Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills (1989)
Director Paul Bartel and a reasonable name cast make a comedy about the sex lives of the Beverly Hills elites
Schizoid (1980)
An early release from Cannon Films, a psycho film featuring a very weird Klaus Kinski as a sinister psychologist
Schizopolis (1996)
One of the most obscure films in the oeuvre of Steven Soderbergh, a strange and head-scratchingly surreal satire of workplace and domestic life
Science Fiction Volume One: The Osiris Child (2016)
A film naming itself after an entire genre either has massive ambition or huge pretensions. Beyond the grandiose title, this is not much more than a better budgeted version of an 80s planetary adventure
Scoob! (2020)
An animated film revival of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? This also makes an misguided attempt to build a shared universe among assorted Hanna-Barbera characters
Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (2004)
Sequel to the live-action Scooby-Doo, this is at least a better film than its predecessor, being more polished in its slapstick and effects but still has no more ambition beyond being a silly no-brain film
Scoop (2006)
One of the more forgettable Woody Allen comedies with Scarlett Johansson as a journalism student who gets tips from the afterlife
The Scorpion King (2002)
Back when Dwayne Johnson was a wrestler billing himself as The Rock, this was a forgettable sword and sorcery effort spun off from his appearance in The Mummy Returns. This led to a surprising number of sequels
The Scorpion King 3: Battle for Redemption (2012)
The best of an otherwise lightweight, throwaway series. Roel Reiné directs some good action scenes, even if the hackneyed plotting never lets the show rise to anything more than average
Scorpion King: Book of Souls (2018)
The Scorpion King films are such a low expectation series that it is hard to drum up enthusiasm for a fifth entry. The rehashes stock sword and sorcery cliches and passes its time forgettably
Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse (2015)
There is something appealing to the film’s premise – of boyscouts with their knowhow and do-gooder mentality being the best equipped to survive the zombie apocalypse.But this a film not nearly as clever as it thinks it is being
Scream 3 (2000)
By the time of this third film and the departure of screenwriter Kevin Williamson, creativity in the Scream series seems to be flagging even though this has critic-proofed itself by calling itself a parody of a sequel
Scream 7 (2026)
The Scream series drags itself for another sequel but at least performs a course correction by bringing back original screenwriter Kevin Williamson in the director’s chair, along with appearances of many past cast
Scream and Scream Again (1970)
Cult Anglo-horror film with a series of vampire killings that lead to Vincent Price trying to replace bureaucrats with androids
Scream Pretty Peggy (1973)
A psycho-thriller that offers up the plot of Jane Eyre by way of Psycho. With Bette Davis rising to form as an alcoholic mother
Screamtime (1983)
A British horror anthology made up of three stories from director Michael Armstrong. As always the episodes are variable but the episode with the killer Punch and Judy dolls stands out
Scrooged (1988)
A modernised version of A Christmas Carol that seems to have been construed in the shadow of Ghostbusters right down to casting Bill Murray as Scrooge
Sea of Dust (2008)
An almost interesting low-budget film with artistic pretensions that invokes the mythic Christian figure of Prester John
Seance (2021)
Adam Wingard’s regular scriptwriter Simon Barrett directs a revival of the girls’ boarding school ghost story. I had very high expectations of this
Séance: The Summoning (2011)
Fairly by-the-books possession and exorcism film that does have the novelty of playing out in a morgue and where the entire cast has been pared down to four. There also seems an earnest strain of belief in Christianity/Catholicism that runs throughout
The Search for Bridey Murphy (1956)
Dramatic recount of a true-life sensation during the 1950s when an amateur hypnotist claimed that he had regressed a housewife to recall her past life in 19th Century Ireland. The film has an earnestly prostheletysing belief in its own case but sceptical examination pulls holes in its credibility
Season of the Witch (2011)
Medieavel fantasy action film with Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman assigned to escort a witch who may be able to deliver the land from the Black Plague. The wider moral issues of the film are buried under action and CGI
The Seasoning House (2012)
This starts out as a socially conscious drama about East European sex slavery. As directed by a makeup effects artist, the film seems to tepidly avoid the raw and brutal impact the material holds, before finally revealing its true nature as an imprisonment and revenge horror
The Second Arrival (1998)
Low-budget and fairly indifferently made sequel to David Twohy’s quite good alien invasion film
