PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 968

Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis 1987 Based on the 1985 Hiroshi Aramata novel called Teito Monogatari, screenplay by Kaizo Hayashi, directed by Akio Jissoji. The novel was written in 10 parts over two years, two more parts were added in the following two years, the movie adapts the first third of the novel.

The movie is a retelling of Tokyo's history from 1912 to just after the 1923 earthquake but with the premise that the occult and demons are real. Tokyo is supposed to be one of the most haunted cities in Japan. Living far below the city is the spirit Taira no Masakado. Supposedly it's a powerful being capable of destroying the city.

Kato wants to release Masakado and destroy Tokyo. He kidnaps a medium to communicate with the spirit. Other folks oppose him and try to stop waking up Masakado. They battle for a while, eventually the 1923 quake happens and the story ends around 1927.

I got most of that from the Wikipedia, the movie isn't very forthcoming with a lot of details. It's a complicated story with plenty of characters coming and going. I thought it a good looking movie but I thought the film makers valued style over story telling. They did a good job bringing the 1920s to life. I still enjoyed it for the most part but I doubt I'd rush to see it again. You can see it on YouTube.

Demon Of Paradise 1987 Written by Frederick Bailey and C J Santiago, directed by Cirio H Santiago. A New Horizon Pictures film that's set in Hawaii but filmed in the Philippines.

Some jerks are dynamite fishing, the explosions awaken an ancient monster that lives in the lake. The jerks are tossing lit sticks of dynamite into the lake when the monster attacks, he causes them to drop a lite bundle of dynamite sricks into the boat. The result blows the boat to smithereens killing at least a couple of the jerks. That was a decent explosion and the first warning against using dynamite in this nearly 90 min PSA on the dangers of mixing liquor, stupidity and explosives.

The local resort owner wants to exploit the monster, the local sheriff wants to evacuate the area, the local scientist wants to find the creature and capture it. The latter team up to try to fight the beast. The sheriff and the scientist have to fight another beast when they want to close the resort for the safety of the tourists. The resort owner goes full on asshole to stay open. It's very Jaws meets The Creature From The Black Lagoon but without the charm of either of those films. More people get killed, two more boats get blown up and the tourists run away. The police fight the monster with bullets and dynamite and barely survive.

There is some nice scenery but many other parts of the film don't rise to the same level. The script is poor as are the actors. The cinematography is fairly good and so is the monster makeup. The music was a bit of a mixed bag, some bits better than others. I enjoyed it somewhat but it's still below average. I'm not likely to watch it again. There's a decent copy of the movie on YouTube that you can watch if you want.

Friday Night Movies 967

Signed, Arsene Lupin 1959 Written by Diego Fabbri, Maurice LeBlanc, Jean-Paul Rapperneau and Yves Robert, directed by Yves Robert.

 

That's the Kino Lorber 3 film Blu-ray collection. They used the French poster from this movie on the case, it's a much more interesting bit of artwork than the poster for the first film.

It's just after the end of WWI and Lupin is resting in a convalescent home in the French countryside. His old accomplice La Ballu comes by to see if he's interested in robbing a nice villa on an island. Lupin goes along and La Ballu sets him up for the police to capture. Lupin manages to escape but not before noticing that La Ballu has stolen a painting.

The painting is part of a triptych, when arranged in a certain way the paintings are clues to a treasure buried on the grounds of the house. La Ballu gets the second painting but the third is stolen before he gets to the museum. Having some good luck Lupin manages to steal the third from the boss of the gang. They join forces, Lupin robs the boss blind and then skedaddles. 

Like the first film there's a nice caper and a good sense of humor. The film looks fine. I enjoyed it and would watch it again someday.

Haunted Samurai 1970 Based on the manga of Goseki Kojima, screenplay by Kiyoshi Hoshikawa, directed by Keiichi Ozawa. Goseki is the artist for the Lone Wolf And Cub manga.

Rokuheita is a samurai working for the Yagyu clan. He decides to give up his enforcing job and lets two innocent people the clan wanted dead go free. The Yagyu ninjas show up pretty quickly to kill him for deserting. There's plenty of chasing about and sword play.

There are a couple of sub plots going on and plenty to keep track of. Rokuheita hides in a small village and takes up farming. He finds to local warlord a brutal murderous man. He sides with the villagers to fight the warlord. The Yagyu ninjas find him and complicate things.

