It comes at night

it comes at night

It comes at night was a strange instance where the trailer was misleading as hell but the poster kinda tells you more than any trailer did. The trailers made me think I was going to get something like a zombie movie or maybe a tripped out torture flick, but if I had to categorize it, I’d say it’s kinda like the Shining on Meth.

The story centers around a interracial family of father Paul, wife Sarah, and 17 year old son Travis living in their house in the woods after some kind of viral outbreak occurred. We never learn what the virus does, where it comes from, how it spreads, or even the magnitude of the outbreak. All we really know it’s highly contagious and you get purplish-gray welts and get really pale. Paul and Travis take Sarah’s father outside after he contracts the disease and execute him, burning his body after. Later that night, there’s an intruder. Paul wounds him, and takes him into the woods to interrogate him. After a tense discussion and questioning, we discover the man’s name is Will and he wanted food and supplies for his starving family, wife Kim and young son Andrew. These families join together and for a while live in harmony, but tensions begin to build as they cling to themselves and there fears beyond the red door…

I’ve seen the reviews, more scatter-fucked than shotgun pellets flying off of a tilt-a-whirl. Some love this movie, some hate it. I loved it but I really wouldn’t debate anyone who said it sucked. Joel Edgerton gave a great performance as Paul, and the chemistry between everyone is fluid and genuine. I love how quiet, and isolated it is; I absolutely love the ambiguity and the tense fear that escalates from isolation and paranoia. Seriously, don’t watch the trailers. Overall, I loved this movie but I only recommend it if you enjoy slow, suspense driven films; stay away if you’re looking for a action packed gorefest. As always thank you and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Cube (1997)

So I’m on twitter the other day and this guy I occasionally talk to informed me this 1997 classic..yea I say classic its 20 years old,is now on Netflix. (I will get to the other movie when I have time to read a movie)

Cube is essentially the movie that started the whole Saw movie thing. Don’t believe me? Go watch it. Or just read the general plot.

The movie starts off with people waking up not knowing where they are, with people they don’t know. Quickly they discover they are free to roam their general area but must find a way out of the building they are in. The building is square rooms, that all look basically the same of various colors with numbers near all the hatch doors.

I am sure you are wondering where the Saw part comes in. Well certain rooms have various traps set up to kill you, for example one of the escape experts gets his face burned off with a sort of acid spray.

Yes I did say escape expert. There is also an ex cop, a doctor what can only be described as an idiot savant and an office worker that designed the shell of the cube itself.

Added to all this is their struggle to decipher the connection between the traps and the numbers between rooms and how to get out of this death trap. It isn’t hard to see how this could be the father of the Saw movies, best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Soma

soma1

I tried man. I really did. The story is fascinating; the graphics are really good. But this wasn’t for me. The story revolves around a dude named Simon Jarret who was in a car crash that killed his girlfriend and left him with brain damage. He signs up for the new kind of experimental treatment that way save his life…he wakes up miles under the ocean in a broken down aquatic lab with machines haunted by the delusion they are really human. Many of the machines we come in contact with react just like people, but there are other things entirely. We discover from a mysterious Catherine that Simon was part of a group who had had there total consciousnesses fused to robot forms and the line between what it means to be man and machine becomes blurred…

As I said. the story is definitely there. Graphically it looks pretty and I could appreciate the nods to Bioshock and Alien in the environmental design. Gameplay wise is the killer. There is a heavy stealth base- no weapons, just hide or run. Everything I faced up to that point, I simply just had to outrun them. Most of my experience with the game was me trying to figure out where the hell to go. Overall, if you enjoyed Outlast or Amnesia (Frictional Games’s previous horror hit) give this a shot but if you want a horror game with stealth and bite, this ain’t your stick. As always thank you and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

R.I.P Visceral Games

visceral games

This will be short and sweet, R.I.P Visceral Games. EA officially announced the crew behind the amazing Dead Space trilogy is shutting down. This brought me down pretty hard. Dead Space was a game that, as a horror fan and sci-fi nerd, delivered everything I could really ever want and did it with love. Another Visceral game I find really underrated is Dante’s Inferno. The dark but alarming adaptation made me rush out and find my own copy of epic poem. To me, Visceral games were a huge part of my PS3 experience and some of the last games to really inspire me.

deadspace

R.I.P Visceral Games, you will be missed.

