As you/me/I/us/them/they wait IMPATIENTLY for Stranger Things 2 (premiering Friday, October 27, 2017), news comes down the super fun happy slide the surprise horror hit has already been renewed for a third season. I needed some good news after waiting all day for that !@#$ “once-in-a-lifetime” eclipse to somehow destroy the world. (I know the eclipse was for free, but dang — I feel gypped.)
The new Stranger Things 2 key art is a slick homage to 1984’s A Nightmare on Elm Street. When you think about it, sleep slasher Freddy Krueger’s dream state world is the ‘80s version of Stranger Thing’s The Upside Down alternate universe/dimension/golf course. Regardless, I’ll have to go back to hoping for Melancholia to smash into this toilet Earth for my world-destroying fantasies.
While we wait for that planet to pinball ours, here are a few upcoming horror and sci-fi movies to help cope with the disappointing, non-destructo eclipse…
LITTLE EVIL (September 1, 2017/Netflix)
“Gary just married Samantha, only to find out that her 6-year-old son is the Antichrist.”
This horror comedy sounds fun/ny. But if the kid is the son of the Antichrist, does that men Samantha is the Mom Antichrist, or is this one of those, “it takes a village” things?
HELLRISER (October 9, 2017/UK)
“When their city is rocked by a series of brutal occult murders, veteran detective John Locke and his young partner Terri Keyes are forced to put aside their differences and follow the trail of evidence to a formerly abandoned asylum, where the new owner Dr. Unnseine is conducting his own brand of Nazi-inspired “medical research” on the unwilling inmates. One such inmate, the sexy but deadly Annie Dyer, may hold the key to the murders — and to the doorway to Hell itself — if only Locke and Keyes can stay alive long enough to discover what it is.”
As much as you’d think this is one of those Asylum Studio rip-offs, it is, unfortunately, from another source of rip-offery. Obviously, the title is lifted from Clive Barker’s Hellraiser (1987). Then there’s the “When there’s no more room in Hell…” kicker line on the key art, a bold shoplift from 1978’s Dawn of the Dead. Wondering why the filmmakers didn’t just put it all on the glass and have the zombies wearing Goth leather and walking around with nails in their heads, like those teens at the mall.
HAGAZUSSA: A HEATHEN’S CURSE (2018)
“Set in the 15th Century in the Austrian Alps, Hagazussa takes us back to a dark period when pagan beliefs of witches spread fear into the minds of the rural folk exploring the thin line between ancient beliefs, magic and delusional psychosis.”
Ancient beliefs, magic and delusional psychosis. That may be f’d up for those in the Austrian Alps, but for me it’s just another night at The Poggie Tavern. I like witches, though. The sexy ones on TV, not the stinky kind at the bar who smell like room temperature Steel Reserve malt liquor.
STILL/BORN (2018)
“Mary, a new mother who lost one of her twins in childbirth, struggles with the loss. She starts to suspect something sinister is after her surviving child — a supernatural entity that has chosen her child and will stop at nothing to take it from her.”
They kinda hand this one to us one a parsley-garnished platter — the “supernatural entity” is the twin that didn’t make it to market. (A theory, not a conclusion.) By the way, do you want me to tell you what you’re getting for Christmas?
Drinkin' & Drive-in 