PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Science Fiction Sunday 596

The Aftermath is a 1982 post apocalypse movie that was originally shot in 1978. Writer and Director Steve Barkett didn't like the original footage and recast. He worked on the movie for 3 more years. It's just one of those odd and slightly interesting things about the movie, here's another. Stanley Livingston, Chip from My Three Sons, co-wrote the first draft of the script with Steve Barkett in 1973, Stanley was going to direct but that didn't happen. 

That's Steve and his son Christopher. Steve plays the main character, one of three astronauts that arrive back on Earth after a long space voyage. Christopher plays a young boy that Steve finds after they arrive in LA. Larry Latham plays the second astronaut and Jim Danforth plays the third. Jim's character dies in the crash landing. Jim worked on the effects for the film, along with Dennis and Robert Skotak. Dennis was also one of the two cinematographers, Robert was also a production designer and one of the make up artists.

Forrest J Ackerman plays a museum creator that has been taking care of Christopher. Steve hides in the museum, after meeting the pair he's asked by Forry to take care of Christopher, Forry is dying from radiation poisoning.

That's LA, devastated in a nuclear war. Could be worse, they do seem to find some working jeeps. The astronauts take over a mansion, one you might have seen in a Ted V Mikels movie. Ted was supposed to be a producer on the film but he got into an argument with Steve and was out. For some reason they still used his mansion. Steve's first movie role was in Ted's 1971 film The Corpse Grinders. Steve doesn't even get an IMDb credit for the movie. Joe Cranston is the co-screenwriter for The Corpse Grinders, Bryan Cranston is Joe's son. The other co-screenwriter is Arch Hall, father of Arch Hall Jr.

The woman in the pink top is Lynne Margulies, she was in a relationship with Steve during the filming. She's had an interesting life, here's her IMDb bio.

Lynne Elaine Margulies was born on February 28, 1957 in San Fernando, California. She's the younger sister of actor, wrestling manager, rockabilly singer, and trash film historian Johnny Legend. Lynne portrayed nuclear war holocaust survivor Sarah in the gritty end-of-the-world science fiction movie "The Aftermath." She edited and produced TV commercials for a few years in the early 80s. Margulies met legendary avant-garde comic Andy Kaufman while playing a small part in the offbeat comedy feature "My Breakfast with Blassie" and remained Kaufman's girlfriend right up till his untimely death from lung cancer at the tragically young age of 35 on May 16, 1984. Lynne not only was a creative consultant for the Kaufman bio film "Man on the Moon," but also co-directed the Kaufman documentaries "I'm from Hollywood" and "Andy Kaufman's Really Big Show." A talented artist, Margulies has a BFA in painting and drawing from the Academy of Art College in San Francisco, where she has taught classes on and off since 1995. Moreover, Lynne runs the DVD label Legendhouse with her brother Johnny.

Sid Haig plays the murderous scumbag that terrorizes the LA area. Sid and his minions kill and rape and steal. It's a pretty bleak world that Steve has returned to, the movie ends on a downer note with pretty much everyone dead.

I was more impressed with the backstory of the movie than with the movie. A lot of the scenes are fighting mutants and running about in cars. Some of the cast are way better actors than others, same with the stunt men. One guy could hardly figure out how to walk out of a building. Nothing normal in that performance. Plenty of gun fire and occasionally they set something on fire. I liked parts of the movie but generally it's below average. You can get a good idea what it's like by this trailer. You can check out the whole movie on this blog. There are DVDs and Blu-rays for those that need them. I just can't see paying $20 for the Blu-ray.

2103: The Deadly Wake came out in 1997 and starred Malcolm McDowell and Michael Paré. Malcolm is a ship captain who can't get a license. The big corporation offers him a name change, a captain's license, and an assignment. He gets a 100 year old ship, filled with the worst of the criminally insane, to take to Nigeria. Michael is the company security man who's sent along with the ship. He's got a thing going on with his boss. What he doesn't know is she's a backstabbing monster who's set him and the ship up for a big sink. There's also some chemical warfare weapons on board and several bombs. That isn't enough to stop Malcolm though, he's quite handy as staying alive. I enjoyed Malcolm but the movie is just not that good. Another one I wouldn't need to see again.

The Adventures of Captain Zoom in Outer Space 1995

The Adventures of Captain Zoom in Outer Space is a 1995 TV movie about a 1950s actor in a Flash Gordon like space opera adventure TV show being kidnapped by some aliens to save their planet. It's directed by Max Tash. Brian Levant, Rick Copp and David Goodman wrote the story, Rick and David wrote the screenplay.

