Killer Snow, Rural Werewolves, Flossing Serial Killers

T’was recently announced that Ridley Scott — the man behind three of the six Alien movies (not counting the two Alien/Predator mash-ups) — is doing a horror TV series for AMC. The smoke detector can wait — time to put new batteries in the remote.

From the press release: “Ridley Scott’s horror series The Terror is a fictionalized account of a real-life expedition in 1845, in which two ships were lost in the Arctic and all 129 men were killed. The series, which debuts on AMC in March 2018, is based on the 2007 best-selling novel of the same name by Dan Simmons.”

While we impatiently wait for The Terror to brighten or screens/life, here are a few just released/upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that probably don’t take place in the Arctic, though some might leave you cold (heh)…

AMITYVILLE: THE FINAL CHAPTER (available now)
“A group of paranormal investigators teams up with a wrongly convicted serial killer to track down a mysterious monster responsible for a slew of recent killings.”

YET ANOTHER Amityville movie? [insert facepalm here]. I think this makes 400 Amityville movies, give or take. The press release cracks me up — wrongly convicted serial killer. How does that even make sense? How does YET ANOTHER Amityville movie make sense? This cow has been milked so many times, it’s only giving evaporated milk.

THE HOWLING (available now)
“A local myth will be discovered to be true by a group of teenagers on a night out on remote farmland. Is there a bloodthirsty creature that has been wandering the land?”

Not to be confused with 1981’s The Howling or the seven subsequent sequels that slogged on until 2011. This werewolf movie places the creature on a farm. Maybe it’s not a werewolf. More likely a weresheep that hasn’t been sheared for so long, it just looks like a werewolf. I look similar if I skip my annual hair trimming.

PIERCING (January 20, 2018)
“Reed is going on a business trip. He kisses his wife and infant son goodbye, but in lieu of a suitcase filled with clothes, he’s packed a toothbrush and a murder kit. Everything is meticulously planned: check into a hotel and kill an unsuspecting victim. Only then will he rid himself of his devious impulses and continue to be a good husband and father. But Reed gets more than he bargained for with Jackie, an alluring call girl who arrives at his room. First, they relax and get in the mood, but when there’s an unexpected disruption, the balance of control begins to sway back and forth between the two. Is he seeing things? Who’s playing whom? Before the night is over, a feverish nightmare will unfold, and Reed and Jackie will seal their bond in blood.”

A toothbrush and a murder kit. Nice to know serial killers maintain healthy dental hygiene. Wonder if he flosses as well? That’s equally as important before going out on a murder spree. (P.S. Regularly brush/floss your teeth, but DO NOT go out on murder sprees.)

LOST SOLACE (January 30, 2018/iTunes™)
“Lost Solace is a fast-paced psychological thriller that depicts the transformation of Spence Cutler, a young psychopath and con artist. He’s never felt empathy or guilt, however, a fateful encounter with a new drug is about to give him a dose of too much reality, and he takes a mind-bending trip down the psychedelic highway of consciousness to come face to face with his own morality and his own twisted soul.”

So the main character is a young psychopath and con artist. Nice to see those just starting out in the job market to have clear career goals. Reach for the moon, I say. But don’t do drugs — that stuff will ruin your life.

Grandma Zombies, More Sharks, Hollywood Bigfoot

Got a kick out of actor Rob Lowe’s recent statement that he and his sons had a face-to-face encounter with Bigfoot in the Ozarks while shooting a new docuseries called self-servingly, The Lowe Files (premiering August 2, 2017 on A&E). From the press release: “The reality show follows Lowe and his two teenage sons, Matthew and John Owen, as they travel around the country investigating mysterious phenomena and paranormal activity.”

This is what happens to your career when it runs out of gas. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Lowe told the celebrity gossip magazine, “We had an incredible encounter with what locals call the ‘wood ape,’ which is in the Ozark Mountains. I’m fully aware that I sound like a crazy, Hollywood kook right now.”

Looks like Rob just wrote his show’s first review.

Speaking of kooky Hollywood things, here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that you may or may not come face-to-face with on your TV/movie theater screen — whether you live in the Ozarks or not…

GRANNY OF THE DEAD (July 14, 2017)
“Regular guy Ed awakes one morning to find that his Grandma has become one of the living dead. Trapped in his home, Ed struggles to handle the situation. When he discovers the rest of the town’s elderly have also been infected by the zombie plague, Ed must become a hero in order to save his family and friends.”

