Aachi & Ssipak (2006)
Demented Korean Anime
South Korean anime that is set in a future world where people are obsessed with shit. This comes with a demented energy and a filthy-mindedness that is determined to outrage
Mutants and Mutation
In scientific terminology, mutation is a change in the DNA of an individual or organism. It is one of the principal factors responsible for the Evolution of a species – where genetic changes are carried through multiple generations and those changes that are best adapted to survival come to predominate. Ever since the concept of DNA was understood, genre fiction has latched onto the possibilities of mutation with great enthusiasm.
1950s SF was filled with numerous examples of mutants, usually of the three-eyed and scaly-skinned variety, that would appear in the aftermath of a Nuclear Holocaust. Mutation also has the ability to create superhumans, frequently those with Psychic Powers. Equally it can have hideous side effects and turn humans into all manner of monsters, hybrids or deformed oddities.
Mutation is frequently the given cause when it comes to Monster Movies where atomic energy or genetic experiments have the ability to turn regular-sized creatures into Giant Animals – this is particularly so in the fad for Atomic Monster Movies.
Mutation is also often the cause of a superhero gaining their powers in a Superhero Film – indeed, almost the entire Marvel pantheon of superheroes owes their powers to mutagenics – where it can create a great range of abilities. Just as equally it can also serve as the origin for a Super-Villain.
The ABCs of Death (2012)
Horror Anthology
Unique anthology that offers 26 episodes from different genre directors, each ending with a death. The episodes vary wildly in quality and approach but a sufficient number ignore all good taste and/or travel waaaay across taboo lines
ABCs of Death 2 (2014)
Horror Anthology
Sequel to the hit multi-director anthology has a less high-profile line-up of directors, nor hits the astonishingly perverse heights of its predecessor. As always some entries never do much but the film finds its stride in the last few episodes
Akira (1988)
Anime/Psychic Powers Amok
The film that created the cult of anime in the West. Essentially a Cyberpunk version of The Fury, this has been construed as a series of climaxes that get progressively larger in scale until they almost reach a point of sensory overload
The Alien Agenda: Endangered Species (1997)
Alien Takeover Anthology
The second of Kevin J. Kindenmuth’s surprisingly good compilations of video shorts around the loose theme of alien invasion and takeover
The Alien Agenda: Out of the Darkness (1996)
Alien Takeover Anthology
The first of the Kevin J. Lindenmuth’s compilation films that bring together several short films under the umbrella of an alien invasion. Lindenmuth’s Worm segment in particular is standout
The Alien Dead (1980)
Zombie Film
The second film from Fred Olen Ray who has become a prolific B-budget director since. This is a zombie film, a copy of the original Dawn of the Dead, slapped with a SF title to popularise on the then recent success of Alien
Alien Nation (1988)
Human-Alien Buddy Cop Film
Made not longer after the buddy cop hit of Lethal Weapon, this has a curmudgeonly human paired up with an alien partner. A fairly ordinary cop show plot is boosted by two fantastic central performances
All Superheroes Must Die (2011)
Superhero Film
Low-budget superhero film. With a plot that strips the superheroes of their powers and them facing a villain’s deathtraps, we end up with little more than a Saw copy in funny costumes
Alligator (1980)
Giant Alligator
Amid the spate of post-Jaws Animals Amok films, this, which comes armed with a John Sayles script and plays on the urban legend of baby alligators flushed into the sewers, was a rather enjoyable effort that plants tongue in cheek
Alligator II: The Mutation (1991)
Giant Alligator
The 1980 Alligator was amusing but this hardly one of the sequels the world was burning to see. An utterly formulaic copy that is killed by impoverished giant alligator effects
The Alligator People (1959)
Alligator-Human Hybrids
B movie with Beverly Garland venturing into the swamps in search of her missing husband to find a scientist has transformed him into an alligator hybrid
Altered (2006)
Captured Alien
A fine film from The Blair Witch Project co-director Eduardo Sanchez about the tensions among a group of friends who hold a captured alien in their garage that then begins to affect them
The Amazing Colossal Man (1957)
Atomically Mutated Giant
