PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Legendary 2013

Legendary 2013 Written by Andy Briggs and directed by Eric Styles. A UK and Chinese production that was filmed in China.

It's a hunting mythical creatures movie with Dolph Lundgren as a villainous big game hunter. He just wants to kill everything, including people who get into his way. Scott Adkins is a mythical creature hunter who gets hired to lead a team into China. At a remote construction site men are disappearing. A giant lizard is running about snacking on the crew. Scott and the guy who hired him want to capture the critter but Dolph has other ideas. He's working for the company that owns the remote site, he's got a head start and an itchy trigger finger.

It's a $12,000,000 movie that looks like pretty good, there's some nice scenery and descent CGI for the monster. The cast is mostly OK, some of the Chinese actors seems a bit wooden but that might be more the language barrier than their ability. There's nothing overly special about it, it's like a lot of similar films you've seen already. I saw it on Amazon Prime, where it's only got a few days to be free. I often seem to find that the free movie I add to my watchlist are not free by the time I get back to them, that or they're gone from the site. One of the reasons I don't care much for streaming services. You can also see a copy on YouTube, link above.

10th Generation Dairyman

I really enjoy the YouTube videos of 10th Generation Dairyman. That's Eric Weaver and his wife Emily and their daughter, you can read more about them in this article from Progressive Dairy. 

 

Today's new video really has a good look at their new cattle barn. I really liked the construction of the wooden roof. Their older videos give one a good idea of what the dairy business is like. As kids we often stayed at my father's parent's farm. They had dairy cattle and grew mixed crops. I'm happy to watch life on the farm and I don't miss the smell of dairy cows.

 

From his YouTube channel's About Page Description: My name is Eric, I'm a dairy farmer in southern Pennsylvania. We have a 200 cow milking herd along with 150 or so young stock. We farm 250 acres where we grow all our forage and a little grain. I'm making videos of what I do day to day. I hope you enjoy.

Science Fiction Sunday 648

Doctor Who 0021 The Dalek's Master Plan Twelve part story that aired November 13 1965 to January 29 1966 Written by Terry Nation and Dennis Spooner, directed by Douglas Camfield. Linking script by Sue Cowley, read by Peter Purves. Nine of the episodes are missing, only episodes 2, 5 and 10 have video.

I listened to the audio CDs, the story fills 5 discs. The first disc has the Mission To The Unknown episode and some short interviews with Peter Purves, the rest of the discs have the 12 episodes, 3 per disc. Peter played the companion Steven, in this story he's joined by Adrienne Hill as the new companion Katrina. Sadly, she won't get to the end of the story and she becomes the first companion to die on the program. Jean Marsh sort of takes her place but she too doesn't survive either.

In Mission To The Unknown the Tardis passes the planet Kembel as the Dalek's meet with other aliens to discuss a union of forces to attack the Earth. Six months pass and the Tardis arrives on Kembel. They get aid for the wounded Steven from Space Agent Bret Vyon, played by Nicholas Courtney. The Doctor finds out that the Dalek's have a new weapon, the Time Destructor, and it needs the power of some stuff called Taranium.

 

The Guardian of the Earth has taken up with the Daleks and he's got some Taranium. The Doctor steals the Taranium and escapes the planet in the guardian's spaceship. Katrina sacrifices her life to save the Doctor from an escaped convict that wants to go to Kembel. When the Guardian's ship lands on Earth, Bret kills an agent and Jean Marsh kills him. It's no wonder the episodes were not allowed to air on Australian TV for being too violent for children. A set of the episodes were sent to Australia, they never aired there and it's unknown where the films went.

 

The Meddling Monk, played by Peter Butterworth, turns up for a while, the Doctor leaves him stranded on a desolate icy planet. The Doctor and the Daleks chase each other through space and time. The Tardis visits include a visit to an early Hollywood silent movie set, an 1960s London police station at Christmas, and ancient Egypt. Eventually they get back to Kembel where the Dalek's have turned on their allies. The Doctor frees the allies and they vow to get their planets to fight the Daleks. The allies leave the planet and the Doctor turns the Time Destructor on, sadly Sarah doesn't make it back to the Tardis and she turns to dust. The Doctor and Steven survive.

I thought it was a good bit too long. I was getting tired near the end and I was listening to them at 1.5 speed. There was so much of it that had nothing to do with the Dalek story, it could have been a nice six part story. There's video on the Lost In Time DVD set that I'll probably watch next week.

