Batman: Arkham Origins (2013)

Ahh, theres always something nice about popping a copy of the latest "Arkham" game into the old XboX and then spending hideous amounts of time beating random people up, just so I have an excuse to say "I'm Batmaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan" after they've all been beaten to a pulp.

So having immensely enjoyed "Arkham Asylum" and "Arkham City", it was a no brainer when "Arkham Origins" came out. Now, I may not have gotten it on release day like I had planned to, due to the job I had at the time thinking it was ok to employ people to work a 60 hour week for subsistence wages, with no breaks, meal time, holiday time etc etc, so the Bat didn't a come calling to my Xbox until my birthday in December, but, was it worth the wait?...well, yes and no.

First impressions upon starting the game were generally favourable, the control system was pretty much the same as the previous two entries, the game mechanics and sandbox environment made for good non linear playability, with no nasty "forced" action turning up when you're not ready for it, and the storyline was interesting enough to make it worth not skipping cut scenes. In addition, the side missions added the extra level of play time that I had gotten used to from the previous entries.
There were however some problems, but I will address those later..

The plot itself isn't too bad, albeit not as immersive as the previous games, in a nutshell, five years before the events of "Arkham asylum", on Christmas eve, the villain Black Mask places a bounty of $50 million on Batmans head. Batman, who at this point in time is still fairly new to the superhero game, finds himself being assailed by numerous deadly assassins in the form of Deathstroke, Deadshot, Copperhead, Electrocutioner, Shiva and Bane, as well as having to deal with the up and coming crime boss Oswald Cobblepot (who has taken to giving away free automatic weapons to Gothams street punks), and a mass breakout of prisoners form the nearby Blackgate prison, then to add final insult to injury, Batman finds himself having to deal with the shadowy high tech blackmailer known as "Enigma", the rebellious terrorist "Anarky", and a new villain who goes by the name "Joker".
Aided in his very busy night by Alfred and Barbara Gordon, Batman has to put a stop to all the criminal shenannigans and convince the mostly corrupt Gotham City Police that hes only trying to help.

Right, so, as I have said,  the game plays pretty much identical to the previous games, and as such, the problems I had with them have been carried over to this game..

• Over/Under responsive and unforgiving controls - The combat system is fairly straight forward, hitting the X, Y and B buttons makes Batman launch a flurry of punches, kicks, throws and so on, then comboing them with the A, Lt and Rt buttons allows use of gadgets, combos, beatdown and takedown moves. This is all fine, however the games extensive "freeflow" combat system places a massive emphasis on keeping the flow of combat moving continuously in order to rack up the XP bonuses and to increase damage from attacks, which would be fine if it were not for the fact that it is ridiculously easy to lose control of the combat due to it being so quick and intensive, especially so when you have  a couple of shield or knife wielding thugs backed up by armoured brutes or Venom supercharged gorilla thugs thrown in there for good measure. Quite often I find ill be in the middle of a 50 odd hit combo, only to find that Batman will fail to jump in the direction I'm pointing him in to attack someone, and will instead just stand still and throw a punch at thin air, or, more worse, will fail to counter an attack aimed at him while I'm mashing the counter button in the correct direction at the right time. Missing the timing quite often leads to the Dark Night getting his head caved in.
• Playtime - From start to finish, the main storyline took me about 10-12 hours of play, and, at the time of writing, I'm about 90% of the way through picking up the side mission stuff and finishing all the "Dark Knight" side objectives. Thus far ive spent about 20 or so hours total on the game and have pretty much completed all the "standard" stuff, seems a bit short to me.
• Replay - Ok, so completing the story mode unlocks the "New Game Plus" mode, which is basically a second play through of the main story, just harder due to no on screen prompts and more bad guys. The side missions this time round though are pretty easy, the Enigma data gathering is MUCH easier than the Riddler challenges of the previous two games, and the other most wanted side missions generally consist of beating somebody or a group of somebodies up. That said though, the crime scene reconstruction missions are pretty interesting, although they too end in you having to find someone and beat them up.

I dunno, although I do like this game, it is the weakest of the trilogy, basically being little more than the "Arkham" series' answer to "Batman Begins". Its storyline, although good, is nothing compared to the others, insofar as it seems fairly bland by comparison.
Also, large sections of the game world are almost identical copies of locations found in "Arkham City", which ok, fair enough, it is supposed to be the same location, but to me this seems lazy, as literally some of the areas are carbon copies from the previous game.
Finally, a lot of the games achievments are gotten from online play, and a hell of a lot of time is spent on promoting DLC and multiplayer content *sigh*

So all in all, "Batman: Arkham Origins" isnt bad, its not great either, and could have been tons better.

7 out of 10 broken noses.
 

Film Review:- The Car (1977)

"The Car" is a 1977 horror/thriller film, playing on the myth of "the devils rider", which has popped up before in various forms of storytelling since the middle ages.

Set in a backwater town named "Santa Ynez" in Utah, the films plot revolves around the sudden appearance of a mysterious black car which kills several people by running them over.
Local policeman Captain Wade Parent ( James Brolin ) tries to solve the mystery, which at first the police put down to the work of a maniac, however as the film pans out, it turns out to be a much more sinister threat than a simple psycho murderer. The film also stars a very young looking Ronny Cox as a bible thumping deputy who struggles with alcoholism, as well as a whole host of other people who I've never heard of.


The film itself was poorly received by critics on first release, citing bad acting, poor scripting and dodgy effects (even though there arent many effects on show in this film, and even then the quality of them isnt bad compared to some films of the time with much larger budgets ).
Over time though, this film has gathered a bit of a cult following, and I have yet to see many examples of other films like it, save for the awful "Maximum Overdrive", which is a shame really because its a really good basic idea for a storyline.

On a side note, the Car featured in the film was a prop created especially for this film by famed Hollywood car mod guru George Barris, and when you first see it it really does look menacing, although the film uses the old 50's B movie cliche of keeping the audience from seeing the bad guy/monster in full until half way through the story.

Nonetheless, despite its original critics moaning about crap acting and campiness, "The Car" is a pretty good no brainer watch, although I'd hardly refer to it as a "horror" film now, but still its a good way of spending 90 minutes watching some good, old fashioned honest entertainment without any hidden subtexts  etc.

I give it 3 skid marks out of 5

Apocalypse How? - Battle beneath the Earth (1967)

My latest visit to the world of impending doom is this piece of classic cheese, courtesy of MGM.

"Battle beneath the Earth" was released in 1967 and, as the time it was released was during one of the most unstable periods of the Cold War, its chock full of bizarre paranoia about impending invasion by those DIRTY COMMUNISTS!111!1!1!one!1!!11111!!!, except this time round, instead of being of the Russian variety, instead it offers up a dose of Chinese commie related laughs.

Starring no one I've ever heard of, apart from Ed Bishop, this sci-fi film really takes the plot line to the edge of believability:-

The US Navy has been tinkering with some seismic devices in an effort to detect underground nuclear tests from within the communist bloc, however their experiments cant seem to make a device capable of accurately differentiating between the sound of a nuclear explosion and the sound of mining operations.
All this is rendered moot when a man is picked up by the police in Las Vegas  after raving in the street about sounds he can hear when he puts his ear to the ground, however his insane/drunken ravings are soon proved to be rather worrying when coal miners discover a series of tunnels by accident after a mineshaft collapse.
The marines go in and find that deep underground, some rogue Chinese agents have spent a lot of time digging tunnels which lead all the way from China to the US, and have begin planting nuclear bombs under most of Americas major cities.
The marines manage to safely defuse the first lot they find, however those slippery commies have more nasty tricks up their sleeves, tricks which, they hope, will lead to the complete downfall of the free world and the global domination of the Chinese empire.

Yeah, they don't make sci-fi silliness like this no more, which is a shame. Nontheless though, this film is a classic bit of cheese which will require you to leave your sense of logic at the door when watching, but trust me, if you do this, you will find this film a fairly entertaining way to kill 90 minutes.

Game Review - Yu-Gi-Oh! Ultimate Masters:World Championship Tournament 2006 ( GBA 2006 - duh!)

