Lucky Harms, Drunk UFOs, Farming Evil

There are two takeaways from the 1993 left-field cult classic, Leprechaun. It was made for one million lucky charms and grossed $8.6 million luckier charms. Secondly, it was Jennifer Aniston’s (Friends) first appearance in a movie. It also spawned seven sequels, one of which put the gold-seeking runt in outer space (Leprechaun 4/1997). Now you can get all the behind-the-scenes gold of Leprechaun with the just released book, The Making of the Movie Leprechaun — I Need Me Gold! by filmmaker B. Harrison Smith. 

From the press release: “Published in hardcover and paperback by BearManor Media™, the 306-page book chronicles the making of the 1993 cult classic, doubling as a how-to guide for independent filmmakers. It has been endorsed by Leprechaun writer-director Mark Jones and features a foreword by actor Ken Olandt. Follow director-writer Mark Jones’ journey from his early days in TV animation through The A-Team, The Fall Guy, Hunter, and so many more. This is a story of how a unique group of people came together to make an indie film under grueling pressure in a day before streaming and DVD. Want to make movies? Read this book to the rainbow at the end.”

While we click this to buy the $38.00 book, here are a few out now/upcoming horror/sci-fi movies/documentaries that may or may not feature a greedy gnome and/or Jennifer Anniston…

ALIENS UNCOVERED: ORIGINS / Out now (VOD)

“Before Area 51, hidden deep in the desert, the military discovered a hidden gem that helped them cover up the UFO wave of 1947. Roswell was not the only event that took place. Arizona was home to three major UFO events that the public hardly knows about. These events helped create Project Bluebook.”

Been following UFO events since I learned how to spell “UFO.” (About the 4th grade.) I’ve often been asked if I’ve ever seen a UFO, to which I reply, “Depends on how much I’ve been drinking.” Stock answer, but I stand by it. 

THE HAUNTING OF HELL HOLE MINE / May 18, 2023 (VOD)

“Inside a long-abandoned gold mine, lurks the Shakani, a dark supernatural being conjured by the Shanowah tribe ages ago to defeat their enemies. Not only ferocious and fast, but can appear as anyone and get inside your mind. Luke’s ancestors trapped it in the mine but each has also gone crazy. Now Luke’s niece has come down with ‘the family curse.’ But Luke believes with the proper medical treatment she can be healed if only he can get the money to pay for it. So with a couple friends he tries his luck at the gold mine but gradually realizes he must defeat the Shakani and end the family curse.”

I looked up Shanowah to find out why they have a gold mine and won’t share it with anyone. Here is my search result: “A Shanowah is a girl who generally comes from the bush and loves horses. Most Shanowah have blonde hair and can’t spell very good.” Turns out I know a lot of Shanowah.

FIRST CONTACT / Release pending 2023 (VOD)

“Casey and Dan, two estranged adult siblings, travel to their late scientist father’s farmhouse to make sense of his incomplete work. They soon learn that their father’s work was far more dangerous than they could ever imagine — an evil entity, buried in time and space for millions of years, has been released and has begun wreaking havoc on the locals. One by one the bodies start to pile up. Now, Dan and Casey must figure out the secrets of this extra-dimensional monster before it’s too late.”

An evil entity millions of years old. That’s a lot of extra-dimensional birthday cake candles.

BEARS ON A SHIP / Release pending 2023 (VOD)

“After their flight gets canceled, a group of travelers take an offer on a ship voyage to their destination, unknowing that there are other passengers aboard — specifically, hungry murderous bears.”

The last time someone put bears on a boat, it didn’t end well. Just ask who in Noah’s family were left after the waters receded.

Drinkin’ & Drive-in, Indian-American Demon, Bathroom Horror

During my long forgotten youth, many of the horror movies I saw were at the drive-in, the inspiration for this blog’s clever title. This was because drive-ins were a lot cheaper than going to the movie theaters and you could smuggle in your own popcorn, which my parental figures did. (I smuggled in beer when I got old enough, which was around age seven.) But now you can relive the glory days of horror movies at the drive-in with A Cut Below: A Celebration of B Horror Movies, 1950s – 1980s, an upcoming book by horror movie fanatic, Scott Debrit.

