Literary Godzilla, DJ Devil, Loud Earworm

Most people would rather watch Godzilla kick the Shittori Choco out of Japan (and other monsters) than read about it. But now, thanks to modern technology, you can do both — at the same time, if you’re a weirdo. University of Minnesota Press is publishing the novelization of Godzilla (1954) and Godzilla Raids Again (1955) as English-translated paperback and e-books for the YA (Young Adult) market. Good luck trying to get kids to read — they’re too busy making stupid TikTok™ dance videos and investing in get-rich-quick cryptocurrency, or “imaginary money.”

From the University of Minnesota Press’ press release: “Shigeru Kayama (1904 – 1975) was a science fiction writer and scenarist whose early stories about monsters and mutated sea creatures attracted the attention of Toho Studios™, who asked him to draft the first two Godzilla films. The film Half Human (1955) by Toho Studios™ was also based on one of his stories, and he contributed to the screenplay for the Toho™ film The Mysterians (1957).”

The books will be available October 3, 2023 on Amazon Prime™ and Amazon Kindle™ from $17.41 and $9.99 respectively. That’s reasonably priced cryptocurrency. Invest in it here.

So while we put down our TVs and pick up a book for the first time in years, here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not appeal to young adults…

LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL / Release pending 2023 (VOD)

“A live broadcast of a late-night talk show in 1977 goes horribly wrong, unleashing evil into the nation’s living rooms. Jack Delroy is the host of a late-night talk show Night Owls. His rating are plummeting, it’s sweeps week and he’s desperate for a boost so he plans a Halloween special with a magician, someone that claims to be possessed, and skeptics. This is not your traditional late-night variety show; It slowly builds until pure chaos and mayhem ensue.”

Unleashing evil, pure chaos and mayhem? I’ve been all up and down the dial and can’t find it. A shiny cookie to anyone who can tell me where to find this radio station. And hurry — these shiny cookies aren’t gonna make it to late night.

INCESSANT / Release pending 2023 (VOD)

“A troubled couple taking time away at a place in the country. Instead of peace, they encounter an audio-altering virus, a parasite that will slowly rip them apart.”

I’ve said it before — the audio-altering virus can be found on every Motörhead song in existence. Visibly shocked I have to keep repeating myself.

DON’T LOOK AWAY / Release pending 2023 (VOD)

‘It doesn’t move, it doesn’t think — it just kills. And for a young woman and her friends, a chance encounter with the supernatural entity proves deadly, because once you see it, don’t you dare look away or it comes for you…and keeps coming for you until you’re dead.”

The supernatural entity they’re referring to is your television.

POUNDCAKE / Release pending 2023 (VOD)

“A New York City serial killer is murdering straight white men in unspeakable ways. Podcasters are chiming in with their theories on who the killer is, what his motives are, and how to stop him. Is it all a hoax to garner sympathy for cisgender white men? Some people think so. Others find the murders cathartic, even funny. Are the victims finally getting what they deserve after inflicting centuries of oppression? Can the killer be stopped? New Yorkers must find a way to end the hate and embrace positivity instead. It might be the only way to kill the beast!”

The first time I heard the word “positivity” was in “Spice Up Your Life”, the irresistible 1997 Spice Girls hit song. And now, 26 years later, New Yorkers are asked to embrace positivity to stop a serial killer. I say to them — “Spice up your life and dance all over that serial killer, b*tches!”

Supersized Superheroes, Brain Suckers, Junkie Reptiles

There are superhero action figure fanatics and then there are mega superhero action figure fanatics. If you’re one of the latter, get ready to soil yourself: XM Studios™, makers of highly-coveted superhero models, have come out with a monolithic Justice League VS Darkseid diorama. Assembled, the stunningly detailed diorama will give your face an aghast expression. Kinda like shocked, but with more spit cup drool. 

From their website: “XM Studios™ is excited to present our 1:6 DC EPIC DIORAMA series, Justice League VS Darkseid! An epic battle scene diorama all DC fans should have in their collection, Justice League comprising of Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, The Flash, Aquaman, Green Lantern and Martian Manhunter engages in battle with one of Justice League’s main adversary and one of the most powerful being in the DC Multiverse, Darkseid.” 

A few specs: Limited to 338 pieces, the dimensions of this couch-sized diorama are 41.33” long x 30.70” wide x 33.46” tall and comes in three boxes, shipping from Singapore for $1,350.00. Not surprising given the combined weight of 116.85 lbs. Scary, but not as much as the price: $3,299.00. That’s the same for the color (or “colour”) and aged bronze versions (Limited to 100 pieces). Buy ’em here.

