Slime and Mutants

I have been stuffing my face with candy since late September and I couldn't be happier. Every day the leafs get a bit darker, the air a bit colder, and you can feel the remnants of Summer dying with every moment. It makes me feel alive. 

There's all sorts of stuff to talk about; new Halloween candy, the new Carvel/Hocus Pocus promotion going on, the fact that I am going to NYCC this weekend, but that's all for another day I think. 

Recently I took a trip to Lot-Less, where all toy lines go to die, and I picked up some Flush Force and Ready2Robot toys. Loads of fun. 

I've gotten Flush Force before. I feel like they're inspired by the Ghoulies poster where the little fish Ghoulie is sticking out of the toilet. These are brightly colored little mutants who live in a toilet and exist to gross out humans and I love them. Funny enough, my favorite one from this pack was the angry little pink bar of soap; truly the outsider among his Flush Force brethren. 

The Flush Force cartoon has a Robot Chicken feel to it. 

These Ready2Robot guys are pretty interesting too. Smaller than the Flush Force mutants, they come in these slime capsules and are meant to be pilots for robots toys that I have never seen. Very anime inspired. Reminds me of the pilots in Evangelion or Outlaw Star. Each figure is wholly unique, and is normally some sort of monster or robot or robot, but my favorite is of course the weird little nerd apparantly named "Homework".

The slime in the capsules is super watery and oozy. I can't imagine there's too much play value to it, but it was definitely fun for a bit. I don't really get what the slime has to do with the toys tho. It looks like the capsules don't get loaded into the robots, and the toys don't shoot or ooze slime. I mean it's great they have it, and I'm sure kids can find something useful for the slime but I'm personally at a loss. Guess I'm not that creative. 

The robots looks rad as hell though, and have that slight anime aesthetic I mentioned. And like Flush Force, there is a Ready2Robot cartoon on YouTube. It's done a cel-shaded, CGI animation style. Humorous enough. Definitely would have kept my attention if I were a kid. 

In other news, in my attempt to watch messed up and spooky movies this season I've been watching old Full Moon/Charles Band films. 

I hadn't seen From Beyond in decades. It's still great though and I loved every moment of it. Real fucked up shit in this movie that I just could not recall watching when I was a kid. I must have seen an edited version or something. There's something totally unnerving going on the entire time and the effects are just terrific and absolutely hold up. It was probably cutting edge at the time. 

And I do know there's supposed to be a spiritual sequel to From Beyond with the movie The Resonator: Miskatonic U, and it looks pretty good. 

This was my first time seeing Shadowzone though, and it was totally by accident.  I watched it on autoplay right after I was done with Creepozoids. Shadowzone was shockingly compelling. Everyone involved was such a distinct character it was easy to keep up with all of their stories. It has the same sort of feel as From Beyond as well, like they were cut from the same cloth. That whole Lovecraft-cosmic horror twinkle to it. James Hong is just wonderful as Dr. Fleet as well, I thought he really brought a tangible realness to his part. The creature, "John Doe", was interesting as well. Definitely reminiscent to The Thing (like the poster implies). 

Creepozoids was fun and schlocky but it was also distractingly inspired by Alien. I still loved it of course, and I loved that the backdrop of the story was probably a bigger story but we're just witnessing this one little nugget of the world where these characters exist in. So after a nuclear apocalypse, and a still active world war, a handful of deserters hide from toxic rain in an abandoned laboratory where there's some sort of mutant monster hiding. The intentions of the monster are never really made clear, or what it's purpose is, but it makes for a fun monster movie. But it is without question a microbudget Alien for sure. 

Anyway, hope you all are enjoying your October so far. Until next time. 

Is the Corona Virus just the Y2K Bug in disguise?!

The Dracula teeth on my mask scare away the Corona Virus!! 

All this pandemic stuff is total bullshit. It's really making everyone go crazy and ruining our lives. Toilet paper has become rarer than gold, folks are wearing protective gloves and masks for trips to the market, and most medicines have been bought out. It's difficult to gauge how bad it all really is when you're too scared to leave the house. 

I'm still working though, since my job is considered essential. It's been an interesting experience to say the least. My normal commutes are usually very crowded and slow, but now the trains I usually ride are basically empty and my usual hour and a half commute only takes me 40 minutes. The streets are empty, and so are the shelves at the market. I consider myself a moderate doomsday prepper; I have a go-bag, plenty of canned food, and some meds at my place. I never had the urge to by more than what I needed but I've seen people go absolutely insane for supplies. After 9/11 I always made sure to have some sort of plan. I hope people have a better idea of what they want to do once we get through this. 

It's super weird seeing the normally packed MTA trained totally empty during morning RUSH HOUR. I think only a dozen people were on the train with me, and everyone was keeping a distance from other commuters, which of course is what we're doing right now as a society. I don't miss the crowds at all, but I do feel melancholy that this is the new normal for the time being.

The LIRR is cutting back on service by 35% because of the low numbers. This does hurt my commute so I'll have to plan my trip to work better. Last night when I took this picture I'm almost certain it was just two of us entering the train at my station. That's just nuts. 

And since I can't go out and see my friends, I've been carrying around some of my smaller figures for some semblance of companionship. It's silly, but it helps. Desperate times call for ridiculous solutions. Going through my collection, and finding combinations of figures really helps me ease some of the loneliness I've been feeling. Some of these little toys I haven't looked at in months so it's like getting to know them all over again.

I got this Hot Wheels TANKNATOR exclusively because it can hold small figures in it. It's like the raddest thing ever made by Hot Wheels.

