PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 829

Throwback 2014 Written and directed by Travis Bain.

Jack and Kent are searching a remote North Queensland park for the lost treasure of some legendary bushwhacker. They luck out and Kent drowns Jack for the bag of gold. Jack isn't dead yet, he gives chase. Kent runs into a yowie, that's an Aussie Bigfoot, that's been killing people in the area for a while. He manages to escape, only to run into a police detective called McNabb. The detective thinks Kent is a serial killer and chains him to a log. The creature turns up and McNabb takes early retirement after his head is ripped off.

There's plenty of running in the nice scenery as Jack, Kent, the yowie and a park ranger called Rhiannon battle for survival. Half of them get out alive. There's nothing that stands out in the film, except the nice scenery, it's pretty much average to me. I might watch it again but I doubt that's going to happen. It was on Amazon Prime as is the this next movie.

They Reach 2020 Director Sylas Dall co-wrote the screenplay with Bry Troyer.

A teen girl called Jessica brings home a box of junk to her father. They both like tinkering with electronic stuff. In the box is a tape recorder that's cursed. Jessica cuts her hand and drops of blood fall on the tape recorder. A demon is released and it starts killing people. It's a nasty beast and nearly everyone dies. Luckily it has a happy ending.

It's an ambitious project for an Indy film. It's set in 1979 and they do a fairly good job of that. It's mostly well filmed, a couple of times I had to go back to see what happened, some scenes are really quick and shot in dark settings. I found it a bit pokey at first but it soon picks up the pace. There's plenty of gore and the occasional joke. There's a lot of SF and horror in-jokes that I kind of ignored. I liked the teens and some of the adults.

I wouldn't say it's anything more than average but I was entertained most of the time. Like the first movie there were times when they paused so long in a scene that I was guessing what would happen next and being right a lot of the time. I'd still watch it again but doubt that's going to happen. No matter, there's way too many movies for me to getting to anyway.

Ask Rhod Gilbert Series 1 & 2

Ask Rhod Gilbert first aired in 2010 and 2011. It's a British comedy show hosted by Welsh comedian Rhod Gilbert. Billy Connolly once told Rhod "You made my heart sing," after seeing him on stage. Rhod's stand up DVD shows are highly entertaining and I can always get a laugh from seeing him on any of the panel shows he appears on. Here's Greg, Rhod and Lloyd, these are men who've been on vacation together.

Ask Rhod Gilbert has 4 panelists and a fact checker called the Authenticator. Two of the panels are new each episode, as is the Authenticator, the other two panelists are Greg Davies and Lloyd Langford.Some of the Authenticator's are David Tennant, Lorraine Kelly, Carol Vordeman, David Hasselhoff, Germaine Greer and Janet Street-Porter. Some of the panel guests are: Jo Brand, Dave Gorman, Sarah Millican, Adam Hills, Phil Jupitus,

Lloyd was Rhod's flatmate for a long time and Greg and Rhod are old friends from the comedy circuit. Greg appeared in The Inbetweeners, Man Down and he's the Taskmaster on Taskmaster.

Each episode has various people ask Rhod questions, the panel joins Rhod in answering the questions. Mostly it's all for laughs but often there's real info, mostly from the Authenticator and the phone guest, who usually is an expert in some field. The last few minutes of the show descend into pure chaos. It made me laugh. You can see them on YouTube, link in title above.

Game Night 2018

Game Night 2018 Screenplay by Mark Perez, directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein. John you might know as an actor, either from Freaks and Geeks or Bones, he's written some comedies with Jonathan: Horrible Bosses 1 & 2, the 5th National Lampoon Vacation film Vacation, they were co-writers on Spider-Man: Homecoming. The picture below shows the cast with John on the far left and Jonathan on the far right.

Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams are very competitive gamers, they host a game night with some friends and Jason's brother Kyle Chandler. They used to invite their neighbor Jesse Plemons over but since his wife left him they've not. The whole group is rather shallow and hard to like, at least, to me. The following week they are over at Kyle's big new house, Kyle is rich and successful and a bit of dick, especially to his brother.

Kyle has set up a role play game for the evening. At some point one of them is going to be kidnapped and they'll have to solve the crime to save them. The winner of the game gets Kyle's fancy new car. Reality has a way of getting in their way, some real crooks turn up, knock out the actor playing the FBI guy, Jeffrey Wright in a cameo, and kidnap Kyle. Turns out Kyle is big crook and he's gotten himself in trouble with a Bulgarian played by Michael C Hall.

It's all running around doing zany stuff to the end. There are plenty of gags but some of them are weak. In the end there's enough good stuff to push you over the finish line. There's a couple or three good surprises. I got the DVD from the cheap bin at Walmart on a whim. I'd probably watch it again someday. I'll keep it for now.

