Artistic Horror, Getting High With Evil, Big Birds

Found some incredibly stunning horror/sci-fi art by shockingly talented Stefan Koidl. So visually disturbing are his paintings, the elegantly sick cool images could be made into horror movies.

Stefan is a freelance illustrator/concept artist who lives in Hallein, Austria. I looked it up on Google Maps™. It’s kinda far from where I live. But you can visit his website on ArtStation.com by clicking HERE. It’s here you’ll find unique creatures, monsters, demons, robots and apocalyptic visions that usually accompany a Jägermeister binge.

While you sober up, here are a few upcoming horror movies that may or may not have you needing a shot or three of Jägermeister to get through…

DARK LIGHT (2019)
“Following her mother’s death and a painful divorce Annie and her daughter move back to her childhood home. At first, everything seems fine but then tragedy strikes again when on a foggy night Emily goes missing from her bedroom. Annie claims that she saw something come from the darkness and take Emily…a creature. Nobody believes her. But when Emily’s body is not found Annie becomes the prime suspect and is sent to a correctional hospital. Annie must now escape the hospital and return to the house to confront the creature that she believes has stolen her daughter.”

YET ANOTHER generic plot with a generic title. I tried to count how many movies had the word “dark” in it. Got up to one million before I lost track. So, like, figure one million and one.

THE HOARD (2019)
“The Hoard is a comedy/horror mockumentary that chronicles the unraveling of a production team who are attempting to produce the ultimate reality TV show pilot ‘Extremely Haunted Hoarders’.”

Odd plot. How does haunting factor in with the hoarding stuff like old newspapers or snow globes? Maybe they’re being haunted by visions of a clutter-free home.

HEAD COUNT (2019)
“During a weekend getaway to Joshua Tree, a group of teenagers find themselves under mental and physical assault from a supernatural entity that mimics their appearances as it completes an ancient ritual.”

Isn’t Joshua Tree where people go to take acid and open the doors of perception? I bet they’re just really high and are hallucinating the supernatural entity, which may or may not be the ghost of Jim Morrison.

TERROR IN THE SKIES (2019/pending crowd-funding)
“Director Seth Breedlove explores hundreds of years of terrifying reports of encounters with massive winged creatures around the land of Lincoln. From Alton’s man-eating Lincoln legends to recent sightings in Chicago of a creature said to resemble Point Pleasant, West Virginia’s infamous Mothman, Terror in the Skies unlocks a centuries-old mystery.”

Man, I hope a massive winged creature doesn’t crap on my car.

Sea Ya Sharks, Mansion Ghosts, Farm To Market Cannibals

On July 25, 2018 we’ll be saying goodbye to the gooftacular Sharknado universe with the latest, as-yet-untitled Sharknado sequel. (They should call it Will The Last Sharknado Leaving The Ocean, Please Turn Off The Faucet? A bit wordy, but nail on the head.) Note to selves: I tagged this one on February 22, 2018. Then I washed and combed my hair for two hours.

The left-field hit series that started as a waterspout that pulls sharks out of the ocean and dumps them all over Los Angeles, started in 2013 with Sharknado, and successfully regurgitated the formulaic plots with endless celebrity cameos with Sharknado: The Second One (2014), Sharknado: Oh Hell No! (2015), Sharknado: The 4th Awakens (2016) and Sharknado: Global Swarming (2017). Even before the new/final one, this is like the movie version of Hokey Pokey.

While we cross our fingers that this will indeed be the last Sharknado, were are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not belong in a watery grave…

CARTEL 2045 (May 1, 2018)
“The year is 2045, the continuing drug war has caused havoc between The United States and Mexico. Gear Side International, a robotics engineering company on the brink of bankruptcy, sells off their technology to the Cartel on the black market. With the advanced military robotics technology in the wrong hands the cartel uses it to their advantage; replacing their enforcers, hit men, and soldiers.”

