Showing posts with label horror. Show all posts
Showing posts with label horror. Show all posts

Friday, October 29, 2021

October Horror Movie Challenge: Another aka Mark of the Witch (2014) and Sorceress (2017)

This is another couple of movies that came recommended. Not sure if the recommendation though panned out.  These two have a lot in common. Both movies deal with dead mothers of witch girls, family curses, insanity, and both movies are way, way damn slow.

Another aka Mark of the Witch (2014)
Another aka Mark of the Witch (2014) 

On her 18th birthday, Jordyn (Paulie Rojas) begins to notice some strange things going on around her, starting with her Aunt harming herself.   Turns out that her mother was in some sort of cult with her sister and Jordyn was conceived during some ritual.   Her mother died in childbirth and her aunt has protected her this entire time.

Jordyn is going crazy seeing all sorts of strange things, but mostly someone that looks just like her doing evil acts.  As the movie, slowly, develops, we learn her doppelgänger, is the spirit of her mother trying to take over her life. 

The movie is 80 mins long, but if all the slow-motion scenes were played at normal speeds it would have only been an hour long, tops.

I wanted to like this movie more. It had a lot of good ideas going into it, but they never quite jelled in my mind.


Sorceress (2017)
Sorceress (2017)

So, oddly enough a lot of similar elements here.  We have girl, this time Nina (Naama Kates, also the writer and director) who's mother just died by suicide.  Nina has traveled to Russia to visit her mother's family.  Nina was told her life that she was a witch like her mother.  While she does not get along with her uncle and his family she does meet Katya.  Katya (Oona Airola) flirts with Nina and soon both women are living together.  Nina though is either going crazy, like her mother did, or does have magic, also...like her mother did. 

This one looks great; I find there is a bleak beauty to Russia, I find it oddly fascinating.  Sadly this is not enough to save this movie.

There is something about the intersection of madness and witchcraft.  Something that I think Rosaleen Norton was tapping into.  I was hoping for more with both movies to be honest. I am going to need to find more on this topic.  Hopefully ones that won't put me to sleep.

2021 October Horror Movie Challenge

October 2021
Viewed: 52
First Time Views: 39

Thursday, October 28, 2021

October Horror Movie Challenge: Coven of Evil (2020)

Coven of Evil (2020)
I wanted to get in more witch movies this Challenge, but I am running out of days.  I added this one early one and just never got around to it till now.  Many of the reviews for it online are fairly bad but a couple suggests checking out for yourself. So I did.

Coven of Evil (2020)

Joe is a journalist and he just published his first article about a coven of witches in England.  He is later approached by the high priestess Evie asking him if he wants to come to one of their rituals so he could correct some inaccuracies he published.

He meets many of the members including Evie's jerk husband Zander and a few other guys who all live in the house.  There is also a woman upstairs that no one acknowledges.  

He agrees and is soon joining a ritual where he gets high and ends up having sex with one of the other girls, Talia (we think).  The next morning Joe wants to leave until he sees one of the other guys hitting one of the other girls. 

Joe finally runs into Alice, the girl he saw in the upstairs room. She later returns to her room where she is beaten with a belt by Zander.  He does it again when she sleepwalks out. The guy is a sadist.   For some reason, they don't want or let Alice join the coven.  

Some errors in the plot/script.   The night after she gets beaten by Zander so bad she needs a healing spell, she is walking around the house with a low-cut dress in the back.  No scars.  

We learn they are planning on sacrificing Alice, so they practice by killing Talia.

While all of this is going on Joe and Alice end up having sex, or at least trying. Turns out that when Joe had sex with "Talia" it was actually a drugged-out Alice. 

We get to the sacrifice and learn that Alice is no longer suitable for sacrifice but her unborn baby will be. 

The eclipse comes and Alice sees herself talking to herself telling her not to be weak.   She wakes up from her stupor and turns the knife onto Evie, who she ends up killing.   Turns out they summon the "Gate Keeper" anyway and he is pissed off that the sacrifices were inadequate. 

The Gatekeeper takes everyone to hell (or wherever) and leaving Alice and Joe.

A year later the baby is born and it might be evil.

They try for a "Wicker Man" vibe here and more or less get it.  The movie is independent, so don't expect great special effects, acting, or production values.   The biggest issue is the movie is slow and the script for the most part makes little sense at times.

2021 October Horror Movie Challenge

October 2021
Viewed: 50
First Time Views: 37

October Horror Movie Challenge: Carmilla (2019)

Carmilla (2019)
"I'll never let the devil into this house Lara."
- Miss Fontaine

Not too long after saying this, she does exactly that.

One would think I had seen every version of Carmilla out there. And in truth I had, until very recently.  This is a new one and one that came highly recommended to me. 

The cast is pretty amazing with a personal favorite of mine Jessica Raine as Miss Fontaine, the Mademoiselle De Lafontaine character from the novella.  Tobias Menzies of Game of Thrones and Outlander fame as The Doctor (Spielsberg).

It also includes new(-sh)commers, Hannah Rae as Lara "Bauer" (not sure why the name is changed), and Devrim Lingnau as Carmilla.

The movie more or less follows the basic story novella but also takes a few liberties.  It is atmospheric and gothic and sadly dreadfully slow. It does play up the tension between Carmilla and Miss Fontaine more.

The story is fine, not a lot of horrors though and some of my favorite lines from the book are gone.

Not really a fan of how it ended.

2021 October Horror Movie Challenge

October 2021
Viewed: 49
First Time Views: 36

 

Wednesday, October 27, 2021

October Horror Movie Challenge: The Queen of Black Magic (1981, 2019)

Believe it or not, I did not get the streaming channel Shudder, until really recently.  I was building my list and I saw one I knew of but had not seen yet, 1981's The Queen of Black Magic, also known as Ratu Ilmu Hitam or Queen of the Dark Arts. I also saw there was a Shudder exclusive, 2019's The Queen of Black Magic.  Thinking they might be the same I opted to make a night of it.  

The Queen of Black Magic (1981)
The Queen of Black Magic (1981)

This one came highly recommended.  

Baedah is getting married, but something is wrong.  She sees maggots, snakes, and the groom as a corpse and his men as demons. Something also is attacking the local shaman.  The groom, Kohar, quickly decides that it must be Murni's fault because she is a witch. She is a witch because this is all her fault. Solid logic!  We learn that he had seduced Murni and took "her dignity" (virginity) but would not marry her. 

Murni is played by Indonesian horror queen Suzzanna (Suzzanna Martha Frederika van Osch).  "Murni" by the way means "Pure" in Indonesian.  Kohar and his mean go to her home and lynch her. He even slaps her old mother and sets their home on fire.  They toss her off the side of a cliff to make sure to "get rid of her black magic" but she is caught by a strange man.   

The man rescues her and nurses her back to health.  He tells her if they accuse of her black magic then she should use black magic to get her revenge. She will be the Queen of Black Magic.  

