Bong of the Dead (2011)
Gonzo Zombie Comedy
A film about a marijuana crop that is grown using zombie brains as fertiliser. This starts with a promising gonzo zombie film tone but never quite sustains its approach
Canadian Cinema
The Blue Man (1985)
Astral Killer
Canadian-made horror from the heyday of the VHS era about psychic vampires terrorising people via astral projection in order to steal their bodies
Blubberella (2011)
Plus-Size Vampire Heroine vs Nazis/Gonzo Bad Taste
Uwe Boll sets out to offend everybody in a film founded on making constant insults about its’ plus-size heroine’s weight and bad jokes about the Holocaust, including the Boll playing a comic Hitler
Bloody Knuckles (2014)
Disembodied Hand/Bad Taste Comedy
Canadian horror comedy that feels like a warmed-over rehash of Oliver Stone’s The Hand. A film made in wilful bad taste that feels like it came along twenty years too late for the mid-80s heyday of Troma
Bloodthirsty (2020)
Female Werewolf
Promising film about an ingénue singer under the control of a Svengali-esque record producer who is struggling against giving in to her true werewolf nature
Bloodrayne: The Third Reich (2011)
Videogame Adaptation/Vampire vs Nazis
The third of Uwe Boll’s Bloodrayne trilogy and one of his better films. The action scenes are slickly choreographed and the film is largely made by Michael Paré and Clint Howard who play to the gallery with entertaining regard
Bloodrayne: Deliverance (2007)
Videogame Adaptation/Vampire Western
The second in Uwe Boll’s trilogy adapted from the videogame, this plays out as a mix of Western and vampire hunter film and is marginally better than Boll’s usual standards
BloodRayne (2005)
Videogame Adaptation/Vampire War
Another Uwe Boll’s videogame adaptation, this feels slung together from vampire film and sword and sorcery cliches. Among the badly mismatched casting, the most eyebrow raising is Ben Kingsley as the vampire villain
Blood Quantum (2019)
American Indians vs Zombies
This had me sold from its premise of American Indians vs zombies. Made by Canadian First Nations people, this features an Indian reservation as the last refuge against the zombie apocalypse
Blood & Donuts (1995)
Modern Vampire
Peculiar Canadian-made indie film about the interactions of a vampire and various people at a Toronto donut shop. David Cronenberg is cast as a Mafia head
Blindness (2008)
Plague of Blindness
A hugely underrated film that depicts the brutal collapse of society that occurs when the entire world is affected by a plague that causes blindness. Directed in strong and powerful images
Bleed With Me (2020)
Sinister Happenings at a Cabin in the Woods
A film where a girl goes to stay with her girl friend at a cabin in the woods but thinks her friend might be drugging her and taking her blood
Bleading Lady (2010)
Slasher on a Horror Movie Set
Ryan Nicholson makes an amusing slasher film that takes place on a horror movie set where the set driver is a fan of the scream queen star and decides to start eliminating people to start making the film go his way
The Blackburn Asylum (2015)
Abandoned Mine of Escaped Asylum Inmates
Despite the title, this is a horror film that takes place in a mine (albeit one where the former inmates of an asylum lurk). This plays out fairly well by a set of familiar genre tropes and delivers a solid degree of tension
Black Mountain Side (2014)
Deadly Infection Unearthed at an Archaeological Dig
Another copy of The Thing where a team of archaeologists in the frozen north unearth an object being 20,000 years old from a barrow that proceed to affect the team and cause mass insanity
Black Christmas (1974)
Girl's Dormitory Slasher
Many argue that this is the original slasher film – and it does the whole formula a good deal better than many of those that came along a few years later, having some wry characterisations and a sardonic sense of humour
Bikini Girls on Ice (2009)
Slasher Film
This gets full marks for an attention-grabbing title. Unfortunately, it is the most interesting thing about the film that otherwise only offers up plentiful bikini-clad girls but routine slasher mechanics
Bigfoot Ate My Boyfriend (2016)
Bigfoot Comedy
A miracle of $1.98 no-budget film-making, this Bigfoot comedy shouts out its sheer good nature from every pore. It is a film that wears its shortcomings with pride, while the director and cast have a great comic timing
Big Meat Eater (1982)
Bad SF Movie Parody
Highly enjoyable Canadian-made parody of bad 1950s B movies that throws in everything from alien invaders to zombies and splatter. And is a musical to boot!
