PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 934

Where The Spies Are 1966 Based on the novel Passport To Oblivion by James Leasor, screenplay by James Leasor, Wolf Mankowitz and Val Guest, directed by Val Guest. Niven and Guest optioned the next five Leasor novels but only two of them ever got written. I've not read any of them.

David Niven plays Doctor Jason Love, he's been recruited by MI5 to go to a medical conference in Beirut to contact another doctor. John Le Mesurier plays the MI5 guy MacGuillvray, he'd worked briefly with Doctor Love in WWII when they both were in Military Intelligence. Love is reluctant to go but MacGuillvray offers to buy him a rare Cord automobile to get him on board.

Françoise Dorléac plays a spy called Vikki, her day job is that of international model. She's Love's contact at the airport. They start a bit of a romance. Love misses his plane only to see it explode on take off.

There's plenty of spying activity as the Russian spy Stanilaus, played by Ronald Rudd, gets ready to assassinate the pro-British Prince of Zahlouf. Love turns up and nobbles the Russian's plan. The Russkies kidnap Love and plan to take him to Russia.

Vikki turns out to be a double agent. She does redeem herself by shooting Stanilaus but sadly her modeling career comes to an end when Stanilaus returns the favor. I figured she'd die, it's the mid-60s, there's usually payback for blowing up a plane full of people. Doctor Love escapes and returns home.

I liked the movie well enough, it's more a spy movie like Our Man In Havana than a James Bond thriller. The Wikipedia says it's a comedy adventure film, it does OK on the adventure but it lacks a good supply of jokes. Despite that it's got a fairly decent script, perhaps a bit too long at 112 mins, and cast of good British actors. I recognized Cyril Cusack, Eric Pohlmann, Paul Stassino, Noel Harrison, Alan Gifford, Bill Nagy, Basil Dignam and Nigel Davenport. It's different enough from the average spy film that I'd watch it again.

Dr Renault's Secret 1942 Written by William Bruckner and Robert F Metzler and directed by Harry Lachman.

I wasn't certain that I had seen it before but the title was familiar. I looked at my Watched Movie List but I couldn't see it. Well, I couldn't find it due to a typo when I entered the movie in November 2017. The post I did then is linked in the title above. I still feel the same about the movie.

Friday Night Movies 933

The Grave 1996 Story by Peter Glatzer, screenplay by Jonas Pate and Josh Pate, directed by Jonas Pate.

A couple of bottom feeder criminals in prison hear a story about a grave with a treasure buried in it. They escape and one of them gets shot stealing clothes from a hillbilly's clothes line. The pair hitch a ride and the guy gives them his truck so he can report it stolen for the insurance. It was a poor truck I would hardly think he'd get anything for it.

The guys seek medical help from a guy they know who is a mortician. He can't help much at all, the wounded guy dies but not before giving up the story about the grave. The mortician and his two even stupider friends decide to dig up the loot themselves. The other escaped convict shows up only to be killed by the mortician's pal. They don't find any treasure in the grave except a ring the dead guy was wearing. They  bury the convict in the grave.

Things get more complicated when a prison guard who knows about the grave murders one of the mortician's pals. Equally disruptive is the second escaped convict's ex-girlfriend. Most everyone dies.

I enjoyed it but wouldn't seek out a copy for me. Doubtful I would get around to it again. There are better stupid criminal movies out there.

Skeleton Man 2004 Written by Frederick Bailey and directed by Johnny Martin. Made for TV horror film with Michael Rooker and Casper Van Dien. It aired on the Sci Fi Channel.

An archaeologist digs up an Indian burial ground. He takes the skull of a native called the movie calls Skeleton Man. SM pops into existence through a portal and kills the archaeologist and anyone else who enters the wooded area his grave was found in. Some soldiers dies while on maneuvers and the military sends in Micheal, Casper and a few other folks for Skeleton Man to kill. Most everyone dies before Michael blows up a chemical plant.

The explosion might have killed the Skeleton Man but it seems unlikely as he appears again in the end credits. I'm unsure if that's what they meant, it's not clear. Nothing much is clear in the movie, it's just an excuse to kill people off. It's a slasher film with skeleton on a horse. It would have been better if the horse was doing all the killing. A good story would also have helped. Not one I'm going to need to see again.

Friday Night Movies 932

Frost: Portrait Of A Vampire 2003 Written and directed by Kevin VanHook.

