Reviews
Comics – Novels – Podio Books

First, let me explain what the Legion I defined as “Science Fiction/Horror Films.” I think of Sci-Fi/Horror as those movies that are science fiction movies first, but find a way scare the $h!T out of you before it’s over.  Ever since we started this podcast I wanted to do a Top 5 list on this very topic.  We didn’t start the Top 5 lists on the podcast until after Halloween last year, so I was very patient and waited to do this Top 5 list until Halloween 2009.  It simply seemed like the most appropriate time to podcast it. I asked the gang to give me the best movies that they felt mixed science fiction with a horror twist.  This included space horror films like Alien, Pitch Black, and Saturn 3, but also films such as The Fly and Altered States. These last two movies really explore the horror of people changing in unnatural ways. I told the guys to pick whatever they wanted as long as they could justify their picks as being a true mix of science fiction and horror. As we discovered there is a real diversity of films that have successfully mixed these two genres and I think we did a good job of covering the best of the best. Here is the Top 5 list:

The Top 5 Picks

1. Alien
2. The Thing
3. Event Horizon
4. The Fly
5. Aliens

This list really isn’t very different from many lists that you might find if you Google the phrase, “Science Fiction Horror Movies.” However, I believe the movies we listed during our fairly long podcast discussion gave an extensive and comprehensive list of movies including such gems as 28 Days Later, Cloverfield, and The Mist. We listed several lesser known films like Tetsuo and Re-Animator too.  So, if you enjoy a good horror flix, then give this Legion of Lethargic Super-Geeks Top 5 podcast episode 65 a listen. Tell us if you think we left any really good films unmentioned (and Jason X doesn’t count as a good film…period).  And if there were any movies you haven’t seen or heard of before then check them out.

Next post, I’ll be reviewing a series of military sci-fi books I’ve been reading lately, including Robert A. Heinlein’s classic Starship Troopers.

I saw Pandorum a couple of weeks ago during its opening weekend.  There had been a lot of hype about this movie traveling around the web over the past several months, so I was excited to finally see it and I wasn’t disappointed.  While Pandorum is in no way a ground-breaking movie, it was still a lot of fun and felt like it had learned from prior flixs in the genre.  Beth Accomando, from KPBS, really nailed it when she said that Pandorum is Alien meets The Descent.

***Spoiler Alert***

The story opens like so many other space-horror flixs have in the past with the primary protagonist waking up out of some sort of hyper-sleep. Some examples of other movies that have used this exact opening are Alien and Pitch Black.  The kicker here is that Pandorum is psychological condition a person who has been in hyper-sleep can enter soon after waking up. The way I understood it, some individuals are driven into this homicidal state by the long-term sleep.

The short short version of the story is that Ben Foster’s character, Bower, wakes up and has no memory of where, who, or what he is doing (an effect of the hyper-sleep). His commanding officer, played by Dennis Quaid, wakes up after Bower and they quickly figure out they need to stabilize the ships power supply. As the movie moves along Bower discovered more and more about what has actually been going on over the past several months on board the ship by discovering large hoards of mutants, running into several human survivors, and having the occasional flashback.  The small band of survivors attempt to get the ship fixed, so they can eventually make it to their destination. Like I mentioned before it’s a pretty straight forward plot (and in no way original), but the execution was good. However, I thought that towards the end the plot got a little strange and felt a little forced. I can say that I didn’t see the final scene coming, so that was a big plus for me.

Unfortunately, the movie has not done well at the box office and has met some mixed reviews.  I think this is unfortunate because I really enjoy this type of movie and seeing a decent one fail this badly (so far it has lost about $30,000,000) means we probably won’t be seeing many more any time in the near future or they will not be given a large enough budget to make them visually exciting.

I’m giving Pandorum three and 1/2 out of five stars.  *** 1/2

Next post, I’ll be commenting on the Legion’s Top 5 list of science fiction/horror movies.  The actual Top 5 list will be podcast as Episode 65 of The Legion of Lethargic Super-Geeks later this week.