#even in all the goofiness and violence of it there's these glimpses of real humanity and pain from the characters that are like FUck...

[the-acid-pear]

Evil Dead 2 is honestly such a sad movie from every angle you look at it. Everyone is having the worst day of their life and having to see all their loved ones die in horrible ways, sometimes even at their own hands, and they can't do anything about it. They cannot stop to... process it for a second, to understand what's going on, and fate is so cruel that whoever tries to save anyone ends up dead.

And that's not even bringing up the ending which is extremely dreadful on its fucking own :/

[cherry-valentine]

Summer 2021 Anime Season

What I’m Watching:

Shinigami Bocchan to Kuro Maid is one of the cutest, sweetest series I’ve seen in a while. The plot sounds rather dark, following a young duke who has been cursed by a witch so that anything he touches, from plants to animals to people, will die. Touching through clothes has the same effect. This naturally isolates him, to the point that his own family have shunned him and he’s forced to live in a separate home out in the woods, with only two servants who are kind (or crazy) enough to stay with him despite the danger. One is an elderly butler who takes on a fatherly role, and the other is the beautiful, busty maid named Alice. And this is where a show that could have gone really dark brightens up to an adorable romantic comedy. Alice is not the least bit afraid of the duke’s curse, and her teasing, cheerful disposition practically forces him to open up. Speaking of Alice, I really enjoy the way her character is handled. Just as the show could have gone dark, it also could have gone sexist and gross. Alice is very busty, as I mentioned, and the show does have some fanservice, but the WAY this fanservice is done makes all the difference. Alice is a flirty character who always seems to be an enthusiastic participant in whatever fanservice we see, rather than being an object to be leered at. She’s very much in control of her body and her sexuality, which I appreciated. Also, there’s a lot of restraint on display here. There are so many ways they could have ruined this by going too far, but they didn’t. The fanservice is restricted to some cleavage shots and Alice occasionally flipping up her own dress to display her stockings. It comes across more as “sexy fun times” than “male gaze oggling a woman”. Because Alice is an interesting and well-written character in her own right. On the surface, she’s unflappable, facing a dire situation with limitless patience and optimism. But we get a few small, brief glimpses of the emotional toll it all takes on her, which is refreshing. The duke himself is a fun character, forever flustered by Alice’s antics but clearly not wanting her to stop. There are some amusing side characters as well. The animation has been criticized quite a bit, as it’s CG. It’s not the best looking CG animation I’ve seen, but it’s far from the worst. For a simple, cute show like this, it’s fine. Recommended if you like romantic comedies with a somewhat dark setup.

Vanitas no Carte is based on a manga by the woman who did Pandora Hearts, so you have some basic idea of what you’re getting into: extravagant period costumes, gothic European scenery, dark and violent themes mixed with goofy humor, and a very complicated web of character relationships. This series features a vampire society that’s being plagued by “curses” which turn the vampires into mindless beasts that can only be saved by mercy killing them. That is, until a human named Vanitas shows up with the power to cure the “curse bearers” using a legendary book that most vampires doubted the existence of. He teams up with Noe, a kind and naive yet physically very strong vampire who has been tasked with finding said book and determining whether its power is real. The result is a bizarre buddy comedy with touches of gruesome violence and gorgeous art. Of the two protagonists, Noe is my favorite. He’s sweet and good-natured, naive but not stupid. He has a disturbing back story (as most of the characters do) but he can still look at the world with excitement and wonder. He also has a hilarious and adorable cat named Murr. Vanitas, on the other hand, is an insufferable asshole. And I don’t mean in the fun way. I mean he literally makes the show hard to watch when he’s onscreen. I normally like the smug bastard types in anime, but Vanitas really pushes the limits of my tolerance. In an early episode he forces a very deep, very long kiss on a woman he has rendered immobile and unable to defend herself, groping her all the while. I found the scene very troubling, and was even more troubled when I read the comments on the episode, almost all of which calling the kiss “sexy” or “hot” or, worst of all, “romantic”. It’s extremely obvious that the woman did not want or enjoy the kiss, but aw, she was all blushy and embarrassed afterward, so it was a cute scene, right? Ugh, no, gross. The woman, named Jeanne, was established as a very powerful, badass vampire. Yet she’s quickly reduced to a red-faced, crying mess by this absolute garbage character sexually assaulting her in front of several other characters. The whole scene was so bothersome I almost dropped the series entirely, because Vanitas never faces any consequences for this act. He just grins smugly after it’s over. However, I kept watching because, aside from Vanitas, the show is amazing. The art and animation are breathtaking. The plot is highly interesting. The characters, Vanitas excluded, are compelling. And then we have Noe, who is pretty much the opposite of Vanitas. Honestly, if Vanitas was the only protagonist, I would have dropped it, but he’s one of two. So... recommended, but with caution. Your mileage may vary on how much Vanitas you can stomach.

