Serious UFOs, Fleshless Creatures, People Copy Machine

A recent headline (aka, click-bait) on Politico.com caught my wandering attention: “The Navy Is Working on Guidelines for Reporting UFOs After Pilots Pushed to Have Sightings Taken Seriously.” About flippin’ time — we’re long past the point of legalizing UFOs.

From the article: “There have been a number of reports of unauthorized and/or unidentified aircraft entering various military-controlled ranges and designated air space in recent years,” the Navy said in a statement in response to questions from Politico. “For safety and security concerns, the Navy and the [U.S. Air Force] takes these reports very seriously and investigates each and every report.” They’re lucky I’m not in the Navy and/or the U.S. Airforce — I’d be calling in UFO sightings up to and including four times a day.

So how much does investigating UFOs cost? According to the article, a cool $25 million pocket coupons. Seems excessive, especially when that cash could be better spent flying the President to and from golf courses.

While we wait for the armed forces to get its guidelines in line, here are a few just released/upcoming horror and sci-fi movies that may or may not be taken seriously by the Navy…

DEMON EYE (available now)
“A young woman returns to her father’s country house where she discovers an amulet with connections to witchcraft. The amulet has dark powers and will grant her greatest wish, but in return, two deadly demons are unleashed.”

My greatest wish would be to have two deadly demons unleashed. Oh, and I want an amulet. I just bought a new shirt and need to accessorize.

CROSSBREED (available now)
“In the near future, the President of the United States of America hires a team of military veterans to retrieve an alien bio-weapon from a top-secret research facility orbiting the Earth. These highly trained mercenaries must infiltrate the space station and recover the deadly experimental alien cargo located on-board. All is going according to the plan until the cargo escapes.”

These mercs are f’d in the black hole. How do you escape from an alien on-board a space station? It’s not like you can just jump out a window. Since it’s in space, I’m pretty sure all the windows are locked.

WINTERSKIN (May 21, 2019)
“Gunned down in the snowy wilderness and desperate for shelter, Billy Cavanagh is taken in by kooky old lady Agnes, unaware that her isolated log cabin is being stalked by a bloodthirsty skinless creature hellbent on getting inside.”

Of course the skinless creature wants to get inside — with no flesh and being stuck outside in the snow, he’s probably freezing his fleshless ass off.

ASSIMILATE (May 24, 2019)
“While making a web-series mocking their quaint small town, three high school kids slowly discover that their relatives and neighbors are being killed and replaced by creatures that metamorphose into an exact copy of their victims. As the police and adults begin to change, and their own lives are threatened, the kids’ only weapon is to covertly record the takeover and put it on the web in a desperate attempt to attract outside help.”

I liked it better when it was called Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956, 1978, 2007).

The Devil Wears No Pants

There’s several things you should know about 1973’s Swiss/German The Devil’s Plaything (also Plaything of the Devil.) First, it’s been released under a laundry list of alternate titles, such as The Curse of the Black Sisters, aka, Der Fluch der schwarzen Schwestern, (too hard to pronounce), le Chateau des Messes Noires, aka, The House of Black Masses (meh), Satankultens Sexofre (huh?) Veil of Blood (boring), and Vampire Ecstasy (boring v.2). Secondly, clothing is pretty much a special effect as everyone in this decidedly adult vampire flick is devoid of britches throughout most of the movie.

Two gals go to Castle Varga on the premise that they are to inherit the brick house from a freshly deadened aunt. Also shacking up at the shabby shack are a young couple whose car went ka-BOOM down the road.

The castle’s caretakers are not caretakers at all (didn’t see one of ‘em touch a broom or mop) — they’re poker-faced Stygian cult women dressed in black (not for long) and hold midnight rituals, i.e., dancing, orgies, boob finger-painting. And they do this to the accompaniment of bongos. (Bongos might be the instrument of choice for beatniks, but those dang things are ANNOYING.)

The seductive fresh beats makes one of the non-cult gals insatiably horny and anything resembling or shaped like you know what is put to entertaining use. Problem is, she can’t be, um, fulfilled until some silly amulet is handed over to the cult, thereby setting off an adults-only party of ritual sex, neck sucking (and not just necks, by the way) and those ANNOYING BONGOS. (Vampires should not be allowed to bang on things. (Okay, that didn’t come out right.)

The vampire part is never fully explained or explored, relying on the power of boobies to give the plot some bounce. Lots of pant-less and soft-core coming and goings (okay, that didn’t come out right) take up most of the time, which is not a minus. Just watch it with the sound off.

P.S. You can find the entire uncut movie on YouTube™. There, I did my good deed for the day.

Gnome Alone

Wikipedia™, the all-seeing/all-knowing bible of the internet, describes gnomes as “diminutive spirits in Renaissance magic and alchemy, first introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th Century and are typically said to be small, humanoid creatures that live underground.”

Describes a gal I once dated.

Gnomes have shown up in horror movies for years. But now those little rat people are getting another PR push with Gnome Alone, arriving January 20, 2014 on DVD and VOD. If you can get by the painful title, here’s what to expect: “When a timid college student witnesses a hit-and-run, the dying victim gives her a strange amulet. Suddenly, all those who have offended Zoe in her life begin dying horrible deaths at the hands of a malicious gnome. When Zoe discovers the horrible history behind the amulet, will she be able to harness its magical power before the gnome begins killing those closest to her?”

I bet the gnome kills people closest to Zoe.

For anyone who is interested in this sort of topic outside of TV commercials, notable humanoid creature movies include Gnomes (1980), A Gnome Named Gnorm (1990), Blood Gnome (2004) and Killer Gnome (2008). Not 100% sure on the last one’s release date, but I do remember seeing it and thinking, “What a stupid movie – no one in their right mind should be watching this.”

But when it comes to movies about gnomes, one should look no further than 1967’s The Gnome-Mobile, made by horror king Walt Disney. In that one, an eccentric millionaire and his grandchildren are embroiled in the plights of some forest gnomes who are searching for the rest of their tribe.

I wrote about this one on August 14, 2012 [click here]. While The Gnome-Mobile has impressive special effects and a G-rated storyline, those hoping to see a gnome eaten by a raccoon or get run over by a lawnmower will walk away sadly disappointed. But hey, catchy theme song, so not a total loss.