Underground Terror 1989 Written by Brian O'Hara and Bob Zimmerman, directed by James McCalmont.
Rather dreary cop and reporter vs a gang of thugs who live in the New York underground. The only terror is knowing it's 91 mins long. I saw a piss poor copy on YouTube. I wouldn't recommend it, save that 90 mins for something better.
Shadowzone 1990 Written and directed by J S Cardone. A Full Moon production.
Captain Hickcock visits the Shadowzone Project to investigate the death of a test subject. The company is small, they work in a rundown and nearly abandoned underground lab from the 1960s. The place is awash with leaky steam pipes. You'd think it would be damper there. There are only a handful on staff with two test subjects running. The project is researching extended deep sleep or EDS. There's hope that the research will be applicable to the space program.
It's a small cast with James Hong as the head scientist Dr Van Fleet, David Beecroft as Captain Hickcock, Louise Fletcher as Van Fleet's second in command Dr Erhardt, Frederick Flynn as maintenance man Tommy, Shawn Weatherly as Dr Kidwell, Lu Leonard as the cook Mrs Cutter and Miguel A Núñez as the tech guy Wiley. There are the sleepers, a male and a female who's main job is to be fully nude in a glass tube. No reason that I could see but there you are. Maureen Flaherty and Robbie Rives play those characters. Robbie blew up pretty quickly, it was his only movie. Maureen lasted 10 years as an actress, she's got 19 credits on the IMDb. Most of the movies she was in were bit parts, possibly involving nudity, one can't be sure.
In a test for Captain Hickcock the male test subject's head has a sudden rapid unscheduled disassembly, leaving the glass encased test chamber totally obscured from the inside. Parts of the old electrical system are damaged causing the power to drift in and out. Things aren't looking good for the Shadowzone Project. It only gets worse, the sleep tests have given the sleepers some sort of connection to another dimension. A being arrives and the computer calls it John Doe. It's not a friendly being and Dr Van Fleet is the first of the crew to get killed off screen. It's cheaper to record a yell than stage a death scene. There's the usual running about, problem solving and more off screen deaths. Sadly John Doe can't stay there, it needs to go back to it's own dimension or die. There's a bit more mayhem before Hickcock helps the female test subject out of her chamber.
It's pretty average but somewhat entertaining. Not something I'd bother buying at this point. The films runs 88 mins, there's a 101 minute version of the film on Amazon Prime. I took a look but it sure is dark and fuzzy. I haven't thought of watching more than the first few mins I did watch. The Blu-ray looks much better.
Brimstone & Treacle 1982 Written by Dennis Potter and directed by Richard Loncraine. Potter wrote a play that was meant for the BBC TV series Play For Today in 1976, it remained untransmitted until 1987, when the ban was lifted by the BBC. By then the 1982 film had been made and released. We watched the new Vinegar Syndrome Blu-Ray that's just come out.
Sting plays a creepy young man who preys on strangers, he pretends he knows them, tricking them with vague statements, given the opportunity he steals from them and runs away. He encounters Denholm Elliot on the street and pretends to faint. While he's talking to Denholm Sting steals his wallet. He pretends he knows Denholm through his daughter but doesn't know she's been in a coma for three years. Sting's quick on his feet and lies so easily but Denholm is suspicious and runs off after offering to get his car and give Sting a ride.
Denholm doesn't know Sting's got his wallet, he's surprised when the young man turns up at his home that evening with the wallet. Everything is there but the 80£ he had. Once in the house Sting's determined to stay a while. Things are rather messed up in the place, the living room has been given over to Pattie. She requires constant watching and care. Joan Plowright plays Denholm's wife and Suzanna Hamilton plays the daughter Pattie. Three years ago she got hit by a car and has been bed ridden ever since, she's active and noisy at times, quiet at others, but there's no communication going on. Poor Joan is stuck home all the time and Denholm treats her rather poorly.
Sting pretends he had once asked the daughter to marry him, she turned him down, telling him to wait for a few years. He's very helpful but things get odd quickly. His sly antics eventually lead Sting to having sex with Pattie. There's a fight when the parents respond to her screams in the middle of the night. Sting runs away, escaping through the window, smashing the glass to bits. Pattie recovers and immediately remembers catching Denholm having sex with his secretary on the floor of his office. It's what drove her out of the office and into the arms of an oncoming cab. Some how the paralysis has been lifted. We leave the family and the yelling to join Sting on the street up to his old game.
