COME BACK AS A FLOWER

The Secret Life Of Plants, d. Walon Green (1979)

A well-meaning semi-documentary, The Secret Life of Plants provides a successful and often startling mix of time lapse photography, travelogue and montage to support the concept of plants as living, thinking, feeling entities, and to help us understand their pain and consternation at being treated like rubbish. Ironically, a mild criticism would be that there are just too many people in the film, although the presence of Stevie Wonder (responsible for the somewhat hit and miss soundtrack) is very welcome.

The lovely closing scenes, in which Stevie wanders barefoot (and without his dark glasses) around a number of attractive botanical landscapes, ending up in an enormous field of sunflowers, remind you that it’s a transcendently beautiful world, and we should really stop trying to kill it, right now.   

MOMENTS FROM 'THE HOLY MOUNTAIN'

003: Tarantula Torso

AS MUTE AND PALE AS DEATH ITSELF

The Outer Limits: The Bellero Shield, d. John Brahm (1964)

The best episodes of The Outer Limits always have a baleful, ominous atmosphere, as if madness and death and isolation are in the air waiting to manifest themselves. It’s a deeply strange programme, too, often unnervingly so, and The Bellero Shield is a particularly odd one, Macbeth with science and a luminous alien.

A laser scientist accidentally catches an extraterrestrial in a beam of light, and brings him, somewhat unwillingly, to Earth. The alien, a shimmering, indistinct thing from a dimension just above our realm, initially protects himself using an impenetrable and all-encompassing shield, technology coveted by the scientists ambitious and slightly unhinged wife. When the alien tries to go home, she shoots him in the head and steals the shield technology, intending to pass off the invention as her husband’s in order to make his reputation. 

Pressing a button to activate something is one thing, of course; switching it off is entirely another…

LUMINOUS BUTTONS

NATAL, 1972

It was the sight of the creature's head that most disturbed Mrs. Hansen: 'There was fire coming out of its eyes, and the head was square like a machine'

SUOMI, 2034 AD

Nightsatan & The Loops Of Doom, d. Christer Lindstrom (2013)

It’s 2034, and the world as we know it has been destroyed by a nuclear war. In the barren wastes of Eastern Finland, a synth trio called Nightsatan play impromptu concerts and look for women and food. The film, which is both a parody of 80s Italian post-apocalyptic trash and an occasionally quite original piece of sci fi, includes strong (subtitled) language, violent death, full frontal nudity, child cyborgs, hermaphrodites, cannibalism and magic ritual.

At no point in the 24 minute running time are we shown where Nightsatan plug their synths in, but it's a small detail, and should not in any way impair your enjoyment of this preposterous but extremely entertaining film.

THE PRESENCE OF PLEASENCE

Warrior of The Lost World isn't much  of a film, and Donald Pleasence, as evil overlord Prossor, doesn't give much of a performance. He seems very tired, and his characterisation mainly consists of him wearing a light blue Blofeld type suit and having an artificial hand. 

Towards the end, he gets shot repeatedly, including twice in the head. Curiously, his eyes won't stop moving about, as if nobody has told him that head shots like that are usually fatal. Later on, it is revealed that the rebels actually killed a cyborg, so the extraneous eye rolling makes perfect sense. That's Donald, always at least one step ahead.    

THE POST-APOCALYPTIC TRIBES OF NEW EARTH

OPEN WARFARE

Warrior Of The Lost World, d. David Worth (1983)


aka Mad Rider aka Vigilante of the Lost Earth aka Raiders of the Omega Year

This Italian production takes elements of Mad Max and The Warriors and supplements them with a wisecracking supersonic motorcycle and a rebellion against an Orwellian police state over seen by Donald Pleasence. It is not entirely successful in it goals, and limitations of both budget and artistry are evident. It ends in a singalong, and there are many small explosions.

I have a fondness for these cheap post-apocalyptic movies - or is it a weakness? 

GET WELL SOON

ON THE WAY TO GETTING LOST

The Shining, d. Stanley Kubrick (1980)

It's hard to pinpoint exactly when Jack Torrance starts to lose his mind. In fact, there's enough evidence to suggest that the process began long before he ever got to Colorado. While Wendy and Danny explore the (impossible) maze, however, Jack looks down on the scale model and experiences, what? Megalomania and a feeling of omniscience, perhaps, or is he imagining bringing his giant fist down on them, of 'correcting' them?

The cut to the interior of the maze is a rare mismatch from Kubrick, as Wendy and Danny are slightly further ahead in the long shot. Or have we just taken a step back in time? The temporal is rather flexible at The Overlook Hotel.