It’s only a step from “it was inevitable” to “you’ve got to be kidding!” Now those of you who lived through the Eighties can probably remember how, a decade later, several popular horror franchises suddenly moved their latest movies into outer space. Critters may have been the first, but such unlikely franchises as Leprechaun, Friday The […]
Read more "Amityville in Space (2022)"I’m really not sure what to make of this one. Certainly the blurb on the posters isn’t any help. Whatever else we’re talking about here, it isn’t “A Science Fiction Road Picture.” Admittedly, that term “road picture” has strayed a bit from its origins with the endless series of “Road To…” movies Bing Crosby and […]
Read more "The Rising Light (2013)"It’s nice to see that some things never change. As I’ve noted before, Canadian-made science fiction films have a tendency towards weirdness. If you have any doubt about that, you might want to check out a few of their typical offerings, like Big Meat Eater, Terminal City Ricochet, Music of the Spheres, Savannah Electric Monochrome Dystopia, or […]
Read more "Mars et Avril [Mars and April] (2012)"Mainland China has not produced many horror films. Not that I’m sure Beauty Head of the Haunted House is a horror film. In fact, it is about as unclassifiable as any genre film can be. Certainly there are horror elements, but there are also a lot of other things which do not neatly fit into […]
Read more "Xiong zhai mei ren tou [Beauty Head of the Haunted House] (1989)"(aka, The Tin Girl) I really don’t know what to make of this film. But as it is an arty, Seventies, Italian comedy, that isn’t a bad thing. The time? Well, it must be the future: there’s talk of aliens, going to the moon, and even a company building robots. But it can’t be too […]
Read more "La ragazza di latta (1970)"You learn what you are up against in the first few minutes of Mercano the Martian. Mercano — a little, green, squiggily-animated Martian — has just stolen a computer and run away from the police. They follow him down into the subway, only one of the cops — who is afraid of heights — slides […]
Read more "Mercano, el marciano [Mercano the Martian] (2002)"Honorable Mention This is an odd one. I struggle with finding some way to classify this one, but it just refuses to cooperate. I suppose you might label it a Giallo mystery — many have — but it doesn’t have any of the usual trappings of that Italian subgenre: we have no secret killer with […]
Read more "Circuito chiuso [Closed Circuit] (1978)"You know there is something wrong right from the beginning. A raging storm, a row of spikes set out on the road, a tire blows out, and a young man is forced to go to a neighboring house for help. Only the suspiciously helpful man he meets has a very strange request for him. As […]
Read more "Ultrasound (2021)"I had a sudden epiphany the other day and realized the correct term for one of Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson’s films is a “try-to-wrap-your-head-around-this-one.” It isn’t anything as simple as what is called the “mind (*Bleep*)”: after all, many of the films generally dumped in that category do not actually make sense as so […]
Read more "Something in the Dirt (2022)"Curiouser and curiouser. This was my third early Sixties Italian science fiction film for the weekend. And, by far, the oddest. Even for the early Sixties. Now there are still a few little-known science fiction movies from the age before Lucas lurking out there which I haven’t seen yet. But it isn’t always easy to […]
Read more "La poupée [The Doll] (1962)"
rivets on the poster 