Aren’t old people zombies already? I mean, minus the flesh-eating part? Then again, I suppose it’s easier to chew human flesh with dentures, provided said cheap meat has been cut up for you and served around 4PM at Royal Fork Buffet restaurants.

OPEN WATER 3: CAGE DIVE (August 11, 2017)
“Three American tourists are making an audition tape of a shark cage dive for a reality TV show. A catastrophic turn of events leaves them stranded in the waters of South Australia surrounded by hungry great white sharks.”

When aren’t great white sharks hungry? As oceanographer Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) expertly pointed out in Jaws (1975), “What we’re dealing with here is a perfect engine, an eating machine. All this machine does is swim, eat and make little sharks.” So yeah, looking forward to the sharks graphically doing at least one of those things. (Sorry, nature pervs — this is a PG-rated affair.) And while it sports the Open Water moniker, it’s only related to the previous two Open Water movies in name only. Odd, as the plot is nearly identical. This one, though, is found footage crapola, which in this case, probably works.

P.S. I wrote about this back on October 13, 2016 when it was merely called Cage Dive. With a title that uninspired, not surprised that they added “Open Water” to it to cash in. All things being equal, I would’ve done the same thing, but changed it slightly: Open Water: The Eatening.

DEATH NOTE (August 25, 2017/Netflix)
“Intoxicated by the power of a supernatural notebook, a young man begins killing those he deems unworthy of life. Based on the famous Japanese manga.”

I wrote about Death Note: Light Up The New World, the Japanese sequel, on April 25, 2017. You’re welcome. This Death Note is the American remake of the first DN movie, which came out in 2006. The new trailer is crazy cool nuts, the premise being that a “death note book” drops out of the sky and when you write someone’s name in it, they soon expire. My neck keeps hurting from looking up at the sky for falling books.

BLADE RUNNER 2049 (October 6, 2017)
“Thirty years after the events of the first film, a new blade runner, LAPD Officer K, unearths a long-buried secret that has the potential to plunge what’s left of society into chaos. K’s discovery leads him on a quest to find Rick Deckard, a former LAPD blade runner who has been missing for 30 years.”

The original Blade Runner (1982) has long been considered one of sci-fi’s greatest movies ever in the history of the future. Hence (from Wikipedia™), film critics Chris Ridley and Janet Maslin theorized that “Blade Runner changed cinematic and cultural discourse through its image repertoire, and subsequent influence on films.”

Not everyone liked Blade Runner…or even understood it when it first came out (me included). But re-watching the seven different film cuts (including one where filmmaker Ridley Scott had full artistic license to edit), Blade Runner holds up surprisingly well, and makes the future look as bleak and doom-y as it does today.

ROAD OF THE DEAD (2018)
“Road of the Dead takes place six years after 2005’s post-apocalyptic Land of the Dead and is set on an island where zombie prisoners race cars in a modern-day Coliseum for the entertainment of wealthy humans.”

A return to the zombie genre he kinda started with Night of the Living Dead back in 1968, George Romero’s Road of the Dead is being described as Road Warrior (1981) meets Rollerball (1975) at a Nascar™ race, with significant inspiration from Ben-Hur (1959). That seems pretty dang awesome, especially since his Land of the Dead arrived DOA. So zombies driving race cars — can you say “morning commute”?

Poetic Alien

You can forget about Prometheus 2 right here and now. Just walk away.

But don’t walk too far as what we all assumed would be the sequel title for Prometheus (2012) is now being called Alien: Paradise Lost (release date none of your beeswax). This was revealed by director Ridley Scott, who is crafting the sequel as we e-speak.

To all you literary types: The title is an intentional reference to Paradise Lost, the John Milton classic. (Milton, a 16th century poet, probably wore shirts with poofy sleeves and drank wine out of a bucket.)

So what is the connection to the mammoth master work and the Alien franchise? Pretty clear to me that the new alien creatures will recite poems with their outer mouth while they punch a hole in your face with their inner extend-o mouth.

Sometimes I’m embarrassed by my smartness.

