Dine ’n Dash Dinosaur

The ink blot-sized coastal town of Beaver Mills is located in Alaska, due north of the Arctic Circle. This suggests they have the coldest beer on Earth. It also means the sun doesn’t set for the summer solstice (sorry, vampires). And that means the ice caps are melting, releasing the Jurassic contents therein.

A flying lizard dragon known as the Wyvern (dumb name) thaws out and is expectedly peckish. Time for some take out — a fisherman, the town doctor, a redneck… It’s okay to eat junk food every once in a while — just remember to floss.

Once the town’s screaming citizens find out they’re on the Wyvern’s fresh sheet, it’s time to change their soiled britches and make a plan to kill the beast, which has been killing/eating everyone out in the woods, on the highway, and hiding in laughably ironic restaurants.

Someone discovers the Wyvern has laid eggs in the woods and the plan is to use them as bait to murder the all-you-can-eat monster. A showdown between a diesel truck outfitted with Wyvern omelettes and the mad-flapping creature ends in the end of all things prehistoric and 18-wheels.

Wyvern (2009), part of the Man-Eater series, has all the formulaic elements required for a sub-budget SyFy™ Channel time-waster: cliched characters with guns going off left and right, collateral damage and a poorly designed/digitally rendered monster that looks more suited to a video game from 1985 than a TV screen. And while there’s a couple of good gore scenes (bye-bye, arm, head, leg), this thing belongs back in the freezer.

Power Tool Terror

The Driller Killer is a lurid little ditty that came out in 1979. The title is way better than the flick, though. Regardless of the promise of exquisite gore and Broadway-caliber acting, it’s still a piece of crap all these years later. Except for the two chicks showering part. I’ll get to that in a sec.

Reno is a hot-tempered artist (angry hippie with a paintbrush) and his next masterpiece is the one that’ll pay the rent for him and the two chicks he lives with in a rundown slum. His agent won’t front him any cash. A crappy punk rock band just moved in downstairs and practices all night, every night. The New York streets outside are littered with the mentally ill, the criminally-minded and the stinky homeless. All this feeds Reno’s growing anxiety and ill mood.

His brain — not unlike rubber band suspenders — is about to snap. Then Reno sees a commercial on TV for a new drill that comes with a Porta-Pak™, which allows holder of said drill to move around without the tool coming unplugged. Remember, this was in 1979, long before batteries were invented.

Reno’s latest painting is that of a buffalo getting a proctology exam, hence the shocked look on the buffalo’s face. That’s what it looked like to me, anyway. Needing inspiration and a way to vent, he buys the drill and runs out into the night to make vents in the homeless. As immediately gratifying as this is, it doesn’t soothe his fraying nerves caused by the incessant noise from the band downstairs, his nagging girlfriend or his agent, who just told him his painting is the worst thing he’s ever seen. I ask you, would you not buy a painting of a buffalo getting a proctology exam? I sure as hell would. So Reno straps on the power tool and goes out to aerate as many people as he can. 

All of the killings are non-graphic, except for the close-up of his agent’s head when Reno takes his time on the screaming critic. Whaddaya know — the punk band’s noise comes in handy when covering up the shrieks of the power tooled. Reno’s girlfriend has had it and goes back to her husband. Guess who follows? [Insert revving power tool sounds here].

Oh, yeah — Reno’s chick roommates take a shower together. This was most excellent and absolutely integral to the plot, the message being that it’s important to maintain proper cleanliness and hygiene as it applies to all nooks AND crannies. I’m supportive of that stuff.

Zombie Kingdom

Do you like watching skin-snacking zombies tearing into soon-to-be-expired flesh? Who doesn’t? Which is why, if you aren’t already, you might wanna watch Kingdom, a period piece Korean zombie six-episode flesh-fest that showed up on Netflix™ on January 25, 2019. I do believe with all my heart that was just a few weeks ago as of this writing.

I previewed this a period piece ago, but in case you were combing your hair and missed it, here’s the premise…

“The deceased king rises and a mysterious plague begins to spread; the prince must face a new breed of enemies to unveil the evil scheme and save his people.”

Sort of tantalizing, but it doesn’t begin to hint at the slaughterhouse gore and zombie action therein. The first episode, set back in the days where starving poor people lived in house made out of bamboo and mud and rich people wallowed in the mud of wealth and much cleaner clothes, takes nearly the whole one hour first show to get going. But when it does, have something to clean up the mud you’ll no doubt fill your pants with.

