Godzilla: Homewrecker, Spit Swapping Serial Killer, Animal Abominations

If you haven’t seen Godzilla Minus One yet (you better have a good excuse), the Big Guy practically reinvents the definition of the term “wholesale annihilation.” The legendary reptile wrecking ball has been reaping critical raves and breaking box office records from all parts of the world he hasn’t stomped on yet. And thanks to Super 7™, we’re getting a microscopically-detailed Godzilla Minus One action figure to keep the party going.

From Super 7’s™ website: “Godzilla has risen from the sea to ravage an unsuspecting post-war Japan and it has never looked more terrifying! Based on the same 3D models used for the 2023 film Godzilla Minus One and approved by director Takashi Yamazaki for authenticity, this highly-articulated Toho™ ULTIMATES! Godzilla Minus One figure measures over 8” tall and 14” long, features intricate sculpt and premium paint detailing, and comes with an interchangeable roaring head- all of which give it a visceral sense of power and danger! If you can overcome the undeniable urge to flee for safety, add this made-to-order Toho™ ULTIMATES! Godzilla Minus One to your kaiju collection! Includes alternate head.” That’s the good news. The not-so-good news is that you need to preorder it here for $85.00 and wait until it ships in September 2024. This wreaks havoc on my impulse buying tendencies.

So while we all just suck it up and order the Godzilla Minus One action figure, here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies/TV series that may or may not contain wholesale annihilation — or even heavily-discounted annihilation…

DEVILS / December 5, 2023 (Screambox™)

“Jae-hwan is a determined homicide detective assigned to take down a ring of serial killers terrorizing the city. The case becomes deeply personal for him as one of the victims is his own brother-in-law. When the detective and the murderer finally collide, an unexpected turn of events leaves Jae-hwan waking up in the hospital – trapped in the body of the very killer he sought to apprehend. With the clock ticking, Jae-hwan must bring the murderer to justice while saving his family from imminent danger.”

I liked this better when it was called Face/Off (1997)

SOFT LIQUID CENTER / December 12, 2023 (VOD)

“Steph, a newly single woman on the cusp of a better life, finds herself in a dangerous and peculiar situation not of her making. As she begins to unravel the mysteries of her predicament, she grapples with a controlling, manipulative force hellbent on her undoing in this unique and unorthodox tale of loneliness, haunting, and abuse.”

Soft liquid center is how bears describe people.

FALLOUT / April 12, 2024 (Amazon Prime Video™)

“Nuclear war breaks out across Earth in the year 2077 — an era of robots, hover cars, and a deep and abiding nostalgia for the America of the 1940s. After the incendiary mushroom clouds, the story flashes forward 219 years. How did humanity fair over those blighted two centuries? Lucy has no clue. She has lived her entire life inside a subterranean vault, where every need and want has been satisfied while generations and generations await the day when it is safe to surface. When a crisis forces Lucy to venture above on a rescue mission, she finds that the planet above remains a hellscape crawling with giant insects, voracious mutant animal abominations, and a human population of sunbaked miscreants.”

Sunbaked miscreants. Sounds like some sort of health food snack.

KALKI 2898 AD / Release pending 2024 (VOD)

“A modern-day avatar of Vishnu, a Hindu god, is believed to have descended to Earth to protect the world from evil forces.”

Since Gamera’s been slacking on the whole “Guardian of the Galaxy” thing, someone’s gotta do it.

This Snake Takes The Cake

Snakeman (aka, The Snake King) came out in 2005 on the SyFy™ Channel and starred/stars Stephen Baldwin, who always looks like he’s striking a pose in front of a mirror only he can see.

So I watched the Hindu dubbed version of Snakeman on YouTube™. (It was titled Anakonda vs. Kink Kong. There was no Kink Kong, but the snake did eat a kinky monkey, so there you go.) It’s so poorly overdubbed that when someone shoots at the seven-headed giant snake (located in the heart of the steamy Amazon (jungle, not the one-stop shopping place on the Internet with free delivery if you have a Prime™ account), you don’t hear the rifle blasts for a few seconds later. For some reason I found that to be quite entertaining.

