Monsters, devil worshippers, demons, ghosts, sadomasochistic inter-dimensional travelers...it can get to be too much. It’s time for the Horrorshow to take a step back from all the gore and scary stuff and spend some time with some nice, wholesome alien invaders.
From 1953 and adapted from the famous HG Wells story, The War of the Worlds is not the first alien invasion flick, but it is prototypical. A mass surprise invasion by alien beings in possession of unstoppable destructive power threatens to overwhelm the world. The situation is dire, the entire world mere days or hours from being conquered. But, against the odds, and due to providence, luck, good old-fashioned American ingenuity, or a thorough lack of understanding of the laws of nature on the part of the aliens and the screenwriters, the invaders are vanquished. And I mean vanquished. No alien invaders ever just get beat, or end up slogging into insurgency warfare (with the notable exceptions of V and Falling Skies, but that’s on TV). Aliens in these flicks get wiped out, in total, usually in a matter of minutes. The denouement in these films, The War of the Worlds included, can feel a bit rushed. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: The War of the Worlds (1953)”
Looking at the list of films I’ve reviewed for Shitty Movie Sundays, there are some real standouts. Most of the films on the list are of such substandard quality that I am genuinely concerned I am wasting precious time in my life that I will never get back when I watch them (Galaxy of Terror, I Spit on Your Grave, Theodore Rex, for example), while others, despite being bad movies, are entertaining. Spacehunter, Raise the Titanic, Reign of Fire, Commando, The Keep — all shitty movies, and all eminently watchable. When I think of my affinity for shitty movies, it is flicks like these that keep me searching for the next great dog.
Sometimes a movie tries to be an epic, but has a hard time shaking off its b-movie stink. Such is the case with Lifeforce, the 1985 sci-fi/horror film from director Tobe Hooper and writers Dan O’Bannon and Don Jakoby. The film opens with a bombastic score composed by Henry Mancini, in quite a departure from the type of music cinema buffs would associate with him. The camera flies over an endless asteroid that looks plucked from the long, dichromatic shots that Stanley Kubrick filmed for 2001. What follows is a quick introductory voiceover that takes care of all the backstory and character development. Viewers are told of the mission of the HMS Churchill, a joint American/British space shuttle mission tasked with exploring Halley’s Comet upon its dodranscentennial approach to the earth.