DEFIANCE – PILOT (2013)

SyFy is producing actual science fiction again, and I am a very happy bunny about that fact. I saw the trailer for this new transmedia franchise, which offers both a TV series and a video game, a while back and thought it looked superb, but hey, the trailer for The Phantom Menace made that look brilliant too, so I was wary.

 It takes a lot to impress me, or indeed engage me at all, with new TV shows, and thus it was with a little trepidation that I watched this. Was I going to be wasting my time? Was it going to be a great show? Would it last more than five minutes on our TV? No, almost and no.

I did manage to watch the whole thing, but there were a couple of points I almost gave up on it. Earth has been transformed into a post-apocalyptic wasteland following a war and some failed terraforming from a race known as the Votans. Since then, an uneasy alliance between humans and Votans has created a new kind of society, in which typical science fiction intrigue tends to go on. And on. And on. And on.

Y'see, this opening shot for Defiance is almost agonisingly slow, to the point where I caught my hand creeping towards the remote control lest my brain atrophy from the dull, cheap tediousness on the screen. Then, as if by magic, the third act kicks into gear and it all makes sense. An epic third act brings a real element of danger to the lives of main characters Jeb (Grant Bowler) and Irisa (the gloriously talented Stephanie Leonidas under some understated character makeup).

With a cast also featuring Julie Benz and Mia Kirshner, Defiance starts slow but builds to an ass-kicking climax, well, this first episode does anyway. While it does blatantly show influences from Firefly, Deadwood, Farscape, Battlestar Galactica and more, it does have its own charms and merits.

It helps greatly that the cast know what they're doing, and while a lot of the script is cringeworthy, dialogue is delivered with conviction and the effects are at times brilliant. Yeah, a lot of it looks cheap and chock-full of hackneyed old sci-fi cliches, but it's entertaining enough once the pace picks up. Whether the pace and growth of the story can be maintained over the rest of the season is yet to be seen, but I'm up for sticking with it for now.

TEN OF THE GREATEST CARTOON THEMES OF THE 80S

I am a bitter old geek. The sort of person who likes to tell the young 'uns that cult entertainment was much cooler when I was a kid. However, rather than just nostalgia making me sound like an angry old fart, I'm actually right. Here are ten of the greatest cartoon intros of the 1980s as proof. You're welcome.

BEHOLD... JAYACE AND THE WHEELED WARRIORS, GALAXY RANGERS, DUCK TALES, HE-MAN AND THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE, SHE RA - PRINCESS OF POWER, TRANSFORMERS, THE REAL GHOSTBUSTERS, VISIONARIES, BRAVESTARR and THUNDERCATS.

More may follow soon, as it's impossible to watch these without going on a massive cartoon intro binge. Watch them and find out for yourself!

CARRIE REMAKE TEASER - I actually kinda like it

I hate remakes. I loathe them. However, this teaser actually has my interest piqued. I love the original version of the Carrie movie, even though it changed Carrie from an overweight, curly haired girl into the waif-like Sissy Spacek. Sissy's performance was so powerful that it's now hard to think of anyone else tackling it.

Chloe Moretz (aka Hit Girl from KICK-ASS) is Carrie this time out, and if it had been anyone else cast I'd have ignored it. Moretz is an excellent talent, and the teaser actually does what it's supposed to and TEASES a film rather than giving it all away. I may have to actually go and see a remake. Yikes.

THE MUTILATOR (1985)

I wish I'd seen this film years ago, rather than now when I'm jaded by thousands of slasher movies full of attitude-laden teenagers. The Mutilator (with it's frankly awesome tagline 'BY SWORD, BY PICK, BY AXE, BYE BYE!') is a cult favourite amongst slasher fans, and it's easy to see why.

The trashy atmosphere of the film is further helped by a campy script, hammy performances and some gloriously tacky death scenes. In fact, one particular death scene really sticks out as the pinnacle of the film's trashiness, when a guy is attacked with a saw and takes an overly long time to finally fall to the ground, instead hanging desperately onto every morsel of screen time he can get before collapsing into a bloodied heap.

The premise is that of a bunch of the film follows a group of teens staying at a beach house being picked off one by one by the demented father of one character, who we see murder their mother in the opening flashback sequence.

