A Kaiju Reborn, Airborne Apes, Post-Puberty Exorcist

The Gods of All That Is Kaiju have FINALLY answered my last call prayers. Gamera, one of the greatest giant monsters ever in the history of ever (spinning Frisbee™ flight abilities, plasma flames blasting out of mouth AND butthole area, Osmond-sized teeth), is coming back after being in hibernation since 2006. Kadokawa Daiei Studio and Netflix™ just announced they’re working on a project called Gamera: Rebirth for 2023. After I post this blog, I’ll need to go swap out my under garments because, you know…

From Joblow.com: “A giant, fire-breathing, prehistoric turtle monster, Gamera was first introduced to audiences in the 1965 film Gamera, the Giant Monster, which begins with an atomic bomb waking him from a long slumber in the Arctic. Over the next six years, Gamera returned in Gamera vs. Barugon, Gamera vs. Gyaos, Gamera vs. Viras, Gamera vs. Guiron, Gamera vs. Jiger, and Gamera vs. Zigra. When the studio was struggling with financial issues in 1980, they cut together a bunch of stock footage Gamera: Super Monster. Gamera then took a fifteen year break before being brought back in a trilogy of films directed by Shusuke Kaneko. Those were Gamera: Guardian of the Universe, Gamera 2: Attack of Legion, and Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris. The most recent film was 2006’s Gamera the Brave.”

While we look for a time machine to transport us to the premier of Gamera: Rebirth’s exact day and time in 2023, here are a few out now/upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not taste as good as giant prehistoric turtle soup…

ALL EYES / Out now (VOD)

“Allen hosts a podcast about strange people and paranormal phenomena. One day, he gets fired from his job. He’s totally distraught, but soon enough, he comes across a case that just might revitalize his career. He’s contacted by a widowed farmer named Don who claims there’s a monster living in the woods near his house, so Allen travels to the man’s home to interview him and see him capture the beast.”

WTF?!? Monsters live in the woods? Dang — I live right next to some woods. This really upsets my stomach area. Sure, Bigfoot lives in there as well, but he’s not really a monster. He’s more of a Naturalist/organic hippie free spirit who just happens to occasionally scare the kale outta people.

CRYO / Out now (VOD)

“In an underground facility, five scientists wake from cryosleep with no memory of who they are or how long they’ve been asleep. They soon make a shocking realization: a killer is hunting them down there, and may even be hiding among them.”

Waking up with no memory of who they are or how long they’ve been asleep sounds like they had an epic night at the Tug Tavern instead of an underground facility.

GALE: STAY AWAY FROM OZ / Pending release 2022/2023

“Long gone are the days of emerald cities and yellow brick roads in this dark re-imagining of The Wizard of Oz. Dorothy Gale is now an elderly woman, broken by years of paranormal entanglement with a mystical realm, which has now echoed down to her only living relative, Emily, who is being called to settle unfinished business in this terrifying world of Oz.”

Hoping this one is as bloodthirsty and barbaric as the 1939 original. It better not have dork dancing and ear gouging song interludes, though. Crossing fingers for flying monkeys.

BLOOD FLOWER / Release pending 2023 (Shudder™)

“Iqbal, a 16-year-old apprentice faith healer and exorcist, is tormented by visions of the dead and spirits from other dimensions. When a malicious spirit begins to wreak havoc around him, Iqbal is forced to harness his supernatural gifts to save his family and friends.”

A 16-year-old exorcist/faith healer who can see the dead from other dimensions. At 16 I was a paperboy.

20,000 Fathoms of Fun

Atomic bomb tests in the Arctic Circle defrosts a gigantic reptile creature-o-saurus (official name: Rhedosaurus). This monster is nearly 100-feet long, walks on all fours, has buzz-saw sharp things on his back, is several stories tall, and judging by his diet — shark, octopus, lighthouse, diving bell, roller coaster tracks, humans — is not a picky eater.

Hibernating in ice for 100 million years, the thawed beast travels towards Manhattan, stopping off in Nova Scotia to eat a lighthouse as though it were a sugar cookie. Once in the city, Rhedosaurus wanders Times Square and takes a hole to the neck via a good ’ol United States Army bazooka. (Way to treat tourists, New York.)

Red’s blood emits a virulent germ that contaminates the very streets where people used to live, litter, and now die. Rhedosaurus scorecard: 180 dead, 1,500 injured, $3,000,000 in collateral damage. Scientists determine that if a radioactive isotope can be fired into the monster’s open neck hickey, that might stop him from racking up more kill points.

The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (1953) is THE monster movie that inspired Godzilla (1954), coming out a full year before Japan copied the hell out of us. Good thing Godzilla was so cool, or else we’d be armed with more than an isotope, if you catch my drift.

Earth-Sucking Robot

A giant robot looking like a giant Lego™ has arrived on Earth to suck it dry of all its energy resources. I didn’t know robots could be Republicans. Such is the premise of Kronos (aka, Kronos, Destroyer of the Universe /1957), a sci-fi classic.

So how did the bolts and nuts sucker get here? Start with an incoming UFO that scientists are monitoring that they think is an asteroid. It’s headed straight towards Earth, so we do what we do best – shoot bombs at it. Direct hit, nothing happens, even thought the warheads were pure USDA-grade atomic boom booms.

