A former priest, Frederic Mason (Henry Czerny), anguished by the tragic death of his young daughter, finds himself wrestling with his religious convictions when a mysterious young man (Mark O'Brien) appears wounded on his doorstop in need of assistance. After he and his wife Ethel (Mimi Kuzyk) welcome him across the threshold and into their household, Frederic sees an opportunity for redemption in this mysterious and troubled lost soul, who might just be an emissary from God, or maybe the Devil... A brooding occult horror with echoes of Bergman and Pasolini. Set amongst the bleak and forbidding landscapes of Newfoundland, and featuring robust performances from all its cast members, The Righteous is a sombre supernatural chiller that builds to a memorable crescendo, and signals the emergence of a major new filmmaking talent.

After terrifying audiences worldwide with the blockbuster J-horror classic Ring and its sequel, director Hideo Nakata returned to the genre for Dark Water, another highly atmospheric, and critically acclaimed, tale of the supernatural which took the common theme of the "dead wet girl" to new heights of suspense and drama. Based upon on a short story by Ring author Koji Suzuki, Dark Water follows Yoshimi, a single mother struggling to win sole custody of her only child, Ikuko. When they move into a new home within a dilapidated and long-forgotten apartment complex, Yoshimi begins to experience startling visions and unexplainable sounds, calling her mental well-being into question, and endangering not only her custody of Ikuko, but perhaps their lives as well. Beautifully shot by the same cinematographer as Ring and Pulse, and featuring an especially unnerving sound design, Dark Water successfully merges spine-tingling tension with a family's heart-wrenching emotional struggle, creating one of the very finest and most unsettling contemporary Japanese horror films.

RAW GUTS FOR GLORY! FLESH AGAINST STEEL! The most dangerous game ever devised, to pit man against man, flesh against steel - the figure-8 race! Jack Hill (Coffy, Foxy Brown) follows up Spider Baby, once again teaming up with Sid Haig (House of 1000 Corpses) in one of his greatest roles for this action-spectacular crash-o-rama! Richard Davalos (East of Eden) stars as Rick Bowman, a street punk who winds up in jail after a street race goes wrong. Bailed out by race promoter Grant Willard, Davalos is put in the deadly track where he comes up against Haig's maniacal winner Hawk Sidney. Featuring an outstanding supporting cast including Brian Donlevy (The Quatermass Xperiment) in his last film appearance, Ellen Burstyn, billed as Ellen McRae (The Exorcist), and Beverly Washburn (Spider Baby), Pit Stop is one of Hill's lesser known films but arguably his greatest. Filmed on a real figure-8 track, Hill and his crew were able to capture gripping real-life car wreck scenes lending the film a brilliant sense of realism. You've never seen a motion picture like this before - can you take it?

YOU BELIEVE IN REVENGE BUT I DON'T... IT NEVER ENDS Inspired by the international success of the Dollars trilogy, and dedicated to director Sergio Leone, Cemetery Without Crosses offers a Gallic spin on the Spaghetti Western formula thanks to its star and creator, Robert Hossein (best-known to English-speaking audiences for his role in Jules Dassin's Rififi). After her husband is lynched by bandits, Michele Mercier (Mario Bava's Black Sabbath) seeks revenge and turns to an old friend, played by Hossein, for help. A solitary figure who lives in a ghost town and dons a single black glove before each gunfight, Hossein is initially reluctant but soon infiltrates the widow's enemies to force a showdown. Cemetery Without Crosses is a darker breed of Western, bleak and melancholy in tone amid the explosive set pieces. It also boasts an outstanding score by composer Andre Hossein (father of Robert) and the catchiest of themes, sung by cult figure Scott Walker.

