stop the press....

RIP the one true Lois Lane, Margot Kidder.

jefferson starshit.

Still trawling thru' my quality SciFi collection to prepare myself for Han Solo's first - um - solo foray on the big screen but mixing it up a wee bit today with a slice of hard hitting truth teasing space-based shocks.

Plus this was released the same year as Star Wars so there's a kinda symmetry.

Enjoy.

Starship Invasions (AKA Alien Encounter, Project Genocide, and War of the Aliens. 1977).
Dir: Ed Hunt.
Cast:  Robert Vaughn, Christopher Lee, Daniel Pilon, Tiiu Leek, Helen Shaver, Henry Ramer, Victoria Johnson, Doreen Lipson, Kate Parr, Sherri Ross, Linda Rennhofer, Richard Fitzpatrick, Ted Turner, Sean McCann, Bob Warner and Kurt Schiegl.

Precariously perched atop his toy town tractor like a giant, plaid blancmange made flesh, the multi-chinned and five bellied farmer Rudy (Schiegl from Quest for Fire and the local cake shop) seems oblivious to the large inflatable flying saucer landing in his potato field.

Remarkably for a man of his stature he remains totally unfazed (and frighteningly non sweaty) as two black leotard clad male dancers mince from the craft and shuffle him aboard.

Is he dead?

Or just drunk?

I wish I were.

Sitting patiently like some stoned walrus, Rudy is prodded and probe by his captors only really getting interested when a curved hipped, Vegas style showgirl slowly strips in front of him before beginning what can only be a complex Martian seduction dance.

Crikey.

Ronnie Corbett gingerly ran thru' the giants fingers.

The next day Rudy can't wait to tell the locals about his escapades both inside a genuine UFO as well as inside a genuine space whore but unfortunately everyone reckons he's a drunken, inbred freak.

Which if I'm honest he is.

One person who does believe him tho' is sexily slick haired UFO specialist Professor Allan Duncan (Vaughn whose alimony must have been crippling that month) who makes a trip to visit our portly pal.

Examining both the landing site and Rudy's ample arse, Duncan reveals that both have recently been dowsed with radiation (tho' only one has been dowsed with Martian muck) and that incredibly aliens have been visiting the Earth for years.

My word!

Vaughn: skint.

Meanwhile, aboard the UFO, the evil plant pot wearing alien commander Ted Rameses (a seriously fucking unhappy Christopher Lee) and his motley band of space dancers are busy planning their next diabolical kidnap caper.

Lee: no shame.

It transpires that poor Rudy was not the first to be abducted (tho' he was by far the largest breasted) nor will he be the last for no sooner has Rameses explained the plot that the crew go searching for an Earth female to fiddle with too.

An preferably one in ill fitting flesh coloured pants just like your mums.

But for the love of God why? I hear you cry.

Well, it seems that Rameses and his racy chums are not, in fact, an intergalatic dance troupe but an invasion party from the distant planet Alpha.

A distant planet that's sun is about to go supernova.

So understandably our Alphanian chums are looking for a new planet (albeit one with a burgeoning spandex business) to colonise.

Simple when you think about it.

If you think she looks uncomfortable now just wait till the Martian mooth shite-in starts.

Unluckily for us it appears that Earth fits the bill nicely giving Rameses an excuse to unleash his massive weapon in order to kill all humanity before signalling the Alpha colony ships that are currently in hiding behind the dark side of the moon.

Tho' how an entire invasion fleet can keep itself hidden behind a Pink Floyd album is never explained.

I'm assuming that it's the vinyl version seeing as it would be considerably bigger than trying to conceal yourself behind a cassette or CD.

But I digress.

Humanity has one last line of defence tho', as the justice (and lard by the size of their waistlines) loving intergalactic council, the fantastically - and not at all cliché named  The League of Races have a secret base on Earth; a giant pyramid cunningly hidden under what seems to be the directors duck pond.

Christopher Lee, up the casino, Anchorhead, 1977....Yesch!

Knowing that he must destroy the base if his plan is to succeed, Rameses lands at the base and pretends that he needs the toilet.

The League, being either really nice or really dim send a giant silver sex toy named Deirdre to escort the rotten Rameses to the little boys room, giving his crew ample time to sabotage the cloaking device of a League UFO that's been busy taking photos of popular tourist attractions.

When the aforementioned flying saucer suddenly becomes visible to the local populace whilst hovering over the local Aldi the army have no choice but to blow it up.

The swines!

With all the good guys running about trying to figure out what caused the force field failure (try typing that when you're drunk, tho' thinking about it, it mustn't be too difficult as the writer managed to) Rameses and his crew have time to put bizarre laser firing matchbox and string contraptions on their fingers and take over the pyramid, murdering a room of space whores and seriously injuring Deirdre in the process.

