Home  /  Topics  /  movies, Scifi  /  Lesser known Scifi movies

Lesser known Scifi movies

Tagged: ,

Viewing 8 posts - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • February 1, 2022 at 10:53 am #255224
    tizl

      Hey all!  I’m fairly new here.  I am a bit of a “snob” when it comes to movies in general, but especially scifi as that’s my favorite genre to watch. I love a good story told well, I like action but I do NOT like much gore, and while the CGI doesn’t have to be top notch, I prefer it’s at least not immersion-breakingly bad.

      I also love to scour the streaming services and find lesser known hidden gems, because the big budget movies often are too “Hollywoodized”. There is some fantastic stuff done by some real artists that just don’t get any publicity. Here are some of my favorites that I’ve found over the years.

       

      “Space-y” scifi

      Europa Report – Really good movie about an expedition to study Jupiter’s moon Europa.

      Prospect – Really interesting story about a father and daughter on a mining job in a moon somewhere. Since space is like the wild West you can imagine sometimes things go wrong. It’s great, plus it has Pedro Pascal in it.

       

      “Time-y wime-y” scifi

      Primer – I’m sure most of you have heard of this one. Really low budget, and IMO the best time travel movie ever made.

      Time Lapse – Not a “great” movie, but well done and definitely worth watching.

      Timetrap – Reeeeaaally low budget, the acting was awful, but it’s a great story and I loved it :) It was filmed near Austin (where I live) and it actually has Owen and Luke’s brother Andrew Wilson in it.

       

      “Mind bend-y” scifi

      Coherence – It was called this when I saw it years ago, but it seems the name has been changed to Song Of Granite. A bunch of people get together for a dinner party, and some strange things start happening outside. That’s all I’ll say, just go watch it!

      The Invitation – Very similar premise (dinner party, strange things), but different outcome and even a slightly different feel to the movie. Love both of these.

       

      Finally, all (4) movies by Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead

      Resolution and The Endless are linked, so watch in that order. Spring is it’s own separate movie, and Synchronic is their newest, with the biggest budget, they have well known actors in it.

      I won’t say much about these, they are more fun the less you know. I love these guys and hope they keep making more.

       

      So how about ya’ll, any great, under-the-radar movies I’ve missed?

      February 2, 2022 at 2:11 am #255285
      comicsgate

        Thanks. I’m one that will actually check these out, eventually. I enjoy fan films and low-budget more now.

        I remember when someone suggested Galaxy Quest to me and that was a really fun comedy parody movie of Star Trek.

        Also, liked The Machine with Caity Lotz and Toby Stephens about A.I. used to map brains. That one was made for around a million. I was done with movies totally and this one kind of brought me back. Just a few good actors, good lines and good ideas.

        Going to get flamed hard for this next one. Even though I despise the guy, when he first came on the scene, I liked the Logan Paul movie called The Thinning with Stacy Dash. It’s like The Purge, but with academic test scores. If your scores aren’t high enough, you get executed, so only the smart get to live.

        Another one I liked, that I have posted before, is Upgrade. Upgrade is about a guy who gets attacked, his wife murdered and he ends up paralyzed. An experimental chip is put into him and starts talking to him in his head and the chip allows him to use his body again. He then tries to solve the case of his wife’s murder.

        Last one I am not going to be able to find. I did not like the movie much, but it was good sci-fi. The main character is an Asian lady, who is a spokeswoman for a corporation. For some reason, she loses her job or takes a break and she is replaced with a hologram. She is a mother, so she does out looking for work, but because of her age, she is told that it is impossible for her because each generation grows up with technology skills that people cannot possibly acquire unless they grow up in the system. It was an idea movie. I recall my grandma said she’d never used the computer. I know people who hate smart phones. Now, there are apps and social media and other tech coming out. I thought this movie had a progress message. Oh yeah, and about the hologram, it was constantly upgrading to keep up with the most prevalent race and ethnicity, so she was considered an outdated model of representation. I thought that was fairly clever that an algorithm was used to make a composite sketch spokesperson incorporating all the most common traits in the population.

        February 2, 2022 at 4:34 am #255286
        StephenDutton

          “Moontrap” with Walter Koenig and Bruce Campbell is well worth a look. There was also a “Moontrap Target Earth” but that was totally different and I wouldn’t recommend it at all.

          “Titan AE” is an animated sci-fi film that a lot of people haven’t heard of but I think is very good. It actually has a reasonable presentation of moving through the vacuum of space between two ships without space suits in it and being animated the aliens can be really alien. This seems to have bombed when released because the studio didn’t know how to market a cartoon that wasn’t purely a kids’ film.

          If you go to YouTube you can also find an excellent movie set in the Warhammer 40k universe called “Helsreach”. This is a fan made film using dialogue from an audio book that was made in 13 parts but can be found edited together into a 2 1/2 hour movie. The animation style changes along the way but the story is excellent and it has somehow survived GW’s purge of 40k fan content on YouTube.

          February 2, 2022 at 4:26 pm #255324
          DPochmara

            Removed..didn’t know I couldn’t change my username.  I’ll repost under the correct username.

            • This reply was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by DPochmara.
            February 2, 2022 at 4:35 pm #255327
            NinjaMidget

              One of the best scifi/monster movies that I’ve  just rewatched recently is an Irish film called Grabbers.   It’s about these very tentecally and toothy aliens that land in the ocean off of Ireland.  This monster has one of the most interesting achilles heals that I have ever seen..alcohol is like poison to it.  Being in Ireland, you can guess where the movie goes from there.  I won’t give any spoilers, but suffice it to say there’s a lot of drinking near the end of the movie.  It’s also a lot of fun to hear them curse.

              Another one that I had never heard of is R.I.P.D.   It’s got Jeff Bridges and Ryan Reynolds in it and it’s about a cop who dies on the job and then gets drafted into the RIPD to hunt down ‘deaders’, which are really bad dead people.  Very decent special effects and Bridges and Reynolds play off each other really well as buddy cops.

              A really good indie film is Ink.  Very low budget with unknown actors, but the acting is not as bad as some B movies.  Interesting story with surprisingly good special effects for a film with a tiny budget.  I liked it so much, I bought a signed copy of the dvd to support the filmmakers.

              • This reply was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by NinjaMidget.
              February 2, 2022 at 5:39 pm #255331
              Vknid
              Moderator

                RIPD is AWESOME.  I have watched it many times.

                I love SciFi movies myself.  I have a penchant for old ones and even some bad ones.  I like BattleField Earth believe it or not.

                 

                Here are a few mentions, some new and some old:

                – AUTOMATA

                – The Breed

                – Bloodshot

                – The Cell

                – Enemy Mine

                – Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

                February 3, 2022 at 3:28 pm #255466
                tizl

                  Thanks for the suggestions!  I’ve also seen Upgrade, The Machine, and Automata and enjoyed all of those.

                  A couple more that just came to mind are Pandorum, a horror-thriller/space flick, and Archive, which deals with AI/robots in the near future.  Both worth watching.

                  February 3, 2022 at 6:59 pm #255477
                  NinjaMidget

                    I saw Enemy Mine in theaters with my dad and brother (yes, I just dated myself).   A good very old and very bad (in a funny way) movie is Laserblast.  It was trying to compete with Star Wars.  They even blow up a Star Wars bilboard  :)

                    • This reply was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by NinjaMidget.
                  • Author
                    Posts
                  Viewing 8 posts - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)
                  • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.

                  Subscribe to our mailing list to get the new updates!

                  SIGN UP FOR UPDATES!

                  NAVIGATION