Horror – Page 5 – Savior Gaming

The Thunderbolts (New Avengers)

This Wheaties box is one of the funniest jokes in the film, and I laughed way too hard…Thunderbolts picks up with a group of the MCU outcasts (Yelena, US Agent, Red Guardian, Ghost, and Taskmaster) being ordered to infiltrate a shady testing facility. After duking it out a bit, they come a scrawny dude named Bob, the last living subject of a certain medical test. Bob, a former drug addict suffering from mental illness, stands out of this group like a sore thumb. But what if I told you Bob was a force that outmatches the powerhouses of Marvel like Hulk, Thor, and Captain Marvel? Under the devious influence of government head Valentina de Fontaine, Bob is molded into the Sentry, the world’s greatest hero. Can the outcasts, aligned with Winter Soldier and Red Guardian, stand a chance against Fontaine and the darkness inside Bob-for every light there is a darkness, and that darkness is the Void…

Going in, I knew what this movie was: MCU Suicide Squad. Basically, it’s what the comics are, and honestly, they’ve never been my thing, but I gave it a shot. With Captain America: Brave New World being a dud and Fantastic 4: First Steps being the best MCU flick since Spider-man: No Way Home , I was curious where this lay.

The cast is the biggest positive in my opinion. Everyone gives it their all. Florence Pugh, since her Black Widow debut, has been a bright light in the MCU’s darker days. Luis Pullman did great as Bob/Sentry/ Void. The final act goes for emotional character stakes instead of a giant boss battle, easily the best climax to a MCU film in a while. I liked the darker, mature themes like mental health, drug abuse, trauma, and guilt. The movie handled them well without going overly dark or trying to preach.

Unfortunately, the MCU itself, or rather its formula of forced humor, is this movie’s biggest weakness. I didn’t laugh much, but I rolled my eyes a lot more than I wanted to. Most of the action scenes were meh overall. Taskmaster is utterly wasted and is just a body to drop for pretend stakes (sorry for the spoiler, but seriously, the marketing spoiled it pretty quick). Valentina has been built up for a while, and her endgame didn’t really feel like much of a payoff.

In the end, the movie is ok but easily could have been above average. What it does good, it does great. The flaws kill it. It’s worth watching and I’m not mad they’ll return for Doomsday. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Cobweb (2023) Review

Cobweb (2023) is one of those movies where I love pretty much every person in the movie. Lizzy Caplan has been great in every movie I have ever seen her in, and Antony Starr speaks for himself. The young Woody Norman is their son, Peter, who does his best as their awkward homebody son, but none of this can save the film.

Let’s rewind a bit first. Lizzy playsCarol, a neurotic and overprotective mother of Peter, and who can blame her. It is almost Halloween, and they live in a town where, right down the street, a young girl went missing. never to be found. Antony plays Mark, a seemingly normal, loving man just doing what is best for his family.

Peter is their 8-year-old son who just wants to go trick-or-treating like every other kid in school, in hopes that maybe he will stop being a social outcast and maybe get the other kids to stop picking on him. This isn’t gonna happen though, since his parents aren’t fans of the holiday. They do oddly have a massive crop of pumpkins in the backyard.

Yes, there’s a body buried here somewhere.

If you think there is a body buried somewhere in the pumpkin patch, you are right. The movie tells you that for free with no guesswork involved. See, Peter quickly starts hearing a weird tapping in the wall that his parents quickly tell him isn’t real. Mark later tells him it must be rats, so they set out some rat poison. I am aware this makes no real sense; it’s just foreshadowing for the sake of a plot point later. Usually, this sort of thing serves a purpose and is hinted at, like there would be some sign of rats. Maybe they would have been eating the pumpkins, but no, they have their own issue. Rot, so they bury some.

This is the kind of writing that detracts from what should have been a great movie. Don’t get me wrong, the movie isn’t a dumpster fire; it’s enjoyable and fun for a quick watch. But what should be a movie we talk about as a movie that proves we can rehash concepts and still make quality, amazing movies, instead comes across as lazy. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Aliens: Fireteam Elite

Gotta start by thanking Savior for playing through the game with me because, honestly, like most multiplayer games, who your crew is means a whole world of difference. Firetam Elite is essentially an online horde shooter in the Alien universe. There’s 4 chapters, 3 missions each to play through. You pick a class, pick up consumable buffs like shock grids, sentry guns, and proximity mines and jump into action with 2 other players. Is there a story? Barely. You’re a colonial marine tasked with killing xenos- that’s it in a nutshell.

