Damien Thorn is the Antichrist, and the trilogy that tells his unholy tale remains popular almost fifty years later. Indeed, while putting together this movie ranked list and revisiting the original Omen franchise, we were surprised at how well the old movies held up. Omen fans will be happy that the series has been restarted in a pretty interesting way earlier this year, with The First Omen a surprisingly excellent prequel to the original trilogy (check out our interviews with the director and cast here), even if it takes one large liberty involving Damien’s birth that some fans may have an issue with. So, how do the Omen films rank against each other? Let’s take a look, but remember that the TV series Damien (which lasted for one season in 2016) is not included, as we’re sticking with feature films.

The Omen (2006)

There’s honestly no reason for this movie to exist. It’s a scene-for-scene remake of Richard Donner’s original classic, with it being so faithful that the original screenwriter, David Seltzer, has sole screenplay credit. Despite a decent cast, you can tell the difference between an old pro like Donner and a guy like John Moore, who gets outclassed in his attempt to bring the original film up to date. This remake is without any real merit, with it losing the Jerry Goldsmith score and the slew of great performances delivered in the original. Liev Schreiber and Julia Stiles do their best but are too young to play their parts and lack any sense of gravitas. Overall, this movie is a giant waste of time, which is why it’s at the bottom of this Omen movies ranked list.

Omen IV: The Awakening (1991)

What do you do when you’ve killed off the Antichrist in your franchise about the rise of the Antichrist? Well, of course, you just start the process all over again. Turns out, the late Damien Thorn left behind a daughter who is adopted into a political family and named Delia… and while Delia isn’t the Antichrist herself, she is an evil little tyke who’s paving the way for the new Antichrist who will try to be more successful than Damien was. Faye Grant gives a good performance as the adoptive mother who gradually comes to suspect that her daughter is trouble. Omen IV is essentially a remake of the original movie, following its basic structure and featuring a lot of similar scenes. But it was working with a different script and has different characters, which puts it ahead of the actual Omen remake, and manages to have some creepy moments, despite the made-for-TV atmosphere (the movie made its debut on Fox, since this is a 20th Century Fox, now 20th Century Studios series). Plus you get to see a private investigator played by Michael Lerner get smashed by a wrecking ball.

Omen III: The Final Conflict (1981)

Omen III is probably the silliest of the Damien Thorn movies, but it also boasts an intense performance by Sam Neill as the now-grown Damien. Neill was a rising star at the time, making Zulawski’s classic Possession the same year. Young, charismatic and good-looking, you buy him as the son of the devil. But, it has two problems. One is that adult Damien will never be as scary as child Damien. The other is that they decided this would be the end of the franchise, and they opted to end it on a happy note rather than the foreboding conclusions of its predecessors. It also comes up short in the gore department, with no signature kills like in the other movies.

The First Omen (2024)

Most horror fans were wary of a prequel to The Omen, having been burned by the remake. Yet, despite everything, Arkasha Stevenson’s prequel to Richard Donner’s original film, which is primarily faithful, managed to earn a good number of appreciative fans. The only issue is that they changed an essential detail about Damien’s conception at the end in order to this into a new series. But the change they made is pretty disturbing in its own right, so we can forgive it. Nell Tiger Free gives a great performance in the lead, proving that she is a star on the rise. The box office numbers were a bit soft, which is too bad, as it would be interesting to see this franchise continue.

Damien: Omen II (1978)

No one will ever say that The Omen II lives up to the original, but you must hand it to director Don Taylor. Despite being little more than a journeyman, he made a pretty bold sequel, with a couple of gory kills that almost outdo the original. The guy getting chopped in half in the elevator (Meshach Taylor – who would play Hollywood in Mannequin) is pretty gnarly, and the drowning of Lew Ayres under the ice of a frozen lake is disturbing. The legend is that the movie’s star, William Holden, was the original choice for the first film, but he turned it down and regretted it when the movie became a hit (Gregory Peck also had a percentage of the box office and made a killing). He was a contemporary of Peck’s, but by this point, alcoholism had begun to take its toll, and his decent performance doesn’t compare to Peck’s. Still, it has a young Lance Henriksen in an early role, and Jonathan Scott-Taylor delivers a good performance as a believably conflicted Damien.

The Omen (1976)

If you’re making a list ranking The Omen films, only one could ever top the list. The granddaddy of them all. The story of a potentially evil child in the care of the United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom. At the time, the film was critically maligned, with many calling it little more than a rip-off of The Exorcist, but time has proven the naysayers wrong. Richard Donner made a smash hit but adopted a classy, realistic style and cast it perfectly. People nowadays may not realize how provocatively cast Gregory Peck was, as he was perhaps the most beloved actor in Hollywood at the time. After all, he was Atticus Finch! Men of his stature didn’t make horror films, and the film benefits from his fantastic performance. It’s great that he and Lee Remick portray an older couple who are getting their last shot at being parents, making their disbelief at the fact that their presumed son is evil and being all the more potent. Plus, there’s David Warner, Leo McKern, the amazing Billie Whitelaw, and some unique kills. Damien! It’s all for you!

Do you agree with this Omen movies ranked list? Let us know in the comments!

The post The Omen Movies Ranked: From the Worst to the Best appeared first on JoBlo.

Is there any current director who is more controversial than Zack Snyder? It’s wild how divisive a figure he is, with his fans nearly cult-like in their devotion, while his detractors are just as fervent. Here at JoBlo, we’ve always been ardent supporters, even if we haven’t unquestioningly praised all of his films. Thus, we thought it would be interesting to do an all-around ranking of his films (although we’ve left the animated Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole off the list). So, without further ado, here’s our ranking from worst to best.

Sucker Punch (2011)

I’ll admit to not knowing precisely what Snyder was trying to pull off when I saw this movie in 2011. It remains the most obscure of his live-action films. It is a tough nut to crack, being that it’s a fantastical, hyper-surrealistic fantasy centred around a woman’s flight into fantasy as she’s committed to a mental asylum. It has many classic Zack Snyder hallmarks, and I’m sure some of his most devoted fans consider it underrated. He has teased doing a Snyder cut that would emphasize the musical elements toned down by the studio, so it’s possible that cut might be an improvement. But, for me, this is his least successful film.

Army of the Dead (2021)

I’m not sure any zombie movie needs to be 150 minutes, but Snyder wanted to make an epic for his first Netflix flick, and he did. While it was (predictably) slammed by his detractors, the action in the film is intense, and Dave Bautista is a great lead. It’s worth noting that Fallout star Ella Purnell got her start fighting zombies in this one, and it did manage to spawn a pretty fun heist film follow-up, Army of Thieves. 

Rebel Moon (2023 / 2024)

This one comes with a caveat, as I think the two “Snyder Cuts” coming this summer will make this a much better sci-fi epic than the PG-13 version we got. I’m counting this as one movie, although I must admit that I found the first installment, Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire, much more compelling than Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver, which I wasn’t crazy about. Hopefully, the “Snyder Cut” makes a significant difference, so when it comes out we’ll revisit this list.

Zack Snyder’s Justice League (2021)

To some, this comic book movie remains director Zack Snyder’s ultimate achievement, as it was infamously taken out of his hands and largely reshot by the now cancelled Joss Whedon, which has since gone down as one of the worst decisions in modern studio history. “Restore the Snyder Cut” became a movement, especially during the early days of the pandemic when, let’s face it, none of us had anything better to do. While I liked the Snyder Cut, I would be curious to see what he would have delivered had he not been removed from the project initially, as there’s no way he intended to give Warner Bros a four-hour movie. I can’t help but think a slightly punchier version would be an improvement, although it’s a million times better than the horrible Whedon version.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)

Interestingly, we published a poll asking readers what their favourite movie of his was, and it was one of our most popular polls in a while. Shockingly, the winner (by a landslide) was this, a movie whose reception was so controversial that, in many ways, it cost Snyder his place in the DC Extended Universe. It’s cool to see this follow-up to 2013’s Man of Steel go from being universally loathed to loved, but likely the fact that the three-hour “Snyder Cut” is so much better played a role in its enhanced reputation among fans. We all agree on two things: the score is incredible, and Ben Affleck is one heck of a good Batman, no matter what anyone says.

