Tag Archives: sci-fi

Retrospective: The Quatermass Xperiment (1955)

29 Friday Jul 2022

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In the same year that Universal release This Island Earth, Hammer Films were about to enter a brave new world of their own, and it would all begin with their release of The Quatermass Xperiment. Spearheaded by James Carreras knack for networking and the ability for Hammer to produce the familiar in the eyes of the backers but with their own spin. In this instance, the appeal would come from an adaptation of BBC serial The Quatermass Experiment. 

The tale takes place when a three-manned rocket ship owned by Professor Bernard Quatermass (Brian Donlevy) loses radio contact and crash lands with two of its occupants vanished without a trace. Its sole survivor, Victor Carroon (Richard Wordsworth) has been clearly affected by a parasitic alien organism that slowly engulfs his body and is also transfused with a cactus plant that he came into contact with. 

Part of the attraction to TQX is that Quatermass himself leads questionable character choices. From the get-go, we learn that the rocket ship in question was launched without being sanctioned to do so. This recklessness is still evident too by the films’ end when he is still insistent in going ahead with his scientific plans despite the flaws and drawbacks that were brought about due to his decisions. Was there no lesson learned for him at all? Or is it purely that he is driven to succeed in his experimentations? At what point is it too far to cross? Or does the line simply not exist for the likes of Quatermass?

Richard Wordsworth’s performance is equally compelling, providing heart to the troubled Carroon. His deterioration both physically and mentally on screen keeps the audience gripped and able to connect with his plight.

It should also be noted how integral Director Val Guest’s vision had on defining the style of Hammer’s more sci-fi horror leaning productions, (the more recogniseable Gothic features would very much fall to Terence Fisher) and would have him return for Quatermass 2. There would also be the notable push for adult classification in Hammer’s production releases hence the deliberate X placement in the title to define their approach and the audience they wanted for their movies.

The success of TQX for Britain and across the seas in the States would project them further towards success and unite them in a deal with Columbia Pictures. Hammer Films were a heartbeat away from The Curse of Frankenstein, the movie that would cement their footing in the horror scene, but TQX would provide them with the first footsteps to celluloid history. It’s incredibly riveting and watchable still and highly recommended. 

  • Saul Muerte

Retrospective: This Island Earth (1955)

29 Friday Jul 2022

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My Universal horror retrospective chronicling the transition away from the genre that made the production company famous throughout the 30s and 40s and into the sci-fi realm continues with This Island Earth. 

At the time of its release the movie was noted for its state-of-the-art effects and use of Technicolor but it would later be famously ridiculed in Mystery Science Theater 3000, showing just how far the film had fallen in the public’s eye.

For me, it will always conjure up the image of the Metaluna Mutant, once a rejected choice for It Came From Outer Space (1953) It’s an iconic character that probably deserves a little more screen time than it actually receives than the short scare towards the film’s climax.

Upon closer scrutiny, TIE does suffer with minimal plot narrative to bind it together; a case of more style than substance. So you can understand the mockery that it fell subject to in more recent years,

The story essentially follows Dr. Cal Meacham (Rex Reason) who is mysteriously rescued when his jet almost crashlands with the aid of a strange green glow. He is then gifted a set of instructions to build a complex machine; a test to see if he has the smarts to be selected for a special research project run by the equally mystifying Exeter (Jeff Morrow).

Before long Cal is recruited by Exeter and meets up with old flame Dr. Ruth Adams (Faith Domergue) and a few other hand-picked scientists. The film quickly develops from a proposed science espionage flick into an intergalactic war when Cal and Ruth are whisked away to the planet Metulana, a planet under attack from the unseen Zagons.   

There are great leaps in the imagination here from a screenplay based on the novel by Raymond F. Jones, and one needs to give in to the mindless direction it takes you in and not pay to close mind to the obvious flaws within.

It remains a film with some great images for its time, despite this, and is indicative of the b-movie sci-fi flicks that would swiftly follow suit and one that would capture the imagination of cinema-goers in the mid 50s. 

On the other side of the pond however, Britain’s Hammer Films were offering up an alternative spin on the science fiction scene with… The Quatermass Xperiment.

  • Saul Muerte

Movie review: Vivarium

15 Wednesday Apr 2020

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In 2004 a TV series hit our screens called Lost.  Soon after that Heroes.  They heralded a new era of a different kind of storytelling.

One with no consequences.  To elaborate – if you look at a story as an equation of cause & effect, then traditionally the challenge of making a story tight, or just good, was that one flowed into the other creatively WHILST maintaining a strong internal logic.

Bruce Willis is dead at the end of Sixth Sense (effect) and suddenly EVERYTHING he has done (only ever interacting with the kid, always wearing the same clothes, never opening doors) makes sense because (cause) when he got shot at the beginning of the film, he actually died.

(Sorry – spoiler if you haven’t seen it yet.  In which case – REALLY!??)

