PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 1011

M3GAN 2022 Story by Akela Cooper and James Wan, screenplay by Akela Cooper, directed by Gerald Johnstone. An American New Zealand that was filmed in both countries.

A little girl called Cady is the only survivor of a snowy car crash, she goes to live with her aunt Gemma. The aunt works for a electronic toy company who have a talking fur ball. Gemma wants to step up the robotic doll and she secretly works on M3GAN (Model 3 Generative Android), a robot doll that bonds with the child and guides it. 

Of course it's only a short time before M3GAN learns how to be more human. She kills the neighbor's dog after it bites Cady, then the neighbor, more will bodies follow. Don't buy your child a robotic companion, that's what I got from the movie.

I didn't care for the characters that much and the personal drama dominates the story. Now that I've seen it I'm guessing I wouldn't bother watching it again.

Nécrologies 2018 Written and directed by Fabien Chombart, Guilaume Defare, Nathalie Eqoque, François Message and Alexis Wawerka. A French anthology film with 5 short films and a framing story.

A guy is taking selfies in a graveyard in the middle of the night. The caretaker catches him and takes him to the office to call the cops. The caretaker winds up telling the guy some stories about the dead in the graveyard, at one point the guy tells one of his own.

The first couple of weren't too bad but the middle act nearly put me to sleep, it picks up a bit at the end. Another I probably wouldn't bother re-watching.

Friday Night Movies 1010

Doomed Metropolis 2 The Last War 1989 Based on the novel Teito Monogatari by Hiroshi Armata, screenplay by Kaizo Hayashi, directed by Takashige Ichise. A sequel to Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis which we watched last November 2023.

The first movie ended in 1927, the sequel starts in 1945, it's near the end of the war and the American's are fire bombing Toyko. A Buddhist priest plans to curse the Allied leaders with magic. Before that gets to happen the spirits of the local dead revive the evil demon Kato. That's him on the poster, he's the baddie from the first movie.

Kato attacks the locals and some of them fight back. A young man, a nurse and a little blind girl, all with psychic powers, take on Kato. The nurse had encountered Kato as a child and still bears the damage. The young man nearly dies fighting Kato. The shaman realizing that Japan is losing the war attacks Hitler. The nurse prays to seal Kato away.

There's a fair bit going on but it's told so slowly it becomes rather dull. The recreation of WW2 era Tokyo looks pretty good and the cast is fine. The effects people did a good job. I'm sad I didn't like it more. You can test drive a copy of the movie on YouTube. Link above.

Sky Sharks 2020 Written by Marc Fehse, A D Morel and Carsten Fehse, directed by Marc Fehse.

A German SF comedy film about a secret Nazi ship frozen in the Antarctic ice since WW2. The ship housed a secret Nazi lab that was reanimating dead Nazi soldiers. The dead men would be zombied up then be given genetically modified flying sharks for steeds. The Nazi soldiers attack air planes, kill the passengers and crash the planes. A team of soldiers has to put a stop to the Nazi plan of world domination.

There's plenty of over the top Nazi action and the effects are pretty entertaining. The effects are by DigiTale Studios, they are known for their work on Game Of Thrones. Sadly the action packed beginning phases out for non-stop explanation which sucks the life out of the room. Everyone was complaining after a good half hour of this. There's more action in the last act but by then I was less responsive than I would have liked. I enjoyed most of the movie but not enough to go buy the Blu-ray. I might not want to see it again.

Woodlands Dark And Days Bewitched 2021

Woodlands Dark And Days Bewitched - A History Of Folk Horror 2021 Written and directed by Kier-La Janisse. A documentary on folk horror films. Severn put out the film as a separate release and packaged it in a box called All The Hunts Be Ours with 19 folk horror films in December 2021. I'd recommend getting the film or the box set when there's a sale on, the box is normally $170, on sale it was $125. That's still pricey but it's packed with plenty of extras, over 15 hours worth.

