Kaiju Clothes, AI Vampires, Death To Earth

Got a spare $8,350.00 laying around and are need of some new church clothes? The MCS: Animatronic Attraction Maker in China has you covered. Makers of kaiju-sized animated dinosaurs (presumably to scare the fèihuà out of neighboring enemies), they now set their sights on creating a Godzilla suit that comes complete with G-sounds, spraying smoke and (my fav), nuclear pulse effect. To throw more bonus on the fire, MCS is shipping this 61lb. costume — for free.

Spiked head to clawed toe, the costume measures out at 7.87 feet tall, big enough to cram three frat boys into. The suit is made of silicone rubber, with a stainless steel frame, and colorized with high density foam-oil paint. From their product description: “We wanted to get a real nuclear pulse in the Godzilla suit-making process, so we added the LED light flashing effect to show Godzilla’s various emotions. The mouth can spray smoke and emit a light beam. For Godzilla fans, this is a real giant radioactive monster. It is time for you to wear this king of all costumed Kaiju at Godzilla cosplay events.”

So while we all go to the bank and fill out a loan application and put our car/house up for collateral and buy this suit immediately (only three left as of this e-barfing — click this), here are a few out now/upcoming horror/sci-fi movies/documentaries that may or may not make you spray smoke…

IMMORTAL OBSESSION: A HISTORY OF VAMPIRES / Out now (Amazon Prime Video™)

“Written, illustrated, and performed entirely by AI, Immortal Obsession: A History of Vampires explores the classic monster’s captivating history, from their origins in ancient folklore to their enduring role in modern pop culture. Innovative filmmaker Brian Cunningham utilized ChatGPT to write a compelling script, a video generator to create a lifelike host, an art generator to provide striking illustrations, and a music engine to compose a dynamic score. Cunningham’s human touch was used to refine the script and edit together all of the AI-produced assets.”

AI-generated or not, vampires are not immortal. I have a Bible™ brand crucifix, a rib-eye stake and a six-pack of holy water (Budweiser™) to challenge any vampire’s deathlessness.

SECRET SPACE UFOS FASTWALKERS / Out now (VOD)

“An exhilarating adventure into the mysterious world of NASA-related UFO encounters in space. Starting in the late 1970s and continuing until now, expert researchers will reveal a history of anomalies recorded by military and space research missions. Beginning with Skylab 3’s UFO incident, expanding into the STS/ISS Mission Era, director Darcy Weir and the rest of the team uncover a deep recent history of UFO sightings in space. In the present day they uncover all of the developments in Congress regarding UAP research and disclosure to the public during 2023. A new interview conducted with a long lost space anomalies researcher Martyn Stubbs is included in this documentary.”

NASA is sitting on tons of UFO footage, but all the good stuff remains unseen by the “I want to believe” public. I bet all of it is stored in recyclable plastic grocery bags in the Pentagon’s hall closet.

SCAVENGER / Out now (VOD)

“Set in the wastelands of a future dystopia, Scavenger charts the transgressive journey of a female organ dealer as she seeks revenge on the remorseless crime cartel that murdered her family.”

I’d like to be an organ donor. If I ever get around to kicking the bucket, I hereby bequeath my Wurlitzer to anyone who can lift that f’n thing.

DOOMSDAY METEOR / Release pending 2023 (VOD)

“A meteor bigger than the moon, and unseen by Earth until now, has less than a week until planetary impact. Scientists try to stop the giant mass with rockets armed with high-powered lasers. When that fails they land on the asteroid, mounting it with rockets in an attempt to push its orbit away from Earth. But as the team continues to run into problems they never imagined, the future of mankind becomes more and more bleak.”

For a similar but more hi-brow apocalyptic “rogue planet smashes into Earth” movie, watch Meloncholia (2011). You will actually cheer on the destruction of this stinkhole planet.

Fear Sphere

One dozen teens in Hawaii go camping to smoke pot, drink booze and rub ankles. As can be expected, this group is fraught with teen dramas, which leads to some punching and swearing and the rubbing of said ankles. What they didn’t know, a small meteor was headed their way and about to land in their campsite. 

