PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 843

Challenge The Devil 1963 Directed by Gieseppe Veggezzi under the name Joseph Vegh. There's no writer listed on the IMDb.

The IMDb trivia page: Filmed as a gothic movie under the title of "Katarsis" in 1963. Its production company "I films della mangusta" went bankrupt shortly after filming. The movie, which was about 90 minutes long, was bought by production company "Eco Film". They cut out half an hour and added newly shot scenes involving gangsters, a monk and a cabaret dancer. The finished product was 78 minutes long, retitled "Challenge the Devil" and released in 1965.

   

Part of the new Severin set The Eurocrypt of Christopher Lee. A collection of five films, the remaining 24 episodes of an Italian horror anthology hosted by Lee, several interviews and extras, plus a soundtrack. The set will put you back a century plus and is really meant for the big CL fan. You can also find this movie on the bootleg DVD sites.

The movie has hardly any Christopher Lee in it. Most of the movie is told in a flashback by the guy in the striped shirt. He's a monk in a mission, his old friend comes to him for help. His old pal has been involved with an ugly woman who robs him of some documents. The gangster who wants the documents is upset and tries to kill the pal. The monk goes to see the ugly woman and his appeals for help fall on her deaf ears. She plans to blackmail the gangster and she doesn't care one bit that she's turned the pal into a wanted man. She'd known the monk when they were younger and she asks him how he came to be in that state.

That's when the flashback kicks in, the monk had been a part of a group of assholes who drive fast, drink a lot, and beat total strangers. As we see them driving about they run a car off the road and beat the driver for no reason. They leave him lying on the road and drive off. They next encounter a seemingly abandoned castle and break in. The castle in the film is the Odescalchi Castle in Bracciano Italy. Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes got married there.

The castle isn't empty, Christopher Lee lives there, he tells them he'll give them all his riches if they find his dead bride. She's somewhere in the castle. They start looking and weird things start happening. They're ordeal is kind of lame but they all get a dose of goodness and leave the castle. They help the man they beat and it turns out to be Christopher Lee. Was Christopher the devil or something like that? That's what many reviews say. It's hard to know, it's sadly not that well told a story. No matter, the harrowing tale from the monk turns the ugly woman around and she coughs up the docus to help the pal.

It's cobbled together nature and weak story make it below average for me. It's more interesting with Christopher in there, it's also unlikely to have survived without him. Still, I was glad to see it. It's often fun to see some of the lesser works by one's favorite film stars.

Witching and Bitching 2013 Written by Jorge Guerricaechevarría and Álex de la Iglesia, directed by Álex de la Iglesia. It's Spanish title is Las brujas de Zugarramurdi or The Witches of Zugarramurdi. It's a real town and you can read about it's occult past on the Wikipedia.

In an incredible opening scene some guys rob a pawnshop in a crowded town square. Jose and Tony are the main robbers, Jose has brought his son along and Tony isn't too happy about that. Things go wrong and the police are right on hand. The square the pawn shop is in is like Time Square in New York, crowded with tourists yet the police and robbers wage a fierce gun battle with plenty of victims.

The robbers are disguised as street performers, the kind you'd find posing with tourists for a bit of cash. Jose is Christ, Tony is a green army man, their associates are Spongebob Squarepants and Minnie Mouse. Only Jose, his son and Tony get away. They hijack a cab and force him to drive to France. The cab's poor passenger hopes they don't kill him but if he knew what happens after they get to Zugarramurdi he'd would have hoped for a quick and speedy death from a bullet.

The cab driver bonds with Jose and Tony over their troubles with  women. Jose and his wife are split up and he had his son that day. Jose's wife is one his trail and so are a couple of cops. The chase culminates in Zugarramurdi where some wildly entertaining things happen. The town is home to a lot of cannibal witches and they are a nasty lot with a desire to take over the world.

The story gets wilder and wilder as it moves fiercely along, it makes the 112 min running time seem to fly by. It's gory, gross and hilarious. I'll need to get a copy, it's one I would want to see again sometime.

