Lunar Lunacy, Clown Exorcism, Celestial Gremlins

Besides inventing outer space, Tang™ and a couple of the nicer galaxies, NASA™ — National Aeronautics and Space Administration founded in 1958 — did something so cool, it’ll make you wanna apply to be one of their astronauts. (I tried, and they wrote back, “How about, astro-NOT?” Man, that’s cold.) Anyway, NASA™ designed horror/sci-fi movie posters based on real-life space stuff. It’s like they’re entertaining and teaching us — at the SAME TIME. Genius.

On their amazingly clever interactive Galaxy of Horrors web site, they have downloadable poster art with their science fact plot lines: Roasted Planet (“As HD 80606 b approaches its star from an extreme, elliptical orbit, it suffers star-grazing torture that causes howling, supersonic winds and shockwave storms across the planet”), Devoured By Gravity “(Lurking in our galaxy, approximately 6,000 light-years from Earth, is a monster black hole named CygnusX-1. Don’t get too close, or you’ll become its next meal!”)‚ and the super spooky, Gamma Ray Ghouls (“In the depths of the universe, the cores of two collapsed stars violently merge to release a burst of the deadliest and most powerful form of light – gamma rays. These beams are unleashed and shine a million trillion times brighter than the Sun.”)

And these are just a few of NASA’s™ “movies.” Click here to download free hi-res posters (Spanish versions available as well) and learn about the scary stuff right outside our Earthly confines/DYI space capsule. And while you put down your tasty simulated orange flavor powdered astronaut breakfast drink and do that immediately, here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not seem “meh” compared to the real horrors of outer space…

HYPNOTICA / March 31, 2023 (VOD)

“A young psychiatrist tries hypnotism to save a patient but will soon wish to God he hadn’t.”

I tried to hypnotize a bartender once into over-serving me. If it wasn’t for him not at all being hypnotized, it might’ve worked.

CAMP BLOOD 666 PART 2: EXORCISM OF THE CLOWN / Out now (DVD), Release pending (VOD)

“Camp Blood is under new ownership as the updated Camp Blackwood. Locals hope to bury the infamous clown killer’s past, and release the victims from their torment. But when a pastor with ties to the previous grounds takes his church group out to make contact with restless spirits, wrath is all they are doomed to find. The clown killer is back, and this time he has an enemy of equal evil. His former cult followers have turned, as well as a vengeful witch, who will stop at nothing to see these titans of terror collide, and destroy anyone in their path.”

I thought the only restless spirits church people try to make contact with is Jesus ’n friends. Trying to find salvation with a clown killer (or “killer clown”) doesn’t seem like an astute spiritual business model.

SUMMONING THE SPIRIT / Release pending 2023 (VOD)

“Carla and Deanas decide to escape the hustle of the big city and purchase a home in the remote forest. They have big plans for their new quiet life, only to find something much more sinister. The couple quickly realize that they are on the land of a cult, and the leader claims a telepathic connection to a legendary flesh-eating beast deep in the woods surrounding them. Carla and Dean are forced to uncover the terrifying truth of the cult’s prophecy.”

A movie with Bigfoot in it of all things. Though it’s really annoying they refer to BF as “flesh-eating.” Squirrel sausages or raccoon sliders, yes. Human skin? Very low on his palate’s flavor profile.

SPACE GOBLINS / Release pending 2023/2024 (VOD)

“The film is a soft reboot of the underground cult-classic Space Goblins (2020) animated film. Having been living off the grid for the last decade, Bounty hunters Gib and Gob find themselves being called back into action for what could be their very last assignment.”

Cool title. Cool plot? Remains to be seen. And that’s IF you decide to seen it.

Water-Proof UFOs

A gigantic UFO is discovered in the middle of the ocean. Actually, under the middle of the ocean. It’s determined that the spaceship, which is the size of downtown Manhattan, has been there for 288 years, give or take a work week. A team of specialists has been called in to see what up. Transported via a mini-sub several miles beneath the surface, the military has already built an aqua habitat, so that they may study and blog about the UFO.

