Too bad War Of The Worlds goes downhill a bit after that amazingly portentous opening. No movie could live up to the promise of Morgan Freeman reading H.G. Wells, more or less verbatim, but it's still a sad thing.

The greatest voiceovers tell you what kind of movie you're in for, and also give you the information you need to hit the ground running. Take Sean Connery's iconic voiceover from Highlander, which is so awesome, you need it written out for you to appreciate its greatness:

Sadly, most voiceovers that launch movies either try to pack in way, way too much backstory ("And then there was a man named 92ZorkX, who built a mega-cube in his pants") or go way, way overboard with the cheese. Here are 48 more voiceovers that mostly go way over the top, sorted by type:

In The Year 2727, Some Messed Up Shit Happened!

Perhaps my favorite kind of opening voiceover is the kind where the narrator starts out by intoning, "In the year 2027, we realized we had gone out of the house without any lower garments, and the Earth was reduced to rubble as a result. The survivors lived in caves, eating scraps of jerky. Until one day, a new hope appeared." Here are ten of the most awesome voiceovers that begin with a date and end with a sad recitation.

Anything Sounds Cool If You Say It In A Creamy English Accent

It's really true. You can narrate anything in a smooth English accent, and it sounds awesome. It's like spreading brie all over your frontal cortex, eliminating all of your B.S.-detectors. Someone with an English accent is saying it, so it must be brilliant. Right?

What The Hell Are You Talking About, Crazy Announcer Guy?

You know a science fiction movie is going to be totally absurd when it starts off with a voiceover that just throws a giant ball of crazy at your head. Someone who is trying not to giggle gives a little speech about how there was a guy named Zaark 795, and he rose up against his brother, the Bishop of Pluto, because they both wanted the power of the Dodecahedron-o-gram. Yeah. Anyway, here are the nonsensical opening voiceovers that make us happy to be alive.

You Can't Have An Apocalypse Without A Gloomy Speech

It's just the law of apocalypses: You can't feature the destruction of all (or most) life on Earth, without throwing in a gloomy monologue explaining exactly how we blew it all to hell. It's the way things work around here. Typically, these monologues include scenes of devastation as well as a droning voice talking about viruses or bombs or people not washing their hands. Here are some of the greatest.

Science Fiction Movies That Start With Deep Personal Monologues

Some science fiction movies start out with a more personal touch — one character giving an internal monologue about their feelings. Either it's a character being introspective, or it's some kind of noir deal, where the person talks about their pain in a hardcore, tough-guy way. Here are some of our faves.

Voiceovers That Turn Into Conversations, And Weird Voiceover Spoofs

This is sort of a catch-all for two categories that didn't quite deserve their own pages: monologues that start out as a voiceover, and then turn into someone talking to the camera; and voiceovers that are just sort of demented, silly or satirical. They're both a bit different from your standard science fiction voiceover, in any case.

Additional reporting by Alexis Brown.

The Crazies

Yes, they are remaking The Crazies. Say what you will, I'm sure it will be just like the original with slightly better cameras, although I'm not saying that's a good thing. I'm riding the fence on this YARM, which follows a little town that has to deal with a descent into murder and madness when their water supply is contaminated with an unknown virus/bioweapon. Timothy Olyphant is starring in the remake, and he's never really bothered me too much apart overdoing the loony-eyes here and there. Here's one of the first stills. Crazy, no?


The Mercury Men
Pretty new pulp-pop webseries The Mercury Men certainly has grabbed my attention:

Edward Borman, a lowly government office drone, finds himself trapped, when the deadly Mercury Men seize his office building as a staging ground for their nefarious plot. Aided by a daring aerospace engineer from a mysterious organization known as "The League," Edward must stop the invaders and their doomsday device, the Gravity Engine.

The black and white look is quite crisp, and it's good to see some interesting new things popping up on the web. I especially like the outlined baddies and our hero's retro cap. I'm even willing to overlook the slightly clunky acting just for the feel alone. The first episode is not yet released, but here's a trailer. Thanks to Twitch for pointing this out.

