PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Cult Of The Cobra 1955

Cult Of The Cobra 1955 Story by Jerry Davis, screenplay by Jerry Davis, Cecil Maiden and Richard Collins, directed by Francis D Lyon. Jerry wrote 8 other movies and a lot of popular TV shows in the 50s and 60s. Richard wrote a few movies, starting in the 30s, in the early 50s he started writing a lot of TV shows, some of which I watched. He's got an uncredited writing credit on Invasion Of The Body Snatchers. Francis worked on some TV that I know I've seen, The Adventures Of Spin & Marty, Adventures In Paradise, Whispering Smith and Laramie.

 

The Second film in the Universal Horror Collection Volume 6. The Blu-ray has an interesting commentary with Tom Weaver, Steve Kronenberg, David Schecter ad Dr Robert J Kiss. There's also a trailer and a still gallery.

Left to right that's William Reynolds, Richard Long, David Janssen, Marshall Thompson and Jack Kelly. They're American soldiers who are ending their tour in an unnamed Middle Eastern city. They visit the bazaar, while watching the snake charmer one of the soldiers mentions he's heard of a cult of snake worshipers. The snake charmer says he can take them to a gathering for a hundred bucks. That's a good bit of money in the mid 40s.

They decide to go and the snake charmer warns them they must be in disguise. No one must know they are foreigners. If they are found out they will be killed by the cult. Of course one of the more stupid guys in the group, James Dobson, pulls out a camera during the snake lady's performance. The camera has a flash, everyone sees it when he snaps a shot. James grabs the snake woman's basket and bolts. The cult goes nuts, the snake charmer is stabbed to death, the priest curses the soldiers as they escape. A few blocks away from the temple they find their pal has been in a jeep accident. He dies in the hospital and the autopsy reveals he'd been poisoned by a snake. The other 5 are sent back to the US.

Little do they know as they settle into their new domestic lives that the cult has sent an assassin after them. That's Marshall, Kathleen Hughes and Richard. She dated both men before the war but now that they are back she's picked Richard.

Faith Domergue plays the cult's assassin. She moves into the apartment across the hall from Marshall. They strike up a bit of romance. Faith gets to revenging pretty quickly, she's efficient, David gets it first, bitten in his car, crash, dead. Things get pretty bad for everyone, especially Jack, he fell off the balcony of his apartment. Marshall doubts the curse theory, so do the police but we've seen the snake cam. They'll have to be pretty darn lucky to get out of this predicament.

It's a fairly good story and a decent cast. I like the way the film looks and there's a good level of jeopardy. I'd watch it again someday.

The Black Castle 1952

The Black Castle 1952 Story and Screenplay by Jerry Sackheim, directed by Nathan H Juran. The first film in the Universal Horror Collection Volume 6. Four films on 4 Blu-rays with commentaries and a few random extras.

Jerry's film before this one was The Strange Door, another odd and entertaining film. Can't say I recognize any of his previous dozen films and I don't think I've seen much of the TV he wrote in the 50s.

The Black Castle was Nathan's first film as a director, he'd been an art director on a couple of films in the 40s. He won an Oscar for How Green Was My Valley back in 1942 and a nomination for Razor's Edge in 1946. I know I haven't seen the latter but not sure on the former. I might have seen it on TV when I was a teen.

Nathan didn't win any Oscars for his film direction but he won the hearts and minds of young SF and Horror fans from the mid 50s on. In 1957 he directed The Deadly Mantis, 20 Million Miles To Earth and The Brain From Planet Arous. In 1958 he followed that with The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad and Attack Of The 50 Foot Woman. In the 60s there was Jack The Giant Killer and First Men On The Moon. There's some entertaining films there. I wish I had seen more of his crime and western films.

That's Stephen McNally, Richard Green, Rita Corday and Nancy Valentine. Richard plays Sir Ronald Burton, he's investigating the disappearance of his friends. They'd been to see Count von Bruno, played by Stephen, and disappeared. The Count has a grudge against the British after they sent African natives to attack him. He's killed Sir Ronald's pals and plans to put an end to Ronald's life.

Rita plays the Count's wife Countess Elga von Bruno and Sir Ronald plans to take her with him when he escapes the Count's clutches. John Hoyt and Michael Pate play the Count's pals and they are a scummy lot. No one will miss them when they wind up dead. Boris Karloff plays Dr Meissen, Lon Chaney Jr plays Gargon, the Count's servant.

There's plenty of scheming and running about with occasional fights and murders. I first saw the film in 2015 as part of a DVD set of Boris Karloff films. I thought it was good enough to upgrade to Blu-ray. The Shout Factory transfer is fine and there's a good commentary by Tom Weaver and a still gallery.

