PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 981

Zerograd 1988 written by Karen Shakhnazarov and Alexander Borodyansky, directed by Karen Shakhnazarov. A Russian film that's also known as Zero City. We watched a nice Blu-ray from Deaf Crocodile..

A man goes to a town to visit a manufacturer who makes back covers for the air conditioners that his company sells. He has a very surreal time and meets some odd characters, including his father. The father kills himself because the man doesn't eat some of the father's cake. Now the man is involved with a death and the police are suspecting that it was murder. They won't let him leave the area. He wanders around interacting with the locals. Much of what happens pokes fun at Russian life.

Vinegar Syndrome sells the movie and their marketing material says it's a mix of Kafka, Agatha Christie and Monty Python. I could see why they say that. Parts of it are fascinating to look at, parts are confusing and parts are rather funny. I enjoyed it for the most part, there's a bit too much staring off into the distance for my liking, but I did have some laughs. It reminds me that I was lucky not to be born in Russia. I might want to watch the movie over but I'm not planning to buy the Blu-ray.

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story 2022 Screenplay by Al Yankovic and Eric Appel, directed by Eric Appel.

A highly fictional version of Al's life. I thought some of it was hilarious, other parts less so. It started off strong but I though the last third was sort of weak. I liked Daniel Radcliffe as Al and I liked seeing Toby Huss as Al's father. Some might remember Toby from The Adventures Of Pete & Pete where he played Artie: The Strongest Man In The World.

Mostly it was fun and I got a few laughs out of it. Someone gave me the DVD and I plan to listen to the commentary on that at some point.

Friday Night Movies 978

Magic Cop 1990 Written by Sam Chi-leung and Tsang Kan-cheung, directed by Stephen Tung. A Hong Kong horror comedy informally known as Mr Vampire 5. We watched the 88 Films Blu-ray and it looks pretty darn good.

Lam Ching-Ying stars as a cop who lives on a small island. He's well trained in Chinese magic. A woman on the island asks him if he'll help transport her dead daughter back home from Hong Kong. In HK Lam finds out that the daughter has died more than a week before the incident in the restaurant. She'd been reanimated by Japanese magic and used in smuggling.

There's plenty of action as Lam fights the monsters and the Japanese magician. The stunts are fun to watch. There's a good bit of comedy and the jokes are mostly fairly good. The jokes with the local cops that get assigned to work with Lam are a bit weak but kind of typical of HK humor. The effects are mostly practical with occasional bits of animation to jazz things up.

I had forgotten most of the story from the last time I saw it, years ago, and it was entertaining and fun to watch. I'm pretty sure I have  DVD from years ago but all the movies are packed up and I can't check. Worth a look for those inclined.

Vesper 2022 Written by Kristina Buožytė, Brian Clark and Bruno Samper, directed by Kristina Buožytė and Bruno Samper. A co-production from Lithuania, France and Belgium.

Vesper is a 14 year old girl who lives in the forest. The world has had some sort of biological disaster. The ones who caused the disaster are hold up in Citadel cities, helping themselves but keeping the remaining random population outside the Citadel under their thumb.

Vesper lives with her father in a run-down shack. Vesper has some education and she works to keep him alive after he'd been paralyzed while working for the Citadel. The only help he was given is a flying robot head that he can use communicate to with Vesper. One day a ship from the Citadel crashes and Vesper's whole world is smashed.

It's a dark future with only a bit of hope. It's a long film, 114 mins, and it moves along pretty slowly. Despite that I enjoyed much of it but haven't decided to bother with the Blu-ray. I'd take a download but haven't seen any in the usual places.

Friday Night Movies 961

It Follows 2014 Written and directed by David Robert Mitchell. Filmed for $1.3 million in Detroit.

A young woman has sex with a guy and besides his semen he passes along a curse. A supernatural entity will follow and kill her until she has sex with someone else and passes along the curse. If she dies without passing the curse along to someone new the curse will go back to following the person who infected her.

Seems like she needs to let it kill her and set it on the guy who infected her. That would be too easy and the young woman spends most of the movie running from the slow walking creature that's stalking her. The movie never introduces someone to help them or tip them off on how to kill it. They do try to kill it but the creature is unkillable. It's also invisible to everyone but the infected person. Not a good combination.

It's a nice looking film but it's deliberate slow pace is wasted on me. My mind would wonder and I'd wish something would happen. It's one that I'm not going to bother adding to my pile of films.

Shin Ultraman 2022 Written by Hideaki Anno and directed by Shinji Higuchi.

The Japan government has set up a department to try to deal with the kaiju invasion. One day the team is surprised when Ultraman appears, they're even more surprised when one of the team turns out to be Ultraman. The menace quotient is upped when another alien appears. He's playing everyone by pretending to be a good guy but his real plans are soon revealed.

