Category: Sci-fi Movies

Finishing the Complete Twelfth Season (2022)

Season 12 was a season punctuated with several rather big moments for the channel, ones im very proud of. It was the season that helped us ease into monthly streaming, it was the season to feature our longest review (“Sweet Insanity” – Thanks to Peckingforgoodtv for being a good sport on that one!) it featured probably our most mainstream review (I Spit on Your Grave) and our most obscure review (Santa’s Pocket Watch)

It saw the wind down of “The Comedy Dining Experience” and probably our crowning achievement for the year, as not only did we smash through 150k views (for the 2nd time I might add) BUT! we also FINALLY hit 1000 subscribers after over 6 years of weekly uploads. It’s been a hell of a road, but its one im fiercely proud of, and one that I simply couldnt have done without the help of our wonderful viewers and the many friends and creators i’ve made along the way.

Latter in the year seasons (basically the September – December stint) are always a little less fun for me. Don’t get me wrong! they ARE still very fun, otherwise I wouldnt do them the way I do. But with the pressure to do spooky stuff at Halloween and Christmassy stuff at Christmas, it usually means that at least 8-10 of my 16-18 slots for the year are eaten up with a rigidly structured type of arrangement. one of the things I really love about the February – June/July run is the fact that it’s in total free flow. I can plan the season out months in advance, but all it takes is one release to creep into my radar and I can easily swap it into the schedules with no problem. With the September – December run, im not as carefree.

But this year was a little bit different, Being able to collab with so many wonderful people across this season really helped to keep things fresh and keep my interest on the ball. The fact this years halloween special theme was “Poundland Horror” meant I wasnt rigidly stuck to one genre for a full month and could relax into the season quite nicely. and even the christmas specials were perked up somewhat by being able to tackle movies like “Winterbeast” with George. It just made things a lot less dogmatic and more, just for the fun of it. Yes I didnt get to do everything I wanted to do this season, but I got like; 95% of it done, and thats good enough for me!

Of the two seasons that made up 2022, Season 11 was probably the most fun to work on, but Season twelve was almost certainly the most rewarding. The former was the last hurrah to my old system, and the latter was me basically relearning how to do my trade having upgraded all my kit over the summer. and Season 12b (Im not calling it Season 13, theres no way im cursing this thing right out of the gate) is going to be the biggest and longest season we’ve ever done to date! I honestly cant wait for you guys to see it when we premiere on Feb 3rd 2023!

All I can say is, Season 12 was a fun one, and I hope 2023 keeps that postive energy coming!

by tytdreviews

The ‘Starship Troopers’ (1997) Comedy Dining Experience

In a change up to the formula (mainly because non of us could be bothered to sit through Starship Troopers for 2 hours when I wasnt really all that interested in it and Ben and Triv were both kinda ‘Meh’ too) we have a round table discussion on ‘Starship Troopers’ discussing the themes, what worked, what didnt and overall giving our feelings on the symbolism.

after 2 years of being egged on to do it, I did. and im so SO sorry.

by tytdreviews

Footprints On The Moon (1975)

‘Footprints’ was a film that chronically fell into the ‘I’ll cover it next season’ pile. As far back as season 7 I’d intended to cover this one, but when it came to finalising the running order, it just didnt sit right with what was in the dock at the time, so…i’d cull it over to the next season and PROMISE to do it then…where it’d sit on the list again till the very last minute and then ultimately get culled back to the NEXT season and so on.

The fact i’ve actually finally got it out, AND the fact that it came out only a week or so after Severin Films announced a lovely box set which includes this film. was both coincidental and a very nice surprise.

I honestly always seem to forget just how interesting a concept this movie was and how surprisingly fun it could be. Im really going to have to dig it out again in the near future for a re-spin. It’s definitely not perfect. But it is one that I recall with fondness.

Seriously though, quite why the astronauts are in this at all is a mystery to me…oh well..
by tytdreviews

The Giant Claw (1957)

One of the first collabs of the season and we landed an absolute winner with Jonathan North, I was first put in touch with Jonathan via Trivial Theater who’s good friends with Jonathan and has appeared on his channel multiple times reviewing family friendly cult classics. Obviously given the nature of my content, I didnt want to scare the guy too badly with ‘Wicked World’ or ‘The Corpse Grinders’ So I thought i’d have him on to talk about a movie thats been on my ‘To Cover’ list more or less since I started the channel!

I love ‘The Giant Claw’ I unapologetically love it, its cheesy, goofy, easy on the gore but surprisingly violent and the titular Giant Claw doesnt get nearly enough credit for being as interesting a creature as it is.

While I dont think I won Jonathan over totally, he was kind enough to invite me onto his channel over Christmas 2022, which was very nice of him. and I of course would love to have him back some day.

