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.

Friday Night Movies 938

Project Gutenberg 2018 Written and directed by Felix Chong.

Aaron Kwok is a counterfeiter who reveals his story to the police. Aaron says he was recruited by the mysterious man called the Painter. Big money is a good lure and Aaron creates a really good counterfeit $100 US bill. The Painter is a violent man who murders a lot of people while obtaining the materials he needs to print the bills. There's a lot of time devoted to Aaron's relationship with an artist called Yuen Man. It's hard to keep a relationship going when you're a criminal.

It's a 130 min movie that moves at a crawl. They spend a long time describing the counterfeiting process in minute detail. There's a complicated story that turns out to be partially a lie. It gets a bit like The Usual Suspects with a big lie on top of some facts. I liked it some but not enough to run out and buy a copy. An Asian DVD is about 20 bucks on eBay and the Blu-ray is $40 to $75. It's on Amazon Prime for free with membership. You can also see a good copy on YouTube, link above.

To Sleep So As T0 Dream 1986 Written and directed by Kaizô Hayashi. First movie by the writer director. I've not seen any of his other films. We watched the Blu-ray.

Two private eyes get hired to look for a woman. That's about the extent of normal in the film. It's complicated and fairly interesting but hard to describe without many words, that seems wrong for a mostly silent movie. You can see a copy on YouTube, it's a bit dark but you can figure what's going on fine. I might watch it again, at 1.5 speed, but I'm not going to buy the Blu-ray.

Friday Night Movies 928

Frostbiter: The Wrath Of Wendigo 1996 Written and directed by Tom Chaney. Troma released the film and put it out on DVD. We watched the new Blu-ray from Vinegar Syndrome. Chaney was highly influenced by Sam Raimi's Evil Dead.

A couple of hunters go nuts on an island off Northern Michigan. One of the hunters kills the guardian of the Wendigo and destroys the circle of protection that traps the Wendigo. The beast kills most everyone but one strong lady becomes the new guardian and she puts the beast back in it's hole.

It's pretty low-budget and goofy, there were some laughs and some gory bits. I'd watch it again but I doubt I'd buy a copy.

Mindfield 1989 Based on a novel by William Deverell, screenplay by William Deverell, Tom Berry and George Mihalka, directed by Jean-Claude Lord.

Michael Ironside is a cop in a city in Canada. He's got some mental issues from being experimented on when he was a teenager. Christopher Plummer plays the scientist who did the experimenting. Years pass and a shootout with a criminal triggers the memory. He gets some help from a lady and there's a bit of romance. Eventually Michael figures out who needs killing and takes care of them.

Fairly good but not much more than average. There's a dull part about an hour in, the action picks up for the ending. Enjoyed watching, wouldn't need to see it again.

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.

Friday Night Movies 894

Scared To Death 1980 Story by William Malone and Robert Short, screenplay and direction by William Malone. Malone started doing makeup and costuming for Don Post Studios. This is his first picture, he'd go on to direct Creature in 1985 and 5 other pictures including the 1999 remake of House On Haunted Hill. He hasn't made a film since 2008.

There's a serial killer stalking the streets of Los Angeles. When we drop into the story about the time of victim number 12's murder. The police aren't getting any good clues from the crime scenes, the mayor and the newspapers are hounding the Chief. Detective Lou Capell gets some pressure from his boss. Lou wants to bring an ex-cop into the mix but the Chief is against it. The ex-cop is a guy called Ted, he had a drinking problem and now writes novels.

In a clumsy, poorly written scene we meet Jennifer, she's Ted's romantic interest. They get involved with each other as the movie progresses, eventually they join Lou in the search for the killer. Sometime along the way we learn that it's some sort of humanoid monster doing the killing. They get a substantial bit of help from one of the scientist's at a bio-lab and it's revealed that the creature is a bio-engineered thing called a Syngenor. It's one of those hard to kill warrior beasts scientist's are always making in movies and it takes a bit to put the creature down.

It would be an OK monster movie except for two big stumbling blocks, the script and the music. The script is poor and the actors can't do much with it. The actors aren't a stellar lot but they get their lines out. The music is annoying and way too loud some of the time. The Syngenor creature is a fairly well made suit. Ten years later another producer used the suit for his picture Syngenor. Like Scared To Death it's kind of a poor film. Both films have a score of 4.2 on the IMDb. I gave Syngenor a 3 some years ago and I gave Scared To Death a 4 last night. I must be getting soft headed in my old age. You can check them both out on YouTube, links above.

Last Night In Soho 2021 Story by Edgar Wright, screenplay by Edgar Wright and Krysty Wilson-Caims, directed by Edgar Wright. It was the last film for Diana Rigg and Margaret Nolan, both of whom passed away in 2020. Margaret played the gold covered woman in the credits to Goldfinger and Diana played Mrs Peel.

Ellie Turner leaves Cornwall for London to attend the London College Of Fashion. She wants to be a clothing designer. She's heavily into 60s style and music. Her roommate is a jerk so she leaves the dorm and takes a small flat on the top of an old house owned by Ms Collins, played by Diana Rigg. Ms Collins is old enough to have lived in the 60s.

