Alien Ghost Zombie

Three more upcoming horror/sci-fi treats for your viewing device. Warning: the makers of these films fully intend to charge you to watch ’em. You’d think they had rent to pay or something.

Arriving July 2016, the horror indie Consumption – already critically lauded on the film festival circuit – has been described as having a “gruesome goulash of ghosts, cults, and good ’ol demons.”

I haven’t had goulash in a long time.

Anyway, Consumption goes like this: “A group of friends travel to the snowy Utah mountains for a weekend retreat. One brings with him a dark secret that could destroy their lives forever. As they prepare to face an ancient secret buried in the woods outside their winter resort, an unstoppable evil begins to grow, consuming them one by one.”

Man, that sounds a lot like The Evil Dead (1981).

Next up is Zombinatrix (release pending 2016), starring Patty Mullen of Frankenhooker (1990) fame. It’s about a dominatrix who comes back from the dead to take revenge – as if you need a plot. Not much else in known about this one, other than it’s YET ANOTHER flippin’ zombie movie. Sigh.

If found footage – the karaoke of film making – is your preferred point of view, then you’ll want to check out The Gracefield Incident (release pending 2016). I watched the trailer and it looks to have some sort extraterrestrial causing usual heck for Earthers. Here’s how…

“Matt, a video game developer, embeds an iPhone™ camera into his prosthetic eye to secretly record and document a weekend with friends in a luxurious mountaintop cabin. Things take a terrifying turn when a meteorite crashes the party, forcing everyone to face the darkest, screaming nightmare while somehow connecting life, love, and loss in a twist of fear.”

Life, love, loss. Sounds like a recipe for a chick flick.

The Devil on Speed Dial

A young Japanese woman commits suicide by breathing in toxic fumes from a charcoal burner. It is not stated if she ate the hamburger that was being cooked on it first, though. Had that been me, I totally would’ve eaten it.

So a group of vacationing young people (one of whom can see the dead for some reason) go to the same resort where this happened, only to find charcoal burners in all their rooms. They shouldn’t freak out too much, because it’s not like it’s an over-priced mini-bar. What they should freak out about, however, is their beepers and cell phones ringing with a text message and/or voice from beyond telling each of them the exact day and time of their death.

Soon each of them are found burnt to death by a device that uses some sort of charcoal as fuel. Clearly, this is the work of a Charcoal Demon. Time to check the hell outta there. But all roads out lead right back to the damned (albeit) four-star lodge. The last girl left unbroiled teams up with the freshly-grilled spirit of her boyfriend to figure out how to kick the demon’s ash. Hello – am I the only one who thought of throwing water on it?

Some demon-yelling and ghost people walking around as if they had nothing better to do. If you think the plot of Dial D For Demons (1999) outline sounds familiar, it is if you’ve watched The Ring (2002). The only ring that’s scarier is the one around my bathtub.

Coach Class Ghosts

If you thought late flights were bad, Flight 7500 from Los Angeles to Tokyo was delayed four years. I speak of course of Flight 7500, the “stalled on the Hollywood runway” horror movie by Takashi Shimizu, the Japanese filmmaker behind all those tedious Grudge revenge ghost movies.

According to someone on the Internet, Flight 7500 – originally titled 7500 back in 2012 – was released in 2014. No one told me as it slipped past my air control. Since then it’s been released in important media hubs like the Philippines and probably Antarctica, because those movie markets are way more strategic than insignificant outposts like Los Angeles and New York.

So Flight 7500 is finally scheduled to be released on April 12, 2016 on DVD. Will it be worth the fuss/wait? Here’s what to expect: “Flight 7500 departs Los Angeles International Airport bound for Tokyo. As the overnight flight makes its way over the Pacific Ocean during its ten-hour course, the passengers encounter a supernatural force in the cabin.”

Yep, a ghost. Maybe that’s why they tried to keep the movie stalled for so long. It gave the actors a chance to catch another flight outta town.

