Tag Archives: aliens

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“Cry of Silence” – The Outer Limits (1964)

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Bizarro alien encounter account courtesy of The Outer Limits. Filmed in glorious black and white! A married couple go to look up some remote property so they can potentially have a getaway spot from the city. They soon find themselves on a desolate dirt road with a disabled car and an eerily silent environment. Something feels not right according to the wife. After injuring her ankle, the couple’s space is encroached on by “sentient” tumbleweeds. Some force or power is propelling the weeds to antagonize and attack the couple. The couple thinks they find a reprieve from their difficult circumstances when a local farmer comes to their rescue but he too is affected by the unseen power. Soon bullfrogs and boulders are assailing the house and the couple. We find out through the old farmer’s diary that an object was spotted hurtling through the skies and landed close to his homestead. We never see what the alien presence looks like but it appears their effort to make contact with Earthlings has been a failure.

A creepy episode from The Outer Limits. The use of very weird special effects of smarming, possessed critters and plant forms are startling at times.

Definitely worth a viewing. The original Outer Limits’ content could definitely jar your nerves!

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Erich von Däniken, 90.

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Ancient Aliens advocate, Erich von Däniken, has passed at the age of 90.

von Däniken created quite a stir in the early 1970’s with his theory that extraterrestrials visited Ancient Man and influenced his development and intelligence. All this speculation was based on analysis of archeological findings, looking at works of art, decoding the written word and loose interpretations of the histories of cultures of long ago. Intriguing stuff but hard to definitively prove correct.

Erich von Däniken continued to pursue his beliefs through the years and published several books on the topic. He was also a recent frequent guest on the “Ancient Aliens” program.

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“The Age of Disclosure” (2025) – We’ll Find Out What Truth Is Out There Someday, I Guess

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High tone documentary regarding the UAP issue that our government is finally getting around to admitting that may involve technologies that are beyond the scope of terrestrial capabilities.

A number of scientists and former government officials assure us that they are aware of alien body recoveries and intrusions to our military bases and threats to the national security.

Funny thing is that this all rings of too good to be true. Congressional hearings are convened, experts testify but requests for additional funding of studies and revelations fall flat. The True Believers vow to continue pushing for the truth but we’ve gotten this far don’t you know! But no further. An endless enigma it seems.

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Recent Binge Viewing – The 5 Phantasm movies

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It had been a while since last checking out the original Phantasm (1979). How would it hold up again after the many booze-soaked Midnight movie viewings from yesteryear and how valid were otherwise foggy remembrances of the movie’s craziness and outlandish action? Well…..It turns out that I have a great fondness for writer, director and producer Don Coscarelli‘s brain child. Expect bizarre brushes with the living dead and other dimensional creeps that are novel in their presentation and influenced a lot of filmmakers. But my tastes are different than yours and on a current viewing, I noticed that the film drags a bit in spots and can get repetitive especially when you start digging into the well of five movies created for the Phantasm cycle. I mean, how many times can the characters find, confront, get bettered and then lose The Tall Man (Angus Scrim) and his dwarf and zombie minions? How heroes appear and then are lost in different dimensions and time periods that are confusing to say the least. But I recommend that you immerse yourself in the lunatic vision of Coscarelli and see if you can figure out what The Tall Man is up to.

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“Alien Factor” (1978) – Look On The Bright Side

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A very low budgeted entry here, reportedly costing $3,500.00 back in the early 1970’s, this is an ambitious if very flawed work but enough about that.

There are three aliens on display terrorizing the countryside and a lot of interesting special effects work including stop motion animated creatures and pulsing prisms of color that are kind of cool.

Another gnarly attraction is the appearance of a rock power trio named “Atlantis” playing a tune in a bar. An awesome moment!

I also am a fan of the grating electronic soundtrack for this flick. Check it out. You can get a copy on green vinyl through ebay. I’m there!

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“Alien Vs. Predator: Requiem” (2007): Two For The Price Of Dumb

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I don’t want to discourage you from seeing this movie but bear in mind that when critics rate the various movies belonging to the “Alien” franchise, this title typically winds up being the lowest rated entry in the bunch. I would have to agree with this assessment. The whole picture is kind of tedious. You are essentially watching recreations of scenes from other Alien movies that were done much better the first go round. This is one of two “Alien/Predator” crossover movies where the title creatures hunt and fight one another and are nebulously connected through various scenarios.

This film kind of bugs me because the majority of it is shot during a heavy downpour of rain and the action takes place at night. And like I said, we have to relive a lot of the dialogue and monster violence which was handled better earlier in the franchise.

