The Face of Fu Manchu Movie Review
Christopher Lee is novelist Sax Rohmer's nefarious Chinese arch-villain Fu Manchu, holed up in England in a secret laboratory under the Thames.
Sci-Fi Movies - F
Fahrenheit (451) Movie Review
French auteur Francois Truffaut adapts Ray Bradbury's classic novel about an oppressive future where books are burned. Firemen are responsible for eliminating all books by burning them – Fahrenheit 451 is the temperature at which paper begins to burn. Recollections of firemen putting out fires have become ancient myths. The story follows Montag, a fireman, content and unquestioning i…
Fail-Safe Movie Review
A nail-biting nuclear age nightmare, in which American planes have been erroneously sent to nuke Moscow with no way to recall them.
Fantastic Planet Movie Review
A critically acclaimed, animated French sci-fi epic based on the drawings of Roland Topor. A race of small humanoids are enslaved and exploited by a race of telepathic blue giants on a savage planet. The film follows one of the small creatures on his quest to unite his people and win them equality with their captors. This film has a haunting, alien quality that makes it stand out even today; there…
Fantastic Voyage Movie Review
An important scientist, rescued from behind the Iron Curtain, is wounded by enemy agents. A tiny clot within his brain means that traditional surgery is impossible. After being shrunk to microscopic size, a medical team uses a hi-tech submarine to journey inside his body where they find themselves threatened by the patient's natural defenses, as well as a sabotaging spy who has made his way…
Fiend Without a Face Movie Review
This early attempt at gore cinema works quite well, addressing the problems of nuclear power, while promising – and delivering – a real bloodbath.
The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu Movie Review
Peter Sellers’ last film stood the whole Fu Manchu series on its head with gentle, occasionally surreal humor.
Final Approach Movie Review
U.S. Air Force stealth pilot Jason Halsey (James B. Sikking) crashes in the desert and awakens in the office of ominous psychiatrist Dio Gottlieb (Hector Elizondo). Remembering nothing of his past, and not even recognizing his own face, Halsey begins to work with Gottlieb while the commander of the covert stealth operation, General Geller (Kevin McCarthy),…
The Final Combat Movie Review
When the French tried a post-apocalyptic action flick, filmmaker Luc Besson went mad to the max and created a black-and-white nightmare world of deserts, ruins, and bleached wreckage, with no dialogue (possible explanation: poison gas has burned out everyone's vocal cords) and weird weather phenomena. The ‘Man,’ a spear-carrying everybarbarian, tires of life in t…
The Final Countdown Movie Review
On December 7, 1980, the nuclear carrier USS Nimitz is caught in a time warp and transported back in time to Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941, just hours before the Japanese bombing attack that crippled the U.S. and propelled the country into WWII. The commanders are faced with the ultimate decision – leave history intact or stop the incident and maybe the war itself. Making the decision are …
The Final Executioner Movie Review
A valiant man finds a way to stop the slaughter of innocent people in a post-nuclear world.
The Final Programme Movie Review
In this futuristic story, a man must rescue his sister – and the world – from their brother, who holds a microfilmed plan for global domination.
Fire in the Sky Movie Review
The mysterious disappearance of logger Travis Wilson (D. B. Sweeney) sparks a criminal investigation of his drinking buddies. Then Travis returns, telling a frightening story of alien abduction. Though everyone in town doubts his story, viewers won't, since the alleged aliens have already made an appearance, shifting the focus to Sweeney and friends as he tries to convince ske…
Fire Maidens from Outer Space Movie Review
Fire maidens prove to be true to the space opera code that dictates that all alien women be in desperate need of male company. Astronauts on an expedition to Jupiter's thirteenth moon discover the lost civilization of Atlantis, which, as luck would have it, is inhabited only by women (except for one busy old man). An unexplained beast man prowls around looking to carry off fir…
The Fire Next Time Movie Review
In the year 2017, the United States is being ravaged by an ecological holocaust caused by a deadly combination of pollution and global warming.
