Category: Horror

Tokyo Ghoul: √A (season 2)

We pick up right where Tokyo Ghoul (season 1) left off, the 13th district has become a warzone as the radical Ghoul terrorists of Aogiri Tree clash with the human Doves of the CCG openly. Kaneki, though free, has changed. No longer timid and quite harmless, after awakening his true powers he’s become a truly brutal force. He leaves his friends of the Ghoul sanctuary Anteiku in pursuit of power, knowing g he needs more to keep his friends safe in the growing war- joining Aogiri to do it. Kaneki faces his own horrors as his body starts changing and his urge to kill dramatically increases as he becomes the scourge of human and ghoul alike, but can he stop the war to come before losing everyone he loves?

I adored the first season with all my heart and still do but all my friends warned me the series gets…different to say the least. Admittedly this season is a hard call. Overall I like it but I think it’s definitely a mixed bag. Overall I’m ok with the story but some parts of it really do feel like you’re watching fanfiction then a part of the series; characters do things that make no sense and sadly you really don’t get as much of the Anteiku group but more of the Aogiri group which I was nowhere near as interested in. There are great fights but the pacing overall feels bloated even though the season is only 13 episodes. The animation and score are great but I don’t really like the new opening theme ( I do love that Unravel returns for the very end.). In the end, I get if you liked or hated this season so I urge you to keep an open mind after season 1. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Wonder Egg Priority (season 1)

Ai, Neiru, Rika, and Momoe are four lonely girls dealing with depression, loneliness, guilt, and the traumas of experiencing suicides in their lives. What they have in common is finding a seemingly normal egg, an egg that opens another world. From that egg spawns the tortured soul of a suicide victim and it’s up to the girls to slay the monstrous tormentors of the victim to free, with the promise that enough freed victims will return their own loved ones. In the acts of battle, the girls find friendship and the strength to move on but are they willing to face the costs of a second chance?

Seeing the sunny exterior in the horror section of the Funimation catalog intrigued me; if it hadn’t been for When they Cry I would’ve cast this deep series as a miscast. This show beautifully covers some really bleak subjects and does them with genuine humanity and depth. I loved the four main characters and their own private struggles; I love the main theme of using dark fantasy to combat the real traumas of the world as well as mental illness. The artwork and score are fantastic. One of my only real complaints is I found it really hard to gauge if the series if merely over or meant to return in some way. There are a lot of unanswered questions I have and I feel like Frill was set up to be a great antagonist that we didn’t get a full conclusion to and Ai was a heroine we didn’t get a full resolution to either. I really hope we get another season so I don’t have to feel the ache of Deadman Wonderland all over again. In the end, I highly recommend checking this series out on Funimation. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Ms. Marvel trailer

I actually really liked Kamala Khan in the comics so this trailer hurts. Why Disney felt the need to change her powers and make her a Green Lantern knockoff is beyond me. I’m kind of flabbergasted about who the villain is supposed to be and I’m kind of shocked how cheap everything looks, especially being a Disney MCU show to boot. I’m really not looking forward to the show now but I’ll keep an open, if not ultra-cautious mind. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Jurrasic Park (novel)

After being surprised by Jaws (novel) I was really curious how much Spielberg changed for the movie. While I have reviewed the Jurassic Park series and while the movie is pretty much a cultural phenomenon, I’m not going to regurgitate the plot because the general plot is the same. What I’m going to do is basically talk about the differences and while I actually really enjoyed the book for some pretty damn different reasons.

So the book for Jurassic Park, while having a lot of the splendor and wonder of the movie, there is actually a lot of smart ethical questions and corporate evil in the book. In fact, Hammond is actually an eerily evil sociopath that is hell-bent on basically being his own god, no matter who dies in the process. The book never feels preachy about the ethical issues and the science but expertly feels like a grim kind of foreshadowing of how everything goes belly up. Another huge difference is the body count and gore in the book which is definitely past the pg-13 boundary and a lot of characters die in the book that don’t in the movies. The climax is more intense and well, a bit more brutal but also more realistic and fitting. Pretty much the only part of the book I couldn’t stand was Alex, Tim’s now younger sister (in the movie she was the older); she’s annoying and I swear she almost gets her, Timmy, and Grant killed at least half a dozen times in some pretty idiotic ways. Hammond maybe my favorite part of the book, starting as the kindly if not delusional grandpa figure he was in the book to becoming a heartless bastard as the story unfolds. The book is reasonably paced and Crichton had a great way of not talking down to his readers but not dumbing his themes down. In the end, I highly recommend the novel for Jurrasic Park, especially on Audible like I enjoyed it. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Snowman

I have returned dear readers with glorious purpose and such horrors to speak of. Let me begin with a movie I was actually pretty interested in back in 2017, so much so I ran out and bought the book and was genuinely perplexed when the movie’s reviews came back as scathingly bad. But how? Michael Fassbender as a gritty detective searching for a sadistic killer who buries his victims in snowmen, how could this possibly go wrong?

Harry Hole is a broken man. While a talented detective, he struggles with alcoholism, depression, and his estranged wife and son. When a series of people mysteriously vanish and their bodies turn up strangely, it’s up to Hole to dive into a strange world of corruption and broken hearts to discover the truth behind the Snowman killer.

