Kim Newman

It falters a little in its confusing climactic battle, but is breathlessly paced, wittily scripted, amusingly played, action-packed and relentlessly spooky.

Though it might charitably be described as "a load of old cods", there is a certain entertainment value to Murder At 1600.

A little too exactly like the original but with (fewer) memorable performances.

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.

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.

Still creepy, ooky, mysterious and spooky, but trying to follow the storylines is like sorting spaghetti.

Originating the genre of 'dedicated teacher reaches troubled kids in a ghetto school', this is still affecting although heavy-handed.

Not as affecting as Ozu's classic Tokyo Story, Late Spring still charms with it's similar theme of development of the parental bond as the children mature and become more independent. Although well acted, the visual are equally arresting but when the themes are so similar a new approach is required to keep it interesting.

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.

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

Director Steve Miner, on board because Carpenter passed, made two of the early Friday The 13th sequels and manages the business of the sudden knee-jerk shocks with ease, realising (as the previous sequels didn't) that Halloween movies are supposed to be scary not violent.

Uncomfortable viewing which isn't afraid to engage with race-related violence.

Even thought it's the third such effort to employ handheld camera in a zombie flick, this has more than enough shocks to hold its own.

This will not appeal to everyone, whether it will appeal to anyone is another question. With dark humour from time to time, underneath an extremely repulsive concept, this is a relatively conventional horror movie.

Episodic western with a great performance from Hoffman.

A noisy but enjoyable destruction derby of a film, sadly with none of the subtlety, invention or skill of Spielberg's Duel.

It's not exactly good, and it has some very bad scenes indeed, but the performances sometimes sparkle and the unusual happy ending -- scored with David Bowie's 'Putting Out the Fire With Gasoline' -- is surprisingly moving.

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.

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.

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

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

Fonda and Danner — who looked then exactly like her daughter, Gwyneth Paltrow, does now — are likable leads in ’70s futurist leisurewear (why didn’t those tailored jumpsuits catch on?), and some creepy corporate robot action helps (Danner’s gunfight with her robot duplicate), but it’s a lot less exciting than the original and replaces satire with TV-style plotting.

After several successful films where he plays the tough-as-nails cowboy, Wayne wasn't about to break the pattern now. Playing the only character he knows, he gives several inspiring speeches to an unlikely group of kids who turn from boys to men.

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.

The filmmakers try to solve the problem of turning an experience which merely consists of a series of fights into a story by... ignoring it, presenting a film which merely consists of a series of fights.

The film has a real sense of a situation slipping out of control, with marvellous displays of hysteria matched by movie trickery that spreads the edginess to the audience.

Quality acting and writing and appropriately understated direction, but a touch too polite for its own good.

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.

At times a subversive, sub-Marvel thrill, it might be best to come back to this after the glut of goody-goody heroes due to bombard our screens have passed.

A family comedy lacking the double level of humour that make the modern ones so successful. The jokes are obvious but never very far away. Russell puts in a worthy performance as the irrepressible Ron and Martin Short is typically neurotic as the father.

As horribly funny as it is depressing, it gets pretty hard to take after a while, especially for anyone who is a committed cat-lover. A melancholy edge of deliberate poetry mutes the ugly realism but also serves to make bearable what might otherwise be an hour-and-a-half of hell.

The look, created by Hooper’s cinematographer Daniel Pearl, and expert art direction is persuasively nasty… but somehow that buzzing saw doesn’t sound as scary as it used to.

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.

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

Although patched together from loose ends, this works surprisingly well, with interesting and well-integrated visual effects, some nice humour and a few genuinely visionary touches.

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.

Landis occasionally plays wonderful licks on the cliches, as in an original take on the familiar vampire-burning-up-at-dawn shtick, but like his earlier movies (An American Werewolf In London, The Blues Brothers) this keeps self-destructing on a story level. Of all entries in the recent vampire cycle, this is at once the most hung-up on horror history and the most revisionary in its rewriting of the mythology.

See-saws between straight superhero movie and parody, with layers of soap-opera fudge in between. A lot of solid scenes - but Hancock lacks the power of super-coherence.

Smart, fun, mid-list horror with Scream overtones

Millar's warmth for literary influences continues to buoy his filmmaking, whilst a sturdy British cast and faultless period settings do Dahl proud.

Compared to similar genre offerings, this ain't much cop. But standing alone, it's an entertaining and amiable film.

This subject demands a Godfather Part II, but Stone and collaborators have turned in a Godfather Part III. There is a lot of good material, but LaBeouf nearly sinks it and we could use much more of the old Gekko brimstone.