Friday Night Movies 910

The Iceman Cometh 1989 Written by Johnny Mak and Stephen Shiu, directed by Clarence Fok with Yuen Biao directing the action. 

Yuen Biao is a Ming Guard called Fong Sau-chingin 16th century China and Yuen Wah is a nasty villain called Feng Sen who's known to rape and murder young women. After Feng Sen murders the Princess and steals the Black Jade Buddha the Emperor is mad that Fong did not stop Feng Sen. The Emperor orders Fong executed but relents when Fong begs the Emperor for his life. Fong is given 20 days to catch the crook or he's dead and so are his relatives. 

The Black Jade Buddha is a magical item that transports Feng Sen and Fong into the future. They wind up in 1980s Kowloon. Feng Sen disappears from the movie for a while. We follow Fong as he's befriended by a prostitute called Polly, played by Maggie Chung. Polly draws him into her world but Fong's too naive at first to figure out what's going on. They spend a lot of the 114 min movie working on their relationship. It's way too much and the movie nearly drags to a stop about two thirds of the way through. It was easily one of the best sleeping aids I've encountered.

The action is pretty good when it's happening but there's a lot of deadly wait time between bouts. Feng Sen is a more interesting villain than Fong is a hero but Fong eventually defeats the baddie and returns to his time. There's a dumb "happy" ending.

I'd seen this back in 1996 but failed to comment on my watched movie list. I doubt I'd buy the new Blu-ray, I doubt I'd watch it again.

Mutant Hunt 1987 Written and directed by Tim Kincaid. Tim made a few low-budget SF and horror films in his career but mostly he's made gay porn films.

I saw this back in 2012 and the only comment on my Watched Movie List is "Crappy." I don't know where I watched the movie or what format it was on, today we watched the new Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray. While it looks nice it's still a crappy movie. Another one I won't be buying for my collection. You can watch a poor pan and scan version on YouTube but why would you.

Friday Night Movies 909

Iron Mask 2019 Screenplay by Oleg Stepchenko, Dimitry Paltserv and Alexey A Petrukin, directed by Oleg Stepchenko. A Russian Chinese co-production that's a sequel to Forbidden Empire. Starring Jason Flemyng, Jackie Chan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rutget Hauer, Helen Yao and Charles Dance.

 

Titled Тайна печати дракона in Russian, the English translation is Viy 2: Journey To China. Titled 龙牌之谜 in Chinese which translates to The Mystery Of The Dragon Seal in English. It's called The Iron Mask or just Iron Mask in the US.

Jason is a cartographer who's mapping Europe, Russia and China. Along his route he helps a young man who turns out to be a Chinese Princess. Jackie is in prison in the Tower Of London with Tzar Peter I, Arnold is the Warden, he likes a punch up, anyone who beats him can go free. The Tzar escapes and winds up on a ship with Jason's wife. They are bound for China.

The Princess returns to her town to find an evil sorceress is posing as the Princess. There's a lot of leaping about and yelling to get that set right. There's plenty of nice scenery along the journey. It's a nice production but the dialog is kind of poor. I enjoyed the movie and hope they get to release the third film. It's supposed to come out in 2022 but nothing so far.

Amityville In Space 2022 Written and directed by Mark Polonia. Mark had directed over 70 pictures in the last 37 years. From the look of this one he hasn't learned how to make a good movie yet. He seems to be following The Asylum's business plan, make low budget horror movies, make a lot of them, don't worry that they aren't very good. I thought AIS was worse than some of The Asylum's poorer pictures. Mark's a big liar too, there's nothing in the movie that looks like that poster. There is a house in space, it's been exorcised from Earth. You can see it in the trailer in the title above. It's sad looking. Most of the effects are poor.

There's a space ship filled with spacemen and women who are traveling about the galaxy blowing up black holes with bombs. They spot the house near a black hole. A strange humanoid enters the ship and gives the human's hallucinations. A priest comes to help them and some of them live to escape.

We were joking about while watching, there was a complaint that I thought was quite valid, the film makers don't seem to take any steps, even baby ones, to make their movie better. We were coming up with all sorts of ways to improve scenes and ways that wouldn't increase the budget. Is Mark lacking imagination? Could be. I think he just didn't bother. I wouldn't bother watching the film again.

Friday Night Movies 908

Summer Of 84 2018 Written by Matt Leslie and Stephen J Smith, directed by François Simard, Anouk Whissell and Yoann-Karl Whissell. The 3 directors are the same three that wrote and directed the 2015 film Turbo Kid. I enjoyed that film more than this one, mostly because I'm not much interested in a serial killer story.

