Movie #43: Trancers

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100 Sci-Fi movies in 100 days!

Trancers (1984) is directed by Charles Band of Full Moon Productions fame (Puppet Master, Subspecies, etc...)
It stars Tim Thomerson and a young Helen Hunt.
Thomerson plays a cop/detective (Jack Deth) in a future Los Angeles that hunts down and eliminates "trancers." These are followers of a guy name Whistler who have been transformed by his hypnotic powers into zombie-like killing machines. These trancers look like normal people but have the ability to trance into these zombie powerhouses that can kick serious butt.

Jack and the "council" have almost rid the city of these zombies when their leader, Whistler, finds a way to go back in time to 1985 and raise a trancer army to hunt down and exterminate ancestors of Jack Deth and the council members so that in the future they will not exist and Whistler can take over the city.
The council sends Jack Deth back in time to stop Whistler from carrying out his plan. The way time travel works in this film is that you are sent "down the line," meaning that you are given a drug that sends your "essence" back in time to inhabit one of your ancestors. You end up in, and possess, their body the entire time you are down the line.

Jack inhabits one of his ancestors who is dating Leena (Helen Hunt) and has to convince her of who he is and what his mission is so that she will help. She thinks he's loony until her first encounter with a trancer which makes her a firm believer.
Jack locates ancestors of the council members and protects them as he brings the fight directly to Whistler and his zombies.

                                                          click on the box above to view the trailer.


I love the movie. It plays out like a film noir private detective flick. Complete with voiceovers from Jack Deth.
Check it out. It has become a cult film and spawned about 6 sequels. Full Moon Entertainment has a streaming subscription service where you can watch all the Trancer films. It's available online or through their Roku channel.
If you watch it let me know what you think.


- Patrick Shawn Bennett
broadcasting from the city of Angels, circa 1985.

Movie #42: Turbo Kid

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100 Sci-Fi movies in 100 days!

"Turbo Kid" (2015) is an awesome new "retro" movie that you would swear was made in the '80s. If nobody would tell you it was a new film and would sit you down and show it to you, you might think how did I miss this one in the '80s??
The film takes place in a post-apocalyptic future, 1997, and is about a kid (Munro Chambers) who loves comic books and takes on the persona of one of his favorite heroes, 'Turbo Racer." Calling himself "Turbo Kid," he sets out into the wasteland to save his girlfriend, Apple (Laurence Leboeuf,) from a tyrannical overlord (Michael Ironside.)

Turbo Kid and Apple, ready to take on the world.

click the box above to watch the "Turbo Kid" trailer

This film was so much fun! I watched it with a grin the whole time. It has lots of crazy characters and I would describe it as BMX BANDITS meets MAD MAX. It's so fresh to see such a great film like this done this well, chocked full of cheesy 80s violence and gore.

I've always enjoyed watching actor Michael Ironside perform. He was great as Ham Tyler in the 80s mini series "V," and in movies such as 'Scanners,' 'Total Recall,' 'Starship Troopers,' and 'Watchers.' He doesn't disappoint in "Turbo Kid" as Zeus, the overlord of the wasteland.

Zeus' right hand man is the deadly Skeletron (Edwin Wright) who uses a yoyo like circular saw blade that shoots out of a wrist cannon and cuts people in half. Lots of cool fight scenes with this guy.

I watched it on Netflix. Give this movie a try now! I'm sure you will appreciate what writers/directors  Francois Simard, Anouk Whissell and Yoann-Karl Whissell have done in creating this retro masterpiece.

- Patrick Shawn Bennett

Broadcasting from the 90s post-apocalyptic future

Movie #41: Slavegirls From Beyond Infinity

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100 Sci-Fi movies in 100 days!

"Slavegirls From Beyond Infinity (1987)" is a sleazy, cheesy sci-fi retelling of the classic "The Most Dangerous Game."
It is written and directed by Ken Dixon and stars Elizabeth Kaitan, Cindy Beal and Don Scribner. The story is about two ditzy blondes in bikinis who break out of a space prison and steal a spaceship only to crash land on a nearby planet where they are rescued by a host who at first seems very generous, but then it is discovered that he has a sinister game he likes to play where he turns his guests loose on the jungle planet and hunts them with a crossbow. 


     Click the box below to watch a short clip from the film. 
         I didn't include the trailer because it contains nudity.

Well, this time he picked the wrong bikini clad vixens to play his dangerous game!
Beautiful girls, robots, aliens, lasers, spaceships, and lots of cheese makes this an enjoyable flick. Well, for the guys anyway.

Bad acting, a horrible script, and cheesy costumes and effects adds to the watchability of this velveeta production. Another great film to watch at 2AM when you're so tired that you laugh at anything.




- Patrick Shawn Bennett
Broadcasting from the planet of half-naked slave girls!

Movie #40: Creepozoids

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100 Sci-Fi movies in 100 days!

"Creepozoids (1987)" is a super duper low-budget turd written & directed by David DeCoteau. It stars Linnea Quigley, Ken Abraham, and Michael Aranda. A quote I read online from one viewer stated "possibly the worst movie ever made." Well, I've seen plenty worse than this one. But this is pretty awful. But I'm the kind of guy who likes these uber cheesy low-budget dung piles of movies.
This movie is supposed to take place in the future (1998) where War War III had been over for 6 years and the nukes have reduced the world to rubble and a few bands of wandering survivors are all that's left on planet Earth. Well, one of these groups stumble upon an abandoned government research lab. They set up camp inside. Just as they start to feel safe for once, they are attacked by a leftover "experiment" from the lab. This film is a rip-off of the movie Alien. 