One of the better of Bert I. Gordon’s B movies of the 1950s. This was rushed out not long after The Incredible Shrinking Man and displays some imagination despite cheap effects
The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)
Comic-Book Superhero
The reasoning behind rebooting the Spider-Man franchise after ten years and only three films is a puzzle. That said, this offers an edgier origin story than Sam Raimi’s take and Andrew Garfield makes for a fine Spider-Man
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)
Comic-Book Superhero
One of the best among the modern Marvel Comics screen adaptations. All involved are at the absolute peak of their game and the balance of superheroic action, humour and tragedy makes you cheer at how well they get it right
The Animal Kingdom (2023)
Human-Animal Mutations
An award-winning and highly acclaimed French film set in a world that is affected by a series of mutations where people are transforming into animal hybrids
Annihilation (2018)
Mysterious Alien Zone
Alex Garland’s second directorial effort after Ex Machina. Clearly influenced by Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker, this features a group venturing into an alien-affected zone where Garland does a fine job of creating a sense of the otherworldly
Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023)
Comic-Book Merman Superhero
The sequel to the DCEU’s Aquaman reaches for epic effects spectacle, although the character of Aquaman undergoes a substantial shift and is now given more of a comedy playing
Army of Frankensteins (2014)
Frankenstein Monster Time Travels Back to the Civil War
This comes with an insane mash-ups of ideas – modern day Frankenstein monster is thrown back in time to the Civil War (in a process that also creates multiple copies) and ends up fighting on the Northern side
Atom Age Vampire (1960)
Facially Disfigured Woman/Mad Killer Scientist
Despite the possibilities set up by the title, this features no vampires nor atomic monsters but is an Italian film influenced by Eyes Without a Face about a mad surgeon trying to restore a woman’s disfigured face
Attack on Titan II: End of the World (2015)
Live-Action Anime Adaptation/Invasion by Giants
Sequel the demented Attack of Titan with its wild images of humanity under attack from mindless giants that bite their heads off, which was shot back-to-back and released a few months later
Bad Biology (2008)
People with Mutant Genitalia
The long-awaited return of Frank Henenlotter, the cult director of Basket Case fame, with a film about people with mutant genitalia – a work that proves extraordinary in its mind-bogglingly perverse imagery
Bambi: The Reckoning (2025)
Horror Version of Bambi
The people behind Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey offer up a savage take on another childhood favourite with a horror version of Bambi where Bambi becomes a mutated deer with a murderous hatred of humans
Bang Bang Baby (2014)
Mock 1950s Rock'n'Roll Film/Bizarre Mutations
A genre-melding oddity that starts as an earnest recreation of a 1950s rock‘n’roll movie, before introducing a series of bizarre mutations and some fascinating mid-film twists. Most audiences didn’t get this but it is unusually different
The Barge People (2019)
British Backwoods Brutality/Canal Mutants
A surprisingly reasonable effort that relocates the Backwoods Brutality film to England with people menaced by mutant creatures emerged from the rural canals
Batman: Gotham Knight (2008)
Compilation of Batman Anime Shorts
Taking a leaf from The Wachowskis with The Animatrix, DC went to Japan and hired a bunch of anime directors to deliver an anthology of six different animated Batman stories
Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham (2023)
Comic-Book Superhero/Animation
DC Universe Animated film that is adapted from an Elseworlds story that offers up an alternate 1920s version of Batman who is fighting up against H.P. Lovecraft entities
Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)
DC Comics Superhero Team-Up
It took DC Comics the better part of a decade to catch up with the massive success Marvel Comics are having on screen in crossing their characters over. Zack Snyder comes to the party offering up THE biggest headline double-bill in superherodom
Batman vs Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2019)
Animation/Comic-Book Superhero Crossover
An animated crossover where you cannot help but think that the two styles of either – a grim loner who lives in a dark milieu vs a team of manic teenagers spouting surfer speak – are only going to end up clashing
Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973)
Planet of the Apes Sequel
