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weekendwarriorblog · 3 years

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The Weekend Warrior 10/1/21: VENOM: LET THERE BE CARNAGE, THE ADDAMS FAMILY II, THE MANY SAINTS OF NEWARK, TITANE, MAYDAY, THE JESUS MUSIC

Yeah, so I haven’t had the time over the past couple weeks to write a column, and I kind of hate that fact, especially since I’m coming up on a pretty major milestone for me writing a weekly box office column and reviewing movies. In fact, that milestone comes next week! And once again, I’m struggling to get through the movies I was hoping to watch and write about this week, because I’ve been out of town and once again, very busy over the weekend. Let’s see how far I get...

Before we get to this week’s wide releases, I’m excited to say that my local arthouse movie theater, The Metrograph, is finally reopening for in-person screenings, and they’re kicking things off with a 4k restoration of Andrez Zulawski’s 1981 thriller, Possession, starring Sam Neill and Isabell Adjani, who won a Best Actress prize at Cannes for her performance in the film. I actually saw this at the Metrograph a few years back, and Metrograph Pictures, the distribution arm of the company is now distributing the 4k restoration. There’s a lot of exciting things ahead at Metrograph, including an upcoming four-film Clint Eastwood retrospective, including White Hunter, Black Heart (1990) and A Perfect World (1991) this Friday. Also, Lingua Franca director Isabel Sandoval will be showing her fantastic film from 2020 (a rare chance to see it in a theater and I’ll be there!) as well as program a number of other favorites of hers. Sunday will have screenings of Ingmar Berman’s Scenes from a Marriage (1973) in its full four plus hour glory, Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park (1993) and John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness (1994).. In other words, the Metrograph is back!

Moving over to the weekend’s three wide releases, the first one up being Sony’s VENOM: LET THERE BE CARNAGE (Sony Pictures) with Tom Hardy returning as Eddie Brock aka Venom, joined by Woody Harrelson as the psychotic symbiote, Carnage. Taking over the directing reins is Andy Serkis, who has only directed two other movies, Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle and Breathe, but as an actor, he’s been heavily involved with the CG VFX (and performance capture) needed to bring the characters in this Marvel anti-hero movie to life.

Venom has been one of Spider-Man’s most popular villains and sometimes allies for quite a few decades now, starting out life as a cool black costume Spider-Man found on a strange planet during the first “Secret Wars,” which turned out to be an alien symbiote that had malicious intentions. Spider-Man got the costume off of him but it then linked up with Eddie Brock, a sad-sack journalist whose emotions drove the alien symbiote to become the Venom we known and (mostly) love, thanks to one Todd McFarlane. Venom continued to play a large part in the Spider-Man books before getting his own comics, and not before a super-villain was created for him in Cletus Kasady, a vicious serial killer whose infection by the symbiote turns him into Carnage. And that’s who Harrelson is playing.

Being a sequel, we do have some basis to go on, although the original Venom movie, released in early October 2018, also arrived at a time when it was only the second time the character of Venom was brought to the big screen -- the first time being Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3, in which the character was received without much love as Ryan Reynold’s Deadpool in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. And yet, Venom did great, opening with $80.2 million and grossing $213 million domestically, which is more than enough to greenlight a sequel. (It made over double that amount overseas, too.) For comparison, the Wolverine prequel opened with $85 million but at the beginning of summer, so it quickly tailed away with other movies coming out after it. Venom: Let There Be Carnage has to worry about the new James Bond opening a week later, so it very likely could be a one-and-done, opening decently but quickly dropping down as other big movies are released in October (basically one a week).

I’ve already seen the movie, and by the time you read this, reviews will already be up --including my own at Below the Line. Social media reactions seem to not be so bad though, so maybe it’ll get better reviews than its predecessor, which was trashed by critics, receiving only a 30% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. But if you look at the fan ratings, they’re higher with 81%, although it’s hard not to be

I’m thinking that bearing COVID in mind and the law of depreciation since the previous movie, Venom: Let There Be Carnage will probably be good for around $50 million this weekend, maybe a little more, but however it’s received, I expect it to drop significantly next week, though a total domestic gross of $135 to 140 million seems reasonable.

Another strong sequel to kick off October is the animated THE ADDAMS FAMILY II (MGM), which is following up the 2019 hit for MGM/UA Releasing with most of the voice cast returning, including Oscar Isaac, Charlize Theron, Chloe Grace Moretz, and Finn Wolfhard, as well as Nick Kroll, Snoop Dogg, Martin Short, Catherine O’Hara, and Bette Midler voicing the popular characters from the New Yorker cartoons, a popular ‘60s TV series, and two Barry Sonnenfeld movies from the ‘90s.

The 2019 animated film was a pretty solid hit for the newly-launched UA Releasing, grossing $100 million domestic after a $30.3 million opening, making it one of MGM’s biggest hits since it was restructured under UA and became its own distributor again. Who knows what’s going to happen with Amazon’s plans on buying MGM and whether the latter will remain a distribution wing, but MGM still has a number of movies out this year that likely will be awards contenders. But that doesn’t mean much for The Addams Family II, which will try to get some of those people who paid to see the original movie in theaters back to see the sequel… and if they’re not going to theaters, MGM is once again offering the movie day-and-date on VOD much like they did with last year’s Bill and Ted Face the Music, which opened much earlier in the pandemic (late august, 2020), so it far fewer options to see it in theaters compared to this animated sequel.

It’s highly doubtful that The Addams Family II was going to open anywhere near to $30 million even if there wasn’t a pandemic, and it wasn’t on VOD just because MGM just doesn’t seem to be marketing the movie as well as its predecessor. You can blame COVID if you want, but it’s also the fact they’re distributing the company’s first James Bond movie in six years, No Time To Die, on their own vs. through another distributor, ala the last few Daniel Craig Bonds. But we’ll talk more about that next week, since that’s going to be an important movie to help cover MGM’s expenses for the rest of 2021. (I haven’t had a chance to see this yet, but it’s embargoed until Friday, so wouldn’t be able to get a review into the column regardless.)

We’ve seen quite a few family hits over the past few months even when the movies were already on streaming/VOD, but parents are probably being a bit more careful with kids back in school, many younger kids still not vaccinated, and the Delta variant still not quite under control. Because of those factors, I think The Addams Family II is more likely to do somewhere between $15 and 18 million its opening weekend, maybe more on the lower side.

Third up is THE MANY SAINTS OF NEWARK (New Line/WB), David Chase’s prequel to his hit HBO series, The Sopranos, which went off the air in 2004 but still finds fans on the new HBO Max streamer. Ironically, this prequel will air on the streamer at the same time as it's getting a theatrical release, which probably won't be a very tough choice for fans.

Chase has reunited with director Alan Taylor, who won a Primetime Emmy for his work on the show in 2007 before moving onto other popular shows like HBO's Game of Thrones. Taylor has had a bit of a rough career in film, though, having directed Marvel Studios’ sequel, Thor: The Dark World, a movie that wasn't received very well although there were rumors that Taylor butted heads with the producers and maybe didn't even finish the movie. He went on to direct Terminator Genesys, which honestly, I can't remember if it was the worst Terminator movie, but it was pretty bad.

What's interesting is that because this is a prequel set in the '70s and '80s, none of the actors from the show appear on it, but it does star Alessandro Nivola, a great actor in one of his meatiest roles for a studio movie. It also introduces Michael Gandolfini, son of the late James Gandolfini (who played Tony Soprano, if you didn't know), playing the teenage Tony, plus it has great roles for the likes of Jon Bernthal (as Tony's father), Vera Farmiga (playing Tony's mother), Corey Stoll (playing the younger "Junior” Soprano), and Lesile Odom Jr, as the Sopranos key adversary, even though he ends up coming across like the good guy of the movie. It also stars Billy Magnussen, who oddly, also has a key role in next week's No Time to Die.

I'm sure there's quite a bit of interest in seeing where Tony came from and to learn more about his family, many who were dead long before the events of the HBO show, but will that be enough to get them into theaters when they already have HBO? I already reviewed the movie for Below the Line, and reviews are generally positive, which might get people more interested in this prequel.

As with most of Warner Bros’ movies this year, Many Saints will also debut on HBO Max and unlike some of the studio’s other 2021 offerings, it will actually make more sense to watch this one on the streamer since that’s how most people watched The Sopranos. That seems like a killer for Many Saints, and it’s likely to keep it opening under $10 million, where it might have done better on a different weekend (like sometime over the last two weeks).

This is what I have this weekend’s top 10 looking like:

1. Venom: Let There Be Carnage (Sony) - $50.4 million N/A

2. The Addams Family II (MGM/UA Releasing) - $16.5 million N/A

3. The Many Saints of Newark (New Line/WB) - $9 million N/A

4. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (Marvel/Disney) - $7.5 million -44%

5. Dear Evan Hansen (Universal) - $4.1 million -45%

6. Free Guy (20th Century/Disney) - $3.3 million -30%

7. Jungle Cruise (Disney) - $1.1 million -35%

8. Candyman (Universal) - $1.3 million -48%

9. Cry Macho (Warner Bros.) - $1 million -52%

10. Malignant (Warner Bros.) - .7 million -53%

Opening in select cities is French filmmaker Julia (Raw) Ducournau’s TITANE (Neon), the genre thriller that won this year’s coveted Palme D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. It stars Agathe Rouselle as a young woman who has an interesting relationship with automobiles, but she also has psychotic tendencies that leaves a trail of bodies behind her. On the run, she decides to pretend she’s the missing son of a fireman (Vincent Lindon), who has been missing for 10 years, and things just get weirder from there.

I honestly wasen’t sure what to expect from this although I do remember walking out of Ducournau’s cannibal movie, Raw, just because it was so gross, even though so many of my colleagues and friends swear by the movie, and this one, for that matter. Sure, there’s a certain “prove it” factor to me watching a movie that wins the Palme D’Or, because it’s very rare that I like the movies that do win that benchmark cinema award.

After a flashback to Agathe’s character Alexia when she was an obstinate young girl kicking the back seat of her father as he’s driving. They crash and she’s forced to get surgery that puts an odd looking piece of metal in her head. Decades later, she seems to be a pseudo-stripper at weird punk rock car show -- I guess they do those things different in France -- and hooking up with a fellow “model” afterwards. Agathe is actually a very popular model/dancer but when one fan gets too grabby, she pulls a knitting needle out of her hair and stabs it through his ear, killing him. Oh, yeah, she then has sex with a car and seemingly gets pregnant, but that only happens later. First, she goes on a bit of a killing spree and then goes on a run and decides that by strapping up her breasts and breaking her nose, she can pass off this fire captain’s son… and it works!

