Underworld 1985 Story by Clive Barker, screenplay by Clive Barker and James Caplin, directed by George Pavlou. A longer version was released in the US under the title Transmutations. George directed Clive Barker's Rawhead Rex. Clive thought George ruined both movies. I can't say he's wrong. Clive went onto direct Hellraiser himself. Underworld didn't do so well and kind of disappeared. None of us had seen it before. I don't remember ever hearing about it.
Larry Lamb plays Roy Bain. He's hired by a criminal boss to look for Roy's old girlfriend Nicole. She'd been kidnapped from the brothel where she work, Ingrid Pitt plays the brothel owner, she's not in the movie much. Denholm Elliot plays Doctor Savary, he's created a drug that mutates people. It was supposed to eliminate pain in humans. Savary continued experimenting until he has created a big gang of mutants that are living under the city. He keeps them in the addictive drug but things head south after the kidnapping, hardly anyone survives when the baddies come calling.
It's got a decent plot line but the dialog leaves much to be desired. The story leaves a lot of loose ends and dead bodies lying around. I was glad to see it but couldn't say I would want to watch it again. We watched the 4K Ultra Disc from Kino Lorber. The longer version is on the additional Blu-ray disc. I'm not driven to buy it. You can check out the shorter version on YouTube, see above.
The Questor Tapes 1974 Story by Gene Roddenberry, screenplay by Gene Roddenberry and Gene L Coon, directed by Richard Colla.
Lew Ayers plays Emil Vaslovik, a scientist who started Project Questor to build an android. He got partway and 3 years before he disappeared. Robert Foxworthy plays the android named Questor. Mike Farrell plays Jerry, he worked with Vaslovik on building Questor. John Vernon plays Geoffrey Darrow, he's head of the project. They fire Questor up and he escapes not long after to go find Vaslovik. Questor takes Jerry along to help him with human interaction.
The pair travel to England and meet a lady who used to work with Vaslovik. Questor and Jerry run about a bit before Questor is shot and taken back to the lab. Jerry and Questor escape again and find Vaslovik at Mount Ararat. They learn some truth about Vaslovik and Questor. It opens the door for more adventures.
The movie was meant to be a pilot for a new series but Roddenberry couldn't agree with Universal and NBC on the changes they wanted and no series was made.
It's kind of entertaining and kind of dumb. It's sort of funny but it's not very exciting. It's often pretty slowly paced. I think I might have seen this when it was new, I would have been interested in Roddenberry at the time, I just can't remember anything about it. It was fun to see it but another I'm pretty sure I don't need to see again. Doubt I'd buy the Blu-ray.
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