Fructose Freaks, Psycho Paths, Real Estate Witches

As kids, we got our junkie-high off such mono-saccharides-radiated breakfast cereals as Cap’n Crunch™, Lucky Charms™, Fruity Pebbles™ and, my fav, the one-two punch of Quisp™ and Quake™. Wheaties™ may have given themselves the tagline of “Breakfast of Champions,” but a salad bowl of Sugar Smacks™ with a Pabst™ chaser had that crown long before Wheaties™ was even invented.

But for the horror-inclined, THE breakfast go-to was Boo Berry™, Franken Berry™, and later Fruit Brute™ and Yummy Mummy™. These cereals were reissued in later years, but now General Mills™, for the first time in over three decades, is introducing a new horror cereal: Carmella Creeper™. My sugar-frosted pancreas doesn’t know whether to celebrate or call the doctor.

From MonsterCereals.com: “The General Mills™ Monster Cereals have been an annual staple of Halloween since the early 1970s. We haven’t gotten a new character since Yummy Mummy’s™ arrival back in 1988, which makes Carmella Creeper™ the first new Halloween mascot in 35 years!”

Just so you have something to look forward to for a hangover breakfast beside a handful or water and a glass full of aspirin, General Mills™ is also doing a Monster Mash Remix™ cereal this Halloween: all six Monsters Cereals flavors: Carmella Creeper™, Frute Brute™, Count Chocula™, Boo Berry™, Franken Berry™ and Yummy Mummy™.”

So while we find something to do that results in getting insane munchies and devouring an entire box of any of these insanity delicious cereals with our hands, here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies/TV series that may or may not require you to get a prescription of Metformin after digesting ’em…

THE ONES YOU DIDN’T BURN / June 13, 2023 (VOD)

“After his father’s suicide a young man returns to his rural family home to prepare it for sale where he meets two women who claim the land was stolen from their ancestors after they were accused of being witches. He soon finds himself at the center of an occult conspiracy that led to his father’s death and now threatens to destroy him.”

You don’t wanna mess with those gals — witches give you stitches.

LUMBERJACK THE MONSTER / Release pending 2023 (VOD)

“Akira Ninomiya is a remorseless lawyer who doesn’t hesitate to eliminate anyone who stands in his way. One night he is brutally attacked by an unknown assailant wearing a monster mask. Although he miraculously survives the assault, Ninomiya becomes fixated on finding the attacker and getting revenge. Meanwhile, a series of gruesome murders occur where the victims are found with their brains removed from their bodies. While police conduct an intensive investigation, Ninomiya seeks revenge against the assaulter. Who will uncover the truth first?”

Serial Killer vs. Psychopath. Sounds like a WWE™ pay-per-view…with violence.

INHERIT THE WITCH / Release pending 2023 (VOD)

“In 1984 a family throws a 14th-birthday party for Cory and Jessie. Thirty years later, what’s left of the family reunites for the father’s funeral at two isolated houses in the forest, historically a hotbed of witchcraft. There, horrific truths are slowly uncovered about the family’s occult pact with an ancient evil that has secretly been at the core of their wealth and power, as the remaining siblings uncover the true bloody darkness behind their inheritance.”

Didn’t I just preview this above?

OPEN HOUSE / Pending crowdfunding 2023 (VOD)

“A young mother and her teenage daughter live a vagabond life, bouncing from town to town, squatting in homes they tricked Realtors into showing them during the day, and then breaking into them later at night, so they have somewhere to sleep. This grift seems to be working well until the two come across an overzealous realty couple, who show the duo a house, but refuse to let them leave.”

This one’s being described as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre meets The Rocky Horror Picture Show. So musical power tools?

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. 

Heavy Metal Waffles, Homicidal Wrestlers, Shark Parade

I’ve seen a lot of KISS™ merchandise over the years, but a Gene Simmons waffle iron is probably the coolest. (It also beats my KISS™ home pregnancy test kit all to hell.) Designed to make “Demon Waffles” (Gene’s character), it forms otherwise pointless waffle batter into a likeness of the bass player’s famous make-up design. (Wonder why McDonald’s™ never thought of that for the Hamburgler?)

