President Wolfman

No doubt the scariest horror show these days is the horrific battle for the Presidency during this 2016 election year. Regardless who wins, the outcome is far too frightening to contemplate. So much so, this moved satirist Patton Oswalt to post on Facebook™ (August, 2016): “We are living in a horror movie written by comedians and performed by maniacs using megaphones…”

Too bad politicians aren’t allowed to use machetes and hockey masks.

That said, if you haven’t chosen a side, may I offer a few liberal party alternates: President Wolfman (2012), An American Werewolf in Washington (2013) and the schlock classic, Werewolf of Washington (1973).

President Wolfman (great title) rigs the election like this: “The President of the United States has been bitten by a werewolf and is loose on the streets of Washington on a killing rampage! This comedy/horror/political satire is also a ‘green movie,’ created entirely out of recycled stock and public domain film footage culled from over one hundred grainy government instructional shorts, classroom education movies, vintage stag reels and features that have fallen out of copyright as well as from the favor of the public.”

Awesomely patriotic.

As for An American Werewolf in Washington, it looks like this is a fan-made fake movie advertisement. Nevertheless, it has my vote.

Werewolf of Washington, however, is unlike anything you’ll ever see, depicting scenes of the President ripping people apart and sniffing butts. Not Republican butts, though. That’s some big time stinky.

You have your candidates – now stuff it up your ballot box.

2015 Horror: Best of the Worst

Movie commentary website ScreenRant.com recently posted their 12 Worst Horror Movies of 2015 list. They totally stole my idea, along with every other horror movie blog in existence. I feel mildly violated.

But rather than let it ruin my refreshing alcoholic beverage, here’s ScreentRant.com’s smack down along with my think tank thinkings on the subject(s). [Note: ScreenRant.com’s article, written by Scout Tafoya, is really quite good, accurate and well-researched – just the opposite of anything you’ll get outta me until I start getting paid to do this.]

From last to first…

12. MONSTERS: DARK CONTINENT
What it is: The sequel to Monsters (2010) wherein the title beasts have infected the Middle East where there’s already a war going on. Nice timing, stupid space creatures.
What SR said: “The monsters (admittedly still beautiful in design) are glimpsed from the sideline of the action and never meaningfully interact with the interchangeable leads.”
What I think doesn’t matter: Monsters: Dark Continent is two movies – military guys dealing with the horror of war, and military guys dealing with the horror of giant ick monsters. M:DC needed to pick a lane and drive in it as the two conflicts conflict with each other. Kinda like drinking a Budweiser™ and a Miller Genuine Draft™ at the same time. In theory it works, but it just doesn’t once the tops get popped. Still, the monsters are outrageously cool, especially that Mt. Everest sized one at the end.

11. KNOCK KNOCK
What it is: Two hot “stranded” chicks show up at a married guy’s house, get naked and entice him to stain his marriage vows. Then they try to permanently divorce him before his wife gets home.
What SR said: “As repugnant as it is arrogant, Knock Knock is a lose lose.”
What I think doesn’t matter: Did not see this one. Read some reviews, though. Not sure it qualifies as a horror movie in the traditional sense. Maybe if everyone wore a hockey mask…

10. THE GREEN INFERNO
What it is: Severely annoying student activists travel from New York City to the Amazon to save the Rain Forest. When their plane crashes in said foreign foliage, cannibals show up to invite them to/as dinner.
What SR said: “Cheaply made, obnoxiously written and not even half as extreme as it thinks it is, Green Inferno is an insult to the cannibal films of the ’70s it pays tribute to.”
What I think doesn’t matter: What they said. Embarrassing and irritating, GI, while filled with insides being turned outside, it’s really hard to get past what ScreenRant accurately calls “colossally stupid stereotypes.” Ironically, my complaint is with the cannibals – it took them one hour and forty-one minutes to finish their meal.

9. INTO THE GRIZZLY MAZE
What it is: A freakishly intelligent (and bottomless hungry) grizzly bear turns actors into bit parts.
What SR said: “The bear of the title is a mess of bad CGI effects and behaves conspicuously more like Jason Voorhees rather than a wild animal.”
What I think doesn’t matter: Yep. Though I will point out that the bear doesn’t just attack humans – it stalks and then rips them apart like jungle taffy. That’s what bears in horror movies are supposed to do.

8. BACKCOUNTRY
What it is: Vacationing campers are attacked and made into shredded meat by a bear of all things.
What SR said: “A couple of bland people for a weekend retreat to a wilderness trail that’s been closed for the season. That doesn’t stop them or a killer black bear from roaming around anyway. The kids get lost and it takes the bear entirely too long to show up and start chewing on hamstrings.”
What I think doesn’t matter: Mostly just fast-forwarding to the hamstring chewing action. Everything else was a waste of valuable drinking time.

