FUTURE ZONE - FULL SCI FI MOVIES
January 14, 2019 2:07 PM   Subscribe

FUTURE ZONE is a YouTube channel devoted to full length science fiction movies, many of which are Italian - but not all, I think. Of course there is

Several are movies that appeared on MST3K or RIFFTRAX - R.O.T.O.R., Revenge of Dr. X, Killer Shrews, Amazing Transparent Man, Night of the Blood Beast, etc. But others were completely new to me.

I am a bit embarrassed by how much I enjoyed watching Escape from Galaxy 3, which played out like a lost episode of season 2 of Space:1999. I also enjoyed War of the Robots. But look around - I'm sure you'll find something on interest.
And - if you recommend any of these movies that I have not mentioned, please share with your fellow MeFites.
posted by wittgenstein (12 comments total) 44 users marked this as a favorite
 
Of course there is a typo. That should be "something of interest."
posted by wittgenstein at 2:16 PM on January 14, 2019 [1 favorite]


That should be "something of interest."

Dammit. I was doing some research on the history of banking and I really wanted something on interest.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 4:31 PM on January 14, 2019 [1 favorite]


WAR OF THE ROBOTS has been shown at MST Club! BTW, if this is your way of suggesting that we show some of these there, I think we can happily oblige you....
posted by JHarris at 5:34 PM on January 14, 2019 [1 favorite]


The latest film on that channel, Hands of Steel, is extremely enjoyable. Featuring: our cyborg hero, the dopey hunk love interest from Elvira: Mistress of the Dark; our villain, the least charismatic of the three guys from Enter the Dragon; and our douchebag rival, George Eastman, whom you will recognize from every bad Italian movie and is not the Kodak guy you're thinking of. You know it's the bleak post-apocalyptic future because the posters on the walls say YOU HAVE NO FUTURE. Remember acid rain? Hands of Steel remembers, until it dispenses with all the environmentalist themes and turns into Over the Top.
posted by hyperbolic at 5:49 PM on January 14, 2019 [2 favorites]


R.O.T.O.R’s weird obsession with “lasso dynamite” would almost be charming if the film weren’t so utterly dull.
posted by Artw at 7:23 PM on January 14, 2019 [1 favorite]


This is amazing
posted by thegirlwiththehat at 1:18 AM on January 15, 2019


This is a fantastic collection, thank you
posted by Think_Long at 5:46 AM on January 15, 2019


Man, there's nothing like Italian SF for that moltissimo-cheesy, hard-to-pin-down-the-era, no-budget-no-coherent-plot, lots-of-artfully-smudged-people-in-vests aesthetic. Yor, the Hunter from the Future is Italo-SF, and so is Starcrash(previously on the blue, and the MST3K on FanFare).
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:36 AM on January 15, 2019 [2 favorites]


I was hoping for my childhood favorite, Terrore Nello Spazio, a piece of moody Mario Bava sci-fi so gorgeously ominous and stylish that Ridley Scott poached whole scenes, but at least there's Hands Of Steel, a dreadful hunk of the eighties that made me sad that cars were likely to be as shitty as eighties cars all the way into the future.
posted by sonascope at 7:23 AM on January 15, 2019


Eh, 1970s, Italian, that means: unlimited budget for fantastically produced soundtracks. I think I'm going to play some of these movies in the background just for the soundtrack. "Escape from Galaxy 3" is a complete winner from the first second.
posted by victotronics at 9:05 AM on January 15, 2019


In case there are any other OCD film nerds out there, here's a list of the films on that channel with IMDB links:

