Science Fiction | Cagey Films

Recent big-screen viewing

Posted on August 28, 2024August 26, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

Young Alena (Natalie Jane) and Benny (Christian Meer) share a terrible secret in Sean Garrity's The Burning Season (2023)

I don’t get out to a theatre very often these days, so my choices of what to see are more judicious than they used to be, generally the work of directors I’m particularly interested in. The one dud is the latest superfluous entry in a franchise I’ve quite liked – Wes Ball’s Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes – but the rest have been satisfying to some degree: George Miller’s latest apocalyptic action epic, Furiosa; M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap, which as usual I liked in contrast to the predictable critical derision: MaXXXine, the conclusion of Ti West’s trilogy starring Mia Goth: and the small Canadian drama The Burning Season by sometime Winnipegger Sean Garrity.

Fede Alvarez’s Alien: Romulus is a fine franchise reboot

Posted on August 24, 2024August 23, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

Too close for comfort in Fede Alvarez's Alien: Romulus (2024)

Bypassing Ridley Scott’s tediously pretentious attempts to reboot the Alien franchise, co-writer/director Fede Alvarez strikes gold with Alien: Romulus, a relentlessly-paced, well-designed return to basics which manages to reference all four of the original movies while creating something which feels fresh and original.

Murder, witchcraft, doppelgangers and stranded astronauts from Imprint

Posted on August 21, 2024August 20, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

Flora Carr (Margaret Johnston) uses magic to destroy her husband's rival in Sidney Hayers' Night of the Eagle (1962)

A batch of new releases from Imprint in Australia introduced me to the first feature of Gordon Hessler, a noirish mystery called Catacombs (1965), and provided an opportunity to revisit Sidney Hayers’ excellent supernatural tale Night of the Eagle (1962), Basil Dearden’s doppelganger thriller The Man Who Haunted Himself (1970), and for the first time since its theatrical release in 1970 John Sturges’ Marooned, a movie which bridges the gap between science fiction and naturalistic drama which happens to involve a space mission.

Resurrecting a disparaged monster: Reptilicus (1961) in 4K

Posted on July 31, 2024July 30, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

The monster rampages through Copenhagen in Reptilicus (1961)

Frequently derided as the worst giant-monster-on-a-rampage movie ever made, Reptilicus (1961) gets a 4K restoration from Vinegar Syndrome in a three-disk, dual-format set which presents both the more familiar, shorter U.S. cut credited to Sidney W. Pink and the longer Danish-language version directed by Poul Bang. The effects are bargain-basement, but the movie has genuine charm and a few surprisingly impressive sequences.

Spring 2024 viewing, part two

Posted on May 22, 2024May 20, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

A strange young woman disrupts a middle-class home in Go Yeong-nam's Suddenly in the Dark (1981)

Continuing my survey of what I’ve been watching this Spring… Mondo Macabro Mondo Macabro is a label I haven’t mentioned much here, though they specialize in genre movies from around the world and I’ve discovered some real oddities through them – like H. Tjut Djalil’s Mystics in Bali (1981) and Juan Lopez Moctezuma’s Alucarda (1975). […]

Spring 2024 viewing, part one

Posted on May 15, 2024May 13, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

The new preacher in town (Robert Mitchum) has more than religion on his mind in Henry Hathaway's 5 Card Stud (1968)

Springtime viewing includes monsters and murderous mayhem, found-footage rawness and classical Hollywood craft, psycho killers and ancient evil, along with a couple of westerns with different attitudes towards violence on the frontier.

The lasting pleasures of second-tier golden age Universal horror movies

Posted on April 10, 2024April 10, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

Dr. Ernest Sovac (Boris Karloff) makes unethical decisions to further his research in Arthur Lubin's Black Friday (1940)

Three two-disk sets from Eureka provide an overview of Universal Studios’ horror movies from the mid-’30s to the early ’50s, in the period when the first wave of early sound horrors petered out and briefly flourished again as low-budget B-movies as the Depression gave way to World War Two. Karloff and Lugosi are joined by notable, if lesser, genre figures like Lionel Atwill and Rondo Hatton in a mix of science fiction and the supernatural, with gangsters and Gothic trappings spicing the mix.

Winter 2024 viewing, part three: Other labels

Posted on March 6, 2024March 3, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

You don't have to be crazy to do this job, but it helps: Grant Page in Brian Trenchard-Smith's Stunt Rock (1978)

More recent viewing, with excellent restorations of classic fantasies by Arrow – Roger Vadim’s Barbarella (1968) and John Milius’ Conan the Barbarian (1982); a pair of impressive German film school projects – Tilman Singer’s Luz (2018) and Lukas Feigelfeld’s Hagazussa (2017); a couple of entertaining Australian features which mix fiction and documentary in interesting ways – Brian Trenchard-Smith’s Stunt Rock (1978) and Aaron McCann and Dominic Pearce’s Top Knot Detective (2017): and Shredder Orpheus (1990), a low-budget indie version of the Orpheus myth made by Seattle musicians and skateboarders.

Winter 2024 viewing, part two: Vinegar Syndrome

Posted on February 28, 2024February 26, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

A brain chip turns Erica (Jade Leung) into a killing machine in Stephen Shin's Black Cat 2 (1992)

Recent Vinegar Syndrome releases offer a range of genres and styles and widely varying degrees of satisfaction – there’s Hong Kong action, Indonesian horror, experimental indie sci-fi, neo-noir and feminist vigilante violence, giant rats, Biblical horror and quite a bit of sex and violence.

Johnnie To’s The Heroic Trio/Executioners (1993): Criterion Blu-ray review

Posted on February 14, 2024February 13, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

Flights of martial arts fantasy in Johnnie To & Ching Siu-Tung's Executioners (1993)

Before attaining international critical success with a series of cool, formally precise thrillers, Johnnie To made a pair of wildly inventive superhero movies fraught with anxiety about the approaching hand over of Hong Kong to Chinese control in 1997. The Heroic Trio and Executioners (both 1993) mix fantasy, science fiction, traditional martial arts and modern action into a potent dystopian stew centred on three of Hong Kong’s biggest female stars – Anita Mui, Michelle Yeoh and Maggie Cheung. Criterion’s three-disk dual-formal edition showcases stunning restorations by L’Immagine Ritrovata.

Tag: Science Fiction