The rather oddly titled "Yu-Gi-Oh! Ultimate Masters: World Championship Tournament 2006" (why oh why do they need to give these games such long titles?) was the 2006 entry into the hugely popular games series which, at the time, were exclusive to the Gameboy advance (I say this because similar games based on Yu-Gi-Oh! released on other systems usually followed some kind of storyline, whereas the "World Championship" games played as an electronic version of the CCG) 

Released during the "Yu-GiOh! GX era, the game featured nearly all the cards and game mechanics that had been employed in the RL CCG up to that point, however, unlike the previous game , the 2006 edition did not feature any of the characters from the anime, nor did it feature any storyline.

Reflecting the lack of storyline, the game itself made various changes to game play modes, which were selectable through the menu screen:-

Free Duel Mode.
The "Main" game mode, in which you duel against various other players, starting off with players ranked at "level 1", all of whom play a deck themed around the particular card they use as their avatar. Each tier contains 5 different duellists, all of whom use different strategies depending on the type of deck they are playing.

Challenge Mode.
This option consists of  4 sub categories of play:

1. Duel puzzle - You join a game in mid match, and using the cards you already have in your hand or in play, you must win the duel by the end of that turn.
2. Limited Duel - A series of duels in which restrictions are placed on what cards you may have in your deck.
3. Theme Duel - A series of duels in which as well as winning, you have a secondary objective of some sort, for example getting the maximum amount of direct damage to an opponents life points, drawing as many cards as possible, etc.
4. Survival Duel - You face off against random opponents one after another until you are defeated.

 As you begin the game, you get to choose a starter deck, but as you play, you can aquire additional cards by buying them from the in game shop, using Duel Points that you have won from competing in the free duel and challenge modes.
This game has a much wider selection of cards available than the 2003 game, which can make getting the cards you want difficult, as cards from the newer (at the time of release anyway) usually cost 400 Duel Points, whereas booster packs from older sets can cost as little as 150 points.

As a game, it does exactly as it says on the tin, it is indeed an electronic version of the real card game, however, it does present some problems which can put a dampener on new players...

• Difficulty - The game starting difficulty is WAAAYYYYYYYY off whack, requiring advanced knowledge of the card game and its mechanics in order to get any wins. This will, and did, put off a lot of novice players.
• Paying for everything - Earning duel points to buy new cards with is extremely difficult due to the above, and even then, the games strict adherence to the "Forbidden/limited" cards list (which was correct for tournament play at the time the game came out) means that sometimes you will open a booster pack and get an awesome card, only to find that it has been banned, and the game will not allow you to use it in any games. In addition to this, although the game allows you to enter the codes from your real life cards into the game, it makes you pay Duel Points in order to add them to your collection, if you dont have the point, you cant have, simple as. Very frustrating in the early game being as the game saddles you with very few powerful cards.
• Prescience - While playing through this games free duel mode, I got the distinct feeling that the games A.I seemed to know exactly what cards I had in my hand. This may just be me being paranoid, but when your A.I opponent manages to pull just the right card at just the right time 20 times in a row, you know that "the heart of the cards" seems to be giving way to borderline cheating.
• Whats the point? - The games lack of storyline takes something away from the gameplay. Even though the 2003 games storyline was generally weak, the complete elimination of it from this game makes the game a little dull.

 All in all though, the game isnt that bad, while it could have been a lot better, it still provides one of the best electronic recreations of a collectable card game.

Anime Review - Yu-Gi-Oh!

Based on the original Manga by Kazuki Takahashi, Yu-Gi-Oh! was a 2000 - 2005 anime which consisted of 5 complete series, 1 sub series and 1 movie.

The series is a fairly faithful translation of the original manga, however obviously some changes had to be made due to violent, sexual and religious content, changes which also included new characters and story arcs being created to replace unfilmable ones from the manga series.

The series focuses on Yugi Moto, a young man who has a particular knack for puzzles and gaming.
at some point prior to the series' beginning, he manages to solve a puzzle given to him by his grandfather, who in turn found it during his time at an archaeological dig in Egypt.
As it turns out, the puzzle is one of the millennium items, a series of seven magical artifacts created 5000 years ago by the nameless pharaoh to trap an ancient and dark magic which very nearly destroyed the world.
Although he doesn't realise it at first, Yugi's completed puzzle contains the spirit of the nameless pharaoh, in whom he finds a kindred spirit, as both of them have a skill for gaming and puzzles, and Yugi can call on the pharaohs skill during his favourite game, "Duel Monsters".

The series itself consists of five story arcs, all of them revolving around Yugi and his friends battling against evil forces who use dark magic in an effort to conquer or destroy the world by various means, and these schemes are usually thwarted by the playing out of various games which have some sort of connection to the ancient world.

To people who are familiar with the card game, the first series may seem strange as the depiction of gameplay on screen is not the same as how the game is played in real life, this is due to the 1st series using the games original Japanese rules, which bore more resemblance to the "Top trumps" card game, albeit with a slightly altered game mechanics to make it more "tactical". This discontinuity was addressed during the second series (aka - the "Battle city" story arc) when the "Battle City" rules were used in a competition organised by Seto Kaiba, which were pretty much identical to the rules of play for the real life CCG, with slight discrepancies to allow for better on screen action (for example, certain cards and/or their in game effects were misrepresented, and cards were used that still don't exist to this day as plot devices) 

As the series went on, the story lines became more fantastical, and eventually Yugi and the Pharaoh learned the truth that the Pharaoh had locked away within his own mind, which drew the series to its final conclusion.

All in all, the series was very good, albeit being a bit of a niche interest one. I first discovered the series being shown on Sky one on a saturday mornings and found it to be quite interesting when I gave it a chance, despite having no interest in it prior to this. I liked the way how the characters developed over time to become more than the simple archetypes they were initially presented as, and it also helped generate my interest in the real life card game and video game series.

Yu-Gi-Oh! has since gone on to have spin off series' in the forms of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds and currently Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal, all of which have their own plot lines but all of which have their core focus on using the card game as a plot point, so its obvious that the series is stil as popular now and will continue to be popular for some time to come.

 

Aint War Hell? - Hope and Glory (1987)

"Hope and Glory" (named after a verse from the song "Land of Hope and Glory") is a 1987 semi-autobiographical account of director John Boormans experiences as a boy growing up in World war 2 England.

Initially, the film was banned for viewing in the UK due to its frank depictions of children engaging in sexualised behaviour and use of strong swear words, however this ban was overturned due to the fact that kids did these things regardless without seeing this film.

The Rowan family, consisting of father Clive, mother Grace, Bill and his sisters Sue and Dawn live a typical working class life in a suburb of London, however when world war 2 begins, Clive is called up to serve in the army and the family has to cope not only with him being away, but also with continuing a normal life amid nightly bombing raids and rationing.
Young Bill and his friends find the war exciting, and regularly play amongst the bombed out remains of houses, but, as the war drags on, life becomes more difficult, especially so as his mother will not allow him and his younger sister to be evacuated like many of the other children he knows.

The film offers a completely unsentimental look at life in wartime Britain, there's no moralising or happy circumstance here, everything is included, farts, swearwords and arguing over whether teenagers should be allowed out after dark, but yet the family struggles on, despite the fact that they are short on food, clothes and money and general interest in the war at all, other than Bills interest in collecting bits of shrapnel and watching propaganda laced newsreels at the local cinema.

I would heartily recommend watching this film, as few other films accurately portray normal people living normal lives during the war, especially so without them becoming some sort of hero of sorts.

Game Review - Yu-Gi-Oh!, Worldwide edition: Stairway to the Destined Duel (GBA 2003)

 Yu-Gi-Oh!, Worldwide edition: Stairway to the destined duel is a 2003 game that was released exclusively for the Nintendo Gameboy Advance.

Based on the popular CCG (that's Collectable Card Game for the uninitiated), which is in turn based on the popular manga/anime series of the same name, the game is basically a way of playing the card game without having to go to the trouble of purchasing packs of random cards and spending time building decks to play with.
This is not the first game based on the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise, as previous games were released on the playstation and gameboy colour, however, this game is what I would consider the first game to accurately replicate the dynamic of the CCG, albeit without the bad losers, cheating and other such occurances that can ruin gaming for most folk (myself included, lol).

The gameplay is simple, provided you are familiar with the original card game, if not, its fairly easy to be able to pick up the rules as you go along, enabling you to decide which strategies work best for you and allowing you to select cards for your deck accordingly.

