Horror Snack Pack, High School Ghost, Vampire Schooner

Your choice of horror movie viewing couch snacks are many, from 7-Eleven™ Tomahawk Rib-eye steaks in a rich, squeeze bottle chocolate finishing sauce, to canned Lobster Bisque paired with a nice, dry Steel Reserve™. But how many of those TV dinners are as cool as the new Creepshow™ heavily-salted mouth treats?

FYE™ exclusively carries a line of Creepshow™ snacks to munch and later wipe your fingers on your Old Navy™ pants: White Cheddar Skullcrunch Popcorn ($4.99), Sour Gummy Worms (aka, Nightcrawlers/$4.99) and a blood red Creepshow™ Cherry Energy Drink ($3.99) — to help get the rubbery candy worms past your gag reflex.

While you ponder spending extra on gummy (or “gummi”) worms for having the Creepshow™ logo on it (unbranded version: $1.69 on Amazon™), here are a few upcoming horror movies that may or may not stress test your gag reflex…

KARADA SAGASHI (aka MIDNIGHT SCHOOL) / Out now (VOD)

“A high school student and her friends are trapped in a time loop by a ghost and the only way to escape is to find the corpse of the ghost’s previous victim.”

Time loop detention for anyone unable to guess how this ends. 

SCREAM 6 / March 10, 2023 (Theaters)

“The four survivors of the Ghostface killings leave Woodsboro behind and start a fresh chapter in New York City.”

The fifth sequel that’s as pointless as the original 1996 movie. FYI: In 1989’s Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, Jason Voorhees also visited New York — he was in town with a few days to kill. (Okay, I totally took that from 1990’s Predator 2. You probably wouldn’t know that had I not confessed to my crime.) 

THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE DEMETER / Pending release 2023

“Based on a single chapter, the Captain’s Log, from Bram Stoker’s classic 1897 novel Dracula, the story is set aboard the Russian schooner, Demeter, which was chartered to carry private cargo – twenty four unmarked wooden crates — from Carpathia to London.”

Dracula was in one of those coffins, uh, I mean, crates. The rest of the old time-y suitcases contained his spring/summer evening capes, backup underwear and socks, toothpaste/shampoo/shaving gel, raisin snack packs for the long ocean journey, and hometown dirt. This is so Drac can start a garden once he reaches London. He’s got quite the green thumb for growing…blood oranges. Heh.

TABOO / Pending release 2023 (Theaters/VOD)

“Three juvenile criminals, Charity, Charlotte and Michelle, are given one last chance at redemption. They’re sent on a team-building course in a forest with their youth worker, Miss White. While on the course, the group learns they are not alone. The situation goes from bad to worse, and their trip becomes a matter of life and death.”

No other details, so here’s an educated stab at it — their new camp counselor is either Bigfoot or some sort of poisonous moose. Makes sense if you let it.

The Devil Is A Jive Turkey

A bunch of ancient Chinese warrior monks with swords and crossing guard yellow pajamas put an evil amulet into a box. Then they put that box into a bigger box. And before it can do a “Pop Goes The Weasel” on ‘em, they landfill it into a deep cave-y hole, then slice themselves into sandwich bologna in order to maintain the secret whereabouts of said demonic jewelry, which would release a height/weight proportionate demon.

Flash forward to mid-1970s New York, where a really tall, muscular and shirtless kung fu instructor with an afro and anti-whitey attitude the size of Manhattan is teaching street thugs how to make that slappy sound when punching people in the sac, in this case a gang of Chinese gangstas, whom they are constantly turf warring.

Luke Curtis, the superfly of slapping (and kicking and karate chopping), decides to go to China to ramp up his punching skillz, taking along the street-slang yapping student, Rodan. (No, not Godzilla’s smart-mouth/beak pterodactyl, but a jive turkey.) It’s here Rodan steals the evil amulet (it thought outside the box) and it’s transported back to Harlem, where it unleashes the demon, who possesses a guy in a suit and turns him into a bug-eyed zombie that rips people open as if a birthday present. Then he goes into the subway where it’s nice and dark — exactly where you’d want to go to kill some time and other things. Soon, mangled bodies are showing up like pawn shop jewelry.