Man of Steel (2013)

Speaking of good casting, Henry Cavill’s treatment by WB has to go down as one of the most inexplicable studio decisions on record, as he was a great Superman (easily the best since Christopher Reeve). Many fans didn’t like Snyder’s darker treatment of the character, which ended with an infamously violent climax that saw the Man of Steel kill Michael Shannon’s General Zod. Still, I maintain that the people wanting a happy-go-lucky Superman in the vein of Richard Donner are misguided. Bryan Singer tried this with Superman Returns, and audiences stayed away. Maybe James Gunn will have better luck as he scraps the DCEU and builds his own universe, but in my opinion, Snyder is the only director (so far) to nail a modern Superman movie.

Watchmen (2009)

Fans eagerly anticipated Zack Snyder’s adaptation of Alan Moore’s iconic graphic novel, but its box office (and critical) reception was underwhelming. Time has been kind to Snyder’s well-cast adaption, with Jackie Earle Haley a standout as Rorschach. My only issue is that Snyder uses too many needle drops, with Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” during the Nite Owl/ Silk Spectre II love scene being particularly silly. Nevertheless, it’s about as good of a big-screen adaptation of Moore’s work as we ever could have expected. 

Dawn of the Dead (2004)

Like many, I was dead set against a remake of George A. Romero’s classic zombie flick, but Snyder (working from a screenplay by James Gunn) made himself a director of note when he nailed the adaptation, which was his feature film debut. It’s incredibly well-cast and possibly his most propulsive movie to date, with it holding up as one of the better modern zombie flicks, with the highly nihilistic ending being one that will stick with you for a while after.

300 (2007)

What else could it be? While some believe 300 hasn’t aged particularly well, with the then cutting-edge technology seeming quaint seventeen years later, it was massive when this came out in 2007. It made Gerard Butler a star, put Michael Fassbender on the map, and turned a whole new generation onto the work of Frank Miller. It also proved there was a massive audience for R-rated fantasy epics, paving the way for HBO’s Game of Thrones. 

What do you think of our rankings, and where would you add Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole to the list? Let us know in the comments!

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There’s never a Friday the 13th too far away, and that means it’s always time for a Friday the 13th Movies Ranked list! While this list is all in good fun, I have to admit that I found it to be surprisingly difficult to put together. That’s because the Friday the 13th franchise is my favorite of all franchises and I love every one of these films. Ranking them was like trying to rank my major internal organs. Some may work better than others, but I need them all! I struggled to decide which order to put them in, and ended up listing them based on which ones I would most like to watch at any given time. So here they are, listed from “Yes, put that movie on right now!” to “Sure, okay, let’s watch it.” Check it out, then let us know how you would rank the movies by leaving a comment below.

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III (1982)

The Jason everyone knows is born here. This is where he gets his iconic hockey mask, and he wears it while taking out a group of youths vacationing at a cabin on the edge of Crystal Lake. Part 2 director Steve Miner returned for this one and managed to make it creepy while also packing it with gimmicks meant to be seen in 3D on the big screen – and you ever have the chance to see Friday the 13th Part III in 3D, go for it. It’s an awesome experience. Especially when you get to watch the hulking, hockey masked Jason (Richard Brooker) engage the final girl in one of the best chases of the franchise. A 13 minute sequence that goes all over the cabin property.

FRIDAY THE 13TH (1980)

Directed by Sean S. Cunningham, the original Friday the 13th has achieved classic status – and yet somehow it still doesn’t get enough respect or credit for how effectively creepy it is. A low budget but well crafted production, it delivers a dark-yet-fun atmosphere, an unnerving back story, an incredible score, amazing special effects (courtesy of Tom Savini), and an unforgettable performance by Betsy Palmer. Palmer shows up late in the film as a grieving mother out to avenge her young son, who drowned at Camp Crystal Lake more than twenty years earlier because the counselors weren’t paying attention. The new counselors didn’t have anything to do with it, but they pay the price.

FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE FINAL CHAPTER (1984)

A family living in a house out in the woods. A group of young people renting the house right across from them. And Jason Voorhees (Ted White this time) lurking nearby, waiting to strike. Director Joseph Zito brought a very dark atmosphere to this film, and yet it’s also a whole lot of fun, featuring some of the best, most likeable young characters in the entire series. (Plus some wild dancing from Crispin Glover.) Tom Savini believed “The Final Chapter” subtitle and returned to supply the bloodshed for Jason’s send-off. The kills are brutal, even the ones that are cut quickly, and the showiest of all is reserved for Jason himself. Jason is legitimately scary in this film, but a clever young boy named Tommy Jarvis figures out how to defeat the monster. For now.

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VI: JASON LIVES (1986)

Tasked with bringing Jason Voorhees back from the dead, writer/director Tom McLoughlin looked to the Universal Monsters era for inspiration and resurrected Jason Frankenstein-style, with a well-placed lightning bolt. Jason rises from his grave a bit rotten but stronger than ever, just in time for the re-opening of Camp Crystal Lake. As returning adversary Tommy Jarvis tries to stop Jason, McLoughlin treats the viewer to fun characters, humorous lines and situations, cool stunts, great cinematography, and a rock ‘n roll soundtrack. Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (which shows the title and subtitle the other way around in the title sequence, so it’s Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI) pushes the comedy further than any of the previous movies, but it works because Jason himself (CJ Graham) is never the butt of the joke. McLoughlin found a way to bring fresh energy to the franchise while still keeping it in the woods.

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2 (1981)

Friday the 13th Part 2 (not Part II, as they didn’t get fancy with the Roman numerals until later) is so good, it’s easy to overlook the fact that it’s built on a very odd decision: the one to make Jason Voorhees, the drowned child whose mother was out for vengeance in the first movie, the killer this time around. This isn’t the Jason who would become a pop culture icon. This is a backwoods fellow who wears a sack on his head (with Steve Dash being the man under the sack). But he’s also a terrifying killer who slashes his way through a new batch of counselors. Director Steve Miner did a great job of replicating the tone of the first movie, and the film features one of the best heroines in the franchise: child psychologist Ginny Fields, who comes up with a clever way of stopping Jason in his tracks.

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VII: THE NEW BLOOD (1988)

When Paramount couldn’t secure a deal with New Line Cinema to make Freddy vs. Jason, they shifted gears and made a sequel that is basically Jason vs. Carrie. You have the same set-up as The Final Chapter, partying youths in a house across from a family home, but this time the family home is occupied by a troubled girl with telekinetic abilities. Like Tommy in Jason Lives, that girl (named Tina) accidentally resurrects Jason, then has to deal with the consequences. And when it comes time for their showdown, Tina uses her telekinesis to dish out quite a beating to the hockey masked slasher. It’s pretty awesome. Kane Hodder made his Jason debut in this film, and director / FX artist John Carl Beuchler gave him a great rotten look.

FRIDAY THE 13TH: A NEW BEGINNING (1985)

After years of psychiatric treatments, Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter hero Tommy Jarvis arrives at Pinehurst Halfway House… and soon a killer in a hockey mask starts picking off the staff of the halfway house, the troubled youths staying there, and people in the surrounding area. The identity of the killer is meant to be a mystery, but it’s pretty hard to miss the clues. Directed by Danny Steinmann, A New Beginning has a bad reputation, but it’s still a lot of fun. Jason (Tom Morga and Johnny Hock) may only be present in Tommy’s hallucinations, but we still get a hockey masked killer who acts just like him. The characters are ridiculous, the movie is extremely sleazy, but that’s all just part of its charm.

