PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

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.

Friday Night Movies 945

Crime Zone 1988 Written by Daryl Haney and directed by Luis Llosa. An American Peruvian production, much of the movie was shot in Lima Peru with local cast and crew. Roger Corman is the producer and and it's a Concorde production.

Daryl has over 30 credits on the IMDb but I can't say I've seen many of his films other than Xtro 3: Watch The Skies, it's not overly good. Luis is a Peruvian who has made some films in America. I know I've seen the 1993 Fire On The Amazon, a terrible film that's more known for having Sandra Bullock's only sex scene. Luis would also direct Anaconda in 1997, that's got a fair budget and a fairly decent cast but there's still nothing too special about it.

Peter Nelson is Bone, a guy who starts the movie being thrown off the police force. He lives in the squalor of the lowest cast of society. Sherilyn Fenn is Helen, a prostitute who works in the local official brothel. The dregs of society aren't allowed to co-habit for some reason. It's all pretty dumb.

David Carradine plays Jason, he hires Bone and Helen to rob a place with official records. Despite wearing a mask they are discovered and go on the run. Jason gets them to do another job and they immediately become killers, blasting anyone in their way. The script is pretty poor. There's plenty of action and running about but listening to the actors just made me sad.

The movie's well below average, it scores a 4.5 on the IMDb and I gave it a 4. The 4 score has 20.2% of the votes and the 5 has 20% of the votes. A lot of the voters, 12.4%, gave the movie a 10. It was suggested that Sherilyn Fenn' sex scene was the reason. You can see if you like it on YouTube.

Future Kick 1991 Written by Catherine Cyran and Damian Klaus, directed by Damian Klaus. This is another Roger Corman produced Concorde production. This is also Damian Klaus's only film. The film only 80 mins long and 15-20% of the film uses footage from Crime Zone. Disappointing, but oh so typically Roger.

Don "The Dragon" Wilson is a cyborg in this SF picture. Meg Foster's husband was murdered and the police can't get to the cast for days. She hires Don to help her find her husband's killer. They run about, get in fights and occasionally shoot someone.

It turns out that an evil corporation is harvesting organs from the poor and down trodden. There's more fighting and the movie ends with most of the baddies dead. Yay!

It seems to have more strippers than the last movie but that's still not enough to get my vote up over a four. That's the same as the movie's average on the IMDb. If the two films weren't packed on the same DVD we might not have noticed all the copied footage. If they would have worked a little harder it could get a better score. You can see a copy on Rarelust if you want to try it.

Friday Night Movies 939

Left For Dead 2007 Written by Chad Leslie and directed by Albert Pyun. Am American Argentine production that was filmed in Argentina in 12 days. Albert won the Best Director award at the 2007 Costa del Sol Fantasy Film Festival.

A horror western with a demon gunfighter. Victoria Maurette plays Clementine, she's looking for a man called Sentenza, he deserted her and their baby. She meets a gang of whores who murdered all the people in a town. The head of the whores is looking for Sentenza also, he left her daughter pregnant and ran off.

They find Sentenza in the ghost town of Amnesty which is home to the dead soul of slain preacher Mobius Lockhardt. He made a pack with the devil to remain among the living. He can't leave the town and he can't die.

The whores get picked off one by one. There's a fair bit of action but the jittercam, jump cuts and freeze frames became annoying right quick. The characters were mostly entertaining, the lesser characters disappeared quickly, it's only an 84 min movie, no time to waste.

It's got a low score, a 3.2, on the IMDb but I thought it was more like a 5. That score would improve if there wasn't all the camera and editing trickery. That IMDb score is buoyed up by 54.5% of the votes being a 9 or a 10. I'm not sure who's voting, don't care. Don't think I'll bother with the DVD, maybe if I find it on clearance sometime.

Accion Mutante 1992 Written by Jorge Guerricaechevarría and Álex de la Iglesia, directed by Álex de la Iglesia. It's Álex's first film. A Spanish French production.

In a post-apocalyptic future the world is ruled by the rich and beautiful. A group of disable people, calling themselves mutants, plan to take down the rulers. Sadly, the mutants are mentally disabled and cannot formulate a plan that they can follow through. The kidnapping the movie opens with fails because they suffocate the victim.

The next kidnapping victim manages to survive in a complicated plot that I wouldn't even attempt to cover. It's a chaotic film with weird stuff going on all the time. The mutant group falls apart from the inside and nearly everyone dies.