Baldwin plays Matt Ford (had to look that up as I don’t quite grasp the nuances of Hindi linguistics), a helicopter pilot who leads a team of researchers deep into the snake-filled Amazon by way of crashing said helicopter. The group includes Dr. Susan Elters, who looks like a Canadian version of Kim Basinger. Most everybody is eventually swallowed whole by the snake, which is the size of a regular snake times one million. Again, quite entertaining.

So why was everybody gooning out in the jungle in the first place? Seems the Fountain of Youth might be there (it is) and everyone wants to get their unwashed hands on it. Meanwhile, warring natives (I call them “Junglonians”) throw spears and shoot arrows at everyone. Most the time they miss their target, but hey, even a broken clock is right twice a day.

A rival helicopter shows up and a bunch of gunners try to get the youth juice for their own science profits. This is where the best scene happens. The meanest of the para-military guys is grabbed by both legs and arms by the snake and is handily (sorry) turned into a screaming torso. The biggest snake noggin leans down and nips the head off the still screaming guy as if snacking on M&Ms, where it melts in its mouth, not in its glands.

Watch the Hindu dubbed version of Snakeman, because sometimes understanding the dialogue just isn’t that important to the plot.

Drunk Aquaman, Fake Frankenstein, Godzilla Fashion

This has got to be one of the coolest Godzilla shirts going: “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” That immortal — and unsettling — phrase, of course, came from J. Robert Oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb. (He’d always have a back-up job as a fireworks designer should we ever run out of the need for Earth-splitting explosives.)

During a televised interview in 1965 after one of his ka-BOOMS was first tested, Oppenheimer uttered the chilling words, “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” (It should be noted he looked sad when he said it.) Also, he was quoting the 1944 Prabhavananda and Isherwood translation of Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita. (I totally knew that.)

That said, time to scrape together some bit coin action and purchase said Godzilla action wear.

Speaking of things that could go off in your face, here are a few upcoming horror, sci-fi and fantasy movies that may or may not blow up the box office…

SIMPLE CREATURE (July 11, 2017)
A college student gets into a near-fatal bus accident, but instead of dying, she is reborn through hybrid technology by her biotech father and his advanced lab.

Um, Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein (1818), might wanna have a few words with you about this “plot” of yours.

MAN UNDERGROUND (July 14, 2017)
“A reclusive conspiracy theorist enlists people from his small town to help him make a low-budget movie about his experience encountering aliens while working as a geologist for the US government.”

I’ve never encountered an alien — YET. But WHEN I DO, I won’t be making a movie about it. Rather, I will beg them to get me off this toilet Earth and to do it without any of that probing they’re infamous for. (Or as we call it here, a “Texas Handshake.”)

AQUAMAN (December 21, 2018)
“Aquaman finds himself caught between a surface world that ravages the sea and the underwater Atlanteans who are ready to revolt.”

Simply cannot wait for this one. Not only does it feature Aquaman looking totally badass (he also drinks booze straight from the bottle — no sippy cup for this superhero), he’s joined by the stunningly gorgeous Mera, Queen of Atlantis and Black Manta, an underwater criminal who hates Aquaman and his groundbreaking cannonball techniques.

PACIFIC RIM: UPRISING (February 23, 2018)
No word on the plot, but one might guess those defeated Kaiju (giant monsters) in Pacific Rim (2013) that came out of an interdimensional portal on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean want a re-match.

Their opponents, of course, are man-made Jaegers (giant mecha robots) controlled by two pilots whose minds swap spit in the mental shower. Very much looking forward to some supersized slobber knockers being traded on a city-leveling scale. That’d be pretty neat if the Jaegers were all wearing that Godzilla shirt.