Customer Reviews

SciFi Classics 50 Movie Pack Collection

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(29)
3 star:		(20)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

This collection of "classic" science fiction gets three stars for value because there are fifty movies for an incredibly low price. On the other hand, you get what you pay for. Some movies in this group almost rise to the level of classic; including a couple that surprised me. Most of these movies are Mystery Science Theater 3000 fodder, and many of them actually appeared on MST3000. Highlights, or lowlights, as you prefer:

The Incredible Petrified World: It is incredible that anyone actually paid to see this one in the theater. The acting qualifies as petrified.

Queen of the Amazons: The Amazons needed a man to save them, and us, from this awful movie.

Robot Monster: Now you can tell everyone that you know where moth-eaten gorilla suits go when they die.

She Gods of Shark Reef: Even Roger Corman had to be embarrassed by this one.

The Amazing Transparent Man: Actually almost a good movie. The special effects were okay.

The Atomic Brain: Show some scantily clad babes, slap the word atomic brain for a title and you have a brilliant science fiction movie; or not.

The Horrors of Spider Island: Women in their undies run around an island with guys and a spider chasing them. A sad end for all of us.

The Wasp Woman: Beware of former beauty queens taking non-FDA approved drugs.

Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet: Actually not bad; decent robot with a murky plot.

Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women: You take the footage of the previous film, make sure the babes all look like they just got ready for a film shoot, and you have a sequel, ta-da.

Kong Island: Sad. Very Sad. I wish I could take back these minutes of my life.

Attack of the Monsters: Gammera battles Guiron in a periodically funny Japanese monster movie.

Bride of the Gorilla: Now you know why Raymond Burr switched to being a lawyer.

Gammera the Invincible: Gammera learns to walk on two legs, and generally terrorizes Japan. What else is new? Still, you have to watch this one if you are a Gammera fan.

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians: Just when you think you've seen the worst you encounter this movie.

Teenagers from Outer Space: There are actually some interesting moments in this movie. It's a good thing they failed to discover malls.

Crash of Moons and Menace from Outer Space: Early television science fiction. I love the costumes on the ladies!

Hercules Against the Moon Men; Hercules and the Captive Women; Hercules and the Tyrants of Babylon; and Hercules Unchained; not all were really Hercules, but for most it does not matter anyway.

The Lost Jungle Volumes 1 and 2: Great white hunter look silly in jungle.

Mesa of Lost Women: Lacks bite.

Assignment: Outer Space: Needs reassigned.

Laser Mission: This movie needs cut.

Killers from Space: Decent science fiction, in spite of periodic inanity.

Phantom from Space: Aliens are misunderstood in this movie, which is one of the better ones in this collection.

White Pongo: The gorilla suit from Bride of the Gorilla gets bleached. This movie is actually decent.

Snow Creature: Begins with promise and leaves you cold.

Devil of the Desert Against the Sons of Hercules: Actually watchable.

First Spaceship on Venus: Probably the last too.

Zontar-Thing from Venus: Attack of the...never mind.

The Astral Factor: Stefanie Powers is the only hot thing in this movie.

The Galaxy Invader: You might be a redneck if you are in this sad movie.

Battle of the Worlds: Battle of Staying Awake.

Unknown World: Interesting moments mixed with strange script lines.

Blood Tide: James Earl Jones, Jose Ferrer and Mary Louise Weller are doing fine until they encounter a cheesy monster.

The Brain Machine: Is brain dead.

Wild Women of Wongo: I ain't saying nothing.

Prehistoric Women: Hot hairdo women in caves.

They Came from Beyond Space: Considering that this movie is one of the best in this collection, I should be nice to it.

Warning from Space: Crams too many story lines into less than an hour and a half, but otherwise a decent movie.

Eegah: The prototype for the character Jaws in the James Bond movies, only living in a cave.

Planet Outlaws: It's Buck Rogers!

Phantom Planet: Has its moments, good, bad, and awful.

Colossus and the Amazon Queen: Rod Taylor in a funny sword and sandals movie; about as bad as it sounds.

Destroy All Planets: Gammera (or Gamera) trots about saving little boys that steal submarines and get captured by aliens.

Please forgive me if I missed a movie or two in this list. There are a lot of movies in this collection, so I might have overlooked one, either unintentionally or intentionally. If you are a big science fiction fan, you will enjoy many of these movies. Even the movies you find less than okay are good for one watch, and the price of this collection will keep your personal distress low. Good luck!

