Paycheck (2003)
This Philip K. Dick adaptation has a great premise – Ben Affleck is an engineer with a blanked memory blanked only to find he has left himself clues from the future of things that are starting to come true. Alas, this is reduced to an action vehicle in the hands of John Woo
Peacock King (1988)
Hong Kong-made Wu Xia based on a Japanese manga about warrior monks fighting to stop the opening of portals to Hell. This seems uninspired when it comes to the flights of fantasy the genre specialises in, although picks up when it comes to the vigour of its cheap makeup effects scenes
The Peanut Butter Solution (1985)
Strange Canadian children’s film about a boy who goes bald and is then given a peanut butter solution that causes wild uncontrolled hair growth
The Peanuts Movie (2015)
The comic-strip Peanuts is a wryly whimsical depiction of childhood. The movie version has been taken up by Blue Sky Studios, the ones guilty for the repetitive sequelitis that most modern animation has descended to – somehow you suspect that Charles Schulz’s intention wasn’t to reduce it to a series of slapstick set-pieces
Peggy Sue Got Married (1986)
This is Francis Ford Coppola’s version of Back to the Future wherein housewife Kathleen Turner wakes up back as her high school self and gets the opportunity to remake her life’s choices
Penelope (2006)
This has the feel of a fairytale where Christina Ricci plays a girl who suffers from a hereditary curse that has left her with a pig-like snout
The People Who Own the Dark (1976)
Spanish film about a group of orgiasts at a villa who survive a nuclear explosion outside but are then held at siege from an attack by blinded villagers
Per Aspera Ad Astra (1981)
Soviet-made science-fiction film about a mysterious female alien visitor. The set-up intrigues for a time but the directorial delivery is dull and prosaic, while the mystery about who the alien woman is sidetracked by a long-winded interplanetary adventure in the second half
Perceval le Gallois (1978)
From Eric Rohmer, a director of the French New Wave, an adaptation of stories from the Arthurian legends, made in a decidedly eccentric style
Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010)
Chris Columbus seeks to emulate the success of the Harry Potter films with this adaptation of a Young Adult series about the children of Greek gods. The film falls apart due to Columbus’s typical banal cues and effects overkill
Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters (2013)
This sequel is marginally better than the first film (largely due to Chris Columbus no longer being in the director’s chair), being more dramatically engaged and with effects that feel less like random eye candy. That still doesn’t disguise the fact that the Percy Jackson series is no more than a lightweight and forgettable Harry Potter knockoff
A Perfect Getaway (2009)
David Twohy has shown himself a standout screenwriter and director with the Riddick films but came unstuck with this effort where tourists in Hawaii come to believe their traveling companions are wanted killers. A film killed by far-fetched twists
Perfect Prey (1998)
When the Bough Breaks was one of the better 1990s serial killer thrillers; though it didn’t need it, this is a sequel, albeit with a completely different cast. While the original was clever, this falls into drawing too much from The Silence of the Lambs, the inspiration behind both films
Perfect Skin (2018)
Thriller in which a girl is abducted and imprisoned by a mad tattooist who wants to use her body as a work of art
The Perfect Weapon (2016)
Steven Seagal makes an SF film. Even more bizarrely, Seagal plays the villain for one of the few times in his career, namely the dictator of a dystopian future. An overweight and aging Seagal has a handful of scenes philosophising, while the bulk of the film is a super-soldier plot carried by others
The Perils of Pauline (1967)
Pearl White was the original serial heroine in The Perils of Pauline. During the 1960s Batman craze, the serial was revived as this campy comedy
Persecution (1974)
A British psycho-thriller in the Baby Jane mold with Lana Turner as a deranged mother determined to wreck son Ralph Bates’s marriage
Pet Sematary II (1992)
Sequel to the 1989 Pet Sematary that reverses the sympathies of the original – now it is a child that resurrects a parent – but this never quite finds the same effectiveness
Peter Pan (2003)
Live-action remake of the classic story this has some lovely moments but also feels over-produced and adds unnecessary adult psychological motivations to the mix
Pete’s Dragon (1977)
Disney live-action film about a boy and his dragon where the dragon is represented by animation
Pete’s Dragon (2016)
Another Disney remake that hardly resemble its source – the original was light slapstick with a big cartoon dragon, this is a sober wild child story where the dragon is now an endangered species
Phantasm: Ravager (2016)
Phantasm was a cult hit with its eerie otherworldly dream horrors. It spawned four sequels of which this is probably the last given that Angus Scrimm died earlier this year. The series peaked a couple of films ago and here the regulars pander to a comfortable familiarity without adding anything new to the mix
The Phantom (1996)
Big screen adaptation of the popular comic-strip superhero. This aims for the tone of an old fashioned serial adventure and is nicely mounted but crucially never comes to life.
