Exploitation films

Ebola Syndrome

Anthony Wong versus the world, armed with a virus and no impulse control.

El Vampiro

Mexico's caped vampire, fanged on screen a year before Hammer got there.

Executioners from Shaolin

Lau Kar-leung's revenge epic. A survivor spends years learning the one style that can beat the villain.

Fascination

Rollin's best, and the one where the pretty dream logic finally grows teeth.

Graveyard of Honor

Fukasaku's nastiest. A gangster too unstable for organised crime.

Guinea Pig 2: Flower of Flesh and Blood

The fake snuff film that got Charlie Sheen on the phone to the FBI.

Lips of Blood

Rollin's most coherent, which is not saying a great deal. Gorgeous.

Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man

Two cops who are clearly the villains. Ruggero Deodato, before the jungle.

Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx

The best of the series. A pram, a snowfield, and a small army that should have stayed home.

Long Weekend

A couple litter, and Australia decides to kill them. Excellent.

Night of the Bloody Apes

Mexican horror at the gore end: a gorilla-heart transplant, real surgery footage, and a masked lady wrestler.

Night of the Seagulls

The Blind Dead ride out one last time. A quiet, sad closer to Spain's best monster series.

Patrick

A man in a coma does telekinesis. Better than that sentence implies.

Reform School Girls

The women-in-prison film as its own punchline, fronted by the lead singer of the Plasmatics.

Rome Armed to the Teeth

Maurizio Merli punches Rome for 100 minutes. Politics: incoherent.

Scream Blacula Scream

The rare sequel that adds Pam Grier and a shred of dignity.

Shoot First, Die Later

Di Leo's dirty-cop picture, and the rot goes all the way home.

Stone

Australia's outlaw-biker scripture. Mad Max drank from this tank.

Switchblade Sisters

Jack Hill doing Othello with teenage gangs. Much smarter than it needs to be.

The Big Doll House

Jack Hill and Pam Grier invent the modern formula in the Philippines.

The Born Losers

The first Billy Jack film, and much nastier than the sequels.

The Chinese Boxer

Jimmy Wang Yu invents the empty-hand kung fu film. No swords.

The Dead Eyes of London

Blind killers, insurance fraud, and the best fog in the series.

The Fifth Cord

The best-looking giallo nobody names, shot by Storaro between two Bertoluccis.

The Ghost Galleon

The Blind Dead put to sea on a model boat in a visible fish tank. The runt of the four.

The Inn on the River

The Rialto Wallace machine at full tilt: fog, a harpoon and Klaus Kinski looking guilty.

The Iron Rose

Rollin with the vampires stripped out, and his best film for it.

The Legend of Boggy Creek

The Arkansas Bigfoot docudrama that invented an entire regional-monster format on a hundred grand.

The Living Dead Girl

Rollin's best late film. Melancholy where the Italians were loud.

The Long Hair of Death

Margheriti and Barbara Steele do the burned-witch gothic, and the fog does half the acting.

The Nude Vampire

A secret society, a Paris chateau, and dream logic all the way down.

The Perfume of the Lady in Black

Barely a murder mystery. A slow psychological collapse, and superb.

This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse

Coffin Joe returns, still hunting the perfect woman, and the film turns Technicolor to show you Hell.

Trouble Man

Cool to the point of refrigeration, scored by Marvin Gaye the one time he ever bothered.

Truck Turner

Isaac Hayes in front of the camera for once, and Nichelle Nichols swearing.

Zinda Laash

Pakistan's first horror film: Hammer's Dracula, plus musical numbers, minus permission.