Obscure SF Films: Part 2

The lightning round.

In my previous post, I reported on the first round of The Obscure Science Fiction Movie Game.

Held on the first day of this year’s North American Science Fiction Convention, the game asked panelists to identify great-but-forgotten films.

Points were awarded based on how many in the audience had seen and liked each movie.

Naturally, films seen and loved by only a few scored higher than better-known and less-appreciated titles.

First-round results:

• 1st Place. Avalon (2001). Recommended by Ira Nayman. A professional VR gamer learns of an ultra-secret level that allows a person to enter an alternate reality.
• 2nd Place. The Angry Red Planet (1959). Recommended by this guy. A traumatized scientist relives an ill-fated expedition to Mars.
• 3rd Place. Phase IV (1974). Recommended by Matthew S. Rotundo. Super intelligent ants attack scientists in a desert lab.
• 4th Place. It! The Terror from Beyond Space. Recommended by Stephen R. Wilk. Super intelligent Martian attacks astronauts on a spaceship.

The Second Round

Game host Frank Wu introduced this section as “the lightning round,” with each panelist getting two minutes to pitch a title.

I went first with …

The Fabulous World of Jules Verne
or Invention for Destruction

A reclusive inventor and his young assistant are kidnapped by pirates and forced to develop a secret weapon to conquer the world.

It’s essentially Robur the Conqueror meets 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. But what makes the film remarkable is director Karel Zeman’s blending of live-action, stop motion, puppets, cell animation, and two-dimensional sets that resemble popup engravings.

First released in the US as The Fabulous World of Jules Verne (1958), the film is now known by its Czech title: Vynález Zkázy, or Invention for Destruction.

There’s nothing quite like it—except perhaps The Fabulous Baron Munchausen (1962), which is also directed by Zeman and possibly even more obscure than his Verne picture.

Invention for Destruction is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel. But if you want to see it in all its glory, I recommend purchasing the Criterion Blu-Ray edition. Titled Three Fantastic Journeys, it’s a three-disk set (pictured above) that also includes Zeman’s Journey to the Beginning of Time and the aforementioned Fabulous Baron Munchausen. The set comes packaged in a slipcase-enclosed popup book with liner notes in the form of a 19th-century newspaper.

Invention for Destruction earned a never-seen score of 87.5% over a 100% liked-it rating. That should have been enough to secure first place in the lightning round, but Ira Nayman was ready to counter with …

Repo Man

Starring Emilio Estevez and produced by Michael Nesmith (formerly of the Monkees), Repo Man deals with recovery agents who hope to collect a $20,000 bounty on a mysterious Chevrolet Malibu. Problem is, there’s something in the car that kills anyone who opens the trunk … and that something might be a space alien.

Ira’s selection earned a 67.5% obscurity rating over an 84.6% liked-it score. Good numbers, but not enough to beat out Invention for Destruction.

Despite its obscurity, Repo Man is available on most major platforms. Give it a watch, and if you find it’s your cup of meat, you’ll be happy to know that Criterion will soon release a director-approved 4K UHD slipcase edition. Arriving September 3, the two-disk set will feature deleted scenes, director commentary, and more.

Next up, Stephen R. Wilk took us back to the 1950s with …

Kronos

Featuring a giant robot resembling a brutalist skyscraper, Kronos (1957) is one of those sf movies that is fun to watch even though, according to Stephen, “it does not make a lick of scientific sense.”

Following the basic monster-on-the-loose scenario that typified science-fiction movies of the 1950s, Kronos features a band of scientists confronting an alien machine designed to steal power from the earth’s electrical grid.

Though fairly obscure (it earned a 75% not-seen rating from our audience), the film nevertheless earned a 70% liked-it score.

Likewise, Kronos remains an overlooked gem when it comes to home video. Unlike the panel’s other recommendations, Kronos has never been released on Blu-Ray. If you want to own a copy, the best you can do is a low-res DVD or an out-of-print VHS.

For streaming, Kronos only seems to be available on YouTube and in a colorized version on Internet Archives–both standard definition.

So, with Stephen taking third place in the lightning round, we moved on to Matthew S. Rotundo and an obscure French film titled …

The City of Lost Children

Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet (who also gave us Delicatessen (1991), Alien Resurrection (1997), and Amélie (2001), Lost Children centers on an old man who kidnaps children to steal their dreams and the carnival strawman who attempts to save them.

Unknown to 90% of the panel’s audience, and earning a liked-it score of 75%, The City of Lost Children gave Matthew a second-place finish in the lightning round.

Readily available for streaming, the movie has also been released as a two-disk set from Studio Canal and in a special slipcase edition from Nova Media.

So who won?

In a way, we all did, since everyone walked away with a nice list of obscure titles to check out in the days ahead.

But, in terms of score, when Frank Wu tallied the numbers from both rounds (which he did with help from scorekeeper Jill Silvester and timekeeper Rita), Ira took first place.

For winning top position, Ira got first pick at Frank Wu’s selection of fabulous prizes, which included a playscale Metalunan Mutant from This Island Earth (1955), the screenplay from John Borman’s Zardoz (1974); three action-figure robots from Silent Running (1972), a mini Batmobile from TV’s Batman (1966); a Lego Year-of-the-Dragon set, and an articulated dinosaur from Jurassic World (2015).

The Zardoz script had a special value-added component since, according to Frank, “The last page was chewed up by my little black-and-white Havanese, whom we foolishly named Kaiju, and he is living up to his name!”

Nevertheless, despite being “signed” by Kaiju, the Zardoz script went unclaimed as Ira selected the Batmobile as his first-place award.

For second place, I claimed the Jurassic World Tuojaingosaurus.

But wait … there’s more!

The panel concluded with the following audience recommendations (listed in order):

• Planet of the Dinosaurs (1977)
• Death Race 2000 (1975)
• 5 Million Years to Earth, aka Quatermass and the Pit (1975)
• Brother from Another Planet (1984)
• Lathe of Heaven (2002)

I’m not a fan of Planet of the Dinosaurs, which doesn’t seem to be available anywhere in a decent resolution. The DVD looks like it was copied from a VHS tape.

The others, however, are ones I plan to revisit sometime soon.

For now, I’m off to Confluence, a terrific regional convention in Pittsburgh, where I’ll be taking part in panels on The Best Stand-Alone Novels of the Last Decade,  The Social Impact of A.I., and  Frail Flesh: A Look at Body Horror.

If you’re there, be sure to say hello. But either way, I’ll meet you here next week for some convention highlights.

Until then, keep watching the skies.