PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 871

Warriors Of The Year 2072 1984 Written by Elisa Briganti, Cesare Frugoni, Lucio Fulci and Dardano Sacchetti, directed by Lucio Fulci.

In the dystopian future of 2072 the Roman TV company WBS is having a hard time competing with the popular Kill-Bike show. The head of programming decides to kill the wife of the most popular Kill-Bike rider Drake. During the attack the assassins are killed, Drake is framed for their murder and sent to prison where he's recruited to WBS's new program.

The contestants are all hardened criminals who are given the chance to fight for their freedom. Drake is thrown into the mix and we get a couple of poor fist fights and a much too long training montage with annoying strobe lights. Just one of the many poor choices that Fulci makes in this mess of a movie. It takes an hour to get to the games and much of it is coma inducing. Once the competition starts it's obvious that the stunt riders are as crap as the stunt fighters. Nothing good to say about the action on screen and the melodrama that smothers everything leaves something to desire story wise. It was nice seeing Fred Williamson, hope he got paid. Sadly, he's not enough to make up for the incompetent film making. Not one I would need to see again.

CT 2000 1993 Story by J Stephen Maunder and Richard M Samuels, screenplay by T J Scott, directed by T J Scott.

Set in 2020, the rich have hidden underground after an Eco disaster. The surviving poor still inhabit the surface world and Tracker-Communicators keep the riff-raff out of the underground. Billy Blanks and Bobbie Phillips are a Tracker-Communicator team. She's killed in a fight and her body turned over to the scientists. They've seen Robocop and can't want to make their own bionic woman. Bobbie's sent after Niki Picasso, the head of one of the local surface gangs. On contact she convinces him to attack the Lifers. Billy in the meantime has been trying to find Picasso for a bit of vengeance. He winds up in the middle of all the fighting.

There's way too much running in tunnels, way too much poor stunt fighting, way too much poor dialog, yet it's still better than the first movie. Though it was more fun I'm not going to pick a copy up for me, I won't need to watch it again.

Friday Night Movies 870

New York Ninja 2021 Originally written and directed by John Liu, 2021 writer and director Kurtis M Spieler.

John Liu shot his film in 1984 and after the distribution company went bankrupt it remained unedited and unreleased until Vinegar Syndrome finished it this year. Kurt M Spieler used the raw footage to assembled a movie, then had the dialog dubbed in by an interesting gang of actors: Don "The Dragon" Wilson, Michael Berryman, Cynthia Rothrock, Linnea Quigley, Vince Murdocco, Matt Mitler, Leon Isaac Kennedy and Ginger Lynn. I didn't know who Vince or Matt or Leon is but it doesn't matter. I didn't read it anywhere but I suspect that John shot his movie without sound. The common practice of Chinese film makers at the time. Maybe they still do.

It's a revenge story, John Liu plays the husband of a woman killed by street toughs during a kidnapping. The gang kidnap women on the streets to sell as sex slaves. The wife just happened to be there at the wrong time. John dresses up as a ninja and hunts down the gang. He attacks and there are plenty of fights. Sadly, they just aren't very good fights, some of the worst I've seen. They seem like slow motion training videos. John Liu is the martial arts choreographer and he's not doing that good a job. He's not doing so well on his acting either. Some of his mugging to the camera is laughable but not in a good way. John made most of his 2 dozen films between 1972 and 1982, I can't say I've seen any of them, they aren't the popular films that I recognize.

The revenge story is pretty standard fare, the villains are where the film takes a slight dip to wacky land. The menacing street thugs dress and act comically and all I could think of is how clumsy it all looked. The head baddie is so radioactive he can kill with his hands. Most of his murderin' effects weren't that good. There's a bunch of cops and reporters involved and they aren't much better at the old acting game than John was. It's nice that VS salvaged the film and released it, it's too bad it's just so poor. I don't imagine I'll be picking up this one.

Curse Of The Undead 1959 Written by Edward Dein and Mildred Dein, directed by Edward Dein. It's listed on the Kino Lorber DVD box as the first vampire western. I do like the poster.

