Pizza Face, Hallucinogenic Worms, Murder Bears

In what is one of the most ingenious Halloween promotional gimmicks in recent memory, Tombstone™ pizza (coolest name ever for the most popular food in any cemetery) is giving away a FREE T-pie to anyone living on an Elm Street, as a direct tie-in to Freddy Krueger’s favorite cul-de-sac (A Nightmare on Elm Street in case it slipped your mind). And hey — with his iconic oven-baked features, Sir Krueger’s face looks so much like a pizza, it should come with extra toppings.)

As first detailed by Bloody-Disgusting.com: “Tombstone™ is rewarding those brave enough to live on a real-life Elm Street with a chance to win FREE pizza this Halloween season (more than 5,000 across the country).”

Do this: From Oct. 3rd – 31st, Elm Street residents can enter online for a chance to win free Tombstone™ pizza.

What You’ll Win: Free Tombstone™ pizza awarded while supplies last. One lucky Elm Street resident will be selected at random to win free pizza for a year. The contest begins on October 3rd, 2022 and you’ll find it RIGHT HERE.

While I get some spray paint and write “Elm” on my street sign, here are a few upcoming horror and sci-fi movies that may or may not look as appetizing as a Tombstone™ pizza — or Freddy’s face…

PROJECT LEGION October 7, 2022 (Limited) October 11, 2022 (VOD)

“Feral creatures that prey on humans have descended upon the city. A furious fight for survival begins as the outside world descends into chaos and a former Marine, barricaded inside his apartment, prepares to come out fighting.”

Feral creatures preying on humans. Again. Why can’t they prey on microwaved 7-Eleven™ Truckstopper Burritos? Wouldn’t need a Marine to stop ’em after choking down one of those things.

KRATT / October 11, 2022 (VOD)

“Children are left at Grandma’s without smartphones. Real life seems boring, working feels hard. Luckily they find instructions for Kratt — a magical creature from old Estonian mythology who will do whatever its master says. All they have to do now is buy a soul from the Devil. Life stops being boring in a bloody way.”

Retail price of a Devil-owned soul: $6.66. Low hanging fruit. Too easy. I feel somewhat ashamed. Somewhat.

SHADY GROVE / October 25, 2022 (VOD)

“A young couple, Shaina and Mark, attend a music festival with their best friend Elijah on their annual pilgrimage away from their work-heavy city lives. They find a beautiful cabin on a vacation rental app. Everything is perfect except the faint smell of death, only to discover they’re being hunted by figures wearing skinned animal masks.”

Scare BnB — heh. Curious as to what skinned animals were used to make the masks. A free-range donkey? A murder bear? Black Phillip? All of those would spook the rent right outta me. P.S. The smell of death is very similar to asparagus farts.

ALL JACKED UP AND FULL OF WORMS / November 8, 2022 (Screambox)

“Working at a seedy motel, maintenance man Roscoe is always searching for his latest fix. When he stumbles upon a powerfully hallucinogenic worm, his days of dime-store drugs are over. Along with his new love interest, the pair embark on a delirious odyssey of sex, violence, and becoming one with the dirt.”

Hands down the best movie title of the year. I was sold right there, but then they hit me with “powerfully hallucinogenic worm” and “delirious odyssey of sex, violence,” and “becoming one with the dirt.” Looks like someone found my Christmas wish list.

Zombie Headwear, Pig People, Lab Rats

Horror movie make-up legend Tom Savini and his Trick or Treat Studios is once again making his line of Halloween (or church) full-head zombie masks available for money. This is good news for those of us who want to explore a new fashion look for around $25.00. (No word if these masks are made of human skin.)

Savini knows what a zombie should look like, having worked on such horror movies as Dawn of the Dead (1978), Day of the Dead (1985) and even directing the Night of the Living Dead reboot in 1990. Using his vast experience and flesh-rotting art skills, Savini is offering the mask models “Graves,” “Mort” and “Tombed”, which will ship in August/September 2019.

