Monsters Undressed, Moon UFOs, House Ghost

As promised in a previous bloggedy-blog, here’s more of Canadian designer Phil Postma’s creative art, this time turning the Bride of Frankenstein into a gas station pin-up calendar cutie.

Phil monster-mashed The Bride with Wolf-Man, Dracula, Creature From The Black Lagoon and even her primary care provider, Victor Frankenstein, achieving pant-tingling results. Makes you wish he’d make these billboard-sized or at least a print that could be held up with one hand.

In The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), the reanimated gal throws a hissy-fit when her prearranged pairing with Frankenstein’s monster didn’t go as planned. This scenario gave birth to not only girl Goth, but speed-dating as well.

While we beg Phil to do 100 more monster pin-ups, here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not belong in a gas station… 

REBROKEN / March 7, 2023 (VOD)

“Will is a devastated father who spends his time between court-ordered grief counseling drinking himself into oblivion. He repeats the cycle of despair every day with no plans to stop, until he meets a mysterious stranger who gives him some old vinyl recordings. After Will listens to the records, he suddenly starts receiving messages from his recently deceased daughter. As the communications from his daughter grow more and more frequent, Will becomes convinced that these recordings hold the answer to bring his daughter back from the dead.”

If the deceased daughter tours in support of her album, I would like front row tickets.

SECRET SPACE UFOs: APOLLO 1-11 / April, 2023 (VOD)

“The UFO phenomenon has been recorded far beyond the boundaries of Earth with hundreds of sightings during the Apollo missions 1-11. James Fox, Darcy Weir, Mike Bara and Richard Dolan discuss this hidden history of UFOs in space and structures on the Moon. A history of NASA’s early Apollo missions as astronauts endeavor to set foot on the Moon and go further in space than any man has before.”

Of course aliens live on the Moon, as evidenced by the “Stay Off The Lawn” signs intended for trespassing astronauts.

DIVINITY / Release pending 2023 (VOD)

“Set in an otherworldly human existence, scientist Sterling Pierce dedicated his life to the quest for immortality, slowly creating the building blocks of a groundbreaking serum named Divinity. Jaxxon Pierce, his son, now controls and manufactures his father’s once-benevolent dream. Society on this barren planet has been entirely perverted by the supremacy of the drug, whose true origins are shrouded in mystery. Two mysterious brothers arrive with a plan to abduct the mogul, and with the help of a seductive woman named Nikita, they will be set on a path hurtling toward true immortality.”

Never understood the appeal of immortality. Paying never-ending taxes would suck big time.

THE UNDERBUG / Release pending 2023 (VOD)

“As India is ravaged by sectarian violence on the eve of its Independence Day, two rioters take refuge in an abandoned house. An eerie presence in the house, however, haunts the men to the edge of sanity.”

Eerie presence is just a fancy term for supernatural squatter. They can all share the house as long as everybody labels their food in the fridge and shares in doing the dishes and taking out the recycling.

Space Trippin’, Corpse Cop-A-Feel, Intrusive Intruders

Here’s another thing you didn’t know you needed: Relic of a Jupiter Tomb statuettes. How you thought you’d get through life without ‘em is the million dollar question. Or rather, $325.00, which is the cost of owning one of these crazy cool and colorful and limited to 300 worldwide art pieces. To sweeten the pot, each statuette is hand-painted and airbrushed by master statue craftsmen, making each individual piece unique.

So what exactly are these things? Looks like something a hippie would dream of while tripping on Grateful Dead-grade acid. The artist known as Skinner writes of the statue’s origins: “The men found the relic within the monolithic sarcophagus of Jupiter. They had been trapped for days now, the storm outside having destroyed their ship, leaving them stranded. It was lucky that their space suits had kept them alive this long, but the oxygen wouldn’t last another day…”

Which reminds me — I need to get that hole in my space suit repaired before heading to the store. These statuettes, though, come with a two-sided removable helmet, which can be flipped to present a different design on each side. They come in a “soft touch” collector art box and ship with a certificate of authenticity signed by the House of Gog guys. Preorder ’em here.

While you go rummaging around a monolithic sarcophagus on Jupiter (Uber™ doesn’t go there, so just take the Space Shuttle), here are a few out now/upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not put YET ANOTHER embarrassing hole in your space suit…

THE ANCHOR / Out now (Screambox™)

“Sera, a nightly news anchor, receives a distressing phone call from a mother saying that a man is going to kill her and that Sera is the only one capable of solving her murder. When she discovers that the caller is real, Sera digs deeper into the case to reveal the shocking truth.”

