Showing posts with label science fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science fiction. Show all posts
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| Robert F. Lyons and David Soul may have seen UFO |
THE DISAPPEARANCE OF FLIGHT 412 (1974 telefilm). Director: Jud Taylor.
"Officers aren't supposed to act on instinct, they act on orders, and yours are to lay off!"
Two air force men are doing a test flight [412] to check for electrical problems when they see two blips appear and disappear on their radar screen, followed by the complete disappearance of two jet fighters. They are quickly taken off to be debriefed by SID officers, much to the consternation of their commanding officer, Colonel Pete Moore (Glenn Ford), who first wonders where the hell they are and then why they were taken in the first place. While the Flight 412 pilots (David Soul; Robert F. Lyons) are held and questioned along with others, Moore demands answers from General Enright (Kent Smith of Nora Prentiss) even as Major Dunning (Bradford Dillman of Jigsaw) urges him to forget the whole business. What's going on here? Well, sadly, not a hell of a lot, as this cheap production was cobbled together to take advantage of the UFO rage of the seventies but lacks a strong plot, suspense, or any pay-off. A lot of perfectly good actors are just wasted. The blaring, brassy musical score does its best to create some excitement, but can't disguise the fact that nothing much is going on here. There are a hell of a lot of good-looking men in the cast, for those who are interested.
Verdict: Not nearly as much fun as The Invaders. *.
On an isolated island scientists are working on a machine that can both send and receive items to and from the future. It takes nearly an hour for them to drag the title "terror" from the future, a radioactive woman (Salome Jens) who kills in a panic and runs about like a mutant, clawed chicken with its head cut off. The picture becomes livelier with her appearance, but not much better, as it is basically a low-budget sci fi programmer with a couple of interesting ideas but mediocre execution. Jens is the only actor in the cast who makes any kind of impression, and she went on to better things, such as the excellent Seconds with Rock Hudson. The movie is badly over-scored. Leading lady Joyce Holden was also in The Werewolf.
Verdict: Go out and miss this visitor. **.
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| The astronauts explore red planet Mars |
The first manned spaceship and its team -- consisting of Colonel Floyd Graham (Lloyd Bridges), Major William Corrigan (Noah Beery Jr.), Dr. Karl Eckstrom (John Emery of Kronos), Dr. Lisa Van Horn (Osa Massen), and Harry Chamberlain (Hugh O'Brian) -- take off for the moon but somehow, as if they were Abbott and Costello, wind up on Mars instead. Wandering around in stark, red-tinted landscapes, they discover stone age savages and have a depressing realization. The decent production values insure that the sets and FX are less cheesy than they are in similar movies, and there's a nice theme by Ferde Grofe [Albert Glasser was musical director]. The picture was also photographed by Karl Struss [Sunrise] and has a downbeat conclusion. Morris Ankrum gives perhaps the best performance as Dr. Fleming back on earth. There are no giant spiders in this although some may feel it could have used them.
Verdict: Not quite serious sci fi but close. ***.
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| Kirk and Spock witness the wrath of Khan (Benedict Cumberbatch) |
STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS (2013). Director: J. J. Abrams.
Violating the prime directive to save Spock's life on a primitive world, Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) finds himself demoted. But when a terrorist named Harrison, who turns out to be super-being Khan (Benedict Cumberbatch), attacks the Federation, Kirk finds himself in command once again, and heading toward the Klingon home world, Kronos, to kill him. But what's inside those photon torpedoes that have been put on board the Enterprise? And whose side is Admiral Marcus (Peter Weller) really on? It all leads to deadly battles both on Kronos, in warp space, and on Earth. Whatever its flaws, Star Trek Into Darkness is a big improvement over Abrams' initial reboot of the Star Trek franchise, with a better storyline and more exciting action sequences. The actors seem a little more comfortable in their roles, although Pine will never seem like James Kirk the way William Shatner did. Zachary Quinto is fine as Spock; Zoe Saldana is given more to do as his lover, Lt. Uhura; Karl Urban is an okay Bones; and Simon Pegg [Mission Impossible -- Ghost Protocol] seems to be channeling his inner Pee Wee Herman as Scotty. Weller and the unlikely-named Cumberbatch give the most dynamic performances. Alice Eve is a new character, Carol, a science officer and daughter of Admiral Marcus. Leonard Nimoy shows up briefly as the older Spock.