FREDDY VS. JASON (2003)

After a long trip through development hell, Freddy vs. Jason finally reached theatres in 2003, with director Ronny Yu bringing the concept to the screen with great style. Robert Englund reprises the role of Nightmare on Elm Street franchise dream stalker Freddy Krueger, who uses the image of Mrs. Voorhees to encourage Jason Voorhees (Ken Kirzinger) to rise from Hell and head over to his old haunt of Elm Street to commit murder and stir up fear. Fear that will allow Freddy to return to the dreams of the Elm Street kids. But when Jason overstays his welcome and claims too many victims on Elm Street, the slashers clash. Fights take place in both the dream world and at Camp Crystal Lake, and the climactic battle is a glorious bloodbath.

FRIDAY THE 13TH (2009)

Ideas from the first four Friday the 13th films were mixed together for this reboot, a collaboration between Paramount and New Line Cinema. Derek Mears plays a Jason Voorhees who is faster and more intense than ever before. He’s wearing a sack on his head when we first see him, and later in the film he acquires a hockey mask. The set-up is the same as we’ve seen multiple times: Jason slashes his way through a bunch of youths who are vacationing at a house near Crystal Lake. The movie also draws from the end of Part 2 for its most controversial element: when Jason crosses paths with a young woman who resembles his mother, he locks her up in his mine shaft lair instead of killing her. Some fans think it’s a logical extension of what we saw in Part 2, other fans hate it.

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VIII: JASON TAKES MANHATTAN (1989)

The Paramount era came to an end with Jason Takes Manhattan, which underwhelmed at the box office when movie-goers saw that it didn’t really deliver on the promise of the title. Jason (Kane Hodder) spends most of the film on a cruise ship that’s on its way to Manhattan, knocking off youths who are on board for a senior trip. When they do reach their destination, Manhattan is mostly played by Vancouver alleyways. But there is a great moment where we see Jason standing in the middle of Times Square. Part VIII also disappoints with a spacey heroine who’s always tripping, since director Rob Hedden wanted to work in some Elm Street-esque elements. The movie is fun, but you can see why Paramount gave up.

JASON GOES TO HELL: THE FINAL FRIDAY (1993)

The franchise moved to New Line Cinema with this installment, and director Adam Marcus set out to deliver a film that would be very different from any of its predecessors. He certainly accomplished that. Jason Goes to Hell starts off with Jason Voorhees (Kane Hodder) being blasted to pieces by the FBI… then spends the rest of the movie possessing people, starting with the coroner who is compelled to eat his heart. Jason’s spirit moves from body to body as he seeks out family members we never heard of before, because this movie creates its own mythology. “Through a Voorhees was he born, through a Voorhees may he be reborn, and only by the hands of a Voorhees will he die.” How can he die? By being stabbed with a magic dagger that sends him straight to Hell.

JASON X (2002)

While Freddy vs. Jason was making its way through development hell, director James Isaac decided to make another Friday the 13th sequel – one that would be set in the future to avoid causing continuity issues with the Freddy crossover. So a frozen Jason (Kane Hodder) gets blasted into space in the year 2455, and once he thaws out it’s business as usual because the ship he’s on happens to be inhabited by a bunch of youngsters. Plus some Marines, but those aren’t a problem. The cyborg causes him more trouble, but once his body gets blasted apart he just gets a new one, thanks to nanotechnology. Jason is upgraded into Uber Jason! Jason X is extremely goofy, and highly entertaining when you’re in the mood for absurdity.

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Top of the mornin’ to you on this St. Patrick’s Day! To celebrate, we here at Arrow in the Head decided to mark the occasion by going back over the Leprechaun movies and ranking them from worst to first. The Leprechaun Movies Ranked list can be seen below – check it out and let us know how you would rank the movies!

LEPRECHAUN: ORIGINS (2014)

This is appalling. Director Zach Lipovsky, writer Harris Wilkinson, and WWE Studios were given the chance to make a new Leprechaun movie, they cast a professional wrestler (Dylan “Hornswoggle” Postl) as the title character, and then they just churned out a dull monster movie. I don’t know how anyone involved thought this was a good idea (“You know what we should do? Take everything people liked about Leprechaun and remove it!”) or how Leprechaun: Origins made it through production. The story follows Americans backpacking through Ireland and running across a leprechaun, who is just a hideous creature with no personality. It’s not even fun to watch this thing pick people off. There’s nothing interesting to be found in this movie, although there is some curiosity factor in seeing one of the most wrongheaded reboots ever made. Unfortunately, you have to sacrifice some of your time to do so. (Good thing the 90 minute running time is padded out with 12 minutes of end credits.)

LEPRECHAUN IN THE HOOD (2000)

Around 2000, there was a surge of low-budget horror movies set “in the hood”. Full Moon was in on it, and the Leprechaun franchise joined the trend as well. Directed by Rob Spera, who got help from four other writers in crafting the story and script, Leprechaun in the Hood has its charms. You get Ice-T as a record producer who gained success with the help of a flute he stole from the leprechaun. You get the leprechaun smoking weed, rapping, and mesmerizing a trio of “fly girls”. And of course, you get him killing people while trying to get his flute back from the rap group that has stolen it from Ice-T’s character. (Called Mack Daddy O’Nassas because he was a pimp who “owned asses”.) This one ranks lower just because it doesn’t feel as fun as some of the other entries, despite the weed and the rapping.

LEPRECHAUN BACK 2 THA HOOD (2003)

Writer/director Steven Ayromlooi wanted to make a Spring Break Leprechaun movie, but Lionsgate wanted to send the character Back 2 Tha Hood. Well, at least this repetition is more tolerable than going Back 2 Space would be. This sequel has better production value than the previous Hood entry, some cool action moments, and fun elements like bullets laced with clover and a magic battle between the leprechaun and a fortune teller. On the downside, the characters aren’t very interesting, so it bogs down whenever we have to watch them interact. We get the leprechaun hitting a bong, but he doesn’t give us another rap sequence… which I’m sure was disappointing to fans of the first Hood film. This may be the last time we’ll ever see Warwick Davis starring in a Leprechaun movie, which is a shame. He seemed to have a lot more Lep left in him, but they let the franchise go dormant for too long.

LEPRECHAUN 4 (1996)

Leprechaun 3 director Brian Trenchard-Smith returned to direct Leprechaun 4, which is not on the level of his previous contribution to the series. The fact that it’s set in space isn’t the problem, it’s fitting that the Leprechaun movies helped start one of the most amusing franchise trends. The problem is, it feels like Dennis Pratt just wrote it as a generic Aliens knock-off and then replaced the alien with the leprechaun. He lives on a random planet and is referred to as an alien. At least he’s still obsessed with wealth and power. This movie does get incredibly strange as the leprechaun wipes out a bunch of soldiers and the medical staff on a spaceship, so it has that going for it. This seems to be a love it or hate it entry: it gets too ridiculous for some viewers, while others enjoy that it’s packed with jaw-dropping nonsense.

LEPRECHAUN RETURNS (2018)

The leprechaun is a different character in every Leprechaun movie, they all just happened to be played by Warwick Davis. Until Leprechaun Returns, which brings back the leprechaun from the original. Ironically, the first direct sequel is also the first sequel Davis opted not to come back for. So this returning leprechaun is played by Linden Porco, who does a good job, it’s just difficult for anyone to come close to what Davis did. Directed by Steven Kostanski, Leprechaun Returns is an entertaining sequel with an amusing, clever script by Suzanne Keilly – who recently wrote a fun Slumber Party Massacre movie as well. The story finds the leprechaun accidentally being unleashed by a group of sorority girls and proceeding to kill them and their friends one-by-one. Nice and simple. Mark Holton reprises the role of Ozzie from the original film, and the heroine is the daughter of Jennifer Aniston’s character.

