Exploitation films

From Beyond

Stuart Gordon and Jeffrey Combs do Lovecraft again. A machine that lets you see what should stay unseen.

Happy Birthday to Me

A prestige director slumming in the glut, and a poster more famous than the film.

My Bloody Valentine

Canadian, mine-set, unusually well shot. The censored cut ruined it for decades.

Opera

Needles taped under the eyes so she cannot look away. Argento's last truly great film.

The Burning

The raft scene is the best kill in any slasher. The rest is fine.

Cannibal Ferox

Lenzi chasing Deodato with none of the argument. Real animal deaths, no defence.

City of the Living Dead

The drill scene. Otherwise thin, but the atmosphere is thick.

Silent Night, Deadly Night

The killer-Santa movie that got itself run out of cinemas in a week.

The Beastmaster

The one that is actually fun. Ferrets steal the film.

The Man Who Saves the World

Turkish Star Wars. Contains actual Star Wars footage. Not licensed.

The Toxic Avenger

Troma's only good film, and the head-crushing is still funny.

Alligator

Sayles again. A flushed pet in the sewers, and it knows how silly that is.

Prom Night

Jamie Lee Curtis, a masked killer, and a decade-old secret. Halloween cashes in, disco included.

Bad Taste

Shot at weekends over four years by Jackson and his friends. Astonishing.

Inferno

Argento's sequel to Suspiria. Even less plot, even more colour. A building that is alive.

Maniac Cop

A dead cop stalks New York in uniform. Larry Cohen writes, Robert Z'Dar's jaw does the rest.

Phenomena

Insect telepathy, a Swiss boarding school, and a straight-razor chimpanzee. Argento off the leash.

Possession

On the nasties list by pure bureaucratic accident. An actual masterpiece about divorce.

Tenebrae

Argento's coldest and cleverest. That crane shot earns its reputation.

The Beyond

Makes no sense whatsoever and is Fulci's best film. Dream logic, fully committed.

The Changeling

George C. Scott versus a bouncing red ball. The best serious ghost film of its decade.

The Return of the Living Dead

Punk soundtrack, running zombies, and the film that invented 'BRAINS'.

Death Wish 3

Abandons realism entirely. Bronson defends a housing block with a machine gun.

Re-Animator

Where the effects and the writing finally matched. Jeffrey Combs is perfect.

Scanners

The exploding head made Cronenberg bankable. The film around it is smarter than that scene.

Day of the Dead

The bleakest Romero. Bub is the only sympathetic character in it.

Videodrome

Long live the new flesh. Cronenberg's prophecy about media, the body, and a chest that opens.

Cannibal Holocaust

A serious film about media atrocity that committed real atrocity.

Mad Max 2

The template the whole Italian post-nuke cycle copied for a decade.

The Evil Dead II

Remake and sequel at once. Raimi discovers slapstick and never looks back.

Friday the 13th

Cynical, derivative, and it industrialised the whole form. Savini's finest hour.

Conan the Barbarian

The good one that caused all the others. Poledouris score is the best part.

The Evil Dead

Prosecuted in Britain. Actually a comedy, though it took years to admit it.