Glow-In-The-Dark Horror, Werewolf Hockey, Witch Religion is Best

If you wanna tap into your inner kid or just goof off on company time, then the Horror Glow-In-The-Dark Coloring book (Thunder Bay Press™) is just the ticket. Illustrated by Juan Calle and Santiago Calle, for $12.03 (Internet price) you get reams of delightful horror scenes to help pass the time until you can clock out for the day. 

From Wal-Mart’s™ website: “These creepy scenes will haunt the room, casting an eerie glow on all who behold their horrors. With 90 bone-chilling illustrations to color — including 24 that glow in the dark — Horror Glow in the Dark Coloring lets you unleash your creativity unlike never before. Graveyard scenes, nightmares, and grotesque mandalas are only a few of the dark themes to be found in this book. Each page is perforated, so you can remove your finished artworks and hang them on your wall.” (buy it here)

While I order one with the full intention to color outside the lines (I live by my own rules, man), here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not be more scary than a coloring book…

BE MINE / February 10, 2023 (Meta Horizon Worlds/Meta Quest TV)

“The VR experience follows Becca, a college senior who’s going to throw the best Valentine’s Day party ever. There’s just one caveat: everyone invited is secretly there to help Becca catch her Valentine’s Day stalker — an anonymous maniac in a Cupid mask who kills any man that gets close to her with a bow and arrow. But this Valentine’s Day will be slightly different as everyone is ready to turn the tables on the killer that walks among them. With the help of the police, her sorority sisters and the fraternity next door, Becca and the party fight back to stop the carnage and uncover the mysterious secret behind a bloody Valentine’s Day massacre.”

A Cupid mask? Weak. Aspiring maniacs should really do more homework.

MY ANIMAL / Release pending 2023 (VOD)

“Heather, an outcast teenage goalie, longs to play on the hockey team of her small northern town. She meets and falls in love with newcomer Jonny, an alluring but tormented figure skater. The girls’ relationship blossoms despite Heather’s struggles with her alcoholic mother, her hidden sexual orientation, and a familial curse that transforms her into a feral wolf under the full moon. Heather and Jonny’s secret tryst soon clashes against the conformity of their small community, exposing dangerous truths and igniting a passionate, violent night of personal transformation.”

A werewolf playing hockey. And we had a werewolf playing basketball in Teen Wolf (1985). Clearly, lycanthropes dig sports. Bet they’d be really good at dog-sledding.

WAIT FOR IT / Release pending 2023 (VOD)

“Seen from the perspective of survivor girl, Darcy is living in the aftermath of her own encounter with a psycho-slasher killer. She travels home after a night out with friends, always remaining wary of the inevitable return of her tormentor.”

Great — they spoiled the movie by telling us Darcy survives. Hey douche-bags — what am I getting for Christmas?

SORCERY / Release pending 2023 (VOD)

“Chiloé Island, 1880. After her father is murdered by a German colonist, Rosa, a 13-year-old Huilliche girl, renounces her Christian upbringing and seeks shelter with Mateo, the leader of an Indigenous organization that practices witchcraft. Under Mateo’s gruff yet tender tutelage, she learns the art of sorcery and vows to settle the score. Rosa’s vengeance leads to a brutal crackdown by the island’s Chilean Christian authorities and puts her on the path to discovering her dormant powers.”

Renouncing your pray-per-view religion is like cable-canceling your soul. There are better — and cheaper — alternatives out there, many with way more features.

Zombie Snacks, Killer Trees, Blood Boat

Clicked across HarcosLabs.com, a site that sells blood bags containing Blood Energy Potion and Zombie Blood, both for $5.99 each (a discount if you buy in volume). And while you’re sucking down these must-have beverages, you can chew on their Zombie Jerky and Dried Zombie Skin ($4.99 and $3.69 respectively). If you’re mouth isn’t watering by now, you must be dead.

