PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Science Fiction Sunday 527

I finally upgraded the last of the Ray Harryhausen movies in my collection and today I watched the 2017 Kino Lorber Blu-ray of One Million Years BC. First I watched the 91 minute US cut, then the 100 minute International Cut, then the latter with commentary. Each version of the film has it's own disc. Each disc has a few extras. The US cut has interviews with Raquel Welch, Ray Harryhausen and Martine Beswick. The International cut has a commentary by Tim Lucas, a poster gallery and a trailer.

The International cut came out in 1966 and the US cut got released in 1967. The film is directed by Don Chaffey with a screenplay by Michael Carreras. It's adapted from the 1940 Victor Mature picture One Million BC and the original writers, Mickell Novack, George Baker and Joseph Frickett, are credited.

I hadn't seen the longer version before and it was a bit of an improvement over the US cut. There's a bit dino action and some other business. Tim Lucas mentions some of the material that was cut on his commentary.

Boris Karloff Collection

VCL put out a four film collection of Boris Karloff movies called Boris Karloff Collection. The four films are all from the last work he did. Karloff died 2-2-69 and some of the films did not get released until after his death. Jack Hill wrote and directed Karloff in LA and the films were finished in Mexico by Juan Ibanez. All the films are listed on the box as being either 89 or 90 minutes, all are in the 73 - 74 minute range. What sacks of shit, huh.

Dance of Death is also known as House Of Evil. It's a 1968 film with Boris as the head of a family. He's called his family together to see who gets some cash. Soon after they start getting killed off. There's a gimmick with some deadly toys but that's a pretty lame subplot. The film didn't get released until 1978.

Fear Chamber is also titled Torture Zone, most of these movies have more than one title. Boris is head of some scientists investigating a volcano. The scientists being back a "living rock" and it turns out that the rock thrives on the hormones produced by humans when they're scared. It's all pretty stupid.

Alien Terror is about an alien invasion back in 1890. The movie was made in 1971 and Boris is a scientist who invents a ray that attracts an alien spaceship. The aliens come looking for the ray. The want to destroy it, thinking that the human race isn't to be trusted with such powerful weapons. It's about the same as the rest.

Cult of The Dead is also known as Isle Of The Snake People or just Snake People. This came out in 1971 and this time Boris is head of a voodoo cult. A snake dancer creates a gang of zombies and sends them to attack people.

None of these are much worth seeing, I only got them because Boris is in them. The set's not that much money. I doubt that I'll ever get around to them again.

Gorgo 1961

I watched the VCI Blu-ray of Gorgo today. It's one of my favorites of the giant monster movies. I originally had a copy from Turner Classic Movie then I bought the VCI DVD . The TCM version looked pretty poor compared to the DVD. On a whim I decided to pick up the VCI Blu-ray of Gorgo for a tenner. The Blu-ray sure looks better than my than my other copies but it's still fuzzy. Probably nothing much else that they can do with the film elements that are left. I thought I could get rid of the VCI DVD but I find there's a 10 minute documentary, written by film historian Tom Weaver, on the disc that isn't been added to the Blu-ray. How annoying. There's also a nice essay by Tom Weaver on a paper insert in the case.

The story is about the discovery of a monster off the coast of Ireland. It's caught and taken to London to be in showbiz. BY showbiz I mean a pit in the ground and an electric fence to keep him company. There's issues settling in and eventually mom comes calling to see what happened to Junior. It's a great reminder that giant animals are really dangerous and men are really stupid.

There's a nice documentary about the film, that's the best of the extras. There's a 40 minute slow track down the pages of a Gorgo Fumetto. That's a French comic book using pictures from the movie as illustrations. It's kind of crudely produced when compared with the Italian versions of them. There's another comic book and a plethora of photos, toys pictures, posters, lobby cards and other promo material. There's a trailer, production notes, a restoration featurette and an optional music and effects track.

