Movie Oubliette

For this bonus episode, we take a look at Warwick Thornton's new film The New Boy , in which an Aboriginal child with mysterious powers disturbs the delicately balanced world in a remote monastery in 1940s Australia. Starring the always marvellous Cate Blanchett as the renegade nun, Sister Eileen, and Aswan Reid as the new boy, Thornton's story of spiritual struggle gets a theatrical release this...

In Looker , Michael Crichton warned us of a future in which computer-generated thirst-traps manipulate unwitting consumers through the media, all at the behest of powerful tech moguls. In 1981, this all seemed a bit ridiculous – especially as performed by a stodgy Albert Finney chasing around with an Atari lightgun trying to rescue Playboy models. Not surprisingly, it only hacked $3.3 million...

Rob Hill, author of ' The Bad Movie Bible ' and creator of the fabulous accompanying YouTube channel , joins Conrad and surprise guest host Melinda Mock of RetroBlasting to explore a notorious naked space vampire film that turns 40 this year. On paper, Lifeforce (1985) has everything you could possibly want for an epic cosmic horror British disaster film: an adaptation of a popular Lovecraftian no...

Arachnophobia scared up only $53 million at the box office when it was released in July of 1990, thanks to stiff competition from Ghost , and has largely been overlooked in the annals of monster movie horror comedies. All this despite a fine cast, including Jeff Daniels and John Goodman, and a Spielbergian pedigree. With a Christopher Landon remake in the works, we thought it was time to celebrate...

Isaac Sutton joins us for our first venture into Japanese anime! Takeshi Koike's visually dazzling animated sci-fi racing spectacle Redline  failed to find its audience upon its release in August 2009 despite critical praise. Does it deserve the cult status it's been cultivating on physical media since then, or is it all rev and no substance? Support us on Patreon to nominate films for us to...

Continuing our theme of exploring sequels to films we cover in the main feed, it was only natural that we'd want to follow the surprisingly good Psycho II (1983) with the surprisingly bad Psycho III (1986) in our Patreon feed. On paper, it looked like a slam dunk: Anthony Perkins was returning to his iconic role as Norman Bates and taking up the director's chair for the first time; the writer is C...

Belated sequels to monumental, genre-defining classics always walk on a knife edge! They can be a worthwhile elaboration upon the original, recontextualised for a new era, or they can be cynical cashgrabs forever consigned as a footnote to cinema history. Australian director Richard Franklin's Psycho II (1983) benefits from returning cast members Vera Miles and, of course, Anthony Perkins, a twist...

We challenge you to hear the title of this movie without the synth riff of a massive-haired 80s rock anthem popping into your head... Sorry, you'll be humming that all day now. Try blocking it out by listening to our examination of Don Taylor's 1980 sci-fi war fantasy, in which a U.S. aircraft carrier captained by Kirk Douglas is whisked through a James Bond title sequence into the past – the eve...

Here's a sneak peek at our Patreon exclusive minisode on  Princess of Mars (2009) – The Asylum's adaptation of the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel that went straight to DVD a full 3 years before Disney stank up the box office with  John Carter (2012). Could it possibly be worse? Sheesh... you betchya! If you like what you hear, head on over to www.patreon.com/movieoubliette and become a Patron to get h...

Still the biggest box office bomb of all time, adjusted for inflation, John Carter  (2012) was a brave attempt to give Edgar Rice Burroughs' influential sci-fi novel 'A Princess of Mars' the summer blockbuster treatment... 40 years after George Lucas and everyone else had pretty much raided all of its ideas for space opera hits. But is the film really  that bad? Does it share the 'Mars m...

Here's a sneak peek at our new Patreon exclusive minisode on  C.H.U.D. II: Bud the C.H.U.D. (1989). This is the first time we've covered the sequel to a film we've covered in the main feed, and we had a blast! If you like what you hear, head on over to www.patreon.com/movieoubliette and become a Patron to get hours of exclusive content, nominate films for us to cover and vote on the final verdict...

Melinda Mock of  RetroBlasting takes us back to 1912 to celebrate the 45th anniversary of Somewhere in Time (1980), the time travel romance starring Superman-era Christopher Reeve and radiant beauty Jane Seymour, directed by the late Jeannot Szwarc based on a novel by Richard Matheson. Should these star-crossed lovers be re-united in the afterlife of their box office obscurity, or should they...

What better way to start the year than with a monster movie in which the creatures are literally crawling out of holes in the ground? It's simply ideal for Movie Oubliette! Nominated by our Patron, Philip O', C.H.U.D. (1984) is a New World Pictures production set in 80s New York City... so you better believe this is gritty and wild! Starring John Heard, Daniel Stern, Kim Greist and one-scene-CHUD-...