Verdict: Entertaining, fast-paced and frequently exciting. ***.
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| Peekaboo! |
THE CRAWLING EYE (aka The Trollenberg Terror/1958). Director: Quentin Lawrence. Screenplay by Jimmy Sangster.
In 1956 British TV presented a six-part sci-fi thriller entitled The Trollenberg Terror, directed by Quentin Lawrence but with a different cast [apparently this TV production is lost]. Two years later a feature-length film of the same title was released, renamed the juicier Crawling Eye for American distribution. Two young ladies who do a mind-reading act, Sarah (Jennifer Jayne) and Anne (Janet Munro) Pilgrim, are heading for Geneva by train, but get off at the small village of Trollenberg due to Anne's compulsion to do so. Another passenger named Alan Brooks (Forrest Tucker) also disembarks and they all go to the hotel, where they learn that there have been a series of terrible mountain-climbing tragedies. High on the Trollenberg mountain there is an observatory that is researching cosmic rays, and has observed a radioactive cloud that moves about as if it were being directed ... Alan remembers similar incidents in the Andes, and that certain people with psychic abilities, like Anne, could be manipulated by whatever beings there are in the cloud. Speaking of which, said cloud starts moving down towards the hotel, blocking off escape, and the creatures inside reveal themselves ... The Crawling Eye is a suspenseful, creepy movie with some interesting notions (such as corpses being reanimated and going after victims with cleavers), headless bodies, and surprisingly convincing monsters that figure in the climax. The actors are all good, with Laurence Payne particularly effective as the reporter Prescott, and Tucker managing to summon up some energy in his portrayal of the hero; Jayne and especially Munro are also convincing, although Warren Mitchell is perhaps a little too weird as Professor Crevett. The movie has its share of illogical and silly moments, but it's still a superior "creature feature."
Verdict: If it blinks, watch out! ***.
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| Brad Pitt in one of the film's few quiet moments |
"You can't make a dead person sick."
Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) and his family suddenly find themselves in the midst of chaos when a plague breaks out in their city -- indeed, around the world -- driving people crazy and making them violently attack others. These people turn out to be zombies, reanimated after death by a virus. UN representative Thierry Umutoni (Fana Mokoena) gets Lane out, but he learns that his family can not stay in their safe refuge unless he agrees to accompany a biologist, hoping to create a vaccine, to the spot where the virus originated to look for clues. Lane later winds up in Israel, were the undead pile atop one another in a grotesque exhibition so they can launch themselves over a wall to get at the living people on the other side. [Unlike the dead in Night of the Living Dead, these zombies movie very quickly]. Lane saves the life of a young female Israeli soldier named Segen (Daniella Kertesz), and both wind up on a plane when the passengers become infected. They wind up at a research center in England where Lane thinks he's come up with a novel way of protecting people against the zombies. Despite some arresting passages -- such as the wall sequence in Israel and the outbreak on the plane -- World War Z can't quite overcome the fact that it's just another apocalyptic zombie movie [like 28 Days Later] with over-familiar ideas. Based on a novel, it still owes a lot to Richard Matheson's I Am Legend. However, it is generally fast-paced, creepy, well-acted, and often quite exciting. [Gore geeks must have been quite disappointed that despite the gruesome tone the movie does not indulge in much graphic bloodiness.] Humanism is in short supply -- there's little talk of compassion for the dead victims nor scenes where a living person sees a dead one that they loved -- and the ending is kind of flat. Foster also directed one of the worst James Bond movies, Quantum of Solace.
Verdict: More zombies that you can shake a stick at. **1/2.
