1-C, which is soon abandoned and thereafter a cheesily ridiculous film about alien chestbusters
Alita: Battle Angel (2019)
What was once a planned James Cameron adaptation of a manga about a cyborg girl is now brought to the screen by Robert Rodriguez but it is hard to say what an underwhelming disappointment the result is
All Cheerleaders Die (2001)
The first film of directors Lucky McKee and Chris Sivertson, concerning a troupe of cheerleaders who are killed and resurrected from the dead. The two later returned to conduct a better-budgeted remake
All Cheerleaders Die (2013)
Directors Lucky McKee and Chris Sivertson conduct a remake of their earlier film about resurrected cheerleaders. The question might be why – both have demonstrated they can do far better than this
All Dogs Go to Heaven 2 (1996)
This is a video-released sequel to the Don Bluth animated film with dogs again returning from the afterlife. This is churned out with passable effort
All Hallows’ Eve (2013)
From the director of the Terrifier films, a horror anthology in which a babysitter and kids sit down to watch a mysterious videotape on Halloween night. The first screen appearance of Art the Clown
All Superheroes Must Die 2: The Last Superhero (2016)
Sequel to one of the few original (ie. non comic-book) superhero films of the 2010s. this takes the interesting route of telling it as a investigative tv report into someone killing off all the superheroes
All Superheroes Must Die (2011)
Low-budget superhero film. With a plot that strips the superheroes of their powers and them facing a villain’s deathtraps, we end up with little more than a Saw copy in funny costumes
All That Jazz (1979)
Dance choreographer/director Bob Fosse makes an autobiographical film in which dance choreographer (played by Roy Scheider) reflects on his life to the Angel of Death
All the Boys Love Mandy Lane (2006)
Quite why this received a theatrical release is a major scratch of the head. A slasher film that is slickly put together but beneath that a work of thorough ordinariness
Allegiant (2016)
The Divergent series is a fundamentally implausible scenario for people that think horoscopes are a profound insight into human nature. This is the most interesting of the films and gives us an imaginative future world
Alleluia! The Devil’s Carnival (2016)
Saw series director Darren Lynn Bousman makes a rock musical about a war between a gaudily exotic Heaven and Hell. A full-length expansion of Bousman’s earlier short film
The Alligator People (1959)
B movie with Beverly Garland venturing into the swamps in search of her missing husband to find a scientist has transformed him into an alligator hybrid
Alone (2007)
Thai ghost story about a woman haunted by the ghost of her dead conjoined twin sister. This produces a mix of jumps that fall between the effective and routine but falls apart in a contrived twist ending
Alone (2017)
A French variant on The Quiet Earth adapted from a comic-book about a group of young people who wake up to find themselves alone in a deserted city
Alone (2020)
Survival thriller in which a woman is abducted by a man but affects an escape where she must then make a harrowing run through the woods while pursued by him
Alone in the Dark (1982)
Horror film in which a group of maniacs escape from an asylum set out to track down the new psychiatrist. This starts with tongue amusingly planted in cheek and contains a great cast line-up
Along With the Gods: The Last 49 Days (2018)
Sequel to the hit Korean film Along With the Gods: The Two Worlds about a journey of redemption through the afterlife. This is a much better polished effort than its predecessor
Alpha and Omega (2010)
A contender in the animation stakes that never rises above formula and cutsie slapstick. Against its many competitors, it offers up only B-budget animation
The Alpha Test (2020)
Another film on the topic of androids and A.I.’s run amok. This concerns a robot maid that ends up rebelling against her human owners and turning murderous due to conflicting orders
Alraune (1928)
A classic German Expressionist film where Metropolis‘s Brigitte Helm gives a sizzlingly seductive performance as a woman born via artificial insemination who grows up as an emotionless man-eater
Altar (2014)
Nick Willing is a genre director who has consistently impressed. Here he ventures into the English ghost story where your expectation is that he is going to turn the genre on its head – only he doesn’t
Alter Egos (2012)
Indie superhero comedy that reads a good deal funnier on paper than it ever produces laughs on screen. The production lacks the budget to produce more than a handful of cheap superheroic digital effects
Alyce (2011)
The director of Zombie Strippers! offers up Alice in Wonderland as a modern urban tale that becomes an allegory for a drug-induced journey into a disturbed headspace
Amateur Porn Star Killer 3: The Final Chapter (2009)
The first two of these films did ingenious things but now the inspiration is showing through and these films are starting to seem more like a personal fantasy on the director’s part
The Amazing Captain Nemo (1978)
