Lake Placid (1999)

On a large lake in Maine, a marine fine and game warden is killed in the water by an unseen predator. An investigation is mounted by a team including the local sheriff Hank Keough (Brendan Gleeson), fish and game officer Jack Wells (Bill Pullman), palaeontologist Kelly Scott (Bridget Fonda) and eccentric millionaire and crocodile enthusiast Hector Cyr (Oliver Platt). They soon discover that the lake is home to a 30 foot long saltwater crocodile, which leads to the question on how to track, capture or kill such an animal.

Lake Placid is the sort of film one would describe as a 'guilty pleasure', where there ever a need to feel guilty about enjoying a film. It is a deliberate B-movie, pitting four humans against a giant, hungry and fiercely territorial monster. It has the requisite scenes of people in peril, supporting players getting bitten and murdered, and hushed theories about its origins and purpose. Where the film excels is that director Steve Miner has cast a calibre of lead actor way above what is expected for this kind of a film, and the screenplay comes from television writer/producer David E. Kelley who brings with him the self-awareness and snark that typified his popular creations like Ally McBeal, Picket Fences and Boston Legal. The result is like watching a tricked-out Holden Torana: it should be something cheap and forgettable, yet it unexpectedly - and absurdly - out-performs its expectations.

The Fog (1980)

Just as the Californian town of Antonio Bay prepares to celebrate its 100th anniversary a supernatural fog envelops the town, bringing with it the ghosts of those murdered a century ago by Antonio Bay's founders. The ghosts are out for revenge: their murderers are long dead, but it seems their descendants will do just as well.

The Fog is a 1980 horror film directed by John Carpenter from a script by Carpenter and producer Debra Hill. It was Carpenter's first film following the release of his successful and groundbreaking slasher movie Halloween. While The Fog is also a horror movie, it is made in a distinctly different style. It is a much more old-fashioned, gothic sort of film. While far from Carpenter at his best, it nonetheless has a modest sort of charm to it. At 89 minutes including credits it is a pretty breezy watch, and has enough scares and clever ideas to sustain its fairly short running time.

It Follows (2014)

Jay (Maika Monroe) goes out to the movies, where her date Hugh (Jake Weary) freaks out after he sees someone at the back of the cinema that Jay cannot. On their second date, and after having sex, Hugh chloroforms Jay. When she wakes, she has been tied to a chair. Hugh explains to her: his name is not Hugh. There is a supernatural creature stalking him. The only way to escape it is to pass it to someone else via sexual intercourse, and now that creature is stalking Jay.

It Follows is a 2014 horror film written and directed by David Robert Mitchell. It comes with one hell of a strong hook: an anonymous and unexplained entity, one that can take on the form of anybody you know, and which silently and calmly walks towards you until it catches up and kills you. You could run away, but it will just keep calmly walking in whatever direction you are in. You could shut yourself behind a locked door, but it will beat down the door and then reach you anyway. Driving far away in a car provides you enough distance for a few hours' respite, but all the while the thing is still walking ever-patiently towards you.

Cell (2016)

Clay Riddell (John Cusack) is a comic book artist in Boston airport when a strange mobile phone signal turns everybody using a cell phone into a screaming, violent lunatic. Barely escaping the airport with his life, Clay joins a train driver (Samuel L. Jackson), a mournful teenager (ISabelle Fuhrmann) and a terrified schoolboy (Owen Teague) on a journey north to find his estranged family and keep them safe.

You would think from Cell's set-up that it would be a sizeable hit. It's essentially a zombie movie, released at a time when people still seem to really enjoy zombie movies, and is based on a novel by hugely popular author Stephen King. It stars decent actors like Cusack, Jackson and Stacy Keach. It is clearly a film that went through some trouble, though: despite being shot in 2014 on a moderate budget it took until the middle of 2016 for it to limp direct to home video, with a very limited theatrical release in the USA grossing less than a million dollars.

How could the film do so badly? One viewing makes that pretty clear: Cell isn't any good.

