The Fan (1996)
Dense, visually afire film from Tony Scott with Robert De Niro as a sports fan who snaps from the pressures of ordinary life and stalks baseball star Wesley Snipes
The Wicker Man (1973)
Classic horror film that imagines a secret world of pagan rites existing into the modern day. As much a classic for its colourful creation of a folk culture as it is for an unforgettable ending
The Island (1980)
Novelist Peter Benchley’s name was massive as a result of Jaws. This is one of the less successful Benchley adaptations that came out concerning the discovery of a lost society of pirate descendants who survive by preying on shipping in the Bermuda Triangle
Scanner Cop II: Volkin’s Revenge (1995)
The fourth and last of a series of low-budget sequels to David Cronenberg’s Scanners, also the worst of the bunch featuring a series of absurd head-exploding effects
The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies (1964)
One of the great ridiculous titles of all time. It’s a shame there’s nothing that comes anywhere near matching it in this tatty, poorly made film about a fortune teller turning men into disfigured, hypnotised slaves
The Innocents (1961)
Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw is a classic ghost story that hovers in a state of ambiguity as to whether the ghosts are real or in the heroine’s imagination. Of the multiple film versions, this is the best and most authentic to the story
The Return of Count Yorga (1971)
Count Yorga, Vampire was a minor success that started a spate of modern-day vampire films. This was a slightly lesser sequel that has the same droll wit but gets sidetracked in the middle sections
Dawn of the Mummy (1981)
By its very title, this is a mummy film that is trying to exploit Dawn of the Dead. Once the mummies are revived this is to all intents and purposes another in the fad for extremely gory Italian zombie films
Bulletproof Monk (2003)
Painfully derivative US-made attempt to jump aboard the popularity of Wu Xia following The Matrix and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. There are talented people involved who should have known better
Timecop (1994)
Film featuring Jean-Claude Van Damme as a temporal police officer. While you expect another time travel action film, this has quite a deal more sophistication in the scripting department than you expect
Lost in La Mancha (2002)
Fascinating documentary about the making of Terry Gilliam’s never completed The Man Who Killed Don Quixote and how everything fell apart due an extraordinary run of bad luck
Lon Chaney: A Thousand Faces (2000)
Documentary about the legendary silent actor Lon Chaney
Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (2001)
The feature film spinoff of a cult anime tv series
Cabin Fever (2002)
The first film from Eli Roth, which proved a solid hit, one that gets back to gore-drenched horror basics. Not quite the classic it was acclaimed but delivers the goods and with a strong dose of wryly sarcastic humour
Cry of the Banshee (1970)
Dreary film in which Vincent Price is a magistrate who is haunted by a manifestation of The Devil for his witch persecutions. The publicity falsely tried to sell this as an Edgar Allan Poe adaptation.
The Night Walker (1965)
William Castle psycho-thriller (from a Robert Bloch script) that creates an incredibly haunted mood between dream and reality only to fall apart in an absurdly contrived ending
Demonlover (2002)
Olivier Assayas directs a corporate thriller in which Connie Nielsen discovers herself in an underground of snuff S&M. This develops a compulsive hold but its pullback to kneejerk moralism is dissatisfying
Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary (2002)
Guy Maddin’s reinterpretation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula as a ballet and silent movie is an extraordinarily creative work while remaining far more faithful to the original story than many other film versions do
Intacto (2001)
Fascinating directorial debut from Spanish director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo about a man drawn into an underground society where people bet on the luck quotient of others
The Shadow of Mary Poppins (2002)
Documentary about Mary Poppins creator P.L. Travers that delves into the questions of her secretive past and often fictionalised biography, while also covering the making of the Disney film
A Boy and His Dog (1975)
This adaptation of a Harlan Ellison story is a B-budget delight that zings with witty dialogue and a young, unknown Don Johnson giving a very funny performance as the titular boy roaming the post-apocalyptic landscape with his dog
Juliet of the Spirits (1965)
Federico Fellini film in which Fellini’s wife Giulietta Masina plays a housewife whose grasp starts to slip over into hallucination and fantasy
Curse of the Crimson Altar (1968)
Dreary British occult film that wastes a great cast line-up, including Christopher Lee, Barbara Steele and an 82 year-old Boris Karloff in his last performance
Letters from a Dead Man (1986)