Martin (Eric Stoltz), the son of Seth Brundle from the remake of The Fly, fully grown at five [!], is raised in an isolated section of a laboratory, whose head, Bartok (Lee Richardson) -- although he pretends to be a father to the boy -- is only hoping to use the creature he'll turn into as a kind of weapon. Martin wants love, and nearly gets it in the form of employee Beth (Daphne Zuniga), but even she is horrified when Martin begins ... changing ... due to his mutated genes. Then the Martin-creature takes off after all of his tormentors with predictable if messy results. The Fly II starts off well -- has some good scenes such as when Martin discovers his beloved dog didn't die but was used in a ghastly experiment -- but quickly becomes schlocky, and not even very good performances from Stoltz, Richardson and others can salvage it, although it is fairly entertaining throughout and moves fast. At least it's better than Return of the Fly, the sequel to the original. Some of the characters in this, such as Dr. Jainway (Ann Marie Lee), are so odious that they seem like variations of Snidely Whiplash!
Verdict: Stick with the first and best. **1/2.
From the outset and in full disclosure I must say that with one or two exceptions, I'm not a big fan of Japanese monster movies/science fiction. I also wouldn't compare Japanese FX man Eiji Tsuburaya to the great stop-motion specialist Ray Harryhausen, especially when it comes to monsters. Harryhausen brought his creatures to life with painstaking stop-motion animation, while Tsuburaya used "suit-mation" -- a guy in, say, a Godzilla costume -- and some models. I have seen most of the films discussed in this book and have to say there is absolutely nothing to compare to the fight with the skeletons at the end of Jason and the Argonauts. To be fair, Tsuburaya did more than just work on monsters, and the book details his contributions to Japanese cinema while also examining some aspects of his private life. Master of Monsters is well-researched, and packed with loads of behind-the-scenes black and white and color photographs. An over-sized trade paperback, it is printed on thick paper stock. If you're interested in Japanese sci fi and how the films were made, this is definitely the book to get.
Verdict: For fans of Japanese monster movies -- all others beware. ***.
Four American astronauts on a trip to observe but not land on Mars, wind up caught in a super-speed time warp and arrive on Earth in 2508 AD. There they find that one-eyed mutates rule over savage humans who roam the countryside, while the dregs of intelligent humanity hide inside a mountain HQ. The men are old and eunuch-like and wear hideous outfits, while the younger women are clad in glamorous gowns that show up sexy legs. Yes, welcome to the future -- or rather 1956! The astronauts also encounter two giant mutated spiders -- unconvincing mock-ups -- in a cavern. World Without End has a few ideas -- it's not as dumb, say, as Queen of Outer Space, also directed by Edward Bernds -- but most of them are recycled. Like Queen, this is also decked out in CinemaScope and Technicolor. The astronauts are played by Hugh Marlowe, Rod Taylor (who would have somewhat similar adventures in The Time Machine a few years later), Nelson Leigh (The Adventures of Sir Galahad), and Christopher Dark, while the attractive ladies are Nancy Gates, Shawn Smith (The Land Unknown), and Lisa Montell. Everett Glass plays aged Timmek, who rules the underground society, and Booth Colman is Mories, who can hardly wait to take over. The credits for most of these actors were largely on television. Not enough is made of the fact that the astronauts will never see their loved ones or time period again, but then this isn't exactly intellectual material. Very influential, for better or worse, on such later movies as Beyond the Time Barrier.
Verdict: Even big spiders can't save this from being rather boring. **.
Major William Allison (Robert Clarke) flies his plane on a test run and somehow manages to cross the time barrier, winding up in a dismal world 64 years in the future. Due to a cosmic plague from space travel, the inhabitants of the underground city he is taken to are mostly sterile deaf mutes, and there are mutants -- with very wrinkled bald pates -- groveling in a prison pit. People who have escaped the plague are contemptuously referred to as "Scapes." Both the Captain (Boyd "Red" Morgan) and Supreme (Vladimir Sokoloff), who are the rulers, suspect Allison of being a spy, although it's hard to imagine why anyone would want to spy on this pathetic "civilization." Other "spies," whose aircraft or spacecraft also crossed the time barrier in later years than Allison's, include General Kruse (Stephen Bekassy of Black Magic), Dr. Bourman (John Van Dreelen of The Leech Woman) and Captain Markova (Arianne Arden Ulmer, the director's daughter). The most sympathetic person in this futuristic world is Trirene (Darlene Tompkins), who seems to have some psychic power and is hoping to repopulate the world with Major Allison. The other "spies" want to help Allison get back to his time so he can prevent the plague, but perhaps they have something more sinister up their sleeves ... Clarke [The Hideous Sun Demon], who also produced, gives a good performance in this, but the movie is old comic book-level sci fi schlock: dying future societies with horrible mutants were nothing new even in 1960, and a couple of interesting ideas are not well-developed. The acting is generally good, with Arianne Ulmer, who had few other credits, credibly bitchy, and the expressive Tompkins, who was introduced in this picture, poor gal, getting things across with no dialogue; she had a few more credits than Ms. Ulmer. Both Sokoloff and Boyd, who wears a ridiculously long and pointy beard in this, had a great many credits. The ending is rather downbeat, especially given that the Major is a pretty decent guy.
