The Man in the White Suit (1951)
Nov 1, 2002Imperishable Suit Invention Comedy
Classic Ealing comedy where Alex Guinness causes social disruption when he invents a suit that never wears out or gets dirty
Michael Gough
Dracula (1958)
Feb 1, 2001Hammer Dracula Adaptation
The point where the legend of Hammer Films and the careers of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing began. A vivid colour remake of the Bram Stoker book that put a stake through the heart of the staid Universal horrors and created a new English horror industry
Horrors of the Black Museum (1959)
Jul 18, 2000Psycho Crime Writer
A highly entertaining Herman Cohen production where Michael Gough plays a mad crime writer who employs a series of cruel sensationalistic deaths for his victims
Konga (1961)
Nov 9, 2000Mad Scientist/Giant Killer Ape
Herman Cohen production with Michael Gough as a mad scientist who creates a giant ape. Aside from Gough's entertainingly mad performance, this is killed by incredibly tatty effects
The Phantom of the Opera (1962)
Jul 13, 2010Disfigured Madman Beneath the Opera House/Hammer Film
Hammer Films' attempt to update the classic story went astray – the Paris opera becomes a dreary English repertory house and Terence Fisher misses the tale's grandeur
Dr Terror’s House of Horrors (1965)
Feb 15, 2000Horror Anthology
The first of Amicus’s horror anthologies. The stories are rehashes of five popular horror tropes, all united by Peter Cushing as the title doctor telling the fortunes of five passengers on a train carriage
Berserk (1967)
Apr 4, 2013Circus Murders
Film about a series of sensationalistic murders at a circus. Producer Herman Cohen is clearly trying to replicate the success of his Horrors of the Black Museum. Joan Crawford chews the scenery in grand style as the circus owner
Curse of the Crimson Altar (1968)
Aug 7, 2003Witch's Revenge
Dreary British occult film that wastes a great cast line-up, including Christopher Lee, Barbara Steele and an 82 year-old Boris Karloff in his last performance
Trog (1970)
Jan 18, 2005Revived Caveman
Revived caveman effort that is fairly terrible on all accounts. This has gained bad movie status because it features Joan Crawford as a scientist in her last theatrical role
Horror Hospital (1973)
Mar 18, 2003Mad Scientist Comedy
Bizarre entry from the Anglo-horror cycle with Michael Gough as a mad scientist creating zombies and driving a deadly armoured Rolls Royce
A Christmas Carol (1984)
Dec 25, 2024Miser’s Redemption
Well-made and extremely faithful adaptation of Charles Dickens’s perennial Christmas story starring George C. Scott as Scrooge. This brings out story elements other versions skip over
The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988)
Mar 10, 2004Voodoo/"True Story"
One of Wes Craven's best films. Loosely based on true-life book by botanist Wade Davis who set out to find the drug that creates zombies, Craven delves into Haitian voodoo in a striking blend of dream and horror
Batman (1989)
Mar 26, 2000Comic-Book Superhero
The origins of the dark brooding superhero on film. Tim Burton borrows from the graphic novels of the era and gives us a beautiful, stunningly designed film that digs deep inside the psychological recesses of the masks and funny faces
Blackeyes (1989)
Nov 26, 2005Character in a Book Comes to Life
TV mini-series from the great Dennis Potter in which the lead character in a smutty novel by an aging writer rebels against her fate. As always with Potter, this blurs fiction, meta-fiction and autobiographical elements
Batman Returns (1992)
Dec 26, 2000Comic-Book Superhero
The second of Tim Burton's Batman films is even more beautifully dark and glistering than the first, introducing Michelle Pfeiffer as a sizzling Cat Woman and Danny De Vito as a venomous Penguin who respectively own the show
Batman Forever (1995)
Apr 30, 2001Comic-Book Superhero
Tim Burton’s superlative duo of Batman films were wrecked after Joel Schumacher took up the director’s chair and turned the films into giant camp fests. Here he allows a madly overacting Jim Carrey and Tommy Lee Jones loose as the villains
Batman & Robin (1997)
Sep 30, 2000Comic-Book Superhero
Possibly the worst film ever made on a big studio budget, Joel Schumacher’s follow-up to Tim Buton's standout Batman films where he turns everything into an absurd Day Glo realm with a script for two year-olds, campy puns and badly overacting super-villains
Sleepy Hollow (1999)
Jan 4, 2000Headless Horseman Killings
Tim Burton adapts the classic Washington Irving ghost story, although throws most of it out, to make his own beautifully designed period piece spearheaded by another eccentric Johnny Depp performance
Corpse Bride (2005)
Oct 31, 2005Stop-Motion Animated Gothic
Tim Burton's successor to The Nightmare Before Christmas where Burton co-directs another venture into stop-motion animation that takes place in a similar dark and beautifully stylised world
Alice in Wonderland (2010)
Mar 9, 2010Alice in Wonderland Adaptation/Epic Adventure
Tim Burton takes on Lewis Carroll but Carroll gets lost beneath Burton doing his usual quirky eccentric thing and a plot that seems to want to turn Alice's adventures into a modern epic fantasy
All-Star Superman (2011)
Jul 23, 2012Comic-Book Superhero/Animation
Another of the DC animated films, based on a work that reinterpreted Superman. This is somewhat bitsy in condensing a 12-issue series to a 73-minute film but holds some moments of great writing