Spider-Man, Bloody Vampires, Demonic Nuns

Seriously considering about not going to movie theaters anymore and just renting new flicks on Fandangonow.com for a mere $4.99. Sure, I won’t get to see the latest flicks the second they come out, but dango, movie theater tickets/popcorn/soda/hot dogs are getting to be about the price of a steak dinner with a cloth napkin.

Then there are the obnoxious theater goers who continue to talk during the movie and/or use their cellphones. The death penalty would be too lenient for these jerks. So yeah, I can save a bunch of money, not get stressed out and horizontally lay on my couch and watch movies. Very uncomfortable, rude and probably CDC unhygienic to lay down on movie theater seats.

Speaking of movies I’ll probably not see in the theaters (and a few not at all), here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi/fantasy movies for your horizontal viewing pleasure…

SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING (July 7, 2017)
“Thrilled by his experience with the Avengers, young Peter Parker returns home to live with his Aunt May. Under the watchful eye of mentor Tony Stark, Parker starts to embrace his newfound identity as Spider-Man. He also tries to return to his normal daily routine — distracted by thoughts of proving himself to be more than just a friendly neighborhood superhero. Peter must soon put his powers to the test when the evil Vulture emerges to threaten everything that he holds dear.”

Is it just me or is the new Spider-Man movie taking a direct marketing lead from Deadpool (2016)? Makes sense as they both wear similar masks. Deadpool, though, shoots guns; Spider-Man just webs his pants. Heh. Don’t get my solid gold attempts at humor mislead you; I can’t wait for Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017). The trailers are kick asinine and Spidey’s an old comic book fav. That’s were I learned to read and webbed in my own pants. Yeesh — I hope that was webbing.

SUPER DARK TIMES (October 3, 2017)
“Teenagers Zach and Josh have been best friends their whole lives. But when a gruesome accident leads to a cover-up, the secret drives a wedge between them and propels them down a rabbit hole of escalating paranoia and violence.

The title sounds like something a teenager would say. Wonder what the gruesome accident is? A zit-popping contest gone wrong? The cinnamon challenge? Planking over a shark-filled pool? Doing the mannequin challenge on a train track? You can never tell with idiot teenagers.

BLOOD DYNASTY (October 31, 2017)
“Blood Dynasty is the third in “Irina” vampire film cycle, that began with 2012’s award winning Blood for Irina and continued in 2014’s Queen of Blood. The character of Irina – inspired in part by Lina Romay’s character in Franco’s Female Vampire (1975) — is once more reborn, rising from the sea to bring madness and bloodlust to a lonely young woman living in a decaying motel.”

Queen of Blood seems to be the go-to phrase these days, what with the new Hell Boy movie using it as well. As for Female Vampire, there’s some pretty bold undressedness in that one. You’ve been warned.

JUMANJI — WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE (December 20, 2017)
“Four high school kids discover an old video game console and are drawn into the game’s jungle setting, literally becoming the adult avatars they chose. What they discover is that you don’t just play Jumanji — you must survive it. To beat the game and return to the real world, they’ll have to go on the most dangerous adventure of their lives, discover what Alan Parrish left 20 years ago, and change the way they think about themselves — or they’ll be stuck in the game forever.”

Oddly, I never saw the original Jumanji, released back in 1995. Looked too goofy to me. And to keep the goof factor in place for the remake, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson — is the lead, along with the always hilarious Jack Black. I think Dwayne’s in every movie coming out these days. Seems like he is. As a movie star he’s good. But as a former WWE superstar, he was king of the ring.

THE NUN (September 7, 2018)
“When a young nun at a cloistered abbey in Romania takes her own life, a priest with a haunted past and a novitiate on the threshold of her final vows are sent by the Vatican to investigate. Together they uncover the order’s unholy secret. Risking not only their lives but their faith and their very souls, they confront a malevolent force in the form of the same demonic nun that first terrorized audiences in The Conjuring 2, as the abbey becomes a horrific battleground between the living and the damned.”

For your own sanity’s sake, The Nun probably should not be confused with The Nun from 2005. (Same named horror movies give me tummy achings.) So this is the scary nun from The Conjuring (2013), like that movie’s “possessed” doll Annabelle, also getting her back story spin-off. With seven Conjuring and planned tie-in movies based its characters, I figured that particular cow was milked dry after the formulaic The Conjuring 2 (2016).

Alien Water Balloons

1990. It’s the future. Space travel between planets is nothing more than a bus ride downtown. Clothing is either orange, yellow or white. (Future technology ensures you can wash all three together without turning things into hippie soup.) And the neighboring aliens just radioed a message to Earth that they’re sending an ambassador to establish diplomatic relations. And that ambassador is…the QUEEN OF BLOOD! (I just loaded my space britches.)

The UFO sending the QoB didn’t quite make it to Earth, crash landing on Mars. (Okay, not quite Mars, but on Phobos, one of Mars’ 47 moons, according to my discount space encyclopedia.) A rescue ship with a hot chick, who seems to have three and a half extra teeth, is sent from Earth to bring back any survivors. There was one. She’s green, has a beehive alien pod hair-do (that, or she’s a member of the B-52s), doesn’t talk and has glowing eyes when she’s about to go to Bite Town.

After she chews open the wrist of one of the astronauts, the remaining crew decides to feed her their spare plasma on the way back to Earth. Unfortunately, she’s a glutton and sucks her way through the blood slushies. Feeling peckish, the Queen goes after two more astronauts, one of which survived being sucked off. Okay, that didn’t come out right.

The only female astronaut saves the day by getting into the world’s shortest b*tch slap, which leaves Queenie with scratches on her back. Not only does she leak green goopy stuff, she bleeds out and croaks. But not before infecting the entire spaceship with blood eggs that look like small goopy filled water balloons inside other water balloons. (Future science has made it possible for two water balloons to inhabit the same space in time.)

This might sound like exciting action, but it’s the opposite of that. Queen of Blood’s (1966) sets, special visual effects, and lunar landscapes are vividly colorful and imaginative. But when the space vampire doesn’t even make an appearance until the 47 minute mark (it’s 78 minute movie), and there’s no build up to a major freak with zero screaming, panicking or erratically fired laser beam guns, you’re left with a whole lot of deep space boring.

P.S. With her vampire eggs needing to make it to Earth market in order to further the Queen’s sucking race of suckers, the whole thing echoes the set up for Alien (1979). I totally bet that’s where the alien stole the idea.