Here’s the product plot info: “We have provided the world’s first drinkable synthetic blood substitute available for human consumption.  This fantastic fruit punch-flavored beverage packs 4 hours of energy 80mg of caffeine together with iron and electrolytes. Not only does Blood Energy Potion have a similar nutritional make-up to real blood, it has the same color, look, and consistency.” Sadly, they go one to say these drinks do not contain any real blood. That’d just jack up the price.

Time to raid the swear jar AGAIN and order me two of everything. Before you follow suit, here are a few available now/upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not be as tasty as Dried Zombie Skin…

DON’T COME BACK FROM THE MOON (available now)
“In a dusty town at the edge of the world, the men of a small community begin to vanish one by one. Theories about their whereabouts swirl through the ether as their wives and teenage children wait for their return.”

Anyone think to check the local dive bar?

THE ORCHARD (2019)
“A sheriff gets called to an orchard where three teenage sisters have been attacked by a band of young delinquents. Arriving on the scene, the lawman soon realizes a malevolent force lurks within the grounds that will drag everyone into a fight for their lives.”

This sounds suspiciously like The X-Files episode “Schizogeny” (9th episode, 5th season/1998), wherein Mulder and Scully investigate a rural orchard that has killer trees. It was better than it sounds.

BLOOD VESSEL (2019)
“Somewhere in the North Atlantic, late 1945. A life raft adrift at sea, and in it, the survivors of a torpedoed hospital ship: With no food, water, or shelter, all seems lost — until an abandoned German minesweeper drifts ominously towards them, giving them one last chance at survival.”

This one came out in 2018 in Australia, wherever that is. Now we get Australia’s leftovers. Funny title, though. Surprised Dracula didn’t name his fishing boat that.

Icy Horror, Nazi Snowballs, Dumb Artificial Intelligence

All this apocalyptic Seattle snow (the worst in 70 years, according to the panicking news) got me in the mood to watch a few guilty pleasure snow horror movies, the irony being that we’re buried in huge, steaming piles of snow with more predicted to seal us in igloo coffins.

I have The Day After Tomorrow (2004), 30 Days of Night (2007), Dead Snow (2009), The Last Winter (2006), Frozen (2010/the teen horror movie, not the same-titled Disney horror movie), and Unnatural (2015) queued up. All that’s left to do now is crack an ice cold beer and chill. Heh.

While we’re waiting to thaw out — probably by the end of March — here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not bite like frost…

THE HOUSE (March 5, 2019)
“Set in the frozen wilderness of Norway during WWII, two German soldiers escort a Norwegian soldier and prisoner of war, but the weather is taking a toll on them. They find an empty house near the forest where they finally can get some rest. However, what seems to be a warm and welcoming shelter turns much more sinister and deadly. They begin to wonder if they have somehow have stepped into a sort of psychological hell from which there may be no escape.”

Finally — Nazis on the other end of the pain stick. I bet they start a snowball fight to end all snowball fights.

DEMON EYE (2019)
“A young girl returns to her father’s country house in the Moors following his mysterious death. There, she finds a cursed amulet that will grant her greatest wish, but at a price.”

The cursed amulet that grants me my greatest wish is a beer bottle.

AMI (2019)
“Cassie has become a recluse ever since her mother died in a car accident. In an effort to fill the void, she downloads AMI, the latest intelligent personal assistant. As their relationship quickly deepens into a twisted co-dependency, Cassie falls deeper and deeper under AMI’s spell; not realizing that everyone she knows is in serious danger.”

I wish I had artificial intelligence.

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. 

Barnyard Nazi Demon

Evan thought his older brother was dead, something his aging dad seems to hold against him. What a dick. If dad knew that Victor, who disappeared while on a hunting trip in backwoods West Virginia, was still alive, he might not be so hard on the 20-something boy, who carries his brother’s “death” around like a bag of guilt cannonballs.

When Victor unexpectedly turns up a few years later with bloody scars all over his body, well hey — time to celebrate. Except don’t hug him, as the wounds are still kinda fresh.

