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#730 – Teenage Zombies (1959)
Teenage Zombies (1959)
Film review #730
Director: Jerry Warren
SYNOPSIS: When a group of teenagers go missing out on a lake, their friends mount a rescue and find a strange lady living on an island. Little do they know she has been kidnapping people for her experiments in mind control..
THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Teenage Zombies is a 1959 sci-fi film. Starting out in a diner – although the set is just a table and chair against a wall – we see a group of teenagers who intend to go out on the lake on their boat. They end up finding an island where a woman lives on her own, but actually she doesn’t, as she’s actually a mad scientist who is developing a method of mind control for communists. She captures two of the teens and turns them into slaves, while the the other two try to free them, and their friends back home try and find them all. This all sounds fairly vague because that’s all the film really gives: it’s just the characters moving between three scenes of a a lakeside, a basement, and someone’s front room and/or kitchen. There’s barely any plot or depth beyond the typical b-movie tropes: mind control, a brain-dead servant, mad scientist (although she is a woman this time I suppose), there’s nothing to really differentiate it. I can’t even tell you the names of the characters or anything; it’s all just so generic and bland.
To be fair to this film, it clearly has no budget, and is just filmed with a cheap camera in someone’s house, haphazard music choices and no consideration for audio quality. But even then, there could have been some effort to make the story interesting. As it is, it’s just a back and forth between people in the same three places, with no action, escalation in tension, or interesting developments. At points the film just stops completely while the scientist gives an explanation of how her mind control device works, which is completely irrelevant. Hopelessly naïve and devoid of any entertaining qualities, Teenage Zombies offers very little to any type of movie watcher.
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#729 – Avanzers Italian Superheroes (2023)
Avanzers Italian Superheroes (2023)
Film review #729
Director: Cosmio Bosco
SYNOPSIS: Gaetanos, the last Alien ruler who survived the Marvel and D.C. superheroes, becomes obsessed with everything Italian. He demands the sacred gem “Made in Italy” or he will destroy the country. To this end, Italy’s greatest (worst) defender Nicola Furia is assigned to stop the evil conqueror, and it is agreed that a football will be held between Gaetanos and Furia to decide the fate of the country. Furia must assemble Italy’s greatest (worst) heroes to defend the might of the country…
THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Avanzers Italian Superheroes is a 2023 sci-fi parody film. The plot concerns the alien emperor Gaetanos, who is apparently the last galactic ruler that hasn’t been wiped out by a Marvel or D.C. superhero. He becomes obsessed with Italian culture, from the cars to the food and fashion. He comes to Earth with his army to demand the gem “Made in Italy” so that he himself can create genuine Italian products, otherwise he will destroy Italy itself. In response, the Italian government assign agent Nicola Furia, the world’s most Italian middle-aged man, who strikes a deal to play a game of football against Gaetanos to decide the fate of the country. Reading this summary, you can probably tell this is just a parody crossover of The Avengers meets Space Jam. With that in mind, there’s not much else to add to it story wise, although there’s a small crossover too with Anatar, the Italian Avatar parody from the same year. The film is structured mostly through introducing the various Italian superheroes that are parodies of other superheroes and stereotypes of Italian culture, including the Scoundrels of the Galaxy, Tonio Sterco, Roach Man, Captain Azzurro, an Italian crime boss, and a football hooligan. Moving from one character to the next at least keeps new things happening, but the overarching plot is a bit weak as it constantly focuses on new characters. While the comedy is obviously made for Italians, it’s broad enough to have enough impact to a wider audience, because everyone knows about pasta, pizza, ferraris and football to some degree.
In keeping with being a parody of The Avengers, the film clocks in at over two hours long, which is an absurdly long time for a cheap parody film such as this. There’s enough characters that it at least manages to fill out the runtime without any lulls, but the football match at the end is a bit dull, as there’s nowhere near enough competency behind the camera to make it look interesting, or choreograph anything too unique. This is a low budget affair that offers a stark contrast to the films it is parodying; sometimes it can get away with it, but other times the corner cutting is apparent: one such example is the use of stock footage of people and the use of A.I. generated imagery in some scenes which looks really bad and shows a real lack of effort. Some scenes, such as on the alien spacecrafts and the makeup isn’t as bad, and the mix of different styles just cerates a bit of a mess. The Avanzers has at least some funny moments as it lampoons Italian culture, but there’s no real consistency to any of the production, it doesn’t offer anything memorable, and it is just way too long for this sort of film.
