PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Legends Of Dinosaurs And Monster Birds 1977

Legend Of Dinosaurs And Monster Birds 1977 Screenplay by Masaru Igami, Isao Matsumoto and Ichirô Ôtsu, directed by Junji Kurata.

 

Made by Toei Company, the studio was inspired by Jaws, the film did poorly in the Japanese theaters but was a block buster in the Soviet Union. It was known in the US as The Legend Of Dinosaurs and it was used in the last episode of the first season of Mystery Science Theater 3000 which was produced by KTMA. That version was chopped up a good bit, the original movie got a US DVD release in 2007 from Media Blasters and that's what I watched.

A woman falls into a cavern, in the Aokigahara region near Mount Fuji, she awakes to find fossilized eggs, one of which hatches. She runs off and scares a construction crew with her hysterics. A geologist called Takashi goes to take a look, while hiking around Mount Fuji he's knocked out and wakes up in the cabin of a family friend. Takashi continues his hunt for the eggs, on the way he meets an old girlfriend Akiko. She's there with her friend Junko, a scuba diver, who wants to dive in the lake where a couple in a small boat went missing.

A diver is injured in the lake, livestock have gone missing, wild theories of living dinosaurs are tossed out to the dubious public. Well, turns out it wasn't a dinosaur, it was two, one of them a plesiosaurus and the other a rhamporhynchus. The pair battle it out and the volcano erupts killing both dinos. It's a bad day on Mount Fuji and the movie ends on a cliffhanger.

I was much more entertained by the movie than on MST3K. It was like seeing a whole different movie, the MST3K version had so much trimmed out of it. It's a more adult film than I thought, there's a bit of gore, mild by today's standards and a brief bit of nudity. I'd watch it again.

I'm not sure why it did so poorly in the Japanese box office. It was Toei's biggest budget, $2.8 million and it didn't even get a third of that back in receipts. It never got released theatrically in the US but it was released to TV in 1987.

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Alien From The Abyss 1989 Written by Tito Carpi and directed by Antonio Margheriti. This film was not released in the US until the new Severin Blu-ray. We watched that and it looked pretty good.

A couple of activists sneak onto an island where a geothermal power company is dumping radioactive waste into a volcano. They get a bit of footage on a VHS tape before getting spotted. The guy hides the tape and runs off one way and the gal runs off another. He gets caught and she meets up with a guy who lives on the island collecting snake venom. 

It slows down for a while and picks up in the last act when the monster starts attacking the plant. It's not an inspiring monster but there's carnage for a while, then the movie is over. It's pretty average and I can't for the life of me figure out why it never got released here until now. It got released other places, mostly it seems on VHS. It's just not as bad as I might joke it is, certainly Anthony has directed worse but it's not inspiring me to buy a copy. I see you can download a copy over at Rarelust where it's under the title Alien From The Deep. Not sure I'd bother, I've got so many movies that need watching for the first time.

Mayhem 2017 Written by Matias Caruso and directed by Joe Lynch. I've only seen a couple of Joe's films, Chillerama, Knights Of Badassdom and the 2019 Creepshow TV series. Joe mostly works in the horror genre.

A lawyer explains the current virus that's attacking the world pop. It takes the victim on an 8 hour trip with hallucinations, violent rage and naughty impulses. A recent court case had a man infected with the virus kill a man in a rage, he walked free because he wasn't in control, the virus was.

The day his co-worker throws him under the bus is the day the virus puts the giant law firm into quarantine. The lawyer is framed, blamed, fired and marched out of the building just a bit too late, the quarantine cops are blocking the doors. It's a quick acting virus, the firm is a mean spirited place to start with, the staff has a good reason for fighting. They aren't very good at physical fighting, they're used to fighting with words.

Soon as the virus gets up to speed there's plenty of mayhem and bloodshed. The lawyer and a client fight their way up the 8th floor in order to get a board member to cancel the client's foreclosure and see about getting the lawyer his job back. Many fall along the way, eventually the tower is conquered and the villain slain.

It was fairly fun but I'm not sure I will buy it. I'll put it on my Wish List for now.

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Slaughterhouse Rules 2018 Screenplay by Henry Fitzherbert and Crispian Mills, directed by Crispian Mills. First production from Stolen Picture, a company formed by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.

Simon Pegg is is Mr Houseman, a teacher at a fancy upscale private school. Michael Sheen is the greedy head of school. He's made a deal with frackers to drill for oil shale out in the woods. He bans the students from the woods.

Finn Cole plays a Northern working class student called Donald. His mother signs him up for the school without his knowing about it. Donald's not happy going there, it's a stereotypical English boarding school with secrets, class and bullying.

A giant sinkhole opens in the woods. The fracking also releases methane gas. It makes a nice green flame when lit. It turns out there's something down there and it's come up for a look. Most of the students are lucky, they've gone home for the weekend. Poor Donald has to stay and be bullied by his house Prefect.

I enjoyed the heck out of it. I enjoyed the in-jokes referring to other famous school films. There's plenty of comedy and some gory bits. It gets a 5.3 on the IMDb, I gave it a 6 because it's better than a 5. I bought the DVD from Hamilton Books sight unseen, glad I did, I'd watch it again sometime.

Polterheist 2018 Written by David Gilbank, Gemma Head and Paul Renhard, directed by David Gilbank.

Boxy and Tariq are a couple of lowlifes that work for Frank. They collect money from the gang's drug dealers, money Frank has been stealing. Frank's boss Uday wants that money, he's going to kill Boxy and Tariq if they don't show up with the cash in four days. The problem is Boxy just killed Frank, he was holding Frank's head underwater to make him spill where the money is and things got out of hand.

