Low Tide Love

In the super odd/unusual/weird horror flick Venus Drowning (2006), a cute British gal is having a really bad day. The boyfriend that knocked her up just died of cancer. Then she suffers a miscarriage. Then the tries to commit suicide with booze, pills and a knife in a bathtub. (To be fair, she did have non-lethal shampoo.)

It was an off-yourself FAIL. So her mental doc prescribes her a holiday at an off-season seaside beach. But as everyone knows, British beaches are always gray, cold and overcast. Good atmosphere for recovering from of depression.

It’s here she finds a reverse meatloaf creature thing during low tide. She takes it home, tries to feed it (I’m really hoping that was a mouth), and rubs it. The creature’s secretions stay on her fingers like Cheetos™ dust – and it’s doing to her what catnip does to cats.

A girlfriend comes to visit and after a drinking run ends up bringing a guy back to the pad for a little shag on the carpeting. Meanwhile, the creature in the basement is responding to the pleasure emotions right above what I hope is a head. Then it starts to throb. I really hope this isn’t a clue as to what it is.

This affects the suicide girl and she ends up licking it and rolling around on the floor in horniness. This compels her to pick up the SAME GUY her visiting girlfriend did and HAVE SEX WITH HIM. By now it’s clear – the pulsing flesh lump is feeding off the sex energy.

The squishy thing sprouts long tentacles and violates the post-sex sleeping LUCKIEST GUY ON EARTH and sucks out all his chi. When the girl wakes up, she has a blackened, chi sucked rotted corpse in her bed. So much for Saturday night.

She breaks the brittle corpse into firewood, piles it in a shopping cart, rolls it down to the beach, and makes a cadaver camp fire. Later, back at the flat, she stabs the sex lump and tosses it in the trash. Solid waste or recyclable – the movie leaves it up to your imagination.

Not sure what the point of all this was. But it did hang me up with unresolved questions – what did she do with the shopping cart?!? Did it belong to a local grocery store? Won’t they want it back after it’s washed with commercial-grade Mr. Clean™?

And this is what I took away from all of the above.

Catching Salmonella From Fishmen

Island of the Fishmen (1979/Italy – 1981/U.S.), a schlocky Italian creature feature – finally and conclusively solves one of mankind’s greatest mysteries – where the flippin’ flap is the lost city of Atlantis. I don’t have the exact coordinates, but it’s in the middle of the ocean, or rather, under the middle of the ocean, where a volcano made it sink. And it’s inhabited – by fish people.

A bio-scientist, doing his best Dr. Moreau impression, made the fish people. The ego-mad Republican who runs the island (complete with fully functioning live volcano) uses the aquatic acolytes to retrieve Atlantis’ submerged gold and ornate bookends.

The scientist wanted to change everyone into fish to solve the world’s food problem. Ironically, if the ocean was loaded with fish people, we land walkers would never run out of food. Then all we’d need is bait shops and tartar sauce factories.

While this is going on, shipwrecked Lieutenant Claude de Ross washes up on the island and, after checking out the captive “too sexy for civilization” Amanda Marvin (who holds sway over the fish dudes), wants to snorkel in her sea grotto. (Yeah, I used that line before. So what?) But Edmond Rackham, the self-proclaimed ruler of said doomed island, wants to kill everybody and make off with the Atlantean gold while wearing a suit and riding around on a horse in humid tropical temps.

Fed up with this nonsense, the volcano gets its pyroclastic flow in a knot and is about to recreate history. With no more potion to control the fish people and the island about to blow, this thing turns into a last call party.

The fishmen, with claws that look EXACTLY like those sported by the Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), finally get the upper fin and dish out some sweet revenge. They also do something unexpected as the island is lava lamping. What some fishmen won’t do for a pretty land face.

Of note: for the U.S. release, some American dumbass wanted to retitle the movie and named it Island of Mutations, then Island of Mutations, before settling on Screamers. I like Island of Mutations as it has a nice zing to it.

S’Carrie

As everybody in the freakin’ world (except that one cable-less town just outside of the Antarctic) knows, Carrie (1976) is a modern horror classic about a bullied wallflower high school girl with blossoming telekinetic powers being set up for the world’s best Candid Camera prank, one that ends in screaming as opposed to laughing.

Carrie, based on a story by Stephen King (whoever he is), has numerous horror icon moments, from the Pig Blood Prom, to the entire graduating class of 1976 getting their degrees (Fahrenheit), to the religious freak mom getting the point of what knives are really good for, and the iconic shock ending scene that’s been copied one million billion times by everyone – except me.

Even though she could snap my spine with her mind, I’d still ask Carrie to the dance, mostly because she looks good in red.

