THREE QUIRKY LITTLE SCIENCE FICTION-HORROR-FANTASY MOVIES TO CHILL WITH.

me

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and welcome back to church olds movies

I've got a new camera

if for those of you who care it's an

insta360 link and it's kind of a web

camera but it's very sophisticated I'm

happy with it and I've got to keep

looking down at the screen for you so I

apologize for that

put my head on straight

um yeah I could do weird things with it

like this

and it will follow me around

I've also got I can change the angle of

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you the new shelf I have for my camera

gear

which is there or the big shelf up the

back of the room which is there

well the TV set which is down there

and then I can go back to where I was

and it just takes a little memory to do

adjust to that so AI smart camera 4K

gotta love it but let's move on with the

movies

this tolerator got three kind of quirky

lesser science fiction fantasy and

horror movies I've got one of each so

something for everyone

the first one I'm going to do it costs

seven thousand dollars it's made in 2004

by uh shank Ruth and also Stars David

Sullivan shankaruth is the director the

writer and the producer of a little film

called private now if you haven't seen

primer to be honest with you it's a

little bit tough to get into it's about

a couple of Engineers working in Silicon

Valley two guys called Aaron and Abe who

do entrepreneurial Tech projects in

between their kind of day jobs so

they've got a side hustle doing

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um little circuit boards and things like

