The Thing

An alien taking over bodies of living beings (a dog to begin with, whoever is available after) to 'imitate' the host ends up in an American station in Antarctica. Scientifically, this is new and exciting and horrifying. Definitely something the scientists and/or doctor at the station should probably try to figure out. Stat. So....

Let's put the helicopter pilot in charge!

Never mind that he drinks way more than he probably should (and why is there so much alcohol available in the middle of nowhere, anyway?) and doesn't know the difference between Swedes and Norwegians (and, boy, does that joke get old quickly!). He is Kurt Russel so to him we shall listen.

What he has going for him is clearly being the inspiration for Pharrell's ever present hat! Behold!

 

If we chose to overlook the implausibility of the worker bee running the show (and we do chose that) than we can appreciate the dark atmosphere in this and, indeed, many other of John Carpenter's films. Sadly, he seems to have lost his touch as of late, painfully obvious in his latest film, The Ward.

But The Thing was made in his heyday, when the special effects could still gross you out. The dog splits open, for Christ's sake! And a head grows legs and turns into a giant spider thingy. Awesome!

If this film were made today, however, the first Norwegian on the scene might still have been shot (in that all-American Shoot First, Ask Questions Later! attitude) but the main objective of the team of scientists (and the trigger-happy, rough guy pilot, obviously) would be to isolate the dog or anyone suspected of being an imitation to see if this cannot be used in warfare somehow.

So a lot could have been handled better if, I dunno, the guy that figured out that one or more of the team may have been infected/imitated said something to his colleagues about it. They might have had some valuable input. As it happens, when something needs to be told they tell it to the pilot first. Why? Because he is Kurt Russell.

And a good thing too, because he does have a theory on how to test who of their group is/are affected. He knows science and medicine now! He has theories! If this were indeed made today, he probably would have been a scientist because at some point it became okay for them to be tough and sexy and bad-ass. The are also allowed to be women now! Imagine the possiblities.

I don't mean to sound like I didn't like The Thing. It did what it set out to do, which is entertain and gross out.

A friend pointed out this story to me, which tells the story from the thing's perspective.

8/10

The X Files: Gender Bender

This is what it says on the tin - a person that can change from female form into male and vice versa. Of course, this is an alien we are talking about.

Oops. Did I just give away the ending there?

After five victims along the coast (starting up in Massachusetts and going South) are found that apparently died right after sex, Mulder and Scully start investigating around the town a case with the MO occurred. It just so happens that a group of the citizens of the small town they travel to are members of a sect called The Kindred.

Now, The Kindred have a certain touch. This is not a euphemism. They touch your hand in a certain way, you will let them bed you no questions asked. Scully gets dangerously close to one of them, who turns out to be the killers former best friend.

Other strange things happen around the group, like Mulder swears he recognizes some of the people from a photograph that is supposedly from the 1930s. Also, the members of the sect don't die, they are just prepped up for some sort of hibernation that brings them back good as new.

This case the agents do not solve. Or they do, but the culprit escapes them, because the sect "takes care of their own" and they do. They collect the wayward member and disappear into thin air.

Upwards.

This episode sees the first appearance of Nicholas Lea, but not as the role X Files fans will get to know him (and love him or hate him) in, Alex Krycek. Here he is a would be victim that gets picked up in a bar by the murderous man/woman/alien.

5/10

The Human Race

In the land of the deaf, the one-legged man is king.

Or something.

A group of people (I think there are about 75) are randomly picked up from some random street corner in some random town and find themselves in a gated area. They each hear their own voice in their heads telling them to start running and follow the arrows. Also, make sure to not step on the grass because you will be killed. Don't try to escape because then you will be killed. Make sure you are not too slow because if someone overlaps you - yes, you guessed it - you will be killed.

We are supposed to care for a few of these people while others are not given any traits at all. We are not even sure how many there were to begin with, anyway, and most of these people we will not miss.

The film starts off with a very mean little twist. Pre-credits we are introduced to Veronica, who sits by her dying sister's bedside and later gets diagnosed with the same for of leukemia she lost the little girl to. But she won't let it bring her down and starts getting really active, running at night and all, and despite the initial bad prognosis she is actually on the way to recovery.

Then, when at the game (for it is a game), the first she (or anybody) does is....step on the grass. Apparently, she is not the main character after all.

