PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 943

Alien From The Abyss 1989 Written by Tito Carpi and directed by Antonio Margheriti. This film was not released in the US until the new Severin Blu-ray. We watched that and it looked pretty good.

A couple of activists sneak onto an island where a geothermal power company is dumping radioactive waste into a volcano. They get a bit of footage on a VHS tape before getting spotted. The guy hides the tape and runs off one way and the gal runs off another. He gets caught and she meets up with a guy who lives on the island collecting snake venom. 

It slows down for a while and picks up in the last act when the monster starts attacking the plant. It's not an inspiring monster but there's carnage for a while, then the movie is over. It's pretty average and I can't for the life of me figure out why it never got released here until now. It got released other places, mostly it seems on VHS. It's just not as bad as I might joke it is, certainly Anthony has directed worse but it's not inspiring me to buy a copy. I see you can download a copy over at Rarelust where it's under the title Alien From The Deep. Not sure I'd bother, I've got so many movies that need watching for the first time.

Mayhem 2017 Written by Matias Caruso and directed by Joe Lynch. I've only seen a couple of Joe's films, Chillerama, Knights Of Badassdom and the 2019 Creepshow TV series. Joe mostly works in the horror genre.

A lawyer explains the current virus that's attacking the world pop. It takes the victim on an 8 hour trip with hallucinations, violent rage and naughty impulses. A recent court case had a man infected with the virus kill a man in a rage, he walked free because he wasn't in control, the virus was.

The day his co-worker throws him under the bus is the day the virus puts the giant law firm into quarantine. The lawyer is framed, blamed, fired and marched out of the building just a bit too late, the quarantine cops are blocking the doors. It's a quick acting virus, the firm is a mean spirited place to start with, the staff has a good reason for fighting. They aren't very good at physical fighting, they're used to fighting with words.

Soon as the virus gets up to speed there's plenty of mayhem and bloodshed. The lawyer and a client fight their way up the 8th floor in order to get a board member to cancel the client's foreclosure and see about getting the lawyer his job back. Many fall along the way, eventually the tower is conquered and the villain slain.

It was fairly fun but I'm not sure I will buy it. I'll put it on my Wish List for now.

Friday Night Movies 941

Slaughterhouse Rules 2018 Screenplay by Henry Fitzherbert and Crispian Mills, directed by Crispian Mills. First production from Stolen Picture, a company formed by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.

Simon Pegg is is Mr Houseman, a teacher at a fancy upscale private school. Michael Sheen is the greedy head of school. He's made a deal with frackers to drill for oil shale out in the woods. He bans the students from the woods.

Finn Cole plays a Northern working class student called Donald. His mother signs him up for the school without his knowing about it. Donald's not happy going there, it's a stereotypical English boarding school with secrets, class and bullying.

A giant sinkhole opens in the woods. The fracking also releases methane gas. It makes a nice green flame when lit. It turns out there's something down there and it's come up for a look. Most of the students are lucky, they've gone home for the weekend. Poor Donald has to stay and be bullied by his house Prefect.

I enjoyed the heck out of it. I enjoyed the in-jokes referring to other famous school films. There's plenty of comedy and some gory bits. It gets a 5.3 on the IMDb, I gave it a 6 because it's better than a 5. I bought the DVD from Hamilton Books sight unseen, glad I did, I'd watch it again sometime.

Polterheist 2018 Written by David Gilbank, Gemma Head and Paul Renhard, directed by David Gilbank.

Boxy and Tariq are a couple of lowlifes that work for Frank. They collect money from the gang's drug dealers, money Frank has been stealing. Frank's boss Uday wants that money, he's going to kill Boxy and Tariq if they don't show up with the cash in four days. The problem is Boxy just killed Frank, he was holding Frank's head underwater to make him spill where the money is and things got out of hand.

The pair get the idea to kidnap a medium who can supposedly talk to the dead. She can find out from Frank where the money is. Frank takes over the woman's body and leads the pair on a chase for the cash. It doesn't go so well for Boxy and Tariq but the medium gets away with a nice payout.

It's violent and humorous. I thought it was better than the 4.2 it gets on the IMDb. That's been screwed with by the voters, 16% voted it a 10 and 18% voted it a 1. There's complaints in the comments about the reviews. I'd watch it again.

Friday Night Movies 935

Madam Satan 1930 Screenplay by Jeanie MacPherson with dialog by Gladys Unger and Elsie Janis, directed by Cecil B DeMille.

