#watch trailer Massacre Play

[seraphiism]

𓆩 ♡ 𓆪 ┊ 𝐏𝐒𝐘𝐂𝐇𝐎 𝐇𝐎𝐋𝐄

( tomorrow / either i will murder you / or you will rinse the knife in water )

chara : arlecchino fandom : genshin impact quote cr : garous abdolmalekian ; ashwarya a/n : i haven't played genshin in forever, this is all based off her character trailer + wiki

act one : BUT THE STAIN OF A CURSED EXISTENCE IS A TREACHEROUS BEING : HIDEOUS , HORRIFYING , HUMANIZING.

the first time you witness the black that adorns her skin is the first time your heart beats in vast terror. a battle gone wrong, tattered clothes and gloves, and then the reveal of the truest & highest self of a harbinger.

you do not know what to do, what to think. you are unsure if it is the adrenaline of survival that makes the life in your chest ache violently so, or if it is the fear and wanting of the unknown.

arlecchino stands before you, yet you do not dare cast your gaze upon her. you swallow hard, eyes following the drips of sanguine that fall from wretched claws. oh, dearest, how they sink into the hollows of the world, forever fragmented into existence in remnant of death. the blood is too much. it's too much-- the way it splatters across her skin, nearly drenching all black until it is an ocean of madness and crimsons and massacres.

your hands tremble. your stomach churns. you look elsewhere, searching for refuge, but the blood follows, and somewhere in its meaning is the death of those it once belonged to, and that makes your heart beat faster and faster until you feel your mind on the verge of break.

"stand."

the blood is too much.

you listen, but still, you do not look. you are afraid, but you are unsure of what.

a sharpness digs into your face, sudden. harsh. her claws press into your skin-- not light, but seldom hard enough to draw blood. you know very well that she could harm you if she desired, yet she doesn't. she jerks your chin up, forces you to meet her gaze.

"it's ill-mannered to not look your savior in the eye."

your mouth runs dry. something unfamiliar gnaws at your humanity.

"i... am thankful that the blood on your hands is not mine."

and in the abyss of black and red, there's just the faintest trace of amusement in the echoes of apathy.

"a simple thank you would have sufficed."

act two : BUT THE STAIN OF A CURSED EXISTENCE IS A TREACHEROUS BEING : FRIGHTENING , FOREIGN , FATED.

you do not know what draws you to her, this harbinger. it has been a long while since your first encounter, and still, you have remained by her side. you do not know why. you do not know why she agrees to your companionship. you question it more often than you'd like.

she is a complexity of things you have yet to unravel, and truth be told, you doubt you will ever understand her, her past, or who she truly is, and maybe it's better that way. that's what you'll tell yourself, anyway, even if it might hurt.

because she is both safety and danger to you, and you wish that frightened you, but it doesn't. you wish that it would drive you away, but it doesn't. she is no sanctuary, no haven, and though she is lined with cruelty, there is not always a coldness in her heart. you know this.

"i did not save you with the intention of keeping your presence." she tells you one day, and you cannot help but smile.

she washes the crimson off her hands. an all too common sight you have grown to adore. you watch in fascination every time, searching the bright red that fades into an everlasting black.

"yet you do not push me away, arlecchino."

she does not respond. she stares at the bloodied waters, the hazy red a familiarity. in her muddled reflection, there is nothing but vacancy.

"no, i don't."

( she doesn't. she should. you both know this. )

act three : BUT THE STAIN OF A CURSED EXISTENCE IS A TREACHEROUS BEING : ADORED , ADMIRED , ANTAGONIZED.

the world is not meant to be viewed in good and evil, but how it is deeply desired so. it would make things simpler, wouldn't it? the truth would be so easy, the war between logic and emotion dissipated into black and white and seldom gray.

that's what you'd like to imagine, anyway. because even in a world full of good and evil, you do not know where you stand, nor do you know where arlecchino stands. your heart beats dearly for her, but you do not know whether it is with love or infatuation or with warning of the end to come.

perhaps it will be a happy ending. perhaps you will not be in it, whether in death or other means.

you are unsure.

you sit before her, staring at the translucent water in the basin. it has yet to be disturbed by another, pure. your reflection is curious, though you are unable to study it for long. your gaze shifts elsewhere as she grabs your jaw; it is a familiar feeling, the way she forces you to look at her.

it's a dark nostalgia, you think. the blood on her claws, the digging sensation in your face, though much gentler than before. you aren't afraid this time. she stares at you, visage empty. she waits.

your lips curve, subtle. there is a strange exhilaration in the mourning of it all, and one day, you will understand it.

"i wonder," you begin, hand wrapping around her wrist, "when it will be my blood on your hands one day."

something in her expression changes. you barely catch it, but even then, you cannot read it. she leans forward, closes the distance between you, her lips just inches away from yours.

"will you be thankful, even then?"

her grip on your jaw tightens, but still, the claws do not draw blood. you wish it did. you grin.

"of course." you answer, and slowly, you press your lips against hers. "i will always be thankful."

