PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

A Rescue From Hades 1982

Rescue From Hades 1982 Written by Lung-Kuang Chang and directed by Che-Fu Liang. A Taiwan fantasy drama.

Someone I know passed along a stack of Asian movies. Mostly they're horror and action. Some of them are rather obscure, some are missing subtitles like this film. I'm not sure what was going but I did find this synopsis from The Movie Data Base. It helps some.

Three generations of the Luo family fasted and chanted Buddha's name. However, Mr. Luo died young. Luo's mother complained and began to kill animals and eat meat. When Luo Bu grew up, her family property was wiped out by her uncle. Oppose and remarry someone else. After Luo's mother died, she went to hell. Luo Bu received God's instructions and followed Pratyekabuddha to practice, and his Dharma name was Mulian. However, because he could not bear the suffering of his mother in hell, he broke into the underworld to rescue his mother. After all the hardships, he finally felt the Buddha's will. Let Mother Luo be reincarnated.

It's a noisy colorful movie with some action. The sets for Hades are fun but low budget. They make up by packing them with plenty of costumed characters and bits of action. There's a bit of a sense of humor, I enjoyed that. Not as good as a Shaw Brothers horror film but watchable. I enjoyed it but I'm guessing I'm not going to rush to see it again.

 

Agatha Christie's Hjerson Series 1

Agatha Christie's Hjerson Series 1 Created by Patrik Gyllström. Hjerson is a character that appears in the Ariadne Oliver novels that Poirot is reading within the Agatha Christie novels. The Swedish series of 8 episodes aired in 2021. Each story is made up of two episodes which are streaming on MZH.

Hjerson is a retired criminal investigator. As we meet him he's taking the ferry to his hometown in Åland. I'm some what curious about Åland, I collect stamps from island nations. Hjerson meets a woman on the ferry called Klara. They get involved with a murder on the ferry. On the island there's another murder. Hjerson and Klara solve the murders. In the second story Hjerson finds a body on the beach. The man is dead and dressed as a chicken. The body disappears while Hjerson goes to call the police. In the third episodes someone is using fictional murders as the basis of their murders. The fourth story an actor is murdered on a film set, blank bullets have been replaced with real bullets in a scene.

The crimes are decent enough, the real action is the relationship between the quirky Klara and the quirky Hjerson. It's a nice looking show with plenty of nice scenery on Åland. The characters are some annoying but they work well enough together. I enjoyed the series and was sad there aren't anymore. I haven't heard anything on another series. I enjoyed them enough to want to watch them again someday.

Out Of The Blue 1947

Out Of The Blue 1947 Short story by Vera Caspary, screenplay by Vera Caspary, Walter Bullock and Edward Eliscu, directed by Leigh Jason.

A screwball comedy about a dead body on a balcony. Nosy neighbors report the body but the police don't find anything. George Brent and Carole Landis are a married couple, she's pretty bossy and he's pretty limp. Turhan Bey is an artist that draws women in bathing suits. He has a dog that likes burying bones in Carole's balcony garden. She doesn't like the dog and insists it must go. Virginia Mayo owns a dog kennel, she's trying to mate Turhan's dog to one of her dogs. Ann Dvorak meets George while he's eating on his own. She's a bit drunk and pretty forceful, they wind up at Georges place while the wife is out of town. No matter what George was thinking might happen he's hardly ready for what does.

I enjoyed the heck out of the movie and had a good laugh or five. The cast is great and Turhan Bey is a favorite of mine. You can see it on YouTube. Nice copy.

Science Fiction Sunday 811

Doors 2021 Written by Chris White, Saman Kesh, Ed Hobbs and Jeff Desom, directed by Saman Kesh, Jeff Desom and Dugan O'Neal. An American anthology film. Chris White wrote Portals in 2019, another film about strange doors that appear on the Earth. Chris mostly works as a producer, I can't say I've seen any of his producing efforts but I have heard of V/H/S Viral, The ABCs Of Death and Vlog.

Aliens leave doors on Earth and the humans figure out that they are all about. Millions of people disappear into them, some return but they're affected by their experience. We follow some people about as they encounter a door.

