Accidental Exorcist (2016)
Modern Exorcist
A low-budget but nevertheless at times quite funny version of an exorcism film, one that throws out all the tired clichés of the genre
Demons
A demon is a malevolent supernatural entity. Many demons come from an implied Judaeo-Christian tradition where they are minions of The Devil, although there are also numerous depictions of demons from other religions, in particular in Japanese and Chinese beliefs.
Frequently screen demons are associated with The Occult and Black Magic. The first major depictions of demons on screen came with The Exorcist (1973) and its creation of the Possession film. Here the demon was seen as an evil entity possessing an innocent and spitting taunts and obscenities until it could be banished by a member of the priesthood. Depictions of demons possessing people and being exorcised by Catholic priests have been numerous since then, all drawing on the cliches established by ‘The Exorcist.
Many modern works create pantheons of demons, which can be fought by various heroes steeped in occult knowledge or be encountered in sword and sorcery works. We have even had a number of demon superheroes with the likes of Ghost Rider and Hellboy.
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
All Fun & Games (2023)
Cursed Knife/Deadly Games
Teenagers in Salem are forced to play a game where their lives are forfeit and they become possessed by a cursed knife dating from the witch trials
Alp (2016)
Sleep Paralysis Horrors
Another venture into the sleep paralysis theme. A film that has an amateurism on every level and looks as though it made by people who failed the first year of a film school program
Amityville Cult (2021)
Devil Worship Cult
Another film that appropriates the Amityville name for an otherwise unrelated film concerning a man who inherits a house in the town, digs into the past and soon finds a devil worship cult all around him
Amityville Playhouse (2015)
Haunted Theatre
One out of some thirty odd films using the Amityville name. This concerns a girl who inherits a haunted theatre in the town of Amityville
Amulet (2020)
House of Mysterious Happenings
An interesting slow burn film about an ex-soldier who accepts a job as a handyman with a woman and her ailing mother that soon heads off in some very strange directions
Anneliese: The Exorcist Tapes (2011)
True Life Exorcism/Found Footage Film
An Asylum film that has the idea of staging a retelling of the true-life Anneliese Michel story that formed the basis of The Exorcism of Emily Rose as a Found Footage film
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
Arabian Nights (1974)
Tales of Arabian Nights
Controversial director Pier Paolo Pasolini offers up a far more adult telling of the Arabian Nights than we are used to, not to mention one that goes on location in the real Arabia
At the Devil’s Door (2014)
Diabolic Pacts and Impregnation
The second film from The Pact director Nicholas McCarthy. What is happening is kept deliberately vague and elliptical – as you are trying to piece everything together, McCarthy manages to pull some incredibly eerie jolts
Bad Milo! (2013)
Demon Inhabits a Man's Ass Comedy
A comedy about a demon that appears out of a man’s ass!!! This has the dementia to be a potential midnight cult hit but misses the mark by a wide mile and stumbles around obvious targets in predictable ways
Batman: Soul of the Dragon (2021)
Animation/Comic-Book Superhero
An oddity among the animated Batman films. This seems less another Batman film – Bruce Wayne gets more screen time than Batman, for instance – than it does a homage to the 1970s martial arts film
Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham (2023)
Comic-Book Superhero/Animation
DC Universe Animated film that is adapted from an Elseworlds story that offers up an alternate 1920s version of Batman who is fighting up against H.P. Lovecraft entities
Battle League Horumo (2009)
Combat Tournaments with Miniature Creatures
Japanese film about teams that engage in combat tournaments with hordes of Smurf-like creatures. This spends too much time on its high school drama cliches but eventually finds the dementia of its concept at the climax
Big Tits Zombie (2010)
Gonzo Japanese Zombie Film
