Autumn 2023 season of Night Visions Special Screenings kicks off with an incredible sci-fi/fantasy double bill that forces the sensibility of 1960s European genre fare on collision course with the breathtaking visions of the American stop motion effects wizard Phil Tippett (Star Wars, Starship Troopers, RoboCop 1-3, etc.).
Also note that WAR BETWEEN THE PLANETS will be screened from a rare 35mm print.
Showtimes:
06.00 PM WAR BETWEEN THE PLANETS (Italy 1966, dir. Antonio Margheriti, 80 min)
07.45 PM MAD GOD (USA 2021, dir. Phil Tippett, 83 min)
Dialogue of both features in English, no subtitles.
Tickets (10,00 euros a piece / 16,00 for the double feature) available through the venue’s webstore: https://teatteriunion.fi/elokuva/nv0209/
WAR BETWEEN THE PLANETS trailer in YouTube: https://youtu.be/MeCpOgTo2cE
MAD GOD trailer in YouTube: https://youtu.be/iPScwQ-FAbI
The lobby bar of WHS Teatteri Union is open prior to and during the screenings, hence the age restriction of both screenings is strictly “18”.
Street address of the venue: Siltavuorenranta 18, 00170 Helsinki.
WAR BETWEEN THE PLANETS press quotes:
“A fine example of Italian-made sci-fi from the late 1960s… a surprisingly engaging grade-B sci-fi adventure.”
– Erick Harper / DVD Verdict
“This film should be the cornerstone of your spiritual Euro-6os science fiction pyramid.”
– Erich Kuersten / Acidemic – Journal of Film and Media
“Mysterious gravitational forces are causing chaos in the Earth’s weather. Commander Rod Jackson of the United Democracies Space Command is sent to space station Gamma 1 to investigate the source of the disturbances. They detect a rogue asteroid moving through the Solar System. Rod makes the decision to land an expedition on the asteroid’s surface. There the astronauts must venture into the asteroid’s living core to plant an anti-matter bomb and divert its path. — With War Between the Planets, Antonio Margheriti aims more ambitiously than in his earlier entries – in the creation of a futuristic city, a space station, space walk sequences and the landing on an alien world”
– Richard Scheib / Moria – The Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Film Review
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MAD GOD press quotes:
“After 30 years of tinkering, legendary VFX artist Tippett brings his nightmares to life in a Dantean sensory overload”
– Rafael Motamayor / IndieWire
“A frequently overwhelming sensory experience”
– Kambole Campbell / Little White Lies
“A momentous work of creative genius”
– Rob Aldam / Backseat Mafia
“A painstaking work of art brought into being through passion and sheer force of will, Mad God has moments of lunacy, instances of genius, and plenty to fuel future bad dreams”
– Kat Hughes / The Hollywood News
“A stop-motion feature made during off-hours by one of the field’s giants, Phil Tippett’s Mad God takes us into the mind of the man behind RoboCop’s autonomous killers and the hulking AT-ATs Luke fought in The Empire Strikes Back. As it happens, that mind has some dark corners, and the world envisioned here ranks among the bleakest dystopias science fiction has given us. The dialogue-free feature, in which live-action performers play only very brief roles, leaves a great deal to the viewer’s imagination and is intended to function more like a dream than a literal story. It’s a nightmare, and not one a mainstream audience would relish. But aficionados of this nearly extinct form of special effects will relish the chance to see a labor of love whose roots go back to circa 1987. —
We enter this world along with another who doesn’t belong: A steampunky-looking guy the credits call an Assassin descends through layers of murky atmosphere in a coffin-size transport device. Scenes of war, slavery and ruin surround him on the world’s surface; though the rubble contains references to Ray Harryhausen, ’50s sci-fi and maybe even the forsaken dolls of the Quay Brothers, this is an environment built on subconscious horrors and the psychotic threats of an Old Testament God, not the work of Tippett’s genre forebears.” – John DeFore / The Hollywood Reporter