Victor had been kidnapped by the Wollners, a German family that’s about 75 years old — even the little girl. The Wollners needed Victor’s blood to keep an occult Nazi, now more demon than misguided military man, barely alive and confined in the barn next to a Nazi horse. The Nazi was looking for a runestone that was in the family’s basement and… It factors in, so roll with it.

Victor needs Evan’s help to go back to the farm with hunting rifles for some U.S. styled revenge. And here’s where the aptly-named Blood Creek plows some gloriously gory fields. It’s not enough to shoot the family in the face, No, Victor has a score to settle with the demon in the barn, who, unfortunately gets loose before he can shoot the man-creature in the face.

The Nazi zombie’s horse is also evil and, in one of many classic scenes, gallops into the kitchen and goes all bull in a China shop. Slick carnage, stylized flashbacks, and more split skin than a discount sausage factory. You’ll keep texting yourself “WTF?” as this raw horror unfolds. But don’t text me, as I don’t do texting. I did like Blood Creek (2009), however.

Cloverfield in Space, The Search for Bigfoot, Mutant Fish ‘n Chips

The big horror/sci-fi news came on the cleated heels of Superbowl LII — The Cloverfield Paradox (2018), a highly anticipated installment in the Cloverfield franchise — showed up on Netflix™ the second the world’s most overpaid football game ended. This caused my blood pressure to go off the charts as the movie was first titled God Particle. Then it had a movie theater release date, but scrapped that a the last minute and put it up on Netflix™. I did what anyone would do in this situation — drink a refreshing adult beverage to regain self control, and then watched it.

Here’s the premise…

“An American space station that, after an accident with a particle accelerator, suddenly finds that Earth has vanished altogether. Things get stranger when they then pick up traces of another space station nearby.”

Rather bland considering it was meant to tie up loose ends left loose by Cloverfield (2008) and 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016). But critics were not impressed and had this to say about the admittedly confusing movie: “A trainwreck of a sci-fi flick bent on extending a franchise that should have died a peaceful death almost exactly one decade ago…” — Hollywood Reporter; “While there are a handful of nifty sequences and good performances overall, this feels like a blown-out pilot for one of those SyFy™ series you always mean to get around to but never do…” — Thrillist; and more succinctly, “The Cloverfield Paradox is an unholy mess…” — The Guardian. Ouch.

Whether or not you watch it and decide to go all mob mentality on The Cloverfield Paradox, here are a few more just released and upcoming horror and sci-fi documentaries/movies that may or may not turn out to be an unholy mess…

EXPEDITION SASQUATCH (available now)
“A new documentary about the Sasquatch of Nordegg, Alberta. This area has become increasingly popular among Bigfoot researchers and enthusiasts due to the baffling tree structures that can be found in the area.”

Checked on Expedia.com and I can fly from Seattle, to Nordegg, Alberta — round-trip — for $296 smackos. Once in Nordegg (that name sounds so mad up), I’ll be able to Air BnB it with my ‘ol pal, Bigfoot. It’d be cool if he had some Unibroue La Fin Du Monde on ice waitin’ for me. That stuff is 9% alcohol and a few bottles of that will have you seeing mythical monsters all over the place.

ASYLUM OF FEAR (available now)
“When a team of paranormal investigators is hired to inspect a soon-to-be demolished mental institution, they discover horrifying clues that reveal the cause of a violent massacre by an insane doctor in the 1960s.”

Don’t they know mental institutions are supposed to be abandoned and subsequently haunted and not knocked down to make room for YET ANOTHER Starbucks™? Still, the generic Asylum of Fear makes sense that the place was f’d up by an insane doctor. At least he was in the right place. You don’t bring a knife to a gunfight.

THE BARGE PEOPLE (2018)
“Set on the canals amid the glorious British countryside, two sisters and their boyfriends head off for a relaxing weekend away on a barge, unaware of the flesh-eating fish mutants lurking in the water, ready and waiting to feed.”

