Watercolor Horror, Upside Down Reality, Jinn Genie

Another watercolor masterpiece by the magically talented Christopher Shy, whose work I’ve e-showcased here numerous e-times. This isn’t key art for the upcoming Joker movie, but it should be. In fact, Shy has done piles of movie art that Hollywooders should be tripping over themselves to license.

Shy has done dazzling treatments of everything from The Evil Dead and Pet Sematary, to War of the Gargantuas and Poltergeist. (Crossing fingers that he might eventually do one of Dude, Where’s My Car?) And he does color variants of each one, kinda like putting different colored lightbulbs in all your lamps.

You can buy his art by clicking HERE. Make sure to rummage through your mom’s purse for coinage as these pieces range from $105.00 to $230.00. (Hope my mother has a big purse as I want about 12 of his paintings.) But before you go to the Bank of Mom for a hefty withdrawal, here are a few now available/upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not be improved by a little dash of Christopher Shy’s cover art…

WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE (available now)
Two sisters live secluded in a large manor and care for their deranged uncle. The rest of their family died five years before, under suspicious circumstances. When a cousin arrives for a visit, family secrets and scandals unravel.”

They had me at “deranged uncle,” who, by the way, is played by Crispin Glover. So yeah, typecasting.

DARK SENSE (available now)
“Predicting his own death at the hands of a serial killer, a psychic must enlist the help of an ex-special forces soldier to track down the psychopath and evade the government agents out to exploit his special powers.”

If I were a psychic, I’d become a weatherman and “forecast” the weather so accurately, I’d be, like, double rich.

JINN (June 13, 2019/Netflix™)
“A group of teenagers whose lives are disrupted when a Jinn in the form of a teenage boy appears to them in the ancient city of Petra. Their friendships and young romances are tested when they set out to stop an even greater darkness that is threatening to destroy the world. Can they come together in time, and find the answers needed, in order to save everything?”

This is a TV series that Netflix™ is describing as a “contemporary supernatural teenage drama.” Take the word “teen” out of it and it might actually be watchable.

THE COMA (2019)
“After a colossal and mysterious accident a young talented architect comes back to his senses in a very odd world that only resembles the reality. This world is based on the memories of the ones who live in it — people who are currently finding themselves in a deep coma. Human memory is spotty, chaotic and unstable. The same is the COMA — odd collection of memories and recollections — cities, glaciers and rivers can all be found in one room. All the laws of physics can be broken. The architect must find out the exact laws and regulations of COMA as he fights for his life, meets the love of his life and keeps on looking for the exit to the real world which he will have to get acquainted with all over again after the experience of COMA.”

This Russian-made sci-fi is a visual stunner. Good thing; if you don’t speak Russia words, it’ll all be Greek to you.

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).