Lu Over the Wall (2017)
An appealingly charming anime about the friendship between a lonely boy and a mermaid. She gains legs whenever music is playing and they form a pop band together
Stalker (1979)
One of the greatest of all SF films from Andrei Tarkovsky about a mysterious zone filled with enigmatic alien phenomena at the centre of which exists a room that can grant one’s heart’s desire
Breathe (2024)
Film set in a harsh future as people struggle to survive in a world where oxygen supplies have been reduced to near zero. An okay film that suffers from an implausible premise
Apartment 7A (2024)
Did we need a prequel to the events of Rosemary’s Baby? The original one of the defining classics of the horror genre. Under producer Michael Bay Apartment 7A is just more IP churn
In a Violent Nature (2024)
A unique take on a slasher film where we are placed in the hulking killer’s shoes and the rest of the show takes place in abstract brushstrokes
I Came By (2022)
A duo of graffiti artists get more than they planned for when they break into the home of a psycho Hugh Bonneville
Hounded (2022)
Another variant on The Most Dangerous Game scenario. This has the amusing idea that the British aristocracy, having had fox hunts cancelled on them, have taken up hunting the working class and immigrants
The Mad Room (1969)
One among the spate of 1960s psycho films with Stella Stevens dealing with her brother and sister, one of whom is a killer
Murder in Space (1985)
TV movie that had a unique selling point – a whodunit set aboard an international space mission – where viewers were invited to guess who the killer was
The Laughing Dead (1989)
Crazed Evil Dead-styled film directed by sf/horror writer S.P. Somtow about modern-day Aztec sacrifices, this makes a beeline for bizarre gore effects
The Long Shadow (2023)
An exhaustive and very accurately detailed tv mini-series based around the Yorkshire Ripper killings between 1975 and 1981
Afraid (2024)
The first film to come out following the advent of generative A.I. From American Pie director Chris Weitz, an evil A.I. film that arrives with all the hysteria of villagers with burring torches in a Frankenstein film
Hell Hole (2024)
The Adams Family have been one of the most interesting creative talents in recent years – a father, mother and two daughters who perform all the functions on their films. Here they reinvent the Alien-inspired monster movie with highly entertaining results
Who is Bill Rebane? (2021)
A fascinating documentary devoted to a largely forgotten B-budget sf/horror director and his body of films
Rondo and Bob (2020)
A documentary about Rondo Hatton, the 1940s horror actor who suffered acromegaly, and Robert Burns, the eccentric art director from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
Infestation (2009)
A throwback to the 1950s giant bug film concerning an insect invasion. From Mel Gibson’s production company, no less!
Attack of the 50 Foot Camgirl (2022)
B budget director Jim Wynorski makes another of his bimbo films, a parody of Attack of the 50 Foot Woman where a cam girl is turned giant size after eating GMO food
Portals (2019)
Produced by Bloody Disgusting, an anthology from different directors about a series of mysterious alien portals that appear around the world
Trunk (2023)
Gripping German thriller with a woman abducted and imprisoned in a car trunk. Like Buried, this takes place entirely inside the trunk with her using her phone to try to get help
The Crow (2024)
The original The Crow is a cult classic. This long-planned remake from the perpetually terrible Rupert Sanders was an ill-advised move from every angle that gets just about everything from the mood to the conception of its character wrong
Starve Acre (2023)
Another entry in the popular Folk Horror revival of the 2020s, this is a superb slow burn film that operates essentially as a British Pet Sematary
Lady, Stay Dead (1981)
An Australian psycho film that gained a fascination, being called sleazy and sordid upon its release. Which of course makes it a must see for Moria
Out of the Body (1989)
A cheapie from cult Ozploitation director Brian Trenchard-Smith about a man having clairvoyant visions of an astral killer
Body Count (1986)
The director of the notorious Cannibal Holocaust, Ruggero Deodato, takes on making a slasher film. This is full of possibilities but the results treads familiar ground
Atragon (1963)
Ishiro Honda, the director of Godzilla, makes a colourful dventure film about a super-submarine battling an undersea empire in the vein of other works of the era like Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
