Look, some films just can’t make up their minds what the heck they are. And perhaps the most clueless and misguided film made in the Eighties was Nightmare at Noon. You’ve got to love the opening, with a sinister white-clad figure with lots of glowing green hair — well, it’s actually white, but lit by […]
Read more "Nightmare at Noon (1988)"A few words about Piotr Szulkin are in order: Piotr made four blackly comic political satires disguised as Science Fiction comedies in Poland during the 1980s, at a time when the Polish government was one of the most oppressive on Earth. You don’t have to squint too hard to recognize that, whether he’s talking about a […]
Read more "Ga, Ga – Chwala bohaterom [Ga-ga: Glory to the Heroes] (1986)"The Eighties were a really strange time. If you don’t believe me, look at some of the films made back in those days. Consider, for example, Remote Control: I mean, we’re used to science fiction films in which everyone wears shiny silver clothes, often with wide shoulders. But one set in the Eighties? Mind you, […]
Read more "Remote Control (1988)"“The media said there was nothing falling from the sky. But everyone knew there was. “It was Boomtown, forty miles up and falling apart, piece by piece.” Something strange happened back in the Canada of the 1980s. I honestly don’t know what, but they produced a lot of very strange low budget films, most of which […]
Read more "Terminal City Ricochet (1990)"(aka, Unknown Origin) As I’ve mentioned before, if you can’t find one of the films Roger Corman produced, there’s usually a reason. In fact, now that his early films like Not of This Earth are finally out on DVD, one might note that there is almost an inverse relationship between how hard it is to […]
Read more "The Alien Within (1995)"(aka, Dave Thomas: The Incredible Time Travels of Henry Osgood) Hope. It’s amazing how we cling to it at times. Consider The Incredible Time Travels of Henry Osgood just for an example. Now I’d read a few rather indifferent reviews, but they weren’t quite enough to deter me from watching — and not, I’ll point out, […]
Read more "The Incredible Time Travels of Henry Osgood (1986)"Wow. That’s all I can say about this one. Wow. The Czech film industry made some of the best science fiction comedies ever made, and this is one of the best of those wonderful films. I can’t say it’s entirely a surprise, as Václav Vorlícek — the same man who gave us two incredible comedies, […]
Read more "Coz takhle dát si spenát [How About a Plate of Spinach?] (1977)"“In July of 1999, a panel of nuclear physicists discussed the possibility that a heavy ion collider experiment could result in the formation of a black hole. “After an extended debate, the panel decided that such a scenario was not just highly unlikely, but impossible.” And, of course, when we see a statement like this […]
Read more "The Black Hole (2006)"(Literal translation: The Underground Chamber) It’s hard to believe this is a children’s film. I mean, look at the beginning of this film: darkness, and a deep, resonant surge of sound, glimpses of the mechanism of a Planetarium, alternating with a steady beeping and elegant Bengali script against blackness. In the heart of it all, […]
Read more "Patalghar (2003)"Let’s see if I got this straight… Your typical evil drilling corporation’s offshore drilling rig somehow managed to release, from thousands of feet below the Earth’s surface, a… Fifty foot shark. Right. Shouldn’t have used the big drill bit, right? Now I almost hesitate to note this as this is a Polonia Brothers film. This […]
Read more "Jurassic Shark 2: Aquapocalypse (2021)"
rivets on the poster 