Galloping Ghosts, Another Apocalypse, Leggy Mermaids

Wanna play rare and classic horror/sci-fi-themed pinball? Then you’re gonna have to gallop to the Galloping Ghost Arcade in Brookfield, IL. Depending where you live if not in Brookfield, the cost of getting there will be a LOT of quarters.

The famed arcade now has said super rare pinball machines, ready to suck up your pocket change like a hobo Roomba™: Twilight Zone, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Addams Family, Godzilla (the sucky 1998 monster, not the non-sucky 1954 version), Tales From The Crypt, Creature From The Black Lagoon, Aliens, and the super-rare one-of-a-kind prototype of Predator, with red skulls on elongated skeletal spines mounted on each side of the machine. If you lose, your skull plus spine gets ripped out and hung on the trophy wall. (It’d be cool if that were true.)

$15 — $20 gets you unlimited play on all the machines all day. I would’ve paid at least $20.01. So while you inner weep with anguish that you’re not within tilting distance of the Galloping Ghost Arcade, here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi TV series and movies that may or may not give you unlimited viewing for $20, give or take a few quarters…

THE PASSAGE (January 14, 2019/Fox™)
“Based on author Justin Cronin’s trilogy of the same name, The Passage is a character-driven action drama that focuses on Project Noah, a secret medical facility where scientists experiment with a dangerous virus that could lead to the cure for all disease — but it also could potentially wipe out the human race. When a young girl is chosen to be a test subject, a federal agent is tasked with bringing her in, but he becomes her surrogate father, determined to protect her at any cost — even as Project Noah’s work threatens to unleash an unimaginable apocalypse.”

This one’s a TV series and sounds apocalyptical-y edgier than we’re used to getting from the Fox Network. The irony here being that most of Fox’s programming qualifies as apocalyptical-y craptacular, Gotham, The Exorcist and Lucifer notwithstanding. (Hell’s Kitchen? Is that stupid thing still on the air?)

10 (January 18, 2019/Netflix)
“Sam, a teenage girl, is one of the last people on a post-cataclysmic Earth. With the final shuttle scheduled to leave the planet, she must decide whether to journey to the launch point and join the rest of humanity, or remain on Earth, a castaway in the only home she has ever known.”

This looks to be based on an episode of Futurama (“A Farewell To Arms”/2012). Don’t screw with a guy who knows his cartoons.

THE GOLEM (February 5, 2019)
“During an outbreak of a deadly plague, a young woman, Hanna, must save her tight-knit Jewish community from invaders. Turning to Jewish mysticism, she conjures a dangerous entity to protect her and her people. However, the powerful creature she summons may be far more evil than anything she could have ever imagined.”

Wrote about the original Golem before — several times. It was done in 1915 and was a German silent film, blah, blah, blah. And yes, there have been remakes with the EXACT SAME PLOT.

THE ISLE (February, 2019/Limited theater release)
“Set in 1846 on a remote island off the west coast of Scotland, where three survivors from a mysterious sinking of their merchant ship find themselves stranded on a small misty isle. The isle’s four sole secretive residents, an old harbor man, a farmer, his niece and a young mad woman, are anything but welcoming and reluctant to aid the sailors back to the mainland. The promise of a boat never materializes leading one of the sailors to question why people had abandoned the island. Through his investigation he discovers that every year around the same date a tragedy at sea would occur and young men from the island would perish. When his two shipmates meet with fatal accidents, the myth of a ghostly siren haunting the island leads him to try and uncover the truth.”

Sounds like mermaids with legs. (Come to think of it, nice visual.) This also seems to echo the plot of the new movie, The Vanishing (2019). I haven’t seen that one yet, but I don’t think it has mermaids with legs. Too bad; I might’ve watched it twice by now. 

Jewish Horror, Erotic Horror, Photocopied Horror

If you’re a fan of fringe art, hard to find a better place than G1988, a kick ass art gallery in Los Angeles (7308 Melrose Ave.) They do theme shows all the time, featuring groovy cool works from indie artists. Their latest show — and a returning one at that — is Product Placement artwork inspired by fictitious items from movies and TV. (They had me at Product Placement.)

Contributing artists for this one includes Blain Hefner and his brilliant take on Halloween, James Olstein’s kitschy spin on Batman, and Ryan Hungerford’s killer Captain Spaulding (from House of 1000 Corpses/2003) famous fried chicken. And if this all wasn’t cool enough, you can actually buy prints of these must-have artfulness.