The Second Jungle Book: Mowgli & Baloo (1997)
Lesser budgeted sequel to the 1994 remake of The Jungle Book, which actually comes closer in tone to the original Rudyard Kipling stories
Secret Beyond the Door (1948)
Fritz Lang made this psychological thriller during his American period – a retelling of the Bluebeard story by way of Rebecca. Lang delivers an times stunning evocation of film noir
Secret Headquarters (2022)
A kid makes the discovery that his father is a superhero and he and his friends amuse themselves with the cool gadgetry in his secret headquarters, before being required to defend it against a villain
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013)
Ben Stiller’s remake of the unfunny Danny Kaye vehicle about an impractical daydreamer has no more depth than an inspirational postcard and takes a long time to deliver it
The Secret of the Loch (1934)
The very first film appearance of the Loch Ness Monster. A hardly auspicious debut, this came before there was such a thing as the monster movie and is played mostly as a comedy. We do eventually get an appearance of the Loch Ness Monster right at the very end
The Secretary (1995)
One of a series of Fatal Attraction copycats, a psycho-thriller where Mel Harris has her life torn apart by psycho secretary Sheila Kelley
Secrets of a Psychopath (2015)
Director Bert I. Gordon was at his heyday in the 1950s, making cheap giant monster films like The Amazing Colossal Man and Earth vs the Spider. Gordon returns here at the age of 93 (making him one of the world’s oldest directors) with this rather sordid little psycho film
The Sect (1991)
A film written/produced by Dario Argento, an occult giallo in the vein of his Three Mothers films in which a teacher is surrounded by a series of occult happenings and deaths
The Sector (2016)
Variant on the alternate world hopping theme where a bounty hunter finds the person he is pursuing is an alternate world criminal. The film’s budget is way too low to do any justice to either the theme or the setting after the collapse of civilisation
Sector 7 (2011)
South Korean monster movie set that only rehashes the cliches set down by Alien/Aliens. On the plus side, the CGI monster looks great and there are some particularly imaginative set-pieces with it but the film is at best only a rehash of Deepstar Six on an oil rig
See No Evil (2006)
Modern slasher film where the sole note of distinction is the wrestler known as Kane cast as the hulking killer. Outside of a moderate level of brutality in the despatches, there is little here that stands out from the genre’s cliches in any way
See No Evil: The Moors Murders (2006)
True Crime mini-series based on the infamous Moors Murders of the 1960s and one that seems determined to conduct the least interesting account of the murders possible
Seed (2007)
Uwe Boll ventures into Torture Porn territory with this tale of a brutish serial killer who returns from the electric chair on a trail of vengeance against his condemners
Seeing Heaven (2010)
A gay version of Don’t Look Now – a film that takes forever to go anywhere and fails to wind its twists up to anything interesting
Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012)
The End of the World seems the least likely backdrop for a romantic comedy. Newcomer Lorene Scafaria seems less interested in depicting social collapse than in making an insipid romcom road movie with two leads who fail to strike up any connection
Seizure (1974)
The first film from Oliver Stone and a head-scratching puzzle as a writer is haunted by various supernatural figures from out of his imagination
Selfie from Hell (2018)
The selfie is such a concept of the moment that I suppose someone had to make the first selfie horror film. The film suffers conceptual confusions and what starts out akin to something like Ring slides into more of a variant on The Den with sinister strangers stalking the heroine online
Send Help (2026)
Sam Raimi returns with a desert island drama but things soon get twisted. Think Cast Away by way of Misery – but where Annie Wilkes gets to be the sympathetic heroine
Sensation (2021)
Film in which a man is inducted into a secretive organisation that reveals he has superpowers
Separation (2021)
William Brent Bell, director of The Devil Inside and The Boy, returns with a ghost story where a widower and daughter are haunted by his ex-wife
Serial Mom (1994)
One of John Waters’ more mainstream films with Kathleen Turner as a gleefully murderous housewife
Servants of Twilight (1991)
Dean R. Koontz adaptation with Bruce Greenwood as a private detective drawn into helping a woman protect her child from crazed cultists that believe he is the Antichrist
Settlers (2021)
A story about the harsh conditions suffered by a family of colonists on Mars
Seven Mummies (2006)
Horror film where escaped convicts wander into a Western ghost town where a gold treasure is guarded by mummies
The Seventh Sign (1988)
A much more elevated version of an Omen-styled Biblical End Times film with Demi Moore worried if her child can save the world
Seventh Son (2014)
