Bloody Vampires, Bloody Puppets, Bloody Expensive Guitars

With Game of Thrones dominating the non-political headlines, the series final season has people tripping all over themselves to cash in before its relegated to binge-watching re-runs. [Disclaimer: I tried to get into GoT and only made it through the first five episodes. There were so many characters/story lines that clashed with my attention deficit disorder, I’d have needed an abacus to keep track.]

Fender Custom Shop™ is releasing three GoT themed guitars. Even if you don’t play the git-fiddle, these things would make you look awesome just carrying ‘em around, like to the store or while commuting to work on a flying dragon. Here’s the deets:

“As opulent as its namesake — the ambitious house with designs on the Iron Throne — the Sigil Collection Game of Thrones House Lannister Jaguar is an homage to that avaricious clan. This bespoke guitar was painstakingly crafted by Principal Master Builder, Ron Thorn, who called on his extensive experience with materials to work 24k gold leaf into the elegant, sweeping form of the Jaguar. Crafted to order, this guitar could only have come from Westeros — and the Dream Factory, the Fender Custom Shop.”

“Avaricious” is an interesting term to use in a press release. It means “having or showing an extreme greed for wealth or material gain.” Well, heck — it’s like they’re inside my head! Unfortunately, my lack of wealth will keep me from buying one of these guitars, which range in price from $25,000 to $35,000.

If you need something to watch after Game of Thrones concludes, here are a few upcoming horror movies that may or may not have been made for $25,000 to $35,000 smackos…

BLOOD FROM STONE (2019)
“A woman trying to escape the vampire’s grip, and struggles to cope with the vampire curse in a society where old ways refuse to die.”

Why fight it? I’d love to be a vampire. I kinda am already as I suck on long necks. Heh.

THE ROOM (2019)
“Kate and Matt are a young couple in their thirties in search of a more authentic and healthy life. They leave the city to move into an old house in the middle of nowhere. Soon they discover a secret hidden room that has the extraordinary power to materialize anything they wish for. Their new life becomes a true fairytale. They spend days and nights indulging their every desire of material possession, swimming in money and champagne. Yet beneath this apparent state of bliss, something darker lurks: some wishes can have dire consequences. That room could very well turn their dream into a nightmare when it gives them what they’ve been waiting forever and that nature was denying them.”

I liked it better when it was called The Monkey’s Paw.

BLOOD RISE: SUBSPECIES V (February 14, 2020)
Spanning 500 years in the life of the vampire Radu Vladislas, this long-anticipated prequel to the Subspecies series chronicles Radu’s descent from a noble warrior for the Church to a depraved creature of the night. Stolen by crusaders on the night of his birth, he has no knowledge of his bloodline: his mother a demon; father a vampire. Trained and exploited by a brotherhood of mystic monks to slay all enemies of the Church, fate brings him back one night to the castle of his father, armed with the monster-slaying Sword of Laertes, to destroy the vampire Vladislas and reclaim a holy relic: the Bloodstone. The events of that night turn Radu from a noble man into a vampire with no master, setting him on a centuries-long quest for sustenance, for companionship, for the treacherous one who stole him from the sun, and for the Bloodstone he hopes will bring him peace.

Even as uneven as the Subspecies movies (four flicks, 1991 — 1998) have been, it’s nice to see Radu back in action and licking the Bloodstone like it was a bleeding ice cream cone. After all these years, though, he’s looking a bit long in the tooth. Ahem.

BLADE: THE IRON CROSS (February 14, 2020)
“Charles Band’s Puppet Master series continues as an unspeakable evil from Blade’s past emerges in the form of a murderous Nazi scientist named Dr. Hauser. As Hauser’s heinous crimes are discovered, the psychic war journalist, Elisa Ivanov, awakens Blade, and together the bloody journey of revenge begins. It’s Herr Hauser’s reanimated undead army versus a possessed doll and a beautiful vengeance-seeking clairvoyant.”

This will be the 15th (!) installment in the Puppet Master film series, which began in 1989. That’s one helluva puppet show. For a really fun killer puppet movie, try Trilogy of Terror (1975), featuring the legendary (and toothy) Zuni fetish doll. That thing caused me to bespoil my trousers back in the day. The cleverly named sequel, Trilogy of Terror II, was released in 1996. I chose to not watch it as getting stains out of britches is not as easy as Oxi Clean™ Refreshing Lavender & Lily Liquid Laundry Detergent claims it is.

