Movie Review – Page 73 – Savior Gaming

Evil Dead

evil dead

Before the one-liners, before the madness of Asliegh Williams killing Deadites in the middle ages, before the remake that took itself way too seriously and Ash vs Evil Dead (series) there was the gory, claymated wonder that was the classic Evil Dead. Like many wacky misadventures, Evil Dead is about a group of friends that go to a nice sweet little cabin in the woods. Things are fine until the basement door pops open and in the basement they find an old tape recorder and a peculiar book made of flesh and written in human blood- like we all do. On the recorder is a translation from a past victim of the book, who loudly recites the translated incantations, unleashing the Evil Dead on them. Malevolent spirits awaken, attacking and possessing the friends, turning them into disgusting demons. By the end, on the cusp of his sanity is the whimpy, meek, Ash but can he rise to the challenge?

I know I’m playing against the the gross opinion but I actually like the original Evil Dead best. I like the gritty filming and there is a good blend of WTF scenes that are funny actual horror. Linda, Ash’s girlfriend, creeped the hell out of me with her clownish make up and wide grin. The infamous tree rape scene holds up pretty well in my opinion and is still alarming. In the end, Evil Dead is a simple movie with a simple premise that is a damn awesome B movie I recommend checking out for the simple fact it is a fun horror movie of gore, slapstick, and some chills. May the gaming gods bring you glory, now it’s time to go to sleep:)

The Exorcist (movie)

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In 1973 we got a movie that changed horror forever, traumatizing thousands because of its dark as hell themes and realistic effects that hold up remarkably well today, almost 50 years later. Directer William Friedkin (Bug ) took the terrifying book by William Peter Blatty and pulled no punches.

The Exorcist follows the demonic possession of Reagan MacNeil, a 12 year old little girl and the two priests that come together to take on the daunting task. The intro to the movie we meet Father Merrin at an archaeological excavation in the Middle East, culminating in a stare down with a freaky looking statue we get a foreboding dread he has encountered before. Across the world, Reagan is with her mother, a successful actress, as small, strange things begin to happen. Her mother doesn’t notice until a disturbing sight happens at a big party she throws, leading to sights nothing within reason can explain. Reagan turns violent, having violent seizures and physically striking at the doctors trying to help her. Enter Father Damien Karras, a priest dealing with the loss of faith after his mother’s health plummets and dies; Chris, Reagan’s mother, reaches out to Karras who inspects Reagan and comes to the dark conclusion about her possession. Can Merrin and Karras save her soul and expel the demon?

The possession sub genre hasn’t been my favorite, for every The Exorcism of Emily Rose there’s a The Devil Inside but the Exorcist is honestly the greatest and undeniable progenitor of the sub genre. The effects are damn good, even today when CGI has taken over film land. The acting is amazing and the characters are strong. I will say the movie is slow, with decent gaps between scares where we see the characters develop, but some modern audiences may frown upon that. Horror fans and film buffs alike, this is a must watch. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Real Genius (1985)

Real Genius is one of those 80’s movies that for some reason most people I know haven’t seen, and that greatly upsets me. The story is simple. Mitch is recruited to a school for super smart people, he works with Chris the smartest person in the school turned slacker. They are tasked with a school project to build a laser. They aren’t the only two doing this but hey they are the main two.

As the story goes on we see all sorts of shenanigans, from the turning an entire section of the school into ice for a winter carnival.

To throwing a massive party with the local beauty school.

The movie is first and foremost, a comedy. This starts out pretty early with the scene where Mitch meets Chris, and he asks about him being prepared for gravity reversing itself and even trying to convince him the antenna on an odd remote control is in fact a penis stretcher, and offers to let him try it.

The movie does eventually take a more serious turn however, as early on you the viewer will discover the laser is actually being developed by the school for the government as a weapon to be used from space to assassinate targets. Mitch and friends eventually find this out as well, but not until the laser is finished and in the hands of the government.

