Enchanting Garb, Fruit Cult, Alien Parents

A fairy/faerie in literature, art, European folklore culture and slasher grindhouse horror movies is defined as being a type of mythical being or legendary creature and a form of spirit, often described as being metaphysical, supernatural, or preternatural — with or without a butcher knife and/or chainsaw.

Not surprisingly, many women want to be fairies, a fantasy that started with Disney’s™ Tinker Bell and the Nutcracker’s Sugar Plumb Fairy (who sounds like a drug dealer). This fantasia annually fuels the sale of countless fairy costumes every Halloween. But while most of us are content to augment our wardrobe from Spirit Halloween™, one should look to Pinterest™ for fairy fashion options. 

These exotic and otherworldly gowns (or “dresses”) — suitable for cosplay or fantasy horror movies — can fetch thousands for an ensemble that probably shouldn’t be cleaned in a coin-fed washing machine. Also, you’d have to sell a lot of teeth to the Tooth Fairy to afford one.

So while we drink absinthe (fun fact: “The Green Fairy” is the nickname for absinthe) and fantasize about wearing one of these dresses to a bachelorette party and/or doing some light grocery shopping, here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not tinker your bell…

WAKING KARMA / January 26, 2023 (VOD)

“Karma and her mother have spent their lives evading Paul, her cult leader father. With Paul closing in as Karma reaches adulthood, she and her mother flee to a friend’s remote compound. Paul tracks them there and traps them within its walls, putting Karma through a series of escalating tests designed to break her spirit and awaken an unholy inheritance that lives within her.”

So if she misbehaves, do we call her…“Bad Karma”? Heh.

SEEDS / January 31, 2023 (VOD)

Grieving mother Macha must track down her husband Andrew, a university professor who has been invited to a remote area of New England to take part in mysterious cult’s ritual in order to receive an inheritance from his uncle. The cult that worships the mystical and ancient power of the apple has also been infiltrated by the Catholic Church under the command of the very ambitious Cardinal Sinibaldi.”

An apple a day keeps organized religion away.

ONYX THE FORTUITOUS AND THE TALISMAN OF SOULS / Release pending 2023 (VOD)

“Amateur occultist Marcus J. Trillbury — aka Onyx the Fortuitous — is struggling. He’s misunderstood at home and work, but his dreams for a new life seem to be answered when he lands a coveted invitation to the mansion of his idol Bartok the Great for a ritual to raise the spirit of an ancient demon. He excitedly joins Bartok and his fellow eclectic group of devotees as they prepare for the ceremony, but pretty quickly it becomes apparent everything is not as it seems. As Onyx and his new friends fight to keep their souls, he must decide what he’s willing to truly sacrifice in order to meet his destiny.”

Marcus should worry more about getting beat up for having a dumb name than conjuring ancient demons.

ALIENS ABDUCTED MY PARENTS AND NOW I FEEL KINDA LEFT OUT / Release pending 2023 (Theaters/VOD)

“Itsy is new in town and her life seems over until she meets her space-obsessed neighbor Calvin, who believes his parents were abducted by aliens. An aspiring journalist, Itsy decides to write an exposé on Calvin but ends up discovering much more.”

Hey kid — your folks weren’t abducted. They abandoned you. Bet you’re feeling really left out now.

The Dammed Damned

The best way to get rid of evil is to chain it in a basement in a village at the foot of a new dam and flood the entire town, thereby washing all your problems down the drain and creating fishing and revenue streams. Good start for the evilized Beneath Still Waters (2005).

Problem is, you can’t keep a good demon and his followers down. Forty years later, a big party is planned to celebrate the dam’s anniversary. Guess who’s coming to the festivities?

Silas, the above-mentioned totally satanic guy who initiates you into his Club of Wrongness by ripping your face in half with his bare hands, needs to complete a ritual in order to exact his revenge. During the course of his flame-y eye influence, the townsfolk start rotting and gleefully dismembering themselves and doing naked stuff. (The orgy scene is a riot, with a priest getting busy with a goat and a nun using rosary beads in places the church deems not cool.) 