Mars: The Go-To Planet To Go To

Do believe in Martians? If you’re like one of those Flat Earth/Hollow Earth conspiracy theorist idiots on YouTube™, you probably do.

And why the heck not? Mars is big news these days, what with tantalizing new pics coming in daily via NASA’s Curiosity Rover showing geo-formed rocks that look like actual residents kicking it around the Red Planet. Besides, since aliens are long known to have built factories on the dark side of the Moon – proven by blurry photos interpreted by pseudo-scientists and anyone with low-level credentials and/or white lab coats – Mars is way less boring than the Moon, which regularly gives werewolves a night out every 30 days.

Yeesh – all over the lunar surface here.

Anyway, two Mars based sci-fi movies headed toward your orbit: The Martian, a big-budget Ridley Scott interplanetary thriller starring Matt Damon, arriving in September 2015. And as could be expected, Martian Land from The Asylum – a low-budget horror/sci-fi film studio long established as idea thieves hiding under lawsuit-safe words like “mockumentary” and “homage,” releasing in the contrails of The Martian on October 6, 2015. The plots, if you will…

The Martian: “During a human mission to Mars, astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon) is presumed dead after being caught in a fierce storm, and is left behind when the rest of the crew evacuate the planet and begin to head back to Earth. Watney finds himself stranded and alone, with only meager supplies and his ingenuity, wit, and spirit to subsist and find a way to signal home, despite knowing that even if his survival is made known there is no prospect of a rescue.”

Martian Land: “In the distant future mankind lives on Mars, in cities that resemble those once found on Earth, protected from the alien atmosphere by dome-like force-fields. When a massive sandstorm breaks through the dome and destroys Mars New York, those in Mars Los Angeles must figure out how to stop the storm before it wipes them out next.”

Mars New York/Mars Los Angeles. What, no Mars Canada?

So, if like those Flat Earth/Hollow Earth conspiracy theorist idiots on YouTube™ you have too much time on your hands, waste it on Martian Land. Everyone else – of which I hope there are many – see you in line to see The Martian.

P.S. For a comprehensive study of Mars and its inhabitants, check out the definitive Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964), in “space-blazing color, no less. Lab coat not required.

Alien Anniversary

Fox Home Entertainment should be in the farming business as they’re experts at milking cash cows, i.e., Alien (1979), this time a re-re-re-release coming at you in a slick new art-y box packaged as a 35th Anniversary Edition with some re-purposed “extras” to get you to buy it again. (Goes on sale October 7, 2014. Price depends on which version you want. Warning – they have ‘em all.)

Dang. And now I’m about to buy into Alien again. (What the hell is wrong with me?) I bought the movie ticket. I bought the VHS. I bought the DVD. I bought the Blu-ray™. I bought the extended version w/deleted scenes. I bought the box set. I bought the limited edition Quadrilogy hi-def in-yer-Matrix box set. Crap, I could own my own Nostromo salvage vessel by now with all the money I’ve shelled out for this thing.

Here’s the other wallet-draining “jewels” you get with this version…

Special Features:

• Audio Commentary by Director Ridley Scott, Cast and Crew

• Audio Commentary by Ridley Scott (Theatrical Version Only)

• Introduction by Ridley Scott (Director’s Cut Only)

• Final Theatrical Isolated Score by Jerry Goldsmith

• Composers Original Isolated Score by Jerry Goldsmith

• Deleted and Extended Scenes

Collectibles:

• A reprint of the original Alien illustrated comic.

• All-new, collectible art cards as a tribute to the late H.R. Giger.

In case you forgot: “When the crew of the space-tug Nostromo responds to a distress signal from a barren planet, they discover a mysterious life form that breeds within human hosts. The acid-blooded extraterrestrial proves to be the ultimate adversary as crew members battle to stay alive and prevent the deadly creature from reaching Earth.”

I remember the first time I saw Alien in a movie theater. I didn’t blink once, even while shoveling fists full of hydrogenated oiled popcorn down my space yap. When the alien finally jumped out, I spontaneously, possibly willfully and symbolically crapped my pants. And this is why to this day I am not allowed back in the Admiral Theatre. (Not cool behavior for a teenager alledgedly house-broken since the sixth grade.)