Sunrise Theater

1950s theater lives on at this snazzy Web site

• Sunrise Theater
• Published by High Ridge Associates
• Enhanced for Netscape 2.0
• Registration required

unrise Theater is a historical science fiction site taking on some of the best, and corniest, science fiction movies of the 50s. Reaching back into the science fictional past, Sunrise pulls up some of the golden oldies and summarizes them in an excellent and informative package. Through words, pictures, sounds and audio clips, movies such as The Thing from Another World, Forbidden Planet and The Queen of Outer Space come alive once more. In other words, if readers missed any of these movies on the late show, there is no need to worry.

Sunrise currently features six movies, although more are in the works (the site only came online in July 1996). Along with the movies mentioned above there are The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Beast from 2,000 Fathoms and IT! The Terror from Beyond Space. Each movie has its own Interactive Story, Photo Gallery and Sound Stage, as well as video clips and a list of cast members. A critic's corner is under development, and the movies that will soon be added include It Came from Beneath the Sea; Them; Godzilla King of The Monsters; The Deadly Mantis; Invasion of the Body Snatchers; and The Mole People.

Adding in interesting facts about the heroes, the women, the rogues, the monsters, and the special effects, Sunrise Theater leads readers along the path of what made these movies great (and for those that weren't so great, Sunrise captures what made them fun).

While content is important, it is the presentation that makes this site a blast to browse. While reading through the well-told -- and sometimes humorous -- summaries, browsers can download sound files to hear death rays, wisecracks and bold statements of predicament. Augmented with pictures as well, most readers will get a good feel for these movies without actually having to watch them.

Readers should be warned that High Ridge Associates uses frames extensively for this site. However, they make good use of this often-overdone design element, and in this case the frames make navigation a simple matter. Menus are always present, and browsers can get to most any area in the site with a click or two.

An added dimension to Sunrise is the Games Arena (a Java capable browser is required, as is Windows 95 or Windows NT on the PC), but perhaps this should have been left out of the final version of the site. The games are rather silly and simply not worth the additional download time. Another ill-conceived feature is a registration/password scheme. While a small portion of the site is open to the public, readers wishing to delve further into Sunrise need to sign up for their own private password. Even though the process is free, this "feature" is quite a nuisance and may keep many browsers away from what is otherwise a topnotch site.

Excellent site. -- Alex

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