PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

W 1983

W is a 1983 Filipino film about some scummy drug gang lords and the cops after them. Willy Milan wrote and directed. The film is also known as W Is War, W: La Vengeance Des Sauvages, Kersantti W - nykyajan Mad Max (Sergeant W - Modern Day Mad Max), Vendicator W, and Firestorm - Die letzte Schlacht.

That's all the baddies on the VHS cover. The head baddie is called Nosfero and he's the guy in the fancy uniform with the red sleeves. He has a pigtail growing out of the side of his bald head. He's a violent lunatic with a leather clad army of thugs. Don't worry, they're easily killed.

 

W in the title refers to W2, that's the code name of the cop investigating Nosfero. The drug gang have a base and that's eventually where W2 and the force attack. The first hour of the 90 min movie has various smaller encounters between the cops and the gang plus too much melodrama with W2 and his wife, the last half hour is nearly all battle time. That battle tries to capture the look of Mad Max 2 but doesn't quite pull it off. At least they have plenty of extras for the fight scenes. Lots of explosions too.

 

There's a link to the movie in the title above. You might get a kick out of it, for any number of reasons. I think it tries to emulate the over the top Hong Kong action crime films of the time but it's hasn't enough money or talent behind it. There were enough odd moments that it kept me going to the end. It's not available on DVD as far as I can see. There had been a VHS release, which is now pretty rare. I read of a DVD release but did not see any listed anywhere I normally look. The VHS isn't even listed on eBay. Luckily there are people who post such thing to YouTube and the like. It's often much better to see a movie before buying it. This is that sort of movie.

Friday Night Movies 767

First up is the 1982 film Parasite, it's directed by Charles Band from a script by Alan J Adler, Michael Shoob and Frank Levering. It's a bit in the future, the cities have some sort of corrupt government, but there's not much going on out in the country. A scientist, contaminated by a parasite in the work place, runs off into the desert. He stops at a small town and infests several of the townies before most everyone is killed. An agent of the gov is on his trail but like most everyone in the film, he's incompetant and winds up blown to pieces in the desert. Cherie Currie, of The Runaways fame, plays one of the locals, she dies too.

Robert Glaudini plays the scientist, he survives, and so does Demi Moore in one of her early roles. Sadly, it's not that good. I was getting dulled to sleep about the half way mark, it did pick up a bit after that. The actors are all over the place, quality wise, and they don't have much interesting dialog. Things the characters do, often make little sense. Stan Winston was one of three credited for the special effects, I don't know what he did, but hardly any of it was inspired. I'm not going to be picking up a copy, I had already downloaded a copy off of YouTube. That'll do if I ever want to see what happened again. I doubt that will come up anytime soon.

36.15 code Père Noël is a French film from 1989. It was released in the US as Game Over. It's very much like a creepy death-filled Home Alone, except it's much better. It's not really a comedy but I was getting some laughs. The writer and director is René Manzor, this is his second film and he's still at it. He directed an episode of Highlander and a couple of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles that were set in France. The rest of his work is mostly unfamiliar to me.

It's about a ten year old boy who believes in Santa. A crazy guy is fired at the kid's mom's store for being a slapping Santa. The Santa learns of a late delivery to the mom's house and he sneaks aboard the truck. He kills the driver and the caretakers before breaking into the mom's mansion. She owns a big store in Paris and it's the last shopping before Christmas so she's at work until late. It's the poor kid and his feeble grandpa that have to survive until someone comes to help.

It's nicely dark and there's a nice sense of humor. The acting was fairly good, especially the kid and the grandfather. I'd consider getting a copy but the DVD is only from Germany and $25 on Amazon. I wound up with a copy, not that great looking, from YouTube. You can see it in the link above. You might enjoy it.

Friday Night Movies 765

The VelociPastor is a 2018 movie about a priest who becomes a velociraptor and kills baddies. It was written and directed by Brendan Steere. I don't know who did the poster but the dino that the pastor turns into does not look like that. It looks like this.

