PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 916

The King's Man 2021 Based on the comic series The Secret Service by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons, story by Matthew Vaughn, screenplay by Matthew Vaughn and Karl Gajdusek, directed by Matthew Vaughn. We watched the 4K version and it looked nice.

The movie is a prequel to the first two films. The story starts in 1902 with a visit to a concentration camp in South Africa by the Duke of Oxford. The Duke is shot in the leg during an attack by a Boer sniper. The Duke's wife Emily is killed and the Duke's son Conrad saw his mother die. The story jumps ahead 12 years and the Duke has created a private spy network using the servants of the powerful.

Conrad wants to go to war but the Duke tries to stop him. He's not successful and Conrad is mistakenly killed by a soldier in the British Army. There's a mysterious Scottish man who runs a secret organization from the plateau on a mountain in some remote location. He's a guy who needs killing.

There's a fair bit of action but the story is dark and bleak, I didn't care for it as much as the previous two films. I'll watch those again someday and give the third a miss. I did like the cast in it. Good choices. It's a bit ponderous, a nice trim would not be a miss, a good Kingsman movie might be salvaged out of there.

Voyage Of The Rock Aliens 1984 Written by Edward Gold and James Guidotti, directed by James Fargo and Bob Giraldi. We watched the new Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray.

It's a SF musical comedy with Pia Zadora playing Dee Dee. Some aliens make a stop at planet Earth and get involved with Dee Dee and the local musical scene. Dee Dee's boyfriend Frankie has a gang and a band, they are the same guys. Frankie doesn't want Dee Dee to sing with him, he's mostly a dick. The aliens prove to be a match for Frankie in a battle of the bands.

Pia does a lot of songs, some of which were from her newest album. A music video duet with Pia and Jermaine Jackson was shot in Italy. It wasn't shot for the film but the producer's worked it into the opening. It's supposed to take place on a distant planet the alien's are visiting. Knowing that explains why Pia seems to be on two planets.

There's way too many songs and the story is really goofy. James Guidotti's original screenplay was a spoof of B-movies. The Wikipedia says:

"It's a little like sitting home and watching TV late on a Saturday night, all the while switching channels from 5 to 9 to 11 and to 13," Guidotti explained. "On channel 5 they're airing an old Beach Party movie; on 9 one about alien invaders; on 11 a film about a mad, homicidal maniac on the loose; and on 13 a rock 'n roll program." When Guidotti's script was spotted by executives at the production company Inter Planetary Curb, Vice President of Development Edward Gold and consultant Charles Hairston polished the script, turned it into a musical, and the film went into production under the title Attack of the Rock 'n' Roll Aliens.

I might have enjoyed that movie more than what we watched. There's plenty of jokes but many fall flat. I still enjoyed watching it, especially after the downer we just watched, but I didn't feel I needed to invest in a copy. You can test drive it on YouTube. You might like it.

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.

Kin-dza-dza! 1986

Kin-dza-dza! 1986 Written by Georgiy Daneliya and Revas Gabriadze, directed by Georgiy Daneliya. A Russian SF comedy that some one pointed out to me on YouTube. MOSFILMS has over 100 Russian films with subtitles.

A man called Vladimir gets sent out for some groceries and winds up on another planet. All he did was talk to a stranger called Gedevan, they helped an alien with no socks and a transportation device. Vlad doesn't believe the man's nattering and he triggers the device. Quick like they wind up on a desert planet with strange people and weird customs. They meet some aliens, learn some of those weird customs, become famous and wind up back on Earth some time later.

The movie runs 135 mins and there's not always much going on. People tend to stare off into the distance a lot. It's kind of goofy and minimalist. I thought it was fun at times, at times it dragged. You can try it out on YouTube. I don't think I would need to buy the disc. I might not watch it again.

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 867

Spookies 1986 Written by Thomas Doran, Brendan Faulkner, Frank Farel, with additional material by Ann Burgund, directed by Brendan Faulkner, Thomas Doran and Eugenie Joseph.

The Wikipedia has an explanation about the making of the film:

Spookies started out as a feature film entitled Twisted Souls, written and produced by Frank Farel, Brendan Faulkner and Thomas Doran and directed by Faulkner and Doran.^[1] Principal photography for the film began at the Jay Estate in Rye, New York in late summer of 1984 and finished in October of that same year.^[1] Twisted Souls was being edited when creative and legal issues between the producers and the financial backer prevented final post production work (final editing, scoring, post-effects, etc.) from being carried out.

The original Twisted Souls footage directed by Faulkner and Doran consists of all the travelers who arrive in two cars and all the monsters and effects they encounter within the house. The monsters include: the demon Ouija girl, the muck men, the spider woman, the snake demons, the hallway demon and the Grim Reaper.^[1]

In 1985, the financial backer of Twisted Souls hired Eugenie Joseph to direct more footage, which was pieced together with the finished footage from Twisted Souls to create Spookies.^[1] The added scenes, written by Ann Burgund (under the name Joseph Burgund), feature an entirely different cast and include all the footage of the boy looking for his birthday party, the man in the tree, the cat-man, the old magician, the girl in the coffin, zombies, the witch in the basement/cave and the little blue boy.^[1]

The end result is a below average silly horror film with annoying characters. The original monsters are fairly interesting with decent make up. The additional monsters are much less interesting, with the zombie horde only slightly more interesting than the living. There's a watchable copy on YouTube for those are interested in seeing the film but less interested in spending money on the new Blu-ray. I won't be bothering with the Blu-ray myself, there are plenty of other films I want to buy first.

Explorers 1986 Written by Eric Luke and directed by Joe Dante.

I've had the DVD on my Amazon Wishlist for ages but it always got pushed further down the list by other films. I remember liking it when I saw it in the theater when it came out but upon seeing it now I'm liking it less. Especially the third act with the aliens, mostly embarrassing.

I deleted the DVD from my Wishlist, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't bother watching it again. I'd watch something like The Last Starfighter instead. That was more fun.

Nightmare City 1980

Nightmare City 1980 Screenplay by Piero Regnoli, Tony Corti and Jose Luis Delgado, directed by Umberto Lenzi. I thought I had seen the movie before but it sure didn't look familiar. It was shot on location in Madrid and in studios in Rome.

A big military plane lands and deformed humans exit with murder on their minds. There had been a recent nuclear accident and these men seem to have been affected. They run fast and bite hard, they need to feed on blood to stay alive. A bullet to the head will also put them down but it doesn't seem to bother them much in other body parts.

The city gets over run and the military fight back. A reporter moves in and out of the story trying to get to his wife. They escape the city but the contaminated follow quickly. Most people are overwhelmed by the horde of deformed. This goes on quite a while and then the reporter wakes from a dream. He goes off to the the airport only to see the plane from his dream land. Three writers and that was the best they could come up with to end the story. That ending is so contrived that there should be a round of smacks to the heads of the film makers with Paul Naschy's fleshless skull.

I found most of it about average for a monster movie but it loses points for the cliched ending. I didn't think there was much to recommend about it, just a lot of scenes of slaughter and some talking heads to fill in the gaps. I got the DVD cheap and I'll keep it. I might want to see it again someday but it seems doubtful.