Unearthly Stranger (1963)
A British response to the 1950s alien invader fad that swept the US. Despite a low-budget, this achieves an undeniable atmosphere of paranoia as a scientist discovers that his newlywed wife may be an alien infiltrator
Unfriended (2014)
One of the most unique films in some time – everything takes place across social media (chat sessions, video calls) where the cinema screen is the computer screen. A fairly average supernatural retribution story that generates reasonable tension
Unfriended: Dark Web (2018)
Unfriended had a unique novelty approach – everything took place in one take where the film screen was a computer screen. You wonder what a sequel can add to this. The surprise is that we get a film even better than the original
Unhinged (2020)
The first film to go into wide US release during Covid lockdown with Russell Crowe snapping and turning psycho after a road rage incident. Much better than the lukewarm reception it received, this is a quite reasonable variant on Duel
Unholy Night (2019)
Modest and well-made low-budget anthology of Christmas horror tales from three Canadian filmmakers
Unidentified Flying Objects: The True Story of Flying Saucers (1956)
Fascinating quasi-documentary from the early days of the UFO phenomenon, made before all the nonsense about Greys, abductions, alien impregnation etc came in, which gives it a sober groundedness than many more polished productions lack
Universal Horror (1998)
Documentary about the Golden Age of Horror at Universal Studios during the 1930s and 40s (although it does touch on works from other studios too). The topic is covered with an impressive degree of detail
Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning (2012)
Sixth entry in the series, this throws out all the themes the previous sequels operated by and feels like a Universal Soldier film written by Philip K. Dick with utterly fascinating results. John Hyams hits in with a brutal intensity that shows he is one of the most exciting up and coming action directors
Unknown World (1951)
Overlooked 1950s journey to the centre of the earth film that transcends its B-budget with an often uniquely melancholic poetry
Unsane (2018)
Steven Soderbergh shoots a film on an iPhone. Claire Foy is wrongly incarcerated in an asylum only to be followed by a stalker posing as an orderly where her pleas for help taken as evidence of delusion
The Unseen (1981)
A variant on the Mad Relative Locked in the Cellar/Attic film that turns out to be surprisingly well made
The Unseen (2016)
Modestly effective effort about a man whose body is slowly fading away and becoming invisible. A film carried by some fine effects sequences, this derives its frisson from the gradual revelation of what is happening but loses it when the mundane subplots take over in the second half
Unseen (2023)
A film with an ingenious premise where a nearly blind woman must rely on a total stranger to guide her by her phone through the woods while avoiding a pursuer
Upgrade (2018)
Leigh Whannell, James Wan’s BFF and co-writer on the Saw and
Upside Down (2012)
The frustration of a film that has a scientifically nonsensical premise – two planets where gravity is oriented in opposing directions – that is also surprisingly imaginatively made. This creates some genuinely amazing visuals and designs of the two worlds and showing the people on them interacting
Urban Ghost Story (1998)
Ghost story effectively relocated to Glasgow apartment building with a solo mother terrorised by something supernatural. Filled with social realism
Us (2019)
Jordan Peele’s follow-up to the massive hit of Get Out. This is a doppelganger film where the metaphors that Peele is trying to make are not entirely clear but what you cannot deny is that he demonstrates considerable assurance as a genre director
Uzumaki (2000)
Surreal Japanese horror film in which the world is taken over by spiral patterns. A strange and trippy film.
V/H/S/Beyond (2024)
Seventh of the V/H/S Found Footage horror anthologies, this is one of the best with a number of the episodes venturing into SF and others that feature some genuinely outlandish moments
Vacancy (2007)
A reasonable film clearly influenced by Hostel with Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale as a married couple who sign into a backroads motel used to shoot snuff movies
Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970)
Little-seen Czech film that sits on the blurred edge of a dream in its hazily surreal view of the world through the eyes of a young girl where the figures around her seem to become vampires that constantly loom with darkly allegorical sexual threat
Valiant (2005)
Amiable British animated film set amongst the Allied Resistance during World War II, all cast with talking carrier pigeons
The Valley of Gwangi (1969)
Ray Harryhausen film featuring cowboys roping dinosaurs. The plot rehashes King Kong but with a dinosaur instead of an ape however it is Harryhausen’s amazing stop-motion animation effects that make the film watchable
The Vampire Bat (1933)
Lionel Atwill and Fay Wray star in a film about a mad scientist conducting a series of vampire bat killings. A minor but watchable entry in the Golden Age of Horror.
