Sequels to Birdbox and A Quiet Place
By: Clem Samson
Tags: Film, Humor, Movies, Horror

Sequels to Birdbox and A Quiet Place

Hollywood lands on a winning formula, and yes they are going to pound you with it until you are utterly exhausted.

Photo by Andraz Lazic on Unsplash

A new horror cinematic universe based on monsters and senses has emerged thanks to the wild success of these two recent films.

Now you remember Birdbox monsters — if you saw them, you killed yourself. And in A Quiet place monsters killed you if they heard you.

The formula is clear enough — all a Hollywood hack has to do is choose a sense and decide what happens if the monster detects you with that sense or if you detect the monster with that sense.

Here are my five pitches for horror movies based on senses other than sight or hearing. Let the bidding wars begin:

Sense of Smell

Yes. You guessed it. Monsters have taken over the planet again and killed most of the people. Especially the gassy ones. See the monsters have no eyes, but they have olfactory glands the size of a basketball and they respond to gaseous explosions — that’s right, farts.

Yes, it used to be embarrassing when Grandma farted at the dinner table after eating the beans. Now it will cost her her life — and maybe yours too. Obviously nobody serves beans any more. But dinner is a tense affair. Watch out for those cruciferous vegetables. No! Mother served Brussel sprouts — what was she thinking? If grandma lets one go — even a silent but deadly — run! I mean run fast to the safe room and don’t let Grandma in, even if she pounds on the door and pleads with you. She’s a goner. Let her go.

Working Title: She Who Smelt It

Sense of Touch

These monsters are invisible, very handsy. In fact, if you could see them, that is all you would see — disembodied transparent hands that just float around feeling stuff.

So they start by nice touching — like stroking your hair.

That makes you into the pollyanna in the group: “Maybe these monsters aren’t monsters at all — I mean, they just want to stroke our hair and pet us.”

“Like we’re their pets?” says the misanthrope in the group barricaded in the workplace for two weeks since the invasion of the handsies began.

“I’m going out there,” declares the Polyanna.

“No! Do not go out there!”

Too late. She goes out there. And at first the touching seems to be ok. She’s sighing. And then she’s laughing, like their tickling her. And then…oh gosh, and then…it’s really awful…you see her eyes freeze…the hands have done something.

You have to pay the 14 bucks to find out.

It’s called Touch Me in the Morning.

Sense of Taste

Earth has been attacked by monsters from either outer space or another dimension — it’s not clear which, but who cares? Resistance is futile, our only hope is to hide and wait it out. These monsters love sugary treats and their absolute favorite is sugar mixed with human. The monsters only kill you if you eat sweets — it’s got something to do with glucose detectors in their eyes. So nobody in this world eats candy any more — they’re not stupid. They only eat vegetables. But one day the main kid in the movie can’t stand it any more, he wants a cookie. So he opens up the cookie jar and he reaches in to take a cookie. Well, have you ever seen It? It’s something like that, the poor kid gets his hand ripped off. But he’s determined, god bless him, so with his good hand he grabs another cookie, and he puts it in his mouth.

At that moment glucose is secreted in great quantities by his pancreas. Suddenly a thousand glucose monsters swoop into the room, rip the boy from limb to limb and drag all the body parts away to their lair to suck the bones.

The only thing left is a half-eaten cookie in a little puddle of blood. Look closely — there is a little tooth in the cookie.

Yep, this movie’s called Sweet Tooth.

Sense of Attraction

That’s right, we are attracted by something called pheromones that are emitted by sexy people.

So yeah…if you are sexy you are done for in this world. The monsters suck out your brains through your eyes and leave you a dead person with two holes for eyes.

The sexy people have all been eaten. What is left is a bunch of really unattractive people. They never activate the pheromone sensors in the monsters.

And they are really happy too. “Wow,” they say. “We no longer have to feel inferior to the beautiful people!” But here’s the thing, being happy and positive for a change makes these people begin to radiate an attractive glow.

So these monsters get attracted to them, too, and start sucking out their brains through their eyes.

It’s called, Eyes of the Beholder.

Sense of Humor

These monsters have a great sense of humor, so watch out. Do not! I repeat DO NOT EVER make a joke. Or say something unintentionally funny. Just don’t do it, okay. Be serious all the time, I mean, like your life depends on it. Because it does. If you are even mildly amusing for even one second, you are going to be swallowed whole by these horrible whale-like monsters who walk the earth on two tiny little feet that look like Charlie Chaplin shoes. Yeah, they kind of waddle back and forth the way Chaplin did too. But really fast, like at the speed of light.

You crack a smile and it’s like “Whumpffff!” They take one gulp and you are gone.

Oh, and the name of this movie is Try Not To Laugh.

What makes it really hard is that these monsters actually look funny, so if you ever see one, you will have a helluva time trying not to laugh.

To make matters worse: they do great impressions. You know, “Go ahead, make my day…”

I mean, picture it. There’s a whale standing up vertically, walking on two little shoes, and he makes a Clint Eastwood expression, saying like a dead ringer for Dirty Harry, “Go ahead punk, make my Day!”

Will you be able to keep a straight face? I mean, you know you’re about to die but you just can’t help it. These guys are frickin’ hilarious. You try to hold it in, but then you corpse*, as they say in the theater.

And now you are a corpse.