Survival of the Dead (2010)

Survival of the dead is one of Romero’s last movies, and hey maybe it is because I am old and stuck in my ways but I still prefer the good old fashioned slow moving shoot em in the head zombies. I mean I get it, times change. And I don’t hate the modern zombies. The classics just do it for me. I love that classic feeling of being over run by an ocean of the dead as opposed to watching people be chased down.

This time around the main part of the story revolves some Ex United States military members that went AWOL and stumbled upon another man also robbing people near an island by Delaware when he tricks them into thinking he would help them get to the island as a means to escape the zombie horde.

As it turns out they rob people, send them to the island and unknown to them when they send people to the island the people there kill them. Yes everyone in the zombie apocalypse is an asshole.

What follows is a tale of revenge and a game of one upmanship revolving around being a complete dick to other people. Who is willing to kill their own people when bit? Who is willing to rob people? Shoot strangers? Romero once again does an amazing job setting up his world to seem like real people acting like they may act in a real apocalypse type scenario.

The movie isn’t the best looking but it doesn’t need to be. It does an amazing job at setting a tone of both needing to survive and dread that it may not be possible. It is another worthy addition to the name Romero. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Organ Trail PS4

A while back I wanted to play a game from my childhood. Oregon Trail. The original by the way not the 4 million sub par versions that came after. That is when I stumbled on this and figured why the hell not.

The game plays just like Oregon Trail. You pick a vehicle, in this game you start with a car. Buy some supplies with your limited money and head out to travel across America with whatever you choose to name your party. I recommend Romero because hey its a zombie game and there is a trophy involved if you make it with him alive.

As you travel you will have to make an assortment of decisions such as how to pass a horde of zombies or what to buy in a town or what upgrades to buy with your limited money. You can also choose to help or ignore odd jobs.

While the game is simplistic in both sound and visuals it is still fun if you were a fan of Oregon trail, and the co-op is a nice time kill as well. Give it a shot, best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

5 of my favorite monsters (Torsten edition)

I gotta give my partner and big brother Savior credit, he did a countdown of his favorite monsters that was pretty cool. So I thought I’d take a jump into the fray and talk about some of my favorites as well. In  no particular order, though if you followed my work so far you may know I got a undying love for 1 in particular, so let’s begin with them.

alien c1 1 Xenomorph (Alien)- what can I say except that no creature in my mind represents beauty and dread like the creature ripped from Giger’s nightmarish design, the perfect organism.

werewolf 2. Werewolf- tragic beasts that are man by day and monsters by night. My attraction to these creatures is that it is totally beyond there control; they are as much victims as those they slaughter. Also, they look epic and weren’t they a bitchin part of Skyrim?

necromorph 3. Necromorph (Dead Space trilogy)- how do we make zombies scary again? Mix them with the sporadic nature of Carpenter’s Thing and put the bastards in space. Always in various fucked up forms, Necromorphs are a flexible zombie alternative to haunt your dreams.

nemesis 4. Nemesis (Resident Evil 3)- speaking of zombie alternatives, how about a zombie on steroids in a trench coat with long tentacles, a rocket launcher, and a screw you attitude. Also I forgot to mention, he doesn’t go down at all. Almost nothing stops this behemoth.

Frankenstein 5. Frankenstein’s monster- a classic, tragic beast constructed from the dead body parts stolen by a young man curious about life and death. The monster has been brought to life many times but I can’t help but be fascinated by the idea and he is pretty epic in the book, a Karloff was amazing.

 

Burying The Ex

I won’t lie. I figured hot chicks and a dumb movie. What I got was hot chicks, a novel approach to a classic creature and an interesting story. I was quite pleased with this one.

It is really straight forward tho. Boy meets girl. They date. Boy no longer likes girl. Girl gets hit by a bus and dies. Bot meets new girl…ex comes back from the dead and moves back in..ok so not really straight forward completely but damn would that cock block you. And it did this guy so bad.

No surprise Yelchin played his role amazingly and I am still sad he passed away, as did out lovely ladies Green and Daddario, both talented and I wish we saw them in more movies.