Small Foot 2018

Small Foot 2018 Based on the unpublished novel Yeti tracks by Sergio Pablos, story by John Requa, Glenn Ficarra and Karey Kirkpatrick, screenplay by Karey Kirkpatrick and Clare Sera, directed by Karey Kirkpatrick and Jason Reisig.

A village of Yeti's lives up the top of a cloud surrounded mountain in the Himalayas. They live by a series of rules, they are written on little stones that are kept and enforced by the Stonekeeper. The stones say the humans or smallfoots are mythical and it's dangerous to go below the cloud cover.

Migo is the central figure in the poster, he's the son of the gong ringer, and he's seen a human. Sadly the pilot of a crashed plane disappeared over the edge of the mountain. Don't worry, his parachute opened and he floated down into the clouds. When Migo tells the village he's banished into the wilderness.

The human Migo is holding is Percy Patterson, he's a wildlife documentary filmmaker with a TV show. Percy's been losing viewers and he needs a bit of a boost in his ratings. He's come to the Himalayas to find the Yeti that the pilot has claimed he's seen. Percy and his crew are in Kathmandu at the base of the mountain that Yetis lives on.

Migo has been contacted in his banishment by the Smallfoot Evidentiary Society, a small group of young people who believe in the smallfoots. They are lead by the Stonekeeper's daughter. Some of them descend through the clouds and wind up in the village. Migo and Percy meet, Percy captures a bit of video of Migo and uploads it to the internet. After lots of chaos in the village the action moves up the mountain to the Yeti village. Their beliefs are challenged by the situation.

The rest of the movie brings the humans and yetis together in a peaceful way. It's a fun show with a fair number of OK jokes and some silly slapstick. The only thing that I didn't care for the was the character design. Someone was nice enough to pass along a DVD of the movie so I wouldn't need to buy one. I'd watch it again sometime.

Friday Night Movies 847

Howl From Beyond The Fog 2019 Written and directed by Daisuke Sato. I read this bit on the Wikizilla entry for the movie: It is inspired by the 1951 short story "The Fog Horn" by Ray Bradbury, which also served as the basis for the 1953 film The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms.

A 35 minute short about a local dragon that lives in a lake on a mountain. It only appears when the fog come out and it does eat people. Luckily for Takiri and Eji it usually dines on people you wouldn't miss if they got chomped on.

It's animated with puppets and some digital animation. There were nice models of the local village and the people's houses. The puppets of people were doll like and had no actual movement. You can see them in the trailer. They were the least interesting thing about the movie to me. I liked the big puppet for the monster, it's about as big as a man which gives you an idea of the scale of the sets. I enjoyed the short but I'm not putting the video on my Wishlist. I think it's going to appeal more to the Kaiju fan.

House Shark 2017 Written and directed by Ron Bonk. I was disappointed that the shark did not eat the house. Ron describes the film as: Jaws in the house. It failed at getting big money at Indiegogo so they had limited funds and a small crew.

Some doofus guy is getting ready for a big date and he's got his teen son a babysitter. While he returns he hears yelling from the bathroom, he rushes up there to see the babysitter getting attacked and eaten by a shark in the toilet. The son is shaken up but OK. Next we see father and son it's two months later and we find the pair sleeping in a tent in the yard. Dad's really afraid to go into the house, the police didn't believe the shark story, they believe it was a sewer malfunction that created a huge vacuum. We know it wasn't but try convincing the police of anything. Dad's ex-wife shows up and takes the son, we don't see him anymore.

It is a comedy, albeit a bit gory, but the script and the long running time perform GBH on the gags. It's a 112 min movie and that's way too long. Get an editor that isn't you, Ron. I actually did laugh out loud 4 or 5 times but I wasn't always laughing at the jokes, more the way they were told. Often the script made no sense at all and calling it absurd just doesn't cut it for me. Some of what Ron found funny I didn't think was. Scenes started off kind of fun but often ran way too long, then the payoff was often poor. I'd still recommend it for the fan of odd ball movies but I'm still disappointed that the shark wasn't big enough to eat a house. Just my lot in life I guess. I wouldn't bother with the DVD, even at $1.99 over at Hamilton Books. You can check it out on YouTube, maybe you'll get a laugh, of whatever kind.

The Blackout: Invasion Earth 2019

The Blackout: Invasion Earth 2019 Written by Natalya Dubovaya, Ivan Kapitonov and Svyatoslav Podgaevskiy, directed by Egor Baranov. It runs 127 mins and that was cut from the 153 min version that was released in Russia. There's also a TV version that runs 296 mins.

