Killer Snow, Rural Werewolves, Flossing Serial Killers

T’was recently announced that Ridley Scott — the man behind three of the six Alien movies (not counting the two Alien/Predator mash-ups) — is doing a horror TV series for AMC. The smoke detector can wait — time to put new batteries in the remote.

From the press release: “Ridley Scott’s horror series The Terror is a fictionalized account of a real-life expedition in 1845, in which two ships were lost in the Arctic and all 129 men were killed. The series, which debuts on AMC in March 2018, is based on the 2007 best-selling novel of the same name by Dan Simmons.”

While we impatiently wait for The Terror to brighten or screens/life, here are a few just released/upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that probably don’t take place in the Arctic, though some might leave you cold (heh)…

AMITYVILLE: THE FINAL CHAPTER (available now)
“A group of paranormal investigators teams up with a wrongly convicted serial killer to track down a mysterious monster responsible for a slew of recent killings.”

YET ANOTHER Amityville movie? [insert facepalm here]. I think this makes 400 Amityville movies, give or take. The press release cracks me up — wrongly convicted serial killer. How does that even make sense? How does YET ANOTHER Amityville movie make sense? This cow has been milked so many times, it’s only giving evaporated milk.

THE HOWLING (available now)
“A local myth will be discovered to be true by a group of teenagers on a night out on remote farmland. Is there a bloodthirsty creature that has been wandering the land?”

Not to be confused with 1981’s The Howling or the seven subsequent sequels that slogged on until 2011. This werewolf movie places the creature on a farm. Maybe it’s not a werewolf. More likely a weresheep that hasn’t been sheared for so long, it just looks like a werewolf. I look similar if I skip my annual hair trimming.

PIERCING (January 20, 2018)
“Reed is going on a business trip. He kisses his wife and infant son goodbye, but in lieu of a suitcase filled with clothes, he’s packed a toothbrush and a murder kit. Everything is meticulously planned: check into a hotel and kill an unsuspecting victim. Only then will he rid himself of his devious impulses and continue to be a good husband and father. But Reed gets more than he bargained for with Jackie, an alluring call girl who arrives at his room. First, they relax and get in the mood, but when there’s an unexpected disruption, the balance of control begins to sway back and forth between the two. Is he seeing things? Who’s playing whom? Before the night is over, a feverish nightmare will unfold, and Reed and Jackie will seal their bond in blood.”

A toothbrush and a murder kit. Nice to know serial killers maintain healthy dental hygiene. Wonder if he flosses as well? That’s equally as important before going out on a murder spree. (P.S. Regularly brush/floss your teeth, but DO NOT go out on murder sprees.)

LOST SOLACE (January 30, 2018/iTunes™)
“Lost Solace is a fast-paced psychological thriller that depicts the transformation of Spence Cutler, a young psychopath and con artist. He’s never felt empathy or guilt, however, a fateful encounter with a new drug is about to give him a dose of too much reality, and he takes a mind-bending trip down the psychedelic highway of consciousness to come face to face with his own morality and his own twisted soul.”

So the main character is a young psychopath and con artist. Nice to see those just starting out in the job market to have clear career goals. Reach for the moon, I say. But don’t do drugs — that stuff will ruin your life.

Coach Class Werewolf

Is it just my fertile imagination or are there more movies being made about werewolves as of late? Besides the fact werewolves – or “wolf men” – are gooning out my neighborhood and digging through trash cans for human entrails (next block over, you hairy dumbf*cks), it seems I wake every morning at noon to find YET ANOTHER werewolf movie is about to go to market.

Is this a bad thing? I say HECK NO! Werewolves are all purpose apex predators and don’t wear Hot Topic™ clothes and act all depressed and Goth-y like vampires do. Nor do werewolves drop out of the sky in tornadoes. Nope, just good old fashion die/kill/bleed. Or the reverse of that. See how versatile werewolves are?

So there’s this new werewolf move called Howl (release date pending 2015), not to be confused with that 2010 James Franco movie of the same name where he plays professional hippie Allen Ginsberg who yaps about his life and art. Nor is Howl to be associated with all those wretched The Howling sequels. (The original one in 1981 was pretty cool, though).

Nope, this Howl has a werewolf or two, a train and human entrails not yet committed to recycling. Here’s the plot…

“Joe, a young ticket collector, is riding the last train out of London on a dark and stormy night along with a meager bunch of passengers. When the train brakes violently and comes to a sudden halt deep in the middle of a forest, it seems they have hit something on the line. But when the driver ventures out to investigate, he never returns, leaving the passengers in a state of panic – particularly when Joe sees the driver’s mutilated body outside the carriage.”

“Realizing there’s something dangerous lurking in the forest, Joe tells the passengers to make barricades to secure themselves in the carriage, but soon the deadly creature is stalking the besieged train and smashing through their defenses, picking them off one-by-one. Joe rallies his “pack” of passengers to fight back. During a vicious battle they manage to kill the creature, revealing it to be a hideous mutated fusion of human and wild animal – a werewolf. However, celebrations are cut short when they hear more howls coming from the forest…”

Howl stars Sean Pertwee, who appeared in the superior werewolf movie Dog Soldiers in 2002. He has experience dealing with these ferocious flea bags and is a good choice to have on board. And the train probably has a bar on it. Werewolves, trains and cocktails. I smell a sequel coming on.