PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Science Fiction Sunday 512

Breezed through the second disc in the Space Precinct series. It's got 5 episodes and no extras. That's one of the main characters after she'd been killed in her hospital bed. It was a weird thing, killing off a main character, but it happens. Then they killed off two more of the main characters. What's up Space Precinct? Oh, you can fix it with time travel. Good on ya! The rest of the episodes are all about the same as the ones in the first disc. Enjoyable but rather light weight.

Who? 1974

I watched Who? today. It's a 1974 British movie that was mostly filmed in Germany, there's a bit filmed in Miami. The movie based on an Algis Budrys novel of the same name. I read that novel back in the 80s and liked it. John Gould wrote the screenplay and Jack Gold was the director. Elliot Gould is an FBI agent tasked with finding out if the man in the metal mask is really Lucas Martino. Martino is played by Joseph Bova and Trevor Howard is Colonel Azarin. Martino is in a car crash near the Russian border, the Russians pick him up and deliver him to the West 6 months later. Trouble is, Dr Martino's head is now wrapped up in steel head gear. Is it really him? That's Elliot's job and it's a big one. He needs to keep a spy out of the big important project and he can't make a mistake. 

The movie jumps back and forth between Elliot's investigation and what happened with Colonel Azarin in Russia. There's plenty of talking in this movie, it's not really an action film. Even so, it managed to keep my interest for the most part. It has a good script with some good bits of business. It also helps that the quality of acting is pretty good. Good music score and the image looks descent.

It's a sad story reminding me that that the little scientist doesn't amount to a hill of beans to the big powerful giants who control the world. I was glad to see it and I'd watch it again some day. I gave it a 6 on the IMDb where it scores a 5.8. I should dig out the book and read that again someday.

The DVD has a commentary with the director Jack Gold and film historian Anthony Sloman. It was informative but scarce, they run out of steam about two thirds of the way through. There's also commentary with Elliot Gould on certain scenes.

Friday Night Movies 703

Malatesta's Carnival Of Blood is a 1973 horror movie that briefly played the drive in circuit in the south when it was new. It first made it to DVD in 2003, what went out of print, and now it's available again. The story is by Werner Liepolt and the director is Christopher Speeth. It's the only film Christopher made, he died last year at age 78.

The movie is set in a crappy carnival theme park, the now gone Six Gun Territory in Willow Grove Pennsylvania. The seedy place is owned by Malatesta and run by his right hand man, Mister Blood. Mister B is secretly a vampire and Malatesta keeps cannibals in a pit. They eat the customers and staff. Some of the new staff members are there looking for their son who also disappeared from the park. They decide to fight back when the cannibals come creeping up on their trailer. Sadly, they aren't up to defending themselves and it's chompy chompy for them.

I read that Christopher Speeth was an actor who appeared in local theater and TV. His first job directing is pretty uneven, he might have developed into a better film maker but it never happened. He was also saddled with a weak script. Werner's script is not very fleshy and the dialog isn't that great. I won't be buying me a copy.

I hadn't remembered that I had seen The Ghost when I brought the Cult Action DVDr home from a recent trip to Half Price Books. It's a 1963 Italian horror film. I looked it up on my Watched Movie List, turns out I had seen it back in 2007, in one of those 50 Movie Packs I like so much. I looked at the DVD today and it's an English dubbed and pan & scan. The DVDr I bought the other day is widescreen and in Italian with English subtitles. Tucked into the front of the DVD box is a paper sleeve with another DVDr. The second disc is an English dubbed pan & scan version that looks like it might be the same print as the movie in the 50 Movie Pack. None of these versions look that good but the widescreen version is pretty piss poor. Still watchable but annoying.

The company that put the DVDr out is Cult Action and they've got a sale going on at their website, 6 for $60. Here's how they describe themselves.

Welcome, collectors! Thank you for visiting our website.

Cult Action is a film archival and transfer service specializing in rare, hard-to-find & out-of-print films from all over the globe. Whether it's action, adventure, horror, war, mondo, sleaze, exploitation, sci-fi, or just plain hard-to-find films, we're sure that we have have just what you're looking for.

