PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 735

We watched The Brain first, it's a 1988 movie that I hadn't remembered seeing. I looked when I got home and there's a listing on my Watched Movie List that says I watched a movie with the same name in 1990. Trouble is there's an earlier movie with the same name and it could be that movie. I didn't make any notes on the listing and my Week-At-Glance diary listing has no details for that day. Not that it matters, lets move on, I've already wasted enough time thinking about it. The Brain is written by Barry Pearson and directed by Edward Hunt. Haven't seen any of the other work they've done, probably won't at this stage.

The story is about David Gale, playing a scientist, who's got an alien organism that resembles a giant Brain in his lab. It's a dick of a brain and it eats people. David has a TV show that secretly uses the airwaves to take over the local's brains. Lucky for the rest of us the show is a local show, for local people. Oh, wait, it's planning to go national and then global. Not all the people receiving the transmissions wind up under the influence of the Brain. The transmissions affect their brains and some of the victims slip over the deep end and start killing.

Our hero is a knob named Jim, he gets in trouble at the start of the movie for tossing a brick of sodium into the toilet. It reacts and the water sprays out of the sinks and toilets. He's laughing until they come down hard on his ass. The whole sodium scene was kind of annoying, it's there to set up sodium, it will be important later. There are many times when the movie refers to Sodium, signs on walls especially, you could almost have a drinking game with the movie. Every time sodium popped up, anywhere, you have a drink. You'd be on your ass before the end credits. That's the Brain below. It gets out of it's tank and moves about. People are tasty sweaty snacks to it.

Harping back on that sodium sequence with Jim, the film makers want to get him caught for the prank. Not sure why, they make him out to be a dick, what's up with that? Annoying characters aren't my favs. Even with some annoying writing I didn't think it was a bad movie, just average. I don't know that I need to go buy that new Blu-ray, it was only released on April 30 and the thing is gone from Amazon. Luckily I downloaded a copy off of YouTube a couple of years ago. I never got around to watching it.

Shadow Builder is a 1998 horror film that was based on a Bram Stoker story that I never read. I read the novel Dracula 40 or so years ago, after Chester Cuthbert recommended it to me. That's where I got a copy from, I pretty sure I don't have it anymore, I got rid of so many books over the years. So many weren't ones I wanted to reread and there's always a shortage of room no matter where I hang my hat.

Shadow Builder is directed by Jamie Dixon, he's mostly a special effects supervisor with 70 credits in the last 29 years. SB was his first film, his second was Bats: Human Harvest in 2007. I liked B:HH but it wasn't quite as entertaining as SB. Michael Stokes wrote the screenplay.

Michael Rooker plays a priest who kills demons and people involved with demons. He shoots an evil Archbishop in the opening scenes. There's been some sort of ceremony and a man was killed. Michael travels to the man's town to see if he can learn anything. From the local priest he learns that the man had a son. It turns out that the shadow demon is after that kid. Things go downhill in the town once the shadow demon starts killing. He gains power from the killings and he needs a bit of power to do what he needs to do with the kid.

There's plenty of running about and lots of yelling. The gore and effects are fairly good. The story works well enough. I liked Michael Rooker and Tony Todd. Tony plays the local crazy person. All in all I liked the movie and would watch it again someday.

Friday Night Movies 730

Aquaman up first. Like a lot of the superhero movies, it was kind of fat and bloated, sure could have used some trimming. I doubt I would bother with it again.

Aswang is a 1994 horror film about a poor girl who decides to sell her baby to a creepy guy. He won't inherit his mother's fortune unless he has a child. Turns out the reality is more hideous than that. It was called The Unearthing when it came out on video in the US years ago. An Aswang is a mythical creature from the Philippines. It eats unborn children. You can see where this is going, huh. You can see the whole movie in the link above. It was alright but nothing great. I wouldn't need to pick up the DVD anytime soon. Which is fine, it's out of print and the price is crazy on Amazon.

The Return Of The Living Dead 3 1993

The Return Of The Living Dead 3 is the second sequel in the series and it came out in 1993. I know I saw it back in the VHS days but it's not listed on My Watched Movies List. John Penny wrote the script and Brian Yuzna is the director.