Verdict: Could have used a few monsters to liven things up; Clarke deserved better. **.
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| The Seaview crew must battle a giant lizard in "Night of Terror" |
Irwin Allen's series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea had an excellent first season, a good second season -- and then deteriorated badly. The producer clearly thought of it strictly as a Kiddie show, and figured the children wanted more and sillier monsters over good storylines. Reportedly this was extremely embarrassing to star Richard Basehart, who hated the scripts. There were far too many episodes in which Admiral Nelson (Basehart) or Captain Crane (David Hedison) are mesmerized or brainwashed into trying to destroy the Seaview or each other. The nadir of monsters were the idiotic lobster-like creatures (not to be confused with the Lobster Men of the fourth season) of "Doomsday Island." There were very few memorable episodes: "Day of Evil" combines nuclear reactor problems with an alien impersonating Nelson who wants to create a holocaust. "The Thing from Inner Space" features Hugh Marlowe as a TV host urging Nelson to search for a monster that killed his crew. "The Brand of the Beast" has Nelson turning into a werewolf and has some suspense. "The Day the World Ended" is another suspenseful episode in which all life on earth seems to have disappeared. "Deadly Waters" is a serious episode -- and the best of the season -- in which the Seaview is trapped on the ocean's bottom below crush depth. Seaman Riley was replaced by Patterson (Paul Trinka), and the unnamed Ship's Doctor (Richard Bull) made many appearances, along with Kowalksi (Del Monroe) and Sharkey (Terry Becker). The acting was generally quite good, with Basehart, Hedison and the others playing more or less with conviction regardless of how absurd the plots and creatures were, although Admiral Nelson seemed increasingly dyspeptic (along with Sharkey), possibly because of Basehart's feelings about the series. A big lizard from Allen's The Lost World showed up yet again in "Night of Terror."
Verdict: Way too much silliness and stupid scripts. **.
A gigantic egg is discovered in the Philippines and taken to what is supposed to be a nuclear power plant in Japan. When a "meltdown" occurs scientist Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston) must close a hatch on his own wife (Juliette Binoche) to keep radiation from leaking. That's pretty much the last dramatic thing -- in the human sense -- that happens in this new/old take on Godzilla, in which the main monsters are not the Big Guy but a pair of creatures known as "MUTO"s [Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism]. It was the emergence of one of these creatures that actually caused the meltdown. It also develops that Godzilla actually did appear back in 1954 (when the first Godzilla film was released), and he's come back to set nature right and get rid of the MUTOs, who are ravaging Las Vegas after causing much destruction on Honolulu. Joe's son Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is one of the military men fighting against the monsters. Godzilla got surprisingly good reviews and fan reaction. Unlike the first American Godzilla film with Matthew Broderick, the movie doesn't ignore what's happened in the Japanese films -- Godzilla is a good guy fighting the bad monsters; there are little kids running about; one of the MUTOs attacks an elevated train -- but what the geeky fans of the Japanese movies may love about the series pretty much sinks this reboot. There's not enough of Godzilla, whom others have described as "a guest star in his own movie." The too-metallic MUTOs remind one of the monster in Deadly Mantis, and while Godzilla doesn't look bad, some of his scenes are so underlit that it's hard to see what's happening or be especially impressed. There are a couple of good scenes and shots -- Godzilla swimming under a bridge where the people look like ants; the flood that washes through Honolulu --- but these aren't enough to save the movie. Only slightly better than Pacific Rim, another movie influenced by Japan's monster flicks.
Verdict: Too much pandering to the geeky fans of the Japanese series -- but it appears to have paid off commercially. **.