Dine ’n Dash Dinosaur

The ink blot-sized coastal town of Beaver Mills is located in Alaska, due north of the Arctic Circle. This suggests they have the coldest beer on Earth. It also means the sun doesn’t set for the summer solstice (sorry, vampires). And that means the ice caps are melting, releasing the Jurassic contents therein.

A flying lizard dragon known as the Wyvern (dumb name) thaws out and is expectedly peckish. Time for some take out — a fisherman, the town doctor, a redneck… It’s okay to eat junk food every once in a while — just remember to floss.

Once the town’s screaming citizens find out they’re on the Wyvern’s fresh sheet, it’s time to change their soiled britches and make a plan to kill the beast, which has been killing/eating everyone out in the woods, on the highway, and hiding in laughably ironic restaurants.

Someone discovers the Wyvern has laid eggs in the woods and the plan is to use them as bait to murder the all-you-can-eat monster. A showdown between a diesel truck outfitted with Wyvern omelettes and the mad-flapping creature ends in the end of all things prehistoric and 18-wheels.

Wyvern (2009), part of the Man-Eater series, has all the formulaic elements required for a sub-budget SyFy™ Channel time-waster: cliched characters with guns going off left and right, collateral damage and a poorly designed/digitally rendered monster that looks more suited to a video game from 1985 than a TV screen. And while there’s a couple of good gore scenes (bye-bye, arm, head, leg), this thing belongs back in the freezer.

Dragons and Nickel Candy Bars

It’s 1881. And Michael Denning (USA) and Hector Servadac (not USA, but still kinda cool Frenchman) were doing what any two guys arguing over a girl would normally be doing: facing off in a duel with pistols.

Just as they’re about to glock block each other, a passing comet overhead whips up a ferocious storm so blast-y, it sucks the at-odds gentlemen 1,000,000 miles into space and 1,000,000 BACK IN TIME! Face-slapping astonishment here; I had no idea meteors had those kinds of super powers.

The men end up in a jungle as real estate and property taxes hadn’t been invented yet. It’s here they encounter two warring tribes of cavemen and cave women, a fiesty volcano with the worst temperament, and giant, mouth open, fighting lizards feasting on said cave people. Can you say f’d in the cave-hole?

Using the framework of Off on a Comet, an 1877 Jules Verne novel (that’s probably French for “book”), Valley of the Dragons (1961) certainly lives up to its name. They do this by sweetening the plot with stock footage from Cat-Women of the Moon (1953) and Rodan (1956), whose cameos are relegated to some prairie dog pop-ups and a few fly-bys.

Not forgetting their discord, both men decide to resolve their face-shooting dispute AFTER they figure out what the heck is going on, how to get back to their own time, and more importantly, how to divide up the two hottest of the cave chicks not as yet eaten by the “dragons.”

One clan gets trapped in a cave with a slobbering giant lizard right outside the door-less opening. Using spears and rocks, the cave people, led by French Hector, poke the beast like it was sleeping in late. But it isn’t until his science thoughts kick in that he figures out how to make gun powder from the colored dirt everyone’s bleeding on.

You can guess where this is headed and how this ends for the dragon. But the most exciting part is when the volcano blows and all involved at the foot of said Mt. Explode gets the herd thinned by earth-cracked crevices and tsunamis of pyroclastic flow.

Initiating a chest-patting peace accord between the surviving tribes, Mike and Hec calculate the comet will return in seven years, thereby whisking them back to their plentiful world of nickel candy bars and .34¢ a gallon gasoline. More than enough time to teach the cave girls in the ways of future love.

Closing statement: Rodan did not eat any of the cave people. He could’ve, but just didn’t. It’d be totally not cool if you went around telling everybody he did. Don’t be a dick, ’k?

Rebirth of Mothra

Death Ghidorah (or “Desghidorah” if you speaka de Japanese like me) is a giganto three-headed demon Hydra monster buried under a mountain. He can’t get out because of the Seal of Elias keeping the dirt locked in place. So imagine the look on the logging company’s face when they remove the seal and accidentally let Desghidorah out. Man.

Cheering this on is the evil Belvera, a six-inch tall female Elias who rides a height/weight appropriate winged dragon called Garugaru. (He’s not really a dragon, but rather a robot. I can see where you’d get confused.) Her equally-sized sisters Lora and Mona are much nicer and do Uber™ rides Fairy Mothra. Both sides battle to regain the seal to put Desghidorah back in his mountain hole. They’re gonna need help as the very Motorhead-esque Desghidorah is 200 feet tall and shoots flames at anything that looks edible.

