Damsel (2024)
Dragon Fantasy
A dragon fantasy where Stranger Things’ Millie Bobby Brown plays the damsel who sets out to save herself. A fantasy film made for people who don’t like fantasy films
Films of 2024
Cells At Work (2024)
The Lives of Cells in a Human Body
A rather hilarious live-action manga adaptation that depicts the inner workings of the human body in terms of a series of talking blood cells. Not dissimilar to the US-made Osmosis Jones
Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)
Comic-Book Superheroes/Crossover
In his third cinematic outing, Deadpool gets into the multiverse game, creating a hilarious team-up with Wolverine and a crossover with an assortment of other cancelled Marvel franchises
Death Streamer (2024)
Vampire Livestreamer
A film from low-budget producer/director Charles Band about a trio of horror podcasters who come across a vampire that livestreams its kills on the internet, only for their attention to bring it after them
The Deliverance (2024)
Possession Film/“True Story”
Supposedly based on a true story, a possession and exorcism film from filmmaker Lee Daniels about an African-American family undergoing a supernatural assault
Despicable Me 4 (2024)
Animation/Comic Travails of a Super-Villain
More from the world’s cuddliest super-villain and those manic ritalin-deprived kids that are the Minions. Is there are life and creativity left in a franchise that has been milked for six films now?
Destroy All Neighbors (2024)
Black Comedy/People Won’t Stay Dead
A black comedy that comes in a very broad tone concerning an ordinary man trying to record an album who accidentally kills people around him only for them to refuse to stay dead
Dune Part Two (2024)
Desert World/Intergalactic Politics/Precognitive Messiah
The second part of Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s classic SF novel Dune, this delves more deeply into the world of the Fremen, although starts to diverge more from the book
Earth Abides (2024)
After the Apocalypse
Earth Abides is a classic novel that essentially defined the theme of survival in the aftermath of the collapse of civilisation. This is a TV mini-series adaptation of the book but badly fumbles it
Easter Bloody Easter (2024)
Easter Horror
An Easter horror film about a small town overrun by a killer jackalope, this plants tongue in cheek and hits a highly amusing horror comedy stride. Leading lady/director Diane Foster should be a future horror heroine
Chain Reactions (2024)
Documentary About The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
A documentary that interviews five people, including Stephen King and Takashi Miike, about the influence that The Texas Chain Saw Massacre had on their lives. The results are fascinating and illuminating
Byte (2024)
Werewolf Phone App
This takes the award for bizarre concepts – a phone app that turns users into werewolves
Elevation (2024)
Monsters Exist Below 8000 Feet Altitude
Quite a good variant on A Quiet Place where humanity is in hiding from monsters that exist below eight thousand feet altitude. This develops some fine seat-edge tension
The Assessment (2024)
Future Couple Undergo Assessment for a Child
An hilariously black, deadpan film set in a future as a couple undergo assessment for whether they are fit to be parents. This involves Alicia Vikander moving into the house and play-acting being a child with absolutely chaotic effect
Alien: Romulus (2024)
Alien Sequel
Despite a director that has spent a career making bad sequels to other people’s franchises, you have to admit this is an Alien sequel emerges better than you expect it to do
Alienoid: Return to the Future (2024)
South Korean Time-Hopping SF Action
The second part of the Korean time-hopping/alien invasion film where many of the plot strands from the extremely confusing first film are at least wrapped up
An American in Austen (2024)
Modern Girl Transported Back Into Pride and Prejudice
A modern girl pining for the perfect man is transported back into the world of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice where she ends up disrupting the story
The American Society of Magical Negroes (2024)
Secret Society Designed to Ease Racial Tensions/Satire
A satiric film based on Spike Lee’s idea of the Magical Negro, an African American who exists to deliver wisdom or magical influence to white people. This gets in some deftly amusing punches at US race relations
Apartment 7A (2024)
Rosemary’s Baby Prequel
Did we need a prequel to the events of Rosemary’s Baby? The original one of the defining classics of the horror genre. Under producer Michael Bay Apartment 7A is just more IP churn
Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End (2024)
Zombie Outbreak
Big-budgeted Spanish-made zombie film based on a best-selling book. Very much a post-Covid depiction of the zombie apocalypse, this rehashes the familiar basics capably well