Founded by true fans of these obscure genre films., Cult Action releases feature the best, most complete & uncut prints available. And catering to the serious collector, we obtain rare artwork and promotional material for our deluxe box art. The quality of our expert transfers and professionally designed box art is simply unmatched. 

Our customers enjoy fast professional service, a great selection and the best value ANYWHERE!

We currently have hundreds of genre titles listed in the archive and more coming in all the time, so be sure to bookmark this site and keep a lookout for exciting new releases!

Regards, The Cult Action Team

Sounds like a bootleg house to me. Still, you never know what you might find in a place like that. I haven't looked through their list to see if there are even 6 movies I might want. They'd have to have something special, the chance I'd pay 10 smackaroonies for a movie like The Ghost are slim.

Here's my old post from 2007.

The Ghost is the first up on Side B. It's a slow movin' ghostly revenge movie. Barbara Steele plays the leading lady, who with her lover, a doctor, kills her husband, also a doctor. That takes a half hour, or a third of the movie. The evil pair spend the next 15 minutes looking for the dead husband's safe key. It's hidden somewhere, maybe in the house, maybe in the grounds, maybe in the coat the dead man was buried in. After searching the decaying dead man they find the key, but there's no money in the safe. Things take a turn for the melodramatic briefly, then the spookin' starts. I never found Steele, who seems very popular among the horror fans, to be that great an actress nor that stunning a beauty. I never went nuts over Sophia Loren either, just a type thing, I guess. Steele does have some eyes. They creep me out. Things go to hell for the evil couple and then there's some retribution and an ironic ending. Nice. Not a great movie but better than the average in this box.

I didn't rate it at the IMDb in 2007, so I did today, I only gave it a 5. Almost 25% of the votes were a 6 but I don't think it's quite that good. Just average. I might never watch it again and it wouldn't matter.

Daylight's End 2016

Daylight's End is a 2016 film about a plague that makes people into blood sucking monsters. It's got Lance Henriksen and Louis Mandylor, the rest weren't familiar to me. The movie was. It's pretty much an average zombie movie with a bunch of people killing zombies for a while. As that time passes they get picked off, one here, a couple there. There's nothing much too make it stand out from the pack. Not something I would need to buy for me.

The Great Wall 2017

I know it's hard to believe but I kind of like a film by Zhang Yimou. The Great Wall came out in 2016 and it's got Matt Damon, Willem Defoe and Andy Lau fighting monsters on the Great Wall of China. Of course, since the director is who he is, he can't not make a boring movie. It sadly beats down the monster fighting part and I was speeding along between the slightly more interesting bits. It averages a 6.0 on the IMDb but I only gave it a 4 because I can't stand Zhang for the most part.

Agatha Raisin And The Quiche Of Death

Agatha Raisin And The Quiche Of Death is the pilot to the first series of Agatha Raisin. I had watched the series a while back and enjoyed them. They turned up on YouTube the other day and anyone who might want to watch them should take a chance and have a laugh. If you have Firefox you can also download them. The Pilot looks poor but the rest of the series is much better looking. Agatha is a business type who quits working and goes to live in a country village. Fish out of water type stuff mixed with a cozy type murder mystery. I got a few laughs, you might too. Act now! Limited Time!

Red Dwarf XI

The 11th Series of Red Dwarf aired almost 4 years after the 10th Series. They tried getting it done sooner but it never seemed to gel when they were thinking it would start. Series XI has 6 episodes and they were written and directed by Doug Naylor. They had some more cash this time, they hired a separate production company to come in and take care of putting the show on screen. That freed up Doug to put more into the writing and directing. Even though the XI and XII seasons aired a year or so apart they were filmed at Pinewood Studios at the same time.

