PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 1008

Sisu 2022 Written and directed by Jalmari Helander. 

I watched this a couple of months ago, then I bought the Blu-ray, no one else had seen it but we'd all seen the director's first feature, Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale.

Second time around I enjoyed the music more and and the Glorious Carnage about the same. Like the first time I saw this I was a bit sad that they'd run out of Nazis to slaughter. Oh, well.

Samurai Wolf 2 Hell Cut 1967 Written by Hideo Gosha, Norifumi Suzuki and Kei Tasaka, directed by Hideo Gosha. This is the sequel to the 1966 film Samurai Wolf we watched last week.

Kiba is traveling when he encounters some prisoners being transported in baskets to court. He tags along and helps keeps one of the prisoners from being assassinated. He gets hired to keep the prisoner safe from future attack. He's offered a couple of gold pieces so he takes the offer. A traveling ronin always needs some cash.

There's a whole cast of characters that are more trouble then they're worth, you can't trust the gold mine owner, the swordsman, the bad lady or the dojo master. All are likely to kill you if you get in their way. One thing we were reminded about by both movies tonight, gold mining is well dangerous. Mind you, I had already learned that from the hundreds of Westerns that use that same plot device.

There's a good bit of fighting and sword play. I enjoyed the movie about as much as the other one. Worth seeing for the fan.

Friday Night Movies 1007

Samurai Wolf 1966 Written by Hideo Gosha and Kei Tasaka, directed by Hideo Gosha. The movie is packed in a recent Blu-ray with Samurai Wolf 2. Gosha has directed a good number of movies. I've only seen the 1971 Yakuza film The Wolves and that was fairly good. It's a modern day story and nothing to do with the Samurai Wolf series.

A ronin who calls himself Wolf gets caught up in a fight between the blind lady who runs the postal station and the local baddie. The blind lady has to move 30,000 pieces of gold from her station to the next station. The local baddie and the horrible woman who runs the brothel want that money. Many die before the story ends.

It's very similar type of story like you'd find in Zatoichi movies. Isao Natsuyagi is OK as the Wolf and the rest of the cast is fine. There's plenty of fights and a stack of bodies when the movie is done. Plenty of vacancies for new baddies the day after the movie. The score is heavily influenced by Italian Western music, it's rather noisy. Over all I liked the movie. Looking forward to the second Wolf movie.

Monster Party 2018 Written and directed by Chris Von Hoffman.

Casper, Iris and Dodge are three house robbers who steal from the rich. Casper is in dire need of $100,000 to pay off his father's gambling debts or the baddie will light his dad on fire. The trio decide to rob a mansion posing as replacement catering staff for a fancy dinner party. They figure out where the safe is and create a plan of action.

Things don't go so well once they start the plan. Turns out the house is filled with psychopaths and murders celebrating their not murdering anyone in a while. Like addicts who haven't had a drink or taken some drugs the urge is still inside. The urge takes over and poor Dodge is the first to go. The fight for survival is on and Casper turns out a dab hand with a katana. It's touch and go for Casper but he has some help from the daughter of their host.

It starts off a bit pokey and I didn't care that much for the trio of robbers. It picks up once the house guests start showing their true colors. I wound up enjoying it more than I thought I would. I did enjoy the movie's sense of humor but I don't think I'll pick up the Blu-ray.

Science Fiction Sunday 802

Terminator Dark Fate 2019 Story by James Cameron, Charles H Eglee, Josh Friedman, David S Goyer and James Rhodes, screenplay by David S Goyer, Justin Rhodes and Billy Ray, directed by Tim Miller. The 6th in the Terminator series and a sequel to the first two films but not the three that followed.

Rev-9, a new style terminator, comes from a well changed future to kill a woman called Dani who's going to be a problem for the future robots. Instead of the rise of Skynet there's been a AI revolution called Legion. The machines want to kill off the humans. The resistance to Legion sends an augmented soldier called Grace to destroy the terminator and save Dani.