Arcadian (2024)
Siege Against Monsters
A post-apocalyptic film that seems a conceptual merging of I Am Legend and A Quiet Place where Nicolas Cage and sons are at siege from monsters that surround their farmhouse every night
Arctic Hollow (2024)
Venture into the Hollow Earth
A low-budget film about a venture into the Hollow Earth in search of a missing person and encounters with creatures there. So low budget the underground caves seem shot in a darkened room
Atlas (2024)
War with the Machines
The idea of Jennifer Lopez in a transformer suit kicking robot ass has an outlandishness to it. The surprise is that this is a really good, well written SF film of planetary survival
Breathe (2024)
Earth With Depleted Oxygen Supplies
Film set in a harsh future as people struggle to survive in a world where oxygen supplies have been reduced to near zero. An okay film that suffers from an implausible premise
Azrael (2024)
Post Apocalyptic Cult
A film that takes place with no dialogue set in a post-apocalyptic world where people have forsaken speech as Samara Weaving is pursued by a cult
Bagman (2024)
Boogeyman
Colm McCarthy, who previously directed the standout The Girl With All the Gifts, returns with a film about a man being haunted by a boogeyman out of his childhood that snatches children in a bag
The Beast Within (2024)
Werewolf Film
This is a werewolf film with a difference. Everything comes with an ambiguity that is seen through the eyes of a young child trying to make sense of what is happening to her father
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024)
Gonzo Afterlife Comedy
After 36 years and several abortive attempts, Tim Burton, Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder reunite to make a sequel to Beetlejuice, but the essentials that fired up the young Burton now feel as they come by the numbers
Better Man (2024)
Rock Star Biopic with an Ape
This comes with a head-scratching premise – a biopic of pop star Robbie Williams but where Robbie is portrayed as a CGI ape. Essentially, the rock star biopic by way of one of the Planet of the Apes reboot films
Black Eyed Susan (2024)
Sex Robot
From the extraordinary and underrated Scooter McCrae, a dark and very disturbing film about the development of a sex robot for men who like to beat and abuse women
Bone Lake (2024)
Psycho-Sexual Thriller
A psycho-sexual thriller that is being heralded as a throwback to the 1990s erotic thriller a la Basic Instinct but suffers from an utter tameness that would have been ridiculed in the 1990s heyday
Borderlands (2024)
Videogame Adaptation/Planetary Adventure
Eli Roth adapts the popular videogame and corrals a surprisingly high-profile cast in a knockabout planetary adventure. Alas, that met a very mixed reception and was widely regarded as a bad movie
Easter Evil (2024)
Killer Easter Bunny
There have been a growing number of Easter horror films in recent years. This is perhaps the worst of them all. It concerns a killer Easter bunny and is a film that appears to have been entirely ad libbed in a hotel room
Exhuma (2024)
Korean Shamanism and Exorcism
A completely wild South Korean film set among the rituals of Confucian shamanism during the attempts to relocate a coffin and exorcise a troublesome spirit
Afraid (2024)
Smarthome A.I. Amok
The first film to come out following the advent of generative A.I. From American Pie director Chris Weitz, an evil A.I. film that arrives with all the hysteria of villagers with burring torches in a Frankenstein film
It’s What’s Inside (2024)
Bodyswap Device
An interesting twist on the bodyswap film where millennials at a party use a device that allows them to swap bodies – only for two of the host bodies to be killed in an accident
IF (2024)
Imaginary Companions
Ryan Reynolds and director John Krasinski combine to make a film about imaginary companions, an appealingly quirky effort where a young girl befriends a large furry invisible creature
Imaginary (2024)
Sinister Imaginary Companion
A largely routine Blumhouse film where a woman’s return to her childhood home ends up awakening her imaginary companion who has now turned sinister
Immaculate (2024)
Immaculate Conception Horror
A horror film where Sydney Sweeney stars as a virginal nun who appears to be experiencing an immaculate conception. This is only a slightly better version of The Nun
In a Violent Nature (2024)
Slasher Film
A uniquely original film. Almost an arthouse take on a slasher film where we are placed in the hulking killer’s shoes and the rest of the show takes place in abstract brushstrokes
The Inheritance (2024)
Supernatural Murder Mystery
A horror film in which billionaire Bob Gunton traps his children in his mansion with him in the belief that something is trying to kill him as it slowly eliminates their numbers
