The Snow Creature | Scifist
∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗ (3/10) The first American yeti film is brought to you by Z-movie specialist W. Lee Wilder, brother of Billy Wilder. Like his earlier sci-fi movies, The Snow Creature is ineptly filmed an…| Scifist
∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗ (3/10) Future James Bond producer Albert Broccoli and Irving Allen masterminded this 1956 British genre mashup about two journalists fighting zombies and gamma ray cannons in a made-up European micro state. Individual parts work fine, but the balance between horror and comedy doesn’t gel, and too many different ideas and concepts compete for space…Read more The Gamma People| Scifist
∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗ (4/10) Uchujin Tokyo ni arawaru, released by Daiei in early 1956, is Japan’s first science fiction film in colour. Remembered for its wonky star-shaped aliens, the jumbled, illogical movie borrows from earlier sci-fi classics without managing to tie the themes together. Although beautifully filmed and decently acted, it moves along slowly and is way…Read more Warning from Space| Scifist
∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗ (4/10) Comedian Clavillazo stars in this Mexican 1956 underdog sci-fi comedy about a man who gets an injection which makes him predict the future in his dreams. While a decent comedy for the first half, it grinds to a halt halfway through. Inconsequential cardboard characters produce talking heads in static framing, and the production…Read more Una movida chueca| Scifist
∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗ (0/10) Flying Saucers over Istanbul is Turkey’s ”first” science fiction film, and quite possibly the worst as well. An unfunny comedy about belly dancing alien women who land their UFO in Istanbul to bring Earth men to their planet. Noted for featuring Turkey’s ”queen of disgrace and scandal”, belly dancing vamp and nude model…Read more Ucan daireler Istanbul’da| Scifist
∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗ One of the last entries in the ever-declining line of sea monsters of the mid-fifties, this super-low-budget film was released by ARC as a B-bill to Roger Corman’s Day the World Ended. An incompetent spy whodunnit meets a ridiculously bad nuclear monster hunt. One of the worst scripts of the fifties, but the acting…Read more The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues| Scifist
∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗ (2/10) Roger Corman officially directed his first science fiction film in 1955. Seven people hole up in a secluded bungalow after total annihilation in a nuclear war. As personal tensions mount, it is a race to see if the blood-thirsty mutant prowling the valley kills them before they kill each other. Richard Denning leads…Read more Day the World Ended| Scifist
∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗ (6/10) This 1955 film marked Universal’s entrance into the giant bug market, and along with Them! it stands as one of the classiest examples of the subgenre. Sci-fi stalwarts John Agar and Mara Corday back up a good Leo G. Carroll in a rather anachronistic mad scientist role. The script is derivative and somewhat…Read more Tarantula| Scifist
∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗ (5/10) Known internationally as Half Human, this abominable snowman film is most famous for its unavailability. After complaints about how primitive villagers were portrayed in the film, Japanese studio Toho pulled it from circulation right after its release in 1955, and has sat on it since. A grainy print of Godzilla director Ishiro Honda’s…Read more Ju jin yuki otoko| Scifist
One of my absolute favourite actors has left us. John Hurt was one of the first classically trained British Shakespearian actors to whole-heartedly embrace science fiction, as opposed, for example, to an Alec Guinness, who spent most of his life pissing on Star Wars fans. Many of Hurt’s finest roles were in sci-fi, of course…Read more R.I.P. John Hurt| Scifist
∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗ (3/10) The first American yeti film is brought to you by Z-movie specialist W. Lee Wilder, brother of Billy Wilder. Like his earlier sci-fi movies, The Snow Creature is ineptly filmed an…| Scifist