Flesh-eating fish mutants lining up to dine on barge food? Do fries go with that? Regardless, I’d like to reserve a table, close to the docks, if possible.

NOVEMBER (2018)
“The story is set in a pagan Estonian village where werewolves, the plague, and spirits roam. The villagers’ main problem is how to survive the cold, dark winter. And, to that aim, nothing is taboo. People steal from each other, from their German manor lords, and from spirits, the devil, and Christ. To guard their souls, they’ll give them away to thieving creatures made of wood and metal called Kratts, who help their masters by stealing more.”

The trailer for this is very art house-y. But gotta say, the wood and metal Kratt creatures are pretty cool and candidates for McDonald’s Happy Meal™ toys. (Last Happy Meal™ I got had a toy napkin in the box. Sure, those things are fun to play with, but I wanted a Cloverfield action figure, dang it.

The Goblin and the Girl

17-about-to-turn-18 Tina has more to worry about than being therapy and pill treated for psychosis, parental alienation, imagining being smooshed by a speeding car, and an imaginary, small lumpy creature with sightless eyes that makes sounds like a bird with a reverse beak. Through all this she goes to parties to where they play nothing but EDM (Electronic Dance Music). I’m surprised they haven’t thrown her into the loony bin by now as that “music” will rot your brain, the irony being you don’t need a brain to be into EDM.

Tina’s condition gets worse, her friends thinks she’s a loon, the misshapen creature is raiding the fridge (he better leave the beer ALONE) and her parents are about to commit her to an insane asylum. All the while she walks around in short shorts so short almost the entire movie, I’ve seen people wear bigger smiles.

Tina’s into a handicapped DJ (an oxymoron) with fuscia hair who plans on deejaying her 18th birthday party. Earlier, she had a meltdown when, FINALLY, her parents “see” the creature in her bedroom (she earlier befriended the little lump) and beat the leftovers out of it with a curtain rod. The cops show up and Lumpy is taken to a hospital and put on a respirator. Whatever happens to Lumpy, happens to Tina. Good thing that doesn’t work in reverse as I don’t think I could stomach a gray goblin in hot pants.

Tina skanks it up good for her party, sneaks out of the house in tight spandex, weird facial makeup, ratted hair, stiletto heels, and somehow tracks down Lumpy at the hospital and kidnaps him, all under the watchful eyes of the hospital staff. (They did yell “Hey!” at her; so they fulfilled their script obligation.)

Arriving at the party with Lumpy, her friends all now see Tina wasn’t lying about seeing things. She rightfully smirks. Then her mom and dad show up and it’s the curtain rod treatment again. Somehow Tina escapes with the Lumpster and they drive off in her dad’s car. At this point two things happen (besides a few flashbacks): one is that Tina is in the back seat. Guess where Lumpy is?

The Nightmare (aka, Der Nachtmahr/2015) is a German movie with subtitles, and yet, during a school class with a teacher of all things, everybody starts talking in better English than I’ve ever managed. The movie was/is planned as a trilogy, so don’t try to figure it all out — just like EDM.

The Scare of Scarecrows, Peaks of Twin, The Fiction of Science

Happened across an article on the conservation.com that explored how the search for mythical monsters can help conversation in the real world. [click HERE]

Seems to me the article was written in reverse. But I digress. The news piece goes on to say that “since 1993, more than 400 new mammals have been identified, many in areas undergoing rapid habitat destruction. The number of undescribed beetles, for example, or flies, let alone microscopic organisms, will be huge.”

So by looking for Bigfoot, you might actually find an entirely undiscovered species, kinda like what is growing in moldy refrigerators and/or public sleeping bags.

Speaking of hopefully finding something new and interesting that could eat your flesh and/or cure elbow herpes, here are a few upcoming horror and sci-fi movies that may or may not tweak yer pique…

THE CROPSEY INCIDENT (available now/VOD)
“Activists venture deep into the woods to investigate gruesome ritual murders. They come face to face with something far more deadly than any serial killer.”

