Mothra Turns 50

Saturday, July 30th, 2011 marks the 50th anniversary of Mothra, the world’s biggest kite. And to commemorate the occasion, Humax Cinema theatre in Japan (across the street from Starbucks™) is hosting a triple feature of Mothra films. While that’s cool, I’m thinkin’ a least festive balloons, some color coordinated paper plates and Dixie Cups™, pizza and a Rodan-flavored cake the size of Osaka would be a more appropriate way to honor the Queen of Monsters.

Having starred and appeared in no less than 17 movies, we’ve seen Mothra go from an eco-friendly, air traffic control problem, to a Defender of the Faith with floor models ranging from Fairy Mothra (two-seater) and Mothra Leo (a blue collar version), to Rainbow Mothra (alternative lifestyle) and Aqua Mothra (originally called Scuba Mothra…by me). And let us not forget, there’s also Armor Mothra, Eternal Mothra and Light Speed Mothra, who has more speeding violation citations than all the other Mothras combined.

Through the last five decades, Mothra can be seen in various stages of the lepidopteran life cycle. (Of course I knew that.) Introduced first inside a blue egg so big it could make 3,012,445 omelettes, it hatched and out popped as caterpiller-esque larvae that, quite frankly, looked like one of Godzilla’s high-fiber bowel movements. Cocooning itself, Mothra sprayed herself a Silly String™ sleeping bag, cooked at 350 degrees for 40 minutes, then popped out as the 200-foot prom queen we know and fear for our lives today.

So what does Mothra actually do for a living? In addition to saving the Earth from itself, Mothra, like a monolithic Lassie, keeps rescuing 12-inch tall wayward citizens from her hometown of Infant Island and slapping Godzilla upside the radioactive plates on an ongoing basis. Good work if you can get it.

So popular is Mothra the world over (chicks dig Mothra because of her fashion sense and sparkly beams that come out of her 80-foot Coach™ bag), the world’s fuzziest hang-glider has influenced everything from pop culture to spawning a 50-year cottage industry of video games, toys, action figures, action clothing, books, magazines and  omelettes. With that, I only have one question: who keeps laying the eggs Mothra comes out of?

Happy Birthday, Mothra – I would have bought you a present, but you wrecked all of the stores I normally shop in while in Japan.

Friday the 13th: The Ultimate Collection

If you’re a fan of all things hockey and machete, then Friday the 13th: The Ultimate Collection should be right up your wazoo. Not sure what genius came up with the title as this assemblage of Jason’s greatest splits is far from being ultimate.

For starters, none of it is on Blu-ray™. How can splattered entrails be full appreciated in just regular-o-vision? Then there’s the matter of the movies themselves – four are missing. As Shocktilyoudrop.com expertly pointed out, the first eight F13s were released through Paramount, Jason Goes to Hell (1993), Jason X (2002), Freddy vs. Jason (2003) and the 2009 remake (I forget what that was called) are not included, as they were cashed in by New Line Cinemas. (I bet someone over at Paramount has egg all over their hockey mask right about now.)

And while we’re on the subject, a box set of what boils down to the same movie being made over and over seems overkill. (No pun intended.)To save money on the sequels, they should’ve just had Jason working in a slaughterhouse, chopping up meat coming down a conveyor belt. But instead of delicious steaks, tummy-filly hamburgers, sizzling raw bacon and mystery meat hot dogs, he’d be hacking teenagers.

To be fair – AND I AM – the box set does come with eight billion extras (too many to list because I’m freakin’ LAZY), a book (if I wanted to read, I’d go to the library) and a hockey mask. Sure, you could go out and buy an hockey mask at any sporting goods store, but any serial killer could do that.

Again, if you’re a fan of the longest running one-punch line joke in movie history, then Friday the 13th: The Ultimate Collection belongs in your wazoo. It comes out in October if you give a dang/darn/hoot/crap.

Subterranean Creatures Eat You And Yours

Horror movies have been ripping off each other since cavemen filmmakers first picked up a video camera and filmed hockey-masked dinosaurs stalking supermodel cave counselors. Countless are the examples of title, cover art, monster and plot pilfering that permeates the horror/sci-fi realm to the point where no one even tries to hide it anymore. Need a specific precedent? Coke™ / Pepsi™.

