PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Bigfoot 1970

Bigfoot 1970 Written and directed by Robert F Slatzer.

A pilot parachutes from her conked out plane only to kidnapped by a Bigfoot in need of a woman to keep his species going. That's Joi Lansing on the left, she's the pilot. The other lady is Judy Jordan, she plays the girlfriend of a biker. The gals are in trouble, the local Bigfoot tribe have kidnapped them for breeding purposes. Or lunch, it's not clear yet.

John Carradine and his business partner John Mitchum are traveling through the same area in search of customers. John M is the younger brother of Robert Mitchum. The biker who's gal was taken by Bigfoot is played by Christopher Mitchum, he's Robert Mitchum's son. Bing Crosby's son Lindsay plays one of the bikers and Doodles Weaver is a forest ranger.

None of them can do much with the dialog, the story or the budget. It's lacking in all respects. The director is lacking a Wikipedia page, his IMDb page lists two feature films and a documentary on John Wayne. I've seen Slatzer's 1968 film The Hellcats. It was a MST3K selection that I saw when it originally aired, I watched it more recently, 2015, when I worked my way through one of those 50 Movie Packs. I gave that The Hellcats a 2.

Bigfoot is about 50% better so I gave it a 3. Still poor. You can watch it at the link above, though why you would...

 

Legends Of Dinosaurs And Monster Birds 1977

Legend Of Dinosaurs And Monster Birds 1977 Screenplay by Masaru Igami, Isao Matsumoto and Ichirô Ôtsu, directed by Junji Kurata.

 

Made by Toei Company, the studio was inspired by Jaws, the film did poorly in the Japanese theaters but was a block buster in the Soviet Union. It was known in the US as The Legend Of Dinosaurs and it was used in the last episode of the first season of Mystery Science Theater 3000 which was produced by KTMA. That version was chopped up a good bit, the original movie got a US DVD release in 2007 from Media Blasters and that's what I watched.

A woman falls into a cavern, in the Aokigahara region near Mount Fuji, she awakes to find fossilized eggs, one of which hatches. She runs off and scares a construction crew with her hysterics. A geologist called Takashi goes to take a look, while hiking around Mount Fuji he's knocked out and wakes up in the cabin of a family friend. Takashi continues his hunt for the eggs, on the way he meets an old girlfriend Akiko. She's there with her friend Junko, a scuba diver, who wants to dive in the lake where a couple in a small boat went missing.

A diver is injured in the lake, livestock have gone missing, wild theories of living dinosaurs are tossed out to the dubious public. Well, turns out it wasn't a dinosaur, it was two, one of them a plesiosaurus and the other a rhamporhynchus. The pair battle it out and the volcano erupts killing both dinos. It's a bad day on Mount Fuji and the movie ends on a cliffhanger.

I was much more entertained by the movie than on MST3K. It was like seeing a whole different movie, the MST3K version had so much trimmed out of it. It's a more adult film than I thought, there's a bit of gore, mild by today's standards and a brief bit of nudity. I'd watch it again.

I'm not sure why it did so poorly in the Japanese box office. It was Toei's biggest budget, $2.8 million and it didn't even get a third of that back in receipts. It never got released theatrically in the US but it was released to TV in 1987.

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Summer Of 84 2018 Written by Matt Leslie and Stephen J Smith, directed by François Simard, Anouk Whissell and Yoann-Karl Whissell. The 3 directors are the same three that wrote and directed the 2015 film Turbo Kid. I enjoyed that film more than this one, mostly because I'm not much interested in a serial killer story.

A 15 year old named Davey decides that the policeman who lives across the street from his family's house is the Cape May Slayer. The killer had written to the local newspaper confessing to the 15 previous killings. Davey sees some clues that lead him to believe the cop is the killer and he's convincing enough to get his three friends to help him investigate. Turns out Davey was right. That knowledge puts him and his gang in great jeopardy, especially once Davey's father, an incredible asshole, spills the beans to the cop. There's no happy ending for Davey once the cop is outed, he escapes the police dragnet, stopping briefly to threaten Davey with the promise of a return visit for a bit of revenge.

It's well made but the story isn't the sort of horror film I like. It's not something I'd bother with again.

Daughters Of Satan 1972 Story by John A Bushelman, screenplay by John C Higgins, directed by Hollingsworth Morse. I didn't recognize the title but I had seen it back in 2010. It didn't look familiar while we were watching it.

Tom Selleck is a museum curator in Manila. He sees a painting in a shop, it depicts three witches being burned at the stake, Tom notices the witch in the middle looks a lot like his wife Chris. He buys the painting and brings it home, Chris doesn't like it but somehow knows the name of the coven and the day they were burned at the stake. 

