As I sit down to write this, I find myself asking a very strange question: Is Memory Run a Canadian film? Yeah, I know it was filmed in Toronto, and that IMDB lists Canada (and the US) as its country of origin. But that’s not quite the same thing. After all, the homegrown Canadian Science […]
Read more "Memory Run (1995)"Thanks to his legendary work on the Quatermass serials, we tend to think of Nigel Kneale as a science fiction writer. But this isn’t really true. Or perhaps we should say that’s what he said. After all, he was never happy that he had been labeled a science fiction writer. A closer look at his […]
Read more "Kinvig (1981)"I’m trying to figure out what signals so clearly that this is a super cheap film. I mean, I’ve seen worse monster makeup in far more expensive films. Nor does the film quality look that much worse than most Eighties horror films. Perhaps it is the lack of music most of the time and the […]
Read more "Bloodsuckers from Outer Space (1984)"(aka, The Star Diaries) This is frustrating. Here we have a brilliant and extremely funny Science Fiction television series, one which ranks right up there with the best science fiction comedy series ever made, like the Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Red Dwarf, and yet… No one knows about it. Not in the […]
Read more "Ijon Tichy: Raumpilot [Ijon Tichy: Space Pilot] (2007)"(aka, Jie ma you xi) A Chinese Hacker Thriller? Well, they have been making films in almost every Western genre — or subgenre. So why not? Mind you, the classic Hacker Thriller has been a bit scarce lately even if it does surface again now and then. But that, once again leads us to the […]
Read more "Reborn (2018)"Honorable Mention Strange. I never thought of William Devane as an action hero. But I suppose on Television in the 1970s almost anything was possible, particularly when it came to TV movies. For example, it came as a bit of a shock when I realized that this movie came out two years before the film […]
Read more "Red Alert (1977)"Not long ago, I reviewed Specimens (1982), one of the best of the films made by Irish amateur filmmaker, Roy Spence, who works out of the cinema he owns in Comer, County Down. He’s made over forty films over his fifty year career, and you can find all of them in The Irish Film Archive. You […]
Read more "The Attack of the Saucer People (1981)"After watching the outrageous and deliberately old school Rat Scratch Fever (2011), I’ll confess that I found myself wondering whether any of its director, Jeff Leroy’s other films had achieved that same blissful level of absurdity. I’d seen his later film, Giantess Attack (2017), which had much of the same goofy, old school, retro feel, as […]
Read more "Creepies (2004)"What exactly makes someone a cult filmmaker? Let’s face it, the whole question of what makes a film a cult film is poorly defined — and I really don’t see that it is possible to come up with a really good definition. After all, I’ve seen the label slapped on a lot of filmmakers and […]
Read more "Atlantis (1991)"There are some movies where it comes as no surprise that Troma films decided to distribute the film, even though they didn’t actually make it. I mean who else in their more or less right state of mind would ever decide to distribute a film like Nightmare Weekend? I’m not sure there is any right […]
Read more "Nightmare Weekend (1986)"
rivets on the poster 