B-Movie

Image by John Gara of Buzzfeed.

"Life is like a B-movie: you don't want to leave in the middle of it, but you don't want to see it again."

— Ted Turner

The Great Depression hit Hollywood almost as hard as it hit other industries, with a third of the motion-picture audience disappearing between 1929 and 1933. To combat this, the major studios distributed feature films in pairs, meant to be screened as a Double Feature. The longer and bigger-budgeted of the two films was called an "A-movie", while the secondary feature was termed a "B-movie." A third category, known as a "programmer", was a film that could be used as either an "A" or a "B" movie depending on the intended value of the double feature. At first, the studios maintained separate production units to make the Bs; these units served as training grounds for talent on the way up and as last stops for talent on the way down. Later on, the studios just bought movies from "Poverty Row" studios such as Monogram and Mascot; again, some actors were able to use these pictures to make (or re-make) their careers, notably John Wayne and Roy Rogers.

The tag B-Movie or "B-movie spirit" which is used in contemporary times is more or less an artifact. It's been a while since there have been actual B-movies, that being a movie released as the bottom-half of a double-bill, the freebie to get out of the way before the "real" A-picture starts. The nearest modern correlative would be movies released Direct to Video without a theatrical release, or low-budget movies made for broadcast TV and basic cable. Considering the higher production values of TV in The Oughties and The New '10s, even this is becoming a misnomer, especially since so many A-directors are migrating to TV. You are far more likely to find the authentic B-Movie experience in arthouse movies or repertory screenings, where you have movies paired as double bills for thematic or comparison purposes rather than because one of them is cheap filler made to fill out a program alongside a more serious film.

Some of the ground rules for B-movies date back to these early origins: they were and are produced on a limited budget with actors that are not Household Names. While B-movies may occasionally have very well-written scripts and gripping plots, the primary goal is not deliberate art or widespread commercial success, but cheap, disposable entertainment. As such, B-movies tend to be genre pieces, in such categories as western (by far the most popular B-genre in Hollywood's Golden Age), horror, Science Fiction, or crime. B-movies are often heavily trope-laden, and a particularly successful one can become a trope maker for big-budget films in the future. During the 30's and 40's, B-series were often highly successful; for example, Andy Hardy, Charlie Chan, The Cisco Kid, The Saint, and even Sherlock Holmes (in the sequels produced by Universal).

As the studio system collapsed and the moviegoing audience increasingly deserted theaters for television, beginning in the late 1940s and continuing through the 1950s, the double feature faded from profitability and, thus, the need for major studio-distributed Bs declined, with many local TV stations using them for late-night programming. These kind of formulaic productions moved from theaters to TV along with their audience. On the other hand, the overall decline of the majors left room for independents with a B mentality — American International Pictures and Roger Corman being by far the most prominent — to flourish. In the 1960s and 1970s, the term B-movie came to be synonymous with what was now called "exploitation films" — low-budget cash-ins with an emphasis on sensationalism, sexuality, and gore — and the phrase is understood in those terms to this day. During the "Golden Age" of the B-movie in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, the films were widely distributed and screened in older cinemas colloquially called "grindhouses," supposedly because the movies would be shown over and over again, grinding down the film. Since the dawning of cable TV and home video in The '80s, few B-movies see theatrical release, but are typically produced as TV movies or Direct to Video releases, or released directly over the Internet. Syfy (formerly the Sci Fi Channel) in particular produces many original B-movies, and Mystery Science Theater 3000 maintained interest in the genre throughout the '90s, with its rereleases of classic B-movies with three characters making snarky comments on the action. While many B-movies are "bad" in terms of writing and execution, some prove to be So Bad, It's Good. Those that attempt seriousness are usually full of narm.

Having said all that, in the same period as that outlined above and much later, B-Movies came to be seen with respect and admiration by several film-critics, first in France, and then Britain and the United States. Several B-Movies of the 1940s and 1950s, came to be Vindicated by History and were embraced for their subversion of the restrictions of The Hays Code. The code often focused more heavily on the A-Picture and this meant the B-Movie fell Beneath Suspicion. This meant that directors, paradoxically, had more freedom on a B-Movie than an A-Picture. Several films, especially Film Noir, which today are regarded as classics were B-Movies in their day. For example, Detour, by Edgar G. Ulmer, would later be cited by the likes of Martin Scorsese, François Truffaut and as a major masterpiece of cinema. The likes of William Castle were admired by his more high profile peers like Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock. Hitchcock in fact took inspiration from the popularity of Castle's low-budget productions to bring Psycho Out of the Ghetto. Roger Corman likewise became celebrated for providing many aspiring film-makers entry into making Hollywood films, everyone from Francis Ford Coppola to James Cameron. As a film-maker, Corman also made stylish film adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe's horror films as well as anti-racist films like The Intruder. Indeed, Corman often insisted, as did many other B-Film-makers that they made "A-Movies on B-Budgets".

Critics noted that the low-budget and limited resources often provided an avenue for film-makers to compensate by technical innovation and heavy use of style, and this meant that the old fashioned B-Movie is a truer ancestor of the modern independent film, in form, even if the latter's content, is closer to the A-Movie of old. The reverse is also true however. The modern blockbuster cinema is A-Movie in terms of its cast and large budgets, the chastity of its storyline and aesthetic, but it is B-Movie in terms of its content (Science-Fiction, Action Movie, Superhero films) which were considered low even by the standards of the B-Movies (many of them being serials and usually not played as part of a Double Bill). Starting with Star Wars, many blockbusters were, initially, derisively named "a B-movie with A-Budget" and many of these blockbusters carry the same stigma of the original B-Movie but in an inverted fashion. These films actually make more money and are seen by more people in America and the world (whereas the original B-Movie rarely enjoyed wide-distribution compared to its A-counterpart), but rarely win any awards, compared to the under-seen Oscar Bait. Movies that can be considered B-movies tend not to get too widely noticed these days, many of them going direct to video on VHS and later DVD-Blu Ray. They existed for a bit longer in other markets, in Hong Kong, and parts of India, but gentrification spread there eventually. Today, the style of B-Movie has come to be appreciated by some for its camp value, there have been a number of successful big-budget movies that emulate B-movie tropes and production values in a sort of Affectionate Parody. In addition, there have been film-makers who seek to revive and update the old B-Movie aesthetic for what they value as its low-budget inventiveness and sincerity. The style saw a resurgence in the late 2000s as the rise of streaming video and ready access to video recording and editing made low-budget filmmaking and distribution easier than ever.

Contrast Epic Movie. See Unabashed B-Movie Fan for when a character is a fan of one of these, and The Mockbuster for a particular form of Z-movie common today. Not to be confused with Bee Movie.

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B-movies of note include (chronological order, please)

1930s

• Charlie Chan Carries On (1931): the first of the Chinese-American detective's features; now, sadly, a Missing Episode.
• White Zombie (1932): Starring Bela Lugosi and made, according to some sources, in less than two weeks, this is almost certainly the first film to deal with zombies, and was the inspiration for the name of Rob Zombie's first band.
• Reefer Madness (1937): Exploitation film portraying the dangers of marijuana use in an, um, highly exaggerated manner. Remade as a Musical Comedy in 2005.
• Child Bride (1938): A schoolteacher in the Ozarks campaigns to stop the practice of older men marrying young, underage girls. The film claims to draw attention to the subject of child marriage and be critical of it; so why it therefore needed an extended scene of a 12-year-old Shirley Mills skinnydipping is a mystery.
• The Saint in New York (1938) was the first screen appearance of Simon Templar.
• Under Western Stars (1938) was the debut under his brand-new stage name of an already popular singer (in The Sons of the Pioneers), Roy Rogers; in his career, he would amass more than a hundred film or television credits and earn the nickname, "The King of the Cowboys."
• Stagecoach (1939): Western Ensemble Cast film about stagecoach passengers attempting to avoid Apaches. Its star was a nobody cowboy actor named John Wayne who had appeared in over 80 films and blown several previous attempts at stardom (and was paid less than most of the other cast members), and its director, John Ford, was widely considered insane. Made on a B-film budget and not expected to do much, it managed to become a massive hit, made Wayne into a superstar, and garnered an Oscar win for supporting actor Thomas Mitchell. Remade in 1966 and 1985.

1940s

• The Ape Woman series:
  • Captive Wild Woman (1943): A Universal Horror film starring Acquanetta as the Ape Woman, a creature who began life as an intelligent gorilla and was recrafted into a human by science. She retains several of her gorilla qualities, like poor emotional control and superior strength.
  • Jungle Woman (1944): A Universal Horror film starring Acquanetta as the Ape Woman, a creature who began life as an intelligent gorilla and was recrafted into a human by science. Following a near-death experience, she can now change between her forms at will.
  • Jungle Captive (1945): A Universal Horror film starring Vicky Lane as the Ape Woman, a creature who began life as an intelligent gorilla and was recrafted into a human by science. Following her resurrection, she is badly damaged and set to be made human again with more science, but this does not come to be.
• The Babe Ruth Story (1948): A baseball biopic of Babe Ruth. It was rushed into release while Ruth was still alive, but dying from throat cancer.
• The Baker Street Dozen (1942-1946): A series of twelve mystery movies made by Universal starring Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson that had the Baker Street duo solving mysteries in the present day rather than Victorian London. Originally propaganda films to boost morale in WWII before the studio decided that Holmes should stop fighting Nazis and solve mysteries like audience were expecting. Notably Rathbone and Bruce had played Holmes and Watson before for two films by Fox in 1939 that were A pictures, before a dispute with the Conan Doyle Estate put an end to those films.
• The Creeper series
  • House of Horrors: A Universal Horror film starring Rondo Hatton as the Creeper, a serial killer with a grudge against society for the rejection he experiences over his disfigured face. He befriends a sculptor with a flair for the grotesque.
  • The Brute Man: A Universal Horror film starring Rondo Hatton as the Creeper, a serial killer with a grudge against society for the rejection he experiences over his disfigured face. He befriends a blind pianist.
• Crossfire (1947): A murder mystery shot in three weeks for $500K, the first B-movie nominated for Best Picture.
• Detour (1945): Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer, the "B" director who gave the world The Black Cat, this Poverty Row piece is considered by some to be the first true Film Noir. Sadly, for leading man Tom Neal, the film would prove a case of Life Imitates Art. In a further oddity, the 1992 remake starred Neal's son, Tom Neal Jr.
• Dr. Cyclops (1940): A Mad Scientist shrinks a bunch of people, and proceeds to try to kill them all. Sadly, no Cyclops actually shows up.
• Dumbo (1941): Rare example of an animated B-movie, the film was put into production on a very low budget, using cheaper watercolors instead of gouache for the backgrounds and a more cartoony style for the character animation than Disney's previous animated films. Intended to be a filler movie to help the studio recoup some of the losses that they'd suffered from Fantasia flopping, the film ended up becoming a smash hit and a classic on its own.
• The Ghost Ship (1943): A young officer aboard a merchant ship comes to believe that his captain is an insane killer.
• Gun Crazy (1949): A couple with a mutual fascination for weaponry go on a crime spree. Inspired by Bonnie And Clyde, it would itself be used as inspiration for Bonnie and Clyde. Very loosely remade in 1992 with Drew Barrymore.
• Hitler's Madman (1943): Shot super-cheap in seven days by "Poverty Row" studio PRC, was so good that MGM bought the film and gave it wide distribution.
• King of the Zombies (1941): On a spooky island, three stranded travelers find an evil doctor working with foreign spies and in control of zombies. Only zombie film to have been nominated for an Academy Award (for Best Music (Music Score of a Dramatic Picture) (Edward Kay)).
• The Leopard Man (1943): A series of murders occur after a leopard escapes from the circus.
• The Mad Monster (1942): A Mad Scientist turns a man into a werewolf, and sends his creation to slaughter the scientists who discredited him.
• The Monster Maker (1944): A Mad Doctor injects his enemies with an acromegaly virus, causing them to become hideously deformed.

