PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Science Fiction Sunday 622

Coherence 2013 Written and directed by James Ward Byrkit.

A group of old friends get together at a house the night a comet is due to pass over. It's all personal chatter and backstory until the weird stuff starts happening. The lights going out seemed normal to seeing yourself in the street. They figure out that the comet has created a rift between parallel universes. They discuss the other selves, whom they're really bothered by. One guy is much more disturbed than the others, to the point of violence, he really wants to kill them before they come for him. Some of the rest of the group turns violent as they try to deal with all that's going on.

It was a lot better than some of these small budget films with people talking and talking while little happens. It was shot in 5 days with $50,000. Even with that tight a budget, there's a bit of physical action, some fairly good actors, and a decent script. Nicholas Brendon and Elizabeth Gracen were the only ones in the cast that I knew. I'd think it's leaning more to being a horror movie than an SF film but that's OK, I'm running out of unseen SF films to see in general, I can't afford to be picky. I don't think I'd need to see it again.

These three films are all from Amazon Prime. It's the only way to keep up with the slightly newer SF films. I've near enough stopped buying DVDs, I have my favorite titles already and often I don't want to take a chance on something I don't know about. I'm not getting out to the used stores to check for cheap discs that I can take a chance on and the postage rates from the UK have gotten too expensive for me.

In Bright Axiom 2019 Director Spencer McCall co-wrote the script with Geordie Aitken, Farouz Gipson and Wylie Herman.

Some artist types think they should start a space for artists to flourish, or some such. People are invited to the mysterious society housed in a weird building. It's more like a cult but the guys behind the group say it's not a cult. It fails quickly, the organizers don't really have any idea what they are doing. The story is told in documentary style. It's not that interesting and not really SF. I wouldn't want to watch it again.

Empire Of The Sharks 2017 Written and directed by Mark Atkins. Produced by The Asylum.

In this Waterworld type film some people in a tiny floating village are up against the warlord John Savage. His minion isn't happy with the tribute from the village and he takes some women as prisoners. The slaves are forced to work powering a machine that takes the salt out of water so they can drink it. Some of the villagers form a plan to rescue the women. They hire some scum who fuck things up for a while but eventually they got eaten by sharks so I laughed.

It's about the usual level of quality of the average film from The Asylum. It's not something I would watch again, not that I should have bothered in the first place, but I was happy to have it on in the background as I sorted stamps.

Friday Night Movies 823

Evil Takes Root: The Curse Of The Batibat 2020 Director Chris W Freeman co-wrote the screenplay with Aaron Mack.

A woman finds a monster in her bedroom and the police find her body in a tree. Before that she had called her ex and the message brings him to her small town only to find her dead. Things turn weirder when the daughter becomes possessed. Turns out mom's company had done some clear cutting and unwittingly unleashed an ancient forest demon. It's come to visit and it's not a happy critter. The monster wasn't too badly portrayed.

The movie is pretty much a standard monster slog to the end. There's plenty of running and yelling in the woods. It's pokey and there's nothing really unique that stands out. There some fair to middling graphics and a passable production. I can't complain much about the acting. Sadly, it's still some below average. I'd give it a 4 before I would give it a 5 on the IMDb, it's current score is a 4.1. I did like the African priest character.

H0us3 2018 Director Manolo Munguia co-wrote the screenplay with Sergio Martinez. It's a Spanish picture, dubbed in English. It's pretty much shot in one room in a big house.

Computers figure heavily in this film, the characters were all computer students in university. Most of them haven't kept in touch much but they've all come to have dinner and stay in a big old house. There's not much going on but them all talking about stuff. One of the more annoying guys tells everyone he's cracked the password on a secret file from the dark web. He's found some code and put it on his phone. Now his phone can see 30 seconds into the future.

Everyone gets all excited wondering about the implications of the software and what it could mean if the government had it. They alter it to see 12 days into the future and find everything was on fire. Everyone freaks out. It takes about 90 minutes to get to that point in this 104 minute movie.

I didn't much care for the ending and the sting before the credits. It's ponderously slow and quite dull at times. I watched it on Amazon Prime and wished they would add variable speed to their player. Anything to get to the end of the movie quicker. I wouldn't need to see either of these again.

