PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Her Vengeance 1988

Her Vengeance 1988 Written by Shirley Woo Suet-Lai and directed by Lam Nai-Choi. A Hong Kong rape-vengeance film. It's a remake of the 1973 Kiss of Death. I've seen a few of Nam's other films: The Seventh Curse, Peacock King, Erotic Ghost Story, Story of Ricky and The Cat.

A woman called Ying works at a nightclub in Macao. She gets attacked and raped by some customers she had thrown out for causing trouble. The 5 guys are Hong Kong triad scumbags who rob and kill for a living. Raping and beatings are just fun for these guys. Ying's blind sister encourages her to get revenge. Ying goes to see ex-triad Hung in Hong Kong, he won't help her with her vengeance, but he gives her a job in his club. Ying meets a reporter at the club, there's the start of a romance but it doesn't go anywhere other than death.

Ying meets one of the rapists outside Hung's club, she gets another club hostess to lure him into the club. Ying makes a play to get him out of the club. He takes her on his motorcycle, along the way the gang guy beats up a couple of guys in a bathroom and takes the car of one of his victims. Ying eventually kills the rapist and that opens a door to trouble for her friends and relatives. By the end of the movie all the baddies are dead, several other random people are dead and all her friends and  relatives are dead. Ying survives and wonders of into the distance as the credits roll.

The movie starts off with the gangsters acting up in a club, followed by the attack and rape scene, then it gets rather dull for a while. Once the revenge kicks in it gets more interesting. Ying makes some weapons, it's hard to get guns in Hong Kong. I hadn't notice but someone pointed out that the police are noticeably absent. 

It was nice getting some revenge on such scumbags but poor Ying isn't very good at it. I did laugh out loud a couple of times, not at jokes, just some ludicrous scenes of violence. When Ying drives a sharpened pipe through one guy, the pipe gushes liquid, despite both openings being outside the body. Where's that liquid coming from? Some of Nam's other movies, especially Story Of Ricky, are known for some over the top action that often makes no sense.

We watched the new Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray. Looks nice and Ryan, one of my pals, contributes to the commentary track. Looking forward to listening to that. There are two versions of the film on the disc and there's a second disc with another movie. We watched the CatIII version. There's a CatII version with less nudity and violence.

Legend Of The Eight Samurai 1983 Based on the 1982 novel Shin Satomi Hakkenden by Toshiro Kamata, screenplay by Toshio Kamata and Kinji Fukasaku, directed by Kinji Fukasaku. A Japanese fantasy film with Sonny Chiba. I saw this first in 2002, I don't remember watching it again. I've seen a few movies by Director Kinji: Black Lizard, The Green Slime, Tora! Tora! Tora!, Message From Space and Virus. His last two films were Battle Royal and Battle Royal II: Requiem. Some of them were better than others.

The family of Princess Shizu is killed and the princess goes on the run. She's aided by a young guy called Shinbei. On the way they meet Dōsetsu, played by Sonny, who tells her of the curse on her family. He shows her a glowy bead with writing on it. Eight warriors have these beads, eight warriors who can help her defeat the evil queen Tamazusa. The meet the bead holders on the way to Tamazusa's castle. There are some fights and plenty of running about before get there. Most everyone dies.

There's some entertaining bits but the movie is 136 mins and it seems bloated with padding. It's a bit pokey at times. It would be nice to tighten up some scenes and move the story along a bit quicker. After watching it I figured I wouldn't need the recent Blu-ray, especially at $30 on Amazon.

Friday Night Movies 1038

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice 2024 Story by Alfred Gough, Miles Millar and Seth Grahame-Smith, screenplay by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, directed by Tim Burton.

The Deetz's are back and movie opens with the death of Charles Deetz, husband to Delia and father to Lydia. They gather for the funeral in Winter River and Delia plans to sell the old house from the first movie. Lydia has become the host of a popular ghost program. Her daughter Astrid is in college, she's dragged to the funeral. She doesn't believe in the afterlife. Lydia's dating her producer Rory, he's a horrible man. He proposes to Lydia at the funeral reception and she accepts because she's not strong enough to stand up to him.

