PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Science Fiction Sunday 633

The Fare 2018 Written by Brinna Kelly and directed by DC Hamilton. I'd seen DC's first film The Midnight Man and enjoyed that well enough to check this out when I saw it listed on Amazon Prime. Brinna c0-wrote TMM with DC. On this movie she's the star, the producer, caterer and driver. The movie is mostly set in a Yellow Cab and entire film was shot in 6 days.

Harris Caron is a cab driver, he's on a dark lonely road, he's got to pick up a fare. He's listening to the radio talk about time travelling aliens when he finds her by the roadside. Brinna plays Penny. Harris drives off, heading to her destination,  Elm and River Drive. They chat to pass the time. There's an electrical storm in the air, lightening in the distance. Penny disappears out of the backseat when his eyes are distracted by the storm. Harris calls dispatch and tells him his fare disappeared, the dispatched tells him to head back to town and not to forget to reset the meter. Harris does and he's back on the road listening to the same radio broadcast from earlier in the film. He picks up Penny all over again.

Some might be tempted to say it's a dark Groundhog Day but it's not. It's much more complex and interesting than that. The script is good and there's some nice camera work and direction. I'm normally one to get bored with a couple of characters bottled up together, especially once there's not much going on. The Fare kept my interest, I'd want to see it again sometime. There doesn't seem to be a DVD or I'd order one.

Exit Humanity 2011 Written and directed by John Geddes. A zombie film set at the end of the Civil War. It was also on AP. It's Canadian with a minuscule budget of $300,000 Canadian. Geddes does a good job capturing the past for no money.

A young man narrates his survival during the resurrection of the dead. Mark Gibson plays Edward, the young man, on screen, Brian Cox narrates his story as an older man. Edward's family is turned and he has to kill them. He's disturbed and sets off wondering, killing any zombie he runs across. I found the first act of the film fairly engrossing, once Edward encounters other living it becomes more like a lot of films with a loner and a local war lord.

Bill Moseley plays General Williams, he's organized some men, dug in and taken control of an area. They fight the zombies, capturing some for experimentation on by a doctor played by Stephen McHattie. Edward meets up with a man called Isaac who talks Edward into helping him rescue his sister from Williams. When Edward gets caught by Williams, Isaac is hiding in the woods, later he manages to rescue Edward and his sister from the underground compound. They come across Dee Wallace and learn a whole lot of backstory.

The rest of the movie is the big tussle with Williams. It's all fairly well done and I was entertained more than I often am with these low budget zombie films. I might not need the DVD but I might watch it again someday.

Friday Night Movies 832

Needful Things 1993 Based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, screenplay by WD Richter, directed by Fraser C Heston.

Ed Harris is the sheriff of Castle Rock, Bonnie Bedelia is his girlfriend, Max Von Sydow is a demon. Max has opened an antique shop in Castle Rock. He's got great stuff and the price is cheap, in cash. It's the favors Max wants, those have a great cost. It's why I don't go to antique shops.

I hadn't seen it before, I bought the DVD some time back but it's just been sitting in a box waiting to get watched for a good long while. I'm endeavoring to clean out that box and get those DVDs put in their final resting place other boxes.

I liked the characters and the script was fairly decent. I thought it poked along at the beginning, I'm not always a fan of the melodrama that fills in between the interesting bits before the real action starts. Once Max gets to manipulating the locals things get more interesting, more often. Nice production values, I watch so many low budget films, it's a welcome change to see some money on the screen.

I was glad I picked up the DVD, I enjoyed it more than many SK adaptations. It certainly has a better sense of humor than a lot of the films made from his books. Books that I haven't ever read. I liked it enough to think I might actually try to get back to it some time in the future. Typically, I seem to have liked it more than the critics did when it came out. Oh, well, nothing new there.

Tomorrow I'm going to watch the extended TV version of the film, then I probably don't need to see it for a while. That's good, that box of DVDs aren't going to watch themselves. They have no hands, how could they work the DVD player. The TV version is just over 3 hours long. You can watch the original in the title link above and the long version here.

Psycho Goreman 2020 Written and directed by Steven Kostanski. It's a Canadian film and Steve is part of the Astron-6 Production Company. His previous films include Manborg, Father's Day, The Void and Leprechaun Returns. This isn't an Astron-6 release, it's on the RLJE Films label. They produce a lot of genre TV and film. You can stream PG on Shudder and it just come out on Blu-ray.