LEPRECHAUN (1993)

Some horror franchises start out dead serious and slide into silliness. That’s not the case with Leprechaun. Future entries would definitely be sillier, but this concept was ridiculous from the start. Written and directed by Mark Jones, Leprechaun is about a single father and his daughter moving into a fixer-upper home in North Dakota… and quickly realizing there was a leprechaun trapped in the basement and a pot of gold coins the previous owner brought back from Ireland (after stealing it from the leprechaun) stashed nearby. The leprechaun wants his gold back, and is willing to kill people in nasty ways to retrieve it. Jones tries to make moments genuinely unnerving, but while Warwick Davis turns in a hell of a performance and the leprechaun is hideous, he’s still wearing a funny outfit, tossing out one-liners, and getting distracted because he’s compelled to polish shoes. He’s also up against some goofball characters, including Pee-wee’s Big Adenture‘s Mark Holton as a fellow named Ozzie Jones, who’s unlucky enough to have swallowed one of the gold coins, and a rather annoying heroine played by pre-Friends Jennifer Aniston.

LEPRECHAUN 3 (1995)

The idea behind Leprechaun 3, which was directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith from a script by David DuBos, was a really smart one. You have a horror villain who’s obsessed with collecting riches, so what better setting could there be for one of his sequels than Las Vegas? Of course, the movie only had to budget to film in Vegas for one day (the interiors were shot in Los Angeles), but Trenchard-Smith made the most of it. While the leprechaun causes trouble for people who work at a casino, including a terrible magician and a croupier played by genre regular Caroline Williams, we also learn that leprechaunism is an infectious disease when the lead (played by John Gatins, who would go on to earn an Oscar nomination for writing Flight) starts to turn into a leprechaun himself. This was one of the better, most well-crafted entries in the franchise. And you get to see what a handful of leprechaun poop looks like.

LEPRECHAUN 2 (1994)

Every one thousand years, a leprechaun can claim a human bride, and in Leprechaun 2 an evil leprechaun has his mind set on a young woman named Bridget (Shevonne Durkin). With the help of his drunken uncle Morty (Sandy Baron), Bridget’s boyfriend Cody (Charlie Heath) desperately tries to save his love from life with a leprechaun. Directed by Rodman Flender and written by Turi Meyer and Al Septién, this sequel is a step up from its predecessor. It’s quick and fun, with a good sense of humor and very entertaining performance from Baron. It also brings a welcome new addition to the Leprechaun mythology, saying a captured leprechaun has to grant its captor three wishes. Of course, those wishes don’t always work out for the person making them. Warwick Davis was given better material to work with, including a great sequence in which he and Morty have a drinking contest. This one also earns points for being set on St. Patrick’s Day.

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Do you like blood? Violence? Freaks of nature? Well, here at Arrow in the Head, we love all of those things – and that has inspired us to put together this list of some of The Goriest, Bloodiest Films Ever Made. Some of the movies are on here due to their historical significance, some are due to the amount of fake blood that was used during the production, and all of them are quite messy. Here we go:

Blood Feast (1963)

This is where it all began. In the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, independent filmmaker Herschell Gordon Lewis and his producing partner David F. Friedman were looking at the major movies of the day to find what they could offer the moviegoing public that the studios weren’t providing. They started out with “nudie cutie” sexploitation movies, meeting the demand for bare flesh. After taking note that violence in movies had always been rather tame and/or relatively bloodless, even in Alfred Hitchcock’s recent proto-slasher hit Psycho, they decided that, with the next stage of their careers, they would bring gore to the movies, in vibrant color. Armed with animal parts collected from butcher shops and a blood mixture with the secret ingredient of Kaopectate, Lewis and Friedman brought the world Blood Feast. It tells the story of caterer Fuad Ramses, a devotee of the ancient Egyptian goddess Ishtar. 5000 years ago, Ishtar’s followers would offer up human sacrifices to their deity, sacrificing female virgins to appease her and then feeding on their flesh and blood. Fuad Ramses believes it’s time to bring back the old ways. After booking a job to cook up an Egyptian feast for an unsuspecting woman, Ramses sets out to collect the ingredients he’ll need to make a traditional feast in the name of Ishtar. He stalks the Miami area, killing nubile girls and hacking off body parts from his victims – a leg from one, the tongue from another, a brain, blood collected from whip wounds, etc. Lewis made several more blood-soaked movies after this one, most notably Two Thousand Maniacs!, earning himself the nickname “the Godfather of Gore” along the way. And every time we’ve seen a slasher make a bloody mess of their victims since 1963, we’ve had H.G. Lewis and Fuad Ramses to thank for it.

Tokyo Gore Police (2008) 

Asian horror films and Japanese horror in particular have a ton of entries where the blood flows freely and impressively. One of the goriest movies to come out of Japan is Tokyo Gore Police, as you might have guessed from its title. Just a quick look at its trailer will be enough to convince anyone who loves to watch insane bloodshed to order it ASAP. The film has some of the most insane set-ups in terms of characters having body modifications and the blood shed by some of them is just beautifully insane in quantity. The film was shot in just two weeks and the total amount of fake blood used is not clear, but it definitely was a whole lot. This film is over-the-top in just about every aspect and it appeals only to a very specific audience, but for those folks, it’s a beauty to behold. Director Yoshihiro Nishimura is better known as a makeup effects artist with films such as Meatball Machine Kodoku, Mutant Girl Squad, and the Tomie series on his filmography. His movies feature some gooey, juicy, and gory stuff, so having his name attached to this can only be a good omen for those who have yet to see the film. 

Braindead, a.k.a. Dead-Alive (1992) 

Whether you call it Braindead or Dead-Alive, this horror comedy from Peter Jackson is a longtime favorite for many horror fans, both for its sense of humor and for the sheer amount of blood, gore, and practical effects seen throughout the film. The moment where an ear falls into a bowl of soup may be the grossest scene in the film, but it’s definitely not the bloodiest. One of the most famous gore sequences in cinema history is the one where lead Lionel, played by Timothy Balme, faces a horde of zombies that just keep on coming, forcing him to use whatever he can to dispatch them as fast as he can. In this moment, he gets his trusty lawnmower and just decimates the horde of zombies with blood and limbs flying in every direction. Three hundred gallons of fake blood are said to have been used in the final scene of the film alone. And to think, everything that happens in this movie was all caused by a little Sumatran Rat Monkey.

Evil Dead (2013) 

If any Evil Dead movie were to show up on this list, you might have expected it to be Sam Raimi’s original, with its messy demon meltdowns, or Evil Dead II, with its blood flood… but it’s actually the 2013 Evil Dead, directed by Fede Alvarez, that holds the unofficial record for the largest amount of fake blood ever used on a movie production. Alvarez has said in interviews that 50,000 gallons of fake blood were used just during the climax of the film, which features blood literally raining from the sky. Other reports have the total amount of fake blood used at 70,000 gallons for the whole film. The original had about 300 gallons used, so the filmmakers really upped their blood game on this one. Adding to that, this Evil Dead was mostly shot in order, so the blood sprayed on the walls, props, and actors could remain and help with continuity, avoiding having to have the crew re-spray the same places later or go back and adjust blood on previously shot scenes. Most of the blood may not come out of human bodies, but when bringing the violence to the screen, Alvarez made sure to include moments that are likely to make pretty much any viewer cringe.

Terrifier 2 (2022) 

This low budget, independent production beat all odds and became a box office success with only a few screens and word of mouth to get tickets sold. Writer/director Damien Leone went into Terrifier 2 wanting to make one of the goriest, bloodiest films of all time. Some absolutely love the result and others just hate it; there seems to be no middle ground when it comes of the adventures of supernatural serial killer Art the Clown. In this sequel, Art had to increase his bloodshed and thus causes all kinds of mayhem and murder, allowing the viewer to see a cat o’ nine tails used on two people, mashed potatoes used in a whole new way, a very particular birth sequence, and more death and mayhem than the first film could ever have dared. The amount of blood and guts here caused the film to earn torture porn accusations and a boundary-pushing NC-17 rating.  

