A Page of Madness (1926)
Forgotten silent Japanese avant garde classic set in a mental asylum. This has many similarities to The Cabinet of Dr Caligari in its shifting perspectives that delve into the subjective mental space of the inmates
A Pass from the Back (2004)
Oddball German comedy in which a toy table footballer magically comes to life and becomes a star soccer player
A Perfect Getaway (2009)
David Twohy has shown himself a standout screenwriter and director with the Riddick films but came unstuck with this effort where tourists in Hawaii come to believe their traveling companions are wanted killers. A film killed by far-fetched twists
A Prairie Home Companion (2006)
The final film from the great Robert Altman set backstage at a radio variety show as an angel of death wanders through
A Pure Formality (1994)
Gerard Depardieu is being interrogated by police inspector Roman Polanski over a murder he cannot remember. Solid, well constructed drama that is turned on its head with a surprise ending
P.G. Psycho Goreman (2020)
The great and underrated Steven Kostanski makes another of his homages to the 1980s VHS era. This has a winning concept where kids befriend an intergalactic dark lord
P2 (2007)
Tense and twist-filled thriller with Rachel Nichols trapped inside a carpark building by a psychopathic Wes Bentley
Pacific Heights (1990)
Thriller in which landlords Matthew Modine and Melanie Griffith’s lives are terrorised by psychopathic tenant Michael Keaton
Pacific Rim (2013)
Giant mecha robots beating the crap out of giant monsters – what’s not to like? In comparison to the Transformers films, Guillermo Del Toro looks to find the soul of the robot jock – in essence, Transformers for grown-ups
Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018)
Pacific Rim wasn’t Guillermo Del Toro’s best film but it was a fun attempt to imagine giant Japanese mecha robots battling giant monsters. This is a sequel but without Del Toro it is reduced to no more than one of Michael Bay’s Transformers films
Paddington (2014)
From the awful slapstick-heavy trailer, the prospects for this seem dismal – less Paddington Bear than a reprise of the live-action Yogi Bear. The finished result confounds expectation and the story of a small unassuming bear at large in the world comes full of considerable charm
Paddington 2 (2017)
Sequel to the 2014 film based on the much loved children’s books … This comes with exactly the same mix of silliness, overblown slapstick and sweetness that made the first film work – albeit on a more elaborate budget – and succeeds with the same winning charms
Paddington in Peru (2024)
Third of the Paddington series, this has more of an adventure film feel as it takes Paddington and the Browns to Peru in search of a lost city
Painted Skin (1992)
A Hong Kong supernatural fantasy that has been made as a copy of the ground-changing A Chinese Ghost Story. The last film directed the legendary King Hu, the man who created the Wu Xia film
Pajama Party (1964)
One of the popular Beach Party comedies of the 1960s. Tommy Kirk turns up as a bumbling Martian to romance Annette Funicello
Pale Blood (1990)
A vacant and stylistically empty modern vampire film that is all posed mood
Palm Springs (2020)
Variation on the Groundhog Day timeloop theme, this has two people trapped on the same day at a wedding. Of all the copies, this is a delight that has a really hilariously madcap creativity
Pan (2015)
Ostensibly a Peter Pan prequel and origin story, this is a massively over-produced turkey – colossally scaled effects set-pieces, everything obtrusively arranged to pop out at us in 3D – that seems to completely miss the innocent charms that the original story had
Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)
Critically acclaimed Guillermo Del Toro film set during the Spanish Civil War where a young girl finds the entrance to a dark realm. This plays like a very dark version of the Narnia films
Pandemic (2016)
While the title leads you to expect a plague outbreak film, you soon discover this is a zombie film. What it is is a Found Footage film mounted as a First Person Shooter film at which you have to admit that it launches into action with considerable gusto and ferocity
Pandemonium (1982)
The slasher film only really came into existence in 1980 but was so prolifically milked that by even two years later it had spawned its own sub-cycle of parodies. This hits in with a wacky anything goes absurdity but, aside from an amusing Carrie spoof, little of it is funny
Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951)
Exquisitely shot Technicolor fantasy in which Ava Gardner is romanced by James Mason as the Flying Dutchman, cursed to eternally sail the seas
Pandorica (2016)
This comes with a premise that holds interest – it many years after the collapse of civlisation where three youth are taken into the woods on a rite of passage only to encounter someone from another tribe fleeing with an object that makes the possessor a god – a handgun
Pandorum (2009)
Rare cinematic treatment of the generation ship story that conducts it with a modest degree of affectiveness. Produced by Paul W.S. Anderson.