Once the concept is established, then logic and characterisation fly straight out of the window in favour of grisly 80s horror fun. The Mutilator has a lot going for it if you're a fan of this calibre of trash cinema, and delivers the goods when it comes to the kill scenes.

If you're not one for formulaic (yet good fun) 80s horror movies with kinda faceless casts (yet decent quality direction from Buddy Cooper), then this really won't be for you, but if you fancy a slasher marathon, you could do a lot worse than lining this little gem from the VHS era up alongside flicks like SLEEPAWAY CAMP and SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE.

Very much a product of the era, it's nevertheless a fun flick with some decent scares and some marvellously bloody kills.

CRASH AND BURN (1990)

A Charles Band b-movie about robot warfare in a post-apocalyptic wasteland? I'm in. Or, I would be if the film was anything like what the packaging would have you believe. The cover makes CRASH AND BURN look like a pseudo-sequel to ROBOT JOX, thanks to the prominence of a giant robot on the cover art. In fact, it was actually released in some territories as ROBOT JOX 2: CRASH AND BURN, despite being nothing to do with Robot Jox at all!

Well, there's a robot in it, but for 99% of the running time it lies inert in the dust, then wakes up for one solitary scene. The rest of the film is essentially a bleak, depressing story of humanity's struggle to continue once everything goes wrong.

Computer and robot use by civilians has been outlawed, and the world is run by the Unicom corporation after a global economic collapse, and when a remote TV station is infiltrated by a humanoid robot intent on tracking down insurgents against the corporation, a lowly delivery man must help the employees of the station stay alive.

And then there's a robot for a bit.

Crash and Burn is a film where all the big stuff happens elsewhere and is included in the script as a backdrop rather than much to do with the plot. This is basically a siege movie with a mad cyborg character picking off humans one by one in a variety of ways.

It's cheap and takes a long time to really pick up any pace, but when it does it's entertaining enough, just not as great as the artwork makes it out to be. Starring a young Megan Ward, it's an interesting flick for fans of the era of cheapie post-apocalyptic actioners, but don't be fooled by the cover art's robot action.

BALLISTIC: ECKS VS SEVER (Trailer)

Sticking this 2002 film on my Tivo list now. I know it's awful, but I kinda enjoyed it when I first saw it. Lucy Liu makes for a badass assassin.

SALUTE OF THE JUGGER (1989)

One of the many cheap sci-fi movies Rutger Hauer starred in after the genre-defining success of Blade Runner, Salute Of The Jugger (aka The Blood of Heroes) carries fond memories with it; Memories of video rental shops, the awesome cover art and the buzz around the film when it came out. Well, three years or so after it came out anyway, as I was only ten when it arrived.

When I was becoming aware of movies with 19 Certificate stickers on them, this was one that people talked about a lot (Like Dark Angel or Robot Jox), due to the weird status thing that went along with having seen a film you were too young for.

It took me until my twenties to actually see the film, and now in my thirties I'm re-watching it thanks to a cheap movies channel and a Tivo spree I went on the other night. So what do we have here? Salute of the Jugger is up there with Split Second and Wedlock as entertaining Hauer fare from roundabout the same era, but this time we're in a proper sci-fi b-movie setting: The archetypal post-apocalyptic wasteland (shot this time in Australia).

Brutal sportsmen called Juggers basically roam the wastes of the old world and beat each other to death with big sticks, chains and anything else they have scavenged from wrecks and assorted junk. Think Mad Max meets Gladiators and you pretty much have the whole film.

It has the feel of earlier films, 1970s/early 1980s fare which exploded in the wake of the Mad Max films (post-apocalyptic stuff was cheap to do – all you need is desert and some junk!), and to me it makes it feel kinda timeless.

The fact there's so little in the way of futuristic technology works in its favour, making it feel both classic and distant, like a Star Wars Fight Club. Also starring Joan Chen as a fellow Jugger, the film follows Hauer and Chen as they battle their way through round after round, working towards the ultimate showdown in the underground cities where the affluent survivors of humanity live and are entertained by brutal bloodsports.

A good sight more bleak than a lot of similar sci-fi movies of the era, Salute of the Jugger holds up well thanks to the limited budget being used wisely onscreen and due to the hard-edged plight of the characters. Not perfect by a long way, Salute of the Jugger is still worth a watch when you're in the mood for some dust, dirt, Rutger Hauer and lengthy fight sequences with plenty of impact.