PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 560

Automata was our first choice. It's a 2014 movie with Antonio Banderas as an insurance claims adjuster who lives in a world that has had 99% of the population wiped out. They have robots that build the barriers to the few cities that are left. Robots are programmed to not harm any living being and the robots can't reprogram or repair themselves. Those two commands are built in and any attempt to change them causes the robots to become damaged. When a cop shoots a robot that he saw modifying itself it leads to an investigation that turns into a slaughterfest. I liked parts of the movie but it didn't make me crazy for it, good or bad. Another bunch of corporate creeps killing people to cover shit up and some poor sap caught up in the middle of it. He figures out what the robots are doing and in the end helps them over the humans. Mind you the people he blasts are pretty much shits compared to the robots. You might like it more than I did. I'll probably not bother picking up a copy but I might watch it down the road. You never know, though I'd rather watch Chappie again.  

Our second movie was Them!, a 1954 giant ant movie. I'd seen it several times but not in the widescreen format that comes on the new Bluray. It's got a screenplay by Ted Sherdeman and Russell Hughes, with direction by Gordon Douglas. Gordon started working for Hal Roach as a teen and appeared in small parts in three Our Gang comedies. He started directing in 1935 and stopped in 1977. I've seen a lot of his films.

Them! is about giant mutated ants roaming the southwest looking for sweets and killing when they don't get them. They, like the robots in the first movie, could be our replacements if only they get a foothold. Luckily the giant ants catch fire and die from a hail of bullets quite readily. James Whitmore, James Arness, Edmund Gwenn and Joan Weldon star. Keep an eye out for Richard Deacon, Leonard Nimoy and William Schallert in small parts. It's a fairly decent production, good actors, script, locations and sets. The special effects got an Oscar nomination. It's worth seeing and belongs in one's SF film library.

Friday Night Movies 559

Jaws Of Satan uses a Jaws premise, a big important public gathering that a local big wig wants to happen despite the threat of some critters killing the locals, and dog piles a few other things on it to try to keep the audience interested. It didn't work too well with our crowd, we here yakking a bit here and there as the story forgot to be interesting. Gerry Holland is responsible for the screenplay and James Callaway wrote the story. It was the only movie that they were involved with so we can understand that they didn't realize a whole pile of story ideas might not work so well if they don't tie together better. The movie was directed by Robert Claver. Robert produced and directed tons of TV episodes, mostly comedies. He directed three TV movies and this feature. We were all asking while it was playing if it was a TV movie. His past work might explain why it was like it was.

Fritz Weaver is a priest in Eutaw Alabama, a tiny little town in the middle of where. He doesn't know it when the movie starts but Satan has come to call in the form of huge chompy snake. People start turning up dead, bitten on the face mostly, with huge discolored and deformed bite areas. The local business creep is building a dog racing track and he doesn't want the sheriff to stop the open gala night, even though people are dying of the weird snake bites pretty frequently. Fritz's uncle, a monsignor, comes to fill him in on the backstory he needs. Turns out Fritz is the descendant of a druid that got into a tiff with Satan and he's now going to have a chance to test his faith. None of us could figure out what druids had to do with Satan. There's a medical examiner, played by Gretchen Corbett, who calls in a snake specialist who doesn't recognize the bites as anything he's ever seen. More people are killed before the end of the movie and the snakes take a beating, many of them getting their heads blown off. Fritz was ok in his role, some of the supporting cast were fair to ok, some were pretty poor. One interesting thing is that Christina Applegate appears in her first role. She plays the young daughter of the business creep and her real life mother, Nancy Priddy, plays her mother in the film. The only other interesting thing about the film is that the cinematographer is Dean Cunduy. He'd been cinematographer on Halloween, Rock 'N' Roll High School and The Fog. He'd go onto shoot many more interesting films. The movie wasn't totally awful, it did have a good batch of story elements, it was just so sloppily made by someone who shouldn't have been hired for the task. It might be the reason he never made another feature again. It's not something I'll probably ever see again. You can watch it in the link above. The copy isn't great, what was more interesting were the bits with USA Network Host Captain USA. I used to watch his show back in the day and enjoyed his goofiness.

