PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 910

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.

Friday Night Movies 877

The Dark Side Of The Moon 1990 Written by Carey Hayes and Chad Hayes, directed by D J Webster. While watching it I didn't realize I'd seen it a couple of years ago. I watched it on Amazon Prime and posted on a Science Fiction Sunday post in 2020. I gave it a 5 on the IMDb, I'm now thinking of changing it to a 4, obviously it's very forgettable, nothing stood out at all, not even the sexy robot.

It's a horror film set in space that ties the Devil to the Bermuda Triangle. The crew of a ship runs out of power and is heading for the surface of the moon.They find a NASA space shuttle floating in space but Nasa has been defunct for 30 years. Thinking they might find parts to fix their ship they board the shuttle only to find the Devil.

That lady in the photo is a robot that sits in a chair, a robot with a pushup bra and cleavage, who never leaves the chair. You'd think if you hired a lady to play a hot robot you'd have her running about, slowing off that skintight suit. She's not even strong enough to prevent having her head blown off. It's just one of the many poorly written bits in the show. The whole idea that the Devil's been waiting in a shuttle for years is pretty ludicrous. Same with the link between the Bermuda Triangle on Earth and a similar shaped space on the dark side of the moon. In a graphic they show the moon and the Earth and draw lines between the two triangle's points, like they are aligned. It gets even more embarrassingly complicated as the writers try to build their story.

Hopefully I won't forget and watch this one again. I'm definitely not buying the movie so it won't be around to tempt me.

Turkey Shoot 1982 Story by George Schenck, Robert Williams and David Lawrence, screenplay by Jon George and Neill D Hicks, directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith. Brian is the director of several films including Leprechaun 3 and Leprechaun 4: In Space. I can't say I've seen more than those 3 films.

An Australian action film set in a miserable future where citizens, social deviants, are tossed into prison camps for rehabilitation. Camp Master Thatcher is a brutal creep who likes killing deviants as much as his guards do. He's organized a hunt with a politician, a psychopathic murdering lesbian and a guy who has a fat werewolf for a sidekick. It's just one of the many ludicrous things in the film.

Gigantic Roger Ward plays the head guard, that's him above. You might remember him from Mad Max where he played the Max's boss the Police Captain. As well as writing novels and screenplays, he's acted in over 1500 TV episodes and 50 movies. He has a magnificent mustache on top of all that.

Left to right are: John Lay, Lynda Stoner, Steve Railsback and Olivia Hussey, they are the poor deviants who've been chosen by the Camp Master as the hunted. They get a bit of a head start in leaving the camp but they are unarmed. Supposedly the victims are free if they manage to survive the day but in reality the Camp Master is going to see they don't survive. He loves his deviant killing. Sadly, the hunt isn't going to go so good for him or his fellow hunters.

I knew I had seen the film before but I didn't realize it was so long ago, my Watched Movie List says March 2 1996. That was when it was on VHS under the name Escape 2000 and cut down to about 75 minutes. The Severin Blu-ray runs about 93 mins and the picture looks much nicer. It's mostly entertaining, though it does drag before the hunt, it takes about 42 mins to get to the hunt. Despite some laughs and entertaining bits, it's still only about average. The silly stuff made me laugh. I'm looking at you, fat werewolf. On the other hand, some of dialog and plot points made me cringe or sigh. No plans to pick up the Blu-ray, I doubt I need to see it again.

Friday Night Movies 872

Raiders Of Atlantis 1983 Story and screenplay by Vincenzo Mannino and Dardano Sacchetti, directed by Ruggero Deodato. The Italian title is The Atlantis Interceptors.

After releasing Cannibal Holocaust director Deodato was embroiled in a controversy about the graphic violence and animal cruelty. Animals being killed on screen was one of the problems, some thought it was a snuff film, the human killings were so realistic. Deodato was arrested and charged with murder. He lost his film making license and had to explain how he did the effects. He even had to produce the actors in court to show they were still alive.

The same year Deodato made The House On The Edge Of The Park, a vague remake of The Last House On The Left. It got put on a list of video nasties in the UK and was heavily cut. Like Cannibal Holocaust it's got a lot of gore, sexual violence and brutal murdering. I don't find films about human monsters appealing and don't care for either of them.

