THE ARTIFICE GIRL

 

Publicity poster for The Artifice Girl (© Franklin Ritch/Paper Street Pictures/Last Resort Ideas/Blood Oath/Tiberius Films/Jack Rabbit Media/XYZ Films – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

This afternoon, I watched an extraordinary science fiction movie entitled The Artifice Girl.

Directed and written by Franklin Ritch, who also plays its lead human character, and released in 2022 by XYZ Films, The Artifice Girl is all about an incredibly advanced and ultra-realistic yet nonetheless a wholly virtual CGI girl created and named Cherry by troubled computer genius & anonymous online vigilante Gareth (Franklin Ritch, and with Lance Henriksen playing him as an old man) to use as bait (hence this movie's title) for ensnaring vile child predators lurking on social media.

Moreover, once he successfully confirms during interrogation that he himself is not an abuser, by revealing to them the existence of Cherry and her astonishing capabilities, Garth is thereafter assisted in his heroic endeavours by two top-secret American government investigative agents, Deena (Sinda Nichols) and Amos (David Girard).

However, Cherry swiftly and unexpectedly evolves into a super-intelligent, sentient, independent AI entity with a mind and ambitions of her own, which complicates matters very profoundly. So too does Gareth's intensely personal and tragic secret motive that perpetually haunts him and drives him on unceasingly in his determined quest to expose as many paedophiles as possible for the authorities to arrest and imprison.

The film is split into three separate segments, each successive one focusing upon a different, ever more advanced stage in Cherry's development and evolution from sophisticated computer program to self-aware AI being to eventual cyborg.

Although filmed entirely in just a handful of small, sparse sets, The Artifice Girl is absolutely engrossing and fascinating throughout its 93-minute running time. This is due in no small way to the extremely thought-provoking scientific and associated moral issues discussed at length in the gripping, brilliantly-scripted dialogue ricocheting back and forth between the four principal characters, in which not a single word is superfluous.

In addition, young actress Tatum Matthews is truly spellbinding as Cherry (she apparently learned how to talk robotically for this movie by studying the speech patterns of Amazon's virtual assistant Alexa). For even though she is seen merely as a disembodied on-screen talking face for almost the entire movie (only in the final section has Cherry ultimately acquired a physical cyborg body), she always totally dominates the viewer's attention – a major acting career awaits, surely. Incidentally, please rest assured, there is absolutely NO visual representation of any kind of abuse in this film, and only some plot-essential but wholly non-descriptive references within the characters' dialogue.

The Artifice Girl premiered on 23 July 2022, in Canada, at Montreal's 26^th Annual Fantasia International Film Festival, where it won the coveted Gold Audience Award for Best International Feature, but it only received a very limited USA release, in just a few select cinemas, on 1 May 2023. Following this, it has only been available in Video On Demand format, which is a crying shame, as this riveting but little-known, hidden gem of a feature so deserves to be brought to the attention of a much wider audience – hence my reason for reviewing it here on my Shuker In MovieLand blog.

Happily, I was able to watch this film today on Daily Motion's website, and in just three days' time, on Tuesday 22 April 2025, it will be broadcast on British TV, at 9.00 pm on the terrestrial TV channel Film4 (indeed, it was seeing a mention of its upcoming Film4 screening in this weekend's TV guide for next week that brought the movie to my attention, as I'd never previously heard of it). So if you live in the UK, you can view it on there next Tuesday.

But wherever you're based, if you'd like to watch The Artifice Girl online, and free of charge too, please click here to do so on Daily Motion.

Finally: to view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

LIKE A BAT OUTTA HELL (aka BAT OUTTA HELL aka NOWHERE ELSE)

 

Publicity poster for Like A Bat Outta Hell (aka Bat Outta Hell aka Nowhere Else (© Danial Donai/Forescene Films/Tricoast Worldwide – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

On 17 October 2024, my movie watch was the Australian cryptozoology-themed horror film Like A Bat Outta Hell (aka Bat Outta Hell aka Nowhere Else, the last-mentioned being its original title).

