Monsters Au Naturel, Bigfoot Pursuit, Alien Party Crashers

Paul Garner is an artist living in Brighton, United Kingdom. That pretty dang far from where I’m lallygagging. But thanks to this thing called the “Internet” (you may have heard of it), now you can view his incredible horror movie icon illustrations…and buy ’em. (Full disclosure: I recently purchased some of Garner’s art and am currently gawking at it on the wall right next to where I’m lallygagging.)

Paul’s latest series is Nudie Monsters, recasting The Mummy, Wolf-Man, The Fly and Bride of Frankenstein in eye-poppingly colorful “pin-ups”. Don’t worry — they’re PG-rated, which means you don’t have to hide ‘em under your bed. These silk board prints sell in sets of three for 25£ ($31.40 US) and measure 11.75”x16.5”. Get ’em on his Etsy shop page here. Better yet, marvel at Paul’s extraordinary illustrating skills on his website: www.paulgarnerart.com

As confessed in a court of public opinion above, I purchased the Jaws poster and just sent in an order for The Shining print. If none of these examples are to your liking (critic), you can get caricatures of Creature of the Black Lagoon, Nosferatu, Night of the Living Dead and even Ozzy Osbourne, who’s kind of a monster himself.

While you take down your Vincent van Gogh and Pablo Picasso black light posters to make room for Paul’s peerless artings, here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not be made better by having nude monsters in ’em…

NIGHT OF THE AXE / Out now (VOD)

“A group of young adults enjoying a high school reunion party are terrorized by an escaped mental patient obsessed with satisfying his blood lust. One by one they are made victims of the sadistic killer. Who will survive the Night of the Axe?”

Not only does it SOUND like a slasher plot straight out of late ’70s/early’80s, it IS a slasher plot straight of late ’70s/early’80s. Time spent coming up with the script? 70 or 80 seconds.

ON THE TRAIL OF BIGFOOT: LAST FRONTIER / January 17, 2023 (VOD)

“Small Town Monsters heads to the frozen vistas of the 49th state with On the Trail of Bigfoot: Last Frontier. The first 2023 Small Town Monsters docudrama features in-depth interviews with locals and a heavy focus on the Indigenous people who first called the land home. Focusing on evidence and encounters with the legendary Sasquatch, On the Trail of Bigfoot: Last Frontier aims to give audiences the most cohesive look at Alaskan Sasquatch lore.”

YET ANOTHER documentary cashing in on Bigfoot’s good name. B’foot really needs to put his big foot down on people not legally licensing his image and/or footwear.

KIDS VS. ALIENS / January 20, 2023 (Digital/VOD)

“All Gary wants is to make awesome home movies with his best buds. All his older sister Samantha wants is to hang with the cool kids. When their parents head out of town one Halloween weekend, an all-time rager of a teen house party turns to terror when aliens attack, forcing the siblings to band together to survive the night.”

A better solution: we should send ALL our teenagers to the alien’s planet to crash their ragers. 

YULETIDE HORROR / Release pending 2023 (VOD)

“Directed by Ethan Evans and produced by Jess Bartlett and Kieran Nolan Jones, Yuletide Horror is a feature-length documentary exploring the terrifying history of Christmas horror folklore and cinema, from Black Christmas, Gremlins, Silent Night, Deadly Night and beyond.”

And the soundtrack could be (wait for it)…wrap music.

Dine ’n Dash Dinosaur

The ink blot-sized coastal town of Beaver Mills is located in Alaska, due north of the Arctic Circle. This suggests they have the coldest beer on Earth. It also means the sun doesn’t set for the summer solstice (sorry, vampires). And that means the ice caps are melting, releasing the Jurassic contents therein.

A flying lizard dragon known as the Wyvern (dumb name) thaws out and is expectedly peckish. Time for some take out — a fisherman, the town doctor, a redneck… It’s okay to eat junk food every once in a while — just remember to floss.

Once the town’s screaming citizens find out they’re on the Wyvern’s fresh sheet, it’s time to change their soiled britches and make a plan to kill the beast, which has been killing/eating everyone out in the woods, on the highway, and hiding in laughably ironic restaurants.

