Tag: Horror

Oculus (2013)

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Gonna break up the gaming stuff with a horror movie that I watched a bit ago and never got around to reviewing. This one was actually pretty cool. This mirror throughout the years has killed many people and been lost for various reasons. Each time reappearing killing plants in the home, the dog and the people.

In the modern age a man tortures his wife and to protect his sister, his son murders him and is locked away until he is 21. But is this what really happened? Well after being released his sister brings him to the family home with a huge set up of cameras, food, alarms to remind them to eat and a weight set up rigged with no electronics so if they don’t reset it every half hour it would swing down and smash, you guessed it, the mirror.

The plan is to stay in the house and record the entire thing, and when this mirror attempts to kill them this will prove the brother is no murderer and the father was not the man everyone thought he was. The weight was to protect them, with the mirror needing them alive to reset the alarm the thought was it would be unable to kill them.

From here on out we see the brother and sister slowly start fighting as the brother insist the sister is remembering events wrong as they attempt to talk about what happened. She attempts to remind his of the truth. It doesn’t take long for the plants to die. As things get more weird things get more weird. What they think they see isn’t always what is real, and what they know to be fake sometimes is very very real.

The movie is well done, and at times in the movie as the viewer I actually wasn’t quite sure what was and wasn’t real, but I was never actually confused as to the plot of the movie. It was easy to follow but disturbing enough to be interesting with a very nice ending. I would very much suggest watching it. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Carrie (1976)

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Not sure what anyone expected from Stephen King, but Carrie is just a demented story. The book is even worse than the movie to be 100% honest. We start out in gym class playing some volleyball. Sadly poor Carrie sucks at sports and the other girls know it, so they hit the ball her way and game loss. Later in the shower Carrie, who is in the middle of the type of super religious upbringing that would make Scientologist tell her mom to lighten the hell up, gets her period. The problem is she has no idea what this is, thinks she is dying and freaks the hell out. You can imagine how this goes for a high school girl. She gets pelted with pads and tampons and towels.

The gym teacher doesn’t like this and severally punishes the girls for how they treat Carrie and this leads to eventually the usual prom trick of guy asks girl to prom that he doesn’t like just to play a vicious trick. There is a small problem, our girl Carrie has some um.. special abilities that involve how do we say moving things with her mind and unexpectedly disassembling items..and people.

The movie is considered a classic horror movie for a reason, the story is great, the acting is great and for its time the effects are great. Some of it is a bit cliché but for its time I suppose much of it was new, Regardless if you like the genre there is no reason not to check this one out. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Ghost Team (2016)

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Ghost Team is an odd movie, it’s a comedy that isn’t funny but is not, not funny. The story is about a group of friends that decide to go on a ghost hunt, just like on their favorite television show. So they borrow ( well steal) some equipment, go to an abandoned place in the woods and start their hunt.

Things start getting weird pretty damn quick. There are voices, and images on cameras and electricity going on and off. Things are just horrible. It doesn’t take long for things however to get even worse.I won’t spoil that surprise for you tho.

The movie itself, isn’t bad. It does seem to try way to hard at times tho to be both edgy and immature at the same time and fails completely to do both. The movie simply isn’t good, which is quite upsetting for a movie with Jon Heder and Justin Long since both are amazing actors and are great in everything they do. Even in this they play their parts well, they simply weren’t given anything to work with. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Wishmaster 3:Beyond the Gates of Hell (2001)

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Wishmaster 3 brings the Djinn back again, tho  played by John Novak this time and honestly the change just isn’t good to me. In fact almost everything about this movie represents a huge fall about the movie for me, minus the fact that I am a dude and the nudity content shot up for the next 2 movies for some unexplained reason. I can only guess this was to cover up for the fact that the story takes a wide turn into ridiculous and nonsensical.

This time a teachers assistant awakens the Djinn and the Djinn now terrorizes a college to find the one that freed him, once again to free his kind to rule the world. Diana however has a plan, and that plan is St. Michael the Archangel. Yup, good old St. Mike shows up with his sword to defeat the Djinn, but he can’t. For some inexplicable reason this angel shows up with no powers other than a magical sword and he can’t even win, he needs this college student to finish him off. The movie just makes no real sense, the death scenes aren’t even all that fun and the movie is a huge step down from the last two. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Wishmaster 2:Evil Never Dies (1999)

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Our favorite Djinn is (Andrew Divoff) is back, this time accidentally released by a thief in this made for T.V horror movie. Honestly, it looks like a made for T.V. movie. Released in 1999 it looks like it was made in 1989, tho honestly that is part of its charm. I do however use the word charm vaguely because it will take a special horror movie fan to enjoy this. Rotton tomatoes trashed this movie with a 10%, but it did fair better on IMBd with a 5.1/10.

The story itself isn’t bad, tho again pretty cliche and straight out of the 80’s and quite simpler Djinn gets released, collects souls, attempts to grant the one that released him 3 wishes to release the rest of his kind and take over the world and in true Djinn form all of his wishes are granted very literally and take a quick turn for the gross and deadly as he collects 1000 souls.

