PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 869

Attack Of The Robots 1966 Director Jesús Franco co-wrote the screenplay with Jean-Claude Carrière. We watched the Redemption Blu-ray and it looked quite nice. I bought it on a whim during the last Kino Lorber sale, only a tenner, and it turned out to be my favorite Franco film. The IMDb says that Franco made a half dozen more films with private eye Al Preira.

Eddie Constantine plays an ex-spy who gets tricked into being the bait for an evil mastermind who's got a gang of well tanned hit men and women. They aren't robots, not in anyway. The baddie kidnaps people with a certain blood type and dips them in a tube with lights shining on it. The victims get tanned and a special pair of glasses puts them under the remote control of the baddies. Eddie has his hands full trying to keep ahead of the villains.

There's plenty of espionage activity, a fair number of gags, some dust ups, a few explosions and a ship on fire. There's plenty of beautiful women, oddball characters and gorgeous Spanish scenery in Madrid and Alicante. It was shot in color but only B&W prints are known to exist. I enjoyed it more than most Franco films and would want to watch it again. There's a sequel with Eddie Constantine called Residence For Spies that came out the same year.

Steel And Lace 1991 Written by Joseph Dougherty and Dave Edison, directed by Ernest D Farino. This time there's really a robot under that ladies skin.

The movie starts with a rape, a trial and a suicide. The rapist is defended by his four pals and is acquitted for lack of evidence. Clare Wren is the victim, she's so despondent at seeing the rapist walk free that she jumps off the roof of the court house. Bruce Davison plays Clare's brother, he tried to stop her but failed.

Five years pass. Bruce has built himself a robot sister and set her on a path of vengeance. She kills the pals, one at a time, each death ramming more fear down the throats of the still living. At first they aren't sure who's doing the killing, the pals even think it might be the rapist, cleaning house.

David Noughton plays a police detective and Stacy Haiduk is the court artist who was at the trial. They had dated in the past but broken up. Now they're brought back together. Such a tried cliche, that old ex, I wish people would stop using it.

There's a fair bit of running about, some gore and fights, a couple of laughs and a few effects. It's not more than about average to me. Not something that I would need to buy now that I've seen it.

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 858

Dead Space 1991 Written by Catherine Cyran, directed by Fred Gallo. A Roger Corman produced remake of Mutant AKA Forbidden World. You can see the animated prequel Dead Space Downfall on YouTube, it's a fairly good rip but the burned in subtitles in some Arabic tongue are a bit annoying. It's only good for finding out if the Blu-ray is worth buying. I haven't seen it but I'm going to guess, probably not. There's also Dead Space: Aftermath from 2011. The films are an off shoot of the games that were developed from the first movie.

In Dead Space Marc Singer is a Commander in the space fleet. He answers a distress call from a research station on a isolated and uninhabited planet. They are doing some sort of genetic research and they've created a virus that infects people and turns their bodies into murderous beasties. It takes a good bit to kill the monsters so the lab folk get picked off one by one. Marc kills the beast and leaves with his robot pal.

Nothing much notable about the film, other than it's an early appearance by Brian Cranston. He's the guy who wants to keep the critter alive so they can study it. It was funny to me when Marc shoved Brian's head in the creature's mouth to slow it down. Marc's not that much of a dick, Brian was already dead. He'd been infected with the virus and that virus had all the diseases known to man in it. Sometimes the script is the beastie. The IMDb trivia page has an entry that says the director didn't see the script until his first day of shooting. It explains a lot.

I couldn't remember seeing Dead Space but it turns out I had back in 1994. I can't say much good about the movie, it's short, only 78 mins, that's something. The old DVD release is only about 72 mins long, that's what's on YouTube. You're better off watching Forbidden World. That's not a great movie but it's more fun.

Blades 1989 Story by John P Finnegan, screenplay by William R Pace and Thomas R Rondinella, produced by William R Race and John P Finnegan, directed by Thomas R Rondinella. The film was made in New Jersey and released by Troma on VHS and later DVD. We watched the Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray.