Who needs robots when you have Machete himself to take care of future business? (Note to reader: It’s really Danny Trejo, who played the iconic badass Machete in previous kick ass films, though I’m not seeing much of a difference). I live in Seattle, but I have friends in Los Angeles who regularly eat at his restaurant: Trejos Tacos. Wonder if they chop up the taco fillings with a…machete? That’s be SO cool.

WRAITH (May 8, 2018)
“After living in an old mansion for almost 10 years a family suddenly discovers a ghost-like presence trying to communicate with them.”

I would like to live in an old mansion that has a ghost-like presence. But does the squatting specter chip in on the cable bill, scrub toilets every other month and chase other ghosts out of the cellar, you know household chores everyone has to do? Might have to bring that up during the next family poltergeist pow-wow.

BEAST (May 11, 2018)
“A troubled young woman in a small island community falls for a mysterious outsider who empowers her to escape from her oppressive family. When he comes under suspicion for a series of brutal murders she defends him at all costs and learns what she is capable of.”

This one’s being described as a “warped adult fairy tale.” Works for me, though it seems like a really bad idea to a.) commit brutal murders, and b.) do it on a small community island. Unless you’re Aquaman’s cousin’s brother’s nephew and could swim away from the cops, you’re pretty much dry-docked in the zip code.

THE FARM (2018/2019)
“A young couple gets kidnapped and treated like farm animals after stopping at a roadside diner to eat meat.”

I don’t hang out in barns (anymore), so I’m not sure how farm animals are being treated these days. If I remember the Old MacDonald literary works correctly, cows and chickens and beavers get three hots and a cot. Doesn’t sound that bad to me.

More Slashers, More Serial Killers, More Maniacs

Some advance key art for Pacific Rim: Uprising, the sequel to Pacific Rim (2013), which pay-per-viewed skyscraper-sized, human-controlled robots against skyscraper-sized, non-human monsters from another dimension that had a revolving door at the bottom of the ocean. PR: Uprising stomps through theaters March 23, 2018.

As for what we can expect, more and bigger skyscraper-sized, human-controlled robots against skyscraper-sized, non-human monsters from another dimension. Not a bad thing, I should think. While we impatiently await the weapons of mass entertainment, here are a few horror movies that may or may not be from this alternate universe…

CRAZY LAKE (available now)
“A group of coeds looking for fun on spring break have their beach plans canceled and opt for Plan B – fun at a cabin on the lake. Sometimes Plan B can be a real killer!”

This couldn’t be more limp as undercooked bacon. Ironically, it sounds like the coeds will be sliced like bacon. We can only hope.

LAKE ALICE (available now)
“The Thomas’ travel to their lakeside cabin in the woods for a joyous Christmas celebration with their daughter and her new boyfriend, but the joy is short-lived and the body count is high.”

There’s a real Lake Alice here in Washington, about a machete throw off the Interstate. Fishing opportunities include catchable-size Rainbow Trout stocked in the spring, with Largemouth Bass and Sunfish also present. The public access has parking, a boat ramp and vault toilets. No slashers, though. Sorry.

CABIN 28 (available now)
“The shocking true story based on the most infamous unsolved murder case in American history. On April 11th 1981, Sue Sharp and her family are enjoying their stay at Cabin 28 in the peaceful holiday resort of Keddie. But a day of fun at the remote getaway turns into a heart stopping nightmare as nightfall brings masked strangers to the cabin. A brutal battle for survival leaves several members of the family dead and one missing. An extensive police investigation follows but no one is convicted of the crime. Now, over thirty years later, Cabin 28 finally gives up its deadly secret.”

Geez, they give away the entire plot in the press release. So we get to see a family slaughtered by slaughterers wearing clown masks. Not seeing a deadly secret here. That, and I’m really burnt out on clowns — circus, rodeo or bar drunks.

