PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 1004

Reptilicus 1961 Written by Ib Melchior and  Sidney W Pink, directed by Poul Bang. We watched the new Blu-ray of the Danish version of Reptilicus. The English and Danish versions of the film were shot at the same time with the same cast and crew. Pink directed the English version for AIP, when he delivered a poor film, Melchior made changes. Pink was so upset he sued AIP but after seeing the finished version he dropped the charges. Pink is not noted for his direction, he's more a producer.

Miners are drilling for copper in Lapland, they find a frozen dinosaur tail and bring that to Denmark's Aquarium in Copenhagen. Scientist put the tail in a big freezer but it accidentally gets thawed out. Poor Peter will pay deadly for falling asleep later in the film. Surprisingly the tail doesn't start to rot, it starts to regrow a whole Reptilicus. That's the name the head scientist gives the creature, he compares it's regrowth to the starfish.

There's not much going on while the creature is regrowing. The head scientist's daughter falls for the tall and moody miner, the head scientist's other daughter falls for the gruff American general. There's a goofy janitor for some comic relief, he sings a song to some kids in a park. The main characters are either at the Aquarium or gallivanting around Denmark. At one point they visit the Trivoli Gardens and hear a song.

When the tail regenerates it becomes a whole creature and breaks out of it's holding cell. During it's rampages around Denmark, many die. They're fighting a creature with the ability to regrown from a single bit of flesh. That makes it dangerous to use explosives to kill it. Eventually they figure out what to do. The beast is knocked out and the head scientist says he'll dispose of it. They leave us with an open door for a sequel. Sadly, there's never been one.

The Danish version hadn't been released in the US before this Vinegar Syndrome release. It's quite a bit longer, 94 mins instead of 81 mins, and Reptilicus flies. The monster is a puppet, he's not the greatest but Denmark isn't famous for it's giant monster movies. A lot of reviews of both versions sure don't care for the monster. At least he doesn't spit green slime in the Danish version, that green slime was so fake looking in the English version. The Danish version is nicely restored, it looks and sounds great. We were all a bit excited to see this version. Most of us have seen this movie more than a couple of times. The Danish version is definitely more of a movie than the English version. It's still not a great film but it's fun to watch. I had fun watching it and would want to get my own copy to rewatch.

Intrepidos Punks 1988 Writers Tomás Fuentes, Roberto Marroquin and Ulises Pérez Aquirre. A Mexican bikers vs cops film.

Bikers break their leader out of jail and start a crime spree. Two cops are on their tail. The cops get a bit of help but they keep getting beat down. When the bikers aren't robbing and raping they're taking drug and having orgies. There's plenty of driving about and fighting. Both would be less dull if they had managed to edit the film better, it drags way more than it should. The car chase is unambitious. The biker gang has it's own theme, a lackluster song at best, sadly it's repeated Ad infinitum. Not one I'm going to pick up for myself. I was glad to have seen it but only in the I've seen another movie way, yay for me.

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The Shaolin Invincibles 1977 Written by Chang Cheh and Ni Kuang, directed by Chang Cheh.

A family is attacked by the local leader, a young girl is rescued by a monk. Twelve years later she's trained up and ready for some vengeance. Her pal goes along to help fight the Emperor.

The Emperor has the usual gang of fighting guards. He's also got a pair of kung fu trained apes. It's kind of a sad costume but there you go, it's the 70s. There's plenty of kung fu action but not much story.

I enjoyed it well enough but not enough to desire the Blu-ray. You can see an edited copy of the movie on Tubi, link above. The Tubi version is dubbed and has a very heavily trimmed opening sequence. The scene depicts the killing of the heroine's family and her rescue by the monk that raised her and trained her in kung fu.

Million Dollar Mystery 1985 Written by Rudy De Luca, Tim Metcalfe and Miguel Tajada-Flores, directed by Richard Fleischer. It was Richard's last feature, he'd made some good films in the past: Armored Car Robbery, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, Barabbas, Fantastic Voyage, Doctor Dolittle, The Boston Strangler, Tora! Tora! Tora!, Soylent Green and Mandingo.

Sadly this is a poor rip off of It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World but without a good story, entertaining actors and comedians. There are a lot of jokes but mostly they are a sorry lot, hardly raising a chuckle.

It did poorly at the box office barely making 10% on it's $10,000,000 cost. There was a tie in with Glad bags. The movie ends abruptly with the two FBI agents talking to the camera explaining it's up to the movie audience to find the last million. Here's the bit on that from the Wikipedia.

