When a Stranger Calls (2006)
Babysitter Stalked
Passable remake of the 1979 slasher film that streamlines the original and sets it all in amazing designer dream home
Films of 2006
Wicked Little Things (2006)
Zombie Children
Despite being pitched as a zombie film, this is more of a ghost story featuring undead children who were killed in a mine disaster. Director J.S. Cardone does well with the horror elements
Bambi II (2006)
Disney Animation/Talking Animals
One of the better video-released Disney sequels churned out during the 90s/00s, this finds some of the innocence of the original even if it never scales the same heights
Black Sheep (2006)
Killer Mutant Sheep/Splatter Comedy
An enthusiastically gore-drenched New Zealand comedy about mutant sheep, this favourably harkens back to the heyday of Peter Jackson’s early splatter films
The 4th Dimension (2006)
Mental Illness and Mathematics
A reality-bending film somewhat influenced by Pi about a withdrawn man who receives a mystery clock that may be able to bend time and space
Arthur and the Invisibles (2006)
Miniature Magical World
Lightweight Luc Besson directed children’s fantasy with a young boy shrunken down to miniature size to engage in a series of CGI animated adventures among a race of fairy-like people. Several sequels followed
The Quick and the Undead (2006)
Post-Holocaust Zombie Hunter
Exactly as the title suggests, a mash-up between the zombie film and a Western (albeit relocated to a post-apocalyptic future) – and one that plays itself surprisingly seriously
The Wind in the Willows (2006)
Talking Animals/Absurdist Adventures
Amiable live-action adaptation of Kenneth Grahame’s classic children’s work made for the BBC with an all-star cast
The Ant Bully (2006)
Animation/Boy Reduced to Ant Size
An animated film about a child who is cruel to ants only to be magically reduced down to their size and then have to become their saviour against an exterminator
Paprika (2006)
Anime/Dream Therapy Device
A venture inside the dreamscape from anime director Satoshi Kon who creates a beautifully animated work even if some of the ideas become excessively convoluted
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006)
Pirate Fantasy Swashbuckler
The second of the Pirates of the Caribbean films. Johnny Depp and all the principals are back and much of the eccentric humour is present but the action has undergone budget bloat
The Abandoned (2006)
Haunted Farmhouse
Spanish film about a woman travelling to her family home on the Russian steppes that creates a very haunted atmosphere. On the other hand, the twist ending has borrowed too much M. Night Shyamalan
A Lobster Tale (2006)
Magical Realism/Miracle Healing Moss
Set in a nowhere New England town where fisherman Colm Meaney discovers a moss with miracle-healing properties. Sort of a Magical Realist version of The Shipping News
Right At Your Door (2006)
Dirty Bomb Detonated in L.A.
One of the fear-fraught films made in the aftermath of 9/11, a tense thriller concerning the detonation of a dirty bomb in L.A. and the panic that descends as one man tries to barricade his home
Flushed Away (2006)
Animation/Talking Rats
Aardman Animation abandon Claymation for regular animation in this story of a pet rat thrown out of his comfort zone down into the sewers. Alas, this only serves to make it just another talking animals animated film
Hatchet (2006)
Slasher Film Homage
This was Adam Green’s homage to the Friday the 13th series that comes with the virtue of a high level of gore and a sense of humour. This was subsequently spun out to several sequels
The Hamiltons (2006)
Disturbed Family
An indie horror film about a strange and disturbing family of adult children. The whole film hangs on an interesting mid-film conceptual revelation
Sheitan (2006)
French Backwoods Brutality
French Backwoods Brutality film heads in some admirably weird and gross directions but falls apart at the end
I’m a Cyborg, But That’s Ok (2006)
Woman Believes She is a Cyborg/Gonzo Asylum Comedy
After the ultra-violent Oldboy, Park Chan-wook puzzled everyone by next making this frothily surreal comedy about a girl in an asylum who believes she is a cyborg
Rampage: The Hillside Strangler Murders (2006)
True Crime
A True Crime film based on the Hillside Stranglers case, or at least the arrest of one of the killers. From a director who makes True Crime films but throws out the facts and makes up his own story about what happened
Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo (2006)
Animation/Comic-Book Superhero Team
The first film featuring DC Comics; Teen Titans, a spinoff from the Teen Titans animated series
Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny (2006)
Rockstars' Gonzo Quest
Film spinoff of the rock parody act headed by Jack Black. This emerges like i>The Blues Brothers recast with Cheech and Chong and delivers some occasionally surreal and amusing gags
Zinda (2006)
Imprisonment and Revenge
A blatant Bollywood copy of Oldboy, often scene-for-scene
Seven Mummies (2006)
Western Ghost Town
Horror film where escaped convicts wander into a Western ghost town where a gold treasure is guarded by mummies
X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
Comic-Book Superheroes
Brett Ratner inherits the X-Men franchise from Bryan Singer for the third film in the series and promptly killed it off (after this point everything became prequels featuring Young X-Men). Ratner’s handling of the superheroic action lacks Singer’s exhilaration or any affinity for the characters
Wristcutters: A Love Story (2006)
Afterlife for Suicides
Oddball film set in an afterlife for suicides. You keep expecting the film to burst out into a vein of rich black comedy that never comes and you are left with a film that feels as though it is being eccentric for the sake of it.
