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Blackest Night

blackest night

It all starts with a question, ” why can some of us defy death while others can’t escape it’s grasp?” The heroes of the DC Universe are no strangers to the deaths of each other as well of cherished loved ones. Everything has been building up the Blackest Night, when death’s darkness would destroy life’s light throughout the universe and secrets would be unearthed. Many have died: Batman, Aqauaman, Martian Manhunter; others came back: Hal Jordan, The Flash, Superman, Green Arrow…but how, but why? Hal and Flash discuss this very thing at Bruce Wayne’s grave when suddenly they are attacked from an old friend, the rotting blackened corpse of Martian Manhunter. Across the DC Universe Black power rings are bringing the dead back to life, imbuing them near invincibility and restoring there meta abilities, filling them the desire to kill and destroy the light; and in some cases taking back the stubborn ones who beat death. These Black Lanterns are being led by The Black Hand (formerly William Hand) a disturbed villain obsessed with death and there entity Nekron. The Guardians are taken down by one of there own, infected by Nekron’s madness. Ganthet manages to activate the emergency protocol in all of the rings to copy themselves and find temporary deputies which gives us some interesting picks like Red Lantern Mera, Blue Lantern Flash, Violet Lantern Atom, Pink Lantern Wonder Woman, Orange Lantern Lex Luthor, and and Sinestro Corps Scarecrow. Jon Stewart has to band an army of lanterns to defend earth with Flash and the duputies while the Green Lantern Corp fights to keep Oa in one piece from the Black Lantern Battery, The Anti-Monitor. All of this while Jordan, Sinestro, Carol Ferris, Atrocitus, Larfleeze, Saint Walker, and Indigo-1 must put an end to the war of the corps and band them all together for the final attack and try to summon the white light of Life before Nekron murders the universe…

Holy shit this saga was amazing. It’s seven books, which I will list for you at the end, but my recommendation is definitely read the first three to get the massive scope of it all. This series introduced me to Green Lantern and it’s a great take on zombies while also a great character study of many of our lesser known DC heroes and baddies. Also, just gotta say, Parallax and the Spectre- one of the most epic comic battles ever. The writers are at the top of there game. Definitely check these books out if you love DC or zombies. May the gaming gods be with you and beware Green Lantern’s light…

Blackest Night book list (in order): Blackest night, Blackest Night: Green Lantern, Blackest Night: Green Lantern Corps, Blackest Night: Black Lantern Corps vol1 and vol2, Blackest Night: Rise of the Black Lanterns, and Blackest Night: Tales of the corps.

Books of Blood (vol 1)

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I’m a huge fan of macabre horror writer Clive Barker; the books of blood are a good place to start for any new writer who wants to jump into the genre. Books of blood are collections of very strange and gruesome short stories, most commonly found in volumes 1-3 and 4-6. I have to say I have personally only read through volume 1 so far but I can tell you wow. The stories in volume 1 include The Book of Blood, The Midnight Meat Train, The Yattering and Jack, Pig Blood Blues, Sex, Death and Starshine, and In the Hills, The Cities. Of these stories, I think Pig Blood Blues was my favorite: a haunting story of a home for wayward boys and the farm of evil pigs that is causing them to disappear. Barker is a master of disturbing imagery, whether it’s a subway train of skinned, upside down bodies or giants made of tied up people that come together in the hills and fight each to the death. The only story I’m not to fond of is the titular story Book of blood, in my opinion it felt a little too descriptive and bloated somehow but not obscenely so. The final moments are creepy. If you have a strong stomach and a dark imagination i highly recommend The Books of Blood; the best compliment I can give is the imagery I get from these stories manages to stick with me for months, even years after in the case of his famous Cenobites or the giants from In the Hills, The Cities, and that is the sign of a true master.

Shrek

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I know what followers of our blog must be thinking, “Torsten, why are you covering Shrek? Shrek isn’t a horror movie and doesn’t have a superhero in it.”…well, I like other stuff too and it’s a special request by my friend, Hatter, so here you go man.

