PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Burial Ground: The Nights Of Terror 1981

 

Burial Ground: The Nights Of Terror is a 1981 Italian zombie romp that popped up on YouTube today. I hadn't seen it before, turns out it's pretty poor. Some dopey citizens come visit Professor Ayres in his villa. They don't know that earlier in the film he'd been attacked by zombies he'd accidentally freed from their tomb. They spend the film in small talk until the killing starts, then it's run about getting picked off one by one. I didn't like any of the people much and didn't care that they got killed. The zombies have shitty make up but they manage to get the upper hand shambling along as they do. These are some non-surviving fucks, that's for sure. It's a bit gory it doesn't make the story better. I wouldn't watch it again. Can't recommend it, other than to the zombie fan.

Dr Benderfax 1997

Dr Benderfax is a 1997 mad scientist comedy that was written and directed by Tom Hosler. It's his only movie and he has 11 total credits for it on the IMDb. I saw it on Amazon Prime and it follows a lot of the MS themes. Older MS onto a new process at his lab, young scientist coming to work for the MS because he admires the man's work, a bit of romance for the YS and a bit of rumpy-pumpy for the MS's assistant. Everything falls apart along the way and some poor saps get killed. Nothing was overly clever but there were a few good jokes in among the yakkin'. I wouldn't need to see it again or have a copy.

Friday Night Movies 775

First up is the 1995 SF horror film Xtro 3: Watch The Skies. We watched the new Blu-ray, there were two previous DVD releases but the last one was 15 years ago. It's got a script by Daryl Haney and direction is by Harry Bromley Davenport. It's a British film and it seems to have nothing to do with the other two films. This one takes place mostly on an island off the coast of the US. Even though it's only 200 miles from shore it's supposed to be forgotten about or some such nonsense.

Robert Culp appears briefly as the General that sends the marines to the island. He tells them that there had been a munitions dump there during WW2. They  need the marines to sweep the island for forgotten bombs and other explosives so they can build a refueling station there. The marines are a mixed bag and hardly marine material. Still, they're really just there to get picked off one by one once one of the more useless marines accidentally lets the alien gets out of his concrete block house. Then it's all yelling and rushing about in the woods.

It's the least interesting of the series and should have been included with the other two in a three pack. Hardly worth buying when it's just so mediocre. You can see for yourself by clicking on the link in the title.

I hadn't remembered seeing Ninja Apocalypse before and had to sit through it again. Me so sad. Here's what I said just shy of two years ago.

Ninja Apocalypse is a 2014 post apocalypse movie that people are saying is a ripoff of The Warriors. They've certainly used that script as a template, big rally, assassination of the leader, blame the Lost Clan, chase them to their home base. It all takes place underground but it's the same idea, just with swords and some magical ninja powers. Sadly, it's nowhere near as good as The Warriors. Watch that instead. It's so much better. More fantasy than SF.

It didn't get any better the second time.

The Strange Door 1951

The Strange Door is a 1951 adaptation of the Robert Louis Stevenson story The Sire De Maletroit's Door. Jerry Sackheim wrote the screenplay and Joseph Pevney directed. The year after this movie Jerry Sackheim wrote the excellent film The Black Castle. I didn't recognize any of his earlier films but I have seen his 1960 movie The Boy And The Pirates and enjoyed it. He wrote some good bit of TV, shows like My Friend Flicka, Lassie, The New Adventures Of Charlie Chan, Science Fiction Theater and Death Valley Days.

Joseph Pevney started in films in 1950 and switched over to TV by 1961. I've hardly seen any of his movies but I've seen a bunch of his TV. He worked on many popular shows from the 60s to the 80s.

In The Strange Door Charles Laughton is Sire Alain de Maletroit and Boris Karloff is his downtrodden servant Voltan. Sally Forrest is Sire Alain's niece Blanche and Richard Wyler (credited as Richard Stapley) is Denis de Beaulieu. Denis is on the run from a mob, they've been tricked by Alain to believe Denis has killed a man. Denis hides in Alain's chateau, not knowing the man is a monster.

Once there Alain intends to force Denis to marry Blanche. It's part of his messed up plan of vengeance on his young brother Edmond. Alan Napier plays Edmond, who's been trapped in the dungeon's for twenty years.

Luckily it's the kind of movie where the baddy doesn't get what he wants. I found it moody and entertaining and thought it was better than average. The Blu-ray looks very nice, I was happy to have picked it up and would watch it again. I enjoyed the Commentary by Film Historians Tom Weaver, David Schecter and Dr. Robert J Kiss.

Horrors Of The Black Museum 1959

Horrors Of The Black Museum is a 1959 British American horror film. Herman Cohen and Aben Kandel wrote the original story and the screenplay, Arthur Crabtree was the director. While Herman was mostly a producer of B films, he did pen several that I've seen, I Was A Teenage Werewolf, How To Make A Monster, The Headless Ghost, I Was A Teenage Werewolf, Konga, Berzerk and Craze. No real gems there, but somewhat entertaining in their way. Aben started writing films in 1932 but only a couple of titles are familiar. He did some TV in the early 50s and then he started working with Herman on a bunch of pictures.

