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by gene dolders
The Omega Man – 1971
Director: Boris Sagal
Plot: Dr Robert Neville (Charlton Heston) has developed an experimental vaccine which makes him the only immune survivor of a biological catastrophe. A gang of homicidal mutants led by Matthias (Anthony Zerbe) blame science for their condition and attempt to kill him.
Trivia: The writers came up with the idea to make Neville’s love interest an African-American woman. Even though an interracial relationship was still considered controversial in the seventies, the writers figured that in a world where humanity had almost become extinct, the few survivors would no longer care about such issues.
The Crazies – 1973
Director: George Romero
Plot: Starring Lane Carroll and Will ManMillan. The military attempts to contain a manmade combat virus that causes death and permanent insanity in those infected, as it overtakes a small Pennsylvania town.
Trivia: In the opening scene, Special Effects Technician for The Crazies, Regis Survinski plays the insane father who murders his wife and torches the house. The children of Cinematographer S. William Hinzman play the terrified kids in the scene. The house was originally slated for destruction by the local fireman as a practice run and Romero got permission to film the burning of it.
Mad Max – 1979
Director: George Miller
Plot: In a self-destructing world, a vengeful Australian policeman (Mel Gibson) sets out to stop a violent motorcycle gang led by Toecutter (Hugh Keays-Byrne)
Trivia: James McCausland: The bearded man wearing an apron in front of the roadside diner watching the police cyclists and tow trucks drive away is the film’s co-writer.
Contamination – 1980
Director: Luigi Cozzi
Plot: A former astronaut (Ian McCulloch) helps a government agent (Louise Marleau) and a police detective (Marino Mase) track the source of mysterious alien pod spores, filled with lethal flesh-dissolving acid, to a South American coffee plantation controlled by alien pod clones.
Trivia: According to director Luigi Cozzi during a Q&A, the film was partially funded by Colombian drug dealers. When the movie made money they were very pleased with their investment.
Nightmare City – 1980
Director: Umberto Lenzi
Plot: A reporter (Hugo Stiglitz) and his wife (Laura Trotter) must survive as an airplane exposed to radiation lands, and blood drinking zombies emerge armed with knives, guns and teeth! They go on a rampage slicing, dicing, and biting their way across the Italian countryside.
Trivia: Nightmare City oftens appears on both Sci Fi and horror shelves. Umberto Lenzi claims it is a Sci-Fi movie as the creatures are infected by a virus and not undead ghouls. Many of the fans of this movie see it as a zombie/horror film.
Escape From New York – 1981
Director: John Carpenter
Plot: In 1997, when the U.S. president (Donald Pleasence) crashes into Manhattan, now a giant maximum security prison, a convicted bank robber (Kurt Russell) is sent in to rescue him.
Trivia: The opening narration, and the computer’s voice in the first prison scene, were provided by an uncredited Jamie Lee Curtis.
The Bronx Warriors – 1982
Director: Enzo G. Castellari
Plot: In a post-apocalyptic New York City, a policeman (Vic Morrow) infiltrates the Bronx, which has become a battleground for several murderous street gangs.
Trivia: Enzo G. Castellari plays the Vice President.
The Thing – 1982
Director: John Carpenter
Plot: MacReady (Kurt Russell), a helicopter pilot and his research team in Antarctica are hunted by a shape-shifting alien that assumes the appearance of its victims.
Trivia: The female voice on MacReady’s computer was performed (uncredited) by then-wife of John Carpenter, Adrienne Barbeau.
Raiders of Atlantis – 1983
Director: Roger Franklin
Plot: An ancient Atlantean relic is discovered on the ocean floor near a sunken nuclear submarine, which triggers a violent set of events that sees a couple of scientists teaming up with mercenaries Mike Ross (Christopher Connelly) and Mohammed (Tony King) to survive the onslaught that follows.
Trivia: The movie was actually directed by Ruggero Deodato. Italian productions often changed the directors names for marketing purposes. Hoping that an Americans sounding name would be more appealable to audiences.
Life Force – 1985
Director: Tobe Hooper
Plot: A race of space vampires arrives in London and infects the populace, beginning an apocalyptic descent into chaos. Patrick Stewart stars as Dr. Armstrong and Mathilda May is Space Girl.
Trivia: The Cannon Group, Inc. and Golan-Globus Productions were renowned for making low-budget movies. This production, along with Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987) and Masters of the Universe (1987) were three of their most expensive.
Short Circuit – 1985
Director: John Badham
Plot: Number 5 of a group of experimental robots in a lab is electrocuted, suddenly becomes intelligent, and escapes. Starring Steve Guttenberg as Newton Crosby.
Trivia: The sound of Number 5’s laser firing is the same effect as the Ghostbusters’ Proton Packs powering up.