Friday Night Movies 822

The Night Before 2015 Director Jonathan Levine wrote the story that he adapted into a screenplay with Kyle Hunter, Ariel Shaffir, and Evan Goldberg. A couple years before TNB Jonathan wrote and directed Warm Bodies. I saw that and liked it well enough. I haven't seen any of the other 5 movies he's directed.

Fifteen years after they started to look for the legendary Christmas Party, the Nutcracker Ball, three friends decide to quit the hunt after this one last try. Lucky for them Joseph Gordon-Levitt works in a hotel and he finds and steals three tickets to the secret event. Seth Rogan and Anthony Mackie are his pals, all three guys have their own issues, all of which are mostly resolved by the end of the movie.

It's kind of funny, not all the gags were to my liking, and kind of like a bunch of movies. It's still a bit better than average and I would watch it again sometime. I believe the DVD came from Dollar Tree. When they used to have DVDs for a buck. Haven't seen that for the last year or so, I rarely ever go there anymore.

Plan 9 2016 Written and directed by John Johnson. John adapted Ed Wood's  Plan 9 From Outer Space but made it as a modern zombie film. These zombies run fast and bite hard. There's plenty of gore and loose body parts. It's sadly sexed up with some nudity and sex scenes. It's better made than Ed's film, John had more money and a bit more talent. Brian Krause is the big name in the film, at least from the modern day, Wood fans will recognize Conrad Brooks from the original film. He's got a small part, mostly he sits in a chair. It's watchable, though my mind did wander at times, some scenes are not as good as others. On the whole below average, I'm leaning more to a 4 than a 5 on the IMDb. I was kind of wishing that John had made his own story, instead of fiddlin' with Ed's story.

Interestingly the votes on the IMDb look like this.

Uncle Peckerhead 2020

Uncle Peckerhead 2020 Written and directed by Matthew John Lawrence. It's Matthew's first feature, he had written, produced and directed 5 shorts between 2007 and 2015.

That's David Bluvband as Scott, Chet Siegel as Judy, and Ruth Lolla as Doris, they're DUH, a New Jersey punk band with 22 minutes of their own material. Judy is the main force behind the band, she's peppy and naive, somewhat at odds with her noisy musical choice. Scott plays guitar, he's kind of a goof, Doris is the drummer, she's kind of dour. I didn't care that much for what they played but some of the people in the movie liked it. As the movie opens Judy quits her job, she's lined up 6 gigs around the area with a possible 7th when they return. First barrier to their leaving, their vehicle gets repossessed. The day is saved when they stumble onto this guy.

David Littleton plays Peckerhead. He's homeless but he has a van. He offers to drive them for gas and a little cash. The band is unprepared, they have no money so they have no other options for transportation, Uncle Peckerhead seems a nice enough guy. When the band gets stiffed by the promoter in their first gig, the band find out what sort of guy Peck is, a murderous, flesh eating demon. He's only affected by his problem at midnight and for only 13 mins. He keeps it under control with a shot of something that puts him to sleep.

Though troubled by their murderous friend they decide to continue the trip with him, Peck did raise some cash. The rest of the trip sees a return of the beast and a bit of regret from the band. They aren't thinkers this lot. Never hook up with a demon or hell beast. Untrustworthy, to say the least. Still, it's funny when it happens to some people.

It's a free movie on Amazon Prime. I thought it was a pretty good horror comedy with a nice mix of gags and gore. The script is good, same for the actors, nice effects and good over all production. I'd be interested in see it again.

Beast Of The Water 2017

Beast Of The Water 2017 Rashaad Santiago is the director, Rick Prince wrote the script with additional dialog from Thomas Horton and Lee Bateman. You'd think with three guys going at it the script would be better. Nope. It's the old evil corporation plot. Easy to fall back on, boring as shit. The story is about an archeologist that's got a lead on a fountain of youth. He's got a lead on the location, and he organizes a trip. His University is cutting funding and it's his last chance to come through with something concrete. Unfortunately we already now that the place is protected by a Native American spirit beast that bites people's heads off, after it rips their arms off. The rep of the corp is a ruthless cold hearted bitch, a smirky blonde type I just hate, sadly she doesn't get chomped. The last scene in the movie makes me think they might have hoped for a sequel, she now knows about the beast, and a killer like that is the cliched wet dream of every evil corporate prick. Cold hearted bitch's man on the ground is a big strong psycho who'll kill anyone he needs to kill to move the mission along, or anyone his boss tells him to kill. The evil corp, and it's evil minions, is one of those plot elements that makes me want to barf. On a good note the beast from the water was a pretty good suit. Big and strong looking, the beast can pull a man's arms off with a simple tug. The big strong psycho enjoys a bit of that action. I didn't think the beast was wrong, that guy was a real prick. He needed to punished for his evil. Good beast! Overall a film that's below average, especially regarding that evil corporation business, but I did like the beast and the makeup effects. Nice message from the Native American spirit guy, he was cool. I wouldn't need to bother with it again. It's was on Amazon Prime where they think the movie was released on 2019. They are so wrong, so often, when listing the dates for films they offer. You'd think they haven't got the Internet in that office. Look it up and get the right dates on there, you lazy fucks.

