Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? (1972)
From the great and overlooked Curtis Harrington, a Grand Old Dames film with Shelley Winters going mad in the Baby Jane vein. This also becomes a modernised retelling of Hansel and Gretel
Wicked, Wicked (1973)
Very unique psycho film that takes place in split screen with the killer seen on one side of the screen and the victims and pursuing detective on the other
The Wicker Tree (2011)
Sold as a sequel to The Wicker Man, although works as more of an update and expansion of its themes. Received a muted reception but is a not entirely uninteresting film, if nowhere near the league of the original
The Widow (2020)
Russian dark fantasy and horror has emerged as one of the most exciting genres in recent years. This incredibly spooky little film is a Russian equivalent of The Blair Witch Project
The Wild (2006)
Likeable animated film about a group of zoo animals making an escape that ended up being overshadowed by the similar, more high-profile Madagascar
Wild in the Streets (1968)
Satiric 1960s Youth Revolution film where a rock star becomes US President, reduces the voting age and everyone over thirty is placed in a concentration camp
Wilder Napalm (1993)
Quirkily eccentric comedy written by Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan about two feuding brothers with pyrokinetic abilities
Wilderness (2006)
Tough brutal British film where a group of youth offenders are hunted while on a wilderness survival course on an island
Wildling (2018)
Bel Powley gives a great performance as a wild child introduced to civilisation for the first time before it is discovered she is a wildling creature
Willard (1971)
Fine little tale of an introverted man who befriends a horde of rats and uses these to gain comeuppance. A hit that presaged a host of Animals Attack films throughout the 1970s.
The Willies (1990)
A horror anthology that ostensibly tells a series of children’s tales but heads for an admirable grotesquerie
Willow Creek (2013)
Not at all the film you’d expect for a film directed by stand-up comedian Bobcat Goldthwait – a Found Footage film about Bigfoot. Based on Goldthwait’s record as an actor, you expect this to get batshit crazy, but it instead heads into Blair Witch territory with rather effective results
Willy McBean and His Magic Machine (1965)
Likeable puppet animated film about a time-travelling boy and his monkey companion
Wind Chill (2007)
The novelty of a ghost story that all takes place within the confines of a car stalled on the roadside – all with modestly effective results
Winnie the Pooh (2011)
On the slight side as a Disney theatrical film, nevertheless this keeps to the essence of the original tales and comes with some appealingly playful fourth-wall breaking visuals
The Witch: Part 1 – Subversion (2018)
Don’t be fooled by the witch part of the title, this is actually a South Korean film about psychic powers. This follows the path of a standard psychic powers film about the gifted on the run a la The Fury and Firestarter before an ending that turns the genre on its head
The Witches (1966)
Hammer film, not as well known as some of their other works, from a Nigel Kneale script that creates some effect in its story of schoolteacher Joan Fontaine moving to a sleepy English village and finding the locals engaged in witchcraft
The Witches Hammer (2007)
Low budget vampire action about a vampire woman who is recruited into a secret government organisation
Without Warning! (1952)
Fascinating early psycho film about the police hunt for Adam Williams who kills girls with garden shears
Witness Infection (2020)
Unexpectedly rather funny comedy that combines Mafia on a witness protection program and zombies
The Wizard of Gore (1970)
One of Herschell Gordon Lewis’s splatter films about a stage magician who cuts up women on stage and real life. The film makes mind boggling plays between reality and illusion
Wizards (1977)
Ralph Bakshi left behind counter-culture animation to embark on this original fantasy film that comes with a trippily surreal quality, mixing fantasy tropes with a science-fictional rationalisation
Wolf (2019)
Not to be confused with the Jack Nicholson film, this is a fine low-budget film about a group of centurions during the Roman occupation of Britain encountering werewolves on an expedition north of Hadrian’s Wall
Wolf Man (2025)
After reviving The Invisible Man, James Wan associate Leigh Whannell takes on a reworking of The Wolf Man
The Wolf of Snow Hollow (2020)
