German Zombies Eat Your Face

Like all couples going through relationship issues, Michael and Gabi, a German boyfriend and girlfriend, find their “friends with benefits” arrangement at an abrupt end. Blame him for always leaving the lid up, her constant nagging about it, a lack of feel-up romance, and hordes of zombies. (The undead are at the root of a LOT of failed relationships.)

Giving in to wussdom, Michael shows up unannounced at Gabi’s Berlin apartment to reconcile, desperately crossing his fingers that Gabi isn’t inside doing the mattress rodeo with some other Michael. What he finds is two plumbers – one of whom is about to turn into one of the living dead. And there’s no Gabi. All that way for nothing.

Now Michael has to team up with the young plumber’s assistant (man, that sounds uncomfortable), and fend off the growing legions of the undead outside the apartment complex, and to find his estranged ex. If I were Michael, I’d cut my losses in the Gabi department, and start gettin’ cozy with the plumber. OK, that totally didn’t come out right.

Michael and plumber boy barricade themselves against the slobbering zombie horde, which has found a way into the building. For visualization proposes, think [REC], the delicious Spanish zombie movie made in 2007, and go from there.

This is the plot and premise (what the heck is the difference?) of Siege of the Dead (2010), or as its called in Germany, Rammbock. I’m split down the neck as to which title I like better. Also, Rammbock translated into all-purpose English means “ramming support.” Must be a plumbing and/or alternative lifestyle term.

Not to be confused with Living Dead Lock Up 3: Siege of the Dead, a first-person shooter video game from 2008, Siege/Rammbock is reputed to be more than just a standard-issue zombie film, with realistic flesh-eating, advancements in screaming, and the leaving up of lid. While my taste for zombies (kind of an oxymoron when you think about it) is wearing thin, Siege/Rammbock does show promise. So yeah, I’ll find it, rent it, and return it late (my movie mantra).

P.S. I added the UFO because I felt the movie’s screenshot needed more realism.

Karate Robo Zaborgar: Better Than Transformers

If you’re gonna own a robot, it may as well be one that has karate skills and can transform itself into a bitchin’ motorcycle. Not sure what the insurance premiums are for one of these types of contraptions. Who cares about the poor mileage – karate skills, man! Worth every penny.

Coming in 2011 (even though the one-sheet says 2010, those liars), Karate Robo Zaborgar is a movie about a kid and his fighting skills robot/motorcycle. And if all of this sounds disturbingly familiar, it’s the film version of the classic Japanese television series of the same name.

Besides being able to invoke the lung-caving palm heel strike or the conscious-removing Kururunfa, the robot – or “robo” – is voice-controlled. No buttons to push – just yell at it! Once activated, Karate Robo Zaborgar can transport oneself to the theatre, ballet or liquor store. It can also be used to battle free-range cyborg monsters that are bizarre in nature. Whatever turns your crank. As a bonus, the movie will be shot in 2.35 aspect ratio. I don’t know what that means.

Karate Robo Zaborgar is also being filmed by Noboru Iguchi, a Japanese director who has numerous credits under his ceremonial robes, from horror and sci-fi, to adult. You may have seen Iguchi’s better red carpet fare, The Neighbor’s Sister Has F-Cup (1999), Enema Shame Zone 13 (2002), and the sequel-worthy HyperTrophy Genitals Girl (2009). His fully-clothed films include A Larva to Love (2003), Cat-Eyed Boy (2006), and the jaw-dropping Machine Girl (2008). Seems to me Iguchi could combine genres and do something like RoboGeisha, Take Your Shorts Off! Box. Office. Gold.

Werewolf Fever

Fast food delivery drivers are used to getting stiffed, but not made into stiffs. While out dropping off succulent and healthy hamburgers and fries, a delivery driver is attacked and infected by a werewolf. (Note to future drivers – you’re only asking for wolf man trouble if you’re out and about, smelling like a burger.) The employee of Kingburger Drive-in is now a minimum-wage werewolf.