So the second half deals with acting great Vincent Lindon’s absolutely bonkers steroid-addicted man who seems to be sexually attracted to his own son, and most of his fellow firefighters knows that he’s gay but in the closet, but I’m honestly not sure what that matters. He’s a pretty disgusting character whose 70-year-old ass we see way too much of, and even those who might find Rouselle to be quite fetching, there’s a certain point where her nudity is not alluring but quite horrifying.

Oh, and at this time, Alexia (or Adrien, as she’s now going) has also gotten significantly pregnant, but it’s not a normal pregnancy because what should be milk from her breasts seems to some sort of motor oil. That’s because she FUCKED A CAR earlier in the movie!!! What do you expect when you fuck a car and don’t use protection, girlie? The fact Alexia/Adrien is trying to hide the fact she’s a pregnant woman from a station full of men isn’t even particularly disturbing. The part that really got me was when she broke her own nose to pass off as this guy’s son -- I actually had to look away for that part.

Listen I’m no prude, and I think I can handle most things in terms of horror and gore, but Titane just annoyed me, because it felt like Ms Ducournau was doing a lot of what we see more for shock value than to actually drive the story forward. There just doesn’t seem to be much point to any of it, and once the movie gets to the firehouse, and we see her interaction (as a young man) with her “father” and his colleagues, it just gets more grueling.

It’s as if Ducournau had watched a lot of movies by the likes of Cronenberg or David Lynch, or more likely Nicolas Refn or Lars von Trier, and thought, “I could be just as strange and horrific as those men… let’s see what people think of this.” And way too many people fell for it, including the Cannes jury. While I normally would approve of any good body horror movie, especially one with cinematography, score and musical selections as good as this one, I doubt I’d ever want to watch this movie again. And therefore, I don’t think I can recommend this movie to anyone either, at least no one I want to remain my friend.

As far as the movie’s box office, NEON is opening the movie in 562 theaters to build on buzz from various film festivals, including the New York Film Festival earlier this week. I think it should be good for half a million this weekend, although maybe it'll surprise me like NEON's release of Parasite a few years back. I just don't see this getting into the top 10 but maybe just outside it.

And then we have a few more movies that I got screeners for but just couldn’t find the time to watch, but might do so once I finish this verdammt column.

The faith-based doc THE JESUS MUSIC (Lionsgate) by the Erwin Brothers (I Can Only Imagine, I Still Believe) takes a look at the rise of Christian Contemporary Music through artists like Amy Grant and Stryper and everything in between, featuring lots of interviews of the artists’ trials and triumphs. Even though there isn’t much CCM I ever listen to, I’m still kind of curious about this one, since I generally like music docs and this is guaranteed not to be the sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll of most of them. I have no idea how wide Lionsgate intends to release this but it certainly can be fairly wide, because the Erwins have delivered at least one giant hit for Lionsgate, and I Still Believe may have been another one if not for the pandemic. It actually opened on March 13, just days before movie theaters shut down across the country, so it's little surprise it only made $7 million domestic. That said, the acts in this one have a lot of fans, and if Lionsgate does release The Jesus Music into 1,000 theaters or so (which is very doable), then I would expect it would make between $1 and 2 million, which would be enough to break into the Top 10.

I haven't seen any of the movies based on Anna Todd's YA romance novels but the third of them, AFTER WE FELL, will play in about 1,311 theaters on Thursday i.e. tonight through Fathom Events, and may or may not continue through the weekend. These movies just kind of show up, and again, having not seen any of them, I'm not sure what kind of audience they have, but this one stars Josephine Langford and Hero Fiennes, as well as Stephen Moyer, Mira Sorvino and Arielle Kebbel with Castille Landon directing.

Grace Van Patten (Under the Silver Lake) stars in Karen Cinorre’s action-fantasy film MAYDAY (Magnolia), playing Ana, a young woman who is transported to a “dreamlike and dangerous” coastline where she joins a female army in a never-ending war where women lure men to their deaths. It also stars Mia Goth, Havana Rose Liu, Soko, Théodore Pellerin and Juliette Lewis. It will be in theaters and On Demand this Friday.

The great Tim Blake Nelson stars in Potsy Ponciroli’s action-Western OLD HENRY (Shout! Studios/Hideout) about a widowed farmer and son who take in an injured man with a satchel full of cash only to have to fend off a posse who come after the man, claiming to be the law. Not sure who to trust, the farmer has to use his gun skills to defend his home and the stranger.

The romantic-comedy FALLING FOR FIGARO (IFC Films) is the new movie from Australian filmmaker Ben Lewin (The Sessions), who I’ve interviewed a few times, and he’s a really nice chap. This one stars Danielle Macdonald, Hugh Skinner, and Joanna Lumley, and it will be in theaters and On Demand this Friday. This rom-com is set in the world of opera singing competitions with Macdonald playing Millie, a brilliant young fund manager who decides to chase her dream of being an opera singer in the Scottish Highlands. She begins vocal training lessons with a former opera diva, played by Lumley, where she meets Max, a young man also training for that competition. Could love blossom? This actually sounds like my kind of movie, so I’ll definitely try to watch soon.

The second season of “Welcome to Blumhouse” the horror movie anthology kicks off on Amazon Prime Video on Friday with the first two movies, Maritte Lee Go’s Black as Night (which I’ve seen) and Gigi Saul Guerrero’s Bingo Night (which I haven’t), and actually I’ll have an interview with Ms. Go over at Below the Line possibly later this week. The former stars Ashja Cooper as a teen girl living in Louisiana who has a bad experience with homeless vampires, along with her best friend (Fabrizio Guido).

Also, Antoine Fuqua and Jake Gyllenhaal’s remake of the Danish film THE GUILTY will begin streaming on Netflix starting Friday after premiering at TIFF a few weeks back. I never got around to reviewing it, but it’s pretty good, maybe a little better than the original movie but essentially the same. I’d definitely recommend it if you like Jake, because he’s definitely terrific in it.

Also hitting Netflix this week is Juana Macias' SOUNDS LIKE LOVE (Netflix), a Spanish language romance movie that (guess) I haven't seen!

A few other movies I didn’t get to this week, include:

STOP AND GO (Decal) VAL (Dread) BLUSH (UA Releasing) RUNT (1091 Pictures)

Next week, it’s not time for James Bond, it’s time for James Bond to die… no, wait… there is NO TIME TO DIE! Also, a very, very special anniversary for the Weekend Warrior….

#The Weekend Warrior #Venom: Let There Be Carnage #Many Saints of Newark #Addams Family II #movies #review #box office #reviews #The Jesus Music #Titane

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thedeaditeslayer · 5 years

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A conversation with cult movie favorite Bruce Campbell.

Here’s a very short and general interview with Bruce Campbell.

Playing the Frankenstein monster was the smartest professional decision film actor Boris Karloff ever made. The same can be said for Bela Lugosi, who agreed to portray Count Dracula first on stage and then in the movies. But Karloff was in his mid-forties when fortune smiled on him, and Lugosi had just turned 50. By contrast, Bruce Campbell was just 29 when he became associated with the horror film franchise that would change his life.

As a teenager growing up in Michigan, Campbell was already acting and making his own 8mm movies when he met kindred spirit Sam Raimi in high school. The two became friends over their shared love of film and were soon creating increasingly elaborate productions with Campbell in front of the camera and Raimi in the director's chair.

Their collaborations eventually yielded a 30-minute horror film called "Within the Woods." Campbell and Raimi thought the film could be made into a full-length film for theatrical release – if only they had the money to pull it off. They convinced family, friends and some Detroit businessmen to fund the project, eventually raising $350,000. The film, now called "Evil Dead," was completed in 1981.

The only problem was no theater wanted to show it.

Instead "Evil Dead" debuted in England on video where it rose to number one in 1983. After writer Stephen King pronounced it "the most ferociously original horror film of the year," New Line Cinema released it in the U.S. "Evil Dead" was so successful that it spawned a sequel, "Evil Dead II," in 1987 and another, called "Army of Darkness," in 1992.

In between those films, Campbell reveled in his newfound career, making appearances in Raimi-directed films such as "Crimewave," "Darkman" and "The Quick and the Dead" as well as films by the Coen brothers, John Carpenter and others. His hilarious bits in Raimi's three Spider-Man films with Tobey Maguire and his portrayal of Elvis Presley in the horror comedy "Bubba Ho-Tep" are further indications of why Campbell has such a huge B-movie fan following.

Campbell will be in Milwaukee on Saturday, Sept. 28 at The Pabst Theater in support of his new book, "Make Love! The Bruce Campbell Way." He'll tell stories from his career and take questions from the audience after a screening of "Evil Dead II." Prior to the show, though, Campbell shared some life experiences with OnMilwaukee.

OnMilwaukee: You began your career as an actor, but since then you've become a screenwriter, an author and a producer as well as doing voiceover work for animated films and video games. What's your professional title?

Bruce Campbell: It's easiest to just call myself an entertainer. It covers all that stuff you just mentioned.

I know you work very hard at being Bruce Campbell, but you make it all look effortless.

It's pretty simple. I love what I do. Yes, I work hard, but that's the only way to get where you want to go. Was I lucky? Sure, to a certain extent – but working at something is more effective than luck. People can talk themselves out of anything if they want to. "Oh, I'm not smart enough" or "I'm not good enough." Nobody's talented at first. I just figured it out.

Is that how you and Sam Raimi got to make the "Evil Dead" film?

I think we benefitted immensely from being together at that time. And we had a little group of friends that traded off working on each other's movies. Remember: We grew up in a time when a kid could be a kid. Those were the days when you'd leave the house in the morning and show up again around supper time. We were free-range kids. No programmed activities, no cell phones, no computers and, most importantly, no fear. We weren't afraid to fail. We were just motivated. Period.

You must have been motivated because the money you raised to make the film was a sizable figure at that time.