We first heard of groundskeeper Cropsey back in The Burning/1981 after he was BBQ’d during a summer camp prank gone oops. He came out of it a bit on the well done side, but made sure those kids with matches and gasoline weren’t coming back the following — or any — year. Then we got a reintroduction to Cropsey in 2010 after a self-titled “documentary” was released, detailing “two filmmakers investigate the disappearance of five children and the real bogeyman linked to them.” Now Cropsey is back, this time looking like a an oily scarecrow and doing to people what serial killers are paid to do. Wish they’d give him a name that doesn’t sound like a discount haircut, though.

THE VALLEY (available now/Shudder/SVOD)
This supernatural German series begins with the Twin Peaks-ian discovery of a tiara-crowned teen corpse. But there’s a twist: Sophia’s not dead…yet. When she does meet her maker, the amnesiac who found her body realizes he must figure out who killed her in order to unlock his own identity. But solving these mysteries won’t be easy. This valley is filled with secrets, plus a ghost girl, a snail-loving psychic and a bogeyman who lurks in the shadows.

They had me at snail-loving psychic. These foreign, horror mini series on Shudder™ are pretty good, the French made The Returned (2015) being a standout. This one is on every Thursday, but let ‘em pile up so as to binge watch and not have to lose track of the storyline, which is always in subtitles and/or foreign beer speak not as yet mastered by said uneducated slapping bologna flapper.

ANTI MATTER (September 8, 2017/VOD)
“Ana, an Oxford Ph.D. student finds herself unable to build new memories following an experiment to generate and travel through a wormhole. The story follows her increasingly desperate efforts to understand what happened and to find out who — or what — is behind the rising horror in her life.”

I’ve always wanted to travel through a wormhole. Think of the scientific possibilities — you could be watching a horror movie, hit pause, jump in the wormhole that leads to a 7-Eleven™ on the other side of the galaxy, grab a sixer, and be back in time to crack an icy space beer and continue on with your TV viewing experience, all without having to fire up the ’ol Chitttychittybangbang.

BLOOD HONEY (2017)
“Jenibel Heath returns to her family’s secluded island lodge to help her siblings care for their dying father, 10 years after the mysterious suicide of her mother. Set to inherit the bulk of the family’s estate, Jenibel learns of a horrific plot against her and finds herself stuck in a life-threatening nightmare, where she must struggle to survive.”

Red flags go up when they change the movie title, the first being The Hive and now to the admittedly better Blood Honey. As for the plot against Jenibel as she’s set to inherit the bulk of the family’s estate, when doesn’t that happen between siblings? Heck, I’m planning my takeover strategy as we speak.

Midget Monsters, Nazi Zombies, Cleaning Toilets

You ever see the 2007 Spanish horror hit [REC]? That one had a few humans trapped inside an apartment building loaded with slobbering, flesh-chowing zombies. I feel like I live in that same building as I can hear my highly annoying neighbors chew dinner with their loud mouths open. Wonder if they’re eating flesh? That’s what it smells like as anytime anyone cooks something, it stinks up the entire building. Think I’ll fight fire with fire and fry up some raw tuna and eggplant.

Here’s some upcoming horror movies that hopefully won’t stink…

THE CREEPS – DEFORMED MONSTERS (February 21, 2017/Blu-ray)
“Undersized, undead and angry. Dracula. Frankenstein. The Werewolf. The Mummy. In an experiment of the maddest kind of science, these four classic monsters of film and literature are brought back to life…but something goes wrong. Though they look and act exactly as they you’d think they’d look, the creepy quartet emerge as half their normal size. Now, they’re three feet tall…and not happy at all.”

