Santo el Enmascarado de Plata vs ‘La invasión de los marcianos’ [Santo vs. the Martian Invasion] (1967)

A spaceship full of buff Mexican wrestlers from Mars show up to conquer our planet, but fortunately, we’ve got the legendary Santo, aka, the Silver Mask on our side! I grew up in the Eighties, when the whole WWF wrestling thing was at its peak, and I have never understood the appeal of wrestling. And […]

Gamera: Rebirth (2023)

I don’t know… There’s so much to like here. And then there’s the rest of this heavily Kids-centric anime take on the classic Japanese Movie Monster. It sounded so promising: we haven’t had any new Gamera projects for a very long time, except for that all-too-brief Fiftieth Anniversary short film which was so stunning that […]

Plaga zombie (1997)

So here’s the story. Three nineteen year old kids in Argentina got together and made a movie. Supposedly, they only spent $450 on the film and created all of the zombie makeup and gore using whatever they had on hand. Which seems to have been mostly cake frosting. Lots of cake frosting. Their homemade epic […]

Daicon Film’s Return of Ultraman (1983)

Elsewhere, I reviewed the 1985 fan film Yamata no Orochi no Gyakushu [Eight-Headed Giant Serpent’s Counterattack], which was made by a group of young film enthusiasts who called themselves Daicon. That may not sound particularly familiar, but I suspect that those of you who are into anime know them by their later name: Gainax, the […]

The Drivetime (1995)

I’m not bothered by a bit of arty editing, or weird imagery, unconventional storytelling approaches, or any of the other things you will find in films made for the art house market. In fact, that sort of thing can be a nice change, when you’ve seen too many routine low budget films or overblown blockbusters. […]

All About Mighty Lady (1984)

I don’t know. I think the Japanese were willing to release almost anything on VHS back in the Eighties. Of course, from my point of view, this isn’t a bad thing. Consider the curious case of Ichiro Ômomo: back in 1983, he created a short, 8mm student film, about Mighty Lady, a giant robot-like lady […]

The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998)

(aka, The X-Files, X-Files: The Movie) I watched this one because Dave Cullen praised it. That isn’t the only favorable review of the film I’ve seen, not by a long shot. A lot of people liked this film, and most of them would agree with Dave’s assessment that it is a solid standalone thriller and […]

Dinosaur Valley Girls (1996)

This is one of those films that is really two films. On the one hand, we have a lot of dinosaurs. This is a very low budget sort of film, dangerously close to a fan film, and the dinosaurs, as a result look very primitive. And I will concede that I absolutely love bad dinosaur […]

Babylon 5: The Road Home (2023)

Look, I love Babylon 5. I mean really, deeply, truly, absolutely adore it. I watched every single episode and TV movie as they first came out, from that first TV movie which debuted a year before the series launched, through the sequel series Crusade and even that last spin-off, The Legend of the Rangers: To […]

The Killer Robots and the Battle for the Cosmic Potato (2009)

The opening scene of this film (featuring aliens, big machines and a giant green monster) is followed by a title card announcing, “Five Billion Years Later.” Which is a fairly good warning just what sort of movie you’ve got yourself into. Now, if you have any doubts about who The Killer Robots are, when we […]

rivets on the poster

“The difference between science fiction and fantasy … is simply this: science fiction has rivets and fantasy has trees.” — Orson Scott Card

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