The Wall (1998)

The Wall (1998) poster
Rating: ★★
Belgian Dystopia/Magical Realism

Film made to celebrate the millennium where a totalitarian government creates a wall that divides Belgium along linguistic lines

Peacock King (1988)

Peacock King (1988) poster
Rating: ★★
Wu Xia Film

Hong Kong-made Wu Xia based on a Japanese manga about warrior monks fighting to stop the opening of portals to Hell. This seems uninspired when it comes to the flights of fantasy the genre specialises in, although picks up when it comes to the vigour of its cheap makeup effects scenes

Werewolf in a Womens Prison (2006)

Werewolf in a Womens Prison (2006) poster
Rating: ★★
Werewolf Film

This is exactly what it sounds like – a blend of werewolf film and the women in prison exploitation genre with expectedly lurid and entertaining focus. A film that makes no pretence it is being serious, which actually becomes its redeeming quality

Painted Skin (1992)

Painted Skin (1992) poster
Rating: ★★
Hong Kong Supernatural Fantasy

A Hong Kong supernatural fantasy that has been made as a copy of the ground-changing A Chinese Ghost Story. The last film directed the legendary King Hu, the man who created the Wu Xia film

To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday (1996)

To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday (1996) poster
Rating: ★★
Ghosts of Memory

Ambiguous ghost story in which Peter Gallagher sees and talks to his late wife Michelle Pfeiffer. Written by hit tv producer David E. Kelley (The Practice), this frequently disappears into its own self-congratulatory dialogue

Restless (2011)

Restless (2011) poster
Rating: ★★
Oddball Romance/Ghost Companion

The oddity of an emo romance from indie director Gus Van Sant about an alienated teenager with a ghost companion who falls for a girl dying of cancer. Needless to say, the film’s mopey romance between oddball outsiders and Van Sant’s aimless improvisational style never quite gel

The Time of Their Lives (1946)

The Time of Their Lives (1946) poster
Rating: ★★
Ghost Comedy

An Abbott and Costello comedy. Not one of their monster bashes but a variant on the light comedy that had been popular in the last decade with Lou as an 18th Century ghost haunting Bud Abbott in the present. Can’t say I am a big fan of their humour, most of the slapstick that seems dated today

Tales from the Hood 2 (2018)

Tales from the Hood 2 (2018) poster
Rating: ★★
African-American Horror Anthology

Tales from the Hood was the novelty of an African-American made horror anthology. 23 years later the principal talents (including producer Spike Lee) reunite for a sequel

Songs from the Second Floor (2000)

Songs from the Second Floor (2000) poster
Rating: ★★
Surreal Vignettes

From Swedish director Roy Andersson, a series of plotless, surreal vignettes pitched with black humour

Prisoners of the Ghostland (2021)

Prisoners of the Ghostland (2021) poster
Rating: ★★
Gonzo Post-Apocalyptic Film

Nicolas Cage’s career choices in recent years have taken him into serious psychotronic headspace. Shion Sono is a director whose film’s inhabit demented territory. It seemed inevitable that the two should meet up on screen

Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (2004)

Scooby Doo 2 Monsters Unleashed (2004) poster
Rating: ★★
Ghostbusting Team/Cartoon in Live-Action

Sequel to the live-action Scooby-Doo, this is at least a better film than its predecessor, being more polished in its slapstick and effects but still has no more ambition beyond being a silly no-brain film

Alice (1990)

Alice (1990) poster
Rating: ★★
Modernised Alice in Wonderland

One of Woody Allen’s less interesting films, a modernised version of Alice in Wonderland with Mia Farrow as a bored housewife who passes through various surreal experiences

Night of the Flood (1996)

Night of the Flood (1996) poster
Rating: ★★
End of the World Dance Film

The novelty of a dance film about the end of the world in a giant flood

Ghost Town (2008)

