With the upcoming releases of Life and Alien Covenant, we rank the most iconic and terrifying science fiction horror movies of all time. Rollerball is in this list somewhere but how high did it reach Bad scifi and fantasy movies arent merely the province of lowbudget quickies. Series overview and information on the production, cast, and crew. Sci Fi Archives Open Culture archive. If you havent heard of Hugo Gernsback, youve surely heard of the Hugo Award. Next to the Nebula, its the most prestigious of science fiction prizes, bringing together in its ranks of winners such venerable authors as Ursula K. Le Guin, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein, Neil Gaiman, Isaac Asimov, and just about every other sci fi and fantasy luminary you could think of. It is indeed fitting that such an honor should be named for Gernsback, the Luxembourgian American inventor who, in April of 1. English language magazine dedicated to what was then not quite yet called science fiction, notes University of Virginias Andrew Ferguson at The Pulp Magazines Project. Amazing Stories provided an exclusive outlet for what Gernsback first called scientifiction, a genre he would for better and for worse, define for the modern era. You can read and download hundreds of Amazing Stories issues, from the first year of its publication to the last, at the Internet Archive. Like the extensive list of Hugo Award winners, the back catalog of Amazing Stories encompasses a host of geniuses Le Guin, Asimov, H. G. Wells, Philip K. JV8ushOaJi8/hqdefault.jpg' alt='Cult Sci Fi Movies Open Season 3 ' title='Cult Sci Fi Movies Open Season 3 ' />SCI FI Channel is now Syfy, but you can still get access to all your favorite SCI FI Channel content right here. Syfy features science fiction, drama, supernatural. After six episodes that have been incredible, infuriating, revealing, confusing, and epic, last nights Game of Thrones finale had a great many things to answer for. Looking for a scifi fix Heres our pick of the best scifi movies available on Netflix UK, Now TV and Amazon Prime. A cult film or cult movie, also commonly referred to as a cult classic, is a film that has acquired a cult following. Cult films are known for their dedicated. Dick, J. G. Ballard, and many hundreds of lesser known writers. But the magazine was slow to develop, writes Scott Van Wynsberghe. Its lurid covers lured some readers in, but its first two years were dominated by preprinted material, and Gernsback developed a reputation for financial dodginess and for not paying his writers well or at all. By 1. 92. 9, he sold the magazine and moved on to other ventures, none of them particularly successful. Amazing Stories soldiered on, under a series of editors and with widely varying readerships until it finally succumbed in 2. But that is no small feat in such an often unpopular field, with a publication, writes Ferguson, that was very often perceived as garish and nonliterary. In hindsight, however, we can see Amazing Stories as a sci fi time capsule and almost essential feature of the genres history, even if some of its content tended more toward the young adult adventure story than serious adult fiction. Its flashy covers set the bar for pulp magazines and comic books, especially in its run up to the fifties. After 1. 95. 5, the year of the first Hugo Award, the magazine reached its peak under the editorship of Cele Goldsmith, who took over in 1. Gone was much of the eyepopping B movie imagery of the earlier covers. Amazing Stories acquired a new level of relative polish and sophistication, and published many more literary writers, as in the 1. Book Length Novel by Robert Bloch. This trend continued into the seventies, as you can see in the issue above, with a complete short novel by Gordon Eklund and early fiction by George R. R. Martin. In 1. Ferguson writes, Amazing Stories was sold to Gary Gygax of D D fame, and would never again regain the prominence it had before. The magazine largely returned to its pulp roots, with covers that resembled those of supermarket paperbacks. Great writers continued to appear, however. And the magazine remained an important source for new science fictionthough much of it only in hindsight. As for Gernsback, his reputation waned considerably after his death in 1. Within a decade, writes Van Wynsberghe, science fiction pundits were debating whether or not he had created a ghetto for hack writers. In 1. Brian Aldiss called Gernsback one of the worst disasters ever to hit the science fiction field. His 1. Ralph 1. 