Category: Horror

Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)

freddys dead

This has upset many of horror fans, even more Freddy fans and has made me a few friends. However this is my favorite Nightmare on Elm Street movie. While not the scariest of the bunch I did find it the most entertaining.

This time around a group of delinquent teens must stop Freddy. The catch? One of them may be the long lost child of Freddy himself. What follows are some great deaths, for example Freddie pushing a bed of spikes under a falling teen like something out of a loony tunes cartoon. True to Freddy form he needs his kid to escape not just one set of victims to another but this time a new town all together, because remember, every town has an Elm Street. The death of Freddy sadly seems pretty shallow for such a legend, but can a legend really die? Ponder that, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Saw

saw

Anyone want to play a game as I dig into the Saw movies per Savior’s request? No, well shit. Saw is a crazy huge modern low budget that spawned eight movies, two video games, and arguably the film that helped kick off the “gorno”  phase of horror films in the early-mid 2000’s.

Saw is the story of Dr Lawrence Gordon and a dude named Adam who wake up chained by a foot in a dingy bathroom with a dead body, a few strange clues, and a hack saw and are basically left to piece together what’s going on. Gordon recounts the stories he’s heard of the “Jigsaw Killer”, this killer that drops people into deranged and disturbing deathtraps they have to overcome or die. The most famous example of this is the first survivor we encounter, Amanda. A druggie, she awakens with with a strong, rusty metal contraption wired into her mouth that will pretty much break her head apart like a reverse bear trap; her salvation rest in the stomach of her past cellmate and with a a couple minutes to decide she has to cut him open to get the key before dying. We also join two cops on Jigsaw’s trail as they question Gordon, sure he is the culprit. Another player in this game takes Gordon’s family hostage and it is him left with the saw and the choice, how far will he go to survive?

Saw, as a standalone film is pretty solid. It was one of the earliest, if not the first movie James Wan ever did, and you can tell the man who would later give us the modern classics Insidious and The Conjuring has talent; he is one of my favorite directors today. Stylistically it’s interesting. The traps are interesting and actually pretty realistic which adds to the creep factor. Tobin Bell’s voice is iconic now for Jigsaw and the first time you hear his voice with the puppet it’s fucking creepy, I can’t lie. The ending of the movie is actually pretty cleaver and punctuated perfectly by a great score. The only real flaw I can say is sometimes it feels slow and essentially, yes half of the movie is two dudes talking in a filthy bathroom.  I’d recommend it. Thank you as always and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Zombies Ate My Neighbors

zamn

I first played this game for the Super Nintendo years ago.I spent days shooting zombies with a squirt gone and various other off the wall but fun weapons before I realized the game seemed to just repeat levels. Or maybe I just sucked at the game. Either way the game was one of the few games as a kid I remember my mom actually sitting down to play for hours on end.

All the levels while vastly different different play out the same, kill stuff and rescue people. This game was simply a lot of fun to play, and any retro fan should give it a try. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Shiki

shiki

I don’t think I’ve seen an anime that made shift my opinions so rapidly in the span of 26 episodes, ranging from “this sucks balls” to “dammmm”. A little personnel background with me and the anime, I jumped into this because of probably the most deceiving trailer I’ve ever seen in my entire like. The trailer made this look like a ultra dark, grim, almost found footage vampire story and was going to be really disturbing and creepy and…no. This is not the case at all. If you caught my Salem’s Lot review, you’ll recall I called Shiki the anime version of Salem’s Lot and essentially that isn’t wrong. Pretty much a mysterious family moves into a quiet, sleepy little village town and people start dying mysterious deaths. First they get lethargic with flu kind of symptoms and die. The town doctor and a fairly emo high schooler are the only people that see these are vampire attacks and at the end the series abruptly switches paces and holy shit becomes a six episode vampire snuff film. I don’t call myself a anime connoisseur, but I know what I like and I don’t hate it Shiki but it’s my least favorite for three reasons. First, the pacing sucks. The first ten episodes drag and frankly I wasn’t even really invested until episode 14 or so. Secondly, this show feels way more like a soap opera than it should and that drags it down I feel. Third, it doesn’t bring anything new to the table. Salem’s Lot didn’t either but it had a good story to back it up. The story was fine but none really stuck out to me, hell I can’t even remember any names really. The ending does make up for it a bit, and there is a pathos to the vampires being slaughtered.  I like the designs for the vampires, with the ultra pale skin and giant black and red eyes; the score is fitting and nice. I can’t really recommend it unless you’re a hardcore vampire or anime fan, or you want to see a great fuck you to a truly annoying character that made my day- I will give it that. As always thank you and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Nightmare on Elm Street 5