Directed and written by Danial Donai, and released in 2013 by Tricoast Worldwide, Like A Bat Outta Hell is all about a team of four young surfing film-makers – Randy (played by Marco Dapper), Jack (Dan Balcaban), Bianca (Rachael Murphy), and Chris (William Wensley) – sent by their bosses/funders into a vast barren region of South Australia's Outback to film a new but unspecified subject; they'll only be told what it is once they reach their remote location. So far, so sinister…

And indeed, one of the four team members, Chris, is secretly serving as an inside man for the team's bosses, so he does know what the subject is that the team is to film – a scientifically-unrecognised form of human-sized carnivorous bat indigenous to this wasteland and exceedingly dangerous, ripping off the faces of human victims. This is why the other three film-makers were not told about it, as they would never have agreed to set out if they had known

 

One of the giant humanoid bats from this movie (© Danial Donai/Forescene Films/Tricoast Worldwide – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

But as any clear film footage that proves this mystery beast's reality will net the team's bosses a fortune, they are most anxious for the team to locate and record these monstrous entities, regardless of what terrible fate may await them. The usual mayhem and carnage typically depicted in monster movies like this one duly ensues, but the viewer has to wait an agonisingly long time before some full. clear views of the voracious man-bats (created for the movie via CGI) are finally shown.

They resemble an unsettling hybrid of the giant moths from The Blood Beast Terror and the vampiric Mr Kurt Barlow from the original TV mini-series version of Salem's Lot, but are presented as corporeal cryptids rather than supernatural bloodsuckers or suchlike. Indeed, when the team reach in the afore-mentioned barren Outback a ghost town named Nowhere Else and find it  inhabited by only one elderly man, Simson (Vernon Wells), they also find that he is equipped with some decidedly physical, tangible weaponry and also that he is a closet cryptozoologist, not a private paranormalist.

Moreover, director Donai has stated that he was inspired to write and direct this movie after being informed in the real-life South Australian outback town of Nowhere Else he was visiting that a team of documentary film-makers had lately claimed that while filming in that area they had been attacked by a human-sized bat. Yeah, right – if so, how come the notably rich vein of Australian cryptozoology is entirely dry regarding mystery man-sized Australian bats?

 

Publicity poster for the movie Chiroptera(© Danial Donai/Forescene Films/Tricoast Worldwide – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

After running for 92 minutes, Like A Bat Outta Hell finally reaches an ending but one that comes unexpectedly and is very disappointing, as it provides no resolution whatsoever to the plot. However, in 2019 a much longer version, containing a lot of additional footage, yielding a total running time of 130 mins, was released, and retitled Chiroptera. I have not seen that version, but it apparently includes several fully-shot scenes that were only spoken about in the 2013 movie.

Like A Bat Outta Hell is an interesting but decidedly odd, offbeat flick, and it doesn't even feature a cameo or any song tracks from the now late but always great Meat Loaf. Shame.

Please click here if you'd like to go batty watching an official trailer on YouTube for this movie, or here to watch the entire movie free of charge, again on YouTube.

Finally: to view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

Close-up shot of one of the giant humanoid bats from this movie (© Danial Donai/Forescene Films/Tricoast Worldwide – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

 

"BRING ME THE HEAD OF KING KONG!" - FROM THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING TO A SCOTTISH PANTOMIME?

 

Vintage photograph of a man-made pantomime stage prop in the form of a giant primate head (but NOT derived from a real, dead animal) (public domain/Wikipedia)

Is there a connection between a certain giant movie ape that met its demise atop NYC's Empire State Building and an over-sized primate that appeared on stage in a Scottish pantomime? The visually-striking vintage photograph presented above leads me to suspect that there might indeed be one, as I'll now explain.