Scott writes about retro horror/sci-fi in his column Drive-in Dust Offs on DailyDead.com, so he’s more than qualified to author a book based on his vast knowledge of the genre. As opposed to me, having written over 3,000 blogs about horror/sci-fi and managing to contribute absolutely nothing new. I should write a book about that.

A Cut Below: A Celebration of B Horror Movies, 1950s – 1980s is scheduled for release by McFarland Books™ on August 2, 2023. Pre-order it here. And while you do that instead of ready anymore of my shocking lack of insight (see below), here are a few upcoming horror movies that may or may not be better with smuggled beer… 

DARK NATURE / Release pending May 2023 (Select Theaters, VOD)

“Joy, a survivor of an abusive relationship, joins her friend Carmen and her therapy group on an isolated weekend retreat in the Canadian Rockies. Led by the enigmatic Dr. Dunnley, whose methods are experimental and, at times, dubious from Joy’s outside perspective, the experience eventually shatters the border between reality and delusion. Joy begins to suspect that they are being stalked by her abuser, when in truth, the entire group will be forced to confront a monstrous entity more terrifying than the ghosts of their pasts.”

Probably a bear.

FOLLOW HER / June 2, 2023 (VOD)

Struggling actress and live-streamer Jess Peters, known to her online followers as J-PEEPS, has finally found her hook: Secretly filming creepy interactions she encounters via online job listings, and using the kinks of others to fuel her streaming success. For her next episode, she’s been hired to write the ending of a screenplay in a remote, lavish cabin. Once there, Tom, the alluring self-proclaimed screenwriter, hands her a script in which the two of them are the main characters. This client isn’t what he seems, and even though the money’s great, the real payment here could cost her life.”

I do a lot of live streaming myself — in the bathroom. Turns out I’m not an influencer as everybody does the same thing. So much for parlaying that into a source of passive income.

IT LIVES INSIDE / Release pending 2023 (VOD)

“An Indian-American teenager struggling with her cultural identity has a falling out with her former best friend and, in the process, unwittingly releases a demonic entity that grows stronger by feeding on her loneliness.”

Call it what it is — a demonic entity that grows stronger by feeding on loneliness = social media.

THE CAREGIVER / Release pending 2023 (VOD)
“Running away from her abusive stepfather, Emma decided to go to the city. She takes a job as a caregiver to Mrs. Belov, a senile old woman. Strange things start happening in the house and she begins to hear unusual sounds from the basement. What Emma doesn’t know is that the house hides a terrifying secret. Emma will do the impossible to get out of that house of hell.”

It wasn’t the basement Emma was hearing unusual sounds, it was the bathroom. And the sounds weren’t all that unusual. Unless you were in the “water closets” designated as the Tug Tavern’s restrooms. The sounds emanating from there were not of this Earth.

Literary Godzilla, DJ Devil, Loud Earworm

Most people would rather watch Godzilla kick the Shittori Choco out of Japan (and other monsters) than read about it. But now, thanks to modern technology, you can do both — at the same time, if you’re a weirdo. University of Minnesota Press is publishing the novelization of Godzilla (1954) and Godzilla Raids Again (1955) as English-translated paperback and e-books for the YA (Young Adult) market. Good luck trying to get kids to read — they’re too busy making stupid TikTok™ dance videos and investing in get-rich-quick cryptocurrency, or “imaginary money.”

From the University of Minnesota Press’ press release: “Shigeru Kayama (1904 – 1975) was a science fiction writer and scenarist whose early stories about monsters and mutated sea creatures attracted the attention of Toho Studios™, who asked him to draft the first two Godzilla films. The film Half Human (1955) by Toho Studios™ was also based on one of his stories, and he contributed to the screenplay for the Toho™ film The Mysterians (1957).”