Behold the future of pleasure! the android Jade Goody sex doll with hyper speed tit wanking action!

It's now time for our hideously hatted intergalactic bastard to contact his fellow Alphans and order them to aim their patented mentalist beam at Earth, turning hitherto normal folk into crazed murderers.

Rameses however hasn't realised that a small band of Leaguers, led by grand admiral Hilary Zoonie have managed to slip away in a UFO and are racing to contact the only humans who are gullible enough to help them in their fight.

Oh, and repair their space ship.

Yup that'll be Professor Duncan and his man-breasted computer expert brother Malcom (Ramer, from the TV movie Sodbusters and also your grannies bed).

Christopher Lee was startled by the space parrot that suddenly perched itself on his shoulder.

With Malcom's help (and his extra large underpants to cover a hole in the hull), Hilary can modify the UFO's communications system and send an S.O.S. to the main League headquarters - you'd think it'd be a wee bit more complicated than that wouldn't you? - but don't worry because whilst all this action-packed repair work is going on we can sit back and enjoy an arse numbing lecture on alien culture and technology as Duncan quizzes the crew about building the ancient pyramids and why the only woman on board has such wobbly thighs and a head so large that it has it's own gravitational field.

But saying that tho' she is the most attractive member of the cast.

Sorry Mr. Vaughn.

All I can say is how fucking stunning is this?

Finally, with humanity under attack by the aforementioned death ray and Duncan's wee girl slowly going mad and attacking tomatoes in the local Asda, the Alphan invasion fleet and the League saucers face-off in the inky blackness of outer space to start a war in the stars.

Obviously this would be way too expensive to show so it's back to Earth where rotten Rameses is using the superior calculators found aboard the League base to tip the scales in his favour, whilst Duncan's frighteningly plain (and bra-less) wife has picked up a kitchen knife and begun to slash at her wrists....

Will Hilary, Professor Duncan, that bald bird and Malcolm be able to defeat Rameses and stop the mad gun before Earth is destroyed?

Christopher Lee contemplates becoming the filling in a particularly crabs ridden sex sandwich.

Starting his career with the soft core porn classics Pleasure Palace and Diary Of A Sinner, it wasn't long before writer/director/producer and rhyming slang named UFO nut Ed Hunt - who by this point was obviously tired of exposed arses - decided instead to expose the truth behind UFO's, firstly with the little seen Nicky Fylan starrer Point of No Return and then with this universally acclaimed science factual epic.

Starship Invasions is quite possibly the greatest science fiction movie of that name ever to come out of Canada in 1977 and probably the only one to feature Christopher Lee painfully forced into a childs jumpsuit whilst wearing a pizza box on his head.

Blatantly ripped off by non-trick pony M Night Shyamalan in the hideous The Happening (tho' without the spaceships and the man from UNCLE obviously) Starship Invasions storyline was based in part on factual accounts of real UFO abductions with costumes and saucer designs taken from true life testimonies, in fact the terrifying 'probing of Rudy' scene was an exact duplicate of a situation the director found himself in as a teenager.

Imagine a Canadian Star Trek The Motion Picture, only shit(ter).

With a budget over almost £38 (the biggest amount ever invested in a Canadian film up to this point) Starship Invasions unfortunately sank into obscurity, beaten at the box office by a rival film that was hastily put into production to capitalise on the excitement caused by the announcement of Starship Invasions.

This immature imitator was Close Encounters of The Third Kind directed by Steven Spielberg (and whatever happened to him?) proving once and for all that when the audience has the choice between terrifying fact or whimsical fiction that they'll choose the latter every time.

Another reason for the films lack of financial success can possibly be attributed to the hyper real and almost documentary style in which it was shot.

Like all great auteurs Hunt litters his film with purposely mismatched millitary stock footage and endless, repeated shots of Rameses saucer in flight, imbuing the film with a nightmare quality associated with UFO encounters but wrongly attributed to cost cutting and incompetence by many ill educated 'critics' of the time.

But the directors greatest achievement in extra-terrestrial accuracy is in scenes featuring the aliens 'communicating'.

It's widely reported in the scientific world that many alien races communicate telepathically, a fact that many lesser research movies fail to adhere to due to the complex effects work that this would involve.

Hunt however embraced the challenge in both his sweaty, sausage like hands, hiring a massive team to actually teach the actors telepathy and mind controlling powers, his crew working alongside them to develop the worlds only pyschic camera to enable them to record the scenes.

Again naysayers and critics, their minds obviously blown by such a concept accused Hunt of cost cutting by filming many scenes without sound, recording and inserting the dialogue later.

This left Hunt a broken man and it was a long two years before he returned to directing.

And what a return it was, helming as he did probably the best episode of the epic teevee series Greatest Heroes of the Bible, the producers realising that only a genius of Hunt's talents would be worthy of re-imagining the classic tale of Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar and brave enough to cast ex-Happy Days star Donnie (Ralph Malph) Most as Daniel.