that and they work out of Aaron's garage

with a couple of other friends and one

of the interesting things is they start

getting some weird results on an

experiment

that Abe and Aaron are doing as a side

hustle to their side hustle there was

value in the thing clearly that they

were certain of but what is the

application in a matter of hours they've

been into everything from mass transit

to satellite launching imagining devices

the size of jumbo Jets everything would

be cheaper it was practical and they

knew it

what they're shooting for is to

electromagnetically reduce the weight of

objects but then they start getting some

weird distortions in it and as the movie

progresses they find out they've created

a time machine anything put into the box

will go back and forth in time but if

you open the box

at one end of it it results in them

traveling backwards in time

and there's a ratio between how long the

object's in the box and how far they

oscillate back and forth in time

lots of complex physics in this one but

if you put the subtitles on you're going

to follow up pretty well so Aaron and I

decide to upscale

they get a storage unit and they put

into

kind of large coffin size

time machines so they can travel back in

time

there are a couple of complications

they've got to flood the unit with argon

so they need to have oxygen tanks on

and it gets a bit claustrophobic and

there are a few physical side effects to

the deal

but as they go back and decide they're

going to monetize this by playing the

stock market they'll get the share

prices on the things that have really

gone up and go back and buy them that

kind of thing are you the suspicion that

these aren't quite right and that

they've already been to the storage unit

before they start

creating the time machine so the time

machine is actually from a previous Loop

in the cycle of the time travel

it's a bit of a mind spin this one and

it really does bear close Washington

uh and one of the things you should

watch for and I only found this out

about the second time we'll watch the

film

is you've got to watch carefully the

camera angles because some of the camera

angles are shown suggest that the Aaron

and Abe were watching

have been watched by some other Aaron

and or ape

from a different time Loop

it's one of those movies that kind of

confuses the hell out of you there are

endless videos on YouTube explaining the

time Loops in primer

but for seven thousand dollars I think

it's great Shankar has made it in his

own house he used his friends as crew

and cast in some parts of it

and he used local locations where around

where he lived

and they filmed it on 16 millimeter film

so it's got that kind of low budget

aesthetic about it made a lot of money

for such a low budget maybe let me have

a look at the numbers on them because

they're always interesting budget was 7K

and the box office it says was 841 000

which is a good return on investment

really which is one of the things the

guys talk about a lot now the themes of

the movie are interesting as well one of

the things is that both Aaron and Abe

are Engineers they're not scientists

they're engineers

and so they for the first time in their

adult lives come up against the moral

implications

of what they're doing as engineers

and they are inadequate in handling that

they really don't have a moral compass

that will enable them to navigate this

breakthrough

in a meaningful way and the resolution

is kind of satisfying but a little

disturbing at the same time there are

implications that things in the future

are going to be

a little dangerous let's say and um if

any government ever gets hold of them

they're going to get even worse that's

not implied by the movie but it's an

implication of what we see in the film

based on what we know of the real world

now the actors aren't particularly

gifted but they don't need to be because

both of these guys are very kind of

engineering and many people I know who

are Engineers are somewhere on the

autism spectrum and there is a

suggestion that even though

Aaron is married with a child

he does have trouble in his relations

with other people

in that way that people who are on the

Spectrum often do now we find more and

more there are a couple of kind of third

Act

Revelations that really blow your mind

when you're watching

but this movie is is really interesting

now there's a good Blu-ray of the film

and I'll just bring it up and show it to

you because I can zip the camera around

and show you a Blu-ray disc just like

that this is the arrow films version of

it which also includes

um Shankar's second each film

Upstream Color which is an even stranger

and weirder and much more freaky in some

ways and shot um on high definition so

it looks a lot better than primer does

itself

but primer and Upstream Color together

uh really interesting films now of

shankaruth is a problematic character

I'm not sure where his career is going

to go from here there have been two

domestic violence charges against him by

his Partners at various times

and people like that are people that

Hollywood tends to steer away from I can

understand why and I can respect the

reasons why but he was coming out of

that time around the turn of the century

when there were some interesting

filmmakers like Andrew Nicole and

Vincenzo the Tali turning up and making

some really interesting things

and by the way vincenza Natalia is one

of the producers and one of the

directors

on this series Amazon has the peripheral

based on the novel by William Gibson

that you should check out because that's

really an interesting piece of Science

Fiction I may do a whole video about it

let me know if you want me to do it

but the peripheral is something that I

really enjoyed and it is I believe going

into a second season and it needs to to

complete the story time travel science

fiction stories like this High concept

ones uh something you can either do

really well or you can do really badly

and from an engineering point of view

primer really does it it's worth

checking out and the Blu-ray itself is

not that expensive if you want to pick

it up and if you're into science fiction

at all you've got to embrace the new as

well as the old and I think that this

one which is kind of medium new even

though it's 19 years old now really

delivers if you pay close attention to

it now the second one I've got for you

is a movie that came out 10 years ago

after a very problematic Genesis

it was directed by Stephen Summers who

around the turn of the century

was crazily popular with the mummy

series

and then in 2004 he started his own

production company and he made a box

office turkey called Van Helsing

if you've seen Van Helsing you know what

I mean even though it does start two

good Australian actors Hugh Jackman and

um Richard Roxborough it's still

unwatchably bad in a modern context it

then made the GI Joe Rise of Cobra movie

and neck tanked as well the box office

and so Steven Summers did a bit of

producing but really his day in the Sun

as far as being a kind of first tier

action directors concerned was a little

bit over then in 2011 he made a movie

that I'm going to talk about called Odd

Thomas based on the dean Koons novel

starring Anton Yelchin as a titular

character and Willem Dafoe as the local

police chief in the town of pikamundo

odd is his first name by the way it's