There are two play modes:-

Story mode

Taking place during the "Battle City" story arc from the anime (series 2) you begin the game by selecting a starter deck from a random selection, and then you move around a map of the city challenging other duellists, who are all characters from the anime, to duels.
Each time you win, you earn points and are allowed to choose a prize from a variety of booster packs.
As you win more duels and aquire more cards for your collection, more duellists and special "side events" become available, eventually culminating in you battling the character Marik Ishtar and his minions who have a dastardly plot to rule the world using the dark magic of the milennium items and the egyptian god cards.
There are numerous achievements to beat over the course of story mode, all of which can be completed with varying degrees of difficulty depending on your play style.

Multiplayer

Using a link cable to connect your Gameboy to someone elses, you can then battle them directly, gaining duellist points and enabling you to trade cards from your personal collections.


Oddly enough, this game was released before the Japanese version, but, at the time of release, it made heavy use of cards which had not yet been made available in the west.
In addition, some cards featured in the game had different names to their "official" western releases, which caused some confusion amongst players.
Also, the western release of the game came packaged with three promo cards in the form of "Sinister Serpent", "Harpies Feather Duster" and "Valkyrion the Magna Warrior", whereas its Japanese counterpart came packaged with one each of the "Egyptian God Cards", which left many fans of the series feeling cheated, but also it allowed people who had managed to get a hold of these powerful cards via other avenues to sell them on for ridiculous amounts of money.

All in all though, the game itself is still good to this day, with its simple to use interface and heavy use of characters from the anime, but it is let down by its rather lackluster storyline which seems to end very quickly.

This game is reall ymore for fans of the anime and players of the card game than for general gamers.

Anime Review - Mysterious Cities of Gold - Series 2

So, 29 years after the original series ended, the new series is finally here..finally, I mean, its not like there haven't been numerous announcements that the series would return before, but this time round, something has actually materialised.

Although "series 2" of MCoG was first officially shown in France during Christmas 2012, its only now, near Christmas 2013, that the English dub has finally surfaced, and, unusually for a series which has been so eagerly anticipated, it is being shown on an obscure satellite TV channel called "Kix!".

Contrary to what people were saying prior to its release, this series is NOT a reboot or a redo of the original, but is instead a fully fledged sequel, using the same characters, and chronicles their further adventures after the ending of the first series.

Thus far, five episodes have aired on Kix!, and, at the time of writing this, the first two episodes are available to view on their website (HERE ), but the entire series is planned to have 26 episodes.

The storyline takes place roughly one year after the original series ended. Esteban, Tao and Zia took off in the Great Golden Condor in search of the remaining six cities of gold, while Mendoza, Sancho and Pedro decided to return to Spain, having salvaged a fortune in gold from the city they found (which was subsequently destroyed).

The series prologue however shows that when Mendoza et al returned home, they had their fortunes confiscated and were thrown in prison by a mysterious robed and hooded man, who is also seeking the location of the remaining cities of gold.
The robed man sets an elaborate trap to lure Esteban and Zia back to Spain, using Mendoza as bait, after he discovers that they have come into possession of an ancient map which shows the location of the remaining cities.
After mounting a daring rescue, Esteban and company manage to decode the map, and set course for China.

As it stands, the series looks set to take place entirely in China, other than for the first two episodes which serve to move the story on from where it originally finished.
Stylistically, there series has not changed, even though the animators are now using cel-shaded animation in place of traditional (and more expensive) ink and paint, they still manage to recreate the characters exactly how they looked back in 1983.
That said, the use of computer aided animation has allowed some of the on screen effects to be updated, for example, the Great Golden Condor now looks more realistic (or as realistic as a giant flying machine made of gold and shaped like a condor can look), as the animators have included moving feathers to the wingtips, and a pair of jet exhausts to the tail.
One notable but odd change is made in the form of close ups of swords showing they have rounded, non lethal tips, but yet spears, arrowheads and knives are shown still with nice pointy stabby ends, and even at one point a man shoots at Esteban with a musket but misses, so the original series' "peril" is still present in this series, although they seem to be attempting to sanitise it.

Some slight changes in dialogue have occurred as well, for example, in the first series, Tao would refer to his people as "the people of Hiva", whereas now their original name of "the people of Mu" is used instead.

So, thus far, im quite impressed with the series, and am looking forward to the remaining episodes. It still, well, thus far anyways, manages to keep the blend of historical, sci-fi, fantasy and adventure without allowing one aspect to overpower the rest, like the original did....keep it up!

Dystopiarama - Zardoz (1974)

Zardoz, the 1974 sci-fi/fantasy film is another strange entry in this sub category, but again nonetheless, it depicts a bizarre future time period.

The film actually stars people I have heard of, in the form of Sean Connery (who spends the entire film wearing, as he himself stated was "a red nappy, thigh length boots, a pony tail and a zapata moustache") Charlotte Rampling and John Alderton (cast against "type" in the role of a bizarre and effeminate man) , and it makes good use of these stars while the surreal and sometimes disturbing storyline plays out.

In the future of 2293 AD, the Earth has been reduced to an almost medieval landscape (it is never really explained why, although it is hinted that there was some sort of global war) with tribes of "Brutals" living in the remains of the former world. One tribe of these people, called "the Exterminators" are favoured by the god Zardoz, who appears as a giant floating stone head and demands that the exterminators kill brutals in order to stop them from repopulating the earth as they once did. In return for killing people, and providing Zardoz with grain, the exterminators receive weapons and ammunition.
One of the Exterminators, named Zed, stows away in one of the grain shipments and rides the stone head back to its point of origin, where en route, he accidentally kills a rather strange man who calls himself "Arthur Frayn".
When the head lands, Zed finds himself in a surreal world occupied by people who refer to themselves as "Eternals", humans with highly developed mental powers, who live in a society of total democracy and equality, who devote their eternal lifespans to developing and maintaining human knowledge under the custodianship of a being referred to as "The Tabernacle".
Zed quickly finds that not is all it seems amongst these people, as their supposedly perfect society is just as fraught with infighting as it is in the outside world, with a group of staunch conservatives seeking to maintain the status quo of their society, and other smaller groups seeking to make changes, such as actually allowing people to die, or allowing them to explore the outside world and learn of any changes that have occurred while they have been locked away in "The vortex" (there are actually several vortexes, all of which are areas which are kept shielded from the outside world by an invisible and impenetrable force field)

During his time amongst the immortals, Zed learns much about both them and himself, including that his being there was part of a long term plan to liberate the Eternals from their never ending state of boredom and stagnation, having reached the limits of their capabilities long ago and being unable to progress further due to the dictats of the Tabernacle.

Zardoz is a wonderfully surreal film, the likes of which we will never see again. Its bizarre blend of science fiction and fantasy is skillfully used to tell a story which, in essence is about living life itself and coping with and accepting change.
The surreal imagery and hippy leanings of the Eternals contrast wonderfully with Zeds harsh upbringing and lifestyle, with his simple thoughts belying his hidden intelligence.


A definite watch id say!

Dystopiarama - Robot Jox (1990)

A bit of a bizarre entry for this sub heading but this film is, nonetheless, a Dystopic film.

Robot Jox is a 1990 Sci-fi/Action film directed by Stuart Gordon and starring Gary Graham and no one else of any note, well, apart from a very young looking Jeffrey Combs in a role credited as "Prole #1".

This film is unusual for its time as it makes extensive use of stop motion and puppetry in order to portray the battle robots that play a large part in the films plot.

The plot is thus:-
In the late 21st century, the Earth is suffering the after effects of global resource wars, and, having seen the devastation and total pointlessness of nuclear conflict, the remaining nations of the world have formed themselves into two power blocs, The Free Market and the Confederation, and totally banned open warfare.
Instead of fighting in senseless and wasteful war, conflicts are instead sorted via a gladiatorial contest known simply as "The Games".

The games differ from previous gladiatorial contests, as they are fought using battle robots, piloted by warriors known as "Robot Jox".

The rules of the games seem fairly simple (or as simple as I can make them out to be from watching this movie) :-

#1 - Both sides may only enter one robot to fight per battle.
#2 - The robot may be armed with whatever weapons or technology the owners choose, and there is no obligation for either side to reveal what weapons or technology their robot is equipped with.
#3 - Once a robot has entered the battle arena, regardless of who is piloting it, it is considered that the challenge has been accepted. Leaving the arena without referee permission results in disqualification.
#4 - Combat will continue until one robot or Robot Jox is unable to continue.
#5 - All referee stipulations and directions are to be obeyed immediately and without question, failure or refusal to do so results in disqualification and forfeiture of the match.

