Marian, Again (2005)
Missing Woman Psycho-Thriller
Strong and effective UK tv thriller where Stephen Tompkinson becomes obsessed with the girlfriend who went missing years earlier after he thinks he sees her again
Films of 2005
The Marsh (2006)
Haunted House
Okay ghost story in which Gabrielle Anwar rents a haunted farmhouse. Forest Whitaker turns up as a neighbouring occult expert
Match Point (2005)
Murder and Conscience
One of Woody Allen’s strongest films in years, a London-set work about conscience and murder over which the spirit of Dostoevsky hangs
Meatball Machine (2005)
Gonzo Japanese Splatter Film/Bio-Mechanoid Creatures Battle
In the late 2000s, Japan has produced a series of films drenched in gore, featuring absurd creature effects and action moves; this was the first of them – a wonderfully cartoonish film with rival bio-mechanoid creatures fighting
Meet the Santas (2005)
Santa's Son Gets Married
Sequel to Single Santa Seeks Mrs Claus where here Santa’s son (Steve Guttenberg) ties the knot – amazingly traditional and conservative in its sentiments and with everything so predictable that there is no real drama
A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2005)
Modernised Shakespeare Adaptation
Under the umbrella title ShakespeareRetold, Shakespeare’s tale of fairy enchantments and romantic mix-ups is reimagined in a modern day British holiday camp
MirrorMask (2005)
Fantastical Dream World
Neil Gaiman and comic-book artist Dave McKean create a venture into a fantasy world with an extraordinary level of visual imagination and peopled with a remarkable panoply of creations. The results are quite unlike any other film you have seen
The Mistress of Spices (2005)
Indian Magical Realism/Magical Spices
Magical Realist film with Aishwarya Rai running a spice bazaar where she is able to tell fortunes
Mortuary (2005)
Creature in the Crypt/Body Snatchers
Another effort in the sad slide into shabby amateurishness that marked that latter years of Tobe Hooper’s career, a muddled effort set around a mortuary involving body-snatching fungus and deformed relatives in the crawlspaces
Motor Home Massacre (2005)
Slasher Film
Ridiculous backwoods slasher film featuring a no-name cast that frequently collapses into the laughable
The Muppets’ Wizard of Oz (2005)
Muppet Movie
The weakest of the Muppet movies where they are turned into the characters in a retelling of The Wizard of Oz
Mysterious Island (2005)
Desert Island Survival/Giant Animals
Hallmark tv mini-series adaptation of Jules Verne’s desert island drama featuring no less than Patrick Stewart as Captain Nemo. This sinks badly amid incredibly shoddy giant animal digital effects
Nanny McPhee (2005)
Magical Nanny
Emma Thompson written and starring adaptation of a series of children’s books comes across as a lesser copy of Mary Poppins. A film that feels like it should have been more than it ends up being.