24. C 4. A Romance of the Year 2. Matthew Lasar. It may seem odd that the Oscar of the sci fi world should be named for such a reviled figure. And yet, despite his pronounced lack of literary ability, Gernsback was a visionary. As a futurist, he made some startlingly accurate predictions, along with some not so accurate ones. As for his significant contribution to a new form of writing, writes Lasar, It was in Amazing Stories that Gernsback first tried to nail down the science fiction idea. As Ray Bradbury supposedly said, Gernsback made us fall in love with the future. Enter the Amazing Stories Internet Archive here. Related Content Omni, the Iconic Sci Fi Magazine, Now Digitized in High Resolution and Available Online. Free 3. 55 Issues of Galaxy, the Groundbreaking 1. Science Fiction Magazine. Sci Fi Radio Hear Radio Dramas of Sci Fi Stories by Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick, Ursula K. Le. Guin More 1. Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. Follow him at jdmagness. Worst Sci Fi Fantasy Movies That Had No Excuse. Bad sci fi and fantasy movies arent merely the province of low budget quickies. Sometimes all the money and talent in Hollywood cant save the world from celluloid disasters. So, rather than just a list of bad movies, this is a list of bad movies that had no excuse movies by respected filmmakers, or from major studios. Movies with box office stars, or sequels to other movies that were great. These are the epic fails of fantasy and sci fi. And this time, the list has been compiled not from a reader vote, but by an panel comprising the SFX team, the SFX bloggers and a few of our special friends, including Paul Cornell, Joe Abercrombie, Jayne Nelson and Steve OBrien. So feel free to call us all sorts of names5. Lost In Space 1. Director Stephen Hopkins Lost In Space isnt such a bad film until the Robinson family actually gets lost, and then it degenerates into a very bad film. Thats when you begin to realise the folly of basing a film on a 6. TV show format that has weekly episodic format hardwired into its DNA. In the small screen the concept of lost in space was merely a hook upon which to hang stories. In the film, lost needs to become the plot engine. Sadly, screen director Stephen Hopkins and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman lost the plot completely, and turned the film into an insipid, visually bland time travel tale about a fatherson relationship. So where does that leave the women in the family Ironically, in a story about the fourth dimension all females on board are reduced to two dimensional clichs, defined by one or two characters tropes each. Gary Oldman continues to channel the camp spirit of the original Dr Zachary Smith as if he hasnt got the memo about how this film version is playing it straight. In the end, you think hes made the right decision if you have to appear in this dross you may as well have some fun while youre there. Worst thing about it Blawp, the CG space monkey, which actually looks less convincing than Zoonie the Lazoon in Gerry Andersons Fireball XL5. The film was originally shot with Blawp being played by a Jim Henson Workshop creation, with the CGI version later slapped on over the top. They neednt have bothered. Popeye 1. 98. 0 Director Robert Altman. Legend has it that Robert Altman, director of such acclaimed movies as MASH and Nashville in the early 7. Popeye because, after a series of flops, he needed a hit to help him finance the kind of films he really wanted to make again. This is, in itself, not a bad plan. One fatal flaw Popeye flopped. Very, very badly. Its not difficult to see why. Although the film has been reclaimed by some strange revisionists as a misunderstood classic, the rest of just see a musical which has no decent musical numbers at all well, can you name any Popeye The Sailor Man excepted, cos that wasnt written for the film an action film with embarrassingly staged stunts a comedy film with little to laugh at and a much loved cartoon that has been reimagined as some social satire about class warfare, with support characters who have been altered out of all recognition. If you though all that talk about taxes was a bit dull and out of place in The Phantom Menace, then steer well clear of Popeye. The worst thing about it The songs. They may have been written by Harry Nilsson famous for such soaringly simple pop beauty as Everybodys Talkin and Without