The fifth and final of the original Planet of the Apes films. After four well worthwhile entries up to this point, a tired air infects this production as it assembles the elements in a haphazard clutter
The Bay (2012)
Ecological Catastrophe/Found Footage
Barry Levinson becomes one of the few name directors to venture into the Found Footage genre and soberingly portrays the outbreak of an ecological catastrophe from multiple viewpoints
The Beast Within (1982)
Human-Monster Transformation
Modest entry among the early 1980s fad for air bladder transformation effects with Paul Clemens transforming into a cicada creature. Philippe Mora creates some solid directorial set-pieces
The Bed Sitting Room (1969)
Post-Holocaust Absurdist Comedy
Richard Lester adapts an absurdist Spike Milligan play set in the aftermath of the nuclear holocaust where the survivors are mutating into animals and items of furniture. A film with a really bizarre sense of humour that most at the time did not get
The Being (1983)
Mutant Monster
The first film from Jackie Kong, who made the hilarious Blood Diner, concerning a cheesily ridiculous atomic mutant monster loose in a small town
Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)
Planet of the Apes Sequel/Telepathic Mutants
The second and most underrated of the Planet of the Apes films. For a time it repeats the original but gains considerable imagination and a striking satiric bite with the introduction of the mutants
Beyond the Black Rainbow (2010)
Sinister Institute/Mysterious Experiments
A homage to 1970s SF cinema, full of trippy journeys through transcendental space and white antisceptic corridors. In aiming for this look, the film also forgot a small thing like a plot or coherent explanation of what is happening
Beyond the Time Barrier (1960)
Time Travel to Post-Holocaust Future
B budget film from Edgar G. Ulmer that was made quickly to exploit the success of George Pal’s The Time Machine concerning an Air Force pilot who is thrown through time into a mutant ruled future
Big Ass Spider! (2013)
Giant Spider
Giant spider film that seems to be aiming for the same gonzo territory the killer shark film has of recent. Instead we get an average B movie with some good effects and a line of comic banter that falls flat in the delivery
The Big Bang (1987)
Gonzo Animation
French-Belgian adult animated film in the gonzo trippy vein of Ralph Bakshi and Bill Plympton – a visually madcap satire of science-fiction tropes and 1980s East-West tensions, full of wackily surreal visuals
Black Mask 2: City of Masks (2002)
Masked Superhero/Hong Kong Action
Tsui Hark takes over the directorial reins of the sequel, filling it with much more fantastical elements, pitting the hero against a mad scientist and his mutant creations in a series of wild martial arts scenes
Black Sheep (2006)
Killer Mutant Sheep/Splatter Comedy
An enthusiastically gore-drenched New Zealand comedy about mutant sheep, this favourably harkens back to the heyday of Peter Jackson’s early splatter films
Blade II (2002)
Comic-Book Vampire Hunter
Blade was a solid vampire/action film but the sequel is a quantum leap over that, a visually kinetic and immensely exciting comic-book of a movie thanks to the employment of Guillermo Del Toro in the director’s chair
Blood Glacier (2013)
Mutant Creatures on a Mountainside
Austrian-made film about people being attacked by mutant creatures on a mountainside. This has the cheesily absurd feel of a 1980s B movie and has some fun producing creature effects
A Boy and His Dog (1975)
Post-Holocaust
This adaptation of a Harlan Ellison story is a B-budget delight that zings with witty dialogue and a young, unknown Don Johnson giving a very funny performance as the titular boy roaming the post-apocalyptic landscape with his dog
The Breach (2022)
Lovecraftian Horrors
Rodrigo Gudiño, editor of Rue Morgue magazine, directs a horror film with strong Lovecraftian overtones about a portal opened at a mysterious cabin in the woods
Brides of Blood (1968)
Filipino Exploitation Film/Mutant Monsters
The first of the Blood Island films, a classic of Filipino exploitation cinema. Although not as polished as later efforts, this serves up all the requisite cheesy monsters, mad scientists and gratuitous toplessness you expect
The Brood (1979)
Mutant Children/Radical Psychotherapy
One of David Cronenberg’s great early films. Fueled by a messy divorce Cronenberg was going through, it is set around a radical psychological institute that encourages people to manifest their repressed angers through their bodies
Cafe Flesh (1982)
Adult Film/Sex Performers in an Impotent Future