Jack Frost is a mercenary, one of his men, a guy called Nat, gets bitten by a vampire on a mission in Afghanistan. After the war Nat goes onto another job and Jack becomes a painter and art historian.

Nat goes on a job in Mexico for some scumbag. That scumbag likes to keep his activities on the down low and he has Nat and the gang killed after the mission. Nat manages to escape but he's wounded. After wandering in the desert for a while, Nat dies and becomes a vampire. The vampire lore in the movie doesn't follow the Dracula lore. These vampires can go out in the day and you seem to get turned after you die, no matter how long it takes.

Jack learns that the scumbag had Nat and his men killed. He goes to visit the scumbag for a spot of revenge. That's the end of that guy. Nat shows up in San Diego and kills some people. He hides out at his wife's place but she soon sees the vampi side of him and runs to Jack. Jack finds Nat who warns him he won't kill Jack if Jack leaves him alone.

After Nat kills his wife and Jack's girlfriend all Jack can do is hunt the prick down. The actress who plays Jack's girlfriend is quite pretty but she's a terrible actress, she might be the worst of a rather poor lot. Most everything about the movie is poor. It gets a 2.4 on the IMDb for good reason, 48.1% of the votes are a 1. I gave it a 2 because I'm mean. I did like the nice animated bats but that's only a few seconds. There isn't anything to make me want to recommend it to other horror fans. I wouldn't need to see it again.

Goodbye 20th Century 1998 Written and directed by Darko Mitrevski and Aleksandar Popovski. Perhaps the only film made in Macedonia that I've seen. It's a weird post apocalypse film that means more to the film makers than I can figure out.

It's a triptych of stories, the first takes place in the post apocalypse world of 2019. A man is being executed by the leaders of a tribe, he fails to die no matter how often they shoot him. I don't know what's going on but I liked the cast's costumes. The second story is set in 1900. It's a 3 min short in sepia. A man has fallen in love with his sister, he buys her from their father. After they marry, the husband is killed by members of the wedding party.

The third story is set New Years Eve 1999. A man dressed as Santa returns to his apartment building to find a wake going on. Things are kind of normal for a bit. Violence breaks out and nearly everyone's dead at the end of the segment. I did like the red headed ladies costume. I'm not sure what was going on, I am sure it's probably not worth thinking about anymore.

It's an odd film, very stylish but lacking a good story. It's mostly well filmed and produced but there's no real narrative, the first and third segments could have been part of more interesting films, one that's been fleshed out with a story. We watched the new Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray, it looks fine, you can see a copy on YouTube or download a better one off of Rarelust. One of them is in the link above.

Friday Night Movies 931

Curucu, Beast Of The Amazon 1956 Written and directed by Curt Siodmak.

John Bromfield is a plantation owner called Rock Dean and he's having trouble with the locals. They are leaving the plantation to go back to live in the jungle. Rock travels up the Amazon to try to get his workers to come back to the plantation. He had a guide in mind but Dr Romar, played by Beverly Garland, hired him first. She wants to go into the jungle to find a drug the natives make.

   

Rock is of the opinion that where they are going is no place for a woman. Rock's partially right as far as I'm concerned. I'd go as far as saying that it's no place for anyone.

 

Rock finds out that a monster is scaring the natives back home. It's some sort of giant bird like creature with sharp claws. Rock's bullets don't seem to have any effect on it. We soon learn that it's the guide, he's been scaring his people back home for his own selfish reasons. He'd also loaded Rock's rifle with blanks. The guide sentences Rock and the Doc to death.

 

Luckily for Rock and the Doctor some nice natives set the guide's village on fire allowing them to escape on a raft. All in all it's a below average B movie. I wouldn't need to see it again. The most interesting thing about it is that the jungle scenes were filmed in Brazil. The IMDb trivia pages says: Director Curt Siodmak said of this film, "I shot it down there [in Brazil], in the jungles. I never recovered, physically".  I always say it's best to stay out of the jungle.

We Are The Night 2010 Story and screenplay by Jan Berger and Dennis Gansel, directed by Dennis Gansel. A German vampire film.

A thief has an encounter with a cop called Tom during robbery. She manages to escape and get home. Later she meets a trio of vampire's at a nightclub. The vampire gals are absolute scum who leave a trail of corpses wherever they go. The leader turns the thief. There's a lot of crying about it, despite one of the side effects of being turned is an improvement of the body. The thief's skin clears up, her wounds disappear, her hair grows out nice and fluffy, she's now much hotter looking. The thief isn't much into the killing and the vampire gals enjoy it way too much.