Ok, so they wanted to make Seven but instead they made an absolute mess. I truly regret complaining about the editing in X-Men: Dark Phoenix because this movie is a dumpster fire turned nuclear by the editing. It’s a jumbled mess of things happening, characters appearing with plot threads that go nowhere and I feel like there is a megacut somewhere that’s probably like 4 hours long but this movie isn’t worth saving. Poor Fassbender tries his ass off to save this movie but Harry Hole is such a trainwreck I can’t really take the guy seriously (his name sure as hell doesn’t help either.). I pegged the killer super early and when the mess of a story comes together, it’s meh. This movie isn’t gory or disturbing, it’s a not really a good noir, and holy shit drags. The only really redeeming feature I can really say is some of the cinematography is nice, not great but nice. The only other thing I can say is I laughed my ass off alot because of how unintentionally hilarious the movie is- so there is that. In the end, unless you are like Savior and I and enjoy super bad movies, I can’t recommend this movie at all. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Batman Joker deleted scene

So I got to say as I’m sure many of us are, but I’m tired of Batman and Joker stories. When I heard there was 0 Joker in The Batman I was pretty glad. That being said, I love this scene. I’m not really familiar with Barry Keoghan’s work but holy shit I love his portrayal as Joker; him and Pattinson have great chemistry in this scene and I like the Hannibal Lector callback. His design is very unsettling, and I love how degraded and ghoulish he looks. I hope we get some more of the duo in future films. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

How I Met Your Father Impressions

How I Met Your Father is a spin off of one of my favorite shows of all time, How I Met Your Mother. So clearly going into this I had low expectations it would be something I enjoy but very high hopes.

It’s a fine line to walk honestly, you need enough of a connection to make people coming back to say hey this is familiar enough to make me want to watch but new enough so they don’t say hey this is a rip off cash grab.

You also need it to be just be a copy and paste because let’s be honest here, if How I Met Your Mother came out in 2022, it would have gotten destroyed. It’s been off the air since 2014 and already Barney Stinson would probably be canceled as a rapist and Robin as being abusive to Ted. And don’t even get me started on Marshal and Lily. Even towards the end the show was acknowledging how messed up the group was.

Honestly that was half the charm of the original and much of that is missing here. Most of us knew a toned down version of all the people from HIMYM. One of the characters from HIMYF however is a very rich British guy (Charlie) that ran away to be with another character ( Valentina) and a third (Sid) legitimately owns the bar they all hang out at.

The main character,Sophie, (Hillary Duff) is equally as unrelatable, while she struggles with dating in the world of Tinder and hangs out with her friends she mostly whines about turning 30 and not knowing what to do with her life, even tho she already has a career.

That’s not to say the show isn’t entertaining, the show is actually quite entertaining. It has it’s laughs and I enjoy that the first episode they out right tell you that’s how she met the father even tho they never tell you which character it is. Some of the characters also live in the same apartment from the original that they got off an older married couple (clearly meaning Lily and Marshal)

The show is by no means bad, it just lacks much of the character of the original. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Thoughts on Peacemaker

Like most people, I had no idea who Peacemaker was until John Cena was chosen to play the part. Honestly when it comes to the comic version I still know almost nothing about him. Having looked him up he doesn’t have any super powers and is basically just a guy that is insanely skilled and talented. In fact one iteration has him as a diplomat that wants peace so much he starts just killing people.

That brings us to the show, where Peacemaker aka the guy with the best opening in comic book show and movie history possibly is pretty much a dark comedy. His best friend is an eagle, names Eagly because why would a guy like Peacemaker have a sense of humor. He is being used by Amanda Waller once again this time for Project Butterfly.

I won’t go to deep into the story so I don’t spoil it on you guys though I honestly love this show. I didn’t expect that I would but seeing John Cena dance around in his underwear after finally getting laid after being in jail for years only to almost get killed and steal important objects, which he decided we’re vinyl albums is amazing.

His watching his friendship with fellow characters Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) and especially Adebayo (Danielle Brooks) is especially satisfying as all the characters show real growth and change as the season goes on.

Vigilante and Peacemaker playing with guns irresponsibly

If you haven’t started watching this yet, now is the time to catch up. Best wishes and may the gaming gods being you glory.

King of Thorns

King of Thorn: The Movie [Blu-ray] [2010] - Best Buy

A bizarre plague has swelled to pandemic level heights in such a short time. The plague is nicknamed Medusa because once contracted, the victim inevitably turns gray and crumbles like stone. As part of a highly experimental test, 160 people diagnosed with the disease are cryogenically frozen at random under the watch of a hyper-intelligent AI named Alice to study and hopefully find a cure. Kasumi, heartbroken to be separated from her twin sister, both infected, awakens with the others into utter insanity. The labyrinth of labs have been taken over by cruel, sharp thorned vines and hideous beasts have overtaken the facility. After most of the sleepers are slaughtered, only a handful of survivors are left to try escaping the murderous catacombs of vines that have a sinister will of their own and discover the truth.

So a funny little anecdote, I literally judged a book by its cover here. The cover made me honestly want to watch it and honestly I was glad I took the chance. The movie is far from perfect and if you are paying attention, the twists aren’t too much of a shock but there is a lot to love about this movie. First, the animation is beautiful and extremely well balanced between darkness, cramped spaces, and bright dreamy colors. I love how the movie juggles psychological drama, dark sci-fi, fairy tale fantasy, and horror all in one package with plenty of action to keep the pace going. The movie runs smooth mostly but one of my biggest problems is the story can get confusing if you aren’t paying attention. Certain aspects of the story at the end seemed a bit over-the-top and goofy and I feel like I may have missed something somewhere to put it all together. In the end, I really enjoyed this movie and would recommend checking it out. May the gaming gods bring you glory.