Black Christmas (aka 'Stranger In The House') (1974)

This 1974 movie starring Margot Kidder continues a long tradition of suspense movies about women (usually one, but here a whole sorority houseful) threatened by - but safe inside from - a lunatic, eventually realising the danger comes from inside, not outside, the safehaven (The Spiral Staircase, When A Stranger Calls, for example) and it is an exceptionally effective, intelligent horror thriller: well-acted, with a large number of characters all fleshed-out and strong; rich in detail, and with some good humour which helps make, by comparison, the last twenty minutes especially deranged and terrifying!

★★★★★

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2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984)

This science fiction sequel is fascinating for having special effects that are worse in 1984 than the prequel in 1968 sixteen years earlier, and where that Kubrick film was philosophical, metered, balletic and profound, this is like a DLC expansion pack offering fans a quick add-on storyline that isn't terrible (Russian and American astronauts investigate the failed Discovery One mission to Jupiter) but is certainly, compared with the original, obvious, cursory, and fairly forgettable with a narrative driven by Captain Kirk-style diary logs. 

★★★☆☆

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2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Based on an Arthur C Clarke story, Stanley Kubrick's unhurried sci-fi masterpiece and auto sensory meridian response tapping exercise starts with a group of apes in prehistoric times discovering a sheer, smooth monolith and ends millions of years later with an astronaut and a sinister sentient computer program called HAL 9000 on a mission to investigate a similar structure that has turned up in space.

★★★★★

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