Zebra Lounge (2001)
Psychopathic Swingers
An erotic thriller where a couple are stalked by psychopathic couple after venturing into the swingers scene, this comes with a ridiculously high-handed condemnatory moralism
Canadian Cinema
Xchange (2000)
Body-Swapping Future
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
Wrecker (2015)
Road Games with a Killer Truck
I have to search my memory to think of another film that is so openly plagiaristic – this is almost a scene-for-scene remake of Steven Spielberg’s Duel about a man facing a killer truck on a highway. This misses the subtlety of the original so widely you could run a highway through it
Wolves (2014)
Werewolf Film
Evidently intended to be a werewolf equivalent of the Star Wars saga in in its epically contorted familial struggles, this sits just between the stylish and another classic monster repackaged for the teen crowd and cast with handsome good-looking faces
WolfCop (2014)
Werewolf Cop/Horror Comedy
Deliberately made to look like a lost 1980s/early 90s film, this has a winning concept and sets in with an appealingly sarcastic amusement. On the other hand, the film is never quite as amusing as it gives the impression it is going to be and starts to lose it in the third act
Witchslayer Gretl (2012)
Faiirytale Adaptation
A low-budget film that prefigures the big-budget Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters in turning the fairytale brother and sister into witchslayers in a generic fantasy adventure plot
Wishmaster: The Prophecy Fulfilled (2002)
Evil Wish-Granting Djinn
The fourth and final of the Wishmaster films, which by this point had become cheap and tattily made affairs that are pale shadows of the original
Wishmaster 3: Beyond the Gates of Hell (2001)
Evil Wish-Granting Djinn
The Wishmaster series was a franchise based around a series of novelty effects wherein a malevolent djinn turned wishes against the wisher. This third entry is the utter nadir of the series
White Noise: The Light (2007)
Premonitions of Death
A sSequel in name only to White Noise, this is a very silly film with Nathan Fillion returning from a near-death experience able to see the auras of those about to die
White Noise (2005)
Communications from the Dead
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
White Light (1991)
Return from the Afterlife Thriller
Cheap badly directed film starring Martin Kove as detective who is shot but comes back haunted by visions of the afterlife
Whispers (1990)
Disturbed Twins/Dean R. Koontz Adaptation
Dean R. Koontz adaptation in which Victoria Tennant kills an attacker only for him to be found alive again and return to attack her, involving her in a complex web involving Satanism, vampirism and twins
What Keeps You Alive (2018)
Wife Hunted in the Woods
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
We Are Zombies (2023)
Zombie Comedy
A zombie comedy from the Quebecois trio who were responsible for Turbo Kid, this takes place in a world where zombies are less a horde than an annoyance who have been relegated to the fringes of society
Watchtower (2001)
Psycho-Thriller
Modest psycho-thriller about the psychological games between a psychopathic lighthouse keeper (a fine Tom Berenger) and his young assistant
The Void (2016)
Hospital of Horrors/H.P. Lovecraft Homage
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
The Void (2001)
Miniature Black Hole
Film where scientists creates an an atom-sized black hole that has the potential to destroy the Earth
Vixen Highway 2006: It Came from Uranus! (2010)
Gonzo Exploitation Homage
Another excruciatingly bad mock exploitation film from Tony Watt, who may well be the world’s worst filmmaker. This mixes killer women, aliens, UFOs, Mafia into an incomprehensible mix
Visiting Hours (1982)
Slasher Film
Taut and effective effort from the heyday of the slasher film, one of several films on the theme of a woman newscaster being stalked by a psycho. A young Michael Ironside goes to town on the role of the psycho and plays to the gallery with nastily effective results
The Vindicator (1986)
Killer Cyborg
Canadian film about a man rebuilt inside a cyborg body. What started as a Frankenstein film is turned into a copy of The Terminator
Viking (2022)
Mars Habitat Simulation Comedy
A sublimely funny comedy about a group in a habitat who have been selected to roleplay the astronauts on a Mars mission
Videodrome (1983)
Reality-Manipulating TV
Absolutely fascinating David Cronenberg film that swims with a heady mix of ideas that blur tv, reality and the human body
Vicious Fun (2020)
Support Group for Serial Killers
