PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 902

Monstrum 2018 Story by Jeong-uk Byeon and Heo-dam, screenplay by Heo-dam and Jung-ho Huh, directed by Jong-ho Huh. A Korean giant monster story set in the 15th century.

King Jungjong's got some trouble with his Prime Minister. The PM is turning the citizen's against the King with a series of plots to instill fear into the citizens. He plans to depose the King and take over. There's a plague going on, and now, a monster is killing the locals in the countryside.

Yoon Gyeom was a member of the King's guard but he had a difference of opinion with the king and was booted out of the court 5 years earlier. Yoon had gone to live in the countryside with his right hand man Sung Han and Myung, a young girl he'd saved from being killed by the Prime minister's men. The country is having many issues and food is short. Muck of them are the PM's doing. He's totally ruthless and human lives mean nothing to him.

The King send Heo to ask Yoon to help find and kill the monster. The King suspects it's the Prime Minister behind the beast but there is no proof. A large group of men are organized, they march into the woods intending to flush the beast and kill it. The group is half civilians rounded up to help and 100 of the Prime Minister's soldiers. The soldiers soon turn on the civilians but the monster shows up and all hell breaks out.

The rest of the movie is about trying to survive the monster and the Prime Minister. There's plenty of action, colorful locations, a great giant monster, plenty of court intrigue, an incredibly scummy villain, endless slaughter and wonderful explosions. Entertaining enough for me to order the Blu-ray. I will want to see this one again.

Men On The Hour 1977 Written and directed by Ming-Hua Chen. A dull kung fu film made soporific by the dubbing. It was a struggle to get through the thing. I have rarely seen a worse kung fu film. You can check it out on YouTube but I wouldn't recommend it.

Shockwave: Countdown To Disaster 2017

Shockwave: Countdown To Disaster 2017 Written by Blaine Chiappetta, Rafael Jordan and Ari Novak, directed by Nick Lyon.

A secret government military group has developed a device that creates earthquakes of great magnitude. It's been set off and there's only 2 people who can stop it. a used to be married couple that are experts in some sciencey thing. It's a race against time and the earthquakes get more and more frequent.

It's all pretty much familiar, I don't mind that so much but there's not much here that gets the film to average for me. It scores a 4.2 on the IMDb and that's about it for me. I saw it over on Amazon Prime. Trying to get a random SF movie in to keep up with more current product. At least the product that gets put in the free with Prime section. A lot of the movies don't stay free for long. Not that I think I'm missing anything when they do.

Friday Night Movies 882

Benny Loves You 2019 Written, produced and directed by Karl Holt. It's a British horror comedy about a murderous puppet with Karl playing the main character.

Karl still lives with his parents, he's a toy designer who's having a poor time at work where he's not coming up with interesting toys. On his 35th birthday his parents are killed in a freak accident, nearly a year later he's about to lose the family home because he's crap at his finances. He's never had to survive on his own because he stayed at home with mom and dad. Karl is a big loser at work too, he's fallen so far in the company the owner fires him. He then hires him back for a low level job with a big pay cut. Loser that Karl is he stays on.

While packing up he's convinced himself he needs to adult up and he decides to throw Benny, his favorite toy as a child, into the bin. Benny becomes a homicidal murder machine, starting with all of Karl's stuffed toys and then grinding up the neighbor's cat with a lawnmower. Karl calls the police and they come by, they think he's been stalked by someone but they can't find any evidence of a break in.

Benny kills the estate agent and Karl has to clean up and hide the body. The police turn up to pick up a camera they left there. More and more people are killed and everywhere Benny goes turns into an abattoir. For no reason that any of us could understand Karl hooks up with his co-worker. Most of the other co-workers are killed when Benny is taken to the office by that co-worker. Benny can't stand anyone but him getting any of Karl's love so he tries to kill her. Lucky for them the local coppers save their lives and help cover up Benny's murder spree by blaming it on one of Karl's co-workers. It's OK he was a pretentious twat and no body liked him. Besides, who would believe it was a puppet anyway.

