Reviews

I was rather surprised to have seen this movie a long time ago. this obscure 1952 scifi movie is similar to the 1997 movie Contact, based off of a book by the same name.

The plot is about an American astronomer, Cyron(Peter Graves) who obtains images of Mars suggesting large-scale environmental changes are occurring at a pace that can only be accomplished by intelligent beings with advanced technology. At the same time a colleague claims to have been contacting Mars by radio, first through an exchange of mathematical concepts and then through answers to specific questions. The transmissions claim that Mars is a utopia.

A former Nazi, Franz Calder, who invented the hydrogen valve, is secretly bankrolled by the Soviets. He's set up in the Andes mountains. Messages come in telling of economic marvels.

This revelation leads to political and economic chaos, especially in the Western hemisphere. The U.S. government imposes a news blackout after the first four messages, only to reveal much later that Earth's people can be saved if they return to the worship of God. Revolution sweeps the globe, including the Soviet Union.

An avalanche destroys Calder's lab, but he shows up later at Cronyn's lab claiming to have sent the messages himself, to destroy the West's economy and the Soviets' empire. He then planned to tell all in order to destroy the faith the religious messages spawned. Cronyn and his wife decide that Calder must be stopped. They open the hydrogen valve, willing to die to stop Calder and preserve the new peace. At the last minute, the receiver begins to crackle. A new message comes in from Mars and obviously not Calder. Outraged, Calder shoots the radio, sparking the huge hydrogen-fueled explosion.

Christian elements are woven throughout the film, just to underscore the point that the Free World has religion while the Communist country's are "godless". An interesting scene near the end, in which Calder scoffs at the Cronyn's faith in God. He quotes Milton. "Better to rule in hell than serve in heaven." Calder doesn't deny God's existence, but says he worships Lucifer. "God may have won that battle (kicking Lucifer out of heaven), but I will win this one..." (Nazi's are easy to hate.)

Despite the fact that there are no aliens, flying saucers, or lasers it is a bit of a disappointment. But this is more of a thought-provoking film. It kind of makes you think what would happen if we did receive an alien message from space and the effect it would have on the world.

The giant bug sub-genre started in the 1950's. We had ants in Them! (1953) and a spider in Tarantula(1955). Here we have one of the weakest of them all. I am talking about Bert I Gordon's giant grasshopper 1957 movie Beginning of the End.

The film is about an agricultural scientist (Peter Graves) who has successfully grown gigantic vegetables using radiation. Unfortunately, the vegetables are then eaten by locusts, which grow to gigantic size and attack the nearby city of Chicago.

The "special effects" are as cheap as it is. While the grasshoppers are roaming around Chicago, the buildings they climb up are just photos. The rest of the movie they are green screened.

One of the things that help a giant bug movie work, is that the bug is somewhat fearful even when small. Such as ants, spiders, scorpions, mantises, but grasshoppers are not that fearsome.

Nebo Zovyot (The Sky is Calling) is a 1959 Soviet film about Russia and the US trying to become the first to land on the planet Mars.

The models(Rockets,Space Station)and sets are impressive for late 1959.

The film never made a clean debut in the US, simply dubbed into English as so many Japanese sci-fi films had. This was because the story had pro-communist messages and disparaged America. Being a Soviet film, the messages are all from the other side. The Soviets are cast as the reasonable folks. While the Americans are the reckless and impetuous.

Fun Fact: Roger Corman bought the American rights to the film. He had it edited, dubbed and some new footage added. The result was his oft-maligned Battle Beyond The Sun. Footage from this movie also showed up in a couple of later 60s American B movies.

More like The Phamtom from 15-20 Fathoms. The creature only shows up for about 5-8 minutes combined throughout the entire film. We never even see it go on land or even hear it roar. The rest of the film is a boring mystery-murder story.

A few parallels to Godzilla stand out. One, the creature is reptilian, like Godzilla (though man sized). Two, spawned/awakened by radiation. Three, the deadly atomic beam which sinks the ship. Fourth, the genius scientist gives up his life to stop the monster.

