Photographic Jaws, Mixtape Monsters, Gator Aid

No question the poster for Jaws (1975) is one of the most iconic pieces of movie art of all time. Illustrated by Roger Kastel, the art has been turned into everything from book covers and board games, to countless parodies and baby blankets. And thanks to British filmmaker/cage diver Euan Rannachan, we now get to see the Jaws poster come to life, featuring his uncanny photo of a real shark swimming Jaws-style towards some soon-to-be happy meal.

As first reported by the Daily Mail, Euan took the one-in-a-million pic off the coast of Mexico. Here’s what he had to say about that: “The shark in my image is a female and her name is Squirrel. We’d been with her for a while. We have these people on the boat called shark wranglers and they throw these two-foot chunks of tuna to get the shark close to the surface,” Rannachan told the site, explaining how he got the perfect photograph of the seventeen-foot shark. A guy named Crazy Luis stood up on the boat to bring the shark to us as we sat on the surface in the shark cage.”

Crazy Luis seems like someone you’d want to fiesta with. And while we spitball alternative names for a shark other than Squirrel (?!?), here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not be improved by adding two-foot chunks of tuna to ’em…

STARFISH (May 28, 2019)
When a mysterious signal from an unknown dimension summons the end of days, it appears as if only Aubrey is left on earth. Trapped in the apartment of her recently deceased best friend, the only clue she has is a single cassette left behind after her friend’s death, labeled: “THIS MIXTAPE WILL SAVE THE WORLD.” Thrust into a mystery orchestrated by her friend and stricken with grief, Aubrey begins to piece the clues together, uncovering a series of tapes all with pieces of the mystery signal. Along the way, progress is impeded when monstrous creatures begin to overrun the world and enclose in on her. Aubrey is forced to fight off the encroaching creatures and move beyond her own crippling grief in order to find the remaining tapes. But will completing The Signal save the world?”

Wonder if the mixtape has R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of The World” on it? That’d be pretty funny if it did. So Aubrey is the last gal standing, facing off against giant monsters. As apocalyptic scenarios go, that’s not too shabby, even if it does “borrow” from The Last Man On Earth (1964), The Omega Man (1971) and I Am Legend (2007). Lesser so with The Last Woman on Earth (1960), which had two dudes fighting over her and all the shoe stores in the world open 24 hours a day.

HALLOWED GROUND (June 11, 2019)
“A married couple, trying to rebuild their relationship after an affair, travels to a secluded cabin and stumbles into a blood feud between the Native American owners of the property and the neighboring clan, who obsessively guard their land and punish those who trespass on it in terrifying ways.”

About time Native Americans gave the business end of the tomahawk to those Republicans. I bet one of the terrifying ways to punish them would be to put ‘em in a teepee to reflect on their shameful behavior. Probably wouldn’t be able to make sit in a corner because, hey, teepees are round, man. I totally looked it up.

CRAWL (July 12, 2019)
“When a massive hurricane hits her Florida hometown, Haley ignores evacuation orders to search for her missing father. Finding him gravely injured in the crawl space of their family home, the two become trapped by quickly encroaching floodwaters. As time runs out to escape the strengthening storm, Haley and her father discover that the rising water level is the least of their fears.”

Even though it takes the premise of Bait 3D (2012), it’s no spoiler that crocodiles and/or alligators end up in flooded houses and/or condos. The trailer for this one is insane cool, with many hungry reptiles showing up for this buffet, which has a lot of screaming deals. Heh.

DEATHCEMBER (2019)
“Coming soon, the holiday horror anthology Deathcember will open 24 doors to Hell for ‘the ultimate advent horror anthology movie.’ The anthology will feature 24 shorts by 24 directors from around the globe, each one taking a look at the dark side of the festive season. In “A Christmas Miracle,” a grieving mother who suffered a stillbirth is spending Christmas alone, when she is visited by an apparition that promises to bring her child back to life — but at what cost?”

Cool — hope they do a poster for all the segments; I need new wallpaper. Deathcember is even more cool than you think — the film crew was/is made up of almost entirely women. Women can be just as scary as men. Just ask any divorced dude.

Bat Ticker, Lighthouse Ghosts, Horror Hillbillies

If you hate super villains and hate being late, you can solve both problems by picking up a limited edition Batman-themed watch.

Designed by watchmaker Romain-Jerome, this must-have timepiece features a glowing Bat-Signal and a meticulous reproduction of a map of Gotham City cut into the rear sapphire glass. Powie! R-J also makes other Batman themed watches including the DNA, which is described as being “a denser, more Dark-Knight-style timepiece.”

There’s a few things you should know about this watch: It’s production is limited to 75 and costs $19,500. I’d buy it (with a post-dated check), but I’m used to wasting time, not keeping track of it.