A small town has had some young women die from what the local doctor, played by John Hoyt, thinks is a wasting disease. Soon John finds out what's killing the women, it's a vampire, played by Michael Pate. Michael plays a good villain. If you watched a lot of TV from that era you would have seen Michael as a guest star on many shows. I really liked two of his earliest films, The Black Castle and The Strange Door.

There's a local baddie who's trying to take over other people's land in the area through force, he's played by Bruce Gordon, another character actor that appeared on oodles of TV from the same time. Michael sets his eyes on the local widow rancher played by Kathleen Crowley. Lucky for her, she's got Preacher Dan on her side, he's played by Eric Fleming, and he can kick some vampire ass.

I enjoyed it, it's a nice looking film, it's got a nice mood. I liked the characters, the locations, sets and props worked well. The script mixed the two genres well without changing much of the mythology people expect from either. Someone mentioned the movie dragged a bit in the last third and I thought the same thing. It doesn't make me like it any less, glad I picked it up, I'll watch it again.

Friday Night Movies 868

In Search Of The Castaways 1962 Based on the Jules Verne novel of the same name, screenplay by Lowell S Hawley, directed by Robert Stevenson. Lowell and Robert both worked for Disney in the fifties and sixties. Lowell was the story editor and wrote scripts for the Disney Zorro series. That's always been one of my favorite Disney shows of the era. Robert wrote and directed films in the UK before going to Hollywood in 1939, you might have seen F.P.1. or the 1937 King Solomon's Mines.

In 1957 Robert directed his first Disney film Johnny Tremaine, he would direct 18 more films for them, including Darby O'Gill And The Little People, The Absent Minded Professor, Mary Poppins and Bedknobs And Broomsticks. Plenty of pleasurable memories watching those films when they were new, some we saw in the theaters but many were watched on one of the Disney TV programs or another. Sadly I only saw them in B&W, we didn't have color TV until I was into my twenties. The first time I saw Star Trek in color was on 16 film at an SF convention. 

In Search Of The Castaways has the children of a ship's captain appeal to the head of the shipping company to find their father. Hayley Mills and Keith Hamshere are the kids, Jack Gwillim is their father, Maurice Chevalier is the man who finds the father's note in a bottle, Wilfred Hyde White is the head of the company. It takes a while to convince Wilfred to make the trip but he goes and they have a grand adventure in South America, Australia and New Zealand.

There's plenty of action and derring do, the expedition battles nature and man. There's a giant flood, a tidal wave, a lightning storm and a volcano. George Sanders plays the smooth talking baddie who tricks Wilfred in hiring him, only to steal his ship and turn the rescue party into castaways. Some of the effects looks poor by today's standards but the models and matte paintings are still very nice. They get the job done and it's not something I would complain about. The only thing I would complain about are the songs. I started fast forwarding through them. There's a happy ending and it all looks nice and bright. I was happy to see it and will have to watch it again sometime.

The Great Spy Chase 1963 Written by Michel Audiard and Albert Simonin, directed by Georges Lautner. These are the same fellows that wrote and directed Monsieur Gangster which I just watched a short time ago. The French title of The Great Spy Chase is Les Barbouzes, french slang for spies, it was retitled for the US market. Lino Ventura appears in both films and both films are in release in the US from Olive Films. I watched the Blu-ray of The Great Spy Chase and it looks very nice. No extras though.

Bernard Sachs is a massive arms dealer, he's also a massive guy. All the spy agencies keep an eye on him. He's known to have acquired a number of patents for nuclear weapons. When he dies the spy agencies all want to get their hands on those patents, which are now in the hands of his wife.

All the spy agencies send people around to the wife's Bavarian castle to buy or steal the patents. Lino plays the spy from France, he's been assigned to take the body to the wife. Several other spies are on their trail. Things hot up at the castle as the different groups descend on the place. There's plenty of action, a massive body count, plenty of collateral damage, all slathered in barrels of slapstick. Made me laugh out loud a couple of times. Glad I picked it up.

Friday Night Movies 867

Spookies 1986 Written by Thomas Doran, Brendan Faulkner, Frank Farel, with additional material by Ann Burgund, directed by Brendan Faulkner, Thomas Doran and Eugenie Joseph.

