PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 1034

Rumpelstiltskin 1995 Written by Mark Jones and Joe Ruby, directed by Mark Jones. We watched the Terror Vision release. They have an annoyingly loud logo when you pop in the disc. Someone needs a shot of Paul Naschy's flaming skull drilled into their gentleman's sausage area.

The movie opens with a group of villagers chasing Rumpelstiltskin and burning him alive. He curses the villagers, he'll get his revenge in 1000 years. After the fire dies down all that's left of Rumpy is a stone image of him. It gets tossed in some water and we jump ahead 1000 years to Los Angeles.

A cop is killed on the job while his pregnant wife listens to the shooting on the phone. It was a badly written scene, the cop didn't even defend himself, the criminal managed to shot him 3 times before he fell over. The partner managed to shoot the criminal in the noggin. The partner disappears from the film.

Months pass and the baby is fairly big. The wife's friend takes her to a goofy antique shop where she buys the Rumpy lump. She takes it home and unknowingly activates the cursed stone. She had wished her husband would return to her, he does, next morning Rumpy shows up and wants the baby for it's soul. The wife manages to escape and the rest of the movie is her being chased by Rumpy looking to get that soul.

It's got a decent baddie but the script is poor and the actors so-so. It didn't do so well at the Box Office and the IMDb score is 4.7, I didn't think it was worth a 5. Writer director Mark Jones had written and directed the first Leprechaun movie. That was a better film. The only other movie I had seen of his was Triloquist and that was below average. Not one I need to buy for my collection.

The Shaolin Plot 1977 Based on a novel by Kuang Ni, screenplay and direction by Huang Feng. We watched the Arrow Blu-ray release. The movie was filmed in South Korea.

The baddie is collecting Shaolin martial arts books. The Shaolin monks aren't that interested in giving them up without a fight. Sammo Hung is one of the baddies. 

The production looks good with plenty of big sets and nice locations. There's plenty of fights and action but movie is rather slow at times. A good bit of trimming would have been appropriate. I enjoyed most of it but I was struggling to stay awake in the middle of it. I wasn't the only one. I'd still watch it again sometime but would FF during the dull bits. I hope to catch the commentaries at some point. I see they are the same ones as on the Eureka Release.

 

Friday Night Movies 1021

Future Cops 1993 Written and directed by Wong Jing. A Chinese action comedy that's loosely based on the game Street Fighter II: The World Warrior. It's not an authorized adaptation so they can't use the real character names. Wong had already adapted Street Fighter characters in the Jackie Chan film City Hunter. Wong directed that in 1993 along with 7 other films. He'd officially adapt the game in 1994 with the release of Street Fighter: The Ultimate Battle.

The movie starts in 2043, The General is trying to take over the world, the Future Cops are trying to stop him. The General's plan is to go back in time and kill the judge that's sentencing him in the future. The Future Cops use a time machine to go into the past to stop The General's gang members. Andy Lau, Jacky Cheung and Simon Yam are the Future Cops. Ken Lo plays The General, his minions are played by Ekin Cheng, Billy Chow and William Duen.

Back in 1993 the Future Cops contact Tai-hung, the future judge, and stay at the family house. Dicky Cheung plays Tai-hung, Chingmy Yau plays his sister Chun-may, Kingdom Yuen plays the mother Chun-doi and Richard Ng plays her boyfriend Uncle Richard.

Tai-hung gets picked on at school but the Future Cops help him out. There's a lot of stuff going on at the school and some of the gags are fun. Wong is the king of wacky comedy, often called Makes No Sense Comedy. His jokes aren't always funny, some go over my head because I don't get the gag, other are just plain dumb fart jokes and the like. The last half the movie is packed with action and huge set pieces. The sets take a beating as people smash through walls and ceilings. Eventually the baddies are defeated and things get back to normal.

I thought I might have seen this back in the 90s when there was a lot of Asian Martial Arts cinema happening locally. It turns out it was only 2014 when I saw it. It was Friday Night Movies 504 - 11-29-2014. I enjoyed most of the movie and might watch it again someday. 

The People's Joker 2023 Written by Vera Drew and Brit LeRose, directed by Vera Drew. An unofficial parody of The Joker and Batman comics.

It's a dystopian future and Batman is real, once he retired Gotham City has fallen into the control of the baddies. In Smallville Kansas a young boy wonders about his gender, he asks his mother if he was born in the wrong body. Mom's a high strung woman who shouldn't be raising plants. She sends him to Arkam Asylum for some therapy, Dr Crane prescribes Smylex, a vape that gives the user a forced smile and covers up some of the depression and anxiety.