While you hit up the boss for an advance on your paycheck to get in on this action, here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not be suitable for Halloween and/or church…

I’M JUST F*CKING WITH YOU (April 1, 2019/Hulu™)
“A man and his sister on the way to a family wedding endure a night of increasingly frightening practical jokes during a one-night stay at a secluded motel.”

Great movie title. Bet parents will be taking their under-age kids to this one.

RED 11 (pending distribution/2019)
“Red 11 is a horror/thriller set in a dark, twisted version of the Legal Drug Research world. At these facilities, young guys become lab rats to make quick money, but our hero RED 11 is here to buy his way out of a huge debt to the tune of $7,000. This story shows the quirks, characters, and comedy of being a human lab rat, but with a sci-fi and horror twist, because while under the influence of experimental drugs, Red 11 doesn’t know if what’s in front of him is fact or fiction.”

This one is from Robert Rodriguez, so even with the low production budget of $7,000, it’ll look at least like $9,000 movie. There’s an interesting TRUE story behind this (from the press release) — “The movie is based on the research hospital where Robert Rodriguez sold his body to pay for El Mariachi (1993), ‘Red 11’ is the shirt color and number he was assigned.” I need to find that place so I can get the rent paid this month. Let’s see Rodriguez make a movie outta that.

TALES FROM THE LODGE (2019/UK)
“In an isolated lodge somewhere in England, five old university pals, now nudging 40, gather for a weekend to scatter the ashes of their friend, Jonesy, who drowned himself in the lake three years earlier. They settle in for a fun evening, entertaining each other with stories of murders, ghosts, zombies and possessions, but as day turns to night the gang become aware of another horror story unfolding around them. And this one is real.”

Is this a cliched horror movie plot or an episode of Scooby Doo? Just thinkin’ out loud — I’ll probably watch it regardless.

BULLETS OF JUSTICE (2019)
“During the Third World War, the American government initiates a secret project named ‘Army Bacon’ in order to create super soldiers by breeding human beings with pigs. 25 years later a breed called ‘Muzzles’ have occupied the top of the food chain, eating and farming humans like animals. Rob Justice is an ex-bounty hunter working for the last line of human resistance – a group of survivors hiding in a nuclear bunker deep underground. His mission is to find out how Muzzles came to power and destroy them.”

Army bacon? Breeding humans with pigs? Hybrids called Muzzles? Head..about…to…explode — too…many…jokes…

Killer Snow, Rural Werewolves, Flossing Serial Killers

T’was recently announced that Ridley Scott — the man behind three of the six Alien movies (not counting the two Alien/Predator mash-ups) — is doing a horror TV series for AMC. The smoke detector can wait — time to put new batteries in the remote.

From the press release: “Ridley Scott’s horror series The Terror is a fictionalized account of a real-life expedition in 1845, in which two ships were lost in the Arctic and all 129 men were killed. The series, which debuts on AMC in March 2018, is based on the 2007 best-selling novel of the same name by Dan Simmons.”

While we impatiently wait for The Terror to brighten or screens/life, here are a few just released/upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that probably don’t take place in the Arctic, though some might leave you cold (heh)…

AMITYVILLE: THE FINAL CHAPTER (available now)
“A group of paranormal investigators teams up with a wrongly convicted serial killer to track down a mysterious monster responsible for a slew of recent killings.”

YET ANOTHER Amityville movie? [insert facepalm here]. I think this makes 400 Amityville movies, give or take. The press release cracks me up — wrongly convicted serial killer. How does that even make sense? How does YET ANOTHER Amityville movie make sense? This cow has been milked so many times, it’s only giving evaporated milk.

THE HOWLING (available now)
“A local myth will be discovered to be true by a group of teenagers on a night out on remote farmland. Is there a bloodthirsty creature that has been wandering the land?”

Not to be confused with 1981’s The Howling or the seven subsequent sequels that slogged on until 2011. This werewolf movie places the creature on a farm. Maybe it’s not a werewolf. More likely a weresheep that hasn’t been sheared for so long, it just looks like a werewolf. I look similar if I skip my annual hair trimming.

