A Year in the Iso-Cubes: The Mutants Recap 2020
Christ on a bike, it has been a year. Who would have imagined back when we started 2020 with a frivolous piece on little plastic spacemen the grim turn things were about to take?
Spirit of the Age: The Science Fiction Aesthetic of Hawkwind
By Joe Banks
Hawkwind are an indelible part of the UK’s underground culture. It’s been over 50 years since they formed in the seedy cradle of London’s Ladbroke Grove, but they still enjoy a fanatical cult following both in Britain and around the world. They may never have scaled the commercial heights of Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin, but the influence they’ve exerted on modern music is profound…
Mark Probert, the Inner Circle, and UFOs: A Mystery in Vinyl
A curious ad appeared in the August 1955 issue of Ray Palmer’s Mystic Magazine. It announced the release of an LP that would allow readers the opportunity to hear the voice of someone called Yada Di Shi’ite…
Big Tech, Nostalgia, and Control: Grafton Tanner’s ‘The Circle of the Snake’
I’m sure many members of Generation X have taken a moment to look around the pop culture landscape over the past decade and a half and had a sudden moment of realization: there are certainly a whole lot of people trying to sell me things using the media of my youth…
“A Peculiar State of Poise”: Ursula K. Le Guin’s ‘The Lathe of Heaven’
Le Guin was always ambivalent about revolution, and especially about revolutionary violence…
“It Ain’t No Man”: The Colonial Iconography of ‘Predator’
By Alex Adams
For as well as being a tremendously enjoyable sci-fi horror romp, Predator is also a novel engagement with the iconography, aesthetics, and politics associated with Cold War-era military interventions in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and elsewhere…
Eaten Alive: James Herbert’s ‘Rats’ Trilogy
By M.L. Schepps
When 30-year-old ad-man James Herbert set out to write a novel, he had a simple goal in mind: “to show you what it was really like to have your leg chewed by a mutant creature.”
American Fetish Meets Pop Art: Russ Meyer’s ‘Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!’
By Sam Moore
It’s easy to spot an exploitation film by the cover of the poster or DVD. Maybe more so than any other type of art, you can judge it by its cover: a woman, often barely dressed, holding some kind of weapon. Think Pam Grier on the cover of Coffy or Foxy Brown…
The Thrill Is Worth the Pain: Hell and Survival in Dio’s ‘The Last in Line’
The first music videos to air on MTV and broadcast television were chaotic blurts of arty nonsense defined by pastel colors, cheesy dance party theatrics, and avant-garde visual effects…
Hell Is for Children: The Revolutionary Politics of ‘The Omen’
The Omen is generally considered a bleak film because the devil wins. But it’s even bleaker as a picture of who the devil is supposed to be, and what kind of measures are needed to defeat him…
