Bookended By Godzilla, Zombie Blood, Alien Park Job

Looking for a Christmas present to buy for me this year? I already took care of your shopping — go to Etsy.com and click over to Mokushop’s, um, shop, and you’ll find awesome, under $70 custom wooden hand-chiseled bookends.

With TV around, I don’t do books, so you’ll have to buy me some to go with ‘em as well. But for a chance to own either the Godzilla and/or Kraken (giant octopus) bookends, it might be worth my time to learn how to read.

These things are “extremely limited”, so you’ll have to hurry, Don’t worry about wrapping ‘em as I’ll already know what they are. Thanks for the thought, though. Very Christmas-y of you.

While I wait for you to ship the bookends to me, here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not be worth as much as chiseled wood…

CHRISTMAS BLOOD (December 4, 2018)
“Christmas is a time of peace, love and family. But not for Norway as a psychopath dressed in a Santa Claus suit has been terrorizing them for the past 13 years. For as soon as the caroling starts, this demented Kris Kringle dispenses bloody ax blows regardless of whether you’ve been bad or good. As the holiday approaches on one snow-covered town filled with revelers, a pair of detectives work against time to find and arrest this bearded serial killer. Will they manage to stop this demented St. Nick before he kills again?”

As of this holiday season, there are 100,000 horror movies about serial killer/psychopath Santa Claus killers. Know what I want for Christmas for a change? No more of these same-plot movies.

ATTRACTION (December 4, 2018)
“Moscow finds itself on the brink of destruction after a mysterious spaceship crash-lands in the center of the city. While the government seeks to find out what the ship’s passengers want and how to protect the local population, the rest of the city residents break into conflicting factions. Some view the aliens as a threat that should be extinguished, while others hope that the visitors are peaceful and offer an opportunity to learn more about the world beyond. When a young woman finds herself torn between her seemingly normal life and the alluring promise offered by one of the all-too-human extraterrestrials, the fate of the entire world is left hanging in the balance.”

A social commentary on immigrants or a poorly-named sci-fi movie about aliens parking downtown wherever they want? You already know the answer.

JOHNNY Z (2019)
“A half human, half zombie named Johnny, holds the cure to the zombie epidemic. After escaping Nordac, an experimental medical prison, Johnny comes under the guidance of a martial arts Grandmaster named Jonray who agrees under a dying wish to protect and embarks on a journey to find a missing doctor while battling personal demons.”

Sounds like Johnny Z is just another name for Murphy, the half human/half zombie in Z Nation zombie apocalypse TV series on the SyFy™ Channel whose inner gunk holds the cure for un-zombie-ing. Wonder if they’re blood brothers?

THE VANISHING (2019)
“On an uninhabited island 20 miles from the rugged Scottish coast, three lighthouse keepers arrive for their six week shift. As Thomas, James and Donald settle into their usual, solitary routines, something unexpected and potentially life-changing occurs — they stumble upon something that isn’t theirs to keep. Where did it come from? Who does it belong to? A boat appears in the distance that might hold the answer to these questions. What follows is a tense battle for survival as personal greed replaces loyalty — and fed by isolation and paranoia, three honest men are led down a path to destruction.”

They don’t say what it is they discovered. But after a minimum amount of thought, it can only be one thing for a the isolated men on that remote island; a supermodel.

Meet The New Gods, Same As The Old Gods

When you think about it, Clash of the Titans (the remake, 2010), is Greek mythology’s version of Christianity. You have God (Zeus), Satan (Hades) and Jesus (Perseus), all playing with the lives and minds of humanity. Kinda like beer.

In this case, Argos, a city of the unwashed, is fed up with the Gods not answering their prayers, and destroys all graven images. This, of course, angers the Gods, and they let Hades make them pay for their blasphemy.

The Gods call for the sacrifice of the queen’s supermodel hot daughter, Andromeda. If they don’t BBQ her alive in 10 days they will unleash the Kraken, a mega creature feared by the Gods themselves. Probably because the darn thing is twice the size of Argos and has a wide variety of long tentacles with which to crush and knock over stuff. Just looking at it will cause you to colorize your toga.

Giant scorpions, snake women, gargoyle harpies, flying horses, the Kraken… Christianity was never this cool or fun.