Producer Dino De Laurentiis conceived the idea for Million Dollar Mystery when he visited New York and saw a row of people lining up for what he presumably thought was a movie. A companion told De Laurentiis that they were actually lining up for lottery tickets.

Glad Bags sponsored a sweepstakes timed for the film's release. The company gave away entry forms, and the audience would fill out these forms with their answer to where the last million is hiding, based on clues given in the film. De Laurentiis said of the film:

This is a really broad comedy with car chases, designed for the young major movie going audience, about 12 to 24 years old. The sweepstakes gives us the potential to reach even more people – the infrequent moviegoer, the person more interested in winning a million dollars than in going to the movies, and these are the kind of people who use Glad Bags, housewives who maybe go to the movies once or twice a year.

De Laurentiis had high expectations for the film, but it did not turn out to be a hit. The winner of the contest ended up being 14-year-old Alesia Lenae Jones of Bakersfield California, who successfully guessed that the loot was hidden in the bridge of the nose of the Statue of Liberty. Apparently, thousands of contestants had arrived at the same answer, and her entry was chosen in a random drawing.

I bought the Kino-Lorber Blu-ray on one of their sales and it looks nice. Too bad it's such a disappointment. I'm hoping that the commentary explains why it was so poor. One of the locations of the movie is Lake Havasu City Arizona, it's where they moved the London Bridge and rebuilt it as a tourist attraction. Never been.

As I was looking for a copy of the movie to link to I found this other movie that features the bridge. It's a time travel story about Jack the Ripper going through time and winding up in Arizona in the modern day. Terror at London Bridge came out in 1985 and you can watch it on YouTube. I still haven't seen more than the first 5 mins.

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The Young Master 1980 Written by Jackie Chan, Edward Tang, Lau Tin-chi and Tung Lu, directed by Jackie Chan. The second film directed by Jackie and the first at Golden Harvest. It's the 5th film in the Criterion set. The Blu-ray has the 106 min cut. Most of the previous US releases are of the 90 min international cut.

Jackie's brother Tiger is kicked out of kung fu school for cheating and Jackie goes after him. Tiger falls in with some scum who set him up during a robbery. Jackie has a series of adventures and fights that end with a big battle with the robber who set Tiger up.

There's all sorts of action, like a lion dance, and plenty of stunts and fights. Golden Harvest gave Jackie a good budget, nice sets and plenty of extras.

There's an info packed commentary by Frank Djeng.

My Lucky Stars 1985 Story by Lo Kin, Barry Wong and Cheuk-Hon Szeto, screenplay by Barry Wong, directed by Sammo Hung. The 6th and last film in the Criterion set.

Jackie is a cop called Muscles, he gathers his childhood friends to help him catch a yakuza crook in Japan. Sammo Hung plays Kidstuff, he's let out of jail to round up the old gang. They spend a good bit of time doing that. Eventually they meet up with the cop in charge of them. He's framed them with a bank robbery and forces them to work with Muscles. Sibelle Hu plays their handler Inspector Woo, she's nicked named Poison Ivy. They take a good long bit of the movie playing pranks on her. She should have punched them more.

There's a nice mix of goofy comedy and action. It's not all fighting, there's a nice car chase with a jump over a truck. There's not enough Jackie. He shows up at the start and then doesn't show up again for another hour. There's plenty of nice locations for the action. I especially liked the fight in the haunted house ride at the fairgrounds.

All the movies in the set look fine and there are some extras for most films.

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The Story Of Mankind 1957 Based on the 1921 novel of the same name by Hendrik Willem van Loon, screenplay by Irwin Allen and Charles Bennett, directed by Irwin Allen.

The Great Court Of Outer Space puts the human's of Earth on trail for the invention of the Super H-Bomb. The court will decide to stop the bomb or or let the human's destroy themselves.

Defending the human's is The Spirit Of Man, played by Ronald Colman, prosecuting the human's is the Devil, Mr Scratch, played by Vincent Price. They travel through time and space to visit various famous people from many times and places.

John Carradine plays Khufu and there were many other stars in similar roles. The poster has a list of most of the actors in the film. It's an impressive list and certainly one of the reasons I picked up the DVD. Even from an early age I tended to follow certain actors and would watch films because they appeared in them. I'm still keeping an eye out for films with them, I've not seen them all.

Groucho Marx plays colonist Peter Minuit, his brothers Harpo and Chico are also in the film but they don't appear in a scene together. It was the last film for the fellows and their first color film. Harpo played Sir Isaac Newton and Chico played a monk.

Dennis Hopper plays Napoleon Bonaparte and Marie Wilson played Marie Antoinette. Having 44 year old Hedy Lamarr playing 19 year old Joan Of Arc was a bit of an odd choice. Peter Lorre only has two lines of dialog playing Emperor Nero but he does get to laugh a lot, while Rome burns.

