Game Sharks, Evil Warehouses, Dreadful Angels

If you’re looking to do some pre-Christmas shopping done, there is no better gift to get me than the new Jaws board game by Ravensburger. And here’s the supremely cool part — one player gets to be the shark!

Coming late June 2019, the Jaws board game will bite into your wallet for $30. Heck, I’d pay at least $35 for such a cool game. Here’s why…

“Like Steven Spielberg’s classic film, Jaws the board game plays out in two major acts. The first part has the player controlling the shark terrorizing Amity Island by attacking swimmers, while up to three other opponents — playing as Quint, Brody, and Hooper — try to cooperatively figure out exactly where the shark is hiding in the surrounding murky depths. Once the shark is located, the game switches to a second act.”

While you fight over who gets to buy me the game, here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies/TV series that may or may not be as ridiculously cool as a cardboard shark…

1st SUMMONING (February 22, 2019)
“As four student filmmakers unearth a bizarre history of occult practice tied to an abandoned warehouse, it becomes clear the horror they set out to document may have been lurking among them all along.”

Of course abandoned warehouses are where evil lives — the rent is cheap.

STRAY (March 1, 2019)
“An orphaned teenager teams up with the detective investigating her mother’s murder. They soon discover a supernatural force threatening the city and realize the teen possesses hidden powers of her own which might be the key to stopping it.”

Potential spoiler: The supernatural force threatening everyone is…REPUBLICANS. Time for Democrats to tap into their hidden powers and veto them back to Hell.

DARLIN’ (2019)
“Darlin’ picks up 10 years after the events of The Woman, when the titular character escaped with the then-young Darlin’ in tow. Now Darlin’ in is a Catholic home for girls while the Woman resides in an all-female homeless encampment.”

Didn’t see The Woman (2011), so I have no idea what they’re talking about. I looked it up and it was a sequel to Offspring (2009). Didn’t see that one, either. The internet says it was about cannibals. Sounds yummy.

PENNY DREADFUL: CITY OF ANGELS (2020)
“City of Angels will be set in 1938 Los Angeles, a time and place deeply infused with Mexican-American folklore and social tension. Rooted in the conflict between characters connected to the deity Santa Muerte and others allied with the Devil, Penny Dreadful: City of Angels will explore an exciting mix of the supernatural and the combustible reality of that period, creating new occult myths and moral dilemmas within a genuine historical backdrop.”

If this is even half as good as the Penny Dreadful TV series (2014 – 2016), which starred Count Dracula, Dr. Frankenstein and his science project, Dr. Jekyll, Dorian Gray, the Wolf-Man and a bunch of witches thrown in for flavor, then I plan on spending all my waking time binge watching it.

Rampaging Dinosaurs – The New Republicans

Rise of the Dinosaurs (aka, Jurassic Attack/2013) finds modern day prehistoric (okay, that didn’t come out right) reptilian monsters tearing apart humans like Republicans on Democrats. But that’s what dinosaurs are paid to do – and they do it as if it were a political agenda.

That said, Rise of the Dinosaurs is an insult to cerapods everywhere. It starts with a dino attack on a commando squad sent to rescue a hostage held by terrorist/Republicans in a jungle valley not as yet pooped upon by people. Their rescue copter is compromised by hostile artillery and they crash right on to the kitchen table of a raptor just begging to strap the grocery bib on and send digital blood a’splattin’.

Ninety-nine percent of the movie is the military squad and the terrorists/Republicans shooting at each other with a seemingly endless supply of digital bullets. From the time you see the first dinosaur rise, you don’t get to see another one chewing the scenery for over a half hour. Not cool.

Before the opening scene rolls you already know what’s gonna happen. But that’s not the point. The digi-dinos are so painfully and poorly integrated into the “movie” and clumsily hopping around and attacking humans while casting Photoshop™ shadows designed by Art Institute™ grads, you’d swear you were playing a video game. (More than once I kept reaching for the game controller.)

Save yourself the dumbass digital destruction and just watch the evening news instead – it’s way more gory and not nearly as fake looking.