Hell vs. Heaven vs. Hell

YI Kwak, a 924 AD demon hunter in the royal demon-hunting squad of Chuh-yong-dae, just lost Yon-hwa, his steady arm candy/fiancée to evil demons. Beats having her dump you and then doing it with one of your friends.

YI Kwak, whose name sounds like the noise a dyslexic demon-hunting duck would make, is freakin’ p*ssed. This spells bad news for demons, evil or not, as YI Kwak has the ability to see the dead, whereas his contemporaries do not. This makes him not only a valuable addition to the warrior squad, but carries a semblance of job security.

YI Kwak and his squad are making headway against the forces of darkness, which at times look like guys in futon sheets. Regardless of thread count, they are STILL EVIL. Still not satisfied, YI Kwak somehow ends up in Joongcheon (or “Midheaven”), the Land of the Dead, while investigating a shrine with no noticeable bathrooms. Joongcheon is that waiting room between Hell and Heaven and Hell (or, in today’s vernacular, between your job and Happy Hour). This is where souls have to wait 49 days before they can be reincarnated. I don’t know why, those are the rules.

Guess who YI Kwak runs into? Guess who has no previous memory? Guess how long he has to wait until he gets second base privileges again? YI Kwak also bumps into his former teacher Ban-chu (what is it with these people and their messed up names?), who is about to lead a rebellious coup on behalf of the demons and a plan to get out of Midheaven and into Outerheavern, where they will cause much grief and the knocking over of stuff.

The Restless (2006) is a lush, stylized fantasy with no blood spilling worth blogging about. While I’d rather look into the glowing red eyes of evil than have to endure any more of YI Kwak and Yon-hwa gazing longingly into each others’ eyes, this ain’t a half bad time waster.

Hell Kids, Hell Zombies, Hell Stuff

As you/me/I/us/them/they wait IMPATIENTLY for Stranger Things 2 (premiering Friday, October 27, 2017), news comes down the super fun happy slide the surprise horror hit has already been renewed for a third season. I needed some good news after waiting all day for that !@#$ “once-in-a-lifetime” eclipse to somehow destroy the world. (I know the eclipse was for free, but dang — I feel gypped.)

The new Stranger Things 2 key art is a slick homage to 1984’s A Nightmare on Elm Street. When you think about it, sleep slasher Freddy Krueger’s dream state world is the ‘80s version of Stranger Thing’s The Upside Down alternate universe/dimension/golf course. Regardless, I’ll have to go back to hoping for Melancholia to smash into this toilet Earth for my world-destroying fantasies.

While we wait for that planet to pinball ours, here are a few upcoming horror and sci-fi movies to help cope with the disappointing, non-destructo eclipse…

LITTLE EVIL (September 1, 2017/Netflix)
“Gary just married Samantha, only to find out that her 6-year-old son is the Antichrist.”

This horror comedy sounds fun/ny. But if the kid is the son of the Antichrist, does that men Samantha is the Mom Antichrist, or is this one of those, “it takes a village” things?

HELLRISER (October 9, 2017/UK)
“When their city is rocked by a series of brutal occult murders, veteran detective John Locke and his young partner Terri Keyes are forced to put aside their differences and follow the trail of evidence to a formerly abandoned asylum, where the new owner Dr. Unnseine is conducting his own brand of Nazi-inspired “medical research” on the unwilling inmates. One such inmate, the sexy but deadly Annie Dyer, may hold the key to the murders — and to the doorway to Hell itself — if only Locke and Keyes can stay alive long enough to discover what it is.”

As much as you’d think this is one of those Asylum Studio rip-offs, it is, unfortunately, from another source of rip-offery. Obviously, the title is lifted from Clive Barker’s Hellraiser (1987). Then there’s the “When there’s no more room in Hell…” kicker line on the key art, a bold shoplift from 1978’s Dawn of the Dead. Wondering why the filmmakers didn’t just put it all on the glass and have the zombies wearing Goth leather and walking around with nails in their heads, like those teens at the mall.

