Dir: Darcy Weir
With: Philip Mantle, Charlie Hickson, Calvin Parker, Maria Blair
Format: four x 60-minute episodes
Available: on Amazon, TubiTV and ROKU

The Pascagoula Incident is one of the more perplexing ones in UFO history, because it’s not just an account of an abduction, it’s something which happened to two people at the same time. It took place in October 1973, when Charlie Hickson and Calvin Parker were fishing on the Pascagoula River in Mississippi. The men claim to have seen a UFO, whose robot-like occupants (both) paralyzed the pair and took them on board the craft, carrying out an examination of them there before returning them to the river-bank. Most abduction reports involve one person, which makes them easier to write off as hallucinations etc. Cases like this – the Betty and Barney Hill abduction would be another – are more resistant to prosaic explanations, though “hoax” is always a reliable fall-back for skeptics.

Read More

I was a huge fan of the original movie, one which only improved with repeated exposure. We reviewed it not once but twice, then wrote in depth about the original script in Trash City #12 and it’s undeniably a case where the film could simply not be made today. It came out a decade before Columbine pushed school violence front and centre. While I can hardly call that “a kinder, gentler time,” its pitch-black humour regarding the topic would be considered thoroughly inappropriate these days. Though as writer Daniel Waters points out, “No one wanted it to be made in the late 80s, either.” Still, it became a musical, about which I have absolutely no interest. Then, in 2018, a TV series was made – the third attempt to do so – and that’s when the shit truly hit the fan.

Read More

I was watching the Netflix documentary, Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story, over the weekend. I was reminded of the time, over 20 years ago and well before he was officially outed as a massive pedophile predator, when I brushed tangentially against him. In 2000, I had published a spoof Have I Got News For You transcript supposedly detailing out-takes from the show episode in which he appeared, and which saw Paul Merton tear into Savile mercilessly. Demon, my hosting provider at the time, got hit with a legal take-down notice.

Read More

A Netherlands television series from the sixties is not something you would typically expect to be covered here. But in this case, there are a couple of interesting people who were very much involved. They would both go on to achieve international fame, at a level likelyfar beyond what was expected when beavering away in Dutch TV. The star of the show was then unknown theatre actor, Rutger Hauer. But the director would also go on to greater things, making Robocop, Total Recall and Showgirls. For it was none other than Dutch cinema’s greatest export, Paul Verhoeven (on set, above).

Read More

Very disappointed in the lack of actual cephalopods. Would not watch again. Two stars.

Read More