PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 896

Thunder Of Gigantic Serpent 1988 Screenplay by Yao Ching-Kang, Wu Wen-Liang and Godfrey Ho, directed by Lung-Hsu Yu, English version directed by Godfrey Ho. TOGS was created with scenes from a 1984 Taiwanese film called  King Of Snakes and new footage directed by Godfrey Ho. He had the film dubbed in English and we watched it tonight.

A secret military lab has developed a growth serum that makes plants grow huge. The creator is reluctant to let it be tested on animals without more research. An impatient General takes charge the day some criminals attack the lab to steal the formula. The scientists are all killed but one, she manages to escape the baddies and intentionally crashes her car after tossing the formula out in a specimen case. She bales out of the car but is knocked out and taken to a hospital before she can retrieve the formula.

An annoying little girl finds the case and inadvertently uses the formula on her pet snake. It grows to gigantic proportions and slithers around the city, destroying property and eating the locals. The little girl can't understand why the military would want to attack her pet. By this time, a few mins into the movie, we've all come to hate the annoying little girl. We're hoping she gets eaten. We're all down with the snake.

The annoying girl gets chased by the baddies, she escapes and then is kidnapped. She doesn't know anything about the formula and despite constant threats she manages to survive the kidnapping. We were disappointed. It's generally a disappointing film with it's cobbled together story, cliched script, bad dubbing and clumsy special effects. Made me laugh though. You can see it on YouTube, link in the title above.

Death On The Nile 2022 Based on the Agatha Christie novel, screenplay by Michael Green, directed by Kenneth Branagh. It's the second Christie film with Branagh as Hercule Poirot and Tom Bateman as Bouc.

A long flashback to WWI shows us the reason for Poirot's mustache, shrapnel scars below his nose. We jump ahead to 1937 and Poirot is watching a singer in a nightclub. Six weeks pass and Poirot encounters his old friend Bouc at the pyramids in Egypt. Bouc's mother is there, played by Annette Bening. Poirot agrees to go on a cruise with Bouc up the Nile.

There's a long good time spent on the ship meeting all the passengers and being filled in on their melodrama. Inevitably someone is murdered and everyone is stuck on the ship while Poirot works his little grey cells. There's the usual tension among the suspects but no matter, Poirot comes through with the goods.

It's a very gorgeous film, there's plenty of scenery filmed at the golden hour. It almost makes me wish I was boating up the Nile. Hopefully I'm not the one getting murdered. Branagh does a good job of playing Poirot. The script was OK but I didn't think much of the WWI backstory and the final scene which ties back to that. I'd still happily recommend it, there's a good murder mystery and a good cast. Branagh and Green are already in development on a third one. I know I'll watch it again sometime and I've got a Blu-ray in the Agatha Christie section of my collection waiting for that day.

Friday Night Movies 894

Scared To Death 1980 Story by William Malone and Robert Short, screenplay and direction by William Malone. Malone started doing makeup and costuming for Don Post Studios. This is his first picture, he'd go on to direct Creature in 1985 and 5 other pictures including the 1999 remake of House On Haunted Hill. He hasn't made a film since 2008.

There's a serial killer stalking the streets of Los Angeles. When we drop into the story about the time of victim number 12's murder. The police aren't getting any good clues from the crime scenes, the mayor and the newspapers are hounding the Chief. Detective Lou Capell gets some pressure from his boss. Lou wants to bring an ex-cop into the mix but the Chief is against it. The ex-cop is a guy called Ted, he had a drinking problem and now writes novels.

In a clumsy, poorly written scene we meet Jennifer, she's Ted's romantic interest. They get involved with each other as the movie progresses, eventually they join Lou in the search for the killer. Sometime along the way we learn that it's some sort of humanoid monster doing the killing. They get a substantial bit of help from one of the scientist's at a bio-lab and it's revealed that the creature is a bio-engineered thing called a Syngenor. It's one of those hard to kill warrior beasts scientist's are always making in movies and it takes a bit to put the creature down.

It would be an OK monster movie except for two big stumbling blocks, the script and the music. The script is poor and the actors can't do much with it. The actors aren't a stellar lot but they get their lines out. The music is annoying and way too loud some of the time. The Syngenor creature is a fairly well made suit. Ten years later another producer used the suit for his picture Syngenor. Like Scared To Death it's kind of a poor film. Both films have a score of 4.2 on the IMDb. I gave Syngenor a 3 some years ago and I gave Scared To Death a 4 last night. I must be getting soft headed in my old age. You can check them both out on YouTube, links above.

Last Night In Soho 2021 Story by Edgar Wright, screenplay by Edgar Wright and Krysty Wilson-Caims, directed by Edgar Wright. It was the last film for Diana Rigg and Margaret Nolan, both of whom passed away in 2020. Margaret played the gold covered woman in the credits to Goldfinger and Diana played Mrs Peel.