Ghost Town (2008) poster
Rating: ★★
Man That Can See Ghosts Comedy

Director/screenwriter David Koepp proves that comedy is not his forte in this light fantasy in which Ricky Gervais emerges from anaesthesia to find that he can now see ghosts

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001)

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001) poster
Rating: ★★
Young Wizard

The first of the Harry Potter films. The first is the weakest and lumbers due to being placed in the hands of the perpetually banal Chris Columbus who allows visual effects wow and simplistic emotional cues to dominate

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) poster
Rating: ★★
Young Wizard

The second of the Harry Potter films and better than its predecessor. Chris Columbus has his tendency to overblown effects more in check but that does leave the film more dependent on J.K. Rowling’s contrived deus ex machina plotting

Hamlet (2011)

Hamlet (2011) poster
Rating: ★★
Modernised Shakespeare Adaptation

After some 150 other films, you have to wonder what another version of Hamlet has to offer. This Canadian adaptation does little other than updating the setting to the 1940s

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024)

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024) poster
Rating: ★★
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

Ghostbusters II (1989)

Ghostbusters II (1989) poster
Rating: ★★
Team of Spook Chasers Comedy

A weak follow-up to the hit original that essentially killed off any further Ghostbusters sequels. Most of the the cast are back but the plot and proceedings feel like a walk-through for all involved.

The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942)

The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942) poster
Rating: ★★
Universal Frankenstein Sequel

The fourth of Universal’s Frankenstein films where Lon Chaney Jr inherits the role of the monster and makes it into a stumbling brute that lacks the pathos of Boris Karloff. The plot recycles what has now become the cliches of the series

Ghost Lantern (1993)

Ghost Lantern (1993) poster
Rating: ★★
Hong Kong Reincarnation Romance Comedy

From Andrew Lau, director of Infernal Affairs, a weepy Hong Kong comedy about a man caught up in a romantic quandary from his previous reincarnation

The Frighteners (1996)

The Frighteners (1996) poster
Rating: ★★
Medium vs Ghostly Serial Killer Comedy

Before The Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson flopped badly with this ghost comedy. Jackson allows his obsession with the effects technology to take over at the expense of much else and provides little that is funny

Dark Shadows (2012)

Dark Shadows (2012) poster
Rating: ★★
TV Series Comedy Remake/Vampire/Family Saga

Tim Burton’s slide into mediocrity continues with this comedic update of the cult Gothic soap opera tv series, which is now played at a level of cartoonish unseriousness that resembles the Addams Family

Cinderfella (1960)

Cinderfella (1960) poster
Rating: ★★
Sex-Reversed Cinderella Comedy

The popular fairytale has the sexes reversed and is reworked as a comedy vehicle for Jerry Lewis, although the upshot of this is that we get a Cinderella who is now a near-imbecilic Beverly Hills stepchild

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024)

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024) poster
Rating: ★★
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

Arabian Nights (2015)

Arabian Nights (2015) poster
Rating: ★★
Anthology of Portuguese Magical Realist Vignettes

This is not an adaptation of the Arabian Nights but the title has been appropriated for a collection of quasi-fantastical tales and even documentaries about the Portuguese Austerity Crisis over six hours in length

Heart Condition (1990)

Heart Condition (1990) poster
Rating: ★★
Bigoted White Man Gets a Black Ghost Companion

Light fantasy oddity with Bob Hoskins as a racist slob of a cop who receives a heart transplant and suddenly gets a deceased Denzel Washington as a ghostly companion

Going Postal (2010)

Going Postal (2010) poster
Rating: ★★
Terry Pratchett Adaptation

A disappointing tv mini-series adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novel, which has been (largely) played as a straight adventure with the usual Pratchett comedy taking a backseat

Mr. Tree (2011)

Mr. Tree (2011) poster
Rating: ★★
Life in Rural China/Advice from Ghosts

Film about the life of a possibly handicapped man in rural China that takes a veer into total fantasy in the latter half. A head-scratching oddity that I failed to get a handle on

Keyhole (2011)