This space rock, which looks like a basketball-sized raspberry, splits open and blue orb floats out and attacks the socially-bankrupt kids. Once inside your body, the orb turns you into an ill-tempered teen, making you go all coconuts and attacking your fellow pot smokers. 

Biting into neck flesh (they’re neither vampire or zombie, and yet a bit of both), the possessed starts throwing nice Hawaiian punches, until the orb hops into another body for more of the same. Hard to tell who’s possessed and who isn’t. 

Meanwhile, the military, having experienced the orb years before, tracked it to the island and are forming a welcoming committee with guns. So until they get there, we get to watch teens screaming, cussing, fighting and ankle-rubbing, all done on a hand-held camera. (Not too hard to guess what the filmmaker got for Christmas.) 

The special effects in The Orb (2005) are the kind you’d see in a video game — from 1985. And only one girl puts ’em on the glass; Filmed in the dark, you couldn’t tell if she had nice orbs or not. 

All the filmmaker’s friends and family probably gets a free copy of this painfully lame movie. For everyone else, that’d be over-priced.

(Note to reader: Sorry — no other movie photos. Man, I looked everywhere. Then it made sense to me; the filmmakers were so embarrassed by this flick, the decided to digitally erase this craptacular piece of “art.”)

Farming Ghosts, Artificial Blood, Kaiju Floorwear

This 5’x4’ Godzilla rug is one of those things everybody in the world needs to have. Unless, of course, you have hardwood floors and just say no to rugs.

Love the idea of a Godzilla rug. G’s been wiping his monstrous feet on humanity since 1954. Nothing like a little payback.

Before you rush off to buy this thing [click HERE eventually], here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies to cushion your soul/sole…

WATCH OVER US (September 12, 2017)
“A father and his young daughters move onto their grandfather’s secluded farm following the breakup of their parents. But once there, they are soon plagued by paranormal events that reveal a deadly secret that has haunted the family for generations, and an evil force that demands they uphold a deadly promise made by their ancestors.”

There are lots of movies about paranormal evil things in old farms/barns/pig pens. Which makes one ponder — is the farmer’s market cauliflower we’ve been eating borne of ancient evil? Cauliflower sure tastes like it.

BROKEN DARKNESS (2017/2018)
“Eight years after the world ends from a massive meteor shower, humanity has sought refuge underground. A broken man who has lost all hope after the death of his son, is forced to survive within the underground. Hunted down by mutated creatures, bandits and cannibals alike, they risk everything to venture back to the surface to find their lost home.”

Mutated creatures, bandits and cannibals. Why didn’t they just say Republicans? Still, these adversaries aren’t anything more than what you’d encounter at The Tug Tavern on Taco Tuesday.

FAKE BLOOD (2017/2018)
“Rob Grant and Mike Kovac receive a disturbing fan video inspired by their previous horror movie Mon Ami, motivating them to investigate the responsibility of filmmakers in portraying violence in movies. In their pursuit of the truth they are unwittingly introduced to the real world of violent criminals and their victims.”

Violence in movies is so commonplace, I refuse to watch flicks that don’t have some form of savage behavior in it. Think of it as steak sauce on fried spam. Strap on the feedbag!

HOUSE OF DAD (2017/2018)
“While Pip’s only objective is to get to school, his father stands in his way, spouting several ambiguous ‘life lessons’ that serve more as obstacles than experiential aids. Pip’s father has tested Pip with his antics before; however, when Pip is assigned his most outrageous task yet, he reaches a boiling point.”

Boiling point is 212°F or 100°C. Figured this might make you wanna see the movie more than the press release.

Dragons and Nickel Candy Bars

It’s 1881. And Michael Denning (USA) and Hector Servadac (not USA, but still kinda cool Frenchman) were doing what any two guys arguing over a girl would normally be doing: facing off in a duel with pistols.

Just as they’re about to glock block each other, a passing comet overhead whips up a ferocious storm so blast-y, it sucks the at-odds gentlemen 1,000,000 miles into space and 1,000,000 BACK IN TIME! Face-slapping astonishment here; I had no idea meteors had those kinds of super powers.

