Death Tide, Sea Monters and Sapphic Heroes

 Hey Carnage Clan!

I'll eventually be starting up a newsletter you can subscribe to. But in the mean time, here's what I'm up to!

The Seas Are Screaming has been revised and is now live on Amazon. The sequel, DEATH TIDE, is currently being written. I have 6 chapters down. I am really aiming on exploring what happened to Becca in the first book, and the ramifications of turning into something more than human. 

Apparently, in the literary world, lesbian heroes are now referred to as the rather poetic Sapphic hero. 

I am not one to put labels on people, but since it is ALL THE RAGE to do so, Becca is a Sapphic, kick ass, butch plumber.  

She is worried about what that monstrous land walking jellyfish did to her, and wonders if she, and her friends, will survive the tide that is pushing more monsters in from the sea. 

In addition to a freaky jellyfish that transforms people into...other things...there are mutant deer, freaky fish, a GIANT Portuguese man o' war, and ZOMBIES! These aren't the typical zombies though. They are kind of a mix of 28 DAYS LATER and RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD.  Some of them are rather smart, in the creepy, "oh fuck" kind of way.

I'm working hard to get this second entry done, especially since the first book ended in a cliff hanger, and well...then my life got super complicated and I couldn't write for a few years. 

I appreciate all of you for reading and supporting my work.

In the near future, most likely this summer, there will be T-shirts and other swag to get, in addition to paperback and hardcover copies of my books. I'm thinking about doing an epic giveaway for October. If you are interested in getting free copies of books or other swag, please comment below! 

Free Preview of HELENA

Helena was the perfect little girl. Always polite. Always kind. Always hungry.

Here's an exclusive excerpt of HELENA By Cassie Carnage!

No sooner did she put her head to the pillow did she hear it, a soft rhythmic scratching, like a cat at the door trying to get in.

Beneath that noise, a fainter one, that of a child crying. It pulled at her heartstrings. She couldn’t ignore that.

Susan grabbed her robe and ran outside. It was dark and foggy; the thick early morning mist was cold against her face. She walked all the way around her house. The scratching, it sounded like it was coming from the basement. It was louder when she knelt by the back door that lead to the cellar.

It was coming from inside the house.

Did an animal break in? She wasn't sure. It was too late to call animal control.

Sighing, Susan grabbed a broom and turned on the cellar light.

"Mother, help me!"

It was a little girl. She was down there!

"Hello?" Susan called and slowly walked down the steps, instantly regretting not putting on shoes. The cellar stairs were wood with no back-riser board, just a blank space between the steps. Anyone, or anything, could reach out, grab her ankles and yank her feet out from under her, sending her tumbling down to the basement floor to break her neck.

She grimaced at the thought and steeled herself, trying hard not to jump at any sound as the old wood groaned under her weight.

The scratching became louder.

"Hello? Little girl? I’m here to help. Are you hurt? How did you get in here?"

Susan looked around, the back corner near the water heater had no light. She had to go over and yank a pull-chain hanging down from a bare light bulb. She cursed herself for not getting the basement furnished before she moved in, but it was far too late for that now.

The scratching changed from fast short scrapes to long, slow ones. Like little fingernails on a door.

She looked over at the cellar door, expecting to see a girl huddled against it. There was no one there.

Susan let out the breath she was holding.

"Mother! Over here!"

Startled she dropped the broom. It clattered to the floor, and the scratching stopped.

She looked around cautiously, stooping to pick up the broom, imagining a small evil child hiding behind the water heater, waiting to pounce.

A scraping sound came from behind her, from the other side of the brick foundation wall. It was enough to get her to grab the broom and race back up the stairs, slamming the door behind her.

Helena was the perfect little girl. Always polite. Always kind. Always hungry.

Available to read for FREE on Kindle Unlimited Now! 

'The Walking Dead' Episode 304: 'Killer Within'

Episode 304 "Killer Within" starts with someone making a trail of blood and guts of a deer up to the prison and through an open gate. He is drawing the walkers in on purpose, to get rid of Rick and his group, and boy does it have disastrous results.



While they are out taking about how they are going to clear the corpses from the prison yard, the two remaining prisoners, Axel and Oscar, approach them and ask if they can join the group. It was hard for them to dispose of the prisoners' bodies, some of them were their friends.

Rick doesn't think it's a good idea, but T-Dog says that they should let them in. Whatever they did to get in there, the world that disapproved of it is gone, and they deserve a second chance. Rick says no, and dismisses them.

