PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 940

Curse Of The Blue Lights 1988 Story by Bryan Sisson, screenplay, cinematography and direction by John Henry Johnson. Released in overseas markets as Blue Lights. Filmed in Pueblo Colorado. It's John's only fictional film, in 1981 he directed a documentary called Damon Runyan's Pueblo and in 1984 he directed the documentary Zebulon Pike and the Blue Mountain.

The IMDb says the movie is 1 hr and 44 mins long, the Code Red DVD says 88 mins on the box but the movie is 93 mins, the new Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray we watched lists the time at 93 mins, the YouTube video linked in the title above is 93 mins.

A pack of high school students head out for the local make out area. They find something peculiar in the ground. While going for a truck someone steals the item and drags it off. It leads the kids to a cemetery and some underground dwelling ghouls.

Despite it's low budget and amateur production the movie has something going for it. John does try to tell a good story and he does well for having little money. The actors aren't that great but they do alright. The scripts a bit weak and the last quarter fight drags on a bit. It's not overly vicious or gory, the ghouls are almost cartoon character like. They remind me of the baddies in those 70s and 80s Japanese action shows like Kagaku Sentai Dynaman. It made me laugh a bit and I'd probably watch it again sometime. You can try it out on YouTube, you might get a laugh or two.

Dr Caligari 1989 Written by Jerry Stahl and Stephen Sayadian, directed by Stephen Sayadian. Stephen, under the name Rinse Dream, is the director of several porn films including the cult fav Café Flesh. He also directed the Do It Again video for Wall of Voodoo.

In this vague sort of sequel to 1920 film The Cabinet Of Caligari, Dr Caligari, the granddaughter of the original Dr Caligari, runs a mental health clinic and experiments on her patients with glandular brain fluid swaps. The victims patients take on the characteristics of the other swapee. Things fall apart at the clinic as the movie progresses.

It's all very surreal and colorful but lacking a good story. It's 80 mins pokes along at times. I'd seen it in 1990 but had forgotten what the movie was about in the interim, now I know. Don't think I'll need to see it again anytime soon. It's got some value as a novelty piece.

Beach Fever 1987

Beach Fever 1987 Story by Larry W Talbot, screenplay by Francis X Cronan, directed by Alexander Tabrizi. This is Alexander's only movie, he produced a couple of dozen films between 1982 and 2016, the only one I have seen is The Lost Empire from 1984. It was better than this movie and it was lousy. I saw a copy that I downloaded from some place, I think it was Youtube but it isn't there now. The copy I found seemed to be a copy of the prerecorded VHS tape.

Kato Kaelin, mostly know for being a witness in the OJ trial, plays a beach bum who is chasing the ladies at the beach. Unlucky for the ladies. He hooks up with a Japanese guy who's in America to try out pick up lines for his father. A basement scientist comes up with a sure fire love potion, Kato and pal take to selling it.

It's an appalling movie, one not worth watching. It scores a 2.9 on the IMDb and I can't agree it's that good. Thirty one and a half percent of the votes on the IMDb are a 1. Seventeen people, 11.6%, voted 10. Sad that the director only has 16 friends who would be willing to lie for him. Over 70% of the votes were 5 or below. There's some amount of nudity that would account for that, misogyny votes count for some of that too. Lucky for us the Alexander didn't direct any more movies.

Friday Night Movies 916

The King's Man 2021 Based on the comic series The Secret Service by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons, story by Matthew Vaughn, screenplay by Matthew Vaughn and Karl Gajdusek, directed by Matthew Vaughn. We watched the 4K version and it looked nice.

The movie is a prequel to the first two films. The story starts in 1902 with a visit to a concentration camp in South Africa by the Duke of Oxford. The Duke is shot in the leg during an attack by a Boer sniper. The Duke's wife Emily is killed and the Duke's son Conrad saw his mother die. The story jumps ahead 12 years and the Duke has created a private spy network using the servants of the powerful.

Conrad wants to go to war but the Duke tries to stop him. He's not successful and Conrad is mistakenly killed by a soldier in the British Army. There's a mysterious Scottish man who runs a secret organization from the plateau on a mountain in some remote location. He's a guy who needs killing.

There's a fair bit of action but the story is dark and bleak, I didn't care for it as much as the previous two films. I'll watch those again someday and give the third a miss. I did like the cast in it. Good choices. It's a bit ponderous, a nice trim would not be a miss, a good Kingsman movie might be salvaged out of there.

Voyage Of The Rock Aliens 1984 Written by Edward Gold and James Guidotti, directed by James Fargo and Bob Giraldi. We watched the new Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray.