Heading back to Kingburger (where else would he go?), the fresh-made werewolf lunges and lunches on his sexy coworkers, looking to turn them into the fast food joint’s daily special. And the only weapons of defense are packs of ketchup and plastic knives. Suggestion: Try squirting the beast with pickle juice. Werewolf lore tells us werewolves hate pickle juice.

For a movie made for $10,000, Werewolf Fever is pretty ambitious and fun. The werewolf itself looks like a Kingburger with all the trimmings: matted hair, slimy dressing, a face that looks like it went face first through a meat grinder… I wish he would just lettuce alone. Heh.

Shot in Ontario at the real Kingburger restaurant, Werewolf Fever was filmed in 2007 and completed and screened in February of 2010. Why so long to get it out there? The film’s producer put it all on his credit card. I can see the Visa™ bill now: Werewolf fur, $13.00, buckets of industrial-grade slobber, $6.50, 120 burgers, $325.00.

When Werewolf Fever becomes available on DVD, call ’em up and have ’em deliver it, you know, just to keep it real.

 

Zombies From Outer Space

Zombies From Outer Space, a new low-budget film to be released in 2011, is a ’50s sci-fi throw-back that intentionally plays for laughs. I see nothing funny about outer space. To mock our surrounding atmosphere is to court disaster and further visitations by those who would probe our inner space.

Bavaria, 1950s. While I didn’t think that country was invented until the early ’60s, crop circles are turning its countryside into Led Zeppelin album covers. Lieutenant Welles, inspecting the extraterrestrial lawn mowings, discovers a dead alien. (It probably died from exhaustion – those crop circles are freakin’ HUGE.) An autopsy done by rival Dr. Robert Hölzlein, reveals a disturbing connection between the alien corpse and the recently-discovered body of a dead woman (or would that be “dead woman’s body”?) Maybe the chick and the alien were Spacebook friends.

All the while, UFOs (or “flying saucers”) are being reported. This sets off a chain reaction of fear and paranoia throughout the small, rural community, where the local pastime is trading sheep baseball cards. Adding to the goon out, dead aliens, buried beneath the crop circles, are coming back to life. Their goal? To wipe out the human race, of course. And we totally deserve it for desecrating their final resting places by letting tourists walk all over the hallowed patterns.

This all sounds fine and/or dandy, but there may be title ownership issues. Bloodsucking Zombies From Outer Space, a Deutsch horrorbilly band, has held the name/copyright since 2002. I can prove it, man. Click HERE to check out their way cool website.

Here’s how I’d resolve the issue once I complete my three-month internet lawyer course: Have the band do the soundtrack and let them take super fun happy rides on the UFOs. Really, it’s the only way to avoid piles of legal papers, which are too darn hard to read.

 

 

Santa Claus: Back From The Dead

In Holland, Santa Claus is called Sint, short for Sinterklass, and he’s a church bishop. Sint doesn’t have elves, but rather an assistant named Zwarte Piet, which translated is Black Pete. Sint rides a horse instead of a sled pulled by flying reindeer. Holland’s Christmas falls on December 5th. All of this is totally messed up. No wonder Holland is a Third World country.

They have a chance to change all that with the release of Sint, a holiday horror movie that turns the good-hearted children’s friend into a Middle Ages undead, bloodthirsty killer who roams the Amsterdam countryside, stealing (in Holland the call it “plundering”), raping (not cool, Sinterklass) and slaughtering as many kids as he can. But Sint only goes medieval if there’s a full moon on December 5th. Knowing that, you’d think Hollandians would get the Hell outta Dodgenfraun on that date.

