Category: Sci-fi Movies

The Australian Abominable Snowmen (1996)

Australian Abminable Snowmen is the second and final venture into Doctor who for Butchgro films and it upsets me really that outside of potentially doing commentaries for these two short films that its very unlikely I’ll ever be able to talk about a Butchgro production again.

I have a genuine soft spot for these movies. they genuinely seem to have come from a place of admiration for the TV show they’re remaking. the cast seem very positive about it and as far as I can tell they’re proud of what they were able to achieve back in the early/mid 90’s.

These films are not masterpieces. I’d be being disingenuous if I were to say these were high quality master works. They are however very joyous and very entertaining. I can smile along and enjoy these films while feeling the fun the cast and crew were having when making these films. And these were dedicated fans. in this film alone they travelled many miles just to find authentic snow for a handful of shots to illustrate the outer border of the monestary. When the filming finished/juddered to a halt they both sat through over 12 months of solid graft editing in order to ensure that the movie would be finished. EvenĀ  if there would only ever be a handful of people who’d ever actually even see it. This was nearly a full decade before youtube would become a thing you have to imagine so they made this film knowing that, other than there small circle of friends, noone may actually see this.

Since releasing these two reviews I have recieved some very kind words both from David Butcher (Who reiterated him and Grants full intent to remaster and re-release these two movies (Which I sincerely hope they do) and members of the gallifrey base message board who seemingly had little to no idea that this movie even existed in the first place.

I dont want to sound egotistical but im glad I did my bit to ensure that this movie got seen again. And if your a veteran of the cult and strange cinema genre I highly recommend you check these two films out. There weird wonderful a a genuinely fun experience to zone out to. a definate watch from me!

 

(While Snowmen is entertaining “Ausweb” will always hold a special place in my heart)
by tytdreviews

Australian Web of Fear (1992)

David Butcher is a lovely man. I really cannot reiterate that enough. “Australian Web of fear” spent a rediculous amount of time in total obscurity for me. For a number of years all I knew about it was that it was either made in australia or featured an all australian cast and that it was produced by “Butchgro” films. A company that I could only find the barest of bare information on. In fact; before speaking to David for the first time the accumulated 6-7 years of reseach I had done on this film had led me as far as being able to identify that this was indeed made in Australia at some point in the early 90’s or late 1980’s and that whoever “Butchgro” were they’d also done a version of “The Abominable snowmen” though at the time I only had access to “Web”.

A bit further down the line I eventually got my hands on both movies but for the best part of 5 years I did wonder whatever had happened to the lads at “Butchgro” did they maybe make even more Doctor who fan films that hadnt yet surfaced? Maybe there was a treasure trove of movies. Maybe they rebranded and were making movies to this day! I seriously thought of everything except the most obvious thing. Facebooking there names. In 2017 I did that just on a whim and was able to get in touch with David who was lovely, warm and up for talking about a movie he made well over 20 years previously! He informed me that since his film making days he pretty much spends his time these days prop building and that he’s actually appeared in Doctor who magazine multiple times and also in a Documentary that went out around the 50th anniversairy of the shows first episode while dressed in an “Earthshock” era Cyberman costume that he himself built!

Australian Web of fear to me is a wonderfully fun little film. the passion the cast and crew must have had to see this finished is nothing short of awe inspiring. it may not be the prettiest film to look at but I can honestly say I’ve never seen anything like it, at the point of writing this the video currently sits well above 300 views; which may not seem like a lot. But to me that 300+ people who’ve been introduced to Butchgro films catalogue and I feeel like I’ve done my bit to raise awareness in that sense.

I’d still love them to make another movie at some point in the future…whether its an original work or whether they ever choose to go through with there original plans to adapt “Fury from the deep” the idea of a 21st century Butchgro production really puts a smile on my face. David didnt rule it out either! he said it was somewhat unlikely but thats not a catagoric no! so for now I’ll live in hope.maybe one day I’ll get my hands on a cleaner copy of this movie than the “n’th” generation copy I currently have. that in itself would be a treat! but for now im quite happy to squint along to this version knowing that at least I have a copy of this movie in my possession!

 

(I still say my favourite sequence in this movie is the battle in the park where the yeti gets knocked into the water…they really couldnt have done it any better than they did)
by tytdreviews

Alien Species (Alien Terminator) (1995)

This review has (To date) been the biggest pain in the backside to put together out of any of the videos I’ve made before or since. not from an editing standpoint you understand, no that part was easy. What screwed me over with this film is the title. As I mention in the review there are 2 films called “Alien Species” that were released within 12 months of each other. This film is the earliest of the two.