An adult film that gained a critical respectability when it came out, an avant garde work set in a future where the populace has become impotent and the handful unaffected perform sex in clubs for paying audiences
Call Girl of Cthulhu (2014)
H.P. Lovecraft Homage/Parody
Fan parody/homage of H.P. Lovecraft that comes waist-deep in references and jokes. The film is an amateur effort made with a painful cheapness in some areas; nevertheless it is clear that the team are really into making it and their enthusiasm carries the film
Captain America: Civil War (2016)
War Between Comic-Book Superheroes
Less Captain America 3 than The Avengers 3 – the entire film has been conceived as a massive superheroic punch-up. The results move with an exhilarating pace, but the Russo Brothers haven’t yet mastered Joss Whedon’s hand with character humour
Casshern (2004)
Future Superhero/Anime Remade in Live-Action
Live-action film based on an anime series where the original is built out with a series of of extraordinarily gorgeous over-ornamented visuals set in a strange retro-future world
The Cave (2005)
Cave Monsters
This big-budget film came out the same year as The Descent and is a very similar work about a cast of name explorers in a vast network of underground caves being hunted by monsters
Chernobyl Diaries (2012)
Horrors Inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone
This has the fascinatingly original idea of setting a horror film inside the exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear accident. The location is unique and the film generates a fair and reasonable tension
The Children (1980)
Zombie Children
Night of the Living Dead-influenced cheapie about zombified children wearing black nailpolish who blow their parents up with deadly hugs. This has no ambition beyond providing entertainingly preposterous meltdown effects every few minutes
Children of the Damned (1964)
Telepathic Children
The sequel to Village of the Damned, this makes the mistake of humanising the cold alienness of the children and taking their side against humanity, losing much of the stark effect of the original
Chrysalis (2008)
Ray Bradbury Adaptation/Scientist Goes into a Chrysalis
An adaptation of a Ray Bradbury story set in an environmentally collapsed future as scientists at a research station debate over what to do when one of their colleagues transforms into a chrysalis
Citadel (2012)
Mutant Children of the Housing Projects
Irish-British production that depicts the social housing estates of Glasgow as a desolate netherworld inhabited by mutant children. Undeniably effective but the depiction of children of urban ghettos requires you to tune out any liberal instincts
City of Ember (2008)
Young Adult/Underground City
Excellent Young Adult adapted work about teenagers in a vast underground city coming to an awareness of the forgotten surface world. The underground world is a production designer’s marvel
Class of Nuke ‘Em High (1986)
Bad Taste Splatter and Mutations/Troma Film
One of the essential Troma films, this seems to have been conceived as Rock’n’Roll High School with Evil Dead-styled makeup effects and lots of moronic bad taste humour
Class of Nuke ‘Em High Part II: Subhumanoid Meltdown (1991)
Bad Taste Splatter and Mutations/Troma Film
The first sequel to the Troma hit and with all of the usual bad taste and moron humour you associate with a Troma film, but also better produced then most their films
Color Out of Space (2019)
H.P. Lovecraft Adaptation/Mutations from Space
Richard Stanley made one of the most exciting directorial debuts with Hardware. Welcomely returning after a long absence, he is one of the few directors to mainline the essence of H.P. Lovecraft’s cosmic horrors
Combat Shock (1986)
Vietnam Veteran Snaps/Grim Social Realism
Film about a Vietnam Veteran snapping and going over the edge that gained acclaim when it came out. More a work of grim social realism than horror, it is frequently amateurish but contains an undeniably bleak charge
Corrective Measures (2022)
Prison for Super-Villains/Comic-Book Adaptation
Another of the last films made by Bruce Willis before his retirement. This one has a watchable central idea and is set around the idea of a prison for super-villains even if Bruce is not up to much
Cosmoball (2020)
Future Sports
A Russian SF film about humans who have been selected to participate in an intergalactic sports tournament. This feels that it has been construed as an anti-Alita: Battle Angel and has some stunning design work
Crabs! (2021)
Giant Crabs Amok
An amusingly tongue-in-cheek horror comedy that is a throwback to the1950s featuring an attack by giant crabs. With some surprisingly good crab effects too.