TARNATION (November 24, 2017/MonsterFest screening)
“When Oscar’s dreams of becoming a rock star are brutally crushed and her boyfriend leaves, Oscar travels to a ghost town called Tarnation where she and a group of friends have rented a cabin in the woods for a weekend away. Unfortunately the cabin is host to a cursed painting and the surrounding woods are literally, Satan’s playground. Oscar soon finds herself battling a demon unicorn, possessed souls and Satan himself in an epic battle for her soul.”

The plot is weak as wet toilet paper, but the demon unicorn is kinda neat. That’s right up there with a wiccan penguin, mad cow and/or a schizophrenic monkey butler. Last thought: If she goes to a ghost town, how is it she and her soon-to-be expired friends able to rent a cabin? Couldn’t you just, like, stay there for free? Sure, no concierge or mini-bar. But hey, the price is right.

Vampire Princesses, Serial Killers, Chick Robots

I’ve long known that the National UFO Reporting Center is located in Davenport, right here in Washington State, just shy of a five hour easterly drive from where I’m lounging around in my unmentionables. Thought it might be cool to call them up and chat about all things unidentified and/or flying. Didn’t have any sightings to tell them about, just wanted to see what’s up with UFOs these days. (269 reports in February — down from 310 in January. Maybe flying saucers aren’t beer-running as much now that Amazon Prime™ delivers right to your styrofoam fridge.)

Here’s their number in case you want to report an alien invasion: (206) 722-3000. Or if you don’t have a phone (social misfit), visit their website at www.nuforc.org. They do important work.

And on an unrelated topic, here are some identified new horror movies landing soon near you…

THE LAST VAMPIRE PRINCESS (March 16, 2017/UK – 2017/2018 U.S.)
“Pasha is a delivery boy for an express delivery service in Moscow. One evening he is delivering a parcel to a hotel, when he witnesses an attack on a mysterious guest of the hotel named Dana. Pasha steps in and saves the girl from her attackers, who possess amazing, supernatural powers. Representatives of secret intelligence agencies arrive on the scene of the incident and proceed to offering Pasha a job in the top secret Department D that deals with evil spirits, performing daily accounting and control of all the non-human creatures that live in the city, such as poltergeists, goblins and mermaids.”

Man, this one sounds cool. I wanna work for Department D — might be my only chance to hook up (heh) with a mermaid.

THE ABDUCTION OF JENNIFER GRAYSON (March 28, 2017)
“Kidnapped after spurning a man’s advances, a young woman slowly falls for the charms of her captor. He eventually sets her free, but is he the serial killer the police have been hunting for? Only Jennifer Grayson can help them stop him once and for all.”

Not a fan of serial killer horror movies. They’re like the karaoke of violence. That, and since we see this stuff all the time in real life and at the grocery store, who really cares?

SHE-BORG MASSACRE (April 19, 2017)
“When an alien fugitive crash lands into a local puppy farm and begins turning people into mutated robot killing machines with a taste for puppy flesh, Dylan and Eddie, two self-proclaimed political activists, are all that stand between the Earth and total domination. Forced into a ‘dare to be great’ situation that neither are prepared for, the two BFFL’s must fight their way past cops, city officials and cybernetic dog butchers in order to destroy the evil Sheborg and save the planet!”

Puppy flesh?!? What’s for dessert — a Kit Kat™ candy bar made out of a real cat? Pretty ballsy to use that as a plot device, given the billions of dog and cat owners that would serial kill you for even insinuating harm towards an animal.

 ROCK PAPER DEAD (2017)
“After 10 years, serial killer, Peter ‘the Doll Maker’ Harris returns as a ‘cured man’ to his ancestral family home after being released from the state’s hospital for the criminally insane. Once inside the old house, anguished memories from a tortured childhood and ghostly visitations from his past victims shake Peter’s resolve. It isn’t until lovely young Ashley enters his life that Peter makes a fateful decision, one that will rekindle old desires that always ended in murder.”

This one was supposed to come out in 2016. Seems like a long time ago and feels like anguished memories. So yep, YET ANOTHER serial killer movie with a plot that appear to have come from a Wal-Mart clearance sale. Hope there’s a return policy.