Heion Sedai no Idaten-tachi is.,. not something I expected to enjoy. It has a visual style that reminds me of Kill la Kill, a show I absolutely loathed. The overall vibe of the show is a little off-putting for me, but somehow I got myself hooked on it. The basic set up is that, hundreds of years ago, giant monstrous demons roamed the earth. All the gods of the earth got together, defeated the demons, and sealed them away, leaving one young god named Rin behind to watch over the seal and train newly born gods to fight, should the seal ever be broken. Flash forward to the present day, where Rin has only been able to train a very small number of gods because most of them can’t handle Rin’s absolutely brutal training (it mostly consists of her murdering them over and over and letting them regenerate, as they’re essentially immortal). Unfortunately, some demons have come back, and they’ve taken the appearance of humans. This revelation motivates some of the younger gods to resume their training with Rin. And that’s about all I can say for the plot without getting into some bizarre subplots. There’s a lot I don’t like about the show. I’m not crazy about its cartoony look given the subject matter. I don’t like that there’s basically a whole subplot that revolves around human women being repeatedly raped (side note: rape is never graphically shown, though it is made extremely clear what is happening and we see the lead up to it, also this is a rather small subplot that gets little attention after the first episode). And I absolutely hate that a character involved in this subplot, who encourages it, is presented as a character we should actually like. But! There are some things I really enjoy about it as well. I think the setup is really cool. The gods, and their role in the world of the story, are super interesting. They’re practically indifferent to humans, not even taking the slightest bit of interest when one country invades another and slaughters innocent civilians, because to them, it’s like a human intervening when one animal fights and kills another in the woods. So long as humans aren’t completely wiped out, they don’t get involved. Which is a neat concept. I also like the battles, which are frenetic and a blast to watch. And I totally love Rin, who is just a straight up badass in every single way. She’s one of those ridiculously overpowered characters we sometimes get in anime, most of which are usually male. Rin is so absurdly powerful that other absurdly powerful characters are terrified of her to the point that the mere mention of her name triggers panic attacks. Watching her fight is pure joy. Also the music is great, with an absolute banger of an opening theme. Recommended if you like wild, imaginative action anime and aren’t triggered by rape.

Carry Over Shows From Previous Seasons:

To Your Eternity Boku no Hero Academia Shaman King

Best of Season:

Best New Show: Shinigami Bocchan to Kuro Maid

Best Opening Theme: Heion Sedai no Idaten-tachi

Best Ending Theme: Vanitas no Carte

Best New Male Character: Noe (Vanitas no Carte)

Best New Female Character: Alice (Shinigami Bocchan to Kuro Maid)

[felineevil]

TCM time, under the cut if you don't wanna see me ramble about my favourite chainsaw welding cannibal. Tldr i saw a silley article that i thought missed the point of Leatherface as more sympathetic slasher and i sat down and wrote for an hour because i’m like that i guess.

While many slashers fall under almost supernatural levels of inhuman and unstoppable, it is not true for the whole genre- there are characters with motives and reasoning, even if we may not understand them ourselves, because of course we do not operate under the rules and universe of horror movies.

I think it's not hard to place Leatherface under this category, both given subtext and the actual content of the movies.

For full clarity i am pulling only from texas chainsaw 1 for the most part, and at the end i'll chat a little about 2- i'm not particularly motivated to watch more than these two, so to me they are where my enjoyment of TCM is, so if my rambling is undone by later movies additions...so be it!

I don't have to be right, i just like writing about stuff!

Yippee!

In the original movie we meet Leatherface for the first time, a man who's big in every sense of the word and an intimidating figure indeed- a common trait for slashers.

But the first time we meet him is not him chasing down unsuspecting people, nor bursting through walls with a monstrous menace, it is a quiet scene at first.

Our first victims find his home and, when not receiving a response from the man inside, they enter- the first we hear of Leatherface is agitated, stressed pig-like noises, hardly an invitation to enter ones house, they sound very clearly like a noise to tell someone to not come in.

This isn't a sound to lure people, i think it'd be quite unsettling to most- it certainly wouldn't make me want to enter a house, i'd be getting the hell out of there in case there was some sort of angry hog.

But our victims enter anyway and, in ways very clearly meant to be the ways of dealing with meat, are dispatched.

There does not seem to be any glee in the act, it seems like work- everyday, normalcy.

This IS meat, the same as the cows down at the killing sheds- to Leatherface at least.

