Meander (2020)
Mysterious Labyrinth
This may be the most claustrophobic film ever made about a woman trapped inside a labyrinth of narrow tunnels and crawlspaces that house a series of death traps
Films of 2020
Mayflower II (2020)
Christians Launch a Space Mission
An hilariously bad film in which Christians launch a space mission to flee a Bible-censoring dystopia on Earth
May the Devil Take You: Chapter Two (2020)
Possessed Dead in an Abandoned Orphanage
May the Devil Take YouThe Evil Dead. Here Timo Tjajjanto makes a sequel and goes absolutely demented
Max Reload and the Nether Blasters (2020)
Videogamers vs Unleashed Demonic Entity
Videogamers fight a demonic entity unleashed from a 1980s game. A film that is far more fun that you expect and comes loaded with videogaming in-jokes
Markham (2020)
H.P. Lovecraft Homage
British-made homage to H.P. Lovecraft that has some of the most stunning black-and-white photography seen in some time but I am still trying to puzzle out what the film was actually about
Marionette (2020)
Reality Bender
Film about a psychiatrist dealing with a boy who appears to be able to cause things to happen. All before things get really weird
Mandibles (2020)
Gonzo Comedy/Men Find a Giant Fly
Another of Quentin Dupieux’s bizarrely surreal deadpan comedies in which two amiable idiots discover a fly that is about the size of a dog and believe they could tame it
LX 2048 (2020)
Future Cloning and Virtual Reality
A film I went into with no expectation that quickly creates a fascinating future and offers some ingeniously original treatments of cloning and Virtual Reality themes
Love and Monsters (2020)
Journey Across a Post-Apocalyptic World of Giant Animals
A nerdy guy sets out across a post-apocalyptic wasteland filled with giant animals to be with the girl of his dreams. This sound promising in description but suffers an identity crisis on screen
Looks That Kill (2020)
Teen With a Face That Kills People Comedy
A film about a teen whose face kills anyone who looks at him. This is a romantic comedy that overspills with originality, quirkiness and a really dark sense of humour.
Little Fish (2020)
Amnesia-Inducing Plague
Beautifully understated film set in a world where a plague is causing people to lose their memories, following Olivia Cooke whose husband Jack O’Connell gradually succumbs
Life After The Navigator (2020)
The Making of Flight of the Navigator
Documentary about the making of Flight of the Navigator and the mind-boggling story of Joey Cramer, the film’s child star turned bank robber
Last Journey of Paul W.R. (2020)
Earth Endangered by an Oncoming Moon
French film about Earth endangered by an oncoming moon and how only one man can save the world. This seemed it might be something culty – before the mind-bogglingly bizarre science becomes apparent
The Last Days of American Crime (2020)
Near-Future Heist Film/Action Film
A heist film set in a near-future USA where a group of criminals are preparing a last big caper before the activation of a mind control device that will make crime impossible
Last and First Men (2020)
The Future Evolution of Humanity
An adaptation of the Olaf Stapledon novel that depicts the future evolution of humanity billions of years into the future. This defies every rule of good filmmaking and is still a spellbinding film
Lapsis (2020)
Kafka-esque Internet Company
Wonderfully Kafka-esque film about a man who takes a job laying cable for a new internet company only to find himself in a system of nightmare rules and regulations
Lady Usher (2020)
Gender-Flipped Edgar Allan Poe Adaptation
A gender-flipped adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe story, this is surely the equivalent of The Room among Poe adaptations and may be the worst Poe film adaptation ever
Kandisha (2020)
Mythical Boogeywoman
Directors Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury made the brutally extreme Inside. Here they return with what feels like an unofficial copy of Candyman about a vengeful boogeywoman
Justice League Dark: Apokolips War (2020)
Animation/Comic-Book Superheroes
The DC Comics animated version of an Avengers film where they put every superhero under their roof on screen at once, including Justice League Dark, the regular Justice League, Suicide Squad and Teen Titans
Jiu Jitsu (2020)
Action Film/Alien-Human Combat
The action film has largely died off in the 2010s. This is very much a throwback with a set-up reminiscent of Predator about an action team fighting an alien in the jungle
The Invisible Man (2020)
Invisible Stalker
Blumhouse deliver an invisible man, although one that has nothing to do with H.G. Wells or the previous invisible man films. Indeed, this feels like an invisible man film that doesn’t even want to be about an invisible man at all.