A film directed by actor Jim Cummings about a small Utah town that is facing a series of werewolf attacks. This works surprisingly well due to a series of witty and well-rounded characterisations
The Wolfman (2010)
The 1941 Lon Chaney Jr The Wolf Man is given the remake treatment in a way that builds out on the creaky original with lavish sets and state of the art transformation effects
The Wolves of Kromer (1998)
British werewolf film that wittily uses being a werewolf as a metaphor for being gay
Woman on Top (2000)
Frothy work of Magical Realism with Penelope Cruz as a woman whose cooking weaves a magical spell
The Womb (2014)
The first occasion I have had to review a horror film from Peru – a thriller about a young woman imprisoned and forced to bear a child. This is never a work that particularly reinvents the wheel, just turns out a solid and suspenseful imprisonment thriller
Wonder Woman (2009)
Fine animated version of the DC Comics superheroine that gets the character just right and tells the story in a way that eclipses all previous filmed versions
The World’s End (2013)
Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, the trio behind Shaun of the Dead, return to conduct a very similar effort – the story of a pub crawl that is affectionately mocking the characters’ nowhere lives, before taking an abrupt dogleg turn to become a comedic take on the alien body snatchers film
The World’s Greatest Athlete (1973)
A Disney live-action comedy that puts a Tarzan character on the athletics field for some inspired nonsense
The Worm Eaters (1977)
A film that comes with such a level of psychotronic dementia that it may seriously damage your sanity concerning the relationship between a man and his pet worms
Wounds (2019)
Iranian director Babak Anvari impressed with Under the Shadows. This is his follow-up where barman Armie Hammer’s life is turned upside down after he picks up a sinister cellphone
The Wretched (2019)
The biggest box-office hit six weeks in a row in 2020, albeit during Corona lockdown. This gets some extremely creepy effects in that managed to work on a jaded viewer
Wrong (2012)
Quentin Dupieux’s follow-up to the hilariously culty Rubber, an absurdist film about a man setting out to find his missing dog. You keep expecting something as mind-bendingly hilarious as Rubber but this is more of a mild amusement in the David Lynch-ian deadpan surrealist vein
Wrong Turn (2021)
A reimagining of the long-running Wrong Turn series of Backwoods Brutality films, this does imaginative things with the set-up and emerges as the best of the series so far
Wyrmwood: Apocalypse (2021)
Sequel to the cult Australian zombie film, this refines the first film and exists as even more of a visual comic-book – all that seems missing is dialogue that comes in comic balloons
X: First Class (2011)
An X-Men origin story that serves as the occasion to recast the series with younger actors. This works far better than the previous two films, integrating the characters in a strong story, although is quiet at the superheroic action
X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)
It is nice to see Bryan Singer regain his form after several years lull. The plot is nothing world-shattering but it is nice to see a character-driven X-Men, while Singer delivers the superheroics with a cheer-out loud elan that most of the sequels missed by a wide margin
X the Unknown (1956)
An early Hammer film, an attempt to exploit the success of their Quatermass films. This prefigures the menace of The Blob by a couple of years (while adding a few dashes of the atomic monster fad) but comes with a stark b/w urgency that makes this by far the better film
X2 (2003)
Bryan Singer’s immediate sequel to X-Men, this ups the number of new mutant characters, although only sporadically manages to kick in with the spectacular superheroic action sequences the first film had
Xchange (2000)
A modest and surprisingly well thought out SF film set in a future where swapping bodies is commonplace only for a man to find his original body has been stolen
Y2K (2024)
Film that imagines what might have happened if the Y2K Bug had occurred and resulted in a machine revolution
YatterMan (2009)
Takashi Miike conducts a live-action adaptation of a 1970s anime tv series with completely madcap results. The effect is like drowning in multi-coloured candyfloss flavoured with LSD
The Year of the Sex Olympics (1968)
Film from Quatermass creator Nigel Kneale well ahead of its time in its prediction of a populace controlled by television
Yesterday (2019)
