Alien Overlords, Part II

Alien Overlords, Part II


Inseminoid (Jupiter Film Productions, 1981) and Alien: Reign of Man (Pikchure Zero Entertainment, 2017)

This is Part II of a new, 20-film marathon. The rules:

Must include aliens
Cannot take place on Earth
I haven’t seen it before
Free to stream

Inseminoid (1981) Prime

Aliens? Bug-eyed baby gravy donor, murderous spawn.

CGI heavy? Nope.

Any good? Released overseas as Horror Planet, this British film is just another of the Alien rip-offs that dominated video store shelves in the early 80s. Made for one million great British pounds, they saved about 50 quid by tacking a lengthy bit of narrated exposition to the beginning explaining how the fodder were on the planet, clumsily unearthing archeological bits and bobs. Judy (Space 1999) Geeson as the unfortunate mum is excellent and things get bloody very quickly.

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A to Z Review: “After the Sky Fell,” by Rob Vagle

A to Z Review: “After the Sky Fell,” by Rob Vagle

A to Z ReviewsRob Vagle’s “After the Sky Fell” is set in a small bar in Carman, Minnesota run by Marv, who is in love with one of his waitresses, Rose. Rose works in the bar in between trips to explore the variety of places on earth: Alaska, South America, anywhere that isn’t the small town in which she and Marv live. Fortunately for Marv, Rose reciprocates his love, even if she has more of a sense of adventure than he has and can’t be contained in the world he knows.

Reflecting on their relationship, Marv realizes that he needs to move outside his comfort zone and considers selling the bar in order to travel with Rose to wherever she wants to go rather than trying to corral her in the familiar and safe confines of his bar. For Marv, the bar is a comfortable place, his home. He knows his regulars, he enjoys serving the college students who play pool, but he also realizes that he must change and push his own comfort levels if we wants to maintain and expand his relationship with Rose.

Things change when Tiffany, another one of Marv’s employees, informs Marv that there are blue rain drops falling outside.  Going outside, Marv, Rose, and the rest of his customers see a world in which the firmament has fallen to earth, appearing like a large skyblue lake stretching across the bar’s parking lot.  While the falling sky is incredible and eye catching, when they looked up, they could see the mechanism of the universe, clockwork gears, moving in their inexorable motion.

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Goth Chick News: My Weekend at “The Overlook” Hotel

Goth Chick News: My Weekend at “The Overlook” Hotel

I have always loved The Shining.

Granted, I saw the movie first and fell in love. It was the idea of a hotel that comes to life in the desolate isolation of winter, preying on a fragile family unit – a father who was white-knuckling sobriety and dealing with the humiliation of a big comedown in his career, a codependent mother with a tattered self-esteem after years on the receiving end of spousal abuse, and a little boy coping with his dysfunctional parents as well as a supernatural talent. Cutting these three people off from the rest of the world would be a recipe for disaster of the kind that could unfortunately show up in any headline anywhere. But add in the terrors that lurk in the Overlook hotel?

For me, what’s not to love?

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G.W. Thomas on Science Fiction of the 30s by Damon Knight

G.W. Thomas on Science Fiction of the 30s by Damon Knight

Conan the Barbarian: Archie Style! From Everything Archie
#111 (May 1984). Art by Stan Goldberg and Larry Lapick.

G.W. Thomas has gradually become my favorite genre blogger. Not just because of his constant stream of content — he posts every two days at Dark Worlds Quarterly, and has been doing so for nearly a decade — but because of his endlessly zany topics. In the past few months he’s covered Haunted Houses in 50s comics, the Top Ten Ghostbreakers from Weird Tales, Werewolves of EC Comics, Space Heroes of the Golden Age, Fearless Vampire Killers of the pulps, Top Ten Fantasy Fight Scenes from 1980-1985 sword & sorcery flicks, Plant Monsters, Conan in Archie Comics, and so, so much more. For pulp and comic enthusiasts of a Certain Age, G.W. has tapped a nostalgic mother lode.

He also delves pretty deep into more serious topics of real interest, like that time he wrote a one-sentence review of every story in Damon Knight’s classic anthology Science Fiction of the 30s, complete with the original pulp illustrations.

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Chess in Sword & Planet Fiction, Part II: Dray Prescot and Gor

Chess in Sword & Planet Fiction, Part II: Dray Prescot and Gor


Dray Prescot 20: A Sword for Kregen (DAW, August 1979) and Players of Gor
(DAW Books, March 1984). Covers by Richard Hescox and Ken Kelly

My second exposure to Sword & Planet chess came in one of my favorite Sword & Planet books, which I’ve mentioned in this series already a couple of times. This was A Sword for Kregen, by Alan Burt Akers (aka Ken Bulmer). In this book, Dray Prescot, our earthman hero, becomes a living Jikaida piece in a battle to the death.