Strangler In The Swamp was our second movie. It's a 1946 ghost story that was made by Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC). They produced a lot of low budget pictures from 1939 to 1947. They were one of what were called the Poverty Row studios. None of the pictures they made, 179, cost more than $100,000 each. I've seen a few of their crime films and a comedy or two.

Stranglers In The Swamp is based on a previous film, a 1936 German film called Fährmann Maria. Frank Wisbar is a German director who made a few films in the US. He co-wrote the screenplay to the original film and he worked on the story for the 1946 version with Leo J McCarthy. Harold Erickson supplied some additional dialog.

The story is pretty simple, the swamp town has been cursed by a man hung in the bayou. His ghost has been coming back and killing the men who hung him. He was innocent but they didn't believe him and they dangled him from a tree. The noose is still hanging near the ferry landing. The hung man was the ferryman. Another man got his job, he dies as the movie starts, his grand daughter arrives 3 days after the burial. She's played by Rosemary Le Planche. She takes over the ferry job. Blake Edwards is a young guy who returns town from the big city. He falls for Rosemary. His dad was one of the men that hung the ghost guy. Charles Middleton (Ming The Merciless in Flash Gordon) plays the ghost.

It was fairly entertaining and I enjoyed the story well enough. It's short, only 58 minutes. Too bad the Image DVD isn't better looking. As usual I suspect that there just isn't anything out there to work with. There's a copy to see at Daily Motion in the link above. You might like it. Here's a nice picture of Rosemary Le Planche.

Friday Night Movies 558

Natural City is a 2003 Korean SF film about cyborgs living with humans. It lifts it's look and feel from Blade Runner and Japanese Anime. A cop is collecting cyborg head chips to make a buck to pay a black market scientist to transfer the brain chip from his cyborg woman to a real woman. The cyborg woman is at the end of her 3 year life and the cop is all broken up about it. Can't do his job well and his boss is worried about him but not enough to do much of anything. The scientist wants to transfer the chip into a young prostitute's head. The plans don't work out so well as a rogue cyborg soldier drops into the story. The rogue wants to transfer control of the cyborg soldiers to himself. There's some good amount of battling going on when the cyborg and cops get together. The cops are no match for the cyborg soldier and they get slaughtered. Eventually they have to blow up the building to get rid of the rogue cyborg. The young prostitute is saved. It's all way too melodramatic and drags on way too long at 113 minutes. Still, parts were interesting enough that it might have been more appealing if it had been shorter and faster paced. There are too many lingering scenes with nothing going on. The CGI isn't too bad, a little behind the west for 2003 but passible. I'm not sorry to have seen it but I wouldn't need to see it again. You can find out if you like it, the whole movie is on YouTube.

Our second feature was The Relic. It's a 1997 Peter Hyams film with Penelope Ann Miller, Linda Hunt, James Whitmore and Tom Sizemore. Penelope is the scientist and Tom is the cop. She works at the Natural History Museum in Chicago, a thinly disguised Field Museum of Natural History. A shipment of boxes arrives from a colleague in South America. The ship some of the boxes were on had been found on the Illinois River with no crew or passengers. Tom is investigating, his partner thinks it was drug related, the bodies, torn to pieces in the bilge, makes him think it's something else is going on. That night there's a murder at the museum and Tom comes over to have a look at the dead guy. He's all messed up, head torn off, brain lying on the floor of the bathroom. The investigation puts a crimp in the big gala event. The museum hopes to make a bunch of money with it. A bum is found in the tunnels that go under the street, he attacks and the police shoot him dead, the guards wallet is found in his pocket so they allow the gala to go on. Of course the monster comes chomping and there's chaos for the rest of the movie. Penelope manages to blow the monster up in the lab and she saves her bacon by hiding in a water tank.

There was plenty going on most of the time and I enjoyed it. I'd seen it years ago and had forgotten most of the story. There's a good monster, some practical by Stan Winston, some fairly good CGI. The monster on fire was particularly good. The cast was ok. I'd watch it again sometime and if I find it cheap I might buy it too.

Friday Night Movies 557

Our first feature was the 2015 Japanese film Yakuza Apocalypse. It's written Yoshitaka Yamaguchi and directed by Takashi Miike. I'm hit or miss on that director, I like some of his later movies more than his earlier works, his Zatoichi movie is my favorite of his works. This movie is a yakuza vampire story with other fantasy elements. That bike riding big green frog is a dangerous Kung Fu opponent.

