Tag: Sci Fi

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 of  “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

Puppet Master (1989)

Deciding the structure of these seasons is always a bit of a difficult game for me. Typically I’ll try and fill the 18 episodes that I have per season with a good mixture of genre’s and film types because bad and cult movies really arnt tied to any specific genre and I know that there are people who subscribe to my youtube channel who only watch me for my Sci-fi reviews or only watch me for my Kids movie reviews. And thats totally cool; thats why I try and keep things fairly loose. As a result you’ll get a few horror films per season, a few science fiction, a few martial arts movies and the odd kids film or romance. It just helps keep things a bit more diverse while simultainiously being a bit broad.

One of the more difficult elements to manage with my channel however is how many mainstream or popular cult movies to cover in a season. Obviously I dont want to just talk about all the films everyone already knows about because…well everyone already knows about them. But at the same time (According to my youtube analytics at least) my more mainstream reviews are not only some of my most watched and popular videos; there also the ones most likely to make first time viewers subscribe. So I’ve kind of resolved myself to only talking about two; maybe three, popular films per season. both as a way to limit my own reliance on those kind of films and to kind of treat them as a “Special occasion” when I do talk about them.

Puppet master (To me at least) is an example of a popular cult film in the sense that it isnt as well known as your “Friday the 13ths” or your “Nightmare on Elm street” movies, but it is still fairly well known. It has a relatively large fan base and for anyone familiar with the more well known horror movies These kind of films could potentially act as a gateway for casual movie goers to explore stranger and more unknown movies that are largely obscured. I had never seen a puppet master movie until I watched this one for the purposes of this review and I still desperately need to get my hands on the sequel because I really enjoyed how this film decided to tackle its plot line. I’ve been told by multiple people since doing this review that the “Puppet master” franchise is one of the spottiest franchises still putting movies out. When its good its great!; when its bad it’s unwatchable. So I can only hope that my own experiences when I get round to the sequels will be plesent…

Also; speaking of my own videos for a moment. This is the first review to feature my first revamped intro sequence. I’d had a few issues with the original intro, Mainly that I felt it was a bit too basic and a bit low production quality. Which it kind of was to be honest. I made the original intro over 2 hours without any plans or storyboards. I literally just sat there and thought “I need an intro…” and took it from there…So I decided to actually do a bit more planning with this second intro. And while by contemporary standards I realise that its still very flawed, at the time I remember being over the moon with the results. It would only be used for this season at which point I decided to seriously overhaul the intro elements entirely. But this was really my first big stab at trying to fundamentally change how my videos looked and felt. It was also around this time that I really began monitoring the pacing of my videos and making sure that I spoke slower, calmer and really tried to “Up” just how methodical I was with writing my reviews. Its all change really! and from here on in I feel I made massive steps in my production processes.

(Im a sucker for “Blade” in this one I have to be honest. Hes such a cute little murderer)
by tytdreviews

Tormented (1960)

Public domain films are quite literally that. Films that for; whatever reason, have fallen out of copyright (Meaning noone legally owns the rights) and that the films are free to be used by the public in whatever manner suits them whether thats screening the film to a wider audience, cutting it up to spice up there own personal projects or even (As was very popular in the early 90s) chopping out the weirdest bits and using them to make a trippy Dance music video.

Arguably the most well known of these public domain films would be “Night of the living dead” but really its a sprawling and constantly growing set of content that cover most genres decades and styles.

Companies like Mill creek entertainment and Treeline films can make a tidy profit from grab bag compilation sets. charging between £10 and £20 for sets of 50 to 100 films all tied loosely to a specific genre…I myself own 3 of those sets (Horror classics, sci-fi classics and Nightmare worlds) and they’re infinately useful in bulking up a film collection and introducing you to films that are either so godawful you wouldnt touch them with a barge pole or so forgotten that they havent been re-evaluated since the late 80’s/early 90s

“Tormented” is one of these films. though arguably it had a hell of a boost in reputation by being featured on an episode of “Mystery Science theatre 3000”  (And its a very enjoyable episode thats currently up on youtube and I recommend watching the riffed version of this rather than the unriffed one) unriffed this film is quite slow and unfortunately I now own it at least 3 times (The MST3K version, the version on my mill creek set, and a copy on my “Something weird video” copy of “The Monsters Crash the Pyjama party Spooktacular Spectacular” (which I will talk about at some point because its a bloody interesting DVD release)

There isnt really a tremendous amount I recall about Tormented that I dont already mention in the review. Its definately not a masterpiece but at the same time it does have at least 1 or 2 small things that are trying to work in its favour…though I go into way more detail in my video review of this:

(The Poster is literally the coolest thing about this film…I want this film poster in my house some day…gorgeous stuff…)
by tytdreviews

Eraserhead (1977)

This was the first David Lynch film I chose to review on my channel and I chose it for a couple of reasons, first and formost I’m a massive fan of Lynch’s work (In particular all his works in “Twin Peaks”, Blue Velvet and Inland Empire…even if that last one is a bit overly long) his style is so unusual and tonally interesting it’s quite literally like walking into a dream/nightmare over which you have no control. Things just happen in Lynch’s films. they happen because things dont have to have a reason, life doesnt necissarily have a purpose and we’re all here just trying to give our lives a function till we expire. (A bit dark but yeh).