I'd seen this 22 years ago but couldn't remember a thing about it. It's noisy, colorful, violent, funny and worth a look for some. Not everyone is going to like this one. We watched the new Severin Blu-ray release and it looks nice enough. The movie was pretty low budget, nice that the film elements survived. Doubt I'm going to add this to my collection.

Friday Night Movies 926

L A Wars 1994 Screenplay by Addison Randall and Tony Kandah, directed by Tony Kandah and Martin Morris.

There's a drug war going on in Los Angeles. Heading up some stereotypical Italian Mafia types are Carlo Giovani and his insane henchman Vinnie, they're up against some aggressive Latinos under the control of Raul Guzman. Raul wants the business and he's ready to kill everyone in his way. He'll get a fight from Carlo, that's for sure.

The police can't seem to do anything to get ahead of the gangs and Captain Roark is desperate. Desperate enough to hire ex-cop loose cannon Jake Quinn to infiltrate one of the gangs. Jake lucks out, he's in the right place at the right time to save Carlo's daughter Carla from being kidnapped by Guzman's thugs.

Once Jake's in the house he talks Carlo into hiring him to be Carla's bodyguard. Vinnie isn't too happy but Jake kicks his soldier's to the ground and Carlo hires him. Vinnie has designs on Carla but she's not digging him at all. She's got her sights on Jake and soon enough they're in bed together.

Things deteriorate and there's a good bit of battling between the gangs. Bodies litter the streets and the violence escalates. Eventually things get sorted out by Jake.

It's a ridiculous story with some action and lots of yelling. Everyone yells, all the time. It's barely average and there's nothing new here. You can see a copy on YouTube in the link above.

Bodies Bodies Bodies 2022 Story by Kristen Roupenian, screenplay by Sarah DeLappe and directed by Halina Rejin.

A group of rich 20 somethings gather in a nice big house for a vacation in a remote location that due a hurricane. There's plenty drinking and drug taking. Everyone, except for one gal, gets fucked up a good bit before the storm knocks out the power. It gets all Lord Of The Flies in the house after the biggest asshole is found with his throat cut.

Sadly I found most of the partiers so horrible that I couldn't stand being around them. They are so awful that they can't even stand being around each other. They turn on each other fairly quickly. Now one of them is a killer and between them they haven't got enough little grey cells to solve the crime, even if they were sober. When they do stumble onto a particle of rational thought it's almost too late. The reality in Mike Judd's Idiocracy doesn't seem so farfetched.

It's supposed to be a black comedy about some shallow Gen-Xes who can't survive without their social media. I was hoping for more humor, many of the good gags are in the last few minutes. Gleiberman described the film as "And Then There Were None staged by John Cassavetes for the age of Instagram."^[41]  That's a better joke than most in the movie. I thought it was more Real Housewives in the Big Brother house and that would be no joke. Those housewives are some nasty nasty people, barely human, they can turn on each in a heartbeat. I don't see me needing to watch it again.

Bullet In The Head 1990

Bullet In The Head 1990 Written by John Woo, Patrick Leung and Janet Chun, directed by John Woo. Someone gave me a copy of the longest version of the movie. I hadn't seen it in a while so I watched it.

Ben, Paul and Frank live in Hong Kong are long time friends who run in a gang. They fight with other gangs, one fight over some money winds up in murder, they run away to Saigon, smuggling some drugs to finance the trip. It's 1967 and there's a war on. It makes it easy to smuggle but hard to survive. On arrival a suicide bomber winds up blowing up their contraband.

The trio narrowly escape being executed for the bombing. They meet up with an assassin called Luke. They join up to rescue a singer from the hands of Luke's boss. A fire fight breaks out and Paul steals a chest full of gold when they escape. That gold is the cause of all their problems, besides the big one of going to Vietnam while there's a war on.

The group is waiting by the river for a boat to pick them up. The gangsters and the Vietnam army attack and they barely get away. Sally is killed and left in the river. Paul manages to save the gold but they're caught by the Vietcong. They are tortured and Frank is made to shoot other prisoners. Ben shoots a couple of prisoners and turns the weapons on the Vietcong.

Luke arrives about then with some American helicopter gun ships. They blast the Vietcong. Paul and Frank had escaped into a field, Paul shoots Frank in the head to keep him quiet, and escapes with the gold. Ben follows Paul and watched while he guns down some locals for a boat. He shoots Ben too. Some monks find Ben and patch him up so he can return to Saigon.