Turns out Yakuza Boss Kamiura is a vampire. No one knows but a few people, not even his right hand man Kageyama. One day some gangsters from Kamiura's past come to town. There's some fighting and Kamiura is killed. Before he dies he bites Kageyama. Now a vampire Kageyama bites some more people, who bite some other people, and pretty soon the town is filled with vampires.

There's plenty of action and violence as Kageyama gets his vengeance on. The giant frog guy turns up and there's more fighting. A giant green frog guy turns up at the end of the film and there was some confusion as to what happened. It's about average for Miike, not up to his Zatoichi remake.

We watched 30 Minutes Or Less next and it took a while before I remembered I had seen it a couple of years ago. It's a 2010 movie from Zombieland director Ruben Fleischer. This crime comedy has Jesse Eisenberg in it too. He's a pizza delivery guy who gets forced into robbing a bank. Danny McBride is a big slacker asshole who lives with his rich father Fred Ward. Nick Swardson is Danny's pal. They talk a big plan but they sure can't deliver. Danny is brow beaten by Fred for being totally useless, and really, Danny deserves it. Danny is a selfish, self-absorbed piece of shit, so, it's really no surprise when he decides to kill Fred for an early inheritance. Dad's old, it's doing him a favor. A stripper named Juicy puts him on to Chango who will do the hit. Michael Pena plays Chango and he's a hoot. To get the money to pay Chango, Danny and Nick kidnap a convenient pizza delivery guy, Jesse, and strap a bomb to his chest. Now he has to go rob a bank to get the $100,000 that Danny needs. Jesse goes to his best friend, a school teacher, at his job. So Jesse is in a school with a bomb strapped to his chest. He's that stupid. The best friend is played by Aziz Ansari and he's got a cute sister that Jesse is in love with. Of course Jesse puts her in danger and she's also kidnapped and nearly killed. Jesse and Aziz fight back and Nick and Danny take a mighty beating for their ignorant plans. It was a pleasure watching those guys take it in the nuts. It's a fun story with goofy things happening and explosions and gun fire. The actors all do a great job. It's not going to appeal to everyone but it's good for a laugh.

Friday Night Movies 556

Tonight two movies with wind swept barren planes. First up Mad Max Fury Road, George Miller's return to the world of Mad Max, with it's barren wind swept desert. The new movie is bigger, louder, dustier and nearly one long chase. Tom Hardy is Max, he's out standing about enjoying the view of the desert wastelands when some thugs come along. He runs, gets caught, winds up a blood bag for a War Boy named Nux. The War Boy takes him along, stuck on the front of Nux's battle car, when he goes out to chase after Charlize Theron. She'd run off with the War Boy's leader's wives. Immortan Joe is coming right after her, he's brought his gang, and he calls for help from Gas Town and the Bullet Farmer. No Ted's and Bob's in the wastelands. Charlize wants to go to the green place where she lived as a child. Immortan Joe, nearly catches up to the truck but his funny car is rolled over by the truck. There's more death and destruction on a road that leads to disappointment. The movie ends on a possible positive note. And they've already got a sequel in mind for next year. I enjoyed it well enough but there wasn't as much of a thrill as when I saw Mad Max 2 in the theater the first 2 or 3 times.

Our second movie was the 1952 Finnish vampire fantasy The White Reindeer. It's written by director Erik Blomberg and his wife Mirjami Kuosmanen. It's set in barren wind swept frozen north of Finnish Lapland amongst the reindeer herders of long ago. A woman, played by Mirjami, is sold to her new husband for a big pile of cash dowry. There isn't much passion so she goes to visit the shaman. He gives her something for her troubles. Something, that turns her into a shape shifting vampire. She turns into a white reindeer at will and when she's in human form she pops some canines and chomps some locals. The village is hunting her and ironically her hubby is the one to stake her to the ground with the massive iron tipped spear. It's short, just over an hour, and it still seemed like not much was going on for a long time. It was interesting to see but I don't need to bother with it again.

