PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movie 874

The Thing Below 2004 Written by Raul Inglis and Keith Shaw (under the name Lindsay James), directed by Jim Wynorski under the name Jay Andrews. According to the IMDb Jim left the production before the special effects were done. They sucked and that might be why he changed his name credit.

A substance was brought up from a deep sea drilling project. No one's sure what it is so they send a sample to another location by ship. The stupid people in charge are idiots and in a big hurry, they send the ship out in a severe storm. The jar containing the substance is broken in a classic display of bad lab safety. The dark mass turns into an intelligent telepathic murdering mass of tentacles. The transport ship goes missing.

The Captain of the missing ship has a brother who has a ship. The brother goes to the rescue and finds the missing ship, the Captain is the only one left alive on his ship. They leave the ship and travel to the oil rig to see if anyone is left alive. Hardly anyone is and some more of them die.

Sadly it's all pretty poorly written, with plenty of cliches and coincidences mouthed by all sorts of cartoon cutout characters. The CGI of the ship on the sea and the creature are both really poor. I thought I hadn't seen it but my Watched Movie List says I had, four years ago almost to the day, probably something on Amazon Prime. Totally forgettable, shouldn't have watched it the first time, let alone today.

Censor 2021 Director Prano Bailey-Bond co-wrote the script with Anthony Fletcher. Prano is Welsh and it's her first feature film, she'd directed some shorts a few years ago.

Niamh Algar plays Enid, she works at the British Board of Film Classification in 1985. There was a big stink back then as people reacted to some of the more nasty horror films coming out on VHS. Some were nicknamed Video Nasties and video shops would rent out these movies for anyone to watch. There was a group for decency working to ban these horrible films and the authorities helped. Business's were raided and prosecuted. You can read more at the link above.

Enid and her co-workers watch the videos to classify them and recommend censoring the film where needed. Some films are simply beyond the pale and they get banned. Most of the films have been released uncut in the UK in recent years.

The video nasties are really the set dressing for the stage where Enid rapidly loses her mind and becomes a homicidal psychopath. It all stems from Enid's missing sister, lost when they were children. Enid took her into the woods and then couldn't remember what happened to her. It's caused a big rift between her and her parents. They've declared the sister dead but Enid clings onto to the belief that she might still be alive.

Enid watches a film that has a scene that appears similar to the memory of her trip into the woods with her sister. She finds another film by the same director and becomes fixated on an actress, thinking she looks like her sister grown up. A visit to the producer ends poorly to say the least and a visit to the set of the film the actress is currently working on ends with even more slaughter.

Decent into madness films aren't always the ones that I want to watch but I'd rather watch this than the one with the what are you looking at guy. It's quite well made with a good cast but I don't have any urge to watch it again. I gave it a 6 on the IMDb, it's current average, I might have given it a 7 but it yelled in my face and that's so rude.

Friday Night Movie 873

The Awakening 2011 Director Nick Murphy co-wrote the script with Stephen Volk.

Rebecca Hall plays a woman ghost debunker in post WWI London, she doesn't believe in them and she finds out the hard way that she's wrong. Dominic West is a teacher in a boy's boarding school, he asks Rebecca to come to his school and find out if they really have a ghost. They do.

There's a few scares but some of the nasty activity is man made, the young boy who died off screen was really killed when a disturbing teacher, who shouldn't be teaching anyone, locked him outside to toughen him up, the kid had a fatal asthma attack. Much of the staff seems messed up, the grounds keeper is a mentally deficient cowardly rapist who tries to kill Rebecca. The school's head housekeeper is played by Imelda Staunton, she's one of the most disturbed of the lot.

Sadly they ruin a good ghost story with all sorts of personal melodrama, not much happens while they spend a lot of time on figuring out what's behind Rebecca's miserable life. Not something that appealed to me that much. I wouldn't need to see it again.

The Day Of Destruction 2020 Written and directed by Toshiaki Toyoda. The movie is a scant 57 mins so we watched the even shorter prequel Wolf's Calling from 2019. There's a third short in the Resurrection Trilogy, Go Seppuku Yourselves from 2021. We didn't see that.

A monster lives in a old coal mine and it's created some mental issues in the people who live there. The story is told in a disjointed way with little by way of clues as to what's going on. Think art film with a noisy annoying soundtrack.