Ellie starts having visions of a young woman from the 60s called Sandie who wanted to be a singer but wound up in the clutches of a creep called Jack. Matt Smith plays Jack and he makes a good spiv. In his first scenes Jack seems like a nice guy who likes a bit of fun, soon his darker exploitative side takes control. Next thing you know Sophie is a prostitute working for Jack and his pals.

Ellie follows Sandie's life and finds that she lived int he flat Ellie is in now. She sees Jack murder Sandie there but can't find anything about the murder in the newspapers. She does find there have been a lot of missing men in the Soho area. We'll find out where they've gone soon enough. Ellie's a poor detective, she misreads what's presented to her, at one point she accuses an old bar fly of being Jack but she soon finds out he was a copper who tried to help some of the local gals. If only she had talked to more people about what was going on, she might not have gotten so far off the track.

The story is jazzed up with flashy camera work and musical numbers. I did like the old 60s songs in the soundtrack. I knew most of them from my youth. I didn't care for the noisy music when the movie thought something was happening. It seems overly long, repetitive and kind of self indulgent. There's a decent twisty bit at the end and things work out for Ellie at fashion school.

I still enjoyed it, gave it a 7 on the IMDb and have put the Blu-ray on my Wishlist. It's hard to know if you would like it, it did poorly at the box office, raising $23 mil on a $43 mil budget.

Friday Night Movies 890

Strangler Vs Strangler 1984 Written and directed by Slobodan Šijan. A dark Serbian comedy about madness and strangling. We watched the Mondo Macabro Blu-ray that's coming out mid June.

The guy with the eyes is Pera the carnation seller. He goes about Belgrade with his basket of flowers and tries to sell them. Sadly the carnation has gone out of favor with the younger crowd. He doesn't sell out and on returning home he has to face his domineering mother. They have quite the life together. It's filled with yelling and hitting. Mama is a monster, it's no wonder that Pera cracks and starts strangling those that spurn his flowers.

The guy with the glasses is a musician, he's penned a song about the strangler and it's become a local sensation. Even Pera likes it, mama doesn't, so Pera strangles her too. The guy with the little mustache is the police detective on the strangler's trail. He's not having any luck getting any leads and it's slowly driving him bonkers. The local host of a popular music show gets tossed into this mess when she has the musician on her show.

It all comes to a head one evening and just about everyone gets strangled. Even the detective's cat gets strangled. Despite that I was laughing much of the way through it. It's a film filled with chaos and I enjoyed that well enough. I'm debating getting a copy. You can pre-order it from Deep Discount for about 22 smackaroonies, it's 30 bucks on Amazon right now.

Riders Of the Whistling Skull 1937 Based on a novel by William Colt MacDonald, original story by Oliver rake and Bernard McConville, screenplay by Oliver Drake and John Rathmell, directed by Mack V Wright.

A part of the Three Mesquiteers series from Republic. There were 51 films in the series with various actors in playing the Three Mesquiteers, including John Wayne for 8 films. Bob Steele, Rufe Davis, Jimmie Dodd, Sid Saylor and Tom Tyler also were part of the trio. I'd seen several of the series, including this one, back in 2010 but I've pretty much forgotten what they were all about. I watched about 350 westerns that year but I didn't blog about many of them.

For this film we've got Ray Crash Corrigan, Max Terhune and Robert Livingstone from left to right.

With a plot that seems right out of King Solomon's Mines, a young woman asks the Three Mesquiteers to help find her father. He's gone deep into the mountains where a dangerous tribe lives. He was looking for the lost city of Lukachukai. One of the men from the expedition arrives with news. They'd found the lost city but got captured by the local natives. Her father hid some of the treasure and made a map. The man drops dead.

The trio lead an expedition to the area and they find the natives hostile. Several people are killed before the locals are slaughtered. There's all the usual horse riding, gun shooting and punch ups you'd expect plus a little bit of torture, some music and a few gags. I enjoyed it but agreed that they were kind of weak on the lost city. It was a skull on the side of a mountain and a cave. We all liked the skull matte painting. Who wouldn't want that for a place to hang out. You can watch the film on YouTube, link above.

 

Attack Of The Undead is a short film by Michael and Peter Spierig. It was included on the Umbrella Blu-ray for their 2003 zombie film Undead. That was a fairly decent film that we watched at FNM night in 2006. This movie has a similar plot and characters but is only 37 mins. It was fairly entertaining but vastly inferior to the feature film. Good extra for the Blu-ray.

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.

Ten Little Indians 1989

Ten Little Indians 1989 Based on the Agatha Christie novel And There Were None, screenplay by Jackson Hunsicker and Gerry O'Hara, directed by Alan Birkinshaw, produced by Harry Allan Towers. A Cannon Films release that only became available on DVD and Blu-ray last year, it had been released on VHS and Laserdisc in the past.