HAGAZUSSA: A HEATHEN’S CURSE (2018)
“Set in the 15th Century in the Austrian Alps, Hagazussa takes us back to a dark period when pagan beliefs of witches spread fear into the minds of the rural folk exploring the thin line between ancient beliefs, magic and delusional psychosis.”

Ancient beliefs, magic and delusional psychosis. That may be f’d up for those in the Austrian Alps, but for me it’s just another night at The Poggie Tavern. I like witches, though. The sexy ones on TV, not the stinky kind at the bar who smell like room temperature Steel Reserve malt liquor.

STILL/BORN (2018)
“Mary, a new mother who lost one of her twins in childbirth, struggles with the loss. She starts to suspect something sinister is after her surviving child — a supernatural entity that has chosen her child and will stop at nothing to take it from her.”

They kinda hand this one to us one a parsley-garnished platter — the “supernatural entity” is the twin that didn’t make it to market. (A theory, not a conclusion.) By the way, do you want me to tell you what you’re getting for Christmas?

Grandma Zombies, More Sharks, Hollywood Bigfoot

Got a kick out of actor Rob Lowe’s recent statement that he and his sons had a face-to-face encounter with Bigfoot in the Ozarks while shooting a new docuseries called self-servingly, The Lowe Files (premiering August 2, 2017 on A&E). From the press release: “The reality show follows Lowe and his two teenage sons, Matthew and John Owen, as they travel around the country investigating mysterious phenomena and paranormal activity.”

This is what happens to your career when it runs out of gas. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Lowe told the celebrity gossip magazine, “We had an incredible encounter with what locals call the ‘wood ape,’ which is in the Ozark Mountains. I’m fully aware that I sound like a crazy, Hollywood kook right now.”

Looks like Rob just wrote his show’s first review.

Speaking of kooky Hollywood things, here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that you may or may not come face-to-face with on your TV/movie theater screen — whether you live in the Ozarks or not…

GRANNY OF THE DEAD (July 14, 2017)
“Regular guy Ed awakes one morning to find that his Grandma has become one of the living dead. Trapped in his home, Ed struggles to handle the situation. When he discovers the rest of the town’s elderly have also been infected by the zombie plague, Ed must become a hero in order to save his family and friends.”

Aren’t old people zombies already? I mean, minus the flesh-eating part? Then again, I suppose it’s easier to chew human flesh with dentures, provided said cheap meat has been cut up for you and served around 4PM at Royal Fork Buffet restaurants.

OPEN WATER 3: CAGE DIVE (August 11, 2017)
“Three American tourists are making an audition tape of a shark cage dive for a reality TV show. A catastrophic turn of events leaves them stranded in the waters of South Australia surrounded by hungry great white sharks.”

When aren’t great white sharks hungry? As oceanographer Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) expertly pointed out in Jaws (1975), “What we’re dealing with here is a perfect engine, an eating machine. All this machine does is swim, eat and make little sharks.” So yeah, looking forward to the sharks graphically doing at least one of those things. (Sorry, nature pervs — this is a PG-rated affair.) And while it sports the Open Water moniker, it’s only related to the previous two Open Water movies in name only. Odd, as the plot is nearly identical. This one, though, is found footage crapola, which in this case, probably works.

P.S. I wrote about this back on October 13, 2016 when it was merely called Cage Dive. With a title that uninspired, not surprised that they added “Open Water” to it to cash in. All things being equal, I would’ve done the same thing, but changed it slightly: Open Water: The Eatening.

DEATH NOTE (August 25, 2017/Netflix)
“Intoxicated by the power of a supernatural notebook, a young man begins killing those he deems unworthy of life. Based on the famous Japanese manga.”

I wrote about Death Note: Light Up The New World, the Japanese sequel, on April 25, 2017. You’re welcome. This Death Note is the American remake of the first DN movie, which came out in 2006. The new trailer is crazy cool nuts, the premise being that a “death note book” drops out of the sky and when you write someone’s name in it, they soon expire. My neck keeps hurting from looking up at the sky for falling books.