They will of course go on a quest to put an end to the weapon and take revenge on the dean of the school for lying to them in the fist place, which will involve filling a house with popcorn. He hates popcorn. Regardless the movie is currently on Netflix, go check this out. The movie is amazing and has a great soundtrack. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

“Glass” poster

glass poster This is going to be a little unusual because there is no trailer, but a poster tells alot. I’ve never been a huge M. Night Shyamalan fan but I loved Split and wanted to check out Unbreakable after the end credits scene, which I thought was merely a set up for a sequel. But a crossover? That I wasn’t expecting. I think it’s a cool idea and don’t get me wrong, I’m seriously hyped for this movie but let’s not ignore the elephant in the room: Shyamalan doesn’t have the greatest track record. The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs- all well loved and well received movies. But we also have After Earth, The Happening, and The Last AirBender which damaged his career. I’m cautiously optimistic in that regard because while I’m a huge fan of his work, I respect that he tries doing something different, especially in a world of reboots and sequels. I have my fingers crossed and I can’t wait for the trailer. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

American Hero (2015)

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American Hero is the story of an alcoholic and drug addict man who as spent his entire life doing the wrong thing. The wrong thing for himself, his friends, his wife and his son. Well I should say now his ex-wife and son he no longer gets to see. There is a twist, he was born with a sort of power, a super power if you will. He can lift things up and move objects with nothing more than a wave of his hand.

Being the slacker that he is however this has mostly gone to waste with the exception of using it for fun and to make some money when he needs it for booze and drugs, and occasionally to stop small time criminals so he can steal their stolen stuff. This all changed when he has a small personal issue. By that I mean a heart attack. Then his best friend for his whole life gets shot by the local drug lord over something he did.

He then attempts to turn his entire life around and go straight, we are also treated to a scene of what his powers can actually do. The movie itself however has very little action which surprised me. With a name like American Hero I was expecting a lot more action and much less drama. It is all well thought out, well planned and well done. At no point do you ever get the feeling that it is forced or even forced.

This is a mixed bag however. I was disappointed in the movie for its lack of action, but I did enjoy its story of redemption and watching the main character, Melvin, grow from loser to less of a loser. The movie isn’t for everyone, in fact I would bet most people won’t enjoy it. Drama fans will enjoy it, everyone else should probably avoid it. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Bad News Bears (2005)

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As a kid I loved the Bad News Bears, the 1976 version. I wasn’t old enough to see the original release, I wasn’t born for almost a decade after, but I still loved the movie when I saw it. I grew up playing baseball, and while I was never on any teams like that I have seen some bad teams, most of which got better over time and I always would have liked to have seen a story like this. I always liked a good underdog story. I was always wondering how this stacked up to the original but I was always kind of out off since I was never really a fan of it being remade. That being said I finally got the chance to watch it especially since I do enjoy Billy Bob Thornton.

The opening scene did fill me with some hope, as Billy Bob comes out of a basement drinking some beer rats crawling out behind him, and he tells the lady there are indeed a shit ton of rats down there. He then simply leaves, door wide open and rats escaping, and tells her he has a thing to do and to just call for a follow-up. We then end up at the field where we meet the team.

The team is about what you would expect, we got the token black kid, the nerd, kid in a wheel chair, two Latino twins that don’t speak English,or so we are lead to believe and of course we have the kid with the mom that makes him do all kinds of ridiculous stuff and sued the league to let the kids play in the first place, after all it is the 2000’s and everyone gets a trophy. That is actually one of the main sticking points in the movie between The 2 main coaches, one wants a pay check ( Thornton) and the other thinks the bears shouldn’t even be in a serious league.

The movie is odd to me, I can’t say I don’t like it. Billy Bob plays his role amazing and the kids do an honorable job replicating the roles they are given. That is where my issue comes in, the movie barely counts as an updated version of the movie. Many scenes are practically copy and pasted from the original. The ones that aren’t are pretty much the same scene just slightly changed. While this isn’t truly a bad thing, honestly the original is a classic and it does for the most part equal the original in my eyes, it doesn’t give fans of the original any reason to watch it really. The movie is by no means bad, just not very different. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Purge

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Happy belated Independence Day ever one. We hope you had a lovely day before the annual Purge. Soon, we get to discover how the madness started. In 2013 I was excited as hell for the first Purge movie; I swore up and down it was going to change how we saw horror. Poor 2013 me…

In the near future, the USA is enjoying a long period of crime free living and prosperity after the New Founding Fathers took over. How is this so, you may ask? The Purge: one night a year where all crime is legal. The Sandin family are good, privileged folks living in a clean, happy suburb, safe and sound from the horrors outside- until there son let’s a poor wounded man in who’s being hunted by a group of killer yuppies. The killers offer to leave the family alone in exchange for the stranger, but can they live with themselves after?