And because I missed your birthday/Christmas/anniversary/bar mitzvah/misc., here is yest another cool new Kong: Skull Island poster, just for you…

Detrimental Robots

After filming a suicide in Tokyo’s killing field (the subway system), cameraman Masuoka is drawn back to the scene for more answers. Upon replaying the footage, he notices that just seconds before the man stuck a knife into his forehead, he was looking at something — and that something scared the life outta him. Well, that and the knife.

Intriguing set-up for the Japanese horror flick, Marebito (2006). Masuoka finds a door that leads to a vast subterranean labyrinth where the Detros (a contraction of detrimental robots) live. They’re eerie, white creatures who make people stab themselves in the head. He encounters a young naked gal chained to a wall. She can’t talk, but that doesn’t stop Masuoka from asking her out on a date. He takes her home and tries to feed her, but she keeps barfing all over the place. That’ll teach him to use Match.com™ to screen potential girlfriends.

The girl is drawn to Masuoka’s bleeding finger and sucks on it like a Tootsie Pop™. Instead of feeding her with his own liquid, Masuoka sets the dinner table with dead animals. If you’re thinkin’ yum, too, then we’re on the same wavelength. But the girl needs human blood. Masuoka goes so far as to slice his own tongue in half and feed it to her. Even though it looks like she’s kissing him, she’s really just removing the blood out of his face. Still, ick.

But like all good love stories, it must come to a grisly end. So was it all in Masuoka’s crazed, Prozac™-deprived head, and that he really murdered his wife, and the mute girl was his daughter whom he kept chained like a dangerous pettable animal? Or are there really eerie white creatures living beneath Tokyo in huge caves? I’m going with the Detros.

Smart Aliens, Evilness & World Destroying Cats

Looking at the overflowing toilet of impending horror/sci-fi movies, I’m visibly shocked and probably shaken to the core that there are no movies about robot werewolves. Hollywood — where are you? I’ve written 13 scripts, all ready to go. Admittedly, they’re all the same. But hey, if it’s not broken, why fix it?

Here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi flicks that don’t have robot werewolves in ‘em…

LIFE (May 26, 2017)
“A six-member crew of the International Space Station is on the cutting edge of one of the most important discoveries in human history: the first evidence of extraterrestrial life on Mars. As the crew begins to conduct research, their methods end up having unintended consequences and the life form proves more intelligent than anyone ever expected.”

Of course extraterrestrials are more intelligent than we are; they don’t live here. A big-budget sci-fi movie featuring movie stars who have more money in their bank accounts than us non-Hollywood types. They should pay us to go to the movies.

FROM A HOUSE ON WILLOW STREET (2017/VOD/Limited)
“Roguish kidnappers abduct the daughter of a wealthy diamond distributor. When they have her locked up in their hideout, they realize she’s been possessed by a sinister demon.”

Rougish kidnappers. They sound mean. I hope the sinister demon gives them a smack lesson in civic manners and such.

MOGGY CREATURES (in-production/2017)
“A couple takes in a stray cat, hoping to rebuild their marriage, only to have it spawn a litter of evil monsters.”

If you need a cat to rebuild your marriage, your relationship is already in the dumper. As for a litter of evil monsters, they’re cats; what did you expect? Cats have been planning the end of the world long before we started buying ‘em Fancy Feast™, sparkle collars and giving them names like “Shakespurr” and “Sir Pickles Pennybottom.”

NIGHTWORLD (2017)
“When former LAPD officer Brett Anderson takes a job as head of security at an old apartment building in Bulgaria’s capital, he soon begins to experience a series of bizarre and terrifying events. Once he begins to delve deep into the building’s sinister history, and investigate its shadowy owners and past employees, Brett soon uncovers a malevolent force nestled deep in the bowels of the building in basement that will do anything to be set free into our world.”