Deodato didn't get his film makers license back for three years and he filmed The Atlantic Interceptors. It starts off pretty ordinary, some guys are helping some scientists to raise a German submarine from the ocean floor. Somehow this causes the sunken island of Atlantis to rise. It's been under a dome for all these centuries and it's ready to take it's rightful place on land. Part of that rightful place involves getting rid of the human population already settled on land.

Ordinary ends and Deodato is back to his gory murdering ways as a vicious gang of Atlantian soldiers rage over an island city. Deodato has seen Mad Max and somehow he can't not copy those costumes. The rising of Atlantis caused a big storm and our main characters are washed up on the island that the Atlantians are attacking. This has taken less than a day and somehow the Atlantians have already got all sorts of tricked out motor bikes and old cars. Where they got them is one of the many unanswered questions that the film leaves hanging.

 

There's plenty of action, gun battles, explosions, people getting hacked up, all that sort of thing but it's not interesting enough to make up for the stinky script. Another one that I'm not going to bother buying. I won't need to see it again.

Endgame 1983 Written by Alex carver and Joe D'Amato, directed by Joe D'Amato. Joe directed almost 200 films in his career, most of the ones I've see have been mostly pretty poor. Much of his later work was porn, both hardcore and softcore. Joe used a lot of pseudonyms in his career, trying to keep his directing work separate from his cinematography work.

He didn't do very well with Endgame either, it's a poorly thought out post-apocalypse film, New York is a wasteland but it has a TV network. Endgame is a popular show on the network, hunters track and kill their human prey. The prey can fight back and Al Cliver is a guy who's survived several hunts. There's a threat from the mutant population, those in charge send teams to hunt them down, the mutants have allies who try to help them survive and move away to safety.

Al gets hired to guard a lot of mutants, mostly telepaths, and he hires a few guys to help him. They run across other groups of humans, most of them bent on murder. There's lots of fighting, gun battles, and interminable driving about. It's got a poor script, some parts are absolutely ludicrous, add some lousy production values and it's a real stinker. Still, it was a smidge better than the previous movie but not one I would need to buy.

Friday Night Movies 871

Warriors Of The Year 2072 1984 Written by Elisa Briganti, Cesare Frugoni, Lucio Fulci and Dardano Sacchetti, directed by Lucio Fulci.

In the dystopian future of 2072 the Roman TV company WBS is having a hard time competing with the popular Kill-Bike show. The head of programming decides to kill the wife of the most popular Kill-Bike rider Drake. During the attack the assassins are killed, Drake is framed for their murder and sent to prison where he's recruited to WBS's new program.

The contestants are all hardened criminals who are given the chance to fight for their freedom. Drake is thrown into the mix and we get a couple of poor fist fights and a much too long training montage with annoying strobe lights. Just one of the many poor choices that Fulci makes in this mess of a movie. It takes an hour to get to the games and much of it is coma inducing. Once the competition starts it's obvious that the stunt riders are as crap as the stunt fighters. Nothing good to say about the action on screen and the melodrama that smothers everything leaves something to desire story wise. It was nice seeing Fred Williamson, hope he got paid. Sadly, he's not enough to make up for the incompetent film making. Not one I would need to see again.

CT 2000 1993 Story by J Stephen Maunder and Richard M Samuels, screenplay by T J Scott, directed by T J Scott.

Set in 2020, the rich have hidden underground after an Eco disaster. The surviving poor still inhabit the surface world and Tracker-Communicators keep the riff-raff out of the underground. Billy Blanks and Bobbie Phillips are a Tracker-Communicator team. She's killed in a fight and her body turned over to the scientists. They've seen Robocop and can't want to make their own bionic woman. Bobbie's sent after Niki Picasso, the head of one of the local surface gangs. On contact she convinces him to attack the Lifers. Billy in the meantime has been trying to find Picasso for a bit of vengeance. He winds up in the middle of all the fighting.

There's way too much running in tunnels, way too much poor stunt fighting, way too much poor dialog, yet it's still better than the first movie. Though it was more fun I'm not going to pick a copy up for me, I won't need to watch it again.

Friday Night Movies 870

New York Ninja 2021 Originally written and directed by John Liu, 2021 writer and director Kurtis M Spieler.