Some guy, commenting on the IMDb, says the three films are an angry response to the pandemic and the government's handling of the situation. I couldn't tell that from what's on screen. The films we saw look good but it's not enough, I'm looking for a story I can get my head around. Enigmatic personal stories just don't cut it for me. I wouldn't need to see it again.

Friday Night Movies 866

Big Bad Wolf 2006 Written and directed by Lance W Dreesen. I hadn't remembered seeing this back in 2006. That post is in the title above. I didn't think it was going to be such a short while before I saw it again. It's still about average. I probably don't need to see it again at this point. That's an ugly poster.

The Snake Girl And The Silver Haired Witch 1968 Based on the comic Hebi Onna by Kazuo Umezu, screenplay by Kimiyuki Hasegawa, directed by Noriaki Yuasa. The comic was published in the US under the name Reptilia in 2006. The director is also the director of the first series of Gamera films.

A young orphan girl called Sayuri finds out that her parents are alive and they want her to come live with them. They live in a nice house, the mother is an amnesiac from an accident and the father is a scientist specializing in snake venom study.

When Sayuri arrives at the house she's greeted by an ambulance, the maid had just died from a heart attack. The father has just learned he's got to leave right away for an opportunity to study a rare snake in Africa. He's gone until the very end of the film.

The next night Sayuri finds a snake in her bed but after her mother and the housekeeper arrive it's gone. There's also someone in the attic, looking at Sayuri's bed through a hole in the ceiling. Things start to get more and more serious and deadly for Sayuri. She's a plucky girl who stands up to danger in the end.

It moves a bit slowly for me but I was still entertained enough to order the Arrow Blu-ray. I'll want to watch it again.

Friday Night Movies 864

Satanic Panic 2019 Screenplay by Grady Hendrix, direction by Chelsea Stardust.

On her first day as a pizza delivery girl Samantha runs afoul of Rebecca Romijn and her nest of Satan worshipers. The coven needs a virgin to bring forth Baphomet and their first choice, Rebecca's daughter, gave her virginity up when she found out she's going to die during the process. Since Samantha is a virgin and right there, Rebecca attempts to use Samantha for her new sacrifice but the general incompetency of the coven, and the help Rebecca's daughter, give Samantha a fighting chance.

There's a fair bit of humor and gore with plenty of dumb characters providing some slapstick action. It looks good, it moves along quickly, and it's got a fairly solid story. I thought it was better than average, say a 6 on the IMDb. You can check it out for yourself on YouTube while it's up there. See link above.

Legion Of The Dead 2005 Written and directed by Paul Bales. Paul became the Chief Operating Officer at the films production company The Asylum the year after this film came out. It's the only film he's directed, though he has written 9 others.

The story is about accidentally finding a secret Egyptian tomb in the California desert. The hieroglyphs say that an ancient princess was so evil they sent her body over the sea to be buried. A lightening storm lights up the old gal and she awakens as a beautiful young woman. Her lust for power brings death to the dig and the students get slaughtered one or two at a time.

There's too much melodrama in the mix, the main character, played by Courtney Clonch, was involved with the doctor who heads the dig, a guy on a previous dig had something for Courtney but she choose the doctor and he's all pouty she's at this dig. Courtney's sister shows up on the site just as the princess needs a virgin for a sacrifice.

Bruce Boxleitner plays the local sheriff, he doesn't appear that often, hired for a day or two to add a name to the credits that someone might have heard of before. The Wikipedia says that Bruce and co-star Zack Galligan are on screen for a total of ten mins running time. They also say that their scenes don't really add anything to the story. That's for sure, in fact, there are other scenes in the film that are filler. Sad, it's only an 82 min movie.

There's a fair bit of action and noise, plenty of slaughter and a couple of jokes. Sadly, it's not all that good. Despite the poorly lit scenes, poor acting, and mediocre dialog, it's more watchable than much of the product from The Asylum. The worst thing about it was the absolutely abysmal soundtrack, the voices were too quiet, music and effects too loud. That sound guy needs to get some training or a whack in the pee-pee from the flaming skull of Paul Naschy. You can test drive in on YouTube, see link above.

The Midnight Horror Collection - Flesh Eating Zombies

The Midnight Horror Collection - Flesh Eating Zombies has 4 movies on a single layer double sided disc. That's two low rez movies per side, the bit rate is low, about 2.5MB on average, the images look really poor. There's not much good to say about most of the movies either. You can find it on Amazon for 8 bucks and it's not worth it. I paid about 6 bucks for it and feel robbed.