Critters Attack 2019

Critters Attack 2019 Written by Scott Lobdell and directed by Bobby Miller. A reboot of the series with Dee Wallace and some people I hadn't seen before. From reading about the film I see there was a Critters TV series on Shutterfly, I have not seen Critters: A New Binge.

The movie opens with the Critters landing, once on the ground they start munching people. Even the park rangers get chomped. A young gal takes a babysitting job I hope of getting in good with a lady from the college she hopes to attend. She takes the woman's two teen children out to a park, her brother tags along because he likes the daughter. They go to the park where they stumble onto the new critter invasion.

They can't get much help from anyone, so they devise their own defenses. They do learn from the dying cop that the Critters can be killed with high pitched noises. Dee shows up randomly in the movie, eventually she joins up with the kids and they blast the beasties. The movie ends with a hint of more Critters to come.

Nothing overly great about the movie but the series left much to be desired as it plowed on. It's not overly gory and there's a few gags. I gave it a 5 but it was more a 4. I wound up ordering the DVD after I watched the first four title but it sat for ages. Finally getting it off the unwatched movie shelf. 

Science Fiction Sunday 627

Alien Addiction 2018 Written and directed by Shae Sterling. Finally a good film in the Amazon Prime free offerings. A Kiwi SF film about an alien visitation.

Rika an his friends are playing a board game when they decide to race to the pub. Along the way Rika runs into an alien ship and those two guys in the poster. The aliens have landed on Earth and have been sampling organic matter with an alien vaporizer. They've discovered that human pooh gets them high and they can't get enough of the sticky brown. The aliens have a good time on Earth, at least for a while, some creep kidnaps them to make some money but Rika and his friends help rescue the aliens. 

It's a nice mix of yelling and falling over with plenty of swearing. There's some laughs, a bit of sad stuff and some sexy times. I liked the characters and the script is pretty good. It was well filmed and the scenery was nice. I'd want to see it again someday. I suspect it wouldn't be to everyone's taste, based on the comments on Amazon and the IMDb.

Edge Of Extinction 2020 Written and directed by Andrew Gilbert. Another foreign post-apocalypse film, this time from Britain.

A young man has himself a little hideaway in the woods. He helps a woman who leads some scumbags right to his hideout. They rob him and leave him tied to a chair. He gets out and goes after them. They chase and fight and wind up under the thumb of a group of cannibals. They get a couple involved with their fight and after the cannibals run off the movie abruptly ends.

About average for this sort of film. Too much of a reminder of a possible future coming. Not going to bother watching this one again.

Friday Night Movies 828

Face Of The Frog 1959 Based on 1925 novel The Fellowship Of The Frog by Edgar Wallace, screenplay by Egon Eis and J Joachim Bartsch, directed by Harald Reinl.

Joachim Fuchsberger plays an American playboy called Richard Gordon who solves crimes. Richard is working with Inspector Elk from Scotland Yard trying to catch the notorious scumbag the Frog. He's got a gang of 300 and none of them is any more aware of who the Frog is than the police are. We only see the Frog with his mask on. He's a deadly guy, cross him and you're dead, screw up in the gang and you're dead, I bet his henchmen don't expect any pension when they retire.

There's the usual bit of romance, made all the more complicated by the Frog being interested in the same woman as Richard. There's plenty of murdering and chasing about as the Frog goes about his dirty biz. The story is fairly good, the cast is fine, nice sets and locations, can't complain about much of anything. I found a copy on Rarelust and downloaded that.

The Avenger 1960 Based on the 1926 novel The Avenger by Edgar Wallace, screenplay by Gustav Kampendonk and Rudolf Katscher, directed by Karl Anton.

That's Klaus Kinski and Heinz Drache, Klaus is a film maker working as the script supervisor for a film company, Heinz is a detective for the Special Branch. They meet through murder, someone is cutting off the heads of people and leaving packages with the severed heads for people to find on the street. The heads are packaged with a note from The Executioner. The typewriter used has a couple of misaligned letters.

The Inspector meets with the niece of one of the murder victims and on the film set he finds a script page with the same misaligned letters. That leads him on a search for the writer of the script. Klaus isn't any help, he said he hasn't seen the script before, soon after his head is in a box. More and more evidence piles up and the case is solved.

It's a goofy story with an odd villain at the core. I enjoyed it, fairly decent script, a good lot of characters and a bit of a sense of humor. I'd watch it again.

The Terror 1938

The Terror 1938 Based on the 1927 Edgar Wallace play The Terror, screenplay by William Freshman, directed by Richard Bird.

