Gore-geous Plaything, Zombie Therapist, Evil Goats

Elvira, the legendary Mistress of the Dark, is a living doll. Now, thank to Mattel™, she’s a plastic one, too. As part of Mattel’s™ Monster High collection, which includes The Shining, Stephen King’s IT, Beetlejuice, and Gremlins 2, the Elvira Skullector Doll releases on January 13, 2023 and sells for a mere $65.00. You should drop everything (unless you’re holding a glass bowl full of beer and/or cereal) and buy it here. 

From Mattel’s™ website: “The Mistress of the Dark wears a ghoulishly glam gown with a peekaboo slit and screamium details like spooky spider stilettos, her signature dagger, and Great-Aunt Morgana’s magic ruby ring. Additional highlights include her iconic pitch black, stylized hair, while her eyes mesmerize with delicate spider-webbing in her irises. Dramatic makeup, a beauty mark and black painted nails add drop-dead gore-geous detail to her killer look. Comes included with displayable packaging and a black Monster High™ doll stand.”

While we inquire as to whether the Elvira Skullector Doll comes in adult size — and possible inflatable — here are a few out now/up and coming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not be as exhilarating as Elvira’s trademark(s)…

THE ZOMPOCALYPSE THERAPY SESSIONS / Out now (VOD)

“An anxious therapist and her awkward clients wrestle to overcome personal issues and zombies.”

A better premise would be zombies who seek professional therapy for self-esteem issues, like why do people keep trying to shoot me in the head and/or running away screaming? Embarking on a journey of personal improvement with all that negativity in your un-life is a challenge no one should ever have to face. 

CANNIBAL CABIN Out now (VOD)

“A group of 20 somethings want to end the summer on a high, they take the advice from a girl they met at a festival about a secret rave deep in the valleys. When their route is detoured they have no choice but to venture into the unknown. Once they come across a derelict aqua park, they soon realize what they thought was their salvation turns out to be the heart of the Cannibal’s lair.”

The problem with consuming 20 somethings is that while they look appetizing, they taste bland. Kinda like eating the cheese-stained box a pizza comes in. 

KILL HER GOATS / January 13, 2023 (VOD)

Audra’s graduation gift is her dream house, but it soon becomes a living nightmare when some uninvited guests come to her homecoming party who aren’t very subtle about the fact they don’t approve of the home’s new owner.”

Audra got a dream house AND goats for a graduation gift? All I got was a one-way bus ticket to another state.

WALPURGIS NIGHT / Release pending 2023 (VOD)

“A wealthy couple, Imre and Justine, are visiting the deep forests of Romania and find themselves at the mercy of Waldemar Daninsky, a werewolf. Waldemar and Justine must travel to London to seek the help from Dr. Jekyll’s grandson.”

I wouldn’t trust any advice from Dr. Jekyll’s grandkid — I hear he’s as two-faced as his grandfather.

Monsters Au Naturel, Bigfoot Pursuit, Alien Party Crashers

Paul Garner is an artist living in Brighton, United Kingdom. That pretty dang far from where I’m lallygagging. But thanks to this thing called the “Internet” (you may have heard of it), now you can view his incredible horror movie icon illustrations…and buy ’em. (Full disclosure: I recently purchased some of Garner’s art and am currently gawking at it on the wall right next to where I’m lallygagging.)

Paul’s latest series is Nudie Monsters, recasting The Mummy, Wolf-Man, The Fly and Bride of Frankenstein in eye-poppingly colorful “pin-ups”. Don’t worry — they’re PG-rated, which means you don’t have to hide ‘em under your bed. These silk board prints sell in sets of three for 25£ ($31.40 US) and measure 11.75”x16.5”. Get ’em on his Etsy shop page here. Better yet, marvel at Paul’s extraordinary illustrating skills on his website: www.paulgarnerart.com

As confessed in a court of public opinion above, I purchased the Jaws poster and just sent in an order for The Shining print. If none of these examples are to your liking (critic), you can get caricatures of Creature of the Black Lagoon, Nosferatu, Night of the Living Dead and even Ozzy Osbourne, who’s kind of a monster himself.