Last Of The Living 2009 Written and directed by Logan McMillan.

I saw this back in 2010 but didn't remember that when I picked up this used 4 pack recently. The main guy looked familiar and sure enough the IMDb said I'd seen it before. It was a selection for Friday Night Movies, the link to the post is in the title, I still feel about the same as I did then. I might watch it again someday but the likelihood is low. 

Grave Mistake 2008 Written by Jimmy George and Chris LaMartina, directed by Chris LaMartina.

A poor looking zombie movie. The zombies are created by toxic waste and the guy who did the dumping is the step father of a young boy he likes to punch around. The kid has a couple of friends at the local gas station, he hangs out with the goofy mechanic and the long haired owner. They all team up when the town's citizens turn to flesh eating monsters. They try to survive but one by one they get picked off. The usual sort of fair but done poorly.

I'm not sure if they intentionally desaturated the color or it was just poor equipment and lighting. No matter, it sucks to look at. The film is really grainy on top of that. It just makes the below average script and the poor acting harder to see. It's made in Baltimore and the film makers say that it was made for about a grand. More money might help the look of the film but not so much the story. I have seen one other feature directed by Chris, the 2017 Call Girl Of Cthulhu, it wasn't very good. I wouldn't need to see either again.

Awaken The Dead 2007 Written and directed by Jeff Brookshire.

Another low budget film that looks awful. Desaturated color and dense grainy image equal a poor viewing experience. The script is a hodgepodge of goofy choices and coincidences. An ex-assassin is now a pacifist priest, a woman is an ex prostitute and daughter of the man who's caused all the zombies to appear in a town. He's invented a formula that can be sprayed on a town by a small plane. It turns everyone into flesh eating zombies. The father is the guy who trained the priest to be an assassin in some sort of black ops program. That secret black ops element is something I've gotten really tired of in the last few years. None of the actors are good enough to make anything much of the script. Not worth seeing, should be avoided in the future. Hopefully, I'll remember to look these up on my blog in the future. So easy to forget the easily forgettable.

I Am Omega 2007 Based on Richard Matheson's novel I Am Legend, screenplay by Geoff Meed, directed by Griff Furst. Griff is the son of Stephen Furst. Griff has acted in a lot of productions and directed 17 films, most of them for TV. I've only seen Lake Placid 3 and now this one. The film is produced by The Asylum. Never a sign of quality.

The only thing positive I can say about this movie is that it stars Mark Dacascos. He's been in some good films in his 30 year career, so sad to see he worked for The Asylum. Still, paycheck. The Asylum made their name by making low budget films that had a similarity to upcoming big studio films, releasing them months before the studio film comes out. They make money by not spending anything on their films. The Sharknado series is one of their more well known properties. One of my favorites of Mark's films is the 1997 action film Drive.

In this movie Mark is hold up in his compound trying to survive the zombie plague. He's forced to help save a woman and get her to scientists who are trying to create a cure, she's got some sort of antibody. The guys who enlisted Mark's aid are insane liars, they want to maintain the status quo so they can keep on killing people. They need killing and the film delivers.

Despite that, it's not a very good film, nearly any of the previous versions is more entertaining. I particularly like the 1964 Vincent Price film The Last Man On Earth quite a bit. I've seen that 4 or 5 times so far and really like the grimness of it. I will watch it again someday, I can't say the same about Mark's film, much as I like Mark. I'd rather watch him again in something good like Brotherhood Of The Wolf, Cradle To Grave, or John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum.

Spliced 2002

 

Spliced 2002 Written by Ellen Cook and directed by Gavin Wilding.The last of the three film DVD set that they couldn't even bother naming.

A Canadian film that's also known as The Wisher. The latter title is also the title of the film within the film, it's a popular horror movie that Mary wants to see. Her father forbids her to go as she's been having issues with nightmares and sleepwalking. Her father says it's because of the horror movies.

Mary goes anyway and wishes her father would go away. He's killed on the way to the theater to pick her up. Six weeks after the funeral she starts seeing the Wisher character from the film of the same name in the real world. She makes other wishes and they come true. More people get slashed by the Wisher. Mary gets some help to fight the Wisher. It turns out to be the shy student in her class who possibly was pushed over the edge by some subliminal messages in the film.