The Devil and The Spirit play tit for tat with human accomplishments and failures. Eventually the Court Of Outer Space has to make a decision. They fail and push the decision on to the future. Hopefully we'll keep from destroying ourselves.

I enjoyed the film despite it not being that good. It's more interesting for what it is than for it's story. You can try it out on YouTube. You might like it, or not, doesn't matter, it's what it is.

Miami Connection 1987 Story by Richard Park and Y K Kim, screenplay by Joseph Diamond, directed by Richard Park (Park Woo-Sang) and Y K Kim.

Dragon Sound is a band that plays at clubs to make money so they can go to college. The Dragon's live together in a house near the college. Y K Kim is Mark, he teaches the band Taekwondo and plays rhythm guitar. Singer  Jane and guitarist John are dating and Jane's brother Jeff doesn't approve of the relationship.

Jeff has a gang of thug and his pal Yashito has his own gang of Miami Ninjas. The Ninja's steal a big supply of cocaine from some other guys. The drug dealers seem to disappear from the film.

The Dragon's replaced another band who are mad at getting fired, they try to beat up the club owner but he's good at martial arts and kicks the band's collective butts. The failed band members get Jeff's gang to attack Dragon Sound but that fails too. Jeff is determined to separate the couple and kidnaps a band member. Y K leads a rescue and Jeff is killed. Yashito brings his Miami Ninjas for some revenge. Of course the Dragon's prevail.

I enjoyed the film despite it's many weaknesses. The script is poor but not much worse than the average American made martial arts film. The acting is bad, poor Y K can hardly speak English and he still does better than some of the other actors. The stunts range from good to absolutely dreadful.

On the plus side Maximo Munzi, the cinematographer and editor, did a good job shooting the film and putting it together. It got into a few theaters in 1988 but failed to pull in the crowds and disappeared for a number of years. It cost about a million and didn't make much money back. Alamo Drafthouse re-released the film in 2010 and recently Vinegar Syndrome released the film on 4K and Blu-ray. I don't know that I need to buy one as I doubt I'm going to need watching it again.

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Gore From Outer Space 2001 Directed by Hirohisa Sasaki.

I though I hadn't see the movie before but when I looked it up on the IMDb I had voted for it on 6-17-14. I looked it up on my watched movie list and sure enough it's listed as being seen on 6/6/14. It was an earlier FNM night. I gave the movie a score of 7 on the IMDb which means I liked it more that time than this time. I'll try not to watch it again.

The Return Of Captain Invincible 1983 Written by Steven E de Souza and Andrew Gaty, directed by Philippe Mora. I don't recall seeing this but it was out at a time I used to go to the theater more often.

It's an Australian superhero musical comedy with Alan Arkin and Christopher Lee. There's a new Blu-ray out from Severin, that's what we watched.  The original poster is on top and the cover to the Severin release is below, conveniently labeled. I don't care for the Severin cover much at all. The movie I have mixed feelings about, I enjoyed the parts with Christopher Lee as the villain but many of the scenes with Captain Invincible weren't as entertaining. I'm not that happy with the songs for the most part and many of the jokes fall flat. It did poorly at the Australian box office, grossing $55K on a $7mil cost. Another one that I was happy to see but I doubt I'd watch it again.

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Undefeatable 1993 Written by Tai Yim, Steve Harper and Robert Vassar, directed by Godfrey Ho under the name Godfrey Hall. It was filmed in English in the US but it's a Hong Kong production.

Cynthia Rothrock plays a waitress who's helping her younger sister through college. Cynthia supplements her income by street fighting. The whole subplot of the street fighters doesn't make much sense, it's almost like the screen writers had a vague idea of how it worked and made up the rest. It's similar to their approach in writing the script. They wrote in some character development but their script is trite and the actors aren't capable of much.

Don Niam plays a fighter called Stingray, he's abusive to his wife, she decides to leave him after he rapes her, he decides to get her back. Stingray has slipped a cog and he starts kidnapping women who resemble his wife. He kidnaps them, tortures them, murders them and gouges their eyes out. One of the women that gets kidnapped and murdered is Cynthia's sister.

A kung fu cop is assigned the case of the murdered women, he'd tangled with Cynthia early in the movie, they team up to catch the killer. There's a bit of a romance there amidst the fights. The kung fu is barely average, far weaker than you'd expect in a Hong Kong film. There's nothing new going on here. The only amusing thing in the film is watching Don try to act. He chews the scenery like one of those car shredders.

