Five Science Fiction Movies to Stream Now | By Elisabeth Vincentelli
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‘Bugonia’
At this point it’s easy to take the ongoing collaboration between Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone for granted. Yet it’s also hard to overstate how weird — by mainstream Hollywood standards at least — the movies they make together are. The pair would have to go into full experimental mode to outdo this baroque tale, a remake of the South Korean movie “Save the Green Planet!” (2003). Stone plays a powerful chief executive, Michelle, who is kidnapped by a couple of men because the ringleader, Teddy (Jesse Plemons), is convinced she is an Andromedan alien, embedded on Earth to enslave humans, and he wants to be taken to her mother ship.
“Bugonia” is an outré look at conspiracy theories and the paranoid mind’s ability to have seemingly logical answers for everything. But is this what’s really going on here? A deep sadness lurks behind the flamboyant exterior, especially as we learn more about Teddy’s past. And little can prepare a viewer for the film’s visually stunning ending, which is richly satisfying on a cosmic level.
Bugonia
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‘Hoshi 35’
You can’t blame kaiju fans for being disappointed in what they would take as a bait-and-switch. After all, the cast of “Hoshi 35” includes several veterans from that genre, most notably Megumi Odaka, who was in several “Godzilla” movies in the 1980s and ’90s — this is her first feature since 1995. So naturally you’d expect at least one actor in an elaborate monster suit stampeding all over Japan. But while there is a “beast from the star” (it appears with a comet), the creature does not feature all that much here. Rather Hiroto Yokokawa’s movie explores what might be called folk sci-fi — it feels like a gentler version of, say, the original “The Wicker Man” instead of an umpteenth variation on Godzilla or Mothra.
The story centers on a remote small village that takes drastic measures to appease said beast from the star: It sacrifices willing young “priestesses.” When members of a geological survey stumble onto the practice, the village is thrown into turmoil. “Hoshi 35” is a beguiling oddity, with scenes suggesting an almost childlike wonder tempered by the matter-of-fact brutality of the villagers’ actions.
Hoshi 35
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‘Manor of Darkness’
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The title of Blake Ridder’s movie has an old-fashioned quality to it that brings to mind classic Hammer Horror productions from the 1960s and ’70s. This may not be entirely coincidental considering the vibe here. Frightening incidents, like water from a shower suddenly turning to blood, pepper “Manor of Darkness.” And that’s even before a quartet of crooks case a spooky grand home in the British countryside under the pretense of shooting a documentary. Once inside, they find things like a chest that lets out clouds of black smoke when opened.
After one of the would-be burglars, Laura (Kim Spearman), is stabbed by the house’s mysterious owner, Lucas (Stuart Wolfe-Murray), she realizes they’re all stuck in a terrifying time loop, and sets out to somehow end it. Despite working with what looks like a fairly low budget, Ridder dispenses the frights effectively as he bravely attempts to put a new spin on both the time-loop and the haunted-house genres. I’m surprised horror on repeat isn’t attempted more often.
Manor of Darkness
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‘Happyend’
Rent or buy it on most major platforms.
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This Japanese movie tells, a title informs us, “a story about the near future.” More precisely a story of students in their last year of high school, as they face a world that feels as if it’s closing in on itself instead of opening up to new possibilities. The world at large feels more and more autocratic as the government uses the possibility of a looming earthquake to institute an emergency decree. The new national mood of enforced conformity is reflected at the school, where the principal (Shiro Sano) expands his surveillance of students after being pranked.
The writer and director Neo Sora zooms in on a small group of friends, chief among them the techno-crazed, impulsive Yuta (Hayato Kurihara) and the quieter Kou (Yukito Hidaka). The pair have been BFFs since they were little kids, but they are drifting in different directions not only because of divergences in their temperaments, but also because of the way Kou is targeted by the increased repression — he is a permanent resident of Korean heritage and thus not seen as “a normal Japanese person.”
Sora has a keen eye for the kids’ fumbles and enthusiasms, their heightened emotions and shy infatuations as they try to figure out how to find themselves in an increasingly authoritarian state. “Happyend” has a way of getting under your skin as few teen movies can. Adding greatly to the mood is Lia Ouyang Rusli’s beautiful, melancholy score, which lands in the aural vicinity of works by the Studio Ghibli mastermind Joe Hisaishi and by Sora’s father, the composer Ryuichi Sakamoto.
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‘Speed Train’
Rent or buy it on most major platforms.
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“Speed Train” may not be good by traditional metrics but it is superb by Roger Corman ones — it certainly kept me entertained, and often chuckling, the entire time. A futuristic bullet train from Oklahoma City (a deliciously random choice since nobody in the motley cast sounds as if they’re from that area) to Washington, D.C. is hijacked by the vengeful mastermind Loklin (Louis Mandylor). Not only that, but he sells players on the Dark Web the ability to remotely control microchipped convicts who happen to be onboard. But Loklin didn’t count on a group of hardy passengers, including a lone Interpol agent (Oliver Masucci, from the series “Dark”) and two cheerleading captains and their coaches, one of whom is ex-military (Scout Taylor-Compton, from the “Halloween” reboots).
Whether the sets and costumes have a 1980s vibe by design or accident is impossible to tell, and the flashes of violence are both cartoonish and laughable (someone’s throat gets literally ripped out), but it all adds to the ridiculous fun. Delivering a bona fide B-movie is harder than you might think but the director Ryan Francis rises to the challenge with this wacky actioner.
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