Then....restart.

This time we see two soldiers in the desert. One is practically carrying the other, who has lost a leg. Jump to a few years later and one of them (he who is in one piece) is working with disabled kids (he knows sign language, which will come in handy later) while the other (the one-legged one) gets drunk and has a string of one night stands. Together, they end up in the game as well. Should we care for these two? As they are there are no more back stories coming we can take it as a sign that yes, yes we should.

We do briefly meet two runners, both deaf, as well.

So, the crowd starts moving and whenever someone gets killed, you own voice in your head will give you the current total of survivors. This is very exciting for the two deaf people, who hear anything for the first time.

What follows is running, some unity while the group might actually try to stick together to save an elderly man who simply is unable to run and is about to be overtaken. Of course, there will be a few loners that only look out for themselves. One of them (bad guy in yellow shirt) just runs off. Old guy's head explodes.

From then on it's anybody for themselves (more or less).

Towards the end, deaf boy is trying to get into deaf girl's pants, with everybody about to die and all, but she makes it very clear that he is in the friend zone. This causes a bad rift between the two, some unwanted fondling and a push onto the grass.

The last two people standing are the deaf girl and the guy with one leg. There is an initial idea for the two to not hurt each other, but the girl has obviously gone round the bend (and who wouldn't?) and pushes him onto the grass, as well. However, he manages to move back to safer ground by only walking on his crutches and never touching the grass with his one remaining leg. He comes back and kills her.

And then....

They had to go and ruin a perfectly average film by making the game the work of some alien race that is going through different species from different planets and having the survivors of each group then move on to the next contest, this time all winners against each other.

Just....no.

2/10

The X Files: Fallen Angel

One of many UFO/alien abduction/government conspiracy episodes over the years The X Files aired.

Mulder has gone rogue after hearing about a downed UFO from Deep Throat himself. The military is already in the process of covering up the incident and frantically looking for the creature that manned the aircraft. The first person on site (a local deputy) and the fire crew responding to the forest fire caused by the crash have all died from severe body burns (we don't officially learn that until later in the episode, though).

Mulder, breaching protocol as usual, is making pictures of the crash site when he is discovered and thrown in jail. In the next cell over is Max, a fan boy and fellow UFO enthusiast. Max has already been released when Mulder wakes up the next morning to Scully coming in to take him with her - preferably back to D.C. where a hearing on the future of the X Files and Mulder's general (mis) behavior) is to take place the next morning. She has been fed the "top secret" cover story of a downed Libyan fighter jet carrying a nuclear device. Hence the military involvement and "securing" of the site.

When the agent get back to Mulder's motel room they find it in a mess and Max stuck in the bathroom window, trying to flee the scene. They join Max in his RV - parked right outside the motel - which is full of literature about aliens, scanners and other technical stuff and lots of medication.

The alien that the military and Mulder are searching for is invisible and very, very dangerous. When it is cornered by a group of military (they detected it with a heat camera), it takes out a good few of the men. Mulder and Scully are in the hospital, trying to find out information on the deputy and fire crew from the doctor who treated them. The man is reluctant to talk, but so pissed off at the military's arrogant behavior that he does let on about the burns. As the agents are about to leave, the injured military men are wheeled in. The head honcho is trying to have both of them removed, but the disgruntled doctor stands up to him and insists Scully stay, as she is an MD.

Mulder, back at the motel, finds Max having an epileptic episode and - when he helps him to bed - discovers a mark behind his ear that he has seen before on - you guessed it - alien abductees. When Scully returns and urges him to get packing to go back to D.C. and save their department, he asks her to take a look at Max. Max, however, has disappeared. In a previous scene he appeared to have been taken over by the alien. The scanners in his RV is on and Mulder and Scully overhear that the military is closing in on the creature they have been looking for. They rush to the scene - much to Scully's annoyance.

They find badly burned bodies of military and Max inside a warehouse, in pain. Mulder stays with him while Scully goes back outside to try and reason with the head honcho. She learns that three bodies are inside the building, as detected by the heat camera. This means, that the alien is with Mulder and Max, putting the two in grave danger.

Inside the warehouse, the alien throws Mulder across the room and takes possession of Max again. Mulder sees his hanging in a light beam in mid air (again, Scully misses the good stuff). Then the military realize that suddenly only one body appears to be inside the warehouse. They force their way in to find only Mulder, telling the head honcho that "they got to it first" - another alien ship has been sent to recover the downed flyer. E.T. has, apparently, returned home.

