Category: Movie Review

Halloween

halloween

Happy Halloween everyone, and I hope you all have a really fun, safe night. So for the holiday, I feel it’s only appropriate to talk about the quintessential Halloween movie about today. Halloween is the frightening story of Michael Myers who stabbed his sister to death Halloween night when he was six, and fifteen years later he escaped from Smith’s Grove Sanitarium and returned to his hometown of Haddonfield to kill again while being hunted by his terrified psychiatrist  Dr Loomis.

Halloween is a prime example of simple horror done perfectly. Michael Myers is frighteningly cold but Donald Pleasence as Loomis and his haunted performance as Loomis elevates Michael to true legendary boogeyman status. The score by Carpenter is absolutely iconic. The ending is my favorite ever in horror and would have 1,000,000 times scarier without the truck loads of sequels. Halloween is a simple classic that is still scary today and I can’t recommend it enough. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Day 31, Xenomorph

alien c1

Happy Halloween, and for the final day of our Halloween special I bring you the Xenomorph, my favorite biological death machine. Born with acid blood, razor claws, spear tipped tail, two sets of jaws, and and tongue that can pierce through metal is just the beginning of the horror of these iconic beasts. It’s easy to believe they are the perfect organism which only makes them more terrifying, whether one or a hundred, they are my ultimate beast. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Dead House (2014)

I put off watching Dead House for what seems like forever because it just seemed like a silly movie. Thieves break into a house only to discover hidden in the basement is a house of the dead. A silly but fun movie it seemed like admittedly.

I was so damn wrong and should have avoided this damn movie for longer. First, the thieves are essentially demented rapist that film it and stop to steal money from a safe for about 10 seconds to move the plot along. It is pretty graphic, so if you are easily upset or bothered by such things don’t watch it and definitely not around children.

The zombie portion doesn’t even show up until the last 20 minutes or so and even that seemed to be there for no other reason than to give us a twist ending and some shock value. Truthfully everything done in this movie is done somewhere else and it is done better. The movie has no real redeeming qualities outside of the acting being pretty well done on all parts. If you are morbidly curious feel free to give it a watch, aside from that skip this burning heap. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Day 29, The Cenobites

cenobites

Pleasure is a subjective  concept, as well as happiness, love, and arousal. The Cenobites are the embodiments of pleasure and pain that are summoned by solving the puzzle of the Lament Configuration. Deformed, cold hearted, and kept in a constant state of agony the Cenobites’s purpose is to present the solver of the box with ultimate joy. I love how much gravity accompanies them both in the The Hellbound Heart novella and the original Hellraiser movie. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Day 27,The Thing

thing 82

The Thing is one of the most fascinating creatures in horror for the solid fact it has no definite shape. This microscopic organism replicates whatever life it comes into contact with, and as a defense mechanism, it reforms itself into a deadly mix of all the beings it has come into contact with. The Thing is one of the craziest looking things  I’ve seen on screen and has unlimited possibilities when it comes to creativity. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Day 26, Pennywise

pennywise

There is a terrifying vulnerability that comes from being a kid and well, let’s face it, clowns can be pretty damn creepy to begin with. As long as the town of Derry, Maine has existed there has been a secret threat that feasts on mankind, loving fear and children. This threat is Pennywise the Dancing Clown. Pennywise comes from a race of shape-shifting, psychic spider creatures that grow power from the emotions of there victims, namely fear here. Pennywise was never my favorite until I started reading the book and saw the 2017 remake, but I was hooked. So, are you ready to float?

Cooties (2014)

Cooties is a 2014 horror-comedy about a school and some teachers that have to deal with Cooties, which are basically zombies. Sort of. You see this started with some chicken nuggets that made a little girl sick. She, in turn, bit another kid who bit another. This keeps going until everyone has cooties. Why is it called cooties? Well, it only turns people that haven’t hit puberty yet.

The movie is actually pretty funny to me, but admittedly many people won’t like it for one very big reason. All the zombies are kids, which means all the adults are beating kids to death. You will later discover in the movie it is a worldwide thing since of course, it is a huge chicken nugget factory.

None of this bothered me of course since it is just a movie and a comedy, and the love story in there wasn’t front and center but just kind of tacked on in a fun way. This is pretty much a B movie with some real celebrities in it which I am ok with it. Go check this one out on Hulu, but just know it isn’t a great movie it is just silly and tasteless. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Bounty Hunter

I am actually a pretty big fan of Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler, so them being in the same movie is pretty great to me. The story itself is pretty cool in theory. Milo (Butler) is a bounty hunter that chases down criminals that jump bail. Nicole is a reporter that has a court date for assaulting a cop that she skips out on. Happily, for Milo he is the one sent to bring her in.

In between his life of drinking and passing out Milo tracks Nicole down to a race track, where it catches Nicole and tosses her in the trunk of his car. Pretty easily done until she lights the road flare in his trunk and starts a small fire.

As the movie goes on we discover that Nicole is onto more than just a basic story and the two will, of course, start to fall back in love. It is a romantic comedy after all, and the two have amazing chemistry as costars but I never really bought them as an actual couple. The movie, however, does have some serious flaws beyond that. The parts that are funny are great, but the downtime can be boring as hell at times. I did enjoy the movie, and fans of either actor or romantic comedies will probably enjoy it but realistically it simply isn’t a very good movie and is at best average. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

 

Day 21, Yautja (aka The Predator)

predator

The cosmos is a vast place full of life, and the Yautja are there to fight the fiercest of it. An ancient race of hunters that travel across galaxies in search of trophies and the deadliest prey in the universe. Armed with there signature arm blades, shoulder mounted plasma cannons, spears, razors nets, disks, and cloaking devices, they also have superior strength and infrared sight making them a huge threat. Good luck if a Predator sees you a challenge. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Sinister 2

sinister 2

Sinister was one of the very first reviews I ever wrote for this blog and honestly, it was one of my favorite horror movies of this decade. It had good characters and a interesting plot and disturbing silent home movies that actually gave me nightmares the day I saw them. Well, of course, it was going to get a sequel and of course it wasn’t really needed…

Courtney is a mom on the run to rural nowhere with her two young sons Zach and Dylan from there abusive father Clint. Courtney is terrified of her own shadow, Dylan is a nervous wreck, and Zach is aggressive and hungry for the power his father’s terror holds. The boys have made new friends though with the ghost children who took a liking to Dylan, showing him Bughuul’s home movies. The ex deputy from the first is on there tail though, but can he stop history from repeating itself?

I’m afraid to say this is a really inferior sequel to the first in almost every way. While the home movies are creepy, they are now accompanied by stock horror score which seriously cuts there impact down. There are plenty of jump scares now and we get way more Bughuul, who comes off like Slipknot- Slender Man instead of the menacing figure he once was. The ex deputy was the only character who frankly didn’t piss me off and there were some times I ended up laughing at the moments of overacting. The story is pretty bland and predictable with a ending that is just cheesy. I can’t say there isn’t anything worth seeing from this movie that you can’t see on YouTube in less than 5 minutes. May the gaming gods bring you glory.