If you've been in the meat business along with your family all your life, and have never been taught that there's anything wrong with applying this approach to ALL meat, this seems logical

Later on we find another victim approaching the house and we hear Leatherface again, this time it's not an agitated sound- it's the light jangle of a bracelet, previously worn by one of the first victims, Pam, and a soft giggle.

We hear this big, powerful man gently making his new bracelet rattle and tittering with an innocent glee to himself- he likes this trinket, it makes him happy.

Of course any moment of reprise is broken as our next victim enters and is quickly dispatched, and what do we see next?

Panic.

We see panic, fear, Leatherface looks around after the third kill with a terrified sense of "how many more are there?" This is not a celebration of a kill well done, he checks the windows in a state and then sits, hitting his palms against his head in clear distress- he's afraid of this situation, he doesn't seem to know what to do.

These people, to him, are intruders in his home- a threat to him and his family.

We of course don't see this group of teens as a threat, they're framed as the innocent victims to us- but consider how sympathetic you'd feel to people wandering into your home while you were alone.

It is clear Leatherface decides he needs to find anyone left, perhaps he thinks he's being deliberately sought after by them, that they're after him and his family- or perhaps it's just what he's been taught to do, make sure there's nobody left to tell.

Another thing we can take from this moment of panic is that it is not hard to understand his reaction as comparable to something experienced by neurodivergent people- when panicked i tend to hit my hands against my legs and bite my tongue repeatedly, to calm myself down.

I flap my hands when excited, tap the back of my teeth with my tongue when nervous- stimming.

So it would not be unreasonable to consider Leatherface some form of neurodivergent, or something like that, and if i remember correctly Gunnar did mention at some point studying people who were to add to Leatherface's characterisation.

The next kill scene we see is the most frenzied, and the first full chainsaw kill- it is not hard to presume this is Leatherface in his most dangerous state, he's now fighting back, perhaps he thinks for his life of his family's.

This does not seem to be his default state, it is more brutal and aggressive than we've seen him before- it's also messier, he's not dispatching cleanly and quickly now, this feels like an embodiment of his fight response kicking in full force.

When i think about being afraid, i know my response is flight- and when i reach my panic limit i'll run and run and get myself as far away from anything that is frightening me as possible, even if it is irrational and illogical to do so, even if it means aggravating or upsetting people around me.

The reverse or opposite of this response is fight, and it is quite easy to see Leatherface in the absolute end state of that at this point- fighting as hard and as frantically as he can, pure instinct mode.

This is possibly the most frightening state i can think of seeing anyone in, never mind a tall, strong masked man with a chainsaw!

See, this is the important thing about Leatherface, throughout this movie we do not see a man motivated by bloodlust or the love of killing, we see a man motivated through terror- a mirror of the survival instinct of the final girl of many a horror movie, in texas chainsaw fear is not reserved only for our survivor, but instead permeates every inch of this movie and it's plot.

Texas chainsaw IS about fear, it is an object of panic, of terror, of desolate desperation- and Leatherface is himself an embodiment of that, both causing it and being caused BY it.

Many slashers are born evil and given no leeway into thoughts of wether they could have been steered in a different direction, but Leatherface is in many ways more tragic- given better circumstances and different situations he would not be a killer, it is quite clearly mentioned that the family has only turned to such ways of living because of pressure from economic collapse and desperation.

Leatherface is not a face of the devil nor an object of evil, he is a vulnerable man who has been shaped by circumstance and manipulation into doing terrible, terrible things- killing is his normality, just as all of us grow into our lives he has grown into his.

It is easy to be desensitised and become used to all manner of things if they are framed as normal and fine to us, it's not hard to see how if given a different start Leatherface might not have turned out this way.

It is easy to see glimpses of good in him, during the last house scenes- once he's calmed down and in his safe place- we see a very different side to him.

First comes Drayton's fury, berating Leatherface who, despite easily outmatching his brother, cowers and shies away like a frightened child- his high voice frantic as he tries  to explain that he's been good, that he's done good.

It is hard to match the cowering man with the one who ran through the night with a blaring chainsaw just moments ago, blood spattering him and his deadly weapon- and yet here he is, tending to the kitchen almost like a house wife.

He's subservient and does whatever is asked of him, no real sign of violent urges like one might expect.

Later as Drayton talks to Sally we see Leatherface enter the room holding food for the table, he stops for a moment to look at Sally- but it's almost curious now, rather than aggressive, eventually being shooed away and cowering once more from his older brother.

Later we see him in his 'pretty lady' mask, a mask he adorns with makeup himself, fussing over his grandpa and helping to feed him, care for him- gentleness shown towards his family member here that again, seems the polar opposite of his behaviour before.