Beetlejuice is running a afterlife business staffed by shrunken head guys in nice big yellow suits. We find out Beetlejuice was married to Delores LaFerve when he was living. She's a soul sucker and he had to chop her into pieces to keep her from sucking the life out of him. A dead janitor collects the pieces of her body, she reassembles and starts sucking souls. The janitor was the first to go. She starts hunting Beetlejuice, sucking souls as she moves about. She was the one who killed him, he chopped her up before he died.

Delia is killed by some poisonous snakes she bought from some shady person on the internet. Astrid meets a nice boy, she doesn't know he's a dead baddie, he tricks her into the afterlife so he can steal his soul and return to the world of the living. Rory doesn't believe that Lydia is haunted by Beetlejuice and calls him into the world of the living by saying his name 3 times. We'd have no movie if any of the people would act sensibly. There are a whole lot of other plot points to pad out the movie to 104 mins.

I enjoyed most of the movie and would be interested in seeing it again someday. The Blu-ray is on my Wanted List. It colorful and noisy but I thought it was a bit slow.  The musical numbers were dragging it down for me. It was mostly fun and Bob is my favorite character.

Bog 1979 Written by Carl Kitt and Don Keeslar. An American horror film made in Wisconsin. Like a lot of independent film this one has hired a number of older veteran actors from TV and film: Marshall Thompson, Gloria DeHaven, Aldo Ray and Leo Gordon.

Aldo is the sheriff in a small Wisconsin town, Marshall is a doctor, Gloria and Leo are scientists. There's a monster living in the bog, some fish blasting wakens it, people start to die when the bog creature starts sucking all the blood out of the victims. The bog creature kills a good number of citizens and tourists. Aldo and his deputies try to fight it but it's a tough beast, many folks die before an accident starts a fire and it's burnt up. Lucky for the story, some eggs are left for a sequel that hasn't been made yet.

It's rather a weak film that's in rough physical shape. I guess no one saved the negatives or there was no money to try to clean it up. Oh well. It gets a 3.2 on the IMDb. I gave it a 4 out of pity. I did get a few laughs, not a jokes though. I doubt I'd need to watch it again, I wouldn't need the Blu-ray it shares with Mako: The Jaws Of Death. We watched the first few mins of that and it might be better. We'll see.

Friday Night Movies 1037

Panda Plan 2024 Written by Wei Xu, Meng Yida and Luan Zhang, directed by Luan Zhang. A Jackie Chan action comedy.

Jackie plays a version of himself, he goes to a zoo to take part in sponsoring a rare version of the panda. An Arab sheik wants the panda, some mercenaries want his $100 mil. The Sheik has a sad backstory that is revealed at the end. That could have been easily left out, it's so heavy handed and cliched. 

Jackie arrives at the zoo, shortly after the mercenaries arrive to get the panda. Things don't go so easy for the mercenaries with Jackie there. It's like they bought their slapstick in bulk and spread it all over. There's some good number of fight scenes but it's mostly low throttle martial arts and silly action bits. I'm impressed Jackie can do some of the stunts himself. You can often tell when it's a stunt double.

It's all very colorful and noisy, the story is too simple, generally the script is weak, it's more suitable for kids and grans. There's plenty of jokey bits but no one dies. A baddie gets panda poop in his mouth. People are knocked out, even Jackie, he was knocked out during a stunt involving putting his head in a headlock. There's plenty of gun fire but no one gets shot. The animals were CGI. There was a robot delivery cart with a personality. He was always chatting up the ladies.

I enjoyed it for the most part but it's not up to Jackie's older action comedies. It still made money in the theater in China, it cost $24 mil to make and pulled $36 mill out of the Chinese box office. I had picked up a copy when I saw it on Amazon, I try to buy all the Jackie films, I'd hope to watch it again sometime.