From the first few minutes of the "making of" we learn that John P Finnegan wanted to make movies. He wrote 3 and they all got made. He produced 2 of them and directed Girls School Screamers.

With Blades he had the idea to make a shot for shot remake of Jaws but set on land, in a golf course, with a lawn mower. It's a big lawn mower. It grinds men right up. John went to a NYC film school, William and Thomas were the couple of students that were interested.

They don't quite carry out the shot for shot but they capture enough iconic moments to give you that Jaws feel. It's supposed to be a comedy but there are more jokes in Jaws. Nothing tops "We need a bigger boat!" I did laugh out loud once but an hour later I can't remember what the gag was. The cast weren't too bad for people who mostly hadn't made a film before. All in all it's below average but watchable. I doubt I would need to pick up a copy.

 

Vegas In Space 1991

Vegas In Space 1991 Written by Phillips R Ford and Doris Fish, directed by Phillip R Ford. Doris Fish is the stage name for Phillip Mills, an Australian who was a major star in the 80s world of San Francisco drag. Filming started in 1983 and continued for 18 months. Much of the film was shot in Doris's apartment.

It took another 8 years to finish the film, Fish died in 1991, a few months before the film was released. There was a VHS tape release and a Troma DVD which seems to be out of print. Not that I would want to buy one. You can see it on YouTube in the link above. I saw it on Amazon Prime.

That's Ford surrounded by the cast with Doris in the back row (second from the right). In the 80s Ford was the "honorary straight man" in the San Francisco drag troupe Sluts A-Go-Go. This is his only feature film, he had previously directed a short called Rollercoaster To Hell.

The movie is a super campy parody of space films. The crew of Captain Dan Tracey's ship are sent on a mission to the planet Clitoris. It's a pleasure resort planet that's only for women. No men allowed. Luckily they have sex change pills that turn all the men into women. Except for one guy, he took two pills and disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Doris and a couple of other gals pose as a trio of singers. They're looking for some stolen gems that are used to help control the planet's orbit and keep it from falling into the sun. There's plenty of running about and camping it up. The sets and props are way below average, same with the script, the costumes on the other hand were fabulous!!! They aren't but it was fun to say. The movie is sort of fun but it lacks good jokes. It's mostly just drag queens nattering at each other. Worth a look for something that's unique. Really low budget. Just not that great.

Ozone 1993

Ozone 1993 Written by David A Wagner and JR Bookwalter, directed by JR Bookwalter. The DVD I watched was released under the title of Street Zombies. It was ma de on a $3500 budget in Akron Ohio. Ozone is a drug that mutates humans. Detective Eddie and his Mike are kidnapped by some Ozone addicts, Eddie is injected with the drug. He gets away and has some weird hallucinations. He goes looking for Mike and finds the drug dealer who makes Ozone. The head man has been taking so much Ozone he's mutated into a big ugly guy who has plans of world domination. Eddie battles it out with the Ozone in his body and the Ozone gang. There's plenty of fights and all sorts of mutants. Their make up is fairly good for not costing much of anything. That's really the most ambitious part of the movie. The basic premise is pretty standard stuff, it would have been a more interesting film with better production values and actors but it's what we got. Someone was nice enough to give me their old DVD so I could watch it. I'd even watch it again someday.

Friday Night Movies 844

Scanner Cop 1994 Story by Pierre David, screenplay by George Saunders, directed by Pierre David.

Daniel Quinn plays a grown up scanner who works for the LA PD. Richard Grove plays his father, the guy is a Commander in the same precinct. Daniel uses a drug called Ephemerol to suppress his scanner abilities. If he stops taking the drug he gets his powers back but they will rather quickly drive him insane. Of course a case comes up that needs his powers and he goes off his medication.

