Exhibitionist Horror, Circus Superheroes, Polar Roid-Rage

If there was ever a reason to move to Los Angeles, Burbank’s Mystic Museum is premiering Y2Kills: A Horror Immersive Experience, a tribute to horror of the 2000s. Lots to celebrate here; this was the decade that gave us horror gems like Let The Right One In (2008), The Host (2006), Shaun of the Dead (2004), Paranormal Activity (2007), Dog Soldiers (2002), Cloverfield (2008), Dead Snow (2009), and more than I have space to laundry list here.

From Mystic Museum’s press release: “Y2Kills is a horror immersive experience that highlights the best horror has to offer through the lens of the first decade of the ‘00s. Featuring props, commissioned art pieces, photo opportunities, and everything from collectible art pieces to retro disposable cameras — Y2Kills will offer guests a horrific slice of Millennium nostalgia they won’t forget! The exhibit will also feature items from the private collections of Eli Roth (Hostels Part I & II), Michael Dougherty (Trick ‘r Treat, Krampus) — and an original soundtrack by composer Douglas Pipes (Trick ‘r Treat, Krampus).

Y2Kills opens April 15, 2023 at the Mystic Museum (3204 W Magnolia Blvd., Burbank, CA). Fangoria™ describes the Mystic Museum as “a must-see place for horror fans and freaks alike. Founded in 2013, the Museum has blessed horror fans with a whole range of immersive exhibits ranging from officially licensed (like the awesome The Evil Dead: An Immersive Experience, for one) to their own creations (the amazing Slashback Video, an homage to old-school video stores). $16 dollar admission tickets can be snapped up here. 

So while we all rent a LimeBike™ and head to Los Angeles where there is never any parking (you can leave the bike on any sidewalk for free), here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not be an immersive experience…

RIPPER’S REVENGE / April 11, 2023 (VOD, DVD)

“One year on from the notorious ‘Jack The Ripper’ murders, the killings have stopped, but the identity of the killer remains a mystery. Down-at-heel newspaper reporter Sebastian Stubb has moved on to reporting on other scandals, but when a new ‘Ripper’ letter appears on his desk and the killings start again, he unwittingly finds himself at the center of a new mystery. Has the ‘Ripper’ returned, or is it a copycat killer? Or something else entirely?”

Jack The Ripper shouldn’t be that hard to find. Just look for someone with expertly torn britches. It’s how he got his name. Maybe he should team up with Jack The Stitcher.

SHIN KAMEN RIDER / Release pending 2023 (VOD, DVD)

“College student and motorcycle enthusiast Takeshi Hongo is abducted by the evil organization S.H.O.C.K.E.R. and converted into a cyborg as part of their plans for world domination. Before they can brainwash him to do their bidding, he escapes and uses his new enhanced abilities as Kamen Rider to wage a one-man war against S.H.O.C.K.E.R.”

I thought Shin Kamen Rider was a sodium-heavy cup of noodles (just add hot water and the chemically-flavored spice packet. But turns out Shin Kamen Rider is a Japanese tokusatsu superhero fantasy film based on the character from the TV series/spin-offs. I hope this movie is as tasty as those sodium-heavy cups of noodles.

FREAKS VS. THE REICH / Release pending 2023 (VOD)

“Looking to flee the Nazi menace for the shores of America are four super-powered circus performers: there’s beautiful, young, electrically-charged Matilde, Cencio, an albino with the ability to control insects, Mario, a dwarf graced with magnetic powers, and Fulvio, a strongman covered from head to toe with hair. On their heels is the psychotic Franz, an ether-addicted, six-fingered Nazi who runs the nearby circus and believes that the supernaturally gifted quartet will help him turn the tide of the war, delivering the ultimate victory for Hitler and the Reich. Will the ‘freaks’ be able to escape the grasp of the brutal Nazis or will their incredible powers be harnessed in a way that could change both their destinies and the entire course of history forever?”

Marvel™ should forget about trying to get the Fantastic Four to work (four box office flops and two tepid seasons as a TV series); these four super-powered circus performers — with magnets, electricity, bugs and hippie hair — are a clear choice to replace the Fantastic Fail.