The 1980s brought a body of films about the advent of nuclear war. While all the others are English-language made, this is the sole one made by the Russians. The results are incredibly bleak but also have a haunting poetry
Mannequin on the Move (1991)
Sequel to the Mannequin, the inane film about a romance with a storefront dummy come to life, with Kristy Swanson as a princess turned into a statue
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)
Steven Spielberg and George Lucas’s first sequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark is like a single 118 minute rollercoaster ride without let-up in terms of action, although at the same time is far less polished in the scripting department
Adrenalin: Fear the Rush (1996)
An Albert Pyun action film with police officers Christopher Lambert and Natasha Henstridge pursuing an infected man through the sewers of a future quarantine zone
Sorority Babes at the Slimeball Bowl-o-Rama (1987)
A David DeCoteau film that comes with one of the great exploitation titles of all time but is otherwise a cheap Scream Queen vehicle about a demonically possessed bowling trophy
Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966)
Regarded as one of the worst films ever made, more than anything this is just dull and boring. The plot concerns a couple straying into a desert home where a warlock is about to be resurrected
Candy (1968)
A bad movie classic. Ewa Aulin is an alien innocent who passes through a series of sexual encounters. Based on a satirical novel, this mostly serves as the opportunity for several name stars to give embarrassingly bad performances
Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker (1981)
Psycho film that features Susan Tyrrell giving a totally demented performance and a plot that involves some fascinatingly twisted sexuality
City of the Living Dead (1980)
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
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)
After the highs of James Cameron’s first two Terminator films, this was a crashing disappointment. Schwarzenegger is back but his performance has become self-parody and the uninspired action sequences are accompanied by some terrible effects
Tattoo (2002)
German thriller in which an investigating detective is drawn into an underground world where people are being killed by collectors for their tattoos
Suicide Club (2002)
Japanese horror film that launched the name of Shion Sono and is attention grabbing but proves an unfathomable mix of mass suicides, mysterious websites that predict the deaths and a pop band seemingly controlling it all
My Little Eye (2002)
One of the best of several horror films that came out immediately following the advent of the reality tv show in the early 2000s. Director Marc Evans creates a sense of clammy claustrophobia.
Hulk (2003)
An early entry among the pre-MCU surge of Marvel Comics films in the early 2000s sees Ang Lee taking on The Incredible Hulk. Not Lee’s best film, this was slighted at the time but is worth reconsideration
Critters (1986)
A surprisingly likeable Gremlins copycat concerning an invasion by a horde of malicious alien creatures. An enjoyable popcorn muncher that has produced four sequels.
Dead Or Alive 2 – Birds (2000)
Takashi Miike’s Dead or Alive was a Yakuza film with a gonzo ending. In this sequel, Miike brings back the same two actors and makes it ALL gonzo
Bruce Almighty (2003)
Comedy in which God appears to Jim Carrey and grants him His powers for one week. Expectedly the film is of zero theological depth and all about Carrey going completely over-the-top
London After Midnight (1927)
A lost film from the great silent actor Lon Chaney [Sr] who would undergo great physical makeup transformations for his role. This also has the distinction of being the first Hollywood-made vampire film
The Naked Jungle (1954)
Vivid, well written production from George Pal with Charlton Heston as the owner of a South American plantation who faces an unstoppable horde of marabunta ants that are devouring everything in their path
Soft for Digging (2001)
Film made without dialogue about haunted happenings at a cabin in the woods that attains quite a haunted atmosphere
Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (2003)
DreamWorks animated Sinbad adventure by the numbers that seems to go out of its way to tell a Sinbad story divorced of its Islamic cultural background
Popcorn (1991)
Surprisingly good modern slasher film set in a movie theatre during a festival of old horror films. The films come with surprisingly affectionate and well done recreations of old gimmick films, and the slasher sequences a more than reasonable style
Quintet (1979)
The great Robert Altman’s most frustrating film set around an enigmatic dice game in a frozen future
Orphans and Angels (2003)
New Zealand made film about a woman who falls under the influence of a sinister stranger who plies her with drugs
The Beast (1975)
An exquisitely dreamlike erotic fairytale from cult director Walerian Borowczyk, a variant on Beauty and the Beast involving the liaison between a girl and a beast.