While his advances towards Sally could be considered sexually menacing, i personally think it's more curious again- he seems to like the notion of 'pretty' whatever that means to him, wether he likes to look pretty or just like pretty things i don't know, but his interest is more towards her hair, gently playing with it for a moment.

It is not until the time for the killing blow comes that the violence returns, with Leatherface attempting to help his grandpa strike Sally down- and as this fails and she escapes we switch back to see him as we did before, hunting her down.

Now, all of this is not to say that Leatherface does not commit terrible, gruesome violence nor to excuse that- it is simply to look with a different gaze upon a character outside of what the tropes of horror movies expect of us.

It is clear that the sympathetic feelings towards Leatherface are not completely accidental either, as come the second movie we meet him again- a comical, kinder telling of the character with much more humanity given to him.

We see him show moral feelings, ones that conflict with his family's desires, and we see him capable of deciding to show mercy- he shows clear emotional responses and connections to other people through Stretch, and we are shown he's not some thoughtless monster at all.

It leads us to wonder if one (admittedly excellent and exceedingly brave) lady could get him to stand down just by talking to him, surely he can't be all bad- for all it's goofy silley nature TCM2 introduces an interesting telling of Leatherface that i think can compliment some of the sympathies towards him from the first.

Even more so he's a man ruled by his family, and when away from them he is more vulnerable and easy to persuade- Stretch quite easily manages to get him to drop his weapon and instead turn the other cheek when she's trapped in the Sawyer lair, with Leatherface dancing around with her (much to her dismay) and not harming her physically at all, though the upset caused by having a dead friends face slapped over your own probably is going to cause it's own set of troubles.

But is this what we expect from pure evil?

By Stretch's final capture by the Sawyer's we see Leatherface almost completely torn, smacking his head against a lamp as he tried to choose between letting her live snd his families wishes- he's experiencing a moral conflict, can pure evil do that?

Again we can see that if given different circumstances Leatherface could've been a good man, and if you think that reading takes away any of the frightening nature of the first movie and you wish to call me silly or chastise me for '"woobifying" Leatherface- i propose that this does in fact make the movie all the more tragic and frightening.

I don't believe true evil exists in real life, but i know fear does, and i think tragedy brought on by preventable events and terror is all the more frightening than killing just for killings sakes- a pure evil unstoppable force is fantasy, a fairy tale told to scare children, but the idea of being trapped in a situation with someone terrified enough to take your life frightens me more..

So wether you want or need Leatherface to be a sympathetic, well loved character for you, or a horrifying cold killer, i don't think this reading into his character should take away from either of those ideas of him- i think without trying to understand the reasoning of why the events of the first movie happen we could miss some of the real horror of the movie.

Anyways, this has been me rambling- i hope i was at least somewhat understandable, i just love texas chainsaw massacre and i love Leatherface and i like to talk, even if i'm not great at it.

[rebelsofshield]

Panels Far, Far Away: Two Weeks in Star Wars Comics 4/10/19  & 4/17/19

I’m back from the Windy City and have only begun to start the acclimation to real life. Good thing I have two weeks’ worth of Star Wars comics to catch up on!

Star Wars Adventures #20 written by Cavan Scott and George Mann and art by Derek Charm and Valentina Pinto

With the mountain of Star Wars that has happened over the last two weeks, it can be easy to overlook a relatively unassuming and playful little comic like Star Wars Adventures. Telling two prequel based stories, Cavan Scott and George Mann continue IDW’s gleefully light hearted take on a universe that is too often dire and epic in scope.

Anytime Derek Charm is brought onto this title is sure to be a delight, and while his work here may not be as standout as on Destroyer Down or Tales from Vader’s Castle, the stylized pencils and creative layouts still remain. Charm is a gifted visual storyteller and his particular visual flair meshes well with Cavan Scott’s particularly goofy team-up between Anakin Skywalker and Yoda. The result is often times smile worthy and frequently charming (no pun intended), but it also doesn’t leave much of a lasting impression. It makes for a great and distracting read but will unlikely be a standout when the series is remembered.

George Mann’s secondary story following Barriss Offee’s padawan training proves less successful. While the general conceit of seeing Barriss attempt to navigate her way through an Indiana Jones style tomb to uncover an ancient text is fun enough, it struggles in its execution. It is often hard to track the action in Valentina Pinto’s art with certain set pieces being resolved seemingly off panel and Barriss often feeling like a static figure floating or sliding through a complex landscape. It’s an unfortunate setback given how strong Pinto’s art was on her Star Wars Resistance issues and it holds back what would have been a fun “Tale from Wild Space.” Score: B-

Star Wars Age of Rebellion -Special #1 written by Simon Spurrier, Marc Guggenheim and Jon Adams and art by Caspar Wijngaard, Andrea Broccardo, and Jon Adams

The benefit to these Age of… special one shots is that they allow Marvel’s team of talented writers and creators to spread their talent across a wide variety of characters and subject matters. Age of Rebellion offers three stories focusing on IG-88, Yoda, and fan favorite X-Wing pilots Biggs and Porkins. Unfortunately, the shotgun approach to storytelling also leads to a wide spread of success leading to comics that are: stellar, forgettable, and oddly confounding.