Shrek is the awesome animated comedy about a scary, ugly, ogre named Shrek who lives in a swamp. He enjoys his solitude and scaring the shit out of trespassers. Well a short, asshole king named Farquad decides to cast out all of the strange fairy tale creatures out of his kingdom in an attempt to have a perfect kingdom for his perfect queen to be, Fiona. Shrek is pissed when a talking donkey ends up on his land; Shrek inadvertently saves Donkey and begrudgingly let’s Donkey stay until like fifty other creatures show up. Shrek finds out about Farquad’s band and goes to get it repealed with Donkey singing alongside of him. They stumble upon a tournament Farquad is holding to find a knight badass enough to save Fiona from a evil dragon keeping her hostage in a epic lava moated castle. Shrek kicks ass. He wins and Farquad tells him if he can bring him Fiona he’ll get rid of Shrek’s squatters. Shrek and Donkey go through the perilous journey, entrap the dragon and save Fiona. The trio journey together, and we get to see Shrek and Fiona bond and as well as see Shrek warm up to having friends. He goes to confess his feelings for Fiona but overhears something she told Donkey about “being a fat, stupid, ugly, ogre.”. Shrek is crushed and gets Farquad to retrieve her and tells Donkey to leave him alone. In the end the two reunite and Shrek has to rescue Fiona and in the end, Shrek finds he wasn’t alone and discovers love’s true form.

Dude, Shrek is a timeless classic, plain and simple. Whether you are a little kid or a grown adult, the humor still sticks either way and has a lot of relate-able deep moments; growing up as a fat weird looking kid as I did, it was cool to have a character that was funny and badass but felt what I did. The characters are all memorable and well developed with great music and animation, Shrek is a must see. May the gaming gods bring you glory and thank you again for the request Hatter, I hope you enjoyed it. If anyone has any requests for Savior or I we’ll do our best to get them out there so leave us a comment below.

Saw 5

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Why? Why oh why did I have to revisit this particular movie? I promise when we get closer to Halloween I’ll talk about the rest of the Saw series more in depth but for now I’ll go into the movie that derailed me and my friends off of the fan train, a train most people jumped off of for dear life between 4 and 5. First, I’ll get it out of the way, I hate the movie. The traps are blah, the acting sucks, the story is just ridiculous, and the victims are idiots who couldn’t listen to simple instructions. Normally Jigsaw is playfully vague with his victims- it is a game after all- but for once he is as blunt as I am now. he tells these dumbasses precisely what to do and don’t kill each other, work as a team and all will be well. What do they do? try to kill each other right off the bat and wonder why the final trap will probably kill them. It’s a well shot movie…for a Saw movie…I’ll give it that. That’s about it. If you want to keep up with the Saw movies just skip 5 and you’ll be all the happier for it.

Among Friends

among friends

So I have to be honest, I thought this was going to be a novelty slasher movie. Like Halloween- the Clue version. Bunch of longtime friends get together for a themed murder mystery party and people would probably get knocked off one by one and we gotta find out who’s who’s the killer, sounds corny right? Hulu and the first fifteen minutes of the movie led me to believe this was the cheese I was in for; I was wrong. So we find out quick who the psycho is and that everyone is drugged and paralyzed, two paralyzed and tripping balls on shrooms and coke, being made to play a fairly messed up game while having there ugly truths exposed and in the open. There is some pretty good squirm moments, one of which involves cutting off someone’s eyebrow with a vegetable peeler (somehow that bothered me more than seeing a character getting his balls cut out. Weird.) It’s a really short movie, like 80 minutes long so it doesn’t drag. It’s cheesy in a fun kind of way, especially the tripping scene where Michael Biehn (yes Terminator and Aliens, that Michael Biehn shows up.) and there’s a funny take on the Shining where the are Chippindale looking dudes instead of the two little girls and director and horror celebrity Danielle Harris reprising her bloody clown costume from Halloween 4. If you want a unexpectedly good dark comedy, check this out for the good horror fun.