PAWS / Release pending 2023/2024 (VOD)

“Young scientist Nook is on board a research ship in the Arctic. Reformed oil billionaire Fox is funding the crews’ efforts to fight climate change. Just when Nook learns that Fox’s interest is not so much in saving the planet but exploring and claiming fresh oil fields, their ship crashes. The crew search an abandoned Russian ghost-ship looking for a radio, but uncover a horrific threat: Inside the rusty trawler a monstrous polar bear mother has been trapped with her cub. Not only will the animal defend her nest but has grown very hungry and will seize the opportunity to feed on the survivors.”

They had me at feed on the survivors.

Queen Ghidorah, Weathered Clowns, Men (And Women) In Black

Three more/new promotional key art for Godzilla: King of the Monsters (May 31, 2019). This brings the total of advertising posters (so far) to 14. They only needed one to get my drool cup overflowing. The bulk of the art depicts Godzilla squaring of with King Ghidorah. It’d be cool if a Queen Ghidorah showed up. And each one of her heads could have a different hairdo. That’d be pretty dang funny.

Hot on the heels of the first trailer for It: Chapter Two (September 6, 2019), comes the second of two movie posters. I get that the balloons factor in, but when are they gonna put out some art with Pennywise? Sure, it would no doubt goon out everyone at the mall. So what? Make ’em fill their pants! And speaking of the first trailer, those two minutes alone require you wear Depends™ while watching it. You can thank me later.

A hot-off-the-press new poster for the impending Clownado. There have been several others that were just “meh” (the first one looked like someone with a degree in doodling designed it), but this one is killer. No pun intended. 

In case you didn’t write it down when I first e-barfed about this back in April or 2018, it goes something like this: “Cursed demonic circus clowns set out on a vengeful massacre using tornadoes. A stripper, Elvis impersonator, truck driver, teen runaway, and a dude get caught in the supernatural battle between femme fatal and the boss clown from Hell.” They had me as cursed demonic circus clowns.

The Japanese version of Men In Black: International (June 14, 2019) brings the total of advertising art to 10. I looked at all of ‘em. They’re kinda okay, though I’d tell the movie studio to keep working on ‘em — they need more…doodling. 

Choke On The Water

In the bereft-of-thrills Japanese horror movie Lake of Dracula (1971), five-year-old Akiko has bigger problems than her unruly dog who breaks from a walk on the beach and ends up in a European (?) mansion where a vampire lives. This mansion sucker is tall, Assembly line haircut and glowing yellow eyes, which look more orange than yellow. Either way, he better see a doctor about that.

Eighteen years later, Akiko, ho now lives by a lake instead of the ocean (fewer crabs, more mosquitos), keeps having dreams of that vampire who scared the yellow out of her. Her nightmares have just come to fruition after a local boat operator/lake janitor receives a shipment from an unknown sender — it’s a coffin. He opens it and the womb of doom is empty. Even Amazon Prime™ wouldn’t allow returns of this nature. Then, shockingly predictable, the boat guy is attacked and sucked by the SAME VAMPIRE Akikio encountered all those years ago. And his haircut is UNCHANGED.

It doesn’t take long for more people (and dogs) to turn up freshness-expired. Akiko’s boyfriend is a doctor and even he can’t explain the two small holes in people’s necks, though he’ll still bill you for looking at ‘em. One of the victims is Natsuko, Akiko’s perky pretty sister. So bouncy is this cutie, I’m kinda surprised Natsuko didn’t pop like a balloon when the vampire made with the chomp.In a slow burn towards a thankful ending, Natsuko comes back from the dead, Akiko gets gooned out even more, and the vampire’s origins are revealed. Turns out he’s a descendant of (gasp!) Count Dracula. A yawn-inspiring confrontation on a balcony ends with the vampire falling overboard and landing on a protruding steel spike. Looked worse than it probably felt.

If the above hasn’t turned you off to bloodless vampire movies, Lake of Dracula is part of The Bloodthirsty Trilogy, which included The Vampire Doll (1970) and Evil of Dracula (1974). They may or may not make your eyes glow.

Vengeful Sharks

After Jaws’ Ellen Brody lost her husband (Roy Scheider, aka Chief Brody — sheriff, father, exploder of Carcharodon carcharias) due to a heart attack brought on by a fear of sharks (seriously?), she loses one of her sons to another attitude-y shark.

