Expensive UFOs, Ghost Selfies, Fear of Fear

Found some really cool Close Encounters of the Third Kind art (by artist Daniel Keane) on the Internet. (The term “world wide web” is so Netscape 3). This got me thinking about that recently released Navy jet fighter footage of a UFO pretty much outmaneuvering them as if playing paranormal dodgeball.

Made public (finally) by the Pentagon last December, the footage was shot back in 2004 and was so convincing the Pentagon emptied the collection plate for $22 million to study the “40-foot-long Tic Tac” and its relatives. And yet we can’t come up with a few hundred bucks to fix that @#$%! pothole on the street in front of my house? I already did the research — it’s definitely a hole. It’s so big, you could put other holes in it.

Here’s how the government rationalized the fund folly — retired Cmdr. David Fravor told CNN’s The Situation Room the money spent on the program was a drop in the bucket relative to the military’s over half-a-trillion-dollar annual budget. Pffft — I would’ve done the legwork for 82% of that amount.

On that promissory note, here are a few just released and upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that the military may or may not spend a million billion dollars to study…

IRRATIONAL FEAR (available now)
“Six therapy patients are brought together at a secluded cabin to confront their strangest fears. But these fears won’t just hurt them…they will kill them.”

My strangest fears include never getting to ride in that Death Proof (2007) Chevy Nova™, invisible dog poop on visible sidewalks, and getting bitten by a radioactive spider and webbing my pants in front of the Green Goblin. That would be embarrassing on so many levels.

MALICIOUS (Summer, 2018)
“When a young college professor Adam and his pregnant wife Lisa suffer a traumatic event, they find themselves along with Lisa’s sister Becky haunted — and connected — to a malicious entity. It is only when Adam calls upon Dr. Clark, a professor of parapsychology at the university, that the true horror of what they have encountered becomes clear.”

Lots of movie gals getting knocked up by evil these days: Restraint (2018), The Lullaby (2018), Still/Born (2018), Prevenge (2016), Shelley (2016), Devil’s Due (2014), Delivery (2013), The Clinic (2010), Grace (2009), etc. And let us not forget Rosemary’s Baby (1968), the gold standard for crib horror. (Honorary mention: It’s Alive/1974.) Why, there’s enough pregnancy-gone-wrong movies to fill up 40 weeks. Heh. For a really lurid take on this genre, try Inseminoid (1981). If the title doesn’t fill your diapers, the plot will: “A space-team member goes berserk after being impregnated by something on another planet.” It appears somethings on other planets don’t practice safe sex. I bet they don’t even pay child support, either, those losers.

AURA (November 8, 2018/UK— 2018/2019/US)
“Said to revolve around the concept of photographing your own aura, known as Kirlian photography.”

So you take a selfie of yourself sucking in your cheeks in like an anorexic/narcissistic supermodel and a ghost demon shows up in the photo? Just as it’s not making that two-fingered “peace sign” dealie behind my head, I’m okay with the photo-op. Ready for my close-up.

200 HOURS (2018)
“It’s 1986 and a group of graduate students are close to discovering a cure for sleep using an experimental new drug, but something goes terribly wrong with a test subject. After their department is shut down, the team moves forward in secret — only this time on themselves.”

Sounds like a rip-off of A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) and Flatliners (1990/2017). More rip-offery: The movie’s logo rips freely from Stranger Things (2016). And the bra that gal is sporting? I’m wearing the same one!

Psychosis, Delusions and Pregnancy

Been trying to learn new languages by watching foreign horror movies without sub-titles so as to become fluent in Spanish, French, German and the massively challenging Chinese. (I don’t know how people can speak in Chinese without hurting their mouth.) Is it working? Shì hé fǒu.

Anyway, here’s some new simple language horror movies headed your way…

DEAD STORY (January 20, 2017/VOD)
“A young married couple, who after purchasing their first home, realize that either the house is selectively haunting only the wife, or she’s developing a delusional psychosis.”

Neither. It’s just a bad case of buyer’s remorse.

ARBOR DEMON (February 2, 2017)
“An adventurous married couple and an injured hunter are held captive inside a claustrophobic tent by a supernatural threat. For an unknown reason, the tent has become their only safe haven. Soon tensions rise and the truth about the attacker is revealed.”

The kicker line, “Don’t Breathe,” is just plain dumb. What, did somebody fart in the tent? If so, was it flatulence born of an expression of extreme fear or freshly consumed raw broccoli? Knowing this will help determine the fright quotient of said stinky emissions.

PREVENGE (February 10, 2017/UK)
“Ruth, a pregnant woman, is on a killing spree. It’s her misanthropic unborn baby dictating Ruth’s actions, holding society responsible for the absence of a father. The child speaks to Ruth from the womb, coaching her to lure and ultimately kill her unsuspecting victims.”

A pregnant woman on a killing spree. Proof that there are no more sacred cows left unslaughtered. And to all female readers, I did NOT just call a pregnant woman a cow, although that could apply around the third trimester. Please don’t killing spree me.

ATOMICA (March 17, 2017/Limited; March 21, 2017/VOD)
“In the near future, when communications go offline at a remote nuclear power plant isolated in the desert, a young safety inspector, Abby Dixon, is forced to fly out to bring them back online. Once inside the facility, mysterious clues and strange behaviors cause Abby to have doubts about the sanity, and perhaps identities, of the two employees onsite.”

Yeesh, just unplug the communications, wait 10 seconds, and plug ‘em back in. Rebooting solves 95% of offline errors. As for people going crazy, who among us doesn’t go all psychotic when we can’t get on the Internet?