Monstrous Munitions, Bloody Bingo, Casino Carnage

Small Nuclear Warhead Decor. Four words that shouldn’t go together, and yet do. Makes more sense when you see what small Nuclear Warhead decor actually is. Leave it up to Itvalore.com, a direct-to-consumer online retailer, to come up with something to finally take down those obnoxious/ubiquitous garden gnomes, who took down those tacky pink flamingo yard decorations. What goes around, comes around, b*tches!.

Itvalore.com sales-pitches ’em thusly: “This will be the best horror style addition. Make the hair stand on end for anyone who dares to step into this territory. Multiple colors and styles to choose from, it’s a perfect gift for your friends who loves skull and weaponry. Every item in our shop is handmade, hand-painted and unique.”

The resin Skull Bombs (four different styles) measure 7.8” x 2.75” x 2.75”, roughly the same size of the personal comfort device on your girlfriend’s night stand. Or would that be…one night stand? For you, maybe. Heh. They cost $23.15 each, marked down from $78.68. Talk about an explosive deal! Get ‘em here.

So while we pull up those annoying Lady’s Slipper Orchids and Middlemist Reds to make room for these trespasser-scaring shells (rig ‘em to make detonating grenade sounds when anybody steps on your lawn), here are a few out-now/upcoming horror movies that may or may not require you to get bombed after watching ’em…

CARNIFEX / Out now (Tubi™)

“An aspiring documentarian and two conservationists who venture into the Outback to record the animals displaced by bush fires where they discover a terrifying new species — and quickly become the ones being tracked.”

Carnifex is also the name of  a cool deathcore band from San Diego County, CA. They should be doing the soundtrack.

DEATH’S ROULETTE / May 5, 2023 (Paramount+™)

“Seven strangers wake up in a mansion in the middle of nowhere discover they are part of a twisted game. They will have 60 minutes to choose one person to die; otherwise, all of them will be murdered. As the clock ticks down, the most lurid secrets will come to light, and they’ll discover they are all connected by a dark past. As each character begins to justify their life over everybody else’s to save themselves, we sink deeper into a world of intrigue and mistrust and get to know them in an intimate and vulnerable way.”

I liked this better when it was called Nine Dead (2009).

JOHNNY & CLYDE / May 5, 2023 (VOD)

“Johnny and Clyde are two serial killers who are madly in love and on an endless crime spree. Alana is the confident and cunning owner of a prosperous casino that generates tens of millions of dollars each year. Johnny and Clyde decide to assemble a ragtag group of criminals and misfits to steal from Alana’s casino and pull off the heist of the century. Unfortunately for Johnny and Clyde’s crew, Alana has a deadly weapon at her disposal — the hellish slasher spirit known as Bakwas.”

Bakwas — sounds too much like “backwash” to be that frightening. However, backwash — when it comes to sharing a refreshing 16 oz. can of, say, Budweiser™, is horrifying. You’d still drink it because hey, it’s a waste to waste wasted beer.

TELL ME A CREEPY STORY / May 9, 2023 (VOD)

“A beekeeper killing his wife and burying her in the garden. A young boy trying to satisfy his increasingly inhumane appetite. A serial killer couple and a woman terrified she’s being stalked, all make this a truly terrifying horror anthology.”

Beekeeper killing his wife. Too bad; she used to be his…honey.

Origin of Blood, Nuclear Crabs, Killer Kangaroos

Get ready to load your britches. Ahead of The Witcher Season 3 next summer, The Witcher: Blood Origin, a spinoff series, is coming to Netflix™, December 25, 2022. Check to see if your pants can handle a double load. If not, you’re pre-forgiven, so no holiday party foul.

From Netflix™: “A four-part series, The Witcher: Blood Origin is set in an elven world 1200 years before the world of The Witcher and will tell a story lost to time – the creation of the first prototype Witcher, and the events that lead to the pivotal ‘conjunction of the spheres,’ when the worlds of monsters, men, and elves merged to become one.”

While we get ready to open the Christmas present that is The Witcher: Blood Origin, here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not make you tarnish your trousers…

THE WITCH: PART 2 – THE OTHER ONE / Out now (VOD/DVD)

“In this sequel to the popular Korean sci-fi action thriller, the story moves away from a confined secret lab and out into the real world. After a mysterious girl emerges as the sole survivor of a bloody raid on the research facility behind the top-secret Witch Program, she is rescued by a pair of civilians who soon realize the girl is both very powerful and in very grave danger.”

In case you have a weak stomach for witch-y violence, carnage and/or violent carnage, you might wanna watch Hocus Pocus 2 instead. Everyone else, broom up.