All in all a good solid film with a decent story and characters. There's a bit of humor, a bit of sadness, plenty of fights and topless lady ninjas. There's even a fight underwater, with topless ninja ladies. I'd watch it again sometime.

Friday Night Movies 963

Arnold 1973 Written by Jameson Brewer and John Fenton Murray, directed by Georg Fenady. An American film set in a small village in Britain.

Stella Stevens marries her dead fiance. The ceremony is followed by a reading of the will. Stella gets the house and some odd stipulations in the will. Arnold can't be buried, he has to remain in the house, Stella has to remain in the house to keep the estate. Arnold's wife and son don't get anything. Shani Wallis plays the wife and sings the absolutely horrible title song. Roddy McDowall plays the son, he's one of the people Stella has been having an affair with, the lawyer's partner is another.

There's a huge pile of cash hidden in the house. There's plenty of vengeance going on as Arnold has set up various deathtraps for the family and friends to fall into. First to go is Arnold's wife when he died and the son isn't far off. The local bumbling Bobby, Bernard Fox, investigates but isn't smart enough to spot a murder when it's right in front of him.

It made me laugh occasionally but not all the laughs were to the jokes. It has a decent amount of zaniness. I haven't decided to buy the Blu-ray but I might want to see it again. There's a poor copy on YouTube and a good copy on RareLust.

Curse Of The Dog God 1977 Written and directed by Shun’ya Itô. The film is titled Inugami No Tatari in Japanese. Inugami refers to a curse that involves the killing of a dog to make a spirit that is used to curse people. You can read more about it on the Wikipedia.

Uranium hunters find a rich uranium vein in a small Japanese village. While searching one of the hunters ruins a small shrine by driving over it with his jeep, then he runs over a dog. That same uranium hunter marries the daughter of hte man who owns the land the uranium is on, more bad stuff happens and someone puts the curse of the dog god on the hunter, everything in his life comes to ruin.

After a bit of a slow start the craziness starts up and nearly everyone dies. It's a bit grim and might not be to everyone's taste. There's two dog murders, a couple of kids get murdered, and plenty of adults die horribly. Both films are about revenge and I thought they're a good reminder to stay single. Families like that I don't need. Despite all that I thought it was a fairly entertaining movie. I might not buy a copy and I might not need to see it again but I was glad to see it. You can download a copy over at RareLust.

Friday Night Movies 961

It Follows 2014 Written and directed by David Robert Mitchell. Filmed for $1.3 million in Detroit.

A young woman has sex with a guy and besides his semen he passes along a curse. A supernatural entity will follow and kill her until she has sex with someone else and passes along the curse. If she dies without passing the curse along to someone new the curse will go back to following the person who infected her.

Seems like she needs to let it kill her and set it on the guy who infected her. That would be too easy and the young woman spends most of the movie running from the slow walking creature that's stalking her. The movie never introduces someone to help them or tip them off on how to kill it. They do try to kill it but the creature is unkillable. It's also invisible to everyone but the infected person. Not a good combination.

It's a nice looking film but it's deliberate slow pace is wasted on me. My mind would wonder and I'd wish something would happen. It's one that I'm not going to bother adding to my pile of films.

Shin Ultraman 2022 Written by Hideaki Anno and directed by Shinji Higuchi.

The Japan government has set up a department to try to deal with the kaiju invasion. One day the team is surprised when Ultraman appears, they're even more surprised when one of the team turns out to be Ultraman. The menace quotient is upped when another alien appears. He's playing everyone by pretending to be a good guy but his real plans are soon revealed.

There's some decent kaiju action and some nice model work. That's surrounded by some slowly paced talking and sitting interludes. It makes the 113 min run time way longer. I could feel time slowing down. Eventually it's over. I enjoyed some of it but wouldn't recommend it to anyone. I wouldn't buy this one either.

Friday Night Movies 958

Junk Head 2017 Written and directed by Takehide Hori. An animated film set far in the future with Takehide doing most of the work on the film himself.

The human's on the surface of Earth are living longer with massive body modification that makes them rather cyborg like. The mods have affected their reproductive systems and they are breeding less. A deadly virus kills 30% of the population and the possible extinction has the authorities send a cyborg guy to the lowest depth of the miles high mega city. There are biologically engineered beings there who are thought to be breeding.

