TV Superheroes, Wooden Evil, Bad Babies

Cracking up over the “cover story” of the Daily Planet (where Superman as Clark Kent works for minimum wage) about superheroes uniting to protect the Earth. Whoever mocked this up is a flippin’ genius and probably drinks a lot of smart water.

The article is “written” by Lois Lane. So awesome. But it’s the photo of Superman (George Reeves), Batman (Adam West), Robin (Burt Ward) Wonder Woman (Lynda Carter) and Aquaman (Lloyd Bridges) that’s even better because none of these heroes overlapped in the same time/universe. Conclusive proof: Adventures of Superman aired from 1952 — 1958. Batman aired from 1966 — 1968. Wonder Woman aired from 1975 — 1979. And Sea Hunt (here’s the genius part) aired from 1958 — 1961. Outside of a pilot episode that sunk faster than a heavy metal clam, there was no Aquaman TV series. There was, however, a cartoon series that ran from 1967 — 1970, so someone cast former United States Navy frogman Mike Nelson (Lloyd Bridges) as the scuba-doo underwater hero (Sea Hunt ran for 155 episodes). That he was depicted as Aquaman (in his original DC Comics suit) is full-on brilliant. P.S. Aquaman was punked by Man From Atlantis, which ran from 1977 — 1978, and featured a guy with “amphibious abilities.” That is so low tide.

While I go to Metropolis to get a copy of the Daily Planet and frame it, here’s a few upcoming horror movies that may or may not be worthy of a Lois Lane cover story…

BLOOD CHILD (available now)
“After suffering a devastating miscarriage in Singapore, Ashley turns to a witch doctor to help her with the occult practice of raising a ‘ghost child’ and finding the spirit of her lost child. After returning to the States, Ashley and her husband Bill find themselves pregnant again. However, their happiness is short lived as the pregnancy acts as a catalyst for a series of terrifying events that start to occur within their home. The family soon learns that Ashley has brought back a lot more than just memories from Asia. The spirit of their lost child is not about to play second fiddle to the impending new arrival, and unleashes an unspeakable evil upon the household.”

YET ANOTHER evil kid birth movie. Start with Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and go from there. So what do you feed the little home wrecker — Gerber’s™ Demon Peas? (Their strained Hell bananas, though, are to die for. No pun intended.)

ROOTWOOD (2018)
“Students Jessica and William are hosting The Spooky Hour, a podcast about paranormal phenomena and urban legends, when they’re hired by the Hollywood film producer Laura Benott to produce a horror documentary about the Curse of the Wooden Devil. They smell a chance to become famous. Together with their friend Erin they enter Rootwood Forest and investigate the area to find out the truth about the Wooden Devil and his victims.”

Sounds like YET ANOTHER Blair Witch Project (1999) knock-off/rip-off. What if they get there, only to find out the Wooden Devil is just handmade birdhouse? We can only hope satanic seagulls live in it.

THE WIND (2018)
“A supernatural thriller set in the Western frontier of the late 1800s, where a plains-woman is driven mad by the harshness and isolation of the untamed land.”

She’s not looking at the plus side of living way out in the middle of nowhere. No traffic, noisy neighbors and plenty of flesh-eating buffalo to play fetch with and occasionally rub their fuzzy bellies (they really like that). Sounds like a slice of Heaven to me.

ISABELLE (2019)
“An all-American couple dream of starting a family is shattered after they move into the perfect New England neighborhood. Once settled, they soon after descend into the depths of terror as they struggle to survive a genuine threat from a dark presence that appears to want to end their very lives.”

Though this one was originally titled, The Wanting, it should’ve been called The Republicans. It also describes me in a dive bar, or “unkempt tavern.”

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!

Teenage Wiccans, Alien Ghosts, Hair Metal Horror

Here’s some wild, but not totally unexpected news: The CW and Warner Bros. are teaming up on Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, a remake of the hit comedy TV show, Sabrina The Teenage Witch (1996 — 2003), but with a darker edge. Kinda like what they did recently with Archie and Riverdale.

From the press release: “ This is a re-imagining of the origin and adventures of Sabrina as a dark coming-of-age story that traffics in horror, the occult, and witchcraft. The series is described as being tonally in the vein of horror classics like Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist and will see Sabrina wrestling to reconcile her dual nature as a half-witch, half-mortal while standing against the evil forces that threaten her, her family, and the daylight world humans inhabit.”

Wonder if Casper The Friendly Ghost will make a cameo? If so, hope they take the friendly part out and just have him mysterying up the hood while looking for the body of Casper the dead kid.

Until that day arrives, here are a few upcoming horror and sci-fi movies/TV series to conjure on the tube…

GHOSTED (October 1, 2017/Twitter)
“Leroy Wright is a cynical skeptic and former missing persons detective, who thinks that ‘aliens’ are a big ’ol bunch of B.S. and that people who believe in them are certifiably nuts — people like Max Jennifer. Max is a genius true believer in the paranormal who’s convinced his wife was abducted by aliens.”