During the hearing the following day, Mulder tells the head of the committee that "No one, no government agency, has jurisdiction over the truth." In the last scene, the head storms off to confront Deep Throat (who's position within the FBI is not quite clear but must be very high up) who has overruled the decision to close down the X Files.

6/10

Battlefield Earth

Wow.

This really is unbelievably bad.

Apparently, L. Ron Hubbard and later John Travolta tried for a long time to have Hubbard's novel (or part of it or whatever) Battlefield Earth made into a film. Why anyone - even a single minded scientologist like Travolta - would want to put this piece of crap onto the big screen (or small screen, or any screen at all) is beyond my comprehension. I have not read the source material but judging from this it must be among the worst of its kind.

But let's get to the 'story'.

It is the year 3000 A.D.

Earth, once mankind's home, has been ruled for the past 1000 years by a cruel alien race from the planet Psychlo.

As they have done on countless other planets across the galaxies, the Psychlos mine Earth's metals and teleport them back to their home planet.

Gold is the rarest and most valuable metal of all.

The dwindling human population is fighting to stay alive. Hiding in pockets, in radiated areas, they are on the verge of extinction.

Initially, we meet a group of cave dwellers - mankind has moved back to living as Neanderthals - and like any larger group of humans there is that one young man who cannot play by the rules. His name is Jonnie Goodboy Tyler, referred to as 'a greener' (as in: the grass is always greener...). We first meet him when he comes home from a quest for medicine to save his ailing father. He didn't make it in time and the gods took is father in the night.

"Nooooooooooooooooo!" (in slo-mo)

He picks a fight with the group elder/leader who warns him of the gods that pose a constant danger to them. The greener insists that there must be a better life elsewhere, where they do not have to suffer from hunger and anyway, nobody has ever seen one of these gods. He takes off to find such a place. Almost immediately he runs into a couple of hunters who tell him that they can show him the gods. They take him into the ruins of a city and tell him that when the people defied the god's order to not lay eyes on this or that, they were frozen. Evidence (a): statues. The move onto a former mall to show Evidence (b): mannequins (who apparently have been especially badly behaved).

The trio is attacked by an over-sized alien, who uses a stun gun on them. It also shots the greener's horse with this device.

"Nooooooooooooooooo!"

Then they are put on the slowest aircraft in history and brought to a human processing center in....Denver.

The alien language sounds like a grunt, but for the benefit of the viewers, they communicate in English when talking among themselves, only when addressing the human animals, the grunting is used. Terl, chief of alien security, learns that he is to stay on this filthy planet that he hates so much for an additional 50 cycles and he is pissed off. So much so that when his second in command, Ker, suggests to rip off home security by secretly having the humans mine for gold.

Anyway, the greener immediately and constantly wants to run away, making a reputation for himself. The aliens consider him somewhat smarter than the inferior human race and let him flee with a small group to watch them in their natural habitat and - most importantly - finding out what their favorite food is to use that as leverage. The group goes without for food for three days and Terl tells Ker that they will only feed when they think themselves secure and when they do, they will have a celebratory meal of their favorite food. The humans, starving, finally find rats and eat them, raw. Then they notice that one of their buttons each is a camera and destroy them. This leaves Terl somewhat dumbfounded because he thought them to be much to stupid to know what cameras even are. Their little trip to freedom is cut short and they are returned to the mines.

There, the greener is put in front of a knowledge machine and he absorbs, well, everything there is to know. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. The greener can now communicate with Terl and Ker and gives his cell mates a mathematics lesson. Again, why? Nobody knows.

Anyway, with his new understanding of how everything works, the greener kicks off a rebellion and after his girlfriend from back home is captured, presented and then shot....

"Nooooooooooooooooo!" (now without sound, but again in slo-mo)

...the rebels set their plan into action. The plan entails mining for gold and letting the aliens think they will do as they are requested, making secret recordings of the plan to rip of home security, and, well, taking down planet Psychlo. Of course.

They get gold bars from Fort Knox (like you do) and present them as first pieces of evidence of their cooperation. Then they find an underground US military base (very handy, that), air-crafts, weapons (nuclear, no less), and a flight simulator (!) with which they train. They start a mass uprising during which the dome over Denver is destroyed, exposing the aliens to the earth's atmosphere in which they suffocate.