The books will be available October 3, 2023 on Amazon Prime™ and Amazon Kindle™ from $17.41 and $9.99 respectively. That’s reasonably priced cryptocurrency. Invest in it here.

So while we put down our TVs and pick up a book for the first time in years, here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not appeal to young adults…

LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL / Release pending 2023 (VOD)

“A live broadcast of a late-night talk show in 1977 goes horribly wrong, unleashing evil into the nation’s living rooms. Jack Delroy is the host of a late-night talk show Night Owls. His rating are plummeting, it’s sweeps week and he’s desperate for a boost so he plans a Halloween special with a magician, someone that claims to be possessed, and skeptics. This is not your traditional late-night variety show; It slowly builds until pure chaos and mayhem ensue.”

Unleashing evil, pure chaos and mayhem? I’ve been all up and down the dial and can’t find it. A shiny cookie to anyone who can tell me where to find this radio station. And hurry — these shiny cookies aren’t gonna make it to late night.

INCESSANT / Release pending 2023 (VOD)

“A troubled couple taking time away at a place in the country. Instead of peace, they encounter an audio-altering virus, a parasite that will slowly rip them apart.”

I’ve said it before — the audio-altering virus can be found on every Motörhead song in existence. Visibly shocked I have to keep repeating myself.

DON’T LOOK AWAY / Release pending 2023 (VOD)

‘It doesn’t move, it doesn’t think — it just kills. And for a young woman and her friends, a chance encounter with the supernatural entity proves deadly, because once you see it, don’t you dare look away or it comes for you…and keeps coming for you until you’re dead.”

The supernatural entity they’re referring to is your television.

POUNDCAKE / Release pending 2023 (VOD)

“A New York City serial killer is murdering straight white men in unspeakable ways. Podcasters are chiming in with their theories on who the killer is, what his motives are, and how to stop him. Is it all a hoax to garner sympathy for cisgender white men? Some people think so. Others find the murders cathartic, even funny. Are the victims finally getting what they deserve after inflicting centuries of oppression? Can the killer be stopped? New Yorkers must find a way to end the hate and embrace positivity instead. It might be the only way to kill the beast!”

The first time I heard the word “positivity” was in “Spice Up Your Life”, the irresistible 1997 Spice Girls hit song. And now, 26 years later, New Yorkers are asked to embrace positivity to stop a serial killer. I say to them — “Spice up your life and dance all over that serial killer, b*tches!”

Hell Juice, Drug-Addict Ghosts, Visually-Impaired Zombies

Need something to put your cocktail in that doesn’t make you look like members-only country club snob? Try the new Hellboy Geeki Tikis Mug, available at FYE in mid-March, 2019. And at a non-hellish $19.99, you can afford to class up your glass.

The mug is ceramic, 7.5” tall, and holds an impressive 25 ounces of hell juice. And because it’s important, the mug is dishwasher and microwaveable sage. Whew!

The new Hellboy remake opens on April 12, 2019. The new ad art looks cool. The Hellboy Geeki Tikis Mug looks cool. Drinking from the mug while at the movie would be cool. So while we wait for both to get here, fill your glass with these now available/upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not be dishwasher/country club safe…

DRY BLOOD (available now)
“In a rural mountain town, an unstable drug addict must unravel a surreal murder mystery as he’s terrorized by malevolent ghosts, a deranged sheriff, and the frightening hallucinations from his withdrawal.”

P.S. Don’t do drugs.

SPIRITS IN THE DARK (2019)
“A lonely widower finds a mysterious video on his computer that leads him to an abandoned town occupied by an ominous entity.”

If you’re a lonely widower, an abandoned town is not a good place to meet new and exciting entities. Might I suggest 7-Eleven™ right around 2AM.

DEADSIGHT (2019)
“A partially blind man and a pregnant policewoman who are thrown together in a fight for survival during a deadly virus outbreak.”

Deadly virus outbreak = zombies. Not partially blind or pregnant zombies, either. These zombies are 100% healthy with healthy appetites. Bon appétit.

ECHOES OF FEAR (2019)
“After inheriting her grandfather’s house, Alysa must confront the mystery of his sudden death and the evil that hides inside.”