Battle for Pandora (2022)
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
Attack on Titan (2022)
Not to be confused with the Japanese manga/anime of the same name, this is a space opera from The Asylum, which boasts some very good effects on a budget
Baghead (2023)
Horror film about a mysterious creature in the cellar with a bag over its head that can bring a dead loved one back to life for two minutes, but where use of this comes with a price
Borderlands (2024)
Eli Roth adapts the popular videogame and corrals a surprisingly high-profile cast in a knockabout planetary adventure. Alas, that met a very mixed reception and was widely regarded as a bad movie
Kinds of Kindness (2024)
Yorgos Lanthimos has become a critically celebrated name in recent years. Here it feels like he has made an anthology of three surreal tales that come in black deadpan
The Visitor (2022)
Blumhouse production where Finn Jones moves to a small town and finds the portrait of the town’s founder is a ringer for him
Evil Altar (1988)
A low-budget 80s film about a town where the locals are in thrall to a Satanist who has demanded the souls of 103 children
Zombie Women of Satan (2009)
A WTF am I watching film where a performing freakshow troupe led by Pervo the Clown are pursued around a farm by topless zombie women
Prodigy (2017)
An excellent film about a psychologist sent in to assess a child who reveals phenomenal intelligence and psychic powers
Death Rider in the House of Vampires (2021)
Punk/metal rocker Glenn Danzig directs his own film, a vampire Western. This comes filled an amazing line-up of genre cameos, while Danzig casts himself as a bad-ass vampire outlaw
Aporia (2023)
Excellent low-key time travel film where Judy Greer is faced with the choice of eliminating the drunk driver who killed her husband from the timeline – only to end up with unexpected results
Trap (2024)
M. Night Shyamalan film with Josh Hartnett as a serial killer caught up in a police sting being held at a rock concert
Doctor Jekyll (2023)
The revived Hammer Films takes on adapting Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde with Eddie Izzard playing the role as a woman. This offers some amusing modernisations of the familiar, oft-filmed story
Guardians of the Tomb (2018)
A tomb raiding adventure about the venture into a tomb filled with deadly spiders in search of an immortality serum. A Chinese-Australian-co-production.
The Curse of the Mayans (2017)
Film about an expedition through the jungles of the Yucatan to investigate a Mayan pyramid that is revealed to contain alien artefacts. This ventures well inside wacky fringe science theories
Live Animals (2008)
A film made not long after the advent of the Torture Porn fad in which a group of friends are imprisoned on a farm to be broken and sold into slavery
Stripped (2013)
A Found Footage film where a group on a party weekend to Las Vegas call a brothel that promises to do anything – only to enter into full Hostel territory
Sole Survivor (1970)
One of the most original variants on the deathdream film where pilots crashed in the desert come to the realisation they are dead
Disquiet (2023)
Jonathan Rhys Meyers wakes up in a hospital as strange hallucinatory and nightmarish things start to happen
The Breach (2022)
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
Lord of Misrule (2023)
William Brent Bell, director of The Devil Inside and The Boy, makes a Folk Horror film that borrows much from The Wicker Man
Inside Out 2 (2024)
Inside Out was one of the breaths of fresh air among Pixar’s slip into terminal sequelitis. Now it gets its own sequel
Longlegs (2024)
Osgood Perkins has been a director on the rise in recent years. This was his fourth film where he makes a serial killer thriller featuring a verrrry weird Nicolas Cage in the title role
Space Wars: Quest for the Deepstar (2022)
An enjoyable knockabout modern space opera that conjures the spirit of a host of low-budget 1980s Star Wars knockoffs
The Galaxy Destroyer (1986)
An ultra low-budget film about a man on a space journey returning to Earth to find it invaded by aliens. This tries to do Mad Max and Star Wars on the budget of about $1.99
Watchers II (1990)
The first of three sequels to the Dean R. Koontz adaptation about an intelligent dog, although for each sequel producer Roger Corman has just remade the book
The Man Who Stole the Sun (1979)
An anarchic Japanese film where a school teacher builds an atomic bomb and then begins blackmailing the authorities with his demands