The Legend Of The Christmas Witch 2018

The Legend Of The Christmas Witch 2018 Written by Nicola Guaglianone and directed by Michele Soavi. Michele directed 4 other movies that I've seen Cemetery Man, The Sect, The Church and StageFright. After Cemetery Man came out in 1994 Michele didn't direct a theatrical feature until 2006, he started directing TV in 1999 and pretty much stayed there. I've not seen any of his other work since CM until I noticed this on Amazon Prime today.

Paola Cortellesi is the lady in the poster, she's a teacher and seemingly normal lady by day but at midnight she turns into La Befana, she stays that way until 8 AM. Not the most convenient lifestyle for a normal lady but she's also immortal and has a flying broom. She delivers presents to the children who write to her on January 8 of the year.

She's a good teacher and her students like her, one of the other teachers likes her too, he complicates her life with a request for marriage just as a creepy guy kidnaps her. The creepy guy runs a huge toy empire, and he's got a plan to take over the Christmas Witch and Santa's gigs so all the kids can worship him. He was forgotten by the Christmas Witch one year, his toy undelivered due to a mishap, a dog got at the card in her magic Rolodex.

Lucky for the Christmas Witch her students are on the job, they take on the rescue of their favorite teacher and learn a few life lessons in the process. The Christmas Witch's teacher pal helps out a good bit too. It's kind of average, there's some jokes and nice moments, and some nice scenery in the mountains of Alto Adige Italy. I liked the kids well enough, it wasn't as sappy as a Disney movie but I doubt I would buy a DVD even if one were available.

Friday Night Movies 839

VFW 2019 Screenplay by Max Braillier and Matthew McArdle, directed by Joe Begos.

Stephen Lang is the bartender at the VFW post, William Sadler, Fred Williamson, Martin Kove, David Patrick Kelly and George Wendt are his old Army pals. They come to the bar to drink and hang out. It's nothing special but it's a place for them. That all gets interrupted by the arrival of a young girl, she's stolen a big bag of drugs from a psychopath drug dealer. He sees her run off with the stash and sends his younger brother and a few henchmen to get her back.

The thugs rush the bar and David Patrick Kelly goes down with an axe in the shoulder, nearly all the thugs are killed including the psychopath's little brother. The psychopath sends an small horde of fucked up drug addicts to kill them. There's plenty of action, oodles of body parts hacked and sent flying. It's a battle to the end and hardly anyone comes out alive at the end.

I enjoyed it, a good solid action film with a great cast. It had a nice, dark sense of humor, good gore, and a great score. My only complaint is the action was in the fast jump cutting style and I'm not as big a fan of that. I'd still watch it again. Worth a look for the fans of that sort of thing.

Psycho Goreman 2020 I watched it a month or so ago and posted about it on FNM. It's still funny and Mimi is still an asshole.

Friday Night Movies 837

Pixels 2015 Story by Tim Herlihy, screenplay by Tim Herlihy and Timothy Dowling, directed by Chris Columbus. I have a box of DVDs waiting to be watched for the first time. Tonight I stuck my had in the box of discs and pulled out one at random. I couldn't find a good sized copy of the cover to the DVD via Google so grabbed the one on Amazon. The IMDb has posters of movies but they've changed their web page to only allow screen captures of the images posted to their page. Annoying, it now takes longer to grab an image. I noticed that the DVD was only $3.74 on Amazon and the Blu-ray a tenner. You can pick up a used copy for $1.96, costs more than double for shipping.

The movie opens in the 80s and the early arcade games were all the range among the kids. A trio of kids are competing in an arcade championship, they grow up to be the adults in the film Adam Sandler is a home-theater installer and Kevin James is the President of the United States. The arcade action was recorded and put in a capsule that was launched into space. It seems aliens have found the capsule and interpreted the recording as a call for war. Now it's on. The attackers come in the form of 80s arcade game images.