If the plot sounds familiar, it is. Thailand’s 407 (aka, 407 Dark Flight 3D) was released early 2012 and goes like this: “A passenger plane is haunted by ghosts that gradually trick the passengers into going insane and killing each other.”

Looks like that restroom’s been occupied for some time.

P.S. There was a polter-passenger on a plane in 1978’s The Ghost of Flight 401, which was based on a TRUE story and adpated from a book. Books don’t lie. I even compared 407 with 401 on a blawg post on October 20, 2011. No lie.

Stoned Cold

In Dead of Winter (aka, Lost Signal/2006), college sweethearts Kevin and Tiffany (they’re in luv) go to a New Year’s Eve house party, snort some crystal meth and do a shot of what they thought was cold and refreshing alcohol. The flavorful drink was laced with LSD. If you’ve ever wanted to know what happens when you mix LSD with crystal meth, the results are pretty much what you’d expect – your head turns inside out and encores with you sh*tting your pants in front of friends and relatives.

Driving home in the snow, Kevin hallucinates a mysterious old man in the back seat of his car. They stop, leap out of the vehicle and bolt for the woods. (Note: It’s called Tanglewoods for a reason.) Freezing and tripping or “re-imagining reality,” both become extremely paranoid, all of which is complicated by the onset of cold and refreshing hypothermia.

They manage a call 9-1-1, but they’re so lost in the woods, only tracker bears and maybe vampire owls could find them. Attempting to get inside the cab of a snow plow, the darn thing comes to life and chases Kevin down, who loses a shoe in the process. (Note to self: socks are worthless in snow.)

Kevin and Tiffany find a small shed and plan to ride out the night in there. Instantly, the shack shakes like it was being drum soloed by Bigfoot. Demonic voices whisper evil things. Kevin starts freaking out on Tiffany and decides she needs to be killed into portion appropriate cubes, and chases her to an unoccupied house.

The silly gal manages to lock him out and he figures out a way in, applying the Santa Claus methodology. Most of the movie is just Kev and Tif running around in the freezing cold and freaking out. The “shock” ending is actually quite stock and should be largely ignored.

So the message here is don’t do drugs in the snow. Save ’em for a nice and warm sunny beach where there aren’t any ghost snow plows around for miles.

P.S. Don’t do drugs.

Slacker Zombies

A pass-it-along virus has turned the world’s population into zombies. Oh, sure – there are a few non-zombies left, but not enough worth counting, three of which are slacker dudes unaffected by the virus and catastrophic event. They laze around on the couch, watching DVDs, playing video games, raiding the grocery store, and contemplate hooking up with any zombie girl that doesn’t look too rotted. Life is good.

Out searching for a new place to live (they change houses as often as they don’t change their underwear), slackers Morgan, Johnny and Ash stumble across a hot chick and her dad in a church besieged by zombies. Turns out both are scientists and hold the potential key to turning everyone back into humans.

Dad gets taken by the undead and the guys and the girl barely get out alive. That doesn’t stop them from hitting on her. But she doesn’t have time for bad pick-up lines – she needs to get a zombie blood sample to the lab for processing, then fly it to a nearby island (she’s also a pilot) where other scientists are working on a cure.

Yep, the science facility is overrun by zombies, some of which are kids who can’t seem to keep a straight face. Plenty of slob humor connects the dots between the lab and the airport. Oops – the chick takes a zombie bite along the way and has about an hour before she turns. The flight is 40-minutes. The airport is 10 minutes away. You do the math.

All of this is boneheaded fun and occasionally gory (a few skulls sliced open like organic squash), with a few touching moments thrown in as well. (The fart scene in the air vent will bring a tear to one of your eyes.)

You can pretty much guess what happens when the plane has wheels up. It wouldn’t be very gratifying if you didn’t. The ending, though, isn’t. If I told you what it was, you probably wouldn’t watch Last of the Living (2008). But you should because it’s funny and fun. Just not the ending.

