More Megalodons, AI Sci-Fi, Cutlery Kids

As mystically foretold on my May 9, 2023 blogging, here are three more/new ad sheets for Meg 2: The Trench, these coming from the incredibly prolific Xin Yi Lian, whose done countless movie art, including Time Raiders, Journey to the West: Reincarnation of the Demon King, and the 2021 Chinese 3D animated fantasy action film, Xin Shen Bang: Ne Zha Chongsheng. I don’t know what that means.

The new art — like the movie’s trailer — promises more giant and super mean creatures from the bottom of the ocean, including a kaiju-esque Kraken (Seattle hockey franchise AND big squid) and THREE megs. Releasing on August 4, 2023, Meg 2: The Trench looks to chew up and sh*t out the summer box office competition.

So while we wait for even more Meg 2 movie posters (there were 26 for the first movie), here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not be as easily pronounceable as Xin Shen Bang: Ne Zha Chongsheng…

TRANSMUTATORS / Out now (VOD)

“Set in a time when mutants and behemoth alien warriors have come to a rule, a rebel group of survivors must embrace mega fighting machines to take on intergalactic invaders threatening humanity. 

This Filipino science fiction action film, or “movie”, was originally called Resiklo, which translates to Recycle. Given the photocopied plot plot, that sounds about right…

THE CREATOR / September 29, 2023 (Theaters)

“Amid a future war between the human race and the forces of Artificial Intelligence, Joshua, a hardened ex-special forces agent grieving the disappearance of his wife, is recruited to hunt down and kill the Creator, the elusive architect of advanced AI who has developed a mysterious weapon with the power to end the war — and mankind itself.”

The Terminator is listed as one of the screenwriters.

HORRORSCOPE / Release pending 2023 (VOD)

“A group of college friends who, after getting their horoscopes read, begin dying in ways connected to their fortunes. Are their fates fatal or can they change what’s written in the stars?”

So college friends begin dying and it’s asked if their fates are fatal? Who wrote this — a college student? 

TIME OF MOULTING / Release pending 2023 (VOD)

“In a small town in 1970s West Germany, Stephanie is raised by two parents who have no business having children. The mother, never far from despair-induced collapse, suffers from an unspecified medical condition — one both mental and physical. The father makes it clear that he has no patience for his daughter Young Stephanie takes solace in exploring the mysteries hidden away in the increasingly untidy house, particularly the trunk full of her grandfather’s butcher’s equipment; older Stephanie takes far more sinister comfort in the tools found therein.”

Say what you will about kids playing with butcher tools — at least it keeps ’em away from drugs.

Gruesome Grub, Spooky Flophouse, Artificial Witches

If you’re an epicurist of fine dining (snob snacking), then you no doubt heard of gourmet eateries like McDonald’s™, Burger King™ or Taco Bell™. But none of these can hold an ice cream fork to Haunted House of Hamburgers™, a year-round Halloween-themed burger joint located in Farmingdale, NY, which is 2,852 driving miles from Seattle, where I’m currently choking down non-themed, napkin-assisted food.

Here’s why we (me and whomsoever) should carpool it to Haunted House of Hamburgers™: “Located at 330 Fulton Street in Farmingdale, Haunted House of Hamburgers™ aims to bring Halloween fun to every day of the year, offering a menu of treats and drinks, all appropriately horror-themed, including Silver Bullet Pancakes, Ominous Omelets, Tombstone Tacos, Vampire Bat Wings, Killer Clown Clam Chowder, Tarantula Burgers, Poltergeist Pulled Pork, and more.” They had me at menu.

So while we look forward to sinking our fangs into a Tarantula Burger (hope it doesn’t really taste like a spider, with or without web-flavored ketchup), here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies/series that may or may not leave a deep-fried taste in your mouth…

THE LAST OF US / January 15, 2023 (HBOMax™)

“The series takes place 20 years after modern civilization has been destroyed. Joel, a hardened survivor, is hired to smuggle Ellie, a 14-year-old girl, out of an oppressive quarantine zone. What starts as a small job soon becomes a brutal, heartbreaking journey, as they both must traverse the U.S. and depend on each other for survival.”

