Curtis Threesome

 

 (imdb)

DEAD OF NIGHT-1977-TV movie trilogy by director Dan Curtis and screenwriter Richard Matheson, narrated by John Dehner. 

 In "Second Chance"-A guy named Frank (Ed Begley Jr.) restores an old car that had been in a car crash (killing two people) in 1926. While driving it on a back road, he's transported to 1926. His car is stolen and he's stranded but the next day he's back in his own time. He meets Helen (Christina Hart) and her father (EJ Andre) & mother (Ann Doran) who have the exact same car. It seems Frank may have changed the past. From a story by Jack Finney.

In the second story "No Such Thing As A Vampire"-Prof. Gheria (Patrick Macnee) calls on his friend Michael (Horst Bucholtz) to help his daughter Alexis (Anjanette Comer) who he says has been attacked by a vampire. Elisha Cook Jr. is his butler. This has a good twist ending. From a story by Matheson.

"Bobby"-A woman (Joan Hackett) uses witchcraft to try and bring back her dead son. He (Lee Montgomery) comes back but wants to murder mom. His "friend" shows up in the finale. Based on the WW Jacobs classic short story "The Monkey's Paw". 

Director Dan Curtis made this a year after the feature film BURNT OFFERINGS. It's very good (especially for TV) but is usually pushed aside in favor of his earlier anthology TRILOGY OF TERROR (1975). 

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In The Future

 

 (imdb)

IDAHO TRANSFER-1973-At facility in Idaho, a secret project plans to send young people 56 years into the future to start a new civilization. Two sisters (who's father heads the project) go into the future and talk endlessly. One is injured in a fall and dies (?). Later some "young people" go to live in the future without the project knowing and are stranded there. 

Occasionally interesting it's undone by bad acting and characters talking and walking too much. Director Peter Fonda financed the film himself (said to be around $500,000) and with the exception of Keith Carradine in a small role all the other characters are non-professionals.

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Not An Army Of Doctors

 

ARMY OF FRANKESTEINS-2013-A mad scientist accidentally sends a pack of Frankenstein monsters back in time to the Civil War along with Alan, a skinny loser and a little kid from the present day. It's a horror comedy made in Oklahoma with gore influenced by things like ABRAHAM LINCOLN VAMPIRE HUNTER. A crazy southern general creates his own monster and Alan and the famous monster try to prevent John Wilkes Booth from assassinating Abraham Lincoln. It's pretty bad. Director Ryan Bellgardt has made other movies and probably will make some more...

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Yesterday

 

 (cultpix.com)

THE YESTERDAY MACHINE-1965-After a college kid is shot by unknown assailants a reporter Jim Crandall (James Britton; the director's brother) goes to interview him at the hospital. Dr. Blake (Charles Young) tells Jim the boy's story and in a flashback we learn the boy's attackers were dressed in Civil War clothes and his cheerleader girlfriend disappeared. After night club singer Sandra Del Marr (Ann Pelligrino) croons a song, police Lt. Partane (Tim Holt) and his assistant Lansky (Robert Kelly) inform her of her cheerleader sister's disappearance. Later a weird detective finds a Civil War cap that's the real thing, along with the girl's sweater. Partane relates a story to Lansky from WW2 involving some young concentration camp prisoners who should have been old and a German physicist Prof. Von Hauser. Later Jim and Sandy investigate an old house near where her sister's sweater was found. After Jim knocks out a guy who attacked Sandy they seem to go back in time and meet a guy on a horse in a tri-corner hat. When the guy sees Jim's cigarette lighter he declares "Witchcraft!" and rides off. After walking around they are transported to the lab of Prof. Von Hauser (Jack Herman) who's doing experiments with time traveling. He has a former Egyptian slave as a servant and is quite kindly until Jim calls Hitler a madman. The long winded mad scientist explains in detail how he mastered time with something called "The Minus Ray". Meanwhile Sandy is reunited with her sister. Later Von Hauser plans to send Sandy's sister into the future but with the help of the slave (who's killed) Jim escapes and rescues the women. Partane arrives and kills Von Hauser and destroys the machine. 

This movie is mostly talk and not much else. The story's sole proof of time travel are 4 characters. It's very cheap and badly acted. Writer/director Russ Marker wrote the shoddy NIGHT FRIGHT with John Agar. 

Tim Holt was a popular young star before WW2. On his return from the war (a decorated officer) he starred in Orson Welles' THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS and co-starred in THE TREASURE OF SIERRA MADRE but soon after was regulated to westerns (some successful, some not). He grew disillusioned with Hollywood and moved to Oklahoma. For years his filmography ended with the Sci-Fi monster film THE MONSTER THAT CHALLENGED THE WORLD (made over two years after his previous movie) but then THE YESTERDAY MACHINE showed up. His final film role was in Herschel Gordon Lewis' hillbilly drama THIS STUFF'LL KILL YA!

