Category: Horror

Salem’s Lot (2024)

You know, this is one of those damn movies I never thought would see the light of day (hehe lame vampire pun). It was announced, delayed, then disappeared for a few years before getting dumped on HBO Max like a dead carcass at the slaughterhouse. Years ago I reviewed the novel for Salem’s Lot and since then I’ve read it at least twice and I can say it is a damn good book and a pretty solid vampire tale. While I never saw either mini-series, the trailer for 2024 was enough to make Savior and I at least excited for a flaming dumpster fire. Did we get it?

Sadly no. Salem’s Lot 2024 is not a garbage fire. That’s not to say it’s particularly great or even good. The cast gives decent performances given a pretty crammed script. Much of the soul, the suspense, and characters of the book are crushed, compacted, and repackaged into a forgettable vampire romp. It’s the kind you can forget the same day you watch it which honestly is a shame given how good the book was. The vampires are more like zombies. Barlow isn’t a nightmarish ghoul like in the 79 mini-series but a parody of that memorable design. There’s not even as much gore or hilarious jumpscares as I thought there’d be in the trailer. In the end, read the book or seek out another vamp movie because good or bad, you’ll remember it more than this thing that should’ve stayed in the development grave. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Doctor Strange: The Flight of Bones

Dr. Stephen Strange has overcome some tremendous feats not only as the Sorcerer Supreme, long-time hero, and renowned surgeon. Despite how much he’s overcome, his hands are failing him. While searching for help in man’s medicine, a new magical threat emerges when people begin spontaneously combusting and one of his dear friends becomes wrapped up in a deadly cult at the cause of the deadly pyres. Just another day for the good doctor, eh, true believers?

Ok, so first I gotta say two things about this book: the story itself is incredibly short and the art is the bizarre beauty I love about Strange’s stories. I was disappointed the Flight of Bones story itself is so short because I was getting pretty invested before it just…ends. There are quite a few other shorts in the book that are mostly good, all with different art styles that are wholly unique and eye-catching. When it comes to Marvel, Strange reliably has some of the coolest artwork and designs, and this book is no exception. Being under Marvel Knights, there is some adult imagery that might scare away the younger kids but many of the stories keep to a darker, bordering on horror edge that I love and I wish the MCU would embrace more with Strange. In the end, while not the best Strange story and not something that will make you fall in love with the Sorcerer Supreme ( I highly recommend Dr Strange & Dr Doom: Triumph and Torment ) it’s still worth checking out for some faster reads. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Graveyard Shark

The other day a friend of mine shot me a message and said hey, you need to watch Graveyard Shark on Tubi and he refused to explain why. He does this occasionally and I am never disappointed. The movie is always either a complete train wreck,or a masterpiece,but they are always enjoyable.

  This time,the movie manages to be both. You can guess by the name what this movie is about, a sort of man shark is buried in a cemetery after it is thought to be killed by a fisherman. It turns out it isn’t dead,and now it is killing people in this graveyard.

This is a rubber suit. And I don’t know why it’s a spiked leather jacket

  Now there are some twists and turns and things I absolutely refuse to spoil, but at no point I’m this movie did I know what was going to happen next. The entire plot of the movie from where the shark came from,to how they get rid of it and everything ok between was a rollercoaster ride of what the hell is going on.

I mean all of this in the best way possible, I never wanted to know for example how a mermaid has sex or that Bigfoot was a bottom. I do however know both of these things now. So go,learn these things,and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Things Heard & Seen (2021)

Things Heard and Seen starring Amanda Seyfried (Cathrine Claire) and James Norton (George Claire) is a Netflix Horror/Mystery that honestly did not do well with critics, or fans for that matter. I can see why, the story from the start seemed to struggle to understand what it wanted to be.

We start with a family moving from the big city to a small town when George gets a new job at a prestigious school. He isn’t a very spiritual person, unlike Cathrine and the rest of the town who seems to believe in spirits. This is good because their house is haunted, but Cathrine thinks the ghosts aren’t bad or evil.

The movie quickly goes from being a horror movie to really more of a mystery drama as the marriage quickly devolves into George keeping all sorts of secrets from Cathrine, such as the house they got such a great deal on was the site of a brutal murder-suicide. The spirit in the home is trying to protect Cathrine from what it views as a horrible husband.