In other very exciting cult news, the New York Asian Film Festival has just released their line-up of films and special appearances. Besides the stellar round-up of movies from 20th Century Boys to The Forbidden Door, there's going to be a Tokyo Gore Night. Unbelievable! Check out the description of the Gore festivities:

TOKYO GORE NIGHT
One of the most insane new voices in cinema is the screaming howl of Yoshihiro Nishimura, director of TOKYO GORE POLICE, and special effects genius (who also did the effects for LOVE EXPOSURE and SAMURAI PRINCESS, screening in this year's festival). He couldn't join us for the premiere of TOKYO GORE POLICE last year so for one weekend only we'll be hosting him at the New York Asian Film Festival and holding a special TOKYO GORE NIGHT event. First up will be screenings of several completely nuts short films from Nishimura and his cabal of lunatics all set in the TOKYO GORE POLICE and MACHINE GIRL universe. Then there will be a special onstage presentation by these madmen followed by a screening of TOKYO GORE POLICE during which we'll record a live audio commentary for the movie's upcoming special edition DVD. Accompanying Nishimura will be Noboru Iguchi, the director of MACHINE GIRL and the maniac responsible for the short film SHYNESS MACHINE GIRL which we'll also be screening that night. Also coming will be Tsuyoshi Kazuno, a visual effects supervisor on SAMURAI PRINCESS, MACHINE GIRL and many others. More surprises are in store, so make sure you wear something that you don't mind getting soaked with blood.

It sounds so delightful that wild snail norks and venus flytrap ladies couldn't keep me away from this. The festival runs from June 19 - July 5, and I've rounded up some of the stand-out entries from this year, with trailers included:

Pintu Terlarang (The Forbidden Door)
I'm hearing this film is ultra creepy, and here's the official synopsis form The Forbidden Door's site:

"A successful sculptor whose life run by domineering wife and mother discovers a secret organization in which members can watch the lives of most dysfunctional, depraved families in the town which are fed from hidden cameras. When he stumbles upon a channel showing a little boy whos being viciously abused by his parents, he tries to find the kid to save him. But his quest leads him back to a secret door in his own house that could be the answer to many puzzles."

20th Century Boys
A group of kids create their own little post-apocalyptic sci-fi, writing about how the world will end at the hands of a robot. Fast forward to years later, and the kids are miserable and working crap jobs until the stories they dreamed up in their youth start to come true. Now it's up to them to save the world.

The Clone Returns Home
We've been following this sad little clone drama since Sundance. An astronaut loses his life on the job and the government replaces the original worker with a memory-imprinted clone. Unfortunately for the clone, he gets stuck on a memory from the original astronaut's past involving the death of his twin, and runs away to his childhood home.

K-20
In this alternate history, WW2 never happened. Takeshi Kaneshiro is a masked thief just trying to make it through the steampunky world.

Mock Up On Mu:
Splicing together archival footage to tell the secret tale of California based on rocket scientists, beatniks, Scientology and other urban legends to create a pulpy and surreal look into the sci-fi underground beginning of the great state of California, director Craig Baldwin's Mock Up On Mu focuses on three characters that generated a secret history for California. First up is Jack Parsons, the inventor of solid rocket fuel and other jet advances (and, according to Baldwin, also a follower of the crazy-like-a-fox Aleister Crowley), closely followed by his partner and self-styled "mother of the New Age," beatnik artist Marjorie Cameron, and finally, L. Ron Hubbard, famed sci-fi writer and creator of Scientology. Baldwin takes actual past footage and edits past reels of these three people together to create an secret history that run the range from crazed government paranoia to straight forward scifi conspiracy theories.

20th Century Boys:
Here's a new trailer for the mystery manga 20th Century Boys big screen live-action adaptation. Hero Kenji Endō and his pals have to remember bits and details from their youth in order to piece together the answer they need to stop the end of the world on New Years Eve, 2000, but as he ages, he starts to forget things little by little. Can Kenji and the rest of the fellas pull together in time?

They Came Back 2 (Les Revenants):
When the dead came back to life in the French film They Came Back they weren't covered in dirt, worms and decaying right in front of you. These zombies looked just like the living and tried to enter the living world again. But unfortunately for the zombies, many of their love ones had remarried, their jobs had been filled and the government didn't really know how to deal with all the undead back from the grave. The sequel kind of confuses me as I'm not sure how much further they are willing to take it, but I can see an oppressive government setting up zombie camps and shuttling them off for manual labor. Thanks to Quiet Earth for digging up the dirt on the sequel.

Trailer For Original Film They Came Back:

[NYFF, Quiet Earth and Twitch]