I’m gonna have to buy a couple as the only things I can draw are curtains, bathwater and flies. (Old joke, but it still cracks me up.) Before you click on over to gallery1988.com to browse through their insanely amazing art pieces, here are a few now just released/upcoming horror movies that may or may not be suitable for framing…

THE LEGEND OF HALLOWEEN JACK (available now)
“The sleepy seaside town of England is about to learn the true meaning of vengeance. As the residents gear up for the annual Halloween celebration, little do they know that their seemingly perfect town masks a guilty secret. One year earlier a group of vigilantes took matters into their own hands when notorious criminal Jack Cain escaped conviction. After torturing and killing Cain, they buried his body in the local cornfield and made a pact to never speak his name again. Now, on the day when the veil between the living and dead is at its thinnest, a mysterious apparition begins stalking the land and dishing out brutal retribution to the vigilante group. So begins the Legend of Halloween Jack.”

Freddy Krueger should sue Halloween Jack for jackin’ the Elm Street horror icon’s intellectual property. And this take on the plot is as uninspired as his burlap suit. (Burlap doesn’t coordinate with anything except potatoes.)

AMERICAN FRIGHT FEST (available now)
“Blood runs rampant on Halloween night when a small town’s Fright Fest becomes real inside the walls of a long abandoned asylum. Spencer Crowe, a former A-List horror director — long past his prime, having been in and out of rehab several times — gets a second chance at his career when he’s given the opportunity to produce a local Fright Fest.”

And this guy is ripping off Leatherface, what with the chainsaw and mangled face mask. How come nobody uses a weed wacker as a weapon of choice? Those things can make serious welts on your ankles and shins.

THE HOUSE OF VIOLENT DESIRE (available now)
“In a remote hill top mansion, a mysterious stranger emerges from a thunderstorm in the night, seeking refuge with the Whipley family; four young adults ruled by their strict religious mother, and their troubled father, who has vanished the previous night. But perhaps the ‘stranger’ is more connected to this family and to the dark unknown history of the house than they could ever suspect, and as the visitor begins to cultivate sexual tensions and paranoia within the house, the devilishly erotic history of the Whipley family threatens to lure them deep into its lustful, violent madness once again.”

The House of Violent Desire. Sounds like a cool name for a dive bar.

HANUKKAH (2018)
“Obediah Lazarus is the son of Judah Lazarus, the original Hanukiller. In 1983, Judah terrorized NY for seven nights and was preparing to sacrifice his eight-year-old son, Obediah, on the eighth night. Judah was convinced it was God’s will, like Abraham and Isaac, to sacrifice his only son to God. Luckily for Obediah, police tracked Judah down and stopped the sacrifice, but Judah was gunned down in the process. Warped by hatred with no guidance, Obediah Lazarus becomes a religious extremist, intolerant of non-Jews, ‘bad Jews’, and those he perceives to be enemies of the Jewish faith. He is about to unleash eight nights of horror. A group of Jewish teens are getting ready to party for the holidays, but are in for a Festival of Frights. With the help of a wise Rabbi, they deduce that the murder victims have violated Judaic law and that their only chance at survival is to embrace their faith.”

Oy veh — a Jewish slasher film! The plot, though, reminds me of an old joke: 

A Jewish man took his Passover lunch to eat outside in the park. He sat down on a bench and began eating.

A little while later a blind man came by and sat down next to him.

Feeling neighborly, the Jewish man passed a sheet of matzo to the blind man.

The blind man ran his fingers over the matzo for a few minutes, looked puzzled, and finally exclaimed, “Who wrote this crap?”

Comedy gold, I tell you.

Lip Wart Horror

Just when I think I’ve covered all the new horror releases, like lip warts more just keep popping up. Unlike lip warts, though, more horror movies are welcome. And when you’re done with ’em, you just turn off the TV. Lip warts, or “pie-hole papillomavirus,” can only be vanquished with rinse-lather-repeat sippings of Bleomycin™-flavored martinis (stirred, if you’re an uneducated heathen with sores on your face).

So much for that metaphor. Until they make a lip wart horror movie, here’s some alternatives…

SIREN (December 2, 2016 VOD, Digital HD  / December 6, 2016 DVD)
“Jonah, an apprehensive groom-to-be, sees his bachelor party turn into a nightmare when he frees a seemingly innocent victimized girl locked up in a supernatural sex club. Her ruthless handler/proprietor of the sex club will stop at nothing to re-capture his prize. Jonah struggles to rescue the girl only to discover it is he who needs to be rescued as he comes to the realization that she’s a dangerous fabled predator who has chosen him as her mate.”

Supernatural sex club. Is that like the downtown YMCA but with dealer’s choice happy endings? Which begs the question: If you’re a demon working in the sex trade, do you accept monetary tips instead of a customer’s inner chi? If so, then demons should have their tips taxable like all the rest of us public service clock-punchers.