1950s

• The Thing from Another World (1951): A group of military personnel at an isolated polar base discover a crashed flying saucer and its sole surviving inhabitant, a being that can absorb and imitate other life forms. Adapted from the 1938 short story "Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell. Remade by John Carpenter in 1982; video game sequel to the remake in 2002; a prequel to the 1982 film was released in 2011. Bits of the original can be seen in John Carpenter's Halloween (1978), as the film on television in the various houses.
• The Man From Planet X (1951): With the eponymous planet slowly approaching the Earth, a visitor from said planet lands on a remote Scottish island. A scientist and a reporter try to communicate with the creature, but the scientist's unscrupulous assistant has his own agenda... as does the alien.
• Kansas City Confidential (1952): Above-average "B" Film Noir, it was the first of several "City Confidential" pictures of the era, and the reference for L.A. Confidential.
• The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953): The Trope Maker for the convention of the monster being created by the bomb (predating Gojira by a single year), and one of the first giant monster movies per se following a hiatus that had been ongoing since 1933's King Kong. A ferocious dinosaur is awakened by an Arctic atomic test and terrorizes the North Atlantic and ultimately New York City.
• Cat Women of the Moon (1953): A team of astronauts land on the moon and discover a race of women who mind-control the team's only female member and seek the use of the team's rocket to get to Earth. In case you're wondering; no, despite the title, the women aren't Catgirls.
• Glen or Glenda (1953): Following the suicide of a transvestite, "Dr. Alton" and "the Scientist" offer a Fauxlosophic Narration ("Beware of the big green dragon that sits on your doorstep!") on the life of a man afraid to tell his fiancee he is a cross-dresser and a pseudohermaphrodite who undergoes sexual reassignment surgery. The directorial debut of Ed Wood; and a foretaste of what people could basically expect from his career.
• The Neanderthal Man (1953): In order to test his theory that Neanderthals were more intelligent than modern humans, a Mad Scientist creates a serum that can temporarily reverse a million years of evolution. He tests it on a cat, turning it into a saber-toothed tiger, and then on himself, turning into a murderous ape-man who goes on a killing spree.
• Project Moonbase (1953): 20 Minutes into the Future, the US government has built a permanent orbital space station and seeks to construct a base on the moon itself as well. In order to do this, they need photographs of the dark side. An expedition composed of two men and an unruly female colonel whom the general threatens to spank into complacency are sent to do it. The colonel is the least of the problems, however, as one of the men is a saboteur.
• Robot Monster (1953): An alien named Ro-Man hunts the last humans alive on earth, but ends up falling in love with the inevitable sexy young scientist's daughter and consequently has a crisis of conscience, leading to much earnest soliloquizing ("At what point on the graph do 'must' and 'cannot' meet? Yet I must — but I cannot!"). Ro-Man, it might just be mentioned, is played by a man in a gorilla suit wearing a toy plastic space helmet. Oh, and did we mention his master computer constantly spews bubbles? Music by Elmer Bernstein.
• Devil Girl from Mars (1954): A Martian dominatrix arrives on Earth in search of men for breeding stock, and terrorizes a British country inn.
• The Beast With A Million Eyes (1955): A rural family contends with the forces of an alien that takes control of the minds of animals - and eventually humans too.
• Bride of the Monster (1955): An exiled European scientist (played by Bela Lugosi) abducts people with the intention of turning them into a race of atomic supermen so he can take over the world. By Ed Wood.
• Creature with the Atom Brain (1955): An American gangster and an ex-Nazi scientist team up to create zombies by removing the brains of corpses and replacing them with atomic energy, whereupon they set them upon the gangster's enemies.
• Day The World Ended (1955): After a nuclear war, a small group of people is confined to a rural property. Tensions soon mount between them, and they also contend with a mutant dwelling nearby. By Roger Corman.
• It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955): A giant octopus is disturbed by atomic tests and makes its way to San Francisco. Oh, but because Ray Harryhausen wasn't given enough money, said octopus only has six arms. Call it a "hextapus".
• King Dinosaur (1955): A new planet moves into our solar system and four scientists (two couples) are sent to explore Planet Nova. In between romantic interludes, they face an iguana masquerading as a Tyrannosaurus Rex. The directorial debut of Bert I. Gordon, who — despite somehow being far less well-known — can pretty much join the ranks of Roger Corman, Coleman Francis and Ed Wood in terms of the rate at which he churned this breed of movie out.
• Tarantula! (1955): Tarantula injected with a growth serum breaks out of a lab, grows into a giant monster, ravages the Arizonan countryside, and is defeated by an air-strike with a pilot played by a 25-year old Clint Eastwood.
• Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956) : A scientist is contacted by aliens who, in order to avoid conflict, want him to arrange a meeting of world leaders which they can inform of their intentions to take over the earth.
• It Conquered the World (1956): An alien from Venus resembling a giant zucchini with arms and a face arrives on Earth and mind-controls people with a flock of bat-like creatures plus the aid of Lee Van Cleef.
• The Mole People (1956): A team of archaeologists discovers a race of humans living underground beneath a glacier atop a mountain in Mesopotamia, who keep the eponymous mole people as slaves.
• 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957): A spaceship freshly returned from Venus crashes into the sea near Italy. An embryo washes up on the beach and is found by a small boy, who sells it to a zoologist. A reptilian monster hatches from the embryo and quickly grows to enormous proportions, whereupon it terrorizes Rome. A movie with special effects by Ray Harryhausen.
• The Amazing Colossal Man (1957): Colonel Glen Manning is exposed to radiation and he starts growing to tremendous size, cutting off the blood supply to his brain thus causing him to go mad. By Bert I. Gordon.
• Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957): A group of scientists study an irradiated isle and find giant land crabs with human intelligences from eating the previous group of scientists.
• Beginning of the End (1957): An enterprising female journalist comes across a destroyed town and learns of a scientist that's been using radiation to make vegetables grow to giant sizes. It seems that a swarm of grasshoppers broke into a silo containing some of said vegetables, ate them, became irradiated themselves, grew to enormous proportions and are now running amok, headed towards Chicago. By Bert I. Gordon.
• The Black Scorpion (1957): A volcano unleashes a hive of giant scorpions that attack Mexico City.
• The Brain from Planet Arous (1957): A giant, hovering alien brain possesses the body of a scientist and attempts to take over the world in its first step to become the master of the universe.
• The Deadly Mantis (1957): The eruption of a volcano in the south seas causes the north pole to shift location into warmer climates, causing a giant prehistoric praying mantis frozen in an iceberg to thaw out. It attacks military installations in the arctic, and then makes its way to Washington D.C. and New York City.
• The Giant Claw (1957): Earth is attacked by a Giant Antimatter Space Buzzard. Translation: a puppet that looks like Big Bird's evil twin. Thus beloved for some of the most hilariously out-of-sync shots of 'horror' and 'wonder' in history — the puppet was created & filmed long after the actors' reaction takes.
• Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957): Bulbous-headed aliens that kill via injecting their victims with alcohol descend upon a town named "Hicksburg" and are defeated by the resident teens.
• The Monolith Monsters (1957): A meteorite lands in the American southwest scattering mysterious black rocks everywhere. When the rocks come into contact with water, they grow into giant pillars that threaten a small town.
• The Monster That Challenged the World (1957): An earthquake in the Salton Sea unleashes a horde of prehistoric mollusk monsters that terrorize the citizens of California's Imperial Valley.
• Not Of This Earth (1957): An agent from a planet whose race is dying of an incurable blood disease comes to Earth to gauge the viability of human blood as a replacement. By Roger Corman. The 1988 remake was done on a bet by Jim Wynorski that he could do it on the same budget and schedule. It shows, and the acting is exactly what you would expect when the best you can afford wouldn't make a HS drama club. Some of the special effects, however, would have been right at home in Star Trek.
• The Vampire (1957): A man takes pills derived from the blood of a vampire bat, and becomes a vampire himself.
• Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958): Exactly What It Says on the Tin. A Distaff Counterpart to The Amazing Colossal Man.
• Carry On... Series (1958-78, 1992): British Genre-Busting comedy film series that did a lot of affectionate parodies and bawdy humour. It was so low-budgeted that Carry On Cleo recycled costumes and backdrops from the Epic Movie (and later, biggest flop) Cleopatra to save money.
• The Cyclops (1958): Bert I. Gordon hokum about some people crashing their plane in Mexico and encountering a giant radioactive "cyclops" (really just a dude who has half his face melted off so he only has one remaining eyeball).
• Fiend Without a Face (1958): A British-American coproduction based on the short story The Thought Monster. It tells the tale of a legion of invisible brain-sucking abominations that are unleashed upon rural Canada. Because this is the 50s, the culprit(s) turn out to be a well-intentioned scientist whose experiments have gone wrong, with a healthy dose of ye olde magical radiation. It's up to Major Jeff Cummings of the US Air Force to stop those (dare we say it?) fiends without faces.
• Attack of the Puppet People (1958): The lonely owner of a doll factory uses a ray to shrink people that he thinks are going to abandon him and keeps them as his pets. Although the shrunken people do try to get back to normal size, they don't ever strictly ''attack'' anyone. By Bert I. Gordon.
• The Blob (1958): A glob of jelly comes to earth in a meteorite and starts getting bigger by engulfing people. It is defeated via dousing with fire-hydrants and airlifted to the Arctic. Remade in 1988.
• The Brain Eaters (1958): A rocket-like structure emerges from the ground, and monsters resembling dust bunnies with two drinking straws stuck into them emerge from it, mind-controlling the residents of a nearby town. The film had enough similarities with the novel The Puppet Masters (1951) to allow author Robert A. Heinlein to sue the creators for plagiarism. The case ended with an out-of-court settlement. The film is also remembered for a small part played by then-obscure Leonard Nimoy.
• The Crawling Eye (A.K.A. The Trollenberg Terror) (1958): Two sisters and a UN scientist go to a resort in the mountains of Switzerland, where an ominous radioactive cloud has been looming nearby. Two men venture to the proximity of the cloud; one turns up decapitated and the other an entranced maniac. It seems the workings of a tentacled blob of flesh with a giant central eye are afoot.
• Queen of Outer Space (1958): Opinions differ over whether this was tongue-in-cheek hack work or the most misogynistic sci-fi movie ever made. Probably the quintessential space-explorers-discover-a-world-populated-entirely-by-beautiful-women movie (e.g. Cat Women of the Moon, Missile to the Moon, the British Fire Maidens of Outer Space, and the spoof Amazon Women on the Moon).
• The Screaming Skull (1958): A woman is haunted by the ghost of her new husband's late wife.
• The Wild Women of Wongo (1958): A bizarre twist on Romeo and Juliet. Two prehistoric tribes (one populated by beautiful women and ugly men, the other the inverse) are forced to come together after being attacked by invading troglodytes; Green-Eyed Monster ensues when the beautiful people become attracted to each other.
• The Alligator People (1959): A newly-wedded couple are on a train when the husband receives a telegram and runs away, vanishing without a trace. The wife, after years of searching, turns up at the Florida plantation where he once lived, whereupon she discovers that a treatment for a medical condition the husband had has turned him into a human/alligator hybrid.
• Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959): In the swamps of Florida, a pair of the eponymous People in Rubber Suits abduct local hicks and take them to an underwater grotto to feed on their blood.
• A Bucket of Blood (1959): A waiter desperate to befriend the local beatniks kills people and makes sculptures from their bodies.
• Blackjackets (1959): A gang of greasers kidnap a young woman after their boss sees her hanging out with a middle-aged man at a bar.
• The Giant Behemoth (1959): The dumping of radioactive waste off the shores of Cornwall, England, awakens a prehistoric monster than can project electric shocks and radioactive beams, whereupon it makes its way towards London. Was originally going to be about a blob of radiation, but executives demanded it be reworked into a knockoff of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (which was made by the same director).
• The Giant Gila Monster (1959): A small town in northern Texas is terrorized by... well, read the title.
• The Hideous Sun Demon (1959): A science accident turns a man into a lizard monster when he's exposed to the Sun.
• House on Haunted Hill (1959): An eccentric billionaire (Vincent Price) invites 5 strangers to an old mansion for a party, wherein they will each be afforded a hefty cash payout if they can only survive the night. What do you suppose the odds are that they get locked inside and that the house turns out to be inhabited by ghosts, murders and other terrors? By William Castle; remade in 1999.
• The Killer Shrews (1959): Some people trapped on an island are terrorized by the titular "giant" shrews, which are transparently played by German Shepherds in body wigs. Every bit as fun/silly as it sounds, fortunately.
• Invisible Invaders: Invisible aliens attack the earth by possessing corpses.
• Night of the Ghouls (1959): The sequel to Bride of the Monster. Involves two female ghosts, a scarred giant, a phony psychic, and an Occult Detective.
• Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959): Aliens resurrect the dead as vampires zombies that look like vampires to stop humans from building a bomb that will "explode particles of sunlight." With model-kit flying saucers, gravestones made of cardboard, and an airplane cockpit consisting of a shower curtain and two folding chairs; this is just one of many films contending for the title of the "worst movie ever made", but it is generally regarded as the winner. By — who else? — Ed Wood. Remake in development, with The Angry Video Game Nerd himself in a bit part.
• Teenagers from Outer Space (1959): An alien soldier/space teen endeavors to stop his former comrades from making Earth into a space farm for giant lobsters.
• The Atomic Submarine (1959): The trip of the USS Nautilus under the North Pole inspired this movie in which the eponymous "atom sub" battles a Flying Saucer (underwater, of course).

1960s

• First Spaceship on Venus (1960): An artifact from Venus is discovered in the Gobi Desert, so a Five-Token Band space crew is sent to the planet to investigate for aliens. Honestly not too shabby.
• Horrors of Spider Island (1960): A dancing troupe crashes on an island, where their manager becomes a were-spider.
• The Little Shop of Horrors (1960): A teenage florist cultivates a relationship with a sentient plant that feeds on human blood. Directed by Roger Corman. Adapted as a musical in 1982, which in turn spawned a 1986 film adaptation. It's also the only possible case where a character first portrayed by Jack Nicholson was later portrayed nearly identically by Bill Murray.
• The Beast of Yucca Flats (1961): Following a gratuitous opening topless scene that has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the movie, a defecting Soviet scientist played by Tor Johnson wanders into a nuclear testing range, contracts radiation, grows into a hulking monster (the eponymous Beast), kills a couple, then two boys get lost, then the beast is killed, and then a rabbit sniffs his corpse. Somewhere during production, the film's soundtrack was lost, forcing its thoroughly inept director, Coleman Francis, to dub it with a drunken-sounding Fauxlosophic Narration instead. The end result is another contender for the title of the worst movie ever made.
• Gorgo (1961): A sea monster is captured by sailors off the Irish coast and brought to London for display. But then the monster's mommy shows up... By the same guy that did The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and The Giant Behemoth.
• Invasion of the Neptune Men (1961): A group of kids wanders around doing random things, whilst Sonny Chiba battles aliens from Neptune. The MST3K crew was appalled by what they thought was real WWII footage in a kids' film; it was actually footage from another film, World War III Breaks Out.
• Konga (1961): Anglo-American co-production, set in London, which shamelessly rips off the name of another well-known film. A mad scientist returns from Africa with a pet chimpanzee, Konga, and lots of carnivorous plants which he uses to produce a growth serum. He injects Konga with the serum, causing him to become a man in a gorilla suit. The scientist hypnotizes the ape with a flashlight and commands it to kill his enemies, including the boyfriend of a teenage girl he wants to date. His wife finds out and tries to reprogram Konga, giving him more of the serum. She is eaten by a plant, while Konga grows to giant size, picks up the professor and goes on a rampage through London, pursued by the army.
• Nude on the Moon (1961): Very silly movie in which two scientists build a rocket ship, fly to the Moon, and discover that the Moon 1) oddly looks a lot like Florida, with palm trees and blue skies, and 2) is habited by a lot of pretty women wearing nothing but bikini bottoms. (This was part of a short-lived genre of "naturist" films, but while most of the others were simply shot at nudist colonies, this one was set on the Moon as a gimmick.)
• Reptilicus (1961): A piece of tail is found in the mines of Lapland and brought to Denmark, whereupon it regenerates into the eponymous giant lizard and terrorizes Copenhagen.
• Doctor Blood's Coffin (1962): A Mad Doctor performs resurrection experiments in a small English village.
• The Magic Sword (1962): A knight rescues a princess from dark wizard Basil Rathbone.
• The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1962): After his girlfriend is decapitated in a car crash, a scientist keeps her severed head alive in a pan and searches for a replacement body. Said girlfriend is not pleased with the circumstances.
• Carnival of Souls (1962): The Sole Survivor of a car crash is tormented by a mysterious man. Often considered one of—if not the—best B-movies ever made, it got a re-release from The Criterion Collection and was remade by Wes Craven in the 1990's.
• Journey to the Seventh Planet (1962): Five astronauts land on Uranus and are mind raped by a giant alien brain. A bit less narmy than standard 60s B-grade sci-fi/horror fare.
• Battle Beyond the Sun (1962): Loosely based on a Soviet hard-SF film (Nebo Zovyot (1959)), about a space race to the planet Mars between two rival post-nuclear superpowers (conveniently disguising the fact the good guys are Russian and the bad guys American). Notably, a student Francis Ford Coppola worked on the adaptation, whose additions included a scene involving a fight between two alien gag monsters.
• Mondo Cane (1962): Documentary by Paolo Cavara, Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi about strange and depraved cultural practices around the world. Progenitor of the Mondo subgenre, also called "shockumentaries". Title translates in English to "A Dog's World".
• Beach Party (1963): An anthropologist studies the mating habits of teenage surfers at a beach, and boyfriend Frankie (American Bandstand staple Frankie Avalon) and girlfriend Dolores (The Mickey Mouse Club veteran Annette Funicello) try to make each other jealous by flirting with others. Another priceless cultural artifact from American International Pictures. Followed by way too many sequels, semi-sequels and rip-offs; many of which didn't actually even have anything to do with the beach.
• Blood Feast (1963): The world's first splatter film, directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis, about an Egyptian caterer who violently murders a bunch of women in Miami as part of a ritual to resurrect the goddess Ishtar. The first in Lewis' unofficial "Blood" trilogy.
• The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963): Woman goes to Rome and gets entangled in a string of murders based upon the alphabetical order of the victims' names. Progenitor of the Giallo subgenre.
• The Raven (1963): Very, very, very loose adaptation of the poem of the same name by Edgar Allan Poe; starring a young Jack Nicholson. The most well-known of Roger Corman's series of B-movies based on the works of Poe.
• Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1963): Martians, upset that their children have became obsessed with Earth TV-shows, kidnap Santa Claus along with two Earth children so they can engage in some more wholesome fun. Too bad Santa's a drunk... erm, that is, still needed on Earth. Made (in)famous by its appearance on Mystery Science Theater 3000.
• X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes (1963): Dr. James Xavier, a scientist, gives himself X-ray vision. Alas, he starts to be able to see through the fabric of spacetime, and goes insane. One of Roger Corman's more competent, more critically-acclaimed works. The "X" of the title stands for "Xavier".
• The Comedy of Terrors (1963): Various horror stars star in a Horror Comedy about two mortuary workers orchestrating murders to keep themselves in business.
• The Creeping Terror (1964): An alien that closely resembles shag carpeting terrorizes a small town. Best known for being particularly awful even by Mystery Science Theater 3000 standards.
• The Horror of Party Beach (1964): Re-animated by radioactive waste dumped into the oceans, a horde of fish/lizard monsters terrorize a town full of "teenagers", some of whom indeed party at the beach. By Del Tenney.
• The Time Travelers (1964): A group of scientists attempts to create a window to the future but ends up creating a portal to it instead. They step through, and end up trapped in the future; in which the Earth as been decimated by nuclear war reducing it to a barren wasteland. They team up with underground-dwelling survivors, who are in the process of building a spaceship to escape to Alpha Centauri. Alas, the mutants who dwell in the waste are out to put a stop to this.
• Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964): A splatter film in which residents of a deep southern town lure six tourists to obtain revenge for the town's destruction at the hands of Union troops during the Civil War by sacrificing them in the rituals of its annual festival. Second in Herschell Gordon Lewis' unofficial "Blood" trilogy.
• Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965): Battle of the sexes by Russ Meyer about a gang of Amazonian go-go dancers who murder a young woman's boyfriend and take off with her, then scheme to rob an old redneck of his large, hidden stash of money by seducing his sons. While it didn't create sexploitation, it's the Trope Codifier.
• Monster a-Go Go (1965): Upon landing back on earth in a field, an astronaut emerges as a mutated monster. After killing some people, he is caught by some scientists, but then escapes again... at least, according to the narrator. Then, it suddenly turns out that there never was a monster... the astronaut actually landed in the Pacific, completely normal. If you're thinking "what?", don't worry, so are we. Originally starting out as Terror at Halfday in 1961, its director, Bill Rebane, ran out of money halfway through and dropped it. Four years later Herschell Gordon Lewis needed something to screen as a double feature with his own Moonshine Mountain so he bought this, finished it with footage of people sitting around and talking while reading script pages pasted to the floor, and this incomprehensible piece of garbage was the result. If this isn't in the running for "Worst Movie Ever", it's only because it barely counts as a movie in the first place.
• Monsters Crash the Pajama Party (1965): A short that is one of the last surviving artifacts of the Spook Show, which combined a film with audience participation. Frat boys and sorority initiates spend the night in a supposedly haunted mansion, complete with a Mad Scientist named Mad Doctor, Big G the Gorilla and No Fourth Wall.
• Africa Addio (1966): A sensationalized account of the end of colonialism in Africa and the war and bloodshed that subsequently ensued.
• The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966): One of the best, most beloved, most important and most influential B movies of all time; about three unscrupulous gunslingers competing to find a buried cache of coins in the midst of The American Civil War. It is frequently regarded as both the single greatest western movie of all time and as hailing the end of that said genre, due to the acting, the characters and the eclectic beauty in its cinematography and music.
• Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter (1966): Legendary outlaw of the Old West Jesse James, on the run from Marshal MacPhee, hides out in the castle of Baron Frankenstein's granddaughter Maria, who proceeds to transform Jesse's slow-witted pal Hank into a bald zombie, which she names Igor. Shot in eight days.
• Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966): A family on vacation takes a wrong turn outside of El Paso, Texas, landing themselves in the clutches of a cult dedicated to the titular god of primal darkness. Made on a bet for a tiny budget, with a camera that can only record for 30 seconds at a time and no ability to record sound. Another contender for the title of "worst movie ever", made into a cult classic by its rerelease on Mystery Science Theater 3000 and was also followed by a sequel 54 years later.
• Red Zone Cuba / Night Train To Mundo Finé (1966): Three prison escapees find themselves forced into fighting in the Bay of Pigs invasion, and meet an ill fate while pursuing a treasure they learned about from a P.O.W. there. As of 2011, rated 6th worst movie of all time on Imdb. Best remembered for a surprisingly awesome theme song sung by John Carradine himself. Like Manos, it's been skewered by both Mystery Science Theater 3000 and The Agony Booth.
• Zontar, the Thing from Venus (1966): A young scientist who helps a lone alien from Venus, finds out it wants to destroy man. A remake of It Conquered the World. The film was commissioned to pad out one of American International's television syndication packages and became one of Larry Buchanan's best known works.
• Curse of the Swamp Creature (1966): A Mad Scientist creates a fish man in a Texas Swamp. Another of Larry Buchanan's remakes for American International Pictures.
• The Eye Creatures (1967): Multi-eyed aliens descend on a small town in central United States and are defeated by the resident teens. A word-for-word remake of Invasion of the Saucer Men.
• Mars Needs Women. Another Larry Buchanan No Budget movie, it became the Trope Namer for Mars Needs Women. Martian men outnumber women due to genetic recession, so five Martian men come to Houston in a flying saucer with the aim of abducting five Earth beauties.
• Quatermass and the Pit/Five Million Years To Earth (1967): British construction workers unearth a millions-of-years-old crashed UFO, the existence of which is tied to centuries worth of poltergeist phenomena in the region. Adapted from a BBC serial aired in 1958, the best-known of four serials to feature Prof. Bernard Quatermass, the original and its remake have been cited as a key influence of everything from Doctor Who to The Tommyknockers to Babylon 5.
• The Astro-Zombies (1968): The United States and Mexican intelligence agencies fight over a Mad Scientist and his resurrection science.
• Night of the Living Dead (1968): Originator of the Zombie Apocalypse movie. The distributors of the film neglected to include a copyright notice in the end credits of the released version, thereby (by the laws of the time) entering the film and its associated concepts into the public domain. Remade in 1990 and again in 2006. An animated remake is in development.
• Equinox (1968): Low-budget film that launched the career of Dennis Muren, who would later go on to win an Oscar for effects on Star Wars and become a founding member of ILM. Later re-cut by Jack Harris (of The Blob fame).
• Sweden: Heaven and Hell (1968): A largely sensationalized, titillating examination of life in the titular nation, with particular focus on its liberal attitudes towards sex and drugs. Nowadays best known for its soundtrack, from which "Mah Nà Mah Nà" originated.
• They Saved Hitler's Brain (1968): As its title suggests, Nazi war criminals preserve Hitler's brain on a small tropical island until the time is right to resurrect him and, along with him, the Third Reich. Most of the movie consists of an earlier film, Madmen of Mandoras, that got added half an hour of additional footage shot years later. This leads to a very weird effect concerning differences in film stock and fashion where everybody in the older portion has that clean-cut Mad Men look while the newer footage has folks clearly from the late '60s.
• Hercules in New York (1969): We all gotta start somewhere. For Arnold Schwarzenegger, it was here. A lightning bolt wielded by Zeus consists of a piece of bent rebar painted silver; that is all you need to know.
• Love Camp 7 (1969): Two female British agents go undercover at a Nazi prison camp to get information from a scientist imprisoned there, but end up subject to the same torture and humiliation betrothed upon the other inmates. Progenitor of both the Nazisploitation and Women-in-Prison subgenres.
• Night After Night After Night (1969): A Jack the Ripper-type serial killer is loose in London. Suspicion falls on a transvestite judge.
• Night of the Bloody Apes (1969): A Mad Scientist transplants a gorilla's heart into his dying son, saving the son's life but also transforming him into a monstrous, ape-like creature who embarks on a rape and murder spree before being brought to justice by a female wrestler in this low-budget Mexploitation romp by René Cardona. Sr.