Someone discovers the Wyvern has laid eggs in the woods and the plan is to use them as bait to murder the all-you-can-eat monster. A showdown between a diesel truck outfitted with Wyvern omelettes and the mad-flapping creature ends in the end of all things prehistoric and 18-wheels.

Wyvern (2009), part of the Man-Eater series, has all the formulaic elements required for a sub-budget SyFy™ Channel time-waster: cliched characters with guns going off left and right, collateral damage and a poorly designed/digitally rendered monster that looks more suited to a video game from 1985 than a TV screen. And while there’s a couple of good gore scenes (bye-bye, arm, head, leg), this thing belongs back in the freezer.

Alien Walkie-Talkie, Alaskan Ghosts, Chick Werewolf

“If these are intelligent beings from outer space, they couldn’t be too intelligent if they’re visiting the planet Earth.”

Truer words were never spoken. This statement comes from the 1978 documentary, UFO Journals, which is (and this is gonna sound oxymoronic), one of the more weird and wackified treatments of the flying saucer phenomenon.

It starts with some narrator yappin’ bible verses, then goes into a bunch of stock footage of NASA rockets, then — and these are my two favorite parts — a guy with impeccably blow-dried and styled hair going into an eye-rolling trance and channeling communications from an alien in a different solar system. And he does it with a cartoon-y robotic voice. Then there’s a New Age spiritual guide who whips out a harmonica and a shot glass and entertains us with his skills while we contemplate WTF it is we’re watching. This is on Amazon Prime™ in case you need more wackified fulfillment about UFOs in your robotic, restricted-to-Earth life.

And speaking of things to enlighten you, here are a few upcoming horror and sci-fi movies/TV shows to channel on your channel…

THREE TEARS ON BLOODSTAINED FLESH (August 8, 2017/DVD)
“A man with a dark past returns to bury his niece Lexie. Dragging his troubled daughter Kendall, he simultaneously reunites with his estranged sister, Stella and reignites a past rivalry with the corrupt town sheriff. Dominic begins digging around the town, and uncovers the town’s dark secrets, which include a mysterious cult, a supernatural curse, a masked killer, and a very high body count.”

Reunite and reignite. Maybe the masked killer is a pyromaniac. Wondering what the supernatural curse could be? Maybe it’s because the guy buried his niece before she quit breathing the town’s dark secret air.

RED CHRISTMAS (October 17, 2017/Limited/VOD)
“The stressed-out mother of a squabbling family are gathered together in a remote Outback estate on Christmas Eve. When a mysterious, deformed young man named Cletus appears at their door, things soon change from petty insults to bloody, imaginatively orchestrated violence as she attempts to protect her family from the vengeful intruder. The film deliriously infuses comedy, dark family secrets with outlandish gore and adds the always controversial subject of abortion in its blood-stained mix.”

Wow, they actually named someone Cletus. I guess when you live in the remote Outback, you do whatever honks your didgeridoo. I like the outlandish gore part, though. It better not involve kangaroos (the locals call them “‘roos”). Those things can eat your face right off your face.

GHOST WARS (SyFy Channel/2017)
“Set in a remote Alaskan town that has been overrun by paranormal forces, the series focuses on local outcast Roman Mercer who must overcome the town’s prejudices and his own personal demons if he’s to harness his repressed psychic powers and save everyone from the mass haunting that’s threatening to destroy them all.”

While I do like the title of this series, the trailer looks very paranormal stock and doesn’t really sell one on the subject. Maybe if they added a kangaroo…

BETSY (2018)
“After surviving a vicious assault in the city, Betsy moves to the country in hopes of starting over, but as she begins to recover, something begins clawing its way into the moonlight.”

They give it away with “clawing” and “moonlight”; Betsy is a raccoon! Man, I feel sorry for anyone who tries to pet her. Those things will eat your hand right off your hand.

