Tag: Sci-Fi Flick

The Navy vs. The Night Monsters

What a putrid mess. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen a cheap 1950s monster flick. They have a certain amount of kitsch to them that paid quite a lot of dividends back in the decade of above ground nuclear tests and Leave It to Beaver. Stylistically non-offensive but at the same time strangely subversive, a good monster flick can be a commentary on the creeping destructiveness of American power, the precarious balance of post Word War II peace, and the boring homogeneity of typical Hollywood cinema. All of this can be contained in a film that looks like it cost about five bucks to make. Yep, 1950s monster cinema was great.

Too bad The Navy vs. the Night Monsters was made in 1966. Continue reading “The Navy vs. The Night Monsters”

The Colony (2013)

I don’t know why, but I love stories with an Arctic setting. The poles are some of the most inhospitable places on the planet for life, topped only by the few locations that rise into the deoxygenated death zones at the tops of mountains. The starkness, the harshness, of these places I find fascinating. So much so that, once upon a time, I looked into getting a job summering over at McMurdo Station in Antarctica. Alas, I am unqualified. They have PhD’s down there scrubbing toilets. What more can I offer? Continue reading “The Colony (2013)”

Deep Blue Sea

There are some serious contenders on the short list of Official Movie of Shitty Movie Sundays. Alien: Resurrection holds the crown by default, but challengers include stalwart paragons of shittiness such as Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone, and Reign of Fire. Both of those films differ from Alien: Resurrection in one important aspect: they are fun. Alien: Resurrection is an overwrought chore of a film. It has none of the loose bravura of Spacehunter or the hilariously over the top seriousness of Reign of Fire. Why then, does Alien: Resurrection continue to hold the crown? Because it was first. Someday I’ll tire of using Alien: Resurrection as my prototype. For now, long live the king. Continue reading “Deep Blue Sea”

Resident Evil: Retribution, or, Story? We Don’t Need No Stinking Story!

October is here. Rejoice! For this is the best month in which to watch horror films. Summer has just died and the month ends with Halloween. The chill that has suddenly arisen in the air portends the coming cold slumber of winter...or the passing whisper of a phantom. To celebrate, Missile Test once again dedicates the month to reviewing horror films. The good, the bad, or the putrid. It doesn’t matter. If there’s blood, it gets a watch. Welcome to the fifth annual October Horrorshow. First up is a real winner. Continue reading “Resident Evil: Retribution, or, Story? We Don’t Need No Stinking Story!”

Total Recall (2012)

It’s no secret. Hollywood loves remakes. They love squeezing new cash out of old ideas. And why not? We’re a country that embraces the familiar. We find comfort in it. It’s this tendency of the public to seek out what it already knows that makes Applebee’s and the Olive Garden successful properties in Times Square. Who the hell would come all the way to New York City only to eat the same food they can get in Boise? Americans, that’s who. Continue reading “Total Recall (2012)”

Dredd

“Let’s finish this.” Really? Still, it’s good. Trust me.

Blink and you would have missed it. Dredd, written by Alex Garland and directed by Pete Travis, went in and out of movie theaters so quickly this fall that by the time I realized it had been released, it was already gone. Maybe it was a failure of marketing, maybe it was a lack of interest in the characters, maybe it was just fatigue after a summer filled with overwrought comic book adaptations which kept viewers away. And, it has to be said, maybe it was the hard ‘R’ rating the film earned. Whatever the reasons, one or a combination of all of these and more, Dredd was a flop. Which is too bad, because it was the best of the comic book films released this year, and one of the best comic book films I’ve ever seen. Continue reading “Dredd”

Leviathan

(Note: I wrote this way back in May, then decided that, rather than post this immediately, it would fit in better with the October Horrorshow. Hence the slightly dated references in the opening paragraph.)

From 1989, Leviathan is George P. Cosmatos’s follow-up to the classic Sylvester Stallone shitfest that was Cobra. And Leviathan isn’t any better. Little more than a mashup of Alien and John Carpenter’s Thing, Leviathan is a stroll down recognizable and well-worn plot paths, comfortable in its familiarity, like an old pair of shoes or the quilt that your grandmother made when you were a child. A more crass reviewer could say Leviathan is a blatant rip-off of much better films, and they would be correct. But I choose to view Leviathan in a more forgiving light, especially since, these days, Hollywood is determined to cram sequels, adaptations, reboots, and remakes down the throats of the all-too-willing public. This week, I could have chosen to see The Avengers or even Battleship at the theaters. Instead, I decided to stay local with my garbage, and rent a fine example of shitty monster movie cinema to view in my own home. Continue reading “Leviathan”

The Fly (1986)

The FlyTeleportation is a fascinating subject. Most sci-fi fans have watched the transporters in Star Trek or elsewhere and thought how cool it would be to travel instantly from one place to another. But then science rears its ugly head. Sure, it’s a novel idea, and would change the way we live in ways that are hard to comprehend. For instance, if distance becomes meaningless, so does security and privacy. There’s no point in having locked doors if anyone at anytime can just teleport into your apartment and steal your stuff. There’s no point in living in cities if you can have cheap housing in the boonies and just teleport into midtown for work. Hungry for some Italian food? Forget the quaint little place that just opened in the old downtown, in the spot the shoe store used to be. Go to fucking Italy! Teleportation would be such a revolution in the way we think about distance that it would remake society in ways we can scarcely imagine. But there’s a dark side. Continue reading “The Fly (1986)”