196 Days of Zombies

28 Weeks Later (2007) picks up where 28 Days Later (20020) left off, with downtown England quarantined because of the Rage virus that turns people into extreme zombies quicker than you can say, “Ouch — stop biting my arse, you arsehole!” 

A man and his wife are outside of the city, holed up in a cottage with some old people and a few others. The zombies find them and start projectile barfing virus blood all over their victims, which tuns them into zombies in, like, three seconds. Cornered, the man manages to get away, but cowardly leaves his wife to be overtaken by the flesh-eating horde. He makes it back to the city where the U.S. military has declared Martial Law and is letting people back in through a screening process. They think the “infected” are all confined to the outlying areas.

The coward man and his two kids are reunited, but the law-unabiding children sneak out of the containment zone and make their way back to their former home for some penny candy, whistles and House of the Dead Playstation™ game. But someone’s there and it’s…MOM! Yes, she was bitten by the zombies. No, she didn’t “turn” as she carries a gene in her blood that keeps the Rage virus from messing up her hair and vomiting gunk all over bit Britain. 

The military brings her back for studying. About this time the coward man is notified his wife is still alive. Um…OOPS! He uses his security clearance to visit her and even gives her a kiss as if to say, “Sorry ’bout the whole abandonment ’n zombie attack thing, honey. So, what’s new?” But she bites his lip as he’s going in for the apology smooch. You know what happens next.

Along the way, more flesh eating, flesh burning, flesh running, flesh screaming. And the camera work, which at times feels like they strapped a camcorder onto a frog hopped up on meth, is quite dizzying. But the story line holds and cowardly dad’s hottie teen daughter is about one year away from a Zombie Maxim center spread: Uninfected Girls of Great Britain.

UFO Engineering, Mothman Sightings, Demon Trackers

Just in time to distract us from a seemingly endless string of horrifying, political news cycles the creepy yet cool, Mothman returns to flitter around the spotlight.

According to a recent article on AbsoluteHistory.com, Mothman was not only seen but photographed. Here’s what the article, written by 1636wpczar, had to report…

“It had been a Friday night like any other in Chicago for John Amitrano. As he took a step outside the bar where he was working, however, he apparently noticed something strange in the sky above him. And according to Amitrano, the figure looked just like an ominous creature that people have been claiming to see in the U.S. for the past 50 years.”

Mothman was in Chicago and was spotted by a guy leaving a bar? Doesn’t sound suspicious to me at all.

While we all share a few gallons of Chicago’s Old Style™ (canned beer that tastes like a cryptid p*ssed in it — oddly, not a bad thing) and stagger out and look for the ominous creatures, here are a few now available/upcoming horror/sci documentaries/movies that may or may not look better when viewed under the influence of a few gallons of Old Style™…

BOB LAZAR: AREA 51 & FLYING SAUCERS (available now)
Former Government physicist Bob Lazar made headlines world-wide in 1989 when he came forward with his account of reverse-engineering an alien spacecraft for the U.S. Military. His testimony remains the most controversial and important UFO story of all time. The documentary explores Lazar’s groundbreaking claims and the devastating impact it has had on his life over the course of the last thirty years, including rare and never before revealed footage guaranteed to alter the landscape of the debate. He blew the whistle, shocked the world, then went silent — until now.

I’ve heard Bob Lazar’s story for some time now and I believe he not only worked on reverse-engineering captured UFOs, but actually got inside one and poked around. I only have one question: what was in the flying saucer’s glove compartment? The truth is out there and I want to believe.

BRUTAL BIGFOOT (available now)
“Join the Searching for Bigfoot field team – led by ‘The Godfather of Bigfoot‘ Tom Biscardi, as they get more than they bargained for when investigating the disappearance of a hiker and the mutilation of a couple deep in the remote Arkansas countryside. During their search, Tom and his team are led to a top secret nuclear testing facility and mutated creatures that reportedly inhabit the woods surrounding the compound. Along the way they gain the unwanted attention of unknown government agents who watch their every move as they search for the truth behind brutal deaths and strange disappearances that are rumored to involve a very large creature.

This one came out a short whilst ago, but it slipped past my radar, mostly due to the fact Tom Biscardi is involved. The self-proclaimed “Godfather of Bigfoot” has been involved in several high-profile, epic FAIL Bigfoot hoaxes in the past and is pretty much a loudmouth out there once again trying to cash in on Bigfoot’s good name. Did it work? Scorecard: Bigfoot: 3 / Tom Biscardi: 0.

DEMON’S PATH (December 22, 2018)
“The series follows a forensic pathologist who has the ability to see the last 10-seconds of life of the dead. Working together with a friendly exorcist and a policeman, they solve homicide cases. But as their investigations proceed, they become the target of a murderer.”

Never saw any of this popular series as it’s done in Hong Kong and my TV can’t reach that far. I think I need a bigger antennae (hold your jokes, please). The premise, though, seems to borrow from iZombie, wherein a zombie pathologist eats the brains of corpses brought into the coroner’s office and she adopts the personality traits of the dead personage and gets flashbacks as to how that personage died and who died ‘em.

THE DEMONOLOGIST (January 1, 2019)
A detective is haunted by nightmares of his past and visions he cannot understand. When he investigates a string of brutal murders, he discovers a Cult that worships the four King Demons of Hell, who plan on bringing them forth to destroy the Earth. He must stop the Cult from starting the Apocalypse and finally come to grips with his birthright and destiny as The Demonologist.

Sounds like a rearranging of The Last Witch Hunter (2015) starring Vin Diesel. Man, that movie stunk as bad as a brutal Bigfoot.

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…

Godzilla vs. The A-Bomb

As I IMPATIENTLY wait for the new Godzilla movie to be released (14,400 minutes from right…NOW), I’ve been re-watching the second movie trailer to keep me from going crazy exploding all over the neighborhood. And that’s where my uncanny recollective abilities kicked in.

In the Budweiser-saturated recesses of my mind, I recalled an article about Godzilla that appeared in the highly-trusted Weekly World News. Unfortunately published on September 11, 2001 (nice timing, guys), the article claimed that the U.S. dropped the A-bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6th and 9th, 1945, not to wipe out the Japanese and to end a long and brutal war, but to kill Godzilla.

This is exactly the establishing plot element of the new Godzilla movie. According to the movie’s trailer, that is.

The WWN article, written by Tobuichi Kimura, goes on to say that, “Contrary to what most history books say, the U.S. military did not drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima simply to end WWII, but mainly to destroy Japan’s secret weapons – Godzilla and Rodan.” This raises questions and at least two eyebrows as Godzilla 2014 is reported to have a flying Rodan monster in the movie as well.

So it comes down to this: either the producers of Godzilla 2014 read this article 13.5 years ago and pinched it for their script, or the events of 1945 were indeed true and that we attempted to stop Godzilla with a nuclear deterrent. I think we all know the answer here.

Killing Godzilla can’t be done, by the way, except in Godzilla (1954) and Godzilla vs. Destroyah (1995). But those were the ONLY two times.