#15. Alien Species - 1996

It's survival of the shi... I mean fittest, in this battle between Earth and the:

"They're heeerreeee..." - and they suck!

After a few minutes of narration outlining the plot, we discover that mankind is about to be crushed by alien visitors. We also find Max Poindexter and his hottie assistant, Holly - also a bit of a poindexter - discovering a massive blip on the radar.

"Let me lean in for a closer look..." - Holly
"I've got such a huge blip right now..." - Max

It's unclear where the narration is coming from or indeed - as you find out as the movie progresses - that it matches to the story by the time you've struggled through to the end.

Across town, and under the supervision of Sherrif Nate Culver, played by Charles Napier, two of the local constabulary are loading a couple of criminals into a transport truck for delivery. Man, are they in for a night they won't forget - especially for one of them because he gets killed... sorry, did I spoil the ending? That's ok, it happens before the ending anyway, and I haven't said who, on the right, it is.

Towers and Doyle: Bad-asses.

The aliens fire off a few scout type crafts that sound like FA18 jets, to collect specimens. A cow:

"Moo?"

Then this girl's boyfriend. She also gets abducted, but this image is better.

Mmmmm, side-boob

With the envasion in full-swing, reporters on the street looking for answers in front of burning cars, and no intervention from the military, things didn't look good for the Earth.

peow, peow....peow...

En-route to relocating the prisoners, the truck is stopped by three people with car trouble - The Professor, his assistant Carol, and his grand-daughter, Stacy. Thinking it may be an escape attempt by Doyle, the cops aren't taking any chances. It wasn't an escape attempt, and the three get loaded into the truck, as all hell is breaking loose back in the town, and help is out of the question.

Back on the road now, they get buzzed by a flying saucer, crash the truck and ...

Stop!! Time to press the fast forward button...

As I've introduced most of the main characters, this is basically what happens:

The two policemen, the two prisoners, the Professor and the two girls, take shettler from the alien attack in a cave. Inside the cave - 5 miles down according to the VHS cover - they discover an alien breeding colony complete with pods and the abductees we saw earlier. They're now on the run from the aliens:

"Akkk!"

All of them but Carol, Towers and Stacy get killed. Finding a way out, Towers shoots the policeman's gun at some old sticks of dynamite they passed on the way into the cave. The cave entrance explodes. Phew.

Conveniently, Max comes rolling over the hill in his 4x4 truck. They pile in and are again persued by a spaceship:

peow, peow....peow...

Finding refuge among some old warehouses, they discover that a piece of alien equipment has found its way along with them. Using this and his laptop, Max uses the alien technology to disrupt the force field surrounding the craft, while Stacy practices the tamborine.


Once the force field is down, Towers pulls a rocket launcher from the back of Max's truck. Hey that's where I keep mine!


...and blasts the flying saucer out of the sky.


The aliens shit themselves, pack up and leave. Thinking that was the end, Towers suggests that they're only scampering off so they can regroup. The coolest thing he says is something along the lines of,

"They'll soon realise that this is as dangerous as we get."

Leaving the door open for a sequel, it looks like they'll be back... hopefully not.

( Insert the sounds of dusting off hands here )

Gadgetry: Well there is spaceships in it. 3D rendered ones with loads of Babylon 5-type lens flares - not that I'm comparing the two shows, it was just around that era of computer generated effects. There's also the alien remote control device which, when used in conjuntion of a nerd's laptop, disables the spacecraft's sheilds. It had a flashy light on it, so it must have been pretty high-tech.

Favorite quote: "Bon appetit, asswipe!" - Paul Towers as he rams a flare into an alien's mouth. There were many other to choose from... believe me.

The only other one worth mentioning was from Towers again with his comment that summed up the whole movie:

"Why do I feel like I'm in a bad episode of the X-Files?"

Favorite bit: Grrrrrr.....

Bottom line: Should have been called, "Alien Faeces."

Pretty bland. One thing I will say is that the pyrotechnic trickery was pretty good.

Intermission...

After that hideously long break due to work commitments, I'm back on track.

Writing up the last two reviews showed me how much I'd missed enduring through each one. Thanks also to the readers I'm seeing coming in from an expanding collection of countries around the world. Hope you are enjoying them as much as I am in reviewing them.

So, strap yourselves in and standby for number fifteen: "Alien Species"

It's amazing...ly rubbish!

Thanks,
-100rayguns

#14. The Severed Arm - 1973

Revenge is a dish best served using...

"Aaaarrgghhh, me arm's off!"