Firebird A.D. (2015 ) Movie Review
A dreary action adventure set in a 21st-Century society where automobile use is banned because of an extreme oil shortage.
Firestarter Movie Review
Don't make her angry.
First Man into Space Movie Review
An astronaut returns to Earth covered with a crust of strange space dust and with an organism feeding inside him (shades of Alien).
First Men in the Moon Movie Review
A fun, special effects-laden adaptation of the H. G. Wells novel about an Edwardian civilian spacecraft visiting the moon and the creatures found there. Wells’ vision of space travel has a unique twist – the vehicle is a globe covered with an anti-gravity substance, controlled by a shutter system. The explorers hang in webbed hammocks for protection during the rough landing, stretchi…
The Hound Salutes: Ray Harryhausen Movie Review
Perhaps the best introduction to the work of special effects pioneer Ray Harryhausen is the videotape (and disc) Aliens, Dragons, Monsters & Me (Midwich Entertainment, Lumivision, 1992). This celebration of Harryhausen's long career in stop-motion animation is based on an exhibit of his work at the Museum of the Moving Image in London. Also included are an…
First Spaceship on Venus Movie Review
Eight international scientists set foot on Venus, but what they find is as downbeat as it was a decade earlier on Mars in Rocketship X-M, which showed structures of a dead civilization standing silent as blind Martians staggered about. The cause: atomic war, but here the nukes have also done in the natives; the only identifiable life form is a gray organic ooze that spurts out with such menacing f…
Flash Gordon Movie Review
A campy, updated version of the classic adventures of the blonde, spacefaring hero.
Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe Movie Review
Third and last Flash Gordon serial works well as both a 12-chapter play and a feature-length condensation (both have the same title). Ming the Merciless of Mongo is dusting the Earth with toxic spores, the Purple Death. Naturally Flash, Dale Arden, and Dr. Zarkov visit Mongo to frustrate the Emperor; assisting them are the running characters Prince Barin of Arboria and Aura, Ming�…
Flash Gordon: Mars Attacks the World Movie Review
This feature condensation of the second Flash Gordon serial (Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars) was supposed to take place on Mongo, but all the characters and the locale switched to Mars after Orson Welle's famed War of the Worlds Halloween broadcast of 1938. So Azura, Queen of the Blue Caverns on Mongo in the Alex Raymond comic strip, became Azura, Queen of Mars. And so on.…
Flash Gordon: Rocketship Movie Review
Re-edited from the original Flash Gordon serial in which Flash and company must prevent the planet Mongo from colliding with Earth. Its ruler, Ming the Merciless (impeccably played by Charles Middleton), is hurling his world into Earth orbit to crush all terrestrial life, but the human adventurers, united with rebel citizens of Mongo, stop his despotic schemes. Buster Crabbe is a per…
Flatliners Movie Review
A group of medical students begin after-hours experimentation with death, taking turns being “killed” and brought back to life with CPR techniques.
The Flesh Eaters Movie Review
This crudely effective shocker stars Rita Morley as an alcoholic film star who, with her secretary, crashlands on an island inhabited by – what else – a Nazi scientist (Martin Kosleck, a Universal contract player who, by one count, portrayed Joseph Goebbels three times). He is experimenting with sea creatures to develop a solvent for human flesh. The swarming critters w…
Flesh Gordon Movie Review
Meanwhile, back on the planet Porno, the evil Emperor Wang is bombarding the Earth with his insidious sex ray. The streets are teeming with the bodies of coupling citizens unable to control their rampant desires. Is there no one who can save our planet from total carnal chaos? This 1974 relic from the Golden Age of midnight movies was originally conceived as a hard-core spoof on the sci-fi serial …
Flesh Gordon 2: Flesh Gordon Meets the Cosmic Cheerleaders Movie Review
The evil and perverted Emperor Wang (William Dennis Hunt) once again threatens the Universe – this time with his powerful Impotence Ray – in this long-awaited sequel to the (in)famous sf parody. Flesh (Vince Murdocco), along with Dale (Robyn Kelly) and Dr. Flexi Jerkoff (Tony Travis), do battle with a belt of farti…
Flight of the Navigator Movie Review
A 12-year-old comes back from a walk in the woods to learn that eight years have passed for his family and the rest of the world.