We get a "training montage" which involves Murni doing naked backflips under a full moon until smoke comes out of her head.  This had to be near-pornographic for Indonesia in the early 80s.

Murni returns to her village, much to the shock of the men that tried to kill her.  They try to warn Kohar, but she summons bees to kill one of them.  She then causes huge boils to form on another and they explode, filled with blood.   Gruesome, yet satisfying.  Lots of great examples of sympathetic magic here too.  

An Indonesian Lionel Richie-looking dude shows up to the village. He seems very religious and immune to the effects of black magic. 

Murni killing Kohar by getting him to rip off his own head is worth the price of admission alone.  Then watching Kohar's head fly around is just great. 

The becomes a battle between black magic and the power of the new stranger, Permana, invoking god. 

In their battle, we learn that Permana is Murni's older brother to learn from a holy man far away.  Makes sense since they both can do the same backflips.

They fight, but when the evil priest/magician that trains Murni shows up to kill Permana, Murni turns on him instead.  She blows him up with magic, but it is implied she dies as well.

Some great effects really, given the time and budget, and a fun story.


The Queen of Black Magic (2019)
The Queen of Black Magic (2019)

This one is also Indonesian and described as a loose-remake of the first. 

This one starts out strong. A family is driving back to visit the orphanage the father grew up in.  While talking they hit something. Getting out they find a deer on the side of the road, but it seems like it has been there a bit.  As they drive off we see a bloody girl on the other side of the road that they missed. 

They meet at the orphanage and others are also here to see the old caretaker., Mr. Bandi.

We learn that one of the kids from the orphanage was a girl named Murni. But no idea if it is the same one. Obviously, there is something about Murni that makes the adults very squeamish.  

Hanif, the father, is getting food from his car when he notices the blood on the car but also the black hair.  The deer he hit was brown.  Driving back he and one of his brothers, Jefri, find the girl.  They also find a bus full of the orphans and they are all dead. Murdered. 

They let their other brother Anton know and he drives back to see and go get the police.  He gets trapped on the bus and attacked by bugs. So many that his eyes pop out of their sockets.  Back at the orphanage the same thing is happening to his wife Eva.  Lina, believing she is too fat due to hormone treatments and begins cutting off bits of her flesh.   Eva rips off some of her skin and bugs come crawling out.

We learn the three boys as orphans discovered that Ms. Mirah had abducted a girl and was using black magic. So they locked her in a room where she banged her head against a door until she split her own skull open.  So with Mr. Bandi's help, they tore up the floor, put her body in, and covered it in cement. 

We see her ghost at one point. Damn. The Indonesians have some scary-ass monsters.

Nadya, Hanif's wife, discovers a bunch of photos of half-dressed underage girls that apparently Mr. Bandi took.  One of the girls is Siti, the woman married to Maman who invited them all there.   When confronted with the photos Siti tells everyone he did it with all the girls. When three were going to tell, he locked them in a room and poisoned them.  It seems that Ms. Mirah was protecting the girls and she was going to kill Mr. Bandi.   

Nif finds another picture and we learn that Murni was Ms. Mirah's daughter.

Something, Murni likely, begins to torture everyone. Eva is clawing her skin off, the orphans are being scalded with steaming water. Nif's children are getting whipped. It's all pretty brutal. 

Murni gets her head cut off, but puts it back on in an obvious nod to the first movie.  Nadya sets Murni on fire.

Later Nadya is picking Haniq from school but thinks she sees Murni. 

The movie ends with scenes from the 1981 original. 

--

Both movies were pretty good with some good scares and a good story.  Glad I watched them back to back. 

2021 October Horror Movie Challenge

October 2021
Viewed: 48
First Time Views: 35

Tuesday, October 26, 2021

October Horror Movie Challenge: Astaroth (2017)

Astaroth (2020)
This one came up as a suggested movie on Tubi so I had to check it out.   I have long been fascinated by the Goddess Astarte and her literal demonization to the male demon Astaroth. This movie covers some of that and adds some neat little tidbits as well. 

Astaroth (2017)

The movie is Brazilian and completely in Portuguese.  Thankfully the captions are in English.  Not that it would matter much, it's not a difficult one to follow.

Our stars are three college students living together whose primary interests seem to be tattoos and metal.  There is tattoo artist Dri (Ju Calaf),  guitarist Lia (played by former top Brazilian porn star Monica Mattos), and martial artist Mai.  Dri and Lia meet up with tattoo artist GregĂłrio (Janderson Tucunduva) who has been communing with the demon Astaroth (also played by Mattos).

GregĂłrio has been tattooing sigils on to people so Astaroth can claim them.  Once she has enough she can come into the mortal world.

All in all not a bad premise.  The movie feels like an American horror movie circa 1995, only a lot less sex and nudity if you can believe that.  The movie doesn't really get going until the half-way mark. 

Eventually, Lia gets possessed by Astaroth kills Dri, but not before Mai can find out.  Mai figures out what Astaroth is and kills GregĂłrio and the possessed Lia to send Astaroth to hell.

The movie is quite obsessed with metal with the bands getting top billing right after the actresses. Not a bad thing really; demons, metal, horror, it all fits together.  The trouble is sometimes it comes across as an 80s training video.  If it had been made in the 80s there would have been a larger body count and at least one song by Dokken.

It wasn't a bad flick really, it just had the feel of some people doing this on a budget and they got all their friends over to do it. 

2021 October Horror Movie Challenge

October 2021
Viewed: 46
First Time Views: 33

Monday, October 25, 2021

October Horror Movie Challenge: Mother of Tears (2007)

Mother of Tears (2007)
The third of Dario Argento's "Three Mothers" series that began with Suspiria (1977) and followed into Inferno (1980). This one deals with the Mother of Tears, Matter Lachymarum, the most beautiful and cruelest of all the mothers. 

Mother of Tears (2007)

A crypt is uncovered in an ancient Italian graveyard with a coffin and a reliquary.  Inside the reliquary are little stone carvings of demons and a red vest that they keep calling a talisman.  It is sent to the Museum of Ancient Art in Rome to be studied by the curator Michael Pierce. He is out so it is opened by art student (and Pierce's girlfriend) Sarah Mandy (director's daughter Asia Argento).  She lets out some demons that attack and kill her colleague. Sarah manages to escape by listening to a voice that tells her where to go.

Soon Rome descends into violence as more witches from all over the world begin to come to town. We learn that they have heard the call of Matter Lachymarum. She has returned from the dead with her red talisman. Sarah is watched by the police for her colleague's disappearance and by all the witches for reasons we don't know yet.  The voice she hears keeps getting her out of trouble. 

We learn that Sarah is the daughter of a powerful white witch that dealt a serious blow to Mater Suspiriorum (Suspiria). It is implied that she was one of the dancers.  Sarah also has power and that is why Matter Lachymarum is seeking her out. 