So she goes to the Bahamas with her last expendable offspring. You know what’s in the Bahamas? WATER. And you know what sharks use to get around? WATER.

The same shark that scared her husband to death (stilling rolling eyes) and ate one of her sons has followed her to the popular vacation destination in Jaws: The Revenge (1987) to finish his meal. (And I thought King Kong Lives/1986 was a stretch.)

Since the previous movie sharks were all blown up, one can logically assume this is a stunt shark, just in it for the money. It would’ve been better off caught in a Japanese trawling net. But call me an optimist — I’m still waiting for Jaws V. Still. 

Artful Sharks, Truth-Telling Ouija Boards, Life + Death Stuff

Two more new key art designs for the super-sized mega-gigantic extra-large shark movie, The Meg, due out August 10, 2018. (It’ll be on the Imax™ screen — I just made Christmas happen in my pants.)

Can’t wait to see this one, although I have friends who absolutely refuse to see it. I don’t know what’s more confusing — that I have friends or why would anyone NOT want to see the biggest shark ever eat submarines like Tootsie Rolls™? I guess sometimes your not supposed to know all of life’s answers. Leave that to Ouija boards.

While I unwrap my pants and head to the laundromat, here are a few upcoming horror and sci-fi movies that may or may not be as unholy delicious as Tootsie Rolls™…

OUIJA SEANCE: THE FINAL GAME (July 3, 2018)
“Sarah and her friends decide to spend the weekend at an old villa Sarah mysteriously inherited. After finding a Ouija board in the attic, Sarah and her friends unknowingly awaken an evil force connected to the villa’s hidden secrets. To fight the unimaginable horror they will have to face their darkest fears and worst nightmares.”

There’s really no way to come up with a new plot for anything involving a Ouija board and teens. That said, last time I used a Ouija board, it spelled out “dumbass” — and I was the only one playing it! Demonic entities can be so cold.

DEAD NIGHT (July 27, 2018)
“James and his wife Casey load up their two teenage kids and head out to a remote cabin in Oregon for a weekend trip. When James heads into the snowy forest in search of firewood, he encounters an enigmatic woman passed out in the snow. Bringing her back to the cabin for help, the family has no way of knowing that the woman’s presence is the catalyst for a series of events that will change their lives forever.”

The so-called “enigmatic woman” was quite likely Bigfoot’s Tinder™ hook-up; she probably got lost on the way to BF’s party pad because, hey woods! P.S. I didn’t know James was married with kids. WTF?

BLOOD FEST (August 31, 2018)
“Fans flock to a festival celebrating the most iconic horror movies, only to discover that the charismatic showman behind the event has a diabolical agenda. As festival attendees start dying off, three teenagers — more schooled in horror-film cliches than practical knowledge — must band together and battle through various madmen and monstrosities to survive.”

Right up my old address. The plot is pretty dang coolio and I would like to participate as I scored the top four spots on an online horror trivia game. Only missed one question: What is the name of Frankenstein’s monster’s creator? (I typed in: “Dracula.” Once again, the Ouija board was right.)

MEMENTO MORI (2018)
“A teenager girl’s life seems perfect: beautiful, popular, rich. Yet she has a dark secret which is revealed during a pool party, where a violent incident happens that will end with her in a coma.”

In case your Latin is as rusty as your bedsprings, Memento Mori means “Remember you will die.” (And here all this time I thought it translated to “order another beer.”) The title’s been used twice before — once in 1999 (a Japanese “horror” film) and again in 2016, where a boy “dies” on a tattoo parlor table. Odd place for a proctology exam. Seems that’d be more painful as deemed necessary.

9 Years of Parade-Worthy Horror

Today is the nine-year anniversary of my very first posting on WordPress™. After I upload this, I’m going outside to wait for my parade. There’s sure to be tens, maybe dozens, of people showing up, so I better get there early to get a good viewing spot. Okay, that made no sense at all.

That said, over the years and in line at the grocery hole (Thriftway™ — more expensive than Safeway™, but easier to get to), I’ve been asked a least one million billion questions about myself and this here Drinkin’ & Drive-in blog. Figured it was about time to put it on the glass so everyone who reads this thing (thank you) can finally get some closure.