Horror comedy set around the wonderfully appealing idea of a support group for serial killers
Vampire Dog (2012)
Children's Film/Cute Vampire Dog
This may quite possibly be the worst vampire film ever made – a children’s film about a boy and a cute vampire dog. Being a children’s film, the vampire dog is not allowed to drink blood so has to have a ravenous hunger for red jelly! The slapstick is excruciating and the film painful on every level
The Valley of the Rats (2016)
Giallo Homage in a Limousine
There is considerable conceptual ambition to this – a giallo homage, most of which takes place inside a limo. Charitably, you call it is a micro-budgeted collision between Cosmopolis and The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears, alas the film lets narrative fragment into incoherence in the latter half
The Unseen (2016)
Man Slowly Starts to Become Invisible
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
Universal Soldier III: Unfinished Business (1998)
Undead Super-Soldiers/Action
he second of two cheap video-released sequels to the Jean-Claude Van Damme film. This has the novelty of featuring Burt Reynolds as the bad guy
Universal Soldier II: Brothers in Arms (1998)
Undead Super-Soldiers/Action
The first of two cheap Universal Soldier sequels made in Canada with Matt Battaglia inheriting Jean-Claude Van Damme’s role
Unholy Night (2019)
Christmas Horror Anthology
Modest and well-made low-budget anthology of Christmas horror tales from three Canadian filmmakers
The Understudy: Graveyard Shift II (1988)
Vampire Actor
Sequel to Graveyard Shift with a vampire appearing on a vampire film set and taking over the role in the film
The Uncanny (1977)
Cat Horror Anthology
A production from Amicus founder Milton Subtosky in the style of the horror anthology that made the company’s name
2103: The Deadly Wake (1996)
Futuristic Ship Voyage
Low-budget SF film about a ship at sea carrying a cargo of convicts, toxic waste, a deadly virus and a killer android
Twist of Fate (1998)
Psycho-Thriller
A convoluted courtroom thriller where District Attorney Mädchen Amick is forced to team up with serial killer Chris Mulkey
A Twist of Faith (1999)
Catholic Serial Killer Thriller
Dull serial killer thriller with Andrew McCarthy tracking a killer that has a Catholic fixation
Twilight of the Ice Nymphs (1997)
Kitsch Surrealism
Another of Guy Maddin’s surreal kitsch films all delivered in deadpan prose, this boasts more of a name cast than usual for Maddin
Turbo Kid (2015)
Retro 80s Parody of Post-Holocaust Films
There is a fantastically witty idea here – a low-tech parody of the 1980s post-holocaust film – but one that seems in search of an accompanying film. The film overspills with retro ephemera and stylistic jokes but I wish there had been more to it beyond the hook of the initial joke
Tucker and Dale vs Evil (2010)
Backwoods Brutality Parody
An amusing parody of the Backwoods Brutality film where the hillbillies are likeable innocents and the college kids end up killing themselves in a series of bizarre accidents. Amusing, although in the end is only a one-joke film
The Truth is in the Stars (2017)
Documentary About the Possible Path to Space
The William Shatner documentary is a fascinatingly bizarre beast. This involves Shatner talking to a bunch of scientists and celebrities, before meeting with Stephen Hawking but peculiarly enough seems to have no central thesis or idea about what it is setting out to prove
Troubled Waters (2006)
Abduction Thriller/Psychic Detective
Thriller starring Jennifer Beals as an FBI agent who receives clairvoyant visions during the hunt for an abducted girl
The Triplets of Belleville (2003)
Gonzo Animation
Splendidly original and completely off the wall work of stylised animation from Sylvain Chomet
Tribulation (2000)
Christian End Times/Anti-Christ Dystopia
The third in a series of Biblical End Times films withGary Busey as a decent cop who wakes up in a future ruled by the Anti-Christ. The heavy-handed slinging of Bible verses makes this hard-going for anyone who is not a believer, while the conspiratorial tone frequently verges on nuttiness
Top of the Food Chain (1999)
Alien Invasion Spoof
Canadian-made parody of a cheesy 1950s SF film that emerges more wittily amusingly than most Deliberately Bad SF Films
Tomcat: Dangerous Desires (1993)
Man with Feline DNA Amok
Poorly made psycho-sexual thriller where Richard Grieco becomes a predator after getting an injection of feline DNA
Threshold (1981)
World's First Artificial Heart
A case of science prediction where Donald Sutherland and Jeff Goldblum create the world’s first artificial heart
Three Dangerous Ladies (1988?)
