Earth-Sucking Robot

A giant robot looking like a giant Lego™ has arrived on Earth to suck it dry of all its energy resources. I didn’t know robots could be Republicans. Such is the premise of Kronos (aka, Kronos, Destroyer of the Universe /1957), a sci-fi classic.

So how did the bolts and nuts sucker get here? Start with an incoming UFO that scientists are monitoring that they think is an asteroid. It’s headed straight towards Earth, so we do what we do best – shoot bombs at it. Direct hit, nothing happens, even thought the warheads were pure USDA-grade atomic boom booms.

The UFO shakes it off and resumes its course. The newscaster tells us not to panic and that it won’t hit New York. Then the UFO hits New York. Just f’n with you – it goes into the ocean just off a Mexican beach. Aiyeeee! 

Two dude scientists and a supermodel chick scientist head there to see what’s what. After much plot stalling, the ocean glows white (not surprising as the movie was filmed in black and white) and out pops Kronos – 100 feet tall and full of Earth-sucking fury. (Note to scientists: Kronos gets bigger as he consumes our Earth juice.)

While Kronos is heading towards all of Earth’s nuclear plants and getting his suck on, the Mexican Air Force moves in to nuke Big K. Incorrecto, amigos – that’s what Kronos eats.

One of the scientists theorizes they need to drop reverse energy particles on Kronos to booger up his sucking power, thereby causing the mecánico monster to explode into particles.

Footnote: Kronos was transported here by an alien race that has sucked all its own natural resources dry, with the plan to have K absorb ours and bring it on home. Sorry alien dick heads – we’re doing that on our own just fine.

Yelling About Hell

Full of themselves and/or self-righteousness, bible believers tell (i.e., violently scream from street corners) that there are three gates to Hell, alternate entrances in case the line to get in is too long. One is in the desert (lots of free parking), one is in the ocean (charter a boat and get in a little fishing while you’re at it) and one is in Jerusalem, famous religious tourist trap and home of all things worship-y.

JeruZalem, a new found footage horror movie releasing January 22, 2016, takes us there for a little “end of days” judgment, with violent screaming from street corners, divine bloodletting and zombie angels, hence the “Z”, a not-so-subtle cash-in on that other religion.

Here’s your penance: “Two American girls on vacation follow a mysterious anthropology student on a trip to Jerusalem. The party is cut short when the trio is caught in the middle of a biblical apocalypse. Trapped between the ancient walls of the holy city, they must find a way out as the fury of Hell is unleashed upon them.”

Couple of thoughts: Jerusalem/JeruZalem, or “Jesus Spring Break,” with all its biblical background, doesn’t seem like a go-to party place. (A dancing foot does not belong on a praying knee.)

Secondly, as this is a found footage flick (and after watching the trailer), there’s always one person who keeps the camera rolling no matter what demonic entity is eating your friend’s face. That alone makes you wanna thump their bible.

On that note, I’m a non-believer in camera batteries that never run out of juice. That film keeps rolling after hours and hours when my cell phone conks out after only one hour on 1-800-Boobie-Chat seems so blasphemous. Maybe the movie batteries are made by…DuraHell™. (C’mon, that was comedy gold…)

The Wave: Making A Big Splash

Since big screen disaster flicks aren’t just the province of the U.S., it’s cool to see other countries sharing in the forecast of mass destruction. Such is the case with Norway’s first disaster movie, Bølgen, or The Wave. (Looking at the movie poster, I saw the big wave and deduced that was what Bølgen meant. Man, mastering Norwegian is way easy!)

Bølgen/The Wave is based on the real tsunami, which killed 40 people in Norway’s Tafjord in 1934. No wonder, then, that the movie became an instant smash (sorry) hit when it was domestically released in August 2015, with the ominous tag line of “It has happened before. It will not happen again,” or “Det har skjedd før. Det vil skje igjen.” (Geez, it’s like someone kicked the Scrabble™ board.)

Since the main attraction speaks for itself, a plot isn’t really necessary. But for the sake of all you “purists,” here’s what gets taken out with the tide: “Even though awaited, no one is really ready when the mountain pass of Åkneset above the scenic narrow Norwegian fjord Geiranger falls out and creates a 85 meter (278 feet) high violent tsunami. A geologist is one of those caught in the middle of it.”

Sucks to be a geologist.

For more kick ass foreign tidal waves, see Haeundae, (2009), a Korean disaster flick, and Exodus: Gods and Kings (2015), an Egyptian-set spiritual disaster flick.

P.S. The giant wave in Exodus was caused by bible human rights activist Moses. Like Aquaman, he can make water do whatever he wants, which is why he’ll never lose his soap in murky bathtub water. Think about it.