Ben finds Luke who tells him Frank is still alive. Frank lives on the streets, he's taking heroin to dull the pain from the bullet that's still in his head. Ben kills him and takes his skull to visit Paul. He's a successful businessman and he doesn't care. He tells Ben to leave. Later Ben and Paul battle to the death in cars.

It's got a good script and a great cast with Tony Leung, Jacky Cheung, Waise Lee and Simon Yam in the lead roles. The scenes in Saigon and the jungle are pretty realistic. It's a great reminder to stay out of a war zone. I've seen this several times already and was glad to get a longer version of the film.

Friday Night Movies 913

Espionage In Tangier 1965 Story by Herbert Curiel, screenplay by R Belgrozo, directed by Gregg C Tallas. A Spanish Italian production.

 

A mad scientist has invented a disintegrator pistol. Agent S 077 is assigned to the case. We follow him around as he annoys everyone. There's some baddies and some pretty ladies. The dialog makes little sense at times and the fights are often poor. It's a bit of a loser. I wouldn't need to see it again.

Drive 1997 Written by Scott Phillips and directed by Steve Wang. We watched the MVD Director's Cut Blu-ray of the movie, it's got restored scenes and plenty of new extras. When I saw Drive back in 1999 I thought it was a highly entertaining action driven chase film. I watched it several times with other people but hadn't seen it for several years.

Mark Dacascos is an augmented special agent from Hong Kong. He's got a special device in his chest that makes him stronger and quicker than your average martial arts expert. He has decided to leave Hong Kong, he's going to sell the device to a company in Los Angeles for $5,000,000. James Shigeta plays the boss of the company that makes the device, he wants to keep the device from getting into other people's hands.

The baddies catch up to Mark in San Francisco, he's crossed the ocean by stowing away on a ship. He manages to escape and after kidnapping Kadeem Hardison in a bar they race across California. John Pyper-Ferguson and his toady Tracey Walter lead the gang that's chasing them. The pair get a room in a motel that Brittany Murphy is managing for her parents. She helps the guys out and the baddies blow up her motel. It was a darn good explosion. There was nothing left of the motel.

It's got a great script with a great sense of humor. The action, martial arts and stunt work are the equal of any top notch Hong Kong action film. Mark kicks the crap out of a horde of baddies in some entertaining fights. There's some nice scenery as the guys travel from San Francisco to Los Angeles. There's a big ending fight in a NASA themed restaurant. It doesn't survive the fight too well, neither do the baddies. Mark and Kadeem head for LA without anyone on their trail.

Why this movie isn't more popular beats me. It doesn't seem to make any of those best martial arts movie lists I see once in a while. It scores a 6.6 on the IMDb, I gave it a 7, it's easily that good or better.

I liked the director's cut so much I ordered one as soon as I got home. I would have ordered it on my tablet during the movie but I couldn't remember my Amazon password. I'm curious about the commentary and extras, the earlier DVD I have has no special features. 

Friday Night Movies 893

Grave Secrets 1989 Story by Jeffrey Polman, screenplay by Jeffrey Polman and Lenore Wright, directed by Donald P Borchers.

Paul Le Mat is a professor of the paranormal. Renee Soutendijk is a woman with a haunted B&B in the country. She hires Paul to investigate her haunting. After a rough start he does see some manifestations. It gets more and more serious and people are attacked by the evil headless ghost. Lee Ving plays a local lout who has his eyes on Renee but she's not interested in him. Trying to get close to her is going to get him killed. David Warner is another paranormal investigator, Paul asks him to come visit once he knows there's something going on. David gets possessed by the ghost and the evil rapey daddy story comes to light. Eventually they beat the ghost and the movie ends.

I didn't think much of it. I didn't buy Paul as a professor and his wardrobe left a lot to be desired. I can't say I've ever been a fan of Mat's work. There's a poor script with a poor ending and not much by way of humor. There's nothing too exciting on the screen until nearly the end of the film. At times the camera pans off the murderin' and we miss some violence that was just about to happen. That's sad, even for 1989, horror fans don't care much for that sort of nonsense. I can see why it's been voted a 4.5 on the IMDb. Seventy five percent of the votes are a 5 or below. I wouldn't need to see it again. If you want to take a chance you can see a poor copy on YouTube. We watched the new Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray with a nice picture and good sound. I don't plan to buy one now that I've seen it.