The arm pictured above was sawn from a cadaver by a unknown perpetrator during the opening sequence and mailed to Jeff, a beardy fellow, and one of the main characters in the movie.

Much to Jeff's distress, his first reaction was to call his mate, a doctor of some type. In the Doc's office, they know what the significance of the delivered arm meant. It meant engaging the flashback machine to five years previous.

...wibbleywibbleywibbleywibbleywibbley...

Meet a group of friends on a mountain side. All professionals in their field of research, and are keen to get down an old mine shaft to gather samples of rock.


The guy in the spectacles on the left not Mr Potato Head, but a radio DJ and probably mis-interpreted, "samples of rock," thinking he'd be uncovering an unheard Whitesnake demo. Prrrt... anyway.

In the mine now, and we're ready to get geological.

Bam! One of the party plunges his hammer into the rocky wall below some old wooden beams causing a cave in. Trapped. Trapped in a mine in the 1970s.

Knowing that the outside world wasn't expecting them back for two weeks, and the cave in happened in the first two minutes of arriving, things didn't look that great.

Jokingly, Jeff tells the story of how some men stayed alive for 60 days lost at sea by eating the weakest of the group. Over two weeks later, that joke congealed into a game of, "Shortest Straw." The loser -Ted - was to be munched down like a scotch egg so the others could survive... well his arm anyway.

"Give us it!"

With the arm off and the commotion of struggling dying down, the sounds of rescue could be heard chiseling it's way through. Three minutes too late for Ted and his arm, but it did avoid the onset of cannibalism and any plans Ted had of playing the violin.

Ted's last words before being carted off in an ambulance with his wife and kids suggested that he'd never forget what they did to him. Of course the other chap's story was that Ted's arm had been crushed during the cave in and needed to be amputated.

"Fuck you guys..."

Back to the present day now.

At the Doctor's house is assembled the arm-chopping party to discuss the implications of current events. Going to the police is out of the question, as it's been far too long to let the lie out now. It would also impact the well-to-do lives of the group - Bill, a building contractor, Mark, a recently promoted police detective, Jeff, a writer for the telly, Herman the DJ and of course the Doc himself. They are all beginning to regret the excursion five years ago.

Outside, a figure with a severed limb checks the door handles with his un-severed limb...


Heading up the stairs after the group disbands, the Doc hears a sinister chuckle. From the darkness, the figure, presumably Ted, leaps and attacks the Doctor with a hatchet, removing his arm and fleeing into the night.

"He's comin' right at us!"

With the Doc in the hospital, it's clear that things are about to get dicey. Fearing for their arms, they decide to enlist the help of Ted's daughter, Teddy. They need to find and stop Ted, especially since Jeff just got a visit, a headache and a warning while showering.


Although she remembers Mark and Jeff, she's not all that keen to help them find her Father. Of couse the conflicting stories - one of which is bullshit - about what happened in the mine five years ago doesn't help the situation. She agrees to meet them at a hotel bar where she tells the guys of Ted hospitalisation, recovery and varying mental state.

Later that evening...

Mark is attacked outside of Jeff's house but manages to fend Ted off. It's time to get a proper plan together to flush old arm-chopp'n Ted out. With bait. The daughter, Teddy.

The following day, they ask Teddy if she'll help them.

"You fuck'n what...?"

Again, she's not interested. To try and convince her, the boys take her to see the Doc. Still bed-ridden in hospital, seeing the Doc is nothing new to her; she'd gone through it all when her Dad's arm came off. Even so, she agrees to help them.

The plan would be as follows:

1. Pretend Teddy is spending the night at Jeff's house
2. Mark pretends to leave Jeff's but circles back to keep watch
3. Shit goes down and all becomes well

Being the crafty bugger he is, Ted's plan of making Jeff think he was next had worked.

In a radio station across town, Herman is working at being the worst DJ in broadcast history. During his lifeless chatter between songs, he recieves an anonymous call. Soon realising that it was Ted requesting old favorites like, "I'll be seeing you", and then discovering that the calls were coming from inside the radio station, and then discovering that Ted was just on the other side of the studio glass wielding a small axe, he promptly has a heart attack when Ted smashes though the plate glass.

Two down. Three to go.

With a media shitstorm in full swing, Jeff and Mark think it's time to visit Bill at the lumber yard. Bill wants to take care of himself with the pea-shooter he now keeps in his jacket.

"Oi'll moiydorise the guy..."

Back at Casa-Bill, Bill recieves a phone call regarding a break in at the lumber yard. Upon arrival, he discovers a table saw running at full speed... ooooooh... whats going to happen!