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| Michael Ironside questions a suspect |
MURDER IN SPACE (1985 telefilm). Director: Steven Hilliard Stern.
An international crew is assembled for several months on board a space lab where political intrigue and mixed-up personal relationships are taking a toll. Things get worse when one of the women, Olga, is found murdered -- and she was two months pregnant, meaning her husband back in the USSR couldn't possibly be the father. Suspects include Guy (Timothy Webber), who's having an affair with Domenica (Alberta Watson), and Kurt (Tom Butler), who's having an affair with David (Scot Denton), and even the captain, Neal Braddock (Michael Ironside of Scanners), who's keeping some secrets. More murders follow, with such people on the ground as Dr. MacAllister (Wilford Brimley) and Alexander Rostov (Martin Balsam) worrying about their respective countries' representatives and more. Murder in Space has an intriguing premise and location, but while it holds the attention the solution isn't that satisfying or believable. The cast is quite good for the most part, although the usually intense Ironside seems bored through most of the movie and gives a boring, uninvolved performance, as does Brimley [The China Syndrome], who doesn't really seem to be an actor. Balsam is excellent, as usual, and Nerene Virgin and Wendy Crewson score, respectively, as Dr. Leigh and David's wife, Irene.
Verdict: Comes very close but ultimately misses despite definite entertainment value. **1/2.
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| Joel Kinnaman as RoboCop |
In the future American robots are used for overseas combat, but so far the country has resisted the idea of having robot police men back in the U.S. Omnicorp, a company run by Raymond Sellars (Michael Keaton of Batman), hopes to change all that, and figures the answer is to use the same technology on a real human being. Their opportunity comes when Detroit officer Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman) is nearly destroyed by an explosive device put in his car by a man named Vallon (Patrick Garrow). There's not much left of Murphy -- the movie's most startling scene has his armor dropping off to reveal how much of his original body is actually missing -- but he's put in a high-tech suit and given assorted abilities to fight crime. Dr. Dennett Norton (Gary Oldman) is able to override Murphy's consciousness, but his memories still fight to the surface and take over. Do either Norton or Sellars care about the ethical concerns of this "project," and why won't Omnicorp let Murphy's wife Clara (Abbie Cornish) visit him? There are many interesting elements to this remake of the original Robocop, and the film boasts some excellent performances from Keaton and especially Kinnaman, with a solid supporting cast (such as Jackie Earle Haley [Shutter Island] as the snarky Mattox and Samuel L Jackson [The Spirit] as a commentator, among others), but the action scenes are cluttered and uninvolving, even a bit dull. The amount of time, energy and money made to turn Murphy into RoboCop doesn't make the project seem very cost-effective, which the movie hilariously ignores.
Verdict: The performances help put this over. **1/2.
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| T-Rex and time travelers |
In the future Travis Ryer (Edward Burns) works for an outfit that sends wealthy clients back in time to hunt dinosaurs, the animals' slayings timed to occur just before they would have died anyway. This is done to prevent anything screwing with the time stream and affecting the future. Travis meets a lady scientist, Sonia Rand (Catherine McCormack), who claims she not only helped create the time machine and was shut out of enjoying its success, but that Ryer and his associates are endangering the world with their time jumps, on one of which something comes back from the past. This happens because boss Charles Hatton (Sir Ben Kingsley) wants to save money by turning off the energy-using screen that would prevent this. Because of this anomaly, the world is affected by time waves that create new "prehistoric" animals and even begin affecting the human race itself. Can Travis and Sonia manage to set things right in a world beset with dangerous monsters, hysterical humans, and weird sweeping changes to the landscape and everyone else at all the wrong moments ...? A Sound of Thunder has a great idea and is entertaining for the most part, and some scenes are rather well-done (a struggle with a hungry underwater creature, for instance) but there's just something off about the movie. By no means as bad as, say, a Syfy Channel Original, there's still something second-rate about the entire enterprise. Edward Burns, who often makes and stars in smaller personal films, seems uncomfortable in the role of action hero, although Kingsley is more on the mark as slimy Hatton [although you still have to wonder what he's doing in this movie]. McCormack and the other cast members are all professional and then some. The effects are uneven, although there are a host of good-looking futuristic baboon-dinosaurs, and most of the other monsters are at least well-designed. Ultimately the movie isn't terrible, just unconvincing. Hyams has directed better movies, such as Outland and Beyond a Reasonable Doubt, and Kingsley has appeared in worse movies, such as Thunderbirds.
