Mouse of Horrors (2025)
One of several horror films based around Mickey Mouse now that the character has entered into public domain. Here Mickey Mouse is a half-human hybrid slaughtering victims at a deserted fairground
The Mouse That Roared (1959)
Peter Sellers comedy where the smallest country in the world invades the USA and ends up accidentally winning
The Mouse Trap (2024)
Another of the Mickey Mouse horror films that emerged when the character entered public domain. This features a Mickey Mouse masked killer pursuing teens through an amusement arcade
MPD Psycho (2000)
Takashi Miike tv mini-series with a mind-bogglingly confusing plot involving a split personalitied detective, possession, a terrorist pop star and barcodes imprinted in eyeballs
Mr. Accident (2000)
The third and final film to date directed, written by and starring Yahoo Serious where he plays an accident prone man obsessed with alien life
Mr Destiny (1990)
A variant on It’s a Wonderful Life where James Belushi gets to live the life he never did due to missing a key baseball homerun
Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium (2007)
Family film with Dustin Hoffman as the eccentric owner of a magical toyshop
Mr. Nobody (2009)
Jaco Van Dormael film that reaches for epic ideas in a story about multiple life pathways and a babble of ideas taken from physics but fails to assemble them in a way that makes much sense
Mr. Peabody & Sherman (2014)
DreamWorks animated film based on an old Rocky and Bullwinkle segment about a time-travelling genius dog and his adopted human son. This takes a relentlessly content-free approach to history that strips it down to no more than a series of giddy 3D slapstick gags for the single digit age groups
Mr. Tree (2011)
Film about the life of a possibly handicapped man in rural China that takes a veer into total fantasy in the latter half. A head-scratching oddity that I failed to get a handle on
Mr Vampire 4 (1988)
Fourth in the popular hopping vampire saga that spawned six films and an uncredited copycat series, all blending a manic mix of comedy, fantastique moves and Eastern beliefs
Mr Vampire III (1987)
Third in the popular series of Hong Kong hopping vampire films. As in the previous entry, a frenetic slapstick element dominates
Mr Wrong (1985)
New Zealand-made ghost story where Heather Bolton buys a second-hand car only to find it is haunted
Mrs. Claus (2018)
While the title makes this sound like a family-friendly film about Santa’s wife, this is actually a Christmas slasher film
Muck (2015)
Group of friends are attacked by a horde of albinoid creatures – this is the whole of the film with no more explanations that that. The self-absorbed characters and the director’s obsession with including undressed girls at every opportunity gets in the way of developing what could have been a decent film
Mulan (2020)
The Disney live-action remake of Mulan finally arrives mired in controversy but the film itself proves a solid production for the most part, although never quite soars as a work of fantasy
The Mummy (1999)
Nominal remake of the Boris Karloff The Mummy, which has now been inflated into a big budget Indiana Jones adventure. Stephen Sommers lets the film overspill with CGI spectacle but the exercise is deflated by a jokey, unserious attitude
The Mummy’s Curse (1944)
This was the fourth and final of Universal’s Mummy films starring Lon Chaney Jr. However, by this point the series had become trapped in a series of repetitive plot moves
The Mummy’s Ghost (1944)
This was the fourth and second to last of Universal’s Mummy films with Lon Chaney Jr in the role of Kharis. By now the series has been reduced to a well-worn formula
The Mummy’s Tomb (1942)
The third of Universal’s Mummy films where Lon Chaney Jr inherits the role of Kharis
Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny & Girly (1969)
Freddie Francis was one of the key players of the 1960s/70s Anglo-horror cycle – he always claimed that this was his favourite film, although it has seen little distribution. The film consists of an annoyingly giggly scenes of adults running around playing children’s games
Muoi (2007)
After the successes of Japanese ghost stories like Ringu and Ju-on: The Grudge, the phenomenon was copied right around the Asian region. This is a South Korean ghost story set in Vietnam concerning a haunted painting.
The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)
The first of the insipid Muppet movies made following Jim Henson’s death, directed by his son Brian. This twists the Muppets out of shape to fit them into a retelling of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol
Muppet Treasure Island (1996)
Another of the desultory 90s Muppet films, which fits them into a retelling of Treasure Island. Missing is the humour and creativity from back when Jim Henson was alive.