An overloaded “hospital” (made of bamboo and mud) is getting desperate for food and medicine. The 100 year old head doctor hasn’t been seen for days. And when he finally shows up, he’s carrying the rotting corpse of a young unlucky previous human. Well hey, cook that sucker up and feed it to the ecstatic starving people! Just don’t tell them what they’re eating. (It tastes like Peking duck — a bit gamey, but lip-smackingly tasty.)

Once consumed, people go into mouth-frothing spasms, die painfully, then come back to life and go all World War Z on everybody standing nearby not yet dead. And like the zombies in World War Z (2013), these undead heads relentlessly run, tackle, climb and throw themselves off roofs. And they do something else not usually seen in zombie movies. (No spoiler, but there’s a hint in 2007’s I Am Legend.)

It only takes a few seconds for a zombie bite to get you up and running, which means this plague is a flippin’ pandemic. Tons of butt-clenching close calls, explicit gore and a sub-plot involving the royal elite abandoning their lower than lower class subjects. It will make you mad if you’re lower than low.

Get past the political positioning first episode and get ready for a top notch flesh-snacking, which does a good job of leveling the social class playing field.

Monster Transparency

In Sea Creature (2009), Oregon seaside fishing/cigar chomping captain Will McKenna has problems bigger than losing one of his crew in the middle of a storm and keeping said cigar lit in the rain and waves coming over the deck. There’s an invisible sea creature that put him and everyone in Oregon on the menu.

And it’s that very same sea monster that’s been eating up all that pricey salmon and following Will back to port, where it lays eggs that will hatch more sea monsters. And they come to the feast with nasty table manners — they spit a green goo that paralyzes humans, wherein the monsters feast on your face while you’re still alive. You can’t scream or even crap your pants, which has got to suck hard.

The monsters start the buffet with teenage appetizers, leaving a trail of entrails. Complicating matters is the creatures are invisible until they strike and can jump around tree branches like they had just watched The Predator on DVD.

From this point on, it’s run, hide, scream, bleed, die. A full-on monster attack on two teens — one of which is Will’s daughter — takes place in a remote cabin. Unfortunately, their assault yielded little edible results. So they move the battle to an abandoned and likely stinky ferry. Problem for the survivors is the boat also doubles as a nesting place filled with eggs filled with more monsters. And some goop.

The showdown on the boat is a bit on the weak side, especially given the previous graphic gore goop painting the scenic seaside. But hey, nice body count from the monsters, even if they look like digital dino doggies. 

Back Into The Zone, Faustian Felines, Soul For Sale

In case you forgot, one of the cornerstones of horror and science fiction is the The Twilight Zone anthology TV series, wrote/co-wrote and hosted by Rod Serling, from 1958 to 1964. And now it’s back in the form of the cleverly-named The Twilight Zone, arriving April 1, 2019 on CBS All Access. This re-boot will be hosted by Mad TV’s Jordan Peele, and will air every Thursday until the ratings say otherwise.

Given that The Twilight Zone is regarded as one of the greatest TV series of ALL TIME, this is good news for fans of science fiction, horror, the paranormal and fantasy with a surprise twist. (By comparison, The Outer Limits, a competing, similarly-themed TV series (1963 — 1965), featured a monster-of-the-week and no moral lessons taught by said monster-of-the-week.)

To feed your Twilight Zone monkey until April gets here, check out Tom Elliot’s Rondo Award winning show, The Twilight Zone Podcast. Tom does a respectful job, with interviews, reviews and readings from classic Twilight Zone episodes. Or if you’d rather not do any of the above, here are a few just released/upcoming horror movies that may or may not take you to the outer limits…

HUNTING EVIL (available now)
“A broken man returns to society after serving time but hits dead ends to turn his life around until he meets an enigmatic man who promises him riches. But when the piper calls, it’s in the form of evil incarnate and wants his soul in return.”

Cool — what’s the going rate on selling your soul? If I could get enough to cover rent, sign me up.

LEGEND OF THE DEMON CAT (February 5, 2019)
During the Tang Dynasty, a Chinese poet and a Japanese monk join forces to investigate a demonic cat who has possessed a general’s wife and wreaked havoc on the imperial court. The investigation takes some gruesome and unexpected twists, leading the monk and the poet to unravel the mystery behind the decade’s old death of the legendary, beautiful concubine, Yang Guifei.”

