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The Door Into Summer (2021)
Robert Heinlein’s time travel novel gets a surprisingly faithful adaptation from Japan to emerge with considerable conceptual dexterity
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The Black Spider (2022)
Standout Swiss film, an exceptionally well written work about a pact made with the devil that unleashes a plague of spiders upon a mediaeval village
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The Little Mermaid (2023)
Disney’s original The Little Mermaid was an enormously fresh film. This is the inevitable live-action remake
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They Cloned Tyrone (2023)
A wonderfully paranoid film where John Boyega discovers illicit mind control experiments being conducted on a ghetto neighbourhood and that he is a clone
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Outpost III: Rise of the Spetsnaz (2013)
Outpost was a modestly effective Nazi zombie film. This was the second of two sequels, a prequel that goes back to depict the original Nazi experiments
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Extracted (2012)
An undeniably imaginative SF film in which a scientist invents a device to view memory only to become trapped in someone else’s memories
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Without Warning (1994)
Made for the anniversary of the Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds broadcast, a tv movie that simulates a a live newscast as alien craft arrive around the world
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Long Story Short (2021)
Comedy in which Rafe Spall finds he is moving ahead through his life one year at a time every few minutes
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The Outwaters (2022)
An ultra cryptic Found Footage film about mysterious happenings in the desert
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The Flash (2023)
Despite a poor box-office performance, it is a surprise what a good superhero film this is, easily outstripping the last half-dozen MCU films put together
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Bird Box: Barcelona (2023)
Bird Box was a hit on Netflix and this is a sequel. The talented Pastor Brothers take the basics of the original and make a much better film out of them
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The Evil Next Door (2020)
Swedish film that conjures an extremely spooky mood in the story of a ghost boy haunting a house
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Dead Rising: Watchtower (2015)
The first of two films adapted from the zombie survival horror videogame from the creators of Resident Evil
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Detention of the Dead (2012)
Another entry in the zombie comedy field, this is essentially a retread of The Breakfast Club but with the addition of zombies
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JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable – Chapter 1 (2017)
Cinematic madman Takashi Miike takes on a live-action adaptation of one of Japan’s longest running mangas
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Dinosaur Hotel (2021)
A head-scratching oddity in which people enter into a tv deathgame show where they are hunted through a hotel by dinosaurs
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R.I.P.D. 2: Rise of the Damned (2022)
A sequel to R.I.P.D. that tells an origin story of how the sheriff character played by Jeff Bridges in the original became an afterlife enforcement officer
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Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (2023)
The seventh of the live-action Transformers films, the second made after Michael Bay stepped down from the director’s chair
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Asteroid City (2023)
A Wes Anderson film set in a stunningly designed retro 1950s town as various characters intersect in between the appearance of an alien visitor
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How I Became a Super-Hero (2020)
French film about a police unit dealing with investigations into super-powered crimes
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The Machine Girl (2008)
Another highly entertaining entry in the Gonzo Japanese Splatter Film about a schoolgirl who seeks revenge with her arm stump replaced by a Gatling gun
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Dick Tracy (1937)
A standout serial based on the famous comic-book detective, featuring some of the best of all serial cliffhangers and action set-pieces
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Robotapocalypse (2021)
Rather entertaining film from The Asylum about the machine revolution that overspills with madcap technological invention
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Warhunt (2022)
A supernatural variant on Overlord where G.I.’s during WWII enter the Black Forest and encounter something supernatural
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Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3 (2023)
Third of the Guardians of the Galaxy films, this successfully captures the nature of the goofy ensemble comedy caper that made the first film such a winner
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The Ritual Killer (2023)
A film that stands much in the shadow of Se7en and the serial killer thriller with Morgan Freeman tracking a ritual African killer
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Rampo (1994)
Beautifully made arthouse film about the real-life Japanese horror writer who becomes wound up in in enigmatic meta-fiction with his own creation
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Camp Blood (2000)
The first in a surprisingly prolific series of slasher films, up to eight sequels at current count, this vigorously homages the 1980s basics
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Shrooms (2007)
A party go searching for magic mushrooms in rural Ireland. In between assorted drug hallucinations, someone or thing begins slaughtering the group
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The Fall of Usher (2021)
Not an adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe story but a film about a man in a troubled state of mind that comes filled with numerous Poe references
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Deus (2022)
This has distinct overtones of 2001 and Event Horizon where an expedition to Mars finds a sphere that offers a gateway to Heaven
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Mr. Harrigan’s Phone (2022)
Nicely made Stephen King adaptation about a teen who starts to receive text message from beyond the grave
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Venus (2022)
Jaume Balaguero of [Rec] fame returns with an occult horror where a woman on the run is drawn into sinister happenings at an apartment
