This 1967 series, created by Larry Cohen, featured Roy Thinnes as “architect David Vincent,” who takes a wrong turn on a lonely road one night and ends up witnessing the landing of a flying saucer - vanguard of an alien invasion. The rest of the series follows Vincent’s attempts to track down the aliens and find enough proof to convince the world that he is not a crackpot. Despite the science fiction trappings, THE INVADERS is more a study in paranoia than a traditional space opera: it is about a lone man convinced of a danger that everyone else refuses to recognize, and the stealth invasion by emotionless aliens (rather like the scenario of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS) could easily stand in for the Red Scare of the 1950s. Continue Reading »

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By Drew Fitzpatrick 

Peter Benchley was working on quite an impressive streak in 1980. Jaws and The Deep, published respectively in 1974 and 1976, became blockbusters of the literary world – but it was their film adaptations (each released in the year following publication) that made Benchley’s name into a household word and catapulted him into the rarefied air of the Crichtons and Ludlums. His hugely anticipated follow-up, 1979’s The Island, crossed Benchley’s familiar ‘seafaring adventure’ template with a bit of fashionable Bermuda Triangle myth-making. Movie rights were a foregone conclusion, and in keeping with the single year, page to screen transition time of his previous books, the film version arrived in 1980.

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Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman star in this thriller from writer-director Bryan Bertino. The story (allegedly “inspired by” real events) follows a couple who return to their isolated home after a friend’s wedding reception and are tormented by home invaders at 4:00am.

So far, the film has received a 44% rotten rating in a survey of 48 reviews at Rotten Tomatoes (21 fresh, 27 rotten).

Writes Jessica Reaves of Chicago Tribune:

Anchored by convincing performances from Scott Speedman and Liv Tyler, both of whom elevate their roles above the standard horror-movie caricature, this is an enormously unsettling movie.

Considerably less complimentary, MSNBC’s Alonso Duralde opines:

The Strangersis one of those inane fright fests that relies upon the victimizers being omniscient and omnipresent while the victims are complete morons.

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by Dan Persons

Just where exactly in The Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbookdoes it say that, if you get a pedestrian lodged in your car’s windshield, you should drive straight home, get high, and fret over taking the poor bastard — still jammed on your hood and bleeding into the glove compartment — to the emergency room? That’s the actual scenario that one not-necessarily-Einstein-caliber motorist found herself in a few years ago, and it’s the core predicament of STUCK, Stuart Gordon’s newest melding of social satire, black comedy, brooding horror, and patented Gordon splooshiness. Casting Mena Suvari as the driver and Stephen Rea as her unfortunate victim, the director has managed to cross-fertilize a snapshot of life in these Bush-ravaged times with the bad decisions that sometimes ensue. Cinefantastique Online’s Dan Persons had a chance to speak to Gordon by phone:

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As far as cinefantastiquegoes, this week seems to be filled with home video releases of classic and cult titles: there is no new theatrical blockbuster hitting store shelves, but there are lots of familiar titles showing up. Chief among these is Alexander Korda’s classic 1941 film THE THIEF OF BAGDAD, which is commonly regarded as one of the great classics of fantasy cinema. The story follows a prince (John Justin) exiled by an evil wizard (Conrad Veidt, of THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI), who joins forces with a thief (Sabu) and eventually uncorks a geni from a bottle (Rex Ingram). The Criterion Collection Double-Disc DVD set features a newly restored digital transfer and numerous bonus features: two audio commentaries (one by Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese, one by film historian Bruce Eder); new interviews with special effects experts Ray Harryhausen, Dennis Muren, and Craig Barron, Continue Reading »

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Once upon a time there was a little eight-volume Japanese manga that was very popular. It was so popular in fact that the powers that be decided there should be a live-action version (and a sequel) of it. And thus it came to be so.

The end? Oh, contraire, my friends. DEATH NOTE (DESU NOTO) made a very solid $22,000,000 at the Japanese box-office and its sequel, DEATH NOTE 2, made an even heftier $41,000,000. Then there was the little spin-off called L: CHANGE THE WORLD (directed by Hideo Nakata, who directed the original RINGU and the U.S.’s THE RING 2), which grossed $29,000,000. These dollar amounts may not seem all that huge in comparison to U.S. box-office figures, but they’re mighty big in Japan. DEATH NOTE and DEATH NOTE 2 were numbers 17 and 10 respectably at the Japanese box-office in 2006 and L is number 3 in 2008 at the time of this writing. Continue Reading »

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HOBBIT MOVIES MEET DIRE FOE IN SON OF TOLKIEN: The Sunday Times reports on Christopher Tolkien’s legal attempt to quash the two Hobbit prequels currently in pre-production. He claims that New Line Cinema owes $150-million based on a 7.5% profit sharing agreement from 1969, when J.R.R. Tolkien sold film rights to pay off a tax bill. While we’re talking about Hobbits, producer Peter Jackson and director Guillermo Del Toro recently answered questions about the film on a live web chat; you can find a transcript here.