The Wikipedia has an explanation about the making of the film:

Spookies started out as a feature film entitled Twisted Souls, written and produced by Frank Farel, Brendan Faulkner and Thomas Doran and directed by Faulkner and Doran.^[1] Principal photography for the film began at the Jay Estate in Rye, New York in late summer of 1984 and finished in October of that same year.^[1] Twisted Souls was being edited when creative and legal issues between the producers and the financial backer prevented final post production work (final editing, scoring, post-effects, etc.) from being carried out.

The original Twisted Souls footage directed by Faulkner and Doran consists of all the travelers who arrive in two cars and all the monsters and effects they encounter within the house. The monsters include: the demon Ouija girl, the muck men, the spider woman, the snake demons, the hallway demon and the Grim Reaper.^[1]

In 1985, the financial backer of Twisted Souls hired Eugenie Joseph to direct more footage, which was pieced together with the finished footage from Twisted Souls to create Spookies.^[1] The added scenes, written by Ann Burgund (under the name Joseph Burgund), feature an entirely different cast and include all the footage of the boy looking for his birthday party, the man in the tree, the cat-man, the old magician, the girl in the coffin, zombies, the witch in the basement/cave and the little blue boy.^[1]

The end result is a below average silly horror film with annoying characters. The original monsters are fairly interesting with decent make up. The additional monsters are much less interesting, with the zombie horde only slightly more interesting than the living. There's a watchable copy on YouTube for those are interested in seeing the film but less interested in spending money on the new Blu-ray. I won't be bothering with the Blu-ray myself, there are plenty of other films I want to buy first.

Explorers 1986 Written by Eric Luke and directed by Joe Dante.

I've had the DVD on my Amazon Wishlist for ages but it always got pushed further down the list by other films. I remember liking it when I saw it in the theater when it came out but upon seeing it now I'm liking it less. Especially the third act with the aliens, mostly embarrassing.

I deleted the DVD from my Wishlist, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't bother watching it again. I'd watch something like The Last Starfighter instead. That was more fun.

Friday Night Movies 866

Big Bad Wolf 2006 Written and directed by Lance W Dreesen. I hadn't remembered seeing this back in 2006. That post is in the title above. I didn't think it was going to be such a short while before I saw it again. It's still about average. I probably don't need to see it again at this point. That's an ugly poster.

The Snake Girl And The Silver Haired Witch 1968 Based on the comic Hebi Onna by Kazuo Umezu, screenplay by Kimiyuki Hasegawa, directed by Noriaki Yuasa. The comic was published in the US under the name Reptilia in 2006. The director is also the director of the first series of Gamera films.

A young orphan girl called Sayuri finds out that her parents are alive and they want her to come live with them. They live in a nice house, the mother is an amnesiac from an accident and the father is a scientist specializing in snake venom study.

When Sayuri arrives at the house she's greeted by an ambulance, the maid had just died from a heart attack. The father has just learned he's got to leave right away for an opportunity to study a rare snake in Africa. He's gone until the very end of the film.

The next night Sayuri finds a snake in her bed but after her mother and the housekeeper arrive it's gone. There's also someone in the attic, looking at Sayuri's bed through a hole in the ceiling. Things start to get more and more serious and deadly for Sayuri. She's a plucky girl who stands up to danger in the end.

It moves a bit slowly for me but I was still entertained enough to order the Arrow Blu-ray. I'll want to watch it again.

Friday Night Movies 865

Fish Story 2009 Based on the novel by Kotaro Isaka, screenplay by Tamio Hayashi, directed by Yoshihiro Nakamura.

As the movie opens a giant comet is due to crash into the Earth. A guy in a record store tells a couple of other men that a song on an obscure record is going to save the world. The rest of the movie is about that band and the song. It's a long dense story told in a non-linear way. I enjoyed it but haven't decided if I want to buy the movie or not. I'm not sure if I want to watch it again.