You bet. But we had a plan and we stuck to it. We chipped away at it slowly but surely. One of our friends had a lawyer in the family, and through that connection, we learned how to raise money the right way. We formed a legal entity with investment contracts, and we sold shares. No bullsh*t. This was all above board. For $5,000, you could buy a half share; for $10,000, a full share. $5,000 was the minimum buy-in. My mom bought in – and you know what, every year she gets a check for $11,000, and she's gotten one like that for the last 40 years. I'm proud to say that all the original investors in "Evil Dead" have made 35 times their money back as of today.

Your mom gets $11,000 every year?

That's right. I called her a few months ago and asked what she bought with the money this time. She was so excited because she bought new Anderson windows for her house!

As an actor, you've worked for A-list directors like Sam Raimi and John Carpenter. What's it like being on their set?

Well, Sam's a friend, of course, and I've worked with him a lot. But on the set, he's all business, a real tough guy. The first day of a shoot, he'll be yelling at everyone – including me – making sure that every little thing is in order. By the next day, he's calmed down, and it's more like we're pals again.

I only made one film with John Carpenter: "Escape from L.A." He was deadly serious on the set. He gave me one direction on how he wanted me to play my part and then walked away. I never spoke to him again.

Do you depend on relationships like those to get your next job?

To some extent, sure. But I've amassed a body of work in film and TV that speaks for itself. I used to go to all the parties in town, but I quickly realized that Hollywood is full of phonies, and they all go to those parties too. When I'm talking with someone, I want them to look me in the eye, not be constantly glancing around the room to see who just came in. I'll do a legitimate audition for anyone that's interested in casting me for a part, but I don't like playing the games. I moved to Oregon in 1998 so I didn't have to be in Hollywood on a daily basis.

At one time, you had a project called "Bruce vs. Frankenstein" in pre-production. Is that one still going to happen?

(Laughs) I'm not sure. "Bruce vs. Frankenstein" was conceived as a sequel to "My Name is Bruce," which was a spoof of the stuff I'd done to that point. I wanted to make this one like "The Expendables" of horror films and get as many stars as I could to be in it.

What can the audience expect at the Milwaukee show next week?

There's the screening of "Evil Dead II," which was the promoter's choice. That's consistent. But when I get on stage, it all depends on what the audience wants. Some of what I'll talk about will be extensions of things I've done at Comic-Con, but I don't ever want to be boring so I let the fans take the show and the discussion where they want it to go.

You have a new book about things that have happened since you wrote "If Chins Could Kill." Will you talk about that at the show?

Of course! "Make Love! The Bruce Campbell Way" is my first novel. I'll be signing copies for everyone. (Laughs) At the conventions, I sign quite a few boobs too! My hand used to shake when I did that, but over the years, I've gotten rather good at it. It's like eye surgery. I've only blown a few.

If you hadn't gotten the opportunities afforded you by the success of the "Evil Dead" franchise, what might you be doing for a living now?

I love the outdoors. I'd be a park ranger, yelling at kids to stop smoking dope in the forest!

#Bruce Campbell

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rayofspades · 6 years

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Everyone in the World Forgot How Remakes and Sequels Work and I Have to Talk About It Because I’m Losing My Mind

I tried very, very hard to make this a coherent and somewhat organized post, but it’s still gonna sound like the ravings of a mad woman, so...prepare yourself.

Also, this isn’t gonna be an analysis of why remakes and sequels are so popular, because it’s exactly as simple as it seems: people like things that make them feel nostalgic and creators have caught on to this and realized that by remaking a familiar property, their new product has a built in fan base.

Great.

What I want to talk about is how the concept of remakes/reboots/sequels/whatever has been kind of destroyed. Both audiences and Hollywood have created these weird perceptions that are flooding the market in a way that is exhausting to audiences and confusing to creators.

So, I’m here to discuss all the different types of remakes and why they work or don’t work and how this culture has been conditioned to support them regardless of quality.

Alright,

let’s do this.

Part 1: Cross-Media Remakes:

I find it somewhat impossible to criticize the existence to book--> movie remakes too much because they’re a vehicle for both creativity and audience expansion, even in cases where they’re motivated by money. Harry Potter and The Hunger Games made for some pretty solid movies, and that’s largely because those books just translated well to film. Obviously some changes had to be made to account for time constraints and visual storytelling, but they can get away with having a similar structure and still feeling entirely new based on the hard shift in presentation from book to film.

I would make a similar argument for Marvel movies. From what I understand, those movies change more from their source material, and there are a lot of them, but it makes perfect sense to adapt comic books to reach a wider audience. I feel like the main reason people are becoming tired of Marvel movies is their overwhelming quantity, not so much the fact that they’re remakes.

I would also love to talk about the popularity of GoT and LotR, but I don’t think I’m familiar enough with those franchises to properly discuss them, so I’ll leave that to someone else.

But there is something else I want to talk about.

While Harry Potter and The Hunger Games translated really well to film, the same isn’t true for some other cross media adaptations.

Part 2: Adapt or Die:

In the late 70s, Stephen King wrote The Shining. I’ve read the book and I really enjoyed it, largely due to King’s writing style (the prose, the internal monologues, etc.)

The thing is, The Shining doesn’t really translate well into the film format; it’s really long and a lot of what makes it good is tied to its presentation.

So when Stanley Kubrick adapted The Shining into a film in the early 80s, he changed a lot.

a lot.

The setting and characters remain pretty much the same, and the story follows similar beats, but certain events and themes have been drastically altered to the point where I would consider it a different story.

(Brief aside; the three most famous/iconic scenes from the film (”Here’s Johnny!” “All work and no play”, and Jack frozen in the snow) are ALL exclusive to the film.)

Regardless, both the movie and the book have maintained their own popularity with their own audiences. Both are considered good and both are considered classics.

Although, from what I’ve heard, The Shining film did receive criticism back in the day for being needlessly unpleasant. Interesting.

It’s a somewhat similar story with John Carpenter. If you ask people to list good remakes, 90% of the time people will list The Thing (1982). It’s practically the poster child for “hey, not all remakes are bad, guys.”

In this case, Carpenter was working from both a previous movie (The Thing From Another World) and the prior novella (”Who Goes There?”). Carpenter’s film definitely borrows more from the novella, but it was obviously going to be compared more to the previous film, and it is v e r y different from the previous film. Carpenter’s film (like The Shining) received criticism for how gross and unpleasant it was, but became the definitive version of The Thing and stood the test of time to become a horror classic.

Basically, if you need to change the original product when remaking it, do it. That is the best thing you could possibly do. It gives the creator a chance to actually create their own unique product that just happens to be based on or inspired by an existing property. This is actually a legitimately cool phenomenon; taking preexisting stories and altering them to fit a new cultural context or simply expanding and improving on ideas. It’s a similar concept to “old wives tales” and fairy tales, and how those stories are constantly changed and retold and in doing so become timeless. Gee I wonder if fairy tales are going to come up later in this post.

Part 3: Bad Changes are Bad

*Strums guitar* This one goes out to all audience members out there who have convinced themselves that bad remakes are bad because they’re too different from the original. *Strums guitar*

Stop.

Please stop.

Look, comparing a remake to an original to showcase how bad the remake is is perfectly valid criticism. It can highlight how an idea can be botched when it’s not handled properly. Sure. That’s fine. I highly encourage people to compare the dialogue, characters, and world building of Avatar: The Last Airbender and M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender. It’s important to recognize how one story is an utter fucking masterpiece and one is a poorly told train wreck.

Here’s the thing:

people seem to criticize the film on the basis of “it’s different” and, I mean, sure. But it’s not just that it’s different, it’s that it’s different and....um....

bad?

Like, one of the “complaints” I saw about the movie was that firebenders now need actual fire in front of them in order to bend it, and I consider that to be just a neutral change. It’s not really better or worse, it’s just different. And please don’t comment on this post with “skflsfjsf NO it’s because in the original firebenders used the SUN as their source of fire” like yeah I know I get it it’s still an inconsequential change.

Now, saying that the earthbenders being held on land as opposed to the sea is a bad change? Yes, that is valid criticism because it makes no goddamn sense within the movie’s universe and just makes everyone look dumb.

That movie is an utter fucking disaster. It’s poorly directed, it’s poorly written, the casting decisions are baffling, the acting is horrible, it’s poorly paced, and it’s bad.

It’s a bad movie.

I would apply the same logic to the new Death Note live action movie (the American one). Putting aside the racial controversy for a minute, I’m fine with changing things about the plot and structure to properly adapt it into a movie. But...yeah. The plot is bad. It just comes across as really dumb and weird.

So yeah, bad remakes are bad, but it’s not as simple as just being “different.”

If y’all keep complaining about remakes making changes, then you’re only encouraging the products I’m about to talk about in the next few Parts.

Arguably the worst and most prolific products of them all...

Part 4: Sometimes, Things That Are the Same.......Are Worse

Alright, I’m gonna start with a really extreme example, but it perfectly captures the essence of what I’m trying to say.

In 1998, Gus Van Sant made the incredibly confusing and brave(?) decision to remake Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. And I do mean “remake,” as in, it is shot for shot the same movie. It’s some sort of bizarre cinematic experiment.

I really like the original movie, so you would assume that, since this movie is literally the same movie, I would like it too.

I don’t.

No one does.

It’s the same movie but with worse performances.

It’s pointless.

Its existence is both unnecessary and confusing. Watching it was a bizarre experience that just made me wish I was watching the original.

(The best part about this is that 15 years after this remake came out, Carlton Cuse and Kerry Ehrin solved remakes forever by making Bates Motel; a contemporary prequel/reimagining of Psycho (1960). This show takes the characters and key events from the Hitchcock film and puts them in a different setting with an altered version of plot points. The creators openly and repeatedly state that they did not want to just remake Psycho and instead wanted to tell a tragedy/thriller using the framework of Psycho. To me, this perfectly encapsulates what remakes are supposed to be. It’s a good show and it’s severely underrated. Please go watch it, just ignore like half of season 3 and you’re gold.)

Unfortunately, the most common and (arguably) the most frustrating type of remake/sequel/reboot/whatever is the “let’s do the same thing...but different” type. They can be a retread of the original plot or just take the title and elements of the original and use them while adding nothing substantially new.

Independence Day: Resurgence, Alien Covenant, The Thing (2011), and proooobably most direct sequels in any popular franchise (like the Transformers movies) fall under this category.

The most notable ones in recent years are D i s n e y r e m a k e s, but those get their own section.

Also, I’m hesitant to talk about these because it might just be a cultural difference, but it deeply bothers me when I see Japanese live action films that are based on anime and they just...keep everything the same?