THE STRANGERS: DON’T BELIEVE THE HYPE is a post courtesy of Vault of Horror, which takes issues with the advertising tag-line insisting that the movie is “inspired by” true events. Universal Pictures marketing sought a little wriggle room by claiming that “inspired by” is a much looser terms than “based on.” It turns out that the film’s scenario is “inspired by” writer-director Bryan Bertino’s childhood memory of someone knocking on his door and leaving when his little sister answered - pretty much the opposite of what happens in the film’s home invasion scenario. Whatever the “reality” of its story, THE STRANGERS had one benefit: actress Liv Tyler discovered that acting in a horror film is a great weight-loss method: “It was a great diet. I actually lost about 10 pounds in two weeks because I was running all day. It was amazing. I was like, ‘Jeez, I need to do this more often.”

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Kaiju Shakedown, the Asian film blog of Variety, takes a look at POSSESSION, the new film starring Sarah Michelle Gellar. Surrprise, surpise, the spooky flick is a remake of an Asian horror film - although, unlike THE GRUDGE (which was based on a Japanese horror film), this one is based on a Korean film called ADDICTED.

This 2002 movie is more of a gentle, supernatural drama than a horror movie or even a thriller. In ADDICTED, a woman has her life ruined when her husband and her brother-in-law are in two separate car accidents. Brother-in-law is in a coma, husband is dead. Then the bro-in-law wakes up and starts acting like the husband. OOOoooOOO…spooky. It’s not a bad movie, but not a great one either and it did so-so business in Korea way back when.

Now, Sarah Michelle Gellar and a bunch of Swedes have teamed up to bring the world what sounds like a dumbed-down version of ADDICTED called POSSESSION and Variety reviews it and stamps it as blah. This is as hot-blooded as their review gets:

“Tech package is competent but reps nothing special. Given pic’s mostly interiors-set storyline, sparing use of Vancouver to pass as Bay Area locations is perfectly adequate if anonymous.“

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Time has a funny way of proving science-fiction predictions wrong. This is actually a good thing, because few if any of us really wanted the year 1984 to turn out like George Orwell’s novel of the same name; it was a relief that 1999 went by without the wrath of Godzilla and cohorts unleashed worldwide (as seen in DESTROY ALL MONSTERS); and highway safety turned out much better one year later than you would expected based on DEATH RACE 2000. On the other hand, matter transporters and flying cars might be nice, and it really is too bad that 2001 came and went without a giant circular space station orbiting the Earth or a permanent base on the Moon.

Despite this last lapse, a team of academics have bestowed upon 2001:  A SPACE ODYSSEY the honor of being deemed the most realistic cinematic depiction of mankind’s future.

Mark Brake, professor of Science Communication at the University of Glamorgan, said: “2001 raised science fiction cinema to a new level. The unfolding four-million-year filmic story brilliantly portrays Arthur C Clarke’s disturbing man-machine encounter with HAL a computer turned murderer.

“This unsettling scenario is not something we would ever want to imagine happening in reality, but it is not beyond the realms of possibility that artificial intelligence could turn on its creators.”

Other highly rated films were BLADE RUNNER (1982) and THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN (1971). The scientists also rated 2001 as the film most admired for its use of science and BLADE RUNNER as the best sci-fi film.

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SPEED RACER is just latest Wachowski effort to misfire with critics and audiences. After the tremendous success of THE MATRIX everyone’s gotta be wondering why. Well, as far as SPEED RACER is concerned, from one person’s perspective (mine) there are three main reasons: 1) the film was too long for a cartoon concept of its nature; 2) the race sequences were far too messy and similar in construction; and 3) EGO. Ultimately, where the Wachowskis are concerned, most everything can be boiled down to ego. However, these are not just SPEED-related issues. With slight variations they can apply to just about every Wachowski film since THE MATRIX. But we’ll get to these issues in a moment. First I’d like to offer up another observation… Continue Reading »

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Hoping to stretch the Memorial Weekend even longer, INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL opened a day early - on Thursday instead of Friday - earning $25-million in 4,260 U.S theatres. The impressive number put it as the fourth biggest Thursday opener ever, after STAR WARS: EPISODE III - REVENGE OF THE SITH, THE MATRIX RELOADED, and STAR WARS: EPISODE II - ATTACK OF THE CLONES.

The film simultaneously opened worldwide, posting strong numbers in France and Belgium, where it grossed $2.2-million on Wednesday.

UPDATE (5/26/08): The fourth INDIANA JONES film made approximately $101-million from Friday through Sunday, for a total of $126-million counting tickets sales from Thursday’s early release. That puts the film just behind PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD’S END for biggest Memorial Day opening. (For comparison purposes, one should not that PIRATES had only limited theatrical preivews on Thursday.) Paramount expects that KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL will add another $25-million on Monday, thanks to the extended weekend.

