PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Science Fiction Sunday 811

Doors 2021 Written by Chris White, Saman Kesh, Ed Hobbs and Jeff Desom, directed by Saman Kesh, Jeff Desom and Dugan O'Neal. An American anthology film. Chris White wrote Portals in 2019, another film about strange doors that appear on the Earth. Chris mostly works as a producer, I can't say I've seen any of his producing efforts but I have heard of V/H/S Viral, The ABCs Of Death and Vlog.

Aliens leave doors on Earth and the humans figure out that they are all about. Millions of people disappear into them, some return but they're affected by their experience. We follow some people about as they encounter a door.

It's got a decent hook but the execution is a bit weak. The four segments don't really have much connection and there isn't really a framing story. Characters also do some stupid stuff when confronted with the door. We do find out why the aliens are there but it's a bit vague. I liked it but only gave it a 4 on the IMDb. I wouldn't need to see it again. You can check out both of these movies on YouTube, link in title.

Restart The Earth 2021 Written by Zhenzhao Lin and Shengfan Zhang, directed by Zhenzhao Lin. A Chinese disaster movie.

Plants have been tampered with by humans to grow faster and they have taken over the world. They are strangling the environment and vast swathes of humanity are dead. The remaining governments have organized an attack on the plants with some sort of device. We follow one group of Chinese soldiers and a couple of civilians as they try to get to the deployment point. 

There's a series of disaster set pieces, giving plenty of opportunity to sacrifice someone so the other characters can weep and wail. The plant CGI is about average. The dubbing not so much. I wouldn't need to re-watch this one again.

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.

Science Fiction Sunday 807

Outpost 11 2013 Written and directed by Anthony Woodley. I saw this on Amazon Prime (free with membership), it's also on Tube.

The movie is set in a dreary alternate Earth, England is fighting a second war with Russia. That's sounds interesting but all we see is three guys going doolally in an arctic outpost. The men are there to pass on messages from outpost to outpost and gather any Russian messages. There's a commander, a corporal and a private. The commander is moderately decent, the corporal is a royal prick and the private is scared. The private is especially scared of the Omega Machine, the outposts source of power. We're not really told why.

One day the red warning light goes off and they receive a coded message from HQ. The message says to Abandon All Hope. The code reads initiate plan 9 but the corporal tells the other two the message says more news coming. The private finds the code and they play Plan 9's tape. The commander makes a trip to the next outpost only to find them all dead. Their day logs tell of Russian psychotropic drugs that have driven the staff crazy. They killed themselves. Things go about the same back at Outpost 11. 

Why everyone always makes there dreary bleak SF stories I'm not sure. Probably cheap to make. Slap up some cheap sets, plaster on some bleak paint, fill the script with moans and kill everyone off. Not one I enjoyed that much, wouldn't want to watch it again.

Cargo 2009 Written by Arnold Bucher, Ivan Engler and Patrik Steinmann, directed by Ivan Engler and Ralph Etter. I watched this on Amazon Prime where they said the movie is German and came out in 2012, in the real world it was made in Switzerland in 2009. It's their first SF feature film.

Another dreary SF tale of the future. The Earth is ruined and everyone lives in space stations or the planet Rhea. A crew is assembled to take another ship to a space station. It costs a lot of money to migrate to Rhea, a woman signs on for an 8 year voyage to earn her passage there. Things go badly with the flight and we learn all is not as it is said to be. The movie ends with the crew destroying the lie and leaving the station.

I found it unengaging and wouldn't want to watch it again.

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.

Science Fiction Sunday 800

Arctic Blast 2010 Written by Jason Bourque and directed by Brian Trechard-Smith. An Australian Canadian co-production that was filmed in Hobart Tasmania and Ottawa Canada. It was the first full length feature film to be filmed in Hobart.

Another low-budget disaster film that's more Fantasy than SF. This time it's a hole in the ozone layer that's causing drops in temperature as cold falls from space and freezes everything it touches. Science is something to put out of your head on this one. Plenty of goofs in the script that have to do with science.

The main character is the scientist that no one believes. Bruce Davison is the scientist that's in charge, he's later humbled when his plan, the one Bruce steamrollered through, doesn't work. He has to call on the main character who has family trouble. There's a huge death count as more holes open up. Despite all that there's a happyish ending.

It's pretty much a stinker for me. It's like an echo of all the other similar disaster movies that freeze people, even if it preceded them. At least the actors were working. I wouldn't want to watch it again, I wish I hadn't watched it the first time.

