PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 839

VFW 2019 Screenplay by Max Braillier and Matthew McArdle, directed by Joe Begos.

Stephen Lang is the bartender at the VFW post, William Sadler, Fred Williamson, Martin Kove, David Patrick Kelly and George Wendt are his old Army pals. They come to the bar to drink and hang out. It's nothing special but it's a place for them. That all gets interrupted by the arrival of a young girl, she's stolen a big bag of drugs from a psychopath drug dealer. He sees her run off with the stash and sends his younger brother and a few henchmen to get her back.

The thugs rush the bar and David Patrick Kelly goes down with an axe in the shoulder, nearly all the thugs are killed including the psychopath's little brother. The psychopath sends an small horde of fucked up drug addicts to kill them. There's plenty of action, oodles of body parts hacked and sent flying. It's a battle to the end and hardly anyone comes out alive at the end.

I enjoyed it, a good solid action film with a great cast. It had a nice, dark sense of humor, good gore, and a great score. My only complaint is the action was in the fast jump cutting style and I'm not as big a fan of that. I'd still watch it again. Worth a look for the fans of that sort of thing.

Psycho Goreman 2020 I watched it a month or so ago and posted about it on FNM. It's still funny and Mimi is still an asshole.

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The Racetrack Murder 1964 German movie called Das Siebente Opfer, based on the novel by Brian Edgar Wallace, screenplay and direction by Franz Josef Gottlieb. One of several films made from Edgar Wallace's son's novels by a rival German film company, they were not usually as good as the superior Edgar Wallace films from Rialto. The movie is on a DVD with a second film. 

The story is set in the world of horse racing and involves a rich family and the people who work for them. First someone tries to dope the horse, then someone is killed. Scotland Yard are called in and soon after there's another murder. It plods along and the detectives do their best to catch the killer. It's a bit slow moving and sometimes I lost interest. Not as much fun as many of the Edgar Wallace films are. It's about average to me. Glad to have seen it but wish it was more entertaining.

The House In The Woods 1957 Based on a short story called Prelude To Murder by Walter C Brown, screenplay and direction by Maxwell Munden. I had the Network DVD but watched the version on the DVD with The Racetrack Murders. I'll compare the two when I have a chance to dig out that DVD.

Michael Gough is a moody writer who wants to go somewhere nice and quiet. Patricia Roc plays his wife. They find a nice cottage in the country. Ronald Howard plays the owner, he wants to go off traveling and will rent them the place for a pittance. He talks them into staying that very night, so they can see if they like the place.

Ronald's a gracious host and they have a nice time until Michael starts to believe there's something sinister behind all that bonhomie. It takes a while to figure it out and Patricia doesn't believe Michael until it's too late. Now they're in a pickle and it's touch and go for a while.

I enjoyed it quite a bit, it's only an hour and there's a good bit going on. You can watch a copy here.

Cruise Of The Gods 2002  Written by Tim Firth, Michael Marshall Smith and Peter Baynham, directed by Declan Lowney.A made for TV movie for the BBC.

Rob Brydon has been producing his own short interview program from home over the lock down periods in the UK. When he interviewed Steve Coogan they talked about Cruise Of The Gods and it seemed like I would like it. Steve and Rob appeared together in The Trip and all the sequels to that.

Twenty years before the movie starts Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan were in a cheaply produced SF TV show called The Children Of Castor. Steve went on to bigger and better things and Rob is a porter at a hotel. The show has a following and Rob gets hired to appear on a cruise ship for the fans of his show.

The ship is also host to a Jack Jones appreciation get together and a third do for someone else. These are really small gatherings. Jack plays himself in the film and he's great. He's another of the people who pass some sage advice to Rob. Jack sings a number of songs through the movie and he's still in fine voice.

David Walliams plays the head of the fan group and James Corden is his hapless lackey. The lady in the picture above is Helen Coker, she plays a fan of the series and she's another of the people that give Rob a bit of a life lesson. Rob's character is a needy failure who's only fans are the sort of people he hates. He acts like he's still as active actor but his roles are few and far between. Steve's character is a nice guy who's had some breaks, he's currently staring in Sherlock Holmes in Miami, it's a street smart version of Holmes with a black Watson. We're lucky to see some of the movie being made because Steve hires Rob to play the part of Scumbag #3 out of pity.

