If there were any justice in the world of Cinema, you’d have heard of Andras Rajnai by now. And maybe even be his biggest fan. He was one of the most remarkable talents in the field of science fiction and fantasy film, and yet very few people have ever heard of him because he made […]
Read more "Gyémántpiramis [Diamond Pyramid] (1985)"I’ve always loved animated science fiction films, particularly those which are set in outer space. Unfortunately, they are quite rare. Well, outside the world of Japanese anime, that is. Very few were made in the English-speaking world, but for some reason a number of quite interesting examples came out of Europe. Or it might be […]
Read more "Fiul Stelelor [The Son of the Stars] (1985)"Parallel Evolution. That’s the only explanation I can find. Here we have two movies with a remarkably similar story, which came out the same year and only three months apart: the first, Joe Dante’s shaggy dog of a science fiction epic, Explorers, and the other a little-seen Czech children’s film. There’s no way they saw Joe […]
Read more "Tretí sarkan [The Third Dragon] (1985)"The most difficult problem with zombie movies is figuring out which ones are actually zombie movies. There is a major divide among the faithful over the traditional, lumbering classic Romero zombies, and the far more aggressive fast zombies, or rage zombies, popularized by 28 Days Later because so many fans refuse to accept these rage-filled […]
Read more "Warning Sign (1985)"…And here we are, yet again, back to the hackers. One of the earliest examples, in fact. Although, to be fair, it is basically a rip-off of War Games (1983), which may be the earliest. Well, except for Tron. And there are quite a few earlier thrillers out there about surveillance and wiretapping which might […]
Read more "Prime Risk (1985)"Honorable mention Real Genius is about the development of a death ray laser. And any picture of the film you’ve just imagined is probably completely wrong. Although, to be fair, the first few moments of the film would undoubtedly support those images, because we witness the launch of a cool, lifting body spaceship (which looks […]
Read more "Real Genius (1985)"This one was a dry run for Richard Stanley’s legendary and very punk cyberpunk cult film, Hardware. Although I’ll warn you: it is a very different film from Hardware, even if the similarities are there. And rather obvious. However, I do need to warn you about one important detail: it isn’t a story about fighting […]
Read more "Incidents in an Expanding Universe (1985)"I never thought I would see this film. And now, not only have I seen it, but I’ve seen two different versions of the film. When I first heard of it, under its original name, Savannah Electric Monochrome Dystopia (which I still prefer!), it was almost a myth, one of those tiny independent films you […]
Read more "Savannah Electric Monochrome Dystopia [The Savannah Resistance; Savannah Electric] (1985)"(Literal translation: Opening Fire. aka, Jungle of Death, En busca del astronauta Maya. Literal translation: In Search of the Mayan Astronaut) I suppose it doesn’t help that I could only find a singularly bad rip of this rare Mexican film that actually had any sort of subtitles. And those were auto-translated auto-subs. But I still […]
Read more "Abriendo fuego (1985)"It can be so hard to tell whether a zombie film is science fiction or not. Take The Return of the Living Dead: we have the usual government secret weapon, we have barrels full of zombies, and the usual accidental release. But this time around, those darn zombies don’t seem to have any physical constraints […]
Read more "The Return of the Living Dead (1985)"
rivets on the poster 