Friday Night Movies 555

Stitches is a 2012 British-Irish horror comedy with Ross Noble as a murderous clown come back from the dead to reek vengeance on some kids who ruined his performance at a birthday party where Stitches was killed when he fell on a whacking big knife stuck point up in the open dish washer. Tommy Knight plays the older version of the 10 year old birthday boy. Some might remember him from The Sarah Jane Adventures.

It's been six years since the fatal accident and the week end of Tommy's birthday his parents are away. Tommy's got something for his neighbor Gemma, that's her above, but she's sort of involved with a jerky guy. His pals talk him into having a big party at his house, at first he's scared but they can talk him into it pretty easily. The party gets rolling and unfortunately there's an uninvited guest. Not the two jerky kids who treat Tommy poorly, no, it's Stitches come back for some stabbin'.

Stitches runs about in the background, picking off the kids who were mean to him at Tommy's party. They all get slaughtered in a manner pertaining to the interrupted trick. One kid bust his balloon dog and he gets his head blown up. Soon the partiers are all running and screaming. Tommy eventually figures out how to defeat the vicious ghost clown before nearly everyone is dead. There's still plenty of gruesome deaths, topped off with a big glob of gore and a laugh. I enjoyed it, for a second time, and would watch it again.

Our second feature is Tremors 5: Bloodlines with Michael Gross returning as Burt Gummer, Survivalist. It's been 25 years since the first film came out. I liked that film quite a bit. I've seen it several times. I liked the sequels and the TV show, though they aren't quite as good as the first movie, they're fun to watch.

Tremors 5: Bloodlines is written by William Truesmith, M A Duece and C J Strebor and directed by Don Michael Paul. The only other movie of Don's I had heard of was a TV movie called Lake Placid: The Final Chapter. I have that one to watch some day. The film makers do ok on T5:B, the effects were ok, there's some nice scenery in Africa, the acting's mostly pretty good, but the script needed punching up. It's all familiar, they borrow from the other Tremors films quite readily and they borrow from Jurassic Park. There's a kitchen scene with ass blasters filling in for raptors.

Each sequel usually intros a new version of the Grabboid, this one has detachable tongues. It's ugly, huh? Glad they aren't real. There's the usual running about and yelling, people get eaten left and right, and Jamie Kennedy plays an annoying character. Burt has his ups and downs but generally he saves the day. He did get peed on by a lion. I was entertained but I'm familiar with, and like, the series. I'll pick up a copy when it gets cheap on DVD.

Friday Night Movies 554

Jurassic World was our first feature. Dinosaurs are dangerous and people are stupid. Lesson learned. Colin Trevorrow is the director and he co-wrote the script with Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver and Derek Connolly. I'd seen Colin's Safety Not Guaranteed about a year ago and thought it was ok but not something I needed to see again.

JW is mostly a rehash of the earlier films but with bigger chompy chompy. There's some kids who have to go visit their aunt, Bryce Dallas Howard, who works at Jurassic World. The island theme park has been running for 10 years. A mad scientist has created his own dinosaur with a mix of other genes that make it even more scary and dangerous. That's what his boss wants. Chris Pratt has bonded with 4 raptors and InGen Head of Security Vincent D'Onofrio thinks the vicious little pricks would be great soldiers. I think he thinks he sees a lot of himself in them but he's just a prick. Of course the big ass monster dino gets loose and there's plenty of  running and screaming. There's some people eatin' and oodles of dino on dino action. The big monster dino is totally aggressive and kills anything it comes across. Not for food but sport. Chris and Bryce had dated once so there's a bit of standoffishness but a romance develops over the length of the film. Who needs that, just adds wasted minutes before the dinos come back. The kids are stupid and only survive because the writers were on their side. The 21,000 guests are a super buffet for the dinos to chow down. Those monsters like playing with their food. There's plenty of dinosaurs and the CGI is ok. It's fun enough. I'll watch it again eventually and I might pick up a copy if it was cheap sometime.

The Editor is an Astron-6 film that parody's the Italian Giallo films of the 1980s. It's a 2014 Canadian film directed by Adam Brooks and Matthew Kennedy. They co-wrote the film with Conor Sweeney. They all act in the film, Brooks plays film editor Rey Ciso, Matthew plays police inspector Porfiry and Conor plays an actor named Cal. It's shot in Winnipeg and Kenora.