Meanwhile, at Woodbury, Michonne is checking out the National Guard trucks and takes note that there are traces of wet blood in the bullet holes. When the Governor approaches her, she asks him about how the soldiers died. He tries to brush it off like it's nothing and tries to convince her and Andra to stay in his town.

At the prison, Rick tells Glenn to take a week's worth of supplies to Axel and Oscar and send them out of the prison and on their merry way. But the prisoners don't want to leave. They are terrified of what lies beyond the prison gates, and know that they don't stand a chance of surviving on their own. Axel (who is portraying a suspicious amount of gratitude and constantly is offering to help them with things) asks Daryl if he can give his motorcycle a tune up, and is denied.

Hershel is struggling to walk with crutches and has Beth and Lori helping him learn how to walk with them.

At Woodbury, Michonne tells Andrea that she is planning on heading over to the coast, to find a boat or an island to live on; someplace away from the walkers and a lot of people. Andrea, being the doe-eyed idiot that she is, doesn't want to leave Woodbury. She likes it there and is enjoying the peace and safety of the fortified community. Michonne tells her that there is something wrong with Woodbury, and the Governor. Andrea thinks that she is being paranoid, when in reality, she really ought to be listening to her. Michonne's gut instinct has helped them survive thus far, and it's mind boggling as to why she wouldn't listen to her friend now. The only thing that I can think of is that she has been seduced by both the Governor's charisma, and the charming appeal of living in a functioning society once again. But there is a vicious ugly truth hiding beneath all of the smiles and good manners, and Andrea will find out soon enough that she once again has fallen for the bad guy.

At the prison, they are clearing out the yard as Lori and Carl help Hershel step outside. Glenn and Daryl seem happy to see Hershel on his feet, or in this case foot, again and remark on just how tough that old buzzard is. But their happiness is short lived, as the group suddenly finds themselves surrounded by walkers.

Rick runs to help as the group is separated and scattered by the walkers. Beth runs over to Hershel and they lock themselves into a fenced-in entrance to the prison. Maggie runs off with Lori and Carl and they attempt to get to a safe place in the prison cell block.

T-Dog and Carol run to shut the courtyard gate. Unfortunately, there are walkers inside the fence near the gate and one of them bites T-Dog's shoulder before he can completely shut it. T-Dog and Carol then run into the closest doorway in the cell block.

Back at Woodbury, Merle talks to Andrea about the farm where she last saw Daryl. She points it out on a map and tells him that it's been months since they were attacked by walkers and driven away from the farm. Merle is positive that if he can get to the farm he can track his little brother down. He asks her to go with him, but she refuses. Merle says that they were both abandoned by that group, and then rescued by the Governor.

Andrea for some reason, display compassion for Merle and trust, which is weird. She quickly turns the other cheek the moment Merle apologizes for the things that he did to her. I wouldn't trust that man with a water balloon, let alone my life. But maybe that's just me. When Andrea asks him if the Governor is a good man, he tells her that he was on the verge of dying when they found him. He could've left him to die, but he didn't. Instead he took him in, so yeah, he's a good man.

Back at the prison, Glenn discovers that someone cut the gate and let the walkers in. Rick suspiciously eyes Axel and Oscar when they walk up to see what is going on, and accuses them of doing it. Suddenly, the prison alarm goes off, attracting more walkers to the fence. Oscar tells Rick that the back-up generators have to be running, as it is an electronic alarm. He goes with Rick to turn it off. Someone is messing with them, and that someone is dangerous and playing for keeps.

Meanwhile, Carol tells T-Dog that she doesn't know much, but she'll do what she can to help him with his bite. He tells her that they need to keep going and they continue to make their way through the labyrinthine hallways of the prison.

Carl, Maggie and Lori are running from walkers, which are appearing around every corner. When they find themselves surrounded, Carl finds the door to the boiler room and they run inside.

At Woodbury, Merle approaches the Governor and tells him that he wants to go find his baby brother. While he understands how he feels, he can't afford to lose him and refuses to let Merle go. He tells him that if he has more information on where he was last seen, or where they were headed, that he would let him go.

Back at the prison, Rick, Daryl, Glenn, Axel and Oscar split up. Rick, Daryl and Oscar head to the back-up generators. Glenn and Axel head off to look for the missing members of their group.

Lori tells Maggie that she's going into labor. Maggie panics, she doesn't know much about helping someone give birth, she's only done it with the farm animals. Lori tells her that she'll be fine as Maggie undresses her from the waist down.

Maggie tells Carl that he's going to have to help her with his mom, but he isn't sure what to do. Lori asks her to help her stand up and she starts pushing through her contractions, but she soon starts to bleed heavily, which is not a good sign.

