Cults, Co-Eds, Contamination, Cataclysm

Is it just my imagination or are there horror movies being made all the time? Seems like I can’t get out of bed without stepping in a wet pile of new genre flicks. Don’t these filmmakers have day jobs? Wish I could sit in a tall chair all day and yell “Cut”! through a huge megaphone. That’d be sweet.

That implied, here are four new horror flicks (as if this e-blogging) to goose up your Halloween before Christmas decorations go up the day after.

SATANIC (October 4, 2016)
“Satanic follows a van full of young, college-aged coeds who are visiting old Satanic Panic-era sites in Los Angeles. They end up following the creepy owner of an occult store home, only to find themselves saving a suspicious girl from an apparent human sacrifice. Only this ‘victim’ turns out to be much more than dangerous then the cult from which she escaped.”

College-aged co-eds. Sounds like an oxymoron, with emphasis on the moron. Does this make it chick horror? Of course it does.

ANTIDOTE (October 21, 2016)
“Antidote takes place in a plague-ridden, post-apocalyptic world. Here, a man and woman face unimaginable horrors. When he suddenly becomes infected, they have to contend with the fact that the only possible cure slowly drives him mad.”

How come the future is always post-apocalyptic, plague-ridden and…oh, that’s right –Republicans.

THE CURSE OF DOCTOR WOLFFENSTEIN (October 25, 2016)
“80 years ago, the diabolical Dr. Victor Wolffenstein wanted nothing more than to be immortal. His tireless quest led him to create a vaccine that did just that, but also infected his body with a flesh-rotting form of necrosis. As the doctor’s limbs literally fell apart, he tried to replace them by using the crudely removed arms and legs of the local villagers who, in order to stop Wolffenstein’s reign of terror, captured him and buried him alive for his crimes.”

There’s more, including five present day teens who f’up and resurrect Wolffy who gets his mutilation on. I have zero pity for them. This one promises to be “the ultimate experience in violence and gore.” If you’re gonna go around calling yourself Wolffenstein, I’d expect nothing less. That, or start a metal band.

TERRORTORY (October 31, 2016)
“Terrortory is an anthology horror film in the vein of Creepshow and Tales From The Crypt. It features six horrific tales set in the mythical region of Maryland known for an abundance of strange happenstances and urban legends.”

Watch this one free on Amazon Prime™ October 1, 2016 – October 31, 2016. And as for Maryland being known for “an abundance of strange happenstances and urban legends,” clearly they haven’t been to the Poggie Tavern™ during last call.

Federal Bureau of Zombies

I Was A Zombie For The F.B.I. (1982) is a weird-o but clever-o comedy spoof of old ’50s sci-fi involving two career criminal brothers being transported to the electric chair in a small plane that gets blown out of the sky by a UFO.

The aliens inside said UFO resurrect them and use the zombie bros to facilitate their impending invasion. And they do this with mind-altering soda pop. Yeah, I didn’t get it, either.

Vampires, Haunted Houses and 7-Eleven

Four more upcoming (as of this date in time) horror film-y thingies for your monetary consideration. First  thought has me questioning the people who write these press releases. If you want to do a half-assed job…HIRE ME!

PATIENT SEVEN (October 11, 2016)
“Dr. Marcus, a renowned psychiatrist has selected six severe mentally ill and dangerous patients, from the Spring Valley Mental Hospital as part of research for his new book. As Dr. Marcus interviews each patient, one by one the horrors they have committed begin to unfold. However, Dr. Marcus soon learns that there is one patient that has been kept from him, by the hospital’s administrator, Dr. Vincent…”

That Dr. Vincent is such a dick. Why would he keep a patient from Dr. Marcus? That is just plain mean. You give an ass-wipe a name tag and they think they own the world.

VAMPYRES (October 18, 2016)
Vampyres – faithful to the sexy, twisted 1974 cult classic, takes place in a stately English manor inhabited by two older lesbian vampires and their only cohabitant – a man imprisoned in the basement. Their lives and lifestyle are upended when a trio of campers come upon their lair and seek to uncover their dark secrets, a decision that has sexual and blood-curdling consequences.”

Vampyres is said to “pulsate with raw eroticism, wicked sado-masochism and bloody, creative gore.” It’s like a party-platter gone wild.

HOUSE OF PURGATORY (October 21, 2016)
“Four mid-western teenagers search for a fabled haunted house on Halloween night. Finding it, they slowly realize that the house knows each of their deepest secrets. One-by-one the house uses these secrets against them. Then, they find themselves in a battle to save their lives and their souls!”

A house that knows each of their deepest secrets? They don’t know it yet, but they stumbled into a 7-Eleven™.