The film makers at the premiere: Actors Sheila Campbell, Brett Donnahue, Co-Writers/Directors Matthew Kennedy and Adam Brooks, actors Conor Sweeney and Brent Neale. Everyone does a great job in a story that has whacky stuff happening all the time. It copies the Italian Giallo style quite well. It's not a genre that I'm much fond of but this makes me laugh.

There's a series of grisly stabbings, the victims are found with the fingers of one hand removed. The Police show up and right away the Inspector thinks that Rey might be the killer. Rey's missing his fingers on the same hand as the victims. One by one the cast of the low budget horror film being shot in The Editor is slaughtered. The gore is pretty much like you'd find in the original Italian films, that is to say, pretty unbelievable. It's ok, goes well with the rest if the film. The movie often makes little sense and that is much like the original. There are some dream scenes that make me wonder what they mean. Still, there are plenty of jokes and funny situations to keep me amused. There's plenty of nudity, both male and female full frontal, so you get to see a boobie now and again. Don't worry, you don't see that many dongs. I wouldn't recommend to many film buffs, it's not for the faint hearted. but I found it pretty entertaining. There are those that might like that sort of thing. I'd want to see it again.

Friday Night Movies 553

The Final Girls is a 2015 horror comedy that was written by MA Fortin and Joshua John Miller and directed by Todd Strauss-Schulson. I didn't know any of Todd's previous work and it's the first feature for the writers. Joshua has worked as an actor for a while, he played the vampire kid in Near Dark.

Taissa Farmiga and Malin Åkerman play a daughter and her mother. Malin plays an actress in the movie who was in an 80s slasher film called Camp Bloodbath. Driving home Malin crashes her car and dies. After jumping ahead a year Taissa's best pal Alia Shawkat's brother, a big horror film geek played by Thomas Middleditch, pressures Taissa into going to a showing of Camp Bloodbath 1 & 2. During the first film there's a fire.

To escape Taissa, Alia, Thomas, Alexander Ludwig and Nina Dobrev jump onto the stage and exit through the screen. The 5 of them find themselves in the world of Camp Bloodbath. Adam DeVine, Chloe Bridges and Angela Trimbur play the counselors at the camp. Of course there's a camp legend, Dan B Norris plays Billy Murphy, disfigured by the councilors in the past. Billy comes back to the camp for some machete wielding vengeance. The new characters change the way the movie plays out but no matter, Billy still picks them off one by one.

It was funny at times, there's some semi gruesome murders, it's PG so not overly visceral, but they spend a lot of time on Taissa's and Malin's relationship. Taissa thinks she might be able to have her mother back but it's just a woman who looks like her mother, the person in the movie is a different character. Taissa becomes the final girl, the last person standing, and finishes Billy off only to wake up with her friends in the sequel. I got a few laughs out of it but didn't think I would bother adding it to my collection.

We watched the BluRay of John Carpenter's Vampires next. I watched it in the theater when it came out in 1998 s and have had a copy of the DVD since it came out in 1999. I've watched it a couple of times over the years but not in a long while. It's a western horror vampire hunting slaughter fest. It started as a novel by John Steakley which got turned into a screenplay by Don Jakoby. Carpenter wrote his own script based on both of those previous versions of the story. Steakley says there's not any of his plot in the movie but there is some of his dialog. Carpenter's version winds up being delightfully gritty, bloody, nasty and fun. It's got stunning cinematography by Gary B. Kibbe and a marvelous score by John Carpenter.

James Woods plays Jack Crow, a Vatican sponsored vampire hunter who's as mean and nasty as the creatures he hunts.. That's his team above, minus Jack's right hand man Daniel Baldwin. They hunt down and clear nests of nasty blood sucking vermin. No friendly vamps here. They clear a nest but don't find the Master. That night, while partying in a motel, the Master comes calling. He's unlike any vampire they've encountered. Strong and unkillable.

