PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Science Fiction Sunday 809

Eolomea 1972 Written by Willi Brückner, directed by Hermann Zschoche. An East German - Soviet - Bulgarian science fiction film.

Disappearing spaceships from the space station Margot have caused the authorities to shut down launching more ships. Professor Maria Scholl goes to investigate, she finds out there's a secret plan to steal some ships and run off to the planet Eolomea.

I enjoyed the movie, it has a decent script and cast, the sets look fine and modern.

Signale Ein Weltraumabenteuer 1970 Written by Gottfried Kolditz and Claus-Ulrich Wiesner, directed by Gottfried Kolditz. A German - Polish science fiction film.

Commander Veikko leads a rescue mission to the damaged spaceship Ikaros. They have a bit of an adventure, and rescue some survivors.

I liked the sets and space stuff. The script is a bit dull, there are long stretches of sitting and yakking. It gets more interesting when they get to the Ikaros. I enjoyed it well enough, it's certainly better than a lot of the newer SF films that I see on Amazon Prime. I might even watch it again but I doubt that's going to happen. I watched it on YouTube, link above.

Friday Night Movies 989

Underworld 1985 Story by Clive Barker, screenplay by Clive Barker and James Caplin, directed by George Pavlou. A longer version was released in the US under the title Transmutations. George directed Clive Barker's Rawhead Rex. Clive thought George ruined both movies. I can't say he's wrong. Clive went onto direct Hellraiser himself. Underworld didn't do so well and kind of disappeared. None of us had seen it before. I don't remember ever hearing about it.

Larry Lamb plays Roy Bain. He's hired by a criminal boss to look for Roy's old girlfriend Nicole. She'd been kidnapped from the brothel where she work, Ingrid Pitt plays the brothel owner, she's not in the movie much. Denholm Elliot plays Doctor Savary, he's created a drug that mutates people. It was supposed to eliminate pain in humans. Savary continued experimenting until he has created a big gang of mutants that are living under the city. He keeps them in the addictive drug but things head south after the kidnapping, hardly anyone survives when the baddies come calling.

It's got a decent plot line but the dialog leaves much to be desired. The story leaves a lot of loose ends and dead bodies lying around. I was glad to see it but couldn't say I would want to watch it again. We watched the 4K Ultra Disc from Kino Lorber. The longer  version is on the additional Blu-ray disc. I'm not driven to buy it. You can check out the shorter version on YouTube, see above.

The Questor Tapes 1974 Story by Gene Roddenberry, screenplay by Gene Roddenberry and Gene L Coon, directed by Richard Colla.

Lew Ayers plays Emil Vaslovik, a scientist who started Project Questor to build an android. He got partway and 3 years before he disappeared. Robert Foxworthy plays the android  named Questor. Mike Farrell plays Jerry, he worked with Vaslovik on building Questor. John Vernon plays Geoffrey Darrow, he's head of the project. They fire Questor up and he escapes not long after to go find Vaslovik. Questor takes Jerry along to help him with human interaction.

The pair travel to England and meet a lady who used to work with Vaslovik. Questor and Jerry run about a bit before Questor is shot and taken back to the lab. Jerry and Questor escape again and find Vaslovik at Mount Ararat. They learn some truth about Vaslovik and Questor. It opens the door for more adventures.

The movie was meant to be a pilot for a new series but Roddenberry couldn't agree with Universal and NBC on the changes they wanted and no series was made.

It's kind of entertaining and kind of dumb. It's sort of funny but it's not very exciting. It's often pretty slowly paced. I think I might have seen this when it was new, I would have been interested in Roddenberry at the time, I just can't remember anything about it. It was fun to see it but another I'm pretty sure I don't need to see again. Doubt I'd buy the Blu-ray.

Orloff Against The Invisible Man 1970

Orloff Against The Invisible Man 1970 Written by Pierre Chevalier and Juan Fortuny, directed by Pierre Chevalier. A French Spanish production that was shot in France.

The new small town doctor is summoned to Professor Orloff's castle. He's warned that the Professor is mad by the Professor's daughter. The Professor warns the doctor that his daughter is mad. The doctor stays the night and has some sort of an adventure. Not the kind I would want.

I thought it was below average, it's rather dull, hard to keep an interest in the story. You can watch it on YouTube, I suspect it's the cut version with less nudity. I only say that because it's about 7 mins shorter than the 82 min run time listed on the movies IMDb page.