Kent McCord is a military guy and J Trevor Edmond is his son. Trevor and his girlfriend Melinda Clarke sneak into dad's secret military base to see what they can see. Dad's reanimating dead bodies with a toxic gas. They put exo-skeleton's on the zombies to be able to control them. Of course, zombies being what they are, there's a break out and the chomping starts.

Kent gets sent to another base but Trevor doesn't want to go and give up Melinda. He rides off on his motorcycle with Melinda but there's an accident and she's killed. What to do? Certainly the best thing to do would be to take her to dad's reanimated corpse program. Yep, she's a zombie before you know it. The pair have some adventures and Julie learns to control the brain eating by stabbing herself with bits of glass and metal. It's a sad romance that ends in fire.

I enjoyed it this time around and wold watch the film over again. I've got the last two films to watch and will get to those now.

Friday Night Movies 726

First up, the 1999 short film Cool Air. It's based on the Lovecraft story of the same name. Bryan Moore is the director and he stars as Randolph Carter. Carter moves into a room in a boarding house only to have some ammonia tainted water dripping through the ceiling. It comes from the border in the room above whom the land lady says is a doctor. Randolph meets him when he has a light heart attack. Doctor Muñoz helps Randolph out and fills the writer in on his condition. He needs cold to survive. Of course the chiller dies one day and though the doc has had this problem for twenty years he's unprepared to deal with the breakdown. He sends Randolph out for ice and an electrician. Failure brings Randolph and the electrician back too late, they find Muñoz turned into a puddle of gel and bones lying on the floor. It was a well enough made bit of film making. The actors were good to poor, the doc was OK, Bryan not quite that good, and the left over cast members skewing to the poor with bouts of over acting. I listen to the long dialog speeches of the doctor and eventually my mind wanders off in some personal reverie. I wouldn't need to see it again. The Night Gallery version was better.

Black Panther is last year's Marvel Films hit. I wasn't that keen on it and after watching it I might want to see it again but probably won't bother. It was big, noisy and flashy but it was so long I failed to get to the end without my mind wandering off. I wasn't the only one complaining, there was a lot of conversation going on. It's long and in need of paring down. 

Killer Tomatoes Strike Back! 1991

Killer Tomatoes Strike Back! is the 3rd of the Killer Tomatoes movies and it came out in 1991. John De Bello is the director and he wrote the script with Costa Dillon and Rick Rockwell. John Astin is back as Professor Gangreen, he's in disguise as a Jerry Springer like TV host, and he's got taking over the world plots in his noggin. J. Stephen Peace is Wilbur Finletter who's now a police captain. It's his last appearance in the series and he didn't help co-write the script on this one.

Rick Rockwell is the local cop, Crystal Carson is a Tomatologist, the two have been thrown together because of a series of tomato related murders. They eventually find out about Gangreen's plan to take over the world.

I thought it was weaker than the other films and those aren't that great to begin with. I got a few laughs and I'll keep it with the others. I have the fourth film in the series to watch next.

Friday Night Movies 721

I've got an interest in seeing Charles Band's movies and the sad thing is I know they're mostly going to be crap. Sperhauk has an interest in Charles Band's interest in small creatures. What is up with that, there sure does seem to be a lot of his films with little actors, or puppets, or dolls, or other small demonic characters. Charles is behind the Puppet Master series, living dolls that kill, you might have seen that gaggle of films. Doll Man, Demonic Toys, Blood Dolls, Ragdoll, Unlucky Charms, Doll Graveyard all have some small monster, or monsters, killing people.

The Creeps or Deformed Monster has little actors playing Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy and The Wolfman. It's a 1997 film that was directed by Charles Band. It was written by Neal Marshall Stevens, writing under the name Benjamin Carr.

A mad scientist has stolen the manuscripts, or books, of four famous characters, I mentioned them earlier, and with a fancy computer driven device he going to bring these monsters to life and take over the world. He's kidnapped the librarian to use as a sacrifice but sadly she gets away just as he gets his process going. His plan's equations are ruined and so are his monsters.