The cops think it’s a war between the African American gang (some of who are white) and the Chinese gang, who all wear black t-shirts and white pants. Both sides make that slappy sound when executing really slow and inept kung fu offenses to upper and lower torsos.

A tentative truce is suggested and the Chinese kung fu master tells Luke about the amulet and its powers to possess people, use loved ones against its enemies and cause hallucinations that’ll definitely stain gold lamé bell-bottom jumpsuits (Luke’s stylish action wear) OR white pants. He ventures into the subway for a demonic kick-boxing confrontation that has runaway subway trains appearing out of nowhere and then disappearing, heavy duty smacking and the letting of blood.

The Devil’s Express (aka, Gang Wars/1976) is one of those “so bad, you can’t help but watch it” movies. Painful dialogue, exaggerated fight facial expressions and a manifested demon who looks like a glowing eyed mummy wrapped in cloth that’s been dipped in one of New York City’s finest garbage cans. The only thing better is Luke’s pimp-esque wardrobe. Now to go on Amazon.com to see if I can find a gold lamé bell-bottom jumpsuit to go with my platform shoes. Then it’s off to the subway for me.

Urban UFOs, Brain Quakes, Serial Killing Seafood

Recently read an interesting article by columnist Cheryl Costa on the Syracuse New Times website listing the Top 25 cities for UFO sightings across the U.S., from 2001— 2015. Phoenix, AZ tops the carts with 929 sightings and Kansas City comes in last at an embarrassing (to the Chamber of Commerce, anyway) 294 reported glimpses of unidentified flying objects. The irony here is that Syracuse doesn’t even make the list. That’s just shameful.

On a happier note, Seattle, home of ME, sits smugly on the list at #3, with 616 sightings. It would’ve been around 700, but the UFO hotline got tired of me calling in every blinking light in the sky. So what if I live by two airports (Boeing Field/Sea-Tac Airport)? Maybe they were planes…or maybe they were extraterrestrial spaceships looking to goof with my brain pan. Still a valid call on my part.

Other UFO hotspot cities include Chicago, Portland, Los Angeles and Manhattan. So if you live in one of those places, keep watching the skies. If you don’t, then don’t. Not up for craning your neck skyward for hours on end? Lower your head to TV level and watch for these upcoming horror/sci-fi movies, which, for the most part, are identifiable…

MINDBLOWN (available now/VOD)
“A team of telekinetics — code-named Project Mindblown — has been secretly assembled in a high-tech facility. Their minds have the power to shake the Earth — or bring rain to drought-starved areas. They’ve been told their abilities will be used to do good for humanity. But when evidence suggests that the group has been tricked into causing destruction in U.S. cities, one team member goes rogue, racing against time to uncover a deadly conspiracy.”

Man, it’d be so cool to have the power to make things shake and quake. For instance, you could walk into a glass and ceramics novelty gift shop, fart really loud, and then make the whole room shake an off-balanced washer and/or dryer. Then say something like, “Wow, I knew I shouldn’t have eaten that fourth burrito…” Hilarity, I tell you.

TOTEM (October 31, 2017/VOD)
“A teen must resort to extreme measures to protect her family from a supernatural entity.”

Kind of an oxymoron — aren’t teens already supernatural entities? So what extreme measures is this teen gonna resort to? Making body-shaming taunts and posting embarrassing photos of the entity on social media? Or maybe she’ll trick it into smearing itself with glitter lipstick so it’ll look totally uncool at the school dance.