All the scientists put on high-pressure swim-suits and find their way into the spacecraft. That’s weird—there are recycling bins and uneaten packs of Smokehouse Almonds™ laying around. They find the ship’s log and, upon playing it back, discover the craft experienced an “unknown event,” which looks like they got sucked into a Black Hole. (Holes don’t come in any other color except black.) Exploring further, they find a gigantic gold sphere, the surface of which undulates and looks like rich man’s bath water. It doesn’t do anything except float. All that trouble and expense to find it, and the darn thing just sits there. Stupid aliens. Or are they?

A binary message transmitted from the UFO is translated and they’re being greeted by an alien named…Jerry. I can believe a giant UFO has been at the bottom of the ocean for nearly 300 years, but an alien named Jerry? That’s just weird. Even more weird undersea weirdness happens: one million poisonous and extra-large jellyfish sting one of the habitat divers into swollen pudding. Then a football field-sized squid attacks the habitat and breaches the hull’s integrity. Then the place catches on fire and roasts the face off the astrophysicist. Then the Navy captain is severed in half. Then more messages from Jerry. And he’s not happy.

To go any further would cause YOU mental grief as I’d have to wreck it all by telling you the spaceship is not alien, but rather a vehicle from our future and… Crap, sorry. Sphere (1998) gets really intense, and while you have to pay the heck attention, clues are all over the place to explain the monster squids, toxic jellyfish, and trillions of fish eggs that look like and are the size of sea potatoes.

There’s a tedious subplot involving the psychologist and the marine biologist, who had an affair (another clue). But since they don’t show any sea boobies, it’s just something you’ll have to put up with. The movie will hold your interest, though. And after you’re done, go stick your head in a sphere…it’s fun!

Sensual Brazilian Space Bug

Zombie mosquitoes? Sure, I’ll bite. (Heh.) How could I turn down a premise – and a title like Mosquitoid (aka, The Mosquito Alien – Nights of Terror)?

This mash-up comes from Brazil, where there are lots of zombie mosquitoes all over the place. The Internet verified that with poorly written eyewitness accounts from hobo drunks. But before you book your vacation to South America, know that Mosquitoid is in the early stages of production, relying on crowd-funding to get across the finish line.

Need a pitch? Mosquitoid is about a giant mosquito from Planet Endfly, who finds a crack in a black hole in space and comes to Planet Earth. When he comes to Ribeirão Preto, a city that is experiencing an epidemic of the same mosquito because of the excess of still water, he promotes chaos. Mosquitoid’s venom first kills then turns the dead into zombie mosquitoes that attack the city’s population.”

“The mosquito goes through numerous funny situations because of his personalities: mad scientist, drag queen, clumsy soldier, sensual colonel, crazy hippie, space warrior… All this is washed down with very black humor, blood and some sensuality.”

That last paragraph easily describes many people I’ve seen in many dive bars. Except for the sensuality. There is nothing sensual about hobo drunks.

While you can personally help fund Mosquitoid (IndieGoGo.com), just know that an Alien Mosquitoid made its first appearance on 2012 as a sci-fi action figure in Lego’s™ Galaxy Squad™ series. (Mosquitoid also shows up in the Swarm Interceptor, Warp Stinger and Bug Obliterator sets.)

I have no idea why I know this. Apparently the words “get a life” don’t mean a thing to me.

Space Dracula

When you run out of things to for horror icons to do and still want to keep the rent checks coming in, send ’em into space. That said, it’s about time they did something different with Dracula; this time they plunged him into deep space. Good – his dusty schtick was getting a bit long in the tooth. Heh.

Instead setting him up with sleek astronaut pants (with optional Van Allen radiation belt –heh), they have Dracula decked out in his dusty old 18th Century clothes. And everything that follows circles Uranus from there.

Investigating a derelict space ship, Casper Van Dien as Commander Van Helsing (gimme a break) boards the empty craft, but discovers a bunch of wooden coffins. According to the ship’s log, the coffins were picked up on Transylvania Planet in the Carpathian System (good grief). Dracula is in one of the easily-opened boxes, breaks out and bites 187 (Coolio). The scene-chewing rap star turns into a vampire and hams it up good. When in Rome.

Dracula 3000: Infinite Darkness (2004) belongs in a black hole. Sorry, that’s all the space references I could think of. I blame it on gravity, always holding me back ’n stuff.