7. SHARK LAKE
What it is: A black-market exotic species dealer unleashes a shark in Lake Tahoe where it chews out the swimmers.
What SR said: “No professional actors, terrible special effects, a sixteenth of the budget and lots of hilariously awful dialogue. Shark Lake will make you laugh an awful lot.”
What I think doesn’t matter: Every since Sharknado (2013), the ocean’s most feared apex predator has been rendered to a bad comedy punchline. And Shark Lake shamelessly gets in the feeding frenzy and continues the mockery. Note to Shark Lake filmmakers: Why don’t you dangle an errant limb in the ocean? Then we’ll see who’s laughing.

6. POLTERGEIST
What it is: An inferior remake of 1982’s superior Poltergeist
What SR said: “No one needed another Poltergeist; The monsters have a sort of evocative menace to them in their ten seconds of screen time, but when they’re represented by 3D screw bits and vomit fantasies, they’re a touch less formidable.”
What I think doesn’t matter: Just the thought of redoing Poltergeist is far more horrifying than the movie turned out to be. Hollywood must need the cash. P.S. “Vomit fantasies” – heh.

5. BURYING THE EX
What it is: A guy’s dead nagging girlfriend comes back from the grave and wants to continue their relationship. A guy’s worst day and nightmare.
What SR said: “Crazy sexist and smug, Burying The Ex is unquestionably [director] Joe Dante’s worst film.”
What I think doesn’t matter: ScreenRant may have missed the point – Burying The Ex is a comedy and supposed to be crazy sexist and smug. And hey, funny naked and horny fat guy to help keep things swingin’.

4. THE LAZARUS EFFECT
What it is: Medical researchers discover a way to bring animals/people back from the dead. For commercial applications, of course.
What SR said: “There isn’t a scare in the whole film and it loses steam right around the time it starts offing cast members, the film’s equivalent of shrugging its shoulders when it runs out of ideas.”
What I think doesn’t matter: Horror snobs not unlike myself recognize Lazarus as pilfering Flatliners (1990) and Pet Sematary (1989). In other words, nothing new here. That said, when was anyone ever brought back from being dead and not all f’d up in the brain hole?

3. MAGGIE
What it is: A Midwest small town girl is infected with a virus that’s slowly turning her (and select others) into a zombie. Living in a Midwest small town does the same thing.
What SR said: “The filmmakers never quite figured out when this experience starts benefiting anyone crazy enough to watch a low-budget Arnold Schwarzenegger film. Take away his explosions and he’s lost without a map.”
What I think doesn’t matter: Casting Arnold Schwarzenegger with his famous Austrian accent as a Midwest farmer was a big pitchfork in the rump. Arnie doesn’t say much in this one, but when he does he stands out like a sore cow. His job, though, is to keep the authorities from moving his slowly rotting zombie teen daughter to a containment camp where they never come back because they just can’t. Maggie moves really s-l-o-w and there’s no brain eating. But I did like the last two minutes where she finally goes through zombie puberty and…

 2. HARBINGER DOWN
What it is: Mutated monsters get defrosted from Russian space junk at the bottom of the Bering Sea – and their first food order is grad students on a fishing trawler. Zazdarovje!
What SR said: “Harbinger Down could have used a few rewrites, a better cast, and a sense of purpose beyond its creepy crawly.”
What I think doesn’t matter: I’m a total sucker for giant monster movies. And it’s always a gratifying experience to see nauseating grad students being eaten by said giant monsters. You know what I say? Go giant monsters!

1. THE PACK
What it is: Man’s best friend turns Man’s best leg into a chew toy.
What SR said: “These dogs are just too cuddly and never look like they want anything more than belly rubs and behind-the-ear scratches.”
What I think doesn’t matter: Didn’t see The Pack. But I did see it in 1983 when it was called Cujo.

Blubbering: The Horror of Whales

Even though it’s universally considered to be an American literature classic, the 1851 Herman Melville novel Moby Dick (or The Whale) was in fact the first “nature strikes back” horror story.

You had the maniacal, revenge-seeking Captain Ahab, the original slasher (except he wielded a harpoon and not a hockey mask and a machete), relentlessly pursing Moby Dick (a name used by more than one male porn star), a gigantic whale that wrecked Ahab’s Sea-doo™ and bit the crazy captain’s leg clean off. (Reports are sketchy as to whether it was his right or left leg. Maybe it was both.)

Just like Victor Frankenstein psychotically tracking his creationist monster through the Black Sea and meeting up in the Arctic Circle for the ultimate pay-per-view, both stories did not conclude well for Ahab and Victor.

So the timeless horror classic is headed for the Imax™ screen in the form of In The Heart of the Sea (releasing December 11, 2015), a movie telling the story that inspired Moby Dick and features Thor (Chris Hemsworth) himself, trading in his Mjölnir (or “hammer”) for a whaler’s harpoon. Not really a spoiler, we kinda already know how this is gonna end up – humans will be recycled as whale poo.

Here’s the plot: “In 1820, crewmen aboard the New England vessel Essex face a harrowing battle for survival when a whale of mammoth size and strength attacks with force, crippling their ship and leaving them adrift in the ocean. Pushed to their limits and facing storms, starvation, panic and despair, the survivors must resort to the unthinkable to stay alive.”