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#728 – Anatar (2023)
Anatar (2023)
Film review #728
Director: Alan Smithee
SYNOPSIS: A planet of duck-like people is destroyed by pollution and leave their planet in a spaceship to seek a new home. They arrive at the planet Pandoro, where the ducks want to conquer the planet, but Princess Avia wants to convince the inhabitants to share the planet. Using a machine to take a human form, she heads down to the planet to try and find a peaceful solution, where she runs into a young scientist named Germano
THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Anatar is a 2023 Italian sci-fi film. The plot concerns a race of blue humanoid ducks, who have to flee their home planet after it is destroyed, and arrive at another planet named Pandoro. The duck leader Dark Feather wants to conquer the planet, but Princess Avia wants two weeks to try and convince the population to live peacefully with them. To that effect, she uses an experimental machine to turn her human, and heads to the planet, where she meets Germano, a young scientist/inventor, and a romance blossoms. Yes, beneath the outlandish premise, it’s a very standard fish-out-of-water romance story that offers nothing new, and barely holds together. There’s clearly an attempt to parody the Avatar franchise, with the Anatar title, the planet named Pandoro (Pandora) and the blue ducks. Apart from that though, there’s not really any reference to the film’s, so you can’t really situate this film as a parody, it’s just a few references for the trailer to leech off of Avatar’s popularity I suppose. The whole cast is particularly bland; the leads have no chemistry or acting ability, the English dubbing is horrible and unprofessional, and while there’s obvious parodies of Darth Vader among others, none of the writing really bites or has meaning: there’s no sense of comedic timing or setup that makes any scene really worthwhile. Also, some of the ducks just blatantly speak like Donald Duck, for no reason.
While you can recognise the various parodies to characters/people/places as you go through the film, there’s no real pacing to the overall story, as it meanders all over the place. The film even goes for a fourth wall breaking moment where Germano dies, but the film cuts and the director says that he only dies in the first draft, so they go back and re-shoot it, it makes no sense. This might also be a reference to the troubled production of the film and studio interference which led to the director disowning the film and wanting to be credited as “Alan Smithee.” I can only imagine how bad it was for a director to abandon a film such as this. I just cannot imagine any interference being so bad it ruins this film more than it is. The final shot is the ultimate insult, as the injured Germano is taken to the space ship and put into the machine which Avia used to turn humanoid and…the film just ends mid-scene. I suppose it’s meant to signify that Germano has been transformed into a duck, but there’s zero value in not resolving this; the ambiguity adds nothing. On the surface, Anatar looks like a unholy fusion of Avatar and Howard the Duck, but doesn’t go anywhere near far enough to make it at least an interesting parody or satire. A meaningless, carbon copy story combined with flavourless humour make this a pointless experience that provides no value or incentive to watch.
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#727 – manifest Destiny Down: Spacetime (2019)
Manifest Destiny Down: Spacetime (2019)
Film review #727
Directors: Jonathan T. Baker, Bo D.
SYNOPSIS: Two college students wake up to find that the world has been raptured and an AI construct is pursuing them. Between the eccentric physicist and the ex-Catholic Sorority girl, they must find a way to save all humanity and unify quantum physics…
THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Manifest Destiny: Spacetime is a 2019 sci-fi film. The night after they apparently hook up, two college students: a theoretical physicist and a an ex-catholic sorority girl find that they are the last humans on Earth, as an AI has uploaded everyone to the cloud (or something like that), and the only hope is to discover the missing equation to reconcile quantum physics and relativity. The wholly improbable story is a blend of absurdist stoner film with quantum shenanigans, sci-fi references, and a story which is nigh incomprehensible in the details. I have some understanding of quantum physics so I could grasp the basics of the story, but the story itself insists on folding in on itself and changing the goalposts so much it’s hard to really get to grips with. While there’s certainly some possibility of cleverly entangling the story with concepts of quantum physics, this film doesn’t really achieve that, and I feel that more expertise in the production was really needed from this low budget production to get across what is happening.
The main characters (we never know their names) have a distinct contrasting relationship, and this kind-of road trip is where they develop something more significant or have personal revelations, but it never quite gets there: the characters mostly just talk past each other, and never quite click. The acting isn’t all that great, and the audio dubbing is noticeably not synched at times. The guy’s voice is incomprehensible at points, especially when he is trying to explain certain concepts, which makes things even more confusing. There’s a couple of revelatory scenes, but they are few and far between. There’s a variety of effects and animations, but the green screen effects in a lot of the scenes are pretty bad. There’s also a lot of music and sounds which are poor renditions or changed just enough to avoid infringing on any copyright, combined with the references to other sci-fi franchises packs in quite a lot, but nothing that ever really goes beyond a one-liner to a more substantial payoff.