KISS The Demon Waffle Maker™ can be obtained for $39.99 plus your soul and can even be used as a sandwich press, though Gene Simmons as a gooey peanut butter and jelly sandwich doesn’t sound that rock. It measures 8.5” x 5” x 10” and is made of stainless steel, or “metal.” Heh.

While your demon-faced waffle finishes burning, here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies to stick your own face into…

MONOCHROME (June 6, 2018)
“A disillusioned young woman becomes a serial killer targeting wealthy land-owners, forcing a brilliant detective to use his unusual neurological condition to track her down.”

Pffft! — I have the same unusual neurological condition. It’s called a hangover.

WERESTLEMASSACRE (July, 2018)
“Randy is an awkward groundskeeper who is obsessed with professional wrestling. Longing for a sense of belonging with grandiose dreams of becoming a wrestling superstar, Randy is only met with abject humiliation and alienation. A brutal shaming at a local wrestling school pushes Randy over the edge and lights the spark for his blood lust. Donned in wrestling gear and armed with homicidal rage, Randy sets out on a blood soaked rampage to punish those who wronged him. The only hope of putting an end to his reign of carnage lies with Becky, an understanding client who is one of the only few to ever show him kindness.”

As a fan of pro wrestling — the only TRUE sport — I look forward to this one. If you’re of like mind, check out Wrestlemaniac (2006), Pro Wrestlers vs. Zombies (2013), Santo vs. las Mujeres Vampiro (1962) and my guilty fav, Monster Brawl (2011). I usually apply choke slams on beers while watching it.

GREAT WHITE (2018)
“A blissful tourist trip quickly turns into a nightmare when five passengers on a seaplane become stranded miles from shore. In a desperate bid for survival the group try to make it to land before they either run out of supplies or are taken by the man-eating sharks lurking just beneath the surface.”

Not to be confused with the other Great White movie, an Italian-made Jaws rip-off, back in 1981. But along with this one and Discovery Channel’s™ deliciously popular Shark Week (30th anniversary) launching on July 22, 2018, this looks to be the year of the shark, all topped off by The Meg (2018) chomping its way through people floating on inner tubes as if wet donuts.

HELLBOY (January 11, 2019)
“The new story sees the hero squaring off against a medieval sorceress who seeks to destroy humankind.”

One of no doubt many new sales art representations of the Hellboy: Rise of the Blood Queen movie. I first tagged this one on June 27, 2017. That key art was illustrated so as to keep kinetic with the graphic novels. But I like this one better as Hellboy himself looks pretty Hell-y.

Xeroxed Haunted House

Whoever wrote The Shining (1980) should be going after the filmmakers of 7 Days To Live (2001), a connect-the-dots horror formula rip-off.

A novelist and his wife buy a patently haunted mansion in a countryside marsh to put their grieving behind them after their son ate a bee and choked to death. (He should’ve put some butter or salt on it first.) The house has a dubious history — 20 years earlier a man killed his wife in there and let the body sit in front of the TV for a week before the authorities went to investigate their electric bill.

The house, it seems, has a way of finding out your deepest fear, then smacking you in the forehead with it. In this case, the wife getting tell-tale signs that she’s going to die in seven days. All the while, her writer husband is doing a second-rate Shining knock-off with mood swings so wild he could be a circus ride.

After noting her bent hubby’s excessive use of four-letter words, the freaked wife investigates the house’s f’d up past and discovers the place is built on a giant graveyard. (Yeah, like graveyards are believable.) Then her dead kid comes back to hit her up for allowance. Then her husband gives her a head butt (which was right up there with any finishing move you’d see in a WWE™ pay-per-view). Then mud ghosts come out of the marsh seeping into the basement. (That’ll happen when you leave the DOOR OPEN.)

Then you get bored because there’s too much talking and not enough bleeding. Cheese Whiz™ haunted house fare with a dorkball ending — the husband and wife write a best seller about their experiences. Amityville Horror (1979) — been there, done that. If you have seven days to live, don’t waste 90-minutes of it watching this photocopied ass jamboree.

Werewolf Counselor, Horror Wrestlers, Killer Clothing

Bloody-Disgusting.com recently posted about JC-RT.com, an online clothing company that makes flannel shirts based on horror movie poster color schemes. There’s shirts that seasonally coordinates with The Lost Boys (1987), Alien (1979), A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and even The Exorcist (1973). (Wonder if it’s vomit stain proof?)