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Evil Toons (1992)
Who Framed Roger Rabbit? popularised the idea of the toon. This was exploitation director Fred Olen Ray’s take where a stripper is possessed by a demonic toon
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The Noah (1975)
Experimental film about the last man left on Earth after a nuclear war who develops a series of imaginary companions
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Baby Blood (1990)
Wild and gore-drenched French film where a woman is impregnated by a parasite that urges her to kill and drink blood so that it can grow
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H.P. Lovecraft’s Monster Portal (2022)
Low-budget Lovecraftian film about a woman who inherits a British country estate to find someone has opened a portal to unleash entities
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The Mitchells vs. the Machines (2021)
A surprise delight, an animated film that overspills with madcap creative energy concerning a misfit family up against the machine revolution
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The Portable Door (2023)
A story about an apprentice at a mysterious company that deals with magic, this could well serve as a fix for those wanting something more of the Harry Potter franchise
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Rubikon (2022)
Austrian film where three people aboard a space station survive a toxic cloud that obliterates all life on Earth below
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Rootwood (2018)
A copy of The Blair Witch Project with a trio of filmmakers trekking into the woods with cameras in search of The Wood Devil
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Arrest Bulldog Drummond (1938)
One of several Hollywood films based on popular adventurer hero Bulldog Drummond, this throws him in the midst of a plot to obtain a raygun
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Scream Pretty Peggy (1973)
A psycho-thriller that offers up the plot of Jane Eyre by way of Psycho. With Bette Davis rising to form as an alcoholic mother
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Minor Premise (2020)
Fascinating film that conjures something of Primer in which a scientist creates a machine that splits his personality into ten parts
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Captain Nova (2021)
Appealing film in which a pilot travels back in time to save the future but finds she is now stuck in her 12 year-old body
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Missile to the Moon (1958)
A remake of the classic bad movie Cat-Women of the Moon where explorers to the Moon encounter an all-women society
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Warriors of Virtue (1997)
Fantasy film set in a magical otherworld defended by martial arts wielding kangaroos
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Trouble Every Day (2001)
Acclaimed director Claire Denis makes a quite out there film in which people are obsessively driven to devour others during the act of sex
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Among the Living (2022)
Modest, low-budgeted British film about people trying to survive in the aftermath of a catastrophe
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Restart the Earth (2021)
A Chinese attempt to make a Michael Bay mass destruction spectacular depicting an Earth that has been overrun by massive plant growth
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Hypnotic (2023)
Robert Rodriguez makes a film about psychic powers that develops into a considerable mind twister
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There’s Something Wrong With the Children (2023)
Quite decent Blumhouse film in which children suddenly go bad and begin playing malicious, murderous games with adults
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Castle in the Air (1952)
Likeable light fantasy comedy about a haunted Scottish castle peopled with a cast of eccentrics
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Ju-on (2000)
The Ju-on/The Grudge is one of the most popular modern kaidan eiga series, having produced fourteen films to date. This was the first of the series
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Realive (2016)
Strong and worthwhile film about the first man woken from cryogenic suspension in the future. A film from Alejandro Amenabar’s regular co-writer, the writer of Open Your Eyes
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Mayflower II (2020)
An hilariously bad film in which Christians launch a space mission to flee a Bible-censoring dystopia on Earth
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Afterlife of the Party (2021)
From the director of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, a light fantasy film in which a party girl dies but is sent back from Heaven to find closure with people in her life
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Vesper (2022)
Visually extraordinary film set in an environmentally devastated future, this place enormous creativity into depicting a strange, very alien world
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Nocebo (2022)
Film that develops a Folk Horror vibe as Eva Green hires a nanny with mysterious healing powers. The horror version of Mary Poppins
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13/13/13 (2013)
The Asylum made 11/11/11 and 12/12/12 and released them on said dates. Despite running out of exploitable months in the year, they then released a third film here
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Legend of the White Horse (1986)
Christopher Lloyd and Dee Wallace star in one of the tattiest of 1980s fantasy films about a magic horse that is really a dragon
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Genocidal Organ (2017)
An extraordinary anime adapted from Project Itoh concerning a villain who can manipulate language to drive populations to genocide
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Ascendant (2021)
A variant on Buried, which had Ryan Reynolds trapped in a coffin for the duration, featuring a girl trapped in an elevator as it conducts high-speed rises and drops, all before a bizarre left field SF ending
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Wifelike (2022)
This is like a version of The Stepford Wives updated to the era of Ex Machina and the modern A.I./android film
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The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)
A hugely successful animated film based on the popular videogame franchise
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V/H/S/99 (2022)
The fifth film of the Found Footage horror anthology series, including one episode that is among the best of the series so far
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Sharktopus vs Whalewolf (2015)
Third of the Sharktopus films from Roger Corman, an entry in the series that is making no longer making any effort to take itself seriously
