I had seen The Borrower back in 1992 and forgotten about it. It's a 1991 SF film written by Mason Nage and Richard Fire with John McNaughton as the director. Mason came up with the story for the movie, co-wrote the script and has no other credits on the IMDb. Richard wrote the script to John's previous film, Portrait Of A Serial Killer, and went on to write one more feature. John went onto direct some fair productions but nothing that interested me much. The story is about a alien serial killer who has been sentenced to life as a human. The other aliens think that humans are inferior and this is a worse punishment than executing him. Two hunters are night hunting and they encounter the alien. The alien's body rejects the human transformation and the hands swell up before the head explodes. The alien takes one of the hunter's head, leaving the other hunter to try to explain the headless body to the police. Rae Dawn Chong plays one of the cops assigned to the case and Don Gordon is her partner.
In the city the alien meets up with Antonio Fargus who helps him survive. Sadly the alien takes Antonio's head when the current body falls apart. The alien seems to be able to use the memories of the victim, he can drive a car. Mostly the film spends it's time in the gritty parts of the city, plenty of filth on the streets, some human. Rae Dawn and her partner find some clues and eventually track the alien down. All in all it's not too bad but I wouldn't give it anything more than a weak 5, it's some bit better than a 4. You can check it out in the link in the title above.
The Phantom From 10,000 Leagues is a 1955 SF film about a monster from under the sea. It's SF because the monster was man made. It's got a script by Lou Rusoff who went on to write several other low budget SF films, like Day The World Ended, It Conquered The World, The She-Creature and Zontar: The Thing From Venus. Dan Milner is the director, he was mostly a film editor but he directed three films in his 27 year career. His first film, The Fighting Coward, appeared in 1935, this was second, the third was From Hell It Came in 1957.
The body of a dead fisherman washes up on a beach. The police investigate and eventually figure out where the monster originated. Then they have to figure out how to kill it before it slaughters again. There's a subplot with the scientist's assistant and secretary, a bit of a romance with the cop and the scientist's daughter. It's not a great film, it gets a deserved 3.5 on the IMDb. You can see a watchable copy on YouTube above.
Unknown World is a 1951 SF movie about some scientists that tunnel into the earth looking for a place to hide from the possible forthcoming nuclear holocaust. There's a lot of prep work and organizing and talking about the problems of the world in a voice over. Some of the dialog is entertaining, often humorous. Eventually they get their ship built and drill down into the earth through a volcano. It's like other going into the earth stories but these guys have a vehicle that drills a path for them using atomic power. The Core would use the same idea years later but not improve it much. The group has some troubles, some related to the harsh travel conditions, and some their own personal baggage. They do find a place to stay, with an ocean and some glowing light, but sadly it makes you sterile. They shoot a lot of the movie in places like the Carlsbad Caverns but since the movie is in Black and White it doesn't look that impressive. Not a bad movie, not great, but more watchable than much of the fodder in this trough. It's directed by Terry Morse who's most famous work is directing the Raymond Burr scenes that were added to the 1956 US release of Godzilla. You can check out Unknown World on YouTube in the link above.
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