Kim Newman

Slightly weird, occasionally funny thriller.

Trying to break expectations isn't always a wise idea and here Disney show how not to do it. With this supposed-family movie, they disappoint on nearly every level. The plot is weak, the action poor and it's got Bette Midler, simply dreadful.

Not quite a complete write-off, but basically a folly.

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

Poor remake of the Korean thriller.

The end result, while not entirely unrewarding, is another step away from the singular vision Cronenberg once expressed even in his marginal works.

This hastily-produced sequel ignores the dreamstalking premise that had made A Nightmare on Elm Street successful and reverts to the overfamiliar possession story.

A grand folly, but lots to love.

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.

Interesting material let down by the occasionally pedestrian direction.

An unconventional sequel to an unconventional film, this works as a standalone picture with its own distinctive take on alien invasion but also expands what now seem like a franchise with potential to deliver more and varied snapshots of human behaviour in extreme circumstances.

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.

There is a great deal of action in Renegades, yet it still manages to be a faintly boring film.

It’s funny, wonderfully performed by all, visually inventive.

In between his successful Back II the Futures and his stint on Spin City, Fox's career was in freefall with this film proving the point. Although he is as charismatic as ever, it's not enough for the viewer to actually sympathise with Fox's character, or even lift this poor comedy enough to get a laugh.

All-in-all a fairly unpleasant experience for most audiences.

Predictable and been-there, seen-that, but entertaining nevertheless at times.

The best thing about this is Tom Savini's superb, uncensored special effects.

Mike Figgis raised enough cash to make this with a pretty good cast and a lot of technical skill, but it's still hard to endure at feature length.

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 little slow and vastly outdated now, but nonetheless very watchable.

Alvin does high school rom-com and very poorly at that.

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.

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

Poor attempt by Hammer to create their version of Frankenstein, featuring the usually reliable Bates offering a rather irritating performance as the scientist who goes beyond the call of science. Meanwhile before the call of Darth Vader Prowse begins to practice his heavy breathing and ominous walk.

Another reason to avoid films endorsed by the US military, this is sub-propaganda tosh that inadvertently plays like Hot Shots: Part Trois.

A no-holds-barred assault on hollywood cop sensibilities that could have benefited from more comic diversions.

Performances, plot and landings are nailed down, but there's not enough invention here for the film to achieve cult status.

The characters might physically appear rounded, but are otherwise paper-thin.

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”?

Worse than Scary Movies 1 through 3… And they were terrible.

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.

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.

Pitched halfway between a comedy and a morality tale, this space race often falls between the two, but is mildly diverting and boasts a strong young cast that will go on to make better things.

Unsurprisingly this is the worst in the RoboCop trilogy, with the plot proving ridiculous, excelling itself particularly in the climax. For what was a promising debut, it's reputation was quickly tarnished with the drivvel such as this that followed.

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.

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.

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?

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 famously disastrous follow-up to William Friedkin’s horror hit.

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.

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

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.

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.

The plot unravels in unwieldy dollops, and, despite some adequate special effects (for the time), the whole thing is really a bit of a bore.

You know Freddy may or may not be finally dead, but he's looking pretty damn tired.

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

All pout and pose, with no spine to speak of; a beast with no back.

One of the problems is that King usually writes about cliche subjects so well that you don’t notice the hackneyed aspects of his books, and so when all the character detail, precise backgrounding and elaborate plot setting-up mechanisms are pruned away, all you get is a dumb TV movie with characters doing insanely stupid things to prolong the agony.

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.

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.

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.

A very pompous version of the kind of nonsense Chuck Norris has been doing in far less embarrassing fashion for so many years.

What fun there is to be had is undermined by drab 3D, hacked-out dialogue and rehashed plots.

If you just want to look with admiration and Johnny and/or Angelina – and why wouldn't you? – this offers the full scenic tour, but it's one of those frustrating almost-good films which never really catches fire.

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

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.

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.

Depressing and trivial.

It's a good job this works so well as a machine-made movie, because its grasp of political realities is nebulous.

For a while, its crassness is amusing, but as the plot sets in, it gradually turns into a stultifying bore.

Strays slightly from the formula and therefore loses some of its mindless fun credentials.

Predictable and flat, the sort of cop-out horror movie which relies on sending up long-outdated female stereotypes of the matron vs the siren. Nothing particularly refreshing or even frightening resides within.

Less pompous than Pet Sematary, this has moments of trashy vigour but is scuppered by a consistently wretched script, Mary Lambert's knee-jerk direction and the usual redundant sequel air of utter pointlessness.

The first film to be adapted from rather than into a Nintendo cartridge, Super Mario Bros, is a shrill, hectic and tiresome fantasy with little story, less excitement and no imaginable audience.

Zombie’s filmmaking career began with inventive pop videos for his band White Zombie and he can still frame an interesting shot or layer in an unusual and affecting snatch of music, but after six features he still can’t come up with a fresh story, write characters with more depth than their make-up or direct stalking scenes that are suspenseful or moments of gory violence that are shocking.

Gong Li is welcome as Hannibal's Japanese aunt-in-law/mentor, Gaspard Ulliel isn't a bad young Lecter and Webber's direction is intermittently classy -- but this is a footnote rather than a film.

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.

"Save your last breath...to scream" reads the tagline - we advise you save it for the inevitable sigh as the credits roll on this monstrous B-Movie farce.

Although the film has a ridiculous premise that's no reason for it not to work, sadly the direction it is taken in, it's poor acting, character development and shoddy action sequences are though. Allen stands out as a spunky heroine but she's the best thing in it.