Honestly from the bit I have told you, you can probably guess the rest of the movie. I won’t spoil it for you obviously but as much as I enjoy Amanda Seyfrieds work this isn’t one of her better movies. This isn’t a slight on the acting in this movie, in fact, the chemistry between them made the movie worth watching. What should have been a terrible movie turned into a decent movie just because of Amanda and James. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Fisherman

Grief is a terrible thing everyone needs to overcome in their lives. For widower, Abe, fishing is his great release. After losing his wife, fishing helped him get his life back on track. When his coworker, Dan, goes through an unimaginable tragedy, Abe extends a hand of friendship and offers to fish with him. While a quiet friendship blooms between the widowed men, Abe can’t help but see Dan drowning in despair…until they stop for breakfast on a rainy morning, going towards a spot Abe never heard of that Dan seems all too eager to fish at. Almost obsessively so. During this breakfast, they are treated to a folktale of the river, dark magic, the impossible, and Der Fischer who may have opened the gates between life and death. Desperately the men are on a course that might not just cost them their lives, but also their souls as Dan is willing to sacrifice it all for what he lost? Will Abe make the same choice?

So immediately when reading this I thought of a more Lovecraftian take on Pet Sematary . In many ways, I can see it but Langan weaves a pretty solid story telling the folktale of Der Fischer in between the main story. His writing story is very easy to get into and flowed very smoothly to me. Some will get put off by the story within a story aspect of the novel but he neatly pulls it off and neither story feels overstayed. I like his depictions of Dan’s rising mania and Abe’s internal battle against the abominations they face. I found myself wanting to know more about what Der Fischer unleashed and got to see more horrors from the other world. In the end, if you liked Pet Sematary and wished there was Lovecraft in it or wanted to get into cosmic horror but wanted something more modern, the Fisherman is a quick, well-written read I’d recommend. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Mary: An Awakening of Terror

Mary is a nobody in every sense of the word. Banking on the dreaded 5-0 and wading into menopause, alone in the world except for her “loved ones” (tiny little porcelain figurines she talks to, her life turns upside down once she loses her job. A job that barely pays her enough to get by as is. A sliver lining comes when her loathsome, dying aunt Nadine calls begging for help. After pissing off Mary’s cousin, Nadine is alone and unable to care for herself. Mary is soon left to journey from New York to the eerie desert town where she grew up. Returning home resurfaces not only her repressed hatred for her crass, despicable aunt by the layers of trauma she spent her life hiding as well as what might be the secrets of the town itself? With bodies piling up, visions playing Mary, and an obsession with a hospital that had been converted from an infamous serial killer’s home, the question becomes who and what is Mary?

So I read this book for my book club, going in completely fresh. I knew nothing about the book or author and was even kind of surprised it came out in 2022. As someone who sucks at socializing, suffers from a host of mental health issues, and is just awkward as hell, I felt for Mary. I found her to almost be an updated Carrie, someone shy, frumpy and pathetically beaten down who just wanted to matter. This story takes a lot of crazy ass turns from being a ghost story, to a psychological thriller, to some bizarre Midsommar levels of WTF. The book deserves to be experienced because it is fun as hell trying to figure out where its going. However fun that particular aspect is, it causes some issues towards the end. A character I hated got a half-assed redemption and the ultimate conclusion, while being fun and over-the-top gory, didn’t really satisfy me. The ending couple of chapters felt unnecessarily open-ended, but given how weird of a ride this story was, I can’t tell you if a sequel would work.

In the end, I enjoyed this book a lot but I didn’t love it. It’s very well written and really engaging but the ending as well as some plot choices fumble it from being great. Absolutely a good read worth checking out if you want a weirder kind of horror book. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Playground

Hey kids, have you ever heard of splatterpunk? Have you ever watched Willy Wonka and wished there was Saw in it? Well, Aaron Beauregard has you covered. Before I begin, the cover of this book tells you exactly what you’re getting into. Don’t judge a book by it’s cover, fuck that, here’s a good exception to the rule. This book is gnarly so if you have a weak stomach and the idea of children dying triggers you at all as well as some really, really WTF sexual stuff involving poop at one point, this book is absolutely not for you.

3 low-income families receive the chance of a lifetime from the reclusive billionaire and philanthropist, Geraldine Borden. She and her adopted son, Rock, have invited the families with their total 8 children to come and test some new state-of-the-art playground equipment in exchange for $3,000 per family. Not a bad deal, right? The parents even get to relax in their own private theater and monitor their children at play…until things go violently wrong. Ambushed by ravenous dogs, the children are chased through a razor blade-laced chute to a dungeonous series of macabre games where survival is the only reward. The parents, captive in places, are forced to watch there beloved children fight not only the horrific games but also themselves as Geraldine’s twisted games unfold…

Holy shit this book gave me whiplash. Is it a fun read? Hell no! Is it an exciting read I literally couldn’t put down? I really couldn’t. The kids are the superstars of the story and a lot of praise to Beauregard for writing thoughtful, authentic children instead of angelic Hollywood kind of kids. I felt for quite a few of them on their reactions and grisly fates while also cheering when the villain of the eight gets his just deserts. The games are eerie and pretty imaginative with some incredibly disturbing outcomes. I like that Geraldine is in no way a sympathetic or redeemable villain in a modern world of tragic villains. Rock is a really tragic character and his redemption at the end is well-earned. The flaw in the book is the parent sections which do drag the pacing down. The book is organized into 3 POVs: the kids, the parents, and Geraldine. The parents are literally locked in place and most of their sections revolve around reacting to what just happened to their kids. It makes the pacing a bit bumpy, especially around the middle.

