PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 926

L A Wars 1994 Screenplay by Addison Randall and Tony Kandah, directed by Tony Kandah and Martin Morris.

There's a drug war going on in Los Angeles. Heading up some stereotypical Italian Mafia types are Carlo Giovani and his insane henchman Vinnie, they're up against some aggressive Latinos under the control of Raul Guzman. Raul wants the business and he's ready to kill everyone in his way. He'll get a fight from Carlo, that's for sure.

The police can't seem to do anything to get ahead of the gangs and Captain Roark is desperate. Desperate enough to hire ex-cop loose cannon Jake Quinn to infiltrate one of the gangs. Jake lucks out, he's in the right place at the right time to save Carlo's daughter Carla from being kidnapped by Guzman's thugs.

Once Jake's in the house he talks Carlo into hiring him to be Carla's bodyguard. Vinnie isn't too happy but Jake kicks his soldier's to the ground and Carlo hires him. Vinnie has designs on Carla but she's not digging him at all. She's got her sights on Jake and soon enough they're in bed together.

Things deteriorate and there's a good bit of battling between the gangs. Bodies litter the streets and the violence escalates. Eventually things get sorted out by Jake.

It's a ridiculous story with some action and lots of yelling. Everyone yells, all the time. It's barely average and there's nothing new here. You can see a copy on YouTube in the link above.

Bodies Bodies Bodies 2022 Story by Kristen Roupenian, screenplay by Sarah DeLappe and directed by Halina Rejin.

A group of rich 20 somethings gather in a nice big house for a vacation in a remote location that due a hurricane. There's plenty drinking and drug taking. Everyone, except for one gal, gets fucked up a good bit before the storm knocks out the power. It gets all Lord Of The Flies in the house after the biggest asshole is found with his throat cut.

Sadly I found most of the partiers so horrible that I couldn't stand being around them. They are so awful that they can't even stand being around each other. They turn on each other fairly quickly. Now one of them is a killer and between them they haven't got enough little grey cells to solve the crime, even if they were sober. When they do stumble onto a particle of rational thought it's almost too late. The reality in Mike Judd's Idiocracy doesn't seem so farfetched.

It's supposed to be a black comedy about some shallow Gen-Xes who can't survive without their social media. I was hoping for more humor, many of the good gags are in the last few minutes. Gleiberman described the film as "And Then There Were None staged by John Cassavetes for the age of Instagram."^[41]  That's a better joke than most in the movie. I thought it was more Real Housewives in the Big Brother house and that would be no joke. Those housewives are some nasty nasty people, barely human, they can turn on each in a heartbeat. I don't see me needing to watch it again.

Fantasy Island 2020

Fantasy Island 2020 Based on the TV show created by Gene Levitt, screenplay written by Jeff Wadlow, Chris Roach and Jillian Jacobs, directed by Jeff Wadlow.

I wasn't ever a fan of the show and only watched a handful of episodes. The movie more of a horror fantasy as Mr Roarke lets people have murderous violent revenge fantasies. Some people show up and start their fantasies, they go south quickly and some of the guests die. There's a few twists and turns and some supernatural business. More people die.

I didn't find it interesting and didn't really like the movie. I wouldn't watch 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 920

Valley Of The Dead 2020 Based of the novel Noche de difuntos del 38 by Manuel Martín Ferreras, screenplay by Jaime Marques Olarreaga, Alberto Fernández Arregui and Cristian Conti, directed by Javier Ruiz Caldera and Alberto de Toro. Original Spanish title Malnazidos.

It's Spain in 1938, the Spanish Civil War is going on and stink of Nazis is everywhere. The Nazis arrive in a small town while there's a wedding going on. The Nazis kill all the people in the town square. They dump some blue powder on the bodies and take off.

The tall guy with the mustache in the poster is in a bit of trouble, luckily his uncle saves him from the firing squad at the last minute. He's sent on a mission to deliver a message to a general in a bad area. He takes a short cut and runs into a Nazi roadblock. He bullies his way into the area and gets caught by the enemy just as the Nazi experiment fires up a horde of murderous zombies. A small group locals with mixed political and religious views have to pull together to fight off the dead scum.

The group makes their way out of the valley but they're hindered by the rapidly growing zombie pop. One by one most of the characters fall, often with a nice bit of personal glory. It's got a nice bunch of characters and the script gives us just enough of their story before moving along.

There's a great variety of fighting and plenty of explosions. The CGI head shots are a bit samey but some of the other bits of action are well done. It's a 102 mins and it doesn't seen over padded or stogy. I'd be happy to watch it again.

