Frolicking Kaiju, Clay Sharks, Teenage Death Trap

Going back to the medieval days of 1997, there were three-minute campy film shorts under the title of Godzilla Island (250 in all), but you had to temporarily visit and/or live in Japan to see ’em. But wait — you can watch ’em on YouTube™ in the US for free right now. And yes, they’re subtitled. Whew — now I can understand the screaming of fleeing Japanese citizens in a language I’m somewhat familiar with.

Behold — the details: “Travel to Godzilla Island and enjoy the antics of your favorite kaiju such as Mothra, Rodan, Ghidorah, and of course, Godzilla in the 1997 short-form series. The year is 2097. Monsters live and frolic on Godzilla Island under the watchful eye of G Guard, a human peacekeeping force. But with a massive, belligerent UFO heading straight for the island, how long can that peace last? Episodes of Godzilla Island will be released every Tuesday and Thursday (click here).”

While we contemplate what a belligerent UFO is exactly, here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not be better suited in a three-minute format… 

THE RESURRECTION OF CHARLES MANSON / March 16, 2023 (VOD)

“A couple goes to the desert for a romantic weekend and shoots an audition for a role in an upcoming film. Their holiday quickly turns deadly as they are the target of a cult that carries on the evil beliefs and murderous practices of the Manson Family. This cult believes they can resurrect the ultimate object of their obsession — Charles Manson himself — through a shocking ritual of human sacrifice.”

All quality cults live in the desert. And the woods. And that scummy apartment building right next to mine.

JURASSIC SHARK 3: SEAVENGE / Release pending 2023 (VOD)

“A reporter, cameraman, and some petty thieves are stranded in a boat out on the ocean. The only thing that stands between them and their lives is a 50-foot prehistoric megalodon shark. They must all pull together to survive.”

According to my investigative research (Wikipedia™), the estimated maximum length of a megalodon is 67 feet. This means this movie’s megalodon, at 50 feet long, is a bit on the short side. In other words, this shark is a…shrimp.

COCAINE SHARK / Release pending 2023 (VOD)

“A mafia drug lord has unleashed a new, highly addictive stimulant on the streets called HT25, derived from sharks held captive in a secret lab, and which causes monstrous side effects. After an explosion and leak at the lab, an army of mutated, bloodthirsty sharks and other creatures are set loose on the world as a small band of people try to stop the carnage.”

I watched the trailer — the mutated bloodthirsty sharks are made of clay. Highly addictive clay.

THE WRATH OF BECKY / Release pending 2023 (VOD)

“Two years after she escaped a violent attack on her family, Becky attempts to rebuild her life in the care of an older woman — a kindred spirit named Elena. But when a group known as the ‘Noble Men’ break into their home, attack them, and take her beloved dog, Diego, Becky must return to her old ways to protect herself and her loved ones.”

Kinda like Home Alone (1990), but with more slaughtering.

Comic Book of the Dead, Blindsided Apocalypse, Jungle Zombies

For those of us still in grief/shock over the cancellation of the insanely gory/bloody/goofy/fun Ash. vs. Evil Dead (Starz™ — 2015 to 2018) TV series, now comes a comic book that mashes together Bruce Campbell’s Army of Darkness (1992) character Ash, with his other famous role as Elvis in an old folk’s home going up against an Egyptian mummy in the wildly hilarious Bubba Ho-Tep (2002).

From the Dynamite Entertainment and IDW Publishing press release: “In Army of Darkness/Bubba Ho-Tep, Ash embarks on a soul-searching road trip to Texas on a hunch that Elvis Presley may still be alive and kicking (and supposedly vanquished a mummy)! What follows is a series of universe-spanning events that involve an Elvis jumpsuit with special time-travel abilities, a trip to 70’s Vegas, plus the reveal of an evil new Book of the Dead, the Necronomicon Ho-Tep.”

Hotels should put this in nightstand drawers as this looks to be our new Bible. The first issue of Army of Darkness/Bubba Ho-Tep #1 arrives February 2019. Until then, here are a few now available/upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not be worthy of a hotel nightstand drawer…

DEAD SQUAD: TEMPLE OF THE UNDEAD (available now)
“A group of young people become lost in the jungle during a river rafting trip and stumble upon a long lost ruin that is home to a host of mysterious monsters.”

