Category: Horror

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.

 

Denis Leary: No Cure For Cancer (1992)

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Every so often I like to try something new, so I figured I would try to cover a few stand ups and I am starting with an old personal favorite. In No Cure for Cancer Leary covers various topics from drug use, to smoking and even his fathers reaction to his brother and his friends finally playing with Dennis as a kid, then shooting him in the head with an arrow. It is one of the funnier stand ups on Netflix right now and while it is full of drinking, smoking and swearing it is admittedly by the more modern standard of comedy today not all that offensive, the same however can not be said for what I cover tomorrow. This one is a must watch for any stand up fan, tho it is very much for adults. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

5 books that scared the s$it out of me

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People underestimate the raw power of books sometimes. I once did until I found one that scared the shit out of me. It was a different feeling than getting scared by a movie, more intimate somehow. here’s a list of books that genuinely creeped the shit out of me and made me want to bring the joy to others, in no particular order, lets dive in with…

cujo book 1. Cujo by Stephen King- ok, this was a tough call because many of King’s stories freaked the hell out of me but Cujo left a weird impact on me. I’m nervous around dogs as it is, so the idea of being at the mercy of a massive, rabid, death tank of a dog just…no, hell no. Cujo

let me in bk Let the Right One In (aka Let Me in) by John Ajvide Lindqvist- besides being a freaky ass vampire story with interesting lore and characters behind it, it’s a deep tale of friendship and vulnerability that I will cover after I watch the film, but I can tell you it won’t let you down if you’re scared of vampires.

good happy child 3. A Good and Happy Child by Justin Evans- I’ve never been religious or brought up with strong religious beliefs but this possession story caught me off guard.  Rather than heavy theatrics we get a much more quiet and more unsettling series of mind games through the 1st person perspective of someone possessed by the devil. If you like smart, thoughtful horror, this is for you.

Hbh1  4. The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker- if you loved the movie Hellraiser, this is the book that Barker directly turned into the film but his master of giving the diabolical Cenobites a presence the movie can’t match, this novella is worth a hit for the true fans of the movie. The Hellbound Heart  Hellraiser Movie review

1984 5. 1984 by George Orwell- this book is debatable as horror but once you read it and take a look at the world around us in 2017 where we always have eyes on us and Big Brother is everywhere, you may feel differently. Before reading 1984 however, I recommend reading Animal Farm first, to which here’s yet another link to check out my review. Animal Farm

This has just been a small list of books that scared the shit out of me, but there are more but those are for another time. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Merry Friggin’ Christmas (2015)

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This movie holds a special place for me actually, not because its great or horrible or anything like that. It is actually the first new movie of his I saw after he died. But was the movie any good? Well let me answer that.

The movie starts out with a man explaining that he sometimes over does things with his kids, namely Christmas. The reason for that, well his father wasn’t exactly great at that sort of thing. He didn’t like that his son wanted to paint instead of doing more manly things for example.

With this in mind Boyd never goes home for Christmas until his brother asked him to be god father of his child, but decides to hold the baptism on Christmas eve. While this in itself would be enough to ruin a holiday they also forget the Christmas presents at home.

In a last ditch effort to save Christmas Boyd attempts to rush home, grab the gifts and return in 8 hours. A trip that takes pretty much as much time as he has until the kids wake up, the perfect coincidence. Poof, car trouble. Dad (Robin Williams) for the save.

Honestly the movie isn’t that good, it is pretty much the stereotypical father and son don’t get along fight a lot and bind over helping the grand kids story. Williams himself is the best part of the movie tho even there it isn’t his best performance. It is far from the worst Christmas movie I have seen this month, but most people won’t be fond of it. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Hated (2017)

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The Hatred is one of those movies I am really not sure what to do with. The start of the movie is a bit odd and I wasn’t a fan. A dad seems to be possessed by something kills his daughter and is subsequently killed by his wife. We then fast forward to the modern day when some college students stay at the house years later.