GoD is a Helluva GaL

So the coffin everyone seeks in the Asian horror/fantasy flick Death Trance (2006) is reputed to either grant your wildest wishes or release the Goddess of Destruction. Guess which one this does?

An ancient Asian duplex/temple where the coffin has been baby-sat for years, is stolen by a martial arts expert who defends his prize by kicking everyone in the face. A wussy monk from the Tougan Temple has been tasked with bringing the coffin back and is given a sword, that when unsheathed, will help put back in the box whatever/whomever is let out.

Along the journey into the Forest of the Face-Kicks (that’s what I’m calling it, anyway), another guy seeking the coffin shows up to kick people in the face. Then a chick arrives who does pretty much the same thing. By the time the coffin is opened and the Goddess of Destruction is let loose to wreck everything, you’re left wondering what the point was to all of this. I was unable to figure it out — and I have a high school degree.

Lots of face kicking and ninja action. The GoD (oh, hey — I just got that abbreviation — thank you high school degree) lays waste to everything, but not before doing battle with the guy who stole the coffin in the first place. He got his wish. Can you figure out what it was? Only if you have the proper schooling accreditation. Like me.

Mothra Variety-Pak

In Rebirth of Mothra II (1997), Dagahra – a winged reptile butt-head – is Mothra’s foe-du-jour in this fantasy/sci-fi action tale about the butt-headed people of Earth wrecking the environment and paying for it in the metaphorical manifestation of giant monsters.

There’s a couple different species of Mothra raining its mothiness down on Dagahra, including Rainbow Mothra and Aqua Mothra. Didn’t see any scuba tanks on Aqua  Mothra, so I’m not sure how she was able to stay underwater without, like, drowning or needing the assistance of Mecha-Lifeguard.

The Ninai Kanai Temple rises from the sea floor where kids, looking to help Mothra, get in the friggin’ way. Pretty amazing special effects; when Dagahra covers Aqua Mothra with Barem (super poisonous starfish), you actually believe it’s all going down for real.

Had a tougher time subscribing to the color streams shooting out of Rainbow Mothra’s ass, though. But any movie that has poisonous starfish with future names gets my vote of approval.

Conquering Werewolves and Boobies

Hard to tell in what place in time Conquest – a  1983 Italian psychedelic schlock horror fantasy flick – takes place. All you need to know is that there’s cave condos, a werewolf army, gauze zombies, stink fog everywhere, a magic bow and arrow, and lots and lots of bare boobies.

A topless, iron-masked queen wearing nothing else except a business card sized bikini bottom is having nightmares of a faceless guy with a magic bow and arrow perforating her chest. As she dreams she lets a huge snake explore her lower zip code area. I know this is all a metaphor, but for what?

The werewolf army feeds on 99.9% naked and young cave dweller girls because “they taste better.” Need serving portions? No problem – each grab a leg and pull. (Conquest features a buffet of graphic gore scenes.)

Meanwhile, Illias (rhymes with Idiot), a feisty young man in a toga, is tasked by the ghost gods with ending the evil queen’s boobfest. To rock this party, Illias hooks up with Mace, a mentor muscle man with Fabio hair and a bear diaper. This could very well be the sowrd and sorcery version of Batman and Robin.

The werewolf army is sent to capture the dynamic duo and bring them to Ocron, the naked queen. That the werewolves just took the guys and not the tastier cave girls suggest they might be rearwolves. A sequel, perhaps.

The boys manage to break free and continue their plagued journey. Illias gets gooey pus boils all over his upper and lower toga. Mace gets caught and crucified by gauze zombies and dumped in the ocean, where dolphins free him using only their snouts. And dang it, a main character’s head gets chopped off.

How the heck do you top all of that? Magic bow and arrow time, with one shot delivering multiple cartoon arrows that find their hairy/guaze-y/naked-y targets in a rushed climax that’ll have you slapping your own head and going, “WTF?”

Yep, Conquest is that bad and that good. You’ll have to look through many caves to find a movie with such noble and naked attributes.

Medium-Rare Bear

A city doctor and his pregnant wife go to the ultra-busy woods of Maine to tend to all the sick Native American kids covered in pine cones and sores that won’t heal. Mercury poisoning, it’s discovered, is behind the face herpes.

The doctor discovers the saw mill has been polluting the local waterways with Mercury-based chemicals used to make logs all nice and shiny. Fish swim in that water. The fish mutate. The local Native Americans eat the fish. The Native Americans mutate.

Evidence to this outlandish claim lies in a horribly disfigured baby bear cub, found almost drowned to death. Unfortunately, it’s a long way back to camp and horribly disfigured mama bear is looking for her crusty kid. But she’s been busy, killing sleeping bag campers as though they were foreign tourists. Ripped, shredded, half-eaten, mangled, chewed, regurgitated… It was if they were human snack cakes at the last Drinkin’ & Drive-in Bake Sale.

