Giant Food, Old West Werewolves, That ’80s Critter

In the ensuing rush to cash in on all things Godzilla and his new movie (I seemed to have forgotten the title), now comes the 1961 release of Mothra on Blu-ray™ (July 9, 2019/Mill Creek Entertainment) for the first time in North America. I have the original DVD/VHS/Betamax versions drunk purchased from eBay™/Japan, so a Blu-ray version isn’t gonna have me grabbin’ for my coin purse any time soon.

If you haven’t seen Mothra, the world’s biggest butterfly, here’s the plottage: “Following reports of human life on Infant Island, the supposedly deserted site of atomic bomb tests, an international expedition to the heavily-radiated island discovers a native tribe and tiny twin female fairies called ‘Shobijin’ who guard a sacred egg. The overzealous expedition leader kidnaps the Shobijin to exhibit in a Tokyo stage show but soon they summon their protector, hatching the egg and releasing a giant caterpillar. When Mothra arrives in Japan and finally transforms into the ultimate beast, impervious to modern weapons, the nation and its people face their destruction.”

The first time you see the Mothra egg wash up on the beach, try and guess how many omelets it could make. (I figured it out — it’s one. But you’ll need a frying pan about the size of a football field in which to cook it. And you’re gonna need a LOT of salt and pepper. Silverware? Screw that — just cannonball right into the middle of that gooey sucker!) 

Before we sit down to a Godzilla-sized breakfast, here are a few upcoming horror movies that may or may not be as cool as a gigantic sacred egg…

HIGH MOON (May 14, 2019)
“Colt — a gunslinging werewolf slayer from the old west — mysteriously rises from the grave, only to find that the band of werewolves that brutally murdered his wife are still running rampant generations later. Aided by a beautiful widow, a skeptical town sheriff  and a corrupt Mayor, Colt must face off with the bloodthirsty creatures once again to save a sleepy southern town from destruction.”

Seems to me they should’ve gone with Wolf Cop to bring these furry fiends to justice. His opening move would be to throw Nair™ in their faces.

CRITTERS ATTACK! (July 23, 2019)
“20-year-old Drea reluctantly takes a job babysitting for a professor of a college she hopes to attend. Struggling to entertain the professor’s children Trissy and Jake, along with her own little brother Phillip, Drea takes them on a hike, unaware that mysterious alien critters have crash-landed and started devouring every living thing they encounter.”

The first Critters movie came out in 1986. And now a sequel that nobody asked for comes out 33 years later (and featuring Dee Wallace who was in the original). Just let it go, man.

A HAUNTING AT SILVER FALLS 2 (2019)
“Several years after a deadly struggle with her serial killer aunt, Jordan, now in college, works to escape her troubled history. But when her aunt’s revenge-seeking specter surfaces to join forces with a deranged convict, Jordan must return to the haunted town of Silver Falls for a final showdown with the ghosts of her past.”

The first one came out in 2013. Didn’t see it. Not sure why. So in this one a ghost teams up with a deranged convict; wonder which one dresses better?

THE CHAIR (2019)
“Richard Sullivan is an innocent man struggling to escape his fate on Death Row. Witnessing the brutal torture and murder of his fellow inmates, will he find a way to survive, or will the insane events of the prison finally consume him? Everything is not what it seems, and sanity is such an easy thing to lose.”

Prison sure sounds a lot more fun than it used to. They serve pretty good mac & cheese…or so I’ve heard. If some guy with a tattoo of a gun on his face wants some of yours, you should probably share.

Coffin Movies, Human Supper Club, Death Boat

Not sure what I think about this: “The Goteborg Film Festival in Sweden, beginning on January 27, 2019, will be offering up 33 “sarcophagus screenings” of Aniara, a Swedish-language apocalyptic sci-fi film.” Yeesh, what’s next — sneak previews in a gas chamber?

According to The Hollywood Reporter, eight volunteers at a time will be shut into specially made caskets outfitted with screens, speakers and air vents. Inside the coffin will be a “panic” button for anyone who gets too freaked out. 