Dune 2 2024 Based on Dune by Frank Herbert, screenplay by Denis Villeneuve and Jon Spalhts, directed by Denis Villeneuve.

More adventures on Arrakis as the family Harkonnen take over. Paul is out int he desert with the Fremen and his mother. There's lots of scenes of the desert and plenty of battles.

It took a long time to get to the end of the movie, 166 mins, and I was starting to get bored near the two thirds mark. It piqued my interest when the Emperor came to Arrakis. I bet he didn't think he was going to be defeated. Sucks to be him. The movie ends with the promise of a holy war against the other house.

I enjoy watching David Lynch's Dune more than this production and I can say the same thing about the 2000 TV production with William Hurt.

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.

Science Fiction Sunday 796

The Day The Earth Caught Fire 1961 Screenplay by Wolf Mankowitz and Val Guest, directed by Val Guest. A British disaster film about the Earth being blown off it's axis by nuclear blasts.

We follow a reporter about just after the US and the Soviets conduct nuclear tests. The weather starts to change over a short period of time. The Earth has gotten hotter, rivers and lakes evaporate. It's found that the blasts have tipped the Earth by 11 degrees and things are awful all over. Shortly after it's revealed that the Earth is closer to the sun. The heat rises and many die. The governments of the world hope to correct that by blasting off 4 more big nukes.

It's a pretty good film. It's B&W except for some yellow tinted bits at the beginning and the end. It's a talky film but the script is good and there's a good cast behind it. I liked the scenes at the newspaper office as the staff deal with the crisis. There's a bit of romance mixed in with all the horrible calamity. It seems a bit bold for 1961. They use a good bit of stock footage to depict the disasters around the world. It's done quite effectively.

There's a rather ambiguous ending. Not sure why people do that sort of ending. Not my favorite story element. I watched a DVD from Kino-Lorber that has the 2014 remastered print. Looks nice. I'd want to watch it again sometime. Definitely worth seeing.

It Came From Somewhere 2022 Written by Steve Hermann and Bryan Parkerson, directed by Ashley Hefnew and Steve Hermann.

The movie is a modern attempt to recreate a low budget picture from the 1950s. It's a mash up of Plan 9 From Outer Space and Teenagers From Space. These parody films rarely work for me. The film makers never seem to understand that Ed Wood wasn't setting out to make a bad film. He thought he had something going on but he had more enthusiasm than talent.

This time the aliens are planning to take over the Earth by enacting Plan 10. The alien's soldier monster gets loose and befriends a little girl. One alien is a killing machine, the locals get blasted one after another, their skeletons pile up as the alien moves on. The other alien falls for an Earth woman. Ultimately the aliens fail in their mission. The Earth is saved until the next alien invasion.

Sadly it's not that good. Lucky for me it was only an hour. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. You can watch it on YouTube but I'm not going to watch it again. It's an insult after the first movie.

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.

Science Fiction Sunday 793

First Signal 2021 Written and directed by Mark Lund.

Mark chose to set most of his film in in one of two conference rooms. After a brief bit of intro blather he moves five characters into a conference room for nearly 50 mins, then a couple of characters meet in an other conference room, followed by a good bit of time in the first conference room. There's a short bit at the end that has a couple of characters in a field.

The story is about some aliens living on Earth, the human's don't know about them. It's all been kept secret from the public. We learn all this stuff from the endless talk talk talk. The movie is mind numbing. Nothing happens. Glen doesn't seem to have made any other movies since this. That's OK, sometimes you only have the one movie in you. Let's hope.

Yesterday's Girl 2018 Written by Mike Garrick and Steven J Heath, directed by Mike Garrick. An Australian movie.

Mike sets most of his film outdoors. He's got characters walking in a field, walking through a woods, walking through a cityscape. There's also a lot of drone shots of characters walking through those places. I'm well bored of long drone shots with the camera aimed at the ground. It flies, move it around in an interesting way.

The story is about some characters who are murdered. They wake up somewhere and odd things are happening. An evil entity is chasing the murder victims. He's got some minions in black. It seems to be the end of the world but nothing is ever explained. There's just endless running through the woods and vague bits of story. In the end it seems the murdered characters are beamed up to heaven and the evil entity seems to be the devil.

I wasn't enjoying this much at all. I wouldn't watch this again, same for the first film.