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Leprechaun in the Hood

leprachaun 5

I love the Leprechaun movies, even 4 where he went to space. They’re fun trashy kind of horror you clearly aren’t meant to take serious. Leprechaun in the Hood is precisely what you think it’s going to be but holy crap does it go beyond that. It begins with the story of a pimp played Ice-T who comes across the stone statue of the Leprechaun in a old subway tunnel and after besting him and taking his magic flute, turns the Leprechaun into stone and becomes a rap mogul. decades later we find a struggling motivational rap group who are trying to win a contest and when miffed by Ice-T’s MacDaddy, they bust his house up, take the flute, and inadvertently get hunted by the pissed off pimp and Leprechaun.

As I said, the premise is exactly what you’d expect but it goes deeper than that. While the characters talk like its a live action Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas , there’s horny cross dressers, the Leprechaun gets a fondness for weed, there’s scandalously clad demonic rap video girls, people getting there innards randomly blown out and the movie is utter batshit insanity and I love it to death. After watching the rage inducing The Devil Inside , this was a huge breath of fresh air. If you like hilariously bad movies, I encourage you to watch this all the way through the end credits but if you want anything remotely quality or serious, turn away. My the gaming gods bring you glory.

Why love the “grays” of Marvel

I wanted to do something kind of different today and talk about something that really changed my outlook on how super heroes and villains are portrayed. Marvel has given us such great examples of gray characters, characters that ride the line between the borders of good and evil. Granted, while characters like Spider-man or the Red Skull are purely good and evil, many are unclassifiable. Magneto wants safe refuge and rights for mutant kind after witnessing man’s cruelty first hand as a holocaust survivor; Doom just wants his people to prosper and be a good ruler, hoping he can see his dead mother again; Venom wants to protect the innocent; Hulk is just a beast that yearns for peace; Punisher kills, mams, tortures those who do the same to innocent people. The list goes on and while Doom ultimately is a villain, Hulk is ultimately a anti-hero, and The Guardians of the Galaxy are ultimately heroes, the verdict is out on the characters of Marvel as it is on us all in our everyday lives. Are we really good, are we really the villain we appear to be to those who trespass against us or the hero our loved ones take us for? That perspective always drove me in my personal work, and I think that’s why Marvel’s characters resonate so deep with us. May the gaming gods bring you glory, and as the epic Stan Lee would say, Excelsior!

Unfriended: the Dark Web trailer 1

Why is this a thing? I know we live in a digital age and there are plenty of opportunities for horror in that age but I give up when you have movies based off social media or Skype. I will say the second movie has a interesting premise and I’m glad it’s not a ghost story, but I can’t the trailer really wowed me. I’d watch it on Netflix or something like that but wouldn’t pay full for it. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Devil Inside

devil inside The tagline directly above is true, I’m sure the Vatican doesn’t want you to see this movie but I have to say after seeing it, it’s Ok to follow there advice.

Maria Rossi murdered three people during a failed exorcism in 1989. In 2012, her daughter, Isabella journeys to the Vatican to try getting answers after not seeing her mother for all those years. The first act dives into the teaching of priests as exorcists and how the Vatican declares demonic possession from mental illness. Isabella reaches out to two students who privately practice exorcisms, and some interesting ethical questions are raised concerning the Vatican’s involvement with exorcism or lack thereof. To understand, she accompanies them on a trip, deciding she wants to try on her mom to disastrous results that prove fatal..

The Devil Inside is a good example why I don’t like the sub genre of found footage. There are good questions brought up in the movie and it looks alright enough but its a pretty forgettable horror movie. The interesting questions disappear and we get the same possession cliches redone. I never actually believed or felt immersed in the found footage experience like I was in The Last Exorcism or the first Paranormal Activity It was a lot of little things how the lead actress always looked perfectly made up the whole movie or how people seemed really lenient waving a camera through the streets of the Vatican, a high security mental institution, a basement where a girl that is clearly dangerous is being held. The ending is an absolute insult I’m going to spoil- it’s a advert for a website that isn’t even still running. That’s it. If you were enjoying yourself, that final minute will turn your pissed meter to 11. In the end, it’s fine to skip the Devil Inside and the gaming gods will bring you all the more glory for doing so.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Pink

power rangers pink Who the hell didn’t love the Power Rangers in the 90’s? The kick ass theme song, the weird mix of monster fighting, giant robot dinosaurs, and American kid sitcom- the original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers is still a good time twenty some years later so I was glad Boom brought us the same Rangers, new stories.

Pink follows Kimberly Hart, the original pink rangers years after leaving the group as an up and coming pro gymnast. Life is totally different than that, happy, but she misses the thrill of being a Power Ranger and saving the world with the rest of her friends. Well, Kimberly is about to get her wish when a outbreak of monsters takes over the village in France where her and her family now live. People have been taken by old nemesis Gouldar and turned into monsters to serve Rita and Zed by a new monster. Desperately, she contacts Zordan to find out the Rangers are off planet getting there asses kicked by Rita and Zed. Things aren’t looking good. Zordan, sacrificing his own power grants Kim a weapon to partially restore her power, because she was of the first to touch her coin, the power of pink is still inside. But she’ll need help- so she enlists help from Zach and Trini, the original black and yellow rangers as well as the help of new friends to face a quickly devastating threat with severely limited resources. Can the former pink ranger rise to the challenge?

