Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Perfect cast and a good story

Load of rubbish!!

How sad is this?

CAVE WOMEN ON MARS is another ultra-cheap and campy indie comedy. The twist is that it's supposedly a 1950s movie set in the future of 1987 with all of the retro stylings you'd expect from a film of that ilk. The film plays out as a tribute of sorts to the 'outer space women' sub-genre of movie-making popular in the 1950s in titles such as CAT WOMEN OF THE MOON, but it's that cheap that it mainly consists of bad actors hanging around in the woods playing dress up. There's too much romantic stuff going on here and very little that's actually humorous.

The year is 1987: mankind has conquered space, launching the first manned mission to Mars. On reaching the red planet, the two man crew-Captain Jackson (Josh Craig) and Lieutenant Elliot (Daniel Sjerven)-encounter two tribes of warrior women, neither of which hold men in very high regard.Writer/director Christopher R. Mihm's Cave Women On Mars is a low-budget homage to z-grade sci-fi trash of the 1950s, and in that it largely succeeds, meaning that it too is hard to sit through in its entirety. Mihm is clearly a man who knows his stuff, effectively replicating the mundanity of many a '50s clunker, but quite why anyone would choose to painstakingly ape some of the worst films that genre and era had to offer doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me: the real McCoy is bad enough, let alone a modern day mimic.4/10-I would have liked to have seen more tongue-in-cheek humour (but a little less of the Shatnerisms).

This isn't science fiction, it's camp masquerading as farce. Nothing whatsoever to DO with science fiction: bad fantasy at best. Just made for bashing on Mystery Science Theater 3000. Might even qualify for cheap satire. But sci-fi??? It's annoying enough that some databases and bookstores lump science fiction, fantasy and horror together as if they were similar. They're NOT. Science fiction requires that a real scientific idea, theory, principle or a reasonable extrapolation from same be at the heart of the plot; in short, it can be improbable, fine, but not impossible. This film is so far from meeting that criterion it's absurd. Can anyone who's read the likes of Isaac Asimov, Ben Bova, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, Frank Herbert, Gregory Benford, Robert J. Sawyer, or Joe Haldeman put this garbage in the same category?? Oh, hell no. Skip this film if you're looking for sci-fi -- that's the best advice you can get. But if you want cheesy camp in a ridiculous 1950s-throwback style, maybe this is for you after all ...

I was introduced to the films of Christopher Mihm last year at the Big Damn Film Festival here in Omaha. After the "big Omaha" film, Mihm's film Monster of Phantom Lake was shown to a small audience. I was fortunate to be among them.When its sequel, It Came From Another World, was released, I had to buy the DVD as soon as I could.And now comes the third in the series, and technically the best of the lot.Set in the far-off future of 1987, the film introduces a new duo of heroes, Captain Jackson (son of Professor Jackson, star of the first two movies, also played by Josh Craig) and Lieutenant Elliott, played by newcomer (to this series) Daniel Sjerven.On a side note, while the previous films have been populated by campy, fun actors, Sjerven brings a whole new level into it. I was reminded of the recent Clerks II film, where we have a group of fun actors we've enjoyed for the past several movies and suddenly there's Rosario Dawson bringing major acting chops to the film.Jackson and Elliott are on a spaceship traveling from Earth to Mars, the first Earth ship to ever reach that distant planet. When they arrive, instead of finding a dead world, they discover the possibility of life.After landing, they split up to more quickly survey the planet. While Jackson finds himself without much to look at, Elliott finds the source of those life form readings. It seems the planet is indeed populated. There are two tribes, both ruled by women, and both of them think the strange man is a spy from the opposing tribe.Through the character interactions, we see the differences - and similarities - in the tribes, and just how far they're willing to go to prove their side is the only "right" side.(side note, how fun was it to see "Amy" from Phantom Lake fighting against William Shatner's girlfriend from Invasion: Iowa?) In talking with Brooke, she revealed this is only the first part of a possible trilogy featuring the Cave Women characters. If the others do come to pass, I'll be there ... and hopefully first in line.You can get your own copy on DVD by going to their website (click on "Official site" above).If you have Netflix, you can get both Monster of Phantom Lake and the second movie, It Came From Another World. Try them ... you just might like them.I sure do!