Star Crystal 1976

Star Crystal 1976 Written by Lance Lindsay and Eric Woster, directed by Lance Lindsey.

Astronauts on Mars bring a crystal egg onto their ship. The egg hatches, a snall creature is hatched, it starts killing the crew. The ship with the dead crew drifts through space until it's salvaged and taken to a space station. The station's reactor malfunction and the station crew escape on the ship the alien came in on.  Unbeknownst to them the alien tags along. The ship is damaged and can't make it to the Earth. They hope to get to a supply station where they can find food and call for help.

Despite the alien killing some of the crew the last 2 humans finally establish communication with the alien and the trio repair the ship and get to a supply station. The human's return home and the alien uses some magic tech to turn the supply station into a ship to return home.

It's a pretty low budget film and well below average in most respects. I still managed to get to the end. I wouldn't need to see it again.

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.

No Blade Of Grass 1970

No Blade Of Grass 1970 Based on the 1956 novel The Death Of Grass by John Christopher, screenplay by Sean Forestal and Jefferson Pascal (Cornel Wilde), directed by Cornel Wilde.

The movie starts when the grass destroying virus finally gets to the UK. It's already decimated Asia, Africa and parts of Europe. Nigel Davenport is a guy who's leading his family on their journey from London to his brother's farm in the north of England.

Nigel tries to buy some guns but the seller says they have to wait for paperework to get signed off. Nigel tries to take the guns and leave some money but the seller gets the drop on him. Nigel tells the seller he needs the guns to get out of town and resettle at his brother's farm. He needs to go now, he knows the government is going to be locking down the city in the next day or so. He offers the seller a chance to go with them but the guy doesn't want to leave. The seller's assistant Pirrie shoots him dead and joins the group.

They rest of the movie has a series of encounters with people along the road. Nigel and Pirrie shot a lot of people before they get to the farm. They've also picked up a good number of people along the way. At the farm's barricade the brother is happy to see Nigel but he won't let them all in. He says the valley can't support that many people but Nigel and the family can join the farm.

Nigel rallies the group into attacking the farm, he's sad when his brother is killed. I was sad that I watched the movie. I bought a cheapish DVD, I'll keep it but it's doubtful that ever watch it again.

Friday Night Movies 922

The Humanoid 1979 Written by Adriano Bolzoni and Aldo Lado, directed by Aldo Lado. Aldo used the George B Lewis name in the US release. It's an Italian film and that sort of name change was really common to disguise the films origin. They didn't disguise any of the ideas they pilfered from the first Star Wars film.

That's Graal, he's the brother of The Great Brother who rules Metropolis. Graal wants to kill TGB and take over Metropolis. It's far in the future and Metropolis is the new name for the Earth.

Graal has escaped from a prison planet. Aboard a stolen warship he's enlisted Dr Kraspin to help him in his plan. Graal sends some troops to steal a supply of Kapitron. He's going to use it to change the citizens of Metropolis into a Humanoid army. Barbara Bach plays Lady Agatha, the Queen of Noxon, she's a bad bad lady. She wants to be Graal's wife and share the power. I didn't think Graal was the marrying kind.

Graal tests the Kapitron on a guy called Golob, who's played by Richard Kiel, and it's a success. The Kapitron turns Golob into a clean shaven killing machine. That's Golob with his robot dog. I did like the robot dog. The robot dog is no K-9 but Golob enjoys his companionship on long space trips.

Kraspin has been giving Lady Agatha anti-aging treatments. The core of the daily treatment involves killing a young woman everyday and using something extracted from her body for the serum. Graal, Kraspin and Lady Agatha are a trio of scumbags that need putting down.

Leonard Mann plays Nick, he's the hero of the story, he joins with a scientist called Barbara Gibson and a boy with powers called Tom Tom. Lucky for them Tom Tom has a couple of pals with bows and light up arrows, they are quite good at dispatching Graal's soldiers.

The two sides battle it out in space and on Noxon. The film uses locations in Israel for Noxon. It's very Tunisian. Eventually the baddies are defeated and Metropolis is saved.

For an Italian space opera is pretty darn good. It's not Star Wars good but the sets and effects are decent. The script is it's weakest element but it still gets you to the end of the story. I enjoy it more than most Italian SF and would watch it again.