Pulse (2006)
Soul-Sucking Creatures from the Internet
As part of the mid-00s fad for English-language remakes of Japanese horror films, Kiyoshi Kuroawa’s unfathomable but undeniably creepy internet horror is reworked as a standard teen film
Still Small Voices (2006)
Ghostly 911 Calls
TV movie in which Catherine Bell is a 911 operator who receives calls from a ghostly child
See No Evil: The Moors Murders (2006)
True Life Serial Killers
True Crime mini-series based on the infamous Moors Murders of the 1960s and one that seems determined to conduct the least interesting account of the murders possible
See No Evil (2006)
Slasher Film
Modern slasher film where the sole note of distinction is the wrestler known as Kane cast as the hulking killer. Outside of a moderate level of brutality in the despatches, there is little here that stands out from the genre’s cliches in any way
Superman: Brainiac Attacks (2006)
Comic-Book Superhero/Animation
Spinoff of the 1990s animated Superman tv series, made as tie in for Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns Some good action, negligible use of the characters unlike the DC Universe Animated Original Movies that began the following year, at best a routine episode of the tv series
Random Quest (2006)
Alternate Timeline/John Wyndham Adaptation
BBC tv play adaptation of a short story by John Wyndham that also furnished the earlier film Quest for Love about a man finding himself in an alternate world. Despite this version being more faithful to Wyndham, the earlier film makes the central relationship work better
666: The Child (2006)
The Asylum Mockbuster/Devil Child
An early mockbuster from The Asylum that came out the same day as The Omen remake, this conducts a blatant copy of The Omen on a low-budget
Snoop Dogg’s Hood of Horror (2006)
Ghetto Horror Anthology
Rapper Snoog Dogg fails badly at branding himself as a horror anthology host, while the stories prove nothing to write home about either
Scoop (2006)
Journalistic Tips from the Afterlife
One of the more forgettable Woody Allen comedies with Scarlett Johansson as a journalism student who gets tips from the afterlife
The Stranger Game (2006)
Psycho Nanny
Routine psycho-thriller where Mimi Rogers’ home is invaded by psycho babysitter David Orth
Scary Movie 4 (2006)
Genre Spoof
Fourth of the Scary Movie films and the usual crude inanity, although under David Zucker the movie parodies have expanded well beyond what can be labelled scary movies any longer
When a Killer Calls (2006)
The Asylum Mockbuster/Slasher Film
One of The Asylum’s first mockbusters, designed to popularise on the remake of When a Stranger Calls
Saw III (2006)
Killer's Sadistic Games
Third of the Saw films and the point where director Darren Lynn Bousman places the series’ focus on grim gore-drenched sadism and torture
Santa Baby (2006)
Santa's Daughter
TV movie where Jenny McCarthy plays Santa’s daughter who takes over the family business
Ultimate Avengers II (2006)
Marvel Comics Superhero Team/Animation
Follow-up to the previous animated Marvel Comics film featuring The Avengers, this serves to introduce Black Panther to the screen for the first time
The Return (2006)
Haunting
Ghost story in which Sarah Michelle Gellar receives a series of mysterious visions as she travels across Texas
The Shaggy Dog (2006)
Man Transforms Into a Dog Comedy
The remake of the old Disney comedy becomes a vehicle for Tim Allen, played with a manic slapstickery wherein Allen demonstrates there are few levels of silliness he will travel to in imitating dog-like behaviours
Sinking of Japan (2006)
Japanese Disaster Movie
Big-budget modern Japanese remake of a 1970s disaster movie in which Japan starts to catastrophically sink into the ocean. Despite revisiting the original with CGI spectacle, this is a film in which hardly anything interesting happens
Ring Around the Rosie (2006)
Haunting/Reality Bender
This starts out as a seeming ghost story without creating much tension then features Tom Sizemore going psycho, before arriving at one of the most confusing of all attempts to conduct an M. Night Shyamalan twist ending