The movie should have been great tho. There was cursed cult artifacts, a scary creature in the basement, a Nazi officer in hiding. The movie just never really took off and felt rather mundane. The movie wasn’t bad by any means and I wouldn’t go so far as to say don’t watch the movie. By all means grab a soda and some popcorn sit back and give it a go. Casual movie fans will most likely enjoy this flick, hardcore horror fans however will want to stay clear. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Deadman Wonderland

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I love anime but sadly I don’t watch nowhere near as much as I would like to. My third favorite of all time is a very short, sadly cut short anime called Deadman Wonderland. It was shocking, raw, and made me rethink my own passion project, so it can be something different than most so I owe it a lot.

Deadman Wonderland is the story of young Ganta Igarashi, a ordinary middle school who’s life goes nightmarish when a mysterious figure known as the Wretched Egg appears and slaughters Ganta’s friends and entire class with a strange power, leaving Ganta the sole survivor. Camera footage is found framing Ganta for the brutal murders and he is sentenced to life in the newest prison/ tourist attraction called Deadman Wonderland. To the public, prison’s risk there lives in deadly games in exchange for antidote to a poison there are injected with via collar they are forced to wear around there necks. Security is tight and Ganta is pushed to his breaking point by the sick inmates and horrible sights, but he finds a old forgotten friend in Shiro, a strange girl always following Ganta. During a brief encounter with a Wretched Egg, Ganta discovers the key to his salvation and damnation, his Branch of Sin- his blood is a weapon, when he bleeds he can gather it and fire it as a hard projectile. Suddenly he is taken from the general populace and introduced to Carnival Corpse, an underground fighting arena dedicated to others inflicted with the Branch of Sin like The Crow who can form long, curved blades from his slashed wrists or Hummingbird who fuses the blood from her ears into her hair like living razor wire. When things look at there worst, Ganta, now called Woodpecker, discovers a resistance of Deadmen inside the prison, readying to plot there escape, can they escape all the horrors Deadman Wonderland holds inside?

Deadman Wonderland is a sad case. The series was prematurely cut because of legal bullshit so it feels messy at the end of it’s 12 main episodes. I say this because there is a bonus 13th episode that is a Crow origin episode. You can tell if it had 12 or 14 more episodes it could have ended more more tightly but they did ok regardless. Artistically the show is beautiful and the characters are compelling. I love the Branch of Sin; my favorite is Owl’s, leader of the resistance, who can form his blood into grenades. The opening song, One reason- Fade, is probably one of my favorite anime songs of all time. I warn the faint of heart, don’t watch if you can’t handle blood, torture, images of rape, vulgar language or dismemberment. If you can get past all that, there is a lot to be said inside of it’s short narrative and I highly recommend it. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

A Christmas Story

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This movie is such a timeless classic there is a 24 hour marathon of it every year. I don’t even need to review this honestly, I could have posted the picture of the kid and a BB gun and just stopped there and you guys would have gotten it. But hey let us get on with what is basically a formality here.

The movie takes place in the 1940’s and young Ralphie has one dream. He wants a Red Ryder BB gun. He needs to convince his parents, teacher, Santa, anyone that will listen he needs one. The problem is, he will shoot his eye out. Along the way there are bullies, dares to stick a tongue to a light post and even dropping lug nuts down a drain and saying fudge.except he doesn’t say fudge. He says the F— word. By the way he throws his friend under the bus an I know they only had phones with cords back then, you hear mom run over and smack the holy hell out of this poor innocent kid. You know how hard you have to hit someone to hear it across a house over a 1940’s phone that clearly? That poor bastards grand kids had bruises when they were born in the 1980’s.

Anyways back on track, I don’t mind spoiling this movie a little bit. At the end of the movie, in true 1940’s fashion, hell even in 1980’s or the 1990’s fashion dad comes through and buys this kid a Red Ryder BB gun. Because you know, back then it was socially acceptable to buy kids actual weapons. The kid also almost immediately manages to shoot himself in the face when it bounces of some metal and his glasses prevent him from shooting his own eye out. Let this be a lesson kids, when shooting a BB gun you actually can shoot your eye out. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.