PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

A Man Betrayed 1941

A Man Betrayed 1941 Written by Jack Moffitt, directed by John H Auer

John Wayne is a small town lawyer who comes to the big city to look into the death of a young man who was gambling in a nightclub. He stays to take down a local crime boss played by Edward Ellis. John gets involved with the man's daughter, played by Frances Dee. She's unaware of her father's secret underworld life.

Wallace Ford, Harold Huber and Ward Bond were the cast members that I knew. It's a good solid crusading against crime movie with a fairly good script. Entertaining to the end. I'd watch it again sometime. You can see it on YouTube.

Double Confession 1950

Double Confession 1950 Adapted from the John Garden novel All On A Summer's Day, screenplay by William Templeton, directed by Ken Annakin.

A nice little murder mystery with Derek Farr, Joan Hopkins, William Hartnell, Naunton Wayne, Ronald Howard, Kathleen Harrison, Edward Rigby, George Woodbridge, Esma Cannon and Peter Lorre.

Derek comes to visit his estranged wife at her cottage in a small coastal village. He sees William comes out of the cottage, he finds his wife dead when he goes inside the same cottage. He tries to blackmail and frame William for the murder but he gets some heat back from Peter, William's homicidal sidekick. He just loves to murder people. Naunton is the police inspector that has to try to figure out who's doing all the killing. 

Nicely written and produced. Pleasure to watch. Would watch again.

Science Fiction Sunday 622

Coherence 2013 Written and directed by James Ward Byrkit.

A group of old friends get together at a house the night a comet is due to pass over. It's all personal chatter and backstory until the weird stuff starts happening. The lights going out seemed normal to seeing yourself in the street. They figure out that the comet has created a rift between parallel universes. They discuss the other selves, whom they're really bothered by. One guy is much more disturbed than the others, to the point of violence, he really wants to kill them before they come for him. Some of the rest of the group turns violent as they try to deal with all that's going on.

It was a lot better than some of these small budget films with people talking and talking while little happens. It was shot in 5 days with $50,000. Even with that tight a budget, there's a bit of physical action, some fairly good actors, and a decent script. Nicholas Brendon and Elizabeth Gracen were the only ones in the cast that I knew. I'd think it's leaning more to being a horror movie than an SF film but that's OK, I'm running out of unseen SF films to see in general, I can't afford to be picky. I don't think I'd need to see it again.

These three films are all from Amazon Prime. It's the only way to keep up with the slightly newer SF films. I've near enough stopped buying DVDs, I have my favorite titles already and often I don't want to take a chance on something I don't know about. I'm not getting out to the used stores to check for cheap discs that I can take a chance on and the postage rates from the UK have gotten too expensive for me.

In Bright Axiom 2019 Director Spencer McCall co-wrote the script with Geordie Aitken, Farouz Gipson and Wylie Herman.

Some artist types think they should start a space for artists to flourish, or some such. People are invited to the mysterious society housed in a weird building. It's more like a cult but the guys behind the group say it's not a cult. It fails quickly, the organizers don't really have any idea what they are doing. The story is told in documentary style. It's not that interesting and not really SF. I wouldn't want to watch it again.

Empire Of The Sharks 2017 Written and directed by Mark Atkins. Produced by The Asylum.

In this Waterworld type film some people in a tiny floating village are up against the warlord John Savage. His minion isn't happy with the tribute from the village and he takes some women as prisoners. The slaves are forced to work powering a machine that takes the salt out of water so they can drink it. Some of the villagers form a plan to rescue the women. They hire some scum who fuck things up for a while but eventually they got eaten by sharks so I laughed.

It's about the usual level of quality of the average film from The Asylum. It's not something I would watch again, not that I should have bothered in the first place, but I was happy to have it on in the background as I sorted stamps.

Friday Night Movies 823

Evil Takes Root: The Curse Of The Batibat 2020 Director Chris W Freeman co-wrote the screenplay with Aaron Mack.

A woman finds a monster in her bedroom and the police find her body in a tree. Before that she had called her ex and the message brings him to her small town only to find her dead. Things turn weirder when the daughter becomes possessed. Turns out mom's company had done some clear cutting and unwittingly unleashed an ancient forest demon. It's come to visit and it's not a happy critter. The monster wasn't too badly portrayed.

