Venomous Coffee, Demon Soul-Sucker, Biker Biters

What instead of you drinking coffee or discount vodka from your favorite mug, the mug drinks from you? That’s the genius behind Moldy Mugs, a series of handcrafted and expertly designed (by Joe Rowles) horror drinking cups (ranging from 12 oz. to 17 oz.).

While these mugs carry a hefty price ($90.00 for a the 12 oz. version), how flippin’ cool would it be to wrap your coffee/discount vodka sucking mouth hole around one of these magnificent hand-washable art pieces?

While you FINISH READING this blog, click HERE to visit Moldy Mugs — featuring their new Venom™ entry — and get ready to have the life sucked out of you for a change. In the meantime, here are a few now available/upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not transport you the way discount vodka never fails to do…

ANOTHER SOUL (available now)
“Megan cannot stop the nightmares. Her parents, Rob and Susan, are at their wit’s end. When a couple suggest Megan’s soul may be the target of a soul-hungry demon, the family find themselves in a battle for Megan’s life.”

Megan rhymes with Regan, another young girl the target of an evil entity about 45 years ago. So would this be a rip-off 1973’s The Exorcist, but with higher-def projectile vomiting? Of the 23 possible answers, The Magic 8-Ball™ says, “Signs point to yes.”

DOWN A DARK HALL (August 17, 2018)
“Kit, a difficult young girl, is sent to the mysterious Blackwood Boarding School run by eccentric headmistress Madame Duret. While exploring the labyrinthine corridors of the school, Kit and her classmates discover that Blackwood Manor hides an age-old secret rooted in the paranormal.”

I liked it better when it was called Suspiria (Italy, 1977).

HOWLERS (2018)
“A mysterious monster hunter from the Old West who returns from the grave to stop a bloodthirsty werewolf motorcycle gang from terrorizing a small town.”

Not a new concept. Anyone remember the cult schlock classic Werewolves on Wheels (1971)? If you don’t, your mom does.

WEST OF HELL (2018)
“A gunslinger and a vengeful ex-slave board a midnight train to Atlanta. They discover that the train is haunted by a sinister force…and may not be headed to Atlanta after all.”

Yep, they got on the train to New Jersey by accident.

Gunslingers vs. Bloodflingers

Billy The Kid vs. Dracula (1966) — seems like a match-up match made in heaven: cowboys ’n capes. Not much of a versus, though, when bullets — the tried ’n true methodology of Old West gunslinger Billy The Kid — have about as much effect on Dracula as mosquitoes do on to buffalo home on the range. 

Dracula, traveling to fresh, out west blood supplies by stagecoach, seizes an opportunity to impersonate a hot chick’s uncle after Indians slaughtered the passengers. (The gruesome stuff not shown.) The hot chick just happens to be the fiancée of Billy The Kid, who changed his name to simply William because he’s totally p*ssywhipped.

Dracula, smoother in life than the rubber bat he transforms himself to get around in, f’d up earlier by sucking to death the daughter of traveling Russian immigrants. The grieving parents get jobs at the Bentley Ranch (owned by ’ol Hot Chick Bentley), and do their best to keep Dracula away from Elizabeth (aka, Hot Chick) who just happens to look exactly like Dracula’s ex. I know, a bit plot messy. Stay with the group.

A few face punches, some “meh” gun play (I expected more from B the K), and zero blood and/or graphic displays of neck-sucking. And Dracula, with his rolling eyeballs and late night behavior, is more hammy than a barnyard pig. I expected more from a over-pontificating creature of the night.

Old West Paranormal Justice

Three 1800s era outlaw cowboys (two with unbrushed cowboy teeth, one with an Adam Ant coat) kill a man and his son, rapes the wife, and pretty much ruins their day. The cowboys then ride into town and start hacking hands off people, shooting them in the face, arms and neck, and drink all the town’s White Zinfandel.

Later, the woman who was violated wanders into the same town the bad cowboys have taken over. What are the odds of that happening? But there’s something weird about this woman — and it’s not the fact she has brushed teeth and everybody else doesn’t. There’s an eerie high-pitched buzzing sound that goes off like a clearance-sale smoke alarm whenever the head cowboy wearing the Adam Ant coat gets near her.

More vicious assaults happen, complimented by schoolyard swearing. For instance, the town’s 90 year-old judge tells the bad cowboys to go “F” themselves, and gets blasted into Swiss cheese for his insubordinate language. The bad cowboys grow in numbers. The town is in shambles. Where is Aquaman when you need him?

