PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

The Man Who Died Twice - Richard Osman

The Man Who Died Twice is a familiar title to me. It's been used to title a film a couple of times, a novel at least once, it's also the title of an episode of The Great Detective, a 1979 Canadian TV show. I suspect that most people buying Richard Osman's new book in the Thursday Mystery Club series aren't going to know anything about those old things. Not that it matters in anyway.

At the beginning of the book Ibrahim is attacked by a thug and his phone is stolen. He's been hurt physically and he's scared. He's was in the hospital briefly but soon comes home. He doesn't want to go out anymore. Elizabeth starts a plan of vengeance when the police fail to get anywhere with the investigation on the suspect. No witnesses or cameras on that street.

Elizabeth's ex-husband Douglas comes back into her life. He's still in the spy biz and some bad men want to find him. They claim Douglas stole $20 mil in diamonds during a break in of the home of an illegal money transferring guy. He takes cash and treasure and passes it along between scumbags. Helps keep their illegal doings secret. Sadly, he forgot to put away the diamonds before bed time and they got nicked in the break in. Now the mafia want to kill him and he wants to kill Douglas. He knows Douglas was there because Douglas popped his mask off during the break in. While MI5 is hiding Douglas the baddies manage to find him, he's killed along with the young agent minding him.

Elizabeth finds out he did steal the diamonds but he's hidden them and left a clue. With Joyce in tow she starts investigating the death of her ex and she ropes in all of her pals from the first book, Ron, Chris, Donna, Stephen and Bogdan, for a bit of fun.

I sure had some fun reading it. I plowed through it within 24 hours after downloading it to my Kindle. I'm glad to hear Richard is working on the third book in the series. I'll be happy to pick that up.

The Wild Weird World of Dr. Goldfoot - Shindig!

The Wild Weird World of Dr. Goldfoot is a special episode of Shindig! It's a pretty silly promotion for the film Dr Goldfoot And The Bikini Machine. The TV episode aired November 18 1965, the film was released November 6 1965. The TV show stars Vincent Price, Tommy Kirk, Susan Hart and Harvey Lembeck. Oddly Tommy Kirk isn't in either of the Goldfoot films. I liked it but I've liked the Goldfoot films since I was a teen. They aren't great but they are entertaining. I should watch them again sometime.

The Midnight Horror Collection - Flesh Eating Zombies

The Midnight Horror Collection - Flesh Eating Zombies has 4 movies on a single layer double sided disc. That's two low rez movies per side, the bit rate is low, about 2.5MB on average, the images look really poor. There's not much good to say about most of the movies either. You can find it on Amazon for 8 bucks and it's not worth it. I paid about 6 bucks for it and feel robbed.

Last Of The Living 2009 Written and directed by Logan McMillan.

I saw this back in 2010 but didn't remember that when I picked up this used 4 pack recently. The main guy looked familiar and sure enough the IMDb said I'd seen it before. It was a selection for Friday Night Movies, the link to the post is in the title, I still feel about the same as I did then. I might watch it again someday but the likelihood is low. 

Grave Mistake 2008 Written by Jimmy George and Chris LaMartina, directed by Chris LaMartina.

A poor looking zombie movie. The zombies are created by toxic waste and the guy who did the dumping is the step father of a young boy he likes to punch around. The kid has a couple of friends at the local gas station, he hangs out with the goofy mechanic and the long haired owner. They all team up when the town's citizens turn to flesh eating monsters. They try to survive but one by one they get picked off. The usual sort of fair but done poorly.

I'm not sure if they intentionally desaturated the color or it was just poor equipment and lighting. No matter, it sucks to look at. The film is really grainy on top of that. It just makes the below average script and the poor acting harder to see. It's made in Baltimore and the film makers say that it was made for about a grand. More money might help the look of the film but not so much the story. I have seen one other feature directed by Chris, the 2017 Call Girl Of Cthulhu, it wasn't very good. I wouldn't need to see either again.

Awaken The Dead 2007 Written and directed by Jeff Brookshire.

Another low budget film that looks awful. Desaturated color and dense grainy image equal a poor viewing experience. The script is a hodgepodge of goofy choices and coincidences. An ex-assassin is now a pacifist priest, a woman is an ex prostitute and daughter of the man who's caused all the zombies to appear in a town. He's invented a formula that can be sprayed on a town by a small plane. It turns everyone into flesh eating zombies. The father is the guy who trained the priest to be an assassin in some sort of black ops program. That secret black ops element is something I've gotten really tired of in the last few years. None of the actors are good enough to make anything much of the script. Not worth seeing, should be avoided in the future. Hopefully, I'll remember to look these up on my blog in the future. So easy to forget the easily forgettable.

