Decades before the flesh-eating virus jumped from science fiction to science fact, there was The Flesh Eaters, the only film from director Jack Curtis (better known as the voice of Speed Racer‘s Pops) and screenwriter Arnold Drake (better known as the DC Comics creator of Deadman and Doom Patrol).

In the prologue, a guy toys with woman by tearing off her bikini top, for which he’s punished by succumbing to flesh eaters of the title. But it’s really about a for-hire pilot (Byron Sanders) whose plane and passengers become stranded on an unprotected island. Their first night marooned, he tells his fare — an alcoholic actress (Rita Morley) and her comely assistant (Barbara Wilkin, who looks fantastic in a bra) — “I can assure you, we are in for a good pounding.”

And how! Their horrors begins by finding a whole human skeleton on the beach, grasping that aforementioned bikini top. Then there’s the glowing fish bones. It’s all due to the “silver stuff” in the water that results in some nifty, surprisingly gory effects on the skin it touches. A beatnik (Ray Tudor) wearing rope sandals doesn’t heed their warnings at first: “Where’s the love, Max? Don’t tell me about that ugly jazz!”

If you think the Nazis may have something to do with it, apply now for your Flick Attack gold star! The person behind it all explains as much when he contracts diarrhea of the mouth. The movie’s 87 minutes spew just as quickly, and the sicko in me wishes the thing were in bloody color. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

How do you know Terror Beneath the Sea is science fiction? For starters, newspapermen aren’t proactive adventurers. They’re lazy asses. Unless they’re played by Sonny Chiba, of course, as in this harmless, colorful Japanese/American production that offers a rare glimpse of Chiba keeping his hands and feet mostly to himself.

As Ken, he and fellow journalist Jenny (pretty Peggy Neal, The X from Outer Space) attend an underwater, press-only demonstration of the Navy’s new, state-of-the-art homing torpedo, the Bloodhound, the shape of a man flashes across the screen. What could it be?

Later, Ken and Jenny check it out by boating over to the island where atomic waste products are dumped and get their answer: shiny, silver Sleestak-like creatures with crossed eyes too close together, mouths that do not move, and no genitals whatsoever.

And 3,000 feet below underwater city ruled by Dr. Rufus Moore (Erik Neilson), they respond to turns of the dial, i.e. “WORK” and “FIGHT.” There, madman Moore changes the physical structure of humans into these mutated gill-men. That gives way to weird sequences of stop-motion arm pustules, perhaps topped only by cool scenes of underwater miniatures action, as only the Toei Company could do. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

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

Buy it at Amazon.

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

Buy it at Amazon.

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

Buy it at Amazon.