Kim Newman

Just the right recipe for a seasonal horror cocktail — gruesome kills, proper suspense, sly wit, likeable leads and a dose of just deserts for very, very bad boys and girls.

An unashamed exploitation movie with teeth, this has all the dinosaur devilry and gung-ho soldiering you could want. There’s even a sweet Tyrannosaur love story in the mix.

Affleck and Bernthal make a funny, if morally dubious, double act, as Christian’s autism lets sociopathic hit man Brax think of himself as the ‘normal’ brother. Best bit: the line-dancing scene.

Managing to go further over-the-top and pushing more offence buttons than you think possible, this is recommended only for the strong of stomach and hard of heart. 

There’s a wobble about how committed this is to being a scary movie rather than an inside Hollywood drama, but — like Exorcist III — it springs one great lunge-out-of-an-unexpected-corner-of-the-frame jump scare.

Fanning brings her A-game and there’s enough mystery about the monsters in the woods to string audiences along until the satisfyingly weird finish. As mid-list horror goes, perfectly fine.

Immaculate has the look of something as lightly spooky as the Nun films, but is prepared to go a lot further — abetted by a committed lead performance — than your average haunted convent picture.

The only film you’ll see this year with a limbless torso playing drums with animated entrails, this wickedly witty take on the seamy side of creative ambition is well worth a spin.

The Blackening is shuddery entertainment with more laughs than the entire Scary Movie franchise.

Resembling a kids’-birthday-party remake of 1973's The Legend Of Hell House, this suffers from being not that funny or spooky. Its saving grace is a cast you’re happy to spend time with.

Not a write-off, but more like a respectful homage than a 2020s update in the manner of Candyman (2021). Perhaps a little disrespect would have been truer to the Clive Barker/Pinhead spirit, which is curiously muted in this outing.

While still a lurid sequel to a ropey slasher movie, Orphan: First Kill is refreshingly clever, unpredictable and gruesome. Isabelle Fuhrman’s Esther deserves three more sequels and a ‘Versus’ movie with the Stepfather or Chucky.

Though some of the interludes are surprisingly effective – Cong Cong’s playground romance is genuinely sweet – the downtime between disasters is mostly here to let the audience breathe. The draw of the film is its huge set-pieces, which easily best recent Hollywood essays in disaster such as Deepwater Horizon.

There’s quite a bit to admire in Motherless Brooklyn, but mostly in detail work — the hats, the cars, the join-the-dots conspiracy theory — but it doesn’t really catch fire as either a private-eye mystery or a study in Tourette syndrome savantry.

While the film stumbles and meanders, however, there’s no denying that it delivers enough set-pieces for three regular horror films.

Showing more enthusiasm than aptitude, this earns ‘could do better if it tried’ on its report card — but it’s a strange enough genre mix to be vaguely worth a look.

A drama of upper-middle-class menace that can’t quite bring itself to be a full-on slasher movie, this has a few too many clichés but offers some creepiness and decent performances.

A soft-spoken yet chilling domestic horror film that tells its slightly overfamiliar tale effectively, with strong performances, quietly disturbing atmosphere, one or two friendly clichés, and good, old- fashioned scares.

This isn’t an atrocity on the level of, say, Rob Zombie’s Halloween — but it is a horror designed to test your patience rather than your nerves.

The real nun in the movie is the heroine, played by a spirited Taissa Farmiga, and the dramatic weight falls on her able shoulders.

Suspenseful and thought-provoking, The Cured is a serious, engaged horror movie. More upsetting than scary, it ratchets up the tension unsettlingly. There’s life in zombies yet.

Burke — perhaps best-known as the grown-up version of the scary baby in the last films in the Twilight saga — is outstanding as the fragile, yet determined heroine who is terrorised beyond the bounds of sanity but has to remember that she might be doing all this to herself.

An ordinary, if effective horror picture, is predictable fare with two big ticks to its benefit: a penchant for creep-out scares involving its looming spectre; and a committed, sympathetic performance from Macdonald.

If you don’t like Saw, this isn’t going to change your mind – but it’s skilful, satisfying schlock and respectful of its fanbase. And the final death is a show-stopping coup de grace.

Though it could do with being weirder and wilder, this high-concept mash-up — what if crooks robbed a haunted bank? — features fine work from a brace of rising stars.

A production line effort with an eye on cashflow rather than the demented work of art Hooper loosed on the world, this eighth entry is above average for its attenuated series. Gore levels are as high as expected and, naturally, the finale leaves things open for further instalments.

A worthy — if chilly and difficult — addition to the sadly extensive filmography of American mass murder. The soundtrack from Canadian singer-songwriter Maica Armata adds some much-needed heart.

Given that this is the first whacky comedy to come out of the Gulf War it’s a shame the whole enterprise isn’t a lot more tasteless, but the half-funny goings-on give that the script has been tailored not to offend a military machine on the point of massive war, perhaps at the expense of unpatriotic laughs. That said, it’s a pleasant enough time-waster, and doesn’t drag on too long.