There’s a patience-testing sub-plot involving an underwater photo journalist who floats…beneath still waters…and takes pictures of the sunken village (with lights still on in some of the houses). But it’s the wholesale slaughter, chunkified gore and stink demons that make this one worthy. That, and the female untethered tops.

A much better name for this flick, though, could’ve been, The Dammed Damned. Heh.

Staged Evil, Shamed Werewolves, Flesh-Eating Spiders

With the Catholic church constantly sweeping demonic possession under those “authentic” Shroud of Turin throw rugs they sell in church gift shops, it’s a rare treat to see a live person turned into swear jar cursing, green liquid spewing vessel for Satan. Outside of The Poggie Tavern, of course.

With the stage adaptation of The Exorcist now playing in London at the Phoenix Theatre (lucky buggers), you get to see all of that and more for the mere pittance of anywhere from £15.00 to £75.00 plus £3.50 transaction fee. (In U.S. Benjamins: $11.47 – probably nosebleed seating to $57.37 – show-off). The transaction fee in U.S. is $2.68. Heck, you could buy a small statuette of the Devil stamped with “I’m Totally Evil” in the church gift shop for that amount. (FYI — they don’t float in the bathtub.)

From the press release: “After spawning five films and a television series on FOX, William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist is now a stage adaptation at the UK’s Phoenix Theatre, playing October 26, 2017 through March 10, 2018. Unleashed onto the West End stage for the very first time, the play is ‘a uniquely theatrical experience’ directed by award-winning film and theatre director, Sean Mathias.”

“A uniquely theatrical experience” means the first three rows are gonna get wet.

For those of us who have more pounds than £s, here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not be worth sitting in the first three rows for…

BLOOD BOUND (2018)
“Bound to an ancient pact, a family of unlimited power descend upon a small rural town to sacrifice four human lives, one being a member of their own family.”

My first thought was vampires. But the same plot can be applied to any family Thanksgiving dinner.

A HOLE IN THE GROUND (2018)
“A young single mother is trapped between rationality and the unexplained as she becomes convinced her little boy has been transformed by something sinister from the depths of a mysterious sinkhole.”

Recalls Jug Face (2013). The storyline to that plot boiler is a jaw dropper: “Pregnant with her brother’s child, a teen tries to escape from her backwoods community after learning that she is to be sacrificed to a creature that lives in a deep pit.” There are so many things wrong with that sentence. For instance, “backwoods community”? That seems so condescending.

SLICE (2018)
“When a pizza delivery driver is murdered on the job, the city searches for someone to blame. Ghosts? Drug dealers? A disgraced werewolf?”

Kinda makes you wonder what disgraced the werewolf. Did he run past a fire hydrant without sniffing and/or peeing on it? Did he shave? Is he a vegetarian? If one or more, the death penalty would be too lenient.

GUARDIANS OF THE TOMB (2018)
“A team of scientists, who while making the discovery of the century, lose a colleague in an ancient labyrinth. The group must battle their way through a swarm of deadly, man-eating funnel web spiders and discover the secret behind the arachnids’ power and intelligence — before it’s too late.”

There’s an alternate title for this one: Nest 3D. That would only work if it had words like “Giant Garbage”, “Giant Mutant Cow” or Giant Money” before the word “Nest.” Still, they reeled me in with “man-eating funnel web spiders.” That’s the kind of term you only hear in discount restaurant kitchens.

Space Bugs, AI Housing, Hollywood Burgers

Tried a new upscale burger joint recently. The pictures of the food offered don’t even come close to what is actually put on the faux paper plate they serve it on. The hamburger/fries/soft drink combo photos look like they were done by Hollywood and colorized for maximum visual enticement. If the food actually came that way, you’d have to wear sunglasses while eating it. All in all, the reasonably priced burger wasn’t half bad. Just wish it glowed as much in real life as it did on the backlit menu.