1970s

• Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970): An all-girl rock band goes to Hollywood hoping to make it big and slips into decadence... as only 1970's celebrities could. "This is my happening, and it freaks me out!!" Directed by Russ Meyer, but most notable for being written by none other than... Roger Ebert!!!; who had become friends with Meyer after writing positive reviews of several of his films.
• Cold Sweat (1970): A man's wife and daughter are kidnapped by criminals from his past. Stars Charles Bronson.
• The Dunwich Horror (1970): Loosely based on the short story of the same name by H. P. Lovecraft.
• Hell's Bloody Devils (1970): A secret agent infiltrates a neo-Nazi crime group that prints counterfeit U.S. dollars with the help of a fellow undercover agent, where they discover that the group uses a vicious Swastika-clad motorcycle gang to do their dirty work. Sound manly enough for you? This movie had a quite particular production history: It began shooting in 1967 as solely a spy thriller. However, after the film couldn't be sold to a proper distributor, new footage featuring bikers was filmed and incorporated into the plot, and the resulting product then did find a release. Features a cameo by Colonel Sanders.
• I Drink Your Blood (1970): A coven of Satanist hippies loosely based on the Manson Family descends upon a quiet little country town and molests a local girl. The girl's grandfather confronts them but is dosed with LSD. The brother/grandson seeks revenge by injecting some meat pies with blood from a rabid dog and feeding them to the hippies. Can you guess what happens next?
• The Losers (1970): A gang of bikers is recruited by the US military to undertake a rescue operation of a CIA agent imprisoned by the Viet Cong with motorcycles armed with machine guns mounted on the front. Again, sounds manly enough for you?
• The Big Boss (1971): After The Green Hornet failed, Bruce Lee went back to Hong Kong and was catapulted into stardom with this film. About a man sworn-to-non-violence going to live with his cousins and getting on the wrong side of a local drug lord.
• The Black Belly of the Tarantula (1971): A Serial Killer paralyzes women via acupuncture so they're fully conscious while he kills them.
• The Corpse Grinders (1971): A cat food company in financial trouble turns to a new, cheap source of meat — the local graveyard. Only one problem — the new food makes cats develop a taste for human flesh, and kitties are tearing out throats all over town.
• Evel Knievel (1971): Why the most famous daredevil of the era chose to have his biopic done as a surreal semi-exploitation serio-comic flick is anyone's guess, but the result is unforgettable. Starring George Hamilton, who also produced, and Sue Lyon of Lolita fame.
• Goodbye Uncle Tom (1971): From the duo that brought you Mondo Cane (above); examines the degrading conditions in which African slaves lived in pre-Civil War America in horrifyingly graphic detail.
• The Ωmega Man (1971): 20 Minutes into the Future, a war between America and the USSR has decimated the planet. The only survivors are Charlton Heston, Rosalind Cash, a handful of children, and a clan of evil albinos that want to smush them all. Adapted from the novel I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. Previously adapted as The Last Man on Earth in 1964. Remade under the title of the original novel in 2007.
• Shaft (1971): A black private eye is hired to rescue the daughter of a Harlem criminal from The Mafia. A Trope Codifier for Blaxploitation, it's best known today for its fantastic theme song by Isaac Hayes. Got two sequels, a short-lived series of TV movies and a pseudo-reboot.
• Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971): Progenitor of the Blaxploitation genre; essentially a manifesto for an African-American revolution. Director/writer/producer/lead actor Melvin Van Peebles is the father of actor/director Mario Van Peebles. Melvin appears in unsimulated sex acts in the film, and even contracted an STD during the filming.
• Two-Lane Blacktop (1971): Two nameless men (James Taylor and Dennis Wilson) touring across the US in their 1955 Chevy 150 challenge another (Warren Oates) in a 1970 Pontiac GTO Judge to a cross-country race to Washington D.C. A female hitchhiker (Laurie Bird) drifts between the two parties. No character is shown reaching Washington during the course of the film; its tone is of endlessness and existentialism. It is also regarded as a nostalgic time-capsule of Route 66 prior to it being overtaken by the Interstate Highway System.
• Vanishing Point (1971): An enigmatic car delivery man named Kowalski drives a 1970 Dodge Challenger from Denver to San Francisco, running afoul of the police in the process. Very similar in tone to Two-Lane Blacktop and Easy Rider, and along with Gone in 60 Seconds (below), arguably the Ur-Example and Trope Codifier of the car chase movie.
• Werewolves on Wheels (1971): Biker werewolves of Satan.
• 200 Motels (1971): A surrealist musical stoner-exploitation comedy centered around "The Mothers of Invention" as they travel from city to city on an endless tour where they encounter the press, groupies, bar fights, an eccentric film producer, Satan, and the KKK. All interspersed with non-sequitur segments and performances by The London Symphony Orchestra. Written and co-directed by "Mothers" frontman Frank Zappa.
• The Other Side Of Madness (1971): A docu-biographical hybrid of the murders of Sharon Tate and her friends by the hands of the Manson Family. Filmed during the family's trial and at many of the actual locations such as the Manson Family Ranch.
• An American Hippie in Israel (1972): An Israeli production about, well, an American hippie in Israel. It's kind of difficult to describe, actually.
• Black Mama, White Mama (1972): Blaxploitation/women-in-prison, with Pam Grier. The girlfriend of a pimp tries to steal money from him and is thrown in jail. The leader of a local anarchist group is thrown in too, and the two get chained together. They escape, and must put aside their differences to survive.
• Blood Freak (1972): A Vietnam War veteran is driven into a homicidal rage by a combination of marijuana and experimental hormones, transforming him into a turkey-headed vampire that can only subsist on the blood of drug addicts.
• Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things (1972): An acting troupe actually awaken the dead. Directed by Bob Clark.
• Daughters of Satan (1972), an American Gothic Horror film shot and set mostly in Manila in the Philippines, involving witchcraft, a Creepy Changing Painting, and a then-unknown Tom Selleck as the guy who buys the Spooky Painting for himself and his wife, who bears a creepy resemblance to the painting's model.
• Deep Throat (1972): Porno about a woman whose doctor discovers her clitoris is located in her throat. It doesn't take much imagination to guess what happens next. Started a trend of couples going out to see porn together called "Porno Chic", caused a big brouhaha over censorship, and is the most successful film of all time in terms of box office returns (reportedly million) in ratio to budget ( + 25,000 for music).
• Frogs (1972): When an ageing patriarch poisons his local environs, the wildlife rise up to strike back. It's actually not frogs but various other animals that do most of the killings in the movie.
• Grave of the Vampire (1972): A dhampyr seeks revenge on the vampire who raped his mother.
• Greaser's Palace (1972): A man in a large fedora and oversized zoot suit known as Jessy parachutes to earth, and journeys to Jerusalem to become an actor/singer/dancer, as per the request of the Agent Morris; he performs many Christ-like feats along the way, such as resurrecting the dead and boogying on water.
• The Last House on the Left (1972): Two girls are abducted by a gang of criminals, tortured and murdered, and then the gang unknowingly shacks up in the house of one of the girl's parents. Just try to guess what happens when the said parents find out. Along with Cannibal Holocaust and I Spit On Your Grave (below); is regarded as the quintessential "Video Nasty". By Wes Craven, remade in 2009. This was Wes Craven's first film.
• The Night of a Thousand Cats (1972): A serial killer stalks the women of Acapulco, Mexico, killing them and then feeding them to his cats while keeping their preserved heads in glass jars.
• Night of the Lepus (1972): In which Dr McCoy - er, DeForest Kelley - helps Stuart Whitman and Janet Leigh rid the world of a marauding herd of Giant Killer Bunny Rabbits. While wearing an orange turtleneck. Made by MGM... really.
• Pink Flamingos (1972): By John Waters. Two families compete for the title of the "filthiest people alive". Includes, among other things: the unsimulated crushing of a chicken whilst engaging in sex, the unsimulated lip-synching of a man's anus, the unsimulated fellatization of a man's penis by his transvestite mother, and the unsimulated consumption of dog feces.
• Superfly (1972): Blaxploitation. Priest (that's his name, not his occupation) is a cocaine dealer who realizes his occupation will eventually result in either prison or death, so he decides to stage One Last Job to get enough money to start a new life. The mob, however, doesn't want to let him go...
• The Thing with Two Heads (1972): A racist doctor's head gets transplanted onto the body of a black death row inmate. Chained Heat hijinks ensue.
• The Baby (1973): A social worker who recently lost her husband in a car accident investigates the strange Wadsworth family. The Wadsworths might not seem too unusual to hear about them at first - consisting of the mother, two grown daughters and a diaper-clad, bottle-sucking baby. The problem is, the baby is twenty-one years old. And the social worker has nefarious intentions of her own...
• Bummer! (1973): The drunken, hulking bass player of a small-time rock band goes nuts and starts raping and murdering the groupies the band picks up on the road.
• The Black Six (1973): Six black war buddies form a biker gang and work to avenge the racist murder of their leader's brother.
• Cannibal Girls: Before Ghostbusters, Ivan Reitman gave us this sleazy little flick about three beautiful but psychotic young women doing the bidding of a Sinister Minister in a small town in Ontario.
• Coffy (1973): Blaxploitation about a nurse played by Pam Grier who goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the drug dealers responsible for her sister's addiction. Notable for featuring both a female protagonist and an anti-drug message, both of which were unfashionable at the time and done quite well. One of the inspirations for Kill Bill and Jackie Brown.
• Enter the Dragon (1973): Fourth film of Bruce Lee, the only one made with a decent budget and the first to premiere in America and in English, released just after his death. About a Shaolin martial artist commissioned by an intelligence agency to infiltrate the island base of a crimelord by participating in an annual martial arts tournament.
• Thriller: A Cruel Picture (1973): A girl is abducted, made addicted to heroin, forced into prostitution, has one of her eyes gouged out and her parents commit suicide; prompting her to learn karate, marksmanship and pursuit-driving to take revenge. Another inspiration for Kill Bill.
• The Legend Of Hell House (1973): A group of paranormal investigators attempt to solve the mystery of Belasco House, a manor in Campbell Country which was the site of depraved orgies and mass murders and which has Driven to Suicide everyone attempting to dwell therein since. Adapted by Richard Matheson from his much more graphic novel Hell House.
• Vault of Horror (1973): Five men find themselves trapped in the basement of an office building and pass the time by recounting nightmares they've each been having in which they die to each other. Adapted from short stories from the EC Comics horror comics (although ironically none actually from the eponymous comic series). Sequel to Tales from the Crypt.
• Death Line (1973): Also known as Raw Meat. The last survivor of an inbred family of cannibals trapped after a London tunnel collapse in the 19th century emerges to terrorize a student and his girlfriend. The police get involved after a Minister of Parliament is murdered at the same tube station. Stars Donald Pleasence.
• Three Big Men (1973): Turkish mockbuster film where Captain America and El Santo fight Ax-Crazy drug boss Spider-Man.
• The Werewolf of Washington (1973): The White House Press Assistant is stricken with lycanthropy.
• Lady Snowblood (1973): A female samurai goes around killing ganglords as part of a blood-oath to avenge the imprisonment of her dead mother and murder of her mother's husband. Another inspiration for Kill Bill.
• Black Christmas (1974): A group of sorority girls are stalked by an unseen Serial Killer at Christmas-time. Considered one of the Trope Makers of the Slasher Movie.
• Caged Heat (1974): Often called the quintessential example of women-in-prison pictures, this was the feature debut of director Jonathan Demme, who went on to bigger and better things. Roger Corman was an uncredited producer.
• Deranged (1974): A Roman à Clef inspired by the crimes of Ed Gein, starring Old Man Marley from Home Alone.
• The Driller Killer (1974): An artist goes completely Ax-Crazy and starts killing people with his trusty drill. One of the most notorious Video Nasties.
• Foxy Brown (1974): Spiritual Successor to Coffy (above) where the eponymous Foxy Brown (also played by Pam Grier) seeks revenge after her boyfriend is gunned down by the mob.
• Gone in 60 Seconds (1974): A gang of car thieves is contracted by a drug lord to steal 48 high-end cars, an endeavour which culminates in a car chase that lasts for 34 minutes and in which 93 cars are destroyed. Competes with Vanishing Point (above) for the title of the Ur-Example and Trope Codifier of the car chase film. By H.B. "Toby" Halicki. Remade in 2000.
• Knife for the Ladies: A sheriff and a private investigator team-up to find a Serial Killer who is preying on the prostitutes of a small western town.
• The Street Fighter (1974): When a mercenary refuses to assassinate the heiress to an oil company for the Yakuza, they come after him due to him knowing about their plans. He offers his services to protect the heiress. What originally started as a low-brow Bruce Lee cash-in eventually evolved into something all of its own.
• The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974): Five hippies going to visit the vandalized grave of one of their number's grandfather fall prey to a murderous backwoods family of cannibals, one of which, Leatherface, wields a chainsaw. Bashed on its release, regarded as a classic nowadays. Turned into a franchise, including three sequels, a remake and its sequel, and an alternate sequel to the original. By Tobe Hooper.
• Truck Turner (1974): Blaxploitation starring Isaac Hayes (yes, the "made the theme from Shaft/played Chef in South Park" Isaac Hayes), where the eponymous Truck Turner has a hit placed on him by the wife of a man he kills.
• Virgins of the Seven Seas (1974): A kung-fu sexploitation film set during the Opium War, where five Caucasian virgin women gets captured alive by pirates who intends to sell them off as sex slaves. A Chinese kung-fu expert decide to teach them his skills in martial arts so they may escape their captors. Tons and tons of kung fu in the nude ensues.
• Black Belt Jones (1975): A black martial artist defends the school he works at from The Mafia trying to take it over.
• The Candy Tangerine Man (1975): A pimp has to deal with The Mafia trying to muscle in on his business.
• Criminally Insane (1975): A morbidly obese woman kills anybody who gets between her and food.
• Death Race 2000 (1975): 20 Minutes into the Future the champion of a cross-country automobile race in which pedestrians are run over to accumulate points in order to placate the populace spars with his competitors and with a resistance movement. Regarded as a satire on society's voyeuristic obsession with violence and a herald of present day reality TV shows. Remade in 2008 and an official sequel in 2017; all three of which were produced by Roger Corman.
• The Giant Spider Invasion (1975): A meteorite lands in Wisconsin, creates a black hole, and then a Giant Spider consisting of a Volkswagen beetle covered in fake fur emerges and terrorizes the place.
• Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS (1975): Buxom, nymphomaniac dominatrix Ilsa tortures prisoners at a Nazi concentration camp to prove women can withstand more pain than men and castrates men unable to resist ejaculation long enough to satisfy her sexual appetite. Launched the popularity and typical tropes and cliches of the "Nazisploitation" subgenre, but was not the progenitor of said subgenre (with that honor falling to Love Camp 7, above). Probably best known for being filmed on the former set of Hogan's Heroes.
• Race with the Devil (1975): Two couples vacationing in an RV witness a sacrifice committed by a Satanic cult. They inform the police, but no evidence is found. Once on their way, however, the cult goes after them, and they are forced to take measures to defend themselves.
• The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975): Newly-engageds find themselves stranded at the castle of a sweet transvestite from Transsexual, Transylvania, on the night he plans to bring life to his perfect creation. Oddball musical comedy (adapted from the stage musical The Rocky Horror Show) that remains popular as a midnight movie to this day, and holds the record for the longest theatrical release, having shown in at least one American cinema, once a week, in the US from 1975 to the present day. Possibly the ur-film of the Cosplay subculture, where theatrical screenings are frequently attended by fans in character dress who perform an elaborate and raunchy series of call-and-responses at the film and throw props at the screen, with many regular screenings featuring a "shadowcast" who act out the film in sync with the action on the screen.
• The Demon Lover (1975): A satanic priest calls upon a demon from hell to hunt down a group of teenagers who refused to join him.
• Savage Man, Savage Beast (1975): A mondo flick about hunting and the often-violent relationship between man and nature. Features a scene of a man being eaten by lions in front of his family.
• Supervixens (1975): A man dumps his sexually-insatiable wife, whereupon a cop starts having an affair with her but eventually murders her. The cop tries to pin the blame on the man. The man flees across the country, being sexually-assaulted at every turn by a series of mammoth-breasted women whom all have the prefix 'super' in their name. By Russ Meyer.
• Snuff (1976): A cult leader leads a gang of bikers in a series of supposedly real murders on film. Marketed as an authentic snuff film on its release, the movie cemented the urban legend of snuff films in the public conscious; although it didn't invent the concept.
• Alice, Sweet Alice (1976): A young girl is murdered immediately before her First Communion. The killer continues stalking her grieving family. Eventually, the girl's older sister becomes a suspect. Features the film debut of Brooke Shields.
• A*P*E (1976): A cash-in on the 1976 King Kong in which the giant gorilla rampages around South Korea instead of New York and also gives the finger to attacking helicopters.
• Assault on Precinct 13 (1976): A man kills a gang member and takes refuge in a police station that is about to be decommissioned. The gang proceeds to besiege the station, and the police and criminals-awaiting-transfer within must work together to defend themselves. By John Carpenter. Remade in 2005.
• Bloodsucking Freaks (A.K.A. The Incredible Torture Show) (1976): Master Sardu runs a theatre which puts on shows which feature women being tortured and killed in grotesquely depraved ways. Unbeknownst to the audience, these acts are not staged but are authentic, and the women are not actresses but kidnapped and captive victims. Doesn't just take Refuge in Audacity, it invades Audacity and takes no prisoners.
• Death Machines (1976): A Dragon Lady hires a trio of assassins, the titular Death Machines, to eliminate her rivals.
• Death Weekend (1976): A weekend party at a remote country house turns into a nightmare for a young couple in rural Ontario following an encounter with a quartet of drunken thugs.
• The Food of the Gods (1976): Still hungry for more after Ro-Man, the Giant Antimatter Space Buzzard and the Giant Killer Bunny Rabbits? Well, this little ditty features giant chickens. Okay; technically only in one scene - it's mostly about giant rats - but said one scene makes it all worth it. By Bert I. Gordon.
• Grizzly (1976): Jaws... WITH A GRIZZLY BEAR!
• Island of Death (1976): A pair of serial killers, posing as newlyweds, visit the peaceful Greek island of Mykonos and start a rampage of murder, killing anyone they believe to be sinful or perverted.
• Keoma (1976): A half-Indian cowboy rescues his plague-ridden hometown from a former Confederate soldier and his own racist half-brothers.
• Sisters of Death (1976): A group of former sorority sisters who accidentally killed a pledge are murdered by the pledge's father.
• Squirm (1976): A man in a gorilla suit with a toy plastic space helmet, a Giant Antimatter Space Buzzard, Giant Killer Bunny Rabbits, giant chickens... there truly isn't anything you can't do a B horror movie about, is there? This time around, it's earthworms.
• Survive!: A heavily sensationalized dramatization of the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 disaster.
• Axe! (1977): Three criminals take over a farm house and terrorize the young girl who lives there with her catatonic grandfather. After she is raped, she gets her gruesome revenge.
• Day of the Animals (1977): The depletion of the ozone layer allows for the bombarding of the Earth by ultraviolet radiation, causing all the animals above 5,000 feet in the mountains of north California to go nuts. They terrorize a group of mountain hikers. Be on the lookout for a scene where a shirtless Leslie Nielsen wrestles a bear.
• Drive-In Massacre (1977): A sword-wielding maniac stalks a California drive-in.
• Fight for Your Life (1977): Gang of criminals consisting of white redneck, Hispanic and Asian take a black family hostage. Might very well break the world record for the most racial slurs used in a single film. Behind only Cannibal Holocaust, I Spit On Your Grave and The Last House on the Left in terms of infamy.
• The Last House On Dead End Street (1977): A disgruntled ex-convict takes revenge on society by kidnapping four strangers and filming their murders in an abandoned building with the help of a group of outsiders he recruits. The surreal, graphic nature and the lack of info on the cast and crew lead many in the 70's to believe that the movie was an authentic snuff film.
• The Hills Have Eyes (1977): A family making a trip to see a silver mine they've inherited takes an unwise shortcut through a nuclear testing range, wherein their car breaks down and they are beset upon by a clan of inbred, mutated cannibals. Two sequels, remake, two sequels to remake. By Wes Craven.
• The Incredible Melting Man (1977): Space radiation turns an astronaut into a rampaging goo monster.
• Kingdom of the Spiders (1977): After their natural food sources are destroyed by pesticides, tarantulas swarm an Arizonan town.
• Orca: The Killer Whale (1977): Jaws... WITH A KILLER WHALE!
• Rolling Thunder (1977): A Shell-Shocked Veteran must avenge the deaths of his wife and son. A personal favourite of Quentin Tarantino.
• Tentacles (1977): Jaws... WITH AN OCTOPUS!
• Viva Knievel! (1977): Evel Knievel returns to the big screen, but this time the daredevil is played by himself in a plot that sees him as part of an elaborate scheme laid out in Mexico a drug lord who intends to kill Knievel to smuggle heroin into the United States in his coffin. Highlights include Knievel's alcoholic mechanic played by Gene Kelly(!?), Knievel going on a tangent about drugs being bad yet being okay with his friend's heavy-drinking and himself routinely endangering his own life with his motorcycle stunts, a reporter (Lauren Hutton) that the movie seems to portray in a negative light but actually seems to be rather well-rounded and intelligent before Chickification kicks in and by the end of the film she's degraded into a damsel in distress fallen head over heels for Knievel (which requires the film to make no mention of Knievel's real-life wife), and an appearance by former child evangelist turned actor Marjoe Gortner in a supporting role. Oh, and the drug lord is played by Leslie Nielsen. The film ended up overshadowed by real events when three months after its release, Knievel attacked a former promoter with an aluminum baseball bat after he had written an unflattering biography of him, which caused Knievel to lose most of his corporate sponsors.
• Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! (1978): Tomatoes across the US inexplicably come alive and kill people by... roaming over them while making mumbling noises. Three sequels and an animated adaptation.
• Dawn of the Dead (1978): Followup to Night of the Living Dead wherein zombies have begun taking over the earth and a group of survivors attempts to ride the situation out by barricading themselves in a shopping mall. Frequently regarded as the best zombie movie of all time, and also a brilliant satire regarding consumerism. Remade in 2003.
• Deathsport (1978): In the year 3000, after the great "Neutron Wars" have turned Earth into a wasteland populated only by mutants and warriors, a city-state abducts one of the warriors and forces him to participate in the eponymous deathsport; which consists of gladiator battles performed atop motorcycles. Something of a Spiritual Successor to Death Race 2000.
• The Evil (1978): A group of people awaken an evil force in a house one of them has moved into.
• Halloween (1978): While not the first slasher film, is the one which launched the typical tropes and cliches of the genre which people now come to expect of it in addition to sparking the boom in popularity of the genre during the 80s. Spawned 7 sequels. Remade in 2007, sequel to the remake in 2009.
• I Spit on Your Grave (1978): Counterpart to The Last House on the Left (above) about an attractive young aspiring author from New York who gets brutally gang-raped by a gang of rednecks while vacationing in the woods and subsequently goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against them. The most famous of the Rape and Revenge genre, this movie was completely trashed on its release, it nowadays is seeing the occasional critical revision postulating it as a feminist anti-rape manifesto.
• Laserblast (1978): Two aliens kill another alien but forget to pick up the laser cannon he's carrying. Some kid finds it, and he goes on a murderous rampage. Cheap stop-motion aliens, a character getting mutated into a monster by a salt shaker he wears around his neck, and other calamities ensue. Known also for featuring a Take That! to the then-recent Star Wars (talk about writing checks your body, er, film can't cash) and because, according to Leonard Maltin, it's better than Taxi Driver.
• Mr. No Legs (1978): Two cops fight to stop a drug kingpin and his enforcer, a double leg amputee armed with two shotguns built into his wheelchair nicknamed "Mr. No Legs." No wonder why he's the film's namesake and its main draw, as he steals pretty much every scene he's in.
• Phantasm (1978): A young boy investigates inter dimensional goings-on in the local funeral home. Became a massive Cult Classic, and gained four sequels.
• Piranha (1978): Jaws... WITH PIRANHAS! However, this one's a bit more palatable.
• The Brood (1979): A psychiatrist experiments with a new therapy that causes his patients to develop nasty physical manifestations; culminating in a psychotic woman giving birth to the titular brood of murderous children. Nobody else could pull this off but David Cronenberg.
• Beyond the Darkness (1979): A horror movie made by Joe D'Amato. Story consists of Frank, a rich taxidermist who after losing his fiancee goes nuts, robs her grave and embarks on a killing spree aided by his insane housekeeper, Iris. Truckloads of Gorn and an extremely bleak tone permeate this nevertheless surprisingly well-made Eurohorror flick.
• Clonus (1979): A community of people who are promised to be "accepted" to move to "America" after they have completed some type of physical training is revealed to be actually composed of clones who are bred to serve as a source of replacement organs for the wealthy and powerful. The story surrounds one clone who begins to question the circumstances of his existence and eventually escapes the colony. Known for, among other things: Its poster actually spoiling the reveal about organ harvesting, being featured on an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (under its alternate title Parts: The Clonus Horror), and its director suing the makers of the Michael Bay film The Island (2005) for copyright infringement (reportedly after being alerted by MSTies); before the case could go to trial, the studio settled for an undisclosed amount.
• Killer Nun (1979): A nunsploitation flick about a sister's descent into drug addiction, madness, illicit love affairs, and murder following surgery to remove a brain tumor.
• Mad Max (1979): Cop in a post-apocalyptic Australia goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the biker gang that murdered his wife and son. Brought Australian cinema into the spotlight, and launched the career of Mel Gibson; though nobody outside of Australia itself would know about it if it weren't for the sequels. Dubbed for its US release due to perceptions that the actors' native accents were incomprehensibly thick. Two sequels; a fourth installment has been stuck in Development Hell until 2015's Mad Max: Fury Road.
• Starcrash (1979): Two smugglers stop a madman from conquering the universe.
• Supersonic Man (1979): An alien is sent to Earth to stop a mad scientist's plot.
• Wolfman (1979): A man learns that his family has a lycanthropic curse.
• Zombi 2 (1979): A boat drifts into New York City, its passengers having long since succumbed to a zombie plague contracted on an unexplored tropical island. Unauthorized Italian sequel (In Name Only) to Dawn of the Dead (above), which itself was called Zombi in that country. The best known product of the Italian exploitation boom of the '70s. By Lucio Fulci. Somewhere between four and ten sequels (there being a number of b-movies with "Zombi 5" and "Zombi 6" as alternate titles), which have exactly as much to do with Zombi 2 as it has to to with Dawn of the Dead. Also known in some quarters by the title Zombie Flesh Eaters.