TV mini-series released as a theatrical film in some parts of the world that resurrects Captain Nemo in the present-day. It is Irwin Allen returning to his tv roots where Captain Nemo’s adventures become a blatant attempt to copy Star Wars
Amazon Women on the Moon (1987)
An anthology of comedy skits from several different directors including Joe Dante and John Landis. The result is fairly scattershot with moments of occasional humour falling between laughs that do not come off
Ambition (1991)
Thriller with Lou Diamond Phillips as a writer who manipulates a paroled killer with the intention of driving him to kill again and writing a book about it
The Ambulance (1990)
One of the last directorial outings from cult director Larry Cohen. Comic-book artist Eric Roberts is wound up in trying to trace a mysterious ambulance that is abducting women into illicit experiments
America 3000 (1986)
Head-scratching oddity from Cannon Films, a gonzo post-holocaust film set in a satiric women-ruled world with a culture based on half-remembered fragments of the present
The American Astronaut (2001)
Genre-bending film that mixes B movie space opera cliches with rock’n’roll and a David Lynch-ian sense of surrealism. Interesting but the film left me scratching my head trying to get a handle on it
American Cyborg: Steel Warrior (1992)
A routine post-apocalyptic action film with Nicole Hansen as the last fertile woman on the run hunted by killer cyborgs while being protected by Joe Lara
An American in Austen (2024)
A modern girl pining for the perfect man is transported back into the world of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice where she ends up disrupting the story
American Satan (2017)
A variant on the Pact with the Devil story as a rock group conduct a Faustian deal with Malcolm McDowell’s Devil, leading to their meteoric rise to fame and debauchery
Amityville 3-D (1983)
This was the third of the Amityville films, released amid the early 1980s 3D revival. Nothing more than the usual except for various things popping out of the screen
The Amityville Harvest (2020)
Another film masquerading with some relevance to The Amityville Horror, although this extends no further than the title. This is an almost interesting effort where a film crew interview a possible vampire
The Amityville Horror (2005)
Remake of the 1979 film that still persists with the claim that the Amityville hoax was true. This embellishes the rather dull original with the baggage of trick effects of the modern horror film
Amityville Karen (2022)
The term Karen has come to mean an entitled woman who complains a great deal. This is a horror comedy about one such Karen who becomes possessed after drinking wine that comes from the Amityville house
Amityville: The Awakening (2017)
No less than the twentieth film spun out around The Amityville Horror. This Blumhouse revival emerges as marginally better than most films with Amityville in the name
Among the Living (1941)
A 1940s good/bad twin psycho-thriller with Albert Dekker as a psychopathic twin escaped from an asylum come back to claim the inheritance taken by his brother
Among the Shadows (2019)
A film about the internecine in-fighting among werewolf clans and a werewolf P.I. in a near-future European Union. With Lindsay Lohan as the EU President’s wife!
Amphibious 3D (2010)
A film from genre regular Brian Yuzna that takes place in Indonesia with people at siege on a fishing platform as it comes under attack by a sea monster. One of the films made in the 3D process following the huge success of Avatar
Anaconda (2025)
Anaconda was a CGI monster movie that has subsequently gained a bad movie reputation. The idea of a comedy remake about conducting a remake of the film just seems a little too cutely meta
Anatomie 2 (2003)
A far less effective sequel to the hit German medical thriller that neglects both the tortuous suspense and grisly horror that made the first film into a stand out
… And Now the Screaming Starts! (1973)
Amicus Films venture into the haunted house genre with a newlywed Stephanie Beacham haunted by a disembodied hand but atmosphere is weakened by the constant reaching for crude shock effect
And Soon the Darkness (2010)
Another pointless 1970s remake, in this case of the little-known British psycho-thriller about two tourists stalked in the French countryside (now transplanted to Argentina) with ho-hum results
Android Apocalypse (2006)
A variation on The Defiant Ones with a human and an android chained together but this fails to find anything to say either about androids or prejudice
Andromeda Nebula (1967)
A Soviet SF film about the exploration of an alien planet. Though they tended to the dramatically stolid, these Soviet films had amazing budgets their US counterparts of the era never did
The Andromeda Strain (2008)
TV series remake of Michael Crichton’s novel about the attempts to contain a viral outbreak from space. Crichton’s story was a straightforward work, whereas the mini-series has been absurdly overburdened with other plots
Andromedia (1998)
An early Takashi Miike film where a teenage girl is killed and her personality uploaded to the internet, having been conveniently backed up by her father on three cd roms!