Big and Hairy (1998)
Bigfoot Joins the School Basketball Team
Kid’s film that comes with a rather slight gimmick in which a Bigfoot is befriended and persuaded to join the high school basketball team
Beyond the Black Rainbow (2010)
Sinister Institute/Mysterious Experiments
A homage to 1970s SF cinema, full of trippy journeys through transcendental space and white antisceptic corridors. In aiming for this look, the film also forgot a small thing like a plot or coherent explanation of what is happening
Beyond Loch Ness (2008)
Loch Ness Monster/Dinosaur Film
This offers the novelty of a Loch Ness monster film that takes place in Canada! This is otherwise a routine monster of the era made for the Syfy Channel
Berkshire County (2014)
Home Invasion Thriller/Babysitter Stalked
Canadian film about a babysitter being stalked by masked home invaders on Halloween night. Capably put together and generates an okay tension but this still seems to be recycling over-familiar genre tropes
Beowulf & Grendel (2005)
Epic Legend
An interesting and worthwhile attempt to retell the epic legend of Beowulf but to give it grounding as an historical work. Filmed in Iceland with an international cast
Bells (1981)
Exploding Telephone Calls
Rather silly thriller in which Richard Chamberlain tries to track a madman who has discovered a means of transmitting explosions by telephone
Believe (2000)
Children's Ghost Story
A children’s ghost story that is written with uncommon depth and care and directed with reasonable effect
Battle Earth (2012)
Alien Invasion/Behind Enemy Lines
Taking inspiration from Battle Los Angeles, this is another shakycam-shot war film but with the intriguing idea of being focused around human soldiers trapped behind alien enemy lines
Barbie Presents Thumbelina (2009)
Animation/Barbie Fairytale
Another animated Barbie film, this appropriate the name of the Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale and makes it now about a fairy who preaches conservation. As these films go, this is one of the better made and comes with quite a degree of colour
Barbie of Swan Lake (2003)
Animation/Barbie Enacts Fairytale
The third animated film based on the popular girl’s doll Barbie. This places Barbie into Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake in an okay telling, if one that suffers from the usual limited animation of Mainframe’s early films
Barbie Mermaidia (2006)
Animation/Fairy Barbie Visits the Mermaid Kingdom
Seventh of the animated Barbie films, spinoff of the earlier Barbie Fairytopia, all delivered in sugary upbeat sentiments amid pastel colour schemes that would look eye-poppingly psychedelic if one were high
Barbie Mariposa (2008)
Animation/Land of Fairies
Another of Mainframe’s interminable Barbie films that soon slip into a sameness. This is at least directed with a visual sweep
Barbie in The Nutcracker (2001)
Animation/Barbie Enacts Fairytale
The first in a long series of animated films based on Mattel’s girl’s doll Barbie. This casts Barbie as a lead in an adaptation of The Nutcracker ballet
Barbie Fairytopia: Magic of the Rainbow (2007)
Animation/Land of Fairies
Sequel to the earlier Barbie animated film Barbie Fairytopia. Extremely colourful but essentially a fantasy version of a teenage girl high school drama that quickly slips into pre-packaged formula
Barbie Fairytopia (2004)
Animation/Land of Fairies
The previous Barbie animated films had adapted various fairytales but this casts her as a fairy in a magical kingdom – simplistic, but one of the most colourfully animated of Mainframe’s Barbie films
Barbie as The Princess and the Pauper (2004)
Animation/Barbie Fairytale
Here the Barbie films turn to Mark Twain’s classic (non-fantasy) tale of rags and riches and spins it as a fairytale This has the same blank, plastic style of the early Barbie films and is otherwise bland
Barbie as The Island Princess (2007)
Animation/Barbie Fairytale
Another of the animated Barbie films, this casts her as a desert island castaway accompanied by a retinue of talking animals. Visually colourful but slight
Barbie as Rapunzel (2002)
Animation/Barbie Enacts Fairytale
The second of the animated Barbie films, this casts her as the title character in the popular Brothers Grimm fairytale, which has been considerably embellished. This suffers the glassy plasticity of the early Mainframe films
Barbie and the Three Musketeers (2009)
Animation/Barbie Swashbuckler
Alexandre Dumas’s classic adventure story is turned into an animated vehicle for Barbie with genders reversed and an absurdly upbeat Girls Can Do Anything vibe. Being a kid’s film, the girl Musketeers are no longer allowed to wield swords
Barbie & the Diamond Castle (2008)
Animation/Barbie Fairytale
One of the first of Mainframe’s animated Barbie films, this creates a fairytale where reasonable effort gone into the animation and characters
Bang Bang Baby (2014)
Mock 1950s Rock'n'Roll Film/Bizarre Mutations
A genre-melding oddity that starts as an earnest recreation of a 1950s rock‘n’roll movie, before introducing a series of bizarre mutations and some fascinating mid-film twists
Awakening the Zodiac (2017)
Hunting the Zodiac Killer in the Present Day
This comes with a great hook – a couple buy up the contents of a defaulted storage locker only to find film reels taken by The Zodiac Killer, leading them on a pursuit of his identity
Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (2001)
Inuit Legend and Culture
A strong and powerful depiction of historic Inuit culture in the Arctic Circle, which has been shot and acted by Inuit people. Included here because of some Magical Realist elements.