Army Of The Dead 2021  Story by Zack Snyder, screenplay by Zack Snyder, Shay Hatten and Joby Harold, directed by Zack Snyder.

A zombie heist film set in Las Vegas in the near future. A military transport accident released the original zombie and it quickly took over Las Vegas. The army fought them and then walled in the city and left them alone. Six years later it's decided to nuke the place.

Before the big bomb boom an ex-soldier gets asked to sneak into Las Vegas and steal $200,000,000. He can have a quarter to split with his team. Dave Bautista plays the ex-soldier, he doesn't want to go but he wants the money to start a new life for him and his daughter. Moronically he lets his daughter go along on the heist.

Dave gathers a group of people, enters the city and meets up with the locals. There's a good bit of fighting and zombie killing. There's also a good bit of personal story, more than I cared for. It's a 140 min movie and rather indulgent. A good chunk of that run time could have been trimmed to create a leaner meaner movie. The CGI and physical effects are pretty good. I enjoyed the zombie tiger and zombie horse. Some money was spent, $70-90 million according to the Wikipedia. It didn't make any money at the Box Office, only a million smackaroonies from it's short theatrical release. It was popular on Netflix when it appeared there.

There's nothing new here, some guys fighting zombies in areas that look liked video games. I was bored with the dull parts, especially all the character back story. Snip! Snip! I wasn't sorry to have seen it but I wouldn't bother with it again.

Friday Night Movies 919

Black Friday 2021 Produced by Bruce Campbell and Warner Davis, written by Andy Greskoviak, directed by Casey Tebo.

Bruce Campbell is the manager of a big box toy store called We Love Toys. It's Thanksgiving and tomorrow is Black Friday. Devon Sawa is a divorced father, he drops off his two daughters with the ex wife and her new family, and drives off to start his midnight shift at We Love Toys. It's a clumsy scene that made me wonder why he was dropping his daughters off in daylight and arriving at the store in the pitch black.

At the store the customers are lined up for nearly a block. There's some banter between the staff and the doors open. Things go along fine until an infected person infects the customers. Chaos breaks out and the infected start building something in the middle of the store. While the phones still work they fine that other stores are infected and the cops aren't answering their phones.

There's plenty of running about and violence. Characters get picked off pretty regularily. It was a bit slow getting going but it picks up the pace when the infected ramp up the violence. Somewhat entertaining but definitely average. Nothing new here really, the script is weaker than the direction, but it did have a few laughs. I probably will pick up a copy because Bruce is in it but I'll wait to see if it drops in price. Maybe I'll find a free download sometime.

Witch Academy 1995 Written by Mark Thomas McGee and directed by Fred Olen Ray. The Wikipedia says: Rey said it was the last of his "scream queen" films as the bottom was about to drop out of that market.

Robert Vaughn plays the Devil, he's poking his nose into the goings on at the Sigma Gamma Sorority. Some nasty women live there. When a party with some scummy frat boys gets cancelled they decide to invite a student, who's seeking membership, over for a bit of torture. The Devil turns the tables on the sorority gals by turning the initiate into a murderous monster.

There's not much story going on, just some horrible women mistreating a nice gal, but there are a lot of boobs. The script is poor, the acting poor but Robert Vaughn was OK. Some bit of fun but not something I need to pick up.

Friday Night Movies 917

The Wonderful World Of The Brothers Grimm 1962 Based on the biography The Brothers Grimm by Dr Hermann Gerstner, story by David P Harmon, screenplay by Charles Beaumont, William Roberts and David P Harmon, directed by Harry Levin with George Pal directing the fairy tale sequences.

The film was filmed in three panel Cinerama widescreen. The film hadn't had a US video release since the 1989 VHS and the 1992 Laserdisc. The Wikipedia tells of a bootleg Italian DVD. I know I haven't seen it in decades. I'm sure I saw it on TV as a kid. The film's been restored and presented in two versions, letterbox and Smilebox. We watched the letterbox and the dragon sequence on the Smilebox.

That's the Smilebox. Letterbox below.

Laurence Harvey plays Wilhelm and Karlheinz Böhm plays Jacob, Claire Bloom plays Wilhelm's wife and Barbara Eden plays Greta, a young woman smitten with Jacob. Oskar Homolka plays the Duke and Walter Slezak plays a bookstore owner called Stossel. Other members of the cast that I knew were Yvette Mimieux, Russ Tamblyn, Jim Backus, Beulah Bondi, Terry-Thomas, Buddy Hackett, Otto Kruger and Arnold Stang. Stan Freberg does some voices for the Puppetoons puppets.

