Schlock on such a grandiose scale as Raise the Titanic only comes about on rare occasions. As such, it should be treasured, albeit briefly, until the novelty wears off. Raise the Titanic not only tells the story of an attempt to salvage the famous shipwreck, it is also a Cold War tale of epic proportions, the outcome of which would determine the balance of power in the world. In the cargo hold of the sunken ship lies the only known supply of a rare mineral, byzanium, capable of powering a laser shield that can disable all nuclear missiles heading for the United States. I am not making any of this up. This was the plot of an actual movie. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Raise the Titanic”
Tag: Sci-Fi Flick
The Empty Balcony: 2010
The year 2010 has come and gone, and with it, a milestone in the calendar of science fiction. First, a quick explanation. The calendar of science fiction is an informal mental tabulation I keep of events in fiction that took place in the future when the material was originally released. I keep note of plots and dates of noteworthy films, television series, and novels to see just how far away from reality the storytellers drifted once the actual year is reached. For example, Escape from New York, John Carpenter’s dystopian vision of Manhattan Island as a maximum security prison, took place in 1997. That year came and went, and while New York City didn’t have the greatest reputation in the world at the time, it did feature a steadily falling crime rate and no landmines on its bridges. In short, not a prison. Continue reading “The Empty Balcony: 2010″
October Horrorshow: The Blob (1988)
Things have calmed down a bit here at Missile Test. Today is the second straight day without a zombie sighting in the October Horrorshow. No walking dead, no rambling hordes, no barricaded windows or locked down shopping malls. Instead, we return to the realm of the creature feature with the 1988 remake of the classic b-horror flick The Blob. Directed by Chuck Russell, who shared the screenwriting credits with Frank Darabont, this remake is a fine movie in its own right. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: The Blob (1988)”
October Horrorshow: Re-Animator
Ah, October. The time of year when the leaves change from their electric, yet uniform, green into the vibrant oranges, reds, and yellows that typify the mind’s eye view of a New England landscape, one full of hills cut by a meandering river, the sky a wonderful azure dotted here and there with the softest of clouds. The air grows crisp and the days begin to grow noticeably shorter, but the oppression that is summer is left quickly behind, only a distant memory in the pleasantness of the changing season. It was the Reverend William Newell who once wrote:
Changing, fading, falling, flying,
From homes that gave them birth,
Autumn leaves, in beauty dying,
Seek the mother breast of earth.
Hmm. Makes one think, doesn’t it? I believe it was also Lewis Black who said, back in the far distant days of 1999, “Fall sucks!” Yes, Lewis, yes it does. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Re-Animator”
October Horrorshow, Spring Edition: Class of Nuke ‘Em High
What a shitty movie. From Troma Entertainment, a production company well-versed in churning out b-movie fare (most famously the Toxic Avenger series of films and its spinoffs), Class of Nuke ‘Em High is self-aware schlock. From the opening scene to the end, the filmmakers never miss a chance to remind the viewer that what they are watching is not meant to be taken seriously. But the way they choose to draw attention to this fact, with overwrought characters and performances, only serves to make the film feel forced. It revels in cheapness, and this would be a good thing, if only they weren’t trying so hard. At every step of the film, Troma seeks to establish its brand, reveling in its ineptness at putting together something that is watchable.
The film has a strong beginning. After an opening shot purposefully evocative of Troma’s production logo, the scene shifts to the fictional town of Tromaville, New Jersey, where an accident at a nuclear power plant has leaked radioactive goo into the high school next door. A hapless student is exposed to the contaminant when he drinks from a water fountain before class, and his transformation from stereotypical 80s film nerd to smoking corpse is hilarious. But in that scene is a first glimpse of the film’s downfall. Most of the ensemble cast is present, and all exist, like the poor victim, as caricatures of the diverse collection of jocks, losers, horndogs, and punks that populate the banal visions of high school typical of so many films from the 50s to today. The problem is, there isn’t a straight man among the bunch to balance things out. Continue reading “October Horrorshow, Spring Edition: Class of Nuke ‘Em High”
October Horrorshow: Maximum Overdrive
“Stephen King’s masterpiece of terror directed by the master himself.” That’s how Maximum Overdrive was billed, right at the top of the poster. There’s an image of a bearded King peaking through a jagged rip in the side of what looks like a horse trailer manipulating characters and events in the movie marionette-style. There they are at the end of his strings, right above the chrome and lightning bolt logo for the film, slave to his every command and victim to every twisted whimsy. The poster implies quite explicitly that every other King adaptation to make it to the big screen was shit. But never fear, the master of horror has blessed this film with his presence — total creative control — ensuring that Maximum Overdrive is the quintessential Stephen King film. Suck on that, Stanley Kubrick. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Maximum Overdrive”
October Horrorshow: Event Horizon
Mix one part huge spaceship, one part small cast, and one part gore, blend on high, and what do you get? Alien. Or one of the many Alien clones that have dotted sci-fi cinema for the last thirty years. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Formulas in film that work well are often repeated ad nauseam, and while they never quite live up to the creative spirit at work in the original, they still serve to entertain, and that is the primary purpose of film. Even Alien itself is derivative of earlier films, most notably It! The Terror from Beyond Space, including many, many other sci-fi and horror films that portray a small group of people being mercilessly slaughtered one by one. But these days, where there’s outer space and buckets of blood, there is a debt of gratitude owed to Ridley Scott and his crew from 1979. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Event Horizon”
The Empty Balcony: Sunshine
Good science fiction films set in space are hard to come by. So many examples embrace the fiction part at the expense of the science that they lose a good deal of intelligence, and stupidity is death to sci-fi. Additionally, it’s a challenge to make space an interesting setting without working around so many of the realities that make space not only the most challenging environment there is for human existence, but also the most boring. There’s a reason, after all, that space shuttle launches are broadcast on C-SPAN. Continue reading “The Empty Balcony: Sunshine”
Shitty Movie Sundays: Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone
Along with the title of ‘Official Filmmaker of Shitty Movie Sundays,’ as mentioned in the review of Soldier, there are a few films vying for the title of King of the Shitty Movies. 1983’s Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone, directed by Lamont Johnson, is a strong contender. Riding the post Star Wars wave of 80s sci-fi, Spacehunter really is a sci-fi adventure, as the film’s hero, Peter Strauss’s Wolff, is forced to confront bizarre obstacle after bizarre obstacle in his quest to complete his mission: rescuing three marooned space hotties from the clutches of the evil Overdog (Michael Ironside), a ruthless dictator exercising sadistic control over the desert planet Terra XI somewhere off in the far reaches of space. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone”
Shitty Movie Sundays: Soldier
Paul W. S. Anderson is close to being the official filmmaker of Shitty Movie Sundays. I would present this honor outright to John Carpenter were it nor the fact he has displayed far too much competence as a filmmaker in the past, despite the fair amount of shitty films that mar his oeuvre. Other candidates could include b-movie monster master Bert I. Gordon, or even Cash Flagg, as a tribute to his recent demise. Flagg would be an interesting choice, as he was, without a doubt, one of the most unique filmmakers of all time, quality notwithstanding. Anderson, on the other hand, has written, directed, or produced some of the most quotidian dogs to ever make it to the silver screen, number of explosions notwithstanding. The only factor that keeps me from committing Shitty Movie Sundays to total Anderson worship is that he has peppered his career with films that are so shitty as to be unwatchable, and there is no joy in a bad film that repels the viewer so thoroughly that it can’t be sat through without giving up one’s movie-going self to the unique absurdity of substandard cinema. It’s almost a religion in that way. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Soldier”