Volcano High (2001)
Energetic South Korean attempt to employ the Wu Xia action moves popularised by The Matrix and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in a high school setting
In My Skin (2002)
Fascinatingly perverse film directed and written by its star French actress Marina de Van who plays a woman who becomes obsessed with mutilating her own skin
Dahmer (2002)
A film based on true-life serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer that does a reasonable job in depicting the Dahmer story. This stars a young unknown Jeremy Renner in the title role
Avalon (2001)
Visually stunning live-action film from Mamoru Oshii, director of Ghost in the Shell, set in the beautifully stylised faded sepia tone world of a Virtual Reality game
Guardian (2001)
Utterly generic action film with Mario Van Peebles as a detective tracing a street drug that turns people psychothic before finding he is up against a body-hopping demon
Cannibal Apocalypse (1980)
Entry in the notorious Italian cannibal genre of the late 70s/early 80s. Here the recent hits of Dawn of the Dead and Apocalypse Now are merged in a plot involving zombified Vietnam veterans
Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker (2000)
Film spinoff of Batman Beyond, an animated tv series set in the future as a youngster inherits a hi-tech Batsuit from an aging Bruce Wayne. The film resurrects The Joker but fails to do anything interesting with the character
Alice in Wonderland (1999)
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
Irreversible (2002)
Highly controversial Gaspar Noe film, all told in reverse, depicting the rape of Monica Bellucci and violent revenge by her husband
Final Destination 2 (2003)
The first of the sequels, this has a group receiving bizarre deaths after receiving a premonition that prevents a deadly pile-up on the highway. In truth, it reveals the problems of creating a sequel to a film that was never intended to stretch to a series
Phone Booth (2002)
Sharp and original script from Larry Cohen in which Colin Farrell is trapped inside a phone booth by a sniper. Good story that even the awful Joel Schumacher in the director’s seat doesn’t screw up too badly
Legion (1998)
Well-made Alien copy that seems to have been conceived as a crosshatch between The Dirty Dozen and The Thing where the creature remains mostly psychological. A particularly good cast line-up create an interesting range of characters
Dead or Alive (1999)
A Yakuza film from Takashi Miike filled with ultra-violence and casual perversity before Miike goes nuts in a totally gonzo ending. Two unrelated sequels followed from Miike
Battle Royale (2000)
An entertainingly violent Japanese comic-book of a movie in which a classroom of school pupils is abandoned on an island with weapons to eliminate one another. Frequently cited as the inspiration for The Hunger Games
Kiss the Girls (1997)
The first film adapted from James Patterson’s books about forensic profiler Alex Cross with standout performances from Morgan Freeman and Ashley Judd
Josh Kirby … Time Warrior! Eggs from 70 Million B.C. (1996)
Fourth of the Josh Kirby juveniles and the point the series started to become quite well made
Scars of Dracula (1970)
The sixth of the Hammer Dracula films and generally regarded as the low point of the series. It feels as though nobody involved seemed to be making an effort anymore.
The Witches of Eastwick (1987)
Deliriously frothy and enjoyable George Miller film with Cher, Susan Sarandon and Michelle Pfeiffer as three witches who conjure forth Devil figure – Jack Nicholson in full barnstorming mode
The Guyver (1991)
US-made live-action adaptation of a popular manga/anime about a power-suit superhero. Directed by two makeup effects artists mostly as a vehicle for their creature creations
The Incredible Shrinking Woman (1981)
An appealing comedy remake of The Incredible Shrinking Man with Lily Tomlin as a housewife who starts to shrink after exposure to household cleaning products. One of the better films from the usually terrible Joel Schumacher
Teen Wolf (1985)
This lamely updates I Was a Teenage Werewolf to the 1980s high school, strips all horror elements and has Michael J. Fox’s transformation be regarded as an instant injection of cool. The result was a surprising hit
Time Slip (1981)
Highly entertaining Japanese film about modern soldiers thrown back to feudal Japan and deciding to overthrow the shogunate
Saturn 3 (1980)
Ambitious if not entirely successful film with Harvey Keitel building a robot that proceeds to go amok on a moonbase inhabited by Kirk Douglas and Farrah Fawcett
It’s Alive (1974)
The film about a killer mutant baby that made the name of cult director Larry Cohen and produced several sequels. Cohen infuses it with rich imagery and dark humour
Time Under Fire (1997)
Unimaginative time travel/action film that plays out like
Invaders from Mars (1986)
Tobe Hooper’s remake of the 1950s alien invaders classic for Cannon Films is more technically proficient but misses the original’s paranoid, alienating mood
Thunderpants (2002)
Likeable film about a kid with incredibly powerful farts who uses his ability to launch a rocket. It’s mind-boggling to think such a premise was ever given funding nd a greenlight
Alien from the Deep (1989)
In his second to last film, Italian B-budget director Antonio Margheriti makes a cheap and not very good Alien copy that feels like a throwback to the 1950s monster movie
Child’s Play 2 (1990)
The first Child’s Play felt like an incredibly silly film. However, this first sequel takes the same elements and constructs them into a much tighter, better package
The Astounding She-Monster (1958)
A cheap 1950s B alien invader film with mobsters holed up at a mountainside cabin who are then visited by Shirley Kilpatrick as a radioactive alien
The Core (2003)
A CGI disaster film about a journey to the centre of the Earth to restart the magnetic core. This is a film construed as no more than a series of spectacular self-contained disaster set-pieces, often irrespective of any of them making sense
Blood Run (1994)
This blatantly copies the plot of Basic Instinct with detective David Bradley being seduced by bisexual blonde Anna Thomson who is also the suspect in a murder investigation
Below (2002)
David Twohy, director of Pitch Black, makes a fine subtle, ghost story set aboard a submarine during WWII. At times, this achieves a genuinely haunted atmosphere
An Inspector Calls (1954)
Film version of a classic play about an inspector who calls to expose the sins of a wealthy family and their involvement in the death of a girl. Comes with a fantastical twist in the tale.