Fifteen years later our young boy is calling herself Vera. She takes a chance and leaves for Gotham City to try to join the cast of UBC Live. It's a sketch comedy show with a program to create jokemen. She works with her favorite jokeman Ra's Al Ghul. Vera becomes a Jokeman because of her mostly male attributes. Sadly in the comedy world of the future, women are assigned to be nameless Harlequins to serve as dancers for the Jokemen. Vera starts her own anti-comedy troupe and takes the name Joker the Harlequin. She sets up in an abandoned theater. I did enjoy some of the stand up here though it's pretty hit or miss.

It's an interesting looking film with plenty of animation and special effects. The movie gets more and more complicated as more characters and concepts are introduced. I can't say I wholeheartedly enjoyed the movie. There were a few bits that made me laugh but many of jokes fall flat. It's not something I would watch again, not because it's bad, mostly because it's just a drama about someone struggling with life, drugs, gender and dating. I'm not really interested in the drama, something I triage from my viewing when possible. Life's too short to spend it watching miserable people telling me their troubles. I mean, who would want to hang out with the Kramers, not this fuckin' guy, I'll tell you that for free.

The Chinese Tea-set 1979

The Chinese Tea-set 1999 Written and directed by Vitaliy Moskalenko. A Russian comedy.

A ship is carrying passengers from Tsaritsyn to Nizhny Novgorod to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty. Some con men are planning to rig a poker game to cheat the rich men on board.

There's some comedy and some noise. I enjoyed it well enough. I picked up a copy at MOSFILM on YouTube.

Friday Night Movies 1015

China O'Brien 1990 Story by Sandra Weintraub, screenplay and direction by Robert Clouse. We watched the Vinegar Syndrome 4K/Blu-ray set.

Cynthia Rothrock plays China O'Brien, she's a cop who quit the force after killing a kid who was threatening the police with a machine gun. She goes home to visit her father in a small town that's being taken over by a criminal gang. Her father is the sheriff and he's fighting a losing battle. After he's killed by the crooks China decides to run for sheriff. There's plenty of fighting, shooting and explosions as the criminals make their grab for the town.

Lucky for China and her new friends the criminals are pretty poor at that. Richard Norton and Keith Cooke are her new pals. They're both decent at martial arts, laying some beat downs on the baddies. Sadly most of the stunt men seem to struggle at lumbering. Back in the 90s when Jackie Chan was trying to gain a hold in the US market he complained that the US stunt men were way too slow. Jackie was throwing 2-3 punches before the US stuntmen could react. That's the problem here, the US stuntmen aren't up to her speed. China and her pals clean up the town with some dubious policing methods.

Golden Harvest backed the film despite it being set in Park City Utah, they wanted to help make Cynthia more famous in the US. I'm not sure how much it helped for the movie to go direct to video and not get played in theaters. I thought I had seen this before but it's not on my watched movie list. After seeing it I doubt I need to see it again.

My Grandfather Is A Vampire 1992 Written by Michael Heath and directed by David Blyth. A New Zealand film with Al Lewis as a vampire grandfather.

A kid travels from California to New Zealand to visit his grandpa only to find he's rather sickly. They have some adventures and a bit of fun but grandpa gets sicker and dies. Surprisingly grandpa rises from the dead and that causes a whole lot of trouble. It eventually get resolved and there's a sort of happy ending.

It's kind of amusing, Al Lewis is fun but over all it's only average. I'm not going to buy it, I doubt I'll have the time to watch it again.

Spiritually A Cop 1991

Spiritually A Cop 1991 Written and directed by Wai Shum. A Chinese action comedy about a ghost and the police.

Fong Lui wanted to be a cop but the police force says he's too short. He gets killed near the start of the movie and a ghost pops out of his body. Stanley Sui-Fong Fung plays the head cop of the precinct, his main desire is to get married and go on his honeymoon. Hoi Mang plays a visiting monk who is the only one who can detect the ghost. He helps Fong get used to being a ghost. The ghost is a misogynist, he doesn't think women should be on the force. The monk helps him get past this too. Yukari Ôsnima plays one of the female cops in the precinct.

There's plenty of fights and some gun battles, most of the fights are fairly good. There are plenty of gags, not all the gags are great, misogyny comments aside, but a good number of jokes landed. It's pretty average but I enjoyed it anyway. I might watch it again.

Friday Night Movies 997

Alicia En El Pueblo De Las Maravillas 1999 Screenplay by Aldo Busto Hernández, Luis Felipe Bolaños and Daniel Diaz Torres, directed by Daniel Díaz Torres. A movie about the social state of Cuban in the 1980s that alludes to Lewis Carroll's Alice In Wonderland but isn't an adaptation of the book. It was considered controversial when it came out and was banned in Cuba 3 days after release.