While you’re thinking about hitting up Bruce Wayne for a down payment on the watch, here are a few just-released and upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not punch your clock…

LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER (available now)
“Marooned on a remote peninsula and haunted by frightening specters, a young man must confront the grotesque denizens of the night, or heed the Lighthouse Keeper’s cryptic warning to, ‘Always keep a light burning!’”

This one’s based on the 1849 Edgar Allen Poe story, “The Light-House.” Didn’t know they had books back then. (I have a TV like normal people.) Lighthouse Keeper features ghosts and maybe a transparent clam or two, but no octopus creatures, which Poe sometimes favored (i.e., Cthulhu). The special effects are cheesy enough as to be the snacks you’d eat while watching it.

B.R.A.I.N.S. (available now/MidnightPix.com)
“It is October 5, 1957 and with the Soviet launch of Sputnik-1, The Space Race has begun. Rogue Air Force General Frank Chapman is determined to establish a military base on the Moon before the Russians. Using Nazi mad science, headed by Dr. Werner Brandt, General Chapman has outfitted a modified German V-2 rocket with a nosecone capsule just large enough for a human head. The cephalic pilot will guide the rocket on a one-way lunar mission — beating the Commies to the Moon!”

A space head flying a rocket to the moon. There is nothing about this I do not like. B.R.A.I.N.S. is also said to include from some of the greatest cult genre movies ever, like 1962’s The Brain That Wouldn’t Die (another talking head movie) and The Last Man On Earth (1964). Could it be any more awesome?

KYRSYÄ: TUFTLAND (2018)
“Balancing between a failed relationship, uninspiring studies and financial problems, headstrong student Irina finds herself stuck in the modern rat race. To overcome her problems she decides to accept an unusual summer job offer at the secluded and self sufficient village of Kyrsyä. As Irina begins to get a grip of herself in the middle of the endless Finnish forest, the supposedly harmless hillbillies begin to reveal their true nature.”

Hillbillies, even Finnish ones, are the furthest thing from harmless as you can get. These mountain hippies all look like ZZ Top, drink booze made out of homemade gasoline and have personal hygiene that would make Bigfoot’s eyes water. Warning: All hillbillies are accompanied by banjo music.

DOWN A DARK HALL (2017/2018)
“Kit Gordy, a new student at the exclusive Blackwood Boarding School, confronts the institution’s supernatural occurrences and dark powers of its headmistress.”

A boarding school with supernatural occurrences and a headmistress with dark powers? Man, that sounds familiar. Can’t quite put my finger on it, so I’ll ponder while watching a Harry Potter movie.

P.S. No movie poster yet, so I used the book cover from author Lois Duncan, whose best-selling book this movie is adapated from. You’re quite welcome, Lois.

Renamed Aliens, Social Evil, Fresh Beats

Recently had a conversation with my dumpster diving associate behind the Squeezie Mart about the state of horror and sci-fi movies. His position: “Technological advances in the visual arts have broken through the limitations of horror filmmaking, thereby pushing the medium into new territories…” Then he peed his pants to emphasize his point. My thought is I don’t care; I just wanna see things go squish on the big screen.

Anyway, here’s what’s new horror/sci-fi is coming up to make your bladder splatter. Presumably not in public.

ALIEN: COVENANT (May 19, 2017)
“Alien: Covenant begins with the colony ship Covenant bound for a remote planet on the far side of the galaxy. The crew discovers what they think is an uncharted paradise, but is actually a dark, dangerous world, whose sole inhabitant is the ‘synthetic’ David, survivor of the doomed Prometheus expedition.”

Back in time — September 24, 2015, to be exact — I blogged that the next sequel in the Alien franchise was gonna be called Prometheus 2. That was the opposite of correct. Then I reported the movie was being retitled to Alien: Paradise Lost. Strike two. Now I find out it’ll be called Alien: Covenant. Not gonna say a word, other than I bet my life savings they’ll change the title again to make me look like a cred-less boob.

THE DEVIL LIVES HERE (December 13, 2016)
Three friends — Ale, Magu and Jorge — go on a trip to visit their friend Apolo at his family’s farm for a weekend of fun. At the same time, Sebastião and his younger brother Luciano are getting ready to perform the spiritual ritual their family has been tasked with every nine months, for centuries. On the night the two groups meet, they find out that what they thought were scary tales becomes more than real. It is now up to them to prevent evil to be born and take over the world.”

Spiritual ritual. That rhymes somehow. No doubt someone could turn rhymes into a rap song. Not me. No fan of rap here — or kids performing spiritual rituals. But hey, it should be fun to watch ‘em try and keep evil from being born and taking over the world, and then rapping about it against a backdrop of fresh beats.

HOSTILE (2017)
“After a worldwide epidemic, most of the planet’s population is killed. Only a few thousand have survived and are struggling to find food and shelter. But they’re not alone: they have to hide from strange creatures that go hunting at night.”

