Deathstalker (2025)
A remake of the popular 1980s sword and sorcery film that was originally produced by Roger Corman. This version is directed by makeup effects artist Steven Kostanski who fills it with an amazing range of creature effects
The Beast Within (2024)
This is a werewolf film with a difference. Everything comes with an ambiguity that is seen through the eyes of a young child trying to make sense of what is happening to her father
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1943)
One amid the popular fad of Arabian Nights adventures made by Hollywood during the 1940s. Here the story of Ali Baba is subverted to become a swashbuckling romantic adventure
Night of the Seagulls (1975)
The fourth of the Blind Dead films from Spanish director Amando de Ossorio. The film, concerning Knights Templars who were blinded and have returned as zombies, have gained a modest cult
The Alpha Test (2020)
Another film on the topic of androids and A.I.’s run amok. This concerns a robot maid that ends up rebelling against her human owners and turning murderous due to conflicting orders
Hagen (2024)
A new film based on the epic legend of Siegfried, which gives it a grounded historical realism and tells it in terms of the mud, moral ambiguity and backstabbing in-politicking of tv’s Game of Thrones
The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (2025)
A remake of the 1992 film that starred Rebecca De Mornay as a psychopathic babysitter who enters a household seeking revenge. This updates the story for the 2020s, although is no less a conservative version than the original
Keeper (2025)
An Osgood Perkins film where Tatiana Maslany joins her boyfriend at his cabin in the woods for the weekend and becomes aware strange things are happening as she starts to experience visions and see creatures
Don’t Open Till Christmas (1984)
The 1980s slasher fad brought a number of ventures into the Christmas slasher film, which has grown into its own genre niche since then. This is one British entry in the genre about a killer targeting people dressed as Santa
There’s Something in the Barn (2023)
This is a Norwegian film based on the Scandinavian folklore figure of the barn elf, a household spirit that can turn malevolent if upset. The film becomes in essence a Nordic version of Gremlins
A Creature Was Stirring (2023)
An interestingly strange and undeniably different film where two teens break into a house at Christmas time to find a mother who keeps her daughter confined lest the creature inside her get free
Bagman (2024)
Colm McCarthy, who previously directed the standout The Girl With All the Gifts, returns with a film about a man being haunted by a boogeyman out of his childhood that snatches children in a bag
The Running Man (2025)
Edgar Wright conducts a remake of The Running Man and takes this much more back to the original Stephen King book than the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger film, while adding a level of biting modern commentary
The Carpenter’s Son (2025)
A horror film about the life of Jesus as a child. That’s not quite what we end up getting but it is enough to give this a bizarre freakshow appeal and get this site watching. Behind that though, this is surprisingly traditional
Once Upon a Crime (2023)
A very strange Japanese-made blend of fairytale and detective story that takes place in the realm of fairytale where Little Red Riding Hood turns detective to solve a murder at Cinderella’s ball
Cinderella (1977)
This was one of the earliest films from Charles Band who has since gone on to become a prolific producer/director of low-budget films. Here Band offers a very adult take on the Cinderella fairytale
The Oracle (1985)
From cult director Roberta Findlay, this is a film about a haunted ouija board. What is going on doesn’t make a lot of sense but Findlay serves up a series of bizarre deaths that prove entertainingly absurd
Dracula, Prisoner of Frankenstein (1972)
One of several Dracula against Frankenstein crossover films that came out in the early 1970s. This version comes from cult exploitation director Jesus Franco but squanders the opportunities of a great title match
The Pod Generation (2023)
SF film that plays out like it should be an episode of Black Mirror where Emilia Clarke and Chiwetel Ejiofor play a couple who sign up for a process where a baby can be gestated and born externally inside an egg
Bone Face (2025)
Quite a good whodunit that takes place in the aftermath of a standard slasher set-up where police pursue the killer to an all-night diner and realise that one of a group of people there is the killer
Tron Ares (2025)