Melinda Mock and Michael French of RetroBlasting fame answered our bat signal at the eleventh hour to join us for this special festive episode after our original guest had to drop out. And boy, are we glad they did! Yes, it's a bit cheeky of us to cover Tim Burton's snowy sequel to his blockbusting hit Batman (1989) on Movie Oubliette. It's dubious to claim it has been overlooked in the years sinc...

To mark the film's 40th anniversary, we revisit Peter Hyams' 2010 – a brave follow-up to a literal monolith in science fiction film history. In what was then called a 'belated' rather than a 'legacy' sequel, the film adapts Arthur C. Clarke's novel and features a stellar cast of Roy Scheider, Helen Mirren, John Lithgow, Bob Balaban and, returning from 2001: A Space Odyssey , Keir Dullea and Dougla...

Actor, writer and producer Amanda Jane Stern – whose psychosexual thriller Perfectly Good Moment has launched on Tubi this month – joins us to discuss David O. Selznick's production of Portrait of Jennie . Based on a popular novella by Robert Nathan that Ray Bradbury said "touched and frightened" him, the romantic fantasy won an Oscar for Best Special Effects in 1948, but was not a success. Set in...

Dan and Conrad find themselves exiled to a leafy island that looks suspiciously like Queensland in this episode, where they explore Martin Campbell's No Escape (1994) – an airy, outdoor adventure set in the distant future of 2022. It stars Ray Liotta as the scarred military vet convicted for shooting his CO after he covered up a war crime, who teams up with fellow inmates Lance Henriksen, Ernie Hu...

Happy Halloween! Duncan Skiles , director of the chilling  The Clovehitch Killer and the forthcoming comedy thriller  Neighborhood Watch , went trick or treating into the oubliette and brought back a Peeping Tom . This proto-slasher from Michael Powell, one half of the famous British duo Powell and Pressburger, emerged in the same year as Hitchcock's Psycho and explores similar territory: a handso...

Stuart Gordon's post-apocalyptic sci-fi featuring gladiatorial battles between giant mechs has to be one of Empire Pictures' most instantly recognisable titles, sitting proudly on video rental stores worldwide. Starring Gary Graham and Anne-Marie Johnson as the brave robot jockeys and Paul Koslo as their ruthless enemy, Robot Jox could be the brightest and breeziest dystopian action movie ever mad...

In our third and final bonus episode covering highlights from the Toronto International Film Festival , friend of the pod Joe Lipsett joins Conrad to review three haunted house movies from this year's programme: Steven Soderbergh's bold ghost P.O.V. mystery Presence , Karrie Crouse and Will Joines' dusty western Hold Your Breath , and Nick Toti and Rachel Kempf's rarely screened found footage chil...

For our second round-up reviews of horror films that premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival , special guest Joe Lipsett and I cover four more horror films. We start with two ghost stories: the frosty New Zealand drama Went Up the Hill , directed by Samuel Van Grinsven and starring Dacre Montgomery and Vicky Krieps; and the rambunctious Taiwanese horror comedy Dead Talents Society , d...

Saurian cinema connoisseur Serge Bodnarchuk of Cold Crash Pictures joins Dan as guest co-host for a dinosaur sci-fi horror adventure from 1993. No, not that one. This is Movie Oubliette! It's the low-budget Roger Corman production Carnosaur , starring Laura Dern's mom, Diane Ladd, and Bryce Dallas Howard's uncle, Clint Howard! This adaptation of John Brosnan's novel hit 65 theatres a few weeks bef...

Conrad is joined by Joe Lipsett live and in-person at the Toronto International Film Festival to give early reviews of the horror, sci-fi and fantasy films that premiered at TIFF this year. In this first bonus episode, we're looking at the body horror films on the programme: including Coralie Fargeat's The Substance  (winner of the People's Choice Award), Max Minghella's Shell , Marielle Heller's...

Vincenzo Natali (director of Cube, Splice, Haunter) introduces us to the little known sword and sorcery film, Conquest, directed by splatter gore master, Lucio Fulci. We deliberate over Mace's nunchucks, magical laser bows, bargain bin wolfmen and Ocron's wardrobe choices to decide whether Conquest is an ethereal journey into a ritualistic ruthless fantasy world or rather a fever dream you can't w...

We're exploring the twisted underbelly of suburbia in Wes Craven's 1991 horror comedy The People Under the Stairs. Much like Craven's other non-Nightmare and non-Scream franchise-related outings, this one has remained hidden from popular consciousness despite a warm reception in the box office on its first release and an ardent cult following ever since then. Should The People be freed from their...