RETURNER-2002-This is a great sci-fi/action film with a time travel storyline from Japan. A young girl (Anne Suzuki) from the future (2084) travels 80 into the past to prevent a alien invasion that dooms Earth. She gets help from "Gun for Hire" named Miyamoto (Takeshi Kaneshiro) who is out to avenge the death of a childhood friend at the hands of gangster Mizoguchi (Goro Kishitani in a great performance). Though a few plot holes might show through RETURNER and director Takashi Yamazaki deliver the goods....
RIDERS OF THE WHISPERING SKULL-1937-is a typically cheap and creaky western from Republic Pictures featuring the team known as "The Three Mesquiteers" (Stony, Tucson & Lullaby). This has the unusual feature of a supernatural plot involving a cursed treasure. Of course it's actually those "bad" Native American Indians once again and this particular tribe (described by one character as "a cult") like human sacrifices. The trio are kind of lamebrained if you ask me and seem to stick their collective noses into stuff that's none of their business. Stony is played by Robert Livingston. He played the same character around 20 times and was in about 80 other forgetable films but wound up his career in three Al Adamson movies! Stuntman Crash Corrigan who also specialized in playing gorillas is Tucson.
WEBS-(2003)-I have the unfortunate knack of never learning my lesson. When I saw this movie was being shown on The Sci-Fi Channel as "An Original Movie Presentation" I should have known better. It's happened before. Sci-Fi advertises a movie as being "exclusive" or even "made for Sci-Fi" yet when it's shown words are bleeped out and scenes are obviously cut. Why would they make a movie for TV that needed to be cut for language and content. I mean you'd think the producers would know this right?
Wrong! The answer is the station simply purchases some unreleased crap that no one wants and "presents" it as their own. But why they would want to take credit for such garbage is beyond me! For a while they were "snake crazy". Then it was sharks. I got caught in "Spider Weekend" apparently. Maybe it was a homage to the opening of SPIDER-MAN 2. I don't know...
Except this:
This one is kind of weird. It's almost like a pilot for a TV series though. Some electricians, led by direct to video fodder Richard Greico (did this guy ever have a career?) accidently travel to a parallel universe where the inhabitants battle blood drinking spider-people. It sounds interesting but the premise is really wasted mostly on fights and a few gory killings.
Director David Wu was also an actor, producer and editor in Hong Kong. In better days, he wrote THE BRIDE WITH THE WHITE and it's sequel (which he also directed). After directing episodes of TV shows like POWER PLAY and RELIC HUNTER, he was second unit director for BRIDE OF CHUCKY.
Oh yeah, I forgot the Sci-Fi channel recently changed their name to Sy-Fy! Sorry! They should be too.
Thanks for reading!
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