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Time Travel

 

DIMENSION 5-1966-A secret US organization Espionage Inc. lead by Kane (Donald Woods) battles the far East evil org Dragon led by Big Buddha (Harold Sakata). Kane has captured an enemy agent and tries to keep him alive long enough to talk. Special Agent Powers (Jeffery Hunter) is sent to help out. He has a special belt that helps him move back and forth in time. He's assisted by Sato (Robert Ito). The good guys have a machine, the Psycho Inducer that can interrogate the enemy agent, invented by their equivalent of Q (Jon Lormer). It looks like a salon hair dryer. Unless the US removes all its armies from Asia Dragon will destroy LA on Christmas day. Powers new partner Ki (France Nuyen) seems to be a double agent assassin. At a Chinese restaurant, Powers tries to get info on Buddha from owner/smuggler/friend Kim (Kam Tong) but instead is given a statue with a bomb in it. Their car blows up. Later after it's revealed Ki is really working for Espionage, Powers gives her a time belt. Then they visit Ming Products where Buddha in a wheelchair resides. When one of his flunkies disagrees with him he has a big bald guy Ghengis (Lee Kolima) lock him in a trunk with no air. The duo go ahead in time to prevent Buddha's plans. I really didn't understand why they went ahead in time. 

This very cheap looking science fiction spy adventure drama doesn't make much sense to me. Director Franklin Adreon was busy in TV when he made this and CYBORG 2087 the same year. Both were written by Arthur C. Pierce who wrote and produced THE HUMAN DUPLICATORS and worked with Jerry Warren on INVASION OF THE ANIMAL PEOPLE.

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More Like A Circle

TRIANGLE-A woman named Jess (Melissa George from 30 DAYS OF NIGHT) with a special needs child goes on a boating trip (without her son) with her boyfriend and some of his friends. They hit a freak storm and the boat is capsized. Luckily a big cruise ship comes to their rescue and they board it. Unluckily it seems to be deserted although a mysterious figure is quickly seen twice. They search the ship (with Jess having feelings of deja vu) but all they can find is the message "go to the theater" written in blood on a mirror. After Jess is attacked by one of the guys, she escapes and meets another couple in the theater where a masked assassin shoots at them from the balcony. The couple is killed but Jess gets out. Later she confronts the killer with an ax. Just before falling over the side, the killer mumbles something about "killing everyone".

Quick movie, huh? Not so fast. The rest of this annoyingly dumb British production borrows ideas from David Lynch's LOST HIGHWAY, MEMENTO and even the low-budget 1960's SF cheapie JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF TIME. Director Christopher Smith made several horror movies after this. (You've been warned)

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TIME CHASERS-1994-Nick Miller (Matthew Bruch), a dorky college teacher and amateur inventor creates a plane that can time travel but he needs more money to continue his research. Late at night he sees a TV commercial with the weird looking CEO of the conglomerate GenCorp and decides to contact them about his invention. He also invites Lisa (Bonnie Pritchard), a local reporter (and former girlfriend) to cover the story. Nick takes them into the future (it really doesn't look much different except for a few strangely clothed people and a hologram) and they have coffee. Later he meets the CEO and they agree to work together although Lisa warns Nick that it's not a good idea. Later they meet in a supermarket and have a romantic encounter after travelling back to 1957 (a great year for babies by the way...). They wind up in a post apocalyptic Vermont (where this was filmed) of 2014 and have to escape from gun toting survivors. Of course Nick's time machine is to blame. Well, actually it's the machine being abused by the evil CEO. The duo has to go back in time and prevent the GenCorp acquisition. Somehow the CEO follows after them and kills Lisa. Nick barely escapes when his plane crashes. But the crash then changes the past. Nick meets himself during the Revolutionary War in a shootout the evil CEO. One Nick is killed but the other lives to meet Lisa again in the supermarket after he destroys everything related to time travel.

This dumb movie (also known as TANGENTS) was made by then 20 year old director David Giancola in Rutland, Vt. He later made other movies including ICEBREAKER with Bruce Campbell.\

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Time Travel From TV to Movies

ALIENS FROM OUTER SPACE-1967-This is two (or three) episodes of the short-lived TV show TIME TUNNEL edited together for a phony feature length release. Both feature the time traveling regulars James Darren and Robert Colbert.

In the first half Robert Duvall guest stars as a time traveling spy who plants a bomb in the Tunnel headquarters and escapes into the future. Whit Bissell and Lee Meriwether try to help in the present as the duo chase the future Oscar winning actor into the far future where silver and gold-faced humanoids with no feelings are building their own time machine. It all ends in a beehive in prehistoric times!

The second half also features sliver-skinned aliens. They are planning an invasion of Earth. It takes place in The Old West. Darren winds up in jail and Colbert becomes a zombie. Stock footage from another movie is also used. There are no real “name guests” but some familiar character actors like Tris Coffin, John Hoyt and Byron Foulger appear!

The Time Tunnel was the least successful of Executive Producer Irwin Allens’s four Sci-Fi TV shows. It only lasted one season and it was apparent that before the season was even half over they were running out of ideas! Many of the sets, props, SFX and even the monsters seem to be “borrowed” from some of the earlier shows (like Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea and Lost in Space).

Allen of course went on to produce disaster films like TOWERING INFERNO and THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE.

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Time Travel

SECOND TIME AROUND-2002-A card dealer (Ekin Cheng from THE STORM RIDERS) from Hong Kong goes to Las Vegas to make a big score with money "borrowed" from his company. After his friend (Jonathan Ke Quan from THE GOONIES) is killed in a car crash screw up he somehow manages to travel backward in time (2 days) and tries to prevent the death. Cecila Cheung (WU YEN) plays the police detective who goes with him. It's enjoyable despite some lapses in plot. Cheng and Cheung were also in TOKYO RAIDERS and ZU WARRIORS. The director Jeffery Lau made THE EAGLE SHOOTING HEROES.



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