The Ice House (1978)

It is 25 December 1978, and time for a final Ghost Story for Christmas.

Paul (John Stride) has recently separated from his wife, and has booked himself into an isolated health spa to relax and recuperate. After he witnesses a strange phenomenon of staff feeling ice-cold to the touch - staff who mysteriously vanish shortly afterwards - Paul begins to suspect something is amiss about the vine-covered ice house deep in the spa's grounds, and the brother and sister (Geoffrey Burridge and Elizabeth Romilly) that manage the estate.

By 1978 director Lawrence Gordon Clark had left the BBC to work freelance for commercial rival ITV instead. In his place, Derek Lister directed this eighth and final short film under the Ghost Story for Christmas banner. With a script by John Bowen, who previously adapted "The Treasure of Abbot Thomas" for the series, and a modern-day setting, "The Ice House" is easily the strangest and most oddly stylised film of the six I have seen. That said, while it is definitely unusual, it is sadly not particularly good either.

The Exorcist (1973)

Regan McNeill (Linda Blair) is a bright-faced pre-teen living in Georgetown when her bed begins moving on its own accord. Soon Regan is afflicted by seizures and delusions, and disturbing changes in behaviour. When medical science cannot provide an explanation, Regan's mother Chris (Ellen Burstyn) resorts to calling in the priest Father Damien Karras (Jason Miller) and he in turn must rely on the exorcist Father Lancaster Merrin (Max Von Sydow).

The Exorcist is a widely regarded masterpiece of cinema, and one that is regularly cited as the greatest horror movie ever made. It was the first horror film to be nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award. Entertainment Weekly and Time Out both ranked it as the scariest film ever made.

Here's the thing though: The Exorcist isn't really a horror film. Don't get me wrong, it has a few nice scary moments. It does feature supernatural content and themes. At the same time, however, it is also a masterful drama about how a priest almost lost his faith until a demon forces him to take a stand and fight for his beliefs.

Stigma (1977)

It is 29 December 1977, and time for another Ghost Story for Christmas.

A family has recently moved into a rural cottage by a large stone circle, and to accommodate a new lawn one of the giant stones is to be moved. When a work crew attempt to shift it, the stone appears to have an effect on the mother (Kate Binchy). She begins to find blood soaking through her clothes, yet she cannot find from where on her body she is bleeding.

The biggest problem with Stigma, front and centre, is that it is not a ghost story. While it is clearly a horror film, the nature of that horror is rather vague and muddled. It is also the first film in the series to be produced from an original script - by Clive Exton - and the first to be set in the present day. As a result of all of these differences Stigma feels like it has been made for the wrong show. Scheduling issues within the BBC also delayed its original broadcast to after Christmas altogether.

The Signalman (1976)

It is 22 December 1976, and time for another Ghost Story for Christmas.

A railway signalman (Denholm Elliot) is haunted by a ghostly spectre that appears to foreshadow calamity. Over two nights he tells a curious gentleman (Bernard Lloyd) his supernatural tale.

For his sixth annual Christmas ghost film, Lawrence Gordon Clark abandoned the short stories of M.R. James in favour of Charles Dickens. Dickens has written the original story in 1866 following his near-fatal experience in a train crash a year earlier. The change in source material gives The Signalman a very different feel to the earlier films. M.R. James presented horror stories that were quite malevolent and fantastical, whereas here the supernatural elements are ghostly and unsettling but ultimately attempting to achieve some good. This feels like the cosiest and most reassuring of the four Christmas films I have seen thus far, which may go some way to explaining why it is probably the most widely acclaimed film of the set. This feels like a very safe, comfortable BBC short feature.

Schalcken the Painter (1979)

It is 23 December 1979, and time to watch Schalcken the Painter.

In 17th century Leiden the apprentice painter Godfried Schalcken (Jeremy Clyde) falls in love with his master's niece Rose (Cheryl Kennedy). Before he can marry her she is spirited away by the gaunt and mysterious Vanderhausen (Justin Jones), sparking off a mystery involving the supernatural, horrifying apparitions and possibly even Death himself.