Vampire Circus (1972)
Fascinating vampire film from the latter days of Hammer Films, this tries to do something different to the usual
Vampire Diary (2006)
Not to be confused with tv’s i>The Vampire Diaries, this is a British film that sets out to reconstruct the lesbian vampire film within the frame of modern LGBT relationships. It is also Found Footage, an early and rather amateurish variant, but not without some effect
Vampire Hunter D (1985)
Cult anime about a monosyllabic vampire hunter moving across a hallucinatory post-apocalyptic dispatching mutants and vampires
Vampire Hunter D (2000)
Yoshiaki Kawajiri, director of Ninja Scroll and Wicked City, steps in to make a sequel(?)/reboot(?) to the cult 1985 anime with visually enthralling regard
Vampires vs. The Bronx (2020)
Essentially a US version of Attack the Block with vampires instead of aliens, this is a smart, fun effort that adapts the vampire film to local hood culture
I Vampiri (1957)
The Italian Gothic cycle of the 1960s was filled with works of amazing visual flair – this is where it started. Although this is more a 1940s mad scientist film, it comes with all the decaying old castles and beautifully moody b&w lighting
Vanishing on 7th Street (2010)
Enigmatic film in the vein of The Quiet Earth where everybody vanishes except for a handful of survivors who have to now deal with creatures the lurk in the dark
Vanishing Waves (2012)
Acclaimed Lithuanian film involving a venture into a person’s dreamscape a la The Cell and Inception. Some nicely cool visuals, a strong character arc and some potentially edgy sexual content but the film still remains in the shadow of Inception without quite finding enough original ideas
The Vast of Night (2019)
Indie film about UFOs and alien abductions in a small 1950s town. This comes with undeniably eerie effect that heralds a strong new directorial voice. It also has a perfectly realised sense of retro period detail.
The Velvet Vampire (1971)
From cult director Stephanie Rothman, a provocative and intriguing entry in the 1970s lesbian vampire film
Venom (2018)
Anything with the Marvel Comics name on it is box-office gold. This spins a standalone film off from one of the main villains of the Spider-Man comic-book. This is watchable by several showstopping effects set-pieces.
Venus (2022)
Jaume Balaguero of [Rec] fame returns with an occult horror where a woman on the run is drawn into sinister happenings at an apartment
Venus in Furs (1969)
One of the better films from exploitation director Jess Franco that develops a haunted atmosphere that while crude is hard to shake
Vexille (2007)
Anime film about an android-overrun future Japan that resembles another episode of the Appleseed franchise
VFW (2019)
Joe Begos makes an ultra-violent homage to John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13 with a group of war veterans in a bar at siege against a horde of crazed drug addicts outside
V/H/S (2012)
An anthology of five short Found Footage horror films each from a different director. As with any anthology these are variable in tone but are on the whole mostly effective and contain a number of alternately unearthly and spooky moments
V/H/S/99 (2022)
The fifth film of the Found Footage horror anthology series, including one episode that is among the best of the series so far
Victor Crowley (2017)
Adam Green has enjoyed some success with the Hatchet films; this is the fourth entry in the series … Most of the other films have consisted of not much more than buckets of gore and a host of genre cameos – here though, Green adds a considerable sense of humour to the mix
Victor Frankenstein (1977)
Less well known adaptation of the Frankenstein story that can arguably be considered the most faithful of all the film versions
The Village (2004)
M. Night Shyamalan creates three-quarters of a tense and eerie film about a 19th Century village under siege from mysterious creatures only for it to fall apart when he produces a damp squib of a twist ending
Villains (2019)
A film with a wonderfully eccentric and offbeat sense of humour where Bill Skarsgård and Maika Monroe are inept criminals fleeing after a robbery who end up prisoners of a psychopathic couple
Vincent (2014)
The peculiar story of a man who gains super-strength and various other powers whenever he is in water, this essentially plays out as a superhero film but in a more low key way without any costumes. Quirky, charming and rather likeably appealing
Vinyan (2008)
The second film from Belgian director Fabrice Du Welz is an intensely haunted albeit enigmatic journey into Southeast Asian jungles in search of a missing child
Violent Night (2022)
Dark and definitely not sentimental Christmas film with David Harbour as a cynical Santa repelling a home invasion. This does not let down on the violent half of the title
The Virgin of Nuremberg (1963)
A fine example of the Italian Gothic cycle of the 1960s that overruns the screen with brooding Gothic dungeons, visually stunning colour schemes, a mad nobleman and Christopher Lee as a sinister manservant
Virginia Creepers (2009)
Documentary about the phenomenon of the tv horror host
Virus: 32 (2022)
Slapped with a misleading pandemic-related title, this is an Argentinean zombie film made with an admirable ferocity
The Visitor from the Future (2022)
A French film about a time traveller come to prevent the catastrophic explosion of a nuclear power plant. A low expectation film that turns out to be a comedy that sparkles with wit and inventivity
Visitors (2003)
Strong return to genre material for Australian director Richard Franklin with Radha Mitchell as a yachtswoman in a round the world race facing ghosts on board that may well all be in her imagination
Vivarium (2019)
A real mindscrew of a film in which Imogen Poots and Jesse Eisenberg are a couple who enter a strangely unreal suburb of identical houses and find they can’t leave. Then things start to get really strange.
