Must be The Season of the Witch

Despite being made by John Carpenter, the same guy who did Halloween (1978) and Halloween II (1981), Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) has nothing to do with its predecessors. That’s good because there’s only so many sexually-active teens you can poke with a knife before it gets boring.

A druid descendant, fronting as the silver head of Silver Shamrock Novelties™, makes full-head witch, pumpkin and skeleton Halloween masks. These popular items are embedded with a microchip made from pieces of Stonehenge™, and placed there by robots with nice hair. If you’re wearing the mask and watching TV at the specially-designated time, you’ll see the broadcast Halloween secret. And that secret is that it activates the microchip in your mask and your head implodes and turns into snakes and bugs. Oh, yeah – green stuff that used to be your brains also leaks out.

An alcoholic doctor uncovers the plan and, with hottie Stacy Nelkin, tries to convince TV stations to not run the commercial so that kids all over the world won’t get the living room carpet dirty with particulate matter. Good luck with that.

As cornball as it all is, Halloween III: Season of the Witch is a fair investment for your DVD rental coupons. Bonus: Once you hear Silver Shamrock’s “Happy, Happy Halloween” theme song used for the marketing of said kill masks, you won’t be able to get it out of your, uh, head.

Return of the Giant Monsters

Man, I wish people would pick a lane and drive in it. Case in point: Gamera vs. Gyaos, a raucous 1967 Japanese sci-fi monster mash, has Gamera’s fruit fly foe as being named “Gyaos” and “Gaos” on different marketing materials. Aieeee! And to make matters more convoluted, the U.S. version is titled Return of the Giant Monsters, all of which causes me sleepless nights. I don’t have a clue as to why it bothers me so much, it just does.

Anyway, Gamera Vs. Gyaos is more for kids than someone who may or may not drink a LOT of beer, and has just about everything a fan of giant Japanese monsters could ever want.

Mt. Fuji has erupted again, this time awakening Gyaos, a “special needs” prehistoric vampire reptile bird that eats humans and emits a supersonic frequency that can slice through other giant monsters like a hot knife through tofu. (Excellent run-on sentence!)

This causes hell on Earth for a super freeway project slated to plow through a nearby village of people (village people, heh) who can’t decide if it’s cool to give up their ancestor’s land so everyone can get to the store faster, or sell out and become as rich as Samurais (their words, not mine).

Enter Gamera (giant turtle that flies ‘n farts flames, in case it slipped your mind), even though no one in the movie knows how to correctly pronounce his name. Rescuing a little kid instead of dispensing some super-sized ass smack, Gamera leaks first blood via Gyaos’ lethal frequency. Turns out Gyaos has two throats, which acts like a tuning fork. (Good thing it’s not a female Gyaos – then it would never shut up. OK, that was uncalled for, ladies. I respect your boobs ’n stuff.)

Gamera retreats back to the ocean to heal after his arm is almost cut off by the animated-but-deadly frequency. This forces the humans to take matters into their own hands. And what an ingenious plan they have. Using hundreds of gallons of synthetic human blood, they lure Gyaos to the top of that building that has a spinning roof. While he drinks it, they turn on the spin-y building roof and make Gyaos all dizzy so he can’t fly back to his cave before being burned by the sun when it rises in three f’n minutes.

The scene of Gyaos going around and around like a 33 1/3rpm record album being played on 45rpm is one of giant monster movie’s greatest moments. If that was me on that “turntable,” I’d mega puke big time.

The other scenes of G&G locking it up (Gamera even bites several toes off Gyaos, but they grow back) are the stuff drug dreams are made of. But don’t do drugs as they’re not cool for you. Stick to canned beer or prescription glue and see how giant monsters used to settle their differences back in the ’60s.

Elephant Man – Keep On Trunkin’

Despite its classic film status (eight Oscar™ nominations), I was disappointed that John Merrick, the true life title character of 1980s The Elephant Man, didn’t have a trunk. How the heck is he supposed to eat peanuts? With that grotesquely misshapen head, leg and arm they should’ve called him The Play-Doh™ Man. (How insensitive of me. I should be made to clean out an elephant cage.)