Nothing. At the lumber yard anyway.

Spooked, Bill races back to his apartment in a fit of over-acted panic, and into the garage elevator. Going up...

Level 1... ding... the door opens to an empty corridor...
Level 2... ding... the door opens to a second empty corridor...
Level 3... chop! Ted pounces and relieves Bill of his life.


Ok, no more fucking about this time. Teddy gets word that her Dad wants to meet her at a nearby beach. The perfect opportunity to end this nightmare.

Unsure if Ted will actually show, they prepare themselves anyway. Mark sets himself up on a cliff top, ready to sniper Ted. Down on the beach, Jeff and Teddy await Ted's arrival. While that's happening, the following is what becomes of Mark at the hand of Ted.

"Dum dee dum dee dum..."

"Ahhhhhhhhhhh........."

"Oohhhhh, my arm's off also!"

With Jeff now the final person before revenge is fullfilled, Teddy is his only hope.

She suggests hiding out in the cabin that her brother has in the mountains - a cabin that Ted was unaware of. Arriving at the cabin and during Jeff's speech of gratitude, the movie's twist kicks in.


Ha! Teddy and her brother are the ones behind the revenge killings!

Since the mine shaft lopping of the arm, Ted has basically been wheelchair bound and mute. Figuring the only way to pull him out of it, was for them to knock off all the people involved with the coverup... so you see Ted was 'armless all along.... prrrtt... moving right along.


As the ring leader and instigator that lead Ted to end up with twice as many gloves as he'll ever need again, they have something special planned for Jeff.

He regains conciousness in an empty cell with two things. The possibility of starving to death or that of surviving. The decision was his to make by the knife left in his cell. An arm for an arm.


Gadgetry: None. Set in the modern day of 1973, the television was probably the winner in this category.

Favorite quote: Nothing memorable at all, but if there was to be a tag line for the film, this would be it...

"If there's anything we can do..." - Jeff
"Can you get his arm back?" - The Doc's wife.

Favorite bit: The cars, the decor and the fashion... and maybe the twist at the end. It was completely unexpected after all.

Bottom line: I'd put this one up there with, "The Galaxy Invader." - Review number 6 - but with a better/actual twist.

#13. The Phantom Planet - 1961

10... 9... 8... 7... etc... 2... 1... Blastoff to the Phantom Planet!


It's 1980 and technology is off the chart. Mankind has mastered the atom, and as a result, can now fly through space. The narrative speculation at the beginning suggests the possibility of life on other planets; something we are about to discover is very true.

Enter Captain Frank Chapman, pilot of the Pegasus 4. A man's man, a hero and what a real space adventurer should look like. He is chosen to discover the fate of two rocket ships that have mysteriously vanished.

"Are my pants outside my trousers Colonel?"

Frank and his co-pilot, the philisophical Leiutenant Ray Makonnen, launch from the impressivlely constructed table-top moonbase and head out in search of the missing rockets. The launch was routine, until...


Oh oh, their instruments go haywire from impact damage caused by a passing squadron of Chicken McNuggets! The two head out onto the hull to fix the Retro-Rocket feed lines.

"You want fries with that...?"

That's not the end of it though. While on the hull, both a meteor shower and a trajedy strikes - the first leading into t'other.

Chapman's airhose is shot off by a metorite and he begins to pass out. Ray jumps to his assistance and shoves him back through the airlock, only to be struck by a meteor himself and ejected into space. He leaves an unconcious Frank inside the ship, and himself on the wrong side of the closing airlock. Ray drifts off into the endless blackness of space reciting the Lord's prayer.

This is where life takes a turn for Frank. Regaining conciousness, he discovers the ship under the control of a strong gravitational force, dragging him towards a fried chicken drumstick shaped planet. The force field lands the ship safely on the surface. It's all too much for Frank, staggering from the ship and moments... from a second bought......unconsiousness.... i see... small people.... can't stand up.... head swimming.... tiny people.... thunk... eeerrgghhh....


Now how does a giant get around on a planet built for the tiny inhabitants of Rheton? It's simple really. The structural makeup of the planet and it's environment make this happen:

"Follow the Yellow Brick Road!"

Not only is Frank unhappy about the fact that he is now the size of his own penis, he is brought to trial for attacking one of the locals while in his panic-inducing shrunken-ness. Found guilty not by a jury of his peers, but by a jury of sexy space girls, he is sentenced to become a lifelong subject of the planet. As further punishment, he is allowed to chose a wife - the planet leader's daughter Liara, or a younger more attractive mute girl called, Zetha.

