PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Re-Elected 2020

Re-Elected 2020 Written by Eric Looney and Max Radbill, directed by Max Radbill. I caught this on Amazon Prime, free with membership.

It's a cabin in the woods with zombies film. Some 20 somethings visit the family cabin and the stupid half brother releases three zombies when he reads a cursed copy of the Declaration of Independence. A zombie Washington, Lincoln and Jackson come looking to destroy the document and take over the country. The film is very Evil Dead like but without the talent of Sam Raimi behind the wheel. It's filled with dumb jokes that weren't making me laugh. If I was mean spirited I would say it was poor as fuck. I gave it a 1 on the IMDb. I won't need to see it again. Hopefully I'll forget about it soon.

House Of Horrors 1946

House Of Horrors 1946 Story by Dwight V Babcock, screenplay by George Bricker, directed by Jean Yarbrough. The last film in the 4th volume of the Universal Horror Collection. It's got a commentary by Scott Gallinghouse. He wrote a book on Rondo Hatton. Rondo made a fair number of films, mostly small uncredited parts, starting with the 1927 Uncle Tom's Cabin where he played an uncredited slave. Rondo had acromegaly and it killed him shortly after he shot this film and The Brute Man. Gallinghouse's commentary was entertaining and covered a lot of Rondo's life and a good bit on the film.

Martin Kosleck is a sculpture. He's not having a good career, his art isn't that interesting and a critic lets him know in no uncertain terms. Poor Martin can't pay his rent. On the way to kill himself he winds up saving Rondo from the river. He takes Rondo back to his apartment and offers him a place to stay. He doesn't know that Rondo is The Creeper, a murderer who escaped from the police. Rondo doesn't say anything but he appreciates Martin's help. The Creeper goes out when Martin's asleep and kills the people Martin thinks have done him wrong. Nothing good is coming from that.

Martin is fascinated with The Creeper's face and he believes his sculpture is the best work he's done. It will lead the police there and everything ends badly for Martin. The Creeper escapes so he can star in The Brute Man.

I enjoyed this better than The Climax. It's got a good villain and a fairly good story. Done with volume 4, onto box 5 soon.

The Climax 1944

The Climax 1944 Very loosely based on the 1909 play of the same name by Edward Locke, adapted by Curt Siodmak, screenplay by Curt Siodmak and Lynn Starling, directed by George Waggner.

This is the 3rd movie on the Universal Horror Collection Volume 4. It's a 4 Blu-ray set with a commentary for each film. This one is by Kim Newman and Stephen Jones. It's fairly interesting and more entertaining and informative than the previous two commentaries in the set.

Boris plays a doctor who's in love with an opera singer. That's Boris with Susanna Foster, she plays the singer. She's got good reason to look like that. Being with Boris is not anything healthy and she doesn't even know he killed his previous fiance, who now resides in a coffin is a secret room in his big house.

 

Turhan Bey is also in love with Susanna. Boris uses hypnotism on Susanna so she'll only sing for him. Lucky for her Turhan comes to the rescue. It's a bit more melodrama than horror and it's a rather slow film. It's not overly exciting and there is a lot of opera. It's in color, it was Karloff's first color film, the Blu-ray looks very nice. I liked it better this watching, I'd last seen it in 2008 at a Friday Night Movie night.

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Scared To Death 1980 Story by William Malone and Robert Short, screenplay and direction by William Malone. Malone started doing makeup and costuming for Don Post Studios. This is his first picture, he'd go on to direct Creature in 1985 and 5 other pictures including the 1999 remake of House On Haunted Hill. He hasn't made a film since 2008.

There's a serial killer stalking the streets of Los Angeles. When we drop into the story about the time of victim number 12's murder. The police aren't getting any good clues from the crime scenes, the mayor and the newspapers are hounding the Chief. Detective Lou Capell gets some pressure from his boss. Lou wants to bring an ex-cop into the mix but the Chief is against it. The ex-cop is a guy called Ted, he had a drinking problem and now writes novels.

In a clumsy, poorly written scene we meet Jennifer, she's Ted's romantic interest. They get involved with each other as the movie progresses, eventually they join Lou in the search for the killer. Sometime along the way we learn that it's some sort of humanoid monster doing the killing. They get a substantial bit of help from one of the scientist's at a bio-lab and it's revealed that the creature is a bio-engineered thing called a Syngenor. It's one of those hard to kill warrior beasts scientist's are always making in movies and it takes a bit to put the creature down.

