PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Science Fiction Sunday 588

Reigo: King Of The Sea Monsters is a 2005 Japanese giant monster movie. It's called Reigo: Deep-Sea Monster Vs The Battleship Yamato. I had seen the 2009 sequel not that long ago and wasn't planning on picking this up but it turned up cheap enough and I bought it. It's set during WW2 and there's a lot of going off to war melodrama at the start of the movie. Then everyone is on the Yamato for the monster attacks. They fight back, it's depicted in low budget CGI that doesn't have much going for it. Before the appearance of the big monster the navy kills off it's offspring. First some man size man eaters leap out of the water and smear the decks with some of the crew. The big monster, looking a little like Godzilla but with a shark body, puts up a big ass fight. Sadly the poor CGI makes it less interesting. A make or break effort looks like it might have ended the life of the creature. The Yamato limps back to Japan, most of the other fleet is on the bottom. It wasn't too bad, a little too much blather and the CGI help drag it down for me, but I have a copy and I'll probably have a big monster movie marathon sometime, maybe I'll watch it.

I doubt that I would watch 2036 Origin Unknown again. It's about inventing an AI that kills off the human population because they are heading to their destruction anyway. Or maybe it was all an AI's dream? Who knows? Not me, the film makers didn't tell me what was real or Memorex. Ultimately disappointing. Wasted that $1.95 plus tax and shipping.

Science Fiction Sunday 586

Encounter is a 2019 alien encounter movie written and directed by Paul Salamoff. He's mostly an effects guy, this is the second film he directed. Luke Hemsworth is a guy who's crippled in an auto accident that killed his daugher. He's in a wheelchair and his wife left him. Some pals of his are out in the woods when a meteor lands.

They bring the strange pod back to the house and Luke gets to babysit overnight. The pod produces a tentacle and sticks it to the back of Luke's neck. It communicates in a way, with images, impressions and feelings. While it's connected to him, it gives him the power to walk. Everyone acts like he's taken over by the alien and there's a lot of noise. Things get worse, the FBI show up, they want the pod. One of Luke's pals calls his old biology teacher, played by Tom Atkins, and the man studies the pod. Nice seeing Tom, he's always been a favorite of mine. Once all these characters are grouped together it gets pretty shitty for the alien. There's a goofy bit at the end that made me less interested in seeing the movie again. I wouldn't need to buy one. It was on Amazon Prime, so at least I'm getting something out of my membership. I haven't ordered much of late and the free 2 day shipping has been anything but.

Strange Wilderness is a 2008 Bigfoot movie with Steve Zahn and a bunch of Adam Sandler's pals. I noticed it on AP and thought I might have a DVD of it, I did so I watched it. Bigfoot isn't totally SF but it's close enough for me. I've certainly massed a good number of Bigfoot films int he last 2-3 years. Not all of them have been that good. It's directed by Fred Wolf, he co-wrote the script with Peter Gaulke. Not a big fan of Fred's writing, films like Black Sheep, Dirty Work, Joe Dirt and Dickie Roberts: Child Star are kind of poor to me. He did better writing on Without A Paddle and this movie. This is his first direction job, followed by The House Bunny the same year, the rest of his work seems to be of little interest to me.

Steve Zahn is trying to make a nature show with little talent or budget. His late father started the show but Steve's run it into the ground. He's going to get cancelled when some guy drops Bigfoot into his lap. Steve only needs to get a $1000 for the map, he scrapes it together only to lose it before they get to the map guy. Because Steve was 3 days late getting to the map guy, it gets sold to a rival wildlife show. Still, bad luck for the guy with the map puts Steve on the road to South America with the photo of the map.

If setbacks were punches to the face, Steve would have a cauliflower face way before they get to SA. Steve and his teams lack of knowledge and intelligence only works in favor of me laughing as they get banged up. They lose the map, they lose their guide, the lose the RV, they lose their equipment, they get a new guide, they find some equipment, they even find the Bigfoot. And cock it all up. Lucky for them, their next idea, sharks biting people, is a big hit.

It was fun enough, I laughed several times, but there were still more shitty jokes than I'd like to see. I'll keep the DVD, Bigfoot after all, and I'd watch it again.

Friday Night Movies 773

The Beast And The Magic Sword is a 1983 Paul Naschy movie that was made in Spain and Japan. It's the tenth in the Count Waldemar Daninsky film series about a guy's who's a werewolf. This movie starts in the 16th century Spain with Irineus Daninsky, an ancestor of the Count, wanting to cure himself of the werewolf curse. Some witch hunters attack the guy who might have helped Irineus. The man lies dying when Irineus shows up, before he dies he sends Irineus to Japan to look for a man called Kain.

