Tag: Sci-Fi

Title: Alien
Genre: Science Fiction, Horror
MPAA Rating: R
Year: 1979
Director: Ridley Scott
Top Billed Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, John Hurt
Brief Synopsis: After receiving a distress call from an unknown planet, a spacecraft lands to rescue survivors. A lifeform infects the ship and its crew have a deadly force on board with them.
My Word to the Wise: This is an example of a perfect movie, in my opinion. It’s crafted the same way one might craft an oil painting or a miniature city with a model railroad. Besides being damn scary, it raises questions about evolution, survival, predators and prey, and the possibility of a human apocalypse. By far, this is the best in the franchise. “Prometheus,” its prequel runs a close second. I’ve seen this movie 5 times and will probably see it another 5. Everytime I see it, there is something new to marvel at. “Prometheus 2” is in the works for 2017.

Sometimes horror doesn’t need a butcher knife or other killing tools. The suggestion of something horrifying or unseemly is quite enough to qualify it being in the genre. The idea of a disgusting this is the worst you’ll see here. Implanting embryos, injecting, c-sections. They MAY be the worst you’ll see in this film, but that’s up to how good of an imagination you have.

Evolution (2015)
Évolution (original title)
Not Rated | 1h 21min | Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi | 25 November 2016 (USA)

The only residents of young Nicholas’ sea-side town are women and boys. When he sees a corpse in the ocean one day, he begins to question his existence and surroundings. Why must he, and all the other boys, be hospitalised?
Director: Lucile Hadzihalilovic
Writers: Lucile Hadzihalilovic, Alante Kavaite | 1 more credit »
Stars: Max Brebant, Roxane Duran, Julie-Marie Parmentier

The French are good at making art from taboos. Director Lucile Hadzihalilovic is known for being the writer of “Into the Void.” She shows her chops in this one as ditector and co-writer.She out there and out there far. Even with English subtitles, the story has a creepy arcane feel to it.

The mother’som bond is a strong one, especially at their youthful ages. It is strange how she doen’t seem to protect him. He is her “responsibility” among the others but her eyes never hold the coventing love a mother’s should. Things are going on and it’s not hard to figure them out. It is a slow burn but I did enjoy the creepiness of this French film. In all, it never lived up to what I hoped for. I give it a 6/10.

Orbiting a planet on the brink of war, scientists test a device to solve an energy crisis, and end up face-to-face with a dark alternate reality. An arm getting amputated futuristically with no blood is cool. Even making the setting of the third installment of the Cloverfield franchise in outer space is cool. BUT, If you haven’t got a great story and techniques that keep the viewer’s interest, that stuff is side-stuff. Also, ask yourself this: what is the continuity between these three films? Aliens? Cloverfield as a name? I would say nothing but marketing. Could it be they tried to dupe us?

JJ Abrams has been around the block. Most stuff he directed I like but not “Super 8.” He’s in the the producer seat here and I would rather watch Super 8 than “The Cloverfield Paradox.” The Director is Julius Onah. I can tell you he’s directed at least 4 movies looking at his bio. The only one I have seen is this one.

The Cloverfield Paradox (2018)
TV-MA | 1h 42min | Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi | 4 February 2018 (USA)
Orbiting a planet on the brink of war, scientists test a device to solve an energy crisis, and end up face-to-face with a dark alternate reality.
Director: Julius Onah
Writers: Oren Uziel (story by), Doug Jung (story by) | 1 more credit »
Stars: Gugu Mbatha-Raw, David Oyelowo, Daniel Brühl

Unfortunately, there is no special identity for these films, apart from having “Cloverfield” in their title. More time should have been spent figuring out that special sauce.

Were there some cool effects? Yep. Did we see actresses cry on cue? Yep. Was it boring? Yep. Did it remind this author of the vanilla and blah film “Life” in almost every visual way? Yep yep. I gave you two yeps there, interpret amongst yourselves. RE: special effects, my favorite one was when the soldier lady broke through the shattering glass of the spaceship and was jettisoned into space. Pure awesomeness. I appreciate the racial leap of victory this director and cast represents. Nothing can take that away. Nonetheless, it’s a bad story here that made everyone look at their watches far too often. Will there be a Cloverfield 4? I sadly have to give this one a 5/10

This is a fun night out at the movies. It’s to be seen once for all fans of the genre. Once. Considering I’ve seen the original Alien from the 70’s probably well over 20 times, I must make the distinction between the two. The original you see 20 + times, this one once.