The movie however is fun in that gross and weird way, but it isn’t for everyone and doesn’t offer anything your average horror fan hasn’t seen a million times. All in all, however I enjoyed it. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Lost Boys (1987)

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The lost boys is one of those movies that came out in the 80’s and is a vampire movie done a bit differently with a twist ending, but both done right. With a family from Arizona moving to California an older brother meets some friends and falls in with a bad crowd. The younger brother meets some comic book nerds obsessed with vampires they claim live in the area and the comics they claim are evidence of this. Turns out that group are those vampires and those nerds are not wrong.

What follows is the classic tale of a quest to escape the clutches of these vampires, their leader that wants to marry their mother, enslave them both and take over the town.

The movie is amazing and has its funny parts but is full of suspense and action with a great sound track, but I will always remember the end when all is said and done. Dead vampires everywhere, a huge hole in the side of the house, and the grandfather that everyone thought was just some old guy saying ” the area would be great if it wasn’t for all the damn vampires” Definitely check this one out if you haven’t already. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Planet of the Sharks (2016)

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Planet of the sharks is an interesting concept. Due to climate change the ice caps have melted and the world has flooded. Humans now live on floating cities in small numbers. Sharks freely roam the world since water now covers pretty much the entire planet. One shark however has seemed to have transformed into a special shark that now leads and controls the others. With the ocean temperatures riding even more food is becoming more scarce. Since food is harder to find sharks are now hunting the humans in the floating cities.

The story sounds fun and has a lot of promise, the problem is despite solid acting and an interesting story the movie falls flat. The script itself leaves much to be desired and the entire sun story of a single rocket fixing the global warming problem is at best idiotic and at worst a complete waste of time and misguided. Don’t get me wrong, it could have been great. The entire movie could have been amazing, it just fell short. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

War of the Worlds (1953)

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War of the Worlds has had many iterations, from the many movies, books and even the original radio broadcast that has spread its own host of urban legends, some of which I covered here Brave New Jersey (2016).

The 1953 version however is by far my favorite, Based off the novel by H.G. Wells and the screen play by Barre Lyndon. The story takes place in a small California town on a night like most others. People are at a local dance or out to eat even a few on a little fishing trip camping out. When a meteorite strikes nearby people get curious, after all who wouldn’t?

A few days later when it cools down and people can get close enough to investigate is when things go from fun and interesting, to world-changing bad. As the meteorite opens to reveal itself to be instead to be alien ships invading the earth.

The acting in the movie is great, you can actually believe these people are scared of what is taking place and for its time the effects are stunning. Sure by the standards of today they are primitive but imagine going to see this on the big screen back in 1953 with your girlfriend, having never seen anything like this when the ship starts shooting or when you finally see this alien come on-screen and grab the girl’s shoulder from behind.

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Sure we have the benefit of it being remastered in color and have seen things much better, but for its time this thing was creepy as hell. Even when I was a kid having grown up with horror movies I remember thinking how I would have freaked if this ugly little bastard managed to sneak up on me.

The ending is also amazing, and I don’t mind spoiling it because the movie is over 60 years old, but if you plan on seeing it after reading this and don’t want it spoiled now is the time to stop reading. Seriously, last chance.

Now I assume you are ready for the spoiler. The end is with the world mostly in ruins, people rioting cars flipped and burning we find out main characters hiding in a church after even nuclear weapons failed to stop the invaders. When suddenly the ship heading their way simply starts to fall and crashes into a building. A hatch opens, an alien starts to appear and stops. Our brave scientist inches his way over to discover it is mysteriously dead. What is even more is all of these ships seem to be slowly doing the same thing. Not all at once, but slowly over time dying. For all their technology they failed to take into account one thing. The germs of Earth played hell with their immune system. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Ritual (2018)

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The Ritual is a very odd movie. I don’t mean that as a bad thing. The movie starts out with a group of friends in Europe planning a guys weekend. Arguing about hiking and drinking and where to do it. But its time to go to the shop and buy some booze. They sadly pick the wrong store and some drug addicts packing a machete decide to rob the place. One friend is unseen and stays hidden, while the other gets brutally murdered trying to defend his wedding ring.

Later on they decide to honor their friend by going hiking, having a couple drinks and just remembering their friend in the way he would have liked. Its a nice thought, one that he actually would have loved. This is where the movie takes its odd turn, first they don’t hike anywhere near as far as they thought. Turns out they can still see the cabin they left from in fact. No big deal tho, in the morning they will head back. Or it would be if somehow they didn’t get lost.

This is where things get weird. while lost they find a dead body nailed to a tree, and yes this becomes important later. After traveling all day a storm hits and they find a cabin, a cabin they didn’t see earlier. There is some weird stuff in this cabin they spend the night in. As you can imagine it isn’t long before people in the group start dying and the last two end up in a village that worships an ancient god that kind of looks like a massive skeleton deer with hands near its mouth. The movie is interesting and while not great is a fun watch and I would suggest checking it out. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.