A very strange film courtesy of director Curtis Harrington. This film is by turns ambitious, clumsy, inspired, dull, beautiful, ugly, and creepy in atmosphere. Harrington compiles, at times, an epic space adventure that involves our world and the inhabitants of another planet. It seems that Earth has detected an interstellar message that aliens are headed toward our planet to establish a meeting of the races. It is soon discovered that the aliens were waylaid enroute and crashed on the planet Mars. Earth dispatches a rescue mission to assist the downed craft. Our astronauts recover one living specimen but soon regret [More]
“The Day Mars Invaded Earth” starts out promisingly enough with footage of a rover device scooted across the surface of the Red Planet. The film is in black and white so we take it on faith that we are actually on Mars. Har-har. This segment of the film is my favorite part of the movie as too soon we see the probe destroyed and we come back to earthly maters for the remainder of the film. It seems that the scientist who is chiefly responsible for the project is psychically invaded by some form of life from Mars and his [More]
Tension filled tale of a US Naval captain’s maniacal pursuit of a trespassing Soviet submarine that turns into a fatal obsession. Richard Widmark gives a strong performance as the captain who follows a logic based on sense of duty, patriotism and antagonism that ultimately pushes his adversary to desperate retaliation. The results of this quest are not good. As bleak an ending to this one as may be found in the genre of war films and speculative cinema. Some people just don’t know when to give up. In B & W.
An attempt to bring to the silver screen a work by author Ray Bradbury. Three futuristic stories are “illustrated” through the conduit of a mysterious wanderer whose body is covered in tattoos. Rod Steiger plays the tattooed man who explains the story behind various of his body art. Steiger and Claire Bloom appear in the three episodes playing different characters. Very brooding, dark film that wears it’s ’60’s era influences on its sleeve sometimes not so well. I must say that this is not one of my favorite films and not one I would readily return to. Trippy at times and [More]
Lifeforce has always been an enjoyable viewing experience for me. Directed by Tobe Hooper of Texas Chainsaw Massacre fame, this flick straddles the line between falling into either the science fiction or horror movie camps. It ends up having elements of both in its delivery. An international space crew observing Halley’s Comet become aware of an unidentified object hidden within the comet’s tail. The crew decides to investigate the object up close and then things start to get really interesting. I think the first thirty minutes of this movie are brilliantly paced. I love that portion of the movie but [More]