PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 969

Arsène Lupin Vs Arsène Lupin 1962 Screenplay by Georges Neveux, François Chavane and Édouard Molinaro, directed by Édouard Molinaro. This is the third film in the Lupin collection from Kino Lorber. It's a good trio of films but the set lacks any interesting extras.

 

Poor André Laroche has died, there's a big funeral, attended by many. The local magistrates wife tells her son François that she had an affair with Laroche, the result was a son. She also drops the bombshell that Laroche was Arsène Lupin.

A lawyer asks François to stop by for a message from Laroche, when he does he finds out there's a second son and he's supposed to find him. The magistrate finds out François is a petty thief, stealing small items from the homes of people who have invited the family to visit. There's also a sub plot involving a cache of jewels belonging to the dethroned royal family of Poldavia. The two sons eventually meet and help out the Poldavians.

 

I thought it was pretty entertaining, there's action and danger, a bit of romance and a good amount of comedy. It's a nice trio of films that I know I will want to watch again sometime.

The 30 Foot Bride Of Candy Rock 1959 I watched this a few weeks back. Here's that post.

Friday Night Movies 968

Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis 1987 Based on the 1985 Hiroshi Aramata novel called Teito Monogatari, screenplay by Kaizo Hayashi, directed by Akio Jissoji. The novel was written in 10 parts over two years, two more parts were added in the following two years, the movie adapts the first third of the novel.

The movie is a retelling of Tokyo's history from 1912 to just after the 1923 earthquake but with the premise that the occult and demons are real. Tokyo is supposed to be one of the most haunted cities in Japan. Living far below the city is the spirit Taira no Masakado. Supposedly it's a powerful being capable of destroying the city.

Kato wants to release Masakado and destroy Tokyo. He kidnaps a medium to communicate with the spirit. Other folks oppose him and try to stop waking up Masakado. They battle for a while, eventually the 1923 quake happens and the story ends around 1927.

I got most of that from the Wikipedia, the movie isn't very forthcoming with a lot of details. It's a complicated story with plenty of characters coming and going. I thought it a good looking movie but I thought the film makers valued style over story telling. They did a good job bringing the 1920s to life. I still enjoyed it for the most part but I doubt I'd rush to see it again. You can see it on YouTube.

Demon Of Paradise 1987 Written by Frederick Bailey and C J Santiago, directed by Cirio H Santiago. A New Horizon Pictures film that's set in Hawaii but filmed in the Philippines.

Some jerks are dynamite fishing, the explosions awaken an ancient monster that lives in the lake. The jerks are tossing lit sticks of dynamite into the lake when the monster attacks, he causes them to drop a lite bundle of dynamite sricks into the boat. The result blows the boat to smithereens killing at least a couple of the jerks. That was a decent explosion and the first warning against using dynamite in this nearly 90 min PSA on the dangers of mixing liquor, stupidity and explosives.

The local resort owner wants to exploit the monster, the local sheriff wants to evacuate the area, the local scientist wants to find the creature and capture it. The latter team up to try to fight the beast. The sheriff and the scientist have to fight another beast when they want to close the resort for the safety of the tourists. The resort owner goes full on asshole to stay open. It's very Jaws meets The Creature From The Black Lagoon but without the charm of either of those films. More people get killed, two more boats get blown up and the tourists run away. The police fight the monster with bullets and dynamite and barely survive.

There is some nice scenery but many other parts of the film don't rise to the same level. The script is poor as are the actors. The cinematography is fairly good and so is the monster makeup. The music was a bit of a mixed bag, some bits better than others. I enjoyed it somewhat but it's still below average. I'm not likely to watch it again. There's a decent copy of the movie on YouTube that you can watch if you want.

Friday Night Movies 967

Signed, Arsene Lupin 1959 Written by Diego Fabbri, Maurice LeBlanc, Jean-Paul Rapperneau and Yves Robert, directed by Yves Robert.

 

That's the Kino Lorber 3 film Blu-ray collection. They used the French poster from this movie on the case, it's a much more interesting bit of artwork than the poster for the first film.