Keyhole (2011) poster
Rating: ★★
Surrealist Haunted House Film

A disappointment from Guy Maddin where he abandons his trademark surrealism and makes what feels like cross between a haunted house film and a 1940s crime drama by way of the French New Wave

Kung Fu from Beyond the Grave (1982)

Kung Fu from Beyond the Grave (1982) poster
Rating: ★★
Martial Arts vs Evil Sorcerer

Hong Kong kung fu films of the 1970/80s contains some bizarre crosshatches in a search for novelty. Here a kung fu practitioner takes on a sorcerer who raises ghosts and even Count Dracula to fight

Liza, The Fox-Fairy (2015)

Liza, The Fox-Fairy (2015) poster
Rating: ★★
Hungarian Black Comedy/Woman and Her Jealous Ghost Companion

A head-scratchingly odd effort – a woman who stayed inside all her life goes in search of love only for the jealous ghost of a 1950s pop singer to kill every man who looks at her

It’s a Wonderful After Life (2010)

It's a Wonderful After Life (2010) poster
Rating: ★★
Ghosts and Murder Comedy in Little India

A comedy involving murder and ghosts set in London’s Little India. An exceedingly lightweight comedy that never does anything unexpected with its material

Hollow Creek (2016)

Hollow Creek (2015) poster
Rating: ★★
Abducted Woman Thriller

Although effort is made to sell this as a horror film and there are some ghosts, this is far more of a missing woman thriller. A directing/writing debut for Guisela Moro who plays the abducted woman

Mermaid Down (2019)

Mermaid Down (2019) poster
Rating: ★★
Mermaid in an Asylum

The mermaid film used to be the stuff of light fantasy but in recent years has become something much darker. This comes with the promising premise of a mermaid having her tail hacked off with an axe then being placed in an asylum where she tries to convince the other patients of who she is

The House of the Spirits (1993)

The House of the Spirits (1993) poster
Rating: ★★
Latin American Family Saga/Magical Realism

A star-studded but ponderous adaptation of Isabel Allende’s cross-generational family saga set in an unnamed South American republic that comes with Magical Realist elements

Hotel Transylvania (2012)

Hotel Transylvania (2012) poster
Rating: ★★
Animation/Hotel for Famous Monsters

A variant on the much more charming Mad Monster Party?, an animated film featuring cute cuddly versions of the Famous Monsters (Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, wolfman etc) with Adam Sandler voicing Dracula

Lucky Encounter (1992)

Lucky Encounter (1992) poster
Rating: ★★
Hong Kong Ghost Child Comedy

A frenetic Hong Kong slapstick comedy about hoodlums trying to obtain a stash of money from a house that is inhabited by a ghost boy

Repentance (2014)

Repentance (2014) poster
Rating: ★½
Imprisonment Thriller

A film with identity disorder – the title and promotion makes it seem a revenge-action film only for it to conduct a number of strange doglegs and eventually arrive at a plot wherein life coach Anthony Mackie is tied up in the cellar by Forest Whitaker who feeds his inspirational lines back at him

The Erotic Misadventures of the Invisible Man (2003)

The Erotic Misadventures of the Invisible Man (2003) poster
Rating:
Erotica with an Invisible Man

Most classic monsters have undergone an adult movie interpretation at some point – here it is the turn of The Invisible Man

The Brown Bunny (2003)

The Brown Bunny (2003) poster
Rating:
Mumblecore Deathdream

Vincent Gallo’s muchly ridiculed directorial effort is an unbelievably indulgent film consisting of long, tedium-inducing scenes where nothing happens. It does arrive at a a surprise left field ending that travels into genre territory

Arthur 2: On the Rocks (1988)

Arthur 2: On the Rocks (1988) poster
Rating:
Alcoholic Millionaire Comedy/Ghost Butler

A completely ignored sequel to Arthur, the non-genre comedy hit with Dudley Moore as an alcoholic millionaire. Included here because butler John Gielgud turns up as a ghost

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009)