Daniel Riordan plays Captain Zoom, he's big and handsome, that's him with Rick Copp as Zoom's sidekick Happy. They're on the set of the episode being broadcast. I liked the sets for Captain Zoom, just the sort of thing you'd expect to see in popular SF TV shows of the 50s. Shows like Space Patrol, Rocky Jones Space Ranger, Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers.

Liz Vassey plays Princess Tyra of Pangea, she's feisty, and Nichelle Nichols plays Sagan, the High Priestess of Pangea, she's a nice lady. The Princess gets caught in a raid and is prisoner of Lord Vox. The rebels of Pangea have a 12 year old genius, who has a device to pull TV signals from space. He sees part of a Captain Zoom episode and figures he's found the hero to rescue his sister and save his planet. Luckily he's already built a transporter, it pulls Captain Zoom right off the stage floor while filming a scene in a live show.

Ron Perlman plays Lord Vox of Vestron, he's vaguely camp and sleazy, he's like a purple Ming. Lucky for Pangea Vox is easily defeated by our heroes. It's fun and silly. I liked the sets and costumes. The CGI is kind of typical of the stuff you'd see on TV shows in the mid 90s. It's all passable. I could have used a few more jokes but it was entertaining  enough, right up to the end. The end cracked up Lord Vox, that's for sure. Too bad it isn't out on a real DVD, it should be 5 or 6 bucks on Amazon. It's more than that at the bootlegger. It's free on YouTube, see the link in the title.

Lifepod 1993

When looking at the IMDb page for the 1981 film Lifepod I discovered that they had a cover to the 1993 Lifepod posted. It's the image on the left, the two above are from the 1993 IMDb listing, it doesn't have the image to the left on that page. I don't think I'll bother uploading the one they don't have, just another rather uninspiring piece of work, and it's in German. I had forgotten that there was a TV movie until I saw the listing. I didn't see it when it aired but I do remember seeing the promos for it. Pen Densham and Jay Roach are the writers of the TV movie, with Ron Silver directing for the first time. The 1993 movie is so loosely based on Hitchcock's WW2 drama of the same name it's become science fiction. In the new version a spaceship has some mechanical issues and the crew and passengers have to abandon it in the lifepods. A pod gets away and after a bit the ship explodes. That shock wave pushes them away and damages the communications hardware. Now they are lost in space with only the barest hope from the one signal rocket they can send off. CCH Pounder is the ships captain, she's badly hurt and won't make it to the end of the movie. Robert Loggia is his usual self as the tough businessman who's part of the board of directors of the company that runs the ship. Ron Silver is a blind guy. I didn't recognize any of the other cast. As the pod drifts through space we find out all the backstories and some people get killed. It's nothing to great, barely average, but I got to the end. I wouldn't need to see it again really. You can check it out in the link in the title above. Maybe you'll like it more than me, maybe not.

Science Fiction Sunday 577

TimeSlingers is the Canadian DVD title for Aliens In The Wild, Wild West. It turned up at the Dollar Tree for a buck and I bought it. It's a 1999 Canadian Romanian production that was filmed in Romania. There's Americans, Canadians and Romanians in the cast. The screenplay is by Alon Kaplan and the director is George Erschbamer.

It's really an SF western aimed at the teen crowd. A really fuckin' annoying kid and his slightly annoying older sister go on vacation with mom and dad. The kids don't get along. The family stop at a ghost town and the kids find a space device that sends them back in time to the 1880s. They team up with a local guy to save some aliens who've landed and got captured by cowboys who want to sell them to a circus as freaks.

It's all pretty much by the numbers. I would have enjoyed it more for what it was but for the wise cracking shit bag teen boy. At it's best it's below average and I'm sure glad I didn't pay more it than a dollar. I'm going to keep it for now. I might want to watch it again. It'll probably never happen.

Vampire Wars is another DVD from the Dollar Tree, at least I think so, it's been languishing in the pile for a while. Hopefully it wasn't a $2 or $3 clearance item at Half Price Books. I wouldn't want to pay that much, even for a fun Michael Ironside performance. He's a nasty vampire guy in this 2005 Canadian TV movie that's also known as Bloodsuckers. The DVD is pricey on Amazon, starting at $22.01 and rising to $83.50. I'm still hopin' I didn't pay 2 bucks for it.

There are vampires in space and they aren't any too happy to have the humans among them, other than for food stuffs. The human's have spaceships that go out and wipe out vampires. We follow the crew of one of the spaceships as they battle the bitey guys. There's plenty of fighting, ray guns, gore, spaceships, tunnels, yakking and walking in the woods. The movie was filmed in Squamish BC. The human crew is made up of four humans and a turncoat vampire of some sort.  Michael is on one of the planets they stop at, at least he was entertaining to watch. He's a delightful bastard but he's still a vampire and he needs to get lit up. There's nothing great about it, barely average in every way. I wouldn't need to watch it again but I'll keep the DVD, who knows, maybe it will be worth even more money in the future.