Science Fiction Sunday 516

Today I watched both movies in one of the many Midnite Movies DVD sets. I have been picking up the Midnite Movie series when I see them. They're a good deal, the movies vary in quality but are usually entertaining. The discs are pretty bare bones, just a trailer for an extra. First up was Invisible Invaders, a 1959 movie about invading aliens who are invisible. That's tough to see. It was written by Samuel Newman and directed by Edward L Cahn. Samuel was the story editor on the Perry Mason TV show from 1961 to 1965 and he wrote a number of episodes. I've only seen one of his feature films, the 1951 Tarzan film Tarzan's Peril. Edward has directed several low budget SF and Horror films, here's 3 you might know, Creature With The Atom Brain, Invasion Of The Saucer Men and It! The Terror From Beyond Space. The last film is my favorite of his works.

Robert Hutton, Jean Byron, Philip Tonge and John Agar are the main cast. Robert and Philip are scientists, Jean's Philip's daughter and John is an Air Force Captain guarding the scientists. They have a fairly good looking lab, with plenty of props but no other people. Much of the movie is filmed there. The outdoor scenes are mostly woods and there are more extras there. The aliens attack, and as you know, no one can even see them. Some of the aliens animate dead bodies and move the corpses about. The aliens are pretty much the dicks here, what with planning to take over the world and all.

The scientist's are looking for a weapon to defeat the invisible invaders. There's a bit of running about outside. It's dangerous out there, the zombie like aliens are looking for the secret lab. They've managed to destroy a lot of the human cities and kill a lot of people. They plan to eliminate the human's and live on Earth. See, it's non-stop dickishness from the invisible douche-bags from space.

Eventually the scientist's come through with the goods and their weapon blasts those aliens right out of the dead. The left over human's are saved. Hooray. I liked it, even though it's not that great, there's a bit of excitement, some shambling dead, and a goofy weapon. I gave it a 5 and that's what it's score is on the IMDb. I've seen it before and might watch it again someday.

The second movie is on the other side of the disc. It's called Journey To The Seventh Planet and it came out in 1962. It's another John Agar film and it was directed by Sidney W Pink. Sid co-wrote the movie with Ib Melchior. Sid was a producer, writer and director, he directed 6 films, I've only seen this one and Reptilicus.

John is the Captain of a spaceship to Uranus. When they get there they find a strange place that's similar to Earth. It's shrouded in a barrier that they can pass through. People and places appear as they look around. People and places from their minds. One of the men is fearful of rats and the party is attacked by a giant rat.

Eventually they figure out some alien is manipulating them and they have to figure out how to beat him.

Maybe it's not as well made as the other movie but it has a nice mix of seriousness and goofiness. Sid's just not as good a film maker as Edward was. I still gave it a 5 on the IMDb, a 4 seemed too low, it's got a 4.8 average there. I was glad to see it again. I had forgotten the story from the first time I saw it 15 years or so ago. I doubt I'll wait 15 more years to see it again.

Friday Night Movies 707

Unearthly Stranger is a 1964 British film that was directed by John Krish and written by Rex Carlton. The Wikipedia says the movie was based on an idea by Jeffrey Stone and that he was an actor who was the model and inspiration for Prince Charming in the 1950 Disney Cinderella. The IMDb listing for John Krish says he mostly directed documentaries and shorts. He directed ten feature films but I don't believe I've seen any of them. I did see the three episodes of The Avengers he did, same with the episode of The Saint. When it comes to Rex's work I can say I've seen his The Brain That Wouldn't Die, Blood Of Dracula's Castle and Nightmare In Wax. Not the greatest films but watchable. This is a better movie than those three.

That's John Neville on the left, he's just come back from vacation with a new bride. Jean Marsh is his secretary and Phillip Stone is another professor at the super secret spaceflight project. The group is trying to invent teleportation. John you might remember from the Terry Gilliam movie The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen or one of the many movies he was in.

I suspect everyone knows Jean but not everyone might know Phillip Stone. His second acting job was the play a character in Hot Snow, the pilot episode of The Avengers, which aired April 21 1969. Only 15 minutes of that episode exist and only 3 episodes of the1st series survived. I believe that the 1st role I had seen him in was playing Alex's dad in A Clockwork Orange and three years later he had three parts in O Lucky Man!

