PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 772

First up, The Satanist, a 1968 horror movie of the nudie kind. A couple move into a house next door to a satanist. The whole movie is narrated by the husband of the couple, there is no sync sound going on here. There is a good bit of nudity, some satanic crap but hardly any story. It's written and directed by Zoltan G Spencer. The movie was thought to be lost until 2014. Like anyone should have been looking for it. Well, now I've seen it and wouldn't need to see it again.

Wicked City is a 1992 Hong Kong film based on a Japanese Manga. I saw it for the first time back in the 90s and hadn't seen it in a while. I didn't dig it very much this viewing. We watched a Chinese Blu-ray and the movie looks great, it just wasn't keeping my interest, the personal melodrama is turnin' me off. Others might like it more than me.

Justine De Sade 1972

Justine De Sade is a 1972 French, Italian and Canadian production. Poor Justine can't get a break, everywhere she goes someone takes advantage of her in the most naughty ways. There's plenty of nudity and sadism. Nothing special about it.

Zambo 1972

Zambo is a 1972 Italian jungle adventure with Brad Harris. Bitto Albertini is the writer and director. A guy who was framed for murder, he escaped from the train taking him to prison and hides in the jungle under the name Zambo. Three years pass and he's a pal to the locals, helping fight off poachers, robbers and other scum that come into the jungle. Zambo becomes involved with an expedition looking for treasure in a lost ruin. There's a scumbag in the expedition who wants to kill Zambo. There's oodles of jungle trekking and an occasional fight. Nothing too special about it, well below average as jungle movies go.

Bush Christmas 1947

Bush Christmas came out in 1947 and it's a British-Australian co-production. The story is about five kids who chase some rustlers after they stole the family's horses. The Wikipedia tells me that it was one of the first films from Children's Entertainment Films, which later became the Children's Film Foundation. I've picked up several of the CFF DVDs over the last few years and enjoyed them quite a bit. There's a 1983 remake of the film called Bush Christmas or Prince And The Great Race. You can see it on YouTube. I should have watched it already but I just found it. It's introduces Nicole Kidman, something I might have known if I cared about her career any.

The 1947 Bush Christmas was written, directed and produced by Ralph Smart. He wrote and directed a good number of movies in a career that started in 1927 and ended in 1973. He died in 2001 at age 92. I'm probably a bigger fan of his TV work, shows like The Adventures Of Robin Hood, William Tell, The Invisible Man, Danger Man, Secret Agent and The Champions.

It's a pretty simple story, the kids meet up with some men on the trail and they let drop that they have a nice new horse and foal at their ranch. The next morning the horses are gone. The kids suspect the men and they head out after them. The horse thieves are no match for the kids and there's a happy ending. There's plenty of nice scenery and a good script with believable kids. Glad to have picked it up, I'll certainly watch it again.

Bank Holiday 1938

Bank Holiday is a 1938 British comedy drama that's also known as Three On A Weekend. Oddly, it's not part of The British Film series but part of The Rank Collection. Rank DVDs have been turning up on Hamilton Books for the last several months, usually under 6 smackaroonies. That's often a bit cheaper than the British DVD and you don't need a special player to play the DVD. 

The original story is by Hans Wilhelm and Rodney Ackland, the scenario is by Rodney Ackland and Roger Burford, the director is Carol Reed. It's Carol's fifth credited feature, he followed it with Penny Paradise which I watched, and enjoyed, the middle of last year. In 1940 Carol would direct Night Train To Munich. I enjoyed that. I'm guessing Carol is better known for the 1949 film The Third Man, or the 1962 Mutiny On The Bounty. Most of his other films aren't ones I've seen, they have a tendency to be more dramas than crime films or comedies. I'd rather watch the later two genres.

Bank Holiday follows people as they travel to the seaside for vacation. There's a family, a nurse and her boyfriend taking a holiday in a hotel, and a couple of ladies looking for romance. There's ups and downs, most of the stories work out well in the end. It could use a few more gags, there's some heavy drama woven in there, but I got to the end credits OK. I'd even guess I'd watch it again.

Ghosts Of Rome 1961

Ghosts Of Rome is a 1961 Italian comedy known as Fantasmi a Roma in it's homeland. It's directed by Antonio Pietrangeli and he co-wrote the script with Sergio Amidei, Ennio Flaiano, Ruggero Maccari and Ettore Scola.

Marcello Mastroianni and Vittorio Gassman star in this ghost story about some ghosts trying to save their haunted house from being torn down for a department store. It's lighthearted with a bit of romance. I enjoyed it.

