sci-fi

A collection of 97 posts

Film

Elizabeth Harvest Review (Film, 2018)

Elizabeth Harvest is an ultra-modern sci-fi/horror about what’s hidden in a state of the art house. Elizabeth marries Harry, an incredibly intelligent and successful man. She moves into his beautiful, state of the art mansion with everything she could ever want. There is only one rule: Elizabeth can

Film

The Thaw Review (Film, 2009) The Archives

The Thaw is a global warming-tinged spin on The Thing. A group of students are invited up to an Arctic research center to study the effect of the melting icecaps on native polar bear populations. They discover an abandoned laboratory with no power and a quickly rotting polar bear corpse inside. Soon

Games

Barn Finders Review (PC Game, 2020)

Yes, Barn Finders is a hidden object/adventure/simulation/sci-fi game about finding and selling antiques. You visit various locations for the price of gas, hunting down specific objects requested by clients over email. Occasionally you have to compete with other sellers at auctions, bidding within y

Film

Child's Play Review (Film, 2019)

The Child’s Play remake tries to be a little bit of everything. It’s social commentary on conglomerates and the necessity of interconnected technology in our lives. It’s a heartwarming (at times) story of a boy and his mom trying to get a fresh start in a new city. It’s an evil doll film with an amb

Film

Anon Review (Film, 2018)

In the near future, privacy no longer exists. Everyone’s memories are public record as every detail of a life is accessible like a computer. Police can play back footage to see what really happened at a crime site. A woman convinced of her partner’s infidelity can request access to whatever her part

Film

The iMom Review (Short Film, 2016)

“The iMom” is a satirical horror/sci-fi short by writer/director Ariel Martin. It opens with an infomercial advertising the benefits of a a digital mother surrogate (including actual footage of one of the increasingly realistic androids being developed in laboratories) before shifting to an overtaxe

Film

Our House Review (Film, 2018)

Ethan believes he has invented a device that can provide wireless electricity. After a failed test run at the college campus and a tragic loss in his family, Ethan discovers that his invention has an alternate purpose. This wireless electricity generator actually creates a portal between the world o

Film

10 Cloverfield Lane Review (Film, 2016) The Archives

10 Cloverfield Lane is the giant monster attack/apocalypse horror film we deserved when the original Cloverfield came out in 2008. That film was an ambitious but messy shakycam disaster film with the bones of a good intimate horror/survival film trapped inside.

Film

Mandy Review (Film, 2018)

Mandy is a lot. This is a horror/sci-fi/revenge film defined by excess on every level. It is something wholly unique in the world of modern cinema.

Film

The Platform Review (Film, 2020)

In The Platform, Goreng wakes up in a vertical prison. Each floor has two inmates and a giant hole in the floor and the ceiling. Once a day, a platform descends and stops on each floor for the prisoners to eat for two minutes. However, the food is only loaded in at the top of the prison tower. After

Film

See You Yesterday Review (Film, 2019)

See You Yesterday is a response to police brutality against people of color in America. It’s a time travel adventure story about trying to right society’s wrongs no matter what the cost. It’s a tribute to the optimism of youth and a critique of how often society pushes the next generation to solve p

Books/Print

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood Review (Novel, 2019)

The Testaments, the long-awaited but never-expected sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, is an intentionally problematic text. Atwood is expanding the world of Gilead with three very different perspectives from the powerless Offred in the original novel. The three characters tell their own stories of what

Film

The Best Movie Musicals of the Decade (2010-2019)

The criteria for the list is rather simple. A great musical has to have a great song score. The singing has to be good. The songs have to service the story and the story needs to hit the emotional heights necessary to justify a song. And, most importantly, the film must have released between 2010 an

Games

Call of Cthulhu Review (Game, 2018)

Call of Cthulhu is an adventure game with RPG elements based on the Call of Cthulhu tabletop RPG from Chaosium Inc. The Call of Cthulhu universe is inspired by the work of HP Lovecraft, one of the most influential and problematic weird fiction authors of all time. He created this vast universe of mo

Film

The Predator Review (Film, 2018)

Does a B-movie celebrating its status as a B-movie forgive it from embracing problematic elements of B-movie history long after we stopped accepting these harmful tropes? That’s a hard question to answer. There are films that wield those tropes as a weapon against a history of microaggressions and a

Film

World of Tomorrow 2: The Burden of Other People's Thoughts Review (Short Film, 2017)

"World of Tomorrow 2: The Burden of Other People's Thoughts" is a sequel to the 2015 Academy Award-nominated animated short "World of Tomorrow" by Don Hertzfeldt. It is a continuation of the story, as much as you can consider "World of Tomorrow" as having a story. Emily, the young girl visited by a

Film

Tau Review (Film, 2018)

Cinema has an obsession with exploring artificial intelligence. It's almost innate to the medium. We're talking about a history that goes all the way back to Metropolis in 1927. The trend really took off in the wake of 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968, but the tropes of the trend were already pretty we

Film

Midnight Special Review (Film, 2016)

There's a recurring theme in my writing about genre cinema and I stand by it again and again. I would rather see an ambitious film try something new and come up a bit short than a more traditional film not do anything interesting at all. No one can

Film

Let's Be Evil Review (Film, 2016)

I have a soft spot in my heart for school horror films. Maybe it's my proximity to education (working in educational theater for over a decade now, subbing in schools, getting my certification in order) but the subgenre offers a very twisted, socially conscious nightmare consistently. Let'

Games

Coming Soon: Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy Game by Telltale

This is not a drill. Telltale Games, creators of The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, and other fine adaptations of popular nerdy entertainment, have officially announced their adaptation of Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy. The game will be in the adventure style you've come to love

Film

The Lobster Review (Film, 2016)

Writer/director Yorgos Lanthimos is an artist obsessed with the perception of identity. From the bizarre maturation rules and language conceit of Dogtooth to the sad and satirical impersonation of the recently deceased in Alps, Lanthimos deals with the deconstruction of societal standards through the lack of individuality in scripted

Film

Horror Thursday: The iMom #52FilmsbyWomen

I'm trying to get back into more consistent writing again. It's hard with my rehearsal schedule right now. Here's the first new Horror Thursday entry in over a month. I did some digging around and found this fascinating horror/sci-fi short from writer/director

Reviews

Thoughts on 11/22/63 (TV Series, 2016)

I have a long history of commentary on Stephen King. It boils down to this: his long form work is totally hit or miss with me. I think he works best with the restraint of short stories, but that restraint is lost once he reaches novella length. He has wonderful

Film

Advantageous Review (Film, 2015) #52FilmsByWomen

In the near future, women are being pushed from the workforce again. Financial collapse raises the cost of everything and makes employment scarce. Men are hired for every position possible to keep them off the streets and prevent violent crimes. Gwen, one of the most accomplished people in the plastic

Reviews

Assassination Classroom and The Power of the Right Teacher

I will admit that Assassination Classroom has a very odd concept; it's part of what drew me to the anime sci-fi/comedy series. Basically, a giant yellow blob with tentacles will destroy the earth by the end of the semester if the students in the classroom he chose