1980s

• Alligator (1980): Jaws... WITH AN ALLIGATOR! However, this one too is a bit more palatable.
• Alien 2: On Earth: Before the actual sequel to Alien, there was this. It actually has very little in common with Ridley Scott's sci-fi/horror classic, despite the title.
• The Anthropophagus Beast (1980): Some Italian tourists vacationing in Greece land on an island only to find the town deserted save for a terrified blind girl. They soon contend with the deranged killer that slaughtered the island's inhabitants; culminating with the killer munching on his own intestines before dying.
• Cannibal Apocalypse (1980): About three Vietnam war vets who return home with a hunger for human flesh. Naturally they soon go on a gory rampage between themselves and the police.
• Cannibal Holocaust (1980): About a team of anthropologists who venture into the Amazon jungle in search of another team of anthropologists that disappeared and recover some film footage; which reveals said previous team's fate. Style of the later half was the inspiration for The Blair Witch Project (see below). Featured the actual slaughter of several animals. Banned on about half the planet, and resulted in the prosecution of the director on suspicion that it was an actual snuff film. Also launched the popularity of the cannibal subgenre.
• Forbidden Zone (1980): The Hercules family obtains a house with a door in the basement leading to the Sixth Dimension. Everything is fine until the daughter, Frenchy, ventures in. What ensues involves Satan, a dancing frog, and which overall one could get the same experience of by overdosing on LSD. Made by the band Oingo Boingo.
• Christmas Evil (1980): A man obsessed with Christmas snaps and decides to take Santa Claus to Knight Templar levels by killing the naughty.
• City of the Living Dead (1980): After the suicide of a priest causes the opening of a gate of hell and the rising of the dead, a psychic and a reporter must close the gate before All Saints Day. Infamous for two scenes: one of a woman vomiting up her own intestines whilst weeping blood (an effect which required the actress to swallow several yards of sheep intestines), and the other of a man having his head drilled through with an electric drill until it protrudes from the other side. The first film in Lucio Fulci's unofficial Gates of Hell trilogy, as it is also known as The Gates of Hell.
• Contamination (1980): A ship rolls into New York Harbor. Aboard, the crew is found dead, and packages of mysterious, green, pulsating eggs are found in the hold. If a person gets close to the eggs; they explode, splattering the person with a substance which causes their stomachs to also explode. So yeah, it's basically Alien minus the face-huggers. An expedition to Columbia is mounted to find out where these eggs are coming from - turns out they're part of a plot to invade Earth on the part of an alien from Mars.
• Don't Go in the House (1980): After his abusive mother, who burned his arms when he was a child, dies, a construction worker starts luring women back to his house and murdering them with a flamethrower.
• Friday the 13th (1980): Essentially a rip-off of Halloween made to cash in on its success; nevertheless started one of the most popular and long-running horror series of all time and introduced one of the genre's most iconic killers; Jason Voorhees. Directed by The Last House on the Left producer Sean Cunningham.
• He Knows You're Alone (1980): A Serial Killer stalks brides-to-be before their weddings.
• The Last Shark (A.K.A. Great White) (1980): Jaws... WITH... a great white shark?
• Maniac! (1980): A madman with mommy issues goes around scalping women. Remade in 2012.
• The Monster Club (1980): A man is invited to a nightclub for monsters, where he is told scary stories.
• Night of the Demon (1980): Bigfoot gets pissed off and goes on a rampage, ripping off a biker's balls and using the entrails of one of his victims as a flail, among other utterly insane death scenes.
• Prom Night (1980): A prank played by four children results in the death of a young girl. The four vow never to mention the accident. Years later, the four are teens in high school preparing for their prom. A masked killer - who may either be someone who witnessed the accident or an unrelated madman on the run - turns up and starts offing them. Three sequels and a pointless PG-13 rated remake.
• Terror Train (1980): Some college teens play a traumatizing prank on a nerd. Years later, during a New Year's Eve/Graduation party aboard a train, said nerd returns to off them.
• Zombie Holocaust: Rip-off of Zombi 2 about a team of scientists who follow a trail of corpses to a Pacific island, where they meet a mad doctor who performs experiments on both the living and dead in his laboratory.
• Absurd (1981): In Name Only sequel to The Anthropophagus Beast (above) about a man whose blood coagulates very fast thus making him nearly invincible; albeit also homicidal.
• The Beyond (1981): A woman inherits an old hotel in Louisiana and unleashes a curse pertaining to the gate of hell she finds it is built over and a painter who was lynched at it many years earlier; Gorn ensues. The second film in Lucio Fulci's unofficial Gates of Hell trilogy, and generally regarded as the best.
• The Burning (1981): A counsellor at a summer camp is badly burned in a prank played by some teens. He returns to the camp from hospital and starts offing campers. Widely reputed to be a rip-off of Friday the 13th (above), though its script was actually written before that movie was made.
• Cannibal Ferox (1981): Cannibal Holocaust ripoff about three grad students who head to the Amazon to research a thesis holding that cannibalism no longer exists. Unsurprisingly, this hypothesis turns out to be incorrect! More unsimulated animal kililngs, plus the somewhat dubious claim that it was banned in 31 countries.
• Dead & Buried (1981): Passing tourists are viciously murdered by mobs of townspeople in the sleepy New England town of Potter's Bluff, only for them to then appear alive again as residents of it themselves, prompting the sheriff to investigate. While still plenty gory, this is one of the few films on the Video Nasties list to be considered genuinely scary and to generally be received well by critics, with an ending that would put M. Night Shyamalan to shame.
• Don't Go in the Woods (1981): Two couples go for a camping trip in the woods and are set upon by a grizzled old mountain man, who also kills a bunch of other random people. Frequently regarded as the single worst slasher film of all time.
• Escape from New York (1981): 20 Minutes into the Future, New York has been turned into a walled-off maximum-security prison. When Air Force One crashes into it and the US president is taken captive by the gangs dwelling within, an Eyepatch of Power-clad Kurt Russell is sent in to get him back, with 24 hours to do it before bombs in his bloodstream blow up. Remake/sequel in 1996.
• Final Exam (1981): A Serial Killer terrorizes a college.
• Frankenstein Island (1981): The film is about a group of balloonists who are stranded on an island where they are captured by Dr. Frankenstein's female descendant, Sheila Frankenstein, who has been kidnapping shipwrecked sailors for years and turning them into zombies. This summary does not even begin to plumb the depths of this zero budget clunker.
• The Funhouse (1981): A group of friends going to a carnival are stalked by a deformed killer in a funhouse.
• Galaxy of Terror (1981): A spaceship crew sent to a remote planet on a rescue mission faces gruesome things out to kill them in this Roger Corman flick.
• Ghostkeeper (1981): A Canuxploitation flick set in rural Alberta inspired by the legend of the wendigo.
• Graduation Day (1981): A Serial Killer seeks revenge on the track and field team of a girl who died on the track.
• Hell Night (1981): A bunch of college pledges are required to spend a night in a house rumored to be inhabited by the sole survivor of the family that used to live there - now a deranged killer - to be allowed into a fraternity/sister sorority. What do you suppose the odds are that the aforementioned rumor is true?
• The House by the Cemetery (1981): Family moves into an old mansion only to contend with a murderous ghoul dwelling in the cellar. The third film in Lucio Fulci's unofficial Gates of Hell trilogy.
• Inseminoid (1981): Where Alien was subtle in its rape symbolism, this sleazy little flick by Norman J. Warren is blatant.
• Just Before Dawn (1981): Campers in The Other Rainforest are stalked and slashed.
• Masked Avengers (1981): A group of martial artists investigate a gang of masked men terrorizing the countryside.
• Ms. 45 (1981): After getting raped, a mute New York woman goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against men. Think Taxi Driver, only with a woman.
• My Bloody Valentine (1981): Not to be confused with the band, who named themselves after it. A miner survives a mine accident and murders those who were supposed to be monitoring the safety but were at a Valentine's Day party instead, warning the town residents that they must never host another party again. 20 years later, some people make the mistake of disregarding this warning, and, obviously, gorn ensues. Remade (in 3D) in 2009.
• Nightmare (1981): An Ax-Crazy mental patient with horrible nightmares slashes his way to a suburban family.
• The Pit (1981): A young, troubled child finds a pit with monsters in it, and feeds his tormentors to them.
• Porno Holocaust (1981): Some castaways wash ashore on an island inhabited by a sex-crazed, radioactively-mutated monster. Don't be fooled; the only thing about this movie that's any more offensive than any other like-minded porn/exploitation flick is the title. By Joe D'Amato.
• The Prowler (1981): A WWII veteran kills his girlfriend after she leaves him, then starts stalking college students at a graduation party decades later.
• Sadomania (1981): Women-in-prison. A couple falls into the hands of some woman running a boot camp/brothel, wherein the wife is made a slave. The man schemes for her to escape. There's really no point in attempting to explain the plot beyond this; although one scene apparently involves a woman being raped by a dog. By Jess Franco.
• Turkey Shoot (1981): Ozploitation classic about social deviants at a prison 20 Minutes into the Future being hunted for sport by the sadistic wardens.
• The Evil Dead (1981): A group of college kids spending the weekend at a cabin in the woods accidentally unleash demonic powers after discovering an ancient book of the dead. Spawned the acting career of Bruce Campbell, who would become a latter-day B-movie superstar, and the directorial career of Sam Raimi. Sequel/remake Evil Dead 2 in 1987, followed in 1992 by Army of Darkness, both tended more towards comedy (and the latter towards fantasy/action) than horror; followed in 2015 by Ash vs. Evil Dead, a dark comedic TV series picking up 30 years later. Remade in 2013; the main character, Ash Williams, has since been featured in spinoff comics (including one based on an aborted sequel to Freddy vs. Jason.)
• Madman (1982): A group of camp counselors accidentally summon an ax wielding killer who proceeds to stalk and murder them.
• It Came from Hollywood (1982): A Clip Show movie celebrating B-movies.
• 1990 The Bronx Warriors (1982): A gang leader defends a Rebellious Princess from worse gangs and corporate scumbags in a Wretched Hive future Bronx. Most notable for its sequel, Escape 2000, which was featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000.
• 2020 Texas Gladiators (1982): A group of post-apocalyptic vigilantes overthrow a fascist government.
• Deadly Eyes (1982): Giant mutated rats ravage the city of Toronto in this Canuxploitation chiller loosely adapted from James Herbert's novel The Rats.
• Death Screams (1982): A machete-wielding killer stalks promiscuous people in a small town.
• Jules Verne's Mystery on Monster Island(1982): Adventure flick starring (well, kind off) Peter Cushing and Terence Stamp about an island full of very fake-looking monsters of all sorts. Loosely adapted from one of Jules Verne's more obscure works, Godfrey Morgan.
• Madman (1982): An Ax-Crazy farmer hunts down and kills anybody who says his name.
• The Man Who Saves the World (1982): After crash-landing on a desert planet, two Earth soldiers face off against an ancient wizard with plans of intergalactic domination. Often referred to as "Turkish Star Wars", owing to the massive amounts of Stock Footage lifted from that film. Sequel in 2006.
• Parasite (1982): A scientist is infected with parasitic worms he created.
• Pieces (1982): A Serial Killer stalks a college campus and dismembers students with a chainsaw to build a body resembling his dead mother.
• Tenebre (1982): A popular American horror writer in Rome gets entangled in a case involving a murderer getting the inspiration for his kills from his latest novel. By Dario Argento. Often regarded as the best Giallo film of all time.
• Visiting Hours (1982): A He-Man Woman Hater attempts to murder a Straw Feminist after he sees her defending a woman who murdered her husband on the news. But she survives the attack, so he plans a trip to the hospital to finish the job.
• 2019: After the Fall of New York (1983): A mercenary is tasked with getting the last fertile woman on Earth from New York City, now under the control of a fascistic army.
• BMX Bandits (1983): Classic Australian children's flick about three biker kids who find some walkie-talkies belonging to a gang of bank-robbers, whom they are subsequently pursued by. Notable as the big-screen debut of Nicole Kidman.
• Conquest (1983): A warrior with a bow that shoots arrows of light teams up with a rogue to take down the mad queen of a barbarian wasteland.
• Curtains (1983): A group of actresses are targeted by a masked killer at a prestigious director's remote mansion where they are auditioning for a role in his new movie.
• The Exterminators of the Year 3000 (1983): Post-apocalyptic wanderers do battle over the last storage of water on Earth.
• Hawk the Slayer (1983): A man gets a magic sword and battles his Evil Overlord brother.
• Hundra (1983): A distaff rip-off of Conan the Barbarian (1982) by Matt Climber about a man-hating amazon woman named Hundra whose village is destroyed by a tribe of bull-worshippers and whom an oracle tells to find a male to mate with and continue her people, an endeavour which takes her to the bull-worshippers' city to contend with their leader. Best known for its gratuitous scenes of nude horseback riding and the aforementioned lead villain being killed via being smothered by a slave girl's buttocks. Climber likes to make the occasional claim that he practically invented the concept of the female warrior with this film, despite the actual concept being Older Than Dirt. Spawned (loosely-inspired, rather) a video game as well of the same name.
• A Night to Dismember (1983): Dismembered bodies start piling up after a mentally ill murderess is released from the asylum.
• Self Defense (1983): Five young people are forced to defend themselves from a vicious gang of armed thugs while the police are on strike in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Think of it as being a bit like a Canadian version of Assault on Precinct 13.
• Sleepaway Camp (1983): Teenagers at a sleepaway camp are stalked by a killer who goes after anybody who torments a shy, young girl. Became a Cult Classic for its Twist Ending, and got three sequels.
• Videodrome (1983): The head of a pirate television station becomes a key figure in a plot on the government's part to cleanse the country of low-lifes obsessed with sex and violence by having him broadcast a snuff television show that causes hallucination-causing fatal brain tumors. Much better than it sounds, but just as much a Mind Screw. Meant as a satire on how the media influences our minds and as an indirect result our bodies too. By David Cronenberg.
• A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984): A group of teenagers are preyed upon in their dreams by the spirit of a man their parents lynched. Another cash-in on Halloween's success, though more original than Friday the 13th. Introduced another of horror's most iconic killers; Freddy Krueger. Six sequels, including a crossover with Friday the 13th; remade in 2010.