Man, these types of horror movie press releases have become as cookie-cutter as the movies themselves. Wonder if the evil this time is salmonella-tainted jars of preserves in the fruit cellar? That also might explain grandpa’s sudden death. Kick out those jams, Mother Smucker.

The Greatest Thing

In the sci-fi classic The Thing (1982), a bunch of scientific guys and other bearded associates live in total man-land in a remote Antarctic sub-station. It’s here they conduct experiments on snow and what happens when warm yellow liquid is introduced to the frozen crystals.

A Norwegian science team nearby flies overhead in their helicopter and shoots at a fleeing dog. They miss, copter goes boom, snow melts. Investigating, our guys fly over to their ice pad and see the place has been trashed as if the aftermath of an Aqauvit™ hot tub party.

They take back video tapes, which may hold clues as to why they weren’t invited to the shindig. The footage — kinda like the Blair Snowbitch Project — reveals the Norwegians found a freakin’ huge UFO buried under the snow and partially excavated it. They also find a frozen body of some sort and haul it back to their science hut to study. But the darn thing is still alive — and it’s in that dog, too.

From this point on the invader assimilates itself into a “host,” becoming that person and starts spreading its disease. One science face figures it out and smashes all the radios and helicopters. The others don’t like him for doing that. But he had to — the rate of infection is exponential — and calculated the bad news should the entity make it back to the States.

When the alien does its body swap it has to cook for a while. The in-between stages look like zombie Jell-O™ recipes gone bad: slippery guts, goopy brains, rapidly wiggling tentacles from here to there…

The part where everyone is tied up by the ultra cool Snake Plisskin (uh, I mean, Kurt Russell — same dif) and their blood tested to see who’s what they are and aren’t, is one of horror/sci-fi’s all-time best sequences.

When a head extricates itself from its host body and sprouts spider legs and shoots tentacles out of its mouth, you’ll be melting a lot of snow. With no way to escape, the team is systematically f’d.

The intensity and special effects of this remake (Howard Hawk’s 1951, The Thing From Another World) raised the bar so high, it took years for other movies of this ilk to even start being cool again. And this was in 1982! So in conclusion, if you watch this movie and don’t 100 percent agree with me, you’re WRONG.

Galloping Ghosts, Another Apocalypse, Leggy Mermaids

Wanna play rare and classic horror/sci-fi-themed pinball? Then you’re gonna have to gallop to the Galloping Ghost Arcade in Brookfield, IL. Depending where you live if not in Brookfield, the cost of getting there will be a LOT of quarters.

The famed arcade now has said super rare pinball machines, ready to suck up your pocket change like a hobo Roomba™: Twilight Zone, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Addams Family, Godzilla (the sucky 1998 monster, not the non-sucky 1954 version), Tales From The Crypt, Creature From The Black Lagoon, Aliens, and the super-rare one-of-a-kind prototype of Predator, with red skulls on elongated skeletal spines mounted on each side of the machine. If you lose, your skull plus spine gets ripped out and hung on the trophy wall. (It’d be cool if that were true.)

$15 — $20 gets you unlimited play on all the machines all day. I would’ve paid at least $20.01. So while you inner weep with anguish that you’re not within tilting distance of the Galloping Ghost Arcade, here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi TV series and movies that may or may not give you unlimited viewing for $20, give or take a few quarters…

THE PASSAGE (January 14, 2019/Fox™)
“Based on author Justin Cronin’s trilogy of the same name, The Passage is a character-driven action drama that focuses on Project Noah, a secret medical facility where scientists experiment with a dangerous virus that could lead to the cure for all disease — but it also could potentially wipe out the human race. When a young girl is chosen to be a test subject, a federal agent is tasked with bringing her in, but he becomes her surrogate father, determined to protect her at any cost — even as Project Noah’s work threatens to unleash an unimaginable apocalypse.”

