Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn

evil dead 2

As much as I love the original Evil Dead I admit, I never really set out to follow Ash’s further adventures. I wasn’t a fan of how the series slipped into comedy at a slope but I had a chance to sit down and judge for myself if I was being too hasty. Was I right?

We begin the story with an alternate retelling of events from the first movie: a much more rugged, manly Ash and his love Linda crash a vacant cabin one picturesque weekend only to stumble on the book of the dead and the book proceeds to take her over. Where the last film leaves over, the demons won’t let Ash leave the cabin and Linda won’t stay dead. His mind is slipping as even his own flesh turns against him, forcing him to chop his own hand off with a chainsaw. To make matters worse, the daughter of the professor who translated the book and set this all into action is going to the cabin to see what became of her parents. can Ash pull it together and live to see dawn?

While nowhere as creepy as the first movie, I do love how off the rails it goes. This movie’s greatest strength is just how creative a lot of the scenes are. My favorite maybe when Ash is trying to chase his severed hand and when he finally shoots it through the wall and he gets sprayed with what seems to be hundreds of gallons of blood, only to have time reset like it never happened.  I did laugh a lot but I give the movie credit, it knows how to show some creepy shit and have it feel like slapstick comedy. Ash is a great horror icon and dare I say- groovy. I love the ending which sets up the batshit insanity that is Army of Darkness. Evil Dead 2 is a damn good horror comedy I recommend to new commers to the series and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Along Came The Devil (2018)

Along Came The Devil out in 2018 and was met with less than stellar reviews. For example, Horror Freak News gave it a 1/5 and Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 43% and even IMDb gave it a 4.1/10. The surprising thing for me here is that it scored that high.

Don’t get me wrong, the acting and effects were good. The story, however, was terrible. A girl with an abusive dad eventually moves in with her aunt while her sister goes to college and starts seeing things. Her friend gave her idiotic advice to try to contact her dead mom and they summon, a demon.

Think that isn’t cliche enough? Her mom got pregnant while possed by a demon. Yup, this is a family trait. Her aunt, of course, hid this fact and the local priest also knew. He did the failed exorcism that killed her. He will attempt to do this exorcism, and it goes basically exactly like everyone in movie history. Kid swearing while tied to a bed looking creepy and talking about dead family members and such.

The one saving grace to all this is the ending. it isn’t what I expected which was nice to see. This doesn’t make up for the fact that the rest of the movie is simply a copy and paste of every other exorcist type movie ever made, except not as good. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Spider-man: Far from Home trailer

This is a awesome time to be a Spider-man fan. Just as the hype I’ve been riding from Marvel’s Spider-man (PS4) was starting to die off, we get our first look at Far from Home, the sequel to Spider-man: Homecoming . The first question I have is whether this takes place before or after Avengers: Infinity War and the “Snap”; I personally think it’s before. Mysterio looks awesome rather surprisingly and I’m glad they seem to be sticking close to his real origin which could make for a interesting play. So far, it looks like more I loved from Homecoming and it should be a good opening to Phase 4. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Really different special editions

star wars box set

Being the nerd I am, I’ve watched many a different versions of a many different movies. Sometimes the changes are huge and even change the outlook of the film itself. Here are a few examples of movies I’ve seen where the special editions I’ve seen were pretty damn different, starting with something special listed above…

return of the jedi 1. Return of the Jedi –

Most of what is altered considerably was altered in the very beginning with Jabba’s Palace and the finale and damn it hurts a damn solid movie. In the original, Jabba’s Palace is much more dark and sinister where as the special edition lingers on the scenes with a couple random musical numbers and comedic parts with CGI that sticks out like a sore thumb. The tone of the end is more somber with sad music and scenery from the prequels to connect the series. While not crippling, these changes are cringe worthy…

suicide squad 3 2. Suicide Squad –

Here we see much of what was infamously cut, much of it was for Jared Leto’s Joker. I personally found these scenes a huge improvement and added a lot of depth to his character as well as showed a better arc for Harley. Meanwhile, a lot of the team’s interactions are fun and add to the better aspects of the movie. While this version doesn’t fix all the movie’s problems, it goes together better and I say better than the theatrical.

blade runner fc 3. Blade Runner –

Here I’m afraid I can’t say much from personal experience. I’ve only watched the Final Cut, but there are famously 2 others and multiple endings. I’ve been told by many that have seen multiple versions ( while I can’t see I know anyone who has seen all of them.) that they feel pretty different.

alien 3  4. Alien 3 –

We come to the last and most extreme I’ve seen. The Assembly Cut of Alien 3 adds a lot different, including a reshot opening, a new host for the alien, a big side-plot that adds  some good meat in the 2nd act, and the overly dark tone feels more evened out. This is my favorite for obvious reasons and for those who hated the theatrical, I definitely recommend this.