FORGOTTEN SCARES (No release date at this time)
“Forgotten Scares: An In Depth Look at Flemish Horror Cinema goes back to the birth of Flemish horror in the ’70s and shines a bright light on the potential future of horror in Belgium. Through this documentary the viewer gets to discover long forgotten – and even unfinished – genre gems and learn in-depth info about underrated ‘splatter and gore’-fests, post-apocalyptic movies, slasher-films, Nazisploitation, women-in-prison and other fantastical Flemish genre benders through the eyes of the directors, producers, composers, principal actors and genre experts.”

I’ve never heard of Flemish horror. Sounds like what comes out of your nose during a nasty sinus infection. In reality (thanks to cut ‘n paste from know-it-all websites), Flemish refers to any of the varieties of the Dutch language spoken in Flanders, the northern part of Belgium. I totally did not know that.

One of the most infamous Belgian horror movies of all time and Flanders is Rabid Grannies (1988), which is pretty dang horrible. However, it does have highly graphic scenes of grandma gore. There’s probably a joke in there somewhere.

GEHENNA: WHERE DEATH LIVES (Release pending 2016/2017)
“Encompassing horror, suspense and a twist that will blow your mind, Gehenna fixes on five people who enter a hidden bunker from WWII, and realize it’s way more than a bunker. Some fates are MUCH worse than death.”

A history lesson: Gehenna, from the Hebrew Gehinnom, is the Jewish and Christian analogue of Hell. (I totally cut ’n pasted that from somewhere.) I bet the bunker is actually The Poggie Tavern. Once experienced, you’re Gehenna want to stay the heck away from there. Ha!

THE CRUCIFIXION (releasing 2017)
“When a priest is jailed for the murder of a nun on whom he was performing an exorcism, an investigative journalist strives to determine whether he in fact murdered a mentally ill person, or if he lost the battle with a demonic presence.”

A nun being exorcised? Yeesh – either she wasn’t fully committed to a rewarding life of wash ‘n wear robes and abstinence, or the demon possessing her must be, like, the House Majority Whip for Evil. Either way, f’d in the b-hole.

Exorcisms seem to be making a big comeback lately. This is good as my finger probe-inclined primary care medical rep recommends exorcising at least three to five times a week. That’s a HELL of a lot. Heh.

Unborn To Be Wild

Strangled by his twin sister’s belly button extension cord while in a womb without a view, Jumby was stillborn — something he’s still very pissed off about.

His sister made it out alive and grows up to be a supermodel-worthy college hottie who walks around in Victoria’s Secret™ panties (page nine of the summer catalog/3 for $30). This is a plot device that never gets old.

 Lately, though, she’s been having real-time nightmares of a back-from-the-dead Zombie Jumby. Dumb name — he should be thankful he wasn’t born. (Note: Though dead on arrival, Zombie Jumby is portrayed to be about 8-years-old. How does that work?)

The neighbor kid she baby-sits keeps showing up and doing the spooky trance thing, declaring Jumby wants to be born right the screaming heck now. Then she finds out she was a twin and that her mother committed suicide in an insane asylum over Jumby’s less-than-spectacular debut. Throw in a ridiculously reaching back story involving a family curse, Nazis and a demon wanting revenge, and you have one fright-less turd of a “horror thriller.”

 

The chills and spook moments in The Unborn (2009) are so stock as to have been downloaded off the Internet. The Jewish (!) exorcism is so clumsy, I could’ve done a better job — and even given them a discount as business has been slow lately.

P.S. Do your utmost best to not confuse this The Unborn with 1991’s The Unborn, a heartwarming family horror flick about a couple who can’t have children (lucky them), but chose to go the in-vitro fertilization route facilitated by an insane doctor, which yields them a science-gone-wrong kid. Unlucky them.

You Just Ate Your Date

Jeffrey is a painfully lonely young man who works as an insurance salesman schlub by day and a purchaser of professional women’s services by night. He wants female company so bad, he even asks heavily perfumed night workers out on dates. A big hell no. It appears even hookers have standards.

This until he meets Pandora, a woman who turns out to be everything he ever wanted – and a little more. She’s a cannibal, only able to eat flesh instead of bologna sandwiches or Applebee’s™ chili fries. Cheap date, so score for Jeff.

Pandora eats her clients, whom nobody seems to miss. (When you see ’em, you’ll understand why.) But Pandora starts falling for Jeffrey and they begin dating. Normally on the third date the girl lets the guy feel her up. But it isn’t until after he proposes marriage (jumping the gun – he doesn’t even know her last name) does she confesses her “nature.” “Are you Jewish?” “No – I’m an abomination of God,” she replies. “So you’re a Mormon…” That’s pretty dang funny.

No sex, though lots of boobies. Realistic epidermis munching helps flesh out (sorry) the plot, and though the premise is lurid, at its heart Skinned Alive (2008) is a feel good love story to be shared by all.