It's that connection to the arcade that pulls Adam into Kevin's world after a military base on Guam is attacked by the video game Galaga. They soon find a message from the Aliens telling them that this is the first challenge for the rights to the Earth. Adam gets a hand from Josh Gad and Peter Dinklage.

There's a bit of romance between Michelle Monaghan and Adam, Josh meets the love of his life, a character from a video game. There's plenty of giant arcade play as the attacks start happening. A giant Pac-Man roams the streets of New York. Eventually the Earth is saved and all is well enough.

It made me laugh occasionally and I was happy to have seen it. I'd want to watch it again someday. I keep meaning to watch all my favorite Adam Sandler movies in a marathon but there's so much I still haven't watched.

Tremors: Shrieker Island 2020 Written by Brian Brightly and Don Michael Paul, directed by John Michael Paul. This is the 7th Tremors film, JMP is the director of Tremors 5: Bloodlines and the 6th film Tremors: A Cold Day In Hell. I've not seen any of his other films except for Death Race 4: Beyond Anarchy. The rest don't seem to interest me much.

A billionaire hunting enthusiast has had four graboids grown and placed on his island. He's set up a hunting party for other rich assholes. Of course, those guys are in over their head and one by one his paying customers get chomped on by one of my favorite tunneling monsters. Also on the island are some seismic researchers, Caroline Langrishe is in charge and Jon Heder is the comic relief. Caroline is also the mother of Bert Gummer's son, Bert is of course played by Michael Gross, his son Travis is played by Jamie Kennedy in the 5th and 6th films.  Travis is in jail so Caroline sends Jon to round up his father. Bert's gone native and living in the wilderness. Still, he comes and takes on his old enemy.

The hunters do manage to mortally wound the graboid they encountered but it gets tougher and tougher to survive against the graboids and shriekers. The later have developed a new shriek that incapacitates the humans. Things look better once Bert arrives but soon enough the rich douche bag in charge has locked him up in an old bunker. Some people are so arrogant they deserve to get eaten by graboids. There's plenty of running and screaming. Just what you don't need with graboids around.

The movie looks great, during the day there are lush tropical forests and plenty of explosions, at night the scenes are lit with flames and explosions. Who ever was doing the flame effects was really good at their job. One by one the monsters are defeated, finally the last beast is left and it's a bitter sweet moment as Bert disappears into the flying dirt. Michael Gross has said he'd like to do another movie but he's 73 and it could be a couple more years before it happens and he might be too old to do the action stuff.  I enjoyed the movie and thought it was a nice addition to the series. Kind of wraps it up but still leaves a door open.

Friday Night Movies 833

A Woman, A Gun and A Noodle Shop 2009 Screenplay by Shi Jianquan and Xue Jianchao, directed by Zhang Yimou. It's a remake of the Coen Brother's film Blood Simple.

Everything centers around the noodle shop in the middle of nowhere. The desert is beautiful, with rows of brilliant pastel colored hills. The people in the noodle house aren't quite so beautiful. The old man is the owner, his wife buys a gun, her lover is worried. The lover works at the noodle shop, the owner pays a soldier to kill the lovers. Of course, it all goes wrong, quite nicely, and it was fun getting there.

It's a nice adaptation and I liked the more humorous take. Glad I took a chance and bought the DVD, I'll hopefully get to watch it again someday.

Dog Eat Dog 2016 Based on the Edward Bunker novel of the same name, screenplay by Matthew Wilder, directed by Paul Schrader.

Nicolas Cage is a crook out of jail, he hooks up with William Defoe and Christopher Matthew Cook. They are absolute scum. They get hired to kidnap a kid, they screw it all up and everyone dies. Since it's a Paul Schrader film there's some onscreen jiggery pokery. The last several minutes are annoying. What am I supposed to make of that. Paul's inner brain and I don't get along.

It looked pretty good for a fairly low budget film. It was shot in Cleveland over 25 days with a crew of recently graduated film students. It didn't do well at the BO. Critics were mixed and it has yet to break 5 on the IMDb. I kind of feel 5ish, if it had been more original, I might have liked it a bit more but these aren't interesting individuals and I've seen their story over and over. I'll still keep the DVD, I might want to watch Nicolas and William chew some scenery.