Horror Anthology
Very obscure horror anthology re-edited from episodes of a Canadian tv series featuring names like John Hurt, Charles Gray and Keir Dullea.
388 Arletta Avenue (2011)
Found Footage Stalker Film
Found Footage film about a stalker secretly filming a couple and abducting the wife, this tepidly circles around thriller cliches where other Found Footage films have delved into the psycho genre with more disturbing effect
This Was America (2020)
Near-Future Totalitarian USA
A film that offers the depiction of a totalitarian future USA where Donald Trump has refused to leave office. This was made at the end of Trump’s first term and before his second term return to power.
13 Eerie (2013)
Zombie Film
A zombie film from the director who subsequently went on to make the WolfCop films. The one thing this has going for it are some convincing zombie makeups and exxxxtremely gory splatter effects
The Thaw (2009)
Prehistoric Flesh-Eating Insects
Okay borrowing from the set-up of The Thing about an outbreak of flesh-eating prehistoric insects at an Arctic research station
Thanatomorphose (2012)
Girl's Physical Decay
Low-budget film about a girl who starts to find bruises on her body that progress until every part of her body is rotting and falling apart. A minimalist film where everything other than the slow observation of the girl’s physical decay has been stripped away – with incredibly raw effect
Terror Train (2022)
Trainboard Slasher
Terror Train starring Jamie Lee Curtis was one of the classics of the original slasher film fad. This is a remake
Terror Train (1980)
Trainboard Slasher
One of the better entries among the 1980s slasher film cycle – and even featuring the era’s quintessential heroine Jamie Lee Curtis. Essentially Halloween aboard a train, at which the film does the basics of the genre with perfect competence and undeniably stylish photography
Terror Train 2 (2022)
Trainboard Slasher
Sequel to the remake of the 1980s horror classic, shot back-to-back with its predecessor, this is a better film than the remake was
Terror of Dracula (2012)
Dracula Adaptation
An obscure Canadian film that ambitiously attempts to adapt Bram Stoker’s Dracula on a low-budget. This introduces some elements of the story that other versions ignore and is not uninteresting
Territories (2010)
Rogue Border Guards Torture Tourists
An appealingly politicised variant on the Backwoods Brutality film in which two rogue US border guards decide to set up their own home Guantanamo Bay … not Torture Porn but an effectively brutal study on the effect of torture
Tanya’s Island (1980)
Erotic Film/Relationship Between a Woman and an Ape
Very difficult to find, this is film that has existed in legend – an erotic film with Vanity as a model on a desert island who becomes involved with an ape. Beautifully filmed and Vanity (who spends much of the show nude) is jaw-dropping
The Tall Man (2012)
Child Abducting Boogeymen/Conceptual Reversal Twister
Pascal Laugier returns with this fascinating effort about a small town subject to child abductions by a possible boogieman. A film that is as blatantly manipulative as it is ingenious in its way-out twists and turns where everything we assume is going on at the outset is eventually turned completely on its head
Swarmed (2005)
Killer Wasps
A formula Syfy Channel killer bug film wherein a new experimental insecticide creates a horde of deadly genetically tinkered wasps that run amok through a small town
Swarm (2007)
Ants on a Plane
A blatant copy of Snakes on a Plane featuring mutated ants aboard a plane. Without the other film’s tongue-in-cheek approach, this collapses into absurdity
Survival of the Dead (2009)
Zombies
George Romero’s sixth and final zombie film where he writes characters and a script with much more of a richness of theme than he did in the last two entries
Supergrid (2018)
Socially Collapsed Future Action
Lowell Dean, director of WolfCop, makes what feels like a revival of the low-budget Mad Max film – an action film set in a socially collapsed future