The History of Metal and Horror (2022)
A documentary that explores the intersection between heavy metal music and horror and the frequently intertwined relationship of the two
Hundreds of Beavers (2022)
A completely madcap gonzo comedy that all takes place without dialogue, the live-action equivalent of a Looney Tunes cartoon. Possibly the most unique and creative film I have seen in some time
Twisters (2024)
Sequel to Twister, the Michael Crichton written film about tornado chasers, this updates the story to the 21st Century and aims for much more in the way of mass destruction spectacle
Watchmen: Chapter I (2024)
An animated adaptation of Alan Moore’s classic, genre defining comic-book, this is the most faithful treatment to date
Dorian (2003)
A modernised version of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray where a male model transfers his image to a photograph that ages while he remains immortal
Golem (1980)
Not an adaptation of the oft-filmed story from Jewish legend about the creation of a creature of clay but a Polish SF set in a slightly dystopian future featuring the possible creation of artificial people
Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan (2011)
A documentary devoted to the life and films of stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen whose films, which include the Sinbad films and Jason and the Argonauts, have gained a cult following
Babycall (2011)
Pål Sletaune is a Norwegian director who deserves more attention for his reality-bending surrealism. Here mother Noomi Rapace moves into new apartment where ghostly screams come through the baby monitor and she soon finds that she cannot be sure what is real
Exhuma (2024)
A completely wild South Korean film set among the rituals of Confucian shamanism during the attempts to relocate a coffin and exorcise a troublesome spirit
MaXXXine (2024)
Ti West and Mia Goth round out their trilogy of films begun with X with a psycho film set in 1980s Hollywood
Despicable Me 4 (2024)
More from the world’s cuddliest super-villain and those manic ritalin-deprived kids that are the Minions. Is there are life and creativity left in a franchise that has been milked for six films now?
Unmasked Part 25 (1988)
A parody of the slasher film with an amusing central idea – what if a slasher maniac found a love interest and wanted to give up hacking and slashing to be with them?
The Demon (1981)
A South African-made copycat of Halloween with a figure in a black mask stalking women. Cameron Mitchell turns up as a weird clairvoyant hired to find one of the missing girls
By Dawn’s Early Light (1990)
The last gasp of the Cold War nuclear film. A tv movie that features Martin Landau is the US President who tries to stop an accidental Russian nuclear release escalating into full-out war
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1929)
An incredibly good adaptation of the Sherlock Holmes story. Thought lost for many years, this was made at the height of German Expressionism and has a vividness that other adaptations lack
Sharksploitation (2023)
A documentary about the shark film phenomenon, covering all the way from Jaws to the deliberately ridiculous killer shark film with illuminating insight
Destroy All Neighbors (2024)
A black comedy in very broad tone about an ordinary man trying to record an album who accidentally kills people around him only for them to refuse to stay dead
A Quiet Place: Day One (2024)
The third in the trilogy of A Quiet Place films, this is a prequel that takes us back to the start of the invasion
The Black Mass (2023)
Actress Devanny Pinn makes a fine directorial debut with this True Crime film based on Ted Bundy and the incident where he went on a killing spree at a Florida sorority house
The Colony (2021)
A Roland Emmerich-produced film about a space expedition returned to a post-apocalyptic Earth to find a very changed world
Colonials (2023)
A low-budget film with some very accomplished effects that takes place in a devastated future as a Martian colonist returns to find what has happened to Earth
The Reconstruction of William Zero (2014)
A low key but modestly effective film where an amnesiac man comes to the gradual realisation that he is a clone
Penelope (2006)
This has the feel of a fairytale where Christina Ricci plays a girl who suffers from a hereditary curse that has left her with a pig-like snout
Gods of the Deep (2023)
Charlie Steeds is a low-budget British director who has shown reasonable promise. Here he makes an H.P. Lovecraft homage about a submarine expedition that awakens Cthulhu on the ocean floor