Immortal Demon Slayer 2017 Director Derek Kwok co-wrote the screenplay with Hai Huang, Hezai Jin, Fan Wenwen and Henri Wong, they adapted Jin's book Wukong Biography. The movie is called The Tales Of Wu Kong in China and it's another Monkey King movie. It's supposedly set 500 years before Sun Wu Kong goes to war with the Heavenly Kingdom.

There's a long complicated plot involving a lot of people, some of them have powers of one sort or another, hardly any of them are on the same page. There's plenty of action, romance and murder. Good reminder, humans and gods don't mix, someone always winds up dead, and it isn't that immortal guy.

I enjoyed it for the most part and would watch it again. I suppose I could have a Monkey King marathon. That would take a while, I know I've got six Monkey King films, I think there's at least another. Oh, well, some other day. 

Science Fiction Sunday 631

Brave New Jersey 2016 Director Jody Lambert co-wrote the screenplay with Michael Dowling. I watched this on Amazon Prime. It's not strictly SF but it is related.

The movie takes place the night of the Mercury Theater radio dramatization of HG Well's The World Of The Worlds. Tony Hale is the mayor, he's pretty much a wallflower that gets bossed around by everyone. As the movie opens we  meet members of the town, most of them have more personality than the mayor. The day passes quickly and soon the broadcast begins. That sets off a panic and the town's soon in an uproar.

It's a nice mix of mass hysteria and romantic comedy. The invasion brings out the best and worst of the locals and their relationships change, for better or worse. It made me laugh but I didn't feel the need to pick up a copy.

5th Passenger 2017 Director Scotty Baker co-wrote the screenplay with Morgan Lariah and David Henri Martin.

Morgan Lariah plays the comatose woman taken from a space ship's life pod as the film opens. Morgan's in sad shape so Marina Sirtis uses a device to access her memory. The Captain of the ship wants to know what happened to the pod and it's inhabitants, one of which was his brother.

The ship Morgan was on is going to explode and she gets into a pod with four others. It was designed for four, which will cause some complications. There's a lot of tension because Morgan is a non-citizen, someone to be shunned and called a roach, even though she's the most competent space pilot among them. It sounds like a really bad future. The future of the people in the pod is also bad, especially after the appearance of a murderous alien creature.

It was nearly average for me, a poor start put me off a bit. The story gets a trick inserted near the end, I could go either way on it, a lot of voters didn't like something about the movie, it's at a weak 3.2 on the IMDb with 1586 votes. Still, not one I'm going to collect or view again. I watched it on Amazon Prime, you can also see it on YouTube at the link above.

Friday Night Movies 830

30 Days Of Paranormal Activity With The Devil Inside The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo 2013 Written and directed by Craig Moss.

An everything but the kitchen sink comedy about a woman, her family, and the troubles they have with ghosts. It's got the ghosts but it lacks funny jokes. I got a bit of a laugh from a couple of fart jokes, that's how low the bar is set. The only actors I knew in the cast were French Stewart and Danny Woodburn. They only had small parts. The rest of the cast were a mix of fairly good to below average. Too bad they had such a weak script. I watched it on Amazon Prime and don't figure I'd watch it again.

The Axiom 2018 Written and directed by Nicholas Woods. It's his first movie, he has another in production.

A woman takes her brother and some friends into the woods to look for her missing sister. The woman meets a guy in a bar who knows about the area where her sister went. It's a weird place called The Axiom. They go into the area and weird things start to happen. It turns violent and deadly pretty quickly. There are some long fingered pale humanoids that were sort of creepy.

It turns out the woman didn't tell her brother and friends everything about the place and they suffer greatly. What a POS she is, I hate movies about people like that. The last half of the movie is everyone chasing around in the woods until we find out who the evil pricks are.

The script and direction are mostly OK. I gave it a generous 5 but wouldn't need to see it again.