The Angel Levine (1970)
An obscure oddity in which elderly Jewish man Zero Mostel finds Harry Belafonte in his home insisting that he is an angel sent to help
Angel of the Night (1998)
Not very well made Danish vampire film that almost redeems itself by trying to conduct everything as a John Woo-styled action film
Angel’s Egg (1985)
One of the earliest works of anime director Mamoru Oshii, later famous for Ghost in the Shell. This is a plotless, almost dialogueless work about a young girl journeying across a strange planet that is more surrealism than SF
Angels in the Outfield (1994)
Disney remake of the old light fantasy film in which angels step in to aid a losing baseball team. This is pitched to family audiences and holds a surprisingly ardent evangelical message
Angry Birds (2016)
A film based on a mobile app surely counts as a world first. Mostly this is the equivalent of switching one’s brain off and spending an hour-and-a-half watching cartoons for the single digit age group
The Angry Red Planet (1959)
1950s B movie about an expedition to Mars that encounters exotic and hostile lifeforms there. Not much happens before the aliens pronounce judgement on humanity
The Animal (2001)
One-gag comedy where Rob Schneider receives transplants of various animal parts and ends up exhibiting animal behaviours – usually at the most inopportune time
Animal (2014)
Film about a group of friends lost in the woods who take refuge in a cabin while being hunted by a creature. This is generic, produces some jumps but is dogged by unconvincing creature effects
Animal Farm (1954)
Animated adaptation of George Orwell’s fable that was intended as a satire of the Soviet Union. Being rendered as cutsie children’s animation necessarily bluntens the book’s bite
Anna and the Apocalypse (2017)
This claims to be the first zombie musical. Surprisingly enough, it isn’t. A cute idea but you have the sense the only musical the filmmakers had seen beforehand was High School Musical
Anneliese: The Exorcist Tapes (2011)
An Asylum film that has the idea of staging a retelling of the true-life Anneliese Michel story that formed the basis of The Exorcism of Emily Rose as a Found Footage film
Another Me (2013)
2013 brought a spate of doppelganger films. This was overshadowed by the more high-profile Enemy and The Double. Here Sophie Turner plays a schoolgirl who finds her life being overtaken by a mysterious double
Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)
Ant-Man was a lightweight but perfectly enjoyable entry in the horde of Marvel Comics adaptations. This sequel has amplified the comedy element, seemingly with the intent of being the joker among the MCU pack
Anthropophagus (1980)
From the notorious 1970s/80s period of Italian cinema, this was listed as one of the notorious Video Nasties. This features a lone cannibal killer amok on a Greek island amid plentiful gore
Antibirth (2016)
This has cult midnight hit written over it. It’s a loopy trip into people doing drugs, alien impregnation and government conspiracy that should have been quirky and funny but sort of goes asleep at the wheel
The Antichrist (1974)
An Italian-made ripoff of The Exorcist. Probably the most lavishly produced of all Exorcist ripoffs, this soon slips into lurid shock theatrics. Star Carla Gravina should get full marks for going beyond the call of duty
Antichrist (2009)
Lars von Trier made this deeply unfathomable film after a bout of severe depression. Claimedly a work of misogyny, it features Willem Dafoe trying to deal with a deranged Charlotte Gainsbourg
Antidote (2021)
Horror film where Ashlyn Yennie wakes up in a hospital filled with sinister happenings including people being maimed and then regenerated
Antisocial 2 (2015)
Antisocial, a horror film about zombies created by social media, proved a reasonable hit. This is a sequel that skips on a few years after the collapse of civilisation
Antisocial (2013)
A zombie apocalypse that occurs via social networking sites??? To the film’s credit, it makes such a wacky idea plausible but the low-budget leads to a zombie apocalypse that mostly occurs off-stage
Antitrust (2001)
IT industry thriller that borrows the title from the Microsoft antitrust case that was in the headlines at the time and casts Tim Robbins as a villainous Bill Gates lookalike
Antlers (2021)
A wendigo film, this comes with impressive prospect and backed by no less names than Guillermo Del Toro and David S. Goyer
Apartment 1303 (2007)
