I have to admit it, I miss Fred Olen Ray. He’s been busy doing Hallmark Christmas movies and the occasional crime thriller for more than a decade now — and he spent most of the decade before that making what are often called “Skinemax” films for late-night cable to run after all the grownups are […]
Read more "Dire Wolf [Dino Wolf] (2009)"This is the Sci Fi network’s take on Species. As with any big generalization, that statement isn’t entirely true. But it works as a quick summary. And yes, it did come out not too long after the second Species film. Luke and Roger are students at a small college in Canada who are both hard […]
Read more "Decoys (2004)"I’ll confess that I watched this one because of David Hewlett. I suppose most of you remember him from Stargate: Atlantis. I’ll admit I didn’t pay too much attention to the Stargate franchise, so I knew him because he was one of Vincenzo Natali’s favorite actors and showed up in all but one of his […]
Read more "Rage of the Yeti (2011)"I know this will be hard to imagine, but there was a time when a new miniseries on the Sci Fi Network was a big deal. Yeah, yeah, it didn’t really last long, but they got off to a strong start with their surprisingly good version of Dune. Then came Steven Spielberg’s Taken, an epic […]
Read more "5ive Days to Midnight (2004)"When I watch one of the SciFi (now “Syfy”) network’s collection of “originals.” the first question i ask is, “which movie are they ripping off this time?” Yeah, we know they do make the odd film or two which is actually original. But that’s a lot like finding a rare coin in your pocket change. […]
Read more "Bugs (2003)"Well that was familiar. There was a comment Roger Corman once made about his more-or-less industrial movie production approach, something to the effect that it was easier to get people to go to “Crocosaurus” than “Carnosaur 5.” And you can see this with his endless series of SyFy Network films, which could easily be sequels […]
Read more "Raptor (2001)"It’s strange, but there are times when an idea suddenly starts appearing in movie after movie even though there is no connection between them — and the films themselves have little in common beyond certain shared themes. In the Nothings — and Twenty-tens — there were a lot of high tech vampire movies, often with […]
Read more "True Bloodthirst [Vampyre Nation] (2012)"There are some things that really bug you when people get them wrong. Usually, they’re the simple things that anyone who made the slightest effort would get right. And I do mean the slightest. Now I’m not referring to the fact that we’re told that what is obviously a World War II vintage warship is […]
Read more "Bermuda Tentacles (2014)"This is a movie about a big octopus. Oh. You guessed that. The story is fairly simple: some fishermen catch a strange octopus, a really, really big one comes to take it back. There is more to it than that — the scientists pursuing it for some reason or another, the last surviving fisherman trying […]
Read more "Big Octopus [Dà zhangyú] (2020)"This must be Fred Olen Ray’s best picture. Seriously. Glass Trap is a solid and entertaining little B-Monster Movie which doesn’t pretend to be anything else. And we all know how rare those are. It helps that its basic plot is equally classic — or “cliched” for those of you more cynical than I am. […]
Read more "Glass Trap (2005)"
rivets on the poster 