Dr Benderfax 1997

Dr Benderfax is a 1997 mad scientist comedy that was written and directed by Tom Hosler. It's his only movie and he has 11 total credits for it on the IMDb. I saw it on Amazon Prime and it follows a lot of the MS themes. Older MS onto a new process at his lab, young scientist coming to work for the MS because he admires the man's work, a bit of romance for the YS and a bit of rumpy-pumpy for the MS's assistant. Everything falls apart along the way and some poor saps get killed. Nothing was overly clever but there were a few good jokes in among the yakkin'. I wouldn't need to see it again or have a copy.

Science Fiction Sunday 575

The first of two SF films from Amazon Prime today is The Dark Side Of The Moon. The listing says the movie is a 2019 release but it's really from 1990. Chad and Carey Hayes wrote the script and DJ Webster directed. It starts out as a routine space repair mission but ship failure puts them out of power and drifting to have a gander at the moon's backside. They see an abandoned shuttle and connect up to it, hoping to find more oxygen than they have. Now it becomes more of a horror movie, there's some sort of evil entity on board and he's got fresh victims. There's plenty of running about and murder. It doesn't end well for much of anyone. It was watchable for the most part but hardly more than average. The IMDb score is a 5.0 and I'd vote that. I wouldn't need to see it again and there's little chance of it falling into my hands on DVD. You can even get a Blu-ray, what a waste of 20 smackaroonies.

Second feature is the 2013 SF film Dark Space. It's written and directed by Emmett Callinan. Six young adults rent a spacecraft to take them to Centari Five. One of them screws with the ship to make it go faster and they wind up on a unknown planet with all sorts of damage to the rental. Hopefully they have space insurance. Not that it will matter to 5 of them. While they are out looking about some space mercenaries attack them. They've been sent to wipe out the indigenous population so who ever sent them can take over the planet for their own use. One of tourists teaches the natives how to kill with a rock and she escapes in the mostly repaired ship. It was alright, I watched it to the end, but it's still a bit below average. Some of the dialog is annoying and it's all the same sort of thing I've seen before. Another one I wouldn't need to bother with again. Not sorry to have taken a look.

Friday Night Movies 775

First up is the 1995 SF horror film Xtro 3: Watch The Skies. We watched the new Blu-ray, there were two previous DVD releases but the last one was 15 years ago. It's got a script by Daryl Haney and direction is by Harry Bromley Davenport. It's a British film and it seems to have nothing to do with the other two films. This one takes place mostly on an island off the coast of the US. Even though it's only 200 miles from shore it's supposed to be forgotten about or some such nonsense.

Robert Culp appears briefly as the General that sends the marines to the island. He tells them that there had been a munitions dump there during WW2. They  need the marines to sweep the island for forgotten bombs and other explosives so they can build a refueling station there. The marines are a mixed bag and hardly marine material. Still, they're really just there to get picked off one by one once one of the more useless marines accidentally lets the alien gets out of his concrete block house. Then it's all yelling and rushing about in the woods.

It's the least interesting of the series and should have been included with the other two in a three pack. Hardly worth buying when it's just so mediocre. You can see for yourself by clicking on the link in the title.

I hadn't remembered seeing Ninja Apocalypse before and had to sit through it again. Me so sad. Here's what I said just shy of two years ago.

Ninja Apocalypse is a 2014 post apocalypse movie that people are saying is a ripoff of The Warriors. They've certainly used that script as a template, big rally, assassination of the leader, blame the Lost Clan, chase them to their home base. It all takes place underground but it's the same idea, just with swords and some magical ninja powers. Sadly, it's nowhere near as good as The Warriors. Watch that instead. It's so much better. More fantasy than SF.

It didn't get any better the second time.

Science Fiction Sunday 569

Dr Benderfax is a 1997 SF comedy written and directed by Tom Hosler. It's his only movie and he did a lot of the work himself. The Dr is a Mad Scientist with a research clinic that secretly experiments on people. A young man comes to work at the clinic, he falls for the pretty doctor working there, they discover what's really going on in the MS's secret lab. It's all downhill for the Mad Scientist then. It's competently made with actors that aren't too bad. It's made me think, Re-Animator lite, but without the more original story and less laughs. I made it to the end but I wouldn't need to see it again.

Outpost Earth is a 2019 Brett Piper movie. I saw it on Amazon Prime, like the movie above. Brett wrote and directed this post alien invasion movie. It's about a random bunch of survivors. They fight and scrounge to stay alive. They have the advantage of having a scientist with them. He's set up a lab and eventuality they find out how to battle the aliens. It's all pretty pat, the CGI is so-so and the whole thing is below average. A lot of the voters on the IMDb really put the hate on, almost 46% of them gave it a 1. I didn't hate it but I did use the 10 second FF button when they were just wandering around from place to place. I got to the end and wouldn't need to see it again. Too bad, some of Brett's movies are a good bit better than this.

