What's that film where...

[Eric Plumrose]

The vampire in the tub is the 70s Hammer film, Dracula AD72 - Christopher Neame being tortured by Peter Cushing to find out where Chris Lee is hiding out

Ooh, ta! I think the local library has it. I might even get chance to actually watch something I hire now the Souster woman's got two weeks off for Ēostre.

[SmallBlueThing]

The robocop ripoff could be 'mandroid '; which i seem to remember had a bigbox vhs release. There was also a late eighties 'team' movie, of which i only ever saw the trailer, which had gravelly voiceover man opine at one point "...and the mandroid!" over a shot of a half-man/half-tank. Think mekquake crossed with rentaghost. Cant remember what that was called, but have a fear charles and/or albert band was involved.

SBT

[JamesC]

The robocop ripoff could be 'mandroid '; which i seem to remember had a bigbox vhs release. There was also a late eighties 'team' movie, of which i only ever saw the trailer, which had gravelly voiceover man opine at one point "...and the mandroid!" over a shot of a half-man/half-tank. Think mekquake crossed with rentaghost. Cant remember what that was called, but have a fear charles and/or albert band was involved.

SBT

That's 'Eliminators' - I have the big box VHS tape knocking around somewhere. I think it goes 'A scientist, a river rat, a ninja - and a mandroid!'
It's actually not a bad film - very low budget but it's quite tongue in cheek and the river rat character is ace.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091003/

[DeFuzzed]

Yep, I watched Dark Skies, very odd, X-Files-like but more focused. I'd quite like to watch it again. However, it wasn't that.

" it's a pity it wasn't cancelled after the second season, Dark Skies  however was a loss before it began...

Talking as one with the whole box set collection, hell no! It had faults, like a lot of shows, but the gems in it were awesome. Miiss out on Krycek and the whole insane trip that was his story arc? The man-eating man-limpet? Genderbending after sex? The Eves?

And talking of X-Files, it reminded me that my first thought when Eliminator described his initial query was that X-Files episode where the insect-like aliens hit in the light, and this lone office worker saw through it to the alien within the human because of - something, can't remember. But it did involve the fact that once a human worker was called in, unsuspectingly, to the boss' office, that human came out not so human anymore.

It was creepy.

But there wasn't any manhole resistance thing, I don't think.... and that kinda sounded dirty, didn't it? Heh.

[Beaky Smoochies]

Talking as one with the whole box set collection, hell no! It had faults, like a lot of shows, but the gems in it were awesome. Miiss out on Krycek and the whole insane trip that was his story arc? The man-eating man-limpet? Genderbending after sex? The Eves?

What Krycek story arc was that then, Defuzzed dude, the one where he popped up every season as predictable as daylight before they finally killed him off in Season 9 or something because, well, they couldn't think of any more over convoluted storylines to shoehorn him into!?  Krycek's story arc ended for me in Paper Clip  (the first episode of S-3) when he had to go into hiding with the DAT tape after the Smoking Man had the bomb put in his car, telling him "if I even smell you, I'll make you famous", or words to that effect... it kinda seemed right to have him skulk off into the shadows alone after doing so much damage beforehand!

And the Eves and gender-bending sex was from Season 1, dude, with the end of GenderBender  still the best ending of any self-contained episode in The X-Files entire run, that flyover shot of the field - and what they discover in it - still truly makes the hairs stand up on end every time you watch it, great stuff, and that's where that show's strength and appeal came from, it's ambiguity and the fact nothing was ever really explained, the moment they started doing that, the show went down like the Titanic, in my humble opinion (although the 1998 feature film was an enjoyable last twitch of life for that franchise before terminal decline set in), but I respect your own view and opinions on that show, I'm the same way with 24, in that I personally thought it was great the whole way through (and many people disagree with me on that one)...

[Adrian Bamforth]

It's hard to think of half-remembered films which can't be resolved quite swiftly by the electric internet... One thing I've never managed to find though was a 'classic' short story I heard on the radio, told in first person, and set in Depression-era South, about how the family would listen to the Superman serial on the radio and pray for Superman to come and rescue them - sound familiar?

[DeFuzzed]

What Krycek story arc was that then, Defuzzed dude, the one where he popped up every season as predictable as daylight before they finally killed him off in Season 9 or something because, well, they couldn't think of any more over convoluted storylines to shoehorn him into!? ...

And the Eves and gender-bending sex was from Season 1, dude ....

I'm the same way with 24, in that I personally thought it was great the whole way through (and many people disagree with me on that one)...