SciFi Classics is a collection of 50 movies that have only one thing in common: they are all public domain and as such it is possible for them to be presented in highly affordable collections. I paid $21.99 for my set and that comes down to about 44 cents per movie. The way that movie tickets cost nowadays, you really cannot complain about this collection.

Anyways, here is how I rate the movies in SciFi Classics:


Good:


The Amazing Transparent Man
Assignment: Outer Space
Hercules and the Tyrants of Babylon
Hercules Unchained
Killers From Space
Laser Mission
Lost Jungle
Phantom From Space
The Phantom Planet
Planet Outlaws
Queen of the Amazons
The Wasp Woman
Zontar, the Thing From Venus



Average:


Colossus and the Amazon Queen
First Spaceship On Venus
Horrors of Spider Island
Robot Monster
She Gods of Shark Reef
They Came From Beyond Space
Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet
Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women
Warning From Space
White Pongo


Bad:





The Astral Factor
Attack of the Monsters
The Atomic Brain
Battle of the Worlds
Blood Tide
The Brain Machine
Bride of the Gorilla
Cosmos: War of the Planets
Crash of the Moons
Destroy All Planets
Devil of the Desert vs. the Son of Hercules
Eegah
The Galaxy Invader
Gammera, the Invincible
Hercules Against The Moonmen
Hercules and the Captive Women
The Incredible Petrified World
King of Kong Island
Menace From Outer Space
Mesa of Lost Women
Prehistoric Women
Santa Claus Conquers The Martians
The Snow Creature
Son of Hercules
Teenagers From Outer Space
Unknown World
The Wild Women of Wongo


All in all, an incredible bargain.

Granted, what this compilation defines as "classic" is rather off-the-mark (unless you consider Ed Wood films as "classic" as well), for the money, this is a great collection of B-to-Z films. Being on the far side of 40, I remember many of these films from my Golden Age of broadcast television, especially the UHF weekend midnight movie showings that usually featured a really bad vampire as the host. And, yes, many of the films are NOT sci-fi in the strictest sense, yet many ARE straight-up low budget sci-fi films. As mentioned in other reviews, many (if not most) are instant MST3K fodder.
One thing I do want to specifically mention is that the collection, at least included in the 50-pack I got, DOES include the Ed Woodian classically bad "Robot Monsters." Mine has it titled as "The Robot Monster" on Disc 1, Side A, film 3. I was actually quite happy to finally be able to view this Z classic of the Earth-invading alien portrayed as a helmut-topped gorilla climbing up & down the same hill over and over again. CLASSIC!
I think other reviewers have covered the overall reviews of the films quite nicely, no need to cover old ground in that regard.
And again, for the money, I have no beef with the quality of the transfers and the sound quality. Certainly no worse than the UHF broadcasts of my youth. And at least this outfit has the class to NOT put their version of the utterly distracting logo icon of their company in the lower-right-corner of the screen as I've seen other public domain DVD releases do (hello, Kino, I'm talking to you).
For me at least, for many idle weekends to come, 15 bucks well spent.

First off, let me say that this is a great collection of really bad sci-fi movies. The selection spans several sub-genres of the classic sci-fi age. You've got Gamera movies, Hercules movies, outer space movies. The whole gamut.

Unfortunately, the sound is very bad and the movies are not closed captioned. As an individual with a hearing problem, the soundtrack was almost indecipherable due to the constant hum that permeates most of the transfers. The video is also problematic, but no where near as bad as the sound.

SCI-FI CLASSICS COLLECTION is an eclectic mix of hokey science fiction and fantasy, with a sprinkling of action films (of the sandals and swords variety). One commonality here is the typically low score all fifty of these "classics" got from users of a film-related website. On a one to ten scale, the current average for this set calculates out to: 3.2.

Scoring is relevant only to plot, editing, effects, etc, and doesn't consider stock condition or audio/video transfer quality. This multi-pack may only be for the most ardent of sci-fi/fantasy fans, as well as lovers of well-aged cheese.