A romantic musical comedy that had scenes filmed in Multicolor. Sadly the color scenes set in the Zeppelin only exist in B&W. It was the most expensive film made at Metro Goldwyn Mayer that year.

That's DeMille next to Kay Johnson, the lady on the left is screenwriter Jeanie MacPherson. It's DeMille's only musical and came out at a time when the public had started to lose interest in them. It was a box office failure that lost $390K, that's over $7,000,000 in 2023 dollars. DeMille had left Paramount for a better deal at MGM. He made three pictures there and two of them went bust at the box office. He went back to Paramount.

Kay Johnson plays Angela Brooks and Reginald Denny plays her husband Bob. Early one morning Bob comes home drunk with his pal Jimmy, played by Roland Young. Angela finds out from the newspaper that he'd been arrested and appeared in Night Court with his wife and Jimmy. Bob tries to convince Angela that "Mrs Brooks" was really Jimmy's wife Trixie, played by Lillian Roth. It's not a convincing story and Angela knows that Bob is cheating on her.

After Bob sleeps the day away the couple get into a fight because he's forgotten that they were supposed to go to the theater. They split up and Bob leaves the house. Angela regrets the split and decides to fight for her hubby. Her maid sings her a song about fighting for her husband. Angela tells Jimmy she's like to spend the night with him and Trixie, knowing all too well that they aren't married. She follows them home and puts them on the spot. Bob appears and they fool him into thinking that Trixie was out and Jimmy was there with a new girlfriend.

Jimmy has a costume party on a zeppelin. There's a nice model of the zeppelin and mooring tower. The zeppelin has large sets and plenty of great costumes.

There's a floor show with about as many performers as guests.

Angela makes an appearance in her Madam Satan costume and wows the men. Bob forgets Trixie quickly and goes after Madam Satan. There's some running about and funny dialog. Then things take a turn, a giant electrical storm comes up and detaches the zeppelin from the mooring tower. Now it's a disaster movie. The zeppelin is tossed about, the guest parachute to safety and only Bob manages to get himself hurt. Things get back to what ever normal is among the rich and the movie is over.

I enjoyed parts of the movie. The banter among the main characters is entertaining, Angela putting Jimmy on the spot is fun, the zeppelin model is great, the costumes are wild. I didn't care for the musical numbers. the singing is high pitched and the words are hard to understand. I did like the big dance routine on the zeppelin even though it's a bit of a goofy thing. I'd recommend seeing it, it's unusual and that's a plus. I doubt I'd need to see it again so I don't need a DVD of it. That's one less thing to store.

Eat Brains Love 2019 Based on the novel Eat, Brains, Love by Jeff Hart, screenplay by Mike Hero and David Strauss, directed by Rodman Flender. Rodman has directed very few films, I've only seen a couple, Leprechaun 2, Idle Hands, and enjoyed those. He mostly directs TV episodes, most of which I've also not seen.

Jake and Amanda are in school when they turn zombie and eat their classmates. The zombie plague is only transmitted sexually. The victim of the disease only appears as a zombie when stressed or hungry. They look normal the rest of the time. Zombie's have remarkable recuperative powers.

The government is hunting zombies so the couple go on the run. With the help of a zombie lesbian couple they quickly adapt to their new lifestyle. The lesbians have a shopping list consisting of local sex offenders. No one will miss those victims. One of the zombie hunters is a psychic called Cass. She develops a thing for Jake over the movie and eventually gives up the zombie hunting. Alastaire is Cass's boss, he's been experimenting on zombie's turning them into controlled slaves.

There's a good bit of gore that isn't too excessive, it goes well with the humorous tone of the script. It's briskly paced and mostly enjoyable. Not sure I'd need to see it again, I'm not going to get the Blu-ray.

Friday Night Movies 931

Curucu, Beast Of The Amazon 1956 Written and directed by Curt Siodmak.

John Bromfield is a plantation owner called Rock Dean and he's having trouble with the locals. They are leaving the plantation to go back to live in the jungle. Rock travels up the Amazon to try to get his workers to come back to the plantation. He had a guide in mind but Dr Romar, played by Beverly Garland, hired him first. She wants to go into the jungle to find a drug the natives make.

   

Rock is of the opinion that where they are going is no place for a woman. Rock's partially right as far as I'm concerned. I'd go as far as saying that it's no place for anyone.