[colleybri]

My very basic first thoughts about the D23 Andor trailer… (in combination with the earlier leaked one from over a year ago!)

Mon’s hand gripping the edge of the Senate pod rail – I think she’s about to denounce the Emperor and the Ghorman Massacre. Does she know she’s going to be rescued, or does she think this is suicide?

Cassian and Bix - battle couple? Looks like she’s going to be a fully fledged rebel. Love the detail that she’s wearing braids again, as if to symbolise order returning out of the chaos . Not sure if it’s definitely her Cassian is talking to but it makes sense… “You’ll never feel right unless you’re doing what you can to stop them”. Kicking Imperial butt as a great therapy for what she went through? Hope she gets to take out Gorst. Mind you, that line could also apply to a lot of people. Great recruitment line, in fact.

Oh my, Cassian is “weaponised handsomeness” personified with that eyeliner and fabulous outfit. Woof!!! Sorry – I know that’s not very articulate. More seriously, doesn’t that line in the paragraph above contrast so brilliantly with “ I’m here to win and walk away”. He knows that’s not going to work anymore. For him or anyone else. And who is this character, a new recruit? Or Bix? (Fighter pilot Cassian too?)

Syril watching the TIE fly over… is it starting to dawn on him that perhaps he’s on the wrong side? That the order, justice and beauty he craves is not provided by this fascist regime after all.?

Luthen saying “little sister”… The tenderness of that makes me think immediately of Baze calling Jyn this in Rogue One so I don’t think it’s literally Cassian’s sister. Maybe Bix again or a new character . Unexpectedly moving though. Sounds like there’s love in the old boy yet.

Edit - I could well be wrong about that. It could just as easily be “what else is there?” and tbh that makes more sense for a sizzle reel… far less spoiler-y! Give us a decent trailer with proper sound quality please, Disney!

I never thought I would well up at the sight of a robot that isn’t B2EMO. But Kaytoo … oh, it’s so great to see you again. And Melshi!!! Remember - he has Syril’s gun. Will that come into to play again?

The farm planet is likely Dantooine, site of the first rebel base. Filmed in Oxfordshire. The previously leaked photos of the sets looked amazing. 

And this is a bit more niche, but I’m so looking forward to seeing Thierry Godard in this, as he’s such a fantastic (French) actor. Engrenages (Spiral) is one of my favourite shows of all time, Gilroy is a fan of “A French Village” and it probably led to his being cast for Andor.

And finally – it’s not even finished footage, but the special effects are looking incredible already.

And now, I need a little lie down.

[dalekofchaos]

I refuse to watch Captain America:Brave New World or reblog any form of content on my blog on the grounds that Marvel has refused to remove the fucking Zionist propaganda character Sabra played by Marvel's equivilent to G*l G*dot. The woman who plays her was exempt from joining the IDF and decided to enroll anyways. We’re dealing with true evil here. And despite the fact everyone has been boycotting them over her inclusion, they still decided to keep her.

They knew full well we were pissed about the character's inclusion and instead of removing her, they hid her in the background and made the trailer focus on Sam and Red Hulk.

Sabra was created to fulfill their fantasies of murdering Palestinians. Arabs are demonized completely in the comics and Sabra says she doesn't even recognize a little arab boy she killed as human until the hulk gets mad at her

Sabra shares a name with a massacre in which thousands of Palestinians died, and they announced the character on the 40th anniversary of the event. BDS are calling for a boycott. Don't watch.

This movie is not going to do well--and when that happens, detractors will blame it on Sam Wilson being Captain America and I am going to scream until blood leaks from my ears. He deserves so much better.

Maybe instead of destroying Sharon Carter’s character, they could have used her an actual Captain America character, instead of Sabra.

Sharon Carter, Misty Knight, and the AOS ladies were literally RIGHT THERE if they wanted a female agent character so badly, but I guess Little Miss Eye-Dee-Eff is sooo important to Sam in the comics (she’s not) that they had to have her in the movie 🙄

[solar-net]

Poppy Chapter 3 Thoughts

Just finished watching Manly's play through of Chapter 3 and I have many thoughts as a viewer of the game.

First things first! Very polished, not very buggy and has a lot of nice environments. It's interactive and gives and you a better understanding of everything that happened before the deaths of the employees.

The sound design is a major improvement. Chapters 1 and 2 were mediocre in the sound department, nothing stunning or special. This chapter was way better and provided more and went above and behind!!

Also, lots of new mechanics that make the puzzles interesting and keeps things from being to repetitive. It's engaging and the puzzles are easy to understand, they're a little tedious at times, but they're efficient and you get the hang of them quickly! You also don't get overwhelmed.

Now for spoilers, click read more if you want to spoiled :)

I'll talk about the things I don't like first.

The main factor being the major lack of Catnap. The trailers and everything made it seem like he was a bigger deal then he actually is. I get the fact that he's supposed to hide in the shadows, but he barely has a presence until the last half of the game and it's a disappointment.

Even worse, his boss fight dragged on for too long. It's repetitive and not interesting in the slightest. Mommy's boss fight was long, but you not only got more time with her, you also weren't confined to one area. Catnap's boss fight was boring at most and uninteresting at worst.

