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Mysterious Island, the thrilling 1961 adventure film, brings Jules Verne's fantastical vision to vivid life. As a sequel to Verne's classic 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, the movie follows a daring group of Confederate prisoners who make a bold escape from captivity during the height of the Civil War by commandeering an enemy balloon. However, their bid for freedom takes an unexpected turn when strong winds blow them drastically off course, stranding them on an uncharted island filled with awe-inspiring wonders and spine-chilling horrors.

Written By Ken Hulsey Way back in 1979, NBC took a huge gamble on a TV series called Supertrain - a giant, atomic-powered "cruise ship on wheels" that traveled from New York to Los Angeles. This train-based monstrosity had all the trappings of a trendy 70s hotspot - a swimming pool, casino, shopping center, and disco. Each week, a star-studded cast including the likes of Joyce DeWitt, Jamie Farr, and Isabel Sanford would board the train for adventures filled with thrills, laughs, and romance.

 Written By Ken Hulsey  From the Monster Island News Archives - Originally Posted in 2000. Revised in 2008 & 2021. Many years ago, I wrote an article for the original Monster Island News about the infamous deleted scenes from "Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope." At the time, the footage that had ended up on the cutting room floor was rarely seen, and mysteriously absent from both DVD and VHS releases of the original Star Wars trilogy. Similarly, content from "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi" had also been left out, including scenes like Biggs talking with Luke in Anchorhead, Wampas running amok in the Rebel Base on Hoth, and a Tatooine sandstorm in Jedi.

Ezekiel saw the wheel. This is the wheel he said he saw. These are Unidentified Flying Objects that people say they are seeing now. Are they proof that we are being visited by civilizations from other stars? Or just what are they? The United States Air Force began an investigation of this high strangeness in a search for the truth. What you are about to see is part of that 20 year search. - Radio and television veteran Jack Webb spoke these words to open the premiere episode of the series 'Project: U.F.O.' Project U.F.O. was a late 1970s NBC television series that ran for two seasons, from 1978 to 1979. The show was loosely based on the real-life Project Blue Book and created by Dragnet veteran Jack Webb, who pored through Air Force files to find episode ideas. In the first season, the show faithfully reflected the Project Blue Book files, with most UFO sightings explained, and only a few remaining unexplained. However, in the second season, the storylines took a turn, as the ...

  Move over Marvel Universe - It's Clobberin' Time! The cast of Marvel Studios' upcoming film "The Fantastic Four: First Steps" joined a live audience at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama - home of the iconic Space Camp program - to officially launch the movie's inaugural trailer on Tuesday. Fans from around the world tuned in via a Marvel livestream to catch the big debut in real time, with the towering Saturn V rocket serving as a dramatic backdrop. Stars Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach led the countdown, hyping up the crowd for the highly anticipated first look at the new Fantastic Four film.

  "Our tale begins dramatically amidst the smoldering ruins of what was once a great city. Twisted girders, cracked, blistering sidewalks and the skeletal frames of demolished buildings paint a grim portrait of this smoldering memorial to the unknown. Tokyo, once a proud metropolis of six million people, is now a graveyard." - Steve Martin - United World News Godzilla, King of the Monsters! is a 1956 kaiju film directed by Terry O. Morse and Ishirō Honda. This "Americanization," is a heavily re-edited version of the 1954 Japanese film Godzilla. The film was a Japanese-American co-production, with the original footage produced by Toho Co., Ltd, and the new footage produced by Jewell Enterprises. Starring Raymond Burr, Takashi Shimura, Momoko Kōchi, Akira Takarada, and Akihiko Hirata, with Haruo Nakajima and Katsumi Tezuka as Godzilla, the film follows an American reporter covering a giant reptilian monster's attack on Japan.

 Written By: Ken Hulsey In 1984, Carl Macek sought to import a Japanese anime series, the famous Chôjikû yôsai Macross, to the United States for syndication. However, the series was only 36 episodes long, shorter than the standard 65-episode American syndicated show. To remedy this, Macek obtained two additional unrelated series, Chôjikû kidan Southern Cross and Kikô sôseiki Mospeada, and hired a team of writers to weave the three shows into a grand, epic narrative. The resulting story followed three generations living through a mass alien invasion. The final arc would revolve around Robotech pilot Scott Bernard, who was sent back to Earth to organize resistance against the Invid. This time, the aliens were not after a missing warship, but rather intended to harvest Earth's bio-energy in the form of Protoculture (a "Prototype Culture" derived from the Macross series) and enslave the remaining human population

Over the past couple of decades, my life has taken an interesting journey. In the early 2000s, I worked as an entertainment reporter and journalist, primarily covering the Japanese science fiction movie scene. That eventually led me to reporting on anime and, later, low-budget independent sci-fi and horror films here in the U.S. This work allowed me to establish valuable contacts at major studios like Warner Bros. and Universal, and I had the opportunity to contribute to publicity for some of their releases. It was a wild ride, and an experience I will always treasure.

 Written By Ken Hulsey  Directed by Nathan Juran, "Twenty Million Miles to Earth" was written by Charlotte Knight and Christopher Knopf. The film's cast included William Hopper as Col. Robert Calder, Joan Taylor as Marisa Leonardo, Frank Puglia as Dr. Leonardo, John Zaremba as Dr. Judson Uhl, Thomas Browne Henry as Maj. Gen. A.D. McIntosh, Tito Vuolo as Police Commissioner Charra, Jan Arvan as Contino, Arthur Space as Dr. Sharman, and Bart Braverman as Pepe.

