PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Science Fiction Sunday 762

Doctor Who 2 Series 13 Specials

 

Eve Of The Daleks January 1 2022 Written by Chris Chibnall and directed by Annetta Laufer.

 

Sarah runs a self storage business, Nick has stuff stored there. The Tardis stops there and accidentally creates a time loop. Some Daleks show up and kill everyone, the time loop resets, everyone's murdered again, repeat.

 

The Doctor figures how to repair the problem and blows up the self storage building. Sarah and Kevin realize they are in love with each other, lucky for them they survived after the time loop is turned off.

 

Legend Of The Sea Devils April 17 2022 Written by Ella Roads and Chris Chibnall, directed by Haolu Wang.

 

Geomagnetic anomalies bring the Tardis to 1807 China. The Tardis gang meets up with a lady pirate who is looking for Ji-Hun's legendary treasure. The Tardis gang find out the Sea Devils are back and they've had Ji-Hun in a status chanber for many years. The Sea Devils plan is to take over the planet but the Doctor sets that plan on it's ear.

 

The Power Of The Doctor October 23 2022 Written by Chris Chibnall and Jamie Magnus Stone.

 

Cybermen attack a space train and the Tardis gang is there. Dan is nearly killed and he decides at the end of the film that he'll be staying in Wales. A renegade Dalek contacts the Doctor to sell out the other Daleks.

Kate calls the Doctor and asks for some help. She also brings in Tegan and Ace for some advice. The Master turns up again. He's so much trouble, hopefully he's really dead this time. We'll see what the new show runner has to say in a year or two. The Doctor regenerates and the new Doctor is an old Doctor. It was nice to see some of the past Doctors and companions again.

The stories were fairly good. I liked the Sea Devils episode best. There's a few making of videos and each episode has a commentary. I'm glad that the Chibnall era is over and I'm looking forward to the David Tennant specials that are coming. I'm not that fond of Chris as show runner and main writer. He's so bombastic and so many episodes are constantly bathed in darkness. I can't see some of what is going on. I read that the episodes are in the £5 million range. You'd think they would have had some money for lights. I'm probably going to watch Torchwood next. Might be fun to visit Captain Jack for a while.

Friday Night Movies 962

Ghost Nursing 1982 Written by Team Kam Shing Screenwriter's and directed by Wilson Tong. A Chinese horror movie that's recently been released on a Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray. It looks very good.

Jackie has a spate of bad luck, mostly caused by her gambling problem. She visits her friend who gets her a new job at a bar as a B girl and prostitute. Jackie's luck gets worse and her friend says Jackie should see a seer to get some protection. She does and he preforms a nurse of ghost ritual.

Jackie is given a ghost baby which will help her if she follows the rules. That's the little guy above. She's got to worship the figure and part of the ritual is to give it 3 drops of blood every 3 days. Ghost baby does a good job protecting her, punishing wrong doers, some rather violently. At that point I was wanting my own ghost baby.

Things go sour when Jackie falls for a guy and forgets to worship the ghost baby. Jackie's boyfriend brings in an exorcist and they try to destroy the ghost baby. That doesn't go well, the ghost baby get really mad, it gets very exciting, horrible things start happening, people die. Now I'm not so keen on a ghost baby of my own. I could easily forget to bleed on the little guy, I'm poor at sticking to schedule.

The acting isn't the best, the script is weak and it's got a pretty small budget but the movie is still pretty entertaining. There's plenty of running about, yelling and there's plenty of gore and violence. Nicely, the baddies are all punished quite dramatically. The movie has a good sense of humor and I laughed a fair bit. I'd watch it again.

Beaks 1987 Written and directed by Rene Cardona Jr. A Mexican horror film that's also known as Beaks: The Birds 2, Birds of Prey, Falco Terror and Evil Birds. We watched the 100 min version, with all the gore put back in.

A reporter and her cameraman are off around the world on a story about birds attacking humans. Michelle Johnson plays Vanessa and Christopher Atkins plays Peter. We meet a small flock of people who have violent encounters with the birds, Vanessa and Peter interview some of them. The birds are pretty vicious and many people are maimed or killed. Near the end of the movie the birds stop attacking and there's no answer as to why this all happening.

