Customer Reviews

Sci-Fi Classics V.5

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This DVD is a very inexpensive collection of middling to awful sci-fi movies spanning roughly thirty years of twentieth century trash cinema.

"The Phantom From Space" is a sci-fi cheapie from 1953. The first half is pretty boring, as most of the action involves driving around in ridiculous old cars with ludicrous antennae on their roofs looking for disturbances. This takes place in California, so there are some other wacky things going on, but just to make sure we understand, the bulk of the first half hour or so is narrated. As the narrator drones on over the scenes of stock footage, and the cars drive around endlessly, something finally happens! A murder by a guy in a diving suit happens, to be specific, but unfortunately for the audience, all that results for our entertainment is some really tough (not!) interrogation of the prime suspect. Ultimately a couple of people get killed and a refinery gets set on fire.

As the movie gets over the hump and starts picking up steam, we see some silly police foot chases of the diving-suit being that go on a bit too long, but ultimately corner the guy in a lab with a pretty female scientist. To evade capture the being takes off his suit and turns out to be invisible unless exposed to ultraviolet light. They chase him around until he needs to put his helmet back on while he practices Morse code with the lady scientist. She figures out that he needs to breathe methane (hence his attraction to the refinery...see how it all makes sense) but thanks to the comic relief newspaper reporter who is forever screwing everything up (at least they got that part right) he drops and breaks his helmet. Eventually we see him shriek and burn up in what I believe may be the Griffith Park Observatory, his mission having utterly failed.

This film is a borderline two or three star movie, and it was quite well made considering that it was from 1953. I liked that the film didn't attempt to make the invader from space into a killing machine, and that in the end actually made the audience feel sympathy for him. The special effects are not so special by the standards of today, but remember this was made 56 years ago, and I think it was a pretty credible effort for the time. The acting is average, and the script is too. The biggest weaknesses were pacing and the whole silliness with the cars with ridiculous antennae. The second half is entertaining, and the creature actually looks good when we finally get to see him. If you can get past the first half, this is better than average for mid 1950s sci-fi.


"Creature" is a 1984 monster-in-space movie with virtually no originality but plenty of terrible dialogue and special effects. The film is extremely derivative in almost every aspect: what recent monster or sci-fi movie doesn't make a guest appearance here? Certainly "Alien" and "Jaws" do, at least in spirit. (The conclusion's homage to "Jaws" is especially eye-rolling.)

The acting and especially dialogue are ghastly, although the actors really do try to work with what's been handed to them as best they can. The film starts with an interesting enough corporate intrigue angle (which unfortunately goes nowhere), and progresses to a guy in a rubber suit chasing the stars around cheesy sets in short order. There are a lot of diversions along the way (e.g. lots of hot soldering action, and Klaus Kinski as a creepy German), but it really boils down to the cast getting decimated by a creature that harkens back to other sci-fi creatures.

The film features special effects that vary from not bad to really appalling, but the content of the film is really the issue here, and it can never overcome its derivative nature and the fact that many other movies have trodden the same turf and have been much more entertaining.


"The Day the Sky Exploded" is an Italian sci-fi melodrama from 1961, and is both boring and long. The plot boils down to this: an American astronaut on an international space mission to circumnavigate the moon blasts off in his atomic rocket, but after a malfunction he has to abort the mission and return to Earth. He forgets to destroy the atomic rocket and the missile explodes in space altering the course of numerous asteroids toward Earth. After subplots about the air conditioning in mission control (!) and the UN proving their inability to do anything but hold hearings (at least that part of the film is accurate) the brain trust gets the idea to launch nuclear weapons at the asteroids and destroy them before their terrestrial impact, thus enabling a bevy of future knockoff films with essentially identical plots.

The film has very poor production values and even worse acting, especially from the wife (Fiorella Mari) and son (Massimo Zeppieri) of astronaut John McLaren (Paul Hubschmid): if there is an lifetime overacting award in Italian cinema, Mari definitely should win it. The film is absolutely full of garbage science and stock footage, but if you are interested in a relatively rare, campy sci-fi monstrosity in glorious black and white, this film may be for you.


"The Disappearance of Flight 412" is a 1974 piece of garbage about UFOs and a big government conspiracy starring Glenn Ford (!), David Soul, and Bradford Dillman. As a current airline pilot and former Air Force officer and pilot, all I have to say on the technical merits of this film is that it's pure junk. The film starts with ponderous narration about the UFO threat and hokey airplane footage, and goes downhill into government conspiracy theory territory from there. Not that I will dwell on it, but the airplane related babble from pilot David Soul and crew, especially the bit about blindly following the instructions from an unknown entity called "Digger Control", is beyond painful.

Soul and crew land at an unknown military field and are interviewed by government agents, who interrogate them brutally by taking them to comfortable briefing rooms and giving them coffee and light refreshments. Immediately one of the crewmembers cracks under the pressure, despite the interrogation being laughable on a number of planes (you'll pardon the pun). Glenn Ford shows up to rescue his men (which is a good thing as David Soul came up with the stupidest escape plan ever) triggering an idiotic prisoner release plotpoint. (They were held for a whole 18 hours, although the film makes is seem like much less.)

The conclusion involves a wholly predicable plot twist (I loved the Top Secret documents kept in a dresser drawer, by the way) involving more narration and general wincing from the audience.

This movie is just horrendous: the transfer is bad, but the best transfer in history couldn't make up for the fact that you are watching a steaming heap of dung. Avoid this like the plague.

For the price this set can't be beat: I advise watching "The Disappearance of Flight 412" first and "Phantom From Space" last just so you don't get discouraged along the way.

GOOD OLE SCI FI WHEN THEY HAD NO IDEA WHAT THEY WERE TALKING ABOUT!! GOOD TO SEE THE OLDIES AGAIN

THIS SET OF DVDS WAS GREAT. I LOVE THE OLD, SORT OF CHEESY, MOVIES AND THEY PROVIDED LOTS OF LAUGHS AND REMEMBERANCES FROM MY CHILDHOOD MOVIE VIEWING. IF YOU LIKE OLD SCI-FI MOVIES, YOU'LL LOVE THESE.