The movie is pretty much a standard monster slog to the end. There's plenty of running and yelling in the woods. It's pokey and there's nothing really unique that stands out. There some fair to middling graphics and a passable production. I can't complain much about the acting. Sadly, it's still some below average. I'd give it a 4 before I would give it a 5 on the IMDb, it's current score is a 4.1. I did like the African priest character.

H0us3 2018 Director Manolo Munguia co-wrote the screenplay with Sergio Martinez. It's a Spanish picture, dubbed in English. It's pretty much shot in one room in a big house.

Computers figure heavily in this film, the characters were all computer students in university. Most of them haven't kept in touch much but they've all come to have dinner and stay in a big old house. There's not much going on but them all talking about stuff. One of the more annoying guys tells everyone he's cracked the password on a secret file from the dark web. He's found some code and put it on his phone. Now his phone can see 30 seconds into the future.

Everyone gets all excited wondering about the implications of the software and what it could mean if the government had it. They alter it to see 12 days into the future and find everything was on fire. Everyone freaks out. It takes about 90 minutes to get to that point in this 104 minute movie.

I didn't much care for the ending and the sting before the credits. It's ponderously slow and quite dull at times. I watched it on Amazon Prime and wished they would add variable speed to their player. Anything to get to the end of the movie quicker. I wouldn't need to see either of these again.

Aces And Eights 1936

Aces And Eights 1936 Story by George Arthur Durlam, screenplay by Joseph O'Donnell, directed by Sam Neufield. Sam's a prolific director of films and TV, I've seen many of his Westerns and Crime films. Aces and eights refers to the dead man's hand that Wild Bill Hickok was supposedly holding when he was killed by some scumbag.

Tim McCoy plays a cardsharp who's a good guy. He gets involved with a young Mexican man who's father is being swindled out of the family ranch.

There's some gambling, some gun shooting, some horse riding and a bit of romance. Nothing to unusual, not a big budget picture, just a solid story with typical production values of the time. Worth a look for the Western fan.

A Night Of Magic 1944

A Night Of Magic 1944 Script by Eversley Bracken under the name Ewesley Bracken, directed by Herbert Wynne. A short British comedy musical about the 3000 year old mummy of Egyptian Princess Raviola being found alive in her sarcophagus. Her coffin arrives at the apartment of a young upper class man who gets over his surprise quickly, it's a short film, no time to waste. He takes her out to the hairdresser and shopping for modern clothes. He dumps his fiance and plans to marry her. There's a sucky surprise ending and some songs by a guy playing the ukulele. He's no George Formby. Fun enough but below average.

99 River Street 1953

99 River Street 1953 Screenplay by Robert Smith, direction by Phil Karlson. I'd started watching this on YouTube and quickly I knew I had seen this film before. I thought I'd seen it more recently, say the last 3-4 years, but it was in January 2011 that I last set eyes on it.  Surprisingly, for me, I remember many scenes quite vividly.

 

It's a nice crime drama with a solid cast, a great screenplay and nice production values. John Payne is a New York City cab driver, that's him with Frank Faylen on the left, Frank is the manager of the cab company. Frank's career started in 1936 and ended in 1978, sadly most people would know him for being the father of Dobie Gillis in The Many Loves Of Dobie Gillis. John used to be a champion boxer but an eye injury retired him from the ring. His wife, Peggy Castle set on gold digger eleven, isn't happy working to help keep a roof over their heads. She thinks she should be living the good life, she would but for her stumble bum husband. That's Peggy with John in the picture on the right. She sure looks like someone wanted to escape her life.

 

Peggy takes up with the criminal scumbag in the picture on the left. That's Brad Dexter, he's been in a lot of entertaining films and TV shows. He plays a creepy villain here. That's Evelyn Keyes with Paul in the other picture. They've just discovered Paul's been framed and the police are on the way. Now he's on the run, looking for a crook, and Evelyn is helping him out. It's touch and go, there's other players in the mix. Not a nice crowd at all.

I liked it the second time around, as much as the first. I'd certainly want to watch it again sometime. You can see a nice copy on YouTube in the link above and for those that like it enough, there's a Kino Lorber DVD available.