T-Dog and Carol make their way over to the laundry room, but their path is blocked. They are out of ammo and have no other weapons.  T-Dog runs towards them shoves the walkers away, telling Carol to run. T-Dog is attacked and killed by the walkers while Carol runs off through a set of double doors, into the laundry room and disappears. Literally. The only evidence of her passing is her scarf. Just like when Sophia ran off when they were attacked by a walker herd on the highway and left her doll behind. I honestly hope that Carol shows up within the next couple of episodes. If she winds up a walker locked up in the Governor's shed, I'm really going to be disappointed.

What's interesting, is that while I was watching the episode and T-Dog voiced his compassion for the prisoners, I joked with my S.O. that he was going to die. And, wouldn't you know it,  he did die. Just like Dale, T-Dog  voiced compassion towards an unknown element, such as the prisoners, that want to join the group in an episode and he died. Is this merely a coincidence? Or is this going to become a predictable pattern that ultimately results in a cliche, like the extras that wear the red shirts on Star Trek that are the only ones to die on missions.

At Woodbury the Governor and Andrea are having drinks in his apartment. He tells her that is first name is Phillip, and that his wife died in a car accident before the world went all to hell. Andrea thanks him and he tells her that they can leave in the morning and that they are welcome to return to Woodbury at any time, which of course, turns out to be a lie. Andrea then confronts Michonne in their room, telling her that she wants to stay. Michonne, disgusted, leaves her in a huff.

Daryl, Rick and Oscar find the generator room and enter it, only to be attacked by Andrew- the prisoner that Rick left to die in a courtyard full of walkers. Rick drops his gun and Oscar picks it up.

Andrew tells him to shoot Rick. Oscar shoots Andrew and kills him, then hands the gun back to Rick. They turn off the generator and the alarm stops.

Lori is in serious trouble and is lying on the floor. She knows that she is not going to make and tells Maggie that she is not going to lose her baby, she has to cut her open. Carl was born via Cesarean section, and the baby has to be born that way too.

Lori tells Carl that's she's proud of him, and that he's the best thing she ever did in a very tearful, heartbreaking goodbye. Carl, crying, hugs her and tells her that he loves her.

Maggie then takes her knife and slices open Lori's stomach. She has Carl help her find the uterus and gently pulls the baby out. After a moment of coaxing, the baby begins to breathe and makes mewling sounds.

Carl looks at the corpse of his mother and tells Maggie that they can't just leave her like that, she'll turn. Maggie walks away with the baby as Carl raises his gun and shoots his mother in the head, to prevent her from becoming a walker.  They head outside to find the others and Maggie is holding the baby in her arms, tearfully saying "I'm sorry," over and over again.

Glenn rushes over to comfort a distraught Maggie and she sobs in his arms.

Carl stands there, crying as Rick collapses in grief and has a total breakdown, sobbing on the cold concrete while the others look on in shock.

'Dead Island: Riptide' to Have Same Characters as 'Dead Island'

The latest news about "Dead Island: Riptide" is that it will pick up just where the first game (and the novelization of said game) left off, with the gang riding in a helicopter on their escape from Banoi as a powerful monsoon started to pummel the region.


Unfortunately, the storm is too strong, and it forces them to crash land on Palanai, a tropical island where the zombie virus has broken out and new zombie mutations are occurring. While fighting to survive through the zombie infested jungles of Palanai, a new character will join the team to provide support. I'm not sure if this is a new player character, or not, as not a lot has been said about him or her yet. I just hope that this new person isn't as annoying as Jin was.

The good news is that your character from "Dead Island" will transfer to "Dead Island: Riptide", so your progression (and I'm assuming all the experience points and skills you have earned thus far) will transfer over to the new game.

Techland has been working on the game engine since the release of "Dead Island," so the new game will be a bit more polished and optimized so that more zombies and other enemies can appear on-screen at one time. The zombies respawning in areas you cleared will be handled more intelligently by the game to make things a bit more interesting. When you're on a mission and have to enter an area you already cleared, the game engine will now take into account the condition of your character, how badly he is damaged, and whether or not you are playing single player or co-op.

Another improvement in "Dead Island: Riptide" is the weather, which now affects the environment during game play to increase tension and atmosphere during important battles. Since the area is currently being battered by a tenacious tropical storm, it's important to see the sky darken as torrential rain pours down to reduce your sight distance and makes survival even more difficult than the wimpy short lived rain showers that occurred on Banoi.

I'm interested to see if there will actually be night time in the game, since the passage of time between night and day was so swift, for the most part, I never even really noticed it. (If it actually happened at all.)