John Merrick was hideously deformed man in 19th Century London. Until he was discovered being exploited and beaten like a step-child rug at a stink filthy Victorian circus sideshow, Merrick lived a life lower than that of a street elephant.

Rescued by surgeon Frederick Treves, a doctor who all the Monarchy want sticking rubber gloves into their royal holes, Merrick is taken to the hospital and given a clean room, hot meals, a bed and a private place to make doody that he was forced to do in public for the delight of paying customers.

Treves is compassionate and honest when he tells Merrick that, despite all his surgical skills, can’t fix him. But hey, free rent! Merrick’s horrific physical condition soon becomes newspaper fodder and celebrity soon follows. But all is not a free-range lifestyle for Merrick as his former employer, a drunken bully asshook douche bag, comes back to re-hire him.

The Elephant Man, based on the true story of John Merrick, is hard to watch if you have even a sliver of a soul. Fortunately, I am not cursed with one of those things. But I did like the movie. And I like peanuts.

Tropical Teenage Mutants

The mutant claw babies from It’s Alive (1974) and It’s Alive 2: It Lives Again (1978) go on spring break to a tropical island paradise and have many madcap adventures, like the time mutant claw baby #2 gets drunk on tequila shooters, throws up on a palm tree and passes out. His buddies duct-tape him to a Ski-Doo™ and give the keys to a mischievous monkey. Um, sorry – I was paraphrasing from a script I wrote for the first It’s Alive sequel.

It’s Alive III: Island of the Alive (1987) begins eight years after the first “incident” (people ripped into Shredded Wheat™) with a court trial arguing to let the mutant claw babies (now mutant pre-teens) the right to not be shot in the face, and live on an island away from society and its “rules.” The judge agrees. Yes! The system works if you let it.

But that hard-core baby-hater Lieutenant Perkins (from the first movie) wants the mutants eliminated and goes to the island under the false pretext of helping one of the dads find his claw son. His real plan: to shoot them all in the face. What Perkins doesn’t know is the mutant claw babies know the island like the back of their, uh, claw, and turn the paradise retreat into an…ISLAND OF BLOOD.

Even with various face-ripping, gut-ripping and shirt-ripping, III is not nearly as good as the first two It’s Alive movies. Nevertheless, I’m somewhat impatiently waiting for It’s Alive IV: The Claw Is Family. In outer space. Hey, everyone likes outer space, so it could be BIG box office.

Vampire Town

Originally a four-part mini-series on television (or “TV”), this thorough 2004 remake fleshes out Stephen King’s best-selling novel about a small town plagued by a vampire and punches the corny 1979 Salem’s Lot right in the neck.

Four hours long, the story begins with published author Ben Mears (Rob Lowe) returning home to Jerusalem’s Lot to do a book on the feared Marsden House, where as a kid on a dare, he witnessed several murders and was scared so bad he loaded his metaphorical pants. Ben wanted to rent the decrepit huge mansion up on the hill overlooking the town, but a vampire signed the lease first. (Probably with a pen filled with blood.) Very convenient having Ben and the vampire show up at the same time.

Soon several school kids turn up missing. Then several townsfolk. Then the whole dang community is one zip code away from becoming Vampire Town. (I could’ve used the word “City” or “Ville,” but I stick by my first choice.)

With four hours to kill (sorry) the movie really gets a chance to define King’s well-crafted characters, although they all talk like they were reading directly from his book. When it happens, the vampire stuff is kinda cheese ball (the garish display of fangs, the hissing of breath like a punctured water bed, screaming like a little girl when impaled with a wooden stake).

This is a rare instance where the story is better than the monster. Several scenes, though, are pretty cool, including the creepy vampire kids on the school bus and a housewife’s dead body coming back to life in the morgue. (Thankfully someone had the frame of mind to construct a crucifix out of tongue depressors or there could’ve been big trouble.)

The best line comes after the vampire (Rutger Hauer) convinces a priest to renounce his faith. When the defrocked dude asks him, “Is there a God?” Hauer replies, “Only the God that feeds you,” and makes the past pastor drink his vamp-y blood. Cool.

Decent horror, great story and a “ville” full of bloodsuckers. I’d move there. In the daylight, though, because hey, vampires.