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

It’s quite an entertaining little effort, combining the craziest aspects of classic Hollywood screwball comedy with the kind of fresh insanity found in the great cartoons.

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.

While not exactly reaching Ring-levels of terror, it's certainly one for connoisseurs of the weird.

No masterpiece, but a decent rental prospect. Twohy works the Sci-fi genre well yet again.

Paying attention to religious impulses which are all but incomprehensible in the 20th Century, Bresson conjures up a God-bothered middle ages that is harrowing but not, it must be said, terribly exciting.

Derivative but tongue-in-cheek enough to have a following.

Entertaining in places, if only for the fact that unlike most 50s si-fi films, the aliens are treated with some sympathy.

Pleasant, forgettable.

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

What's missing here though is the novel's trick of being a wonderfully contrived mystery on the surface while underneath lurks an angry and upsetting analysis of class injustice in the USA.

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.

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

The script hasn't aged well and their's an overdose of the ominous, but when Ford forgets about religion and concentrates on squealer-on-the-run thrills, the film still has a real charge.

This isn't afraid to be a horror movie.

The main problem is that the supposed good guys are all such reprehensible toads it’s impossible to care whether they get to bring down Willem Dafoe’s charismatic, polo-necked super-crook.

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.

Guest star Dan O'Herlihy steals the film as a Celtic joke tycoon (‘the man who invented sticky toilet paper and the dead dwarf gag’) who hates the way American kids are despoiling the religious spirit of Samhain and decides to teach them a nasty lesson.

Some interesting creative choices make this more a curio than a great film.

Hellboy might not have the name-recognition factor of the Spider- or Batmen, but Guillermo del Toro brings the audience swiftly up to speed on artist-writer Mike Mignola's comic book anti-hero.

Super sexy, silly Meyer fun where he takes his own self-styled genre to its heights/depths.

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.

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.

Once you get past the ridiculous story this is a fine example of De Palma's lush overkill style and certainly has a redeeming thread of silly sick humour.

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.

It sets some sort of record for use of the expressions "nigga" and "muthafucka".

Earlier Clancy films alternated between the dull and the ridiculous. First-rate writers like Steven Zaillian and the great John Milius have managed to make this considerably meatier.

Very 'talky', but the three lead females are excellent, as are the costumes and sets.

A small but perfectly formed crime drama. And, without making a fuss, a proper nail-biter, too.

A curiously compulsive drama that for all its inevitable Dead Sailors’ Society trappings is still highly entertaining.

Effective melodrama with some satisfying emotional confrontations, particularly from Lana Turner.

The tension revs along nicely and - if you're not heisted out already - there's some suspense to be had.

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.

Thoughtful trial movie with a disturbing edge.

Okay, so it’s Cujo with a chimp and a pool instead of a dog and a car – but Primate delivers good, gruesome business and has a sense of fun. Solid horror 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.

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.

Cheerful, kitsch and camp.

As a one-off this could have inoffensively scraped by on thin charm alone. But don't forget kids, it gave rise to such monstrosities as Last Action Hero, Junior and Jingle all the Way…

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.

Good central performances but short on plot.

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

Okay video-dungeon-style horror, a bit marooned on the big-screen but nevertheless murky fun.

Prestigious, well turned out piece of British historical drama with enough genuine intrigue and wit to persuade some audiences they aren't watching a history lesson.

If the series wants to become a franchise, a rethink and new blood will be necessary -- maybe Banderas can get mortally wounded in reel one of The Son Of Zorro, passing on the mask and sword to, say, Gael García Bernal.

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.

Silly but enormous fun, complete with gypsy musical numbers and an insane battle royal finish.

A grand folly, but lots to love.

Some okay thrills with good performances and some smarts. But the last reel plunge spoils things. Myth for the new millennium: any average, out-of-shape middle-aged Yank, including the President, can get in a punch-up with a few well-armed, super-trained terrorists, and win.

The fantastic action scenes featuring Chan in his pomp are slightly let down by comic overkill.

Connery [is] cruising by this point and the movie doesn't quite match the swagger of Goldfinger, but still effortlessly plies the glory Bond years, concluding with a stunning underwater battle.

The epitome of middle-brow 'quality' drama -- admirable within its limitations, but Bernard Schlink's Oprah Winfrey Book Club-approved book wasn't exactly literature, as this isn't exactly cinema.

Sequelcraft 101 – if you liked the others, this is more of the same. Extra points for using a nailgun on pigeons.

An unlikely but effective found-footage horror from Goldthwait.

Fun spoof but it's been surpassed in the TV-series film spoof since then.

Exotica reaches for the mysterious, subtle and provocative with sparing but tangible success, and is flashy in the same way earlier Egoyan films were buttoned down.