Strippers and zombies Japanese style. An entry into the Gonzo Japanese Splatter film fad. Cheaply made, with surprisingly little nudity and a whole lot of tongue-in-cheek splatter
Black Adam (2022)
Superhero Film
An entry from the abortive attempt to create a DC Comics shared universe. Dwayne Johnson takes on the role of the DC’s anti-hero in a film that is far more fun than the recent Marvel offerings
Blood: The Last Vampire (2000)
Vampire Battles Demons/Anime
Stunning Mamoru Oshii-prodcued anime short about a vampire girl who operates as an American agent eliminating vampires in post-War Japan
Blood: The Last Vampire (2009)
Vampire Battles Demons/Action
Live-action English-language remake of the anime short about a demon-hunting vampire girl. The original is reduced to no more than a series of slick by-the-numbers action poses
Bram Stoker’s Shadowbuilder (1997)
Shadow Demon
One of several films that came out after the success of Bram Stoker’s Dracula claiming Stoker’s above their title despite slim or no connection. That said, this is a modestly effective film about a demon that exists in the shadows
Cameron’s Closet (1988)
Demon in the Closet
VHS era horror about a demon that appears out of a young boy’s closet and kills all who threaten him. Mostly this is an excuse to serve up novelty deaths
Catacombs (1988)
Evil Stirs Beneath a Monastery
An almost quite good film from Charles and Albert Band’s Empire Productions about imprisoned evil stirring beneath a monastery. The build-up is well done and the film only falters at a weak ending
Catwoman: Hunted (2022)
Animation/Comic-Book Super-Thief
Animated adventure given over to Catwoman that comes with an appealing sense of humour that easily erases all memory of the Halle Berry film
The Cellar (1989)
Native American Demon
A low-budget 1980s film where a family buy a house in the desert only to find that there is a Native American demon imprisoned in the cellar
Children of the Corn (1984)
Pagan Child Cult/Stephen King Adaptation
A fifteen page Stephen King story about a patricidal child cult has spawned this film, nine sequels and a remake. Not a very good film, this is stuck with padding a very slight original out to a full-length film
Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice (1992)
Pagan Child Cult
The second of the films spun off from the Stephen King short story. This is better that its predecessor, premised around a series of novelty deaths and offering some explanations for what is happening
Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest (1995)
Pagan Child Cult
The third of the films based on the Stephen King short story, this moves the locale to the city but is otherwise based around a series of completely ridiculous makeup effects every few minutes
Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror (1998)
Pagan Child Cult
Quite who the audience for these Children of the Corn films is that they keep making more of them is a mystery. This was the fifth of eleven films and at least better than the last two entries
Children of the Corn (2020)
Pagan Child Cult
The Stephen King short story only runs to 16 pages. This is the eleventh film spinoff to date (which runs at about one film per 1.4 pages of story). Unlike the other sequels, this claims to be an origin story
A Chinese Ghost Story (1987)
Hong Kong Supernatural Fantasy/Ghost Romance
My introduction to Wu Xia – imagine some vision of Kwaidan as directed by Sam Raimi, filled with sensationally beautiful and out of this world imagery and completely nutsoid fantastical battles with ghosts and demons
A Chinese Ghost Story (2011)
Chinese Supernatural Fantasy/Ghost Romance
A Chinese Ghost Story was one of the greatest Hong Kong fantasy films; this remake gets everything wrong. The aerial combat scenes are replaced by CGI, the characters rewritten and the Buddhist elements eliminated
A Chinese Ghost Story III (1991)
Hong Kong Supernatural Fantasy/Ghost Romance
The second sequel to A Chinese Ghost Story, a slighter effort too reliant on the plot beats of the original. Where it does work is in the enormous degree of slapstick energy with which proceedings are conducted
A Chinese Tall Story (2005)
Gonzo Journey to the West Adaptation
