Babysitter Stalkers, Evil Drugs, Multi-Dimensional Monsters

Cool new key art for the pee-shivering anticipation of Halloween (October 19, 2018), starring original wallflower babysitter/knife rack, Laurie Strode (aka, Jamie Lee Curtis). Here’s the plot again in case you didn’t read my previous post about this iconic sorta remake: “Laurie, who comes to her final confrontation with Michael Myers, the masked figure who has haunted her since she narrowly escaped his killing spree on Halloween night four decades ago.”

I can read the Little Nickel want ads that is your brain: Wasn’t Curtis’ character killed in half in 2002’s Halloween: Resurrection? You’d be correct enough to be right. But word around the cutlery aisle in Sur La Table™ is that, just like my written applications to NASA for a managerial position in their UFO division, the new Halloween is IGNORING all the sequels and just running with a new plot. I haven’t processed my feelings about this yet.

While I consult my life coach (the guy who runs a hot dog cart down the street), here are a few just released/upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not be worthy of a Little Nickel review…

EVIL BONG 777 (available now)
“Our scowling weed-spewing Eebee is out of ‘Sexy Hell’ and heading to Sin City with danger on her tail! She’s joined by her whack pack of fabulous freaks: Faux Batty, Rabbit, Misty and The Gingerweed Man.”

I didn’t understand a word of what they said. I’m assuming this is the sequel to Evil Bong 666 (2016). All told, I believe there are seven films in this pot-headed franchise. Not sure as I haven’t seen any of ‘em as I’ve been busy watching paint dry. It all began with Evil Bong in 2006 and the premise of “a group of college stoners who smoke a bong are unaware that the bong transports the smoker into a surreal world where strippers with sharp teeth-like bras attack them.” Sounds like a night out at The Tug Tavern.

THE RAKE (June 5, 2018)
“At a young age, Ashley and Ben witnessed the brutal murder of their parents. Years later, Ashley is still convinced it wasn’t someone, but something that killed her parents and now she’s tormented by the thought of The Rake returning for her and her family. Is Ashley traumatized, or is the creature inside her real?”

The Rake as kind of a dumb name. Might I suggest Blackened Decker, Pitch Forky or The Bowel Trowel?

BRAID (2018)
“Petula Thames and Tilda Darlings are two self-proclaimed artists-turned-drug dealers on the run. After mishandling thousands of dollars in narcotics, the girls are given forty-eight hours to repay their vengeful drug lord. Fleeing town, they head to the desolate mansion of wealthy childhood friend, Daphne Peters, with their sights set on house’s safe. Daphne, living secluded in the manor, has grown into a dangerous schizophrenic and prisoner of the fantasy world the three created as children. To abscond with her money, the girls are forced to take part in Daphne’s twisted, bloody game of make-believe, a demented maze of hallucinations, role play, torture…and murder.”

Don’t do drugs. Or sell them for profits, which can be exchanged for a wide variety of goods and services, some of which can be purchased in PRISON.

THE AXIOM (2018)
“At the risk of her group’s safety, a young woman travels into a National Forest where her sister has become trapped in a multi-dimensional world of monsters.”

Pffft —Nation Forest my pants  — she walked into The Tug Tavern.

40 Year-Old Horror, Literary Madman, Male Horror

Every since it was announced Jamie Lee Curtis was returning to reprise her role as Laurie Strode in Halloween (first released in 1978), fans have been clamoring in their pants. So much so, fan art for the as yet untitled Halloween sequel (scheduled for October 18, 2018), has been popping up like seasonal measles all over the Internet, the one featured here being one of the better examples. (Don’t know who to credit as they didn’t put their secret identity on it.)

Until the REAL title is announced, we’ll just have to be happy with the official plot: “Laurie Strode comes to her final confrontation with Michael Myers, the masked figure who has haunted her since she narrowly escaped his killing spree on Halloween night four decades ago.”

Meanwhile, here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that hopefully won’t make you wait 40 years for the sequel…

EDGAR ALLEN POE: BURIED ALIVE (October 30, 2017/PBS)
“Edgar Allan Poe: Buried Alive draws on the rich palette of Poe’s evocative imagery and sharply drawn plots to tell the real story of the notorious author. Narrated by Oscar — and Tony — nominated, two-time Golden Globe-winner Kathleen Turner, American Masters – Edgar Allan Poe: Buried Alive explores the misrepresentations of Poe as a drug-addled madman akin to the narrators of his horror stories.”