I finally picked up the set, on sale, and watched the documentary. It's long, 191 mins, but entertaining, at least to this film fan. The movie interviews around 50 film makers and people who write about film. The movie looks at over 200 films, TV plays and episodes. I've seen quite a good number of the films mentioned but there are way more I haven't seen. I'll get a chance to see 19 more of them with the box set. Some films get their own disc but most have to share with a pal. I'd only seen one movie of the lot, Viy, but had no physical release of that.

Here's the list of films in the box:

• WOODLANDS DARK AND DAYS BEWITCHED 192 mins
• EYES OF FIRE 86 mins
• LEPTIRICA 65 mins
• WITCHHAMMER 107 mins
• VIY 76 mins
• LAKE OF THE DEAD 77 mins
• TILBURY 57 mins
• THE DREAMING 90 mins
• KADAICHA 88 mins
• CELIA 103 mins
• ALISON'S BIRTHDAY 99 mins
• WILCZYCA 103 mins
• LOKIS: A MANUSCRIPT OF PROFESSOR WITTEMBACH 100 mins
• CLEARCUT 98 mins
• IL DEMONIO 100 mins
• DARK WATERS 89 mins
• A FIELD IN ENGLAND 90 mins
• ANCHORESS 108 mins
• PENDA'S FEN 90 mins
• ROBIN REDBREAST 76 mins

Science Fiction Sunday 805

Jurassic Triangle 2024 Written by Harry Boxley and directed by Victor De Almeida. There's nothing in the movie that is as good as that poster. The CGI is especially low budget and awkward.

A portal to another dimension appears in the sky. A helicopter full of people passes through it and winds up somewhere else. It's a place with dinosaurs, some based on real dinos, some imaginary bitey scuttley things. Everyone gets killed because the pilot was trying to find his daughter, she was a previous victim of the portal. They find her long dead body just before the movie ends so it was all for nothing. That's what I feel about the movie, it's all for nothing. Lucky for me my failing memory will wipe it from my noggin. I recommend staying away, it might linger in your memory and you'd only have yourself to blame.

The Loch Ness Horror 2023 Written and directed by Tyler-James. Another poster filled with lies. Nothing in the movie looks that good.

Just about everything about this movie is poor, the script, the dialog, the actors, plot devices. You name it's bad, except for the ship. It looks a real ship. The unrealistic bit about the ship is that 3 or 4 people are going to run it along with a few scientists. As the movie starts a submarine is attacked and goes off line without us knowing for sure what happened. A corporate type sends 4 people to take a big ship out to sea with a handful of other characters like a medic and a guy who runs the submersible.

The crew turn out to be gun toting psychos that have been secretly told to kill the beast. It's such a cliche move it's embarrassing. It continues in that same vein to the Gorgo like ending of the movie. Nothing original, nothing to elevate the film, nothing to make me more entertained than the slight amount I get from complaining. Another one I should have given a miss.

The Black Demon 2023 Story by Carlos Cisco, screenplay by Boise Esquerra, direction by Adrian Grünberg. The movie is set in Mexico but it was filmed in the Dominican Republic.

A man and his family are on a vacation trip in Mexico, the man is an inspector for an oil company. He's a bad man, falsifying records of poor working conditions and bad safety habits, the company gives him lots of money to cover stuff up. He's got to take an afternoon out of his vacation to inspect an offshore well just a short way from the town.

They find the town nearly empty and everyone is hostile to them. He goes out the ship and the family stay in the town. Things continue to go downhill as the man finds out there's a giant megalodon attacking the well. The townie's pick on the family and chase them to the shore. A man takes them out to the boat, he leaves them and runs, the shark eats him a short way from the well. Ha ha.

The man discovers he's being set up for poor practices by the company, they've set a bomb to go off while he's there, he uses it to destroy the shark, sacrificing himself to save the others.

Another cliche ridden film. The acting was better than the script. The CGI was at the lower end of acceptable. I enjoyed it more than the previous two but I wouldn't need to see it again.