The witches coming to Rome manage to kill pretty much everyone that Sarah knows. 

Sarah finds Matter Lachymarum's home and before she can be sacrificed she uses a spear to rip off Matter Lachymarum red talisman and burns it.  All the witches panic and Matter Lachymarum is killed.

--

So. It's not a great movie. There are some good moments. I think what I should do is watch all three back to back sometime to get Argento's full experience.

Asia Argento is not a great actress.  She was ok in this, but someone with more skill would have been better. 

The witches coming to Rome though were great. One of the things I loved here was that the witches all spoke a language they alone understood. I have seen this in MotherlandCoven, and Emerald City.  Now I really want to try and implement it in a game somehow. 

Creating a language though. That is WAY beyond my skillset. 


2021 October Horror Movie Challenge

October 2021
Viewed: 45
First Time Views: 32

Sunday, October 24, 2021

October Horror Movie Challenge: Lady Bathory Night

Lady of Csejte aka The Blood Queen (2015)
I have seen a lot of attempts of telling the Bathory story.  This one focuses more on the history than the vampire retellings. Though it gets some of that wrong as well.

The Blood Queen (2015)

The acting by the young stars,  Isabelle Allen as Aletta and Lucas Bond as her brother Mischa, is quite good really.  I expect to see more of them in the future.

Equally, Svetlana Khodchenkova is hypnotic as Bathory. Watching her on-screen you really want her to be something other than the monster we know her to be. 

Aletta and Mischa get arrested for being thieves but are soon rescued by the Countess' aides, Dorata and Ilona.  Both children are taken to the castle.

The Countess takes an interest in Aletta, and it is not entirely a wholesome one.  

While Aletta is getting more involved with the castle, and the more Mischa is getting beat up, we discover that kids go missing all the time from the castle.

Mischa is caught stealing Bathory's book and is thrown in the dungeons.  The book is Bathory's diary of the children she tortured, mutilated, and killed.  

Mischa manages to escape and get back to the judge to tell him about Bathory, but the judge decides that Mischa is lying and sentences him to death.    Aletta also tries to escape, thinking that Mischa has left her.  She runs into Katja, the gypsy girl we saw in the beginning.  Katja is Aletta's older sister that went missing the year before.  She had been at Castle Csejte but had escaped.   Katja almost gets away with Aletta, but is killed by Dorata.

Bathory has Aletta chained up above her bath to drain her, but Mischa arrives with Bear, the jailer that Mischa had impressed with his ability to get out of any locks.   Bear saves Aletta, but not before Bathory kills Mischa.  The King's men arrive in time to arrest Bathory. 

After this, the story follows what history tells us.   It's not a bad flick at all, but not a great one either. Light on the explicit horror but heavy on the implied.  They changed Bathory's victims to boys and girls instead of just girls.  I suppose they needed to do this to allow Mischa in.   There was just so much more they could have done with it I feel.

The movie was very stylish. It scene was great to look at and Svetlana Khodchenkova was great as Bathory.  It reminded me a lot of the Daughters of Darkness.  Then I recalled I had a brand new Ultra 4k BluRay I had gotten for my birthday!  I figured I should pop it in.

Daughters of Darkness
Daughters of Darkness (1971)

This is still one of my favorite horror films from the 70s. This new Ultra 4k transfer is fantastic looking.  Blue Underground does a great job as always.  This one is a 3-disc set. An Ultra 4k BlueRay, a regular BluRay, and a soundtrack CD.  

I did Daughters of Darkness in 2019. So watching it now I still have my DVD version in mind.  This one is so much clearer, so much sharper.    For example, when Valerie (Danielle Ouimet) is reading the newspaper you can actually see the page she is reading.   The scene where Stefan beats Valerie is also much, unnecessarily so, clearer.  The car crash at the end is so much brighter and clearer you can see all the skid marks on the road from the other takes. 

Plus it is great watching this right after The Blood Queen is kind of fun.  Both movies featured a haunting portrayal of Ezerabet Bathory as a blonde from two fantastic actresses. Both movies also feature her servant Ilona.  

I have not checked out all the special features yet, but they look interesting. There are two features I did check out are the interviews with Danielle Ouimet "Valerie" and Andrea Rau "Ilona."  Danielle Ouimet's was fantastic and a lot of fun.   Andrea Rau's was also great and also great to hear sounding excited in this.   They look like they were filmed in 2006. Both actresses have nothing but wonderful things to say about Delphine Seyrig.

Each time I watch this I am just fascinated by Delphine Seyrig.  She seems like she is much classier than this movie should be allowed to have. I think about a modern remake of this and I can't think of anyone who could play her the same way.  Though I do admit that Svetlana Khodchenkova came very, very close.

Eternal (2004)
Eternal (2004)

I figure lets keep going.  I had seen most of the other adaptations of the Bathory story from her time period, I had often wondered though what filmmakers had in mind for her post-1971.  I guess the answer is "Canada."  Or at least that is the way that filmmaker Wilhelm Liebenberg sees it in 2004's Eternal. Here we get Caroline NĂ©ron as Elizabeth Kane aka Erszabet Bathory.  We don't have an Ilona character, well and Irinia, but there is an actress whose real name is Ilona. 

We open with a woman,"Wildcat" played by Sarah Manninen, who goes to see Elizabeth for some pre-arranged sexual hook-up.  Elizabeth promptly kills her and asks her assistant to prepare her bath.

Soon we learn that the woman was the wife of cop, Raymond Pope (played by Conrad Pla). Raymond is not what you call a faithful husband.  He is having sex with another woman (who we learn is Nancy, the wife of his friend) when he gets the call about his wife's car.  Pope goes to see Erszabet/Elizabeth.  BTW Conrad Pla is not a great actor.  His son Joey Pla, who plays his son Nathan, is a better actor.  Now to be fair the role he is playing is not supposed to be subtle.   Caroline NĂ©ron on the other hand is much better. 

Ray continues to investigate Bathory while she kills Nancy.   Ray investigates and drinks and spends time in strip clubs while his friend and son's babysitter Lisa is killed by Irina. 

Ray follows Bathory to Venice (despite being wanted for murder and having a kid to watch)  where he ends up at Bathory's house. Here he hunts her down during her orgy but is shot and stabbed.  He is saved by the Interpol Detective he talked to in Montreal, Inspector Thurzo. Somehow Thurzo, who also seems to be a priest of some sort, has everything cleared up for him. Of course like an idiot Raymond drinks the wine Elizabeth gives him. It is hinted he will go rescue her when she is transferred to a clinic in Switzerland. 

The movie is not great, not by any stretch of the imagination. 

2021 October Horror Movie Challenge

October 2021
Viewed: 44
First Time Views: 31

Saturday, October 23, 2021

October Horror Movie Challenge: Lilith (2019, 2018, & 2017)

Lillith (2019)
Some movies about one of my favorite mythological figures Lilith.  