But nowhere is plagiarism more prevalent than with the 2009 horror movie Blackout (just now coming out on DVD), in which a series of earthquakes take out the power in an apartment building, thereby releasing a horde of toothy Chupacabra-like creatures into the building’s basement. And because there are no 7-Elevens™ underground (yet), the monsters kill and consume any and everyone who looks delicious. (Before you go out today, make sure you don’t look delicious – just in case the weather report calls for earthquakes.)

Astonishingly, this is almost the exact same plot of five other movies with the same title, released as far back as 1978. Submitted for your approval…

(THE) BLACKOUT / 1997
A debauched Hollywood movie actor tries to piece together one wild night in Miami which remains a drug-induced blur. He almost figured it out until a tremor released some subterranean creatures into his stylish mansion and they ate him.

BLACKOUT / 2007
An alcoholic who is prone to frequent blackouts (brought about by excessive drinking, duh) gets a wake-up call when his wife decides to leave him and their only child. Before he can rehab it, subterranean creatures, in town for the Earthquake Festival, eat his wife and only child in front of him. Screw sobriety.

BLACKOUT / 1978
Four rowdy psychopaths take over and vandalize a ritzy Manhattan apartment building during the New York power blackout, assaulting people’s personal spaces. Pissed off that this movie lifted that part from Death Wish (1974), the subterranean creature’s all time favorite movie, the monsters wait until an fissure opens their door and they go and have a four-course psycho meal.

BLACKOUT / 2008
The explosive story of a forgotten New York neighborhood during the largest power failure in American history. Of course they were forgotten – after unscrewing all the light bulbs in New York, subterranean creatures ate the entire neighborhood. By candlelight.

BLACKOUT / 2007
Three people wind up trapped in an elevator with subterranean creatures. The fun begins when the trapped citizens don’t realize the other passengers are flesh eaters. Going down.

And Blackout takes it one step further by shoplifting the cover art from Feast (2005), in which a bunch of people in a bar drinking a toast to all their friends who were eaten by subterranean creatures, are attacked by a swarm of flying gargoyles. (Note to reader: The Feast cover art is slightly modified as I flipped it over for illustrative examples. I had to do it to make my point.)

At the end of the day, none of this matters. But what does stick in my craw is that all of these movies blatantly ripped off Blackout, the eighth studio album from the German heavy metal band, The Scorpions, which included the hits “Can’t Live Without You (Since You Were Eaten By Subterranean Creatures)”, “You Give Me All The Subterranean Creatures I Need”, and the made-for-radio, “No Subterranean Creature Like You.”

Swamphead – The New Face of Horror

Swamphead is not only a cool name to have on your birth certificate and/or driver’s license, it’s the title of an almost-done independent horror movie about a severed noggin pulled up out of a swampy lake where it had been holding its breath for some time. Once on the surface and its hair towel dried and styled with some product, the head goes on a killing rampage. I bet if you look up “awesome” in the dictionary, it’ll have Swampy’s picture.

The movie promises a “nightmare of a nightmare of blood, feces, and more head than a night in Tijuana.” One of those things I can do without. But hey, all you German horror fans – it’s all yours.

Swamphead, whose non-buoyant identity is Robert Gross (that’d make for a cool punk rock stage name), is the donor of the head that sits at the bottom of Lake Guillotine (I made up the lake’s name for entertainment purposes.) A bunch of teens happen across an ancient relic and resurrect the head, where it goes on the aforementioned killing spree. (I bet the relic is a fishing pole.)

So how does a severed head kill teens? Biting would be my first guess. I suppose it could throw itself at your stomach like a dodgeball, but with teeth instead of a valve. Or it could spit on you and since its germs are zombified, if you get any spit in your eye you’ll turn into a dead someone.

I’m hoping that the filmmakers have Swamphead’s head being stuffed into a large pipe that turns out to be an ancient cannon that somehow goes off and blasts into the teenagers, killing their faces off. Then they could have Swamphead rolling happily away, singing a nice song or whistling. I’m pretty sure severed heads can still whistle. Or maybe he rolls across a whistle laying on the forest floor and starts honkin’ on that thing. I know I would.