It's got a decent hook but the execution is a bit weak. The four segments don't really have much connection and there isn't really a framing story. Characters also do some stupid stuff when confronted with the door. We do find out why the aliens are there but it's a bit vague. I liked it but only gave it a 4 on the IMDb. I wouldn't need to see it again. You can check out both of these movies on YouTube, link in title.

Restart The Earth 2021 Written by Zhenzhao Lin and Shengfan Zhang, directed by Zhenzhao Lin. A Chinese disaster movie.

Plants have been tampered with by humans to grow faster and they have taken over the world. They are strangling the environment and vast swathes of humanity are dead. The remaining governments have organized an attack on the plants with some sort of device. We follow one group of Chinese soldiers and a couple of civilians as they try to get to the deployment point. 

There's a series of disaster set pieces, giving plenty of opportunity to sacrifice someone so the other characters can weep and wail. The plant CGI is about average. The dubbing not so much. I wouldn't need to re-watch this one again.

The Marco Effect 2021

The Marco Effect 2021 Based on the novel Buried by Jussi Adler-Olsen, screenplay by Anders Frithiof August, Thomas Porsager and Martin Zandviet, directed by Martin Zandviet. A Danish series of films, this is the fifth.Someone was nice enough to pass a copy along.

Detective Carl Mørck and  Detective Hafez el-Assad are Danish policemen. Carl had a bad day at work recently, a man died, and he's been furloughed home. He's supposed to see a therapist and he's quit smoking. A couple of weeks off and he's champing at the bit to come back to work. His boss lets him but he's got his reservations. Carl's not the sort of person you want to be around when he's happy and firing on all cylinders.

The train police capture a kid on one of their trains from the Middle East. He's of little interest until they find a page from the passport of a man missing for four years. Carl and Hafez start looking into the kid, that leads them to some local thieves. The body of the missing man turns up a bit into the movie, that leads our cops to some rich people. Somehow the suspects are connected.

Carl likes browbeating his suspects. He keeps getting into trouble and eventually gets kicked off the case and sent home. This only spurs him on to keep pounding everyone until he catches the baddies. Carl's an unlikable guy. He does get results.

This film sees a new cast take over the characters. Apparently the writer of the novels wasn't too keen on Nikolaj Lie Kaas and Fares Fares playing Detectives Carl Mørck and Hafez el-Assad. They were the main characters for the first four films. I'd seen those films a few years ago and really enjoyed them. I was impressed enough to upgrade to Blu-ray, from DVD, when I saw those were available.

It's a decently made film but I'm not caring for the new characters much at all. I  didn't find myself pulled into the story as I did on the previous films. I probably would have liked this better if I hadn't seen the previous four films.

Friday Night Movies 1011

M3GAN 2022 Story by Akela Cooper and James Wan, screenplay by Akela Cooper, directed by Gerald Johnstone. An American New Zealand that was filmed in both countries.

A little girl called Cady is the only survivor of a snowy car crash, she goes to live with her aunt Gemma. The aunt works for a electronic toy company who have a talking fur ball. Gemma wants to step up the robotic doll and she secretly works on M3GAN (Model 3 Generative Android), a robot doll that bonds with the child and guides it. 

Of course it's only a short time before M3GAN learns how to be more human. She kills the neighbor's dog after it bites Cady, then the neighbor, more will bodies follow. Don't buy your child a robotic companion, that's what I got from the movie.

I didn't care for the characters that much and the personal drama dominates the story. Now that I've seen it I'm guessing I wouldn't bother watching it again.

Nécrologies 2018 Written and directed by Fabien Chombart, Guilaume Defare, Nathalie Eqoque, François Message and Alexis Wawerka. A French anthology film with 5 short films and a framing story.

A guy is taking selfies in a graveyard in the middle of the night. The caretaker catches him and takes him to the office to call the cops. The caretaker winds up telling the guy some stories about the dead in the graveyard, at one point the guy tells one of his own.

The first couple of weren't too bad but the middle act nearly put me to sleep, it picks up a bit at the end. Another I probably wouldn't bother re-watching.