The Brothers Grimm have taken a writing assignment from the local Duke. They are writing his family history and are nearly at the end of the 6 month project. The Duke is mad because it's not quite finished and he knows Wilhelm has been devoting some of his writing time to the fairy tales he loves so much. The brothers need to get this work done or the Duke won't pay them, he'll toss them out of their house and send them to the debtor's prison.

Wilhelm is a problem, not a practical man, he causes issues, nearly dies and hallucinates fairy tale characters and gives them names. Interspersed with the bio story are three short animated and live action fairy tales. They were nice to watch but the bio stuff was less interesting. I would have liked to see more fairy tales animated instead of incorrect bio info. It's fairly long too, 140 mins.

The Blu-ray looks nice but I'm doubtful I need to add it to my library. I can say the same about our second movie.

Amityville In The Hood 2021 Written by Jeremiah Douglas and Dustin Ferguson, directed by Dustin Ferguson.

Some joker is growing weed in the Amityville house, some guys steal it and take it to California. It's Big M's weed and he follows the weed to Cali. The drug guys have a dust up and kill some people. The weed turns people crazy and they kill other people. Sadly, most of that sort of action takes places off screen. What we have to sit through are some bad actors reading crap dialog from a poorly written script that was never thought through in the first place.

It was hard to sit though without heaping scorn on the film. The movie scores a 1.8 on the IMDb. It's deserving, just about everything about it is poor.

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.

Re-Elected 2020

Re-Elected 2020 Written by Eric Looney and Max Radbill, directed by Max Radbill. I caught this on Amazon Prime, free with membership.

It's a cabin in the woods with zombies film. Some 20 somethings visit the family cabin and the stupid half brother releases three zombies when he reads a cursed copy of the Declaration of Independence. A zombie Washington, Lincoln and Jackson come looking to destroy the document and take over the country. The film is very Evil Dead like but without the talent of Sam Raimi behind the wheel. It's filled with dumb jokes that weren't making me laugh. If I was mean spirited I would say it was poor as fuck. I gave it a 1 on the IMDb. I won't need to see it again. Hopefully I'll forget about it soon.

Friday Night Movies 883

Werewolves Within 2021 Written by Mishna Wolff and directed by Josh Ruben. It's based on a video game that the Wikipedia says was set in the middle ages.

A forest ranger Finn comes to his new assignment as a snowstorm snows in the tiny village of Beaverfield. Finn meets up with various town people like Cecily the mail lady, Trisha and her creepy hubby Pete, Devon and his hubby Joaquim, Gwen and her hubby Marcus, lodge owner Jeanine and her hubby Dave. Also in town is developer Sam, he's the reason people are divided in the town, some want to sell out and let the pipeline takeover the town, others don't, they need a unanimous vote to let the pipeline go through.

Cecily tricks him into dropping a parcel off at isolationist Emerson's despite knowing that the man is prone to shooting at people. Finn manages to get away. That evening there's a power outage and the people find out that all their generators are damaged. They congregate in the lodge where they are attacked by a quick moving creature. Pete has his hand bitten off and Gwen manages to shoot him while she's taking wild potshots at the creature. It's all downhill from there as one after another are picked off. 

It's a fairly fun film with some nice scenery. The cast were mostly good. There's a few gags and I liked the main character. Still, I don't think I would need to see it again so I'm not going to buy a copy.

Steel Dawn 1987 Written by Doug Lefler and directed by Lance Hool. Hool's son Brett plays the young boy in the movie. Hool's father Conrad was a producer on the film. The film was filmed in Dead Vlei, Namib-Naukluft, Namibia.

Patrick Swayze is a drifter in a post-apoc world that's all desert. He gets involved with a woman and her son. She's running a water reclamation farm near a small hovel based town. Patrick's real life wife Lisa Niemi plays the water farmer. Brion James plays Lisa's main handyman on the farm.

Anthony Zerbe plays the local baddie. Like every western he's after the valley and he's got a gang of thugs to threaten people out of their farms. Lisa isn't having any of it but Anthony has a violent streak. Poor Brion gets murdered and Lisa and her son get kidnapped. Patrick comes to rescue them. After he walks off into the distance.

It's barely average story wise and they managed to make the desert less interesting than I thought it should be. It kind of dragged during the personal melodrama. We all did like the dog and thought he should have been in the movie more. Another that I won't bother to pick up.