Fed up with Sint’s reign of not coolness, the villagers sidestep normal legal channels and kill Sint and his gang of merry men, and set his boat on fire. Before he dies, Sint, of course, vows revenge. So every December 5th during a full moon (which takes place once every 36 years – I looked it up), St. Niklas and his undead goon squad come back and pick up where they left off (see “murder, plunder, rape, no presents”)

Here’s where it gets even better. Jump to modern times (not quite yesterday and not quite tomorrow) and some teen boys are out in the late night snow, probably drinking Ichabod Pumpkin Ale and using swear words. Sint and his gang appear and kill all of them except one kid named Frank. The cops think Frank killed his friends as they are future people and don’t believe in all that Sint horsen poopen.

During Frank’s ride to jail in the back of a cop car, Sint is spotted on top of the Amsterdam canal houses, riding his demon horse. The horse is white, though you’d think it’d be black as it is an evil pony. The cops give chase and screw up, as Frank escapes and Sint gets away. Frank later teams up with a suspended detective who also believed in the Sint legend, and the two set out to stop this holiday horror rodeo.

In Holland, kids leave their clog outside on Pakjesavond night, in hopes that Sinterklass will leave presents in them. Sure, they’ll have an undead, revenge-seeking bishop who rapes and pillages, but they don’t have Christmas trees to put gifts under. Man, that is SO messed up.

 

Homicidal For The Holidays

Besides giving me some great ideas on how to decorate my Christmas tree this year, the movie poster for Don’t Let Him In, a new psycho killer horror movie, does a good job of filling your holidays with fear cheer.

The premise goes a little something like this: “What if you invited a serial killer home for the holidays?”

With a plot device like that this thing practically writes itself. Add some sex, booze and local legend tales, and it’s both feet on the gas. On a rural weekend getaway, a few morally bankrupt party people hear tell of the Tree Surgeon (cool name), a serial killer who amputates his victims and hangs their body parts from trees. (Lots of cedar, pine and ash, but nary a maple nor willow to be found, probably because their branches are too weak to safely hold severed arms and legs.)

So what happens next? If you’re just starting out watching sadistic slasher horror movies, you’ll need to go back to nursery school (start with Psycho/1960 and go from there). Everybody else should know that torsos get opened like vacu-sealed fresh corn in its own special sauce in microwaveable pouch. Then there’s the fast disintegrating of the human condition, which means plenty of screaming, anger, paranoia and the uncontrollable watering of trees, if you get my drift.

Don’t Let Him In doesn’t look to break any new ground in the slasher genre. But then, why should it? Doesn’t the world need more psycho killers? Just let him in and let your love – and blood – flow like a mountain stream.

 

Countess Dracula: R.I.P.

Sad to report one of horror movie’s classiest and sexiest icons has passed away. Ingrid Pitt, known for her blouse-busting performances in The Vampire Lovers (1973), Countess Dracula (1971) and The House That Dripped Blood (1971), has been called “The First Lady of English Horror” and was one of Great Britain’s finest genre actresses. She was 73.

You’ve seen her suck neck. You’ve seen her suck, um, other female body parts. You’ve see her top billing and topless. But here’s a few things you may not have known about our favorite biter:

A Polish-born actress, Ingrid survived a Nazi concentration camp. She also eluded Communist police in Germany before escaping to England. Ingrid also appeared alongside Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton in Where Eagles Dare (1968). (I didn’t see that one, but I’m betting it has something to do with endangered bloodsucking birds utilizing their beaks of death to facilitate the feasting on humans.) In the 1960s, Pitt was a member of the prestigious Berliner Ensemble. To date, I have as yet not been nominated to become a member.

Ingrid has also written books, screenplays, was a columnist for several horror magazines, had a pilot’s license and held a black belt in karate. She was also twice married. Alas, I was not lucky enough to be her ex.

To the beautiful, classy, smart and indescribably sexy Ingrid Pitt – there will never be another like you. And if someone like that ever comes around again, you can bet I’ll date the hell outta her.

 

Sex, Drugs, Giants

Besides making you feel insignificant in the front of pants department, having sex with a 300 foot-tall woman has other drawbacks. For instance, to get her in the mood for a romantic feel-up encounter, it’s gonna facilitate maxing out at least three credit cards to pay for enough Jager Bomb cocktails to make her biologically attracted you. Secondly, foreplay could actually maim you. And if you manage to overcome these love obstacles and make it past second base, well, it’s been nice knowing you.

