Finnish Superheroes, Hitler Dinosaurs, Vampire Neighbors

Been watching the new Marvel™ TV series Iron Fist on Netflix™. There are good aspects and some so bad it causes involuntary facial flinching. Daniel Rand, introduced as a kid who lost his corporate rich mom and dad in a relaxing vacation plane wreck over the Himalayas, is rescued by invisible monks and raised for the next 15 years to be the next Iron Fist, solely designed to wipe out the evil gang, The Hand. They beat him with sticks every day to reinforce their clenched mandate.

15 years later he shows up unexpectedly in downtown New York as a shoeless street bum (with hipster beard and an iPod™), trying to reconnect with his dad’s company. (He’s an heir worth billions and yet can’t afford socks, matching or otherwise.)

All of this I can get behind except they make him say and do stupid things. (Really bad chi-generating meditation moves and stilted kung-fu reference dialogue.) Worst, they give him a lava glowing fist that, when he’s provoked by violence, lights up and he can punch criminals and/or walls right in the sheet rock. Walls pretty much deserve it because they impede proper feng shui. Stupid walls.

All in all, mildly entertaining, but a surprising misstep by Marvel™, whose only blemish on a stellar track record has been The Fantastic Four. (Note to Marvel — PLEASE quite trying to make that one work. No one gives a crap about a guy who can stretch like a rubber band and another one who looks like passed kidney stones.)

Speaking of things to pass on, here are a few upcoming horror and sci-fi movies that may or may not need to be medically assisted to leave your body…

RENDEL (2017)
“A dark avenger is born when a worldwide corporation known as VALA launches an untested vaccine called Nh25 into the market by bribing, threatening, and killing every official opposing them.

Rendel unleashes his own special kind of hell against VALA, threatening to put an end the distribution of Nh25 As blood spills and the money burns, VALA recruits a group of mercenaries to do what they seemingly can’t, eliminate Rendel permanently.”

Rendel is Finland’s first superhero movie. About time they jumped on the bandwagon. Heck, I’m filming my own superhero movie as we speak: Yell Man: Neighbor Wars (pending $10 million crowd-funding.) Sounds like Rendel is a cross between Spawn (1997) and, well, me (I have a suit just like his, so you can see why people would make the connection. And by people, I mean me.) Despite a personal affront, looking forward to this one.

LIVING AMONG US (2017)
“A documentary crew is sent in to interview a family of vampires whose existence has been made known to the world. But soon the crew realizes their very lives are in danger as they uncover a deadly secret and must fight for survival.”

Sounds like they took the framework of Fright Night (1985) and went to town with it. So vampires are living next door. Might be time to order some garlic polo shirts and Internet-ordered wooden stakes and go door-to-door because now I’m thinking those aren’t just a-holes living next to me, but bloodsucking a-holes.

IRON SKY: THE COMING RACE (February 14, 2018)
“Twenty years after the events of Iron Sky, the former Nazi Moonbase has become the last refuge of mankind. Earth was devastated by a nuclear war, but buried deep under the wasteland lies a power that could save the last of humanity — or destroy it once and for all. The truth behind the creation of mankind will be revealed when an old enemy leads our heroes on an adventure into the Hollow Earth. To save humanity they must fight the Vril, an ancient shape-shifting reptilian race and their army of dinosaurs.”

You can look but you may not find anything as crazy cool as Iron Sky (2012). And now with it’s sequel (which I e-barfed about on November 11, 2014) is within release sight. The new trailer shows a reanimated Hitler riding a T-Rex like it was a hobby horse, looking to re-take the world from the inside out. (Turns out those hollow Earthers were right. My apologies.) Consider putting Iron Sky: The Coming Race on your to-do/bucket list.

LOVECRAFT COUNTRY (HBO/in-production)
“After his father goes missing, Black joins up with his friend Letitia and his Uncle George to embark on a road trip across 1950s Jim Crow America to find him. This begins a struggle to survive and overcome both the racist terrors of white America and the malevolent spirits that could be ripped from a Lovecraft paperback.”

Racists and dark god entities. And how does this differ from the current political administration? You’ve already seen this — every night on the news.

Chupacabras, Kaijus & STDs

Get a lot of e-mails asking why I don’t have a Facebook™ page or a Twitter™ account to publicize this here blog-blog. Gotta say, I’m not a fan of social media. That, and I don’t get paid to do this, so why make more work for myself? I’d rather spend that time on a bar stool.

