torstenvblog

Knights of Sidonia

knights of sidonia

You ever wish John Carpenter’s Thing was mixed with space mechs or J.J. Abrams Star Trek was creepier? Well, here you go. Sidonia is the last bit of humanity left, a militarized colony in space, struggling to battle the Guana- giant, fleshy space creatures that cause mass devastation. Sidonia’s main defense are the Knights, mechanized suits of weaponized armor. Upon the brink of destruction, a young man emerges with an uncanny gift to pilot, but will that be enough to save him and humanity from the threats inside and out?

My feelings here are pretty mixed. Regardless, the show looks beautiful. My problem is I was truly invested in season 1, addicted even. There was intrigue, danger, creepy shit, and messed up political scheming going down. After the first season though, two fell flat for me. I couldn’t really dig the direction the story was going in; in lames terms it blew its load too soon, pardon the expression. If you watch season 1, its a fast, exciting, and creepy space adventure. After that- meh. May the gaming gods bring you glory and best wishes everyone.

Another

another

“What happened in Class 3 twenty six years ago?” is the question that drives this strange, tragic and creepy anime. The story follows a class of kids that have the misfortune of being in a cursed class. Every year, if there is a Extra involved in there class, people in the class and there families begin dying. To counteract this, the school pretends a unlucky kid doesn’t exist as part of a tradition. New kid Koichi isn’t aware of this and acknowledges pale, one eyed girl Mei and so begins the curse and the fear who will go next as these kids try to discover how to break the curse.

I’m going to say this anime stole my heart with it’s creepy atmospheric tension, engaging and likable characters and great dialogue as part of a fascinating mystery. I binge watched the hell out of the short 12 episode series. For those new to anime and love a good psychological horror mystery or want a good quick anime to binge watch, I highly recommend Another. May the gaming gods bring you glory and best wishes everyone.

Tokyo Ghoul (season 1)

tg1

In many ways I consider Tokyo Ghoul the spiritual successor to Deadman Wonderland but there’s a beautiful sense of madness, beauty, and pathos to this story. Keneke is a quiet bookworm all alone in the world except for his best friend. Until he meets a beautiful girl who enjoys the same literature he does, but all is not what it seems. She is a ghoul, a flesh eating beast that is resilient and powerful and wants to eat Keneke. Through the accident the beast is dead but by a twist of fate, her organs were accidentally transplanted into him and suddenly he isn’t the same, left with the mind of a human and the stomach of a ghoul. Suddenly Keneke is thrust into a dark underbelly of monsters and a relentless task force meant to slay his kind, but he must wonder what really makes a monster…

This is one of my favorites artiscally, while gory, there is a breathtaking amount of vibrant color mixed with a lot of gothic and noir elements. Also I’m in love with the opening credits and the song Unravel. The characters are really good and the world itself is pretty fascinating. I will warn you, this is a very violent and towards the end of the season, very disturbing show so if you get sick around blood and torture, this isn’t for you. I do recommend this to anime and horror fans alike. May the gaming gods bring you glory and best wishes everyone.

The Witch: a New-England Folktale

The Witch

This is one of the most decisive movies I’ve seen in a long while, much like last year’s It comes at night . Some will love it, some will hate it, many will ask WTF did I just watch. First, like It Comes At Night, don’t watch the trailers. They set you up for a movie you aren’t getting.

The Witch is about a family in 1630 banished from there village because of there beliefs and sent to rebuild there lives in the woods. Life isn’t easy as food is scare, crops aren’t taking, and they have no money. The youngest, baby Sam, suddenly disappears under oldest Tomasin’s watch. The family begins to break as mother Katherine loses her mind and starts taking it out on Tomasin and the pressures of the family’s problems eat at father, William. Strange things begin happening like the dog is found murdered, oldest son, Caleb disappears, and the young twins Mercy and Jonas keep singing and conversing with the family goat, Black Phillip. Is this family’s misfortune there own, or the work of something else, as Caleb reappears after finding a mysterious woman lurking in the woods…

As I said. this is a weird case but regardless, I loved this movie. It is slow with some disturbing imagery throughout but I love the daring move to set it so faithfully in the 1600’s and I like that it is, at its core a fairytale in Grimm fashion. The atmosphere and score is amazing; the actors are splendidly genuine and feel genuine. I know many will disagree and honestly I can’t debate them on this film but it can’t be argued the effort and love put into the project, which definitely shows. May the gaming gods bring you glory and best wishes.

May (2002)

may

There’s times there are films that are special and different, that sadly don’t get the recognition they deserve. In the fifth grade I started experimenting with horror movies and this was likely the first psychological horror film I can remember and it still affects me today…

May follows a shy, strange, lonely young woman who simply wants a friend. As a girl she was bullied for her lazy eye so she received a beautiful doll to be her friend. Grown up, May works as a vet’s assistant and has gotten her eye surgically fixed. She begins talking to a handsome guy named Adam and May is immediately smitten with the guy, but she discovers that while you like pieces of someone, you hardly like the whole thing, and so May decides to build her very own friend…

I really really liked this movie because it didn’t feel like a horror movie. On the contrary, I felt her pain, being alone then seeing the asshole side of new friends. Angela Bettis is fantastic as the titular character, and a highly underrated actress (she also played my favorite rendition of Carrie, I highly recommend also). The movie is slowly paced and there isn’t much in the ways of gore or action but the music, atmosphere, and cinematography are unsettling. The conclusion is sad but eerie. I recommend checking it out if you can track this movie down. May the gaming gods bring you glory and best wishes everyone.