The "Markets" best pilot is Jim, who fights under the alias "Achilles". Achilles is on the verge of surviving and winning 10 matches in a row, a feat only accomplished by his mentor, the Texan tactical advisor Tex Conway, who 10 years previously managed to destroy the Confederations most powerful robot with what he claims was a lucky shot from his vehicle, which was little more than a super heavy tank back in the days when bipedal walking war machines were unheard of.

Achilles is to fight the Confederations "Alexander", a ruthless russian pilot for the territory of Alaska, which if he wins will mark the end of his contract with the Market, however Alexander says he will kill Achilles and stop him achieving his goal.
Their match gets off to a good start, with both robots exchanging ranged fire with machine guns and missiles, before opening up on each other with lasers.
Alexanders robot fires a long blast from its laser cannon, but Achilles manages to deflect it with a piece of reflective armour located on his robots arms, then he plans to hit back with their secret weapon, the "Green Laser", which their science boffin, Dr. Matsumoto, says should guarantee them victory, however, they soon find that they have a spy in their midst when Achilles fires his Green Lasers, only for Alexander to deflect the blasts using his own reflective armour plates. The referees switch off both robots ranged weapons, so the action switches to melee combat, and Achilles is placed at a disadvantage as Alexander relentlessly pummels him with repeated blows from his robots hydraulic fists, but, just as Achilles thinks he has regained his advantage and damages his opponents robot with a hidden cutting torch, Alexander cheats and reveals that his secret weapon is the ability for his robot to fire one of its fists like a missile, which malfunctions and veers towards the crowd. Achilles throws his machine in the way and manages to block the out of control missile, but his robot falls on to the bleachers, and 300 people are killed. The match is declared a draw, as although Alexander won the match, he broke the rules by using a projectile weapon when at the time they were prohibited, so a rematch is to be fought in 1 week.

Achilles then decides he has fulfilled his obligation and decides to retire, but is alarmed when he is told his place will be taken by a new breed of genetically engineered soldiers called "Gen-Jox", who have superior strength, endurance and reactions, but who are completely inexperienced and extremely arrogant.

As the film goes on, The spy is revealed and Achilles ends up fighting Alexander once more for revenge.

The film is really good, considering its subject matter, and the special effects for the robots are amazing considering not one bit of CGI was used.
That said, the acting is somewhat hammy and the characters spew out line after line of cliched dialogue, but this doesnt alter the fact that this film is a nice, fun film, which will appeal to young and old alike.

If you want to watch this film, you can find it HERE

Dystopiarama - THX 1138 - Directors Cut (1971/2004)

Its not often I see the phrase "directors cut" mentioned in association with one of George Lucas's films and think "ooh!", although that said, I'm one of the few that quite likes what hes done with the original star wars movies, well to a certain extent (fuck you Jar Jar!).

So yeah, THX 1138 was George Lucas's first "proper" film as a professional director, and was based on his earlier short film "Electric Labyrinth - THX 1138 4EB" (which is included as a bonus feature on the directors cut DVD/Blu-Ray).

Set in some unspecified future period, of which the film makes no attempts or efforts to explain whatsoever it stars Robert Duvall as the titular THX 1138, a "drone" worker who lives in a society where there are no real individuals, and society is controlled according to the strict dictats of a computerised economical system, and where the law is enforced by silver faced and extremely amiable police robots.
The people of this bizarre future are kept in a permanent state of sedation as they mindlessly go about their assigned and extremely rigorously micromanaged work duties, with failure to take their state prescribed medications being a crime.
The state also ruthlessly enforces strict controls over individuals private lives, for example, each citizen is billeted to live in spartan accommodations with a roommate, sexual activity of any sort between people is completely banned, and the only entertainments allowed to the citizens revolve around watching banal "entertainment" holographic propaganda (one scene features THX watching a pornographic hologram while a machine masturbates him, this is the only permitted sexual release afforded to the people of this bizarre future).

THX  however, along with his room mate, a female designated "LUH 3417" have ceased taking their state prescribed medications, and have embarked on a sexual relationship, however the omnipresent observers note this and soon enough they both begin to run afoul of the law, especially so when THX finds himself unable to concentrate at his mundane job assembling police robots, which almost causes a nuclear accident.

The film itself is a rather surreal one to watch, as the bizarre environment and emotionally stunted behaviour of the characters can become somewhat confusing to the casual viewer, a matter on which one of the characters (SEN 5241 - played by Donald Pleasence) actually muses upon in the films final act, as he ponders why there appear to be gaps in the fabric of the society whilst standing in front of a picture of Jesus (named OMM 0910 in the film, representing the official religion of the state, whom citizens "worship" by entering phone booth like chambers and telling the picture their woes while a series of pre recorded responses offer empathy and understanding, but provide no advice or assistance. All conversations with OMM are recorded and anyone found to be in violation of any law is arrested).

As this is the Directors Cut, and following in his tradition of "doing up" his older films, this version of the movie restores some scenes cut from the original theatrical release, alongside newly shot scenes and scenes "improved" by use of modern CGI. 

Make no mistake about it, first time viewers will more than likely not understand the films content and will miss some of the references made by characters featured, but, when viewed "in the proper manner", THX 1138 is a skillfully crafted piece of nihilistic cinema, and Duvall does a wonderful job of playing a man whose brain has been "switched on" for the first time in his life and caused him to question and rebel against his surroundings.

This may not be a film to all peoples tastes, and can be considered to be rather boring in some places, but I quite like it.

Book Review:- Strange Playgrounds (2013)

I’ll be the first to admit that the horror genre is not my cup of tea, having tried and failed several times in the past to enjoy the scribblings of King, Lovecraft, Koontz etc., I’ve mostly resigned myself to giving up on finding anything in the genre that I can find enjoyable.

I don’t know why this is, could be because I’m fairly desensitised to shock, could be because when I’m reading the books I have problems with suspension of disbelief, or it could be that I can usually figure out what is going to happen after only reading a few chapters, thus the only enjoyment I usually get from them in that instance is proving myself right, and occasionally being surprised when I find I’ve made a mistake (which doesn’t happen too often).

So, back on subject, a friend of mine by the name of George Daniel Lea recently had his first book published, and after seeing the time and effort he has poured into it over the past 18 months or so, I decided to give it a go, the end result of his efforts being the aforementioned “Strange playgrounds”.

Strange Playgrounds is a collection of short stories (although it could be argued that some of them are closer to being novellas) concentrating on the darker side of human nature, specifically obsessions, deviances and lusts.

The stories themselves are written with a number of influences, most notably the works of Clive Barker but also showing the subtle influences of writers such as H.P Lovecraft and Bram Stoker, although a couple of the stories would seem more at home as being described as being influenced by TV shows such as The Twilight Zone and/or The Outer Limits.

To classify this book as simply being a “horror” novel would do it a grave disservice (pardon the pun), as it is

Many old clichés of the horror genre are given a new twist, including new ways of looking at vampire and werewolf mythology, as well as one story which bears some of the hallmarks of being a rather nice blend of cyberpunk and psychological horror.

Unfortunately though, that said, the stories themselves do suffer from one fatal flaw.

In many of the stories, the author explores the depths of human depravity quite well, but many readers will almost certainly be put off by the large amount of sexual content, particularly of the homoerotic kind, which, and I’m going to be honest, I did find somewhat tiresome after a while, especially so in some of the stories where it had an almost “tacked on” feel, and offered no real benefit to the plot development as a whole.

While the author himself is openly homosexual (of which I have no objection to or opinion on, before anyone starts) I do feel that a lot of the unnecessary sexual content could be expunged and the storylines, as brief as they are, would suffer no detriment.

That said, the prose itself does a wonderful job of being very descriptive where it needs to be, leaving the reader to fill in certain blanks as they please, but not so much as it makes you feel like you’re the one doing all the work.

So, to sum up, Strange Playgrounds isn’t half bad for the debut publication from a new author, and although it isn’t really my cup of tea, it will almost certainly appeal to fans of this particular sub-genre of horror, but I would not recommend it to those of a nervous disposition, or for the easily offended.