Of the three, Simon Spurrier and Caspar Wijngaard’s IG-88 centered tale is the standout. Wijngaard’s cartoony artstyle may seem like an odd choice for the story of a self-modifying murderbot, but he is also a gifted visual storyteller and combined with a stellar coloring job by Lee Loughridge, “The Long Game” is a visual treat. Simon Spurrier impressively shrinks the intricate plotting and payoff that he has trademarked over on Doctor Aphra to this smaller page length and in the process he shapes this iconic droid mercenary into an eerie, legendary force of death and destruction. This creative team has done wonders every time they find themselves together and one can only hope that they get the chance to flex their storytelling muscles on a much larger scale very soon.

Marc Guggenheim’s story of an in-exile Yoda proves to be largely forgettable. Whether it is the narration heavy script or the serviceable but comparatively less striking art of Andrea Broccardo, Yoda’s escape from a cave-in before meeting Luke just doesn’t leave much of a mark. The intent may have been to show Yoda’s survival through a period of extended despair in the middle of his long exile, but the shorter length of this project doesn’t allow for this to take full effect.

Finally, we have the truly bizarre Porkins and Biggs installment by Jon Adams. Attempting to describe this comic is a feat in and of itself and on a basic level it is hard not to admire what Adams appears to be doing here. Using two classically killed rebel pilots as its focal point, Adams tells a story of a man who is beginning to be worn down by the cyclical violence and loss of war and places him in a bizarre landscape that looks like it was ripped from a series of 70’s era fantasy cartoons. The feeling is not unlike reading a Kurt Vonnegut or Joseph Heller style post-WWII take on the absurdity of war and using a character that for 40 plus years has existed mostly as a fat-shaming joke as its emotional core is an inspired choice especially given the bleak ending that the comic ends on and the future we all know is coming for its central duo. It’s easily one of the most conceptually and thematically interesting Star Wars comics published in the Marvel era and can’t help but remind one of the myriad of bizarre stories told in Dark Horse’s similarly enigmatic Star Wars Tales series, but in the end its execution is often times too silly, crude, or just strange for it to be a full success. The result is thought provoking, but not always in the manner that Adams likely intended, but sometimes intent is enough, right?

Score: B

Star Wars Age of Rebellion- Princess Leia #1 written by Greg Pak and art by Chris Sprouse, Karl Story, Will Sliney, and Marc Deering

Marvel’s Age of… publishing initiative for 2019 has mostly aimed to tell one shot stories of iconic Star Wars heroes and villains at key moments in their lives. While writer Jody Houser often succeeded in providing revelatory peaks into the psychology of her leads, these one shots commonly struggled in finding interesting things for its characters to do. Two issues in, Greg Pak seems to have found a strong solution to this conundrum. Pak in both his so-far released Princess Leia and Grand Moff Tarkin centered comics continues Houser’s technique of interesting character study but also chooses to ground his narratives in key moments for both character and franchise.

“Princess Scoundrel” sees Leia shortly after last year’s Forces of Destiny short that saw her stealing the armor of Ubese bounty hunter, Boushh. When a distress call from Lando Calrissian sends her on a pit stop on her trip to rescue the still carbon frozen Han Solo, Leia must learn to tap into her inner scoundrel and also reconcile with a man who betrayed her and the man she loves.

Above all, “Princess Scoundrel” is just a fun read. Pak has a strong sense of Leia’s voice but also that of Lando and Chewbacca. Watching Leia get to play bounty hunter is incredibly satisfying and seeing how she gets to mess with a reconciliatory, but still smarmy Lando and a veteran bounty hunter like Bossk is a literal blast. It allows for a bit of a friendship to build between Leia and the former mayor of Cloud City and to also allow the reader to see just how Leia so easily slipped into the role of a mercenary that would be willing to pull a thermal detonator in on a Hutt in his own home.

Even the crowded art team manages to feel cohesive. It may be due to the solid and consistent color work by Tamra Bonvillain, but any switchovers between artist are hard to pinpoint, which is commendable given the number of hands in the pot.

The heroes of the Rebellion are off to a great start here and I’m very hopeful to see where Pak and this art team take us next.