Once back at work John starts to notice his new bride is a bit odd, he'd meet her on vacation, in a whirlwind romance he'd married her. His wife doesn't seem to blink. Once he found her totally unconscious with her eyes open and she had no pulse. Minutes later she wakes up as if nothing had happened. John's co-workers take notice of his problems, especially the security guy. Other strange things happen that make people more suspicious.

It's a nice little SF thriller with a vague but still entertaining ending. Some say that's a bit of an important film. I wouldn't say that but I liked it enough to order the Blu-ray off of Amazon this morning. It's only about 12 bucks with postage. Unfortunately, for some, it's a foreign disc. I'm also looking at region Free Blu-rays as I am starting to get some of them. Want to keep all options open.

Our second film was The Return Of The Living Dead 2. It came out in 1988 and Ken Wiederhorn is the writer - director. It's not a direct sequel to the first movie, in fact, it was written as a different film. The producer liked the script but wanted a sequel so it was rewritten. The movie gets started in a similar way. One of the Army's zombie storage containers falls off a truck and a kid breaks it open. The gas that escapes turns people into zombies that want some brains.

There's plenty of yelling and running about as the zombies ramble about looking for a snack. James Karen, left, and Thom Matthews, second from right, were in the first movie but they played different characters. Their parts are similar, Thom is a guy who just started working for James. In the first they are working at a medical supply house and in the sequel they are guys who steal skulls out of cemeteries for the black market. They get turned into zombies in both films.

It's a good sequel and more of a comedy than the first movie. Not that there wasn't some good gags in the first movie. That half a dog is still a hoot. I gave it a 6 and I'd watch it again someday.

Science Fiction Sunday 501

I'm such a sucker for those multi movie packs. Here's one from MGM's Midnight Movies line. This one collects Morons From Outer Space, Alien From LA, The Man From Planet X and The Angry Red Planet. All these movies came out in single DVDs, then they were packed in pairs, then MGM doubled up and packed four to a set. This set was produced in 2011, inside are a couple of double sided DVDs with a movie on each side. I've seen all these movies, a couple only once, the other two a couple more times, but didn't have 'em. I'm stock piling DVDs for the future. I'm betting, based on what I've seen so far, that many of these movies won't always be available on streaming. Currently stuff disappears off of Amazon Prime pretty regularly and abruptly. I see reports on Facebook about content on Netflix streaming, Hulu and the like, and it seems to be the same story. I've read people's blogs where they complain about not being able to go buy a movie that they like, it's OOP and pricey. Yeah, boo hoo. So, I'm picking up stuff that I might want to watch down the road. I'm partial to a clearance but new is preferred. The set was about 8 bucks, not a bad price for 4 movies. They're a mixed bag of SF films covering different sub-genres and the first and last were released 37 years apart. It's an odd selection, you'd think they just randomly drew them out of a bucket of SF titles. On the whole I like the MGM Midnight Movies series and have several DVDs in the line.

Morons From Outer Space is about 4 dumb aliens who wind up on Earth. It's directed by Mike Hodges, who had directed Get Carter, Flash Gordon and The Terminal Man. It's written by Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones who were on the British TV show Not The Nine O'Clock News with Rowan Atkinson and Pamela Stephenson. Mel plays one of the aliens and Griff has a part in the movie too. Three of the aliens are turned into celebrities but poor Mel gets left out. It's a fair movie but not a great movie. I wish there were better jokes.

Alien From LA was a selection on Mystery Science Theater 3000. It's was kind of perfect for the guys to chatter through. It's not that great, one of the reasons I hadn't ever picked up a copy. I didn't buy the set for this movie, I wanted the couple below.

The Man From Planet X a 1951 low-budget science fiction film by Edgar G. Ulmer. Made in 6 days for under $60,000 it was shot on some of the sets of Joan of Arc. They use lots of smoke for fog and it's hard to see them. It set in Scotland, on an island. A spaceship lands there and the man from Planet X is a weird looking guy. That's him in a bubble on the cover. He can't communicate with the earth people but he has a hypnoray to put them under his control. He's found by a science guy's beautiful daughter, who is played by Margaret Field, Sally Field's mother. The science guy brings the alien into his house so they can communicate with him. There's a reporter, played by Robert Clarke. William Schallert plays the assistant who wants to use the alien for his own dreams of glory and power. It doesn't go to well for him or the man from Planet X, especially after the authorities show up. The man from Planet X shows his true colors and they learn he's the first of an invasion force. He's got to call home at midnight to start the invasion. Will they blow him up in time? Sure. It's the 1950's and no alien isn't gonna take over our planet Earth. It's pretty entertaining to me and certainly better than the previous movie.