Unlucky for almost everyone. It's a sad day when a Friday the 13th remake is shown up by a My Bloody Valentine remake – couldn't they at least have sprung for 3-D?

It's incredible that a film could be so closely patterned on Carpenter's still-thrilling original movie and yet be so stupid, unscary and plodding as Halloween 4 is.

Not quite as dreadful as Resident Evil: Apocalypse, but that's hardly a major achievement.

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

Bottom-rung dreck.

As an unashamed B-movie, The Crush does what it says on the tin and entertains for an hour and a half. Except you feel kind of cheated by the supposed climax, with the build up proving more disturbing. Silverstone is convincingly equal parts Lolita and Norman Bates.

The fuzzy thinking allows for gorgeous outdoor photography and a few too many dead spots, but Seagal the director shows real muscle by staging one of the screen's best-ever exploding helicopters and allowing Seagal the star to spit out tough talk, as when he refuses to shoot Caine because, "I don't want to dirty my bullets."

Terrible, but not worth getting worked up about.

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.

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

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.

Pretty solid gory horror.

Mildly titillating, but not very good.

A clunky, lumbering sequel that, like its masked protagonist, has no redeeming features.

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.

No plot, no real story, no point really.

Safe when it's ripping genre jokes word for word, this pallid pastiche never goes for the jugular, the heart, or any other part of the audience, for that matter. It breezes by like the tamest of ghosts, almost unnoticeable.

Don't bother.

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

Howard the Duck manages to be two or three types of fun: as a crazy comedy, it has some good risque/sick jokes to go along with its messy slapstick and bland rock music; as a monster movie, it has an outstanding performance from Jeffrey Jones as a scientist-cum-monster and an astonishingly repulsive Dark Overlord of the Universe shows up for the exciting climax.

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.

A toothless, tedious farce which deserves to sink without a trace.

Loud, noisy, flashy but too rarely chilling.

No award winner, but at least it delivers the rubbishy goods.

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

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.

Dialogue is all-cliché, a decent cast get not much to go on (if Wonder Woman put Nielsen back on the map, this does her few favours), and even the action scenes have a rushed, unfinished feel.

Every bit as contrived as the leading lady's hairstyles, and rather less technically impressive, this is still trashy fun.

Technically ambitious, dramatically basic. Still, it's a major step up from an AvP sequel and delivers all the Saturday night whizz-bang and Sunday morning brain-ripping you could want.

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

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.

Even the gratuitous nudity can't quite save a Heathers-goes-to-college horror that's undermined by a silly plot and clunky dialogue.

Though Clay is unbearably watchable, the mis-cast director means this comedy would be better as an action flick - it isn't funny but the violence is well executed.

Worse than being buried alive in an actual pyramid, if mercifully less time-consuming.

Torture junkies should remember it’s only four months to Saw IV -- so you can afford to avoid Captivity.

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

Blood Wars is tragically bereft of the pulp verve this nonsense needs to be tolerable.

As the bodies pile up amongst this testy crowd of horny teens, there remains a vacant hole were someone scary should be. In a strange way, this film stands unique amongst all slasher films as one where the killer is nearly intangible.

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.

At barely 70 minutes long, this still manages to stammer and stall between the meaningless atrocities. It's time this series met Abbott and Costello.

A disjointed mish-M.A.S.H. of cliched comedy and misplaced observational wit.

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.

Hogan proved himself a better actor when pretending that American wrestling is a real sport, and the production team that brought you the Mannequin movies can add another excruciating dud to their CV.

Just no.

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.

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.

As a subversive take on Milne, it’s achingly banal. As a rural horror film, it’s more inept than the most wretched Wrong Turn sequel. As a would-be cult classic, it commits the ultimate sin of being no fun at all. This bear is sh*t in the woods.

It's now become Hollywood gospel that if a high concept film is reasonably successful, then make a sequel and if that raises any interest at all, then, hey why not try one more. It's a shame that here the studios just don't know when to stop with this episode ruining the name of what was once an enjoyable franchise.

It plays a lot like a Porky's holiday comedy for the first half, and then the seagoing killer fish learn to fly and big rubber toothy things terrorise the survivors.

Significantly worse than the rest of the series, this film is one of the worst flops in recent cinema.

Lacking a single honest laugh, this is shoddy by comparison with the other Scary Movie sequels… which throws it in a pit with Transylmania, Breaking Wind and Stan Helsing.

Another soulless, pointless rip-off, this doodles around the plot parameters of John Carpenter's Halloween movies with only Pleasence, who died during production, and Carpenter's theme tune as links to the series' beginnings.

Lame and clunky in many places which doesn't manage to save this bizarre premise from dull absurdity.

Like it or not, Six has contributed something fresh and demented to pop culture.

Genuinely original interpretation of the Brit gangster and Lewis Carroll's surreal tale.

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

Often, stories with terrific narrative hooks run out of steam, but Lábrèche and Léonard keep coming up with satisfying plot twists which take the film into unexpectedly deep emotional waters.

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.

Despite an above average cast and interesting use of the Catholic angle, this film just isn't quite scary enough for hardcore horror fans.

Despite lashings of bright red gore and the obvious enthusiasm of its gibbering hordes, Redcon-1 is a hard slog. Nearly two hours of grunts vs zombies feels punitive.

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.

A number of decent performances and a gritty realistic view of London makes this little sci-fi spin-off still worth a look.