Massage Parlor Murders! 1973

Massage Parlor Murders! 1973 Directed by Chester Fox and Alex Stevens. No writer is credited on the film, the IMDb or the Wikipedia.

A serial killer is murdering massage parlor workers, he's using the seven deadly sins as his guide. The police are after him but there are no real leads. One of the cops gets involved with one of the massage ladies but that ends poorly for her. It ends poorly for the murderer when he finally meets a massage gal who can fight back.

It's a poorly made film with a mediocre script. The acting is all over the place, nobody stands out in that crowd. There's plenty of nudity and some violence. Lots of good shots of New York in 1973. Good filler to pad out the film to 80 mins. I laughed at a couple of spots, no joke, just some bad film making. Not something I would need to see again.

Partisan Series 1 - 2

Partisan Series 1 - 2  Two 5 episode series that aired in 2020 and 2022.

A Swedish undercover cop takes a truck driving job for an organic farmer in a gated community. Feras Feras plays Johnny, the undercover cop. He was great in the first 4 films of the Department Q series of a few years back. The organic farmer is suspected of money laundering. Johnny finds out there's something else going on. There's a pure race aspect to the story, the gated community members are quite racist. There's also a genetics part to the story. Something often hand in hand with racists. There's a good number of other bits and bobs to fill up the time, including several murders. Poor Johnny doesn't make it through the first series but his fellow cops are searching for him. Eventually some of the worst of the criminals are gathered up for jail. I hadn't heard if there's going to be a third series.

It was OK but it's just average. I wouldn't be watching it again.

Mayday Series 1 2013

Mayday Series 1 2013 Written by Ben Court and Caroline Ip, directed by Brian Welsh.

I watched all of Mayday and it was a lot like Broadchurch. Way more drama than policing, way too many pregnant pauses, way too much staring off into the distance. It could have been a 90 min movie instead of five 45 min episodes. It’s way too slow for me, so I speed it up a bit after the first episode. There’s only a hint of magic but there is retribution from the grave. Too many red herrings and too many oddball characters. I got a good laugh in the 3^rd episode but have forgotten what the joke was already. I don’t begrudge watching it, I never know if I’m going to find that gem of a show I’m always hoping for. I’m not going to keep it.

Science Fiction Sunday 810

Project Gemini 2022 Written by Natalia Lebedeva and Dmitry Zhigalov, directed by Serik Beyseu. A Russian SF film that was filmed in 2016 but not released until 2022.

The Earth is dying and the humans have sent a ship to another planet to terraform it for colonists. The human's are using alien tech that they found in a cave on Earth. The alien tech jumps the ship to another planet. Trouble is, it's not the planet they planned to terraform. They set up the device anyway and it starts terraforming the place. Trouble is, the settings are wrong for humans. There's a lot of tension in the crew while they try to figure out what's going on and what to do. On top of that a strange energy beast has popped out of the alien device. People start dying and things get pretty hectic for a while. It's got a bit of a positive ending.

It a good looking film, the space ship and effects are decent. The story is where it goes off for me. How easily the human's were fooled by the alien tech. The script has the crew make irrational choices when things go wrong. They turn on each other every quickly. Oh, well, wish it was better but it saves me from bothering with it again.

Aniara 2018 Based on the poem Aniara by Harry Martinson, screenplay and direction by Pella Kågerman and Hugo Lilja. A Swedish and Danish production.

A spaceship transporting Earthlings to Mars launches from the Moon's orbit. The ship is the Aniara, before it travels too far it has a  collision with some space junk. That causes the Captain to dump the damaged nuclear reactor. They're stuck in space with no way to return home on their own. The Captain says there's a chance they can slingshot around some large body and be rescued when they get to Mars. They've got power from the backup supply and the food machine will make food for years and years.

A time goes by there's no slingshot and things are getting tough for the hundreds of passengers. The main character runs a room where an AI with brain probing powers helps keep the human's from going mad. The demand is high and the poor AI blows itself up. The death count rises as the months pass. Cults form and things get worse and worse. It doesn't end well for the people but it was nice to see that the ship was still traveling through space nearly 6 million years in the future. That's reliable.

It was keeping my interest to the end but I don't think I'll bother with it again. It's rather dire and depressing.