(aka, Third Planet After the Sun) I doubt if anyone is exactly surprised that there haven’t been many Bulgarian science fiction films. To be fair, there have been a few, but for the most part no one has ever heard of them in the West. And they are rather hard to find. Particularly when we […]
Read more "Treta sled slantzeto [The Third Planet] (1972)"I’ll admit it, I watch some pretty strange films. Take Computer of Death, for example. Here we have what amounts to an attempt at a Greek copy of Tron. Only it must have been made for less than you’d spend for a used car. You see, Paris Vellis is a genius computer expert. We know […]
Read more "Ta kompiouter tou thanatou [Computer of Death] (1987)"Honorable (mostly) Mention Now there’s a rare piece of truth in Advertising. I know it is hard to believe, but this poster sums up Terminal Entry with uncanny accuracy. After all, right up front, we have soldiers and explosions. Then, in the center a giant computer screen. And looming over that… A kid in […]
Read more "Terminal Entry (1987)"Wikizilla described this one as the first black and white Kaiju film since the original Gamera in 1965. Well…I guess. Maybe. You might call it that. If you absolutely had to. Now the reality is that this is instead a strange found footage film made during the height of the pandemic which just happens to […]
Read more "8-ka de shinda kaijû no 12-nichi no monogatari [The 12 Day Tale of the Monster that Died in 8] (2020)"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)"Some films leave you stuck forever with an image you know you will never get out of your brain. In Terrifying T-Rex, that moment comes fairly early in the film, when the enormously, ummmmm, “Body Positive” star of the film suddenly strips off her clothes and takes a shower. Revealing several acres of bare, flabby […]
Read more "Terrifying T-Rex (2022)"A Norwegian giant monster movie. Okay, that’s a new one on me. Still, I suppose there are stranger things out there. And it does more or less make sense that Netflix would pick it up as they’ve run a lot of unusual foreign genre films lately (and by all means keep it up!). More than […]
Read more "Troll (2022)"(aka, Turkish Flash Gordon. Literal translation: Baytekin: Disaster Collisions) The problem with many of these weird and rare films — particularly the older films, and those from countries where no one has made much of an effort at preserving them — is that all too often you can only find badly worn or damaged prints. […]
Read more "Baytekin — fezada çarpisanlar [Flash Gordon’s Battle in Space] (1967)"(aka, Polar Pursuit) Okay, I’ll admit it. Twelve Hours feels a lot like winning the big Jackpot. Yeah, yeah, I know I grumble all the time about all those Chinese made science fiction and horror films which keep appearing on Youku’s Youtube channel. About how they have all these great effects, potentially interesting storylines and […]
Read more "Ji Di Zhui Ji [12 Hours] (2022)"(aka Trip to the Moon) Everyone was going to the Moon in the Fifties. Even the Egyptians. Now I have to thank one of my favorite movie reviewers, Dave Sindelar, for introducing me to this movie. Since 2001, Dave has written short reviews of a remarkable assortment — over six thousand — different horror, fantasy […]
Read more "Rehla ilal kamar [Journey to the Moon] (1959)"
rivets on the poster 