Vampires and Octopuses

A smattering of new horror movies to fulfill your innermost dreams and desires. Note: Smattering means “a small amount of something.” Use this knowledge wisely.

12 DEADLY DAYS (December 12, 2016)
“YouTube™ and Blumhouse Television™ are partnering on a new half hour horror-comedy series called 12 Deadly Days, which is set in the cursed town of Saturn during the twelve days leading up to Christmas.”

Save your bitcoins — this one’s free to view on YouTube™, the world’s video landfill. And if you’re wondering where the town of Saturn is, it’s just down the road from Uranus. Man, that joke never gets old.

CITY OF DEAD MEN (December 16, 2016)
“An American tourist arrives in Colombia, where he discovers he’s run completely out of money. Desperate for a quick fix to the problem, he meets a young girl, who introduces him to a group of misfits and their mysterious leader, who live in an abandoned psychiatric hospital. At first accepting their friendship and shelter, it soon becomes clear something terrible happened in the hospital. The group living there now only feel immortal, pulling Michael into a dangerous dynamic that might kill him.”

Guess if I ran out of money I’d shack up in and abandoned psychiatric hospital, too. There’s worse things in the world — like people using abandoned psychiatric hospital toilets that don’t flush.

THE BYE BYE MAN (January 13, 2017)
“Set in 1990s Wisconsin, three college students move into an old, off-campus house where they find themselves preyed on by a malevolent supernatural entity called The Bye Bye Man. They must find a way to save themselves while keeping the whole thing secret to protect anyone else from becoming the entity’s next victim.”

Geez, all they have to do is move out of the house. College students are so dumb.

THE CREATURE BELOW (February 28, 2017)
“During a traumatic accident on a deep-sea dive, Olive, a gifted, young marine biologist discovers an unearthly creature. Plagued by gruesome nightmares, her fractured memories of what happened during the accident in the depths of the ocean begin to unravel, revealing her symbiotic bond with an eldritch horror far older and more malevolent than she could possibly imagine, one which drives her to carry out its sinister will, with deadly results for those around her.”

Eldritch horror. Sounds like the monster is a Kraken. Wikipedia™ says Kraken is the German word for octopus. Google Translate™ says it’s Tintenfisch. I don’t know which digital overlord to believe, so I’ll just go with human-eating multi-legged creature. A bit wordy, but it gets to the point.

THE NIGHT WATCHMEN (2017)
“Three inept night watchmen, aided by a young rookie and a fearless tabloid journalist, fight an epic battle to save their lives. A mistaken warehouse delivery unleashes a horde of hungry vampires, and these unlikely heroes must not only save themselves but also stop the scourge that threatens to take over the city of Baltimore.”

Vampires in Baltimore. Fine. Just keep ‘em out of my town. Don’t need anymore of those pesky things moving in to the neighborhood. Werewolves are okay, though. Just as long as they keep a Pooper Scooper™ handy.

Tight Titans

Obscured fantasy/horror classic Clash of the Titans (1981) is one of those cheesy guilty pleasure viewing experiences, right up there with coin-fed adult video machines and looking through my neighbor’s window at night whilst standing on yon garbage can.

Unlike my “power to the peephole” dalliances, Clash doesn’t have boobies. But it does have giant monsters, a flying horse with pigeon wings the size of a really big newspaper opened wide, a reptile woman with snakes for hair (must be hard to comb them) whose glare can turn men to stone, skeletons with swords (that could be a cool metal band name) and the interfering gods from Mt. Olympus who make life a pain for the mortals who are starting to believe in science and technology over some invisible omnipotent overlord in the sky.

The illegitimate son of Zeus (the CEO of the Gods), studly Perseus has to chop off the hand of the swamp demon Calibos. And he has to get the head of the snake-haired Medusa to stop his supermodel princess girlfriend Andromeda from being sacrificed to the giant Kraken monster, which is being released to eat the princess and destroy the city of Joppa by the jealous and manipulative Mt. Olympus gods whom the mortals rightfully mocked.

Oh yeah, there’s an annoyingly cute mechanical owl named Bubo and the aforementioned flying horse Pegasus, who had many opportunities to drop some road apples all over Joppa’s fine chariots from above, but did not do so. Fun, action-packed fantasy movie. Stupid horse.