I actually ended up having to bin half a review I wrote for this movie purely because of the date and title confusion. as IMDB and a few other sites on the internet have seemingly confused to two to such a point now that there listings are pretty much melded together with little to no rhyme or reason I’d ended up writing an extended piece describing this film but attributing it to the 1996 cast and crew. Picking apart what was related to this movie and what was related to the 1996 “Alien Species” was an absolute nightmare.

Mercifully once I’d struck a vein with this movie I was able to really get to grips with it and get to the matter at hand. Not that this film particularly needed glowing and in depth coverage. This is not one of Troma’s finest. And I love Troma movies…Sgt Kabukiman, the toxic avenger series, Class of Nuke’em high, Terror Firma. All good stuff…but at the same time theres a terrible side to Troma…the kind of side that gives us movies like this or “Surf Nazi’s must die” or “Rabid Grannies”…Its a real shame but they’re known for casting there nets as wide as possible and im sure they’ve helped a lot of up and comers really cut there teeth when starting out.

I dont have a tremendous amount of nice things to say about Alien Species. I remember it as being a boring slog featuring uninteresting characters that had maybe 1 or 2 memorable scenes but is ultimately just a cheap cash in trying to make some coin from “Species” and the “Alien” franchise. Its acceptably entertaining if there literally nothing left to do or watch. But thats not saying much because I think I’d rather change car tyres all day than watch this movie again any time soon.

 

(The cover/film poster as well is just awful. not only is it way too generic I have no idea whats actually going on in that cover)
by tytdreviews

Split (1989)

Now I may not be 100% accurate on this one but I believe this was my first ever “Requested” review. And Joel (The absolute diamond who suggested this film to me) chose an absolute stomper of a film right here. Its absolutely astounding and the mental images that this film paints have stayed with me as clear and vividly many months after I watched this film as they did the first time I saw it.

This was the only film that Chris Shaw ever made and he was pretty involved in it as far as I can tell acting as 3 of the critical roles that a film needs to get made (Writer, Director and editor) but thats really just scratching the surface. Chris is this film to much of an extent there are very few elements outside of the other casts performances that dont have his fingerprints on them to some degree.

But thats a good thing here! This is a very clear and strong vision of how arthouse and experimental cinema can challenge audience expectations and be cerebral at the same time. This is a challenging watch, but in a good way. I came away from this film really wishing Shaw and his crew had made more movies as I’d love to see them develop and further expand there ideas using this film as a launching pad…even if it were a multi media endeavour.

Not much has changed for me in terms of my feelings towards split. The review took a very long time to put together because I wanted to ensure that the wording for it was just right. this is one of the only reviews I’ve written thats exceeded 3 drafts, purely because trying to explain my interpretation of Split vocally was a surprisingly challenging thing to do.

I would heavily suggest you watch this film with as little forewarning as possible because if you go into this film with pre-set expectations your judgement may get a little clouded by just how strange this film can be at times. So please. This is one of the few times I’ll actively tell you not to watch this video if you havent seen the movie first.

Also; I really feel the need to say that Chris Shaw is simply a very lovely man, and my experience of talking to him (While limited) was a real treat. Both him and his brother are wonderful conversationalists and it was a pleasure to have the opportunity to ask them about split. This review has definately been a highlight for me of producing these videos. and had I not recieved the suggestion i’d probably have never found it.

 

(…I usually write a comment here about the film but what do you say about this thing…”Undescribable” is all I have really…)

 

Split was due out on Bluray in March of this year but due to some delays it has now been pushed back to an undisclosed time. However it will be released eventually by Verboden Video and I for one will have my preorder well in place because it looks to be astoundingly good!

If you are interested in owning “Split” please show Verboden some support by following them at the link below and possibly considering picking up some of there titles as they seem like a great bunch of lads too!:

http://verbodenvideo.com/

by tytdreviews

Gammera The Invincible (Daikaiju Gammera) (1965)

So!; Season 3! and we’re opening with Daikaiju because why not!?…honestly outside of MST3K i’d never seen a Gammera movie until this one. The giant turtle had escaped me really because while I had seen the likes of Godzilla in the past. I just never really cared much for giant monster features. for me, when they hit they hit hard, but thats very few and far between…most of them just end up being kind of goofy which often works to the detriment (See “Giant Spider invasion”)

Though I must admit I was very plesently surprised with Gammera…granted its not the fastest paced movie in the whole world but looking back to when this was written and recorded (Which would have been some time in November 2017) I feel now like I should have enjoyed it more than I apparently did. though admittedly the only 3 scenes that stick in my mind about this film is the opening sequence on the boat, the ending with the rocket and the weird sequence involving a pop group singing “GAMMERA!” in the style of the adam west batman theme over and over again.