not because he's odd it's one of those

cute conceits they make at him now Dean

could see a whole bunch of these novels

based on this character and Stephen

Summers obviously wanted to make a bit

of a franchise here problem is and I'll

get all this stuff out of the way so I'm

talking about the movie itself problem

is that movies production company got

sued by another production company there

were all sorts of legal stuff and the

movie wasn't actually released until

2013 and it didn't do well in the box

office now I find it interesting film

it's very much in the style of Peter

Jackson's of Frighteners but it's um got

its own Mojo and it foreshadows some

real life problems in our real world one

of the problems of the film I think is

there's a lot of front-end World

building that needs to get done so you

understand what's happening as I said

Odd Thomas is a psychic who lives in a

town called pigamundo was actually

filmed in Santa Fe New Mexico he's a

kind of Psychic Detective the ghost of

dead people who can't talk but that he

can see

leading toward their murderers he's got

a relationship

with the local police chief a guy called

white porter played by Willem Dafoe this

is a nice personable role by Willem

Dafoe and Anton yelton's got a Charisma

that um that kind of makes him able to

lead a not particularly large budget

movie like this budget was 27 million

and the box office is 1.3 so it didn't

help Steven Summers long at all

and of course a few years after this

Anton Yelchin died in an unfortunate car

accident where a car rolled into him

while he was opening a gate now odd has

a girlfriend who works at an ice cream

store her name is stormy played by

Addison Timlin and they've got a nice

Rapport they've got that kind of cute

lovey-dovey kind of thing going on about

them and stormy is very much comfortable

with the psychic powers that odd has one

day odds meets sees a man he calls

fungus Bob now the recent fungus Bob

draws the attention of odd is that

he is surrendered by other worldly demon

beings called Botox which only odd can

see occasionally other people can see

them but if the bodax knows that you can

see them they'll kill you or arrange for

you to be killed but odd has never seen

this many bonus around and the bonax are

surrounding this weird guy whose name

turns out to be Robert Robertson and

then they suddenly they disappear so odd

goes on this detective Trail

to track Robertson back to his home

and to see what's actually going on and

one of the weird things he finds is that

there's a doorway to hell in this Shack

in which Robertson lives this then leads

him through a whole bunch of Avengers

end

some kind of psychic flash forwards that

he has that tell him that something

really really really catastrophic

is going to happen in his little town

and he's got to try to stop it now this

movie kind of works for me I don't think

it's perfect I think that the third act

Revelations that end the movie

uh they're they're very totally

different from the rest of the film I

think that there needed to be a little

more of something else in there of

course the ending of it opens up for the

sequels that never happened it's got

just enough gory bits without having too

many to really really put people off and

it's kind of like a mid-range movie from

10 years ago and sometimes it's

interesting to look at what movies came

out that weren't really really big

10 years ago and even the ones that were

really big

the attention to Horizon with God for

older movies is kind of weird at times

and not many people remember this move

even though it has turned up on

streaming services but it did get a

Blu-ray release

I love being able to do that

and it's um it's a solid little film

Supernatural themes and violence that

pretty much tells you what it is

but

um a double feature between this and The

Frighteners will be really instructive

and interesting I think The Frighteners

is a nice little

uh horror movie as well which kind of

looks weird to me because I could tell

that it was filled in New Zealand even

though it's supposedly set in America

and that always gives me kind of

yeah it makes me geographically

cross-eyed to watch it but nonetheless

it's got a lot going for but this one

if you see it on streaming or you get

the opportunity to pick it up cheaply

and I think I picked this one up quite

cheaply

it is worth checking out uh William

defoe's funny and gets a few plop Beats

the couple are cute the detective

Revelations that happened in the movie

are honest there are so many movies that

have kind of

detectives looking for things in the

revolution in their resolution comes out

and the true villains are revealed

some movies don't do that very well but

I think this one does it really well

which is kind of interesting for a movie

that wasn't successful

again because I didn't have big names in

it at the time and people's attention

was starting to drift towards the MCU in

an incredibly powerful way it's which

has kind of continued to this day

Odd Thomas didn't get a lot of love but

for me it worked re-watching it wasn't

an arduous task it was entertaining it

was fun

I'd forgotten some of the third act

Revelations which was good because I

think you need to cover those fresh

but if you're in the mood for something

that's kind of horror but not

nihilistically horrible

I think that this one definitely is one

that you're going to look at and enjoy

that then brings me to the third movie

which is in some ways the most fun

sorry if that last bit of audio is a bit

laggy of using a new camera as you know

and the first rule of new cameras is

something will go wrong the first time

we use it so let's talk about the third

movie that we've got

it's a classic of Larry Cohen's uvra it

was around the time he did some really

great films like the it's a live Trilogy

he did God told me to he did the stuff

did a whole bunch of really cool movies

and this is definitely one of them a

little film called he said bringing up

the picture

cue the wing servant

says Michael Moriarty David Carradine

Richard Roundtree and also Candy Clark

who is really good in this one

and you all know the story New York City

1980s

there's a petty Thief called Jimmy Quinn

who finds the nest of a giant Aztec god

quotes the wing serpent which has been

brought back to life by an Aztec

fundamentalist nutcase

who is sacrificing human beings in order

to manifest his God

now this is high concept for the 1980s

and Larry Cohen had just made a movie

called either jury and he was thrown off

the film towards the end of it

because he wouldn't stop his actors from

improvising and the studio and this was

a fairly big Studio picture with Armando

Sade and Barbara Carrera and a whole

bunch of other people in it and the

studio gave him the sex so within two

days he's got a deal and he starts

shooting this film he's met Michael

Moriarty he knew David carrading because

Larry Cohen and David Carradine we're in

the Army together in the 1950s and so he

we kind of got the game together

Moriarty playing Jimmy Quinn brought a

whole bunch of stuff to the picture the

piano playing stuff you see Jimmy do

which I'll put at the front of this

video

is a skill Michael Moriarty had in which

Larry Cohen incorporated into the movie

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it's just fantastic the way that the