While you take down your Vincent van Gogh and Pablo Picasso black light posters to make room for Paul’s peerless artings, here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not be made better by having nude monsters in ’em…

NIGHT OF THE AXE / Out now (VOD)

“A group of young adults enjoying a high school reunion party are terrorized by an escaped mental patient obsessed with satisfying his blood lust. One by one they are made victims of the sadistic killer. Who will survive the Night of the Axe?”

Not only does it SOUND like a slasher plot straight out of late ’70s/early’80s, it IS a slasher plot straight of late ’70s/early’80s. Time spent coming up with the script? 70 or 80 seconds.

ON THE TRAIL OF BIGFOOT: LAST FRONTIER / January 17, 2023 (VOD)

“Small Town Monsters heads to the frozen vistas of the 49th state with On the Trail of Bigfoot: Last Frontier. The first 2023 Small Town Monsters docudrama features in-depth interviews with locals and a heavy focus on the Indigenous people who first called the land home. Focusing on evidence and encounters with the legendary Sasquatch, On the Trail of Bigfoot: Last Frontier aims to give audiences the most cohesive look at Alaskan Sasquatch lore.”

YET ANOTHER documentary cashing in on Bigfoot’s good name. B’foot really needs to put his big foot down on people not legally licensing his image and/or footwear.

KIDS VS. ALIENS / January 20, 2023 (Digital/VOD)

“All Gary wants is to make awesome home movies with his best buds. All his older sister Samantha wants is to hang with the cool kids. When their parents head out of town one Halloween weekend, an all-time rager of a teen house party turns to terror when aliens attack, forcing the siblings to band together to survive the night.”

A better solution: we should send ALL our teenagers to the alien’s planet to crash their ragers. 

YULETIDE HORROR / Release pending 2023 (VOD)

“Directed by Ethan Evans and produced by Jess Bartlett and Kieran Nolan Jones, Yuletide Horror is a feature-length documentary exploring the terrifying history of Christmas horror folklore and cinema, from Black Christmas, Gremlins, Silent Night, Deadly Night and beyond.”

And the soundtrack could be (wait for it)…wrap music.

Goth Fairies, Cannibal Critters, Timeless Horror

While the movie wasn’t exactly in my wheelhouse, I nevertheless enjoyed the Disney™ fantasy/horror movie, Maleficent (2014), and dug watching main star Angelina Jolie as the goth-y gorgeous evil fairy fly around with Hellboy/Darkness horns and flap her wing-span enhanced wings like a demonic seagull.

This is why I’m horn-y (heh) for the sequel, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (October 18, 2019), which puts the antlers/wings back on Jolie to cause more fairy land havoc. And in case you don’t/didn’t know who Maleficent is, she was the antagonist in Disney’s Sleeping Beauty in 1959 and the self-proclaimed “mistress of all evil.” (Nice tie-in with the title, Disney™.)

While I plot to go see the movie and push little kids out of the way to get a good seat, here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not make your wings flap…

CRITTERS: A NEW BINGE (March 21, 2019/Shudder™)
“Pursued by intergalactic bounty hunters, the Critters return to Earth on a secret mission and encounter Christopher, a lovelorn high-schooler, his best friend Charlie, his crush Dana, and his mom Veronica — whose past will come back to bite them. Who will survive? And who will be eaten?”

The original Critters (1986) was just Gremlins (1984), but with worse table manners. Both movies were skewed towards the family-skewed crowd, so proceed with caution with this one.

DIVISION 19 (April 5, 2019)
“In the future, prisons have been turned into online portals where paying subscribers get to vote on what felons eat, watch, wear and who they fight. Panopticon TV is so successful it is about to be rolled out to a whole new town. When the world’s most downloaded felon escapes, the authorities set a trap to reel him in. The bait is his little brother who has so far managed to avoid detection.”

Sounds like someone’s been watching The Running Man (1987) and YouTube™ videos of Christians being thrown into the PPV ring with atheist lions.

I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE: DEJA VU (April 23, 2019)
“Following her brutal rape, Jennifer wrote a best-selling account of her ordeal and of the controversial trial in which she was accused of taking the law into her own hands and ruthlessly killing her assailants. In the small town where the rape and revenge took place, the relatives of the four rapists she killed are furious that the court declared her not guilty and resolve to take justice into their own hands.”