Because Steve nearly ran over Rob with his yacht he finds out that there's a fan cruise for the show. He's only too happy to put in an appearance and he's happy once he gets there. He's just generally an all around nice person. The lessons continue for poor Rob and eventually there's a happy ending. I laughed a fair bit and there's some good life lessons to learn. I'd certainly recommend it. Sadly, there's only the British DVD out, you need a region free player or VLC Player to play it. I got a copy from Amazon and was glad I picked it up.

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Pixels 2015 Story by Tim Herlihy, screenplay by Tim Herlihy and Timothy Dowling, directed by Chris Columbus. I have a box of DVDs waiting to be watched for the first time. Tonight I stuck my had in the box of discs and pulled out one at random. I couldn't find a good sized copy of the cover to the DVD via Google so grabbed the one on Amazon. The IMDb has posters of movies but they've changed their web page to only allow screen captures of the images posted to their page. Annoying, it now takes longer to grab an image. I noticed that the DVD was only $3.74 on Amazon and the Blu-ray a tenner. You can pick up a used copy for $1.96, costs more than double for shipping.

The movie opens in the 80s and the early arcade games were all the range among the kids. A trio of kids are competing in an arcade championship, they grow up to be the adults in the film Adam Sandler is a home-theater installer and Kevin James is the President of the United States. The arcade action was recorded and put in a capsule that was launched into space. It seems aliens have found the capsule and interpreted the recording as a call for war. Now it's on. The attackers come in the form of 80s arcade game images.

It's that connection to the arcade that pulls Adam into Kevin's world after a military base on Guam is attacked by the video game Galaga. They soon find a message from the Aliens telling them that this is the first challenge for the rights to the Earth. Adam gets a hand from Josh Gad and Peter Dinklage.

There's a bit of romance between Michelle Monaghan and Adam, Josh meets the love of his life, a character from a video game. There's plenty of giant arcade play as the attacks start happening. A giant Pac-Man roams the streets of New York. Eventually the Earth is saved and all is well enough.

It made me laugh occasionally and I was happy to have seen it. I'd want to watch it again someday. I keep meaning to watch all my favorite Adam Sandler movies in a marathon but there's so much I still haven't watched.

Tremors: Shrieker Island 2020 Written by Brian Brightly and Don Michael Paul, directed by John Michael Paul. This is the 7th Tremors film, JMP is the director of Tremors 5: Bloodlines and the 6th film Tremors: A Cold Day In Hell. I've not seen any of his other films except for Death Race 4: Beyond Anarchy. The rest don't seem to interest me much.

A billionaire hunting enthusiast has had four graboids grown and placed on his island. He's set up a hunting party for other rich assholes. Of course, those guys are in over their head and one by one his paying customers get chomped on by one of my favorite tunneling monsters. Also on the island are some seismic researchers, Caroline Langrishe is in charge and Jon Heder is the comic relief. Caroline is also the mother of Bert Gummer's son, Bert is of course played by Michael Gross, his son Travis is played by Jamie Kennedy in the 5th and 6th films.  Travis is in jail so Caroline sends Jon to round up his father. Bert's gone native and living in the wilderness. Still, he comes and takes on his old enemy.

The hunters do manage to mortally wound the graboid they encountered but it gets tougher and tougher to survive against the graboids and shriekers. The later have developed a new shriek that incapacitates the humans. Things look better once Bert arrives but soon enough the rich douche bag in charge has locked him up in an old bunker. Some people are so arrogant they deserve to get eaten by graboids. There's plenty of running and screaming. Just what you don't need with graboids around.

The movie looks great, during the day there are lush tropical forests and plenty of explosions, at night the scenes are lit with flames and explosions. Who ever was doing the flame effects was really good at their job. One by one the monsters are defeated, finally the last beast is left and it's a bitter sweet moment as Bert disappears into the flying dirt. Michael Gross has said he'd like to do another movie but he's 73 and it could be a couple more years before it happens and he might be too old to do the action stuff.  I enjoyed the movie and thought it was a nice addition to the series. Kind of wraps it up but still leaves a door open.

