Worms, Slasher Santa, Whispering Dead

If you watched the mid-season finale of The Walking Dead last November, you got to see YET ANOTHER main character die, and were introduced to The Whisperers, YET ANOTHER group of enemies of the still-living. No spoilers, but hot dang, that last scene was right up there with some of TWD’s best “holy sh*t!” moments.

Here’s an excerpt from the press release that tells us what’s in store when the show resumes on Sunday, February 10, 2019 on AMC…

“The group’s rules and ways of survival no longer guarantee their safety. A whole new threat has crossed their paths, and they soon discover it’s unlike any threat they have encountered or endured before. The group will start to question what they think they see. What may appear to be normal in this post-apocalyptic world could actually be more disturbing and terrifying than when the apocalypse first broke out. All that is certain is the stakes are high and numerous.”

A bit generic, but if you’ve read the graphic novels, you kinda already know what holy sh*t is coming down the pipe. Until then, here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not scare the holy sh*t outta you…

MOJIN: THE WORM VALLEY (January 4, 2019)
“Following in the footsteps of blockbuster Mojin: The Lost Legend and based on the bestselling novel series, Mojin: The Worm Valley once again finds legendary tomb explorer Hu Bayi on a dangerous mission as he seeks out the Tomb of Emperor Xian, located on an island of monstrous creatures in this mystical action-adventure.”

A valley of worms and an island of monstrous creatures? Spring break!

DIAL CODE SANTA CLAUS (now showing)
“Thomas, a resourceful child, is left alone with his fragile grandfather on Christmas Eve. When a killer dressed as Santa Claus breaks into their home, Thomas does whatever it takes to defend his home and grandfather.”

This originally came out back in 1989 in its native country of France, or a place that sounds like France. It made its way here over the border wall as a bootlegged VHS. But now Dial Code Santa Claus getting a proper release and is making the film house circuit as we e-speak. Hopefully, it’ll be available on DVD — but France is gonna have to pay for it.

DOOM ROOM (January 15, 2019)
“A woman wakes up locked in a small room with no memory of how she arrived there. Unable to escape, and tormented by a series of paranormal entities, she must uncover the riddle of who she is and how she got here.”

YET ANOTHER spin on the Cube/Saw scenario. It also describes the night after drinking in The Tug Tavern.

THE HOLE IN THE GROUND (2019)
“Trying to escape her broken past, Sarah O’Neill is building a new life on the fringes of a backwood rural town with her young son, Chris. A terrifying encounter with a mysterious neighbor shatters her fragile security, throwing Sarah into a spiraling nightmare of paranoia and mistrust, as she tries to uncover if the disturbing changes in her little boy are connected to an ominous sinkhole buried deep in the forest that borders their home.”

I bet Thomas Crapper, the guy who invented the toilet, was inspired by sinkholes. He should’ve called it the “Stinkhole,” though. Heh.

Super Girlfriends, Family Werewolf, Murder Cabins

After nearly four years of battling aliens and her chaotic love life, Supergirl (on CW) has not only added Superman (Tyler Hoechlin — Season 3/nice teeth), but now, after countless references to his relentless relationship with Lois Lane, we’ll finally get to see her actual face and relentless reporter skills during Elseworlds, the three-night crossover (relentlessly mentioned in this blog by someone who looks a lot like me) coming December, 2018 on Supergirl, The Flash and Arrow. (Geez, that was a run-on sentence.) This got me thinking (had to wirelessly beer-charge the ‘ol Cracker Jack box™ that is my brain) to do a Lois Lane inventory.

While the prize-winning investigative journalist has been recast relentless times in comic books (I conservatively think there were 1.2 million versions), Lois Lane has been portrayed at least 10 times, if you count Joan Alexander, the voice of Lois on radio (TV screen without a screen) from 1940 to 1951. (And you thought kryptonite was Superman’s only weakness.) His rotating girlfriends include Noell Neill, Phyllis Coates, Margot Kidder, Teri Hatcher, Erica Durance, Kate Bosworth, Uma Thurman (playing the fake Lois Lane on the “Superhero Speed Dating” segment in Movie 43/2013), Amy Adams, and now in Supergirl, Elizabeth Tulloch. That’s a lot of Valentine’s Day candy Superman had/has to buy.

To illustrate just how super Superman’s girlfriend is, she was in 137 issues of DC’s Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane from, 1958 to 1974. (Dang, that was a redundant sentence.) Then she had a front and center role in Lois Lane, her own comic book title, from 1962 to 1965 and was DC Comics’ third best-selling funny book during those funny years.