Needless to say, had I first chanced upon this picture only quite recently I would probably have simply assumed it to be an AI-generated image and therefore may not have investigated it, as the head is certainly far too big to be from any type of anatomically-feasible primate, even one of the cryptozoological kind.

In reality, however, I first encountered it online some years ago (on Wikipedia, if memory serves me correctly), and its arresting appearance was such that I decided to do whatever I could to identify exactly what it depicted and where it had originated. Here is what I discovered.

As indicated by this present blog article's tongue-in-cheek title, parodying the biblical Salome's imperious demand to King Herod Antipas for John the Baptist's head (served on a platter, which it duly was!), I had initially wondered whether this public-domain photo may have been in some way related to the original, classic King Kong monster movie released by RKO Radio Pictures in spring 1933, directed by Marian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, and starring Fay Wray alongside this movie's titular stop-motion mega-star created by celebrated animator Willis H. O'Brien. Perhaps it was a spare giant ape head for close-up shots, or used for publicity purposes?

Although that idea ultimately proved false, I suspect that it nonetheless contains an element of relevance to the latter movie. For what I finally found out was that the object in this photo is actually a gaff, in this instance specifically a stage prop that had featured in a major pantomime performed just a few months after the release of King Kong.

 

Publicity photo-still of American actress Fay Wray promoting the 1933 film King Kong (public domain)

According to an unidentified, tantalizingly-brief newspaper report published on 11 December 1933 that had contained the photo, what it depicts is a 4.5-ft-tall giant ape or monkey head made from cardboard and paper (NOT from the remains of any real, dead animal) that had been specially constructed by a stage props company for a pantomime staged in Glasgow, Scotland, during the winter 1933/34 pantomime season. So it seems possible, even likely, that the prop was inspired by King Kong, which had proved such a massive hit worldwide earlier that very same year, especially as British pantomime tradition is famous for incorporating references to notable news stories that have occurred earlier on during the year in which the pantomime is being staged

Sadly, the newspaper report gave no further details, not even naming the pantomime in question or the theatre where it was staged. According to the Panto Archive website's comprehensive listing of Glasgow pantomime venues and productions (click here to view the entire list), however, the only pantomime staged in Glasgow during the 1933/34 season was 'Babes In The Wood', at the Theatre Royal, and featuring veteran Scottish music-hall comedian Tommy Lorne (1890-1935) as its principal star.

Perhaps, therefore, the giant monkey/ape head had appeared in it in the capacity of a guardian to the babes abandoned in the wood, or possibly as a comic bogeyman-type character. This is only speculation on my part, however, as I have been unable to discover any further information concerning either the head itself or the pantomime in which it appeared, but I did succeed in locating a second newspaper photo of it. Dating from the same period, but this time showing the head of a man inside the prop's gaping mouth and a woman standing alongside it, this second photo can be accessed here. I wonder if this eyecatching effigy still survives somewhere, stored away, perhaps, in the vaults of some theatre or stage props provider?

At any rate, we can all be reassured now by the comforting knowledge that somewhere deep within the cloud-shrouded Skull Island of make-believe movie-land, the real King Kong is still striding majestically through his stop-motion domain with his huge head held high, still firmly attached to his mighty neck and shoulders, whereas, tragically, the same cannot be said for John the Baptist's.

Speaking of Skull Island: be sure to click here to read my review of a more recent King Kong-starring monster movie Kong: Skull Island. Finally: to view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

An original 1933 publicity poster for King Kong (public domain)

 

 

 

TRACK OF THE MOON BEAST

 

Publicity poster for Track of the Moon Beast (© Richard Ashe/Lizard Productions/Prism Pictures Ince – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

On 21 September 2024, my movie watch was a seriously oddball American sci fi/horror movie from the mid-1970s entitled Track of the Moon Beast, but it was rendered memorable for me by being the first film I can remember seeing that featured a were-lizard as its antagonist!