THE ENVELOPE (November 30, 2017/Russia)
“A strange envelope is delivered to an architect bureau by mistake. Igor, a driver, gets the task to bring it to the right address. From that moment his life becomes a string of paranormal events. The cursed letter invades Igor’s life and leads him to a mysterious addressee.”

They’re still naming horror movie characters “Igor”? That’s like giving Tom Cruise the name “Jack” in all his movies. As for the strange envelope, it’s probably a rent increase notice. (Last one I got was covered in frowny-face stickers.)

THE CRESCENT (2017/2018)
“A mother and her toddler son struggle to find spiritual healing after an unexpected death in the family. All the while, a mysterious force from the sea threatens to tear their souls apart.”

I bet you anything the mysterious force from the sea is a clam. Those things are loaded with terror. When you crack one open, it either looks like an alien face-hugger or a freshly blown nose. Or both.

Water-Proof UFOs

A gigantic UFO is discovered in the middle of the ocean. Actually, under the middle of the ocean. It’s determined that the spaceship, which is the size of downtown Manhattan, has been there for 288 years, give or take a work week. A team of specialists has been called in to see what up. Transported via a mini-sub several miles beneath the surface, the military has already built an aqua habitat, so that they may study and blog about the UFO.

All the scientists put on high-pressure swim-suits and find their way into the spacecraft. That’s weird—there are recycling bins and uneaten packs of Smokehouse Almonds™ laying around. They find the ship’s log and, upon playing it back, discover the craft experienced an “unknown event,” which looks like they got sucked into a Black Hole. (Holes don’t come in any other color except black.) Exploring further, they find a gigantic gold sphere, the surface of which undulates and looks like rich man’s bath water. It doesn’t do anything except float. All that trouble and expense to find it, and the darn thing just sits there. Stupid aliens. Or are they?

A binary message transmitted from the UFO is translated and they’re being greeted by an alien named…Jerry. I can believe a giant UFO has been at the bottom of the ocean for nearly 300 years, but an alien named Jerry? That’s just weird. Even more weird undersea weirdness happens: one million poisonous and extra-large jellyfish sting one of the habitat divers into swollen pudding. Then a football field-sized squid attacks the habitat and breaches the hull’s integrity. Then the place catches on fire and roasts the face off the astrophysicist. Then the Navy captain is severed in half. Then more messages from Jerry. And he’s not happy.

To go any further would cause YOU mental grief as I’d have to wreck it all by telling you the spaceship is not alien, but rather a vehicle from our future and… Crap, sorry. Sphere (1998) gets really intense, and while you have to pay the heck attention, clues are all over the place to explain the monster squids, toxic jellyfish, and trillions of fish eggs that look like and are the size of sea potatoes.

There’s a tedious subplot involving the psychologist and the marine biologist, who had an affair (another clue). But since they don’t show any sea boobies, it’s just something you’ll have to put up with. The movie will hold your interest, though. And after you’re done, go stick your head in a sphere…it’s fun!

Big Apple Automaton

The semi cult sci-fi classic The Colossus of New York (1958) borrows liberally from Frankenstein (1931) and the real-life horror story of the theft of Einstein’s brain in 1955.

Dr. Frankenstein (Victor, to those who tailgated with him) sewed together parts of corpses, goosed it alive by the stuff that comes out of lamp sockets, and brought the now-living product to market.

Albert (or “Al”) Einstein, the Nobel prize-winning physicist who gave me/you/the world the theory of relativity E = mc2 (I use that all the time – so useful), had some nut bag pathologist (Thomas Harvey) steal his brain in hopes of scientifically chopping it up to discover any anomalies that could explain the smartest guy in the world’s scientific acumen. Harvey kept Al’s brain in a cider box stashed under a beer cooler. (There’s probably a joke in there somewhere.)

Watch how I flawlessly tie this together with the movie. On the eve of a big party to accept the International Peace Prize (the menu featured those fancy cocktail wieners on platters), 34 year-old Jeremy Spensser gets flattened by a truck. Boom, boom – out go the lights. He left behind a young son and a rather fetching wife.