Another adaptation of Journey to the West. Coming from Jeffrey Lau, a director who specialises in rowdy, slapstick films, this is the most nutso adaptation of the story ever, winding in everything from alien visitors and Transformers
Chronicles of an Exorcism (2008)
Found Footage Exorcism Film
This has the distinction of being the very first Found Footage possession and exorcism film. This has become commonplace since but is quite different in its treatment than subsequent efforts
Conan the Destroyer (1984)
Sword and Sorcery
This sequel to Conan the Barbarian makes the mistake of watering the primal brutalism down to a PG rating and what results ends up being a pedestrian comic-book adventure
The Conjuring 2 (2016)
Haunting/Possession/"True Story"
If you want a genuinely scary spook show that will make you jump out of your seat, you would not go wrong with this. On the other hand, the Conjuring films with their claims to true stories of peddle superstition and fabricate most of their so-called facts
Constantine (2005)
Occult Investigator/Comic Book Adaptation
Adaptation of DC’s Hellblazer comic-book that gets the Hollywood treatment where all of the character’s background and look has been thrown out and the part badly miscast with Keanu Reeves
Constantine: City of Demons (2018)
Animation/Occult Investigator/Comic Book Adaptation
The Dc Comics character John Constantine was made into an animated web series that was compiled as this film. One is quite taken aback at how much more edgy and adult this is than most of DC’s animated offerings
Countdown (2019)
Mobile App That Predicts People's Deaths
This feels like the Final Destination franchise updated for the mobile user generation concerning a sinister app that predicts how long the user has to live
Creation of the Gods I: Kingdom of Storms (2023)
Epic Chinese Fantasy
Billed as the Chinese Lord of the Rings, this is an historically-based fantasy film that tries to out-Hollywood Hollywood in terms of effects, design and costuming and looks stunningly epic in scale
Creaturealm: Demons Wake (1998)
Occult Anthology
An anthology of three tales on an occult theme. The standout among these is the opening episode about a courtroom trial of a woman who was possessed
The Crucifixion (2017)
Exorcism Film/"True Story"
Xavier Gens film from the screenwriters of The Conjuring films based on a supposedly true-life exorcism. One was hoping that Gens would do amazing things with the exorcism genre but he only rehashes the same cliches
Curse of Mesopotamia (2015)
Iraqi Horror Film
This sold itself as the first Iraqi horror film, which it isn’t quite (more accurately a film made by an expatriate), although it is rooted in the mythology of the region
The Curse of Sleeping Beauty (2016)
Horror Version of Sleeping Beauty
This offers the promising idea of Sleeping Beauty reworked as a horror film (and set in the modern day). Never as interesting as it sounds in synopsis, this becomes more a Sleeping Beauty-themed haunted house ride
Dante’s Inferno (1911)
Vision of Hell
An extraordinary find, the first ever feature film, a depiction of Dante’s Inferno and a descent down to visit the damned in Hell conducted with an incredible ambition for the time the film was made
Dante’s Inferno (1924)
Vision of Hell
Silent movie version of Dante’s classic poem. Dante is suborned into a miser’s redemption story but it is the wild mediaeval visions of Hell and the tortures of the damned we have come to watch the film for
Dark Angel: The Ascent (1994)
Female Demon Visits Earth
One of the better films to emerge from Full Moon, the story of a female demon who escapes to Earth and becomes a vigilante defender of the innocent. Rather well done with Angela Featherstone being particularly otherworldly
Dark House (2014)
House of Evil/Backwoods Deviltry
The underrated Victor Salva, director of Jeepers Creepers, takes on the deviltry and occult film where with his ability to conjure eerie jumps and outlandish images produces something original and out of this world
Dark Waters (1993)
Sinister Convent
A film about a woman’s journey to a convent of sinister secrets that is aswim in religious imagery, although the film itself eventually proves to be all imagery with no coherent plot
The Darkness (2016)
Haunting/Native American Demons Awakened