THE AUTOPSY OF JANE DOE (December 20, 2016)
“Two coroners – a father and son – receive a mysterious homicide victim with no apparent cause of death. As they attempt to identify the beautiful young ‘Jane Doe,’ they discover increasingly bizarre clues that hold the key to her terrifying secrets.”

You’re probably thinking the secret is she’s a he. An autopsy should settle that argument.

Spiders, Ghosts & Ancient Evil

Another handful of upcoming flicks to get your seasonal horror on. Be warned – each of these movies want you to pay to see ’em. I know, right? Totally. Messed. Up.

RUPTURE (pending 2017)
“A single mom is violently kidnapped by a group of strangers. In an anonymous laboratory she is tied up and questioned about her medical history, including her pronounced fear of spiders. The captors explain that a genetic abnormality can potentially allow her to ‘rupture,’ revealing her own true alien nature.”

Did they just give away the whole movie? Sounds to me like she’s gonna pop and out will come a million billion spiders. And as the Mother of Spiders, that’s a lot of diapers to change.

THE EYES OF MY MOTHER (December 2, 2016)
“In their secluded farmhouse, a mother – formerly a surgeon in Portugal – teaches her daughter, Francisca, to understand anatomy and be unfazed by death. Francisca’s loneliness and scarred nature converge years later when her longing to connect with the world around her takes on a dark form.”

Yep, she’s gonna become a hippie.

DEAD AWAKE (October 2016)
“A young woman who must save herself and her friends from an ancient evil that stalks its victims through the terrifying real-life phenomenon of sleep paralysis.”

I have a hard time reconciling sleep paralysis with not wanting to get out of bed. And the ancient evil they’re talking about? That’s when you’re right in the middle of a cool sleep paralysis dream and you have to get up to pee.

SHORTWAVE
“Josh and Isabel Harris, after suffering the loss of their only child, relocate to a secluded research facility with the hopes of repairing their broken family. After years of trying, Josh and his research partner, Thomas, have a breakthrough involving a cryptic shortwave radio signal and its universal origins. Something within the signal resonates with Isabel and she begins experiencing seeming hallucinations and visions of distant memories. Upon further investigation into the phenomenon, the scientists fear for Isabel’s health while Isabel fears the signal has attracted something sinister to their new home.”

I liked it better when it was called White Noise (2005).

Alien Water Balloons

1990. It’s the future. Space travel between planets is nothing more than a bus ride downtown. Clothing is either orange, yellow or white. (Future technology ensures you can wash all three together without turning things into hippie soup.) And the neighboring aliens just radioed a message to Earth that they’re sending an ambassador to establish diplomatic relations. And that ambassador is…the QUEEN OF BLOOD! (I just loaded my space britches.)

The UFO sending the QoB didn’t quite make it to Earth, crash landing on Mars. (Okay, not quite Mars, but on Phobos, one of Mars’ 47 moons, according to my discount space encyclopedia.) A rescue ship with a hot chick, who seems to have three and a half extra teeth, is sent from Earth to bring back any survivors. There was one. She’s green, has a beehive alien pod hair-do (that, or she’s a member of the B-52s), doesn’t talk and has glowing eyes when she’s about to go to Bite Town.

After she chews open the wrist of one of the astronauts, the remaining crew decides to feed her their spare plasma on the way back to Earth. Unfortunately, she’s a glutton and sucks her way through the blood slushies. Feeling peckish, the Queen goes after two more astronauts, one of which survived being sucked off. Okay, that didn’t come out right.

The only female astronaut saves the day by getting into the world’s shortest b*tch slap, which leaves Queenie with scratches on her back. Not only does she leak green goopy stuff, she bleeds out and croaks. But not before infecting the entire spaceship with blood eggs that look like small goopy filled water balloons inside other water balloons. (Future science has made it possible for two water balloons to inhabit the same space in time.)

This might sound like exciting action, but it’s the opposite of that. Queen of Blood’s (1966) sets, special visual effects, and lunar landscapes are vividly colorful and imaginative. But when the space vampire doesn’t even make an appearance until the 47 minute mark (it’s 78 minute movie), and there’s no build up to a major freak with zero screaming, panicking or erratically fired laser beam guns, you’re left with a whole lot of deep space boring.

P.S. With her vampire eggs needing to make it to Earth market in order to further the Queen’s sucking race of suckers, the whole thing echoes the set up for Alien (1979). I totally bet that’s where the alien stole the idea.

