PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 1004

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maigret 1988

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

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.

Friday Night Movies 987

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.

Friday Night Movies 980

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.

Friday Night Movies 975

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

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

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

There's an info packed commentary by Frank Djeng.

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

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

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

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

The Eurocrypt of Christopher Lee Collection 2

The Eurocrypt of Christopher Lee Collection 2 There are 6 Blu-ray discs and a soundtrack CD in the set.

Uncle Was A Vampire 1959 Story and screenplay by Edoardo Anton, Marcello Fondato, Sandro Continenza, Dino Verde, Steno and Renato Rascel, directed by Steno. 

Baron Osvaldo Lambertenghi is up to his ears in debt, he has to sell his castle to a hotel chain, they give him some money, he gives it to the government for his taxes and the hotel manager gives him a bellhop job. Osvaldo's uncle Baron Roderico da Frankurten (Christopher Lee) shows up expecting to stay at the castle. Baron Frankurten doesn't show up for a good while and then isn't in much of the movie after that.

Osvaldo gets bitten by his uncle and goes on a biting spree. Instead of killing his victims, all lovely ladies at the hotel, he manages to get 42 women to fall under his spell. The husbands and boyfriends of the ladies start chasing him around with stakes. Lucky for him the curse can be lifted and most everyone gets back to normal.

It's got a big mess for a plot and it's rather lacking in good gags to carry us along to the end. It's like a sex farce with vampires but no nudity. I'd give it a 5 if it had the jokes to go along with the story but I had to take a point off for that. Lee doesn't have much to do when he's on the screen. Hope he got paid well.

The disc has some extras: Interview with European film historian Dr Pasqule Iannone, an alternate cut from an Italian broadcast master, alternate cut commentary with Christopher Lee biographer Jonathan Rigby and Hammer historian Kevin Lyons.

The Secret Of The Red Orchid 1962 Based on an Edgar Wallace novel, screenplay by Egon Eis, directed by Helmut Ashley. Another Rialto film production shot in Hamburg with location shooting in London and Cuxhaven Harbour. 

Gangsters from Chicago bring their typewriters to London and blast their way into society. Their demand is simple, pay up or die. Klaus Kinski and Eric Pohlmann play rival hoods from the Windy City. Their brutal methods don't go unnoticed.

Christopher Lee plays an American FBI agent sent to help Scotland Yard. Christopher spoke German in the German release and his voice was dubbed by someone else in the English release. Go figure. Adrian Hoven plays Scotland Yard Inspector Weston and Eddi Aren't plays a comical butler.

It seems a bit slow at times but there is a fair bit of action and a few laughs. I enjoyed it. The Blu-ray looks pretty good and there are some extras. There are two commentaries, one by Nathaniel Thompson and Troy Howarth and a second one by Kim Newman & Barry Forshaw, both were fairly interesting. The only other extra was a trailer.

Dark Places 1973 Written by Ed Brennan and Joseph Van Wrinkle, directed by Don Sharp.

Edward inherits a house that's said to be haunted. Christopher Lee plays Dr Mandeville, he was the dead man's doctor, he's looking for two suitcases of case hidden in the house, his sister Sarah is helping. Herbert Lom plays the dead guys lawyer Mr Prescott, he's looking for the money too.

Edward starts hearing noises in the house, he also gets visions of the dead man's life. The dead man had a wife and two children, he was planning to leave them for his mistress. The wife got her psychotic children to murder the mistress. The dead guy killed his wife and children and bricked them all up in the house with the cases of cash and the mistress.

Edward goes off the deep end and kills most everyone left. The The police arrive to arrest him, they recover the cash.

It was mostly entertaining but only about average. There's a commentary by Nathaniel Thompson & Troy Howarth, an interview with Jonathan Rigby, a trailer and a TV spot.

Dracula And Son 1976 Based on a 1975 novel by Claude Klotz, screenplay by Alain Godard, Jean-Marie Poiré and Édouard Molinaro, directed by Édouard Molinaro.

Christopher Lee is Dracula and Bernard Menez is his son Ferdinand. In this universe vampires can breed with humans so Dracula can have a son. The mother dies after Ferdinand is born and he's raised in Dracula's castle in Transylvania.

They're in the castle for a number of years and Ferdinand shows little sign of being a blood sucker like daddy. He's a grown man when WW2 breaks out. Father and son escape but their caskets are thrown into the sea. Dracula winds up London and Ferdinand winds up in Paris.

Years pass and it's modern day, Dracula gets hired to play a vampire in a movie, he becomes famous overnight. Ferdinand sees him on the TV and they are reunited. Ferdinand still doesn't want to be a vampire and he's fallen for a lady.

There's a bit of friction when it turns out Dracula knew her and had his eye on her. It'll all work itself out fairly well.There's a happy ending for our boy Ferdinand but hardly one for his dad.

It's fun to look at, plenty of nice locations and sets. The script isn't great, a lot of the jokes are pretty goofy, but I had a few laughs and was glad to have seen it. I might even want to watch it again someday.

There's a separate disc for the US release. The US producers hacked the movie up and poorly dubbed the film before release. It's painful to watch. I can see why people didn't care for the movie in the US. There's a separate disc for the soundtrack.

The extras are fairly numerous: a commentary by Jonathan Rigby & Kevin Lyons, another with Kat Ellinger, interviews with Bernard Menez, Christopher Lee, Édouard Molinaro and Claude Klotz. There's a trailer, a TV spot and German credit sequences.

MURDER STORY 1988 Written and directed by Eddie Arno & Markus Innocenti. A Dutch British production.

Christopher Lee is a mystery writer and Alexis Denisof wants to write a mystery novel. He picks Chris's brain for plot ideas. Somehow they get involved with some bad men covering up some criminal activities. Poor Chris doesn't last too long and they're after Alexis.

It was a bit above average and I enjoyed it enough to want to watch it again someday.

There's a commentary with Eddie and Markus, an interview with producer Tom Reeve and a trailer.

Mask Of Murder 1988 Written by Volodja Semitjov and directed by Arne Mattsson. There's very little Christopher Lee in this Swedish film. It's supposed to be set in Canada but it's Sweden.

Christopher Lee plays the police chief, he gets shot at some point and doesn't appear in most of the film. Rod Taylor is a cop who goes crazy when his wife leaves him. He starts murdering.

It's watchable but it's all pretty below average, it might be a while before I ever watch it again.

Friday Night Movies 957

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Friday Night Movies 955

Psycho Girls 1986 Written by Michael Bockner and Jerry Ciccoritti, directed by Jerry Ciccoritti. We watched the Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray. It's the first film for Jerry, a Canadian director who mostly worked in TV for the rest of his career.

Nothing to good to say about Pyscho Girls, it's mix of boredom and unpleasant torture crap, I didn't care for at all.

Kamikaze 1986 Written by Didier Grousset and Luc Besson, directed by Didier Grousset.

A horrible scientist invents a device that can send a ray into his TV and kill the person in front of the TV camera. It only works when the person is live on TV. The police are on his trail and other science guys have invented a device that can fire back at him. The horrible guy kills several TV Presenters and the couple he lives with, they were his relatives and he didn't like them. He's just an unpleasant man who needs to be wiped out.

It was better than the previous movie but still not something I would rewatch too often.

Friday Night Movies 950

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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