It looks fairly nice but it's lacking a well told story. The story piles gathers up a good lot of plot elements. It sure reminds me of a whole bunch of the other films they came from, the Wisher has Freddy Kruger hands but they're made of glass instead of metal. They even copy Freddy's signature move of running his claws along a wall. You probably know the one, it's shot from behind, about butt height. It's one I wouldn't need to watch again, I should watch some of the films this borrows from, first. Not a very good DVD set when all is said and done. That's often the case for these low budget film collections.

Satan's Little Helper 2004

  

Satan's Little Helper 2004 Written and directed by Jeff Lieberman. Part of a Triple Feature 2 DVD set, this DVD is two sided, backed with Spliced, and Blood Gnome is a single disc. Jeff directed a few films, this was his first, and last, since 1995. I've seen Blue Sunshine and my comment on my Watched Movie List was "wow, crap - Z king sucks". I'd seen Squirm on an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and my comment was "Yuck".

In Satan's Little Helper a stupid 9 year old called Dougie has a fixation with a video game where he plays Satan's Little Helper. In real life some horrible guy is dressed up as a Satan like figure, he's killing the locals and using their bodies to dress up his house for Halloween. Dougie's sister has come home for Halloween and she's brought her boyfriend. Dougie isn't too happy about that, he wanted to Trick or Treat with his sister only, he stalks off in a huff, and soon after encounters the fake Satan. Dougie thinks the guy is real and he tells his new pal that he should send the boyfriend to hell. Dougie is a real creep. Satan beats the crap out of the boyfriend and dumps him in an alley.

Dougie bring Satan guy back to his house and everyone thinks he the boyfriend. Dougie and Satan guy are sent to the store for candy to give out to Trick or Treaters. Their shopping trip leaves a trail of deaduns, and still Dougie thinks it's all playing. Back at home Dougie's dad is dispatched and everyone finally realizes that it's real. They are a thick bunch at best. It gets worse and the movie ends on a cliffhanger. Annoying!

I'm thinking below average even though it had a few good moments. Not something I'd need to watch or re-watch. Hopefully I won't bother with it again.

Blood Gnome 2004

 

Blood Gnome 2004  Written and directed by John Lechago. This was John's first movie, he's made 8 total through 2020. The only other film by John I've seen is Killjoy 3. I don't remember it being anything special, I never bothered to post about it. He directed two more Killjoy films but they weren't in the multi movie set I got with the 3 Killjoy films and the first 9 of the Puppet Master series. Blood Gnome is in a three pack with a couple of other low-budget horror films.

Daniel is a police photographer, he sees something in the viewfinder of a broken video camera while photographing a murder. We see what he sees, that ugly critter in the poster, but no one else does. They think he might still be stressed from the recent murder of his wife, he'd spent a few months in an mental hospital to recuperate, now he's back to work.

Daniel meets up with a customer of the dominatrix and asks for some help. They figure out what's going on and the critters come after them. There's plenty of bondage, nudity and killing. Most of the bondage scenes turn into blood baths, especially once the flesh hungry little fellers get to chomping.

Julie Strain shows up at a naughty party and she was the only one of the cast that I knew. I'm always saddened to see her big fake breasts. They are kind of scary. It's not that good a film but I got to the end and I did like the little critters. It turned out that I had seen BG before but that was back in 2004 and I'd long forgotten anything about the film. I doubt I'll watch it again.

Friday Night Movies 848

Saturday Morning Mystery 2012 Story by Kat Chandler, Jonny Mars and Jason Wehling, screenplay by Joey Balsimo, Aron Leggett and Jason Wehling, directed by Spencer Parsons.

Some paranormal investigators are broke and useless at finding ghosts. They have a paid gig at a haunted mansion, then they arrive they find there's something in the house but it ain't a ghost.

This Scooby gang parody starts off fairly well, then drifts into a poorly written second act where all the characters open up about their personal problems. That really killed my interest in the characters and their story. The third act ramps up the violence but by the end I was glad it was over. I thought it was below average and I wouldn't want to see it again.

Netherbeast Incorporated 2007 Written by Bruce Dellis and directed by Dean Matthew Ronalds.

Steve Burns is an office worker called Otto Granberry, and he works at Berm-Tech Industries, Darrel Hammond is his boss Turner. Steve gets called into Turner's office only to find Mike staked through the heart. Turner tells Otto he's got to rewrite Mike's report by Tuesday and he didn't kill Mike because of the poor report, he killed Mike because he was a vampire. Turner wants Otto to dispose of the body and get on that report.