Schalcken the Painter is yet another Christmas-time horror film produced by the BBC. In 1979, seeing that the long-running annual series A Ghost Story for Christmas had been cancelled, producer/director Leslie Megahey took the opportunity to provide a replacement. This 70-minute period thriller, which acts as a fine replacement for the cancelled series, created a minor controversy within the BBC at the time. Megahey had recently assumed control of the documentary series Omnibus, and allocated part of its budget to this film on the grounds that - as it focused on the real-life Schalcken as well as his teacher Gerrit Dou - it could tenuously qualify as docudrama. As it is a fictional ghost story, one adapted from a Sheridan Le Fanu short story, it makes for terrible docudrama. As yet another supernatural chiller for the Christmas season, it's rather wonderful.

The Ash Tree (1975)

It is 23 December 1975, and time for another annual episode of A Ghost Story for Christmas.

Sir Richard Fell (Edward Petherbridge) inherits the country seat of Castringham, and intends to settle there with his new wife Augusta (Lalla Ward). The house is cursed, however, and the longer Sir Richard stays there the more consumed he becomes with visions of his ancestor Matthew Fell who condemned a woman to death for witchcraft.

Another M.R. James short story gets a Christmas-time short feature, courtesy of director Lawrence Gordon Clark. The film is based on a script by playwright and screenwriter David Rudkin, whose other film and television works include Fahrenheit 451, Artemis 81 and Penda's Fen. While it boasts some nice horror imagery, and a particularly unexpected climax, it is the weakest of the three Ghost Story films I have seen to date.

The Treasure of Abbot Thomas (1974)

It is 23 December 1974, and time for another Ghost Story for Christmas.

The Reverend Justin Somerton (Michael Bryant) is a medieval scholar investigating the apparent hidden treasure of the Abbot Thomas - a priest in the Middle Ages accused of demon worship.While aided by his young protege Lord Peter Dattering (Paul Lavers), Somerton's research appears to awaken unearthly and unwelcome powers from beneath the church.

I recently mentioned in a review of The Stone Tape just how impressive and underrated an actor Michael Bryant appears to be. Here he is again, delivering a sterling lead performance in this excellent short horror feature. At 37 minutes in length, it does not have much time to tell its story, and so it boldly dives in without an unnecessary moment in it. The short feature is a near-impossible length of movie to sell commercially, and so it's commendable that the BBC dedicated so much time in the 1970s to such productions.

The Stone Tape (1972)

It is 25 December 1972, and time to watch The Stone Tape.

A research project to discover a new recording medium relocates to a large English manor house. When the project leader Peter (Michael Bryant) looks into why a cellar room has not been converted for data storage as requested, he learns that the room is reportedly haunted with multiple people having heard cries and screams while inside. The research project is suspended so that the haunting may be scientifically investigated - an investigation with troubling consequences for the team's programmer Jill (Jane Asher).

I recently reviewed Lost Hearts, a BBC television play broadcast over Christmas, and noted the BBC's odd attitude to Christmas in scheduling ghost stories on Christmas night. It is a choice perhaps stemming from Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, a ghost story which pretty much nailed the zeitgeist of the Victorian era's obsession with Christmas. That still does not quite explain why the BBC elected to broadcast The Stone Tape on Christmas night 1972. It has nothing to do with Christmas. It does not tap into an sense of winter of Victoriana. It is also possibly the most dark and effective horror story that the BBC has ever broadcast. I still can't work out if this scheduling decision was folly or genius.

Lost Hearts (1973)

It is 25 December 1973, and time to watch Lost Hearts.

In the early 19th century, orphaned boy Stephen (Simon Gipps-Kent) is sent to the manor house of his eccentric old cousin Dr Abney (Joseph O'Connor). While exploring the grounds he thinks he can see two other children - a girl and a boy - but soon comes to discover that they are ghosts with a horrific secret to share.

