PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

2035: Forbidden Dimensions

2035: Forbidden Dimensions is another low-budget post-apocalypse film that is running on Amazon Prime. It's a piece of crap. It scores a 1.7 on the IMDb but all I gave it is a 1. Here's the description from the IMDb.

Jack Slade was born during a solar eclipse in the year 1980. 18 years later, he finds out he has the ability to travel into the future. He projects himself into the year 2035, where society has been destroyed by a fascist regiment of psychopathic doctors that rule the wastelands, creating deformed mutants with a serum synthesized from the flesh of dead aliens. Now Slade must travel back to the year 1998 to destroy a device known as the wavelength generator, which opened the dimensional gateways to these alien beings. With the help of an army of female outlaws and a sleazy detective, Slade re-connects with the star child Khadijah, who holds the key to stopping these tragic events from ever taking place.

Got it. I could barely get through it. It's just a hodgepodge of things you've seen before without anything really interesting to make you like it more. Don't watch it. Watch something more interesting, like Hardware or Bounty Killer. Even Warriors Of The Wasteland was more entertaining than this and it was pretty poor.

Invasion Of Alien Bikini

Invasion Of Alien Bikini starts off with a big lie in the title. It doesn't have anyone in a bikini. There's a gal in her underwear but that's about it. The poster lies too, that's not the underwear that she's wearing in the film. She's starts out in a floral dress and later reveals she's wearing black undies. The Korean poster almost makes it look like a comedy. It's mostly a torture film. She's an alien who wants some sperm and he's a fucked up guy has taken a vow of celibacy until he gets married. She can't seduce the guy well enough to make him break his vow so she resorts to torture. She needs that sperm tonight, right now, in order to get pregnant when her alien ovaries expire, and for some reason she just can't go to another guy. It's not like sperm is something rare.  

I had just signed up for Amazon Prime, I need more options for viewing more crap, and it was the first movie I watched this morning. It was short and fit the window I had. I didn't look it up, figuring it was Korean, science fiction and bikinis, and that could have amounted to something. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. It's just not any fun. Go watch a better Korean film like The Host, Natural City, or either of the Yonggary films.

Sadly, I haven't seen much more than those three. Easier to find a Japanese film or a Chinese film at this point. Korean films are turning up occasionally. Recently I saw Keep Running. Zombie Soldier! It was one of our Friday Night Movie selections and it appeared on Amazon Prime too. I didn't see if it was still there when I was looking this morning. I'm sure it was cheap to buy and why it was offered as a free item for Amazon Prime users.

My favorite non-SF Korean film would be The Good, The Bad, The Weird. Well worth seeing. You might watch The Warrior's Way, made by a Korean director with an international cast. It's quite good.

Caroline Munro - Dracula AD 1972

It seemed such a waste not to post all the left over pictures of Caroline Munro from Dracula AD 1972.

 

     

     

 

   

 

That's the best ones I found on the internet.

Dracula A.D. 1972 1972

Dracula AD 1972 came out the same year as the year in the title. It's the 7th Hammer film about Dracula and it moves the Count into the modern age. According to the Wikipedia Warner Brothers had good success with Count Yorga, Vampire, which was set in modern day, and they commissioned two Hammer films with Dracula in a modern setting. The movie is also inspired by the Highgate Vampire case.

Dracula AD 1972 isn't connected to the other films which had sort of picked up where the previous one had ended. It starts it's own timeline and carries it into the next film where it comes to an end. It's written by Don Houghton and directed by Alan Gibson. Don had written some Doctor Who, The Mind Of Evil and Inferno, and he would write the two remaining Dracula films for Hammer. He also wrote the horrid Sapphire & Steel. Alan wrote a fair bit of TV and a few movies, one of which was the next Hammer Dracula film The Satanic Rites Of Dracula.

 

Christopher Lee returns as Dracula and Peter Cushing returns as Professor Van Helsing. Stephanie Beachham, Christopher Neame, Marsha Hunt and Caroline Munro are amongst the cast.

The movie starts in 1872 with a battle between Dracula and Van Helsing. Dracula is staked with a carriage wheel spoke and he turns to dust. Van Helsing collapses and dies. A follower of Dracula collects the dust and buries it in the church yard near Van Helsing's grave. Peter plays the ancient Van Helsing and his descendant. Van Helsing's  great grand daughter is part of a group that gets involved with Dracula.

In 1972 a group of young hippies are bored, they crash a party, waiting for the police to come. They just want the kicks, man. Johnny Alucard is the descendant of the follower of Dracula who collected the ring and ashes of Dracula. He has them and he wants to preform a Satanic ritual for kicks. Johnny resurrects the Count and becomes his servant.

  

Caroline Munro is the first victim of Dracula's chomping teeth. The police find her blood drained body in the old abandoned church used for the resurrection. Dracula continues to feed on the local ladies and he turns Johnny into a vampire. There's plenty of vampire action going on while the police try to figure out what is going on.