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Dead Rising: Watchtower 2015 Screenplay by Tim Carter, directed by Zach Lipovsky.

Another zombie film based on a video game. I hadn't heard of the video game, don't play them. In this universe the zombie plague has happened and they've developed a drug called Zombrex that keeps the infected from going full on zombie. The military have a secret plan, they've delivered a bad batch of Zombrex to a center in a made up town in Oregon, that results in a zombie outbreak and a rumor that the drug has become ineffectual. The zombie management agency is having a hard time getting things under control and the military gets called in to help.

A stubbly faced reporter uncovers the real plot, the military wants to inject all the infected with a device that delivers the zombie drug in timed dosed. It will also let you know when your supply is running low so you can top up. The chip in the drug device can also be used to track the infected. When it was suggested originally there was a push back from the government, too much invasion of privacy. The General in charge thinks that the current outbreak will be enough to tip the balance in his favor and he'll allowed to go ahead with the chipping program.

There's plenty of zombie action but it's not enough to make me think there's something new here. Evil government employees or military agencies aren't that interesting to me anymore. The cast is fine, especially Dennis Haysbert as the General in charge of the plot. He's really a bastard. The film was barely average for me. No need to see it again, glad it was on Amazon Prime.

Dead Rising: Endgame 2016 Screenplay by Tim Carter and Michael Farris, directed by Pat Williams.

The evil General is back, his drug device program has gone forward and the implants are commonly referred to as chips. As our stubble faced reporter soon learns, there's more evil afoot with those damn chips. They can be remotely triggered to overdose the infected and kill them. His program is to see that gets done and all the infected are dead. No more plague. The manufacturer of Zombrex isn't liking that too much, where will all their cash come from then? The CEO has a secret plan to unleash a new strain. One of her staff rats her out to the news and the stubble faced reporter is on the case.

He gathers a few people to take with him and most of them die. There's a few more plot points to juice it up but it's not doing much for me. It was nice to see Billy Zane as the mad scientist, same with Ian Tracey as a scumbag. The rest of the cast were fine. I'm thinking I'm even less likely to want to watch this again than I am the first movie.

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The Forger Of London 1961 Based on The Forger by Edgar Wallace, screenplay by Johannes Kai, directed by Harald Reinl. The film was made by Rialto Films in West Germany, the German title is Der Fälscher von London. Lead Karin Dor was married to Harald Reinl when they were making the movie.

That's Siegfried Lowitz on the left, he's Chief Inspector Bourke, of Scotland Yard.  The man in the middle is Helmut Lange, the woman is Karin Dor, they play Peter and Jane Clifton. They're newly weds but the relationship has soured after Mrs Clifton finds out Mr Clifton has a dodgy dad who had violent mental issues. Is Peter wacky, he has black outs, Jane's wary. Dodgy dad left Peter some smackaroonies and some family members aren't smiling. There's an ugly ex-beau bugging Mrs Clifton and her doctor is up to something.

Chief Inspector Bourke is investigating a series of forgeries. Several different notes have been past and Bourke has some suspicions. They lead him to Peter and the new castle he's inherited. That's the castle above, it's Castle Herdringen, Herdringen, Arnsberg, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Nice, huh.

After a bit someone gets murdered, then a handful more as the story unfolds. The Chief Inspector turns out to be an interesting guy and there's a fairly happy ending. Not so much for the crooked ones, the lucky ones are going to jail. There was enough going on and some odd bits that I liked. I was happy to sit through it. You can watch it on YouTube in the link above.

The Phantom Of Soho 1964 Based on a novel by Bryan Edgar Wallace, screenplay by Ladislas Fodor, directed by Franz Josef Gottlieb. Bryan is Edgar's son, CCC Filmkunst bought the rights to Bryan's work.

Someone's stabbing people in Soho and Chief Inspector Hugh Patton is on the case. The victims don't seem to have anything in common other than a connection to a Soho bar called the Sansibar. Soho is a bit of a naughty area, the bar has liquor, strippers and music, the streets have plenty of ladies looking for customers. There's plenty of characters, they all complicate the story as Patton pries the chatter out of them, but it all adds up in his brain.

