PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 867

Spookies 1986 Written by Thomas Doran, Brendan Faulkner, Frank Farel, with additional material by Ann Burgund, directed by Brendan Faulkner, Thomas Doran and Eugenie Joseph.

The Wikipedia has an explanation about the making of the film:

Spookies started out as a feature film entitled Twisted Souls, written and produced by Frank Farel, Brendan Faulkner and Thomas Doran and directed by Faulkner and Doran.^[1] Principal photography for the film began at the Jay Estate in Rye, New York in late summer of 1984 and finished in October of that same year.^[1] Twisted Souls was being edited when creative and legal issues between the producers and the financial backer prevented final post production work (final editing, scoring, post-effects, etc.) from being carried out.

The original Twisted Souls footage directed by Faulkner and Doran consists of all the travelers who arrive in two cars and all the monsters and effects they encounter within the house. The monsters include: the demon Ouija girl, the muck men, the spider woman, the snake demons, the hallway demon and the Grim Reaper.^[1]

In 1985, the financial backer of Twisted Souls hired Eugenie Joseph to direct more footage, which was pieced together with the finished footage from Twisted Souls to create Spookies.^[1] The added scenes, written by Ann Burgund (under the name Joseph Burgund), feature an entirely different cast and include all the footage of the boy looking for his birthday party, the man in the tree, the cat-man, the old magician, the girl in the coffin, zombies, the witch in the basement/cave and the little blue boy.^[1]

The end result is a below average silly horror film with annoying characters. The original monsters are fairly interesting with decent make up. The additional monsters are much less interesting, with the zombie horde only slightly more interesting than the living. There's a watchable copy on YouTube for those are interested in seeing the film but less interested in spending money on the new Blu-ray. I won't be bothering with the Blu-ray myself, there are plenty of other films I want to buy first.

Explorers 1986 Written by Eric Luke and directed by Joe Dante.

I've had the DVD on my Amazon Wishlist for ages but it always got pushed further down the list by other films. I remember liking it when I saw it in the theater when it came out but upon seeing it now I'm liking it less. Especially the third act with the aliens, mostly embarrassing.

I deleted the DVD from my Wishlist, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't bother watching it again. I'd watch something like The Last Starfighter instead. That was more fun.

The Cheap Detective 1978

The Cheap Detective 1978 Written by Neil Simon and directed by Robert Moore. Robert only directed 3 films, all of which were written by Neil Simon. He worked in theater and TV as an actor and a director, he died of AIDS related pneumonia in 1984.

I didn't care for this send up of The Maltese Falcon that much. It's got a good cast and it's packed with jokes but many of the gags fall flat on my ears. I bought a used DVD a long while ago, now I'm disappointed. Oh well.

Third Time Lucky 1932

Third Time Lucky 1931 Based on the play by Arnold Ridley, screenplay by Sidney Gilliat, Angus MacPhail and H Fowler Mear, directed by Walter Forde. Arnold is the writer of the 1923 play The Ghost Train which got made into a movie with Arthur Askey. Arnold is mostly remembered for playing Private Godfrey in Dad's Army. One of my favorite characters in the series.

Sidney Gilliat is one of my favorite film makers, he's written and/or directed quite a number of entertaining films, some favorites being The Lady Vanishes, Night Train To Munich, Green For Danger and the St Trinian's series.

The Reverend Arthur Fear takes is upon himself to help his ward, she's being blackmailed by a man who has some incriminating letters of her visit to the room of a young man. Nothing happened but it could break up her engagement if they got sent to her fiance. Turns out the fiance is in league with the blackmailer.

Reverend Fear goes to the blackmailer but he's rebuffed. He decides to sneak in and steal the letters only to be confronted first by Gordon Harker playing a thief and second by the blackmailer. Gordon and the Reverend manage to escape but the blackmailer is on their trail. The movie ends with a shoot out in the middle of the church's fate.

Quite entertaining in the end.  I found a copy online but that source has disappeared.

Sleepy Eyes Of Death 6: Sword Of Satan 1965

Sleepy Eyes Of Death 6: Sword Of Satan 1965 Story by Renzaburô Shibata, screenplay by Seiji Hoshikawa, directed by Kimiyoshi Yasuda.

