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 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.

Alien Space Avenger 1989

Alien Space Avenger 1989 Screenplay by Richard W Haines and Lynwood Shiva Sawyer with help from Leslie Delano, Brad Dunker and Kay Gelfman, directed by Richard W Haines. Five writers couldn't come up with a good script. How sad is that?

The main plot has 4 aliens come to Earth in the 1930s. Their ship crashes and they need some uranium to re-power their spaceship. The aliens take over human bodies and start killing people to get what they want. During a shoot out in a bar one of the bodies is shot. The aliens run away and hide in their ship for 50 years. Exiting in 1989 they encounter life in New York City. The aliens gather weapons and plan a raid on a power plant for the uranium.

There's a sub plot about a comic book writer and his girlfriend. Sadly he's the main character in the movie. He's the sort of idiot who would leave his girlfriend in the middle of sex to touch up his comic art. In the best bit of the movie she leaves him but some bad writing brings them back together.

Art boy sees the aliens in a bar in their 30s clothes and imagines that they're aliens who have come from the 1930s to steal uranium. He draws the comic and gets it on the drug store comic racks in a few days. Obviously Richard and his gang of scribes don't know anything about comic book production and distribution.

The aliens see the comic book and decide to go after the artist. There's plenty of chasing about, fist fights and gun shooting. Another alien comes to Earth and takes over the artist's girlfriend, turning her into a well trained fighter. She gets a bunch of guns and grenades and goes after the aliens. She beats their asses.

It's the kind of movie you'd expect from Troma but just not as good. Occasionally there's a bit of a laugh but more often I was laughing at their shoddy work not some good gags. Certainly something I wouldn't have needed to see, I guess that makes me glad I found it on the internet.

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 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 887

Alien Private Eye 1989 Written and directed by Vik Rubenfeld, he was also the casting director and film editor. It's his only movie, the IMDb lists him as one of the creators of the TV show Early Edition, he's credited with writing one episode. I never watched that show more than a handful of times, so it's doubtful that I saw his episode. Up until right now the movie has only been available on VHS. You can see a poor copy on YouTube, see link above. The movie looks much better on the Severin Blu-ray.

The story revolves around the possession of a special disc that fell to Earth. A crook figured out it was a drug dispenser and he's been selling the highly addictive product in LA. An alien private eye is on Earth, he helps a woman being mistreated by some thugs and winds up in the middle of a mess. She's got one half the disc and the crooks have the other half.

There's plenty of chasing about with a few punch up and gun fights. Sadly they're so ludicrously staged. The car chase and subsequent crashes? Embarrassing. The whole movie is like that. Clumsy script and inept cast. Makes a combo for laughter. Sadly Vik's intended humor isn't cutting it. All in all a good film to have seen but one that wasn't as enjoyable as one might have hoped. Not going on my To Buy List.

Tokyo 10+01 2003 Written and directed by Higuchinsky. Another one that I won't be adding to my To Buy List. It's a comical sort of parody that people doing IMDb reviews think is of Battle Royale but it seems more like it's parodying The Running Man. The filmmakers make references to BR in the beginning of the film but that soon falls by the wayside as the contestants start running about. Was The Running Man released to long ago for the commenters to know about. Could be but who knows. Hopefully, I'll have forgotten about the film be tomorrow.

Eleven criminals are drugged and fitted with a poison timer bracelet. They wake up in a warehouse in a shitty part of town. They have 11 hours to get to the Baron's mansion. Then they'll be safe, they'll win a cash prize, get their record wiped clean and the poison dispensing tracker bracelet will be deactivated. A lot to play for.

Most of the contestants are pretty annoying and I didn't care much for them. In fact it was nice to see them get picked off one by one or in a small group. There's plenty of running about and yelling but not much else going on of interest. The poor DVD mastering didn't help either. Ultimately it was disappointing and not one I need to see again.