It's just after the end of WWI and Lupin is resting in a convalescent home in the French countryside. His old accomplice La Ballu comes by to see if he's interested in robbing a nice villa on an island. Lupin goes along and La Ballu sets him up for the police to capture. Lupin manages to escape but not before noticing that La Ballu has stolen a painting.

The painting is part of a triptych, when arranged in a certain way the paintings are clues to a treasure buried on the grounds of the house. La Ballu gets the second painting but the third is stolen before he gets to the museum. Having some good luck Lupin manages to steal the third from the boss of the gang. They join forces, Lupin robs the boss blind and then skedaddles. 

Like the first film there's a nice caper and a good sense of humor. The film looks fine. I enjoyed it and would watch it again someday.

Haunted Samurai 1970 Based on the manga of Goseki Kojima, screenplay by Kiyoshi Hoshikawa, directed by Keiichi Ozawa. Goseki is the artist for the Lone Wolf And Cub manga.

Rokuheita is a samurai working for the Yagyu clan. He decides to give up his enforcing job and lets two innocent people the clan wanted dead go free. The Yagyu ninjas show up pretty quickly to kill him for deserting. There's plenty of chasing about and sword play.

There are a couple of sub plots going on and plenty to keep track of. Rokuheita hides in a small village and takes up farming. He finds to local warlord a brutal murderous man. He sides with the villagers to fight the warlord. The Yagyu ninjas find him and complicate things.

All in all a good solid film with a decent story and characters. There's a bit of humor, a bit of sadness, plenty of fights and topless lady ninjas. There's even a fight underwater, with topless ninja ladies. I'd watch it again sometime.

Friday Night Movies 966

Visitors From The Arkana Galaxy 1981 Written by Miloš Macourek and Dušan Vukotić, directed by Dušan Vukotić. A Yugoslav-Czechoslovak comedic SF production.

That's Andra, Robert and Bibi, Andra is an alien, Robert is a hotel clerk and budding SF writer, Bibi is his girlfriend. Robert neglects Bibi to work on his book. From what we can see he's a poor writer and Bibi's frustrated with him. Unbeknownst to Robert he has the power to create stuff with his mind. The act of writing his book brings the aliens  to life and they come to visit him. Things get worse when Andra and her two children turn up.

 

The alien visit causes havoc in Robert's life, especially when the local citizens learn about them. Things get better when Robert mans up a bit. Weird things happen through out the movie. There's even a monster that kills people. There's some special effects that were about average for the time and place.

I enjoyed it and would watch it again sometime. Not sure I would buy the Blu-ray.

Babylon 5: The Road Home 2023 Screenplay by J Michael Straczynski and directed by Matt Peters. An animated film set in the Babylon 5 universe.

John Sheridan has become the President of the Interstellar Alliance and has moved to Minbar. The opening of a new power station that uses tachyons sends him on a journey through time and space. He visits with various people in his life and some in alternate universes. Some of them help him figure out what's going on and how to get back to his time and place.

I would have preferred more of a story. I thought it was a bit like an intro for people who hadn't seen the series before, it could be used as the pilot for an animated series. I wasn't that keen on the character design but I got used to it. I'd like to see new B5 material.

The Blu-ray has a commentary with J Michael and Bruce Boxleitner and a featurette. I hope to get to those soon.

Friday Night Movies 965

House Of Terrors 1965 Written by Hajime Takaiwa and directed by Hajime Satô. A Japanese ghost story. We watched the Mondo Macabro Blu-ray, it looked very nice. There's a tiny copy on YouTube that's dubbed into Italian, with English subtitles, that's a bit shorter than the Blu-ray. A Japanese version is available on Rarelust but I haven't looked at it to see what it's like.

After the death of Yoshie's husband Chonin she finds out he has another house, known as Satan's Pit, that wasn't mentioned in his will. It's a Western style house on a large plot of land in the countryside. Chonin had bought it about a month before he had an incident that left him crazy and under the care of his doctor and father Keisuke.