The Angry Red Planet is a 1960 film about some astronauts that land on Mars. Sid Pink wrote the story and co-wrote the screenplay with director Ib Melchior. The astronauts find the place pretty deadly and they have to fight off monsters. A couple of them die but they do manage to get the ship back to Earth where we learn what happened. Ib's not the greatest film maker but he delivers a solid average picture that got enough of a sense of humor that I like it. I'd only seen it once before but I might get around to watching it again someday. Just a matter of time.

Friday Night Movies 679

Forbidden Empire is a 2014 Russian fantasy film about a cartographer who encounters a demon called Viy. Viy is also the name of the 1835 story by Nikolay Gogol that was adapted for the script. The story was previously adapted to film in Russia, first as Viy in 1969 and second as Vedma, or The Power Of Fear, in 2006. The Russian title of the 2014 movie is Viy. The script is co-written by Aleksandr Karpov and director Oleg Stepchenko. The movie was 127 minutes at release but the DVD is only 112 minutes. No matter, it's a bit pokey anyway. It could have been trimmed a bit more. Of course, I'm old and impatient to get to the end.

Jason Flemyng is the cartographer, he's involved with a Lord's daughter. Charles Dance is Lord Dadli and he's none to pleased to find Jason in bed with his daughter. He chases Jason away, obviously he's not good enough for her. Jason takes his fancy wagon and heads off on a project that he hopes will bring him fame and fortune.

While mapping Europe Jason winds up in the woods of the Ukraine. In a strange village, with strange locals, he encounters a demon, a murder and a mystery. Jason roots around in the local muck and all sorts of interesting and deadly things start happening to him.

For an 18 million dollar movie there's oodles of stuff to look at on the screen. The sets are huge and look great. They are supplemented by CGI that's often pretty good. Even at it weakest the CGI is still entertaining. The films a bit hard to follow, I suspect that we might have a bit more story with the longer version, but you can figure out what's going on if you're playing attention. There's a bit of time shifting in the form of flashbacks. Once they establish that they're traveling back and forth in time the film makers just jump from scene to scene without warning. It didn't stop me from enjoying the movie. I wouldn't have minded if it moved along a bit quicker but that's me. Others might like it's pace. I might pick one up if I can find it cheap. I'd watch it again.

I read that there's a Viy 2 in the works, Journey To China: The Iron Mask Mystery with Jason Flemyng, Charles Dance, Jackie Chan, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rutger Hauer.

Dimension 5 is a 1966 film spy film with the added excitement of time travel. Jeffrey Hunter is a spy for Espionage Inc in this low budget thriller. The script by Arthur C Pierce is fairly poor. He's written a good number of poor low budget genre films like Beyond The Time Barrier, The Human Duplicators, The Navy Vs The Night Monsters. The director is Franklin Adreon who I hadn't remembered hearing about before. He's wrote some serials I haven't seen yet, and directed a few pictures I probably won't see. 

The time converter belt Jeffrey is testing give the wearer a 1 in a 100 chance of getting stuck in the past or the future. Those aren't very good odds in my mind. Still he takes the belt on his new mission. The Dragon's are a group of Chinese criminals. France Nuyen is a Chinese agent assigned to work with Jeffrey. Harold Sakata plays Big Buddha, the LA head of the Dragons, Paul Frees dubs Harold's voice.

Jeffrey uses the belt to save a Dragon agent from assassination by his own people. Jeffrey's agency has a device to interrogate prisoners. It's one of those beauty shop hair dryers with some other buttons stuck to the chair. They do find out that the Dragon's have plans to detonate an H Bomb in Los Angeles on Christmas Day. To stop it they demand the US to pull their troops out of Asia. The Dragon's have a devious bunch of agents but they are no match for Jeffrey and Frances. That's surprising since Jeffrey is a bit of an idiot at times and Frances isn't that much better. Neither are not as clever as they should be to work that job. I guess that's why they aren't working for the CIA.