There’s lots more, but you should know that these long-sleeve chest warmers sell for $125.00 each, though they are running a winter sale at $75.00, a $40.00 + $10.00 savings. Check out their website HERE and whip out your bit coins.

As cool as this is, I won’t be buying any as I don’t wear shirts with buttons. Buttons are rules. I’m not into rules, man. And while you’re waiting for your new wardrobe to arrive in the mail, here are a few just released/upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not go with the shoes you’re wearing…

WEREWOLF: CARNIVORE OF LONDON (available now)
“In an effort to save their relationship, Dave takes Abi to a remote cottage. However, it soon becomes apparent that a fearsome beast is lurking in the shadows of the forest, waiting for the right moment to attack.”

Despite the title lift from An American Werewolf in London (1981), it’s nice to see werewolf movies haven’t been sucked under the tidal wave of bite-less zombie and transparent ghost movies. More than that, I’m really hoping this werewolf can help get Dave and Abi back to a good place in their relationship, however strained it may be while being on the beast’s fresh sheet.

FLY ON THE WALL (available now)
“A young man uses a bug camera to spy on his ex-girlfriend, then witnesses her abduction.”

At least he wasn’t with her or he might’ve been abducted, too. Whew!

MANDY (2018)
“Set in 1983, Red Miller, a broken and haunted man, hunts the unhinged religious sect who slaughtered the love of his life.”

Wait just a minute — Red’s last name is Miller and an unhinged religious sect slaughtered the love of his life? His life’s love has to be beer — Miller…beer. It’s the only thing that makes sense.

PARTS UNKNOWN (2018)
“Parts Unknown is a movie that mixes the horror genre with wrestling. It is the story of how the infamous Von Strasser family, a family of unstable professional wrestlers, seek to violently reclaim their notorious status despite being blackballed by forces within the industry.”

They had me at “unstable professional wrestlers.” Love the title — it pays homage to pro wrestling Hall of Famer, George the Animal Steele (1937 — 2017), who lived in a cave, had more hair on his chest and back than his head, couldn’t speak other than a few grunts, had a green tongue and chewed the stuffing out of the tops of turnbuckles as though they were filled with cotton candy. When announcing where Steele comes from, the ring MC would always say, “from parts unknown.” Flippin’ brilliant.

Spider-Man, Bloody Vampires, Demonic Nuns

Seriously considering about not going to movie theaters anymore and just renting new flicks on Fandangonow.com for a mere $4.99. Sure, I won’t get to see the latest flicks the second they come out, but dango, movie theater tickets/popcorn/soda/hot dogs are getting to be about the price of a steak dinner with a cloth napkin.

Then there are the obnoxious theater goers who continue to talk during the movie and/or use their cellphones. The death penalty would be too lenient for these jerks. So yeah, I can save a bunch of money, not get stressed out and horizontally lay on my couch and watch movies. Very uncomfortable, rude and probably CDC unhygienic to lay down on movie theater seats.

Speaking of movies I’ll probably not see in the theaters (and a few not at all), here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi/fantasy movies for your horizontal viewing pleasure…

SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING (July 7, 2017)
“Thrilled by his experience with the Avengers, young Peter Parker returns home to live with his Aunt May. Under the watchful eye of mentor Tony Stark, Parker starts to embrace his newfound identity as Spider-Man. He also tries to return to his normal daily routine — distracted by thoughts of proving himself to be more than just a friendly neighborhood superhero. Peter must soon put his powers to the test when the evil Vulture emerges to threaten everything that he holds dear.”

Is it just me or is the new Spider-Man movie taking a direct marketing lead from Deadpool (2016)? Makes sense as they both wear similar masks. Deadpool, though, shoots guns; Spider-Man just webs his pants. Heh. Don’t get my solid gold attempts at humor mislead you; I can’t wait for Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017). The trailers are kick asinine and Spidey’s an old comic book fav. That’s were I learned to read and webbed in my own pants. Yeesh — I hope that was webbing.

SUPER DARK TIMES (October 3, 2017)
“Teenagers Zach and Josh have been best friends their whole lives. But when a gruesome accident leads to a cover-up, the secret drives a wedge between them and propels them down a rabbit hole of escalating paranoia and violence.