I’d break my finger pushing that button. Points for creativity, though. As for Aniara (2018), here’s this about that: “A spaceship carrying settlers to Mars is knocked off course, causing the consumption-obsessed passengers to consider their place in the universe.” I can feel their pain — my life would be nothing if it weren’t for drunk bidding on eBay™.

Before you go hopping into any movie sarcophagus, here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies/TV series that may or may not have you reaching for the panic button. And remember, it’s not the coffin they take you off in, it’s the coffin that takes you often…

FOLKLORE (February 1, 2019/ HBO NOW, HBO GO, HBO On Demand)
“Folklore is HBO’s newest foray into the horror anthology genre. The series, which contains six hour-long episodes, will take place in six Asian countries including Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand. Each of the six episodes is based on that respective country’s folklore and mythology, which includes various supernatural beings and strange occult practices. Each episode will be helmed by a different director, with each episode filmed in the local language of that particular country.”

This one was already aired on HBO Asia on October 7, 2018. (I didn’t know Asia changed its name.) As cool as the anthology series sounds, doesn’t do me much good if each episode is filmed in its native language. Geez, I can barely speak whatever language I’m currently burping out now.

BENEATH THE LEAVES (February 8, 2019/limited theater/VOD)
“Among countless others, four small-town boys are kidnapped by James Whitley, a deranged, warm-eyed psychopath. His grotesque pursuit to reunite orphaned children with their deceased birth parents is gridlocked when the boys escape and he is arrested. Twenty years later, Whitley flees during a prison fire and decides to see his mission through. Detective Larson, one of Whitley’s prior victims — and now a cop — is removed from the case due to impartiality leaving his partner and lover, Detective Shotwell to solve the case. Fueled by rage and a chance of redemption, Detective Larson chases the steadfast psychopath on his own, only to fall back into the same trap he once escaped as a child.”

Fueled by rage. Kinda my mantra. Hope career criminal James Whitely doesn’t try to kidnap me — I’ve got a full tank.

THE CANNIBAL CLUB (March 1, 2019/limited theater/ March 5, 2019/VOD)
“Otavio and Gilda are a very wealthy couple of the Brazilian elite who have the habit of eating their employees. Otavio owns a private security company and is a notable member of The Cannibal Club. When Gilda accidentally discovers a secret from Borges, a powerful congressman and the club’s leader, her and her husband’s lives are in grave danger.”

Eating your employees — doesn’t sound too tasty, but it does cut down on having to hand out raises and buying groceries.

HARPOON (2019)
“With his perfect family and perfect upbringing, Richard appears to have it all. So when he thinks that his long-term girlfriend, Sasha and best-friend, Jonah, are having an affair, it sends him into a fit of rage that leaves Jonah a bloody mess. Once Jonah and Sasha convince Richard the allegations are false, Richard tries to buy back their trust by taking them out for a day-trip on his family’s yacht. Tension boils over once out to sea, and, to make matters worse, the yacht’s engine fails. Stranded without food and supplies, the trio must set aside their differences in order to survive.”

Can’t remember the title, but there was a Japanese horror movie with the same plot. It didn’t end well for them, either. I think they were all eaten by a giant octopus with nine arms. I could be slightly wrong about that.

Nutritious Horror, Fine Young Cannibals, Master of Puppets

Funko™ is known for its Pops™, which makes everything from Star Wars to Edward Scissorhands into annoyingly cute and collectible action figures. Now they’re turning horror icons into breakfast foodage. I’d rather eat Funko Pops™ than collect ‘em. My morning hunger cares not for reselling on eBay™.

This is what Funko Pop™ founder Mike Becker had to say about his company’s line of cereal: “One of the fun things is we are about to release our own line of cereal, with a mini-Pop inside. We got all the cool licenses like He-Man, Wonder Woman, Elvira Mistress of the Dark, Freddy Krueger and our own Freddy Funko. We start shipping to stores in June and we have the distribution set up and the product is pre-sold.”