Directed by Richard Ashe, and produced in 1972 by Lizard Productions Inc, Track of the Moon Beast was originally intended for cinematic release, but was unable to secure a distributor. Instead, its eventual public debut took place on the small screen, when it premiered as a TV movie on 1 June 1976, but in a much-censored shorter version from which certain particularly gory, gruesome scenes featuring the monster killing people had been deleted (the original, uncensored version is apparently no longer available).

Track of the Moon Beast opens with a young mineralogist named Paul Carlson (played by Chase Cordell) in some Albuquerque mountains studying a lunar meteor shower taking place over New Mexico when he is struck in the head by a fragment from one of the meteorites. The fragment lodges in his brain, with wholly unexpected but decidedly dire consequences.

For now, every night when a full moon appears, Paul transforms into a human-sized bipedal lizard-like entity with rampaging, murderous tendencies – this movie's eponymous moon beast – leaving gory carnage as well as very large clawed tracks in its wake. Moreover, it turns out that this bizarre phenomenon has been happening in this region since time immemorial, as revealed in local Native American legends and ancient paintings subsequently made known to Paul by his Native American mentor, Prof. John 'Jonny Longbow' Salinas (Gregorio Sala).

While human, however, Paul has no knowledge of being a lizard and killing people, and for much of the movie no-one else has either, determined though they are to expose the identity of the elusive killer in their midst. Ultimately, however, as is always the case in films like this, Paul's sinister secret is indeed exposed – although to be fair, had it not eventually become public knowledge there wouldn't have been much of a movie!

Yet even worse was soon to come for Paul. After a top-notch NASA brain surgeon x-rays his head prior to a planned operation in order to remove the fragment, Paul is shattered to learn from the surgeon that the operation cannot proceed because the fragment has disintegrated, but with its toxic, unstable extraterrestrial essence having permeated his entire body. Not only could Paul not be cured by conventional medical means, therefore, but also the fragment's deadly legacy would be death – those of further innocent, randomly-selected victims of Paul's reptilian alter ego, but also Paul's own, the latter via sudden self-combustion in the not-too-distant future.

Knowing that he cannot continue like this, Paul flees to the mountains on his motorbike, having made a stark decision, but one that devastates his loyal girlfriend Kathy (Donna Leigh Drake), as well as his friends and colleagues. So, will they reluctantly accept the inevitable, or will they do everything in their power to prevent it? Watch this movie and find out for yourselves!

Silly sci fi is a movie passion of mine, so whereas it was panned by most film critics, I absolutely loved Track of the Moon Beast, even if the on-screen lunar-influenced lizardman looks nothing near as imposing as the spectacular version depicted in this low-budget creature feature's striking publicity posters and official Prism Pictures VHS video's front cover illustration, as included in this present Shuker In MovieLand review. Even so, the make-up for it took 5-6 hours for make-up artist Joe Blasco to create each time that the actor playing the lizardman (Blasco himself) wore it (Blasco was  taller and therefore more visually imposing than Cordell – who only played it in one scene, when Paul transforms into the lizardman while strapped down for observation purposes in hospital).

If you'd like to watch an official trailer on YouTube for Track of the Moon Beast, please click here – or click here if you'd like to watch the entire movie free of charge on there.

Finally: to view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

Full cover of the official Prism Pictures VHS video of Track of the Moon Beast (© Richard Ashe/Lizard Productions/Prism Pictures Ince – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

 

THE GIANT CLAW, AND SO MUCH MORE! MINI-REVIEWING ANOTHER SIX SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY MOVIES

 

Publicity poster for The Giant Claw (© Fred F. Sears/Clover Productions/Columbia Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Here are another half-dozen mini-reviews of science fiction and fantasy movies that I've watched of late, or very late!

