Italian Sharks

In the highly believable-ish Sharks in Venice (aka, Shark in Venice/2008), David’s archaeologist dad was diving under Italy’s famous waterlogged city, looking for the fabled Medici treasure, when he was attacked by a great white shark. This resulted in him not being an archaeologist. David and his girlfriend go to Venice to find his missing dad. (Hey, David — start with the shark’s litter box and go from there.)

Criminals are also in search of the fabled Medici treasure, which is hidden somewhere under the permanent high tide that surrounds Venice. They’ve already lost a member or two of their organization to the sharks. I bet they tasted gamey.

David goes diving for clues as to his dad’s last moments, and ends up being attacked by a shark of all things. He survives a shoulder bite and in the process, finds the treasure. Criminal logic dictates that by kidnapping David’s chick, they can force him to lead them to the booty. The Venetian polizia have been trying to bust those mean criminals, and move in.

Some weak fist fights and motorcycle chases eat up time until the sharks get their moment to chow down on tourists or “foreign food.” The swimming mouths are not shown chewing into human swimsuits, but there is a lot of splashing and red stuff, maybe in the water. As this takes place in Italy, I presume it to be some sort of tangy tomato sauce, used in a wide variety of pasta dishes and for bread dipping.

So how did great white sharks end up in Venice? Expedia.com™ was running a promotional travel sale that week.

Wailing Wolf-Man

If you’ve seen 1964’s Face of the Screaming Werewolf and walked away confused as all heck, you’re not alone — Screaming Werewolf, made from parts of several different movies (La Momia Azteca/1957 and La Casa del Terror/1959), is a screaming mess, beside the fact it would’ve been better titled as The Screaming Werewolf Face. (Personal preference.)

The movie starts out with doctor-esque archaeologist guys hypnotizing a psychic chic (psy-chic — heh) who life regressions herself as a sacrificial Aztec test dummy. This leads the history dudes to an Aztec pyramid, where they discover and bring back a two mummies (but no daddies — heh). Right here we have several problems — one of the crusty corpses is the sacrificed Aztec gal and the other a regular guy who happens to be a werewolf. How an American werewolf ended up mummified in Mexico is just part of this “movie’s” abstract premise. (Must’ve been a heckuva booze cruise, though.)

So they bring the mummies back and a mad scientist, whose lab is located through a secret door in the back of a horror wax museum, applies volts to jolt the man mummy back to life. With only a meager supply of electricity, the experiment fails. Nature steps in, supplying lightning and one heck of a utility bill. Prior to the power-up, his face looked he fell asleep in a bowl of pancake batter. And because it’s a full moon, his moon-beamed mug becomes covered in fur where there was no fur before. Nothin’ left to do now but go on a choking spree.

The werewolf runs out into traffic and doesn’t bark at even one car. Then he makes a girl faint, throws her over his shoulder like a sack of pancake flour brought to market, and climbs up the side of an apartment building, all the while being climb-pursued by one of the scientists. Then the werewolf climbs through a window and comes all the way back down to the street using the stairs. (He probably didn’t want to wait for the elevator.)

Meanwhile, the Aztec mummy comes back to life and goes after the psychic woman. The werewolf, now slingin’ a different chick who really put up a fight and even smashed a decorative vase over the monster’s head, brings her back to the wax museum. I have no idea why. The scientist throws chemicals around like holy water, starts a fire and battles the werewolf. Somehow the werewolf is bested and catches fire, which makes him turn back into man form, his shirt still buttoned tucked in as if prepping for a school photo. The cops show up to dismiss the numerous “werewolf” sightings as just a simple case of a man burning on the floor in front of them.

The werewolf looked werewolf-y enough, but his upper fangs were grimy and his lower fangs Pepsodent™ bright. He wore a belt to hold up his freshly ironed britches and kept shoes on the entire time. They were neatly tied. Didn’t know werewolves to be such fastidious dressers. Too bad the filmmaker didn’t follow suit. (Heh.)

As The Giant Worm Turns

Digging up the front yard of a rural, British convent’s front yard, a budding archaeologist unearths a weirdo animal skeleton head artifact this size of a tuba. Tubas rock hard when honked. And the archaeologist thinks the skeleton head rocks, to which he loudly exclaims, “Yeehaa!”, thus setting in motion one of the more unusual and provocative giant monster movies you’ll see on a smart device.

Turns out the skull could very well be part of the D’Ampton Worm, a gigantic mythical wiggler. Apparently, the super-sized Lumbricus terrestris was worshiped by an ancient cult. (What is it with ancient cults, anyway? Couldn’t you just pray at the porcelain altar after worshiping a case of Worm Brew? Geez.) The snake monster was later slain (or “cut in half”) by the then Lord D’Ampton for later generations to sing pub songs about. (The lyrics could use some work, but the tune is rather catchy.)

Enter the overtly seductive Lady Sylvia Mars, a mysterious gal who has an affinity for slithery things. After scene after scene of waiting for the worm (that’s thought to still be alive in a nearby cavern), Lady S sets up shop in a nearby mansion, takes off her clothes right down to the string of G, and lures men to worship at the altar of her R-rated booty. It’s here she brandishes her snake fangs and bites them on the trouser worm, injecting and infecting the prey with paralyzing spittle. The debilitated victims are fed to you-know-what.