Becker goes on to say that there are prizes in each $7.99 box of cereal and that when you add milk to the Freddy Krueger cereal, it looks blood red. “With the Beetlejuice cereal,” he adds, “when you add milk, it looks like slime.” I’ll assume the Elvira cereal makes its own milk. Ahem.

That said, I have GOT to have bloody and slimy milk for breakfast. Although, I’m wondering if anybody sees the irony in the fact that Freddy Krueger was a movie child molester/killer and is now being used to market enamel-eroding sugary cereal that would appeal to kids as well as adults?

While we ponder the moral ramifications of our breakfast choices, here are a few upcoming horror, sci-fi and fantasy movies to choke on…

THE HOUSE WITH A CLOCK IN ITS WALLS (September 21, 2018)
“10 year-old Lewis goes to live with his uncle in a creaky old house with a mysterious tick-tocking heart. But his new town’s sleepy facade jolts to life with a secret world of warlocks and witches when Lewis accidentally awakens the dead.”

I’d rather have warlocks and witches live in my walls than a noisy ticking clock. Those things can drive you bat-sh*t crazy with their non-stop drip-drip-drip and… Oops, sorry — I meant my leaky bathtub faucet. Clocks are okay. Hey, even the freshly woken dead need to know what time it is.

THE YOUNG CANNIBALS (2018)
“Seven friends summon a monster when they are tricked into eating burgers made of human flesh.”

Wait a second — I thought all hamburgers were made of human flesh. You mean to tell me I’ve been eating cow flesh all these years instead? I’m gonna throw up.

EL HABITANTE (2018)
When three sisters decide to break into a corrupt senator’s house to stuff their pockets. But prying it open isn’t as simple as they thought it would be. They have to drag the senator and his wife out of their bed and scare them into spilling the beans. But there are these strange noises coming from the cellar. When the girls go down to investigate, they discover not a squeaking boiler, but their victims’ paraplegic daughter. She’s tied up and looks to have been tortured. Their parents express no sign of guilt or remorse but only pure fear. They cry: ‘Whatever you do, don’t untie her!’.

Why does that sound like something my parents would say when I was growing up?

PUPPETMASTER: THE LITTLEST REICH (2018/2019)
“A recently divorced young man discovers a mint condition Blade doll in his deceased brother’s closet and plans to sell the toy at a convention in Oregon celebrating the 30th anniversary of the infamous Toulon Murders. All hell breaks loose at the Postville Lodge during the auction when a strange force animates all of the various puppets throughout the convention as they go on a bloody killing spree.”

This is one of those “are you serious?” movie franchises. Watching carved puppets go on bloody killing sprees lost its appeal right after Puppet Master II: His Unholy Creation (1990) — the first Puppet Master (1989) sequel — came out in 1990. And with the release of this 12th sequel (!), you only have yourselves to blame.

Finding UFOs, Imagined Ghosts, Whiskey Cake

Found this old UFO Detector ad and it got me thinking — my old one is on its last legs and I need a new UFO Detector with more buttons and shinier lights. That means it’ll work better.

So did my old UFO Detector — purchased on eBay™ for $800 actually work? Yes and no. Yes, in that it kept detecting things I was cooking (unidentified frying objects). No, in that I was unable to get a refund.

Speaking of getting your money back for bogus products, here are a few upcoming horror movies that may or may not detect anything but how much disposable income you have in your wallet and how few operating brain cells you have left in your head…

THE BASEMENT (October 7, 2017/ Shriekfest Film Festival)
“An L.A. serial killer known as The Gemini, tortures and ultimately murders his victims in the dungeon-like basement of his San Fernando Valley home. Gemini has already claimed seven victims, all of whom he has horrifyingly maimed and decapitated with a blowtorch, but Craig Owen, the famed musician who Gemini has chosen for his eighth victim, and Craig’s beautiful wife Kelly prove every bit the killers equal in the art of psychological warfare, giving rise to one of the more diabolical plot twists in recent memory.”

