Author Archive: Retro

A large hairy monster from outer space attacks.

Unusual sci-fi invasion film, with a black-comedy twist: The Earth is taken over by The Monitors, aliens who run it like hall monitors in a 1950’s high school, with overtones of Big Brother. The film follows the progress of the human underground rebellion. The twist is that as the film goes on, the audience’s sympathies shift to the aliens, who are basically benevolent. When the humans manage to oust them, it’s back to corruption and bribery by the usual suspects.

Four individuals from outer space have the ability to change form and disrupt radio transmissions and magnetic fields. Their powers threaten earth’s governments and seem to be derived from an unusual accident on one of the moons of Uranus. Dir. V. Karpichhyov, Andrei Yermash

When a narcotics deal goes sour and a suspect disappears, leaving only his clothes, Tokyo police question his wife and stake out the nightclub where she works. His disappearance stumps the police – until a young scientist appears who claims that H-Bomb tests in the Pacific, evidenced by a “ghost ship” that has turned up in the harbor, have created radioactive creatures – “H-Men” – who ooze like slime and dissolve anyone they touch.

An insurance investigator finds there’s more to electronic dream therapy than meets the eye.

The community of Santa Monica is plagued by a serial killer…or could it just be an invisible alien acting in self defense? Well-produced sci-fi with some cool effects for its time. Dir. W. Lee Wilder

A group of citizens tries to prove the U.S. is concealing a crashed flying saucer. They get results!

Assembled by the same production team responsible for the minor sci-fi classic Rocketship X-M, Unknown World isn’t quite in the same league as its predecessor. The plot is set in motion by Dr. Jeremiah Morley (Victor Kilian), who theorizes that mankind could save itself during a nuclear attack by resettling far beneath the earth’s surface. To prove his theory, Morley builds the Cyclotram, a combination drill and exploratory vehicle, with the financial assistance of playboy Wright Thompson (Bruce Kellogg), who insists upon joining the expedition to the earth’s core. After several hair-raising adventures, the Cyclotram and its surviving passengers reach a cavern nearly 2000 miles beneath the surface. The cavern contains all the necessities of survival save one: the atmosphere renders anyone living within its walls sterile. Deciding that it isn’t worth hiding in the center of the earth if only one generation will survive, the explorers endeavor to get back to the surface — [...]

A professor invents a radium tube that makes internal combustion engines stop running. He and his invention are captured by a gang of robbers. A federal agent is sent to rescue him.