Mae Nak: Thailand Ghost Turns 22

You think our country overdoes it with reboots, remakes, and re-hashings…move to Thailand where Mae Nak, the country’s famous ghost story (she’s kinda like a third world Casper), has been re-told 21 times. Mae Nak must be pretty darn spooky to maintain that kind of a franchise because just released in Thailand (February 23, 2012) is the 22nd version, this one called Mae Nak 3D. By adding “3D” to the title means they can milk this cow one more time.

In the latest udder yank, the spirit-bound Mae Nak croaks during child birth, but comes back to live with her hubbie in 3D as a (wait for it)…GHOST! And here’s the mind-boggling twist – he doesn’t know she died! Apparently, he was away fighting a war at the time. That, or drinking with the boys down at the corner bar.

After 22 times, Mae Nak (rated PG) may or may not have the ghost power needed to scare up box office dollars. I’ve watched a few of ’em and while they’re stylish in a foreign country sort of way, the chills have little in the way of thrills.

Take 2005’s The Ghost of Mae Nak, for instance. What started out as yet another “Romeo and Juliet coming back from the dead to scare the romance out of you” plot device, actually had a few rewind-able moments. But since I put as much value on romance as I do defrosting the fridge, this one goes in the “meh” file.

Young newlyweds Mak and Nak are stupid sick in love. Problem is, Mak is having nightmares of an oily-haired female ghost named Mae Nak with an oval hole in her forehead. Her long-lost lover of 100 years ago is named Mak. See where this is going? The ghost wants her lover back and is interviewing Mak for the job via bad dreams, dark stuff coming out of her mouth and a Monk-conducted exorcism. Nak is carrying around a brooch made from a chunk of Mae Nak skull, a gift from an unknowing Mak. Guess who wants it back to complete her face?

All in all, lightweight stuff when combined with all that “our love is forever” crap. Mak and Nak look so squeaky clean they could be on bottles of Ayutthaya Skin Cream™. And I bet you anything they name their first kid Clackety-Clak. I would. Still, The Ghost of Mae Nak is intermittently enjoyable – even if you don’t have a chunk of forehead skull missing (metaphorical or not).

Cannibal Diner

Wouldn’t it be totally funny if you went to a diner run by cannibals, opened the menu, and saw yourself listed in Entrees? Man, that’d be a knee-slapper. More so if you saw that your braised butt beef is being served with a baked potato, a small dinner salad and seasonal vegetables. Everybody knows butt beef is traditionally served with sweet potato fries and a fruit compote. Man, I’m still chuckling.

Did you know there’s a real Cannibal Diner? Yep, it’s a German horror movie releasing in the Motherland soon, and then the rest of the world at the end of 2012. Or beginning of 2013. It’s gotta get past Standards and Practices first. And given the subject matter, the FDA as well. Heh.

In Cannibal Diner a bunch of chick supermodels go into the woods to party and are attacked by cannibals, who take them to an old factory where they will be eaten. Is that even a plot?

If that sounds like a short joke, might I suggest Blood Diner (1987), an alternate choice cannibal movie with a little more to chew on. Two brothers own a rundown restaurant. They need a special dish to get customers rolling in, so they kill an assortment of young women to use their fleshy parts as the main ingredient in the hot plate of the day. That, and they need blood sacrifices to awaken a dormant Egyptian goddess. Two for one.

Still not flavorful enough for you? Then go to The Encyclopedia of Cannibal Movies [click HERE]; If you can’t find a cannibal flick to suit your taste, then you have no taste at all. Vegan.

Animals Like To Eat You

Of all the animals in the woods that could eat your neck clean off, you wouldn’t expect the Disney-esque dear to chew throw layers of insulated outerwear to get to the delicious throat meat inside. And yet, that’s what happens in the new indie horror comedy, Rise of the Animals.

A pizza delivery driver named Wolf crashes an all girl slumber party in a cabin way out in the woods. There are three things wrong with that sentence. But because this is an independent film, anything goes and Wolf scores some quality mattress time with one of the festive ladies. Before he can chew his arm off to leave before she wakes up, she’s already bailed. (All male readers may make an audible sigh of relief.) But the gal gets her own arm chewed off – as well as her face – by a mad dog deer.