The only calls I get are from guys with Indian accents named Jerry saying they’re calling from a tech support office in Ohio to tell me my computer is infected with a virus and that they can fix it for $798.00. Fairly priced. 

CONFESSIONS OF A NECROPHILE GIRL / December 2022 (DVD)

“Based on the true life story of American necrophile Karen Greenlee. Karen relives the most important moments of her life through a video diary, from childhood to first love and the scandal about her sexual attraction for corpses.”

Not sure where one draws the line with this subject matter, but if your bar is set high for watching live people have sex with dead people, give Nekromantic (1988) a loving gaze.

BERMUDA ISLAND / January 20, 2023 (Blu-ray/DVD/VOD/Select Theaters)

“Passengers on their way to a tropical paradise crash at sea and find themselves on a deserted island. Desperate to survive the elements and infighting between survivors, they find that the island has more in store for them than they could ever imagine.”

Like what exactly — exploding coconuts? Inflatable mermaids? Monkey butlers? Should be all of that.

GO AWAY / Release pending 2023 (VOD)

“Liz and her boyfriend Mark travel to a remote home in the woods to visit Sherry, her estranged mother. As Liz and the rest of her family try to put their differences aside long enough to survive dinner, an unexpected knock at the door turns into deadly chaos when a group of masked intruders take the family hostage and force them to play a deadly game of hide and seek.”

Social protocol dictates you call first before dropping by. Masked intruders can be so rude. 

Box Set Ghost, India Werewolf, Demon Blackmail

Fans of J-horror will make leakage in their kimono over the definitive box set compilation of Ju-On: The Grudge, Japan’s landmark upset ghost franchise. Releasing December 19, 2022, the five-disc set, with a metric ton of extras, sells for $70.00 fun bucks (or 10,417.00 yen), though you can find it $10.00 cheaper on sale if you’d just put in the time to dig around. Click HERE to see all the ingredients.

What’s that you say? You don’t know what Ju-On is? Prepare to be educated via their press release: “Ju-On is the name given to a deadly curse spawned when someone dies in the grip of a violent rage. All who come into contact with it are doomed. Collected together for the first time, writer-director Takashi Shimizu’s Ju-On: The Grudge series represents the flesh-crawling pinnacle of Japanese chillers that swept the globe at the turn of the millennium.”

“The films introduce the anonymous family house in the suburbs of Tokyo where an unspeakable evil lingers alongside its residents, the ghastly mother-son pairing of Kayoko and Toshio Saeki. Shimizu’s disconcerting approach to plotting, unnerving eye for the uncanny details in the dark corners of the frame and an innate talent for effective jump scares so impressed Evil Dead director Sam Raimi that he invited the director to helm two Hollywood remakes.”

So while you go online to buy the box set, which contains all the Grudge movies and has the same long black stringy haired white faced demon ghost in every one of ‘em, here are a few upcoming horror movies that may or may not make you want to fashionably style your stringy hair…

DEMONS AT DAWN / October 28, 2022 (VOD)

“A retired hitman is blackmailed into taking one last job. However, during his mission, he uncovers a satanic cult that uses human sacrifice to summon demons.”

Human sacrifice seems so ancient Inca. Why can’t satanic cults just summon demons using Facebook™ like everybody else?

BHEDIYA / November 25, 2022 (Theaters)

“Bhaskar gets bitten by a mythical wolf and begins to transform into a creature himself. In order to find answers about his condition and turn himself back into a human he must then team with a group of ragtag buddies before it’s too late.”

This one’s being billed as India’s very first creature comedy. About time, geez. A preview said “Bhediya essentially looks like Bollywood’s answer to An American Werewolf in London.” Better title: A Mumbai Werewolf in India.

MEAN-SPIRITED /Pending release, 2023

“A wannabe YouTuber™ who set out to bury the hatchet with his celebrity friend, just to find out that he is not quite himself anymore.”

A wanna be YouTuber™. That’s like being hired to be the assistant to the guy who just got promoted from janitor to cashier at Kinkos™.

DON’T COME BACK ALIVE / Pending release, 2022/2023

“Police officer Camila, criminal prosecutor Fátima, and police detective Ángel, are used to face extremely dangerous situations, gruesome murder cases and evil criminals. During an operation in a dangerous area, they have an encounter with a female albino figure in a suicide-by-immolation ritual. This being, more powerful than death itself, is here to play with them a wicked game.”

So by going up in flames, you turn yourself into something more powerful than an overheated lava lamp itself? You set the bar way too low, man.