Like, in a live action remake of FMA, why the fuck wouldn’t you make up some grotesque and upsetting monster thing for the Nina Tucker scene? Why would you just use the design from the manga/anime??? WHY WOULDN’T YOU ADAPT IT TO MAKE IT WORK FOR LIVE ACTION?????????????????????????????????????

But hey, what do I know. It might just be a culture thing.

From what I’ve gathered and experienced, people have the following problems with these types of overly-faithful and/or pointless remakes:

1) They’re boring because it’s just a retread that feels inferior.

2) They try to replicate elements of the original without understanding the actual appeal (aka the tangible details are addressed while the underlying ideas get sidelined or misunderstood).

3) They just...don’t adapt well.

Even if we were to take The Last Airbender and give it to a competent director who has a decently written script, that’s a case where you probably should have changed a lot more to properly make the jump from animated show to live action movie. Obviously, a lot of things would need to be cut or moved around in order to properly pace it.

I’m gonna talk more about this type of movie in a different section so for now let’s move on to the most recent remake craze that’s driving me up the wall.

Part 5: “I’ve got the power of remakes and anime on my side”

Fuck.

So part of the appeal of anime for me has always been its creativity. While some of it is pretty derivative when looking at specific genres, I’ve always found there to be a significantly wider range of creative ideas and concepts in anime than in any other medium.

But now the industry’s running on fumes and someone let it slip that you can make a quick buck by just remaking a popular IP.

Fuck.

And I don’t wanna rag on the new-ish trend of readapting old anime for the sake of following the recently completed manga. This has had unbelievably successful results with FMA:B and Hunter x Hunter (2011) becoming massive critical hits (and two of my favourite shows).

(Although it hasn’t escaped my attention that studios have, in fact, used this gimmick to make half-baked and poorly crafted products with the knowledge that the existing fan base will buy that shit anyways. I’m looking directly at Berserk (2016) and Book of the Atlantic.)

But now they’re also adapting/sequel-ing shows purely for the sake of cashing in on the original (or adapting pre-made sequel products that were already made with that mindset in the first place).

Clear Card was boring as fuck and transparently existed to sell toys.

I dropped Steins;Gate 0 after around 8 episodes when it become abundantly clear that it took the “let’s take elements of the old plot and just....do stuff” route without keeping any of what made the original cool and unique.

The Evangelion movies seem really antithetical to the original show, and the third one feels like it was made by someone who thought they understood Evangelion and hated it. (But luckily the original is coming to Netflix next year so who even cares. Give me that 10/10 show.)

Although I will admit, Devilman Crybaby’s existence kind of falls under what I was saying earlier in this post. It’s one of many adaptations of an old manga that is changed substantially to fit the current cultural climate, with some unique aesthetic changes thrown in there for good measure.

It’s pretty okay.

But um...

Oh boy...

We’re about to get into it lads.

Part 6: Production IG Broke My Whole Brain. Brain Broken. Dead. No Brain.

Hooooooooo boy.

So, FLCL (also known as Fooly Cooly) is one of my favourite shows. In fact, it’s the only show I’ve ever watched that I have absolutely no problems with. None. Not even nitpicks.

I’ve watched it 6 times, including with director’s commentary. It has an utterly perfect and unique/fluid aesthetic and I wish its visuals were just playing in my brain all of the time. It’s an arthouse comedy, which is a...rare (nonexistent?) genre, and it pulls it off perfectly. Its cool, its beautiful, its silly, its poetic, its creative, it has great themes that can reach both teenagers and adults, and there is literally nothing else on the planet like it.

So when it was announced that they were making a sequel 18 years later with a different cast of characters, I was...weirdly excited. Like a pavlovian happy response. I got even more excited after seeing the trailer.

Only a short while before the show aired did it dawn on me.

Wh...what are they doing?

From the trailer, I could see that they were taking some familiar plot elements (Medical Mechanica, Haruko, N.O., Atomsk, etc.) and adding some different protagonists.

who gives a single fuck about the plot of Fooly Cooly?

The plot elements...don’t matter. It’s just a vehicle for cool and amazing things to happen.

So the show came out, and I saw more clips on youtube. While it is cool that they’re using different episode directors with some different art styles, the difference in quality between the directing and overall visual presentation is shockingly noticeable. I partially blame the fact that the anime industry isn’t as financially stable as it used to be, but this is also a Production IG show that’s based on an extremely popular property, so that’s barely an excuse.

It mostly just looks like an anime with some cool stylistic elements, whereas the original looks stunningly perfect, dynamic, unique, and beautiful in every single solitary shot.

I’ve read and watched many reviews of the sequel, both positive and negative, and from what I can tell it’s a textbook example of a “lets take components of the original and just...use them...while kind of missing the point and appeal of the original show.” Fooly Cooly is made of 100% intangible details. That thing is lightning in a bottle, and by taking the tangible details (plot elements and callbacks) and putting them in your show, you’ve already proven that you’ve completely and 100% missed the point.

Also:

this is the new show’s MAL score. While I consider anything between a 6 and a 7 to be “okay,” MAL scores tend to be higher since people rate on separate components of the show.

Like, a 6.7 on MAL is probably a 3 for everyone else. Yikes.

But honestly, the quality of the show is completely irrelevant, because that’s not the actual problem.

The only way to make a new FLCL product would be by accident. Have a director make a deeply personal product in which they do whatever the fuck they want. Have it be stylistically wild and make it look amazing. Create some sort of arthouse comedy with resonant themes and then just get Production IG to slap the FLCL brand on it to appeal to people’s nostalgia.

And that’s when it hit me.

That’s when my whole brain broke.

That accidental, spiritual sequel product can never happen.

Because it looks like a huge risk to producers.

Somehow, by remaking one of the most original and generation defining pieces of media ever created, Production IG proved that we do not live in a world where that type of product is allowed to exist. It can’t exist.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.

Part 7: Disney and the Culture of Hype(rbole)

When I was young, my family owned two versions of Cinderella on film. The 1950 Disney animated version, and the 1997 live-action version with Brandy.

Obviously, they’re the same story. They follow the same beats and have the same characters. However, there are some major differences in scenes, character portrayal and, most notably, the songs. Both are musicals, but with completely different soundtracks.

If we want to go even further, we also owned Ever After, which is a completely different retelling of Cinderella with a whole new plot made for an older audience (and it’s also very good. Check it out)

In other words, I have nothing against live action Disney remakes, In fact, I think Disney movies based on fairy tales have become their own type of fairy tale; classic stories that are being constantly retold and reshaped to remain both relevant and timeless. It’s beautiful.

What the fuck is Disney doing in the 2010s?

Right now, the trend seems to be completely recreating older Disney classics, only making them live action and, um, “fixing” them.

If you want a detailed analysis of this, go watch the Lindsay Ellis video about Beauty and the Beast. I’ll briefly sum up, but you should definitely watch the video.

Look, I personally don’t hate Beauty and the Beast (2017), but once you notice that the Beast’s character arc doesn’t really exist...

and that there are a bunch of plot threads that either don’t go anywhere or are just kind of pointless...

and that there’s a weird trolley problem with Belle and the servants that completely botches the moral of the story....

and that by adding a bunch of logic to a fucking fairy tale you’re stripping it of its appeal and also just creating plot holes...

and that the singing isn’t nearly as good as the original...

and a bunch of other problems with acting and characterization....

you start to notice that “hey, they made the exact same movie....but worse.”

But, people are okay with that.

Most people didn’t even really notice. And that’s fine, like what you like. I enjoyed the movie well enough, even though I definitely prefer the original. But...I would probably also like a different retelling of Beauty and the Beast if it was a good product. Except, then it would also be...new? And potentially better? Or at least a lateral move.

I just watched the trailer for the new Lion King (2019), and it looks...kind of good. But even thinking this...I kind of long for death, because the entire trailer is just “hey, remember THIS from the original.”

I’m just...I’m just done. I’m burnt out. I’ve had it.

When are we gonna stop making the same movie over and over again?

Or when are the changes actually going to make sense? I’ve seen most of Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland and it just goes in the opposite direction of changing everything, but the changes are just.....uggggh. Not good. Bad changes are bad.

The thing with Disney is that they are also a hype generating machine, especially after purchasing both Marvel and Star Wars. I once heard someone say in a video that, back in the day, people were trying to make the best possible product so it would sell and get popular. People...don’t really need to do that anymore. If you get 304958493093 billion people excited about the next movie in their favourite 80s franchise by promoting and hyping the shit out of it, then you’ve already secured tons of butts in seats before the movie even comes out. Every movie is an event movie if it comes from Disney and is part of one of their big franchises. Every new thing based on an old thing is the new “best thing.”

Even a new sequel that I actually liked, The Incredibles 2, was weirdly hyped up. (Also, even though I liked it, it didn’t escape my notice that there were a bunch of plot problems with the villain and the script proooobably needed another draft. Just saying.)

So, the big questions are, in this current culture, are we ever going to get another original sci-fi property, like the 80s Star Wars trilogy? Are we ever going to see a boom in a genre outside of Disney owned properties? Are we ever going to get another insane, passion-project smash hit like Fooly Cooly?

No. I don’t think so.

Not in the current state of things. 10 years from now? Maybe. 20 years from now? Probably.

Part 8: Concluding Thoughts

I don’t know, man.

People are still making original things, but they’re not as popular and/or creative as they need to be to change where we are right now.

The very existence of Get Out does lend me some hope. It was a creative and original movie and a very large audience of people (including myself) really liked it.

Yay.

More of this please.

So, um, yeah.

I’m going to go watch Fooly Cooly for the 7th time and scream into a void.

Mmmm bye.

#movies #Disney #flcl #the thing 1982 #psycho #the shining #beauty and the beast #cinderella #update:i fixed the video link

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bushleaguereviews · 5 years

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My Top Ten Movies of 2018

Let me start off by saying that 2018 was not my favorite year for movies. Not by a long shot. That’s not to say that this wasn’t a year that had it’s fair share of interesting films, with compelling performances. It’s just that without a Bond movie to look forward to, or films to look forward to by my favorite filmmakers working today, Fincher, Nolan, Steven Soderbergh, (OK, Soderbergh did release a micro-budget film shot on an iPhone starring the incomparable Claire Foy called Unsane, which I actually enjoyed quite a bit, but still,) I didn’t have much to look forward to this last year. That said, here is a list of my FAVORITE movies of the year. Not the “greatest” films of the year, but rather the movies I thought were fun, or interesting, or simply enjoyable in some way you may or may not understand. Regardless, I hope you enjoy the list, and that it leads to some spirited conversations.