All three of these were in the free section of Amazon Prime. I'm not including links, can't be arsed, you shouldn't watch these anyway.

Friday Night Movies 1003

The Breach 2022 Based the novel The Breach by Nick Cutter, screenplay by Nick Cutter and Ian Weir, directed by Rodrigo Gudiño. A Canadian Lovecraftian sort of story.

A boneless and mutilated body turns up near the town of Lone Crow Ontario. A backpack suggests he's a scientist called Cole who rented a house near the town about 18 months ago. It's an isolated house that's only accessible by boat. The Chief of police John heads up there with his ex girlfriend Amy and Jake, the local coroner. It's dark when they arrive, the house is empty. They decide to crash there and look for clues in the daylight. Why they wouldn't have waited to leave until the next day I don't know, just goofy choices by the characters.

During the night Cole shows up and all sorts of bad things happen. Sadly it just takes forever to get to the action. Turns out that Cole had built a device that connects to some other dimension or some such. Jake gets drawn to the machine, John pulls him out but he's been affected by the machine and starts to mutate. Cole's wife Linda shows up to complicate the night even more.

It's a nice looking film with plenty annoying cliches. It's John's last week at work before he leaves the town, Amy is his ex, she also dated Jake before John lived in the town, Jake still has bad feelings about Amy dating John and John breaking it off, Cole had caused the death of his daughter with the machine, his wife is damaged because of it. It all adds up to a lot of blather among the principles that slows down the story. I thought it was entertaining enough but it wasn't something I would bother with again.

Without Warning 1980 Written by Lyn Freeman, Daniel Grodnik,Ben Nett and Steve Mathis, directed by Greydon Clark. I bought the Kino Lorber Blu-ray from their current sale, I was interested in the commentary. I had seen the film before, I was just surprised it was in 2017 and a movie night. In that post I mention that the film has a 5.1 on the IMDb and it still has that rating. I gave it a 5 then and still feel the same way.

It's an alien encounter movie, the alien is in the woods hunting people with little fleshy discs that kill people, the alien stores the bodies in his larder, an old shack in the woods. Four young adults arrive in a van and a couple are killed pretty quick. The rest of the movie has the other couple try to survive. The locals are a lot of old actors, Jack Palance, Martin Landeau, Sue Ann Langdon, Ralph Meeker, Larry Storch and Neville Brand. The alien is played by Kevin Peter Hall.

I liked it better than the previous film and I'm listening to the commentary as I write this. Greydon has a fair bit of info about the film. I'm looking forward to the other bits on the disc. I might watch it again someday.

Friday Night Movies 1001

The Guyver 1991 Based on Bio Booster Armor Guyver, screenplay by Jon Purdy, directed by Screaming Mad George and Steve Wang. A joint US and Japan production that was produced by Brian Yuzna.

David Gale runs an evil corporation that makes bio weapons for money. They've got an alien artifact that they can't figure out how to turn on. A researcher steals it with the intention of giving it to an FBI guy played by Mark Hamill. The researcher is killed on delivery night by minions from the evil corporation. Michael Barryman plays the leader of that gang of minions. He can change into a monster at will, he kills the researcher and brings the alien artifact to Gale. It turns out the researcher had exchanged the alien artifact for a toaster. You'd think they would be happy, they know how to work a toaster and they'd have some toast, but Gale is steaming and promises certain death if Barryman doesn't get it back.

Mark has been to see the researcher's daughter at the dojo where her boyfriend trains, the boyfriend follows Mark and his girlfriend to the location where he finds the alien artifact. On the way home the boyfriend is attacked by some thugs, he accidentally activates the alien artifact and becomes the Guyver. After the fight the armor retreats back into his body.

The rest of the movie is the two sides battling it out for the Guyver unit. The boyfriend is killed and the girlfriend kidnapped. Mark gets experimented on and the boyfriend is revived in the form of a clone. He fights some more monster mutants and eventually things work out in the end. Except for the dead people, they're all still dead.