I highly recommend having at least 1 battle buddy if you’re going to play this game. Solo, the gameplay isn’t too engaging. As for any online multiplayer, we’ve played with cool people and a couple that made things way harder than they had any right to be; if you can’t find someone, the game fills the slot with an Alpha, which mostly means you’re pulling extra weight and better not die. With a buddy, the game is pretty fun at times, but not full-price fun. We had it as a PS+ freebie and neither of us had any desire to get the Pathogen DLC.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with the game, just nothing spectacular. The highlight for me was the iconic scenery that harkened back to Alien and Prometheus. I will say the ending of the final mission does the Queen Alien a massive disservice, even more the finale of Aliens: Colonial Marines. There is a nice sprinkling of Working Joes (a nice nod to Alien: Isolation ) and prequel monsters, but the Aliens themselves don’t really spark much terror.

In the end, Fireteam Elite isn’t bad if you and a friend want a pretty quick game to burn through or you’re a diehard Alien fan like I am, but there’s nothing great either. It’s one of the most average games I can think of. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly announcement

Another beloved horror series I never got to try returns. Honestly, if it’s done with the love and care that the majority have shown, I welcome it. Many friends have praised Crimson Butterfly as a great horror game with a great story. This remake is definitely on my playlist for 2026. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Resident Evil 9 trailer 2

I’m already saving my damn money for Re9’s release. The game looks incredible. I like that we haven’t had much look into what the enemies will be like. I want to be surprised by what’s lurking in Raccoon City’s ruins. The enemy we have seen is simply nightmare fuel. Absolutely, this is going to be a late birthday present come February. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

My Kid Made Me Play Dandy’s World

This isn’t really a review so much as it is an acknowledgement of its existence and an experience. My daughter, like many kids loves Roblox. And of course like any good parent,I monitor what she does so I watch her play these games. She started with things like Daycare Story and Obbys.

Eventually,she came across Dandy’s World. For those that haven’t played it or seen it you play as one of a bunch of different characters and will be attempting to avoid their “twisted” counter parts as you fill machines with ichor.

My daughter loves Pebble because he is “super cute” and I have to admit,it really is. That being said, I can’t deny the game is pretty well made and interesting. Each character has its own stats and abilities that make them pretty unique. They can be further customized with items and skins.

The games only real downfall is that you only start with one character and you need to unlock the rest through a combination of buying them with ichor and in game tasks. The ichor can be earned or bought with robux which unfortunately does encourage people to use real money, but the in-game fast can’t be avoided.

All in all,while I would never play this myself,it was a fun way to spend time with my kid. Best wishes,and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Society

Billy Whitney is a good, normal kid living with his rich family in Beverly Hills. His parents favor his sister, Jenny. They don’t like his taste in friends nor care much about his school activities. Billy feels like he can’t escape their vain, detached, materialistic world. How right he really is. When Jenny’s old beau plays a troubling recording for Billy, his whole world turns upside down. People die. He sees things. Jenny’s acting just like their parents, his therapist, and the kids at school. Is Billy losing it, or is something deeper going on?

This was a movie I’d heard about for years but never got to experience until recently. The movie is great at making you wonder what the hell is going on and keeping you glued. The finale is batshit insanity with incredible effects. The acting is solid. I appreciate the uncanny, otherworldly feel to the whole movie. I like the social commentary on the rich feeding off the poor, but it never gets heavy-handed. There’s some really funny moments that don’t spoil the dread the movie maintains. My only real gripe is I feel like they should’ve had Billy’s statis hungry ex girlfriend pop up in the end. Overall, I’d call Society an underrated gem that’s relevant and has one hell of a disturbing ending. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (sn1)

