Terra Formars is a 2016 Takashi Miike movie that's based on a Manga. It's about some criminals sent to Mars to kill cockroaches. The planet was planted over with moss to absorb sun light, raise the temp of the planet and create oxygen. Cockroaches were sent along to help the process out somehow. Five hundred years later the Japanese government is sending a crew to kill the cockroaches and ready the planet for colonization. A mission had been sent ten years previous but they all died.
The crew release a chemical that is supposed to kill the bugs but once they get outside the ship they find no dead cockroaches. What they find are 6-7 foot humanoid cockroaches. How they go that way is not important, you wouldn't believe the madey-uppy shit they'd tell you anyway. The absolute piece of shit in charge of the mission, a guy named Honda, has sent these saps to Mars without any intel or the firepower that they'd need to kill big ass cockroaches. Instead they've genitally manipulated the humans. With the aid of a drug, the humans can turn into bug-human hybrids. Of course, they aren't at all successful fighting the cockroaches, nearly everyone dies.
Lucky for us, they're all a bunch of cartoon characters with nothing much likeable about them, it's easy not to give a shit about them. Honda has a global domination plan in mind and that's boring. Honda is the kind of guy that I was hoping would be slaughtered. There's an annoying narrator who tells us all about the crew's bug powers, none of which are better than carpet bombing and aircraft based laser weapons. That blather, and the character backstories, really pad out the film and make it drag for me. I liked some of the CGI and some I didn't. Iceland is filling in for Mars and that scenery looks interesting enough. Not a movie I'll be needing to add to my collection.
I'd already added Countess Dracula to my collection. It's a 1971 Hammer film. The copy we watched is from Network's The British Film series. It's part of a four pack of 70's horror films that was way cheaper than buying the 4 DVD separately. CD has a couple of American releases, the 2003 MGM Midnite Movie double film DVD with The Vampire Lovers, and the 2014 Synapse Blu-ray. The Network DVD is just over 89 minutes and so is the MGM DVD, the Synapse is credited as being 93 minutes which is the running time listed on the IMDb. The US release cut some nudity and the Countess bathing in blood to get a lower rating. The Network DVD has that cut version. Why? The Synapse Blu-ray has a different commentary track than the Network DVD. I've ordered one to hear what director Peter Sasdy says.
The screenplay was by Jeremy Paul, producer Alexander Paal and director Peter Sasdy wrote the story, Gabriel Ronay gets a credit for the idea which came from the uncredited Valentine Penrose book about Countess Báthory. It's supposed to be the first film about her, according to Kim and Stephen on the commentary. Paal, Sasdy and Elès are all Hungarian and so is Báthory.
Sasdy started in TV in 1959 and only directed a few feature films. His first film was Taste The Blood Of Dracula which I liked a bit better than this film. CD is his second film for Hammer and it was followed by Hands OF The Ripper and Doomwatch.
Ingrid Pitt is Countess Elizabeth Nádasdy, when we see her she's burying her husband. Nigel Green is the castle steward and Sandor Elès is a soldier who's mentioned in the will. Back in the castle the Countess gets angry with her maid, hitting her and cutting her face. The blood lands on the Countess's face and she finds it makes her skin younger looking. The Countess kills the girl and appears as a young blonde woman. The effect is only temporary and more young virgin girls are needed. The Countess looks worse each time she transfers back to old age.
The young Countess starts an affair with Sandor and that gets Nigel all angry. He loves the old Countess but she's only got eyes for Sandor. The Countess is a vile bitch, I wouldn't trust her in anyway. She gets Nigel and her maid to supply her with virgins for slaughter but eventually it all falls apart. The movie ends with the Countess and Nigel headed for the gallows. This Countess didn't kill as many women as the real Báthory one did. There are various eyewitness accounts with widely varying number of murders, they range from just a few to 650 young women being killed.
It would be nice to say it was great fun but it's a sluggish thing. Not a lot happens and there's isn't quite the action, violence or nudity of some of the other Hammer films of the time. It appeared in the last years of Hammer's life, they would close down in 1975. I saw it before and I manged to get to the end without barfing, same with this time. There's a great cast and that's worth something, I gave it a 6 on the IMDb, where the average is also 6.
Ingrid Pitt appears in the commentary with Kin Newman and Stephen Jones. I thought it was entertaining. Ingrid has plenty to say and she doesn't like director Peter Sasdy very much at all. She has plenty of other stories and Kim and Stephen add a good bit of detail to the background of the film being made. There are almost two hours of extras on the disc including an episode of the British anthology show Thriller with Ingrid Pitt. I have that box set to watch so I've give this copy a miss.