One highpoint of this film for me is when the evil corporation with ties to the concept of the Aliens as bioweapons comes out of the shadows long enough to coverup a messy outbreak of Alien infestation and human slaughter in a local population center and delivers some nuclear warheads to flatten the overrun city. Too bad it took nearly two hours for the concerned party to wise up.

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“Fire In The Sky” (1993) – Whodunit/Alien Abduction Yarn

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This may be one of those creepy tales that is best not to watch alone in the dark. Was that movement in the darkened room? What was that creak on the front porch I thought I heard just now? LOL! You know what I mean.

Travis Walton is a logger who is out at night with his friends and co-workers when they encounter a brilliant light in the sky. The group heads toward a better vantage point to investigate. Travis is a little too exuberant with his curiosity and jumps off the truck and runs to a spot directly under the uncomfortably close object. Walton is hit with a light beam issuing forth from the object and levitated skyward and then disappears! The credibility of the bystanders is then put under severe scrutiny by the legal authorities to determine if any foul play was involved in Walton’s disappearance. Foot searches are conducted, witnesses are questioned and administered lie detector tests, doubt is floated but the whereabouts of Travis are unknown. For all intents and purposes, it seems he was abducted by an alien intelligence!

An unsettling combination of a police procedural and a brief, nightmarish recollection of being bullied, prodded and injected with alien equipment in a grotesque abduction sequence.

Nice performances by D.B. Sweeney as Walton, Robert Patrick, Craig Shaeffer and perineal Old Pro James Garner add a lot of dramatic weight to the proceedings.

Walton insists to this day that he is telling the truth about what happened to him and The Aliens involved. It makes you wonder.

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“Queen of Blood” (1966) – Hybrid Cosmic Horror

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A very strange film courtesy of director Curtis Harrington. This film is by turns ambitious, clumsy, inspired, dull, beautiful, ugly, and creepy in atmosphere. Harrington compiles, at times, an epic space adventure that involves our world and the inhabitants of another planet.

It seems that Earth has detected an interstellar message that aliens are headed toward our planet to establish a meeting of the races. It is soon discovered that the aliens were waylaid enroute and crashed on the planet Mars. Earth dispatches a rescue mission to assist the downed craft. Our astronauts recover one living specimen but soon regret the encounter as we find out that the creature subsists on blood like all good vampire creatures. One by one, the rescue crew start to turn up deceased. The Outer space settings and Alien Race element combined with the horror element of the vampire-like entity equates to a hybrid fusing of two genres and thus we arrive at the term: “Cosmic Horror”!

This is an ambitious picture and it has a number of memorable elements. Harrington had obtained some footage from some older Soviet film productions of rockets in space flight and incorporated the film bits into this production. A real-life example of “found footage” being utilized in a movie made back in the 1960’s! Here the film is used in an attempt to keep down costs for the special effects budget. There is a rousing scene taking place in a large courtyard with the speaker’s voice loudly resonating through the assembled astronauts and facility workers. There are shots of the aliens’ planet and their eventual departure from their homeland. We see some scenes of the difficult traversing of the Mars landscape in an attempt to escape the harsh surface winds. There are also some unsettling scenes of the vampire using some form of mind control in which to ensnare new sources of “nutrients” on the spaceship. Florence Marley is simply otherworldly in her appearance and performance as the space vampire lady. Wow! John Saxon and Dennis Hopper appear as two of the rescue mission astronauts.

“Queen of Blood” has many engaging elements and will provide you with a scary and enjoyable viewing experience.

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“UFO’s – It Has Begun” (1974) – The question is: Will there ever be an answer?

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An engaging 1970’s era documentary that examines reports of strange flying objects from ancient times up until the present which was 1974 when this documentary was made. Cool recreations of eyewitness accounts are interspersed with actual pictures and films taken by pilots, military personnel, NASA astronauts and civilians alike.

The whole shebang is hosted by the great Rod Serling, the creator of “The Twilight Zone” and MC of “The Night Gallery”. It appears as though his recorded segments were filmed among the remains of his “Night Gallery” set: spotlight on Rod, and various illustrative props given a bit of highlight but everything else draped in black. Cool, economic staging technique! Throw in some guest narration by Burgess Meredith, Jose Ferrer and Jacques Vallee, and you’ve got a very interesting tapestry of UFO reports.

Yet, all these years later, the lingering questions remain: What are these unusual objects which behave so abstractly and randomly and do the Powers That Be have a grasp of what they can be or how we are going to deal with them? Of course not. Expect to be in the dark and helpless for another 1000 years.

I loved this show. Give it a shot!