A woman possessed by her cat. Aren’t they all?

SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK (August 9, 2019)
“A group of young teens must solve the mystery surrounding sudden and macabre deaths in their small town.”

For those of us who’d rather watch horror movies than read ‘em, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is three children’s books written by Alvin Schwartz and illustrated by Stephen Gammell. The series  began in 1981, a year when people’s street-wear and haircuts were pretty darn horrifying. So much so, there’s one illustration that looks a heckuva lot like me driving around in my Chevy Camaro Z/28, blasting out “Don’t Stop Believin’” on my after-market installed Pioneer™ cassette deck. That alone qualifies as one of the scariest stories ever.

HERE COMES HELL (March 1, 2019/UK)
“A 1930s dinner party descends into carnage, gore and demonic possession in Here Comes Hell, a genre-clashing horror comedy.”

Early reviews are calling this, Downtown Abbey meets the The Evil Dead. I’ve seen The Evil Dead but not Downtown Abbey, which is apparently a long-running British drama TV series and not the name of a street hooker.

A World of Vampires

The world is a vampire. Literally. It’s 2019. Ten years ago, an unexplained plague turned those that leak blood into those that drink blood. Oh sure, there are a few humans left, but they’re pretty much cows the vampires milk dry. So much so, the world is just about out of the sweet red body sauce. 

Edward Dalton is a blood scientist who has been trying for six years to come up with a human blood substitute. His latest batch made a test subject explode. BLAMMO —   vampire guts all over the walls and floors, as if the room itself was mortally injured. Dalton won’t drink human blood because he’s against wiping out an entire species. What a wuss. In the human world, we’d call him a people-hugger.

One night he helps an SUV full of humans evade the cops. They later track him down in hopes he can help them find a cure for vampirism. (Yeah — it’s called a stake through the heart, b*tch!)

Elvis is a classic car restorer and part of the vampire resistance movement who, when in bloodsucker form years ago, went joy-riding in the daylight and crashed, his body flaming the second he went Superman-ing through the windshield. The accident, while hurting like hell, transformed Elvis back into a human. Dalton needs to recreate that event in order to find a way out of this sucking of blood business. He has to hurry as the military — led by his vampire brother — and a near-rioting society is breathing down his back.

If you’re starved of human blood and all its deliciousness, you slowly revert into a primal state vampire, one of pure aggression, a mummified body, leathery bat wings, and unpleasant butt breath. These creatures, called Subsiders, are so hungry they feed on fellow vampires, which speeds up the mutation process.

Through it all, though, Daybreakers (2009) left you wanting more and less. More, as in Subsiders. Less, as in talking. Don’t get me wrong; Daybreakers is a visual stunner and has some killer graphic gore; Subsiders are chained and pulled out into the sunlight, where they ignite like campfire marshmallows. I just wanted to see more of the Subsiders making a cherry pie out of your face. If you’re gonna go to all that trouble to make a screaming, angry man-bat, put it to work chowing down on neck sandwiches. The rest will write itself.

9 Years of Parade-Worthy Horror

Today is the nine-year anniversary of my very first posting on WordPress™. After I upload this, I’m going outside to wait for my parade. There’s sure to be tens, maybe dozens, of people showing up, so I better get there early to get a good viewing spot. Okay, that made no sense at all.

That said, over the years and in line at the grocery hole (Thriftway™ — more expensive than Safeway™, but easier to get to), I’ve been asked a least one million billion questions about myself and this here Drinkin’ & Drive-in blog. Figured it was about time to put it on the glass so everyone who reads this thing (thank you) can finally get some closure.

“How long have you been doing the Drinkin’ & Drive-in blog and how did you get started?”
I was hired by Microsoft (aka, MSNEntertainment.com) back in 1997 to do a PAID daily horror/sci-fi movie blog called Fright Site. That program ended in 2010 (at least their checks didn’t bounce), but I wasn’t done yet. After about three seconds of studied and careful consideration, I started up Drinkin’ & Drive-in on WordPress.com and have been doing it WITHOUT PAY since June 9, 2010. So 25 years total, give or take. (I’m not really a math guy.)

How come you don’t accept paid advertising on your blog?
Because ads suck. I’d rather keep doing the blog for no pay than have it cluttered with banners promoting trendy pants and boxed squeezy mattresses. (Disclaimer: WordPress™ might have small pop-up ads that, like my thirst for beer, I have no control over.)