It's a SF musical comedy with Pia Zadora playing Dee Dee. Some aliens make a stop at planet Earth and get involved with Dee Dee and the local musical scene. Dee Dee's boyfriend Frankie has a gang and a band, they are the same guys. Frankie doesn't want Dee Dee to sing with him, he's mostly a dick. The aliens prove to be a match for Frankie in a battle of the bands.

Pia does a lot of songs, some of which were from her newest album. A music video duet with Pia and Jermaine Jackson was shot in Italy. It wasn't shot for the film but the producer's worked it into the opening. It's supposed to take place on a distant planet the alien's are visiting. Knowing that explains why Pia seems to be on two planets.

There's way too many songs and the story is really goofy. James Guidotti's original screenplay was a spoof of B-movies. The Wikipedia says:

"It's a little like sitting home and watching TV late on a Saturday night, all the while switching channels from 5 to 9 to 11 and to 13," Guidotti explained. "On channel 5 they're airing an old Beach Party movie; on 9 one about alien invaders; on 11 a film about a mad, homicidal maniac on the loose; and on 13 a rock 'n roll program." When Guidotti's script was spotted by executives at the production company Inter Planetary Curb, Vice President of Development Edward Gold and consultant Charles Hairston polished the script, turned it into a musical, and the film went into production under the title Attack of the Rock 'n' Roll Aliens.

I might have enjoyed that movie more than what we watched. There's plenty of jokes but many fall flat. I still enjoyed watching it, especially after the downer we just watched, but I didn't feel I needed to invest in a copy. You can test drive it on YouTube. You might like it.

Basket Case The Trilogy

Basket Case The Trilogy

I ordered the Second Sight Blu-ray in August 2020 and I'm finally getting around to it. Second Sight is a UK company but the set is region free and all 3 films have their own disc. I liked all three films with I first saw them.

Basket Case 1982 Written and directed by Frank Henelotter.

Kevin Van Hentenryck plays Duane Bradley, a young man who had a conjoined twin called Belial. They were separated when they were in their early teens, Belial survived and the twin went to live with their Aunt. She died and the twins set out to kill the doctors that separated them. There's three of them and Duane is successful in his endeavor but he creates a big mess and falls off a building.

There's a lot of mayhem and murder in the film, it's all balanced out by a good dose of humor. There's plenty of odd characters and 42nd Street plays a big part in the film. Not for everybody but I still like it after quite a few viewings.

Basket Case 2 1990 Written and directed by Frank Henelotter.

The story picks up with Duane and Belial in a hospital. They are rescued by a woman called Granny Ruth. She's got a nice big house and it's filled with a large number of deformed people. Belial finds a girlfriend while Duane thinks he should be allowed to go off and lead a normal life. He wants the one woman in the house who seems normal to go with him but Granny Ruth's granddaughter Susan isn't willing to leave the group.

Duane and Belial are wanted by the police for all the murders and things get dicey when a snoopy reporter and her photographer spot Duane in the house. The deformed people fight back and the snoopers come to a gory end. Duane gets nuttier and nuttier, especially when he nearly has sex with Susan. The movie ends with Duane killing Susan and then trying to sew Belial back on his body.

It's somewhat sillier than the first movie while still providing plenty of laughs and gooey content.

Basket Case 3 The Progeny 1991 Written by Frank Henenlotter and Robert Martin, directed by Frank Henenlotter.

Some time has past and Duane has been locked in a padded room in Granny Ruth's house. She finally lets him out as the group are going to take a road trip to visit her ex-husband Hal. Belial has gotten his girlfriend pregnant and she wants some help with the birth. Once they get to Hal's house things go downhill pretty quickly. Duane escapes the house and Belial attacks Hal. Duane gets arrested and the cops want the million dollar reward for for the capture of the brothers. Things go bad for the cops when they get involved, many of them die.

Even more gore and mayhem in this one. More laughs too.

It would be 17 years before Frank made another movie.

Bonus Features A mix of older extras from the US DVD and some new stuff. The commentary and the new docu were the most entertaining extras for me.

What's in the basket? A new 79 min docu with director Frank Henenlotter; actors Kevin VanHentenryck, Beverly Bonner, Annie Ross; producers Edgar Ievans and James Glickenhaus; make-up effects artists John Caglione Jr, Kevin Haney, Gabe Bartalos and writer Uncle Bob Martin.

Interview With Graham Humphreys A new interview with the artist who did the cover to the Second Sight Blu-ray set.

Everything below came from the US DVD:

Video introduction by Frank Henelotter

Audio commentary by director Frank Henenlotter, producer Edgar Ievins, and actress Beverly Bonner

Outtakes / Behind-The-Scenes

In Search Of The Hotel Broslin Frank and a pal wonder around New York looking at the places where they filmed the movie.