Dark Tower 4: Wizard and Glass

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When reading the series on your own if you choose to, keep three and four close by because they are literally one huge story, Wizard and Glass picks up where the Wastelands cliffhanger ended. Also keep in mind, this is two stories in one, a continuation of our story forward and a another tragic piece in Roland’s enigmatic and tragic history. Let’s dive into the halfway mark of this epic:

The riddle contest kicks off between our Ka-Tet and Blaine the Mono as he takes them to Topeka. They all take turns trying to stump Blaine but nothing phases him, but he makes a mistake in a comment which gives them all hope he isn’t all knowing. Eddie,having a breakthrough, rationalizes that jokes are a form of riddle in there own right and that’s Blaine’s weakness. They defeat Blaine and land in Topeka…after Captain Trips has hit. They find it a wasteland of wilted corpses and graffiti reading “Beware the Walkin Dude” and “All hail the Crimson King!”. Taveling down the turnpike they come across a huge emerald tower beckoning out to them with a pink light emulating from it. Everyone but Roland finds it’s beautiful, thinking of the Emerald City from Wizard of Oz; Roland tells them the story of the Wizard’s Rainbow and his first mission as aa young Gunslinger and the pain in his heart of Susan Delgado…Roland was sent to the small barony of Mejis with two of his closest friends, Cuthbert and Alian after earning his guns on assignment to make sure the devious Good Man hadn’t taken refuge there (The Good Man would eventually cause the destruction of Roland’s home and many others). On a lonely night he meets a beautiful young maiden named Susan Delgado. Both kids have a secret. Roland and his friends have kept there identities secret; Susan is being given off to the mayor of Mejis as his arranged gilly (pretty much arranged wife/ sex slave) by her bitch of an aunt. The mayor unknowingly hired a group of disgraced Gunslingers called the Big Coffin Hunters to act as his security. Roland’s group and the Hunters come into conflict with them as a plot unravels to bring chaos to the barony. Susan and Roland fall deeply in love, only to end in utter tragedy as she is burned alive while Roland is powerless to watch in the pink ball of the Wizard’s Rainbow, instruments of great magic and great evil. ..Roland and his friends follow the light to find the true Ageless Stranger- Walter in essence. We discover his other names he has used, Randall Flagg, Richard Fannin, Richard Frye, Maerlyn, and Marten Broadcloak to the Gunslinger. They try to shoot him but all of there guns magically jam at the same time. He leaves them with the resurrected Tick Tock Man and a warning to turn around and abandon there pursuit of the Dark Tower. They vote no and keep moving on…

So out of the series this may be my least favorite for one particular reason. The pacing feels off to me. The present parts feel quick as the rest of the general narrative but The past parts are slower, full of plotting and meticulous detail. As a love story it is solid but the tragedy is this book’s winning point. It’s a tragic story on more than one base as we get to see a Roland that wasn’t so worn and besides the death of his love, we see the death of his innocence as well the means to an end for his home and his family. Definitely check this book out but don’t go into it expecting as a quick read like the first three books. May the gaming gods bring you glory and come reap.

Dark Tower 3: the Wastelands

tower3 Ok friends, full disclosure if you have read my other reviews and have previously read the Dark Tower books, I’m giving only general synopsis’s of each book. Every book gets more and more immaculately detailed as they go on; I can’t deliver justice to them the way reading and enjoying them yourself can. That being said, let us continue the odyssey of Roland and his Ka-tet (group brought together by fate for a purpose) on there way to the Dark Tower.