In Japan Irineus searches for Kain. He's there so long that he's killing the locals during multiple full moons and the local authorities have taken notice. Kain and Irineus paths cross while the wolf is out, werewolf footprints allow Kain to follow Irineus to his house. Kain offers to help Irineus cure his curse but he can't seem to help quick enough and Irineus consults a witch. Irineus is kind of an asshole, he doesn't seem to care much to keep the werewolf locked up during the full moon, and he's willing to go see an evil witch against everyone's advice. She turns out to be a horrible monster and things go poorly for Irineus.

Surprisingly, it's one of the better of Naschy's movies. He wrote and directed it under the name Jacinto Molina. His real name is Jacinto Molina Alvarez and he used the first two names for most of his writing and directing credits, he acted under the name Paul Naschy. He directed 23 movies and acted in over 100. I just don't find him that interesting. Some of his horror movies are downright poor to me. I often joke about digging up Paul's body and using his fleshless skull to crack other poor film makers in the nuts. I wouldn't crack Paul for this one, his werewolf make up is better than some of his make ups in the past, and he managed to make a nice looking film. Sadly, his action scenes are a mess, some downright poor and others fair at best. It's a long film, nearly 2 hours, and it's a long slog to sit through. I'd give it a 5 or a 6 but wouldn't need to see it again.

Raiga: God Of The Monsters is a 2009 Japanese giant monster film. It's the sequel to Reigo: King Of The Monsters from 2008. I haven't seen that but they put in some clips in the current movie. There's a 2019 sequel called Raiga Vs Ohga.

Raiga: God Of The Monsters is pretty much a comedy monster movie. We spend a lot of time with a loud and annoying family, their loud and annoying friends, and some loud and annoying government types as the sea monster comes calling. Rather than get out of town the people we meet stumble about yelling and being annoying. The beastie does some damage to the city, the monster is a guy in a suit, but the cityscape is mostly altered by medium rez CGI. Some of the effects are better than others, some are crap like you'd find on the SyFy channel, they use big explosions to cover up a lot. At times I was thinking the buildings were filled with fireworks and gasoline.

It's going to appeal to the monster fan to some extent. I got a laugh or two out of it but I didn't feel I needed to see it again and wasn't planning to get the new Blu-ray. I'd rather spend my remaining movie watching time watching something a bit better, there are all those Toho movies to watch again, and again. I guess that's movie triage for ya.

Friday Night Movies 769

Garo Special: Beast Of The Demon Night is a Japanese TV movie from 2006. It's a further adventure after the 26 episode TV show ended. It's set in modern day Japan but with a magical religious group that hunts demons. Lord Legules is an evil prick who wants to unleash his horde of demons on the human world by opening a passage to the demon world. The three guys on the poster are Makai Priests, they fight the demons, usually as they are but once things get serious they magic up some shiny armor and bigger swords. There are plenty of fights, all shooshing through the woods, and the last 20 minutes is all one big battle. It got a bit much and made me less interested. I don't think I need to see it again.

I would be interested in seeing The Uncanny again. It's a 1977 anthology horror film about murderous cats. It's a Canadian and English production filmed in both countries. It's screenplay is by Michel Parry and the director is Denis Héroux. It was the last film for Denis as a director, he would go onto produce some good bit of TV until 2000.  I haven't seen any of his other work.

There's a nice cast, Peter Cushing and Ray Milland are writer and publisher, Peter pushing his new supernatural tinged crime book where all the crimes are avenged by cats. Ray's skeptical as Peter outlines three different cases.

In London 1912 a rich woman, Joan Greenwood, rewrites her will with lawyer Roland Culver, leaving all her cash to her cats and a meal to her scumbag nephew. Simon Williams play the nephew and Susan Pehhaligon plays the maid. Simon and Susan has a secret romance, they are waiting for Joan to kick off and then they can play with all her riches. The news of the will change pushes Michael to murder, he convinces Susan to poison Joan's medicine. None of that goes as planned and the cats avenge their mistress's death.

In the Quebec 1975 story a young teenager named Lucy comes to live with her aunt and uncle. Katrina Holden Bronson plays Lucy, she's the adopted daughter of Jill Ireland and Charles Bronson. In the film her parents have just died and all she has is her cat. The mother, played by Alexandra Stewart, doesn't care for the cat but hubby, played by Donald Pilon, says that Lucy should keep her cat as it's the only thing she has. The daughter, played by Chloe Franks, is a real piece of shit and she manipulates the parents into getting rid of the cat. Lucy is heartbroken. The cat comes back and the killing starts.