Richard Lynch plays the villain, Hilary Shepard plays his murderous hench woman. Lynch is using a drug and his scanner powers to take control of the minds of helpless victims. Once under his command he programs them to kill cops. He's got a grudge against the police and Daniel's dad. Five years before the movie starts Daniel's dad shot him but didn't kill him. Lynch got sent to psychiatric prison but escaped about a year before the movie starts. No one has seen him until Daniel gets a look at him. Darlanne Fluegel plays the scientist.

There's plenty of chasing about and psychic dueling. There's a lot of people murdered one way or another before Daniel and Lynch battle it out to the death. Average to slightly better than average for me. We watched Vinegar Syndrome's new 4K Blu-ray. Looked great. Still, I doubt I need a copy of this one.

Scanner Cop 2 1995 Written by Mark Sevi and directed by Steve Barnett, produced by Pierre David.

Daniel Quinn is the only one from the first movie to appear in this movie, some time must have past because he's been made a detective. Patrick Kilpatrick is the villain, Khrystyne Haje is the science lady, Stephen Mendel is Daniel's partner on the LAPD where Robert Forrester plays the Captain.

Patrick has discovered a new trick for his scanner mind to do. He sucks the mental energy from another scanner and it makes him stronger. Patrick is wanting some revenge, it started when he was murdering and raping with his brother. In a flash back we see the encounter with Daniel where he forces Patrick to shoot his own brother. The scumbag was holding a poor hostage in one hand and holding a knife to her throat with the other.

Patrick has been locked up ever since. Now that the movie has started we find that Patrick has stopped taking his Ephemerol and escaped. Now he can go on that killing spree he's always wanted. Sadly for him, his mind starts to deteriorate from the lack of Ephemerol.

Patrick and Daniel have a series of mental bouts that are way too long and way to repetitive. I didn't think the movie lived up to the enjoyable level of SC. Below average for me. Nice 4K transfer on Blu-ray.

Friday Night Movies 821

Species 1995 Written by Dennis Feldman and directed by Roger Donaldson. Roger has  banged out quite a few movies since 1971 but I can't say I ever watch many of them. I know I've watched Cadillac Man and The Getaway. I didn't care that much for either. I know I watched Dante's Peak on TV some time after seeing Species. It was about average for a disaster movie I think I went to see Species in the theater.

The movie opens with a nice fly over of the Arecibo dish. Ben Kingsley is head guy at a secret government lab that's been in contact with aliens. The aliens told them to make some DNA and mix it with human DNA, then tell the aliens what happened. When I first heard that I thought, how fuckin' stupid are these guys, by the end of the movie you know. Repeat 3 more times.

Michelle Williams plays the young alien human hybrid called Sil. They keep her in a locked room with transparent walls. They decide to terminate her but that goes wrong and she escapes. I wonder if those transparent walls have a warranty. While Ben gets a team together to track and destroy Sil she grows into Natasha Henstridge.

Sil has an urge to mate and create more of her. Men fall for her charms and fall down dead after she pokes a pointy tentacle into them. Sil's body morphs when having sex, she becomes more the alien creature. Not the last thing you want to see as you get stuffed full of tentacle.

The team, Michael Madsen, Alfred Molina, Forest Whitaker and Marg Helgenberger are after Sil and have one encounter after another as they follow the trail of corpses. Alfred even impregnates her, he was easily fooled by a cut and dye job. They keep chasing her and eventually Sil and her offspring are destroyed. At est until the sequel. 

I like the movie for the most part, plenty of running about and stunts. The cast is okay, nice production values. I've seen it 3 or 4 times and enjoyed it.

Species II 1998 Written by Chris Brancatto and directed by Peter Medak.

Michael Madsen, Marg Helgenberger and Natasha Henstridge all return to the film. A mission to Mars is the big news as the movie opens. The crew of the ship collect some soil samples and bring a bit of alien DVD aboard. It thaws out and infects the crew. Marg has created a second Sil, calling her Eve, and isolated her in a lab. One of the returned astronauts pulls a pair of sisters and knocks them up with his super powerful alien sperm.