Friday Night Movies 766

Tammy And The T-Rex was the first movie we watched. It's a 1994 movie that happened because director Stewart Rafill had a South American theater owner come to him with an offer to make a film with an animatronic T-Rex. There was no script and there was a time limit on the project, the T-Rex was headed for a Texas park and they only had a couple of weeks with it. The story, written by Stewart and Gary Brockette, took a week to write and they worked on the script as they shot the movie. Surprisingly it turned out better than it might have.

It was shot as an R film but the gore was cut from the first release in the US. We watched the new Vinegar Syndrome uncut DVD. Some of the gore effects are better than others. Occasionally one made me laugh. Good thing, the movie is a comedy. It's an early film for Paul Walker and Denise Richards, they play high school kids in love. Trouble is Denise has been dating a jealous monster named Billy, he kidnaps Paul and leaves him in a wild animal park. Paul gets mauled by a lion and winds up in the hospital. The mad scientist, played by Terry Kiser, steals him. It's all a bit clumsy that whole bit of business, Paul doesn't look like he was mauled, the explanation for it is weak at best. The director was constantly asking people for their input to make the film better as they were making it. I guess he didn't get the best advice.

Terry puts Paul's brain in the T-Rex model and it runs off. Paul kills Billy and some of his gang, other poor saps get the chomp too. Paul and Tammy are reunited but they still have to fight off the crazy mad scientist and the police. The T-Rex model is destroyed but Tammy keeps Paul's brain in a dish. She's on the look out for a new body. I liked the ludicrousness of it all, there were some funny jokes, most of the actors did a fair to good job. It was the weak script that was most annoying. I might want to see it again someday but I doubt that's going to happen, the Blu-ray is $35 and I wouldn't want to pay that.

Executive Koala is a 2005 Japanese film by the same director, Minoru Kawasaki, that directed The Calamari Wrestler, The World Sinks Except Japan, Kaiju Mono and The Monster X Strikes Back: Attack The G8 Summit. That's the films of his I've seen, they are comedies but they're more funny weird than funny ha ha. There's always the chance that some of the jokes don't translate to English very well. EK is the same way. It's about a koala that works in an office. He's man size, wears a suit, that's him on the DVD cover. No one seems to think this is anything weird, his boss is a rabbit. The police come and interview the koala about his girlfriend. She's been killed. Is he a suspect? He has trouble with blackouts. Maybe he did do it? More story elements are introduced that confuse the koala. He has a couple of fun dream sequences. Eventually we kind of know what happened. I was more interested in the story at first but about 2/3 of the way through my mind was wondering. I never got back on track. I would download the movie but not buy the DVD. That way if I never watch it again, I didn't waste any money on a DVD I never watched. I have enough of those, thank you, very much.

 

Science Fiction Sunday 564

Sci-Fighters is a 1996 Canadian direct to video movie starring Roddy Piper. I hadn't ever seen it before so I picked up the two movie DVD. The other movie isn't SF, it's called Terminal Rush. Sci-Fighters is SF, set in a future where they have put prisons on the moon. Roddy is a special cop with extras powers, Billy Drago was Roddy's old partner. Billy killed Roddy's wife and now lives in prison on the moon. Billy gets infected with an alien virus and manages to escape to the Earth. He infects some people before Roddy gets on his trail. There's a bit of romance between Roddy and Jane Heitmeyer. There's random fighting, some good amount of sneaking about, some yelling, not much of anything original. It still manages to deliver a story but it's barely average. I wouldn't bother with it but I bought the DVD, lured in by a two pack of Rowdy Roddy Piper films. Turns out Terminal Rush is a Don Wilson movie and it's a good bit worse than Sci-Fighters. Roddy plays a terrorist who's taken over Hoover Dam. Don plays the sheriff who goes after him. I wouldn't watch it again but I might watch Sci-Fighters again.

Scorched Earth is a 2017 Canadian US post-apocalypse movie that's below average. If it wasn't for John Hannah I wouldn't have watched it on Amazon Prime. It was free. I can't seen paying to stream crap movies, it's different with buying a shit DVD, you've always got the option of throwing it in the river. The movie parades around as a Western and it borrows a common plot from both the Western and the Martial Arts movie, a young child sees their loved ones killed by the baddie, they grow up and fight that creep to the death at the end of the movie. Ryan Robbins plays the guy who killed Gina Carano's sister, she finds him as an adult and takes a go at killing him. Ryan's a good actor and he's been in some entertaining TV and film but I wouldn't need to see Scorched Earth again.