“How long have you been doing the Drinkin’ & Drive-in blog and how did you get started?”
I was hired by Microsoft (aka, MSNEntertainment.com) back in 1997 to do a PAID daily horror/sci-fi movie blog called Fright Site. That program ended in 2010 (at least their checks didn’t bounce), but I wasn’t done yet. After about three seconds of studied and careful consideration, I started up Drinkin’ & Drive-in on WordPress.com and have been doing it WITHOUT PAY since June 9, 2010. So 25 years total, give or take. (I’m not really a math guy.)

How come you don’t accept paid advertising on your blog?
Because ads suck. I’d rather keep doing the blog for no pay than have it cluttered with banners promoting trendy pants and boxed squeezy mattresses. (Disclaimer: WordPress™ might have small pop-up ads that, like my thirst for beer, I have no control over.)

“How would you describe your blog?
I don’t do horror/sci-fi/fantasy movie reviews as it requires more brains than I currently have operating inside the vending machine that is my head. Rather, I just endlessly watch all kinds of horror and sci-fi and merely relate what I’ve witnessed. As opposed to a food critic, I would rather not analyze the notes and complexities of food and just eat the damn hamburger.

“What are your favorite kinds of horror movies?”
Longtime readers (thank you, David. H and Jon from NC) will know I’m a big fan of giant monster movies, Japanese or otherwise. This is followed by ghosts, werewolf and shark movies. My least favorite types of horror movies are those with slashers/serial killers. There’s more than enough of those types of people in the news everyday. For sheer crazy weirdness, I really dig those Japanese extreme gore movies and pretty much anything regarding UFOs.

“Have you ever seen a UFO?”
Not as yet. But I do believe the people who say they’ve seen one. The truth is out there, I want to believe, etc., etc. I do, however, eat UFOs  almost every day: unidentified frying objects.

“Are there any types of horror movies you won’t watch?”
Though I have seen enough of ‘em to know not to watch that kind of stuff anymore, are horror movies involving torture porn, rape and real or fake violence against real and/or fake animals, though I will make an exception for critters that are zombies. (I’m looking in your direction Zombeavers/2014). Oddly, I don’t feel the same way about violence towards fish. (Ironically, I’m eating a tuna fish sandwich while writing this.)

“You don’t use swear words in your blog — why not?”
Anyone can swear — it’s like the karaoke of language. My “journalism skills” are offensive enough without adding salty/florid language to it. That, and I just sound dumber than usual if I do.

“What are your favorite horror/sci-fi movies?”
Too many to list, but here’s a few classics I never get tired of watching over and over and over: Planet of the Apes (1968); Godzilla (1954); The Legend of Hell House (1973); 30 Days of Night (2007); The Thing (1982); The Wolf-Man (1941); Alien (1979); The Evil Dead (1981); Let The Right One In (2008); An American Werewolf in London (1981), and A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). There’s about two dozen more, but this is a nice representation of my cinematic tastes.

Recent ones (as this time and space) that kicked me in the britches are The Witch (2015), It (2017), It Follows (014), Stranger Things (2016), The Babadook (2014), Godzilla (2014), Shin Godzilla (2017) and Kong: Skull Island (2017), to name a few.

“After all these years, why keep going?”
A curious but relentless compulsion, really. That, and it’s a way to justify all those decades sitting on a couch watching TV. And no, I’m not fat from doing that, nor would I even think about body shaming someone who is. I currently weigh just 6.5 lbs. over my target weight for height and age, despite my insatiable thirst for all things adult beverages, which is generally Budweiser™. And I don’t drink hard alcohol — too many notes. That’s not to say I’d turn down a complimentary sip or three. Ahem.

What critique would you give your blog?
I tend to ramble. I feel as though it should be more “don’t bore us — get to the chorus.” But I don’t wanna leave anything out. Obsession is harsh mistress. Also, I occasionally repeat myself due to the erratic nature of both my brainwaves and horror movie release schedules. That bugs the insects outta me.

“How come your blog or even yourself is not on social media?”
I do this blog for free, so why make more work for myself? As for me not being on social media, besides the fact that trendy medium sucks green donkeys, I don’t think the world needs to hear what I had for breakfast or what cat video I just watched.

“How old are you?”
For an accurate answer, cut my liver in half and count the rings.

