Happy Alien Day, Dinosaurs vs. Criminals, Rock Mom

Today (Thursday, April 26, 2018) is Alien Day. And yes, it’s a globally recognized religious holiday. Traditional gifts include blurry photographs, night trips to Uranus, watches that stop for hours at a time and unearthly implants.

I’m sure you have a lot of themed activities planned, like going to the YMCA and getting probed in the locker room, inviting fellow abductees over to watch E.T. the Extraterrestrial (1982) and LOLing at that turd-shaped toilet plunger alien, or even stopping by the Museum HR Giger Bar in Château St. Germain, Gruyères, Switzerland (fashioned in part to honor of the late Giger’s Alien concept art) to slug down a few Romulan Ales while trying to score with “female” lifeforms.

I’m headed for Area 51 and taking a few UFOs out for a test spin. It’s important to test drive a few before laying down the big bucks. FYI: Keep the extras like GPS but lose the LoJack™ — the government’s gonna steal it anyway, so why bleed the weasel?

Don’t forget to “phone home” if you party a little too much with your space brothers. Here are  few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies to help you forget tomorrow exactly what happened on your Uranus. (Don’t worry; it’ll all come back to vividly haunt you on Facebook™)…

THE JURASSIC GAMES (June 12, 2018/VOD | July 3, 2018/DVD)
“The film imagines a world set in the near future wherein ten Death Row convicts are chosen to compete in The Jurassic Games, the ultimate virtual reality game show that pits its players against dinosaurs and each other. However, there is a catch; if you die in the virtual game, you also die in reality. As the devious Host continues adding improbable challenges, the characters will find the odds stacked against them as only one victor can emerge as winner and reclaim their freedom.”

The TRUE Hunger Games — heh. So criminals versus dinosaurs. My money’s on the dinosaurs. 

VENOM (October 5 (2018)
“One of Marvel’s most enigmatic, complex and badass characters comes to the big screen, starring Academy Award nominated actor Tom Hardy as the lethal protector, Venom.”

Glad they re-serviced the key art. The first one looked like Mothman horked up a Rorschach test.

EMBRYO (2018)
“Kevin and his girlfriend Evelyn, while camping out in the woods in the Chile countryside, are abducted and Evelyn is impregnated by otherworldly beings. As the entity inside her begins to grow at a rapid rate, Evelyn discovers that the cravings she’s experiencing can only be satiated by the taste of human flesh and blood. When she attacks a doctor, Kevin decides not to hand her over to the authorities, but to go on the run and try to get to big city where they can find help to remove the thing that’s slowly taking over Evelyn’s body.”

Creature feature unsafe sex knocker-uppers aren’t new. A few off the top of the ‘ol untouched condom display rack: The Mole People (1956), Day the World Ended (1956), The Alligator People (1959), Alien (1979), Humanoids From The Deep (1980), The Beast Within (1982), Inseminoid (1981), The Fly (1986), The Terror Within (1989)… I could go on for another nine months. Then there’s the reverse impregnation sci-fi romance tale that is Species (1995). Unfortunately, for you, there is no such thing as a “movie after” pill.

HOLLOW BODY (2018)
“A struggling rock band led by Jimmy Kleen makes a deal with Rick Roland, a shady record executive. Things take a dark turn when the band’s lead singer Rachel Swann and her controlling stage mother, are struck by lightning and killed. Rachel comes back to life, now possessed by the spirit of her dead mother and with strange electrical powers she can’t control. Both personalities struggle for dominance of her body while the band begins to take off. Rachel’s bandmate discovers the dark secret behind the band’s success: Rachel is using her electrical powers to kill men and drain them of their electricity, transmuting it into electrifying performances. He and Jimmy must decide if they will stop her or if the high cost of success is a price they are willing to pay.”

Sounds like Shocker (1989) with guitars. For another struck-by-lighting-and-becomes-electricity “accidents”, look no further than Supergirl’s not-BFF, Livewire on the hit CW hit TV series. Say what you will about her being bonkers and able to throw electricity around like parade candy, she could re-charge your cell phone in, like, one second. That’s pretty neat.

Shark World

The bad news is global warming melted the ice caps and bottoms and flooded the entire Earth as if some sort of sci-fi take on Noah’s Ark, which, ironically, is also sci-fi. The good news is sharks have proliferated (made photocopies of each other) and have taken over the new real estate en masse.

Such is the premise for Planet of the Sharks (2016), whose plot on paper looks interesting the way an uneaten sandwich made with day old bread looks tasty. But the lower-grade special effects, painfully bad characters (some look like the B-team from Road Warrior/1981), and a LOL windsurfing scene renders the entire thing a wet messy mess.

Like Waterworld (1995), people now live on floating “cities”, which look more like discount boat docks. One appropriately named city called Junk is under attack from hundreds of hungry sharks, led by an alpha Great White that commands his army with mutated thinking abilities. Oh yeah, his snout freckles glow, too, which logically communicates with his mates. Think of it as a face walkie-talkie. Prior to the attack, which had sharks torpedoing out of the water to swallow anyone wearing Dockers™ (heh), Junk City had 72 citizens. Final head count: one.

With scientists on a nearby flotilla working to launch a rocket into the upper atmosphere to reset the weather, dry up the water, and go back to swimming at the YMCA. With all the shark attacks, this plan is falling apart faster than their docks. After the population is being reduced by the minute, it’s decided to drop a trigger over an undersea volcano that will explode right when the sharks swim over it. Yep, totally plausible.

The problem is, a shark ate the personal mini-copter carrying the Whiffle Ball™ device. So a female scientist with self-contained shirt pontoons, windsurfs out into the ocean to snag the device, jumping over sharks as she zooms around the waves. Barely avoiding becoming seafood, she deploys said Whiffle Ball™, which triggers the volcano, which kills a pile of shark and causes a tsunami the size of a tidal wave.