Anyway – along comes Lost and Heroes and suddenly we were hit with a thought.  What if we didn’t focus on the left side of this equation (the cause) but only on the right (the effect)?

Suddenly dramatic options seemed to gain a new dimension as shows steeped in sci-fi weirdness had a texture to it that sucked in audiences not normally charmed by its usual bells and whistles.

Suddenly high concept narratives had good dramatic writing.  They didn’t focus on the WHY, but on the WHAT.  What does this “why” do to our characters?

It’s consequence free writing.  Don’t worry if the set-up makes sense, just set it up, and then get on with it.

A tropical island with polar bears, a terrifying smog monster, and an underground hatch?  How can they all be connected?  WHO CARES!  The important thing is, does it draw you in?  In fact, the more impossible and weirder you make the set-up, the more interesting the dramatic possibilities, yeah…?

Another way of looking at is Monty Python and their unique approach to comedy. Being professional writers, their frustration when constructing a good sketch was the bow.  The end.  The punchline.  Because coming up with an idea that’s funny?  That’s one thing.  Making it work?  That’s another.  But ENDING it satisfactorily?  You’d be surprised how hard that can be.  Especially if you have to churn out a number of scripts to the demanding schedule of a TV series.

Terry Gilliam was their solution.  By simply linking every skit with a surreal fevered animated piece of art, they realised they didn’t have to write a punchline!  And it worked.  It was genius.

But it WAS a solution.

Is writing drama bereft of accountability the same thing?

Vivarium – Latin for “place of life” – is a sci fi horror (of sorts) harking back to the best traditions of The Twilight Zone.

It follows a young couple Gemma (Imogen Poots) and Tom (Jesse Eisenberg) living in the UK, and like a lot of happy twosomes wanting to take it to the next level, they wish to buy a house together.

So they find a random real estate agent (Jonathan Aris – AKA Anderson from Sherlock) who is creepy AF.  Upon their first meeting he convinces them to follow him (by car) to a brand new development called Yonder.

All the houses there are finished and fully furbished.  They are also identical, the clouds up above do not move, and there is not a single living soul (or indeed thing) for what seems like miles & miles.

Half way through the tour of a house (#9) the agent ghosts them, and somewhat bemused by what has turned out to be a very odd day, Gemma and Tom hop in their vehicle and proceed to leave.

Or, rather, they try…. 

In classic Twilight Zonian fashion, every block on the estate is identical and the further they drive away from #9, the more they find themselves winding back up in front of it.

And the strangeness kicks off from there.  But if you want to know in what sort of ways – just check out the trailer attached to this article.

The premise is pretty much there.

And from there on in it’s a matter of finding out – what kind of story is this?  Will it explain the (wonderfully stylish and definitely intriguing) set up our 2 lead characters are in?  Or will it be writing without consequence?

And if it is – will the subsequent dramatic interplay between Poots and Eisenberg (2 powerhouse young actors who have worked together before on 2 other occasions – feel free to imdb it) be enough to pull you through?

Diagnosis:

Imdb says one thing.  Rotten Tomatoes says another.  And that’s the place of life.

Antony Yee

That’s the guy from Zombieland!

Sara Yee

 Vivarium is NOW available to view via Video On Demand

Blu-Ray & DVD from June 2020

Retrospective: Pitch Black

20 Thursday Feb 2020

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It was the year 2000 and I was in the infancy of my young adulthood, still high on the fumes of alcohol and potentially under the influence of some controlled substances, so one could argue that my views or opinions were clouded.
It was also at the turn of the millennium with the promise of new and prosperous things to come. So when two fellow like-minded comrades in celluloid crime and I spooled out of the local auditorium, we found ourselves in deep conversation about the sci-fi action horror film that we had just witnessed. I remember feeling greatly impacted by it with the entire concept and execution leaving me enthralled.
Specifically I recall stating that it was an instant classic with a potential cult following in the making and at least one of my colleagues nodded in full agreement with my bold proclamation.

On paper Pitch Black sounds like your average sci-fi action flick with Vin Diesel at the helm, (poised on the precipice of his portrayal of Dominic Toretto from The Fast and the Furious and Xander Cage from xXx that would cement his name in the genre for years to come) bringing a raw energy to his character that ripples beneath the surface and threatens to let loose on his fellow human counterparts, much like the real enemy lurking beneath the planets surface.
Pitch Black would even project the character of Riddick in a further two adventures on the big screen with a third film announced on its way, proving that there is still a lot of appeal on offer.

It’s this raw energy that still resonates on screen today on repeated viewing and connected once again with me, and this time I was not under the influence….kind of.