As a old school fan of the show, the book is a very welcome epilogue. Kimberly is older, more mature but still the girl we knew and it was cool and heartwarming to see her reunite with her teammates. The narration brings a bit of weight which is pretty welcome. Essentially it feels like a reunion special that sometimes feels a bit too lengthy at times but its damn good special I’d recommend to fans. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Incidents in a Ghostland trailer

I like looking up random, lower budget horror trailers now and then just to see a spark of flavor or originality we don’t get much of in today’s mainstream horror. The thumbnail for this caught my attention because as well as the host of strange WTF things I’ve been known to write about, old time porcelain dolls creep me out. At first I took this as a type A kind of haunted house story but I like the twists it seemed to be taking. By the end I genuinely wanted to check it out. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Nun teaser

So we horror fans got the first trailer for The Nun, the next chapter in the Conjuring universe. I loved The Conjuring (2013) but had mixed feelings when it came to The Conjuring 2 so I was a bit miffed when I heard the Nun was getting there own spin off. After the trailer, I’m actually pumped for it. It’s filmed beautifully with a great atmosphere and a nice scare at the end. Getting to see this after the Halloween 2018 first trailer I hope we get to see the signs of a new resurgence in horror in the near future. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Rocko’s Modern Life

rocko's modern life I have a lot of time to reminisce at my day job, and I started remembering cartoons I’m shocked parents let us watch like Invader Zim and Ren and Stimpy. One of my all time favorites is Rocko’s Modern Life. It’s a story of a wallaby named Rocko just trying to live a normal, 90’s world full of the mad people who inhabit it. With him is trusty dog Spunky, best friends the gluttonous Heffer and sickly Fhilbert as well as other weird ass characters like his neighbors the BigHeads. So the question is yet to be asked, how does this show qualify as not that kid friendly? When you get older you begin to see a truck load of sexual innuendos, adult movie references, and some WTF moments laced throughout. For example, the superhero Really Really Big Man and his amazing nipples that make you see the future; the restaurant named Chokey Chicken; Mrs. Bighead getting pretty perverse about her sexual frustration and wanting to bang Rocko to spite her husband. Not to say the show is as harsh as Ren and Stimpy for kids, it’s just fine for them, but adults may end getting a bigger kick out of it, especially if you are a 90’s child like myself. In the end, if you find the complete series, which isn’t very expensive, it certainly is a interesting specimen to add to any TV collection. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Cyberpunk 2077 E3 teaser

Of all the trailers to drop at this year’s E3, Cyberpunk 2077 is the the least I’m familiar with. Cyberpunk always made me think of Blade Runner or the 90’s Judge Dredd movie. After watching the trailer at E3, I got a heavy GTA vibe set in a neon colored, gritty futuristic world which could be cool. Looking up the trailer for this, I did find trailers for this dating back to 2013 which is worrisome and after Aliens: Colonial Marines I get nervous about games in the making that long. The game looks like it could be a fun sandbox but it isn’t the top of my list. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Deadpool 2

dp2 movie

Deadpool , the little antihero who could, has become a huge phenomenon in the two years since the movie. I see countless men, women, and children in Deadpool garb everyday at my day job. The very second the trailer dropped for Deadpool 2, in a rare event I haven’t witnessed since the teasers for Avengers: Age of Ultron and The Force Awakens debuted, I had friends, coworkers, and even random strangers ask me if I saw it and my thoughts (I give a shout out to the creative marketing behind this movie, keeping us engaged with hilarious parody trailers so the actual material wouldn’t get old.) So, does Wade have what it takes to earn the hype?

Picking up months after the first ended, Wade is finally happy being an unkillable mercenary with girlfriend Vanessa, about to start a family when, like every superhero story ever told, tragedy strikes. Wade, left broken hearted is suicidal but that’s for naught because of that pesky healing factor, so he joins the X men as a trainee with old buddies Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead. There’s a troubled youth going a rampage named Russel at the Mutant Rehabilitation orphanage, but all it’s what it seems; he’s been abused and in a fit of rage Wade kills one of the assholes responsible and lands him and Russel in a detention center for mutants. It isn’t long until a threat from the future comes, claiming Russel would slay his family one day and it’s duty to assassinate the boy here and now to save them in the future. Enter Cable. It’s up to Wade to save the boy from Cable with his own group of misfits, but can he change the future?

I have to honest, for a while I’ve been burnt on Deadpool since the first movie and the mammoth popularity in pop culture. That being said, I loved Deadpool 2, but it’s not without some flaws. If you love raunchy, meta comedy, you will adore this movie, especially if you are a superhero nerd like myself. The action is bigger and there’s a host of characters, old and new to fall in love with. This is Josh Brolin’s year, he excels at being Cable just as he did playing Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War and Domino was a welcome addition, as well as the well done villain cameo at the end I won’t spoil. A small flaw I had was the movie flows really good until the third act where I felt it dragged a bit. Another issue I had was I felt the emotional parts of the movie stopped having weight to them because of the never ending speed and intensity of the jokes and I feel the first movie balanced these aspects out a lot better. In the end, I liked it as much as the first film but it easily could have transgressed the first if they work on the serious/ comedy balance a bit better, flushed the characters out a bit more, and paced the jokes a bit better. It’s still awesome as hell and I highly recommend it. May the gaming gods bring you glory.