The movie struggles to be funny, many of the jokes fall flat. I found it predictable and I'm usually pretty blase about that sort of thing. It could really have used a punch up in the script department. I think Karl is a better director than he is a writer. He made a decent looking film that cut together pretty well. I did get a few laughs out of it, Benny was usually entertaining. I don't feel I need to see it again but I was glad to have seen it. That Benny doll above is about $35 on Amazon. A little too much for me but I like it.

Bleeding Steel 2017 Written and directed by Leo Zhang. I bought a copy of the Blu-ray because I like to have Jackie Chan movies. I don't keep up with him though, I'm usually playing catch up. I see from a quick scan on Amazon I need to order a few more Jackie films. I'll have to go check the IMDb and make a list so I don't miss any. I'm not sure I'm that interested in the mountain climbing movie.

Jackie is a cop with a dying daughter, he's on his way to the hospital to be with her but police work interferes. He gets involved with a massive fight with a grotesque costumed villain called Andre and his black leather clad henchmen. They're after Doctor James and his metal heart. There's a big battle and Jackie blows up the villain. Jackie is lucky to be alive but he finds his daughter has died.

Thirteen years later we meet some other characters in Sydney Australia. Turns out that Jackie's daughter didn't die, she received the Doctor James metal heart and magical cell rejuvenation serum. She's grown up in an orphanage and doesn't know that Jackie is her dad. More costumed villains show up, the baddie from the big explosion among them. There's plenty of action as Andre tries to kidnap Jackie's daughter. He wants her blood for a transfusion.

The action scenes are big and noisy, there's plenty of bullets flying, high tech pistols blasting, explosions and people jumping around and punching each other. There's a big fight on the roof of the Sydney Opera House and you really get a good view of the roof tiles. Sadly the script is so poor that it lets the movie down. It's filled with nonsense and cliches, it lacks any good humor. The dubbing isn't very good either. I bought my copy from Hamilton Books and it's the Canadian edition. It only has English or French audio, the US has a Mandarin track. I put that on my Amazon Wishlist. It might be worth the tenner.

Beyond White Space 2018

Beyond White Space 2018 Written by Ryan Colucci and Clay McLeod Chapman, directed by Ken Locsmandi. It's a US Hungarian production, I can't find much about that mix, as in, who done what. I did read that the director is an effects guy, He's worked on a lot of stuff since 1995, I've seen a good bit of it without knowing who he was. The writers have mostly written short films.

The script takes a lot of inspiration from Moby Dick and Chinese dragons. The ship in the movie is used to harvest space bugs for cash. On their latest trip they encounter a giant space creature. They had a good haul this trip but that was stolen by some space pirates. The captain  convinces the crew that they should go hunting for the giant space creature. They don't know that he was offered a huge pile of cash by some crooks for it, nor that it killed his dad. 

There's plenty of spaceships and space, some fist fights and some space battles, a giant monster and plenty of melodrama. The Captain and his brother are at odds, the couple humping in the cargo bay find out they're having a kid, there's an old space rat, a pretty cook and an introverted space mechanic. This trip the crew is joined by an inspector who brings her own emotional baggage. There's plenty going on, at 93 mins there's hardly any time to deal with any of it. 

I still enjoyed a good bit of it. I thought it was about average, nearly worth a 5 on the IMDb. I watched it on Amazon Prime, it might be other places. I wouldn't need to see 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.

Friday Night Movies 861

Bill & Ted Face The Music 2020 Screenplay by Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon, directed by Dean Parisot. Chris and Ed wrote the previous Bill & Ted films and Ed wrote some TV and films I like: It's Garry Shandling's Show, Mom And Dad Save The World, Men In Black, What Planet Are You From?, Charlies Angels and Now You See Me. Dean directed a good bit of TV and film over the last 35 years, I think the highlight for me is Galaxy Quest and the 2002 episode of The Tick - Arthur, Interrupted. Much of his work I just haven't seen.

