PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Science Fiction Sunday 827

El Refugio TV Mini Series 2022 Written by Francisco Ortega, Julio Rojas and Enrique Videla, directed by Pablo Fendrick. A Mexican 6 episode mini series about an alien invasion.

Something is going on in the sky and it's affecting people's phones and TV. People living on a ranch in the country see weird lights in the sky. Locals in the nearest town start going crazy, they get violent as the food gets scarce. The family manage to keep people off their farm but there are casualties. Eventually it gets to the alien and their ugly dog like creatures with big teeth. No big whoop there.

Most of the screen time is spent on the family and their day to day personal drama. After a few episodes you see the alien ship and near the end you see the alien attack dog. The CGI and practical effects were fairly good. I don't see much of modern Mexican TV. Decent looking program, much like the productions of many other countries. I didn't care that much for the story, there was a cliffhanger for every episode and then an abrupt ending. I don't know if there are anymore eps coming? Probably wouldn't care if there were.

Science Fiction Sunday 826

Metamorphosis 2022 Directed by Liangyan Chen. The film and the IMDb list no writer. An Asian dinochomp film that's mostly people running in corridors.

A scientist has created a T-rex that can turn invisible. It gets out when the cleaning lady opens the cage to clean up the meat blobs on the floor. The beasty pops into view and gobbles her up right quick. Given free range of the lab the T-Rex starts chomping on the other scientists. People run around yelling and trying to escape.

Besides the T-Rex there are two giant snakes to run away from. Hardly anyone survives but it's not overly gorey. It's like a PG rated film, maybe it was made for TV. It scores 4.8 on the IMDb. I gave it a 3 because of the giant snakes. They were entertaining. The story on it's own would get a 2 from me.

Danger! Danger! 2021 Written and directed by Lexie Findarlee Trivundza and Nick Trivundza. A time travel movie with too little time travel and too much blather.

A guy parachutes onto a tiny island near Africa. He hopes to find a time machine in a temple. Trouble is there are Nazis there looking for the same device. He gets shot by the Nazis and rescued by a couple of Americans. He manages to find the machine and the movie ends like it's part one.

It scores a surprising 2.8 on the IMDb, I gave it a 3 but only because of all the nice location shooting at Vasquez Rocks Natural Area Park. I love that place, I don't care for the movie that much. I'm not going to watch it again, that's for sure. This one was on free with membership on Amazon Prime.

Science Fiction Sunday 825

Bunker: Project 12 2016 Written by Joaquin Sánchez and Jaime Falero, directed by Jaime Falero. A Spanish film about a secret Russian super soldier project.

Writer Joaquin plays one of the mercenaries who get hired to find the secret location of a Russian secret weapons program called Project 12. They kidnap and kill to get the info. James Cosmo is one of the men who worked on Project 12, they were making some sort of super soldier, men who were hard to kill and recuperated quickly.

Eric Roberts is another who worked with James. Eric has gotten rich, he's the one behind the mercenaries. When they break into the abandoned building that used to host the project they find there are still a few super soldiers left over. They are hard to kill and they do recover quickly. Most everyone dies. Not Eric, he walks away, hoping for a sequel.

It's got a decent amount of action but the movie in general is rather weak and uninteresting. If you watch a lot of action movies, this is just another cheap film, like so many others. Some location shots are nice, especially around Tenerife. I wouldn't need to see it again.

After 2012 Story by Ryan Screm and Jason Parish, screenplay and direction by Ryan Whitaker Smith. Ryan Screm is Whitaker under a pseudonym.

A woman and a man meet on a bus ride to the town of Pearl. They both grew up there and live on the same street but don't seem to know each other. The bus crashes and the woman wakes up at home. She makes heads to the hospital where she's a nurse. On the way she doesn't see any other cars, there's no one at the hospital, there's no one on the street. Some loud music brings her to a house where she finds the man on the bus. They explore the town and find no one. They find a wall of darkness is encroaching on the town, soon it will be all swallowed up by the darkness. It all turns out to be some sub-conscience stuff going on in their head.

It's better than average for a character driven SF story but still only a 5 for me. There's nothing that stands out as special but it's watchable and the story keeps moving. I saw it on YouTube, same as the other movie, links above. I won't be using the link myself, once is enough for me. I got too many other films to watch.

Science Fiction Sunday 824

Meteor 2021 Written and directed by Brett Bentman. A disaster movie that's set 10 years in the future.

