The Suicide Squad (2021)
Team-Up of DC Comics Super-Villains
James Gunn takes over the Suicide Squad franchise and welcomely rescues it from the dud first screen outing
Films of 2021
Super Hot (2021)
Inept Vampire Hunters Comedy
Occasionally amusing comedy where a group of fans set out to rescue the heroine’s unrequited crush from a house of vampires
Superhost (2021)
Psycho AirBNB Host
A film that one entered with no expectation whereupon it turned into a quite reasonable effort with Gracie Gillam owning the show as a splendidly mad AirBNB host
Support Group Olympus (2021)
Greek Gods in the Present-Day
A film about the Greek gods trying to get by in the present-day where they are suddenly all required to attend a support group
Swan Song (2021)
Cloning Film
SF film in which a terminally ill Mahershala Ali has a clone copy created to take his place but then begins to have second thoughts
These Streets We Haunt (2021)
Man’s Roommate May be a Super-Villain
An eccentrically oddball comedy in which a man discovers that his strange roommate may be a comic-book super-villain. Made independently but with a dry wit that is hard to resist
Things Heard & Seen (2021)
Ghost Story
Ghost story that seems to be intended to play to a more literary level than most of its contemporaries
13 Fanboy (2021)
Killer Stalks Friday the 13th Actresses
Slasher film that comes with a great hook – one where various real-life actresses from the Friday the 13th films are stalked by a masked maniac
Thunder Force (2021)
Superhero Comedy
Melissa McCarthy, along with Octavia Spencer as her best friend, is a comic screw-up who obtain superpowers
Till Death (2021)
Wife Handcuffed to Her Husband’s Corpse
This had me sold from its one sentence description – Megan Fox is a wife trying to escape hired killers while handcuffed to her husband’s corpse
Titane (2021)
Body Horror/Human-Machine Pregnancy
Julia Ducournau’s Cannes award-winning film is a challenging work that pushes boundaries into uncomfortable places. Not to mention comes with human and car sex scenes
Tom and Jerry (2021)
Cartoon Characters in a Live-Action Film
Tom and Jerry are revived in a part-animated, part-live action toon film although come missing the ultra-violence of the original cartoons
The Tomorrow War (2021)
War Across Time
Chris Pratt is recruited to fight an alien invasion in a war across time in a big-budget film that flounders in its own ridiculousness
Triassic Hunt (2021)
Dinosaurs Amok
Film from The Asylum about dinosaurs hunting mercenaries. Essentially Jurassic Park that takes place in a warehouse
Two (2021)
Man and Woman Wake Up Surgically Attached
A Spanish film with a wonderfully ick and queasy premise where a man and a woman wake up in bed together to find they have been surgically attached at the waist
The Unholy (2021)
Sinisterly Ambiguous Miracleworker
Adaptation of a James Herbert book about a deafmute girl who suddenly speaks and performs miracles, which may have a sinister cause
Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021)
Marvel Comics Superhero
The first sequel to the passable Venom. Next to Batman & Robin, this could be a strong contender for the worst big-budget superhero film ever made
V/H/S/94 (2021)
Anthology of Found Footage Horror Tales
The popular V/H/S series, an anthology of Found Footage horror tales, is revived for a fourth entry
Voyagers (2021)
Generation Ship Descends Into Chaos
The promising idea of a generation ship story, although you realise soon in that this has been conceived as no more than Lord of the Flies in space
Warning (2021)
Anthology of Future SF Tales
An anthology film that has been intended in the same vein as tv’s Black Mirror, offering a series of dark reflections of technological changes
The Wasteland (2021)
Possible Monster Attacks at an Isolated Home
A standout Spanish film about a 19th Century family at remote house in the midst of a great plain who are under attack by monsters that may just as easily exist in the mind
We Need to Do Something (2021)
Family Trapped in a Bathroom During a Mysterious Catastrophe
A horror film made as an allegory for Covid with a family trapped inside a bathroom without supplies as a mysterious catastrophe happens outside their door
Werewolves Within (2021)
Werewolves/Videogame Adaptation
A werewolf film that is quite unlike anything you expect when you hear the term videogame adaptation
What Josiah Saw (2021)
Southern Gothic
This is a superbly written and directed work of Southern Gothic that consists of three interwoven tales that gradually expose dark family secrets
When I Consume You (2021)
Siblings Fight Demonic Entity
The massively underrated Perry Blackshear makes another of his kitchen sink works about a handicapped brother and his sister’s possible ghost fighting a demonic figure
Where is Anne Frank (2021)
Animation/Anne Frank’s Imaginary Companion Comes to Life
Beautifully affecting animated film from Ari Folman in which the imaginary companion in Anne Frank’s diary comes to life in the present day
Who is Bill Rebane? (2021)
Genre Director Documentary
A fascinating documentary devoted to a largely forgotten B-budget sf/horror director and his body of films
Willy’s Wonderland (2021)
Possessed Animatronic Robots
A horror film premised around Nicolas Cage beating the crap out of a series of possessed animatronic robots, a fairly blatant copy of the Five Nights at Freddy’s videogame
The Woman in the Window (2021)
Psycho-Thriller
Slickly produced psycho-thriller that comes mired in controversy, featuring Amy Adams as an agoraphobe who maybe witnesses a murder.
Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror (2021)
Documentary About Folk Horror
One of the most in-depth film documentaries ever made where Kier-La Janisse exhaustively excavates every example of Folk Horror
A Writer’s Odyssey (2021)
Meta-Fiction
A Chinese work of meta-fiction where a man is tasked with killing the author of a book that is having effects on the real world
Wrong Turn (2021)
Backwoods Brutality
A reimagining of the long-running Wrong Turn series of Backwoods Brutality films, this does imaginative things with the set-up and emerges as the best of the series so far
Wyrmwood: Apocalypse (2021)
Zombie Apocalypse
Sequel to the cult Australian zombie film, this refines the first film and exists as even more of a visual comic-book – all that seems missing is dialogue that comes in comic balloons
Wyvern Hill (2021)
Boogeyman in the House
Low-budget British film about a mysterious killer lurking in the house
You Are Not My Mother (2021)
Missing Mother Returns Changed/Folk Horror
An unsettlingly effective Irish Folk Horror film about a teen whose mother disappears and then returns ‘changed’
Zack Snyder’s Justice League (2021)
Comic-Book Superheroes
Zack Snyder’s original cut of Justice League is a magnificent work that restores much character depth and story. I would far rather watch this than any of the recent MCU films
Zone 414 (2021)
Future Film Noir/Androids
Very much informed by Blade Runner, this features Guy Pearce as a futuristic detective on the trail of a missing girl in the android zone