Cool — jungle zombies! If the zombies could talk, I bet they’d say lost tourists taste just like a Piña Colada sandwich.

BIRD BOX (December 21, 2018/Netflix™)
“When a mysterious force decimates the world’s population, only one thing is certain: if you see it, you take your life. Facing the unknown, Malorie finds love, hope and a new beginning only for it to unravel. Now she must flee with her two children down a treacherous river to the one place left that may offer sanctuary. But to survive, they’ll have to undertake the perilous two-day journey blindfolded.”

They should’ve called this, “Pin The Tail On The Apocalypse.” Gotta be careful walking around the wastelands with blindfolds on, though; what you think is a hygienic gas station restroom could very well be someone’s front lawn.

REBORN (2018/2019)
“A stillborn baby girl is abducted by a morgue attendant and brought back to life by electrokinetic power. On her sixteenth birthday, she escapes captivity and sets out to find her birth mother, leaving a trail of destruction behind her.”

They’re calling this “Carrie for the Z-Generation.” Wikipedia™ tell us that “most of Generation Z have used the Internet since a young age, and therefore, are generally comfortable with technology and with interacting on social media.” I thought the “Z” stood for “zero”. 

30 MILES FROM NOWHERE (2018/2019)
“Five ex-college buddies return to the summer home of their youth for their scientist friend’s funeral. But mourning turns to terror when they realize their reunion is not at all what it seems.”

I wish I had a scientist friend. He/she could do experiments on me because that seems neat for some reason.

X-Files Anniversary, Demonic Kids Games, Zombie Baby-Making

Talk about finding the Holy Grail of sci-fi TV series — 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment™ is issuing all 11 seasons/218 episodes of The X-Files on DVD/Blu-ray box set on October 15, 2018 to commemorate the pop culture phenomenon’s 25th anniversary. Now you can binge watch (take the week off from work) all those elusive flying saucers, aliens, monsters, demonic stuff, and subsequent government conspiracies. That’s the good news. The bad news is its only available (for now) in England. Blimey!

Yeah, there’s been X-Files box sets before, the last one released a few years ago and only went to Season 10. At $148.00 for the Blu-ray collection and $119.00 for the DVD set, it was still a bargain at twice the price. The only drag is that the new box set contains 59 discs; Trying to find a particular episode in a sea of shows seems unduly laborious (sorry — word of the day calendar).

So while you click on over to Amazon.co.uk to buy it ($117.00 in U.S. converted dollars), here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not be worthy of a Fox Muldar/Dana Scully investigation…

LIGHT AS A FEATHER (October 12, 2018/Hulu)
“An innocent game of ‘Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board’ goes wrong when the five teen girls who played start dying off in the exact way that was predicted, forcing the survivors to figure out why they’re being targeted — and whether the evil force hunting them down is one of their own.”

Light as a feather, stiff as a board. Sounds more like a wishful health condition than a game. If it’s pure evil they’re looking for, those girls should start playing Twister™, the Exorcist edition.

WELCOME TO MERCY (November 2, 2018)
“A young woman struggles against the unholy forces that possess her in this terrifying occult thriller. After being stricken with stigmata, single mother Madaline is sent to a remote convent where nothing is what it seems and her friend August is seemingly the only person she can trust. Together, they must confront the demons inside Madaline before she becomes the Antichrist.”

Wikipedia™ defines stigmata as a term used in Christian Mysticism to describe the manifestations of bodily wounds, scars and pain in locations corresponding to the crucifixion wounds of Jesus Christ, such as the hands, wrists, and feet. My bartender defines it as falling into sharp sticker bushes while wobbling home unholy drunk.

MAIL ORDER MONSTER (November 6, 2018)
“12-year-old Sam Pepper lost her mother in a car accident and her reclusive, quirky nature makes her an easy target for bullying. Realizing she’d had enough, Sam orders the parts to build a ‘Monster’ from a comic book ad, and is finally able to get back at the bully. Life becomes gets more complicated when Sam discovers her father Roy proposes to his girlfriend Sydney, Pepper relies on her monster to keep her from getting a new mom.”

