Category Archives: Sci-Fi

Deadly Friend (1986)

Posted on October 20, 2015 | 1 comment

deadly friend 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 1 out of 10

4-Word Review: He resurrects his girlfriend.

Paul (Matthew Labyorteaux) is a teen with a genius I.Q. who teaches classes on robotics at a local university. His next-door neighbor is Samantha (Kristy Swanson) a beautiful teen girl who is tormented and abused by her alcoholic father (Richard Marcus). When she becomes brain dead after falling down the stairs during one of her father’s rages Paul tries to bring her back to life by implementing the microchip from his robot’s brain into hers. However, instead of the pretty, sweet girl that she once was she is now a killing machine getting back at anyone who ever wronged her and Paul becomes unable to stop her.

The film suffers severely as a result of the studio having a different idea on the direction they wanted to take it versus what director Wes Craven or its screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin had. Craven and Rubin wanted an offbeat love story while the producers pushed for the conventional ‘80s horror. The result is a mishmash of different genres that throws in everything from blood and gore to silly robots that do cutesy things and look better suited for a kid-friendly Disney movie.

The plot has a logic loophole as well as the reincarnated Samantha somehow gains super human strength, which makes no sense. She may have the robot’s brain, but it’s still her same body, so whatever strength the robot had would not transition to her since he was made from mechanical parts. The part where she lifts a biker dude over her head would probably have broken her back and I wasn’t sure what the dark circles around her eyes was so supposed to mean. Was this to represent that she was slowly dying and decaying? If so then her skin should be rotting and peeling off and not just looking like someone who went a little overboard with the eye shadow.

The misguided nightmare segments are another issue. The scene where Samantha dreams that she stabs her father in the stomach with a broken glass vase that causes blood to rush out of him appears more like an erect penis pissing out blood. The moment where Paul sees Samantha’s dead and burned father’s head popping out of his bed is too reminiscent of A Nightmare on Elm Street and comes off looking like Craven was going to the same well too often.

The characters are dull and poorly fleshed out. Paul is too clean cut and the fact that he is super smart at everything becomes annoying. Samantha seems overly passive and sheltered and her loathsome father becomes nothing more than a walking, talking cliché trucked straight in from Redneckville.

Spoiler Alert!

The ending is by far the worst part as it features Paul coming into the morgue after Samantha has been killed and then having her inexplicable and without explanation turn into a robot. Whether this was simply a dream or a misguided attempt to turn the plotline into some sort of sequel is unclear, but it helps cement this as a complete catastrophe despite its good production values and a perfect testament to what happens when the producer and director are not on the same page.

End of Spoiler Alert!

deadly friend 2

My Rating: 1 out of 10

Released: October 10, 1986

Runtime: 1Hour 31Minutes

Rated R

Director: Wes Craven

Studio: Warner Brothers

Available: VHS, DVD, Amazon Instant Video, YouTube 

1 Comment

Posted in 80's Movies, Adolescence/High School, Horror, Movies Based on Novels, Romance, Sci-Fi, Slasher/Gore

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Creator (1985)

Posted on September 7, 2015 | Leave a comment

creator

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Cloning his dead wife.

Harry Wolper (Peter O’Toole) is an eccentric college professor obsessed with the idea of cloning his dead wife. With the help of an undergraduate assistant named Boris (Vincent Spano) he sets up a makeshift shed in his backyard and uses the university equipment for his experiments. He employs the services of Meli (Mariel Hemingway) a 19-year-old in desperate need of funds whose egg he uses as part of the cloning process. After a while she starts to fall in love with him and as the fetus of his dead wife takes shape she becomes jealous and feeling that he should be more concerned with the living than the dead.

O’Toole is engaging as ever in the type of role that most suits his talents. Had the film stayed centered on him it would have been a joy to watch, but unfortunately it enters in the generic Spano who looks like he was pulled straight off of the cover of a men’s modeling magazine. I presume this was because the studio felt a movie centered on a man over 50 wouldn’t attract the all-important 16-30 year-old demographic, but despite being an obvious chick-magnet he adds little and there was period in the middle where he isn’t seen for a long time to the point where I forgot about him and didn’t miss him at all.