• The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984): A parody of pulp novels about a surgeon/samurai/rock star/adventurer battling interdimensional aliens.
• Bloodsuckers from Outer Space (1984): Comedy about an alien force turning farmers into vampires.
• C.H.U.D. (1984): When several homeless people dwelling in the sewers of New York are mysteriously murdered, an investigation reveals said sewers to be inhabited by a tribe of radioactively mutated Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers.
• Don't Open Till Christmas (1984): A Christmas slasher with a twist: Instead of having a killer in a Santa suit, the killer's targets are men in Santa suits.
• The Noah's Ark Principle (1984): Before his giant Summer Blockbusters, Roland Emmerich began his career with the most expensive student film ever to be produced in Germany, about a space station that could be used to control the weather. Story's not much to speak of, but the sets and special effects are phenomenal for their budget; no doubt one of the factors that enamoured Emmerich to Hollywood.
• Rats: Night of Terror (1984): Post-apocalyptic scavengers attempt to raid an abandoned greenhouse for food only to be attacked by an aggressive horde of mutated rats.
• Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984): A young boy witnesses his parents being murdered by a man in a Santa suit. Later, he is abused by the mother superior of the orphanage he is sent to. Though he initially appears to get over his childhood trauma in adulthood, he finally cracks when he's forced to wear a Santa suit himself for his job, and embarks on a murderous rampage.
• The Terminator (1984): A cybernetic assassin from the year 2029 arrives in the present day, on a mission to assassinate the mother-to-be of the child who will become the leader of the human resistance against the machines. A classic example of a B-movie done good: on a limited budget with one previously noteworthy star and an unknown director, it became a box office and critical hit, launched the career of James Cameron, gave Arnold Schwarzenegger his trademark catchphrase, catapulted Michael Biehn into his career as an action actor, and spawned five sequels, a bunch of novels, video games, a TV series, comics, and countless homages, parodies and imitations.
• The Toxic Avenger (1984): A nerdy janitor at a health club falls into some barrels of toxic waste and turns into the eponymous Toxic Avenger. Under his new guise he becomes a superhero (of sorts) cleaning up his hometown of Tromaville and contending with its corrupt mayor. Virtually ignored on its release, it has since obtained a cult following dedicated enough to afford it three sequels and a short-lived cartoon series. Probably Troma Entertainment's best-known film franchise.
• The Ninja Mission (1984): Ninjas good, Commies bad!
• White Fire (1984): Two siblings stumble upon a legendary diamond known as the White Fire and must work together to keep it out of the hands of a gang of criminals.
• Blood Circus (1985): America and the Soviet Union team up to fight alien invaders the only way they know how... through wrestling! Produced by a gold manufacturing company and meant to serve as a shameless promotion for their products through a random musical number, the film's limited release caused it to vanish off the face of the Earth until 2008 when the director managed to find a copy; which remains unreleased after a failed eBay auction.
• Alien Outlaw (1985): A pistol show performer deals with aliens who are Hunting the Most Dangerous Game.
• Blood Cult (1985): A Serial Killer connected to a thought-dead cult is terrorizing a college. This film is most notable for being the very first Direct to Video film ever made.
• Cut and Run (1985): Ruggero Deodato returns to the jungle in this tale of a reporter investigating a war between drug cartels and a cult led by a disgraced US Army colonel.
• Def-Con 4 (1985): A post-apocalyptic Canuxploitation flick about a group of astronauts who survive World War III onboard a space station, and return to Earth to find a greatly changed world.
• Demons (1985): Two girls are given free tickets to the premiere of a horror movie. When attending, the eponymous demons emerge from the screen, kill the audience and transform them into more demons, forcing the survivors to try and survive.
• The Galaxy Invader (1985): An alien crash-lands on Earth and is hunted by hicks.
• Gymkata (1985): A movie about a gymnast who creates a martial art based on gymnastics and ninjutsu to compete in "The Game". The winner gets anything he wishes. It gets worse from there. Doesn't get boring at the least.
• Invasion U.S.A. (1985): Chuck Norris saves America from Dirty Communists.
• The Stuff (1985): A sweet, sticky, addictive white substance is discovered in a mine and is sold as junkfood termed 'The Stuff'. Its popularity hurts the industries of other varieties of junk food, so a saboteur is hired to find out what it is and get rid of it. Said saboteur discovers that 'The Stuff' is actually sentient and takes over the bodies of those who consume it, turning them into zombies.
• The Return of the Living Dead (1985): Toxic gas stored at a secret Army facility is accidentally released into the atmosphere, provoking a Zombie Apocalypse. Created by John Russo, writer of Night of the Living Dead, as an indirect sequel thereof. Originated the meme of zombies specifically desiring to eat the brains of the living, and groaning "Braaaaaaaaains!" while shambling about. Four sequels.
• Trancers (1985): A future cop time travels to the 20th Century to stop a mind slave-creating madman from changing the timeline.
• Class of Nuke 'Em High (1986): The first and finest of Troma's other major franchise, in which locating a high school next to a nuclear power plant with No OSHA Compliance is shown to be an unwise zoning decision.
  • Class of Nuke 'Em High Part II: Subhumanoid Meltdown (1991): The sequel to the above-mentioned first movie, in which the school is rebuilt and used to make humanoid creatures.
• Highlander (1986): An immortal Scottish swordsman must confront the last of his immortal opponent, a murderously brutal barbarian who lusts for the fabled "Prize". Was followed by 6 sequels, a TV series, an animated series, and an anime.
• Dead End Drive-In (1986): 20 Minutes into the Future, two teens get imprisoned at a Drive-In Theater along with 190 other delinquents. While most are content to just stay there placated by the junk food and violent movies, the hero ain't, and he starts scheming to escape. By the same guy that did Turkey Shoot and BMX Bandits.
• Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986): A Serial Killer who is Walking the Earth meets a fellow sicko whom he teams up with in homicide. Notable for being very, very disturbing. Watch at your own risk.
• The Hitcher (1986): A man is stalked by a hitchhiking Serial Killer.
• Monster in the Closet (1986): Spoof of 1950s monster movies about a journalist and a scientist trying to defeat a closet-dwelling fiend.
• Roller Blade (1986): A zero-budget post-apocalyptic roller skates film with nuns (yes, it's as crazy as it sound). Made for no more than 5000 dollars by Donald G. Jackson and only sold on video.
• Troll (1986): A troll is released from his prison and terrorizes the residents of an apartment complex.
• The Vindicator (1986): This Canuxploitation flick saw a dead man rebuilt as a cyborg a year before RoboCop
• Witchboard (1986): A woman uses an Ouija Board to summon a spirit, which then torments her.
• Bad Taste (1987): Before The Lord of the Rings and King Kong (2005), Peter Jackson began his career with this So Bad, It's Good splatter film about aliens coming to earth to harvest humans for their intergalactic fast-food franchise only to contend with a four person paramilitary force that includes Jackson himself.
• The Barbarians (1987): Two brothers overthrow the Evil Overlord who enslaved their tribe.
• The Black Cobra (1987): A Cowboy Cop defends a young photographer from murderous bikers she took pictures of.
• Creepozoids (1987): A group of army deserters in a post-apocalyptic Los Angeles find refuge in an abandoned laboratory, only to discover that a genetically-engineered monster lurks in the darkness. By David De Coteau.
• Dolls (1987): The car of a little girl and her abusive father and stepmother gets stuck in the mud during a thunderstorm and they are forced to take refuge in a mansion inhabited by a mysterious couple of dollmakers. As they find out, something is not quite right about both the couple and the dolls the mansion is filled with...
• The Garbage Pail Kids Movie (1987): Based on the popular series of stickers and trading cards; a garbage can from outer space lands on earth, is picked up by an antique store owner, some creepy puppets emerge from it and... a bunch of random shit interlaced with a lot of fart, booger and pee-pee jokes happens.
• Nekromantik (1987): A street sweeper who cleans up after grisly accidents brings home a full corpse for him and his wife to enjoy sexually, but is dismayed to see that his wife prefers the corpse over him.
• Predator (1987): A film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger which involves an alien species Hunting the Most Dangerous Game. It was the first of a franchise including sequels, video games, comics, et cetera and so on.
• Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare (1987): A heavy metal band go to an abandoned farm to write some music, and are tormented by a horde of demons.
• Rolling Vengeance (1987): A distraught young trucker whose family has been killed by a local redneck family turns his homemade monster truck into a tool of vengeance to hunt down those responsible. Has all the popular earmarks of an exploitation movie, including violence, destruction, cashing in a fad (in this case the popularity of monster trucks in the late '80s) as well as exploiting a loophole in Canadian tax law in order to get funding.
• Street Trash (1987): A liquor store owner finds a case of old wine called "Tenafly Viper" in his cellar, and sells it to the local hobos at a dollar a bottle. Those who drink it, unfortunately, are doomed to melt into rainbow-colored goop. Don't even get us started on the scene where a gang of hobos plays catch with a severed penis.
• Zombie Vs Ninja (1987): A guy's family is killed and the said guy is left for dead. An undertaker who can summon zombies to sharpen his fighting skills takes him in as his apprentice and teaches him kung-fu, until he can avenge his family. There's an unrelated plot (the film is actually two films tacked together) about Highly Visible Ninjas with oh-so-Asian-sounding names like Duncan and Bob, and never do said ninjas and aforementioned zombies meet.
• War Dog (1987): The original inspiration for Universal Soldier.
• The Brain (1988): A giant Brain Monster uses a daytime self-help series to mind control the world.
• Cheerleader Camp (1988): A Slasher Movie set in a cheer camp.
• Evil Laugh (1988): A group of friends go to a former orphanage one of them bought, where they are stalked by a Serial Killer.
• Hack-O-Lantern (1988): A Satanist slashes up anybody who stands in his way of him corrupting his grandson.
• I'm Gonna Git You Sucka (1988): Wayans Brothers Blaxploitation Parody about a man teaming up with old school black heroes to stop Mr. Big from flooding the streets with gold chains.
• Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988): A troupe of Monster Clowns from outer space land in a small town in a spaceship resembling a big-top tent and proceed to transform the residents into giant wads of cotton candy for later consumption. Features some profoundly creative concepts and scenes, such as a group of people being eaten by a shadow-puppet of a T-rex against the wall behind them, and a balloon animal being used as a tracker dog among other things.
• Men Behind the Sun (1988): A pseudo-documentary about Unit 731; a branch of the Imperial Japanese Military that performed rather nasty biological experiments on Chinese prisoners during World War II.
• Miami Connection (1988): A rock-and-roll band use their martial arts skill to battle drug lord ninjas.
• Night of the Demons (1988): Demons are awakened during a teenager's party and start possessing and tormenting the guests.
• Pumpkinhead (1988): A man's son is killed by some punk teenagers, so he summons a demon to go on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge for him. One problem: The demon has a proclivity for Disproportionate Retribution. Became a Cult Classic, and spawned three sequels.
• Robo Vampire (1988): A commando rebuilt as a cyborg battles a drug cartel who teamed up with a Shaolin monk who has an army of vampires, and a "Vampire Beast," which is somehow different from a vampire.
• Robowar (1988): Follows a group of commandos being stalked by robots and trying to survive. Think of it as being Predator with a cyborg instead of an alien.
• Space Mutiny (1988): A space hero stops a rebellion on an intergenerational starship.
• FleshEater (1988): A group of teens go partying at a farm on Halloween, only the be attacked a zombie which soon causes more to start appearing. The film is notable for being directed by Bill Hinzman, who played the famous Cemetery Zombie in the above mentioned Night of the Living Dead.
• Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death (1989): A team ventures into a jungle that happens to be located in southern California to liberate the nation's avocado supply from two tribes of women at war with one another over whether men are best eaten with guacamole dip or clam dip. Obviously, an intentional parody of B movies of this calibre, a satire of feminism and a send-up of a few other aspects of popular culture (such as Phil Donohue). Starring erotic thriller icon Shannon Tweed and comedian Bill Maher.
• Killer Crocodile (1989): Exactly What It Says on the Tin; follows a group of environmentalists who must defend themselves against an abnormally large crocodile while investigating the illegal dumping of toxic waste in the swamp where the croc lives.
• Lobster Man From Mars (1989): In this homage to sci-fi B-Movies a Hollywood film producer, trying to get out of paying millions in back taxes by screening a flop, watches the title movie (shown as a Show Within a Show) and is enthused by how awful it is, only to go to prison when it's a great success.
• Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989): A businessman accidentally kills a metal fetishist, who later gets his revenge by turning the man into a grotesque hybrid of flesh and rusty metal.
• Meet the Feebles (1989): Second film by Peter Jackson. A parody of the The Muppets involving drugs, hard liquor, and diseases.
• Puppet Master (1989): Full Moon Features Cult Classic franchise about animated puppets.
• Road House (1989): A remake of Shane with Patrick Swayze and a monster truck... becomes a runaway cult classic. Much better than it sounds, plus unforgettable one liners ("Pain don't hurt.")
• Shotgun (1989): A Cowboy Cop goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the Amoral Attorney who killed his sister.
• Shocking Dark: Before the actual sequel to The Terminator, there was... this. It's actually more of an Aliens rip-off than anything related to the Terminator franchise.
• Clownhouse (1989): Three young brothers are menaced by three escaped mental patients who've murdered a group of traveling circus clowns and taken their identities. The film became controversial prior to its release when the director was convicted for sex offenses committed during its production.
• Ghosts Can't Do It (1989): A woman must find and kill a young man in order for the spirit of her elderly dead husband to possess his body and be reunited with her.
• Society (1989): Bill is the son of upper class Beverly Hills parents but cannot seem to fit in with them, with them seeming to pay all their attention to his sister. Things get peculiar when he discovers a tape that seems to have the sounds of them engaging in an incestuous orgy recorded on it. The ending of this movie has to be seen to be believed.
• Violent Shit (1989): German splatter film about a serial killer named Karl "the Butcher Shitter" Berger escaping from a prison transport and murdering his way through the nearby forest. Best known for being pure Gorn and Surreal Horror. Got three sequels.
• Russian Terminator (1989): Ninjas (of Russian descent), Swenglish, and MacGuffins ahoy!