Feelgood Danny Boyle film that most audiences missed was also an alternate history film set in a world where The Beatles never existed and one sideslipped singer is able to claim their songs as his own
The Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity (2020)
A Chinese-made Wu Xia film with an exquisitely polished blend of CGI and visuals. This rather intriguingly operates as a blend of Wu Xia and murder mystery
You Are Not My Mother (2021)
An unsettlingly effective Irish Folk Horror film about a teen whose mother disappears and then returns ‘changed’
You Only Live Twice (1967)
The fifth James Bond film takes the series to Japan. New director Lewis Gilbert is determined to outdo what has come before in terms of the spectacular, especially WITH the construction of the massive volcano set
Young Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea Dragon (2013)
Tsui Hark delivers a prequel to his 2010 Detective Dee film. This takes the character back far more to his original nature as a Chinese equivalent of Sherlock Holmes. That is if you can imagine Sherlock Holmes taking place as a flying swordsman film filled with sea monsters and wildly fantastic martial combat scenes (*)
Young Einstein (1988)
Bizarrely surreal comedy directed by and starring Yahoo Serious who plays Albert Einstein as an Australian who discovers surfing and rock
The Young Poisoner’s Handbook (1995)
A true-crime film based on real-life British murderer Graham Young, this comes with a black humour tone and a great performance from Hugh O’Conor as Young
Your Name. (2016)
Makoto Shinkai anime that starts as a light and fluffy piece about a boy and a girl who keep waking up in each other’s bodies but expands out into a wholly different story, gaining unexpected emotional depths
You’re Next (2011)
Adam Wingard directs a home invasion thriller in a similar vein to The Strangers. This is a film that strips everything extraneous away and simply lets Wingard go for broke and give the audience a brutal and intense workout – at which you cannot deny he succeeds most satisfyingly
Yuki: Snow Fairy (1981)
A very rare anime film about a fairy who descends to Earth from the heavens and takes the side of downtrodden peasants in standing against a greedy landowner and a demon god
Z.P.G. (Zero Population Growth) (1972)
SF film set in a future that is so overpopulated that childbirth is treated as an executable crime. Although sometimes naive in its speculations, this creates a dystopian scenario that imaginatively turns many familiar aspects of the present on their head
Zathura: A Space Adventure (2005)
Enjoyable sequel to Jumanji and actually a much superior film in the hands of Jon Favreau. This expands the idea of the Jumanji boardgame that brings things from a jungle to life to a space theme
Zeder (1983)
Acclaimed classic of 1980s Italian horror where a mysterious typewriter ribbon leads a writer in search of zones where the dead can return to life
The Zero Theorem (2013)
This is Terry Gilliam largely going back to revisit Brazil, albeit having been updated to the 2010s and the era of the internet. A renaissance of many Gilliam themes, nevertheless this feels like one of his slighter works
Zombie Fight Club (2014)
It is mind-boggling to think how you could combine zombies with Fight Club, the classic anti-capitalist manifesto about brawling clubs and split personality … Such an idea proves too challenging for this Taiwanese effort but we do get a solid zombie version of The Raid
Zombie for Sale (2019)
A rather charming South Korean comedy about a family who try to exploit the commercial aspects of having a tame zombie
Zombie Strippers! (2008)
One of the more entertaining entries among the gonzo zombie film, this offers precisely what its title promises in an appealingly trashy, sarcastic and suitably gore-drenched blend
Zombieland (2009)
Enjoyable zombie comedy that has been regarded as a classic by many and contains an appealing nonchalant sense of humour and some great performances, even if it owes much to Shaun of the Dead
Zombieland: Double Tap (2019)
Zombieland has been elevated to the status of a classic of the zombie genre; I found it enjoyable but probably overrated by people who haven’t seen enough other works in the genre. The question going into this sequel is whether it can strikes the same notes.
Zombieworld (2015)
A multi-director anthology of zombie-themed short films. As always in an anthology, the episodes vary but these are generally good with the standout being the side-splitting episode where Jesus faces a zombie horde