An object lessons in how not to adapt a Young Adult series – take a book series about an apprentice witch hunter set in an alternate England and turn it a generic Lord of the Rings copy
Sex and Zen: Extreme Ecstasy (2011)
A revival of the 1990s Sex and Zen series of erotic comedies, this comes with the novelty of being presented in 3D
Sex & Zen II (1996)
Sequel to the Hong Kong erotic film, an entirely unrelated work that inflates the original into a madcap Wu Xia film filled with crude, rude humour
Sex Mission (1984)
A popular Polish comedy in its day about two men who awake from cryogenic suspension in a women-ruled future where men are obsolete. Some of the comedy reads as very dated watching the film today
The Shadow of the Cat (1961)
A film from the early days of the Anglo-Horror cycle about the greedy relatives seeking a will being killed by a possibly supernatural cat
Shadow Puppets (2007)
A conceptual puzzle film – people wake up in a facility with no memory of who they are – reminiscent of Cube with the smoke monsters from Lost thrown in. Unfortunately, this is too low-budget to create much mystery and the big reveal is not a terribly interesting one
Shadowland (2010)
A low-budget vampire film that at least tries to be original. Has a worthwhile leading lady and a chase plot that keeps it going past some of its amateurishness, but in the end it never quite goes far enough
Shadows and Fog (1991)
One of the not-quite-rans in Woody Allen’s oeuvre, a homage to Franz Kafka and German Expressionism with Allen as a mousy clerk caught up in the hunt for a strangler
The Shaggy Dog (1959)
The first of Disney’s live-action comedies, a comic variant on the werewolf story with Tommy Kirk turning into a dog. Mildly amusing but later efforts would do this type of comedy better
The Shaggy Dog (2006)
The remake of the old Disney comedy becomes a vehicle for Tim Allen, played with a manic slapstickery wherein Allen demonstrates there are few levels of silliness he will travel to in imitating dog-like behaviours
Shakma (1990)
Film about a group of students locked in a lab and being hunted by a crazed experimental baboon
Shallow Ground (2004)
A film filled with weird, constantly intriguing directorial effects, although you eventually have to accept that none of it makes any sense
Shallow Hal (2001)
Farrelly Brothers comedy where Jack Black is hypnotised by Tony Robbins and 300 pound Gwyneth Paltrow as beautiful
Shanghai Fortress (2019)
A Chinese attempt to create an alien invasion film epic mass destruction in the vein of Independence Day and Michael Bay
Shanks (1974)
The last film of gimmick master William Castle, a head-scratching oddity where mime artist Marcel Marceau plays a puppeteer who gains the ability to bring people back to life and control them like puppets
Sharing (2014)
I went to see this on the description that called it a horror film about premonitions of disaster but far less interestingly it is a fictional attempt to analyse people’s attempts to grieve over the Fukushima Disaster – not uninteresting but with little interest in being a fantastic film
Shark Attack (1999)
Killer shark from the 1990s heyday. This works passably as the B movie it is intended as, while the last third turns into the schlockily absurd with the insertion of two different corrupt conspiracy elements and action movie chases
Shark Girl (2024)
A Gonzo Killer Shark film about a social media influencer bitten by a radioactive shark who becomes a shark-human hybrid
Shark Lake (2015)
In the era of Sharknado and the competition to create the most ridiculous killer shark film possible, it is a brave B movie that chooses to go the serious killer shark film route. A fairly average effort where the so-so shark effects tend to be sidelined by the mundane custody battle on the shore
Sharkansas Women’s Prison Massacre (2016)
Another entrant in the fad for gonzo killer shark film. This gets some award for combining the killer shark film, the women’s prison film and the cabin in the woods horror standard
Sharknado 2: The Second One (2014)
Sequel to the bad movie phenomenon Sharknado Accompanied by a host of celebrity cameos, there is less the cheerful absurdity of the original than a film that is trying to recapture a spontaneously generated fad
She (1925)
The most lavish of the silent screen adaptations of H. Rider Haggard’s classic, multiply filmed adventure novel about the discovery of a lost city ruled over by an immortal queen
She (1935)
The first sound version of H. Rider Haggard’s lost city adventure about explorers finding an immortal queen (Helen Gahagan). From the producers of the original King Kong
She (1965)
Hammer Films conduct an adaptation of the classic H. Rider Haggard adventure story about the discovery of a lost city and its immortal queen but the epic spectacle never much comes to life
She Devil (1957)
1950s mad scientist film where a scientist develops a regeneration serum only to turn Mari Blanchard into a man-eating femme fatale
She Starts the Fire (1992)
Madcap Hong Kong comedy variant on Firestarter where Chingmy Yau has a curse that she starts fires when aroused
