Infra-Man (1975)

Incredible sci-fi kung fu mayhem. The Earth comes under attack from an army of monsters led by Princess Dragon Mum (Terry Liu) who wants to rule the world and make mankind her slaves. Normal weapons (well fists and pistols anyway) are useless against the monsters, however at a secret science base led by the Professor (Hsieh Wang) he converts Rayma (Danny Lee) into Inframan.

Inframan is a bio-electronical marvel who is powered by the sun (although still seems to be able to fight in the dark). He manages to turn the tide of the fight against the Princess and her army. However the Princess isn't finished yet and has plenty of diabolical plans...

Many highly entertaining fights involving people in rubber suits follow. The film is remarkable cheese though plot wise is a bit basic (not that that really matters too much in this kind of film). The film includes many strange scenes to enjoy, one of the best being the scene after the Professor is captured by the monsters and is taken to their lair in a speed boat, flanked by two rubber suited monsters!

Invasion of the Animal People (1959)

A Swedish cheesy alien invasion film, but made pretty incomprehensible by a badly executed American edit. John Carradine narrates the tale of an alien invasion, the aliens of course are after Earth women in the shape of Diane (Barbara Wilson). A group of scientists led by Engstrom (Stan Gester) investigate a meteor and some strange happenings in the frozen wastes of Northern Sweden (which the American edit seems to want to place in Switzerland - even though Lapland is mentioned a lot!)

The meteor turns out to be a spaceship, an alien monster destroys the scientists' plane and threatens a geologist and his ice skating girlfriend...

The Swedish original was a reasonable if not incredibly original science-fiction film but the American edit seems to take most of the sense out of it. A curious film with some truly laughable special effects (of course).

Ghosts on the Loose (1943)

Low wattage mirth and spookiness. The East Side Boys (an ensemble of characters who appeared in many a film in the 1940s) are decorating a house after one of the Boy's sister (Ava Gardner) gets married.

Naturally there is a mix-up and they enter the wrong house... one that is being used by Nazi spies led by Bela Lugosi. The spies want to get rid of the Boys and so play at spooks with various hidden trapdoors and panels behind pictures...

When we get onto the actual spookiness the film is fairly good though not very original. The earlier wedding segment does drag a bit with various gags which are stretched a bit thin. Luckily the film stays modest. Its a passable time waster but not much more.

Bar-Z Bad Men (1937)

A decent if not unexceptional B Western with some twists. Jim (Johnny Mack Brown) arrives at a ranch he is a new partner in. However before very long his partner Ed (Jack Rockwell) is shot in an ambush and his ranch's herd is larger than it should be. A neighbouring ranch owner, Hamp (Frank La Rue) has accused Ed of rustling.

Jim thus has to find out what is really going on. Hamp's foreman Brent (Dick Curtis) is behind the reverse rustling to further the nefarious schemes of townsman Sig Bostell (Tom London) to get hold of Ed's land...

So fairly a standard Western ranch war tale, despite the reverse rustling twist the story line is pretty straight forward. Jim defeats the baddies with some decent fighting (though as usual with these Westerns everyone seems to need about 20 shots to make one hit!) and horsemanship. Hemp's daughter Lois (Lois January) plays the love interest for Jim, will he get the girl in the end? There are no surprises there either!

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964)

A very strange film, apparently a Christmas tale though it spends quite a lot of time displaying nuclear missiles and bombers! Martian children are watching Santa Claus on Earth TV and are sad that they have no toys and joy, no Christmas! The leader of the Martians, Kimar (Leonard Hicks) decides to go to Earth. However, for a change the Martians are not bent on destroying the world or stealing our women... no, instead they want Santa Claus!

The Martians manage to kidnap the real Santa (John Call) and two children (Victor Stiles and Betty Conforti) and take them to Mars. Santa manages to defeat the Martians and bring Christmas to Martian children! Hooray!

Obviously very silly, and not a little trippy. It is also pretty low budget though that adds to the fun, the Martians are all in green and have antennae growing out of their heads of course! The special effects are fairly cheap (though better than some serious science fiction films). The man in the polar bear suit is hilarious.