Easily one of those films where the poster is doing a HELL of a lot of heavy lifting here.
by tytdreviews

Finishing the Complete Eleventh Season (2022)

Well! when it came to the 2nd half of our 5th anniversairy celebrations, I decided to try and do a bit of everything. Part of me wanted to cover movies i’d wanted to do for years (“Flight to Hell“, “Cannibal Girls“, “Camp Blood“) Some were movies i’d promised id do in the future, and then totally forgot to do in the future (“The American Ninja 4“, “Cyborg Cop 2“, “Alien Species“) and some were first time watches that arrived on short notice and genuinely caught me off guard (“Gatwick Gangsters“, “Night of the Demon“, “Dont go in the house“). Hell, we even rounded off the TYTD Reviews episodes by revisiting our very FIRST video for the channel “The Dragon Lives Again” hopefully finally doing justice to a film I’ve long admired and wished my review of could have been better.

It was a celebration of the old, and a look forward to the future of the channel. With this series marking a few milestones, it being the last season edited in 1080p,the last season edited in Adobe Premiere Pro, The last to use the branding we’ve been using now since 2020 across all fronts and the last season predominantly recorded on my focusrite condensor mic, a mic thats pretty much been what you’ve heard me through since AT LEAST 2020, which also made a few on and off appearences between 2017 and 2019 too.

What does the new season hold? well as seen in the review for “Dont go in the house” i’ve had a systems and kit upgrade on almost all fronts! including a new machine, a new mic, new lights for the packaging shots, new editing software and some other new tools to help give a bit more variety. As such we have new branding across all our main shows, we’ll be solely uploading in 4k going forward with better quality sound and visuals, faster processing power means it takes less time to export and convert reviews now, and as such it means we’ll be able to *hopefully* turn things around a bit quicker which’ll give me some time back to be able to enjoy a sunset or eat a well prepared meal!

There have also been some changes that are not quite as pleasent to announce, but here we are. After 2 years or so of monthly uploads and over 50 feature length commentaries, “The Comedy Dining Experience” will be swapping back to an irregular upload schedule, as it was when we first launched in 2018. Part of this is down to the amount of time it takes to edit the commentaries, part of it’s down to lower uptake than our other shows (we’ve had some episodes record less than 20 views after 3 weeks of being live in some cases) and part of it’s down to both myself and Ben just being absolutely ram jammed with stuff going on at the minute. Im in the middle of writing/recording and editing next years episodes (and I still have stuff to finish with Season 12!) and Bens recently had several good news stories that means he’s a lot busier than he was at the moment.

What this means in practical terms is that the Comedy Dining experience isnt going anywhere, it just means that, for the moment at least, it’s going to be on pause while we sort life stuff out, and when it does come back it’ll be likely an “As and when” affair rather than a regularly scheduled “thing” which will allow me more time to work on and refine our reviews, and it means we wont be oversaturating the channel too.

What it ALSO means is that we can do other fun things like monthly game night streams (we’ve done 3 so far and a pilot) AND it’s meant I can start an official Discord from which we’ll be hosting various watchalongs, games nights and other good stuff, alongside chats on everything from good and bad movies to music and weird youtube oddities, so do please tag along for that!

Season 11 marked a change in the wind for the channel, and with Season 12 currently rolling out weekly, I hope your enjoying the direction we’re taking the channel in, I had an absolute blast working on this season, I think it’s one of my favourites i’ve worked on alongside Season 10 and the chance to work and hang out with so many interesting people in collaboration has been an absolute delight. I couldnt have asked for a better 5th year on the platform.

by tytdreviews

Cyborg Cop 2 (1994)

As part of our 5th Anniversairy celebrations, we once again took a dip into the old archive and boy howdy did I land on a winner with this one.

I loved ‘Cyborg Cop 2’ its a daft, weird, stupid, goofy movie and I SINCERELY hope it gets a proper bluray release in future because…my GOD this films wild. the original is positively stationary compared to this things utter crazy. and I love it, love it, LOVE it for that.

What are you even reading this for!? go watch Cyborg cop 2…right now!

OH! and this ones blocked in several places across the globe (bloody rubbish bloody copyright theiving bastards.) But it’s okay, I’ve uploaded a universally watchable copy to Odysee which you can watch by clicking here

Poor Poster…FUN movie!
by tytdreviews

Alien Species (1996)

So back in the mists of time, I found a movie called “Alien Species” from 1995, at the time I couldnt find ANY trivia for it really other than Troma being the distributor (but not creator) of the film AND the fact that less than 12 months after this movie got put out, in a COMPLETELY different part of the country ANOTHER film would come out ALSO called “Alien Species” At the time the idea that two movies could hit the market so close together with SUCH a small budget (the combined budgets of both of these films wouldnt even pay for the catering on a mid sized budget production) AND given they were both, kind of from the same stable…well it fascinated me to say the least. For a time I debated whether to cover them both back to back for comedic effect, indeed. what better way to follow up “Alien Species”, than with “Alien Species”? but I had trouble finding the ’96 version of Alien species and ultimately, while I had at least ONE version of the two films in my hands, it just made sense to cover the one I had and if I found the other one, then more power to me.

Anyway skip forward a year or two and I picked up Mill Creeks “Nightmare Worlds” set, and LO and behold! THIS movie was on it. I knew as soon as I saw it listed I needed to get it covered and originally this WAS going to be in my 10th Season of reviews in November, but given i’d already covered so many low budget SOV films at that point, It didnt feel like a fluid and natural situation and crowbar this into the season as well, it would have made the season lopsided and a bit too heavy on low budget, SOV sci fi and horror films. SO! I wrote the script and then shelved it (Swamp Women took the place of this in the November Schedules) and it sat on my dock ready to be implemented for the best part of 5 months until FINALLY it fit in in a comfy little spot in Season 11!