Nemuri Kyoshiro finds himself in the middle of the fall of the Iwashiro Clan. A woman offers herself for some money and he goes along with her. Instead of sleeping with her Nemuri questions her on her choice to raise money. Turns out her son is the heir to the Iwashiro Clan. Trouble is her son's not in the dead Lord's house and an Inspector from the Shogun is coming to see the boy. If there's no heir the clan would be disbanded.

Nemuri is annoyed by her, he leaves her with a gold piece and some harsh words, the next morning he finds out she's killed herself. He vows to help her son, the boy is living with a carpenter and that's what he wants to be. The clan has other ideas and kidnaps the boy with the help of a woman called Orin who's trying to get revenge on Nemuri for killing her brother.

Orin helps the clan against Nemuri but he's way too good for their men, they fall in great heaps on the ground. Orin leads Nemuri into further traps. The one in a temple is quite entertaining.

It's a black mass for Satan with a naked sacrifice. Nemuri slaughters many of the brethren. Nemuri is the son of a Chinese woman and a white missionary. He has a grudge against the missionaries and a general hatred for the rich and powerful.

There's plenty of action as Nemuri is attacked over and over again. He defeats the baddies and kills most of the clan. The boy leaves with Nemuri. Another entertaining entry in the series. Half way through the dozen films.

Mortal Combat 2021

Mortal Combat 2021 Story by Oren Uziel and Greg Russo, screenplay by Greg Russo and Dave Callaham, directed by Simon McQuoid. Simon's first film, he's been making commercials.

Bigged up, fancier version of the previous films. More CGI effects and the characters have much flashier costumes and powers. I liked the first Paul WS Anderson film from 1995, the followup film was directed by John R Leonetti and it's just not as good.

There's some backstory and plenty of action. The action goes on and on until all the baddies are finished for now. Mostly entertaining bu nothing special going on. I found a copy on the Internet Archive but it's long gone. That saves me buying a copy of the disc. I don't see re-watching this anytime soon.

Science Fiction Sunday 667

Doctor Who 0036 The Evil Of The Daleks Seven part story that aired May 20 to July 1 1967. Written by David Whitaker, directed by Derek Martinus. Only the second episode survived, I had watched that back in 2012 when I went through the series for the first time. I listened to the audio version of the story just a few weeks ago. Here's that post.

The new 3 disc DVD from the BBC has plenty of material to get through. The 7 episodes are animated and presented in color and B&W. There's commentaries on the episodes, episode 2 has 2 commentaries. The Telesnaps version of the story is on the third disc as well as more making of material.

I watched the color version first, then the B&W version with the commentaries on, then the Telesnaps version followed by all the extra material. It took most of the day and well into last night. I enjoyed the animated versions well enough but more enjoyed the Telesnaps version. At least you can see the real actors.

The extras are up to the usual standard of the BBC. Sadly there aren't many of them still alive from the 60s and they have to fill in some material from other sources. Still, it's nice that they collect what they can and save it with the episodes. All in all entertaining.

Taskmaster US Season 1

Taskmaster US Season 1 The series was produced for Comedy Central in 2017 and aired April 27 to May 18 2018. Reggie Watts is the host with series creator Alex Horne in the assistant spot.

The contestants are Lisa Lampanelli, Freddie Highmore, Ron Funches, Dillon Francis and Kate Berlant. I'm not familiar with anyone other than Freddie. I've hardly noticed what's going on in stand up in the US since Tough Crowd With Colin Quinn.

There were 8 episodes of the US version of Taskmaster and only the one season. The episodes were only a half hour with 22 mins of actual show. The prize task has been changed to one contestant bringing in a prize to win. There were a couple of filmed tasks and one stage task.

There was fairly good banter in the studio parts and a lot of being annoyed with Alex during the filmed parts. I got a few laughs but it's not as consistently entertaining as the UK version or the version from New Zealand. I'm sure my liking of the UK contestants is a big part of my enjoying that series more then the US version.