Muppets from Space (1999)
The third and one of the better of the generally insipid Muppet movies produced following Jim Henson’s death. This tells the story of Gonzo’s origins as an alien where the film borrows spoofs the then-popularity of tv’s The X Files
The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984)
The third Muppets film, the last Jim Henson would be involved with, this shows them putting on a Broadway show
The Muppets’ Wizard of Oz (2005)
The weakest of the Muppet movies where they are turned into the characters in a retelling of The Wizard of Oz
Murder By Numbers (2002)
Thriller with Sandra Bullock as a burned-out detective investigating two teenagers who have decided to commit a murder as an experiment in amorality
Murder in Space (1985)
TV movie that had a unique selling point – a whodunit set aboard an international space mission – where viewers were invited to guess who the killer was
Murder in the Air (1940)
The only Ronald Reagan film that will ever be reviewed on this site. An air adventure story typical to the era where Reagan pays a treasury agent who tries to bust a fifth column of agents trying to steal a raygun
Murder Scene (2000)
Thriller where student Nicole Eggert begins to have clairvoyant visions leading her to an abducted girl
Muse (2017)
Jaume Balaguero has become one of the most promising of modern Spanish genre directors, principally on the basis of the [Rec] films. However, this supernatural mystery that resembles one of Dario Argento’s Three Mothers films fails to quite come together
Mutant Chronicles (2008)
Long-planned project that creates an interesting future scenario, epic action, an array of Dirty Dozen characters but emerges as surprisingly trivial
Mutant Ghost Wargirl (2022)
A very different to the current SF boom in Chinese cinema at the moment, this is a Cyberpunk film about the construction of mutant fighters
Mute (2018)
Duncan Jones has become a director of promise in the last few years. Here he appropriates the Blade Runner look to make a futuristic neo-noir but the result never quite works. The noir plot never sufficiently keys in, while the derivative future setting is of no real relevance to the story
My Mom’s a Werewolf (1989)
Fairly silly comedy in which housewife Susan Blakely discovers that she is turning into a werewolf. This varies between the over-the-top and the oddly amusing line
My Science Project (1985)
Disney film about a group of teens who find that heart of a UFO that opens up a time warp at their high school
My World Dies Screaming (1958)
One of the first films to copy William Castle’s gimmick and filmed in Psychorama wherein frightening images and words were subliminally projected on the screen. The plot where a newlywed wife has a recurrent dream of a sinister house only for it to be the one they move into has a disappointingly mundane rationale
Mysteries of the Gods (1976)
A William Shatner-hosted documentary based on the works of pseudo-science author Erich von Daniken and his claims that various archaeological mysteries were created by alien visitors
The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu (1929)
The first film appearance of one of the great super-villains of pulp fiction. This was a silent film version with Warner Oland cast in the title role, making a rolypoly Fu Mancu in contrast to some of the other great actors in the part
The Mysterious Island (1929)
The first film adaptation of Jules Verne’s sequel to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The original book is a desert island adventure story; the film throws all that out and has a story about Captain Nemo encountering a race of merpeople
Mysterious Island (1951)
A serial adaptation of Jules Verne’s classic survival story about escapees aboard a hot-air balloon who wash up on a desert island. To the regular story, this sees fit to add hostile natives, pirates and invading aliens from Mercury
The Mysterious Island (2012)
About the ninth film version of Jules Verne’s desert island survival story. This doesn’t add the giant animals/insects other versions do, although we still get a number of wild sf elements the original book never had. Problem though is that the film never adds enough to make proceedings very interesting
Mystery Men (1999)
A superhero parody about a group of reject superheroes with useless powers. Despite moments of amusement, this fails to quite come off
Nails (2017)
Film that takes place with the heroine confined to a hospital bed unable to move as a malevolent ghost enters her room
Naked (2017)
Comedic variant on Groundhog Day where Marlon Wayans wakes up naked in an elevator on his wedding day and is forced to repeat the same hour over and over as he tries to get to the church
The Naked Gun (2025)
A revival of the Leslie Nielsen starring Naked Gun films, which were a parody of the hard-boiled detective film. With Liam Neeson playing Nielsen’s son. Featuring a surprising degree of SF content
Nanny McPhee (2005)
Emma Thompson written and starring adaptation of a series of children’s books comes across as a lesser copy of Mary Poppins. A film that feels like it should have been more than it ends up being.