There's some decent kaiju action and some nice model work. That's surrounded by some slowly paced talking and sitting interludes. It makes the 113 min run time way longer. I could feel time slowing down. Eventually it's over. I enjoyed some of it but wouldn't recommend it to anyone. I wouldn't buy this one either.

RIPD 2 - Rise Of The Damned 2022

RIPD 2 - Rise Of The Damned 2022 Written by Andrew Klein, Paul Leyden and Peter M Lenkov, directed by Paul Leyden. An American film that was shot in Hungary.

Jeffrey Donovan was the sheriff of a town when he was killed and got recruited by the RIPD. That's the Rest In Peace Department, they assign a handler, played by Penelope Mitchell, to guide Jeffrey on a mission. The pair appear to the locals as different people, since it's 1876 they appear as two black women.

They battle a baddie who wants to break down the barriers that keep the demons out of the Earth. There's plenty of shooting and fighting with a big body count.

It's not overly good, plenty of haters on the IMDb, but I got through the movie with a bit of a bit of speed control. I wasn't sorry I saw it, I usually enjoy Jeffrey Donovan but it might be a while before I get around to it again.

Friday Night Movies 923

Seobok Project Clone 2021 Written and directed by Lee Yong-ju.

Seobok is a new species of human created by cloning and genetic manipulation. The process gave Seobok some mental powers but the companies goal is to tap into his bodily fluids and use that to create a longevity serum.

Seobok becomes the pawn of the old man who runs the company and one of the people in the intelligence agency who wants to sell Seobok to the Americans. Stuck in the middle is an ex-agent of the intelligence agency called Min who's supposed to get Seobok to his new digs. The transport is attacked by mercenaries and Min and Seobok go on the run. There's some fish out of water stuff and some gun fights along the way to the end of the movie. The factions interested in Seobok battle it out until most everyone is dead.

It's a longish movie, 115 mins, and it takes a while to get going. There's a few action scenes along the way but at it's core it raises questions of ethics in medicine. Is it OK to create a human clone for the purpose of harvesting it's biomass for medicine like an insulin pig and is it OK to kill everyone who opposes your plans. I enjoyed it for the most part but would have enjoyed it more if they had picked up the pace a bit. It's not going to get added to my library unless it's a free download which I probably wouldn't ever get around to again.

The Munsters 2022 Written and directed by Rob Zombie.

It's the Munster's origin story. A mad scientist puts Herman together and sends him out into the world. Herman gets some success as a comedian and meets Lily Gruesella and her father the Count. They get married and Lily's brother Lester tricks Herman into giving away the family castle to the Count's ex-wife. Herman, Lilly and the Count move to Hollywood, winding up at 1313 Mockingbird Lane.

There's plenty of gags and slapstick, all briskly paced to keep the story moving. Some of them work well, other's pratfall. I got plenty of laughs from it and will eventually pick up the Blu-ray so I can watch it again someday. I need to re-watch the original show, I haven't seen much of it for years and years.

Friday Night Movies 918

Marcel The Shell With Shoes On 2022 Story by Dean Fleischer-Camp, Elisabeth Holm and Nick Paley, screenplay by Dean Fleischer-Camp and Nick Paley, directed by Dean Fleischer-Camp.

A guy finds he's got a talking shell called Marcel living in the house he's renting. He's a film maker and he decides to make a film about Marcel. It becomes a big hit on YouTube. Marcel is featured on 60 Minutes in a story that helps reunite him with his family.

It's humorous and silly. I got a few laughs but I thought I would get really tired of Marcel if I had to live with him. Not one I would need to see again.

Bloody Muscle Body Builder In Hell 1995 Written and directed by Shinichi Fukazawa. Filmed in 1995 but not released until 2012. Shinichi wanted to make an over the top ghost story like The Evil Dead but still keeping true to the Japanese ghost story.

A body builder invites his ex-girlfriend and a psychic over to look at his dead father's haunted house. His father had killed his lover and buried her body under the floor of the house. That dead lady lingers in the house, she's still murder mad, and the psychic is the first one to fall under her ire. The body builder tries to keep his ex alive but that doesn't work so well.

It's pretty low budget and the actors are pretty poor. It's fairly wacky and a bit over the top. It was alright but I wouldn't need to pick up a copy.

Friday Night Movies 909

Iron Mask 2019 Screenplay by Oleg Stepchenko, Dimitry Paltserv and Alexey A Petrukin, directed by Oleg Stepchenko. A Russian Chinese co-production that's a sequel to Forbidden Empire. Starring Jason Flemyng, Jackie Chan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rutget Hauer, Helen Yao and Charles Dance.

 

Titled Тайна печати дракона in Russian, the English translation is Viy 2: Journey To China. Titled 龙牌之谜 in Chinese which translates to The Mystery Of The Dragon Seal in English. It's called The Iron Mask or just Iron Mask in the US.