The online co-op game play will now announce when your friends are online, and allows people who are logged in to jump right into the game you are playing. If someone is disconnected during game play, a notification will appear and you can continue playing the game with little hassle as possible.

Some new game mechanics that will appear in Dead Island Riptide include defending set positions for a certain period of time. Of course, moving to remote areas still requires traveling through tunnels (to replace the sewers).

"Dead Island: Riptide" will be available for PlayStation 3, XBOX 360 and PC. It is scheduled for release sometime in 2013. You can now pre-order the game at Amazon, Best Buy and Game Stop for $50. Pre-orders of the game will come with a special limited edition Steelbook case.

I don't know about you, but I can't wait to play the next installment of the Dead Island franchise. I want to see what happens to  my main man, Sam B. 

Who is your favorite "Dead Island" character and which one are you going to play in "Dead Island: Riptide?"

'[REC] 3: Genesis' Review

In "[REC] 3: Genesis," Koldo and Clara are getting married. The celebration of their big day is ruined when the demonic zombie plague begins to spread like wildfire and infects all of their guests and turns them into the ravenous undead.

Now, I am a huge fan of  the [REC] series. I loved the pacing of "[REC]" and "[REC] 2" and the way that the first person point of view of the found footage films created a sense of immediate urgency and danger that it just breathtakingly terrifying. The zombies of [REC] are fast and strong, and the evil that controls them is unstoppable.

The beginning of both films created an atmosphere that provided a great deal of terror and suspense. Heck, even with all of the action and high octane chase scenes, the two movies managed to be subtle about how the zombies were created, and the forces behind the outbreak.

Unfortunately, the third movie of the franchise utterly fails to deliver in just about everything that it attempts to do. "[REC] 3: Genesis" is an utter disappointment for [REC] fans everywhere.

The absence of Jaume Balagueró working on the film as a co-director with Paco Plaza ( as he did in the first two movies) really shows. The overall tone, directorial style and plotline of "[REC] 3: Genesis" is so far removed from the first two installations that I don't even consider it to be a part of the same franchise.

Instead of being subtle and creating suspenseful scenes of dread by slowly building the tension, Plaza panders to the American gore hound audience and uses cheesy gallows humor and over-the-top ultra-violent zombie kills to create a tongue-in cheek, goofy, splatterpunk monstrosity.

For instance:
The weapons of [REC] consist of a fire axe (because the firemen carry one) and police issue pistols to fight off the zombies. These are realistic weapons.

Here's the weapons used in [REC] 3.

Any movie that uses a chainsaw as a weapon is splatterpunk.

Yep. A stick blender (aka food blitzer) and a chainsaw. That's the best that they could do.

"[REC] 3" is so bad, it couldn't even get the zombies right. 

Gone are the horrified hell-cat like growls and natural sounding screams of the zombies; they were replaced with stock monster sounds that have been around for over 50 years. Gone are the blood filled eyes and the incredibly fast, unstoppable killing machines; they were replaced with shuffling, dumb witted zombies with milky white eyes that pause conveniently for their victim while she fumbles to start a chainsaw and use it for a weapon. Gone is the mystery, the suspense, the over all terror that the first two movies provided, that was replaced with zombies that are utterly are ridiculous and not a serious threat in the slightest. 

Ridiculous and unnecessary changes to the zombies in "[REC] 3" include:

• Once bitten, black veins grow out from the wound and spread across the body as the flesh around the bite turns black. 
• The transformation from dead to demonic zombie is instantaneous a la "28 Days Later." The wounded don't suffer or become deathly ill with fever before turning into a zombie. 
• The reflections of the undead are now that of the thin, long limbed half-naked girl from the attic that started the spread of the infection. Yeah. Real subtle there guys.

In the video below, Koldo (Clara's husband) encounters the corpse of Atun, the man he hired to make a professional video of his wedding. (Atun was set up to be one of the main characters whose first person perspective would be used to tell the story of the movie, but this is abandoned the minute Koldo barricades the kitchen staff door and Atun's camera is broken.) Koldo then comes face-to-face with his uncle Victor, who was bitten by a dog and became infected with the demonic zombie plague. Victor is the one who spreads the disease/demon possession to the wedding guests. Unlike the old woman in "[REC]," he isn't fast, doesn't scream like a vicious hell-cat and has a ridiculous smile on his face, like he's a shuffling drunken idiot who fell on his face and his teeth lips bad enough to cause blood to ooze out of his mouth.

Apparently things have changed, because now you can just hide from the demonic zombies in a church, toss holy water on them (this was mentioned by a character but is never used in the movie), or just recite the Bible to get them to leave you alone.