Commando Ninja 2018 Written and directed by Benjamin Combes. He's a pretty talented Frenchman, besides the writing and directing he did the cinematography, editing and art direction. He produced a fine looking film on a budget of €31,953 and that includes a lot of nice CGI and practical sets and props. The film was fan funded using Kickstarter and filmed over a couple of years.

It's an amazing flight of fantasy that parodies action films of the 80s. It delivers plenty of action, gore and gags. There's one surprise after another. I had a blast and think it's just the sort of thing the right person would like. You can see it for free on YouTube. There's a Blu-ray and I'm putting it on my Wishlist. I'll want to watch this again.

Friday Night Movies 864

Satanic Panic 2019 Screenplay by Grady Hendrix, direction by Chelsea Stardust.

On her first day as a pizza delivery girl Samantha runs afoul of Rebecca Romijn and her nest of Satan worshipers. The coven needs a virgin to bring forth Baphomet and their first choice, Rebecca's daughter, gave her virginity up when she found out she's going to die during the process. Since Samantha is a virgin and right there, Rebecca attempts to use Samantha for her new sacrifice but the general incompetency of the coven, and the help Rebecca's daughter, give Samantha a fighting chance.

There's a fair bit of humor and gore with plenty of dumb characters providing some slapstick action. It looks good, it moves along quickly, and it's got a fairly solid story. I thought it was better than average, say a 6 on the IMDb. You can check it out for yourself on YouTube while it's up there. See link above.

Legion Of The Dead 2005 Written and directed by Paul Bales. Paul became the Chief Operating Officer at the films production company The Asylum the year after this film came out. It's the only film he's directed, though he has written 9 others.

The story is about accidentally finding a secret Egyptian tomb in the California desert. The hieroglyphs say that an ancient princess was so evil they sent her body over the sea to be buried. A lightening storm lights up the old gal and she awakens as a beautiful young woman. Her lust for power brings death to the dig and the students get slaughtered one or two at a time.

There's too much melodrama in the mix, the main character, played by Courtney Clonch, was involved with the doctor who heads the dig, a guy on a previous dig had something for Courtney but she choose the doctor and he's all pouty she's at this dig. Courtney's sister shows up on the site just as the princess needs a virgin for a sacrifice.

Bruce Boxleitner plays the local sheriff, he doesn't appear that often, hired for a day or two to add a name to the credits that someone might have heard of before. The Wikipedia says that Bruce and co-star Zack Galligan are on screen for a total of ten mins running time. They also say that their scenes don't really add anything to the story. That's for sure, in fact, there are other scenes in the film that are filler. Sad, it's only an 82 min movie.

There's a fair bit of action and noise, plenty of slaughter and a couple of jokes. Sadly, it's not all that good. Despite the poorly lit scenes, poor acting, and mediocre dialog, it's more watchable than much of the product from The Asylum. The worst thing about it was the absolutely abysmal soundtrack, the voices were too quiet, music and effects too loud. That sound guy needs to get some training or a whack in the pee-pee from the flaming skull of Paul Naschy. You can test drive in on YouTube, see link above.

Friday Night Movies 862

It Happened Tomorrow 1944 Based on the one act play The Jest Of Haha Laba by Lord Dunsany, unproduced screenplay by Hugh Wedlock and Howard Snyder, ideas by Lewis R Foster, screenplay by Dudley Nichols and René Clair with additional dialogue by Helene Frainkel, directed by René Clair.

Dick Powell plays the obit writer on a newspaper who wants to be a reporter. The man who runs the newspaper's archives gives Dick a newspaper from the next day and that really changes his life, giving him the chance to write a big story. The story gets him in lots of trouble. Linda Darnell plays a medium in a vaudeville show, Jack Oakie is her father and the star of the act. Both of them get pulled into Dick's life.

A second and third news paper complicate Dick's life even more. There's plenty of running about and yelling with some entertaining jokes and characters. Edgar Kennedy, Edward Brophy, Sig Ruman and Paul Guilfoyle were some of the cast that I knew. I hadn't heard of the film before and was glad to have seen it. I downloaded a copy from YouTube, see link above, as I know I'll want to watch it again sometime. There's is a DVD and Blu-ray available for those that want it.