The painting is a cursed magical thing that allows the long dead witches a chance to take over the bodies of living women. When the witch possesses Chris her image in the painting disappears. Two other women are possessed and the reformed coven team up to get some revenge on the magistrate who ordered them burnt at the stake. That guy's long dead. No matter, the witches don't mind killing the relatives of their oppressors. Tom's that relative and it doesn't go well for him during the movie.

It's not much of a movie, it's struggling to get to average, I gave it a generous five. I doubt I'd need to see it a third time.

Gawain And The Green Knight 1973

Gawain And The Green Knight 1973 Based on the poem Sir Gawain And The Green Knight by Anonymous, screenplay by Philip M Breen and Stephen Weeks, directed by Stephen Weeks.

Nigel Green is the Green Knight. This is his last feature film as he died the year before. Murray Head plays Sir Gawain, you might remember him from his big hit One Night In Bangkok, he's also brother to Anthony Head. He's made a dozen albums but I've only heard that one song. He's made 14 movies but this is the only one I've seen.

The story follows the poem much better than The Green Knight. The Green Knight shows up on New Years Eve and offers a challenge to King Arthur's knights. The Green Knight offers a knight the first blow, a year and a day later his will meet the knight to take his turn. Gawain is the only one that volunteers. The king tells him to strike a blow that will leave the GK incapable of striking back. Gawain lops off the head of the Green Knight, the trick backfires after the GK picks up his head and says he'll see Gawain in a year and a day.

Gawain leaves to find the Green Knight, along the way he has some adventures that involve a woman called Linet, she's played by Ciaran Madden. She's part of a decent cast that includes Anthony Sharp, Robert Hardy, David Leland, Murray Melvin, Tony Steedman, Ronald Lacey, Willoughby Goddard, Geoffrey Bayldon and Richard Hurndall.

The effects for this film aren't as good as The Green Knight but the story makes more sense. I enjoyed it well enough and thought it was just a bit above average. You can see it on YouTube, link in the usual place.

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Doctor Strange 1978 Written and directed by Philip DeGuere. I had forgotten that we had watched this on a previous FNM night. That was back in 2018. Click the link in the title to read that.

I still feel it's just not that exciting. The director was sad it got such low Nielsen numbers but I could see where a lot of people would have bailed on this after sitting through the first half. I don't think Peter Hooten is much of an actor, he certainly doesn't do very well here. The other actors are a mix, John Mills, Jessica Walters and Clyde Kasatsu do well, the rest are weaker by far. Not that they have that great a script to work with.

The Blu-ray does look nice but that isn't enough to make the movie much better. Ironically the second film today, like the film in the 2018 post, made Doctor Strange look a little bit better by comparison.

Bury Me An Angel 1971 Written and directed by Barbara Peeters. It was picked up for distribution by Roger Corman's New World Pictures. According to the Wikipedia, Peeters was the first woman to direct a biker film. Peeters is also credited with directing Humanoids From The Deep. Not a great picture but one that's fascinating to watch none the less.

Corman didn't think Peeters had made the monsters in Humanoids From The Deep nasty enough for his audience, so Jimmy T Murakami and second unit director James Sbardellati were asked to direct a bit more of the rapey monster stuff that Roger wants his audience to have. He did this without telling the other cast and crew, Peeters and Ann Turkel didn't care for the changes and asked to have their names removed from the film, they were refused. Roger, classy or what?

It''s kind of the same for Bury Me An Angel, the exploitative elements are weak for a biker film. Dixie Peabody plays the main character, a biker called Dag. This is her second film, the first was a bit part in the 1970 biker film Angels Die Hard. Peeters worked on that film and it's there she meet Rita Murray, an actor who wanted to producer her own films. In 1971 Dixie had a small part in Night Call Nurses and then worked briefly as a PA on Summer School Teachers. No more acting. It's probably best, she doesn't have the ability.

In Bury Me An Angel Dag's brother is killed by another guy. The brother stole that guy's nice motorcycle and gave it to Dag. She decides to get revenge. After rounding up a couple unarmed goofs for backup and getting some info from a guy, the trio head north. They meet some people along the way, Dan Haggerty was one of them, eventually they find the guy who killed Dag's brother. There's an unsatisfying confrontation with the murderer at the end of the movie.

It's amazing that a movie could fail on so many fronts. Peeters just isn't that good of a director. The film meanders around with nothing happening way too often. The script isn't very good, it's certainly does not make for a good exploitative biker film. It seems more like a melodrama with Dag moping around. Too much time is spent with Dag and her internal struggle over her brother's death. The acting is mostly poor with poor Dixie leading the pack in lack of ability. We were mesmerized by her facial expressions. I think mostly because there wasn't a lot going on up on screen. Oh, well, another one I wouldn't need to buy.