Summoned by song (one of three, all which are annoying because they don’t have any guitar solos), Mothra, the giant 200-foot long moth who looks like an expensive pipe cleaner, does battle with Des, but keeps getting her plumose antennae snapped. She’s getting too old for this kind of crap and psychically summons Mothra Leo, her son whose still in the egg back home on Elias Island. Hatching prematurely, Leo looks like one of Godzilla’s high-fiber breakfast leavings (complete with rest rings), and swims across the ocean to help mom.

 The tag team partnership doesn’t last long, with Mothra getting clobbered and going out to sea to die like an orange seagull. This p*sses off Leo so he cocoons himself, hatches yet again, and grows into a fully grown Mothra with extra powers (multi-colored energy beams). Good for him.

More of a movie for kids, Rebirth of Mothra (1996) does have its adult moments, like when Desghidorah bites into Caterpillar Leo like a hot dog and green/yellow goo shoots out. Probably mustard and relish. Only trees get crushed in this adventure, though a dam takes a strategic hit and flooding water knocks Desghidorah flat on his three-cheeked ass. So, like, that was cool.

Day-glo Ogre

When one thinks of an ogre, it’s usually visualized as something that looks like a WWE wrestler after he’s lived in a garbage landfill for years, while wearing a diaper made out of a bear. It might also have one or fewer eyes and a Fred Flintstone club for hitting diaper-providing bears.

The ogre, though, in Legend of Ogre (aka, Kijo Densetsu/2003) is a young Japanese girl with hot pink long hair, a gray complexion and dressed in pajamas three sizes too big. Worse, the story about the punk rock ogre unleashing hell is as lame as the fake wig she wears.

Two high school girls and their female teacher go to a village out in the woods to study regional folklore. Their cell phones don’t work that far into the woods. Right outta the gate – BIG problems. Upon arriving, a screamy old woman runs up to them and speaking louder than normal, starts yelling “Ominous, ominous!” I don’t know what that means. Staying in a vacant house the girls snoop around and open a storehouse, which unleashes unimaginable horrors and…uh, yeah – not even close.

The pink-haired woman was locked up (or “imprisoned”) in the storehouse, even though she saved the village from a red dragon (told, not shown) many moons ago. Now that she’s free to model her pajamas, there’s much ominous-ing to get caught up on.

The teacher dies, as did my patience for something cool to happen. (I actually fell into a deeper sleep twice while napping through the tedious non-action.) Legend of Ogre was made with one of those consumer digital video cameras, so it looks like your neighbor filmed it. From the half-baked storyline to the day-glo hair, everyone needs to go back in the storehouse and reflect on what they’ve done.

Winged Blow-Torch

As with all kingdoms back in the days of yore, Alagaesia’s mayor is the patently-evil King Galbatorix. He was elected on the political platform that he’s a former dragon rider (cool). He also sold out everyone around him for money, fame, power and chicks (cooler still).

Meanwhile, outside of town, a young boy named Eragon (why didn’t they just call him Eric?) finds a blue egg, a gift from the feel-uppable Princess Arya. It hatches before Eragon can make enough egg salad for 400 sandwiches, and a baby dragon pops out. He names it Saphira. (Lame name as no one had claimed Scaly D at the time. Today at least six rappers with shingles go by it.)

Enter Brom, a local dude who becomes a dad/mentor to the recently orphaned whiner. Brom tells Eragon he is the dragon rider prophesied to kick Galbatorix’s throne and bring happy good times throughout the land. He also has to deal with an evil sorcerer (Durza) who can make black magic happen. While this spit is getting ready to hit the fan, the dragon is growing at an alarming rate, meaning that the litter box in the barn is gonna have to be emptied with a front-loader.

Eragon, under Brom’s tutelage, learns how to ride the dragon, go flying into danger and to be a good guy. BORING. If I had a flying dragon that shot flames out through its portals, let’s just say Happy Hour would get a whole lot more happier. For me, anyway.

Regardless of his clichéd quest, Eragon (2006), a total wuss, rides the lightning for truth, justice and the Alagaesia way. If he succeeds: candy and balloons will grow everywhere. If he doesn’t: black stuff will get on everyone’s shoes for all eternity. Believable dragon flying sequences, but Eragon needs to be a little more Motorhead and a lot less Air Supply.