The Innsmouth School for Girls (2024)
H.P. Lovecraft Adaptation
Low-budget adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth about a town where the locals have become mutant fish people, which has been weirdly mashed up with a girls boarding school story
Inside Out 2 (2024)
Pixar Animation/The Personalities Inside a Girl’s Head
Inside Out, set around the personified emotions in a girl’s head, was one of the breaths of fresh air among Pixar’s slip into terminal sequelitis during the 2010s. Now it gets its own sequel
The Invisibles (2024)
Man Fades Away
This has an intriguingly original concept where milquetoast Tim Blake Nelson wakes up to find he has faded away and become invisible to other people – and then finds a secret world of other similar Invisibles
Jackpot! (2024)
Legalised Death Lottery Comedy
This comes out like a comedy version of The Purge almost, where a future California lottery awards the winner millions if they can avoid every other person trying to kill them
Humane (2024)
Future Euthanasia
David Cronenberg’s daughter Caitlin makes her directorial debut with a film set around a family dinner in a future where the world has decided to euthanize the world population by twenty percent
Joker: Folie a Deux (2024)
Comic-Book Super-Villain
Joker was a huge hit with Joaquin Phoenix winning an Academy Award for his role. This sequel emerged to very mixed reception, partly due to its rejection of the first film and then heading off to become a musical
Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths Part One (2024)
Animation/Comic-Book Superheroes
An animated film adaptation of Crisis on Infinite Earths, one of the classic DC Comics titles of all time. With superhero films now obsessed with multiverses, this seems the perfect time to bring it to the screen
Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths Part Three (2024)
Animation/Comic-Book Superheroes
The third and final part of the adaptation of DC Comics’ classic title Crisis on Infinite Earths featuring an epic battle to prevent the destruction of the multiverse
Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths Part Two (2024)
Animation/Comic-Book Superheroes
The second part of the epic three film animated adaptation of the classic DC Comics title Crisis on Infinite Earths concerning a battle across the DC multiverse
Kinds of Kindness (2024)
Black Comedy Anthology
Yorgos Lanthimos has become a critically celebrated name in recent years. Here he has made an anthology of three surreal tales that come in his customary black deadpan
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024)
Planet of the Apes Sequel
A fourth entry in the Planet of the Apes reboot saga. The previous two entries hit incredible heights in terms of motion capture performances but this still a solid entry that holds up well
Kraven the Hunter (2024)
Marvel Comics Superhero
Another of Sony’s films spun off from Spider-Man supporting characters. In the comics, Kraven is a Spider-Man super-villain with a big game hunter motif but here is turned into a superhero
Kung Fu Panda 4 (2024)
Animation/Talking Animal Martial Arts
The fourth entry in DreamWorks popular animated series, which by now is just another entry in the series that is coasting by on recognition factor, while offering minimal difference
I ♥ Robots (2024)
After the Robot Apocalypse
An amateur-looking film set after the robot apocalypse concerning a girl and her friendly robot who must make a journey across the wasteland. This at least boasts some well-integrated robot effects
Hotspring Sharkattack (2024)
Gonzo Killer Shark Film
A Japanese entry in the Gonzo Killer Shark film fad, an entertainingly demented effort with sharks invading a hot springs and emerging out of hot tubs. This has been greeted as a new cult movie
Festival of the Living Dead (2024)
Zombie Film
The Soska Sisters made a splash on the genre scene a few years ago. Here they make a tribute/follow-up to Night of the Living Dead but produce an utterly safe work that is the antithesis of the edginess that gained them a name
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024)
Giant Monster Bash
A follow-up to Godzilla vs Kong, this tries to offer more of the same but suffers another ridiculous script. This ended up being overshadowed by the acclaim that the Japanese-made Godzilla: Minus One received
The First Omen (2024)
Prequel to The Omen
Did the world ask for a prequel to the events of The Omen, explaining how Damien was born etc? It’s not an issue that has given me sleepless night, but it is a question the film sets out to answer anyway
Flow (2024)
Animation/Animals on a Journey
A delightful animated film from Latvia made entirely without dialogue, following a group of animals fleeing as their territory is flooded. The winner for my top film of 2024.