Creepshow (1982)
Horror Anthology
Stephen King and George Romero collaborate on a horror anthology made as homage to the EC Comics, telling five tales that replicate the blacker-than-black sense of humour (and even the visual look) of the comic-book with hilarious results
Crimes of the Future (1970)
Strange Future Mutations and Fetishes
The second film from David Cronenberg. Despite the SF title, this is more a work of arthouse surrealism where Cronenberg spends the film documenting strange behaviours in an hilarious deadpan tone that mimics a scientific paper
Crimes of the Future (2022)
Future Surgical Experiments
A 79 year-old David Cronenberg returns with one of his best films, a synthesis of his major themes in an extraordinary and perverse look at a future where surgery has become performance art. This site’s best film of 2022.
The Curse (1987)
Mutations/H.P. Lovecraft Adaptation
Actor David Keith directs an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Color Out of Space. Unfortunately the focus on cheesy and ridiculous effects quickly takes the exercise down into Grade Z territory
Curse II: The Bite (1988)
Snake Mutation
A sequel entirely unrelated to The Curse only worth seeing for a series of entertaining entertainingly ridiculous effects where a man’s arm transforms into a mutant snake
Curse of the Fly (1965)
Mutated Teleporter Accidents/The Fly Sequel
The second sequel to the original The Fly, which does feature more teleporter accidents and mutations but for some reason no fly hybrids this time
Cyber Zone (1995)
Android Bounty Hunter
B-budget director Fred Olen Ray makes a cyberpunk action film where the cut-price nature of the exercise is elevated by a tongue-in-cheek sense of humour
The Cyclops (1957)
Atomically Mutated Giant
This has the clever idea of updating the Cyclops from The Odyssey to the era of the atomic monster movie. Director Bert I. Gordon is otherwise back at his usual tricks of serving up optically enlarged insects and animals
Dagon (2001)
H.P. Lovecraft Adaptation/Village of Mutants
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
Damnation Alley (1977)
Post-Apocalyptic Trek
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
The Damned (1963)
Radioactive Children/Hammer Film
A very atypical Hammer film. US director Joseph Losey makes a stark and effective contemporary set film about the discovery of children that have been left radioactively mutated by an experiment
Daredevil (2003)
Blind Comic-Book Superhero
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
Dark Planet (1996)
Interstellar Mission
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
Day the World Ended (1955)
After the Nuclear Holocaust
One of the first films from Roger Corman. Set among a group of survivors in the immediate aftermath of the nuclear holocaust, Corman blatantly steals the plot from Five and adds a mutant monster to the mix
Dead Space: Downfall (2008)
Animation/Videogame Adaptation/Spaceship of Mutated Dead
Animated spinoff of the videogame. Your first impression is that animation is not suited for a gore-drenched film. One’s misgivings are silenced by the wildly phantasmagoric range of creatures the film throws at you
Dead Sushi (2012)
Man-Eating Sushi Amok/Gonzo Japanese Horror
Completely insane Japanese film about man-eating killer sushi. A film that has an anything goes lunacy, resulting in some of the most surreally crazed monster scenes this author has seen in some time
Deadpool (2016)
Marvel Comics Superhero
Maybe the smartest and wittiest of the modern Marvel Comics adaptations, this takes every opportunity to deflate its own seriousness, not to mention frequently breaks the fourth wall with side-splitting results
Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)
Comic-Book Superheroes/Crossover
In his third cinematic outing, Deadpool gets into the multiverse game, creating a rather hilarious crossover and team-up with Wolverine, along with an assortment of other superheroes from cancelled Marvel franchises
Detention (2011)