Micheal gets called in once the bodies start showing up. He goes on the hunt with Marg. They chase about until the aliens are put back in the bottle for the sequel. It wasn't quite as good as the previous film, barely average but watchable. Good monster effects though.

Species III 2004 Ben Ripley wrote the script and Brad Turner directed. It was a direct to video release that repeats the same story as the first two films. Just some different guys making the same mistakes as the previous. I'm only watching it to watch all four films. It's not awful but it is repetitive. The big difference is producer Fran Mancuso wanted to young up the cast to appeal to young adults. Big deal.

Species: The Awakening 2007  Ben Ripley wrote the script and Nick Lyon directed. Another direct to video of the about the same quality as the third movie. I might skip the last two when I watch the first two again some day.

Science Fiction Sunday 616

Star Odyssey 1979 A messy Italian space opera with plenty of aliens, space ships and robots but not much by way of quality film making. Al Bradly is the director, he's really Alfonso Brescia trying to disguise that he's really Italian. He directed several movies and yet they keep hiring him. 

Earth is attacked by a superior alien force. A scientist gathers some other scientists together to build a weapon that would defeat them. It's a story told poorly in every possible way. I can't think of anything in the film that would make me think these are people with talent. Sometimes a poorly made film will elicit some laughs but here it's just awful to the point of embarrassment. There's a copy of the film you can avoid on YouTube.

Vampire Vixens From Venus 1995 Here's a movie that's even worse than the previous one. Even a bevy of fake breasts can't make this film bearable. The gals are aliens who aren't really vampires. They're shape shifters and the shape they take are those of bimbos on the pull. They seduce men to get them aroused, they they plonk a machine on their heads and suck life out of them. The remains are a pod of twisted skin and goo. The extract is sold back home.

Michelle Bauer and JJ North are two of the Venusian's, neither of them are good actors, and they're in good company with the rest of the cast. The script is poor, both in story idea and dialog. The main cop character is really annoying, at best. They've got him acting all clumsy, inefficient, unobservant, clueless and gullible, it's so poorly done, it's just awful to watch. You can check it out on YouTube, link above, but why would you want to? Neither of today's are films I need to watch again. That's a good thing.

Science Fiction Sunday 611

Creatures From The Abyss 1994 Original title Plankton. Written by Richard Bauman and directed by Al Passeri.

Stupid college students take a dinghy out for a spin but they didn't pack the spare gas can. Stranded they come across and board a small yacht. It's got a lab for experimenting on fish in it. One of the experiments is alive and it's already killed most of the crew. What a predicament! How are they going to survive?

It's got more than enough annoying scenes with the college students, a bit of nudity and plenty of mutated fish monsters. Good reminder to stay off the sea for me. You can find out how those college students did by checking the link above. I didn't think it was great or anything, better than a lot of Italian SF films, still below average. I wouldn't need to go buy the DVD or anything. This is the second time I've seen it, that should be enough.

The Strange World Of Planet X 1958 British film that was marketed in the US under the title Cosmic Monsters. Rene Ray wrote the 6 episodes of the 1956 TV series, she also wrote the 1957 novelization this film was based on. Rene was an actor who started working in 1929 and retired 30 years later. I've only seen 4 of her nearly 50 films. The screenplay was by Paul Ryder and the director was Gilbert Gunn.

Forrest Tucker is working for Alec Mango, a scientist who's obsessed with his new invention. It bombards metal with magnetic fields. It's such a powerful machine that the magnetic fields bother the TVs in the near by town. Forrest has his suspicions that the fields are dangerous but his worries fall on the Alec's deaf ears. He's not going to let any insignificant troubles like that stop his work. Alex is a real dirt bag, he'll kill for his work.

Something is lurking in the woods, several people are attacked and a couple of women are killed. Luckily they get some help from a foreigner. Gaby André plays a French computer expert who's come to replace a man who was hurt. She joins with Forrest in thinking things aren't alright in the lab. Martin Benson plays the mysterious Smith, another foreigner who's come to help.