(Pie) Tin Machine.

But by this time a new younger breed of directors had come forward, spurned on by the aforementioned Speilberg and Star Wars creator George Lucas' kid friendly and non threatening science fiction style leaving Hunt's hyper-realistic visions to wallow unloved in the cinematic backwaters of celluloid obscurity, unknown but to only a few film historians and those fans lucky (and clever) enough to truly appreciate his genius.

lordi lordi hellelujah.

Bizarre as it seems I've recently discovered that, even tho' I rant and rave about it at every opportunity, I've never actually reviewed this movie here.

Which is odd because frankly it's brilliant and quite possibly THE best Autism-based horror movie featuring former Eurovision winners ever made.

So seeing as it's actually Eurovision weekend I'm going to remedy that.

Enjoy.


Dark Floors (2008).
Dir:  Pete Riski.
Cast: William Hope, Leon Herbert, Philip Bretherton, Ronald Pickup, Noah Huntley, Dominique McElligott, Skye Bennett and the mighty Lordi.

There is only one Hell.

It's a dark and stormy night at Baldpate Hospital where the spookily Autistic - or is that Autistically spooky? - Sarah (Bennett - Steven Seagal's daughter from Shadowman and the voices of Pyra / Mythra in the hit game Xenoblade Chronicles 2) is undergoing an MRI scan to cure her obsession with red crayons or something.

Look it's all very complicated and I'm not a real doctor.

Unfortunately the storm causes the machine to short circuit and burst into flames much to the doctors - and it must be said her dad Bens (former Emmerdale hunk Huntley) dismay.

Between the electrical fires and the idea that you can cure Autism with an MRI scan (plus the fact that the hospital is greasier than your Uncle Pablo's trousers) Ben decides to take Sarah home only to be informed by caring sharing nurse Emily (McElligott from House of Cards) that they thought it'd be a laugh to start the wee girl on some experimental epilepsy drugs (without his consent obviously) and that to take her home without them may kill her.

As a plus point they do point out that her liver is OK so swings and roundabouts really.

At this point I was getting a little upset, not at the way that Sarah was being treated but by the fact that no-one ever offered me any drugs after my diagnosis, all I got was this badge:

Tight NHS bastards.

Thinking it over for a few minutes Ben decides to fuck the drugs and attempt to sneak her out of the hospital in the middle of the night, cunningly disguising her Autism by placing her in a wheelchair so folk will think she's got a club foot instead.

Genius.

Surprisingly the plans seems to work, until they reach the (packed) elevator that is when - as they bump over the edge of the door to enter - Sarah drops her crayons.

Rushing to leave Ben grabs them off the (dark) floor and thrusts them back into her hands not realising that he's inadvertently mixed the reds in with the blues.

And the yellow.

Which as we're all aware is the Autistic equivalent of someone shitting in your favourite teacup.

Noticing the error Sarah can do nothing but scream in dismay and as we all know if an Autistic scream* is left unchecked it can open a portal to a scary netherworld of fear and terror which is kinda annoying for the other folk - smarmy briefcase wanker Jon (Aliens Gorman himself Hope), creepy tramp Tobias (Pickup from loads of stuff) and stoic security guard Rick (Herbert channeling every Ving Rhames horror performance ever) - in the lift when the doors open out onto a bloodstained, spunk covered corridor of doom.

 .

"Excuse me....do you require any scissors sharpening?"

As our - not so - merry band nervously edge their way out of the lift they soon discover that they seem to still be in the hospital only a darker more nightmarish version of it, which for anyone who's ever been stuck in A and E on a Saturday night will realise must be fucking terrifying.

They soon come across (not in that way) Emily who's been passing the time since the space/time slip popping paper towels over the faces of dead pensioners and who - in a scene of total jobsworthness - begins to lay into Ben for attempting to sneak Sarah out of the hospital.

 Remembering that he has a child with him Ben plays the dutiful dad and goes to see if she's alright (as opposed to alt. right obviously) only to find that she's too busy drawing all manner of scary creatures to notice what's going on.

Hopefully she's not drawing the beings that occupy this dimension seeing as she appears to be linked to it.

Nah, it'll never happen.

Atomic Kitten have let themselves go....

The group really don't have time to ever think about such things tho' as they're suddenly attacked by a spooky ghost woman which gives Jon an excuse to quickly fuck off back to the elevator leaving the others to indulge in a wee bit of what looks like drunk dad dancing as they try to dodge the imaginary spectre that will be no doubt added on later at great expense.

Entering the lift (in a violent manner usually reserved for your dad after a few drinks) Jon frantically presses the buttons in the hope of escaping this waking nightmare only to hear a sinister scratching at behind the floor panels....