Viy (1967)
The only horror film ever made in Communist Russia. Adaptation of a classic story about a monk sequestered with the body of a woman for three nights, the film creates an undeniable atmosphere and mounts to a wildly fantastical climax where he must face all the minions of Hell
The Void (2016)
In his follow-up to Manborg, Steven Kostanski abandons the affectionate homages to 1980s video-released genre films he has specialised in so far. A homage to the works of H.P. Lovecraft, this should be seen for the utterly wild and outlandish makeup effects that Kostanski delivers
Volcano High (2001)
Energetic South Korean attempt to employ the Wu Xia action moves popularised by The Matrix and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in a high school setting
Volver (2006)
Pedro Almodovar film in which two daughters try to deal with their mother’s seeming return from the dead
The Vourdalak (2023)
Adaptation of a classic Aleksei Tolstoy story set in Eastern Europe as a family awaits the return of the patriarch who has been turned into a vampire
W The Movie (2008)
Not to be confused with the Oliver Stone film, this is a surrealist satire on the George W. Bush presidency
The Walking Dead (1936)
Not to be confused with the hit tv series, this features Boris Karloff as a wrongly executed man come back from the dead to exact justice
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (2024)
Aardman Animation give Wallace and Gromit their second film outing
The Wandering Earth II (2023)
Prequel to the Chinese spectacular about the construction of an engineering project to move the Earth, this comes with some epic-sized effects sequences
Wanted (2008)
The film that Hitman should have been concerning a secret world of super-powered assassins, revved up by out of this world visuals from Timur Bekmambetov
War of the Worlds: Goliath (2012)
Sequel to the H.G. Wells novel that imagines a fascinating alternate history that might have occurred following the Martian invasion. The clear appeal has been creating a series of scenes showing humanity tackling invading tripods in giant Steampunk manned robots
The War of the Worlds – Next Century (1981)
Not an adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel but a biting satire made in Poland during Soviet occupation about how the pretext of an alien invasion is used to create an authoritarian regime and the way media is used to control the masses. A film more potent today than when it was made
Warm Bodies (2013)
The idea of a Twilight copy where the lead male is a zombie seems an utterly lame idea before one sat down to watch this. That said, the film manages to make its peculiarly incongruous mix of teen romantic film, zombie film and comedy work for it
A Warrior’s Tragedy (1993)
Entry from they heyday of Hong Kong’s Wu Xia cycle. By this point, the moves had become so over-the-top the film verges on the cartoonish, all with rather entertaining results
Watcher (2022)
Nicely chilling film in which Maika Monroe believes that the person in the apartment opposite might be stalking her
Watchtower (2001)
Modest psycho-thriller about the psychological games between a psychopathic lighthouse keeper (a fine Tom Berenger) and his young assistant
We Are Still Here (2015)
Solidly atmospheric effort concerning a middle-aged couple who buy a house with sinister forces lurking in the basement. This builds to an admirably gore-drenched climax
We Are What We Are (2010)
Grimly fascinating Mexican film about the activities of a family of cannibals. The film keeps you intrigued because it only drops suggestions about what is happening, leaving it up to us to piece solutions together, although the eventual lack of answers is frustrating
We Bury the Dead (2024)
The zombie film underwent a major revival in the 2000s but by the mid-2020s a horde of low-budget copycats has exhausted most creative possibilities. This shows there is still some originality to be found
We Can Be Heroes (2020)
Robert Rodriguez appears to have gotten the oversized non-event that was Alita: Battle Angel out of his system by making another of his seat of the pants home movies – this is less Spy Kids than Superhero Kids – and brings back one element Alita forgot, a sense of fun
We Hunt Together (2020)
BBC mini-series about two lovers on a killing spree that works through some great performance and engaging character arcs
We Need to Do Something (2021)
A horror film made as an allegory for Covid with a family trapped inside a bathroom without supplies as a mysterious catastrophe happens outside their door
Weathering With You (2019)
From Makoto Shinkai who made Your Name., a lovely anime about a girl who can control the weather. An odd premise about orphans that soon develops unusual and unexpected depths
Welp (2014)
Belgian Backwoods Brutality effort concerning a boy scout troupe who run afoul of a mysterious feral child and hunter in the woods near their campsite. Defying many of the expectation of the genre, this provides a series of often unearthly images
Werewolves on Wheels (1971)
The werewolf underwent some bizarre title mashups in the 1970s. This has the amusing idea of mashing the werewolf film up with the biker film. The results are played surprisingly seriously.