Thr3e (2006)
Christian Serial Killer Thriller
Quite evidently modelled on Se7en even to the lookalike title, this is the novelty of a Christian serial killer thriller. The results are quite strange to say the least
Zoom: Academy for Superheroes (2006)
School for Superheroes
Family-friendly superhero film that places more focus on slapstick than superheroics and contains an embarrassing return to the screen for Chevy Chase
Population / 436 (2006)
Sinister Small Town
Film about a sinister small town where the population must always be kept at the title figure. An interestingly strange scenario suffers from far too laidback direction
Click (2006)
Remote Control to Life Comedy
An Adam Sandler comedy in which he is an ordinary family man who is given a magical remote control that allows him to pause and fast forward his way through the boring bits of his life
Basic Instinct 2 (2006)
Psycho-Sexual Thriller
Sequel to Basic Instinct made fourteen years later. Sharon Stone vamps her way across the screen but the heated sexuality of the original has been watered down to a lukewarm whimper
Black Christmas (2006)
Girl's Dormitory Slasher
Another in the mid-2000s fad for 1970s remakes. This revives what has been cited as the first slasher film but throws most of the original out and turns the rest into a gore-drenched slasher film
Blackwater Valley Exorcism (2006)
Demonic Possession/"True Story"
In the aftermath of the huge success of The Exorcism of Emily Rose, this was another supposedly true account of an exorcism. Made on a low-budget, this fails to surmount the cliches of The Exorcist
The Grudge 2 (2006)
Haunting
Follow-up to The Grudge, the English-language remake of the Japanese horror film. Although original Japanese director Takashi Shimizu is present, this is one of the weaker Ju-on/Grudge films
The Gravedancers (2006)
Haunting
Mike Mendez has gained a reasonable name as a genre director since the early 2000s. This is one of his earlier works, a venture into the ghost story where three friends are haunted after drunkenly dancing on a grave
The Breed (2006)
Killer Dogs
Produced by Wes Craven and directed by his assistant director, this features a group of twentysomethings led by Michelle Rodriguez trapped on an island with a horde of killer dogs
Glass House: The Good Mother (2006)
Evil Foster Parents Psycho-Thriller
A sequel to The Glass House, this time with different cast or orphaned kids and different evil step-parents. This has the bland feel of a tv movie
Charlotte’s Web (2006)
Talking Barnyard Animals
Charlotte’s Web gets the Babe treatment and is turned into a live-action film with CGI barnyard animals and name actors. Here the enormous charms of the original are replaced by cute and mawkish cues
Frostbite (2006)
Swedish Vampire Film
Swedish film about vampires at a smalltown hospital and vampire pills thought to be party drugs that spread around the town. This is made with an uneven sense of black humour
Barnyard (2006)
Animation/Talking Animals
An incredibly silly animated film set around the antics of talking barnyard animals. Directed by comedy writer Steve Oedekerk, this is almost entirely centred around gags involving animals doing parodies of human things
Curious George (2006)
Animation/Mischievous Monkey
An animated film based on a popular series of children’s books about a mischievous monkey. Amiable but a film mostly intended for the pre-school set
The Fountain (2006)
Mystical Quest for Immortality
Darren Aronofsky’s version of 2001: A Space Odyssey. A cryptic and baffling story that takes place in three different eras, all featuring the same actors. Aronofsky engages in much symbolic interplay but what is happening is a scratch of the head
Final Destination 3 (2006)
Precognition/Doomed Rollercoaster Crash Survivors
The original creative team behind the Final Destination series, James Wong and Glen Morgan, return for this sequel but only provide a routine series of bizarre novelty deaths following the premonition of a rollercoaster disaster
The Da Vinci Code (2006)
Secret History of Christianity/Historical Conspiracy
