PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

The Midnight Horror Collection - Flesh Eating Zombies

The Midnight Horror Collection - Flesh Eating Zombies has 4 movies on a single layer double sided disc. That's two low rez movies per side, the bit rate is low, about 2.5MB on average, the images look really poor. There's not much good to say about most of the movies either. You can find it on Amazon for 8 bucks and it's not worth it. I paid about 6 bucks for it and feel robbed.

Last Of The Living 2009 Written and directed by Logan McMillan.

I saw this back in 2010 but didn't remember that when I picked up this used 4 pack recently. The main guy looked familiar and sure enough the IMDb said I'd seen it before. It was a selection for Friday Night Movies, the link to the post is in the title, I still feel about the same as I did then. I might watch it again someday but the likelihood is low. 

Grave Mistake 2008 Written by Jimmy George and Chris LaMartina, directed by Chris LaMartina.

A poor looking zombie movie. The zombies are created by toxic waste and the guy who did the dumping is the step father of a young boy he likes to punch around. The kid has a couple of friends at the local gas station, he hangs out with the goofy mechanic and the long haired owner. They all team up when the town's citizens turn to flesh eating monsters. They try to survive but one by one they get picked off. The usual sort of fair but done poorly.

I'm not sure if they intentionally desaturated the color or it was just poor equipment and lighting. No matter, it sucks to look at. The film is really grainy on top of that. It just makes the below average script and the poor acting harder to see. It's made in Baltimore and the film makers say that it was made for about a grand. More money might help the look of the film but not so much the story. I have seen one other feature directed by Chris, the 2017 Call Girl Of Cthulhu, it wasn't very good. I wouldn't need to see either again.

Awaken The Dead 2007 Written and directed by Jeff Brookshire.

Another low budget film that looks awful. Desaturated color and dense grainy image equal a poor viewing experience. The script is a hodgepodge of goofy choices and coincidences. An ex-assassin is now a pacifist priest, a woman is an ex prostitute and daughter of the man who's caused all the zombies to appear in a town. He's invented a formula that can be sprayed on a town by a small plane. It turns everyone into flesh eating zombies. The father is the guy who trained the priest to be an assassin in some sort of black ops program. That secret black ops element is something I've gotten really tired of in the last few years. None of the actors are good enough to make anything much of the script. Not worth seeing, should be avoided in the future. Hopefully, I'll remember to look these up on my blog in the future. So easy to forget the easily forgettable.

I Am Omega 2007 Based on Richard Matheson's novel I Am Legend, screenplay by Geoff Meed, directed by Griff Furst. Griff is the son of Stephen Furst. Griff has acted in a lot of productions and directed 17 films, most of them for TV. I've only seen Lake Placid 3 and now this one. The film is produced by The Asylum. Never a sign of quality.

The only thing positive I can say about this movie is that it stars Mark Dacascos. He's been in some good films in his 30 year career, so sad to see he worked for The Asylum. Still, paycheck. The Asylum made their name by making low budget films that had a similarity to upcoming big studio films, releasing them months before the studio film comes out. They make money by not spending anything on their films. The Sharknado series is one of their more well known properties. One of my favorites of Mark's films is the 1997 action film Drive.

In this movie Mark is hold up in his compound trying to survive the zombie plague. He's forced to help save a woman and get her to scientists who are trying to create a cure, she's got some sort of antibody. The guys who enlisted Mark's aid are insane liars, they want to maintain the status quo so they can keep on killing people. They need killing and the film delivers.

Despite that, it's not a very good film, nearly any of the previous versions is more entertaining. I particularly like the 1964 Vincent Price film The Last Man On Earth quite a bit. I've seen that 4 or 5 times so far and really like the grimness of it. I will watch it again someday, I can't say the same about Mark's film, much as I like Mark. I'd rather watch him again in something good like Brotherhood Of The Wolf, Cradle To Grave, or John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum.

Super Hot 2021

Super Hot 2021 Written and directed by Taylor King. A young Indy director who has a small production company in Charlotte NC with his father. I've not seen any of his previous work.

The lady with the super soaker is Kandace Kale, this is her only credit on the IMDb. Kandace doesn't seem to have much emotional range, she rides that deadpan face through the whole movie, and she speaks in a dull monotone. Kandace hangs out with her 2 nerdy friends. I liked those two better, they had more ability in their acting. The movie spends a good bit of the first act proving their genre credits. We find out Kandace has a bit of crush on Carmen, the girl across the street from her house, and that leads Kandace and her friends into the clutches of some vampire models who want to stay young and beautiful forever.

