Kim Newman

A trim, evenly-paced 80 minutes, XX is one of the more consistent contemporary horror anthologies.

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

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

This psycho-thriller showcases an awards-worthy performance from James McAvoy. Shyamalan papers over plot-holes with dry black humour and well-judged suspense, and — as always — holds back some surprises.

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

Once past a first reel which deliberately sticks to torture porn conventions, Pet is redeemed by a series of developments that take the film into surprising story and character areas.

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.

Origin of Evil doesn’t stretch the conventions of teen-appeal spookiness too far, but is solidly put together, mounted with a pleasant conviction and runs to several fine performances and some decent scares.

If you can take the assault on your senses it’s worth sticking with for a core of genuine, affecting drama and dollops of sly, quotable humour.

A quality ghost story with an unusual backdrop and great performances.

It’s an intense, imaginative piece of work – which treads over familiar ground but modestly ventures a bit further in the climax.

Though a little too languid at two hours, The Love Witch is appropriately seductive.

An intense, streamlined exercise in gruesome thrills, with a tiny glimmer of social context (it’s all about the economy) which doesn’t take away from the exciting struggle to get out of this house of horrors.

Antibirth is intentionally ramshackle and hallucinatory as storytelling, seen through the viewpoint of characters who are mostly too stoned to concentrate – but it’s also highly crafted and unsettling.

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

You have to be in the right mood for it, but this is one of the season’s finest films.

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.

The funniest, most deliciously venomous Jane Austen movie ever made, and conclusive proof that, a) Kate Beckinsale has been seriously undervalued by the movies and, b) Whit Stillman is a major, distinctive talent.

A riotous, rough-hewn and rousing punk reinvention of ’70s-style grindhouse exploitation-with-a-brain-cinema.

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 notable, unusual existential thriller that is psychologically acute without the need for Oscar-clip self-pitying speeches, it’s also terrifically suspenseful with a provocative punchline.

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.

So many films address the premise because it’s always thought-provoking and affecting. This also has a bleached, depopulated, effectively catastrophe-struck feel and an intriguing adult-and-child road movie storyline.

It has a nice line in wry chatter and a pleasantly old-fashioned ‘lost posse’ plot with engaging, odd characters striving against the wilderness while swapping cynical frontier wisdom.

The ending is haunting and affecting.

It might also be the case that the film is more taken by emotions, beauty and passing fancies than plot and character.

A well-above-average ho-ho-ho-horror film with a shivery sense of winter weirdland and anarchic ultra-violence, it’s also a strong candidate to become a holiday favourite thanks to a perfectly judged 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.