Comic book back page ads in my day only sold stuff like X-Ray glasses (didn’t work), live Seamonkeys (didn’t float), Kryptonite “rocks” (regular rocks painted green) and Space Shoes for $1.98 (still wearing ‘em).

ZOO (2018/2019)
“Karen and John have lost the spark of married life the day they were notified that they were unable to conceive. Now they almost live like the walking dead, imprisoned by everyday life and on the verge of divorce. When the world is hit by a pandemic that really turns people into zombies, the couple have to lock themselves in their apartment, waiting for rescue. While the world outside is falling apart, they are forced to find their way back to each other and reclaim their lost love.”

Stuck indoors while zombies are taking over outside and nothing to do but practice making babies? This doesn’t sound like a dark horror comedy but rather…THE BEST MOVIE IN THE WORLD!

Superhero Facial Hair, Alien Robots, Criminal Comets

My TV superhero watching guilty pleasures include Arrow, The Flash, Gotham, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, Daredevil, The Punisher, Luke Cage, Iron Fist (just barely) and Jessica Jones. But it’s Supergirl on The CW that, while targeting young teen girls, is hilarious enough to keep me all giggly during its three seasons.

Favorite moments include Supergirl getting drunk (“I feel…float-y…but I’m not floating…”), excitedly meeting the President (original Wonder Woman star, Lynda Carter) for the first time: “Should I get a blow-out?”, Karaoke rapping (she’s actually not half bad, though rap music in general sucks red kryptonite) and eating glazed pastry after glazed pastry in a diner as her alter-ego, Kara Danvers. (Waitress: “How can you eat all this day after day and not gain a pound?” Kara/Supergirl: “I’m an alien.” Comedy gold, I tell you.

But in Season 3, several characters are getting costumes, specifically ex-Supergirl boyfriend Mon-El (he has a cape he uses as a wicked weapon) and apocalyptic nemesis/world killer Reign, whose costume looks like it’d be perfect for cosplay night at the Fetish Fortress in Chinatown, NY. Both are welcome upgrades, though not too crazy about Mon-El’s new hipster beard/mustache. Arrow being the exception to the rule, superheroes in general don’t look superhero-y with facial hair — just ask Superman and his universally-mocked, digitally-erased “Canadian scarf” in Justice League (2017).

While I go shopping for a new pair of britches I can use as a weapon, here are a few upcoming/just released horror/sci-fi and genre documentaries that may or may not give your fright level a smooth, close-shave…

KIN (August 31, 2018)
Kin, a pulse-pounding crime thriller with a sci-fi twist, is the story of an unexpected hero destined for greatness. Chased by a vengeful criminal, the feds and a gang of otherworldly soldiers, a recently released ex-con and his adopted younger brother are forced to go on the run with a weapon of mysterious origin as their only protection.

I bet the “weapon of mysterious origins” is a Super Soaker™ filled with pee pee. That should pretty much stop anybody, even otherworldly soldiers. In fact, I hear NASA is building up an arsenal of such weapons just in case Earth is invaded by extraterrestrials. I heard about that on the Internet, so it can’t possibly be wrong.

THE FLATWOODS MONSTER: A LEGACY OF FEAR (available now)
“This documentary that unlocks a decades-old mystery that included a government-ordered military examination of a purported alien crash-site, and multiple UFOs seen by countless residents of Braxton County, WV. In September of 1952 hundreds of people across the United States witnessed glowing objects streak across the skies over much of the Eastern Seaboard. One of the objects in question was seen to land on a hill near the small community of Flatwoods, West Virginia by a group of children. The children and two adults made a journey to the top of the hill to search for the object but instead found themselves face to face with a thirteen-foot tall mechanical monster.”

I’ve seen numerous TRUE documentaries about this “Beverly Spacebilly.” A moment-by-moment recounting of the story on Wikipedia™ tells that when the local sheriff showed up to investigate, he found “two elongated tracks” in the mud. We can only hope aliens, mechanical or otherwise, have enough sense to wipe their tentacles before tracking up a freshly-mopped UFO kitchen floor/deck.

