Creatures, Ghosts and STDs

Watched a documentary on 1980s horror movie scream queens the other day. Surprised to find out these often naked and hired-to-shriek actresses made less than an average 7-Eleven™ manager’s assistant’s intern. Shocking revelation, but at least you get a screen credit; no one in the history of 7-Eleven™ has ever had their picture — let alone their name — on any one of its fine and potentially healthy microwaveable products. Talk about unsung heroes.

Here’s some upcoming low paydays for a few people…

MAN VS (February 14, 2017/VOD)
As host of his own hit TV series, MAN VS, Doug Woods is forced to fend for himself for five days in remote locations with no crew, food, or water, only the cameras he carries on his back to film his experiences. Doug’s in the remote woods for a routine episode, until he’s awoken by an earth-shaking crash. Things get weirder as it becomes clear Doug isn’t alone. Someone or something is watching him. MAN VS is a gripping ‘found footage’ thriller about one man’s extraordinary desire to survive at all costs.”

Not a fan of these types of TV shows. I’m always rooting for nature to put these fame hungry participants out of my misery. So what might be in the woods going after Woods? (Really? They couldn’t give him another last name?) My guess is media critics and/or low ratings.

LAKE ALICE (2017)
“It’s Christmas at an isolated cabin in the subzero temperatures of northern Wisconsin where the days are short and the nights last forever. As a blizzard descends on Lake Alice, so does evil, as the Thomas family is hunted down one by one. The family struggles to stay alive as their numbers slowly dwindle.”

Numbers always dwindle in subzero temps — and casinos. My first thought is why would a family go to an isolated cabin in a blizzard on Christmas when there are lots of nice and warm cocktail lounges within $1 of gas distance? As for the “evil” dogging the Thomas clan on Christmas, it’s probably Krampus. Gotta say, I like that guy.

GREMLIN (2017)
“A man receives a mysterious box containing a terrible secret, a creature that will kill everyone else in his family unless he passes it on to someone he loves to continue its never-ending circulation. He can’t destroy it. He can’t escape it. He can only give it to someone he loves before it’s too late.”

Sounds like a cross between The Ring (2002) and It Follows (2014). As for passing along a terrible secret to someone he loves, I’m thinkin’ herpes.

THE LODGERS (2017)
“A sister and brother are haunted by a secret curse that forces them to remain in the large estate home left to them by their dead parents. But when a young man who falls in love with the sister tries to free her, his attempt sets off a deadly chain reaction.”

Forced to remain in a large estate home without parents? Sucks to be you. Try living in a nightmare apartment building with loud and obnoxious butt-heads being loud and obnoxious day in and day out. And don’t get me started on the overflowing recycling dumpster that only gets emptied once a month or the never ending semi trucks delivering frozen hockey puck “meat” patties to the McDonald’s™ behind said nightmare apartment building.

Medium-Rare Bear

A city doctor and his pregnant wife go to the ultra-busy woods of Maine to tend to all the sick Native American kids covered in pine cones and sores that won’t heal. Mercury poisoning, it’s discovered, is behind the face herpes.

The doctor discovers the saw mill has been polluting the local waterways with Mercury-based chemicals used to make logs all nice and shiny. Fish swim in that water. The fish mutate. The local Native Americans eat the fish. The Native Americans mutate.

Evidence to this outlandish claim lies in a horribly disfigured baby bear cub, found almost drowned to death. Unfortunately, it’s a long way back to camp and horribly disfigured mama bear is looking for her crusty kid. But she’s been busy, killing sleeping bag campers as though they were foreign tourists. Ripped, shredded, half-eaten, mangled, chewed, regurgitated… It was if they were human snack cakes at the last Drinkin’ & Drive-in Bake Sale.

Plenty of great moments, but the best comes when the monster bear chases them across a lake and goes into the drink in an iconic horror movie sequence. Thinking that gosh-darned thing drowned, they don’t see the bubbles heading towards shore. The bear walks all the way under the lake without scuba gear or anything resembling a snorkel!

No matter what they throw at mom, it still keeps coming. She looks like a reverse bear with melted skin and gut stuff on the outside where fur should be. Prophecy (1979) is loaded with gnarly nature-gone-awry action that sets you up for a sequel (pregnant mom has been eating the tainted fish).

 They never made another movie, though. Too bad; I felt Underwater Bear deserved to be been fleshed out a bit more. Oh, hey — I just got my own joke. Sweet!

The Day The Earth Drew Mud

X The Unknown (1956) is a British sci-fi kickstarter about a sentient pile of liquid meatloaf that oozes up out of a fissure (or “crack”) in the Earth in search of radiation nutrients on which to feed. Good thing we Earthers have a lot of uranium laying around.

Discovered during a Scottish military training session to teach soldiers how to use Geiger counters, the crack appears in a dirt pit that looks more like a moto-cross playground full of whiskey throttlers than the scene of a potential holocaust. Get close to the hole, you get flaky waxy skin and pancake sized herpes sores all over your back/face/short life. (Always wash your hands after getting close to holes.)

Dr. Royston, an English scientist from the conveniently located Atomic Energy Laboratory, investigates when several townsfolk melt after encounters with the chocolate colored couscous. He hypothesizes (guesses out loud) that the living energy form is prehistoric in nature and got trapped underground when the Earth’s pancake crust cooled in its pre-people days. Now it’s really freakin’ starvinated and wants a steaming pile of radiation with a human side salad to feast upon. Good thing we Earthers have a lot of uranium laying around.

The scientist, military and local police figure out a way to lure the fudge brownie mix back into the crack and blow it up for the benefit of all mankind. And to think all they had to do was drop a car-sized roll of toilet paper into the hole and let the monster wipe itself out.

X The Unknown, though, was the precursor for 1958’s The Blob, which beget a sequel (Beware! The Blob/1972), a remake (The Blob/1988), and was the source material for the R.L. Stine Goosebumps™ rip-off book, The Blob That Ate Everyone (1997).

Still, I can’t shake the nagging feeling that I’ve seen this gravy-stained lumpy pile of mashed potatoes before. Sigh. It’s gonna stick in my crack all day long. Oh wait, I know! It looks just like…Dairy Queen™!