A Deadly Legend (2020)
A really bad low-budget film jumping aboard the Folk Horror bandwagon where construction work at a summer camp stirs druidic rituals from the past
A Disturbance in the Force: How The Star Wars Holiday Special Happened (2023)
The Star Wars Holiday Special has a legendary awfulness in Star Wars fandom – least of all that George Lucas has done all in his power to quash its existence. This is a documentary about what happened
A Double Life (1947)
George Cukor was one of the legendary Hollywood directors. Here he dives into film noir with Ronald Colman as a stage actor who psychopathically over-identifies with Shakespeare’s Othello
D-Tox (2002)
Thriller where Sylvester Stallone is a detective who goes into alcoholic rehab after his wife is killed by a serial killer only to realise that the killer is posing as one of the attendees
D.A.R.Y.L. (1985)
Barret Oliver plays an android boy on the run from his creators who shelters with a human family. This promptly employs all the cliches of the post-E.T. film
D.E.B.S. (2004)
An extremely witty parody of Charlie’s Angels (that also tapps the whole Austin Powers spy spoof fad). This amusingly rewrites the tv show in terms of lesbian attraction
Da (1988)
Charming work of autobiography filled with some great performances in which Martin Sheen remembers his childhood in Ireland with an irascible father. Also a ghost story.
Daddy’s Deadly Darling (1973)
An enjoyably twisted psycho film that heads into a fairly disturbed headspace concerning a waitress who has a habit of killing people and her former circus performer boss who feeds the bodies to his pigs
Daddy’s Girl (1996)
A formulaic evil child psycho-thriller where young Gabrielle Boni kills to protect her perfect adopted family. At least young Boni conjures an effective nastiness on screen
Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting (1969)
Psycho-thriller about a woman who has an abortion and then years later is married and pregnant when she is stalked by her ex-boyfriend demanding that the child is his. From an early Larry Cohen script
Dagon (2001)
Stuart Gordon returns to adapt H.P. Lovecraft for a third time. As before, Gordon allows Lovecraft’s unspeakable terrors to be eclipsed by creature effects but the results are nothing too memorable
Dahmer (2002)
A film based on true-life serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer that does a reasonable job in depicting the Dahmer story. This stars a young unknown Jeremy Renner in the title role
Dahmer vs Gacy (2011)
This gets full marks for an attention grabbing title – outside of that it has the cheap shabbiness of a Troma film, substituting a gonzo sarcasm and plentiful bad taste and gore for many of the filmmaking basics
Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story (2022)
Best TV of the year. A mini-series that offers an absolutely compulsive dive into the disturbing mind of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer and an exactingly detailed charting of his crimes. Evan Peters shines in the title role
Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. (1966)
The second of the theatrically released Doctor Who films intended to highlight the popularity of The Daleks, this is an improvement over the first film in that it dispenses with the buffoonish comedy elements
Dam Sharks! (2016)
Another gonzo killer shark film, this concerns sharks who have invaded a river and built a dam to trap human prey. Everything comes with an amusingly sarcastic sense of humour
Damien’s Seed (1996)
This makes an interesting attempt to rewrite the basics of The Omen as an erotic film. The usual occult happenings but with an emphasis on bodies coupling
Damien: Omen II (1978)
The first of the sequels to The Omen, this follows Damien through his teenage years as he comes into his powers. Mostly though, the film seems to exist to stage more bizarre novelty death scenes
Damn Yankees (1958)
Musical where an ordinary guy sells his soul to become a star baseball player. Choreographed with exuberance by the great Bob Fosse, including a seduction number that proved controversial for the era
Damnation Alley (1977)
Disastrous adaptation of the Roger Zelazny novel where the story of a Hell’s Angel on a trek across the post-apocalyptic wasteland is recast with a G.I. and a girl and kid along for the journey, plus the addition of giant mutant cockroaches
Dampyr (2022)
A comic-book adaptation about vampire wars in a modern East European war zone. A slick Underworld-styled vampire action film that has some interesting ideas going on inside it
Damsel (2024)
A dragon fantasy where Stranger Things’ Millie Bobby Brown plays the damsel who sets out to save herself. A fantasy film made for people who don’t like fantasy films
Danger Beneath the Sea (2001)
A video-released submarine drama that is a blatant copy of Crimson Tide with a crew unsure whether to launch a nuclear strike. This is competently made if every move feels spelled out in advance
Danger! Danger! (2021)
This is an enjoyable low-budget homage to the Indiana Jones film that comes with a number of knowing references to the genre and the addition of a clever time travel plot
Danger: Diabolik (1967)
Mario Bava directs a sublimely stylish and tongue-in-cheek adaptation of an Italian comic-book about a masked super-thief who delights in outwitting and taunting the bumbling authorities
Dangerous Animals (2025)
At variance to the assorted other films about survival in shark-infested waters, this features Jai Courtney in a completely crazed performance as a serial killer who feeds his victims to sharks
Dangerous Attraction (1999)
A passable psycho-sexual thriller that copies Fatal Attraction and Basic Instinct with Andrea Roth caught between two men, one of who seems to be stalking her
Dangerous Game (1987)
Australian film in which a psychopathic cop pursues a group of teens who break into a department store after hours. A debut film for Stephen Hopkins who went on to a successful career as a Hollywood director.