Tomb Of Torture 1963

Tomb Of Torture 1963 Director Antonio Boccaci, credited on the film as Anthony Kristye, wrote the original story, he co-wrote the screenplay with Giorgio Simonelli, who's credited as Johnny Seemonell. The films original title is Metempsyco. It was released in the US by Richard Gordon on a double bill with a German vampire film called Cave Of The Living Dead.

A doctor bring his daughter Anna to a village with a castle. That's her with her father, he used to live in the village 20 years ago. He's brought Anna to the castle to see if it can cure her of the odd dreams she's been having. In them she see's the violent death of Countess Irene. Irene used to live in the castle but disappeared 20 years ago. Anna also has ghostly visions of Irene now that she's in the village.

Irene's sister Countess Elizabeth lives in a house in the village and leaves the castle empty but for a deformed servant. When the movie opens we see the deformed servant kill two local girls down in a secret dungeon. There's a secret door inside the castle and a secret entrance behind a loose brick near the empty moat.

 

Raman was in love with Elizabeth until he met Irene. After Irene disappeared he left the area for 20 years but has recently returned. He's returned to search for Irene's body but Elizabeth thinks he's only after the supposed hidden treasure. Elizabeth is also seeing the image of Irene.

That's Anna and a reporter who's investigating the death of the two girls. They seem to fall in love between scenes and it's a lucky thing, he's there when things get dangerous.

It's a fairly decent movie, bit of murder, some torture, a mystery, a bit of sex, a ghost, guinea pigs pretending to be rats, it's got the lot. The music is a bit goofy. The script is a bit weak, there are times then it jumps ahead and misses telling us some bit of business that might have made the story clearer. In the end it was entertaining enough to be average and I would still watch it again someday.

Creepy Creature Double Feature Volume 2

The second volume of Creepy Creature Double Feature has two more 60s horror films of a low budget nature. It's from VCI and it seems to be the end of the series. For films like these I don't mind that they are paired up, saves having two DVDs to store.

The Crawling Hand 1963 Story by Bill Idelson, Robert Malcolm Young and Joe Cranston, screenplay by Bill Idelson and Herbert L Strock, directed by Herbert L Strock. A lot of new film makers working on this and they all have some interesting credits in their later careers.

I recognized Bill Idelson's name from writing episodes of The Andy Griffith Show, he's written a whole bunch of other TV including The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Flintstones, Get Smart, The Odd Couple and more. He wrote a couple of TV films but this is his only feature film.

Joe Cranston was mostly an actor, his only other writing credit is for The Corpse Grinders for Ted V Mikels. Joe's first acting credit was for Space Patrol in 1953, his last was My Three Sons in 1961. Joe's only directing credit is the 1988 movie Turnabout in which Bryan Cranston and Ernest Borgnine take on a Mexican drug lord bothering their small town near the border.

Robert Malcolm Young wrote mostly in TV, shows like It Takes A Thief, Then Came Bronson, Mod Squad, Night Gallery and The Streets Of San Francisco. His other two feature films were Trauma in 1962 and Escape From Witch Mountain in 1975.

Herbert L Strock directed a lot of TV in the 50s and 60s, working on shows like Science Fiction Theatre, Highway Patrol, Sea Hunt, The Veil and Maverick. He directed some low budget SF films over the years, Gog, Battle Taxi, I Was A Teenage Frankenstein, Blood OF Dracula and How To Make A Monster. He's uncredited on The Magnetic Monster and Riders To The Stars.