Bill & Ted have fallen far after having a bit of fame. They haven't written the song that will re-unite humanity and and the universe is having time hiccups. People and places are jumping about in time and it's a right old mess. Kristin Schaal arrives on B&T's street in a time machine and takes them to see the Great Leader. They must write the song and preform it in 77 mins to avoid the destruction of space-time.

The boys hit on a plan but it fails, they make things worse and the Great Leader sends a killer robot after them. People in the future do well on the time travel but their killer robots have really crap AIs for brains. B&T's daughters take Kristin's time machine and round up a new band with musicians from various times.

The killer robot manages to kill Bill & Ted's families and send them to Hell. B&T follow, make a deal with Death, again played by the brilliant William Sadler, and the lot escape to the future. There's a nice happy ending as the boys figure out what to do about that pesky universe saving song.

I enjoyed it and ordered up a copy. I'll watch it again.

Lake Michigan Monster 2018 Story by Ryland Brickson Cole Tews and Mike Chesik, screenplay and direction by Ryland Brickson Cole Tews. A low budget B&W horror comedy with a thin coat of surrealism. It was made in Muskegon and Milwaukee Wisconsin.

A really annoying sea captain tricks 3 people into helping him kill a monster in Lake Michigan. Nearly everything he says is a lie, other than there's a monster in the lake. The film's CGI is pretty simple but it gets the job done. 

I liked some of the movie more then other bits, the comedic word play between the characters was a bit off putting. Not all those jokes were funny to me. Other's might get more mileage out of them. The Captain sets off on his solo voyage to battle the monster, I found that more entertaining than the interactions between the main characters. It's better than average for a low budget film but only about average when compared to the general range of films.

There's an Arrow Blu-ray out but it's 20 bucks and I wouldn't want to pay that. You can get all three of the Bill and Ted films in a 3 disc Blu-ray set for the same money. I'm getting that set and upgrading my DVDs of the first two films. I try not to upgrade but the difference between the Blu-ray of the last movie and the 3 pack is about 4 bucks.

Friday Night Movies 859

Nightmare Cinema 2018 Horror anthology film with 5 short films. Various people enter a deserted theater only to see a short film of their own death. Mickey Rourke is The Projectionist in the linking bits. Those scenes are written and directed by Mick Garris.

The films are heavily referential and copy iconic scenes from other horror movies. When the killer/hero in the first short suits up the scene is based on Bruce Campbell suiting up as Ash from the Evil Dead series.

The Thing in the Woods Written and directed by Alejandro Brugués. A crazed killer in the woods slaughters some college age characters. Alejandro is the director of Juan Of The Dead and that's worth seeing.

Mirari Written by Richard Christian Matheson and directed by Joe Dante. A woman has plastic surgery to fix the scaring on her cheek from a car accident. Richard Chamberlain plays the surgeon.

Mashit Written by Sandra Becerril and directed by Ryūhei Kitamura. A demon possesses children in a Catholic school.

This Way to Egress Written by David Slade and Lawrence C Connolly, directed by David Slade. A woman at a doctor's office sees the world decay around her.

Dead Written and directed by Mick Garris. A teenager is killed in a car jacking, he revives and sees dead people.

I liked some segments more than others but overall I thought it was worth seeing. I put the Blu-ray on my Wanted list at Amazon.

Captive Wild Woman 1943 Screenplay by Griffin Jay and Henry Sucher, directed by Edward Dmytryk. A Universal picture it was followed by 2 sequels Jungle Woman and The Jungle Captive. All three films are collected in the 6th volume of the Universal Horror Collection along with The Monster And The Girl. It's a good Blu-ray series from Shout Factory, though kind of pricey. Each film gets it's own disc and a commentary, a couple of the films get a trailer, and all have new 2K transfers. I wouldn't recommend the series for everyone but the Universal Monsters are favorites of mine and I was happy to pick the sets up.  Right now you can find the whole series over at Hamilton books for $42 each. They're usually over $50 each on Amazon.