They all come out a good bit smaller than he had hoped. Phil Fondacaro plays Dracula and he's great. Phil's been in 40 movies and dozens of TV episodes. I know I've seen a good sampling of his roles. There's no one else in the cast that I recognize and according to the IMDb some of them only have short careers. That happens a lot in low budget movies. The guy who played the mad scientist was a stand out, cringe making. Phil's really the best actor in the lot. 

It's not that good a movie, the script is pretty awful, and it deserves it's 4.2 on the IMDb. I'm not sorry I saw it, I gave it a 4 as I think it's better than a 3, and Phil is way above average here. That's worth something.

Bloody New Year was our second film. It's a 1987 British SF horror film about some English twenty-somethings who get shipwrecked and stranded on an island. Frazer and Hayden Pearce wrote the screenplay and Norman J Warren is the director. The victims find themselves at an old hotel all decorated for Christmas. Turns out that there's been an experiment over the island. It's caused a time loop and everyone there is trapped in New Years Eve.

There seems to be no one at the hotel but occasional the group sees a person who won't talk to them. Then the killing starts. The ones who are killed become monsters themselves. There's plenty going on but it does seem longer than it's 80 minute running time. When it was done I didn't think I'd need a copy. You can check out both movies on YouTube. Check the links above. See if you like them.

Science Fiction Sunday 529

All the Critters movies are a nice mix of science fiction, horror and comedy. They're all PG-13, not too gory for the most part. I'd seen the first movie for sure, probably the second but not the third and fourth. I didn't have any of them and decided to buy them before they disappear or turn into gold. I got a 2 disc 4 film set of the Critters franchise on eBay for $9.95 with Free Shipping. I've been bought several DVDs from eBay sellers recently and so far anything rated Very Good or better has been just fine. One of the discs had a couple of fingerprints but nothing that couldn't be cleaned off. This set is a 2010 release and each disc has a film a side. All of the films come in widescreen and full screen. It made me wonder when the discs were mastered. Turns out it was 2003. You'd get more WS and FS versions of a film on a disc back then. I'm glad they stopped doing that, it's moronic to even want to watch a widescreen movie in full screen.I know back in 2003 there were more smaller TVs around, I only had a 25 inch TV back then. I got one in the early 90s and finally replaced that in 2005 with a widescreen plasma. I still have that 25 inch but haven't watched it for years. Got to get that out to the recycle.

Critters 1986 Story by Domonic Muir, screenplay by Domonic and Stephen Herek with Don Keith Opper on additional scenes. Stephen Herek is the director. It was Stephen's first movie and he followed that in 1989 with Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.

Alien Critters steal a ship from a space prison and crash on Earth near the small town of Grover's Bend. A couple of alien bounty hunters are assigned to find the Critters and kill them. The Critters are the work of the Chiodo Brothers who would go on to do the clown make up in Killer Klowns From Outer Space.

On Earth the human cast includes Dee Wallace Stone, M Emmet Walsh, Scott Grimes, Don Keith Opper, Billy Zane, Lin Shaye and Terrence Mann. Don and Terrence are in all four films playing the same characters. Terence is one of a pair of space bounty hunters that have black faces. They have the power to change that blank face into a copy a human face. Terrence copies a rock star and the other alien copies people in the town. It leads to come confusion but less so than the Critter invasion. They've got a battle on their hands with the fast reproducing Critters. Pretty soon they're all over the town. Don't worry, there's a fairly low body count, plenty of explosions, and most everyone survives. Don Opper's character, the goofy Charlie, leaves with the alien bounty hunters. It made me laugh and that's worth a lot. It's better than average for a smaller horror movie. I'm already glad to have picked up the set and I'm only watched the first movie.

Critters 2 1988 Written by David F Twohy and Mick Garris, with Mick directing. David's had some good success writing and directing. I'm especially fond of the Riddick series.

Scott Grimes returns to Grover's Bend after two years. Hardly anyone wants to see him. Currently you can see Scott on The Orville. I'm looking forward to seeing him on episodes of The Republic Of Doyle, soon as I can get back to that box set. Since Scott has come back to town it's only fair that the Critters return. They attack and people are screaming again.