Maimed and decapitated with a blowtorch. Along with peanut butter and olive loaf sandwiches, several words you probably wish to never hear again. But apparently there are enough torture porn freaks out there (looking in your direction every one of you) to make this a mouth-curling viewing experience.

1922 (October 29, 2017/Netflix™)
“1922 is based on Stephen King’s 131-page story telling of a man’s confession of his wife’s murder. The tale is told from the perspective of Wilfred James, the story’s unreliable narrator who admits to killing his wife, Arlette, with his son in Nebraska. But after he buries her body, he finds himself terrorized by rats and, as his life begins to unravel, becomes convinced his wife is haunting him.”

Horror author icon Stephen King continues his hot streak with this offering of old time-y ghosts, real or imagined. The rats are real, though. They make up most of the population of Nebraska from what the Internet tells me. I want to believe.

HALLOWEEN PUSSY TRAP KILL! KILL! (October 27, 2017)
“On Halloween an all girl rock-n-roll band called Kill Pussy Kill ventures out to play their biggest show to date. However, before hitting the road they manage to unwittingly upset a man. Unfortunately, this man turns out to be an evil genius dead set on revenge and manages to lure the girls into his Hell House. When they wake up from being gassed, they find themselves trapped inside an inescapable room filled with a vicious variety of devices that can kill them as well as a variety of weapons that can be used on each other. The rules are simple: advance through all three rooms and you are allowed to go free. The catch is, in order to make it to the next room, someone must die! With a ticking clock, and the mastermind watching, the question becomes — are you willing to kill to stay alive?”

A nice homage to Russ Meyers’ Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965). That one has voluptuous, sadistic go-go dancers causing all sorts of misc. heckaroo. Halloween Pussy Trap Kill! Kill! sounds like a segment from any one of the Saw movies. I prefer go-go dancers with a penchant for low-cut fashion-ware and purse cutlery.

IMPOSSIBLE HORROR (2018)
“Every night a scream rings out in the same neighborhood. Two insomniac strangers, Lily the filmmaker and Hannah the game designer, head out together into the darkness to find the cause. Is it a psychotic killer claiming a new victim? A murderous ghost out for revenge? A flesh-eating monster? All of the above with extra chainsaws? Before they know it, Lily and Hannah have gone from being scream hunters to scream prey, and an evil force wants them dead.  If they can both survive the night, they may just find the answers they’re looking for, but the price will have to be paid in sanity and blood.”

Sounds like another typical night at TGI Fridays™. And yes, “evil force” is on their menu under desserts: Tennessee Whiskey Cake (Toffee cake, candied pecans, vanilla ice cream. Butterscotch Jack Daniel’s® Whiskey sauce.) The price is whatever the going rate for a soul is these days.

Empire Sharks, Hockey Masks, Murderous Moms

Saw this mash-up of a Care Bear and Pennywise from It on eBay™, Think the going price is around $300. Not sure I want that hideous thing sitting in a corner, visually tasting my flesh. Still, it might keep solicitors from bugging my doorbell.

While I try and drum up $300, here are a few upcoming horror and sci-fi movies that may or may not scare the cotton out of you…

EMPIRE OF THE SHARKS (August 5, 2017/SyFy)
“In the future, most of Earth is covered by water and the only land is controlled by a warlord and his army of sharks. Humans are kept as food for the sharks until two friends risk their lives to rise against their captor and his legion of sharks.”

Sounds like Waterworld (1995) but with the more eating of humans. So yeah, YET ANOTHER Rent-A-Center ™ shark horror movie. These types of shark flicks are usually just bad video games. If you want a real shark movie that’ll make you pollute the water, try The Reef (2010). Just thinking about it is making me need to hide in the safety of my bathroom — until someone comes up with Toilet Sharks.