Buccaneer's Girl 1950 Story by Joe May and Samuel R Golding, screenplay by Joseph Hoffman and Harold Shumate, directed by Frederick de Cordova. Fred was Johnny Carson's producer on The Tonight Show from 1970 to 1992.

Yvonne De Carlo plays a singer who gets captured by the pirate Fredric Baptiste. She escapes the ship when it docks at New Orleans and gets a job at Eliza Lanchester's school for young ladies. On an assignment she finds out that the pirate is really Captain Kingston. He's been acting the pirate to sink the ships of a rich man and selling the cargo to fund ships for others.

It's more a romantic comedy musical than a lady pirate movie. We couldn't remember anyone being killed in any of the fights. It's still fairly pleasant and the baddies get theirs in the end. I didn't care much for the songs but enjoyed the rest of the film. There's a nice Blu-ray out from Kino Lorber. I picked it up during one of their sales. I'll probably watch it again someday.

Friday Night Movies 861

Bill & Ted Face The Music 2020 Screenplay by Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon, directed by Dean Parisot. Chris and Ed wrote the previous Bill & Ted films and Ed wrote some TV and films I like: It's Garry Shandling's Show, Mom And Dad Save The World, Men In Black, What Planet Are You From?, Charlies Angels and Now You See Me. Dean directed a good bit of TV and film over the last 35 years, I think the highlight for me is Galaxy Quest and the 2002 episode of The Tick - Arthur, Interrupted. Much of his work I just haven't seen.

Bill & Ted have fallen far after having a bit of fame. They haven't written the song that will re-unite humanity and and the universe is having time hiccups. People and places are jumping about in time and it's a right old mess. Kristin Schaal arrives on B&T's street in a time machine and takes them to see the Great Leader. They must write the song and preform it in 77 mins to avoid the destruction of space-time.

The boys hit on a plan but it fails, they make things worse and the Great Leader sends a killer robot after them. People in the future do well on the time travel but their killer robots have really crap AIs for brains. B&T's daughters take Kristin's time machine and round up a new band with musicians from various times.

The killer robot manages to kill Bill & Ted's families and send them to Hell. B&T follow, make a deal with Death, again played by the brilliant William Sadler, and the lot escape to the future. There's a nice happy ending as the boys figure out what to do about that pesky universe saving song.

I enjoyed it and ordered up a copy. I'll watch it again.

Lake Michigan Monster 2018 Story by Ryland Brickson Cole Tews and Mike Chesik, screenplay and direction by Ryland Brickson Cole Tews. A low budget B&W horror comedy with a thin coat of surrealism. It was made in Muskegon and Milwaukee Wisconsin.

A really annoying sea captain tricks 3 people into helping him kill a monster in Lake Michigan. Nearly everything he says is a lie, other than there's a monster in the lake. The film's CGI is pretty simple but it gets the job done. 

I liked some of the movie more then other bits, the comedic word play between the characters was a bit off putting. Not all those jokes were funny to me. Other's might get more mileage out of them. The Captain sets off on his solo voyage to battle the monster, I found that more entertaining than the interactions between the main characters. It's better than average for a low budget film but only about average when compared to the general range of films.

There's an Arrow Blu-ray out but it's 20 bucks and I wouldn't want to pay that. You can get all three of the Bill and Ted films in a 3 disc Blu-ray set for the same money. I'm getting that set and upgrading my DVDs of the first two films. I try not to upgrade but the difference between the Blu-ray of the last movie and the 3 pack is about 4 bucks.

Friday Night Movies 860

Robotrix 1991 Written by Jamie Luk and Man Sing So, directed by Jamie Luk.

A woman cop is killed when an Arab prince is kidnapped. Her mind is used in a robot body and she helps the police hunt down her killer. Might have been an interesting story line if they hadn't made it a comedy, then hampered it further with a Category III rapey prostitute murderin' subplot. It's poorly told and acted, the jokes suck for the most part. 

The Time Guardian 1987 Written and directed by Brian Hannant.

I couldn't remember seeing this before but I had. It's pretty darn forgettable. My mind still wondered off while watching, despite the nice Blu-ray on view.