I thought it was a bit below average, it's pretty slow getting going and a bit dull. The acting is poor on average and the script isn't much better. The bird attacks are hit or miss, I'm guessing it was depending on who was throwing the pigeons. It's a fairly well shot film, kudos to cinematographer Leopoldo Villaseñor. I wouldn't need a copy as I doubt I'd have time left to get around to it again.

The Ice House 1969

The Ice House 1969 Directed by Stuart McGowan. It was also released as Love In Cold Blood and The Passion Pit. It's a low budget horror-thriller with twin brothers David and Robert Story. Jayne Mansfield had been signed onto the picture but she died in a car crash just before shooting started.

Robert is an ex-cop, fired for being a baddie, he takes a job in an ice house. He makes a pass at at a local stripper but gets struck with a beer bottle. A second encounter gets the stripper strangled. He hides the body int he ice house and tries to keep people away from it. His brother David is a cop who's investigating the strippers disappearance. Robert doesn't like that much and he kills David and takes over his life. He quits the police force and takes over at the ice house.

There's not much more to the story than that. Plenty of nudity doesn't do much to make it a better film. The story is as poor as the acting. I wouldn't recommend it to much of anyone.

Deal Of The Century 1983

Deal Of The Century 1983 Written by Paul Brickman and directed by William Friedkin. A comedy with Chevy Chase as an arms dealer, Gregory Hines and Sigourney Weaver co-star.

Chevy is a small arms dealer who sells small arms. He stumbles onto a big deal that Wallace Shaun had been trying to put over for three years, Shaun is so despondent he kills himself, Sigourney is Shaun's wife. Chevy takes the contracts and tries to work a deal. Things don't go so well.

I thought the movie was lacking good gags and a sensible story. Chevy isn't right for the part and Sigourney doesn't have much to do. It cost 10 million and made 10.4 million back. Not so good. According to the IMDb trivia page says that it's one of the two films Friedkin didn't write anything about in his book The Friedkin Connection, the other was the 1990 film The Guardian. I haven't seen a lot of the films that Friedkin made but I liked The Exorcist, Sorcerer and The French Connection. 

Brother's Justice 2010

Brother's Justice 2010 Written by Dax Shepard and directed by David Palmer and Dax Shepard. A mockumentary about making a movie.

Dax wants to be less of a comedian and more of an action star. He's trying to get some money to make an action movie. He's got an idea but hardly anything concrete to offer the money guys. He visits a lot of people, trying to get them in the movie or get some cash. Guests playing themselves include Ashton Kutcher, Tom Arnold, Bradley Cooper, David Koechner, Jon Favreau and Seth Green.

I enjoyed the movie but it's a bit weak. There are funny bits but they aren't that great on average. I bought the DVD cheap and hoped for better. You can't pick a winner all the time.

Science Fiction Sunday 761

Doctor Who 2 Series 13 Episode 5 - 6

 

Survivors Of The Flux November 28 2021 Written by Chris Chibnall and directed by Azhur Saleem.

 

The Doctor gets turned into a Weeping Angel for a while then she meets the woman, Tecteun, who experimented on her when she was the timeless child. The Doctor has no memory of Tecteun's experiments and subsequent use of her genes to create the race of Time Lords. Those memories were erased and stored in a Time Lord watch. Tecteun created and runs the Division and that Ood helps her. Tecteun created the Flux to kill the Doctor for being such a nuisance, one who interferes with her experiments. When Swarm shows up he will put an end to Tecteun in a most satisfying way. She is a monster.

 

Yaz, Dan and Jericho are lost in 1904 trying to figure out when the world will end. Kate Stewart confronts the head of UNIT with his being a traitor and he opens the Earth defense to let the Sontarians take over.

 

The Vanquishers December 5 2021 Written by Chris Chibnall and directed by Azhur Saleem.

 

The Doctor gets split into three bodies in three timelines. She brings the various groups together and they battle the Sontarians. The Sontarians wipe out the Lupari and then lure the Daleks and the Cybermen into a location where the Flux devastates their fleets. The Daleks and Cybermen have been wiped out so often and returned it seems a bit pointless.

