Forensic Science Movie Reviews

If you ever have a large group of merciless friends over who love ripping apart movies, here's the perfect sacrifice. There are more goofs and false starts in this piece of sh*t than I ever thought possible. Astronauts exploring Mars in 2032 find a baked potato wrapped in foil, after spending around ten minutes of a ninety-minute film getting to know those astronauts they die. (The shuttle's air supply mysteriously turned off by an "unknown" force.) Now we jump to a space station, meet some more people, a few minutes later they all die when the reactor explodes. WTF! So twenty darn minutes into it we are finally set up with the "true" main characters, all five of them. (Er, six, but that's a different b*tch session.) We, the audience, know the baked potato cracked open to reveal a large quartz crystal and somebody's sock covered in ultraslime that supposed to be an alien. Nobody knows it's on board! The ship is equipped with a "heat source detection" display in the bridge, it looks like an old atari game, but the darn thing only works when the plot requires. One moment there are five little red "human" lights, then suddenly the little white "alien" light pops in and starts chasing red lights around. (Even worse than it sounds I assure you.) Billy meets the thing first, smacks it with a wrench, gets eaten. Next it chases Sherry around the room until she throws acid on it, no more Sherry. Cal runs back trying to help freaky girl, shoots, misses, tries to flee, dies. So for the last half of the film we have three characters entertaining (boring) us, that's right, three: Roger, Adrianne, and....Gar! When our two surviving humans finally encounter the alien it turns out he's a nice guy, only killed all those people to defend himself. (The previous shuttle crew was going to use a laser on the crystal.) If you can manipulate the ship's systems (in forms of turning on the defense shield and turning off the oxygen), how about communicating something like "No laser crystal." you stupid space slug. Killed Sherry for throwing acid on you? The thing was chasing her around the room, oh hell no, soon as Gar turned his back on me - dead Gar. Instead these two idiots end up befriending the creature, the end. Good riddance. Watching this film alone is painful, with a rowdy group of b-movie loving veterans, it's moderately fun.

When I first saw this movie, I didn't know what to expect.(If I did, I would have never saw it in the first place.) After the first 5 minutes I could tell this movie would give me a good laugh. The sky of Mars was blue, they drank coke out of beaker cleaners, and dug a baked potatoe out of the ground. And lets just say the alien in it (which reads the Bible-ha ha-I'm not kidding.) is ET's [dumb] glow-in-the-dark cousin. All in all I had a blast watching it. I laughed, I cried, and I wouldn't mind seeing it again. How sad is that?

In watching this movie, I got the strange feeling that the makers of this film intentionally set out to make a bad movie. And not just a bad movie, but an appallingly bad movie.

The movie starts out by telling us it's the year 2032 or something, and we see a couple of people in spacesuits walking around on what is supposed to be the surface of Mars. Since Mars is known as the 'red' planet, a red filter is placed over the camera lens to achieve that effect, making everything red. This effect was so apparent it drew me out of the movie, which may have not been a bad thing. Also I noticed a cloud or two in the sky, suggesting that Mars has an atmosphere, not unlike that of Earth, but whatever....

Now these two 'explorers' find a thingamabob buried in the ground, dig it out, and return to their shuttle. It appears to be a giant Cadbury space egg, but before they get a chance to really examine it, they are called off. I thought it was kind of interesting how no quarantine procedures were used to isolate the alien artifact, but there you go. While they are away, the egg cracks open and leaks out some alien goo. Now, you may ask, "Is this a bad thing?" to which I would reply, "Have you ever known alien goo to be a good thing?" (Bet they'll be wishing soon that they did have quarantine procedures)

Soon we see the shuttlecraft computer come to life, stating that the oxygen levels are at a critical stage, and immediate action is required. A slow pan around the ship shows the crew already dead, so I guess the computer was a little slow with its' warning. Dumb computer...The ship, now on auto pilot, flies back to a big, goofy looking space station, where an investigation as to how the crew died takes place. (Hint, how about a computer with an exceptionally poor response time?) Some people are on the shuttle craft, doing busy work, when all of the sudden the station starts shuddering violently. A few more people run into the shuttle, it takes off, and the space station spontaneously combusts. Poorly constructed station, I guess. No real reason is given why it blew up, but dang if it didn't blow up real good!