I didn't think it was quite good as the previous films in the series and it scores lower than the others on the IMDb. I still was glad to have seen it and I have to admit I like looking up all the into on the film to write down here. Not as much as the film but a good amount.

Don't Raise The Bridge, Lower The River 1968

I watched Don't Raise The Bridge, Lower The River the other day. It's a 1968 British comedy with Jerry Lewis. It was based on Max Wilk's novel of the same name. He also wrote the script which changes the Connecticut setting of the book to Swinging London and Portugal. It's directed by Jerry Paris, who used to play Dick Van Dykes neighbor on The Dick Van Dyke Show. My favorite movie he directed was Evil Roy Slade with John Astin. In DRTB,LTR Jerry is a goofy American living in London. He's always trying some get rich scheme. His wife, Jacqueline Pearce, has gone out of town and he's turned her big house into a disco. She comes home and tosses him out. He works out a scheme with Terry-Thomas to steal a drill plan and sell it to some Arabs. To smuggle them into the country they print them on a tooth in Bernard Cribbin's teeth. There's plenty of mugging and yelling as the scheme plays out. Turns out the plans are worthless and the money disappears. Jerry promises his wife he's done with schemes and she decides to stay with him. Terry-Thomas shows up with something cooking and all bets are off. It's pretty silly and there's plenty of mugging and yelling and things breaking. Sadly it's not as much fun as it could be, both Jerry's have done better. Patricia Routledge, Nicholas Parson and Michael Bates have parts in the film.

Scars Of Dracula 1970

Scars of Dracula is the 6th of the Hammer Dracula films. It came out in 1970 and Anthony Hinds, under the John Elder name, wrote the script. Roy Ward Baker is the director. Roy directed a lot of episodes of The Saint and The Avengers in the 60s. According to the IMDb Warner Brothers, nor any other big American film distributors, wanted to deal with Hammer exec Jimmy Carreras anymore. They signed with EMI and the film's budget got slashed to $200,000. It was the start of the decline of Hammer Films.

Christopher Lee returns as Dracula. Christopher Lee appeared in 4 Dracula films in 1970, one of which was the Hammer production Taste The Blood Of Dracula, the other two were Count Dracula and One More Time.

Dennis Waterman, Jenny Hanley, Christopher Matthews, Patrick Troughton, Michael Ripper, Wendy Hamilton, Bob Todd and Michael Gwynn are in the cast. In an interview Roy Ward Baker thought that Dennis was miscast but Hammer wanted him in the part so there he was. I didn't think he was so bad or anything. Patrick had just finished his three year run as Doctor Who. He's quite good as Dracula's henchman Kloves.

Dracula is resurrected by blood from a bat's mouth. He kills a young women in the nearby village. The villagers go and burn the castle but that doesn't kill Dracula. In another town across the border a young man gets in trouble for shagging the Burgermeister's pretty daughter. He runs off and winds up at Dracula's castle. That's the end of him. Dennis plays the young man's brother and he goes looking for him. Jenny demands to go along and he reluctantly takes her along. The rest of the story has Dennis and Jenny running about until they find the vampire.

I enjoyed the movie and was glad to have picked it up. I got the Studio Canal MOD DVDr from Amazon. It contains the version of the film that was out from Image in 2004 and includes all the same extras.

  

Besides the trailers, talent bios, poster and still galleries there's a delightful commentary, from 2000, with the co-author of the book The Hammer Story, Marcus Hearn, Christopher Lee and Roy Ward Baker. They tell some fun stories and background on the making of the movie. Christopher Lee says he think that Michael Ripper is Hammer personified. Michael Ripper appears in 4 of the Hammer Dracula films and Christopher Lee in 7. Both Lee and Baker had fond memories of the man. They also like Patrick Troughton quite a bit. Christopher likes The Benny Hill Show, especially Hill regular Bob Todd. Todd plays the Burgermeister in Scars Of Dracula. At the end of the commentary Christopher says he thinks it's the first time he's ever seen the film and that he's not seen all the Hammer Dracula films.

Dara Ó Briain

Crowd Tickler is the DVD of Dara Ó Briain's 2015 comedy concert. He has 5 DVDs and this is the 5th of them. There's one every couple of years and this is the first one that showed up from Amazon UK. I have more coming but they haven't arrived. I see Dara a lot on British panel shows and usually enjoy him quite a bit. His earlier comedy concert DVDs have gotten cheap enough, £2-3 each, so I ordered some. You can see some samples of his stand up on YouTube. He covers all the sorts of things that comedians cover and he has a good bit of audience participation. I enjoyed the show quite a bit and I don't watch much stand up anymore. There a couple of extras, a short segment on TV box sets and a short chat with Josh Widdicombe while they watch Dara's show.

National Treasure 1 & 2

 

I kept telling myself not to replace my DVDs with Bluray discs now that I have a player. I didn't want to buy the same movie again. I have done enough of that in the past and the on-going advances in digital technology just seems to be more about the companies getting more money out of you for the same product in a new format. I do know they make the movie look better and the jump from 720p to 1080p is a big one. Of course opportunity knocks and I got a cheap copy of National Treasure: Book Of Secrets for cheap so I had to go buy a copy of National Treasure. I really like the movies and have seen them several times already. The National Treasure Bluray has a new commentary with director John Turteltaub so there's at least something new. I haven't listened to it yet.  