Saw 6

saw 6

So I already covered 5 a long time ago, but those of you that forget, here’s a brief recap: I hated that piece of armadillo shit. So why did you watch Saw 6, Torsten, you may be wondering? Well, why the hell do we climb mountains? Because they’re freaking there that’s why.

So Hoffman is Jigsaw now and the feds are starting to barrel down on his ass, the only accomplice left is Jill, John’s ex wife. Little does he know, Jill is there to discreetly take Hoffman down, because like Amanda, Hoffman is simply murdering people. Our main protagonist is a health insurance executive that must go through yet another Jigsaw gauntlet in order to learn a lesson. At the end, Jill subdues Hoffman, priming him for the kill by locking him in a rickety chair with the famed bear trap on his head; but the chair breaks and Hoffman escapes, scarred and pissed off.

Saw 6 isn’t bad but it’s goofy. The acting and gore is pretty laughably over the top at times; the story of how the series comes together becomes more and more convoluted each entry to where you stop caring by either 5 or 6. It’s got some fair social commentary on the healthcare system but in the end, the movie is just meh. As always, thank you and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Loot Boxes Good Or Bad?

There are two main questions when it comes to loot boxes. Are they bad for gaming, and are they gambling? Honestly both a matter of opinion. Companies will say no to the first one because it makes them money and gamers seem to be pretty split.

The gambling question weirdly has seen different answers, Americas ESRB has sad no since you get something for your money and the European equivalent has said only a gambling commission could possibly answer it.

However my answers are simple, loot boxes are becoming a cancer. What started as just a quick way for game makers to make some extra cash and gamers to get some cool stuff is becoming damn near pay to win and a pay wall to hide stuff behind.

As for the gambling question that one is rough. Yes you do get something so I get the ESRB’s point. You pay money and you get something, where is the gamble? Here is where it gets dicey. What you get isn’t always of equivalent value. If I said send me $20 and you I will send you random money back between $1 and $100 would you feel that was a gamble? I certainly would. Either way it seems loot boxes are here to stay, so we may as well get used to them. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

5 remakes that went and pissed me off

Well, I talked about the good, here comes the dung parade, 5 of the crappiest horror remakes that ruined them for everyone, that took great movies and took a massive dump on them. In no particular order, let’s begin with a movie I watched instead of going to prom…

prom nite 1. Prom Night- yep, this was my real life prom experience, watching this gaudy dog turd. First sign something wasn’t right- a Pg-13 remake of a R rated movie. We get all the preppy teen drama of a crappy teen movie and no gore of a tension-less slasher pic where the killer is a dude in a baseball cap and sport coat. Shit, I shoulda just went to prom.

haunted hill 99 2. House on Haunted Hill- This hurt a little less than the next one but it hurt pretty damn hard. Vincent Price was a legend…having some dude with a pornstar stash pretending to be Vincent Price was infuriating. I remember watching it with my parents as a kid, loving the original, and thinking this movie was stupid.

house of wax 05 3. House of wax- oh this pissed me off. Turning a perverse, eerie classic staring on of the greatest horror icons of all time into a lame ass Friday the 13th knock off with famous cover celebs to play the “Teens”. And the house of wax has little to jack shit to do with the actual movie. Plus, Paris Hilton is a main character…enough said.

elm street 010 4. A Nightmare on Elm Street- you know that saying “if everyone else jumped off of a cliff, would you jump too?”. Well, they sure as hell did. Lame effects, a miscast Freddy, and a really crappy “was Freddy actually innocent?” side plot that turns out bogus anyway killed this remake. The scariest part is wasn’t a dream, it’s real.

halloween 07 5. Halloween- It’s rare when a remake misses the point of the original so badly as Rob Zombie did Halloween. There are no likable characters, Michael Myers’s is no longer an enigma but rather a “no shit” scenario why he turned, and Zombie’s usual penchant for vulgarity, brutality, and gross porn dialogue kill a simple classic. Granted, there are a couple things I like about the remake but still doesn’t assuage the pain of this crapper.