Wow, just fuckin' wow! I guess you can't expect much with a $35,000 budget. In many ways it's a lot like a Troma release. Not always a bad thing. A good bit of the movie is shot in the woods, the same spot is used for modern day China, modern day USA and 1960s Vietnam. It's in China that the Pastor gets hold of the magical dinosaur tooth that turns him into a dino. It doesn't always turn him into the complete creature, often it's just his hands that turn into claws. Still fine for killing scum.

The Pastor joins up with a prostitute to wipe out criminals and the police are on their trail. There's plenty of running about and yelling, some bad fights and worse dialog. It's got a bit of good sense of humor but not enough to make me like the movie more than a 5 on the IMDb. That's being a bit generous, as I did get a few laughs from the movie's more ludicrous moments. Unintentional laughs but you take what you can get. You can see it's IMDb score of 5.9 is heavily skewed by the 20% of the users that voted it a 10. Are they deluded or are they the director and his pals? Not one I would pick up.

Dangerous Men is another that I'm going to skip on picking up for myself. It's a movie that was made back in 1984 and it had a showing in 1985. The film maker John S Rad edited it for 20 years before finally releasing it in 2005. Rad rented 5 theaters in LA for a week and the ticket sales were $2238. John is really Jahangir Salehi Yeganehrad, he produced, wrote, directed, co-edited the movie, and wrote the music. It got a video release in 2015 but John had passed away 8 years before.

It's a crime movie, with a rape revenge sort of story. Melody Wiggins and Coti Cook play a young couple, they're on the beach when they encounter a couple of bikers. The bikers plan to rape Melody but Coti puts up a fight and kills one of the bikers. The other biker kills Coti and distraught over his friend starts to walk away. Melody runs after him, convincing him to take her with him. She convinces him she wants a real man and he takes her along to a motel. She fucks him up good with a steak knife. On the run Melody gets a ride from an older guy who tries to rape her in the desert. She gets the advantage, strips him of his clothes and leaves him naked in the desert. The movie cuts back and forth between Melody and the naked guy int he desert for a quite a while. He's lucky to only get a sunburn on his nob. He could have been leaving other fluids on the desert.

Melody picks up a prostitute and pumps her for info on the dangerous streets and people. She kills some johns and a pimp. The cop is still on her trail. She's eventually arrested in a park and doesn't appear in the rest of the film. The action follows the cop as he busts a white biker named Black Pepper. It ends in a clumsy way.

The whole movie is just generally clumsy, poor dialog, story elements that make little sense, goofy music, bad acting, crappy fight scenes, all the sort of things that make people laugh at this non-comedy. The IMDb Trivia page has some interesting tidbits.

Jahangir Salehi died in 2007 and never lived to see the movie receive a full national distribution from Drafthouse Films in 2015. However, his daughter, when later interviewed, said she was not sure he would have understood the film's place as a "so bad it's good" movie. At a midnight screening he was able to attend before his death, he referred to everyone laughing in the theater as "just a bunch of drunk people."

The car which is pushed down into a gorge belonged to Jahangir Salehi's daughter. Even though she had paid for the car herself, Jahangir took the car without her permission and only told her she would never see it again. It wasn't until 20 years later when she saw the film that she learned what had happened to it.

Melody Wiggins, who plays Mina, the would-be main character, broke her leg during filming in the 1980s and refused to return to production after Jahangir Salehi would not cover any of her medical expenses.

Sadly it's just not good enough to enjoy much. How sadly deluded the director must have been. It gets a 4.4 on the IMDb and that seems high to me. I gave it a 3. You can see a copy on YouTube in the link in the title above.

Cobra 1986

Someone was nice enough to lend me a copy of the Shout Factory Blu-ray of Cobra, the 1986 Sylvester Stallone action film. Sylvester wrote the screenplay, sort of basing it on a Paula Gosling novel called Fair Game. George P Cosmatos is the director. The Blu-ray came out last January and it looks pretty good. I'm pretty sure I hadn't seen the movie. I wasn't watching a lot of action films in the 80s, trips to the theater were limited and there was someone else to help pick the films.