Trailers / Radio Spots

Photo Gallery: Behind-The-Scenes, Promotional Material, Stills

Get Crazy 1983

Get Crazy 1983 Written by Danny Opatoshu, Henry Rosenbaum and David Taylor, directed by Allan Arkush.

I'd been sad that there hadn't been a real DVD release of Get Crazy for ages. There was a 1984 VHS release that I saw when we used to rent movies. I loved it, it remains one of my favorite movies. I watch it every so often, I'm sure I've seen it more than a dozen times. It's the kind of musical I like. All the songs are great, especially all the versions of Hoochie Koochie Man. The film's setting is a Fillmore theater like rock venue on New Years Eve. I've never watched it on New Years Eve.

I've got a copy of the VHS tape and had copied that to DVD 15 years ago. You make do. Since I don't follow the new releases anymore I was surprised to see the movie offered on both DVD and Blu-ray. I got the latter.

The movie looks nice and the Blu-ray has some good extras. There's a 75 minute documentary created by Allan using zoom interviews. It's packed with info and interviews with many of the actors and crew. That where I learned that in 2019 Kino-Lorber had come into possession of the missing film elements and sound track. They wanted to put out the DVD. It took a while to get done but the wait was worth it.

There's a commentary with Allan Arkush, director Eli Roth and film historical Daniel Kremer. That was pretty entertaining. The other extras are 3 music videos, Allan on Trailers From Hell, and something involving fan fiction that I never bothered with. Well worth it for me.

Tommy Tricker And The Stamp Traveler 1988

Tommy Tricker And The Stamp Traveler 1988 Written and directed by Michael Rubbo. A Canadian kids movie featuring stamp collecting. It's got music by the McGarrigle sisters and a really young Rufus Wainwright.

The kid with the red hoodie is Ralph, he's a stamp collector, that's his sister Nancy, the other kid is Tommy Tricker, he used to be in the stamp club but they threw him out for being a cheat. When the movie opens he's scamming his classmates by telling them that the stamp with an error he's selling is going to be worth a fortune in no time. It's not.

Tommy is always on the scam, he convinces Ralph to trade a used Bluenose from his father's collection for a set of 1946 Peace stamps. Currently a mint hinged set of Peace stamps goes for $35 and a mid grade used Bluenose is about the same.

The Bluenose is Canada's 158th stamp and it came out in 1929. The Bluenose is regarded highly as Canada's most beautiful stamp. Depending on condition a used Bluenose can run up to and over $100, a mint stamp starts at that price and just goes up and up. Ralph's father has a block of 6 Bluenose stamps, there's a couple of mint blocks of 4 on eBay that at $600 and $800. A stamp shop in Montreal is offering a very fine never hinged plate block of 6 for $4495.

As Tommy's passing the Peace stamps to Ralph he switches them and leaves poor Ralph with some cheap stamps. Tommy is really a creep, even the stamp shop guys have heard of his shenanigans, but they still buy the Bluenose off of him. They find out it's a "man in the mast" variant and worth $600. Ralph's dad finds out that the Bluenose is gone and Ralph's in big trouble. Ralph and Nancy try to get the Bluenose back but it's already been sold.

The stamp shop gives Nancy an old album to try to appease her, it turns out to have a magical spell that allows the kids to travel by postage stamp. Ralph, Nancy and Tommy have a bit of an adventure, first in China and then Australia before there's a pretty happy ending.

It's not a bad kids movie, for me it fails a bit on the script and more so on the casting. In the making of short Michael Rubbo says he wanted an all amateur child cast. Some of them are better than others, they give it a try. Not sorry to have seen it but I doubt I'd need to watch it again.

Beverly Hills Bodysnatchers 1989

Beverly Hills Bodysnatchers 1989 Story by PK Simonds and Jonathan Mostow, screenplay by PK Simonds, directed by Jonathan Mostow. This is Jonathan's first full feature, he'd already directed a segment of the 1985 anthology movie Fright Show, he didn't direct any other features until Breakdown in 1997. He followed that With U-571, Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines, Hancock and Surrogates. I haven't seen any of the three films he made after that.

Art Metrano, Vic Tayback and Frank Gorshin star in this re-animation comedy. Frank's the mad scientist, Vic runs the mortuary where Frank does his experiments. Art is a local mob boss who forces Vic to take on his wife's two sons as assistants. They discover about Frank's experiments and become part of the team. The process works but it's got problems in the early stages.

There's plenty of noise and running about but not much by way of jokes. Not something I would need to watch again. You can see it on YouTube, link above.

