Nightbitch (2024)
This comes with the irresistible appeal of a premise where frustrated mother Amy Adams finds herself turning into a dog
Amityville Karen (2022)
The term Karen has come to mean an entitled woman who complains a great deal. This is a horror comedy about one such Karen who becomes possessed after drinking wine from the Amityville house
Amityville Playhouse (2015)
One out of some thirty odd films using the Amityville name. This concerns a girl who inherits a haunted theatre in the town of Amityville
Zinda (2006)
A blatant Bollywood copy of Oldboy, often scene-for-scene
The Master of Disguise (2002)
Hardly anyone remembers Dana Carvey, Mike Myers’ co-star in Wayne’s World. This was Carvey’s attempt to copy the Austin Powers films and is regarded as a bad movie
Nitram (2021)
A true crime film based on Martin Bryant who went on a shooting spree, killing 35 people in Port Arthur, Australia in 1996
Oddity (2024)
An Irish film that develops an incredibly uncanny atmosphere as a blind clairvoyant deduces what happened regarding her sister’s murder
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (2024)
Aardman Animation give Wallace and Gromit their second film outing
The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim (2024)
A spinoff prequel to the Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films that takes the option that several other film/videogame franchises have of Going Anime
Cyborg Cop II (1994)
From the height of the 90s RoboCop copycat video release, a sequel that this time pits DEA agent David Bradley up against an army of rogue cyborgs
Robowar (1988)
From Italy, a blatant copy of Predator – only where instead of a military unit being hunted through the jungle by an alien, they are hunted by a copycat of RoboCop
Bells of Innocence (2003)
Perhaps the strangest film on Chuck Norris’s cv – the film where Chuck plays an angel. A work of Christian horror where Chuck’s son Mike plays a decent man trapped in a sinister Western town of devil worshipping children
It Happened Tomorrow (1944)
Classic screwball comedy with Dick Powell as a journalist who becomes recipient of newspapers that predict tomorrow’s headlines
Kung Fu Traveler (2017)
A Chinese version of The Terminator if you can imagine the android as the hero who travels back in time to learn a lost form of kung fu to prevent an alien invasion
Good Boy (2022)
A wonderfully disturbed film from Norway. A girl goes on a date with a man and discovers he has a roommate who wears a furrie suit and lives as a dog. And then things start to get really twisted
Flow (2024)
A delightful animated film from Latvia made entirely without dialogue following a group of animals fleeing as their territory is flooded. My top film of 2024.
Red One (2024)
Essentially Christmas the Action Film with Dwayne Johnson as Santa’s bodyguard going into action when Santa is abducted
Gamera vs Gyaos (1967)
The third of Daiei’s 1960s Gamera films, this takes the series back into children’s movie territory. Some moments of goofy silliness and variable effects ensue
A Christmas Carol (1984)
Well-made and extremely faithful adaptation of Charles Dickens’s perennial Christmas story starring George C. Scott as Scrooge. This brings out story elements other versions skip over
Mother Krampus (2017)
From the same people who made Demonic Christmas Tree, this is a supernatural retribution film that was sold as a Krampus film
The 12 Slays of Christmas (2016)
From Troma films, an anthology made up of twelve Christmas-themed short horror films
The Sacrifice Game (2023)
Jenn Wexler directs a film about thugs taking over a girls’ boarding school that pleasingly subverts your expectations of everything it is going to be at every turn
Venom: The Last Dance (2024)
The third of the Venom films but by this point any pretence that the films are taking themselves seriously has been long forgotten
Heretic (2024)
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.