Neil (2005)
Astral Projection Experiments
Film that assembles interesting a number of SF elements and twists but is killed by its delivery as a pretentious indie film
Next Door (2005)
Strange Apartment Neighbours/Reality Blurring
Brilliantly twisted Norwegian film in the vein of Roman Polanski’s Repulsion and The Tenant about a man whose dealings with two girls living in the apartment next door starts blurring and shifting into some genuinely surreal and out there, not to mention perverse, territory
Noroi: The Curse (2005)
Japanese Found Footage/Paranormal Investigator
A Japanese Found Footage film made not long after The Blair Witch Project with a man investigating various paranormal incidents around Tokyo
Now You See It (2005)
Teen Magician's Powers Might Be Real
Not to be confused with Now You See Me, the one about the bank-robbing magicians, this is a surprisingly good film for the usual creative wasteland that is the Disney Channel about a reality show for illusionists who discovers a teen whose powers would appear to be real
Once Upon a Mattress (2005)
Musical Fairytale
Disastrous tv movie version of the classic musical based on The Princess and the Pea
One Missed Call 2 (2005)
Haunted Cellphone Calls
Sequel to the Japanese original, not the English-language remake. This quickly forgets about haunted phonecalls and becomes even more of a copy of Ring, the inspiration of the original, and fails at generating spooky atmosphere
The Pacifier (2005)
Action Hero Becomes Babysitter Comedy
Vin Diesel seemed to fairly much kill his career off with this excruciating comedy in which he deflates his tough guy persona by playing off a bunch of kids
The PianoTuner of EarthQuakes (2005)
Surrealism
The second feature film from the Quay Brothers, a bafflingly incomprehensible work of surrealism, strange designs and non-sequitir dialogue
The Prophecy: Uprising (2005)
War Between Angels
The fourth of The Prophecy films about war between angels, the first to be made without Christopher Walken with Sean Pertwee as a detective in Bucharest who is drawn in
Pterodactyl (2005)
Dinosaurs Amok
Reasonable low-budget revived dinosaur film with not bad CGI effects and an often witty, genre savvy script
Puzzlehead (2005)
Android Gains Self-Awareness
Interesting and well-made low-budget film about a scientist who builds an android duplicate of himself that starts to gain its own independence
The Quatermass Experiment (2005)
Mutating Astronaut
A remake of the first Quatermass story conducted as a live broadcast tv movie. Quite a considerable technical achievement considering the limitations and one that works with quite reasonable results
Racing Stripes (2005)
Racing Zebra/Talking Barnyard Animals
Schizoid film – on one level a National Velvet-like story in which Hayden Panettiere trains a zebra to enter a horse race; another in which the animals and insects crack one-liners and make poop and pee jokes
Rampo Noir (2005)
Japanese Horror Anthology
Anthology of tales adapted from Japanese horror writer Edogawa Rampo. The various directors push the stories into an admirably perverse and disturbed space
The Red Shoes (2005)
Haunted Shoes/Korean Ghost Story
South Korean horror film about a pair of high-heeled shoes that take over their owner. Some okay jumps in a standard K-horror ghost story
Reeker (2005)
Hunted by an Unearthly Creature
An initially low-assumption film that rapidly becomes highly watchable thanks to some way out jumps and creature appearances that propel it into real WTF territory. Where it falters is its arrival a well and truly cliched twist ending but the ride there is undeniably memorable
Reincarnation (2005)
Japanese Ghost Story
Takashi Shimizu, creator of the Ju-on/The Grudge series, makes a film about an actress who becomes haunted after taking a role based on a true-life murder
Return of the Living Dead: Necropolis (2005)
Zombie Film
Shabbily made hanger-on to the 00s zombie fad that would have gained zero attention without its pedigree name. This completely misses the black humour of the original
The Ring Two (2005)
Haunting/Possession
Sequel to The Ring, the English-language remake of Ringu. The filmmakers have returned to the source and brought in original director Hideo Nakata only to produce one of the most disappointing of all the Ringu/Ring films
River Queen (2005)
Maori Wars Historical Epic/Precognitive Dream
Vincent Ward is one of the directors who should be granted more opportunities to make films. This is his least satisfying work, a troubled behind-the-scenes epic set during New Zealand’s Maori Wars with some Magical Realist touches
Robots (2005)
Animation/Cute Robots
Enjoyably likeable animated film from Blue Sky Studios set in a world inhabited by robots. Lots of visual invention and madcap slapstick
Santa and Sons & Daughter! (2005)
Christmas Film
Painful Christmas movie where Santa’s daughter takes on an evil miser
Santa’s Slay (2005)
Demonic Santa Claus
Christmas horror film with wrestler Bill Goldberg playing a demonic version of Santa Claus
Saw II (2005)
Killer's Sadistic Games
The first sequel to the sleeper success of Saw where Darren Lynn Bousman inherits the director’s chair but delivers a film that lacks the torturous suspense that James Wan gave the original
Secret Smile (2005)
Psycho Ex-Boyfriend
Creepy UK tv mini-series with David Tennant as a psycho boyfriend obsessed with Kate Ashfield
Serenity (2005)
Firefly Film Spinoff/Space Opera
The tv series Firefly gained a cult following before being cancelled before its time. This was a theatrical film intended to wrap the story up.