A 15 year old named Davey decides that the policeman who lives across the street from his family's house is the Cape May Slayer. The killer had written to the local newspaper confessing to the 15 previous killings. Davey sees some clues that lead him to believe the cop is the killer and he's convincing enough to get his three friends to help him investigate. Turns out Davey was right. That knowledge puts him and his gang in great jeopardy, especially once Davey's father, an incredible asshole, spills the beans to the cop. There's no happy ending for Davey once the cop is outed, he escapes the police dragnet, stopping briefly to threaten Davey with the promise of a return visit for a bit of revenge.

It's well made but the story isn't the sort of horror film I like. It's not something I'd bother with again.

Daughters Of Satan 1972 Story by John A Bushelman, screenplay by John C Higgins, directed by Hollingsworth Morse. I didn't recognize the title but I had seen it back in 2010. It didn't look familiar while we were watching it.

Tom Selleck is a museum curator in Manila. He sees a painting in a shop, it depicts three witches being burned at the stake, Tom notices the witch in the middle looks a lot like his wife Chris. He buys the painting and brings it home, Chris doesn't like it but somehow knows the name of the coven and the day they were burned at the stake. 

The painting is a cursed magical thing that allows the long dead witches a chance to take over the bodies of living women. When the witch possesses Chris her image in the painting disappears. Two other women are possessed and the reformed coven team up to get some revenge on the magistrate who ordered them burnt at the stake. That guy's long dead. No matter, the witches don't mind killing the relatives of their oppressors. Tom's that relative and it doesn't go well for him during the movie.

It's not much of a movie, it's struggling to get to average, I gave it a generous five. I doubt I'd need to see it a third time.

Jungle Captive 1945

Jungle Captive 1945 Screenplay by Dwight V Babcock and M Coates Webster, direction by Harold Young. The third and last film in the Cheela, the ape woman trilogy. The year before this film Harold Young directed the live action scenes for Disney's The Three Caballeros, a couple of years before that he directed The Mummy's Tomb. In 1934 he directed the Leslie Howard film The Scarlet Pimpernel. I haven't seen much of his other work.

Dwight V Babcock wrote about 20 other films and even more TV. I've seen several of the films he's penned: The Mummy's Curse, House Of Dracula, She-Wolf Of London, The Unknown and last Rondo Hatton film The Brute Man. I can't say I've seen much of his TV work. M Coates Webster also co-wrote The Brute Man with Babcock. I can't say I recognize any of his other titles.

This time it's Otto Kruger playing the mad scientist. This one's not an actual doctor but that doesn't stop him from all sorts of shenanigans. That's Amelita Ward in the car with Otto. Amelita plays Ann, the Otto's assistant. Otto's already restoring life to dead rabbits but he wants a bigger more advanced carcass to revive. He sends his man Morloch to the morgue to collect the body of the recently dead ape woman.

Rondo Hatton plays Morloch. He's a rather simple guy who doesn't mind a bit of murder to get what he wants. He strangles the morgue attendant to get the ape woman. Back at Otto's secret lab the mad scientist revives the ape woman and shortly after she turns into Paula Dupree. Otto kidnaps his assistant Ann, played by Amelita, to get some blood from her. Poor Moloch has feelings for her despite her liking Don.

That's Vicky Lane playing Paula. Phil Brown plays Ann's boyfriend Don and the doctor's other assistant. He comes to Ann's rescue but is caught by Moloch. Paula escapes and Don frees himself while the mads are off looking for her. Don rescues Ann but they get caught on the way out of the secret lab. Moloch tries to stop Otto from killing Ann with his experiment and gets a bullet in the gut. Otto experiences a crushing defeat when Paula turns back into a beast. Don and Ann are saved when the police arrive.

I thought it was the weakest of the trio but still enjoyed it. Mostly for Rondo and his mad scientist pal. I'm glad they put these out in nice editions, so I can see all the films in the series. I did like the commentary by Scott Gallinghouse, he had lots of stories to tell.

Jungle Woman 1944

Jungle Woman 1944 Story by Henry Sucher, screenplay by Bernard L Schubert, Henry Sucher and Edward Dein, directed by Reginald LeBorg. The sequel to Captive Wild Women cobbled together new footage and flashbacks from the first movie. It's the third film in the 5th volume of the Universal Horror Collection. Each film gets it's own Blu-ray disc. There's a commentary by Gregory William Mank and a still gallery by way of extras. Acquanetta returns as Cheela the Ape Woman despite being shot in the last film. Acquanetta doesn't return for the third film in the trilogy.