I think the review more than speaks for itself, I cant say I was a huge fan of this one, but; with it sort of being the “Part 1” of what was supposed to be a much bigger franchise, I feel maybe with a bit more development and a sequel or two, this could have been something a bit better. as it stands it feels like someones handed me a third of a rubicks cube and told me to “solve it” and im kind of just staring at it wondering what on earth that would involve

This poster looks like something “Ab-So-Lutely” productions would come up with. WAY to busy and just plain odd.
by tytdreviews

Ozone (1993)

I honestly relished the opportunity to cover more J.R Bookwalter, really genuinely relished it. after spending damn near a month covering his early works and the infamous “SOV Six Pack” I felt like this was very much the “Spiderman Far From Home” to the six packs “Avengers Endgame” And honestly? I absolutely was NOT dissapointed.

It really felt like, after the six pack, Bookwalter had burnt out and REALLY wanted to recenter, refocus, reprioritise and give his absolute ALL to whatever he made next. and when I tell you that I think this is arguably one of (if not THE) best film J.R has made, and I would be MORE than happy to say its one of (if not THE) best SOV film ever produced. I am not saying that lightly. this films exceptional in its field, really honestly exceptional. And each day your not sat in front of this for the first time is a sadder day my friend. so hop to it!

There are more Bookwalter films out there to cover, and believe me; when they get a bluray release, you better believe i’ll be right there DAY ONE to buy and cover them. I dont know if he’s going to re-release all his films, but i’ll cover as many as I can get my hands on!

I also have to seriously commend the rebranding and remastering of the official bluray for this set, given the materials wernt exactly grade A1, JR’s weaved nothing short of witchcraft into this release to get it looking as good as it does. im seriously impressed.
by tytdreviews

Nightwish (1989)

I have to admit, when it comes to fan submissions im a bit shit. I honestly cant help it, I have the best of intent to cover stuff, but unless it’s sat in my physical “to watch” pile, or when I look it up it grabs my by the collar and shakes me violently in terms of getting my attention, what tends to happen is it goes on a word document I have for recommendations and then slowly drops down the list into oblivion.

I really want to cover recommendations people send me in because, honestly, I feel if someone feels strongly enough that I should cover something, I should do them the courtesy of doing it. But im currently so inundated with movies (well over 250, NOT including my actual shelf of already watched ‘seal of approval’ movies) and im so limited on time in which to actually work on content for the channel, that I have to pick what I can work with and structure my seasons around genre and availability more than anything else. That unfortunately does mean that sometimes…there just isnt room to cover some things. For which im honestly very sorry, and I do fully intend to try better in future.

This rec came courtesy of a lovely chap called Samulom who’s been following me for quite a while and gave a VERY passionate speech around why he thought this film needed to be seen by a wider audience. I looked it up and wholeheartedly agreed AND mercifully at the time he hit me at JUST the right moment as I was actually about 25% of the way into writing season 11 at the time! So! I found a nice little slot in my schedules and pencilled it in! And I wasnt dissapointed!

And as an aside, I generally start writing for new seasons between August and October and February to April, so if you do have a rec, the best time to shoot your shot is in those months as im usually in the planning stages, there’ll always be a delay because of how I schedule my reviews (for example I wrote September – Decembers reviews this year between March and May) but if you get me at the right time, it’ll get covered!

Anyway! Nightwish! Enjoy!

This posters SO trippy, I love it very dearly, it does everything a good sci-fi horror should do!
by tytdreviews

The Brain (1988)

1988’s “The Brain” was a bit of a fringe film for me…What I mean by that is that it had almost always been on my radar, but it was always just one of those films that I thought i’d get round to eventually, but never actually GOT to.

I had no idea of what the actual plot was, I just knew that it involved a giant Psychic/Telekinetik testicle that floated about causing trouble. Outside of that, it could have been about anything. I realise having just written that last sentence that that pitch sounds like something i’d almost certainly be into. but at the time I had bigger fish to fry and it was always just one of those “reserve” titles I could pull out if I was having a string of solid or awful movies to try and upset the balance a bit.

That is until I began chatting to Trivial Theater. A rather lovely lady who’s been supporting the channel now for a while and seems to know her onions! Last christmas we sent each other a gift box filled with odds and ends from the US and UK respectively. apart from me discovering the absolute joys of “Gremlin bars” Triv sent a handful of movies over as well, and “The Brain” was one of those films. I saw it as a sign.

So! by way of thanks! I said i’d cover “The Brain” as it just felt like a “right movie at the right time” kind of thing. and…welp! it’s…an experience! love it or hate it, you wont be forgetting “The Brain” anytime soon

The Poster is positively Cronenberg-esq. but it’s terrible in terms of colour use because you can bearly make out what “the brain” actually is. I personally would have used more Blues just as background filler to help distiguish him from the space backdrop.
by tytdreviews