Alien Cats, Magic Boxes, Natural Disasters

Doing my taxes while watching horror movies. Kinda the same thing. And like my taxes, here’s some upcoming horror movies you won’t get a refund after watching…

ZOMBIE CATS FROM MARS (February 14, 2017/DVD)
“Billy is a fan of vintage science fiction action thrillers. His only friend is Cameron, a nerdy film buff who tries to boost his confidence whenever he can. After seeing a UFO land, Billy retreats into his head, imagining that aliens are taking over the town. Cameron is skeptical, as is the rest of the town. Meanwhile, people are starting to die. Meanwhile, the killings continue. Billy, wrapped up in a world of fiction, discovers a story in which Martian Cats land on Earth and inflict horror upon the town.”

Great. Alien cats using Earth as a litter box. Still, kitty cats flying around in UFOs — that’s kinda cute. But like all things feline, they soon wear out their welcome. My solution for Billy is to go get Fluffy, that giant, three-headed slobbering dog from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001) to go all Cujo on ‘em.

DON’T KILL IT (March 3, 2017/VOD)
“An ancient evil is unleashed in a small Alaskan town leaving a trail of death and destruction as it passes from host to host. The only hope of survival lies with a grizzled demon hunter who has faced this terror before. Together with a reluctant FBI agent he has to figure out how to destroy a demon with the ability to possess its killer.”

Sounds a LOT like The Hidden (1987), i.e.: “An alien parasite with the ability to possess human bodies goes on a violent crime spree in Los Angeles. A human cop, Detective Beckett, and an alien cop posing as a young FBI agent Gallagher both pursue the parasite who frequently changes his human hosts.”

All they did was change locations and say that the alien parasite is YET ANOTHER ancient evil whoozit. While I’m not an alien (that I know of) or born of ancient evil (maybe a little), it’d be cool to be able to switch bodies. Just think of how many restaurants you could dine ‘n dash. Sweet!

WISH UPON (June 30, 2017)
“17 year-old Clare Shannon is bullied in high school, embarrassed by her manic, hoarder father Jonathan and ignored by her longtime crush. All that changes when her father comes home with an old music box whose inscription promises to grant its owner seven wishes. While Clare is initially skeptical of this magic box, she can’t help but be seduced by its dark powers, and is thrilled as her life radically improves with each wish.”

“Clare finally has the life she’s always wanted and everything seems perfect — until the people closest to her begin dying in violent and elaborate ways after each wish. Clare realizes that she must get rid of the box, but finds herself unable and unwilling to part with her new-and-improved life — leading her down a dark and dangerous path.”

If I had a magic box that granted me wishes but left people bereft of life as a consequence, would I continue to use it? Only until the wishes were used up. (Sorry people closest to me — that in-ground swimming pool ain’t gonna build itself.)

THE QUAKE (August 2018/Norway)
“Inspired by a 1904 earthquake in Oslo. Rather than embracing the ‘disaster porn’ aesthetic of films like San Andreas (2015), Norway’s The Wave (2015) was wonderfully restrained; the effects took a back seat to the human emotion, making it one of the best disaster movies to come along in recent years.”

Not much else to say about the ground shaking like Godzilla’s busted washing machine. I do, however, have a kicker line ready for ‘em. (Please deposit bit coins into my account to use it): The Quake — It’ll Crack You Up. I should be a millionaire. P.S. Wonder if they’ll name the sequel, The Quisp. Heh.

Ghosts, Voodoo and Ex-Wives

I just figured this out the other day — it’ll take me 120 years to watch every horror/sci-fi movie ever made. And that’s IF Hollywood and all these do-it-yourself Scorceses stop making more of ’em right now; I don’t think I have much more than another 120 years left in me.

BLACKBURN (available now)
“A forest fire and rock-slide trap five bickering college friends in a small Alaskan ghost town with a horrifying history. When they seek refuge inside the torched ruins of Blackburn Asylum, they must fight to survive as the angry inhabitants slaughter the friends one-by-one.”

This one came out in the UK last September (2015, if you’re entering this in some sort of blog log). Why they got it before my zip code is a stunning affront to my community standing as a dumbass horror movie fanatic. Blackburn is another “ghosts in an abandoned insane asylum” story. On second thought, the UK can keep it as I’ve seen that SAME MOVIE 150,000 times. Give or take.

VOODOO (February 24, 2017)
“Dani, an innocent southern girl, is vacationing in Los Angeles to evade her increasingly complicated life. Once Dani arrives in L.A., she learns that trying to escape her past is not as easy as she had hoped.”