Astronaut (2019)
Senior Pursues a Dream to Go Into Space
Space movies were big following successes like Gravity and The Martian. At complete contrast, this is a genteel laidback film with Richard Dreyfuss as a senior obsessed with boarding a spaceflight
Assault on Wall Street (2013)
Man Goes on a Shooting Rampage Against Bankers
Uwe Boll makes a big issue film about the subprime mortgage crisis. The film is packed by Boll with messages but comes down to being a variant on Death Wish with its blue-collar hero on a shooting rampage against bankers
Artificial Lies (1999)
Psycho-Thriller
Psycho-thriller in which Daphne Zuniga is a woman accused of the murder of her psychiatrist and may or may not have been faking her mental illness
Archangel (1990)
Kitsch Surrealism
The second film from Guy Maddin, which comes with all of his familiar homages to German Expressionism and silent cinema, wrapped up in a surrealist plot of hilarious melodrama and side-splittingly deadpan dialogue
Aquaslash (2019)
Slasher Film at a Water Park
A French Canadian (Quebec)-made slasher film set around an aqua park. This builds to a memorably gore-drenched finale
Apex (2021)
Human Bloodsports
Another of the last films that Bruce Willis made before his mental deterioration forced him to retire. A variation on The Most Dangerous Game where Bruce plays a bad-ass facing hunters with his bare hands
Anything for Jackson (2020)
Elderly Devil Worshippers Imprison a Pregnant Woman
Unexpectedly excellent film where an elderly Satanist couple abduct a pregnant woman in order to incarnate their grandson in her unborn child. This deflates the cliches in a series of alternately funny and wild twists
Antiviral (2012)
Future World of Celebrity Viruses
Brandon Cronenberg makes an impressive writing-directing debut, taking up the thematic reins of his father’s earlier films in a darkly satiric future escalation of contemporary celebrity culture
Antisocial (2013)
Zombie Apocalypse Via Social Media
A zombie apocalypse that occurs via social networking sites??? To the film’s credit, it makes such a wacky idea plausible but the low-budget leads to a zombie apocalypse that mostly occurs off-stage
Antisocial 2 (2015)
After a Zombie Apocalypse
Antisocial, a horror film about zombies created by social media, proved a reasonable hit. This is a sequel that skips on a few years after the collapse of civilisation
Another WolfCop (2017)
Werewolf Cop/Horror Comedy
WolfCop found an appeal with its amusing title premise. Here the principal talents involved have reunited for a sequel, although the feeling is more that they have done so solely because the first film was a success
Android Apocalypse (2006)
Human-Android Relations
A variation on The Defiant Ones with a human and an android chained together but this fails to find anything to say either about androids or prejudice
The Amityville Curse (1989)
Haunted House
This is not even a sequel The Amityville Horror but a cheaply and tattily made Canadian effort seeking to sell itself using the name. The first in an industry of films employing some relevance to Amityville
An American Pickle (2020)
Man Preserved in a Vat of Pickles Awakes in the Present Comedy
A sleeper awakes comedy where Seth Rogen falls into a vat of pickles in 1919 and is awakened in the present-day. A decided change of pace for Rogen who plays two lead roles throughout
American Mary (2012)
Underground World of Surgical Body Modification
Canada’s twin sisters Jen and Sylvia Soska’s second film is set in the dark underground of body modification,. Like an episode of tv’s Nip/Tuck with a Suicide Girls ethos. Not perfect but an impressive maturation
American Gothic (1987)
Family of Psychos
Horror film about a heroine imprisoned by a family who insist on absurdly outmoded traditional values. Mostly an opportunity for the cast, led by Rod Steiger as the family patriarch, to go completely over-the-top
American Conjuring (2016)
Haunted House
An undistinguished low-budget haunted house effort that was quickly retitled to jump aboard the bandwagon of James Wan’s The Conjuring films
Altitude (2010)
Monster on a Plane
Essentially a feature version of The Twilight Zone‘s classic Nightmare at 20,000 Feet episode, this generates some remarkable tension with a group trapped in mid-air in a small plane before a lame twist ending
Alone in the Dark (2005)
Videogame Adaptation/Monsters
Uwe Boll gained a reputation as the world’s worst director on the basis of his videogame adaptations. Prize exhibit was Alone in the Dark, which abandons the game and is a series of action scenes without explanatory rationale
Agency (1979)
Subliminal Advertising Brainwashing Thriller
Lee Majors starring thriller set around the 1970s fad over subliminal advertising. The film fails to generate much in the way of thrills.
Afflicted (2013)
Found Footage Vampire Film
Found Footage film that cleverly borrows more than a few leaves from An American Werewolf in London with two tourists in Europe where one is bitten and transformed by a vampire
The Addams Family (2019)
Kinky Perverse Family/Animation
An animated film revival of The Addams Family. You feel that a PG-rated film sold to family audiences is a bit tame for the Addams’ dark humour, nevertheless this gets much of the kooky silliness.
Acid Head: The Buzzard Nuts County Slaughter (2011)
Deliberately Bad Film/Exploitation Homage
Tony Watt strikes again with another of wilfully bad, agonisingly unwatchable films. All the bad acting, plotlessly rambling scenes and random exploitation movie homages that one expects of a Tony Watt film
Abraxas: Guardian of the Universe (1991)
Intergalactic Cop Hunts Criminal on Earth
Incredibly bad and frequently laughable variation on The Hidden and in turn The Terminator with Jesse Ventura as an intergalactic law enforcement officer hunting a criminal on Earth