“How much longer are you going to keep doing Drinkin’ & Drive-in?”
That’s up to my liver.

Ninja Mecha Bikini

After 11 young women were raped and dismembered by a band of criminals in a Japanese alternate universe (out in the woods), the last surviving gal was transformed into a Mecha, a mechanical, but drop dead (no pun intended) sexy android, housing all the souls of her dead sisters. As such, each has bestowed upon her 11 built-in weapons: ninja skills, hedge-trimmer and chainsaw leg extensions, removable boobs that turn into grenades when thrown. The clothes, though, come off by themselves.

Assisted by a heavy metal guitar playing scientist and a Buddhist nun with blue hair and white eyelashes, this Samurai Princess takes out the gang members in appropriate fashion: severed arms and heads, brains removed, squished and jammed back in, a guy punched so hard his skeleton pops out of his skin (great sequence), blood spraying as if shot from high-pressure hoses. And there are so many body parts, it looks like a butcher shop for humans.

The leaders of the gang are a half man/woman and the other half Mecha. (The woman portion wears entrails around her neck like fashionable jewelry.) They need to be killed. And not in a good way, either. The Princess has to be careful as the guy has a rocket attached to the chainsaw leg, and that thing is dangerous when it flies within facial zip codes. But the Princess can turn her entire chest into a buzz saw and give you a death hug.

Because the Princess is hot (literally), she has to shut down occasionally to cool her jets. In her dream state she has sex with the heavy metal guy. In her awake state she can’t feel anything, be it a sword or, um, a flesh sword. The madmen who makes the Mechas, collects body parts with the help of his twin hotties, who carry around baskets of severed arms, feet and stomachs like they were out picking flowers.

The Princess squares off with the ultimate Mecha for the final battle. This thing looks more freakish and cooler than any Hellraiser (1987) Cenobite on the block, sporting hoses, sutures, spiky stuff and flabs of borrowed skin. Then it’s a festival of sqooshed heads, split torsos, and stitched wounds that should be disinfected (but aren’t). And hey, grenade boobs — at least two more reasons to recommend Samurai Princess (2009).

Tasty Body Modifications

In the super gory Splatter: Naked Blood (1995), three hot young Asian chicks offer their firmness up to science for an experiment that will be a boon to mankind — a drug that will make them not want to wear bras. OK, that’s not exactly it, but this Japanese movie is sub-titled and I can’t really read.

One chick is unable to sleep, another obsessed with food, the other addicted to clothes and beauty products. In other words, just average chicks. But the woman scientist’s 17-year-old son, a prodigy scientist, has secretly mixed his experimental drug in with his mom’s drug, and it’s unknowingly administered to the hotties. It’s a super endorphin that boosts the brain’s pain-killing chemical and makes everyone happy and not depressed. People, beer can do the same thing without needles or surgery gowns where your butt shows.

The drug’s effect happens almost innocently, with the food chick accidentally cutting her finger while preparing a succulent repast of tempura squid. Sucking the blood out of her wound, she starts to feel…aroused. Staring at a pot of boiling oil on her stove, she gets the idea to dip her hand into the tempura mixture and then deep-fry her hand. Tempura cooks quickly (about two to three minutes, or until golden brown) and she’s ready to take a bite.

Therein lies the movie’s genius plot: the endorphin chemical turns pain into sexual pleasure. (Now you know why we drink beer.) What began as a slow-moving flick about nothing suddenly turns down a dark road, with the food chick — fork and knife in hand and sitting on the dinner table half naked — starts cutting bite-sized morsels out of the area normally used for outgoing mail. Then she feasts upon said bite-sized morsels.

Seeing her reflection in the knife blade, she gets another idea: stab said eye with said fork and force it out with said knife. All of this, it should be noted, is done without the camera moving away and is brutally and realistically graphic. So much so, it’ll probably turn you off to eating your own eye.

And the scientist mom? Someone cut a portal so big in her gut as to allow her dead husband to crawl into. (Don’t ask — just watch.) The gore is magnificent and lives up to the movie’s title of splattering and being naked, so really, the plot is all but there to pass the time.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I got a hankerin’ for some elbow macaroni.