Book Review:- The Difference Engine (1990)

The Difference engine is a 1990 steampunk novel co authored by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling.

In a departure from the two authors speciality in the cyberpunk genre, the novels plot takes place in an alternate late 19th century in which Charles Babbage's mechanical computer (the titular "Difference Engine") was considerably more successful than it was in our reality, thus starting the computer revolution at least 100 years earlier than it occurred in our "prime" universe.

As such, the British Empire became considerably more powerful than it did in actuality, and the use of these early computers has kick started a social revolution within the empire, where the hereditary peerage system has been scrapped and replaced with a meritocracy which actively promotes learning and speciality in the "practical" sciences, as such, figures such as Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Charles Babbage and Lord Byron occupy high places within the government (with Byron being the Prime minister for most of the novel after deposing the Duke of Wellington who had seized power in a violent coup d'etat).

The closest rival that the British Empire faces is France, who also have their own computers (which they call "Ordinateurs"), and in this reality, the United States is made up of a series of smaller countries, all of whom don't particularly get on with each other, named ones include the "Union of States", the "Confederate States of America", "The Republic of Texas" and the "Manhattan Commune" (a communist state which occupies most of new york state).

The plot of the book itself is made up of a series of vignettes, each one concentrating on a series of characters who fit in with the overall story arc, this overall story arc concerning the ownership of a box of punch cards containing a computer program, the use of which is speculated about by many of the characters but only actually revealed in a small paragraph right at the end of the book, meaning the punch cards simply act as a "mcguffin" of sorts, with no effect on the plot other than the fact that they exist.

The vignettes are usually prefaced by some sort of passage, written in the style of a police report, a news report or a diary entry from one of the other characters explaining the setting and background to the events, before the storyline begins proper.
This can be somewhat confusing in places, as the books overall plot does not strictly follow a linear time line, and the prose itself is written fully in the style of how it would have been written and spoken in the 19th century, thus it contains many archaic terms and turns of phrase that the uninitiated reader may struggle to make sense of, as well as some forms or social etiquette which have long since fallen out of use but which were quite common at the time.
It should also be pointed out that although this book is set in the "prim and proper" Victorian era, it does indeed contain numerous sexual scenes, described in detail, most notably occurring during the sections dealing with the character "Edward Mallory".

All in all, the novel is a fairly good piece of alternative history fiction, albeit a difficult one to read, and will require some research being done for those who are not familiar with the time period or the concepts being discussed.

Thunderbirds are GO! & Thunderbird 6

During the 1960s, Gerry Anderson was a very, very busy man, but only really so after his series "Thunderbirds" proved to be somewhat considerably more successful than imagined.

Due to this sudden surprise success, with its mix of sci-fi, action and adventure, along with some spectacular (even to this day) miniature special feffects, after the TV series itself had finished, it got a series of movie spin offs, which was very unusual and almost unheard of at the time.

Thunderbirds are GO! (1966)

Riding on the coat tails of the successful airing of the first series, the first theatrical Thunderbirds movie came just in time for christmas 1966 (a decision that in no way was made in order to sell toys....), "Thunderbirds are GO!" tells the story of the attempt to successfully land a manned mission on Mars. However, this being a sci-fi action film, it don't go according to plan, and after a bit of interference from International Rescues nemesis, the Evil Hood, the "Zero-X" mission ends in absolute disaster.
2 years later, and a second mission takes place, this time however the people in charge of the space exploration agency decide to have International Rescue act as security guards (erm, yeah, makes sense....) in order to ensure this launch goes smoothly, which it does, eventually, with the mission being successful up until the point that the astronauts discover some ridiculous aliens living on Mars and run away screaming and return to Earth, where their landing promptly turns to shit but International rescue is on hand to help save the day etc...The End...

This film didn't do very well at the box office, which to be fair, isn't surprising due to the fact that although the episode is a respectable 93 minutes in length, it really does feel like they took a standard 47 minute unused TV episode script and tacked in some "filler" to pad it out...a fact which becomes dead obvious when the side story about Alan Tracy fantasising over Lady Penelope begins being "developed", which interestingly enough features a cameo appearance by "Cliff Richard jr".
All in all though, "Thunderbirds are GO!" is disappointing, it really needed to concentrate more on the goings on of the Zero-X mission and less on Alan Tracys wank fantasies.That said though, two years later, Thunderbirds got another theatrical outing...

Thunderbird 6 (1968)

Intended to be a "summer blockbuster", Thunderbird 6 turned up in mid July 1968, and unlike the previous attempt at making a film version of the popular TV series, this film actually tried to keep in the spirit of adventure of the original show, as opposed to trying to make the film series a more hard sci fi with some bizarre character development stuff tacked on.

Thunderbird 6s plot revolves around Skyship One, the latest creation to come out of the mind of "Brains". Skyship One is a massive airship powered by a nuclear reactor and kept aloft by using advanced anti gravity engines, which at first was laughed at but once built it proves to be a very stable and magnificent ship.
Unfortunately, Skyship Ones maiden voyage is far from glamourous as the Evil Hood has hatched a diabolical plan to use it as a distraction to lure International rescue out so he can hijack their vehicles and do horrible things with them like sell their designs to DIRTY COMMUNISTS!111!!!1!, or something.
The "Thunderbird 6" that the film is named after turns out to be not some new and ultra modern rescue vehicle, but an old DeHavilland Tiger Moth biplane, which is used in the films climax to save the day.

Again, this film performed poorly at the box office, and thus until the renewed interest in the Thunderbirds TV series that occurred during the early/mid 1990s, along with some 1970s/80s compilation "movies", Thunderbirds faded into memory, with its next cinematic outing not being until the release of the god awful 2004 effort which might as well have been called "Spy Kids: Rescue Adventure!".

Apocalypse How? - Annihilation Earth (2009)

So, the prologue...

In 1964, a clever chap by the name of Peter Higgs had this idea that there must be some way to explain why some elementary particles had mass and some didn't, and after a lot of very difficult maths had been done, the idea of the "Higgs Boson" was bandied about. Unfortuneately for Mr Higgs though, the technology of the time wasnt able to validate his theory, so he went on to do some more very difficult sums and discovered some other stuff which got scientists all in a kerfuffle.

In 2008, construction on a very big piece of equipment called the "Large Hadron Collider" was completed, and the boffins collectively spunked in their trousers because now they had the equipment they needed in order to find out if Mr. Higgs was either a genius, or was simply talking out of his arse.

5 years after that, it turns out he is in fact, a genius, and he was awarded a nobel prize for his ability to do incredibly hard maths.


The film...

Annihilation Earth is a 2009 SyFy original movie, starring Luke Goss, Marina Sirtis (who for some reason seems to be under the impression she can do a convincing "southern drawl" accent) and Colin Salmon, as well as some other people who Ive never heard of.

Set in the year 2020, the film establishes that after the Higgs Boson was proved to exist, a related technology, called EVE (an acronym for "Electromagnetic Vacuum Energy") now provides cheap and limitless power to most of western Europe via a series of three linked super colliders.

The lead scientist in the EVE organisation (Goss), is worried that the EVE technology can easily be weaponised and turned into a "Total conversion" weapon (basically, a weapon that converts all matter into energy with near 100% efficiency). This paranoia isn't helped when his ambitious and politically savvy boss (Sirtis) , announces her intention to use the promise of foreign nations being allowed access to EVE in exchange for money and political favours, and it is compounded when his best mate, (Salmon) and fellow scientist seemingly becomes involved to Arab terrorists, shortly after giving him a chilling warning about how terrorists are known to be planning some sort of shennanigans with one of the three colliders in Europe.
These paranoid thoughts are soon confirmed when the collider facility in Orleans has a meltdown, seemingly caused by sabotage.

As the story rolls on, there's a lot of scientific talk about Higgs fields and "doomsday equations", a lot of posturing about the peaceful use of nuclear energy etc, and some healthy doses of paranoia, but, as it turns out, the network of colliders turns out to be a fantastically effective doomsday weapon...so it does.

So yeah, this film isn't too bad, although it does take some liberties with the science fact so as to make it more palatable to science fiction, and the film does take itself very, very seriously at times, but it is nonetheless a half decent bit of B-list sci-fi storytelling.

I give it 7 debasements of science out of 10.