The head vampire lady has a book that has a spell to resurrect Dracula into a host body. They need a virgin to sacrifice. Kandace believes that Carmen is going to be the sacrifice. Kandace and her pals attempt a rescue mission but that fails and one of the vampires goes after them.

The guy on the lower right side of the poster is Warren Van Helsing. He turns up just in time to blast the vampire lady attacking Kandace and her pals. They team up to fight the vampires. Despite being terrible at the job they have some positive results. I enjoyed Warren, he turns up at the right time, sadly, he wasn't much better at killing vampires as the nerds were. Still, he might have a chance to shine, the movie claims that he'll return, with Dracula, in a sequel.

I though the movie was fun enough but lacking in memorable gags. I watched it on Amazon Prime, it doesn't seem to be on DVD. No matter, I wouldn't be buying it anyway, I don't need to see it again.

Hawk & Rev: Vampire Slayers 2020

Hawk & Rev: Vampire Slayers 2020 Written and directed by Ryan Barton-Grimley, who also plays Hawk. Watched on Amazon Prime.

A silly comedy that slowly grew on me. Hawk's annoying and has a problem fitting in world. He's a security guard who believes there are vampires and it turns out there are. The vampires aren't the ones he thought they were, but he'll soon find out who the bitey guys are. The cast is fairly good and their characters are all rather quirky. There's a bit of gore, some it quite amusing, but it's not overly violent. Some of the CGI blood is weak. I got a few laughs out of it and enjoyed the film for the most part. I might buy a DVD, if it was cheap enough, but it just seems to be available on streaming platforms. I'd recommend it to the horror comedy fan. You might get a laugh out of it too.

Barricade 2012

 

Barricade 2012 Written by Michaelbrent Collings, directed by Andrew Currie. A Canadian horror film that's part of a 6 pack of films from Image.

Eric McCormack is a psychologist who works too much, his wife wants him to spend more time with his kids, her desire is to spend a Christmas up at the family's cabin in the mountains. The movie jumps a year, mom has died, Eric takes the kids to the mountain cabin just before Christmas.

Once inside the cabin strange things start to happen. Eric sees something or someone in among the trees. When he looks back they are gone. They all hear strange noises. The son gets a cough and then seems sick. The daughter and Eric soon are coughing too. Something seems to be attacking the house but it doesn't break in.

Turns out it was a bad fever and it was all a dream. Well, except for tying up the local store owner who takes care of the cabin while the family is away. He showed up, Eric knocked him down and tied him up to store in the attic. That was 3 days ago. Police show up and rescue him. Eric and the kids are all fine now.

It might be the better of the lot but it's still below average to me. I was disappointed in all being a fever dream. It is a good reminder that visiting the woods in the winter is dangerous and it's foolish to go there. Lucky for me it was short, only 82 mins.I wouldn't bother with this one again. Big fail for the whole 6 pack.

Airborne 2011

 

Airborne 2011 Screenplay by Paul Chronnell, directed by Dominic Burns. Part of a six pack of films from Image. I'm skipping The Frankenstein Theory because I blogged about it in 2020.

Most of the action takes place on a plane that's flying through the night from London to New York. The flight starts normal enough, it's not very full, only a dozen or so passengers. As the flight plows on one of them disappears, then another and another. Things get worse when the cabin crew are all found dead. When the plane goes off course, the air traffic control room notice and report it. Mark Hamill is in charge of the control room, at least until some secret service sorts take over. 

As the story develops we find there's a priceless vase on the plane, it's worth a $100 mill, someone wants to steal it. Unfortunately the vase contains a death god that takes over people and turns them into killers. Things turn pretty rough and most everyone is killed. One of the people left near the end turns off the autopilot and lets the plane fall into the sea. He was hoping to kill off the death god but that failed because it jumped to Mark Hamill over the radio.

The basic monster on a plane could have been decent but the script let it down. Right from the opening cliche, it's controller Mark's last day, to the monster escaping finish, it's all familiar. I doubt I'll watch this one over. So far, none of the films in this 6 film set are worth re-watching.

Chromeskull: Laid To Rest 2 2011

 

Chromeskull: Laid To Rest 2 2011 Written by Kevin Bocarde and Robert Hall, directed by Robert Hall. The third of 3 movies crammed on one disc is a 6 film 2 disc set from Image. Another one I can't say I enjoyed. A maniac serial killer slashes a couple of people who wronged him in the first film. Then there's more and more killing, none of which was of much interest. Well, all three movies on the disc were losers to me. Saves me watching them again.