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
Sin City (2005)
Graphic Novel Adaptation/Ultra-Violent Film Noir Tales
Robert Rodriguez’s adaptation of Frank Miller’s graphic novels is groundbreaking and one of the most visually adventurous films in years. A trio of film noir-styled tales where he sets out to replicate the look of Miller’s comic panels
Single Santa Seeks Mrs. Claus (2004)
Santa's Son Seeks a Wife
Mawkishly sentimental Christmas tv movie with Steve Guttenberg as Santa’s son who needs to find a wife before he can take over the role. So cliched and written to expectation that it lacks any conflict
The Skeleton Key (2005)
Voodoo
Kate Hudson becomes a care-aid on an old Southern mansion and finds voodoo at work. Director Iain Softley piles on the Southern atmosphere but only strains at horror effect
Sky High (2005)
School for Superheroes
This feels like a copy of the Harry Potter films set at a school for trainee superheroes. Alas after the set-up of its premise, the film appears at a loss of what to do and falls back on insipid cliches
Son of the Mask (2005)
The Mask Sequel
Sequel to the Jim Carrey starring The Mask with Jamie Kennedy taking over in a film that was regarded as one of the worst sequels of all time
A Sound of Thunder (2005)
Time Travel/Dinosaurs Amok/Ray Bradbury Adaptation
Adaptation of the classic Ray Bradbury time travel story is overblown as a ridiculous big-budget film filled with bad science where the original point of the story disappears in a script that makes no sense
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005)
Space Opera
The last of George Lucas’s Star Wars prequel trilogy and the last opportunity for him to get it right, which he generally does. The effects are expert but are not allowed to dominate as much as they did previously and the focus has come back onto the story and Anakin’s transformation into Darth Vader
Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning (2005)
Star Trek/Babylon 5 Parody
An extraordinary example of the fan film where Finnish filmmakers created a parody of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Babylon 5, with effects that rival those of A-list studio fare made on their home computers
Stay (2005)
Deathdream
Marc Forster film that starts in with a beautifully filmed sense of disquiet mood and eerie reality disjuncts but loses it when it opts for another M. Night Shyamalan twist ending
Stealth (2005)
Artifically Intelligent Fighter Plane Amok
Action film about an artificially intelligent fighter plane that goes amok. Rob Cohen directs in all the cliches of the genre and the seeming need to have something spectacular happening every few minutes
The Strange Case of Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle (2005)
Arthur Conan Doyle Biopic-Mystery/Meta-Fiction
BBC production that seems to be a straightforward biopic of Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle only for it to take a very strange dogleg into meta-fiction
Strange Circus (2005)
Twisted Disfigurement Story
Japanese director Shion Sono has emerged as an increasingly worthwhile name in recent years. This is an admirably twisted and perverse work that leaves you quite flabbergasted
Stuart Little 3: Call of the Wild (2005)
Animation/Mouse Boy
The third of the Stuart Little films, this one animated instead of its live-action predecessors
Submerged (2005)
Action Film/Mind Control
Steven Seagal submarine action where he tackles a terrorist who has perfected mind control techniques
Summer Time Machine Blues (2005)
Japanese Time Travel Comedy
Witty and enormously clever Japanese time travel film. This readily homages Back to the Future but has a great deal of original fun of its own creating a series of hilarious temporal conundrums. One of the most entertaining films I have seen in some time
Supernova (2005)
Solar Disaster
Disaster TV mini-series about the end of the world due to the sun about to go supernova. Cliche plotting, canned action scenes and bad science ensue
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
Tamara (2005)
Bullied Teenage Girl Returns From the Dead