Apocalypse How? - Stonehenge Apocalypse (2010)

So, yeah, I said i was gonna write about something less depressing, so the first thing I chose was...an apocalypse film......


*ahem*

So, the silly sounding title aside, "Stonehenge Apocalypse" is a made for TV Sci-fi disaster movie which fist aired on the Syfy channel in 2010.
Starring no one of any note or importance, this low/mid budget piece of sci-fi B-list material manages to make use of both pseudo-science, pseudo-archeology AND an "end of days" storyline to produce something which although full of poor acting, cheap CGI effects, plot holes and some inexcusable technical gaffes, is actually highly entertaining.

yes, it is...really.


The plot goes like this:-

An archeological dig in Maine unearths an egyptian tomb, which then causes the stones at Stonehenge to begin moving about and releasing wave after wave of deadly electromagnetic radiation.
A disgraced astrophysics professor, who now presents an internet radio show from his basement hears of this event and travels to Stonehenge to unravel the mystery of the moving stones and in the end manages to validate several of his crackpot theories regarding ancient astronauts, out of place artifacts and several apocalyptic prophecies as foretold by "the ancient writings" (whatever they are, because they are never explicitly referenced).
Cue a rip roaring adventure which sees a group of hippies try to become the only survivors of the end of the world and some military gung ho explosions and machine gun shooting, with a bit of a plot twist which I never saw coming about two thirds of the way through.

Yeah, I liked this film, even though the story is ridiculous and the acting is terrible, but, if you ignore all this and just sit and watch it, this film is entertaining, which is what a film is supposed to be.

I give it 7 crystal skulls out of 10

Aint War Hell? - The Divide (2012)

The Divide is a 2012 sci-fi/psychological thriller type film, dealing with the trials of a group of survivors who hide in a basement to escape a nuclear war.

The film is somewhat different to most "post nuclear" films as it makes no effort to explain how or why the war happened, or indeed how life goes on in the fallout riddled aftermath, instead, the film concentrates on the breakdown of human morality following a harrowing and extremely life changing event.

Although the film gets a little slow in places, which is unsurprising given its subject matter, and lacks any kind of deep meaningful scenes or action packed edge of your seat type bits, the whole aspect of people "going rotten" is well explored and realistically portrayed.
The film itself also doesn't make use of "A-list" actors in much capacity, the only names in this film I recognise are Michael Biehn and Rosanna Arquette, both of whom play pivotal characters and do so extremely well.

The film begins with nuclear missiles raining down on New York City. Eight residents of an apartment block force their way into the ex-military survivalist caretakers fallout shelter in the basement of the building hoping to live through the terrible events going on above ground.
The "survivors" are an eclectic mix of people, a young couple, a mother and her preteen daughter, two brothers and a shy reclusive man.
Very quickly, the caretaker (Biehn) tries to assert his dominance over the group, but ultimately fails due to the combined efforts and wills of the younger men.
Shortly after they lock themselves in, the shelter is invaded by masked soldiers of indeterminate origin (it is never explained who these soldiers are) who kidnap Wendis (Arquette) daughter. the survivors successfully manage to repulse the invaders, killing one of them and taking some of their weapons. One of the men, Josh, volunteers to dress in the dead soldiers uniform and go outside to see if he can find a way for them all to escape, when he does so, he instead finds that the outside is a series of plastic sheeting corridors, which lead to some sort of laboratory, in which he finds Wendis daughter seemingly having medical experiments being performed on her, as well as other children all locked in deep freeze units. His disguise is rumbled quickly by one of the other soldiers within the bizarre complex and he beats a hasty retreat back to the shelter, killing some of the soldiers as he flees.
After he returns, the soldiers weld the metal door of the shelter shut, thus preventing their escape.

Resigning themselves to being trapped within the small basement shelter, the survivors begin to lose hope, and over time, begin turning somewhat insane.
Firstly, after arguments over food and supplies begin breaking out, the survivors find that the caretaker has a secret room which is crammed full of food and clean drinking water, his punishment for not revealing this, as well as for killing one of their number in "self defence" is a lengthy torture session, carried out by Bobby and Josh, who emerge as the dominant members of the group, followed by him being tied to a chair and left to starve in a back room.
Bobby also begins physically and sexually abusing Wendi, as she has become completely apathetic upon learning her daughter is dead, even going so far as to tell Eva, the only other female survivor, that she should begin allowing the men to have sex with her on a regular basis in order to make themselves all feel better.
As time passes, Bobby and Josh become degenerates, and begin indulging in various bizarre sexual rituals, while all the time very obviously suffering from the early stages of radiation poisoning, for example, Bobby begins wearing Wendis clothes and make up, while Wendi is usually seen wearing only a dressing gown or makeshift clothes made from gaffer tape.
Eva and Adrien try and figure out another way to escape, and their breakthrough comes when the caretaker reveals that they could escape by swimming through the septic tank and going out through the sewers.
Things come to a head when it is discovered that Bobby and/or Josh have killed Wendi in the process of abusing her, and open fighting breaks out.
The caretaker reveals he has another gun hidden in his safe room and it ends up getting used to kill Bobby, but then Josh immolates himself, leaving Adrien and the caretaker scrambling to escape the flames, while Eva locks them out of the toilet, and, taking the dead soldiers NBC suit earlier worn by Josh, she escapes through the sewers, leaving the other two men to be burned to death.

The ending of the film is somewhat depressing, as all through the film Eva and Adrien struggle to maintain their relationship, but she happily abandons him when it looks like she might be killed, and the final scene shows her walking through a completely destroyed New York, whose streets are litters with the skeletons of people killed by nuclear blasts.

This isn't a bad film, but its really, really hard going in the middle, as the films subject matter is wholly dependant on character development, which fortunately, this film does really well.
This film will most certainly NOT appeal to all, especially those looking for action scenes etc or mystery, but its a nice enough film to get you thinking about human nature.

I give this film 6 megatons out of 10

Dystopiarama:- Life After People (TV series 2009-2010)

"Life After People" is a History Channel documentary series produced between 2009 and 2010, and thus far has had two complete series plus its initial 90 minute "special" episode.

The series postulates what would happen to the Earth should mankind suddenly vanish, and also explores what would mankinds legacy to the universe be should this happen.

The series' tagline is "Welcome to Earth, population: Zero".

The initial 90 minute episode takes a look at various subjects, mostly concentrating on the subjects of how animals would cope without humans, and also the matter of urban decay.
The series version, which runs at approx 50 minutes per episode, expands on these concepts, with each episode having a particular theme, such as the fate of various building types, the long term effects of human mechanisation and technology, and the effect that pollution would have after we have gone and are not around to stop it.

The series makes no attempt to explain why humans have gone, they just have, and all the episodes show time from "today" (i.e, early 21st century) and extends forward, up to 1 million years into the future in the case of one episode.

The series can make for rather depressing viewing at times, for example, all those fluffy little pet animals would not fare so well without their owners to look after them, and many farm animals such as dairy cows would die from starvation, whereas other creatures, such as house cats, horses, raccoons and rats would do very well freed from the constraints of human intervention. A special mention also goes to head lice, who would become extinct within two weeks due to the complete loss of their only available food source.
One episode concentrates on the legacy of pollution left behind, showing how nuclear waste and hazardous chemicals would cause horrendous environmental damage after their containment systems begin to break down within the first 50 years or so, and the incredible amount of time it would take for nature to recover from the mass chemical or radioactive poisoning that would result.
Another bizarre twist is an episode which looks at what would happen to buried or preserved human corpses in the years that followed, where, due to lack of maintenance, human corpses would not only provide a feast for the animals that remain, but would also end up becoming something akin to the crude oil that we use by the gallon now.

On a plus note, the series takes a fairly in depth look at the way nature would quickly reassert its dominance over the Earth one we have gone, with cities quickly giving way to the regrowth of plants and trees and natural water flows sweeping away concrete dams.
Glimpses into the far future show cities such as London, Washington D.C and Seattle becoming marshlands or even being completely covered by water, and even show that in the far, far future, bacteria from Earth my spread life from Earth to other planets both in and outside of Earths solar system due to them stowing away on the various space probes launched during mans time on Earth.

The series itself is quite enjoyable, albeit very dry in some places, and should you wish to view it, you can do so, click HERE

Aint War Hell? - The Day After (ABC 1983)

The Day After is a 1983 American TV movie starring Steve Guttenberg, John Lithgow, Bibi Besch and a whole list of others Ive never heard of.