All in all it was fairly good, about average, mostly worth seeing, maybe not worth seeing more than a couple of times.

Science Fiction Sunday 608

Monstrosity 1963 Four people worked on the script, Vy Russell, Sue Dwiggins, Dean Dillman Jr and an uncredited Jack Pollexfen, the director was Joseph V Mascelli and and uncredited Jack Pollexfen. It's too bad they didn't work a bit harder. The film is also known as The Atomic Brain. That's the title I saw it under when it ran as the film in an episode of MST3K. It's also in one of those 50 movie packs from Mill Creek. Here's a handy checklist of the many multi movie packs from Mill Creek.

A wicked old woman has devoted her fortune to keeping herself alive. She's got a mad scientist in the basement of her big old mansion. That's him in the baggy clothes. He's played by Frank Gerstle and he had a long career in films and TV. He's got over 200 credits on the IMDb. The other man is the old lady's dogsbody, he's played by Frank Fowler and he only has 5 credits on the IMDb. The scientist calls him a gigolo and he does figure to come out quite well when the old lady gets her young new body. The wicked rich bitch sets him straight, what young woman wants an old man for a lover, he's none to happy. The old lady is played by Marjorie Eaton, she appeared in over 50 TV shows and films in a career that started in 1946 and ended in 1984, she died the following year at 85 years old. In one of her last roles she played an Emperor in The Empire Strikes Back. Her film listing on the IMDb is quite interesting.

The poor undressed lady is a corpse the mad scientist had robbed from a grave, he's put the brain of an animal into her head and reanimated her. He's using atomic power, enough to blow the whole mansion to bits. In fact, he's rigged the machine to blow if they get caught. That will cover up the evidence.

That's another of his experiments in brain transfers. He's got a slave that kills there. The grave robbing is attracting the attention of the local news and the bodies aren't holding up too well after the transfers. The mad scientist wants to use live women as hosts for the old woman's brain. The old lady orders three foreign servants and takes her pick from the women that arrive. It soon becomes apparent that they are in danger so the women try escaping.

One woman is caught and has the brain of a cat put into her head. The scientist is happy with the transfer and plans to do the old lady next. Before that happens one bad thing after another happens and nearly everyone dies.

It's got an interesting plot at the core of the movie but the movie is strictly low budget and amateurish. It plods along at the best of times, the dialog is poor on top of that. People vote harshly on the IMDb, 30.4% of the votes are a 1 and 39.8% of the votes are a 2 or 3. It's a good reminder to keep an eye on the rich, they are some fuckin' ugly and untrustworthy people. You can see if you like it in the link in the title above.

Convict 762 1997 Screenplay by J Reifel, directed by Luca Bercovici. I had a disc with four movies on it and thought I only had watched two of them. I put this on and it seemed familiar. My Watched Movie List says I had seen it, back in 2003, and my comment was one word, Crap. I skimmed through it to see what it was about. A spaceship gets in trouble and has to land as a space prison to refuel. A short time before they arrive the prisoners had all killed themselves. Only Billy Drago and Frank Zagarino are alive. The captain and the crew, all women, make one mistake after another and they don't survive to well. It's not very good but I knew that going in. I went through it pretty quickly, speeding it up after watching the first third. I hope I don't forget and watch it again someday.

Cypher 2002 Written by Brian King and directed by Vincenzo Natali. Vincenzo is the director of Cube. Lot's of people liked it but I wasn't that keen on it. This was a good bit better. It's an odd story, sort of future is now with giant corps spying on one another. Jeremy Northam gets hired to be a spy at one corp, he's sent to infiltrate another corp and gets on there. Lucy Liu turns up as another spy of sorts, she helps him and leads him down one rabbit hole after another. It gets pretty complicated but you can mostly follow along. There's one double cross after another and plenty of danger. The corps kill agents when they don't have a use for them anymore. Or do they, who knows, not much is really explained. There's a fairly decent ending and some of the baddies get blown up, so that was OK. It's slightly above average for me. I'll keep the disc and might watch it again someday.