I Am Omega 2007 Based on Richard Matheson's novel I Am Legend, screenplay by Geoff Meed, directed by Griff Furst. Griff is the son of Stephen Furst. Griff has acted in a lot of productions and directed 17 films, most of them for TV. I've only seen Lake Placid 3 and now this one. The film is produced by The Asylum. Never a sign of quality.

The only thing positive I can say about this movie is that it stars Mark Dacascos. He's been in some good films in his 30 year career, so sad to see he worked for The Asylum. Still, paycheck. The Asylum made their name by making low budget films that had a similarity to upcoming big studio films, releasing them months before the studio film comes out. They make money by not spending anything on their films. The Sharknado series is one of their more well known properties. One of my favorites of Mark's films is the 1997 action film Drive.

In this movie Mark is hold up in his compound trying to survive the zombie plague. He's forced to help save a woman and get her to scientists who are trying to create a cure, she's got some sort of antibody. The guys who enlisted Mark's aid are insane liars, they want to maintain the status quo so they can keep on killing people. They need killing and the film delivers.

Despite that, it's not a very good film, nearly any of the previous versions is more entertaining. I particularly like the 1964 Vincent Price film The Last Man On Earth quite a bit. I've seen that 4 or 5 times so far and really like the grimness of it. I will watch it again someday, I can't say the same about Mark's film, much as I like Mark. I'd rather watch him again in something good like Brotherhood Of The Wolf, Cradle To Grave, or John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum.

Super Hot 2021

Super Hot 2021 Written and directed by Taylor King. A young Indy director who has a small production company in Charlotte NC with his father. I've not seen any of his previous work.

The lady with the super soaker is Kandace Kale, this is her only credit on the IMDb. Kandace doesn't seem to have much emotional range, she rides that deadpan face through the whole movie, and she speaks in a dull monotone. Kandace hangs out with her 2 nerdy friends. I liked those two better, they had more ability in their acting. The movie spends a good bit of the first act proving their genre credits. We find out Kandace has a bit of crush on Carmen, the girl across the street from her house, and that leads Kandace and her friends into the clutches of some vampire models who want to stay young and beautiful forever.

The head vampire lady has a book that has a spell to resurrect Dracula into a host body. They need a virgin to sacrifice. Kandace believes that Carmen is going to be the sacrifice. Kandace and her pals attempt a rescue mission but that fails and one of the vampires goes after them.

The guy on the lower right side of the poster is Warren Van Helsing. He turns up just in time to blast the vampire lady attacking Kandace and her pals. They team up to fight the vampires. Despite being terrible at the job they have some positive results. I enjoyed Warren, he turns up at the right time, sadly, he wasn't much better at killing vampires as the nerds were. Still, he might have a chance to shine, the movie claims that he'll return, with Dracula, in a sequel.

I though the movie was fun enough but lacking in memorable gags. I watched it on Amazon Prime, it doesn't seem to be on DVD. No matter, I wouldn't be buying it anyway, I don't need to see it again.

Science Fiction Sunday 658

Doctor Who 0036 The Evil Of The Daleks Seven part story that aired May 20 to July 1 1967. Written by David Whitaker, directed by Derek Martinus. Linking script by Sue Cowley, narrated by Frazier Hines. Only episode 2 survives, a telerecording was found at a car boot sale in 1987. I saw that episode on the first run through of the series back in 2013 but I remember little now.

There's an animated version that's coming to DVD in November. I've ordered one and intend to watch it when it shows up. Dailymotion has an ugly CGI version of the story that doesn't seem to be by the BBC. I watched a few seconds and turned it off. It's too awful looking to even screen capture. It's probably a fan based production, I've just not looked into that stuff much. More than enough real BBC products to keep me busy. The BBC animated version coming in November looks more like the other BBC animated versions from the DVD set's box art.

We join the Doctor and Jamie at the beginning of the first episode, they are at Gatwick Airport, heading to the Tardis, when they see it being hauled off on a truck. The search around a bit and gather some clues that lead them to an antique shop run by a man called Edward Waterfield. In a back room we see that Waterfield is being controlled by the Daleks. The Doctor and Jamie are gassed and sent back through time to 1866.

Waterfield turns out to be from that time, he has a partner called Theodore Maxtible, they've invented a time machine. Somehow the Daleks found out and kidnapped Waterfield's daughter Victoria. She's played by Deborah Watling. She'd join the Doctor and Jamie in the Tardis at the end of this story and appear in 6 more stories in Season 5. Victoria would have adventures with other Doctors and companions in a series of novels and short stories, plus video and audio productions produced outside the BBC series. I've heard some Big Fish programs but aren't really interested in following up on them. There are a huge number of them and they aren't cheap to buy. I'll stick with the BBC produced stuff.