Date. Mate. Re-animate. The success of Stuart Gordon's hit horror-comedy Re-animator meant that a sequel was all but inevitable. The resulting follow-up, Bride of Re-animator - this time helmed by director Brian Yuzna (Society, Return of the Living Dead 3) - would prove that there was a good deal more life left in the story of Dr. Herbert West and his ghoulish exploits. It is 8 years since the Miskatonic massacre. Unperturbed by the disastrous outcome of his previous meddling with the dead, Dr. West (again played by Jeffrey Combs) continues his research into the phenomenon of re-animation; only this time, he plans to create life - starting with the heart of his young protégé Dan's dearly deceased, Meg Halsey. Surely nothing could go wrong? With special effects master Screaming Mad George (the man behind the infamous "shunting" sequence in Society) on hand to contribute a host of characteristically weird and wonderful creations - including zombified bats and a one-eyed finger spider - Bride of re-animator is a more than worthy successor to Gordon's original cult classic.

Shinichi "Sonny" Chiba is a martial arts "manimal" in the ultra-70's, 100% bizarre mixture of horror, action and sci-fi that is Wolf Guy, one of the rarest and most sought-after cult films produced by Japan's Toei Studio. Based on a manga by Kazumasa Hirai (creator of 8 Man), and never before released outside of Japan, it's a genre film classic waiting to be discovered and a completely unclassifiable trip into phantasmagoric funk. Chiba stars as Akira Inugami, the only survivor of a clan of ancient werewolves who relies on his supernatural powers to solve mysterious crimes. After a series of bloody killings perpetrated by an unseen force, Inugami uncovers a conspiracy involving a murdered cabaret singer, corrupt politicians, and a plot by the J-CIA to harvest his blood in order to steal his lycanthropic powers! At the same time, Inugami also discovers the truth behind his family heritage, and that he may not be the last of his kind. Directed by B-movie genius Kazuhiko Yamaguchi (Sister Streetfighter, Wandering Ginza Butterfly, Karate Bear Fighter), Wolf Guy truly is one-of-a-kind, with Chiba in full effect as the part-man, part-wolf, all-karate action hero and a collection of familiar 1970's Toei actors in support. Violence, action, nudity, real surgical footage, and a psychedelic musical score all work together to create an unforgettable trip to the heights of Japanese cinematic weirdness.

MANY PEOPLE VISIT ... NO ONE EVER LEAVES. Helmed by legendary producer/director Ovidio Assonitis, the man behind such cult favourites as The Visitor and Piranha II: The Spawning, Madhouse is a crimson-soaked tale of sibling rivalry taken to a terrifying and bloody extreme. Julia has spent her entire adult life trying to forget the torment she suffered at the hands of her twisted twin Mary... but Mary hasn't forgotten. Escaping hospital, where she's recently been admitted with a horrific, disfiguring illness, Julia's sadistic sister vows to exact a particularly cruel revenge on her sibling this year - promising a birthday surprise that she'll never forget. An Italian production shot entirely in Savannah, Georgia, Madhouse (aka And When She Was Bad and There Was a Little Girl) fuses slasher elements with the over-the-top excess of '80s Italian terror - resulting in a cinematic bloodbath so gut-wrenching that the British authorities saw fit to outlaw it as a "video nasty".

Loosely based on Edgar Allan Poe's classic tale "The Black Cat", Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key, from director Sergio Martino (Torso), weaves the key motifs from Poe's gothic yarn into one of the most sensual films from the Golden era of giallo. Luigi Pistilli (Milano Calibro 9, A Bay of Blood) plays writer Oliviero, an abrasive drunk who amuses himself by holding drunken orgies at his grand country manor - much to the displeasure of his long-suffering wife (Anita Strindberg). But this decadence is soon rocked by a series of grisly murders, in which Oliviero finds himself implicated. Notable for giving screen starlet Edwige Fenech her first "bad girl" role, Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key, with its many unexpected twists and turns, is just as bewitching as its title would suggest.

