The Gate (1987)
Demonic Gateway Opened
Modest horror film of the 1980s where kids inadvertently open a demonic gateway. Like a juvenile version of Poltergeist, this comes with the bonus of some fairly good effects
Portals
In fantastic cinema, portals are doorways that lead to somewhere else. A portal need not be a literal doorway – it can be a gate, a window, a cave, a hole in the ground, a Time or Space Warp, or else a stargate, even a cupboard as in the Narnia films. Stories are rarely about the portal in itself but almost always about the adventure that can be found on the other side. In horror films, they can be doorways that let something else into this world.
Often portals are hidden and the key to open them or the map to their whereabouts is something that is greatly sought. Or else they can simply be discovered forgotten or unnoticed amid some corner of the everyday.
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
From Beyond the Grave (1974)
Horror Anthology
One of the best of the Amicus horror anthologies. All of the episodes are strong, well cast and well directed. The third episode offers a particularly funny comic take on the exorcism film
Forbidden Zone (1982)
Gonzo Other-Dimensional Musical
Cultishly bizarre, deliberately offbeat and wacky film that was made as a vehicle for the band Oingo Boingo. More a film you admire for its determination to be strange than anything else
Fat Albert (2004)
Cartoon Characters Enter the Real World
One of a spate of films of the 90s/00s that adapted animated tv series in live-action – in this case Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids. Here all we get is the animated characters emerging into the real world for slapstick inanity
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
End of the World (1977)
Aliens in a Convent/Looming End of the World
A thorough embarrassment on Christopher Lee’s resume – an early Charles Band film in which Lee is a stranded alien inhabiting the cloned body of priest in a convent of nuns
Encounter with the Unknown (1973)
Horror Anthology
A variant on the horror anthology film that manages to let the potential in its three stories fall through its hands. Narrated by Rod Serling, creator of tv’s classic anthology series The Twilight Zone, who must’ve needed the money
11.22.63 (2016)
Time Traveller Tries to Prevent the Assassination of JFK/Stephen King Adaptation
Stephen King adapted mini-series in which James Franco finds a mysterious door that leads back to 1960 and sets out to prevent the assassination of President Kennedy
Earthtastrophe (2016)
Earth Transported to Another Solar System
Syfy Channel disaster movie where Earth is suddenly transported into another Solar System amid cheap effects and an improbable time travel solution is sought to reverse this
The Dyatlov Pass Incident (2013)
Unexplained Mystery/Found Footage
The Dyatlov Pass Incident has gained a fascination as an unexplained mystery. Here Renny Harlin makes a Found Footage film that heads for full on conspiracy theory explanations
The Dunwich Horror (2009)
H.P. Lovecraft Adaptation
An adaptation of the H.P. Lovecraft short story. While more faithful to the story than the earlier 1969 adaptation, the film is very cheaply made and collapses into the frequently ridiculous
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)
Sword and Sorcery
A new film based on the role-playing game. The first film several years ago is poorly regarded. This is an attempt to reboot a film series but suffers badly from being handed to two comedy directors and their flip treatment
Doors (2021)
Anthology/Mysterious Alien Portals Appear
Multi-director anthology about a series of mysterious portals that appear around the world, this creates a sense of something genuinely alien and otherworldly
Don’t Knock Twice (2016)
Old Woman's Supernatural Retribution
Welsh director Caradog James impressed with his previous film The Machine. Here he makes a horror film concerning an urban legend about an old crone haunting those who disturb her, but fails to do anything notable
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)
Marvel Comics Magician Superhero
Doctor Strange was one of the better MCU films. Here Sam Raimi takes over in the director’s chair. This readily delves into multiverse themes but requires a major crash course in a plethora of Marvel tv series to follow
Doctor Strange (2007)
Marvel Comics Magician Superhero/Animation
One among a handful of animated films based on Marvel Comics properties, this conducts a passable telling of the origin story of the Sorcerer Supreme
Doctor Strange (2016)
Marvel Comics Magician Superhero
Scott Derrickson acquits himself well taking on one of Marvel’s magician superhero. He replicates well the psychedelic esoterica that gained the comic book a cult following and Benedict Cumberbatch anchors the show perfectly
Deus (2022)
Space Expedition Finds Gateway to Heaven
This has distinct overtones of 2001: Space Odyssey and Event Horizon about an expedition to Mars to investigate a mysterious black sphere – only to find that it offers a gateway to Heaven
Destiny Turns on the Radio (1995)
Luck Incarnate/Lovers on the Run in Vegas
Would be quirky, surrealistic indie film with lovers on the run in Las Vegas. Quentin Tarantino appears as the spirit of chance from an interdimensional swimming pool
The Darkness (2016)
Haunting/Native American Demons Awakened
Greg McLean has made an impressive name with the Wolf Creek films and Rogue. In his first US film, he delivers a disappointing and utterly generic haunted suburban house film