One can only imagine what the “resorting to the unthinkable” stuff is to stay alive. If it’s anything like Free Willy 3: Packed In Spring Water, I think we all know the gory conclusion.

A New Halloween Classic

Been e-hearing a lot of e-talk about Honeyspider (2015), a tantalizingly titled horror movie many are saying is “destined to become a Halloween classic.” Halloween could use more classics as Christmas keeps hogging ’em all. (Frosty the Snowman should wear a hockey mask smeared with elf blood.)

So what’s all this chatter about Honeyspider? Here’s what I was able to glean from the Internet after embarking on an exhaustive search. (And by exhaustive, I mean I was tired with only enough energy to click on one link. And to think Budweiser™ used to make me invincible.):

“It’s Halloween day in 1989 and college student Jackie Blue wants to enjoy a quiet birthday in the midst of a chaotic semester at school. Her friend Amber has other ideas and persuades Jackie to come to the annual Monster Mash party on campus after her shift at the local movie theater.”

“As murder plays out on the silver screen during the theater’s Halloween night Horrorthon, Jackie falls under a strange spell, all while a mysterious stranger watches over her every move. As the night unfolds, Jackie slowly unravels and everyone around her is turning up dead. Jackie finds herself helplessly trapped like prey in a spider’s web, and all she can do is try to survive the night!”

Hmm – doesn’t sound classic status worthy. But then, everybody knows to ignore press blurbs and just judge a movie by its poster. Ahem.

Final e-though: Jackie Blue – isn’t that the name of the 1974 smooth pop hit from the southern rock gods Ozark Mountain Daredevils? We should all so lucky as to be named after one of their songs. That said, I hereby illegally change my name to “Spaceship Orion,” from their December 1973 self-titled debut album an A&M Records. Click HERE to buy a copy.

Until tomorrow, this is Spaceship Orion signing off…

Japanese Giant Eyeballs

A 1964 Japanese-made anthology of four “horror” stories involving ghosts, Kwaidan doesn’t have Samaurias in hockey masks spilling teenage guts all over the floor or rotted spirits with crooked teeth looking to suck on your brains. Instead, it’s more artsy, going for color, atmospheric settings, slow suspense build-up and mixed results pay-off. These stories came from a Greek dude but were adapted to the Japanese culture. I don’t know why I know that.

Of the stories – “The Black Hair,” “The Woman of the Snow” and “In a Cup of Tea,” it’s the charmingly titled, “Hoichi the Earless” that’s the most fun with its cool graveyard scenes. It’s a story about a blind musician, or “biwa hoshi” whose specialty is singing “The Tale of the Heike,” about the Battle of Dan-no-ura, a war fought between Emperor Antoku and Minamoto no Yoritomo during the last phase of the Genpei War. (OK, I totally copied that off Wikipedia™ – but just for fact-checking, as I for real knew all that stuff in the first place. I just didn’t know how to spell everything.) I also liked the giant eye in “The Woman of the Snow.” Giant eyes are kinda neat.

These are all metaphoric tales of loss, grief, remorse, blah, blah, blah. Brain-eating can be remorseful, too, but you just have to let it be so. While it’s been described as one of the most meticulously crafted supernatural films ever made, Kwaidan is like reading a poetry book when what you really want is a TV Guide™. Still, the snow woman is kinda hot.

Big Money Horror Bouts

Before the epic battle of Alien vs. Predator (2004),  there was Freddy vs. Jason (2003), which matched dream date/teen-hater Freddy Krueger with hockey-fan/butcher Jason Voorhees. (Put me in the Alien/Krueger corner; Jason is a one-punchline joke and Predator cheats.)

Everyone quit believing in Freddy Krueger and started worshiping X-box™. Freddy can’t come back from the sleep aether to kill you if you don’t believe (i.e., fear) in him. (This is in reference to the Candyman rules – you don’t say his name five times, he won’t appear and gut you.)

So Freddy has to resurrect the only unstoppable serial killer with a machete and hockey mask who can handle his PR: Friday the 13th’s Jason Voorhees. I know, there’s hundreds of hockey-masked goons with machetes (NHL). But Jason was the first who mattered.

High body count (makes sense), some obligatory boobies (thank you), terrible plot (but you knew that), and Jason and Freddy getting into a less-than-fulfilling physical argument that escalates into decapitation and was solely designed to cash in ($115 million at the box office). In other words, slasher business as usual.

Asylum of Photocopied Terror

Take an abandoned prison, turn it into the Death Row Haunted Prison Funhouse, then charge obnoxious people five bucks to wander through its spooky confines while an escaped convict from a mental institution comes back “home” to see if anybody has been messing with his stuff.

Claiming he’s “bigger than Freddy Krueger, bigger than Jason,” the maniac dons a hockey mask (for fudge sake, couldn’t they come up with anything even slightly more original?) and wanders through the funhouse, hacking and chainsawing people into pocket change.

The only scary part of Asylum of Terror (1998) comes when you realize you’ve been robbed of your video rental money, cash that could’ve been spent on refreshing alcohol instead of regurgitated slasher fare.