The Phantom Empire (1935)
An oddity from the heyday of the serial that has singing cowboy star Gene Autry discover the doorway to an underground kingdom on his ranch Made with a crude pulp vigour
Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge (1989)
This amusingly updates the story of The Phantom of the Opera to have the Phantom lurking in a modern mall. Cheesily entertaining 1980s horror coasting by on the coattails of the massive success of the musical adaptation where the most amusement comes in the gorily over-the-top despatches
The Phantom of the Megaplex (2000)
A Disney Channel film, this has the amusing idea of translating The Phantom of the Opera to a modern multiplex and telling it as a children’s story
The Phantom of the Opera (1962)
Hammer Films’ attempt to update the classic story went astray – the Paris opera becomes a dreary English repertory house and Terence Fisher misses the tale’s grandeur
The Phantom of the Opera (2004)
The long-planned film adaptation of The Phantom musical emerges as disaster under Joel Schumacher. The Phantom’s presence has all been watered down and the film exists as no more than a series of scenographic poses
Phantom of the Rue Morgue (1954)
A version of Edgar Allan Poe’s Murders in the Rue Morgue that was made for the original 3D fad. That is to say, it is more a case of some elements of the story having been shuffled around into a new story with Karl Malden as a mad zookeeper using a hypnotised ape to kill women
Phantom of the Theatre (2016)
A fascinating Chinese version of The Phantom of the Opera, transplanted from a Parisian opera house of the 19th Century to a film being shot in an abandoned theatre in the 1930s. On the other hand, this version makes the most radical changes to the story of any of the Phantom films
The Phantom Treehouse (1984)
Australian animation about a boy’s adventure on an island amid pirates, inventors and magic creatures that in its better moments suggests a collision between Peter Pan and Pufnstuf. Unfortunately, the film is made with a budget that must have been well within four figures
Phenomenon (1996)
Positive upbeat film in which John Travolta gains a supermind after seeing a light in the sky. For all its featuring a man with superior intellectual abilities, this is ironically a film that deals in simplistic black-and-whites
The Philadelphia Experiment (2012)
This Syfy Channel production can’t seem to decide if it is a sequel or a remake of the 1984 film. Michael Paré turn up in both versions but goes from being the hero to a menacing heavy. The original had its moments but this is generic and routine in all ways
Philadelphia Experiment II (1993)
A sequel to The Philadelphia Experiment where Brad Johnson is thrown into an alternate timeline where the Nazis have overtaken the USA
Phobias (2021)
Another horror anthology with each episode from a different directors, united around the wraparound theme of stories being told by patients in a strange psychiatric facility
Phoenix Forgotten (2017)
Film set around the Phoenix Lights, one of the most well-documented modern UFO sightings. Despite being co-produced by Ridley Scott and receiving a theatrical release, this does not seem too different from the standard Found Footage film that novices make for about $2000
The Phoenix Incident (2015)
An earlier treatment of the Phoenix Lights incidents, also a Found Footage film and with an almost identical plot to Phoenix Forgotten. The Found Footage has delved into the alien abduction theme before and this is an average treatment without any notable distinction
The Phoenix Project (2015)
Film contained in the single location of a house as a team of four scientists struggle to perfect a process that will resurrect the dead. Normally, you would expect this is to come out as a horror film but the approach here is more akin to a film like Primer
The Photon Effect (2010)
Passable amateur-made superhero film clearly inspired by DC’s The Flash. While the film is written with some at times snappy dialogue and has two good lead actors, it suffers from spotty digital effects
The PianoTuner of EarthQuakes (2005)
The second feature film from the Quay Brothers, a bafflingly incomprehensible work of surrealism, strange designs and non-sequitir dialogue
Picnic at Hanging Rock (2018)