Signals 1970

I watched this August 2024 and posted a comment on Science Fiction Sunday 809. There's a link there to the version of the film I watched on YouTube. The Blu-ray we watched was much better looking. All that didn't make the dull script much better. People's minds were wondering between the gulf between the sentences. I didn't mind that the time I watched it before but I bet I watched it at 1.5 speed. It does help a lot of stories out.

Friday Night Movies 1036

Bloody Spear At Mount Fuji 1955 Original story by Kintaro Inoue, screenplay by Shintarō Mimura, Fuji Yahiro and Toshio Tamikado, directed by Tomu Uchida. A Japanese period drama. We watched the Arrow Blu-ray from 2018.

A group of people on the road to Edo interact with each other. There's Samurai Sakawa Kojūrō and his two servants Genta and Genpachi, a traveling musician and her daughter, a man selling his daughter Otane into prostitution, a policeman, a thief, a pilgrim, a young kid called Jirō and a man called Tōzaburō.

They often stay at the same inns. The Samurai is a bad drinker and he eventually has a run in with a group of drunk samurai scum that doesn't end well for him. Jirō learns the heard way it's not much of a life to be a spear carrier. Otane is saved from a life of prostitution and goes home with her father. She's saved by Tōzaburō who's daughter had died while being a prostitute. The musician and her daughter manage to make the trip mostly unscathed.

It's a pokey paced drama that reminds me what a shitty place it was to live in the days before the Meiji Restoration of 1868. It's not much better after either. It's mostly chatter and sitting about, there's hardly any action until the third act. The characters are mostly interesting but they don't do a whole lot. I enjoyed the movie but doubt I'll get around to it again too soon. Still, it was worth a gander.

Despicable Me 4 2024 Written by Mike White and Ken Daurio, directed by Chris Renaud.

A supervillain called Maxime escapes prison, his goal is to kill Gru. The AVL sends Gru and his family to a safe house. He's to pretend he's a solar panel salesman. Gru's wife Lucy is going to be a hairdresser and the three girls are going to the local school. Gru tries to be friendly to the uptight neighbors, only the wife seems to like Gru and Lucy. Poppy, the neighbor's daughter is a bit of a stuck up bitch but she comes to like the family after she blackmails Gru into helping her steal Gru's old schoolmaster's honey badger.

The Minions get taken in by AVL and 5 of them are enhanced with superpowers. They cause a lot of damage in the HQ and around the city. The safe house is outed and Maxime attacks. There's some running about, collateral damage and plenty of jeopardy. Eventually it all works out for Gru, his family and their pals.

There were some good laughs, even a couple of out loud ones. I'd watch it again some time, perhaps have a marathon of the series.

Friday Night Movies 1035

Keep An Eye Out 2018 Written and directed by Quentin Dupieux. A French film. I'd only seen one other Dupieux film, Rubber from 2010. I didn't care that much for Rubber back then.

A man called Louis is being interrogated by Le Commissaire Buron of the French police, Louis had discovered a man in a puddle of blood outside his apartment building early one morning. Louis has been at the police station for a while, he's hungry but he's offered no food other than an old half eaten chocolate bar from Buron's desk.

Buron is a poor police man, bored with his job, unfocused and clueless. During the interrogation he leaves Louis in the room while he slips out to see his son. The son gives him a hot dog. No hot dog for Louis. Buron leaves Louis in the care of Philippe, a coworker born with only one eye. Philippe only passed his police exam because someone fudged his score. 

Sadly Philippe is even less competent than Buron, in fact, he's so inattentive and clumsy he accidentally kills himself with a plastic triangle from a drawing set. Stabbed right in his good eye. That was one of the couple of times I laughed out loud. We only meet a few police officers, none of whom seem like they are earning their daily crust from their skills.

Louis isn't overly smart either, he tries to hide Philippe's body in a locker in the office. Buron returns from his visit with his son and starts to quiz Louis about his actions the night he found the dead body. Poor Commissaire Maigret would be rolling over in his grave if he had observed Buron at work. I'm not overly sold on the ending either.

There are a few funny scenes but generally I don't think it was much more than average. I'm not inclined to recommend it to anyone but other's might like it more than me.