“How would you describe your blog?
I don’t do horror/sci-fi/fantasy movie reviews as it requires more brains than I currently have operating inside the vending machine that is my head. Rather, I just endlessly watch all kinds of horror and sci-fi and merely relate what I’ve witnessed. As opposed to a food critic, I would rather not analyze the notes and complexities of food and just eat the damn hamburger.

“What are your favorite kinds of horror movies?”
Longtime readers (thank you, David. H and Jon from NC) will know I’m a big fan of giant monster movies, Japanese or otherwise. This is followed by ghosts, werewolf and shark movies. My least favorite types of horror movies are those with slashers/serial killers. There’s more than enough of those types of people in the news everyday. For sheer crazy weirdness, I really dig those Japanese extreme gore movies and pretty much anything regarding UFOs.

“Have you ever seen a UFO?”
Not as yet. But I do believe the people who say they’ve seen one. The truth is out there, I want to believe, etc., etc. I do, however, eat UFOs  almost every day: unidentified frying objects.

“Are there any types of horror movies you won’t watch?”
Though I have seen enough of ‘em to know not to watch that kind of stuff anymore, are horror movies involving torture porn, rape and real or fake violence against real and/or fake animals, though I will make an exception for critters that are zombies. (I’m looking in your direction Zombeavers/2014). Oddly, I don’t feel the same way about violence towards fish. (Ironically, I’m eating a tuna fish sandwich while writing this.)

“You don’t use swear words in your blog — why not?”
Anyone can swear — it’s like the karaoke of language. My “journalism skills” are offensive enough without adding salty/florid language to it. That, and I just sound dumber than usual if I do.

“What are your favorite horror/sci-fi movies?”
Too many to list, but here’s a few classics I never get tired of watching over and over and over: Planet of the Apes (1968); Godzilla (1954); The Legend of Hell House (1973); 30 Days of Night (2007); The Thing (1982); The Wolf-Man (1941); Alien (1979); The Evil Dead (1981); Let The Right One In (2008); An American Werewolf in London (1981), and A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). There’s about two dozen more, but this is a nice representation of my cinematic tastes.

Recent ones (as this time and space) that kicked me in the britches are The Witch (2015), It (2017), It Follows (014), Stranger Things (2016), The Babadook (2014), Godzilla (2014), Shin Godzilla (2017) and Kong: Skull Island (2017), to name a few.

“After all these years, why keep going?”
A curious but relentless compulsion, really. That, and it’s a way to justify all those decades sitting on a couch watching TV. And no, I’m not fat from doing that, nor would I even think about body shaming someone who is. I currently weigh just 6.5 lbs. over my target weight for height and age, despite my insatiable thirst for all things adult beverages, which is generally Budweiser™. And I don’t drink hard alcohol — too many notes. That’s not to say I’d turn down a complimentary sip or three. Ahem.

What critique would you give your blog?
I tend to ramble. I feel as though it should be more “don’t bore us — get to the chorus.” But I don’t wanna leave anything out. Obsession is harsh mistress. Also, I occasionally repeat myself due to the erratic nature of both my brainwaves and horror movie release schedules. That bugs the insects outta me.

“How come your blog or even yourself is not on social media?”
I do this blog for free, so why make more work for myself? As for me not being on social media, besides the fact that trendy medium sucks green donkeys, I don’t think the world needs to hear what I had for breakfast or what cat video I just watched.

“How old are you?”
For an accurate answer, cut my liver in half and count the rings.

“How much longer are you going to keep doing Drinkin’ & Drive-in?”
That’s up to my liver.

No Innards in Outer Space

Gore From Outer Space (20010) is one of the most misleading titles since Debbie Does Dallas (1978). There is no gore. There is no outer space. There is no excuse.

The sequel to Crazy Lips (2000), Gore (aka, Chi wo sû uchû ) picks up where Lips left off, with the gorgeous Satomi headed for the gas chamber for lighting her daughter on fire. She thought it was a walking/talking doll. She tells the police her daughter’s been kidnapped. Well, crap-o-rama — she doesn’t have a daughter. That doesn’t stop Satomi from frantically looking for her, though.

She finds a house with no bathroom or kitchen, but there are drawings that a little girl made. Then, an older guy looking to be elected into political office, has forcible sex with her and gets her knocked up. This pundit is actually an alien, so that when the baby is extracted, it’ll be a human/alien “mixed blood.” The movie makes about as much sense as this blog.