 

 

Another two publicity posters for The Giant Claw (© Fred F. Sears/Clover Productions/Columbia Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

THE GIANT CLAW

On 19 July 2023, after a mere 64 years since first showing my face in this weird world of ours, I finally watched (in the shape of a very decent colorized version) that classic 'so bad that it's good' 1957 monster movie The Giant Claw, directed (and also narrated) by Fred F. Sears, and released by Columbia Pictures. To be fair, the actual storyline (gigantic alien bird from an antimatter galaxy attacks and destroys numerous military aircraft over North America) and acting (lead star was Jeff Morrow, as civil aeronautical engineer Mitch MacAfee) are decent enough for a 1950s B-movie of this genre. Instead, the problem lies almost entirely with its metaphorical elephant in the drawing room or, to be more literal, its giant bird in the skyline! Owner of this movie's titular talon(s), the bargain-basement model bird utilised is not just fowl but foul – it resembles the kind of tawdry, rubber-necked, bent-beaked ultra-cheapo 'prize' that you might find yourself taking home (or dropping into the nearest garbage bin) after successfully shooting a series of floating plastic ducks at a downtown funfair! Once it makes its first appearance, any hope of taking the movie even remotely seriously thereafter is entirely lost, its mad glazed gaze staring into the camera through a pair of enormous white ping-pong ball-like eyes, and its scrawny plumage recalling an irredeemably clapped-out feather duster! In other words, The Giant Claw is precisely the kind of monstrously crazy creature feature that I just had to review here in my movie blog, especially as I'd previously read so much about it (Morrow confessed in an interview, for instance, that he had crept incognito into a cinema screening this film at its premiere and was so ashamed at the laughter and jeers that arose from the audience each time that the bird appeared on screen that he lost no time in creeping back out in case someone recognised him!; and Ray Harryhausen had originally been selected to create the bird but the movie's budget was so low that they had to use a cut-price alternative model creator in Mexico City instead). And now, finally, I've actually viewed it in all its horrendous glory. A total turkey that's strictly for the birds? Please click here to watch an official trailer for this movie on YouTube and decide for yourselves! Or click here if you'd like to watch free of charge on YouTube the entire colorized movie version that I watched on there.

 

 

A couple of publicity posters for The Hidden (© Jack Sholder/Heron Communications, Inc./Mega Entertainment/New Line Cinema – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

THE HIDDEN

On 25 October 2024, I finally watched a classic 1980s sci fi movie that I'd long intended to see – The Hidden. Directed by Jack Sholder and released in 1987 by New Line Cinema, it's all about an evil half-insect/half-slug alien that physically occupies a human host to make him/her do its violent will, thereby turning its victim into a homicidal killer before exiting when the host is killed by police etc, and then surreptitiously entering a new human host. Its ultimate goal is to enter and control the next President of the USA, but on its trail is an indefatigable alien law enforcer in the human guise of fake FBI agent Lloyd Gallagher (played by Kyle MacLachlan), assisted by cynical LAPD cop Detective Tom Beck (Michael Nouri), who for much of the film has no idea what on Earth (literally!) is happening. He is particularly perplexed as to why hitherto law-abiding citizens are abruptly turning into mass murderers, until Gallagher eventually has no option but to tell him the jaw-dropping truth. The Hidden is a very tense, thrilling movie that kept me on the edge of my seat throughout, thereby fully justifying this claim as made in one of its posters included here, culminating in a literally explosive climax that at long last publicly exposes the alien villain in its revolting true form to an astonished, horrified human audience, followed by a most unexpected but very moving, touching finale. Highly recommended!! A follow-up film, The Hidden II, was released in 1993, in which it is revealed that the bug/slug alien from the original movie had secretly laid some eggs before being killed, and these are now beginning to hatch – uh-oh… I'll have to seek out this sequel and watch it at some stage. Meanwhile, please click here to watch an official trailer for the original movie on YouTube.