Game Night 2018

Game Night 2018 Screenplay by Mark Perez, directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein. John you might know as an actor, either from Freaks and Geeks or Bones, he's written some comedies with Jonathan: Horrible Bosses 1 & 2, the 5th National Lampoon Vacation film Vacation, they were co-writers on Spider-Man: Homecoming. The picture below shows the cast with John on the far left and Jonathan on the far right.

Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams are very competitive gamers, they host a game night with some friends and Jason's brother Kyle Chandler. They used to invite their neighbor Jesse Plemons over but since his wife left him they've not. The whole group is rather shallow and hard to like, at least, to me. The following week they are over at Kyle's big new house, Kyle is rich and successful and a bit of dick, especially to his brother.

Kyle has set up a role play game for the evening. At some point one of them is going to be kidnapped and they'll have to solve the crime to save them. The winner of the game gets Kyle's fancy new car. Reality has a way of getting in their way, some real crooks turn up, knock out the actor playing the FBI guy, Jeffrey Wright in a cameo, and kidnap Kyle. Turns out Kyle is big crook and he's gotten himself in trouble with a Bulgarian played by Michael C Hall.

It's all running around doing zany stuff to the end. There are plenty of gags but some of them are weak. In the end there's enough good stuff to push you over the finish line. There's a couple or three good surprises. I got the DVD from the cheap bin at Walmart on a whim. I'd probably watch it again someday. I'll keep it for now.

Friday Night Movies 825

Tag 2018  Written by Rob McKittrick and Mark Steilen, directed by Jeff Tomsic. The basic story is based on an article from the Wall Street Journal about a group of Spokane men who play a game of tag over the month of February. They've been doing it for 28 years.

Playing the gang of hide and seekers are Ed Helm, Jake Johnson, Jeremy Renner, Jon Hamm and Hannibal Buress.Annabelle Wallis plays the WSJ reporter who goes with the guys on what might be the last game. Isla Fisher plays Ed's wife, she's plenty of fun. Rashida Jones, Leslie Bibb, Nora Dunn and Brian Dennehy play other friends and family.

The guys are thinking of packing it in but they really want to get Jeremy, he's never been tagged, and he's the best at planning and avoiding. There's layer after layer of lies and deception. There's a good bit of physical comedy, it's no wonder Ed winds up in the hospital. I had a laugh and would watch the movie again some day. It was another Blu-ray/DVD combo set that came from the Dollar Tree for a smackaroonie.

Hot Dog 2013 Written and directed by Marc-André Lavoie. A French Canadian crime comedy that was more entertaining than I expected. The management team from a hot dog factory cross paths with a crime boss and a guy who found a human tooth in one of their dogs. It's kind of pokey but the story is solid and there are some fairly good jokes. Plenty of goofy characters and silly situations. It's another I found at Dollar tree for a buck, worth it. I'd watch it again.

The Addams Family 2019

The Addams Family 2019 Story by Matt Lieberman, Erica Rivinoja and Conrad Vernon, screenplay by Matt Lieberman, directed by Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon.

The movie opens with a bit of backstory on how the newly wed Gomez and Morticia wind up in a big old mansion on a fog shrouded hill in New Jersey. Thirteen years later civilization has moved in at the bottom of the hill and developers have drained the swamp that created the family's beloved fog. The lady in charge of the housing project is a psychopath that doesn't want to have the Addams family eyesore looking down on her development.

There's a subplot involving each of the two kids, Pugsley has to preform a sword dance at his coming out party before all the invited family members. Tuesday is intrigued by the world outside her house, she's never left the grounds of the family home her whole life, now she's going to try school.

There's plenty of noisy stuff and gags, I got a few laughs out of it. The look of the characters is truer to the original Charles Addams' New Yorker cartoons. They aren't an attractive family in those cartoons but they are funny. I'd happily watch the movie over again and I can, someone gifted me their DVD copy from the Blu-ray DVD combo. Nice. Feel free to send along any old DVDs you don't want.