The vampires hide by day in a big fancy hotel, going out at night to have fun in nightclubs. The police find a living guy at the scene of an encounter with the vampires. Tom connects the thief to the group because he'd seen her in the survivor's stolen car. The cops have no idea they are up against vampires but they raid the hotel and get many get slaughtered. One of the vampire gals gets burnt up by the sun. The other vampire gals manage to escape and hide out with the intention of escaping to Russia the next day. Another of the vampire gals kills herself.

The thief and the cop meet up , are arrested and tossed into jail. The leader of the vampire group comes calling, kills all the cops at the station and rescues the thief. Lena is given a choice, come with the leader or spend a short time with a live man. The thief kills the leader and disappears with Tom. The movie ends.

I'm not much of a fan of vampire melodrama. Too much crying and woe for me. I'll not need to see this one again.

Friday Night Movies 930

The Ghastly Love Of Johnny X 2012 Written by Steve Bingen, Paul Bunnell, Mark D. Murphy and George Wagner, directed by Paul Bunnell.

A musical SF comedy that's filmed in B&W to make it look like a 50s SF film. It's the last film appearance of Kevin McCarthy. It took ten years to film and Kevin died two years before it got released. It was the lowest grossing film of 2012. It ran in two theaters for a week, it's weekend gross was $86 and the week total came to $2,436.

Johnny X is an alien who's banished to Earth as a punishment. Some woman steals his Resurrection Suit and Johnny goes after her. They get involved with Reggie Bannister in a roadside diner and wind up at his house. They use the Resurrection Suit to give life to a dead singer. The story is mixed in with the musical numbers. Some of the songs ground the movie to a halt. In fact, it's mostly entertaining when there's no singing going on.

I didn't hate it but I wouldn't bother with seeing it again. Thanks to the local library for saving us from buying it.

The Dark Sleep 2012 Based on a Lovecraft story Dreams In The Witch House, written and directed by Brett Piper.

A horrible woman gets her ex-husband to give her a house. She moves in, only to find there's supernatural things going on. There's a lot of yelling from the annoying woman. We were all hoping a monster would get her but it never happened. The annoying woman travels to another dimension, some of that was sort of interesting but not a lot else was. In general it was mostly disappointing and not something I would need to see again.

Friday Night Movies 929

Sleep 2020 Written by Thomas Friedrich and Michael Venus, directed by Micheal Venus. A German film with the title of Schlaf.

Marlene is haunted by her dreams, she's filled dozens of journals with the same drawing of a hotel. She takes a trip to the small town of Stainbach and checks into the very hotel featured in her dreams. Marlene has a psychotic break and goes into a coma. Marlene's daughter Mona travels to Stainbach and stays at the same hotel.

Unbeknownst to Mona her mother has a connection to the hotel owner. He's a bad man and a Nazi clinging to their past glory. The hotel has been the home of three suicides and Mona can see glimpses of these past events. She mostly has a bad time on her visit and nearly dies. Luckily, Mona gets some help from her dead grandmother.

It's a arty ghost story that was a bit pokey at times. There's a fair bit of people staring off into the distance and static shots of the hotel and it's surroundings. There's also a bit of action, some romance, murder and the humorous drugging of the Nazis. We were all hoping they'd burn the hotel down with the Nazis in it but I guess the budget didn't allow. I liked it for the most part but didn't think I'd bother picking up a copy for myself.

Doctor Death: Seeker Of Souls 1973 Written by Sal Ponti and directed by Eddie Saeta. This is the only film Sal Ponti wrote, he was also producer. From 1959 to 1978 he appeared in 28 TV episodes and 4 feature films. His script for DD:SOS isn't very original.

The movie screams TV movie but I can't see any mention of it being one. I'm thinking with Eddie Saeta's film making background and the low budget it's what Eddie knows. Eddie only directed one film, this one, and it was the last credit on his IMDb page. In the 60s he directed an episode of The Man From Uncle and an episode of Hondo. His career started in 1937 as an assistant director at Columbia Pictures, in the 30s and 40s it was mostly Westerns.

In the 50s Eddie was AD on a couple of films I knew, Creature With The Atomic Brain and 20 Million Miles To Earth. In the 50s he was AD on a lot of TV. In the 60s he worked on 18 episodes of The Man From UNCLE and one of The Girl From UNCLE. He also was AD on Three Stooges In Orbit and The Three Stooges Go Around The World In A Daze. He gave Moe Howard his last role, he played a member of the audience at Doctor Death's magical soul transfer event. He had a speaking part and a bit of a joke.

