Horror – Page 115 – Savior Gaming

H.R. Giger : master of nightmares

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Since I was a little kid, age 2 if not mistaken, I’ve been haunted by a special monster. A monster both beautiful and terrifying in it’s design and symbolism, “A perfect organism.” Hans Reudi (Rudolf) Giger was a famous Swiss painter born February 5th, 1940 and passed away March 2014; on a personal note I wept when I woke up to the text he passed away. His designs are a thing of legend, the most famous and well known being those for the horror classic Alien. His art mainly revolves around the sexual and bio-mechanical often fused as is the Xenomorph design. Influences of his work can be seen in classic video games like Contra and Metroid

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he created a radical design for Batman: Forever’s Batmobile that was toned down for the film but still feels like his work.

He designed the creature for the 1995 film Species as well as was commissioned by Korn frontman Jonathan Davis to create a custom microphone that is very Alien-esque. Before starting my Alien reviews I just wanted to give a huge shout out to a artist many of us know but never really gave credit to and changed the way I saw art, monsters, and the human body. You are missed, Giger.

Doom

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You ever miss the time when shooters weren’t about online multiplayer and didn’t give a rat’s ass about realistic physics or stories that try way too hard to be deep or relevant? Hell you remember when games used to be fun? Well, doom is for you. A epic, jacked up, silent protagonist who isn’t whiny or troubled, he just hates demons and has some severe anger management issues. You play as “Doomguy”, a dude who wakes from cryo sleep on Mars after a portal to hell is opened and demons are running free. This game is epic, disgustingly bloody, and fast paced old fashioned fun. The campaign is the highlight of the experience for a refreshing change in modern gaming while the multiplayer takes a backseat. The controls are simple. I really enjoyed the game’s weapon upgrading system, not only can you choose a secondary fire for your favorite guns but can even level up multiple secondary fires for each if you find the upgrading stations to do so, creating some wickedly pimped out death machines ( how sexy is it to have a shotgun that can unload a full catche of ammo at once or become a grenade launcher?) The soundtrack is retro 90’s metal based for a blast to the past. If you really want to have a negative, it’s in the multiplayer which feels like a Black Ops 3 knockoff with more platforming and random demonic power ups scattered through. I’ve encountered some glitches in it and a few too many shitty spawn points. If you want an amazing single player challenge or just craving a old school FPS experience than I highly recommend the game I lovingly would call best of 2016 in my book, and may the gaming gods be with you.

Harbinger Down

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Harbinger Down starts off great. Its got a ship in the arctic, a couple of cute college girls, a pretty nice looking Russian woman, a bad ass captain and a great premise. It looks nice sounds solid and the acting is pretty great. The story starts off strong with them crabbing at night and during the day tracking some whales. Not long after they discover a frozen ball that the whales were attracted to it. This is around the time the story turns to hell. Apparently the Russians infected a cosmonaut with something that is never really explained except that it was made from water bears. (Google what they are, quite interesting really) and it somehow creates a creature that can change its DNA as well as anyone it eats. It can also turn to liquid and grows some weird tendrils type things to kill. Oh and did i mention it can be frozen but is also immune to fire and ice? Yea it goes like that. I can’t think of another movie that went from great to total shit storm so fast. Still could have been worse tho. As always thanks for your time, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Blackest Night

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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.

The Haunting of Silver Falls

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The Haunting of Silver Falls is a typical horror movie in every sense of the phrase. The basic plot us a girls parents die, moves to a small town with her Aunt and uncle meets a guy goes to a party. Of course the cops come everyone scatters and the girl finds a mysterious object blah blah blah. The ghost are semi creepy looking and the twist ending is nice and actually unexpected. The acting is well done and unlike most movies I have seen lately the pacing isn’t bad. It does a good job setting everything up but moves along fast enough to stay interesting. On the downside there is very little excitement to the movie, but its never really boring either. If anything the movie suffers from being far to standard and basic, I’m talking white chick at a Starbucks wearing Uggs basic. As always thanks for joining me, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

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

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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.

American Fable

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Sometimes a movie is simply boring. This is one of those movies. Well over 50 minutes (over half way) into the movie and really nothing has gone on besides a farmer hanging himself off screen. Only reason the viewer knows it they speak of it. Lots of poor farming families, including the focal point of the family. Typical family. Mom,dad 1 boy and 1 girl. The family secret is dad is hiding a package. Dad gets hurt and mom and broski pick up hiding the package. Small issue, the package is an old guy that the daughter is making friends with. The movie does pick up later but honestly its far to little far to late and is not worth the wait. There are very few movies I will openly say no-one should watch, but this is one of them. The acting is fine, the visuals are nice as is the sound. But the story itself is just horrible and I can’t stress this enough, a very large part of this movie is nothing interesting. As always thanks for your time, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Beyond The Gate

Hey who likes B movies that look straight out of the 80’s that are so bad they are good? If you said yes to that question you will probably like this movie. The acting is somewhere between bad and acceptable and the movie effects would be gorgeous back in 1986. The sound is of pretty good quality while still keeping with the time frame they were aiming for.

The story has a fun concept. Two brothers grew up with an alcoholic for a father. One is the typical loser in a small town the other left home to a bigger city meets a girl and buys a home. Of course dad goes missing for about 7 months and its up to them to reunite and clean out the video store dad bought when they were kids. Having never bought into the new scary DVD format his store is all VHS tapes. For you young people i have included a photo of a VHS tape.

Ok kids you all caught up on what a VHS tape is? Good. Anyway, a long time ago some board games came with one of these relics and you followed along. When they find one such game in dads office they are dragged into what is basically horror Jumanji. I won’t spoil the gory details, and I mean literal gory, but the movie does suffer from a few minor issues. Most notably the pacing. In a short movie, less than an hour and a half, the first hour is basically set up for what amounts to a 20 minute ending. As always thanks for joining me, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.