Zombie Bohemia

Finally, a fresh spin on the zombie genre, the irony being that decomposing zombies by nature are anything but fresh. Too bad the undead don’t come with freshness-expired dates. (Hey, Freshness Expired could be the title of a new zombie movie! In your face, everyone – I’m copyrighting as soon as I finish eating a sandwich.) Zombie Bohemia, in production as I eat, is a short film about a an undead artist who makes zombie art that includes, but is not limited to, paintings, wood-carvings and sculptures. (If he used crayons, he’d probably only color with brain grey, baby poop yellow, innards green and downtown brown.) Because Michael, the zombie, is a New York artist, he’s gonna have competition. The pain in his rotting rump is another artist who snatched meaty fame out of Michael’s mouth as if  a neck burger with art than can best be described as “less creative,” “barely contemporary” and “whose use of shade and lighting is akin to a flashlight in a dumpster.”

This could be an epic showdown as zombies are a little sensitive to criticism. That, and once you piss them off, next thing you know your skin is suitable for framing.

Zombie Bohemia sounds cool. And this sandwich I’m eating freakin’ rocks.

Houses Full of Ghosts

Dream House is a stylish haunted house movie coming out at the end of September, 2011. Hardly a dream house – there were grisly murders committed in there long before this guy moves there with his wife and two young daughters. If a bear committed the crimes, then I’d describe it as “grizzly murders.” But there aren’t any bears in this horror movie. Pity, as bears are kinda scary and would make for cool murderers. Oh, well.

The trailer, which makes Dream House look like a cross between The Shining (1980) and The Amityville Horror (1979), looks like it gives away the movie’s twist ending. And because it implies ghostly visitations/hallucinations, feel free to imagineer a bear in there. I did.

I’m sure Dream House is going to be better than Dream Home (2006), another similarly titled haunted house ghost-y flick that sucked donkey ectoplasm. A young married couple (good – best not to live in sin) move into a new home are plagued by ghosts. Since their “dream home” is located in rural Louisiana, it’s probable the hauntings could be the work of…GHOST BEARS.

I have no idea what the hell is wrong with me today.

Rabbit Horror 3D

When one thinks of a horror movie antagonist, a fuzzy rabbit hardly ever shows up on the radar. Oh sure, there have been horror rabbits before, from homicidal maniac Bugs Bunny to Thumper, the lovable cannibal rabbit, who ate Bambi alive in front of her forest friends. And let us not forget Roger Rabbit, who was so hopped up (sorry) on drugs, he appeared cartoonish. Then there was Frank, the hallucinogenic dream state rabbit in Donnie Darko (2001) who made you creep your pants. And perhaps the most famous horror movie rabbits of all time were the car-sized mutants in the 1972 sci-fi movie, Night of the Lepus. But by and large (sorry) rabbits in horror movies have been sporadic. Until now.

Arriving in September, 2011 on, I don’t know, a Tuesday, the Japanese horror movie, Rabbit Horror 3D comes out of its hole to gnaw on your brains as if a tasty farm-bred carrot. Here’s how the movie is described by someone not me: “A stuffed rabbit arrives from an alternate world.” (Man, I wish I had written that.) And there’s more to it: some chick’s little brother is sent to an alternate world after receiving the rabbit. To retrieve her brother she has to unravel the secret behind the animal.”

What secret? It’s stuffing!

As dumb as this all sounds, I feel compelled to want to see Rabbit Horror 3D. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because these fuzzy footballs bring back cherished childhood memories (see photo below). Good times.

Polterghost

A family who uses a lot of toothpaste moves into a new house where they gradually begin to encounter paranormal and horror events. This new ghost movie from Thailand is called Ladda Land. A better title might have been Poltergeist. But hey, a ghost by any other name is still a ghost.

Ladda Land is reputedly based on a true story wherein a housing development in Chiang Mai that was eventually abandoned after a series of unexplained deaths. (My extensive research indicates the deaths were the result of a giant alligator…or a gun.)