PIERCING (January 20, 2018)
“Reed is going on a business trip. He kisses his wife and infant son goodbye, but in lieu of a suitcase filled with clothes, he’s packed a toothbrush and a murder kit. Everything is meticulously planned: check into a hotel and kill an unsuspecting victim. Only then will he rid himself of his devious impulses and continue to be a good husband and father. But Reed gets more than he bargained for with Jackie, an alluring call girl who arrives at his room. First, they relax and get in the mood, but when there’s an unexpected disruption, the balance of control begins to sway back and forth between the two. Is he seeing things? Who’s playing whom? Before the night is over, a feverish nightmare will unfold, and Reed and Jackie will seal their bond in blood.”

A toothbrush and a murder kit. Nice to know serial killers maintain healthy dental hygiene. Wonder if he flosses as well? That’s equally as important before going out on a murder spree. (P.S. Regularly brush/floss your teeth, but DO NOT go out on murder sprees.)

LOST SOLACE (January 30, 2018/iTunes™)
“Lost Solace is a fast-paced psychological thriller that depicts the transformation of Spence Cutler, a young psychopath and con artist. He’s never felt empathy or guilt, however, a fateful encounter with a new drug is about to give him a dose of too much reality, and he takes a mind-bending trip down the psychedelic highway of consciousness to come face to face with his own morality and his own twisted soul.”

So the main character is a young psychopath and con artist. Nice to see those just starting out in the job market to have clear career goals. Reach for the moon, I say. But don’t do drugs — that stuff will ruin your life.

Vampires, Drugs, Human Dogs

Growing up reading comic books (before they were called “graphic novels” and charging adult money for ’em), the superheroes ALWAYS went to great lengths to keep their secret identity secret. Not so on the lightweight but still entertaining TV shows The Flash, Arrow and Supergirl — there are dozens of people who know who they are in non-hero mode and what they do when they take their crime fighting uniforms off.

Each of these superheroes better hope I don’t move to one of their cities and go all loose lip after sipping a casual 10 Budweisers™. Then again, I have need for someone with meta-human skills, so maybe we could work something out. You scratch my cape, I’ll scratch yours.

That said, here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not require 10 relaxing Budweisers™ to enjoy…

AARON’S BLOOD (June 2, 2017)
“Aaron copes with his new life as a single father and the distant relationship he shares with his only child Tate. A timid hemophiliac, Tate is roughed up at school by the chief bully causing a massive nosebleed that lands him in the hospital fighting for his life. He makes a miraculous recovery after a necessary blood transfusion, but Aaron begins to notice progressively strange behaviors in his son. Faced with the grim possibility that his son could be becoming a vampire, Aaron enlists the help of a local vampire hunter and embarks on a frantic search to find the source of the infection to stop the transformation before it’s too late.”

That’d suck up one side and down the other to get a nosebleed that pretty much drains your entire body of the good stuff. As for the tainted blood transfusion, becoming a vampire because of it should be the least of your worries; blood donors are well-known disease factories. I heartedly recommend drinking adult beverages to cleanse the blood supply. Like Clorox Wipes™ the alcohol content alone can kill off most pathogens, supernatural or otherwise.

THE BAD BATCH (June 23, 2017)
“Arlen is unceremoniously dumped in a Texas wasteland fenced off from civilized society. While trying to orient her unforgiving environment, she’s captured by a savage band of cannibals and quickly realizes she’ll have to fight her way through her new reality. As Arlen adjusts to life in ‘the bad batch’ she discovers that being good or bad mostly depends on who you’re standing next to.”

The Bad Batch has been described as “a savage dystopian cannibal fairy tale set in a Texas wasteland where society’s rejects are just trying to make ends meat.” That’s pretty dang gosh darn funny. I know — language. Sometimes I resort to gutter speak to get my point across. Apologies. Couple things — this is a semi-big budget movie with legit big names. Secondly, since when did cannibals become mainstream? What’s next — slashers working at the local butcher store? Sometimes I just don’t get this gosh danged (I know, swear jar) world we live in.