However, I have been putzing around with some video-editing software and am roughing out a promo commercial for Drinkin’ & Drive-in™ to put on YouTube™. While you’re impatiently waiting for its debut, here’s some new horror/sci-fi to help pass the time…

TUNNEL (April 4, 2017 / VOD – May 2, 2017 / DVD)
“Jung-soo is a car salesman fighting for survival inside a collapsed tunnel while rescue workers race against time to free him. The ensuing rescue operation becomes the subject of widespread media coverage and frenzy. But days go by, nerves stretch thin and Jung-soo must struggle for his life in the suffocating darkness alone.”

Too bad Jung-soo wasn’t a scuba tank salesman — just kick back and suck some sweet compressed air while everybody does all the work digging you out.

COLOSSAL (April 7, 2017)
“A woman moves back home after losing her job and being dumped by her boyfriend. Her life takes a sudden turn when a giant kaiju-like creature appears in South Korea and she begins to suspect she may be connected to it.”

Yeah, I already wrote about this back on January 20, 2017. But couldn’t pass up the opportunity to show off the nutty cool Russian key art for this movie. From what I’m able to discern from the trailer is that whatever the chick does, so does the giant monster. Really hoping she doesn’t come down with a case of painful rectal itch.

CHUPACABRA TERRITORY (April 11, 2017)
“Four friends hike into the Pinewood Forest to find evidence of the Chupacabra, an ancient creature believed to be responsible for the disappearance of four experienced hikers a year earlier. As they journey deeper into the forest, their innocent search uncovers more than they had ever hoped for, and with it a darkness that threatens to consume their very existence. One by one they are hunted down, their survival tested, their lives hanging in the balance of fear, friendship, disbelief and horror.”

You could swap out Chupacabra with Bigfoot or Moth Man or a stink bear and it would still be the same movie we’ve all seen time and time again. I bet they downloaded the plot template from the Internet. I do it all the time.

SHE KILLS (April 11, 2017)
“Sadie’s life is destroyed when a vicious gang called ‘The Touchers’ targets her for their sadistic fantasies after witnessing her sexy but innocent naked frolicking in a nearby field. On her wedding night they attack her and her husband Edward, brutalizing both of them. But during the attack the virgin bride discovers a dangerous secret about her body – she is cursed with the legendary STD ‘Fire Crotch’, a condition where Satan has laid claim to her vagina. After visiting her fortune teller friend Casparella, a space exorcism is attempted, but it only ends up unlocking secret hidden powers inside her.”

They had me at “naked frolicking” but lost me with “Fire Crotch.” And yet I’ll still watch every man-cringing moment of it. For educational purposes, of course.

Psychosis, Delusions and Pregnancy

Been trying to learn new languages by watching foreign horror movies without sub-titles so as to become fluent in Spanish, French, German and the massively challenging Chinese. (I don’t know how people can speak in Chinese without hurting their mouth.) Is it working? Shì hé fǒu.

Anyway, here’s some new simple language horror movies headed your way…

DEAD STORY (January 20, 2017/VOD)
“A young married couple, who after purchasing their first home, realize that either the house is selectively haunting only the wife, or she’s developing a delusional psychosis.”

Neither. It’s just a bad case of buyer’s remorse.

ARBOR DEMON (February 2, 2017)
“An adventurous married couple and an injured hunter are held captive inside a claustrophobic tent by a supernatural threat. For an unknown reason, the tent has become their only safe haven. Soon tensions rise and the truth about the attacker is revealed.”

The kicker line, “Don’t Breathe,” is just plain dumb. What, did somebody fart in the tent? If so, was it flatulence born of an expression of extreme fear or freshly consumed raw broccoli? Knowing this will help determine the fright quotient of said stinky emissions.

PREVENGE (February 10, 2017/UK)
“Ruth, a pregnant woman, is on a killing spree. It’s her misanthropic unborn baby dictating Ruth’s actions, holding society responsible for the absence of a father. The child speaks to Ruth from the womb, coaching her to lure and ultimately kill her unsuspecting victims.”

A pregnant woman on a killing spree. Proof that there are no more sacred cows left unslaughtered. And to all female readers, I did NOT just call a pregnant woman a cow, although that could apply around the third trimester. Please don’t killing spree me.