That girl in the picture, that's Mimi, she's a real fuckin' asshole. The kid to the left is her brother Luke, she mistreats him something fierce. Mimi mistreats most everyone, she's loud and selfish, she wants her own way and no one can tell her what to do. After a deadly game of Crazy Ball, Luke has to dig his own grave in the back yard. Luke strikes a coffin like box that's got a glowing red jewel on it. Mimi gloms onto that. They get scared when purple light pours out of the coffin.They fill in the hole just in time to go to bed.

The next day the dirt is out of the hole and soon after we meet the Arch-duke of Nightmares. He's been sealed in the coffin for a long time, placed there by The Templars, the powerful alien beings that defeated him and stopped his galaxy destroying rampage. Mimi doesn't care about his backstory but the flashbacks to his past were quite entertaining. Mimi renames him Psycho Goreman, or PG for short, after it turns out that the glowing jewel gives her complete control over him. Now starts the Arch-duke's nightmare. She bosses him about and he threatens her with a slow torturous death. Mimi soon has PG out on the town and some of the locals aren't always fairing too well after their encounter with an alien.

More crazy things happen and there are plenty of laughs. There's a fair bit of gore and the make up effects are mostly pretty good. The film looks great considering it had a budget of $1,500,000 Canadian dollars. Money well spent. I sure plan to watch it over again.

Canada's Worst Handyman Season 2

Canada's Worst Handyman Season 2 is about the same as the first season. Five hapless amateur handymen, two are women handymen, bash and crash their way to the end of the series and one of them is crowned the worst Handyman in Canada. The jumped to 9 episodes, from season 1's 7 episodes, and it was a bit of a stretch. They went to 8 in the 3rd season and 7 in the remaining three seasons. This time the contestants are building sheds and other projects. The shed's have to be a certain size and only one of the contestants made them shorter than the max allowed roof height. They later had to take their sheds out of the build ares and the door is only 9 foot 2 inches. One had had her shed nearly 12 feet tall. I got a few laughs as a sped my way through the series on YouTube.

Canada's Worst Handyman Season 1

Canada's Worst Handyman is a reality show about some poor ass amateur handymen. It's hosted by Andrew Younghusband, who also hosts Canada's Worst Drivers. In the first season there are 5 handymen, one of them is a woman, and they haven't a clue among them. They're nominated by their family and friends, the nominator has to appear on the show with them and help with some of the tasks and challenges. There's a lot of failure going on here and some laughs. The contestants preform a series of tasks in an apartment in a building slated for demolition. Things like building a shelf, putting in a toilet, patching drywall, painting a mural in the living room. Lots of things to fail at, and the average failure rate is very high. It made me laugh as I sprinted through the series. That series aired back in 2006 and there were 5 more seasons before the show wrapped.

Science Fiction Sunday 577

TimeSlingers is the Canadian DVD title for Aliens In The Wild, Wild West. It turned up at the Dollar Tree for a buck and I bought it. It's a 1999 Canadian Romanian production that was filmed in Romania. There's Americans, Canadians and Romanians in the cast. The screenplay is by Alon Kaplan and the director is George Erschbamer.

It's really an SF western aimed at the teen crowd. A really fuckin' annoying kid and his slightly annoying older sister go on vacation with mom and dad. The kids don't get along. The family stop at a ghost town and the kids find a space device that sends them back in time to the 1880s. They team up with a local guy to save some aliens who've landed and got captured by cowboys who want to sell them to a circus as freaks.

It's all pretty much by the numbers. I would have enjoyed it more for what it was but for the wise cracking shit bag teen boy. At it's best it's below average and I'm sure glad I didn't pay more it than a dollar. I'm going to keep it for now. I might want to watch it again. It'll probably never happen.

Vampire Wars is another DVD from the Dollar Tree, at least I think so, it's been languishing in the pile for a while. Hopefully it wasn't a $2 or $3 clearance item at Half Price Books. I wouldn't want to pay that much, even for a fun Michael Ironside performance. He's a nasty vampire guy in this 2005 Canadian TV movie that's also known as Bloodsuckers. The DVD is pricey on Amazon, starting at $22.01 and rising to $83.50. I'm still hopin' I didn't pay 2 bucks for it.

There are vampires in space and they aren't any too happy to have the humans among them, other than for food stuffs. The human's have spaceships that go out and wipe out vampires. We follow the crew of one of the spaceships as they battle the bitey guys. There's plenty of fighting, ray guns, gore, spaceships, tunnels, yakking and walking in the woods. The movie was filmed in Squamish BC. The human crew is made up of four humans and a turncoat vampire of some sort.  Michael is on one of the planets they stop at, at least he was entertaining to watch. He's a delightful bastard but he's still a vampire and he needs to get lit up. There's nothing great about it, barely average in every way. I wouldn't need to watch it again but I'll keep the DVD, who knows, maybe it will be worth even more money in the future.