And while you’re trying to decide whether or not your car needs all that space in the garage that could be used to showcase this epic diorama, here are a few out now/upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may not have had a film budget of the Justice League diorama price tag…

SUCCUBA / Out now (Tubi™)

“An evil presence attaches to a lonely widower who intends to guard it for as long as he can.”

This happens all the time to the pension drunks who live at the Tug Tavern.

MIND LEECH / Out now (VOD)

“A very persuasive Leech is wreaking havoc in rural Provinstate, 1998. On a mission to expand its horizons, our influential invertebrate enlists the help of the local townsfolk. The police are soon on the tail of our pesky parasite.”

According to some flora ‘n fauna website I happened across, leeches are chiefly aquatic carnivorous or bloodsucking annelid worms. The leeches in my life don’t look like annelid worms (okay, some do), but they certainly are bloodsucking. And money-sucking. And energy-sucking. And suck-sucking.

CARNAL MONSTERS / February 28, 2023 (DVD,VOD)

“A group of friends go out for a day to cheer themselves up and come across the unconscious bodies of two girls outside of a nuclear facility. But the two girls turn out to be mad killers and they turn the pleasant day out into a nightmare. And did we mention the poison gas that was created by a mad scientist?”

Going out for the day to cheer themselves up with unconscious bodies outside a nuclear facility. Apparently, I’ve been doing this relaxing thing all wrong. 

ATTACK OF THE METH GATOR / Release pending 2023 (VOD)

“ A tweaker gator snorts up its stash and goes on a unacceptable social behavior rampage while looking to score. Things get even worse when Cocaine Bear shows up to do a few rails with the agitated alligator and all holy hell ensues. Spoiler alert: Detox Donkey makes a small, but essential cameo.”

The plot is fake, but the movie is real. Once again, Asylum Studios™ ripping off — and probably igniting — a flood of horror movies about drugged up animals. What’s next — OxyContin Owl? Ritalin Raccoon? Percoset Penguin?

Udder Horror

Dan Reilly is a farmer. But unlike ’Ol MacDonald, who also had a farm, In Isolation (2005), Dan is severely broke, so he has to rent his cows out for genetic research. That, or lose his late father’s farm, full of knee deep mud and cow poop. (Hey Dan — have you though about growing popcorn trees?)

Bovine Genetics Technology has been paying him cash to inject his one of his pregnant cows with a serum that will make them grow faster and produce juicer hamburgers. The opening scene has a research scientist sticking her arm (all the way up to her shoulder) into a cow’s outgoing hay chute. Why, oh why didn’t I turn off the DVD player right then and there?

Something bit her hand. I’m’ thinking it was a baby alligator ’Ol MacDonald flushed down the sewer and one of Dan’s cows ate it and…sorry. Later, the cow goes into labor and the calf gets stuck between cowhole and freedom. The scene where Dan and a young couple on the run found squatting near his property assist the delivery process is one of the ickiest horror scenes ever scene. It’s almost enough to make you swear off juicy cow burgers and baby alligators.

The newborn abomination, horribly disfigured by science, makes with the biting, which results in a nail gun defense strategy. Dan is the opposite of happy. He expresses this to the doctor who is wrecking his burger factories. But science cannot be denied, nor can the parasitic embryos still alive in the dead cows.

As in The Thing (1982), it’s determined that no one can leave the farm, as the science cow is loaded with infectious what-nots and has the distinct probability of destroying humanity, vegetarians included. While you never get to see science cow in all its inside-out glory, this thing seems to be all teeth, causing udder, uh, utter chaos as it goes on the attack.

It should be stated that crawling under the floorboards of a barn where cows turn hay into Texas pancakes is disgusting beyond belief, yet necessary for one’s survival. Only one makes it out alive. Who was it — the cow, the doctor, Dan, the squatter guy who knocked up his girlfriend after the cow bit him? The knocked up girlfriend? I’d crawl under a wet, infected barn before I ever told you.

Porcupine Parasite

An out-of-the-way gas station/convenience store is an unusual place to secure oneself against a mutant parasite. Then again, gas station convenience stores are usually where one picks up a mutant parasite. And yet, that’s where a young couple and a criminal end up, just a plate glass window away from bing absorbed by the spiky organism that skewers you from the inside out, drinks your nutrients, and uses your body as rag puppet host to get more yummy nutrients from those who have plenty of it.