ATOMICA (March 17, 2017/Limited; March 21, 2017/VOD)
“In the near future, when communications go offline at a remote nuclear power plant isolated in the desert, a young safety inspector, Abby Dixon, is forced to fly out to bring them back online. Once inside the facility, mysterious clues and strange behaviors cause Abby to have doubts about the sanity, and perhaps identities, of the two employees onsite.”

Yeesh, just unplug the communications, wait 10 seconds, and plug ‘em back in. Rebooting solves 95% of offline errors. As for people going crazy, who among us doesn’t go all psychotic when we can’t get on the Internet?

Ghosts, Voodoo and Ex-Wives

I just figured this out the other day — it’ll take me 120 years to watch every horror/sci-fi movie ever made. And that’s IF Hollywood and all these do-it-yourself Scorceses stop making more of ’em right now; I don’t think I have much more than another 120 years left in me.

BLACKBURN (available now)
“A forest fire and rock-slide trap five bickering college friends in a small Alaskan ghost town with a horrifying history. When they seek refuge inside the torched ruins of Blackburn Asylum, they must fight to survive as the angry inhabitants slaughter the friends one-by-one.”

This one came out in the UK last September (2015, if you’re entering this in some sort of blog log). Why they got it before my zip code is a stunning affront to my community standing as a dumbass horror movie fanatic. Blackburn is another “ghosts in an abandoned insane asylum” story. On second thought, the UK can keep it as I’ve seen that SAME MOVIE 150,000 times. Give or take.

VOODOO (February 24, 2017)
“Dani, an innocent southern girl, is vacationing in Los Angeles to evade her increasingly complicated life. Once Dani arrives in L.A., she learns that trying to escape her past is not as easy as she had hoped.”

Makes you wonder what an “innocent southern girl” did that was so f’d up as to run away to Los Angeles, home of f’d up people with bad pasts, presents and futures. I bet as part of her chores she forgot to milk a cow and it exploded. Now there’s a movie I could get into.

THE NINTH PASSENGER (2017)
“There are eight partying college students aboard the luxury yacht owned by an evil biotechnology CEO, who’s the father of one of the passengers. The trip goes sideways when they drift to a dark island and both their engine and radio fail. At the same time “something” sneaks onto the yacht — the ninth passenger.”

Could the ninth passenger be an island seal with a penchant for human flesh? We eat seals, so it’s only fair they get a shot at our blubber for a change. Too bad the boat isn’t loaded with Eskimos; that’d be some epic payback.

RED NET (2017)
“Internet hackers are looking for a missing man, but what they find are shocking videos in which a man is questioned and severely tortured by two mysterious women.”

Gonna toss this out there: They’re both his ex-wives. If so, the poor guy is beyond doomed.

Sea Monster and Swimwear

Local legend has it that the Loreley, a reptile creature with a taste for human hearts (ick), comes every seven moons (206 days) and seeks out those with human hearts. Whew — I’m safe!

The night before her wedding a hot redhead is trying on her veil and negligee when a reptile creature jumps through her second-story (!) window and rips out her heart. I’m wondering if that was the Loreley everyone’s talking about?

This freaks out the nearby all-girl supermodel boarding school, run by an uptight but seriously smokin’ hot redhead. Her eyes seem too big for her face, but it didn’t goon me out. So the mayor hires a freelance hunter to protect the supermodels.

Enter the extreme handsome, Sirgurd. Despite his crazy name, he looks like Engelbert Humperdink and dresses like Tom Jones. And he’s packin’ heat — a high-caliber rifle. A plan is implemented to go scuba diving in the Rhine in hopes to find the reputed cave the Loreley lives in. You know what this means — a chance for Sirgurd to take off his shirt.

The Loreley’s three helper chicks fight over who gets to have sex with Sigurd (wouldn’t you?) and in the process let him escape. Loreley in reptile form has really dry hands, but her nails look good. She wears a cloak to hide her face, which is similar to that of a large plastic piranha. Sirgy knows what he has to do — make stab happen and then go make out with the chicks. (Wouldn’t you?)

The Loreley’s Grasp has pretty cool gore and boobies and Sirgy action for a 1974 foreign movie with dubbed dialogue. I wish I knew where the treasure cave with three bikini-adorned helper chicks lived, though. Then I’d go visit them. Often, as it turns out. Hey, swimming is good for you. The Internet says so.

Zombies, Demons and Santa

The hardest part about shoveling my way through the Internet (or “world  wide web”) is finding potential brainertainment (fun times for your frontal lobe) and then never actually getting to see it. I chalk that up to Republicans.