Escaping the ghost and locking themselves in a supply room is enough to wake Tobias from his drunken stupor and give him an opportunity to explain the films plot.
It seems that Sarah is indeed linked to the strange happenings around them and that the only way to return home is to kill the child.

And we thought the whole MMR debacle was bad news for Autistic folk, this guy makes Andrew Wakefield look positively sane by comparison.

Tho' I must say that at this point anyone who actually believes the whole Autism/vaccines bollocks deserves a fucking good kicking.

Rant over.

Laugh now!

 Thinking it over for a few minutes Ben realises that not only would this course of action not go down too well with Sarah's mum (even tho' she's dead) but more importantly would probably stop him scoring with Emily so he decides to call Tobias an arse before heading off to find the hospital exit.

But something is hunting our heroes, hungry for fresh souls.....

Yup, Lordi are coming....

The brainchild of singer/songwriter Mr Geoff Lordi (AKA the Scrabble high scoring Tomi Petteri Putaansuu) as a new outlet for his shock-rock combo Lordi, Dark Floors holds not only the distinction of being one of the most expensive films made in Finland but also of being quite possibly the best Silent Hill adaptation ever made that's not actually a Silent Hill film.

Oh yeah and it features an Autistic lead so really what's not to love?

Well your sister if I'm honest but let's not go there.

Formed in 1992 the group had always experimented with horror imagery and by 2004 had already completed a short movie - The Kin - a Lovecraftian tale that follows a young writer who after losing her mother in a train wreck finds the creatures from a horror book she is writing (all played by members of the band) become flesh bending time and space to ensure the tome is published.

With the short establishing the band members/creatures origins it was only a matter of time before they would make the leap to the bigscreen and after winning the Eurovision Song Contest in 2006 the world stage beckoned.

And by world stage I mean cinema screens obviously.

World stage is just a phrase.

Kin Hell!

Surprisingly tho' given the bands appearance and musical influences this is no KISS style romp but a straight-laced, old fashioned horror movie with a dependable cast playing it straight down the line and whilst not as gruesome as it wants to be it still packs some genuine chills.

True the plot makes fuck all sense and indeed the science on show is a wee bit dodgy but you can't help but get dragged in by Mr Lordi - and director Pete Riski's - obvious love of the horror genre.

Dr Andrew Wakefield desperately tries to convince a young mum that shooting yourself in the head cures Autism....(If only he'd done this....sigh).

Worth a look if you're a fan of hospitals, Autism and/or orthopedic shoes (and let's be honest you wouldn't be here if you weren't) Dark Floors is a perfect Friday night moviethat whilst not re-inventing the genre does provide some (sensible) chuckles and a couple of nice scares along the way.

And yes I know the ending makes fuck all sense but they're foreign so what do you expect?












































*Which is why all my kids are ball-gagged.

As am I.

And that's why I blog rather than do a podcast.

And now you know.

truly outrageous.

In tribute to Eurovision here's what happens when pop careers go bad....what Jerrica Benton did after her illustrious pop career faded.

More of the same over at Vintage Sleaze.

spazio oddity.

Amazing what you find when idly flicking channels, was deciding what film to watch next in preparation for Han Solo (the movie that is, I mean he's not coming round to the house for nibbles and drinks) when I came across what looks like a nth generation VHS copy of Alfonso (The Beast in Space, War of the Robots) Brescia's little seen Italian Sci-Fi masterpiece 'Battaglie Negli Spazi Stellari' (AKA War of The Planets) on Information TV (Sky channel 212 fact fans).

This lo-fi sci-fi blockbuster stars the fabulous John Richardson as the cream jumpsuited womanly hipped Captain Alex Hamilton.

Hamilton is a kinda rougher (and considerably swarthier) penis nosed version of Jim Kirk, shouting at his computer, disagreeing with his superiors and leaving it till the last possible minute to save battery acid scarred crew members from certain death.

Unfortunately the picture quality is so washed out as to make it almost unwatchable so I only made it as far as Commander Armstrong (the wonderfully drunk Romeo Costantini) giving our hero a bollocking for refusing to investigate a scary alien signal that's interrupting Earth's entire communication network before having to switch off.

"Look it's probably just static or the gypsies" replies our hero to his superior, "Plus we're all a bit tired and want to come home for a holiday!"

Genius.
If I can be arsed I might dig my old VHS rip out for a rewatch if only for an early appearance of what looks like Hollywood heart throb Ed Harris painted green and wearing tiny pants playing a scary alien.

Until then this will have to do....

Sette uomini d'oro nello spazio (AKA Captive Planet, Metallica (no, really), Space Odyssey, Star Odyssey. 1979).
Dir: Alfonso Brescia.
Star: Yanti (meow) Sommer, Gianni Garko, Malisa Longo, Cristea Avram, Ennio Balbo, Aldo Amoroso Pioso, Pino Ferrara, Roberto Dell'Acqua, Fred West's dad and Filippo Perrone.