Yoshie travels to the house and meets the hunchback caretaker, played by Kô Nishimura whom some might remember from the many films he's made, like Yojimbo, Gorath, The Bad Sleep Well, Bushido and The Sword Of Doom. He also starred as the lead character in the Honzo The Razor trilogy.

Yoshie's joined a bit later by Keisuke, his assistant Takashi and Takashi's girlfriend. The house proves to be pretty haunted, with strange noises and physical manifestations like opening and closing doors. Chonin's mistress turns up looking for a bit of cash and a Medium stops by to tell them that the place is haunted. The mistress gets murdered instead and the Medium gets possessed for her trouble. The house slowly picks off the visitors. You'll have to watch the movie to see who survives.

It's a nice moody ghost story that very much reminded me of the Robert Wise film The Haunting. I enjoyed it and would watch it again sometime.

The Adventures Of Arsène Lupin 1957 Based on the novel by Maurice Leblanc, screenplay by Jacques Becker and Albert Simonin, directed by Jacques Becker. A French film from a three film Blu-ray collection of Lupin films from Kino Lorber.

Lupin robs a rich guy of a couple of valuable sketches, robs a jeweler of a nice lot of diamond jewelry and steals a million Marks from Kaiser Wilhelm II. He nearly gets caught by a manicurist but manages to wriggle free to continue his crime spree.

It's all rather lighthearted and amusing, I enjoyed it quite a bit. I'd watch it again and I'm looking forward to seeing the other two films in the set. Glad I picked it up.

Friday Night Movies 964

Castle Of The Creeping Flesh 1968 Written by Adrian Hoven and Eric Martin Schnitzler with an uncredited Jesús Franco, directed by Adrian Hoven. A West German film called Im Schloß der blutigen Begierde. We watched the Severin Blu-ray which looked fine.

A Baron hosts some people at his castle. They ride in the woods. A woman falls while riding alone and is found by a servant of the Count. It's set in modern day but the Count decorates his house like he's in living a couple of hundred years in the past. The Baron and his guests visit the Count and he couldn't be happier.

The Count just happens to need some body parts for the experimentation he's conducting. He's trying to restore his just murdered daughter back to life with those body parts. He's successful but the organ donor dies. It's a common enough sort of plot device but the movie ruins it for me with scene after scene of some sort of open heart surgery. We were thinking that it might have been a pig that was being operated on. It didn't seem like a human operation. Some of that got fast forwarded through, not something that happens very often.

On average the story is barely average and with all the surgery stuff, I sure wouldn't bother seeing  it again.

The Tale Of Tsar Saltan 1967 Based on an 1831 story by Alexander Pushkin, screenplay by Aleksandr Ptushko and Igor Gelein, directed by Aleksandr Ptushko. A Russian film by the same director who directed Sadko and Sampo.

The Tsar marries a young woman and her mother and two sisters are upset. The young woman goes to live with the Tsar and the mother comes along. The Tsar offers the sisters jobs and they come live in the castle. The Tsar goes off to war. Mom and the sisters scheme against the young woman, they kidnap her and her just born son, seal them in a barrel and throw them into the sea.

The young woman and son wash up on the shore of a small island, he rescues a swan who turns out to be an enchanted princess. She magics up a city and makes the son a Prince. Eventually the Tsar comes to visit and finds his wife. The mom and sisters aren't punished enough for my liking.

It was interesting enough but not as entertaining as Sampo and Sadko. I enjoyed it but wouldn't need to pick up a copy for myself.

Friday Night Movies 963

Arnold 1973 Written by Jameson Brewer and John Fenton Murray, directed by Georg Fenady. An American film set in a small village in Britain.

Stella Stevens marries her dead fiance. The ceremony is followed by a reading of the will. Stella gets the house and some odd stipulations in the will. Arnold can't be buried, he has to remain in the house, Stella has to remain in the house to keep the estate. Arnold's wife and son don't get anything. Shani Wallis plays the wife and sings the absolutely horrible title song. Roddy McDowall plays the son, he's one of the people Stella has been having an affair with, the lawyer's partner is another.