Darken (2017)
Labyrinth World
A film that comes with an interesting sounding premise where a woman ventures through a doorway into a labyrinth world of interconnected rooms and ends up in a fight against the ruling theocracy
The Dark Tower (2017)
Stephen King Adaptation/Portal to a Parallel World
Screenwriter Akiva Goldsman gives us an utterly mangled version of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series that has little resemblance to the books, yet makes little sense if you haven’t read them
Dark House (2014)
House of Evil/Backwoods Deviltry
The underrated Victor Salva, director of Jeepers Creepers, takes on the deviltry and occult film where with his ability to conjure eerie jumps and outlandish images produces something original and out of this world
Coraline (2009)
Stop-Motion Animation/Sinister Mirror World
The welcome return of stop-motion animator Henry Selick, the director of The Nightmare Before Christmas and at his wildly imaginative and darkly menacing best in an adaptation of a book by Neil Gaiman
City of the Living Dead (1980)
Italian Zombie Film
One of the key films in the cult of Lucio Fulci, a zombie film driven by a series of gore-drenched set-pieces. On the other hand, there is the complete lack of a plot holding everything together
Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away (2012)
Magical Circus/Fantasy World
The trailer tries to build this up as a venture into a fantasy world. In reality, all that the film is is a documenting of several of Cirque du Soleil’s acts connected by a thin-to-non-existent story
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010)
Epic Fantasy Adventure/Magical Otherworld
Another lacklustre entry in the banal Lord of the Rings Lite franchise from C.S. Lewis’s books, a plodding run of the mill fantasy adventure for the most part. The mediocre reception killed off interest in the series
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005)
Epic Fantasy Adventure/Magical Otherworld
The film adaptation of C.S. Lewis’s book sought to appeal to audiences for the Lord of the Rings films but between Lewis’s heavy-handed Christian allegories and Andrew Adamson’s inexperience as a director fails to fly
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008)
Epic Fantasy Adventure/Magical Otherworld
The second of the Narnia films. Director Andrew Adamson seems so intent on copying Peter Jackson that the film becomes all epic fantasy flourishes and battle scenes to the exclusion of all else – even much of C.S. Lewis’s book
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair (1990)
Epic Fantasy Adventure/Magical Otherworld
This was the fourth and final, as well as the best of the BBC’s tv adaptations of C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books, which works well enough despite the impoverished production values
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1989)
Epic Fantasy Adventure/Magical Otherworld
This was the third of the four BBC tv adaptations of C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books. The tv versions treats the books with quite reasonable faithfulness but suffer from extremely cheap looking effects
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (1989)
Epic Fantasy Adventure/Magical Otherworld
The second of the BBC’s tv adaptations of C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books, the slightest of the works where the story is reduced to two half-hour episode
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, & The Wardrobe (1988)
Epic Fantasy Adventure/Magical Otherworld
Before the films, this was an earlier BBC tv mini-series version of the C.S. Lewis book, one of a series of four adaptations. This is faithful to the story but suffers from impoverished effects
Chompy and the Girls (2021)
Gonzo Comedy/Other-Dimensional Entities
Hilariously bizarre film with people dealing with an entity that is man with a massive mouth that is intent on swallowing an army of identical little girls
The Cellar (2022)
Mysterious House
An Irish horror film that generates undeniably mysterious atmosphere after a family move into a new house and the teenage daughter disappears after going down into the cellar
Call Girl of Cthulhu (2014)
H.P. Lovecraft Homage/Parody
Fan parody/homage of H.P. Lovecraft that comes waist-deep in references and jokes. The film is an amateur effort made with a painful cheapness in some areas; nevertheless it is clear that the team are really into making it and their enthusiasm carries the film
The Breach (2022)
Lovecraftian Horrors
Rodrigo Gudiño, editor of Rue Morgue magazine, directs a horror film with strong Lovecraftian overtones about a portal opened at a mysterious cabin in the woods
The Beyond (2017)
Mysterious Portal Appears in Earth Orbit
A highly ambitious film about a mysterious alien portal that appears in Earth orbit and the attempts to explore what is on the other side
The Beyond (1981)
Italian Zombie Film/Gateway to Hell
One of the key films of cult Italian director Lucio Fulci, a gore-drenched but plotlessly incoherent mishmash about zombies emerging as the gates of Hell are opened
Being John Malkovich (1999)
Portal Into Actor's Head/Absurdism
Hilariously eccentric Spike Jonze-Charlie Kaufman collaboration in which John Cusack finds an office building that has a portal that takes someone through into actor John Malkovich’s head. The wacky spins that the script places on the idea are ingenious
Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time (1991)
The Beastmaster Comes to L.A.