I wanted this to be epic but alas, this is a pretty generic home invasion movie that wants to have it’s cake and eat it too. It wants to be deep and thought provoking but the scope is too limited to get a feel for the purge’s impact and the commentary you get feels watered down. It wants to be a over the top, Grindhouse style movie, but the horror is jumpscares and the Gore and killings are kind of bland. I felt it was playing it too safe quite a few times. However I did care about the family and in a corny ass sort of way, I liked the cartoony villians too. A lot of pitentpot went to waste but it’s not a bad movie to see if you find it cheap or streamed. May the gaming gods bring you glory and release the beast as they say 😁.

47 Meters Down (2016)

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47 Meters Down is the story of two sisters on vacation in Mexico, both of them having their own personal issues. These issues however honestly aren’t even important except maybe to push them towards some bad decisions. Not really a bad decision tho, sort of. They meet two friend guys that invite them scuba diving in a cage to see some sharks, which they do every weekend on their friends boat. This is actually pretty common. Not the running off with strange men in Mexico to dive with sharks, that is borderline retarded. Just the actual act of diving in a cage with sharks.

So they end up the next day, on a boat with three men they really don’t know, now I have to say this, I was expecting this to get real bad for these two women, and it does. For a lot of reasons, but not these dudes. By the end of the movie I actually felt bad for assuming these guys were complete scum. As the movie goes on tho they are doing typical boat stuff, throwing dead fish in the water, getting gear set up, telling jokes. Typical boring stuff. In fact the movie is actually a pretty slow build. Its cool tho, we will get a pay off right?

Eventually the men go down in the cage and we get to see some huge sharks as the ladies get changed. Nothing odd here, just some general conversation and the dude left on the boat politely keeping his eyes and hands to himself. The men come up, the sister that lied about knowing how to scuba dive gets a crash course on how to do it which the owner of the boat was oddly okay with being lied to about. Now its time to get in the water.

After getting some cool time with the fishes and sharks, and dropping the camera into a shark’s mouth like she promised not to do things get bad. The cable starts to slip, they start to bring it up and…snap.

We finally get to the good stuff. The cage plummets to the bottom. I won’t spoil the rest of the movie, but the rest of the movie has to do with them stuck at the bottom of the ocean, getting out of the cage and discovering they actually need to stay in the cage, because the sharks are still in the water, and oxygen is running out fast.

Sadly while the movie has its moments of being extremely exciting and fun, you spend most of your time waiting for it. Most of the characters are hardly worth caring about and I never much cared if anyone lived or died. The movie was fun, but there are better movies out there. I won’t say don’t watch it, just be aware you may be disappointed. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Switch (2010)

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The Switch is an interesting movie in the sense that it is listed as a comedy but it never made me laugh, but it never tried to. It is simply the story of an ageing woman who wants a baby, and her best friend that is in love with her getting hammered and switching the samples. I do mean HAMMERED by the way, he doesn’t even remember doing this for about 7 years. She moves back to town, he gets to know the kid notices some similarities people make some comments he puts two and two together his friend mentions some comments he made when he showed up drunk at his house and there we go.

While that does sum up the plot of the movie, and it really isn’t a funny movie, that doesn’t make the movie bad. Aniston and Bateman are both great actors and have amazing chemistry together. You can believe their friendship as it slowly builds to the inevitable love we know was coming as it always does in these movies and Batemans growing friendship with the son Sebastian is natural and well done.

The script is also great, the only real question here is do you like the kind of drama with a little humor thrown in, not the kind that makes you laugh just the kind that lightens the mood. If the answer is yes by all means check this one out, best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Strangers: Prey at Night

strangers 2

I was skeptic when The Strangers got a sequel after a decade, even more so after Strangers 2, trailer 1 came out. Was I wrong to be nervous after a decade of waiting?

This installment picks up at a trailer park where the familiar trio of strangers murders an elderly couple and not long after, the whole park’s inhabitants while they sleep. We join a family, sending there angst y teenage daughter to boarding school. On there trip, they stay the night at there relative’s home- in the same park the strangers are lurking in, and of course the carnage ensues.

Sadly to say, I was pretty justified to be skeptical. Strangers 2, truth be told feels nothing much like the first movie. Where the first was very suspense heavy, Prey at Night goes for a more gorier, over the top approach. The characters aren’t bad for a slasher movie but Christina Hendrick’s performance is too good for this kind of movie. The son and daughter annoyed the hell out of me at times. The movie is well shot and the over the top scenes are done well. Honestly, if you want a more 80’s style horror movie done today, this isn’t a bad pick. Why I’m kind of pissed is the first movie was suspenseful and had a kind of realism to it the sequel lacks. It is worth watching whether approach you prefer. May the gaming gods bring you glory.