Sheena (1984)
Big screen adaptation of the Will Eisner comic-book and 1950s tv series about a female Tarzan. A blank Tanya Roberts in the title role and a campy script pushes it well into bad movie status
Shelley (2016)
Danish film about an immigrant agreeing to become a surrogate mother only to believe she is inhabited by something malevolent. This does well in the build-up but a crucial failure to put a finger on what is going on makes for a frustrating experience
Sherlock Gnomes (2018)
Sequel to Gnomeo & Juliet, which retold Shakespeare with garden gnomes. This for some reason adds a garden gnome Sherlock Holmes to the mix. The high speed whirring you hear is probably Arthur Conan Doyle rotating in his grave,
Shiver Me Timbers (2025)
In 2025, Popeye entered public domain in the US. As with Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey, this was immediately greeted with several horror takes on the character. This is one of them – essentially a Popeye slasher film
Short Circuit (1986)
Cute robot film that essentially plays out as E.T. with diodes. It gets some laughs and has a some virtuoso effects but as SF this is a film that can only be enjoyed as mindless entertainment
Shortcut to Happiness (2003)
Alec Baldwin’s financially troubled modernised remake of The Devil and Daniel Webster comes to the screen as a compromised vision
Shrek 2 (2004)
Shrek was a fresh and original hit. The first of four insipid sequels, this seems to merely coast by on our liking of the characters while upping the fairytale parody
Shrek the Third (2007)
The third of the Shrek films settles in with a formulaic blandness where the characters turn up more because everyone expects them to than the film finds much for them to do
Shrooms (2007)
A group of friends travel to Ireland and go on a tour searching for magic mushrooms. In between assorted drug hallucinations, someone or thing begins slaughtering the group
Shrunken Heads (1994)
Another film from Charles Band’s Full Moon Production centred around dolls – in this case, three murdered youths who are resurrected as flying shrunken heads. A film that never quite lives up to the outlandishness of its premise
Shut In (2022)
An imprisonment thriller where a woman is nailed into a pantry by her abusive ex
Shuttle (2008)
A group of people taking a shuttle back from the airport are taken abducted and made prisoner. One of what this author has termed Conceptual Containment Thrillers, which confine the action to a single locale, this has some twists and turns but does nothing remarkable with the idea
Siberia (2020)
From cult director Abel Ferrara, a film described as being being about the language of dreams in which Willem Dafoe drifts through a series of surreal landscapes searching for the meaning of life
Side Effect (2020)
Another work of Russian dark fantasy where a man asks a witch for a spell to help his wife, only to get very different results than intended
Signs (2002)
M. Night Shyamalan delves into the crop circle phenomenon and makes an alien invasion film. At this point his films were predicated on big conceptual surprises and this comes out as a damp squib when we find out what is going on
Silence, Ça Tue (2008)
Belgian-made black comedy where a filmmaker frustrated with trying to raise funding starts shooting producers and filming the result
The Silencers (1996)
Action film made at the height of the popularity of tv’s The X Files with Jack Scalia fighting off the Men in Black
The Silencing (2020)
Thriller where Nikolaj Coster Waldau is the alcoholic manager of a game preserve who becomes drawn in to the search for a serial killer who hunts girls
Silent But Deadly (2011)
Jason Mewes of Jay and Silent Bob fame is cast as a rarely speaking, goat-loving hick psycho. The film comes with a number of other offfbeat characterisations that you feel should have made for an amusing horror comedy but instead everything slips into a shrill one-note pitch
Silent Night (2012)
This is a very loose and somewhat desultory remake of Silent Night, Deadly Night that seems to imagine it is being far more hardcore and controversy defying than it is
Silent Night, Deadly Night III: You Better Watch Out! (1989)
The third in the Christmas slasher series where the killer’s brother is resurrected like a Frankenstein monster and develops an obsession with a blind girl. Played with far more seriousness than it deserves
The Silent One (1984)
New Zealand made film about a deafmute boy in a Cook Islands tribe and his mystic communion with a sea turtle
The Silent Planet (2024)
A Canadian film starring Elias Koteas as an aging man banished to solitary servitude on a prison planet where his loneliness is broken by the arrival of a fellow prisoner
Silent Rage (1982)
A Chuck Norris horror film! One of his earlier films where Chuck is pitted against a psycho who is resurrected from the dead and becomes a near-invincible killing machine
The Silver Brumby (1993)
Adaptation of a classic Australian children’s story about a breed of mythic horses. Starring an unknown Russell Crowe.