Another J-horror on the bandwagon created by the Ring and Ju-on/The Grudge films. Some promisingly initial scares traipse off into a dull mystery about investigating the past
Apartment 7A (2024)
Did we need a prequel to the events of Rosemary’s Baby? The original one of the defining classics of the horror genre. Under producer Michael Bay Apartment 7A is just more IP churn
Ape vs. Monster (2021)
The Asylum’s mockbuster version of Godzilla vs Kong that features a giant-sized chimpanzee and gila monster facing off against one another
The Ape (1940)
One of the most lunatic mad scientist plots of all time in which Boris Karloff kills an ape then puts on its skin to go out and kill people for their spinal fluids to create a cure for polio
Apex (2021)
Another of the last films that Bruce Willis made before his mental deterioration forced him to retire. A variation on The Most Dangerous Game where Bruce plays a bad-ass facing hunters with his bare hands
Apex (2026)
Charlize Theron is on a wilderness adventure in the Australian Outback when she is hunted by Taron Egerton. A variant on The Most Dangerous Game with Egerton seemingly cast as Mick out of Wolf Creek
The Apocalypse (2007)
One of the bizarre early oddities from The Asylum, a disaster movie about an oncoming asteroid. This also try to jump aboard the mid-2000s fad for Biblical movies where faith elements are combined with the scenario in ways that are bizarre
Appendage (2023)
In a similar vein to James Wan’s Malignant, a film with a heroine who has a malignant twin force its way out of a wound in her side and proceed to take over her life
Apples (2020)
This is a strange and not particularly accessible deadpan Greek-made film where people are affected by a plague of amnesia. Similar to early Yorgos Lanthimos
Approaching the Unknown (2016)
This comes with the clear influence of The Martian, telling a similar but more low-key story of a lone astronaut having problems on the way to Mars. This is less about science ingenuity that his fracturing mental state
April Fool’s Day (1986)
This is one slasher film that chooses a title date where the date in question requires it taking a more comedic approach. Despite which this is a standard effort in all ways
Apt Pupil (1998)
Early Bryan Singer film from a Stephen King novella about the friendship between a boy and an aging Nazi. While well acclaimed, the film never seems to get its relationship right or communicate the true nature of Nazism’s evils
Aquaslash (2019)
A French Canadian (Quebec)-made slasher film set around an aqua park. This builds to a memorably gore-drenched finale
Arabian Adventure (1979)
This tries hard to be another The Thief of Bagdad but is never too much more than a run through the cliches of the Arabian Nights adventure rewritten for the post-Star Wars era
Arabian Nights (1942)
A Hollywood version of the Arabian Nights that throws out the story’s unique narrative structure and substitutes the colourful spectacle of the swashbuckling adventure. With Shemp Howard as Sinbad!
Arabian Nights (2015)
This is not an adaptation of the Arabian Nights but the title has been appropriated for a collection of quasi-fantastical tales and even documentaries about the Portuguese Austerity Crisis over six hours in length
Arachnophobia (1990)
Executive produced by Steven Spielberg, a popular revival of the 1970s bugs amok genre about a town overrun by deadly spiders, although this avoids the horror label and plays itself with much humour
Arachnoquake (2012)
Giant fire-breathing spiders invade New Orleans. A passably entertaining film of its type made for the Syfy Channel with effects that are above-average and it taking itself seriously
Arbor Demon (2016)
Horror film about a couple camping in the woods who are menaced by something lurking outside their tent. A solid film that develops some passable suspense and eventually enters Folk Horror territory
Archenemy (2020)
An interestingly odd film where a videographer looking for a story investigates homeless man Joe Manganiello’s claims to being a superhero, which may or may not be true
Area 407 (2012)
Found Footage film as survivors from a commercial airliner that has crashed on a top secret government test site find themselves hunted by mysterious creatures
Area 51 (2011)
Not to be confused with the Oren Peli Found Footage film. Sean Connery’s son Jason directs a film where a host of alien nasties imprisoned at Area 51 manage to escape
Armageddon Tales (2021)
An anthology of short films from three different directors set in the world after the collapse of civilisation