Plenty of great moments, but the best comes when the monster bear chases them across a lake and goes into the drink in an iconic horror movie sequence. Thinking that gosh-darned thing drowned, they don’t see the bubbles heading towards shore. The bear walks all the way under the lake without scuba gear or anything resembling a snorkel!

No matter what they throw at mom, it still keeps coming. She looks like a reverse bear with melted skin and gut stuff on the outside where fur should be. Prophecy (1979) is loaded with gnarly nature-gone-awry action that sets you up for a sequel (pregnant mom has been eating the tainted fish).

 They never made another movie, though. Too bad; I felt Underwater Bear deserved to be been fleshed out a bit more. Oh, hey — I just got my own joke. Sweet!

Getting Tanked on Sharks

Hot on the dorsal of Discovery Channel’s™ insanity popular Shark Week comes SyFy Channel’s™ Sharknado Week, kicking off the largest collection of cheesy shark-offs ever made, starting with Atomic Shark (2014) on July 24, 2016, and showing Ice Sharks (2016) somewhere in the mess.

I can see the question mark on your gills – wasn’t here already a shark movie featuring ice? Sorta. It was called Snow Shark: Ancient Snow Beast and it came out 2011. Then there was Avalanche Sharks in 2014. So yeah, we’re due for another frozen fin fable.

Here’s how Ice Sharks chills out: “A new breed of aggressive, ravenous sharks cracks the frozen ocean floor of an Arctic research station, devouring all who fall through. As the station sinks into frigid waters, those alive must fashion makeshift weapons or suffer the same fate.”

Suffer the same fate. A phrase I’ve used since watching these chew-by-numbers shark movies. And since you need to get caught up, here’s SyFy’s™ monster menu of mouthy mayhem that includes other killer cod as well. Be prepared to spend a week in front of your TV – there are 44 featured shark-n-friends movies. Bring tartar sauce.

Countdown to Godzilla

As I’ve been e-blathering all over this blog-o-rama, Godzilla: Resurgence – a top-to-bottom, brand spanking new Godzilla movie – is coming out mere days from now, which would put it at July 29, 2016.

Released in Japan only, it’ll take a few hours for it to get stateside by way of illegal digital bootleg, then legally in theaters months after that. Screw both of those delivery systems – I plan on using Stargate Lyft to travel to Japan, watch the movie, drink several gallons of Sapporo™, then arrive back in my apartment just in time to use the can. (Note to self: set Stargate to high – that last “running late” trip to the bathroom was almost a deal breaker on several levels.)

What can be seen in these new screenshots is that Godzilla gets all purple at one point. (I’ve done that – not easy.) Then we see him getting a face full of military artillery, which he pretty much eats like potato chips. And you wonder why he keeps f’ing stuff up. Being shot in the mug shot all the time wouldn’t make you an ambassador of goodwill, either.

The effects look pretty cool, with Japan getting the tempura stomped out of it YET AGAIN. Actually, it could be any city and I’d still be a happy emoji. Regardless, I’m drunk with giddiness (okay, maybe just drunk) at the impending new big screen release of my favorite movie monster of all time. (Sorry Gamera; you had your chance, but your movies keep getting delayed. Like Stargate.)

Rampaging Dinosaurs – The New Republicans

Rise of the Dinosaurs (aka, Jurassic Attack/2013) finds modern day prehistoric (okay, that didn’t come out right) reptilian monsters tearing apart humans like Republicans on Democrats. But that’s what dinosaurs are paid to do – and they do it as if it were a political agenda.

That said, Rise of the Dinosaurs is an insult to cerapods everywhere. It starts with a dino attack on a commando squad sent to rescue a hostage held by terrorist/Republicans in a jungle valley not as yet pooped upon by people. Their rescue copter is compromised by hostile artillery and they crash right on to the kitchen table of a raptor just begging to strap the grocery bib on and send digital blood a’splattin’.

Ninety-nine percent of the movie is the military squad and the terrorists/Republicans shooting at each other with a seemingly endless supply of digital bullets. From the time you see the first dinosaur rise, you don’t get to see another one chewing the scenery for over a half hour. Not cool.

Before the opening scene rolls you already know what’s gonna happen. But that’s not the point. The digi-dinos are so painfully and poorly integrated into the “movie” and clumsily hopping around and attacking humans while casting Photoshop™ shadows designed by Art Institute™ grads, you’d swear you were playing a video game. (More than once I kept reaching for the game controller.)

Save yourself the dumbass digital destruction and just watch the evening news instead – it’s way more gory and not nearly as fake looking.