Flight to Mars Movie Review
Interplanetary explorers crashland on Mars and find an advanced underground society that looks and acts just like humans, except they've never heard of uranium.
The Fly Movie Review
The original sci-fi tale about a hapless scientist Hedison, experimenting with teleportation, who accidentally gets anatomically mixed with a housefly. Now, how to tell the wife? No matter how repellently fascinating the premise, an earnest, wordy script (by novelist James Clavell) and direction better suited to domestic-crisis drama lend this a campy air even the actors couldn…
The Fly Movie Review
This may be director David Cronenberg's ultimate study of the decay of the flesh in this remake of the 1958 classic. Jeff Goldblum is perfect as the eccentric scientist Seth Brundle, whose genes and molecules are intermixed with those of a housefly via his experimental teleportation device. As he begins to change, Seth at first becomes stronger, more agile, and virile as hell. But girlfrien…
The Fly 2 Movie Review
Although inferior to Cronenberg's opus, this sequel continues the study of the decay of the flesh and how it affects the mental and emotional as well as the physical. Martin (Eric Stoltz), son of fly/man Seth Brundle, achieves full genius maturity in five years. Machiavellian industrialist Anton Bartok (Lee Richardson) cares about his ward about as much as…
Flying Discman from Mars Movie Review
Martians are greatly advanced in this 12-episode Republic chapter play compared to where they were in Republic's 1945 The Purple Monster Strikes. There they could barely get down to Earth and back without tapping human ingenuity. Now they know all about atomic power and weapons so powerful only a handful of Martians can rule the globe with their mighty flying discs. Alas, Republic had littl…
The Flying Saucer Movie Review
U.S. and Russian scientists clash over their search for a huge flying saucer that is hidden under a glacier.
Food of the Gods Movie Review
A husband and wife on a secluded island discover some bubbling, seething stuff oozing out of their property. When fed to animals, the unappetizing glop creates giant offspring. The pious couple think that this is the Lord's way of ending world hunger, since it makes for some mighty big chickens. Inevitably, though, some less pleasant critters get hold of it and as a result the wife, a coupl…
Food of the Gods: Part 2 Movie Review
A knock-off sequel to Bert I.
Forbidden Planet Movie Review
“Prepare your minds for a new scale of scientific values, gentlemen.” MGM's first foray into the genre is Must-See sci fi. Following Disney's lead in the wake of the success of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, the studio lavished its considerable resources on this adventure that was loosely based on William Shakespeare's The Tempest. In the 23rd century, Leslie Niel…
Forbidden World Movie Review
Space scientists on a remote planet are stalked by their own creation, a hostile organism capable of changing its genetic structure as it grows and matures (though it merely looks like a giant rubber spider).
Forbidden Zone Movie Review
Members of a strange family journey to an underground sixth dimension kingdom ruled by the midget, King Fausto (Herve Villechaize), and inhabited by dancing frogs, bikini-clad tootsies, robot boxers, and degraded beings of all kinds.
Force on Thunder Mountain Movie Review
A father and son go camping and encounter peculiar stuff, the work of an old man from a flying saucer (it's the Jupiter II, in stolen clips from TV's Lost in Space).
Forever Young Movie Review
When test pilot Mel Gibson's girlfriend is hit by a car and goes into a coma, he volunteers to be cryogenically frozen for one year.
Fortress Movie Review
When John and Karen Bennick (Christopher Lambert and Loryn Locklin) are caught trying to have a second child (in the future it will be illegal even if the first pregnancy resulted in a miscarriage), they are shipped to the Fortress, a miles-deep underground desert prison, run not by the government but by a huge corporation with designs on the yet-to-be-born child. Act u…
Fortress of Amerikka Movie Review
In the not-too-distant future, mercenaries get their hands on a secret weapon that could allow them to take over the USA.