Hemingway adds quirky energy as the free-spirit and her kooky romance with O’Toole adds genuine spark, but the film regresses by spending too more time focusing on Spano’s relationship with fellow coed Barbara (Virginia Madsen). This romance is very formulaic and makes the film seem like two movies in one while sucking all of its offbeat potential right out. If anything Spano should’ve fallen for his robot that is by far funniest thing in the movie.

Spoiler Alert!

David Ogden Stiers makes for a good antagonist and John Dehner, in his last theatrical film appearance, is solid as O’Toole’s loyal colleague, but the film’s biggest problem is when it shift gears and destroys the whole cloning angle completely. It then centers on a mysterious illness that befalls the Barbara character that like in Love Story never gets explained and comes out of nowhere. She goes into an immediate coma and is put on life support where her parents (Rance Howard, Ellen Geer) agrees much too quickly and without bothering to even get a second opinion to take her off of it and allow her to die. This then forces Spano to talk to her endlessly until just as the she is about to be disconnected she ‘miraculously’ comes back to life, which is too implausible, too contrived and too cute for even the most hopeless of romantics and helps ruin the engaging performances of its two lead stars, which is the only good thing about it.

End of Spoiler Alert!

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: September 20, 1985

Runtime: 1Hour 47Minutes

Rated R

Director: Ivan Passer

Studio: Universal

Available: VHS, DVD, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 80's Movies, College Life, Comedy/Drama, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with Nudity, Romance, Sci-Fi

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Slapstick (Of Another Kind) (1982)

Posted on August 21, 2015 | 5 comments

slapstick

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: These twins are extraterrestrials.

Based on the Kurt Vonnegut novel ‘Slapstick’ the story centers on a Caleb and Lutetia (Jerry Lewis, Madeline Kahn)  who are a rich and famous couple that give birth to deformed and ugly twins named Wilbur and Eliza (also played by Lewis and Kahn). The couple immediately disowns the children and has them put away into a home run by Sylvester (Marty Feldman) who acts as the children’s caretaker. Unbeknownst to anyone is the fact that twins are actually aliens implanted inside Lutetia by a race of super intelligent beings from a faraway planet as a way to help earthlings solve all of their problems. When the twins put their cone sized heads together they are super smart, but when they are separated they are dumb making everyone believe that they are mentally deficient and of no use to anyone.

The biggest problem with this disastrous attempt at a movie is the approach. Director Steven Paul who ironically made his acting debut in Happy Birthday, Wanda June, which was another Vonnegut book adaptation brought to the screen seems to have no idea what type of audience he is aiming for. The humor shifts wildly between child-like farce to satirical jabs with nothing in-between, which will alienate both adults and children alike. The grownups will find it incoherent and silly while the children will be frightened by the ugly visuals as well as the cold, callous nature of the characters and plot. There is also a strange side story that make no sense and deals with miniaturized Chinese men who are the size of a human thumb and fly around in a spaceship resembling an eggroll while trying to make contact with the twins in order for them the help make a deal on the sale of gravity?!!!!

Lewis and Kahn are relatively amusing as the snotty couple, but as the twins they are downright embarrassing. The scene where they have a food fight while yammering incessant baby talk is a degrading sight and a career low for both performers. I know Lewis has the reputation of doing some really silly, inane stuff, but even this should’ve been beneath him.

The eclectic supporting cast helps a little and the only reason that I’m giving it 2 points. Feldman is genuinely amusing and it’s great seeing Jim Backus in one of his last acting roles playing the President of the United States and hearing this predominantly kid-friendly performer utter the word shit…twice!