Manifest Destiny Down: Spacetime is an ambitious blend of tricky concepts, references and stoner humour that tries to present itself as absurdist, but has nowhere near the expertise behind the camera required to balance everything it is trying to juggle. You can tell there’s some effort to incorporate the ideas of quantum physics into the storyline, but it’s never properly realised. There’s some small good moments, but this is nowhere near as smart or strong as it wants to be.
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#726 – Alien Weekend (2024)
Alien Weekend (2024)
Film review #726
Director: Taylor King
SYNOPSIS: Four friends stumble upon an alien egg that crash lands onto Earth, and try to protect it from the government, evil aliens, and everybody else…
THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Alien Weekend is a 2024 sci-fi film. Violet and her three friends witness an alien craft fall to Earth while out on the road. It turns out to contain an alien egg for the last female of their species, and Violet takes it to protect from another race of evil aliens, and the government who want the egg to experiment on. The result is a kind of road trip movie sprinkled with some teenage banter and sci-fi antics that mix comedy with some coming-of-age realisations. Emerging from a humble production and without much of a budget, it’s easy not to expect much from this film; but nevertheless I did have a good time with it. The characters are quickly recognisable as having distinct personalities that fall into very typical roles, but they still provide a clash of personalities and personal dilemmas that mix well. I don’t think there’s anything too unique in the characters or story: any detail is skimmed over that reveal anything too personal, but there’s specific scenes which are dedicated to giving characters emotional moments and development which are nice enough, if a little inorganic, as you can feel the specific objective of the scene over everything else happening within it.
As I said, I felt the film was quite funny: it’s not smart humour, but there’s enough quick one-liners or clapbacks that get a reciprocal quick laugh before moving on. There’s enough of these put together to see the film through the runtime, if nothing else. Some of the supporting characters are a little weak, and there comes a point where I think there’s too many of them to cohesively bring them together; some are fine though. There are points too where characters don’t appear for a good portion of the film, and their purpose gets waylaid. The big thing that would have improved this film is some more direction to bring out more impact from the scenes, as it sometimes feels like the point gets lost amid the purposely inane dialogue. For example, a lot of the camera shots are very straight-on and without any focus, and since a lot of the scenes are empty of in pitch-black, there’s barely anything to focus on. The acting itself isn’t too bad, but I think better direction with it would have had benefits; I can see why people might bounce off the irreverent teenage slang thrown at you at the beginning in vast quantities
But overall, I enjoyed this film more than I expected: it’s fun, silly, and hits enough emotional depth and development of the characters to make it worthwhile taking this journey with them. It’s not able to do anything too exciting with it’s budget, but enough moments to keep things fun until the end.
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#725 – Muppets from Space (1999)
Muppets from Space (1999)
Film review #725
Director: Tim Hill
SYNOPSIS: Gonzo becomes concerned abut who he is and where he came from, when he starts seeing strange messages everywhere. Believing he is being contacted by aliens who are his people, he is imprisoned by a super secret organisation, and the Muppets must work together to free their friend…
THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Muppets from Space is a 1999 sci-fi film starring (unsurprisingly) The Muppets. The film’s story centres around Gonzo, as he begins to wonder what he is and where he came from. He starts seeing strange messages that he believes are aliens trying to communicate with him, and that they are his lost people. This is the main focus of the story, and while it somewhat makes sense, insofar as Gonzo’s species has always been “whatever,” you never feel like it’s something that ever needed an answer. The issue here is that Gonzo has never, in any of the Muppets previous films or appearances, expressed concerns about his identity or origins: the “whatever” recurring joke has always be enough. To have him start this movie sad and worried about it with no real impetus or motivation doesn’t really fit his character. With the focus on Gonzo, a lot of the other Muppets don’t really get to be a part of the story in any meaningful way: Rizzo, Gonzo’s friend and roommate gets a small side plot, as does Miss Piggy, but they don’t really go anywhere, and Kermit just…doesn’t have anything going on at all. It’s nice that the film focuses on other Muppets for a change, but Kermit really feels like a spare part, along with many of the others.
