Black Gate

Arnold Schwarzenegger may be back in his cold steel Terminator role later this year, but first it looks like he’s going to get all warm and gooey.

In a new film called Maggie, Schwarzenegger plays a loving father to a teen daughter he’s doing his best to protect at the peak of a zombie apocalypse. When Maggie becomes infected, the all-consuming virus begins to transform her into an undead creature with a budding appetite for human brains. Wade stands by her and attempts to ward off the authorities who are trying to collect her for quarantine and termination. Though her condition worsens, Wade is firm in his love; although Maggie would like him to save himself from the disease that is undoing her humanity.

Schwarzenegger manages all this while dropping only a few manly tears and sporting a grief beard that would put Tyrion Lannister to shame; though I’ll bet you an adult beverage that sometime before the credits roll we’ll see Arnie doing what he does best, involving fire and heavy weaponry.

Freshman Henry Hobson is in the director’s chair, and Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine and Zombieland) stars as Schwarzenegger’s ill-fated daughter. Maggie is scheduled to hit theaters May 8th.

For all of you who daydreamed about what could have been, as far as the Alien franchise goes, today I bring you official glad tidings.

But first I must take you back to those dark days in 1992, and again in 1997 (forgetting the whole Aliens vs. Predators thing for a moment) when, following the beleaguered Ellen Ripley’s escape from LV-426 and its Xenomorph inhabitants, she found nothing but continued misery in the form of Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection respectively.

Ripley repeatedly saved mankind from not only corporate tyranny, but from having our collective intestine ripped out as human incubators. But did she ever get a moment’s peace or happiness.  Or for that matter, did the fans?

That would be a great big “no way.”

However, hope now springs eternal.

Last week Sigourney Weaver raised a collective cheer when she publicly announced the Alien franchise was now in the capable hands of District 9 director Neill Blomkamp; then doubled our joy by saying she’s looking forward to returning to her signature role of Ellen Ripley in a new installment of the science-fiction series.

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Poltergeist might have been the first time I was ever truly scared by a movie.

Of course I grew up on a solid diet of Universal Studios movie monsters along with an array of black and white horrors from Hammer shown on late-night TV. But in all of those, no matter how high the creep factor, it was fairly clear that these stories depicted reel reality, not real reality.

But then along came little Carol Anne Freeling and her off-air television.

Suddenly, all “real” scary stuff was up there on the screen; the craggy dead tree knocking against your bedroom window, lightning storms looming ever closer, the half-open closet door…

And the clown… under the bed.

I mean come on, Vincent Price as The Fly was enough to make you watch at least part of it through splayed fingers, but deep down you knew a fly with a human head was pretty darn unlikely.

But an evil clown under your bed? Entirely plausible.

To this day, even as low-tech as it now appears, Poltergeist still gives me a shudder. It knew what scared us alright.

So it is with some trepidation that I remind you that a reboot of Tobe Hopper’s original fright fest is due to hit theaters on July 24th, in 3D no less.

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