I have never read the novel from which this is based, but have heard that it is far superior, which isn’t a surprise. I’d be interested to know what Vonnegut, who apparently wrote the lyrics to a song sung by Kahn in the film, but then later cut, thought of this catastrophe. Some bad films are fun because you can make jokes about as it goes along, but this thing is so utterly bizarre from beginning to end that instead you sit in a stupor throughout and it becomes a surreal experience instead.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: December 1, 1982

Runtime: 1Hour 22Minutes

Rated PG

Studio: International Film Marketing

Director: Steven Paul

Available: VHS, Amazon Instant Video

5 Comments

Posted in 80's Movies, Black Comedy, Movies Based on Novels, Obscure Movies, Offbeat, Sci-Fi

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Rollerball (1975)

Posted on August 15, 2015 | 2 comments

rollerball1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: This game gets nasty.

In the not so distant future where no governments or countries exist and corporations control everything a new type of game becomes the rage. It features two teams on roller blades skating around a circular rink while fighting over a silver hand sized ball, which they use to throw into an electronic type of basket and score points. The game features little officiating and can usually cause injury or even death to the players, but one man named Jonathan E. (James Caan) has risen to the top and become a superstar in the sport. Bartholomew (John Houseman) who is the head of the conglomeration doesn’t like this because the idea of the games is to thwart individuality and not promote it. They push Jonathan to retire, but he refuses forcing the games to become even more violent as their way to get rid of him one way or the other, but the more they try to take him down the more he fights back.

The thing I really liked about William Harrison’s script, which is based on a short story of his called ‘Roller Ball Murder’ is how amazingly prophetic it is. Corporations and their rich lobbyists are pulling the strings of the government officials already making them seem as mere puppets and modern day suburbia much like in the movie is really only a tranquilizer  with its comfy lifestyle used to lull everyone into overlooking the many concessions that come with it. The violent games for both the players and fans acts as an escape from their otherwise sterile existence as the outcomes are the only things not already preordained by the corporations and thus giving the players a small sense of control over something.

Unfortunately the film’s set design is not as intuitive as its story and lacks imagination and even seems quite dated. There are no personal computers and the ones that do get shown are quite archaic looking. I have not seen the 2002 version, but this reason alone justifies a remake although the scene where the party guests go outside to play with a ray gun is a keeper.

The game itself isn’t all that interesting and to me came off as a glorified version of roller derby. I thought it should’ve been more graphic and bloody and the film pulls back when it should instead capture the true brutally of the sport. It does get a little more violent as it goes on and I did enjoy the surreal quality of the film’s climatic game where players from both sides end up either killed or severely injured. The segment showing the men preparing for a game by having the Caan character giving pointers to the new players on some of the strategy that is needed helped convey the idea that the sport had a certain technique to it and not simply rollerblading around a rink.

Caan is adequate in the lead, but is upstaged by John Beck as his playing partner as well as Shane Rimmer who plays his coach. It’s great to see John Houseman in his second feature film after his Academy Award winning performance in The Paper Chase, but his close-ups where ill-advised as it made me notice all of his nose hairs and director Norman Jewison should’ve either avoided framing his face from that angle or giving the elderly actor a pair of tweezers to pull them out.

The ending is unsatisfying as it leaves everything on a vague note. We see the fans cheering Jonathan’s moxie, but there is no indication as whether he was able to ultimately stage a revolt, or whether the corporate heads found some other way to get rid of him. In either case I wanted more of a conclusion and the fact that there isn’t any makes it feel like a great concept that wasn’t fully realized.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: June 25, 1975

Runtime: 2Hours 4Minutes

Rated R

Director: Norman Jewison

Studio: United Artists

Available: VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Instant Video

2 Comments

Posted in 70's Movies, Action/Adventure, Cult, Movies Based on Short Stories, Movies with Nudity, Sci-Fi, Sports Movies

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Class of 1999 (1990)

Posted on December 18, 2014 | Leave a comment

class of 1999 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: The teachers are robots.