"Man meets an alien race at last, 

and greets them by disintegrating our vessel"

Somewhere in the inky blackness of space on a mysterious planet, a gathering of powerful aliens, known locally as the Lords of the Galaxy is busily bidding on various planets and suchlike to buy their wives as novelty Crimbo pressies.

Katie Hopkins mum tries to remember which
one of her brothers is her childs father.

The biggest offer of the day is a very familiar small blue/green planet named Sol 3, a planet in which the spiky headed, lank haired Lord Kev Korda is very interested in.

You see, if his bid is successful (it's kinda like an intergalactic Ebay but with fewer overpriced original Star Wars toys) he plans to use the natives of this world as cheap labour throughout the galaxy.

A wee bit like the Kosovans as my dear Brexiteer dad would say (but not I obviously) .

Confident as he is of getting the winning bid he's already set up a number of  window cleaning businesses and off-licenses in readiness of his takeover.

Which is nice.

But just to make sure he's definitely gonna win, our pen faced pal is not above using his almost Derren Brown like mind powers (well, a torch in front of his eyes) to scare his main rival away from the bidding table.

100 million credits poorer (but a whole lotta planet richer) Kev boards his spaceship and relaxes with his battered vhs copy of Cosmos: War of the Planets as he travels to view his newly acquired prize.

Hang on, I'm mistaken, it's not actually some clever self referential nonsense regarding a character in one movie watching the directors earlier work, it's just  Brescia being cheap and using old footage save him shooting any new effects stuff.

Silly me.

"I wanted to be a tiger!"

Scanning his new toy to find out what he's actually purchased (yes, I know it's a wee bit like not looking at a new house till you've paid for it but who are we to judge these aliens?), Kev discovers that not only has the planet 'widespread traces of pollution due to chemical combustion and nuclear waste' but that most of humanity live either underground or in sea cities due to the surface being used for growing food and feeding livestock.

Yup, the pikeys have inherited the Earth.

And down at Earth's fantastically minimalist (or just cheap) space command centre, Admiral Steve (probably, the subtitles are atrocious), being understandably shocked by the huge spaceship approaching, launch a fantastic interceptor craft to say hello to the visitor.

But Lord Kev, being a 100% patent bastard, responds by blasting it out of the sky.

"Shite in mah big tin mooth ya bastard!"

Mightily pissed off by this frankly outrageous act of aggression humanity decides to throw everything they've got at Kev's ship but even the combined fire-power of the entire planet is useless against him and serves only to make Kev a wee bit annoyed.

Yikes.

There's only one thing for it, Kev unleashes a terrifying barrage of grainy, black and white stock footage of exploding buildings, erupting volcanoes, cats looking nervous and archive newsreel shots of the battle of Britain in order to convince the human race that he is, in fact 'the daddy'.

London is totally destroyed, as is most of Australia (no loss there then) and (bizarrely) the Okinawa stadium, leaving the Admiral no choice but to call upon the maverick (not to mention "independent, stubborn and undisciplined") scientist Professor Barry Morey, a forest dwelling genius whose "intelligence puts him about two centuries above anyone else" and whose collars would enable him to fly at least two hundred miles above them too.

Desperate doesn't even touch it.

Fuck me! it's Fred West's dad!

Anyway, Admiral Steve begrudgingly phones the Professor, polishing his ego by telling him that he's Earth's last hope and it's greatest ever scientist/lover/kazoo player etc. before asking him if he can suggest anything to stop the terror from space.

Seeing as Earth is so desperate as to ask a balding, piss stained hippy type for help it comes as a wee bit of a surprise to hear that the planets government and military have refused to give him any cash, support or even a shiny new commode for his troubles if he agrees to help.

I even watched this bit twice to see exactly how this magnificent piece of reverse psychology works but I'm fucked if I could figure it out if I'm honest, so I'll put it down to being an Italian thing.

"Sod saving humanity there be tasty
lady arse a-going spare!"

Luckily the Professors hearing is going, meaning he misses everything except the "you're great please help us" bit and decides to give it a go.

Analysing the alien ship he quickly discovers that it's hull is constructed from a strange substance called iridium, which, it turns out is virtually indestructible.

As is the way in such movies, the Professor has the only other example of this rare metal locked in his garage, a keepsake from his research days when (and this is a scary coincidence so sit down now) him and his team of geeks were working on a way of breaking down iridium to its base molecular structure.

For what purpose I've no idea.

"Shymoo!" - Mickey Mouse's fetish parties were
always a big hit amongst his cartoon buddies.

Earths only hope is that the Professor can round up his old workmates (who all fucked off around the globe after the Professor was discredited for pissing himself in a funding review) and pick up the research where they left off.