Blubbering: The Horror of Whales

Even though it’s universally considered to be an American literature classic, the 1851 Herman Melville novel Moby Dick (or The Whale) was in fact the first “nature strikes back” horror story.

You had the maniacal, revenge-seeking Captain Ahab, the original slasher (except he wielded a harpoon and not a hockey mask and a machete), relentlessly pursing Moby Dick (a name used by more than one male porn star), a gigantic whale that wrecked Ahab’s Sea-doo™ and bit the crazy captain’s leg clean off. (Reports are sketchy as to whether it was his right or left leg. Maybe it was both.)

Just like Victor Frankenstein psychotically tracking his creationist monster through the Black Sea and meeting up in the Arctic Circle for the ultimate pay-per-view, both stories did not conclude well for Ahab and Victor.

So the timeless horror classic is headed for the Imax™ screen in the form of In The Heart of the Sea (releasing December 11, 2015), a movie telling the story that inspired Moby Dick and features Thor (Chris Hemsworth) himself, trading in his Mjölnir (or “hammer”) for a whaler’s harpoon. Not really a spoiler, we kinda already know how this is gonna end up – humans will be recycled as whale poo.

Here’s the plot: “In 1820, crewmen aboard the New England vessel Essex face a harrowing battle for survival when a whale of mammoth size and strength attacks with force, crippling their ship and leaving them adrift in the ocean. Pushed to their limits and facing storms, starvation, panic and despair, the survivors must resort to the unthinkable to stay alive.”

One can only imagine what the “resorting to the unthinkable” stuff is to stay alive. If it’s anything like Free Willy 3: Packed In Spring Water, I think we all know the gory conclusion.

3-Headed Shark Attack

In the beginning here was Jaws (1975), a shark with but one head to bite you in half.

Then came 2-Headed Shark Attack in 2012. It was fake-y looking and appeared to be more of a stuffed animal than a twice-fold apex predator. It bit vacationing college students in half.

Now comes 3-Headed Shark Attack (July 11, 2015) with three times the appetite, looking to bite a bigger share of the ratings. The plot is your basic “line ’em up and chomp ”em down” scenario: “The world’s greatest killing machine is three times as deadly when a mutated shark threatens a cruise ship. As the shark eats its way from one end of the ship to the next, the passengers fight the deadly predator using anything they can find.”

Ugh. I could be in a shark’s belly for a week, crapped out onto a polluted beach, my gushy remains pecked at by seagulls, and still come up with a better plot than that. But hey, if a three-headed shark, which admittedly looks kinda cool, isn’t enough to sink yer boat, the “movie” also stars genre king Danny Trejo and pro-wrestling legend Mr. Monday Night – Rob Van Dam.

Wonder how 3-Headed Shark Attack would stand up against Japan’s Double-Headed Jaws (2012)? (Note: I think Double-Headed Jaws is the Japanese release of 2-Headed Shark Attack. Crappy movie, but way better title.)

Even though a shark with any amount of heads could bite me in half, I’m really starting to feel sorry for what pop culture/Hollywood/you are doing to them.

The Return of Mega Shark

Once a proud king of the ocean, the shark has now been relegated to being a repeated movie joke punchline. Jaws’ heart, if it was still beating, would be breaking right about now.

The latest shark sci-fi pits Mega Shark, an aircraft carrier sized Megalodon, against a size-appropriate robot. In Mega Shark vs. Kolossus (releasing July 7, 2015), the two monsters rumble in what Asylum Films, Hollywood’s notorious bottomfeeders, hopes to be a ratings bonanza.

Here’s how they hope will accomplish that: “In search of a new energy source, Russia accidentally reawakens the Kolossus – a giant robot doomsday device from the Cold War.”

“At the same time, a new Mega Shark appears, threatening global security. Now the world must figure out how to stop the deadly giants before they destroy everything on land AND sea.”

A giant robot from Russia? I thought only Japan made giant robots.

This is not a new swimming hole for Mega Shark. You can see the “King Kong of the sea” in Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus (2009), Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus (2010), and Mega Shark vs. Mecha Shark (2014). Knock yourself out.

Three-Dimensional Shark

A 35-foot Great White shark gets caught in Sea World, an all-people-you-can eat theme park. This is where admission paying citizens come to swim, water-ski and pee now that everyone has lost their, um, appetite for swimming in the ocean. (See Jaws and Jaws II).