Lynch Straddles the line between Mainstream cinema and experimental video art and while he’s never quite been fully accepted into the mainstream. It could be argued that by many he is seen as the ambassador for experimental film to “Normal people” a wayward guide showing that the hard rules of storytelling and film making arnt actually as solid as first thought.

This subversive nature was what drew me into film making in the first place and what attracted me to video art ultimately…Eraserhead to me could be seen as the Catalyst that led me to where I am today so ultimately im very grateful to the “Lynch’s” of the world and we desperately need more subversive creative types in these modern turbulant times.

I also chose Eraserhead because; well. it’s a just plain weird experimental film. and when I think of Art house and experimental cinema my mind instantly flicks to anything from the chicken baby to the lady in the radiator to that surreal and mesmorising shot that is the films poster. The Red Triangle as a format exists to cover the kind of films that I cant do on TYTD. more extreme horror movies, Video nasties, erotic cinema, art house films. Stuff that I just wouldnt feel like I was doing justice placing it next to the likes of “Ring of Terror” or “Let’s ruin Dads day” and Eraserhead definitely deserves being in my “Red Triangle” series. This is another one that I kind of feel a bit mixed about in terms of my review. I feel like I didnt really fully nail down why I love this film in this review. I dunno;  I just kind of feel like I maybe could have said more…so I may end up revisiting this one again in future…But yeh! for now; enjoy! and I’ll be looking to do more Lynch in future!

(One dose of nightmare fuel and insecurity about parenthood comin’ riiiiiight up!)
by tytdreviews

Quatermass and the Pit – (Five Million Years to Earth) (1967)

I’ve seen my fair share of Hammer films in my time. Though I always feel like I could have seen more. Take “Quatermass and the pit” (Renamed Five Million Years to Earth for US audiences) for example. its a brilliantly shot and wonderfully performed piece that I’ve seen both on the big screen and in the comfort of my own home. combined with Hammers more horror inspired movies there should be little reason for me to watch any other studios movies at all! and yet I always seem to forget the Hammer films. I really should do more of them…

(How this film and “The Web of Fear” havent been mashed up yet at this point frankly astounds me…)
by tytdreviews

Time Adventure: Five Seconds to Climax! (1986)

Otherwise known as “Taimu abanchûru: Zecchô 5-byô mae”; “Time Adventure: Five Seconds to Climax!” was the very first episode of “The Red Triangle” A show I came up with in order to differentiate your common or garden horror, sci-fi, action, adventure or kids movie with the more extreme forms of cinema. stuff like “Video Nasties”, Art house films, experimental cinema, Erotic films…That kind of stuff. I borrowed the title from a semi-famous run of boundary pushing films that comprised 1986’s “Red triangle season” so called because just before anything raunchy or racy would appear on screen a red triangle would flash up warning people to set there recorders running. in the case of my channel these were films that were either much more mature in there attitude or were distinctly not safe for work. This erotic sci-fi black comedy (With elements of a thriller in there somewhere) I felt would be the perfect candidate to open this series as it sets quite a clean line. Its also to date one of the shortest reviews I’ve written and much like “The Dragon Lives again” I do feel like I really could have said/done more with this film really.

(I like how tongue in cheek this film can be at times…its got a very unusual tone about it)
by tytdreviews

The Last Man on Earth – (1964)

Y’know…I have a tremendous soft spot for Vincent price. I always struggle as to whether I prefer him or Christopher lee…on the one hand Vincents been in some of my all time favourite horror films…but Lee has a presence on screen thats quite like nothing I’ve ever seen before. But I digress…

This! is the last man on earth! one of Vincent Prices finer and also more underrated performances! based on the Novel “I am Legend” he gives an absolutely wonderful turn here as Dr. Robert Morgan. Personally I always preferred his later work in the 70’s but I have a real fondness for this film. Its a shame its only available in the UK in such poor quality…

(My favourite bit in this movie is the one I choose to showcase in the clips. Its so strangely powerful)
by tytdreviews