This is just a small list but all pretty different between versions. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Resident Evil 2 Demo

30 minutes isn’t a ton of time to play a demo, but it is more than enough to get a feel for what this game will be. What it will be is a Resident Evil game. Having played the Dreamcast version of the game and not this demo I can honestly say I am looking forward to it. From the who the hell thought of these puzzles to the for the love of god where the hell did all my ammo go, the game is classic Resident Evil. At least the first 30 minutes are. I found the get to a door in the entry was all the way up on the upper floor for example.

Graphically the game looks amazing, the pictures in this I snapped in the game on my PS4 pro.

All in all the demo is pretty solid, tho, while I understand the limiting the demo time as opposed to a checkpoint, was rather annoying. It would have been nice to have been able to take my time and just look around. Regardless, go have fun with it and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Alien: Blackout trailer

Shit. Just Shit… It’s a rare feat to have my hopes crash and burn in less than a minute than the unfortunate news Alien: Blackout is going to be a mobile game. Supposedly there is a main PC/ console game in the works but Blackout is going to pretty much be FNAF with the Xenomorph. With 2019 being the 40 year anniversary of the original Alien, we are getting a new graphic novel, this game, and something else to be determined so needless to say, along with most of the Alien fan base, I’m pretty pissed. There’s going to be Amanda Ripley but it isn’t going to supposedly be a Alien: Isolation sequel which blows and after the disappointment of Alien: Covenant , the anniversary of a sci-fi horror legend seems to be going as a whimper sadly. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Haunting of Sharon Tate

 

You ever see something that simply made you scratch your head in total bafflement? I can’t even say I’m shocked a movie like this is coming out, especially after watching American Horror Story: Cult and the passing of Charles Manson but seeing Lizzie Mcquire all grown up staring in a movie about one of the most shocking crimes in American history, that’s what stopped me in my tracks. And if that wasn’t the weirdest thing, it is a good, creepy trailer. I seriously mean that, the trailer I found creepier than most of the trailers I’ve seen in the past year or two. I hope the best for this movie and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Knights of Pen and Paper 2 Deluxe Edition (PS4)

Full disclosure here I never played the first Knights of Pen and Paper tho there is a bundle that gets you both of these games. I walked into this having no idea what to expect, but I bought it anyway because it looked like D&D as a pixel RPG. To be 100% honest, that is what this is. See that guy sitting at the table? He is the dungeon master. Those people are your characters. Essentially unless you buy a new table, which is something you can actually do, they all have some sort of effect, you will sit here and go about your adventure.

As you travel the background will change and the enemies will appear behind the dungeon master as he tells the story and you go on the quest and travel the world. The battle system is typical turn-based and each time you level up you will get points to put into skills of the characters you created.

The characters you create are more or less based on what you chose, you can choose a dwarf, human or elf and give them certain personalities such as being a cheerleader or such. The whole thing is pretty interesting.

The story isn’t bad but is actually quite silly, the tutorial even gets interrupted when someone realizes that 2nd edition and 1st edition characters can’t mix. This is a recurring theme and the humor is the selling point of the game. For  D&D fans and old-school RPG fans, this one is worth the buy. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)

Back in the 1990s, there was a sudden revival in horror movies with movies like Our Favorites Day7: Scream and this one, I Know What You Did Last Summer. The story of kids getting drunk, hitting a guy with their car, tossing him in some water then finding out a year later they are being hunted down for what they did.

This honestly sounds like an extremely simplistic explanation of the story, but it really isn’t. That is the plot of the movie. The real thing that makes this great is how well it was done. With great talents like Sarah Michelle Geller, Jennifer Love Hewitt, and Freddie Prince Jr, it is no wonder it was well loved and received at the time, tho the internet seems to love it much less with Metacritic giving it a 52%, rotten tomatoes a 36% (40% fan) and IMBd a 5.7. That being said I remember it coming out and people raving about it, this is clearly an example of a movie that age was not kind to but nostalgia was. I still enjoy the movie, but having seen hundreds of movies since the release of this one it is easy to tell where the weak points were, and there are many. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Hellraiser Judgement (2018)

Hellraiser Judgment is an odd movie. As the tenth movie in the series, a series that admittedly seems to have steadily gotten worse as the years have gone by I really was not expecting all that much from it. Some cheap kills, a bit of gore, maybe some nudity and of course a half-baked story about Pinhead loving pain again.

The movie did deliver all of those things, and I have to say it was much better than I expected. That isn’t to say the movie is all that good, it has 50% on Rotten Tomatoes and 4.3 on IMBd. It just so happens to be that I wasn’t expecting much. The story was simply two cops chasing a serial killer, and it plays out much how you would expect. This is where the crossover with Pinhead comes in. He and his friends are once again doing their job of judging and punishing people which of course plays into the story.

Obviously, this is an oversimplification but I don’t want to spoil things for you guys. The downside to all this is, well the story is pretty bland and everything about it is easy to see coming. Even the ending isn’t all that special or hard to predict. I enjoyed it and it was pretty entertaining, but it was as basic as basic gets. Fans of the series will enjoy it to an extent, but most people will want to avoid it. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.