Verdict: Interesting disappointment. **1/2.
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| Space amazons give boys a brain drain |
INVASION OF THE STAR CREATURES (1962). Director: Bruno VeSota.
Jonathan Haze, who appeared in several Roger Corman features such as the starring role in The Little Shop of Horrors, wrote the screenplay for this atrocity and was supposed to play the lead with Dick Miller as his co-star. Wisely they passed up the opportunity and the utterly talentless Robert Ball and Frankie Ray were instead cast as two fucked-up soldiers who are sent to investigate a cave and discover strange vegetable-like aliens [who resemble something out of a grade school play] and two amply-endowed Amazon-like extraterrestrial "professors" (Gloria Victor and Delores Reed). The film was directed by Bruno VeSota, who'd appeared as an actor in such films as Attack of the Giant Leeches but had the good sense not to give himself a part in this 99 cents production [one assumes Roger Corman passed on this as well]. Ball and Ray, who make Martin and Lewis knock-offs Sammy Petrillo and Duke Mitchell [Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla] seem like Lawrence Olivier and Charles Laughton in comparison, are just terrible, but even talented comics would have a problem putting over this awful material. The busty outer space visitors want to take over Earth, but when they try to drain the brains of Ball and Ray they find nothing there -- no surprise. The gals are put into blissful shock by kisses from the fellows, making you wonder if the whole point of this production was for two creepy guys to have an opportunity to smooch two women who are so out of their league it isn't funny! Ball managed to rack up over sixty credits, while Ray had only one more credit after this. Reed and Victor are more talented than the boys, but Victor, like Ray, had only one more credit after Star Creatures and Reed never worked in pictures again [another big surprise]. Just dreadful and tedious with nary a real laugh. Mark Ferris, who plays the Colonel, is so completely inept as an actor that it's no wonder this was the only film he ever appeared in.
Verdict: Not even Roger Corman could have saved this hopeless production. 0 stars.
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| Mari Blanchard and Lou Costello |
ABBOTT AND COSTELLO GO TO MARS (1953). Director: Charles Lamont.
"He looks worse standing up than he does lying down" -- Allura, referring to Lou
Orville (Lou Costello), a handyman at an orphanage, winds up at a missile base and is mistaken for a professor of aeronautical science, although janitor Lester (Bud Abbott) isn't fooled. The bumbling pair look around Dr. Wilson's (Robert Paige) rocket ship and accidentally take off, landing near New Orleans during Mardi Gras where they think the celebrants are Martians. Two ex-cons rob a bank and stowaway on the ship, hoping Orville and Lester, whom they think are Martians, will take them back to their planet and away from the law. This time the rocket ship winds up on Venus, where the man-hating Queen Allura (Mari Blanchard of Twice-Told Tales) makes Orville her king to please her man-hungry subjects. There's a giant dog, but otherwise a dearth of special effects, except for when the rocket is flying through the Lincoln Tunnel and making the Statue of Liberty dodge and duck. One Venusian vehicle seems to have been borrowed from Forbidden Planet but that movie was made three years later! After the queen puts a curse on Lou, who dares to be attracted to other women, his kiss turns one young lovely into a wrinkled old crone! Martha Hyer is Dr. Wilson's secretary and girlfriend, Jean Willes is one of the queen's entourage, and while Anita Ekberg of Screaming Mimi should certainly stand out even in a crowd of moonlighting beauty queens, her presence in the picture as a guard isn't immediately evident. Abbott and Costello Go to Mars may come off like a spoof of such space-babe movies as Queen of Outer Space, which also takes place on Venus, but it actually pre-dates all of them [the first, Cat-Women of the Moon, was released the same year]. Were A & C starting a trend instead of following one, as they did with Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein? Whatever the case, this is not in the league of that movie, but it does have its amusing moments and the cast has fun. There's too much of those ex-cons, however, and the boys never do wind up on Mars.