And the virtually unstoppable evil demon that controlled the zombies in the first two movies? Well, now the corpses it possesses and reanimates as voracious zombies are hindered by a mere humble priest reciting the book of Genesis from the bible. (Which, in retrospect, is probably why the full title is "[REC] 3: Genesis." It didn't get it's title due to the fact the world of the demons is beginning,  it had "Genesis" tacked onto the title because that particular book of the Bible is used moronically as a weak plot device.)

Seriously. Uttering the phrase "In the beginning God created heaven and earth," is enough to get the zombies to stop and stand dumbly while jerking spasmodically-- a convenient director's fiat to allow characters to get out of deadly situations that they shouldn't have survived.


Forget about the Catholic Rite of Exorcism prayer; I'm sure that any old Bible passage will do just fine. Just flip the Good Book open to a random page and start reading.

Talk about idiotic. Even worse, the priest is a one-shot side character who provides an info dump that tells the audience the main reason behind the zombie outbreak. I guess the director decided that we're all too dumb to figure out that little mystery on our own.

Aside from useless characters like the priest, the music royalties agent, and "Sponge John" (not Sponge Bob. Yeah, that copyright joke gets old real quick.) the most aggravating thing about "[REC] 3" is the switch from first person found footage to third person cinematic view after the first half hour of the movie; it is jarring and utterly destroys the tension and terror that was created when zombie outbreak began at the wedding.

This change of perspective also eliminates the two main characters who were recording the wedding with video cameras (Atun and Koldo's cousin Adrian). It  not only switches the point of view of the camera footage in the middle of a scene, but the character point of view as well, which is a big no-no in any form of story telling. (It's not to be done because it's confusing.) The end result of the shift in camera perspective is a loss of the sense of immediate danger and ultimately, the loss of the movie's two main characters as the cameramen wind up dying off-screen.

Atun and Adrian were the two most interesting and well rounded characters of the movie. The professional cameraman and the amateur hand-held camera kid bonded early on and were working together to record the wedding. And then, these two charismatic individuals have their camera's taken away from them, and go from main characters to side notes that don't even get their own death scenes. How sad is that?

Overall, most of the characters of "[REC] 3" aren't very interesting. We go from quick witted fire men, police men and a news reporter to a bride and groom who have the reaction time of a Slowpoke.

Yep. They just stand around even though they are in mortal danger, staring blankly at the zombies. After a while I found this particular pacing issue to be exasperatingly stupid, especially when it came to Clara's actions.

Huh? Zombies are chasing us? I think I'll just stand here for about two minutes in the pouring rain to catch my breath before moving on.

The zombies climbing up the ladder after me and are swarming the tunnels below the building? Nope, I'm not going to run, especially not once I get up through the drain hole in the kitchen floor and find my husband. I think we'll just stand here and embrace and kiss each other for a while before moving on. Because clearly, only that one zombie could climb up the ladder and try to grab my leg, the others are too slow and weak to manage to follow me up. (At this point I began yelling at the TV screen telling the idiots to move before they get killed. I mean, come on! Why the hell they were just standing there like morons playing kissy face during a zombie outbreak? That's just stupid!)

Heck,  even the police that cordon off the wedding area just stood there like deer in headlights when they see a zombie. In the first two movies, the moment anyone got near a window, they were shot at, and in some instances, killed. Here, you can not only walk up to the plastic quarantine wall, you can exit it and walk out the tunnel. You can even stand on the other side of the cordon, in front of the police in their tactical gear and hold an infected zombie for a while before they decide to shoot you. Arg!

There are so many things wrong with this movie that I could go on, but when you get right down to it, it's the pacing, point of view shift and the treatment of the zombies that ruined what could have been an interesting addition to the [REC] series.

Overall, "[REC] 3" is a trite, cliched filled train wreck of a horror movie that couldn't manage to capture the same tone of the first two movies even if it tried. It's the "special" younger brother of "Evil Dead 2" who likes to lick windows and can't go anywhere without wearing a helmet because he keeps slamming his head into the wall. Watching it was worse than watching "Quarantine." In fact, "Quarantine" is down right entertaining when compared to "[REC] 3," which is sad because the characters in the American version of "[REC]" are unsympathetic morons.

"[REC] 3: Genesis" isn't worth renting or seeing in the theater, so save your $10 and don't bother watching it. The only thing scary about this horror movie is that it's terrible.

'Deadlight': Side-scroller Zombie Video Game

"Deadlight" by Tequila Works is a 2-D side-scroller survival horror video game for XBOX360.