This one’s a TV series and sounds apocalyptical-y edgier than we’re used to getting from the Fox Network. The irony here being that most of Fox’s programming qualifies as apocalyptical-y craptacular, Gotham, The Exorcist and Lucifer notwithstanding. (Hell’s Kitchen? Is that stupid thing still on the air?)

10 (January 18, 2019/Netflix)
“Sam, a teenage girl, is one of the last people on a post-cataclysmic Earth. With the final shuttle scheduled to leave the planet, she must decide whether to journey to the launch point and join the rest of humanity, or remain on Earth, a castaway in the only home she has ever known.”

This looks to be based on an episode of Futurama (“A Farewell To Arms”/2012). Don’t screw with a guy who knows his cartoons.

THE GOLEM (February 5, 2019)
“During an outbreak of a deadly plague, a young woman, Hanna, must save her tight-knit Jewish community from invaders. Turning to Jewish mysticism, she conjures a dangerous entity to protect her and her people. However, the powerful creature she summons may be far more evil than anything she could have ever imagined.”

Wrote about the original Golem before — several times. It was done in 1915 and was a German silent film, blah, blah, blah. And yes, there have been remakes with the EXACT SAME PLOT.

THE ISLE (February, 2019/Limited theater release)
“Set in 1846 on a remote island off the west coast of Scotland, where three survivors from a mysterious sinking of their merchant ship find themselves stranded on a small misty isle. The isle’s four sole secretive residents, an old harbor man, a farmer, his niece and a young mad woman, are anything but welcoming and reluctant to aid the sailors back to the mainland. The promise of a boat never materializes leading one of the sailors to question why people had abandoned the island. Through his investigation he discovers that every year around the same date a tragedy at sea would occur and young men from the island would perish. When his two shipmates meet with fatal accidents, the myth of a ghostly siren haunting the island leads him to try and uncover the truth.”

Sounds like mermaids with legs. (Come to think of it, nice visual.) This also seems to echo the plot of the new movie, The Vanishing (2019). I haven’t seen that one yet, but I don’t think it has mermaids with legs. Too bad; I might’ve watched it twice by now. 

Downloadable Horror

Too bad this doesn’t happen in real life — anyone who logs on to horrorvision.com gets assimilated into the Internet and their souls digitized, thus rendering them unliving. Bye-bye trolls. This is what happens when the web becomes self-aware — and stinky hackers find themselves getting hacked.

The webmaster behind the evil-encoded web site is a mysterious entity calling himself “Manifesto.” (Personally, I would have chosen the name “Captain Download” or “Johnny Modem.”) A hacker’s Goth girlfriend is sucked into Microsoft™ oblivion, and he spends the rest of the movie remembering the Goth good times they used to have, and trying to find her by hollering at everyone. 

An ominous man with a cool coat speaks to him cryptically, and together they track down this Manifesto — a 10-foot garbage can with a dirty bath rug for a hat. Lots of swearing, implied sex, a long driving scene set to an even longer Goth ballad, and a confrontation in the desert with Garbage Can Head, uh, I mean the great and powerful Manifesto. HorrorVision (2001) is about as exciting as AOL™.

Joe Bob Returns, T-Rex Take-Out, Ouija Warning Labels

Better news that’s on the news: Joe Bob Briggs, the canned beer-swilling, B-movie/syndicated columnist/author/TV host, is coming back to TV for a 24-hour horror-thon in June of 2018. This will take place on Shudder™, so far the leading streaming horror movie channel. This is, like, Christmas and Halloween on the same day!

From the official press release: “JOE BOB’S COMING BACK TO TV! He’s gonna be hosting a 24 HOUR MOVIE MARATHON on Shudder™. That’s right, 24 hours of Joe Bob’s intros, outros, and OF COURSE the drive-in totals. It’ll start on a Friday in June, although we don’t know which Friday yet.”

You may remember Joe Bob’s top-rated MonsterVision show, which ran on the TNT Network from 1995 to 2000, and featured classic horror and schlock films from the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, along with tons of hilarious commentary, special guests, and the drop dead gorgeous Honey, the mail girl, now a successful attorney in Bloomington, IN. (Previously, the eccentric comedy team of Penn & Teller guest-hosted MonsterVision marathons that showed old B-movies from the ’50s and ’60s.)