Panic in Year Zero! (1962)
A film about the outbreak of nuclear war directed by actor Ray Milland. What takes you aback is the naked liberatarian fantasy that Milland engages in, arguing in favour of a brutal ruthlessness in the name of survival
Paparazzi (2004)
Mel Gibson produced film where a Hollywood actor becomes fed up with paparazzi and begins eliminating them
Paperhouse (1989)
One of the most sophisticated and intelligent of the 80s copies of A Nightmare on Elm Street with a rich central idea about a girl who can enter the world of her own drawings
Paprika (2006)
A venture inside the dreamscape from anime director Satoshi Kon who creates a beautifully animated work even if some of the ideas become excessively convoluted
Paradise Hills (2019)
Nacho Vigalondo scripted film that seems like a mix between a girls’ boarding school story and an SF film like The Island, all directed with amazingly over-ornamented costuming and design scheme not seen on screen since at least The Cell
Paradox (2016)
There have been some ingenious time paradox films in recent years, this is a modest low-budget offering in which a scientist travels one hour into the future only to find everybody at the lab has been killed. Returning in time, he tries to stop everything from happening.
Parallel (2018)
From Isaac Ezban in his English-language debut, a cleverly and pleasingly contorted film where a group of friends discover a mirror that leads to a parallel timeline
Parallel (2024)
A variation on the multiverse film – not the Marvel Comics version, more the Everything Everywhere All at Once version – where Danielle Deadwyler enters a forest portal and returns to realities that vary in minute but increasingly alarming ways
Parallel World Love Story (2019)
Japanese film that has overtones of Sliding Doors as a man finds he leads two different parallel lives
Parallels (2015)
Smart and fascinating venture into the alternate universe hopping theme that suggests something of what the underwhelming Sliders should have been. Originally made as the pilot for a tv series, this comes with much intriguing backstory set-up for a potential series
Paranoiac (1963)
One of the psycho-thrillers made at Hammer Films by Freddie Francis, starring Oliver Reed at his bad boy best. Francis’s visual compositions are absolutely extraordinary
Paranoid (2000)
Psycho-thriller in which Jessica Alba finds herself drugged and then held a captive prisoner by Iain Glen
Paranormal Activity (2007)
No-budget film that became a word of mouth hit, spawned a series of sequels and sparked off the Found Footage fascination that took over the 2010s. Unlike most of the films that followed, Oren Peli creates a creepingly chill atmosphere and some undeniable jumps
Paranormal Activity 2 (2010)
This necessarily lacks the surprise effect of the first film but still captures some of the same eerie dread anticipation as spooky things begin happening
Paranormal Activity 3 (2011)
The Paranormal Activity series still manages to produce a reasonable amount of eerie scares and jumps a third time around, although by now the claim to still being found footage is starting to strain credulity
Paranormal Activity 4 (2012)
The Paranormal Activity series has had a better run than most horror franchises up until now but the cracks are starting to show through here. This feels like it is straining to find some new way to do the familiar moves but fails to provide anything unexpected or original
Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin (2021)
Blumhouse resurrects the Paranormal Activity series for another outing about an investigation into the secrets of an Amish cult
Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension (2015)
For supposedly the Paranormal Activity series final entry, this offer the novelty of the first Found Footage film in 3D – a gimmick that signals the series is out of fresh ideas. Moreover, the series’ look via watching security cameras has been de-emphasised in favour of another CGI driven ghost story
Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (2014)
Less another sequel than a spinoff of the Paranormal Activity series, this takes place with Latino characters and in a whole different culture and socio-economic strata. While this gives the series a face change, everything else it feels like the shuffling of a well-worn deck of plot cards
Paranormal Asylum (2013)
Loosely set around the legend of Typhoid Mary with ghostbusters investigating an abandoned asylum. One of a host of films that automatically relegate themselves to B movies by borrowing the prefix ‘Paranormal’, this sits between the amateurish and occasionally interesting
Paranormal Entity (2009)
The Asylum’s answer to Paranormal Activity Oren Peli made his film for $15,000, which is about as cheap as it is possible to make a film; this manages to look even cheaper – simply someone wandering around with a camcorder that is at best aimed in the general direction of things happening
Paranormal Extremes: Text Messages from the Dead (2015)