Tron was a genuinely groundbreaking work that predicted the idea of cyberspace. It is hard to describe how badly conceived this sequel is where we have gone to predicting the future to a fight over a glorified 3D printer
Shelby Oaks (2024)
YouTube film reviewer Chris Stuckmann makes a directorial debut with this film about the investigation into a mysterious disappearance where he makes a work that is well above the often familiar material it deals with
One Missed Call: Final (2006)
Takashi Miike’s One Missed Call was one of the more popular of the Ringu-influenced Japanese ghost stories, concerning a viral curse passed by cellphone calls. This was the second Japanese sequel
Three Extremes II (2002)
A horror anthology featuring episodes from three Asian directors originally titled Three. The better known Three … Extremes was a sequel whereupon this was retitled and re-released as Three Extremes II
Cargo (2009)
Fine Swiss-made SF film where cryogenic sleepers are awoken aboard a deep space mission to find someone is killing the crew and even that the very purpose of their mission may be a lie
Skinner (1993)
A serial killer film that is fairly strong stuff, starring Ted Raimi as a killer who skins his victims and wears their bodies. This pushed the censorship envelope considerably back in its day. With Ricki Lake as an innocent housewife who befriends Raimi
West of Hell (2018)
A strong and imaginative horror/Western hybrid set aboard a train before the realisation that it is travelling to Hell. Deft characterisations and some tight, electric confrontations make this work well
The Legend of Ochi (2025)
Quite a good A24 release that brings together an impressive cast as a young girl discovers and determines to protect a magical creature. This channels the essence of E.T. and tugs all the heartstrings if can
Bugonia (2025)
Yorgos Lanthimos has become a director of acclaim in recent years. Here he remakes the Korean film Save the Green Planet where crazy conspiracy theorist Jesse Plemons abducts CEO Emma Stone insisting she is an alien
Ed Kemper (2025)
A film based on true-life serial killer Ed Kemper. Director Chad Ferrin made the terrible Pig Killer, a true crime film that got everything wrong about its subject. Here however he gets it right and makes one of his best films yet
Werewolf in a Womens Prison (2006)
This is exactly what it sounds like – a blend of werewolf film and the women in prison exploitation genre with expectedly lurid and entertaining focus. A film that makes no pretence it is being serious, which actually becomes its redeeming quality
Wolf Garden (2023)
This may be or may not be a werewolf film. What we have is a work that is long on mood and much ambiguity as a man hides in the English countryside from a crime he has conducted
Doctor Death, Seeker of Souls (1973)
A fascinatingly torrid 1970s film about a magician who seeks to perfect the secret of resurrecting the dead by transferring souls. It doesn’t take long before things start becoming quite twisted.
The Psychotronic Man (1979)
A film about psychic powers. The one distinction the film has is that its name inspired Michael Weldon in the creation of the psychotronic film cult. Weldon had never seen it and the actual film proves a major letdown
Virgin Witch (1971)
1970s British film about two sisters being drawn into the coven of witches, this comes with much in the way of softcore nudity but there is a surprising degree of innocence about all of it
Survive (2024)
A French catastrophe film where the Earth’s poles abruptly reverse, transforming what was ocean into a desert. A survival film that is based on a premise that is fundamentally scientifically absurd
Coyotes (2025)
Colin Minihan has been a director on the rise in recent years. Here he makes an amusing film about Justin Long under siege in his home by killer coyotes that manages a deft blend of fine tension and humour
Good Fortune (2025)
The film where Keanu Reeves plays an angel. Directed/written by and starring Aziz Ansari as a hapless gig worker who Keanu’s angel’s tries to help only to accidentally swap the lives of Ansari and tech bro Seth Rogen
Dead Zone (2022)
Not to be confused with the Stephen King novel/film. A zombie film with a military focus, one of several that appropriates the basics of Escape from New York as a tactical unit is sent into an infestation zone to retrieve an antidote
Zombie Killers Elephants Graveyard (2015)
Another entry among the zombie revival fad of the 2000s/10s, this should be commended for taking an epic and ambitious scope in its story, enough it feels to fuel multiple seasons of The Walking Dead
Lost City Raiders (2008)