All in all deserving of the 4.6 score on the IMDb. I gave it a 4 it's definitely no 5. I'm not going to need to watch this one again. It's on YouTube.

Programmed To Kill 1987 Written by Robert Short, directed by Allan Holzman with additional scenes by Robert Short.

Robert Ginty is an operative for the CIA. He captures a terrorist played by Sandahl Bergman. In the capture she was stabbed, Ginty brings her to the US, she's operated on by some scientists and turned into a cyborg killing machine. Sandahl goes on her first assignment and kills her best terrorist pal. That triggers something in her head and she starts killing the men who changed her.

Ginty goes after Sandahl. There's plenty of fights and lots of shoot 'em ups. Nothing new or original, just plenty same old same old. I wouldn't need to see this one again. You can try it out on YouTube.

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Crime Zone 1988 Written by Daryl Haney and directed by Luis Llosa. An American Peruvian production, much of the movie was shot in Lima Peru with local cast and crew. Roger Corman is the producer and and it's a Concorde production.

Daryl has over 30 credits on the IMDb but I can't say I've seen many of his films other than Xtro 3: Watch The Skies, it's not overly good. Luis is a Peruvian who has made some films in America. I know I've seen the 1993 Fire On The Amazon, a terrible film that's more known for having Sandra Bullock's only sex scene. Luis would also direct Anaconda in 1997, that's got a fair budget and a fairly decent cast but there's still nothing too special about it.

Peter Nelson is Bone, a guy who starts the movie being thrown off the police force. He lives in the squalor of the lowest cast of society. Sherilyn Fenn is Helen, a prostitute who works in the local official brothel. The dregs of society aren't allowed to co-habit for some reason. It's all pretty dumb.

David Carradine plays Jason, he hires Bone and Helen to rob a place with official records. Despite wearing a mask they are discovered and go on the run. Jason gets them to do another job and they immediately become killers, blasting anyone in their way. The script is pretty poor. There's plenty of action and running about but listening to the actors just made me sad.

The movie's well below average, it scores a 4.5 on the IMDb and I gave it a 4. The 4 score has 20.2% of the votes and the 5 has 20% of the votes. A lot of the voters, 12.4%, gave the movie a 10. It was suggested that Sherilyn Fenn' sex scene was the reason. You can see if you like it on YouTube.

Future Kick 1991 Written by Catherine Cyran and Damian Klaus, directed by Damian Klaus. This is another Roger Corman produced Concorde production. This is also Damian Klaus's only film. The film only 80 mins long and 15-20% of the film uses footage from Crime Zone. Disappointing, but oh so typically Roger.

Don "The Dragon" Wilson is a cyborg in this SF picture. Meg Foster's husband was murdered and the police can't get to the cast for days. She hires Don to help her find her husband's killer. They run about, get in fights and occasionally shoot someone.

It turns out that an evil corporation is harvesting organs from the poor and down trodden. There's more fighting and the movie ends with most of the baddies dead. Yay!

It seems to have more strippers than the last movie but that's still not enough to get my vote up over a four. That's the same as the movie's average on the IMDb. If the two films weren't packed on the same DVD we might not have noticed all the copied footage. If they would have worked a little harder it could get a better score. You can see a copy on Rarelust if you want to try it.

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The Iceman Cometh 1989 Written by Johnny Mak and Stephen Shiu, directed by Clarence Fok with Yuen Biao directing the action. 

Yuen Biao is a Ming Guard called Fong Sau-chingin 16th century China and Yuen Wah is a nasty villain called Feng Sen who's known to rape and murder young women. After Feng Sen murders the Princess and steals the Black Jade Buddha the Emperor is mad that Fong did not stop Feng Sen. The Emperor orders Fong executed but relents when Fong begs the Emperor for his life. Fong is given 20 days to catch the crook or he's dead and so are his relatives. 

The Black Jade Buddha is a magical item that transports Feng Sen and Fong into the future. They wind up in 1980s Kowloon. Feng Sen disappears from the movie for a while. We follow Fong as he's befriended by a prostitute called Polly, played by Maggie Chung. Polly draws him into her world but Fong's too naive at first to figure out what's going on. They spend a lot of the 114 min movie working on their relationship. It's way too much and the movie nearly drags to a stop about two thirds of the way through. It was easily one of the best sleeping aids I've encountered.

The action is pretty good when it's happening but there's a lot of deadly wait time between bouts. Feng Sen is a more interesting villain than Fong is a hero but Fong eventually defeats the baddie and returns to his time. There's a dumb "happy" ending.

I'd seen this back in 1996 but failed to comment on my watched movie list. I doubt I'd buy the new Blu-ray, I doubt I'd watch it again.

