Re: Suggestions for quality non mainstream Sci Fi movies

On Jan 25, 11:24 am, The Space Telescopes <rob_mur...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
wrote:

> > > > Lifeforce (1981)
> I think lifeforce is a really difficult movie to sum up. I teetlers
> between being a classic, and then (almost on a scene by scene basis)
> it touches the "straight to video" status.

LIFEFORCE is a film you are never sure where it is going in the next
five minutes.  I thought the idea of film is just so off the wall.
The concept is an alien race is seeding the Earth with vampires to
release lifeforce that they can suck up.  As I think I say in the
article it is reminiscent of how we add bacteria to milk to have it
produce cheese.  The aliens' relation****p with the humans of Earth is
about like the cheesemaker's relation****p with a vat of milk.

> The bit in the lunatic asylum feels like a direct steal from
> Quatermass & the Pit.

Never thought of it that way.  You may be right.

> btw - have you had chance to see the original TV version of Q&tP? it
> is fantastic (in a slightly different way to the movie) but I'm not
> sure it had a US VHS release.

Sure.  I have been a Kneale fan for a long time.  They showed the
serial at the World Science Fiction convention in Brighton and Kneale
was right there to talk about it.  I think Val Guest was there also.
Later I had one of the first videotape copies in the US having made a
deal with a Canadian videostore that had it.  I like both versions.
Have you ever heard the episode of the Goon Show called "The Scarlet
Capsule."  The Goons do a real number on Quatermass and the Pit.
Kneale was a good s****t about it.

Other things you might be interested in is the biography of Kneale.  I
have it reviewed at
<http://www.geocities.com/markleeper/i2unknow.htm>

Also be aware the John Carpenter's PRINCE OF DARKNESS is another film
that was inspired by Quatermass and the Pit.  It takes another twist
on the idea that superstition is really a reaction to real phenomena
wrongly interpreted.  I won't say more, but it has a nifty idea.  Look
for someone wearing a t-****rt that says Kneale to acknowledge the
source.


[On director Guillermo del Toro]

> Well, I'm very keen to see what he does with Lovecraft and a big
> budget.

He is the one to do it.  I want to see it also.

> Trouble is, Pan's woefest may have pushed him out of the genre
> market

I am not sure what that refers to.  It would take a lot to discourage
him from making genre films.  Those are his big loves in life.  He
grew up with Twilight Zone and Outer Limits just like I did.

--Mark