Se tutte le donne del mondo… (Operazione Paradiso) [Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die] (1966)

[Literal Translation: If All the Women in the World… (Operation Paradise)] We’ve heard that art imitates life. And a parody is, of course based on the original work. But sometimes it works the other way. Take Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die, for example: it’s a lighthearted parody of the James Bond films, right? […]

Omicron (1963)

Over the years I’ve heard about a lot of little known and obscure science fiction films. It is remarkable how many of the really obscure ones were made in Europe during the Sixties, and quite a few of them came from Italy, so many that I just spent the weekend watching three of these Sixties […]

Tayna dvukh okeanov [The Mystery of Two Oceans] (1957)

(aka, Ori okeanis saidumloeba, The Secret of Two Oceans) Sometimes it is impossible to understand what is happening in the world of film without a solid look at the culture around a particular movie. Now for those interested in Soviet Science Fiction, there is a strange and rather awkward gap between the early science fiction […]

Red Snow (1952)

Honorable Mention (mostly) Before I get started here, I need to say a few words about Janne Waas. Janne is perhaps the single best online Science Fiction film critic working today. Perhaps the best in any media for that matter. He’s trying to write about every major (and minor) science fiction film out there on […]

Highly Dangerous (1950)

Honorable Mention I was mildly surprised when I saw that Eric Ambler wrote the script for Highly Dangerous. It wasn’t based on one of his novels, but was an original story. Normally, one thinks of him as a novelist, although he did write quite a few scripts, including A Night to Remember. Most of them […]

ESPY [Esupai] (1974)

Let’s face it, the 1970s were a bit…weird for Toho films. At least when it came to their Tokusatsu films. Godzilla wasn’t doing too well (at least not on the big screen., even if his “monsterverse” spinoff, Zone Fighter did well — well enough that the Big G actually made a few appearances on the […]

Invisible Agent (1942)

I suppose it was inevitable. You are trying to find ways to spin off sequels to your successful horror films, you’ve made a movie an invisible man, a war is on… So naturally we get a movie about an invisible spy. What is strange, though, is that it is played strictly for laughs. Now, those […]

Sync (2012)

I suspect it may just be a momentary window of opportunity, but filmmakers these days have a number of new ways to market and distribute their work. Which is probably just as well when you remember how the excellent but not exactly everyday viewer oriented Blade Runner 2049 got stuck on the biggest screens available for weeks even though […]

The Net [Project M7] (1953)

Somehow, when I first heard of this one, it sounded remarkably like the series of German SF films of the Thirties, which started with F.P. 1. Like them, we have the big, near term science fictional invention – in this case a prototype aircraft – a Thirties modern research facility, and at the heart of the […]

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

spy