The Horror of Seattle, Fake UFOs, Pyschedelic Moon

Finally — a film festival I can get to by bus/Lime™ e-scooter — Make Believe Seattle is my home town’s first-ever dedicated genre film fest devoted to horror, science fiction, fantasy, animation and related genre movies. Taking place March 23-26, 2023, the press release says it’ll be an “exclusively in-person event, with venues including SIFF Cinema Egyptian, Northwest Film Forum, West Hall (part of Century Ballroom), and Queer/Bar.” All I have to do is load up the fanny pack with enough snacks to sustain me for four days, and I’m all set.

Of the many films being screened (normally called “movies”, but not when they’re being premiered at an arts festival) include, Aliens Abducted My Parents And Now I feel Kinda Left Out, The Five Devils, Black Lodge, Poundcake, Pursued, Freaks Out and the fan film, Friday the 13th Vengeance 2: Bloodlines. There’s lots more, but it’d be easier on me if you’d just go to Make Believe Seattle’s website (click here) for the drill-down. P.S. Tickets range in price from $25.00 (Party Pass) to $150.00 (VIP Festival Pass).

While we find YET ANOTHER reason to skip work in anticipation of this film fest, here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi TV series that may or may not be viewable accompanied by a well-stocked fanny snack pack…

THE UFO CHRONICLES: A HISTORY OF MYSTERIOUS SIGHTINGS / Out now (Amazon Prime Video™)

“As the discourse surrounding artificial intelligence builds, The UFO Chronicles: A History of Mysterious Sightings utilizes the technology as the first documentary feature written, illustrated, and performed entirely by AI. Co-directors Brian Cunningham and Matt Niehoff explore the intriguing history of unidentified flying objects, uncovering accounts of encounters from Christopher Columbus to the USS Nimitz. With a script, on-screen narrator, and footage all generated by AI, The UFO Chronicles both demonstrates the potential and pushes the boundaries of what’s possible with AI in the field of filmmaking.

If this thing is successful, AI is gonna put a lot of real UFOs out of work.

INVALUABLE: THE TRUE STORY OF AN EPIC ARTIST / Out now (Synapse Films™, DiabolikDVD™)

“This feature-length documentary focuses on Tom Sullivan, an artist/sculptor and college friend of Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell and Rob Tapert who became an integral part of The Evil Dead films — creating makeup effects and designing the Book of the Dead, among others. It includes archival behind-the-scenes Super-8 film footage, Hi8, VHS, and vintage audiotapes and photographs, original location visits and all-new interviews with Campbell, Ted Raimi, Josh Becker, Danny Hicks, Hal Delrich, Ellen Sandweiss, Betsy Baker, Theresa Tilly (aka, Sarah York) and others.”

Not a compelling title for the guy who designed groundbreaking demonic vomit. (I’d have titled it, The Master of Puke, Grandmaster Puke or The Puke of Earl.) There’s four hours of bonus material, but probably doesn’t include a vomit stain removal tutorial. You’ll have to go to YouTube™ for that (click here).

WRECK / March 1, 2023 (Hulu™)

“19-year-old new recruit Jamie infiltrates a 1,000-strong crew in a desperate race to find his missing sister, who worked on the same ship but vanished mid-charter. An overworked and underpaid crew live lives of partying and excess and they remain oblivious to bloodthirsty murders taking place on board.”

Wreck is a six-episode dark comedy UK TV series that premiered in British Land in October of 2022. I vaguely recall that year. Come to think of it, I’m a bit London foggy on the whole UK thing as well. Is that an actual town or a malt vinegar fish ’n chips pop-up booth?

MOON GARDEN / Release pending 2023 (Theaters, VOD)

“When a little girl has a terrible accident and slips into a coma, she finds herself thrust into a darkly surreal industrial dreamworld. Haunted by a nightmarish spectre that feeds off her tears, she must follow her mother’s radio-static voice to find her way back to consciousness.”

If this movie sounds familiar, it’s because it played a few snobby art house theaters (where movie popcorn is eaten with a gloved hand and sodas sipped with pinky extended) in 2022. But don’t hold that against Moon Garden — just watch the trailer on YouTube™ and try and figure out how they pulled off all those phantasmagorical visuals without being strung out on psychedelic drugs. P.S. Don’t do drugs. 

Nightmare King, Porno Slasher, Ghost Mom

It’s one thing to eat fast food and later get nightmares. But it’s entirely another thing to have a fast food chain tell you up front their burgers will give you nightmares. Genius, and yet unsettling, both to your mind and lower intestines.