WOODSHOCK (2017)
“A woman falls deeper into paranoia after taking a deadly drug.”

So your red flags didn’t go up prior to the great idea of taking a deadly drug? You’ve got bigger problems than deep paranoia. P.S. Don’t do drugs.

BITCH (2017)
“Jill, a lonely, distraught housewife with four unruly children, paces on her dining room table with a belt around her neck, contemplating a desperate end to her wretchedness. Her husband, Bill, focused on his identity as breadwinner and an affair with a lusty co-worker, is as oblivious to Jill’s growing terror that she will do something destructive as he is to the panic at his unraveling company. Meanwhile, dogs bark and howl through the night, as one persistent mutt continually stalks the family’s yard. When Jill’s psyche finally breaks, she takes on a vicious new canine persona.”

A woman mood swings herself into becoming a dog? Hold your Lassie jokes — this could actually be fun/funny. Really hoping she doesn’t get the urge to sniff butts and…I should probably stop talking.

Demon Clowns, Amphibious Monsters, Hippie Bongs

Looking into Lotto™ strategies to become financially self-sustained so I can watch horror/sci-fi movies as my “day job” without ever having to put pants on to make a living. Any tips, lucky numbers or insider info would be much appreciated.

Here’s four upcoming new ones headed my/your way. Pants not required.

EVIL BONG: 666 (April 20, 2017)
“When a brutal blood sacrifice opens a portal to Hell, Eebee and The Gingerdead Man are returned to Earth. But his trip to Hell has driven Gingerdead even more insane, and unless someone can stop his murderous cookie-cuttin’ rampage he’s gonna ruin Eebee’s plans for world domination. In a last-minute fit of inspiration Eebee channels her inner Dr. Frankenstein and creates The Gingerweed Man! A tiny, cobbled together monster made from the greatest strains of weed on earth, this little killer is ready to get high with a little help from his friends!”

Not a fan of stoner horror because the only way to enjoy it is to be stoned. I prefer a nice carafe of Budweiser™ or a snifter of paint thinner hooch to augment my horror movie experiences. P.S. Don’t do drugs.

CLOWNTERGEIST (2017)
“Emma, a college student with a crippling fear of clowns, must come face to face with her worst fear when an evil spirit in the body of a clown is summoned, terrorizing the town she calls home. One by one Emma and her friends receive a balloon with the exact time and date of when it will appear to kill them written on it. After receiving her balloon, Emma realizes that she has two days left to live, and must fight against the clock to find a way to survive.”

Makes sense that a demon-possessed clown would use balloons to get his point across. Personally, I’d go with one of those cool, honking squeezy horns. That tends to get people’s attention, especially in restrooms. And they just sound so funny.

COLD SKIN (2017)
“On the edge of the Antarctic Circle a ship approaches a desolate island far from all shipping lanes. On board is a young man, on his way to assume the post of weather observer, to live in solitude at the end of the earth. But on shore he finds no trace of the man whom he has been sent to replace, just a deranged castaway who has witnessed a horror he refuses to name. The young man will soon realize that with each night comes an army of humanoid killer amphibians.”

This one sounds cool. But it does beg the question of why humanoid killer amphibians would seek out a meager food source at the ends of the Earth when we have so many all-you-can-eat beach buffets around here. Just ask any shark — surfers are basically crunchy seals.

DEMON HOLE (2017)
“A fracking crew drills on sacred Native American land unleashing an ancient demon. Six teens have to serve community service in the remote forest where the demon is lurking. They find themselves trapped in a realm of illusions with plenty of marijuana, an abandoned cabin, dark caves, endless woods, and temptation. There are only two ways out of these woods — succumb to the demon or die.”

Note to ancient demon: Please don’t let those fracking teens out of the woods. And if you need more, we’ll ship ‘em to you, no charge. Just like having an Amazon Prime™ account.