Alien: Covenant

“The crew of a colony ship, bound for a remote planet, discover an uncharted paradise with a threat beyond their imagination, and must attempt a harrowing escape.” -IMDB

Cast

Michael Fassbender David/Walter
Katherine Waterston Daniels
Billy Crudup Oram
Danny McBride Tennessee

Directed by

Ridley Scott

Written by

Dan O’Bannon, Ronald Shusett

Other Info

Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller
R
Fri 19 May 2017 UTC
122min
IMDB Rating: 7.0

Ridley Scott invented the Alien film franchise. He only directed Alien 1 and Prometheus, which is meant to be a prequel to the original Alien. For that reason I was very excited to see what he brought to bear in Covenant. Unfortunately, there isn’t much for true enthusiasts.

What you do get is an action film with some really fake looking creatures you will not think about any longer than the trip walking to your car from the theater.

I don’t think Ridley Scott should have made an action film playing horror meets Spy Kids. That’s what this feels like. The lead role is played by a guy who blew stuff up in Tropic Thunder. Hasn’t Ridley seen that film? There is such a thing as typecasting. I had a hard time believing in the space age story with him at the help. He even plays with a naked girl fidget while deciding things on the ship. It’s lame man, really bad.

The monsters are so poorly done I think film students in University today could have dome better as class projects.

Finally: Hear this makers of Alien: We don’t care about David or the other one. Your storyline there sucks royally. Did you think this was blade Runner? About andriods becoming self-aware? It’s about aliens shitheads.

Let’s try a little harder to be spooky and cgi artists next time guys and gals as I am sure there will be a next time. I recommend it once but if you miss it, you won’t miss anything much really. If anyone out there has comments PLEASE leave me some! I’m starving to death with no comments. Dissenting opinions welcome.

5/10

“I don’t want to play with the animals anymore.” -Thea

They can’t all be Oscar winners. They can’t all be big budget. Once in a while, they can be fun with the most minimal resources. Working with what it has, “Zoombies” is too much fun and who doesn’t want a movie like that?

Zoombies (2016)

Cast

Ione Butler

as Lizzy

Andrew Asper

as Gage

LaLa Nestor

as Thea

Directed by

Glenn R. Miller

Written by

Scotty Mullen

Other Info

Action, Horror, Sci-Fi
TV-14
1h 27min

This film is pure fun. It doesn’t try to be “Jurassic Park” but borrows from some of its conventions. The same might be said of it borrowing from “Pet Sematary” and “The Night of the Living Dead.” How about that scene in M Night’s “The Happening” where the lion chews the zookeepers arm off? That was dime. Excellent effects. Scenes like that are mimmicked with low-budget and mixed effects. It was done on the same sort of budget those Discovery Channel dinosaur shows have. It uses canned CGI along with mediocre camera techniques to tell the story. It was funny and exciting, though it could have been funnier.

It all takes place in a new zoo that is doing some testing before it opens to the public. It’s a good thing too because somehow a monkey has been infected with a zombie virus. What happens next is the standard action, zombie, animal film (if there is one). I don’t know but I certainly knew what was coming next. My eight year old and I had some laughs eating popcorn and watching zoo animals wreak havoc on a team of Zoo workers and volunteers. Some ideas are so silly and fun, you could entertain people with puppets.

Don’t expect much from this film, you’ll have a chance to love it that way. I thought of funnier ways to make it but I’m no director. If the idea of animal zombies sounds funny and cool to you, this film is right up your alley. I recommend it.

Undersea monsters are nothing new to film. The ocean is a lot like outer space as a background in Alien. Here, we aren’t in outer space but rather probing the depths of our own ocean space. A hapless crew works out, snaps towels on each other, and one by one encounter a life form that is growing.

Leviathan (1989)
R | 1h 38min | Adventure, Horror, Mystery | 17 March 1989 (USA)

An American deep-sea mining colony stumbles upon a sunken Soviet vessel hiding a horrific secret.
Director: George P. Cosmatos
Writers: David Webb Peoples (story) (as David Peoples), David Webb Peoples (screenplay) (as David Peoples) | 1 more credit »
Stars: Peter Weller, Richard Crenna, Amanda Pays

An impressive star-studded cast develops a far-reaching sense of fear aboard a deep sea submarine. It feels scientific but soon we start feeling there is something evil on board. The effects aren’t great but good enough to scare. Questions of what this thing could be are raised an different answers are given.

It seems fairly early on that the entire cast may be wiped out. The final scene has the aura of a Die Hard ending. That’s probably because in 1989, most action films were as such. This film is great fun for its time and I highly recommend it. It’s far from perfect but it has all the elements needed for an engaging, entertaining, undersea, sci-fi horror.

8/10