Prometheus (2012)
[7] Director Ridley Scott returns to the Alien franchise in a movie that attempts to shed light on the mysteries of his original 1979 film. On one hand, I'm not a fan of exposing mysteries that have enraptured Alien fans…
Xtro (1983)
[4] As far as I could tell, Xtro is about a father who is abducted by aliens, then returned to his family as a strange alien-human hybrid. But I'm not sure. First, there's a weird crabby-looking monster in the woods,…
Pandorum (2009)
[4] Dennis Quaid and Ben Foster star in this sci-fi thriller about astronauts who awaken from hypersleep with total memory loss. The filmmakers are hellbent on keeping everything mysterious to the very end: where are we? who are we? what…
Independence Day: Resurgence (2016)
[4] The first Independence Day is one of those films that strikes just the right tone, something between earnest and goofy-as-hell, genuinely terrifying and gloriously indulgent. It was like the best possible kind of Irwin Allen disaster movie, where the…
Looper (2012)
[8] Looper is a mash-up of mobster movie and sci-fi time travel flick, but rather than getting caught up in its own clever twists on a (let's face it) hackneyed sci-fi sub-genre, the movie is wisely more concerned with creating…
Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome (1985)
[7] Mel Gibson returns as the iconic Mad Max, joined by Tina Turner in a fun, villainous role. But the third film in the series is also the weakest, first signaled by the PG-13 rating, a ridiculous attempt to make…
The Stepford Wives (1975)
[8] [Warning: This review contains spoilers.] Joanna moves with her husband and children to idyllic Stepford, where the women love making cookies, cleaning house, and servicing their husbands. Yes, ladies, it's a horror movie. And one that holds up remarkably…
From Beyond (1986)
[6] The 'alternate universe' aspect of Lovecraftian horror is something I don't think I'll ever appreciate, but if that's your bag, Stuart Gordon's From Beyond might float your fancy. I like the psycho-sexual stuff going on, especially when everyone's pineal…
Kaboom (2010)
[4] Queer cinema pioneer Gregg Araki (The Living End, Mysterious Skin) serves up a brightly colored teen sex comedy by way of Twin Peaks with a Dr. Strangelove finale. Like most of Araki's films, there are nice scenes here and…
It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955)
[5] This atomic-age monster movie features a giant octopus that attacks San Francisco. With the help of special effects maestro Ray Harryhausen, the creature topples some skyscrapers and whacks a piece out of the Golden Gate bridge. Unfortunately, the visual…