Arthur Crabtree directed 16 movies between 1945 and 1959, this was the last. I'm betting his most beloved film among 50s SF and horror fans would be the 1958 film Fiend Without A Face. It's a darn good one. Arthur directed 12 episodes of the 1958 Roger Moore TV show Ivanhoe. I remember liking that show when I was a kid but the few I've seen in recent years just weren't as entertaining to the older me.

A woman is killed with a pair of trick binoculars, spikes pierced her eyes when she used them. Michael Gough is a crime writer and journalist, he stops in at the police station to have a look at the murder weapon. That's Michael on the right. On the left is Geoffrey Keen, he's Superintendent Graham, the other fellow is John Warwick, he's Inspector Lodge. Long term Brit film fans will know Geoffrey, he's has been in way too many movies and TV shows to mention. John was an Australian fellow who was in the holy grail of TV shows for me, he was a copper in 4 episodes of The Flying Doctor.

Michael has a secret museum of weapons and torture devices in his basement. Michael has an assistant called Rick. Michael is a bat shit crazy murderer.

It's a fairly good film with interesting stuff going on. It's moody and a bit creepy. Good actors with a good script, and plenty of nice locations, sets and props. I thought it was worth a look when I was done. I picked up a DVD and will want to watch it again.

You can try it out on YouTube here, sadly some guys blather on at the start, the middle, and at the end of the picture. You can fast forward them or listen. If you are watching a YouTube video you can use the left and right keyboard arrows to jump ahead, or back, 5 seconds at a time. It doesn't work during the ads.

Bigfoot Wars 2014

I watched Bigfoot Wars tonight. Not so good. C Thomas Howell battles Bigfoot and loses. A tribe of the human eating monsters sets up a camp in the woods near town. The hairy bastards kill people and eat them. They seem to prefer young women. The beasts grab the sheriff's daughter and C Thomas joins him and a deputy to look for her. There's plenty of traipsing through the woods and lots of yelling. There's a fair bit of gore and a brief bare bum at the start. The dialog is strictly get the job done quality. The actors a mixed bag, at least the ladies can get a scream up. I feel I wasted my $3.95 plus shipping and tax. I got the DVD at Hamilton Book. They have quite a number of DVDs and always get a few hundred new each month. They get some absolute shit sometimes. I buy it, now I have it, and sadly I'll do it again.

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Fantômas Unleashed is the 1965 sequel to Fantômas, it's French, where it's called Fantômas se déchaîne. The story starts in France and then the action moves to Italy. Plenty of nice city and country scenery. André Hunebelle and Haroun Tazieff are co-directors, Jean Halain and Pierre Foucard wrote the script. André also directed three of the OSS 117 series.

All the main cast is back from the first movie, Jean Marais plays the reporter Fandor, the supervillain Fantômas and Professor Lefèvre, Louis de Funès plays Police Commissaire Juve, Mylene Demongeot plays Fandor's girlfriend Hélène Gurn, Jacques Dynam plays Juve's assistant Bertrand. The young boy in the picture is Olivier de Funès, the real life son of Louis de Funès, he plays Hélène's brother.

Fantômas is kidnapping scientists and he has an eye on Professor Lefèvre who  has a machine to control people. Juve and Bertrand are on the case and Fandor has a plan to substitute himself for the real Professor Lefèvre. There's plenty of people disguising themselves. Some of the makeup works better than others. Juve also has some new crime fighting weapons that mostly add a few laughs. The movie seems be be more comical than the first in the series but I didn't find it a problem, I like a bit of slapstick.

There's plenty of activity and I found that entertaining. Nice scenery, costumes and sets. The villain's lair was even grander than the previous film's lair. I'm happy with the set so far, I'll certainly want to watch them again.

The Dead Don't Die is a 2019 Jim Jarmusch film about the zombie apocalypse. He wrote and directed. All the action takes place in the small town of Centerville. I enjoyed Bill Murray in this quite a bit, same with Danny Glover, the rest of the cast were no slouches either. Bill Murray, Adam Driver and Chloë Sevigny are the police, Tom Waits, Caleb Landry Jones, Steve Buscemi, Danny Glover, Tilda Swinton, Carol Kane, Larry Fassenden are among the locals, the RZA is the WU-PS driver, Rozie Perez is a TV newscaster, Iggy Pop is a zombie with a taste for coffee, Selena Gomez is a victim.

There's much going on in the story, murder, polar fracking, the earth shifting on it's axis, animals disappearing from houses and farms, zombies, popular culture commentary, all this is told to us from the local's conversations and new sources. As the endless day progresses there are murders, Bill and Adam find an open grave, zombies become more plentiful. So plentiful that hardly anyone survives their attacks. Sad, because they are the slow moving kind, just run the fuck away. There's not that much gore and what there is, is rather toned down, often there's a quick cutaway to a reaction shot.