Greg McLean has made an impressive name with the Wolf Creek films and Rogue. In his first US film, he delivers a disappointing and utterly generic haunted suburban house film
Dashcam (2021)
Found Footage Horrors
Director Rob Savage made a splash with the Zoom horror film Host. His second film here is an insanely crazed horror film that is shot from the point-of-view of a dashcam
Day of Reckoning (2016)
Apocalyptic Invasion of Demonic Creatures
Halfway reasonable effort from the usual creative dead zone of the made-for-Syfy Channel film concerning the apocalyptic emergence of hordes of demonic creatures
Deadly Blessing (1981)
Religious Cult Killings
An early Wes Craven film about a series of killings among an Amish-like cult led by Ernest Borgnine. Craven’s eerie dream horrors sit alongside a confusing script
Deathgasm (2015)
Heavy Metalheads Unleash Demons/Splatter Comedy
Outrageous New Zealand-made effort that fondly recalls the 1980s splatter comedies of Sam Raimi, Peter Jackson et al. This often feels like former teen metalheads looking back and puncturing the pretensions of their youth
Deathstalker (2025)
Sword and Sorcery
A remake of the popular 1980s sword and sorcery film that was originally produced by Roger Corman. This version is directed by makeup effects artist Steven Kostanski who fills it with an amazing range of creature effects
Def by Temptation (1990)
Demonic Temptress
Part of an attempt to revive the Blaxploitation film, a gospel horror film of sorts in which a young African-American divinity student fights the demon Temptation
Demon City Shinjuku (1988)
Anime/Suburb of Tokyo Taken Over by Demonic Forces
Anime from Yoshiaki Kawajiri, director of Wicked City and Ninja Scroll, concerning a suburb of Tokyo that is transformed into a borderland zone inhabited by demonic forces
Demonic (2015)
Haunted House/Paranormal Investigators
James Wan has an exemplary track record in one’s opinion, you think this would extend to anything he produces. Here all we get are series of tired haunted house cliches before a twist ending that makes no real sense
Demonic (2021)
Demonic Possession in Virtual Reality
Neill Blomkamp, the director of District 9, returns with a possession film that uniquely takes places in Virtual Reality as Carly Pope must use a device that enters her comatose mother’s dreamspace
Demonic Toys (1992)
Malevolent Toys and Dolls
An entertaining B-budget film about malevolent toys from low-budget producer Charles Band, known for the Ghoulies and Puppetmaster films. One of the first works from screenwriter David S. Goyer
Demons (1985)
Possessed Undead Take Over a Cinema
Italian horror directed by Lamberto Bava and produced by Dario Argento, an Evil Dead-inspired work about the possessed dead taking over a cinema, all conducted with a ferocious enthusiasm
The Devil Inside (2012)
Found Footage Exorcism Film
Another Found Footage variant on an exorcism film. This was a big box-office hit but only ends up repeating the tired cliches of the exorcism and possession genre
The Devil’s Advocate (1997)
The Devil is a Lawyer
Despite a premise that sounds more like the punchline of a lawyer joke – The Devil (Al Pacino) is a high-price lawyer in New York – this is lushly produced, played seriously and with surprising theological depths
The Devil’s Chair (2006)
Demonic Portal in an Abandoned Asylum
Solid offering from the increasingly underrated Adam Mason that takes more than a few leaves from Hellraiser with a ghostsbusting team investigating occult happenings in an abandoned asylum
The Devil’s Eye (1960)
The Devil Tempts Innocents Comedy
Ingmar Bergman comedy in which The Devil sends Don Juan to tempt a vicar’s wife. A minor Bergman entry where he seems unsuited to directing comedy and allows his usual weighty philosophical preoccupations to intrude
The Devil’s Rock (2011)
Nazis Uncover Occult Forces
New Zealand-made WWII horror film with a set-up – Nazis encountered occult forces in a bunker – that draws heavily on The Keep. Modestly effective and gore-drenched
Devil’s Workshop (2022)
Actor Consults an Exorcist
This comes with an intriguing premise in which a struggling actor consults a demonologist to prepare for a role and agrees to spend a weekend with her during which she decides to exorcise him
Dr. Strange (1978)
Marvel Comics Magician Superhero