His death also didn't seem to have that much of an impact. Sure, we know he worships the Prototype and seeing him offer himself to it was pretty sad, knowing everything that happened. But, again, we don't see much of Catnap in the chapter, which really just doesn't make me feel for him.

Ending this on the things I liked / loved!!

I loved Mrs. Delights section, save for the flickering lights, her design is scary and her movements are horrifying. She's a real danger and you can feel it when we get to her. While her death wasn't anything groundbreaking, it made me wince just because she was stuck under there and not cut in half.

The Play Area was fun! The little critters scuttling around and shooting them with the flare gun was fun to watch. I felt bad for DogDay, he was cut in half and his body was used against his will to hunt the player. It was gross and horrifying to watch. The chase was amxiety inducing and you can feel the urgency as you run away.

Poppy had a more prominent role in this chapter, and I'm glad we saw her! Also, Kissy is nice, I understand why they didn't want these two to follow the player aroun. Would have caused some complications with some areas.

Also, seeing Kissy being passive towards us, not only because Poppy is there is calm her down. But also because she's afraid and constantly on edge, and she wants to get out.

Ollie... Is suspicious. I don't trust him but jury's still out there on what his deal is next chapter.

Story-wise, this chapter really focused in on The Hour of Joy. It was nice to get a visual on the massacre, knowing that no one was spared from the wrath of the mascots.

I like that we got some more information on the workers. Knowing that someone of them probably didn't even know about the experimentation going on and thought they were doing good. But, also knowing that so many people were experimenting on the children...

It's chilling, because you know some people didn't deserve this and yet they're dead now.

Also, confirmation on the player having worked there, but left. This makes me think that the Prototype was the one who sent the letter, wanting every employee to suffer.

As for the ending, I suspect that Kissy got attacked by either Boxy or the Prototype. Meaning that she's either dead, or going to die next chapter.

This also means Poppy is likely to stay by the players side for a good portion of the game, I suspect until we meet Ollie, where she'll stay with him.

Overall I think Chapter 3 is a solid 7/10.

I wish we got more Catnap since he was the main antagonist, but I think the rest was handled well and I'm very impressed by the team. They did a lot of work and I applaud everyone who worked on this chapter!!

[blood-sucking-freaks]

Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 Facts

-was originally supposed to be about a town full of cannibals instead of just the Sawyer family. This version was to be titled "Beyond the Valley of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre'. Bubba Sawyer and Sally Hardesty were to return. Nubbins Sawyer would've survived, been left paralyzed, and tied to a tree by the Sawyer family.

-Bill Mosely was cast as Chop Top because he splayed Nubbins in a Texas Chainsaw Massacre parody called 'The Texas Chainsaw Manicure'.

-Bill Mosely played Chop Top as the vocalist in an avant-garde metal band formed in 1995 called The Cornbugs with Bucket Head, Pinchface, and Travis Dickerson. The band released five albums and two DVDs before their 2007 breakup. Their songs were heavily inspired by TCM and TCM2.

-Gunnar Hansen was offered to return as Bubba, though he turned down the role because the offer was too low.

-Dennis Hopper, Lefty Enright's actor, celebrated his 50th birthday on set and cut his birthday cake with a chainsaw.

-Tobe Hooper's son William Hooper tried to bring Bill Mosely back as Chop Top in a TCM short film. It would have been titled 'All American Massacre' and was supposed to be both a prequel and sequel to TCM2. It would have followed Chop Top's origins and his breakout from prison to embark on his own massacre. The project died out when William Hooper ran out of money to complete the film during post-production. Eventually a trailer for the film was leaked and can be watched on youtube.

-Edwin Neal, Nubbins actor in TCM confirmed that the reason Nubbins wasn't sent to war while Chop Top was was because Nubbins was too crazy.

-The family photo used in the advertisements, posters, and covers was a spoof of The Breakfast Club.

-In the original version, Stretch was going to be Lefty's illegitimate daughter.

-Lefty is Sally and Franklin's uncle.

-When Lefty is buying his chainsaws, Bubba's TCM chainsaw model, a Poulan 245A, can be seen on the wall.

-Chop Top's real name is Robert. His and Drayton's are the only two known real first names of the Sawyers.

-during filming, the main set caught on fire and when firefighters showed up, they thought they had stumbled upon a mass murderers body stash

[beauty-and-passion]

TMA - Chapters 41-50: Everyone is Michael

Hello people, welcome back to the beginning of TMA season 2! Ten more chapters are waiting and I am ready to find out if this season is gonna start with a bang or not.

I have high expectations.

<< Main Masterlist < Previous post 

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MAG 40.1 - Season 2 Trailer

Oh, a trailer! And it was… absolutely incomprehensible and cryptic af. All I got is that a trapdoor should’ve been locked, which translated from author-to-reader means: “The trapdoor is open and some weird supernatural shit will come out of it during the season”.

Well played, Mr. Sims. Now I really want to know more.