Thanks to a Psychlo teleporting device on location (of course) an atomic bomb is teleported to Psychlo where it detonates and destroys the atmosphere, wiping out the entire population. The only alien survivors are Terl and Ker. Terl ends up imprisoned in Fort Knox while Ker makes nice with the humans.

The end or, the beginning for the victorious humans.

0/10

The X Files: Pilot

This year marked the 20th anniversary of the airing of the pilot episode of The X Files. Here is what happens.

Young agent Scully (those shoulder pads!) gets called into FBI headquarters where she is told that she is to work with an agent that she knows by his nick name 'Spooky' Mulder. Mulder, despite being considered the best analyst in the violent crime section, appears to his peers to have lost his direction and dug himself into the so-called X Files, that are often dismissed and ridiculed. 

They meet for the first time in the basement office and get to work on a case right away. The ingredients of it will be a few classic themes that will reappear often in the 9 series of the show: alien abduction (or not), time loss, air turbulence, car radio going weird, bright lights and the implant one will come to associate with little green (or rather, grey) men.

The setting is Oregon and the victims are all from the same high school class (class of '99). The fourth of the group has just died when Mulder digs up the case and the two agents fly across country to investigate. There they meet the defiant locals (of course), headed by the sheriff (of course), and immediately make their mark by exhuming a body - or so they think. What they actually find are the remains of what Mulder would like to be an alien and what Scully believes to be an orangutan, but (nearly) all the evidence they gather gets destroyed when the motel they stay in burns to the ground.

One key player in the deaths and possible abductions is Billy Miles, who is in a catatonic state that he only ever wakes up from when time stops and people die. And his father - the sheriff - knew it was his boy that kills or causes the deaths of those kids. In the end, he and Mulder intervene when Billy is in the woods with a would be victim, while Scully is too far behind to see what is actually happening. This will also be happening again and again.

Billy Miles will revisit the show much later for several episodes. One frequent player is also introduced, but wordlessly, the Cigarette Smoking Man, who in the end stores the one piece of hard evidence that Scully managed to bring back from their trip - the implant - in the huge storage room deep inside the pentagon (also, to be revisited again and again).

And so it begins...

7/10  

The War of the Worlds

Ah, 1950s science fiction films! How I love them! The (retrospectively) cheap-looking special effects, the dashing hero - so often a non-dorky scientist, the bad ass military, the girl that needs saving, the psychedelic 'alien' noises.

In the 1953 film adaption of the H. G. Wells classic you get all of the above.

First, however, a spoken intro set to paintings of planets and stars before the real action starts. About 50 minutes into the film, as we make a jump from the early days of the war to vast devastation, this voice of authority will give as the gist of what happened.

What is thought to be a meteor lands near a small California town, witnessed by many town folks and a group of scientists fishing in the area. Everyone and their grandmother comes out to have a look and they are nearly celebrating, already counting money that can be made out of the event. In sweeps the dashing hero, a handsome, if bespectacled, scientist by the name of Dr. Clayton Forrester. The first person he encounters at the scene is the girl that will soon need saving. She is scientifically interested and well aware who he is. Her bravery in the face of the mounting danger diminishes over the course of the film and she turns into a hysterically shrieking little girl frequently.

Anyway, the meteor is not a meteor but a spaceship that brought enemy forces with it - weird looking machinery and three-eyed aliens that have a mind to kill everything and everyone that stands in their way. This first spaceship is followed by many others across the globe and the title-giving war of the worlds begins.

No bombs, no tanks, not even the A-bomb have any effect on the invaders.There is no chance but to evacuate the destroyed cities as all hope dwindles. In the end, it is not humans that defeat the enemy, but rather the enemy falls out of the sky (literally) and dies because it cannot handle the earthly microorganisms.

Whereas the outline of the film is very close to the original text, it adds in some religious pathos, with a heroic priest and a church as shelter, which do not appear in the book.

5/10

Invaders from Mars

I'm a sucker for sci-fi films of the 1950s-1970s. Futuristic gadgets that were only imagined at the time usually looked nothing like the real thing realized years, or even decades, later. Scientists were smartly dressed men that could get the girl anytime. We've come a long way towards the tech nerds sitting in basements, haven't we?