Sound familiar? Of course it does. This was the same plot for Mirrors (2008), except in that one it was an evil department store. But hey, “apartment” rhymes with “department,” so guilty as charged.

CUT SHOOT KILL (2017)
“Serena Brooks, an ambitious young actress, signs on as the star of a horror film with a crew of backwoods filmmakers that have worked together for years. When the cast starts disappearing, Serena has to become her character if she wants to survive.”

YET ANOTHER case of plot-lifting. This was the outline of Cut, released back in 2000. That one starred Molly Ringwald, who was in the delightful, yet critically savaged Jem and the Holograms (2015). The media can be so cruel.

Earth Must be Stopped

Remember The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951/2008)? Well, this time it stopped altogether. No loitering for this planet, just a complete and utter dead halt.

I could end my overview of The Day The Earth Stopped (2008) right here, but there may be one or two of you who never listen when I tell them movies that are quick knock-offs of other — and better — flicks, suck the big [insert your choice of disparaging proper noun here].

A battalion of spaceships pull up to Earth and park their giant destructo robots in areas all over the world. Six hundred and sixty-six of ’em to be exact, though you only get to see one.

Two aliens — a naked young man with zits on his face, and a nude 30-something woman with heavy eye shadow and thick lip gloss (from the “Hot Uranus Nights” weekend collection) — are captured by the Army and interrogated.

Turns out Earth has been pissing off all the other planets, and it’s time to kiss our arrogant fannies goodbye. That is, unless we can show them a reason for sparing our lives…by sundown. Unfortunately, the giant robots start blasting, wrecking an innocent Ferris wheel and shooting the top off the Eiffel Tower. France probably deserved it.

The lesson learned? Don’t watch cheap knock-off “sci-fi” movies like this anymore. But like touching a hot stove burner, I’ll probably do it again.

Big Apple Automaton

The semi cult sci-fi classic The Colossus of New York (1958) borrows liberally from Frankenstein (1931) and the real-life horror story of the theft of Einstein’s brain in 1955.

Dr. Frankenstein (Victor, to those who tailgated with him) sewed together parts of corpses, goosed it alive by the stuff that comes out of lamp sockets, and brought the now-living product to market.

Albert (or “Al”) Einstein, the Nobel prize-winning physicist who gave me/you/the world the theory of relativity E = mc2 (I use that all the time – so useful), had some nut bag pathologist (Thomas Harvey) steal his brain in hopes of scientifically chopping it up to discover any anomalies that could explain the smartest guy in the world’s scientific acumen. Harvey kept Al’s brain in a cider box stashed under a beer cooler. (There’s probably a joke in there somewhere.)

Watch how I flawlessly tie this together with the movie. On the eve of a big party to accept the International Peace Prize (the menu featured those fancy cocktail wieners on platters), 34 year-old Jeremy Spensser gets flattened by a truck. Boom, boom – out go the lights. He left behind a young son and a rather fetching wife.

Jeremy’s Dad and brother – both scientists – feel Jeremy’s lying down on the job and decide to extract his brain and transplant it into probably one of the best dressed robots ever created in a downstairs lab. Told’ja I could tie it all together.

Widow Spensser and her son move into her father and brother-in-law’s giant mansion, unaware her husband’s thinker is powering a 9-foot robot in the basement. Not only can Jeremy-Bot speak (with cool sparking electrical noises), he has ESP, can hypnotize you with the flashing bulbs he calls eyeballs, and can deep fry you with electric beams, which make you pretty much dead and looking for a spare robot to live in.

Things get messy when the robot discovers his brother has had swollen intentions on his former wife, even trying to get her to go to Hawaii with him. She should’ve gone; that’s a pretty impressive/all-inclusive first date.

The p.o.’d robot swims (!) to an condemned part of the Manhattan shipping waterfront, confronts his bro, and zap-zaps him into deadness. There goes another unfulfilled vacation bathing suit.