Suzume (2022)
Beautifully made anime about a young girl and a three-legged chair on a quest to close a series of portals across Japan and prevent unimaginable chaos emerging
Arcadian (2024)
A post-apocalyptic film that seems a conceptual merging of I Am Legend and A Quiet Place where Nicolas Cage and sons are at siege from monsters that surround their farmhouse every night
Festival of the Living Dead (2024)
The Soska Sisters made a splash on the genre scene a few years ago. Here they make a tribute/follow-up to Night of the Living Dead but produce an utterly safe work that is the antithesis of the edginess that gained them a name
Koi … Mil Gaya (2003)
The Bollywood version of E.T.. That is if one can imagine an E.T. with singing, dancing and romantic scenes
Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya (2024)
A Bollywood take on the android/A.I. themes, where a roboticist falls for an android girl and tries to have her accepted by his family
Pajama Party (1964)
One of the popular Beach Party comedies of the 1960s. Tommy Kirk turns up as a bumbling Martian to romance Annette Funicello
Messiah (2001)
A strong and worthwhile serial killer thriller mini-series from the BBC with a killer targeting victims with the names and professions of the apostles
Night Game (1989)
Police procedural with Roy Scheider as a detective tracking a serial killer who strikes on the nights of big baseball games
Fast & Furious 9 (2021)
The Fast and the Furious series has escalated from films about illegal street racing to essentially superhero films involving ridiculous stunt work that defies the laws of physics. This takes the characters into orbit
Infested (2023)
This ratchets up quite a reasonable degree of scary tension in taking a kitchen sink view as spiders overrun a low-income Paris apartment building
Boy Kills World (2023)
A film where you are struggling to find any easy labelling. What it is is an hilariously ultra-violent and over-the-top parody of an action movie that will have your sides splitting
Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths Part Three (2024)
The third part of the adaptation of DC Comics’ classic title Crisis on Infinite Earths featuring an epic battle to prevent the destruction of the multiverse
Hannah, Queen of the Vampires (1973)
Euro vampire film that exists under several different titles. Andrew Prine goes to an island after the death of his father only to disturb the tomb of a vampire queen
The Unborn (1991)
Roger Corman produced film where Brooke Adams realises that something sinister might be happening with her pregnancy
Who Wants to Kill Jessie? (1966)
Zany Czech film where a scientist invents a device that can cause dream to manifest only to cause the sexy comic-book heroine her husband is dreaming about to appear
Terror Train 2 (2022)
Sequel to the remake of the 1980s horror classic, shot back-to-back with its predecessor, this is a better film than the remake was
Terror Train (2022)
Terror Train starring Jamie Lee Curtis was one of the classics of the original slasher film fad. This is a remake
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024)
A fourth entry in the Planet of the Apes reboot saga. The previous two entries hit incredible heights in terms of motion capture performances but this still holds up well
The Exorcism (2024)
Joshua John Miller, the son of The Exorcist’s star Jason Miller, makes a film where an actor cast as the priest in a remake of The Exorcist becomes possessed. This comes with a witty and clever blend of meta reference and autobiography
The Horde (2016)
A Backwoods Brutality film that becomes quite gore-drenched. Written by its leading man Paul Logan who casts himself as a perfect action hero wading in to kick hillbilly ass
Mr Vampire 1992 (1992)
The last of the popular Hong Kong comedy series about hopping vampires. While the other sequels became very silly, this goes out on an inspired final note
The Queen of Spades (1949)
Classic British adaptation of the Alexander Pushkin’s story about a soldier who seeks the secret of selling one’s soul for a winning hand at cards
Cold Heaven (1991)
Nicolas Roeg was one of the great directors of the 1970s, making works like Performance and Don’t Look Now. This was one of Roeg’s last films where Mark Harmon is killed in an accident but makes a miraculous resurrection
The Wrath of Becky (2023)
Becky was a modest effort with Lulu Wilson as a thirteen year-old violently fighting off home invaders. This is a sequel with her up against white supremacists