Again this film depicts the events leading up to, during, and after a global nuclear war circa the early 1980s, concentrating on the lives of a small group of people who live in and around the area of Kansas City.

Like both "The War Game" and "Threads", the build up to the war itself takes place off screen, this time round, the war is caused by a Soviet build up of troops in East Berlin, which quickly degenerates into a Soviet invasion of Western Europe, leading to open conflict  worldwide, and eventually the launch of ICBMs.

The characters followed throughout the main plot are as follows:-

Dr Oakes - a fairly affluent doctor at one of Kansas Citys main hospitals. At the time that the first Soviet missiles destroy the main bulk of the city, he is on his way to give a lecture at the university of Missouri but gets stuck on the road after the EMP effects of the first missiles knock his car out of commission. He returns to the hospital and spends several weeks struggling to treat survivors, before finally succumbing to the effects of radiation sickness. A poignant scene is where at the end of the film, he manages to return home to find his house has become a smoking crater, and the only remains of his family is his wife's smashed wristwatch.

The Dahlberg family - Farmers from rural Kansas. The Dahlbergs farm is surrounded by missile silos, and on the day of the war they are preparing for their eldest daughters wedding. When the war breaks out, they take shelter in their cellar, and are eventually joined by Stephen Klein.

Stephen Klein - A medical student on his way home when the war started. Stephen finds himself caught in the open as the bombs start falling and takes cover inside which saves his life. He makes his way on foot back to the city but stumbles across the Dahlberg house on his way there, where he becomes like a surrogate son to them. At the end of the film, Stephen is suffering from the early stages of radiation sickness but has formed a relationship of sorts with the Dahlbergs eldest daughter.

Professor Huxley - A teacher at the university of Missouri. Professor Huxley provides most of the films "science bits", as well as several healthy doses of cynicism throughout, especially over mankinds chances of long term survival.


The film is marked by several very harrowing scenes, including people being vaporised by the initial nuclear blast, piles of dead human and animal corpses, people descending into savagery and all the usual stuff youd expect form this type of film.
One bit that jumps out for me though, it one scene where, shortly after the war has ended, people gather in the ruins of a church near the Dahlbergs home to listen to a sermon given by a scarred and burned priest, who cannot even bring himself to complete it due to the absolute obvious fact that its words, in which he attempts to extoll gods glory by stating that the faithful will be protected, whilst standing in the burnt out rubble of his church surrounded by wounded and dying parishioners in a country which is now lying in ruins and packed stalked by death.

A caption at the end of the film states that the film is a work of fiction, but is based on fact, and that the film makers intentionally toned down the effects of a nuclear conflict in order to make the story more beleviable, and that they hoped it would give those in positions of power something to think about.

Oddly enough, it did, as President Reagan was said to have viewed the film and bore it in mind when he pursued nuclear disarmament talks in the late 1980s.


As for my opinion on this film, id have to say that its a pretty good one, although it sacrifices the harsh realities of "Threads" in order to make the film more viewable to family audiences.

If you want to watch this movie, click HERE

Aint War Hell? - Threads (BBC 1984)

So, my next stop on my journey into nucelar holocaust drama is 1984s "Threads".
Like "The War Game" before it (which had yet to be shown on television, despite being made nearly 20 years previously) Threads is a Drama-Documentary, however unlike The War Game, Threads has a series of characters which it follows  over the course of about 25 years.

Threads was, and still is, considered somewhat harrowing viewing, as like its 60s predecessor, it pulls no punches in showing the horrible effects of a nuclear war on British society.
Set in "modern day", i.e, the early 1980s, Threads follows the fortunes of 3 groups of people, The Beckett Family, the Kemp family, and Sheffields emergency planning committee.

The narration of the story comes in the form of on screen "teletype" style captions, giving information relevant to on screen events and marking the passage of time.

The story begins with Ruth and Jimmy, a young couple who decide to marry after Ruth falls pregnant. While both families go about their daily lives, news reports heard playing in the background on radios and TV sets state that the USSR has invaded Iran, in response, NATO forces mobilise and the USSR is issued with a warning to withdraw otherwise the NATO countries would step in to protect western economic interests in the region (in other words..oil..oh look, how familiar is that eh?).
As relations between NATO and the USSR begin to fizzle away, the home office instructs Sheffield city council to form an emergency planning committee, to be based in the cellar of the city hall. Local councillors and civil servants are chosen to sit on the committee and begin setting up their "command centre" of sorts, not really expecting anything to happen.
As the preparations are made, numerous protests occur, firstly from anti nuclear campaigners, and then later by trade unionists, calling for a general strike in protest at the prospect of war.
The on screen captions state that the police are given emergency powers to arrest and detain both known and suspected subversives in order to maintain calm.
Despite all these preapartions however, on one May morning, whilst it is still night time in the US, "Attack warning red" is broadcast, meaning that world war 3 has begun.
(it is left deliberately ambiguous as to who fired first, although one news report states that US forces in west Germany detonated a tactical nuclear weapon over advancing Soviet troops in order to prevent the invasion of western Europe).

Within minutes, a soviet missile airburst over the north sea knocks out all electrical systems in northern England, and soon after, missiles begin impacting on major targets such as RAF Finningley, the Sheffield steelworks and mining areas.
As is the norm for nuclear warfare, anyone or anything caught in a primary blast zone is immediately vapourised, anything in the secondary blast zones either bursts into flames from the intense heat, or is pulverised by the blast wave.

Jimmys family, the Kemps, rush to complete their fallout shelter in their home, but are unable to fully complete it when the first missile strike hits. Jimmys younger brother is killed as he hides in Jimmys aviary, and Jimmys parents are injured as their house begins to collapse around them.
Jimmy himself, who is at work at the time of the attack, sets off running to try and get to Ruth, he is never seen again.
Ruths family, including her grandmother, who was sent home from the hospital she was in in order to make room for the expected wounded and injured, fare slightly better than the Kemps, due to them all taking shelter in their cellar, however, even with this makeshift shelter, radiation sickness begins to take its toll. An on screen caption points out that in its early stages, the symptoms of radiation sickness are indistinguishable from panic.

In total, 3000 megatons are exchanged worldwide, with approximately 150 megatons falling in the UK.
The emergency planning committee, or, at least those who bothered to turn up for work that morning, are trapped in their underground shelter, imprisoned by the rubble of the destroyed town hall. One of their number is killed by falling masonary, however their radio still functions, and after several attempts, they are able to make contact with remnants of the civil defence volunteers in nearby Stocksbridge, who tell them that due to raging fires and heavy radioactive fallout, it will be some time before a rescue attempt can be made.

A week passes, and many of those injured in the attack are already dead, and the streets are littered with rotting corpses and vermin. Without social infrastructure, the few functioning hospitals in the area quickly run out of essential medical supplies, even sundries such as wound dressings, disinfectants and even sharp knives are quickly used up, and doctors are forced to improvise, one scene shows nurses ripping up blankets to use in place of bandages, ans salt being mixed with hot water to be used in place of disinfectant.

Ruths grandma dies from the initial onset of radiation sickness, and, while her father drags the body upstairs, Ruth escapes and goes in search of Jimmy, however when she arrives at the Kemp family home, she finds Jimmys mothers rotting corpse abandoned in their half finished shelter. Jimmys father is later seen swapping a packet of cigarettes for a bottle of whisky with another survivor, but he soon succumbs to radiation and dies.

In the 2 weeks Ruth takes to return home from trying to find Jimmy, The Becketts house is invaded by looters and both her parents are killed.

Civil order breaks down rapidly, and in one of this films most iconic scenes, a traffic warden is shown wielding an assault rifle and being assigned to guard prisoners captured while looting or rioting, however before long, civil defence forces simply shoot looters on sight, as dead people don't need to be fed.

The emergency planning committee struggles to come up with any effective means of keeping up a steady supply of food and materials for the survivors above ground, and take to arguing amongst themselves ineffectively.

Within 2 months, radiation sickness, starvation, dehydration and infection have killed roughly 40 million people worldwide, with their corpses lying unburied due to lack of fuel to cremate them and a waste of energy feeding people to dig graves, this leads to outbreaks of diseases such as cholera and dysentery, which leads to even more deaths due to the lack of the most basic medicines or even clean drinking water.
At this time, rescuers finally manage to unearth the emergency planning committees bunker, only to find all its occupants have died from suffocation.