If only he had access to a spaceship and daredevil pilot, it'd certainly be better (and more exciting) than catching the bus looking for his ex colleges.

Enter (OK if I must) the Professors beautifully bouncy - and scarily bouffanted - niece Irene (Sommer - in the city probably), whose boyfriend, Jeff, happens to be a hunky space pilot.

Even better is the fact that he spent the night at the house and his spaceship is parked outside!

But how can the kindly scientist convince him to help in his quest?

Would you believe that the Professor has the same spooky mind powers as Kev?!?

Within minutes Jeff is eating an onion as if it were an apple and flying off to round up this sci-fi A-Team whilst the Professor gets down to some serious 'work' in his lab.

First on the list is the roguish mercenary cum chemist (and first love of Irene...yes it really is that convoluted so i'd suggest that you begin taking notes, I know I did) Dirk Laramie (Dell'Acqua), who now spends his days fleecing alcoholics out of their dole money in seedy backstreet bars.

Yup, you guessed it, Dirk too has the very same scary mind powers as Barrie and Kev and has been using them to cheat at cards.

Obviously when the local council estate scum whose Giro's he's been taking find out about this they decide to administer a darn good kicking, which gives our man a chance to show off his sexy street fighting skills to impress his buxom ex, tho' if I'm honest Jeff seems much more impressed.

Sommer lovin': tell me more!

Meanwhile back in the main plot Lord Kev has unleashed an army of face stomping alien Nazi's across the planet to collect 'worker units' and, in a scene of ball aching badness, attack the planets sub-tropical continent, capturing 2000 dark-skinned human units to use as slaves.

Hmmm, see what they did there?

Whilst all this political musing is going on, Irene is off enjoying herself at a community centre boxing match where ex-scientist cum pugilist Bill Norman (The late, great Garko, looking for all the world like a pervier, cancer riddled Sporticus from Lazy Town) is having a girly slapping match with the frighteningly realised warrior robot Hercules (some poor guy in a Mickey Mouse gimp suit).

Being surprisingly fit for someone so close to deaths door Norman beats the crap outta poor Hercules before donning a silk disco jacket and joining our merry band.

"Yesch...gobble my spurtsh
candy wee man!"

Deciding to bring a couple of buddies with him, Norman leads the gang to a deserted junkyard (the producers garden) where they meet up with a couple of dwarfs dressed in silver painted bins decorated with the contents of their mums kitchen drawers and topped off with Orville The Duck sex masks.

Norman, keen to justify why the films overworked - and underpaid - designers would foist such monstrosities on an already threadbare production is quick (maybe too quick if you ask me) to point out that not only do our plastic pals have a full range of human emotions but they're also fitted with some kinda energy conversion bollocks that allows them to phase out of real space so that laser fire passes right through them (a wee bit like chocolate does with me).

Oh, and I forgot to add that due to their emotional chip the pair are in love.

"Duck off".

Meanwhile, back at the space command centre, it appears that Kev's spaceship (despite being big enough to comfortably hold the entire population of Earth plus a shed load of stormtroopers) is actually impossible to track via radar, showing up only when it lands to grab some slaves.

Have they tried turning the monitors on?

No-one dares make this suggestion tho' for fear of interrupting Admiral Steve's Oscar worthy performance as he grimly reads the list of humans already captured by Kev as his stunned comrades look on in mild apathy.

Hiroshima (how's your luck?), Russia, the Arabs and rather oddly "those farmers in the United States of Africa" have all been captured, leaving only the good ol' US of A, half of Govan and the West Midlands left to battle against this thoroughly bad man.

Always believe in your soul.

Whilst all this shit - as you youngsters say - is going down, our heroes (in case you thought I'd forgotten about them) are heading towards the notorious 'Moonspace', a space age Alcatraz orbiting the moon (obviously) in order to break out two other members of the aged professor's science club, some middle-aged bloke named Sean and a sexily square faced lady going by the name of Bridget ('played' by the infamous - well, around here she is - Malisa Longo, AKA Malisa Lang, one of Italy's greatest and most moon headed, exploitation stars and one of the few reasons to sit thru' this film).

Malisa: moooooooooooooooonhead.

The pair are being held in a 'suspension ray machine' designed to keep them awake but unable to move (why? you may ask), giving the lone guard a great excuse to quietly perv over her prostrate form whilst rubbing his leather clad thighs.

Ah, so that's why.

Unable to control his sexual desires any longer the guard turns off her suspension machine and gazes lustfully as she emerges from within, stretching and cooing like your mum after a particularly hard bingo session whilst complaining about how long it's been since she had a real man (hang on, that's exactly like your mum the morning after bingo) before slinking up to him and giving him a big girly kiss.

With tongues and everything.

Well not everything but you get the gist.