Astonishingly, the D’Ampton Worm turns out to still be doing business, worming its way up from the depths of Hell for some take out, with human sacrificial groceries provided by Sylvia Snake. Of the numerous nightmare sequences, a stand-out is a rather disturbing flashback scene of people being crucified amid shoulder height flames with giant white worms twisting around the nail-hung bodies, nuns being non-consensually romanced by pant-less soldiers, and the snake woman hissing and her-ing all over the place.

The Lair of the White Worm (1988) is quite entertaining (except to nuns), and slithers happily between surreal horror and deliberate black comedy. (Sylvia plays Snakes ‘n Ladders with her “offerings” and can’t help but twist-y dancing when hearing music.) You have to wait most of the movie’s 93 minutes to see the whopping worm, but there’s people being turned into vampire snakes ’n stuff. Almost doesn’t matter after watching Lady Sylvia (topless the entire last scene) pose over her victims in attire best suited for a fetish nightclub.

And the worm? Big time big.

Ghosts, Gore and Gods

A mixed bag of horror, sci-fi and adventure fantasy up-n-comers as of right now this dang minute. You may proceeed…

ABATTOIR (out now / UK – December 9, 2016 / US (VOD)
“A real estate reporter unearths an urban legend about a house being built from rooms where horrific tragedies have occurred. The investigation ultimately leads to the enigmatic Jebediah Crone and the answer to the terrifying question, “How do you build a haunted house?”

To build a haunted house with intent you’ll need plenty of polter-plywood and supernatural sheetrock for starters. When you’re done, you’ll need to put it up on CraigsList™ as deferred rent for ghosts to make it more haunt-y. (Spirits won’t pay because banks don’t allow the dead to have active checking accounts. Stupid neighborhood lending institutions.)

LAVENDER (2017)
“Jane, a photographer, is forced to come to terms with her mysterious and tragic past after a horrendous car accident robs her of her memory. Along with her husband and daughter, Jane returns to her childhood home to regain control of her life. It’s there she must confront a mysterious lurking force and grapple with a past that continues to haunt her.”

Not buying it for a mysterious and haunted second. First, if Jane lost her memory, how does she know that’s her husband and daughter? Could be actors for all she knows. Secondly, if Jane lost her memory, how does she know where her childhood home is and why it haunts her? The filmmakers need to rethink this entire thing. (Note to whomsoever made this movie: I have a new script ready to go. Like you, it only took me 12 minutes to write.)

THE DARK TAPES (2017)
“A radical horror anthology. Five smart, original stories, each one more terrifying than the other.”

So does “radical” mean “favoring, supporting, or representing extreme forms of religious fundamentalism,” or “bitchin’”? For my sake I hope it’s the latter. This is played-out found footage fare, so probably neither.

THOR: RAGNARÖK (2017)
“Thor returns to Asgard when his home realm is threatened by the Ragnarök, which is the Norse apocalypse.”

A slight stretch to call this horror or sci-fi. (Asgard, Thor’s gated community, combined magic with science eons ago. I believe they now call it “scagic.”) But hey, however much adventure horror/sci-fi it is (or isn’t), the movie is said to feature monster-esque non-Earthers and the Mjölnir, that awesome hammer Thor thor-ows around (heh). Can you imagine, though, if Thor was accessorized with a magic screwdriver instead? How embarrassing to the other Nine Realms would that be?

P.S. Attempt to not confuse this one with Ragnarok, a 2013 Norwegian horror movie in which an archaeologist digs up mysterious runes describing Ragnarök, the Viking legend of the end of the world, and accidentally awakens a giant monster. Oops to that.

An Unpleasant Pheasant

Everyone knows about Quetzalcoatl, that Aztecan murdering bird god that flies around murdering people. They even made a movie about it in 1982: Q – The Winged Serpent. If you weren’t murdered by Q, count yourself as one of the lucky ones. If you were murdered by Q, there is literally nothing I can say or do to make your afterlife more comfortable.

But did you know there was a murdering bird god movie in 1946? Yep – it was called The Flying Serpent. Was it a bird? Yep. Did it fly? Yep. Did it murder people? Yep. Was it a serpent as well as a bird? Nope. In fact it looked like a pheasant (same size, too) needing a shampoo and comb out.

Professor Andrew Forbes is an insane archaeologist. Given that nearly all archaeologists are mentally to the left of center (that’s what that the Internet claims), Forbes wants to murder (or “kill”) his enemies. Apparently, archaeologists have lots and lots of enemies. It isn’t until the despised digger-upper unearths (or “diggers up”) Quetzalcoatl and, using his social skills, uses the murder bird to peck away at his antagonists.

Here’s a potential problem with that plan; when you give an intended victim one of Quetzalcoatl’s feathers (looks like it came off a pheasant), the bird tracks you down and gives you the flapping of a lifetime. This means you get tomorrow off…permanently.

Forbes accidentally gives his wife the feather and next thing you know, she’s nesting…permanently. A mere distraction as Forbes uses this knowledge to become the richest man on earth. (Where’s there’s an ancient murder bird, there’s ancient taxable treasure.)

The Flying Serpent is less than an hour long. But we do get a fair amount of murder bird action. The flying sequences, while dated, aren’t too shabby, and it freely uses its beak of doom to exact…DOOM. So in your face, all you anthropology haters.