Friday Night Movies 769

Garo Special: Beast Of The Demon Night is a Japanese TV movie from 2006. It's a further adventure after the 26 episode TV show ended. It's set in modern day Japan but with a magical religious group that hunts demons. Lord Legules is an evil prick who wants to unleash his horde of demons on the human world by opening a passage to the demon world. The three guys on the poster are Makai Priests, they fight the demons, usually as they are but once things get serious they magic up some shiny armor and bigger swords. There are plenty of fights, all shooshing through the woods, and the last 20 minutes is all one big battle. It got a bit much and made me less interested. I don't think I need to see it again.

I would be interested in seeing The Uncanny again. It's a 1977 anthology horror film about murderous cats. It's a Canadian and English production filmed in both countries. It's screenplay is by Michel Parry and the director is Denis Héroux. It was the last film for Denis as a director, he would go onto produce some good bit of TV until 2000.  I haven't seen any of his other work.

There's a nice cast, Peter Cushing and Ray Milland are writer and publisher, Peter pushing his new supernatural tinged crime book where all the crimes are avenged by cats. Ray's skeptical as Peter outlines three different cases.

In London 1912 a rich woman, Joan Greenwood, rewrites her will with lawyer Roland Culver, leaving all her cash to her cats and a meal to her scumbag nephew. Simon Williams play the nephew and Susan Pehhaligon plays the maid. Simon and Susan has a secret romance, they are waiting for Joan to kick off and then they can play with all her riches. The news of the will change pushes Michael to murder, he convinces Susan to poison Joan's medicine. None of that goes as planned and the cats avenge their mistress's death.

In the Quebec 1975 story a young teenager named Lucy comes to live with her aunt and uncle. Katrina Holden Bronson plays Lucy, she's the adopted daughter of Jill Ireland and Charles Bronson. In the film her parents have just died and all she has is her cat. The mother, played by Alexandra Stewart, doesn't care for the cat but hubby, played by Donald Pilon, says that Lucy should keep her cat as it's the only thing she has. The daughter, played by Chloe Franks, is a real piece of shit and she manipulates the parents into getting rid of the cat. Lucy is heartbroken. The cat comes back and the killing starts.

In Hollywood 1936 Samantha Eggar is the mistress of Donald Pleasence, he's an actor married to Catherine Bégin, she's an actress too. They are all in a play but Samantha is only Catherine's understudy. When Catherine is murdered, Donald puts Samantha in the play. Catherine's cat comes looking for vengeance.

After telling Donald his theory on the evil of the cat, Peter leaves. He's attacked by cats on his way home and Donald burns the manuscript. It was entertaining and colorful with more than the average number of murdering cats. You can check out a copy on YouTube in the link above. You might get a laugh out of it.

Science Fiction Sunday 564

Sci-Fighters is a 1996 Canadian direct to video movie starring Roddy Piper. I hadn't ever seen it before so I picked up the two movie DVD. The other movie isn't SF, it's called Terminal Rush. Sci-Fighters is SF, set in a future where they have put prisons on the moon. Roddy is a special cop with extras powers, Billy Drago was Roddy's old partner. Billy killed Roddy's wife and now lives in prison on the moon. Billy gets infected with an alien virus and manages to escape to the Earth. He infects some people before Roddy gets on his trail. There's a bit of romance between Roddy and Jane Heitmeyer. There's random fighting, some good amount of sneaking about, some yelling, not much of anything original. It still manages to deliver a story but it's barely average. I wouldn't bother with it but I bought the DVD, lured in by a two pack of Rowdy Roddy Piper films. Turns out Terminal Rush is a Don Wilson movie and it's a good bit worse than Sci-Fighters. Roddy plays a terrorist who's taken over Hoover Dam. Don plays the sheriff who goes after him. I wouldn't watch it again but I might watch Sci-Fighters again.

