In 1997, Jonathan Norman was so enamored of Steven Spielberg that he planned to rape him, and the result was a guilty conviction and a 25-year prison sentence.

In 2011, J.J. Abrams settled for consensual reach-around, and the result was Super 8 and a $127 million domestic gross.

Super 8 is so rooted in such early Spielbergian fare as Close Encounters, E.T. and The Goonies that one almost could take issue with it being credited as Abrams’ first film as director not based on an existing property, following his hits with Mission: Impossible III and the Star Trek reboot. It throws in every element in the Spielberg playbook, from the single-parent family to looking up at the sky in awe, mouth properly agape.

Not that that’s a bad thing, when it’s done this well. A group of kids shooting a zombie epic on Super 8 film witnesses a spectacular midnight train wreck during the summer of 1979. Said wreck unleashes a spider-like alien that proceeds to wreck their tiny town, taking all the microwave ovens and sending all the dogs fleeing to surrounding counties.

With hardly a clear glimpse of the creature from another planet, Super 8 is best when it’s barely concerned with the beast. The film’s “scares” are more feel-good than frightening (think Gremlins). And contrary to the belief of Abrams’ unflinching cultists, there’s no mystery to the picture, except why Ron Eldard agreed to wear the Gérard Depardieu wig the entire time. —Rod Lott

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Cowboy (Daniel Craig). Cowboys. Cowboys. Pow-pow-pow! Cowboys. Hot Indian (Olivia Wilde). Cowboys. Cowboy (Harrison Ford). Cowboys. Cowboys. Aliens! Pow-pow-pow! Zap-zap-zap! Aliens! Zap-zap-zap! Cowboys. Cowboys. Cowboys. Aliens! Pow-pow-pow! Zap-zap-zap!

Cowboys. Cowboys. Cowboys. Pow-pow-pow! Cowboys. Cowboys. Cowboys. Cowboys. Aliens! Zap-zap-zap! Zap-zap-zap! Splash! Aliens! Cowboys. Cowboys. Indians! Cowboys. Aliens. Cowboys. Aliens. Cowboys.

Cowboys. Cowboys. Aliens. Cowboys. Indians. Cowboys. Cowboys. Dynamite. Kaboom! Aliens! Zap-zap-zap! Zap-zap-zap! Aliens! Dead horses. Zap-zap-zap! Cowboys. Aliens! Zap-zap-zap! Zap-zap-zap! Pow! Cowboys. Cowboys. Indians. Aliens! Pow-pow-pow! Cowboys. Aliens! Aliens! Holy shit, aliens! Zap-zap-zap! Zap-zap-zap! Zap-zap-zap! Zap-zap-zap! Blast off! KA-BLOOEY!

Cowboys. Boredom. —Rod Lott

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True story: I first saw Hardware alone on a grainy VHS rental, digging its lo-fi vibe, while my sister caught it at a campus showing. Afterward, she labeled it the worst film she had ever seen, and to this day, she brings up my admiration as proof of my stupidity. I then remind her of her recommendation of Martin Lawrence’s Nothing to Lose, and we reach détente. Thing is, Hardware is seemingly designed solely for genre snobs who can glimpse genuine artistry poking out from between the seams. Part spaghetti Western, part Terminator and part slasher, if you dig the style, you’ll likely groove to the nihilistic audacity. If not, you’ll find it a heap of gory nonsense.

Set in a dystopia of sand and smog, and narrated by a DJ (Iggy Pop!) who crows, “There’s no fuckin’ good news!” the film follows soldier Moses (Dylan McDermott, far from TV’s The Practice) delivering a heap of junk to his sculptor girlfriend, Jill (Stacey Travis). Turns out, said junk is really the remains of a M.A.R.K.-13, a military cyborg designed to reassemble itself from whatever is nearby. Cue manic metallic menace and hearty spurts of blood.

Not much for story, but director Richard Stanley keeps things moving through integrity of vision and an absolutely gorgeous giallo color scheme, layering it with a subtext of man’s symbiotic relationship with machines, first glimpsed through Moses’ artificial hand. Invaluable character actor William Hootkins gets to portray one of filmdom’s most depraved perverts, and Simon Boswell’s throbbing, Western-tinged score will earworm its way into your skull.

It isn’t perfect; the script is undercooked, and the tiny budget betrays itself through clumsy action and ersatz effects. But Hardware, love it or hate it, is undeniably a pure product of Stanley’s mind, and in an era of generic Platinum Dunes horrors, it’s refreshing to see an unwillingness to compromise, even if the result is deeply flawed. Put it this way: If you can find the value of a movie where the hero strides past a baby tied to a dead woman’s waist without taking a second glance, you’ll appreciate Hardware; if not, I’m sure Blockbuster has a copy of Big Momma’s House. —Corey Redekop

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Here’s what Virus has going for it: an all-too-rare lead performance by the undervalued Jamie Lee Curtis as the Sigourney Weaver of a crew of hard-nosed sailors trapped on an extraterrestrial-infested Rusian ship; a nifty-neato geek monster with some fairly cool animatronics and gore; a lesser (but at least not the least) Baldwin brother; and Donald Sutherland in bug-eyed, ham-sandwich mode.

Here’s what Virus doesn’t have: genuine scares, anything approaching originality, and a director who can do more than aim the camera at the right spot. But when I’m presented with a monster comprised of electrical impulses that replicates itself by combining spare human body parts with mutated versions of the spiderbots that menaced Tom Selleck in Runaway, resulting in awesomely goofy Borg/Cenobite hybrids, I’m willing to forgive a lot.

A generic Alien on a boat, there’s little to actually recommend, and nothing aside from the efforts of some talented effects technicians stands out. But for me, Virus is comfort food — an unchallenging, unchanging, unhealthy snack — one of those films that somehow fills a particular hole in my soul. A greasy Hawaiian pizza of a movie.

Bonus marks for allowing Sutherland to perform his last scenes as a manic, organs-exposed Terminator. Even in a career as varied and wide-ranging as his, that must be a first. BTW: I hereby claim the term “sigourney,” meaning any female lead in a genre flick comprised otherwise almost entirely by male character actors wherein all men will almost certainly be deceased by film’s end, as in, “Jamie Lee Curtis pulls sigourney duty.” —Corey Redekop

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As the first and best of the three official adaptations of H.G. Wells’ 1896 novel The Island of Dr. Moreau, Erle C. Kenton’s Island of Lost Souls brings the horror elements of the science-fiction tale to the forefront. The film remains chilling even today, despite having the most primitive of technology.

Pomade-haired shipwreck victim Edward (Richard Arlen) is brought to the title tropical site where the arrogant, power-mad scientist Dr. Moreau (Charles Laughton, looking a little like Fat Hitler) rules over his House of Pain, a laboratory where he creates ungodly mutations of half-men/half-beasts. Some resemble wolves, simians, even owls; all cower at the crack of their maker’s whip.

A victim of censorship, Island contains some crazy-ass ideas it has to dance around rather than discuss outright — namely, Moreau wanting to unleash his panther woman, Lota (Kathleen Burke), on his good-looking guest, Edward, to see what would happen if he would put his pee-pee into her hoohah until he had a big tickle. (Has the porn industry not leapt upon this idea yet?)

With expansive sets and excellent make-up effects, Island is a feast for the eyes, even in black and white. It’s also startlingly as relevant, with the particular issue of evolution still ridiculously as hot-button as ever. Perhaps one day, we as a society will be able to acknowledge the possibility of a higher power and let man fuck leopard whores freely and without judgment. One can hope. —Rod Lott

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