Twilight Zone: The Movie

Watching Twilight Zone: The Movie has always come with one great big caveat, can you enjoy the movie knowing that three people lost their lives during an accident on set? It's not an easy thing to get past. If you are able to set that aside for an hour or two, there is still plenty to enjoy in the movie. Sure, it's pretty well impossible not to think about the accident during the film's first segment. Directed by John Landis, "Time Out" is the story of an angry racist who gets to experience what it's like to be on the other side of bigotry and hatred. The second segment, "Kick the Can," directed by Steven Spielberg, doesn't quite fit the tone of the rest of the movie but is helped by Scatman Crothers' endless supply of charisma. The movie really kicks into high gear in the back half, with remakes of two all-time classic Twilight Zone stories. "It's a Good Life," directed by Joe Dante, pairs a lot of Dante's favorite cartoons and character actors with some memorable special effects from Rob Bottin. And finally, "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet," directed by George Miller, which features John Lithgow (in a role originally played by William Shatner) as a man desperately trying to convince his fellow passengers that there's a gremlin on the wing of their plane. The movie also includes appearances from Albert Brooks, Dan Aykroyd, Vic Morrow, Kevin McCarthy, Nancy Cartwright, Dick Miller and narration by Burgess Meredith.

Rating: 74%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Fun Fact: Steven Williams, who played a bar patron in the first segment, also played Creighton Duke in Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday and a tree trimmer in Better Off Dead.

Invaders From Mars

A kid sees a flying saucer crash, and soon evil aliens are taking over every adult in town! It’s pretty decent for a kid friendly sci fi horror flick, even if I hated the ending so, so much (which apparently the 50s version did too).

RATING: 54%

Explorers

In his dreams, Ben sees the layout of a strange circuit board. Using a sketch of the circuit board, Ben's genius friend Wolfgang is able to create a machine that generates an electromagnetic bubble. Together with their new friend Darren, the boys build a spaceship and set off on an adventure that takes them out of the suburbs and beyond their wildest imaginations. Directed by Joe Dante, Explorers is a science fiction fantasy adventure film. Ben and Wolfgang are played by Ethan Hawke and River Phoenix in the feature film debuts. Rushed into production and released before it could be properly completed, Explorers isn't entirely successful. It feels very much like a movie trying to recreate the vibe of E.T. But, like many of Joe Dante's other films, Explorers has since gone on to find a cult audience.

Rating: 62%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Fun Fact: Jason Presson, who played Darren, also played one of the yogurt shop employees in Gremlins 2: The New Batch.

Total Recall

Every night, Douglas Quaid dreams about Mars and a mysterious brunette. Are they just dreams or are they memories buried deep inside his brain? Is it even his brain? Total Recall is an ultra-violent sci-fi action movie directed by Paul Verhoeven, based on a story by Philip K. Dick. The plot combines a twisty-turny spy narrative with clever sci-fi concepts and then Verhoeven throws in enough violence to put his own RoboCop to shame. I keep bringing up the violence because Total Recall is so unbelievably, gleefully violent. At every opportunity, Total Recall goes over the top and then some. If you've seen the film, you might remember that there is a woman in the movie with three breasts. You don't get to see her topless just once. No, you get to see her topless three times because that's the kind of movie it is.

Rating: 82%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Fun Fact: Robert Picardo, from Star Trek: Voyager and countless Joe Dante movies, provided the voice for Johnnycab.

Cyborg

A cyborg, carrying vital information, attempts to travel from New York to Atlanta. The cyborg tries to secure the protective services of a slinger named Gibson, but is quickly abducted by a violent gang. Gibson follows the gang to Atlanta, not to protect the cyborg but to get revenge on the gang's leader. Cyborg was cobbled together by Cannon in an effort to recoup some of their losses after a Masters of the Universe sequel and their live-action Spider-Man movie fell through. The special effects and costumes are charmingly cheap. The locations are great and do a lot to elevate the film. The film's acting and script, however, leave a bit to be desired. Also, spoiler alert/reminder to those who haven't seen the movie in a long time: JCVD does not play the titular cyborg.

Rating: 61%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Innerspace

After losing everything, disgraced aviator Tuck Pendleton joins up with some scientists for a top secret miniaturization project. Everything goes well until a group of rival scientists steal the miniaturization technology. In order to keep him from falling into the wrong hands, Tuck gets injected into the body of Jack Putter, a neurotic hypochondriac. With the threat of a dwindling air supply hanging over their heads, Tuck and Jack have to team up with Jack's ex Lydia to recover the stolen microchips so that they can get Tuck out of Jack and back to his normal size. Though far from perfect, Innerspace is a real gem. The special effects hold up incredibly well and the performances are excellent. Martin Short is in top form here, his timing is incredible and his physical comedy is amazing. There are even a few stunts in the film that are reminiscent of Jackie Chan's work. The movie might have benefitted from some tighter editing and the score is pretty weak overall. Even still, Innerspace is definitely worth a watch.

