The folks out at Troma sent over a copy of the 20th anniversary edition of There’s Nothing Out There for us to review, and if you’ve ever seen a Troma movie before, you probably know what you’re in for: bizarre, sometimes baffling, sometimes disgusting, but always thoroughly unique horror and science fiction on shockingly low budgets. Troma’s been at this game for 35 years now, and There’s Nothing Out There will prove to be a fine example of the particular brand of hash Troma’s been slinging for years.

There’s Nothing Out There sends a bunch of horny kids along with one extra odd man out type who have gone plunging into the woods for a wild weekend of booze, sex, and everything else that’s sure to get you killed in a horror movie. And of course, one of our group is well aware that, hey, this is exactly how horror movies get started…which just sounds like a horror buff’s whining until they discover that there’s an alien creature out in the woods. It’s out to lunch up the guys…and do much more unspeakable things with the women. In other words, it’s par for the horror course.

I grew up with Troma film. Troma was putting out low-budget direct to video horror before even Full Moon got started at it, and frankly, I’d sooner watch a whole lot of Troma films LONG before sitting through another one of Charles Band’s stylized eighty minute toy commercials. And of course, I’ve seen a couple pieces from writer / director Rolfe Kanefsky, and he does pretty nice job of putting on a show. This is his earlier work, of course, but it shows through well–the Kanefsky work I’ve seen does a wonderful job of blending horror and comedy, making him perfect for Troma, whose entire oeuvre is pretty much “blended horror and comedy”.

Horror blended with comedy is an excellent cross-genre mix because the laughs cut the scares, and make the scares sharper by breaking up the tension between scares. Surprise goes a long way toward making a scare–atmosphere to build tension and a surprise to break it, standard horror formula–and when you throw jokes into the mix, you destabilize the whole thing and make it much more random. Surprises come with more regularity.

It’s funny, it’s got some good scares…it’s most anything you can want in a horror film, and it’s well worth your time to catch this one if you’ve got any kind of love for the horror genre at all.

The Screenhead Ten Scale hands There’s Nothing Out There, a compelling and hilarious blend of horror and comedy a nine out of ten for doing a terrific job of mixing things up and keeping its audience quite thoroughly on edge.

I am Number Four extended trailer is looking even better and is sure to rock your socks.  The movie is produced by Michael Bay and directed by D.J. Caruso. The film is based on Lore’s six-book science fiction series that follows a group of nine earthbound alien teens who escape their planet just before it was destroyed by hostile species. While they try to assimilate to the new environment, the title character discovers that he is being hunted by the forces that blew up his planet.

I Am Number Four opens in theaters February 18, 2011.

I love the surfer dudes with the UFOs attacking overhead.  It’s kind of creepy while the surfer dudes rest on their boards watching.

Battle: Los Angeles 2011 revolves around a Marine staff sergeant (Aaron Eckhart) and his new platoon’s battle against an alien invasion on the streets of Los Angeles.

In 1942 Los Angeles had a UFO air craft visit them. It was even reported in the LA Times.  You can check out the story here.

There have been sightings of UFOs all over the world, and now, they are taking action. The platoon takes them on in the Battle: LA. It’s a battle they have never fought before and probably will never fight again.

Disney’s Tron: Legacy took in about $3.5 million in midnight runs, with Imax theaters providing a record percentage of the box office tally.

Imax locations took in about $1 million. THR reports that number could shift upwards once final figures are tallied.

Tron opened in 228 Imax theaters across the country. Several theaters in South Atlantic states that had planned to run the Disney movie were shut because of snow.

The movie surpasses Inception, which earned $3 million at late night showings earlier this year.

You can hear Daft Punk’s soundtrack in the background as Jeff Bridges, the producers and the director discuss how they came up with the designs of the vehicles in TRON: Legacy.

The folks out at Indican Pictures had just one more surprise for me–a special advance look at Dark Metropolis, and it’s actually really nice, except it’s kind of familiar.

Dark Metropolis follows the combination of humans and Ghen, in which the humans created the Ghen to serve as a slave race. Labor, product testing, all like that. And eventually, the Ghen, with their superior genetics, broke free of the humans’ control and decided turnabout was fair play. Somehow, while engaging in a three hundred year war with the humans, the Ghen built a series of underground cities and a whole civilization. Meanwhile, humanity’s civilization and cities fell apart, leaving them prime for Ghen conquest. Now humanity is the slave race, and the Ghen the masters. At least, that’s until the alien Kalendoah showed up and started channeling their pure energy through the humans, rather, one human in particular. Now the Ghen want this human, the Channeler, under their control–but will they get their way and doom humanity forever?