Scary Clothes, Murderous Hotels, Grassy Horror

Awesome new swag from CavityColors.com, featuring nine shirts/tank tops/baseball shirts based on the Hall of Fame horror movie, Carrie (1976). Prices range from $27.00 to $37.00, so there’s no excuse to not raid your retirement fund.

What? You say you haven’t seen Carrie or read the Stephen King book on which it was adapted? First, may shame fall upon thee. Secondly, here’s the plot AGAIN: “Withdrawn and sensitive teen Carrie White faces taunting from classmates at school and abuse from her fanatically pious mother at home. When strange occurrences start happening around Carrie, she begins to suspect that she has supernatural powers. Invited to the prom by the empathetic Tommy Ross, Carrie tries to let her guard down, but things eventually take a dark and violent turn.”

A vast understatement. The prom scene is one of the most iconic in horror film history, using split screen and split spleen technology. And it also has one of the coolest “fill your pants” endings you’ll ever fill your pants to.

Before you go to your own prom, here are a few now available/upcoming horror movies that may or may not be worth changing your pants over…

NIGHT SHIFT (available now)
“Amy is a young woman hired to work the night shift at a hotel made notorious by a gruesome legend — that 10 years ago, the hotel was the site of a brutal mass murder. As her shift goes into the late hours of the evening, Amy realizes that not only is the story true, but that the killer remains on the grounds, and still has a taste for blood. Trapped in the hotel, with a vicious murderer on her trail, Amy must find a way to escape and save the hotel’s guests in this terrifying thriller.”

If you’re looking for other mediocre hotel horror movies, try 2013’s India-made Horror Story, based on Stephen King’s 1408 (2008). Or you could just re-watch The Shining (1980), the mother of all haunted hotel horror movies and pee your pants AGAIN.

YOU MIGHT BE THE KILLER (available now)
“As Sam flees from a masked killer at camp, it slowly dawns on him that HE might be the killer. With the help of his film buff friend Chuck, Sam navigates through horror movie tropes to try and make it out of this plot alive.”

This one came out in September of 2018, but someone blinked and it went uncared about. It’s a horror comedy, but for a better take on this theme, shell out a few fun coupons for the far superior The Final Girls (2015). Here’s its plot: “Max, recently orphaned, goes to see a screening of a B-horror movie that her mother made 20 years earlier. When Max and her friends find themselves in the world of the film itself, they must apply their knowledge of horror tropes to survive.”

IN THE TALL GRASS (2019)
“A sister and brother who pull off to the side of the road after hearing a young boy crying for help from beyond the tall grass. Within minutes they are disoriented, in deeper than seems possible, and they’ve lost one another. The boy’s cries are more and more desperate. What follows is a terrifying…”

Sounds like a job for…The Lawnmower Man (1992). Heh.

Artful Sharks, Southern Fried Zombies, Rioting Girls

Been marveling (again) over the non-official sales art for the upcoming big budget giant shark movie, Meg. Designed by artist David Graham, it’s so cool, the movie studio should just buy it from him and use that to sell the movie. (Not fake news: I posted this very same art in August of 2017 — and I endorse that statement.)

While David’s done several work-ups for Meg (in theaters August 10, 2018), the one featured here looks like it was inspired by another artist’s “movie” art. No party foul — when it comes to giant sharks, we’re all aquatic allies.

Speaking of vintage Jaws movie art (official or not), here’s one you may not have seen on dry/sorta wet land…

While you avoid getting in the water come August, here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not take a big bite out of your life…

ATTACK OF THE SOUTHERN FRIED ZOMBIES (March 13, 2018)
“Lonnie, a crop duster pilot, must lead a mismatched group of survivors to escape the deadly zombie horde after an experimental chemical, intended to control the invasive kudzu vine, transforms the citizens of Charleston, MS into zombies.”

Did this come out in February of 2017? That’s what IMDB.com is saying. And yet the trailer on YouTube™ and the date on the movie poster itself is claiming March 13, 2018 as its release date. I’m so confused.

HE’S OUT THERE (2018)
“On vacation at a remote lake house, a mother and her two young daughters must fight for survival after falling into a terrifying and bizarre nightmare conceived by a psychopath.”

YET ANOTHER psychopath conceiving nightmares for non-psychopaths. Not sure which orchestra I fall into.

RIOT GIRLS (2018)
“Set in a world where adults have mysteriously died and resources are scarce, Riot Girls tells the story of a teenage girl who is called to action when her brother is captured by rivals and set to be executed. Joined by the girl who has always loved her, and the boy who wants to love her, the threesome tear through the crumbling suburbs on a violent road marked by sexual discovery, betrayal and brutal justice.”