It's the prelude to an alien invasion, something has caused a communication breakdown across the globe. Most people are dead but there's an area around Moscow and parts of Belarus, Ukraine and Finland that still has life. Reconnaissance missions into the dead area have disappeared and no one knows what is going on. Send more troops.

The latest squad to go in are attacked by a swarm of bears and upon arrival in a town they are attacked by hordes of humans. Back at the outpost on the edge of the area with life an alien called Eid makes contact and tells them of the invasion force of a million just like him. It's the old our planet is dying excuse.

Eid tells of his arrival 200,000 years ago, he was the advance man along with another alien called Ra. The big ship with the rest of the aliens has been on the way all that time. The humans are similar to him and there's a reason, Eid's people made the humans. They were designed to fight and kill and they do it really well. For some reason he wants to help the humans fight off the aliens who it turns out will be here tomorrow.

The movie seems a constant battle from beginning to end, there are little breaks for some character melodrama, and I was feeling it was a bit draggy near the end of act two. That's my only real complaint. I enjoyed the action stuff, the impressive CGI, the explosions of many sizes, and a body count of billions. The script is fairly good and so is the acting. Someone spent some money on it. I saw it on Amazon Prime but don't plan to buy a copy.

Vegas In Space 1991

Vegas In Space 1991 Written by Phillips R Ford and Doris Fish, directed by Phillip R Ford. Doris Fish is the stage name for Phillip Mills, an Australian who was a major star in the 80s world of San Francisco drag. Filming started in 1983 and continued for 18 months. Much of the film was shot in Doris's apartment.

It took another 8 years to finish the film, Fish died in 1991, a few months before the film was released. There was a VHS tape release and a Troma DVD which seems to be out of print. Not that I would want to buy one. You can see it on YouTube in the link above. I saw it on Amazon Prime.

That's Ford surrounded by the cast with Doris in the back row (second from the right). In the 80s Ford was the "honorary straight man" in the San Francisco drag troupe Sluts A-Go-Go. This is his only feature film, he had previously directed a short called Rollercoaster To Hell.

The movie is a super campy parody of space films. The crew of Captain Dan Tracey's ship are sent on a mission to the planet Clitoris. It's a pleasure resort planet that's only for women. No men allowed. Luckily they have sex change pills that turn all the men into women. Except for one guy, he took two pills and disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Doris and a couple of other gals pose as a trio of singers. They're looking for some stolen gems that are used to help control the planet's orbit and keep it from falling into the sun. There's plenty of running about and camping it up. The sets and props are way below average, same with the script, the costumes on the other hand were fabulous!!! They aren't but it was fun to say. The movie is sort of fun but it lacks good jokes. It's mostly just drag queens nattering at each other. Worth a look for something that's unique. Really low budget. Just not that great.

The Forbidden Photos Of A Lady Above Suspicion 1970

The Forbidden Photos Of A Lady Above Suspicion 1970 Screenplay by Ernesto Gastaldi and Mahnahén Velasco, directed by Luciano Ercoli. Score by Ennio Morricone.

A rich woman is attacked by a man who tells her that her husband is a murderer. He later plays her a tape of her husband plotting to murder a man that the newspapers say was just found dead. The attacker tells her he'll give her the tape if she has sex with him. They meet up and he secretly photos their activity. When she takes the police to where it all happened, they find is a dusty unused house. The attacker scares the wife a few times and the police help out. This all goes on for a while, there's a lot of yakking and a small bit of nudity and sex. Nothing happens much of the time and it's kind of pokey. There's a bit of a twist at the end but it wasn't much of a surprise. Not bad but not something I would probably watch again.

Science Fiction Sunday 647

Today's three stories are all lost episodes, stories that were wiped without making sure that there was a backup copy on film. All have audio, recorded by fans when they were broadcast. I missed them on my first run through Doctor Who back in 2013. They weren't available at the library at the time. I've since obtained the audio versions of the serials and listened to those today.

Doctor Who 0018 Galaxy 4 Four part story that aired September 11 to October 2 1965. Written by William Emms and directed by Derek Martinus with an uncredited Mervyn Pinfield. Linking script by Sue Cowley, read by Peter Purvis. I found I enjoyed the linking script which narrates the action. The CDs have two episodes on each disc and the sound is nice and clear.