Sylvester is a cop in LA, Bridgette Nielsen is a model that witnesses a murder. Brian Thompson plays the murderer, dubbed the Night Slasher, he's killed at least 16 people when we meet him. The Night Slasher and his minions come after her. Sylvester is put in charge of keeping Bridgette safe. He's got Reni Santoni and Lee Garlington on his team. We know Lee is secretly part of the Night Slasher's gang. They are a bunch of shit bags who believe they are meant to kill the weak. They mostly die like they are the weak ones. The body count is huge, well over 50 people take a dirt nap. It was picked on for being too violent but people put asses in seats to the tune of $160 million. The film cost $25 million.

I enjoyed it and would pick one up if it gets cheaper. There's a commentary with the director that wasn't too bad. There are interviews with the cast and a vintage featurette that were OK. The only thing that I didn't like much was the soundtrack, I sure didn't care for some of that 80s pop.

Hanna D: The Girl From Vondel Park 1984

Hanna D: The Girl From Vondel Park is a 1984 Italian exploitation movie that was filmed in Amsterdam. Rino Di Silvestro is the director and he co-wrote the script with Hervé Piccini. It's a bit of sleaze about a woman who gets hooked on heroin and turns to prostitution. There's plenty of nudity, hookers, scumbags, filthy streets and a good level of general sleaziness. There's just nothing special about it, an average bit of tat.

Flesh And Bullets 1985

Flesh And Bullets is a 1985 Carlos Tabolina film that borrows heavily from Strangers On A Train. It's one of the films in the Vinegar Syndrome 5 Films 5 Years Blu-ray set. Carlos directed nearly 50 films in his career, most of them porn, but this is a light hearted romantic crime film with some nudity. I just picked up a couple of Carlos's other pictures, both with John Holmes as Casanova, and hope to get to them soon. I also have Sexual Kung Fu In Hong Kong on another set to watch. Eventually.

A couple of guys meet in a bar in Las Vegas. They're both broke because of alimony and child support. They plot to kill each other's wives but wind up falling for them. Other things complicate the plot but it all works out in the end. There are small parts for Yvonne De Carlo, Aldo Ray, Cesar Romero, Cornel Wilde, Robert Z'dar and Colleen Brennan.

It was sort of funny but not too funny. It might be the most amiable film in the set but it's still below average. You can see if you like it much by clicking on the link to the film on YouTube.

Cheerleaders Wild Weekend 1979

Cheerleaders Wild Weekend is a 1979 Kristine DeBell movie. D W Gilbert and Jason Williams wrote the screenplay and Jeff Werner directed. Jason Williams played the main character in Flesh Gordon, a naughty version of Flash Gordon. He plays one of the kidnappers in CWW and the White Knight in Alice In Wonderland: An X-Rated Musical Fantasy. The latter is Kristine DeBell's first movie and though it was released as an R rated film at first, Producer Bill Osco put the hardcore scenes back into the film and released it again. It's been on DVD and Blu-ray but it seems to go out of print quickly. Kristine was only did the one hardcore film and then managed to slip into film and TV without much trouble. She appeared with Jackie Chan in Battle Creek Brawl.

Cheerleaders Wild Weekend is about the kidnapping of some cheerleaders. Jason Williams plays the head of the gang and Kristine is one of the nice cheerleaders. Unlike most of the other cheerleaders she keeps her clothes on during the movie. Kristine has a commentary and an interview on the disc where she mentions she had a no nudity clause in her contract. There's still plenty of other nudity. Good thing, it's not that great a movie.

The baddies keep the girls hidden in a cabin in the woods. They want 2 million smackaroonies for the girls. Jason has an elaborate plan for the transfer of the money that works pretty well. If the cops are any slower on the uptake they would have caught Jason and his pal as they ran off. I enjoyed it but wasn't impressed at the film making etc. It's all pretty average or below. I gave it a 4 and that's kind of generous. Still, I got a laugh or two.