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MAG 41 - Too Deep

Ooooh, statement of Jonathan Sims? And it’s about the recently discovered tunnels! I love that we start season 2 directly from where we left in season 1: Jon is recovering, Jane Prentiss is recently dead (I suppose they burned her, considering the ashes) and there are a shit ton of tunnels to explore.

Also, Jon is now paranoid. Great, that’s exactly what he needed.

Jokes aside, this is an amazing choice from a writing perspective, because it’s perfectly justifiable. Jon got assaulted by Jane Prentiss and her worms on July 29th, now it’s September 2nd. It’s been a little more than one month, of course he’s still haunted by the idea that Jane (or other things) might be alive and spying on him.

Even if the feeling of being watched is not just paranoia. I bet everything that it’s Big Brother’s fault for that.

And just to confirm my words, it seems that the Archives have been built on part of this ex Millbank prison, which was built by following the idea of the Panopticon. You know, the prison centered around the idea of making the prisoners feel like they’re always watched, thanks to the central tower.

I love the idea of the Panopticon: it’s extremely cool and I’m very happy to see it here too… but it also proves I am right and Big Brother is some supernatural shit who watches everyone and has something like one million eyes or whatever.

The goddamn weird tunnels. And what about that incorporeal voice telling Jon to leave, right after inviting him to go down? I am extremely curious now, I want to know more! Who was it? Big Brother? Another supernatural shit?

Ah, so Jon will now add supplements to the statements, hide them from his staff just like he hid the existence of the second tape recorder and will put these parts away with precise instructions for his replacement, in case he dies. Great, so he’s this paranoid. Basically one step away from being pathological.

Fine, from one side, I can understand him because he faced some heavy shit not too long ago and he cannot trust anyone. So his sentence “Trust can get you killed” is understandable.

But I also watched Gravity Falls and I’ve learned that “trust no one” doesn’t help, especially if there is a demon watching/haunting you. So please, Jon: please. Be safe. Don’t pull a Dipper Pines on us. Don’t force me to start calling you Jon Dipper. Or Jipper.

And trust someone before some bad shit happens. You’re trying to find Gertrude Robinson’s killer and we all know it was Elias (don’t “first suspect” me and yourself, we both know it was him). So, since Elias already killed one person and he’s in cahoots with the Lukas family, you REALLY need as many allies as possible.

_______________________________

MAG 42 - Grifter’s Bone

Here we are, back with simple, meh statements. This time, it’s “weird supernatural band kills with their weird supernatural music”. It’s a shame we don’t see how they do it, I would’ve loved to see the whole process. But I also understand that leaving this to the reader’s imagination is a good choice to make something scary.

Also, Alfred Grifter looking up after the massacre and asking “Encore?” is probably the most badass move of the series until now. He might be some minor supernatural shit, but that was a real power move. I respect him a little bit after this.

Glad to notice Jon’s skepticism is back too, but after the end of season 1, now I know why he does it and I understand. Also, his skepticism doesn’t seem as “stubborn” as before and that’s another great writing choice because it shows how all these supernatural shits are affecting him.

Also, since Jon is in Paranoia Land now, I suppose that emphasizing skepticism helps him hide his true intentions, which are… sigh, controlling Martin. Seriously, can this poor guy take a vacation? First the worms, then Jane Prentiss, now Jipper. Martin can’t even be competent, that his boss will question it - all while insulting his poetic skills. The paranoia made Jon even more of an asshole than before.

What? Martin is worried about the others finding out he’s been lying? Lying about what? Jane Prentiss? His supposed incompetence? His poetic skills? His need to go on vacation? In any of these cases, don’t worry, Martin: just take your stuff and go as far away from this Institute as possible.

I still dream something like this for Martin.

_______________________________

MAG 43 - Section 31

I feel Basira will be a recurring character from now on. I mean, she is currently working on Gertrude’s case and she is a Section 31 - i.e. she dealt with supernatural shits before. But she’s not the only one: we also have Alice “Daisy” Tonner, who came in contact with “spider husks” and, for me, that means one thing only: “Spider Mom & gang”. So I bet these two women will probably be involved again with any other supernatural shit happening in this Institute.

It was also very cool to find out the name of the guy from MAG 12: Diego Molina. And I remember that, when he and Gerard were brought to the hospital, Gerard asked if Diego had “a small book bound in red leather and a brass pendant with an eye design”. The eye pendant is probably related to Big Brother, while the red book basically confirmed it was one of Leitner’s chaos books. I already suspected this considering Gerard was after that, but glad to see an implicit confirmation.

Speaking of the supplement, Jon gained access to the tapes in Gertrude’s room and I’m glad about that because we will surely find something cool and scary. But I’m also sure that’s the easiest way for Jon to get himself killed, so I’m a bit scared for his life.

Also, how weirdly cute is this part?

“I only ever spoke to Gertrude once or twice during her time as archivist. I-I was very new. I don’t remember what her voice sounded like.”

Jon sounds so young, here. Almost like a child. I mean, I imagined he was in his thirties or something, but I actually have no idea how old is he. Is he younger? How old is he?