TO HELL AND BACK: THE KANE HODDER STORY
(August, 2017/England Film Fest)
“To Hell and Back is a harrowing story of a stuntman overcoming a dehumanizing childhood filled with torment and bullying in Sparks, Nevada. After surviving a near-death burn accident, he worked his way up through Hollywood, leading to his ultimate rise as Jason Voorhees in the Friday the 13th series and making countless moviegoers forever terrified of hockey masks and summer camp. After decades of watching Kane Hodder on screen, get ready to meet the man behind the mask in To Hell and Back – n uniquely human story about one of cinema’s most vicious monsters.”

Kane Hodder, as many know, is the 6’4” monster behind such monsters as Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988), Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989), Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993), Jason X (2001), and as the deformed serial killer Victor Crowley in Hatchet (2006), Hatchet II (2010), and Hatchet III (2013). I say cast Hodder in the new Mary Poppins Returns 2018 remake — that’ll keep that persnickety b*tch from trying to teach the world manners.

AXEMAN 2: OVERKILL (October 17, 2017)
“When a band of crazed evangelicals, bank robbers and vigilantes descend upon Cutter’s Creek, there’s only one local legend that can separate them. And dismember them.”

Seems pretty cut ‘n dry to me — heh. Not really a fan of chop shop horror, but hey, crazed evangelicals and bank robbers need to taste the business end of the axe.

MOM AND DAD (2017/2018)
“A teenage girl and her little brother must survive a wild 24 hours during which a mass hysteria of unknown origins causes parents to turn violently on their own kids.”

It’s called parenting for a reason. This is what happens when you don’t clean your room. Speaking of, I’m gonna go do that right now as mom’s in town with a few days to kill.

Spooky Books, Female Werewolves, Scary Bathrooms

Spent the weekend in Portland, Oregon and stayed at my favorite hotel (The Benson) downtown. It’s 187 steps away from Mary’s Club, Portland’s oldest nakedteria. And it’s in the men’s bathroom I found real horror — it hasn’t been cleaned since the club went topless in 1955 (it was a piano bar in the ’30s). If/when you go there, where a wet-suit and scuba tanks. If that’s too stylish, you can get a hazmat suit on Amazon.com™ pretty cheap.

Speaking of cheap, here’s some new low-budget horror movies headed 187 steps in your direction.

RESIDUE (July 18, 2017/VOD)
“Private investigator Luke Harding reads a book of sinister origins owned by seedy crime lord Mr. Fairweather. Unbeknown to Luke, the book is a much sought-after supernatural artifact and Fairweather’s greatest rival, the enigmatic Mr. Lamon, pursues Luke with his henchmen. While the criminal underworld is desperate to retrieve the book and harness its power for their own dark agendas, it’s evil begins to take root in Luke’s apartment; putting himself, his daughter and his secret love in a fight for their lives…and their eternal souls.”

Why doesn’t Luke just sell the supernatural book on Craigslist™? (eBay™ sucks.) That way I could buy it and put my own dark agendas to work, which includes but is not limited to an endless bar tab, waffle dinners at least five nights a week and even louder heavy metal.

LYCAN (August 4, 2017/limited)
“When six college kids in a sleepy Southern town are assigned a group project to rediscover a moment in history, one of them sets in motion a horrific fate when he proposes they head into the Georgia backwoods to tackle the legend of Emily Burt, the Talbot County werewolf.”

A female werewolf. Not a new concept, going all the way back to 1913 with The Werewolf. The chick wolf in that one was Phyllis Gordon. Man, even her name sounds like it has hair on it.

DARKNESS RISING (2017)
“When Madison Shaw finds out that her childhood home is about to be torn down, she knows that she has to see it one last time. But this isn’t a nostalgic trip through childhood memories. When she was a little girl, her mother killed her baby sister, and Madison narrowly escaped with her life. Now she has one last chance to confront the demons that have haunted her ever since.”

Stock title, stock plot. I tend to ignore movies with the words “dark” or “darkness” in its title as that’s usually a sign of a paint-by-numbers thriller. But hey, I’ll have nothing better to do whilst my hair dries, so I’ll probably watch it.