The men running the space program are having trouble with their second rocket, it's run out of oxygen and the astronaut is telling them to blow it. They do and bits of their man rain down on California. Rod Lauren finds a severed arm on the beach and takes it home. The arm is possessed by some alien force, it animates and kills Rod's landlady. Alan Hale Jr is the local police captain. His men find fingerprints and they turn out to belong to the astronaut. Peter Breck and Kent Taylor are questioned at the Space Program but they play it cagey and don't tell him what's going on with their astronaut. At this point they aren't sure of whats going on. Paul gets taken over by the alien force and attacks people. The arm is hurt and some cats bite it. Peter finds the arm and gathers it up, only for it to escape at the end of the film.

Despite the ending, there's no sequel. It's not a great film but I liked it despite it's weaknesses, somehow it's fairly compelling. They had the core of a good movie but didn't quite pull it off. Some of the yakking scenes are pretty clunky. It's an 89 min movie and there's a bit of filler. I enjoyed Alan Hale Jr and some of the other actors were fairly good. I've managed to sit through it several times over the years, it appeared in the first season of MST3K. I tend to have a soft spot for the 50s SF and horror genres. I think that's partially from growing up in the period.

The Slime People 1963 Screenplay by Blair Robertson and Joseph F Robertson (as Vance Skarstedt), directed by Robert Hutton. Blair didn't write much in her short career, an episode of Bonanza and two features, Agent For H.A.R.M. and The Phantom Gunslinger. She appeared in TSP as Mrs Castillo. After TSP Joseph wrote and directed Love Feast in 1969. It stars Ed Wood as a cross dressing erotic photographer. Joseph wrote and directed a couple of other mainstream films before writing and directing over 2 dozen porn films under the name Adelle Robbins. I know I've seen a few of them but don't remember them.

This is Robert Hutton's only director job and I can see why he didn't direct again. He also stars in this film about subterranean beings that invade the surface to takeover the world. There's too much boring talking and wandering about in the fog that was created by the slime people. Their costumes are pretty poor. Sadly they ate up half the $80K budget. Still, good costumes won't help a dull script much. I had to run this at 1.5 speed in some of the walking about scenes. It too was on MST3K. More fun to watch it there.

One fairly entertaining film and one less so, about average for some of these low budget movie sets. Maybe I'll watch them again some time in the future. Or will I?

Friday Night Movies 801

The Zombie King 2013 Directed by Aidan Belizaire, written by Rebecca-Clare Evans, Jennifer Jones, George McCluskey and Lisa Strobl. All the writers but Lisa have fairly substantial roles in the film.

As the movie opens we meet a milkman, a mailman and a parking meter man trying to get away from some zombies. The movie cuts away from the guys trying to survive to Edward Furlong and his dying wife. The group of survives grows in number, dwindles, then falls into a church. None of them can understand what's happening, until the run into the local priest, drunk off his tits.

Turns out after Edward's wife died, he'd made a pact with a voodoo god called Kalfu to resurrect her. Corey Feldman plays Kalfu, he's fairly entertaining. The zombies are the result of the pact with Kalfu. The priest has a way to stop the pact from happening and that will end the zombies. The group of living go into battle to stop Edward and Kalfu.

I found it to be entertaining enough, the DVD cost a buck, though I wouldn't say it's above average. I might watch it again but who knows.

The Gaelic King 2017 Directed by Phillip Todd, written by Matthew Todd, Phillip Todd, Nathan Todd and John Walkinshaw. A mostly crowdfunded movie.

It's a fantasy version of the story of King Kenneth Alpin of Gael, circa 800 AD. Alpin's father is betrayed and killed by the King of the Picts while supposedly meeting for a peace treaty. Alpin escapes with his infant brother, ten year later he returns. He finds a village under siege by an evil in the woods that steals their children.

Turns out the monster is a demon witch that was freed from her tomb by the King of the Picts. He really is a dick. When Alpin's brother is taken Alpin and the local chatty druid are off on an adventure. They hook up with the daughter of the King Of The Picts, she's sorry all the murdering happened but her men still hate the Gaels. It's a shitty time, in the fictional or the real version.

Lucky for Alpin he's developed some magical powers and he's now powerful enough to kick that demon witch's ass. I wound up enjoying it more than I expected. It's another that I got for a dollar at the Dollar tree. I might watch it again.