No scenes of graphic behavior anywhere, nor is there any blood to speak of. When Satomi breaks out of the gas chamber (that was easy), she lets all the other death row inmates out, where they get into a huge kung fu fight with the police. How this factors in to the plot is beyond the limits of my limited comprehension.

The ONLY reason I kept watching is there was a glimmer of hope Satomi would do something gore gnarly. Regrettably, she does not. Normally, I’m suckered by cool DVD covers. This time I was sandbagged by the title. And Satomi singing a love ballad while being led off to be gassed didn’t ease my pain in the slightest.

The Boogeyman Should Blow His Nose

Nine year-old Laura and her 11 year-old brother Henry witnessed the serial killer known as the  Boogeyman use their parents’ necks for a place to put his knife while adjusting his killer (ahem) black hood. Personally, I would’ve put the knife in the dishwasher.

Ten years in and out of a mental institution dealing with their life-crippling fear of the dark and all things Boogeymen, Henry and Laura are still being counseled by a “face your fears, you pussies” medical director. Joining them are  five other pre-adults dealing with their mental clogged toilet: bugs under the skin, fear of being in public, fear of getting fat, fear of germs… (What — no fear of non-alcoholic beer?)

Laura is a screaming hottie, with emphasis on screaming, now that the therapy has failed and the Boogeyman is back to finish what he started a decade ago. Everyone is being dispatched by the thing they fear the most. One kid gets chopped in half by an elevator. (I take the stairs, so that entertained me.) One girl with a fear of bugs gets maggots poured into open wounds. (I don’t have open wounds, so again, highly entertaining.) Additional deaths are just as creative and enjoyable.

While the first half of Boogeyman 2 (2007) is boring horror crap (the premise is the same as A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987), the second half delivers some excellent gore and a “sex-while-standing-up” scene. (Not as comfortable as it looks.)

The Boogeyman himself isn’t a supernatural entity, though they try to make you believe otherwise. If you can’t guess who/what/he/she is by the half-hour mark, you need to have maggots poured into your open wounds. Even as clichéd as it is, this sequel is slightly better than the first Boogeyman (2005), whose main evil character just wasn’t that attractive.

Descent Into Double Hell

The Descent: Part 2 (2009), picks up where The Descent (2005) left off, with Sarah Carter, the lone survivor of the women-only subterranean shopping trip/cannibal fest, is in the hospital, unable to recall the horrific events that left her friends eaten alive by sightless cave creatures.

Meanwhile, a police search party, led by professional underground explorers with cool flashlights and glow sticks, is under way. The sheriff, though, finds out the blood Sarah was covered with didn’t leak out of any of her primary orifices, but rather one of the friends whose bodies they can’t seem to find. Because she was only banged up by the Crawlers, Sarah is deemed cave-worthy, and is forced BY LAW to return to the vast Appalachian underground cave system to look for survivors. Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.

A creaky elevator in an abandoned mine shaft takes the sheriff and his female cop, three pro-cave climbers and Sarah into the pits of Purgatory. It’s not long before they find the rat-chewed body of one of the women. This freaks out Sarah and her memory comes rushing back. Time to get the hell outta Hell. She takes off, leaving the others to fend for themselves. And all the while that eerie clicking noise made by the Crawlers is getting closer.

The creature attacks are well-staged, with those blind, hairless, naked and hungry flesh-eaters (i.e., Goth fans) coming out of nowhere. The trick is to not make any noise as the beasts track by sound. Hard to do that when your neck croissant is bitten and your blood spraying like a shower nozzle. A gun shot triggers a cave-in, and all are separated. For the Crawlers this is good news as their meals are better when served ala carte.

What makes Descent 2 decent (heh) is the added twists. It could’ve been a cookie-cutter slaughterfest and you’d be suitably gleeful. But they took it to the next level with “you didn’t see it coming” swerves. Suffice to say, there are killer (ahem) gory/goon-out moments, and one particularly nasty scene, which finds Sarah and the lady cop in a pool of fetid water. Turns out it wasn’t a pool after all, but an outhouse. Or would that be an in-house since it’s essentially indoors? I must ponder that over a bowl of black lumpy oatmeal.

One more clever twist sets up the escape sequence, which leaves the cave wide open for another sequel. Watch The Descent: Part 2 — it’ll scare the hole outta you.