The following program list includes individual ratings, main actors, years of release and country of origin (if other than USA)--

(2.7) The Amazing Transparent Man (1960) - Marguerite Chapman/Douglas Kennedy
(2.5) Attack Of The Monsters (Japan-1969) - Christopher Murphey
(3.6) Battle Of The Worlds (Italy-1961) - Claude Rains/Bill Carter
(3.6) Blood Tide (UK/Greece-1982) - James Earl Jones/José Ferrer
(3.3) The Brain Machine (1977) - James Best/Gerald McRaney
(3.7) Bride Of The Gorilla (1951) - Lon Chaney Jr./Raymond Burr
(4.0) Colossus And The Amazon Queen (Italy-1960) - Rod Taylor/Ed Fury
(3.2) Cosmos: War Of The Planets (Italy-1977) - John Richardson/West Buchanan
(3.3) Crash Of The Moons ("Rocky Jones") (TV-1954) - Richard Crane/Scotty Beckett
(3.9) Destroy All Planets (Japan-1968) - Carl Craig/Peter Williams
(4.3) Devil Of The Desert Against The Son Of Hercules (Italy-1964) - Kirk Morris/Howard Ross
(2.6) Eegah (1962) - Arch Hall Jr./Richard Kiel
(3.3) First Spaceship On Venus (E Ger/Poland-1960)
(3.3) The Galaxy Invader (1985) - Richard Ruxton/Faye Tilles
(4.7) Gammera The Invincible (1966) - Albert Dekker/Brian Donlevy
(1.9) Hercules Against The Moonmen (France/Italy-1964) - Jany Clair
(3.0) Hercules And The Captive Women (Italy/France-1961) - Reg Park/Fay Spain
(5.0) Hercules And The Tyrants Of Babylon (Italy-1964) - Peter Lupus
(3.6) Hercules Unchained (Italy/France/Spain-1959) - Steve Reeves/Sylvia Koschina
(2.2) Horrors Of Spider Island (W Ger/Yugo-1960) - Alexander D'Arcy/Barbara Valentin
(2.9) The Incredible Petrified World (1957) - John Carradine/Robert Clarke
(4.2) Invisible Strangler ("The Astral Factor") (1976) - Robert Foxworth/Stefanie Powers
(3.0) Killers From Space (1954) - Peter Graves/James Seay
(1.7) King Of Kong Island (Italy-1968) - Brad Harris/Marc Lawrence
(2.5) Laser Mission (USA/Ger/So Afr-1990) - Brandon Lee/Ernest Borgnine
(5.1) Lost Jungle (1934) - Clyde Beatty/Cecilia Parker
(3.3) Menace From Outer Space ("Rocky Jones") (TV-1956) - Richard Crane/Scotty Beckett
(2.5) Mesa Of Lost Women (1953) - Jackie Coogan/Lyle Talbot
(2.3) Monstrosity ("The Atomic Brain") (1964) - Marjorie Eaton/Frank Gerstle
(3.5) Phantom From Space (1953) - Ted Cooper/Tom Daly
(2.3) The Phantom Planet (1961) - Dean Fredericks/Francis X. Bushman
(4.0) Planet Outlaws ("Buck Rogers") (1953) - Buster Crabbe/Constance Moore
(3.0) Prehistoric Women (1950) - Laurette Luez/Allan Nixon
(3.7) Queen Of The Amazons (1947) - Robert Lowery/Patricia Morison
(3.4) Robot Monster (1953) - George Nader/Claudia Barret
(2.5) Santa Claus Conquers The Martians (1964) - John Call/Pia Zadora (in a minor role)
(2.3) She Gods Of Shark Reef (1958) - Bill Cord/Don Durant
(2.7) The Snow Creature (1954) - Paul Langton/Leslie Denison
(3.1) Son Of Hercules (In The Land Of Darkness) (Italy-1963) - Don Vadis/Ken Clark
(3.1) Space Men ("Assignment: Outer Space") (Italy-1960) - Rik Van Nutter/David Montresor
(3.0) Teenagers From Outer Space (1959) - David Love/Dawn Bender
(3.8) They Came From Beyond Space (UK-1967) - Robert Hutton/Jennifer Jayne
(3.9) Unknown World (1951) - Bruce Kellogg/Otto Waldis
(1.7) Voyage To The Planet Of Prehistoric Women (1968) - Mamie Van Doren/Mary Marr
(3.3) Voyage To The Prehistoric Planet (1965) - Basil Rathbone/Faith Domergue
(4.2) Warning From Space (Japan-1956)
(3.1) The Wasp Woman (1960) - Susan Cabot/Anthony Eisley
(3.1) White Pongo (1945) - Richard Fraser/Maris Wrixon
(2.0) The Wild Women Of Wongo (1958) - Adrienne Bourbeau/Pat Crowley
(2.7) Zontar, The Thing From Venus (TV-1966) - John Agar/Susan Bjurman