Intersect (2020)
Time Travel Experiments
A film with Lovecraftian overtones about a group at the Miskatonic University doing research into time travel that proceeds to go wrong, while unleashing mysterious monsters
In Search of Darkness II: A Journey Into ’80s Horror Continues (2020)
Documentary About the 1980s Horror Film
A follow-up to the documentary about the 1980s horror film, this deals with some of the lesser-known and overlooked works that were not covered the first time around
I’m Thinking of Ending Things (2020)
Surrealism and Identity Blurring
Charlie Kaufman’s mind-bending, head-scratcher about road trips, weird dinner conversations and shifting identity blurrings as what we assume become increasingly more surreal as the film goes on
Hunter Hunter (2020)
Wolf Attack in the Woods
A solid and well-made film that creates quite a reasonable tension as a family that live in the woods deal with a lurking wolf. What is going on sits in an interesting state of ambiguity.
Hunted (2020)
Woman Hunted Through the Woods
Solidly effective Belgian film about a woman fleeing through the woods from a killer who wants to make snuff movies. One of several films about people hunted in the woods to come out around the same time
The Hunt (2020)
Human Bloodsports/Liberals Hunt Conservatives
Controversial variant on the human bloodsports plot of The Most Dangerous Game but where liberals hunt conservatives. A film with a darkly satiric bite that sets out to offend people on both sides of the political fence
How I Became a Super-Hero (2020)
Superpowers Film
The title suggests either a comedic take on the superhero film or a teen film about a kid discovering superpowers. The least thing you expect this to be is a French police thriller about a unit investigating super-powered crimes
Host (2020)
Internet Seance
The first major genre film made during the Covid lockdown, a modestly effective work that borrows the basics of Unfriended for a story about a séance being held over a Zoom call
History of the Occult (2020)
TV Interview with a Black Magician
Argentinean horror film about a tv interview with a black magician where things then proceed to start going wrong. Shot in a dense black-and-white and claustrophobic mock-up of an old tv show
Held (2020)
Married Couple Imprisoned in a House
A bizarre thriller where a husband and wife are imprisoned in a luxury house and forced upon threat of torture to improve their marriage
Hawk & Rev: Vampire Slayers (2020)
Vampire Hunter Comedy
An appealingly witty comedy where two losers set out to become vampire hunters with fumblingly inept results. Written and played with a snappy, sarcastic appeal
The Haunting of Bly Manor (2020)
Haunted House
Mike Flanagan follows up the hit of The Haunting of Hill House with a mini-series that adapts another classic work The Turn of the Screw out into a similar kind of cross-generational ghost story. The results are extraordinary
H.P. Lovecraft’s The Deep Ones (2020)
H.P. Lovecraft Adaptation
A low-budget adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth. That is if you can imagine Lovecraft’s story about fish people mating with humans relocated to a California AirBNB
The Grudge (2020)
Haunting
The fourteenth Ju-on/The Grudge film, a reboot of the 2004 English language version from Sam Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures. This was dumped by its distributor and received some terrible reviews
Gretel & Hansel (2020)
Dark Adult Fairytale
Osgood Perkins emerges as a top director in this dark and extremely adult interpretation of the fairytale. There is nothing about this that can be viewed as a children’s tale any longer
Greenland (2020)
Disaster Movie/Comet on a Collision Course with the Earth