Then then deer and its friends crash the party and turn everyone into people vennison. Finding her cell phone and thinking his insta-girlfriend is still alive, Wolf has no choice but to travel cross country to find her. And to return her phone. (I know what you’re thinking – pizza delivery guys aren’t known for their high IQs.) What he finds is a world gone wild with dogs, birds and chipmunks going medieval on human asses.

What do you have to say now, PETA?

This isn’t the first time animals have been face-rippingly pissed at humans. In Day of the Animals, a 1977 nature-gone-wild feel good flick, campers and hikers and those who just go into the Northern California woods to have a personal moment, are systematically attacked and torn into kibble and bits by mountain lions, bears and household pets. Can’t blame the indigenous wild life to be so mad; wouldn’t you be visibly peeved if someone came into your hood and made butt bears? (You know what that means – I’m trying to keep it clean here, people.)

So what made the animals petition for their own day? It was the waning ozone that converted sunlight into ultraviolet/ultra violent solar radiation, which turned normally friendly and playful grizzly bears into mouth-foaming eaters of flesh. Stupid sun.

Despite its budgetary limitations, Rise of the Animals looks like a lot of splattery animal-y good fun. I just hope they don’t portray fuzzy bunny rabbits as murderous blood beasts. That would just kill me. And then the bunnies would kill me. Not cool.

The Horror of Children

Little kids in horror movies creep me the hell out. It all started with that Damien devil kid in The Omen (1979). Hardly any lines, but every time he stared someone down and that music in the key of D(amnation) came on, it gooned me out hard. Gave me the willies, he did.

Since then I’ve had the displeasure of testing my shaky bladder to the likes of those little Aryan race telepath kids with glowing eyeballs from Village of the Damned (1960), the way creepy ghost girl twins in The Shining (1979), and the rotted poltergeist boy from The Devil’s Backbone (2001), with a hole in his head and blood leaking out of it – upwards. There have been more, but that’s all my tract can take right now.

There’s a new hair-raising kid on the block in the Spanish horror thriller Childish Games (due out March 9, 2012). As first reported by DreadCentral.com, Daniel and his wife (who shows her boobs and everything) assume foster parenthood of a seven year-old girl whose dad – a friend of Daniel – just committed suicide. There goes getting a pony for Christmas.

But this isn’t a normal little girl with a stare that could stain fabric. Just her presence causes everyone to remember things best left unremembered. And she keeps saying stuff like “I know who you are” and “You know who I am.” That goons me out. Why can’t they talk like other non-spooky brats their own age with phrases like “totally rad,” “up yours, hippie,” and the time honored “Mom – Jeff’s peeing off the sun deck again!”

So the little girl knows a dark secret. You can figure it out from the trailer, though. It’s totally rad. When you watch Childish Games just make sure you have a bathroom – or sun deck – nearby.

Night of the Living Sushi

Sushi is raw fish meat served on vinegared rice (smells like a feminine hygiene product) and wasabi (neck-melting green paste). Sashimi is sliced raw fish without the bling. Dating as far back as 1893, sushi, which translates to “sour-tasting,” is eaten by a million billion people on a daily basis. No one knows who the first brave and apparently starving to death soul was to stick a raw fish in their mouth, but my exhaustive research points directly to Sméagol, that little f’d up homeless dude in Lord of the Rings (2001).

So how come it’s taken so long for filmmakers to exploit one of the most popular forms of food ever not made in a deep fryer? Thankfully, that day has come. Dead Sushi, a Japanese zombie food film, is headed for a dinner plate near you sometime in 2012.

As first reported by BeyondHollywood.com, in Dead Sushi, those little delicious chunks of fish come to life and become carnivorous, eating your tongue, tastebuds and ultimately your face. Unsuspecting people walk into sushi restaurants, or “bait shops,” stick some himachi in their yap, and the next thing you know, you’re bleeding out of your primary orifice and you become a sushi zombie. I don’t exactly know what a sushi zombie is, but it’s gotta be awesome.

And because the subject matter needs a light touch, Dead Sushi is being served by Noboru Iguchi, the chef behind such hyper-violent and crazy hypnagogic (sorry – thesaurus.com) The Machine Girl (2008), Robo-Geisha (2009) and Karate-Robo Zaborgar (2011). It’s important to note that Zaborgar is part karate expert, part motorcycle and all robot. That is so awesome.

For as long as humankind has been biting food, it’s about time food bit back. So I’m hungry to see Dead Sushi. And hey, you get to see two pieces of sushi having sex. When was the last time… Never mind.