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Yeti: Giant Of The 20th Century 1977 Written by Mario Di Nardo and Giancarlo Parolini, directed by Frank Kramer. Italian Yeti movie filmed partially in Toronto.

We watched the Blu-ray of the film. I thought I hadn't seen it before but I recognized the scene with the rich businessman in a box under a helicopter from the first scene in the film. I didn't remember much of the rest of the film. I watched it on YouTube back in July 2012. That YouTube video is still there, it looks pretty poor, there's another version on YouTube that looks better. Link in the title above. Of course the Blu-ray looks even better but I can't see paying 20 bucks for a copy.

It is a pretty entertaining movie but for all the wrong reasons, I'm laughing at it. There's way too many goofy goings on to poke fun at to get at them all. The Yeti's costume provided much humor and none of us could keep a straight face on viewing the sad puppy dog looks the Yeti had for the pretty girl. The theme is pretty annoying and they use it repeatedly through the film. I guess they paid for it, they're going to get their money out of it, no matter how inappropriate it is. You can do better by way of Yeti or Bigfoot type of films. Still, it's a laugh, isn't it.

Men & Chicken 2015 Written and directed by Anders Thomas Jensen. A Danish film about family, told in the oddest way.

Gabriel and Elias are brothers, when their father dies they are given a tape and the father explains he's not their real dad. They find that real dad lives on an island so they go to visit him. They get smacked around by their three violent brothers. The island brothers live in an abandoned building with their animals.  Those three turn out to be even more off the scale from normal than Gabriel and Elias are. All the brothers have some level of physical deformation, most notably a harelip, and their mental abilities are subpar, except for Gabriel, he's noticeably smarter than the others and he's had some surgery to fix his lip. Gabriel is also much less violent than the others.

Gabriel pushes to meet the dad until he finds the man's mummified corpse in bed upstairs. Gabriel digs out the truth and it's a sad story. Pop was a sterile geneticist who impregnated their mothers with a goo made from animal DNA and his own stem cells. Sadly, he wasn't so good at it and there were lots of deaths in the process. The mothers all died because of the fatal caesarean births that their father preformed. Generally, the father was a cruel beast who should have been put down.

It's a rather dark comedy that made me laugh out loud a couple times, both were scenes of slapstick violence between the brothers. It paints an interesting picture of Danish mental health. It's not a film for everyone. Glad to have seen it but wouldn't necessarily need to see it again.

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Toomorrow 1970 Written and directed by Val Guest. Val wrote and directed a lot of TV and feature films, his next film after this was the fan favorite When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth.Producer Harry Saltzman had a three picture deal with Don Kirshner and they wound up loathing each other during the production. The write up in the Wikipedia details the problems and why the film was shelved for 40 years. I read online that there was a poor quality DVD out but I watched a copy off of YouTube. The DVD came out after Kirshner died in 2011.

It's a science fiction musical with Olivia Newton-John, she's in a band with the other three guys in the pictures above. According to the IMDb Trivia page Olivia was so "disenchanted with filmmaking that it took a lot of coaxing to get her to agree to star in Grease (1978)." Val didn't have that good a time either, he never got paid, even after he sued the production company. In a way it's not surprising, the film biz is cut throat and there are a lot of scumbags out there.

Benny Thomas, Vic Cooper and Karl Chambers play the guys in the band Toomorrow. Vic has invented a new sort of music synthesizer. Roy Dotrice plays an alien who's been studying the Earth people for 3000 years and today his boss tells him that they've discovered at there's magical healing power in Toomorrow's music. It's all about Vic's invention, the Tonalizer, the aliens want it and the band, it's Roy's job to figure out how to make that work.

The band plays several times in the film and I can't say I much liked the pop music, not because it's awful, it's just bland melody. There's plenty of running about as the band members try to get through their day at college. Roy pops up and offers a place to practice, he lives in a big old mansion and the band takes him up on the offer. Now Roy has to get them on the space ship. Some of it doesn't make a whole lot of sense but I don't suppose anyone really cared. I didn't but I still don't think it's anything other than about average. Nothing notable about it really. I got a laugh or two and I might watch it again someday.

Mutant Swinger From Mars 20o9 Written and directed by Michael Kallio. It's another one of those "lost 50s science fiction films" that people make these days. Martians have come to Earth for women. One of them impersonates a suave guy who picks up chicks 4 at a time. It's sort of like the 50s but not quite. There are way too many in jokes. It gets tedious. It was on AP and I don't think I'd watch it again anytime.

Red Peony Gambler 8 Execution Of Duty 1972

Red Peony Gambler 8 Execution Of Duty 1972 Written by Kôji Takada, directed by Buichi Saitô.