Liara is keen for the Earthman. Zetha is sad because she loves the Earthman but can't express it. Herron - the local that loves Liara - is jealous of the Earthman. This marks the beginning of a four-way love square-triangle that culminates in Herron challenging Chapman to a duel.

The duel is simple enough. Called, "The Duel of Rheton", it envolves a tug-o-war type of wrestling match. Instead of landing in a trench of mud, the loser is pushed onto a plate of highly concerntrated gravity and evaporated.


The Rhetonites, similar to the blue guys from my #11 review, "War of the Planets", relied heavily on thier mastery of technology. Similarly, they became lazy and lost touch of the hard graft required to run a planet. They did however, retain their knowledge of being able to control gravity. This is how the mystery of the missing rockets came about. You see, Rheton is on the run from a race of beings called the, "Solarites", and have been for some time. In order to avoid conflict, they move their planet somewhere else when the heat is on.

A Solarite. Jaaaaaysus!

Unfortunately for the two space rockets, the Rhetonites were again on the move while trying to keep their secrets of gravity hidden from the Solarites. Wrong place, wrong time basicially. Ok, back to the fight.

If you've seen Flash fight The Baron in "Flash Gordon" to the music of Queen, then you wont be surprised that just when Chapman has the upper hand and could easily win over Herron, he spares his life and makes him look like a dick in front of the sexy jurors. Much better than killing him outright.

All the time Chapman has been on the planet, he'd been trying to work out how to get back to Earth. His ship had been set adrift the day after he arrived, and his spacesuit was now XL to the power of 53 times too big for him.

This is where the sparing of Herron's life worked to his advantage.

Herron had come up with a way of returning Frank to his regular size and be discovered by Earth's resuce mission that had recently got underway in a previous, unreview scene.

The plan was this. Wait until Sessom - the leader - is asleep, get your hands on the planet's gravity controller and fly the planet within spitting distance of the Earth's moon. Seal Chapman inside the spacesuit. Use the remaining Earth oxygen in the tanks to return him to normal size. Bam! Resuced.

The plan is put on hold for a while, as just when things were looking good to go, the Solarites catch up with Rheton and attack. Unknown to Chapman until now, the locals had been keeping a Solarite prisoner in a gravitationally sealed cell.

"Grrrr! They'll be making me wear silver teeth next!"

It's Richard Kiel, AKA, Jaws from the James Bond movies under all that get-up.

As the planet is being attacked, the machines that power the gravity around the cell begins to weaken and Richard Kiel escapes, terrorising Zetha and Sessom.

Cornered in the duelling room, Herron and Chapman - now great mates - tackle Richard onto the gravity plates and atomise him.


Meanwhile the attack on the fried chicken planet of Rheton continues...


Taking shit no longer, Sessom decides that enough is enough and swings the planet around for the final onslaught. With the gravity weapon on full, he ploughs through the oncoming armada of Solarites, stopping them in their tracks and exploding them in a shower of triumph.

With the planet safe, the escape and resuce plan can continue.

Realising that Chapman was rather keen on Zetha, he's a bit reluctant to leave. You'd be thinking at this point int he film, "Ah, she'll go with him... has to... right?"

Zetha hands him a small rock to remember her by...

Chapman climbs into his massive suit and lets the Earth's air restore his size...

The process renders him unconcious again. When he comes to, the resuce team has arrived and there is no sign of the Rhetonites...

Back on the ship, he begins to doubt the adventure had even happened as the crew's comments about him being in shock seem to make sense...

Had it all been a dream?

We'll never know. Is it the end, or just...

It the actual end plate before the credit roll. Wooooooooooooo

Gadgetry: The gravitational squisher plates used in the duel, and the fact you can drive a planet around. The Magratheans never thought of that did they... eh... eh?

Favorite quote: Nothing particularly stand out.

Favorite bit: The special effects were pretty damn good - the shrinking of Chapman, the super-imposed little people, the moonbase and spaceship models.

There's also a credit for, 'Interplanetary sound' in the credits.

Bottom line: No-nonsense space/love/monster/battle/honor movie with pretty outrageous special effects and a bit of Guliver's Travels theme.

#12. Alien Zone - 1978

The award for most irrelevant title goes to... this one!


Cheating on your wife while on a business trip gets you dropped off by a taxi in the rain on the wrong street - as it was for a plumbers convention, it was probably a form of pipe laying research, so was probably fine...

Moving along now, it also makes you more likely to be taken in from the chilly night by a local mortician.

