UFOs Exposed, Town of Ghosts, Artistic Wolf Man

A recent headline on the LiveScience.com website: “Flying Saucers to Mind Control: 24 Declassified Military & CIA Secrets.” Talk about click bait — I haven’t been that hooked since I came across “Supermodels of the Serengeti Want To Meet You.” (Warning: they require a credit card number. Internet love doesn’t come cheap.)

Included in the dossier-busting article by Elizabeth Peterson and Denise Chow are previously-guarded government secrets, including Project 1794 (initiated in the 1950s, a team of engineers were tasked with building a flying saucer-type aircraft capable of traveling at supersonic speeds at high altitudes), Project MK-Ultra (a secret and illegal human research program examining the effects of hypnosis, biological agents and drugs, such as LSD and barbiturates, on human subjects), Project Grudge (a short-lived program launched in 1949 to study unidentified flying objects), and Acoustic Kitty (in 1967 the CIA spent millions of dollars in an attempt to train domesticated cats to spy on the Soviet Union.) Your tax dollars hard at work.

While there’s even more UFO and espionage stuff, my fav is The Kidnapping of the Lunik, where in the 1960s, there was CIA-led mission to “borrow” a Soviet lunar satellite for just one night. One evening, undercover CIA agents convinced the truck driver, who transported the satellite from city to city, to get some rest at a nearby hotel and leave the satellite in their care, the documents revealed. They then “borrowed” the Soviet orbiter — taking it apart and photographing its components — before putting it back on the truck. Gotta give the CIA serious props — that sounded like an epic beer-fueled college frat prank. 

So while you click on over to LiveScience.com to read about more UFOs and undercover house pets, here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies/TV series that may or may not be as cool as the CIA basketball squad stealing the Soviet’s team mascot… 

THE MANDALORIAN SEASON 3 / March 1, 2023 (Disney+™)

“The journeys of the Mandalorian through the Star Wars galaxy continue. Once a lone bounty hunter, Din Djarin has reunited with Grogu. Meanwhile, the New Republic struggles to lead the galaxy away from its dark history. The Mandalorian will cross paths with old allies and make new enemies as he and Grogu continue their journey together.”

I’ve watched all the Star Wars series spin-offs and The Mandalorian is arguably the best, thanks to the jaw-dropping cinematic monster creatures (Mud Horn), awesome spaceships (Gozanti-class Assault Carrier) and glowing flashlights (sold under the brand name of “Light Sabers” at Kalevala Home Depot™). For my Imperial credits, Andor and The Book of Boba-Fett are also right up there in Star Wars’ exotic Universe, of which I would like to live or vacation every Mandalore’s full moon of Concordia. (No sunblock needed, but you will need Tookas repellent.)

GHOST TOWN / March 7, 2023 (VOD)

“The story is set in 1877 Arizona, where a drifter takes a job as a barman. After a series of bizarre and horrifying deaths, he finds himself the target of suspicion. Desperate to escape the noose, he is soon at the center of a supernatural mystery that plagues this town.”

No noose is good noose — heh. FYI: I applied for that job as a drifter/barman. My resume must gotten lost in the pony express as I never heard back. Too bad — I have vast experience being both.

STALKER / March 24, 2023 (VOD)

“Rose Hepburn, a young horror actress, returns to her empty hotel. Forced to use the old freight elevator, it jolts to a halt on the 12th floor, leaving her trapped with an unusual stranger. Left with no phone signal as a storm approaches, tensions escalate and suspicions rise when Rose discovers the identity of the mysterious man is Daniel Reed, a camera operator who is seemingly obsessed with her.”

This one stars professional wrestling icon, Bret “The Hitman” Hart. This automatically puts Stalker in the running for an Academy Award™.

BLACKOUT / Release pending 2023 (VOD)

“A fine arts painter is convinced he’s a werewolf wreaking havoc on a small American town every full moon.”

Well, heck — when else is he gonna do it?

Glowing Aliens

Alton Meyer is an eight-year old boy with eyes that shoot beams brighter than a flashlight with a hundred batteries. His hands glow, too. Wish I had glowing hands. No reason. Just seems like it’d be neat.

Alton, his dad and a friend are being hunted by the Feds, cops, and a wacko religious cult in Texas who think Alton is the next Messiah du jour. They’re on a cross-state run to get Alton to a specific location in Florida where some unknown mind-bending stuff is about to hit the fan. And there’s a lot of fan-hitting that happens on the way there.

Meanwhile the FBI raids The Ranch, where the cult holds sermons and stockpiles heavy artillery. Seems the pastoral babblings contained encoded satellite transmissions given to the head cult leader by Alton, who was raised at the compound after mom dumped him there when his “powers” became too strong for her to deal with. The penalty for having accessing such encrypted information, says Agent Paul Sevier, is so severe, the Government has yet to think up a suitable punishment. Yeow to that!