Liked this better when it was called The Last Man on Earth (1964), The Omega Man (1971), and I Am Legend (2007).

FRIEND REQUEST (available now UK) / releasing 2017 / US)
“Laura is one of the most popular girls in her high school, seemingly adored by all. She is then sent a Facebook™ friend request by lonely Marina. Having initially accepted, Laura finds herself being obsessively pursued by Marina and not long afterwards hits the ‘unfriend’ button. When Marina apparently commits suicide in an online video, Laura’s life takes a turn for the terrifying, and she becomes the victim of a supernatural presence, attacked in her own home by a mysterious force. Is Marina responsible? And why does she refuse to disappear from Laura’s friend list, even as it increasingly diminishes in number?”

They forgot a question: who cares? Pointless social media horror has been around for a while. Not sure why; with its limited premise — do we need YET ANOTHER one? [Moviepilot.com lists Megan is Missing/2011, Smiley/2012), Antisocial/2013, The Den/2014, #Horror/2015, Unfriended/2015, and Ratter/2016, as “top” examples. They are wrong — all of ’em suck, because I’m older than social media and I can say things like that.]

Sorry, kids, but you can take your social media and cram it down your Facebook™. Back in my day our social media was the telephone — and we used it to call forth horror, i.e., 976-Evil (1988). Crank called satan all the time, we did. No fancy pants digital screen tapping, just pure finger-in-the-hole, rotary dialin’ horror.

Will The Last Man On Earth Please Turn Out The Lights?

If it weren’t for those infected vampire zombies mucking things up, then the not infected Dr. Robert Morgan (Vincent Price) would certainly be the last man on Earth. Just when you think you can finally get some peace and quiet…

Dr. Rob is a scientist in The Last Man on Earth (1964) who tried to stop that viral plague from wiping out nearly the entire planet’s population by making everyone sneeze and cough themselves to death – including his wife and young daughter.

Now a widower who doesn’t have to worry about child support, the Earth-first doc spends his days loading rotting bodies into his station wagon and hauling ’em to a proper burial site, i.e., a burning car tire dump. Then there’s the irony of him hunting the vampire zombies and hammering stakes into their day-sleeping bodies – they need to go to the dump as well. Beats sitting around and reading.

He has to get the job done by nightfall as the staggering zombies awake and swarm his house while half-assedly whacking it with boards and calling his name to come out. You see, they want his uninfected blood. Probably tastes better than the city park raccoons they’ve been sucking on.

For the most part Dr. Rob keeps the zombies at bay with garlic and mirrors on the front door. (Zombies/vampires don’t like/can’t see their own reflections and therefore smash the mirrors, which forces Rob to keep shoplifting for new ones.) When he sleeps, Rob plays popular music really loud to distract from the incessant zombie clattering. Then he has dreams of the plague taking out the world and family. In one kinda grisly flashback, he sees the military collecting the dead bodies and throwing them into the aforementioned burning landfill – including his daughter. Harsh biscuits.

One day Rob comes across an uninfected chick. Well, hey – time to slap on some aftershave and get this party started! Turns out she’s a member of a posse still living by undergoing injections that make the blood bacteria dormant, but only for a while. Sucks to be them. After much yapping, he injects her with some of his inner goop to see if it will be a cure, never minding the mixing of opposing blood types that could kill her. (That’s why he’s a doctor and I’m not.)

The “cure” works, but her gang – along with the vampire zombies – chase and corner Dr. Rob in a church, where they… I already gave away 99% of the movie; do you seriously want me to wreck the ending? (Spoiler – watch the remake The Omega Man (1971) with Charleton Heston – it ends the same way.)

So how come Dr. Rob was immune to the plague in the first place? He was bitten by an infected vampire bat when he was stationed in Panama, which introduced a diluted form of the plague into his blood. Duh.

P.S. Try your best not to confuse this movie with The Last Man on Earth (1924) and The Last Man on Earth (2011). In case you’re writing this down: I Am Legend, also the same story, was released in 2007. Duh.

Sci-Fi Virgin

A tongue-in-lower-cheek spoof of I Am Legend (2007), which was a spoof of Omega Man (1971), which was a spoof of The Last Man on Earth (1964), I Am Virgin (2010) is a sub-budget “sci-fi” movie set three years into the future after a virus wipes out everybody except a young guy named Robby.

All other survivors are ultra-horny vampires who suck everything except blood. Robby, the son of ultra-strict religious parents who drilled it into his head that sex and women will lead to the destruction of all mankind (they were almost right about that one), watches porn by night and searches for the right woman by day, bemoaning his virgin status on video blogs, which he posts daily.

How the internet and electricity is still functioning after three years is anyone’s guess. But sci-fi doesn’t have to explain anything to you, man.

Robby won’t give in, though, believing that the right woman might have survived the Armageddon and that he’ll someday find her. With his luck, she’ll turn out to be a lesbian.