The story starts shortly after the first movie ends. A Doctor Fletcher is at an inquest into the death a young woman. He tells how he got to the state he's in. He'd been at the circus the night of the big storm from the first movie and seen the gorilla shot. Somehow he acquires the caress, finding a faint heartbeat, he revives the creature. Fletcher learns more about the experiments that mad scientist John Carradine was up to, he then buys all of John's equipment and sets the lab up in his sanitarium.

Cheela turns back into a young woman called Paula, this time she can speak. Fletcher's daughter Joan and her fiance Bob come for a visit. Paula get jealous and tries to drown Joan. The big guy in the lobby card above is Willie, he disappears that day. A dog and some chicken are killed, crushed, and Willie's suspected. We know he didn't do it and a bit later Willie would be found dead in the woods.

That's Paula and Bob with another doctor. This doctor thinks she's a bit mentally unstable, he also notices that she's very strong. Doctor Fletch discovers that the fingerprints from Paula and Cheela are the same. Bob and Paula return to the sanitarium. Bob tells Paula that he's going to marry Joan. Paula runs off. Fletcher gets attacked by Paula and he gives her a fatal dose of sedative. The movie ends with a shot of Paula being pulled out of the coroner's freezer and everyone seeing she's reverted to a partial gorilla state.

I didn't think it was as entertaining as the first in the series. The commentary by Gregory Mank had a good bit of info to take in. Turns out Acquanetta was really a black woman called Mildred Davenport who was passing as white. . She made a few more movies and dropped out of Hollywood. Mank covers a good bit of her life post-Hollywood. The commentary is more entertaining than the movie. It's certainly one of the poorer films in the series.

Captive Wild Woman 1943

Captive Wild Woman 1943 Screenplay by Griffin Jay and Henry Sucher, directed by Edward Dmytryk. A Universal picture it was followed by 2 sequels Jungle Woman and The Jungle Captive. All three films are collected in the 5th volume of the Universal Horror Collection along with The Monster And The Girl. Each film gets it's own disc and a commentary, a couple of the films get a trailer, and all have new 2K transfers. I wouldn't recommend the series for everyone but the Universal Monsters are favorites of mine and I was happy to pick the sets up. This post is an update of a post I did last year when we watched the movie at a Friday Night Movie Night.

John Carradine is a doctor scientist who's working with glands as a method of curing deformities. He takes an opportunity to steal a gorilla and turn it onto Acquanetta. John has to kill someone to get the glands to transplant in the gorilla and he's the sort of doctor who doesn't see a problem with that.

Mildred Davenport is Acquanetta's real name, she appeared in 10 movies between 1942 and 1953. She didn't appear in another production until she guested on The Adventures Of Grizzly Adams in 1990.

Milburn Stone is a big game hunter and lion tamer, he's supplies the lions and tigers for Lloyd Corrigan's circus. He's the one who captured the gorilla. Evelyn Ankers is Lloyd's secretary and Milburn's gal. Martha Vickers is Evelyn's sister, she's getting some curing at John's clinic. Clyde Beatty does Milburn's lion taming scenes via footage from The Big Cage and Ray "Crash" Corrigan plays the gorilla.

I thought it was entertaining but I found the circus lion taming scenes to drag a bit. I guess I'm just not that interested in lion taming. Seems unnecessarily dangerous and nothing good for the cats. The movie looks nice.

The commentary by Tom Weaver has some comments from a man who's knowledgeable about lion taming. Clyde used to dominate the cats with a chair, a whip and a gun. Now they use treats. Still dangerous. Weaver's commentary features words from the gal that plays the gorilla as a human, Acquanetta, they were recorded by an actress from a printed interview in a horror magazine. She had some interesting stuff to say and some stuff I would take with a grain of salt. She sounds very new agey to me. Weaver had enough other stuff to say to keep it interesting.

Basket Case The Trilogy

Basket Case The Trilogy

I ordered the Second Sight Blu-ray in August 2020 and I'm finally getting around to it. Second Sight is a UK company but the set is region free and all 3 films have their own disc. I liked all three films with I first saw them.

Basket Case 1982 Written and directed by Frank Henelotter.

Kevin Van Hentenryck plays Duane Bradley, a young man who had a conjoined twin called Belial. They were separated when they were in their early teens, Belial survived and the twin went to live with their Aunt. She died and the twins set out to kill the doctors that separated them. There's three of them and Duane is successful in his endeavor but he creates a big mess and falls off a building.