There seems something redundant in 2021 with the world in the grip of a very real apocalypse about watching an old-fashioned mass destruction disaster movie about an oncoming comet impact
Good Samaritan (2020)
Supernatural Retribution
Directorial outing from the creator of Final Destination about bystanders who are witness to a murder but do nothing and are afterwards killed by a possible supernatural agency
Ghosts of War (2020)
G.I.'s at a Haunted Chateau in WWII
US soldiers arrive at a chateau in Nazi-occupied France during World War II that appears to be haunted. In a conceptual reversal twist, everything is not what it seems
Ghost Stories (2020)
Bollywood Horror Anthology
Another multi-director horror anthology – in this case a quartet of horror stories from Bollywood directors that comes with one standout episode in particular
G-Loc (2020)
Space Journey
SF film with Stephen Moyer as a spaceship survivor who boards a ship with the crew mysteriously dead and becomes caught up in interplanetary politicking
Fried Barry (2020)
Man Inhabited by an Alien
A South African variant on a film like Starman where a man is inhabited by an alien and stumbles through a series of encounters on the seedier side of life
Freaky (2020)
Bodyswap Slasher Film
A slasher film with a novelty (gimmicky?) premise where the Final Girl and the hulking killer of the show end up swapping bodies. Essentially a conceptual mash-between a slasher film and Freaky Friday
Fatman (2020)
Kid Hires a Hitman to Kill Santa
Amusingly dark Christmas film where a kid hires a hitman to kill Santa after receiving a lump of coal in his Christmas stocking. Featuring Mel Gibson as a grumpy Santa struggling with modern economic realities
The Father (2020)
Alzheimer's Sufferer/Reality Blurrings
A film that received great acclaim at awards season. Anthony Hopkins is a dementia-ridden senior and we experience his state of mind subjectively in a constantly shifting sense of what is real
Fat Ass Zombies (2020)
Gonzo Zombie Comedy
Another zombie film that comes with a deliberately ridiculous title, even if the title ends up being a misnomer. This site’s choice for the worst film of 2020
Fantasy Island (2020)
TV Series Remake/Island That Makes Fantasies Come True
The big screen remake of the popular 70s/80s tv series about an island that makes guests fantasies come true. In the hands of Blumhouse, this has now been turned into a horror film
The Exorcism in Amarillo (2020)
True-Life Exorcism
The worst exorcism film ever made. A ridiculous Christian evangelical film about a God-loving American family under attack by malevolent spirits emerged from a book on witchcraft! Supposedly based on a true story
Exorcism at 60,000 Feet (2020)
Exorcism on an Airplane/Bad Taste Comedy
A possession film set on an airplane. This sets out to parody exorcism movie cliches but makes a beeline for outrageous bad taste humour. It does include a great cast of genre regulars
The Evil Next Door (2020)
Ghost Story
The Ghost Story is a genre has felt overused and its clichés churned to a point of exhaustion. All of that said, this Swedish film delivers the goods and conjures an extremely spooky mood
Evil Eye (2020)
Reincarnated Stalker
Blumhouse film where a Westernised Indian girl rejects her traditional mother’s fears about her new boyfriend being a bad man reincarnated only for them to come true
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
Dune Drifter (2020)
Planetary Survival
Modestly well made low-budget planetary survival film about a pilot crashlanded on a hostile world. An entire space opera that was shot in the director’s apartment during the Covid-19 lockdown
DragonHeart: Vengeance (2020)
Dragon Fantasy
Quite why the largely forgotten DragonHeart has produced four sequels is beyond me. Where does such a loyal fanbase come from that they keep churning out more of these films?