1990s

• Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe (1990): Jesse Ventura plays a space cop who pursues his rogue former partner to Earth.
• Frankenhooker (1990): Jeffrey Franken's fiance is killed in a freak lawnmower accident, so he swipes her severed head and collects the body parts of hookers to reconstruct and resurrect her. Another over-the-top schlocker from director Frank Henenlotter, it stars James Lorinz from Street Trash.
• Subspecies (1990): Two folklore students studying abroad in Romania get caught up in a war between two vampires. One of the major franchises of Full Moon Features, it got three sequels and a spin-off called The Vampire Journals.
• Troll 2 (1990): Yet another contender for the title of the worst movie ever made; a family moves into a town called Nilbog (goblin spelled backwards) wherein the resident vegetarian goblins plan to turn them into vegetables so they can eat them, leaving the young son, Joshua, to save the day. Sequel In Name Only to Troll, and itself features no actual trolls at all. Nicknamed "the best worst movie ever made".
• Bad Girls from Mars (1990): After a string of murders on the set of a sci-fi softcore porno takes out the latest leading lady, the producers decide to give the role to a European bimbo, whose antics eventually lead to the unmasking of the killer.
• Class of Nuke 'Em High Part II: Subhumanoid Meltdown: The school gets used to make a race of strong, subservient humanoid creatures, which an Intrepid Reporter gets involved in.
• Intensive Care (1991): A brilliant surgeon is involved in a car accident that puts him into a coma for seven years. Upon his reawakening, he targets a group of teenagers for death seemingly For the Evulz. Set in America but (rather transparently) filmed in the Netherlands.
• High Strung (1991): A hilariously cynical, shut-in children's author wakes up to complain about everything that annoys him in life; all while receiving messages about "being prepared" for 8 o'clock later that night.
• Popcorn (1991): A Serial Killer stalks an all-night film festival screening B-movies.
• Wizards of the Demon Sword (1991): An Evil Sorcerer kidnaps the keeper of a magical blade in order to get the blade so he can plunge the world into darkness. The keeper's daughter enlists a swordsman to help her rescue her dad.
• Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky (1991): 20 Minutes into the Future when all prisons have been privatized, a superpowered kung fu-kicking inmate (the titular Ricky) wreaks havoc against the sadistic wardens. Known for having some of the most hilariously over-the-top, unrealistic death scenes in cinema history (such as people exploding upon being punched and a man attempting to strangle another man with his own intestines.) The head-crushing scene was later used for a time in the bumpers on MTV's Headbangers' Ball.
• Children of the Night (1991): A vampire is released from his watery tomb to terrorize a small town.
• Samurai Cop (1991): A cop trained in the art of Bushido does battle with Yakuza.
• Cool as Ice (1991): A freewheeling, motorcycle-riding rapper arrives in a small town and meets an honor student who catches his eye. Meanwhile, her father is in witness protection from the corrupt police officers he escaped from years ago. The first leading role for Vanilla Ice.
• Bloodsucking Pharaohs in Pittsburgh (1991): Two detectives try to solve a series of murders in Pittsburgh involving the use of power tools to remove bodyparts for a bloody Egyptian ritual.
• Gayniggers from Outer Space (1992): An Intentionally Awkward Title, it's about extraterrestrial gay black men who come to earth and proceed to kill off its female population to free its "oppressed" men and make way for an entirely homosexual society. Obviously, this one is intentionally bad.
• Braindead (1992): Third film by Peter Jackson. A Black Comedy homaging old horror films.
• Cool World (1992): A comic strip femme fatale seeks to seduce her cartoonist creator in order to cross over into the real world. Live-action/animated film directed by Ralph Bakshi.
• Arcade (1993): An evil video game is trapping players who lose in its VR world.
• Cannibal! The Musical (1993): The Musical adaptation of the story of Alferd Packer, the first American to be convicted of cannibalism. Debut of Trey Parker and Matt Stone.
• Carnosaur (1993): An evil scientist schemes to wipe out humanity by unleashing a virus that will make all the woman in the world become pregnant with dinosaurs. Not motherfucking kidding.
• Class Of Nuke Em High Part III The Good The Bad And The Subhumanoid: The son of the previous movie's protagonist attends school, while his identical twin brother becomes trained for evil.
• Clerks (1994): Charts a day in the life of two shop clerks as they are annoyed by customers, discuss movies with each other, play hockey on the roof, deal with two stoners out the front, and one comes to terms with his girlfriend's promiscuous past. Made on a budget of with the director's friends and family, in the very shop in which he actually worked; it grossed million, pioneered The View Askewniverse, and kick-started the independent film industry. Animated Adaptation in 2000, film sequel in 2006.
• Dinosaur Island (1994): An army captain and three misfit deserters crash-land in the ocean near an island where they find that dinosaurs have managed to survive, alongside a tribe of ravishingly sexy bombshells.
• Oblivion (1994): Comedic Space Western about a man avenging his father's death at the hands of a ruthless outlaw.
• Blood & Donuts (1995): A vampire awakens from a 25-year-long slumber, befriends a taxi driver, deals with criminals and falls in love.
• Frostbiter: Wrath of the Wendigo (1995): A woman is called to do battle with the Wendigo after he's freed from his prison.
• Ice Cream Man (1995): An ice cream man kills people.
• Mortal Kombat: The Movie (1995): Based on the video game of the same name, Three unknowing martial artists are summoned to a mysterious island to compete in a tournament whose outcome will decide the fate of the world. followed by a sequel in 1997.
• Jack-O (1995): A warlock summons a pumpkin demon to slaughter the small town who executed him.
• Rollergator (1996): A teen girl tries to help a small, purple, jive-talking alligator escape the clutches of a greedy carnival owner so he can be reunited with his owner.
• Doll from Hell (1996): Some Japanese Delinquents are tormented by a vampiric mannequin whose soul belonged to a girl they killed.
• Feeders (1996): Tiny, people-eating aliens attack a backwoods community.
• Werewolf (1996) (1996): A man is cursed with lycanthropy after being stabbed with a werewolf bone.
• Anaconda (1997): Ice Cube and Jennifer Lopez battle a giant snake.
• Cube (1997): Six strangers wake up in a structure consisting of hundreds of interconnected cube-shaped rooms, some of which are booby-trapped, with no knowledge of what the place is or how they got there; and must work together to get out. Boasting a harrowingly claustrophobic feel, intricate character development, and intelligent social/philosophical commentary; truly proves that low-budget does not equal low quality.
• Jack Frost (1997): Attack of the mutant killer snowman!
• Star Games (1997): A diabetic kid helps an "alien" prince who's on the run from an intergalactic tyrant.
• The Catcher (1998): A lunatic dressed in a catcher's uniform starts stalking members of a baseball team and killing them in baseball-themed ways.
• The Big Hit (1998): A kind-hearted hitman accidentally kidnaps his boss's granddaughter, which naturally leaves him to become a target while trying to keep his job a secret from his fiancé.
• Perfect Assassins (1998): A Made-for-TV Movie about an FBI agent discovering a Psycho Psychologist who conditions children info becoming assassins.
• The Blair Witch Project (1999): Three college students camp out in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland while researching the legend of a witch who lived there in the 17th century, and find themselves haunted by the spirit of the same. Mockumentary shot on Super 8 camcorder video and 16mm film, with a budget variously reported as $20-60,000 (when average major budgets were already over $50 million) proved to be one of the most iconic horror films of the '90s.
• Lake Placid (1999): Three people attempt to stop a giant man-eating Crocodile from terrorizing the residents of a small town in Maine.
• Wild Zero (1999): A wannabe rocker gets caught up in a zombie attack launched by alien invaders with the help of his favorite rock band.
• Double Feature (1999): An award-winning pornographic movie that played on this theme. The first segment deals with alien women who "subvert" men and the science team who defeats them in the end, and the second segment on a female mad scientist who creates a monster because no one else can satisfy her. Said monster escapes, leading to further events. The movie starts out with several humorous fake trailers for adult-themed B-movies. This movie won a record-breaking 10 awards at the 1999 AVN awards.
• Terror Firmer (1999): A Serial Killer goes around killing people who violate family values and starts stalking the set of a Troma film.