Peculiar Kids, Space Infection and Directions to Hell

Another batch of visual goodies gearing up to ransack your wallet/purse/fanny pack. (Note to my accountant – can I deduct the cost of popcorn, Peanut M&Ms™, red vines, Diet Coke™, hot dogs, and smuggled bottles of airline liquor from my taxes if I say that going to the movies is work related?

Anyway, the book-based Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, the upcoming (2016) Tim Burton horror-ish fantasy movie, goes like this: “When Jacob discovers clues to a mystery that spans different worlds and times, he finds Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. But the mystery and danger deepen as he gets to know the residents and learns about their special powers.”

I liked it better when it was called X-Men (2000).

Up next is the dork titled Virus: Extreme Contamination (release pending 2016): “An Italian scientist travels to Kosovo to study the impact of a meteorite that is the cause of strange events. Once there, he discovers that the object has been moved to a near military base where all the people were turned into dangerous weird creatures.”

When doesn’t a meteorite cause weird stuff /real estate damage? As if it needs to be said, when aren’t people on the bus dangerous weird creatures? The fact that we all are is what’s keeping aliens from colonizing Earth. And yes, they always have to wipe their space shoes after visiting this flat/round planet of ours.

Death House (release pending 2016) shows promise, if only for the stellar genre cast that stars the guys who played Freddy Krueger, Machete, Jason Voorhees, Pinhead, and that gal who starred in that legendary rape revenge movie I Spit On Your Grave (1978). Here’s what happens in the house of death…

“Two federal agents fight their way through nine levels of Hell inside a secret prison known as the Death House. A facility-wide prison break turns their flight into a tour of horrors as they push toward the ultimate evil housed in the lowest depths of the earth.”

Sounds like someone’s been hanging out at the Poggie Tavern during “What Passes As Ladies” Night again.

The Evil Nude

In Exorcismo (1975), an Italian schlock knock-off of The Exorcist (1973), a young nymphet daughter of a widowed socialite becomes the conduit through which Satan makes poo poo. Seems the gal got caught up in some trendy satanic rituals where hippies gather to smoke the weed, drink psychedelic wine and invoke evil. A 9-1-1 priest is called to exorcise the spirit of the girl’s dead father out of her hot naked body.

As she starts to “change,” clothes come off and she does the usual possessed stuff: levitates the bed, has gonorrhea sores all over her face, smears herself with some sort of dark brown stinky stuff that looks like poo poo. But it’s the dazzling dialogue that really rivets one’s seat (i.e., “You’re all stupid asses – get out!”). Lots of full frontal naked good times, but no scares unless you factor in unshaven female armpits.

So what happens to Hell’s Serpent once it’s been evicted from the girl? Uh, oh – the family dog is looking a bit more evil than usual and might start floating around the room. Let’s just hope he’s ceiling broken.

LOL Horror & Sci-Fi

Three new horror hopeful hits headed in this general direction. There’s probably more movies coming out, but I need to spend the day combing my hair YET AGAIN, so three is all you get from me on this 23rd day of the third month of the year 2016.

First up is The Snarling. Cool title. It could be in reference to anything from a werewolf or mad raccoon, to a bitter bear or my neighbor lady whose facial muscles are botoxed to the point she looks like her stretched skin is gonna pop.

Anyway, here’s the skinny on The Snarling, already screened in the U.K., but not here. I don’t know why: “When a cursed new horror film is being made in their village, locals Les, Mike and Bob see their chance to cash in and get famous. As the local Detective Inspector and his hapless sergeant Haskins eventually trace a link in recent bloody mutilations to the film, the race is on to stop the killings before our local heroes get caught up in the real blood and guts.”

Bloody mutilations is an oxymoron.

Next up is First Man on Mars, a spoof on The Martian (2015). In this one the send a guy to Mars, but he comes back infected with space gunk, turning him into a “crazed, savage monster with an unquenchable thirst for human flesh.”