From Italy's own Godfather of Gore Lucio Fulci (Zombie, The Gates of Hell) comes The Black Cat - a gruesome reimagining of the classic Edgar Allan Poe tale starring Patrick Magee (A Clockwork Orange) and Mimsy Farmer (The Perfume of the Lady in Black). When a young couple goes missing in a sleepy English village, Scotland Yard Inspector Gorley (David Warbeck, The Beyond) is brought in to assist on the case. But what starts off as routine investigation turns into a murder inquiry when the couple are found dead in mysterious circumstances. Fusing a classically gothic atmosphere with the decidedly more visceral elements that are the hallmark of Fulci's films, The Black Cat is a too-often overlooked and underrated entry in the Italian master filmmaker's canon.

In career that has encompassed such controversial classics as Ms. 45, Bad Lieutenant and Welcome to New York, none of Abel Ferrara's films have quite managed to match the shock, extremity and downright notorious nature of The Driller Killer. Ferrara plays struggling artist Reno, a man pushed to the edge by the economic realities of New York living in the late seventies and the No Wave band practising in the apartment below. His grip on reality soon begins to slip and he takes to stalking the streets with his power tool in search of prey... Forget Taxi Driver, The Warriors and The New York Ripper, The Driller Killer is the definitive look at NYC's underbelly - a slasher that is as much at home in the arthouse as it is the grindhouse.

Considered by many to be director Kinji Fukasaku's greatest single-film achievement in the yakuza genre, Cops vs Thugs was made at the height of popularity of Toei Studios' jitsuroku boom: realistic, modern crime movies based on true stories taken from contemporary headlines. Returning to the screen after completing their Battles Without Honor and Humanity series together, Fukasaku joined forces once again with screenwriter Kazuo Kasahara, composer Toshiaki Tsushima and star Bunta Sugawara to create one of the crowning achievements of his career, and a hard-boiled classic which is still ranked as one of the best Japanese films of the 1970's.

After a long absence, legendary Kaiju terrapin Gamera returned to the big screen in the ‘90s with Gaurdian of the Universe (just in time for his 30th anniversary), with upgraded special effects and a more serious tone. Gamera, the original "hero in a half-shell" (Arrow Video) has been the definitive box-office rival to Godzilla for decades. In Guardian, Gamera faces off against an evolved version of his old foe, the flying monster Gyaos, first clashing in Fukuoka before taking the battle to the skies over Tokyo in a spectacular aerial showdown.

The ever-prolific Takashi Miike (Audition, Ichi the Killer) returns with this intergalactic epic in which a team of space explorers find themselves pitched against a horde of oversized anthropomorphic cockroaches. Based on the popular Manga series of the same name, Terra Formars is an action-packed space adventure brought to life by one of Japan’s most celebrated contemporary filmmakers.

In cyberspace, no one can hear you scream! This turn-of-the-millennium cyber psycho-thriller from Nico Mastorakis showcases the usual gleeful eye for excess and inspired casting (incl.rock stars Roger Daltrey and Huey Lewis) one has come to expect from the cult director. Nastassja Kinski (Cat People) stars as a a young woman confined to a wheelchair who decides to have a bit of fun on an internet dating site with her friend Misty (Nicollette Sheridan, The Sure Thing) while her architect boyfriend Ben (Daltrey) leaves her alone for the weekend in the high-tech intelligent mansion he has built for them. Online anonymity works both ways, however, as they discover when they invoke the ire of a young man going by the handle of "Werther" and find the virtual world violently intruding upon the real, knife in hand...

For his tenth feature, Terry Gilliam (Time Bandits, Twelve Monkeys) adapted Mitch Cullin's celebrated cult novel Tideland, a work he once described as "Alice in Wonderland meets Psycho through the eyes of Amélie." To escape her unhappy life in a remote part of Texas, nine-year-old Jeliza-Rose dreams up an elaborate fantasy world. But the reality of having junkie parents - played by Jeff Bridges (The Big Lebowski) and Jennifer Tilly (Bound) - and the influence of her eccentric neighbours begins to encroach, turning her daydreams ever darker. A rich slice of Southern Gothic blurring whimsical fantasy with unsettling reality, Tideland is among Gilliam's most personal works - indeed, with its shifts between the amusing and the macabre, expressive camerawork and striking special effects, the film could be the very definition of Gilliamesque!