Let us know your goriest film favorites in the comments below!

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Usually, when people think of the greatest decade for action movies, the 80s are what they think of. After all, this is the era that gave us Lethal Weapon, Die Hard, the Rambo movies, and so many more. But, the 90s was just as important a decade, giving birth to just as many legends of the genre, and it was the last significant era for R-rated action flicks. But what are the best action films of the decade? It’s tough to say, but here are 10, plus an honourable mention, that we think we deserve a place in the pantheon.

Honourable Mention: Demolition Man:

When this came out in the fall of 1993, it wasn’t considered all that special. It apparently lost money at the box office, but within a few years, this Sylvester Stallone/ Wesley Snipes mashup became a major cult classic, and now it’s one of the most beloved films of the era. Stallone stars as a cryogenically frozen cop who wakes up in an extremely PC utopia that seems more relevant every year. The script, which Heathers scribe Daniel Waters overhauled, has teeth, and it also gave Sandra Bullock her first significant role in a Hollywood film, paving the way for her to become one of the biggest stars of her era. I feel like we’re not far from the movie’s “verbal morality statute,” but let’s skip the three seashells, ok?

10. True Lies:

This was Arnold Schwarzenegger’s last megahit and his last teaming, to date, with James Cameron. This domestic comedy mashup with tentpole action is a little un-PC these days (good!). The action sequences are masterful, and Schwarzenegger has never been so loose or comfortable playing a part. Jamie Lee Curtis is excellent as his wife, and the two should have been able to parlay this into a franchise, but Cameron was too busy ever to take the notion of a True Lies 2 seriously. He did, however, take the time to remaster the film in 4K (to mixed results).

9. The Matrix:

While this may seem a little low on this list, the reason I maybe don’t consider it up there with a lot of the big 90s action movies is because it feels more like a product of the 2000s, as it was so influential it dominated the genre for years. This was a massive comeback for Keanu Reeves, made the Wachowskis iconic and had some of the greatest VFX and action ever put to screen, effortlessly meshing Hong Kong-style action with American tentpole movie making.

8. Total Recall:

Do yourself a favour. Skip the 4K re-release of this movie, as the old-school effects don’t hold up well in high def. Yet, this Paul Verhoeven-directed epic is a masterpiece of action movie-making, and it’s so layered that you can watch it repeatedly. It has it all. Pulse-pounding action, gore, Schwarzenegger at his best, a kick-ass heroine, Michael Ironside getting his arms ripped off, a Jerry Goldsmith score, and an impossibly sexy Sharon Stone.

7. The Rock:

For James Bond fans, this movie is extra special as it’s Sean Connery’s swan song to the spy genre, with him playing a very Bond-like hero. It’s cool to see this sixties legend get plopped down into a modern techno-thriller, and Connery rises to the occasion. It’s Michael Bay’s best film, with a solid musical score, Ed Harris as a sympathetic bad guy and the birth of another action icon, Nicolas Cage, to whom Connery symbolically passes the torch as the movie continues.

6. Fist of Legend:

Lest you think this list will be all American movies, one must acknowledge that some incredible action flicks were being made in Hong Kong. Jet Li teamed with Yuen Woo Ping for this remake of Bruce Lee’s Fist Of Fury, aka The Chinese Connection. The fights in this movie were a massive influence on The Matrix.

5. Drunken Master 2:

Jackie Chan always said he never understood why fans loved his sequel to Drunken Master so much, with his perception of the film marred by his rumoured creative conflicts with director Lar Kar Leung. Artistically and physically, this is Chan at his prime. However, it’s maybe the one movie of his where I’d say the North American re-edit is a bit better, with it changing the schlocky score and eliminating the dumb ending. 

4. Speed:

No one thought this movie would amount to much in 1994. People laughed at Keanu Reeves starring in a Die Hard knockoff action thriller, with many saying it seemed like he was taking on a role meant for a guy like Steven Seagal (it was actually written for The Perfect Weapon star Jeff Speakman). Opening weekend changed everyone’s minds, and I remember convincing my dad to take me to see this instead of Beverly Hills Cop 3. We were both on the edge of our seats, and Reeves and co-star Sandra Bullock emerged from this as legends.

3. Hard Boiled:

John Woo left Hong Kong following the release of this action masterpiece, which teamed two of his favourite leading men, Chow Yun Fat and Tony Leung. This has some of the greatest shootouts ever committed to film, and sadly, would mark the end of Woo’s collaborations with Chow Yun-Fat, although never say never.

2. Point Break:

Kathryn Bigelow brought a female perspective to this ultra-male bromance, which starred Keanu Reeves as an FBI agent trying to nail a team of surfing backrobbers, who turn out to be led by Patrick Swayze’s Bodhi, the zen surfer guru he’s become friends with. This legit masterpiece holds up brilliantly years later – ignore the remake they should have called Point Fake.

1. Terminator 2: Judgement Day:

Is this the greatest sequel ever made? It must be. It’s no coincidence that Schwarzenegger/ Cameron collaborations bookend this list. This movie elevated the genre, with it an emotional rollercoaster that made many of us cry in the 90s. It’s Arnie at his best, with Linda Hamilton also emerging as one of the most incredible action movie heroines ever. Hasta La Vista Baby. 

What do you think of this list of some of the best 90s action movies? Would you have included the John McClane adventure Die Hard with a Vengeance or the “Steven Seagal vs. Tommy Lee Jones” classic Under Siege? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

The post The Best 90s Action Movies appeared first on JoBlo.

Saw is the series that just won’t stop. Some horror fans love these movies, others write them off as nothing but torture porn, but movie-goers usually show up to give them healthy box office returns. Not only did the most recent film, Saw X, wind up making over $100 million worldwide, but it also earned the franchise’s best reviews since the original. Tobin Bell received raves for his shockingly empathetic portrayal of Jigsaw, and in welcome news to fans of the franchise, Sax XI is already in production for a release this fall! But, how does the entire series rank? You can check out our Saw Movies Ranked list below – then let us know how you would rank the movies by leaving a comment!

SAW 3D (2010)

Envisioned as the “Final Chapter”, the seventh Saw movie was released in 3D so it could throw some of the biggest, most over-the-top traps of the franchise right in the viewer’s face. Saw 3D was directed by Saw VI’s Kevin Greutert, who was forced to replace Saw V director David Hackl just two weeks before filming was to begin. A move like that is just asking for a mess, and that’s exactly what the finished film turned out to be. A mess. Bringing Dr. Lawrence Gordon / Cary Elwes from the first movie back for the “last one” was a good idea, but it could have been handled better. The storyline following a guy who lied about being a Jigsaw survivor as he’s put to the test feels irrelevant. The way-too-long saga of Jigsaw’s follower Mark Hoffman is finally brought to an end, but in the most underwhelming way possible. He deserved worse.

JIGSAW (2017)

You might think the Saw franchise would be refreshed and rejuvenated after a seven year rest, with new writers crafting the story and new directors (Michael and Peter Spierig) at the helm. But Jigsaw feels like just another in the previous line of sequels, and even falls into the same traps that dragged down the series the first time around: timeline tricks, flashbacks, forgettable characters going through a bunch of traps, and a secret apprentice. Questions left unanswered at the end of Saw 3D remain unanswered, as Jigsaw goes off in its own direction with a new Jigsaw follower we had never seen or heard of before. The most memorable thing about this movie is the fact that there’s a trap involving lazers at one point.