Ellie Turner leaves Cornwall for London to attend the London College Of Fashion. She wants to be a clothing designer. She's heavily into 60s style and music. Her roommate is a jerk so she leaves the dorm and takes a small flat on the top of an old house owned by Ms Collins, played by Diana Rigg. Ms Collins is old enough to have lived in the 60s.

Ellie starts having visions of a young woman from the 60s called Sandie who wanted to be a singer but wound up in the clutches of a creep called Jack. Matt Smith plays Jack and he makes a good spiv. In his first scenes Jack seems like a nice guy who likes a bit of fun, soon his darker exploitative side takes control. Next thing you know Sophie is a prostitute working for Jack and his pals.

Ellie follows Sandie's life and finds that she lived int he flat Ellie is in now. She sees Jack murder Sandie there but can't find anything about the murder in the newspapers. She does find there have been a lot of missing men in the Soho area. We'll find out where they've gone soon enough. Ellie's a poor detective, she misreads what's presented to her, at one point she accuses an old bar fly of being Jack but she soon finds out he was a copper who tried to help some of the local gals. If only she had talked to more people about what was going on, she might not have gotten so far off the track.

The story is jazzed up with flashy camera work and musical numbers. I did like the old 60s songs in the soundtrack. I knew most of them from my youth. I didn't care for the noisy music when the movie thought something was happening. It seems overly long, repetitive and kind of self indulgent. There's a decent twisty bit at the end and things work out for Ellie at fashion school.

I still enjoyed it, gave it a 7 on the IMDb and have put the Blu-ray on my Wishlist. It's hard to know if you would like it, it did poorly at the box office, raising $23 mil on a $43 mil budget.

Skyscrapper 2018

Skyscraper 2018 Written and directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber. Rawson's first film was Dodgeball in 2004, I thought it was entertaining enough, as I did We're The Millers. He directed another film with Dwayne Johnson, Central Intelligence, which I've not seen yet. This is more a straight up action film. He's directing Dwayne and Ryan Reynolds in an art related crime film, Red Notice, coming in 2021. Could be good.

Skyscraper is heavy on the visual and it's awash with CGI from top to bottom. There's plenty of gun blasts, explosions and fire. Everyone is in danger much of the time. Dwayne is a security expert, he used to be a cop until a suspect blew Dwayne's foot off. His old co-worker, also involved in the ten year old incident, brings Dwayne into a big project in Hong Kong. A Chinese businessman has built the world's tallest skyscraper. Little does Dwayne know he's just been dropped into the middle of an action film.

He does OK, saves his family and blows the bad guy up real good. I usually enjoy Dwayne in a film, especially when he's all dirty, you know he's been working hard. Poor Dwayne has to work pretty hard to save his family and by the end of the movie he's nearly covered head to toe with soot and other filth. It's a bit above average and worth a look for the action fan. I've got the DVD and I'll watch it again someday.

Vehicle 19 2012

Vehicle 19 2012 Written and directed by Mukunda Michael Dewil.

Pretty much average action film with Paul Walker as a guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. He gets the wrong rental car from the airport and soon finds he's in the middle of a kidnapping. A prosecutor had been kidnapped by a crooked police detective and his gang of scumbos. She's tied up in the trunk because she's got evidence of their criminal activities and she was doomed until Paul came along.

The cops give chase, there's plenty of car racing and gun shooting activity. The movie is shot from inside the car so some of more interesting action bits are made less interesting by that choice. Great to see Paul's stubble though. Sadly the prosecutor gets killed and Paul has to fight his way to the courthouse for the inevitable stand off with the police.

It's no great shakes, I enjoyed it while it was on but it's still barely average. I think the DVD was a dollar at Dollar Tree and that seems like a fair price. I wouldn't need to see it again but I'm going to keep it anyway.

Miss Fisher And The Crypt Of Tears 2020

Miss Fisher And The Crypt Of Tears 2020 The big screen version of the show takes Miss Fisher to Jerusalem where she breaks a Bedouin girl from jail. Miss Fisher is killed on the train ride out of the country but turns up shortly after by landing her plane at her funeral. The Bedouin girl is at the aunt's house under the guardianship of a Sheik who's killed shortly after we meet him. Miss Fisher and her old pal Detective Inspector Jack Robinson do some sleuthing and wind up in Jerusalem again. The eventually find the killer and stop a curse. I didn't care for the movie as much as I was hoping. It's played like a low throttle Indiana Jones but with out the big action. The humor is there and it does look pretty good. I can't say the same for the cover of the DVD, it's got one of the least flattering pictures of Essie Davis I've seen.