The Sweet Body Of Deborah [Il dolce corpo di Deborah]

One of those early seminal Giallo movies that doesn’t quite have all the elements in place but lays down the groundwork in preparation for Argento and the seventies explosion. This one brings to the table people kissing like they’re trying to manhandle each other with their lips, excessive levels of nudity and twists that display a contemptuous disregard for everything you’ve just watched.

Shock [Schock/ Suspense/ Beyond The Door II]

I’ve never known floating furniture that is clearly suspended on strings to be scary, only a true master could make something like that work. In Bava’s final movie he manages just that and as an added bonus he also made me shit myself at a bricked up window. A true master at work.

The Dead Center

Set on a psychiatric ward, this is one of those horrors that strives for the whole ‘is it supernatural, or all in the mind?’ kind of vibe. Would have been more successful if the very first scene wasn’t an extremely dead man waking up in a morgue establishing beyond any doubt that the supernatural is clearly involved.

Parasite [Gisaengchung]

In an age when a lot of cinema is insistent on what you should think, constantly smashing you round the head with ‘this is the good guy, this is the bad guy, this is the moral’, the most impressive thing about this amazing film is the only thing it smashes you round the head with is ‘this is the story, get on and fucking enjoy it’. Brilliant.

I, Monster

Limp Jekyll and Hyde adaptation where Hyde’s personification of monstrous evil is here represented by Christopher Lee barging past people in the street without any form of apology.

Bad Boys For Life

Fast And Furious Presents Oh Hell No.

Fight Club

As I watched groups of bewildered men try to interpret the contradictory ravings of a mentally unbalanced schizophrenic in a desperate attempt to give themselves a sense of purpose and belonging I realised this movie hasn’t aged one bit. A modern masterpiece.

Panda! Go Panda! [Panda kopanda/ Panda kopanda amefuri sâkasu no maki/ The Adventure of Panda and Friends: Panda Family! & The Circus In The Rain]

Two short films by Ghibli founders Takahata & Miyazaki presented as one piece despite a title card announcing ‘The End’ halfway through. Twee and childish but a fascinating glimpse at early ideas that were clearly seeds for My Neighbour Totoro and Ponyo.

Double Face [A doppia faccia/ Liz & Helen]

When a rich wife is killed in a car accident and the husband is Klaus Kinski you just know one of two things is going on; either he killed her or she faked her death to drive him mad. This keeps you guessing which right up to the very end and then quite brilliantly finds a third way.

Jay And Silent Bob Reboot

Strictly for fans of ill advised nepotism, shameless mugging at the camera and references so on the nose they may as well be the fucking nose.

A Horrible Way To Die

Contains a twist that could have been amazing if the film up to that point hadn’t been composed of confused, out of focus, drifting camera shots that obscure any narrative. As it stands the twist was merely an explanation that allowed me to reverse engineer what I was supposed to have just watched.

1917

A technical marvel that vividly recreates the immediacy of being plunged into warfare so well it undermines its function as a film because there is no space for emotion, humanity, messages etc when it is most imperative to run like fuck and stay alive.

Tales From The Crypt Presents Ritual

I don’t know if you can tell from the poster but this wasn’t actually made as a Tales From The Crypt movie, it was decided to brand it so after it had been made presumably because somebody thought the best way to revive Tales From The Crypt was to slap its name on a bunch of bollocks.

The Pyjama Girl Case [La ragazza dal pigiama giallo]

Based on true events in which authorities felt the best way to identify an unidentified body discovered in Australia was to preserve it in formaldehyde and put it on display for the general public and when that didn't yield results they just picked a missing persons from a lengthy list and decided it was them. It would be very difficult to be any more insensitive to the case in a fictional retelling, yet these Italian film makers managed it.

Freehold [Two Pigeons]

A true test of the stomach as a man lives in another mans flat without him knowing in order to do stuff like stick a toothbrush up his arse. That bit isn’t the stomach flipper though, it’s watching the other guy brush his teeth in the next scene that’s the real toe curler, just one example from the litany of dry heaves on offer here.

Good Time

A raw adrenaline surge of a movie that refuses to relent right up until the very end. Superb.

The Possessed [La donna del lago]

A classy, atmospheric thriller from 60s Italy with enough of the tropes to get retroactively classed as a Giallo but far removed from the lurid trash that typifies the genre.

She Killed In Ecstasy [Sie tötete in Ekstase]

Heavy themes of medical science, madness, suicide, revenge, genital mutilation and necrophilia clash with a soundtrack that insists that everything is soft porn.

Lifeforce [Space Vampires]

Begins with one of the finest Lovecraft style investigations of an alien environment put to screen, managing to accurately portray the immensity and gargantuan awe of such a discovery. Then the tale moves back to earth and becomes more focussed on a naked lady and science fiction interpretations of vampire myth, until it all just gives up and goes with zombies instead. A mess with aspirations.