In Hollywood 1936 Samantha Eggar is the mistress of Donald Pleasence, he's an actor married to Catherine Bégin, she's an actress too. They are all in a play but Samantha is only Catherine's understudy. When Catherine is murdered, Donald puts Samantha in the play. Catherine's cat comes looking for vengeance.

After telling Donald his theory on the evil of the cat, Peter leaves. He's attacked by cats on his way home and Donald burns the manuscript. It was entertaining and colorful with more than the average number of murdering cats. You can check out a copy on YouTube in the link above. You might get a laugh out of it.

Science Fiction Sunday 568

The 2004 Hallmark mini-series Frankenstein was pretty faithful to the Mary Shelley novel and it reminds me once again what an ass that Frankenstein was. Surely not the sort of person that you'd like to get to know. Alec Newman plays Viktor Frankenstein, some might remember him from the Dune mini-series of a few years ago. It's directed by Kevin Connor and the screenplay is by Mark Kruger. They follow the novel quite well, much more so than most of the other adaptations, and it's a sad ass story. One bad thing after another happens to Frankenstein, fueled by his fear of death. It looks good and there's lot of nice locations and sets. William Hurt plays Viktor's professor and William Hurt plays the ship captain that Viktor tells his story to and Luke Goss plays The Creature.

This is the place Viktor lives in. I liked the wedge coming out of the front of the building. It's a fairly long production, 204 minutes, in two parts. I was happy enough to see it but wouldn't rush to see it anytime soon.

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.

 

Dragon Hunters 2008

I took a chance on Dragon Hunters and was entertained enough to get to the end. It's an animation from France, Germany and Luxembourg that is based on a TV series of the same name. The big guy is Lian-Chu, the girl is Zoé, the weaselly guy is Gwizdo and the blue bunny is Hector.

The world they live on is all bits and pieces, floating by, people move from one bit to another in their travels. Lian-Chu, Gwizdo and Hector are dragon hunters, they don't make much of a living from it because no one has any money. They run into Zoé and she tags along. They battle the world destroying monster and save the world.

It's light hearted and little is new. I did like the floating islands and the general look of the film. I was glad to have seen it and I'll put it away to watch again someday.

Big Bad Wolf 2006

Big Bad Wolf is a 2006 werewolf film that's written and directed by Lance W Dreesen. Some young guy's mom marries a rapey werewolf and people die. Ain't that the lesson to be learned. Fuck a supernatural being, bad shit will follow. The young guy pals up with his friend and they fight to stay alive.

It's about average. The werewolf costume looks OK but not great. There's lots of werewolf slaughter and limbs tossed about. The main characters are more likeable than you often find in a horror movie. The script was straight forward and it moved along well. David Naughton plays the sheriff. Clint Howard plays a local who warns the young guy and his pals not to go to the cabin. It was part of a three pack of horror films I got from Hamilton Books for 4 bucks. I'd watch it again someday but it's going to be a while.

Eye Of The Beast 2007

Eye Of The Beast is 7th of the Maneater Series. It's a Canadian film that came out in 2007. It's directed by Gary Yates and Mark Mullin wrote the screenplay. James Van Der Beek is a scientist who comes to a fishing town that is having a problem with fish. Not enough of them. What's the cause? I suspect it's the beast in the title. Perhaps an octopus. There's plenty of rough seas ahead as James enlists the local fishermen to work together to kill the beast. Many will sacrifice their lives to the great sea god this night. Well, it was actually yesterday when I saw it but you get the idea. Hardly anyone isn't taking a salt nap. I gave it a 3, it's too talky, there's not anywhere near enough beast.

Swamp Devil 2008

Swamp Devil is another in the Maneater series of films. It came out in 2008 and the screenplay is by Gary Dauberman and Ethlie Ann Vare with David Winning directing. Bruce Dern is the big name, he plays a guy the sheriff is hunting for multiple murders. It wasn't Bruce, it was the Swamp Devil, but no one believes that at first. If fact, it's often the last thing people believe as the creature's intrusiveness rips their bodies asunder. The movie was shot in Montreal in three weeks. Bruce Dern broke his leg in the second week but continued on. It's nothing special, I only gave it a 4, but watched it to the end. I might watch it again, I'm keeping the Maneater series as I want to watch a few of them again.