The story has some surviving video, 6 mins of the first episode and the complete third episode. The audio of the missing episodes has been augmented with animated photos and combined with the available video into a 62 min program. Complete episodes usually ran about 24 mins, so there's a fair bit of dead space missing. I thought it worked quite well, tightens up the story nicely. You can find it on the 2 disc Special Edition of The Aztecs. When I saw The Aztecs back in January 2013 the there was only the single disc edition, the 2 disc came out later that year. 

 

The Doctor, Steven and Vicki land on a planet where they encounter some squat robots Vicki calls Chumbleys.

 

A couple of warrior women arrive and toss a net over the robot. The women tell the Tardis gang that they are warriors from the planet Drahvin in Galaxy 4. The robots are in control of another race called the Rill and they are dangerous murderers.

 

The women take the Doctor and pals to their ship where they meet Maaga, the captain of the ship. They're a cold hearted aggressive race and their warrior women are genetically engineered clones breed for battle. Maaga is the only one with higher thinking ability and sadly she hasn't gotten much.

 

Maaga tells the Doctor that they were in space when they encountered the Rills, a race they hadn't encountered before, both ships were damaged in a fire fight and crashed on the unnamed planet. Maaga tells them that they tried to communicate but it didn't work out and one of her warriors had been killed by the Rill. We soon learn that Maaga is a big ass liar, she killed her own soldier for getting wounded. Maaga and her crew haven't been able to repair their ship, she wants the Rill ship to save her crew. She isn't willing to share the Rill's ship with them.

 

Vicki and the Doctor make friends with the Rill and help them get their ship repaired. Sadly the Drahvinians are left behind. Ha Ha.

That's the Rills, they have to stay behind the transparent wall because they breathe ammonia. I was entertained.

Doctor Who 0019 Mission To The Unknown Single part story that aired October 9 1965. Written by Terry Nation and directed by Derek Martinus. Linking script by Sue Cowley, read by Peter Purvis.

This episode appears on the first CD of The Dalek's Master Plan CD set even though there are 4 more episodes that come between the two stories. It's really like a teaser or prologue for The Dalek's Master Plan.

An odd one off story that doesn't feature any of the Tardis gang. Apparently Producer Verity Lambert wanted to give the cast another week off before they started the next round of production and this episode was born.

Members of the UN Deep Space Force discover a Dalek plot on the planet Kembel. The Dalek Supreme is meeting with the representatives from the seven galaxies to deal with the Human invaders and take over the Galaxy.

That's Verity Lambert with some of the aliens. This is her last production for the series, she would go on to produce other programs like Adam Adamant Lives!, Minders, and a favorite of mine, Jonathan Creek.

I hadn't heard this episode before, it's kind of interesting but it really should have been placed before the 12 episodes of The Dalek's Master Plan to be more effective. I'm sure that's why they put it on the first CD in that serials CD set. From what I read it's not even that important to the overall serial and there are character changes between 0019 and 0021. I'll get to 0021 next week.

Doctor Who 0020 The Myth Makers Four part story that aired October 16 to November 6 1965. Linking script by Sue Cowley, read by Peter Purvis. The program is now being produced by John Wiles.

 

I hadn't heard the story before. The Doctor meddles in the Battle Of Troy, giving the Greeks the idea for the Trojan Horse and riding along inside. This serial sees the end of Vicki's run on the series. She decides to run off and marry Troilus. I wouldn't want to live in those days.

 

Katarina joins the Tardis gang briefly and Steven will stay on for a bit. There are some video clips in the Lost In Tie DVD set but I didn't bother with those. It was an alright story, nothing much special about it.

Monster Force Zero 2019

Monster Force Zero 2019 Screenplay by Tyson Kroenig, Nathan Letteer and Michele Pacitto, directed by Nathan Letteer.

A trio of cosplayers get drawn into an intergalactic war. Aliens have set up a testing space at a comic con and they recruit teams to fight each other. The winners get new super powers. The only person in the poster from the MFZ team is the lady with the gun, fire girl and hoodie boy are from the opposite team. The dino is a monster brought by the bad aliens. It's got laser eyes. The yeti joins MFZ during the team fight, the MFZ team needed another member to match the 4 person team they were fighting against. The movie kind of cops out when the big reveal of the person under the yeti suit happens during a cut away when a big alien ship appears in the sky. It's fairly ambitious for a low budget film with lots of aliens, CGI blasts and colorful characters. Some of the actors are fairly good and others are much less so, same with the jokes and the CGI. I got through to the end but there were times when my mind was wondering away from the story. I wouldn't need to see it again and would only recommend it to the SF fan who needs to see all the SF films out there. Not one of the little gems I keep looking for, maybe next time.