Nanny McPhee & the Big Bang (2010)
I never much cared for Nanny McPhee. This is a sequel that replicates the original in fairly much the same amount mix of plot elements, slapstick sequences and nonsensical absurdism
Natty Knocks (2023)
A Halloween horror from a director with a reasonable genre association, this establishes its genre bona fides but then shoots itself in the foot
Natural City (2003)
Wrongly referred to as an adaptation of the original Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, this South Korean Cyberpunk film does homage many aspects of Blade Runner
Nazi Overlord (2018)
The Asylum’s mockbuster answer to the J.J. Abrams’ produced Overlord concerning GIs on a mission behind enemy lines encountering Nazi mad science. Passably well made for the most part
Necromentia (2009)
Drawing very clear influence from Clive Barker and Saw, this is a delve down into perverse fetish, gateways to Hell and bizarre hallucinations. After watching the film through twice, I still remain confused to what it was all about
Necronomicon (1993)
Anthology of three H.P. Lovecraft tales from directors Christophe Gans, Brian Yuzna and Shusuke Kaneko. For claiming such a quintessentially Lovecraftian title as this, you feel that it should have been more than it is
Needful Things (1993)
Anodyne adaptation of a weaker Stephen king novel about a curio shop that sells objects that cause people to become obsessed and in so doing wreaks havoc throughout a small town
Neil (2005)
Film that assembles interesting a number of SF elements and twists but is killed by its delivery as a pretentious indie film
Nekrotronic (2018)
The second film from the director of Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead about demon hunters. A great deal has been expanded on the creature effects and in building the film’s mythology.
Nemesis 3: Time Lapse (1995)
The third of Albert Pyun’s Nemesis films about time-travelling cyborgs – not much plot just action scenes and some moments of undeniable strangeness
Neon Maniacs (1986)
Very typical 1980s horror film steeped in an enthusiasm for the genre that makes a beeline for cheesy mutant monster effects
Nerve (2016)
This is like an online version of 13 Sins about an internet site that pushes people to take increasingly more outrageous and eventually deadly dares. One of the new thrillers centred around social media that seeks to adopt its visual look, this is slickly polished and aimed direct to the teenage demographic
Neverlake (2013)
Italian-made film centred around a haunted lake that sits just between earnest amateurism and promising ambition. Features a range of mysterious happenings that you leave you for some time wondering what is going on before these are pulled together in a surprise ending
New Alcatraz (2002)
Gimmicky B-budget film about a hi-tech future prison built at the South Pole. Thus has been thrown together with a giant snake amok plot. A passably routine effort
The New Kids (1985)
Sean S. Cunningham, director of Friday the 13th, transplants a 70s revenge exploitation film into a high school setting. Featuring a dynamic performance from a young James Spader
New Life (2023)
A thriller about the hunt for the carrier of a deadly mutated form of Ebola. This is a not uninteresting film but it seems stuck in pre-Covid depictions of plague and pandemic
The New Mutants (2020)
What will be the very last of 20th Century Fox’s X-Men films, this is more like a superheroic version of The Breakfast Club than any of the other X-Men films
New Year’s Evil (1981)
Slasher film made by Cannon Films that uses its title holiday date with some ingenuity – the killer kills someone on the hour of midnight across each of the US time zones – but is otherwise routine
Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow (2008)
Whose bright idea was it to give us kid versions of The Avengers (ostensibly their children)? While Marvel have had an unparallelled string of hits on the big screen in the 00s, their attempts to replicate the successes that rival DC have had in animation have been a dismal failure
Next of Kin (1982)
A stylishly directed Australian psycho-thriller about Jackie Kerin who inherits a retirement home and takes it over only to find that someone is killing the seniors
The Next One (1984)
A very strange film where widow Adrienne Barbeau finds an amnesiac Keir Dullea on a Greek island who shows mysterious abilities and may have come from the future
The Next Voice You Hear … (1950)
A film that could have only been made in the 1950s where the voice of God suddenly appears on the radio around the world. Starring later-to-be US First Lady Nancy Reagan
Night at the Museum 2 (2009)
Sequel to the Ben Stiller hit offers more of the same with a bigger museum and more exhibits come to life but little else
Night at the Museum (2006)
Popular family hit with Ben Stiller as a night watchman at New York’s Museum of Natural History who discovers that the exhibits come to life at night. More a cute idea than a full film, there is some fun to the characters and effects
The Night Caller (1965)
This has the most ridiculous premise of any alien invasion film – an alien is abducting women from ads for models placed in girlie magazines – but is played with a stone-faced seriousness that defies you to laugh
The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave (1971)
A giallo film with Anthony Steffen as an aristocrat who likes to pick up red-haired girls and kill them in the dungeon in his villa, who then becomes haunted by the ghost of his late wife
Night Game (1989)
Police procedural with Roy Scheider as a detective tracking a serial killer who strikes on the nights of big baseball games
Night Hunter (1996)
Low-budget action film with Don ‘The Dragon’ Wilson hunting vampires. Routine as both action and vampire film.