Also, it’s just nice to see this little moment of him being so… soft and human, with his predecessor. He barely knew her, he barely spoke to her, he probably looked at her and saw just an older, stern figure. But now, he’s in the same position. They became a lot closer than they ever were. It’s fascinating - and there’s a lot of potential for angst too, so I’ll brace myself for it.

_______________________________

MAG 44 - Tightrope

A statement recorded by Gertrude! it was such a pleasant surprise to finally hear her voice! And she sounds amazing <3

As soon as I heard it was a statement from a guy in Algasovo, I felt it was connected to something I already knew. I remembered there was a circus mentioned in season 1 and, after a little bit of research, I found it: MAG 24, Цирк другого: the Circus of the Other. Ringmaster Gregor Osinov and organist Nikolai Denikin - whose granddaughter recorded the abovementioned statement.

Sure, here it’s called Другой Цирк, which is correctly translated as “Another Circus”. So my question is: which is correct? Did the circus change its name? MAG 44 is from the 70s, while the photo mentioned in MAG 24 was from 1948. Maybe the circus was called Цирк другого, then it changed its name after Denikin left and became Другой Цирк. Anyway, it was very interesting to read and I was so sure it was the smae circus mentioned before (despite the different names). So when Jon mentioned Gregor Osinov, my smile grew bigger than ever :D

Speaking of Jon, he asks some very interesting questions: Gertrude knows a lot more than it seems. And she didn’t finish recording everything in the archive. Why? Was that her way to oppose Big Brother/the Lukas family/the “crimson curse”? Maybe Big Brother can “eat” these statements, so by stopping her recordings, Gertrude was voluntarily leaving it hungry, as a sort of “fuck you, I won’t get eaten by you” kind of thing.

Or maybe she just wanted to not do her job anymore, thus provoking the Lukas family to fire her for not doing anything. Or maybe she was just too busy trying to find a way to escape, to record statements like an insane you-know-who who keeps recording stuff because he wants to find out the truth even if the truth can get him killed.

Did someone find Jon’s tapes? Or is he in full Jipper mode and maybe the drawer wasn’t even ajar? In any case, now he’s hiding them too, which reminds me of Gertrude and her secret hidden library and I don’t like the parallel at all. I don’t want to see Jon dead on a chair, in a room, surrounded by his secret library.

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MAG 45 - Blood Bag

Another meh statement, even if this time I’m quite perplexed by the weird turn of events.

I mean, once Dr. Thompson sold his syringe, there was a sudden spike in heat, the ‘haemoglobish’ became real blood and the mosquitoes decided to wait for their moment to kill the doctor. They’re a lot of weird consequences and they don’t seem too connected either - especially the heat. Why is there always some heat involved?

While speaking of the mosquitoes planning revenge… yes, this is the most plausible thing. These little bitches always plan revenge on everyone.

So, the doctor’s buyer is “Indonesian, I think, or Samoan”. It’s Salesa, isn’t it? Yep, Jon confirms it. Well, I suppose he will be another recurring character. And if Gerard can smell Leitner’s book, Salesa can smell any supernatural shit and make a profit from it. In this case, I suppose the syringe was a real lucky charm or whatever, considering how everything degenerated once the doctor got rid of it.

“Can’t stand mosquitoes. Horrible things.”

You and me, Jon. You and me. Glad to know that, even if he’s in full Jipper mode, he can still be very relatable.

I know Jon was super paranoid with Martin, but he might have a point about Tim. I mean, a guy with this resume decides to work in a place that isn’t so appreciated by normal people? And he doesn’t seem too interested in the supernatural either. Why is he here, to bribe people to get info and do whatever the fuck he wants? If that’s the reason… honestly, mood. I loved him before, I would just appreciate him even more for the power move.

Jonathan Sims, Master at Hiding Things, gets caught by Martin in 0.2 seconds because he’s so clever to record his paranoid thoughts in the middle of a working day, in a place where everyone can enter. A genius.

But now I’m curious to know where he will go to record these statements. I can almost see him, all crammed up into a closet, while Martin searches for him with a cup of tea in his hand.

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MAG 46 - Literary Heights

Oh gosh, I LOVE this chapter.

First of all, as soon as Michael Crew was mentioned, I immediately checked the previous chapters and here he was: MAG 17, the Boneturner’s Tale. Also, if my last theory is correct, Michael Crew and Supernatural Micheal are the same thing. And you know what? I think this statement confirmed it. But one thing at a time.

Second: my man Leitner! Ex Altiora my beloved! We finally know where it was and what it is! It’s a poem and I ADORE the plot. It’s such a perfect mix of weird, suspense and desperation… uuuurgh, I’m so mad I can’t read it, because this plot can be developed into a fantastic story.

And now, let’s put together all the pieces we have:

Michael Crew is interested in the Leitner.

Michael Crew has “a branching pattern of white scar tissue” on himself.

Jon reminds us that, in MAG 4, Mr. Swain said there was a “woodcut of the dark night sky, with the branching, arching design of the Lichtenberg figure” inside Ex Altiora.

This drawing isn’t mentioned by Mr. Knox here.