There's a lot of mayhem and murder in the film, it's all balanced out by a good dose of humor. There's plenty of odd characters and 42nd Street plays a big part in the film. Not for everybody but I still like it after quite a few viewings.

Basket Case 2 1990 Written and directed by Frank Henelotter.

The story picks up with Duane and Belial in a hospital. They are rescued by a woman called Granny Ruth. She's got a nice big house and it's filled with a large number of deformed people. Belial finds a girlfriend while Duane thinks he should be allowed to go off and lead a normal life. He wants the one woman in the house who seems normal to go with him but Granny Ruth's granddaughter Susan isn't willing to leave the group.

Duane and Belial are wanted by the police for all the murders and things get dicey when a snoopy reporter and her photographer spot Duane in the house. The deformed people fight back and the snoopers come to a gory end. Duane gets nuttier and nuttier, especially when he nearly has sex with Susan. The movie ends with Duane killing Susan and then trying to sew Belial back on his body.

It's somewhat sillier than the first movie while still providing plenty of laughs and gooey content.

Basket Case 3 The Progeny 1991 Written by Frank Henenlotter and Robert Martin, directed by Frank Henenlotter.

Some time has past and Duane has been locked in a padded room in Granny Ruth's house. She finally lets him out as the group are going to take a road trip to visit her ex-husband Hal. Belial has gotten his girlfriend pregnant and she wants some help with the birth. Once they get to Hal's house things go downhill pretty quickly. Duane escapes the house and Belial attacks Hal. Duane gets arrested and the cops want the million dollar reward for for the capture of the brothers. Things go bad for the cops when they get involved, many of them die.

Even more gore and mayhem in this one. More laughs too.

It would be 17 years before Frank made another movie.

Bonus Features A mix of older extras from the US DVD and some new stuff. The commentary and the new docu were the most entertaining extras for me.

What's in the basket? A new 79 min docu with director Frank Henenlotter; actors Kevin VanHentenryck, Beverly Bonner, Annie Ross; producers Edgar Ievans and James Glickenhaus; make-up effects artists John Caglione Jr, Kevin Haney, Gabe Bartalos and writer Uncle Bob Martin.

Interview With Graham Humphreys A new interview with the artist who did the cover to the Second Sight Blu-ray set.

Everything below came from the US DVD:

Video introduction by Frank Henelotter

Audio commentary by director Frank Henenlotter, producer Edgar Ievins, and actress Beverly Bonner

Outtakes / Behind-The-Scenes

In Search Of The Hotel Broslin Frank and a pal wonder around New York looking at the places where they filmed the movie.

Trailers / Radio Spots

Photo Gallery: Behind-The-Scenes, Promotional Material, Stills

Grizzly 1976

Grizzly 1976 Written by Harvey Flaxman and David Shelton, directed by William Girdler and David Shelton. The poster says the bear is 18 feet, in the movie the bear is said to be 15 feet tall, the bear in the film is called Teddy and he's 11 feet tall. Still massive, they don't call them Ursus arctos horribilis for nothing. Teddy, Christopher George and and Richard Jaeckel were in the 1977 film Day Of The Animals together. It's a similar story to this film.

Christopher George is a park ranger where the grizzly decides to pick up lunch. There aren't supposed to be any grizzlies in the area, they were all wiped out by the locals a long while ago. Andrew Prine is a helicopter pilot who had a bad time in Vietnam. Richard Jaeckel is a naturist who studies the forest and provides the park staff with bear info. The local black bears aren't much of a problem but they like to know where they are and what they're up to anyway.

The grizzly starts slaughtering from the get go and he's eating the victims. He chomps on a smorgasbord of campers, hikers and hunters, man, woman and child. Christopher wants more help to hunt the bear. Rather than get more rangers or qualified help his boss lets the press in for a look around. He doesn't close the park right away. Then he lets a gaggle of hunters in, hoping they'll get the bear. That doesn't work out so well, many more are killed.

There's a lot of forest activity, it was filmed in Georgia and the area seems nice enough. I wouldn't care to go camping but I'd drive thought if I was nearby and younger. The campers there seem to like it, until the bear ravages them in their campsite. There's a fair body count and a lot of blood being splashed around. The gore makeup is of mixed quality, often fairly decent. Some of the grizzly interaction scenes aren't that well shot but the mechanical bear looked fairly good. Sadly the bears paws change from black to brown on occasion.

Despite the weaknesses the film did fairly well at the box office. The $750,000 cost turned a nice $39 million. It was the most financially successful Indy film of the year. I enjoyed it but only gave it a 5 on the IMDb where it has a 5.2 average. I watched it on YouTube, it's a fairly decent copy, here's the link.