Shark Attack 2

shark attack 2

Oh boy. Just…ugh. Ok, so in 2002 I was a kid and still riding the high of Deep Blue Sea, I wanted more. So Duke told me about a movie on Sci-fi channel that was pretty much the same thing. And he was right…but a crappier version.

So a aquarium in sunny California acquires a new Great White shark. Something is off about it. Turns out it’s the offspring of a genetically altered enlarged shark from the first film. Oh and there’s like 6 of these things. The shark gets out, meets up with the others and kills a beach of people. So a Nick Cage look alike, a woman out for revenge against the sharks that murdered her sister, and a douchy Steve Irwin wannabe have to ban together and kill these damn dirty sharks.

Ok, so if you ever saw a shark movie, there’s nothing really groundbreaking. If you thought Jaws needed lame characters and more gore and Deep Blue Sea needed to be more hokey and have lame practical effects, well here you go. At least it isn’t boring because of all of the shark kills. In the end, it’s forgettable but Ok if you want some decent gore. May the gaming gods bring you glory and best wishes.

Deep Blue Sea

deep blue sea

It’s winter in Scranton and I’m freaking cold. Savior had the idea of talking about Jaws, nice sunny summer movies, so I figured, “ah shit, if there were sharks in Scranton It’d feel warmer out I bet.” And since I randomly have heard of a phantom sequel to this coming out over the years, I though why not talk about it.

Deep Blue Sea is the story of a scientist trying to find a cure for Alzheimers by testing on sharks she illegally genetically modified in a research lab in the middle of the ocean. The three mako sharks that were used for testing are now smarter and have trapped the people in the facility that is breaking apart, and it’s up to them to kill the sharks before they break the final layers of containment and find there way into the deep blue sea…

I know the plot sounds like some B movie bullshit but I can assure you it comes together quite well. The characters are solid and there is alot of effort put into suspense, tension, score and the scenery. At the time, for 1999, the shark effects were pretty damn good and much of it still is. There are some questionable moments of early CGI and the notorious Samuel L. Jackson scene that is pretty hilarious and WTF. I have to be honest, Deep Blue Sea is my favorite shark movie and I think it’s pretty underrated, though not a boneified classic like Jaws (1975) but definitely deserves a cult classic status. May the gaming gods bring you glory and beware of sharks.

Some things I’m pumped for in 2018

2018

So we all have that one form of beloved entertainment we have, whether it’s book, movie, game, music, or madness fueled clog dancing while singing Shirley Temple tunes (don’t judge me man). So I wanted to share some of what I’m pumped for in 2018. In no particular order, let’s begin with…

aquaman 1. Aquaman- if you caught our reviews on Justice League (2017) , you’ll know our favorite part was Aquaman. On top of that, I love Black Manta and I can’t wait to see these two badasses duke it out on the big screen.

2.We happy few- ever since I first saw the trailer for this trippy, unsettling game that looks like a much more survival oriented Bioshock, I was hooked. Like maddeningly so.

3. Halloween 2018- I miss Michael Myers and I was thrilled Jamie Lee Curtis is returning but even more exited original Michael Myers Nick Castle is reprising his role. Is it weird this film redcons every other Halloween film but the original, yeah, but I’m willing to see what’s to come.

4. Code Vein- a game styled like Dark Souls with a beautiful anime art style and vampires. Just hell yeah.

5. Black Panther- Granted, I’m pretty hyped for all of the Marvel movies of the year but I have a soft spot for Panther. He was one of my favorite parts of Civil War and best of all, the movie comes out right next to my Birthday so even better.

These were just a few quick things but I’m sure more will come up through the year. May the gaming gods bring you glory and best wishes all around.

Torsten’s game of 2017

$fractured 2$

Happy new year one and all. To wrap up the year, since I saw Savior gave his favorite game a shout out, I thought I would too. It was a really hard tie between Injustice 2 and South Park: Fractured but whole but I have to say South Park farted its way through my heart. The game made me laugh myself to where I feared my pants were wet but besides that, like much of South Park, there was a clever satire involved around the Superhero film craze and honestly, it’s the best superhero story I’ve heard all year. As we venture into 2018, let’s remember while video games give us trophies, a way to prove our skills against the world, and test or brains and reflexes, but at the end of the day, it how we have fun. Let’s have fun in 2018 and may the gaming gods bring you glory this year.

The Devil’s Rejects

devils reject

There is very few times in film where the sequel is absolutely better than the original. This is one of those times. With a better characters, story, music, and a darker, more intense situations elevate this to a pretty memorable, and disturbing western horror movie.

Rejects begins with the Firefly family’s homestead getting raided by the police in a violent shootout, lead by Sheriff Wydell whose brother was killed in the last movie. With there mama captured, Otis and Baby are on the run and trying to find Captain Spaulding, while getting there kicks off by terrorizing and torturing a traveling country group. Wydell, filling with rage begins losing himself as he starts going down his own dark path as he tries to kill the rest of the family.

As I said in the intro, pretty much everything got a lot better this time time around. While Otis, Baby, and Spaulding are horrible, unlikable people you do see the humanity in them by the end, while Wydell is a decent lawman who loses his by the end. The 70’s music and gritty cinematography add an extra layer to the movie. Bill Mosely stole the show for me as Otis, who reminded me of the late Charles Manson in his malevolent, satanic nature. Yes, this movie is vulgar as hell and incredibly disturbing and intense but damn it is a great movie that will leave you breathless by the conclusion by far it’s the best film I’ve seen from Zombie. May the gaming gods bring you glory and best wishes to all.