The runtime of this film is only eighty minutes (excluding credits sequences), so there’s not really any time to build up any sub-plots, or just have any real fun with the characters. The threat is always mild, and there’s not too much sense of urgency. The Muppets work best when they’ve got something or someone to riff on, and some space for physical comedy, and neither of those things manifest in this film in any meaningful way. The story fulfils its objectives and has a decent amount of charm and fun – as any Muppets film does – but there’s just a lack of any gravity to anything. Even at the end when the aliens arrive, all they do is sing a song and leave again; it’s a pay off that reminds me of the Explorers film. There’s a fair amount of acknowledgement from the people involved that the film wasn’t what they wanted it to be, and it’s hard to disagree: the short runtime and weak motivations don’t give anything a chance to shine. That said; it’s still a Muppets film, and has a lot of the charm and fun you would want from it.
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#724 – Dame Un Poco De Amooor…! (1968)
Dame Un Poco De Amooor…! (1968)
Film review #724
Director: José Maria Forqué
SYNOPSIS: The lead singer of the band Los Bravos is kidnapped by an evil mastermind, who seeks a formula for a potion to control the world. The band try to rescue their singer, along with the daughter of the professor who invented the formula, who believes that he is a superhero.
THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Dame un Poco de Amooor…! (Bring a Little Loving) is a 1968 film starring the Spanish rock band Los Bravos. In the same vein as films starring 60s bands such as The Beatles (Help!) and the Munkees (Head), this film serves primarily as a vessel for the bands songs and to extend these bands popularity across all media. Mike, the leader of the band, is kidnapped by the evil master mind Chou-Fang, who wants to take over the world using a secret formula for mind control developed by a retired scientist. Sao-Ling, the daughter of the scientist, helps Mike escape, believing him to be a superhero who can help her Father. It’s rather basic and silly stuff, and it’s never taken too seriously: like I say, it’s just a bit of fun to promote the band and make them seem like heroes in a way. As you might expect, the plot is interrupted every few minutes with a performance from the band of one of their songs, and while I’m not familiar with their music, I have to say they’re all catchy, fun songs that fit the times. There’s even a mix of Spanish and English songs. Just one look at the film makes it plain to see it revels in the 1960’s aesthetic of pop art and comic book style, as you would expect, and the whole design and choreography of the film is very nicely done, complete with sets that have a good amount of creativity and expression baked into them.
As mentioned, the story is very silly and never really gets to be taken too seriously: it’s just riffing on b-movie sci-fi plots about scientists and their formulas. The main issue with this film is that there’s a lot of stereotypical portrayals of Southeast Asian culture and people, and the common practice of the time of making people “look” SE-Asian with makeup. Perhaps explains why you won’t see this film around much these days. It’s a product of it’s time for better and worse, and is full of fun and catchy songs to keep things entertaining and to appeal to it’s audience.
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#723 – Nexus 2.341 (1994)
Nexus 2.431 (1994)
Film review #723
Director: José Maria Forqué
SYNOPSIS: In the far future, where the Earth has been all but forgotten and humans has settled on other planets, the daughter of the head of the planet’s government is kidnapped by the evil empire, and only a young man who sees the princess in his dreams, can journey to the faraway planet of the Empire, and start and uprising to rescue her.
THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Nexus 2.431 (Sometimes just Nexus) is a 1994 Spanish/Czech/United Kingdom co-production. The opening scene tells us that long ago, the Earth was destroyed by its own pollution and the sun blew it up as well or something, and humanity settled on other planets. On one such planet, the daughter of the head of the government is wanted by the head of an evil empire to marry, and when the proposal is rejected, Shaina is kidnapped. The only person who can rescue her is Tarn, a young man who dreams of Shaina for some reason, and heads to the empire’s home planet to lead an uprising. This film clearly wants to be a Star Wars like film; with a young man with magic powers fighting against the evil empire to rescue a Princess. Perhaps it should be easy to follow, but no: it is nigh incomprehensible: there’s too many characters, some people have magic for some reason, and it’s near impossible to tell where scenes are set. The world building is really poor, and there’s no real sense of what things are actually like in this universe outside of the headquarters of the empire, or this isolated camp where Tarn lives. On top of that, I don’t know where a lot of any of the scenes are set; there’s a lot of planet hopping and teleporting, and everything just looks the same. Also if you’re not convinced it’s a Star Wars derivative, the film even has a garbage compactor scene.
Something that maybe stands out is the use of a lot of miniatures for spaceships and scene setting. They’re nice enough, if not too convincing, but again there’s no real sense of scale or location in any of them, so I’m still not sure what is happening. The performances in this are so cheesy and ridiculous; no more so that Tarn who is constantly talking about how he loves Shania even though he has only seen her in these dreams, and is really hamming up any sense of emotion. The dialogue is also so completely unnatural you’re not going to be convinced by anything they say. There’s also the fact that every woman in this film is subject to violence in some way: kidnapping, mutation, getting shot. Clearly a fetishization of women on someone’s part that is barely disguised.