Lillith (2019)

Ok, this one is spelled with two Ls and is a bit of a silly movie, but even then there is a good-sized body count.    Jenna played by Nell Kessler discovers her boyfriend cheating on her. She and her friend Emma decided to get some revenge by summoning the demon "Lillith."  Trouble is she never really believed it would work even when she shows up.  Savannah Whitten is so much fun as Lilith.  She brings a real dark sense of humor to the role.  I love the makeup effects they use for her too.

A few other things.  I love the Tarot card they are using here. And 69 action news? Sure why not!

Let's be honest...this is not a great movie, but it is a fun one.  There is a solid vibe here of just a bunch of friends getting together to shot a horror movie.  It is quite fun.

They have/had a good social media presence, so that is also really fun.

Lilith (2018)
Lilith (2018)

Ok now, this one is 180° from the one above.  This one is an anthology where the central theme is Lilith getting revenge on men who have wronged women. The connective tissue here is Police Detective Ryan Carson.  We see him shooting Lilith (we learn later) in the first scene.

The first story deals with Brook Carson (Brialynn Massie), the detective's teenage daughter.  She is having sex with her teacher and gets pregnant.  Unable to deal she kills herself.  Brooks friends, who abandoned her when she needed them try to blackmail the teacher, but they screw it up. One kid gets shot and the teacher tries to kill the others.  While he is hunting them down Brook comes back, but possessed by Lilith.  She kills her former friends for abandoning her and the teacher.  When she is done though her father sees her and tells her that Lilith will take care of her now.

In the next one Lilith poses as a caregiver for an old man.  She takes on the form of "Joanne" the old man's dead wife. In this one Philip (Vernon Wells) expects her to show up and has been waiting. There is the implication that Lilith is now in charge of Hell.  She kills Philip and Det. Carson shows up later to investigate. 

The next story deals with a guy, Darren (Colton Wheeler), and his porn addiction.  His wife heads out to a religious retreat.  His skeezy buddy convinces him to call this call-girl, who is of course Lilith.  They have sex. A lot of sex. Lilith kills him. Madison, his wife, comes home and finds his dead body posed like Baphomet.  Det. Carson investigates this murder too.

The last story deals with a serial killer Frank (played by Frank Tryon) and he kidnaps Melissa (Kimberly Roswell).  He brings her to his home where he has been torturing her.  Frank is remembering all the women he killed (and their shoes) and is getting ready to dismember a still living Melissa when there is a knock on the door.  It is Lilith (no shock).  Frank tries to drug her, but Lilith manages to switch the drug to Frank's drink. Lilith proceeds to torture him, but sets him free.  Melissa shows up behind him and shoves the drill into him.  Lilith then rips out Frank's heart.   As expected Det. Carson shows up.

The connecting scenes between the stories deal with Det. Carson and a priest trying to trap Lilith, but it is obvious there are in way over their heads.  It is also the least interesting of the tales. 

The makeup effects are kind cool and Lilith is played in each story by a different actress. I admit this is what drew me to the movie to start with. Some of the actors were good, many were only ok.  It was still a fun little romp.  I do love a nice horror anthology.

Lilith's Hell (2017)
Lilith' Hell (2017)

This one is a little odd.  It is filmed as a point of view movie staring the "filmmaker" Ruggero Deodato as himself and two others to film a horror movie. I say "filmmaker" since he is playing himself and he is the filmmaker in the movie, the actual director is Vincenzo Petrarolo. Though Ruggero Deodato is an actual director, just not in this one.  He is most famous for "Cannibal Holocaust." This movie is a nod to that,  

The movie is taking place "just outside of Rome" and it is obvious that the filmmakers (in the movie) have no idea what they are doing. 

There is some security came footage, ala Paranormal Activity which could have been scary, but ends up just being tense.  The only scare comes when Marco hides under the bed of the actresses (everyone has to share) and then reaches up to grab Michelle's leg.  Everyone then tries to go back to sleep. Michelle wakes up startled and walks around the house.  She finds Marcond Alberto in the pool and seems to warm up to them. That is until she bites off Alberto's penis. Ryans and Sara find them and start freaking out.  Michelle is nowhere to be found and Alberto is dead.   They find Michelle but she seems all possessed.  She screams, but it sounds like an animal and the security cameras go all weird. 

They stumble into another room that is covered in drawings and runes that look demonic.  The room is connected to the security room where all the cameras are.  They also find the body of Marco's grandmother.  Of course, Ryan is freaking out, but not because of the deaths or the evil room, but because what is they are filming now is better than his movie.  

They find a camera on the ground and play the SD card on it.  There are robbed people in the evil room and they performing a seance to summon Lilith.   She appears to possess the young woman in the video. The men in the video get terrified and try to stop Lilith and Marco's grandmother, but they all end up killing each other, leaving the possessed girl tied up in the room.  They realize she is still there, and she begins to scream.   It looks like the girl, Linda, is ok, and in pain, and only Sara seems to understand what is going on.  She demands that they tie her up since Lilith can possess her.  Though in their excitement to find a phone and call the priest they let Sara loose.

Credit to Manuela Stanciu who plays Michelle as a vapid actress wanting drugs, to a scared woman, to a demon-possessed monster.  Her exorcism scene is quite good.  Joelle Rigollet also does a great job as Sara, the make-up artist that knows a lot about Lilith.  Speaking of make-up, her running and smeared mascara is a great touch. 

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What do these all have in common?  Well, they get a lot of it right at least in terms of popular cultural understanding of Lilith.  In two of the three cases, priests are unable to exorcise her.  In the 2017 movie, he says it is because she is Sumerain and can't be removed.  She can charm with her eyes and get men to do what she wants.  She only possesses women, but that might be a personal preference.   When she does her eyes turn yellow or gold. 

None of the movies were "great" but all were fun and I honestly enjoyed them all. 

2021 October Horror Movie Challenge

October 2021
Viewed: 41
First Time Views: 28

Friday, October 22, 2021

BlackStar: Whispers in the Outer Darkness

Soon after I posted my discussion on Aliens and Horror for use in sci-fi horror and in BlackStar in particular I found a wealth of information.  Here are the fruits of those findings.

Whisperer in the Outer Darkness

I see this as the "second" episode of the season after the two-parter "The Stars Are Right" that introduces the Cthulhuoid Horrors we share space with. 

The crew gets new orders from Starfleet.  They are to pick up a professor Alyson Wilmarth.  While setting up a new subspace relay on Pluto the Starfleet Corp of Engineers uncover two startling discoveries.  The first is the remains of a Tellarite survey team that dates back to the early 20th Century, circa 1930-31.  The second is what the Tellarite's were investigating.  The remains of a small outpost of any unknown civilization that dates back to 12 million years ago.  Among the remains are a frozen Danuvius guggenmosi, a human ancestor from the Miocene.   Artifacts from the civilization bear a resemblance to other artifacts found on Earth in the Andes, Appalachians, and Himalayas mountain ranges.  Dr. Wilmarth is an expert on these.