We soon find out that Berm-Tech Industries is a very old company and all the workers are immortal netherbeasts that are often called vampires. They all live in Arizona, on the top of the Berm-Tech office block, they hardly ever go outside, living people don't get past the receptionist. The netherbeasts don't care to be called vampires, they have their own backstory and their problem is caused by a growth on their hearts. They drink human blood and eat human flesh but they don't murder to get their food anymore, they have a system in place to get fresh bodies.

Turner creates two issues, he hires a living woman to replace Mike and he's hired Judd Nelson to study the company's work habits and report. On top of that mess, some employees are murdered by an unseen person. Otto, office manager Dave Foley and Mike's replacement team up to try to figure out what's going on.

I'd seen this last week on Amazon Prime and liked it so much that I immediately ordered the DVD. I enjoyed it as much the second time through. It's a good solid comedy with a good script that's got funny jokes. There's a bit of romance, a murder mystery, a hostile take over and plenty of fresh blood. I'll be glad to see this down the road sometime.

Friday Night Movies 842

Crazy Samurai 400 Vs 1 2020 Written by Atsuki Tomori and directed by Yûji Shimomura. Japanese film originally titled Crazy Samurai Musashi.

Director Sion Sono wanted to do a 10 minute single take scene for a unmade film called Kenkichi in 2011. A stunt team worked for months on the 10 minute scene. Actor and stuntman Tak Sakaguchi proposed expanding that scene and continued working with the team for 8 more months. The scene was filmed in 2011 but the project was shelved, in 2018 crowd funding was used to finance filming the framing story, rerecording the audio, adding CGI blood and marketing.

Tak Sakaguchi plays Miyamoto Musashi, he was a real person, born in 1584 and dying in 1645. This story is an exaggerated version of an incident in Musashi's life. In 1604 Musashi fought 3 duels with the Yoshioka clan. In one of the battles he arrived early to find an ambush of between 70 and 200 men. He surprised them, killed a bunch and then ran away.

The movie opens with clan members discussing the situation, one of the men mentions they've gotten 100 students and 300 mercenaries waiting in the surrounding area. The audience can see them hunkering down behind some bushes. Back at the compound Musashi leaps out of a tree and slices a young boy down. Then the 77 minute single take starts. Small groups of men attack Musashi, lucky for him they attack one at a time, unlucky for them he chops them down one by one. The fight ranges through the village and eventually cuts off rather abruptly, the next scene is 7 years later.

There's mention on the IMDb Trivia page of Musashi fighting 588 men but I didn't start counting at the start of the sequence so I can't confirm that. Many of the mentions of the scene say Musashi's killed all these men but so many of them just get up and walk away, that there's little sense of the carnage. The viewer can't help but notice that the battle field has so few bodies on it. 

Sadly the highly touted feature of the film is a bit of a let down. The 77 minute single take is pretty repetitious and kind of dull. There's no real cool action bits, hardly any closeup action, nothing to really give it some oomph, just the same few moves used over and over. By contrast, the last scene, the one 7 years after the big fight, is edited, it's way more dynamic than the main action scene and it's not outstanding in anyway. It was interesting to watch and while the 77 minute scene is a good technical feat on film, I'm reminded that they've been putting 2-3 hour long operas on stage with hundreds of performers for centuries.

Thirst 2009 Based on Thérèse Raquin by Émile Zola, screenplay by Park Chan-wook and Jeong Seo-kyeong, directed by Park Chan-wook.

A Catholic priest volunteers to test an experimental vaccine for the Emmanuel Virus. The drug fails and he's infected by the killer virus. Surprisingly he doesn't die, he the only survivor of a lot of 50 test subjects. People think he's got magic healing ability and flock to his church. An old friend invites the priest to Mahjong night at his house. There the priest finds himself attracted to the friend's wife.

Soon after the priest has a relapse and finds he's become a blood sucking vampire who's can't go out int he day anymore. He starts feeding on people, he has an affair with the old friend's wife. She talks him into helping kill the husband and then into making her a vampire. It's all pretty sordid. The priest thinks so too and he arranges an early morning visit with Mr Sun for him and his old friend's wife.

A well enough made film that just didn't have a story that I cared that much for, it's a good reminder that vampires suck. Not something I would buy, I wouldn't need to bother with it again.