A spectacular display of Alton’s powers comes at a gas station where his dad and friend stop for potato chip supplies. Wearing goggles (so people can’t see his high beam peepers), he brings down a satellite in a shower of flaming chunks on top of them. The Feds are upset as it was an important satellite, one with the sole purpose of detecting nuclear events anywhere in the world. That, and it was freakin’ expensive.

Stopping to pick up mom, the fugitives are relentlessly tracked by the cult, who manage to violently kidnap Alton. The Feds kidnap Alton from the cult and it’s here the bright-eyed boy reveals his secrets to Agent Sevier. Alton tells him there’s a world above the one they’re currently on, and that he belongs with “his people.” Dutifully freaked out, Sevier manages to get the kid back to the dad, who in an nerve-wracking car chase sequence, gets Alton to the aforementioned coordinates, which happen to be in the Florida Everglades. (You don’t see ‘em, but there were probably hundreds of bugs in the swamp. Ick.)

And it’s here Alton rejoins “his people” who materialize after a nuclear-esque event. (Too bad the don’t have a satellite to detect it.) Midnight Special (2016) is slow burn intense up to that point, but that scene is the money shot. Who knew the aliens could be this cool? Who knew this movie with its lackluster title would be this cool? You will once you watch it (glowing eyes not required.)

Mars Gets Marred

In the futuristic year of 2010, a bunch of space guys ’n gals go to Mars to see how cheap the real estate is and end up discovering a mysterious dirt mountain that doesn’t want them to see what’s under all that lunar dust. So it forms itself into an uncircumcised weiner-esque tornado and sucks them up.

Time for a rescue crew to earn their NASA food stamps. After an over-long mishap that has the search mission abandoning ship right outside Mars’ stinky atmosphere, the survivors hitch a ride on an orbiting satellite (!), land it, and discover the Mars Face is real, made by a race of aliens that glow in the dark.

No brains get eaten, no space-borne infestation worming its way through an unsuspecting cerebral cortex. Just a lot of word barf and meager special effects.

Mission To Mars (2000) is remarkable in that it doesn’t make – or have – a point about anything. If only there were just one scene where a female astronaut wore a bikini space suit so we could see…Uranus. Man, that joke never gets old – heh.

Space Virus and Yogurt

The Mir space station intercepts an alien hitchhiker in the guise of electric energy, and thinking it’s a lunar text message, mistakenly transmits said life-form to a satellite-tracking ship on this toilet earth. There it wipes out the Ruskies and their brewskis. Harshness abounds.

Meanwhile, a tugboat is tugging a precious cargo (beer, I theorize) across the ocean through a pissed off typhoon. Seeking shelter in the eye of the surly storm, the tug happens across the Russian boat. With salvage in mind to recoup their uninsured losses, the crew (with Jamie Lee Curtis as navigator) board the blood vessel and discover plentiful seagoing wrongness. I had no idea Jamie Lee Curtis knew how to navigate the ocean in addition to being a yogurt spokesperson. What a talent!

The alien is harvesting humans for usable parts (thirst buds) and creating a new half-machine/half-human species, not unlike a certain Borg. Just a typically standard “thing-onboard-trying-to-get-humans” plot. The effects, however, are outstandingly cool, exemplified with Donald Sutherland as the captain discovering the human rebuilding process (a sort of Radio Shack™ meets Black Angus™) while attempting to make a deal with the head mecha-monster that regards Earthers as germs with pants (hence, Virus/1998 the movie’s clever title).

Creative use of gore and limbs and Duracell™ batteries, but due to glaring lack of nudity, a so-so sci-fi flick with a yogurt covered ending at best.

UFOs and Corduroy Sweaters

When three astronauts on a routine space shuttle mission deploy a satellite and it crashes into a UFO, there sure are a lot of red faces in outer spaces. (Heh.)

The resulting explosion sent shrapnel through one of the astronauts, cleanly severing his head/helmet. I don’t mean to disrespect our space program, but the image of the astronaut’s floating body and nearby spinning head was one of those LOL moments.

The UFO crashes to Earth where scientists try and figure out where the batteries go. The unsevered astronauts land the shuttle and take off in sweaters and corduroys to find the truth/crashed UFO. Trying to stop them is the evil branch of the C.I.A., who seem to have more expendable agents than satellites.

The scientists, though, are having more luck, having successfully transcribed alien language, only to find out Earth is targeted for an invasion. We’re safe – once they see our stylish sweaters and slick corduroys, they’ll think Earth is far more advanced, and head to some other drab planet.

Other than the clothes, the magnificently dull Hangar 18 (1980) should have spent less time on the chase scenes and more time on the spinning severed head.