2000s

• Battlefield Earth (2000): Based on the first half of the Scientology novel of the same name, the movie tells the story of a human rebellion against an alien race called "The Psychlos" who've been enslaving the Earth for a 1,000 years. Co-star John Travolta served as an executive producer for the film.
• Big Money Hustlas (2000): The Insane Clown Posse parody cop dramas and exploitation films with help from Dolemite, Fred "Rerun" Berry, pro wrestler Mick Foley, and friends. In short, if you're a Juggalo, you've already seen it and you love it. If not, well...
• Carnage Road (2000): Photography students in the Nevada desert are pursued by a lunatic with a mask made of Genuine Human Hide.
• Sex, Lies and Video Violence (2000): Swedish film about a couch potato who loves violent action and horror movies, until one day the characters from his favorite violent flicks somehow all gain life and try to invade our world. Notable for its unusual amount of star-studded cameos for a low budget Swedish splatter movie; Mel Brooks shows up as a panicking bystander, as does Brandon Lee in what would prove to be his last performance on screen (technically) before his tragic death in 1994. (While the film wasn't released until 2000, it was actually shot in the early 90s.)
• Left Behind (2000): starring Kirk Cameron, the first film of the massively popular (in evangelical Christian circles, anyway) novels, it was released to video before it went to theaters. Remade in 2014.
• Versus (2000): A Yakuza who just escaped from prison does battle with an immortal necromancer seeking to open a portal to the Other Side.
• CryBaby Lane (2000): A kid must save his brother from an evil spirit they accidentally released on their small town. The movie was based on an urban legend and aired once on Nickelodeon before it vanished after receiving complaints from parents over its frightening content. The movie eventually resurfaced in 2011 and was followed by a re-airing on Nick later that year for Halloween.
• Dagon (2001): A pair of tourists find themselves stranded in a small town in Spain inhabited by half-monster abominations who worship a fish god. Adapted (very loosely) from Lovecraft's "The Shadow Over Innsmouth".
• Jesus Christ: Vampire Hunter (2001): Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
• Stitches (2001): A demon tricks people into giving her their souls and skin.
• Jeepers Creepers (2001): A brother and sister driving home through isolated countryside for spring break encounter a flesh-eating creature which is in the midst of its ritualistic eating spree. Was followed by 2 sequels.
• Kung Pow! Enter the Fist (2002): A martial arts master simply called "the chosen one" seeks revenge for the death of his parents using his cartoonish feats of strength. Director/writer Steve Oedekerk took footage from a 1970s-vintage Hong Kong wuxia film, digitally inserted himself into the action, and dubbed a new story.
• 28 Days Later (2002): A British bicycle courier awakes from a coma in a deserted hospital, to find that, while he was out, Britain has been entirely depopulated by a "rage" virus that rapidly turns human beings into violent cannibals. Shot on a budget of million, it grossed million internationally and revived the Zombie Apocalypse genre, spawning numerous imitators throughout the 2000s. Sequel in 2007.
• Bubba Ho-Tep (2002): A man in a nursing home who insists he is Elvis, and a fellow resident who insists he is JFK despite being black fight a mummy. Intentionally bad, of course.
• Eight Legged Freaks (2002): Some spiders escape from a farm in a small town in Arizona and ingest toxic chemicals spilt in a pond. They grow to tremendous proportions and terrorize the place. Yes, this premise or something akin to it had been done a million times before, but this is the first time such a movie had a decent budget.
• Love And A Bullet (2002): A hitman goes up against his boss's men after failing to kill his next target, his boss's girlfriend, who he falls for instead. A spiritual sequel to "The Big Hit", though having little to do with it outside of a similar story and themes.
• Arachnia (2003): College students survive a plane crash caused by a meteor shower that also awakens prehistoric spiders.
• Goth (2003): Two goth teenagers are dragged into a world of madness by a woman who believes the gothic lifestyle is criminality.
• The Hebrew Hammer (2003): A Jewish private detective is enlisted by the Jewish Justice League to stop Santa Claus's evil son from destroying Chanukah.
• House of 1000 Corpses (2003): Directorial debut of Rob Zombie, about a group of teens in the 1970s encountering a clan of psychos while investigating a nearby legend. Got a sequel in 2005.
• The Room (2003): A man's life is TORN APART when his girlfriend starts cheating on him with his best friend. Written, produced, directed by, and starring Tommy Wiseau, of whom it's hard to say at any given moment whether he's taking the movie seriously or treating it as intentionally bad. Became a cult classic and theatrical screenings have developed a Rocky Horror-esque series of call-and-responses from the audience.
• Scarecrow Slayer (2003): A college freshman is killed during a fraternity prank and is resurrected as a demonic scarecrow. Another fine product of The Asylum.
• Flywheel (2003): was the first film from Sherwood Pictures ministry, the church-sponsored studio that has created a series of B-pictures catering specifically to the evangelical Christian audience; so far, those include Facing the Giants, Fireproof, Courageous and War Room.
• House of the Dead (2003): A group of college students travel to a mysterious island to attend a rave, which is soon taken over by bloodthirsty zombies. Uwe Boll's first film to be based on a video game.
• Dark Harvest (2004): A group of friends go to a farm one of them inherited and are attacked by vengeful Scary Scarecrows.
• Alone in the Dark (2005): As a detective of the paranormal investigates the mysterious death of an old friend, he uncovers a race of demons worshiped by an ancient tribe are rising from hell to take over the world. Based on the fourth title in the Alone in the Dark series.
• Charlie's Death Wish (2005): A stripper seeks the help of a rebellious cop to find the ones responsible for the death of her sister, who was murdered while in prison. Stars Ron Jeremy in a non-pornographic role.
• The Call of Cthulhu (2005): In the year 1927, a man now interned in a mental institution recounts his efforts in researching a network of cults around the world, based around the worship of an ancient, dormant god whose dreams inspire madness, insanity, and mass murder around the globe. Possibly the best H. P. Lovecraft adaptation ever made, shot as a silent film, in black and white, with cardboard backdrops and a stop-motion Cthulhu.
• Feast (2005): A pack of ambiguous monsters attack a bar. The patrons barricade themselves inside and try to survive. The primary point of the film (if it can be said to have one) seems to be Playing With various Death Tropes. Two sequels.
• Komodo vs. Cobra (2005): An environmental activist group lands on an a secret U.S. military island where experimentations of plants and animals have gone wrong.
• Dangerous Men (2005): A woman seeks to kill any men who try to harm women after she was nearly raped by the biker who killed her fiancé. Meanwhile, her fiancé's cop brother also seeks to bring down the biker gang associated with the murder. Produced over the span of 21 years.
• King of the Lost World (2005): a film produced by the Asylum. based loosely, very loosely on The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle.
• Frankenstein vs. the Creature from Blood Cove (2005): A group of mad scientists hold a porn photographer and his posse hostage in their house, and resurrect Frankenstein's monster in order to fight a fishman terrorizing a Los Angeles beach.
• Deadly Lessons (2006): A seemingly magical man named Simon Conjurer, a "prophet without a god", who teaches a night class full of individuals with varying mental problems, has to contend with a murder accusation concocted by his arch-enemy (played by Jon Voight). The class helps clear his name while also confronting their own inner demons.
• Evil Bong (2006): A group of stoners purchase a bong from a magazine. The bong is cursed, and transports them into another world. Got three sequels.
• Halloween Night (2006): A traumatized young man goes on a slashing Roaring Rampage of Revenge at the house where his parents were killed. Unfortunately, the residents are holding a Halloween party.
• Hatchet (2006): Reconstruction of 1980s slashers about some Mardi Gras partiers going into a section of the Louisiana bayou that is haunted by a hatchet-wielding ghost. Got two sequels.
• The Pumpkin Karver (2006): A boy tormented by the ghost of a man he killed to protect his sister encounters a Serial Killer during a Halloween party.
• Snakes on a Plane (2006): Exactly What It Says on the Tin, starring Samuel L. Jackson as an FBI Agent. On a plane. Yes, there are snakes. Actually quite good, thanks largely to the producers catching wind of the Net snickers and being smart enough to retool it as an over-the-top homage. The fact that Jackson has had enough of these motherfuckin snakes on this motherfuckin plane really does help.
• The Tooth Fairy (2006): A child murdering witch comes back from the dead.
• Wicked Little Things (2006): Children killed in a mining disaster become vengeance zombies.
• The Witches Hammer (2006): A woman is resurrected as a vampire to hunt other vamps.
• Wrestlemaniac (2006): A Slasher Movie where the killer is a Masked Luchador.
• Zyzzyx Road (2006): A philandering accountant travels to Las Vegas for a business trip, where he encounters a seductress and her jealous ex-boyfriend who kill and bury him along the eponymous road. The film gained notoriety for holding the record as the lowest grossing film in U.S. history, making only $30 during its incredibly limited release at a single movie theater.
• 100 Tears (2007): Two tabloid reporters desperate for a big story investigate a Monster Clown Serial Killer.
• Aztec Rex (2007): A group of 16th century conquistadors arrive in Mexico seeking fortune and discover an Aztec tribe that perform regular sacrifices and worship a pair of tyrannosaurus Rex.
• Grindhouse (2007): A double-feature of two faux B-movies. The film is scratched and at one point appears to catch fire and burn up, and the intermission consists of trailers for fictitious B-movies with titles like Hobo With a Shotgun or Werewolf Women of the SS. One of these fake trailers is for Machete, which Rodriguez actually made three years later.
  • Planet Terror, Robert Rodriguez's Zombie Apocalypse flick, which looks like the the kind of movie Cannon Films would have made if they'd had real money
  • Death Proof, Quentin Tarantino's stunt-driving slasher movie, which looks like it really was shot on a budget of and a garbage bag full of pot.
• Redline (2007): The front woman for an unsigned band takes part in illegal drag races run by a wealthy music producer and his millionaire friends. The movie was financed by Quick loan Funding who went bankrupt after the movie bombed, with CNBC highlighting the film's failure as a contributor to the subprime mortgage crisis; which in turn lead to the Great Recession.
• It's My Party and I'll Die If I Want To (2007): A group of friends throwing a a party for one of their own are stalked by ghosts.
• Ice Spiders (2007) Giant mutated spiders attack a ski resort.
• Long Pigs (2007): Mockumentary about the day-to-day life of a cannibalistic Serial Killer.
• Transmorphers (2007): No, not Transformers (2007), Transmorphers. By the Asylum. It's actually The Matrix or Terminator made on a sub-zero budget.
• Starrbooty (2007): The world's greatest secret agent goes undercover as a street hooker in order to rescue her niece, who has been kidnapped by an evil cosmetics magnate who sells women's genitalia to celebrities. The title character is played by RuPaul, and almost all the other female characters are played by professional drag queens or transgender males, resulting in what Diamanda Hagan called "quite possibly the only softcore porn-drag-blaxploitation-comedy ever made". Produced on a budget of based on an earlier series of live-action shorts RuPaul appeared in in the late '80s.
• Zombie Wars (2007): A group of post-Zombie Apocalypse soldiers encounter a farm where smart zombies breed people.
• 100 Feet (2008): A woman under house arrest is tormented by the ghost of her abusive husband, whom she killed in self-defense.
• Banshee!!! (2008): A monster with sonic weapon powers terrorizes a backwoods town.
• Beyond Loch Ness (2008): A vengeful cryptozoologist hunts for the Loch Ness monster after it killed his father.
• Birdemic (2008): Rod, a software salesman living in Silicon Valley meets and falls in love with Nathalie, an aspiring model. After a romance which takes up about half of the movie, they wake up only to find they're under attack by bird GIFs that make dive bomber sounds and explode on impact. Along the way, they meet several people who theorize that the birds are attacking due to global warming. The film exists as a misguided tribute to The Birds and was made for $10,000 with consumer-grade cameras, an Amateur Cast and countless failings from a technical standpoint. It also "stars" Tippi Hedren!
• The Happening (2008): The film follows a man, his wife, and his best friend's daughter as they try to escape from an inexplicable natural disaster that causes people to commit suicide. The movie was unfavorably compared to B-grade cinema by critics on its release due to its poor quality and direction, but the film's director claims this was always his intention.
• Bloodwine (2008): Two college girls buy a bottle of brandy that causes vampirism.
• Colin (2008): Zombie Apocalypse from the zombie's perspective. Made on a budget of forty five pounds, using unpaid actors recruited via Myspace who provided their own makeup. Made a big splash at the 2009 Cannes festival.
• Death on Demand (2008): An Ax-Crazy mountaineer is resurrected by college students doing an Internet stream.
• Doomsday (2008): Present day. A virus has broken out in northern Britain, forcing the government to quarantine it off. 20 Minutes into the Future; the virus has resurfaced in London, so a military force is sent into the quarantined area to scour a cure off the degenerate survivors there who are immune to the virus. A Genre Throwback to films the likes of Escape from New York and Mad Max (above).
• Gutterballs (2008): A Rape and Revenge Slasher Movie set in a bowling alley.
• Hard Revenge, Milly (2008): A young Japanese girl gets cybernetics and goes to avenge her family's murder.
• The Machine Girl (2008): The brother of a Japanese schoolgirl is murdered by a Yakuza clan he owes money to, and they also cut one of her arms off. So she replaces it with a machine gun, and goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
• Rock Monster (2008): A group of American college students go on a field trip to an Eastern European town terrorized by a Rock Monster. It appears one of the students is the only one who could stop the Rock Monster because of his Heroic Lineage coming from a Famous Ancestor.
• Sunday School Musical (2008): A Moral Substitute for High School Musical.
• Tokyo Gore Police (2008): 20 Minutes into the Future, the Tokyo police force has been privatized to deal with a race of mutants called "Engineers" whose injuries turn into weapons. Meanwhile, Dark Action Girl Ruka seeks to avenge the assassination of her father. Mutant penises that shoot projectiles, breasts that squirt acid, vagina monsters that eat people, chainsaw duels, katanas; brilliant, a must-see; even the critics say so. Spiritual Successor to The Machine Girl and Meatball Machine (above). The fact that all of the above weirdness is played for Black Comedy and the movie is actually a rather effective social satire helps quite a lot.
• Zombie Strippers! (2008): 20 Minutes into the Future, George W. Bush has just completed his fourth term as president. A chemo virus used to reanimate dead soldiers breaks out of containment and leaks into an underground strip-club, rendering one of the strippers a zombie. She quickly becomes the most popular attraction in the joint.
• The Cell 2 (2009): A psychic investigator tries to track down the serial killer who almost murdered her by entering his mind. An In Name Only Direct to Video sequel to The Cell.
• Bitch Slap (2009): From alumni of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess: Action Girl Meets Fanservice Meets Schlock, with EVERYTHING cranked up.
• Dead Snow (2009): A bunch of med students go for a vacation in a cabin in the mountains of Norway, and contend with a force of nazi zombies.
• Dragonball Evolution (2009): A teen named Goku learns about his past and sets out to stop an evil alien warlord named Lord Piccolo from finding the mystical Dragon Balls and taking over the world. The movie was a box office flop and was universally panned for it's unfaithfulness to the original work it's based on.
• Lesbian Vampire Killers (2009): Another one not to be fooled by the title of. About two slackers who liberate a town of a curse that turns its girls into Lesbian Vampires on their 18th birthdays.
• Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus (2009): And you thought Zombie vs. Ninja, Zombie Strippers and Lesbian Vampire Killers were titles to fool you into thinking the movies in question would be so bad they're good. The two eponymous beasties get freed from an arctic glacier and proceed to terrorize the world; prompting the requisite scientist protagonists to lure them to the bays of major coastal cities to capture them. One of the few productions of The Asylum not to be a Mockbuster.
• Paranormal Activity (2009): A budget film that became a blockbuster. Used similar aesthetics to The Blair Witch Project (above), including consumer-grade camcorder footage and horror based far more on anticipation and psychology than on actual gore.
• RoboGeisha (2009): For those who didn't get enough of The Machine Girl and Tokyo Gore Police. Two geishas get recruited into the army of a steel tycoon with world domination plans and given cybernetic implants. Includes, among other things; katanas coming out of hips and armpits, circular saws coming out of mouths, breast machine guns, breasts that squirt acid (again), a woman transforming her lower body into a tank, a giant robot, buildings that bleed, and a man getting impaled in the eyes with a pair of fried shrimp.