There are over 100 varieties of sushi, only half of which smell like your ex. That said, Jaws is the ultimate sushi, followed by Aqua Mothra, Whalesaurus, Carnivi-Mermaid and, of course, the Loch Ness Monster (the one that snacks on people, not the ham that’s always posing for blurry pictures). And they’ll swallow you with rice and wasabi or ala cart. The best part – they all play with their food before they eat it.

Axe Murdering – A Dying Genre

If you were out in the woods hunting the elusive pine cone, playing squirrel toss or just looking for a place to get away from zombies, and saw a guy with a raw pig head and a bloody axe headed in your general direction, would you not crap your pants sideways? At least with your shorts brimming with fear solids, bears and chupacabras would stay the hell away from you.

Damien Ewell is the pig-headed axe murderer featured in the new horror slasher movie, Madison County. (Disclaimer: The similarly-titled romantic chick flick The Bridges of Madison County/1995 does not have an axe murderer in it, another reason why that movie licked bag.)

Madison County is a remote mountain town where grisly murders were commonplace twenty years ago. A gaggle of college twerps go to Madison to interview an author of a book that detailed this tourism-killing killing spree. And here’s where the horror begins: the author is nowhere to be found! My tummy is starting to knot up. Then the citizens of Madison County categorically deny that Damien Ewell, the notorious murderer, ever existed and that the murders never happened. I almost can’t go on.

So as the college twerps put on their Scooby Doo™ C.S.I. hats and dig for answers, they discover the townsfolk were LYING to them and that Damien is quite real. (There’s the real horror – people shouldn’t lie. It’s just not right.)

Madison County hits the DVD shelves on May 8, 2012. Hopefully it’ll have some graphic axe murdering to distract you from all that stomach-turning LYING.

Animals: Zombies From Down Under

Want YET ANOTHER zombie movie? Of course you do. Animals, an upcoming undead flick, comes from Australia Town, and is a metaphor as opposed to four-legged flesh-eaters eating your legs off. (Too bad – I like zombie doggies.) Animals also a mix of love, sacrifice, a global pandemic, and zombies biting your face/legs off.

After the pandemic, a guy in love discovers his soulmate/pillow partner, someone he hasn’t seen in two years (yeesh, is this guy whipped our what?), goes deep into the Red Zone in a massive reserve to rescue her. (The Red Zone is a lot like the Blue Zone, except redder and less bluer.) In that quarantined crimson parameter is a laboratory bailed on when the plague hit the fan. And here’s where things go off the track – lovestruck dumbass must confront the demons of his past to survive all this maladies malarkey. (My demons are unpaid bar tabs. While we’re on the subject, I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a malt liquor today.)

According to the movie’s website, the quarantine zones are divided by a huge wall running a bunch of kilometers (or “miles”) horizon to horizon. That’s a lot of bricks. Pink Floyd should write a song about that. Anyone infected has to sit it out for two freakin’ years on one side, while all the cool people hang out, drink medicine and eat medium rare Roo sandwiches on the other side. To give it all some fun factor, there are tunnels, smuggling rat runners and love as it can be applied to tunnels and rat runners.

With a title like Animals, I pretty much expected the movie to be about putrified puppies and maybe fuzzy undead cats. When you think about it, there’s not much difference between regular animals and zombie animals – both will bite your face off, crap on the lawn, and chase the paperboy and chew his legs off, gnawing for hours afterward on the sinewy flavor.

I have got to lay off the malt liquor.

Broadway Zombies

What do contemporary zombies movies have in common with karaoke singers and rap music? Answer: Everybody’s doing it. Except me. You couldn’t pay me to do any of the above while sober. And because everybody’s a rapper and/or singing poorly in public, it should come as no surprise that there’s YET ANOTHER undead movie on the horizon.

My Fair Zombie is a tongue-in-cheek spin on the 1956 hit Broadway play (and 1964 movie) My Fair Lady. I never saw the play or movie; I read a description and nowhere did it have nuclear explosions, underwater car chase scenes or a misunderstood creature from beyond. It has a professor of phonetics who makes a bet he can train a bedraggled Cockney flower girl to pass for a duchess at an ambassador’s garden party by teaching her to assume a veneer of gentility, the most important element of which, he believes, is impeccable speech. (I copied that part off the world wide web.) So yeah – couldn’t pay me to see it sober.