Friday Night Movies 700

First up is Deadly Dreams, a 1988 psychological thriller, written by Thom Babbes and directed by Kristine Petersen. Thom has a part in the film but his script is a bit whiffy. A young boy sees his parents killed by a man the father wronged in business. The boy grows up and still has issues about the death of his parents. He meets a young woman and they start a relationship. All the while he keeps having nightmares and seeing things that others aren't seeing. It gets worse and worse as the movie progresses then it turns out to have a greedy mundane reason at the back of it. Not bad, certainly not great, it gets a bit tedious for a while in the middle. Luckily, it gets riled up for as while as it comes to a conclusion. I wouldn't much feel the need to pick up a copy.

Our second feature was Cathy's Curse, a 1977 horror film that was funded by France and Canada. It was filmed in Westmount suburb of Montreal. The richest suburb in Canada at one point. A family move into a nice big house that used to belong to the dad's father. The little girl gets possessed by the spirit of a long dead girl who died in a fire. I didn't find it was keeping my attention in the middle there. The effects make up is pretty weak. Just all in all a movie that deserves a below average score on the IMDb. Some say it's so bad, it's good. That's crap. It's just a dull possession movie with so-so actors and a weak script. I'm not going to seek out a copy, that's for sure.

4 Cult Movie Marathon Volume 2

4 Cult Movie Marathon Volume 2 is a Shout Factory produced dog's breakfast of films. A cycle movie, a sex comedy and a couple of women in prison films. I guess slapping Cult on a set is all you need to do when you find you're running out of the ability to create themed sets.

Angels From Hell is a 1968 biker movie written by Jerry Wish and directed by Bruce Kessler. An ex-Vietnam vet returns home to find his old gang holed up in Bakersfield with a new leader. He beats the guy down and then goes up against the police force. It all ends badly for the bikers, they are a stupid lot, but who cares, they deserve punishment for their stupidity. It's all similar to other biker movies you've seen. The script has poor dialog at times. I gave it a 5 but it's barely worth it. The opening credits are by Von Dutch but it sure isn't his best work.

Chatterbox is a 1977 film about a gal who wakes up with a talking vagina. She turns it into a stage act and has some relationship problems. It's kind of funny and Candice Rialson gets naked a lot.

The Naked Cage is a 1986 movie about a young woman who gets involved with a robbery and winds up serving 3 years in prison. Then it's girl fights all the time. Nothing new here, really.

Savage Island is a 1985 movie that has Linda Blair show up at an old man's place and tell him a story. The movie shows you the story but Linda isn't in that part of the movie. She ends the story and blasts the old man. The old man is Leon Askin who played General Burkhalter on Hogan's Heroes. Here's an entry from the IMDb that explains what happened.

This "new movie" was cobbled together from scenes of both Hotel Paradise (1980) and Escape From Hell (1980) with 10 minutes of new additional footage featuring Linda Blair. The result was an incoherent movie featuring some of the same actors who appeared in both earlier movies disappearing and reappearing as different characters at different points in the story.

It's all the fault of Ted Nicolaou who is a pretty poor film maker on average. He directed 4 Subspecies films. It's pretty much the poorest movie of the lot. Not a real recommendation unless you've seen most everything already.

Loophole 1981

Loophole is a 1981 British heist film. It's based on a novel by Robert Pollock, Jonathan Hales wrote the screenplay and John Quested is the director. Martin Sheen is an architect that loses his job at the start of the film. He's having trouble getting hired when Albert Finney gives him a job redesigning a commercial building. As he progresses it becomes obvious that they aren't renovating. Albert and his team, including Colin Blakely and Jonathan Pryce, are planning to break into a bank across the street. Martin needs the money, Suzanna York plays his wife and she's got some costly plans going on, Robert Morley is his banker and he wants to get paid for the loans he floated. The robbery goes on and the tunnels get dug. It's a bit pokey but mostly entertaining. It gets a 5.9 on the IMDb and I gave it a 6.  I bought a copy cheap somewhere and I'll keep it to watch again.