Gonzo High School Film/Slasher Parody/Time Travel/Bodyswap
A film with insane creativity and snide pop culture wit spilling over at the edges like a mash-up of Bad Kids Go to Hell, John Dies at the End and Back to the Future written by a love child of Kevin Williamson and Diablo Cody
Die, Monster, Die! (1965)
H.P. Lovecraft Adaptation/Mutations
Adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Color Out of Space, directed by Roger Corman’s production designer Daniel Haller that draws on the look and mood of Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe films
District 9 (2009)
Alien Refugee Camp
Neill Blomkamp’s first film starts well as a strong, highly politicised work about human-alien prejudice. However, Blomkamp loses steam about halfway through where it feel as though he didn’t know where to take the story
Dr Who and the Daleks (1965)
Doctor Who Film
This was the first of two Doctor Who movies produced during the height of Dalekmania during the 1960s. Alas a comedy element in the form of the asinine buffoonery of Roy Castle is allowed to dominate and kills the show off
Doom (2005)
Videogame Adaptation/Labyrinth of Monsters
Disappointing film version of the videogame. The film seems to either miss or water down the principal appeals of the game, although you do get Dwayne Johnson (still billed as The Rock) as the bad guy
Doomwatch (1972)
Toxic Spill/Mutations
The film spinoff of a 1970s British tv series about a group who investigate scientific and ecological abuses. The film depicts an outbreak of aromegaly on an island near where growth stimulants have been dumped.
Dreams (1990)
Japanese Ghost Story Anthology
It is some surprise that Akira Kurosawa’s only full venture into fantastic cinema was with his penultimate film here. A beautifully filmed anthology of eight tales, including several ghost stories and two anti-nuclear parables
The Dyatlov Pass Incident (2013)
Unexplained Mystery/Found Footage
The Dyatlov Pass Incident has gained a fascination as an unexplained mystery. Here Renny Harlin makes a Found Footage film that heads for full on conspiracy theory explanations
Earth vs. the Spider (2001)
Human-Spider Hybrid/Superhero Gone Wrong
One of a spate of remakes of old AIP titles conducted in 2001, this spins the original giant spider amok film out into a superhero-gone-wrong take on Spider-Man
Eden Log (2007)
Mysterious Lab Complex/Cryptic Happenings
Cryptic and baffling French art science-fiction film involving strange happenings at a laboratory where we never get any explanations about what is going on
Eight Legged Freaks (2002)
Giant Spiders
Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin turn their attentions to revamping the 1950s giant insect film. They bring top-drawer effects to bear but everything else plays to standard formula
Endgame (1983)
Post-Holocaust Action
Joe D’Amato directs one of the numerous 80s Italian Mad Max 2 copies. One of the very first films to depict televised human bloodsports later popularised by the likes of The Running Man and The Hunger Games
Epic Movie (2007)
Parodies of Various Films
Probably the worst of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer witless and painfully unfunny films – this just consists of a series of vulgar gags run over a bunch of scenes from films that came out in the last twelve months
Eraserhead (1977)
Surrealist Weirdness
The first film from David Lynch, a surrealist work that is one the cult films of all-time. A masterpiece of mood that swims in an atmosphere of dream and Freudian symbolism of cryptically inscrutable meaning
Errors of the Human Body (2012)
Rogue Scientific Experiments
This gave the impression that is was going to venture deep inside Cronenbergian territory but instead, we have a darkly fascinating work set in the world of scientific research
The Falls (1980)
Absurdist Post-Holocaust
Early Peter Greenaway film where in typically eccentric fashion he tells a series of absurd stories about survivors of a mysterious event who names all begin with Fall who have begun to mutate and develop an obsession with birds