So in the end I really enjoyed the book, though all be damned if I didn’t need a hot shower and a hug after. No, there’s no happy ending and yes this book is depressing and horrific but the ending lands and is self-contained which is cool. It’s honestly well worth a read and well written if you can get past the grotestuque subject matter. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Blood Meridan

What do you think of when you hear about the Old West? Cowboys, Indians, covered wagons, and dusty saloons where a shootout is a shot of whiskey and a whore away? John Wayne? Clint Eastwood? John Marsten? Well, like most people I did too. I heard many tales that this novel was one of the darkest, if not the darkest westerns ever written with one of the most fascinating villains in literature. Does it hold up to the claims?

The story begins with a young runaway referred to as The Kid who finds his way into the Glanton Gang, a crew of scalp hunters roaming across the west near Texas and Mexico in the 1850s. Normally I’d go deeper into the story but Blood Meridian doesn’t have much of a coventional plot. Much of the book is an experience in haunting philoshy and depravity. For real, this book is grim as hell so if you are easily triggered by racism, violence to people or animals, gore, or rape stay away from this book.

Cormac McCarthy (Rest in Peace) beautifully illustrates a hellish depiction of the Old West and the horrors of man left his own devices. There is some truly horrifying imagery and the way the book is written, I felt strained as the gang does getting worn down after dozens of bloody raids and losses in a unforgiving desert. Could this be a second hand horror story? I can see it in the way Dante’s Inferno could be seen that way. I really like that the Kid is not a good kid corrupted by the debauchery or even has anything close to a redemption- nope- he’s just as cutthroat and ruthless as Glanton and the rest. The standout, the man who does steal the show of the book, is the mysterious Judge Holden. He’s a huge, hulking hairless albino man that is almost inhumanly intelligent and depraved more than the rest; the sermons he gives are legendary and off putting as hell. Whenever Holden appears I was instantly griped and I think the praise he receives as a villain is well earned.

So is this book a masterpiece, yes, but that doesn’t mean it’s perfect. First, this is not written like a modern book. McCarthy is a novelist in the true sense of the word; ten pages in I said “oh shit this is one of them smart people books we don’t get anymore”. He won’t hold your hand. He has a pretty impressive vocabulary. You have to pay attention. One thing I admit irked the shit out of me was that there are no quotation marks but an awful lot of dialogue; do you see why I said pay attention? He also loves giant sentences with little punctuation so if you are trying to rush, things will blend together. The pacing is a double edged sword. 350 pages doesn’t feel like it.

In the end, this book is a masterpiece of dark fiction but be warned it’s not the easiest read and if the book didn’t hit you hard enough, the ending will. May the gaming gods bring you glory and like the Judge, you keep dancing on and on gleefully.

Arachnoquake (2012)

  Every so often comes a movie that is so horrifically bad it circles back around to being good. The story is just bad,the concept is ridiculous,the CGI is so bad we can’t even describe it.

This is one of those movies. I honestly don’t have anything good to say about it. The concept is horrible. It takes place in New Orleans and a series of earthquakes release spiders. Not normal spiders, ancient spiders.

These spiders have evolved to live in lava it seems and breathe fire, because of course they did. They start small, and get a bit bigger and bigger and of course there is a huge one they fight eventually.

This movie was probably made for Syfy channel or something honestly, it’s a true horrible B movie. And everyone should watch this train wreck of a movie. I don’t have anything good to say about it. The acting isn’t great,the spiders look ridiculous and the story has been done to death. It is however fun. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Subservience (2024)

Subservience with Megan Fox, Michael Morrone, and Madaline Zima is one of those movies that has it all and nothing at the same time. Want to see good-looking people ( Megan fox and Michale Morrone ) mostly naked? Deal. Want to see Megan Fox brutally beat the breaks off some dude or kill someone? This movie has it. Want to know the potential dangers of AI in a capitalistic world like America? This movie will perfectly demonstrate how eventually robots might steal every job imaginable and how humans will then rebel and wreck them.

The only real issue I had with the movie was as entertaining as it was, which I have said before is all a movie needs to be, is if you saw M3gan Unrated review you basically saw this. The premise is basically the same. An AI-powered robot that is meant to make life easier gets far too attached to someone in the family, in Megan, it was the daughter in Subserviance to the husband, and starts doing insane stuff to make them happy or protect them including killing people. Even the endings are quite similar in many ways. I don’t mean this as an insult, I enjoyed both movies quite a bit, in fact, I recommend watching them both. It would however be quite dishonest to say they aren’t similar. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.