Now there are about five really annoying people on the shuttle, plus one gooey alien entity. We see a number of shots of a pulsating alien mass, so we figure it's doing something, with out actually doing anything. The people, seemingly not too shaken up about the destruction of that space station along with thousands of lives (it was really big), start formulating a plan to get home. An effort was made to try and create a sense of dissension within the group, but the dialog was so clunky that they all just come off as looking stupid.

I have to say something about the design of the shuttlecraft. Having seen so many sci-fi movies, I can honestly say this is the worst designed spacecraft I have ever seen. Get this, there are like five different areas, all connected with tubes about 3 feet in diameter. That means if you want to go from the sleeping quarters to the command center, or the engine room, or any other area on the ship, you have to crawl on your hands and knees through about 50 feet of tube. And the doors...each door is like 3 feet high. To go in and out of a room, you have to crouch down to get through the door. Who designed this ship? Torquemada? Later we'll see the tunnels/tubes are used in a similar fashion like in the vastly better Ridley Scott sci-fi horror thriller Alien.

So people start getting kakked, and these scenes are shot in such a way to try and create suspense, but the attempts are so obvious that they called attention to themselves, and defeat the whole purpose. The remaining crewmembers try to deal with the alien, and while the ending is actually very different and almost an intriguing twist on the genre (if it had been in a different movie), here it's ultimately idiotic. Keep your eye on the actor playing the male lead. He suffers from serious bouts of overacting throughout the movie. These moments almost made the movie worthwhile.

And I can't go without mentioning the incredibly lame and annoying music. New Age electronic music doesn't seem like the best choice for a sci-fi horror/thriller movie. And don't miss the song at the end...the horror...the horror...

No extras, I am sad to say. I would have really enjoyed a director's commentary. Maybe I could have gotten an insight as to what went wrong. Remember kiddies, if you rip off a much better movie to make your cheap celluloid cheese, try not to be so obvious about it to the point that you are ripping off a much better movie, as viewers will notice and turn on you, especially if the movie you're borrowing from is a true classic of the genre. Watching the credits, I noticed 'The Gling' (?!) credited for the voice of GAR (the alien). Whatever...also, the credits also revealed that this movie was filmed entirely on location ...in space! My sides are splitting with laughter...

This is yet another in the inexplicably-popular "Dr. Orloff" series (those Europeans, eh? guess they'll watch ANYthing...). It USED to go by the title "The Invisible Dead", but this is it's actual release title.

It is an endurance contest - no kidding. Some friends and I used to joke about the VHS version we'd seen because it was about the ONLY film we'd ever seen that made "Red Zone Cuba" and "Manos" look fast-paced and exciting. In typical Euro-style, we get odd zoom-in close-up shots of the (mugging) faces of the supporting cast, a plot that drags on and on and on and on, and the "monster" is neither invisible NOR a man - if anything, it will remind you of the Ro-Man from "Robot Monster", only without the laughs. Special effects? Hah! Watch "footsteps" being made while the thing is "invisible" - these "steps" form at a pace indicating the monster has severe gout in both knees AND feet and will make it all the way across the room by this time next year.

Don't be fooled - there is NO saving this one. No riffs, no beer, NOTHING can prepare you for the unbelievable sadness, boredom, and general sense of "I wasted my time on THIS?!?!" that this movie will produce. I actually pride myself on having seen the entire movie, but that's so YOU don't HAVE to...

If you're a fan of the cheap Euro horror films of the 70s, then this is a five star. If not, probably a one star and switch off halfway through. Typical story about a doctor who turns up at a castle only to find that it is being haunted by an invisible monster. Plenty of dubbing and implied sex scenes. It's a sort of "Invisible Frankenstein". It'll make a nice companion piece to "Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks" and the Jess Franco movies.

This has also been released as "The Invisible Dead" in the UK.

here's a real euro stinker for you. a doctor is summoned to orloffs castle during a storm. there he meets orloffs invisible man which despite being called an invisible man is a)only invisible part of the time b)appears to be somebody in an ape suit rather than a man. not much in particular happens throughout the entire film but it still manages to be so bad it's good. for a few years i actually thought this was a jess franco film-it's uncanny! buy it,grab a few friends and some beer and have a great time!