The men end up in a jungle as real estate and property taxes hadn’t been invented yet. It’s here they encounter two warring tribes of cavemen and cave women, a fiesty volcano with the worst temperament, and giant, mouth open, fighting lizards feasting on said cave people. Can you say f’d in the cave-hole?

Using the framework of Off on a Comet, an 1877 Jules Verne novel (that’s probably French for “book”), Valley of the Dragons (1961) certainly lives up to its name. They do this by sweetening the plot with stock footage from Cat-Women of the Moon (1953) and Rodan (1956), whose cameos are relegated to some prairie dog pop-ups and a few fly-bys.

Not forgetting their discord, both men decide to resolve their face-shooting dispute AFTER they figure out what the heck is going on, how to get back to their own time, and more importantly, how to divide up the two hottest of the cave chicks not as yet eaten by the “dragons.”

One clan gets trapped in a cave with a slobbering giant lizard right outside the door-less opening. Using spears and rocks, the cave people, led by French Hector, poke the beast like it was sleeping in late. But it isn’t until his science thoughts kick in that he figures out how to make gun powder from the colored dirt everyone’s bleeding on.

You can guess where this is headed and how this ends for the dragon. But the most exciting part is when the volcano blows and all involved at the foot of said Mt. Explode gets the herd thinned by earth-cracked crevices and tsunamis of pyroclastic flow.

Initiating a chest-patting peace accord between the surviving tribes, Mike and Hec calculate the comet will return in seven years, thereby whisking them back to their plentiful world of nickel candy bars and .34¢ a gallon gasoline. More than enough time to teach the cave girls in the ways of future love.

Closing statement: Rodan did not eat any of the cave people. He could’ve, but just didn’t. It’d be totally not cool if you went around telling everybody he did. Don’t be a dick, ’k?

Ghosts, Strippers, Sharks and Flying Reptiles

Sometimes watching horror movie trailers is better than watching the entire movie. (I suffer from “don’t bore us, get to the chorus” syndrome.) You get all the money shots, snippets of boneheaded dialogue instead of 90 minutes worth — and more importantly — spoilers.

How many movies, horror or not, have been ruined by trailers that, in a two-minute bid to sell you on their product, give away the whole darn thing? (When I watched the trailer for Titanic and they showed the ship hitting an iceberg (or possibly Godzilla) of all things and sinking, that gave away every reason I might have had to see the flippin’ thing.)

Here’s a few upcoming (as of right the heckaroo now) horror movies that might command more of my ever drifting attention span. I SAID MIGHT…

PEELERS (2017)
“A small-town strip club owner must defend her bar from infected raiders on closing night.”

That’s a horror movie? Aren’t most people who go to strip clubs, like, pre-infected? Not me – I take baths, man…sometimes before I go into a T-bar (Mary’s Club in downtown Portland). But if you don’t want to live life to the fullest by experiencing one of these vital institutions, try Strippers vs. Zombies (2008). Wash your hands afterward. To do so before is kinda pointless.

CAGE DIVE (release pending 2016/2017)
“Cage Dive follows three friends from California who set out to film an audition tape for submission to an extreme reality game show. To ensure they stand out, they decide to travel to Australia where they will be documenting themselves taking part in a most extreme activity…shark cage diving. While on the dive, a catastrophic turn of events leaves them in baited water full of hungry great white sharks and turns their audition tape into a survival diary.”

Gotta love shark movies that use real sharks. They probably don’t get paid as much as those snobby Hollywood sharks, though. But if these true-to-life biters are as good on the big screen as they are in the killer trailer, bye-bye to all you Sharknado posers. (Or if you live in France, “poseurs.”).

UNSPOKEN (October 28, 2016)
“In 1997 the close-knit Anderson family vanished from their country home without a trace without an explanation. No bodies were ever found and for 17 years the house has remained undisturbed…until now. A sinister tale of haunting and murder, Unspoken is a refreshing twist on the horror genre.”