Other than the film itself this season features the debut of the new heavily trunkated opening title sequence and a new end screen card that kind of makes things a bit neater and to the point. One of the bigger gripes I had about my early intro sequences were that they were waaaaaaay too long.at first I didnt think anything of it really but when I saw that other people were using intro sequences that were 5-10 seconds and that mine was near 30 it began to irk me a bit…the new intro runs to about 10-15 seconds which is still a bit longer than I’d like…but to be honest I dont think I could trunkate it any further without detrimentally effecting it. Though I feel it does its job and im happy i’ve landed on something that feels “right” to my mind at least.

(I originally made this episode with the old intro screen and no end card but had to go back and re-edit it to add the new versions in because DAMNIT! I’m a sucker for uniformity!)
by tytdreviews

Cyborg 3: The Recycler (1994)

I kind of find it hard to justify movie sequels like “Cyborg 3” (Or “Cyborg3” or “Cyborg Cubed” if your feeling fanciful) and I say that not because I dont like film franchises that run on pretty much endlessly, but rather because the connection that this film has to any of the other Cyborg films is thin to the point of almost being see through…

“Cyborg 3” has two connections to the other Cyborg films and thats about it…our pregnant protagonist is apparently a character from “Cyborg 2” albeit recast and tonally different from her previous portrayal and I believe theres a recurring bad guy as well. That being said if your looking at the Cyborg franchise I dont think theres very many series out there quite as disjointed as this one. The original Cyborg being a moderately well recieved sci-fi action thriller starring Jean Claud Van Damme, its sequel being more of a science fiction driven “Blade runner” esq affair. and this movie basically being Poundland Mad max. realistically you could watch the first film and have absolute no interest in the other two they’re that different from each other.

As it stands for me, this movies one of those “So bad its good” type affairs. Malcolm mcdowell is heavily touted as being in this film but realistically he only appears in about 5 minutes of it before dissapearing never to be seen again. The cast are week and the effects are ropey. But it really has its own charm about it that I think edered me to it honestly.

To me, I think this film would be best taken as part of a triple screening. maybe the first or final film in a triple screening if I was being specific. Its not good enough to be the “Main feature” of a bad movie triple feature, yet at the same time I could very easily see it being the warm up act to a genuinely entertainingĀ  “Good/bad” film…or the warm down from a “Good/bad” film.

I suppose what im trying to say is that it’s entertaining. But not enough to warrent watching it all by itself. It’s certainly not worth seeking out all by itself. There are significantly more entertaining “Mad max” style knock off films out there. Though I think my review of this sums up why quite nicely.

(90’s CGI rainbow space baby will occasionally crop up in my thoughts…So I guess in that sense it’s given me a long lasting memory…*Shudders*)
by tytdreviews

Cyborg Cop (1993)

From the worst movie I’ve ever seen to frankly one of the most unmemorable films I’ve ever seen. In all honesty I can only recall three things about this movie:

*John Rhys-Davies camping it up to an astounding degree

*A scene featuring a “Terminator” knock off slowly destroying a car and then a person

and David Bradley getting involved in a high speed car chase.

Other than that and some very fleeting memories of an opening combat battle which has a man fully on fire I literally couldnt tell you one thing about this film. In fact arguably had I not reviewed this film I may have forgotten that i’d watched it all together.