I bought a four-pack of dinosaur themed movies about a year and a half ago. One of them was Planet of Dinosaurs, a movie ripe for Mystery Science Theater 3000 brutalizing. It had overbearing Wendy Carlos electronic score, acting obviously done after a shot of Nyquil and some great Harryhausen-esque stop motion animation. And my five year old son loved it. Dinosaurs and Space Ships! And none of that pesky long-running dialogue to get in the way of Tyranasaurus eating annoying semi-villians. What more could a five year old want?

This movie is beyond wretched. It takes a D-minus movie, extracts the stop motion animation and adds Master Thespian acting shot on video. It's high school freshman with camcorder caliber.

If you collect Roger Corman films and have a soft spot, you might be able to get a snicker out this. Otherwise, you could die peacefully without ever having experienced this move.

Spend the $$$$ and just get Planet of Dinosaurs (also available at Amazon).

" Galaxy of the Dinosaurs" is well made low budget sci-fi adventure movie featuring some good stop motion effects work. The film is not masterpiece of acting and the script could have been better but the people who made this movie obvious love "Star Trek" and Ray Harryhausen. If you are a stop motion fan its worths seeing

Cavegirl is definitely a B-movie. However after you get past that you can start to have a little fun with this film. You have the geek from high school who constantly gets harassed by his peers. He is then somehow sent back to the stone age only to find a prehistoric babe and a tribe who genuinely like him. The rest of the film basically follows the traditional formula and the man ends up staying in the stone age. If you can look by all of its shortcomings, (acting, production cost, bad dialogue) you just might enjoy it.

Cavegirl may not be an award winning opus by any means. It's highest exposure was being shown on USA Up All Night about six years ago. Regardless, this is B-movie schlock at its best! Dan Roebuck (Jay Leno from The Late Shift movie) plays Rex, a nerdy high school student, who gets lost in a cave during a field trip and gets transported to the prehistoric era. There, he meets Eva, the only cave dweller with breast implants, clean bear skins and a just out of the salon perm. Rex finds that Eva's tribe respects him more than anyone in the future ever did, and he must decide whether or not he should stay with a prehistoric hottie or return to menacing bullies in high school. It takes a brain surgeon to figure out the answer to that dillema. Backed by a rocking soundtrack of synthasizers and lyrics like "We are mananas" - the music in Cavegirl is just as much of a guilty pleasure as the movie itself. Written, directed, produced and photographed (whew!) by the great David Oliver, who's other works include Mary and Bill Krane's Wedding and Abe Lincoln Middle Schhol Presents Putting on the Kids Talent Show, (okay - I'm joking) it honestly proves that no one man can helm an epic. That's why Cavegirl is 89 minutes long and has a brief sex scene and tons of bathroom humor! Leave your brain at the door and enjoy the spectacular tax write off. As for Amazon telling us that this is available in 2010, well, put me on the list to pre-order this great DVD! Even if I have to wait 10 years for schlock - at least it's good schlock!

What posessed me to buy this drivel I don't know. It was so bad it could have been made by Aaron Spelling. A combination of bad acting, bad script, bad direction/makeup/production. Completely lacking in tension or horror and full of cliches.
Until now the worst film I had ever seen was "Raising Arizona" - until now! Thank goodness there were no extras - the mind boggles as to what they might have done with a "making of"!
Pity that Amazon.com doesn't permit no stars in the review - cos that's what this would have scored.

As only the B&W classic drive-in movies could do, or a Mystery Science Theater 3000 movie could do, this is the classic, cheesy,and fun B movie. Deadly Species is funny and dopey and almost good. It's got all the elements.....bad sound, bad music, gratutious nude scenes with pretty girls, some blood and gore, and of course foam-rubber customed men running around killing people. It won't be up for any awards but Deadly Species is a fun movie to sit around and make fun of on a Saturday night with some friends, some chips and beer.

Wow. Four sci-fi movies. Great price. It's "almost" tempting accept the offer. You'd think that they'd bother to LIST THE TITLES! The actors listed on the poster/image for the four-pack have made an awful lot of, well, awful films. Who could guess "which" four awful films you can get for under ten bucks?