Alistair Sim and Henry Oscar are petty thieves who have gotten involved with a gold robbery. The mastermind behind the robbery turns them in to the police. He perhaps, had overheard them plotting to keep the gold for themselves. They get ten years and the movie jumps ahead to their release. They hunt down the mastermind and try to get some vengeance. Sadly they aren't up to the task.

Besides Alistair and Henry the cast includes Bernard Lee, Arthur Wontner, Wilfred Lawson, Iris Hoey, Kathleen Harrison and a few people I didn't know. A fairly decent story and a nasty villain. Worth a look to me but not quite as good as the German film, The Sinister Monk, I watched the other day. I found a copy on YouTube but it disappeared within a day or two.

The Sinister Monk 1965

The Sinister Monk 1965 Based on the Edgar Wallace play The Terror, screenplay by Jochen Joachim and Fred Denger, directed by Harald Reinl. The Terror came out in 1927 and it's based on Edgar's own 1926 novel The Black Abbot. I recently saw the 1963 German film The Black Abbot and it was quite entertaining. There was also a 1938 adaptation, called The Terror, that was made by Elstree Studios.

As you might guess The Sinister Monk features a whip cracking, murderous black robed monk like figure. He's terrorizing a girl's school and the family that runs it.

That's the family, mom really runs the school, she's flanked by her two sons and the guy on the left is her brother who's a scumbag lawyer. Mom's dad has died and the scumbag lawyer has gotten the only copy of the will. It leaves everything to a granddaughter. The scumbag is willing to tear it up for most of the money, the family are mad but scumbag has power over them because they are creeps themselves.

Soon the murder's start and the police stop over to have a look around. At first they don't believe the monk sightings but once one of their own gets murdered in a rather unusual way they soon change their tune. Then it's all cat and mouse as they chase around the countryside trying to get one up on the monk.

I'll pretty much watch any production based on an Edgar Wallace story. Often they are quite entertaining but this German adaptation is well above average. It's got a good script, cast and sense of humor. Nice production values too, they films in Germany and London. Worth a look.

Susan Calman's Grand Days Out Series 1

Susan Calman's Grand Days Out Series 1 A six part series with Susan travelling around the UK in her little camper van Helen Mirren. That's it driving out of title sequence. Here's Susan with Helen.

Susan makes stops in Cornwall, Devon, the Lake District, Yorkshire, Wales and the Scottish Highlands. She visits the sights, talks to the locals, takes part in some activities and eats some local nosh.

It's all very much like Susan Calman's Secret Scotland. A bit touristy, a bit silly and plenty of nice scenery. I've enjoyed both programs. Hope she does a few more.

Science Fiction Sunday 626

Attack Of The Unknown 2020 Story by Sonny Mahal and Michael Mahal, screenplay by Brandon Slagle, directed by Brandon Slagle.

Blood sucking aliens have come to the Earth and they are feeding all over the place. We only see a bit of the action in LA, where we travel around with a SWAT Team that spends the first part of the film doing a bust, poorly, and then they have to transport the big drug kingpin somewhere. The invasion takes place while they are moving the drug guy to his new cell. He fills in some backstory, a legend from Mexico about whole villages killed overnight, all the blood drained from the dead. We even see a bit of a flashback. Apparently the government knew all about it but covered it up. The plot points are so lacking in freshness.

The aliens have bullet proof outfits but soon as some of the SWAT members are given a chance to take pot shot at an uncovered head of an alien they shoot the chest. After some of the SWATies are killed the smarter one shots the alien in the head. It's just one of the many frustrating traits the characters have. Sadly, it might be a script choice, we can only afford CGI for one alien head shot so some lame shit happens instead. I guess it does give the characters a chance to swear at the aliens and die a cliched death. So pathetic.

I sure picked a loser today. A lame alien invasion movie loaded with personal drama. Who needs that? Not this guy. Way below average for me. I was surprised to find it's got a 5.3 on the IMDb, I gave it a 2 and thought I was being just slightly mean. I might have given it a three if they hadn't made those guys die without letting them make a head shot.

The IMDB score has been fiddled with more than any title I've ever seen. Someone people have been busy...lying. This isn't good a movie to generate that sort of score on it's own. Some bunch of pricks orchestrated this. Makes me hate the movie industry at times. Time to resurrect the fleshless skull of Paul Naschy and cleanse myself of my frustrations by raining down some punishment.

Spaceship Terror 2011 Harry Tchinski is to blame. He wrote and directed this hillbilly spaceman torture porn piece of shit. Like the first film it was free on Amazon Prime. Not worth watching for me. I fast forwarded a good bit of it. Fuck off Harry. Not watching any more of your movies.