Category: Review

  • KOSMOS AT THE BFI: SOVIET HISTORY THROUGH AN SF LENS

    KOSMOS AT THE BFI: SOVIET HISTORY THROUGH AN SF LENS

    It is a cliché to argue that science fiction is never about the future but always about the time in which it is made. Yet, as with many a cliché, there is often a nugget of truth beneath the grimy accumulation of lazy associations. So it was hard to watch the range of films that […]

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  • SCI FI LONDON 2011

    Includes reviews of Dinoshark (2010), Sharktopus (2010), One Hundred Mornings (2009), Zenith (2010), Gantz (2011) and Super (2010) [p5-6] I love B-movies. That’s why, while most of the rest of the country was sitting down to ogle the frocks and sigh at kisses on a balcony on royal wedding day, I was in a dark […]

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  • HOW TO LIVE SAFELY IN A SCIENCE FICTIONAL UNIVERSE

    HOW TO LIVE SAFELY IN A SCIENCE FICTIONAL UNIVERSE

    Don’t judge a book by its cover is sound advice. Even wiser words might be a warning that readers shouldn’t judge a book by the blurb a publisher puts on the cover. Even so, Audrey Niffenegger ‘s prominently displayed claim that Charles Yu’s first novel, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, was […]

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  • UFO: THE MOVIE

    UFO: THE MOVIE

    This issue we descend further into the pits of hell to bring Matrix readers the bad and the ugly in science ficton film. Join us as we reach a new level of terror and explore the tortured mind of troubled auteur Roy “Chubby” Brown through his seminal 1993 masterwork  U.F.O. The Movie.

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  • THE WICKSBORO INCIDENT

    THE WICKSBORO INCIDENT

    The Wicksboro Incident (2003) is “inspired” by The Blair Witch Project in much the same way that a drunk pissing his name in the snow is “inspired” by Picasso. And it is proof that low budgets don’t always mean smart film-making and better imagination. Watch it and see if you can guess which of the […]

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  • THE WAR GAME

    THE WAR GAME

    If the bomb had dropped in the early 1960s the English middle class would have been thoroughly inconvenienced — getting a decent cup of tea was going to be bloody hard if all the best china had been smashed for a start.

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  • THE SEVENTH SEAL

    THE SEVENTH SEAL

    1988’s The Seventh Sign is a film in the tradition of Rosemary’s Baby or The Omen, but, y’know, rubbish. No one who acted in this film has been heard of since 1995. Is it cursed?

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  • THE NIGHT CALLER FROM OUTER SPACE

    THE NIGHT CALLER FROM OUTER SPACE

    The Night Caller From Outer Space (1965) AKA Blood Beast From Outer Space proves that not just American girls are threatened by the lustful advances of alien beasts. Martin McGrath leaves humming the theme tune, over and over and over…

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  • THE MOUSE THAT ROARED

    THE MOUSE THAT ROARED

    If you are going to build an enormously destructive weapon, then please follow the rules laid out in The Mouse That Roared. Make it warble alarmingly when it moves, place an alarm clock inside it to scare people and make it small enough to throw around a papier-mâché dungeon.

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  • THE LOST WORLD

    THE LOST WORLD

    Adventure! Mysterious lands! Dinosaurs! Huge, impressive beards! The Lost World might be nearly 80 years old, but this movie has it all. It even has Arthur Conan Doyle. And he’s typing!

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