The criminal’s girlfriend was the first to get splintered/splattered, but that didn’t stop her fast rotting body from trying to get at the others. A lady cop shows up (she was on the trail of Mrs. & Mrs. Lawbreaker), but is unaware of the parasite. When she does get to meet it, her body gets pulled in half like warm taffy, with all her nutrients leaking out.

A severed hand, animated by the killer quill, gets into the store and chases everyone around like Thing from The Addams Family (1964). The criminal, though, got a splinter earlier on and now it’s infecting his arm. One way to stop it — cut off the appendage with a box knife. That sorta works, but utility blades weren’t exactly designed to hack through bone. So a cinder block will have to do. (One of four cool flinchy scenes.)

But the pointy creature is still after them, dang it. The only place left to hide? The beer cooler! (That so would’ve been my first choice.) They deduce that body temperature is what’s attracting the porcupine whatchamacallit, so in order to reach the car outside (to presumably go to a different gas station that doesn’t have parasites), the non-criminal guy has to lower his temps by packing bags of ice around himself and lay there until his lips turn blue. In theory, it will make him invisible to the beastie. This maneuver has not been proven in a lab of science.

While the ending of Splinter (2008) could’ve been sharper (heh), this indie movie keeps up a nice tense pace and has a rewarding amount of goreiffic (my new word, combining gore with ’rrific) moments. Don’t feel bad for the criminal’s arm — the parasites are already using it to feel up his dead girlfriend.

Death Sea Worm

Environmentalists discover that an oil rig is really a front for top secret sci-fi experiments to create a killing worm to sell to the military. This makes the greenies turn red, so they infiltrate the rig and plan to blow it up, never mind that all the resulting pollution would kill off thousands of friendly narwhals and pettable jellyfish.

From there Parasite/2004 (aka, Hell’s Mouth) follow the Alien (1979) template almost to the letter, with the monster bug, now the size of 718 hot dogs, snail-trailing it through ventilation shafts and biting those that would seek to slather it in mustard. Note: They should try it with Black Truffle mustard blended with a delicate Chablis (“Shah-blee”). Zingy!

The parasite is one of the all-time worst CGI creatures ever plagiarized, looking more like computer clay with plastic teeth. To show you how clichéd this “sci-fi thriller” is, there are 17 movies with the title of Parasite (the one in the ’80s with Demi Moore being the better of the pile).

And the oil rig? Totally not real. It was digital, as was the rain it was being “drenched” in. My theory is that they actually filmed this crapfest in an old warehouse with leftover parasite birthing sacs hanging from the ceiling. I really think I’m right about this.

Globally-Warmed Bugs

Thank you global warming for wrecking our planet. And after all we’ve done for you. Because of you, that parasitic infested woolly mammoth has defrosted, and one million (give or take) previously frozen prehistoric flesh-eating bugs have hatched and gotten into human orifices. That’s gratitude for you.

Dr. David Kruipen, an “Earth-first” kind of scientist, discovered the room-temperature mammal meat and its germs and, after watching it infect it’s way through his staff out in the field, decided it probably isn’t a good idea to let said disease get back to civilization. Too bad his estranged college-aged daughter doesn’t listen to him and flies out with several grad students to study infestation up close and, for some, really personal.

Once the little buggers get under your skin, red bumps and open sores show up all over your face and stomach, you itch yourself at socially-inconvenient times, you throw up like it was your first quart of Jagermeister™, you sweat on everything, then you die a horribly painful death, thereby hatching even more bugs. (Note: said crawlers look like the Motorhead version of caterpillars.)

The helicopter pilot discovers he caught the bug and in an “oh, crap” scene, has two people dope him up with morphine (standard research equipment), put a tourniquet just above the goal line, and chop off his infected arm with a meat cleaver (also standard equipment). The two things he needed to happen didn’t quite work out, with the knife getting stuck halfway through the former arm and the discount amputation not getting all of the infection. Sucks to be him.

In order to make the world understand the threat, the good ’old doc infects himself and plans on being the only one evacuated. His reasoning being that, yeah, a few hundred thousand may die, but this is a valuable lesson for us all to stop making the atmosphere so toxic with our SUVs and party flatulence. But the doc’s daughter has a different ending in mind — and it’s just what the doctor didn’t order.

The Thaw (2009), though a decent “bug up your butt” movie, could use a little less moralizing and a bit more meat cleaver. And some Raid™.