Naturally, Starfleet contacted Tellar Prime about this to see what they knew, and maybe figure out what they were doing on Pluto in the 1930s.  This puts Dr. Wilmarth in contact with Dr. Akeley, her counterpart in the Tellarite College of Exoarcheology.  Dr. Wilmarth was scheduled to take a sabbatical and head to Tellar Prime when the term was done.  Dr. Akeley, in typical Tellarite fashion claims he can't wait for her and takes their data and heads out to a remote system he thinks has the answers.

Once on Tellar Prime, we learn that the Tellarite name for Pluto is Yuggoth, though they claim that name was not one they made up, but what they were able to decipher.  Much like Earth, there is evidence of this unknown species having lived on Tellar Prime, the 5th planet on the 61 Cygni/Tellar system.  The Tellarites wanted to know how artifacts from Yuggoth got to Tellar Prime.

The crew, with Dr. Wilmarth still in tow, head out for the remote system discovered by Dr. Akeley.

<<I'll add some bits about getting to the planet, the tech on the planet here.>>

They discover Dr. Akeley, but he is acting with a flat affect is very polite to everyone (should be a dead giveaway that something is wrong).  He claims to have been in contact with the civilization, the Mi-Go, and they are friendly and only wish to share their secrets of over 70 million years of space travel with the Federation.  Akeley of course has stayed hidden in the shadows this whole time.  When he is confronted they will discover the entire back of his skull has been opened and "scooped" out.  His brain and eyes are gone.  The look is similar to the original Tellarite masks on The Original Series that made their eyes look like they were missing.  Only a tiny device is left in his otherwise empty skull.  It is apparently "piloting" the body.

Here the ship is attacked by Mi-Go.  They can't appear on sensors and are only known by the gravity they displace when they land on any deck with artificial gravity. 

I am certainly going to use some ideas from Forbidden World even if it is just to model a Mi-Go creature from the movie poster.  I like the idea of a human/Mi-Go hybrid that can talk.  Maybe it will have Dr. Akeley's or even Dr. Wilmarth's face.  Recreate the poster art, but not the movie, Galaxy of Terror.

I still need to come up with a resolution for this. What do the Mi-Go want? How does the crew "defeat" them? Still need to work out those details as well.

This will be a good test of Star Trek Adventures mixed with Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 both from MĹŤdiphiĂĽs.

October Horror Movie Challenge: The Demoniacs (1974) and Red Scream Vampyres (2009)

The Demoniacs (1974)
Every year I try to work in at least one Jean Rollin film. They are usually not great but usually fairly fun. Tonight's choice is one that has also been on my list for a bit and thanks to fine folks at Redemption, I now have my own copy.

The Demoniacs (1974)

We begin the movie with an introduction to a group of "Wreckers" I guess these were people that would shine lights out into the sea at night to "wreck" ships on the rocks and steal their cargo.  The Captain, Le Bosco, Paul, and the "beautiful but perverted" Tina.

After a recent wrecking, two young women survive and come to shore where they are brutalized by the Wreckers.  

The crew heads to the village brothel to drink, and the Captain gets all weird and paranoid.  They decide to go back to the wreck and kill the women.  They set fire to ship but never find the bodies.

The girls, believed to be dead, make a deal with the Devil, who is locked in an old castle for some reason, to have the power they need to get revenge.   Of course to give them the power he has to have sex with them.

Though I am not exactly what power he gives them.  They find the Wreckers, but it seems they are brutalized some more and all six die in the end.

Well.  I suppose it could have been worse. It could have been Jeunes filles impudiques, aka Schoolgirl Hitchhikers, which was just dreadful.

Red Scream Vampyres (2009)

Caught this one streaming after I was done with the Demoniacs BluRay.  Needed something a little newer. Well. I am really disappointed and should have gone to bed instead. 

Earlier I was complaining about the "Daughters of the Craft" movies. Well, I'd take the worst Craft remake here over this bottom basement "Vampyres" remake. I have seen terrible remakes of Vampyers before, this one is unwatchable.

Red Scream Vampyres (2009)



2021 October Horror Movie Challenge

October 2021
Viewed: 38
First Time Views: 25

Thursday, October 21, 2021

October Horror Movie Challenge: 5ive Girls (2006)

5ive Girls (2006)
I am not going into this one with very high hopes.  It deals with demons, witches, and Ron Perlman.  

5ive Girls (2006)

The movie begins with Ron Perlman as Father Drake.  He is the teacher of a Catholic girl's school, St. Marks.  One of his students, Elizabeth, is drawing a scene from the Bible where Jesus casts out the Legions of demons (is Legion the number or the name? Sunday school was a long ass time ago).  Anyway, while Drake is talking to some students, Elizabeth starts to hear voices.  Soon the door slams shut and she begins hearing the voices of demons.  Drake finally gets into the room, but Elizabeth is gone, leaving only blood.

Five years later, the school reopens with just only five students and recovering drunk Father Drake.  The newest girl, Alex, is a witch with TK and can hear voices coming from nowhere. She also sees Elizabeth walking around the halls.  The other girls also experience strange happenings.  Leah passes through a filing cabinet.  Cecilia is blind but has second sight. Connie is a Wiccan.  Not sure what Mara does other than being a pain in the ass.  No, actually her power is healing by touch. 

Former student and current head Mistress, Miss Anna Pearce played by Amy Lalonde, also can see Elizabeth.  She tells her she is trying to help her.

We get typical Catholic School Girl shenanigans. Spanking with a ruler, girls sneaking off to smoke, breaking into the third floor.  While there they find a pentagram in a magic circle. At the same time, Miss Pearce is casting a diabolic spell to try and free Elizabeth with the other five girls as the sacrifices. 

Elizabeth, or a demon, is summoned and lands in Connie, but Mara is able to heal her.   Alex discovers a book belonging to Elizabeth. 

The next day a possessed Connie tries to kill Leah and then vomits a bunch of demons into her.  The girls realize right away that Leah is possessed. Leah confronts Father Drake and he tries to exorcise her, but she stabs him with the crucifixes instead.  We learn that Miss Pierce is Elizabeth's sister. 

Legion jumps from girl to girl, killing them along the way. 

The ending is kind of neat with the demon made of blood. But otherwise fairly derivative and predictable. 

About the cover. In this movie when you get possessed your eyes don't go all black, but all white.

--

Ok, I think I need to create a category of movie, Daughters of the Craft.  These are movies made after 1996 with teen witches, usually four, sometimes five. One should be good and one should be evil, or at least misunderstood. The filmmakers obviously loved the Craft and thought that was the movie they wanted to make.  I'll go back and see which ones fit it. 