Forgotten, unsold tv pilot based on the Marvel Comics sorceror superhero. Unlike other Marvel tv properties of this era, this has an imaginativeness in its reach for esoteric spaces that favourably compares to the comic-book original
Doctor Strange (2016)
Marvel Comics Magician Superhero
Scott Derrickson acquits himself well taking on one of Marvel’s magician superhero. He replicates well the psychedelic esoterica that gained the comic book a cult following and Benedict Cumberbatch anchors the show perfectly
Doctor Strange (2007)
Marvel Comics Magician Superhero/Animation
One among a handful of animated films based on Marvel Comics properties, this conducts a passable telling of the origin story of the Sorcerer Supreme
Dogma (1999)
Angel War/Catholic Irreverence
Kevin Smith makes a film about Catholicism. Smith’s irreverent humour caused considerable controversy when the film came out, although this is also an interesting and thoughtful work that does make a number of thoughtful theological points
Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist (2005)
Demonic Possession
Paul Schrader’s original version of Exorcist: The Beginning that was junked by the producers. This is a far more subtle telling of the same story that eschews shock effect in favour of a moral struggle of the soul
Don’t Kill It (2016)
Body-Hopping Demon
An enthusiastically full-tilt horror comedy. This draws from the classic The Hidden in its premise of a demon that hops between bodies, possessing the person that kills its previous host. Dolph Lundgren has the time of his life
Drag Me to Hell (2009)
Gypsy Curse
Sam Raimi chose to follow up his hugely successful Spider-Man trilogy with this incredibly silly film about Gypsy curses. Raimi piles on ridiculous shock effects that become so over-the-top that the film ends up somewhere in orbit
Dreams (1990)
Japanese Ghost Story Anthology
It is some surprise that Akira Kurosawa’s only full venture into fantastic cinema was with his penultimate film here. A beautifully filmed anthology of eight tales, including several ghost stories and two anti-nuclear parables
Drive Angry (2011)
Occult Car Chase Film
Essentially a supernatural version of a 1970s car chase movie with Nicolas Cage as a motorist who has escaped from Hell to settle a score. This makes a play for the trashy and absurd and comes out all the more entertaining for it
The Dunwich Horror (2009)
H.P. Lovecraft Adaptation
An adaptation of the H.P. Lovecraft short story. While more faithful to the story than the earlier 1969 adaptation, the film is very cheaply made and collapses into the frequently ridiculous
Dylan Dog: Dead of Night (2010)
Supernatural Private Investigator
US film adaptation of a cult Italian comic-book about a private eye who investigates the supernatural, this comes out like a weak episode of tv’s Angel where a potential worthwhile idea descends to lame humour
Earthsea (2004)
Epic Fantasy/Apprentice Wizard
This TV mini-series adaptation of the Ursula Le Guin books is an insult. This was quickly mounted on the back of the success of The Lord of the Rings films but feels like tv filler that has zero affinity for Le Guin’s richly cultured world
Earwig and the Witch (2020)
Anime/Witch’s Apprentice
Charming anime from Hayao Miyazaki’s son Goro about a young girl adopted into a witch’s strange household. The occasion where Studio Ghibli made the switch over to computer animation
The 8th Night (2021)
South Korean Possession Film
A South Korean possession film that creates a fascinatingly outlandish and original plot by dropping the usual cliches to instead draw on Buddhism to create its own mythology
End of the Line (2007)
Murderous Doomsday Cult
Could it be too hard to go wrong in making a film about a doomsday cult hunting people through a subway tunnel? Apparently it is and after a promising beginning, the film churns the cliches with little tension
Entrails of a Virgin (1986)
Pinku Film/Demonic Rapist
Welcome to the bizarre and decidedly politically incorrect world of the Japanese pinku film. Words fail me on this one, which concerns a demonic rapist that attacks a porn film shoot
Equinox (1970)
Backwoods Occultism
A film about backwoods occult that comes with much H.P. Lovecraft influence. An inngenue film made by several unknowns who later became key figures at Industrial Light and Magic