No it isn’t. Not being a hater here, but refreshing twists on the horror genre are as likely as me winning the jackpot on the Mega Meltdown™ slot machine at the Tulalip Resort Casino. (Only thing I’ve been able to win is dirty looks from the staff.) But if you want a hot slap in the face of sinister haunting and murder, look no further than The Changeling (1980). Put a stain on/in your Old Navy™ pants, it will.

TERRORDACTYL (November 1, 2016)
When a meteor shower rains down outside Los Angeles, friends Lars and Jonas head out to find one and strike it rich. After recovering one they’re stalked by Terrordactyls – ancient flying reptiles – that launch a full-on assault on the city. They soon discover there’s more to the meteor than meets the eye…”

Flying monsters rock my world. (Flying Monkeys/2013 – craptacular movie, but hey…FLYING MONKEYS!) My wings tend to flap in the direction of Godzilla frenemy Rodan (1956) for sweet flying reptile city destroying action. But hey, I’ll get a boarding pass for Terrordactyl.

Note: The DVD cover says Terrordactyl, but the kicker line says “They want their planet back.” Somebody needs to put an “s” on that airborn noun.

Japanese Girls vs. Tokyo Zombies

A meteor crashes into Tokyo Bay, the resulting stink steam fusing with unknown heavy metal compounds and Hello Kitty™ energy drinks and creates Cosmo-Amphetamine, a chemical agent that revives the dead.

Since the meteor just killed a city’s worth of people (6.5 million to be exact), Capt. Fujuka is tasked with keeping people from coming into Tokyo and zombies from leaking out. Thanks to grade-school special effects, he fences off an entire city in a few hours flat. That’s why they made him a captain.

But Fujuka is ill-intent, experimenting on survivors, using Cosmo-Amphetamine to create a squad of military zombies that squirt green liquid when split open. Someone needs to clean up this mess, but who? How about the easily-pronounced K-ko, the hot daughter of Colonel Kirihara, who is working on the problem from outside the quarantine zone?

You’d think she’d have her hands full, what with 6.5 million zombies and Fujuka screwing around. But there’s hardly any living dead encounters, and the fight scenes are so bad as to be nothing more than dance moves with chin kicks. Not a lot of gory undead gunk, either. Oh sure, a few rotters are made into sandwich bread slices, but hardly anything that satisfies a deep hunger for black gut stuff.

If you’re gonna title a movie Battle Girl: The Living Dead in Tokyo Bay (1991) then you should have way more violent gore and ninja moves than, say, a chick flick. This felt like a snack when it needed to be all-you-can-eat.

Werewolf Vampire Mix Tape

Rage of the Werewolf (1999) finds Earth infested with lycanthropes (and vampires and mutants) whose dormant genes have been activated by the moon’s gravitational suck, which was pushed closer to our ozone by a meteor. Stupid space rocks – always up to atmospheric assh*lery.

A power mad werewolf captures a vampire to mix their blood in order to create a super monster hybrid (this concept pre-dated evolution by years), the plan being to rid the world of stink humans who hunt them for their pelts.

Horror icon Debbie Rochon plays the delicious Kessa, a female vampire who is used for the biting experiments. Working on a $1.50 budget, Rage of the Werewolf can be excused for the silliest looking werewolves this side of Howling IV: The Original Nightmare (1988/bear costumes with rubber fangs). The monsters growl like they’re working on a stubborn stool, but there is a nice amount of gore — and Debbie.

To think what they could have done with a $3.00 budget.

Dashboard Aliens

Invasion (2005) is an n entire movie shot almost entirely with no edits via a police car dashboard cam. I should be so bold.

A meteor with an alien in it crashes on the outskirts of town. If you get near it, you turn into a zombie. Some people get near it. Interesting premise presented in a reality context. (Looking at people/aliens/zombies through a police cam at night is freakin’ freaky, man.)

But Invasion has a tough time holding your interest past the first 15 minutes. They have the police car driving through an endlessly winding back road endlessly. There’s a screaming prom queen out there, earning her title the hard way, when the meteor craziness went down. Somehow she ends up in the cop car and screams for help on the radio.