The year is 1999 and American high schools are running rampant with drugs and gang warfare. In an attempt to try to regain some control administrators have hired on a company run by Dr. Bob Forrest (Stacy Keach) who has created teachers who look human, but are actually robots capable of exerting extreme punishment on those students who get out-of-line. A Seattle high school is chosen as a venue to test these robots out with Miles Langford (Malcolm McDowell) being the only human instructor made aware of these other teacher’s identities. At first things go well and civil behavior from the unruly teens is attained, but then the teachers get out-of-control where even their creators are unable to rein them in, so it is up to some rebel teen students lead by Cody (Cody Culp) to fight them off and stop them.

This is a sort-of sequel to writer/director Mark L. Lester’s earlier Class of 1984 and in many ways on a low budget scale it’s alright. I watched this film with my Cinema Terrible group here in Austin where we get together each month to watch two really bad movies. Usually everyone spends the time making fun at what they are watching, but this film surprisingly kept them quiet and captivated, which no one had initially expected. Lester has directed 33 of these types of films since 1971 and he knows how to deliver. His product certainly isn’t on an Academy Award winning level, but for those looking for some cheap non-think entertainment with a fast pace and decent effects then this ain’t too bad.

The best element of the film is John P. Ryan, Pam Grier and Patrick Kilpatrick as the three teacher robots. Ryan especially owns the screen during all of his scenes and the part where he takes some difficult students one-by-one over his knee and gives them a nice long, hard spanking is without question the best moment of the whole movie. Grier though is good too and during the climatic sequence she runs around essentially topless with her chest ripped open and her computer parts exposed, which I found to be well done. McDowell is the only one of the familiar names who is wasted and apparently only worked 2 days on the production.

The film’s biggest issue is that it has no sense of humor despite its over-the-top campy premise. The teen cast show minimal acting ability and their characters come off like walking, talking clichés. In a lot of ways this film would have been better had the evil teacher robots been portrayed as ‘the good guys’ and instead of being annihilated at the end by the students they were the ones who eradicated all of the mouthy, crude and disrespectful teens, which some would consider to be much more of a ‘happy ending’.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: May 11, 1990

Runtime: 1Hour 33Minutes

Rated R

Director: Mark L. Lester

Studio: Vestron Pictures

Available: DVD, Amazon Instant Video, YouTube

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Posted in 90's Movies, Action/Adventure, Adolescence/High School, Low Budget, Movies with Nudity, Sci-Fi, Thrillers/Suspense

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The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984)

Posted on December 16, 2014 | 2 comments

adventures of buckaro banzai 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: This thing is weird.

Buckaroo Banzai (Peter Weller) is part-time rock band singer who has invented a mechanism that he calls the oscillation overthruster that allows him to travel through rocks and other solid matter. He is somehow able to do this by tapping into the realms of the 8th dimension, but upon doing so he also attracts the attention of some aliens lead by Lord John Whorfin (Jon Lithgow) who wants to steal the device and use it for their own nefarious needs. Buckaroo, who is able to recognize these aliens who otherwise look human to everyone else after being zapped by some electronic component through a telephone receiver by a group of other aliens, gets a group of fellow geeks together to help fight the evil Whorfin and his men before it is too late.

In a lot of ways this film is a refreshing change-of-pace and it is not surprising that it has attained such a strong cult following. Most films with such an offbeat concept end up selling out and becoming quite formulaic and conventional with only a few odd elements thrown in for good measure, but this movie is completely weird in all facets and truly lives up to its campy over-the-top title. I loved the off-the-wall banter, ridiculously silly, but still quite entertaining special effects and characters that are uniformly warped. The comic book look is great and the story gets increasingly more absurd as it goes along. You have to tune out your logic and conventional movie mode to get into this and enjoy it, but the humor and chuckles are there if you let it.

Unfortunately the pace as well as the beginning become a bit too off. I found things to be completely confusing at the start that I really couldn’t understand what was going on for the whole first half-hour. The film seemed to jump from one outlandish scene and character to the next without any cohesion and the result was quite off-putting. It wasn’t until about 45 minutes in that I was able to finally get into the groove with it, but more of a background to the characters and a set-up would have helped greatly. There are still enough memorably unique moments to make it worth it including my favorite the Banzai Team March, which was filmed at the Sepulveda Dam in the San Fernando Valley and shown over the closing credits.