Alice travels to a small town where she has some weird and disturbing things happen to and around her. It's a horrible filthy town that's home to failed officials. Like Alice in the novel Alicia gets caught up in local activities that hardly make any sense to her.

It's a satire that's rather confusing if you don't know much about the country and the era. I had to read the Wikipedia page to get details that the movie didn't always provide. You can watch the movie and decide for yourself, it's not a great copy but it's watchable. There's a DVD on Amazon but it's not worth $15.43 to me, plus tax. I'm not likely to watch it again.

Pig 2020 Story by Vanessa Block and Michael Samoski, screenplay and direction by Michael Samoski. It's his first film. I normally avoid a drama but I'll make an exception for Nicolas Cage on occasion. 

Nic lives in the woods with his pig, they hunt truffles for a living. They sell them to Amir who sells them to fancy restaurants in Portland. One day Nic is attacked  and his pig stolen. The movie has Nic travel around with Amir and it leads to some trouble for them.

They locate the scummy crack heads that stole the pig and learn it was taken to Portland. They travel to Portland where a whole lot of story is heaped on our plates before they find out what really happened to Nic's pig.

I enjoyed the film and would watch it again.

Friday Night Movies 978

Magic Cop 1990 Written by Sam Chi-leung and Tsang Kan-cheung, directed by Stephen Tung. A Hong Kong horror comedy informally known as Mr Vampire 5. We watched the 88 Films Blu-ray and it looks pretty darn good.

Lam Ching-Ying stars as a cop who lives on a small island. He's well trained in Chinese magic. A woman on the island asks him if he'll help transport her dead daughter back home from Hong Kong. In HK Lam finds out that the daughter has died more than a week before the incident in the restaurant. She'd been reanimated by Japanese magic and used in smuggling.

There's plenty of action as Lam fights the monsters and the Japanese magician. The stunts are fun to watch. There's a good bit of comedy and the jokes are mostly fairly good. The jokes with the local cops that get assigned to work with Lam are a bit weak but kind of typical of HK humor. The effects are mostly practical with occasional bits of animation to jazz things up.

I had forgotten most of the story from the last time I saw it, years ago, and it was entertaining and fun to watch. I'm pretty sure I have  DVD from years ago but all the movies are packed up and I can't check. Worth a look for those inclined.

Vesper 2022 Written by Kristina Buožytė, Brian Clark and Bruno Samper, directed by Kristina Buožytė and Bruno Samper. A co-production from Lithuania, France and Belgium.

Vesper is a 14 year old girl who lives in the forest. The world has had some sort of biological disaster. The ones who caused the disaster are hold up in Citadel cities, helping themselves but keeping the remaining random population outside the Citadel under their thumb.

Vesper lives with her father in a run-down shack. Vesper has some education and she works to keep him alive after he'd been paralyzed while working for the Citadel. The only help he was given is a flying robot head that he can use communicate to with Vesper. One day a ship from the Citadel crashes and Vesper's whole world is smashed.

It's a dark future with only a bit of hope. It's a long film, 114 mins, and it moves along pretty slowly. Despite that I enjoyed much of it but haven't decided to bother with the Blu-ray. I'd take a download but haven't seen any in the usual places.

Friday Night Movies 972

The Rare Blue Apes Of Cannibal Isle 1975 Written by Donn Greer and Peter Scriven, directed by Donn Greer. It's part of the new 10 film box set Lost Picture Show from Vinegar Syndrome. Donn Greer was better known for some of his exploitation films. This was his 11th film. I've only seen one of his other works, the 1969 film Alice In Acidland.

A movie that seems heavily inspired by Sid and Marty Kroff's puppet shows. A kid chases after his duck and the kid's boat washes up on Cannibal Isle. The place is home to two types of creatures, a race of alligator pirates and a race of blue apes. The boy get caught by the pirates and escapes with their blue ape captive. They get chased to the ape half the island.

 

It's also a musical and they are some of the worst songs I've heard. They're rather lack luster and hardly anyone can sing. The boy has his adventure, the boss pirate gets blown up a bit, eventually the boy returns home with his duck. The boy's sister proceeds to step on the poor duck during the welcome home, the duck runs off, stage left.

They tout the film up on the VS promo material but its just a mild diversion that I might not ever watch again. I'm not that likely to order the set. I was the first person to vote for the movie on the IMDb. I gave it a 5 for sheer ludicrousness. It's not that good.