Supported by a cracking, primarily Australian cast in Radha Mitchell (Silent Hill, Rogue), Lewis Fitz-Gerald (Breaker Morant), Claudia Black (Farscape, Stargate SG-1), Rhianna Griffith, and Simon Burke (The Devil’s Playground), all of whom bring their “A Game” with a high level of intensity and humanity to their role. The irony in that the more human their characters display, the greater their chance of being exposed, and their emotions leading them to ruin. In order to survive in Pitch Black, you need to strip away all emotions or live with that mask permanently in place.
It also helps that there are a couple of excellent hard-hitters on screen to with hard-boiled futuristic cop without a conscience played by Cole Hauser, and the ultimate survivalist and in this instance, a man of faith, played by Ketih David.

David Eggby keeps the gritty realism throughout his stunning cinematography that eschews a beautiful landscape in a remote Australian landscape to bring an otherworldly factor on screen blasting the audience with a rich array of colours and visuals.

Both the creature effects and visual effects team also deserve their own accolades for bringing a rich and diverse approach to the nocturnal alien creatures that hunt down the humans and fighting among themselves for the scraps, highlighting once again the theme of survival in a desolate and harsh terrain. 

It’s a simple and age-old premise that works because of the combination of all of these elements that make this film still strong today. If you can forgive the odd blemish, Pitch Black deserves high praise and repeat viewing. It may be twenty years old but in this writers’ mind, it is one of the greatest sci-fi horror films since the turn of the century. 

  • Saul Muerte

Movie review: The Endless

12 Tuesday Sep 2017

Posted by in Movie review, Sydney Underground Film Festival, Uncategorized

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Here’s the thing about the golden age of drama we’re currently living in: it has put movies on the back-foot. Which would be a really good analogy if The Endless were a boxing movie.

But it’s not. It’s not even a horror movie – but we’ll circle back to that.

Back to high end TV drama and their ability to craft complex story-lines and characters over a solid (but not too long) period of time. It’s clear these days movies (with their relatively short 2-3 hour sittings) are losing ground as a “competing” format.

It did have cinematic-ness in its corner (which is a real word, no need to look it up) until CGI balanced that ledger too. Sure as a science and an art-form computer imagery is still evolving, but if done right, big screen special FX can be just a mouse click away for even the tiniest micro-budget film.

So what do these two developments have to do with The Endless – the latest offerings from Indie filmmakers Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson?

Well for a start it has the 5D aesthetic of an Indie offering (although no doubt it was shot on a much bigger gauge) but towards the end it has surprising quality special FX for a movie that initially looks so sparse, it almost feels like a found footage film!

And secondly it is an adjunct to Moorhead and Benson’s 2012 effort, Resolution. By that I mean The Endless takes place parallel to the events in Resolution (and literally about a block away from it).

So yes – The Endless is a cross-over film. And this brings me to an interesting thing film has done to “push back” against the serialised superiority of TV drama. And that’s franchising, i.e. Movies that aren’t sequels per se, ‘cause not all sequels respect or even acknowledge films in their own canon (James Bond much?) but rather ‘share the same universe’.

Marvel are the current bar setters of this trend, and movie studios everywhere are following suit (lack of originality will ‘always’ be a universal constant with Hollywood).

But it also appears independent filmmakers don’t need an excuse to franchise off their own bat. Which would have helped to know in advance when events from The Endless crossed over into Resolution.

But on with some actual review stuff! The Endless centres around 2 cult “survivors” (played by Moorhead and Benson themselves). They are brothers trying to subsist in an ‘ordinary world’ that cult living failed to prepare them for.

The younger brother especially (Aaron played by Aaron) feels rudderless and out of sync, and retains more good memories about the compound they grew up in, and as such convinces his older brother Justin (played by Justin) to go back and visit for a day or two.

This is after they mysteriously receive a VHS tape featuring a woman who used to babysit them there (played by Callie Hernandez of Blair Witch and Alien Covenant fame).

And this is where the first confusion sets in, as all the characters we meet ‘appear’ to be roughly the same age. Throw in the fact that the boys themselves seem to have left the compound in the 90’s (if news footage of them exiting is to be believed) yet they themselves look to not have aged a day in 20 years.

Yet continual references by Justin to his younger brother that there appears to be a “spark” between him and their former sitter seem odd, as Hernandez looks several years younger than both of them. Yet no one makes any attempt to explain these discrepancies in any sort of story-telling capacity; and so you’re left confused. No doubt this is a deliberate ploy from the filmmaking duo who brought us the Bonestorm segment from VHS Viral, but unfortunately it does tend to come across as if the film is gleefully disappearing up its own mythos (something re-enforced when it crosses over into Resolution).

Now despite all this, The Endless does evolve at an intriguing pace and is a sci-fi page turner that has the courage to be both sparse and visually spectacular where it needs to be. Something ‘is’ going on at the compound, and you ‘do’ want to see it to the end.

The movie’s central theme is time, whereas Resolution was story. Where & when they cross over – once you know what’s going on – does work.

But is it a horror film? Not by a long stretch. Is it worth seeing? Definitely.

END.

– Antony Yee

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