THE BRIDE (January 19, 2017/Russia – 2017/2018 U.S.)
“Nastya is a young woman who travels with her soon-to-be husband to his family home. Upon their arrival, she can’t help but think that the visit may have been a horrible mistake. She is surrounded by strange people and starts witnessing strange, terrible visions as his family prepares her for a mysterious traditional Slavic wedding ceremony. More than the wedding preparations, can she survive the next few days?”

As long as she can make it through the honeymoon, then we’re all good here. Hope this Russian horror movie has sub-titles; I don’t care much for “reading” movies, but there’s usually some really funny phrases in translations. (“Get away from me demon — you are horrifying me…”)

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.

Space Clowns, Werewolves, Giant Ants

Too bad I can’t make photocopies of myself so I can watch all these new horror movies at the same time. I looked at some of those fancy pants 3D printers on eBay™, but I’m better off developing a split personality than shelling out mega fun coupons for those cool but financially out of reach machines.

KILLYJOY’S PSYCHO CIRCUS (out now)
“Killjoy, the demon clown and his gruesome crew — Batty Boop, Punchy and Freakshow — have finally made it to Earth. Killjoy has settled in and is starring in his own web series called Psycho Circus. But two years down the road, Killjoy discovers that life here on Earth is a drag, filled with inconveniences such as eating, breathing, taxes, immigration and mortal sex.”

The pop rock ensemble KISS released an album called Psycho Circus back in 1998. Killyjoy (also wearing clown makeup) felt it was okay to steal the name for his movie. It is not. Nevertheless, this is the fourth sequel in a budget-restrained franchise, which began with Killjoy (2000), Killjoy 2: Deliverance from Evil (2002), Killjoy 3 (2010) and Killjoy Goes To Hell (2012). P.S. Killjoy is guilty of more intellectual property theft: the movie rips off its name from Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday (1993). Also, they took their kicker line from the 1974 Emerson, Lake & Palmer album. I should be a lawyer.

DON’T F#CK IN THE WOODS (out now)
“A group of friends are going on a camping trip to celebrate graduating college. But once they enter the woods, the proverbial sh*t hits the fan!”

Of all the things you shouldn’t do in the woods, sex isn’t one of ‘em. Unless you don’t want deer ticks crawling up your outgoing mail chute. While DFITW is currently available for your voyeuristic viewing pleasure, it also comes in an “extremely limited” big box VHS format (for $40). That’s pretty dang cool. Just don’t watch it in the woods while you’re having sex. Keep your eyes on the prize.

AMERICAN BEAST (aka, Solitude, Beast of Prey / January 3, 2017)
“After his mother’s death, James Erikson discovers her old storage locker filled with journals and newspapers of his family’s history. As he researches it, he finds out about the evil that his family has tried to contain for several generations, beginning in 1939 on a mysterious piece of property in a small town called Solitude.”

Um, Superman might have issues with you calling your town Solitude when he’s been wiping “S” in the Fortress of Solitude since moving out of his step-parents’ house. Looks like someone’s a werewolf in American Beast, if you’re judging this movie by its cover. Too bad they went with the claw — it’s been used before. Several times in fact…

IT CAME FROM THE DESERT (2017)
It Came From The Desert is and independent sequel to legendary video game by Cinemaware™. The film is set to modern time, 60 years after the original game’s happenings.”

Giant ants in the desert. I liked it better when it was called Them! (1954)

German vs. Germ, Man

The flesh-eaters in The Flesh-Eaters (1964) are miniature marshmallow-sized sparkly organisms in the water that eat your flesh. You don’t need to know where they came from or why human flesh is the only thing that makes their tummies feel all nice ’n happy. All you really need to know is that the handsome pilot of a chartered sea plane and his two hot clients (an alcoholic movie starlet and her tight-sweatered assistant) were forced to land on a barren island whose waters are teeming with said hungry microbes.