Friday Night Movies 877

The Dark Side Of The Moon 1990 Written by Carey Hayes and Chad Hayes, directed by D J Webster. While watching it I didn't realize I'd seen it a couple of years ago. I watched it on Amazon Prime and posted on a Science Fiction Sunday post in 2020. I gave it a 5 on the IMDb, I'm now thinking of changing it to a 4, obviously it's very forgettable, nothing stood out at all, not even the sexy robot.

It's a horror film set in space that ties the Devil to the Bermuda Triangle. The crew of a ship runs out of power and is heading for the surface of the moon.They find a NASA space shuttle floating in space but Nasa has been defunct for 30 years. Thinking they might find parts to fix their ship they board the shuttle only to find the Devil.

That lady in the photo is a robot that sits in a chair, a robot with a pushup bra and cleavage, who never leaves the chair. You'd think if you hired a lady to play a hot robot you'd have her running about, slowing off that skintight suit. She's not even strong enough to prevent having her head blown off. It's just one of the many poorly written bits in the show. The whole idea that the Devil's been waiting in a shuttle for years is pretty ludicrous. Same with the link between the Bermuda Triangle on Earth and a similar shaped space on the dark side of the moon. In a graphic they show the moon and the Earth and draw lines between the two triangle's points, like they are aligned. It gets even more embarrassingly complicated as the writers try to build their story.

Hopefully I won't forget and watch this one again. I'm definitely not buying the movie so it won't be around to tempt me.

Turkey Shoot 1982 Story by George Schenck, Robert Williams and David Lawrence, screenplay by Jon George and Neill D Hicks, directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith. Brian is the director of several films including Leprechaun 3 and Leprechaun 4: In Space. I can't say I've seen more than those 3 films.

An Australian action film set in a miserable future where citizens, social deviants, are tossed into prison camps for rehabilitation. Camp Master Thatcher is a brutal creep who likes killing deviants as much as his guards do. He's organized a hunt with a politician, a psychopathic murdering lesbian and a guy who has a fat werewolf for a sidekick. It's just one of the many ludicrous things in the film.

Gigantic Roger Ward plays the head guard, that's him above. You might remember him from Mad Max where he played the Max's boss the Police Captain. As well as writing novels and screenplays, he's acted in over 1500 TV episodes and 50 movies. He has a magnificent mustache on top of all that.

Left to right are: John Lay, Lynda Stoner, Steve Railsback and Olivia Hussey, they are the poor deviants who've been chosen by the Camp Master as the hunted. They get a bit of a head start in leaving the camp but they are unarmed. Supposedly the victims are free if they manage to survive the day but in reality the Camp Master is going to see they don't survive. He loves his deviant killing. Sadly, the hunt isn't going to go so good for him or his fellow hunters.

I knew I had seen the film before but I didn't realize it was so long ago, my Watched Movie List says March 2 1996. That was when it was on VHS under the name Escape 2000 and cut down to about 75 minutes. The Severin Blu-ray runs about 93 mins and the picture looks much nicer. It's mostly entertaining, though it does drag before the hunt, it takes about 42 mins to get to the hunt. Despite some laughs and entertaining bits, it's still only about average. The silly stuff made me laugh. I'm looking at you, fat werewolf. On the other hand, some of dialog and plot points made me cringe or sigh. No plans to pick up the Blu-ray, I doubt I need to see it again.

Friday Night Movies 872

Raiders Of Atlantis 1983 Story and screenplay by Vincenzo Mannino and Dardano Sacchetti, directed by Ruggero Deodato. The Italian title is The Atlantis Interceptors.

After releasing Cannibal Holocaust director Deodato was embroiled in a controversy about the graphic violence and animal cruelty. Animals being killed on screen was one of the problems, some thought it was a snuff film, the human killings were so realistic. Deodato was arrested and charged with murder. He lost his film making license and had to explain how he did the effects. He even had to produce the actors in court to show they were still alive.

The same year Deodato made The House On The Edge Of The Park, a vague remake of The Last House On The Left. It got put on a list of video nasties in the UK and was heavily cut. Like Cannibal Holocaust it's got a lot of gore, sexual violence and brutal murdering. I don't find films about human monsters appealing and don't care for either of them.