John Considine plays Doctor Death and Barry Coe plays Fred. After the death of his wife Fred becomes obsessed with his wife returning from the dead. Doctor Death claims to have the power to transfer souls and that's why Fred goes to see him. Doctor Death puts on a soul transfer event to lure more customers for his services. A badly damaged woman is dying and that's what she needs to do to get her soul transferred into the freshly dead body of Sivi Aberg. DD is a showman and he jazzes up the transfer with a stage magician's sawing a woman in half trick.

This time there's no trick, he really saws a woman in half, blood dripping off the table top, then we see her soul transfer into Sivi. The badly damaged lady now has a nice new body to play around in. Somehow the transfer magically makes the dead woman whole and healthy again. It's all enough to lure Fred in, he pays DD's $50,00 charge, no prob. DD has a problem, he can't transfer the wife's soul into another woman, he can kill a woman and transfer her soul into the wife's dead body. It won't be the most important part of his wife but Fred will have her body back. It's a pretty stupid idea, especially when DD pick's Fred secretary as the new victim. Now Fred's got to man up and fight the monster.

Glad I saw it, I did enjoy the laughs, but I'll not be buying this one either. You can decide if you like it by clicking the title above and taking a gander at it on YouTube.

Friday Night Movies 927

Crabs 2021 Written and directed by Pierce Berolzheimer. It's his first movie.

The small coastal town of Mendocino California gets invaded by some deadly horseshoe crabs. A lot of the locals die. Then the crab's giant big brother arrives. A group of teens put up a fight using some high tech.

There's a fair bit of crab action and gore. The physical crabs were pretty good, the gore drippy. There's a fairly good amount of humor but not all the jokes land well. It's 80 mins but seems longer. The story lurches to a crawl during some of the character development. I enjoyed it well enough but I'm doubting the need to add it to my collection.

The Alphabet Murders 1965 Based on The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie, screenplay by David Pursall and Jack Seddon, directed by Frank Tashlin. The name was changed to avoid any connection with the British theater chain ABC Cinemas in case the film flopped while playing at the ABC theaters.

Tony Randall plays Hercule Poirot. Originally Zero Mostel was intended to play the Belgian detective but Agatha Christie objected to the script having a bedroom scene with Hercule. That was several years before the film got made, Seth Holt was to be the director.

Tashlin came aboard and rewrote the Pursall and Seddon script with Robert Morley. They added a lot of slapstick and made Poirot a bit of a bumbler. Christie was said to have loathed the resulting movie. I can't blame her. The story in the film bares little resemblance to her novel.

I've seen a lot of adaptations of the novel and this is the oddest. Poirot bowling? Despite all that there's still some entertainment value in the film. It's unique at least. You can find out if you like it at the link in the title above.

Friday Night Movies 926

L A Wars 1994 Screenplay by Addison Randall and Tony Kandah, directed by Tony Kandah and Martin Morris.

There's a drug war going on in Los Angeles. Heading up some stereotypical Italian Mafia types are Carlo Giovani and his insane henchman Vinnie, they're up against some aggressive Latinos under the control of Raul Guzman. Raul wants the business and he's ready to kill everyone in his way. He'll get a fight from Carlo, that's for sure.

The police can't seem to do anything to get ahead of the gangs and Captain Roark is desperate. Desperate enough to hire ex-cop loose cannon Jake Quinn to infiltrate one of the gangs. Jake lucks out, he's in the right place at the right time to save Carlo's daughter Carla from being kidnapped by Guzman's thugs.

Once Jake's in the house he talks Carlo into hiring him to be Carla's bodyguard. Vinnie isn't too happy but Jake kicks his soldier's to the ground and Carlo hires him. Vinnie has designs on Carla but she's not digging him at all. She's got her sights on Jake and soon enough they're in bed together.

Things deteriorate and there's a good bit of battling between the gangs. Bodies litter the streets and the violence escalates. Eventually things get sorted out by Jake.

It's a ridiculous story with some action and lots of yelling. Everyone yells, all the time. It's barely average and there's nothing new here. You can see a copy on YouTube in the link above.

Bodies Bodies Bodies 2022 Story by Kristen Roupenian, screenplay by Sarah DeLappe and directed by Halina Rejin.

A group of rich 20 somethings gather in a nice big house for a vacation in a remote location that due a hurricane. There's plenty drinking and drug taking. Everyone, except for one gal, gets fucked up a good bit before the storm knocks out the power. It gets all Lord Of The Flies in the house after the biggest asshole is found with his throat cut.