 

STONE SEEKER (available now)
“Three soldiers descend into the caves beneath their city to find a fabled stone with powers.”

And there they find members of the Rolling Stones. (Stones with powers — get it? Why I’m not on Comedy Central™ continues to baffle me.)

GARLIC AND GUNPOWDER (available now)
“A comet is on track to destroy the planet — or not, depending on who you talk to. The world’s top 1% aren’t taking any chances and are planning on stashing their gold and valuables in vaults hidden deep in the mountains. A 300-pound female Mob Boss, a Chinese Mafia leader and a couple of Federal agents all have competing plans to pull off what could be the final heist of existence.”

They’re right — the guy selling tainted Romaine lettuce in the grocery store insists a comet will wipe our butts clean. Then there’s the bus stop lady who never gets on the bus who claims the end-of-the-world produce guy is full of E.coli. Either way, the criminals — and I can’t believe I’m saying this — are smart to invest their ill-gotten gains in mountain vaults. Just to be safe, they should tell me where its hidden, so I can help them re-find it if and when the comet comes to cash us out.

Horror Icon, Sci-Fi God, Native American Ghosts

In place of my usual incitefully snarky (ahem) blog entry intro, I’d like to express my saddened thoughts on the recent, untimely passing of legendary horror filmmaker George A. Romero, 77, who was inarguably the father of the contemporary zombie movie genre.

George, as you should know, was the man behind the timeless and rule-breaking Night of the Living Dead back in 1968. He went on to make such VHS stand-outs as The Crazies (1973), Dawn of the Dead (1978), and The Dark Half (1993), as well as more zombie legacy movies. George, you are, and will continue to be, greatly missed.

Here are a few upcoming horror and sci-fi movies that may not be missed. Or may.

GOD PARTICLE (October 27, 2017)
“A team of astronauts aboard a space station find themselves alone after a scientific experiment involving a particle accelerator makes the Earth vanish. When a space shuttle appears, the space station crew must fight for survival following their horrible discovery.”

The Internet (or “the biggest toilet in the matrix) is claiming this is the third installment of the sorta Cloverfield series. I sure the f-word hope so, as I had more than a few questions after the sorta sequel 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016). A few, though, had been answered by some rather impressive researched clues on YouTube™ that connects Cloverfield (2009) and the second flick-o-rama, with 10 Cloverfield Lane’s Howard Stambler (played by the awesome John Goodman) being the connecting link. (Crap — and all this time I thought it was the aliens.)

Wikipedia™ has this to say about that: “The first hints God Particle was connected to the Cloverfield brand came when a piece of the viral marketing for 10 Cloverfield Lane included a sound clip that was supposedly from the International Space Station.”

Rather than use up your vision with my half-assed summation, get on YouTube™ and pull up Cloverfield; you’ll be amazed — and aghast — that someone would spend so much time digging for very deep clues/answers. The only thing I research are bar stools.

AKUMA (2017)
“Akira Tanaka, a young and attractive but emotionally damaged Japanese woman moves to the United States to escape a past marked by tragedy. She moves in with her sister Hana and her new husband Adam, hoping to leave her demons behind and start a new life. But as Akira’s behavior grows increasingly erratic and strange disturbances mark the night, Akira is forced to reveal her real reason for coming: to flee the malevolent spirit that has been tormenting her since childhood…and which appears to have followed her here.”

MOHAWK (2017/2018)
“After one of her tribe sets an American soldiers’ camp ablaze, a young female Mohawk finds herself pursued by a ruthless band of renegades bent on revenge. Fleeing deep into the woods, Mohawk youths Oak and Calvin confront the bloodthirsty Colonel Holt and his soldiers. As the Americans seem to close in from all sides, the trio must summon every resource — both real and supernatural — as the brutal attack escalates.”

Man, I wish I could summon supernatural resources. First, I’d have them get me a Frisko Freeze™ burger, just to clear my mind. Then, I’d have them build me an in-ground swimming pool. And once they bring me a case of Budweiser™, I’d float in my new in-ground swimming pool and drink it all and, in a hazy state, would unleash utter Heck on Earth. And have another Frisko Freeze™ burger.