Lichtenberg figures have a branched shape, similar to the shape of lightning discharges, and appear on the surface/inside insulating materials during dielectric rupture. But they can also appear on lightning victims.

They are also “natural phenomena which exhibit fractal properties”.

In MAG 4, Mr. Swain says Michael Crew got struck by lightning when they were kids.

Michael Crew is surrounded by smells associated with lightning and electric discharges.

Michael Crew has been followed by a tall, thin figure, “its limbs angular and branching”.

Supernatural Michael has angular and branching limbs.

Supernatural Michael Is associated with fractals too.

The figure also “crackled and fizzed, lit by a strobing white light, as though the lightning was within the room itself”.

When Michael Crew reaches the bell tower, the prays something with the words “altiora,” “vertigo,” and “the vast”. then he says “I’m yours”, leaps through the open window and disappears.

Now, here’s my explanation:

Micheal Crew was followed by a supernatural shit. This supernatural shit was the same immense figure mentioned in the poem of Ex Altiora.

Micheal probably came into contact with it when he was a child and got struck by the lightning. Since then, he started to resonate with Vertigo/the Vast just like Jane Prentiss started to resonate with the Hive.

(Also, since Jane Prentiss’ supernatural shit was “the hive”, I think I’ll call this one “the vast” because it was a bit odd that he specifically said “the vast” with a definite article)

So, since Michael Crew came into contact with the Vast and started to resonate with it, he was accompanied by smells associated with lightning/electric discharges and he started to search for all kinds of magic books, trying to find a way to properly connect with it/being consumed by it, just like Jane Prentiss did with the Hive.

In Prentiss’ case, she connected through the wasps’ nest and got “consumed” by the Hive. Michael Crew tried to do the same by using different methods mentioned in the books, but failed. He had to find something stronger to connect to the Vast. And that something turned out to be a tale featuring the Vast itself, told by my man Leitner.

So Michael got it and waited for a storm. And as soon as the storm came, he ran towards it, calling for the Vast. And when the Vast appeared, it looked like that figure similar to an actual lightning.

Michael sang/prayed for it (please notice how Mr. Knows refers to his words like a chant first and a prayer later, just like Jane Prentiss talked about the song of the Hive. These little shits truly talk through songs) and closed his invocation, by saying “I’m yours”, which can be also read as “I give my body to you”.

And so, he jumped. And by doing that, he gave his body to the Vast and the Vast became him. And that turned him into Michael the Supernatural Shit, also known as Best Boyo of this series.

If all of this is true, then:

it’s very cool

his name isn’t Mr. Distortion, but Mr. Vast. Still cool, but Best Boyo is better :P

And if this is true, that also means my previous Leitner theory was completely wrong. His books don’t turn you into the protagonist: his books are about the real, actual supernatural shits living in this world and by getting the right one, it’s easier to connect to the supernatural shit in question. They’re like… facilitators, in a way.

That also puts into question Gerard’s work. What is he actually doing, by searching and destroying all Leitner’s books? Maybe he’s saving the world, because without books it’s more difficult to connect to these supernatural shits. But destroying the books doesn’t mean getting rid of the supernatural shits themselves and these books might actually be useful to recognize all supernatural shits and “catalog” them. I don’t know, I need more info about these two guys and what they’re actually doing.

And yes, there’s also Spider Mom taking possession of the hidden tunnels of the institute and she’s probably the one who opens the door and maybe she even walks around in her human form and that’s very cool too. Just… how fricking cool is this statement?! I think it’s among my top favorites, along with MAG 2, MAG 5, MAG 20, MAG 26 and MAG 39.

(Now that I think about it, I should probably do a top of my favorite statements once I finish the whole series. It would be fun.)

_______________________________

MAG 47 - The New Door

Holy shit. Just holy shit.

I thought this was just a simple statement. A statement featuring a tall blonde guy. And yes, I was 200% sure it was Michael. But I just though he appeared and did some weird supernatural shit.

For a while, he did it: he made a door in that house, Mrs. Richardson got lost inside it for three days and escaped just because one of the mirrors was “empty” and didn’t reflect Michael. So she did what everyone who met a supernatural shit did: she went to the Institute. My theory about “hiding behind a bigger predator” seems even more convincing.

I loved the little moment when Mrs. Richardson asked Jon if he believed her and Jon admitted that yes, he believes her. It’s a tiny exchange of words, but it’s enough to show the massive change in Jon from season 1. Before, he would’ve been more stern and showed more skepticism (fake or real whatsoever). But now, after all he went through, he’s showing a softer, more empathetic side. Jon is truly evolving as a character.

And speaking of characters, time to talk about the real shit and time to overanalyze everything:

*

Michael’s voice is perfect

First of all, I ADORE Michael. Sorry Tim, you deserve the world, but Michael’s soft laughs and the way he gently mocks Jon because he’s this powerful supernatural shit while Jon is just a mere human it’s just too adorable. His voice is too adorable. And the distortion effect makes him very creepy - but still extremely adorable. I love him so much.

*

Domains?