John Liu shot his film in 1984 and after the distribution company went bankrupt it remained unedited and unreleased until Vinegar Syndrome finished it this year. Kurt M Spieler used the raw footage to assembled a movie, then had the dialog dubbed in by an interesting gang of actors: Don "The Dragon" Wilson, Michael Berryman, Cynthia Rothrock, Linnea Quigley, Vince Murdocco, Matt Mitler, Leon Isaac Kennedy and Ginger Lynn. I didn't know who Vince or Matt or Leon is but it doesn't matter. I didn't read it anywhere but I suspect that John shot his movie without sound. The common practice of Chinese film makers at the time. Maybe they still do.

It's a revenge story, John Liu plays the husband of a woman killed by street toughs during a kidnapping. The gang kidnap women on the streets to sell as sex slaves. The wife just happened to be there at the wrong time. John dresses up as a ninja and hunts down the gang. He attacks and there are plenty of fights. Sadly, they just aren't very good fights, some of the worst I've seen. They seem like slow motion training videos. John Liu is the martial arts choreographer and he's not doing that good a job. He's not doing so well on his acting either. Some of his mugging to the camera is laughable but not in a good way. John made most of his 2 dozen films between 1972 and 1982, I can't say I've seen any of them, they aren't the popular films that I recognize.

The revenge story is pretty standard fare, the villains are where the film takes a slight dip to wacky land. The menacing street thugs dress and act comically and all I could think of is how clumsy it all looked. The head baddie is so radioactive he can kill with his hands. Most of his murderin' effects weren't that good. There's a bunch of cops and reporters involved and they aren't much better at the old acting game than John was. It's nice that VS salvaged the film and released it, it's too bad it's just so poor. I don't imagine I'll be picking up this one.

Curse Of The Undead 1959 Written by Edward Dein and Mildred Dein, directed by Edward Dein. It's listed on the Kino Lorber DVD box as the first vampire western. I do like the poster.

A small town has had some young women die from what the local doctor, played by John Hoyt, thinks is a wasting disease. Soon John finds out what's killing the women, it's a vampire, played by Michael Pate. Michael plays a good villain. If you watched a lot of TV from that era you would have seen Michael as a guest star on many shows. I really liked two of his earliest films, The Black Castle and The Strange Door.

There's a local baddie who's trying to take over other people's land in the area through force, he's played by Bruce Gordon, another character actor that appeared on oodles of TV from the same time. Michael sets his eyes on the local widow rancher played by Kathleen Crowley. Lucky for her, she's got Preacher Dan on her side, he's played by Eric Fleming, and he can kick some vampire ass.

I enjoyed it, it's a nice looking film, it's got a nice mood. I liked the characters, the locations, sets and props worked well. The script mixed the two genres well without changing much of the mythology people expect from either. Someone mentioned the movie dragged a bit in the last third and I thought the same thing. It doesn't make me like it any less, glad I picked it up, I'll watch it again.

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Robotrix 1991 Written by Jamie Luk and Man Sing So, directed by Jamie Luk.

A woman cop is killed when an Arab prince is kidnapped. Her mind is used in a robot body and she helps the police hunt down her killer. Might have been an interesting story line if they hadn't made it a comedy, then hampered it further with a Category III rapey prostitute murderin' subplot. It's poorly told and acted, the jokes suck for the most part. 

The Time Guardian 1987 Written and directed by Brian Hannant.

I couldn't remember seeing this before but I had. It's pretty darn forgettable. My mind still wondered off while watching, despite the nice Blu-ray on view.

Friday Night Movies 856

Reset 2017 Screenplay by Zha Muchun, directed by Ghang, produced by Jackie Chan. The director is Korean, they filmed in Busan with a Korean crew.

The movie delivers on fancy action scenes wrapped in a time travel story involving parallel universes. Mi Yang is a scientist on the time travel project. Some baddie kidnaps her son to force her to steal the project's data. He kills the son at the meet up and Mi goes back in time to save her boy. He also blows up parts of the company's large fancy tower. He first try at saving her son doesn't work so Mi goes back in time.

The time travel project only has been able to send animals back in time 1 hour and 50 mins, the test subjects have a small but deadly amount of DNA damage. If I understand it correctly the person who travels in time winds up in a parallel universe. That doesn't seem like real time travel to me. If she manages to save her son in the parallel universe that would mean she didn't save her own son who's still dead. Best not to think about it, I guess.