Summer of 84 (2018)
Retro 80s Film/Teens Believe Neighbour May Be a Serial Killer
The second film from the trio that made Turbo Kid. This taps 80s nostalgia focusing on a group of kids who believe a neighbour may be a serial killer but was overshadowed by tv’s very similar Stranger Things
Stuff (1999)
Resurrection Ring/Black Comedy
Canadian-made black comedy about a ring that can revive the dead
The Stranger Game (2006)
Psycho Nanny
Routine psycho-thriller where Mimi Rogers’ home is invaded by psycho babysitter David Orth
Stranded (2013)
Alien Impregnation
Roger Christian was art director on Alien but will always be remembered as director of the notorious Battlefield Earth. Here he is stuck making a cheap, tatty and frequently incomprehensible copy of Alien about alien impregnation
Stone Cold Dead (1979)
Detective Thriller/Serial Killer
A dull Canadian-made police procedural with detective Richard Crenna on the trail of a sniper that is killing prostitutes
Still Small Voices (2006)
Ghostly 911 Calls
TV movie in which Catherine Bell is a 911 operator who receives calls from a ghostly child
Stereo (1969)
Psychic Powers Experiments
The very first film from David Cronenberg. An incredibly experimental work even today, which consists of people wandering the halls of a university and the soundtrack of voices discussing psychic powers experiments in a dryly funny parody of an academic paper. Fascinatingly oblique
Starship Invasions (1977)
UFO Invasion
Christopher Lee called this his worst film. Contrarily it is a ridiculously entertaining effort about a war between telepathic aliens in UFOs from beneath the Bermuda Triangle.
Stage Fright (2014)
Slasher Musical
A slasher musical??? The mind does a double takes trying to process the incongruity of the genre mash-ups. That said, this works exceedingly well – neither compromising on the slasher aspects, yet equally delivering some clever and witty musical numbers
Spymate (2006)
Spy and Chimpanzee Companion
Perhaps the lamest spy movie idea EVER – a children’s film about a spy who goes into action accompanied by a chimpanzee
Splice (2010)
Genetically-Engineered Creature
A genetically engineered creature film from Vincenzo Natali, this ventures into some fascinating places but ultimately returns to Frankenstein science territory
Spider (2002)
Inside a Mentally Ill Man's Mind
David Cronenberg film that subjectively takes place in the mind of mentally ill Ralph Fiennes, a bewildering film with no easy handholds
Spasms (1983)
Psychic Link with a Giant Snake
A 1980s film that was sold around a single air bladder makeup effects scene where a man swells up and explodes from a snakebite. That and the entirely risible premise of Oliver Reed as a billionaire who has a psychic link with a giant snake
Spare Parts (2020)
Girl Punk Band Become Gladiators with Weapons Attachments
I was sold from the point of reading the premise where an all-girl punk band is abducted, surgically given weapons attachments and forced to fight in an arena
Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone (1983)
Planetary Adventure
Planetary adventure in the Star Wars vein with a few shakes of the junkyard future look of Mad Max 2. This was made to exploit the short-lived early 80s 3D revival fad
Space Milkshake (2012)
Space Station Comedy
The title and the description of a space station crew dealing with a mutating runner duck gives the expectation of something wacky – what we get is more like a variant on Dark Star, a comedy set around the boredom of life on a space station and a 1970s era episode of Doctor Who
Someone is Watching (1999)
Stalker Psycho-Thriller/Child's Sinister Invisible Companion
Okay psycho-thriller where Stefanie Powers is stalked in her new apartment while her son develops a mysterious imaginary companion
Snowbound (2001)
Psycho-Thriller
Psycho-thriller with Erika Eleniak and Monika Schnarre trapped in a snowbound cabin
Slaxx (2020)
Possessed Jeans
A horror film about a pair of possessed jeans!