It's no great shakes, struggling to be less than average, but I managed to get through it. You can check it out on YouTube, in the link in the title above, if you want. There's no real need.

Science Fiction Sunday 463

In The Year 2889 is a 1967 post-apocalyptic made for TV SF movie. I hadn't seen it for 6 or 7 years, so I thought I'd give it a look. It was written by Harold Hoffman and Lou Rusoff, the director was Larry Buchanan. Larry's known for his low-budget genre cheapies. It was part of a series of films he did for AIP Television, it was based on Roger Corman's 1955 Day The World Ended. An older man makes a house in a canyon that has high walls that keep the prevailing winds out. When the bombs fall the place winds up with much less radiation than the rest of the area. There's nothing much lest out there but several people wonder in so there's now 7 instead of the 3 the rich guy planned food for. One of them is played by Paul Peterson, some old farts might remember him from The Donna Reed Show. His character's brother is all radiation burned and a problem. There's plenty of bad luck that befalls the group and hardly anyone is left alive to re-pop the planet. It uses the script from the original and doesn't change much but the acting and production values turn it into a below average production. It doesn't get a 2.8 on the IMDb for no good reason. You can check it out on YouTube. There's no real reason to need to buy a copy.

Invaders From Space is part of the Starman series of movies from the 1950s. The original series of films were chopped up and turned into 4 different films here in the USA. I've seen the others before but for some reason I missed this one. In the movie a bunch of Kappa like aliens try to invade Japan. The invaders leap about a lot and there's a good amount of dancing. Starman puts a stop to that with plenty of punching and kicking. All the films in the series have a nice level of goofiness that I found entertaining. You can take a look at the movie on YouTube. The others are about there too.

 

 

Science Fiction Sunday 460

Altered is a 2006 alien encounter movie, there's not really an invasion going on, the aliens are kidnapping and experimenting on humans. It's a 2006 film with a script by Jamie Nash and direction from Eduardo Sánchez. He was one of the co-director's of The Blair Witch Project. I was not a fan of TBWP and I sold the DVD right after I watched it. This is Eduardo's first solo film and he's come out with a much better project than you know what. Some guys are out hunting in the woods, they capture an alien and bring it to their old pal Wyatt. They all had been kidnapped by aliens 15 years ago, some were released after a day, Wyatt and Timmy were kept for a while longer. Timmy died with the aliens and Wyatt woke up in the woods miles form home days after he was abducted. The three that were released first are the ones with the alien. Their rage at the beast is fierce and Wyatt can hardly keep them from killing it. He says that the rest will wipe out the human's if they kill the alien. They spend the rest of the movie battling the alien and dying. It's a fairly decent and it certainly delivered more of a scare than TBWP. The alien's bite is deadly to humans, their body decays and the skin ulcers and sloughs off. Nice, huh. Now you know how those Martians felt in HG Well's War Of The Worlds. The gore effects are good and the script much better than TBWP. I got it from Netflix and I'd pick up a copy if it was a less than a couple of bucks. It was good enough that I might want to watch it again someday but it's doubtful that I'll ever get to it again, so why store it.

Battle Beneath The Earth is the first movie on a two movie double feature from Warner Home Video. It's a 1967 British film made at MGM British Studios, Boreham Wood. It's got a script by Charles F Vetter, he was also the co-producer, and the director is Montgomery Tully. It was Tunny's last movie, the one before this was The Terrornauts. It's one of the only movies of his that I've also seen. The rest of his work I didn't recognize. Kerwin Matthews is a Commander in the US Navy. His old friend is arrested and put into a mental hospital. Kerwin goes to visit him and he hears a fantastic story about something tunneling under the ocean from China. He doesn't believe it until some odd things start happening on the west coast. It's soon discovered that the Chinese have developed some super drilling machines and they are spearheading an invasion of the US. The rest of the movie is the underground battle between the Navy and the Chinese. I'd seen it back in 2011 but most of the story had slipped my mind. It was fun enough to watch but it's no great shakes of a movie. It's only got a score of 4.5 on the IMDb and that's about how good it is. I gave it a 5 because it's a bit better than a 4.