Speaking of false advertising, here’s some new horr/sci-fi that may look good on the surface, but try and withhold judgment until they’re served hot off Redbox™.

STARSHIP TROOPERS: TRAITOR OF MARS (Monday, August 21, 2017/500 theaters/everywhere in 2018)
“Rico is demoted and relocated to a satellite station on Mars, while the Federation moves to attack the home planet of the bugs — but Mars just so happens to be the target of a secret bug attack at the same time, and it falls to Rico and a group of new recruits to keep the planet safe while the Federation’s fleet is far out of reach.”

If you’re a fan of this franchise (I took a pass on it after the first one back in 1997), you’ll either be happy or reverse-happy to know that this one is an animated sci-fi feature. But feel free to give my regards to the space bugs and enthusiastically support their effort to take over the Universe.

3 DEAD TRICK OR TREATERS (2017/2018)
“After stumbling upon the graves of three murdered trick or treaters, a small town paperboy discovers a series of handwritten horror stories tacked to the children’s headstones. Penned by a deranged pulp author driven mad by his craft, the stories chronicle grisly tales of Halloween rites, rituals and traditions. Absent of dialogue and heavy on atmosphere, 3 Dead Trick or Treaters is a horror anthology unlike any you’ve seen before.”

Sounds like horror master Stephen King wrote this one. But since this doesn’t have any dialogue — something King is known for overdoing — probably not. Still, three less trick or treaters means more razored candy for ME!

TAU (2017/2018)
“Julia is a street smart girl who becomes captive inside a ‘Smart House’ developed by the enigmatic Alex that is run by an advanced artificial intelligence called TAU”.

Pfffft — this concept was already explored in 1977’s Demon Seed, wherein a “smart house” takes over, kills everyone but the mom, and proceeds to mechanically impregnate her (hence the title) so its offspring can be liberated from the vaccuum cleaner cord. Don’t LOL — Demon Seed is considered a science fiction classic.

I REMEMBER YOU (2017/2018 (US)(VOD)(Limited)
“After an older lady hangs herself in a church, a new psychiatrist discovers she was obsessed with the disappearance of his eight-year-old son, who vanished three years earlier. Meanwhile, three city dwellers are restoring a house when they realize it is haunted, and a mysterious child named Bernodus, who disappeared 60 years earlier, is discovered as the link between the two groups.”

Yeesh — you know the church is getting heavy-handed when they pass around the collection plate and you’d rather hang yourself than give up the bit coins. And who the heck names their kid “Bernodus”? That already sounds like one of the night janitor demons mopping and glowing on floor two of the Seven Layers of Hell.

Mastering Exorcism

In Exorcist Master (aka, Qu mo dao zhang/1993) a priest was killed outside a local church when a holy power stepped in, knocked the “God Eats Here” cross steeple off the building, where it falls like a sword straight into the back of the now “thinkin’ about becoming an atheist” collection plate manager, who is somehow turned into a vampire. Maybe he was one before and was merely working undercover for competing religions. The sub-titles weren’t clear on this point.

This now makes the Roman Catholic church “dirty” and it’s closed for business until that commerce-minded Priest Wu decides to reopen 20 years later with new paint, a few knick-knack bibles, restoration money supplied by the town’s smoking club (opium den) and brothel (pay-per-play) upstanding business men. This p*sses off Uncle Nine and he vehemently protests, using that unibrow to commanding effect. (If you’ve ever been stared down over a plate of fried duck and dumplings by a person with one eyebrow, it’s rather intimidating, which is why I don’t go back to Benihanas™.)

Lam Ching-ying, replays the unibrow’d Taoist priest in those mid-Eighties Mr. Vampire movies as Uncle Nine, a pretty darn serious guy when it comes to ridding the land of ghosts and vampires. (I’ve seen promo pics of him with TWO eyebrows. What is up with that? It somehow made him look less intelligent.)