The Boys From The Dwarf are back, Danny John-Jules, Chris Barrie, Craig Charles and Robert Llewellyn, and they're up to their usual sort of thing. They have a much better budget than the last series and they have Starbug back. The production came up with some good sets and space ships. The guys even have a bit of redesigned bunk room and corridors but that;s partly because of the time between series. No one keeps those sets from the last show. All created new and new people always want to change things. The production team talks about their reasons for the changes on the making of featurette on the second disc.

The episodes and the guy's antics made me laugh, once or twice out loud. I don't think I found them as funny as some of the earlier series episodes but I still enjoyed the visit from these goofy guys.

The second DVD is packed with extras, a making of, some deleted scenes, outtakes and various stills.

The Addams Family Mansion - Department 56

Department 56 has put out an edition of The Addams Family Mansion based on the depiction in Charles Addams cartoons from the New Yorker. The Addams Family started appearing in the magazine in 1938. Eighty years. The mansion is in one box and all the other stuff is separate.

The Mansion is $165. I kind of like it. The D56 website says it lights up. I don't know the prices of other sets so I don't know if that's high or not. I see the Monster Mash Party House is $160 and that's not anywhere near as interesting. No matter, D56 is not cheap, they always get you on the come back.

Gomez and Morticia are $32.50 and they don't look that great. The bodies aren't too bad but I'm not a fan of Morticia's face here.

That's Uncle Fester at $37.50 and Wednesday and Pugsley at $23.50. I assume that Fester lights up but it's short of details on the D56 web page. Can't tell for sure what Wednesday looks like.

The last two items are the front gates at $45 and the fence pack at $22.50. Total $326 for everything. That's a good bit of scratch that I won't be spending there.

Red Dwarf X

I watched the X series of Red Dwarf today. There are only 6 episodes but there are over 3 hours of extras on a second disc. They aired in October and November 2012. That's 3 years from the Back To Earth series and the last regular series aired in 1999. Like those earlier series, this one was recorded in front of a live audience. Series co-creator Doug Naylor wrote and directed the episodes. There's no episode commentaries but Doug Naylor does a commentary on the 29 minutes of deleted scenes. The making of runs over 2 hours and there's plenty of interest. From the making of there seems to be a lot of issues with making the series but they got over them and produced a nice bunch of episodes.

Science Fiction Sunday 511

I decided to watch the first disc of Gerry Anderson's Live Action TV Show Space Precinct 2040 today. It's got 5 discs so that's today and the next four Sundays sorted. The show is only the one season, there were 24 episodes, and they aired in 1994 and 1995.

Ted Shackleford is Lieutenant Patrick Brogan, he was an NYPD Detective, but when the show starts, he and his family have moved to the planet Altor in the Epsilon Eridani. Patrick is working for the Demeter City Police. Rob Youngblood plays his partner Jack Haldane and Simone Bendix plays Office Jane Castle. Nancy Paul plays Ted's wife Sally and Nick Klein and Megan Olive plays his children, Matthew and Elizabeth. Many other actors play humans and aliens. I didn't recognize many names from the IMDb listings, Ray Winstone, Idris Elba and Maurice LaMarche.

The first disc has 5 episodes.

Protect and Survive - Burt Kwouk is an informant who gets blown up for talking to the cops. Brogan and Haldane know who did it but need some proof.

Enforcer - A couple of aliens are taking over the protection racket among the citizens of Skall Street. One of them has the power to kill with her mind.

Body And Soul - Brogan and his son find an abandoned ship on an asteroid. On the way back to Alton someone sends a self-destruct message to the ship. After barely escaping with their lives, Brogan goes on the hunt for the baddie.

Double Duty - Drugs and murders take up most of Brogans time for this episode.

The Snake - Brogan and Haldane battle the alien extortionist The Snake.

The stories are OK, better than most of Anderson's puppet shows, and the characters are fairly descent. The aliens are interesting enough and there are a good mix of them. Some of the jokes are pretty weak and Brogan's son is due a "Stupid Boy" on occasion, The sets and props are good, as are the special effects and miniatures. It's not going to be in my top ten SF shows but I'm enjoying them.