It's 1986.The world has fallen to a zombie apocalypse.Can Canadian forest ranger Randall Wayne make his way through zombie infested Seattle, WA and find his missing wife and daughter?

At first glance, "Deadlight" seems to borrow it's character shadow aesthetics from "Limbo" and uses a lot of the same types of puzzles found in the side-scroller as well.

"Limbo"

One of the themes of  "Deadlight" revolves around the Everyman character Randall Wayne's struggle with self identity and overcoming his own fears and problems. In a sense, "Deadlight" is as much a character study as it is a zombie side-scroller.

The gray-scale character design and hyper-realism of the video game creates a great atmosphere for psychological horror. The emphasis on the psychological aspects can even be seen in the cover art, which is a Rorschach painting. Rorschach tests, also known as ink blot tests, were used in psychology as means to see how people think. The images are abstract, but a person's mind will create a design out of them. 

Here's a few of the Rorschach paintings from "Deadlight." 

Like many side-scroller video games that were popular in the 1980's, such as Prince of Persia, there is plenty of puzzle solving and exploration to be done. However, unlike most 80's video games,"Deadlight" was written with an emphasis on story telling, which is done with comic book panel cut-scenes and collecting pages of Randall's diary.

As you can see from the above diary entry, the zombies in "Deadlight" are called Shadows. An apt name if I say so myself, as it alludes to two things; one that the reanimated dead are shadows of their former selves, and two, that the people and zombies during game play look like shadows. The animated silhouettes of the walking dead provide a stark contrast to many other interpretations of zombies.

Initial reviews of "Deadlight" approve of the artistic style of the game, but some found the puzzles and survival horror aspects of the game to be aggravating. For instance, The Guardian reviewer hated the complex puzzle solving and the fact that weapons are scarce and only used to get Randall out of dire straights.  Gaming Age   and IGN gave positive reactions to the game mechanics and liked the beautiful background images that contributed to the game's dread inducing atmosphere.  Seattle is portrayed with a stark realism, and the beauty of the backgrounds serves to highlight and emphasize the fact that the city is now in ruins.  

While "Deadlight" does not seem to cover any more ground as far as a zombie apocalypse storyline goes, it does deliver the story in an interesting and unique way. At it's heart, "Deadlight" is true to the survival horror genre. It takes place during the zombie apocalypse, where guns, ammo and weapons should be scarce. It's a part of the genre tropes and adds to the overall atmosphere of dread and helplessness that someone would feel if they had to live through such a horrific event. 

"Deadlight" is currently only going to be for XBOX360. It will be available on XBOX Live Arcade August 1, 2012 and can be purchased for 1200 Microsoft Points ($15.00).

Top 13 Alien Movies

There are alien movies that are strictly in the fuzzy, feel good Sci-Fi Star-Trekkie sickeningly sweet category and then there are alien movies that scare the living crap out of you because the aliens are ALIEN-- their actions motivations that drive them to kill, maim, consume, abduct and experiment upon our fragile flesh are inconceivable and incomprehensible to our logical, pattern seeking human minds.

For horror buffs that are xenophiles, it's the scary alien movies that matter.

So, here's my list of the top 13 scariest alien movies of all time.


13. Alien Abduction: Incident in Lake County (1998)

"Alien Abduction: Incident in Lake County" aka "Alien Abduction: The McPherson Tape" is a made for TV movie based off the short film "The McPherson Tape" that appeared on the internet in the late 1990's. The movie aired on the now defunct TV channel UPN (United Paramount Network) in 1998. This controversial little film is thought by many to be real footage of an alien abduction.

When this first aired on TV it was called a mockumentary, a type of movie genre that is now called a found footage film. While it is a low budget movie, "Alien Abduction: Incident in Lake County" more makes up for it with some very tense scenes that still make me cringe in fear and hold onto my cat like a little girl whenever I see it.

12. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

Dr. Miles Bennell's patients are becoming paranoid, and more people are coming to his office, telling him that they believe that their family members or friends are impostors. Is this sweeping mass hysteria, or is something far more sinister actually replacing the townsfolk with duplicates?

"Invasion of the Body Snatchers" has been remade several times over the years, but the original is by far the best, with it's ability to create mind numbing paranoia in the viewer. In some ways, it's claustrophobic tone makes it the forefather to the classic alien invasion film "The Thing." This is the movie that invented the term Pod People- you know, the doppelganger copies of people that have all of their memories but just don't act quite right. Those Pod People.

"Invasion of the Body Snatchers" is a classic alien invasion movie and definitely a must see.


11. Signs (2002)

"Signs" is the only M. Night Shyamalan movie that I like. And it has a great soundtrack to boot.