Skinamarink (2022)
Mysterious Happenings in a House
A considerable word of mouth hit, this generates a very spooky atmosphere with highly unusual shooting techniques
Simulant (2023)
Rogue Androids
Another in the spate of recent A.I. films of the 2010s/20s. Here one can buy android replacements for one’s late spouse but someone is hacking and causing them to go rogue
The Silent Planet (2024)
Prison Planet
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 Night (2012)
Christmas Slasher Film/Psycho Santa
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 Hill: Revelation (2012)
Videogame Adaptation/Sinister Otherworldly Town
Dull and unimaginative Silent Hill sequel that only revisits what went before. The first film had an uncanny otherworldly atmosphere but the sequel reduces everything to no more than pop-up Clive Barker
Silent Hill (2006)
Videogame Adaptation/Sinister Otherworldly Town
One of the best of all filmed videogame adaptations. Christophe Gans creates a creepy and unworldly atmosphere, along with a series of genuinely outlandish creature effects
Silent But Deadly (2011)
Movie-Set Psycho Comedy
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
The Shrouds (2024)
Grave Camera Technology
At age 81, David Cronenberg is still on great form with this perversely fascinating work about the development of a technology that places cameras inside graves to observe corpses as they decay
The Shrine (2010)
Sinister European Town/Occult Horror
A piece of filler horror that is utterly generic in every respect about travelers entering a sinister East European village where the locals are up to no good
Shivers (1975)
Sexual Fetishism Parasites
David Cronenberg’s first commercial release, a vivid work about parasites that turn the residents of an apartment building into sexual fetishists. Cronenberg has set out to shock while beneath that he creates fascinating metaphors about sex
She Never Died (2019)
Immortal Woman
Sequel to the modest He Never Died with Henry Rollins as an immortal. Women get equal time here in a ferocious performance from Olunike Adeliyi that quite takes you aback
Shark Killer (2015)
Killer Shark
This is one killer shark film of the 2010s that does not come in a deliberately ridiculous vein and concerns the hunt for a shark that has swallowed a valuable diamond
The Shape of Things to Come (1979)
Space Opera
Shoddy low-budget Canadian-made attempt to jump aboard the Star Wars fad, this promotes itself as a bogus sequel to the H.G. Wells classic
Sexcula (1974)
X-Rated Frankenstein Spoof
While this Canadian obscurity gives the appearance of being a 70s sex vampire film, it is in fact an X-rated Frankenstein spoof. While the film is not without its moment of complete dementia (mostly involving sex scenes with a gorilla), it eventually fragments into narrative incomprehensibility
Severed (2005)
Zombie Film
A Canadian entry made soon into the zombie movie revival of the mid-00s and before the copycats started to become tediously familiar and the genre turned to self-parody. This delivers a solid rehash of the essentials – IMHO a better job that Zack Snyder did in Dawn of the Dead
Selfie from Hell (2018)
Cursed Selfie/Internet Stalkers
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
Seeds of Destruction (2011)
Massive Runaway Plant Roots
Cheap Syfy Channel CGI disaster spectacle about runaway plant roots – from the Garden of Eden, no less – growing to endanger the entire planet. Utterly formulaic and seeming to consist of no more than canned pieces of cliche action
Seed (2007)
Executed Killer's Revenge
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
Screamers: The Hunting (2009)
Evolved Androids/Planetary Survival
Disappointing sequel to the modest original that does little but revisit and re-run the first film’s scenario with little to add to it
Screamers (1995)
Evolved Androids/Planetary Journey/Philip K. Dick Adaptation
Modest and underrated Philip K. Dick adaptation that builds reasonable atmosphere during its journey across a planet and doubt as to who among the party might be one of a breed of evolving androids