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It is one of those weeks: almost everything released for home video - at least when it comes to cinefantastique - is either an old title being repackaged or some obscure direct-to-video property of little interest. Fortunately, there is at least one big, bright shiny piece of news for horror fans: the DVD release of George A. Romero’s DIARY OF THE DEAD, which received a small, platform theatrical release earlier this year. On the “Dimension Extreme” label (which emphasizes visceral horror titles, often direct-to-video), the DVD includes several bonus features: a look behind the scenes; a makeing-of featurette; a visit to the set; plus and audio commentary by Romoero, cinematographer Adam Swica, and editor Michael Doherty. Continue Reading »

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INDIANA GROANS: Rich Heldenfels of Beacon Journal laments the latest RAIDERS movie, INDIANA JONES AND THE KINDGOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL:

Crystal Skull, the fourth big-screen movie in the Jones series, puts up a fight here and there. But history is too much for it. Crystal Skull ends up a disappointment and, even more sadly, an unnecessary addition to the Jones canon.

[…] The stunts can occasionally dazzle. One extended car chase, complete with shootouts and a sword fight, is a dandy. But it’s also something we’ve seen before, in this film and others.

[…] the tricks are only sporadically entertaining. The big plot twists are not very surprising. (The audience will be ahead of Indy on at least one of them.) Part of one chase makes no sense.

I did feel a grin slipping across my face when we first see the shadow of Indy in his iconic hat. And the grin was back at times near the end, when the movie felt as comfy and familiar as a 20-year-old T-shirt I am reluctant to give up.

But that T-shirt is tattered at the neck. And Crystal Skull is full of holes.

JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH: At EVLiving.com, Richard Dennis tells us that the new 3D version of Jules Vernes classic adventure novel - starring Brendan Fraser (THE MUMMY) - may not be great cinema, but it is great fun for families looking to take their kids to the movies:

I was very surprised to find that we all had an absolute ball watching this film. Truth be told, the whole audience seemed to be having a good time. Is it a good film? Probably not. Is it derivative of Temple of Doom (mine car chase), Jurassic Park (dinos), and a dozen other action/fantasy films. You bet…derivative as all hell. Did we enjoy it? You betcha.

The Real 3D employed in the film looked fantastic and gave the whole shebang a great texture, some fun/scary jump out moments, and a fresh colorful look that made for an above average time-passer. I didn’t even mind the obligatory “stuff flying at you” scenes.

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 In “Why Action Films Need Stuntmen and Women,” Peter Hartlaub of SFGate notes that the tendency to rely on computer-generated effects has diminished the impact of many actions films (BEN HUR’s chariot race still looks great after five decades, Hartlaub notes, but HULK looks dated after five years). Hartlaub finds some reason for optimism in the trend of films like DOOMSDAY and THE DARK KNIGHT to eschew CGI in favor of old-fashioned live-action stunt work.

Japanese Fantasy ‘Yomigaeri’ Is Getting a Hollywood Remake: Cinematical’s Eric D. Snider sarcastically notes that DreamWorks has managed to find a supernatural Japanese film that has not been remade yet - and they’re going to remake it! This film is YOIGAERI (”Resurrection”) - not a horror picture, more a fantasy about people who return from the dead, looking and acting exactly as they did while alive. If you want to know more about the original, Snider offers a link to a review (in English) at the Japan Times Online.

Black Voices notes that Nichelle Nichols (Lieutenant Uhura on STAR TREK) has been cast in a supporting role in the upcoming horror film DAVID, which stars Michael Pare and Elaine Hendrix as a New York couple who move to a rural farm house, which turns out to be haunted.

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The Guardian.co.uk has posted two virtually identical articles regarding the upcoming TERMINATOR 4: “Halcyon Days Ahead as Bale Signs for Terminator Trilogy” and “He’ll Be Back, Several Times - Possibly.” The articles are based on comments made by producers Victor Kubicek and Derek Anderson while at the Cannes festival plugging the film, which went into production a few weeks ago. Despite the title of the second article, nothing in either pieces gives any solid indication that Arnold Schwarzenegger - now governor of California - is likely to return in what is designed as the beginning of a new film trilogy; however, the producers’ comments are just vague enough to leave open that possibility, thus spurring rumors and generating free publicity:

But are the rumours true that Arnold Schwarzenegger will return, even briefly, to his “I’ll be back” role?

“Unfortunately that’s something we can’t tell you,” said producer Victor Kubicek. Does that mean he could be? “I can’t tell you that either. Sorry. I really can’t tell you.”

Derek Anderson, co-producer of the trilogy, added: “At the moment we’re keeping everything under lock and key. We want the fans to be really excited and surprised.”

So the surprise is he will be back? Silence.

The real meat of the article regards the duo’s decision to revive the  TERMINATOR franchise:

“We were both big Terminator fans which is why we acquired the franchise. We’re approaching it as real fans - what would make us really happy to see in the next Terminator movie?” said Anderson.

“It’s about it being fresh, exciting and have all the action and intensity everyone expects from a Terminator film with real heart and soul.” The first movie, Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins, is due to be released this time next year complete with online and offline games.

“If you think of where Terminator 3 left off, there’s still a lot of potential story to be told,” said Anderson. “This film is all set in the future and a lot of the real fans want to know what happens. Being huge fans, we wanted to know the rest of the story.”

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