2021 October Horror Movie Challenge

October 2021
Viewed: 36
First Time Views: 23


Wednesday, October 20, 2021

October Horror Movie Challenge: Satan's Baby Doll (1983)

Satan's Baby Doll (1983)
Tonight's movie is a fairly notorious one that dates back to my VHS days.  I always saw this one in the video store, Prestige Video (long since gone), but it was always checked out.  Years later it became harder and harder to find.  I finally scored a copy this year, though a Region 2 DVD only.  Not a problem!  You don't become a European horror aficionado without some tools at your disposal. 

Does the movie live up to all the hype?  Well...let's see shall we?

Satan's Baby Doll (1983)

There are two versions of this movie.  A horror version and a softcore porn version.  For tonight's review, I am more interested in the horror version.

While the movie looks like a demonic story, it's actually a demonic, or more to the point, diabolic witchcraft story.

Marina Hedman plays the recently dead Maria. While waiting for the reading of her will her husband Antonio (Aldo Sambrell), and children Miria (Jaqueline DuprĂ©) and Ignazio (Alfonso Gaita) explore her old estate along with weird nun Sol (Mariangela Giordano).  

The makeup effects of the dead Maria are all over the place. Sometimes she looks like a rotting corpse other times just dead. I am not counting the times she is walking around as a spirit.  This is an 80s movie, but the make-up effects are closer to the mid-70s.

Maria's spirit begins to possess her young, and formerly innocent, daughter Miria into seducing and killing her former husband (father), son (brother), priest, and Sol. So yeah a little squicky. What is it with demonic possession and incest?  

Maria/Miria goes through her whole family, killing them all. The end was not what I expected, but it was fun. 

Let's address the cover. Satan never really appears in the movie and certainly never like that.  Also our femme fatales, Jaqueline DuprĂ© and Marina Hedman are both blondes.  The cover is obviously geared towards the style of covers popular in the heyday of early 80s fantasy.   The alternate cover is not exactly safe for most social media platforms.

Satan's Baby Doll alt cover

Again, this scene never happens in the film.


2021 October Horror Movie Challenge

October 2021
Viewed: 35
First Time Views: 22

Tuesday, October 19, 2021

October Horror Movie Challenge: The Noonday Witch (2016)

The Noonday Witch (2016)
I love weird mythological creatures. I love ones that are connected to beliefs about witches.  If I can find a horror movie about one, then all the better! 

The Noonday Witch (2016)

This one is in Czech, which I believe is a first for me.  The language sounds almost lyrical to me.  I am going to have to find some more movies in this so I can hear more. 

The original title was Polednice or ĐźĐľĐ»Đ´ĐµĐ˝ŃŚ in Russian or, the more familiar to readers here, PoĹ‚udnica in Polish.  

Eliska (Anna Geislerová) and her daughter Anetka (KarolĂ­na Lipowská) move to her husband's old hometown and buy a farm.  Her husband is not with them and Anetka asks when her dad will be joining them, which gets no response from Eliska other than "soon".  We learn from the locals that it has been very hot lately and many don't even have water. 

Something is obviously up and Eliska does not want to tell Anetka.

The film follows along with the folklore of Lady Midday, but in a modern setting.  I also got a solid Babadook vibe from this.  

As the movie, and the summer goes on the relationship between mother and daughter gets worse. There is steady-state of mounting terror and anxiety in this that really makes you feel for Eliska, even if you can't tell if she is going crazy or things are crazy around her.   This is exemplified by the story that Eliska reads to Anetka every night. It goes from a nice bedtime story to a perfunctory exercise.  

We get warnings from the old neighbor that "She" is back.  One day while playing in a field with other children the church bell rings out non and all the kids hide, except for Anetka at first.

One of the kids shows Anetka the gravesite of her father to prove he wasn't lying and Eliska gets a letter from the insurance company stating that her claim was denied due to no sign of foul play in his death. 

Anna Geislerová and KarolĂ­na Lipowská do a really great job here into their descents into their personal hells.  In particular Anna Geislerová in her dual role of both the mother Eliska and the witch Lady Midday.

The ending was a bit anti-climatic, but it could have gone so much worse.  

I am sticking with my original Babadook comparisons.

2021 October Horror Movie Challenge

October 2021
Viewed: 34
First Time Views: 21

Sunday, October 17, 2021

October Horror Movie Challenge: Coven (2019)

Coven (2019)
Someone, really, REALLY, loved The Craft and thought "if four witches are good, then five MUST be better!"  That someone is writer and star Lizze Gordon. 

Coven (2019)

Our coven is made up of nice, but insecure Beth, crazy leader Ronnie, her psycho girlfriend Jax, and hippie wanna-be Taylor.   They need a fifth when Ronnie kills Christy.  That fifth turns out to be Sophie (Lizze Gordon).  Though, unlike the Craft, all these witches already have power, and seemingly quite a bit of it

The Coven wants to summon Ashura, the spirit of a witch to give them all even more power; all they need is Sophie. Though known only to Ronnie and Jax, they are planning to summon Ashura's spirit into Ronnie and not sharing in the power.

So Ronnie is the updated Nancy.  Sophie is the updated Sarah.  Beth is...well kinda like Bonnie. Jax is just crazy.  I do like the brand they all have on their backs; I did something similar with one of my witches.  

And again, like the Craft, the witches let the magic go to their heads. 

The night of the 22nd of September they summon Ashura, who is pretty obviously not good, starts out by killing Taylor.  Beth and Sophie runs off, but Jax and Ronnie, now possessed by Ashura plan to go after them.

I was about to talk about Beth and Sophie running around in just their underwear, but Sophie casts a spell that dresses them before they head back to the occult bookstore (yeah, just like store in The Craft).  Sophie, with the help of Beth and Emily (the bookstore owner played by Sofya Skya) powers up from her dead mother's magic.  They decide to go after Ashura. 

They find the spell to stop her, but needs a sacrifice.  Sophie's professor ends up sacrificing herself to defeat Ashura and Ronnie.

Ok. Let's be upfront. This is not a great movie, but it is a fun one.  Lizze Gordon looks like she is having the time of her life here really. I enjoyed the bit about the witches having their own ancient language, something we saw in Emerald City (Inha) and Motherland: Fort Salem (MĂ©nĂ­shè) as well.  So it is a good idea. 

2021 October Horror Movie Challenge

October 2021
Viewed: 32
First Time Views: 19

Saturday, October 16, 2021

October Horror Movie Challenge: Curse of the Mayans (2017)

Curse of the Mayans (2017)
Another one with my wife tonight.  She was in the mood for something Egyptian or similar, but I remembered I had this one on my list.  It is horror, it is sci-fi, and I have been wanting to find something more about Mayan myths, even if it was in the form of a cheesy movie.  Actually for what I have planned a cheesy movie is perfect.