So while we wait to welcome the newest Lois Lane to Superman’s little black book, here are a few now available/upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not be worthy of Superman’s Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder…

END OF THE WORLD (available now)
“As mass of solar storms causes tsunamis, volcanoes, and flooding, a city-dwelling family attempts to flee to the relative safety of a group of high-elevation caves several miles away.”

The cover of the DVD depicts Seattle’s iconic Space Needle being kicked in the struts and falling down upon the city where I live and drink. This sucks as they just completed the Space Needle’s remodel of installing a transparent floor 605 feet up. Unless the pervs down below have binoculars, all you ladies wearing skirts while visiting the Needle won’t have to worry.

ALPHA WOLF (available now)
“A couple moves into a secluded cabin in an attempt to salvage their relationship and finds their world torn apart when the husband transforms into a murderous werewolf. Things grow more bizarre when the family dog leaps in to save the wife and suffers his own transformation.”

I guess the cabin trip was to hopefully reconcile that time the wife threw Nair™ on her husband’s face during an argument on whether or not to use silver bullets in the family repeating shotgun. Those things tend to get worse if not talked through before a full moon.

MOTHER KRAMPUS 2 (available now)
On Christmas Eve four young women wrap up their community service with one last visit to the older and less fortunate. As darkness falls and the cold settles in, they realize there is far more to their seemingly innocent host than meets the eye.”

I bet the seemingly innocent host is Mother Krampus. Just a hunch.

THE CABIN (December 4, 2018)
Young American couple, Rose and Harry are on their way to visit Harry’s family cabin, both as a nostalgic vacation and as a way to rekindle their relationship. But they’re not the only one that decided to visit the cabin this weekend. The vacation is quickly turned into a living nightmare for Rose and Harry as they meet a vicious sociopath, who invites them into a involuntary cat and mouse game.”

Why is it remote cabins are where married couples go to fix relationships? Everybody knows that’s where murderous werewolves and/or vicious sociopaths go to shoot fish in a barrel.

The Final Dead, Evil Clothes, Sex Zombies

Proceed with caution as there be spoilers ahead. For those who are hardcore (or even casual) Walking Dead fans, the final episode of Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln, whose father-in-law is hippie flute player Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull) was kind of a swerve.

Impaled by re-bar and barely escaping a herd/horde of walkers, Rick, bleeding out like a stuck pig, keeps passing out and hallucinating. Sounds like a night out at The Tug Tavern. Several past characters return to offer advice and to yell at him to wake up. Then he blows up a bridge over troubled waters, which cause a ton of zombies to cannonball into the raging river below.

Did Rick go ka-BOOM during the explosion? Not according to the last scene, which I won’t reveal. But it’s already in the works Rick will be back in not one but three impending Walking Dead movies, as well as directing a few episodes.

This is good news as I didn’t want Rick to go ka-BOOM. While we ponder the future of The Walking Dead without him, here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not make you wanna jump off a bridge…

CAM (November 16, 2018)
“An ambitious cam-girl wakes up one day to discover she’s been replaced on her show with an exact replica of herself. As this copy begins to push the boundaries of Alice’s Internet identity, the control that Alice has over her life, and the men in it, vanishes. While she struggles to regain what she’s lost, she slowly finds herself drawn back to her show and to the mysterious person who has taken her place.”

Okay, that’s gotta feel weird, being replaced by yourself. If that happened to me, I’d tell that guy to get a haircut and wear something else besides KISS T-shirts day in and day out for months at a time.

UGLY SWEATER PARTY (November 23, 2018)
On Christmas Eve at a campsite deep in the woods, an ugly sweater party is in full swing. Best friends Cliff and Jody arrive expecting some mistletoe action from the sexy twins who invited them, but soon realize that they are at a Bible camp. To make matters worse, Cliff is wearing a sweater possessed by the ghost of notorious serial killer Declan Rains. While the evil sweater slowly possesses Cliff, Jody also realizes that the party guests aren’t as innocent as they first seem.

An evil sweater. Welcome to the bottom of the barrel.

ARCTIC (February, 2019)
“A man stranded in the Arctic is finally about to receive his long-awaited rescue. However, after a tragic accident, his opportunity is lost. He must then decide whether to remain in the relative safety of his camp or to embark on a deadly trek through the unknown for potential salvation.”

Unless a polar bear eats his head off and snacks on his entrails as if unheated lasagna.

RABID (2019)
“Rose, a young woman who, after an accident leaves her scarred beyond recognition, undergoes a radical untested stem-cell treatment. While turning Rose into the belle of the ball, the experimental transformation comes at a price.”

A remake of David Cronenberg’s same-named 1977 classic, which was a remake of his 1975 sex zombie movie, Shivers (1975). Check out the plot: “The residents of a suburban high-rise apartment building are being infected by a strain of parasites that turn them into mindless, sex-crazed fiends out to infect others by the slightest sexual contact.” Forget condoms — wear a wet suit.