John Carradine is a doctor scientist who's working with glands as a method of curing deformities. He takes an opportunity to steal a gorilla and turn it onto Acquanetta. John has to kill someone to get the glands to transplant in the gorilla and he's the sort of doctor who doesn't see a problem with that.

Mildred Davenport is Acquanetta's real name, she appeared in 10 movies between 1942 and 1953. She didn't appear in another production until she guested on The Adventures Of Grizzly Adams in 1990.

Milburn Stone is a big game hunter and lion tamer, he's supplies the lions and tigers for Lloyd Corrigan's circus. He's the one who captured the gorilla. Evelyn Ankers is Lloyd's secretary and Milburn's gal. Martha Vickers is Evelyn's sister, she's getting some curing at John's clinic. Clyde Beatty does Milburn's lion taming scenes via footage from The Big Cage and Ray "Crash" Corrigan plays the gorilla.

I thought it was entertaining but I like these old films.

Barricade 2012

 

Barricade 2012 Written by Michaelbrent Collings, directed by Andrew Currie. A Canadian horror film that's part of a 6 pack of films from Image.

Eric McCormack is a psychologist who works too much, his wife wants him to spend more time with his kids, her desire is to spend a Christmas up at the family's cabin in the mountains. The movie jumps a year, mom has died, Eric takes the kids to the mountain cabin just before Christmas.

Once inside the cabin strange things start to happen. Eric sees something or someone in among the trees. When he looks back they are gone. They all hear strange noises. The son gets a cough and then seems sick. The daughter and Eric soon are coughing too. Something seems to be attacking the house but it doesn't break in.

Turns out it was a bad fever and it was all a dream. Well, except for tying up the local store owner who takes care of the cabin while the family is away. He showed up, Eric knocked him down and tied him up to store in the attic. That was 3 days ago. Police show up and rescue him. Eric and the kids are all fine now.

It might be the better of the lot but it's still below average to me. I was disappointed in all being a fever dream. It is a good reminder that visiting the woods in the winter is dangerous and it's foolish to go there. Lucky for me it was short, only 82 mins.I wouldn't bother with this one again. Big fail for the whole 6 pack.

Airborne 2011

 

Airborne 2011 Screenplay by Paul Chronnell, directed by Dominic Burns. Part of a six pack of films from Image. I'm skipping The Frankenstein Theory because I blogged about it in 2020.

Most of the action takes place on a plane that's flying through the night from London to New York. The flight starts normal enough, it's not very full, only a dozen or so passengers. As the flight plows on one of them disappears, then another and another. Things get worse when the cabin crew are all found dead. When the plane goes off course, the air traffic control room notice and report it. Mark Hamill is in charge of the control room, at least until some secret service sorts take over. 

As the story develops we find there's a priceless vase on the plane, it's worth a $100 mill, someone wants to steal it. Unfortunately the vase contains a death god that takes over people and turns them into killers. Things turn pretty rough and most everyone is killed. One of the people left near the end turns off the autopilot and lets the plane fall into the sea. He was hoping to kill off the death god but that failed because it jumped to Mark Hamill over the radio.

The basic monster on a plane could have been decent but the script let it down. Right from the opening cliche, it's controller Mark's last day, to the monster escaping finish, it's all familiar. I doubt I'll watch this one over. So far, none of the films in this 6 film set are worth re-watching.

Chromeskull: Laid To Rest 2 2011

 

Chromeskull: Laid To Rest 2 2011 Written by Kevin Bocarde and Robert Hall, directed by Robert Hall. The third of 3 movies crammed on one disc is a 6 film 2 disc set from Image. Another one I can't say I enjoyed. A maniac serial killer slashes a couple of people who wronged him in the first film. Then there's more and more killing, none of which was of much interest. Well, all three movies on the disc were losers to me. Saves me watching them again.