Accident Man 2018 Based on the British comic Accident Man by Pat Mills and Tony Skinner, screenplay by Stu Small and Scott Adkins, directed by Jesse V Johnson. Scott Adkins plays the main character Mike Fallon.

Mike Fallon is an assassin who's specialty is accidental looking murders. Mike works for Big Ray, the barman at an assassin's pub. Mike has a long history with Big Ray, Ray took him as an apprentice assassin when he was a teen. Most of the assassin's in the bar take jobs from Big Ray. They are a mixed lot of murderous scum. Big Ray keeps a good handle on them, he has his rules, breaking a rule could get a man, or woman, killed.

Mike's ex-girlfriend is murdered by some junkies during a home invasion. She was pregnant with his baby. Rather than letting it go, Mike gets mad. Bad thing to do. Ray has always told him to remain emotionally detached but Mike breaks that rule like it was nothing. Mike figures out that it was a pair of assassins he knows from Big Ray's bar. He stops in to visit them at their workout location. He beats a confession out of them but doesn't kill them. 

Mike visits Big Ray's bag man Milton. He'd sent Mike to a location to pick up his fee and an assassin shows up to kill him. The Chinese guy fails and Mike makes it look like he had a motorcycle accident and died. Milton flips the client. Mike goes to pay him a visit. That has some serious repercussions for Mike and the other assassins. Hardly anyone survives.

Most of the movie is a series of action scenes with plenty of martial arts and gun battles. The action scenes were quite good. Adkins did his own martial arts. I enjoyed it but I'm doubtful I'd bother picking up a copy. It does remind me not to hang around with assassins. We watched the Blu-ray but it's on Amazon Prime free film libarary, there's also the 2022 sequel Accident Man: Hitman's Holiday. I'll have to watch that sometime.

Friday Night Movies 1034

Rumpelstiltskin 1995 Written by Mark Jones and Joe Ruby, directed by Mark Jones. We watched the Terror Vision release. They have an annoyingly loud logo when you pop in the disc. Someone needs a shot of Paul Naschy's flaming skull drilled into their gentleman's sausage area.

The movie opens with a group of villagers chasing Rumpelstiltskin and burning him alive. He curses the villagers, he'll get his revenge in 1000 years. After the fire dies down all that's left of Rumpy is a stone image of him. It gets tossed in some water and we jump ahead 1000 years to Los Angeles.

A cop is killed on the job while his pregnant wife listens to the shooting on the phone. It was a badly written scene, the cop didn't even defend himself, the criminal managed to shot him 3 times before he fell over. The partner managed to shoot the criminal in the noggin. The partner disappears from the film.

Months pass and the baby is fairly big. The wife's friend takes her to a goofy antique shop where she buys the Rumpy lump. She takes it home and unknowingly activates the cursed stone. She had wished her husband would return to her, he does, next morning Rumpy shows up and wants the baby for it's soul. The wife manages to escape and the rest of the movie is her being chased by Rumpy looking to get that soul.

It's got a decent baddie but the script is poor and the actors so-so. It didn't do so well at the Box Office and the IMDb score is 4.7, I didn't think it was worth a 5. Writer director Mark Jones had written and directed the first Leprechaun movie. That was a better film. The only other movie I had seen of his was Triloquist and that was below average. Not one I need to buy for my collection.

The Shaolin Plot 1977 Based on a novel by Kuang Ni, screenplay and direction by Huang Feng. We watched the Arrow Blu-ray release. The movie was filmed in South Korea.

The baddie is collecting Shaolin martial arts books. The Shaolin monks aren't that interested in giving them up without a fight. Sammo Hung is one of the baddies. 

The production looks good with plenty of big sets and nice locations. There's plenty of fights and action but movie is rather slow at times. A good bit of trimming would have been appropriate. I enjoyed most of it but I was struggling to stay awake in the middle of it. I wasn't the only one. I'd still watch it again sometime but would FF during the dull bits. I hope to catch the commentaries at some point. I see they are the same ones as on the Eureka Release.