Most of the team and nearly all of the hookers are slaughtered. Only Jack and Daniel Baldwin escape with Sheryl Lee in tow. She'd gone to Jack's room for a bit of fun only to find the Master hanging out. He bites her. Daniel wants to kill her, she'll turn into a vamp in about 5 days but there's a psychic connection between Master and vampire that Jack figures to use to find him. Jack meets with Cardinal Alba, played by Maximilian Schell, who tells Jack that the Master they just encountered is really Jan Valek, the first vampire. He was created in the 13th century when an ancient Catholic exorcism ritual, involving a black cross, was interrupted, the soul was cast out, the demon took over, and Valek became an undead creature. The cross is hidden in a church somewhere in the southwest, with it Valek could finish the ritual and walk in the day. He's enough of a foe without being able to walk in the light. Of course Valek gets the cross and the rebuilds his Vampire gang.

Jack continues to hunt Valek, unbeknown to him Daniel has been bitten. It's touch and go, will they find Valek before Sheryl and Daniel turn. Probably not, it isn't that sort of movie, hardly anyone catches a break here. It's an entertaining film with lots of vampires bursting into satisfying flames. It's a must see for the vampire hunting fan.

Friday Night Movies 552

Thanks to Amazon Prime we can see a copy of Curse Of The Faceless Man on the Roku. There is a 2006 DVD but it's one of those print on demand ones and it's 20 bucks, so we aren't going to be bothering with that. Not when you can also see it on YouTube for free. It's a 1958 movie with a script by Jerome Bixby. Sadly it's not one of Jerome's better scripts. Edward L. Cahn directed, he also directed Creature With The Atomic Brain, Invasion of the Saucer Men and The Four Skulls Of Jonathan Drake. It was originally released on a double feature with another of Edward's films It! The Terror from Beyond Space.

Richard Anderson is a doctor who gets called in examine a petrified body that was discovered in Pompeii's Egyptian section. I didn't even know they had an Egyptian section. Some golden artifacts were discovered in a chest along with the body. In the chest is a bronze medallion with Etruscan writing on it. Luis Van Rooten plays Dr Carlo Fiorillo and Adele Mara plays his daughter Maria. They are both archaeologists who work for the same museum. The Griffith Observatory, filmed rather close up to disguise the familiar dome, subs for the outside of the museum. I wonder how many movies have been filmed there? The IMDb has 102 titles on it's page for the place, a lot of them are TV shows. I've seen quite a number of them.

The petrified body comes to life in the truck transporting it to the museum and the truck driver dies. At first no one believes that it could be the petrified body doing the killing. The police are baffled. Richard's girlfriend, played by Elaine Edwards, has weird dreams of the creature and the truck driver. She's produced a painting of the creature without ever seeing it. People are troubled by this, especially Elaine.

That's Richard and Elaine up above. She seems to attract the creature. He keeps dropping in. Like Universal's film The Mummy Elaine turns out to be the reincarnation of the creature's past love. At one point he walks off with her body and heads for the sea. They figure he's trying to pick up with what he was doing when the volcano erupted. He wants to get her to the sea so they can escape.

Sadly the creature doesn't find safety in the sea but Elaine is saved. It's a short movie, only 67 minutes, but it seems longer. It was nice to see it but I don't think I would need to see it some more.

  

The 1920 version of The Golem: How He Came Into The World was next. It's a German film released here by Kino Video. They've got a fairly good restored version with tinted film. It looks quite nice. It's written by Henrik Galeen and Paul Wegener who adapted the 1915 novel by Gustav Meyrink. Paul and Carl Boese were the directors and Paul plays the Golem on top of that. Paul had previously directed two versions of The Golem, one in 1915 and the second, a prequel, The Golem And The Dancing Girl, two years later. He wasn't as happy as he could be with those and he tried again in 1920.

In medieval Prague Rabbi Loew reads the stars and predicts terrible things will happen to the Jews in the Ghetto. Sure enough the Emperor wants all of them to leave. He sends a knight to tell the Rabbi to move his people. The knight falls for the Rabbi's daughter Miriam. The Rabbi's assistant has a thing for Miriam but she isn't as interested. The Rabbi talks the knight into taking a message to the Emperor to remind him of his help in the past predicting disasters and the like. The Emperor grants a visit and the Rabbi brings the Golem along to show him off. That turned out to be a good thing when the Golem saves the Emperor's life. The Jews can stay.