An opening scene botched brother and sister exorcist duo has them failing to rid a cellar of a demon chick ghost. Uncle Nine shows up in time to save the day with some serious anti-paranormal skills. But you’re gonna have to wade through another 90-minutes of non-demon/ghost/vampire plot plodding to get to the final show-down in the church after the cross stake was removed from the punctured priest’s back (they kept him in dry storage) and he flies around thejoint, looking for neck-flavored snacks. (Having a hard time with a vampire priest; don’t crosses and churches make vampires hurl? It does to me — and I’m still waiting for my turn to become a vampire. I put in the application months ago. Gotta be any day now.)

Exorcist Master’s slapstick action and dialogue will make you COL (chortle out loud): “Why have you removed my pants? You are so erotic…” And hey, they even sampled one-hit wonder rapper Tone Lōc’s 1989 “Wild Thing” as a backdrop to an exorcist prepping ceremony.

But not even Tone Lōc or the high-flying kung fu skills of Uncle Nine can save this tedious horror comedy that spends less time on bloodletting and more time on goofy sequences. (The brother doesn’t know what a bra is and put’s it over his face like a blindfold. “Too big…” he says. I can vouch for that.) Note of interest: There’s a bell-ringing vampire shepherd leading a formation parade of subdued, hopping vampires to the church. With “Wild Thing” playing, I wonder if they were hip-hop vampires. I don’t wanna be one of those as rap sucks like fried duck. (Hey, that rhymes — I think I just wrote a rap song.)

Italian Possession

The residents of a mountain village in Southern Italy think the local peasant girl Purif is demonically possessed. Just because she does the upside down spider walk (predating the one in the extended version of The Exorcist by 10 years) and goons out when a cross is liberally applied to her forehead isn’t exactly proof. Then again, when you live in a remote town where the houses are made of stone and the local crops are rock, you’re quick to hysterical superstition. (There’s nothing else to do for entertainment there except water the rock crops.)

But had they stopped freaking out for just a dang second, they’d discover Purif isn’t evil saturated at all, but a young girl scorned by Antonio, the only guy left in town without shattered shards for teeth. (Gravel is a bit tough on the tooth.) So she can be forgiven for attempting half-baked voodoo, freaking out and trying to disrupt his wedding ceremony with goats and what looks to be a dead bunny rabbit. (She didn’t kill Mr. Fuzzy; probably some other demon possessed person or a harvested rock did it.)

To make matters worse, her freakouts, which give illustrative meaning to the phrase, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” aren’t doing a lot to argue the contrary. When Purif’s hauled into church, she flips over and does the inverted spider dance move while the priest and a gaggle of onlookers just stare with their toothless mouths open in disbelief. And nowhere is disbelief more evident than in a church.

While Antonio is getting ready to fulfill his husbandly duties to a gal with a uni-brow and whose clearly not happy to be fulfilled, Purif continues her goon out. This forces the villagers to push her down on the rock crops, throw rock crops at her and banish her from ever setting foot back in the rock crops ever again. (Earlier attempts to torch the “witch” failed because hey, ROCK DOESN’T BURN.) And to add filler to this diller, Purif is tied up and G-rated assaulted twice, once by a priest and another a toothless, bearded hag. (Apologies to the Stones — the band, not the village’s primary food source.)

Such are the not-so-happy moments of Il Demonia (1963) with no sub-titles to enhance its quirky nuances. As could be expected, it does not end well for Purif. When she finally persuades Antonio to re-rock the casbah just a day after his marriage, he fatals her out of guilt and/or shame. That was not very knife of him. Too bad; she had all of her teeth. Off the hook bat-sh*t crazy, but man, nice chompers.