"Signs" is several movies wrapped up into one-- it's a parable about a priest who lost his faith when his wife dies and manages to regain it, and it's about what happens to a small town in the middle of farm country when aliens invade.

Between the quirky (and at times hilariously funny) characters and the pulse pounding, nail biting climax where the aliens enter the Hess' homestead, this movie covers everything from aliens making mysterious crop circles as a form of communication, to UFO sightings and contact with mysterious alien invaders.

The filming style is breathtaking and clever with the alien's never quite fully coming into view until the very end. Which I just absolutely love, because it heightens the suspense and doesn't ruin the movie with terrible over-done CG.

10. Aliens (1986)

James Cameron's 1986 masterpiece "Aliens" is one of my favorite horror movies of all times.

What makes "Aliens" so great is that it takes the spooky atmosphere of a desolate planet wracked with storms and the panic inducing claustrophobic setting of the terraformer's colony to create one heck of a scary ride. Even better, "Aliens" started the whole concept of space marines in pop-culture, which has been the darling of Sci-Fi video games for many years now.

"Aliens" has a strong female lead character, Ellen Ripley, who manages to find her own place among ;a rag-tag crew of misfit marines and survive yet another encounter with the xenomorphs. This time, Ripley takes on the big momma of the aliens herself, the Queen.


9. Prince of Darkness (1987)

John Carpenter's "Prince of Darkness" is a gem of a Lovecraftian Horror film that covers everything from the nature of evil to the existence of alternate dimensions, atomic theory and theoretical physics.

After the last of an ancient secret order of Catholic priests dies, Father Loomis discovers that they had kept an ancient alien artifact locked up in the basement of an old abandoned church. Concerned with what he has found, he contacts Professor Birack and convinces him to bring some of his graduate students over to the church to investigate it. While staying at the church the students start sharing the same dream; a vision of the future and a dire warning of things to come.

During their investigations, the mysterious neon green protoplasmic substance that is swirling ominously in the artifact begins infecting and possessing them. It is soon revealed that the cylinder contains a dark slumbering alien god that has awoken and is going to bring about the end of the world.

While they may call the evil entity "Satan" or the "Anti-God," the themes present in this film are taken directly from pages of H.P. Lovecraft's stories. There are prophetic dreams of a looming disaster, mirrors used as portals to other dimensions and ancient alien artifacts that drive people mad and turns them into monstrous zombies that collapse into insects. The imagery in "Prince of Darkness" is so surreal and alien, if you haven't given John Carpenter's most under-rated horror movie a try, you certainly should.

8. Super 8 (2011) 

"Super 8" is one of those kid's growing up over summer vacation movies that is sort of in the same vein of "Stand By Me" and "ET," except a lot darker. It's an alien invasion film full of action and suspense, and at the same time a movie about kids that are learning about life and each other. It's also the first movie in quite a while that I've seen that has actually had kids cast to play kids, as opposed to 20 year olds posing at high school students.

It's the summer of 1979 and a group of kids have gotten together to make their own zombie movie, called "The Case" on Super 8 film. While filming on location at a train station, they witness a train crash caused by their science teacher. Scattered all over the ground are weird white cubes, which later are revealed to be sections of an alien spacecraft. Unfortunately, the cubes weren't the only thing that escaped the train during the crash, and now a giant alien is out to recapture the parts of its spaceship in a desperate effort to return home.

The alien in "Super 8" is both menacing and sympathetic at the same time. All it wants to do is go home, but the evil government refuses to let it leave.

This movie not only smartly deals with the movie being filmed within a movie motif, it also has characters that  are well fleshed out and very believable. 

7. Fire in the Sky (1993)

"Fire in the Sky" is based on a novel of the same name by Travis Walton.  

Travis and his logger buddies are working in the forest, cutting trees to clear the area for development. One night while driving home from a long day of work, a strange fiery glow appears in the sky. Travis, compelled by the sight of it, steps out of the truck and is hit by a beam of bright white light. His friends, terrified, drive off, leaving him for dead. 

They report the incident to the local authorities but no one believes them and they are suspected of murdering Travis and dumping his body in the woods.

Five days later, Travis appears at a gas station-- he is naked, deyhydrated and out of his mind with fear. 

The flashbacks to Travis' alien abduction are pretty intense, and there is an awful eye-scare in one of the scenes that to this day makes me cringe. 

6. Alien (1979)

The Nostromo, a commercial towing spaceship, is heading home to Earth with a nice haul of ore. The ship picks up an emergency transmission from a nearby planet, which causes the computer to wake up the crew and bring them out of stasis. 