Fun fact: The Phantom From 10,000 Leagues ended up as the bottom half of a double- bill, below Roger Corman's first science fiction film as director, The Day The World Ended.

Here is another low-budget B movie for the snow pile. Brought to you by W. Lee Wilder who gave use such films as Phantom from Space(1953) and the Killers from Space(1954).

The movie starts out with an expedition to the Himalayas, but they find and capture a yeti and bring it back to civilization.

I am very interested into cryptozoological(study of hidden animals) creatures such as the Yeti, Bigfoot, Nessie and many others. Although this is the first movie about the Yeti it is also one of the worst. There's no science offered to either explain the monster's existence or to deal with him. It is more or less a rip-off of King Kong(1933) and the Los Angeles sewer scene from Them(1954). The ending is very anti-climatic too. We are not given any reason to feel sorry for the Yeti and he is just netted and shot dead, movie over.

To all animal lovers out there here's a movie you will hate for the rest of your life.

The story is about four astronauts who travel to a new planet called Nova that has just entered Earth's solar system. The crew begins studying the planet to see if it's suitable for a possible Earth colony. they soon encounter and battle giant insects, prehistoric mammals, dinosaurs, and - on an island - the titular character, King Dinosaur, a putative Tyrannosaurus Rex(iguana). Eventually, the scientists blow up the island with an atomic bomb, killing all of its inhabitants.

This was Bert I. Gorgon's first film, both as writer and director. It's a pretty crappy movie, as even B-movies go. The "dinosaurs" are an alligator, an iguana, a gila monster, turtle and an armadillo. They're just plain old earth creatures filmed crawling over model landscapes as if they were huge. The movies title should have been called Planet of the Giant Animals.

I'v seen many of Roger Corman's film's but this is the most annoying, mind numbing, dull, confused piece of garbage I have ever seen. After you see this you night as well let it stay dead and buried.

The movie follows the story of prostitute, who is put into a hypnotic trance by a psychic, thus causing her to regress back to a previous life in the Dark ages. Back to the old days of knights and crazy singing gravediggers. The idea of a horror film about reincarnation and past- life experience is very interesting, but it's handle here in a way you just want to go back in time and kick Corman right in both of his shinbones.

Interesting fact The movie was filmed in a converted supermarket, and was completed in only six days.

Movie critic Leonard Maltin gave this movie 4 star out of 5. Why he did is this movie a good review? Probably he was on drugs.

Things that are wrong with this film. It's never explained how this giant lizard is able to hide itself from people. The scientific explanation regarding the cause of the lizard's abnormal size is also pretty thin and not thought out enough. All the characters are idiotic to the point you want them to be eaten by the monster. Plenty of the scenes are day for night. The songs the main character sings are awful. The lyrics to this song just go on and on and on and on. Not even Nickelback is this terrible.

My baby she rocks, and rolls and rocks whenever she walks my baby she rocks, and rolls and rocks whenever she talks My baby's a rock-n-rollin' tippy-toein Never knowin' always glowin' baby My baby she swings, and sings And swings whenever I bring her things She swings, and sings

Teenagers from Outer Space is about a an alien named Derek. He rebels against his oppressive dictatorship home world from trying to turn earth into a place to for creatures called Gargons(actually a laughable lobster shadow). I guess they use them to make lobster soup for the whole population of there planet.

The aliens use hand-held death ray weapons that causes human flesh melt away but you don't see it happen. All you see is peoples skeletons fall on the ground. It is gruesome but kind of silly.

To me, the movie is far from ridiculous. It has a predictable plot, the special effects for the Gargon are laughable, acting is just ludicrous from the get go. So I would not g you should see it.

You may recognize the cave the aliens stash their Gargon in. It is the Bronson Canyon -- home base for Ro-Man in Robot Monster (1953).

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

This obscure Roger Corman film from 1957 is perhaps one of his best films despite that fact that many he has made are just terrible.

The film is about an alien named Paul Johnson who comes for the planet Davanan. He is on Earth to drain blood from humans because radiation from a protracted nuclear war is causing his races blood to deteriorate.