6 months down the line and winter sets in , which is not helped by the presence of a "nuclear winter" beforehand, which has pretty much killed off all the plants and crops, leading to less food available than ever.
By now, Ruth is heavilly pregnant and having ignored "official" advice, such as it is, to remain in her home town, she has walked 20 miles to Buxton, where the remaining local authority billets her to stay in a house occupied by an old man, who promptly throws her and other refugees out into the street once the police have left as he refuses to share his meagre food supplies with strangers.




Ruth carries on wandering and eventually gives birth to a baby girl in an abandoned barn (the end credits name this child as "Jane")
A year after the war, and a caption states that the population of the UK is now estimated to be less than 3 million people, and although in some areas manual coal mining has resumed, as well as the use of steam powered traction engines for farming, the lack of agrochemicals, pesticides and fertilizers means that crop harvests are poor.
Ruth is shown attempting to barter with a street peddler, however he isn't interested in any of the scrap items she is carrying, and instead in exchange for 3 dead rats, he demands sexual services.
Ruth is then shown running from civil defence personnel after stealing a bag of grain, which she then crushes on the floor of a house she is hiding in by using a rusted metal bucket in order to get something edible for her child.

10 years later, Ruth is shown working in the rudimentary fields tilling soil, however the caption states that due to damage to the ozone layer, the light is heavy with ultraviolet radiation, leading to cataracts becoming widespread and increased risk of cancer. during her work period, Ruth collapses, and is shown to have cataracts and to look much older than her years due to radiation exposure.
Ruth and Jane live in a makeshift home, Jane attempts to wake Ruth up for work, however Ruth dies silently, Jane, who has grown up in a world without education or any kind of social interaction, stares emotionlessly at her mothers body, before taking Ruths scarf and hairbrush before leaving.

3 more years pass and Jane appears to have picked up two male companions. None of the three "post war" children can speak proper English, instead communicating by a series of grunts, broken sentences and slang. Jane is then shown running from civil defence personnel, however her companion "Gaz" is shot. Jane and her companion "Spike" escape with some stolen food but as they inspect their booty, Spike rapes Jane.

several months later, Jane is shown wandering through the rubble of a destroyed town, very obviously pregnant. She happens across a makeshift hospital where she pleads with a woman for help as "babbie coming", initially her pleas go unanswered until she gives birth to a stillborn and deformed child, which is handed to her wrapped in a dirty and bloodstained sheet.
The film ends just as Jane screams.

Like "The War Game", this film holds nothing back, and many of the scenes are extremely disturbing to watch, but they are nevertheless a true representation of what the expected effects of a global nuclear conflict would be, in fact, in some ways the scenes are actually rather optimistic.

This is a very good film, well made and very evocative and is recommended highly.
If you would like to watch this film, click HERE

Aint War Hell? - The War Game (BBC 1965)

"The War Game" is a 1965 docu-drama-film about the effects of a global nuclear war, set in contemporary times (ie, the late '60s).

Originally planned to be shown as part of the BBCs "The Wednesday Play" series (which ran in a weekly prime time slot from 1964 until 1970) the play/film was a groundbreaking and exceptionally honest portrayal of the state of affairs in Britain at the time and showed the total and complete lack of understanding about just what would happen should world war 3 actually occur.
As such, when viewed by the BBC governors and government officials prior to its broadcast, the program was immediately pulled from the broadcast schedules, and wasnt shown in full on television until 1985.
This was due to the fact that the brutally honest style of filming, using actual quotes and recreations of government procedures, as well as interviews with real people in the street regarding the various topics related to nuclear war would have heavilly damaged the carefully crafted government image that nuclear war wasnt really all that different from the use of conventional bombs, and that the government could be trusted to get things up and running again following a nuclear exchange.


Plot wise, the film doesnt particularly follow any particular person, or group of people, but instead recreates a snapshot of life in and around a typical english town in Kent.
The build up to "the war" happens completely off camera, and centres around a Chinese invasion of  south Vietnam (which incidentally was a very real portent of things to come in the Vietnam war which was kicking off at the time this film was made) in response ot this, the NATO powers begin mobilising against China, but, to show solidarity with their communist friends, the USSR mobilises its forces in east Germany, eventually invading west Berlin.
In response to this, the US president (Ed Bishop) issues an ultimatum to the USSR, leave West Germany or else!.
Open warfare soon breaks out between the NATO and warsaw pact countries in Germany, and talk soon comes round to the use of tactical nuclear weapons.

In Britain, which the narrator points out has more targets for nuclear missiles than the entire continental United States due to its high concentrations of military staging areas, missile launching facilities and industrial and manufacturing facilities, the populations of large cities are graded with a rating of 1 to 5, and then evacuated to towns in the country or in remote areas like Wales or the Lake district.
The vast majority of these evacuees are young women and children, any men over the age of 18 are to remain behind in the cities, either to continue working or to fight should there be an invasion.

Preparations for war are shown, firstly in the form of civil defence volunteers going door to door handing out booklets , which it is remarked have been available for some time, but did not sell well due to their asking price of 9d, so no one has really read their content, much less have had time to build fallout shelters as described in the book.
Profiteering soon becomes rife, with people selling sandbags, wood and sand for ridiculous prices, and shop owners begin selling tinned food and supplies for vastly inflated markups, all the while, evacuees are forced to live with complete strangers under threat of imprisonment under the emergency powers act.

Interviews with people in the street show the level of ignorance the general public had about a nuclear war, with one woman referring to Strontium-90 as "some sort of gunpowder" and people not knowing what effects radioactive fallout would have on them other than it being "some sort of dust that makes you ill if you swallow it".
The narrator points out at this point that the amount of warning time available for an ICBM strike could be as little as 30 seconds, depending where the missiles were launched from, and at what time of day the launch occurs, and that the standard "3 minute warning" benchmark was more optimistic than realistic.

Eventually, the war begins proper, after the US president orders a pre-emptive tactical nuclear strike against Russian forces who are still holding West Berlin, pretty soon, the ICBMs start flying.
The village , although not a target, is hit by a stray missile which was headed for Gatwick airport but failed en route and exploded prematurely, this is shown on screen as a massive white flash in the sky, which immediately vapourises anyone caught out in the open, blinds those who were outside of the blast radius by melting their eyeballs due to the intense light, then the ensuing firestorm and blast wave set fire to anything flammable within its maximum blast radius, and destroy or severely damage any building not strong enough to withstand it.

The following day, radioactive fallout begins slowly killing off those who haven't found shelter, which is just about everyone.
The local authorities struggle to cope with the sudden influx of wounded and dying, and soon rioting and looting becomes commonplace, which increasingly draconian measures fail to curb (the narrator points out that following the firebombing of Dresden during World War 2, it was found that respectable middle class citizens had no qualms whatsoever about resorting to violent looting and theft, while those of the lower classes, from whom this type of behaviour would normally be expected, were less likely to exhibit this behaviour)
Within a month, all civil order has broken down, with policemen and civil defence volunteers being openly beaten, shot and murdered in the streets by looters and thieves, civil food banks find themselves over run and civilisation as it was known vanishes into history as the instinct for survival takes precedence over everything else.

Interviews with people in the street after the war show that following the harrowing events, people enter a state of incurable depression, simply interested in nothing more than finding food, one man states that he was offered £1 (a lot of money for the average person in 1965) for a loaf of bread, but refused it as "you cant eat a pound note".

The film ends by showing a home for war orphans in Dover, where scarred, malnourished and deformed children are brought up by a local priest. None of the children show any interest in life when asked about what their hopes are for the future.


Probably the most disturbing thing about this film is the quotes used which were supplied by various sources at the time.
One actor, dressed as an Anglican priest, reads a statement by another priest who he quotes as saying that he was in favour of there being a nuclear war, simply because God protects the just and would help the righteous smite their enemies.
Another quote, this time from a government official at the time stated that they didn't believe that a global nuclear war would be any worse than the blitz, and that Britain would easily be able to cope with any aftereffects of a war and would be back on its fee tin no time etc etc.

The film is a very well made and very though provoking piece of film, and is highly recommended.
If you wish to view this film, you can do so by clicking HERE