While we use our combined will power/mental abilities and all stare at our TVs in unison to get it to change to June, here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi/fantasy movies to drink canned beer while watching… 

JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM (June 22, 2018)
“It’s been four years since theme park and luxury resort Jurassic World was destroyed by dinosaurs out of containment. Isla Nublar now sits abandoned by humans while the surviving dinosaurs fend for themselves in the jungles. When the island’s dormant volcano begins roaring to life, Owen and Claire mount a campaign to rescue the remaining dinosaurs from this extinction-level event. Owen is driven to find Blue, his lead raptor who’s still missing in the wild, and Claire has grown a respect for these creatures she now makes her mission. Arriving on the unstable island as lava begins raining down, their expedition uncovers a conspiracy that could return our entire planet to a perilous order not seen since prehistoric times.’

Disclaimer: I already tagged this on June 25, 2017. Since then the movie has come up with a new poster (look up) and has more a descriptive description of the plot, which can be deglazed into simply, modern day dinosaurs eat humans and wreck stuff. Also, the original key art had the movie arriving on June 6, 2018. But my studied research (occasionally clicking around the web) found a redacted poster with the June 22, 2018 release date. Matters not — modern day dinosaurs eating humans, man!

THE INNOCENTS (August 24, 2018/Netflix™)
“The series will explore what happens when teenagers Harry and June run away from their repressive family lives to be together. They’re quickly thrown into an extraordinary journey of self-discovery that derails their innocent dream: Secrets kept from them by their parents test their love to the breaking point, and the extraordinary gift they possess unleashes powerful forces intent on dividing them forever.”

Another Netflix™ TV series, which is not necessarily a bad thing — unless you don’t have Netflix™ — ha! This sounds like YET ANOTHER spin on the ‘ol “Romeo and Juliet” thing, but with some supernatural stuff and probably way too much plot-stalling smooching.

OUIJA HOUSE (2018)
“To help her down-on-her-luck mother, a graduate student brings her friends to a mysterious house where they plan to do research for a book project. But they inadvertently summon an evil entity with plans of its own.”

Anyone who f’s with anything Ouija has to know by now it’s like those warning signs on cigarette packages that say (in all caps): “CAUTION: CIGARETTE SMOKING MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH.” They should just change “cigarette smoking” to “summoning evil” and start putting that label on Ouija boards.

KNUCKLEBALL (2018)
“After his grandfather unexpectedly dies in the night, 12 year-old Henry finds himself cut off and alone on an isolated farm. When his nearest neighbor, Dixon, realizes that the boy has no one to protect him, Henry becomes a target for reasons he cannot understand. With his parents at least 24 hours from returning and a massive snowstorm brewing, Henry retreats into the house and prepares for a siege. What follows is a desperate battle for survival that will also unlock the terrifying connection between his family and the killer next door.”

Sounds like Home Alone (1990), but with more stabbing.

A Ghost You Can’t See

In the 2015 scare-deficient The Dead Room, three paranormal researchers go into a run down house in the woods that a family fled after being spooked out of their lease by something invisible and angry. Think Casper the Unfriendly Ghost. An insurance company hired them to prove/disprove the place is haunted. It is. Claim settled.

The team is made up of Holly, a young Goth-y girl who is a psychic, Liam, the guy who knows how to run all the cameras/gear by plugging the right chords into the right holes, and the older man, Scott, is an outright skeptic. Once geared up, they wait for the ghost to make spooky stuff happen. It takes a while, but soon the unseeable entity starts throwing furniture around like it was being yanked by fishing line. Then anything sharp gets hucked right at soft and splittable heads.

After much door slamming, windows breaking, books unshelving themselves and indoor wind, the crew abandons their paid gig and packs their cameras to leave. It’s here they see smoke-like smoke coming from behind a wall. Doesn’t smell like burning, so clearly there’s a ghost in the walls. Time for some sledgehammer action.