I'd first seen this in 1993 but hadn't seen it in a long while. I could not remember anything about the movie so it was like new to me. I seemed to recall enjoying the initial watching but  this time I didn't think it was as entertaining as the impression in my head. The acting is way over the top and some the actors aren't too good at their jobs as others. It's like the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers with more violence and gore. I don't know that I'd need to see it again.

The Old Ones 2024 Based on Lovecraft, screenplay and direction by Chad Ferrin.

A sea captain was kidnapped and possessed by a great Old One. Ninety three years later he's freed, now he wants to travel back in time to change the past and stop himself from being possessed. The old ones send a gang after him. The sea captain gets help from a father and son, they pulled his body from the water and saved him. The father is killed but the sea captain is sure if he gets back in time and changes things the father wouldn't be killed. The sea captain leads the son on an adventure to achieve his goal.

It's a fairly decently made film on a small budget. Even the acting was better on average than the previous film. For the most part I enjoyed the movie but I'm not drawn to wanting a copy. I doubt I would watch this one again either.

Friday Night Movies 1000

Godzilla x Kong - The New Empire 2023 Story by Terry Rossio, Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett, screenplay by Terry Rossio, Simon Barrett and Jeremy Slatter, directed by Adam Wingard. A sequel to Godzilla vs Kong from 2021.

Kong is adapting to life in the Hollow Earth and Godzilla is still bashing monsters on the surface. Kong finds an enslaved camp of giant gorillas under the thumb of Skar King. Kong gets Godzilla to help battle Skar King and free his people. Some humans get tossed in the battle blender and eventually find a colony of humans who live in the hollow Earth. Their descendants lived on the surface but were all killed off in the first film, except for one telepathic girl who calls up Mothra.

There's plenty of battles and big blasts, there's lots of noise and oodles of collateral damage. Mixed in is a lot of personal baggage. The monster fights were good but I'm not getting much out of the humans. It was OK but not as entertaining as Godzilla Minus One.

The Valley Of The Zombies 1946 Story by Royal K Cole and Sherman H Lowe, screenplay by Dorrell McGowan and Stuart E McGowan, directed by Philip Ford. Another film from the Republic Pictures Horror Collection.

A dead man called Murks returns to life with the help of voodoo and blood. Murk's  seeks revenge on the men who locked him up in an asylum and the doctor who killed him on the operating table. Murks had faked his death and his body was revived by his brother. A doctor and his fiance help defeat the insane man. There's some police help.

Sadly it's rather slow despite being 56 mins. I'd seen it before and since I bought the Blu-ray collection I'll watch it some more when I get around to the commentaries on the four films.

Godzilla Minus One 2023

Godzilla Minus One 2023 Written, directed and visual effects by Takashi Yamazaki. It did well in the box office, more than a 1000% return on it's $10-12 million cost.

A kamikaze pilot called Kōichi fails in his mission, he claims plane trouble and lands at a repair base on Odo Island. The ground crew of mechanics can't seem to find anything wrong with his plane. Later that night Kōichi and the ground crew have an encounter with Godzilla. He's small in 1945, only 3 or 4 times the height of a man. The pilot fails to fire on Godzilla and all the ground crew are killed except the lead mechanic Tachibana. They return to Tokyo with Tachibana hating him.

Back in Tokyo Kōichi find his parents have died in the bombing of the city. There's not much left in his old neighborhood. He takes in a young woman called Noriko, she comes with a baby called Akiko, the dying parents asked Noriko to take care of their dying baby. Kōichi gets a job and so does Noriko. Things seem to get better over the next couple of years. Kōichi struggles with survivor guilt. Deep in the ocean Godzilla has been caught in the nuclear radiation from a test on Bikini Atoll. He gets much bigger and starts attacking ships. He eventually winds up in Tokyo and the real action begins.

Godzilla destroys a lot of the city with his new heat ray. Noriko disappears in blast area and Kōichi vows to get revenge. The government is unhelpful and the military has been defanged. A local man funds a plan to attack Godzilla, Kenji, a friend and co-worker of Kōichi, has a plan to use freon to sink Godzilla in a deep bay, he's hoping that the pressure will kill the beast. Kōichi is involved with an alternate plan to kill Godzilla.