Oryu visits Osaka to pay respect to a dying lady boss. The old lady divides her empire between two sons and that doesn't go down well with the more punk ass bitch one. He betrays the family for a yakuza headman who the other brother once slashed in the face. A war breaks out and the baddies get wiped out in a big ass fight at the end of the film.

Sadly there are no more in the series. I found this as entertaining as the previous 7 and would be glad to see them again. The whole set is on the Rarelust blog.

Dracula And Son 1976

Dracula And Son 1976 Based on a 1975 novel by Claude Klotz, screenplay by Alain Godard, Jean-Marie Poiré and Édouard Molinaro, directed by Édouard Molinaro.

Christopher Lee is Dracula and Bernard Menez is his son Ferdinand. In this universe vampires can breed with humans so Dracula can have a son. The mother dies after Ferdinand is born and he's raised in Dracula's castle in Transylvania.

They're in the castle for a number of years and Ferdinand shows little sign of being a blood sucker like daddy. He's a grown man when WW2 breaks out. Father and son escape but their caskets are thrown into the sea. Dracula winds up London and Ferdinand winds up in Paris.

Years pass and it's modern day, Dracula gets hired to play a vampire in a movie, he becomes famous overnight. Ferdinand sees him on the TV and they are reunited. Ferdinand still doesn't want to be a vampire and he's fallen for a lady.

There's a bit of friction when it turns out Dracula knew her and had his eye on her. It'll all work itself out fairly well.There's a happy ending for our boy Ferdinand but hardly one for his dad.

It's fun to look at, plenty of nice locations and sets. The script isn't great, a lot of the jokes are pretty goofy, but I had a few laughs and was glad to have seen it. I might even want to watch it again someday.

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Up first is The Final Programme, it's British, it came out in 1973, and it's the only film adapted from a Michael Moorcock novel. The movie was called Last Days Of Man On Earth in the US and a few other places. Robert Fuest is the writer and director. His previous two films were the Dr Phibes series and they were much more entertaining.

I first saw it back in 2001 and rated it "fairish" on my Watched Movie List. After watching it again I'm not thinking it's much better than that and that ain't even barely average. I got more enjoyment out of the cinematography than the story. It's very stylish and colorful. The locations are quite interesting. It's the characters that are annoying. What a load of jerks and assholes.

It's somewhat in the future and there's been an incident or two, Amsterdam is ash, the Vatican is gone, it might be the end of civilization. Jerry Cornelius's father has died and he's left a programme to develop a hybrid human that's immortal and self replicating. The programme is on microfilm and it's in dad's safe at home. Some scientists, headed by Graham Crowden, want it.

Jerry leads a raid on the house and his brother defends the place. In the struggle Jerry accidentally kills his sister but the evil Miss Brunner gets the microfilm. Miss Brunner somehow consumes people. Jerry's brother shoots Jerry but he doesn't die. There's a good bit of chasing about by these two knobs. Again, the locations were more interesting than most of the action.

Eventually the microfilm, the scientists, Miss Brunner and Jerry are all in one place. The experiment goes on with a nice laughable ending. It's supposed to be a comedy but I'm often laughing at stuff that isn't jokes. I'll probably never get back to the DVD, lucky for me it was used and fairly cheap.

Victor Frankenstein is a 2017 re-imagining of Frankenstein. There's little of the novel in the movie and the whole thing is now being told by a completely new character. He's one of a legion of new characters. It crapped out at the box office and I can see why. Those characters suck.

Total Film compared the movie to the Guy Richie Sherlock Holmes films, loud, flashy, busy, but I find it's lacking the interesting characters that come with Guy's films. The screenplay was written by Max Landis and the director was Paul McGuigan. His previous film was Push in 2009 and I didn't think too much of that, before that he directed the 2006 gangster film Lucky Number Slevin. That was a bit more entertaining.

Daniel Radcliffe plays Igor, he's the narrator and he's got a hunchback. Victor, played by James McAvoy, finds Igor in a circus, acting a sad clown, but he's really knowledgeable about human anatomy. He's all self taught. Victor rescues him and the owner calls the coppers. A man was killed during the escape by a scummy circus guy and that's blamed on Victor and Igor. A completely insane Scotland Yard detective takes the case and when he finds out more about what Victor is up to, he goes full on religious zealot. He throws away his career in his drive to get Victor.

It goes on and on, though only 91 mins, it seems much longer, I was getting tired of spending time with Victor. It's nicely produced, the sets and locations look really good but all the flashy crashy stuff can't make up for a weak story. There are better Frankenstein films out there. I'd watch those again before I would watch this once more.