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The Boogie Man Will Get You (1942)
Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre make an unexpectedly great comic pairing in this demented mad scientist screwball comedy
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The Librarian: Return to King Solomon’s Mines (2006)
The second of The Librarian films with Noah Wyle as an Indiana Jones-modelled adventurer in search of mythical artefacts
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He Dreams of Giants (2019)
Lost in La Mancha was a documentary charting the collapse Terry Gilliam’s The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. Gilliam later finished the film and brought the same documentary-makers back to chart the process
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Evil Dead Rise (2023)
A new take on The Evil Dead films, which takes a much more serious and gore-drenched outlook
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The Pope’s Exorcist (2023)
A film based on the true-life figure of the Vatican’s official exorcist Father Gabriele Amorth this could have been great but descends into tedious hokum
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The Embalmer (1965)
Early variation on the giallo film with a frogman abducting people from the canals of Venice and then preserving their bodies
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The Kingdom of Crooked Mirrors (1963)
A Soviet equivalent of Alice Through the Looking Glass where a young girl ventures into a fantasy on the other side of the mirror
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The Green Hornet (1940)
The first screen appearance of the masked superhero in a thirteen-chapter serial
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Night of the Animated Dead (2021)
A remake of the original zombie film Night of the Living Dead conducted in animation
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Torn Hearts (2022)
Rather good film featuring Married … With Children’s Katey Sagal who gives a splendidly deranged performance in the full Baby Jane mode as an aging Country and Western star
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Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)
A new film based on the role-playing game. The first film several years ago is poorly regarded and this is an attempt to reboot a film series
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Renfield (2023)
Twilight fairly much killed the vampire film. This is the first of two big-budget offerings of 2023 that aims to turn that around
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The Toymaker (2017)
The third of the Robert the Doll films, which copy the Puppet Master films in creating an origin story set during the Nazi era
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The Monster and the Girl (1941)
Mad scientist film in which George Zucco transplants an executed man’s brain into a gorilla’s body whereupon the ape-man proceeds to exact revenge against those who wrongly convicted him
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The Living and the Dead (2016)
One of the best and most original ghost stories in some time, a production for the BBC
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A Classic Horror Story (2021)
Italian horror film that comes with many homages to classic horror films, wound together in a Folk Horror plot that satisfyingly delivers the goods
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Crabs! (2021)
An amusingly tongue-in-cheek horror comedy about an attack by giant crabs
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Scream VI (2023)
The sixth entry in a series that began as a smart and clever parody/deconstruction of the slasher film. Whether this is now just another teen franchise film or still has those same smarts is a good question
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Peter Pan and Wendy (2023)
Disney conduct a live-action remake of their Peter Pan and promisingly place it in the hands of David Lowery, director of A Ghost Story and The Green Knight
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Clark Ashton Smith: The Emperor of Dreams (2018)
Documentary about a largely unknown author of weird fiction, who was a contemporary of and influence on H.P. Lovecraft
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Alice in Wonderland (1985)
From Irwin Allen, the creator of Lost in Space etc, a tv version of Alice in Wonderland, conceived as an all-star musical
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The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1980)
A tv movie version of the classic ghost story, the most faithful to date. With a young Jeff Goldblum as Ichabod Crane
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The Wasteland (2021)
Standout Spanish film about a 19th Century family at remote house under attack by monsters that may just as easily exist in the mind
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Incredible But True (2022)
Another of Quentin Dupieux’s gonzo, surreal comedies about a couple who buy a house that has a time portal in the basement
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Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)
The third of the films devoted to Marvel’s miniature superhero, this works well when it comes to introducing the MCU’s big new super-villain
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Brian and Charles (2022)
A wonderfully charming and really quite eccentric comedy where a man builds a robot out of junk
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Curse of Mesopotamia (2015)
The first Iraqi horror film
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Gappa the Triphibian Monster (1967)
Fairly crappy and terrible Japanese monster movie from a rival company seeking to copy the Godzilla films
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Night Hair Child (1972)
Quite a perversely charged film about a psychopathic child with voyeuristic tendencies
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Spiritwalker (2020)
A conceptually intriguing cross between the bodyswap film and the South Korean gangster film
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Glorious (2022)
Film with a literally off-the-wall premise in which Ryan Kwanten is trapped in a rest stop bathroom with a Lovecraftian deity that speaks through a glory hole in the next stall
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Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre (2023)
Guy Ricthie makes a spy action film that doesn’t take itself too seriously and is far more absurdly entertaining than anything you expect it to be. Hugh Grant steals the day as the super-villain of the show
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The Pale Blue Eye (2022)
Superlatively moody and well written film that winds a young Edgar Allan Poe into an occult murder mystery