Daniel Isn’t Real (2019)
A horror film that delves into pleasingly dark places as a man finds that his life is being taken over by his childhood imaginary companion that he realises wants to possess his body
Dante 01 (2008)
Finally, the answer to what happened to Marc Caro after parting ways with Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Caro directs what would appear to be a darkly lit and confusing variation on The Green Mile set on a space station
Dante’s Inferno (1911)
An extraordinary find, the first ever feature film, a depiction of Dante’s Inferno and a descent down to visit the damned in Hell conducted with an incredible ambition for the time the film was made
Dante’s Inferno (1924)
Silent movie version of Dante’s classic poem. Dante is suborned into a miser’s redemption story but it is the wild mediaeval visions of Hell and the tortures of the damned we have come to watch the film for
Dante’s Inferno (1935)
Dante Aligheri’s famous poem is dragged down to a tatty morality play with Spencer Tracy as a carnival barker running an Inferno exhibit. The film is worth watching for its stunning hallucinatory vision of Hell
Dante’s Inferno (2007)
Modernised version of the classic journey though Hell conducted with cardboard puppets – a uniquely appealing experiment peppered with a number of biting contemporary jibes
Darby O’Gill and the Little People (1959)
This leprechaun fantasy is one of the best and most underrated live-action films Disney ever made. The effects are at a peak of the era and the film plays with a sublime charm that proves absolutely winning
Daredevil (2003)
One of the early efforts among the surge of Marvel Comics adaptations on the big screen in the early 2000s. A disappointing adaptation that feels more like a series of posed comic-book panels than it ever does a movie
Dario Argento Panico (2023)
A documentary that interviews Dario Argento, now in his early eighties, along with his family and those around him, where he discusses his life, films and career
Dark Age (1987)
Undeniably influenced by Jaws, this Australian effort is the first ever killer crocodile film. Nothing extraordinary, although the film does have an interesting subtext about the conflict between European and Aborigine cultures
Dark and Stormy Night (2009)
Larry Blamire, a director who specialises in genre parodies, takes on the Old Dark House thriller. Not quite up there with Blamire’s funniest films, nevertheless, the film conducts some amusing spoofs of the form
Dark Angel (1990)
Rather enjoyable action film that conducts an amusing spin on Lethal Weapon buddy cop formula with Dolph Lundgren taking on an intergalactic drug dealer
Dark Angel: The Ascent (1994)
One of the better films to emerge from Full Moon, the story of a female demon who escapes to Earth and becomes a vigilante defender of the innocent. Rather well done with Angela Featherstone being particularly otherworldly
Dark Asylum (2001)
Modestly effective psycho film with Paulina Porizkova pursued through a deserted asylum by escaped serial killer Larry Drake
Dark at Noon (1992)
Incomprehensible surrealism from director Raul Ruiz about a doctor sent to investigate a village where miracles occur with commonplace regularity
Dark Breed (1995)
An action movie inspired by tv’s The X Files involving space shuttle pilots returned to Earth possessed by aliens. The emphasis is more on action scenes than a coherent plot
Dark City (1998)
From Alex Proyas and David S. Goyer, this has an astonishing conceptual audacity in its plot dealing with shifting realities and transplanted memories, making it arguably the finest science-fiction film of the 1990s
Dark Cloud (2022)
SF film about a woman suffering amnesia who is sent to an automated house to recuperate only to be made prisoner by the sinister A.I. that runs the house
Dark Encounter (2019)
A modestly effective film about UFOs and alien abductions. This follows familiar paths to other films but is conducted with a quite reasonable degree of atmospheric
Dark Floors (2008)
Film created by Finnish heavy metal performer Mr Lordi that takes place in a hospital that seems to exist in a haunted twilight zone
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
Dark House (2014)
The underrated Victor Salva, director of Jeepers Creepers, takes on the deviltry and occult film where with his ability to conjure eerie jumps and outlandish images produces something original and out of this world
Dark Intruder (1965)
Pilot for an unsold tv series that was later released theatrically produced by Alfred Hitchcock’s company. Leslie Nielsen plays an occult detective and the film proves surprisingly well-shot and atmospheric
Dark Island (2010)
This feels like a mockbuster thrown together to exploit the popularity of the tv series Lost concerning an island haunted by a sinister cloud of smoke. The scenario quickly collapses into absurdity.