It wasn't a popular movie, it struggles to get a 5.5 on the IMDb, and that's with almost 30K votes. The comments on the IMDb are often harsh but I enjoyed the droll take on the genre. If there's something that's being beaten to death in the horror genre, it's zombies. They're so mainstream, grandma's like them, country singers sing about them. The movie didn't make me a fan of country singer Sturgill Simpson, he sang the opening title song.

It made some money but it was a pretty cheap movie, $2.5 mil with a $14.4 mil return. There's a fair number of jokes, some big and some small. Generally it's all low key and slow moving. The living have as little urgency as the dead. It's self referential, maybe that was a problem for some people, maybe it was the slow pace, the complaints on the IMDb are all over the place, some make little sense. All I know is I'd like to see it again and hope to pick up a copy at some point. It's pricey now but it'll be under 10 bucks in a year or two, I can wait.

The Crazies 2010

The Crazies is the 2010 remake of the 1973 film of the same name by George Romero. This new version is written by Scott Kosar and Ray Wright, the director is Breck Eisner. the son of Brett Eisner. I'd seen is 2005 film Sahara and thought it was fun enough to pick up a copy when it turned up cheap at the used store. I also liked The Last Witch Hunter, a 2015 Vin Diesel film.

Timothy Olyphant stars as the sheriff of the poor town that has been poisoned by a toxin that turns people into crazy killers. It came from a crashed plane and soon soldiers come to kill all the infected and quarantine the town. It all turns to shit as the infected break out of the town.

I didn't think it was much more than an average infected town sort of film. I'll keep the cheap copy that I found at HPB and might watch it again someday. I should re-watch the original sometime before then.

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Our first movie is Killer Crocodile, a 1989 horror film featuring a giant crocodile. It's Italian and it's filmed in the Dominican Republic. Fabrizio De Angelis is the director and he wrote the script with Dardano Sacchetti. Fabrizio uses the name Larry Ludman in the film's credits. We watched a nice looking Blu-ray. Turns out I had seen the movie back in 1997 but I had forgotten most of it so it was almost new.

Anthony Crenna is one of a group of Eco-warriors visiting Dominican Republic, they are looking for a reason that the local waterway is poisonous. Van Johnson is the Mayor and Bill Wohrman is a villainous American who's dumping radioactive waste in the swamp. That crap makes a croc a giant man munching prick who slaughters the group one by one. Van hires a local hunter to blast the croc, he doesn't do so well and it's up to Anthony to do the big beastie some harm. Anthony is the son of Richard Crenna.

I laughed a lot but the movie is hardly a comedy. Some of the acting isn't that good but the giant crocodile is fairly descent. Sadly it doesn't have enough onscreen chomping action. They cut away on several scenes just as the croc gets up close. There was a big laugh in the room when the beastie got done in. I wouldn't need to pick up one for me. The Blu-ray has the sequel and we are contemplating that for next week. No one wanted to double dip.

The Vineyard also came out in 1989. James Hong stars in, co-wrote and co-directed this goofy low-budget horror movie. James has a problem, he needs blood to keep alive. He's got a dungeon filled with people chained up, ready to draw a pint or two. He's also got some zombies buried in the woods near his island home. He lures some idiot actors to his island, they think he's going to hire them for a movie, he just wants their blood and he doesn't care if they live or die. He's a dick alright. That's James in his lab in the photo below.

Robert Ito pops up in a short scene, Michael Wong plays one of the people who've come to visit. I didn't recognize anyone else from the cast. It's about average and more fun than the crocodile movie. I don't think I need a copy. I might never get back to it.

Big Legend 2018

Big Legend is a 2018 Bigfoot movie. A guy and his girlfriend go camping and she's taken by Bigfoot. We jump a year and the guy is getting out of a mental institution. He packs up some guns and heads back to the woods. Sure enough Bigfoot is still there and still a murderous prick who will eat you. The guy meets up with another guy who fills him in on some background on Bigfoot. The area is posted with markers that were nailed to the trees by the ancient locals. They mean don't go in that part of the woods. They do.

It's a man monster slugfest with plenty of running in the woods and some gory bits. I found I enjoyed it more than some of the other Bigfoot movies I've seen recently. It's not Abominable good but I don't feel bad for paying 4 bucks for it. I'd watch it again.

Big Legend is written and directed by Justin Lee. This was his first feature, one of four that came out in 2018, he had directed some TV and a few shorts before this. He's only had one movie out this year but another has been completed and another's in post production. I haven't seen any of his other work. I thought he did a good job and delivered a good solid film.

Kevin Makely plays the guy, he's a more likeable guy than you find in many a horror movie. Adrienne Barbeau has a small part as Kevin's mom. Todd A Robinson plays the other guy in the woods and Skotty Masgai plays The Beast. That's how he's credited in the film. Lance Henriksen plays a guy who shows up at the end of the movie, he's putting together a team to hunt monsters and he wants to know if Kevin will want to join him. Be nice to see some more monster hunting.