The UFO shakes it off and resumes its course. The newscaster tells us not to panic and that it won’t hit New York. Then the UFO hits New York. Just f’n with you – it goes into the ocean just off a Mexican beach. Aiyeeee! 

Two dude scientists and a supermodel chick scientist head there to see what’s what. After much plot stalling, the ocean glows white (not surprising as the movie was filmed in black and white) and out pops Kronos – 100 feet tall and full of Earth-sucking fury. (Note to scientists: Kronos gets bigger as he consumes our Earth juice.)

While Kronos is heading towards all of Earth’s nuclear plants and getting his suck on, the Mexican Air Force moves in to nuke Big K. Incorrecto, amigos – that’s what Kronos eats.

One of the scientists theorizes they need to drop reverse energy particles on Kronos to booger up his sucking power, thereby causing the mecánico monster to explode into particles.

Footnote: Kronos was transported here by an alien race that has sucked all its own natural resources dry, with the plan to have K absorb ours and bring it on home. Sorry alien dick heads – we’re doing that on our own just fine.

A Yucky Monster

Joseph Javorsky, a Soviet scientist, defects to the U.S. Welcome to the land of 24-hour liquor stores, Joe. While being chased to death by his former KGB neighbors through the Yucca Flat desert, he stumbles onto a nuclear testing range. Nice timing – an atomic bomb was being exploded for commercial applications.

Patches of Joe’s skin gets flambéed, but his white shirt miraculously withstands the devastating effects of nuclear radiation. For no other reason than to give him something to do, Javorsky wanders around like a pension drunk and becomes a maddened “beast” who strangles everyone he meets.

Then some guy with military experience goes up in a small plane and shoots at anything that moves, which happens to be a father out looking for his lost sons. Dad himself gets shot several times, but doesn’t bleed or die. Javorsky, though, dies at the end, with a little desert bunny hopping around his corpse. Bunnies are so darn cute, especially fuzzy ones. (Bald bunnies, not so much.) Wonderin’ why the bunny wasn’t mutated after hip-hopping around the testing range. Maybe this species has lead fur.

The Beast of Yucca Flats (1961) was filmed without sound and all the zinging gunshots, sound effects and dialogue were added later. I’m all for saving a buck, but this is below low. Worst movie ever? If not, it’s definitely next in line.

Future People Suck

The L.A. to Washington D.C. passenger flight  didn’t really disappear – it was just stuck in the clouds while future people de-planed a nuclear physicist, a supermodel math expert and a rocket know-it-all, and put them on trial for crimes they were going to commit. (I.e., build an atomic bomb that will eventually wipe everyone off the face of this toilet Earth, thereby denying the distant dudes the right to be born at some point in time.) Man, future people can be so pissy.

The plane, malfunctioning during a storm, climbs so high, lack of oxygen knocks everyone out and makes the engines stall. The three bomb-makers come to and try and argue their way out of being doomed to all eternity in the clouds.

No one wants to live in clouds, so they bolt back to the plane, where it somehow resumes its flight, with no one the wiser (except those three soon-to-be-troublemakers).

The Flight That Disappeared (1961) is a Twilight Zone knock-off, but it does have some good moments, including a TZ twist-o ending. But where future people – who don’t exist yet – buy their pants and shirts, leaves one to ponder.

Barn of the Naked Dead

Barn of the Naked Dead (1974) is also known as Nightmare Circus and Terror Circus. I don’t like either of those titles because they don’t have the word “naked” in ’em.

Showgirls headed to Vegas to take their clothes off for pay are abducted by a guy who lives in the desert. For whatever reason, he has a circus fetish and keeps 10 chicks chained up in the barn until it’s time to perform. He doesn’t, like, do stuff to them with his dingus, but he horse whips the sexy gals and makes them walk around in circles. Every so often he smears cow blood on one of ’em and lets them go. Then he lets his caged and hungry leopard go as well.

But the guy’s dad, mutated by Nevada atomic bomb testing, is out there, ripping the girls to shreds first. The leopard just bolts for Vegas. And it doesn’t help matters that one of the showgirls looks exactly like his mom, the one who abandoned him as a child. Put another log on the crazy fire.

Brief nudity, endlessly crying/screaming women, a bit of blood. A kinda cool psycho shocker, but with that title, I was really expecting to see nudist zombies on a farm, e-i-e-i-o.

Earth vs. Itself

Amazing how Crack in the World, a pant-thrilling/filling 1965 sci-fi movie, predicted global energy shortages. I’ve been telling people to quit using their convenient home appliances for years. But hardly anyone has read my research thesis on how the in-home manufacturing of toast will doom us all.

A scientist theorizes there’s a whole pile of energy we could use, but it’s in the middle of the Earth. An atomic bomb is shoved down Earth’s glory hole and…kaBOOM! The resulting explosion threatens to split the world into two servings.

The only scientist who can figure out how to keep the crack from expanding (hold your jokes) is an old fart and he mathematically concludes his hottie young wife is letting some other scientist get inside her algeBRA. So he doesn’t care if the world breaks apart, a clear metaphor for his marriage.

She, of course, can’t be bothered to be felt up by anyone with a college degree right now because, hey, world splitting in half.

Good tension build-up and even though the effects are dated (five decades to be exact), the scene where a big Earth chunk breaks off (spoiler – sorry) and forms a new moon will crack you up. Ahem.

Now that they’re split up (the Earth and the scientist), they should call this new planet Dumpsville.