 

Friday Night Movies 1033

Suspect 1960 Based on a Nigel Balchin novel called A Sort Of Traitors, screenplay by Nigel Balchin with additional dialog by Roy Boulting and Jeffrey Dell, directed by John Boulting and Roy Boulting. A rather low budget film set in the world of germs. Both films are on one Blu-ray in the Cushing Curiosities Box Set from Severn. It's also known as The Risk.

A group of British scientists are working on cures for diseases like bubonic plague, they want to publish but the government says there's a chance that the work could be used to create dangerous diseases to attack Britain. Peter Cushing plays Professor Sewell, he's the head of the group, he's resigned to giving into the government's wishes but his co-worker Bob Marriott (Tony Britton) is more upset at the ban. He thinks that the world needs to know of their research so other scientists can lend a hand. 

Bob has an interest in his co-worker Lucy Byrne (Virginia Maskell) but she's devoted to her ex-fiance who lost his hands and arms in Korea. Ian Bannen plays the ex Alan Andrews. He refuses to marry her but he's willing to live with her and have her take care of him. He's a miserable man who needs to be in a care home. Lucy tells him about her trip to the movies with Bob, he becomes obsessed with Bob and wants to meet him.

Bob goes for a drink with Alan and Lucy, it's at the pub that Bob meets a pub acquaintance of Alan's called Mr Brown (Donald Pleasence). Bob talks too freely about his work problems in front of Mr Brown, the man suggests there are people who would help get the work out to other countries.  

In the meantime the government has been taking an interest in the gaggle of scientists and their rather loose lips. Thorley Walters plays the enjoyable Mr Prince, he's head of a group of spies that are keeping an eye on the scientists, Sam Kydd plays his second hand man Slater. Bob gets talked into giving up some secrets by Mr Brown, he nearly goes through with the plan but he's discovered by Professor Sewell and Mr Prince. They set up the baddies for a fall and the scientists get back to work on the germs.

I liked this rather low throttle thriller a fair bit. The story is good, the characters are fairly developed and the low budget production isn't too distracting. There's a bit of humor, Spike Milligan plays the comic relief, his main foil is a chimp. I'd want to watch it again at some point. The film has a nice commentary by John Rigby and Kevin Lyons.

The Man Who Finally Died 1962 Based on a 1959 ITV series of the same name, screenplay by Lewis Griefer and Louis Marks, directed by Quentin Lawrence. Stanley Baker and Peter Cushing star in this mystery thriller set in Bavaria.

Stanley plays a musician Joe Newman, he'd been called Joachim Deutsch before WW2 but changed his name when his mother took him to the UK. He's returned to his home town, someone had called to tell of his father's death. Joe is surprised at this news, he'd been told his father had died 20 years ago. He takes a room in the hotel and goes to visit his father's new wife. Peter Cushing plays a doctor who had been treating Joe's father for his war time trauma. Peter owns the house the family has been living in. Joe soon gets involved in a complex plot involving his father's death.

Joe's dogged determination to find out what's going on puts a big spanner in the works for the secret plotters. No one takes him aside to fill him in and the baddie nearly gets away with the prize. Things work out better than you'd expect and Joe heads for home.

I enjoyed this one too. There were plenty of twists and turns as the story was unfolded. It was nice to see the baddie get his in the end. Plenty of good cast members and good production values. I'd watch it again. Finally a commentary with Kim Newman that I liked. He was joined by Barry Forshaw who wrote a book on film noir.

Friday Night Movies 1031

Doberman Cop 1977 Based on the Doberman Deka manga written by Buronson and illustrated by Shinji Hiramatsu, screenplay by Kōji Takada, directed by Kinji Fukasaku. A Japanese cop movie starring Sony Chiba as a small town cop from Ishigaki Island.

Sonny plays Kano, he's come to Shinjuku because of the local police think the burnt corpse in an apartment is possibly Yuna Tamashiro. Kano knows Yuna's mother, she's a noro, a priestesses of the Ryukyuan religion. The mother predicts Kano and Yuna will marry. The Shinjuku police make fun of Kano for being a bumpkin, he brought a pig to give to the chief of detectives as a gift. The pig was turned down so Kano has to schlep the critter around for the rest of the movie.