The Picnic at Hanging Rock with its hauntingly unsolved mystery is considered one of the greatest Australian films of all time; this mini-series in six one-hour parts drags every beat of the story out and pads the slim original with so many other character mini-dramas and backstories that the mystery is drowned out
Picture Mommy Dead (1966)
Bert I. Gordon, best known for his giant bug films of the 1950s, makes a torrid psycho-thriller about a young girl being cheated of her inheritance as people around her are being killed possibly by the ghost of her mother (Zsa Zsa Gabor)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)
Adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s novel about an unaging libertine starring Hurd Hatfield. This is regarded as a classic but reads as fairly melodramatic and tame today
Piercing (2018)
An interestingly strange film with Mia Wasikowska as a disturbed hooker and Christopher Abbott as a man who plans to kill her
Pig (2010)
A Backwoods Brutality entry from the increasingly underrated Adam Mason where the entire film has been shot in a single take. Often brutal but much of the film seems monotonous with indulgent improvised performances allowed to dominate the show
Piglady (2023)
A True Crime film where the story of a woman who killed two men and fed their remains to her pigs is essentially turned into a slasher movie
Pinocchio (2022)
The first of two Pinocchio adaptations of 2022, Here Back to the Future director Robert Zemeckis delivers a live-action remake of the Disney animated film
Pippi in the South Seas (1970)
Third of the Swedish live-action Pippi Longstocking films and more likeable than the others due to capturing some of Astrid Lindgren’s absurdism
Piranha 3DD (2012)
Sequel to the Piranha remake. Much the same as before but up one cup size. Well not really, the sequel is more like a joke that was funny the first time that becomes belaboured in the retelling
The Pirate Fairy (2014)
Another of Disney’s Tinker Bell spinoff adventures. This has some slickly produced animation and does some occasionally cute pieces of fanservice that tie in to Peter Pan but is ultimately fantasy being produced for the single digit age groups
The Pirate Movie (1982)
Widely rididculed attempt to market Gilbert & Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance as a teen pop film by way of The Blue Lagoon. A mind-spinning film that seems to have no limit on how silly it is prepared to be, including numerous anachronistic contemporary pop culture in-jokes and fourth-wall breaking gags
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (2007)
Third of the Pirates of the Caribbean films and purportedly made without a completed script, this becomes bloated and sprawling
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)
The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise is revived for a fifth outing. There is a new director in Rob Marshall but bar an energetic comic opening, he never does much that hits the zany heights of the previous entries
The Pit and the Pendulum (1991)
Stuart Gordon’s adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe story gets full marks for being set during the Spanish Inquisition. On the other hand, Gordon’s unserious splatter heavy approach and a campy performance from Lance Henriksen deflates the material
Pixels (2015)
This has a certain cuteness to its premise – of seeing a bunch of classic videogames brought to life. Beyond that, Pixels is a one gimmick film that suffers from two people whose films I hate – the perpetually banal Chris Columbus and the irritatingly smug presence of Adam Sandler
Pizza (2014)
Bollywood remake of a ghost story that comes with one of the cleverer M. Night Shyamalan conceptual reversal twists
Plan 9 (2015)
This offers the bizarre novelty of being the version of Plan 9 from Outer Space that Ed Wood would have wanted make if he had a decent budget. Surprisingly enough this is played straight, although you question whether what Wood was trying to make was a modern zombie film
Planes: Fire & Rescue (2014)
The second of Disney’s spinoffs from Pixar’s Cars films featuring talking anthropomorphic planes. Like the first film, this is amiable and occasionally cute but lightweight. This is beginning to feel like a franchise that is spinning out thinning ideas solely for its own sake