Things go wrong for our cyborg guy, his head seems to be the only human thing about him and he looses that when his quickly dropping ship is blasted with a rocket.  His head is salvaged and a new robot body is created by the locals. That's the new body on the poster. The guy in the black suit is one of the locals, there's a good variety in species down below, some of them are monsters that can eat you up in a bite or two. Luckily the monsters don't have an appetite for cyborgs.

Our cyborg guy has some adventures with the locals and we meet a lot of characters. His body gets trashed and he's rebuilt. The story ends without a resolution but there's not been any sign of part 2.

Despite it's rather slow pace the story kept me going to the end. I might watch it again someday but I'm not going to buy the Blu-ray. It reminded me of the Brothers Quay but with less dust and rotating dismembered doll's heads. It's odd and not the sort of film that would appeal to everyone. You can check out a decent copy on YouTube with subtitles. See if you like it.

My Best Friend Is A Vampire 1987 Written by Tab Murphy and directed by Jimmy Huston.

I had forgotten that I had seen this film back in 2018. That does make me feel better knowing that, I thought the geeky gal was familiar and I couldn't see anything on her IMDb credits that I was remembered seeing before. I didn't have a copy of my Watched Movie List on my tablet as I deleted the app I was using last week for being way too annoying to use.

The movie was part of a four film DVD set. Here's that post. I thought it was sort of funny the second time around. I might even watch it again when I've forgotten I've seen it already. You can see it with ads on YouTube.

Friday Night Movies 954

Gore From Outer Space 2001 Directed by Hirohisa Sasaki.

I though I hadn't see the movie before but when I looked it up on the IMDb I had voted for it on 6-17-14. I looked it up on my watched movie list and sure enough it's listed as being seen on 6/6/14. It was an earlier FNM night. I gave the movie a score of 7 on the IMDb which means I liked it more that time than this time. I'll try not to watch it again.

The Return Of Captain Invincible 1983 Written by Steven E de Souza and Andrew Gaty, directed by Philippe Mora. I don't recall seeing this but it was out at a time I used to go to the theater more often.

It's an Australian superhero musical comedy with Alan Arkin and Christopher Lee. There's a new Blu-ray out from Severin, that's what we watched.  The original poster is on top and the cover to the Severin release is below, conveniently labeled. I don't care for the Severin cover much at all. The movie I have mixed feelings about, I enjoyed the parts with Christopher Lee as the villain but many of the scenes with Captain Invincible weren't as entertaining. I'm not that happy with the songs for the most part and many of the jokes fall flat. It did poorly at the Australian box office, grossing $55K on a $7mil cost. Another one that I was happy to see but I doubt I'd watch it again.

Sasaki Kojirō 1967

Sasaki Kojirō 1967 Screenplay by Hiroshi Inagaki, Takeo Matsuura and Genzo Murakami, directed by Hiroshi Inagaki. A Japanese biography picture about the battle between Sasaki Kojirō and Miyamoto Musashi. Inagaki was the director of the Samurai Trilogy in the mid 1950s. That series stars Toshiro Mifune as Musashi. It's well worth watching. 

Sasaki Kojirō is a 2.5 hour bio film about the life of Sasaki Kojirō. He's a swordsman who has a famous battle with Musashi. The movie fills in a bit of Sasaki's life and ends with their famous battle on Gunryu Island. It's a bit slow paced but mostly it's enjoyable. I enjoyed watching it and plan to watch it again someday.

Friday Night Movies 944

A Boy And His Samurai 2010 Based on Fushigi no Kuni no Yasubei by Gen Araki, screenplay and direction by Yoshihiro Nakamura. Yoshihiro is the director of Fish Story. That's the only other movie of his I've seen.

This movie is a fish out of water comedy, a samurai from late 1800s Edo is transported to modern day Toyko. Kijima's there for a few months and he learns a different life style. A lady named Yusa takes Kijima in and her son Tomoya bonds with him.

Kijima learns to bake delicious desserts and he gets a job after winning a contest. He becomes too attentive to his job and neglects the family. Things go bad before they get better.

It's a charming movie. It's a bit slow going but I was entertained. It's got a few laughs and some jeopardy. Things end on a good note. You can see a nice copy over on Dailymotion.

The Hyperions 2020 Story, screenplay (with additional material by Mike Timm) and direction by Jon McDonald.