Seasonal Sorcerer

During the days of the Black Plague™, two knights who kill in the name of THE LORD, get fed up doing all of God’s work and go AWOL from the army.

They’re later captured and given a choice — transport a young girl who is suspected of being a witch and causing the Black Plague™ to a monastery way the hell out there, or get a super sharp sword stuck up your butt. Easy choice.

Along the perilous journey that has several members of their entourage being eaten alive by werewolves (wild dogs, but werewolves made about as much sense as knights with capped teeth), they discover the girl is indeed a denizen of darkness.

To rub their faces in it, this was all a set up to deliver this w*tch b*tch to the church where she can transform into a winged bat devil and unleash more of the same. Unfortunately, the ensuing winged bat devils are cheap digital animations and ruin any belief system based on good or evil.

The twist at the end of the ham-fisted Season of the Witch (2011) is that it all verily stunketh.

P.S. You’ll be tempted, but try not confuse this movie with the same-titled Season of the Witch made in 1973 by zombie-advocate, George A. Romero. (The “A” stands for Andrew.)

Haunted Casa

Any demonic possession movie that showcases the legendary Latino acting skills of Eric Estrada – who starred in the street-tough Homeboys From Outer Space and Extra-Large: Gonzales’ Revenge – can’t be entirely bad. Then again…

In Spirits (1990), Eric – who plays a priest with right-side up crosses – gets sexed up in a dream sequence while a ghostly succubus uses language unbecoming of church, and opens a door in the basement in a haunted house to another dimension. (Unfortunately, it didn’t lead to a 7-Eleven™, a 24-hour convenient dimension/Heaven that is a gold mine of chilled and refreshing cans/bottles of adult juice.)

A snooping psychic (Brinke Stevens) becomes possessed (by a ghost demon and/or refreshing cans/bottles of adult juice) and hammers nails into her own hands. Ouch, yet I felt it was necessary to the plot.

All of Spirits verily sucks except Eric, so you may want to consider hammering nails into your own hands for more entertainment value. P.S. Don’t hammer nails into your hands. You might miss the nail and smack your fingers with the hammer. That would freakin’ hurt.

Stomach Monster

The Scourge in Scourge (2008) is a tentacled, icky bug creature that makes its six-hour Air BNB home in stomachs. (Your belly button is its front door.) It also makes you eat raw butter and drink curdled milk, gulping serving spoons of room temperature mayonnaise down your sandwich hole. And it makes your skin come off like wet drywall tape.

Buried in the foundations of a 1781 church, the icky thing got loose in modern day times when the holy house burnt down, and got into a fireman. He passed it to his girlfriend. She passed it to a punk rocker. He passed it to the ambulance driver. Lather, rinse, repeat.

A one-eyed man in the employ of the Catholic church collects the thing, takes it to a funeral home, and burns it alive. (10 minutes on 1600 degrees, turning once when brown. Serve with a side of room temperature mayonnaise.)

Some good gore bits (the punk rocker gets his lower face punched off) and some icky skin moments. But Scourge just didn’t have the guts it needed to make it tasty. Like raw butter.

Cove Coven

Jerry and Linda, freshly married and wanting to break out of the rat race (he does, she doesn’t), buy a house on the idyllic island of Bay Cove, a small community full of scenic views, apple trees and  a sacrificial witch coven.

 The coven needs to offer some non-witch blood during a full moon on the eve of something or rather, and they’ve chosen Linda as their donor. This will allow their pact with satan to stay in place for another 300 years.

The clues as to the island residents’ evil background come in the form of a sparse cemetery (hardly anyone dies), a pet dog and pet best friend being killed (they were both to close to THE TRUTH), and a black mass with formal black robes, incantations and burning torches.

More along the lines of housewife horror, Bay Cove (1987) a made-for-TV yawner has only one good scene: a church full of coven members being blown sky high by lightning. So yeah, no broomstick flying, no conjuring, no eye of newt in the soup of the day. ’80s witches were so boring.