Rating: 71%

(Image from Wikipedia)

The Incredible Shrinking Man

Scott Carey was a typical man, living out the 1950s equivalent of the American Dream. But after a chance encounter with a mysterious fog bank, he begins to shrink. At first, no one believes him. Before long, his diminishing size becomes undeniable. Scientists struggle to understand his condition, working feverishly to find a cure. Scott's dwindling size begins to put stress on his marriage. No longer able to work, his attempts to cash in on his infamy only lead to intense public and media scrutiny. He withdraws further and further into himself as he shrinks, taking out his frustration on his wife. Then one day she accidentally leaves the front door open and Butch, the family cat, gets into the house and begins to hunt Scott like it would a mouse. Barely escaping the cat, Scott is then trapped in his cellar, where his life and death struggles truly begin. Even though I don't think Scott is a particularly sympathetic character (he's a chauvinist who comes really close to cheating on his wife at one point in the movie) he has the pathos of a film noir character. He narrates the film, mythologizing his journey along the way. The Incredible Shrinking Man actually has a surprising amount of depth. I can see how the themes of the movie could be interpreted in a number of ways. It can be enjoyed easily enough on a surface level, but I'm also willing to bet that there are some Men's Rights Activists out there praising the movie and using it to justify all sorts of repugnant shit.

Rating: 70%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Killdozer

A meteorite crashes down on an island off the coast of Africa. After an unspecified amount of time, a construction crew happens upon the meteorite while working on the island. When the crew's bulldozer moves the meteorite, it emits a strange blue light, killing one of the workers. Then the bulldozer begins to operate on its own. And it seems to have a taste for blood. One by one, the crew are hunted down and killed by the machine, which is about as ridiculous as it sounds. This made for TV movie doesn't break any new ground. (Get it? It's a construction joke. No? OK, I'll see myself out.) It's basically Duel meets The Car. It's a mini Maximum Overdrive, if you will. It's an interesting artifact from a bygone era, but it's also something you've probably seen done better elsewhere.

Rating: 53%

(Image from YouTube)

Golden Years

 

A janitor working at that same company (The Company) that turned the little girl from Firestarter into a fire starter gets zapped by an explosion and starts getting younger. Apparently Stephen King saw Twin Peaks and wanted to make something similar, but with a little less fever dream. Well buddy I gotta say that I think the fever dream aspect is a real big part of what makes Twin Peaks so good! 

RATING: 34%

The Invisible Man

A lot of the Universal Monsters inspire sympathy, not the Invisible Man. He's a straight-up murderous asshole. He's the kind of guy who can calmly sit in a study and say to someone, "we'll begin with a reign of terror." He goes from zero to murder in no time at all. Having been driven mad by the chemicals in his formula, the Invisible Man spends most of his time lashing out at colleagues and simple townsfolk. At one point, he even knocks over a baby carriage. A baby carriage, for God's sake.

Rating: 69%

(Image from Wikipedia)

The Spider

aka Earth vs the Spider

As far as giant insect movies from the 50s go, The Spider is average at best. It's really only notable because it was produced, directed and featured special effects created by Bert I. Gordon. Gordon was one of the many B-movie auteurs of the 50s and 60s. His gimmick was big stuff. Big monsters, big people, big bugs. You get the idea. He used a lot of process shots, rear projection and forced perspective tricks. He wasn't known for his screenplays, if you hear what I'm saying. It's fitting that The Spider was one of several Bert I. Gordon films featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000. It was practically tailor-made for the MST3K format.

Rating: 59%

(Image from IMDB)

The Dead Zone

 A school teacher gets coma'd by a car accident and when he wakes up five years later his daggum girlfriend has left him and is married with a kid. Also he's got the ability to see the future by touching a person, a common side effect. He uses said power for the usual - stopping needless deaths, solving a serial killing, and preventing a murderous populist presidential candidate from destroying the whole planet Earth. 

RATING: 74%

The Mole People

It's almost a shame that they couldn't get the Dark Universe off the ground, because a movie like The Mole People is perfect for a modern reboot. It's a movie that, I'm guessing, not a lot of people have seen. It definitely doesn't have the cachet of your Draculas and Frankensteins but it's something that could easily be gussied up for our times. It even has some racial themes that could be explored, Jordan Peele-style. I mean, who wouldn't want to see a movie about some archaeologists discovering a subterranean city populated by albinos and their mole man slaves? Just put, I don't know, Ryan Gosling in it or something.