The BBC sometimes has a weird attitude to Christmas. Their long-running soap opera EastEnders is a case in point: Christmas is most often a time for terrible calamity and character deaths. Then there was the time the BBC took the opportunity to broadcast the last-ever episode of Blake's 7 during Christmas week, or their choice to schedule Nigel Kneale's TV play The Stone Tape on Christmas Day. One of the more noted examples of the BBC eschewing warm festive fare for something weirdly dark and horrific is its series of ghost stories, broadcast late on Christmas night and based predominantly on the short stories of M.R. James.

Resident Evil (2002)

Alice (Milla Jovovich) wakes in an empty manor house suffering from near-total amnesia. She is immediately captured by an armed strike team and dragged with them into a massive scientific complex buried beneath the manor. Inside a lethal virus has been released, turning the dead into shambling zombies and unleashing a range of mutated homicidal creatures.

It is a widely perceived wisdom that Hollywood can't adapt videogames into movies. It's an opinion that has been proven by a long string of films that are either outright disasters - see Super Mario Bros or Street Fighter - or fairly middling under-performers - see Tomb Raider, Mortal Kombat, Prince of Persia and others.

20th Century Fox are about to launch a film adaptation of Assassin's Creed, which might be the long-awaited breakthrough in the genre, but for now I really think the best attempt made so far within American cinema is Paul W.S. Anderson's Resident Evil franchise.

Crimson Peak (2015)

Bookish heiress Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska) is swept off her feet by the suave English Baronet Thomas Sharp (Tom Hiddleston) when he arrives in America seeking investors for his clay mining operation. After the sudden and violent death of her father, Edith marries Sharp and accompanies him and his sister Lucille (Jessica Chastain) to their crumbling estate Allerdale Hall. There Edith begins to witness supernatural apparitions, and grows to suspect her new husband and his sister's motives.

There are no huge surprises in Crimson Peak, but then with a film like this that is hardly the point. It is a lush and colourful gothic romance. It ascribes to a series of well-worn genre conventions, and plays them out in exactly the manner in which it expected. As a result I suspect any viewer coming to the film expecting or desiring a twisting narrative with surprises and shock reveals is going to walk away disappointed. The destination is almost irrelevant with a film like Crimson Peak: instead it is all about how stylish a ride it is along the way.

The Witch (2015)

New England, 1630. A puritan farmer named William (Ralph Ineson) and his family are banished from their village and build a new home on the edge of the forest. That winter, their infant son Samuel is snatched from in front of their eldest daughter Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy). Her younger twin siblings begin to talk with the farm's black goat. Her brother Caleb (Harvey Scrimshaw) goes missing in the woods. As the paranoia rises, the family begins to turn on one another.

The Witch landed at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival with an explosion of critical acclaim and gaining a lucrative international distribution deal. That early success may hamper it with audiences, since it is far from the edge-of-your-seat period horror that its marketing actively suggested. Instead this is a slow, oddly sedate film that sits rather uncomfortably between supernatural horror, period drama and paranoid thriller. Very patient viewers may find it to be exceptional stuff. Personally I found it too frustrating to sufficiently work.

The Green Inferno (2013)

A group of idealistic activists head into the Peruvian Amazon to save an indigenous tribe from an illegal logging operation - only to become targeted by the tribe itself.

I was a big fan of Cabin Fever, Eli Roth's bleak 2002 body horror film about a group of clueless college students who get infected with a flesh-eating virus while camping in the woods. It was a bold film, and remarkably graphic, but with a real visual and tonal flair that made it seem as if Roth was a really fresh talent to watch. I was much less impressed by his 2005 follow-up Hostel, which featured more gore but seemingly less flair. His 2007 sequel Hostel Part II was perhaps a little better, but the potential shown by that first feature did not seem to have led anywhere worthwhile.

The Green Inferno is Roth's fourth feature film as director, and sadly continues his downward trajectory as a filmmaker. The gore of his earlier works remains, but the flair and style seems to have entirely evaporated. This is a weakly developed, intellectually lazy and to be honest mildly offensive film that - for me at least - puts the nail in the coffin for Roth's long-term chances. His career started with merit, but wherever it goes from here I suspect I won't be following.