Xtro3 (1995)
Third of the Xtro films, none of which are related to one another, this features the discovery of aliens at an abandoned military base
Witchboard 2 (1993)
Way back before Blumhouse’s Ouija and the subsequent cheap ouija-titled films, there was the 80s horror Witchboard, which proved popular enough that it produced two sequels starting with this
Shadow Hunter (1993)
Directed by the underrated J.S. Cardone, this features Scott Glenn in a fine performance trying to track Indian sorcerer Benjamin Bratt
Flying Saucers Over Hollywood: The Plan 9 Companion (1992)
A documentary about the life of Edward D. Wood Jr and the making of Plan 9 from Outer Space. This was made before Tim Burton’s Ed Wood and manages to interview a number of Wood hangers-on while they were still alive
Fullmetal Alchemist: Final Transmutation (2022)
The concluding chapter of the trilogy of live-action Fullmetal Alchemist films, this follows the manga’s storyline closely and brings the series to an epic conclusion
Fullmetal Alchemist: The Revenge of Scar (2022)
The first of two sequels to the live-action Fullmetal Alchemist. The first felt uninspired but this and the third film expand the saga and its storyline out with considerable depth
Memoir of a Snail (2024)
The second Claymation film from Adam Elliot, who made the sublime Mary and Max, concerning the banally hilarious lives of weird, eccentric characters
Foe (2023)
From the pen of Iain Reid who wrote I’m Thinking of Ending Things, an SF film about a man recruited for a space mission and the training of his android replacement. Expectedly, what is going on is shifting and pulls expectation out from under us
Hard Rock Zombies (1985)
Deranged entry in the 80s fad for heavy metal horror films where a band are resurrected from the dead to play an all-important concert, while fighting off conservative townspeople and a very much alive Adolf Hitler
The Video Dead (1987)
An entry from the classic 1980s era of the zombie film about zombies that emerge from a cursed tv set
The Shadow (1940)
A serial adaptation of the popular radio superhero, which gets the look of the character perfect but drops all his mystical powers
Blood Red Sky (2021)
Train to Busan had zombies unleashed on a train, this German film is the same but with vampires loose on a plane. This comes with entertainingly full-tilt ferocity
Handling the Undead (2024)
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
Here (2024)
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
Watchmen: Chapter II (2024)
The second part of DC Universe Animated Original Movies’ adaptation of Alan Moore’s classic graphic novel, the most faithful screen adaptation yet
Bad Girl Island (2007)
A film that feels like it should be an erotic thriller but isn’t. Antonio Sabato Jr. rescues an amnesiac Annalynne McCord who proceeds to exert a fatal influence
Thy Neighbor’s Wife (2001)
One of the erotic thrillers made following the success of Basic Instinct, essentially an erotic version of The Hand That Rocks the Cradle
Metropia (2009)
Animated film set in a dystopian near-future Europe of constant surveillance where even people’s heads are monitored
A Cat in the Brain (1990)
Cult Italian horror director Lucio Fulci plays himself, a horror director being driven to hallucinations and acts of murder by the violence he directs in his films
Satanic Hispanics (2022)
A multi-director horror anthology where all the directors are Latin American
Frankie Freako (2024)
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
Smile 2 (2024)
Smile was a sleeper hit about a viral curse and created a reasonable spooky atmosphere. The surprise is that this sequel manages to still deliver the goods too
Atlas (2024)
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
Byte (2024)
This takes the award for bizarre concepts – a phone app that turns users into werewolves
Weredeer (2022)
Exactly as the title suggests, a film in which a girl is transformed into a weredeer after a bite from a deer. Surprisingly enough, the film plays itself seriously
A Thousand and One Nights (1945)
Part of the fad during the 1940s for swashbuckling Arabian Nights adventures, this tells the story of Aladdin and is more embracing of the fantasy elements than most of the other films of this period
Train (2008)
A blatant copy of Hostel featuring tourists caught aboard a train in Ukraine that runs an organ-harvesting operation
Slotherhouse (2023)
A sloth is adopted as the mascot of a sorority house and proceeds to go on a killing spree. This emerges as entertainingly tongue-in-cheek
H.P. Lovecraft’s The Old Ones (2024)
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
Megalopolis (2024)
Francis Ford Coppola’s extraordinarily ambitious SF film about an architect’s vision of building a utopia
Slingshot (2024)
Quite a good film about a space expedition where the crew members on a mission to Saturn fall into an increasing paranoia and inability to tell what is real due to the drugs used in the hypersleep process
Mad About Men (1954)
A sequel to the charming British mermaid comedy Miranda with Glynis Johns again owning the show with her flirtatiously coy sparkle
Wyrmwood: Apocalypse (2021)
Sequel to the cult Australian zombie film, this refines the first film and exists as even more of a visual comic-book – all that seems missing is the dialogue that comes in comic balloons
The Piper (2023)
One of the last films made by Julian Sands before his death, a film about a cursed musical score where he plays an autocratic orchestra conductor
The Last Breath (2024)
A film about survival in shark-infested waters where a party diving on a wreck become trapped inside by sharks. Featuring the last performance of Julian Sands
The Platform 2 (2024)
The Platform offered a striking allegory with a prison where a banquet table of food moved down 300 levels each day. This is a sequel
The Wild Robot (2024)
A winning animated film about a robot trying to find its way among the animals on an island. Tender and heart-warming, the sort of film that Pixar used to do so well
Speak No Evil (2024)
The Danish original was a darkly brilliant film about guests in a home of people who step over boundaries. This is the English-language remake from Blumhouse
Mistress Frankenstein (2000)