The pair get the idea to kidnap a medium who can supposedly talk to the dead. She can find out from Frank where the money is. Frank takes over the woman's body and leads the pair on a chase for the cash. It doesn't go so well for Boxy and Tariq but the medium gets away with a nice payout.

It's violent and humorous. I thought it was better than the 4.2 it gets on the IMDb. That's been screwed with by the voters, 16% voted it a 10 and 18% voted it a 1. There's complaints in the comments about the reviews. I'd watch it again.

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King Kong Lives 1986 Screenplay by Ronald Shusett and Steven Pressfield, directed by John Gillermin. It was the last theatrical film for Gillermin, he'd direct a TV movie in 1988. Gillermin directed his first film in 1949, he continued to make a mixed lot of pictures through 1974. He directed The Towering Inferno that year, he followed with King Kong in 1976 and Death On The Nile in 1978. I think that was his peak period, despite King Kong being a box office disappointment. His 80s films were a bit lackluster, Crossover, Sheena and King Kong Lives.

After shooting King Kong in the 1975 movie it turned out he wasn't totally dead yet, some university had taken the body and kept him in a comma for the last ten years. Linda Hamilton plans to replace his damaged heart with an artificial heart. In Borneo Brian Kerwin comes across a giant ape lady. He captures her and brings her to Georgia so she can supply blood for the operation.

That goes well and Kong wakes up. He goes a bit nutty when he can smell a female in the area. He breaks out and frees his new lady friend. They run off into the wilds of Georgia with the military after them bent on murder. Linda and Brian team up together to try to save the giant apes. It doesn't go well for King Kong but Lady Kong survives and bears him a son. Kong get a bit of a look at his son just before he finally dies. Brian arranges a sanctuary for the giant apes in Borneo.

It's a below average film and a lot of critics panned it. At the box office it was a flop in the US and Canada, worldwide it took in $48 million on a $18 million budget, $44 million in ticket sales came from Russia where the film was a big hit. Marketing costs put the film in the red and helped bankrupt the De Laurentiis' Company.

I enjoyed seeing the new Blu-ray but it's still a below average film. There was some laughs, especially when Kong chomped down on a hillbilly. There's plenty of special effects but not all successful. I doubt I'd watch it again. I don't have a copy at home and I'm lacking an interest to buy a copy. I don't even have a copy of the 1975 King Kong.

Darker Than Night 1975 Written and directed by Carlos Enrique Taboada. It's a Mexican film by the same director that directed Poison For The Fairies. It's part of Vinegar Syndrome's 3 film set of Taboada films.

A young woman called Ofelia inherits her aunt's house and fortune. Ofelia is the blond gal and she's supposed to take care of her aunt's cat as part of the deal. Ofelia brings her three roommates along.

One of the gals is a cat hater and that eventually leads to a dead cat. Soon after weird things start happening. The dead aunt starts appearing, that's followed by appearances of a dead cat. One gal is killed and that's followed by a couple of other deaths. At no time do we see the police or any other business that might be associated with dead bodies.

There's not much scary going on and on the whole it's rather pokey. If I was kinder I'd say it was atmospheric. There's a lot of wasted time doing nothing before anything interesting happens. After seeing two film by Carlos I'm not thinking I need to buy this box set. There's a 2014 remake that I have not seen. It looks more promising than the original.

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Violent Night 2022 Written by Pat Casey and Josh Miller, directed by Tommy Wirkola. Tommy is the director behind the Dead Snow and Dead Snow 2. Pat and Josh are the writers behind the Sonic The Hedgehog series, they also wrote, directed and produced Hey, Stop Stabbing Me!

Santa getting drunk in a bar, he's a bit tired of Christmas and no one believes in him much. Back at work he stops on the mansion of the Lightstone family only to run into a robbery. The caterers are really robbers, they want the $300,000,000 in the vault. They kill the guards and staff and take the family hostage.

Santa stumbles on the gang and it unleashes his ancient warrior. He takes a beating but smashes and bashes his way through the baddies in the end. The little girl who believes in him restores him. Back to work.

It's easily as violent as it is funny. Good script for those that like this sort of thing. Nice cast with David Harbour and John Leguizamo standing out. I'd want to watch it again sometime.

Poison For The Fairies 1986 Story, screenplay and direction by Carlos Enrique Taboada. A Mexican film that's called Veneno para las hadas at home.

Flavia starts at a new school, she makes a friend of Veronica. Sadly Veronica is an evil little girl who thinks she's a witch. Her activities get more and more violent and Flavia has to break off their friendship in the worst way...for Veronica.

We watched the new Vinegar Snydrome Blu-ray set. It looked pretty good and sounded fine. It's a bit dull in the third act but heats up at the end. I don't know that I'd need to see it again. You can try downloading the copy at RareLust but it's a huge file.

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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.

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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.

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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.

Homebodies 1974

Homebodies 1974 Screenplay by Howard Kaminsky, Bennett Sims and Larry Yust, directed by Larry Yust.

An odd little film about some seniors that turn to murder to keep their condemned apartment building.

I liked the film's sense of humor and the groups decent into madness. I enjoyed the movie and would watch it again.

Ghastlies 2016

Ghastlies 2016 Written by Chris Bavota and directed by Brett Kelly.

Some stupid socority sisters unknowingly release those creatures in the poster. They're small and not that well animated. The movie isn't very good either. Life goes on.