 

Rock finds out that a monster is scaring the natives back home. It's some sort of giant bird like creature with sharp claws. Rock's bullets don't seem to have any effect on it. We soon learn that it's the guide, he's been scaring his people back home for his own selfish reasons. He'd also loaded Rock's rifle with blanks. The guide sentences Rock and the Doc to death.

 

Luckily for Rock and the Doctor some nice natives set the guide's village on fire allowing them to escape on a raft. All in all it's a below average B movie. I wouldn't need to see it again. The most interesting thing about it is that the jungle scenes were filmed in Brazil. The IMDb trivia pages says: Director Curt Siodmak said of this film, "I shot it down there [in Brazil], in the jungles. I never recovered, physically".  I always say it's best to stay out of the jungle.

We Are The Night 2010 Story and screenplay by Jan Berger and Dennis Gansel, directed by Dennis Gansel. A German vampire film.

A thief has an encounter with a cop called Tom during robbery. She manages to escape and get home. Later she meets a trio of vampire's at a nightclub. The vampire gals are absolute scum who leave a trail of corpses wherever they go. The leader turns the thief. There's a lot of crying about it, despite one of the side effects of being turned is an improvement of the body. The thief's skin clears up, her wounds disappear, her hair grows out nice and fluffy, she's now much hotter looking. The thief isn't much into the killing and the vampire gals enjoy it way too much.

The vampires hide by day in a big fancy hotel, going out at night to have fun in nightclubs. The police find a living guy at the scene of an encounter with the vampires. Tom connects the thief to the group because he'd seen her in the survivor's stolen car. The cops have no idea they are up against vampires but they raid the hotel and get many get slaughtered. One of the vampire gals gets burnt up by the sun. The other vampire gals manage to escape and hide out with the intention of escaping to Russia the next day. Another of the vampire gals kills herself.

The thief and the cop meet up , are arrested and tossed into jail. The leader of the vampire group comes calling, kills all the cops at the station and rescues the thief. Lena is given a choice, come with the leader or spend a short time with a live man. The thief kills the leader and disappears with Tom. The movie ends.

I'm not much of a fan of vampire melodrama. Too much crying and woe for me. I'll not need to see this one again.

Friday Night Movies 930

The Ghastly Love Of Johnny X 2012 Written by Steve Bingen, Paul Bunnell, Mark D. Murphy and George Wagner, directed by Paul Bunnell.

A musical SF comedy that's filmed in B&W to make it look like a 50s SF film. It's the last film appearance of Kevin McCarthy. It took ten years to film and Kevin died two years before it got released. It was the lowest grossing film of 2012. It ran in two theaters for a week, it's weekend gross was $86 and the week total came to $2,436.

Johnny X is an alien who's banished to Earth as a punishment. Some woman steals his Resurrection Suit and Johnny goes after her. They get involved with Reggie Bannister in a roadside diner and wind up at his house. They use the Resurrection Suit to give life to a dead singer. The story is mixed in with the musical numbers. Some of the songs ground the movie to a halt. In fact, it's mostly entertaining when there's no singing going on.

I didn't hate it but I wouldn't bother with seeing it again. Thanks to the local library for saving us from buying it.

The Dark Sleep 2012 Based on a Lovecraft story Dreams In The Witch House, written and directed by Brett Piper.

A horrible woman gets her ex-husband to give her a house. She moves in, only to find there's supernatural things going on. There's a lot of yelling from the annoying woman. We were all hoping a monster would get her but it never happened. The annoying woman travels to another dimension, some of that was sort of interesting but not a lot else was. In general it was mostly disappointing and not something I would need to see again.

Ghastlies 2016

Ghastlies 2016 Written by Chris Bavota and directed by Brett Kelly.

Some stupid socority sisters unknowingly release those creatures in the poster. They're small and not that well animated. The movie isn't very good either. Life goes on.

Cabin Fever Patient Zero 2014

Cabin Fever Patient Zero 2014 Written by Jake Wade Wall and Kaare Andrews. It's the third movie in the series. It's a prequel that nothing to do with the first two films.

Sean Austin is a carrier for a flesh eating bacteria, he's been locked up by Dr Edwards, who's experimenting on him. Some young people charter a boat and wind up on the island. Of course they wind up getting infected.

It's all by the number movie making and it got a lot of negative reviews. I got bored pretty quick and speeded up to 1.5 speed. I wouldn't need to watch it again.

Friday Night Movies 924

Overlord 2018 Story by Billy Ray, screenplay by Billy Ray and Mark L Smith, directed by Julius Avery.