 By Ken Hulsey Prince of Space was originally a Japanese children's television series that was later edited into a feature film. The film adaptation suffers greatly from this choppily edited format. While the acting, special effects, and story were intended for a children's TV audience, the production values fall far short of other Japanese sci-fi films from the same era, most notably The Mysterians.

 (Press Release) Whether you know it or not, you’ve likely seen the B-MOVIE ART of Mike DiGrazia. SHARKNADO, MEGA SHARK, MEGA PIRANHA, MEGA PYTHON VS GATOROID, ZOOMBIES, TRANSMORPHERS, AQUARIUM OF THE DEAD and SNAKES ON A TRAIN are just a handful of the HUNDREDS of movie posters he’s designed since 2005. Order  B MOVIE ART: A CAREER IN BLACK AND WHITE By: Mike DiGrazia $20 @ Amazon.com - Order Here

 A Couple of weeks back I shared a couple of retro style Star Wars movie trailers made using artificial intelligence by Douggy Pledger and a group called Abandoned Films. The work of Douggy Pledger was a surreal look at what Star Wars may have looked like if it was a Silent Era film entitled Star Wars 1923 . The other was a view of what Star Wars would have looked like if it was made in the 1950s .

 Last night the visual effects team of Masaki Takahashi, Takashi Yamazaki, Kiyoko Shibuya, and Tatsuji Nojima made cinematic history when their work for Godzilla Minus One won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. Despite the fact that the Godzilla movie series is currently the longest running franchise in the history of cinema not a single entry had ever been nominated for an Oscar prior to Minus One. The film was the surprise hit of 2023 and gained acclaim with critics and fans alike. Despite a meager budget of less than $15 million the film beat out the Hollywood juggernauts The Creator, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1, and Napoleon.

 In 1976, director Michael Anderson took creative liberties when adapting the novel Logan's Run, written by George Clayton Johnson and William F. Nolan, to produce one of the most memorable sci-fi films ever made. While the original story set the terminal age at 21, Anderson raised it to 30 and toned down some of the book's racier scenes to avoid an R rating. Despite these changes, the film has often been called the "sexiest science fiction movie ever made."

The Planet of the Apes franchise was immensely popular in the early 1970s, though many modern science fiction fans are unaware of its cultural impact. The original Planet of the Apes film spawned four sequels, two TV series, and a merchandising bonanza of dolls, playsets, and books. While Star Wars is often considered the first film to generate such an extensive toy craze, Planet of the Apes had produced a similar mania years earlier.

  Star Trek Tridimensional Chess Set Prop Replica : $144.99 @ Entertainment Earth - Order Here

Like many science fiction fans, I developed a lifelong love of the genre after being introduced to Star Trek as a child. My older cousin Rick, an avid fan himself, persuaded me to watch the show. The first episode I saw was “Arena,” which featured a fight between Captain Kirk and a Gorn captain orchestrated by an unseen alien race. As a young boy fascinated by dinosaurs, I was initially drawn in by the reptilian Gorn. However, it was the intelligent writing and compelling storylines that kept me coming back for more. The show's spirit of adventure and exploration matched my own longing to travel beyond my backyard. What six-year-old doesn't dream of piloting a starship across the vast expanse of space? After that first taste, I was hooked, becoming a devoted Trekkie and sci-fi enthusiast for life. Although the show had a loyal fan following during its initial prime-time run, Star Trek never achieved strong ratings. NBC, the network that aired it, frequently changed the show...

Though it lasted only one season, Battlestar Galactica boasts a remarkably devoted fan base that has endured for decades. When it first aired in 1979, the series dubbed "Son of Star Wars" by Newsweek enthralled viewers with its epic space saga of a fleet on the run. Inspired by Mormon themes, Galactica offered imaginative stories, dazzling special effects, and talented acting that sparked the imaginations of its young audience. For those who grew up watching the show's original run, Galactica left an indelible imprint. Even though high production costs led to its cancellation after just one season, fans' dedication has not waned after 25 years off the air. Clearly, Galactica’s gripping drama and visionary sci-fi aesthetic struck a chord that continues to resonate with its loyal followers to this day.

 Another week, and another Svengoolie inspired installment of Fantastic Photos From Fantasy Films. This time around the subject is a duel magazine advertisement for The Monster That Challenged The World and The Vampire. 

The People That Time Forgot, the sequel to The Land That Time Forgot, is one of several Edgar Rice Burroughs novels adapted into successive films by Kevin Conner between 1975 and 1978; the other two films were the less popular At the Earth's Core and Warlords of Atlantis. Like its predecessor, this film featured both an exciting adventure story and excellent miniature special effects. However, I couldn't overlook the similarities between the story and that of the Planet of the Apes sequel, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, which raises the question of whether The People That Time Forgot was altered to resemble the "Apes" sequel or if Beneath the Planet of the Apes was inspired by Burroughs's novel. The two films have too many parallels to list here, which fans who have seen both will notice easily, but it may simply be a coincidence.