Welcome to the wonderful world of the independent, cut-price horror, science fiction and fantasy movie. Movies where most of the aliens are, well, for want of a better word, Alien rip-offs; where the leading men and women display all the emotions of cardboard cut-outs; where decent music is more or less non-existent; where direction veers from the truly sublime to the utterly ridiculous; where plots are ruthlessly plagiarized from other, more high-profile productions; where special effects aren’t all that special; where the level of gore has to be seen to be believed; where the hero is good-looking but wooden and the heroine a blonde/brunette bimbo; where the dialogue is stilted and shored up with stock phrases; and where the cheapo ethics immortalized by Edward D. Wood, Jr., Jerry Warren and their ilk are still being kept alive and well by courtesy of Nu Image, Asylum, American World Pictures, North American Pictures, RHI Entertainment, UFO, Castel Film Romania, Cinetel Films, PM Entertainment and a host of other small film companies specializing in low-budget fare. But before we all pronounce sentence, start to sneer, utter hoots of derision and sweep this lot under the carpet, let’s pause for a second and take stock of these fascinatingly guilty delights alongside top-rate (but still classed as independent) movies.