There's a huge pile of cash hidden in the house. There's plenty of vengeance going on as Arnold has set up various deathtraps for the family and friends to fall into. First to go is Arnold's wife when he died and the son isn't far off. The local bumbling Bobby, Bernard Fox, investigates but isn't smart enough to spot a murder when it's right in front of him.

It made me laugh occasionally but not all the laughs were to the jokes. It has a decent amount of zaniness. I haven't decided to buy the Blu-ray but I might want to see it again. There's a poor copy on YouTube and a good copy on RareLust.

Curse Of The Dog God 1977 Written and directed by Shun’ya Itô. The film is titled Inugami No Tatari in Japanese. Inugami refers to a curse that involves the killing of a dog to make a spirit that is used to curse people. You can read more about it on the Wikipedia.

Uranium hunters find a rich uranium vein in a small Japanese village. While searching one of the hunters ruins a small shrine by driving over it with his jeep, then he runs over a dog. That same uranium hunter marries the daughter of hte man who owns the land the uranium is on, more bad stuff happens and someone puts the curse of the dog god on the hunter, everything in his life comes to ruin.

After a bit of a slow start the craziness starts up and nearly everyone dies. It's a bit grim and might not be to everyone's taste. There's two dog murders, a couple of kids get murdered, and plenty of adults die horribly. Both films are about revenge and I thought they're a good reminder to stay single. Families like that I don't need. Despite all that I thought it was a fairly entertaining movie. I might not buy a copy and I might not need to see it again but I was glad to see it. You can download a copy over at RareLust.

Friday Night Movies 962

Ghost Nursing 1982 Written by Team Kam Shing Screenwriter's and directed by Wilson Tong. A Chinese horror movie that's recently been released on a Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray. It looks very good.

Jackie has a spate of bad luck, mostly caused by her gambling problem. She visits her friend who gets her a new job at a bar as a B girl and prostitute. Jackie's luck gets worse and her friend says Jackie should see a seer to get some protection. She does and he preforms a nurse of ghost ritual.

Jackie is given a ghost baby which will help her if she follows the rules. That's the little guy above. She's got to worship the figure and part of the ritual is to give it 3 drops of blood every 3 days. Ghost baby does a good job protecting her, punishing wrong doers, some rather violently. At that point I was wanting my own ghost baby.

Things go sour when Jackie falls for a guy and forgets to worship the ghost baby. Jackie's boyfriend brings in an exorcist and they try to destroy the ghost baby. That doesn't go well, the ghost baby get really mad, it gets very exciting, horrible things start happening, people die. Now I'm not so keen on a ghost baby of my own. I could easily forget to bleed on the little guy, I'm poor at sticking to schedule.

The acting isn't the best, the script is weak and it's got a pretty small budget but the movie is still pretty entertaining. There's plenty of running about, yelling and there's plenty of gore and violence. Nicely, the baddies are all punished quite dramatically. The movie has a good sense of humor and I laughed a fair bit. I'd watch it again.

Beaks 1987 Written and directed by Rene Cardona Jr. A Mexican horror film that's also known as Beaks: The Birds 2, Birds of Prey, Falco Terror and Evil Birds. We watched the 100 min version, with all the gore put back in.

A reporter and her cameraman are off around the world on a story about birds attacking humans. Michelle Johnson plays Vanessa and Christopher Atkins plays Peter. We meet a small flock of people who have violent encounters with the birds, Vanessa and Peter interview some of them. The birds are pretty vicious and many people are maimed or killed. Near the end of the movie the birds stop attacking and there's no answer as to why this all happening.

I thought it was a bit below average, it's pretty slow getting going and a bit dull. The acting is poor on average and the script isn't much better. The bird attacks are hit or miss, I'm guessing it was depending on who was throwing the pigeons. It's a fairly well shot film, kudos to cinematographer Leopoldo Villaseñor. I wouldn't need a copy as I doubt I'd have time left to get around to it again.