Life Returns [1935]
Trapped By Television [1936]
Rocky Jones: The Gypsy Moon [1954]
Rocky Jones: Beyond The Moon [1954]
Rocky Jones, Space Ranger [1954]
The Monster Maker [1954]
Night Of The Blood Beast [1958]
The Giant Gila Monster [1959]
The Head (AKA Die Nackte und der Satan) [1959]
The Killer Shrews [1959]
The Manster [1959]
The Sky Calls (AKA Battle Beyond the Sun) [1959]
Edgar G. Ulmer’s The Amazing Transparent Man [1960]
Rocket Attack U.S.A [1961]
Roger Corman’s Creature From The Haunted Sea [1961]
The Giant Of Metropolis [1961]
The Creeping Terror [1964]
Starman: Evil Brain From Outer Space [1965]
Starman: Invaders From Space [1965]
Destination Inner Space (from the writer of Navy vs. the Night Monsters) [1966]
Star Pilot (aka 2+5: Missione Hydra) [1966]
William One-Shot Beaudine’s Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter [1966]
Mission Stardust (The Perry Rhodan movie!) [1967]
Night Fright [1967]
Larry Buchanan’s It's Alive! [1969]
Venus Flytrap (Written by Ed Wood Jr.) [1970]
Horror High (AKA Twisted Brain) [1973]
Chosen Survivors [1974]
Primal Impulse (AKA Footprints on the Moon, starring Klaus Kinski) [1975]
Track Of The Moon Beast [1976]
Snowbeast [1977]
The Crater Lake Monster [1977]
Welcome To Blood City (from the director Countess Dracula) [1977]
Alfonso Brescia’s The War Of The Robots [1978]
Bill Rebane’s The Alpha Incident (Featuring Buck Flowers) [1978]
Don Dohler’s The Alien Factor [1978]
Escape From Galaxy 3 [1981]
Tibor Takács’s 984: Prisoner Of The Future [1982]
Juan Piquer Simón’s Extra Terrestrial Visitors (aka Pod People) [1983]
Hyperspace (AKA Gremloids) (starring Chris Elliott & Paula Poundstone) [1984]
Star Knight (starring Klaus Kinski) [1985]
Assassin [1986]
Fred Olen Ray’s Prison Ship (AKA Star Slammer) [1986]
Hyper Sapien: People From Another Star (from the director of On Her Majesty's Secret Service!) [1986]
Sergio Martino’s Hands Of Steel [1986]
Fugitive Alien (featuring chipmunk-cheeked Jô Shishido) [1987]
R.O.T.O.R. [1987]
Top Line [1988]
Cirio H. Santiago’s Future Hunters [1989]
Abraxas, Guardian Of The Universe [1990]
Brain Twisters [1991]

Looks like most are public domain or at least of peculiar provenance. The most obscure one for me is the late 80's Franco Nero film Top Line which I wasn't familiar with. Back in the day, the Ed Wood penned Venus Flytrap was a rare find. I recall selling a tape of it under its other title Revenge of Dr. X for some good money on eBay. War of the Robots is a lot of fun but what might not be obvious about it is that it is part of a loose series of Italian Star Wars rip offs by genre director Alfonso Brescia (BATTLE OF THE STARS (1977) / WAR OF THE ROBOTS (1978) / STAR ODYSSEY (1979)). The effects in the Giant of Marathon are sometimes attributed to Mario Bava but are done by a protegé but it is still worth a look - a weird peplum / sci-fi hybrid. I kind of like the German made the Head but I have a thing for movies about disembodied heads. La orme (called Primal Impulse here) is an interesting one as it is a rare sci-fi giallo with striking imagery. Sky Calls is a Soviet made scifi that was later edited into Battle Beyond the Sun by Francis Ford Coppola for Roger Corman. Track of the Moonbeast & Twisted Brain (under its better known name here Horror High) are both personal favourites and are 2 of my earliest film memories (having watched both far too young on daytime TV).
posted by Ashwagandha at 9:20 AM on January 15, 2019 [7 favorites]


My large extended Italian family is going to love this. I will, as is traditional, add a link to Italian Spiderman.

Buonissimo!
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 3:58 PM on January 15, 2019 [1 favorite]


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