It would be an OK monster movie except for two big stumbling blocks, the script and the music. The script is poor and the actors can't do much with it. The actors aren't a stellar lot but they get their lines out. The music is annoying and way too loud some of the time. The Syngenor creature is a fairly well made suit. Ten years later another producer used the suit for his picture Syngenor. Like Scared To Death it's kind of a poor film. Both films have a score of 4.2 on the IMDb. I gave Syngenor a 3 some years ago and I gave Scared To Death a 4 last night. I must be getting soft headed in my old age. You can check them both out on YouTube, links above.

Last Night In Soho 2021 Story by Edgar Wright, screenplay by Edgar Wright and Krysty Wilson-Caims, directed by Edgar Wright. It was the last film for Diana Rigg and Margaret Nolan, both of whom passed away in 2020. Margaret played the gold covered woman in the credits to Goldfinger and Diana played Mrs Peel.

Ellie Turner leaves Cornwall for London to attend the London College Of Fashion. She wants to be a clothing designer. She's heavily into 60s style and music. Her roommate is a jerk so she leaves the dorm and takes a small flat on the top of an old house owned by Ms Collins, played by Diana Rigg. Ms Collins is old enough to have lived in the 60s.

Ellie starts having visions of a young woman from the 60s called Sandie who wanted to be a singer but wound up in the clutches of a creep called Jack. Matt Smith plays Jack and he makes a good spiv. In his first scenes Jack seems like a nice guy who likes a bit of fun, soon his darker exploitative side takes control. Next thing you know Sophie is a prostitute working for Jack and his pals.

Ellie follows Sandie's life and finds that she lived int he flat Ellie is in now. She sees Jack murder Sandie there but can't find anything about the murder in the newspapers. She does find there have been a lot of missing men in the Soho area. We'll find out where they've gone soon enough. Ellie's a poor detective, she misreads what's presented to her, at one point she accuses an old bar fly of being Jack but she soon finds out he was a copper who tried to help some of the local gals. If only she had talked to more people about what was going on, she might not have gotten so far off the track.

The story is jazzed up with flashy camera work and musical numbers. I did like the old 60s songs in the soundtrack. I knew most of them from my youth. I didn't care for the noisy music when the movie thought something was happening. It seems overly long, repetitive and kind of self indulgent. There's a decent twisty bit at the end and things work out for Ellie at fashion school.

I still enjoyed it, gave it a 7 on the IMDb and have put the Blu-ray on my Wishlist. It's hard to know if you would like it, it did poorly at the box office, raising $23 mil on a $43 mil budget.

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Grave Secrets 1989 Story by Jeffrey Polman, screenplay by Jeffrey Polman and Lenore Wright, directed by Donald P Borchers.

Paul Le Mat is a professor of the paranormal. Renee Soutendijk is a woman with a haunted B&B in the country. She hires Paul to investigate her haunting. After a rough start he does see some manifestations. It gets more and more serious and people are attacked by the evil headless ghost. Lee Ving plays a local lout who has his eyes on Renee but she's not interested in him. Trying to get close to her is going to get him killed. David Warner is another paranormal investigator, Paul asks him to come visit once he knows there's something going on. David gets possessed by the ghost and the evil rapey daddy story comes to light. Eventually they beat the ghost and the movie ends.

I didn't think much of it. I didn't buy Paul as a professor and his wardrobe left a lot to be desired. I can't say I've ever been a fan of Mat's work. There's a poor script with a poor ending and not much by way of humor. There's nothing too exciting on the screen until nearly the end of the film. At times the camera pans off the murderin' and we miss some violence that was just about to happen. That's sad, even for 1989, horror fans don't care much for that sort of nonsense. I can see why it's been voted a 4.5 on the IMDb. Seventy five percent of the votes are a 5 or below. I wouldn't need to see it again. If you want to take a chance you can see a poor copy on YouTube. We watched the new Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray with a nice picture and good sound. I don't plan to buy one now that I've seen it.

Tiger Claws 1991 Written by J Stephen Maunder and directed by Kelly Makin. An American film that is set in New York City but made in Toronto. Canadian director Kelly Makin has a connection to The Kids In The Hall, he directed some episodes of the TV series and their movie Brain Candy. Sadly he's not the best action director. His comedy background seems apparent in some scenes in Tiger Claws. Is he trying to poke fun at the genre? Who knows.

Tiger Claws is part of a new set from Vinegar Syndrome that has all 3 of the films in the series on 2 Blu-rays. You can see a 1080p copy on YouTube, a well as Tiger Claws 2 and Tiger Claws 3.

There's a guy killing martial artists with his special Tiger Claw kung fu. Cynthia Rothrock and Jalal Merhi are mismatched headstrong cops who have to work together to catch the killer. Bolo Yeung plays the baddie. Cynthia and Jalal dig into the secret world of Tiger Claw kung fu. There's plenty of martial arts going on but some of it was sure lackluster. Kung fu movies made in the west often lack in the fighting department. There's plenty of cop talk and some personal drama to get past.