Dunno about you, but I'm not spending my money on a DVD version of "mystery meat".

If you're into cheezy low-budget SF movies, this is the collection for you, four movies for ten bucks. Here's a brief synopsis of the movies:

Slipstream: A post-apocalyptic movie about an android wanted for murder on the run from the law. Probably the strongest of the four movies. Mark Hamill plays a bounty hunter, and Ben Kingsly and F. Murray Abraham have cameo appearances.

Abraxas: Jesse Ventura plays galactic cop Abraxas trying to stop bad-guy Secundus from getting the anti-life equation and destroying the world, and at the same time save the life of an innocent woman and her child caught up in Secundus's scheme.

Creature: Reminiscent of Alien, a crew of NTI, an American company fight against an alien creature on Saturn's moon of Titan.

Laser Mission: Spy movie starring Brandon Lee as he tries to rescue a scientist from an evil Russian trying to create a super-laser weapon.

The 1 star is for the DVD which is appalling. It appears little more than video quality transposed to DVD which defeats the point. Surely someone can find the negative or a 35 or 16m print somewhere?

The film itself is of it's time, but probably brilliant. It's environmental warning is as pertinent as ever and it shows that there was plenty of early scepticism amongst the forever young/free love generation. The film is populated by barely clothed, nubile, erotic dollybirds (Isa's protruding tongue and peeling of a banana got me all of a quiver) and strapping young men. I thought there might be some other agenda behind the hiring of these unknowns but it's right for the story. The young scientists are emotionally immature and easily distracted (Karen with her ring) and their free love idealism soon receives a painful rebuke. Their lack of foresight over the possibilities of lingering contamination, especially in the light of their 'discovery', is puzzling. Idaho Transfer is a strangely serene and relaxing experience, a spell that even the introduction of aggression and inevitable tragedy cannot dissipate. It's disturbing ending, described in a review I read as 'ridiculous', is actually to my liking, brilliantly banal in the way life tends to be. The pessimistic metaphor is the skimming rock earlier in the film. We can only go so far in the natural order is the message. Subtly directed, this Paradise Lost set in the future is well worth investigating, but a better print is sorely needed.

Hey, Peter, if you're out there, I liked your unappreciated film.

Look, I like Fellini and Antonioni and DeSica and Scorcese, but this early, unsung effort by Peter Fonda has some eerie spell, and a haunting litte music theme that was ahead of its time. Yes, it has 1973 written all over it, so what. It's competently done, and I found myself ... transported. The ending is sick, twisted, funny, and hey, considering how the yuppies behaved in the 80s and 90s, I don't see it as altogether improbable.

It's not a popular film to like - even then it was hushed away by Big Money, even after Jay Cocks gave it a great review in TIME. The prognistication for man changing his greed was dire, and no one in SUV-Consciousness still wants to hear anything bad about their football team. I mean, 'Get With the Program! '

Ummm, to quote the little kid in the UltraLexus at the end,
"What happens when we run out of them, Daddy?"

I purchased this movie for a measly sum of money, and since I'm a fan of bad movies, I wasn't really disappointed. Made in 1967, this film offers nothing new or interesting to the idea of time travel or science fiction.
The plot? "I just inherited all this money from my daddy, and I want to know what you deranged scientists are doing with it." and they respond thusly; "We're travelling through time with it, here we'll show you right after we bore you with Einstein quotes. Whoops!" etc.
Disappointingly long and oft-times mistaken dialogue, this movie joureys to an extremely boring future that does include, as a highlight, an attractive alien spacecraft and its attractive female leader. This is subsequently destroyed by the low-brow humans of the future. The crew then attempts to go home, but overshoots into the far past with dinasaurs. The film-makers should have taken the cue from 'Journey To The Center Of The Earth' with Pat Boone, and not used a pet lizard to play a dinosaur. It always looks ludicrous, and it is no exception in this film. I won't give anymore spoilers, just don't pay good money to purchase it with out prior knowledge.

To say this was low budget would be too kind. The stereotype acting is not stereotype enough. The stereotype actors are not stereotype enough. Let's face it; this whole stereotype project is not stereotype enough. If the budget was just a tad lower maybe this would never have been made.