10. Vice

Simply stated, Christian Bale is compelling as hell. I just enjoy watching the man work. Whether he’s playing a psychopath, a drug addict, a con man, or a Batman, it’s going to be interesting. Then, you surround him with other great actors like Amy Adams, Sam Rockwell, and Steve Carrell, and give them a clever script by Academy Award winner/former Saturday Night Live head writer, Adam McKay, and you’ve got yourself an intriguing portrait of power.

9. Overlord

A genre film with an intelligent script from Oscar-nominated screenwriters, shot anamorphically, and given a real budget, thanks to producer J.J. Abrams? Oh, I’m in. I’m way in.

8. Ant-Man and The Wasp

This is my one Marvel movie on the list. Why did I choose it over an impressive feat like Infinity War or an immersive spectacle like Black Panther, you ask? Well, this film, in a way, combatted my Marvel fatigue. It’s like the filmmakers knew I was growing tired of these movies and did some research on me. It’s like they said “OK, you like Paul Rudd, don’t you? Of course you do, he’s delightful. Well, what if we put him in a superhero movie that includes a cast with great actors you’ve enjoyed your whole life, like Michael Douglas and Michelle Pfeiffer? Not enough? Fine. We’ll throw in Walton Goggins, the villain from one of your all-time favorite shows, Justified, and make him an Elmore Leonard-esque villain. Still not Enough? Fine. How about we throw in Lawrence Fishburne, Judy Greer, and Michael Peña as well, and a fun script from one of the writers from one of your favorite sitcoms, Community? Will that make you happy?” Yes, yes it will. And it did.

7. Halloween

I saw the original Halloween when I was four-years-old, home alone with the babysitter, at night. It ruined my childhood. By that, I mean I’m a big fan of the franchise. What’s great about this installment, that so many of the sequels struggled to get right, is it’s a slow burn, with tensions increasing slowly throughout, and building to a suspenseful climax. Add stellar performances from Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer, and newcomer Andi Matichak, plus a score by original composer/director John Carpenter, and you’ve got a more than solid entry in the horror genre.

6. A Star is Born

Beautifully acted, beautifully shot, and a hell of a directorial debut for Bradley Cooper. Well done, sir.

5. Game Night

Great ensemble cast lead by Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams in a movie with a fun premise, that successfully blends comedy and thriller elements. What more could you want?

4. Annihilation

Immersive as hell, visually stunning, and a bit of a mind fuck. Plus, I’ll watch Natalie Portman in just about anything. ‘Nuff said.

3. Beirut

They don’t make ‘em like this anymore. This is the kind of film that Sydney Pollack would’ve directed Robert Redford in back in the 70s. Written by one of my favorite screenwriters, Tony Gilroy, (The Bourne Movies, Michael Clayton, Rogue One,) and starring two of my favorite actors working today, Jon Hamm and Rosamund Pike, Beirut has everything....if everything to you is drama with thrilling elements, political intrigue, and a world-weary protagonist battling his demons and struggling to find meaning in his life again, all the while mourning his wife, battling alcoholism, and acting as a hostage negotiator to broker a deal to save his estranged best friend in a war-torn country. Can’t recommend this enough. You can check it out on Amazon Prime right now, so do it!

2. Solo: A Star Wars Story

This film did not get a lot of love when it came out. Was this the biggest Star Wars film of all time? No, quite the opposite. Could the character of Han Solo had more of a story arc? Probably. Is Alden Ehrenreich as good as Harrison Ford? Hell no, but he is a good actor, who made the character his own, who had a great cast to play off of, and anchored a movie that was fun as hell. In addition to this, I enjoyed this film on a technical level. Screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan, (Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Empire Strikes Back, The Big Chill,) is another one of my favorite writers, and the characterizations and interplay between the characters in all of his scripts is simply wonderful. The low-light cinematography was an interesting throwback to cinematography from the 70s, and I appreciated the specificity of the look of the film, (especially considering all the shakeups behind the scenes of this film.) Finally, the score was a fun mix of the old and new. So, yeah. In conclusion: fun movie.

1. Mission: Impossible - Fallout

I’m a huge fan of the franchise and while this isn’t my all-time favorite, it is the most action-packed, has a great cast, (I love Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa,) and writer/director Christopher McQuarrie’s brings an intelligence, integrity and emotional resonance to the series, that make these films so much more than just spectacle. This was the main movie I was looking forward to last year, and it didn’t disappoint. I had a blast seeing this in theaters, and continue to enjoy it on the small screen too. Can’t wait for the next one.

And there you have it. My favorite movies of 2018. In retrospect, the thing all of these movies had in common were great ensemble casts. Regardless about how you feel about these movies as a whole, we can all agree on that, right? Yes? No? Maybe? (Circle one.) Until next year!

Sincerely yours,

Charles A. Bush

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theunchainedmelody · 3 years

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I posted 269 times in 2021

12 posts created (4%)

257 posts reblogged (96%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 21.4 posts.

I added 163 tags in 2021

#gency - 52 posts

#emergenji - 38 posts

#black clover - 12 posts

#samurai of hyuga - 11 posts

#sk8 the infinity - 10 posts

#overwatch - 9 posts

#fma 2003 - 9 posts

#flystep - 8 posts

#vanessa x nozel - 7 posts

#castlevania - 7 posts

Longest Tag: 63 characters

#posts hating on men remind me why i hate tumblr's toxic culture

My Top Posts in 2021

The fact that so few reactors have ever reacted to FMA 2003 is depressing.

17 notes • Posted 2021-02-09 03:55:28 GMT

John Carpenter’s The Thing is a masterful horror film with amazing practical effects but I just need to say: Damn. Kurt Russel was so handsome in this movie. It made everything more pleasant.

18 notes • Posted 2021-10-10 05:24:09 GMT

What I’m most looking forward to in the next Fallen Hero content

The painful, heart-wrenching moment and conversation where Herald finds out Sidestep is the villain who traumatized and hurt him. Specifically for me, as the Sidestep who is romancing him, as I beg for his forgiveness and try to explain to him the horrors that led me to becoming a villain.

The reveal. The tragedy. It’s going to be soul-destroying.

And I hope that it all ends alright. I like to think that Herald, being a gentle soul, will accept that Sidestep (fem Sidestep in my case), the person he loves, has done horrible things, tried to minimize their evil deeds, is regretful, and is living a tormented existence. And that he wants to either help my dark plans in a moral way or wants to redeem me back to the light.

I. Cannot. Wait. For how Malin executes that destined moment. And the aftermath.

Or for that matter, how it will play out with my Sidestep and romanced Ortega (male Ortega in my case). It might be even harder on Ortega than Herald when he finds out how far Sidestep has fallen.

18 notes • Posted 2021-07-09 00:41:45 GMT

Fallen Hero: Herald Hate?

Seriously, there’s people that hate Herald?

I was looking at comments on Fallen Hero: Retribution’s forums and I can’t understand how people can hate Herald (even if you never pursue a romance), particularly so much they want Sidestep to physically hurt him. He’s not even an annoying goodie two shoes. He’s just a kind man with a bit of hero worship and for my Sidestep, an innocent crush. I just can’t fathom wanting to hurt him like I’ve seen people say. He’s got a limp and he’s traumatized because of my villainess. How is that satisfying? His crimes are *reads list for the first time* taking me flying and being good-looking? What?

Even in the first game, I had a problem with my Sidestep’s jealousy-fueled disdain for him and I tried to minimize her cruelty to him whenever I could. Honestly, I still am not sure I like the game deciding for me that I hate him on its own but damn does it make it meaningful when the sequel humanizes him and my villainess is forced to confront how unnecessarily cruel she was to him amidst their growing romance. I personally don’t think it’s necessary for Sidestep to initially hate Herald at all since my Sidestep has enough self-loathing, general hero distrustfulness, misanthropy, and self-destructive tendencies without wanting to kick the adorable puppy that is Herald.

Anyway, I’m in love with him. My Sidestep is madly in love with him. And he loves her. And I absolutely refuse to hurt this man ever again, even if it costs my villainess her revenge and her life.

20 notes • Posted 2021-06-30 14:57:54 GMT

Thoughts on Sidestep's romance w/Herald or Ortega

SPOILER WARNING FOR FALLEN HERO: REBIRTH & FALLEN HERO: RETRIBUTION.

Of note: I played fem Sidestep with male Ortega, so what I write reflects this.

Herald Thoughts)

Herald’s romance is honestly amazing. Ortega is fantastic too, but Herald’s romance in the second game is both unexpected and incredibly sweet (yet twisted).

I get that Sidestep was jealous of Herald, but jeezus, does she have to act as if he shot her dog? As early as as the first game, she is hellbent on trying to kick his teeth in at every opportunity. He did nothing wrong. He was nothing but sweet to me.

I love how the second game allows you to call yourself out on how badly you treated him. I love how guilty and regretful my villainess is about hurting him. The poor boy has a limp. How do I make this better? q-q

He’s terrified of Entropy. He wants to defeat them so badly. He wants to defeat you! The woman he loves and idolizes. And he has no idea it was you. This writing is amazing.

His romance feels so dangerous despite him being a total sweetie. He has no clue the woman he’s dating is the one who put him in a hospital. I’m training him to defeat me! It’s like I want him to defeat me in the end.

I hope in the finished sequel or final game, I can recruit Herald/Daniel. I think he would be sympathetic and he could help me accomplish my goals in a humane way.

His crush on his hero (you) is adorable

Sidestep realizing “Oh no. He’s hot!” is amazing.

I totally picture Daniel as a long-haired pretty boy.

Ortega Thoughts)

I chose Ortega’s romance first. Having us be romantic in the past worked out so well story-wise.

The way he comes back into my life just as my Sidestep is succumbing to darkness is so beautiful. She can’t help but fall back in love even though it will be her undoing. She can’t help but want him to defeat her in the end.