The Dalek's have brought the Doctor to the house to conduct an experiment. They'll destroy the Tardis unless the Doctor helps conduct the experiment on Jamie. We also find out that Maxtible is a greedy jerk who's helping the Dalek's because they've promised him the process for transmuting iron to gold. Silly Maxtible, you can't trust a Dalek.

The goal of the experiment is to add human qualities to new Daleks, the human's are the one species that seems to be able to defeat the Daleks, the Dalek leaders reason that Daleks with human qualities would be unbeatable. The Doctor finds the human qualities and adds them to the new Daleks. They emerge as more human versions of the Daleks who are friendly to the humans. They cause problems by doubting the Dalek ideology. 

We get to travel to Skaro and we see  the Dalek Emperor. Maxtible betrays the humans for gold and suffers for it in the end. The Dalek Emperor has a device that can change the human Daleks back and give humans a Dalek personality. Maxtible gets the treatment, drugs the Doctor and puts him through the process. It seems to work on the Doctor but we soon find out he's faking it. The human Dalek's attack the Emperor and cause chaos and much destruction in the Dalek city. Waterfield gives up his life to save the Doctor and he decides to take her along in the Tardis. The Dalek's had brought the Tardis to Skaro so they get in and leave.

Quite a good story with lots of death and destruction. I'll be looking forward to the animated version when it finally comes out.

Sleepy Eyes Of Death 5: Sword Of Fire 1965

Sleepy Eyes Of Death 5: Sword Of Fire 1965 Novel by Renzaburô Shibata, screenplay by Seiji Hoshikawa, directed by Kenji Misumi.

On a road Kyoshiro Nemuri, played by Raizo Ichikawa, encounters a woman running from a man with a knife. He helps her and she uses the opportunity to kill the man, claiming it's a legal bit of revenge for the murder of her husband.

 

The woman is called Nui Higaki and she's pulled Nemuri into the middle of a conspiracy involving some stolen pirate treasure. The Chief Retainer and pals defeated the pirates and kept a good bit of the treasure instead of giving it to the Shogun.

 

That's Atobe Shogen, Chief Retainer for the Todo Clan, on the left in the left photo, the guy seen through the green window is a conniving merchant called Narumiya, he's part of the theft and he needs to cover his tracks as much as the Chief Retainer. The two are looking for the few remaining pirates, the CR has charged Nui with finding them. The baddies want to kill the pirates to keep them from spilling the beans to the Shogun about how much gold they had and how little got to his treasure rooms.

The Chief Retainer thinks he needs to wipe out Nemuri but these clowns can't do the job.

 

Narumiya tries to bribe Nemuri with a lady who's got some big tattoos wrapped around her body. He takes her to the Chief Retainer as a present. The CR later beheads the girl and sends her head to Narumiya.

Nui tries to seduce Nemuri but it doesn't work.

 
 

Nemuri brings the fight to the Chief Retainer and wipes out a whole bunch of the clan.

 

That's the CR in his death throws. Just as the last of the CR's men surround Nemuri a Daimyō rides up with an order for the Chief Retainer to commit Seppuku. He's been found out but it's too late. Nemuri is ordered to keep quiet and he leaves town after doing one last good deed and seeing Narumiya arrested.

 

On the road Nemuri crosses paths with Nui. When she tries talking to him, he just slices her down. He walks away while she gasps her last breath. She really was a horrible woman. On the good side Nemuri helped three of the pirates escape from the Chief Retainer.

The series seems to get darker with each passing episode. I'm still being entertained by the films and look forward to seeing the last 7. I should try to get back to the series sooner but the DVDs got buried for a while.

Friday Night Movies 857

The Golden Blade 1953 Story by John Rich, screenplay by John Rich and William R Cox, directed by Nathan Juran. William was also the producer of the film, he mostly worked in TV, this was his first feature and he's listed on the IMDb as uncredited.

Nathan spent much of his later career directing TV on shows like My Friend Flicka, A Man Called Shenandoah, Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea, The Time Tunnel, Lost In Space, Land Of The Giants and Daniel Boone. He directed a few films that were of interest to me. His first film was The Black Castle and it was darn good. Some of my other favorites: The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, Attack Of The 50 Foot Woman, The First Men In The Moon, The Brian From Planet Arous and 20 Million Miles To Earth.