This time the setting is the African jungle and everyone is thinking they are on a safari. The IMDb trivia page says producer Harry Alan Tower changed the setting in the original script, the usual island setting, to Africa because it was cheaper to shoot there. Other than a few minor changes to the characters, Brenda's character is now a lesbian, the story is pretty much the same. As you'd expect they are picked off one at a time and the little Indian statues have their heads broken off by the mysterious Mr Owen.

The cast includes Donald Pleasence, Frank Stallone, Sarah Maur Thorp, Brenda Vaccaro, Herbert Lom, Warren Berlinger, Yehuda Efroni, Paul L Smith, Moira Lister and Neil McCarthy. Herbert played the Doctor in the 1974 film adaptation of the story.

I thought it was barely average and it's the least interesting of the versions of the story that I've seen. The Wikipedia lists 25 different TV and film productions, there's even an adult version, but I've only seen 7 of them. I thought this version might have been made for TV, it almost seems like that level of production, typical of Cannon Films. Lucky for me there are some better versions.

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 855

Deep Space 1988 Screenplay by Fred Olen Ray and T L Lankford, directed by Fred Olen Ray.

Charles Napier is a tough LAPD detective who's partnered with Ron Glass. Norman Burton is a General who's in charge of a secret government experiment to build a biological weapon, it's being stored in a secret satellite that's just crashed near LA. The creature was dormant but that doesn't last long and a couple of teens are ripped apart by it's tentacles.

Charles and Ron stop at the crash site, they steal a couple of small organic pods and take them home. The pods release murderous critters and poor Ron doesn't get to the end of the movie. There's a government agent who's had Charles pulled from the investigation. Bo Svenson plays the precinct captain and Ann Turkel plays the police lady that's Charles romantic interest.

Being off the case isn't enough to keep Charles from going after the creatures. Julie Newmar plays a psychic who keeps calling Charles, she's psychically linked to the creature. She literally phones in all her lines. Really, all her scenes are done in one location and she never appears with anyone else. She's only there to get Bo to the creature. During all this the first creature had escaped into LA's warehouse district and grown a huge number of teeth. It kills several people before Bo and Ann put an end it.

It's all pretty much average tough cop versus monsters stuff. Fred manages to cobble together a film but there's little original in it. It's got some action, some monsters, some humor, some gore, some romance, some bits were entertaining but some bits were a mite cringe worthy. To me some of the plot choices Fred makes are clumsy, even lazy. You can see a decent enough copy on YouTube in the title above. I wouldn't recommend it, better to rewatch a good SF monster movie, like Alien or Predator, they're more entertaining. They have better monsters too.

Tough Guys Don't Dance 1987 Based on the Norman Mailer novel of the same name, screenplay by Norman Mailer and an uncredited Robert Towne, directed by Norman Mailer. The last of four films Norman directed, he directed 2 in 1968 and 1 in 1970. I've seen none of them.

Ryan O'Neal is a would be writer, an ex-con drug dealer, and a heavy drinker. He wakes to find his father in the kitchen. Lawrence Tierney plays the father. He's got cancer and will die soon. Ryan tells him a long involved take about his wife leaving him before we get back to the present.

There are a pile of characters in that small eastern seaside town. Wings Hauser in the police chief, Isabella Rosselini is his wife and Neil's old girlfriend. Back when they were together he answered a wife swapping ad, they met up with some hillbillies played by Penn Jillette and Debra Sandlund. Debra is impressed with Ryan's bedroom skills and his desire to be a writer, she vows to get rich and support him. On the way back home to New York Ryan and Isabella fight and crash the car. She loses the baby she was carrying and the couple go their separate ways.

Ryan deals drugs and spends 3 years in jail. After he's out Debra comes back into his life, she's married rich and now she's got some cash to support him in his writing. Her rich husband is a guy Ryan used to know from prep-school. He's got a plan to make big cash form dealing cocaine. He's already got $100 mill, he just wants some kicks. Ryan and Debra don't last as a couple and she disappears. It just goes downhill for him after that. Things get so complicated that people start dying. A lot of bodies go into the ocean before the end of the movie.

It's an odd film and it made me think David Lynch. Someone else mentioned thinking similar thoughts. It came out the year after Blue Velvet and it has an oddness like that film, it's just not anywhere near as good. It made no money, earning barely back 20% of it's $5 mill budget and it has become a cult film of sorts. The kind that people laugh at, I suspect.

On the plus side it's got some entertaining characters, especially Wings Hauser as the police captain. He's a delightful maniac but he's so fragile that the death of Ryan's wife, she was also Wing's lover, gives him a stroke, leaving him a gibbering idiot. A nod to Lawrence Tierney, he was quite good, Tarantino saw him in this and hired him for Reservoir Dogs. He was even better in that. It's got laughs, some intentional, some not. It won Norman a Golden Raspberry Award for worst director. It was being marketed as a film noir murder mystery, when the negative reviews started Norman tried to make like the movie was a parody of the genre. No matter which version it is, it's still not that good a film. I was glad to have seen it, it has a certain uniqueness, I wouldn't need to buy a copy, I doubt I'd need to see it again.