As the movie goes on we see why living with a zombie would be a bit weird. Like how weird it would be when they make you breakfast or how awkward it would be if they wanted sex and worse when your half brother walks in and thinks you dug up the body before freaking out worse when he discovers you live with a zombie.

Honestly if you are looking for just a fun movie to kill some time with that isn’t your average movie this is a good choice. Maybe don’t watch it with young kids tho. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

South Park: The Fractured But Whole

fractured

Sometimes I feel like games stopped being fun, but I’m happy to tell you South Park: The Fractured But Whole is one hell of a fun game. Sequel to Stick of Truth, Fractured picks up directly after Stick ends and plays off of the superhero craze, playing mage to Civil War with Coon and Friends battling the Freedom Pals going head to head to see who can score the best superhero franchise. We customize our hero and battle the treachery of 6th graders, crab people, and a towel going through some serious withdrawl, as well the evil of Professor Chaos and the dark plot to bring South Park down. First, this game brings all the vulgar but cleaver humor of the show to the game and keeps fresh throughout.  Seriously, with the graphics it looks and feels like you are in the show which is cool as hell. The combat is fun and easy to pick up. It’s turn based and feels like a chess game with positioning which was really cool, giving you opportunities to gather extra damage from knocking enemies into each other or there surroundings for extra damage. The powers can be blended and can be used to vary your experience pretty well. It’s a rare thing these days when games are simply fun but this definitely is and I highly recommend it for its creativity, humor, and fun combat. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Signs (2002)

Ok now I know this is less a Horror movie and more a sci fi movie but I feel like it still counts.

Anyway an ex minister still struggling with the loss of his wife wakes up to find weird crop circles in the field outside his house. The locals and his family assume its a hoax and hey who wouldn’t? Even tho the dog goes a bit nuts and his kid accidentally kills it.

As time goes on and his daughter leaves more and more glasses of water laying around and we are reminded again and again..and again..and again that his brother is an ex minor league baseball player. More weird things happen all around the world until we discover actual aliens from space are attempting to harvest people.

The movie is solid enough and actually pretty fun if you ignore the blatant plot hole created by the ending that was shoehorned in. While attempting to be clever with the water itself is deadly sort of like acid to the aliens he neglected to think of the fact that the Earths air itself has water in it which would pretty much kill them. That aside its not bad. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

elm street 010

Have you ever seen a movie that you never thought would get remade because the original was too iconic to touch? When Rob Zombie’s Halloween debuted, that feeling hit me. The slashers I grew up with I somehow thought were untouchable but alas I was wrong. 2007 Michael got his; 2009 Jason got his so in 2010 Freddy got his. Jackie Earle Haley replaced iconic Robert Englund as Freddy Kruger, a very fine actor but ugh…lets begin.

So we begin at a diner in Springwood on a dark and rainy night. Two teens are talking at a table, friends of there waitress Nancy. In fact everyone at the diner knows Nancy, but it seems everyone else has something else in common too. The dude at the table is skittish after not sleeping because of horrible dreams. For some reason he walks into the kitchen and we see the the first appearance of Freddy. We do get an interesting perspective of our main character holding a knife to his throat on the outside, while we get to see Freddy holding him hostage in front of everyone at the diner. So he dies and we set into what is mainly a retelling of the original with some key differences. The biggest change is Freddy was the elementary school’s groundskeeper who allegedly  molested the kids and the parents cornered him and fried him alive because they didn’t want to have there kids deal with the trauma of going to trail; a huge part of the movie is the audience asking whether Freddy was a innocent man killing kids that lied and killed him or if he’s a child molester that’s out for revenge.

Ok, watch the original. This is a damn over CGIed, glossy Hollywood retelling that doesn’t have the charm or the imagination. I enjoy Haley as an actor but I don’t like him as Freddy. His make up isn’t great, looking more like a rash than realistic burns which is what’s it’s going for and he is far too gruff. What kills his movie are a lot of the effect choices, which makes the original that much more special. I don’t buy the teens as real teens, just prettied up celebs. Instead of atmosphere and freaky imagery we get gore and flashy ass jump scares. It’s a forgettable remake of Wes Craven’s classic but just meh. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.