Alien Finger, Devil Theater, Robot Santa

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, a sugary, family “sci-fi” movie, came out in 1982. The starring the Earth-bound “alien,” designed to sell one million billion toys, looked like a carnival plush toy resembling a turd with big sad eyes. And E.T.’s extra-long probing finger, with a glowing light instead of a fingernail, uncomfortably reminds me of my proctologist, Dr. “Big Finger” Linderman. To quote E.T., “Ouuuuch!”

Now, 40 years later, you can own the actual animatronic metal skeleton they made E.T. with, is up for grabs. Here are the details from Julien’s Auctions and TCM Present: Icons and Idols: Hollywood auction: “Headlining this epic event is the E.T. the Extra Terrestrial Hero ‘#1’ mechatronic filming model ‘actor’ that brought the eponymous character to life in Steven Spielberg’s 1982 classic E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (estimate: $2,000,000 – $3,000,000). Pre-dating modern CGI technology and effects, this one-of-a-kind cinematographic relic (constructed in 1981) features 85 points of movement and is regarded as an engineering masterpiece.”

While you decide to bid on this item or engineering your own toilet masterpiece, here are a few upcoming horror movies that may or may not give you turd-like sad eyes…

NANNY / November 23, 2022 (Theaters) / December 16, 2022 (Amazon Prime Video™)

“A Senegalese immigrant nanny is working for a privileged couple in NYC. A violent presence invades her reality, threatening the American Dream she is painstakingly piecing together.”

If she’s a nanny, only one thing could be a violent presence — a fully loaded diaper.

DEBBIE AND THE DEVIL / December 9, 2022 (Theaters)

“Sally and Johnny escape a mass shooting and hide out in Mister Red’s (aka, Satan) movie theater where they are shown three horror films, each one involving the Devil’s agents and their victims.”

And Satan even hands out snacks to enjoy during the movie — Red Hots™. Man, that’s comedy gold.

CHRISTMAS BLOODY CHRISTMAS / December 9, 2022 (Theaters, Shudder™)

“It’s Christmas Eve and Tori just wants to get drunk and party. But when a robotic Santa Clause at a nearby toy store goes haywire and begins a rampant killing spree through her small town, she’s forced into a battle for survival.”

Call the plagiarism police — they STOLE this plot from Futurama. Specifically, “Xmas Story,” which had a robot Santa shooting/exploding up the town and anyone in the way of said shooting/exploding. More specifically, Episode 4, Season 2, which aired on December 19, 1999. Television NEVER forgets.

JERUZALEM 2 / January 1, 2023 (Theaters)

“When doomsday happens on their wedding day, a couple in Jerusalem must bring their families together to put aside their cultural differences and battle demons tasked with ridding the Holy City of impure souls.”

I thought a doomsday and a wedding day were the same thing. Heh. That said, the movie poster’s tagline proclaims there are three Gates to Hell: one in the desert, one in the ocean and one in Jerusalem (or “Jeruzalem”). They’re totally forgetting/ignoring the Tug Tavern. So yeah, FOUR Gates to Hell. They need to redo the movie poster.

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. 

Holy Shirt – It’s Whalewolf!

Hate to resort to filthy gutter talk to vent my frustrations, but gosh ding dong dang it – every time I come up with a new horror/sci-fi movie monster, somebody else has beaten me to the punchline.

Such is the case with the upcoming Sharktopus vs. Whalewolf, airing on the SyFy Channel™ on July 19, 2015. I thought up Whalewolf – a cross between a whale and a werewolf – several years ago. Even then I was too late as the The Field Guide to Doomsday blog created their own Whalewolf as a creature of the Apocalypse back in 2011. Son of a beehive.

I shouldn’t get my panties in a pinch; Sharktopus (2010) was coined by Futurama in 1999, long before the ratings winner turned up in a feature “film.”

So here’s how Sharktopus vs. Whalewolf goes down: “When a mad scientist mixes the genes of a killer whale and a wolf, it creates the Whalewolf, and it’s up to Sharktopus to stop it.”

I recently came up with Snoa Constrictor and even designed a fake movie poster for it, only to find out Adventure Time got there first. Flippin’ flap. I better brew up some Chamomile tea so I don’t get further stressed out.