Trailer of the Week: Alien 2: On Earth

No, not the Alien you know and love. Not even Alien. You probably don't even know about this one.

Alien 2: On Earth is an unauthorized Italian ripoff of the Ridley Scott classic. I'm not sure about the budget, but I assume this was made for about twenty bucks, and that's being generous.

Don't watch if cheapo effects scare you. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.

Yeah, the trailer kind of speaks for itself. The film itself is very obscure, and was pretty much impossible to find until they released it on Blu-Ray.

Trailer of the Week: The Astro-Zombies

The Astro-Zombies (1968). Perhaps the cheapest trailer I've seen in my life (it even gives Drive-In Massacre a run for its money).

Featuring Tura Satana, better known for her role in Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965).

Planet of Dinosaurs (1977) Review

Now here's a little gem. "Planet of the Dinosaurs" is probably one of the better b-movies I've seen so far.

Funny thing, it starts off almost exactly like Attack of the Beast Creatures (1985), except, of course, it's in space.

After their ship crash lands on a planet very similar to Earth, some unfortunate astronauts discover they're not alone...

You guessed it. Dinosaurs. And pretty good dinosaurs at that; for a low-budget 70s film, the stop motion effects were surprisingly good. If you've ever tried stop motion, you'll understand why it's impressive.

It's funny how similar Dinosaurs this is to the aforementioned film. The two films even share a berry picking scene (however, the berries are poisonous in The Dino Disco Movie.)

The rest of the plot is kind of obvious. They attempt to survive on the planet until they can be rescued, battling dinosaurs along the way. Sure, the pacing slows down near the middle, but eventually picks back up again. For a b-movie, it seemed relatively concise, with clever dialogue (at least compared to Beast Creatures) that kept it from becoming dull or tedious.

The acting was so-so. Sometimes it was better than others, but overall it was watchable. The same goes for the directing and editing.

One thing that helped this film is that, unlike many other b-movies, it actually contained a few subplots. The characters were even (somewhat) developed, making it easier to care and empathize with them.

Unfortunately it suffered a problem that many films like this face. I've been thinking about b-movies a lot lately, and have come to the conclusion that a big problem is that many of them don't have a clear protagonist.

Sure, we have our "main characters," but even in the group, it's hard to identify who's the main main character. There isn't one in this film. One minute the story leans towards one person, but then it seem like the other person is our lead, and eventually we have no idea who the protagonist is.

Still, it's an interesting film, and definitely worth a look if you can find it anywhere. As of now it's on youtube, but that's definitely subject to change due to those annoying copyright laws.

Is it a good film? Heck no. Fun? Yes, very. And that's all it tries to be.

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) Review

The Day the Earth Stood Still is a classic sci-fi film that has good special effects for its time but is unfortunately plagued with its mediocre writing and sometimes almost cringe-worthy acting.

The first few minutes of the film is made up of scene after scene of people reacting to a mysterious flying saucer that lands in Washington D.C. Klaatu (Michael Rennie) emerges from the space craft and informs the spectators that he has come on a goodwill mission.

Soon we learn that Klaatu’s mission is to deliver an “urgent” message to all of the world leaders. Upon hearing this, I was intrigued, wondering what the message could be.  Unfortunately, the third act of this film just doesn’t deliver.

After a few narrow escapes, some sneaking around, and a car chase, Klaatu finally reveals his message, which is a lot less breathtaking than I had once hoped.

Sure, some scenes were decent. Some were even good. Sadly, the bad parts outweigh the decent, making this film much less than what I had anticipated. Not a personal favorite, but I can see why it's considered such a classic.