Wanting to kill the world, Colossus (title only) calls for the scientific community to meet at the U.N. and when they get there, proceeds to microwave every non-robot in sight. Almost all of the people just stand there, so it’s they’re fault for not trying to run away with their pants down while screaming.

Bullets do nothing because hey – ROBOT! Fortunately, Spensser’s son – who is against all this zapping – gets through to robo-dad. In a moment of clarity, he has his kid pull the kill-switch lever located on the side of his former rib cage. Then everybody just walks away like that sort of thing happens in New York all the time. Maybe it does. How the heck should I know? I believe everything I see on the TV.

Pretty lame ending. Then again, so it was for Frankenstein’s monster and the Einster.

LOL Horror & Sci-Fi

Three new horror hopeful hits headed in this general direction. There’s probably more movies coming out, but I need to spend the day combing my hair YET AGAIN, so three is all you get from me on this 23rd day of the third month of the year 2016.

First up is The Snarling. Cool title. It could be in reference to anything from a werewolf or mad raccoon, to a bitter bear or my neighbor lady whose facial muscles are botoxed to the point she looks like her stretched skin is gonna pop.

Anyway, here’s the skinny on The Snarling, already screened in the U.K., but not here. I don’t know why: “When a cursed new horror film is being made in their village, locals Les, Mike and Bob see their chance to cash in and get famous. As the local Detective Inspector and his hapless sergeant Haskins eventually trace a link in recent bloody mutilations to the film, the race is on to stop the killings before our local heroes get caught up in the real blood and guts.”

Bloody mutilations is an oxymoron.

Next up is First Man on Mars, a spoof on The Martian (2015). In this one the send a guy to Mars, but he comes back infected with space gunk, turning him into a “crazed, savage monster with an unquenchable thirst for human flesh.”

Here’s the splashdown on First Man on Mars (release pending 2016): “In 2003 billionaire astronaut Eli Cologne began his journey through space to become the first man on Mars, but something went horribly wrong. The space craft crashed undetected in a remote part of Louisiana during Hurricane Katrina, and he’s been hunting both human and animal prey in the swamps for years. For small town sheriff Dick Ruffman, it’s a race against time to find the man-turned-monster before he kills again in this horrifying and hilarious satire of low budget drive-in grindhouse creature features from the 1970s.”

Crazed, savage monster with an unquenchable thirst for human flesh is an oxymoron.

Lastly, the brilliantly punned Australiens (releasing June 14, 2016) is a comedic take on an alien invasion set in the Land of Roo: “An extraterrestrial armada launches a nationwide assault on Australia. Seems the other nations of the world are far too insulted by their exclusion from the attack to come to Australia’s aid. Car-chasing spaceships, martial-arts aliens, giant killer robots and more.”

Australia doesn’t need our help – they have tasty beers. And you can never lose when you have tasty beers.

Must be The Season of the Witch

Despite being made by John Carpenter, the same guy who did Halloween (1978) and Halloween II (1981), Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) has nothing to do with its predecessors. That’s good because there’s only so many sexually-active teens you can poke with a knife before it gets boring.

A druid descendant, fronting as the silver head of Silver Shamrock Novelties™, makes full-head witch, pumpkin and skeleton Halloween masks. These popular items are embedded with a microchip made from pieces of Stonehenge™, and placed there by robots with nice hair. If you’re wearing the mask and watching TV at the specially-designated time, you’ll see the broadcast Halloween secret. And that secret is that it activates the microchip in your mask and your head implodes and turns into snakes and bugs. Oh, yeah – green stuff that used to be your brains also leaks out.

An alcoholic doctor uncovers the plan and, with hottie Stacy Nelkin, tries to convince TV stations to not run the commercial so that kids all over the world won’t get the living room carpet dirty with particulate matter. Good luck with that.

As cornball as it all is, Halloween III: Season of the Witch is a fair investment for your DVD rental coupons. Bonus: Once you hear Silver Shamrock’s “Happy, Happy Halloween” theme song used for the marketing of said kill masks, you won’t be able to get it out of your, uh, head.