                 Click on the box above to view the trailer.

The rubbery creature costume resembles the Xenomorphs from the Alien franchise. It's hiding in the giant lab facility that has lots of rooms and a basement. One twist is that when the creature kills you... you come back as a zombie. Oh, and there are giant rats in the facility that a few people have to battle. 

The no-budget effects reduce the actors to wrestling with a stuffed animal. Seriously. It's that bad. There's even a mutant baby that comes out of a creature's stomach and attacks people. 

Looks like the used a plastic baby doll and had the actors wrestle with it too.

Creepozoids is no-budget '80s horror filmmaking at it's worst (or best if you're a fan of like me.) Watch it if you dare!

- Patrick Shawn Bennett
Broadcasting from the land of cheese.

Movie #39: Seed People

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100 Sci-Fi movies in 100 days!

"Seedpeople (1992)" is a super low-budget rip-off of the movie "Body Snatchers." It was written by Charles Band, owner of the low-budget movie cheese factory Full Moon Entertainment. He's the guy behind the Puppet Master franchise, Trancers, and Demonic Toys.
Anyhoo, it was directed by Peter Manooglan and stars Sam Hennings, Andrea Roth and Dane Witherspoon.




The plot: 
The citizens of Comet Valley are being taken over by seeds from an alien plant that has taken root there. A sheriff investigates the strange goings-on.

Click the box below to view the trailer.

A guy who studies meteors returns to Comet Valley and teams up with his ex-girlfriend to take down the town people who are no longer human. They are now crazy pod people aliens.

Why is this guy wearing a light bulb on his head? Well, pod people are allergic to ultraviolet light! This keeps them from controlling his mind and getting close to him.

The special effects on this film look like a group of 5th graders were in charge of it. The creatures were made of rubber and were sooooo fake looking. When they would chase you they would transform into tumbleweed looking balls and roll after you... sort of like on the movie Critters. This movie is over the top cheesy! It has bad effects, bad acting and a bad story. It's great to watch late on a saturday night while you're finishing off that leftover pizza. Check it out and let me know what you think.

- Patrick Shawn Bennett
Broadcasting from the land of seeds and pesticides.

Movie #38: Cyborg 2

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100 Sci-Fi movies in 100 days!

"Cyborg 2" is a 1993 straight-to-video followup to the Jean Claude Van Damme flick "Cyborg." It has very little to do with the original other than the title and a few seconds of video clips of Van Damme from the first film, shown on a monitor that characters are watching. But this one does star a very hot and sexy 18-year-old Angelina Jolie in her first feature film. 

Angelina Joli as the cyborg "Cash."

The film is directed by Michael Schroeder and stars Angelina Jolie as the Cyborg, Elias Koteas, Billy Drago, and Jack Palance.
The movie is set in the year 2074 and is about a company that is making hot sexy cyborgs who can charm and seduce their way into a relationship with politicians, presidents, heads of foreign countries... and self-detonate during sex with these individuals, killing them. 

The perfect assassins. But something goes wrong... one cyborg, Angelina Jolie, has fallen in love with a human and doesn't want to die. She flees with the human and is chased across the wasteland by a cyborg hunter, played by Billy Drago,  who the company hires to kill them.

                    Click on the box above to see the trailer

The movie has some great action scenes and fight choreography  and you can see why Angelina Jolie was destined to become a Hollywood A-list celebrity... She pulls you in with her charm and beauty. She is the best part of the film.

The whole plot and story are pretty cheesy as is a lot of the dialogue, but its still a fun movie to watch and I bet Angelina Jolie wishes she could erase it from her past. LOL. Check it out.

- Patrick Shawn Bennett
Broadcasting from the land of robot love...

Movie #37: Cloud Atlas

Welcome to Sci-Fi 100! 
100 Sci-Fi movies in 100 days!

"Cloud Atlas" is a new movie from the Wachowski brothers who brought us "The Matrix" trilogy. Two of the storylines in the movie are sci-fi. 
This film is stuffed with A-listers like Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugo Weaving, Hugh Grant and Susan Sarandon. What's amazing about this film is that each actor plays multiple roles. Tom Hanks and Halle Berry each played 6 different characters. The film tells 6 different tales spread out over various time periods from the past to the distant future and tells how our souls and actions all connect like ripples through time. 

         Click on the box above to watch the extended trailer.

The makeup is remarkable! Halle Berry even plays  a white woman in one of the stories and Hugo Weaving plays a woman nurse at a retirement home.  

The special effects in the sci-fi storylines are as good as it gets too. The movie has a little bit of something for everyone... drama, romance, action, fight scenes, mystery and sci-fi. The film jumps back in forth in time so that you see about 10 minutes of one story and it jumps to the next and then cycles back to the next 10 minutes of the first story. 

Its like watching 6 thirty minute stories in 3 hours but bouncing around back and forth between stories the whole time.
The movie was well shot, well acted, and the music, fx, and makeup were terrific. I enjoyed most of the stories but found myself somewhat bored with a couple of them. 

I think the film was too fluffy, preachy, and tied neatly with a bow in the end like a packaged deal... for my taste that is. I would rather have seen a full length movie set in the futuristic asian world that one of the stories was about.
Anyway, I enjoyed watching it once and it was fun just to spot all the different roles each actor played. 

Sometimes it was difficult to pick them out under the sometimes heavy fx makeup. Check it out for yourself and let me know you thoughts.

- Patrick Shawn Bennett
Broadcasting from within the cloud...