Nexus 2.431 is a mess of a film that fails to establish any kind of setting or stakes beyond the magical whimsy of it’s airheaded protagonist. The failure to tell any kind of coherent story that’s not ripped off from Star Wars makes it dull and confusing, and the whole production fails to impress. While I can appreciate there is some effort in creating all these unique costumes, effects and models, none of these things really help make the movie worthwhile.
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#722 – Fire Maidens from Outer Space (1958)
Fire Maidens from Outer Space (1956)
Film review #722
Director: Cy Roth
SYNOPSIS: A Joint U.S. and U.K. project to travel to Jupiter’s thirteenth moon, which it has been discovered to have a habitable atmosphere, is undertaken in secret. The five scientists arrive on the moon, and find a society composed almost entirely of women. But their society is being attacked by a mysterious monster, who appears to wreak havoc…
THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Fire Maidens from Outer Space is a 1956 sci-fi film. The opening scene gives us some narration about how the thirteenth moon of Jupiter has been discovered as having a breathable atmosphere. In response, the United States and united Kingdom enact “plan 13,” a joint venture to get a manned crew to the moon by rocket ship. If this conjures up thoughts of the infamous Plan 9 from Outer Space, then that is entirely appropriate for this dull and dire production. The whole film is lifeless and full of tropes that have been done before – and better. The five men that make up the cast look and dress the same, and have more or less than same personalities, meaning there’s no real way or reason to distinguish them. The journey to Jupiter’s moon takes about three weeks; having no real basis in reality, but I wasn’t expecting scientific accuracy in a 1956 b-movie.
When the ship lands on the moon, they find a society comprised of young women: the only man being an elderly “Father,” who plans to keep the men there to mate with the women and produce children. This is a very typical fantasy you get in these films, but this one is full with rampant sexism even more than others. It’s never explained why all the women are young as well, probably as an excuse for the filmmakers to have these young women running around in short skirts. To make matters even more troubling, a monster is roaming around that the Father is hoping the spacemen will deal with (even though it is immune to bullets for some reason. The plot barely goes anywhere; like I say it’s just an excuse to get a bunch of young women on screen and make inappropriate comments to fuel young male fantasies. The whole production is sloppy, with uninspiring scenery, little to no action, and performances from the whole cast which are dreary and without effort: there’s not a moment where I thought anyone really cared about anything they were doing in front of the camera. Fire Maidens from Outer Space has nothing to offer viewers or cinema as a whole, not just a waste of time, but rampant sexism makes it genuinely problematic.
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#721 – Space Milkshake (2012)
Space Milkshake (2012)
Film review #721
Director: Armen Evrensel
SYNOPSIS: A Space Station brings aboard some salvage, only to find it contains a strange device that activates and causes the population of Earth to disappear. Worse, it also unleashes a transdimensional creature of some form, and so the four crewmembers must somehow band together and stop it…
THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Space Milkshake is a 2012 sci-fi comedy film. The story centres around the space station Regina, where the four-person crew collects some salvage that turns out to house a time cube that erases all humans on earth, alongside a trans-dimensional monster that threatens to erase the crew too. The film, as a sci-fi comedy, is light-hearted and silly, reminiscent of films such as Dark Star, or an episode of Red Dwarf. The plot as such doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, and there are massive gaps regarding how all humanity disappeared apart from the crew, the origins of the monster etc. This isn’t the focus or particularly necessary, but in place of this worldbuilding and details, you need some strong comedy, satire or characters to hold things together.
While the characters have their own distinct personalities that play off each other, there’s just frighteningly little substance to their interactions. There’s some attempt to set up comedic situations (the whole “keeping to a schedule” thing, the food dispenser only dispensing sandwiches), but they don’t really go anywhere or figure into any of the comedy. The sets are very minimal and cramped, which gives very little room for anything unique to happen, but also the sameness makes the whole movie feel like it doesn’t go anywhere: obviously that’s the point for a film set on a space station, but it doesn’t make interesting storytelling. The effects on the monster (voiced by George Takei) are not particularly great, and a missed opportunity to throw in some physical comedy. Space Milkshake is best defined as “just a bit of fun,” in the sense that nothing is really done with intent; just as the nonsensical title suggests. However, that doesn’t mean that you get to not try to make something of substance, or take time to set up a joke. As such, the film just often feels like a bit of faffing, which doesn’t quite translate into maintaining attention over the length of a film.