There's a lot of good CGI and plenty of explosions and heat blasts. All incredibly good considering the small budget. The cast is fine and Godzilla looks pretty good. The story is complex and you can take a lot of things out of it. The pilot is angry, the lead mechanic is angry, Godzilla is angry. No good comes of that. At least it has a happy ending and it leaves a big ass door, wide open, for a second movie. One of my takeaways from the movie: I thought that the Emperor and the government leaders got off lightly after the war, they needed some more punishment, more ritual suicide. I'll definitely want the Blu-ray so I can watch it again.

Willy's Wonderland 2020

Willy's Wonderland 2020 Screenplay by G O Parsons and directed by Kevin Lewis. One of the executive producers listed is Adam Rifkin. He directed a couple of my favorite films, The Dark Backward and Invisible Maniac. Bill Pullman, Judd Nelson and Wayne Newton are absolutely brilliant in The Dark Backward.

Nicolas Cage is driving when his car runs over a stop strip left on the road. His tires blow. Lucky for him a tow truck stops and takes him to a garage in a tiny town. He gets charged $1250 for the tow and 4 new tires. They want the money up front and they don't take charge cards. The tow driver offers him a way to make some cash.

The job is cleaning Willy's Wonderland. It's one of those annoying places like Chucky Cheese where animatonic puppets sing for your supper. The man hiring him said it had some issues several years ago and had to close down, he wants to have it cleaned so he can reopen the place.

Nicolas agrees to clean for cash but what he doesn't know is he's locked in a restaurant that's filled with evil possessed puppets who desire to kill him. In another subplot some local teens try to rescue him from the puppets. The kids fall right through the roof and the slaughter begins.

It's pretty standard stuff but I enjoyed Nic kicking the ass of some supernaturally driven puppets. I got the Blu-ray for cheap so I can watch it again sometime.

Science Fiction Sunday 794

Alien Shark 2022 Written by Aaron Jackson and directed by Paul Tomborello.

An alien invasion set on a beach on an island. A soldier lady is visiting with her friends on an island. They are celebrating her induction into the military. It was supposed to be only girlfriends but one of the annoying women brings her ex-boyfriend. He brings his pal, an equally annoying guy. A spaceship stops high in the air and circles the planet. It drops a shark creature with glowing green eyes.

That's the alien shark and it's sharkdog. The quality of the CGI and other effects are pretty poor but it goes along with the generally poor script and direction. A hat trick of tedium.

The gals and guys prattle on as the locals get sucked into the ocean and gobbled up. Some of them get green eyes, they get murderous and kill, some of them get sucked into the sea and disappear. I guess they were the lucky ones.

The director either has no money or no talent. He often cuts away from stunts or bits of action. One scene has a fisherman loose his rod, because of the camera angle we never see the rod leave his hand. Makes you wonder if they couldn't afford to throw a good rod into the sea. Another scene has the soldier lady punch someone off screen. I guess they couldn't afford a land stunt co-coordinator. The IMDb says they have 5 water safety stunt people but no one is listed as a separate stunt person.

It gets a stunning 3.8 on the IMDb. I gave it a two. It's pretty poor but not as poor as the following movie.

The Virus 2014 Written by Michael Cramer, directed by Michael Cramer and Troy Scoughton Jr.

Some annoying college film students follow their teacher to a small town in the mountains of New Mexico. They cut the chain on the road and the building they camp out in. Trouble is, the town had been the location of an experimental government program to develop a virus. The military succeeded, everyone died and the town was isolated, the virus contained.

The student's visit triggers some lights in the security office, troops are called in to stand around for a while. The students gets the virus and die or are killed by the troops. It's all rather unengaging, the characters uninteresting and the scenery uninspiring. That's a hat trick of no. I'd give it a miss if I were you. Both are on YouTube.