The Last of Us is based on a video game with the same name from 2013. Had to look that up as I can’t remember back that far. Heck, I can’t even recall what I drank for breakfast.

HAUNTED MANSION / March 10, 2023 (Theaters/Disney+™)

“Gabbie, a single mom, hires a tour guide, a psychic, a priest, and a historian to help exorcise her newly-bought mansion after discovering its inhabited by ghosts.”

A single mom who can afford to buy a mansion and hire “specialists” to purge the premise of poltergeists? Wish I could meet ladies like this instead of one of those “last call” gals at the bowling alley, where the term “pick up a spare” has double meaning.

SALEM’S LOT / April 21, 2023 (Theaters)

“A writer returns to his childhood home of Jerusalem’s Lot in search of inspiration for his next book, only to discover his hometown is being preyed upon by a vampire. This leads him to band together a ragtag group to fight the evil presence.”

The plot (based on some sort of book from 1975) sounds alarmingly familiar. I’m guessing it’s because the first Salem’s Lot movie came out in 1979. A Return to Salem’s Lot (i.e., double crappy sequel) was released in 1987. (That took awhile to return.) Then the first remake came out in 2004 as a mini-series. I really hope the vampires aren’t getting the short end of the stake on royalties.

WITCH / Pending release 2022/2023 (VOD)

“Set in Dawnbrook, England in 1575, William must prove the innocence of his wife Twyla, who stands accused of being a witch. William must hunt down the real witch if Twyla is to be spared, but unearthly events make them both look doomed.”

Artificial witches…real witches…unearthly events. This sounds more like Ladies Night at the Tug Tavern than a semi-interesting period piece film (or “moving picture show”).

Godzilla-Sized Godzilla, Demonizing Sex, Emo Witch

Another key art poster for Godzilla: King of the Monsters, and it’s even more kick-ass than the ones before it. This one shows Godzilla squaring off with King Ghidorah while a state capitol no doubt full of screaming Republicans burns metaphorically beneath them. That sentence was as satisfying as a hot shower with limitless Mr. Bubble™.

As I’ve gushed over and over, Godzilla: King of the Monsters arrives May 31, 2019. I have Alexa™ doing a countdown for me. To help me control my pee shivers is a cover story on the movie, courtesy of Total Film magazine, which hit the streets today (March 8, 2019). Clearly, I’ll need moist towelettes standing by while I read it.

While we wait to see these titans clash, here are a few now available/upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not make Republicans scream…

CATSKILL PARK (available now)
“Based on a real story, Catskill Park is a chilling tale about a camping trip that turns into a living nightmare when a blizzard traps four friends in 36 inches of sudden snow on Halloween night. A race for life ensues as they are hunted by horrific monsters, discovering a larger alien conspiracy with every terrifying stride.”

Horrific monsters, alien conspiracies and three-feet of soon-to-become-yellow danger snow? Sounds like Seattle during our snow apocalypse a few weeks ago.

PORNO (2019)
“When a group of naive teens working at a movie theater in a small Christian town discover a mysterious film hidden in its basement, they unleash an alluring succubus who gives them a sex education…written in blood.”

I really should check my basement for succubus infestation. For educational purposes. Ahem.

TONE-DEAF (2019)
After losing her job and imploding her latest dysfunctional relationship, millennial Olive leaves the city for a weekend of peace in the country, only to discover the shockingly dark underbelly of rural America. She rents an eccentric, ornate country house from Harvey, an old-fashioned widower who’s struggling to hide his psychopathic tendencies. Soon two generations collide with terrifying results in this home invasion horror film that is also a darkly comedic critique of the bizarre cultural and political climate that currently exists.”

Harvey is holding back — I say put your psychopathic tendencies on the glass. To do otherwise would be unhealthy.

DAUGHTER OF DISMAY (2019)
“Daughter of Dismay tells the surreal and mystical tale of an emotionally broken witch. She enters the darkness of the woods to fulfill her biggest desire, for which she takes extreme and radical measures that will have sinister consequences. Portrayed in elegant painting-like images, the film is an epic, moving and emotional trip through a world of witchcraft and occultism, leading to a heartbreaking and melancholic finale.”