Linda Hamilton plays Sarah Connors 25 years on. She saves Dani and Grace and they escape for a bit. Rev-9 keeps on coming and there's a seemingly endless series of flights and fights with plenty of explosions and collateral damage. At some point Arnold Schwarzenegger turns up, he's a T-800 and he's been alerting Sarah to the arrival of the Legion terminators. That's how she arrived to save Dani and Grace. Near the end of the film they finally destroy the Rev-9 and hope to stop the rise of Legion.

Mostly it was entertaining but I got tired of the constant battle by the end of the second act. At least it was only 128 mins, so many of these action films are over long. I'd still watch it again at some point.

Attack Of The Giant Teacher 2019 Written by Nobuhiko Ishii and Yoshikazu Ishii, directed by Yoshikazu Ishii. A Japanese low budget kaiju musical movie.

A teacher is informed his school will close at the end of the school year. He gets his class to put on a musical and they do. In space an alien plans an attack on the Earth. The teacher grows large to fight the alien.

Sadly the musical isn't interesting to me but I liked a few of the characters. I'm sure the budget meant the giant alien action only happens in the last act. Most of the effects were CGI and the low budget didn't help there either. Doubtful I'll get back to this one, thankfully someone passed a copy to me and I didn't buy a copy. You can see it for free on YouTube, link in the usual place.

Godzilla Minus One 2023

Godzilla Minus One 2023 Written, directed and visual effects by Takashi Yamazaki. It did well in the box office, more than a 1000% return on it's $10-12 million cost.

A kamikaze pilot called Kōichi fails in his mission, he claims plane trouble and lands at a repair base on Odo Island. The ground crew of mechanics can't seem to find anything wrong with his plane. Later that night Kōichi and the ground crew have an encounter with Godzilla. He's small in 1945, only 3 or 4 times the height of a man. The pilot fails to fire on Godzilla and all the ground crew are killed except the lead mechanic Tachibana. They return to Tokyo with Tachibana hating him.

Back in Tokyo Kōichi find his parents have died in the bombing of the city. There's not much left in his old neighborhood. He takes in a young woman called Noriko, she comes with a baby called Akiko, the dying parents asked Noriko to take care of their dying baby. Kōichi gets a job and so does Noriko. Things seem to get better over the next couple of years. Kōichi struggles with survivor guilt. Deep in the ocean Godzilla has been caught in the nuclear radiation from a test on Bikini Atoll. He gets much bigger and starts attacking ships. He eventually winds up in Tokyo and the real action begins.

Godzilla destroys a lot of the city with his new heat ray. Noriko disappears in blast area and Kōichi vows to get revenge. The government is unhelpful and the military has been defanged. A local man funds a plan to attack Godzilla, Kenji, a friend and co-worker of Kōichi, has a plan to use freon to sink Godzilla in a deep bay, he's hoping that the pressure will kill the beast. Kōichi is involved with an alternate plan to kill Godzilla.

There's a lot of good CGI and plenty of explosions and heat blasts. All incredibly good considering the small budget. The cast is fine and Godzilla looks pretty good. The story is complex and you can take a lot of things out of it. The pilot is angry, the lead mechanic is angry, Godzilla is angry. No good comes of that. At least it has a happy ending and it leaves a big ass door, wide open, for a second movie. One of my takeaways from the movie: I thought that the Emperor and the government leaders got off lightly after the war, they needed some more punishment, more ritual suicide. I'll definitely want the Blu-ray so I can watch it again.

Friday Night Movies 994

Eight Men To Kill 1962 Written by Tatsuo Honda and Kôji Takada, directed by Shigehiro Ozawa. The third in the Bounty Hunter series with Wakayama Tomisaburo. The three film Blu-ray box set is from Radiance.

Shikoro Ichibei takes on the job of getting a huge stock of gold back from some bandits. He's got til the day of the eclipse and that's only 4 days away. He chases down the members of the gang only to find them empty handed, someone else in the gang has taken the gold. No honor amongst those thieves. There are a good number of sword fights and plenty of horse riding, bodies dot the landscape.