Like with Herald, my heart breaks when my villainess fights him. The poor man was left with a broken body and utterly terrified. I’m glad you can choose to show mercy on him, but he’s still really hurt. q-q

Going to see him in the hospital to nurse his wounds and comfort him right after being the one to put him in there is so incredibly fucked up but in my defense, my Sidestep is very unwell in the head. She’s self-destructive, searching for both salvation and her own ruin so naturally she’s letting Ortega into her life.

It’s incredibly hard not to date Ortega.

I hate interacting with him as my second body. I want to flirt with him but I don’t want him flirting with other women but me (even though I am that other woman). It’s complicated.

Please let me recruit him later on in the story. I hate lying to him.

He’s not a sweetie like Herald, but Ortega always feels like Sidestep’s soulmate.

34 notes • Posted 2021-06-24 23:16:44 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

#my 2021 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Link Tank: First Look at the Campaign for Halo Infinite

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

We finally have some looks at the highly anticipated video game Halo Infinite’s campaign, and it looks very promising.

“Halo Infinite picks up after the events of Halo 5 and sees Master Chief trying to figure out why Cortana, his longtime AI partner, went rogue and tried to destroy humanity. He’s seeking another AI, code-named ‘The Weapon,’ who was allegedly designed as a countermeasure to Cortana. The Banished—a splinter faction of Chief’s enemies-turned-allies the Covenant—is in his way.”

Read more at Mental Floss

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

The post Link Tank: First Look at the Campaign for Halo Infinite appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3mabnXj

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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notoriousgrd · 7 years

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Shocktober Days 1-28

Ok, it’s Sunday and I’m not at the folks’ as usual because my brother’s working today, so taking the time to update my Shocktober log post. This is a long one so fasten your seatbelts,

The Devil Rides Out (1968) - been meaning to watch this for over twenty years, finally did and loved it. Christopher Lee and Charles Gray are excellent and I can see how the whole chalk circle bit influenced me at of Doctor Who:Battlefield.

Hotel Transylvania (2012) - I’d planned on another movie but with real world being so horrific that day, changed plans and watched this really fun animated movie.

Dr. Terror’s House Of Horrors (1965) - not the first portmanteau movie I ever saw (that’d be Twilight Zone:The Movie) but the first Amicus one and definitely my favourite. Cushing and Lee, DJ Alan “Fluff” Freeman Vs plants, Roy Castle and his voodoo trumpet, Michael Gough and Donald Sutherland as a doctor. Cushing and Castleford reunite later that year for a certain movie involving Daleks.

Quatermass And The Pit (1967) - last Quatermass I saw, having seen all the television versions and other movies over the years. Much like the Doctor Who/Daleks movies nicely compresses three hours of black and white telly into an hour-and-a-half of glorious colour. I hadn’t seen this when I saw Doctor Who:The Daemons so the parallels were not apparent to me. Andrew Kier is an excellent Quatermass, just behind John Mills in the 1979 telly story.

Christine (1983) - I hadn’t seen this in a long, long time, enough that I completely forgot Harry Dean Stanton and Robert Prosky were in it. Been even longer since I read the book, so can’t say if it’s a good adaptation, certainly a good movie though, the non-cgi car repairing effects still look awesome.

Deep Red / Profondo Rosso (1975) - the only Dario Argento movie I’ve seen and decided to rewatch after Mr Ash mentioned it. Looks lovely, an awesome soundtrack,

Deep Star Six (1989) - One of a few horror films rushed ahead to try and cash in on all the hype for James Cameron’s The Abyss. This one sees many of the people behind Friday The 13th doing an underwater m onter movie. It’s daft fun, I like the monster and it’s got one of my favourite actors, Miguel Ferrer in it.

Ghosts Of Mars.(2001) - One of the three John Carpenter movies I’d not seen, seems to get a lot of stick, but again, a fun action horror movie, with a really good cast (Natasha Henstridge, Pam Grier and Jason Statham) and a nice way of telling the story.

AvP:Requiem (2007) - we were kind of on a trash train for a bit, as this is another movie decried as the worst thing ever when it’s a perferctly competent horror movie with some really nice deaths and a nice basic concept. Take eighties slasher movie environment, add alien death machines.

Life (2017) = This was really, really good. a relatively realistic sci-fi horror that starts off a bit Andromeda Strain but end up Alien. Another great cast, and kudos for a certain point for having a disabled character who’s treated the same as any other crew member right until the moment they fall into the tired trap of his disability leading to his death. Other than that though, really enjoyed this, some really nasty deaths and nothing really set off my “SPace doesn’t work like that!” sense.

Leviathan (1989) = The other movie trying to cash in on The Abyss hype. Another good, fun underwater monster movie with a great cast (Peter Weller, Amanda Pays, Daniel Stern, Richard Crenna, Ernie Husson, Meg Foster), a great Jerry Goldsmith soundtrack and some nice effects work.

The Rezort (2016) - recommended to me by Mr Ash of the Hammered Horror podcast, low budget zombie movie with a great premise, that being that they got the zombie plague under control and have actually set up an island where people can pay to go and shoot zombies on a kind of undead safari. This is also used to try to help people who were traumatised by the zombie event. Of course, this being a horror movie, things rapidly go sideways. Barring a couple of moments, the small budget doesn’t show and the premise is a nice change from most zombie movies.

Waxwork (1988) - I’d seen the sequel to this years ago, when in 1994, my then local Blockbuster was having a massive sell-off of ex-rental tapes wuth no covers for a couple of quid each. Me and my flatmate at the time bought a pile of them, probably fifty tapes between us and this was one of them, a very silly hoor movie with a premise that lets them do little horror vignettes as part of a bigger story. This does that too, it’s another fun romp, with some lovely distinguisdhed actors (David warner, Patrick Macnee and John Rhys Davis) havnig fun with the material.

Friday The 13th Part IX:Jason Goes To Hell (1993) - I’d made my way through the first eight movies a while back, but as always got distracted and forgot to go back and finish off. So with it actually being Friday The 13th, I decided that day to fix that. This is…not great. Jason is killed and becomes a body surfing demon. Really only notable things are Kane Hodder;s wee cameo as an FBI agent, the Book Of The Dead form Evil Dead being being found in the Vorhees house (and thus being what brough Jason back from the dead at some point) and Erin Grey.

Friday The 13th Part X:Jason X (2001) = This one however, is a huge amount of fun, Jason is captured and the plan is to put him in cryogenic status to stop him from killing again as it’s obvious at this point, he can’t actuaslly be killed. Of course, things go sideways and him and the doctor responsible for freezing him are found hundreds of years later when Earth’s a wastland and taken back to a spaceship. Yes, this is Jason Goes To Space and takes a lot of cues form other sci-fi things, space marines, holodecks, evil corporations etc and uses them to make a fun action horror romp that never takes itself too seriously.

Mr Vampire (1985) - One of my all time favourites. Saw it in the mid-nineties when Channel 4 had a seasib if Hong Kong action movies, many with a spooky side to them. This movie introduced me to the Jiangshi, Chinese hopping vampires and this movie is a fun, action comedy with plenty f great action scenes, slapstick and scares.

The Bird With The Crystal Plumage (1970) - As mentioned above, I’d only ever sene the one Dario Argento movie, so decided to fix that. His directorial debut is a mirder thriller where the main character witnesses an attempted murder and soon finds himself in danger with plenty of twists and turns along the way. Great stuff.

Until Dawn (2015) - this is a game for PS4 rather than a movie and with the length it could easily count as between four to six horror movies. It’s an interactive adventure game with excellent motion captured performances, a great plot, great setpieces and with the choices you can make, anywhere between everyone and no-one can survive. I made it out with only two deaths and I know how those can be avoided. One of the best horror games I’ve ever played and highly recommended. Virtual Peter Stormare in particular veeres into the uncanny valley on several occasions. Great stuff.

The Raven (1935) - on the title cazrd it says “suggested by” Poe’s poem, but all that amounts ot is the name and a character who’s a bit Poe obsessed with nods to a couple of his other works in there. Has Lugosi and Karloff, is okay as these things go.

The Car (1978) - was surprised to find most review sites think this is a load of bollocks. I enjoyed it as a kid and still enjoy it now. It’s basically Jaws with a car that appears to be possessed by the devil. Been so long since I saw it, forgot James Brolin and Ronny Cox were in it. there’s some nice direction at points and it’s definitely not as bad as its reputation would have you think.

The Raven (1963) - Another part of my plan is to watch the ROger Corman Poe adaptations, I picked this first because it has the trio of Vincent Price, Peter Lorre and boris Karloff in it and the last movie I watched with them all was Comedy Of terrors which was a blast. I could happily watch Price and Lorre mucking about for hours, the first half-hour is mostly the two of them sparking off each other. It’s a tale of warring wizards, everyone looks like they’re having so much fun and I had a grin on my face throughout. Lovely and highly recommended. Also has a young Jack Nicholson in it.

The Fall Of The House Of Usher (1960) - Corman, Price and Poe again, a far more sombre affair but again really good. Vincent Price is one of those actors I can watch in anything.

Suspiria (1977) - Back to Argento with weird goings on in a prestigious ballet school. The plot is not really important, you watch Argento mivues for the visuals and amazing soundtracks. Really enjoyed it.

Phenomena (1985) - Argento once more, with Donald Pleasance (with a lovely Scottish accent), JJennifer Conolly in her movie debut and a chimp with a razor. The usual sumptuous visuals, great soundtrack (with Iron Maiden and Motorhead showing up at points) and the usual twisted plot. Had one of those rare monets I really go “Ooooh!” and curl up a bit when someone gets stabbed in the hand with scissors.

The World’s End (2013) - probabl;y the worst of the Cornetto Trilogy (Shaun Of THe Dead and Hot Fuzz being thew others) but still a brilliant movie. It starts off as a middle aged man trying to recapture his youth by getting his childhood friends to finish a pub crawl they never managed as teens, then turns into Incasion Of The Body Snatchers/ Great all-star cast and two of my favourite fight scenes in horror movies, the one in the gents toilets because of the wrestling moves and thew one in the pub a combination of Nick Frost (I love big lads kicking arse) and the remix of Silver Bullet’s Twenty Seconds To Comply backing it.

Attack The Block (2011) - I had difficulty with this first itme I watched it, I live on a council estate and the main characters weere a bit too true to life for me to begin with. This time though, no problem. Premise is a load of big gorilla wolf motherfuckers crash land in a council estate in London and a bunch of ASBO kids and a nurse take them on. It’s notable for having John Boyega and Jodie Whittaker who would both go onto much bigger sci-fi things with Star Wars and Doctor Who. It looks great, sounds great, the creature design is unique and this time round I spotted little references like the tower block being Wyndham Towers and it being near a Ballard Street.