Verdict: Amiable nonsense. **1/2.
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| The cast of Inseminoid discuss firing their agents |
An archaeological expedition is sent to a planet where has been discovered a "vast, tomb-like complex," the exploration of which they hope will give them insight into the past inhabitants and what might have wiped them out. But before you can say Alien, Sandy (Judy Geeson) is attacked and impregnated by an alien creature that apparently takes over her mind and makes her go psycho. Inseminoid turns into a space-slasher film as Sandy stalks the other crew members, probably in an attempt to protect her baby. Besides Geeson, the only "name" actor is Stephanie Beacham [And Now the Screaming Starts] as another crew member. Inseminoid is slow, confusing and tedious, with nary a single thing to recommend it. This is the type of terrible movie that does no one's career any good, although most of the actors are all perfectly competent, although for some reason you can't quite take Jennifer Ashley seriously as the leader of the expedition. Geeson was also in Berserk with Joan Crawford. A dreadful musical score only makes the whole experience even more awful.You can probably miss the scene when a trapped lady astronaut uses a saw on her foot.
Verdict: Atrocious. 1/2 *.
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| A touchy-feely alien gets another victim |
GALAXY OF TERROR (aka Mindwarp/1981). Director: Bruce D. Clark. Produced by Roger Corman.
"There's no horror here we don't create ourselves."
A spaceship is sent to a distant planet to see if they can find the survivors of the last expedition. What they find are the remains of the spaceship, some weird creepy-crawly aliens that attach themselves to their body parts, and a giant pyramid-like structure in which they are stalked by half-seen creatures and must confront their own fears. This is an old idea -- astronauts bedeviled by materializations of their own terrors -- but it's also an obvious copy of Alien. The movie has surprisingly good production design, courtesy of James Cameron [later famous as the director of Titanic] and Robert Skotak, and an interesting cast, including Edward Albert, Erin Moran, the ever-brooding Zalman King, Ray Walston as a cook with secrets, Robert Englund [Nightmare on Elm Street], Sid Haig as an astronaut who's murdered by his own severed arm, and Grace Zabriskie as a kind of butch captain, sole survivor of something called the Hesperus disaster [as if any vessel would be named after a famous shipwreck!]. Taffee O'Connell is pursued by a maggot grown to giant size that seems more interested in tearing off her clothing and licking her naked body than it is in eating her. Despite some fairly impressive sequences and decent acting, Galaxy of Terror has a cheapjack look and feel to it, and while not awful, it's not that memorable, either.
Verdict: One of the better Alien imitations, so you can imagine how awful some of the others were. **1/2.
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| Geena Davis trapped in the teleport pod |
THE FLY (1986). Director: David Cronenberg.
Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldbum) is a scientist who piques the curiosity of journalist Veronica Quaife (Geena Davis), who hopes there's a story in his research, as does her editor and former lover, Stathis Borans (John Getz). As Seth and Ronnie are drawn into a relationship, Seth reveals that he has invented a device that can transmit matter from one pod to another. Unfortunately, when he tries to transmit living matter, the animals wind up turned inside out. Licking that problem, he decides to transmit himself, but is unaware that a house fly has gotten into his pod with him. Unlike the original Fly, where the hero winds up as two separate, freakish beings, Brundle's fly becomes part of him on a genetic and molecular level, slowly transforming him into a monster. Not faithful to its source material, The Fly is an alternate take on the story with a more gruesome approach. Ronnie seems to take forever to react to the weird changes in Seth's face, and the second half of the film is rather slow until the decidedly suspenseful final sequence. Just like the original film, The Fly turns into a burlesque -- especially when the "Brundle-fly" runs off with Ronnie in its arms -- with Goldblum (otherwise effective in his quirky way) uncertain of how to play his mutating character and apparently opting for black comedy which doesn't really work. Davis, however, gives an outstanding performance, reacting realistically and emotionally to every insane thing that the script -- and Brundle -- can throw at her. Cronenberg's [The Brood] direction is generally good, and the special effects and make-up work is excellent. In his screenplay most of Charles Edward Pogue's originality appears to have gone into the character names!
Verdict: Some good moments, but the original still has this beat. **1/2.