Super Girlfriends, Family Werewolf, Murder Cabins

After nearly four years of battling aliens and her chaotic love life, Supergirl (on CW) has not only added Superman (Tyler Hoechlin — Season 3/nice teeth), but now, after countless references to his relentless relationship with Lois Lane, we’ll finally get to see her actual face and relentless reporter skills during Elseworlds, the three-night crossover (relentlessly mentioned in this blog by someone who looks a lot like me) coming December, 2018 on Supergirl, The Flash and Arrow. (Geez, that was a run-on sentence.) This got me thinking (had to wirelessly beer-charge the ‘ol Cracker Jack box™ that is my brain) to do a Lois Lane inventory.

While the prize-winning investigative journalist has been recast relentless times in comic books (I conservatively think there were 1.2 million versions), Lois Lane has been portrayed at least 10 times, if you count Joan Alexander, the voice of Lois on radio (TV screen without a screen) from 1940 to 1951. (And you thought kryptonite was Superman’s only weakness.) His rotating girlfriends include Noell Neill, Phyllis Coates, Margot Kidder, Teri Hatcher, Erica Durance, Kate Bosworth, Uma Thurman (playing the fake Lois Lane on the “Superhero Speed Dating” segment in Movie 43/2013), Amy Adams, and now in Supergirl, Elizabeth Tulloch. That’s a lot of Valentine’s Day candy Superman had/has to buy.

To illustrate just how super Superman’s girlfriend is, she was in 137 issues of DC’s Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane from, 1958 to 1974. (Dang, that was a redundant sentence.) Then she had a front and center role in Lois Lane, her own comic book title, from 1962 to 1965 and was DC Comics’ third best-selling funny book during those funny years.

So while we wait to welcome the newest Lois Lane to Superman’s little black book, here are a few now available/upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not be worthy of Superman’s Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder…

END OF THE WORLD (available now)
“As mass of solar storms causes tsunamis, volcanoes, and flooding, a city-dwelling family attempts to flee to the relative safety of a group of high-elevation caves several miles away.”

The cover of the DVD depicts Seattle’s iconic Space Needle being kicked in the struts and falling down upon the city where I live and drink. This sucks as they just completed the Space Needle’s remodel of installing a transparent floor 605 feet up. Unless the pervs down below have binoculars, all you ladies wearing skirts while visiting the Needle won’t have to worry.

ALPHA WOLF (available now)
“A couple moves into a secluded cabin in an attempt to salvage their relationship and finds their world torn apart when the husband transforms into a murderous werewolf. Things grow more bizarre when the family dog leaps in to save the wife and suffers his own transformation.”

I guess the cabin trip was to hopefully reconcile that time the wife threw Nair™ on her husband’s face during an argument on whether or not to use silver bullets in the family repeating shotgun. Those things tend to get worse if not talked through before a full moon.

MOTHER KRAMPUS 2 (available now)
On Christmas Eve four young women wrap up their community service with one last visit to the older and less fortunate. As darkness falls and the cold settles in, they realize there is far more to their seemingly innocent host than meets the eye.”

I bet the seemingly innocent host is Mother Krampus. Just a hunch.

THE CABIN (December 4, 2018)
Young American couple, Rose and Harry are on their way to visit Harry’s family cabin, both as a nostalgic vacation and as a way to rekindle their relationship. But they’re not the only one that decided to visit the cabin this weekend. The vacation is quickly turned into a living nightmare for Rose and Harry as they meet a vicious sociopath, who invites them into a involuntary cat and mouse game.”

Why is it remote cabins are where married couples go to fix relationships? Everybody knows that’s where murderous werewolves and/or vicious sociopaths go to shoot fish in a barrel.

A Slew of Superheroes, Devil Sex, Heavy Metal Babysitters

The ratings winning CW Network is heavily pushing Elseworlds, a crossover event that takes place on December 9, 2018 on The Flash, continuing on December 10, 2018 on Arrow (as in Green Arrow), and concluding on December 11, 2018 on Supergirl. I know what I’ll be doing for three days in December.

This one’s gonna be epic as it finally introduces Lois Lane (Superman’s “friends with benefits”), Batgirl (insert excited slobbering here), and the returning John Wesley Shipp, who played Jay Garrick in The Flash as a multiverse speedster. He seems nice.