I'm glad to have seen the US version but I'm guessing I'll be less likely to get back to them before I watch the UK and NZ versions a few more times. I'll also have the versions from Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Spain, Belgium and Norway to watch. That's a lot to episodes especially since those Scandinavia countries are still producing programs.

Friday Night Movies 866

Big Bad Wolf 2006 Written and directed by Lance W Dreesen. I hadn't remembered seeing this back in 2006. That post is in the title above. I didn't think it was going to be such a short while before I saw it again. It's still about average. I probably don't need to see it again at this point. That's an ugly poster.

The Snake Girl And The Silver Haired Witch 1968 Based on the comic Hebi Onna by Kazuo Umezu, screenplay by Kimiyuki Hasegawa, directed by Noriaki Yuasa. The comic was published in the US under the name Reptilia in 2006. The director is also the director of the first series of Gamera films.

A young orphan girl called Sayuri finds out that her parents are alive and they want her to come live with them. They live in a nice house, the mother is an amnesiac from an accident and the father is a scientist specializing in snake venom study.

When Sayuri arrives at the house she's greeted by an ambulance, the maid had just died from a heart attack. The father has just learned he's got to leave right away for an opportunity to study a rare snake in Africa. He's gone until the very end of the film.

The next night Sayuri finds a snake in her bed but after her mother and the housekeeper arrive it's gone. There's also someone in the attic, looking at Sayuri's bed through a hole in the ceiling. Things start to get more and more serious and deadly for Sayuri. She's a plucky girl who stands up to danger in the end.

It moves a bit slowly for me but I was still entertained enough to order the Arrow Blu-ray. I'll want to watch it again.

Elves 1989

Elves 1989 Written by Jeffrey Mandel, Mike Griffin and Bruce A Taylor, directed by Jeffrey Mandel.

Some stupid girls have a pagan ritual in the woods and Kristen's blood activates an ancient evil elf. He's an ugly bugger but he's got a plan for world domination. He's going to mate with Kristen and produce a race of elves from her womb. Unbeknownst to Kristen, her grandfather is an ex-Nazi, there are some active Nazis in town and they've come looking for Kristen. Dan Haggerty plays a ex-cop with a drinking problem. He gets a job as a department store Santa and stumbles into the elf Nazi nuttiness. He helps Kristen fight the elf and the Nazis.

It's a below average movie for me, there's nothing that stands out here. Elf guy is pretty poor, he's hardly articulated. There's a bit of nudity, a bit of gore, plenty of running about and a cliche ending. You can check it out on YouTube but there's no real reason unless you've interested in seeing as many genre films as you can.

Tales Of Robin Hood 1951

Tales Of Robin Hood 1951 Story and screenplay by Leroy H Zehren, directed by James Tinling. One of two pictures Robert L Lippert made for R & L Productions. It was Tinling's last film, though it seems to be cobbled together from the episodes that were shot. Tinling moved into TV and worked through 1960 before retiring. The last work he directed were 5 episodes of Fury. I can't say many of the 50 plus films he directed are ones I've seen, only Mr Moto's Gamble and Charlie Chan In Shanghai for sure.

The first part of the film has Robin's father killed and Robin is taken to live in hiding by the King's right hand man Will Stutely. Robin grows up in the forest and becomes the notorious Robin Hood. Robert Clarke plays Robin and Whit Bissell plays Alan. Robert produced, co-wrote, co-directed and plays the lead in The Hideous Sun Demon. I remember seeing that as a kid and realizing there's not always salvation if your accidentally turned into a monster.

As the film plays out Robin meets Friar Tuck, Maid Marion, Little John and a good number of the baddies. There's sword fighting, arrow shooting and plenty of running through the woods. The production is typical of a TV shoot of the time. The 1955 British TV series with Richard Greene was along the same lines but had a better budget. It did well enough to wind up with 143 episodes by the time they finished. I saw the series when I was a kid and have enjoyed it all over again as an adult.

Nothing too special about Tales Of Robin Hood but it was still entertaining enough to get to the end. Might be more for the RH fan, there's a copy on YouTube for those that might like a go.