Planet Earth (1974)
The second of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry’s unsold Genesis II pilots. While you can see the series had some potential, the plot about the venture to a society where women keep men as slaves has a giggly silliness that feels like a throwback to 50s films like Queen of Outer Space
Planet of Dinosaurs (1977)
Modest effort featuring some stop-motion animated dinosaur effects that are reasonably accomplished for the pre-CGI era. On the other hand, it seems a professionally-made amateur production designed to highlight effects and with not much beyond that
Planet of the Sharks (2016)
Another gonzo killer shark from from The Asylum who made the Sharknado films. Played somewhat more seriously than other entries, this has been conceived as Waterworld with killer sharks
Planet of the Vampires (1965)
Cult Italian horror director Mario Bava makes an SF film where explorers find an alien planet where aliens possess the dead (not vampires despite the title). In many ways a precursor of Alien
Planetquake (2024)
A B-budget disaster movie from The Asylum that concerns scientists trying to halt a vast ring of earthquakes that have been triggered around the world
Planzet (2010)
Anime that has clearly been modelled along the lines of Neon Genesis Evangelion Initially, the animation is conducted with a dazzlingly realistic textured look but once the giant robot action scenes take over, these seem increasingly absurd in their anthropomorphism
The Platform 2 (2024)
The Platform offered a striking allegory with a prison where a banquet table of food moved down 300 levels each day. This is a sequel
Playing With Dolls (2015)
Slasher film where a girl is hired as a housekeeper in a remote location only to find she is being stalked by a masked killer and forced to survive with her bare hands. Two sequels followed.
Playing With Dolls: Bloodlust (2016)
The second in a trilogy of slasher films about people being staked by a maniac at a backwoods cabin while everything is secretly being filmed by tv cameras
Playing With Dolls: Havoc (2017)
Third of a trilogy of slasher films where people isolated at a cabin are stalked by a hulking maniac in a barbed wire mask. This mixes the formula of the previous films up in some interesting ways
Pleasurecraft (1999)
Softcore erotic film set aboard a space mission where a crew have to deliver an assignment of empathic alien women
Pocahontas (1995)
Disney bases an animated film on the historical character but warps the story considerably. It feels that this is a Disney animated film made more to adhere to Political Correctness than it is a good one
Pod (2015)
Mickey Keating film in which two siblings go to help a brother who appears in mental distress and claims to have imprisoned a monster in his basement
The Pod Generation (2023)
SF film that plays out like it should be an episode of Black Mirror where Emilia Clarke and Chiwetel Ejiofor play a couple who sign up for a process where a baby can be gestated and born externally inside an egg
Poison (1991)
Todd Haynes’ first film, three stories, two of which are fantastic … Being Haynes’ first film, this is less polished than his later work but circles through familiar themes of social outsiders, gay identity and recreations of previous cinematic styles, including one segment that is a mocked-up 1940s mad scientist film
Pokemon Detective Pikachu (2019)
Live-action film version of the popular videogame phenomenon, this is capably made but almost entirely content free for anyone with an age in the double digits
Polaroid (2019)
Horror film about a cursed Polaroid camera that kills everybody that appears in one of its photos
Poltergeist (2015)
It has become an overused phrase in this site’s critical arsenal to say “yet another 70s/80s remake that is inferior to the original”. The 1982 Poltergeist was one of the great ghost stories of the era; this hits all the beats and with bigger effects but fails to find any of the haunted mood of the original
Poltergeist III (1988)
The third of the Poltergeist sequels, which moves the locale to an apartment building and is better than its predecessor thanks to a series of eerie mirror effects
Pootie Tang in “Sine Your Pitty on the Runy Kine” (2001)