The Golden Blade is set in ancient Bagdad. I enjoy the occasional Arabian Night sort of story, they're usually bright and colorful, there's some action and running about, a villain is thwarted and the hero gets the girl. Rock Hudson is the hero, he's the son of a sheik of Basra, he returns home to find his dying father, stabbed by some men in a raid. He finds a clue in a medallion and sets out for Bagdad for some revenge. Piper Laurie is the daughter of the Caliph, George Macready is the Vizier, Gene Evens is the Vizier's son. The Vizier has a lust for power, he's responsible for the raid on Basra, he wants to install Gene as the new Caliph. Some stabbing is going to need to be done.

Rock meets Piper in the shop of a merchant and it's there that the magical Golden Sword comes into his hands. It can cut through steel for the right person. Knowing Piper puts her and Rock in jail and he winds up being her body guard. She manipulates Rock and Gene into a fight for her hand. Gene finds out about the sword and steals it from Rock. Rock eventually comes to find out that Gene and the Vizier are the scumbags that need killing and a bit fight breaks out in the palace. The Caliph is killed, Gene is the new Caliph, Rock and Piper go on the run. The Golden Sword gets stuck in a wall and no one can pull it out except Rock. Some baddies get stabbed and there's a happy ending.

It's fun and a bit goofy with a good cast. The script is the weakest link, it's a bit  Arabian Knight and a bit King Arthur, some of the dialog makes me laugh. I still liked it well enough to order up the DVD, it's part of 5 Rock Hudson film pack that was only a tenner on Amazon. Five movies on three discs, better than some collections. There's a DVDr Archive version for 20 bucks and a Kino Lorber Blu-ray 3 film set for $24. I liked the movie selection on the DVD set better than the Blue-ray set, as well as the cheaper price.

Devil Story 1986 Written and directed by Bernard Launois.

The movie opens with a series of murders by a deformed man in a Nazi uniform. A woman is attacked by a cat but it seems to be in her mind. They stop for the night at the mansion of an old couple. They tell them a tale of crashed ship many years in the past. The wife is attacked by the deformed man and his mother. The mother is killed and the wife escapes. The old man from the mansion blames a black horse and spends much of the movie in a field shooting his shotgun over and over again. Then a mummy shows up and the crashed ship comes out of the cliff face.

It just goes on and on, piling one plot device on another, never seeming to care if they make sense or work together. Poor Bernard needed the help of a more experienced writer and director to make this film. Sadly he didn't get the help he needed. It was good at making us laugh and it's short. I wouldn't need to see it again so I'm not going to buy the new Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray.

Taskmaster Series 12

The 12th series of Taskmaster has started. Joining Greg Davies and Alex Horne are guests Alan Davies, Desiree Burch, Guz Khan, Morgana Robinson and Victoria Coren Mitchell. They made me laugh.

Hawk & Rev: Vampire Slayers 2020

Hawk & Rev: Vampire Slayers 2020 Written and directed by Ryan Barton-Grimley, who also plays Hawk. Watched on Amazon Prime.

A silly comedy that slowly grew on me. Hawk's annoying and has a problem fitting in world. He's a security guard who believes there are vampires and it turns out there are. The vampires aren't the ones he thought they were, but he'll soon find out who the bitey guys are. The cast is fairly good and their characters are all rather quirky. There's a bit of gore, some it quite amusing, but it's not overly violent. Some of the CGI blood is weak. I got a few laughs out of it and enjoyed the film for the most part. I might buy a DVD, if it was cheap enough, but it just seems to be available on streaming platforms. I'd recommend it to the horror comedy fan. You might get a laugh out of it too.

Convoy 1940

Convoy 1940 Written by Patrick Kirwan and Pen Tennyson, directed by Pen Tennyson. Pat was the great-grandson of Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Sadly Pat died in 1941, he was killed in an airplane crash while he was serving in the Royal Navy. Another selection from The British Film library from Network.

A mix of romantic melodrama and WWII naval activities. Clive Brook is the commander of a Royal Navy cruiser that's been assigned to meet a convoy in the North Sea and escort it to Britain. They run into a spot of bother from Jerry's battleships. One of the ships in the convoy had fallen behind and it's captured by the Germans.

On board the lagging ship is Clive's ex-wife, the German's use her as bait, they send a fake message about the ship sinking to try to lure English ships into an attack. It almost works when the former lover tries the divert the ship he's on to help. Clive bungs him in the brig for that. Later the guy dies being a hero. Lucky for Clive's ex a British battleship shows up and turns the German sub into an oily smudge.

I thought it was quite decent despite the romantic angle. It's a good look at the life of the men who protected the ships during the war. Lots of them were lost at sea. Some of the Navy footage was shot under real war time conditions. Good cast and nice production values. Glad I've seen it, might not get back to this one so soon.