Alfie the alpha shark ain’t having none of this and makes trouble bubbles. It’s determined that this particular mutated shark emits a powerful electrical charge, not unlike a cordless shaver. The remaining scientists figure out how to stick cattle prods into its freckled face, thereby jump-starting the rocket, which is (barely) launched. Once the payload goes off, the sun comes out, the seas begin to dry up, and cities, which have been underwater for years, emerge all sparkly and clean as if just having gone through a car wash. (Why they couldn’t have a giant starfish stuck to the Empire State Building left me visibly shocked.)

No nudity, digital blood, some stock swearing in wincing fake accents, a far-reaching premise and sharks so dumbly designed, they’ll make your freckles start glowing. So yeah, something to not do for 83 minutes.

Lip Wart Horror

Just when I think I’ve covered all the new horror releases, like lip warts more just keep popping up. Unlike lip warts, though, more horror movies are welcome. And when you’re done with ’em, you just turn off the TV. Lip warts, or “pie-hole papillomavirus,” can only be vanquished with rinse-lather-repeat sippings of Bleomycin™-flavored martinis (stirred, if you’re an uneducated heathen with sores on your face).

So much for that metaphor. Until they make a lip wart horror movie, here’s some alternatives…

SIREN (December 2, 2016 VOD, Digital HD  / December 6, 2016 DVD)
“Jonah, an apprehensive groom-to-be, sees his bachelor party turn into a nightmare when he frees a seemingly innocent victimized girl locked up in a supernatural sex club. Her ruthless handler/proprietor of the sex club will stop at nothing to re-capture his prize. Jonah struggles to rescue the girl only to discover it is he who needs to be rescued as he comes to the realization that she’s a dangerous fabled predator who has chosen him as her mate.”

Supernatural sex club. Is that like the downtown YMCA but with dealer’s choice happy endings? Which begs the question: If you’re a demon working in the sex trade, do you accept monetary tips instead of a customer’s inner chi? If so, then demons should have their tips taxable like all the rest of us public service clock-punchers.

FORGOTTEN SCARES (No release date at this time)
“Forgotten Scares: An In Depth Look at Flemish Horror Cinema goes back to the birth of Flemish horror in the ’70s and shines a bright light on the potential future of horror in Belgium. Through this documentary the viewer gets to discover long forgotten – and even unfinished – genre gems and learn in-depth info about underrated ‘splatter and gore’-fests, post-apocalyptic movies, slasher-films, Nazisploitation, women-in-prison and other fantastical Flemish genre benders through the eyes of the directors, producers, composers, principal actors and genre experts.”

I’ve never heard of Flemish horror. Sounds like what comes out of your nose during a nasty sinus infection. In reality (thanks to cut ‘n paste from know-it-all websites), Flemish refers to any of the varieties of the Dutch language spoken in Flanders, the northern part of Belgium. I totally did not know that.

One of the most infamous Belgian horror movies of all time and Flanders is Rabid Grannies (1988), which is pretty dang horrible. However, it does have highly graphic scenes of grandma gore. There’s probably a joke in there somewhere.

GEHENNA: WHERE DEATH LIVES (Release pending 2016/2017)
“Encompassing horror, suspense and a twist that will blow your mind, Gehenna fixes on five people who enter a hidden bunker from WWII, and realize it’s way more than a bunker. Some fates are MUCH worse than death.”

A history lesson: Gehenna, from the Hebrew Gehinnom, is the Jewish and Christian analogue of Hell. (I totally cut ’n pasted that from somewhere.) I bet the bunker is actually The Poggie Tavern. Once experienced, you’re Gehenna want to stay the heck away from there. Ha!

THE CRUCIFIXION (releasing 2017)
“When a priest is jailed for the murder of a nun on whom he was performing an exorcism, an investigative journalist strives to determine whether he in fact murdered a mentally ill person, or if he lost the battle with a demonic presence.”

A nun being exorcised? Yeesh – either she wasn’t fully committed to a rewarding life of wash ‘n wear robes and abstinence, or the demon possessing her must be, like, the House Majority Whip for Evil. Either way, f’d in the b-hole.

Exorcisms seem to be making a big comeback lately. This is good as my finger probe-inclined primary care medical rep recommends exorcising at least three to five times a week. That’s a HELL of a lot. Heh.

Extraterrestrial Hooptie

Two trailers and four international ad posters were just released to honk the marketing horn on the upcoming big-budget sci-fi alien invasion movie, Arrival (November 11, 2016). I’m giddy in anticipation, although a bit disappointed in the Uber™ the extraterrestrials use to get to this toilet Earth.

Not resembling what we’re used to seeing as a UFO, this spacecraft looks like a giant black potato chip, possible a Pringle™. Or is it Queen Kong’s diaphragm? Or Godzilla’s heel pad to help relieve his nagging plantar fasciitis, a painful condition a result of decades of stepping on sharp edged buildings/screaming citizens? Or perhaps one of those Julep Konjac Cleansing Sponges™ you can get on QVC.com for $12?

While you mull these propositions, here’s what Arrival wants us to buy into…

“When mysterious spacecraft touch down across the globe, an elite team – led by expert linguist Louise Banks – is brought together to investigate. As mankind teeters on the verge of global war, Banks and the team race against time for answers – and to find them, she will take a chance that could threaten her life and quite possibly humanity.”

Man, that’s a weak press blurb. How can you address the arrival of aliens without even once mentioning probing? I think the movie’s marketing team needs to do a bit more homework. I suggest starting in the locker room of the YMCA.

As alien spacecraft go, I’m voting for the one in District 9 (2009). Man, I’d trade my car for one of those sweet rides.