The visuals here are surprisingly impressive for low-budget science fiction, which is a pretty big surprise by most any standard, and the idea is certainly sweeping enough for three science fiction epics, which is something of a problem, even though it’s mostly a good thing. It’s almost a little too ambitious for its own good–they had a good thing going with the humans / Ghen thing. Adding on the Kalendoah, the bizarre energy beings who occasionally crop up, is a little on the unnecessary side. Still though, between the great look and the huge plot, this could easily be an entire series on, say, SyFy, rather than an eighty five minute movie.

But there are plenty of problems here–if it weren’t for the lack of giant armored exoskeletons, this would be almost the exact same plot as a Saturday morning cartoon from back in the mid 1990s called Exosquad. I’ll leave it to you to check up on the similarities, and you’ll find there are surprisingly many here. Some might make comparisons between this and the massive lump of godawful sludge known as Battlefield Earth, but at least that had some action in it.

No, it’s not the lack of originality or the overambitious nature of the plot that’s the big problem with Dark Metropolis, the problem is the script itself. It’s so thoroughly dependent on dialogue that it literally will not shut up. At any given point, someone is talking. Human, Ghen, Kalendoah through Human…someone somewhere will always be talking in Dark Metropolis, and they will not. Shut. UP. Ever.

The worst part is when they actually present weapons, but don’t use them for better than the first half of the movie. Why? Because they’re too busy throwing soliliquy at the audience like a Three Stooges short chucked cream pies. This may well be some of the blandest, dullest science fiction I’ve ever seen. Dystopia should not be this boring. And worse, when they actually do remember they have weapons, and fire them, the effect is almost laughably low-quality.

Of course, all of this does need to be viewed in the light that it’s the first part of three (at last report) and plenty of trilogies have started off badly and ended pretty well. I remember The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and how I actually fell asleep during The Fellowship of the Ring. Still though, this is pretty snoozeworthy material. It actually does manage to get a bit more interesting in the last ten minutes or so, but this is too little too late for this one.

The Screenhead Ten Scale wakes up from its brief catnap and hands Dark Metropolis a four out of ten for being almost painfully dull, but while still acknowledging that there’s hope for this thing yet. It’s better split over a larger time frame, but it’s still too much dialogue in too little space.

The soundtrack for this trailer is so melancholy that it gets under my skin.

Battle: Los Angeles 2011 revolves around a Marine staff sergeant (Aaron Eckhart) and his new platoon’s battle against an alien invasion on the streets of Los Angeles.

In 1942 Los Angeles had a UFO air craft visit them. It was even reported in the LA Times.  You can check out the story here.

In celebration of the film’s 45th anniversary, a special DVD collector’s edition of the iconic cult favorite Monster A-Go Go is being released just in time for Screenhead to hold a giveaway of five copies.

Originally released in 1965, it was billed as “The picture that could set our space program back at least 50 years.”  Voted “The Worst Movie Ever” by Mystery Science Theater 3000 (and just about everyone else), it’s so bad it’s good!

In Monster A-Go Go, an astronaut about to be launched into space is being prepped for his galactic voyage with doses of “radiation repellent.” But, unknown to anyone else, the doctor begins utilizing a version of the formula previously tested only on animals. As the mission ends and the space capsule parachutes back to earth, it crash-lands in a nearby field and the astronaut aboard disappears. Is there a connection between the missing man and a monster wreaking havoc in the area?

To enter the giveaway, post your name and we will pick the winners December  26, 2010.

The poster shows the cowboy in a silhouette, which makes a pretty cool effect. He is a stranger with no memory of his past and stumbles into the hard desert town of Absolution. The only hint to his history is a mysterious shackle that encircles one wrist.

The desolate city is attacked by marauders from the sky. Screaming down with breathtaking velocity and blinding lights to abduct the helpless one by one, these monsters challenge everything the residents have ever known.

Now, the stranger they rejected is their only hope for salvation. As this gunslinger slowly starts to remember who he is and where he`s been, he realizes he holds a secret that could give the town a fighting chance against the alien force.

Here is the movie trailer for Battle: Los Angeles.

Battle: Los Angeles revolves around a Marine staff sergeant (Aaron Eckhart) and his new platoon’s battle against an alien invasion on the streets of Los Angeles.

If you do a Google search on “Battle of Los Angeles,” you will find out that in 1942 Los Angeles had a UFO air craft visit them. It was even reported in the LA Times.  You can check out the story here.