Curse of the Mayans (2017)

This movie was also known as Xibalbá.  An American professor, Dr. Alan Green (played by Steve Wilcox) hires a professional cave diver Danielle Noble, played by Carla Ortiz, to uncover what he believes is the lost library of the Mayas.

There is a bit in the start about an alien race of reptile aliens from the Pleiades. And a Mayan retelling of the Nibiru tale, Va Sheck.

The movie starts slow, but about 1:05 in it really begins to kick in.  The divers find what they think is the library, but it looks like alien technology.  One of the divers tries to grab a gold jaguar head, but instead, they let something out.  The demons/aliens begin to kill the divers.

The professor tells us the alien/demons are "Tlaloc."  While the name is Aztec, there is a Mayan god that is similar.  They can possess humans, but their eyes look like snakes.  Cool, but how does the professor know all of this?

The movie ends just as it is getting interesting.  

So some scares, but not enough and too little too late.

I had hoped for more really. 

2021 October Horror Movie Challenge

October 2021
Viewed: 31
First Time Views: 18


October Horror Movie Challenge: Werewolf Night

I love horror movies.  My wife doesn't.  BUT she does enjoy a good werewolf movie.  Over the month we have tried a few with varying degrees of success. I thought I'd switch it up tonight with a few werewolf movies.

The Wolf of Snow Hollow (2020)

This one was out first one and I liked how it looked and started.  I was written, directed, and starred Jim Cummings. Normally I avoid movies where one guy wears all the hats, the notable exception is Spike Lee.  But this one did not feel like an ego trip (looking at you M. Night Shyamalan).  It also featured Riki Lindholm, which is always a plus in my book.

So this sleepy little town in Utah, which barely sees any sort of crime, is suddenly beset upon by a bunch of grisly murders that are soon blamed on a werewolf.    Only the Sheriff (Cummings) doesn't believe.  We see many of the victims get torn apart from the point of view of the werewolf and even see bits of the creature.

The movie is a bit slow, but the cast is likable.  In particular, Robert Forster plays the older Sheriff Hadley and Cummings father in this.  It would be his last role before he died.  In fact we would later comment that some of the other sheriffs we see later on, seemed to be modeled on the whole Robert Forster vibe. 

In the end it is not a werewolf, but a serial killer dressed up in a wolf pelt with homemade claws.

Lycan (2017)
Lycan (2017)

This is one of those horror movies where the director and writer know that horror fans are watching, so they set up some deliberate tropes to knock them down.  In this one six highschool or college (never really clear) are given the assignment to re-write some local history.  

It was set in 1986, which I can only assume they wanted to avoid things like the Internet or cell phones to tell their story.  A cell phone would have come in handy and a quick internet search would have likely saved some lives.  But I digress. 

The six students, three boys, three girls, very convenient, head out to the woods to get more details on the legend of Emily Burt, the Talbot County werewolf.  In the process they manage to get themselves lost and killed in no time. 

In some trope defying moves, there is no sex and no nudity from our main cast members. There is also no werewolf or ghost werewolf.  The killer is again (or before) just someone with a weird wolf claw-thing.  The killer though is Isabella, one of the girls on the camping trip.  Turns out she is crazy and so is her caretaker.  Isabella is the daughter of Emily Burt.

Everyone dies, EXCEPT for the jock.  So a change there. 

Into the Dark: Blood Moon (2021)
Into the Dark: Blood Moon (2021)

Finally! A real werewolf.  It also answers the question "is lycanthropy sexually transmitted?"  No, but it can be inherited. 

We did not realize this was part of an anthology but it does work as a stand-alone movie.   

Esme and Luna move to a new town where Esme pays for everything in cash and keeps Luna close to home. Especially on the full moon.  Luna is a 10-year-old werewolf.  We get the idea from flashbacks that Luna's father and Esem were together for a bit, even to the point where they got married.  But something happened to Luna's dad and the impression is he got out and Esme had to kill him.

Esme moves from town to town and avoids any personal contact when she can.  It doesn't help that local sheriff, NOT played by Robert Forster though he tries, takes a quick dislike to Esme.  

Through some events Sam the local bartender takes a liking to Esme and shows up at her place one day.  He comes into the house and smells the meat she leaves out for Luca when he is a werewolf.  Sam freaks out, she freaks out and accidentally knocks him down the stairs and kills him.  She locks Luna in his cage and goes to get rid of Sam's truck.  Not soon after the sheriff shows up looking for Sam, finds his dead body in a cage with Luna and the full moon is rising.  

Well, you can figure the rest out from here. 

Not a bad flick, but really didn't scratch that werewolf itch we have. Still, better than rapey aliens and rapey fishmen.


2021 October Horror Movie Challenge

October 2021
Viewed: 30
First Time Views: 17

Friday, October 15, 2021

October Horror Movie Challenge: Horror Planet aka Inseminoid (1981)

Horrorplanet aka Inseminoid (1981)
Man, I am in some kind of rut.  Ok in my defense this movie has been on my list for years, but even I thought it was too cheesy to consider.   Also there are not a lot of choices when your search terms are "Horror," "Sci-fi," "Alien," and "Archeologist." 

So if you read my post earlier today you know I have an idea, or the start of one, for my alien reoccurring Big Bad.  

So this film is taking place on an alien planet.  Writing is discovered on the walls while the research operations are going on this frozen planet.  There appear to be a lot of couples here, convenient really.  One of the researchers is hurt in an explosion and his buddy starts to go crazy.

I am not sure what the future is like, but according to this movie, they must be outlawed by then. 

While out (even though the commander ordered everyone to stay on the base) Sandy and Mitch get out of communication range.  Mitch is killed by some sort of monster and ripped apart.  Sandy is captured and taken to some room where she is stripped naked and impregnated (via a long clear tube full of green slime) by some weird-looking alien creature. 

Sandy starts acting strange.  Not in the "I am traumatized" way, but in the "I have an alien baby growing inside me and I need to kill and eat people now" way.   Sandy is played by Judy Geeson, who has had a really great career over the last 7 decades. This movie wasn't even the start of her career, she had already been working for 20 years at this point.  

Each plan to stop Sandy ends up getting more people killed, often from complete stupidity.  By the end I was rooting for Sandy since pretty much everyone was the cause of their own deaths.

I am not sure what was the biggest scientific screw-up.  When Mark was able to go outside and see Sandy when everyone else died outside.  Or that Sandy was able to get her pants off to give birth and back on again without ever taking off her shoes.

There are some minimally interesting ideas here, but not enough to sit through an hour and a half of this.  At least I have some ideas of things not to do. In the end, it is just a fairly weak Alien rip-off with a side helping of misogyny.   

Directed by Norman J. Warren who also gave us Satan's Slave and another potential one for tonight, Prey.  Let me say right now I am not really that impressed. 

I need to make some better choices in my movies.