So this moody witch goes into the woods to “fulfill her biggest desire.” That can only mean one thing: she found Bigfoot on Tinder™.

Evil Dead Christmas, Earth Gone Wild, Sci-Fi Jellyfish

It’s a good time to be alive if you’re a fan of The Evil Dead. For instance, there’s an officially sanctioned Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn escape room coming this summer to Seattle (about three miles from where I’m currently escaping) and long hoped for Evil Dead trading cards. It’s like Christmas plus.

The Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn escape room costs $30 to get into and goes like this: “When players enter that all-too-familiar cabin in the woods, they will have until dawn (or sixty minutes, whichever comes first) to find the Kandarian dagger and destroy the Book of the Dead before the evil dead swallows their souls. Fans of the classic film can expect deadites, chainsaws, a very strange deer head, a chained-up cellar door, and plenty of horrifying surprises.” When I go I better wear Depends™.

Up next is The Evil Dead trading cards by Fright Rags. You can get ‘em as a single wax pack (nine cards and a sticker — $5.00), sealed box (two full sets of cards plus a pile of exclusive extras – $35.00) and the coveted factory box (the full 68 base card set and a few extras – $120.00). Time to dip into my 401k and do some impulse buying.

While you do the same, here are a few available now/upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not cause you to wear Depends™…

THE WANDERING EARTH (in theaters now/Netflix™/2019)
“When the sun dies out, the people of Earth build giant thrusters to move the planet out of orbit and sail to a new star system. After 2,500 years, young people continue the fight for everyone’s survival.”

Man, there’s a lot of e-chatter about this one on the Net. Apparently, the film hit box office gold in China with $603 million…in just two weeks! That’s more than I make in a month. And Netflix™ is betting big on this pony by making it available for the U.S. market. No set date for its premier on the world’s biggest movie streaming channel, but it’s having a limited run in theaters/theatres right now. (It’s on four screens in parts of the city that are too hard for me to get to without cursing out traffic jams in Chinese.) Sounds like The Wandering Earth, in all its epic-ness, should been seen on the big screen. Time to buy a bigger TV.

CHIMERA STRAIN (March 15, 2019)
“A scientist freezes his children alive while he races to cure their deadly genetic disease by decoding the DNA of the Turritopsis jellyfish.”

Okay, what?

THE FIELD GUIDE TO EVIL (March 29, 2019)
“A feature-length anthology film. They are known as myths, lore, and folktales. Created to give logic to mankind’s darkest fears, these stories laid the foundation for what we now know as the horror genre.”

Great title. Too bad its an anthology and not an instructional manual.

THE HAUNTING OF SHARON TATE (April 5, 2019)
“The film’s plot is supposedly inspired by a quote from the real Sharon Tate, from an interview published a year before her death, where she revealed ‘having a nightmare’ in which she saw a strange man in her house and then discovered herself and her friend Jay Sebring tied up with their throats cut open.”

You know Hollywood is strapped for ideas when they take a quote and turn it into a movie. I’m looking in your direction, Dude, Where’s My Car? (2000).

Icy Horror, Nazi Snowballs, Dumb Artificial Intelligence

All this apocalyptic Seattle snow (the worst in 70 years, according to the panicking news) got me in the mood to watch a few guilty pleasure snow horror movies, the irony being that we’re buried in huge, steaming piles of snow with more predicted to seal us in igloo coffins.

I have The Day After Tomorrow (2004), 30 Days of Night (2007), Dead Snow (2009), The Last Winter (2006), Frozen (2010/the teen horror movie, not the same-titled Disney horror movie), and Unnatural (2015) queued up. All that’s left to do now is crack an ice cold beer and chill. Heh.

While we’re waiting to thaw out — probably by the end of March — here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not bite like frost…

THE HOUSE (March 5, 2019)
“Set in the frozen wilderness of Norway during WWII, two German soldiers escort a Norwegian soldier and prisoner of war, but the weather is taking a toll on them. They find an empty house near the forest where they finally can get some rest. However, what seems to be a warm and welcoming shelter turns much more sinister and deadly. They begin to wonder if they have somehow have stepped into a sort of psychological hell from which there may be no escape.”