This part about domains is very fascinating and, in a way, it confirms my theory about the supernatural shits having territories like mafia bosses.

But it seems like they don’t simply take a place and own it. It’s a bit like they are these places. As if these domains are an appendix of them. So I suppose Michael doesn’t simply “make doors pop up”: he is the doors and the corridors. such a cool concept, it makes these supernatural shits look even more eldritch and… well, supernatural. Love it.

But also: if my theory about Big Brother is correct, does that mean Big Brother isn’t just hidden in the Magnus Institute, but is the Institute? Mmmh, I need more details.

It’s also very interesting how Michael refers to Mrs. Richardson as “the Wanderer”. Since it doesn’t seem like Mrs. Richardson is a supernatural shit, I suppose that “the Wanderer” is a name to identify the people who enter the domain of a supernatural shit and become food. But since calling them “food” isn’t nice, Michael (and maybe other supernatural shits) opted for a more sophisticated name, like “the Wanderer”.

Also, Michael reconfirms he’s a poet and I love him so much.

*

The concept of identity (and maybe my theory already failed?)

That’s another interesting part. Michael considers itself a “what”, because “it requires a degree of identity I can’t ever retain”. And this connects to its domain: since it’s so huge and can “overlap” reality by creating new spaces inside it (inanimate spaces), it was probably easier for Michael to identify itself as a “what” rather than a “who”.

But this distorted appearance made me think: wait, probably my brand new theory about Michael as Mr. Vast is completely wrong.

If Michael’s power is being distorted and making weirdly long, distorted corridors (that confirms Michael was probably the voice who told Jon to leave, when he explored the tunnels in MAG 41), that doesn’t line up with the previous statement, where the Vast’s power was related to lightning and to being this colossal figure.

At the same time, Michael laughs with a weird, distorted effect as if it’s more people in one figure and this detail seems coherent with my theory.

So I think there are two possible solutions now:

my theory is correct and Michael can both be hugely vast and very distorted

my theory is wrong and Michael Crew just offered himself to another supernatural shit

Or maybe the correct option is:

3. Mr. Sims is the biggest troll of all mankind and he made a series in which every supernatural shit is named Michael and this explains why everyone is named Michael and why Michael is such a familiar name. If this is true I would respect him even more.

Jokes aside, I really need more information now. Especially I need Michael (this one at least) to talk about itself and its powers. And maybe all other Michaels should talk a bit about themselves too. At least enough to confirm if my theory is right or wrong.

*

A war?!

No, wait, you cannot drop this bomb, tease us like this, then leave. Stay here and explain!

Okay, so the Institute is important. It should stay where it is, because losing it would bring imbalance in the hidden war that’s going on - between supernatural shits, I suppose.

In MAG 41, Jon said the Archives stand on an ex-prison, built around the concept of the Panopticon. This could explain why this place is needed: a place from where you can spy on everything and everyone is a great leverage in a war.

My question is: what are the sides of this war? I suppose that one side is Big Brother and maybe the weird supernatural fog of the Lukas family, but the other? The supernatural meat? And the spider gang? On which side was Jane Prentiss with the Hive?

And what are they all fighting for? To take over the world? To eat as many humans as possible? Or maybe the “All Michael theory” is correct and since all these shits are named Michael, they decided that the last one standing will officially take the name Michael and all others will have to choose another name? All while Best Boyo Michael decided “fuck this shit, I’ll keep this name anyway because it’s just a name and my identity is more than this”?

You know what? I love the All Michael Theory. It’s stupid and yet it somehow works. If it’s true, it would immediately turn the whole series from dramatic to comic, but I love it.

_______________________________

MAG 48 - Lost in the Crowd

Oooh, a statement settled in Italy! Never visited Genoa, but now it deserves a visit. After all, I already think about this goddamn series every time I see a spider and have to kill it, so why not going to Genoa and fearing weird supernatural shits? Apparently, they love to go anywhere. Was this one taking a vacation?

Speaking of vacations: honestly, I never expected to see my man Gerard, rebel punk and goth, chilling in Italy with a bright shirt on. I hope you’re also wearing some nice shorts, Gerard. And no combat boots. Or sandals with socks. The Italian fashion police can be way worse than any supernatural shits.

So, my man went to Mrs. Nunis, told her she was “marked” and told her to think about her mother. To remember her. To, you know, feel less alone. I immediately thought about Naomi and how she too felt alone, when the mysterious fog tried to “eat” her in MAG 13.

But this time there wasn’t really a fog: the sunny day simply became overcast. So maybe the fog isn’t supernatural but… the clouds are? But then, what about the weird fog from MAG 33? Or maybe, the fog simply hides the real supernatural shit, which is this weird faceless crowd. And this time the fog was on vacation too.

Or maybe Italy’s weather is too warm for the thick UK fog, so the fog dispersed and left only the crowd. I’ll admit it, it would be hilariously funny if a supernatural shit is simply an atmospheric element end you can get rid of it by traveling far enough or by using, idk, an electric fan.