Basic premise is an attempt to look into the future and into the past actually forces the lab to go into the future into the past. The lab is stuffed with good guy, bad guy, and screaming girl. The good guy does good things. The bad guy does bad things. The girl screams a lot. While back at the ranch, they talk of a lot about how they've lost the lab.

This DVD is perfect for testing the fast forward option.

There's something oddly comical about the "snow beast", upon its capture, being placed in something resembling a refrigerated
phone booth, and in observing his impatient, standing silouette behind the fogged-up door window, he appears as bored as the rest of us, as the main characters gab on and on and on...

Thankfully, he breaks loose (of course), but unfortunately, this doesn't contribute any momentum to the story. Rather, we're treated to more scenes of men with hats hanging out at the police station drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes, pointing at maps, answering phone calls, smoking more cigarettes, drinking coffee, pointing at more maps...and to the same shot of the snow beast emerging to and fro the shadows, the same shot played over and over again, forwards and in reverse. Talk about a budget flick -this film makes "The Curse of Bigfoot" look and feel like a epic masterpiece by comparison.

But what the heck - it was a budget dvd, and it's good for a couple of laughs and campy moments.
The print used for the dvd is in rather poor condition, but I doubt even an immaculate print would lend much toward any improvement to the story.

When your name is Billy Wilder, the movies associated with you are "Sunset Boulevard" and "Stalag 17." However, when you're his less talented brother, W. Lee Wilder, movies such as this are what constitutes your legacy.

Made right after two previous attempts at science-fiction ("Phantom From Space" and "Killers From Space"), "Snow Creature" is actually the best of the three, and that's not saying much considering the other two.

Given the title, the plot shouldn't be hard to guess. Yep, it's about the Abominable Snowman. He's captured alive and taken to Los Angeles, where (naturally) he escapes and proceeds to run amok until the final minutes when he and the audience are put out of their misery.

Given the plodding direction and routine B-movie acting (Billy Wilder was said to have referred to his brother as a "dull s.o.b."), the only interest becomes the creature itself. And the great thing about the creature is that it looks nothing like we would expect a Yeti to look. Instead, it looks like one of the mutants from "Invaders From Mars" wearing a flannel costume but replete with mask.

If you enjoy psychotronic movies, then this is for you, especially considering the price. And at this price, don't expect a remastered picture. Not that the picture quality is bad, but what you see is what you get.

And if you're not a psychotronic film fan . . . dial on, if only to save yourself the boredom..

Well, I went in to this film knowing full well it was no "Star wars" but this was extra cheezy. First of all there was no time travil, time warping...nothing to do with time but wasting it. This was not even a B-movie. Saddly, the acting and FX were not so great ether.(they [stunk]) It looks like they filmed it in an old wearhouse. If you like bombs, or hate your self, then this for you, if not stay away...far away. Run if you have to.

First let me say that I wish they'd allow us to rate half-star intervals here; I'd have given this another half-star, mostly due to the great lines given to Arye Gross. I never heard of the guy before, but he's hilarious here in the role of unlikely hero (that also doesn't want to be hero). Reminds me just a little of the Ash character in "Army of Darkness" or the Jack Burton character in "Big Trouble in Little China". It's Arye Gross' performance that raises this film above mediocrity. Without his character, the movie would be a plain-jane sci-fi movie with nothing special about it.... ....Except Maryam D'Abo, whose sexiness could almost carry the whole thing by itself. Mind you, the character she plays isn't a particularly sexy character, but her subtle beauty shows through anyway, and between her and Gross, there is always something worth watching going on. The supporting cast, Jeff Speakman, etc., perform quite well also, and the bad guys are convincingly evil-looking. The production standards are strictly B-movie however. Special effects are okay but not great, and the settings are sort of cliched. There are several close-up shots of an asteroid that is pretty obviously a miniature, but it adds a little charm to it that way--kind of like watching an old sci-fi movie from the 50's. But understand that I don't think this movie is trying to be anything but a B-movie. All in all a standard sci-fi movie with great humor sprinkled throughout. I laughed out loud many times while watching it. It's worth spending money on, but just don't expect Oscar-winning stuff here. And now I have to go see what other movies Arye Gross has been in. Mark Lahren (goopah@btigate.com)