Kano gets some big time new headlines for rescuing a singer held hostage from an obsessive fan in her 20th floor apartment by rappelling down the side of the building and smashing through the window. Kano believes that the singer Miki might be Yuna but she says she's not. Her manager Hidemori is a yakuza who's also in love with Miki. Things get more and more complicated and violent as Kano bashes his way around town. When the police don't help him he takes some help from the biker who was the burnt woman's friend and his pals. Eventually Kano blasts the real killer.

It's a non-stop riot of color and noise. I though the movie should have been called Saidaigen no sakebi or Maximum Yelling. There's plenty of fights, gun battles and lots of yelling. Everyone is yelling all the time and the volume ramps up the more emotional they get. Bodies pile up and Kano is often responsible. I enjoyed the heck out of it and would watch it again.

Angel With The Iron Fists 1967 Written by Wei Shih and directed by Wei Lo. A Chinese action film with secret agents infiltrating a criminal gang called the Dark Angels.

Agent 009 works for the police, she's infiltrating the Dark Angels. She pretends to be rich and the girlfriend of Baldy, a big time criminal who's locked up. Baldy's gang is after her because she refuses to share a suitcase of cash with them. Agent 009 makes contact with a jeweler who's part of the DA. The DA are a ruthless gang, they like robbing and killing. Cross them and you're dead, try to leave the gang and you're dead.I suspect that's their retirement plan too.

They have a nice underground secret base, imagine something like a James Bond villain might have but cheaper and smaller. There's plenty of sneaking about, some murders, some fights and plenty of driving about in cars. Sadly the movie is too long and the action rather tame. Some of the fights are a bit embarrassing, arms flailing like a windmill of bones. Some of the score was entertaining, not the singing parts, they were way tedious.

I still enjoyed it, it was pretty darn funny, not on purpose for most of it. It's part of a three film Blu-ray set from Eureka, all the films are of the same sort, the other two films are The Golden Buddha and The Singing Thief. I hope to get to that fairly soon.

 

Friday Night Movies 1030

Hellboy: The Crooked Man 2024 Based on The Crooked Man by Mike Mignola, screenplay by Christopher Golden, Mike Mignola and Brian Taylor, directed by Brian Taylor. The comic was written by Mignola and illustrated by Richard Corben. It's an entertaining story and Richard's art is great.

Hellboy, Bobbie Jo Song and another agent are guarding a box in a box car. Inside the box is a size changing supernatural spider. It gets agitated and busts out of the box, Hellboy gives it a beating and the car bounces off the track. The spider escapes and Hellboy and Bobbie Jo give chase. The other agent didn't make it. They find themselves in a small community in the Appalachian Mountains and get involved with the locals. Turns out the place is filled with witches and pals of the devil. Things don't go so well after that.

Hellboy and Bobbie Jo pal up with a young man called Tom Ferrell and a witch called Cora Fisher, they hang out in Cora's house. A bad witch called Effie Kolb comes by with Tom's father, she'd turned him into a horse and ridden him around for years. Transformed back into a man, the father soon dies. Tom wants to bury him in consecrated ground at a nearby church. The trouble that area is home to The Crooked Man, an agent of the Devil. Hellboy battles the evil man and that's quite enjoyable.

I found the whole film entertaining and one of the best adaptions of the Mignola comics. More than any of the live action films that preceded this. We watched the 4K from Australia which some say is the better transfer. The film had a budget of $20 mill but only made $2 mill at the box office. Critics dumped on the film and the public didn't watch it. Too bad for them. I was happy to watch it and I'll want to watch it again so I'll order the Blu-ray.

Blood Suckers 1971 Based on the novel Doctors Wear Scarlet by Simon Raven, screenplay by Julian More, directed by Robert Hartford-Davis. The film has had a lot of titles over it's life, it's a mess of trickery. I've seen three other Hartford-Davis films: The Sandwich Man, Gonks Go Beat and The Black Torment. I thought they were better than this one. I have another, Corruption with Peter Cushing. I should remind myself to watch that some time soon. The film is part of the Cushing Curiosities box set from Severin.