On the eve of D-Day a plane filled with paratroopers is headed for Germany. Their mission is to take out a radio jamming tower. The plane is shot to pieces and heads for the ground, only a handful of men survive. They fall into the woods near the town where the tower is, four of them make it to the town where they are befriended by a local woman.

Strange things are going on in the church beside the tower. Turns out the German's are experimenting on people and have developed a serum that brings the dead to life. There's plenty of Nazi fighting once they get into the town. They barely survive the mission but some of the guys make it back to the US lines. They don't tell the commander what was there, preferring to hide the German's experimenting.

The opening airplane sequence gets pretty harrowing for the men, bullets and shrapnel tearing the plane up. It slows down once the survivors get to the ground then it picks up once they get situated in the town. The last act is mostly all action and some of it was pretty good. There's nothing really original here but they do well with what they have. The film didn't do that great at the box office but it's gotten a lot of fans on streaming services.

I thought it was odd that there was a black man in the paratrooper squad but the Wikipedia says he was a member of The Triple Nickels which was an all black squad. The paratroopers are supposedly made up of men from other squads. It's just not well explained in the film. One of the actors said in an interview it was about finding good actors rather than being historically accurate.

Other than that annoying bit I enjoyed the movie. I'd even think about picking up a copy if I see one cheap enough. I'd watch it again.

Max Havoc: Curse Of The Dragon 2004 Written by Irina Mishina, directed by Albert Pyun and Isaac Florentine. Albert directed the film in Guam and Isaac directed 10 mins of new content that added David Carradine and Richard Roundtree. Isaac said in an interview he'd declined screen credit because he didn't feel it was fair to Albert.

Mickey Hardt plays Max Havoc, an ex-kickboxer who ended his career after killing a guy in the ring. Max became a professional sports photographer and he's in Guam for a hotel publicity shoot. He visits his old trainer and friend Richard at his antiques shop. They agree to meet up after Max gets his work done.

On the beach Max meets a couple of sisters and gets a date with one of them. Back at the antique shop Richard gets a visit from a thief with a jade statue she's stolen from David Carradine. Richard gives her some money as a loan and she says she'll be back in 24 hours to get it back. Richard sells it to the older sister, she an old friend of his, and she finds out it's worth a fortune. She wants to use the money to fund the younger sister's medical schooling.

Trouble is, the real value to David is not in it being a piece of rare jade. It's been made into an urn for the ashes of the former leader of the Black Dragons. It's a secret crime club that David now heads. He wants those ashes back, he sends his minions, they find the thief and that leads to Richard's shop. Richard refuses to give up the buyer and the minions leave him and the thief dead on the shop floor.

Max gets in the middle of all this trying to save the sisters from the Black Dragons.  The older sister is a horrible person who's only interest is the money that the jade will bring. She puts everyone in danger, eventually leading to the Black Dragons kidnapping the younger sister. I was disappointed that the older sister made it to the end of the film.

Eventually it all comes down to a battle between Max and David's main fighter. Max wins, the younger sister is freed and David agrees to let them all alone. David gives them an ancient katana that he gives to the sisters to fund medical school.

Sadly the film isn't very good. It gets a 3.4 on the IMDb and that's not far off from what I was thinking. There is a sequel with Mickey and Dean Cain, click the links to watch. I'll get to that sequel at some point, or I wont. 

Friday Night Movies 922

The Humanoid 1979 Written by Adriano Bolzoni and Aldo Lado, directed by Aldo Lado. Aldo used the George B Lewis name in the US release. It's an Italian film and that sort of name change was really common to disguise the films origin. They didn't disguise any of the ideas they pilfered from the first Star Wars film.

That's Graal, he's the brother of The Great Brother who rules Metropolis. Graal wants to kill TGB and take over Metropolis. It's far in the future and Metropolis is the new name for the Earth.

Graal has escaped from a prison planet. Aboard a stolen warship he's enlisted Dr Kraspin to help him in his plan. Graal sends some troops to steal a supply of Kapitron. He's going to use it to change the citizens of Metropolis into a Humanoid army. Barbara Bach plays Lady Agatha, the Queen of Noxon, she's a bad bad lady. She wants to be Graal's wife and share the power. I didn't think Graal was the marrying kind.

Graal tests the Kapitron on a guy called Golob, who's played by Richard Kiel, and it's a success. The Kapitron turns Golob into a clean shaven killing machine. That's Golob with his robot dog. I did like the robot dog. The robot dog is no K-9 but Golob enjoys his companionship on long space trips.