collaboration worked

and Michael Moriarty playing a guy who

in some ways feels a bit similar to John

Voight's Joe Buck in Midnight Cowboy

even though he isn't as dumb as Joe Buck

is and he isn't as naive as Joe Buck is

he's still one of those guys who thinks

he's smarter than he and that makes for

a really interesting filmmaking and a

really interesting film and New York in

the 1980s was a really interesting place

to make movies the city was a

as everybody knows the government and

the police were corrupt there was tons

of crime around there was Urban Decay

there are all those good things that

make movies look really beautiful this

film is definitely part of it and leans

into it the street sends a shot

beautifully and Larry Cohen had a real

skill for shooting New York Street Scene

all you've got to do is look at moves

like black season Hell Up In Harlem and

God told me to to know that the guy knew

his stuff and the guy really did film it

in a way quite unlike many other movie

makers it just held together and then

suddenly he's throwing this enormously

fantastic aspect of it being an ancient

Aztec god

biting off people's heads grabbing

people out of swimming pools grabbing

women from the tops of building while

they're topless with sunbait and then

scattering the blood all over the

pedestrians down below it's great High

concept stuff it's a bold movie to make

and it's incredibly wonderfully

entertaining supporting mariad you've

got Richard playing one of the

detectives you got David Carradine

knowing that his tongue's got to be

these chickens as well and you've got

the wonderful Candy Clark playing Joan

Jimmy's girlfriend who puts up with a

lot but knows it's somewhere inside

Jimmy Quinn a good man is just waiting

to come out and waiting for the right

stimulus to emerge and I like that

character rug as well Candy Clark had

just such a groundedness and uh realism

as an actress she was in the thing that

anchored a movie like Nicholas Rogues

the man who fell to work you've got the

kind of ethereal

Bowie playing the um alien mutant

and then you've got candy Club grounding

everything at a human level and carrying

that part of the film in a really

fascinating way and she does it to a

certain extent in this film as well

I just love the way that Larry Cohen had

the boldness to make this movie

it was not a shamedly an exploitation

film maker and was right to the end he

came up with brilliant Concepts and

landed them the idea of a yogurt that

eats people well the idea of a baby

which is actually a hyper-intelligent

feral monster all these things are stuff

that you in the wrong hands wouldn't

work but Larry Cohen made it work

tremendously well and it doesn't take a

lot to evoke the monster in this one too

which I really like the shadow going

across the skyscrapers

the quick shots of the stop-motion

monster the action says with guys in

gantries all around the cries of the

building where the nest is

shooting at a monster that isn't really

there with submachine gun

in the middle of New York City without

most of the people in New York City

knowing what a little gunfight was about

that's crazy bold stuff and there's no

way you can't love this movie it has

everything you want from an exploitation

film there's no one quite like Larry

Cohn when it comes to this kind of film

and I love that I love his audacity I

love his boldness I love the quirky

actress he surrounded himself with the

mate and I love the movie itself it's

just so much fun so these are the three

movies for this time around I liked all

of them to varying degrees I think

they're very different films but I think

they're all part of that lower budget

entertaining

thought-provoking Cinema that we all

know and love

and it was fun to revisit them

so on that note thank you very much for

watching if you enjoyed the video like

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got another video coming up in a few

days got another one coming over the

week

2023 is going to be an interesting year

the patreon supporters are getting some

nice giveaways this year thanks to the

generosity of imprint and umbrella

and yeah I'm looking forward to seeing

what the year brings as far as new film

is concerned and also which old films I

can find that I've never seen before so

anyway until next time watch some good

movies watch some bad movies

watch some B grade films that didn't

have big budgets and I'll catch you next

time

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thank you