Film based on a Saturday Night Life sketch with Lance Crouther as a superhero who speaks a nonsense babble
The Pope’s Exorcist (2023)
A film based on the true-life figure of the Vatican’s official exorcist Father Gabriele Amorth this could have been great but descends into tedious hokum
Population / 436 (2006)
Film about a sinister small town where the population must always be kept at the title figure. An interestingly strange scenario suffers from far too laidback direction
Porno Holocaust (1981)
From cult director Joe D’Amato, this throws together hardcore erotica and gory zombie film in a conceptually bizarre mix that leaves you scratching your head
The Portable Door (2023)
A story about an apprentice at a mysterious company that deals with magic, this could well serve as a fix for those wanting something more of the Harry Potter franchise
Portal (2009)
Low-budget occult film about guests at a motel trapped in a mysterious twilight zone. A work sits between the cheap and occasionally effective
Portals (2019)
Produced by Bloody Disgusting, an anthology from different directors about a series of mysterious alien portals that appear around the world
Poseidon Rex (2013)
As formula monster movies go, this stands out from the rest – it takes itself seriously, has a better budget than usual, which allows some luxurious location shooting in Belize, and a better standard of effects
Postmortem (1998)
Albert Pyun jumps aboard the post The Silence of the Lambs serial killer thriller fad with a routine that has Charlie Sheen as a writer in Glasgow being taunted by the killer he wrote a book about
Powder (1995)
Film from the controversial Victor Salva with Sean Patrick Flanery as an alienated teenager who demonstrates remarkable powers
The Power (1968)
The second-to-last film produced by the legendary George Pal, concerning people hunted by a psychic supermind
Practical Magic (1998)
Chick Flick with Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock as two sisters from a family of witches. The film never really settles on a consistent tone between comedy, thriller or romance and veers all over the place
Predator: Killer of Killers (2025)
The Predator series continues. Dan Trachtenberg, the director of Prey, makes an animated offering that tells three stories of encounters between human and Predator in different eras of history
Premonition (2004)
Japanese horror film about a professor who receives newspaper headlines that predict deaths before they occur
Premonition (2007)
Weepie drama in which Sandra Bullock becomes unstuck in time flipping back and forward with the foreknowledge that her husband Julian McMahon will befall a tragedy
Pretty Ghost (1991)
One of a popular spate of 80s/90s Hong Kong ghost comedies where a man gets the aid of an annoying ghost girl as he pursues the woman of his dreams
Prey (2021)
Not to be confused with the recent Predator sequel. this is a German survival horror where a group of trampers abruptly find themselves hunted in the woods
Priest (2011)
This spends much effort creating an imaginative future where priests battle vampires who are banished to reservations only to do nothing with it other than reach for the tropes of the Western
Primeval (2007)
One of several killer crocodile films that came out in 2007. This has some big-budget CGI effects but is cliched and was overshadowed by far better entries from the same year with Rogue and Black Water
Prince Charming (2000)
Fairly silly fairytale parody with a prince transformed into a frog trying to find a modern girl to give him the kiss of true love
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010)
Adaptation of the popular videogame that ventures into Arabian Nights adventure, this was a box-office flop. It swashbuckles entertainingly but Jake Gyllenhaal feels badly miscast as a buffed adventure hero
Princess of Mars (2009)
The Asylum conduct their own version of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars adventures three years before the Disney film and, despite one of their impoverished budgets, do an almost halfway reasonable version
Prisoners of the Ghostland (2021)
Nicolas Cage’s career choices in recent years have taken him into serious psychotronic headspace. Shion Sono is a director whose film’s inhabit demented territory. It seemed inevitable that the two should meet up on screen