"This ain't The Ambassador hotel asshole!"

Inside the dim warmth of the un-named mortician - we'll call him 'Mort' - he invites an increasingly nervous Mr. Talmudge for a tour of his embalming facility. Mort has four new "clients", each one with it's own story. Engage flashback storytelling sequence..... now! I'll try to keep them brief.

"Dude, check this one out..."

Case 1: Miss Sibiler. School teacher, child-hater.


Returning home from a day of hating children, she pops a roast in the oven. Hearing the door bell ring, she answers it to find nobody there. Back in the kitchen now, she realizes the radio she'd just switched on, was now off. Hmmm, strange.

In the shower with the radio back on, the old, "shadow over the shower curtain" trick startles her. There's nobody there, but the radio is again switched off. In a panic, she races back to the kitchen to find a knife and discovers the phone line has been cut and a door handle turning...


Kids! She's the victim of a childish prank! Man, she's pissed off. Hang on, there's a problem. The kids are big-tooth, drooling, zombified killers! And the house is crawling with them! Cause of death: Mauled by clowns.

Back to Mort and Talmudge with the intro to the next one...

Case 2: Mr Growski. Videographer, murderer.


This story takes place from the point-of-view of a video camera Growski has set up in the corner of his living room. Talking to the camera, he announces for the record that Julie is about to arrive, adding that she kind of good looking, but with not much going on up stairs.

Ding dong.... she arrives and meets Growski for the first time.

In order to show Julie a magic trick, Growski convinces her to slide out of her nylons - with his back turned, but in view of the camera. He walks her closer to the lens and tells her to shut her eyes. With an "Abracadabra!" and a quick strangulation, he magically makes her life disappear.


Some days later, Growski tells the camera that Carol is about to arrive. Will she suffer the same fate?

Yes.

Next is a high society type. Guess what happens. Knifed while on the phone?

Correct.

Returning to Mort and Talmudge again, we are now presented with one of Mort's favorites...

Case 3: The battle of wits.
Two of the world's top gumshoes, go head to head in a highly boring battle of one-up-manship.

An American detective - Toliver - who we meet first while solving the case of the hanging man in under five minutes. The second is McDowal, an inspector from Scotland Yard - who looked a bit like David Jason's 'Touch of Frost' character.

"Perfec'..."

To cut a long story short. Captain America receives an anonymous note saying that there'd be a murder soon. McDowal asks if he can observe the investigation. It turns out that the McDowal was the note's author. Toliver wears bullets from McDowal's gun. Struggling from the floor, he reveals that he knew that McDowal was the killer, and via remote control, engages a James Bond-style knife from the back of the chair. Upon opening the now deceased McDowal's briefcase, he discovers a bomb with a five second timer and promptly becomes one with the wallpaper.

The opening of the last coffin lid transitions through to the last story...

Case 4: Dennis Cantwell.


Basically this guy gets a lesson in appreciating life a bit more. This one is more of a 'Saw' type of short film. Guy in a small featureless room being tormented by a wall of nails with only liquor to drink - bottles are rolled in to the room every now and then by an unknown supplier.


After the tenth bottle or so, the door opens to the street and Cantwell is let out looking like one of the tramps he so despises - and subsequently treated like one. "He eventually died", is the only explanation to his demise.

So there you go. Four coffins, four stories. All about people that could have been a bit nicer about things. Thinking this was the end of the film, the twist happened.

There was a final coffin with Talmudge's name on it! I got the sense that Mort was like Jigsaw from the 'Saw' movies. The puppet master behind the scenes. Talmudge was being taught a lesson about adultery by way of being shot in the alley behind the shop - by the husband of the woman he was knocking off.

Mort always gets his man.

One of the more fitting titles for this film was, 'The House of the Dead' - even that's a stretch - but I read somewhere that it was too similar to existing films around at the time. Why they chose 'Alien Zone' is a complete mystery. The zone Talmudge was in was pretty alien I suppose.

The other was, 'Last Stop on 13th Street.' Which I think is the coolest.

Gadgetry: With a name like 'Alien Zone' I though there might be. There isn't.

Favorite quote: Mort, when he says, "...The rain is a deceiver... a veil over reality"

Favorite bit: Miss Sibiler's over acting.

Bottom line: Four movies for the price of one. The mortician is more the glue that joins the four different stories together. At the beginning, I was sure the film was going to fall flat on it's face. It did a bit, but I liked a few of the flashback stories. All lessons about appreciating life without the ego. Not all that bad really.