…

…

Okay so I’ve just rewatched my review of it to see if it jiggled anything out of my memories. It did nothing…I seem to have enjoyed it more than I remember at the time of writing so I may well be misremembering how I felt. But I can only honestly tell you how I feel about it now. And how I feel about it now is that I dont have a strong opinion about it either way it’s a “Grey zone” movie in my mind. I mentioned in the review that I think it could work well as a B-movie or as part of a double or triple feature. And I actually think this is probably the best way to describe this film. Its by no means an “Essential watch” but if your using it to subsidise another film (Like say “Terminator woman” or “Robocop”) then I think it could work really well…I’ll probably do the sequels to this at some point in the future…If I can remember to…

(You wont believe how hard it was to source a film poster of this movie for this review…I ended up using the VHS cover because it was the only “Medium” sized image I could find”)
by tytdreviews

Eegah (1962)

I have to hold my hands up really; both with this one and with a few of my episodes that deal with older bad movies. One of my main sources for discovering older films like this is the TV show “Mystery Science Theatre 3000” (Often affectionately shortned to “MST3K”)

It was arguably one of the first shows to really bring the art and humour of bad films to a mainstream audience and I was VERY late to the party on this one. Y’see; MST wasnt really shown in the UK. it have a very very limited run of episodes on the sci-fi channel in the late 90s (Literally from what I’ve been able to research they showed about 1 season of Mike Era episodes over the course of about 5 months and that was it) I have very fleeting memories of seeing either some promotional material or a single episode of this run. And then the next time i’d encounter MST would be in my time in University where me and my friend Ben would devour 2 or 3 episodes a night for weeks at a time while drinking heavily and eating take away pizza…life was good!

Eegah is one of the few movies from MST that I have watched both riffed and unriffed and its delightfully watchable to me in either format (Though honestly the MST versions vastly superior and my preferred watching experience if I had to choose) It was featured in the last few years as an episode of there seasonal “Turkey Day” marathon on youtube (Which I highly reccommend you check out this thanskgiving!) and thats what put it to the forefront of my mind when it came to picking a movie to review.

It’s a very unusual movie with a fantastically craptacular ending but it has its own charm and I can see why MST3K decided to pick this one up. The jokes almost write themselves…

(recommended viewing: 6 pack of cider (Or a spirit of your choice) dirty/beautiful pizza and a good couple of friends…perfection.)
by tytdreviews

Alien Intruder (1993)

When I think ofĀ  “Direct to DVD” tat “Alien Intruder” is normally one of the films that springs to mind. I have a tremendously vague recollection of my grandparents buying a DVD player in the early 2000’s that came with 3-4 “Multi-film” DVD packs and Alien Intruder was one of the films included in that set…and while I didnt watch it then. watching it in 2017 for a review on this channel was certainly an experience…

Dont get me wrong I like my tat as much as the next man…but “Alien Intruder” was a bit of a different beast…it trancends bad movies and really becomes something all together a bit more special. The acting throughout is terrible, and the plots dire. but theres something about this film that’ll keep me coming back to it every few years. and no. its not the 2-3 nude scenes in the film (Though Billy Dee Williams having a moderate breakdown towards the end of this film is a defiante plus)

Honestly? this film has its moments but its hardly a cult classic in the making. My memories of this film extend as far as a few beach scenes, a guy being set on fire and a weird punch up set in the 1950’s. Scoggins is literally the best part of this film but her characterisation seems a bit all over the place truthfully…not the best bad movie I’ve ever spoken about but it may be one for you.

(“In space…noone can here you have a VR experience with boobies.” – This movie (2017) )
by tytdreviews

The Stuff (1985)

So I have a bit of a dilemma with this one. The Stuff (1985) was made by Larry Cohen and I LOVE Larry Cohen films. I really do. they’re often very entertaining and a bit manic. And I can wholeheartedly reccommend you go and watch this film pretty much without hesitation because its a wondefully subersive look at 80’s consumerist culture. However; When I first uploaded this episode it more or less instantly got flagged by a 3rd party company. the company who claimed this video for copyright infringement dont own the rights to “The Stuff” and I know they dont own the rights to it because not only did I get in touch with the official distributors who explained they’ve had problems in the past from this 3rd party company but that theres literally nothing they can do to stop them claiming copyright on their copyrighted material. So I got in touch with these theiving gits and not one of them would talk to me. they didnt even acknowlege reciept after multiple emails. So I challenged them on youtube after trying to reach out and within minutes they’d upheld the claim.

Meaning that this episode is the only episode on my channel that is currently set up to monetize to a 3rd party. So I wholeheartedly apologise. theres nothing really I can do about this and it makes me feel awful. All I can tell you is to actively NOT watch this episode (I’d rather take the hit) until such a time that I can re-edit and re-upload this video in a shorter form. What I can say is “The Stuff” is a great movie that you should definately check out!

(Conform!, Consume!, Obey…) – Mr. Snaffleburger
by tytdreviews