A Night in the Woods (2011)
The British equivalent of The Blair Witch Project, although this makes the title not strictly accurate – it should more correctly have been called A Night on the Moors. This conducts the build-up in an especially interesting way with much interplay between the trio of characters who all come holding secrets
Night Life (1989)
Teen horror variant on the zombie film. Scott Grimes gets a job at his uncle’s morgue only for a lightning bolt to revive his school bullies as zombies.
Night Life of the Gods (1935)
A 1930s screwball comedy about the invention of a ray that can petrify people that is then used to bring statues of Greek gods to life
Night of the Animated Dead (2021)
A remake of the original zombie film Night of the Living Dead conducted in animation
Night of the Big Heat (1967)
One of a trilogy of SF films made by Hammer director Terence Fisher during the mid-1960s, none of which have a very good reputation. This is an alien invasion film but Fisher fails to create the paranoid atmosphere of the better US counterparts of this period
Night of the Comet (1984)
This has the amusing idea of casting a Last People on Earth film with two Valley Girls. This starts well but the film seems to run out of steam halfway through
Night of the Creeps (1986)
Alien body snatchers comedy that feels less like a film than an extended fanboy in-joke
Night of the Demons (2009)
Another pointless remake of an 80s horror film. The original was a cheap Evil Dead ripoff driven by cheesy effects; this provides more professional effects but only becomes a slickly produced assemblage of cliches we have seen dozens of times before
Night of the Flood (1996)
The novelty of a dance film about the end of the world in a giant flood
Night of the Ghouls (1960/1983)
A once lost Edward D. Wood Jr film with police investigating a fake medium scam being run out of a haunted house
Night of the Living Dead 3D (2006)
Remake of George Romero’s seminal zombie classic. The 3D is no more than a gimmick, while elsewhere they are some radical changes – a white Ben, a lame explanation for the zombies, some far-too-cute in-jokes – that fails to match the effectiveness of the original
Night School (1981)
The only studio-produced entry from the heyday of the slasher film, which gives it a much slicker polish than most of its competitors. Featuring a stunning Rachel Ward in her screen debut.
Night Swim (2024)
A Blumhouse and James Wan co-production about a malevolent swimming pool
Night Terrors (1993)
Another example of Tobe Hooper’s slight into mediocrity in the 1990s, an erotic thriller that features a madly overacting Robert Englund as the Marquis de Sade and an innocent being corrupted by his descendant in the modern day
The Night Walker (1965)
William Castle psycho-thriller (from a Robert Bloch script) that creates an incredibly haunted mood between dream and reality only to fall apart in an absurdly contrived ending
Night Watch (1973)
Called the only horror film Elizabeth Taylor ever appeared in (although one would dispute that somewhat), this feels like a Hammer psycho-thriller made with an A-list cast
The Night Watchmen (2017)
Horror comedy set in an office building as a group of inept security guards fight off a vampire outbreak among the staff. Very similar to the earlier Bloodsucking Bastards, this balances comedy and horror but director Mitchell Altieri demonstrates comedy is not his strong point
Nightbreed (1990)
The second directorial film from Clive Barker is a hugely ambitious work concerning the discovery of a city of monsters – containing some extraordinary makeup creations – but proved a box-office flop
Nightlight (2015)
Any Found Footage film about people venturing into a haunted forest cannot help but draw comparison to the progenitor of the genre, The Blair Witch Project. This comes up with some sufficiently original twists and spooky moments, even if it is eventually unbuckled by its pretensions
Nightmare City (1980)
One of the numerous gore-drenched Italian zombie films of the 1980s copying George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead. The film is like the kid in class who doesn’t have much skill but who throws himself into what he does with wholehearted abandon
Nightmare Detective 2 (2008)
Nightmare Detective was Shinya Tsukamoto’s venture into the dreamscape theme of works like The Cell and the subsequent Inception. Many regard this sequel as a superior work.
Nightmare in Blood (1977)
Horror host John Stanley directs a film with an amusing premise where a famous horror actor known for playing a vampire turns out to be a vampire for real, causing problems when he turns up for a convention
Nightmare Man (2006)
This has an interesting set-up about a woman pursued by a boogeyman figure from her nightmares where others cannot be sure whether she is delusional at the same time as the figure starts eliminating them – but the film’s low-budget gets in the way of adequate treatment
A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
Yet another in the fad for 19870s/0s horror remakes, a merely efficient revival that reduces the wild, outré scares of Wes Craven’s original to conveyor belt shocks