Dennis Potter is one of those writers that I like despite his writing dramas. I first heard of him from the film adaptation of Pennies From Heaven. That's the American movie with Steve Martin, the BBC 6 episode production stars Bob Hoskins in the same roll. The 6 part BBC production The Singing Detective followed with Michael Gambon playing a version of Potter himself. Potter had a pretty bad bought of Psoriatic arthritis, it required hospitalization at times. The main character in TSD has it and pain has given him hallucinations in the form of musical numbers. There's plenty of singing and dancing going on. Potter lived with his condition for 30 years, he died at age 59 in 1994 from Pancreatic Cancer. His wife died of breast cancer just a few days before he died. He left something valuable behind.
Pieces 1982 Screenplay by Dick Randall and Roberto Loyola, directed by Juan Piquer Simón. A Spanish US production called Mil gritos tiene la noche in Spanish.
A young boy called Timmy is yelled at for putting together a puzzle with a picture of a nude woman. He gets an ax, kills his mother, dismembers her body and hides in a closet when the police come. Timmy lies and makes up an assailant. The police believe him and he's sent to be raised by his aunt. Forty years later a series of vicious murders get the Boston police busy trying to find the killer. Many of the murders involve university students. The murderer saws off parts of their bodies and leaves the remains to be found. The police find out that the Dean of the university was Timmy and focus on him. They burst into his apartment and kill the Dean before he kills another gal. They find the corpse made of the harvested body parts and in an absolutely stupid bit of gore the dead body grabs the crotch of a man and crushs his genitals. Gooey but ridiculous.
Not a great movie that's for sure. I gave it a 3 as punishment for the dumb ending. I wouldn't need to see it again.
Corpse Mania 1981 Written by Chih-Hung Kuei and On Szeto, directed by Chih-Hung Kuei. A Chinese police procedural involving murder and necrophilia from the Shaw Brothers. We watched the new Vinegar Syndrome release.
A couple of women are murdered and then raped. They remind the cops of an old crime from several years back, turns out the rapist murder has been released from the mental home a month ago. The story uses flashback to fill in the back story. Much of the story takes place at the local brothel or the police station.The killer picks off a few of the women at the brothel. Eventually the police have a suspect and work to track him down.
It's an average police story with a bit of action and plenty of meal worms. The print looks nice and it's not as gory as you'd think. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would but not enough to buy a copy.
The Ghost Dance 1982 Written by Peter F Buffa and Robert Sutton, directed by Peter F Buffa. Another new release from Vinegar Syndrome. The Wikipedia says the film was the first slasher film to have Native American characters.
An archaeologist, Dr Foster, has excavated a Native American corpse. It turns out to cause all sorts of trouble. The local elders are upset about the desecration. The corpse was a shaman, his unearthing has given him the chance to possess the local shaman. He starts killing people around the university. Dr Foster fights him off with the help of her boyfriend.
Sadly it's below average and rather dull at times. It's one I wouldn't need to buy for myself.
Hellhole 1985 Written by Aaron Butler (written as Vincent Mongol) with help from Lance Dickson and Mark Evan Schwartz, directed by Pierre De Moro and an uncredited Tom DeSimone.
Susan sees a man called Silk strangle her rich mother and loses her memory. Silk works for a man who works for the rich mother. He's a scumbag who's trying to get hold of the family fortune. With the mother dead her money goes to Susan, with Susan incapacitated in an asylum, her money is in his hands.
Ray Sharkey plays Silk, Judy Landers plays Susan, Marjoe Gortner plays one of the two doctors at the asylum, Mary Woronov plays Dr Fletcher, the other doctor. I recognized a few other cast members: Edy Williams, Terry Moore and Robert Z'Dar, there were several more I wasn't familiar with.
The doctors are experimenting on their patients, the lucky ones die quickly, the rest are locked up in cells in the storage building. Silk is still trying to get the paper's he screwed up getting the night he murdered Susan's mother. Silk takes a job at the asylum to go after Susan, lucky for her he gets thwarted by a guy called Ron, he's another attendant at the asylum. Ron is working with the police aren't finding any evidence but they do arrest the baddies at the end of the movie.
It's pretty average for a woman in prison movie, it gets a score of 5 on the IMDb, I gave it a 5 too. It's not something I'm likely to ever watch again.
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.
Maigret 1988 Written by Arthur Weingarten, directed by Paul Lynch. A US TV film that was the pilot for a TV series. The film didn't sell the show. It came out on VHS but not on DVD.