Friday Night Movies 961

It Follows 2014 Written and directed by David Robert Mitchell. Filmed for $1.3 million in Detroit.

A young woman has sex with a guy and besides his semen he passes along a curse. A supernatural entity will follow and kill her until she has sex with someone else and passes along the curse. If she dies without passing the curse along to someone new the curse will go back to following the person who infected her.

Seems like she needs to let it kill her and set it on the guy who infected her. That would be too easy and the young woman spends most of the movie running from the slow walking creature that's stalking her. The movie never introduces someone to help them or tip them off on how to kill it. They do try to kill it but the creature is unkillable. It's also invisible to everyone but the infected person. Not a good combination.

It's a nice looking film but it's deliberate slow pace is wasted on me. My mind would wonder and I'd wish something would happen. It's one that I'm not going to bother adding to my pile of films.

Shin Ultraman 2022 Written by Hideaki Anno and directed by Shinji Higuchi.

The Japan government has set up a department to try to deal with the kaiju invasion. One day the team is surprised when Ultraman appears, they're even more surprised when one of the team turns out to be Ultraman. The menace quotient is upped when another alien appears. He's playing everyone by pretending to be a good guy but his real plans are soon revealed.

There's some decent kaiju action and some nice model work. That's surrounded by some slowly paced talking and sitting interludes. It makes the 113 min run time way longer. I could feel time slowing down. Eventually it's over. I enjoyed some of it but wouldn't recommend it to anyone. I wouldn't buy this one either.

Friday Night Movies 960

Massacre In Dinosaur Valley 1985 Written and directed by Michele Massimo Tarantini (under the name of Michael E Lemick). It's a cannibal movie that's an Italian and Brazilian co-production. It was shot in Brazil.

Some people gather in a small town to take a plane to Manaus. A professor wants to divert the flight and have the pilot land in Dinosaur Valley. People are not allowed area as there is a dangerous cannibal tribe in the neighborhood. The plane goes down and the professor is killed along with the pilot and a photographer's model. The rest head out for civilization and try to avoid the cannibals.

They don't do well at that, most die but three are rescued by some villains with an illegal mine that keeps slaves for labor. I thought the movie was rather sloppily made. The script is only so-so and in the hands of mediocre actors yields less than stellar performances. There is a fair bit of nudity but it's ruined by some raping and torture. The movie lives up to the massacre in the title as most of the travelers, cannibals and the villains are wiped out in a series of battles and chases. The Brazilian jungle scenery is one of the highlights of the movie. 

I'm not a big jungle cannibal fan for the most part. I know I wouldn't bother buying the disc for that reason.

Virgin High 1991 Written by Jeff Neill and Richard Gabai, directed, produced and starring Richard Gabai. I had forgotten I had seen this back in 1991. Not surprising seeing it again. It's pretty forgettable.

Richard and his pals are trying to score with women. Richard has a girlfriend, played by Traci Dali, but she's not having sex with him. Good for her. The other two guys don't even have girlfriends who are freezing them out. They really are an awful trio of losers.

Burt Ward plays the Traci's father, he's already disliking Richard and really who could blame him. Burt is mad when she returns at 12:45 AM when she was supposed to be home at 10:00 PM. He over reacts and sends her to catholic school. It's all Richard's fault, he stopped his watch and reset the time to 9:30 PM. When Traci nodded off because of the hour he starts fiddling with her cloths. He winds up tearing her buttons off and riping her bra. He's that sort of scumbag and I tired of him fairly quickly.

The trio of boys try to sneak into the catholic school looking for women without even realizing that Traci is there. Richard's impression of a priest is slap worthy and I'm no fan of the catholic priests. The Blu-ray of the movie has another Richard Gabi film, this one set in a convent and Richard and his pals are in that movie too. We watched a bit of it before going home and they are the same sort of characters.We didn't watch much and no one expressed an interest in seeing it the following week.

Virgin High has plenty of embarrassing moments and I'm not talking about stuff in the script. Not one I cared much for, now I'll have to try to forget about it all over again. Shouldn't be hard.