Skeptical About Ghosts

Bryan Beckett is an attorney whose aunt just died and left him a four-story Victorian house loaded with lots of eBay™-able furnishings. The house also comes with a ghost. Therein lies the problem — Beckett is pragmatic to a fault, refusing to believe in the Loch Ness monster, the Roswell Incident, or spooks and/or spirits. He doesn’t even go to church because he thinks all that God stuff is just plain silly. Ironic how he keeps yelling out “Jesus Christ!” whenever the ghost comes around.

Beckett moves into the house and hears audible whispers and door scratchings (probably a giant talking rat). He even sees reflections of a ghost woman in mirrors and crumpled up at the bottom of the stairs. These are goon out moments. He later learns the house was willed to a scientific institute that specializes in investigation of the paranormal.

Having his inheritance yanked from underneath his disbeliefs, Beckett goes to the institute and discovers his aunt was a customer after hearing voices and scratchings herself. But the lab director deals in science fact, not fiction, and easily dismisses the experiences in what Beckett now believes to be a haunted house. And hey, factor in all the medication he’s been taking for chronic insomnia (and delicious wine left in the cellar), and you have a plausible explanation for the spookings. If only drugs and booze were that simple.

As the paranormal events escalate, Beckett slowly discovers he’s been blocking something so horrifying, he’d pee his pants right now if it wouldn’t be embarrassing in front of the supernaturally pre-disposed chick from the institute. She moves in for a night to see if the place is actually haunted, or if Beckett’s dipstick isn’t quite touching the oil.  Strong dialogue propels the mystery even further, with the vomit-inducing truth coming to his mind’s surface.

An above average ghost story, The Skeptic (2009), even with its lackluster ending (it needed less Casper/1995, and more Poltergeist/1982), has great reaction shots and enough scare moments to make that which was prone to puckering even more so.

Healthy Horror

Drugs and horror movies are similar in that they’re both addictive. But drugs taken out of moderation can wreck your life and/or face, whereas horror movies are nutritious and watching them makes you a better — and healthier — person. That should be a goal for 2017 — to become a horror movie addicted, better and healthier YOU.

I should be a life coach. I don’t know about you, but here’s how I plan on staying healthy this year…

BEWARE THE SLENDER MAN (January 23, 2017/HBO)
“Slender Man is a fictitious, abnormally tall, faceless man with long arms who stalks and abducts children. In 2014, he inspired real-life horror as two 12-year-old girls in Wisconsin lured a friend into the woods and stabbed her 19 times in an effort to “appease” the fictional entity.”

2017 might very well be the year of Slender Man, with this and another movie slated for release before the spring. If he catches on you might see some cool cross marketing, like Slender Man Weight Loss programs, where you don’t just cut calories, you kill them. Heh.

THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS (January 26, 2017/DirecTV; February 24, 2017/VOD limited)
“The near future — humanity has been all but destroyed by a mutated fungal disease that eradicates free will and turns its victims into flesh-eating “hungries.” Only a small group of children seem immune to its effects.”

Pffft — the “mutated fungal disease that eradicates free will” has been around for years. It’s called “television.”

PERSONAL SHOPPER (March 10, 2017)
“Kristen Stewart stars as a high-fashion personal shopper to the stars who is also a spiritual medium. Grieving the recent death of her twin brother, she haunts his home, determined to make contact with him.”

I wish I had a personal shopper/spiritual medium. It’d be neat to have someone go to the Piggly Wiggly Superstore™ and buy me some new britches and then divine whether or not people will like them. Could save a lot of emotional grief if you ask me.

BEDEVILED (2017)
“Alice and her friends are teens like any other — social and tethered to their devices. When they download the latest Siri-like app offering quick solutions to life’s quotidian, the friends soon discover the app offers much more than directions and places to eat. So much more. The app probes the teens’ deepest fears, manifesting these fears in the real world in a diabolical quest to terrorize its unwitting users to death.”