Creature Features 4 Feature Films

Another 4 film package with big monsters munching people and causing havoc. Three are water based and one lava based. Hardly anyone in them I had heard of, and the production values aren't always so great. All four movies are crammed on a single disc.

Dead Sea 2014 Brandon Slagle is the writer and director. He's written a story about a lake dwelling monster that appears every 30 years to snack on the locals before getting back to sleepy bye-bye land. The locals are miserable creeps who force people into the lake as sacrifices so they can stay there. I've seen this plot over and over and it doesn't have anything new to add to the convo. The production is particularly weak on this one. Not worth the watch.

Robocroc 2013 Berkeley Anderson wrote the script and Arthur Sinclair directed. This time the monster is a crocodile that's been taken over by military nanobots that are quickly turning the croc into a robot fighting beast. Dee Wallace plays the hard ass bitch that runs the project. Corin Nemec plays the hero, a zoo keeper who takes care of the crocodile. I remember him fondly from Parker Lewis Can't Lose. He's done a few of these made for TV monster movies of one sort or another. Him and Dee are both OK here, I'm happy when he saves the day and I'm happy when she gets some payback for being such a murderous POS. Occasionally it's amusing but not enough to make me like it more than I did. The CGI is fair to poor, the general production values are low, the acting is average or below, nothing much new here. It's better than the first movie but it's doubtful that I would watch it again.

Supertanker 2011 Another TV movie, director Jeffrey Scott Lando wrote the script with Nate Atkins. Some moron has developed an anti-matter liquid from a meteor. It's unstable and the only safe place for it is in a containment field in a cold underground bunker in Alaska. When someone tries to move a tiny bit of it they find out unstable it is, a whole town in Canada is wiped out. Now there's a new plan to drop it into the Marianas Trench.

Velizar Binev is the captain of the supertanker that's been specially pimped out to carry the world's most deadly substance. If it was let lose it would destroy the whole earth in a short while. Everything about this project is really stupid. Callum Blue plays a containment expert, he and his team are called in to ride along with the substance on a supertanker. Ben Cross plays the evil company man. They're all characters you've seen.

The movie hasn't anything new but I got through to the end, carried along by Callum and Velizar, they stand out as the better than average actors on the shoot. Not enough to make me want to watch it again.

Dracano 2013 Keith Shaw, writing as Lindsay James, wrote the script and Kevin O'Neill directed. Corin Nemec gets to fight dragons in this tale. It's a bit better than the other films on the disc, it has a bit of sense of humor and I liked that. Troy Evans plays the General that heads the secret military operation that deals with the dragons that live in volcanoes. They are cocooned in eggs that only hatch when they are exposed to the air. In the network of underground lava flows the dragons float around the world. Occasionally an eruption creates a problem. Remember Mt St Helen's? Nuked to cover up the dragons. Who knew?

This time the cover up doesn't go so well. Corin is a park ranger on his day off, he encounters some people on his hike into the desert, they are all surprised there are dragons. There's plenty of running about and yelling. The CGI dragons aren't too bad in the back ground, up close they lack a bit. I enjoyed it more than the other three films and probably would watch it again sometime.

Friday Night Movies 799

 

Knocking On Death's Door 1999 Screenplay by Craig J Nevis and direction by Mitch Marcus. Produced by Roger Corman and shot at his studio near Galway Ireland. The movie is set in New England.

Newlywed students buy a haunted house to look for the ghosts rumored to be in the house. They're there to look for the ghosts. They soon find him. It's a much your typical haunted house story, a bit sexier than some, but really it all boils down to some poor sap getting murdered and he can't move on. David Carradine plays the local doctor, other than that there's nothing much special about the movie. It's part of a two movie DVD that came out in 2003.

The Doorway 2000 Michael B Druxman is the writer director. Also made at Roger's Irish studio and also set in the USA.

It's another haunted house story, this time there are 4 students looking for cheap housing. The jerky guy has made a deal to fix the place up for free rent and some cash. The other's aren't too happy with him once he's sprung this surprise. They aren't as unhappy as the demon that lives in the house. She's been murdered and walled up in the cellar. She's been stewing down thee for years and she's pretty nasty on top of being a mean angry demon. She gets busy and people start to die.

Roy Scheider is their professor, he goes to the house to help with the problem. It's pretty typical stuff and below average in interest to me. I might never get around to re-watching these two films but I'll have that DVD anyway.