A conceptually peculiar mix of Indiana Jones and Waterworld about tomb raiding adventures in a drowned future and the quest for Moses’s staff to turn back the riding floodwaters of Global Warming
Sauna (2008)
A dark and mysterious historical fantasy about cartographers mapping the Finnish-Russian border who arrive at a mysterious village and an enigmatic stone sauna in the forest
Archangel (1990)
The second film from Guy Maddin, which comes with all of his familiar homages to German Expressionism and silent cinema, wrapped up in a surrealist plot of hilarious melodrama and side-splittingly deadpan dialogue
Fear Below (2025)
Quite a decent little Australian film in the shark survival stakes about a diving team forced by mobsters to conduct a dive in a river inhabited by a killer shark to retrieve a haul of gold bullion
Something in the Water (2024)
The survival in shark infested waters film has emerged as its own genre niche in the last few years. This is an all-girl variant with a bridal party stranded and trying to make it to shore
Frankenstein (2025)
Guillermo Del Toro tackles his long-planned adaptation of Frankenstein. An exquisitely designed and costumed film that is a feast for the eyes where Del Toro determines to wring out new angles on an oft told tale
Together (2025)
A Body Horror film that creates some undeniably ick effect where Dave Franco and Alison Brie play a couple who experience an infection that causes their bodies to start fusing into one whenever they touch
Hunter’s Blood (1986)
A quite reasonable Backwoods Brutality item with a group who go hunting in backwoods Oklahoma but stir up the inbred poachers and end up being hunted themselves
Deadly Prey (1987)
Another variant on The Most Dangerous Game with an unarmed man on the run against armed hunter(s). This was made just after Rambo came out so it becomes one lone man fighting an entire army with his bare hands.
Running on Karma (2003)
The collaboration of Hong Kong directors Wai Ka Fai and Johnnie To have resulted in some utterly deranged films. This is a madcap one with Andy Lau as a bodybuilding Buddhist monk who can see people’s past lives
Ghost Lab (2021)
Fine, spooky Thai film about two doctors who set out to scientifically prove the existence of ghosts in a series of experiments that venture waaay over ethical boundaries
Un Mariage Sans Fin (2025)
Palm Springs was one of the funniest and most delightful variants on the Groundhog Day timeloop theme. This is a French language remake that relocates the story to the Moroccan desert
Maboroshi (2023)
Anime that is a variant on Groundhog Day about a town that becomes caught in a time pocket following an industrial accident with the residents forced to live in the same day
Popeye’s Revenge (2025)
One of several Popeye horror films that were made after the popular comic-strip character came into public domain in 2025. This is essentially Popeye by way of Friday the 13th
Shiver Me Timbers (2025)
In 2025, Popeye entered public domain in the US. As with Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey, this was immediately greeted with several horror takes on the character. This is one of them – essentially a Popeye slasher film
Black Phone 2 (2025)
Scott Derrickson makes a sequel to his earlier hit The Black Phone. The original was a modest but self-contained story, whereas this has to do some work before coming out as an original and effective follow-up
A House of Dynamite (2025)
Kathryn Bigelow makes a strong return to form with a film about the lead-up to an imminent a nuclear attack on the US. Made with a documentary-like urgency that convinces you this is the way that the real thing would play out
Good Boy (2025)
It is said that animals like dogs can perceive the supernatural. This runs with that idea and is a ghost story told entirely from the point of view of the dog. The results are unexpectedly effective
Jurassic Predator (2018)
Rather good British-made low-budget take on Jurassic Park, which conducts its variation with an undeniable sense of humour. One of the better films from low-budget director Andrew Jones
Triassic World (2018)
A mockbuster from The Asylum that was designed to capitalise on the release of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, this is a low-budget CGI dinosaur film that is slightly better than most
The Strange Hostel of Naked Pleasures (1976)
Jose Mojica Marins, the cult Brazilian director/actor best known as the demoniac undertaker Ze do Caixao/Coffin Joe, presides over a hotel where the guests meet sinister fates
The Echo (2004)
Filipino ghost story inspired by The Ring and Ju-on films that later underwent an English-language remake, this generates a reasonable haunted atmosphere in its story about mysterious happenings in an apartment building
