Tag Archives: Science Fiction

Consumer (2023) [Chattanooga Film Festival 2024]

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So Long and Thanks for All the Dangerous Visions Shorts Block

I wish we could have gotten a longer format version of “Consumer,” as Matthew Fisher’s horror tale is ripe for feature film potential. “Consumer” watches like a segment from “Creepshow” even packing in a wonderful synthesized score by Bethany Farnsworth, respectively. I loved the low tech, mid-eighties revenge tale that director Fisher creates, as it’s old fashioned enough, but never feels dated, or dull.

It works well within its short run time and offers some scary ambiguity in the end.

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The Guyver (1991): Limited Collector’s Edition [4K UHD/Blu-ray/CD Soundtrack]

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Coming Soon from Unearthed Films.

Toshiki Takaya’s anime and manga are science fiction body horror martial arts chaos mixed in with a ton of concepts involving corporations, mutant aliens, and genetics. America saw “mutants” and ran with it in an effort to kind of build upon the winning formula of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.” In effect, 1991’s American adaptation of “The Guyver” takes the very gory original material and transforms it in to a silly, but absolutely fun love letter to Japanese culture and just horror in general. With the help of Screaming Mad George’s amazing special effects, director Steve Wang realizes a lot of concepts from the original source material that would have otherwise been utterly impossible in 1991.

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ClearMind (2024)

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Now Streaming on Amazon Prime Video and Tubi TV.

Aw hell, I’m always complaining about wanting to see something new and Rebecca Eskreis’ “ClearMind” is something new. It’s such a mixing of genres that it eventually comes out of the other end as this unusual amalgam that’s hard to peg down. I dare you to peg this in one hole. It’s a dramatic science fiction situation comedy about grief that follows a woman who uses virtual reality to become a slasher. There are shades of horror, and satire about new age medicine and the quackery of nonsense like Goop et al. It’s so far and away amorphous that it’s tough to hate it.

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Arena Wars (2024)

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Available on VOD June 25th from Gravitas Ventures.

While Edgar Wright and Glen Powell are currently in the process of crafting their remake of “Running Man,” Brandon Slagle jumps to the front of the line to get his hits in first. “Arena Wars” looks great and has a classic idea from the Stephen King novel. In fact, it’s pretty much just a small budget remake of the classic film with convicts, and a game show and psychos, etc. The problem with “Arena Wars” is that is it pretty much a ton of filler with only some semblance of narrative in sparse moments. If “Arena Wars” were a bag of chips it’d only have a small hand full of chips and a ton of smelly air puffing it up.

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Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024) [Blu-Ray/Digital HD]

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Now Available from Warner Home Entertainment.

After two whole months “Godzilla x Kong” is now available on physical media. Two whole months. Sixty days. 1,460 hours. I’m old enough to remember when it usually took eleven months for movies to be put on home video, but I digress. If you missed “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” after its theatrical run, it’s still a humdinger of a monster movie that is sadly Adam Wingard’s last outing in this monsterverse. It’s a fun note to exit on as I’m sure Warner and co. are planning to take the inevitable next chapter and use it as a chance for a soft reboot with Godzilla or Kong finding new challenges. Until then, there’s “The New Empire.”

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Dune: Part Two (2024) [4K UHD/Digital]

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Now Available from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment.

“Dune Part Two” is an infinitely superior film to the 2021 installment of “Dune” which, when all was said and done, felt more like a prologue than an actual narrative. While “Dune” was good, the second chapter to Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation feels so much more cohesive. Not to mention a lot of the concepts and ideas and so much less abstract and much easier to comprehend. There’s just so much more focus and laser beam direction this time out. While, again, “Dune” was good in its own right, I just had a much better time in how Villeneuve adopts the whole concept of “Dune” in the vein of “The Empire Strikes Back.”

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The Spider (2023)

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Andy Chen’s “The Spider” could be appreciated as a multiverse interpretation where the story of Spider-Man is not about a superhero but a body horror tragedy. “The Spider” is basically “Spider-Man” as told by David Cronenberg and takes all the basics of Peter Parker’s tale and transforms it in to a gruesome genre hybrid. With the excellent prosthetics and make up from Alen Stubbs, he and Chandler Riggs help to realize a slick and entertaining take on Spider-Man that is pitch black in tone.

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