Of course, this is all just a ruse so she can release all the prisoners and escape herself in the ensuing sexual confusion.

Freed from their frozen confines the thawed out felons vent their frustrations by instigating a bitch-slapping fest of epic proportions as perky prisoners and leathery guards alike slowly kick and punch each other before taking it in turns to roll around the floor gurning and dribbling.
Don't fret tho' because the break-out is eventually subdued before it gets too embarrassing and/or homo-erotic and everyone involved is given a slap on the wrist before being put back in their cells.

Luckily for us (and the plot), our merry band have been pencilled in for a meeting with the prisons governor about releasing Sean and Bridget.

A pity then that he refuses to let them go free.

What a jobsworth bastard.

Remember tho', Dirk has those scary mind powers so it's only a matter of time before he's persuaded the guv to let them go (and convinced him that he's a dog) meaning that finally (thank fuck) that the science squad is fully assembled and that they can head on back to the Professor's house and prepare to kick some alien arse.

Which in Bridget's case involves getting trussed up in a skin tight leather dominatrix outfit.

Stephanie: Unfortunately
not the one in this movie, or this one.

Will our heroes defeat the evil Kev?

Will there be anyone left on Earth to save?

Will our robot pals ever consummate their relationship?

And, most importantly, will Kev be able to sell on Earth at the next space auction?

Alfonso Brescia's space epic with it's powerful social message regarding Colonialism and the ethno-centric belief that the morals and values of the colonising power are superior to those of the peoples being colonised is a little seen gem of the Italian Sci-fi genre.

Forget 2001 and The Last Jedi* because if it's high concept/budget busting interstellar adventure you're after then this is the movie for you.

I mean the social commentary is there alright, it's just that it's buried alive beneath a slurry pile of skid row acting, cheap robot suits, borrowed effects and scratchy old stock footage of second world war battles.

Was this a clever way of comparing Lord Kev's jackbooted minions to the Nazi Stormtroopers of yesteryear or just a lack of anything remotely resembling a budget?

You decide.

Tho' if you need a clue it's the latter by the way.

If, like me tho' you get bored with trying to justify a love of shite cinema by over intellectualising every single thing about it then there's always the sight of Malisa Longo dressed up like a transvestite hooker as well as the Amazonian delights of Yanti Sommer's cleavage to keep you occupied.

And just in case you think I'm being sexist then don't forget that all you female viewers can gaze lustfully at the professors yellowing bald pate and wibbly wobbly manbreasts.

For everyone else there's a pulse pounding fart-tastic synth score and the chance to see some once great (OK, once so-so) actors such as Gianni Garko and Chris Avram, reduced to playing second fiddle to a couple of dwarfs in dustbins.

And be honest now, what more could you want from an evenings entertainment?








*Actually reading back I've realised that this movie is actually way more entertaining than that pile of shite.

But we all knew that anyway.

And as an aside have you noticed how quiet it's gone regarding Rian Johnson's spin-off trilogy?

the late late deadfast show.

Been preparing for Solo: A Star Wars Story by rewatching some of the best hunky man-based sci-fi epics I can find.

And what better movie to start of with than....

Warriors of The Year 2072 (AKA Fighting Centurions, Rome, 2072 A.D., The New Gladiators. 1984).
Dir: Lucio Fulci.
Cast: Jared Martin, Fred Williamson, Howard Ross, Eleonora Brigliadori, Cosimo Cinieri, Claudio Cassinelli, Al Cliver, Haruiko Yamanouchi, Penny Brown, Valerie Jones and Donal O'Brien.

"It was maths that saved us!"

It's the near future (2072 to be precise but I guess you knew that) and  - after a nuclear war probably - all of planet Earth's major cities have been rebuilt using Lego, egg boxes and toilet rolls, topped off with Christmas tree lights.

The only outlet for the citizens of this new square world order are violent teevee shows (well two of them) broadcast daily to keep the populace subdued and entertained.

Purves: Purveyor of teevee violence and fan of Steven's tailor.

The biggest of these is 'Death Bike', a cross between Junior Kick Start (albeit without Peter Purves) and a Friday night out in the centre of Dudley where a bunch of mad men on motorcycles kick seven shades of shite out of each other until only one is left standing.

Well, sitting actually.

On a bike.

Obviously.

Undefeated world champion of Death Bike is the enigmatically bubble-permed Drake (Martin, pigeon chested star of teevee's Dallas, War of the Worlds and Fantastic Journey) but more of him later.

The other show is called 'Pretend Scares' or something similar and features (from what I can gather from the little amount of it shown) a sweaty woman with hi-tech wires attached to her head watching clips of old Fulci movies and having to pretend that:

A. It's real.

and

B. She's not really scared.

It'll come as no surprise to find that ratings for this have been slipping more than Michael J Fox on an icy path, so the makers of 'Pretend Scares' (after failing to get 'Bastards Hole' past the pilot stage) decided to resurrect the age old idea of the gladiatorial arena.

