Star Warfare, Multiverse Monsters, Funeral Fun

If you’re partial to UFOs, Frankenstein, Samurai and vaudeville phantoms, then you need to visit ThirteenthFloor.us and immerse yourselfie in the fantastical art of Billy Ludwig, an ingenious artist dealing in mixed media, which is the artistic version of mixed martial arts. Kinda. 

Ludwig’s take on flying saucers and pop culture icons is kitschy fun. But where his talent goes next level is by juxtaposing vintage images of WWII and Star Wars: At-At Walkers, X-Wings and TIE Fighters engaging with Spitfires, battleships, bazookas, ground troops and more. As if that wasn’t cool enough, these art pieces are in black and white (one, even, being vintage colorized), lending a tangible sense of realism to make you believe this is how the war REALLY went down. Did for me, anyway.

The art is printed on high quality 12 pt. gloss card stock and sell for an average of $15. You couldn’t buy a glass of refreshing Yatooni Boska at the Mos Eisley Cantina on Tatooine with twice those New Republic credits. There’s also books and shirts emblazoned with Ludwig’s innovative designs.

So whether you wave your flag for the US Armed Forces and the Rebel Alliance or side with the Republican-led Empire, here are a few out now/upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not be as tasty as a cup of the Cantina’s house special: Blue Milk, which, of course, comes from female banthas. Try not to think about it…

WAKING KARMA / Out now (VOD)

“When high school senior Karma’s estranged cult leader father traps her and her mother in a remote forest compound, she must survive a series of psychological trials meant to prepare her for a strange and deadly reincarnation ritual.”

And if she gets older, Karma will look back on her high school days as the best time of her life.

2025 ARMAGEDDON / December 23, 2022 (VOD)

“A militant alien race launches an attack on Earth using gigantic creatures and geological disasters all based on those found on The Asylum’s Movie Channel signal, which reached their planet.”

Finally — the film studio known for bold-face plagiarism of successful genre movies, have finally gone all in — they’re ripping off themselves. 

SCREAMS FROM THE SWAMP / December 27, 2022 (VOD)

“When Angela’s husband and son die in hospital after a car crash, she takes it upon herself to seek justice against the doctor who operated on the pair. Desperation and obsession lead Angela into a paranoid state, dissociating her from reality. She follows the doctor day after day: behind the anonymous facade, the man hides a parallel life of depravity and murders committed together with his colleagues. Discovering these new horrors, Angela turns to dark otherworldly forces to find the strength to eliminate the killers. This decision leads her into a spiral of violence and hallucinations, where pleasure and fear intermingle but ultimately there is a high price to pay.”

Desperation, paranoia, disassociation with reality, hallucinations… You just met a Tug Tavern regular.

PLAY DEAD / Release pending 2023 (Theaters/VOD)

“Criminology student Chloe fakes her own death to break into a morgue in order to retrieve a piece of evidence that ties her younger brother to a crime gone wrong. Once inside she quickly learns that the fearsome coroner uses the morgue as a front for a sick and twisted business. As a frightening game of cat and mouse ensues, Isabel discovers that the scariest thing about the morgue is not the dead, but the living.”

And just what sick and twisted business would the coroner use the morgue for? A cannibal pop-up? Embalming stand? Necrophiliac kissing booth? Regardless of these guaranteed money-making ideas, you gotta appreciate his entrepreneurial spirit. 

Fearful Finger, Angry Villagers, New-Fangled Kaiju

As a kid, watching that scene in Creature of the Black Lagoon (1954) where a geology expedition in the Amazon (the rain forest, not the online retailer that makes $1.5 trillion dollars a month) finds a skeleton of a webbed non-human hand, totally la’gooned me out. If just the hand was that scary, then seeing who it belonged to was surely gonna be a pant-filling moment. And…IT WAS.

To further make mockery of freshly laundered britches comes the Universal Monsters Creature from the Black Lagoon Fossilized Creature Hand Scaled Prop Replica. Coming in July 2023 from Factory Entertainment™, the hand, with an outstretched middle finger (yes, it’s flipping us off), preorders for $79.99. That’s less than a co-pay visit to my proctologist, Dr. “Big Finger” Linderman, whose misshapen digits look EXACTLY like that of the Creature. Probably feels like it, too.