You but there are no classics here. They range from forgettable to unlistenable, made even worse by the range of irritating comedy voices theyre sung in Robin Williams as Popeye sings like a goat on helium and Bluto sounds like Krusty the Clown. Johnny Mnemonic 1. Director Robert Longo. The idea of William Gibson, the author who defined cyberpunk, writing the screenplay to a film based on another of his cyberpunk stories seemed so exciting back in the early 9. Fist Of The North Star: Legend Of Toki Movie Dvd Quality on this page. This was going to be Neuromancer on screen, surely Sadly, Gibson proved to be one of those writers whose talents didnt extend to screenplays. Although based on a thoroughly enticing idea that Keanu Reeves head is so empty, you could fill it with data and use him as some kind of digital carrier pigeon once you get past the set up, the film descends into an incoherent series of set pieces randomly cut and pasted from various Gibson stories. Reevess standout acting moment is a rant about room service Listen. You listen to me. You see that city over there THATS where Im supposed to be. Not down here with the dogs, and the garbage, and the fing last months newspapers blowing back and forth. Ive had it with them, Ive had it with you, Ive had it with ALL THIS I WANT ROOM SERVICE The Oscar is still in the post. Worst thing about it The psychic dolphin its an idea that works on paper, but just looks embarrassingly naff on screen not helped by the fact that the film came out while sea. Quest DSV, which featured an irritating talking dolphin, was airing on TV. Dungeons And Dragons 2. Director Courtney Solomon. Quite where the 3. There are home made Lord Of The Rings skits on You. Tube these days that are better looking. From the gaudy sets, to the plastic props, to the Pound Shop fancy dress costumes and the inept FX, this is a symphony of crapness. The acting is uniformly terrible and there are some good actors here too Jeremy Irons, Thora Birch, as if all the cast is in a pact to piss off the director as much as possible and yes, that is Tom Baker in the photo. In fact, its so terrible, that under normal circumstances it would be much higher in a worst of list, except that in this case, we think everybody involved knew it was a bit crap The worst thing about it The script its laughably poor on any level bad dialogue, simplistic plotting, dire characters but even as an adaptation of Dungeons And Dragons the game, it is awesomely contemptuous of its source material. Theres a dwarf and an elf in it, because there are dwarves and elves in the game, but they have sod all to do except look ridiculous. Spider Man III 2. Director Sam Raimi. So much has been written about the failure of Spider Man 3, it easy to forget it was actually a massive hit in terms of box office the biggest of the three RaimiSpidey films. So Raimi clearly made a crowd pleaser if not a fan pleaser. Part of the problem was one of expectation. The first two Spider Man films were both deliriously good. Raimi had defined a new way of telling superhero films on screen. But then inexplicably, he seemed to transform, Jekyll Hyde style, from Burton Raimi to Schumacher Raimi, giving us, in Spider Man 3, a film that suffered the same overblown overload of elements as Batman Forever and Batman And Robin though thankfully with fewer puns. Too many villains Venom, Green Goblin, Sandman too many plotlines too many gimmicks disco dancing Peter Parker. The film in itself isnt that bad, but as the third part of an otherwise outstanding trilogy, it felt, and still feels for many, like some kind of betrayal of trust. The worst things about it Venom being completely and utterly wasted. Though the dance routine comes close4. Star Wars Episode II Attack of the Clones 2. Director George Lucas. There will be those who think the voting panel must be mad to include Attack Of The Clones in this list, and not The Phantom Menace, but we stand by our judgement. Episode I may have some major problems, but at least it has a beginning, a middle and an end. Episode II has a middle, a middle and more middle, and none of it is very interesting. Episode I had two great lightsaber battles. Episode II has Yoda flying about like green ping pong ball. Episode I had the admittedly overlong but still spectacular pod race. Episode II had C3. POs comedy slapstick on a conveyor belt. And while Episode I had some ropey dialogue, it didnt go anywhere nears as low as Episode II s I dont like sand.