Weller is in fine form in the lead and seems much more at ease with this role than he was in Robocop where he came off as being miscast. Lithgow is a hoot as an over-the-top villain speaking with a heavy Russian/German accent. I also enjoyed Matt Clark as the Secretary of Defense who acts as if he is above all rules of protocol until finally being put into his place by a little kid with a rifle.

The closing credits listed a follow-up title that was supposedly going to be a sequel that unfortunately was never made due to the film’s production company going out of business, which is a shame as this thing had strong potential of becoming a major franchise. W.D. Richter who has an impressive screenwriting resume does well in his directorial debut and it’s an equal shame that he only helmed one other movie at this point as he shows potential to being uniquely talented in that position.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: August 10, 1984

Runtime: 1Hour 43Minutes

Rated PG

Director: W.D. Richter

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: VHS, DVD, Amazon Instant Video

2 Comments

Posted in 80's Movies, Campy Comedy, Cult, Offbeat, Sci-Fi

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Dead Heat (1988)

Posted on August 18, 2014 | Leave a comment

dead heat

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: These cops are dead.

Roger and Doug (Treat Williams, Joe Piscopo) are two cops fighting bad guys that seem to be indestructible. They get shot at, but never die. Upon further investigation it seems some maniacal madmen (Darren McGavin, Vincent Price) have come up with a resurrection machine that can bring dead people back to life and they are being used as zombies to rob banks and commit other types of crimes. When the two cops end up being killed while on-duty they are put onto the resurrection machine themselves and ultimately making it dead cops chasing after the dead bad guys.

The film’s script by Terry Black is creative and has enough energy to be passably entertaining. Unfortunately the pace is too fast and the runtime too compact making the many elaborate twists and turns happen too quickly and conveniently and many times making no sense. Mark Goldblatt’s direction looks amateurish with a faded color and a film stock that looks like it was initially done on video and then transferred to film. The special effects are surprisingly good given the budget and for the most part the film’s only saving grace. The two best moments are when the two leads get attacked by produce at a meat market including that of a beheaded steer as well as when the Randi character (Lindsay Frost) decomposes right in front of Roger.

The acting is genuinely poor and Piscopo is especially weak, but has funny enough lines to at least be humorous. McGavin looks understandably embarrassed and seems to be simply going-through-the-paces while Price in one of his last film roles appears tired, old and frail.

William’s gives an okay performance and I liked how his is more subdued and educated character played off of Piscopo’s hyper one, but the way his character responded to things seemed weird. For instance when he finds out that he is dead and brought back to life for only a short time before decomposing he doesn’t respond with panic, but instead continues to go about his job in a very matter-of-fact way and when his partner is found dead in a particularly gruesome way he doesn’t react with any type of emotion or shock.

The film also fails to follow through on its own logic. For instance when Roger finds out he is dead and then gets cut on some glass he does not bleed, but later on when he gets shot there is blood coming out of his bullet holes. The bad guys cannot be killed by bullets because essentially they are dead already and yet somehow can still be stopped by electrocution or impalement with a pole, but why as essentially they should still be able to continue no matter what the injury.

The final act becomes like a cheesy B-horror movie that goes way over-the-top and overall the whole thing is badly disjointed. However, it’s an okay time-filler if approached with exceedingly low expectations.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: May 6, 1988

Runtime: 1Hour 23Minutes

Rated R

Director: Mark Goldblatt

Studio: Image Entertainment

Available: VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 80's Movies, Action/Adventure, Buddy Movies, Dry Humor, Low Budget, Offbeat, Sci-Fi

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The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)

Posted on July 25, 2014 | Leave a comment

the man who fell to earth

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review:  Alien looking for water.