Erotic Ghost Story (1990)
Hong Kong Erotica/Mischievous Fairies
Hong Kong film that blends gauzy erotica and supernatural (although no ghosts despite the title). Not as a good as the first sequel (one of several that followed) due to crude direction
Erotic Ghost Story II (1991)
Hong Kong Erotica/Horny Demon
The second and best in the series of Hong Kong films filled with wonderfully tongue-in-cheek erotica and a series of entertainingly over-the-top fantastical set-pieces
The Evil Dead (1981)
Backwoods Possession/Splatter Comedy
Ferociously paced low-budget hit that put the names of Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell on the map. What made the film a cult hit was Raimi’s full tilt pace and entertainingly over-the-top splatter effects
Evil Dead (2013)
Backwoods Possession
One of the few remakes of the 00s/10s that delivers the goods. While messing around with the plot set-up with mixed results, this quickly goes for broke to create a satisfying show on most accounts
The Evil Dead II (1987)
Backwoods Possession/Comedy
Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell return in a sequel to their earlier low-budget cult hit. With a far better budget this time, Raimi goes completely over-the-top with a delirious silliness that will bring tears to the eyes
Evil Dead Rise (2023)
Possessed Dead
The fifth film in the Evil Dead series. This comes with the selling point of being a female-led sequel and offers a much more serious and gore-drenched take than previous entries
Evil Toons (1992)
Demonic Toons
Who Framed Roger Rabbit? popularised the idea of the toon where cartoon characters mingle with humans. This was exploitation director Fred Olen Ray’s take where a stripper is possessed by a demonic toon
The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005)
Demonic Possession/"True Story"
This became a big sensation with its claims to be on the true account of an exorcism even if director Scott Derrickson alters what actually happened to the point of complete fiction. The rest just rehashes cliches from The Exorcist
The Exorcist (1973)
Demonic Possession
A landmark classic of the horror genre, a film whose take on demonic possession and exorcism laid down a series of tropes that are still present over five decades later. A gruelling and intensive horror story into the bargain
Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)
Demonic Possession
This is regarded as one of the worst sequels ever made, featuring many of the actors but with John Boorman stepping in as director. It’s an incomprehensible mishmash of ideas but not without some laudable elements
The Exorcist: Believer (2023)
Demonic Possession
In much the same way as they did with Halloween, Blumhouse and director David Gordon Green offer up a sequel to The Exorcist on the original’s fiftieth anniversary. The results are a bizarre scratch of the head
The Exorcist III (1990)
Demonic Possession
One will go out on a limb and argue that William Peter Blatty’s sequel is actually a far superior work to the original The Exorcist, one that substitutes a literate theological detective story for barf bag theatrics and contains at least one real out there jump
Exorcist: The Beginning (2004)
Demonic Possession
Prequel to The Exorcist concerning the young Father Merrin. Production company Morgan Creek dumped Paul Schrader’s original version of the film and brought in the perpetually terrible Renny Harlin to make something scarier but Harlin’s pop-effects remain tepid
Fading of the Cries (2011)
Flight from Occult Forces
Low-budget ingenue effort with pretensions to being more, this produces some occasionally nifty effects that quickly weary and only seem to hold up a thoroughly hackneyed B horror movie plot
Fallen (1998)
Cop vs Body-Hopping Demon
A smart and intelligent supernatural thriller with Denzel Washington cast as a detective who sends a serial killer to the execution chamber only to find he now faces a demon that can inhabit any person that it touches
Fantasia (1940)
Disney Animation and Music Anthology
The best animated film Disney ever made, created as a work of art with animation set to classical music. The segments vary between abstraction, comic eccentricity and evocations of nightmare. The results are magical.