Sint 2010 Written and directed by Dick Mass. I'd seen this several years ago and enjoyed it. Here's that 2016 post.

Saint Nick is the US title of the 2010 Dutch film Sint (Saint). It's written and directed by Dick Mass who had made videos for Golden Earring and several feature films I haven't seen. Sinterklaas is the Saint Nick of the title and he's a right bastard. We meet him at the beginning of the movie, it's December 5 1492 and ex-bishop Nick and his gang of thugs are visiting the town for their usual killing and looting. Some of the villagers get riled up and attack the men. They burn the ex-bishop's ship. He returns any time December 5 has a full moon.

The next time we see Nick it's 1968 and then it jumps to the present day. People don't believe the Saint Nick legend but some of them get pretty fucked up just the same. One teen fights back and there's a huge body count.

It's was pretty entertaining in a monster killing folks kind of way. It was interesting to see Amsterdam in a horror movie. It's kind of gory and definitely not a Christmas movie for kids. In fact Maas had a complaint filed against him. Here's the bit from the Wikipedia.

While children are not permitted to see the film, parental concern arose over the film's poster, seen in the streets and in the lobbies of movie theaters. It shows Sinterklaas with a mutilated face and a malevolent look. Some people were concerned that this could be confusing and frightening for little children that still believe in Sinterklaas. A legal complaint was filed in October 2010, requesting the removal of all posters. In the subsequent court case, director Dick Maas argued that if parents could make their children believe that Sinterklaas existed they could also inform their children that the man on the poster was not the real Sinterklaas. The court ruled in favor of Maas, noting that the mutilated face was not visible enough on the poster, and rejected the complaint.

The Asphyx 1972

The Asphyx 1972 Story by Christina Beers and Laurence Beers, screenplay by Brian Comport, directed by Peter Newbrook.

Victorian scientists trying to figure out death find that a magical blur comes to collect the soul when someone is dying. They figure out how to capture the magical blur and gain immortality. It doesn't go well for the people involved. You'd think the screen writers had something against the poor saps.

Pretty much average. You can check it out on YouTube.

Prophecies of Nostradamus 1974

Prophecies of Nostradamus 1974 Original Japanese title Nosutoradamusu No Daiyogen. Based on the novel Prophecies of Nostradamus: The Approaching Month of July 1999 and the Day of Humanity's Collapse by Ben Goto, screenplay by Toshio Yasumi, directed by Toshio Masuda. This was Toho's follow up to the 1973 disaster movie Japan Sinks. Scenes from that film and The Last War were used in PON.

Nostradamus's prophecies feature in the movie but in reality they really don't predict anything at all. The main drive of the movie is a speculation on the Eco death of the Earth. In a long talk with the members of the government a scientist offers up a big kill off for humanity, the left over humans are riddled with radioactivity and their children are born mutants. The Prime Minister hopes people will pull together to save the planet.

Some of the horrific footage of the destruction and make up on the poor mutants didn't go down well with the censors. There were edits made on a re-release and the movie was shelved and never released on home media. I got a copy from a guy, it's not that great looking but it's better than the version over at the Internet Archive. See link above for that.

It's a fairly decent film but not one I would need to watch a whole bunch. Worth a look for the fan of the end of the world.

Blood Of Ghastly Horror 1971

Blood Of Ghastly Horror 1971 Written by Al Adamson, Mark Eden, Chris Martino, Dick Poston and Samuel M Sherman, directed by Al Adamson. This is the third version of Psycho A Go-Go, like the second version, The Fiend With The Electronic Brain, new footage was shot for a newish version of the story that has footage from the previous two films. You can read more about the changes on the films Wikipedia page.

The film starts with a half dozen people being strangled, the last being a two header with these gormless idiots mugging to the camera.

John Carradine plays a scientist who puts a device in Roy Morton's head in the second version. Roy thanks him for making him a homicidal killer by putting John in his own machine.

New footage with Kent Taylor, Tommy Kirk and Regina Carrol was added for the third version, Tommy's a cop looking back at an old case. Tommy Kirk said he got $1000 for a couple of days work and is was the low point of his career. Sad, huh.

Like Jerry Warren and his ilk, Al and Sam should have the fleshless skull of Paul Naschy banged repeatedly on their nether regions as punishment for making these films. Psycho A Go-Go is nearly a film, they should have left it at that. Of course, they all went on to make more bad films. Don't watch them, watch something better.