SAW V (2008)

Now we know that Mark Hoffman is the apprentice carrying on Jigsaw’s work, and FBI agent Peter Strahm is figuring this out as well. While Hoffman and Strahm play cat and mouse through dimly lit scenes, there’s also a group of five people going through a series of tests / traps. But it’s difficult to care what’s going on with them when the real focus of the movie is Strahm’s pursuit of Hoffman and flashbacks to Hoffman being recruited by Jigsaw. Directed by David Hackl (who was production designer and/or second unit director on previous sequels), Saw V has one of the coolest moments in the franchise – Strahm giving himself a tracheotomy with a pen to survive a water trap – but otherwise feels like it’s just trudging through the motions. It’s a dull, tired entry in the franchise. Which isn’t surprising, since they were pumping these sequels out so quickly.

SAW IV (2007)

Saw II and III director Darren Lynn Bousman stuck around for this sequel, but the story came from a new team of writers who had to figure out how to continue the franchise now that Jigsaw and his apprentice Amanda (Shawnee Smith) were dead. One choice was obvious: Jigsaw needed a new apprentice. But some other choices were unexpected, like the fact that they still have Donnie Wahlberg hanging around as Saw II’s Eric Matthews, six months after he appeared to be as good as dead. They also dive deeper into Jigsaw’s back story than ever before, giving him even more reasons for getting into the business of making death traps. Terminal cancer and a car accident / failed suicide attempt weren’t the only things that drove him over the edge, there was also a tragic romance and a lost child. This is when the Saw franchise becomes a convoluted, gory soap opera, which is part of its charm as far as some fans are concerned.

SAW III (2006)

Franchise creators James Wan and Leigh Whannell still receive executive producer credits on every new Saw movie, but their creative involvement with the series really ended with Saw III. And they saved the grossest for last. Even Whannell was reportedly sickened by the sight of the traps in this one, which feels much darker and meaner than its predecessors. And includes a trap that involves rotten pig guts. While the terminally ill Jigsaw and his apprentice Amanda are forcing a surgeon to give him brain surgery, a grieving man played by Angus Macfadyen is made to go through rooms where he has to decide whether or not to save people connected to his son’s death in a drunk driving incident (the driver, the witness who didn’t testify, the judge who gave a lenient sentence). This is a bleak, ugly movie that tells an interesting story, but it’s really not pleasant to sit through.

SAW VI (2009)

Mark Hoffman is not an interesting villain, and it’s really annoying to watch multiple movies of him slipping out of situations you hope will remove him from the franchise. But while we’re still stuck with Hoffman and we’re still being shown a ridiculous amount of flashbacks designed to answer questions we didn’t even know to ask (three movies later, we’re still getting details about what was going on in Saw III), Saw VI does manage to be a step up from a few previous installments. Director Kevin Greutert, who edited the previous films, made a movie that brings an element of fun back into the proceedings, and the screenwriters had the great idea of putting a health insurance executive from Jigsaw’s past at the center of the games being played in this one. Unfortunately, Saw VI was the least successful Saw up to this point because movie-goers were giving up on the franchise.

SPIRAL: FROM THE BOOK OF SAW (2021)

Saw II, III, and IV director Darren Lynn Bousman returned to direct this entry about a Jigsaw copycat. Sort of the Friday the 13th: A New Beginning of Saw movies. Chris Rock stars as a detective trying to figure out who keeps killing cops with elaborate traps, and his performance is at its best when he’s cracking jokes. When Rock tries to be serious and intense, it’s not quite convincing. Samuel L. Jackson plays his dad, who gets stuck in a trap along the way – and it is fun to see an icon like SLJ strung up in a Jigsaw-style device. Other than the traps and references to Jigsaw, Spiral: From the Book of Saw has little to do with other Saw movies… which was kind of refreshing at this point. There’s no reason to worry about continuity, you can just sit back and take it in as a simple, straightforward revenge movie.

SAW X (2023)

I find several of the Saw sequels tough to sit through. Not because of the violence and gore, but because they get bogged down with excessive flashbacks, timeline tricks, and soap opera-esque dramatic elements. I got so tired of that stuff, I even found the generally unpopular “spin-off” Spiral to be a refreshing entry in the franchise because it didn’t attempt to further (or further convolute) the story of John “Jigsaw” Kramer… So it’s surprising to find that Saw X was able to get me interested in another Jigsaw story – and it was able to do so by jumping back in time, being set in between the first and second movies. Before the franchise got so messy. This time Jigsaw himself is the star and we follow him as he falls prey to a medical scam, then gets revenge on the scammers by playing his usual games with them. Not only was this the most enjoyable Saw sequel in quite a while, it was also the first time I had any interest in John Kramer as a character. In the other movies I always found him to be a pompous, hypocritical ass.

SAW II (2005)

Like any self-respecting sequel, director Darren Lynn Bousman’s Saw II takes the concept introduced in the first movie and goes bigger with it. Instead of two people trapped in a room we get seven people trapped in a house, hit with nerve gas and forced to participate in a series of games that have been set up throughout the rooms so they can retrieve vials of antidote. While they’re playing their games, deeply flawed detective Eric Matthews and a SWAT team have stormed a warehouse and caught Jigsaw himself… and yet Jigsaw, who we learn more about this time around, still manages to be in control of the situation. The traps are gruesome and cringe-inducing (the syringe pit is one of the most memorable moments in the series), but there’s still a sense of fun to the sequel. It doesn’t feel as bleak and mean-spirited as future installments in the franchise would.

SAW (2004)

The Saw franchise has become so big and convoluted, you might forget that it all started with a simple little serial killer thriller. Director James Wan and screenwriter Leigh Whannell came up with an idea they could bring to the screen for very little money: two men trapped in a room with chains on their ankles and hacksaws at hand. Then they built a fascinating story around those two men. The story of the Jigsaw Killer, who forces victims to play dangerous “games” to decide their fate. Most of them don’t survive. There’s also a mother and daughter being held at gunpoint, an obsessed detective chasing the wrong suspect, and a Jigsaw survivor who is grateful for the experience. And a jaw-dropping twist. Even if no sequels had ever been made, we’d still be talking about Saw as a classic thriller along the lines of Seven.

The post Saw Movies Ranked: From Worst to Best appeared first on JoBlo.

There’s just something inherently creepy about dolls, and filmmakers have had a lot of fun over the decades crafting horror stories around that creepiness. Audiences clearly love to see it, otherwise there wouldn’t be so many creepy / killer doll movies out there. So to celebrate this sub-genre, we decided to put together a list of some of the all-time best killer dolls. Not killer doll movies, but specific dolls. Here is our list of the Top 10 Killer Dolls!

ANNABELLE (THE CONJURING UNIVERSE)

This is a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” list entry if there ever was one. If we don’t include Annabelle – who scared people so badly in the opening scene of The Conjuring, she got her own spinoff franchise – there will be a lot of fans asking, “How could you leave Annabelle off a top 10 doll list?” If we do include her, genre fans will also point out that Annabelle doesn’t actually kill anybody. It’s the demon she hangs out with that’s the problem. But she is so popular, we’re forced to include her anyway. She may not walk around slashing up victims with a knife, but when she’s around, people are still in mortal danger.

DOLLY DEAREST (1991)

Sure, Dolly Dearest is a blatant Child’s Play ripoff… but it has such an an oppressively dark tone and features evil dolls (inhabited by an evil force called the Sanzia devil child) that are so ugly and creepy, that I found Dolly Dearest too unnerving to sit through when I was a kid. Despite the fact that I was already a Chucky fan by the time I tried to watch this one. So this little knife-wielding knockoff earns a place on the list.