P.S. The vampire in the 1979 movie was/is way cooler than the 2004 version vampire. This tooth is evident Heh.

Putting A Name On Horror

Two things I really anti-like about horror movies – besides the two dozen previous gripes – is the use of the word “dark” in the title (it should be banned and whoever violates it should be forced to wear white clothes for an entire day), and any horror film with a title that sounds anything but a horror film.

I assign an example of this grievance to Starry Eyes (2014), a psychological horror movie whose title actually makes you not want to watch it. Which is too bad, because the plot is tantalizing, much like an unattended plate of oatmeal raisin cookies…

“Determined to make it as an actress in Hollywood, Sarah Walker spends her days working a dead-end job, enduring petty friendships and going on countless casting calls in hopes of catching her big break.”

“After a series of strange auditions, Sarah lands the leading role in a new film from a mysterious production company. But with this opportunity comes bizarre ramifications that will transform her both mentally and physically into something beautiful…and altogether terrifying.”

I bet something terrifying happens.

Since Hollywood never listens to me, I doubt some horror filmmakers just won’t get a clue and give their art something a lot more marketable. Heck it could be as simple as adding phrases like “death smack,” “kill-butt” or “blood explosion.” I double dog dare you to not go see a movie with anyone of those brilliant, nay, solid gold, suggestions.

P.S. Starry Kill-Butt Death Smack Blood Explosion Eyes is available on VOD and iTunes™ November 14, 2014

Beverly Hills Sharks

In the schlock-y vein of Jersey Shore Shark Attack (2012), in which our apex predator pals tear into a bunch of self-centered egomaniacal Jersey Shore types, comes 90210 Shark Attack (releasing February 2015), hopefully doing to a bunch of self-centered egomaniacal Beverly Hills types what we pay to see them do. And just like Jersey Shore Shark Attack a plot is simply not needed. But for obsessives, here you go…

“A group of entitled Beverly Hills oceanography students arrive at a mansion in Malibu to study local ocean waters. One by one, the students begin to disappear, murdered by some flesh-shredding entity, leaving wounds similar in nature to a shark attack. But how is that possible when the nearest ocean is a half-mile away?”

OK, wow. Entitled (!) oceanography students go to a mansion to study ocean waters? And why would a shark go to Beverly Hills in the first place? To shop? And with parking at $2.00 per twenty minutes (citing the City of Beverly Hills 2014 Department of Administrative Services), what shark can afford to leave his or her vehicle there while dining at Villa Blanca (price range $31 – $60, serving Italian, Mediterranean and Asian foods, and is perfect for a romantic meal) or on its patrons?

If you’re looking for a slightly better Los Angeles beach brunch, give Malibu Shark Attack (2009) a look see/sea. A tsunami floods coastal L.A., paving the way for prehistoric goblin sharks to swim inland do some gobblin’. Heh.

Mermaid Chronicles

An early 1900s con artist and his hot girlfriend work in the carnival trade industry and are part of the circus sideshow freak division. There they try and make people believe that gal in the water tank is a mermaid. Because this is a traveling circus, I’m leaning towards not fully believing it, although I unconditionally have faith the bearded lady’s facial hair is authentic, and by extension, valid.

One day they meet an old sailor fart who claims to have a real mermaid in his possession/bathtub. This mermaid is of supermodel caliber and doesn’t wear a waterproof top of any kind. She has weird teeth and her tail is somewhat slimy. But man, that’s one sexy aqua woman. For a fish, anyway.

The con artist steals the mermaid and manages to get it onboard a ship sailing to America, where they will make lots and lots of money by having her be a spokesmodel for a new line of fishing poles or something. Because of the mystic nature of their gilled passenger, strange and icky happenings happen during the journey, like drunk sailors being eaten tar tar.

The mermaid just happens to be the Queen Mermaid, whose job it is to deliver fast food to her hungry people. It’s here the mermaid fully morphs into her real form, which is a lot less attractive than the topless tuna she was before. By the time the ship runs aground and everyone’s screaming for their lives, she looks like a cross between the Queen Alien in Aliens (1986) and that alien gal in Species (1995). She tosses the dead bodies/TV Dinners™ into the waiting mouths of one million mermaids surrounding the boat. OK, maybe it wasn’t a million, but it was dark and I couldn’t see very well. But they splashed around a LOT.