Brightwood (2022)
Remarkable little film where a couple go for a jog only to find they are trapped on the same stretch of trail in the woods by the lake where time starts looping around on itself in strange and increasingly sinister ways
Sew Torn (2024)
A unique film about a seamstress who is wound up in a drug deal gone wrong and improvises solutions with her needle and thread. Like Run Lola Run, this rewinds to offer very different versions of events
The Long Walk (2025)
An adaptation of Stephen King’s Richard Bachman novel set in a future where youths compete in a race where they must walk hundreds of miles without stopping or else be shot
Night of the Reaper (2025)
An effective little slow burn film that settles in with the promise of being a standard entry with a babysitter being stalked on Halloween night. However, this proves to be a film that turns all your expectations on their head
Dark Harvest (2023)
David Slade seemed a promising directorial name several years ago with works like the charged Hard Candy, before making Twilight films and being lost in tv. Here he returns with a film set around a small town’s deadly Halloween rituals
The Vampire Happening (1971)
Freddie Francis was one of the finest stylists of the Anglo-horror cycle. Here he makes a comedy spoofing the vampire film that comes out feeling like Benny Hill routines running around a big castle
Amphibian Man (1961)
The Russian Aquaman. One of the most popular hits from the Soviet Union, a film about a merman who comes onto land to woo a woman. Said to have influenced Guillermo del Toro with The Shape of Water
The Exorcism in Amarillo (2020)
The worst exorcism film ever made. A completely ridiculous Christian evangelical film about a good God-loving American family under attack by malevolent spirits emerged from a second-hand book on witchcraft! Supposedly based on a true story
Mars Express (2023)
A French animated film, SF noir set on a future Mars with hard-boiled detectives fighting against someone who is jailbreaking robots. This deploys a strong and confident use of Cyberpunk tropes
Monster: The Ed Gein Story (2025)
An eight-episode tv mini-series based on true-life necrophile/grave robber Ed Gein. This expands the story out and considerably embellishes the facts but is one of the most outrageously out there pieces of tv watching you will ever come across
The Strangers: Chapter 2 (2025)
The Strangers was an incredibly eerie home invasion story that has become a modern classic. This is the second chapter in a trilogy of reboot films that have been handed over to the perpetually terrible Renny Harlin
Power of Grayskull: The Definitive History of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (2017)
A documentary about the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe phenomenon. This covers everything from the origins of the toys through the animated series to the live-action film
Rectuma (2003)
The sort of film that might make Troma radioactive green with envy they didn’t make it concerning a giant rampaging ass. Mind-boggling and willing to be stupid and in frequent bad taste
Habit (2017)
Undeniably effective film set in Manchester where a young man is drawn into a secret world of people that live on the edges of society and enjoy eating human flesh.
Terra Incognita 1901 (2024)
A very nicely animated French Steampunk film about an expedition aboard a steam airship to explore the secret entrance to an underground world in the Antarctic. A computer animated film all made by one person.
The Conjuring: Last Rites (2025)
Another supposedly true story from the casebook of the psychic investigator frauds Ed and Lorraine Warren. James Wan’s first two entries were eerily haunting; by now, the constant profusion of effect becomes overkill that produces no results at all
Him (2025)
The idea of a horror film set around US football kind of leaves you scratching your head – the two don’t seem to go together. Produced by Jordan Peele, this comes out somewhere between Any Given Sunday and The Neon Demon
Operation Ganymede (1977)
A West German-made film where a space mission to Jupiter returns only for the crew to find the Earth deserted. This captures something of the original Planet of the Apes in its better moments
The Dawnseeker (2018)
A low-budget film about a group of soldiers crashed on another planet where they find themselves hunted by an alien. This channels the basics of Predator
Daughter of Dr. Jekyll (1957)
From cult director Edgar G. Ulmer, a film ostensibly pitched as a sequel to the Jekyll and Hyde story focused on his daughter where it is revealed that Dr Jekyll was actually a werewolf!