#halloween #shocktober #horror #movies

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nickarmstrongfilm · 6 years

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OCTOBER 2018: AN EXERCISE IN EXCESS & A HORROR DIARY

Carrie (dir. Brian De Palma, 1976)*

The Rage: Carrie 2 (dir. Katt Shea, 1999)

Duel (dir. Steven Spielberg, 1971)

Pulse (dir. Jim Sonzero, 2006)* For all intents and purposes, I don’t think this movie was at all necessary — what Kurosawa pulled off with the original Pulse was nothing short of miraculous in its terror, melancholy and study of society… but I must admit that the idea of a group of people watching that film and translating it into a mid-2000s American tech-horror movie (aesthetic and all) is highly appealing to me. It’s fun! It’s dumb! Kiyoshi already mastered it so I can’t really get mad at this.

Daphne & Velma (dir. Suzi Yoonessi, 2018) Wholesome live-action Scooby-Doo spinoff with women at the helm, and is about as fun and nostalgic as anything I’ve seen related to Scooby-Doo. Lots of Halloween-y fun!

Captain Voyeur (dir. John Carpenter, 1969) Had been dying to get my hands on this for a long time, so it was lots of fun to finally see it (and complete Carpenter’s filmography!). It’s short and slight and very noticeably Carpenter. He improves on all aspects of this in his amazing career, but this is an inspiring artifact nonetheless.

The Crazies (dir. George A. Romero, 1973)

Something Evil (dir. Steven Spielberg, 1972)

Tales from the Hood (dir. Rusty Cundieff, 1995)*

Uncle Sam (dir. William Lustig, 1996) Anti-American slasher where the villain is a zombie soldier named Sam who dresses up as *the* Uncle Sam. I think that is praise enough.

Hell Fest (dir. Gregory Plotkin, 2018) This one has really grown on me over the month, especially as it inspired me to rewatch The Funhouse, which in turn inspired me the finally read the novelization of The Funhouse by Dean Koontz. As much as I was initially underwhelmed and annoyed by certain aspects of the film, the concept is terrific and it really plays into the uncertainty of the theme park’s dangers for impressively long stretches of time. Mostly dumb but also very fun.

Tales from the Hood 2 (dir. Rusty Cundieff & Darin Scott, 2018) Not even close to as impactful or consistent as the original, and my fear that this was co-directed by Cundieff and co-writer of the original Darin Scott actually turned out to be reasonable, because the two segments he directed are noticeably worse, but it remains passionate and blunt in its manipulation of genre tropes to suit the subject matter. Keith David murders it in the wraparound, and the closing short “The Sacrifice” is deeply powerful.

Stay Alive (dir. William Brent Bell, 2006)

Slice (dir. Austin Vesely, 2018)

Drag Me to Hell (dir. Sam Raimi, 2009)*

The Vagrant (dir. Chris Walas, 1992)

Venom (dir. Ruben Fleischer, 2018)

Dracula 3D (dir. Dario Argento, 2012) Argento’s rendition of the age-old Dracula tale is the umpteenth adaptation of the story, and while it doesn’t appear to make many changes to the narrative, I have to give credit to his formal experimentation — it strikes me as an admirable case of retrofuturism, as he uses the most modern digital filmmaking (I would love to see this in actual 3D) to tell one of the oldest tales imaginable. Lots to discover here, I think, but I really liked it!

Sleepwalkers (dir. Mick Garris, 1992)

The Black Cat (dir. Edward G. Ulmer, 1934)

Parasomnia (dir. William Malone, 2008) William Malone is one of the most underrated figures in horror, and while I can’t fully get behind this one — frankly, I’m unsure of whether it criticizes or endorses its imbecilic male character, who fetishizes a “sleeping beauty” — but his highly unique, Kiyoshi Kurosawa-esque aesthetic shines through in many moments, notably its dream sequences.

Hellraiser (dir. Clive Barker, 1987)*

Crazy As Hell (dir. Eriq La Salle, 2002) Kind of overlong, but cut down it could be a very serviceable series of predictable twists and turns that examine ethics in journalism and hospital institutions.

Hellbound: Hellraiser II (dir. Tony Randel, 1988)

Sorority House Massacre (dir. Carol Frank, 1986) Understandable to be deemed a Halloween ripoff, but it places a deeper focus on friendships and beats the rest of the Halloween series to a sense of psychic kinship which pushes this above being a fairly standard slasher. This is fun!

Soft for Digging (dir. J.T. Petty, 2001) I often think about, from experience, how making your student film silent is a smart but played-out trick to make it feel less cheap… nothing about this really sticks with me, but its lead performance is compelling and the atmosphere is strong at times.

Ganja & Hess (dir. Bill Gunn, 1973)* Just one of the greatest American films of all time, such a layered and nuanced take on the vampire subgenre. I don’t know what else to write except that Bill Gunn was one of the great filmmakers of all time.

Scary Movie 5 (dir. Malcolm D. Lee, 2013) Inarguably the least offensive of the series (a flawed series that I happen to love) and a very pure, frequently funny parody that director Malcolm D. Lee brings a whole lot to — and is as quietly incisive about the genre as some of the best entries are. The best one since the Wayans left.

Bones (dir. Ernest R. Dickerson, 2001)*

J.D.’s Revenge (dir. Arthur Marks, 1976)

We’re Going to Eat You (dir. Tsui Hark, 1980)

Ghost in the Machine (dir. Rachel Talalay, 1993) Incredible technology-focused Nightmare on Elm Street/Shocker hybrid made by the woman responsible for one of the very best Elm Streets. The effects, both practical and digital, are stunning in their own ways, and it’s just so much fun!

Aftershock (dir. Nicolás López, 2012) This feels like exactly how people see Roth’s Hostel, which makes me wonder why he’d take part in this. It is essentially a dumb version of the very smart film he made — which people consistently said was dumb — and he plays one of the assholes in it. This movie is unbearable.

The Funhouse (dir. Tobe Hooper, 1981)* Such an incredible extension of what Hooper examines in his essential Texas Chain Saw Massacre, replacing stumbling into backwoods America with a travelling version of the same horrors. Watching this made me miss writing about Hooper, because each of his works perfects and furthers everything he’s once done. An incredible film that is perhaps the ultimate in self-reflexivity within horror, and one of Hooper’s absolute best.

My Left Eye Sees Ghosts (dir. Johnnie To & Wai Ka-Fai, 2002)

Cat People (dir. Paul Schrader, 1982)* To my mind, this and Tourneur’s original are hard to compare because they perfectly fill each other in — Schrader’s lurid remake dares to show all that Tourneur couldn’t and wouldn’t 40 years later, which makes this a pretty ideal remake!

The Ambulance (dir. Larry Cohen, 1990) Another excellent entry in Cohen’s endeavor to turn the familiar into the horrifying, which I always appreciate as an attempt to alter the public’s perception of basic institutions. Very fun and intelligent.

Gothika (dir. Mathieu Kassovitz, 2003) Not unlike this year’s terrific Unsane in its examination of how all institutions are run by the amoral, and how innocent people are manipulated, victimized and gaslit. Has that ‘00s horror aesthetic I love (this comes from Dark Castle Entertainment, whose horror output I find thoroughly underrated) complete with Limp Bizkit’s cover of Behind Blue Eyes playing over the credits. Underrated and relevant.

Dark Angel: The Ascent (dir. Linda Hassani, 1994) At once a wholesome rom-com, righteous horror picture and an intelligent take on theology.

Love Massacre (dir. Patrick Tam, 1981) This is deliberately barren visually, making the splashes of blue and red all the more powerful when they come — its constant manipulation of genre and colour mesh perfectly with its narrative of violence and entitlement. The only cut that exists has hardcoded white subtitles — in an already very white movie — but for the time being, it actually tends to add to its mystery and minimalism. A masterpiece.

Urban Menace (dir. Albert Pyun, 1999) I’ve never ever ever seen a movie that looks like this — it starts with our narrator (Ice-T, of course) ranting about Urban Renewal and warning our viewers that if you’re easily offended, this movie is decidedly *not for you*. It is not a particularly offensive movie though I would not argue if someone called it a visual atrocity. For argument’s sake, it is not exactly a horror movie, but its intense exposure gives it a very dreamy quality that actually makes it a lot scarier to watch. This movie is probably not good but I fucking love Albert Pyun and I can’t say that I wasn’t in awe of how this was made. Plus it is 1 hour long!

The Card Player (dir. Dario Argento, 2004) Argento’s most blatant satire, this feels like a lampoon of both typical procedurals, as well as the desensitization of the internet age. There aren’t many images in Argento’s oeuvre I like more than a group of police officers cheering and laughing at a game of blackjack with a video of a woman being tortured superimposed over it.

Halloween (dir. David Gordon Green, 2018)* This didn’t work as well for me on a rewatch outside of my first experience at TIFF (full of excitement and yelling) but many of my favorite aspects remain: Laurie’s turn to the typical American defense against trauma (which also manifests in a cat-and-mouse chase in a slasher-proof booby-trapped housed), as well as its use of the sequel’s timing to explore multi-generational trauma, but all of its best ideas are explored with far more character in both Carpenter and Zombie’s iterations.

Lisa, Lisa (dir. Frederick R. Friedel, 1974)

Leprechaun 4: In Space (dir. Brian Trenchard-Smith, 1996) Just the most incredibly off-the-hinges horror franchise there is, especially because the antagonist is anything but scary. I think that the “in space” moniker is the quintessential jump-the-shark move for a franchise, so as stupid and offensive as this movie gets, it truly feels like it is just out of the viewer’s hands and the only responsible thing to do is enjoy the increasingly absurd nature of the films (though I can’t imagine it gets wilder than this).

Leprechaun in the Hood (dir. Rob Spera, 2000) Not only not wild enough to distract me from its horrid nature, but deeply offensive and unexpectedly transphobic (as a major plot point). Not even worth recommending for Ice-T or the Leprechaun smoking weed and rapping.

Hotel (dir. Jessica Hausner, 2004)

Spontaneous Combustion (dir. Tobe Hooper, 1990)* Both Tobe’s superhero movie and his Sirk picture, filled to the brim with bright colors and melodrama that also functions as both a parody and indictment of 50′s paranoia. Another masterpiece from Hooper.