My Fair Zombie – a horror comedy – has another professor of phonetics who attempts to teach a zombie woman to be a proper English Lady. Sounds like a one punch line joke, but hey, what horror comedy isn’t? Being filmed in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada (geez, pick a lane and drive in it), the filmmakers are asking for your help to complete their rap album, uh, zombie movie. Their goal is to raise $5,000 on Indiegogo.com. As of this writing, they’ve had donations that take care of $1,104 of their targeted budget. If you’re a fan of zombies and impeccable speech, click HERE to give ’em a financial hand. (You only have until Friday, March 9, 11:59PM PST to do it.)

I’d throw in a few pocket coupons except I have a strict “ain’t gonna happen” rule about financing zombie movies, buying rap albums or tipping karaoke singers. I would, however, pay to see someone to do all of the above. Just once, though.

Black Forest: Weeding Out The Horror

Black Forest: Hansel and Gretel & The 420 Witch is another horror movie that uses DRUGS as its raison d’etre. (Sorry – French word of the day calendar.) A re-imagining of the iconic Grimm fairy tale about two kids being lured into a witch’s condo to be fattened up with candy and then oven-roasted for a trans-fat heavy meal, Black Forest has the witch enticing the kids with her special blend of marijuana. Once baked, the dealer, uh witch puts the pot in crock pot, cooks them and eats them. (Hope she skinned ’em first – that stuff isn’t healthy.)

So why does she do this? Because she needs to consume their chewables to maintain her youth and beauty. (Elizabeth Bathory did kinda the same thing, but did her makeover in a jacuzzi filled with the blood of young virgin girly girls.)

Before you star waving your “Just Say No To Drugs” banner around, know that Black Forest doesn’t use kids, but rather teenagers. Teens are gonna experiment with drugs no matter how many TV commercials warn them not to. So let ’em pay the metaphoric consequences and get cooked. Twice.

Black Forest (believed to be releasing in April 2012) further spins this tale into contemporary settings, putting everyone in Pasadena, or “Pot Town, USA.” The “forest” part is (in their words) an immense indoor hydroponic marijuana farm, and is described as being a cross between Edgar Wright and Pineapple Express, as well as being very gory. Sounds groovy, man.

I knew an Edgar in junior high school. He got into the pot and ended up being a career hippie. He’s now in jail for eating teenagers after getting wasted on a bale of Mother Nature and waking up with stage four munchies. So yeah, like, don’t do drugs or something.

[Rec] 3: Genesis – Newlywed Zombies

The two happiest days in boat owner’s life is the day he buys the boat, and the day he sells it. The same can be said about getting married. More so, if you factor in zombies. (Alright, who’s in charge of the guest list?)

In [Rec] 3: Genesis, the second sequel in the popular Spanish zombie franchise, that wacky highly-contagious virus turns everyone from snot-dripping, runny-eyed slobber-flinging wedding guests into snot-dripping, runny-eyed slobber-flinging zombie wedding guests. It doesn’t need to be said, but here goes the tux rental damage deposit fee.

Koldo and Clara are getting married. Apparently, marring a guy with a weirdo name wasn’t a factor for Clara. No one chumps their vows, the caterer has yet to run out of shrimp cocktails, and invited relatives haven’t turned into zombies yet. Then some of the guests start getting sick (probably freshness-expired shrimp). If you’ve seen the first two [Rec] movies, you know that Koldo and Clara’s happiest day is about to turn into the worst day of whatever life they have left.

[Rec] 3: Genesis’ website describes this nightmare as an “uncontrollable torrent of violence.” They had me at shrimp cocktails. And to really ramp up the drama, Koldo and Carla get separated and THEY CAN’T FIND EACH OTHER. My guess is that Koldo ducked out to go have his name changed.

The [Rec] franchise is a believable spin on the undead methodology, with a flu-like contagion transmuting anyone who breathes it or gets bitten by an animal (like a doggy or a rat) into a highly aggressive mad-as-heck zombie. You run really fast, you growl like a bear with inflamed hemorrhoids and you tear into flesh like complimentary shrimp cocktails with extra dipping sauce.

I’m not a big fan of more zombie movies, but I do like going to weddings. Besides free booze, food and cake so sweet it’ll turn you into a sugar zombie, you get to see people at their happiest before becoming one of the undead, or as I like to call it, being married.