When it was all done I thought it was about average, I gave it a 5 on the IMDb, a lot more people gave it a 6 than a 5. I might have given it a 6 but it was the long winded training sequences that brought the score down for me.

Dan Curtis' Dracula 1974

Dan Curtis' Dracula 1974 A CBS TV Movie that loosely adapts Bram Stoker's novel, screenplay by Richard Matheson, directed by Dan Curtis. It was filmed in Yugoslavia and England. Simon Ward, Nigel Davenport and Fiona Lewis are among the English cast.

Jack Palance plays Dracula, he'd worked with Dan Curtis on the 1968 Canadian TV movie The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde. That's packed in a four disc DVD set of Dan Curtis films along with Dracula, The Picture Of Dorian Gray and The Turn Of The Screw. I was most interested in watching Dracula again, since it was the first disc in the box I watched that first. I had seen Dracula when it was new and I don't remember ever seeing it since. I have a vague idea that I enjoyed it but remember nothing of the movie when watching it again. I read that there are two versions of the movie, one for US TV and a second for European theaters. The MPI DVD collection I have has the TV version. There's a 2014 MPI Blu-ray that's got the Euro version. I don't think it would be worth 15 bucks to buy the Blu-ray. I can't imagine there's going to be much different in a version that's supposed to be "slightly gorier" according to the Wikipedia page for the movie.

The adaptation changes a good bit of the book and not necessarily for the better. Poor Jonathan Harker doesn't survive the movie. I'm not always keen on films that kill off the main character. I wasn't as interested in the Dracula is Vlad the Impaler plot element.

The Wikipedia says Dan was first to use the idea of Dracula finding and pursuing a woman he believes is the reincarnation of an old love. Others have used that plot element in their Dracula movies. Dan had also used that plot element in his 1966 TV show Dark Shadows. Another program I hope to get around to soon.

Despite the changes to the story I thought it was alright. It's a fairly well made movie with plenty of nice scenery and sets. Much better production values than most TV movies. The cast is good and Jack is entertaining as Dracula. I would watch it again someday.

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Strangler Vs Strangler 1984 Written and directed by Slobodan Šijan. A dark Serbian comedy about madness and strangling. We watched the Mondo Macabro Blu-ray that's coming out mid June.

The guy with the eyes is Pera the carnation seller. He goes about Belgrade with his basket of flowers and tries to sell them. Sadly the carnation has gone out of favor with the younger crowd. He doesn't sell out and on returning home he has to face his domineering mother. They have quite the life together. It's filled with yelling and hitting. Mama is a monster, it's no wonder that Pera cracks and starts strangling those that spurn his flowers.

The guy with the glasses is a musician, he's penned a song about the strangler and it's become a local sensation. Even Pera likes it, mama doesn't, so Pera strangles her too. The guy with the little mustache is the police detective on the strangler's trail. He's not having any luck getting any leads and it's slowly driving him bonkers. The local host of a popular music show gets tossed into this mess when she has the musician on her show.

It all comes to a head one evening and just about everyone gets strangled. Even the detective's cat gets strangled. Despite that I was laughing much of the way through it. It's a film filled with chaos and I enjoyed that well enough. I'm debating getting a copy. You can pre-order it from Deep Discount for about 22 smackaroonies, it's 30 bucks on Amazon right now.

Riders Of the Whistling Skull 1937 Based on a novel by William Colt MacDonald, original story by Oliver rake and Bernard McConville, screenplay by Oliver Drake and John Rathmell, directed by Mack V Wright.

A part of the Three Mesquiteers series from Republic. There were 51 films in the series with various actors in playing the Three Mesquiteers, including John Wayne for 8 films. Bob Steele, Rufe Davis, Jimmie Dodd, Sid Saylor and Tom Tyler also were part of the trio. I'd seen several of the series, including this one, back in 2010 but I've pretty much forgotten what they were all about. I watched about 350 westerns that year but I didn't blog about many of them.

For this film we've got Ray Crash Corrigan, Max Terhune and Robert Livingstone from left to right.

With a plot that seems right out of King Solomon's Mines, a young woman asks the Three Mesquiteers to help find her father. He's gone deep into the mountains where a dangerous tribe lives. He was looking for the lost city of Lukachukai. One of the men from the expedition arrives with news. They'd found the lost city but got captured by the local natives. Her father hid some of the treasure and made a map. The man drops dead.