I Spit On Your Grave first came out in 1978 and was painfully hard to watch, even though it wasn’t nearly as graphic as the 2010 remake. And while the subject matter is timely, doesn’t mean it’s any easier to watch. P.S. If you’re a dude, do NOT watch this with any ladies in the room. It might give them ideas.

IN SEARCH OF DARKNESS (2019)
“For the first time in horror history, In Search of Darkness will bring together 1980s icons, modern horror greats, popular YouTubers and social media influencers to create the most complete retrospective documentary of the genre ever made. Together, they will bring their unique perspectives as we take a nostalgic journey back to revisit the unforgettable heroes, monsters, and movies that thrilled and chilled us.”

Looking forward to this one as the ‘80s were my puberty horror years. I’ll continue to keep watching ‘em until my voice cracks.

Italian Reanimator, Repeatable Stabbing, El Rey TV

Just discovered the Robert Rodriquez El Rey™ TV channel is no longer available through Sling TV™. Thinkin’ this isn’t a big loss as El Rey has been subjecting us to increasingly lazy programming and is nowhere near the grindhouse/bullets & brawlers/cult horror channel it promised to be. Example: El Rey keeps falling back on endless re-runs (with endless commercials) of bland stuff like V, Miami Vice, Air Wolf and Night Rider to be the channel’s meatloaf filler. And their Creature Feature Fridays? Intentional b-grade fare — like we all haven’t seen Gremlins (1984).

Best to stream channels like Shudder, Midnight Pulp and/or FrightPix (warning — LOTS of commercials that lock up on you) for your horror/sci-fi/grindhouse needs.

Speaking of which, here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi you may or may not need. (Who are we kidding — we need horror all the time to escape from the horrors of reality.)

HAPPY DEATH DAY (October 13, 2017)
“A college student who relives the day of her murder with both its unexceptional details and terrifying end until she discovers her killer’s identity.”

Yeah, you’re probably thinking the horror version of 1993’s Groundhog’s Day (but with less stink gophers). But it sounds more like “Monday,” that riveting The X-Files episode (1999) in which a girl has to relive her loser boyfriend’s bank robbery attempt, ending in ka-BOOM! over and over. (Note to money selfie: Do NOT go into banks frequented by criminals dressed in dynamite, however stylish of the times.)

HERBERT WEST: REANIMATOR (2017)
“West is destroyed by a huge loss and he wants to defeat death in order to have his beloved ones back. It’s just a different perspective but with the same result: lots of experiments with lost of failures and lots of reanimated and very aggressive corpses.”

Like Cheetos™/pork rinds in the cupboard, a few points of interest: First, this is the Italian take on Re-Animator, which came out over three decades ago. Secondly — and this is from the director: “Herbert West: Reanimator is a modular project. We start with a web series, them we’ll have a TV series and at the end of the journey we’ll have a feature film.” You had me at Cheetos™.

DESOLATION (2017)
“A mother takes her son and her best friend on a trip into remote wilderness to scatter his father’s ashes; they must confront their fears when a lone hiker begins following them.”

So a lone hiker is shadowing mom and company while they go to kick dad in the ash hole? The filmmakers might be intentionally trying to mislead us; what if the lone hiker is merely a park ranger with a dust pan? I’ve said it before — a clean forest is a happy forest.

WHO’S WATCHING OLIVER (2017/2018)
“A mentally unstable loner is lost in a life forced upon him. By night Oliver aimlessly wanders the streets and bars on what can only be described as a truly shocking and humiliating killing spree. His only savior and possible way out of a life he is desperate to escape comes in the form of the beautiful Sophia with her sweet eccentricity and naivety to the danger she has put herself in.”

Not sure how this is even a movie. Doesn’t this stuff happen in real life all the time? Why pay to see it — just hang out with mentally unstable loners in dive bars and dark streets. I’ll meet you there.

New Age Gargoyles

In Curse of the Talisman (2001), an ancient curse unleashes a flock of evil gargoyles that are compelled to adhere to the curse’s rule of die, kill, bleed. Good for them.