The Eeval Ded

Evil just doesn’t exist in the United States – it’s everywhere, man. Why, you can’t even go to the North Pole and not encounter pure evil. (They have satanic penguins up there that’ll kill you and drink your blood. The produce guy at the grocery store told me that. I believe him. Why the heck would he lie?)

So it comes as zippo surprise to find our brand of evil is being copied by other countries in need of an evil upgrade. Take for instance Bhayanak Mahal B (1988) and Bach ke Zaraa (2008, two horror movies made in the Republic of India. Both copy The Evil Dead (1981) to embarrassing extremes.

Bach ke Zara – unofficially referred to as Bollywood Evil Dead. In this one you have a note-for-note rendition, except they throw in skimpily attired ladies, body smooching, and a choreographed dance number featuring a mud smeared (I hope it was mud) chick and muscle-y men. (Note to India – why on Earth do you always have to put in a choreographed dance sequence in every flippin’ horror movie? What is wrong with you?)

The pronunciation-challenging Bhayanak Mahal B (you gotta say it with your throat packed with half-swallowed dry cereal), translates to Awesome Castle B. I never saw Awesome Castle A.

This one also templates The Evil Dead schtick with melty-faced demons (or it could be a vampire), suitable gore (could’ve used some more curry in the fury) and a chick in a red string bikini. (Apparently, stylish swimwear is how you combat evil in India.)

Curious to see these logic-defying foreign horror gems? They’re on YouTube™. Some versions are in bowling alley English and even sub-titled (some with their own language). But hey – free! Now there’s something worth choreographed dancing to.

P.S. If you wanna see a really goofy but still f’d up Bollywood horror movie, try Khooni Panja (1991). It’s about a an extra-marital affair gone sour, volleyball, severed limbs and demonic possession. Too bad they didn’t add, I don’t know, some sort of dance sequence. That would’ve made this thing rock.

Ninjas, Zombies and Sleeping Bags

In the title-better-than-the-movie Ninjas vs. Zombies (2008), some guy’s brother dies and is somehow resurrected with evil powers and uses his abilities to eat souls and bring dead people back to life to do something that involves breaking the law.

The only ones who have a chance at stopping him are his brother and two buddies, who are magically turned into white boy ninjas. (You have to do this when the movie’s budget is about the price you’d pay for a used sleeping bag.)

The story jumps around like the ninjas and the zombies are just friends with red and black gunk on their faces. There was one naked girl in the movie for two seconds. That part I thoroughly enjoyed.

That Damned House

1963: Two couples looking to have a romantic anniversary weekend to feel each other up move into the last un-rented castle (or, House of the Damned) with a view in California, only to discover there are dead mutant circus freaks partying in the basement. (Say what you will about dead mutant circus freaks, those guys know how to throw a happenin’ shindig!)

This doesn’t bother the couple and their two unhappily married friends nearly as much as the headless woman and a half-man wandering (okay rolling) around without a glass of White Zinfandel™ in their hands. That simply wouldn’t happen in Napa Valley, or “wine country.”

Dress, Undress, Possess

Mom was a witch. For that she had to burn. So dad and baby daughter sift through the ashes of their motherless lives and go far away to someplace I forgot to remember.

Seventeen years later the stinking hot daughter is set to inherit some serious cash cake as decreed by mom’s family. One slight change in plan: mom is coming back from the dead and needs her daughter’s stinking hot body to further her work. I love this plan.

 The Haunting of Morella (1990) is basically a gal/gal ghost story revolving around the attention-holding plot of a lot of carpet-munching, art-y sex scenes in waterfalls (without appropriate swimwear) and porn thespian Maria Ford enunciating in some rather astonishing bikini under thingies.

Lenora/Morella is the stinking hot daughter and thankfully one of the Rug Sisters. Apparently her door swings both ways, which is good for those of us who appreciate a contemporary spin on our possessed ghost stories.

The Thereafter of the Hereafter

So what happens after you die? Beats the embalming fluid outta me. But that’s the premise of Hereafter (2010), a story about a guy who can communicate with the dead, or “hereafter.”

Feeling burdened by his “gift,” he gives up charging people for getting after-market life advise from the dearly departed, and goes to a mundane job in a San Francisco sugar factory, stockpiling food for giant ants and…sorry.

Anyway, there’s a two young twin boys in England, one of whom gets  turned into Bangers and Mash by a truck. Then there’s a hard news French chick who drowned and came back to life after being caught up in a tsunami while on vacation. (The opening sequence of the incoming surf  is a mind-blower.)

How all three of these people come together takes up most of the time that could’ve been better spent talking to the dead. As such, there’s barely any paranormal activity, just people trying to reconcile their mortality. Solid stuff, but a few giant ants would’ve been cooler.