A new comedy “ghost-busting” TV series on Fox™, premiering first on Twitter™ of all things. The trailers look pretty funny — like I do after a night of imbibing (sorry — word of the day calendar), so I guess I’ll watch it. But not on Twitter — I’m gonna watch it on TV like everyone should legally do.

DEAD ANT (October 10, 2017)
“When the one-hit-wonder glam metal band Sonic Grave embark on a trip to Coachella in hopes of a comeback, their peyote trip pit stop in Joshua Tree incites an ‘unworldly’ viscous attack, and they must rock themselves out of harms way.”

“Rock themselves out of harms way.” Sounds like the story of my life. Hair metal fans will see the rip-off/homage of Maybelline™ models Poison’s 1986 Look What The Cat Dragged In debut album on the key art. I’ll watch it, but just know that my mantra is “thrashin’, not fashion.”

THE SANDMAN (October 14, 2017)
“With a clandestine government agency closing in on the young girl, Claire and Madison will have to work together to find a way to stop the Sandman before he claims his next victim. Factor in the sinister Valentine who leads a cadre of bureaucrats who do not mean well and soon, strange things start happening whenever Madison is around. Things move around by themselves. Cabinet doors open and close. Almost as if there’s some kind of supernatural entity in the house. It’s a journey you’ll have to fully experience to understand.”

Sounds like 1984’s Firestarter, wherein a little girl who can make things burn just by using her mind, is chased by those looking to apply her skills to a job in the government. I say give the little gal a bag of marshmallows and make snacks happen.

 

BLOOD RUNS THICK (2018)
“A beautiful young woman struggles with frightening hallucinations and a crumbling mental state after her husband goes missing.”

Horrible movie art. Looks like it was done by someone who was hallucinating and in the grips of a crumbling mental state. Hey, I just described ME!

Evil Revenge, Basement Rats, Olympic-Grade Sharks

July 23, 2017 marks the beginning of Discovery™ channel’s mecha-popular Shark Week, with probably one of the worst promotional ideas since Sharknado (2013). On Sunday, July 23, 2017 they’re having Olympic gold medalist swimmer Michael Phelps (the most decorated Olympian of all time, with a total of 28 medals) racing a great white shark, the kicker line being “the battle for ocean supremacy.” And you thought the bottom of the sea was low.

This concept of matching up sharks with celebrities was first tried on the waning sitcom Happy Days back in September of 1977, during which The Fonz — wearing a bathing suit and leather jacket, ski jumped over a shark in a pen just mere biting distance from those delicious skis with human filling.

While we wait for that over-hyped moment, here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that’ll sink or swim…

INSIDE (2017)
“Alone and carrying her baby, Sarah faces a calculating, cold-hearted and predatory woman — an adversary who will stop at nothing to snatch her unborn child. Trapped and disorientated, barely able to hear the evil that stalks her, Sarah must unleash all her reserves of strength to protect her baby and survive the night. Never underestimate a mother’s protective fury.”

Can you say The Hand That Rocks The Cradle (1992)? Can you say Rosemary’s Baby (1968)? Can you say, “Been there, done that?”

EXHUME (2017/2018)
“Over 50 unmarked graves were discovered at an institution dedicated to the rehabilitation of troubled boys. Patrick Connor and his wife Karen were the archaeologists that uncovered the evil buried under the earth so many years ago.”

Unmarked graves are a problem. What if you showed up to pee on your enemy’s grave and your vengeful bladder defiled the final resting place of some nice old lady who made cookies for Third World countries? And you wonder why the dead hate us so much.

THE TERROR OF HALLOW’S EVE ( 2017/2018)
After a fifteen-year-old is brutally beaten up by high school bullies, his wish for revenge unknowingly unleashes the terror of Halloween.

Um, this one’s been done already. It was called Trick or Treat, released in 1986 and typecast Ozzy Osbourne as a preacher and KISS’ Gene Simmons as a radio deejay, presumably to hear himself talk all the time. But hey, without revenge, horror movies might start looking like all the same thing. Ahem.

DEVIL’S GATE (2017/2018/VOD/Limited)
“Struggling to overcome a recent professional tragedy, a tough-as-nails FBI agent relocates to a small North Dakota town to investigate the disappearance of a local woman and her young son. The search leads to the missing woman’s husband’s secluded farm, on which answers, new mysteries, and God-fearing terrors await…not to mention something locked and caged down in the basement.”

God-fearing terrors and something locked and caged in the basement. Probably a rat. Or spoiled jam preserves, that when consumed, turn you into a rat. Or… never mind.

Possessed Mirrors, Legacy Killers, Neighborhood UFOs

Been on Mufon.com (Mutual UFO Network) again lately, a site that among other things documents UFO sightings in real time. Apparently, while I was watching episodes of Supergirl, iZombie, The Flash and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. last night, my neighborhood was being buzzed by no less than seven UFOS. That my neighborhood is situated along the flight path to the Sea-Tac Airport is but a mere coincidence.