It kept me entertained for a second time, though I had forgotten most everything about the plot.

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The Case Of The Frightened Lady 1940 British film based on the Edgar Wallace play, screenplay by Edward Dryhurst and an uncredited Robert Stevenson, directed by George King. The play was also the source of the 1932 film Criminal At Large.

Life at Mark's Priory is hard, there's an old lady in charge, the son is a bit of a layabout, the old ladies secretary is her niece. The secretary is afraid of the creepy male servants, they're always skulking around, she's also annoyed at being locked into her room at night. The secretary wants to leave but the old lady insists she stay and for added horror she wants the secretary to marry her son. The old lady insists that the family line must continue.

When the chauffeur gets murdered the police arrive. The family doctor is next on the list of dead people. Other strange things happen and we eventually find out the ID of the killer. It's brisk and entertaining to me. The cast had a fairly good script and most of them did alright. The secretary was a bit hysterical but that might be the director's fault. I'd watch it again. You can test drive it on YouTube. Link above.

The College Girl Murders 1967 A German film originally titled Der Mönch mit der Peitsche or The Monk with the Whip. It's another story based on a mix of Edgar Wallace works. Screenplay is by Herbert Reinecker, the director is Alfred Vohrer.

A criminal mastermind arranges to get a man out of prison so he can send the prisoner to kill a young woman from a boarding school. He's spotted but he's still in prison so it couldn't be him. Joachim Fuchsberger is Inspector Higgins, Siegfried Schürenberg is Sir John, his boss at Scotland Yard. What they don't know is that the killer is that whip cracking red robed monk guy in the poster. They also don't know that the red robed monk isn't the only criminal at work here.

The criminal mastermind's big plan takes some punches when the police get to detecting. There's more murdering, some screaming and running about, and a bit of humor. I enjoyed it, I liked the actors and the story was fairly complex. Rialto Films do a good job on their Edgar Wallace adaptations. I find them online but they often disappear soon after. Rialto did 32 films in the series and they were released in Germany on 8 DVD sets. It's been re-packaged into one box but it's nearly $200 on Amazon. Sadly, not all the films come with English Subtitles. I'll stick with the internet.

Der Hexer 1964 Based on the novel The Ringer by Edgar Wallace, screenplay by Herbert Reinecker and Harald G Petersson, directed by Alfred Vohrer. I'd already watched the British version of this film, it was part of the large Edgar Wallace Mysteries series from Merton Park Studios.  

Joachim Fuchsberger and Siegfried Schürenberg return as Inspector Higgins and Sir John, his boss at Scotland Yard. Some criminals are worried, it turns out that the woman they murdered is the sister of a notorious criminal called The Ringer. He sends word he's coming to see them. Sir John gets word of it and he assigns Higgins to the case.

The Ringer is always one step ahead of the police and he manages to get rid of his sisters murders. It's a nice run about with murder, romance, comedy and a clever criminal. I'm happy to have seen it. I'd watch it again.

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A Woman, A Gun and A Noodle Shop 2009 Screenplay by Shi Jianquan and Xue Jianchao, directed by Zhang Yimou. It's a remake of the Coen Brother's film Blood Simple.

Everything centers around the noodle shop in the middle of nowhere. The desert is beautiful, with rows of brilliant pastel colored hills. The people in the noodle house aren't quite so beautiful. The old man is the owner, his wife buys a gun, her lover is worried. The lover works at the noodle shop, the owner pays a soldier to kill the lovers. Of course, it all goes wrong, quite nicely, and it was fun getting there.

It's a nice adaptation and I liked the more humorous take. Glad I took a chance and bought the DVD, I'll hopefully get to watch it again someday.

Dog Eat Dog 2016 Based on the Edward Bunker novel of the same name, screenplay by Matthew Wilder, directed by Paul Schrader.