Back home later the Rabbi reads the stars which will cause the demon Astaroth to turn the Golem into a ruthless killing machine. He shuts down the Golem but the assistant, on discovering the canoodling going on between the knight and Miriam, starts the Golem up. The knight is killed and the Golem goes on a spree of destruction. Poor Miriam is dragged through the streets by her long pigtails.

It was entertaining though a bit slow going. The Kino version looks fairly good and there's some nice music. Worth a look for it's social significance if nothing else.

Friday Night Movies 551

 

El Monstro Del Mar! is a 2010 Australian film that was written and directed by Stuart Simpson. It's not got any actors in it that I know. What I do know is the people he hired to act in the film aren't quite so good at their jobs as the people behind the camera are. The story is simple, some bimbo killers are on the run, they hide out in a seaside town, there's drinking and loud music, then the monster happens. Other reviews comment on the opening of the film as being an homage to Russ Meyer's Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! I can see that, it's shot in black & white and there are three women in a car. I'm not a big fan of FPKK and I've never grown into a Meyer's fan so that homage means little to me. I've seen a few of his films over the years and never re-watched them. 

The only other residents of the seaside town are a young woman and her wheelchair bound grandfather. They live in the house next door. He tells the trashy women to stay out of the water but they make fun of him. The noise and the splashing attract a giant multi-tentacle monster from the depths of the ocean and the few people that are active in the area are getting chomped up pretty quickly. Eventually the monster makes a full on play for the last of the cast holed up in Grandpa's house. It wrecks the place, takes a beating when the girls fight back, and runs off into the depths to lick it's wounds for the sequel. The nice girl, gramps and the leader of the trio of killers survive. The bimbo promises to return with some friends to finish off the monster. So far that hasn't happened.

Sadly it's not really very good. It's slow at first, there are no monsters for quite a while and much of the movie is tinted a sickening green color. The trailer seems to have less green tint so I am guessing that the copy that was uploaded to Amazon Prime might be the problem. Not something I need to watch again and I won't be looking to add the DVD to my collection.

I feel the same about our next feature, Cop Car, though it's a better movie. Kevin Bacon stars in, and produces, the 2015 film directed by Jon Watts. This is Watt's second movie, he directed Clown last year and some segments of Onion News Network. He's working on the latest Spider-Man reboot for 2017. Christopher Ford and Watts wrote the script which is about a couple of dumb kids who are running away from home. They steal a cop car and that opens a can of worms that they weren't expecting.

Kevin is the sheriff and he'd left the car in the woods so he could dump a body. We will soon learn he's a crooked cop with some ties to the drug business. He's not a clever guy but he sure works hard trying to cover his ass before the boys are found in his car and the jig is up.

The kids, Travis and Harrison find all the guns in the car but they can't figure out how to turn off the safety's. They hear a noise in the trunk and wow, there's guy tied up in there. They release Man, as he's called in the script, who locks them into the backseat of the car. He has them call Kevin for help. Kevin desperately wants the car and he comes running. Man hides nearby with rifle and waits for Kevin. Camryn Manheim wonders into the scene and takes a bullet in the head for helping the police. The sheriff and Man are shot, we never find out if the latter is dead but Kevin is still alive. Travis gets shot with a ricochet as Harrison fires the pistol into the back door window frame trying to break the glass. He gets the window on the second shot and  drives the car to town to a hospital. The sheriff follows but gets taken out by a cow in the road. The boys had left a pasture gate open earlier and the cow must have wandered into the road. Poor Beefy. It's ambiguous if Travis survives his joy ride. It's a well made movie, good action , well acted but kind of sad. It would be a good movie to show kids, good lessons to be learned.

We ended with a short called Harry Knuckles And The Treasure Of The Aztec Mummy off of a Troma short collection called Best Of Troma Dance Film Festival. It a 1999 short written by Ian Driscoll and Lee Demarbe. They are a team responsible for Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter and Harry Knuckles And The Pearl Necklace. I'd seen the first one, we watched it at a Friday Night Movie night back in 2009 and I didn't think much of it. This short was goofier than that. I did put the Harry Knuckles feature on my Netflix queue. The short is funny sometimes and it that might appeal to the right person. If low-budget makes-no-sense comedy is up your alley, take a look at the short in the link in the title.