So again this picks up almost immediately after where the previous installment left off, a few weeks later if I’m not mistaken. Roland has recovered and is training Eddie and Susannah how to be Gunslingers; both are promising. They’ve formed a bond together; Eddie and Susannah are husband and wife; Eddie is clean of heroin and has rediscovered his passion of whittling. While training with Susannah in the woods, Roland hears a noise. Miles away an angry guardian of the Beam awakens, a seventy foot cyborg bear named Mir driven mad by time and maggots eating away at it’s brain. It tears through the forest, knocking trees down like bowling pins, barreling down towards Eddie. Roland and Susannah rush to the rescue. Eddie starts hauling ass up the tallest tree he can find, scared for his life. Roland puts Susannah on his shoulders and tells her its up to her to kill it, to blast it in the tiny radar dish between its ears. She manages it and Mir dies. Roland inspects the beast, revealing a label reading SHARDIK of the LAMERK CORPORATION. Roland explain the tower some more and reveals a secret to his friends; his mind is dividing after the paradox he created by saving Jake from ever dying in the previous installment. Meanwhile, in Jake’s New York, he is suffering from the same fate as Roland. He knows everything that happened in the first book but he knows it didn’t happen but should have. Ka pulls him foreward, bringing him to a book store owned by a man named Tower where he finds a certain two books that will help save his life later and a rose that means everything in a vacant lot. On the Ka-Tet’s side, Eddie is whittling a shape that is meant to be the key to Jake’s door. Jake is led to an old haunted house by a younger version of Eddie; the house transforms into a horrible demon intent on murdering Jake. On the other side they struggle to draw a door in the dirt, fighting a coming rain storm while Detta comes forth to fuck another demon that’s haunting the area. Jake is brought to there side and him and Roland have a touching reunion. Further ahead they come across a billy bumbler (a creature between a roccon and a small dog that can make human like words) that takes a liking to Jake they name Oy. they come to a small seemingly abandoned town across the river from the shell of a once great city called Lud. The town is inhabited by decrepit old people that treat Roland and his friends as honored guests once they see he is the last Gunslinger. The people tell them of the horrors of Lud, the horrible music and the war that broke out between two factions: the Grays and the Pubes. Crossing what’s left of the bridge, Jake gets kidnapped by a diseased freak named Gasher who threatens to blow them all up with a grenade. They have no choice but to let him go. The group splits: Roland and Oy goes after Gasher and Jake, while Eddie and Susannah heads towards the monorail train. Jake is taken through a dark underground maze under the city where the Tick-Tock Man resides with his thugs. Eddie and Susannah have to solve a mathematical puzzle to access the train called Blaine. Jake, Oy, and Roland wipe out the Tick-Tock Man’s gang and haul ass to the others; The Ageless Stranger of Walter’s prophecy revives the Tick-Tock Man for his service in exchange for safety which won’t be possible in Lud much longer after, while pulling away from the station, Blaine unleashes a massive storage of nerve gas on the city and massacres it’s denizens out of boredom. Blaine is really a network of highly intelligent supercomputers under the city that connect to the Dark Tower and with the decay of the beams holding it up, Blaine began to malfunction and go mad. He ultimately decides to kill himself with our heroes on board, wheras they make a deal for there lives via riddle contest, and book three ends…

I adore the hell out of this particular installment. Great character development and a dark theme of madness spiced throughout. Also I have to say Blaine is my favorite villain in all of Literature so far, he’s insane, sarcastic, creepy, and just plain evil as hell. Definitely tune in next time to see what’s next….and hell yeah read this book.

The Drawing of the Three: Dark Tower 2

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Book two of seven (I don’t count Wind through the Keyhole amongst the original series) of Stephen King’s western fantasy epic picks up right up where the first book left off. Roland is left aged on the beach after his haunting talk with Walter, disoriented in the midst of a night tide. From the tide something comes forth Roland first believes is a rock, but moves closer, revealing a body crustacean like. The Lobstrousity is fast and deadly taking a few of Roland’s toes and two of the fingers off of his best hand. Fighting the tide he tries to blast the creature but his shells are getting wet so the first few shots are duds until he blows it’s ass away, left with nothing but a crap-load of useless bullets and blood poisoning from the creature. He crawls forward dying until he catches sight of a mystery wooden door on the beach. Written on it is the word Prisoner, for which he’d been told about by Walter and the demon that tried to rape Jake. This door leads him into the mind of the first he would have to draw forth in his quest for the Dark Tower: Eddie Dean, a heroin addict from New York City in 1987. Roland is able to help Eddie take down drug lord Enrico Balazarr and bring him into his world after getting some medicine to hold off the poison a bit. Eddie is forced to detox with Roland on there way to the second door, there relationship rocky at best. The second door belongs to The Lady of Shadows, young, educated, legless cival rights activist Odetta Holmes of New York 1964. They quickly understand the danger Odetta brings in the form of her second, violent, savage personality Detta Walker. Eddie begins to have feelings for Odetta and she for him. After a small resurgence in his health, Roland begins to decline again. His last hope lies behind the third door, The Pusher, Jack Mort. Mort is a sick bastard who’s dark deeds have affected the Roland’s group through the years. Mort hit Odetta in the head with a brick when she was a little girl, causing her initial split personality; he pushed Jake in front of the car that originally killed him to bring him to Roland’s world in the first place; he finally pushed Odetta in front of the subway train that severed her legs. Roland uses Mort’s body to steal ammo and medicine, before throwing him in front of the same train that took Odetta’s legs at the same time Detta sees this through the open door. Both of her selves forge into a perfect third, Susannah and the three were drawn and Roland lives.