This happened in London’s village of Yorkshire (home of that expensive pudding) in 1100 A.D. Artifacts of the gargoyles made its way through the magic of time to a modern museum of today. But a shifty shipper intercepts one of the gargoyle statues and a Goth talisman necklace and sells it to a New Age bookstore (run by a guy who looks more like a motorcycle thug than someone who would own a New Age bookstore), thereby setting into motion the return of the gargoyles.

Enter a British priest hot on the trail of the talisman. No one likes pompous Limeys demanding things, so they give him a good ’ol U.S. run-around. The gargoyle, now flying around and killing people, wants the talisman as well. Seems he needs it to release his winged brothers of doom from inside the thirty or so statuettes on display at the museum.

There’s a LOT of pointless running around/running away just to get to the showdown at the museum. The gargoyles, which look like death metal seagulls, belong in a Gremlins (1984) movie where they’d be more at home alongside stuffed toys with teeth. As far as ancient curses go, you’d be better off with a case of medieval jock itch.

Jaws In Your Bathtub

“You’re going to need a bigger toy box…”

A re-casting of the famous line in Jaws (1975) in which Roy Scheider’s character Chief Martin Brody is chumming the sea with fish guts and Jaws pops out and causes Brody to pollute his pants.

Coming soon is a new Jaws ReAction toy figures by Funko™. Their website says it’ll be released in July doesn’t line up with Amazon.com’s available date of September 30. No worries – Korea will probably bootleg this thing and have it for sale by the end of today.

A Gremlins (1984) set is being released at the same time as well. But I never liked those little trouble-making toilet brushes, so put me in the “not even close to being interested” column. Nope, I want me some Jaws.

The coolest part is the air tank accessory, which fits as nicely in Jaws’ mouth as action figure/shark hunter Quint. (For realism they should’ve added a beer can accessory to go along with Quint’s harpoon.) Then you have marine biologist and all-around wise-guy Matt Hooper. Oddly, he looks built to the scale of Quint and Brody. In the movie Hooper is a little dude, a veritable Scooby snack for Jaws.

Each uneaten figure is sold separately for $19.99 and Jaws for $24.99 (on Amazon), or buy ’em altogether for $49.88 + $4.99 shipping. Seems reasonable given how much fun time you’ll get in the tub with these guys. OK, that didn’t come out right. Really wish they would’ve made Quint’s boat, Orca. Now I’m gonna have to use a cereal bowl carrying his next three meals for Jaws to attack/kill/eat.

Aliens On A Train

A meteorite forces a train carrying what could be our next President to stop, thereby letting the meteor aliens onto the vehicle – without a ticket. Not cool, aliens. A cop who suspects aliens are on the train has a puppet helicopter fly him over it so he can drop down and arrest those dang thangs. To complicate matters, the puppet train is about to rear-end another puppet train up ahead carrying puppet radioactive waste.

These extraterrestrials are quite possibly the worst looking space creatures this side of those boot-crushable fuzzballs in Gremlins (1984). They have cartoon-sized plastic teeth, growl like an unfed stomach and zip around so fast as to be almost invisible. Besides a taste for human flesh, their blood is methane, or “farts.” When the creatures are lit, they do the blue flame mambo and explode.

The dialogue should count as comedy it’s so bad (“We’ve got to get those aliens somehow…and we’ve got to do it NOW!”). The “you’ve got to be kidding me” ending of Alien Express (2005) is but whipped cream on this turd sundae.

Rat Monkey Vampires

Spooky Blackwood Manor, an architect’s dream reach-around, has rat monkey vampire creatures that live in the caverns beneath the dark historied mansion. These little gremlins eat teeth, which confuses the enamel outta me. What do they use to chew with? Major plot discrepancy.

A divorced architect and his similar-careered girlfriend are restoring Blackwood Manor. Lots of rooms to feel each other up in – until the guy’s nine year-old daughter is foisted off on them. The little handful is so moody as to be classified emo. But the creatures who can talk (again, if you eat teeth, what do you use to talk with?), get in her head and persuade her to release them from their unholy hole.

Of course dad and his upgrade don’t believe her. When they finally do, it’s too late. And by too late, I mean for you for waiting and waiting for something scary to happen. Aside from a very painful death at the very end for one of the major players, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (2011) goes in the “don’t be afraid of not wasting your money” category.