Makes you wonder what an “innocent southern girl” did that was so f’d up as to run away to Los Angeles, home of f’d up people with bad pasts, presents and futures. I bet as part of her chores she forgot to milk a cow and it exploded. Now there’s a movie I could get into.

THE NINTH PASSENGER (2017)
“There are eight partying college students aboard the luxury yacht owned by an evil biotechnology CEO, who’s the father of one of the passengers. The trip goes sideways when they drift to a dark island and both their engine and radio fail. At the same time “something” sneaks onto the yacht — the ninth passenger.”

Could the ninth passenger be an island seal with a penchant for human flesh? We eat seals, so it’s only fair they get a shot at our blubber for a change. Too bad the boat isn’t loaded with Eskimos; that’d be some epic payback.

RED NET (2017)
“Internet hackers are looking for a missing man, but what they find are shocking videos in which a man is questioned and severely tortured by two mysterious women.”

Gonna toss this out there: They’re both his ex-wives. If so, the poor guy is beyond doomed.

Vampire Vitamins

Back in the good ’ol days of 1944, Waffen SS – a German military squad – under superior fire power from Allied Forces, retreat into the winter-frozen woods (cowards), and end up in a cabin that, even though empty, had a boiling pot on the fire. Instantly, everyone starts looking for three bears.

Not finding any, they warm their cowardly bones and take turns snoring. Then someone addresses the mystery: The snow outside was packed against the door, which they had to yank to get open. So where are the tenants?

Perfect timing — something comes out of the darkness and eats one guy’s head in half. More are attacked, with one falling into the basement, where they find more mutilated bodies and a small coffin, the contents of which are trying to get out. The soldiers bury it, go “Whew!,” and jump 60 years into the future.

A medical mom and her 17 year-old daughter are moving to Norrbotten, a small Lapland town, to put that nasty divorce behind ’em. Two things: I didn’t hear her husband’s side of the story (maybe she was a power nag and he couldn’t take it anymore), and there’s something sucking the neck nectar out of the town’s pets and late-night walking residents.

So how does the first part and this part hook up? It’s kind of a stretch, but plausible when you find out one of the soldiers, who is now a prominent research doctor, was bitten by the vampire that attacked his troops, and he himself is One Of Them. Initially, he tried to find a cure. Only thing that can cure vampirism is a nice stake dinner. Then he gets the idea to enhance his vampiric powers, and develops a red pill (made so with food coloring) to kick it into overdrive. Think of it as a vampire vitamin.

Once some partying med students get their hands on the drug, all heck breaks loose. Why? Because the pill turns standard-issue humans into vampires. Imagine the look on their faces after drinking party punch with a bunch of vampire pills dumped into the festive beverage. Some good moments, like when the doctor reveals his innermost suck. (He looks all brown and leathery, like an old baseball mitt and/or the bat-human in 1992’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula.)

One guy, who took the pill because he thought it would get him high, can now hear animals talk to him. A dog laughs and tells him he’s gonna burn. Funny stuff. Then there’s the live rabbit-eating scene. Then the party gets out of control, with vampiric teens climbing the walls — literally. The gore is as tasty as fresh rabbit stew, and the sub-plot, while not really taking off, is enough to hold things together until they can be torn apart.

If you’re thinking this all sounds familiar, refer to 30 Days of Night (2007), where vampires take over a small Alaskan oil town where the sun won’t be coming for a month. Same seasonal phenomenon in Frostbitten (aka, Frostbite, Frostbiten/2006). Not bad, though, for a film with sub-titles and baseball mitt textured vampires.

This Bear Is Grizzly

Like comfort food for the eyes, there’s nothin’ like a good ‘ol “nature strikes back” horror movie to reinforce why hiking/camping is not good for you, and that sitting on the couch watching hikers/campers being torn apart by our woodland friends is very good for you.

Because of that, can’t wait for Unnatural (2015), a heartwarming story about a massive, genetically altered bear, possibly polar in nature, to light up my couch life.