Nicolas Cage is a crook out of jail, he hooks up with William Defoe and Christopher Matthew Cook. They are absolute scum. They get hired to kidnap a kid, they screw it all up and everyone dies. Since it's a Paul Schrader film there's some onscreen jiggery pokery. The last several minutes are annoying. What am I supposed to make of that. Paul's inner brain and I don't get along.

It looked pretty good for a fairly low budget film. It was shot in Cleveland over 25 days with a crew of recently graduated film students. It didn't do well at the BO. Critics were mixed and it has yet to break 5 on the IMDb. I kind of feel 5ish, if it had been more original, I might have liked it a bit more but these aren't interesting individuals and I've seen their story over and over. I'll still keep the DVD, I might want to watch Nicolas and William chew some scenery.

Immortal Demon Slayer 2017 Director Derek Kwok co-wrote the screenplay with Hai Huang, Hezai Jin, Fan Wenwen and Henri Wong, they adapted Jin's book Wukong Biography. The movie is called The Tales Of Wu Kong in China and it's another Monkey King movie. It's supposedly set 500 years before Sun Wu Kong goes to war with the Heavenly Kingdom.

There's a long complicated plot involving a lot of people, some of them have powers of one sort or another, hardly any of them are on the same page. There's plenty of action, romance and murder. Good reminder, humans and gods don't mix, someone always winds up dead, and it isn't that immortal guy.

I enjoyed it for the most part and would watch it again. I suppose I could have a Monkey King marathon. That would take a while, I know I've got six Monkey King films, I think there's at least another. Oh, well, some other day. 

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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.

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Plugg 1975 Written and directed by Terry Bourke.I found this on the Internet Archive, in the feature films section. Someone has posted over 300 Australian movies, most of them were posted February 5, they're still up, even though some of them aren't in the public domain. I poked around there for a bit and picked these two to watch. You can watch them on the site or download them.

 

A goofy comedy about a detective investigating an escort agency suspected of prostitution. Plugg is the lowest of the detectives but there's no one else to send on the case. Plugg is a bumbler and a voyeur. Cheryl Rixon is the popular lady at the escort agency and she bangs all of her customers. There's plenty of naked ladies but not many good jokes. My attention often drifted from the story. I got to the end. It's similar in style to The Groove Tube or Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes, but not as good. It's kind of fun to watch but there's always that little voice in the back of your head wishing the jokes, acting and production were better. I might watch it again someday but that might be unlikely.

The True Story Of Eskimo Nell 1975 Director Richard Franklin co-wrote the script with Alan Hopgood. Loosely based on the poem The Ballad Of Eskimo Nell. 

Dead-eye Dick saves Mexican Pete's life and they travel together. Dead-eye is searching for the girl of his dreams, Eskimo Nell, a whore from the north. The pair knock about and eventually heading to Alaska. There's a sort of happy ending. There were a few more jokes than the first film but neither is above average in any way. I might watch it again but doubt it. You can look down the IA page (see the link above) and see all the films from Australia. Maybe one of them is to your liking.

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30 Days Of Paranormal Activity With The Devil Inside The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo 2013 Written and directed by Craig Moss.

An everything but the kitchen sink comedy about a woman, her family, and the troubles they have with ghosts. It's got the ghosts but it lacks funny jokes. I got a bit of a laugh from a couple of fart jokes, that's how low the bar is set. The only actors I knew in the cast were French Stewart and Danny Woodburn. They only had small parts. The rest of the cast were a mix of fairly good to below average. Too bad they had such a weak script. I watched it on Amazon Prime and don't figure I'd watch it again.

The Axiom 2018 Written and directed by Nicholas Woods. It's his first movie, he has another in production.

A woman takes her brother and some friends into the woods to look for her missing sister. The woman meets a guy in a bar who knows about the area where her sister went. It's a weird place called The Axiom. They go into the area and weird things start to happen. It turns violent and deadly pretty quickly. There are some long fingered pale humanoids that were sort of creepy.

It turns out the woman didn't tell her brother and friends everything about the place and they suffer greatly. What a POS she is, I hate movies about people like that. The last half of the movie is everyone chasing around in the woods until we find out who the evil pricks are.

The script and direction are mostly OK. I gave it a generous 5 but wouldn't need to see it again.