From Factory Entertainment™: “The high quality, scaled prop replica of the fossilized creature hand unearthed at the start of 1954’s Creature from the Black Lagoon is a must have for fans! This stunning heavy duty scaled prop replica is molded out of solid metal and features a display stand. Each scaled replica comes in collector packaging. Measures 7” tall x 6” wide x 6” long.” 

While you wait for me to make more jokes about personal space violations, here are a few upcoming horror and sci-fi movies that may or may not make you feel uncomfortable as…

SKINAMARINK / January 13, 2023 (Limited), TBD 2023 (Shudder™)

“Two children wake up in the middle of the night to find their father is missing and all the windows and doors in their home have vanished. To cope with the strange situation, the two bring pillows and blankets to the living room and settle into a quiet slumber party situation. They play well worn videotapes of cartoons to fill the silence of the house and distract from the frightening and inexplicable situation. All the while in the hopes that eventually some grown-ups will come to rescue them. However, after a while it becomes clear that something is watching over them.”

I bet that “something” is Casper the Friendly Skinamarink. 

DEATH KNOT / January 17, 2023 (VOD)

“After the death of their estranged mother, two siblings return home and are immediately confronted by angry villagers who claim their mother was a practitioner of a dangerous brand of black magic behind multiple mysterious deaths.”

Villagers historically have anger issues, famously going back to the Salem witch burning days and Victor Frankenstein’s Goth body modifications. And you don’t wanna know the uproar that followed when the “open 24-hours” Village 7-Eleven™ only stayed open 23 hours. Sheer anarchy.

HOSHI 35 / Release pending 2023 (DVD)

“MRTS has shared an exclusive first look at their next kaiju film, Hoshi 35. ‘Hoshi’ means ‘star’ in Japanese and, like the English word, has several meanings. The movie, which will use traditional Japanese FX techniques, will be directed by Hiroto Yokokawa.”

This new kaiju is so cool looking, the movie doesn’t need a plot. All it has to do is just stand there for 90 minutes. And maybe stomp on a few Big & Tall™ outlets.

KNIGHTS OF THE ZODIAC / Release pending 2023 (VOD)

“When a goddess of war reincarnates in the body of a young girl, street orphan Seiya discovers that he is destined to protect her and save the world. But only if he can face his own past and become a Knight of the Zodiac.”

Once a goddess of war, always a goddess of war…but once a knight is enough.

Real X-Files, Angels & Zombies, Future Grrrls

Sad to report the April 13, 2018 passing of Art Bell, 72, one of the paranormal’s iconic advocates. Host of the globally-popular Coast To Coast AM late night radio show for twenty years, Art’s show was a seriously presented forum for all things paranormal, demonic, ghostly, cryptid, crop circle-y and all around monsterific. And while Art’s charismatic deep voice and dry delivery wasn’t enough, his callers’ supernatural stories and UFO sightings were the stuff custom made for ratings.

So popular was his radio show, he was syndicated in 500 markets in the U.S. and Canada. (Canada, by the way, is where all things paranormal were born, no doubt fueled by Moosehead beer.) Radio DJ Alan Stock described Art’s show as being “like a Disneyland for sci-fi.” Coast To Coast AM still broadcasts with the super cool George Noory at the mic. (He also regularly appears on the History Channel’s Ancient Aliens.)

So here’s to you, Art Bell — thank you for being the legendary voice for the real X-Files. And while you can hear archived shows on YouTube™, here are a few just released and upcoming horror and sci-fi movies that might’ve been right at home on Coast To Coast AM…. 

AVZ: ANGELS VS. ZOMBIES (available now)
“At the end of days seven archangels arrive to deliver us from evil. Get ready for the resurrection, the dead will rise.”

Never understood the term “archangel.” Does that mean they have osteoporosis? So angels doing battle with zombies. Seems like everybody wants to take a swing at the undead these days. Heck, God’s delivery sycophants have battled everything from Bigfoot to aliens to even other angels. (Angels are like the Amazon Prime™ of religion.) be double awesome if someone would come up with AVS: Angels vs. Sharktopus.

ALONG WITH THE GODS: THE TWO WORLDS (available now)
“Ja-hong, a firefighter, is taken to the afterlife by three guardians, where only after passing seven trials and proving he lived a noble life will he be able to reincarnate.”