Though stuck with stretches of guff and looking all too convincingly like video-era rubbish TV, Mindhorn delivers regular proper laughs and eventually wrings just enough drops of pathos to scrape by.

Reasonably entertaining but hectic (supposed) finale for the up-and-down series.

This mess isn’t likely to reboot or revive the American franchise.

Abattoir gets past its clunky storytelling with a great look - dark, shadowed, with a 1940s hardboiled feel - along with some well-staged shocks and scares.

Grotesque rather than scary and severely underplotted – but certainly strong meat.

Nothing is taken seriously, and there’s a nice mix of old groaner jokes delivered with a visible wince and genuine, sneakily erudite wit.

A solid haunting-possession movie with good character work and unusual local colour, this works in a few surprises, sufficient scares and a nicely barbed punchline.

A decent, mid-list spy thriller, suspended somewhere between le Carré and Bond but with a budgetary austerity in keeping with UK government spending cuts that keeps it out of the real high-stakes game.

Big sci-fi ideas done on a budget doesn't quite translate into a compelling thriller.

Spectacular and well-acted, this suffers from much the same problem as the situation it depicts — too many people on the mountain and too many threads to follow so that affecting individual stories get lost in the snow.

Hardly groundbreaking but this high-school actioner ghosts by on its charm and sense of fun.

It feels a little like ‘a very special episode of The Walking Dead’ and might be a tad low-key for its field, but Schwarzenegger and Breslin are good and the payoff is affecting.

Smart, fun, mid-list horror with Scream overtones

Like too much filmed space opera, this is wonderfully imaginative when it comes to costume, art direction, special effects, spaceships and incidental alien creatures but stuck with old-hat character types and a resolutely unspecial storyline. It’s frequently entertaining, but as much for its terrible moments as its inspired touches.

Son Of A Gun has the gritty, rough feel of 1970s heist/hit picture

Like Paranormal Activity at a wedding - Paranuptial Activity? - this low-budget horror has its moment. Much, much better than Legion, although not as scary as the actual Book of Revelation.

A couple of good jumps but this Conjuring spin-off is led down by poor writing, anodyne leads and and overwhelming sense of familiarity

Armour-clanging, cloak-swishing tosh with okay battles, terrible dialogue and sadly little horror or heroism. Nowhere near as bad as I, Frankenstein – but what is?

A tense, two-piece horror with serious kick.

Though overstretched and a trifle ponderous, this is a solidly acceptable star vehicle with more than enough righteous vengeance for an evening of classy thrills.

You’ll be jolted a couple of times, but these aren’t scares that will stay with you. How about retiring “based on a true story” in favour of “based on a good story”?

An unlikely but effective found-footage horror from Goldthwait.

A few too-broad gags aside — and even these are in the funky spirit of ’60s Marvel — this is a satisfying second issue with thrills, heartbreak, gasps, and a perfectly judged slingshot ending.

Brimming with ideas and laudable ambition, it's well worth a look.

A quality production, with awards-bid performances from Bale and Affleck to prove it... but, as signalled by the curiously unmemorable title, it flounders while trying to come up with a story to embody the things it wants to say about the sorry state of modern America. Worth seeing, but a near-miss.

Interesting material let down by the occasionally pedestrian direction.

An ordinary, forgettable horror film. Even the Devil deserves more than this.

Perhaps a folly and – Kikuchi aside - too deadpan to be a romp, this is still a decent, colourful samurai spectacle with a classical look (lots of symmetrical compositions) and a story which stands up under multiple retellings.

It may be contrived and nothing new plot-wise, but In Fear has atmosphere and enough proper scares to deliver on the promise of its title.

An entertaining, provocative biopic with good performances and many strong scenes — but it still doesn’t feel like the full Lovelace story.

With Cage as a harried cop, Cusack as a serial killer and 50 Cent as a pimp, we're assuming the casting department kicked off early on this one. Still, there's plenty in this taut thriller for you to stick around for, not least the reuniting of the Con Air duo.

Well-acted and suspenseful, with a great deal of editorial content, this feels a little awkward and earnest, and perhaps not angry enough.

Prepare to cringe and snicker whenever the characters are talking, but gasp when Shyamalan just shows amazing stuff.

There's plenty here to show why director Daniel Espinosa caught Hollywood's eye, even if this pre-Safe House crime drama holds few surprises.

A pleasingly intricate double (or is it triple?) revenge plot anchored by excellent acting, with a terrific burst of action at the climax.

A smart, subversive but rather cold debut from Brandon Cronenberg that's short of the dark wit that lit up his father's early work. Then again, comparisons are hardly fair, especially when Cronenberg Jr. clearly has plenty of ideas of his own.

