Profitable Poltergeists, Werecoyotes, Cult Pay-Per-View

Shot for $15,000 casino tokens, Paranormal Activity came out in 2007 and instantly became a found footage phenomenon, eventually generating $193 million box office fun funds. On that (bank) note: Paranormal Activity is the most profitable film ever made in the history of the world. To no one’s surprise, it birthed six Paranormal babies with YET ANOTHER ONE slated for 2023.

If you can’t wait that long for it, Paranormal Activity: The Ultimate Chills Collection ($55.21/Amazon™) is now available: nine Blu-ray discs loaded with all the movies and a scary amount of extras. In case you forgot (or didn’t care), Paranormal Activity’s premise is as economical as its budget: “A young couple are haunted by a supernatural presence in their home. They set up a camera to document what is haunting them.” Yep — that netted them $193 million. No wonder everybody’s been trying to copy it for the last 15 years. I would.

While you scare up some wallet wages to buy and/or purchase the collection, here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not become obscenely profitable… 

HERE FOR BLOOD / Out now (VOD)

“Tom O’Bannon, a rowdy pro-wrestler struggling to make ends meet, agrees to fill in as a last-minute replacement for a well paying babysitting job. Tom arrives at an isolated family home where he meets the precocious 10-year-old Grace. What starts off as a quiet night of pizza and video games quickly spirals into bloody, violent chaos as Tom and Grace find themselves fighting for their lives when an otherworldly cult of masked intruders descend on the home.”

This isn’t just a movie — it’s a WWE™ pay-per-view.

BATTLE FOR PANDORA / Out now (Limited Theaters/VOD)

“After a help signal from a research vessel makes it back to Earth, the U.S. Space Force sends a rescue ship to Pandora, a Saturn moon. But when they try to land, they discover Pandora is already inhabited by a highly evolved humanoid species that won’t give up their Earthling prisoners without a fight.”

Asylum™, the “film” studio that has famously built a company making “spoofs” and “mockumentaries” of big budget thrillers/sci-fi, etc., now comes out with their “version” of Avatar. In my day we called this stealing.

TEENWOLF: THE MOVIE / January 26, 2023 (Paramount+)

“A full moon rises in Beacon Hills — and with it a terrifying evil has emerged. The wolves are howling once again, calling for the return of Banshees, Werecoyotes, Hellhounds, Kitsunes, and every other shapeshifter in the night. But only a werewolf like Scott McCall, no longer a teenager yet still an Alpha, can gather both new allies and reunite trusted friends to fight back against what could be the most powerful and deadliest enemy they’ve ever faced.”

If you’re gonna have a Werecoyote, there better be a Wereroadunner.

BLUE BEETLE / Release pending 2023 (Theaters)

“Jaime Reyes is a young man from El Paso who bonds with an alien scarab that attaches to his spine and creates a suit of specially powered armor for him. The scarab at one time appeared in the possession of the wizard Shazam.”

And his first nemesis is…Lady Bug. 

Horrifying Halloween Words

From hardcore Christians to shopping mall Wiccans, everybody is jumping on this year’s Halloween season LimeBike™, trying to cash in as much as possible. So I’m gonna do the same thing, except I’m doing it for free. (Yep, the Wizard of Wall Street right here.)

Thus, behold a collection of horror-themed words/logos that you can use for any of your design work and/or tattoo flash. I created this some years ago, scanning the art and converting to the EPS (encapsulated postscript) format and, for those who don’t do art-tech speak, a PDF (portable document format). If you have any graphics app, you can open these files and go straight to crazy town.

If you do anything cool with this stuff, send me a pic or screenshot. I promise not to tell your mom/primary caregiver.

Anyway, download HERE (EPS) and HERE (PDF).

And may the Gods of Halloween not put razors in your nutritious trick-or-treat candy.

Chinese Demon Sex

If you’re in the mood for sub-titled foreign fantasy horror that has lots and lots of soft-core sex, tops to bottoms naked nudity and a three-headed demon, you need look no further than Erotic Ghost Story (1990), a Chinese cult classic.

In ancient days, three fairy ghosts get turned into human as busom-y, sexually gassed up gals. The supernatural rule says that if they can maintain their busom-y forms for 36 days, they will become immortal. Sounds simple enough until a Taoist priest with sorcery powers warns them not to give into their growing urge to merge – or pay the consequences. Taoist priests can be such buzzkills.

The girls – So-So, Fei-Fei, and Hua-Hua – were doing just fine until the fires down below start burning. They play with themselves. They play with each other. And they play with Wu Ming, a young scholar living nearby. One by one, each seduces him – ON THE SAME DAY – in what can only be described as prolonged, up close and personal boinking. The longing ladies don’t know it, but they just knocked clogs with a demon, which explains how he could rise to the occasion three times ON THE SAME DAY.