Ron Howard directed film version of Dan Brown’s best-selling book. This is historical nonsense woven into a fancifully absurd conspiracy theory where Howard does no more than offer an illustrated version of the book
Deja Vu (2006)
Time Travel
Tony Scott directed time travel film with Denzel Washington viewing and then entering into events of the past in an effort to stop a terrorist bombing. Action driven as you might expect with Jerry Bruckheimer as producer
Dracula (2006)
Dracula Adaptation
BBC costume drama version of the Bram Stoker novel, which offers the most radical take on the story of any version made to date, substantially wrenching around many of the familiar characters
Evil Bong (2006)
Demonic Marijuana Bong
From Charles Band, this features a possessed marijuana bong that sucks those that imbibe inside into the simulation of a stripper bar where they lose their souls. Several sequels followed.
Penelope (2006)
Modern Fairytale/Girl Cursed with a Pig-Like Face
This has the feel of a fairytale where Christina Ricci plays a girl who suffers from a hereditary curse that has left her with a pig-like snout
The Haunted Airman (2006)
Dennis Wheatley Adaptation/Paranoia and Possible Hauntings
Robert Pattinson (before he was a recognised name) as a convalescing pilot during WWII who is haunted by demonic spiders in an adaptation of a book by occult writer Dennis Wheatley.
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
Electroma (2006)
Daft Punk Film/Two Robots on a Quest
Full-length film made by the French electronic music duo Daft Punk based around the robot guises the band adopts. Resembles an extended student film and feels exactly like an SF version of The Brown Bunny
Lonely Hearts (2006)
True-Life Serial Killers
Film based on true-life killers Martha Beck and Raymond Fernandez who preyed on victims through the lonely hearts column. Directed by the investigating detective’s grandson.
Open Season (2006)
Animation/Talking Animals
Passable animated film from Sony Pictures Animation, although the story arcs too closely resemble every other animated film for it to have much in the way of notability
All the Boys Love Mandy Lane (2006)
Slasher Film
Quite why this received a theatrical release is a major scratch of the head. A slasher film that is slickly put together but beneath that a work of thorough ordinariness
The Omen (2006)
The Biblical End of the World/The Anti-Christ
The classic 1976 Anti-Christ film is given the remake treatment. The production look slick but quickly disappears into forgettability
Nightmare Man (2006)
Boogeyman Comes to Life
This has an interesting set-up about a woman pursued by a boogeyman figure from her nightmares where others cannot be sure whether she is delusional at the same time as the figure starts eliminating them – but the film’s low-budget gets in the way of adequate treatment
Night of the Living Dead 3D (2006)
Zombies
Remake of George Romero’s seminal zombie classic. The 3D is no more than a gimmick, while elsewhere they are some radical changes – a white Ben, a lame explanation for the zombies, some far-too-cute in-jokes – that fails to match the effectiveness of the original
Night at the Museum (2006)
Museum Exhibits Come to Life
Popular family hit with Ben Stiller as a night watchman at New York’s Museum of Natural History who discovers that the exhibits come to life at night. More a cute idea than a full film, there is some fun to the characters and effects
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
Miss Potter (2006)
Children's Author Beatrix Potter Biopic
Renee Zellweger stars in a biopic of children’s author Beatrix Potter from Babe director Chris Noonan
Merlin’s Apprentice (2006)
Arthurian Legends Adventure
Sequel to Hallmark’s earlier tv mini-series Merlin featuring a return performance from Sam Neill in the title role, this is otherwise a generic and unmemorable work of Arthurian fantasy
The Librarian: Return to King Solomon’s Mines (2006)
Adventure Film
The second of The Librarian tv movies featuring Noah Wyle as an Indiana Jones-modelled adventurer in search of mythical artifacts – here a map to King Solomon’s Mines
The House Next Door (2006)
