Perhaps it would help if I started with a minor digression on the Quatermass movies. Now I’ve written extensively about them over the years — for example, in these essays at IRoSF and Clarkesworld — and have reviewed both the TV and Movie versions of Quatermass 2 (1957) and Hammer’s version of the first serial for […]
Read more "Quatermass and the Pit [Five Million Years to Earth] (1967)"(aka, Lent in the Month of March, Mars en carême) Think of it as a French version of Local Hero — but with Martians. I suppose it would help if I explained that I happen to own a couple of books on Science Fiction Film from the 1970s — after 2001 and The Planet of […]
Read more "Ne jouez pas avec les Martiens [Don’t Play with Martians] (1968)"(Literal translation: The Flying Saucers) Honorable Mention I’ll confess that Mexican cinema is one of those areas I haven’t spent much time exploring. Which, of course, means that I keep finding a few interesting films to watch. Heck, some of them, like El monstruo resucitado [Monster](1953), are quite good. Fortunately, I don’t have to do all […]
Read more "Los platillos voladores (1956)"Before I get started, there is one thing I think I need to make clear here: The main villain wears a toaster on his head. Now I’ve said this about Donyaye Ayandeh before. In fact, I’ve been saying it ever since I first saw stills from the film in Tars Tarkas.net‘s review. Although I had […]
Read more "Donyaye Ayandeh [Future World] (2001)"Maybe I was just in a good mood. Maybe this time I’d found a much better print. Or perhaps it was because it was a day when I really needed a Fifties-style Sci Fi film, –even one made in 1962. At any rate, I enjoyed The Day Mars Invaded Earth this time around. When I first saw […]
Read more "The Day Mars Invaded Earth (1962)"(aka Da zai nan, Hong Kong Calamity, The Big Calamity, Guan Gong da zhan wai xing ren, Kuan Yu Battles with the Aliens, and probably a lot more I’ve missed) There are some films so insane that you can’t NOT watch them. War God is just about the Platonic ideal of unmissable insane films. After […]
Read more "Zhan shen [War God] (1976)"Ugggh. There is nothing worse than a bad film trying to be a comedy. Unless it is a bad film trying to be a Science Fiction comedy. I’d heard about this one some time ago as “Attack From Mars”, which was the video title and it does describe the film. Sorta. Almost. As if they […]
Read more "Midnight Movie Massacre [Attack from Mars] (1988)"It’s called truth in labeling… This one came from someone called TFO Productions, but if you look back at their first production, Monster from Bikini Beach, you will learn that TFO stands for “Trash Film Orgy.” Which, yes, sums this one up nicely! A ragtag gang of space pirates stages a big space Casino heist. […]
Read more "Planet of the Vampire Women (2011)"The History Channel seems a strange place to find a science fiction film, even in Canada. But that is where this unusual mocumentary debuted. A British/Canadian co-production, it uses the familiar format we’ve seen in so many History Channel documentaries, mixing interviews with survivors and experts, visits to important locations and “archival” footage, with narration […]
Read more "The Great Martian War 1913 – 1917 (2013)"Back in 1978, a virtually unknown young musician named Jeff Wayne shocked everyone when he released a concept album based on H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds. And not just any concept album, but something unprecedented: the one that defined what a concept album was supposed to be. He’d been a producer and had […]
Read more "Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of ‘The War of the Worlds’ (2006)"
rivets on the poster 