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“Space Probe Taurus” (1965) – Time Capsule of Antiquated Thought

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I was struck immediately by two things in this movie. “Taurus” follows a spaceship journeying out from Earth to look for a new habitable planet for humans to reside on. On the trip, we become aware of the rampant similarity this ship and its crew have to earlier, similar cinematic journeys. Think of “Destination Moon (1950), “Conquest of Space” (1955), and “Rocketship X-M” (1950), to name just a few. A small crew ambles around a rather spacious space vehicle and spends the majority of their time talking about what they’ll do when they get home and other details of their illustrious pasts. In other words, a bunch of boring bantering.

Another distressing element of this film is its view of the female crew member as not being on an equal level with the other men on the ship. The lady is a doctor but is alternately referred to as probably not being the right person for the job and too weak to survive such an arduous trip. That’s forward-thinking screenwriting at its best!

Enjoy the two freaky aliens our intrepid travelers stumble upon: A tongue flicking, exposed brain creepizoid and a thinly disguised underwater beasty that is an otherworldly cousin of “The Creature from the Black Lagoon”.

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The Atomic Submarine (1959) – What’s Under The Ice Is Not Nice

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A black and white science fiction film from 1959 that asks the question: What is causing the disappearance of so many submarines in an area near the North Pole? A meeting of military experts convenes to try and come up with a plan to fins what is happening in the region. The nuclear submarine, “Tigershark” is dispatched to the area to investigate further. Be prepared for some crude but cool special effects miniatures work and a reveal of a USO, an unidentified submerged object, that is in fact a flying saucer. The military finds a way to temporarily subdue the alien vessel and board it! Things get a little farfetched at this point but, hey, this is speculative cinema! Anything goes. Some good face melting scenes ensue and a punctured giant eye. Will the Earth survive? Our resourceful military personnel will personally see to it! Very enjoyable viewing diversion. Worth a look.

action, action adventure, disaster movie, end of the world, mysterious sounds, science fiction, science fiction films

Sci-Fi Movie Sonic Weapons: Technological Breakthrough Or Budgetary Restriction?

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I have had time to catch up on some reading while sheltering at home with the coronavirus pandemic raging on. I came across an interesting observation made by Kim Newman in his “Apocalypse Movies” book. He observed that in several 1950’s era science fiction movies, the military and scientists combined their efforts to rid the world of alien menaces with some new sonic based weapons. Newman imagined that the sonic weapons could have either been introduced as a safer, more progressive form of warfare, especially when having to secure the safety of the civilian population, as opposed to nuclear weapons which could definitely get messy. But another supposition of Newman’s was that the use of the audio based weapons could have been a function of the science fiction films having too low of budgets to afford more spectacular, expensive visual shows of cities exploding and similar destructive spectacle. Great point! Here is a clip full of some scientific mumbo-jumbo detailing how the good guys in “Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers” plan on using their sonic weapon to take out the offending alien threat. We’ll take their word for it.

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TOP 5 MOVIES FOR MY HALLOWEEN VIEWING

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I have given a minute or two of thought to what I would enjoy most viewing on Halloween.  I would most definitely need to take the day off of work because this lineup would probably consume a good 10 hours.  Sacrifices must be made!  Granted this is the first of what may be a series of some of my most adored movies piled together in one marathon viewing.  These movies are what came off the top of my head at the time and can definitely be mixed and matched and replaced with other selections.  I think that makes sense.

  1.  5 Million Years To Earth – 1967 – A Hammer Films science fiction entry that postulates that some long ago Martians visited our remote ancestors and planted the seeds of intelligence in our shaggy, far removed, ancient ape-like relatives.  Is the recently uncovered spaceship located in the London underground still harboring a Martian presence?
  2. The Mummy – 1959 – This is a great one to curl up with your favorite snack and beverage and soak up the suspense.  Very entertaining and satisfying mummy on the loose tale.  Christopher Lee is mainly silent and heavily bandaged as the title character.  Peter Cushing is out to stop The Mummy’s diabolical rampage.
  3. The Fearless Vampire Killers – 1967 – Roman Polanski directed and co-starred in this hugely atmospheric comedy/horror piece about a couple of bumbling monster hunters who try to rescue a damsel who is fortified in a castle full of undead vampires.  Great sets!
  4. Horror Express – 1972 – Another Cushing/Lee vehicle set aboard a trans-Siberian train that transports an ages old ape man found frozen in ice.  The recently unearthed specimen seems to not be fully dead and can swap human hosts!  A true hoot.
  5. Invasion – 1966 – A hospital is literally held hostage as an alien presence temporarily makes a stop on Earth and has to recover its lost property before it can again go back to outer space.  It’s bad enough being in a hospital, as it is!

Like I said, I will make another list of five more films that it would be Heaven to just spend Halloween day watching back to back.  Maybe I’ll defer it until Thanksgiving or Christmas.  I’ve got time off then.  Check some of these films out and enjoy!