Police are stumped when a gangster disappears in the middle of a busy Tokyo street, leaving only his clothes. While they investigate, more people disappear in the same fashion. A young scientist doing research into the effects of radioactivity comes forth with an incredible theory: the victims are being dissolved by formerly human creatures who have been turned into protoplasmic monsters by exposu…
In another poor attempt to capitalize on the Internet craze, a group of teenage computer hackers surf their way into the wrong system. When Dade (Jonny Lee Miller) breaks into the computer system at Ellingson Oil, he becomes the perfect scapegoat for the industrial espionage being conducted by security chief Fisher Stevens. The underground hackers band together in an effort to clear …
A strange little Yeti picture from Japan, badly mishandled by the U.S. distributor.
Set in “the recent future” when “a country went wrong,” this fundamentally sterile adaptation of Margaret Atwood's bestselling novel still manages to be chilling thanks to its not so inconceivable premise. Militant fundamentalists seize control of the United States (now known as Gilead). The written word, except for the Bible, is replaced by televis…
Italian Terminator takeoff in which an indestructible cyborg carries out government assassinations, until a mission against an environmentalist scientist changes his mind.
Somewhat silly and cynical (and what's wrong with that?) UFO coverup story, with a plot similar to Capricorn One. Two astronauts are scapegoated for the loss of a shuttle that has actually collided with a UFO. When they learn that the government is hiding the evidence in the title hangar (think it's in area 51, boys?), they set out to blow the lid of off t…
Post-apocalyptic ragpicker gives artist Stacy Travis some robot remains he collected (ours is not to ask why).
Indie filmmaker/actor Ernie Fosselius created one of most successful short subjects ever with his 1977 parody of Star Wars starring a vacuum cleaner as R2D2, an “Oz”-style tin man as C3PO, and a general emphasis on common household appliances for Lucasfilm-scale starships and special effects.
Three janitors (named Moe, Larry, and Curly Joe – sound familiar?) help a scientist who is about to lose her job if she can't send a rocket to Venus.
Mad scientist (whose lab-enhanced genius has driven out all conscience) keeps the head of an old surgeon alive when the guy's heart fails.
In a 1995 very different from what we experienced, two domestic robot-servants fall in love and run off together.
Based on Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, this medieval mini-epic is a far more lavish spectacle than its budget should have allowed. Knights and knightesses in armor as stylized as Excalibur’s viciously have at it in a passionate tale of magic, honor, and “holy” war. Tanya Roberts, in her pre-softcore days, plays a Moorish princess whose kidnapping incites war to er…
Corporations use mechanical fighters to participate in brutal kickboxing contests in 2019 New America.
“Louder and nastier than ever!” proclaims the vid box of this midnight movie staple, long unavailable on video until Columbia Home Video rereleased it in June 1996, THX digitally mastered, and with three extra minutes of never-before-seen footage. It's a collection of animated tales loosely derived from the “adult comics” mag of the same name. The stories are all…
When you're running with the Mad Max ripoff pack you need gimmicks to stand out, and this sure has a few.
Don't be fooled by the P.T.
There's something about a man with a big sword…particularly if he's up against the forces of darkness in a primeval world. Tales of heroic warriors are of course among the oldest stories told. Later on, in the boring old 20th Century, writers like Robert E. Howard would appropriate the best elements of the old sagas for stories set in magical worlds that never existed. Countle…
The one that started it all.
Lackluster remake of 1957 original finds legendary muscle guy Hercules in the person of Lou Ferrigno's Hulkster fighting against the evil King Minos for his own survival and the love of Cassiopeia, a rival king's daughter.
The muscle-bound demi-god returns to do battle with more evil foes amidst the same stunningly cheap special effects.
This is one of the more visually striking of the ‘50s Hercules movies. Actually, the hero was called Maciste in his native Italy, but American audiences didn't care; they just wanted more sword-and-sandal epicry, and boy, did they get it here! The big guy is summoned to an isolated kingdom in the shadow of the Mountain of Death, wherein live a race of beings from the moon, brought to…
Hercules’ son is kidnapped by the Queen of Atlantis, and the bare-chested warrior goes on an all-out rampage to save the boy.
Hercules is up to his pecs in trouble as he battles a hungry sea monster in order to save a beautiful maiden.
