Galaxina (1980)

A campy science-fiction comedy that unfortunately isn't that funny.

A police space cruiser captained by Captain Butt (Avery Schreiber) - the name features in a number of jokes, as does Uranus, thats the level of humour here - is sent into deep space to discover a jewel called the Blue Star which contains unimaginable power. 

His crew are mostly misfits except for gorgeous android Galaxina (Dorothy Stratten) who basically runs the ship. Indeed the rest of the crew seem more interested in getting stoned and getting their legs over with either alien prostitutes with three breasts or Galaxian herself...

The film meanders along fairly amicably, the weirdness keeps you interested. In some ways this film reminds me of Dark Star, though this film is no where near as good or funny. It needed to be a bit more subtle. 

It's watchable, pretty ridiculous but could have been so much more.

Take an Easy Ride (1976)

What starts out as what appears to be a public information film on the dangers of hitch hiking soon becomes something much much darker indeed...

A number of stories of young girls hitch hiking are intertwined, the most notable being the one with Margaret Heald and Helen Bernat who want to go to a pop festival. Unfortunately, they accept a lift from a leather glove wearing porn obsessed pervert who ends up taking them into the woods and brutally raping them. Another hitch hiker accepts a lift from a posh couple in an expensive car and ends up becoming their drugged up sex toy in a hotel...

The abruptness of the film from interviewing foreign students to savage sex crimes is nearly as shocking as the actual crimes. It is grubby, exploitative though for a nostalgic look at the roads, cars and music of the 1970s it surely scores. But you'll probably feel like you need a wash afterwards.

The Night the World Exploded (1957)

Low budget though not low interest science fiction.

Dr Conway (William Leslie) has developed a machine that can predict earthquakes. Unfortunately he has predicted that an earthquake is about to hit California in the next twenty four hours and even more unfortunately his machine appears to work when a quake does hit!

Conway's machine detects more imminent earthquakes but doesn't know what is causing these quakes. With his assistant Laura (Kathryn Grant), he descends into a cavern to see if he can discover the cause. He discovers a dangerous new element which could destroy the world in days...

This is a bit of a pedestrian film that takes a while to get going but ultimately is worth persevering with. An fairly intelligent science-fiction plot (for the period especially) and good use of stock footage overcomes the shortcomings with the budget. A reasonable little film.

Attack of the Super Monsters (1982)

These arn't just any old monsters, these are super monsters!

Evil Lord Tyrannos leads the Dinosaurs back to the surface of the Earth, having been living deep underground in secret all these years. He unleashes his monsters and waves of terrestrial mammals mutated by his evil powers on Earth to destroy mankind. He starts with a wave of red dogs. The only thing that can save humanity is, of course, four teenagers! Two of which have the Gemini power which means they merge using cyber power to become a super flying machine with drills.

You might have guessed by now that this is Japanese. The monsters are played by guys in rubber suits, destroyed cardboard buildings. The rest of the footage is anime and it can be a bit jarring at times switching between the two.

This film is made up of four episodes of a TV series (Dinosaur War Izenborg), each episode following the same formula so we get quite a bit of repetition. It is great fun though doesn't make a lot of sense, Tyrannos sounds terrific, though he it does seem like he needs something for his sore throat.

The Mole People (1956)

Although not executed that well this film has a brilliant premise. 

A team of archaeologists in Mesopotamia (we can guess, the film just describes it as "Asia" which doesn't really narrow things down much) discover some ancient writings near the top of a mountain. Dr Bentley (John Agar) and his buddies are trapped under a glacier after an earthquake and discover a lost Sumerian civilisation which has existed underground for the last five thousand years!

The Sumerians exist on mushrooms and enslave savage reptilian like creatures. They also have a harsh and deadly regime where surplus population are sacrificed to Ishtar. Bentley poses as a herald of Ishtar and has a crush on slave girl Adad (Cynthia Patrick). Meanwhile, the high priest (Alan Napier) is suspicious of Bentley and plans to get rid of him...

Although a fairly basic film in many ways i loved the idea of this film, being a historian myself (even if their "Sumerian" script is actually Egyptian hieroglyphs at times not cuneiform!) Lost worlds are always fun, more than the real world indeed.