Score: B+

Star Wars Age of Rebellion- Grand Moff Tarkin #1 written by Greg Pak and art by Marc Laming

Few characters have benefited from the new canon quite like Grand Moff Tarkin. Despite being a central villain to the original 1977 film, Peter Cushing’s imposing member of the Imperial military machine never made much of an impression in the old Expanded Universe/Legends continuity. Beginning with The Clone Wars and into James Luceno’s novels and even an uncanny digital resurrection in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Tarkin has become a key face of evil in the era of the Empire. Greg Pak and Marc Laming luckily live up to this continued exploration, building on what has come before to create a haunting peak into the workings of a violent and dangerous man.

Taking place before, during, and after the destruction of Alderaan, “Tooth and Claw” is an effectively unnerving character study of both the title character and what are essentially the triggermen for planetary genocide. Tarkin tries his best to crack down on what he sees as emotional hesitancy or weaknesses in the weapons technicians aboard the Death Star and in the process, the scars of his own emotional upbringing boil just beneath the surface. We see violent glimpses into Tarkin’s past and fantasies in ways that help us understand this man, but far from humanize him and the depths of his villainy reach new lows here just before he meets his fiery demise.

Marc Laming’s detailed pencils prove to be an excellent choice as he is able to capture both the emotional nuance of Tarkin’s facial expressions but also the bloody, brutality of the action present. Laming even manages to make a shirtless Grand Moff something to fear.

Score: B+

Star Wars TIE Fighter #1 written by Jody Houser and art by Roge Antonio and Michael Dowling

As part of an ambitious tie-in (again no pun intended) to Del Rey’s upcoming military procedural Alphabet Squadron, Marvel has Jody Houser and artists Roge Antonio and Michael Dowling shepherding the stories of the novel’s antagonists, the infamous Shadow Wing. Functioning as a mix of origin story, dogfighting action, and military drama, Houser has crafted an Imperial war story that looks to be a standout.

On a surface level, TIE Fighter bares more than a passing resemblance to this year’s Han Solo: Imperial Cadet. Not only do characters like Lyttan Dree carry over between series, but we are treated to a Top Gun style drama of aerial (spacial?) derring-do and inter-pilot relationships. However, while Imperial Cadet struggled in both artistic execution and in the creation of its larger ensemble, TIE Fighter rockets to life fully formed.

It is impressive how quickly the ensemble of Shadow Wing coalesces into cohesive characters. After an opening set piece, Houser takes the time to walk us through each member of this team and how they relate to one another. While Houser makes the smart move to establish each with clearly defined personality traits, the script already begins to hint at personality conflicts at play and even deeper discussions of loyalty to the Empire or the Republic that came before. It may be an issue of mostly ground work, but its done so in a way that is fun to read and promises payoff down the road in a manner that many recent comics have struggled.

Roge Antonio and Michael Dowling excel both in the cockpit and in the mess hall. The team create detailed recreations of fighter and capitol ships without sacrificing the blocking and energy so essential to Star Wars style space battles. However, they prove just as talented as bringing these pilots to life after they remove their helmets with clear and personality filled designs that help to bring to life the detailed characters that Houser has crafted.

There are rough patches though. An end of issue cliffhanger is confusingly staged and an epilogue that directly ties into Alexander Freed’s upcoming novel is momentum breaking and a bit hard to make sense of in how it connects chronologically to our main story.

Regardless, this is a great start and one that hints to an exciting story (hopefully stories!) to come.

Score: B+

[nightmareonfilmstreet]

Your Friend Till the End: All of the CHUCKY Films Ranked From Best to Worst

New Post has been published on https://nofspodcast.com/friend-till-end-chucky-films-ranked-best-worst/

Your Friend Till the End: All of the CHUCKY Films Ranked From Best to Worst

The latest Chucky movie, Cult of Chucky, has been released to the horror delight of the killer doll’s many, many fans. It’s been a long road to get to seven movies. While it’s natural for any long running film series to experiment and change tones from one chapter to another, it’s hard to think another that has evolved as much as Child’s Play.

So, how successful has the Child’s Play/Chucky series been through the decades in adapting itself to the times and garnering fans across generations? To find out, let’s rank and analyze the series from the original trilogy; Bride of Chucky, Seed of Chucky, and Curse of Chucky, and expand outward as we look from the Best of Chucky to his very worst…

  6) Seed of Chucky (2004)

It’s time for a lesson in the unintended consequence of unprotected doll sex. More than that though, Seed of Chucky is a lesson about how you can sometimes take the joke too far. Seemingly drunk with success following Bride, writer/director Don Mancini leaned hard into the changes he made to the series: more jokes and more winks to the audience to make sure they were in on those jokes.

