I’m speechless. I’ve seen some strange Science Fiction and fantasy films in my time but The Similars is one of the most outlandish: it is bizarre, nearly inexplicable and yet somehow grounded despite all the weirdness. We know we’re in for a freakish ride from the very start, as the film opens with a Rod […]
Read more "Los Parecidos [The Similars] (2015)"Look, I’m not sure I believe it either. But everything I can find says that this is, in fact, a lost Independent short film from 1938, a silent film made almost a decade into the sound era. The story is that Richard Lyford was an independent playwright and screenwriter who made nine award-winning Independent films […]
Read more "As the Earth Turns (1938)"Look, I know this one is preposterous. An ocean liner, the Goliath, is torpedoed at the very start of World War II. It sinks but somehow a bubble of air gets caught in the hull. It sinks a thousand feet deep, but they manage to create enough pressure to keep the ship from collapsing on […]
Read more "Goliath Awaits (1981)"I suspect that Der Tunnel may have been the first feature length science fiction film. Certainly I don’t know of any that have survived that are older. Whether there are any lost films out there I’m not aware of is another question. After all, it is estimated that something like Ninety per cent of silent […]
Read more "Der Tunnel (1915)"I have a sneaking suspicion about this film: while the original Japanese title is clearly a transliterated version of the English title, they probably thought the name of mysterious superhero figure at the center of this film had the same format as all those American superhero characters: “SlaveMAN” rather than “SlaveMEN.” But that’s just my […]
Read more "Sureibumen [Slavemen] (2017)"(aka, Bermuda: the Cursed Pit) (Spoilers ahead!) When I sat down to write this, I had to stop and check to see if there was a movie out there called “Bermuda Sharks“. Nope. I would have sworn I’d seen that one advertised somewhere. Maybe the DVD rack at the video story, maybe in my Amazon […]
Read more "Bermude: la fossa maledetta [Cave of the Sharks] (1978)"Before I get started, I need to grumble a bit. One of the most frustrating problems with IMDB (not the only one, by any means) is the surprisingly poor coverage of Chinese film (new and old) on the site. I have repeated found myself stymied when I try to locate them. Sometimes it is because […]
Read more "Full Metal Duel (2016)"I should know better by now. I mean, I keep getting lured into these things. Yes, I know most Sci Fi (or Syfy) Channel movies are dreck. But there are a few of them — not many, mind you — which are halfway decent. So I keep finding myself watching the things, because of this […]
Read more "Alien Lockdown [Creature] (2004)"Look, the last thing I want to do is bash someone’s backyard passion project film. I understand what a tremendous effort it is to make even a small, Independent film, and you know that anyone who sets out to make such a project puts everything they have into it and more. But, I’m sorry, some […]
Read more "Monsters of War (2021)"There’s a particular type of film I love that doesn’t always get as much love from other reviewers. I’m referring to the pulp adventure story, those movies which somehow capture the classic flavor of a Twenties or Thirties adventure novel, with its exotic settings and sensational events, and a plot which takes a few sudden […]
Read more "Warlords of Atlantis [Warlords of the Deep] (1978)"
rivets on the poster 