Jason is a cartographer who's mapping Europe, Russia and China. Along his route he helps a young man who turns out to be a Chinese Princess. Jackie is in prison in the Tower Of London with Tzar Peter I, Arnold is the Warden, he likes a punch up, anyone who beats him can go free. The Tzar escapes and winds up on a ship with Jason's wife. They are bound for China.

The Princess returns to her town to find an evil sorceress is posing as the Princess. There's a lot of leaping about and yelling to get that set right. There's plenty of nice scenery along the journey. It's a nice production but the dialog is kind of poor. I enjoyed the movie and hope they get to release the third film. It's supposed to come out in 2022 but nothing so far.

Amityville In Space 2022 Written and directed by Mark Polonia. Mark had directed over 70 pictures in the last 37 years. From the look of this one he hasn't learned how to make a good movie yet. He seems to be following The Asylum's business plan, make low budget horror movies, make a lot of them, don't worry that they aren't very good. I thought AIS was worse than some of The Asylum's poorer pictures. Mark's a big liar too, there's nothing in the movie that looks like that poster. There is a house in space, it's been exorcised from Earth. You can see it in the trailer in the title above. It's sad looking. Most of the effects are poor.

There's a space ship filled with spacemen and women who are traveling about the galaxy blowing up black holes with bombs. They spot the house near a black hole. A strange humanoid enters the ship and gives the human's hallucinations. A priest comes to help them and some of them live to escape.

We were joking about while watching, there was a complaint that I thought was quite valid, the film makers don't seem to take any steps, even baby ones, to make their movie better. We were coming up with all sorts of ways to improve scenes and ways that wouldn't increase the budget. Is Mark lacking imagination? Could be. I think he just didn't bother. I wouldn't bother watching the film again.

Friday Night Movies 903

Crimes Of The Future 2022 Written and directed by David Cronenberg.

David returns to his love of body horror for the first time since 1999s eXistenZ. The film he made seems to me to be very much in that world and made in that era. I'm not a big fan of eXistenZ and I didn't find COTF to be even as entertaining as that film. Over the years I've come to see Eastern Promises and A History Of Violence as my favorites of all his films. I doubt I'd need to see it again.

The Spine Of Night 2021 Written and directed by Philip Gelatt and Morgan Galen King.

It took 7 years to make this rotoscoped fantasy adventure. It seems to take a long time to play out it's 93 mins. There's a decent but unoriginal story about creeps seeking power and the people who rise to stop them. It plods along at at one point it was nearly putting me to sleep, I wasn't the only one. I sure don't think I'll need to see this again.

The Green Knight 2021

The Green Knight 2021 Based on the 14th century poem Sir Gawain And The Green Knight, screenplay and direction by David Lowery.

Sir Gawain of the round table takes up a challenge from The Green Knight. Sir Gawain travels through a misty England to the Green Chapel. Along the way he has some encounters with thieves, giants and the Lord of the Manor near the Green Chapel. After his encounter with the Green Knight is over Gawain returns home.

It's a pretty movie if you like dark days, moody forests, crumbly ruins, misty nights and enigmatic stories. I didn't know much of anything about the poem so I read the synopsis on the Wikipedia and was disappointed in some of the changes to the story, especially the way they ended the story. Sticking to the poem's story would have been more interesting to me. Now that I've seen it I doubt I need to watch it again. I do have 3 other filmed versions from YouTube to check out.

Friday Night Movies 897

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets Of Dumbledore 2022 Based on a screenplay by J K Rowling, screenplay by J K Rowling and Steve Kloves, directed by David Yates.

Second viewing in a few days gave me a chance to notice more of whats going on in the background, little things that I missed the first time. It's a busy movie, plenty going on. I enjoyed it all over again.

One Million BC 1940 Written by Mickell Novack, George Baker and Joseph Frickert, directed by Hall Roach and Hall Roach Jr.

Some hikers seek shelter in a cave during a rain storm. They find a man studying the cave paintings. He starts to tell them the story on wall and the film turns into a flashback of the story. Victor Mature is a caveman in the rock tribe, after an altercation with his father, played by Lon Chaney Jr, he winds up in the river. Victor floats down the rive and eventually winds up in the territory of the Shell tribe.

Victor meets Carole Landis and the rest of the tribe. The Shell people are much more civilized, sharing food and providing care to the young and old alike. There's plenty of danger as the area is packed with dinosaurs. When the volcano erupts the two tribes are brought together and the movie ends with them staying together. Probably best for safety and breeding.

I'm sure I've seen it but my watched movie list doesn't have anything listed. Some parts were familiar. I did enjoy it, there's usually something going on. The VCI Blu-ray looks pretty darn good. I'm tempting myself by putting a copy in my Wishlist. I'm thinking I'd watch it again someday.