Sadly I found most of the partiers so horrible that I couldn't stand being around them. They are so awful that they can't even stand being around each other. They turn on each other fairly quickly. Now one of them is a killer and between them they haven't got enough little grey cells to solve the crime, even if they were sober. When they do stumble onto a particle of rational thought it's almost too late. The reality in Mike Judd's Idiocracy doesn't seem so farfetched.

It's supposed to be a black comedy about some shallow Gen-Xes who can't survive without their social media. I was hoping for more humor, many of the good gags are in the last few minutes. Gleiberman described the film as "And Then There Were None staged by John Cassavetes for the age of Instagram."^[41]  That's a better joke than most in the movie. I thought it was more Real Housewives in the Big Brother house and that would be no joke. Those housewives are some nasty nasty people, barely human, they can turn on each in a heartbeat. I don't see me needing to watch it again.

Friday Night Movies 924

Overlord 2018 Story by Billy Ray, screenplay by Billy Ray and Mark L Smith, directed by Julius Avery.

On the eve of D-Day a plane filled with paratroopers is headed for Germany. Their mission is to take out a radio jamming tower. The plane is shot to pieces and heads for the ground, only a handful of men survive. They fall into the woods near the town where the tower is, four of them make it to the town where they are befriended by a local woman.

Strange things are going on in the church beside the tower. Turns out the German's are experimenting on people and have developed a serum that brings the dead to life. There's plenty of Nazi fighting once they get into the town. They barely survive the mission but some of the guys make it back to the US lines. They don't tell the commander what was there, preferring to hide the German's experimenting.

The opening airplane sequence gets pretty harrowing for the men, bullets and shrapnel tearing the plane up. It slows down once the survivors get to the ground then it picks up once they get situated in the town. The last act is mostly all action and some of it was pretty good. There's nothing really original here but they do well with what they have. The film didn't do that great at the box office but it's gotten a lot of fans on streaming services.

I thought it was odd that there was a black man in the paratrooper squad but the Wikipedia says he was a member of The Triple Nickels which was an all black squad. The paratroopers are supposedly made up of men from other squads. It's just not well explained in the film. One of the actors said in an interview it was about finding good actors rather than being historically accurate.

Other than that annoying bit I enjoyed the movie. I'd even think about picking up a copy if I see one cheap enough. I'd watch it again.

Max Havoc: Curse Of The Dragon 2004 Written by Irina Mishina, directed by Albert Pyun and Isaac Florentine. Albert directed the film in Guam and Isaac directed 10 mins of new content that added David Carradine and Richard Roundtree. Isaac said in an interview he'd declined screen credit because he didn't feel it was fair to Albert.

Mickey Hardt plays Max Havoc, an ex-kickboxer who ended his career after killing a guy in the ring. Max became a professional sports photographer and he's in Guam for a hotel publicity shoot. He visits his old trainer and friend Richard at his antiques shop. They agree to meet up after Max gets his work done.

On the beach Max meets a couple of sisters and gets a date with one of them. Back at the antique shop Richard gets a visit from a thief with a jade statue she's stolen from David Carradine. Richard gives her some money as a loan and she says she'll be back in 24 hours to get it back. Richard sells it to the older sister, she an old friend of his, and she finds out it's worth a fortune. She wants to use the money to fund the younger sister's medical schooling.

Trouble is, the real value to David is not in it being a piece of rare jade. It's been made into an urn for the ashes of the former leader of the Black Dragons. It's a secret crime club that David now heads. He wants those ashes back, he sends his minions, they find the thief and that leads to Richard's shop. Richard refuses to give up the buyer and the minions leave him and the thief dead on the shop floor.

Max gets in the middle of all this trying to save the sisters from the Black Dragons.  The older sister is a horrible person who's only interest is the money that the jade will bring. She puts everyone in danger, eventually leading to the Black Dragons kidnapping the younger sister. I was disappointed that the older sister made it to the end of the film.

Eventually it all comes down to a battle between Max and David's main fighter. Max wins, the younger sister is freed and David agrees to let them all alone. David gives them an ancient katana that he gives to the sisters to fund medical school.

Sadly the film isn't very good. It gets a 3.4 on the IMDb and that's not far off from what I was thinking. There is a sequel with Mickey and Dean Cain, click the links to watch. I'll get to that sequel at some point, or I wont.