Category: Science Fiction

Deadly Weapon (1989)

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When Zeke finds a crate marked “office supplies” floating in the local river, takes it back to his dump of a house and opens it to find an advanced, highly destructive anti-matter ray gun, the audience’s excitement builds in anticipation of the entire hick town of King Bee, Arizona being zapped into the Negative Zone, along with the abusive family, bullying kids, and cruel school officials who make his life hell.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the rampage as Zeke spends much of the film holed up in a cafe, holding the mayor, sheriff, and town pastor hostage. And then anonymous Saturday Night Live alum Gary Kroeger shows up as a smarmy TV personality to interview the troubled Zeke. Didn’t director Michael Miner know that whenever Kroeger came on SNL, that meant it was time for a bathroom break? Continue reading “Deadly Weapon (1989)” →

Meteor (1979)

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Despite being derided as being so terrible that it helped create its own mass extinction level event (the end of the 1970s disaster movie genre), if we’re being honest, Meteor is a painfully accurate depiction of what would happen if the Earth was about suffer a large asteroid impact.

Namely, that our heroes would push a few buttons, turn some dials, and watch countdown clocks and computer monitors until the giant rock either hit us or it didn’t while bustling around huffing and puffing to disguise the fact that they really had nothing to do but stand around with their thumb in their asses the whole time. Continue reading “Meteor (1979)” →

The War of the Gargantuas (1966)

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The War of the Gargantuas is really the story of unfulfilled potential, dreams dashed and a sinking back into slimy obscurity. While the film ostensibly focuses on the titular gargantuas (and rightfully so because who doesn’t love watching grown men in ratty-looking hairy ape suits push each other around), it is the sad tale of Giant Octopus that lingers long after the last model tank has been thrown and the last smug line has been spoken by a clearly unhappy Russ Tamblyn. Continue reading “The War of the Gargantuas (1966)” →

The Kirlian Witness (1979)

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The plants are watching us! And thinking! And solving crimes! How awesome is all that?

After going through my whole life under the impression that our leafy neighbors were just waiting to shove a prickly root up my backside (I was no doubt influenced by anti-plant polemics like The Day of the Triffids and Contamination .7), I was relieved that with 1979’s The Kirlian Witness they could finally take their place along side their fellow classic 1970s detectives like Jim Rockford and Barnaby Jones! How could you not love a rhododendron in a Sherlock Holmes deerstalker cap yelling the plant equivalent of “Book’em Danno!”? Continue reading “The Kirlian Witness (1979)” →

The Suns of Easter Island (1972)

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Well that’s something else I can cross off my bucket list. After slogging through ninety minutes of what is mostly a painfully dull pseudo documentary/travelogue and only sporadically a science fiction movie, I really have no desire anymore to visit Easter Island.

Watching a group of seven people wander around the island aimlessly for a half hour really drove home the point that after you’ve stared at those giant stone heads for about five minutes, you’re kind of screwed for anything else to do. When does the next 4 and half hour flight back to Santiago, Chili leave? Continue reading “The Suns of Easter Island (1972)” →

Embryo (1976)

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To those without any vision, Dr. Paul Holliston is just another in a long line of delusional Frankensteins playing God with human life with the expected disastrous results. Ethics and rules are there for a reason, you egomaniac! Who are you to decide to bring life into this world without the consent of the biological parents! What makes you think you can conduct these grotesque experiments without professional oversight, lecture the smug status quo drones!

If I’m Dr. Holliston, I’d send them a message letting them know that I’m too busy watching special guest star Roddy McDowall being put in his place at a party during a game of chess against my experiment named Victoria. And my nights are just too damn busy teaching her how babies are normally made since my secret sauce made her grow from a grody little embryo to a perfect 10 in like a month! Did I mention that if you keep giving me lip, I’ll sic my super intelligent Doberman on you? Last time I saw that little bugger he was helping Victoria dispose of a dead hooker! Continue reading “Embryo (1976)” →

Z.P.G. (1972)

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The dopey 1970s science fiction premise:  overpopulation has made most of the Earth an uninhabitable pile of garbage.  People are relegated to large, smog-filled totalitarian cities where they need to wear gas masks when out in public and listen as government propaganda-spewing drones hover above them.  In an effort to combat the effects that dwindling resources are having, all the countries in the world have implemented a policy of zero population growth and forbidden anyone for having children for the next thirty years.

But big government knows the little woman at home really wants a baby of her own to play with (and let’s be honest – men just want sex and football so that aren’t too worked up by all this) so they create dolls to substitute for real kids! Just head down to the Baby Store (sorry – no infants currently in stock) and you can get a doll that will talk (like a cheap doll), suffer from minor childhood illnesses and even push a stroller a few feet! Continue reading “Z.P.G. (1972)” →