Four Sided Triangle Movie Review
Two mad scientists find their friendship threatened when they discover that they are both in love with the same woman.
The Man (4D) Movie Review
A physicist makes two fateful discoveries while working on a special project that gets out of control, leaving him able to pass through matter and see around corners.
Frankenstein Movie Review
The definitive expressionistic Gothic horror classic that set the mold.
Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster Movie Review
Proclaimed by its writers – English professors at the University of Virginia! – as the worst sf/horror movie ever made, this wonder actually lives up (or down, as the case may be) to its billing. When a human-looking NASA android goes berserk after crashlanding in Puerto Rico, James Karen and Nancy Marshall are sent to track it down, but they instead run across w…
Frankenstein Unbound Movie Review
It took Roger Corman 19 years to decide to make a comeback, and he did it Corman style, completing the shooting in seven weeks, writing the screenplay himself, and making a better-than-B “B” movie. It's 2031 and Dr. Joseph Buchanan is about to perfect the ultimate humanitarian weapon. No splattering, no charring, just instantaneous, implosionary, vaporization. How kind……
Freejack Movie Review
There is a $15 million bounty on Emilio Estevez's head, placed not by outraged Men at Work viewers, but by a tycoon who wants to achieve immortality by transplanting his deranged mind into Estevez's body. The year is 2009, when such “psychic surgery” is possible. Except that in the polluted future, uncontaminated host bodies are scarce. So scientists reach back t…
From Beyond Movie Review
A gruesome, tongue-in-cheek flick based on a story by H.P.
From “Star Wars” to “Jedi”: The Making of a Saga Movie Review
In Earth years, Star Wars is nearly 20 years old. But in Hollywood years, it is timeless, a pop-culture classic that revitalized science-fiction films and revolutionized the art of special effects. But you knew that. What you perhaps didn't know is how George Lucas and his cast and crew of artisans brought this space saga to life. Mark Hamill, Luke Skywalker himself, narrates this behind-th…
From the Earth to the Moon Movie Review
Is this trip really necessary? George Sanders and Joseph Cotten, members of the Gun Club, launch themselves (as well as Debra Paget) on the title voyage.
Frozen Alive Movie Review
A scientist experiments with suspended animation but, wouldn't you know, someone murders his wife while he's on ice.
Fugitive Alien Movie Review
Alien invaders from Valnastar and Earth forces battle it out.
Future Force Movie Review
In the crime-filled future cops can't maintain order.
SEE! Movie Review
“SEE: The deadly cave of forbidden moon-gold! SEE: The lost city of love- starved cat-women! SEE: The bloodthirsty battle of moon monsters!” – Cat Women of the Moon. “SEE strangest of all rites in the temple of love! SEE supersonic excitement as you hurtle through space to a lost planet! SEE fire maidens…dedicated to the purpose of creating a new race of supermen…
Future Hunters Movie Review
In the Road Warrior postnuke-holocaust opening, the fabled Spear of Longinus (that pierced Christ's side and now has mighty powers) is sent back through time to the present day for safekeeping.
Future Shock Movie Review
A psychiatrist uses “virtual reality” computer technology (which looks like plain ol’ hypnotism to the Hound) as therapy.
Future Zone Movie Review
Tedious sequel to Future Force has even fewer sf trappings than its predecessor, at least initially.
Futurekick Movie Review
One of those movies that annoys you completely, then serves up a marvelously devious trick ending in its final moment.
Futureworld Movie Review
In this competent sequel to Michael Crichton's Westworld, two reporters (Peter Fonda and Blythe Danner), one cynical, one enthusiastic, cover the grand reopening of the Delos theme park, closed since the disaster chronicled in the first film. The super-expensive park offers visitors experiences in different worlds, populated by robots who meet guests’ every need. The ex…
Futuropolis Movie Review
Fearless Lieutenant Cosmo fights off a ragged group of space invaders in this animated sci-fi/action-adventure parody.