Godzilla: A Star Is Born, Monster Box Social, Brutally Honest Santa

Go fix your makeup, Andromeda; tighten up a notch, Orion’s Belt; go refill your water bucket, Aquarius — there’s literally a new star in town…GODZILLA!

The Hollywood gossip sheets are true for a change — NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration and home to a lot of lab coat wearers) has bestowed a heavenly distinction to Godzilla by being named a new constellation. Talk about dancing with the stars.

How NASA, the Academy Awards of Space, came to the conclusion that Godzilla needed his own Walk of Fame in the Galaxies: “Most of the gamma-ray sources visible in the Godzilla constellation are actually AGN, as are more than half the gamma-ray ‘stars’ Fermi has cataloged to date.

“Gamma-ray jets also occur in other types of astrophysical systems. When a massive star runs out of fuel and collapses under its own weight, or when two orbiting neutron stars spiral together and merge, a new black hole — and high-speed jets — may form. The result is a gamma-ray burst, the most powerful explosion in the cosmos. These monstrous blasts, which occur somewhere in the distant universe every day or so according to observations by Fermi’s Gamma-ray Burst Monitor, would make even Godzilla envious.”

While we congratulate Godzilla on becoming the Universe’s newest bad Gamma Jamma, here are a few upcoming horror movies that may or may not be visible as your black hole, son…

MONSTER PARTY (November 2, 2018)
“Three thieves plan a daring heist posing as waiters at a fancy Malibu mansion dinner party in hopes of paying off an urgent debt. When their plan goes horribly wrong, the trio realizes the dinner guests are not as innocent as they seem and their simple cash grab becomes a violent and desperate battle to get out of the house alive.”

The irony here being that if the criminals posed as waiters a rich people party, they could’ve easily earned enough tips to pay off their debt. This is why criminals are so STUPID.

SECRET SANTA (November 5, 2018/UK)
“A Christmas Eve gathering takes an unexpected turn after a family guest spikes the punch with a military grade version of truth serum sodium pentothal. The already dysfunctional group comes unstuck in a blizzard of drug-induced, painfully candid outbursts, and upset soon turns to carnage after the head of the family runs amok with a fork, triggering festering loathings and savage reprisals.”

This sounds pretty fun/funny, except they really didn’t need to spike the punch with military-grade sodium pentothal to get everybody to go all truth or dare on each other. Eight or nine easily-purchased cans/bottles/cartons of beer achieves the same results — and at a much lower cost to you, the truthful consumer.

ESCAPE ROOM (January 4, 2019)
“Six strangers find themselves in circumstances beyond their control and must use their wits to find the clues or die.”

This sounds like a “copyright infringement homage” to Cube (1997) and Nine Dead (2009). If I had to use my wits to save my own life, you might as well go shopping for tombstones.

HAPPY DEATH DAY 2 U (February 14, 2019)
“This time, our hero Tree Gelbman discovers that dying over and over was surprisingly easier than the dangers that lie ahead.”

Didn’t see the first one (I forget what it was called). So a guy who dies over and over. Isn’t that called a typical work week? And who the heck names their kid “Tree”? I guess that makes his mom a tree hugger. After this movie, he’ll be branching out. I bet he pines after his ex. Strong chance he wakes up with morning wood. I can do this all day.

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.

Holidays Give You Kramps

Krampus, the mythological demonic anti-Santa Claus, is yet again the centerpiece of another holiday-themed horror movie coming out this year (2015, if the calendar is to be believed). A Christmas Horror Story arrives October 2, and puts Santa Claus himself in a street rules match with Krampus, St. Nick’s mortal foe.

Before we get to the juicy details I copied off the Internet, I did a blog on the recently announced other Christmas horror movie Krampus on June 15, 2015. [click HERE to gaze longingly upon it.] That one comes out December 4, 2015.

So the Krampus is on campus and is re-gifting gore for the holidays. In A Christmas Horror Story, the good tidings killer takes on the town of Bailey Downs (I don’t know where that is), and brings along undead elves to assist in some evil stuff. I deem this to be kick ass of the highest order.

So here’s what you’re getting for Xmas: “Last Christmas Eve, two teens came to a grisly end in a school basement. Now, one year later, a new set of horrors has come to town. As three friends explore the site of the massacre, a malevolent spirit is determined to keep them there forever, and they suddenly find themselves running in terror from Krampus, the demonic anti-Santa Claus. Not even St. Nick is immune to the terror as he fights a horde of zombie elves.”

Krampus looks pretty cool, as do the zombie elves. So much so, you’d probably wanna take an “elfie” with one. Heh.