Cool, but isn’t sexual discovery, betrayal and brutal justice pretty much the same thing anymore?

DARKNESS VISIBLE (2018)
“Londoner Ronnie embarks on a journey to India when his mother, Suleka, goes missing and mysteriously ends up in a Kolkata hospital. Before Ronnie can unravel the mystery of what brought his mother back to her homeland, Suleka dies in an apparent cult killing. Further deaths point to a series of past murders that stopped 28 years ago when Suleka left India with her infant son. Until now. As the darkness within Ronnie grows and the murders reach their peak, all roads lead to the feared witch of Kolkata’s insane asylum.”

I’ve been to Kolkata’s insane asylum. They must’ve changed the sign, as it now reads: The Tug Tavern. I did buy one of Kolkata’s T-shirts, though. Their branding looks a heckuva lot like Motorhead’s logo.

Great Canadian Smoke-out, Poison Sharks, Teddy Bears

For those not living in Seattle, we’ve been experiencing a heatwave combined with what is being described as having “the worst air quality than Bejing, Kolkata.” We can blame this on Canada as their wildfires, while making for some colorful, hippie sunsets, are sending their smoke across the border — without passports — and into our neighborhoods. Thanks a lot, Canada — just because your coins don’t work in our vending machines is no reason to smoke us out. (Some pranksters are using the photos of the burning haze to say it’s 4:20 in Seattle. That’s pretty funny.)

A recent article in the Seattle Times had this to say about our horror weather: “Seattle’s air quality index was 156 on Thursday afternoon, which is considered unhealthy, according to AirNow. That’s worse than Los Angeles and several cities in China and India. Beijing’s air quality index was 80, Shanghai sat at 78, and Chongqing was ranked 65, all of which are considered moderate, according to the World Air Quality Index Project.”

I’m well prepared for this smokocalypse — I walk around with a designer scuba tank (Jaques Costeau logo on it— limited edition), so up yours World Air Quality Index Project. Speaking of being suffocated to death by a so-called friendly neighboring country, here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not make you choke…

TOXIC SHARK (August 4, 2017)
“A tropical singles retreat takes a terrifying turn when guests realize a poisonous shark is infesting the surrounding water. Not only will this toxic shark rip apart its victims, but it also uses projectile acid to hunt…in and out of the water!”

A shark that shoots projectile acid? Sounds like a mash-up of a great white shark and the Alien. Still, gotta like the premise. Set ‘em up, melt ‘em down. I bet the shark could turn ‘em into bowling trophies afterward.

TEDDY BEARS PICNIC (2017)
“Inspired by the 1907 melody of the same name, Teddy Bears Picnic re-envisions the childhood song as a nightmarish fable that twists the concept of childhood innocence.”

That song was written in 1907. You mean I haven’t been able to get that stupid song out of my head for 110 years? No wonder I drink daily.

KEEP WATCHING (December 2017)
“When two deranged serial killers break into their home, a family has to stick together to make it out alive and unbeknown to them there are hidden cameras throughout their home documenting their every move.”

Having cameras everywhere is cheating, especially when one is need of a private, yet relaxing moment in the restroom. Only deranged serial killers would watch such footage. Probably upload it on YouTube™, too. That’s just being mean.

THE SPANISH CHAINSAW MASSACRE (release pending)
“A heavy metal band named The Metal Dicks are touring to promote their first record. While driving to their next concert location their van gets a flat tire so they have to spend the night in a small, local town. The next day the town is having a festival to celebrate their patron saints day and the mayor of the town asks The Metal Dicks to join in with the festival. The band accept the mayor’s offer unaware of the dangers that lie ahead.”

Great band name. I wish to own all their album. I have a feeling, though, they may not be around long to record a second one. Maybe take all their unfinished demos and release ‘em under the title, Bits ‘n Pieces.

Hindi Horror

Agyaat: The Unknown (2009). Should be called Agyaat: The Unendurable. An India-made “horror” movie with choreographed dance sequences and sing-alongs. Kill me now.

A film crew goes into a lush Sri Lanka forest to film people dancing and singing. (Oh, Sasquatch – why have you forsaken us?) While a camera is being repaired (it broke itself because it couldn’t put up with what it was being asked to do), the cast wanders off into the woods. It’s here (or there) they encounter an unseen something that threatens to rip up their mall-purchased clothes and product-styled hair.

Though you never get to see what it is that’s after them, you can make an educated guess: it’s a film critic, ready to tear them a new gadhē. Oh wait, it was me all along. Cool!