Movies

Mechte Navstrechu [A Dream Come True] (1965) A Soviet SF film from Odessa Studios. An alien spacecraft on the way to Earth crashes on Mars, prompting a complicated series of rescue attempts. Numerous colorful, elaborate and often surrealistic sets and models depict the alien planet and spacecraft as well as landings and walks upon the surface of the Moon, Mars and Phobos. Not much of a plot, and a cop-out ending, but really wonderful to see, as demonstrated below. 8/10

Event Horizon (1997) Another rescue mission, this time to an experimental FTL drive ship orbiting Neptune. I had given up on SF films around this time so I missed this one, and I don't know if I am sorry or not. The parallels between this and Disney's The Black Hole are numerous and obvious, not just in concept but in visual design and in the vast absurdity of execution. This is so excessive, even the sound design stands out as simply going too far. The only thing it didn't have was a comedy relief robot, or a comedy relief anything for that matter. Nevertheless it is delightfully ridiculous from the very first beeping letters that pop onto the screen. Beeping letters are always the sign of things to come, not necessarily good things, from a skewed conception of how a movie ought to be done. Sadly, they were not beeping green letters, the acme of the form. Anyhow, the long-lost spaceship eventually transforms into an Old Dark House from which None Shall Escape, and the SF movie becomes a grisly supernatural horror story. Why would anyone design a faster than light drive to look like a mechanical device for summoning demons? Because THAT'S WHAT IT IS! Why would anyone design a spaceship to look like a Haunted Mansion, with gothic wall panels, arched colonnades and coffin-shaped doorways? Because THAT'S WHAT IT IS. Though it becomes outright ghoulish at the end, with actual cascading rivers of blood, it is primarily an excessively, absurdly over-the-top gadgetporn space opera that had me laughing with glee. Except for the horrifically mutilated corpses, which I hate. Stupidly great in certain ways. 8/10