2010s

• Alice in Murderland (2010): A group of college students holding a Alice's Adventures in Wonderland themed costume party are killed by a loony in a Jabberwocky costume.
• The Tooth Fairy (2010): Dwayne Johnson plays a hockey player who must serve as the tooth fairy for one week after telling his girlfriend's daughter that the tooth fairy doesn't exist. Was followed by a sequel on video two years later.
• Machete (2010): "Mexploitation" revenge flick by Robert Rodriguez. The title character (Danny Trejo), a disgraced former federale turned illegal immigrant day laborer, sets out on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against an anti-immigrant senator (Robert De Niro) after being drawn into an Evil Plan on his part to justify the mass deportation of Mexican laborers. Spun off from one of the fake trailers Rodriguez produced for the above-mentioned Grindhouse. Features Cheech Marin, Don Johnson, Steven Seagal, and Lindsay Lohan in minor parts. Sequel in 2013, similarly featuring cameos by Lady Gaga, Jessica Alba, and introducing some guy named Carlos Estevez.
• Sweaty Beards (2010): A Butt-Monkey Viking tries to become a Berserker and avenge his parents death in a swordfighting tournament.
• The Human Centipede (2010): A mad scientist kidnaps three people in order to make them into the titular human centipede by sewing them together mouth-to-anus. A sequel in 2011 was banned in the UK.
• Rubber (2010): A French-made, but performed in English, horror-comedy about an intelligent, ambulatory automobile tire that kills people.
• Deep Gold (2011): A Indie film produced by Big Foot Studios shot in Cebu and Palawan about two sisters must search for missing gold bars from a crashed military plane while being untangled in web of conspiracy. Notable for using foreign beauty queens as the main leads while Filipino casts are placed as supporting characters.
• Drive Angry (2011): A film that is very much a Spiritual Successor to Grindhouse, combining elements of both a devil-worshipper movie and a driving movie, involving a man (played by Nicholas Cage) driving out of hell to rescue his granddaughter from the Satanists who want to sacrifice her to end the world, while at the same time being followed by a man who simply calls himself "The Accountant" and who steals every scene he's in. It bombed at the box office, but could potentially become a cult classic.
• Hobo with a Shotgun (2011): In a City with No Name which has become a Wretched Hive of scum and villainy, a nameless drifter (Rutger Hauer) spends his begging money on a shotgun and goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against those who prey on the innocent. Also spun off from a Grindhouse trailer.
• Love On A Leash (2011): A woman falls in love with a stray dog who turns into a man at night.
• Rideshare (2011): Three down-and-out strangers who answer a Craigslist ad to drive a car from Los Angeles to Washington, DC where each of them find a new lease on life. Directed by 2 Stupid Dogs creator Donovan Cook, Rideshare is the first movie to be shot with an iPhone.
• Attack the Block (2011): A teenage street gang have to defend themselves from predatory alien invaders on a council estate in South London on Guy Fawkes Night.
• Mega Python Versus Gatoroid (2011): An animal activist and a park ranger confront/cause a massive ecological disaster involving enhugened snakes and supermutated alligators. This Made-for-TV Movie is primarily noteworthy for the big show-stopping battle between its lead monsters: '80s pop princesses Debbie Gibson and Tiffany. Really!
• The Time Machine (I Found at a Yardsale) (2011): A man buys a time machine at a yardsale, and goes on a series of disconnected and poorly-rendered adventures.
• 12/12/12 (2012): A woman is impregnated with a very unusual baby connected to the Mayan doomsday prophecy.
• Elfie Hopkins: Cannibal Hunter (2012): An Amateur Sleuth encounters the Cannibal Clan who moved in next door.
• The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure (2012): Goobie, Zoozie and Toofie set out to find five magical balloons that will make their good friend Schluufy's surprise birthday party extra-special, along the way meeting s barge of wacky new friends who help them on their journey through song and dance. Marketed as an interactive film, the film was a historic financial bomb bringing in $1 million against a $60 million budget.
• VHS (2012): A group of thieves watch several horrifying video tapes while trying to find a particular one. Spawned two sequels.
• Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012): The story of Honest Abe, except he hunts vampires.
• Attack Of The 50 Foot Zombie (2013): A Gypsy Curse causes a woman to come back from the dead, who then grows 50 feet tall shortly after stumbling into a vat of radioactive waste. The story gets even more absurd after that.
• Warm Bodies (2013): A horror comedy about the romantic relationship between a woman and a zombie. Based on the book of the same name, the movie was made during the height of the Twilight craze.
• Axeman (2013): Camping teens encounter an axe-wielding local legend.
• Dead in Tombstone (2013): Danny Trejo dies and comes back to hunt down his former gang to avenge his demise and save himself from eternal damnation.
• Jug Face (2013): A girl tries to flee her backwoods community after she learns she's to be sacrificed to the local Eldritch Abomination.
• Savaged (2013): A girl is raped and murdered by rednecks, possessed by an Apache ghost, and comes back to go on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
• Tasmanian Devils (2013): Centers around a group of friends that get attacked by extremely large tasmanian devils.
• Sharknado (2013): Los Angeles is besieged by a tornado made out of sharks. Became an unexpected hit thanks to much attention through social media, making it the most watched Syfy Channel Original Movie up to that point. The film's success has led to five sequels
• Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013): Fifteen years after their encounter at the gingerbread house, Hansel and Gretel now fight witches.
• Osombie (2013): A yoga instructor and a group of NATO soldiers fight off against Osama Bin Laden, who's returned from the dead with an army of zombies.
• Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie (2014): After a longstanding refusal to address the game in his web series, the Nerd succumbs to pressure by fans to review the Atari E.T. game, and embarks on a quest to New Mexico to prove that there was never a mass burial of the game there. However he and his crew are pursued by federal authorities who believe they're investigating Area 51 and the crash of an unidentified flying object. Based on the web series of the same name.
• Meet Me There (2014): A woman and her boyfriend travel back to her hometown in Oklahoma to confront her childhood and bring an end to her nightmares. However, she soon learns that some memories are better left forgotten. Children's author Jill Thompson has a short role in the movie as Aunt Lindsay.
• The Redemption Of Benjamin Black (2014): Two men's personal odysseys as they try to reach their next-to-impossible goals in the vast wilderness of Indian Territory.
• Avalanche Sharks (2014): Native American magic causes a bunch of sharks who burrow through the ice to start attacking snowboarders and other ski resort guests.
• Saving Christmas (2014): The infamous Kirk Cameron Mockumentary about Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
• American Justice (2015): A cop on vacation is framed by corrupt cops and proceeds to take out the trash.
• The Sand (2015): A group of hung-over, twenty-something year old graduates awake on a seemingly carnivorous beach that devours anything that touches the sand within a heartbeat.
• Jem and the Holograms (2015) (2015): As a small-town girl catapults from underground video sensation to global superstar with her sisters, she find a robot built by her late father that leads them on a journey of self-discovery as they try to find the secret message left by him. A VERY loose adaptation of the original 80's series.
• Jurassic City (2015): Genetically engineered dinosaurs escape form the government and run wild, chasing a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits including a group of sorority girls through a jail.
• Andys Rainbow (2016): A rebellious teen girl forms an unlikely friendship with a young mentally handicapped man from the special needs home where she provides community service for.
• Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016): Exactly What It Says on the Tin. Pride and Prejudice, but with zombies.
• Sinjar Valley Of The Shadow (2017): A British insurance agent enlists the help of an ex-Army ranger to rescue his sister, who has become entangled with ISIS.
• The Happytime Murders (2018): In a world where humans and Muppets co-exist, Melissa McCarthy teams up with a private eye puppet to track down a killer who's murdering the cast of a 90's puppet sitcom.
• Texas Cotton (2018): An aging lawman is convinced that a mysterious stranger arrested in his small town for the mysterious deaths of their crops is innocent. Meanwhile his investigation stirs up a hornet's nest that will change the town forever.
• The Immortal Wars Resurgence (2019): Superpowered beings in a post apocalyptic world are captured by a madman who pits them against each other on television.
• Demon Squad (2019): An investigator finds himself in a strange world in order to recover a dangerous artifact.
• Black Christmas (2019): In a college campus sororities are under attack by a mysterious killer during the Holidays, and four sorority sisters find out the murders might be tied to the college's past.

2020s

• Fantasy Island (2020): A horror retelling of the classic TV series, an enigmatic host holds the visitors of his tropical resort hostage by making their secret dreams come true as nightmares.
• Spy Intervention (2020): The world's greatest spy, who abandoned his adventurous lifestyle for the woman of his dreams, decides to come out retirement in order to save the world and his listless marriage. 
• The Night Clerk (2020): A voyeuristic hotel clerk becomes the subject of a murder investigation after a woman is murdered during his shift.
• Saint Maud (2020): A pious nurse, who pursued a Christian path after an obscure trauma, becomes dangerously obsessed with saving the soul of her dying patient.
• The Hunt (2020): Twelve strangers wake up in a clearing and must outrun a group of elitists who hunt humans for sport. Was originally scheduled for a 2019 release before being pushed back as a result of the Dayton and El Paso mass shootings, along with a backlash from conservative audiences over its political subtext.
• Friend of the World (2020): A young filmmaker awakens in the lair of an old war-torn military general who asserts they are the last two survivors of a mass casualty event.
• Corona Zombies (2020): A woman named Barbie finds herself facing an outbreak of zombies infected by Covid 19. Made using stock footage from Hell of the Living Dead, and was followed by two sequels involving Tiger King and Area 51.
• Survive The Night (2020): A trauma doctor is forced to operate on a wounded gunman as he and his family are held hostage by the man and his unhinged brother.
• Hard Kill (2020): Bruce Willis is a billionaire tech CEO who hires mercenaries to save his daughter from a terrorist group who wanna wreak havoc on the world with his computer program.
• PG: Psycho Goreman (2020): Intergalactic assassins converge on a small town after two siblings unwittingly resurrect an ancient alien overlord.
• Vampires vs. the Bronx (2020): A group of teenagers are forced to protect their neighborhood in the Bronx from a gathering of vampires invaders.
• Possessor (2020): An elite corporate assassin executes high-profile targets by using brain-implant technology to take control of other people's bodies.
• Trolls World (2020): An evil troll from the 15th century is accidentally brought back to life in modern times and goes on a rampage.
• Cyst (2020): In the 1960s, a nurse's last day is ruined when a doctor inadvertently creates a cyst monster that terrorizes the office.
• Jiu Jitsu (2020): An ancient order and of Jiu-Jitsu masters must protect mankind from alien invaders every six years.
• Freaky (2020): A young high school girl accidentally swaps bodies with a deranged serial killer and has less than 24 hours to stop him before the change becomes permanent.
• Fatman (2020): Mel Gibson plays Santa Claus, who's forced into a partnership with the U.S. Military to save his North Pole business, while also having to fend from an assassin hired by an evil 12 year old.
• Sky Sharks (2020): A military task force is assembled to stop a group of flying sharks genetically modified by the Nazis.
• Breaking News in Yuba County (2021): A woman takes advantage of her growing celebrity status when the police and the public think her dead husband is just missing. The movie was produced by American International Pictures, which relaunched a year prior.
• Willy's Wonderland (2021): A Five Nights at Freddy's knockoff about a janitor who finds himself trapped in an abandoned family entertainment center haunted by eight murderous animatronic mascots.
• Cocaine Bear (2023): Very loosely based on a story of a bear who digested over 70 pounds of cocaine in the mid-1980s. The film features Ray Liotta in his final film role.
• Thanksgiving (2023): A man dressed up as a pilgrim goes on a spree murdering survivors of a Black Friday incident. Yet another film spun off from a Grindhouse trailer.
• Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey (2023): Winnie the Pooh and his buddy Piglet become slasher villains after Christopher Robin abandoned them.
• Lisa Frankenstein (2024): A troubled lonely girl falls in love with a reanimated corpse and embarks on a murderous misadventure with him with romance and missing body parts. The film is written by Diablo Cody and marks the directorial debut of Zelda Williams.

In-Universe examples:

Anime and Manga

• Booty Royale: Never Go Down Without a Fight!: In one Story Arc, recurring titty-flick director Iba tries to break into mainstream filmmaking with an action-schlock film titled Fist of the Tokyo She-Beast, starring main protagonist Misora Haebara, a karate black belt and gravure model, as the lead and Korean tae kwon do practitioner Chae Yun-Hui as the villainess. It reportedly gets good reviews for the action but is panned on acting.

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