Train to Busan (2016)

Seok-woo is an office-bound Korean workaholic in the middle of an unpleasant divorce from his wife. Seok-woo's daughter Su-an (Kim Su-an) is not handling the separation well, and for her birthday persuades him to escort her on the train from Seoul to Busan. On the same day a virulent zombie outbreak spreads across Korea - including onto the train. Now Seok-woo, Su-an and a shrinking group of passengers must fight to stay alive until the train reaches its final destination.

Generally speaking, Asian films do not go too well with English-speaking audiences. Occasionally a film will break out and actually get a theatrical run in the USA, or the United Kingdom, or Australia. These outliers are usually representative of the most effective and crowd-pleasing films the continent has to offer, including films such as Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Hero, Shall We Dance, or The Host. Yeon Sang-ho's new zombie thriller Train to Busan is the latest film to join that list. It has already been a massive hit in its own country, and is receiving a proper cinema release in both the USA and Australia. If you are not a fan of zombies, then this is categorically not a film for you. If you are an enthusiast for all things undead and hungry, then rest assured this is the best zombie film in years; probably the best since Danny Boyle remixed the genre with 28 Days Later.

The Gate (1986)

When Glen (Stephen Dorff) and his best friend Terry go digging in a building site for geodes, they accidentally open a gate to another dimension. While Glen's parents are out of town for the weekend, imps invade Glen's house, and threaten to unleash an enormous demon into the world - unless Glen and Terry can close the gate.

The Gate is a 1986 children's horror film directed by Tibor Takacs. Today it is likely only remembered for being the film debut of actor Stephen Dorff. It is a film I used to see on the shelf at the video store when I was child, but for some reason I never rented it out or gave it a watch until now - 30 years after it was originally released in cinemas.

It is pretty easy to see why the film has fallen into obscurity. It feels like typical mid-1980s filler. There is a story that is pretty generic, direction that for the most part is just competent with little imagination or flair, and a cast that say their lines on cue but do not really get the chance to express more than two dimensions at a time. Then the second half kicks in, and it becomes a lot more interesting and entertaining than I had expected.

Ghostbusters (2016)

I do not actually remember the last time a Hollywood Summer blockbuster has reached cinema with such a ridiculous storm of... I'm going to be honest, I don't have a suitable word to describe it. It isn't 'controversy', because that immediately suggests there is something controversial about Paul Feig's Ghostbusters remake. I suppose the best word is simply 'noise': a small, overly active minority of angry Ghostbusters enthusiasts took umbrage with the idea of remaking the film, of remaking it instead of making a second sequel to Ivan Reitman's 1984 original, and of remaking it with a gender-flipped cast of women rather than men. Some fans seemed to side with one or the other of those objections, and the noisiest appeared to side with all three, but the total response has been weirdly farcical and fairly repellent to watch. Groups of angry people seem to have conspired to hamstring the movie wherever possible, including flooding the film's IMDB listing with negative reviews and ratings prior to anyone having actually seen the film.

The more reasonable anti-remake fans seem as if they need a hug and a quiet reality check: this is just a movie, it doesn't ultimately matter. The most aggressively sexist ones - many of whom seem to have attitudes approaching genuine misogyny - seem to be demanding a fierce punch to the face, or better yet to just be completely ignored for the trolls and children that they are. If their goal was to destroy Ghostbusters I feel pretty safe in claiming their attempt has failed: few tentpoles this year have been as actively and consistently profiled and discussed. I am not sure if a marked publicity boost was what the so-called "Ghost-bros" had in mind, but it is effectively all that they achieved.

After all of the shouting, the sabotage attempts, and the widespread angst and anticipation, Ghostbusters turns out to be pretty great. It is not as good as its namesake, but that is not a surprise. What it is is a very funny, rather stylish variation on a 1980s classic, one that holds up very well by comparison and stands by itself as a tremendously enjoyable blend of horror and comedy.