Burger King™, hot on the heels of their Scary Black Cherry Frozen Fanta™ drink for this year’s Halloween season, is now selling the Nightmare King™ (great name), a hamburger with green buns (there’s a joke in there somewhere) that’s designed to make you freak out in your sleep. Time to throw out your Freddy Krueger spring rolls.

A review from CNBC.com: “The Nightmare King hase a ghoulish green bun and is filled with grilled beef, crispy chicken, bacon, American cheese and mayonnaise. And Burger King is actually claiming that the Halloween sandwich will induce nightmares, having tested it with 100 people over ten nights. The study revealed a 3.5 time increase in nightmares.

It’s the combination of protein and cheese that leads to vivid dreams, according to Dr. Jose Gabriel Medina, a somnologist and the study’s lead doctor, according to an online release. People’s Rapid Eye Movement (REM) cycles were interrupted, a time when most people dream.”

So they actually went out and found a doctor to validate their marketing. Wonder if they hired Republicans to cook ‘em? And before you race to Burger King™ to shell out $6.39 for one of these bad dream burgers (available October 22, 2018 while stocks last), here are a few upcoming horror that may or may not be as scary as green buns…

THE CLOVEHITCH KILLER (November 16, 2018)
“Tyler is a good kid, a boy scout, raised by a poor but happy family in a small, religious town. But when he finds his dad, Don, has disturbing pornography hidden in the shed, he starts to fear that his dad might be Clovehitch, an infamous serial killer that was never caught. Tyler teams up with Kassi, a teenage outcast who’s morbidly obsessed with the Clovehitch legend, to discover the truth in time to save his family.”

Porn is disturbing and a religious town isn’t? Seems they got their priorities out of whack. They probably should let Clovey get in there and straighten everyone out.

THE PRODIGY (February 8, 2019)
“Pulling from The Omen and The Bad Seed, the feature tells the story of a young mother who, concerned about her 8-year-old son’s disturbing behavior, thinks something supernatural may be affecting him.”

Pulling from The Omen (1976) and The Bad Seed (1956)? How about bold-face ripping off? And just so we’re clear here, disturbing behavior is what 8-year-old kids do for a living. If you own and operate one of those things, expect it to continue for at least another 10 years.

THE FINAL WISH (2018/2019)
“Aaron is struggling lawyer who returns home following the passing of his father to help his devastated mother and confront his past demons. Sifting through his father’s belongings, Aaron stumbles upon an Urn which is far more than it seems. As his desires and wishes start coming true, Aaron thinks his prayers have been answered until he learn the sinister price that comes with THE FINAL WISH.”

A can of beer has pretty much the same effect. And when you’re wishes run out, BUY ANOTHER CAN OF BEER. This isn’t rocket science, people.

THE CURSE OF LA LLORONA (April 19, 2019)
“Ignoring the eerie warning of a troubled mother suspected of child endangerment, a social worker and her own small kids are soon drawn into a frightening supernatural realm. Their only hope to survive La Llorona’s deadly wrath may be a disillusioned priest and the mysticism he practices to keep evil at bay, on the fringes where fear and faith collide.”

There’s been about a dozen takes on the La Llorona Mexican folklore, which is about the ghost of a woman, who lost her children, cries while looking for them in the river, often causing bad luck/headaches for anyone who hears her spectral bellyaching. Note to ghost moms — the river is not a good babysitter.

Let’s Go Haunt Hong Kong

To say Yan, a single young female, is bonkers-between-the-ears is an understatement. She was that way long before she moved into a haunted apartment building and started seeing visions of dead people. (Probably just the ghosts of freshness expired tenants who died there.)

When Yan and her easily spelled name goes to a psychologist, the doc starts seeing dead people as well, which triggers his suicidal tendencies. Yep, that’s a medical professional I wanna go to.

Ghosts show up in bathroom mirrors but not in the toilet. Ghosts show up in the pool, but not on the diving board. The psychologist, in an attempt to rid himself of these visions, self-medicates via shock therapy. This aspect really needed exploring since they weren’t gonna show naked anything.

The doc cures the chick and eventually moves in and makes out with her, but he can’t cure himself. What the heck, doc? Just write yourself a prescription and get over it. What are all these issues living people have with ghosts anyway? So what if spirits can see you playing with yourself — so can your neighbors.