Ichibei barely survives the mission but he gets there in the end. Most everyone else is dead. A constant reminder of the short and dangerous life in feudal Japan. All in all a good trilogy with plenty of action and stabbing. Highly recommended.

Neon City 1991 Written by Ann Lewis Hamilton (as Buck Finch), Jeff Begun and Monte Markham, directed by Monte Markham. A Canadian post apocalypse film that was filmed in Utah.

Bounty hunter Micheal Ironside captures Vanity in the out lands, she turns out to be a valuable captive, big reward offered for her capture. At the local town they tell him he has to take her to Neon City, that's where the warrant was issued, that's where the reward credits are payed out. It's a few days away but he'll go, he wants his credits. The local officer has Micheal's jeep blown up. That officer hates Michael and that forces Michael to take the stagecoach transport to Neon City. The movie is Hamilton's update of John Ford's Stagecoach. Instead of native braves the passengers have to fight off the local mutant raiders. They've been damaged by the residual radiation in the out land. 

There's some action scenes and a bit of dull time before the action picks up again. They get to Neon City where Michael has to kill one of the passengers for murdering another. He lies to the authorities when he tells them Vanity died on the road. Michael and Vanity leave Neon City with Lyle Alzado.

It's pretty much average, nothing too new or exciting. Richard Sanders as the comic relief machine reminds one how sad it is when the apocalypse wipes out all the really talented entertainers. That's why I'm saving DVDs. Hope I can get some electricity and a working DVD player.

Friday Night Movies 993

The Fort Of Death 1969 Written by Kôji Takada, directed by Eiichi Kudô. The sequel to Killer's Mission. Here's a picture of the Radiance box set released under the title The Bounty Hunter Trilogy.

The first film in the series was a mix of samurai and James Bond, this film is a mix of samurai and spaghetti western. Despite being in Italian the poster above is for this movie. This is the best image I could find of what could be the original Japanese poster.

This time the Ichibei bounty hunter gets hired to defend farmers who are staging an upraising against the local lord. The farmers are tired of the high taxes and bad treatment from the local lord. They've holed up in a makeshift fort. Feudal Japan is a horrible era, hardly any chance of getting old if you're poor, if you're lucky you'll get stabbed to death and die quickly. That's what happens here. Many of the local peasants are killed before Ichibei gets there. After his arrival a lot of the lord's warriors are slaughtered. Ichibei has a nice surprise weapon. By the end of the movie most everyone is dead. We know Ichibei survives because there's a third movie. 

It's got good fights and a fair bit of slaughter. We see a softer side of Ichibei, he works as the local doctor in his town. He works as a bounty hunter to help finance his practice. I enjoyed it and will want to watch it again sometime.

Prey 2022 Story by Patrick Aison and Dan Trachtenberg, screenplay by Patrick Aison, directed by Dan Trachtenberg. A Predator movie set in 1719 featuring an encounter with the Predator and a local tribe living in the Northern Great Plans. That's northern Nebraska going well into Canada. At one point the tribe is identified as Comanche by some French trappers. That might be a mistake on the part of the characters, the Comanche didn't live on the North Great Plains, they lived on the Southern Plains. It also might be the film writers at fault.

A young woman in the tribe wants to be a hunter but she gets a lot of push back from the tribe and her brother. One day she sees something in the sky. We know it's a Predator space ship. The Predator is dropped off and starts hunting. He watches the local tribe and hunts a few of them. There's plenty of fights between the Predator, the local warriors and some good number of animals.

The young warriors of the tribe are picked off one by one as they venture into the forest looking for one person or another. Most of them can't get a handle on the Predator as he's invisible. The young woman gets to see the Predator, she wants to hunt him but he doesn't think she's much of a threat to him. She proves him wrong by the end of the movie.

I liked the movie. There's plenty of fight and lots of running through the woods. I'd be happy to add it to my collection. Someday I could have a nice Predator film festival.