Frankenstein Legacy (2024)
Frankenstein Film
One of the spate of Frankenstein films to emerge in the 2023-4 period, this conducts an ambitious period-set follow-up to the original Mary Shelley story on a low budget
Frankie Freako (2024)
Goblin 1900 Number
Makeup effects artist Steven Kostanski has become a fine director in recent years. Here he makes a Gremlins-styled film about a 1-900 number that unleashes a mischievous goblin
Freelance (2024)
Editor of Snuff Movies
An Australian thriller about a girl who takes an editing job because she needs the money only to realise that what she is asked to work on are snuff movies. The film follows her descent into a dark and disturbed state of mind
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024)
Post-Holocaust Action
45 years on, George Miller returns with a fifth entry in his Mad Max saga, a prequel to Fury Road. As to be expected from Miller, this an exhilarating action piece and makes a welcome return to his post-apocalyptic junkyard world
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024)
Team of Spook Chasers Comedy
Follow-up to Ghostbusters: Afterlife, reuniting that film’s mix of new and classic cast. However, this becomes a plotting juggle that is often straining to find somewhere to include everyone
The Girl in the Trunk (2024)
Girl Imprisoned in a Car Trunk
A thriller that comes with an identical premise to the earlier Trunk about a girl who is abducted and locked inside the trunk of a car from where she tries to affect an escape from her abductor
Goldilocks and the Three Bears: Death & Porridge (2024)
Horror Version of a Fairytale
Another in the spate of horror versions of fairytales and children’s stories, this is essentially The Strangers played out with people terrorised by a group dressed as Goldilocks and the Three Bears
Horny Teenagers Must Die! (2024)
Slasher Film
A slasher film that certainly grabs your attention with a sensationalistic title. While not without occasional amusements, this is mostly amateurish
H.P. Lovecraft’s The Old Ones (2024)
H.P. Lovecraft Film
Another low-budget film that appropriates H.P. Lovecraft’s name above its title. From low-budget director Chad Ferrin who previously ventured into Lovecraft with The Deep Ones
Hagen (2024)
Epic Legend/Historical Fantasy
A new film based on the epic legend of Siegfried, which gives it a grounded historical realism and tells it in terms of the mud, moral ambiguity and backstabbing in-politicking of tv’s Game of Thrones
Handling the Undead (2024)
The Resurrected Dead
A film adapted from a book by the writer of Let the Right One In concerning the resurrected dead, this goes some way to divorce itself from the zombie film and develops its horrors with striking slow burn effect
Hell Hole (2024)
Parasitic Monster
The Adams Family have been one of the most interesting creative talents in recent years – a family who perform all the functions on their films. Here they reinvent the Alien-inspired monster movie with highly entertaining results
Hellboy: The Crooked Man (2024)
Demon Superhero/Comic-Book Adaptation
After a disastrous reboot of the Hellboy franchise, Millennium Media get it right, employing the comic’s creator on script, taking the series into wild directions with Hellboy up against Appalachian folk horrors
Here (2024)
One Room Across Multiple Eras of Time
A unique experimental film from Robert Zemeckis where the camera sits in a single spot in a room and tells is story, covers across history from the dinosaurs to the present day. Based on an acclaimed graphic novel
Heretic (2024)
Religious Imprisonment Thriller
Standout film with a very creepy Hugh Grant making two Mormon missionary girls a prisoner in his home. The script for this is so playful and audaciously challenging in its ideas that it blows you away.
Hold Your Breath (2024)
Possibly Imagined Horrors in the Dust Bowl
This has quite a few similarities to the underrated The Wind with Sarah Paulson as a mother in the 1930s Dustbowl seeing possible supernatural figures amid the dust storms, which could just as easily be fraying sanity
You Can’t Run Forever (2024)
Survival Thriller/Girl Flees an Attacker
The 2020s have seen a surprise upsurge in films about people being pursued by attackers. This is another about a teen girl flees pursued by a J.K. Simmons as a business professor who suddenly goes psycho