 

 

A publicity poster and an official VHS video of Curse of the Crystal Eye (© John Tornatore/New Horizons – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

CURSE OF THE CRYSTAL EYE

My movie watch on 27 March 2024 was Curse of the Crystal Eye. Directed by Joe Tornatore and released in 1991 by New Horizons, this is one of a seemingly countless number of action/adventure movies spawned by other studios in the wake of Paramount's immensely-successful Indiana Jones blockbusters, in which a rebel character seeks ancient treasure and faces untold life-threatening challenges during his daring quest. In this particular offering, the rebel in question is ex-mercenary Luke Ward (played by Jameson Parker), who is gifted a sizeable priceless crystal that acts as an eye to guide him and his romantic-interest sidekick, namely diplomat's daughter Vickie Philips (Cynthia Payne in her final big-screen role), to the fabled long-hidden treasure of none other than Arabian Nights thief-leader Ali Baba. And guess what? Before you can say "Open Sesame", he and Vickie plus their back-up team of brawny mercenaries duly find the cave in which the ancient temple containing the treasure is concealed – but this is just the beginning, as the cave does not relinquish its splendorous contents quite so easily. Nor are they alone and unchallenged in their mission to relieve the cave of said contents... Curse of the Crystal Eye is an innocuous and mildly entertaining but instantly-forgettable adventure flick that passes 90 minutes' worth of time during a rainy spring afternoon or chilly winter evening, but signally lacks the much-vaunted fiery dragons promised in its publicity material. Shucks! Please click here to watch an official trailer for this movie on YouTube, or click here to watch the entire movie on there, free of charge..

 

 

French publicity poster for Pitch Black plus this movie's alien life-form the bioraptor (© David Twohy/Grammercy Pictures/Interscope Communications/Universal Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

PITCH BLACK

On 11 August 2024, I watched the sci fi movie Pitch Black, directed by David Twohy and released in 2000 by Universal Pictures. Pitch Black is the first entry in the Chronicles of Riddick film franchise, and it stars Vin Diesel as dangerous, taciturn, and thoroughly enigmatic criminal Richard Riddick. He is one of several passengers to survive the crash-landing of their space-craft on a mysterious desert planet seemingly devoid of all life forms – until an eclipse blocks out its suns. Then the terrifying bioraptors emerge from their caves – very large winged horrors that slaughter most of the passengers as they bid desperately to survive these nocturnal nightmares. A reluctant Riddick decides to help the other passengers, equipped as he is with specially-modified eyes that now possess perfect night vision – very useful during an eclipse where darkness brings forth monstrous entities of the murderous kind, Mercifully, however, these killer creatures are physically wounded by bright light, so the passengers strive frantically to equip themselves with any kind of light source (even capturing tiny bioluminescent creatures inside transparent glass jars to use as living lanterns – these creatures are actually the bioraptors' larvae), and pray that the eclipse will only be of short duration. The bioraptors are superbly designed, totally alien in form, and are seen clearly enough (even in dark scenes), frequently enough, and long enough for my interest to be maintained throughout. So much so, in fact, that I now intend to watch the other three entries (one of which is actually an animated featurette) presently in this series, with a fifth due out in 2025. Very enjoyable. Please click here to watch an official trailer for this movie on YouTube.

 

 

Three publicity posters for Synchronic (© Justin Benson/Aaron Moorhead/XYZ Films/Patriot Pictures/Rustic Films/Well Go USA Entertainment - – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