Mutant Hunt 1987 Written and directed by Tim Kincaid. Tim made a few low-budget SF and horror films in his career but mostly he's made gay porn films.

I saw this back in 2012 and the only comment on my Watched Movie List is "Crappy." I don't know where I watched the movie or what format it was on, today we watched the new Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray. While it looks nice it's still a crappy movie. Another one I won't be buying for my collection. You can watch a poor pan and scan version on YouTube but why would you.

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The Seventh Curse 1986 Based on Ni Kuang's Dr Yuen novels, screenplay by Wong Jing and Yuen Gai-chi, directed by Lam Ngai Kai. Chin Siu-ho plays Dr Yuen and Cho Yun-fat plays Wisely, a character featured in Ni's Wisely novels.

Dr Yuen has a blood curse and he asks Wisely about a cure. Dr Yuen goes back to Thailand to find the cure and battles the evil sorcerer Aquala. Maggie Cheung plays Tsui Hung, a rich girl playing reporter who gets them in trouble because she's a selfish and unthinking asshole. We were wishing bad things on her. Dick Wei plays Black Dragon, he helps Dr Yuen and Wisely fight Aquala.

There's plenty of martial arts action, lots of gun shooting, explosions, noise and chaos. There's a good bit of magical jiggery pokery, much gore, and some entertaining ghosts and monsters. Wong Jing might not always write a coherent script but he's not shy of throwing everything he can think of into a film. It's funny and deadly serious on top of that.

We watched the new 88 Films Blu-ray from England. Something one would need an all region Blu-ray player to watch in the US. Sadly, no US release so far. It looks great. I was happy to see it again, the last time was in 1996 and that was on VHS. I'll stick it on my want list and hope the price comes down a bit.

The Flesh Eaters 1964 Written by Arnold Drake and directed by Jack Curtis. The cinematography was done by Curtis using the name Carson Davidson. Arnold was a comic book writer who co-created Deadman and the Doom Patrol for DC and The Guardians Of The Galaxy for Marvel. The film was edited by Radley Metzger.

A group of people are flying to Provincetown, a storm causes them to land the sea plane near a tiny island. They find Martin Kosleck there and shelter with him. He's a marine biologist collecting specimens. So he says. There turns out to be a more sinister reason for his presence on the island.

We watched this film at Friday Night Movies night 31 back in 2005. I think I still feel about the film the same way as I did then. Not a great film but an entertaining film. You can watch it on YouTube, link in title.

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Alien Private Eye 1989 Written and directed by Vik Rubenfeld, he was also the casting director and film editor. It's his only movie, the IMDb lists him as one of the creators of the TV show Early Edition, he's credited with writing one episode. I never watched that show more than a handful of times, so it's doubtful that I saw his episode. Up until right now the movie has only been available on VHS. You can see a poor copy on YouTube, see link above. The movie looks much better on the Severin Blu-ray.

The story revolves around the possession of a special disc that fell to Earth. A crook figured out it was a drug dispenser and he's been selling the highly addictive product in LA. An alien private eye is on Earth, he helps a woman being mistreated by some thugs and winds up in the middle of a mess. She's got one half the disc and the crooks have the other half.

There's plenty of chasing about with a few punch up and gun fights. Sadly they're so ludicrously staged. The car chase and subsequent crashes? Embarrassing. The whole movie is like that. Clumsy script and inept cast. Makes a combo for laughter. Sadly Vik's intended humor isn't cutting it. All in all a good film to have seen but one that wasn't as enjoyable as one might have hoped. Not going on my To Buy List.

Tokyo 10+01 2003 Written and directed by Higuchinsky. Another one that I won't be adding to my To Buy List. It's a comical sort of parody that people doing IMDb reviews think is of Battle Royale but it seems more like it's parodying The Running Man. The filmmakers make references to BR in the beginning of the film but that soon falls by the wayside as the contestants start running about. Was The Running Man released to long ago for the commenters to know about. Could be but who knows. Hopefully, I'll have forgotten about the film be tomorrow.

Eleven criminals are drugged and fitted with a poison timer bracelet. They wake up in a warehouse in a shitty part of town. They have 11 hours to get to the Baron's mansion. Then they'll be safe, they'll win a cash prize, get their record wiped clean and the poison dispensing tracker bracelet will be deactivated. A lot to play for.

Most of the contestants are pretty annoying and I didn't care much for them. In fact it was nice to see them get picked off one by one or in a small group. There's plenty of running about and yelling but not much else going on of interest. The poor DVD mastering didn't help either. Ultimately it was disappointing and not one I need to see again.