Thinking they’ll have to wait out the storm by sleeping in the dirt, a German scientist scuba diver comes out of the surf and lets them sleep in his zelt (tent). Ach du lieber — this man’s a Nazi! Accent aside, he seems nice — AT FIRST. He even acts appropriately sympathetic when a picked-to-the-bone skeleton washes up on shore (Was not aware skeletons were bouyant.). “Must’ve been a shark,” he rationally deduces. There’s German logic for you.

With no coconuts to make a radio out of, the castaways have to wait a few days for a supply boat. But the German — like all zelt-dwelling Germans — has a secret agenda. He figured out a way to stun the microbes. By throwing a positive and negative charge into the water he can immobilize the twerps, then put ’em in jars and eBay™ ’em off to the highest bidding government as a war weapon.

But what the Nazi didn’t count on was that the electricity makes the organisms bond together and grow into an electric shellfish with one eye. Fortified with 10,000 volts, this “electro-crab,” the size of Godzilla’s dining room table, rises out of the ocean, ready to shock and awe. Mostly shock, though.

Can the pilot save the day with his good looks? Will the Nazi get a taste of his own burning flesh? Will the hot assistant find another reason to take off her shirt? Man, they really knew how to make drama-filled sci-fi back in 1964.

Showdown With A Vampire

What do you get when you cross a vampire with a western set in the 1880s? Butchered Cassidy and the Sun-blanched Kid? The Good, The Bad, And The Toothy? The Man Who Impaled Liberty Valance? Kinda. What you really get is Curse of the Undead (1959), an unusual but cowboy dialogue-rich western with a vampire as the man in black bloodslinger. (Heh.)

As odd as this one is, it’s oddly mesmerizing, not because the vampire is a hired gun and can walk in the sunlight (though it hurts his eyeballs); It’s the amazing dialogue that bites good and hard. But I’ll get to that.

A disease is killing of young girls in a paint-by-numbers old west town. This is further escalated when Doc Carter, thinking he’s got a boot in front of the virus, loses yet another patient. To complicate matters, Buffer, a neighboring bully rancher, has been cattle blocking the Carter farm, denying them water for their milk makers. The no-pushover sheriff intervenes in a bar where Buffer and his boot buddies are gettin’ their whiskey on. What follows is a pure cowboy word beatin’…

“You blow real hard when you got those laughing hyenas around you…” “I got two choices – either arrest ya or shoot ya. Either one would suit me fine. So draw your gun or shut your mouth…” “You want Doc Carter’s spread like your mouth has been doin’…” 

There’s even better stuff when Doc Carter gets vamped, his teen kid, thinking that Buff did it and got all fired up like a cow brand, fixes to shoot Buff Stuff dead in the mouth. But not before six or seven shots of whiskey…

“Nothin’ you can do bothers me ’cause I know you’re talkin’ out of a bottle…” “This gun don’t care who it shoots…” “Why don’t you two stop this manure spreadin’?

Man, that last one’s my new catch-phrase. And it works for any occasion!

So where’s the vampire while all this manure spreadin’ is going on? Watching from the sidelines. Introducing himself as Drake Robey, he answers the $100 reward poster offered by the last surviving Carter sibling after big mouth Timmy is shot by Buffer, right smack in the saloon. (Legal note: Buffer was not indicted; Tim Tim drew first, but Buffer drew firster.)

There’s a diary narrated back story about how Drake came to be a vampire, something about killing his brother in the back for making lips with his wife, then killing himself with possibly the same knife. Cursed, he now roams the land as dressed in black mercenary.

Delores Carter, left to carry on the family name, hires Drake to put Buffer out of everyone’s misery. But the local preacher, with a holy cross button “made from the thorns of the crucifixion” (he got it on eBay™) discovers Drakes secret and challenges him to a showdown in the streets. Let’s just say the preacher got Drake to “button” his lips.

Great fun for classic western action, but a dud with the vampire stuff, which was depicted as three people with the two bite holes in their necks and Drake, without so much as a crooked tooth, acting less a cursed member of the undead and more like a paranormal pistol packer.

For another odd vampire western, try Billy The Kid vs. Dracula (1966). The plot is pure spread manure.