Here’s the splashdown on First Man on Mars (release pending 2016): “In 2003 billionaire astronaut Eli Cologne began his journey through space to become the first man on Mars, but something went horribly wrong. The space craft crashed undetected in a remote part of Louisiana during Hurricane Katrina, and he’s been hunting both human and animal prey in the swamps for years. For small town sheriff Dick Ruffman, it’s a race against time to find the man-turned-monster before he kills again in this horrifying and hilarious satire of low budget drive-in grindhouse creature features from the 1970s.”

Crazed, savage monster with an unquenchable thirst for human flesh is an oxymoron.

Lastly, the brilliantly punned Australiens (releasing June 14, 2016) is a comedic take on an alien invasion set in the Land of Roo: “An extraterrestrial armada launches a nationwide assault on Australia. Seems the other nations of the world are far too insulted by their exclusion from the attack to come to Australia’s aid. Car-chasing spaceships, martial-arts aliens, giant killer robots and more.”

Australia doesn’t need our help – they have tasty beers. And you can never lose when you have tasty beers.

Hell Is Full Of Green Gunk

In order to advance her stimulating career as a bank loan officer, Christine Brown denies an old gypsy woman an extension on a mortgage, thereby invoking a curse, that when applied properly, will drag your soul to Hell. In other words, account closed.

The gypsy, who dies and comes back to enable said curse by way of a button (don’t ask), looks like one of the moms of The Evil Dead (1981). The rules are clear, though – give the cursed coat button to someone else, then their soul will burn in Hell for, like, a million years. The plan is to give the button back to the dead gypsy woman. I know what you’re thinking, but according to gypsy law, the soul never dies, hence…

If you can’t predict the ending at this point, go to Hell. The gypsy woman, who spends a lot of time throwing up stuff (maggots, green gunk, undigested breath mints) in Christine’s mouth, is nicely yucky. But the story and effects are as lackluster as my skills with curses.

Try and see if you can get through Drag Me To Hell’s (2009) seance scene without laughing or throwing up green gunk. Can’t be done.

Facing A Faceless Face

The faceless fiends in Fiend Without a Face (1958) remind me of that old Richard Pryor joke where men spend the first nine months of their lives trying to get out of the womb, and the rest of their lives trying to get back in. That’s pretty funny.

The previously invisible creatures eventually materialize into extra large brains with a spinal cord tails. And while they aren’t exactly trying to get back into heads, they do suck your brain and spinal cord out through two “bite marks” in the back of your neck to make more mind mates.

These creatures were once manifested thought brought to solid life by lightning quality electricity, the byproduct of an old fart professor scientist who had been experimenting with using his mind without his hands for decades. Big deal – I’ve been manifesting solid farts since birth.

For the first two-thirds of the movie you only hear this faceless creature (loud heart beats that sound like clopping footsteps), rustling leaves, torn screen doors, etc. Then you see their victims clutch the back of their necks as if being hammer-locked by an entertainment grade pro wrestler, and then immediately dying with eyes wide open and mouth agape as their brains and spinal columns are slurped out.

Major Jeff Cummings of the U.S. Airforce stationed in Winthrop, Manitoba, Canada for atomic energy testing next to Canadian cows, Canadian farms and Canadian Canadians called the attacks on the locals as being the work of mental vampires. (I know a lot of those.) To buy time before the brains become visible enough to fight, he spends his time mackin’ on the professor scientist’s hot assistant. (She resists at first, but then later gives up the sugar.)

The best part of this clunky sci-fi classic is when the brains corner a few military brass, the professor, who just moments ago confessed to creating the monsters in a concise and believable back story, a panicky local old fart, and the hot assistant.

Boarding up the one window and blocking the door, the brains – flying like mental Frisbees™ – get in through the fireplace chimney and punched holes in the windows. When shot by the military guys, these brains got big time splat and stop-motion dissolve into red-stained oatmeal. This is the same method used on those ick demons in The Evil Dead (1981).

So if you wanna see flying brains, guns and oatmeal splat, you don’t have to go much further than Winthrop, Manitoba, Canada.