Finally — Nazis on the other end of the pain stick. I bet they start a snowball fight to end all snowball fights.

DEMON EYE (2019)
“A young girl returns to her father’s country house in the Moors following his mysterious death. There, she finds a cursed amulet that will grant her greatest wish, but at a price.”

The cursed amulet that grants me my greatest wish is a beer bottle.

AMI (2019)
“Cassie has become a recluse ever since her mother died in a car accident. In an effort to fill the void, she downloads AMI, the latest intelligent personal assistant. As their relationship quickly deepens into a twisted co-dependency, Cassie falls deeper and deeper under AMI’s spell; not realizing that everyone she knows is in serious danger.”

I wish I had artificial intelligence.

Super Girlfriends, Family Werewolf, Murder Cabins

After nearly four years of battling aliens and her chaotic love life, Supergirl (on CW) has not only added Superman (Tyler Hoechlin — Season 3/nice teeth), but now, after countless references to his relentless relationship with Lois Lane, we’ll finally get to see her actual face and relentless reporter skills during Elseworlds, the three-night crossover (relentlessly mentioned in this blog by someone who looks a lot like me) coming December, 2018 on Supergirl, The Flash and Arrow. (Geez, that was a run-on sentence.) This got me thinking (had to wirelessly beer-charge the ‘ol Cracker Jack box™ that is my brain) to do a Lois Lane inventory.

While the prize-winning investigative journalist has been recast relentless times in comic books (I conservatively think there were 1.2 million versions), Lois Lane has been portrayed at least 10 times, if you count Joan Alexander, the voice of Lois on radio (TV screen without a screen) from 1940 to 1951. (And you thought kryptonite was Superman’s only weakness.) His rotating girlfriends include Noell Neill, Phyllis Coates, Margot Kidder, Teri Hatcher, Erica Durance, Kate Bosworth, Uma Thurman (playing the fake Lois Lane on the “Superhero Speed Dating” segment in Movie 43/2013), Amy Adams, and now in Supergirl, Elizabeth Tulloch. That’s a lot of Valentine’s Day candy Superman had/has to buy.

To illustrate just how super Superman’s girlfriend is, she was in 137 issues of DC’s Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane from, 1958 to 1974. (Dang, that was a redundant sentence.) Then she had a front and center role in Lois Lane, her own comic book title, from 1962 to 1965 and was DC Comics’ third best-selling funny book during those funny years.

So while we wait to welcome the newest Lois Lane to Superman’s little black book, here are a few now available/upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not be worthy of Superman’s Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder…

END OF THE WORLD (available now)
“As mass of solar storms causes tsunamis, volcanoes, and flooding, a city-dwelling family attempts to flee to the relative safety of a group of high-elevation caves several miles away.”

The cover of the DVD depicts Seattle’s iconic Space Needle being kicked in the struts and falling down upon the city where I live and drink. This sucks as they just completed the Space Needle’s remodel of installing a transparent floor 605 feet up. Unless the pervs down below have binoculars, all you ladies wearing skirts while visiting the Needle won’t have to worry.

ALPHA WOLF (available now)
“A couple moves into a secluded cabin in an attempt to salvage their relationship and finds their world torn apart when the husband transforms into a murderous werewolf. Things grow more bizarre when the family dog leaps in to save the wife and suffers his own transformation.”

I guess the cabin trip was to hopefully reconcile that time the wife threw Nair™ on her husband’s face during an argument on whether or not to use silver bullets in the family repeating shotgun. Those things tend to get worse if not talked through before a full moon.

MOTHER KRAMPUS 2 (available now)
On Christmas Eve four young women wrap up their community service with one last visit to the older and less fortunate. As darkness falls and the cold settles in, they realize there is far more to their seemingly innocent host than meets the eye.”

I bet the seemingly innocent host is Mother Krampus. Just a hunch.

THE CABIN (December 4, 2018)
Young American couple, Rose and Harry are on their way to visit Harry’s family cabin, both as a nostalgic vacation and as a way to rekindle their relationship. But they’re not the only one that decided to visit the cabin this weekend. The vacation is quickly turned into a living nightmare for Rose and Harry as they meet a vicious sociopath, who invites them into a involuntary cat and mouse game.”

