In the Earth (2021)
Folk Horror
Ben Wheatley has become a cult director in recent years with films like Kill List and High Rise. Here he conducts his own unique take on Folk Horror. A film shot during the Covid lockdown
Transcendental Journeys
Evangelion: 3.0+1.01 Thrice Upon a Time (2021)
Anime/Invasion by Vast Alien Machines
This was the fourth film in the Neon Genesis Evangelion reboot film series and concludes the saga. Rather than offering any answers or solution to the cryptic world we are in, this opts for a major letdown of a wrap-up
Attack of the Adult Babies (2017)
Gonzo Film
A heist film that ends up in a mansion filled with grown-men who have diaper fetishes. And then things get really bizarre. Some films are so wild and insane they attain cult status. And then there are the wannabes
Einstein’s God Model (2016)
Scientific Experiment in Contacting the Dead
A conceptually wild film about the use of a device that can contact the dead that winds in the use of Thomas Edison’s spirit phone, modern physics and multiverse theory in something uniquely different
Interstellar (2014)
Space Expedition
This could be Christopher Nolan’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. But where Kubrick was cold and oblique, this is a 2001 with a heart. A pleasure to see a film rooted in credible science and dealing with high concept SF
Spaceman (2024)
Astronaut Befriends an Alien
Adam Sandler plays a lone astronaut who befriends an alien. This falls somewhere between E.T. and Interstellar
Love (2011)
Astronaut Stranded Aboard the Space Station
Melancholy film that does some ambitious things on a low-budget about a lone astronaut stranded aboard the International Space Station after contact with Earth goes dead
Beyond the Black Rainbow (2010)
Sinister Institute/Mysterious Experiments
A homage to 1970s SF cinema, full of trippy journeys through transcendental space and white antisceptic corridors. In aiming for this look, the film also forgot a small thing like a plot or coherent explanation of what is happening
The Fountain (2006)
Mystical Quest for Immortality
Darren Aronofsky’s version of 2001: A Space Odyssey. A cryptic and baffling story that takes place in three different eras, all featuring the same actors. Aronofsky engages in much symbolic interplay but what is happening is a scratch of the head
Altered States (1980)
Drug Trips & The Meaning of Life/Reversion to Caveman
Ken Russell’s big studio-backed film about drug trips, the meaning of life and William Hurt reverting to a caveman is a glorious madcap and visually stunning work that reaches for the same cosmological grandeur that 2001: A Space Odyssey does
Star Trek – The Motion Picture (1979)
AI Encounter
Long-awaited revival of the tv series on the big screen. While this has a mixed fan reception, it is well worth re-evaluation. It is the only one of the Trek films that reaches for epic, mind-expanding places to find something of a 2001: A Space Odyssey
UFO: Target Earth (1974)
Investigation Into UFO Phenomena
Interest in UFO phenomena peaked in the 1970s with numerous books seriously studying it and twice as many crackpot ones. While there had been various flying saucers in 1950s alien invasion cinema, this obscure and rather dull oddity was the first fictional film investigating the phenomena
Zardoz (1974)
Barbarian Disrupts Utopia of Immortals
Most science-fiction films lack worthy ideas, this is one that contrarily suffers from too many and collapses under the weight of its pretensions to profundity
The Neptune Factor: An Undersea Odyssey (1973)
Submarine Adventure
Underwater adventure movie that tries to emulate 2001: A Space Odyssey, this has a bad movie reputation
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Stargate/Amok AI/Human Evolution/Space Mission
The greatest science-fiction film ever made? Stanley Kubrick goes against all convention – the film is slow, has no clear story and reaches an enigmatic ending and yet it is a work of brilliance, both visually and in terms of effects technology