The SciFi Channel is running their usual Twilight Zone Marathon for New Year’s Eve. It begins at 9:00am on Sunday, Dec. 31 and runs for 45 hours, through 6:00am on Tuesday, Jan. 2. If you enjoy the show and don’t want to buy the DVDs, this is a great way to record tons of episodes. I did it a few years ago and filled three VHS tapes with them, editing for commercials whenever I was awake.

Today they’re playing a variety of animal horror movies, just like the kind I blogged about yesterday. First was Chupacabra: Dark Seas, which starred John Rhys-Davies and nobody else really. It was about a legendary beast that gets loose on a cruise ship, having been smuggled on in a crate. Of course almost every plot point occurred because somebody did something stupid, like opening the crate or going back for a bag of money. And then there were the stupid things that people did, like firing automatic weapons repeatedly in the engine room. Of course the monster could take out trained soldiers, but the young girl who teaches aerobics can use pseudo-kickboxing techniques to keep it at bay.

Flying Virus is playing right now (featuring Gabrielle Anwar and Rutger Hauer). It’s about virus-carrying killer bees that get loose on an airplane (yes, bees not snakes). The bees enabled quick healing And of course the turbulence the plane goes through causes things in the cargo hold to fall and tumble around, damaging the case enough to open it a little and let the bees out. Go fig! A funny scene was when some dorky guy went into the restroom on the plane to “clean up” and when he turned off his electric razor, the buzzing continued, followed by the bees coming up the drain. Of COURSE the cargo hold is connected to the sink’s drain! I also laughed out loud when some woman picked up her headphones and put them on, tapped one ear (probably heard some buzzing), then jumped up and started screaming. And then I laughed even more when some guy was eating jelly beans, which were conveniently spread around on his tray, and then a bee landed one the one he was just picking up. Of course he held it only from the sides, so he wouldn’t notice until he put it in his mouth. Oh, and then there were the cheap effects like watching the airliner fly through the sky and turn around when the effects were obviously digital and not real. One more thing–these bees can sting people repeatedly without dying themselves.

Both of these movies had someone smuggling dangerous animals onto a plane, people on fire who forgot to stop-drop-and-roll, someone on a phone/radio saying “What? You’re breaking up.” and made some hissy noises to make the other person think they were losing the signal.

Great times! Coming up are Man-Thing, The Beast of Bray Road, and the ever-famous Frankenfish! (Doesn’t the very NAME make you laugh??) These movies star absolutely NOBODY! :-D

[tags]sci-fi, scifi channel, twilight zone, animal horror, movies[/tags]