King Solomon’s Mines (1985)
Cannon Films’ remake of the H. Rider Haggard adventure novel was made to exploit the success of Raiders of the Lost Ark but that does not excuse what an awful film it is where everything is played up for excruciating camp humour
Galaxina (1980)
The major distinction this has is as starring murdered Playboy Playmate Dorothy Stratten. An SF comedy made in the aftermath of Star Wars where Stratten is an android on a ship voyage romancing her human commander
The Lair of the White Worm (1988)
Ken Russell adapts a Bram Stoker novel about a snake cult and turns it into a campy over-the-top comedy
Killers from Space (1953)
A cheesily bad alien invader film from the 1950s that seems to be trying to throw every element in SF from mind controlling aliens to atomic monsters in to the mix
The Invisible Boy (1957)
Film designed to feature Forbidden Planet‘s Robbie the Robot where he has been sent back in time to the present and is befriended by a young boy
Trick or Treat (1986)
Film about a heavy metal star resurrected from the dead. This sets out spoofing fundamentalist paranoias about backwards masking but soon ends up all over the place and fails to take itself serously
Dressed to Kill (1980)
Brian De Palma’s homage to Psycho. De Palma at his peak, this is dazzlingly stylish in its directorial set-pieces and comes with an often outrageous sexual pathology
Species (1995)
Slick and rather silly copy of Alien that conceptually cross-hatches it to emerge as essentially Basic Instinct with tentacles
Santa Claus – The Movie (1985)
The producers of the Christopher Reeve Superman films turn to making a Santa film but this proved a massively over-budgeted flop
Lifeforce (1985)
Tobe Hooper’s space vampires film wildly divides audiences and was a big flop for Cannon Films. You have to applaud its ambitious conceptual grasp even if it bites off far more wild ideas than it is ever capable of coherently presenting
Weird Science (1985)
John Hughes cornered a certain 80s market on teen angst with films like The Breakfast Club. He also made this head-scratching oddity in which two nerds create the perfect woman
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972)
Academy Award winning film from Luis Buñuel, a series of surreal vignettes as a group of friends set out to dinner but always end up being prevented
I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle (1990)
British venture into the gonzo splatter film that beyond an amusing title is just crude and heavy-handed
Dog Soldiers (2002)
The first film from Neil Marshall. Essentially a version of Walter Hill’s Southern Comfort but with soldiers being hunted by werewolves instead of Cajuns. Marshall directs with a satisfying ferocity.
Fellini’s Casanova (1976)
Federico Fellini conducts his version of the life of the great lover but turns into a fantastical film of gorgeously surreal excess filled with extravagant sets and costuming
The Human Vapor (1960)
Godzilla creator Ishiro Honda makes a film about a meek man who gains the ability to transform into a mist and promptly becomes a bank-robbing super-villain
If Looks Could Kill (1991)
Way back before Austin Powers, the James Bond/spy movie parody began here with this silly effort in which teenager Richard Grieco is propelled into an international spy caper
The Icicle Thief (1989)
An absolutely delightful comedy from Maurizio Nichetti, a parody of Bicycle Thieves, which becomes a meta-fiction that has the characters emerge from the screen and enter the modern world