 

The Sontarians get consumed by the Flux and the Flux is consumed by one of the Passengers. Time destroys Swarm and Azure and the Doctor maroons the head of UNIT on a small asteroid. They should have popped him into the sun. He's a real bastard. Most of the problems are wrapped up. The Doctor, Yaz and Dan head off for the next adventure. 

There's a handful of making of shorts as extras. There's just the three specials to go and I'll be done with the series until the David Tennant specials air. I think I'll watch Torchwood next.

Friday Night Movies 961

It Follows 2014 Written and directed by David Robert Mitchell. Filmed for $1.3 million in Detroit.

A young woman has sex with a guy and besides his semen he passes along a curse. A supernatural entity will follow and kill her until she has sex with someone else and passes along the curse. If she dies without passing the curse along to someone new the curse will go back to following the person who infected her.

Seems like she needs to let it kill her and set it on the guy who infected her. That would be too easy and the young woman spends most of the movie running from the slow walking creature that's stalking her. The movie never introduces someone to help them or tip them off on how to kill it. They do try to kill it but the creature is unkillable. It's also invisible to everyone but the infected person. Not a good combination.

It's a nice looking film but it's deliberate slow pace is wasted on me. My mind would wonder and I'd wish something would happen. It's one that I'm not going to bother adding to my pile of films.

Shin Ultraman 2022 Written by Hideaki Anno and directed by Shinji Higuchi.

The Japan government has set up a department to try to deal with the kaiju invasion. One day the team is surprised when Ultraman appears, they're even more surprised when one of the team turns out to be Ultraman. The menace quotient is upped when another alien appears. He's playing everyone by pretending to be a good guy but his real plans are soon revealed.

There's some decent kaiju action and some nice model work. That's surrounded by some slowly paced talking and sitting interludes. It makes the 113 min run time way longer. I could feel time slowing down. Eventually it's over. I enjoyed some of it but wouldn't recommend it to anyone. I wouldn't buy this one either.

Devil's Bait 1959

Devil's Bait 1959 Written by Peter Johnston and Diana Watson, directed by Peter Graham Scott.

A baker has a rat problem and the council rat catchers are on honeymoon. A phone operator gives him the name of Mr Love, a man who had done some rat catching in the past but mostly drinks nowadays. Mr Love comes by to kill some rats and prepares his poison in a broken bread loaf pan. He doesn't throwaway the loaf pan or even clean it and it gets used to make a loaf of bread.

Love pays the supreme price for his carelessness, he's killed in an accident on the way home. The police learn of his job at the bakery and head on over. Mr Frisby lies  and says he doesn't know anything. He later discovers the broken tin and smells the cyanide. He tries to find the loaf before someone eats it.

It's a bit dry but there's a decent story and a fairly good level of tension. I enjoyed it and would watch it again.

 

Furie 2019

Furie 2019 Written by and directed by Le-Van Kiet. A Vietnamese action film.

Hai Phượng is a ex-gangster and single mother. He's lives in a small town in the countryside and collects debts for a woman. Hai Phượng has a daughter called Mai. The daughter is kidnapped by gangsters and Hai Phượng chases her all the way to Saigon, with the reluctant help of the police the daughter is rescued and the baddies beaten up.

After a bit of set up the daughter is kidnapped and the fighting starts. For the rest of the film it's pretty much chase and fight. It's a fairly good film with good gritty action, a fair bit of which is on a train. It was enjoyable, despite it's rather dark story line, and I'd be happy to watch it again. 

Der Greifer 1958

Der Greifer 1958 Written by Curt J Braun and directed by Eugen York. A German film set in London England. It's a remake of the 1930 film The Copper. Hans Albers was in that film playing a different character. 

Hans Albers plays a policeman investigating a series of murders when he's retired and replaced by some younger men, including his son. The new team arrests someone that Hans doesn't think is the killer. He sets out on his own to find the murderer, he gets a bit of help from some criminals he knows.

It's a rather charming film with a very entertaining Albers.