Deodato didn't get his film makers license back for three years and he filmed The Atlantic Interceptors. It starts off pretty ordinary, some guys are helping some scientists to raise a German submarine from the ocean floor. Somehow this causes the sunken island of Atlantis to rise. It's been under a dome for all these centuries and it's ready to take it's rightful place on land. Part of that rightful place involves getting rid of the human population already settled on land.

Ordinary ends and Deodato is back to his gory murdering ways as a vicious gang of Atlantian soldiers rage over an island city. Deodato has seen Mad Max and somehow he can't not copy those costumes. The rising of Atlantis caused a big storm and our main characters are washed up on the island that the Atlantians are attacking. This has taken less than a day and somehow the Atlantians have already got all sorts of tricked out motor bikes and old cars. Where they got them is one of the many unanswered questions that the film leaves hanging.

 

There's plenty of action, gun battles, explosions, people getting hacked up, all that sort of thing but it's not interesting enough to make up for the stinky script. Another one that I'm not going to bother buying. I won't need to see it again.

Endgame 1983 Written by Alex carver and Joe D'Amato, directed by Joe D'Amato. Joe directed almost 200 films in his career, most of the ones I've see have been mostly pretty poor. Much of his later work was porn, both hardcore and softcore. Joe used a lot of pseudonyms in his career, trying to keep his directing work separate from his cinematography work.

He didn't do very well with Endgame either, it's a poorly thought out post-apocalypse film, New York is a wasteland but it has a TV network. Endgame is a popular show on the network, hunters track and kill their human prey. The prey can fight back and Al Cliver is a guy who's survived several hunts. There's a threat from the mutant population, those in charge send teams to hunt them down, the mutants have allies who try to help them survive and move away to safety.

Al gets hired to guard a lot of mutants, mostly telepaths, and he hires a few guys to help him. They run across other groups of humans, most of them bent on murder. There's lots of fighting, gun battles, and interminable driving about. It's got a poor script, some parts are absolutely ludicrous, add some lousy production values and it's a real stinker. Still, it was a smidge better than the previous movie but not one I would need to buy.

Friday Night Movies 871

Warriors Of The Year 2072 1984 Written by Elisa Briganti, Cesare Frugoni, Lucio Fulci and Dardano Sacchetti, directed by Lucio Fulci.

In the dystopian future of 2072 the Roman TV company WBS is having a hard time competing with the popular Kill-Bike show. The head of programming decides to kill the wife of the most popular Kill-Bike rider Drake. During the attack the assassins are killed, Drake is framed for their murder and sent to prison where he's recruited to WBS's new program.

The contestants are all hardened criminals who are given the chance to fight for their freedom. Drake is thrown into the mix and we get a couple of poor fist fights and a much too long training montage with annoying strobe lights. Just one of the many poor choices that Fulci makes in this mess of a movie. It takes an hour to get to the games and much of it is coma inducing. Once the competition starts it's obvious that the stunt riders are as crap as the stunt fighters. Nothing good to say about the action on screen and the melodrama that smothers everything leaves something to desire story wise. It was nice seeing Fred Williamson, hope he got paid. Sadly, he's not enough to make up for the incompetent film making. Not one I would need to see again.

CT 2000 1993 Story by J Stephen Maunder and Richard M Samuels, screenplay by T J Scott, directed by T J Scott.

Set in 2020, the rich have hidden underground after an Eco disaster. The surviving poor still inhabit the surface world and Tracker-Communicators keep the riff-raff out of the underground. Billy Blanks and Bobbie Phillips are a Tracker-Communicator team. She's killed in a fight and her body turned over to the scientists. They've seen Robocop and can't want to make their own bionic woman. Bobbie's sent after Niki Picasso, the head of one of the local surface gangs. On contact she convinces him to attack the Lifers. Billy in the meantime has been trying to find Picasso for a bit of vengeance. He winds up in the middle of all the fighting.

There's way too much running in tunnels, way too much poor stunt fighting, way too much poor dialog, yet it's still better than the first movie. Though it was more fun I'm not going to pick a copy up for me, I won't need to watch it again.

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.