The Return of Swamp Thing (dir. Jim Wynorski, 1989) I love Swamp Thing!! I don’t like this quite as much as Craven’s comic-book gothic romance, but it does lean further into comic-book stylings, and is filled with color and explosions and melodrama!

Chiller (dir. Wes Craven, 1985)

Kaun? (dir. Ram Gopal Varma, 1999) Varma’s use of setting here is so major, eliciting fear and obscurity almost exclusively through camera movements and narrative control. One of the spookiest, most subversive home invasion films I’ve seen (particularly in its exploration of power within the genre). I need to see more Varma.

Fright House (dir. Len Anthony, 1989) Makes absolutely no sense but Ernest Dickerson shoots the heck out of it and in terms of October vibes, it really does the trick.

Faust (dir. F.W. Murnau, 1926)

Reflections of Evil (dir. Damon Packard, 2002) One of the most disgusting and confounding films I’ve ever seen, but how Packard explores the political climates of several different decades, pop culture and capitalism almost exclusively through one man’s foul-mouthed adventures walking through L.A. selling watches is inspiring, especially in its dazzling final sequence. It also explores Spielberg’s immeasurable effect on culture in a way similar to house Spielberg does himself in Ready Player One.

Christine (dir. John Carpenter, 1983)*

Torso (dir. Sergio Martino, 1973)

Scream (dir. Wes Craven, 1996)*

Dracula (dir. Francis Ford Coppola, 1992)*

Nightmare Detective (dir. Shinya Tsukamoto, 2006)

Student Bodies (dir. Mickey Rose, 1981)

Giallo (dir. Dario Argento, 2009) I’m so consistently amazed with how self-reflexive horror auteurs get later on in their careers, as well as by how unwilling audiences who praise their early work are to buy into said work. To hyper-focus on this film’s aesthetic as generic and its violence gratuitous (and the same goes for 2004’s THE CARD PLAYER) is ignoring how painstakingly Argento wrestles with a genre he revolutionized. I mean, our antagonist here is a entitled man who sexualizes violence and whose skin has gone yellow in order to justify his namesake being that of said genre, how much more does he have to spell it out before he can be given credit (instead of using this as an opportunity to, say, jab at Argento for a negative review of the film by saying he is “yellowing with age”, Fangoria…….). Of course, I don’t mean to discredit the film by simplifying it in such a way but that Argento was this obvious in his attempt to self-reflect, it becomes especially evident that he, nor the genre, are taken seriously. I particularly think that this progresses the genre in its equal pathologizing of both parties of its cat-and-mouse game (both portrayed by Brody), ultimately sparing its victim in the end but leaving the originator of her trauma relatively ambiguous. At once, it is obvious that the character Giallo is to blame for his horrific violence, but it never takes the magnifying glass off of the detective character either, nor off of the giallo genre itself. I need to revisit some early Argento because I remember appreciating them for their craft and innovation, but that was much easier to do in the 70s (with regards to the subject matter of other films, at least). What he experiments with in his post-2000 work, however, is even more fascinating to me and will need to be examined.

#horror #october #2018

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virginieboesus · 6 years

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My Top 7 PlayStation 2 Survival Horror Games

Survival Horror has always been one of my favourite genres when it comes to video games. There’s just something about the innate fear and adrenaline rush that these games give you that makes me come back for more. No matter if they are more action focused or designed to just get under your skin, Survival Horror games have a way to stick with you for years after you’ve finished them. They’re just so memorable.

Admittedly, some are memorable for all of the wrong reasons, but that will be a separate feature post in the future. Today, we’re going to look at my personal top 7 PlayStation 2 Survival Horror games. So, let’s get started!

7. Silent Hill 2

Silent Hill 2 has to be on this list, doesn’t it? I mean, it is my second favourite in the Silent Hill series. The reason I didn’t include it higher on the list is that, when I went back to it, it didn’t hold the same levels of tensions that it used to. Silent Hill 2 gave us Pyramid Head and an incredible story, but honestly, as a game, it didn’t really do that much different. The gameplay itself feels very normal, with nothing that truly stands out. It just felt like the first game with better graphics.

The music, however, is outstanding. I still listen to the soundtrack regularly. On top of this, the game does instil a sense of fear as you make your way through the town. But Silent Hill 2’s real selling point is the storyline. The characters, plot and events are all incredibly memorable and can be interpreted in many ways (except for the twist, as that is pretty clear-cut).

6. Resident Evil: Outbreak

The Resident Evil series had already received a small number of spin-offs by the time we got to the release of Outbreak. From the utterly atrocious Resident Evil: Survivor for PSX (there’s a review of this game here) to the truly dreadful Resident Evil: Gaiden for the Gameboy Colour, none of the spin-offs had been particularly good. So I went into Resident Evil: Outbreak with very low expectations. Don’t let that fool you though. The reason I ended up loving the game is that it was put together almost immaculately. Again, I have revied RE: Outbreak here, but it is safe to say it was the first spin-off done really well (note: Code: Veronica isn’t a spin-off, as it was originally named Resident Evil 3 in development, with Nemesis as a planned spin-off)!

The changes in gameplay, such as multiplayer that didn’t make the game easier, an infection rate and the ability to combine household items into weapons were all great additions to the game. On top of that, it managed to really capture the struggle and fear of being in Raccoon City during the titular outbreak. To this day, RE: Outbreak is one of my favourite games in the series, so it was always going to get a spot on this list.

5. Forbidden Siren II

The Forbidden Siren series (known simply as Siren outside of Europe) has all but faded into dust now, with the latest game (Blood Curse) coming out on the PS3 and nothing really happening with the series since then. Considering how amazing the second game in the series was, this is a real shame. Set on a lonely island that is inhabited by monstrous-looking people with murderous intentions, the gameplay is where Forbidden Siren II really stood out from the crowd.

For example, the enemies are largely indestructible. You can hurt them enough to stall them if you are lucky, but they never actually die. That means that you’re always being hunted! That, in and of itself, is a terrifying feeling. However, nothing with really prepare you for the sight-jacking ability in the game. With this, you can “jack” into enemies that are nearby to work out their positions. It is designed to make it a bit easier to avoid confrontation. But when you jack into an enemy and realise they are looking right at you, the sense of sheer dread that fills your body is unexplainable.

4. The Thing

Funnily enough, my favourite horror film of all time is John Carpenter’s The Thing. The man is a genius, and the movie is incredible. So, the fact that the PS2’s The Thing is a canon sequel to the movie (and thus also the recent prequel movie) is a huge bonus right off the bat. However, that isn’t the only reason why The Thing is featuring on this list. It also has the honour of being one of the very select few games made from movies that are actually good!

The Thing manages to capture the constant feeling of dread and loneliness, as well as distrust and psychology unease that the movie portrayed so well. You actually get the same sense of fear buried deep inside you that you would if you were in the movie yourself. On top of this, the game managed to mix slightly more action-orientated gameplay with the themes of Survival Horror without taking away from the fear itself. This is something later games in the genre (such as Resident Evil 5 and 6) completely failed to do. As such, The Thing definitely deserves a spot on this list, at least in my opinion.

3. Resident Evil 4

Okay, let’s be honest; you probably knew Resident Evil 4 was going to make this list. I mean, how could it not? It was the last true Survival Horror game in the series until the release of Resident Evil 7 for the PS4, and it revitalised the genre, bringing it back to the forefront of the gaming industry. The radical changes to gameplay, such as Resident Evil switching from fixed camera angles to an over-the-shoulder view, were huge. In fact, such a massive change wasn’t seen again until the aforementioned Resident Evil 7 switched to first-person.

On top of this, the fact that the game is essentially a giant escort mission adds so much to the tension. Not only do you have to survive, but you need to protect an absolutely useless character that follows you almost everywhere. The enemies were fun and new, yet still felt like they belonged in Resident Evil, and the bosses hadn’t quite got to the point of being giant insects that you fight on top of skyscrapers yet. Leon also finally made a return to the series, after not being seen in a mainline title since Resident Evil 2. This was a huge game and was immensely successful.

2. Silent Hill: Shattered Memories

Time for an unpopular opinion now; whilst Silent Hill 2 is an amazing game, it isn’t my favourite in the Silent Hill series. It is very close, but Shattered Memories actually takes the prize. I know that many of you are now planning how to feed me to Pyramid Head, but honestly, I just preferred the psychological elements of Shattered Memories. The fact that the game changed depending on how you acted, what you looked at in the game and what decisions you make was incredible. In fact, the enemies themselves would also change design and shape depending on how the game psychologically profiles you. That is an outstanding piece of game design right there.

Sure, the actual “otherworld” areas weren’t anything like as gory or terrifying as other Silent Hill games, but they didn’t need to be. It was the changing nuances of the game that really freaked you out. The fact that the game was reading you and adjusting itself to scare and unnerve you specifically was unreal. This was definitely, for me, the most memorable Silent Hill experience I have had to date.

1. Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly

My personal number one pick for the best Survival Horror game on the PS2 goes to Fatal Frame II (also known as Project Zero II). Why? Well, the best way to explain it is to tell you just how long it took me to finish this game; 5 years! It is the only Survival Horror game to ever bury its way so deep into my skin that I had to stop playing it. Everything from the atmosphere to the ghosts themselves drives that dread deep inside you. The storyline is outstanding, dealing with ritual sacrifice and the afterlife, through the eyes of two young sisters.

On top of this, the only way to defend yourself (as is the main gameplay mechanic in Fatal Frame games) is with a camera. You need to take photographs of the ghosts to hurt them! This means you need the time and skill to line up your shots and take them at the opportune moment to deal high damage. Everything about Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly is incredible, and to me, it is the pinnacle of Survival Horror game design.

And That’s All Folks

Those are my personal top 7 Survival Horror games for the PS2. I know that many will not agree with me, especially about Silent Hill 2, and that’s ok. After all, if we agreed with each other all of the time, life would be pretty boring. So I stand by my decisions because that’s just what they are; my decisions based on my opinions.

Do you have a favourite PS2 Survival Horror game? Let me know in the comments below!

from More Design Curation https://www.16bitdad.com/my-top-7-playstation-2-survival-horror-games/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=my-top-7-playstation-2-survival-horror-games source https://smartstartblogging.tumblr.com/post/173466301300

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