Thomas Newton Bryce (David Bowie) is a humanoid alien that has come to earth looking for water to bring back to his drought stricken planet. He works under the disguise as an inventor who uses the advanced technical knowledge of his home planet to patent many new inventions that eventually turns him into a millionaire head of a giant conglomerate. He even meets Mary Lou (Candy Clark) a hard-living, earthy girl who he falls in love with. Fuel technician Nathan Byrce (Rip Torn) suspects that Thomas may not be human and takes a secret picture of him with an X-ray camera that reveals his alien make up. Nathan then tips off the government and when Thomas tries to return to his home planet in a spaceship he built himself he is seized and taken into captivity and interrogated.
Director Nicolas Roeg has always had an incredible visual flair and able to take simple stories like Walkabout and Don’t Look Now and turned them into flashy masterpieces. I admire the way he can create atmosphere and attitude with every shot and tell a narrative in fragments and yet still have it come together into a fluid whole.

Watching this movie is particularly fun and the variety of music used is terrific. Whether it is a country oldie or new wave techno it fits and is always lively. The scenes are intoxicating and Roeg seems to be challenging himself by trying to come up with a unique way of capturing everything he shoots.

However, the story is light and proves to get even lighter as it goes along. The first hour, although fun, goes nowhere. The second half has some twists, but they are predictable. There are also tons and tons of loopholes with a letdown of an ending that explains nothing.

When compared to sci-fi films from the past it seems progressive, but in hindsight it is a victim of the 70’s era as it oozes too much with the irreverence of that period. Its main purpose seems to be turning-the- tables on all those sci-fi classics where the alien was always the threat by instead portraying the alien as the gentlest person in the picture. Yet they still could have made this message while giving it a more fleshed-out story and legitimate sci-fi leanings.

The overall glossiness maybe enough for some as it certainly does seem intriguing and promising at the start. Bowie is a perfect choice for the lead and unlike most rock singers, his foray into acting seems solid and almost like he is a natural.

Candy Clark is also outstanding. She is the perfect embodiment of a small town southern girl simple, sweet and generous yet also very to-the-point. Buck Henry is also good playing a part that most resembles his true self and his line describing his father’s advice on how to look a gift horse in the mouth is priceless.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: May 28, 1976

Runtime: 2Hours 19Minutes

Rated R

Director: Nicolas Roeg

Studio: Columbia

Available: VHS, DVD-R, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 70's Movies, Moody/Stylish, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with Nudity, Sci-Fi

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Lifeforce (1985)

Posted on June 30, 2014 | 6 comments

lifeforce 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 1 out of 10

4-Word Review: Space vampires destroy London.

Col. Tom Carlsen (Steve Railsback) is the head of the space shuttle Churchill who along with a team of astronauts investigate a strange form that is attached to Halley’s Comet. There they find some humanoids in caskets and bring them back to the shuttle where the humanoids then destroy the entire crew with only Carlsen surviving. When a rescue mission arrives they bring the humanoids back to earth only to discover that the beautiful Space Girl (Mathilda May) is a vampire bent on destroying the entire city of London by inhabiting other people’s bodies. Carlsen then joins forces with Col. Colin Caine (Peter Firth) to stop this dangerous breed of vampires before it is too late.

The saying ‘too much of a good thing’ has never been truer than with this film. The screenplay, which was co-written by Dan O’Bannon and based on the Colin Wilson novel, takes on too much. Had this been a miniseries or an ongoing television ssow like ‘Lost’ it might have worked, but the dizzying pace and myriad of twists here become mind numbing. The elaborate story does not equal the characters that are generic and dialogue that is dull. The scenes in-between the action are boring. The film lacks atmosphere or a linear production design. A little bit of a set-up would have helped as well.