Jikaida is war game similar to chess, although considerably more complicated. There are several different variations played across the world of Kregen. It’s usually played on a board of much more than 100 squares of either black and white or blue and yellow. There are typically 36 pieces to a side, arranged in three ranks. I never tried to play Jikaida, though the rules are available. Here’s a link to an online description of the game.

John Norman also introduced an S&P version of chess in his Gor series. He called it Kaissa, which is clearly a nod to the Goddess of chess — Caissa — who first appeared in a 1527 poem by Hieronymus Vida telling the story of a chess game between the Gods Apollo and Mercury.

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What I’ve Been Watching: October 2024

What I’ve Been Watching: October 2024

Wow. It’s been a year since I did a What I’ve Been Watching. I did do those two Ten Things I Think I Think, covering Marvel movies, but that’s it. So, let’s talk about a few things I liked.

WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS

Our own Goth Chick has talked about this show a couple times – including here.

This is a vampire show, running on FX. Based on a previous movie (which had a different cast). Its about a group of four vampires who live in NYC. They originally came to the New World to take over, but got sidetracked over the years. This show is both wrong, and hilariously funny. Season six is currently running, and will bring the episode total up to sixty-one.

Nandor the Destroyer is in charge, and he’s more the classic Transylvanian-style vampire. I LOVE Matt Berry in The IT Crowd (he reunites with Richard Ayoade in voicing Krapoplois), Year of the Rabbit, and Toast of London. He’s probably my favorite British actor. He makes me laugh as Laszlo. Nadja is his fellow-vampire girlfriend and equal to the two men. They all ‘look like’ vampires. Colin Robinson is an energy vampire – he feeds on negative energy and exhaustion, not blood. It’s a fantastic bit, as we’ve all unknowingly worked with energy vampires in the past. Nandor also has a nerdy little vampire-wannabe apprentice, Guillermo

They’re likable vampires, though they certainly have no compunction in killing humans. There are laughs every episode, and the dynamics of the household shift. Guillermo’s longing to be a vampire is amusing and a little sad. And it owned me when Nandor, trying to explain the origin of the Universe, had a drawing of three elephants standing on the back of a great turtle. If you don’t get that reference, we can still be friends, but you REALLY need to read some Terry Pratchett!

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EC Comics is back

EC Comics is back


Cruel Universe #1 and Epitaphs from the Abyss #1. Covers by Greg Smallwood and Andrea Sorrentino

EC Comics is back. In cooperation with Oni Press, the classic imprint that brought us Tales from the Crypt, The Haunt of Fear, Weird Science, Weird Fantasy, and other titles is back. The two new titles are called Cruel Universe and Epitaphs from the Abyss.

Cruel Universe #1 features four stories, “The Champion,” “Solid Shift,” “Drink Up,” and “Priceless.” The stories are each written and illustrated by a different team, and each has something exciting and different to offer.

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Alien Overlords, Part I

Alien Overlords, Part I


Battle in Space: The Armada Attacks (Allied Vaughn, 2021), Creature (Trans World
Entertainment, 1985), and Femalien: Cosmic Crush (Full Moon Pictures, 2020)

A new, 20-film marathon. The rules:

Must include aliens
Cannot take place on Earth
I haven’t seen it before
Free to stream

Battle in Space: The Armada Attacks (2021) Prime

Aliens? A couple of decent, bipedal bullies.

CGI heavy? Fairly — some decent, some not so decent.

Any good? I got tricked. Going by the title and poster, you would expect this to be a fun romp about a band of plucky rebels fighting against an evil alien empire, right? Wrong.

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A to Z Reviews: “Zip,” by Steven Utley

A to Z Reviews: “Zip,” by Steven Utley

A to Z Reviews

“Zip” was one of the last short stories Steven Utley published during his lifetime, appearing in the July 2012 issue of Asimov’s. It is a story of three time travelers who find themselves in the Pleistocene Era and come upon a situation they had not planned for. As they emerge from their time machine, they see the expected megafauna and humans, but within moments, a blurring occurs on the horizon and the world seem to be torn asunder, those creatures in the distance ceasing to exist.

Surmising that their arrival in the time machine is causing the destruction, the men return to their machine and travel further into the past, arguing about whether they caused the destruction and how to stop it, if they can, or whether they can return to their own time, if it still exists.

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Goth Chick News: 13 Questions for Filmmaker Jake Jarvi

Goth Chick News: 13 Questions for Filmmaker Jake Jarvi

If you check in here often, you know the only thing we love more than a blended adult beverage is an independent film. This one, entitled Haunt Season, came to me by way of the local paper and combines a whole lot of my favorite things: haunted attractions, Halloween, and horror, with the added bonus of being a very local endeavor.

To get you warmed up, check out the trailer…

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