Friday Night Movies 858

Dead Space 1991 Written by Catherine Cyran, directed by Fred Gallo. A Roger Corman produced remake of Mutant AKA Forbidden World. You can see the animated prequel Dead Space Downfall on YouTube, it's a fairly good rip but the burned in subtitles in some Arabic tongue are a bit annoying. It's only good for finding out if the Blu-ray is worth buying. I haven't seen it but I'm going to guess, probably not. There's also Dead Space: Aftermath from 2011. The films are an off shoot of the games that were developed from the first movie.

In Dead Space Marc Singer is a Commander in the space fleet. He answers a distress call from a research station on a isolated and uninhabited planet. They are doing some sort of genetic research and they've created a virus that infects people and turns their bodies into murderous beasties. It takes a good bit to kill the monsters so the lab folk get picked off one by one. Marc kills the beast and leaves with his robot pal.

Nothing much notable about the film, other than it's an early appearance by Brian Cranston. He's the guy who wants to keep the critter alive so they can study it. It was funny to me when Marc shoved Brian's head in the creature's mouth to slow it down. Marc's not that much of a dick, Brian was already dead. He'd been infected with the virus and that virus had all the diseases known to man in it. Sometimes the script is the beastie. The IMDb trivia page has an entry that says the director didn't see the script until his first day of shooting. It explains a lot.

I couldn't remember seeing Dead Space but it turns out I had back in 1994. I can't say much good about the movie, it's short, only 78 mins, that's something. The old DVD release is only about 72 mins long, that's what's on YouTube. You're better off watching Forbidden World. That's not a great movie but it's more fun.

Blades 1989 Story by John P Finnegan, screenplay by William R Pace and Thomas R Rondinella, produced by William R Race and John P Finnegan, directed by Thomas R Rondinella. The film was made in New Jersey and released by Troma on VHS and later DVD. We watched the Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray.

From the first few minutes of the "making of" we learn that John P Finnegan wanted to make movies. He wrote 3 and they all got made. He produced 2 of them and directed Girls School Screamers.

With Blades he had the idea to make a shot for shot remake of Jaws but set on land, in a golf course, with a lawn mower. It's a big lawn mower. It grinds men right up. John went to a NYC film school, William and Thomas were the couple of students that were interested.

They don't quite carry out the shot for shot but they capture enough iconic moments to give you that Jaws feel. It's supposed to be a comedy but there are more jokes in Jaws. Nothing tops "We need a bigger boat!" I did laugh out loud once but an hour later I can't remember what the gag was. The cast weren't too bad for people who mostly hadn't made a film before. All in all it's below average but watchable. I doubt I would need to pick up a copy.

 

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.

The Last Horror Film 1982

The Last Horror Film 1982 Written by Judd Hamilton, Tom Klassen and David Winters, directed by David Winters. I picked up the Troma DVD thinking I hadn't seen the movie before. I had, under the name The Last Horror Film. Annoying, but I doubt I would have remembered the original title anyway. Judd Hamilton was married to Caroline Munroe at the time the film was made. David Winters was mostly a choreographer. His career started in 1948 when he was choreographer on the Ed Sullivan show. He stopped working about 2015 and died three years later.

As an actor David's earliest film job was working on The Big Story in 1949. His first directing job in TV came in 1967 with a couple of episodes of The Monkees. In 1975 he was choreographer for Alice Cooper's Welcome To My Nightmare Tour. I saw that tour when it played Winnipeg and it was highly entertaining to say the least. David directed the documentary on the tour. The only other movie of David's I've seen is the 1988 film Space Mutiny which was featured in an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Both David and Judd appear in the film as directors.

Joe Spinell plays Vinny, a New York cab driver who's a wanna be filmmaker. Joe's real life mom, Filomena Spagnuolo, plays his mother in the movie. Vinny's never made a film but he fanatically wants to make one with Jana Bates, played by Caroline Munro, he thinks having her in his film would give him the boost he needs to get noticed by the big studios.

Vinny heads to Cannes the same year some deranged guy starts killing film people. Vinny's not a people person and he's kind of creepy and pathetic at the same time. He sure looks like the guy who could be killing these people and he has wacky fantasies to help reinforce that. He has more and more psychotic and violence encounters with other film people.

At first the police thought Jana's report of a murdered man was a hoax because there was no body or other evidence when they showed up to the scene. Soon a couple more people disappear, later the police start to believe it when their bodies turn up in the garbage.

Overall the movie is barely average but it was somewhat entertaining. The only other cast member that I recognized was Susanne Benton, some might remember her as Quilla June Holmes in A Boy And His Dog. The Troma DVD has a version of the film that's missing a bit of footage, on reading what the cuts are it doesn't matter to me. I won't be shelling out the money for the uncut film. It's just not worth it. It's hard to know if I'll ever get back to this but I'll keep the DVD. I might be able to use it for fuel in the end times.