Once the rogue chomper has been outed, a big game diver goes in to kill it. The shark swallows him whole and chews on him like seal jerky—and they show this from the inside of the shark’s mouth looking out! You don’t see that every day. (I do because I bought the DVD. Hey, it was only $1.99 at the gas station still in its original wrapper.)

Where Jaws 3-D (1983) further belly-ups is with the appearance of Mama Jaws, a submarine-sized shark that’s looking for her little lost torso-biter. Filmed in 3-D didn’t help matters much and only made the sharks look even more rubber-esque and thus by extension not cool.

The original title for this wet willie was the best thing going for it: “Jaws 3, People 0.”

A Killer of Sharks

It makes sense that if you have movies about killer sharks, then you should have one about a shark killer. And why waste valuable brain cells coming up with a marketable title? Just call it Shark Killer.

And that’s what someone did. Shark Killer (2015) is about a wisecracking hunk (who looks like Chris Pratt’s steroid clone and is shamelessly patterned after the Guardian of the Galaxy hero) hired by criminals to retrieve a crab-sized diamond that was eaten by a great white shark. Here’s how THEY describe it…

“The services of shark killer Chase Walker have been engaged by his brother, Jake, the head of a South African crime ring. The gig – kill the black-finned shark that swallowed a valuable diamond during a gang transaction.”

“Enlisted to keep an eye on Chase is Jake’s girlfriend, Jasmine. But Chase and Jasmine’s relationship deepens with the threats from a rival crime boss: Bring the diamond to him or die. Now, it’s crime boss against crime boss, brother against brother, and man against nature as Chase strives to rescue Jasmine, save his own life, and seize the greatest catch of his career.”

First thought – way too much plot getting in the way of the shark eating somebody for my personal entertainment. Secondly, the trailer shows the shark, indistinguishable from every other great white shark in the ocean, as being quickly zeroed in on and swimming faster than a dolphin-flavored porpoise.

I like shark movies for the same reason I like movies about Bigfoot, mostly because they’re totally real. But if the attention of the action is focused on the shark killer and not the shark, then I have to cry red herring. I hope the filmmakers will read this and sea (heh) that they’re wrong, then delete the entire movie and start all over again using me as the action hero. It’s the right thing to do.

Return of the Giant Monsters

Man, I wish people would pick a lane and drive in it. Case in point: Gamera vs. Gyaos, a raucous 1967 Japanese sci-fi monster mash, has Gamera’s fruit fly foe as being named “Gyaos” and “Gaos” on different marketing materials. Aieeee! And to make matters more convoluted, the U.S. version is titled Return of the Giant Monsters, all of which causes me sleepless nights. I don’t have a clue as to why it bothers me so much, it just does.

Anyway, Gamera Vs. Gyaos is more for kids than someone who may or may not drink a LOT of beer, and has just about everything a fan of giant Japanese monsters could ever want.

Mt. Fuji has erupted again, this time awakening Gyaos, a “special needs” prehistoric vampire reptile bird that eats humans and emits a supersonic frequency that can slice through other giant monsters like a hot knife through tofu. (Excellent run-on sentence!)

This causes hell on Earth for a super freeway project slated to plow through a nearby village of people (village people, heh) who can’t decide if it’s cool to give up their ancestor’s land so everyone can get to the store faster, or sell out and become as rich as Samurais (their words, not mine).

Enter Gamera (giant turtle that flies ‘n farts flames, in case it slipped your mind), even though no one in the movie knows how to correctly pronounce his name. Rescuing a little kid instead of dispensing some super-sized ass smack, Gamera leaks first blood via Gyaos’ lethal frequency. Turns out Gyaos has two throats, which acts like a tuning fork. (Good thing it’s not a female Gyaos – then it would never shut up. OK, that was uncalled for, ladies. I respect your boobs ’n stuff.)

Gamera retreats back to the ocean to heal after his arm is almost cut off by the animated-but-deadly frequency. This forces the humans to take matters into their own hands. And what an ingenious plan they have. Using hundreds of gallons of synthetic human blood, they lure Gyaos to the top of that building that has a spinning roof. While he drinks it, they turn on the spin-y building roof and make Gyaos all dizzy so he can’t fly back to his cave before being burned by the sun when it rises in three f’n minutes.

The scene of Gyaos going around and around like a 33 1/3rpm record album being played on 45rpm is one of giant monster movie’s greatest moments. If that was me on that “turntable,” I’d mega puke big time.

The other scenes of G&G locking it up (Gamera even bites several toes off Gyaos, but they grow back) are the stuff drug dreams are made of. But don’t do drugs as they’re not cool for you. Stick to canned beer or prescription glue and see how giant monsters used to settle their differences back in the ’60s.