SCI-FI September!

[MrBarlow]

Attack Of The Puppet People. 1958.

A doll maker reduces people to six inches tall through a shrinking machine he has developed.

I really don't see the horror to this except when the dolls are attacked by a dog that is fought off but still a entertaining film from Bert I. Gordon who went from creating big characters to small characters in this. John Hoyt is the puppet/doll maker who seems like the dolls are his companions. June Kenney is the newest secretary who falls in love with John Agar and both are shrunk down to size. Really doesn't have a big climatic ending but it's one I like to come back to.

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[MrBarlow]

The Incredible Shrinking Man. 1957.

One film that always seems to entertain little old me with every viewing, despite the low budget, the film's special effects are terrific and the second half of the story basically resolves itself into a struggle for survival for our unfortunate hero as he has to battle various elements, the family cat, a spider, water, the re-dimension of objects around him, his own weakness due to hunger which a normal person would more or less take for granted.

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[MrBarlow]

Event Horizon. 1997.

Event Horizon is a horror sci-fi goldmine that didn't deserve to be butchered the way it did by studio heads. Sam Neil and Laurence Fishburne bring the heat in this one. The cold, calculating, tough captain vs the conniving doctor of evil. The supporting cast is excellent as well. Jason Issacs is always a treat and Joely Richardson was an impecable addition along with near chain smoking pilot Sean Pertwee. The atmosphere in this one is everything. They pulled no punches in creating some believable space ship tech. 90s horror sci-fi nostalgia.

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[MrBarlow]

The Fly. 1986.

David Cronenberg's take on a classic 958 film of the same title, here Jeff Goldblum is the eccentric scientist working with teleportation and uses the device in a drunken jealous mood little realising a fly is in the machine with him. Geena davis is the journalist working on a story and new love interest for Goldblum even though her boss John Getz still has the hots for his ex and wants in on the story. What starts out as mad notion of teleportation on how it will work after a baboon got turned inside out, to a love story that doesn't go wrong and a man slowly turning into a fly. The make-up effects are brilliantly done and has a great score by Howard Shore who turns up the music in certain bits. A remake that never gets dull or boring.

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[MrBarlow]

The Fly II. 1989.

Seth's Brundle's son has inherited the "Brundlefly" gene, growing at a rapid rate and under the observation of Bartok Industries who want to continue with the teleportation experiments.

In The Fly, Seth mentions Bartok and here we see the corporation at it's fullist with Lee Richardson playing the big guy on campus who know's everything and wanting sonny boy Eric Stoltz to be like father and mutate to the full capacity of being a insect. Daphne Zuniga plays the new employee and little love interest but the chemistry is a bit woozy between the two actors. Chris Walas takes over the directors chair for this and creates a new creature effect but still manages to produce some face melting and head crushing moments and the effect of sending a dog through the telepods.

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Attack The Block. 2011.

The film throws us into it after the first 10 minutes, after a mugging goes a bit wrong and something hits a car then we know shit is about to go down. Quite ironic the leader of the gang Moses seems to allow his mates to follow in a life of crime then to safety, almost very biblical. Jodie Whitaker plays the young nurse Sam who is mugged then after being ambushed in her flat that is attacked by a alien goes with the gang to safety. This was a lot better the second time around watching this, good fast pace, plenty of a gore and bloodfest to behold.

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[MrBarlow]

Cyborg. 1989.

Post apocalyptic New York, a gunslinger helps a android to Atlanta who has the cure for a virus.

This is a fun budget Cannon/Albert Pyun movie with JCVD taking the lead role as a man with many scars as we see how it happens in a flash back sequence. Vincent Klyn as the deep throated annoying antagonist who seems to enjoy cutting people up and wanting the cure for himself along with his cronies. It does come with some good fight scenes.

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[Demdike@Cult Labs]

The Chronicles of Riddick (2004)

Director David Twohy returns with star Vin Diesel as Riddick in this sequel to 2000's Pitch Black.

Whereas Pitch Black was a study in minimalism and small scale classy film making this has a tremendous sense of scale and even greater sense of visuals with it's many space craft and 60's epic style scenery with casts of thousands - all probably CGI.

There's plenty going on here and Diesel is fine once more as the antihero Riddick but it lacks an exciting story and tends to become overblown in it's lofty ambition. However the fact is co-stars Judi Dench is something to behold. I wonder if she had any idea what the hell it was all about?

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

The other science fiction epic from 1977.

Stephen Spielberg's superbly crafted urban sci-fi film which deals with how normal folk living their mundane normal lives might handle a close encounter with extra terrestrial life. Extra terrestrial life that for once doesn't want to take over / destroy / enslave the earth and genuinely come in peace.

The events which lead to the kidnap of a young boy shatter the idyllic norm and i kept expecting the boy to say "They're here" as he opens the house door to startlingly bright lights but that's a different Spielberg film altogether.

Richard Dreyfuss takes the lead as he witnesses at first hand a UFO but his wife and family think he's nuts so the film deals with paranoia and delusion on a small scale until the eye opening special effects spectacular finale which remains classic cinema to this day with it's Prog rock back and forth with alien life forms aboard their wondrous space craft.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Independence Day (1996)

If you can get past some of the corny dialogue, Will Smith's cocky but star making patter and the fact that once again America saves the world there's still a really good film here almost thirty years on.

The first hour remains gripping viewing, culminating in several major US cities being wiped out - the destruction of the White House remains genuinely mind blowing cinema - and some exciting air dog fights between alien ships and fighter jets during the second half, before Bill Pullman's president delivers a seriously terrible jingoistic, pompous but rousing speech of utter bollocks which will either have you whooping and laughing into your beer (or whisky) or reaching for the remote control as the film comes to it's explosive climax.

It has flaws certainly. That f*cking speech for one. Why decimate American cities and not London or Sydney? Answer because then you can't have your final shots of the huge alien flying saucers crashing down alongside world famous landmarks if they've already been destroyed would be my guess. Meanwhile Jeff Goldblum appears to be reprising his Jurassic Park Ian Malcolm boffin role, although not as cool, from three years earlier, but overall Roland Emmerich's film is still a great piece of sci-fi blockbuster spectacle.

I'd not seen ID4 in years and thought it was a fantastic Blu-ray experience, especially in it's 5:1 surround mix.

[MrBarlow]

The Big Bus. 1976.

A bus company reveals it's new transportation "Cyclops" a double decker bus that has the mod cons of a cruise ship that relies on nuclear energy to run. Onboard is a assortment of odd passengers, a mature nymphomaniac, a man that has 6 months to live, a priest who is loosing his faith, a married couple who will be divorcing, a bus driver that survived a crash and is accused of being a cannibal and his co-pilot who blacks out at the fear of driving, and a piano player who plays inappropriate music at the wrong time.

Classed as a disatser parody movie with some science fiction added in for it's time, the laughs are all there especially with the bar fight with all the bus drivers, a engineer Ned Beatty bringing up the stuff his assistant Howard Hessman has done. Joseph Bologna revealing his previous relationships to ex Stockard Channing while on a open line radio and announcing there is a bomb on the bus.

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The predator. 2018.

A group of soldiers heading for some evaluation, a science teacher and a autistic son of a soldier try to stop a war between humans and a predator on Earth. This mentions the team that went into the jungle and L.A. and now a hybrid predator mixed with other alien species comes to Earth with it's two dogs while a assortment of soldiers try to survive a playground school battle while a team try to capture the alien for it's technology. It's not perfect but a lot better than AVP: Requiem and some comedy added in.

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