Quotidian? Only a few days into the new year and that is easily the most pretentious word display in a horror movie press release for 2017. (Quotidian means “ordinary or everyday, especially when mundane,” which seems to apply to Bedeviled’s plot.)

Getting Low on High Zombies

I get that Gravestoned’s (2009) “stoner-centric horror” is intended to be funny. But unless you’re baked, not only is the low-budget “movie” NOT humorous, it’s just plain stoopid.

Two pot farmers cut off an arm of a cadaver to use a realistic prop in a low-budget horror movie. Life imitates art. The cadaver comes back to life and wants its arm back. (If the corpse was smart, it would’ve rented the arm to the filmmakers.)

The pot humor needed to be way more Cheech & Chong and a lot less “but my mom thinks I’m funny.” And the bubble-headed cheerleaders, all of whom were born in a shopping mall, don’t look as though they’re acting.

If I were the cadaver I wouldn’t find Gravestoned’s premise the least bit entertaining. If you want to become a zombie yourself, just watch this movie — it’ll make you brain dead in about 92 minutes.

Junkie Werewolf

In the first sequel to the awesome Ginger Snaps lycanthrope trilogy, Brigitte, the beleaguered younger teen sister of Ginger, has been infected with the blood of her werewolf sister. In order to keep from having to shave her legs every five minutes, she distills an injectable serum from wolfsbane to keep the wolf within at bay. Yep, a junkie werewolf.

Documenting her tracks she makes a cut somewhere on her lower person (slightly below the Fun Zone) to calculate how long it takes to heal — and determines if she’s wolfing up a lot faster than, say, yesterday. She is.

Thinking Brigitte’s a drug addict, the cops dump her off in a halfway hospital full of abuse and substance abuse chicks. The guidance counselor is a reformed addict so she thinks she has Brigitte figured out. She does not. Where most girls are content to get high off pot, pills, cocaine, goofers and glue sticks, Brigitte, the counselor believes, found a way to get high off wolfsbane.

A socially-misfit pre-teen girl named Ghost, whose grandma or mom or aunt is in the burn ward wrapped up like a mummy, wanders the halls, assisting and spying wherever she can. She reads werewolf comic books and suspects Brigitte to be one.

Finding a way to escape the hospital, Brigitte and Ghost go to the little girl’s house out in the woods. A temporary shelter at best because a werewolf is after them. It was after them in the hospital, too, but I forgot to mention it. They set traps for the beast, but during the course of the night Brigitte discovers she and the werewolf outside are not the only monsters running loose.

Things get really (OK, I’ll say it again) hairy when the guidance counselor tracks them down and has an ugly confrontation that does not end in sexy results. Brigitte, unable to control her transformation any longer, starts getting long in the tooth, if you catch my drift. There are lots of cool scenes worth mentioning, but the one that really resonates is a dozen girls self-diddling in a therapy class. I have GOT to enroll in that class next semester.

Ginger Snaps II: Unleashed (2004) never pees on a fire hydrant of predictability, nor will you be able to figure out Ghost’s jaw-dropping secret until the last scene. (No, she’s not a werewolf or a mini Bigfoot). Superb lesbian werewolf entertainment. What’s that — you haven’t heard of a lesbian werewolf movie before? We need to talk…

Space Cowboy

Io is the third moon of Saturn. I could’ve sworn it was the fourth. Io is the home of a mining colony whose employees are all drug addicts. As above, so below. Hooked on a super-amphetamine, it’s no problem to work overtime. And hey, if you feel like going for a space walk without your helmet, that’s your business. Clearly, the drug is harmful in that it makes you want to harm yourself.

Enter Sean Connery as a Federal District Marshall. But the leaders of the drug ring don’t want The Law messing with their profit margin, so they conspire to kill him using Union thugs. Yep, this is pretty much High Noon (1952) in space.

The first half of Outland (1981) is painfully slow, with Connery running around impressive industrial sets and arching his eyebrow. When the assassins come gunning for him, no one is wearing a cowboy helmet or space hat.

Even with drugs, the future is boring.