Excruciating sequel to The Beastmaster that transports Marc Singer’s Dar to contemporary L.A. The whole film is wrecked by an attitude that seems unable to take the proceedings seriously.
Battle for Pandora (2022)
Planetary Exploration/Alien Body Snatchers
The Asylum’s mockbuster take on Avatar: The Way of Water, which ingeniously exploits the fact that Saturn has a moon called Pandora. The rest is a low-budget body snatchers film
Batman: Soul of the Dragon (2021)
Animation/Comic-Book Superhero
An oddity among the animated Batman films. This seems less another Batman film – Bruce Wayne gets more screen time than Batman, for instance – than it does a homage to the 1970s martial arts film
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
Backrooms (2026)
Labyrinth of Other Dimensional Rooms
A fascinating word-of-mouth hit based on a YouTube series about the exploration of a labyrinth of extra-dimensional office rooms built on an eerily alien design scheme
Avengers Grimm: Time Wars (2018)
Team-Up Between Fairytale Princesses
Released at the same time as Avengers: Infinity War, this was a mockbuster from The Asylum involving a team-up between fairytale characters. The third in their Avengers Grimm series
Avengers Grimm (2015)
Team-Up Between Fairytale Princesses
The Asylum’s response to Avengers: Age of Ultron. Not having their own superheroes, they have ingeniously created an adventure involving various fairytale princesses – a great idea that befalls miserable execution
The Avengers (2012)
Marvel Comics Superhero Team-Up
The culmination of one of the most ambitious cinematic exercises ever conducted, with Marvel weaving storylines through several films to finally merge here with flawless regard. The characters get far more depth than in all of their previous films
As Above So Below (2014)
Found Footage/Gateway to Hell
The Brothers Dowdle made the standout The Poughkeepsie Tapes but this is a sub-Da Vinci Code archaeological mystery that is little more than a Halloween haunted house attraction in the Paris catacombs
Anastasia: Once Upon a Time (2020)
Princess Anastasia Time Travels to the Present
Bizarre family film in which Russian princess Anastasia travels through time to the present day and discovers mall culture
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1972)
Alice in Wonderland Adaptation
A live-action film adaptation of Alice in Wonderland that conducts a passable run through of Lewis Carroll with the supporting characters populated by an all-star British cast
Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016)
Alice in Wonderland Sequel
Sequel to the 2010 Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland. This has even less in common with Lewis Carroll’s book sequel than its predecessor did – a total of two scenes. The sets and effects are just pretty eye candy
Alice Through the Looking Glass (1987)
Animation/Alice in Wonderland Film
Obscure animated children’s movie adaptation of Alice in Wonderland that commits the sin of modernising and Americanizing Alice
Alice in Wonderland (2010)
Alice in Wonderland Adaptation/Epic Adventure
Tim Burton takes on Lewis Carroll but Carroll gets lost beneath Burton doing his usual quirky eccentric thing and a plot that seems to want to turn Alice’s adventures into a modern epic fantasy
Alice in Wonderland (1999)
Alice in Wonderland TV Adaptation
A fairly reasonable tv mini-series adaptation of Lewis Carroll – a version that excels in terms of design and in using The Jim Henson Workshop to bring the Wonderland creatures to life
Alice in Wonderland (1951)
Disney Animation/Alice in Wonderland Adaptation
Disney’s animated adaptation is usually hated by Lewis Carroll purists for its free and easy treatment of the story but for everyone else comes with a splendidly demented visual absurdism
Alice in Wonderland (1933)
Alice in Wonderland Adaptation
Studio adaptation that freely mixes elements from Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass and features an all-star cast line-up, this works far better than the purists would have it
Alice (2009)
SF Version of Alice in Wonderland
Following on from his reworking of The Wizard of Oz in Tin Man, this is a tv mini-series where Nick Willing rather fascinatingly reinterprets Alice in Wonderland in SF terms
Alice (1988)
Surreal Claymation Alice in Wonderland Adaptation
A work of bizarre genius from stop-motion animator Jan Svankmajer. A surrealist take on Alice in Wonderland that is more Eraserhead than Lewis Carroll, filled with Svankmajer’s bizarre Claymation creatures
The Alchemist (1983)
Evil Sorcerer
One of the earliest films from Charles Band. In the years following, Band went onto produce and occasionally direct a great many often enterprisingly cheap low-budget genre films – this is not one of them
Age of Tomorrow (2014)
The Asylum Mockbuster/Alien Invasion
The Asylum’s mockbuster answer to the Tom Cruise film Edge of Tomorrow, which has very little to do with it other than both featuring an alien invasion. A film created with more ambition than budget to convey it
The ABCs of Death (2012)
Horror Anthology
Unique anthology that offers 26 episodes from different directors, each ending with a death. The episodes vary wildly in quality but a sufficient number ignore all good taste and/or travel waaaay across taboo lines