elm street 5

The Dream Child (1989) brings back Alice one final time and is another movie that like most of the Freddy movies has a weird cult following. Fans seem to love the series while critics hate them. While I do admit the first movie was probably the best ( tho my favorite is yet to come) it is impossible to say I don’t enjoy my yearly Nightmare weekend. Yes I watched and wrote all these over the course of a weekend. Anyway, this time around Freddy is using the dreams of Alice’s unborn child in an attempt to return. After killing the father Alice is alone with no one left to believe her and the deaths start once again. Will Alive ever sleep again? May the gaming gods bring you glory.

5 fun horror sequels

jason

Jason maybe a heartless killer and hockey fan but his movies knew how to have fun a bit. Sometimes there’s just a crappy sequel that makes us laugh and makes us appreciate the scary shit a bit more. Here’s 5 of my picks in no particular order of fun horror sequels good for a laugh.

friday6 1. Friday the 13th part 6: Jason Lives- The first movie that flipped off continuity and whatever realistic pretenses the series had by having Jason resurrected from the dead. The dark comedy moments are funny as hell and we get a decent end to the Tommy Jarvis arc. It was a hard pick between 6, 8, and 10 but 6 wins in my heart.

alienr1 2. Alien: Resurrection- “Resurrection” may have a curse when it comes to deeply terrifying horror franchises. The fourth Alien movie has a good concept but sooooo many WTF moments tossed in there and some pretty great moments of overacting. It can be a fun WTF movie if in the right mindset.

blair witch 2 3. Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows- I actually will defend this as a decent movie with some good heavy 90’s music in it and some creepy imagery. Sometimes the acting ain’t great in some places and one o two of the scares backfire which can be kinda funny. Me and my oldest friend had plenty of fun either laughing or decoding this sequel.

leprachaun 5 4. Leprechaun: In the Hood- I hope this says it all, and if it doesn’t, allow me- WHY THE FUCK IS THE LEPRECHAUN IN THE HOOD?…one scene says it all, a bunch of dudes hittin a bong with the Leprechaun. Yep.

halloween 8 5. Halloween: Resurrection- 2 words. All I need. Busta Rhymes. I’ve never laughed more at a horror movie than Busta’s crazy ass using kung fu on Michael Myers and cursing him out. You have to watch it for yourself to gather the absurdity of this movie.

Misery

misery film

Ya know how there’s a drawback to every career choice, no job is completely great and wonderful. I know being famous ain’t all it’s cracked up to be but this made me not want to be a writer, director, or any kind of artist. Misery is the rare kind of story that believably real and so much more terrifying because of it. Much like Pet Sematary, which I covered earlier, both movie and book are great but this time I can say I prefer the book, though the movie is still an amazing adaptation.

Paul Sheldon is a famous author of a series of books named after the main character Misery, which he has gotten fed up with over the years. He has a tradition to go to a cabin he has in the mountains when he’s about to finish a book. He finishes the last book in Misery’s series to his relief. On his way back down to go to his publishers, he gets caught in a storm storm and crashes his car. His car totaled, his body unconscious and wrecked, it looks bad for the author. But he is saved by a large, heavy woman named Annie Wilkes that brings him home and nurses him back to health. Annie loves the Misery books with all her heart. Looking through his bag, she finds Paul’s manuscript for a new Misery; Paul lets her read it, after all she did save his grumpy ass and nothing could possibly go wrong, right? Annie is full of girlish glee…until she reads the ending. She snaps, screaming at Paul, slamming him and his bed up and down in a violent rage. She forces him to burn the new book he has been working on and begin a new book to revive Misery, dedicated to her of course. Paul is in living hell, immobile, isolated from a world that thinks he’s dead except for a sheriff in the mountain town. But can Paul hold out until then while Annie grows more intensely mad and her true colors reveal themselves…

A main difference I get between the book and movie is that the two main characters are much more flushed out. In the book we learn a lot about Paul as he struggles to finish the book he never wanted to make and how by the end he almost loves the series again because of how much it challenged him. Annie’s portrayal either way amazingly lifelike but there were touches in the book that strangely made me relate her to Blaine the Mono from the third Dark Tower book. The movie does an amazing job with the acting, especially Kathy Bates as Annie Wilkes, and never ceases to loose tension in it’s confined space. I highly recommend it if you enjoy good old fashion suspense over gore and body counts, though who can forget the hobbling?