THE SIX BILLION DOLLAR MAN (2018)
“Mark Wahlberg’s upcoming action adventure — The Six Billion Dollar Man — is an upgrade of the 1970s TV series The Six Million Dollar Man.”

Yeesh — that’s quite a price increase. Who do they think they are — Seattle landlords?

Some might remember the 1974 ABC series, starring Lee Majors as Col. Steve Austin, who had a near fatal car ka-BOOM and taxpayers funded his bionic arms, legs (and everything else that dangled) with hi-techery. Two things I remember from that TV show, which also spun-off The Bionic Woman in 1976. (She was rebuilt after a skydiving accident made her go splat.) First, Col. Austin always seemed to be wearing a red track suit. Unfashionable in any decade. Secondly, was that weirdly cool science-y reverb noise — sounding like a snapped bed spring — that happened every time he did something with his bionic add-ons. It’s available as a ringtone in case you want to be retro chic.

Grandma Zombies, More Sharks, Hollywood Bigfoot

Got a kick out of actor Rob Lowe’s recent statement that he and his sons had a face-to-face encounter with Bigfoot in the Ozarks while shooting a new docuseries called self-servingly, The Lowe Files (premiering August 2, 2017 on A&E). From the press release: “The reality show follows Lowe and his two teenage sons, Matthew and John Owen, as they travel around the country investigating mysterious phenomena and paranormal activity.”

This is what happens to your career when it runs out of gas. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Lowe told the celebrity gossip magazine, “We had an incredible encounter with what locals call the ‘wood ape,’ which is in the Ozark Mountains. I’m fully aware that I sound like a crazy, Hollywood kook right now.”

Looks like Rob just wrote his show’s first review.

Speaking of kooky Hollywood things, here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that you may or may not come face-to-face with on your TV/movie theater screen — whether you live in the Ozarks or not…

GRANNY OF THE DEAD (July 14, 2017)
“Regular guy Ed awakes one morning to find that his Grandma has become one of the living dead. Trapped in his home, Ed struggles to handle the situation. When he discovers the rest of the town’s elderly have also been infected by the zombie plague, Ed must become a hero in order to save his family and friends.”

Aren’t old people zombies already? I mean, minus the flesh-eating part? Then again, I suppose it’s easier to chew human flesh with dentures, provided said cheap meat has been cut up for you and served around 4PM at Royal Fork Buffet restaurants.

OPEN WATER 3: CAGE DIVE (August 11, 2017)
“Three American tourists are making an audition tape of a shark cage dive for a reality TV show. A catastrophic turn of events leaves them stranded in the waters of South Australia surrounded by hungry great white sharks.”

When aren’t great white sharks hungry? As oceanographer Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) expertly pointed out in Jaws (1975), “What we’re dealing with here is a perfect engine, an eating machine. All this machine does is swim, eat and make little sharks.” So yeah, looking forward to the sharks graphically doing at least one of those things. (Sorry, nature pervs — this is a PG-rated affair.) And while it sports the Open Water moniker, it’s only related to the previous two Open Water movies in name only. Odd, as the plot is nearly identical. This one, though, is found footage crapola, which in this case, probably works.

P.S. I wrote about this back on October 13, 2016 when it was merely called Cage Dive. With a title that uninspired, not surprised that they added “Open Water” to it to cash in. All things being equal, I would’ve done the same thing, but changed it slightly: Open Water: The Eatening.

DEATH NOTE (August 25, 2017/Netflix)
“Intoxicated by the power of a supernatural notebook, a young man begins killing those he deems unworthy of life. Based on the famous Japanese manga.”

I wrote about Death Note: Light Up The New World, the Japanese sequel, on April 25, 2017. You’re welcome. This Death Note is the American remake of the first DN movie, which came out in 2006. The new trailer is crazy cool nuts, the premise being that a “death note book” drops out of the sky and when you write someone’s name in it, they soon expire. My neck keeps hurting from looking up at the sky for falling books.