This frustrated conversation is hysterical. (She tells the sheriff back at the station to cram his badge where meteors don’t shine, using words unbefitting of someone with her royal pedigree.) I liked her. Not the endlessly winding roads, though. Maybe if some of the roads were a bit more straight.

Baron Von Brain Eater

Baron Vitelius of Astara is about to have a bad day, though you wouldn’t know it by the smug look on his face as he’s being tried by a Spanish Inquisition for witchcraft, necromancy and assorted wrongness in 1661. If convicted – and it’s pretty much a slam dunk by the black hooded tribunal who only speak in sub-titles – Baron Von Smirky Smirk is gonna be the featured attraction at a good old fashioned witch burning.

Before he can do his impression of a S’more, a 300 year cycle comet suddenly appears overhead, and the BBQ Baron swears to the sparky meteor that he will return in 300 years (as when the comet does its round trip) to exact revenge on all his accusers’ descendants. (He’s lucky no one is gay so he can return from the dead and make kill happen to all of the above.) Thus is the gripping beginning of 1962’s Spanish horror camp classic, The Brainiac (aka, Baron of Terror).

Sure as the morning wood rises, 300 years to the day the comet crashes the party and Baron Vitelius is hitching a ride. A fragment breaks off and gently lands on the ground and turns into the Baron, who in turn transforms into a human-sized demon fly-headed creature with a pointy tongue that would make Gene Simmons turn clown white with envy. Time for some tongue-lashing retribution.

Posing as a foreign dignitary, in human form he lures the descendants into flame-y deaths, which are preceded by Baron Von Fly Face sticking his 18-inch tongue out and sucking out the brains of his victims through the back of their necks. Then he sets fire to the surroundings, charring the evidence.

As the Baron he’s smooth, smokes cigarettes like they were medicine, eats those aforementioned unrefrigerated raw brains from an ornate bowl with a dessert spoon, and makes out with chicks – all with sparse dialogue. (Actions speak louder than words when it comes to smooth smooching.) He can also make his face brighten and darken, like an open/close sign on a tavern, which wide-eye hypnotizes his kills into standing still while he changes into the monster and sucks them dry.

Better still is when the Baron, in creature form, breathes – his head expands and contracts like a paint-huffing paper bag. And his fingers turn into two claw-esque tubes that he softly clacks together as if pinching a marshmallow to death.

Two detective are onto the clues and corner Baron Von Suck Suck. His fate, like shampooing and rinsing, repeats itself with the cops showing up with scuba tank sized flame throwers. The Brainiac is loaded with hilariously interpreted dialogue (“You are guilty of clumsy and illegal practices…”) and tension-less drama. But it’s the monster with the expanding and contracting head and that rock star quality tongue that makes this one a classic keeper.

The Battle for Future Sex

In Battle Queen 2020 (2001), a low budget sci-fi boob-fest, a meteor turns earth’s atmosphere into shaved ice the survivors are relegated to two factions: those who live underground in the freezing sewer and eat garbage-licious snacks, and those who live above ground in heated cabanas having sex with girls who do such things in trade for not having to live where the stuff in your toilet goes once it’s flushed.

The staggeringly hot and tall Julie Strain (“I worked at Disneyland – I was one of the rides…”) plays Mistress, a “kept” woman who services the Elite (above-grounders). She runs a harem training school for the sexy below-grounders. When she’s not walking around topless, Julie struts the land in skimpy underwear thingies and takes post-apocalyptic bubble baths, making sure to moan and roll her eyes as the radiation-free hot water squirts all over her 6’1” majestic-ness.

There’s some sort of sub-plot about the Elites using the pituitary glands of the sub-dwellers for rejuvenation purposes, but none of that matters as JULIE WALKS AROUND TOPLESS AND HAS SEX ’n stuff.

In the end she joins the underground rebels, turning into a veritable “Mad Maxine,” using spinning heel kicks and judo chops to augment her combat lingerie.

Wow!