Mission Stardust (1967)

In space, but its full of cheese.

A mission to the moon soon runs in to trouble as the technology stops working. The astronauts led by Rhodan (Lang Jeffries) discover they are not alone. A race of super-advanced aliens (who oddly enough look just like us) are already on the moon. 

However, their leader Crest (John Karlsen) is dying but there is a medicine that can save him on Earth. Unfortunately, enemy agents and robots are out to make matters complicated...

An enjoyable science fiction film though the decent start does tail off and lose energy once the film returns to Earth. The film is full of cheese though and sexy space escapades with some interesting variations on the space exploration / alien encounter theme.

Enforcer from Death Row (1976)

A multi-national agency has lost their agents so needs a new man to sent in to Manila to fight a deadly gang, of course the obvious choice for this new recruit is a man on death row...

The execution of Young (Leo Fong) is faked and he is sent to the Philippines with a new identity. This identity seems blown pretty early on, though the film is pretty unclear as to what exactly is going on. Young has to battle a criminal gang led by Nomad including his ninjas (who are pretty inept) and his henchmen who enjoy torture maybe a little too much...

This is a pretty terrible film. Very disjointed and makes no sense what so ever. Cameron Mitchell gets top billing though only appears in one scene at the very end. The action is sometimes pretty good, though at other times comically bad. The film is certainly an experience!

Raiders of Ghost City (Serial) (1944)

An enjoyable American Civil War era Western serial, though with a war propaganda edge.

A gang of Confederate agents are stealing gold shipments bound for Washington. Government agent Steve Clark (Dennis Moore) is sent across to California to investigate, helped by Wells Fargo agent Idaho Jones (Joe Sawyer). 

In fact, the real mastermind behind the theft is Morel (Lionel Atwill) who isn't operating for the Confederacy after all but rather a group of Prussian spies...

A great serial with a good variety of cliff hangers including runaway train cars and burning sheds! The inclusion of Prussian spies was likely to give the serial a bit of a wartime propaganda edge but works well, Atwill and his accomplice Virginia Christine make an excellent pair of villains which gives the serial the bite the slightly bland heroes cannot.

The Speckled Band (1931)

An early Sherlock Holmes talkie.

Sherlock Holmes (Raymond Massey) helps a young heiress (Angela Badderley) after the death of her sister and growing menace from her brutal step-father Dr Rylott (Lyn Harding). One mystery is that the sister's last words were "speckled band"...

A good Sherlock Holmes adaptation which is only marred by the poor quality of production at times, especially the sound. Holmes and Watson (Athole Stewart) are very well portrayed here but also pretty different to the popular series of Holmes films starring Basil Rathbone which would come in a few years time.

Baby Ghost (1995)

An incredible piece of rubbish that somehow keeps your attention.

Hapless child photographer Winslow (Joe Estevez) ends up trapped in the high rise office building he works in by a strange little ghost, called a baby ghost but looks more like a little green lizard. 

Also trapped in the building is a tarot card reader (Erin O'Bryan) and a couple of members of staff. There are also a couple of useless thieves who have broken into the building.

A shoddy film which looks like it was shot on a budget of about 17 pence. Expect dodgy acting, awkward scenes which make little sense, padding which often reaches epic levels of boring and very rough special effects. Despite all the drawbacks this is a great watch, definitely in the so bad it's good camp.