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.