Why is it remote cabins are where married couples go to fix relationships? Everybody knows that’s where murderous werewolves and/or vicious sociopaths go to shoot fish in a barrel.

Shark Explosion

Finally, someone gets the joke about the exploding plethora of shark movies. Premiering on the SyFy Channel™ is a fin-in-cheek movie called Bad CGI Sharks (2018), with CGI standing for “computer-generated imagery” or “chewing gristle intently.” (Not sure which is correct.)

Here’s the plot: “Two estranged brothers writing a script about a killer shark. That shark soon enters into their own reality.” This type of “write a story and it actually happens” plot device has been used numerous times, although it has yet to work for me. Still, the trailer is funny in the way, ironically, CGI sharks are tummy ticklers.

This takes me back to the days of Jaws (1975), in which Bruce, the shark, was a mechanical device built to scale (no pun intended in that fish have scales —heh!), and used to historic effect, remaining arguably best shark movie of all time to this day. (An argument could be made for Mega Shark Versus Mecha Shark/2014.)

So popular was/still is Jaws, a flood of toys/merch followed in its bloody wake and are highly collectible over four decades later. (You’ll never pry my fuzzy Jaws beach towel out of my cold, wet hands.)

This got me thinking, which is kinda hard to do. I’ve covered as many shark movies as possible, but inevitably there are a few over the years that slipped through my journalistic trawling net. If you’re a fan of shark flicks of all levels of cheesiness, consider adding these to your chum bucket list…

MISSISSIPPI RIVER SHARKS (2017)
“Sharks attack a fish rodeo on the Mississippi River, and it is up to a group of locals to stop them.”

A fish rodeo. Makes total sense. But maybe the sharks were just after the area’s famous Mississippi Mud Pie. (Recipe: A crust of crushed chocolate cookies, topped with layers of dense, flourless chocolate cake and velvety chocolate pudding. Who wouldn’t attack that?)

OZARK SHARKS (2016)
“A vacation to the Ozarks turns upside-down when bull sharks infiltrate Arkansas’s freshwater lakes and wreak havoc on a town’s big fireworks festival.”

Hillbilly sharks. Wonder if their swimsuits have suspenders on ’em? P.S. They used the same shark on the cover of Mississippi River Sharks. Busted.

ROBOSHARK (2015)
“What starts off as a typical day on the streets of Seattle soon becomes a terrifying bloodbath, when a great white shark devours an alien space probe…and ROBOSHARK is born. The U.S. military comes after it with guns blazing, but it’s the power of social media that puts an ambitious newscaster and her tech-savvy daughter ahead of everyone else in the race to stop the destruction.

I live in Seattle. A Roboshark that eats UFO droppings and put on their hipster hybrid pants are the least of this town’s problems — me being one of ‘em.

RAGING SHARKS (2005)
“An alien object falls from space into the Bermuda Triangle where it pumps up the resident sharks like a steroid.”

I though all sharks were/are raging. A weak concept when you have to combine aliens, sharks and the Bermuda Triangle. For a better pairing, I suggest, clams jubilee with a 40 ounce Chianti of Foster’s Lager™. Finish with a nice nap.

Since sharks have been used as everything from snow and sand, to ghosts and multi-headed mutants, there’s one shark-themed movie that’s never been made. Bets are on as to how long it’ll be before this one’s made…

Multiple Mutants

At the end of It’s Alive (1974), Frank Davies, the father of the mutant claw baby, gets a phone call: “They found another one…in Seattle.” OK, I live in Seattle and hearing that totally gooned me out. This momentous moment sets up the 1978 sequel, It’s Alive 2: It Lives Again.

Don’t care how cute they are, I don’t want mutant claw babies eating my face off. And neither does Frank, who gets a bunch of doctors and scientists who “think outside the box” to track down the babies for studying purposes before they can be killed, which is what is being done in delivery rooms all over the States.

Frank even goes so far as to crash a baby shower of an expectant couple to warn them that a.) their newborn is a mutant claw baby, b.) that the police are standing by to blast it into oatmeal, and c.) he can save them and their little monster if they would just go to a remote cabin in the woods where he’s got two other babies hidden from harm. Yep, the police find out about all of this and don’t like it one stinkin’ bit.