The title sounds like something a teenager would say. Wonder what the gruesome accident is? A zit-popping contest gone wrong? The cinnamon challenge? Planking over a shark-filled pool? Doing the mannequin challenge on a train track? You can never tell with idiot teenagers.

BLOOD DYNASTY (October 31, 2017)
“Blood Dynasty is the third in “Irina” vampire film cycle, that began with 2012’s award winning Blood for Irina and continued in 2014’s Queen of Blood. The character of Irina – inspired in part by Lina Romay’s character in Franco’s Female Vampire (1975) — is once more reborn, rising from the sea to bring madness and bloodlust to a lonely young woman living in a decaying motel.”

Queen of Blood seems to be the go-to phrase these days, what with the new Hell Boy movie using it as well. As for Female Vampire, there’s some pretty bold undressedness in that one. You’ve been warned.

JUMANJI — WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE (December 20, 2017)
“Four high school kids discover an old video game console and are drawn into the game’s jungle setting, literally becoming the adult avatars they chose. What they discover is that you don’t just play Jumanji — you must survive it. To beat the game and return to the real world, they’ll have to go on the most dangerous adventure of their lives, discover what Alan Parrish left 20 years ago, and change the way they think about themselves — or they’ll be stuck in the game forever.”

Oddly, I never saw the original Jumanji, released back in 1995. Looked too goofy to me. And to keep the goof factor in place for the remake, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson — is the lead, along with the always hilarious Jack Black. I think Dwayne’s in every movie coming out these days. Seems like he is. As a movie star he’s good. But as a former WWE superstar, he was king of the ring.

THE NUN (September 7, 2018)
“When a young nun at a cloistered abbey in Romania takes her own life, a priest with a haunted past and a novitiate on the threshold of her final vows are sent by the Vatican to investigate. Together they uncover the order’s unholy secret. Risking not only their lives but their faith and their very souls, they confront a malevolent force in the form of the same demonic nun that first terrorized audiences in The Conjuring 2, as the abbey becomes a horrific battleground between the living and the damned.”

For your own sanity’s sake, The Nun probably should not be confused with The Nun from 2005. (Same named horror movies give me tummy achings.) So this is the scary nun from The Conjuring (2013), like that movie’s “possessed” doll Annabelle, also getting her back story spin-off. With seven Conjuring and planned tie-in movies based its characters, I figured that particular cow was milked dry after the formulaic The Conjuring 2 (2016).

The Horror of 2016

“Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?”

Best line in recent contemporary horror as whispered by the tempting, unseen evil thing in The Witch, one of the 2016’s least conventional but deliciously grim horror movies. I haven’t heard a line that good since “I know you are, but what am I?” from Pee Wee’s Big Adventure (1985).

The second best line of dialogue of the year comes not from a horror/sci-fi movie, but from the TV series Supergirl: “It’s time to punch you in the face…” (Note to anyone not using glitter chapstick – Supergirl is faring far better under the CW™ tweener banner than it did with CBS™, who had no idea what to do with superheroes sporting abnormally perfect teeth and Clearasil Ultra Rapid Action™ complexions. This is CW’s™ wheelhouse, man.)

In a year fraught with horror (politics notwithstanding), there were more than a few genre movie and TV stand-outs. And while I’m a world famous (ahem) blogger of horror/sci-fi, this e-offering is not even close to being comprehensive and I am by no means an authority on the subject. (I’m an expert at being NOT an expert.)

Of the ton of big/low-budget genre movie/TV crap I’ve watched all year long, the following represents a few chunks of interesting crap therein. You don’t have to agree with me, though, just because I’m a world famous blogger [insert nervous cough here]…

THE WITCH
This unforgettable chiller introduced horror’s best new figurehead: Black Phillip, the Danny Trejo (or “Machete”) of badass barnyard animals.

SHIN GODZILLA
F-word amazing. They gave reboot G several insanely cool upgrades while holding true to Godzilla’s original hairstyle, including his “one-blow-blows-up-all” destructo breath: purple-y AND flame-y. That’s pretty sweet. Shin Godzilla, almost all filmed in broad daylight, shows Godzilla doing what he does best: making smash hits. I’d buy his album.