Hence, insane story arc. To be honest, the fact it didn't make sense, that he just kept popping up, double/triple/infinity-agent with no rhyme or reason, was perfectly fine with me. Didn't even mind the ghost schtick at the end. Mysterious guy was mysterious, the end.

I'm sincerely impressed you know which eps belong to which season, my brain refuses to comply there, but since it's clear you know your XFiles, you gotta admit despite its weakensses, there were some good eps every season, good stories and characters and if you don't agree on that, then my last resort - awesome lines! Even if there's only one good quote in an episode, I'm happy... yeah, so, I'm easy when it comes to the XFiles. I even liked the last movie, despite every sentient bone in my body crying out in distress.

Anyway, Jack Bauer is great, and I find it interesting to see that some who enjoy him and the show would lynch him in real life. Like Dredd. Anyway, I never saw all of it, my schedule was all over the place, but managed to watch the first and second season but only caught a handful of the rest, never saw the end. I'm hoping to see it all before the movie comes out, which I hear is still going to happen. I'm curious how they're going to do it.

[SmallBlueThing]

Since we have some xfiles people hereabouts- i can bring this up. We're doing a runthrough of some of the more kid-friendly eps at present, most evenings (pilot, squeeze, tooms, ice, that one with the green bygs in the forest, shapes, and latterly patience- with the man-bat). Now i only have seasons one, eight and nine on dvd for some reason, and gave up watching on tv after four. But i did catch a man-bat episode on the box... But i remember it as being completely different to patience. So, seeing as patience has threatening open ending, my question is did they follow it up? And is that what i remember? It had doggett and scully in a hotel room overlooking a carpark, and the man-bat was attacking people outside. Then it came inside. Sound familiar?

SBT

[Beaky Smoochies]

Nope, to put it simply, SBT dude, The X-Files pretty much blended into one big slushy mix around the fourth season, and I pretty much had given up on it completely by the sixth season, so I couldn't tell you anything more about that particular episode.  Season 1 is still the best season, in my opinion, it was unpretentious, scary, at times genuinely touching, and just unlike anything seen before.  Season 2 started well, but after Scully's return to work following her abduction, the series pretty much hit cruise control, with the exception of the highly effective Colony/End Game two-parter as well as the truly epic and downright searing three-part Anasazi/The Blessing Way/Paper Clip storyline that ended S-2 and began S-3 (but I've mentioned that fact before here), that was the apex of the show, and despite some outstanding episodes here and there afterwards, it really was the beginning of a long, slow, lingering, and ultimately terminal decline for that series, which verged from outright self-parody to weird killer of the week to ridiculously overconvoluted mythology episodes.

It's interesting to note that creator/executive producer Chris Carter wanted to make only five seasons of the series, and then continue the aforementioned mythology storyline on the big-screen, but FOX were making too much money from the show and refused to let it end, hence the 1998 film made and released between seasons...

[DeFuzzed]

Sure it was a manbat? Could have been a supersoldier episode. Or the ironman one. No continuance of Patience as far as I remember.

But more importantly, kid-friendly?? I bet the kids love you! Anything that scares them stupid seems to win the cool factor.

[Professor Bear]

No love for Millenium, SBT?  It's set in the X-Files universe and has some great kiddie-friendly episodes in the latter seasons when it tried to be more mainstream by bringing outright fantasy elements into the mythology, and the gore now looks really tame compared to what modern shows like Smallville or Supernatural get up to so I'd say it's kiddie-friendly if you skip any episodes about sexual deviancy.  I remember not thinking much of it at the time, but a rewatch a few years ago surprised me by how compelling it became even when the disappointing third season rolled around, the first season's relentless gloom and doom atmosphere probably being the show at its best.
Season one's Maranatha is a good starting place, with a plot about Chernobyl turning into a story about the return of the antichrist. The Curse of Frank Black is a typical comedy episode, and has Frank Black finding a demon crying over the body of his human lover and then saying "you must be so lonely."  No bullshit, that is actually what passes for a joke in this show.  Anamnesis is the typical oddball-pairing episode where background characters take the lead, in this case Frank's wife investigates Religious visions in a high school, The Mikado is a return to serial-killer-of-the-week episodes from season one, and has a missing serial killer returning to his old ways, but broadcasting his murders live on the internet - a plot that's since been filmed as at least three different movies, none of which have been as good as this episode, and Saturn Dreaming of Mercury and Borrowed Time are two pretty good third season outings about Frank's daughter, who people start to understandably become concerned about given what happens around her dad on a weekly basis.