Looking forward to this one as it stars the brilliantly versatile Denis O’Hare from the American Horror Story series. That guy comfortably wears so many acting hats, I’m surprised his next movie isn’t about a haberdashery, which I believe is a British hat store. Hat is way easier to spell than haberdashery.

ATTACK OF THE KILLER DONUTS (November 17, 2017)
“A chemical accident turns ordinary donuts into blood thirsty killers. Now it’s up to Johnny, Michelle and Howard to save their sleepy town from…Killer Donuts.”

Yeah, but what kind of donuts? Bear Claws seem to make obvious sense. Not so much for maple bars — unless they’re thrown at your head as if a yummy, sticky brick. Still, we’ve already had Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (1978); what’s next — Attack of the Killer Hot Dogs? That actually might be cool, now that I think about it.

SCREAM QUEEN! MY NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (2017/2018)
“A documentary film focusing on the gay experience in Hollywood horror, Scream, Queen! My Nightmare On Elm Street explores how that experience has changed in the three decades since Mark Patton’s controversial portrayal of Jesse Walsh, the object of Freddy Krueger’s latent desire in Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985).”

Scream, Queen! examines the infamous homo-erotic subtext and the special place the film holds in the Nightmare franchise as well as the gay film canon. Partly in thanks to evolving social mores, Nightmare on Elm Street 2 — which was considered controversial at the time of its release — is now being looked back upon with a new appreciation and fondness by horror aficionados and fans of the series. While Freddy’s Revenge, dubbed “the gayest horror movie ever made,” cemented Freddy as a pop culture icon, Patton was never heard from again. After 30 years of living in near obscurity, Patton is back to talk about how his American dream became a nightmare during the homophobic AIDS crisis in Hollywood and why he had to give it all up.”

Just because they showed a male bare bottom being invisibly horsewhipped in Nightmare on Elm Street 2 doesn’t mean it’s a gay horror movie. It’s the scene where Jesse would rather crawl through a bedroom window to “crash” with his bare-chested buddy than have willing, carte blanche relations with his hot red-headed girlfriend.

RESTRAINT (2018)
“A disturbed young woman who plunges into a darkness after becoming unexpectedly pregnant, becoming a threat to her family and herself.”

So much for a second date. Then again, plunging into darkness just might re-heat the leftovers.

Keep Calm At The Prom

In 1980, Jamie Lee Curtis, hot off her box office bulls-eye with Halloween (1978) starred in Prom Night, a Halloween rip-off.

That’s just part of the bad news. The other part (are you sitting down?) is this is Disco Horror. Yep, the high school’s prom night featured disco music so that everyone could bust a move like those wiggling inflatable “dancing” balloon men. Who wouldn’t want to kill those people?

The killer whose been killing all those involved with the killing of Jamie Lee’s movie sister is pretty obvious. Hint: That deejay spinning those Donna Summer records looks like he’s about to cut someone’s head off and roll it across the dance floor and… I guess we won’t be hearing “Stayin’ Alive” any time soon.

Disco sucks. People that dance poorly to disco suck. Prom Night sucks.

Space Virus and Yogurt

The Mir space station intercepts an alien hitchhiker in the guise of electric energy, and thinking it’s a lunar text message, mistakenly transmits said life-form to a satellite-tracking ship on this toilet earth. There it wipes out the Ruskies and their brewskis. Harshness abounds.

Meanwhile, a tugboat is tugging a precious cargo (beer, I theorize) across the ocean through a pissed off typhoon. Seeking shelter in the eye of the surly storm, the tug happens across the Russian boat. With salvage in mind to recoup their uninsured losses, the crew (with Jamie Lee Curtis as navigator) board the blood vessel and discover plentiful seagoing wrongness. I had no idea Jamie Lee Curtis knew how to navigate the ocean in addition to being a yogurt spokesperson. What a talent!

The alien is harvesting humans for usable parts (thirst buds) and creating a new half-machine/half-human species, not unlike a certain Borg. Just a typically standard “thing-onboard-trying-to-get-humans” plot. The effects, however, are outstandingly cool, exemplified with Donald Sutherland as the captain discovering the human rebuilding process (a sort of Radio Shack™ meets Black Angus™) while attempting to make a deal with the head mecha-monster that regards Earthers as germs with pants (hence, Virus/1998 the movie’s clever title).

Creative use of gore and limbs and Duracell™ batteries, but due to glaring lack of nudity, a so-so sci-fi flick with a yogurt covered ending at best.