Tiger Claws 1991 Written by J Stephen Maunder and directed by Kelly Makin. An American film that is set in New York City but made in Toronto. Canadian director Kelly Makin has a connection to The Kids In The Hall, he directed some episodes of the TV series and their movie Brain Candy. Sadly he's not the best action director. His comedy background seems apparent in some scenes in Tiger Claws. Is he trying to poke fun at the genre? Who knows.

Tiger Claws is part of a new set from Vinegar Syndrome that has all 3 of the films in the series on 2 Blu-rays. You can see a 1080p copy on YouTube, a well as Tiger Claws 2 and Tiger Claws 3.

There's a guy killing martial artists with his special Tiger Claw kung fu. Cynthia Rothrock and Jalal Merhi are mismatched headstrong cops who have to work together to catch the killer. Bolo Yeung plays the baddie. Cynthia and Jalal dig into the secret world of Tiger Claw kung fu. There's plenty of martial arts going on but some of it was sure lackluster. Kung fu movies made in the west often lack in the fighting department. There's plenty of cop talk and some personal drama to get past.

When it was all done I thought it was about average, I gave it a 5 on the IMDb, a lot more people gave it a 6 than a 5. I might have given it a 6 but it was the long winded training sequences that brought the score down for me.

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 860

Robotrix 1991 Written by Jamie Luk and Man Sing So, directed by Jamie Luk.

A woman cop is killed when an Arab prince is kidnapped. Her mind is used in a robot body and she helps the police hunt down her killer. Might have been an interesting story line if they hadn't made it a comedy, then hampered it further with a Category III rapey prostitute murderin' subplot. It's poorly told and acted, the jokes suck for the most part. 

The Time Guardian 1987 Written and directed by Brian Hannant.

I couldn't remember seeing this before but I had. It's pretty darn forgettable. My mind still wondered off while watching, despite the nice Blu-ray on view.

Friday Night Movies 853

Martial Law 1990 Written by Richard Brandes, directed by Steve Cohen. I didn't think I had seen this before but I had back in 1999.

Steve McQueen's son Chad plays a police detective and Cynthia Rothrock is his girlfriend. Andy McCutheon plays Chad brother and David Carradine is a psycho gang boss who steals expensive cars for foreign customers. He's ruthless and prone to killing. He especially likes killing them with his special kung fu fist to the heart. The police keep finding bodies and Chad gets assigned to the case with Cynthia as his partner.

Andy gets deeper and deeper into David's clutches, trouble is he's not that smart and David's response to his failure is a fist to the heart. Poor Andy's mom. Chad goes all out to get David and give him a taste of his own medicine.

It's all rather familiar and the fights scenes are only passable. There's a lot of melodrama and that slows things down. At least it had David as a psychopath, he worked well with his psychotic second in command, played by Phillip Tan, both men enjoy killing way too much.

Barbarian Queen 1985 Written by Howard R Cohen, directed by Héctor Olivera. Another I wasn't sure I had seen, but I had. Other than for one character, I didn't remember anything else. The movie was one of the selections in a 2011 Friday Night Movie night.

Here's that post:

Sperhauk picked up a cheap DVD of a pair of Roger Corman movies. We watched Barbarian Queen. I wasn't sure if I had seen it before, my list of watched movies says no, but the movie came out in 1985 which was before I started that list and it sure didn't seem familiar. Lana Clarkson is the BQ and she's also the gal that Phil Spector murdered a few years ago. The BQ lives in a small village attacked by Roman's from the local camp. They kill and rape and burn the BQ's hut down. Most of the village was killed or carted off to be slaves. The BQ and three other gals who survived vow revenge. They get to the Roman city and meet a young girl who leads them to the resistance group. The gals want to rush in and the leader of the resistance is reluctant to act just yet. He's a big wimp, that one. The gals get captured, one or two get killed, but Lana stabs her way to success. There's a lot of nudity and not much of a story. There's a lot of rapin' and torturin' and a crazy mad scientist who gets his. You'd think a scientist would know that a human sized trough of acid is a dangerous thing to be leaving uncovered. I got a huge laugh out of his skeleton and goofy glasses in a later scene. It's got pretty big production values for a Roger produced film, huge sets and lots of extras. The fighting is crap. The director, Hector Olivera, made 5 films for Roger between 1985 and 1990. Hector had already been a film maker in Argentina and he used the money from Roger's films to make his own films. He's still making films down there but I haven't seen them. It's was fun enough for what it was.

I'm betting the Blu-ray we watched was better looking than the DVD we watched so long ago. I still feel the same way about the movie. I doubt I'll need to see it again.