Nightmare on Elm Street 4

elm street 4

Dream master (1988) always had mixed reviews but I found it rather enjoyable. This movie saw the torch of being able to summon people into dreams passed from Kristen to Alice when Freddie killed the final child of the parents that killed him with Kristen. With Alice the power seems to work slightly different tho, after every death she takes on a trait from the one Freddie killed, for example when her martial arts buff brother died she became much more physically capable. It was a pretty neat idea that some people just didn’t seem to get behind. All in all while not the best in the series it sets up number 5 nicely while still offering a fun story and a nice selection of deaths. As always sweet dreams and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Pet Sematary Two

pet sematary two

Of course of course there had to be a sequel. It’s almost absolute certainty in the film industry, especially the horror genre, because good things just can’t get left alone. Pet Sematary Two isn’t horrible, especially by horror sequel standards, but it doesn’t hold a candle to the the original.

The sequel follows two teens, primarily Jeff played by Edward Furlong, a boy saddened by the tragic on-set death of his movie star mother. Him and his father, a veterinarian, movie into Ludlow, Maine, years after the Creed’s fate, becoming a ghost story we hear years later. He becomes friends with a fat kid named Drew, whose stepdad Gus is the town sheriff and a total dick bag. Gus kills Drew’s dog and of course they have to take it up to the pet cemetery.  The dog comes back. Jeff asks the question Louis asked before him. Before that happens though, Drew’s returned dog kills Gus while defending him from Gus’s abusive ass. Gus comes back and more deadly shenanigans ensue and Jeff’s mom comes back…yeah

Seriously this ain’t a terrible movie just sure as shit not great. The main leads are pretty good for 90’s teenagers. My biggest issue is that it tries too damn hard to be trendy, like the 90’s is bitch slapping you in the face whereas the original didn’t feel like a 80’s movie but that feels almost timeless. I never felt scared or remotely alarmed by the undead in this movie, in fact I laughed a few times. Overall, it’s a sequel that’s there. It ain’t great or shit, just a floater in the gray in between.  May the gaming gods bring you glory my friends.

Pet Sematary

Pet Sematary

“Sometimes Louis, dead is better.” Pet Sematary by legendary writer Stephen King was my introduction to his insanity and brilliance when I was three or four, not much older than poor Gage Creed. To this day the movie still has an impressive talent for creeping the shit out of me and tugging at my heartstrings a bit. The book is equally as good and pretty damn close comparison wise, but I’m getting a little ahead of myself.

Louis and Rachael Creed move into a new house in rural Maine with daughter Ellie, cat Church and baby son Gage. Its a wide, picturesque place; a long road of speeding trucks separates them from there old, kindly neighbors Judd and Norma Crandall. The Crandalls and Creeds hit it off, especially Judd and Louis. Louis is a doctor, and first day at his new job, a young man named Pascow dies on his table after getting hit by a car while jogging.  Louis has dreams of Pascow’s ruined body warning him about something Judd once told the family, beyond the old Pet Sematary out back. While the rest of his family is away, Louis finds Church dead. Judd sees the pain on Louis’s face of having to break the news to Ellie. Judd reluctantly takes Louis to a very special place far beyond the ruins of the cemetery to bury Church. Judd tells him it used to be a special place for the Native Americans that used to live there; after a long trek, Judd tells him to bury his own. Days later, Church returns. Not the sweet lovable cat he knew, Church exists with a horrible stench and a lonesome, sometimes hostile temper. Louis asks Judd how the hell church came back. Judd tells him the legend of the land but stops short when Louis asks the obvious question, have ever buried a person up there. Pascow returns to Louis again, warning him away from the ground again. Time goes by and on a fateful summer’s day Louis finds himself with a broken heart and a breaking family when Gage perishes tragically. Against everything, Louis bring Gage to the burial ground and waits for his son to come home with horrific and tragic results…

A story this simple, genuinely genius in how frightening and sad it is proves why King is a legend at the craft. Whether you watch the unforgettable movie or took the extra initiative and read the book, they sync up really well. The characters feel realistic and flushed out well. A lot of the imagery sticks with you; the most memorable image from the movie to me is Zelda, Rachael’s dying sister. That shit stays with you man. Definitely locked in my  top 3 favorite Stephen King stories of all time, perhaps even my favorite considering how much it influenced me, I can’t recommend it enough. Thank you as always and just remember, “some lines aren’t meant to be crossed, doc.”