So where did it go so horribly wrong? Like a lot of entries in long-running series, Chucky seemed to forget what it was all about, and tried to be about everything. Suddenly, this series was a Hollywood satire as the “I.R.L.” Jennifer Tilly is starring in some kind of film based on the in-movie murder spree/urban legend of the Chucky and Tiffany dolls. It’s also a family sitcom about Chucky and Tiffany reuniting with their child, Glen, and trying to be a “normal” non-murderous family with hilarious, counter-productive results.

Glen is possibly the best part of the film. A kind-hearted Pinocchio figure with the voice of Billy Boyd, Glen is tortured and enslaved as a ventriloquist dummy named “Shithead” until he sees his parents on TV and makes a break for it. Glen doesn’t want to kill, he can’t even swat a fly, but Glenda, you see, can. Yes, in a painful homage to Edward D. Wood Jr., Glen has split-personality as the female Glenda, who is every inch the homicidal maniac her parents are.

The new family dynamic might have given the Chucky series some new bite. Instead, we get cheap pot shots at Britney Spears, which now, given her practical disappearance from the pop culture landscape, seems tired and petty. At least Chucky didn’t end up the same way.

  5) Child’s Play 3 (1991)

First of all, Justin Whalin does not look like an older version of Alex Vincent. This must be said right away. While, Vincent had a quiet innocence, which, admittedly, was helped by his young age, Whalin looks like one of those early 90s surfer dudes who’s well-tanned, well-coiffed, and too dim to be convincing as a kid that’s seen too many horrors to count. Even Chucky’s bored with Andy in this one.

If the script and story suffer, it’s because Don Mancini was put to work writing part 3 almost immediate after part 2. The studio, evidently feeling that they struck horror gold with the second outing, wanted to strike while the iron was hot. Picking up several years after part 2, Andy’s status as a problem child sends him to a military academy where he encounters the usual suspects: sociopathic upper classmen, his cowardly roommate, the saucy hot chick, and Tyler, a kind-hearted boy who Chucky plans on body-napping. Or, as the doll himself puts it, “Chucky’s gonna be a bro!”

If that casual racism isn’t a turn-off, then you will likely make it to the end of the movie which takes place at, of all places, a carnival funhouse, one of the most over-used horror movie settings for a climactic final battle against the killer. On top of that, Andrew Robinson is here after bouts with both Pumpkinseed and Pinhead. He plays the maniacal barber that walks though the cafeteria measuring the boys’ cuts to make sure they’re regulation. Don’t worry, he’s only slightly pervy.

There are occasional moments of inspiration, particularly Chucky’s first kill of the movie, which is the teasing tortuous murder of the CEO of Play Pal Toys. Otherwise though, this Child’s Play felt, well, played out. Something pretty drastic would have to be done if the series was to progress further, which, obviously it did.

  4) Child’s Play (1988)

Submitted for your approval: a killer on the run from the cops who hides in a toy store. Shot twice and on the verge of death, he uses voodoo and a powerful amulet to transfer his soul into the only, remotely human thing available: a Good Guy doll. Charles Lee Ray passes from infamy into legend when he awakens as Chucky, a living doll that becomes a pox on the life of 6-year-old Andy Barclay after a birthday the kid will never forget.

Now “killer doll” is a pretty serviceable concept, even if the effects work of the time seems to generally let down the film, but what really drags on the original Child’s Play is the police investigation. The humourless cop played by Chris Sarandon does exactly what he needs to do, dig into the exposition and get to the bottom of Ray’s dalliances with the mystic arts. This isn’t Criminal Minds though, and we don’t need to get into the mechanics of how Chucky does what he does. It’s also fairly certain that Mancini’s research into voodoo practices, if any was done, was specious at best.

And the movie is far too straight given the concept. Is it a police drama? Is it a slasher movie? Is it a Twilight Zone episode? Even Chucky holds back having apparently not yet achieved at this point his masters in punning, although he does tell Andy at one point that, “This is the end, friend,” a spin on the Good Guy catchphrase. This original Child’s Play shows some signs of inventiveness, but it’s really not sure what tone it wants to take. Many times it feels like the movie is stopping to ask the audience: “Are you guys sure you’re buying this?”

It’s a solid beginning though, and it laid out a lot of ideas that the sequels were able to follow-up on. It also taught us a valuable lesson: no matter how desperate you are, it’s never okay to buy a doll off a bum in the alley behind your work.

  3) Bride of Chucky (1998)

As proof of just how deeply Scream changed the horror game, look at Bride of Chucky. It took a solid, serviceable horror film series about a scary doll, and turned it into a self-referential Bonnie and Clyde story that was goofy as well as gory. The change seemed to suit the Chucky series, so did the evil doll’s new Frankenstein-like stitches, and Bride became the most successful of the Child’s Play films.