Can’t blame ‘em for being unhappy. At three feet tall, that puts your face at everyone’s butt level. This would be especially demoralizing if they worked at a bean factory. The Creeps actually came out in 1997, but this is the first time on 2D HD 1080p. That’s just scientific jibber jabber, but some people with hi-tech minds will find that to be of significance. I’m gonna go back to braiding my hair and contemplating puffy clouds.

BESETMENT (2017)
“A young woman takes a hotel position in a small town in Oregon. It’s a creepy, back country kind of town, but owners Mildred Colvin and her son seem nice. It’s not long before she discovers their real intentions and her struggle to make a living becomes a nightmarish fight for her life.”

A “nightmarish fight for her life.” Sounds like she has to clean toilets.

TRENCH 11 (2017/2018)
“In the final days of WWI a shell-shocked tunneler must lead an Allied team into a hidden German base 100 hundred feet below the trenches. The Germans have lost control of a highly contagious biological weapon that turns its victims into deranged killers. The Allies find themselves trapped underground with hordes of the infected, a rapidly spreading disease and a team of German Stormtroopers dispatched to clean up the mess. The only thing more terrifying than the Western Front is what lies beneath it…”

Two things come to mind: First, this sounds like a video game. Secondly, is this not a spin on Resident Evil (2002)? That one was based on a video game as well. I don’t play video games. It requires too much hand/eye coordination. I can barely put on my movie pants without falling over.

THE BLACK ROOM (May 9, 2017/VOD)
“A supernatural tale where evil takes on a sexy side. A married couple moving into their new home is faced with an entity that feeds off lust and desire, corrupting and/or killing everyone in its path as it plots a horrifying plan to destroy the world.”

Surprised that the entity is feeding off lust and desire from the married couple. Everyone knows that goes down the drain after the honeymoon fever wears off. I’m betting, however, this movie will depict boobies in all their paired gloriousness.

Psychosis, Delusions and Pregnancy

Been trying to learn new languages by watching foreign horror movies without sub-titles so as to become fluent in Spanish, French, German and the massively challenging Chinese. (I don’t know how people can speak in Chinese without hurting their mouth.) Is it working? Shì hé fǒu.

Anyway, here’s some new simple language horror movies headed your way…

DEAD STORY (January 20, 2017/VOD)
“A young married couple, who after purchasing their first home, realize that either the house is selectively haunting only the wife, or she’s developing a delusional psychosis.”

Neither. It’s just a bad case of buyer’s remorse.

ARBOR DEMON (February 2, 2017)
“An adventurous married couple and an injured hunter are held captive inside a claustrophobic tent by a supernatural threat. For an unknown reason, the tent has become their only safe haven. Soon tensions rise and the truth about the attacker is revealed.”

The kicker line, “Don’t Breathe,” is just plain dumb. What, did somebody fart in the tent? If so, was it flatulence born of an expression of extreme fear or freshly consumed raw broccoli? Knowing this will help determine the fright quotient of said stinky emissions.

PREVENGE (February 10, 2017/UK)
“Ruth, a pregnant woman, is on a killing spree. It’s her misanthropic unborn baby dictating Ruth’s actions, holding society responsible for the absence of a father. The child speaks to Ruth from the womb, coaching her to lure and ultimately kill her unsuspecting victims.”

A pregnant woman on a killing spree. Proof that there are no more sacred cows left unslaughtered. And to all female readers, I did NOT just call a pregnant woman a cow, although that could apply around the third trimester. Please don’t killing spree me.

ATOMICA (March 17, 2017/Limited; March 21, 2017/VOD)
“In the near future, when communications go offline at a remote nuclear power plant isolated in the desert, a young safety inspector, Abby Dixon, is forced to fly out to bring them back online. Once inside the facility, mysterious clues and strange behaviors cause Abby to have doubts about the sanity, and perhaps identities, of the two employees onsite.”

Yeesh, just unplug the communications, wait 10 seconds, and plug ‘em back in. Rebooting solves 95% of offline errors. As for people going crazy, who among us doesn’t go all psychotic when we can’t get on the Internet?