SYNCHRONIC

My movie watch on 8 May 2024 was the sci fi thriller Synchronic. Directed by Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead (Benson also wrote and co-produced it), and released in 2019 by Well Go USA Entertainment, it stars Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan as New Orleans paramedics Steve and Dennis. They are also best friends, and are dealing with a series of grisly deaths linked to a mysterious new designer drug after which this movie is named. When Dennis's teenage daughter Brianna vanishes without trace, however, Steve learns from the drug's guilt-ridden creator its top-secret but shocking unexpected side-effect. Whereas adults with a calcified pineal gland who take a tablet of Synchronic can visualise the past and appear in it as ghost-like entities that can be injured or even killed there but physically remain in the present, youngsters with a non-calcified pineal who take a tablet are bodily transported into the past, and without a second tablet they are stuck there, forever! Steve has recently learnt that he has a pineal cancer, which has prevented his pineal gland from calcifying – and so, unlike most adults, if he takes a Synchronic tablet he can actually visit the past physically. Consequently, he uses a stash of tablets to search for Brianna in the past, but will be find her before his stash runs out, especially as Synchronic's creator has meanwhile bought up every available supply of it and destroyed them all before committing suicide? The film would have been interesting were it not so remorselessly bleak, and dark – in every sense. Not only was it overwhelmingly depressing, but also it seemed to have been shot almost entirely at night, filling the screen with shadows and near pitch-black vistas for far too much of its 102-minute running time. Even when Steve visited the past it was almost always at night. Did the studio forget to pay their electricity bill, I wonder? Synchronic offers an unusual premise, certainly, and provides a very poignant ending, but overall it was far too depressing for my tastes. Please click here to watch an official trailer for this movie on YouTube.

 

 

Two publicity posters for The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (© Henry Levin/George Pal/George Pal Productions/Avernus Productions/MGM – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF THE BROTHERS GRIMM

On 12 April 2024, I sought out and, after owning it for many years, finally watched my sell-thru video of the classic 1960s fantasy movie The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm, which was co-directed by Henry Levin and George Pal (with Pal also producing it), and also extensively featured marionettes created by Pal for the fairytale segments. Filmed in spectacular curved-screen Cinerama, and released in 1962 by MGM, it is basically a largely imaginary, highly romanticised history of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, the two 19th-Century German brothers who famously collected and chronicled many of their homeland's traditional folktales. In the present movie, however, only Wilhelm (played by Laurence Harvey) is portrayed in this way, with Jacob (Karlheinz Böhm) presented as a highbrow law scholar who initially has neither time nor patience for his brother's fairytales, but is eventually won over to his cause, helping Wilhelm with his collating and preserving of them in published book form. Interspersed between the film's biographical storyline are three of their collected fairytales – 'The Dancing Princess' (a constricted version of 'The 12 Dancing Princesses'), 'The Cobbler and the Elves', and 'The Singing Bone', the latter two featuring some wonderful Pal puppetry/stop-motion animation, especially the dragon in 'The Singing Bone', and all three of them are sumptuously staged. A host of famous names also appear, including Russ Tamblyn, Barbara Eden, Jim Backus, Terry-Thomas, Claire Bloom, Martita Hunt, and Yvette Mimieux. This is a delightful movie very reminiscent in execution and whimsical treatment of its two sibling subjects' lives of the 1952 movie musical Hans Christian Andersen with regard to its own titular storyteller (played by Danny Kaye). Grimm by name but certainly not grim by nature, The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm is definitely a fun-filled, thoroughly enchanting film for all the family to enjoy. Please click here to watch an official trailer for this movie on YouTube.

Finally: to view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

George Pal's stop-motion dragon model from The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (© Henry Levin/George Pal/George Pal Productions/Avernus Productions/MGM – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

 

GUNS AKIMBO

 

Two versions of Guns Akimbo, the left-hand DVD containing the full, uncut 18-Certificate version, the DVD on the right containing the slightly cut 15-Certificate version (© Jason Lei Howden/Occupant Entertainment/Four Knights Film/Maze Pictures/Cutting Edge/The Electric Shadow Company/Umedia/Ingenious Media/WS Filmproduktion/Deutscher Filmforderfonds/FilmFernsehrFonds Bayern/Hyperion Entertainment/New Zealand Film Commission/Saban Films/Altitude Film Distribution/Leonine Distribution/Madman Entertainment – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

My film watch on 16 October 2024 was Guns Akimbo, as recommended recently to me by a fellow movie fan on Facebook.