Guess if firefighter Ja-hong is in the afterlife, he must not have been that good at his day job. And who wants to reincarnate? Being back on this toilet Earth is the last place I’d wanna return policy. Except my favorite bar, which I coincidentally call “the afterlife.”

HOUSE ON ELM LAKE (available now)
“A couple and their young daughter move into a lake house that remained unsold due to the brutal, ritualistic murder of a family years ago. Soon, they realize that a dormant evil has awakened, a possessive force that has preyed on unsuspecting families like theirs for centuries.”

A house on Elm Lake? Is this Freddy Krueger’s Airbnb™? If I was dormant evil and lived on a lake, I’d wake up, goon out a few ducks and make splishy splash happen. And I’d do it in a Speedo™, you know, just to up the horror factor.

FUTURE WORLD (May 25, 2018)
“Inside a desert oasis, a queen lays dying as her son Prince travels across barren waste lands to find a near-mythical medicine to save her life. After evading violent raiders on motorbikes led by the Warlord and his enforcer, Prince meets Ash, the Warlord’s robot sex companion-assassin who’s in search of her own soul. As Prince is captured by the Druglord, the Warlord’s forces roar in — and Prince fights to save the remnants of humanity.”

The trailer makes this look like a Road Warrior (1981) knock-off, but with lots more riot grrrls. Maybe they should call it Mad Maxine. The drool-worthy Milla Jovovich stars and still looks a sexy fresh as she did in the Resident Evil (2002) six-movie franchise, where she got more attractive with each consecutive sequel. I bet she eats a lot of preservatives. Heh.

Swappin’ Spit With Mummy

Four Centuries ago Princess Ankahnten — that saucy little minx with fewer morals than me — was mummified for showing her boobs and other stuff involving nakedness. Good thing they moved her top-heavy corpse to Los Angeles where all those supermodels walk the Earth so she can lick up, uh, pick up where she left off.

You see, the Egyptian Sorceress was given a Texas funeral for dabbling in forbidden pleasures of the booty. This was 3,000 years ago, well before the booty was invented. So you can see why it was deemed illegal.

Now, reincarnated through the satanic forces of special effects, the oddly undecomposed (yet hot) Princess Ankahnten is trying to track down the reincarnation of her lost love — a personal comfort device. Um, I mean, ex-girlfriend. Same thing, I suppose.

Connect the dots from there. After a while it all gets boring, but be careful not to get lube all over the remote.

Mechanics vs. Mexican Preserves

The Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy (aka, La Momia Azteca Contra el Robot Humano/1958). Great title. Not so great movie. Once everyone discovered the gold breastplate on the Aztec mummy was real, then everybody, including the predictably evil Dr. Krupp (aka, “The Bat”) wants some ’o that booty.

The professors who first violated the tomb got a wake-up call when the mummy woke up. They got away the first time, but came back with pretty much the same results, minus one professor. Turns out the mummy only gets p*ssed and starts walking like an Egyptian if someone tries stealing his stash.

Dr. Krupp’s plan is to build a human-faced giant robot (eight-feet tall, not counting the high heels) to grab the gold and pound the mummy into a pile of dusty gauze. That doesn’t quite go according to plan.

At least there was some action in this otherwise mostly narrated and plodding tale of reincarnation (the professor’s easily hypnotized wife is the spitting image of the mummy’s ex), greed, and power gone awry. The robot was kinda neat, though.

Reincarnation – Been There, Done That

For reasons known only to the movie producers, a college professor – on vacation with his wife and two kids – stays at a hotel with fresh towels and ends up murdering his family, some of the guests, the concierge, the bellhop and himself. Yeah, I thought of The Shining (1980), too. But since this is a Japanese horror film and it jumps around like a frog on trampoline lily pads, you don’t really know what the heck is going on.

A young movie actress gets the role in a movie being made about the motel massacre. She starts seeing mind flashes of the slaughtered victims and it freaks her out. (I see stuff like that, too, but chalk it up to binge drinking.)

Toward the end of this really s-l-o-w moving flick, the dead come back to life and shuffle around and bleed on the floor. How thoughtless. Nobody can see any of this except the acting chick, who eventually goes mad and gets thrown in a loony bin. Now her worse problem is whether or not she can find shoes to match her straightjacket. The one bright spot is a demon dolly that talks and makes a really cool evil face.

Ultimately, Reincarnation (2005) is a yawner by any standard. And that’s saying a lot because my standards are remarkably low.