In some way he is a space vampire(not one that sparkles). Instead of using a flying saucer to come here, he comes using a matter transporter device, similar to the one used in Star Trek a couple years later.

Another thing that interesting is that even though he comes from an advance alien race he is not very familiar to the way of Earth, like trying to drive for about Earth diseases. So I like this movie despite it being a Corman film. So I say give it a watch. But not the remakes.

I know this is a very bad movie, but there is one thing i like about. It has almost all the elements of what would become the "classic" alien abduction account. This predates the Boas event by 4 years and predates the more famous Betty and Barney Hill abduction account by 7 years.

:Spoilers:

The movie starts with stock footage of an atomic bomb test. We see Peter grave fly around it to examine the effects. He sees a bright light on the ground and crashes. later he is found and does not remember anything that happened to him. Later he tells people about how he survived the jet crash. He was saved by an alien race who try to invade the earth with giant bugs, reptiles, and insects.

In the end they are blown up by Peter. However he was shown that there are still billions of them in space stations and saucers in space waiting for earth to be ready. But for some reason no one saw that the aliens might have a plan B.

I say just skip this one.

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Ever since I've been a young kid I have always been a big fan of Japanese monster movies. For example, Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan, King Ghidorah and among many others.

Gamera is one of many of them. He is a giant monster turtle created by Daiei Motion Pictures Company in 1965 to rival the success of Toho Studios Godzilla during the daikaiju boom of the mid-to- late 1960s. Over time, Gamera has gained fame and notoriety as a Japanese icon in his own right. but not as much as Godzilla did.

The Gamera movies from the 1960's to 1980 were intended for kids and I think that is where there weak points are. However, they are a guilty pleasure for me and anyone else who loves to see monsters attacking Japan.

Behold, the Citizen Kane of bad movies. I really don't know how to put this into words about this crap fest but i will try.

Battlefield Earth(2000) is a sci-fi movie based off the 1982 novel of the same name by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. However this movie doesn't have very much to do with Scientology anyway. The movie takes place in the year 3000, and humanity is rules by an alien race known as the Psychlos. Who look like the Klingons fro Star Trek minus the bumpy foreheads. One of the aliens, Terl played by John Travolta. I don't know where he took his acting skills from but he is just so horrible it's just to hard not to laugh. the rest of it is a poor excuse of sloppy plot, bad acting and waste of time.

I later found out that former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney pointed to the book as his favorite novel. No wonder he didn't win the presidential election.

This 1956 "Roger Corman" cheese flick is about an alien from Venus trying to take control of people with by little bat-like pizza puppets. The alien also shuts down all stuff from clocks, telephones, cars and trains somehow. In the end the thing is killed by a blow torch to the eye.

What I think: The alien looks like a goofy traffic cone with lobster claws and devil horns. How anyone can not laugh at is is near to impossible. However the movie is pretty decent. These idea's of loosing ones emotions and thing stopping for a while have been used before, most notably in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (1956), "The Day the Earth Stood Still"(1951) and Invaders from Mars(1953). How Corman is able to get away with this stuff is beyond me. But this does not mean I hate all of his films. despite all the movies problems, it is good for a late night watch.

If you like seeing a movie with a monster with a diver helmet and a gorilla's body then you need to seek help.

The films starts out with two kids Johnny and Carla on a picnic with there mother and older sister. After a picnic lunch, the family all nap, but Johnny wakes up and goes to explore the cave. There, he falls and lies unconscious for awhile. While unconscious, he dreams of a post- apocalyptic earth in which his family. All live has been eliminated by a robot monster named "Ro-Man" who for some reason has a machine that produces bubbles outside the cave he in. After this and that of Ro-Man killing family members, it turns out to be all a dream by Johnny.

This movie in the end goes to the lowest point and just throws it all into the trash compacter. Instead of a dream it might as well be called a nightmare that no one can wake up from. A ultra low-budget film with minimal "special effects" and weak acting and a confusing screenplay proofs that it is one of the worst movie out there.