The 2024 Sydney Science Fiction Film Festival will launch its 5th anniversary celebrations with a retrospective season of six retro sci-fi classics, SCREENING ONLY at the iconic Skyline Drive-In, Blacktown.
27 APRIL - MAD MAX 45th Anniversary
The ultimate Australian cult classic is back on the big screen for its 45th anniversary. George Miller’s ferocious action epic remains a masterpiece of metal-crunching thrills; a pulsating vision of a dystopian society that remains to this day a genre-defining work and exhilarating moviegoing experience.
25 MAY - WEIRD SCIENCE
Director John Hughes (The Breakfast Club; Sixteen Candles) melds two very-80s pop culture influences - the bawdy teen comedy and the booming home computer ‘fad’ - for his outrageous party-pic. Two nerds (Ilan Mitchell-Smith and Anthony Michael Hall) conjure the perfect woman (Kelly Le Brock), only to find there’s more to her than pubescent wish-fulfilment.
29 JUNE - ROBOCOP 4K Remaster
A rare screening of Dutch agitator Paul Verhoeven’s bloody, brilliant satire in its fullest form. Barely surviving a shocking shootout, Detroit cop Alex Murphy (Peter Weller) becomes the ideal candidate for a new urban defence initiative - the part human/part android ‘Robocop’ program. “Dead or alive, you’re coming with me.”
27 JULY - THE ADVENTURES OF BUCKAROO BANZAI ACROSS THE 8th DIMENSION 40th Anniversary
Adventurer, brain surgeon, rock musician Buckaroo Banzai and his crime-fighting team, the Hong Kong Cavaliers, must stop evil alien invaders from the eighth dimension who are planning to conquer Earth. It’s taken four decades, but cult movie fans the world over are finally discovering the insane magic of director W.D. Richter’s eccentric comedy adventure. With Peter Weller, Jeff Goldblum, Ellen Barkin and an unhinged John Lithgow.
24 AUGUST - FLATLINERS
Five medical students gamble with their lives to answer the question about what happens when you die in director Joel Schumacher’s speculative thriller. In 1990, most of this extraordinary ensemble were on the cusp of stardom - Julia Roberts, Kiefer Sutherland, William Baldwin and a scene-stealing Oliver Platt (Kevin Bacon was the ‘veteran’ in the cast).
28 SEPTEMBER - THE THING
John Carpenter’s practical effects masterpiece only grows in stature with the passage of time; a work so rich in menace, character and blood-curdling imagery, it stands as a landmark of sci-fi/horror cinema. Starring Kurt Russell as the reluctant anti-hero, stranded at an arctic research site as a viral alien gene takes hold, The Thing stands alongside Alien and Invasion of The Body Snatchers as a profound study of claustrophobic, paranoid terror.