For me, it probably helps that Lance Henrickson is considerably easier to watch than the plank-like Duchovny, whose arsiness during the making of later X-Files when he refused to admit that Anderson (who was doing all the promotion for the show) was the main draw was being leaked to the press by alienated crewmembers and made me go off him something rotten.  I'm probably one of the few people in the world who thought the seasons where Robert Patrick took over the leading man duties were an improvement...

The robocop ripoff could be 'mandroid '

That's not it, but it does look awful enough to warrant a quick visit to Amazon Marketplace.  I've seen Eliminators, too, and concur with JC that it's good trashy fun.

[TordelBack]

Absolutely loved Millennium, particularly the unending tension and grinding misery of the first season (every week I tuned in expecting to see his daughter murdered or at the very least abused by Frank himself), although I began to lose faith when it turned into a Patti Smith video.  Was it really set in the X-Files universe?  Somehow I completely missed that!

[brendan1]

Since we have some xfiles people hereabouts- i can bring this up. We're doing a runthrough of some of the more kid-friendly eps at present, most evenings (pilot, squeeze, tooms, ice, that one with the green bygs in the forest, shapes, and latterly patience- with the man-bat). Now i only have seasons one, eight and nine on dvd for some reason, and gave up watching on tv after four. But i did catch a man-bat episode on the box... But i remember it as being completely different to patience. So, seeing as patience has threatening open ending, my question is did they follow it up? And is that what i remember? It had doggett and scully in a hotel room overlooking a carpark, and the man-bat was attacking people outside. Then it came inside. Sound familiar?

SBT

The X-Files is on telly at the weekends at about 9am on some channel or other.

Do they vet those shows or just think "ah fuck it, hardly anyone is watching anyway, let's show some children a serial killer who eats livers and can climb through tiny gaps into"

[Professor Bear]

Was it really set in the X-Files universe?  Somehow I completely missed that!

There were early clues, like the fictional brand of ciggies smoked by CSM turning up at the scenes of conspiracy-gubbins and Jose Chung (the focus of X-Files episode Jose Chung's From Outer Space) turning up as the co-star of an episode in the second season, but then there was that episode of X-Files called Millenium which had Lance Henrickson playing Frank Black for the last time and wrapped up the Millenium Group storyline to give Frank a happy ending (being a Millenium crossover, this entailed his eternal estrangement from the parents of his wife, a life a of destitution and unemployment, and a spell in a mental hospital), which made things pretty unambiguous.

Like an eedjit, I actually had high hopes for the third season when the season 2 finale (Patti Smith video included) made it look like the show was going post-apocalyptic on us, a natural progression from the relentless misery we already saw in the regular world for two whole seasons (Frank turning into a pedophile as you suggest would have been too light-hearted for Millenium), but it was a damp squib as things turned out.  In retrospect, it was probably just terribly disappointing compared to the first two seasons, as there were some really good third season episodes in there, and Terry O'Quinn is always a watchable bit of onscreen menace more than he is a dogged goody two-shoes.

[SmallBlueThing]

Sure it was a manbat? Could have been a supersoldier episode. Or the ironman one. No continuance of Patience as far as I remember.

But more importantly, kid-friendly?? I bet the kids love you! Anything that scares them stupid seems to win the cool factor.

Not at all sure it was the manbat, to be honest. All I remember is that, of the very few Doggett episodes I caught when it was on BBC1 or 2 back in the day (I'd stopped watching regularly partway through season four) I remembered the manbat as a good monster of the week one (always my favourites- I literally couldn't give a toss about the conspiracy bollocks), and had a memory as I described. Imagine my confusion when I blew the dust off my season eight boxset, moved it from where it had sat since I bought it for a fiver a couple of years ago, googled "Xfiles manbat" and realised I had it, then put it on and didn't recognise a single scene. As it ends with the creature still on the loose, and having marked Scully and Doggett for death, I just wondered if there was a later one where it has another go. Apparently not.

As for it being suitable for kids- well, it's suitable for my kids and I can't speak for any others. Mind you, they love scary stuff (they'd have to, living in the house they do, with the things they have around them) and are happier watching Night of the Living Dead than Horrid Henry. Being TV, it lacks the swearing and sex I don't want them to see in some of the movies I would otherwise be happy for them to watch. So yeah, while I know there are a few dodgy episodes that contain themes that might spark some interesting conversations, I'd be mostly happy for them to watch any of The X Files.

Currently the scariest ones stand as 'Ice' at number one, followed by the Eugene Tooms double at number two, so I'm told.

SBT