It’s called Threads (1984) because of spider webs; do you get it??

The Eighties; a period defined by the birth of the blockbuster, a wave of colourful and creative developments in pop music, and the ongoing fear of global annihilation from thermonuclear warfare. Thus it was that national TV services over the globe, starting with The Day After in 1983, decided they could crank out Premium Water Cooler TV by showing everyone how nukes could really mess up your day in one landed in your backyard. So obviously the BBC had to have a crack at it, in an incredibly British way…

Spoiler Warning – a lot of things get wrecked.

Continue reading

I feel silly for not having watched Acción Mutante (1993) sooner

I never got around to seeing this the first time it was released in the UK, mostly because I found the cover showing Antonio Resines’s bloody face rather too menacing for me to dare pick it up from the shelf in Blockbuster. Now it’s out in glorious HD, thanks to Arrow, and I got sent a screener of it so there was no backing out of watching it.

The subtext is explosions


Continue reading

One week, 30 hours, and £2045 later – The Post 30 Hours Of Dragonballs Post

As some of you might have noticed, between 10am on Friday the 13th of September and 4pm on Saturday the 14th of September I watched a hell of a lot of Dragon Ball to raise money for the homeless charity Crisis UK. And, I’m very happy to say that, as per the spoiler in the title, quite a lot of cash was donated. That is wonderful and has been celebrated extensively, but as I finally escape the jetlag of having done that I thought it warranted a bit more discussion and a look under the hood of what’s involved.

I promise I’ll try not to be too self-indulgent
Continue reading

The Disappearence of Flight 412 (1974) is paranoid propoganda for tweens!


I cracked this open as it looked like some 70s UFO-Mania hockem, and, on that front, it started pretty well with a lot of men in uniform talking military-sounding things, and had repeated group laughter done with such a sense of exhausted terror that I had to assume the director had the casts loved ones held just off camera and this was take 173.

Continue reading

Tomorrow I’ll Wake Up And Scold Myself With Tea (1977)


As this film was made in Czechoslovakia during the Communist dictatorship, I went in assuming I would miss most of the cultural references within. I have some limited knowledge of Russian Science Fiction of that era, especially Solaris and Stalker, so I know that the genre was often deeply metaphorical, but comedy tends to hinge on the context of its time. I left feeling that I knew nothing more about that part of that then nation’s history, but with a deep awareness that some films are just damn funny and fun to watch.
Continue reading

Dog Day (1984) is very French

There is always a joy to watching Lee Marvin act, as you never know what he’s going to do next and you have the sense that him punching you is always a viable option. So, it’s rather fitting that his third to last film has a script that feels the same way. It’s was originally based Jean Herman’s novel of the same name, and then went through three other screenwriters until director Yves Boisset got his hands on it. Needless to say, the director behind the criminally underappreciated sci-fi death-TV masterwork that is Le Prix Du Danger insured that it had social commentary, blunt violence, and an uneasy touch of surrealism. Continue reading

The Lost World (1925)


Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote the novel this is based off, because not everything can be about weaponizing an academic’s neurodiversity, and it’s fitting that the person who invented the Lost World genre got his story into the first monster movie. Not only does it help explain the complexity and depth of the characters, in the text if not in the movie, but also how this ended up being a key part of pop culture itself. This begot King Kong, which begot Godzilla, which begot every sci-fi technician for from 1955 to 1970, which bigot visual effect you’ve seen since. And, obviously, Jurassic World Dominion. On balance, I think we have to give him a pass for that…
Continue reading

The Arrival / The Unwelcomed (1991) missed the mark


This was watched because it looked like a cheesy mix between a vampire movie & Cocoon and because John Saxon always adds a touch of class to a movie. The trailer was that kind of uninspiring middle-of-the-road schleppy that can sometimes be the snuggly sci-fi horror blanket you need.
Continue reading

Night Of The Demon (1957)

Because “Why not?”, and as it makes picking viewing easier, Trash Or Treasure is going through every movie in “Science Fiction – Double Feature”, the opening song for that trash culture classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

This week

Dana Andrews said prunes
Gave him the runes
And passing them used lots of skills

It’s American name is “Curse Of The Demon” so I’m not calling it that.


Continue reading

2149: The Aftermath (2016) is an interesting YA apoclaypse tale


Also known as ESC, Darwin, and Confinement, which are a fine collection of highly evocative titles, the trailer I saw for this appeared to be an attempt to cash in on Covid-19 fears, even though it was made a solid 6 years before The Pandemic kicked off. Which is a shame, as it’s far better than the kooky conspirasphere fable it was trying to pass itself off as. Then again, it’s a film that’s in a curious little world of its own so it’s not too surprising that they tried everything they could to market it.
Continue reading