Part of After Dark’s 8 Films to Die For (hitting theaters October, 2015), Unnatural takes us into snack canyon: “A morally ambiguous corporation experiments with genetic modification resulting in the advent of a bloodthirsty man hunting creature. When it escapes, a group of unsuspecting Alaskan Natives and their inexperienced guests, which includes a high maintenance celebrity photographer and a pair of models, become prey for the abomination in a horrifying game of cat and mouse.”

It may be coincidence, but Unnatural comes in the wake of Into The Grizzly Maze, another rampaging giant bear movie just released in February 2015. Unfortunately, it only got a two-star rating. How can that be? Bears eating humans should automatically get four stars.

There have been bear eating humans movies for decades. Two standouts are The Night of the Grizzly (1966) and Prophecy (1979). Both made me stain my britches. Two not standouts are Grizzly Rage (part of RHI Entertainment’s man-eater series, which came out in 2007) and Grizzly Park (2008). Both sucked huckleberries.

For a superior bear attack horror movie, though, give the simply titled Bear (2011) a spin. That one will make your fur stand on end and possibly cause you to stain your britches. As for me, been there, done that.

Squid Rock

As a 12 year-old boy, Ray watched his mom and dad get eaten by a Kraken (aka, giant squid), plucked off the boat and ripped into pieces of something that could be fried in tempura batter and served with dipping sauce and a napkin (cloth or paper – your choice).

Fast forward to however how old he is now, Ray is on the hunt for the multi-tentacled beast to share his feelings about how wrong it was for Kracky to just eat his parents without asking.

Good for everyone involved is that Nicole, a supermodel marine archaeologist who wears a science bikini, and with the help of another stunningly smart blonde in a mico-swimsuit, dives among Alaskan sunken boat wrecks in search of a Trojan war mask. She’s been looking for it for years – and this time she finds it within the movie’s first 15 minutes. How lucky is that?

Boatless Ray looks like Huey Lewis and smooth talks his way onto Nicole’s science barge, where he assists in finding the elusive treasure. But Ray cares not for oversized decorative body wear – he’s out for hard-core fishy justice served up movie star style.

This would be child’s play were it not for the giant digital squid guarding the treasure. But does that stop everyone from diving down into murky depths to get it? Nope. Do people get eaten by the squid in less time than it takes one to make a sandwich? Yep. Does Nicole show her flotation devices? Nope. Did that make me upset? Yep. Did I like Kraken – Tentacles of the Deep (2006)? Nope.

Extraterrestrials vs. Over-Priced Psychiatry

If you live in Nome, Alaska and turn up missing, chances are you got drunk and lost in the woods and eaten by a bear. Or you were abducted by extraterrestrials. I’m split down the middle on this one, mostly due to the alleged true events The Fourth Kind (2009) proposes.

Reportedly using actual archival video interview footage of psychologist Dr. Abigail Tyler, whose distraught patients are being visited nightly by an owl (not a real one, but probably evil all the same), we’re led to conclude aliens are probing for something more than oil deep within their personal tundra.

And the recollection of which is so horrifying, they suppress it, thereby causing paranoid schizophrenia. This results in messed up sheets, vomiting towards the floor, and levitating from one’s bed. Might as well throw suicide into the mix as well.

Dr. Tyler has a bunch of patients experiencing the same nightmare. The local sheriff wants Tyler to stop stirring up the bees in people’s heads, as it’s making them freak out even more. But Tyler has her own bees to deal with – a short while back her husband was murdered in the bed next to her, the trauma of which left her young daughter blind and her son full of rage unexpressed rage. (He’ll be OK once someone buys him a toy, something in the $30 price range.)

A clue as to WTF in the form of a tape played back after she fell asleep reveals that while she was screaming her freakin’ head off, another voice – using ancient Sumarian – spoke and did “things” to her body. I’m overflowing with theories.

Up front they tell you they’re portraying a reenactment, mixing footage together split-screen style (pioneered by the 1973 sorta horror movie, Wicked, Wicked.)This is kind of cool and gives the movie a nice creepy “real” feel, but the story unravels to the point where you’re not sure if it really was aliens doing the dirty work, or just a smokescreen for bigger issues, like bears eating drunks lost in the woods. Like I said, split down the middle.