DUMMY (TRILOQUIST – 2008)

Coming to us from director Mark Jones, the director of the original Leprechaun (and the less popular Rumpelstiltskin), Triloquist is an awful movie… but it’s one of those movies that is so bad, it can be highly entertaining to watch once or twice, if you’re in the right mindset. The small killer here is Dummy, a wooden ventriloquist dummy who seems to have somehow been imbued with a life of his own… and not only is he homicidal, he’s also quite horny. He hits the road with the trashy, bloodthirsty Angelina and the developmentally disabled Norbert for a cross-country killing spree, and Jones was clearly endeavoring to make the movie as sleazy and appalling as possible, packing it with wildly inappropriate dialogue. Watching Triloquist is quite an experience.

PIN (1988)

Technically, the life-size anatomy dummy Pin is not a killer. He’s just an inanimate object. But that doesn’t keep him from being an intensely creepy presence throughout the film. Terry O’Quinn plays Dr. Linden, who uses ventriloquism to have the dummy interact with young patients and even teach his own son and daughter life lessons. This is a terrible idea, because it convinces the son that Pin is a living being – especially after he witnesses his father’s nurse using the dummy as a sex toy. That also gives him sexual hang-ups, which leads to him taking an unhealthy interest in his sister’s sex life. Before you know it, people are getting killed. Pin himself isn’t the killer, but he’s at the heart of a well-made, twisted psychological thriller.

FATS (MAGIC – 1978)

I’ll put Fats back-to-back with Pin because they’re sort of in the same boat. Based on a novel by legendary screenwriter William Goldman and directed by Sir Richard Attenborough, Magic is a psychological thriller that stars Sir Anthony Hopkins as struggling magician Corky, who has a tumultuous relationship with his ventriloquist dummy Fats. Is Fats the mean, possessed, potentially homicidal little bastard he appears to be, or is Corky insane? Well, check the movie out and see what you think.

M3GAN (2023)

Like Annabelle, M3GAN is a James Wan production – but while the Annabelle doll isn’t actually a killer, there’s no confusion over whether or not the AI-powered robot doll M3GAN is a killer. She’s supposed to be a little girl’s best friend, but she’s not wired quite right, turning her protectiveness into a homicidal rampage. M3GAN can do the latest trendy TikTok dance to entertain the youngsters, then she racks up a body count when she’s not showing off her moves. She’s getting a sequel now and we’re looking forward to seeing the carnage she’ll cause in M3GAN 2.0.

BABY OOPSY (DEMONIC TOYS FRANCHISE)

I haven’t seen Imaginary as of this writing, but I’ve seen images of that teddy bear Chauncey, and I’ve also seen images of Chauncey where he has transformed into a hulking beast. It’s a familiar look, because I’ve seen this exact same thing done before, in the 1992 Full Moon classic Demonic Toys! That film features a teddy bear called Grizzly Teddy, which also turns into a large monster. He’s awesome, but the star of the Demonic Toys franchise – and the only toy that would be referred to as a doll – is Baby Oopsy, who has gone on to cause all sorts of trouble over the course of several movies.

ZUNI DOLL (TRILOGY OF TERROR – 1975)

There are three horror tales packed into the anthology Trilogy of Terror (thus the title), each one directed by Dan Curtis and based on a story by Richard Matheson. You have to wait until the third segment to be introduced to the tiny terror known as He Who Kills… but it’s worth the wait. This little guy is a total maniac who relentlessly pursues a young woman played by Karen Black throughout her apartment. This part of the movie proved to be so popular, the Zuni doll was brought back for a sequel story in Trilogy of Terror II twenty-one years later.

BLADE (PUPPET MASTER FRANCHISE)

There are a whole lot of killer dolls in the Puppet Master franchise, and each one of them has their adoring fans – which is why this is the biggest franchise on this list, currently standing strong at fifteen entries (and a sixteenth in development). But the most popular puppet of the bunch is Blade, who has a knife for one hand and a hook for the other. In some movies he’s a villain, in others he’s a hero, it all depends on who his master is at the time. He has slashed his way through humans (including a number of Nazis), battled tiny demons, and even faced off with the Demonic Toys. He usually has some puppet pals backing him up, but a few years ago, he even got a solo movie.

CHUCKY (CHILD’S PLAY FRANCHISE)

There are other popular killer dolls out there, but it’s not likely that any are ever going to surpass the popularity of Chucky… and, of course, we’re talking about the original Chucky here, although the Child’s Play remake was surprisingly good. A combination of impressive special effects, wild stories concocted by Don Mancini, and incredible vocal performances from Brad Dourif have made Chucky an iconic character we’ve been fascinated to watch through several feature films and now multiple seasons of a TV series as well.

HONORABLE MENTION: CLOWN DOLL (POLTERGEIST – 1982)

We had to include this one as an honorable mention. The Clown Doll doesn’t kill anyone; in fact, no one is killed in Poltergeist… but the Clown Doll certainly made an attempt to kill little Robbie, and it’s been scaring the hell out of viewers for over 40 years now.

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Jean-Claude Van Damme. The Muscles from Brussels. If you grew up in the early nineties, this handsome Belgian was everywhere. With his unique accent, good looks, and a butt he was all but too happy to show off at least once a film, he was the rare action star that was just as popular with the ladies as the dudes. Changing tastes in the mid-nineties meant that his career as a viable lead in theatrical films started to dry up, which wasn’t helped by some off-screen issues he had with drugs (a Hollywood tale as old as time). But, while his contemporary, Steven Seagal, became something of a parody of himself, JCVD got clean and doubled down on his craft, emerging as a surprisingly potent actor in some DTV movies that are way better than anyone gives them credit for. 

While his days as an A-list lead might be behind him, JCVD remains a guy you can’t help but love, and his legacy has been assured by the fact that he never stopped delivering decent movies (even if the budgets are lower) and has a good sense of humour about himself. And, oh yeah, he’s known to be a pretty nice guy to boot (and is the subject of one of our biggest What Happened to this Celebrity episodes of all time). But what are the best JCVD movies? Here are five (in chronological order).

Bloodsport (1988):

The fact is, you can’t do a Jean-Claude Van Damme best movies list without Bloodsport at the top of said list. The ironic thing is that Cannon Pictures, the film’s distributor, thought it was a disaster and it spent months on the shelf, with it coming very close to going straight to video. What saved the movie was the fact that the company badly overextended itself with a few big-budget duds in 1987, so in 1988, they needed product they could push. Bloodsport is probably the most profitable movie they ever made. Its theatrical gross was modest, but on home video, this cult movie became a monster, and it was an important stepping stone for Van Damme, who plays a real-life (and very controversial) martial artist named Frank Dux, who fights in the deadly underground Kumite. Everything about this movie is iconic at this point, from the power ballad-heavy soundtrack to Bolo Yeung as the villain and the many, many hard-as-nails fight sequences.

Kickboxer (1989):

While I don’t think Kickboxer is quite as slick or as well made as Bloodsport, it’s just as iconic in its way. In this one, JCVD avenges the maiming of his brother at the hands (and feet) of a brutal (and iconic) Muay Thai master, Tong Po. Van Damme has a great fight in this one at the end with Tong Po, where the fighters have to dip their hands in oil and broken glass to make the hand-to-hand fight all the more brutal (I loved in Hot Shots: Part Deux where they made fun of this by having the fighters dip their hands in hot fudge and candy). Plus, this is the one where Van Damme dances. 

Double Impact (1991):

Double the Van Dammage! That was the tagline my friends and I used to scream at each other at recess around when this movie was coming out. The fact that JCVD was playing twins in this one was a BIG deal at the time. My gym teacher was so enamoured with Van Damme that the door to his office prominently displayed this movie’s poster for most of the first half of the nineties. It’s an extremely rewatchable action movie, with Van Damme playing the wimpy ladies man, Chad, and the tough-as-nails anti-hero, Alex. Of course, in the end, Chad, who starts off as a wimp, becomes a total badass, while the hard Alex learns to embrace his softer side. They both learn something! The line readings in this one crack me up, such as the way JCVD says, “Hong Kong? Uncle Frankie – we have a business to run!” or, “I’d never wear silk underwear!” I also love that the producers were so desperate to squeeze a sex scene into this movie that they did it as a fantasy sequence. Then again, Jean Claude and his co-star Alonna Shaw looked good, so why not?