Inner Senses (aka, Yee do hung gaan/2002) is Hong Kong’s answer to The Sixth Sense (1999). Boring, predictable, slow and anti-climactic, it was also the answer to a question no one asked.

Ghost Toll

Nicolas Cage is dipping his actor’s spoon into the paranormal oatmeal again, this time with the supernatural thriller Pay The Ghost, in which he deals with a vengeful poltergeist that abducts kids.

Nic’s been on both sides of the polter-fence before, starring as the title character in two Ghost Rider movies (2007 and 2012). Both are cheesy, campy, goofy and a serious guilty pleasure. I think I just described my entire life in five words.

So here’s how Nic ante’s up to Pay The Ghost: “Almost a year after his young son suddenly disappeared from his side during a Halloween parade in New York City, Mike Cole (Nicolas Cage) is inexplicably haunted by terrifying visions of his son and begins to sense his presence in frightening ways.” “Sparked to action, Mike reunites with his estranged wife, Kristen, and together they uncover a string of terrifying clues while desperately searching for their son. They soon discover that every Halloween a vicious and vengeful ghost surfaces to abduct children, and if they don’t recover their son within a short window of time, he will be lost to the spirit world forever.”

Game on, ghost b*tch! Pay The Ghost, which comes out sometime (thinkin’ 2015-ish), also stars Sarah Wayne Callies, star of The Walking Dead who played Rick Grimes’ wife and, ironically enough, returned as a ghost for a few cameos after her character was killed off. By their son. Harsh.

Parentless Ghosts

In need of a job, Ana is young, pregnant and hired to clean up after a bunch of runny-nose orphans at a huge orphanage where they manufacture orphans. The “school” for abandoned WWII kids is empty for the summer, but the place is a stink hole, so she takes the gig, knowing it’s better than working for Kinkos™ and hoping it’ll get her mind off the fact her former employers raped and beat her.

Two people remain in the cavernous orphanage: an old lady who serves as the school’s cook/doctor (what can’t be healed goes in the pot) and a “disturbed” young gal whose mind is a silverware drawer where none of the silverware matches. A crazy chick practically alone in a spooky old building? Hell, the only thing missing is me, a bottle of Jager™ and a roll of paper towels.

But something’s not right in the building besides Ana’s roommate’s sense of reality. Noises, voices, spectral farting. (OK, that one was really just part of my wish list). Ana was warned about the scary children. Now we’re getting somewhere. Previously brought to the school by the bus load, about 300 war-wounded kids turned up in various stages of bleeding. With only one doctor and a nurse, let’s just say some of ’em didn’t need a doctor bill at the end of the day.

Determined to find out who or what the scary children are, Ana and demento chick go into the big bathroom where there hangs a big mirror, which conceals a big mystery. Ana chucks a flashlight through the glass and damn if there isn’t another room back there. And hey – there’s a service elevator just big enough for her to crawl in. Yeah, that’s what I’d do in a haunted house – squeeze into an elevator that hasn’t been used for years and throw the switch. Why doesn’t Casper just come right out of the wall and push me down the shaft?

The elevator goes screaming down for what seems like three commercial breaks. When it opens, Ana discovers the hospital wing of the orphanage. It’s all painted an eerie white and lit up like a Christmas barbershop. Uh, oh – somebody’s about to go into labor. Good timing…something is down there with her. But what could it be?

House of Voices (aka Saint Ange, 2004) is a pretty darn creepy and atmospheric flick, but the story takes freakin’ forever to get where its going. A couple of nice distractions: Ana’s boobs. While this movie does not end on a happy note, I think I tracked down that cool crazy chick on Facebook™.

Ghost-sitter

Part of the 6 Films To Keep You Awake series, The Baby’s Room (2006), a Spanish ghost story, finds a young married couple with a factory-fresh kid moving into a new house that, for all intents is haunted, right down to the stylish terracotta tiling.

The ghost (a dude and not a babysitter dude) first makes himself known via a hi-tech baby monitor with video screen, sitting by the kid’s crib and freaking out the new parents. So dad buys 20 baby monitors and does a double freak-out – he can’t see the ghost with regular eyes, but he can see and follow the spectre through the video camera.

The spooky guy looks really familiar, though. Could it be dad has seen that face before, like in a mirror, perhaps? (No, that wasn’t a spoiler as far as you know.)

Overly long, often cliched and occasionally tedious, The Baby’s Room takes some time to build up scare steam, but has a kinda cool twist the punch line ala The Shining (1980). But I totally get the movie’s message: the best part about kids is making ’em.