Dragon Soldiers (2020)
Soldiers vs Dragon
Low-budget film directed by a former soldier about a troupe of mercenaries sent into the woods to round up vagrants who find they are fighting against a dragon
Dracula (2020)
Dracula Adaptation
BBC mini-series retelling of Bram Stoker’s Dracula that deconstructs and widely expands on sections of the book to create something relentlessly modernistic, sometimes in ways that take you aback
Dolittle (2020)
Doctor That Can Speak to Animals
This revival of the classic children’s character who can speak to animals took a critical battering but I kind of liked it. It has a completely madcap slapstick tone and more crucially returns to the stories and banishes any bad memory of Eddie Murphy
The Dinner Party (2020)
Sinister Dinner Party
A young couple are invited to a posh dinner party, only to find that sinister and deadly things lurk not far beneath the niceties before things get really strange. A directorial outing for actor Miles Doleac
Devs (2020)
Computer That Can Predict the Future
Alex Garland directed-written tv mini-series that grasps at big ideas about the meaning of it all concerning a computer that can track every particle and predict past and future. This emerges as one of the finest SF work of the last few years
Detroit Driller Killer (2020)
Power-Drill Psycho
An uncredited remake of Abel Ferrara’s The Driller Killer, this is the single worst film I have seen in the last few years. It is surely the horror equivalent of The Room
Des (2020)
True-Life Serial Killer
Excellent British tv mini-series that tells the story of true-life serial killer Dennis Nilsen who preyed on gay men in London in the 1980s. David Tennant gives an electrifying performance in the title role
Deep Blue Sea 3 (2020)
Genetically-Engineered Killer Sharks
After the genuinely terrible Deep Blue Sea 2, all it took to improve the Deep Blue Sea series was a better director. This no more than a B movie but is certainly halfway watchable
Death of Me (2020)
Tourists Caught Up in Sinister Rituals
Darren Lynn Bousman is a director that leaves me wondering why he keeps attracting money to make films. Here he makes a work about a couple caught up in sinister rituals while tourists in Thailand
A Deadly Legend (2020)
Folk Horror Happenings at a Summer Camp
A really bad low-budget film jumping aboard the Folk Horror bandwagon where construction work at a summer camp stirs druidic rituals from the past
The Dark and the Wicked (2020)
Evil Waits to Claim a Dying Man's Soul
Bryan Bertino has become a Must Watch director ever since The Strangers. Here he makes an uncanny slow burn film about a family gathered to tend a dying father as something evil waits to claim his soul
Curse of the Blind Dead (2020)
Blind Knights Templar Zombies
A revival of the popular 1970s Blind Dead series about Knights Templar zombies. In this era of zombie films homages and remakes, it is a surprise nobody has thought to do so before
The Croods: A New Age (2020)
Animation/Prehistoric Comedy
The sequel to DreamWorks’ animated prehistoric film. For a very low expectation effort – the modern animated sequel – this emerges as far more colourful and entertaining than one expects
Crimson (2020)
Found Footage/Killer Clowns
A film based around real-life YouTube influencer Brian ‘Faze Rug’ Awadis as he buys a new mansion only to move in and find his neighbours are an alley of sinister clowns
The Craft: Legacy (2020)
Teen Witches
Blumhouse revival of/sequel to The Craft, the film about a quartet of teenage witches. This updates the original to the modern era in ways the original never did
Cosmoball (2020)
Future Sports
A Russian SF film about humans who have been selected to participate in an intergalactic sports tournament. This feels that it has been construed as an anti-Alita: Battle Angel and has some stunning design work
Corona Zombies (2020)
Corona Virus Zombies
A Charles Band film that has the distinction of being the first film released during the Corona Virus Pandemic. You watch out of curiosity of how the usual logistics of filmmaking deal with quarantine and social distancing
Come True (2020)
Dream Horrors
A Canadian-made horror film about a teenage runaway who signs into a mysterious dream institute that conduct experiments that open up something disturbing inside her
Come Play (2020)
Sinister Entity from a Child's E-book
This is a surprisingly good film that generates quite a degree of spooky eeriness concerning a child on the autism spectrum and the sinister entity inside his tablet that just wants to be his friend
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
The Call (2020)
Phone Calls Across Time
A South Korean film that remakes The Caller about a girl who finds she can make phone calls across time to another woman only to find that the caller is a psychopath who begins to wreak havoc with her timeline
Cabal (2020)
Hitman vs Hulking Backwoods Killer
Film from low-budget director Rene Perez where a hitman who wears a beaten steel mask is pitted up against a hulking backwoods killer
Breach (2020)
Parasites Aboard a Space Mission