Kraspin has been giving Lady Agatha anti-aging treatments. The core of the daily treatment involves killing a young woman everyday and using something extracted from her body for the serum. Graal, Kraspin and Lady Agatha are a trio of scumbags that need putting down.

Leonard Mann plays Nick, he's the hero of the story, he joins with a scientist called Barbara Gibson and a boy with powers called Tom Tom. Lucky for them Tom Tom has a couple of pals with bows and light up arrows, they are quite good at dispatching Graal's soldiers.

The two sides battle it out in space and on Noxon. The film uses locations in Israel for Noxon. It's very Tunisian. Eventually the baddies are defeated and Metropolis is saved.

For an Italian space opera is pretty darn good. It's not Star Wars good but the sets and effects are decent. The script is it's weakest element but it still gets you to the end of the story. I enjoy it more than most Italian SF and would watch it again.

Sint 2010 Written and directed by Dick Mass. I'd seen this several years ago and enjoyed it. Here's that 2016 post.

Saint Nick is the US title of the 2010 Dutch film Sint (Saint). It's written and directed by Dick Mass who had made videos for Golden Earring and several feature films I haven't seen. Sinterklaas is the Saint Nick of the title and he's a right bastard. We meet him at the beginning of the movie, it's December 5 1492 and ex-bishop Nick and his gang of thugs are visiting the town for their usual killing and looting. Some of the villagers get riled up and attack the men. They burn the ex-bishop's ship. He returns any time December 5 has a full moon.

The next time we see Nick it's 1968 and then it jumps to the present day. People don't believe the Saint Nick legend but some of them get pretty fucked up just the same. One teen fights back and there's a huge body count.

It's was pretty entertaining in a monster killing folks kind of way. It was interesting to see Amsterdam in a horror movie. It's kind of gory and definitely not a Christmas movie for kids. In fact Maas had a complaint filed against him. Here's the bit from the Wikipedia.

While children are not permitted to see the film, parental concern arose over the film's poster, seen in the streets and in the lobbies of movie theaters. It shows Sinterklaas with a mutilated face and a malevolent look. Some people were concerned that this could be confusing and frightening for little children that still believe in Sinterklaas. A legal complaint was filed in October 2010, requesting the removal of all posters. In the subsequent court case, director Dick Maas argued that if parents could make their children believe that Sinterklaas existed they could also inform their children that the man on the poster was not the real Sinterklaas. The court ruled in favor of Maas, noting that the mutilated face was not visible enough on the poster, and rejected the complaint.

Friday Night Movies 908

Summer Of 84 2018 Written by Matt Leslie and Stephen J Smith, directed by François Simard, Anouk Whissell and Yoann-Karl Whissell. The 3 directors are the same three that wrote and directed the 2015 film Turbo Kid. I enjoyed that film more than this one, mostly because I'm not much interested in a serial killer story.

A 15 year old named Davey decides that the policeman who lives across the street from his family's house is the Cape May Slayer. The killer had written to the local newspaper confessing to the 15 previous killings. Davey sees some clues that lead him to believe the cop is the killer and he's convincing enough to get his three friends to help him investigate. Turns out Davey was right. That knowledge puts him and his gang in great jeopardy, especially once Davey's father, an incredible asshole, spills the beans to the cop. There's no happy ending for Davey once the cop is outed, he escapes the police dragnet, stopping briefly to threaten Davey with the promise of a return visit for a bit of revenge.

It's well made but the story isn't the sort of horror film I like. It's not something I'd bother with again.

Daughters Of Satan 1972 Story by John A Bushelman, screenplay by John C Higgins, directed by Hollingsworth Morse. I didn't recognize the title but I had seen it back in 2010. It didn't look familiar while we were watching it.

Tom Selleck is a museum curator in Manila. He sees a painting in a shop, it depicts three witches being burned at the stake, Tom notices the witch in the middle looks a lot like his wife Chris. He buys the painting and brings it home, Chris doesn't like it but somehow knows the name of the coven and the day they were burned at the stake. 

The painting is a cursed magical thing that allows the long dead witches a chance to take over the bodies of living women. When the witch possesses Chris her image in the painting disappears. Two other women are possessed and the reformed coven team up to get some revenge on the magistrate who ordered them burnt at the stake. That guy's long dead. No matter, the witches don't mind killing the relatives of their oppressors. Tom's that relative and it doesn't go well for him during the movie.

It's not much of a movie, it's struggling to get to average, I gave it a generous five. I doubt I'd need to see it a third time.