BLADE RUNNER 2049 (October 6, 2017)
“Thirty years after the events of the first film, a new blade runner, LAPD Officer K, unearths a long-buried secret that has the potential to plunge what’s left of society into chaos. K’s discovery leads him on a quest to find Rick Deckard, a former LAPD blade runner who has been missing for 30 years.”

The original Blade Runner (1982) has long been considered one of sci-fi’s greatest movies ever in the history of the future. Hence (from Wikipedia™), film critics Chris Ridley and Janet Maslin theorized that “Blade Runner changed cinematic and cultural discourse through its image repertoire, and subsequent influence on films.”

Not everyone liked Blade Runner…or even understood it when it first came out (me included). But re-watching the seven different film cuts (including one where filmmaker Ridley Scott had full artistic license to edit), Blade Runner holds up surprisingly well, and makes the future look as bleak and doom-y as it does today.

ROAD OF THE DEAD (2018)
“Road of the Dead takes place six years after 2005’s post-apocalyptic Land of the Dead and is set on an island where zombie prisoners race cars in a modern-day Coliseum for the entertainment of wealthy humans.”

A return to the zombie genre he kinda started with Night of the Living Dead back in 1968, George Romero’s Road of the Dead is being described as Road Warrior (1981) meets Rollerball (1975) at a Nascar™ race, with significant inspiration from Ben-Hur (1959). That seems pretty dang awesome, especially since his Land of the Dead arrived DOA. So zombies driving race cars — can you say “morning commute”?

Medieval Dead

The tag line for the awesomely hilarious Army of Darkness (1993) says it best: “Trapped in time, surrounded by evil, low on gas.” That’s gosh-darned funnier than all heck.

Ash gets sucked into a swirly time portal after battling the evil dead in Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn (1987). He and his 1973 Oldsmobile are dropped from the sky into a back in time land currently being plagued by, yep, more evil dead.

Having lost his hand by his own hand (heh) in Evil Dead 2 and having replaced it with a chain saw, Ash reluctantly joins forces with the local king to battle the dead after Ash himself accidentally invokes them. See, Ash’s only way home is with the Necronomicon, a demonic book whose cover is made of human flesh (instead of preferred edible cardboard).

He has to go into the fog-shrouded Land of the Dead to get it, utter an incantation (which he hilariously screws up), and then haul future buttock back to the castle to say his click your heels three times goodbyes.

The Deadites (great name) want their book back, Ash is stuck, and everyone hates his guts. This thing is loaded with awesome evil dead demons, a ton of Three Stooges pratfalls, and an endless stream of classic Ash retorts: “Hail to the King, baby!,” “Gimme some sugar, baby,” and the timelessly brilliant: “Alright you primitive screwheads, listen up…”

Ash/Bruce Campbell is the Marlon Brando of all things evil and dead.

Third Eye Blind

Bored teenagers read a book that describes ten ways to see ghosts.

One of the methods is to get a cornea transplant. Probably gonna have to pass on that one. Another is to set out empty rice bowls and start tapping ’em with chopsticks, the theory being that the sound will attract hungry ghosts. (Don’t know why they’re famished – being dead must surely kill your appetite.) This method proved to be a nice underwear-stainer for most of ’em. Don’t stop now – there’s eight more ways to void the warranty of your Dockers™.

Another method – rubbing cemetery dirt on your eyes – yields similar results, except this far into the book, the teens now find themselves cursed. I feel much happiness for them.

One kid is taken by the ghosts. The only way to rescue him is to go into the Land of the Dead and hand out flyers. There is a catch – once there you can’t be dicking around as time is not your ally in this realm. Stay too long and you kiss your Dockers™ goodbye. Guess what happens? I did and yawned so hard I cracked my jaw.

Relentlessly typical Asian ghosts with pale faces and long, stringy black hair that all look the same. They must belong to a club or something. The Eye 3 (2005) released logically as The Eye 10 in Japan/Thailand/over there, is so boring and fright-less, eye can’t recommend it. You’ll get more satisfaction out of rubbing your own eyes with grave dirt. It’s actually kinda fun in a weird sort of way.