BLADE RUNNER 2049 (October 6, 2017)
“Thirty years after the events of the first film, a new blade runner, LAPD Officer K, unearths a long-buried secret that has the potential to plunge what’s left of society into chaos. K’s discovery leads him on a quest to find Rick Deckard, a former LAPD blade runner who has been missing for 30 years.”

The original Blade Runner (1982) has long been considered one of sci-fi’s greatest movies ever in the history of the future. Hence (from Wikipedia™), film critics Chris Ridley and Janet Maslin theorized that “Blade Runner changed cinematic and cultural discourse through its image repertoire, and subsequent influence on films.”

Not everyone liked Blade Runner…or even understood it when it first came out (me included). But re-watching the seven different film cuts (including one where filmmaker Ridley Scott had full artistic license to edit), Blade Runner holds up surprisingly well, and makes the future look as bleak and doom-y as it does today.

ROAD OF THE DEAD (2018)
“Road of the Dead takes place six years after 2005’s post-apocalyptic Land of the Dead and is set on an island where zombie prisoners race cars in a modern-day Coliseum for the entertainment of wealthy humans.”

A return to the zombie genre he kinda started with Night of the Living Dead back in 1968, George Romero’s Road of the Dead is being described as Road Warrior (1981) meets Rollerball (1975) at a Nascar™ race, with significant inspiration from Ben-Hur (1959). That seems pretty dang awesome, especially since his Land of the Dead arrived DOA. So zombies driving race cars — can you say “morning commute”?

Vampires and Octopuses

A smattering of new horror movies to fulfill your innermost dreams and desires. Note: Smattering means “a small amount of something.” Use this knowledge wisely.

12 DEADLY DAYS (December 12, 2016)
“YouTube™ and Blumhouse Television™ are partnering on a new half hour horror-comedy series called 12 Deadly Days, which is set in the cursed town of Saturn during the twelve days leading up to Christmas.”

Save your bitcoins — this one’s free to view on YouTube™, the world’s video landfill. And if you’re wondering where the town of Saturn is, it’s just down the road from Uranus. Man, that joke never gets old.

CITY OF DEAD MEN (December 16, 2016)
“An American tourist arrives in Colombia, where he discovers he’s run completely out of money. Desperate for a quick fix to the problem, he meets a young girl, who introduces him to a group of misfits and their mysterious leader, who live in an abandoned psychiatric hospital. At first accepting their friendship and shelter, it soon becomes clear something terrible happened in the hospital. The group living there now only feel immortal, pulling Michael into a dangerous dynamic that might kill him.”

Guess if I ran out of money I’d shack up in and abandoned psychiatric hospital, too. There’s worse things in the world — like people using abandoned psychiatric hospital toilets that don’t flush.

THE BYE BYE MAN (January 13, 2017)
“Set in 1990s Wisconsin, three college students move into an old, off-campus house where they find themselves preyed on by a malevolent supernatural entity called The Bye Bye Man. They must find a way to save themselves while keeping the whole thing secret to protect anyone else from becoming the entity’s next victim.”

Geez, all they have to do is move out of the house. College students are so dumb.

THE CREATURE BELOW (February 28, 2017)
“During a traumatic accident on a deep-sea dive, Olive, a gifted, young marine biologist discovers an unearthly creature. Plagued by gruesome nightmares, her fractured memories of what happened during the accident in the depths of the ocean begin to unravel, revealing her symbiotic bond with an eldritch horror far older and more malevolent than she could possibly imagine, one which drives her to carry out its sinister will, with deadly results for those around her.”

Eldritch horror. Sounds like the monster is a Kraken. Wikipedia™ says Kraken is the German word for octopus. Google Translate™ says it’s Tintenfisch. I don’t know which digital overlord to believe, so I’ll just go with human-eating multi-legged creature. A bit wordy, but it gets to the point.

THE NIGHT WATCHMEN (2017)
“Three inept night watchmen, aided by a young rookie and a fearless tabloid journalist, fight an epic battle to save their lives. A mistaken warehouse delivery unleashes a horde of hungry vampires, and these unlikely heroes must not only save themselves but also stop the scourge that threatens to take over the city of Baltimore.”