Scorched Earth is a 2017 Canadian US post-apocalypse movie that's below average. If it wasn't for John Hannah I wouldn't have watched it on Amazon Prime. It was free. I can't seen paying to stream crap movies, it's different with buying a shit DVD, you've always got the option of throwing it in the river. The movie parades around as a Western and it borrows a common plot from both the Western and the Martial Arts movie, a young child sees their loved ones killed by the baddie, they grow up and fight that creep to the death at the end of the movie. Ryan Robbins plays the guy who killed Gina Carano's sister, she finds him as an adult and takes a go at killing him. Ryan's a good actor and he's been in some entertaining TV and film but I wouldn't need to see Scorched Earth again.

Friday Night Movies 764

Turbo Kid was fun the second time around. I liked the movie so much I ordered the 3 disc Blu-ray and DVD set. We watched the Blu-ray, it looks very nice.

Fantômas Vs Scotland Yard is the third of the Fantômas trilogy and it came out in 1967. It's directed by André Hunebelle and the screenplay is by Jean Halain and Pierre Foucaud. The trilogy is based on a series of novels by Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain. I've read the first two Fantômas novels and they were entertaining enough. The books have more complicated stories and Inspector Juve is a much more intelligent and capable character. The third movie has Inspector Juve acting even more like an idiot than the first two films. I got tired of him about half way in.

Fantômas has decided the tax the rich. He'll kill them if they don't pay up. I didn't think there was anything much wrong about that plan. We wouldn't miss any of the rich and when Fantômas decided to add criminals to the mix, I didn't see that as a problem. The criminals and the rich sure did. Since Fantômas is a master of disguise he can be right under your nose without you suspecting anything. Sure enough, both groups spill the beans right to the heavily disguised super villain.

Juve travels to Scotland with Fandor and his girlfriend Hélène and Juve's assistant Bertrand. Lord MacRashley is being threatened by our villain and he's called together a lot of his rich friends who are in the same predicament. They plan to capture Fantômas so they don't have to pay his tax.

 

The criminals get together after they are told they too need to cough up some of their ill gotten gains. Their plan is to capture Fantômas, kill him, and pretend he's still alive so they can still collect the tax from the rich. Great plan. Too bad, they just told it to a disguised Fantômas. Now they need to get punished. Our super villain is a harsh man. If I ignored the Juve nattering the movie was watchable but less interesting than the previous two. It's too bad but I'd still watch the trilogy again.

Science Fiction Sunday 562

Turbo Kid is a 2015 Canadian, New Zealand and US post-apocalypse movie that made me laugh out loud 3 or 4 times. It was the totally wacky gore effects that had me guffawing , they were great. Three people, François Simard, Anouk Whissell and Yoann-Karl Whissell, share the writing and directing credits. They wound up with a fun story about the post-apocalypse. They have a great sense of humor.

Munro Chambers is a young man living in the wastelands. There's a sort of community nearby, he scavenges to survive, trading with a man in the village. There don't appear to be any cars about, everyone rides bicycles. Munro's a fan of the Turbo Kid, he finds a comic and then the Turbo Kid's suit with it's still active weapon gauntlet. He also runs into Apple.

Laurence Leboeuf plays Apple, Munro runs into her in a playground, she follows him home and he decides to let her stay. She's odd, no doubt about it, but there's a sort of a reason. She adds a nice bit of humor to the movie.

Michael Ironside plays warlord Zeus, he like to torture people, he makes them fight in his arena. Hardly anyone survives the fights, if they do, he kills them anyway. The corpses of the dead are placed in a water reclamation machine and Zeus sells the water. No one will miss him when he's gone.

All the stuff going on is the usual sort of thing you'd expect in this sort of movie, it's just got a nice bit of a skew that makes me smile and occasionally laugh out loud. I saw it on Amazon Prime and put the DVD on my want list.

I wouldn't bother watching Global Meltdown again, it's a 2017 Canadian film about the end of the world. A bunch of people in a small town have to evacuate and they enlist the help of Michael Paré, he's a survivalist loaner who has a radio. Two news people from the west coast bring news of massive damages to cities there. They see a news clip of San Francisco being covered in water and hear that the rest of the places the TV people flew over where the same.

The town grows too dangerous and they head into the mountains where it's likely to be more stable. Society breaks down in two days and Michael goes full on cannibal. He gets more rabid and murderous, especially after joining up with some other scum.

It was going on for a while and I was thinking it was about average and watchable but nothing special. It took a downward turn when the conspiracy guy showed up. Then it was all preachy and annoying. I got to the end and didn't much enjoy it.

Corner Gas Animated Season 2

The second season of Corner Gas Animated has 11 episodes and I enjoyed the lot. They aired last summer and like the first season they aren't available on DVD yet. You can see them on Amazon Prime in the US.