The special effects are okay, but some of the backgrounds particularly the ones seen when the team investigates where the vampires reside look like drawings with the actors matted over it. The sight of the dead, shriveled bodies are not scary because they reminded me too much of the host of the old TV-series ‘Tales from the Crypt’.

lifeforce 3

May certainly looks great naked and I admired her courage to do a nude scene while in a room full of clothed men. However, we don’t see enough of her. There are long segments where she is not seen as she inhabits other people’s bodies, which takes away from the film’s erotic potential. The side-story involving her romance with Carlsen is cheesy and dumb.

Railsback proves once again why he is good in a psycho role, but not as a protagonist. The dark circles under his eyes and his intense Texas drawl make him seem creepy even when he doesn’t want to be. I also thought it was a strange coincidence that the date this story begins is August 9th, which is the same date that Sharon Tate and her friends were murdered by Charles Manon’s cult who Railsback famously played in the TV-Movie ‘Helter Skelter’.

Firth proves okay and I liked this jaded, hardened police detective played by someone with a very boyish face. It is also great to see Patrick Stewart in a small role as the head of a sanitarium.

The film gets more ludicrous as it goes on and is unwisely played with a straight-face where adding some humor would have made it more engaging and tolerable. Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg from Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz fame should remake this and I’m convinced would do it a lot better.

lifeforce 2

lifeforce 4

My Rating: 1 out of 10

Released: June 21, 1985

Runtime: 1Hour 56Minutes

Rated R

Director: Tobe Hooper

Studio: TriStar Pictures, The Cannon Group

Available: DVD, Blu-ray

6 Comments

Posted in 80's Movies, Disaster Flicks, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with Nudity, Sci-Fi, Vampire Movies

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Liquid Sky (1983)

Posted on June 16, 2014 | 4 comments

liquid sky

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 8 out of 10

4-Word Review: Aliens invade punk hangout.

No matter how many years go by this film remains cutting edge. It’s one of the few movies made in the 80’s that makes fun of its own era and those that considered themselves hip and sophisticated.

The plot has to do with a young punk girl named Margaret (Anne Carlisle) living with her lesbian roommate Adrian (Paula E. Sheppard) in a New York City penthouse. The place is frequented by the usual weirdos, vagabonds and druggiess. The two make a living by dealing drugs and offering indiscriminate sex. One day a spaceship the size of a dinner plate and filled with aliens that have no shape or form lands on their penthouse roof and zaps away anyone who has an orgasm. Margaret is unable to achieve climax so she is left remaining while everyone else is gone, which convinces her that someone or something has finally ‘recognized’ her and that she is ‘special’.

Literally every camera shot, scene and line of dialogue is unique. This film not only has an offbeat point-of -view, but reinforces it by constantly looking, feeling, thinking, and sounding different, which includes its funky musical soundtrack. There is no compromising here. The filmmakers believe in their material and keep it true to form throughout forcing the viewer to adjust to its bizarre sensibilities. Yet if you do you will not be disappointed. It’s pace and sense of humor has a fresh free-form flow not seen since the European new wave films of the 60’s.

Despite the radical style it still touches on many universals including the human need for acceptance, understanding, fulfillment, and communication. It also takes jabs at many of modern society’s fringe groups who many times can end up embodying the same hypocrisy as the mainstream.

Star Carlisle also wrote the screenplay and the novel version of this film and based it on her own experiences while involved in the punk scene during the late 70’s. She hasn’t been in a film since 1990 and today lives in southern Florida and is involved in both psychotherapy and teaching. Here is a recent pic of her:

anne carlisle

Her co-star Paula E. Sheppard, who if recent reports are correct has now changed her name and working as a nurse in the Seattle area, gives another great performance. This turned out to be her last film and one of only two that she was in her other film Alice Sweet Alice will be reviewed on Wednesday.

My Rating: 8 out of 10

Released: April 15, 1983

Runtime: 1Hour 51Minutes

Rated R

Director: Slava Tsukerman

Studio: Cinevista

Available: VHS, DVD (out-of-print) 

4 Comments

Posted in 80's Movies, Black Comedy, Cult, Gay/Lesbian, Low Budget, Moody/Stylish, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Offbeat, Sci-Fi

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