A love rectangle forms and all four frolic nakedly in hot spring ponds, squeeze and grope and splish splash water on each other. One day, while giving their loins some much needed time off, the gals discover their bodies are slowly changing into animal form. (STDs were kinda different back in ancient days.)

Not happy about this, they go to Wu Ming’s hut to find out what’s what, only to see he has their uppity neighbor lady stripped and strung up while he changes into his demon form to get in a little happy time. A failed confrontation complete with colored lightning, wind and swirly beams has the gals beaten. Wu Ming then casts a spell that hypnotizes them into taking off their clothes and turning green. (These days it only takes a six or seven cocktails.)

Before Ming can do his thing, the magical Taoist priest flys out of the sky to battle the demon, who has now revealed his true three-headed self. The priest unleashes in the east and the problem is solved, but not before he reprimands the now re-dressed/de-greened girls. Taoist priests can be such buzzkills.

Note to reader: Please get permission from your mom to watch this movie.

Hippie Wizard

“My name is Simon. I live in a storm drain.”

The first line of dialogue from Simon, King of The Witches, one of the most comedic straight-played psychedelic “horror” movies of the early Seventies (1971 to hit the nail on the head).

Yep, Simon Sinestrari is homeless, broke and dripping with the kind of chunky liquids that frequent the sewer systems. “Many call me a warlock. But I am one of the true magicians.” Forty seconds into the movie and you’re wondering why Simon isn’t conjuring himself a rain coat and a penicillin shot.

A true huckster who believes in his own huck, Simon hooks up with a male prostitute (as friends – don’t get your freak on), who introduces the scheming wizard to a world of illegal drugs and the kinds of Wiccan parties your parents used to have when they weren’t thinking of having you. Oh, and there’s a goat. (Hey, the thing was important to the plot.) It’s here Simon works the crowd for coins and croissants.

Simon’s best magic trick is keeping a straight face when repeatedly chanting a goofy spells to get laid. Example – Naked, Simon fiddles with a dagger while standing over an equally naked chick on a ceremonial buffet table. “Charge, magnetic, charge, electric…” The knife flings out of his hand as he embarrassingly shrugs, “I failed.” Statistically, that happens to all warlocks at one time or another.

Wading through puddles of LOL dialogue, Simon’s Rent-a-Center™ magic skills puts him face-to-face with a glowing, floating red ball that comes complete with its own hippie sci-fi soundtrack to indicate it’s great and powerful power. The glow ball leads Simon to a talking floor-length mirror, which is really an entrance to another realm. Of course Simon has to go through the looking glass – he’s a wizard, man.

So what does he encounter? Swirly hippie visuals, a chick in a nightie begging for help, more space-y visuals ripped off from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Like all good parties, it has to come to an end – with a cop bust, an O.D.’d chick, a corrupt District Attorney, and two freaked out drug pushers, who track him down to his drain condo stab Simon in the gut drain four times with a dagger of all things.

But hey, Simon is the king of witches, b*tches – his disembodied voice floats over things floating in the sewer as he sums it up from beyond: “Death is only temporary. Think about that for a while…”

I will, Simon. I will.

Extreme Wizardry

A mysterious ghost monk needs a revenge-seeking gangsta’s help, and leads him to a temple where the criminal finds out he’s the ancestral twin of the monk who was murdered by a bad wizard and can’t achieve immortality until the curse is lifted.

Here’s the b*tch of it all – he’s due to die in two weeks. So he trains to be a Buddhist monk, shaves his head, swears off pre-marital sex, booze, drugs and all the good-for-you things in life. If I had two weeks to live, I’d do the EXACT OPPOSITE of that last sentence.

The impending black magic battle is where this sucker gets disgustingly surreal: a chicken is cut open, its guts eaten raw and regurgitated and to create spells. Spiders with poisonous needles attack; The wizard pulls his own head off and uses the dangling veins and muscle tissue to tie up the new monk.

A freakin’ huge alligator is later cut open and its guts eaten. A maggot-covered mummy is stuffed in the belly of the unfortunate reptile, additional regurgitation, a few spells, lovely scented candles and a naked evil priestess is reborn out of the gator to battle the new monk. All of the above: ick.

But thinking he had previously bested the bad wizard, the gangsta lied to Buddha and goes back to his pre-marital sex ways. So the curse is reinstated unless he can find the deceased monk’s Golden Ashes from another temple way the fart far away and do battle with the priestess and bad wizard one more freakin’ time. The animal gut eating is real, as are the maggots. I’m not sure if the bad wizard really pulled his own head off, but it sure looked authentic to me.

Boobies, blood, body goosh, alligator gut feasts, maggots… You can look but you aren’t likely to find a horror movie as surreal and messed up as The Boxer’s Omen (1983). And I try ALL the time. P.S. If I screwed up describing the plot, it’s because the movie is in Japanese and I don’t know what that is.