Deeply icky on many different levels, with Ross Noble's feature debut illuminated by stomach-churning effects.

An austere, cerebral reading of a book which is unfettered, blood-bolstered and wildly sensationalist — Lewis is the father of torture porn, not a master of subtle chills. It’s interesting and unsettling, with a charismatic lead performance, but nowhere near as shocking as it should be.

Like good whisky, Loach is mellowing and becoming subtler with age — though a swift chug still has a bit of a kick.

A few reasonable action sequences are mired in family soap, making this A Good Day To Call It Quits.

A moving and often funny self-portrayal of Chapman that will delight Python fans.

One or two serious scares and some excellent creature design work make this a superior British horror sci-fi.

The first film was imperfect but solid as game-adaps go and fans revelled in its clammy shocks. No such luck this time out. Director Bassett oversees a vaporous horror sequel that rarely raises the pulse.

Catfish pair Joost and Ariel Schulman keep the franchise firmly on track with a satisfyingly scary fourth instalment.

Derrickson bounces back from his insipid redo of "The Day The Earth Stood Still" with an effective chiller that's got a skeleton or two in its closet.

A few old favourites – like the inconveniently wonky torch and the probably-not-quite-killed maniac – deliver the required jolts, but early promise dwindles to hokum.

Ingenious and wonderfully detailed, though better in its imaginative horror than its slightly too-broad comic knockabout. It's not quite on the level of Coraline, but it's proper summer fun with some dark delights.

It exists basically as a long showreel for Superman-to-be Henry Cavill, who gets to demonstrate a mastery of run-with-a-gun acting and flex his leading man charisma without really breaking a sweat.

Too safe to shock and too familiar to really frighten, this is an overly conventional affair.

It works as a suspense-building scare machine, given heart and depth by Olsen's performance - though it's still an effective exercise in misdirection rather than a strikingly original vision, and now it's a remake of an effective exercise in misdirection.

An unsuspenseful thriller with shades of "Death Wish." Nicolas Cage's return to New Orleans doesn't even have a hallucinatory iguana to recommend it.

Besides being an author, Edgar Allan Poe was one of the most vicious, merciless critics of his age. He would not have let this get past him without skewering its shortcomings with a barbed quill.

Tolerably exciting spycraft, but stuck with a see-through plot. Washington and Reynolds are watchable, but not exactly stretched by these roles.

Odd, but intriguing.

Not a complete disaster, but also not the vampire / werewolf mash we've always wanted.

Guilty, with one or two mitigating circumstances.

The Human Centipede gets longer (how long before it becomes The Human Millipede?) but the shocks will be familiar to anyone who enjoyed the first film. The 180 seconds or so of cuts needed to get it past the BBFC open up some plot holes but won't sweeten the pill for everyone else.

Lurie's remake doesn't bring a lot of fresh ideas to the table. The thick fug of moral ambiguity, so disconcerting in Peckinpah's film, is missing, replaced by certainties rife in modern horror. The result is a bit of yawn enlivened only by James Woods' delirious bad guy.

A few good stunts, some tolerable brooding and one nice, if silly desert chase. But not essential.

Blair Witch with moon rock. Paranormal Activity in space. Contrived, but if you can take one more variant on the formula, it's got its moments.

Like all sieges, this offers moments of choppy terror and excitement followed by dull sit-it-out-and-starve spots. Straddled between uproarious schoolboy tosh and serious historical movie, this still offers enough dismemberments, royal tantrums and portcullis-rammings to make for a lively Saturday night out.

Martin Campbell made Zorro and Bond work as contemporary heroes, but doesn't quite have the feel for poor old Hal Jordan. Green Lantern is dazzling in pieces, but we've seen too many sharper versions of the superhero origin story in the last few years. It's not Jonah Hex, but the battery runs low too quickly.

A decent historical drama, with one of the best extended battle scenes (a full half of the movie is the face-off in the 'village of death') in recent memory.

An offbeat comedy/drama elevated by another terrific Varmiga turn.

Pretty much cardboard, down to the heroic patriotic speeches, and less distinctive even than last year's scarcely stellar "Skyline," which trashed the same city. Things blow up good and Eckhart is a classier actor than his role warrants, but we've all been here before.

In the filmography of liberal-skewing, Bush-era true stories, this is a measured, persuasive item.

A certain percentage of the audience will instantly sieze on this as their favorite movie of all time, and a small, but not insignificant demographic will have nightmares. Verbinski and Depp probably like it that way.

With all these folks in the same movie, there are inevitably moments when Hoffman or Wilson get a laugh, but on the whole it's the same again but weaker and with fewer good jokes. We're too tired of the gag even to think of a 'focker' line to sign off the review.

There are a scattering of infallibly cringe-making horrors, but on the whole Saw 3D could do with more depth.

Effective jump-shocks and a strong turn from Eddie Marsan mask an over-complicated last act.