The second-to-last film from legendary Z-budget filmmaker Ted V. Mikels. The title is a misnomer and the film is more about a woman discovering her abilities as a medium. Despite having been making films since the 1960s, Mikels has improved none in quality
ParaNorman (2012)
Stop-motion animated children’s film from Laika that demonstrates a willingness to be scary. The film starts to move out of the amiably likeable after around the halfway point when it begins to play a number of horror tropes against expectation to deliver a reasonable message about fear and prejudice
Parasite (1982)
The second directorial outing of a young Charles Band, this is essentially an earthbound version of Alien. Not a very good film, the principal reasons to watch are some cheap effects and a young Demi Moore
Parasites (2016)
This reverses the sympathies of films like Deliverance and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Rather than having people tortured by backwoods hicks, one man is forced to survive on a brutal run for his life through the more disreputable parts of L.A. while hunted by homeless.
Parasitic (2012)
Low-budget directorial effort from a makeup effects artist about a parasitic creature loose in a nightclub after hours
Parasomnia (2008)
William Malone, the director of House on Haunted Hill remake, makes an interestingly different film about a girl who has spent most of her life asleep being pursued by a genius killer who invades her dreams
Parasyte Part 1 (2014)
Live-action adaptation of a manga about the war between body-snatching parasites that are capable of rearranging their host’s bodies. This plays out as a madcap version of The Thing relocated to a Japanese high school
Parasyte Part 2 (2015)
Parasyte Part 1 was a manga adaptation filled with wild effects sequences – imagine The Thing relocated to a Japanese high school. This sequel is an even better film that expands the characters and ideas in quite fascinating directions
Parents (1989)
Bizarre black comedy directed by actor Bob Balaban that takes place in a paranoid parody of 1950s normalcy about a boy who believes his parents are cannibals
Parsifal (1982)
Epic filmed version of the Richard Wagner opera set around the Arthurian legends and the quest for the Holy Grail
Parts: The Clonus Horror (1979)
The film that had its entire plot ripped off as Michael Bay’s The Island. Without Bay’s action overkill, this is by far the better film, working as a fascinating mystery set-up that eventually leads to an ingenious conceptual breakthrough twist
Party Bus to Hell (2017)
A party bus is stranded in the desert and surrounded by Satanists. At least this is a film that you cannot complain delivers exactly what it promises – plentiful toplessness, gore and cheesy creature effects
Party Hard, Die Young (2018)
From the director of Attack of the Lederehosen Zombies, a slasher film set at a rave event
Party Line (1989)
Tawdry thriller about brother and sister psychos who lure people from a phone sex line and kill them
Passengers (2008)
Well-cast, nicely made film that seems to be setting out as a supernatural variant on Fearless, which had Jeff Bridges as a reinvigorated plane crash survivor, only to fall apart in a groan-worthy twist ending that has become tediously overused in recent years
Passengers (2016)
The gratifying pleasure of a solid conceptually-driven science-fiction film – all based around the premise of “what if a cryogenic sleeper woke up halfway through a deep space voyage?” and the moral choices he must make. Strong, intelligent character-driven science-fiction and possibly the best designed film of the year
Passion of Mind (2000)
The intriguing idea of two Demi Moore’s living on either side of the world, each dreaming that they are the other. The conceptual possibilities of the idea pan as no more than a routine Chick Flick
Passionate Revenge (1996)
Low-budget director Fred Olen Ray makes a softcore variation on Fatal Attraction with a vengeful Shauna O’Brien obtaining a job as the babysitter with the married man who jilted her
Passport to Pimlico (1949)
Charming post-War Ealing Studios comedy where the London suburb of Pimlico declares themselves a separate country
Past Perfect (1996)
SF action film with Eric Roberts as a future cop travelling through time trying to stop kids before they become criminals
Patema Inverted (2013)
This anime has a surprising number of similarities to Upside Down, which was released one year earlier, both being set in two different worlds where gravity in each operates in the opposite directions and of the forbidden relationship between a boy and a girl from either world
Patient Zero (2012)
This comes with a good premise – people must escape from a biological containment facility after the release of a virus that turns the infected homicidal. Essentially a low-budget version of The Crazies, this is a film that would have been improved by a studio budget
Patient Zero (2018)
A zombie film in all but name concerning people infected with a mutant strain of rabies. Former Doctor Who star Matt Smith is absurdly miscast as someone who can speak the language of the infected. Unfortunately the film does nothing at all to make the central premise believable.