The Frankenstein film, which deals with grave robbing and hideously scarred corpses, seems an unlikely choice for adult movie treatment. This is one of the offerings
Cerebrum (2022)
A young man recuperates from a brain injury while tended by his father. As he tries to piece together what happened, we discover we are in the midst of a Frankenstein-type film
Ripper Untold (2021)
Another take on the Jack the Ripper murders that has been conducted on a low-budget. This is not uninteresting but the ‘untold’ part of the title is an untrue claim
Pyewacket (2017)
Chillingly effective film where a teenage girl casts a spell to kill her mother, only to try and turn back what she has unleashed
Alienoid: Return to the Future (2024)
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
Alienoid (2022)
A South Korean SF film that comes with a wide canvas involving alien invasion, time hopping between two eras and some epic action in possibly one of the most head-scratching plots seen in some time
You Can’t Run Forever (2024)
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
Joker: Folie a Deux (2024)
Joker was a huge hit with Joaquin Phoenix winning an Academy Award for his role. This sequel emerged to very mixed reception
Transformers One (2024)
Since Michael Bay retired from the series, The Transformers films have been looking for new directions. This ventures into animation to tell a Transformers origin story
Horny Teenagers Must Die! (2024)
A slasher film that certainly grabs your attention with a sensationalistic title. Not without occasional amusements, this is mostly amateurish
Pillow Party Massacre (2023)
A well made tribute to the 1980s slasher film with characterisations and performances that make much rounded characters than usual
Dream a Little Dream (1989)
One of the forgotten entries in the mid-1980s spate of bodyswap comedies where elderly Jason Robards finds himself in teenager Corey Feldman’s body, this suffers a confused script
Never Let Go (2024)
Alexandre Aja film with Halle Berry and sons at a cabin in the woods facing an evil force outside. A work that screws with what we think is going on
Satan’s Little Helper (2004)
From Jeff Lieberman, a wonderfully malicious film where a young kid befriends and ends up aiding a serial killer on Halloween
Natty Knocks (2023)
A Halloween horror from a director with a reasonable genre association, this establishes its genre bona fides but then shoots itself in the foot
L’Atlantide (1921)
The first and best film version of a classic story about an expedition finding the city ruled by an immortal queen in the desert. This was shot in the real locations and comes with a stunning sense of expansiveness
The Return of Dr Mabuse (1961)
The first of five West German-made sequels featuring Fritz Lang’s great criminal mastermind Dr Mabuse, who this time is masterminding a plot to create mind controlled zombies
All You Need is Death (2023)
A unique and original Irish variant on the Folk Horror genre about a couple who become wound up into the obsessive quest for a cursed folk song and the effect it has
Alien: Romulus (2024)
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
The Substance (2024)
An absurdly over-the-top film where aging Demi Moore takes a serum that turns her into a youthful Margaret Qualley
G-Loc (2020)
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
The Apocalypse (1997)
The title is a cheat as this is not about the End of the World, merely a film about a spaceship on a collision course with Earth. Essentially Die Hard aboard a spaceship
Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? (1972)
From the great Curtis Harrington, a Grand Old Dames film with Shelley Winters going mad in a modernised retelling of Hansel and Gretel
Homunculus (1916)
Fascinating silent German serial undeniably influenced by the Frankenstein story about an artificial being who proves soulless, swears vengeance against his creator and becomes a dictator
#ShakespearesShitstorm (2020)
Troma launch into their parody of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, producing what may be their bad taste masterpiece to date
Robot Dreams (2023)
An utterly charming film, all told without dialogue, about a dog living in 1980s New York who purchases a robot as its new best friend
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024)
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
Hellboy: The Crooked Man (2024)
After a disastrous reboot of the Hellboy franchise, Millennium Media get it right by employing the comic’s creator on script, taking the series into wildly creative directions with Hellboy up against Appalachian folk horrors
The Shadow of the Cat (1961)
A film from the early days of the Anglo-Horror cycle about the greedy relatives seeking a will being killed by a possibly supernatural cat
Perceval le Gallois (1978)
From Eric Rohmer, a director of the French New Wave, an adaptation of stories from the Arthurian legends, made in a decidedly eccentric style
The Stolen Airship (1967)
Another of the delightful Steampunk adventures from Karel Zeman that blend animation and live-action in unique ways
Terrifier (2016)
A variation on the killer clown film that does rack up quite a degree of tension and pushes the material for something edgy
Appendage (2023)
In a similar vein to James Wan’s Malignant, a film with a heroine who has a malignant twin force its way out of a wound in her side and proceed to take over her life
Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)
In his third cinematic outing, Deadpool gets into the multiverse game, creating a rather hilarious crossover and team-up with Wolverine and an assortment of other cancelled superheroes
Salem’s Lot (2024)
The Stephen King novel gets its third screen adaptation in this new film treatment
Premonition (1972)
The first film from the acclaimed Alan Rudolph, a hippie era nightmare where smoking marijuana causes people to have disturbing visions of sinister figures
Moonchild (1972)
A film about strange happenings at a mission where all the characters may be reincarnations. A film of the hippie era that gets lost in mysticism and trippiness
Delirium (1987)
The great Mario Bava was the man who essentially created the giallo film. Here his son Lamberto makes an entry, which rehashes much of Mario’s seminal Blood and Black Lace