The Ultimate Warrior is the other movie on the disc, it's from 1975 and Robert Clouse is the writer and director. Robert some might remember is the director of Bruce Lee's Enter The Dragon and Jackie Chan's The Big Brawl. He also finished Bruce's Game Of Death after the action star died before the shooting was done. Robert directed many other action and martial arts films but most of them are much less interesting than Bruce and Jackie's films. The Ultimate Warrior is set in the 2012 post apocalypse future of New York City. Max von Sydow is the Baron, he's got a walled in compound with no rats. He hires You Brenner to fight for him. He's got a plan,he wants Yul to take his pregnant daughter out of the city with some special seeds. He knows of an island they can settle on away from all the crappy citizens in the city. They make a break for it and get chased through the old subway. Many die before the survivors make it out of the city. Joanna Miles plays Max's pregnant daughter and William Smith plays the rival leader that wants Max's compound with it's own well. He's that perfect combination of tough, stupid and vicious. He needs to be killed for everyone's safety. It's an OK movie, there's some bit of action, some personal drama and plenty of sad shit and stupid evil people. Odd that no one seems to have any guns in that future. Max even says they've run out of gasoline. Seems unlikely but it's a good way to avoid having to deal with cars and weapons. Save a lot of your budget, I guess. Still it was fun enough to watch.

Science Fiction Sunday 457

I hadn't seen The Incredible Petrified World since 2005. It's a 1959 low-budget vaguely SF film, scripted by John W Steiner and directed by Jerry Warren.It was made in 1957 and not released for a couple of years. John Carradine, Robert Clarke and Phyllis Coates are the only ones in the film that I recognize. Phyllis said she did the film as a favor to ex-boyfriend Jerry Warren on the promise that it wouldn't be shown in in California. Of course it was and Phyllis lost future work from one studio and Warren didn't pay her. It's a little late to be knocking Jerry in the nuts with Paul Naschy's skinless skull, he died in 1988, but anyone in the area of his grave needing a piss. I'm just sayin'!

It's a story about deep sea exploration. John is the head of the project and his diving bell, with 4 people aboard, loses it's connection with the ship at 1700 feet. The crew in the bell, 2 men and 2 women, settle at some point. They escape the bell and find some tunnels, caves and an old man. On the surface John mounts a rescue mission with a new diving vehicle. There's a long montage of stuff going on before we get to the ship. The diving bell crew has their problems, the old man wants one of the ladies and he's OK with killing everyone else to get his way. Luckily some rocks fall during a cave in and the crew gets away from the lava in time to get rescued by John's new diving vehicle. It's all pretty amateurish, Jerry was as good at being a director as he was at paying his bills, possibly one of the reasons the movie only scores a 3 on the IMDb. I wouldn't give it a higher score, that's for sure. There's no reason to watch it. I think this will be my last time through.

The Solarnauts is a 1967 British TV pilot. It's a production of Wonderama Productions. Roberta Leigh wrote the script and John Llewellyn Moxley is the director.

It's about a couple of space pilots, Power and Tempo, who fight crime in space. Some creep is attacking Mars to get the mineral rights. P&T have to go blow him up before he blows up the capital of Mars.

That's the bad alien who needs blowing up and that's Power and Tempo in their spaceship.

There's some nice sets and OK miniatures. It might not be a great series but it could have been a fun series. Sad, there aren't more episodes.

Agent Sigma 3 is a 1967 Italian spy film with a bit of SF in the form of a secret ray that can stop any aerial attack. Oddly enough this film stars Jack Taylor, the guy I didn't recognize from The Night Of The Sorcerers last Friday. The baddies kidnap the professor that invented the ray and the goodies put Agent Sigma 3 on the case. Jack plays Agent Sigma 3 and he's pretty dull. There's plenty of nice scenery as the production films in Rome, Madrid and Barcelona. There's a lot of spying activity and skullduggery as AS3 is on the case. He snoops around, get in fights, get caught, escapes and still he manages to get the job done. Hardly worth looking at but you can see it on YouTube and make up your mind yourself.