She Creature (2001/originally titled Mermaid Chronicles Part 1: She Creature) is a good idea for a movie, but there’s not nearly enough blood or flesh-eating scenes. The mermaid looks a heckuva lot like the real ones I’ve seen at the carnival, though, so that’s pretty cool.

P.S. It would not be in anyone’s best interest to confuse this She Creature with the The She-Creature that came out in 1956. It could cause social disruption of some sort.

Ankh If You Love Mummies

 

It’s easy to see why movies about mummies have never really caught on except for that one in 1999 with Brendan Fraser, which had a budget $80 million and went on to make nearly $416 million. The Mummy Returns, a 2001 sequel, made even more genēh maṣri – $433 million to be exact. (The Scorpion King/2002, the second sequel (prequel/spin-off, actually), took a camel dump at the box office: $91 million budget, $165 million worldwide box office. Yeesh – talk about sand in your gallibaya.)

With only a few exceptions, mummy movies aren’t big box office cake. Why? For only thing, crappy name. Mummy is what little British kids who wear jumpers and have crooked teeth call their moms. Secondly, same outfit in every movie (freshness-expired bandages for shirt AND pants), no discernible orator skills, walks like an Egyptian. In horror movie terms he’s a minimummy wage monster. Heh.

With about as much frequency as a mummy – which is basically a zombie wrapped in toilet paper – is resurrected, now comes Day of the Mummy (2014), (Hmmpf – they should’ve started out with Night of the Living Mummy, followed by Dawn of the Mummy.)

Here’s how the try and spin it: “Jack Wells arrives in Egypt in search of a famed diamond, The Codex Stone. His journey leads him to a team of archaeologists who are exploring the recently discovered tomb of the cursed King Neferu. With his centuries-old slumber disturbed by timeless human greed, the King rises from the dead with a bloodlust that cannot be staunched and a raging fury that will shred flesh from bone, bringing terrible, tormented death to all who dare witness the Day of the Mummy.”

Why are all Egyptian kings cursed? What is it about that job that forces you to sleep in dirt for centuries until some get-rich-quick types dig you up and compromise your amenities? I bet the Help Wanted classified ad doesn’t mention anything about that in the job description.

In case you needed another excuse to avoid Day of the Mummy (releasing Oct. 20, 2014 in the UK and December 9 in the States), it was shot POV style; That technique only works effectively in porn.

Storybook Creature

Maybe it’s the time of the year or just the cycle of horror movies, but there sure seems to be a lot of “ghost” and/or “entity in yer face” movies these days. Not that I’m complaining, which I’m prone to do; I’ll take a ghost movie over an overdone zombie film since I’ve about had my fill of the undead. DISCLAIMER: The above statement DOES NOT include The Walking Dead, which has become a raging addiction for me, no matter how much smack George Romero talks about it.

So the next one coming down the polter-pole is The Babadook (Australia/2014), a mythical kid’s book whatchahoozit. While the name doesn’t particularly invoke a sense of dread and sounds like an internet start-up, color me a seasonal shade of intrigued.

Here’s the paper-thin albeit serviceable plot…

“Six years after the violent death of her husband, Amelia is at a loss. She struggles to discipline her out of control six year-old, Samuel, a son she finds impossible to love.”

“Samuel’s dreams are plagued by a sinister monster he believes is coming to kill them both. When a disturbing storybook called The Babadook turns up at their house, Samuel is convinced that the Babadook is the creature he’s been dreaming about.”

“His hallucinations spiral out of control and as he becomes more unpredictable and violent, Amelia is genuinely frightened by her son’s behavior. But when she begins to see glimpses of an evil presence all around her, it slowly dawns on her that the thing Samuel has been warning her about may be real.”

Couple ’o things: The kid needs to be put in time-out – for about a month. Secondly, maybe mom should hook up with Babadook; let’s see what behavior problems arise when your step-dad’s a supernatural creature from beyond that has zero tolerance for humans to begin with.