Jennifer Tilly, then best known for her role in the highly-acclaimed Bound and an Academy Award nomination in the same year for Bullets Over Broadway, plays Chucky’s long-lost girlfriend Tiffany. Through a series of hilarious and disturbing misunderstandings, she ends up in a doll too, which leads to an inexplicable road trip cross-country featuring a pre-Grey’s Anatomy Katherine Heigl and John Ritter as her none-too-subtly inappropriate uncle. As of this film, Andy Barclay gets to safely go about his life. For now…

It’s a tribute to Don Mancini’s creation that he’s able to contort it, make it bend over backwards, and turned it from something that took itself seriously with humour into a wisecracking romp with serious moments that gross you out. Hong Kong director Ronny Yu, with his second English-language film, manages to find the right balance of tone. If you can smoothly segue from the grisly death of a couple with mirror shards impaling them on a water bed to gratuitous doll sex then you clearly know what you’re doing with this material.

Of course, balance is tricky. And that’s probably why the sequel that followed went a little too overboard with the self-referential commentary.

  2) Curse of Chucky (2013)

After a nine-year break, Chucky returned to the screen, and returned to his roots. Shirking the combination of yucks and over-the-top violence that drove the previous two entries, writer/director Don Mancini went back to straight horror: low budget with more emphasis on atmosphere and character. Missing, for the most part, is the over-the-top, joke-a-minute Chucky and his growing possessed doll family who are painfully aware they live in a horror movie world.

However, Curse did add another metatextual element, the casting of Fiona Dourif as Nica, the new final girl who just so happens to be the real-life daughter of Chucky portrayer Brad Dourif. In Curse, we learn the back story of serial killer Charles Lee Ray, and how he came to be on the run from the police at the beginning of the first Child’s Play. He kidnapped Nica’s pregnant mother after killing her father in an effort to create his own happy family. When the police arrived, Charles stabbed Nica in utero and created the disability that’s hobbled her since her birth. Incidentally, did Mancini write this script as family therapy?

In the franchise’s first direct-to-video effort, Mancini uses his limit monetary means to his advantage, setting the stage in an old home on a dark and stormy night for a classic gothic flavour while withholding Chucky’s full-blown living doll presence for nearly half the movie. POV shots, quick glimpses, and the sounds of small doll shoes scuttling across the floor are all that’s there to remind you that the doll is deadly, that is until Chucky finally reveals himself to Nica’s doubting sister, Barb (Danielle Bisutti).

And lest you think he completely re-conned the series, Mancini loads the film with a lot of Easter eggs and surprises, as well as a couple of welcome returns.

  1) Child’s Play 2 (1990)

Like a TV series that finds its centre after a difficult pilot, Child’s Play 2 managed to expand on the original and more fully capture the spirit that the first film was going for. Alex Vincent returned as Andy Barclay, and Brad Dourif was again the man behind Chucky, but everything else here was new and improved as both the stakes and the action got bigger. In other words, Chucky found his voice.

Even though it was the 90s at this point, the 80s theme of cold, heartless capitalism hovers in the background of this movie. The evil Play Pal toy company wants the bad publicity to go away, so they rebuild the possessed Good Guy doll to test it for defects. They find none, so all’s well, right? Andy, meanwhile, is in care because his mom won’t shut up about the evil doll that tried to kill her and her son; the police got the memo though, and to them there’s no such thing as an evil doll. But just when Andy thinks he’s safe, said evil doll finds him again, and no one will believe him that this “Good Guy” has the soul of a depraved killer named Chucky within it.

Smartly, series writer Don Mancini refocuses the story to reflect your typical cat-and-mouse game of most slasher films, and casts off the voodoo hokum and police drama. Suspense is used more smartly since we don’t have to build up to the reveal of Chucky as a killer doll, and the story teases us with anticipation waiting for Chucky to spring to life and kill again. The film’s climax, which takes place in the Play Pal toy factory where the Good Guys are made, is almost Hitchcockian with an assembly line ready to kill in a number of horrible ways, and maze after maze of boxed Good Guy dolls for Andy and his foster sister Kyle (Christine Elise) to run through.

On top of that, Dourif really finds himself as Chucky. It’s as if between parts 1 and 2 the actor said, “Hey, I’m a killer doll! Let’s have fun with this!!,” and he does. Child’s Play 2 is where Chucky takes its place next to other iconic horror villains, and it’s rightfully earned by the time the credits roll.

  But, where does the new film fit in all of this? That’s up to you! Read our review on Cult of Chucky and check it out now; the film is currently available to stream on Netflix.