Here’s the upsell: The Flash and Arrow switch pants. Then they change their clothes again — as does Superman — to all black. (I’ve been doing that for years.) And just when you think it could be any more mind-bending, John Wesley Shipp appears as The Flash in his old costume from when he played the Flash back in the 1990 TV series and will be called Barry Allen. My mind is a fried egg right now.

In the new Flash series, Shipp played Henry Allen, Barry’s dad, and was killed by Flash nemesis, Zoom. (Weird to have a metahuman named after a breakfast cereal.) Now he’s back to play the Flash like he did before his hair turned grey.

There’s lots more happening in Elseworlds, so don’t think of any of this as spoilers, but rather Fritos™ and bean dip before the big dinner. But before you go to the store to stock up on Fritos™ and bean dip, here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not give you grey hair…

LUCIFERINA (November 20, 2018/DVD | December 4, 2018 / Digital HD)
“Natalia is a 19-year-old who reluctantly returns home to say goodbye to her dying father. But when she meets up with her sister and her friends, she decides instead to travel the jungle in search of a mystical plant. Instead of pleasure, they find a world of Black Masses, strange pregnancies, bloody deaths and perhaps, a sexually violent clash with the Devil himself.”

A sexually violent clash with the Devil. That’s a lot to unpack. Think this one came out last March, 2108 in some country that is foreign to me. But hey, Devil sex, magic plants, black masses — no doubt you could find those things in any civilized country/bowling alley.

GHOST IN THE GRAVEYARD (2018/2019)
A small town comes under the thumb of Martha, a vengeful ghost who returns to haunt the children who witnessed her death during a game of Ghost in the Graveyard in their youth. Long blamed for the accident, Sally Sullivan must figure out why Martha has returned and how to get her to rest in peace for good. As the mystery of her return unravels, deep secrets are revealed that will have consequences for everyone involved.”

Back from the dead, revenge, murder, blah, blah, bah. This premise is so overdone, it’s like dry meatloaf — and there’s not enough ketchup in the world to make it taste any better. For a slightly better version, try Darkness Falls (2003). That one has a teen in it.

SHED OF THE DEAD (2019)
Trevor is between jobs. He spends his days avoiding his nagging wife by hiding out in his allotment shed and painting figurines for his war-games with his agoraphobic friend, Graham, and dreaming of his heroic alter-ego, the battle mage Casimir the Destroyer. When Mr. Parsons, one of the other allotment tenants, petitions to have Trevor removed from his disgrace of a plot (he’s not there to grow stuff!) an argument ensues that leaves Trevor with a corpse to hide. Unfortunately, this untimely accident coincides with the zombie apocalypse and Mr Parsons’ return is just the beginnings of Trevor’s problems. More pressing is whether or not he should try and save his wife and her beautiful best friend, who both he and Graham have a thing for.

Yeow, what a hot mess of a plot. Only thing missing is dry meatloaf.

BABYSITTER MASSACRE: HEAVY METAL (in production)
“Billy Dragg breaks things off with his girlfriend and subsequently goes on a murder spree. But is he in control, or is the ghost of Viper, a dead heavy metal superstar, influencing Billy’s actions?”

Push in your stool — this will take a minute. The guy who brought us 2013’s Babysitter Massacre is not done massacring temp rental guardians. Babysitter Massacre II: Slay Bells takes place around Christmas, a few weeks after the first movie. Then follows Babysitter Massacre III: Overnight, starring a different slasher. Anything worth doing is worth overdoing, hence Babysitter Massacre: Heavy Metal. These were all funded by Kickstarter™, so don’t expect a lot of different knives or clothes. Not sure what a ghost of a heavy metal superstar has to do with changing diapers, but hey, might as well come at it with that fabled open mind people keep telling me to use.

TV Superheroes, Wooden Evil, Bad Babies

Cracking up over the “cover story” of the Daily Planet (where Superman as Clark Kent works for minimum wage) about superheroes uniting to protect the Earth. Whoever mocked this up is a flippin’ genius and probably drinks a lot of smart water.