Science Fiction Sunday 571

Blue World Order is the first of a pair of foreign SF films from Amazon Prime, it came out in 2017 and it's yet another Post Apocalypse film. It came from Australia and it's got a bit of Mad Max in it. I say a bit, there's a dull car chase with the heroes in a tricked out Delorean. Jake Ryan is a guy who's immune to the mind control put on the remnants of society by villain Billy Zane. Jake's got a daughter, the last child alive, the rest were all killed when Billy sent out the first mind control blast. Billy and his scientists want that kid.

There's a whole bit of back story about how the bombs fell in the northern hemisphere, how the virus started, how Billy started the mind control project at the start of the movie. It's the kind of science and myth building that doesn't hold up to thinking about. There's plenty of running about in the woods, some fighting, and that sucky car chase. I sure wasn't impressed and wouldn't put it on my list to pick up on DVD. There might not even be a release, I just wasn't interested to go look. I did look on the IMDb where I saw this rating travesty.

I've hardly ever seen a rating score so loaded with bullshit voting. The top three rating categories have almost 2100 votes and the rest share just under 700 votes. I'm betting some of those 1's are retaliatory votes. I would give the movie a 3, mainly for the lack of originality, the so-so story and the poor dialog.

Anti Matter is a 2016 British SF film about an Oxford student who builds some sort of matter transporter. It's written and directed by Keir Burrows. It's is first feature, he has a second in pre-production. Ana is the Oxford student, she works with two others, Liv and Nate, she's dating Nate. They make a wormhole and are able to move stuff through it. They figure out how to control it and move stuff from the machine to somewhere else in the room. Ana decides to try it out. After the trip she's all weird and having mental problems. The others are kind of dickish in their treatment of Ana and she's kind of mental. It will be explained at the end of the film but getting there is a bit of a slog. I liked the film better after it was over, as opposed to watching poor Ana try to get info from her team. I liked the bare bones idea of the story but still wouldn't put it at more than average. I still wouldn't need to get a copy or see it again.

 

Friday Night Movies 771

Terrordactyl is a 2016 SF horror comedy about pterodactyls falling to Earth in meteors. Two hapless guys work as gardeners, they drink in a bar with a pretty waitress. The one guy has a crush on the waitress but can't get enough jam together to ask her out. A long haired vet drinks there too. They all get tossed into the middle of a flying invasion of space pterodactyls. The hapless guys turn out to have some guts, waitress has some brains and the vet has mucho guns and ammo. They battle their way around LA. The flying invaders look better than a lot of the CGI you see on the SyFy channel and the story is a fair bit better than most of their fare. Don Bitters III wrote the screenplay and co-directed with Geoff Reisner. Don has mostly been an effects guy for the last dozen years. This is his first film and so far the only one. He's currently directing episodes of Home Invasion. Not a title that makes me want to see the program. It's Geoff's first feature too, he's most a cinematographer, he's directing a new feature called F.E.A.R.

Return Of The Evil Fox is a 1991 Chines horror comedy written by Kong Mou and directed by Chuo-Chi Leung. An evil spirit is haunting a building and some religious types go after it. There's plenty of fighting, acrobatics, and flying about. There's some laughs as the movie pokes a bit of fun at the religious antics. It's about average for the time and place. I enjoyed the yelling and confusion and I'd watch it again someday.

The Night Won't Talk 1952

The Night Won't Talk is a 1952 British crime film from The British Film series. It's written by Roger Buford and Brick Williams, the director is Daniel Birt. The story is set in the world of the Chelsea art scene. A model is killed and Ballard Berkley is the police detective investigating. Some might remember Ballard from Fawlty Towers where he played the Colonel. He's got some suspects, is it the boyfriend she had a row with, the painter she poser for that afternoon, or the head of local painting club who's kind of a creep. Anything with models and naked flesh can attract the creeps. Hy Hazell plays the woman the boyfriend dated before he dated the murdered woman. There's a good bit of yakking, the movie is 61 minutes and there's not much wasted effort. I liked the locations and the sets. The actors were good and the story get me to the end. It's only about average for me but I'd watch it again someday.

Just My Luck 1957

Just My Luck is a 1957 Norman Wisdom movie that's part of a box set. Norman works in a jewelry shop, he has a thing for the window dresser in the shop across the street. He spends the whole movie trying to get enough money to buy her a nice necklace. He gets involved with swindlers who have a horse racing accumulator scheme. I still am not being won back to liking Norman and his mugging about. It's like Norman can't leave a scene without maximizing his flailing about and that sort of sucks all the life out of it for me. You'd think directed John Paddy Carstairs might have done a better job. Oh, well, not many to go in the set.