Regardless of that particular crushing disappointment, I’ll continue to slip on my digital hip-waders and go fishin’ for your/my/our horror super fun happy times. To that…

ALL THROUGH THE HOUSE (out now)
“Fifteen years ago a peaceful Christmas neighborhood was engulfed by fear when five-year-old Jamie Garrett was mysteriously taken from her bedroom, never to be seen again. Now on Christmas break, Rachel Kimmel comes home from college to find her neighborhood struck again by a reign of terror. A violent killer is hiding behind a grisly Santa mask, leaving a bloody trail of slaughtered women and castrated men on the steps of the Garrett house. Rachel finds herself in a horrifying nightmare as she discovers the twisted secret behind the mask.”

After countless Christmas horror movies, Santa – however evil or f’d up – isn’t scary anymore. I’ll still watch this (man, I just don’t know why), but if you want some seriously f’d up Kris Kringle action, put Krampus (2015), Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010), and Sint (2010) on the ’ol Victrola.

THE MONSTER (October 6, 2016 / DirecTV; November 11, 2016 (VOD / Limited)
“Mother and daughter trapped and tormented in a black forest by a screeching creature – it is unlike anything heard before. Not human. Not animal. Like a thousand horses, like a mother’s clamor, a baby’s wail, a father’s howl. Only a mother’s protective love, her most primal instinct, can save her daughter from what’s lurking in the darkness.”

Screeching creature. Sounds like an ex-wife. Or soon-to-be ex-wife.

DAY OF RECKONING (October 8, 2016)
“The story begins fifteen years in the past when the world suffered a horrific global disaster when millions of demon-like creatures ascended from the bowels of the earth, swarming the entire planet, and feasting on mankind for one full day. This event became known as the Day of Reckoning. A less-than-perfect husband and father tries to save his broken family from the return of the demon-creatures in modern day Los Angeles.”

It appears they took the premise of The Purge (2013), replaced the fake monsters with real ones, and are covering this slaughter salad with a tangy gory dressing. Crud – now I’m hungry.

ZOMBIES (October 21, 2016)
“A virus leaves the world in shambles and plagued by blood-thirsty zombies. Will Luke and his crew have enough strength and ammunition to stay alive long enough to outlive the undead?”

A virus? Really? They couldn’t come up with something even slightly original, the title notwithstanding? It’s annoying enough ANYONE is making YET ANOTHER zombie movie. But to rely on a plot device so overused it could have come from 99% of every other zombie movie since Night of the Living Dead (1968)? And I thought I was lazy when I throw my slipper at the TV channel to change it.

P.S. I don’t really wear slippers. I meant to say flippers. Hey, they’re suprisingly comfortable. Who knew?

Hey, Godzilla – Go To Hell

Over the decades Godzilla has bumped uglies with every foe’ker possible (with the exception of the Jesus). On March 1, 2016, G-Man is facing off with the world’s biggest collection of wrongness, with the release of the graphic novel mini-series, Godzilla In Hell (IDW Publishing).

The concept is open mouth drool-worthy, what with – as the press release tells me/us/you — “Godzilla meeting his greatest adversary of all time: the impossible tortures of Hell!” Here’s how this particular slice of genius sets up…

“In each issue of Godzilla In Hell special mini-series will see Godzilla enter a new level of the Underworld to do battle with the impossible by a variety of today’s best writers and artists.”

It’s safe to say that his new monster enemies won’t be of the rubber-suited variety, seeing as Hell’s temperature gauge is set at a comfy 183 Fahrenheit, two degrees higher than the point rubber melts. (It’s also a safe bet he won’t be going up against Plastic Man, either.)

Seems to me I heard tell of Godzilla in Hell back in the early settler days of July, 2015. A few clicks here and there brought me to IDWpublishing.com, where they have the 32-page comic ($3.99) posted as being “out of stock.” To further the madness, WikiZilla™ has this to say about that: “Godzilla In Hell #5 is the last issue of Godzilla In Hell. It was released on November 18th, 2015.”

The press release says March 1st, 2016, but everybody else says “been there done that.” So is the new one a compilation released under one cover? Are they re-issuing the issues? Are they gonna pick up where #5 left off? Are the previous publications a fig newton of my imagination? I’m all f’d up about it. Either way, someone on the internet is a liar.

But hey, any day with Godzilla in it is a good day. Unless you live in downtown Japan.