The films

WATCHobscure

Forest of Fear

Marijuana growers, a herbicide and some very slow zombies. On the list by accident of title.

WATCHcult

Long Weekend

A couple with a failing marriage treat a beach with contempt. Nothing supernatural happens.

WATCHcult

Zombie Creeping Flesh

Bruno Mattei splicing stock documentary footage into a zombie film and hoping nobody notices.

WATCHknown

Phase IV

Saul Bass's only feature. The ants are shot like a nature documentary and it is deeply strange.

WATCHknown

The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue

Zombies caused by an agricultural radiation device, shot in the Lake District. Much better than it sounds.

WATCHknown

Wolfen

Not really a werewolf film. Something older is hunting in the ruins of the South Bronx.

WATCHknown

Prophecy

Mercury poisoning produces a mutant bear in the Maine woods, and it is angrier about logging than most activists.

WATCHknown

Color Out of Space

Nicolas Cage, alpacas, and a colour that does not exist. More faithful than most attempts.

WATCHknown

The Bay

Barry Levinson made a found-footage eco-horror about a Chesapeake town and parasitic isopods.

WATCHknown

Alligator

A baby alligator flushed down a toilet grows huge on discarded lab animals in the sewers. John Sayles wrote it and it is a delight.

WATCHknown

The Ruins

Tourists, a Mayan pyramid and a plant with intent. Nastier than its reputation.

WATCHknown

Piranha

Joe Dante's Jaws cash-in, written by John Sayles, and it is far smarter and funnier than it needed to be.

WATCHcanon

The Host

Opens with a real incident: formaldehyde poured into the Han river in 2000. Funny, which nothing else here manages.

WATCHcanon

Annihilation

No villain at all, only a process. The last twenty minutes are the closest film has come to Lovecraft.

WATCHcanon

The Birds

No score, no explanation, no resolution. Hitchcock withholding everything and getting away with it.