TRAIN TO BUSAN
A South Korean zombie movie that mops the floor with every other zombie movie released this year. So ridiculously intense is this thing (passengers trapped on a speeding commuter train while zombies board without passes), you don’t need English translation. (I went legit and watched it without sub-titles. That’s how I roll.)

10 CLOVERFIELD LANE
Was this a sequel to 2008’s Cloverfield? There are those who walk among us that say yes. Doesn’t matter — while the movie climaxed with alien stuff (if you didn’t already know that — ha!), it’s the premise of several super tense characters in a rural underground survivalist bunker (two of which are there involuntarily) that brings the real horror.

ROB ZOMBIE’S 31
Like him or not, Rob Zombie always makes stomach-turning, gritty and gory horror movies. This one puts a group of traveling carnival white trash performers in a huge maze inside a huge warehouse-y type building, facing off in a brutal do-or-die obstacle course with highly colorful and pretty darn mean maniacs (Doom-Head, Sick-Head, Schizo-Head, Psycho-Head, Death-Head, Sex-Head), all wielding power tools. Make it out of the building, you live. Sort of.

PHANTASM RAVAGER
Does this final installment of the surreal and beloved Phantasm franchise deliver the groceries? Yes and not yes. Given that it’s been nearly 20 years since the last one (Phantasm IV: Oblivion/1998) and brings back the original characters, all of which puts you in the zone, Phantasm Ravager still leaves a pile of unanswered questions, like what happened to Reggie’s 1971 Plymouth Barracuda (second only to the Batmobile in sleek coolness)? But hey, those iconic flying death spheres, aka, gasoline-powered sharp things? All over the freakin’ place.

DEADPOOL / CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR / BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE / SUICIDE SQUAD / DOCTOR STRANGE
Great year for great superhero movies. All of the above kicked ass to varying degrees of ass kicking. And Suicide Squad’s dementedly drop dead sexy Harley Quinn ranks with Deadpool and Black Phillip as a top genre icon of the year. (Godzilla’s already in the Hall of Fame, so giving somebody else a chance here.)

Honorary mention goes to Ben Affleck’s Batman, who puts the dark in Dark Knight. (He drinks the hard stuff, two syllable swears, horizontally smooches the ladies, takes pill-shaped drugs, beats people like drums then tortures/shoots them, and socks Superman right on his justice-shaped jaw. On top of that, he drives really fast and crashes into stuff. Batman gives driving lessons, not takes them.)

A few thoughts on some other this and thats…

ARRIVAL
Not just a good movie, but a great UFO movie that doesn’t rely on all out paranoid military warfare on our space brothers, who look a heckuva lot like seafood appetizers. P.S. to the Internet: I’ve seen nearly every UFO video on YouTube™ and they’re starting to look fake. I’m beginning to think UFOs aren’t real. But that’s probably just crazy talk.

THE SHALLOWS
You can still be the most heavy metal, human-gulping shark with extra teeth in the ocean, but you still take second seat to Blake Lively’s seat in a string bikini worn throughout the ENTIRE MOVIE.

FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM
An enthralling movie set in 1920s New York with wizards and a menagerie of off-the-hook mythical creatures and monsters, the likes of which have not been seen since the last WWE pay-per-view. Y’know, I bet Harry Potter fans might like this.

MISS PEREGRINE’S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN
In my day a home for peculiar children was called “summer camp.” A bunch of mutation kids with unique abilities: floating, projecting movies through eyes, starting fires by touching stuff, super strength, control of nature, and my fav, eating through a mouth on the back of your head. You could take down a Frisko Freeze™ double deluxe burger in one mouth while sucking down a chocolate shake with the other. I wouldst like to live deliciously.

THE BOY
Featured The Walking Dead’s walking gorgeous Lauren Cohan. I wasn’t aware of anything else in the movie. I think it had some sort of boy in it. I think he was a puppet, which is just plain weird.

MORGAN
A genetic experiment gone wrong — or right, depending on where you stand on a contemporary updating of Frankenstein (1931).

There were a few genre misfires this year, though, including Independence Day: Resurgence, (we need to issue a formal apology to extraterrestrials), X-Men: Apocalypse (yeesh, what a mutant mess) and Star Trek Beyond, which relied more on blowing up things than the story line. Speaking of, why do they have to keep exploding the USS Enterprise over and over? Man, I wanted to drive that thing.