The story takes place 10 years after the meteors crashed into the Earth and knocked it on it's ass. There seems to be some level of civilization left but many millions were killed. It's only 84 mins so there is little time to spend on detail, especially since they've wasted the first 15 mins on personal development. We meet a guy who lives on a ranch and he spends more than 10 mins pining for his recently deceased wife. There's no dialog for about 15 mins.

The rich live on isolated islands and harvest the peasants for lunch. A trio of villains track a young woman to a ranch house. She's on someone's menu and the baddies don't plan to stop. The rancher befriends the young woman and helps her escape. He doesn't fair so well, he's too careless. It ends with the woman connecting up with someone who could be help, or he could be a harvester. Who knows. Who cares. I was less interested by the end of the movie.

It's way below average and it barely scrapes by on the SF label. The script is cliche ridden and the dialog poor. The villain is rather embarrassing. I didn't care much for the ending.

It's IMDb score is a 3.0 and 34.8% of it's total votes are a 1. The comments are filled with haters warning people away. There's some good CGI of the meteor destruction footage in the news flashbacks, there are decent flooding effects and and the film is competently made, it's just not quite enough for me to give it more than a 2.

Astro 2018 Written by Asif Akbar and Bernard Selling, directed by Asif Akbar. An SF movie about a secret space travel operation run by a billionaire.

One of the company's robot controlled spaceships has crossed over to another dimension and brought back a living alien. The alien's DNA is the same as that of an Earth guy the billionaire knows. Odd. The billionaire strong arms the DNA having guy into coming with him, he'll have his robots soldiers kill the man's daughter if he doesn't. That billionaire guy is a real prick. He wants to send the DNA having guy into the other dimension. The movie goes on for a bit and abruptly ends with the story unfinished. I think that a lot of people were annoyed by that, I was, I don't read anything about a sequel.

Script and dialog were sub par and cliched. Many of the actors were amateurs who didn't help much. They were supplemented by some experienced actors, Louis Mandylor, Dominique Swain and Michael Paré, sadly, they couldn't do much for the script. At least they get a paycheck. Hopefully. There's some decent CGI but it's not enough to help overlook it's deficiencies.

This movie scores a 2.2 on the IMDb, not surprising since I've just sat through it. I went with the 45.4% that gave it a 1. There were 59 people, 9.59%, that gave the movie a 10. Are they 100% paid? Who knows?

Both of these are on YouTube, but don't waste your time. No matter how young you are, there's just not enough time left for you to waste it on these films.

Science Fiction Sunday 823

Andromeda 2022 Written and directed by Brett Bentman.

An SF movie of dubious quality, the script is poor, the acting challenging, the science dubious and the plot embarrassing. Now that I've seen it I wouldn't need to see it again. Wish I hadn't seen it in the first place.

Solar Crisis 1990 Based on Crisis 2050 by Takeshi Kawata, screenplay by Joe Gannon and Tedi Sarafian (under the name Crispan Bolt), directed by Richard C Sarafian (under the name Alan Smithee). Alan Smithee is the name people use who aren't happy with their own name on a film.

Astronauts have to fly to the moon and nuke a solar flare from destroying the Earth. It's a bit below average and filled with cliches. I saw it once in 1993, I won't need to see it any more.

Science Fiction Sunday 822

Visitor From Space 2016 Written and directed by Mike Sadouskas. The movie is one of those fake 1950s SF films that people make as tributes or parodies. It's got a huge amount of stock footage in it. I usually don't care much for this sort of film, it's just not that interesting.

A. I. 187 2019 Written and directed by Billy Dickson. An SF movie that was cobbled from an unsold TV production. It's mostly shot on green screen and all the backgrounds are filled in by CGI. It looks fake.

Some scientist invented a chip and hid it in his son. Some other corporate creeps want the chip. There's way too little action or running about, most of the action is lips flapping. Boring. I could barely speed through it. The movie was also released under the names The Palmer Supremacy and The IQ Supremacy. I suppose it was to trick more people into seeing it. Hopefully I'll remember not to watch it down the road. I have managed to train myself into remembering that Lance Henrikson isn't selective about taking roles.

Science Fiction Sunday 821

Cronus 2017 Written by Cody Berry, Derek Presley and Brandon P Schwindt, directed by Derek Presley. A science fiction movie about memory. I watched it on YouTube, link in title.