Directed and written by Jason Lei Howden, released jointly in 2019 by Saban Films (in North America), Altitude Film Distribution (UK), Leonine Distribution (Germany and Austria), and Madman Entertainment (Australia and New Zealand), and filmed in Germany and New Zealand, Guns Akimbo is basically an action-packed but relentlessly-violent dark comedy/sci fi/crime thriller on steroids, and set in an alternative near future.

It stars Daniel Radcliffe, in a role (albeit still as the hero) about as far removed from his Harry Potter movies as it is possible to imagine – and then some! (Although his character in Horns – click here to read my review of that movie – may run it a close second!) But don't take my word for all of this – here's what IMDb has to say about Guns Akimbo via a very succinct but accurate summary of its veritable rollercoaster of a plot:

Miles [played by Daniel Radcliffe] is stuck in a dead-end programming job. Still in love with his ex-girlfriend Nova [Natasha Liu Bordizzo], he spends his waking hours between pining for her and scouring the internet as a social-justice troll, cowardly leaving anonymous insults to those who post objectionable content online. Meanwhile a cyber-gang, called Skizm, is running an ultra-violent game across his city, in which violent criminals fight to the death for the entertainment of an online audience of millions. Miles feels safe and secure insulting the sick audience of this game, but soon finds himself abducted and thrust into the game, forced to fight with an insane, gun-crazed, escaped lunatic [a female assassin named Nix, played by Samara Weaving]. His only tools, but also his biggest handicap, are the two huge pistols that have been literally bolted onto his hands. Initially, Miles's lifetime of running from his problems pays off as he – barely – manages to elude his seemingly unstoppable opponent, but when Nova's life is threatened unless he takes an active part in the game, he must finally stop running and overcome his fears to fight for the girl he loves.

Scorching along at a blistering pace that never pauses for a second all through its 90-odd-minute action-pummelling running time, peppered with as many bullets as there are expletives – and there are innumerable expletives – the movie itself plays like a maximum-speed computer video game, which in essence is what its plot is, but a game featuring real people in a real-life setting who suffer real-life deaths.

And if you're wondering how all of that can possibly happen so brazenly, in full view of the police yet unchallenged by them, it's because they are well and truly ensconced in Skism's cash-cached pocket. So Miles can expect no help from them.

Guns Akimbo is not my usual kind of movie, but it is so outrageously OTT, and it also greatly benefits from Radcliffe's very successful combining of non-stop frenetic action with black but broad comedy. This very effectively lightens what otherwise would be an unrelenting bloodfest, albeit one of a graphic comic-book nature rather than anything even remotely realistic (thankfully!), boasting as it does a body count of uncountable, unaccountable proportions.

It also sports a pumping soundtrack, including rocking tracks by the likes of Iggy Pop, Rick James, and Cypress Hill, plus two superb pounding cover versions by American industrial metal band 3Teeth. One of these is of British glam rock band The Sweet's smash hit single 'Ballroom Blitz', and the other one is of Dead Or Alive's classic UK #1 single 'You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)'.

In short, Guns Akimbo is certainly a movie that moves, in top gear and beyond at all times, so my attention and interest never flagged even for an instant throughout it. Consequently, action/crime-thriller fans and computer video game geeks alike will love it, I'm sure – as, albeit very unexpectedly, did I!

Last but not least: Nix has named her much-used pistol Kindness, and has also written along its side this seemingly odd name for a death-dealing weapon – until of course you suddenly realise that when she is shooting people dead with it, she is quite literally killing them with Kindness! Quality!

Of the two Guns Akimbo DVDs whose photos open this movie review, I own and watched the version depicted on the right, i.e. the slightly edited 15-Certificate one, and that was immensely violent – how much more so, therefore, was the uncut 18-Certificate version depicted on the left?! The mind boggles!

Anyway, if you'd like to immerse yourself albeit briefly in Skism's played-for-real killer computer game of death within which Miles finds himself lethally trapped and unceasingly targeted by his Kindness-wielding nemesis Nix, please click here and here to watch a couple of truly explosive official Guns Akimbo trailers on YouTube.

Also: to view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.