2021 October Horror Movie Challenge

October 2021
Viewed: 27
First Time Views: 14

Thursday, October 14, 2021

BlackStar: Horror in Space. Children of Earth, Cardassians, and Aliens

Plain, simple Garak
Plain and simple Garak

In many RPGs, the enemies are easy to figure out.  In *most* horror RPGs the bad guys are the supernatural creatures.  If you are playing Buffy for example then you are going to be hunting vampires.  Now it is also fun to "flip the script" so in the various World of Darkness Vampire games you are the vampire.  You are still the monster, but you have some more control over that evil.  In "Ordinary World" in NIGHT SHIFT you can play a supernatural creature, but you are not the bad person, you are "just a person" trying to get by in a world full of mortgages, jobs, oh and neighbors that might want to kill you.

In many fantasy games there are plenty of other monsters that want to kill you. We might be getting away from orcs (thank goodness) and goblins (have not used them as "bad guys" in over a decade or two) but there are still plenty of evil dragons, beholders, and of course demons and devils. 

Sci-Fi games tend to fall into the same sort of tropes.  Only this time it is whatever aliens are the focus.

I want to talk about three different sorts of aliens, all considered to be enemy species, but handled in different ways.

First are the Cardassians.  Introduced in Star Trek: The Next Generation and really got the focus in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.  The Cardassians are humanoid (this is important later) and come from the world of Cardassia.  They had occupied the nearby Bajor in a very clear analog to fascist Germany occupying France.  The Cardassians are never painted as irredeemably evil. Yes, many of them are in fact evil, but there are some that are not.  They are also depicted as highly intelligent, organized, and utterly brutal.  For most of the seven seasons on DS9, they were the bad guys.  Each step forward (oh look they love their kids) is reversed (oh, but they slaughter Bajoran orphans).  They are richly detailed and complicated, but always a foe to stand up to.  They are not an existential threat though to anyone but the Bajorans.  They are not even "supernatural" threats until the very, very end when Gul Dukat (a Cardassian and our main bag guy since Season 1) is possessed by the Kosst Amojan, the literal Bajoran devil. 

The 456
The other alien race is known only as the 456, for the frequency they contact Earth on in Torchwood: Children of Earth.   The Nazi connections with the Cardassians are intended, and not designed to be subtle.  These aliens are also not subtle; they steal human children and graft them into their own bodies because the chemicals the children create feels good to them.  They are back because they want more kids.  These creatures are never seen clearly, we never learn their name, their language, or even where they are from. Only that they want our children and they have the means to get them.  They are properly scary.  But. Do they make for a good "big bad?"  I don't think so.  They have one trick; stealing children.  While that is good enough for a fairy tale witch, the witch usually gets tossed into the oven at the end.  The 456 get sent back to their planet/ship or are destroyed much in the same manner when Capt. Jack Harkness feeds their communication signal back on them and killing his own grandson in the process.

The last is the Xenomorph from the Aliens franchise.  Alien is a true horror film in space, right down to a monster stalking everyone to a "final girl" in Ellen Ripley.  Aliens is sci-fi adventure.  I have lost track of how many Traveller games I saw in the 80s that were more or less a riff on the Aliens movie.  Again these guys are properly scary.  One on a ship is a true horror. Hundreds on a planet can take out a bunch of Marines.   The trouble with the Xenomorph is there is little to no mystery about them anymore.  In the original movies they were mindless, insectlike killing machines.  In future movies they...well I am still not 100% sure what Alien Covenant was about or Prometheus, though I did enjoy them.  The "Shared universe" of Alien, Blade Runner, and Predator though does give me a lot to game with. 

Use In BlackStar

The issue for me is not just "do these aliens make for a good scary monster?" They do.  The real question is "will they work for me and my particular game?"

I mean this is no different than any other game or setting.  Let's take an odd example.  Orcs in Ravenloft.  I originally did not want to do orcs, a classic D&D/Fantasy monster, in my Ravenloft games.  When it came up that I needed an orc-like monster I went with something more akin to a Grimlock or even a Neanderthal-Troglodyte (in the classical sense of the word) creature.  I made it work AND it also made me want to redo the troglodyte from D&D to make them more "devolved" human. Like the old Homo Sapiens Troglodytes. Maybe even a cross between H.S. and the Pan Troglodytes

But what about BlackStar which happens in a Star Trek universe. Well oddly enough that rules out the Cardassians. We know what they were doing at the time in Universe, they were at war with the Federation.  So I will have that going on, but in the far background.  They are on the far side of the Alpha Quadrant. My action is closer to home and might even take tiny little excursions into the Beta Quadrant.

The Xenomorphs would be fun for an "Episode" (what I am calling a single adventure) but not a "Season" (a campaign).  Same with the 456.

Originally I WAS thinking the 456 would be my focus as the bogeyman alien in the background.  But having a couple of conversations with my oldest he was like "why not just use the Mi-Go?"

He has a point.

There are a lot of great reasons to use them not just for the Lovecraftian origin.  They would have had an outpost on Yuggoth/Pluto that I absolutely LOVE.  It fits in with my ideas when watching the Thing and the various horror movies on Mars

I mean if I am going to do "Cthulhu meets Star Trek" then I kinda need to have appearances by the Mi-Go, Elder Things, Shoggoths, and Yithians.  They were described as "Alien" but I think I want to use them in the "Alien" sense of both Lovecraft AND of Trek.   The Mi-Go could take the place of the Borg in terms of a lifeform that can't be reasoned with and have their own, completely separate, morality. 

Given that my preferred version of Trek for this is Modiphius' Star Trek Adventures this makes things pretty easy for me.  I can now use ideas and stats from the new Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 system. 

But system and stats are only the start of the conversation, not the end.  I have to make sure these guys are scary.  Mi-Go landing on the hull of The Protector while not wearing EV suits and cutting through (like the Borg did) is scary.  Leaving behind dead crew with their brains surgically removed (not unlike "Spock's Brain", but less...bad) is a little more horrifying.   Finding crew members whose livers have been altered to create a sort of super-acid that eats through their bodies but keeps on working is more horrifying still. The Mi-Go don't communicate. Their chitterings are unable to be translated.  Since they are reported as not being able to be filmed or photographed they are largely invisible to sensors; having natural stealth abilities. 

I could introduce them much in the same way we saw in "At The Mountains of Madness" only this time they are discovered on Pluto/Yuggoth.  This leads to discoveries of bases on Earth, millions of years old, in the Andes, Appalachians, and Himalayas mountain ranges. How to get the crew out into deeper space to encounter them is the bridge I have not built yet.  

Frankly, I am overwhelmed with the potential. 

ETA:  I have found some more data that puts the Mi-Go origin, or at least another base of operations, at 61 Cygni, about 11.4 light-years away.  64 hours at classical Warp 9, but only 19 hours at The Protector's Warp 13.  In Star Trek, this is also the home of the Tellarites.  So obviously the Mi-Go visited them as well.

I will take a completely different approach in my Star Trek: Mercy game.

The Aliens