Terrence Mann and Don Opper return with that third space bounty hunter. This time the alien has copied a Playboy Playmate. There's a bit of nudity. There's more explosions that boobs so that's fun. There's a few jokes and the script was fairly good. It moved the story along and they didn't waste much time. The Critters were varied and entertaining. They left a fairly subdued trail of gore. It is a PG-13 movie after all.

Critters 3 1991 Barry Opper and Rupert Harvey are credited with the story, David J Schow wrote the screenplay and Kristine Peterson was the director. David you might know from all his horror and SF films and TV shows plus all the books, documentaries and articles he's written. He turns up on DVD commentaries once in a while. 

Leonardo DiCaprio is on vacation with his creepy stepdad. Leo meets Aimee Brooks who's traveling with her father and her younger brother. Back int he city it turns out that Aimee lives in an apartment building that Leo's dad owns. Dad's int he middle of driving out the tenants so he can rebuild on the site. The Critters arrive in the city stowed away under Aimee's dad's pick up truck. They settle in the cellar and start munching on the caretaker. He's only a snack and it's onto the remaining tenants. The tenants fight back well and most of them make it out of the building. Don Opper has a substantial part but Terrence Mann only appears in a bit near the end. Terrence tells Don he has to put the last two Critters' eggs into a retrieval pod. Don accidentally gets locked in the pod and taken to the fourth movie. The 3rd and 4th films were shot back to back.

Critters 4 1992 The story is credited to Rupert Harvey and Barry Opper, the screenplay to Joseph Lyle and David J Schow, and Rupert Harvey is directing.

The retrieval pod from the 3rd movie has been retrieved. Only prob, it's not the people it was intended for. Brad Dourif, Eric DeRe, Angela Bassett are among the crew of the ship that pulls in the pod. It's been 53 years since Don got into the pod and he wakes up all confused. The Critters escape and multiply in the ship's ducts and dank places. There's plenty of battling the Critters and a few of the staff bite the dust. Terrence Mann shows up near the end. He wants the Critters and he's being a real prick about it. Don is disappointed in his old friend and lets him know rather harshly. I enjoyed the set and plan to watch them all over again someday. Sadly there are no extras.

Friday Night Movies 718

Higanjima: Escape From Vampire Island is a 2009 Japanese movie about a bunch of teens that go to an island looking for Akira's brother. Some strange lady says Atsushi, the brother, is on the island. They go there only to find the place over run by vampires. Turns out Atsushi had come to the island with his fiance a couple of years back. While there he had let the evil vampire out of the cage the islanders had locked up decades ago. Now most of the villagers are vampires and our group of stupid teens are locked in a cage awaiting their turn at the snack bar. They escape and eventually run into Atsushi and the resistance group. There's a bit of slaughtering, the vampires get the worst of it, and the movie is over. It's OK but not great. I gave it a 5 because it drags a good bit and the characters are all annoying. Especially that brother. I mean really, just leave the local shit the fuck alone. Let that be a lesson to you.

I Bought A Vampire Motorcycle is a 1990 British horror comedy that was more fun than our first movie. It's about a guy, Neil Morrissey, who buys a motorcycle that's possessed with by a demon. Some might remember Neil from the Brit TV series Men Behaving Badly. Neil's wife at the time, Amanda Noar, plays his girlfriend in the movie. They work at a delivery service. Neil buys a damaged Norton Commando from a guy. He doesn't know that it's got a demon in it but he'll soon find out. The bike starts sneaking about at night, killing people and using their blood for fuel. It attacks Amanda and puts her into the hospital. Neil enlists the help of a priest, Anthony Daniels, to exorcise the bike. There's another subplot with the Hell's Angels that inadvertently created the possessed bike. They don't fair to well. There's a fair bit of gore and some jokes. The acting was fairly good and the script by Mycal Miller and John Wolskel worked well enough. Director Dirk Campbell does a fairly good job, I gave the movie a 6, mostly based on it's dark sense of humor. This is Dirk's only feature film, he mostly works in TV but I can't say I recognize any of the programs or TV movies.