Jeremy’s Dad and brother – both scientists – feel Jeremy’s lying down on the job and decide to extract his brain and transplant it into probably one of the best dressed robots ever created in a downstairs lab. Told’ja I could tie it all together.

Widow Spensser and her son move into her father and brother-in-law’s giant mansion, unaware her husband’s thinker is powering a 9-foot robot in the basement. Not only can Jeremy-Bot speak (with cool sparking electrical noises), he has ESP, can hypnotize you with the flashing bulbs he calls eyeballs, and can deep fry you with electric beams, which make you pretty much dead and looking for a spare robot to live in.

Things get messy when the robot discovers his brother has had swollen intentions on his former wife, even trying to get her to go to Hawaii with him. She should’ve gone; that’s a pretty impressive/all-inclusive first date.

The p.o.’d robot swims (!) to an condemned part of the Manhattan shipping waterfront, confronts his bro, and zap-zaps him into deadness. There goes another unfulfilled vacation bathing suit.

Wanting to kill the world, Colossus (title only) calls for the scientific community to meet at the U.N. and when they get there, proceeds to microwave every non-robot in sight. Almost all of the people just stand there, so it’s they’re fault for not trying to run away with their pants down while screaming.

Bullets do nothing because hey – ROBOT! Fortunately, Spensser’s son – who is against all this zapping – gets through to robo-dad. In a moment of clarity, he has his kid pull the kill-switch lever located on the side of his former rib cage. Then everybody just walks away like that sort of thing happens in New York all the time. Maybe it does. How the heck should I know? I believe everything I see on the TV.

Pretty lame ending. Then again, so it was for Frankenstein’s monster and the Einster.

New York – A Killer Vacation Destination

Resurrected by an underwater electrical cable (a good source of power and vitamins for the dead), Jason Voorhees, the unstoppable hockey-masked serial killer is nearly showroom ready YET AGAIN. A believable though predictable beginning for Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989).

A boat load of dumbass high school dumbasses are pleasure boating up the coast to go spread their dumbassery around New York. Jason loves boats (kyaks in particular), so he grabs hold of the S.S. Scream ’n Die’s anchor and gets a Lyft™.

What few survivors left escape by row, row, rowing the rest of the way to New York, where Jason follows. Strolling the well-littered streets of Manhattan, Jason punches a mouthy gangbanger so hard, his head comes clean off. A bit dramatic, but hey, JV was just excited to be anywhere except Crystal Lake for a change.

In town with a few days to kill (heh), Jason takes in the sights: Times Square, the sewer system (kind of the same thing), and a nightclub (he skated without paying cover). The movie’s ongoing joke is that one of horror’s most prolific killing machines could walk mostly unnoticed among the city’s jaded residents.

Jason gets a taste of New York hospitality when toxic waste is poured into the sewer and his flesh dissolves like Alka-Seltzer™ after a long night killin’ it in the City That Never Sleeps. (He’ll be back.)

Say what you will about the Big Apple – you can’t get this kind of entertainment in Los Angeles.

20,000 Fathoms of Fun

Atomic bomb tests in the Arctic Circle defrosts a gigantic reptile creature-o-saurus (official name: Rhedosaurus). This monster is nearly 100-feet long, walks on all fours, has buzz-saw sharp things on his back, is several stories tall, and judging by his diet — shark, octopus, lighthouse, diving bell, roller coaster tracks, humans — is not a picky eater.

Hibernating in ice for 100 million years, the thawed beast travels towards Manhattan, stopping off in Nova Scotia to eat a lighthouse as though it were a sugar cookie. Once in the city, Rhedosaurus wanders Times Square and takes a hole to the neck via a good ’ol United States Army bazooka. (Way to treat tourists, New York.)