The answer arrives in a long-haired, black hat-wearing, no-talking cowboy with a melted face (nope, not Jonah Hex or Aquaman) who draws his gun so fast, you can’t see it. From here you know what’s in store for those who would infect the Old West with so much wrongness. Everyone gets a heapin’ helping of justice, the town undertaker has job security, and wagon trains of much needed toothpaste is on the way.

In all, Legend of the Phantom Rider (aka, Trigon: The Legend of Pelgidium/2002) is full of harsh, old time-y violence that’ll make you wince. Too bad the eerie melty cowboy didn’t have flaming tumbleweeds shoot out his mouth and fry those bad guys. I really would’ve liked that. As it is, a decent enough paranormal spin on the Western theme.

Metaphysical Cowpoke

A Union soldier turned ruthless bounty hunter, Jonah Hex had his face turned into a grilled cheese sandwich with a fresh branding iron after helplessly watching Old West terrorist Turnbull roast his wife and son in an indoor campfire.

Tied to a stake and about to be turned into a steak, Hex was left to be this week’s daily lunch special for the pigeons. But something mystical happened and he was caught between the land of the living and the land of the dead. These days we call it a work week. Now Hex can talk to the dead simply by touching them — and not just in the bathing suit area.

Revenge is the word of the day and Hex goes after Turnbull, who has the Nation Killer weapon in his control and plans to blow up Washington on the 4th of July, celebrating its 100th birthday. Pretty much the complete opposite of patriotic. The government needs Hex to stop Turnbull and will pay him to do it. Fight fire with fire. And grilled cheese face sandwiches.

The action in Jonah Hex (2010), pretty much the cowboy version of The Crow (1994), is frustratingly lackluster given the players and Hex getting his saddle warmer beaten more than once. And Hex’s hooker girlfriend who doesn’t undress for work is nothing short of insubordination. Whoever made this cow pie should be sentenced to clean it up.

Ghosts Riding Shotgun

The young married couple moving into the notorious Winchester House knew the place was haunted, and yet they bellyache a blue streak when demonic ghosts take their 12 year-old daughter into a closet and never comes out. Serves ’em right, the disbelievers.

The house, thought to be plagued by the spirits of all the people who expired after being shot by one of Sarah Winchester’s late husband’s kick ass rifles (it’s how the West was won), was constructed with profits from said gun sales to keep adding more and more rooms to the sprawling mansion to rent out to more ghosts. A run-on sentence, but this is fact. (I totally saw it on the History Channel™.)

A neighbor offers his paranormal detective services. (He even has a business card to prove it.) As a soul brother (no pun intended), he sports a stylin’ medium grade afro. Who wouldn’t want his help? But it’s the butler (?) who leads them to the attic where they see a replayed tragic past event unfold, which gives painfully obvious clues as to the ghost flap.

Haunting of Winchester House (2009)  is full of stuff you could’ve predicted without a degree in ghostology. And the spirit sequences/spooky effects are as old as the 1884 house itself, to say nothing of the wooden acting chops of all involved. (Except ghost Sarah — she’s got some cool polter-chops.)

Leaving the crowded mansion, mom, dad and their freshly-rescued daughter walk outside, only to find… I’ll just say this — it’s a Sixth Sense (1999) moment that, while kinda neat, doesn’t excuse this tedious, barely-a-story ghost story. Better to visit the real Winchester House (in San Jose, CA) and hang out with real ghosts.

Time Traveling Hookers

Timegate: Tales of the Saddletramps (1999) a loose interpretation of sci-fi, finds two restlessly horny wives whose attempts at seduction with their workaholic hubbies fall on limp sheets.

Conveniently, they discover a magic mirror that transports them back 100 years to the Old West where they find they’re new recruits at a bordello. (The script writers must be paid in Ferraris.)

“But Grace…we’re prostitutes!” frets horny girl #1.“I know – don’t you just love it?” giggles horny gal #2. If there’s a plot that outlines the rest of the movie, I haven’t found it. The plentiful boobs are visually tasty, but tragically the sex scenes are all but Disney-esque.

Rent Saddletramps to get your girlfriend/wife/Old West hooker in the mood without grossing her out. For the rest of us that prefer our sci-fi to be a lot more hardcore, this one stays in the past.