Back to the swing of things as autumn approaches; we know the feeling, looking forward to those weekends to catch up on the most popular streaming services – and sometimes, they even intersect with the franchises we feature!
We want to give you a round-up regularly of some of the best you can stream to compliment your loot before it arrives, and these titles, featured across Loot Crate, Loot Crate DX and Loot Wear for September’s INVADERS theme should get you in the mood!:
Alien
Sure, we’re all for encouraging as many opportunities to stream franchises featured in our themes via the usual suspects (Netflix, Hulu, etc.) but this month, you’re going to be hearing a lot about HBO Now. It may be slightly more expensive, but the premium cable channel’s pay as you go service is justifying itself as necessary in spades these days, for both original content and quality flicks. (If you’re a cable subscriber, there’s HBO Go too.) And it’s really your one stop shop for all things Alien this month: The first four Sigourney Weaver-starring films (including Ridley scott’s director’s cut of Alien), plus Alien Vs. Predator and Alien: Covenant are all here for your streaming enjoyment.
Predator
Oh hey! – not a whole lot here to add that isn’t already covered by our big ol’ HBO Now instruction above. Because as it applies to the Alien films, so goes Predator this month: You can grok Arnie and his crew’s rumble in the jungle in the original film, as well as Predator 2‘s L.A.-based heat wave brouhaha starring Danny Glover (who is definitely too old for this s***). And we did already mention AvP, did we not? Sure, you could rent each of these via Amazon Prime or VOD, but get double the Invaders franchises in one neat package!
The X-Files
So we’re pretty sure we’ve given this advice in a previous column, but nothing has changed in terms of your best bet for binging The X-Files since; as with much of Fox Television’s output, Hulu has got you covered from 1993’s pilot episode all the way through the recent (and divisive) Season 11. If you’re limited on the amount of time you’ve got to dive into all things Mulder and Scully, go straight toward Seasons 2 & 3, generally considered among the best of the entire run. (Got a little more time? Seasons 1-5, a.k.a. the Vancouver era before production of the show moved to L.A., is the way to go.)
Venom
Aw, Venom… it remains to be seen how your big solo title ’bout featuring the inherently-a-bit-sinister Tom Hardy goes, but you did pretty much get shafted in Spider-Man 3. Topher Grace, despite still mostly being known as a sitcom star at the time, wasn’t bad at all but no one really remembers anything except Peter Parker’s emo dance, do they? Sadface. You can relive the (magic??) if you so desire on Netflix, but if you wanna get hyped for more symbiote fun, we recommend dropping a little change to rent the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon from Amazon Prime; it’s one of the best screen adaptations of Venom yet.
Ghostbusters
Yep, we’ve definitely covered all things Ghostbusters in this column however – this time, there’s a change! The first two Ghostbusters films are no longer available on Netflix for the time being; they are, however, on Amazon Prime if you’re a subscriber there! Our big recommendation this month is Ghostbusters II, which is both the sequel that’s not as good as the original and nowhere near as bad as some would make it out to be. Peter MacNicol alone ensures that. (“He is Viiiigo! You are like the buzzing of flies to him!”) Still on Netflix? – 80’s classic ‘toon The Real Ghostbusters! Updated animated series Extreme Ghostbusters, meanwhile, is on Hulu, and if you want to revisit the rebooted Ghostbusters feature film, it’s available as a rental via Amazon.
Invader Zim
It feels like Jhonen Vasquez was dancing around the idea of resurrecting Invader Zim for a very long time. And then we got news that a revival TV-movie was actually happening! That was over a year ago, and Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus! still doesn’t have a release date – but all is not lost! While we pine and long for more Zim and GIR in our eyeballs, Hulu has got your back with the entire run (brief though it was, just two seasons totalling 27 episodes) available to stream whenever you wish. Sure you know a lot of them by heart. But “The Doom Song” never, ever gets old does it?