Getting Fired Up About Fire City

Two pet peeves about horror movies: a.) Getting so excited about a new one everyone’s e-chatting about I get pee shivers, and then not being able to find it, and 2.) Finally finding it, only to see title has been changed. I think horror movie directors do that just to personally goon me out.

Such is the case with the Nightbreed-esque Fire City: The Interpreter of Signs (2015), now sporting the slightly better title of Fire City: End of Days, arriving October 6, 2015 on DVD and VOD. Good thing; I’m not a fan of needlessly long movie titles. (Looking in your direction Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief/2010.)

Now that I got that off your chest, Fire City was near to impossible to find when it came out in April 2015. Unless you were a cast member (I wasn’t) or a writer for Fangoria (why won’t they hire me?), getting to see the movie with its gaggle of cool monster people giving the world a frowning of a lifetime was an exercise in futility. This pee shivered me off as I totally swallowed the press hype bait:

“Set in a world where demons live among us, this exhilarating vitrine of effects and action sees a hard-boiled demon named Vine confronted with the ultimate choice between the salvation of his own kind and the life of an innocent human girl…”

“A mix of horror, fantasy and mystery, with a dark, mature storybook aesthetic…”

“Fire City follows a unique world where demons and men coexist with a parasite-host dynamic, as demons fuel the darker side of man’s impulses in order to feed off the relentless negativity…”

If parasitic demons fed off my relentless negativity, they’d all be fat. Heh. Regardless, I can put all this behind me once Fire City: End of Days is released in October. If at that point I still can’t find it, it’ll be Royal Fork Buffet™ time for demons.

Bloody Good Horror

First look at Strange Blood’s ad poster reminds one of 2013’s Contracted, a stand-out horror indie that dealt with the theme of something super icky gone wrong with your fluids that makes your eyes bloodshot-y, your mouth lips all gunked up and unsmoochable and your face highly unattractive to stare at.

Where the unlucky gal in Contracted acquired her disease through sexual intimacy (i.e., unprotected one night stand), the gent’s infected hemoglobin in Strange Blood is mutated by a super icky parasite that turns him into something even ickier. (Man, that word is almost universal.)

Here’s all about Strange Blood’s ickiness: “When a brilliant but obsessive scientist goes to extremes to develop a universal cure for all disease, he finds himself infected with a bizarre parasite that begins to transform him into a bloodthirsty madman. Time running out, and with the aid of his med student assistant, he must find a way to stop the monster that is growing within and prevent the rest of the world from being ‘cured.’”

While the term “bloodthirsty madman” hardly makes anyone blink in these jaded times, it still applies, but only as syllables. The infected scientist takes it to the extreme and, like the mutating guys in The Fly (1958, 1986) before him, can pretty much forget about dating anything swimming in his former gene pool.

Strange Blood arrives on VOD April 28, 2015 and later on DVD June 2, 2015, hopefully in a hygenically-sealed wrapper.

Vampires Bite Uranus

For a movie about vampires to call itself Bloodsuckers (2005) makes you wonder who got paid to come up with it. If it was more than a dollar, they were over-paid. Fortunately, someone kinda sort a fixed it when the made-for-TV sci-fi flick was retitled Vampire Wars: Battle For The Universe. Still dumb, but not Bloodsuckers dumb.

In the future we find that the universe is being scourged by a snack-pack variety of vampires. Teams of vampire hunters roam the galaxy and shout “lock ’n load, people” pseudo-military slogans and do a lot of synchronized posing.

One such team has a hot vampire chick working with them (she can smell vampire B.O., even in space), who has to drink plasma (space term for blood) instead of “snecking.” (Snacking on necks.)

They land on an abandoned planet, only to discover the place is overrun with dozens, maybe even a hundred dozen vampires. Seems some disenchanted Earth people have teamed up with the vampires to eliminate humans throughout the star system because they’re fed up with humans acting so aggressively towards EVERYTHING.

No flinching on the gore and cannibalism (some vampires eat the flesh of their victims as though it were Red Vines™), and if you can put up with the painful dialogue (“That their genetics were merged by the vampirazation process was of profound interest.”) you’ll be rewarded with a talking chest-burster parasite (i.e., phallic-shaped sock puppet), and the super hot vampire chick offering to have sex with the captain to get him to relax.

Because sex with a vampire can be fatal (I’m willing to risk it), she does the whole “tantric non-touching” space boot-knocking that’s alledgedly mind-blowing. Thanks, but in the future I’ll stick with making out with a lunar chick in the back seat of my space pod. (I hope I can afford one of those in the future. Space pod, not a lunar chick.)