Dark Kingdom (2018)
This is a British-made fantasy film in the vein of Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones but conducted on a B-budget where it does seem to be making an effort
Dark Metropolis (2010)
a low-budget SF film set in an underground world ruled by a caste of genetically engineered people concerning who now face rebellion from among the lower classes
Dark Nature (2022)
A horror film made by Canada’s indigenous Metis people that concerns a group of women on a therapeutic wilderness trek are stalked and attacked by a monster
Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1981)
Frank De Felitta was mostly known for writing the novel that became Audrey Rose. He directs this tv movie where intellectually handicapped Larry Drake is killed by a lynch mob only to return from the dead as a scarecrow
Dark Places (1973)
A forgotten item from the Anglo-horror cycle in which brother and sister Christopher Lee and Joan Collins conspire to fake a series of hauntings in order to obtain an inheritance hidden in a mansion
Dark Planet (1996)
A routine SF film about an space expedition through a wormhole to investigate a habitable planet where the mission is endangered by warring factions among the crew
Dark Remains (2005)
A low-budget independent film that is making a clear effort to spook an audience. On the other side, it is also mining the ghost story, a genre that feels like it has run out of anything original in its tired and formulaic plot possibilities
Dark Shadows (2012)
Tim Burton’s slide into mediocrity continues with this comedic update of the cult Gothic soap opera tv series, which is now played at a level of cartoonish unseriousness that resembles the Addams Family
Dark Signal (2016)
The intriguing idea of a haunted radio signal. A ghost story that does something different telling an ambitious double-stranded story even if it fails to pull it off with complete satisfaction
Dark Skies (2013)
Former effects supervisor Scott Stewart surprises here in producing a carefully restrained alien abduction film that focuses on the incursion of the inexplicable into the everyday
Dark Space (2013)
A low budget indie film about a spaceship crashlanded on an alien planet that is no more than a glorified fan film that features a level of effects that are extremely well accomplished
Dark Spell (2021)
Work of Russian horror that heads into pleasingly dark places as a woman enacts a love spell to bring her boyfriend back to her where you just know that something horrible is going to happen
Dark Star (1974)
John Carpenter’s first film, made as a student project in collaboration with an also unknown Dan O’Bannon. A send-up of the boldly going space exploration of Star Trek, this features a ship where the crew are going stir crazy. The results are hilarious
Dark Star: H.R. Giger’s World (2014)
Documentary about H.R. Giger, most famous as the creator of the alien in Alien but has also created an extraordinary body of darkly beautiful art, even if we never gain much insight into who Giger was
Dark Summer (2015)
Director Paul Solet made an incredibly creepy debut film Grace. His follow-up has Keir Gilchrist imprisoned on home detention with an ankle bracelet only to find the house is haunted
Dark Touch (2013)
In her first English-language debut, French director/writer/actress Marina de Van delivers a variant on Carrie, albeit rewritten as a tale about child abuse. Oblique, quiet but undeniably effective when de Van pulls her punches
Dark Water (2002)
Hideo Nakata made the highly influential Ringu but his other films have been uneven. This ghost story is one of his few follow-ups that comes near recapturing the same uncanny mood
Dark Water (2005)
The English-language remake of Hideo Nakata’s ghost story made by Walter Salles. This version is surprisingly faithful to the original but entirely miscues Nakata’s jolt ending
Dark Waters (1993)
A film about a woman’s journey to a convent of sinister secrets that is aswim in religious imagery, although the film itself eventually proves to be all imagery with no coherent plot
Darkening Sky (2010)
Low-budget UFO/alien abduction film that mostly this just retreads familiar material, although it does evince a certain interesting state of rubber reality about what is happening
Darker Than Night (1975)
A Mexican entry in the haunted house genre, featuring a group of girls who inherit a place haunted by an aunt and her black cat. Strikingly rich in terms of set design
Darkest Day (2015)
An ambitious low-budget variant on 28 Days Later featuring some excellent effects, where a man wakes up with amnesia to find zombies have overrun society
Darkgame (2024)
A film about a snuff site that broadcasts a torture gameshow live on the web. This is a thriller that feels as though made by people who know nothing about the internet or law enforcement procedure
Darkman (1990)
Amid the early 1990s spate of dark superhero films, Sam Raimi created one of the few original screen superheroes with Darkman, essentially a superhero film where The Joker (by way of The Phantom of the Opera) is the hero of the piece