Bearing in mind that the 50 MOVIE PACK line is what it is, no-frills packages of public-domain films, I have to say that SCI FI CLASSICS is not up to the level of MYSTERY CLASSICS and HORROR CLASSICS, which I also own. I've watched everything in the MYSTERY and HORROR sets, and, while the latter is padded with flicks that properly belong in the former, I didn't feel cheated by either. Moreover, some of the films included, such as DETOUR, IMPACT, BLUEBEARD, and TOO LATE FOR TEARS, actually are classics of a sort, deserving of repeated viewings.

Only about 36 of the 50 films included in SCI FI CLASSICS remotely qualify as science fiction or even as "sci fi" -- and the only "classics" among them are famous (or infamous) anti-masterpieces on the order of ROBOT MONSTER, TEENAGERS FROM OUTER SPACE, MESA OF LOST WOMEN, and SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS; the balance comprises sword-and-sandal strongman epics, e.g., HERCULES AND THE TYRANT OF BABYLON, and jungle epics, e.g., WHITE PONGO, QUEEN OF THE AMAZONS, and Clyde Beatty's LOST JUNGLE. If you simply must have copies of low-budget programmers such as UNKNOWN WORLD, HORRORS OF SPIDER ISLAND, and THE INCREDIBLE PETRIFIED WORLD on hand for those occasions when THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL doesn't ring your chimes, you'll like this package. Otherwise, beware.

I have the 50 Mystery Movie Pack and the 50 Horror Movie pack and they are worth the price many times over. It's like old Fright Night fests on telly or a 1950's Drive-In allnighter!

Queen of the Amazons, The Robot Monster, The Amazing Transparent Man, The Wasp Woman, Bride of the Monster, Attack of the Monsters, Gamera the Invincible, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, Teenagers From Outerspace, 5 Hercules ficks, Lost Jungle, Mesa of Lost Women, Eagah (one of my all time favs of Slock B-movies!) and dozens of more!

So pop a bowl of popcorn and sit back and enjoy all the movies so bad they are good...well, sort of!!

My husband and I enjoyed watching this 50 CD collection set 3 times a week before bedtime. We've watched all of the movies except the Hercules titles (why bother - we didn't watch them in the 60s either). Most of the movies were in good shape and fun to watch. The transfer quality was good. A much better collection than the Horror 50 CD collection. It was interesting to see the mix of countries that made SciFi movies back in the 50s and 60s and their interpretation of space travel and what's out there. Some of the foreign movies were a little too long as the story dragged on and on. There were a few we didn't bother to finish, e.g., Eegah, Gammera, the Invincible. The Astral Factor was in color with Elke Sommers. The story had an ending that didn't really explain the plot, but it was entertaining and did a good job putting us to sleep as did most of these movies. Have fun watching them and remember they are old B films mostly.

It has to be admitted: you get a whole lot of old cheesy scifi-movies for an extremely low price. But beware: the picture and audio quality for most of the movies is nothing less than horrible. Sometimes, the resolution is so low that it's almost unbearable to look at (sort of 'pixel yoghurt'). If you're interested in only a few of the titles, you'd better buy them separately. And, as a matter of fact, only half of the movies is really scifi.

OK, make no mistake, this is a collection of 50 public domain sci-fi (plus some Hercules and jungle epics tossed in) movies. It's a mixed sack of goo to be sure, but is still the best bargain out there by light years! Consider that most, if not all of these movies can be found in other collections ranging in price from 10-20 times as much! MESA OF LOST WOMEN for instance can be purchased seperately for around $7. Here, it costs about .50¢! This is quite a difference, doncha think?? The quality varies, but who cares? These versions are no worse than their ultra-expensive counterparts! Public domain flicks are not known for their great condition, they are simply movies that any company can get a hold of and package any way they see fit. Why pay a fortune for movies that are only worth pennies anyway?? Buy this now! Also, grab the 50 CLASSIC HORROR MOVIES collection as well, before it vanishes!...