Patlabor: The Mobile Police (1989)
Early anime from Mamoru Oshii of Ghost in the Shell fame about a police squad set up to deal with giant robots gone amok. All of Oshii’s visuals and fascinating play of ideas are present
Patrick (1978)
Fine Australian from Richard Franklin that jumps aboard the popularity of Carrie concerning a coma patient who demonstrates psychic powers
Patrick (2013)
This remake of the Australian classic about a coma patient with psychokinetic powers is astonishingly bad. Richard Franklin’s stylish scares are replaced by laughably overwrought sequences that seem to be trying to make us jump at every opportunity and produce no result at all
Patrick Still Lives (1980)
Patrick was a modest Australian film about a bedridden coma patient exhibiting physic powers. This is an unofficial Italian-made sequel made way back before anyone coined the term mockbuster. This has no compunctions about aiming for the completely trashy – and all the more entertainingly for it
Paul (2011)
Hilarious Simon Pegg-written homage to science-fiction fandom and alien visitor cinema. imagine Starman recast with two science-fiction fans and tv’s sarcastically wisecracking ALF (voiced by Seth Rogen)
Paws (1997)
Australian-made children’s film about a kid who creates a computer program so his dog can talk where it then becomes voiced by Billy Connolly
Pay the Ghost (2015)
Nicolas Cage has never had a good relationship with the horror genre – remember The Wicker Man and Vampire’s Kiss? This gives all impression it was designed for the 50c bargain bins, in which Nic tries to save his missing son in what amounts to a supernatural version of Taken
Paycheck (2003)
This Philip K. Dick adaptation has a great premise – Ben Affleck is an engineer with a blanked memory blanked only to find he has left himself clues from the future of things that are starting to come true. Alas, this is reduced to an action vehicle in the hands of John Woo
Peacemaker (1990)
Entertaining B-budget variant on The Hidden with a woman caught between an alien aw enforcement officer and fugitive criminal both of whom offer contradictory stories
Peacock King (1988)
Hong Kong-made Wu Xia based on a Japanese manga about warrior monks fighting to stop the opening of portals to Hell. This seems uninspired when it comes to the flights of fantasy the genre specialises in, although picks up when it comes to the vigour of its cheap makeup effects scenes
Pearl (2022)
Ti West made the extraordinary X earlier in the year. Here he and the greatly underrated Mia Goth return to make a prequel
Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure (1985)
Pee-Wee Herman is someone who polarises crowds to love or extreme hate. The was the first film from Tim Burton who seems charmingly attuned to the kitsch banality of Pee-Wee’s universe
Pee-Wee’s Big Holiday (2016)
Pee-Wee Herman is a deliberately annoying character that is either adored or intensely loathed by audiences. This third film closely follows the structure of the first film with Pee-Wee in a series of nonsense adventures on a cross-country journey
Peelers (2016)
There have been a surprising number of films in recent years offering up the combination of zombies and strippers. Although what we have is never quite specified as zombies, this offers up strippers kicking zombie ass with a great deal of gore-drenched relish
Peeping Tom (1960)
Classic psycho film that came out the same year as Psycho but was killed in release being seen as morally repugnant. From the great Michael Powell, this features a killer obsessed with filming women as he kills them and finds an uncomfortable brilliance in the way it blurs a director’s obsessions and a viewer’s complicity in what they see on screen
Pegasus vs. Chimera (2012)
One of the numerous ‘vs’ films that came out after Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus, this is actually a B-budget fantasy adventure made for cable. This is not particularly bad, just routine and uninspired on all counts where the budget cramps any of its imaginative horizons