THE WILLOWBROOK / Out now (VOD)

“A renowned wellness influencer invites one of her recently overdosed followers to seek recovery at her small-town manor. Once the follower arrives, she realizes the dark world existing within the manor is not what she — nor millions of others — perceived from the Internet. With a gripping and fast-paced tone, this film explores the duplicitous side of social media.”

This is probably as boring as it sounds.

CRABS! / November 15, 2022 (VOD) November 22, 2022 (Blu-ray)

“Mutated by nuclear runoff, a horde of murderous horseshoe crabs descend on a sleepy California town causing Prom Night terror. As the deadly crustaceans claw their way through the disbelieving population, it’s up to a ramshackle band of students and local law enforcement to address the increasingly ginormous crab menace.”

Used to be there were only two ways to catch crabs: get a job on a fishing boat or sitting your fart box on a gas station bathroom toilet. These days crabs come out of the ocean and jump right in your lap. Even though the cut-throat crustaceans are painfully pinching people in this movie, might as well make the most of it and smear butter and a squeeze of lemon all over your pants.

THE RED / Release pending 2023/2024 (VOD)

“A young sheriff, obsessed with living up to her dead father’s legacy, finds her mettle tested to the limit when locals start being found ripped to shreds. Now she must finally face up to her past, and work with her eccentric Vietnam veteran uncle to defeat the beast before it kills everyone in town.”

The Red takes place in the Outback (Australia, not the semi-popular restaurant chain with reasonably-priced albeit mediocre center-cut sirloin steaks). The “ripped-to-shreds” community can only mean one thing: a runaway X300 Select Series John Deere™ Lawn Tractor. Or a carnivorous kangaroo.

Alien Walkie-Talkie, Alaskan Ghosts, Chick Werewolf

“If these are intelligent beings from outer space, they couldn’t be too intelligent if they’re visiting the planet Earth.”

Truer words were never spoken. This statement comes from the 1978 documentary, UFO Journals, which is (and this is gonna sound oxymoronic), one of the more weird and wackified treatments of the flying saucer phenomenon.

It starts with some narrator yappin’ bible verses, then goes into a bunch of stock footage of NASA rockets, then — and these are my two favorite parts — a guy with impeccably blow-dried and styled hair going into an eye-rolling trance and channeling communications from an alien in a different solar system. And he does it with a cartoon-y robotic voice. Then there’s a New Age spiritual guide who whips out a harmonica and a shot glass and entertains us with his skills while we contemplate WTF it is we’re watching. This is on Amazon Prime™ in case you need more wackified fulfillment about UFOs in your robotic, restricted-to-Earth life.

And speaking of things to enlighten you, here are a few upcoming horror and sci-fi movies/TV shows to channel on your channel…

THREE TEARS ON BLOODSTAINED FLESH (August 8, 2017/DVD)
“A man with a dark past returns to bury his niece Lexie. Dragging his troubled daughter Kendall, he simultaneously reunites with his estranged sister, Stella and reignites a past rivalry with the corrupt town sheriff. Dominic begins digging around the town, and uncovers the town’s dark secrets, which include a mysterious cult, a supernatural curse, a masked killer, and a very high body count.”

Reunite and reignite. Maybe the masked killer is a pyromaniac. Wondering what the supernatural curse could be? Maybe it’s because the guy buried his niece before she quit breathing the town’s dark secret air.

RED CHRISTMAS (October 17, 2017/Limited/VOD)
“The stressed-out mother of a squabbling family are gathered together in a remote Outback estate on Christmas Eve. When a mysterious, deformed young man named Cletus appears at their door, things soon change from petty insults to bloody, imaginatively orchestrated violence as she attempts to protect her family from the vengeful intruder. The film deliriously infuses comedy, dark family secrets with outlandish gore and adds the always controversial subject of abortion in its blood-stained mix.”

Wow, they actually named someone Cletus. I guess when you live in the remote Outback, you do whatever honks your didgeridoo. I like the outlandish gore part, though. It better not involve kangaroos (the locals call them “‘roos”). Those things can eat your face right off your face.

GHOST WARS (SyFy Channel/2017)
“Set in a remote Alaskan town that has been overrun by paranormal forces, the series focuses on local outcast Roman Mercer who must overcome the town’s prejudices and his own personal demons if he’s to harness his repressed psychic powers and save everyone from the mass haunting that’s threatening to destroy them all.”

While I do like the title of this series, the trailer looks very paranormal stock and doesn’t really sell one on the subject. Maybe if they added a kangaroo…

BETSY (2018)
“After surviving a vicious assault in the city, Betsy moves to the country in hopes of starting over, but as she begins to recover, something begins clawing its way into the moonlight.”

They give it away with “clawing” and “moonlight”; Betsy is a raccoon! Man, I feel sorry for anyone who tries to pet her. Those things will eat your hand right off your hand.