Hammersmith is Out (1972)
One of the few flops that Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor made, a broad satire where Burton plays a Devil figure who makes an escape from asylum, leaving a trail of bodies across the country as he makes his way up to control the presidency
The Soul Eater (2024)
A French police procedural where detectives are plunged into a series of bizarre murders involving a child sacrifice cult and a folk boogeyman. From the directorial duo who started the whole French Extremism movement with Inside
The Deep Dark (2023)
From the director of the standout Meander, a dark and claustrophobic film set in the 1950s about miners disturbing a Lovecraftian entity buried in the depths of a mineshaft
Parallel (2024)
A variation on the multiverse film – not the Marvel Comics version, more the Everything Everywhere All at Once version – where Danielle Deadwyler enters a forest portal and returns to realities that vary in minute but increasingly alarming ways
The Toxic Avenger (2023)
A remake of the work that launched Troma films. The original The Toxic Avenger was a gungily nasty film that readily trod way over all lines of good taste. In being cast with name stars, this has been cleaned up considerably
Aztec Batman: Clash of Empires (2025)
A real oddity among the Batman animated films – one where the basics of the Batman mythos are translated into Aztec culture at the time of the arrival of the Conquistadors
Steel and Lace (1990)
One of the killer android/cyborg films from the genre’s 1990s heyday. This comes with a tasteless concept where a raped woman kills herself and is then resurrected as an avenging cyborg. A bizarre melding between killer cyborg film and I Spit on Your Grave
Chrome Angels (2009)
Hearkening back to the spirit of 1980s B budget killer cyborg/android movie, an entertainingly preposterous film in which a girl biker gang are pitted against a mad scientist and his army of killer androids
Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman (2000)
Jack Frost, not to be confused with the Michael Keaton film of the same name, was an amusing horror comedy about a killer mutant snowman. This is a sequel that takes Jack to a beach resort in Hawaii
The Return of Dr. Fu Manchu (1930)
The second of the films made about the Chinese super-villain Fu Manchu, the first made in sound. This is where the film series started to find itself, turning in some superlative thrills and a wonderful battle of wits between hero and villain. Pulp thrills at their best
The Stranger (2022)
A British film about a mother and daughter who open a B&B only to be taken hostage by a mysterious stranger on the run from sinister forces
You’ll Never Find Me (2023)
Australian film where a girl turns up at the trailer home of a recluse. A series of tense psychological games ensue where it becomes apparent neither of them are being truthful
V/H/S/Beyond (2024)
Seventh of the V/H/S Found Footage horror anthologies, this is one of the best with a number of the episodes venturing into SF and others that feature some genuinely outlandish moments
The Fantastic 4: First Steps (2025)
At long last after several other film incarnations that went nowhere, Marvel’s First Family make their first appearance in The MCU. The film creates a wonderful retro world of 1960s futurism based on their original comic-books for them to inhabit
Bambi: The Reckoning (2025)
The people behind Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey offer up a savage take on another childhood favourite with a horror version of Bambi where Bambi becomes a mutated deer with a murderous hatred of humans
Return of Giant Majin (1966)
A Japanese monster movie with a difference. The second in a trilogy of films about a giant stone deity that awakens to defend villagers in trouble
Rebirth of Mothra II (1997)
After their successful revival of Godzilla in the 1990s, Toho revived Mothra for a series of standalone battles, albeit with a very juvenile focus made for children. This was the second and better of the three films
All Cheerleaders Die (2001)
The first film of directors Lucky McKee and Chris Sivertson, concerning a troupe of cheerleaders who are killed and resurrected from the dead. The two later returned to conduct a better-budgeted remake