Vampires in Baltimore. Fine. Just keep ‘em out of my town. Don’t need anymore of those pesky things moving in to the neighborhood. Werewolves are okay, though. Just as long as they keep a Pooper Scooper™ handy.

The Unending Horror of Amityville

It isn’t schedule for release until 2016, but already red flags are going up around the impending Amityville – The Awakening, another coattail rider in the beleaguered Amityville Horror franchise, which started in 1979. (Amityville: The Awakening is the 14th offering in a once-kinda cool but now painfully laughable series.)

And they haven’t decided what to call it. Wikipedia has it listed as Amityville: The Reawakening, but the ad posters simply have it titled as Amityville: The Awakening. The irony here is that the sequel will probably put you to sleep (if the trailer is any indication). Here’s some more knuckleheadedness – Wikipedia™ states that the movie was released on January 2, 2015, yet IMDB.com says it comes out in April of 2016. Somebody needs to re-awake, pick a lane, and drive in it.

So here’s how they go to the cursed well one more time: “Belle, her little sister Juliet, and her comatose twin brother James move into a new house with their single mother Joan in order to save money to help pay for her brother’s expensive healthcare.”

“But when strange phenomena begin to occur in the house including the miraculous recovery of her brother and Belle’s increasingly horrifying nightmares, Belle begins to suspect her mother isn’t telling her everything and soon realizes they just moved into the infamous Amityville house.”

Weak. Clearly, after 14 movies, they ran out of ways to cash in other than to cram “Amityville” in the title and make leap of believability to place everyone back in the most infamous haunted house in the world. They should call it Amityville: The Re-Sleepening.

Prairie Werewolf

 

There’s something stalking the vast plains and valleys of Brada County and it’s not scaring the crap outta cows. That’s because the cows are too scared to go out in the fields and make valley patties.

This is the framework for Prairie Dog (2015), which has been in the release loop for some time now. Throw in some kids, a lone sheriff, a pair of sociopath criminals on the run and a mysterious beast, and you have an intriguing horror movie. At least I hope it is; the trailers are boring as cows. Nevertheless, reports keep surfacing of a large, shadowed animal roaming the farmlands of the county.

Prairie Dog is no doubt influenced by the REAL Beast of Exmoor and Dartmoor. And just in case you don’t know where Dartmoor is, it’s in South Devon in England.

Some think the B of D is a large black cat (i.e., lion/cheetah/jaguar/werewolf), which is f’d up as animals such as this aren’t supposed to be in that part of the world. But then, according to Wikipedia, Dartmoor is known for its “myths and legends and is reputedly the haunt of pixies, a headless horseman, a mysterious pack of “spectral hounds,” and a large black dog, among others.”

And all this time I thought England was as boring as cows.

Japanese Giant Eyeballs

A 1964 Japanese-made anthology of four “horror” stories involving ghosts, Kwaidan doesn’t have Samaurias in hockey masks spilling teenage guts all over the floor or rotted spirits with crooked teeth looking to suck on your brains. Instead, it’s more artsy, going for color, atmospheric settings, slow suspense build-up and mixed results pay-off. These stories came from a Greek dude but were adapted to the Japanese culture. I don’t know why I know that.

Of the stories – “The Black Hair,” “The Woman of the Snow” and “In a Cup of Tea,” it’s the charmingly titled, “Hoichi the Earless” that’s the most fun with its cool graveyard scenes. It’s a story about a blind musician, or “biwa hoshi” whose specialty is singing “The Tale of the Heike,” about the Battle of Dan-no-ura, a war fought between Emperor Antoku and Minamoto no Yoritomo during the last phase of the Genpei War. (OK, I totally copied that off Wikipedia™ – but just for fact-checking, as I for real knew all that stuff in the first place. I just didn’t know how to spell everything.) I also liked the giant eye in “The Woman of the Snow.” Giant eyes are kinda neat.

These are all metaphoric tales of loss, grief, remorse, blah, blah, blah. Brain-eating can be remorseful, too, but you just have to let it be so. While it’s been described as one of the most meticulously crafted supernatural films ever made, Kwaidan is like reading a poetry book when what you really want is a TV Guide™. Still, the snow woman is kinda hot.