There's way too much dysfunctional family in the story. In 1960 Professor Ruckus Mandulbaum invented a badge that gives the wearer a superpower. He chose two orphan children and a slightly older woman to be his super hero team. Vista didn't adjust well and she ran off after using her power to control people's minds to force the Professor to give up a pile of cash and a special device. She left the Professor her badge.

The Professor got rid of Ansel, taking his badge away, and found more youngsters to replace them. That was in 1965, fourteen years later Vista and Ansel are trying to steal the badges from the Hyperion museum. Vista needs them to recover her daughter from another ex-Hyperion who wants his badge back. The baddie was on the second team, they got tossed aside after a few years and the Professor is hunting for a new team.

Everybody's got daddy issues and they are all in a bit of a mess. The movie is a bit of a mess. There's some jokes but they are a bit few and far between. It's rather slow and the characters are annoying at times. It reminds me how good The Specials is and I should watch it again sometime soon. I'd watch that before I'd get around to The Hyperions again.

Legends Of Dinosaurs And Monster Birds 1977

Legend Of Dinosaurs And Monster Birds 1977 Screenplay by Masaru Igami, Isao Matsumoto and Ichirô Ôtsu, directed by Junji Kurata.

 

Made by Toei Company, the studio was inspired by Jaws, the film did poorly in the Japanese theaters but was a block buster in the Soviet Union. It was known in the US as The Legend Of Dinosaurs and it was used in the last episode of the first season of Mystery Science Theater 3000 which was produced by KTMA. That version was chopped up a good bit, the original movie got a US DVD release in 2007 from Media Blasters and that's what I watched.

A woman falls into a cavern, in the Aokigahara region near Mount Fuji, she awakes to find fossilized eggs, one of which hatches. She runs off and scares a construction crew with her hysterics. A geologist called Takashi goes to take a look, while hiking around Mount Fuji he's knocked out and wakes up in the cabin of a family friend. Takashi continues his hunt for the eggs, on the way he meets an old girlfriend Akiko. She's there with her friend Junko, a scuba diver, who wants to dive in the lake where a couple in a small boat went missing.

A diver is injured in the lake, livestock have gone missing, wild theories of living dinosaurs are tossed out to the dubious public. Well, turns out it wasn't a dinosaur, it was two, one of them a plesiosaurus and the other a rhamporhynchus. The pair battle it out and the volcano erupts killing both dinos. It's a bad day on Mount Fuji and the movie ends on a cliffhanger.

I was much more entertained by the movie than on MST3K. It was like seeing a whole different movie, the MST3K version had so much trimmed out of it. It's a more adult film than I thought, there's a bit of gore, mild by today's standards and a brief bit of nudity. I'd watch it again.

I'm not sure why it did so poorly in the Japanese box office. It was Toei's biggest budget, $2.8 million and it didn't even get a third of that back in receipts. It never got released theatrically in the US but it was released to TV in 1987.

Friday Night Movies 942

Punk Samurai Slash Down 2018 Based on the novel Panku-zamurai, kirarete sôrô, screenplay by Kankurô Kudô, directed by Gakuryû Ishii.

A ronin gets involved with the court squabbles of a small lord and a lot of people and monkeys die. There's a fair bit of action and plenty of comedy, as the movie progresses it gets weirder and weirder. You can get a bit of an idea from the trailer link in the title above.

I enjoyed most of the film but I doubt I would buy a copy of the Blu-ray. I might not get back to it.

The Amusement Park 1975 Screenplay by Wally Cook, directed by George A Romero.

I'm not going to buy a copy of George's film either. The Wikipedia called it an American psychological horror film. Fancy description. It's an hour long short that George produced for the Lutheran Service Society of Western Pennsylvania as an educational film about elder abuse. He shot it in 1973, It premiered at the American Film Festival in 1975 and wasn't released anymore. In 2020 it was restored and we watched the Blu-ray that came out of that work.

An old man wanders around an amusement park, he talks about the plight of the elderly and has plenty of age related issue examples. The park is noisy and filled with people aimlessly milling about, getting in his way. Why anyone would go there is beyond me.

If I saw this on YouTube and George wasn't directing, I doubt I'd sit through it to the end. I got the message loud and clear and it's pretty sad to see there's not been much improvement since. Glad to have seen it but I wouldn't need to see it again.