This is it! You've heard about it, you've wondered about it, you've very wisely avoided it! This was Arnold Schwarzenegger's motion-picture debut; as the muscle-bound son of Zeus, Ahnold is transported through time by his deity dad to 20th-Century Manhattan.
Another good Italian fantasy-adventure featuring the mighty Hercules – played yet again by Reg Park, who must have been genetically engineered to look exactly like former series star Steve Reeves.
Spaghetti myth-opera in which Hercules battles a witch who is turning men into werewolves.
Sequel to Hercules finds the muscleman (Steve Reeves) and his princess bride (Sylva Koscina) setting off for the city of Thebes, trying to prevent a war.
A seasoned cop (Michael Nouri) and a benign alien posing as an FBI agent (Kyle MacLachlan) team up to track down and destroy a hyper-violent alien lifeform that lives for fast cars and loud rock music and survives by invading the bodies of humans, causing them to go on murderous rampages. In its initial release, the film was coolly received by many as a Terminator…
The hyper-violent alien of the 1987 movie returns.
A physicist exposed to radiation must stay out of sunlight or he will turn into a scaly, lizardlike creature.
Pals on a hunting trip in the New Mexico desert find strange phenomena and begin behaving irrationally.
Action-fantasy about ‘immortals,’ a race of, well, immortals (spontaneously born to ordinary folk) who must meet in battle down through the centuries, decapitating each other – the only way to kill one – until the last survivor inherits their accumulated power. Christopher Lambert is 16th-century Scotsman Connor MacLeod, whose feud with an equally ageless …
Even Christopher Lambert disowned this second chapter in the saga of Connor MacLeod, which tries retroactively to explain everything that happened in the first movie in a sci-fi context.
The third Highlander pointedly ignores what went on in the second Highlander but can't claim much of an improvement.
BBC-TV adaptation of Douglas Adams’ hilarious radio serial (better known to many as a series of best-selling books), done with many of the original audio cast members and positing a riotous universe of adventure, absurdity, and really wild things, of which Earth is completely ignorant, yet of momentous importance. Thus typical Englishman Arthur Dent survives the sudden demolit…
A “B” movie studio finds its top actresses being killed off and terror reigns supreme as the mystery grows more intense.
Unapologetic rip-off of Stallone/Snipes’ Demolition Man is almost as much guilty fun.
Robby Benson stars as a scientist who invents a computer, with a female voice, as the ultimate domestic worker.
To parents, it is the ultimate nightmare: the Terrible Twos magnified 100 times. To children, it is the ultimate fantasy: to tower above adults and have the world (or in this case, Las Vegas) as your playground. Rick Moranis returns as Wayne Szalinski, the screwball inventor who shrunk his kids in the first Honey, I…. misadventure. It's a Son of Flubber for the ‘…
The popular Disney fantasy about a suburban inventor (Rick Moranis), who is probably the son of Fred MacMurray's character in The Absent-Minded Professor. His shrinking device accidentally reduces his kids to 1/4 inch tall, and he subsequently throws them out with the garbage. Now they must journey back to the house through the jungle that was once the back lawn, overco…
John Carradine made a career out of being in bad movies, and this one competes as one of the worst. This is an editor's nightmare, made up of black & white film from a bizarre Filipino fantasy picture about battling tribes of mutants, spliced together and tinted. Added footage shows vampires attacking people, while Carradine spouts nonsense about the bloodsuckers being from outer spa…
“There is a legend that sf and humor do not mix, but it is false,” conclusively declares Peter Nicholls’ Science Fiction Encyclopedia. Even casual video viewers recognize genre spoofs like Mel Brooks’ Spaceballs and Woody Allen's Hugo Award-winning Sleeper. The Hound would like to spotlight some shorter sci-fi parodies and futuristic satires for the true connoiss…
Cheapie takeoff on Alien.
Cheapo epic sees astronauts crash on Mars, meet its Wizard, and stumble into a few Oz-like creatures.
A megabucks megaflop from Lucasfilm, an adaptation of the short-lived, cult Marvel Comics superhero spoof.
Kiel is an alien who has come to Earth to make androids out of important folk, thus allowing the “galaxy beings” to take over.
A made-for-television film about a scientist and an android rebelling against the government that wants to use the android as a warfare prototype.
Two alien kids (humanlike except for their massive Don King hairstyles) sneak away from the family saucer accompanied by a space pal who looks like a big furry starfish.