The Italian invasion continues here at Shitty Movie Sundays. I don’t know who is responsible for either buying or selling the rights to these dogs, but whoever it is, I would like to thank you. It would have been easy to let films like Escape from the Bronx, or today’s flick, The Raiders of Atlantis, fade into total obscurity. But someone, somewhere, signed a deal to make sure flicks like these continue to survive on internet streaming. Whether or not this person is a shitty film lover like myself or a rights holder gathering up pennies, I salute you. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: The Raiders of Atlantis, aka The Atlantis Interceptors, aka I predatori di Atlantide”
Tag: Sci-Fi Flick
Shitty Movie Sundays: The New Gladiators, aka Warriors of the Year 2072, aka I guerrieri dell’anno 2072
Television is a tough racket. Just ask the employees of WBS TV. In the future, the year 2072, to be precise, WBS has a hit show on their hands. It’s called The Danger Game, where contestants are hooked up to a machine that pumps visions of bloody torture directly into their brains. If they endure the torture without panicking, they win. It’s a successful show for the discerning TV consumer of the dystopian future, but it’s still getting beaten in the ratings by Kill Bike — a show featuring riders on motorbikes engaging in some poorly filmed jousting.
The mysterious head of WBS, Sam (Giovanni Di Benedetto), has a new idea for a show that should get WBS back on top of the ratings. Essentially, WBS is going to steal the idea of Kill Bike, but WBS will increase the stakes. The contestants will all be convicted murderers, and they will battle to the death in the famed Coliseum of Rome.
The New Gladiators was released in 1984, and is part of the wave of cheap Italian sci-fi that found inspiration following the successes of the Mad Max films and Escape from New York, among many others. This particular film, from famed b-movie auteur Lucio Fulci, borrows from those two films, while still finding enough room to cram in heaping amounts of Rollerball, Blade Runner, and A Clockwork Orange. Most impressively, Fulci was able to reach forward through time and steal ideas from The Running Man (all joking aside, the similarities are enough that I have to think the people behind The Running Man were Fulci fans). Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: The New Gladiators, aka Warriors of the Year 2072, aka I guerrieri dell’anno 2072″
Shitty Movie Sundays: Steel Dawn
Other than being a shitty movie, Steel Dawn, the 1987 film from director Lance Hool and screenwriter Doug Lefler, defies normal categorization. At first glance, it’s just another cheesy post-apocalyptic sci-fi flick. Sure, it is that. But it’s also a kung fu flick, a samurai flick, and a spaghetti western. The filmmakers even managed to include a car chase, which is impressive considering the film takes place in a land with no electrical power or internal combustion engines. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Steel Dawn”
Empty Balcony: Kill Command
Will it be good? Will it be bad? I didn’t know when I decided to give Kill Command a shot. I had never heard of this film before searching around for something to watch. While a small, almost nonexistent, theater run is a bad sign for a movie, there have been plenty of good movies that didn’t have much of an audience. Maybe I would get lucky. Continue reading “Empty Balcony: Kill Command”
Empty Balcony: Outland
Outland, the 1981 film written and directed by Peter Hyams, is two movies in one. Most of it is a crime story, heavy on the grit and with a fair amount of menace (helped along by Jerry Goldsmith’s grim score). Then in the final act audiences are given a western, evocative of the film High Noon. And all of it is wrapped in a sci-fi setting. Continue reading “Empty Balcony: Outland”
Shitty Movie Sundays: The New Barbarians, aka Warriors of the Wasteland, aka I nuovi barbari
What an incredible piece of shit. Enzo G. Castellari is my new favorite shitty filmmaker. He elevated the art of shitty filmmaking to sublime proportions. His films are cheap, derivative to the point of intellectual theft, completely shameless yet self-aware, and entertaining as all hell to the true shitty movie connoisseur. They are also films that play to the basest appetites of an audience. For example, this is the third film I’ve seen that was helmed by Signore Castellari, and in every one a character is roasted alive by a flamethrower. That’s dedication to craft. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: The New Barbarians, aka Warriors of the Wasteland, aka I nuovi barbari”
Empty Balcony: Alien Nation
There is a nasty amount of racial tension in America right now, accentuated by President-elect Trump’s impending inauguration next month. I hate that current events are affecting my perception of Alien Nation, the 1988 sci-fi film from director Graham Baker and screenwriter Rockne S. O’Bannon, but they are. Really, the filmmakers bear most of the blame, here. A huge part of the fictional universe Graham and O’Bannon crafted deals with refugees assimilating into American culture and having an effect, both positive and negative, on native demographics. Boy, I really need to find a way to flip off the politics switch in my brain when I’m watching movies. Continue reading “Empty Balcony: Alien Nation”
Empty Balcony: Rollerball (1975) & Rollerball (2002)
Alongside post-apocalyptic films, there exists another popular nihilistic genre of film — the dystopian tale. Civilization doesn’t have to have collapsed into a dense ball of suffering for the dystopian film to work. Rather, current mores and politics just need a little bit of tweaking and society becomes unrecognizable. Indeed, in some dystopian futures, it could be argued that humans are thriving. What is common in dystopian films is that some eroding of freedoms has occurred, brought on usually by technology, capitalism, communism, post-industrialism, or a conglomeration of every fear we have about the role of individuality in the future. Continue reading “Empty Balcony: Rollerball (1975) & Rollerball (2002)”
Shitty Movie Sundays: Independence Day: Resurgence, or, Who Are the People on the Boat?
This fucking movie, I swear to God. More than once while I was watching Independence Day: Resurgence did I utter that profaneness. It’s just such a silly movie. It’s also breathtaking in scale, as evidenced by a moment when the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, which also happens to normally be in Dubai, is dropped on London. This is a movie whose aspirations for an international audience are plain to see. There’s the requisite inclusion of token Chinese characters, and even a scene where a Chinese city is sucked up into the sky. That’s how one can know the Chinese have arrived as a world power. We are now destroying their cities in apocalyptic movies. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Independence Day: Resurgence, or, Who Are the People on the Boat?”
October Horrorshow: Class of 1999
It’s the future, 1999, and the inner cities of America’s once great metropolises have been overrun by youth gangs. Areas surrounding high schools have been declared free fire zones. Police and authorities do not enter. Violence and drugs are rampant. Citizens are warned that if they enter these areas, they do so at their own risk. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Class of 1999″