I watched National Treasure back in 2005 and I posted about it in Friday Night Movies 7. I still feel the same today.

National Treasure was our first item. I had watched it a week or so ago (see May 4th entry mo better movies) but I always enjoy a re-watch on the big Sony. I enjoyed NT and will watch it several times in the future. It has the things I think are watchable and re-watchable in an action film, good story and action, a smart hero and cleaver villain, a funny pal and a cute love interest, nice sets and locations. I like Nic Cage ever since he became an action star. This movie isn't hurt at all by being PG-13, you can tell a good story without resorting to lots of gore and sex and swearing, although I really like those things in the right place. It's good to give a good complex story to kids and make it good enough for adults to enjoy. This is why I have been enjoying so much of the Young Adult fiction I have been reading of late.

I saw National Treasure: Book Of Secrets for the first time in 2008 and posted about that in Friday Night Movies 180. Here's that post.

I had seen National Treasure 2 - Book of Secrets before. I still liked it a third time. It's a nice fun piece that has lots of greats sets and scenery. Nick Cage returns as Ben Gates. John Voight, Diane Kruger and Justin Bartha return and they are joined by Helen Mirren as Ben's mother. She hates Ben's dad. The movie starts with Ben telling the story of his grandfather's murder at the hands of Knights of the Golden Circle. Ed Harris claims that his great grandfather has a page from John wilkes Booth's diary that proves Ben's grandfather was a Lincoln conspirator. That bad news starts the race to find Cibola, the City of Gold. There are lots of clues to follow, puzzles to solve and some little bit of danger. I don't mind that the movie isn't all murdering and bloodshed. It's nice you can make a fun action movie for the whole family. I had heard of Cibola before. Scrooge McDuck found it in a 1954 Uncle Scrooge story by Carl Barks. It stayed hidden when Scrooge was done.

Looks like they dropped the 2 on the DVD cover. Not sure why. No matter it won't keep me from watching the movies occasionally in the future.

A Dorothy L Sayers Mystery 1987

   

I got the three disc DVD set of A Dorothy L Sayers Mystery from the library the other day and watched the three stories over the weekend. The three stories are made up of ten 50 minute episodes. It's an 1987 series that adapted Sayers novels Strong Poison, Have His Carcase and Gaudy Night. The BBC couldn't get the rights to Busman's Holiday. All the novels are part of the Lord Peter Wimsey series and feature Harriet Vane. Edward Petherbridge also played Lord Peter and Harriet Vane was played by Harriet Walter. Lord Peter's valet  Bunter was played by Richard Morant.

In Strong Poison Harriet is on trial for poisoning her husband. Lord Peter doesn't believe she did it and he sets out to prove that. In Have His Carcase Harriet finds a dead body on a rock by the sea. She'd gone to the country to get away from the notoriety that came from the first story and now she's up to her neck in a mystery. Lord Peter helps solve the mystery. In Gaudy Night Harriet is asked by the head of her Oxford college to help with a mystery. Lord Peter helps with that case too. In all the stories he tells her he wants to marry her but it takes a while before she says yes.

They're kind of slow moving but entertaining. Typical of the BBC at the time, good costumes, props and sets, good actors filling the roles. I enjoyed them and plan to watch the Lord Peter Wimsey production from the early 70s with Ian Carmichael when the library coughs them up.

 

Roadracers 1994

Roadracers is a 1994 TV movie by writer - director Robert Rodriguez. It was Robert's second film after the 1992 El Mariachi. It was first film in the 10 film Rebel Highway series on Showtime. Producer Lou Arkoff took the name from the 1959 American International Pictures film and a whole new story was written. About the same time as this series was going on Cinemax was doing the same thing with remakes of American International Pictures science fiction and horror films like The She Creature and The Day The World Ended.

Roadracers stars David Arquette, Salma Hayek, John Hawkes, Jason Wiles and William Sadler. David is Dude, a 1950s greaser and Salma is his girlfriend Donna. John is Dude's best friend Nixer. William is the local cop, named Sarge, and Jason is his son Teddy. David does not get along with the hard ass Sarge or his out of control asshole son. Dude accidentally sets Teddy's girlfriend's hair on fire and Teddy vows some violence. Sadly, he's a gutless bully and things don't go his way. Sarge wants to get Dude for his hot rod drivin' and he hassles him anytime he sees him. Sadly, he's no match for Dude. The confrontations build through the movie and it ends with a fiery climax.

I've seen this several times and have enjoyed it every time. I highly recommend it. For a movie about some teens in the 1950s it covers a lot of different ground. For some reason it took ages to get a DVD out, I had the laserdisc since the late 1990's and the DVD got released in 2012. I've had the DVD for a couple of years and I found the Bluray at HPB for $7. It looks and sounds really great. There's a short featurette and an interesting commentary by Rodriguez.