A scientist called Cronus wakes to find he doesn't remember his past. Lucky for him he's left behind a stock of audio tapes with some of the info he wants. He'd been working for another science guy on a machine designed to extract memories from the dead. His investigation leads him to a run down homeless shelter, some detectives and thoughts from his past. It's pretty low budget but that sort of fits the rundown no money project the scientist had going. The scientist is supposed to be a genius but he's got blinders when it comes to acting smart. He experiments on himself and that typically leads to disaster.

It was better than I was expecting but still never got above average. I've gotten tired of the scientist that uses himself for a test subject. Who wants to watch mental cases self harm for science. I wouldn't watch it again.

For The Cause 2000 Written by David Douglas and Christopher Salazar, directed by David Douglas and Tim Douglas. Another SF movie I found on YouTube. The CinemaID channel has cut off the title scene and the end credits, I suspect for illegally uploading the movie, they did it with several of the films on their channel. Luckily the IMDb has plenty of search power to find the title.

Human colonists settled on a planet hundreds of years ago, two cities were created, they grew apart and went to war, they've have been fighting for for the last 100 years. Their cities are ruined and their soldiers are barely adult. Dean Cain is a general of one city. He's got a big bomb that can destroy the other city. He's hoping to win peace with a bomb. He takes a group of young soldiers on a trip to the other city. Most of them die from one fire fight or another. His right hand man turns out to  be the smart guy.

It's pretty much a trifle of cliches and story you've heard before. It gets a deserved 3.4 for a reason. I wouldn't need to see it again.

Science Fiction Sunday 820

Aliens: Dark Descent 2024 Written by Matthew Ward and directed by Jason Baughan and Rob Rowe. The film itself has no listed credits. An animated film based on a video game. I found it on YouTube.

A group of marines wind up on a planet where they get attacked by aliens. There's plenty of fights and the humans get picked off one by one. A few of them escape at the end.

It's was about average. I didn't find it that exciting, way too much blather among the characters. I wouldn't need to see it again. I'll stick with the live action movies.

Offworld: Alien Planet 2024 Written by Terry Cooper and Chris Lynch, directed by Terry Cooper. A UK film that was filmed in Wales. It cost about £10,000 because most every body worked on it for free.

A space ship crashes on a planet and the people try to survive. They struggle with the fauna and one by one the people get picked off, only to find themselves stranded on the wrong planet.

It's pretty much below average. A lot of talking and wandering about make the movie a bit tedious. I wouldn't need to see it again.

Science Fiction Sunday 819

Attraction 2 Invasion 2020 Screenplay by Oleg Malovichko and Andrey Zolotarev, directed by Fyodor Bondarchuk. A Russian alien invasion movie that is a sequel to Attraction 2017. I watched this on Amazon Prime.

It's 3 years after the first movie and the aliens are back. So is the general and his annoying daughter. They're surrounded by fairly impressive special effects of space ships, explosions and water. There's a ticking time bomb and a huge body count.

It's about average, I was getting a bit bored when there wasn't anything going on of interest. I got to the end but I wouldn't bother with it again.

Apocalypse-Z The Beginning Of The End 2024 Based on Apocalipsis Z 1. El principio del fin by Manel Loureiro, screenplay by Ángel Agudo, directed by Carles Torrens. A Spanish end of the world film I watched on Amazon.

A dangerous virus is turning humans into flesh eating and aggressive zombies. Some guy decides to flee the city with his cat. It doesn't go so well and by the end of the movie things are bleak indeed.

It's watchable but there's not much going and nothing really original either. It's nice to see a bit of Spain but it's not enough to make me need to see it again.

Science Fiction Sunday 818

Warning 2021 Written by Agata Alexander, Rob Michaelson and Jason Kaye, directed by Agata Alexander.

A dull end of the world film filled with unrealistic settings, uninteresting characters and poor dialog. Give it a miss.

2099: The Soldier Protocol 2019 Written  by James S Abrams and directed Dee McLachian. An Austalian SF film.

A secret program is kidnapping recruiting victims to be experimented on. David Arquette runs the program for the company. He's been picking the subjects, he has prisoner Matt thrown off of a second floor balcony. Now Matt's in a wheelchair, making him more willing to try to get his mobility back with David's nanobots.

The experiment works but things don't go so well for Matt for a while. He gets a bit of help from Dr Turner, she'd just been hired and she's rather appalled by David's methods. David gets a good comeuppance at the end of the movie.

It's a rather cliched and familiar film. I didn't think too much of it. I wouldn't need to see it again.

Both were on Amazon Prime.