Richard Harris was picked to play Maigret, after Richard Burton, Alec Guinness and George C Scott dropped out. He's not really like the character in Georges Simenon's novels, he rather more like Peter Falk's Columbo, but with a pipe and a mumble. He's no Bruno Cremer or Rupert Davies.
The story was OK but I can't say much more than that. I can see why it never sold the pilot.
Appointment With Death 1988 Based on the book by Agatha Christie, screenplay by Michael Winner, Anthony Shaffer and Peter Buckman, directed by Michael Winner. It was produced by Golan-Globus Productions.
Peter Ustinov returns to play Hercule Poirot for a 6th time. He's joined by an interesting cast that includes a bunch of people I know: Lauren Bacall, Carrie Fisher, John Gielgud, Piper Laurie, Hayley Mills, Jenny Seagrove, David Soul and Nicolas Guest.
Poirot takes a vacation to Jerusalem and gets mixed up in a murderous family feud. Piper Laurie is the first to get bumped off. She's the very controlling head of the family. She's a real pill. Someone was pushed too hard. The whole family is suspected and not all of them have a good alibi. There's a whole lot of romantic entanglements that put a strain on the family. There's another murder. Hercule manages to pull the killer from the mix of lies he's told. The movie's over.
I enjoyed the movie, I'd watch this one again someday. Most of the film was filmed in Israel and there's plenty of sand. Not a place I'd care to go, too hot when it's cold, impossible when it's hot. I wouldn't care much for the food, either.
Ustinov did 6 Poirot movies:
Death On The Nile 1978
Evil Under The Sun 1982
Thirteen At Dinner 1985
Dead Man's Folly 1986
Murder In Three Acts 1986
Appointment At Death 1988
I thought all were entertaining and quite watchable, your enjoyment will depend on how much you like Peter Ustinov. I think he does fine. If you encountered David Suchet first you might find Peter a bit broader.
Scissorpenis 2018 Written and directed by Naoyuki Tomomatsu.
Wow. We weren't expecting that. There needs to be some fiery retribution from the flaming skull of Paul Naschy.
Out Of Order 1984 Written by Carl Schenkel and Frank Göhre, directed by Carl Schenkel. A West German crime drama set in the stalled elevator in an office building.
Four characters enter an elevator, the oldest guy just robbed his employer for over a half million, a couple who are lovers on the wain and a younger guy who stirs up trouble between them. Rather than wait for help they get active and things go south for them quickly. Someone's gonna die.
It's alright but not something I'd need to watch again.
The Spider Labyrinth 1988 Story by Tonino Cervi, screenplay by Riccardo Aragno, Cesare Frugoni and Gianfranco Manfredi, directed by Gianfranco Giagni. An Italian picture that's mostly shot in Budapest. We watched the Severin Blu-ray, it looked very nice.
Alan, an American history researcher from Dallas, is sent to Budapest to check up Professor Roth. In the opening sequence we see Alan as a boy being scared of a large spider. From the title you can guess that the film is filled with spider imagery. Alan is part of a large group of researchers working on an international project. Roth has stopped reporting in and Alan is sent to Budapest to see what's up with the Prof. As soon as Alan gets to the city strange things start happening involving spiders.
Poor Alan doesn't know the extent of the evil he's blundered into and he doesn't learn too fast. Even when he's warned he doesn't try to leave until it's too late. It has a very Giallo like look and feel. People on the IMDb compare it to work by Dario Argento. It's a bit slow to get going but once things start moving it's bad for Alan. Sadly, he does survive. He's part of the gang now.
There's plenty of interesting scenery, Budapest is an attractive city, very colorful. There's a good bit of gore and blood splashed about. It's more garish than realistic. The special effects are fairly good but but most of them are in the last half of the movie. There are some nice stop motion spiders. I enjoyed it and would watch it again sometime. Doubt if I'd buy a copy myself. You can download a copy of it on Rarelust.
Santet 1 1988 Directed by Sisworo Gautama Putra. There's no writer credited on the IMDb. An Indonesian film about murder and revenge and magic.
The head gangster owns the bar and brothel in a small town. He's an ugly fellow, his face is raved by drink. He decides to poison his wife as she's sick all the time. He blames the death on the village cleric. The gangster incites his men to beat the cleric and burn him alive. The cleric's wife Katemi runs off into the swamp where she encounters a witch who's half woman and half alligator. The witch gives Katimi some powers to get her revenge on and Katimi does the baddies up royally.
The effects are rather poorish but the enthusiasm of the movie more than makes up for it. I was entertained and would watch it again some time. We watched the new Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray and I laughed a lot. There's a sequel on the same disc.