Peggy Sue Got Married (1986)
This is Francis Ford Coppola’s version of Back to the Future wherein housewife Kathleen Turner wakes up back as her high school self and gets the opportunity to remake her life’s choices
Penda’s Fen (1974)
Absolutely extraordinary British tv play that was one of the formative works in the development of Folk Horror on screen
Penelope (2006)
This has the feel of a fairytale where Christina Ricci plays a girl who suffers from a hereditary curse that has left her with a pig-like snout
Penguins of Madagascar (2014)
This spinoff from the Madagascar films is a lot more fun that I was anticipating – how could you dislike a film with John Malkovich as an octopus super-villain? Essentially cast as a spy parody, the film has a gonzo insanity that hits in with a manic delirium
Peninsula (2020)
Yeon Sang-ho makes a sequel to his international breakout zombie film hit of Train to Busan, appropriating the basics of Escape to New York to good ends
Pennies from Heaven (1978)
Dennis Potter was the greatest writer to ever work in televisio. This mini-series is one of his most celebrated works, groundbreaking in its day, featuring characters bursting out into lip-synched Golden Oldie songs, making biting contrast between the rosy romantic sentiments and their downbeaten lives
Per Aspera Ad Astra (1981)
Soviet-made science-fiction film about a mysterious female alien visitor. The set-up intrigues for a time but the directorial delivery is dull and prosaic, while the mystery about who the alien woman is sidetracked by a long-winded interplanetary adventure in the second half
Perceval le Gallois (1978)
From Eric Rohmer, a director of the French New Wave, an adaptation of stories from the Arthurian legends, made in a decidedly eccentric style
Percy (1971)
Popular entry among the early 1970s spate of British sex comedies featuring Hywell Bennett as the recipient of the world’s first penis transplant. Mostly this serves as an excuse to string a series of sexual encounters together.
Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010)
Chris Columbus seeks to emulate the success of the Harry Potter films with this adaptation of a Young Adult series about the children of Greek gods. The film falls apart due to Columbus’s typical banal cues and effects overkill
Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters (2013)
This sequel is marginally better than the first film (largely due to Chris Columbus no longer being in the director’s chair), being more dramatically engaged and with effects that feel less like random eye candy. That still doesn’t disguise the fact that the Percy Jackson series is no more than a lightweight and forgettable Harry Potter knockoff
Percy’s Progress (1974)
Sequel to the British sex comedy Percy about the world’s first penis transplant in which the central character is now the last fertile man on Earth
Perdita Durango (1997)
Spinoff of characters featured in David Lynch’s Wild at Heart and a greatly underrated film for Alex de la Iglesia. this pushes into even darker and more anarchic places than Lynch did, featuring outlaw lovers who are black sorcerers on a trail of murder and kidmap
Perfect Blue (1997)
The directorial debut of Satoshi Kon, overseen by Katsuhiro Otomo, an anime concerning a troubled Japanese pop singer being cyber-stalked by a doppelganger
Perfect Creature (2006)
Conceptually ambitious New Zealand made film set in an alternate history where vampires live alongside humans
Perfect Prey (1998)
When the Bough Breaks was one of the better 1990s serial killer thrillers; though it didn’t need it, this is a sequel, albeit with a completely different cast. While the original was clever, this falls into drawing too much from The Silence of the Lambs, the inspiration behind both films