During an exploration on the moon, a strange object was found. A space dumpster. Inside the long sealed empress of evil, Rita Repulsa, is unleashed to conquer Earth. Zordon, an ancient alien wizard, and his trusty robot servant Alpha 5 spring into action. Zordon has Alpha find five teenagers with attitude from the nearby city of Angel Grove. Jason, Zack, Trini, Billy, and Kimberly were chosen to become the Power Rangers, the only heroes mighty enough to stop the forces of evil…

If you grew up as a 90’s kid as Savior and I did, this show is peak nostaglia as you can get. Fighting, monsters, a colorful giant robot fighting said giant monsters- what else can any kid ask for? Hell, I was a Power Ranger for Halloween the years I wasn’t Batman. The first season with the classic 6 rangers is lightning in a bottle. The core 6 had good chemistry and for the first 60-episode season, it is it cool seeing the characters grow. For example, Billy starts as a weak, stereotypical nerd who gradually becomes the team’s tech wizard as well as a competent, confident fighter. The show’s structure is aligned with self-contained episodes but the multi-part arcs are some of the show’s highlights. The evil Green Ranger arc that introduces the legendary Tommy into the group is still awesome all these years later. The original Zords are iconic: the Mastodon, Triceratops, Pterodactyl, Sabre-Tooth Tiger, Tyrannosaurus, and the Dragon Zord. The theme is one of my all-time favorites and I still smile each time I hear it; the music all around kicks ass.

Like many show’s there’s some dull episodes here and there. Because of the use of Japanese footage, there is quite a bit of repetition to the Ranger and Zord scenes. This show looks goofy and over the top, but to a charming degree. A couple of times in the first season, plotlines do repeat, just slightly altered. As a kid I remember thinking Bulk and Skull, the comic relief bullies, were annoying, and they are, but they grew on me. Rita is a goofball villain with a shrill voice and neither her or her lackeys are competent, but damn if it isn’t funny.

In the end, Power Rangers is a fun, goofy, kids show but it’s still plenty of fun. Whether you’re riffing it with friends, or getting hyped whenever you hear “It’s Morphin Time!”, the first season of Power Rangers is a good, light-hearted time in our dreary world I recommend. May the power protect you.

Dead Space (2023)

We live in a world of nostalgia and remakes, most of which exist for a quick cash grab. DeadSpace was a classic in horror gaming. Well, thankfully, the folks at Motive understood the assignment. Dead Space is honestly the best horror remake I’ve played, beating Resident Evil 2 (2019) .

The story at it’s core is virtually the same. What changes is everything around it. Issac is no longer a mute protagonist but rather is voiced by the same VA as Dead Space 2 and Dead Space 3 as well as given a much-needed backstory, adding to the pathos of the engineer. All the characters are flushed out more. The story is told with a deeper narrative emphesis instead of being hidden away in the logs around the ship.

The Ishimura has expanded. Now there are side missions that make you want to retrace your way through the doomed vessel. There is a price, however. Combat has drastically improved but so have the nercomorphs. The weapons are the same but reworked so that the Plasma cutter won’t easily carry you through the whole game. Ammo is much more scarce so you do have to get creative. On the flipside, the necromorphs are smarter, more aggressive, and respawn more throughout the ship. The necromorphs are nothing short of nightmare fuel. The attention to realism, especially when chopping them down, is nothing short of masterwork.

Perhaps what I really admired was that Motive fixed nothing that didn’t need it. The controls are basically the same as 2 and 3. They replaced the annoying gravity jump mechanic with the booster jets from the later games. Parts like the meteor shower and the congestion boss are no longer a pain in the ass but are arguably highlights now. Every weapon has a good pro and con to it. The atmosphere, creatures, story and experience have either remained pure terror or have been carefully elevated.

Unfortunately, this is an EA game. While well-loved by critics and players, they canceled the Dead Space 2 remake, so as of now, this slice of horror game perfection is all we have. Stranger things have happened but I cannot recommend this horror masterpiece enough. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Conjuring: Last Rites trailer

Nothing in modern horror has possibly made me sadder than the decline and implosion of the Conjuring universe (that should never have been a cinematic universe to begin with). This film looks better than The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It but after the flood of pointless spinoffs and steadily bad sequels, I can’t say I really care about the “final” Conjuring. All I can hope for is that the saga goes out on a fairly positive note. May the gaming gods bring you glory.