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009) poster
Rating:
Playboy's Supernatural Redemption/Romantic Comedy

From the period when Matthew McConaughey was coasting through romcoms without making any effort. This rewrites A Christmas Carol where playboy McConaughey is visited by the ghosts of three ex’s

Safe Haven (2013)

Safe Haven (2013) poster
Rating:
Romantic Film/Fantastic Twist Ending

Weepie romantic chick flick adapted from a Nicholas Sparks novel, included here for a fantastic twist ending. Sparks has stolen much of his plot from Stephen King’s Rose Madder. Even as such, wife-beating as the backdrop to a romance casts a distasteful shadow over the exercise

Ghost Dad (1990)

Ghost Dad (1990) poster
Rating:
Man Returns as a Ghost Comedy

Riding high on the success of The Cosby Show, Bill Cosby flopped on cinema screens with this comedy where he appears as a father who returns as a ghost to sort out his children’s lives

Erotic Possessions (1999)

Erotic Possessions (1999) poster
Rating:
Erotica/Ghostly Possession

An erotic film in which Shauna O’Brien is possessed by the spirit of an actress from the 1940s who sets out to win the big role she missed out on in her previous life

House of Usher (2008)

House of Usher (2008) poster
Rating:
Softcore Gay Edgar Allan Poe Adaptation

Edgar Allan Poe would probably have difficulty recognising his short story, which has been turned into a work of softcore gay erotica in the hands of director David DeCoteau

Scooby-Doo (2002)

Scooby-Doo (2002) poster
Rating:
Ghostbusting Team/Cartoon in Live-Action

The live-action film version of the popular Hanna-Barbera animated tv series. Despite James Gunn on script, this is not very good, a one-dimensional, no-brain film trying to look like a one-dimensional, no-brain cartoon

No Retreat, No Surrender (1986)

No Retreat, No Surrender (1986) poster
Rating: ½
Martial Arts/Ghost of Bruce Lee

Martial arts film about a bullied teenager who gets aid from the ghost of Bruce Lee. A shabby effort lifted by the dynamic presence of a then unknown Jean-Claude Van Damme

An American Carol (2008)

An American Carol (2008) poster
Rating:
American Conservative Version of A Christmas Carol

A ridiculous American conservative satire that turns Dickens’ A Christmas Carol into a heavy-handed farce where a Michael Moore lookalike is made to see the error of his liberal ways

Psyched By the 4D Witch (A Tale of Demonology) (1972)

Psyched by the 4D Witch (A Tale of Demonology) (1972) poster
Rating:
Sex and Witchcraft

Fascinatingly bizarre psychotronic film about an innocent drawn into the secrets of sexual witchcraft. Bad filmmaking on almost every level

School Spirit (1985)

School Spirit (1985) poster
Rating:
Teen Comes Back from the Afterlife to Get Laid Comedy

In the vein of frat house comedies of the era like Animal House and Porky’s, this is an embarrassingly cringey film about a teen who is killed while trying to get laid and insists on lingering about to finish the job

Ghosts Can’t Do It (1989)

Ghosts Can't Do It (1989) poster
Rating:
Widow Guided on an Erotic Journey by Her Late Husband’s Ghost

An erotic film starring Donald Trump – I kid you not! A legendarily awful Bo Derek film where she is a widow who searches the world for the perfect body for her late husband’s ghost to reincarnate in

Troll 2 (1990)

Troll 2 (1990) poster
Rating:
Evil Goblins/Classic Bad Movie

Acclaimed as one of the worst films ever made, this has a legendary bizarreness that has made it a cult film, everything from the ridiculousness of its dialogue and effects to the cast that seems made up of unskilled amateurs

Hillbillys in a Haunted House (1967)

Hillbillys in a Haunted House (1967) poster
Rating:
Country and Western Singers in a Haunted House Comedy

A film of legendarily bad proportions where a group of Country and Western singers end up in a haunted house. Despite casting some famous horror actors, this is more interested in its excruciating country performances