Bikini Drive-In 1995 Written and directed by Fred Olen Ray.

A young woman inherits a drive-in movie theater from her late uncle. Her boyfriend won't help her fix it up so she dumps him. Her best gal pal lends a hand and ropes in her boyfriend. The crew at the drive-in pitch in too. Joining that lot is the son of a local developer who's not that happy with his father. His old man, David F Friedman, wants to turn the drive-in into a big mall and apartment complex.

It's pretty dumb and not every well written. There's plenty of boobs to see but most of them are silicon. Everything works out well enough for the young woman, she even hooks up with the developer's son.

Like some of Fred's movies there's a stack of old stars on offer: Ross Hagen, Peter Spellos, David F Friedman, Conrad Brooks, Gordon Mitchell and Hoke Howell.

Another one that I wouldn't need to pick up.

Friday Night Movies 970

Rabid Grannies 1988 Written and directed by Emmanuel Kervyn. A Belgium film shot in English for the international market. The film was released by Troma in the US. I saw it years ago but had no memory of any of it. The Troma release is cut by a few minutes. The new Vinegar Syndrome is uncut and nice looking.

 

A couple of rich aunties are having their family over for dinner. The ladies are celebrating their birthdays. The family members are only there to keep on the aunt's good side so they might inherit their wealth when they die. The family are a mixed lot, hardly any of them likable.

 

After dinner the sister's open their presents, one of the which is from an estranged relative who wasn't invited. The present is a small wooden box, it appears to be empty but it really contains some sort of spell, or curse, and a smokey mist floats out and changes the two sisters into demons. That's the second lie in the title, not grannies and no rabies.

The demons are really aggressive, they attack the family and servants, chasing them around the old mansion, picking them off one by one. A few of the guests fight back but hardly anyone survives. There's a good bit of gore and action once the possession takes place.

I enjoyed it and thought it had a nice sense of humor. I doubt I'm going to get the VS Blu-ray. I might want watch it over again someday but it would be pretty far down the re-watch list if I had one.

The Troma VHS and DVD were cut by a few minutes, mostly gore, that footage was made available as an extra on the DVD. The trimmed footage was added back into the Troma Blu-ray in 2015. You can see a decent copy of the untrimmed film on YouTube.

Attack Of The 60 Foot Centerfold 1995 Written by Steve Armogida and directed by Fred Olen Ray. I saw this back in 1997 but had forgotten everything about it.

Three magazine centerfolds are visiting the Hugh Hefner like publisher at his Plaything mansion. They are in the running for Centerfold of the Year. J J North, Tammy Parks and Raelyn Saalman play the gals. There's plenty of nudity from the ladies and plenty of sleaze from the men. J J has been taking a rejuvenating formula, feeling a bit run down before the visit to the mansion she stops into see her doctor for a pick me up. He warns her, one vial a day, no more.J J takes a vial when she gets home. A bit later the doctor's lab has an issue, a couple of their mice have grown to human size, one of them has escaped.

Out at the mansion the gals have a bit of a convo with the publisher and settle into their rooms. This movie. like the previous movie. has a gag involving a person carrying in all the guest's luggage to their bedrooms. Rather than sensibly making two or three trips they gather up all the bags and stumble about. Neither gag is very natural or funny. Most of the humor in RG works better than that joke and most of the gags in AOT60FC aren't funny at all.

After a bit of drinking the night before J J wakes in need of a bit of rejuvenation. Of course she takes 3 vials and that perks her right up. It also makes her grow. Soon she's 60 feet high. Rather than help her the publisher and his photo taking guy are planning to exploit her and dump her in the hands of the government to study. The photographer doesn't call J J's doctor.

J J spends the last half the movie big. Lucky for her, she's got a pal in the photographer's assistant. He's in love with J J, he calls the doctor who luckily has a machine that can reduce her. Before the doc can get to the mansion, Tammy finds J J's stash of rejuvenation juice and gulps down 4 vials. She turns big and the giants have a bit of a dust up on the beach. The fight takes them to LA where the doctor reduces them to normal with the help of a machine. In the lab the reduction ray machine caused one of the giant mice to explode after reduction. The ray works on both gals, shortly after Tammy blows up, killing the sleazy photographer, and leaving J J's fate unknown.

The cast is littered with old timers, John LaZar, George Stover, Michelle Bauer, Ross Hagen, Stanley Livingston, Forrest J Ackerman, Jim Wynorski and Tommy Kirk. Sadly most of them don't have much to do and what the poor script gives them is kind of lame. You can see a poor copy on YouTube, link in the title. I wouldn't recommend it. There's a better copy on Rarelust.

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.