Smack-Talking Computers, Possessed Ubers, The Curse of Seagulls

Remember HAL 9000 (Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic), the sentient super computer with a human personality, in the groundbreaking sci-fi movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey (which ironically was done in 1968)? Now CASE (Cognitive Architecture for Space Exploration) is making a new HAL — which spells doom for all us astronauts (I’m almost done with my online courses, so yeah, I’m an astronaut, b*tches!)

2001: A Space Odyssey, as you likely know, was infamously produced and directed by fake moon landing movie maker, Stanley Kubrick from an Arthur C. Clark short story, Sentinel of Eternity (1951). In 2001, HAL, the computer not only talks, but talks back, overrides human commands and secretly has a directive to investigate a radio signal sent from that mysterious, featureless Monolith. (The Who — lunar British rock band — symbolically peed on it for the cover of their rhythmic beats album, Who’s Next/1971. Disrespectful, but very rock). The crew of Discovery One should’ve waited to see what happened to the staff of the deep space Nostromo in Alien (1979). Ash (Hyperdyne Systems 120-A/2 android), their super computer in the clever guise of a stink human, pulled the exact same sh*t and look what happened there.

Pretty much everybody (except me) owns their own personal HAL, though they call it Alexa/Siri/Google. My dire warning to you is to not trust any of those convenient smart home devices and make sure you don’t involuntarily get locked out of your house/deep space vessel.

While you contemplate machines taking over the world, here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not digitally sever your oxygen hose…

BEYOND WHITE SPACE (December 14, 2018)
“The captain of a deep-space vessel makes a daring decision to go after a rare and nearly extinct species. His obsession soon jeopardizes the mutinous crew when the gigantic and deadly creature attacks the ship.”

Sounds like Moby Dick in space. The trailer is pretty cool — there’s a mega big gigantic huge Godzilla-esque monster floating around, looking for spaceship flavored snacks. The deep-space vessel may as well put a Fritos™ logo on the side of their ship.

SUPERGRID (December 18, 2018)
“Two estranged brothers travel the notorious ‘Grid’ in their quest to collect and deliver a mysterious cargo. En route they must contend with road pirates, rebel gangs, and each other.”

The plot of traveling across the danger-enhanced apocalyptic wastelands steal from dozens of other same-plot movies/TV shows, but also the morning work commute. 

THE CAR: ROAD TO REVENGE (January 8, 2019)
“In a dilapidated cyberpunk city plagued by crime and corruption, an unscrupulous District Attorney is savagely murdered and tossed out of a building onto his brand new car. Mysteriously, the District Attorney and his car come back to life as a single being with a thirst for vengeance. The eerie driver-less car embarks on a vicious rampage exacting revenge on the criminals who murdered him.”

They’re calling this a “stylized sequel” to the 1977 movie called, The Car, wherein a possessed vehicle runs people down and parks on their faces. The lead character was James Brolin, who later went on to The Amityville Horror infamy. He seems nice.

CURSE OF THE BLIND DEAD (2019)
“In the Thirteen century, a group of Satan worshipers, the Knight Templars, is captured during a ritual and brutally murdered by the locals. Just before the execution, the Knights swear to return from their graves to haunt the village and the nearby forest. Centuries later, in a post-apocalyptic future, a man and his daughter try to survive against both the Undead Knights and a sect commanded by a mad preacher.”

Sound familiar? It should — it’s a continuation of the early Seventies Italian-filmed Blind Dead series (Tombs of the Blind Dead/1971, The Return of the Blind Dead/1973, The Ghost Galleon/1974, Night of the Seagulls/1975). Blind dead Templar Knights out for revenge are certainly scary. But man, don’t get in a dust up with seagulls — those things always know when you wash your car and will unleash their coordinated crap attacks on your just-cleaned hood and door handle. (How do they manage such accuracy? Geez.)

Wrecker: Tab-Expired Horror

It’s always painful to see Hollywood to run so dry of ideas that they shell out good pocket coupons to produce cheap/cheesy horror like Wrecker (releasing November 6, 2015): “Best friends Emily and Lesley go on a road trip to the desert. When Emily decides to get off the highway and take a ‘short cut,’ they become the target of a relentless and psychotic trucker who forces them to play a deadly game of cat and mouse.”

Not only is Wrecker NOT an original idea with a crappy title, who would pay to see a movie what you can see on a freeway any day of the week?

Wrecker’s plot is a direct lift from Stephen Spielberg’s Duel (1971), in which McCloud (or “Dennis Weaver”) is relentlessly pursued across dirty desert back roads by a 18-wheeler driven by a malevolent invisible trucker.

This was mimicked by Elliot Silverstein’s The Car in 1977, in which Amityville Horror’s James Brolin goes up against a possessed black car that “vroom-thump-thumps” anyone brave enough to use a crosswalk in Utah.

And picking up the pieces and running with that, who could forget Christine, the 1983 Stephen King horror movie that featured a “body by Chrysler, soul by Satan” ’58 Plymouth Fury that could return to showroom condition after being engulfed in flames and making griddle cakes out of thugs.

Then came Maximum Overdrive (another Stephen King adapted movie) in 1986 that not only turns a huge truck (with Spider-Man’s bestie the Green Goblin’s face on the front grill) into a “devastation wagon,” but anything mechanical that held a grudge against their human slave masters. (Can opener: “Take that, you opposable digit oppressors!”)

Let us not forget the Australian Road Train (aka, Road Kill), which came out in 2010. In that one the monster truck is a rolling grindhouse, running on the goop left over after it throws you in the back and food processes you into energy-efficient goop. (They got this idea from 2007’s really funny dark horror comedy, Blood Car.)

While we’re on the subject of all things vehicular homicidal, there’s the “destined for the junk yard” Super Hybrid (2010) that had a souped up Prius™-y type hybrid not yielding to the right of way of pedestrians.

Want more? There’s plenty out there – especially on the freeway.