There's action and more action as the baddies chase Mi around the streets and the through the building. She's pretty darn capable at the stunts for being a scientist. All the action is large and noisy, like it's been turned up to 12, there's nothing subtle going on, it's all in your face. There are so many ticking time bombs the noise becomes kind of wearing, especially at 105 mins. I wasn't sorry I saw it but I didn't appreciate it's lack of humor and seriousness. I'm not that interested in picking up a copy but I tempted to do so for our second feature.

Action U.S.A. 1989 Story by John Stewart and David Reskin, screenplay by David Reskin, additional material by James Desmarais, directed by John Stewart. John's a veteran stuntman who also wrote and directed a few movies. I can't say I've seen any of his other films.

A much more comical, and enjoyable, take on the action film. A drug dealer is gunned down by some baddies but his girlfriend manages to escape. The baddies think she might know where the diamonds are and she's seen their faces. She gets picked up by a couple of FBI agents and they chase each other around the back roads of Texas.

There's plenty of bullets flying, car chases, and occasionally there's something blowing up. There's a spectacular explosion near the end that was made that much enjoyable by all the burning tires flying through the air. We all seem to love a good explosion.

Cameron Mitchell is the boss but the diamonds belong to the Mob. His goons can't get the girl so Cameron brings in a hitman who's played by Ross Hagen. Some might remember Ross from Sidehackers. He's also a producer on the film that might be his best effort. It's not a great film, kind of clumsy in fact, but it's a happy bit of business that made me laugh out loud more than once. Worth a look for those that like an action film and have a good sense of humor. I've put it on my Want List.

Friday Night Movies 853

Martial Law 1990 Written by Richard Brandes, directed by Steve Cohen. I didn't think I had seen this before but I had back in 1999.

Steve McQueen's son Chad plays a police detective and Cynthia Rothrock is his girlfriend. Andy McCutheon plays Chad brother and David Carradine is a psycho gang boss who steals expensive cars for foreign customers. He's ruthless and prone to killing. He especially likes killing them with his special kung fu fist to the heart. The police keep finding bodies and Chad gets assigned to the case with Cynthia as his partner.

Andy gets deeper and deeper into David's clutches, trouble is he's not that smart and David's response to his failure is a fist to the heart. Poor Andy's mom. Chad goes all out to get David and give him a taste of his own medicine.

It's all rather familiar and the fights scenes are only passable. There's a lot of melodrama and that slows things down. At least it had David as a psychopath, he worked well with his psychotic second in command, played by Phillip Tan, both men enjoy killing way too much.

Barbarian Queen 1985 Written by Howard R Cohen, directed by Héctor Olivera. Another I wasn't sure I had seen, but I had. Other than for one character, I didn't remember anything else. The movie was one of the selections in a 2011 Friday Night Movie night.

Here's that post:

Sperhauk picked up a cheap DVD of a pair of Roger Corman movies. We watched Barbarian Queen. I wasn't sure if I had seen it before, my list of watched movies says no, but the movie came out in 1985 which was before I started that list and it sure didn't seem familiar. Lana Clarkson is the BQ and she's also the gal that Phil Spector murdered a few years ago. The BQ lives in a small village attacked by Roman's from the local camp. They kill and rape and burn the BQ's hut down. Most of the village was killed or carted off to be slaves. The BQ and three other gals who survived vow revenge. They get to the Roman city and meet a young girl who leads them to the resistance group. The gals want to rush in and the leader of the resistance is reluctant to act just yet. He's a big wimp, that one. The gals get captured, one or two get killed, but Lana stabs her way to success. There's a lot of nudity and not much of a story. There's a lot of rapin' and torturin' and a crazy mad scientist who gets his. You'd think a scientist would know that a human sized trough of acid is a dangerous thing to be leaving uncovered. I got a huge laugh out of his skeleton and goofy glasses in a later scene. It's got pretty big production values for a Roger produced film, huge sets and lots of extras. The fighting is crap. The director, Hector Olivera, made 5 films for Roger between 1985 and 1990. Hector had already been a film maker in Argentina and he used the money from Roger's films to make his own films. He's still making films down there but I haven't seen them. It's was fun enough for what it was.

I'm betting the Blu-ray we watched was better looking than the DVD we watched so long ago. I still feel the same way about the movie. I doubt I'll need to see it again.