Rating: 61%

(Image from IMDB)

Enterprise S1E1 - "Broken Bow"

Everybody hates Enterprise, and to be honest when I was 21 as soon as I heard the Scott Stapp style crooner whining his way through a barely plucked acoustic guitar as the theme song I clicked it off. This first episode is actually really great, it turns out, from effects to story to acting. The plot is there's a Klingon who accidentally crashes on Earth, so it's up to Captain Johnathan Archer and his brand new ship, the, uh, Enterprise (like, future people have a really small stable of names to pick from I guess) to carry this Klingon back to his home world, Klingo, but will everything go according to plan??? Also, gripezone, but Star Trek is always patting itself on the back for diversity yet in six TV shows every crewmember has been hetero cisgender Americans/Europeans with a couple aliens thrown in for good measure.

RATING: 76%

The Crawling Eye

If you were to see a picture of the monster from The Crawling Eye you would, like most people, probably assume that it was just another laughably low rent sci-fi/horror flick from the 1950s. It's a shame that The Crawling Eye (aka The Trollenberg Terror) has such a poor reputation because it's actually a decent film, for the most part. It's true that the titular monster looks pretty shitty, but the section of the movie that comes before the monster's appearance (roughly two thirds of the film's running time) is quite good. They must have known that the monster looked terrible because they spent most of the movie building up the suspense and laying out all the pieces before coming to the inevitable man vs. monster conclusion. But if you like mountain climbing, cable cars, psychics, decapitations, creepy fog, observatories, Molotov cocktails and negligent European parents then The Crawling Eye is just the film for you.

Rating: Not as bad as MST3K would have you believe%

(Image from moviegoods.com)

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Invasion of the Body Snatchers was probably the first black and white movie I ever saw and it clearly made an impression on me. I watched it on TV and I can still remember the disconnect that happened every time the movie went to or returned from commercials (said commercials included Heavy D promoting Sprite, because I am an old man). Some people might consider Invasion of the Body Snatchers to be more science fiction than horror, but in my experience when you're talking about movies from the 1950s there's hardly any real difference between the two genres. In the movie, in what may or may not have been an allegory about communism/McCarthyism, our hero finds that the people in his small town have been slowly and systematically replaced by duplicates devoid of emotions and individuality. The movie's been parodied and remade dozens of times so you're likely already familiar with the story, but if you haven't already seen the 1956 original I would highly recommend it.

Rating: They're here already%

(Image from widescreenworld.blogspot.com)

Jason X

In the future, 2008, Jason is captured by the government and held in a research facility. Unable to kill or transport him, Jason is placed into suspended animation. In the even futurer, 2455, Jason's body is found by some students among the debris littering Earth's abandoned surface (Wall-E was right). Jason wakes up on a spaceship and starts killing everyone. Some other stuff happens, but it's all so fucking terrible I don't even want to write about it. Ye gods, this movie sucks!

Rating: Face frozen in liquid nitrogen and smashed on counter%

(Image from impawards.com)

Them!

Speaking of bugs, Them! is a movie about ants who got all giant due to atomic bombs. According to Wikipedia, the source I tell all my students to use, it is regarded as one of the best science fiction movies of the 50s. According to me, the only source I ever use, it is regarded as a boring piece of dookie. The ant effects are pretty good, but too much of the movie is this scientist with one of those old-timey "smart person" accents claiming that they're witnessing biblical prophecy. Thanks, doc! Hope you got that opinion peer reviewed.

RATING: 44%

Return of the Fly

I was going to write a legitimate review for Return of the Fly but I don't think anyone can sum it up better than Glenn Danzig already did:

Return of the fly
With Vincent Price
You guinea pig
Yeah, return of the fly

Couldn't have said it any better myself.

Rating: 70%

(Image from movieposterdb.com)

The Thing

Kurt Russell, Wilford Brimley and a bunch of other dudes are at an Antarctic research station when they unwittingly bring a shape-shifting alien into their midst, much gore and paranoia ensues. Holy frigballs, I love this movie. Every time I watch it, I wish I was watching it again for the first time, just so I wouldn't know what gooey surprises were lurking around the next corner. And even though I'm a big Halloween fan, this is quite possibly my all-time favorite John Carpenter film. The special effects work by (an apparently coked up) Rob Bottin are amazing.

Rating: 95%

(Image from impawards.com)