Friday Night Movies 992

Killer's Mission 1969 Written by Masaru Igami, Norimichi Matsudaira and Kōji Takada, directed by Shigehiro Ozawa. The first of The Bounty Hunter Trilogy with Tomisaburô Wakayama. We watched the Radiance Blu-ray set.

Tomisaburô is Ling Fung, he's a secret agent for the Shogunate, his new mission is to stop a secret deal between the Satsuma clan and the Dutch. The Satsuma clan want the guns that the Dutch are selling. There's trouble within the Satsuma clan, not everyone is for the plan. The most powerful members are the worst people of course. There's plenty of fights, double crossing and back stabbing.

I thought it was entertaining and I'm always interested in seeing Tomisaburô. The new Blu-ray looks good and there's two more movies to go. I ordered one soon as I got home.

Specters 1987 Story by Marcello Avallone, Andrea Purgatori and Maurizio Tedesco, screenplay by Marcello Avallone, Andrea Purgatori, Maurizio Tedesco and Dardano Sacchetti, directed by Marcello Avallone. An Italian horror movie set in the catacombs under Rome.

The city of Rome is excavating for the Metro. Archeologists are searching the uncovered catacombs, Donald Pleasence plays Professor Lasky, the group find a stone casket and uncover some evil. Soon after the killing starts. Strong magical winds blow things about underground. A good number of people get slaughtered. Reminds me to stay out of the catacombs. Even ones with electric lights.

It's not great but it was better than some of the Italian horror films I've seen. It becomes a bit too talky in the middle and that slows the movie down. It picks up in the last act but it's not enough to get a better score on the IMDb where it's average is 4.2. There's a ridiculous bit near the end where the music gets all frantic. I laughed when nothing much happened. It's not something I'd need to see over, so, no need to buy the Blu-ray.

Friday Night Movies 986

 

Samurai Resurrection 2003 Based on a novel by Fûtarô Yamada, screenplay by Satoko Okudera, direction by Hideyuki Hirayama.

A Japanese Christian leader is killed and somehow resurrected. He resurrects other dead martial arts heroes and moves toward Edo where the Shogun is dying. He wants to take over Japan. Jubei Yagyu is working to stop him. One of the other viewers said this might be the only movie where a Yagyu is the hero.

There's plenty of fighting and the action is pretty good. The story jumps around and introduces a good number of characters. At times I was finding it hard to follow the story. There's a good bit of CGI, especially supplying scenes of a distant castle, some of it was quite good. I doubt I need a copy but it was still entertaining.

The Night Of The Hunted 1980 Written and directed by Jean Rollins.

Rollin offered to make a horror movie to a producer who asked for a porn film. Same budget and he'd make in 9 days instead of 10. Jean got the nod and he made a horror film about the treatment of people who were damaged by exposure to radiation. The main symptom is loss of memory as the cells in their brains decay. The victims are housed in a guarded building and overseen by a doctor who really can't do anything for them. The government is keeping it all hush hush.

I can't say I thought it was bad but there wasn't enough story. Mostly it seemed like an excuse to get the actors out of their clothes. Despite the shagging it's not a hardcore film like many of his works were. That's only partially true. The version we saw was the original release, it has not hardcore scenes. The film didn't make much money so the producer shot new hardcore scenes to re-release the film in another market. Pornstar Brigitte Lahaie appeared in several of Rollins non-hardcore films. She does OK as one of the victims who lost her memory.

From the Rollin Wikipedia page: Rollin himself had stated that "I don't think it is a very good film and it is probably one of my worst" and that if he could remake just one of his films it would be La nuit des traquées.

In the 60s and 70s Rollin made a reputation with lot of erotic horror films that were awash with naked vampires and sexy times. He had a decent following from them, people still write glowing articles about him. They weren't popular enough to pay well so he turned to making porn. I haven't seen much by him and what I saw didn't turn me into a more serious fan.

Friday Night Movies 984

The Great Yokai War Guardians 2021 Screenplay by Yûsuke Watanabe, directed by Takashi Miike. A Japanese kids film about Yokai monsters. Miike made a Yokai film back in 2005 that's set in the same sort of world.