Another of the last films made by Bruce Willis, before his retirement. Here Bruce is on form and gives a decent performance. The film is an Alien copy with the crew of a space mission under attack by a parasitic lifeform
Brave New World (2020)
Dystopian Future
TV mini-series adaptation of Aldous Huxley’s classic dystopian novel. Developed by Grant Morrison, this freely adapts the novel but does a strong and intelligent job of reimagining it in contemporary terms
Brahms: The Boy II (2020)
Sinister Doll
Sequel to The Boy in which a nanny was hired to tend a sinister doll. Now in what is clearly an attempt to imitate the Annabelle franchise, the doll gains life
Boys from County Hell (2020)
Irish Vampire Film
Spiritedly entertaining vampire film, this transplants the basics of the genre to rural Northern Ireland with wry and highly amusing results
Boss Level (2020)
Timeloop/Action Film
You don’t think the mix of cartoonishly over-the-top action and a Groundhog Day timeloop scenario would work but this proves your assumptions wrong in highly entertaining ways
Books of Blood (2020)
Clive Barker Anthology
A new Clive Barker film is always something to be excited about – Barker has been absent too long as a creative force. This is an anthology based around Barker’s celebrated story collection
Bloody Hell (2020)
Imprisonment By a Strange Family
Oddball Australian Backwoods Brutality film with a man imprisoned by a strange family in Finland who intend to feed him to their hulking son
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
Bloodshot (2020)
Augmented Super-Soldier/Comic-Book Adaptation
That starts out seeming a standard mindless action film in which Vin Diesel is resurrected as an augmented super-soldier only for everything we assume to get turned on its head in interesting ways
The Block Island Sound (2020)
Mysterious Happenings in a Bay
An enigmatic and undeniably effective film about mysterious happenings where those who journey out into a bay return having been affected in disturbing ways
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
Blade: The Iron Cross (2020)
Killer Dolls and Nazi Zombies
A spinoff from Full Moon’s Puppetmaster film series, this stirs killer dolls, mad scientists, psychics and Nazi zombies together in an undeniably entertaining mix
Black Water: Abyss (2020)
Killer Crocodile
The Australian-made Black Water was a gripping thriller about three people in a tree being menaced by a crocodile in the water below. This is a sequel with a further group trapped in a cave and menaced by a killer crocodile
Black Box (2020)
Amnesia and Mind Transference
Blumhouse film in which an initial plot about a man suffering amnesia undergoes a twist to become a body theft story
Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn (2020)
All-Girl Superhero Team/Comic-Book Adaptation
The DC comic-book Birds of Prey is hijacked to become a vehicle for Harley Quinn, the breakout character from Suicide Squad. Margot Robbie gives the impression she has zero interest in making a film for comic-book fans
Bill & Ted Face the Music (2020)
Time-Travelling Slackers Reach Middle-Age
The two time-travelling slackers are back after nearly thirty years and the film amusingly sees them having reached uneasy middle-age. But was the wait worth it?
Bigfoot vs The Illuminati (2020)
Gonzo Animation/Bigfoot Resurrected in Space
From the director of Trump vs the Illuminati, gonzo animation where Bigfoot and several resurrected historical figures fight off invading aliens that include Stalin, Aleister Crowley and Anubis
Betaal (2020)
Bollywood Zombies
Bollywood conducts a reasonable attempt to make its own equivalent of the zombie film in this mini-series about people at siege from undead British colonial soldiers awakened
Before the Fire (2020)
Countrywide Pandemic
Released in March 2020 just before the arrival of Covid-19, this makes an uncanny prediction about the US being affected by a nationwide pandemic
Becoming (2020)
Body-Hopping Entity/Possession Film
The early 2020s saw some strong,d intelligent variations on body-hopping themes. This is one variant filled with a series of wildly disorienting spins that frequently jerk the carpet out as Toby Kebbell becomes possessed by an entity
Becky (2020)
Young Girl Fights off a Home Invasion
Essentially Home Alone as a horror film where Lulu Wilson gives a standout performance as a child who fends off a home invasion by escaped criminals led by Kevin James in a surprisingly effective villainous turn
Beauty Water (2020)
Anime/Extreme Beauty Product
South Korean-made anime that takes a dive into horror grotesquerie in the story of a beauty product that offers to reshape flesh and a girl who becomes obsessed with it
The Barcelona Vampiress (2020)
True-Life Child Killer
A visually extraordinary True Crime film based on the story of a Spanish woman who may or may not have abducted and killed a string of children in the 1910s
The Banishing (2020)
Haunted House
Christopher Smith seemed one of the most promising genre directors of the 2000s with films like Triangle and Black Death. Here he returns with a venture into the English ghost story