Invaders from Mars was made in a simpler time. Here grown-ups would still listen to little kids like David when they tell their stories of space ships and sand pits swallowing people that later reappear changed into robotic shells lacking all humanity.

See, David is a good child with friends in high places. His father (seemingly the first victim of the space invaders) is, after all, a rocket scientist and his young son was always looking through telescopes and listened closely to what the smart scientists had to say.

When he tries to alert the athorities he first stumbles into some unpleasent situations since the invaders work rapidly and get to some people before David does. He does find help from a beautiful young female psychiatrist and one of the aforementioned smartly dressed scientists that alert the military (obviously) after hearing David's tale.

In combat, the brave few fight off the green (!) Martians, apparently descended upon the earth to sabotage an atomic rocket. The aliens leave. Day = saved.

Or is it?

The ending calls the whole story into question. Maybe all was just in David's dream? Or maybe he had a prophetic dream? Oh my God, could he be stuck in an infinite nightmare-loop?!

5/10

V/H/S

Another "found footage" film. Just what we've all been waiting for, right?

A group of bad guys steal a collection of video tapes for some unnamed source. All the little films are, like, totally scary and stuff.

One is about a female vampire (I think) that first has sex with a trio of friends and then starts to kill them. Not that they deserve any better, those idiots. Personally, I would not hang on to the video camera I am carrying when I am already injured and trying to escape said vampire.

But, hey, that's just me.

Then there is this couple on a road trip who film the most trivial and boring things. Then they are the ones being filmed while asleep in some cheap motel room. The couple is predictably boring and the tape mostly is, as well. At least, there is a nice twist. The guy dies.

Oh good, tape no. 3 is of a group of young people going to some lake in the woods. After two minutes of first seeing them you can't wait for them to die, they are such assholes. They do. And...here is a little something I will record whenever I come across it:

DEAD CHEERLEADER ALERT!!!

Wait, the next segment is a video chat, not a VHS tape. How would this have ended up on a tape. This is cheating! One feed comes from inside a hunted apartment. There may be aliens involved. Or ghosts. Or something.

Lastly, the obligatory Halloween segment.

This is oh so bad.

1/10

Prometheus

My first post on a film-of-the-moment! One that is actually in theaters right now. I give you....Prometheus, the film that has been hyped and hyped and hyped some more over the last year or so (felt that long, didn't it). So, does it live up to the buzz?

Yes, it does. It has its flaws, no doubt, and quite a few of them. But it is what it is supposed to be - a sci-fi summer blockbuster that alternately awes you and freaks you out.

It starts with this guy killing himself. Or something.We do not know where he is (is it a he even?) and we do not know why he drinks that funny stuff he (she?) is drinking. But he (she?) is our ancestor. That much is clear.

So this team of scientists sets out to find a star constellation that has been discovered in many cave drawings by all kinds of different ancient civilizations. They take about 2 years to get there. While they sleep in their fancy futuristic beds, David is manning the ship by himself. David is an adroid without any emotions, that somehow still manages to be quite the douchebag (with an agenda, apparently). He spends his days watching old films (Lawrence of Arabia) and dyeing his roots.

As soon as all the scientist are woken, there follows a lot of exploring dark caves. Ominous lighting FTW!After some exciting discoveries that may or may not prove the initial theory of where all life comes from, the horror kicks in. Black liquids oozing out of vessels (vases), people disintegrating, quite the gross abortion (the horrific highlight in my book!), one big-ass face-hugger...well, more of a full-body-hugger, really.

Thankfully, the film has eye candy galore. There is David (the actual reason girls will watch this):

Despite the bad hair, Michael Fassbender is a welcome sight. There is the badass captain:

Even a character as unemotional and slick as Charlize Theron's succumbs to his rough charms. Sort of. And then there is the guy who looks like the cute brother of Tom Hardy:

Wait. Did she just sort of diss Tom Hardy? Yes, I believe she did. *gasp*

And all that in 3D! Which is totally wasted on this film. There is next to nothing that warrants the use of 3D, other than it looks pretty and sharp. Can we be done with 3D, please?

What was slightly annoying was the ending. We get no answers whatsoever. Because Elizabeth Shaw is "still searching". Uhm, ok. So, there's going to be a sequel, right?

5/10