The family looks freshly scrubbed and way too happy to be believable. I have no problems, however, believing in ghosts. Once they move in the family discovers a body in the freezer. (Maybe the former homeowners were stocking up for the winter.) Then ghosts start popping over to borrow a cup of souls. This is followed by paint-peeling screaming and the uncontrollable decorating of underwear.

Ladda Land, which just hit theaters in Thailand (April 28, 2011 in case you’re writing this down), stars Piyathida Woramuksik and Saharat Sangkapreecha. Looks like their parents were playing Scrabble™ when they named ’em. As for the ghosts, they appear to be your everyday, run-of-the-mill dead people with arms and legs that go in directions not recommended by your doctor or “primary care physician.” Can’t tell from the trailer if the ghosts snack on the brains of the living. If the brains aren’t cherry flavored or come with chocolate sprinkles, I can totally see why they wouldn’t.

Bloodlust Zombies

Following in the bedsprings of pornography actress Tori Black who made the jump to the sex horror genre with Half Moon comes (sorry) Alexis Texas, adult film thespian starring in her crossover path to super stardom as a bloodlusting zombie in Bloodlust Zombies.

From IMDB: “A military weapons manufacturer creates a chemical weapon that causes victims to become blood-lusting killers. A lab accident causes the building to go into lock-down and the employees are trapped inside with the crazed killers.”

Excuse me, but where are the boobs? Where’s the eating of faces and various FRONT southern regions of the body? If you’re gonna put in a porn star whose film credits include Buttwoman vs. Slutwoman and who won an AVN award in 2010 for “Best All-Girl Group Sex Scene” in Deviance (I wore out my copy – need to mow a few more lawns to buy another), then we need some skin to win here, people.

Watching the trailer on YouTube™ did little to sell me on this movie, which was just released July 5, 2011. Entry (sorry) level zombie guts, Halloween Superstore™ blood, a few bleeped swear words. A comment made by one viewer, “I could make a better movie with a potato.” Perhaps. But making out with a G-rated Alexis is better than mashin’ your spud (heh).

Maybe Alexis delivers the groceries in the unrated version. I’ll wait and see if it gets nominated for an Academy Award, then I’ll know for sure. Until then, it’s front-to-back (sorry) Alexis Texas movie night, starting with Tease Before The Please 2 and encoring with Slam It. (I think that one is about basketball. Or some kind of balls.)

Exorcism, Malaysian Style

Arman (dude) and Melati (chick), a young Malaysian couple who have shared familiarities, have just moved into a bungalow, forsaking the exciting city life for peace, quiet and an evil poltergeist. Sucks to be them.

Mind you, the demon spirit was minding its own business until Melati, whose name sounds like an overpriced fizzy drink, disturbed its death hole. As punishment for the desecration, Melati becomes weak and faint-y and eventually possessed. What was formerly nice clean clothes are now covered in demon gunk. I seriously doubt even Tide™ with Febreze Freshness Sport Active Fresh Scent with Actilift could get out those hellish stains.

Enter Pak Mail, a gardener. Pak Man knows the score and reveals the craziness is related to the death of a Japanese soldier who was killed in that very same bungalow. I bet Pak did it. Just thinkin’ out loud. So Arman and Melati call for a shaman to rid or “ward off” the maligned spirit. Too much hassle – better to have Pak whack the ghost in the face with one of his many gardening tools. A shovel, perhaps.

But it’s too late as Melati is in full demon possession mode, her bed banging around like it was their honeymoon night and her teeth turning into unbrushed fangs of doom. And the shaman even gets a football-sized growth on his face for his efforts. Try not to stare at him in a restaurant.

A Malaysian spin on The Exorcist, Rasuk, which translates to “beams” (why, I don’t know), is self-described as a horror comedy. I watched the trailer. Unless Melati does a stand-up routine during her possession, there’s nothing comedic about Rasuk. In fact, some parts of the movie will make you stain your pants. You can try Tide™ with Febreze Freshness Sport Active Fresh Scent with Actilift, but I don’t think it’ll do the job. You’ll smell better, though. Better than Melati, anyway. Chicks possessed by demons always smell like used gym socks and freshness expired fish ’n chips.