After breaking through the sheetrock, they discover a room with a ladder leading down into a hole. Well heck, who wouldn’t want to go down there? I’m surprised there wasn’t a pushing contest to see who got to go first. Once in the “basement”, they find a mummified corpse of an old woman chained to a chair. She looks like she hasn’t washed her hair for decades. Ick.

And it’s here the team figures out the secret behind the hauntings. Unfortunately, their revelation came a few beats too late and the ghost you never get to see evicts all of them — permanently. If this sounds familiar, it’s because they took giant ice cream scoops of The Legend of Hell House (1973) and slapped a dumb title on it.

Expensive UFOs, Ghost Selfies, Fear of Fear

Found some really cool Close Encounters of the Third Kind art (by artist Daniel Keane) on the Internet. (The term “world wide web” is so Netscape 3). This got me thinking about that recently released Navy jet fighter footage of a UFO pretty much outmaneuvering them as if playing paranormal dodgeball.

Made public (finally) by the Pentagon last December, the footage was shot back in 2004 and was so convincing the Pentagon emptied the collection plate for $22 million to study the “40-foot-long Tic Tac” and its relatives. And yet we can’t come up with a few hundred bucks to fix that @#$%! pothole on the street in front of my house? I already did the research — it’s definitely a hole. It’s so big, you could put other holes in it.

Here’s how the government rationalized the fund folly — retired Cmdr. David Fravor told CNN’s The Situation Room the money spent on the program was a drop in the bucket relative to the military’s over half-a-trillion-dollar annual budget. Pffft — I would’ve done the legwork for 82% of that amount.

On that promissory note, here are a few just released and upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that the military may or may not spend a million billion dollars to study…

IRRATIONAL FEAR (available now)
“Six therapy patients are brought together at a secluded cabin to confront their strangest fears. But these fears won’t just hurt them…they will kill them.”

My strangest fears include never getting to ride in that Death Proof (2007) Chevy Nova™, invisible dog poop on visible sidewalks, and getting bitten by a radioactive spider and webbing my pants in front of the Green Goblin. That would be embarrassing on so many levels.

MALICIOUS (Summer, 2018)
“When a young college professor Adam and his pregnant wife Lisa suffer a traumatic event, they find themselves along with Lisa’s sister Becky haunted — and connected — to a malicious entity. It is only when Adam calls upon Dr. Clark, a professor of parapsychology at the university, that the true horror of what they have encountered becomes clear.”

Lots of movie gals getting knocked up by evil these days: Restraint (2018), The Lullaby (2018), Still/Born (2018), Prevenge (2016), Shelley (2016), Devil’s Due (2014), Delivery (2013), The Clinic (2010), Grace (2009), etc. And let us not forget Rosemary’s Baby (1968), the gold standard for crib horror. (Honorary mention: It’s Alive/1974.) Why, there’s enough pregnancy-gone-wrong movies to fill up 40 weeks. Heh. For a really lurid take on this genre, try Inseminoid (1981). If the title doesn’t fill your diapers, the plot will: “A space-team member goes berserk after being impregnated by something on another planet.” It appears somethings on other planets don’t practice safe sex. I bet they don’t even pay child support, either, those losers.

AURA (November 8, 2018/UK— 2018/2019/US)
“Said to revolve around the concept of photographing your own aura, known as Kirlian photography.”

So you take a selfie of yourself sucking in your cheeks in like an anorexic/narcissistic supermodel and a ghost demon shows up in the photo? Just as it’s not making that two-fingered “peace sign” dealie behind my head, I’m okay with the photo-op. Ready for my close-up.

200 HOURS (2018)
“It’s 1986 and a group of graduate students are close to discovering a cure for sleep using an experimental new drug, but something goes terribly wrong with a test subject. After their department is shut down, the team moves forward in secret — only this time on themselves.”

Sounds like a rip-off of A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) and Flatliners (1990/2017). More rip-offery: The movie’s logo rips freely from Stranger Things (2016). And the bra that gal is sporting? I’m wearing the same one!