But what if that was a movie instead of one of your f’d up fantasies? Arriving sometime in 2011, which I believe is a year or two from now, is the intriguingly titled, Apocalypse, CA, which mixes comedy with horror, sci-fi with reality, sex with drugs, and a giant woman with an asteroid. I like where the movie producer’s head is at.

Here’s what I stole, um, re-purposed from the movie’s Facebook™ page…

“The world is doomed. Wry, cynical and full of off-beat humor, Apocalypse, CA is the story of ill-fated friends as they prepare for certain death at the hands of a massive asteroid, sex-inducing drugs, a 300 foot-tall giant, and a horde of other unfortunate problems. But it gets stranger.

Mysterious radio personality and apparent part-time genie, Sassy Boots takes it upon herself to grant John Parsons a few wishes five days before the world is to be destroyed by an asteroid. Only problem is John’s wishes aren’t exactly calculated, or even planned – the end result of which is a situation far worse than before.

Accompanied by his brother Hank, Hank’s friend Renee and John’s childhood crush Jacklyn, John and friends take the high road to Palm Springs – otherwise known as the epicenter – where the asteroid will first strike Earth. John and friends learn a little more about life and each other, all leading up to a wild climax of booze, fantasy, and guns-a-blazin’ desert adventure.”

I get the booze and guns-a-blazin’ stuff, but learning a little more about life and friends as a civilization-ending meteor is about to turn everyone into photons, is like cramming for a test. But hey, I’ll roll with it, especially if the giant woman’s clothes don’t expand along with her growth spurt. If they don’t, I at least hope her shoes match her end-of-the-world ensemble. Anything else would be a gigantic fashion faux pas.

 

Cursed Beer. Sounds Yummy!

This goes in the “why the hell didn’t I think of this?” pile. Witch’s Brew, an upcoming dark comedy horror indie, is about beer, witches, bitches and the ultimate hangover (projectile blood vomit, bottle-opened eyeballs, gut stuff.) As cool as this is for a movie, it sounds like a typical Saturday night for me.

Here’s the plot: “Two microbrewers screw over a coven of witches, and in turn, the coven curses their latest batch of beer. From that point forward, anyone who drinks the cursed alcohol meets a gruesome, ironic demise.”

Color me stupid, but I can’t wait to try some of that sweet, sweet beer. If you can’t wait, either, click HERE to see the bloody, vomit-y, poked eyeball-y trailer. Like I said, a regular Saturday night for me.

One More Exorcism For The Road

Damn demons. Just when you think you’ve exorcised them all, another one pops up. This time, it’s a repeat appearance by a demon that ex-priest Michael San Chica has met before. And this time, it’s personal. Then again, priests have a track record of pissing off demons.

Arriving January 11, 2011 on MTI Home Video, Legion: The Final Exorcism, is based on a true story. (How can that be? I thought demons and Hell were just campfire stories made up by Christians.) Even though he no longer works the front lines in the exorcism trade, Michael San Chica now documents TRUE incidents of demonic possession. He probably does this with a camera ’n stuff.

Then some young girl, who happens to be the daughter of a Baptist minister, gets possessed. Man, that double sucks. Looks like God gave up on you, pal. San Chica (weird name – I bet he’s demonic) goes to help, and finds out a demon he encountered before – and vowed to send back to Hell – is making the girl do stink noises/fumes. Time for a re-match.

And speaking of PPV-worthy rematches, WWE legend Rowdy Roddy Piper also appears. Look for him to do a run in during the exorcism and bash the demon over the head with a folding metal chair. Or a folding metal bible. Not sure what role he’ll be taking as the trailer, which is on the internet of all things, doesn’t indicate Piper’s involvement. No doubt he’s there to beat up somebody. At least he better be.

P.S. I hope the demon is Hulk Hogan.