Darkman II: The Return of Durant (1995)
The first of two video-released sequels to Sam Raimi’s Darkman now starring Arnold Vosloo in the title role. This also brings back Larry Drake as the villain Durant
Darkman III: Die Darkman Die (1996)
This was the second and better of the two video-released sequels to Sam Raimi’s Darkman starring Arnold Vosloo in the title role. This adds a much more interestingly complex plot to the mix
Darkness (1993)
A no-budget vampire film from ingenue Kansas-based filmmakers. What the film suffers in the amateurism of its cast and lack of plot, it makes up for with its enthusiastically over-the-top gore effects and bucketloads of gore
Darkness (2002)
From Jaume Balaguero, a film that assembles a decent cast and broods with suggestions of a haunted house and occult conspiracies but never does much to let it pay off
Darkness Falls (2003)
Formulaic horror film about an avenging supernatural hag known as the Tooth Fairy. Much of the premise is borrowed from A Nightmare on Elm Street
Darkside Blues (1994)
Anime where a mysterious other-dimensional stranger aids future rebels. This has a wonderfully ornate Gothic feel but an entirely confusing plot
Darkweb (2016)
This exploits the topical fascination with the darknet in a story ostensibly about making snuff videos for sale there. In actuality, this telescopes down to being no more a variant on The Most Dangerous Game
Darlin’ (2019)
The Woman was one of the least likely films to ever warrant a sequel. But this is what we get here and directed/written by no less than Pollyanna McIntosh who played The Woman in the original
Darling (2015)
One of the films from the most promising Mickey Keating. Darling owes a great deal of debt to Roman Polanski’s Repulsion but Keating very effectively drags us into a disturbed mental space
Darwin (2016)
This imagines a future where people have become so absorbed in online communication that they live in isolated cubicles. An interesting idea that the film does zero to make believable
Dashcam (2021)
Director Rob Savage made a splash with the Zoom horror film Host. His second film here is an insanely crazed horror film that is shot from the point-of-view of a dashcam
Date Movie (2006)
The first film from Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, a parody of a various romance movies. The duo went on to make some of the excruciating and unfunny comedies of the next decade
Date with an Angel (1987)
A rather charming comedy in which two nerds find an angel fallen knocked down by an orbiting satellite. Much silliness but Emmenualle Beart has an otherworldly loveliness as the angel
Dating the Enemy (1996)
An Australian variant on the bodyswap comedy in which couple Guy Pearce and Claudia Karvan end up in each other’s bodies resulting in some likeable if predictable comic mishaps
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!
Daughters of Darkness (1971)
One of several Elizabeth Bathory films that came out at the same time, this has gained a cult reputation. Delphine Seyrig gives a marvellously arch performance, while director Harry Kumel films with a gorgeous and dreamy colour palette
Dave Made a Maze (2017)
A man builds a cardboard maze in his living room only for he and others to become lost in it. This has a wonderfully inventive scrappy handmade eccentricity. Imagine Cube remade as one of Michel Gondry’s sweded films
David Lynch: The Art Life (2016)
David Lynch is the king of weird cinema from works like Eraserhead to Twin Peaks. In this documentary, a 70-year-old Lynch sits in his art studio and in a very laidback manner reflects on his process and tells us his life story
Dawn of the Dead (1978)
George Romero’s successor to his cult hit of Night of the Living Dead. Romero creates a very different film, one that takes place in a mall and comes with a level of droll satire. A bigger budget allows him to push things to gore-drenched extremes
Dawn of the Dead (2004)
Zack Snyder debuts with a remake of the cult George Romero film. While this has a bigger budget, it is missing is the satire and gore-drenched effects that made the original memorable. This inspired the mid-2000s zombie film revival
Dawn of the Mummy (1981)
By its very title, this is a mummy film that is trying to exploit Dawn of the Dead. Once the mummies are revived this is to all intents and purposes another in the fad for extremely gory Italian zombie films
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)
The Planet of the Apes series excels itself and stages a massively exciting inter-species war. The CGI/mocap apes come with an extraordinary range of nuance – quite whether it is performance or animation is up for debate but the results are outstanding
Day of Reckoning (2016)
Halfway reasonable effort from the usual creative dead zone of the made-for-Syfy Channel film concerning the apocalyptic emergence of hordes of demonic creatures
Day of the Animals (1977)
A cheap 1970s Nature’s Revenge film that blatantly borrows all the essentials of The Birds in the story of a group of trampers in the High Sierras coming under attack by wildlife due to an ozone hole.