100 essential SF B-movies, as chosen by you!

[RCMerchant]

How ROBOT MONSTER never made the other list has me stymied (as opposed to spankied or buckwheatied.).

91. ROBOT MONSTER!

Check the other list again (#41): you nominated it!

90.  THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL

Oh....yeh.

Hmmm.  (insert Pee Wee Herman voice here-) I meant to do that.

[Patient7]

I suppose for 89 I'll throw in one on the other b-movie list.  Plan 9 From Outer Space!

[ghouck]

Lol, , Allhallowsday stole mine!!!

Flesh Gordon, , I guess that would be 92. .

Great minds think alike.   

So do you and I. . .

*stares at the wall*

[peter johnson]

89:  Five Million Years to Earth (1965)(aka Quatermass and The Pit) --

A Hammer film.

This is one film that has it all for me, and does it with very little money:  The origins of humanity, ghosts, elves, demons & things half seen, alien technology, scientific invention and experimentation, psychokenesis, mythology, Latin, history, evolution & genetic engineering, the military, spaceships, WW2, a cute heroine, very good acting even in the minor roles.  Who or What is God?  Is This the Face of A Martian?  The Panic At Things Unseen . . . The Clensing of the Hives!!!! 

Somehow they got the whole mish-mosh to work.  The same story was also a successful serial on both BBC radio and TV, and was very successfully parodied by The Goon Show.  It shows as very few science fiction films do the intellectual depth that a low-budget B film can still explore. 

The attention to detail is superlative:  When Quatermass consults a clerical scholar about strange apparitions on Hobs Lane in the past, the big phoney Old Book of Latin History that the scholar consults is just like a real one would be -- He has to flip the pages back and forth to make sure the verb corresponds correctly with the object of the sentence, just like a real Big Book o' Latin would have to be consulted.
You could have just as easily shot the scene with the guy opening a book & just reading something aloud.  The fact that they didn't shows that the people involved cared about what sort of film they were making.  I can watch this thing a hundred times & never be bored. 
peter johnson/denny crane

[Allhallowsday]

89:  Five Million Years to Earth (1965)(aka Quatermass and The Pit) --

88? 

Lol, , Allhallowsday stole mine!!!
Flesh Gordon, , I guess that would be 92. .

Great minds think alike.   

So do you and I. . .
*stares at the wall*

Great mines think alike. 

87? 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH (RAY HARRYHAUSEN belongs on the list). 

[Jack]

Phoenix the Warrior a.k.a. She Wolves of the Wasteland.  Back in the '80s, the zero-budget post-apocalyptic "get some scantily clad chicks out in the desert" movies were almost a genre in themselves, and this is a pretty good example of those films.  Not much "science" in this science fiction, but the fact that it's post-apocalyptic qualifies it I think.  Has the typical plot with all the men being killed in the war, some silly scheme to bring men back, hot babes (Kathleen Kinmont!) running around in a zero budget Mad Max style world. 

[Doc Daneeka]

85. Phase IV - Essential for being the highest-rated movie that has been on MST3K, and for being one of the very few killer-ant movies where the ants are regular-size.

[AnubisVonMojo]

No.84 - Space Odyssey - Featuring a cast of dumbasses and sh!theads and featuring the bane of my existence: robot ducks in love. Oh the pain! The pain of it all!

[Cult Movie Mania]

Phoenix the Warrior a.k.a. She Wolves of the Wasteland.  Back in the '80s, the zero-budget post-apocalyptic "get some scantily clad chicks out in the desert" movies were almost a genre in themselves, and this is a pretty good example of those films.  Not much "science" in this science fiction, but the fact that it's post-apocalyptic qualifies it I think.  Has the typical plot with all the men being killed in the war, some silly scheme to bring men back, hot babes (Kathleen Kinmont!) running around in a zero budget Mad Max style world. 

I've never heard of this one - I'll have to look out for it.

[Cult Movie Mania]

No.84 - Space Odyssey - Featuring a cast of dumbasses and sh!theads and featuring the bane of my existence: robot ducks in love. Oh the pain! The pain of it all!

Hilarious!  I looked this up, and I knew it as Star Odyssey.

[Kester Pelagius]

83. Beast in Space - Far from the best space opera ever filmed but not the worst, either. However despite being made at the same time as Brescia's Star Odyssey these are NOT the sort of movies you want to do a double bill of on a bad movie night.  You have been warned.  If your brain pops out of your head and runs screaming naked down the street you have only yourself to blame.  That said this is, well, mind-boggling.  There's just no other way to describe it.  A "must see" simple because it recycles so much footage from Star Odyssey and other of Brescia's spaghetti space operas that you'll find yourself wondering if you're really seeing what you think you're seeing; which is a space opera version of La Bete.  No joke.

[Kester Pelagius]

Sorry KP, I don't know why I botched the name, but I meant "Space Mutiny", not "Mutiny In Space". My bad.

No worries "Mutiny in Space" is one of it's AKA titles.

I amended the listing to avoid future confusion.

[Cult Movie Mania]

82. badmovies.org favorite Galaxina.

[brooky1969]

81. Cyborg

Van-Damme stars in this one that will serve well as a cyborg or martial arts/sci-fi sub-genre entry. Or just good old post-apocalyptic even.

[AnubisVonMojo]

81. Cyborg

Van-Damme stars in this one that will serve well as a cyborg or martial arts/sci-fi sub-genre entry. Or just good old post-apocalyptic even.

Trivia bit about Cyborg: it was originally slated to be a sequel to Masters of the Universe. It's still referred to as Master of the Universe II: the Cyborg in some places.