UFOs cruising the hood and they didn’t have the decency to honk and wave going by? Speaking of things you may or may not to be oblivious of, here’s a few upcoming horror/sci-fi flicks (or “movies”) that may or may not require your attention…

DOBAARA: SEE YOUR EVIL (June 2, 2017)
“Natasha and Kabeer Merchant come across a strange mirror while dealing with the death of their parents.”

A haunted mirror story, this one being from Bollywood and based on Oculus (2013) to the point of copyright infringement. There have been dozens of haunted mirror movies through the ages. And they all owe their plots to The Picture of Dorian Grey (1945), the story of a cursed portrait painting. They didn’t have mirrors back in the ’40s, so people had to paint picture selfies to see what they looked like. Problem is, if you had hot dog mustard on your upper lip at the time of the painting… You can see why mirrors had to be invented.

AWAKENING THE ZODIAC (June 9, 2017/VOD/Limited)
“A down-on-their-luck couple discovers a serial killer’s film reels. They decide to take the law into their own hands, risking everything for the chance at a $100,000 reward. It isn’t long until they find themselves in the killer’s lethal cross-hairs.”

This one’s based on the real-life Zodiac Killer, who back in the late ‘60s, killed a bunch of people in California and was never caught. Things might have ended differently if he tried doing his dirty deeds in Gotham City.

VIOLENT STARR (2017)
“Peace in the galaxy — or whats left of it — is crumbling. The evil god-like creature, the GODMICHAEL, a giant head floating in space and his evil minions are swarming out to eliminate creatures and races that the Godmichael deems “unworthy.”

Godmichael. Sounds like a name for a Christian metal band. As for the giant floating head, been done — in 1974. What, you haven’t seen Zardoz? If you wanna see a giant floating head, start there. Or look in the mirror, you stoners — ha!

STILL/BORN (2017/2018)
“Mary, a new mother who lost one of her twins in childbirth. While she struggles with the loss of one of her children, she starts to suspect something sinister is after her surviving child — a supernatural entity that has chosen her child and will stop at nothing to take it from her.”

Evil follows kids around like ice cream trucks. The horror movie theme of a supernatural entity taking kids away from their parents is nothing new, though. This was the bone structure of Rosemary’s Baby (1968), The Omen franchise (1976 — 2006) and It (1990). A similar one to watch is Stephen King’s Storm of the Century (1999). It’s like they combined evil with a bad weather report. Neat!

The Horror of Pregnancy and Meatballs

All these new horror movies coming out, and yet I get the nagging feeling I’ve seen ’em all before. Maybe I did in a previous life. Hey, that might make a good idea for a horror movie!

SHELLY (out now VOD / December 13, 2016 / DVD)
“An unholy force takes root in an expectant mother’s womb in this eerie, dread-inducing shocker. Privileged, nouveau-eco-hippies Louise and Kasper live off the grid in a remote home in the woods. Unable to conceive, the couple arranges for their immigrant maid, Elena, to act as a surrogate mother in exchange for payment. But as Elena becomes mysteriously sicker with each passing day, fears mount about what may be growing inside her.”

Sounds a bit like Rosemary’s Baby (1968). Looks like Rosemary’s Baby, too. That one didn’t have nouveau-eco-hippies, though. Shelly should get Elena a midwife familiar with the birthing techniques of evil. And on the day she pops, it might be nice to have black towels handy lest any evil leakings get on the rug. (That stuff is hard to get out of shag carpeting.)

CLAIRE IN MOTION (January 13, 2017)
“Three weeks after Claire’s husband has mysteriously disappeared, the police have ended their investigation and her son is beginning to grieve. The only person who hasn’t given up is Claire. Soon she discovers his troubling secrets, including an alluring yet manipulative graduate student with whom he had formed a close bond. As she digs deeper, Claire begins to lose her grip on how well she truly knew her husband and questions her own identity in the process.”

Spoiler: The reason Claire’s husband bailed is because this movie sounds boring. (He’s probably just getting in quality mattress time with some graduate student chick.)

PITCHFORK (January 13, 2017 / VOD)
“Having recently shared a life-changing secret with his family, Hunter recruits his friends to come with him from New York to the farm where he grew up as he faces his parents for the first time. As the college students enjoy the fresh air of Michigan farm country, an older, more dangerous secret slowly emerges. While Hunter navigates a new place within his conservative family, a vicious creature from their past descends on the farm, putting the unsuspecting city kids in mortal danger.”

So a guy comes out to his judgmental parents and they unleash a stab-y creature monster on him? As this is set on a farm, I’m speculatin’ out loud that the monster might actually be — are you ready for this — a cow. Makes total sense when you think about it.

KODOKU: MEATBALL MACHINE (2017)
“This blood-drenched, twisted story melds cyberpunk sci-fi, fantasy, extreme gore, and comedy.”

An unexpected bonus to 2017: Kodoku is the sequel in name only to Yūdai Yamaguchi and Jun’ichi Yamamoto’s 2005 splatter classic, Meatball Machine. All the adjectives above don’t come close to describing the visual explosions therein. Heck, I even profiled MM on August 27, 2014 and put some really cool movie pics of all the cyberpunk sci-fi, fantasy, extreme gore, and comedy.

Click HERE to scope it.