Madison County 2012

 

Madison County 2012 Written and directed by Eric England. Slasher film set in hillbilly country. It's unpleasant and the same old same old. The monsters are just people, less interesting to me. Another on in the set that I won't be watching again.

Spliced 2002

 

Spliced 2002 Written by Ellen Cook and directed by Gavin Wilding.The last of the three film DVD set that they couldn't even bother naming.

A Canadian film that's also known as The Wisher. The latter title is also the title of the film within the film, it's a popular horror movie that Mary wants to see. Her father forbids her to go as she's been having issues with nightmares and sleepwalking. Her father says it's because of the horror movies.

Mary goes anyway and wishes her father would go away. He's killed on the way to the theater to pick her up. Six weeks after the funeral she starts seeing the Wisher character from the film of the same name in the real world. She makes other wishes and they come true. More people get slashed by the Wisher. Mary gets some help to fight the Wisher. It turns out to be the shy student in her class who possibly was pushed over the edge by some subliminal messages in the film.

It looks fairly nice but it's lacking a well told story. The story piles gathers up a good lot of plot elements. It sure reminds me of a whole bunch of the other films they came from, the Wisher has Freddy Kruger hands but they're made of glass instead of metal. They even copy Freddy's signature move of running his claws along a wall. You probably know the one, it's shot from behind, about butt height. It's one I wouldn't need to watch again, I should watch some of the films this borrows from, first. Not a very good DVD set when all is said and done. That's often the case for these low budget film collections.

Satan's Little Helper 2004

  

Satan's Little Helper 2004 Written and directed by Jeff Lieberman. Part of a Triple Feature 2 DVD set, this DVD is two sided, backed with Spliced, and Blood Gnome is a single disc. Jeff directed a few films, this was his first, and last, since 1995. I've seen Blue Sunshine and my comment on my Watched Movie List was "wow, crap - Z king sucks". I'd seen Squirm on an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and my comment was "Yuck".

In Satan's Little Helper a stupid 9 year old called Dougie has a fixation with a video game where he plays Satan's Little Helper. In real life some horrible guy is dressed up as a Satan like figure, he's killing the locals and using their bodies to dress up his house for Halloween. Dougie's sister has come home for Halloween and she's brought her boyfriend. Dougie isn't too happy about that, he wanted to Trick or Treat with his sister only, he stalks off in a huff, and soon after encounters the fake Satan. Dougie thinks the guy is real and he tells his new pal that he should send the boyfriend to hell. Dougie is a real creep. Satan beats the crap out of the boyfriend and dumps him in an alley.

Dougie bring Satan guy back to his house and everyone thinks he the boyfriend. Dougie and Satan guy are sent to the store for candy to give out to Trick or Treaters. Their shopping trip leaves a trail of deaduns, and still Dougie thinks it's all playing. Back at home Dougie's dad is dispatched and everyone finally realizes that it's real. They are a thick bunch at best. It gets worse and the movie ends on a cliffhanger. Annoying!

I'm thinking below average even though it had a few good moments. Not something I'd need to watch or re-watch. Hopefully I won't bother with it again.

Blood Gnome 2004

 

Blood Gnome 2004  Written and directed by John Lechago. This was John's first movie, he's made 8 total through 2020. The only other film by John I've seen is Killjoy 3. I don't remember it being anything special, I never bothered to post about it. He directed two more Killjoy films but they weren't in the multi movie set I got with the 3 Killjoy films and the first 9 of the Puppet Master series. Blood Gnome is in a three pack with a couple of other low-budget horror films.

Daniel is a police photographer, he sees something in the viewfinder of a broken video camera while photographing a murder. We see what he sees, that ugly critter in the poster, but no one else does. They think he might still be stressed from the recent murder of his wife, he'd spent a few months in an mental hospital to recuperate, now he's back to work.

Daniel meets up with a customer of the dominatrix and asks for some help. They figure out what's going on and the critters come after them. There's plenty of bondage, nudity and killing. Most of the bondage scenes turn into blood baths, especially once the flesh hungry little fellers get to chomping.

Julie Strain shows up at a naughty party and she was the only one of the cast that I knew. I'm always saddened to see her big fake breasts. They are kind of scary. It's not that good a film but I got to the end and I did like the little critters. It turned out that I had seen BG before but that was back in 2004 and I'd long forgotten anything about the film. I doubt I'll watch it again.