They land on the desolate planet and several crew members head out to investigate the signal. Before long they find themselves walking up to a long abandoned alien space ship with a chamber full of eggs. As they walk through the chamber, one of the eggs hatches and a face-hugger leaps out and attaches itself to crewman Kane, who passes out. Attempts to remove the face-hugger from Kane reveal that the creature has corrosive acid for blood. Yikes.

Soon, it's revealed that the face-hugger implanted an alien larvae into his chest- well, the alien actually reveals itself when it bursts through Kane's chest and kills him. The alien runs off, and the Nostromo crew is stuck fighting an alien creature without any real weaponry. 

"Alien" is a brilliantly filmed Sci-Fi horror film that uses light and shadow to great effect to build up suspense and dread in the viewer while the xenomorph picks off the crew one by one. 

5. Undead (2003)

"Undead" takes place in the Australian fishing village of Berkley. The sleepy village suffers a barrage of meteors that turn people into the hungry undead. A group of survivors is left to fend for themselves as the ravenous zombies attack them at every turn.

While "Undead" is a zombie movie at heart (and a pretty scary, yet hilarious, movie at that) it is, ultimately, an alien invasion movie. Yep. The aliens made the zombies. Way to go E.T. 

This movie apparently recieved terrible reviews, but I think that it is a wonderfully campy gore fest that has both zombies and aliens in the same film. The characters are stereotypes, but the kick-ass fisherman steals the show, providing both John Wayne-like swagger and highly inventive weapons to two genres that are over-run with trite weapon cliches.

4. The Blob (1988)

Ah yes, "The Blob." Never before has strawberry jello been so terrifying.

This alien creature feature starts out with a meteor crashing near a small town in California. An old old hobo comes across the crash site and finds a strange smoking rocky sphere. The sphere cracks open and a thick pink slime engulfs his hand. Terrified, he runs for help and encounters three college students, who take him to the local hospital. Unfortunately, it's too late for the man and the pink slime grows over him and dissolves his body as it consumes him.

The giant amboa from hell then goes on a killing spree/eating binge as it begins to devour the entire town's enhabitants, growing larger with each person it consumes.

Walking Dead fans will find it interesting to learn that Frank Darabont co-wrote the screenplay for "The Blob" and that Jeffrey DeMunn (Dale) plays Sheriff Herb Geller in the movie. How about that? (Of course, now I have watch "The Blob" again so that I can spot DeMunn in action.)

3. Communion (1989)

"Communion" is based on a book of the same name by Whitley Strieber. 

Whitley Strieber is played by Chrisopher Walken, whose family experiences run ins with aliens during their vacation in the woods. Whitley is abducted from the cabin by aliens and his life changes forever. Tramatized by the events, he goes to a psychiatrist and undergoes hypnotic regression where he has flash-backs of his abduction that are absolutely horrific. 

"Communion" is one of the most trippy, and at the same time terrifying, alien movies I have ever seen. 

2. Altered (2006)

"Altered" was directed by Eduardo Sanchez, the co-director of "The Blair Witch Project."

15 years ago, five teenage boys went on a hunting trip that they would never forget. While in the woods, the boys were abducted by aliens and became the subjects of cruel experiments that killed one of the boys.

Wyatt distanced himself from his friends and now lives in constant fear and paranoia away from civilization. Unfortunately for him, two of his friends have taken it upon themselves to hunt down the aliens that tortured them, and they've just caught one.

"Altered" is a suspenseful, scary horror movie that does well with a small budget. This movie is definately a sleeper hit that will one day be a cult classic.


1. The Thing (1982)

John Carpenter's "The Thing" is a remake of "The Thing From Another World" that was based on the novella "Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell. And is a more faithful interpretation of the pulp fiction alien story than "The Thing From Another World."

"The Thing" is a movie that is just oozing paranoia and dread. Between the desolate Antarctic landscape, the eery minimalistic soundtrack, and the utterly alien Thing that transforms into creatures that Should Not Be, this movie is one of the best alien movies ever made.

Although it was filmed in 1982, "The Thing" has aged quite well, and the recent Blu-Ray release has brought new features on the Thing back to life. There are details on the monsters that were lost in the low resolution VHS and DVD versions of the movie (such as all of the eyes that open up on the Thing after it assimilates the dogs and becomes that towering monstrosity in the kennel. I didn't even know they were there until I saw it on Blu-Ray), and the new HD digitally remastered version of the movie on Blu-Ray reveals the monster in all it's unearthly glory. If you get a chance to watch "The Thing" on Blu-Ray, you really should.