Lots of gunfire, blood and screaming. You may think you know how it ends, but you don’t. I, on the other hand, called it. I will say, however, that the ending totally sets up It’s Alive III: Island of The Alive (1987). Nope, that’s all you’re gettin’ from me. I mean it.

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.

Cloverfield in Space, The Search for Bigfoot, Mutant Fish ‘n Chips

The big horror/sci-fi news came on the cleated heels of Superbowl LII — The Cloverfield Paradox (2018), a highly anticipated installment in the Cloverfield franchise — showed up on Netflix™ the second the world’s most overpaid football game ended. This caused my blood pressure to go off the charts as the movie was first titled God Particle. Then it had a movie theater release date, but scrapped that a the last minute and put it up on Netflix™. I did what anyone would do in this situation — drink a refreshing adult beverage to regain self control, and then watched it.

Here’s the premise…

“An American space station that, after an accident with a particle accelerator, suddenly finds that Earth has vanished altogether. Things get stranger when they then pick up traces of another space station nearby.”

Rather bland considering it was meant to tie up loose ends left loose by Cloverfield (2008) and 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016). But critics were not impressed and had this to say about the admittedly confusing movie: “A trainwreck of a sci-fi flick bent on extending a franchise that should have died a peaceful death almost exactly one decade ago…” — Hollywood Reporter; “While there are a handful of nifty sequences and good performances overall, this feels like a blown-out pilot for one of those SyFy™ series you always mean to get around to but never do…” — Thrillist; and more succinctly, “The Cloverfield Paradox is an unholy mess…” — The Guardian. Ouch.

Whether or not you watch it and decide to go all mob mentality on The Cloverfield Paradox, here are a few more just released and upcoming horror and sci-fi documentaries/movies that may or may not turn out to be an unholy mess…

EXPEDITION SASQUATCH (available now)
“A new documentary about the Sasquatch of Nordegg, Alberta. This area has become increasingly popular among Bigfoot researchers and enthusiasts due to the baffling tree structures that can be found in the area.”

Checked on Expedia.com and I can fly from Seattle, to Nordegg, Alberta — round-trip — for $296 smackos. Once in Nordegg (that name sounds so mad up), I’ll be able to Air BnB it with my ‘ol pal, Bigfoot. It’d be cool if he had some Unibroue La Fin Du Monde on ice waitin’ for me. That stuff is 9% alcohol and a few bottles of that will have you seeing mythical monsters all over the place.

ASYLUM OF FEAR (available now)
“When a team of paranormal investigators is hired to inspect a soon-to-be demolished mental institution, they discover horrifying clues that reveal the cause of a violent massacre by an insane doctor in the 1960s.”

Don’t they know mental institutions are supposed to be abandoned and subsequently haunted and not knocked down to make room for YET ANOTHER Starbucks™? Still, the generic Asylum of Fear makes sense that the place was f’d up by an insane doctor. At least he was in the right place. You don’t bring a knife to a gunfight.

THE BARGE PEOPLE (2018)
“Set on the canals amid the glorious British countryside, two sisters and their boyfriends head off for a relaxing weekend away on a barge, unaware of the flesh-eating fish mutants lurking in the water, ready and waiting to feed.”

Flesh-eating fish mutants lining up to dine on barge food? Do fries go with that? Regardless, I’d like to reserve a table, close to the docks, if possible.

NOVEMBER (2018)
“The story is set in a pagan Estonian village where werewolves, the plague, and spirits roam. The villagers’ main problem is how to survive the cold, dark winter. And, to that aim, nothing is taboo. People steal from each other, from their German manor lords, and from spirits, the devil, and Christ. To guard their souls, they’ll give them away to thieving creatures made of wood and metal called Kratts, who help their masters by stealing more.”

The trailer for this is very art house-y. But gotta say, the wood and metal Kratt creatures are pretty cool and candidates for McDonald’s Happy Meal™ toys. (Last Happy Meal™ I got had a toy napkin in the box. Sure, those things are fun to play with, but I wanted a Cloverfield action figure, dang it.