The article is “written” by Lois Lane. So awesome. But it’s the photo of Superman (George Reeves), Batman (Adam West), Robin (Burt Ward) Wonder Woman (Lynda Carter) and Aquaman (Lloyd Bridges) that’s even better because none of these heroes overlapped in the same time/universe. Conclusive proof: Adventures of Superman aired from 1952 — 1958. Batman aired from 1966 — 1968. Wonder Woman aired from 1975 — 1979. And Sea Hunt (here’s the genius part) aired from 1958 — 1961. Outside of a pilot episode that sunk faster than a heavy metal clam, there was no Aquaman TV series. There was, however, a cartoon series that ran from 1967 — 1970, so someone cast former United States Navy frogman Mike Nelson (Lloyd Bridges) as the scuba-doo underwater hero (Sea Hunt ran for 155 episodes). That he was depicted as Aquaman (in his original DC Comics suit) is full-on brilliant. P.S. Aquaman was punked by Man From Atlantis, which ran from 1977 — 1978, and featured a guy with “amphibious abilities.” That is so low tide.

While I go to Metropolis to get a copy of the Daily Planet and frame it, here’s a few upcoming horror movies that may or may not be worthy of a Lois Lane cover story…

BLOOD CHILD (available now)
“After suffering a devastating miscarriage in Singapore, Ashley turns to a witch doctor to help her with the occult practice of raising a ‘ghost child’ and finding the spirit of her lost child. After returning to the States, Ashley and her husband Bill find themselves pregnant again. However, their happiness is short lived as the pregnancy acts as a catalyst for a series of terrifying events that start to occur within their home. The family soon learns that Ashley has brought back a lot more than just memories from Asia. The spirit of their lost child is not about to play second fiddle to the impending new arrival, and unleashes an unspeakable evil upon the household.”

YET ANOTHER evil kid birth movie. Start with Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and go from there. So what do you feed the little home wrecker — Gerber’s™ Demon Peas? (Their strained Hell bananas, though, are to die for. No pun intended.)

ROOTWOOD (2018)
“Students Jessica and William are hosting The Spooky Hour, a podcast about paranormal phenomena and urban legends, when they’re hired by the Hollywood film producer Laura Benott to produce a horror documentary about the Curse of the Wooden Devil. They smell a chance to become famous. Together with their friend Erin they enter Rootwood Forest and investigate the area to find out the truth about the Wooden Devil and his victims.”

Sounds like YET ANOTHER Blair Witch Project (1999) knock-off/rip-off. What if they get there, only to find out the Wooden Devil is just handmade birdhouse? We can only hope satanic seagulls live in it.

THE WIND (2018)
“A supernatural thriller set in the Western frontier of the late 1800s, where a plains-woman is driven mad by the harshness and isolation of the untamed land.”

She’s not looking at the plus side of living way out in the middle of nowhere. No traffic, noisy neighbors and plenty of flesh-eating buffalo to play fetch with and occasionally rub their fuzzy bellies (they really like that). Sounds like a slice of Heaven to me.

ISABELLE (2019)
“An all-American couple dream of starting a family is shattered after they move into the perfect New England neighborhood. Once settled, they soon after descend into the depths of terror as they struggle to survive a genuine threat from a dark presence that appears to want to end their very lives.”

Though this one was originally titled, The Wanting, it should’ve been called The Republicans. It also describes me in a dive bar, or “unkempt tavern.”

Super Sci-Fi

Superheroes are science fiction. That incendiary statement is a big fat lie. Take Batman, for instance. He’s one of history’s greatest superheroes and is self made. No being born on a distant planet and being foster home’d on Earth, finding a power ring that didn’t come out of a Cracker Jack’s™ box, or bitten by a radioactive ick bug. Just a lot of time in the lab and gym, and a deep desire to smack criminals – or anyone even thinking about becoming a criminal.

By and large, though, superheroes are the stuff of sci-fi. How could you not punch buildings in the roof without breaking your knuckles, or stretch your arms around your body and give yourself a reach-around and not be borne of sci-fi? And this, along with some really cool characters and story lines, is what makes the current wave of superhero TV shows so dang fun.