It’s one of my favorite books and a great sequel. The new characters are truly developed and feel very much like real people. It’s well paced and very trippy. Definitely worth a read and will leave you hungry for the next book.

Night Shift

nightshift Ah Stephen King, the man synonymous with the horror of every 80’s and 90’s kids childhood. I know plenty of King fans that haven’t read a single one of his books because all of the film representations of his work there are. Some are good, some are great, some suck balls, and some are just meh but if you are a hardcore King movie fan and you don’t have the patience to sit down and bust out a 1300 page novel, then Night Shift is the King book for you: a book of very well known short stories, many of which have been turned into movies directly like Graveyard Shift, Sometimes they come back, and Children of the Corn, and some like Quitters Inc., Trucks, and Lawnmower Man have found there way out into the world indirectly. Almost all twenty of these stories I found enjoyable, even a couple genuinely brought on a gasp like Children of the Corn or a low “damn” like the Man who loved flowers. Every story I found well paced and different (because I’ve seen some off short story collections in my day.) So I highly recommend this book for the beginner King fan that doesn’t read much or doesn’t have much time to devote to reading and as always may the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Gunslinger: the Dark Tower

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“The Man in Black fled across the desert and the Gunslinger followed.” It has to be one of the greatest opening lines to a book ever, simple yet epic. With the movie coming out today, I thought it would be appropriate to cover the book that started it all. Now, to clarify, the movie, though it shares the same title, is not an adaptation of the first book but almost a sequel to the last book.

Book One begins with the last Gunslinger, Roland Deschain, venturing after a mysterious Man in Black through the deserts of a world that moved on. When we first meet him, he finds a man named Brown living miles away from Tull, the last town the Gunslinger tracked the Man to. At first, Roland is weary of Brown and his raven Zoltan, but decides he isn’t a threat. He tells him the story of his time in Tull. Tull was a small town full of worn people that looked upon Roland with either fear or disdain; he gets in close with Allie who runs the town’s saloon. She tells Roland the Man came weeks before and he resurrected a man from the dead for no reason other than he could. Roland stays with Allie for his time in Tull, trying to see what trap the Man in Black has laid out for him; eventually the trap springs and suddenly the whole town tries to kill The Gunslinger. In one of the best action scenes I’ve ever read, Roland mows down everyone in Tull, including Allie tragically, but all Roland could do is move on. After leaving Brown, Roland is left wandering through the desert, dehydrated and exhausted. He passes out near an old Way Station; Jake Chambers is there when he wakes up, a young boy not of that world. For the rest of the book, Roland and Jake trek through the mountains, where a demon tries to rape Jake. After the demon, they are forced to follow the Man in Black through the perilous mountains, where the Slow Mutants live and where there is no light and a lot of falls. Then Roland is faced with a choice, let Jake die or lose the Man in Black and the Dark Tower forever; “there are other worlds than these” are Jake’s last words before falling into the dark. The finale brings us to Walter, the Man in Black, where he reveals the purpose and future of Roland and the Dark Tower that connects all reality…

So I’m going to say this book inspired me more than I think any other book ever has. Roland Deschain is a strong, stoic, bad ass anti-hero. Walter is a cool villain that at the very end doesn’t feel so much like a villain, which was cool. There is alluring foreshadowing and a non-linear story that really works. I love the setting, that is both dreamlike but has feelings of either the old west or a post apocalypse, which makes our world Jake comes from look alien by comparison. The only downfall I can sight is that there are differences between prints of the book; the older editions are much more vague, solitary, and makes Roland more of a heartless anti-hero. The updated version has more references to the rest of the series, a change in dialect to match the much later stories, and tries to make Roland a little more heroic. I personally like the earlier version myself but it’s a great story either way and definitely deserves to be read and experienced.