Ghost vs. Ghost

Sadako vs. Kayako (2016) had all the elements to become a supernatural tour de force lock-up worthy of a pay-per-view. (Now that I think about it, that’s what VOD is.) Regardless, the Japanese horror match with Sadako the long black haired ghost chick that crawls out of wells/TV screens from The Ring franchise, and Kayako, the long black hair ghost chick that crawls down stairs on her stomach from the Ju-on Grudge series, should’ve been a box office bonanza for these two iconic ghosts. Instead, it turned into a slow-moving, frightless flick made for teens. To put a sharper point on it, teens are more scary than this movie.

To access these vengeful ghost gals is easy. For Sadako, just watch a cursed video tape. Then the phone rings and it’s Sadako informing you of deadness by death in 48 hours. With Kayako, just poke around the abandoned house where she “lives” with that pasty white kid in diapers who makes cat growl sounds. Once inside, she spider crawls down the stairs and pretty much ends your existence with just a blink of her one eyeball. (Wonder if she wears contacts?)

Two high school chicks learn about Sadako from their urban legends teacher, then later go to a junk shop and buy an old VCR, which just happens to have the cursed tape still in it. Like all teens they burn it onto a disc and upload it to the Internet, where it goes viral. Now that’s some efficient population control. Of course, one of the girls actually watches the tape and the phone rings. Nice not knowing you.

Over at Kayako’s house, four young school boys go inside and…school’s out forever. This was witnessed by the teen girl across the street who is made stinky by the curse of Kayako. And now we have the dots in place to connect how this movie is supposed to work.

A botched exorcism with the girl earmarked for death introduces us to Keizo Tokiwa, a ghostbuster with psychic powers, who whips his hand around the doomed victim to expel said curse. Doesn’t always work. Must not be whipping hard enough. The die-now-pay-later teen kills herself with a belt wrapped around her neck instead of sagging britches. This leaves the unkilled friend and the girl across the street whose parents Kayako just ghosted (in a confusing sequence that made about much sense as the little boy who talks like a wet cat) to all gather at the Kayako’s house for the big showdown.

And here’s where all the pointlessness could’ve been salvaged — the two scariest poltergeists in Japan’s movie history finally facing off. Keizo theorized that the ghost gals would cancel each others’ curses when their disparate energies collide. Guess what didn’t happen? Their first meeting had them evenly matched and nothing really happens except a lot of flailing black hair and everyone ending up in the well outside. (Who even has one of those in a middle class neighborhood? If I was middle class, I might consider having one installed — without the bucket retrievable curses.)

With no pay-off, Sadako vs. Kayako is a BIG let-down. There was so little screen time for both S and K, you wonder how someone justified their names being used in the title. They must have good agents.

Embalming: The New Taxidermy

Miyako is a coroner. She gets to look at all the inner goo within our bodies once we quit making outer goo. One day she gets a male teenage corpse with a needle sticking out of its neck. My guess is he died of natural causes. But, as the body is prepared for embalming, someone sneaks in after hours and takes the corpse’s head right out of its shoulder holder.

The search for the misplaced face leads Miyako and detective Kurume into the lucrative underground shopping mall known as the organ trade industry. Legs, arms, torsos, eyeballs, wieners…they won’t be undersold! (I’m waiting for the President’s Day 1/2 off butt cheek sale.)

It’s here they find Dr Fuji, an ostracized surgeon who runs his limb extraction practice out of the back of a semi-truck. Fuji knows where the head is, but it’s linked to a convoluted plot that distracts from the real reason to watch this movie: to witness graphic autopsies done on the living. Is that asking too much?

Miyako, though, has bigger problems. A nearby priest tells her what she does to dead bodies is evil and that she’s really gonna get it, the argument being that preserving the dead body is a crime against the laws of nature. (The Japanese believe in cremation, not embalming. I’m split down the middle. Heh.)

Fuji, as it turns out, did the embalming on Miyako’s mom when she kicked the Buddha, so that ties in somehow. While Em: Embalming (1999) invokes a solid “meh,” it’s the gloriously gory body parts that reward one’s rental yen. Not quite as visceral as Saw III (2006) in the head-opening department, if you can put up with all the plot distractions, you’ll be rewarded with some juicy meatiness. I know that sounds icky, but I couldn’t think of anything else.