The trio lead an expedition to the area and they find the natives hostile. Several people are killed before the locals are slaughtered. There's all the usual horse riding, gun shooting and punch ups you'd expect plus a little bit of torture, some music and a few gags. I enjoyed it but agreed that they were kind of weak on the lost city. It was a skull on the side of a mountain and a cave. We all liked the skull matte painting. Who wouldn't want that for a place to hang out. You can watch the film on YouTube, link above.

 

Attack Of The Undead is a short film by Michael and Peter Spierig. It was included on the Umbrella Blu-ray for their 2003 zombie film Undead. That was a fairly decent film that we watched at FNM night in 2006. This movie has a similar plot and characters but is only 37 mins. It was fairly entertaining but vastly inferior to the feature film. Good extra for the Blu-ray.

Sex Of The Witch 1973

Sex Of The Witch 1973 Screenplay by Angelo Pannaccio and Franco Brocani, directed by Angelo Pannaccio. The Italian title is Il sesso della strega.

A dying guy calls his family together before he dies. His voice over says he doesn't care for them. His will says they shave to share the money and they won't get it until they are thirty years old. If anyone dies, their money gets put back in the fund. That's like an open invite for murder and sure enough, it's murder time.

There's also plenty of time for sex along the way. The countryside and big old house are fun to see. There's also a supernatural sort of element to the story. It's not overly good but not a total failure. Something to breeze through at 1.5 speed. You can check it out on YouTube.

Tower Of London 1939

Tower Of London 1939 Screenplay by Robert N Lee, produced and directed by Rowland V Lee. This is the first of four films that make up the Universal Horror Collection Volume 3. Three of films in this set appeared in an earlier DVD set called Universal Horror Classic Movie Archive. It had 5 films on 2 discs: The Black Cat, Man Made Monster, Horror Island, Night Monster and Captive Wild Woman. The Tower Of London Blu-ray has a commentary by Steve Haberman, he spends a lot of time talking about Basil Rathbone and not the movie. There's a still gallery. I like that this set has four commentaries but there are little else listed on the box other than still galleries. One of the films has a trailer.

An entertaining biopic about the horrible life of King Richard III. It's not very accurate and skips through time compressing events. Basil Rathbone plays Richard, Duke of Gloucester and he's a right bastard. He'll kill anyone who gets in his way while he's heading for the throne, including those little princes in the tower. Boris Karloff plays the head torturer in the King's dungeon. Vincent Price plays the Duke of Clarence. He'll get in Richard's way and die for it.

It's got nice production values and there's some good battle scenes. It's the longest movie in the set, 92 mins and they spent some money on the movie. I hadn't seen it for a number of years and had forgotten most of what went on. I enjoyed it all over again. I got a good feeling in my heart when Richard got his comeuppance. Who doesn't like that?

In the real battle of Bosworth Field Richard was trashed pretty well, blows to his helmet so hard they smashed his skull. One of the many useless Kings of England.

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The Hunter Will Get You 1976 Written and directed by Philippe Labro.

Jean Paul Belmondo is the Hunter in the title, he's a guy the police hire to do jobs they can't. Bruno Cremer is the baddie, he's a thief who kills everyone who sees him on the job. The police and the Hunter are on Bruno's trail and he's a tough guy to track down.

Bruno tricks young stupid men into being an accomplice in a robbery and then kills them once the job is done. Patrick Fierry is one such man, sadly, for Bruno, Patrick is only winged in the arm when the job is done. He manages to get arrested and put into jail. Jean Paul joins him their and they used the corrupt prison guards expensive secret escape plan to get away.

There's plenty of running about as Bruno goes about his business. Patrick winds up providing an important clue to Bruno's ID and location. Sadly, he's not clever enough to keep out of trouble. It won't go well for him in the end.

I enjoyed it for the most part but there were things that didn't make sense in the script. Not big things, more annoying or cliched things. I'm not going to be rushing to watch the Blu-ray again anytime soon. I am interested in hearing what the commentary says I just need to slot that in at some point.

Blood Of The Vampire 1958 Written by Jimmy Sangster and directed by Henry Cass. The movie was an early production from Robert S Baker and Monty Berman. They wanted to get some of the market that Hammer was getting and they hired Jimmy Sangster to write the screenplay. He wrote a lot of Hammer films over the years.

I thought I hadn't seen the film before, it sure didn't look familiar but that turned out to be one of those false memories, I had, back in 2016, I even posted about it. You can read that to find out what the film was about.

I liked the movie back then but didn't buy the DVD, I probably got it from Netflix DVD or the library. Tonight we watched the new Blu-ray from Scream Factory. It looks very nice. I'm tempted to buy one.