Feels like an early 80s copy of Carrie about a bullied teenage girl taking supernatural revenge – that and the plot of I Know What You Did Last Summer … A slick but largely superficial effort with little legs beyond its teen audience, although Jenna Dewan injects some sizzle into the role of the nerd girl turned bad girl
13 Tzameti (2005)
Russian Roulette Gambling
Starkly effective Georgian-made film about a young man in need of money being drawn into an underground gambling ring that bets on games of Russian Roulette
Tideland (2005)
Surreal World of Childhood Imagination
Bizarre but undeniably brilliant Terry Gilliam film about a young girl in the cornfields of the Midwest who builds a fantasy out of the sometimes disturbing things around her
The Triangle (2005)
Solving the Mystery of the Bermuda Triangle
An impressive line-up of genre names came together for this big event mini-series that sets out to offer a conclusive explanation for the Bermuda Triangle in a plot that juggles an entertaining stew of wild ideas involving timewarps, alternate timelines and government cover-ups
Twitches (2005)
Twin Sister Witches
Inane Disney Channel film with twin sisters Tia and Tamera Mowry as sisters who didn’t know it who discover they are witches. A film that has zero interest in its fantasy elements and is entirely taken up by airhead teenage airhead natter
2001 Maniacs (2005)
Splatter/Southern Town of Maniacs
Eli Roth-produced remake of the Herschell Gordon Lewis splatter film Two Thousand Maniacs, this plants tongue in cheek, is fairly and squarely aimed at a frat boy audience and unapologetic about piling on copious amounts of gore and naked breasts
Urban Legends: Bloody Mary (2005)
Haunting
The third of the Urban Legend films, unconnected to any of the previous two. This lamely tries to stretch the thin premise out to a story of high school supernatural vengeance
Valiant (2005)
Animation/Talking Carrier Pigeons
Amiable British animated film set amongst the Allied Resistance during World War II, all cast with talking carrier pigeons
Vampires: The Turning (2005)
Vampire Wars
Supposedly a second sequel to John Carpenter’s Vampires but of little connection otherwise, this is a film of uneven effect about warring vampire clans in Thailand
Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)
Aardman Animation
Aardman Animation spread the seemingly universal appeal of their Wallace and Gromit short films out onto the big screen with deliriously nonsensical results
War of the Worlds (2005)
Alien Invasion/H.G. Wells Adaptation
Where the legend of The Asylum and their low-budget mockbusters began, this was a cheap modernised version of the H.G. Wells novel that was released a day before the Spielberg film. Despite cheap effects, this adheres closer to Wells than Spielberg did and is better written than most Asylum product
The War of the Worlds (2005)
Period Alien Invasion/H.G. Wells Adaptation
Released just before the Spielberg film, this was an adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel set in the Victorian period that attempts to tell the story as it was written. The film has ambition way beyond the resources at hand but you cannot help but applaud what it tries to do
War of the Worlds (2005)
Alien Invasion/H.G. Wells Adaptation
Steven Spielberg remakes the classic H.G. Wells alien invasion story, liberally rewriting it for the post-9/11 world. Not Spielberg’s best film but a more than solid work on most grounds
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
The Wild Blue Yonder (2005)
Alien Visitors/Space Journey Mockumentary
Eccentric Werner Herzog film where he tries to convince us that footage from a space shuttle mission and taken under the polar ice cap is documentary footage of a trip to explore an alien planet
Wolf Creek (2005)
Australian Backwoods Brutality
Making dubious claim to be based on real-life, this courted considerable controversy with its violence. Essentially an Australian Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Greg McLean readily pushes things to extremes
Zathura: A Space Adventure (2005)
Space Opera Boardgame
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
The Zodiac (2005)
True Life Serial Killer
Not the David Fincher film but an earlier work based on the Zodiac Killer. Unlike Fincher, this stays to the facts and doesn’t indulge theories about the identity of the killer