“If you can’t say it, go see it!” Let’s face it: the idea of watching a film with a title like The Hidan of Maukbeiangjow is somewhat daunting. Even if it did get retitled The Invasion of the Girl Snatchers. So daunting, in fact, that they had to address it in the original trailer: In […]
Read more "The Hidan of Maukbeiangjow [The Invasion of the Girl Snatchers] (1973)"There are some movies you know you are never ever, ever going to watch. Nope, wouldn’t even consider it, not for a moment. And yet, I don’t know how it happens, but you end up just giving in and watching them anyway. Take City of Rott 2, for example. I first learned about this one […]
Read more "City of Rott 2 (2014)"Look, it’s a Hong Kong thing. Either you accept it for what it is, or you go off and watch something safe, like a Hallmark Christmas Movie or a SyFy network original “vs.” giant monster movie. Both of which are distinctively American in the same way that HK Chopsockey comedies are so very Hong Kong, […]
Read more "Zui jia pai dang 2: Da xian shen tong [Mad Mission Part 2: Aces Go Places] (1983)"Okay, it surprised me. Ang Lee directed this? Lee is one of those critically acclaimed foreign directors who’s won all sorts of awards and accolades for his mainstream films, including a few he actually made in Hollywood. And we do know that Hollywood, in its infinite wisdom, gets such directors to make… Action movies. I […]
Read more "Gemini Man (2019)"(aka Alien Showdown: The Day the Old West Stood Still; American Cowboys Vs. Aliens; Alien Predator War) When you see a film with this many names, you know you are in trouble — particularly when it ran as an original on the SyFy channel. However, despite the SyFy label, this is clearly something even cheaper, made […]
Read more "Alien Showdown (2018)"This is one of those films where you pretty much know what you get just by looking at the cast and crew list: Fred Olen Ray directed? Marc Singer starred? Brinke Stevens gets prominent billing? It was produced by Roger Corman’s New Horions Pictures? It must be a cheap SF/fantasy action film with plenty of […]
Read more "Droid Gunner [Cyberzone] (1995)"It was perhaps the finest moment in John Carpenter’s career. Just three years after the surprise success of his genre-defining serial killer film, Halloween, with a couple of TV movies and an interesting ghost story (The Fog) in between, John made one of his most famous films, the Eighties movie of Eighties movies, Escape from New […]
Read more "Escape from New York (1981)"It’s curious how a little distance can give us a new perspective on things. When I first saw this, I dismissed it as one of John Carpenter’s long list of current missfires – better, by far, than his take on The Village of the Damned (a painful demonstration of how easily one could take great material […]
Read more "Ghosts of Mars (2001)"
rivets on the poster 