Preferring to watch movies instead of TV shows, I was lured back by a whole punchfest of superhero shows delving into the re-imagined history of Batman, The Flash, Green Arrow, Daredevil and the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. in a way comic books (or “15 cent bibles”) of my youth only touched on. After binge watching a pile of these new TV series, here are a few overviews and observations…

GOTHAM
A clever spin on taking the Batman universe back to the beginning, when pre-Bat Bruce Wayne is just starting to grow vengeance pubes. It’s here they shake up the origins of B-Man’s greatest foes – Catwoman, Penguin, Joker, Riddler, Poison Ivy, etc. – and how they played a part in young Master Bruce’s pre-destiny. (Selina “Catwoman” Kyle is a teen here and quite the cutie, thereby introducing Bruce to his newest weapon, the Bat Boner.) Also, someone dies violently every episode.

THE FLASH
C.S.I. whiz Barry Allen was turned into the Flash by a particle accelerator explosion, changing him into a meta-human. The same science-gone-wrong blast also morphed a bunch of non-law abiding citizens of Central City into meta-criminals, each acquiring a unique sci-fi power of their own. This provides the Flash with a new super criminal each week to weave into the overall story arc. P.S. Kind of a well-intentioned wuss, Flash nevertheless cries every episode. And he also gets beat up a lot. Maybe they should call him the “Fastest Punching Bag Alive.”

ARROW
A heavy back story hot mess, Arrow nonetheless shows the transformation of billionaire twenty-something Oliver Queen, going from party fun boy cheating on his girlfriend with her sister (in his defense, sis is really hot), to the hooded/masked/eye makeup’d Arrow (or “Green Arrow”), a balancer of right and wrong. It’s here he puts to good use his peerless bow and arrow skills he developed to survive on that criminal-infested, desolate island for five years after his yacht sank in big wavy waves. In the beginning he actually killed people. Now he just wounds them. In every episode someone finds out his secret identity. (Notes: Oliver never seems to run out of arrows. Also, the show crosses over with The Flash. Pretty flashy.)

DAREDEVIL
Really dark – in lighting and mood – the sightless Daredevil brings blind justice (heh) to New York by night, and fights for due legal process as attorney Matt Murdock by day. (As he’s blind, how can Daredevil tell when it’s night and day? Yet another one of his unique abilities, I guess.) DD didn’t wear his famous devil-horned red costume for most of the first season, preferring to beat up criminals in his Old Navy™ street pants. Speaking of fisticuffs, the gritty fight scenes are amazingly orchestrated and extreme brutal ass kick. Everybody at work the next day just thinks those bruises on his face were from tripping over furniture.

THE AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D.
The Agents of S.H.I.E.LD. is overflowing with super humans, super criminals, global conspiracies, betrayals, wicked fight sequences, secrets within secrets, occasional Avenger cameos, and really hot gals. The series, soon to be on its third season as of this e-barfing, stretches to keep the story arc from sliding all over the place. Doesn’t always succeed, but still one of the better genre shows going (my opinion only). The amazingly cool character of Agent Phil Coulson is brought back from the dead (he was killed in half by Loki, Thor’s half-bro in The Avengers/2012) with his dry humor intact, and picks up the pieces of the broken S.H.I.E.L.D. (see Captain America: The Winter Soldier/2014), and kicks ass in every cliff-hanging episode. I wish to be an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., if for anything to meet Chloe Bennet (aka, Agent Skye). You don’t have to guess what her super power is…

SUPERGIRL
Getting ready to air as of this super-blogging. But watching the promo short, I can tell this one isn’t for me, despite Supergirl being a super cutie.

This show is meant for 12-13 year old girls. Since I quit wearing sparkle fingernail polish last year, I’ll have to give the Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) sexy spin-off, Agent Carter a try…

GOTTA GET THIS OFF MY SUPER CHEST: SMALLVILLE
Airing from 2001 to 2011, this popular 10-year series followed the acne years of Superman. Yeah, I watched a few episodes in the beginning, only to fly away after seeing Super Wuss go through endless drama scenes of teen angst. (You’re over-thinking it if you get a tummy ache deciding if it’s morally right or not to look through Lois Lane’s blouse with your X-ray vision. Just do it, for crying out loud. (No pun intended.)

P.S. I didn’t forget Heroes. Just never watched it. I was busy painting my nails and… Oh crap – did I just say that out loud? Clearly, my super power is having a big mouth.