So what do we have to look forward to from here? According to IMDB.com there’s approximately 1,000+ horror/sci-fi/fantasy/superhero movies (Wonder Woman – I await you) slated for release in 2017. Butt — meet couch. Like Doctor Strange, I’m looking through space and time (and Collider.com) for Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018), Godzilla, King of Monsters (2019) and Godzilla vs. King Kong (hopefully before I croak). All the other stuff watched is what I’ll do to pass time/pass gas/pass out until those movies come to enrich my life.

Cottage In The Woods

It started out as a standard, f’d up “kidnapping for ransom” dealie by two bumbling British brothers hiding out in a rural cottage with the foul-mouthed niece of a strip club owner. The events take a superbly grim turn halfway in when a farmer, wearing timeless overalls and whose face was hopelessly mangled from a farming accident (he must’ve stepped on a rake), shows up to do a little harm on the farm.

The wicked, wet-yourself humor is as dark as the farmer’s shed, where a collection of rotting heads is kept on the shelves. (Apparently, he doesn’t take kindly to city folk. I don’t either, those snobs.)

The kidnapping itself is funnier than all get out, with the busty blonde chick managing to break the nose of one of the brothers with several amazing headbutts – while her hands were tied behind her back! (She should try out for the WWE.)

When the farmer finally comes up out of the basement, this thing gets double crazy fun with a foot being severed, a head being cut in half, a pick-axe to the upper femur area, neck slicing… “This is the worst night of my life,” screams one kidnapper, who ends up with a broken nose, jaw, glasses and half his foot (with sock) missing. The last one standing, he makes the mistake of trying to escape through the basement where… Not gonna tell you, but it’s classic.

The Cottage (2008) has been described as Fargo (1996) meets Friday the 13th (1980). I could’ve come up with something just as accurate, but I choose not to do so at this time. So there.

P.S. Do not confuse this The Cottage with the other The Cottage made in 2012. Something about a rental property and tenant gone bad. Thankfully, I did not watch it because it sounds generically sucko.

That Mummy Is A Scummy Dummy

The Fallen Ones (2005) is an appropriate title as it accurately describes the career arc of everyone starring in it. A movie about resurrected mummies the size of the Amazing Colossal Man’s neighbor’s brother’s cousin, they metaphorically dug up some old relics to pad out this stinker, including Tom Bosley (Richie Cunningham’s dad on Happy Days) and Robert Wagner (Hart To Hart).

In ancient Sumaria an evil angel gets wind that God is about to flood the earth with liquid (possibly water), washing all the dirty laundry piled up in His clothes basket. Evil angel has to go tell his son, a 50-foot giant that looks like a WWE™ wrestler, that sorry, he has to die. But hey, not to worry, as the evil angel has powers that will bring him back to life in the future (today, possibly tomorrow).

To prep the howling metalheaded giant, they wrap him in sheets and feed a bunch of slaves to him so he has a full tummy for the journey. Now would be the time to go to the bathroom as this is a non-stop trip.

The movie boasts some of the cheapest special effects money won’t buy. The ONLY good part: the near-topless Sumarian slave girls dressing the digitally-enlarged giant for his Big Sleep. I don’t care if they don’t know what Massingil™ is, I want one of those wrap stars.

Robots Don’t Heart Humans

In the future where dirt burns and pollution makes your nose and eyes runny, you’ll live in a city encased in a big glass bubble to keep the stink air out. The area outside – a parking lot wasteland – is patrolled by Matrix-esque flying machine probes that shoot spiky knives into your pillowy human flesh.

While androids are generally used to do the crap work humans don’t wanna get off the couch to do (“Yo, Terminator – get me another future beer…”), the uppity machines are secretly working on a way to take over the bubble and eliminate the stink humans. They’re doing this by removing human brain juice and syncing it up with android juice to create the perfect android. (If human anything is involved, not much perfect.)

Robots want to kill off the humans so that they can use their parts and become human themselves. I call this the Radio Shack Gone Wild theory.

The plot of Android Apocalypse (2006) samples shamelessly from The Fortress (1992), the blood is green (kind of a luminous avocado), WWE™ superstar Chris Jericho punches faces, and the fight scenes (see “Chris Jericho”) somewhat joyful. The only female android, however, does not take off her mecha-blouse.

Sci-fi has become so watered down these days.