Category: Horror

Dead Space: Downfall

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I’m going to admit, I’m not a fan of most video game cross media tie ins. Most somehow usually don’t translate well into other medias. Dead Space + anime+ horror film = a confused Torsten at first, but they all came together as one giant terror sundae.

Downfall is an anime prequel film about what happened to the Ishimura before Issac’s team showed up. The story begins with the discovery of the marker on Aegis 7 and how it screws with the minds of the crew, leading to murders and hallucinations. Our main character is head of security Alissa Vincent and her team as they start battling the creatures. We also follow Dr. Kyne, a alley we had in the game, who witnessed the madness of the marker and has to face off against the ship’s captain, losing his mind under his belief in the marker.

Dead Space: Downfall does remarkably well standing alone as a horror movie and a prequel to the game. They did amazing recreating locations, voices, and maintaining the look of the game. If you love the game, you’ll appreciate this film. If you love gory anime, you also won’t be disappointed. This movie is fast, disturbing, and full of good horror and characters. I highly recommend it to any fan of the games or anyone who wants to watch some creepy anime and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

DeadSpace

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Lately, researching for my latest writing project, I’ve looked back into the greatest terrors of film, book, and game. A while ago I did a countdown of 5 great horror games to scare the crap out of you. , for which here’s the link to, and covered it briefly. Now I want to get into more in depth and why it was amazing.

DeadSpace is the story of an engineer named Issac Clarke traveling to planet-cracker U.S.S Ishimura as part of a team to discover why they went silent. Issac received a video from his girlfriend and scientist, Nicole on board the derelict ship, that has him worried. After a disastrous landing, Issac’s crew begins discovering the grisly and disturbing events that took place on the ship after finding a religious artifact on the desolate planet of Aegis 7. Violence, insanity, and the rising of horrible Necromorphs- the malformed creatures made from the bodies of the crew. Suddenly Issac is alone, armed only with a few gadgets, some crafted weapons, and his space suit, he has to find Nicole while fighting the monstrous horde, religious zealots, and no help is coming…

Deadspace does amazing when it comes to sight and sound and building tension. Being in the vacuum of space, hearing nothing but the distant echo of your own footsteps beneath your deep breaths is scary as hell.Visuals like the man weakly bashing his brains out against the door is freaky as hell. Artistically I love the architecture of the environments,  the gory details of the creatures, and the vastness and dread of deep space. The game play is fun, simple, and close to RE4 with a few new twists. With all the means to dismember the Necromorphs, we still don’t feel too overpowered which is mistake the Resident Evil games made later. The story gets better as it goes, leading to a great twist at the end. The only real flaw I see is the final boss, which is epic in stature is kinda lame challenge-wise and there are some parts that are a real pain in the ass, especially Chapter 5. Issac is mute through the game which didn’t bother me but will probably bother some. In the end, I highly recommend the first DeadSpace and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

 

The Longest Yard (2005)

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The 2005 remake of a 1974 classic (same name) about an Ex-NFL football player turned convict after he was put on probation for throwing a football game and later for stealing his girlfriends car and going for a drunk joyride which very much violated his probation. His plan is to go to jail, keep his head down, do his time and get out. The football loving warden has a different plan.

Adam Sandler is tasked with with putting together a football team of convicts to play the guards in a football game that will get them ready for their prison football league. Joined by returning Burt Reynolds whom played the main character in original as well as Chris rock, Terry Crews and a host of professional wrestlers and at least 1 rapper the movie is pretty much an all star cast of famous people. It also happens to be pretty damn funny.

The movie isn’t without its faults mind you, for example the usual prison humor gets a bit old for example and the warden character while well played is poorly written and stereotypical to the extreme, but that may just be my personal pet peeve. It is a great movie tho, best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Gremlins

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So again from Savior and I, Merry Christmas and happy holidays. Now here’s a movie for all those kids who wanted a puppy, kitten, or pony for Christmas and why taking care of your pets is important…if you don’t they will turn into monsters and try to kill you.

This Christmas adventure begins with a struggling inventor who visits a old Chinese antique shop in his travels, coming across the perfect present for his son Billy. An adorable creature that makes cute singing noises and is heart meltingly cute. Against the owners wishes, the inventor takes the creature and brings him back home. This creature has rules though: no sunlight, no water, and don’t feed it after midnight. Simple right? Well, Billy accidentally let’s his new pet Gizmo get wet, and something strange happens: Gizmo reproduces. However these new offspring aren’t as sweet and lovable as Gizmo, leading into trickery letting these  annoying little bastards to eat after midnight, transforming into violent, hideous creatures that are out for mayhem and chaos…

Gremlins is a classic anytime of year. The characters are memorable, the effects are great, and it does well to mix black comedy with some fair scares. I highly recommend this movie for all ages this Xmas. May the gaming gods bring you glory and don’t feed your damn mogwai after midnight.

Christmas Vacation

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Another classic Christmas movie from my childhood that honestly I would probably never forget honestly. The story of the Griswolds will live on in..well infamy may be the best word. Cousin Eddie draining his RV and yelling “The shitters full” while drinking  beer or oiling the bottom of a sled that would fly down a hill and pretty much catch fire will forever. And lets not forget that classic moment of chopping down a nice big pine tree only to be attacked by a rouge squirrel.