Werewolves Within (2021)
A werewolf film that is quite unlike anything you expect when you hear the term videogame adaptation
West of Hell (2018)
A strong and imaginative horror/Western hybrid set aboard a train before the realisation that it is travelling to Hell. Deft characterisations and some tight, electric confrontations make this work well
Whale Rider (2002)
Magical Realist tale set among New Zealand’s native Maori peoples concerning a young girl’s cautious defiance of traditions
What Have You Done to Solange? (1972)
One of the standout entries in the giallo film and certainly one of the best plotted of the genre, concerning a series of murders at a Catholic girls school
What Keeps You Alive (2018)
Colin Minihan is an up and rising genre directors well worth keeping an eye. Here he makes a taut and effective survival story where a woman is hunted by her wife who turns psychopathic after a getaway to a cabin in the woods
Whatever Happened to Harold Smith? (1999)
Eccentric Coming of Age story set during the 1970s punk era where, among the usual other funny travails, the protagonist’s father starts demonstrating psychic abilities
When Animals Dream (2014)
Beautifully low key Danish werewolf film (even if the term is never mentioned throughout) that takes place in a tiny seaside village as a girl tries to understand her transformations, the film is quiet and often takes place in silences rather than dialogue, its horror understated with striking effect
When I Consume You (2021)
The massively underrated Perry Blackshear makes another of his kitchen sink works about a handicapped brother and his sister’s possible ghost fighting a demonic figure
When Marnie Was There (2014)
A ghost story from Studio Ghibli – although rather than any Western equivalent that sets out to scare the pants off us, this is a sweetly tender story of friendship between two girls. The result more than capably approaches some of Hayao Miyazaki’s best
Where Have All the People Gone (1974)
One of the first films about a mysterious catastrophe that empties the world of all but a handful of survivors that formed the template of later films like The Quiet Earth
Where the Devil Roams (2023)
The Adams Family have made a series of striking horror films in recent years. This is an impressive work set around a circus, a cross-country murder spree and dark magic
The Whip Hand (1951)
One of the first Reds Under the Bed hysteria films of the 1950s where a man stumbles on a small town where a Communist fifth column are conducting biowarfare experiments as part of a planned invasion
A Whisker Away (2020)
A sweet and quite lovely anime where a girl befriends the boy she pines after being offered a mask that transforms her into a cat body – only to then have her own body stolen
The Whisperer in Darkness (2011)
An H.P. Lovecraft adaptation that makes exacting effort to get the mood and period setting right
The Whispering Star (2015)
The very strange Japanese director Shion Sono makes a film about an intergalactic package delivery android, although this is anything but a regular SF film. Filmed in the Fukushima Exclusion Zone.
The White Buffalo (1977)
Probably the strangest film that Charles Bronson ever made – a retelling of Moby Dick where he plays the real-life figure of Wild Bill Hickok hunting a mythic white buffalo instead of a whale. This was a big financial flop but is a not unworthwhile film
White Man’s Burden (1995)
Potent and effective take on race relations that imagines an alternate world where Blacks are a majority and white people live as a disadvantaged minority
White Noise (2005)
Ghost story about so-called Electronic Voice Phenomenon with Michael Keaton as a widower being contacted from beyond by his late wife. A film that achieves some quite reasonable spooky effect
Who is Bill Rebane? (2021)
A fascinating documentary devoted to a largely forgotten B-budget sf/horror director and his body of films
Who is Running? (1997)
Debut feature from Oxide Pang of the Pang Brothers fame. A variant on the tv series Early Edition in which a man receives newspapers that foretell the future and must race to prevent fates from occurring in order to earn karmic salvation for his girlfriend
Who Wants to Kill Jessie? (1966)
Zany Czech film where a scientist invents a device that can cause dream to manifest only to cause the sexy comic-book heroine her husband is dreaming about to appear