Repossessed 1990

I remember seeing Repossessed back in 1991 and liking it. The movie was released on 1990 so I'm guessing I saw it on VHS, rather than cable. I was going to the theater back in  the 90s but not as often as the 80s. Repossessed is written and directed by Bob Logan. He's spoofing The Exorcist with Linda Blair playing a mom, with a couple of kids, who get repossessed by Satan. He comes from the TV and he's a dick. There's a lot of split pea soup spraying and Satanic trash talkin'. Leslie Nielsen and Anthony Starke are the priests come to help. Ned Beatty plays a TV evangelist who wants to put the exorcism on the air. He wants to make a bundle from donations. There's a lot of noise and things breaking. I didn't find the jokes to be that funny and it moved really slowly at times. The cast does a good job but you can only go so far with a weak script. It's part of a four pack that I'm keeping so I might get around to seeing it again someday, or not.

Friday Night Movies 709

Frogs is a 1972 critters against humans movie. In fact, most of the animal attacks are not carried out by frogs. It's an MGM movie and the DVD is packaged similarly to the Midnite Movie series but there's no MM logo. The VHS that came out before the DVD has the Midnite Movies logo. I'm not quite crazy enough to want to collect the VHS versions of movies though I know that there are still many that are. It's directed by George McGowan and written by Robert Hutchison and Robert Blees. Robert H doesn't really have any other credits but Robert B has some interesting credits. I've seen a few of his works and like The Black Scorpion, High School Confidential, Screaming Mimi, From The Earth To The Moon, Who Slew Auntie Roo? and Dr Phibes Arises Again. George is mostly a TV director. He's Canadian and one of the 1960s programs he worked on was Seaway. I was fond of that show when it was new. I remember seeing one of his TV movies, after he started working in the US, Run, Simon, Run with Burt Reynolds. He even directed a couple of episodes of The Starlost. Later he would direct some much better programs.

Frogs is a bit pokey as it intros the characters. A really young Sam Elliot is a wildlife photographer and he comes in contact with Ray Milland's family on an island in the swap somewhere. Milland is rich and he has a mansion on the island. Not a place I would go on a bet but there you go, people will pick the worse places to live. Once all the people get sorted out they start talking about how noisy the frogs are. Ray has poisoned the area trying to kill wildlife. He's a selfish asshole who likes being the boss. The clan is visiting because it's his birthday the next day. Before the bunch of them can get some cake the killing starts. One by one the family is killed off by one sort of critter or another. There are escape attempts but only Sam, Joan Van Ark and a couple of her nephews manage to get across the swamp. Pretty soon it's only Ray in the house with his dog and the frogs.

It's almost fun to watch but it's not more than so-so to me. I gave it a 3 on the IMDb when I saw it years ago and I don't see any reason to change my vote now.

Horror House On Highway 5 is a minuscule budget horror film with little going for it. The DVD was 3 bucks at the local used place and I picked it up. Money wasted. It's all the work of Richard Casey.

The DVD has quotes taken from an IMDb user and another from Geocities. Remember the latter? The guy on the IMDb, Daniel Shea says Take Some college students, put them in a van, throw in a killer in a Richard Nixon mask and BANG, you've got an instant classic. What bullshit!  I found the review, which appears under the name malenko, on the IMDb. Where did that David Shea name come from? Richard's ass? Here's the rest of the review.

The plot includes Nazis,rape,mysterious rooms, and that's about it. But this is what makes the film great, it's total ineptness at everything, from creating suspense to scaring the viewer. And the glue that holds the whole film together is the most whacked out, ludicrously insane soundtrack in movie history. If you don't want to watch the movie(which I could understand, but you'll miss out on some wonderful chase scenes involving President Nixon)just put the movie in your VCR, close your eyes and listen to the jarring sounds of Horror House On Highway Five. Also make sure not to miss one of the least satisfying and sensible endings in movie history.

Pretty much more bullshit. The movie is poorly made, poorly acted and poorly directed. It looks like shit and the sound isn't much better. Don Dohler makes better movies than this. The DVD looks terrible. Like they beat a poorly exposed print with rocks before transferring it, again poorly, at the local Photomat."Color correction, what the fuck is that?"

I gave it a 1, someone needed punishment after me sitting through this mess. I couldn't find anything good about it, but it makes me wish they had a Punch In The Face button on the IMDb. I see that Richard made Horror House On Highway 6 a few years ago. I doubt that I will ever see that.