Predator – 1987
Director: John McTiernan
Plot: A team of commandos led by Dutch (Arnold Schwarzenegger) on a mission in a Central American jungle find themselves hunted by an extraterrestrial warrior.
Trivia: The black helicopter pilot seen at the end of the movie is Kevin Peter Hall , the actor who plays the Predator. John McTiernan gave him the brief on-screen role, because his “work as Predator was so exhausting.
Nightmare at Noon – 1988
Director: Nico Mastorakis
Plot: City lawyer Ken Griffiths (Wings Hauser) and ex-cop Reilly (Bo Hopkins) fight to survive as scientists poison the water supply of a small town, turning the residents into homicidal maniacs who kill each other and anybody who passes through.
Trivia: Wings Hauser and Bo Hopkins co-stared together four years earlier in Night Shadows/Mutant (1984), a film that has essentially the same plot as Nightmare at Noon. Both films feature them playing survivors in a town where they have to escape residents that have been mutated by toxic waste being dumped in the drinking water system.
Mac and Me – 1988
Director: Stewart Raffill
Plot: An alien trying to escape from NASA is befriended by a wheelchair-bound boy (Jade Calegory).
Trivia: The McDonald’s scenes were all shot in City of Industry, CA, just outside Los Angeles. The set was a real-life McDonald’s built specifically for crew member training and television commercials. Everything inside worked, but it never served a real customer. When it wasn’t being used, it was locked up behind a chain link fence. It was torn down and rebuilt in 2006.
Split Second – 1992
Director: Tony Maylam
Plot: In a flooded future London, Detective Harley Stone (Rutger Hauer) hunts a serial killer who murdered his partner, and has haunted him ever since. He soon discovers what he is hunting might not be human.
Trivia: Film production in the UK was in a depression at the time this film was in production. At one point, for about two weeks it was the only feature film shooting in the whole UK.
Nemesis – 1992
Director: Albert Pyun
Plot: Alex (Olivier Gruner), a burned out LA cyborg cop, is forced by commissioner Farnsworth (Tim Thomerson) to find his former cyborg partner and lover Jared who’s about to deliver sensitive data to cyborg terrorists who wish to wage war against humans. Is he being played?
Trivia: In the director’s cut, the hotel at the beginning of the movie is named the Imperial Hotel. This is a reference to the production company, Imperial Entertainment. x, a burned out LA cyborg cop, is forced by commissioner Farnsworth to find his former cyborg partner and lover Jared who’s about to deliver sensitive data to cyborg terrorists who wish to wage war against humans. Is he being played?
Event Horizon – 1997
Director: Paul W. S. Anderson
Plot: A rescue crew led by Weir (Sam Neill) is tasked with investigating the mysterious reappearance of a spaceship that had been lost for seven years.
Trivia: Andrew Kevin Walker wrote an uncredited draft of the script. Some of it ended up on screen, and one sequence was cut from the theatrical cut, where captain Miller ( Laurence Fishburne ), upon entering the Event Horizon, finds a ripped-out tooth floating around. Other scenes appear as storyboards on the Special Collector’s Edition, when Miller’s crew is introduced for the first time on another rescue mission. On the DVD documentaries and commentaries, director Paul W.S. Anderson said he regretted having to delete these scenes,but they didn’t help the film’s pacing.
Doomsday – 2008
Director: Neil Marshall
Plot: A futuristic action thriller where Eden Sinclair (Rhone Mitra) must prevent a disaster threatening the future of the human race.
Trivia: Though the film takes place in London and Scotland, most of principal photography was done in South Africa. The last scene shot in the country before moving to the UK, was the lengthy car chase with the Bentley crashing through the bus.
The Rover – 2014
Director: David Michod
Plot: 10 years after a global economic collapse, a hardened loner (Guy Pierce) pursues the men (Robert Pattinson and Scoot McNairy) who stole his only possession, his car. Along the way, he captures one of the thieves’ brother, and the duo form an uneasy bond during the
dangerous journey.
Trivia: Robert Pattinson stated, that after the Twilight series ended he knew he had to play these kind of roles to avoid getting typecast, and that he wanted the role so much, that in the days leading up to the audition, he even dreamt of his character Rey. When he was at David Michôd house for the audition, he couldn’t start to actually play the character for 45 minutes because he had so much anxiety.
Rogue One – 2016
Director: Gareth Edwards
Plot: In a time of conflict, a group of unlikely heroes (Felicity Jones, Diego Luna and Donnie Yen) band together on a mission to steal the plans to the Death Star, the Empire’s ultimate weapon of destruction.
Trivia: Gareth Edwards instructed the art department to only use elements that would have been available in 1977 to get the movie to look contemporary to Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977) . The flight control animations, for example, had to be kept as simple as possible, resisting the urge to make them too ‘flashy’.