Richard is a young don at a fictional Oxford college. He'd gone to Greece to study, he's late in returning and no one's heard from him. His friends travel to Greece, among them his possible fiancee Penelope. They find he's fallen in with a bad crowd who have wild parties, take drugs and have sex orgies. During the 10 min long psychedelic sex orgy a woman is stabbed repeatedly and dumped in some bushes.

Chriseis is the head of the bad crowd, she's the worst sort of person, her hobbies include wild dancing and murdering. She's got some hold over Richard. We also find out Richard is impotent, he can't participate in the orgy. Sad. Richard had come to Greece hoping to find his manhood. He didn't get his end away, he got turned into a vampire instead.

Chriseis has taken Richard to a castle where she plans to kill another woman. Richard's friends chase after and rescue him from Chriseis. They return him to the UK where he's supposed to marry Penelope and graduate. He botches both of those plans when he calls Penelope's father a thief who's come to steal your souls at the graduation ceremony, a bit later he kills Penelope by chomping on her neck. The friends chase Richard over the college roofs until he falls off the building. Lucky for Richard he impales himself on the big iron spike of a convenient fence. Richard's pals return to Greece to stake Chriseis.

It's a mess of a film, apparently it ran out of money and many things weren't filmed. This version has the most material of any past version and it's only 87 mins. The commentary by Jonathan Rigby and Kevin Lyons fills in a lot of detail behind the scenes. They speculate that the 10 min orgy is edited for maximum length to pad out the film. I sort of enjoyed the film but can't believe I'll get back to it soon. There's plenty of nice scenery when they are in Greece. Saturday morning I'm listening to the commentary and mostly enjoying that. There are some info filled interviews that I liked.

Friday Night Movies 1029

Tender Dracula 1974 Written by Justin Lenoir, directed by Pierre Grunstein. A French film set in the world of TV production. We watched the Blu-ray from Severn, it's part of the Cushing Curiosities Blu-ray box set.

Peter Cushing is a horror TV show star, he wants to quit horror and make romantic content. His producer sends 2 scriptwriters and 2 women to talk Peter into keeping on with the horror show. Peter greets them and offers them a place to stay. There's a few odd characters in the castle Peter lives in and plenty of odd stuff happens. As the movie plods on it becomes harder and harder to believe what's really happening and what's imagined. It doesn't help to know that.

The movie might be a comedy but the jokes are few and often weak. Peter's character is rather insane and he likes to yell at people. Peter treats his wife poorly, she used to be married to Peter's Igor, a poor lumbering mute who's treated poorly. The scriptwriters try to talk Peter into staying with the horror program but Peter's not buying it. The two ladies seem to loose their clothes pretty regularly.

It could be more fun if the jokes were stronger. I didn't dislike the film but I'm not sold on it. I'm listening to the commentary, hoping that I might learn why it's what it is. So far, no go. They do have a bit of info on the production. We'll see if the interview with the director yields anything.

Fright 1972 Written by Tudor Gates, directed by Peter Collinson. Gates wrote a few movies I've seen: Twins Of Evil, Lust For A Vampire, The Vampire Lovers, Barbarella and Danger: Diabolik. Collinson directed a good lot of films, some I've seen: The Italian Job, Innocent Bystanders and Ten Little Indians.

A couple goes off to dinner with a friend, they leave the babysitter, Susan George, in charge of their 3 year old son. Susan's boyfriend comes to visit. She thought she had seen him at the window but we'll find out that wasn't true. The couple have a secret, the wife's ex-husband is in a mental institution for murder. She doesn't know that he's escaped and gone to visit his wife. Poor Susan's stuck in the house with the madman murderer. She screams all the time and that was making me pretty annoyed.

Other than for the noisy Susan, I would have enjoyed the movie more but it was pokey and kind of familiar. I didn't hate it but it wouldn't make me buy the BR. I would take too long to get back to it. Those Susan George screams were annoying, I'm not rushing back to that.