This guy is new to my collection. It's a plastic egg with a squishy egg inside of it that is filled with slime, a small alien, and an accessory. 

These guys are new too and I ADORE THEM. They're called CREEPZEEZ, and they're made by Orb Toys, who are like masters at weird jiggly toys. This is their line of weird monster "action figures" They're very squishy, they jiggle, and they all represent forces of nature; IT'S THE DEFENDERS VERSUS THE DEFIANTZ, WHO WILL WIN!!

I root for the Defiantz myself, but I love all of them equally. 

The Y2K SURVIVAL GUIDE AND COOKBOOK

So, in these scary times I thought it'd be in everyone's best interest if I share some pages from this mostly useful book from my collection. The Y2K Surivival Guide and Cookbook was written for a different sort of disaster that never occurred (obviously) but there's still plenty of good emergency planning advice within it. 

I hope someone out there finds this useful. Please be safe and plan for this and all future disasters the best you can. 

CORONA ZOMBIES

It was only a matter of time for sure, but, I didn't think it'd be done this quickly! Full Moon Features has already made a movie called CORONA ZOMBIES! Absolutely tasteless and exploitative, but I'm glad it's being done. We're in serious times right now and we need to start laughing at how bad and stupid things are if we're ever going to have the strength to keep fighting. 

If this is the end of the world, let's go out heckling it.

It's October! LET THE EVIL BEGIN!!

We've made it to October! For me, it's like the start of a New Year. October 1st is the start of the best season on the calendar. We get Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Xmas! Plus my birthday is somewhere in there! 

LET START CELEBRATING!

THE 2019 HALLOWEEN MOVIE CALENDAR

So I decided to try something new this year. I'm planning ahead and marking down all the movies I want to watch ahead of time so I have something to watch everyday. Some days I may have to watch while on my commute, other days I may have to wake up extra early and watch a movie before class, and some days it will be after work. Will I be able to stick to it? Who knows! 

My first movie to lead me into the season was "Mad Monster Party?" from 1967. It's a slow paced stop-motion film, which leads me to believe this was made by adult monster fans for adult monster fans. This really isn't a movie for kids; there's not much slapstick or comedy they'd get.

The characters all have great designs, and the animation is top notch. I'm really glad I chose this movie as my first for the calendar. There's a bounce to it. It doesn't really feel like a Halloween movie, but it does have all the iconic monsters in it. 

DOLLAR TREE HALLOWEEN TREASURES

I decided to swing by Dollar Tree today while I was out grocery shopping. I went a little overboard with the candy, but hey, it's the season for it. I even got a trick or tree bag to carry everything home with. I was mainly looking for the Kool-Aid "Ghoul-Aid" pop rocks candy that was exclusive to Dollar Tree, and I'm happy to report that I got it! I did get other candies as well, like the candy blood, but I had to get the little bag filled with toy skeletons and fake bugs. Now it's starting to feel like the Halloween season.

CREEPSHOW AT NYCC

Shudder is really making it difficult for me as a horror fan because they somehow have too much stuff for me to view. Ideally, I would be home all day stoned out of my mind and watching nothing but sci-fi and horror films until the end of time, but sadly there aren't enough hours in the day for that. 

Ever since subscribing to Shudder I've really fallen in love with their original content. I know they're going to be at NYCC this year so I wonder what items they're going to have for sale, or, what freebies they'll have for fans. 

I'm going to do my best to make it to this CREEPSHOW screening, but I know it's going to be swamped with fans. I've got my fingers crossed though. 

UNKNOWN ANTHOLOGY HORROR

Speaking of CREEPSHOW; the first episode made me so hungry for more anthology horror I decided to seek out lesser known titles. I found these two on Prime.

"Dead on Appraisal" is a Lovecraftian horror-comedy with some fun practical and CGI effects. It all takes place in one location, and it is absolutely my type of movie. Cartoony monsters, gory and slimy splatter effects, and a deep dark undertone. I really enjoyed it and I would watch it again in a heartbeat.

"Terror Telly" is a horror host guided tour on a haunted channel that showcases different genres of horror stories. It's low budget and hokey, but not in a bad way. There's nothing within it that elevates it above your expectations though. I really enjoyed there being a host to it, just a guy who looks like a young Zacherly trying to act spooky, but I dunno, the whole movie kept losing me. It just couldn't keep my full attention. I'd watch a sequel though, but I hope if they do make one they set their ambitions a little higher. 

MISTER LOBO AND ALPHA VIDEO TEAM UP!

Speaking of horror hosts, the amazing Mister Lobo has signed a deal with Alpha Video and he is now working with them to officially release episodes of Cinema Insomnia!

I think this is an excellent partnership. Alpha Video has such a great library of movies and they've helped preserve so many films and television shows for fans that this alliance with Mister Lobo just makes sense. I look forward to ordering these DVD's soon!

DUCKTOBER

Also, this month is the start of Ducktober. While most artists are participating in "Inktober", I will be focusing my skills as a doodlist  on drawing various anthropomorphic ducks. Think "Ducktales" or "The Mighty Ducks" cartoon from the 1990's.

Below is the list created by my friend on Twitter.

And below is my first Ducktober duck! I didn't want to draw a normal witch, with a pointed hat and broomstick. I decided to go with a sort of frumpy goth-girl look. She's the kind of person who'd buy all of her occult items from the mall at like Spencer's or Hot Topic, and yet, she has a crazed and powerful look in her eyes; what powers could she be hiding!

I think this is going to be the best October ever!