A pair of young brothers join up with some Yokai to stop a giant rolling Yokai from trashing Tokyo and releasing a dangerous Yokai buried beneath the city. There's plenty of monsters and yelling. I like the mythology of the Yokai and there's a nice assortment of them on screen much of the time.

I thought it was entertaining and enjoyed the movie. There's plenty of destruction and noise. It's main flaw is it's way too long at 118 mins. I'd stillwatch it again but I'm doubting I'd buy the Blu-ray from SRS.

The Whale God 1962 Based on the novel The Whale God by Koichiro Uno, screenplay by Kaneto Shindo, directed by Tokuzo Tanaka. Music by Akira Ifukube. Another Blu-ray from SRS.

A Japanese fishing village is visited by a giant whale each year. The local name for it is the god whale. It's a big one and hard to kill. Many fisherman have been killed by the god whale. The village is obsessed by the god whale and Shaki is really obsessed. Ei, a whale widow, offers to sleep with the man who kills the god whale. The head man in the village makes an even better offer, his title, and and daughter are up for grabs for killing the god whale. Takashi Shimura plays the headman.

A visiting man wants a chance at the prize. Katsu Shintaro (Zatoichi) plays the visitor and he's a bad guy. He rapes the Ei and she has a baby before the god whale returns for his annual visit to the area. Shanti helps Ei with the birth, he tells the village the baby is his and marries Ei. The head man and his daughter are unhappy. Things get worse when the god whale returns.

I enjoyed it despite it's rather slow pace. It's also an SRS Blu-ray. You can test drive the movie at the Internet Archive. See link above.

Friday Night Movies 983

Watari The Ninja Boy 1966 Based on a manga by Sampei Shirato, screenplay by Masaru Igami and Shunichi Nishimura, directed by Sadao Funatoko. A Japanese live action fantasy film. We watched the Blu-ray from Shout! Factory's collection of 1960s Japanese Tokusatsu films.

A local baddie is stirring up animosity between the Iga and Coga clans. Watari is a young lad who fights with an ax on a rope and some magical ninja techniques. He discovers someone has been kidnapping children and forcing them to become ninja slaves. It all ties in with the plan to make the Iga and Coga clans fight. Watari has to fight various ninjas, they don't do so well, the boy is deadly. He has help from a few of the kids.

There are plenty of fights and many die, including some kids. There's plenty of great looking, massive sets and models. It's entertaining, colorful and amusing. If you're a fan of the manga from that era this might appeal to you. The Blu-ray set seems to be an exclusive from Shout! Factory, I'm ordering one today. Hope the other films are as entertaining. There's a copy on Tubi you can watch, link above.

I Vampire 1957 Story by Piero Regnoli, screenplay by Piero Regnoli and Riccardo Freda, directed by Riccardo Freda, an uncredited Mario Bava was involved with the script and direction.From the IMDb trivia page:

Ricardo Freda made the film on a bet to producers that he could complete in 12 days. After day 10, Freda realized that the film couldn't be finished on-schedule. After his requests for an extension were denied, cinematographer Mario Bava re-wrote the script so that the film could be finished in two days, and directed the remaining scenes himself.

The IMDb says it was the first Italian horror film of the sound era. It was called I Vampiri in Italy, a chopped up version called The Devil's Commandment was released in the US, where it was also released as Lust Of The Vampire.

A mad countess has a pet mad scientist in her castle. His job is to keep her alive. He has a formula and a machine that transfer's the blood from young and healthy women to the countess. The young and healthy aren't able to survive the process. The bloodless bodies are starting to appear and the papers are saying it's the work of a vampire. There isn't any vampire. Just a horrible old lady who's insanely afraid of getting old.

Of course the process doesn't work so well after several treatments. A local reporter finds a couple of clues that help him and the police figure out who the villain is. It ends with plenty of murder.

It was mostly OK. While I wouldn't rush out to buy the Blu-ray I would take a download. You can see it on YouTube with English subtitles.