Parasitic House
A largely routine haunted house film where Lara Flynn Boyle plays a wife who becomes certain that the house next door is parasitic and preys upon people’s minds
Karla (2006)
True-Life Serial Killers
Film based on true-life serial killing couple Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka. This could have been another Monster but it feels like a film that played everything safe in terms of its content
Automaton Transfusion (2006)
Zombie Film
Despite a title that resembles more a 1990s killer cyborg film, this is actually a zombie film. Made soon into the mid-2000s zombie revival, this is driven more by fannish enthusiasm and copious gore than anything else
Jekyll + Hyde (2006)
Modernised Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
A modermised retelling of the Jekyll/Hyde story as a teen horror film where Jekyll (Bryan Fisher) is experimenting with Ecstasy to try and have success with girls
Inland Empire (2006)
Surrealism
David Lynch’s last theatrical films and probably the most divided of Lynch’s films. Another delve into cryptic surrealism that arrives at no clear plot destinations or clues about what is going on
The Initiation of Sarah (2006)
Occult War Between Rival Sororities
A remake of the 1978 tv movie about occult rituals in a girl’s sorority house. This is a film that feels directed and written without any real involvement by those responsible.
The Illusionist (2006)
Enigmatic Stage Magician
This came out the same year as The Prestige and has a very similar plot with Edward Norton as a stage magician in 19th Century who may have real powers and the rivalry over a woman
Barbie in the 12 Dancing Princesses (2006)
Animation/Barbie Fairytale
Another animated Barbie film that leaves you quite certain that every problem in life can be solved with a positive upbeat ditty
Event 16 (2006)
Time Travel
A homemade New Zealand film that attempts to pull an ambitious time travel story that takes place in multiple era with temporal police intervening after a scientist invents a time portal
Caved In (2006)
Giant Bugs Underground
One of the spate of underground horror films that came out in 2005 including The Descent and The Cave. This is a B-budget wannabe obviously shot in a studio. The addition of giant beetles takes it into the cheesily ridiculous
Aquamarine (2006)
Mermaid Teen Romantic Comedy
Young Adult fantasy in which two girls befriend a mermaid. A film very much made for teenage girls, bubbly, silly and lightweight
Stormbreaker (2006)
Teenage Spy
Film adaptation of a popular series of Young Adult books about a teenage spy. Made not long after the Austin Powers films, this seems unable to decide if it is being serious or a parody
One Missed Call: Final (2006)
Haunted Cellphone Calls
Takashi Miike’s One Missed Call was one of the more popular of the Ringu-influenced Japanese ghost stories, concerning a viral curse passed by cellphone calls. This was the second Japanese sequel
Eragon (2006)
Epic Dragon Fantasy
A dragon fantasy adapted from a popular book series that has Lord of the Rings wannabe stamped all over it and only unimaginatively follows in Peter Jackson’s footsteps
The Butterfly Effect 2 (2006)
Alternate Timelines
The Butterfly Effect was not a film set up for a sequel but we get one here anyway with a different person flipping back in time to change his rather dull and uninteresting life
Absolute Zero (2006)
Disaster Movie
A Syfy Channel disaster movie based around the scientifically nonsensical idea of the Earth’s pole undergoing a magnetic shift and temperatures being reduced to absolute zero
Yeti: A Love Story (2006)
Gay Yeti/Troma Film
Troma film about a group of trampers attacked by a Yeti only for one of the group to discover gay love with the Yeti
My Super Ex-Girlfriend (2006)
Stalker Superheroine Comedy
Unfunny Ivan Reitman comedy with Luke Wilson being stalked by his psychotic superheorine ex Uma Thurman
The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause (2006)
Santa vs Jack Frost
Third of the Santa Clause films starring Tim Allen as Santa where his reality is upended by the evil Jack Frost