As always, thank you and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

5 horror remakes I loved

So who ever got pissed by a shitty remake of a movie you loved? Probably everyone of us at one time, and oh I’ll be talking about those tomorrow. Today I wanted to give some love to those that went the extra mile and defied the natural law of shitty remakes, in particular order, let’s begin with…

the thing 1. The Thing- I love John Carpenter. I loved the original Thing from another world. Rather than doing a repeat, Carpenter brilliantly kept the base concept but made the creature a microscopic organism that copies the species it comes into contact with, making for some really crazy, bloody moments that are truly unforgettable and I can see I never saw anything quite like it, just pale imitations.

the fly 2. The Fly- Much like the thing remake, The Fly took the base concept and went to the nth degree with it. We watch our main character grotesquely degrade as he turns into a man sized fly. Not for the weak stomached especially, The Fly is a gross, tragic, horror tale that should be watched and admired.

tcm03 3. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre- This one I can see as debatable and I fully appreciate the original but frankly the remake gave the shivers as a kid. Still isolated, I liked the darker, more intense tone, though I wish it didn’t feel so much like a Hollywood movie. The new family and the re-imagined Leatherface intrigued me. Definitely worth a shot if you want an intense thrill ride.

carrie 2002 4. Carrie (02)- It was a tie between this or IT and I know i’m a raging IT fanboy so I’d take the other road. Probably the least known of everything on this list, the first remake of Carrie follows the book almost perfectly with just the right amount of drama and special effects. Angela Bettis has a warm inner strength as Carrie and is startlingly blank when enraged. The ending is probably my favorite of the three film adaptations.

hills eyes 06 5. The Hills have Eyes- Ok, I kinda lied when I said these were in no particular order. The Hills is my favorite; it’s the first movie I ever went to where the audience cheered when the main character got revenge on the mutants at the end. This movie seriously inspired me a lot at just the right age with it’s crazy blend of a horror, revenge, science fiction, epic western. I loved it’s gritty take on mutants and the sense of isolation in the desert, I loved it’s badass fights and amazing score.

Thank you as always and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Saw 4

saw 4

Ok, I did my civic duty with Saw 3 and warned everyone to stop there. Yes, I know there are loose ends and questions still remaining but walk away. I’m not going to hate on Saw 4 because I do like it but the ending destroys the series for me. There will be spoilers if you haven’t seen it.

The movie begins with a cheap gross out moment where we see Jigsaw get autopsied on and a cassette tape is found in his stomach, perfectly preserved. So the police have been whittled down to near extinction, leaving Rig, a SWAT commander alone after his close friends Matthews and Kerry have been taken out by Jigsaw, along with Detective Hoffman. Together they are the last ones standing. Rig is haunted by the sick shit he sees everyday, and desperately runs into danger trying to help. Alone after his wife and kid go away, Rig is taken by Jigsaw and put through a macabre gauntlet to teach him to control his sympathy and see the world how Jigsaw sees it. As this goes on, Jill Tuck, John Kramer’s estranged ex wife is interrogated by the feds and through flashbacks we’re able to see the events that led to John losing it and becoming Jigsaw. The story is fine, the traps are still cool, and out of all the main Saw heroes, Rig by far is my favorite. I can relate to him, a good man who who wants to do good and save innocent people, but wrecks himself to do it. The problem comes at the end when we find out Jigsaw had yet another apprentice, Hoffman. At first I liked the ending but watching it older, I figured out this twist was there to keep the story pumping on, life support for a few more sequels. After the crap stake that was Saw 5 (which I already reviewed months ago), the series died for me. Overall, 4 isn’t bad or great but worth watching if you came this far. May the gaming gods bring you glory and I’ll see you for Saw 6.

Be Afraid (2017)

I have seen a few of these sleep paralysis movies lately and I am forced to admit this one is very well done. The movie doesn’t do anything great, but it also does not do anything badly. The characters are pretty well written the story while standard was also pretty good.

The usual applies here. Family moves to a small town, town has weird things happen, little girl was missing yada yada yada. We have all seen it before. Son comes home from college meets local girl. All standard affair.

Where the movie really shines is that you believe this small town is simply a small town with no real secrets. Even the town drunk seems to be just a father distraught over the loss of a kid. But alas nothing is as it seems. The sleep paralysis that will soon plague a select few and the strange dreams are no dreams but creatures with a nefarious and unclear plot of their own. Not a movie for everyone but worth a watch. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.