Huge cotton bud or tiny lady?

This ultra-violent battle of the damned will see twelve convicted killers (but not Dave Vanian) slug it out in a modern day Roman Coliseum until only one survives.

To make certain it'll be a sure fire ratings winner, the slimy teevee executive in charge, Bob Cortez (an unusually clean shaven Cassinelli) decides to firstly employ Chris Chibnall as show runner before hiring what looks like Spandau Ballet to murder Drake's hot young wife and then framing him for their subsequent murder.

Really it does make sense when you watch it.

Bigger than Trumps.

Taken in chains to the training area before being given a sexy bracelet (tho' no pearl necklace) that can administer pain, Drake is introduced to his fellow combatants including genre king Al Cliver as the hunky Kirk, The Last Hunter's Yamanouchi and Fred Williamson as the super suave Tommy Abdul.

There are a few other folk but frankly none of them are that memorable.

Under the auspice of evil trainer Frank Raven (Ross from such classics as The New York Ripper, Naked Werewolf Woman and Poppea: A Prostitute in Service of the Emperor) Drake endures, oh, minutes of torture and bench presses before he begins to break the corporations programming.

It seems that he's starting to realise that he didn't kill Tony Hadley and co. after all and that it may a massive conspiracy.

Luckily the janitor of the faculty, an ex-racer named Monk (Doctor Butcher himself, O'Brien), is an old friend of Drakes who had to leave show business after accidentally melting his face in a freak infomercial recording and who now along with his sexy computer boffin sidekick Sarah (the fantastically fringed ultra-MILF Brigliadori from Beyond Kilimanjaro, Across the River of Blood and, um, my dreams) have decided to investigate Drake's story, uncovering as they do a plot by Junior (the sentient computer that runs the station) to do some bad stuff to folk.

Oh yes and take over the world.

Luckily our heroes have a plan.

"OK muthafuckas! Who's
ready for a mooth shite-in?"

Whilst Sarah goes to visit Junior's creator, Monk makes our hero swallow a magic silver Lego brick that enables him to open doors and turn off force-fields by simply pulling his cum face and it's with this special gift our hero plans his escape.

Whilst all this sex face fun is going on, Sarah has gone to visit Professor Towman (Murder Rock's Cinieri, tastefully covered head to toe in gravy and with a red spot daubed on his forehead), the inventor of Junior to see if the computer could really be mental.

He reckons not but gives Sarah a special key to his control room and a box of plans to turn him off just in case.

Which is pretty bloody lucky seeing as the next instant he's shot and killed as is - the not as attractive as Sarah - Sybil (Brown, the costume designer on Fatal Frames) a bad lady that was sent to follow our heroine (to pick up fashion tips I reckon).

Would you believe it tho' because Monk was also following Sarah (and by default Sybil) and manages to sneak Sarah out of the building under his coat and back to the studio in time to see Drake and his merry band recaptured and made to do sweaty press-ups over an electric floor as punishment.

"And here come the Belgians!"

As the clock counts down and the contestants are preparing for battle, Sarah races to find the key to stopping Junior and save humanity from death by crafty computer....

Claudio Cassinelli checks out the
official Fred Williamson night light.

His slash-tastic horror tendencies exhausted (for a short while at least) after the sleazy hate-fest that was The New York Ripper, Lucio Fulci decided to take time out from spooky scares and throat cutting (well, maybe not from throat cutting) to bring us this fantastically accurate prediction of the rise of reality teevee and corporate whoredom, never realising how prophetic the films concepts were to become.

His trademark visual style, surreal plotting and (sometimes over) use of extreme close-ups (usually of actors pulling what appear to be officially termed their 'sex faces') are all present and correct, adding a sense of the comfortable to the otherwise alienating futuristic feel of the film and Fulci's predilection for copious amounts of blood and violence firmly place the characters in the here and now for it seems that no matter how shiny and silver the future will become blood will always be deep red.

The cast with it's familiar Fulci regular faces and smooth, mini-skirted thighs (yes, that's you Eleonora Brigliadori) play their roles with a stoic, earnest conviction rarely seen outside the Hallmark Channels true life drama output whilst Fred Williamson, so obviously on autopilot whilst awaiting his delivery of malt beer and cigars, is still better than any number of similarly disinterested actors not named Fred Williamson tho' if I'm honest it's scary to see chisel jawed sex pest Al Cliver slowly morph into a puffy cheeked hamster during the duration of a movie.

Eleonora Brigliadori today,
just because I can.

Three years before Arnie became The Running Man, Jared Martin was The Biking Bully and Fulci was showing the world the future as would be.

Genius? Prophet? Mad man or just lucky?

Or a mix of all four?

YOU decide!