Science Fiction Sunday 621

BraveStorm 2017 Director Junya Okabe co-wrote the screenplay with Joseph O'Brien. The movie is based on 2 old TV programs, Silver Mask and Super Robot Red Baron. It's mostly annoying characters and robots punching each other. An alien has landed on the Earth and he's building a giant robot that will poison the atmosphere. Some grand kids from the future come back to get grandpa to help fight the baddie. I liked the robot battles most of the time but all the backstory and family drama was much less interesting. Got to the end but wouldn't need to see it again.

Max Reload And The Nether Blasters 2020 Directed by Scot Conditt and Jeremy Tremp, they also wrote the story and Scott wrote the screenplay. It's a movie with some annoying gamers who have to save the world from a cursed video game. Kevin Smith turns up here and there as their boss, the owner of a video game store. He hams it up in all the scenes he's in but he's not a real part of the game battle. The script is weak and the gags aren't always funny. It's a bit below average but I might watch it again someday. It was on Amazon Prime for free, like the first movie, I can't seen buying a copy. Probably won't have the time to get to see it again anyway.

Friday Night Movies 822

The Night Before 2015 Director Jonathan Levine wrote the story that he adapted into a screenplay with Kyle Hunter, Ariel Shaffir, and Evan Goldberg. A couple years before TNB Jonathan wrote and directed Warm Bodies. I saw that and liked it well enough. I haven't seen any of the other 5 movies he's directed.

Fifteen years after they started to look for the legendary Christmas Party, the Nutcracker Ball, three friends decide to quit the hunt after this one last try. Lucky for them Joseph Gordon-Levitt works in a hotel and he finds and steals three tickets to the secret event. Seth Rogan and Anthony Mackie are his pals, all three guys have their own issues, all of which are mostly resolved by the end of the movie.

It's kind of funny, not all the gags were to my liking, and kind of like a bunch of movies. It's still a bit better than average and I would watch it again sometime. I believe the DVD came from Dollar Tree. When they used to have DVDs for a buck. Haven't seen that for the last year or so, I rarely ever go there anymore.

Plan 9 2016 Written and directed by John Johnson. John adapted Ed Wood's  Plan 9 From Outer Space but made it as a modern zombie film. These zombies run fast and bite hard. There's plenty of gore and loose body parts. It's sadly sexed up with some nudity and sex scenes. It's better made than Ed's film, John had more money and a bit more talent. Brian Krause is the big name in the film, at least from the modern day, Wood fans will recognize Conrad Brooks from the original film. He's got a small part, mostly he sits in a chair. It's watchable, though my mind did wander at times, some scenes are not as good as others. On the whole below average, I'm leaning more to a 4 than a 5 on the IMDb. I was kind of wishing that John had made his own story, instead of fiddlin' with Ed's story.

Interestingly the votes on the IMDb look like this.

Eskimo Nell 1975

Eskimo Nell 1975 Screenplay by Michael Armstrong, direction by Martin Campbell. One of the handful of DVDs I ordered since the postal rates from the UK went sky high. For some reason postage rates at Amazon UK dropped in Sept but quickly returned to their previous high. Today some of shipping prices seem to be back in the £4 area, they had risen to a high as £18. Couldn't see paying that.

Michael Armstrong, Terrence Edmond, and Christopher Timothy are film makers who get hired by sleazy film producer, played by Roy Kinnear. He wants a smutty picture based on The Ballad Of Eskimo Nell. Trouble is, Roy's a bad egg, he promised all 4 of his independent backers that they can have total say on the type of movie he's making. They all want something different so it's logical that Roy steals all the money and runs off to South America. The trio have to produce four films to satisfy the producers. We get to see a fair bit of the films they've made. They aren't that good at making movies, especially with no money.

It's goofy and kind of fun but it's also forced and lacking good gags. There's a bit of nudity and it has an early appearance by Mary Millington as a stripping lolly pop lady. Small parts for Jonathan Adams, Christopher Biggins, Stephanie Cole, Rosalind Knight, and Katy Manning. I gave it a 4 on the IMDb, it scores a 4.6, and I didn't think it was worth a 5.