Universal Soldier (1992):

This one is slightly controversial. I considered putting Peter Hyams’s Timecop on the list, but our Director of Operations here at JoBlo, John Fallon, is a JCVD superfan and convinced me that Timecop is nowhere near as good as Universal Soldier. Given his bonafides (check out his pic with JCVD at the bottom of the article), I defer to his wisdom. Universal Soldier is pretty iconic, with JCVD and Dolph Lundgren playing reanimated Vietnam War veterans on a rampage. Lundgren steals this one with his necklace of ears and his whole “the war is out there, man” grocery store monologue. That said, JCVD would have his revenge years later when they both appeared in Universal Soldier: Day Of Reckoning, which might be the greatest DTV B-action movie ever. Van Damme KILLS in that one.

Hard Target (1993):

For me, Jean-Claude Van Damme’s best all-around movie is still Hard Target (in fact, it ended up on our 25 best action movies of all time list). John Woo is probably the greatest action movie director of all time, and it figures that he would deliver JCVD’s most impeccably assembled flick, with him playing a Cajun sailor named Chance Boudreau sporting one of the most glorious mullets since Patrick Swayze cleaned up the Double Deuce in Road House. However, it can’t be denied that the movie gets stolen by the amazing supporting cast, in particular Lance Henriksen, but also Arnold Vosloo, Yancy Butler, and Wilford Brimley, who, just like Christopher Lloyd many years later in Nobody, proves he was born to do action even if no one gave him the chance before he hit senior citizen status. 

What do you think are the five most essential Van Damme movies? Which ones should we add when we make this one into a top 10? Let us know in the comments!

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I love me some damn dirty apes, and I’m not alone. Ever since the first Planet of the Apes movie in 1968, it’s been one of Hollywood’s most consistent (on a quality level) franchises. Think about it. Has there ever really been a lousy Planet of the Apes movie? Not really. Yet, it’s often unheralded when we talk about the great franchises. So, let’s look at the series as a whole, with this Planet of the Apes movies ranked list (from worst to best). And don’t worry – you’ll get to have your say tomorrow with a poll I’ll be publishing, so check back for that.

Planet of the Apes (2001)

Tim Burton’s remake of the original 1968 classic is a mixed bag. Mark Wahlberg was a little too green at this point in his career to make a captivating action hero, with him paling compared to Charlton Heston’s powerhouse performance in the original. Nobody can play an astronaut crash landing on a planet of apes like Heston. The film itself is more than a little inconsistent, and I can see why it couldn’t launch a big new franchise for the studio, even if it did pretty well financially ($362 million worldwide). However, the makeup from Rick Baker is incredible, and the fact that it’s the last Apes movie to use the old, practical makeup FX instead of CGI makes it a must-see. Also, it’s one of Paul Giamatti’s favourite roles ever. 

Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1972)

In the sixties and seventies, sequels were made differently. The general consensus was always that a sequel would make less money than its predecessor, so the budgets were lower. As the Planet of the Apes series went on at 20th Century Fox, the studio started pumping less and less money into them, and Battle for the Planet of the Apes had a minuscule budget, resulting in the cheapest-looking Apes film of all time and the worst film in the original series. However, it still has Roddy McDowell acting his ass off in the culmination of the original Caesar trilogy. It also has a very eccentric supporting cast, with director John Huston and singer Paul Williams (The Phantom of the Paradise) turning up as Apes. Williams loved playing the part so much that he was known to turn up on talk shows wearing John Chambers’ makeup. Like all the other Apes movies, it made money for Fox, but rather than make an even cheaper sequel, they opted to spin the series off into a short-lived TV series they managed to get McDowell to return for. 

Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)

When Planet of the Apes was a smash hit, 20th Century Fox immediately committed to a sequel. But, as was the general thinking about sequels those days, it was not designed as an “A-feature” in the vein of the first film. That movie’s director, Franklin J. Schaffner, never considered returning, with him making the Oscar-winning Patton for the same studio instead. The budget was only a fraction of the first film’s, partly because the studio had suffered a series of costly flops. The result is a reasonably cheap-looking film, with TV actor James Franciscus taking over for Charlton Heston in the lead. However, they did manage to entice Heston back for an extended cameo, which allows the film to end on a provocatively gloomy note, making the movie worth watching. This is the only classic Apes movie that didn’t have Roddy McDowell in it, with him shooting another film while doing this – and his absence is sorely felt.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024)

Wes Ball’s new entry into the Apes saga is half a great movie. It’s terrific when it focuses on Ape culture and the new characters, such as Owen Teague’s Noa. But, when it starts to emphasize the humans and tee up yet another interspecies war, it becomes more of a mixed bag. We already have a pretty good trilogy on that very topic, so it would be nice to see this potential new series heading in another direction.

Escape From the Planet of the Apes (1971)

This one starts on a deceptively light note, with us seeing that Apes Zira (Kim Hunter) and Cornelius (Roddy McDowell) escaped the destruction of the planet of the apes (a future version of Earth) and have gone through a time warp that sends them back in time to 1973. Initially, they become celebrities, with the movie adopting a silly, sitcom-style tone, only to take a HARD left turn towards the finale, when it becomes a tragedy that expertly sets the stage for all the movies to come. 

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)

In my review of Kingdom, I mentioned this movie being a mixed bag, and I was surprised at how upset some folks got with me in the comments, as this is almost universally beloved among fans of the series. I remember it getting more of a mixed reaction when it originally came out, and I stand by the idea that it’s a GOOD film, but the sequels are better. James Franco phones in his performance, but it doesn’t matter in the end because the movie wisely focuses on Andy Serkis, delivering the motion capture performance for our new ape hero, Caesar. John Lithgow is excellent in this as Franco’s dementia-affected father, who becomes a surrogate parent to Caesar, leading to a heartbreaking conclusion.

War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)

The reboot trilogy ended with this all-out war film depicting how humans lost control of the planet due to their desire to re-establish dominance over the Apes. Some found the film overly self-serious and dark, but it brought the reboot trilogy to an operatic end and gave Serkis a platform to deliver (perhaps) his best mo-cap performance to date. Woody Harrelson also makes one of the most despicable human villains in the series (to date).

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)

For me, this stands as the best entry in the reboot trilogy. It was Matt Reeves’ first time making a super large-scale blockbuster, and he does a better job than most other films in the series of juggling the screen time between humans and aes, with Gary Oldman playing the most sympathetic antagonist the series ever had. 

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972)

While Beneath and Escape the Planet of the Apes were hits, Fox continued slashing every subsequent instalment’s budget. Yet, the silver lining was that the movies were able to tackle riskier material, with director J. Lee Thompson and his writer Paul Dehn making the film a metaphor for fraught race relations in the U.S, with this very much informed by the battle for Civil Rights, the rise of the Black Panthers, and more. The film’s theatrical cut was toned down a bit by Fox, but if you watch it on Blu-ray, you’ll see the legit, uncompromised cut, with it standing as one of the more radical sci-fi films of the era.

Planet of the Apes (1968)

Of course, no movie in the series can match Franklin J. Schaffer’s original entry, one of the best science fiction movies ever made. It’s a very influential film, with stunning makeup effects courtesy of John Chambers, a superb musical score by Jerry Goldsmith, and an iconic performance by the great Charlton Heston in the lead. It also has one of the most unhinged, disturbing endings of all time. As good as every other movie in the franchise is, this one is arguably the only true masterpiece of the series. That said, in my opinion, again, there’s never actually been a bad Planet of the Apes movie. 

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