The movie is obviously a comedy and not meant to be taken seriously. But it is great fun, from the starting point of finding out there is no Christmas bonus to the insane scene with Christmas lights. It is a wild and exciting ride of hilarity that should be enjoyed by all. Best wishes, Merry Christmas and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Red Christmas (2016)

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This movie for me was the definition of mixed feelings. Not because it was bad, which it was. It was bad in that B movie sort of way tho. No, I had mixed feelings for a different reason. See the movie starts off with what seems to be a nice wholesome family on Christmas.

We switch to a man in a hood stumbling in the snow towards a man chopping wood. Of course this guy is going to be a dick and end up dead. Jumping back to the family we discover this wholesome family aren’t so wholesome. The granddaughter may be suicidal playing with nuts she is supposedly allergic to. Her uncle is happy to let her and after being scolded dumps a flask full of liquor into the punch bowl after protesting about why can’t she have the nuts. The pregnant woman and her husband both happen to be on drugs, the priest doesn’t even hide the fact that he is gay and of questionable morals and the grandmother is worst of them all. The only decent person in the family is the son that happens to have down syndrome. Or is he? More on that soon enough.

The man in the hood from sooner knocks on the door and is invited inside. He also obviously has some sort of medical problems both mentally and physically. He doesn’t understand what a gift is and needs it explained, but he does want to read the letter he brought for his mother. After realizing the letter is discussing an abortion clinic he is violently grabbed and thrown out of the house, into the cold wearing nothing but a hooded cloak where he very realistically may die. This is when he decides to kill everyone. Now as this goes on we discover our son with down syndrome happens to be quite bloodthirsty and can’t wait to kill this guy. There is not a single decent person in the entire group. It can actually be argued that the killer is the best person in the group, by the end of the movie you will understand why he is there, why he is angry and that he actually has a very good reason for being upset in the first place. I ended up with mixed feelings because honestly, the killer may not even have been the bad guy. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Anthony Jeselnik:Thoughts and Prayers

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The third round of my stand up experiment is a man I had never heard of until recently that a friend mentioned. So I looked him up and gave him a watch. I won’t mention his jokes specifically but I will say this, once again extremely adults only, and if you are easily offended do not bother watching this. He is funny and I enjoyed his stand up, but his jokes range from making fun of children, to a guy getting eaten by a shark to mass shootings and 9/11. Not the victims by the way, but many people still won’t appreciate the jokes all the same. If however you have a twisted sense of humor this man may be for you. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Jimmy Carr:Funny Business (2016)

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Day 2 of reviewing some stand up brings up Jimmy Carr, an English comedian. Aside from having a very distinct laugh he also has a rather dark sense of humor. He jokes about plenty of things taking shots at women, men in the audience hell during a segment where people in the audience sent him text he even told a joke about midget porn. However unlike my Leary stand up review this one while also absolutely for adults this one is likely to offend many people. For example he tells one joke about liking old fashioned black and white movies where nobody talks, then says he means interracial porn. That also is not one of the more offensive jokes.  Be warned, its funny but not for everyone, best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Krampus Unleashed (2016)

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Krampus Unleashed is one of those movies that falls between being a horrible B movie that I love and legitimately just a poorly made movie. Usually they have low production value and they realize this, they embrace this. They don’t pretend to be more. Krampus however attempts to blur this line. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, the movie looks pretty good. The acting is solid as well. Where the movie falls a bit flat however is the pacing is off and the story itself is rather odd.

The movie starts off in what seems like post WW2 Germany when some treasure hunters late at night when they discover a small box with a black stone in it. After some fighting they unleash Krampus whom shows up to kill a few people. We then find ourselves in the future.

A family trip to gramps country home we get to know the family, mostly a pretty basic group, expect for one kid that wants to have sex with his cousin. Not a joke by the way. This is where the story gets weird. Turns out that scene at the beginning of the movie was on this country home farm as the family discovers the rock in a river.

I won’t go to much further into the story, feel to watch it for yourself. While the story itself isn’t great it isn’t horrible and the gore factor is rather nice with limbs being torn off and blood by the bucket full. It is a nice throw back to when horror movies were just awkward stories that were an excuse for a body count. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

The GraveDancers

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Almost a decade ago began the After Dark Horrorfest, and the first year had some pretty sweet low budget horror movies made by people that enjoyed the genre. I’m a tad bit rusty on the specifics of this particular movie but I remember some images creeping me out and the plot being a bit more strange than your typical ghost story.

We begin with our three main characters joining together for the funeral of a old college friend after going there own separate ways as is life. During the funeral, they decide a sad ceremony isn’t the way to celebrate there departed pal and well, they decide to share a drink with them at the cemetery after hours and get blitzed and in drunken euphoria they going dancing through the cemetery, wondering into the wrong part where the worst people in town were buried. The spirits of these 3 evil people are pretty pissed some drunks literally went dancing  on there graves and begin haunting them, not stopping until they get there own twisted revenge…

While not the greatest horror movie by any means, there is ambition to it we don’t really see much these days. The plot is strong and interesting, even for a B movie. Some of the effects vary as well as the acting but it works fair enough. The ghosts and there stories were my favorite part. I do recommend picking up a DVD rather than catching it on TV because watching it on TV, it gets chopped to hell, but it is worth a watch all the same. May the gaming gods stop you from drunken grave dancing.