Red’s blood emits a virulent germ that contaminates the very streets where people used to live, litter, and now die. Rhedosaurus scorecard: 180 dead, 1,500 injured, $3,000,000 in collateral damage. Scientists determine that if a radioactive isotope can be fired into the monster’s open neck hickey, that might stop him from racking up more kill points.

The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (1953) is THE monster movie that inspired Godzilla (1954), coming out a full year before Japan copied the hell out of us. Good thing Godzilla was so cool, or else we’d be armed with more than an isotope, if you catch my drift.

Physician to the Mutants

Deep in the Darkness (2014) is a creature horror feature adapted from the 2004 book of the same name (what are the odds?) by Michael Laimo.

While Laimo has stated his novel was influenced by the 1973 horror movie Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, it really smells more like H.P. Lovecraft’s short story The Lurking Fear (1922), which was fitted for VHS in 1994 by Full Moon Entertainment as Lurking Fear.

Lurking Fear is about mutant humanoid creatures – which lurked pretty cool – living underneath a church-sanctioned graveyard. Holy holes!

And since we’re digging deep in the darkness (aka, my soul), the 1997 Canadian horror movie Bleeders (aka, Hemoglobin), is another take on the H.P. Lovecraft story about sub-dwelling mutant-esque creatures (aka, the Van Dam family) who have become deformed and bloodthirsty from centuries of inbreeding.

Then there’s the obscure Dark Heritage: The Final Descendant (1989), which is also (unofficially) adapted from H.P. Lovecraft’s story.

Whew – I thought I was gonna have a Scanners (1981) exploding head moment trying to get that all out.

Now that you know the premise, Deep In The Darkness, using the above as a business model, has a big town (Manhattan)  doctor moving to a small town (New Hampshire) that harbors an icky secret: mutated creatures living in caves in the woods.

A really small town (population: 1,700+), New Hampshire seems caught in time and doesn’t even have cable TV. (How do they live?!?) But as Dr. Michael Cayle acclimates to life without television, he discovers the dirty secret – there are creatures called Isolates infesting the town.

But these ick creatures have a Martial Law resolute: They control the entire town and demand sacrifices in exchange for allowing people to live. Okay, why isn’t anybody calling U-Haul™ and getting the ick outta there?

As the doctor is a medical dude, the grunt-and-growling man-creatures capture him and take him into their cave hole to help a female ick creature give birth. Upfront I’ll just say a muddy cave used for living space and bathroom-y stuff is the farthest distance from a sterile medical environment as you can get this side of a Manhattan sewer.

The creatures kill citizens in gory fashion and go all out to keep the doctor from fleeing with his wife and kid. Even so, Deep In The Darkness is a “meh” movie experience despite the ick factor. Pretty much the same with the aforementioned movies. Read H.P. Lovecraft’s story instead and avoid the sewer.

Human Rat Zombies

A virus in Manhattan is turning people into rat zombies. There, I said it. People are being attacked in the subway and sustaining rodent bites that get infected and make them look all mutated and killing-esque.

In an apartment building slated for demolition, a few remaining tenants (old people, single moms past their prime, a gay guy with good sense of color coordinating, a retired boxer who wears briefs) listen to the growing reports that the virus is spreading. Soon non-infected people are getting their gut particles eaten upon.

The police have cordoned off Manhattan and thoughtfully advising everyone to stay indoors. Like that’s gonna do any good – that’s where all the air is. Soon the human rat zombies are getting in the walls and chewing their way towards people cheese.

An amazingly cool take on Night of the Living Dead (1968) as well as being the precursor for [REC] (2007), Mulberry Street (2006) is a taught, contemporized story with uptown rat zombies and people locking themselves in the run-down building to fight off the hordes of skin-chewers.

Amazingly, none of this is corny or goofy; The horror is as gritty as the underpants of the New Yorkers trying to stay alive (best of luck to you), and an ending that’s anything but upbeat. Mulberry Street makes you wanna gnaw on some wiring, it’s that good.