So one question remains: what was Gerard doing in Italy? Was he truly searching for a Leitner? Or maybe he was really taking a vacation? I like to think it’s the second one: unlike Jon “Trust No One” Sims and Martin “Self-preservation is overrated” Blackwood, my man Gerard knows when it’s time to get the fuck out and take a vacation. So he left all the supernatural shits and books to chill on a beach, take a cafè and eat some real food.

Great choice, Gerard, Genoa is a beautiful place.

Speaking of the supplement, Jon realized Michael was warning him about Sasha! But unfortunately, thanks to Not!Sasha’s evil powers, Jon cannot understand what the problem with her is. Damn you, evil imposter! Give Sasha back!

Jon “Jipper” Sims, Master of Secrecy, after being caught by Martin in 0.2 seconds, got caught both by Martin and Tim again and they both immediately realized Jon was spying on them. So they reported him to Elias.

See? See where “trust no one” brings you, Jon? Please, stop spying on them like a creep. why don’t you start spying Elias, instead? He’s the most suspicious guy that ever walked on this planet, why the fuck are you wasting time with your team when you have him?

_______________________________

MAG 49 - The Butcher’s Window

I read the title and I immediately was: “The meat is back, isn’t it?”

But it’s not just the meat, it’s our old friend Jared! And he does incredibly weird creepy things! And I like them, because they’re creepy without being gorey. You know, it’s just too easy to use gore: scaring without gore is harder and I appreciate it.

Also, what the fuck is the weird… underground superleech he’s feeding? Is that the boneturner? Is this the name of this supernatural shit? After all, every supernatural shit seems to have a name that starts with the definite article: the hive, the vast, the boneturner.

And if we add up all the things we discovered until now, that means that Jared became the Boneturner/the body of the Boneturner thanks to the Leitner’s book that “facilitated” the connection and, since he became that thing, that thing also became him. So the underground creepy superleech is still part of him and by feeding it, he’s feeding himself too.

You know, the whole process of feeding it was creepy, fine, but it made me smile too because… come on, it looks like a guy throwing snacks at his dog. That’s funny.

But not as funny as the mental image of this weird superleech I got, that resembles something like this:

This is a sea lamprey. It’s not a leech, but it’s the closest animal to represent what I imagined. And yes, this is a real living creature on this planet. You’re welcome, glad to know this will haunt your dreams too.

A-ah! We finally got more info about Elias! I knew it was weird that he managed to go from filing clerk to head of the Institute, but I had no idea he became head of the Institute just in five goddamn years. What did he do, did he kill everyone else? Did he kill James Wright too? Did this man also “die on the job” as Gertrude?

Also, how absolutely, insanely funny is it to think that Elias was a pothead? I read it and I was like… what? This guy?! I always imagined him like a posh guy and now you tell me he was smoking crack or whatever? That’s too funny, I love that and it would be hilarious if that’s the reason why he killed everyone else: not because of the Lukas family, not because of the supernatural shits: just because he wants to hide his past.

_______________________________

MAG 50 - Foundations

Oooh, another old statement addressed to Jonah Magnus! I suppose that’s how the Institute started: with this guy walking back and forth inside his house, surrounded by creepy stories. A bit like Jon now. And nope, I don’t like this parallel.

The story itself is very meh. It’s not really creepy nor scary, just “mysterious guy appears outside an office” and “fingers on a stone uuuh”.

This statement probably served to remind us about Robert Smirke’s existence. Jon probably forgot, but I remember that in season 1, he said Tim mentioned him an architect he was obsessed with and this architect was Robert Smirke. So I suppose this guy is important.

We also have Sir George Gilbert Scott now. When Mr. Kempthorne said Scott’s projects had odd symmetries and seemed claustrophobic, they reminded me of the underground tunnels of the Institute. Is it possible that one of these guys is responsible for the construction of the ex Millbank prison? I suppose only time will tell.

I died laughing when Tim thought Jon was hitting on Basira. How he went from “That woman is weird” to “Good job boss, get her”. He’s the best, I love him.

_______________________________

In conclusion

Oh my, what a start for season 2! We have more Michaels than ever, too many theories and lots of mysteries I still can’t grasp.

I want more. I want to know more about Michael, I want to find out which theory is correct. Is Michael Crew one of the many identities of Best Boyo Michael? Is Michael vast and distorted or they’re two different Michaels? Is every supernatural shit named Michael? Is Elias just a pothead trying to survive in a world full of supernatural shits? Is Gerard still on holiday?

We’ll meet back soon with ten more chapters.

>> Next post

(How about a coffee? ☕)

_______________________________

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[mrmoonytoonie]

Bendy and the Dark Revival Rant (negative and long)

Idk why I'm making this, maybe for just peace of mind and y'all can bash me in the comments if y'all want or tell me your own opinion if anyone actually reads this stupid thing. Warning I might be all over the place and this isn't scripted so expect foul language and emotion and unprofessional things.

So I'll like to start with that I'm a MASSIVE fan of Bendy and the Ink Machine and have since alpha chapter 1. That game is my childhood and what inspired me to take drawing more seriously.

The "Ink Demon"

So Bendy and the dark revival, literally disappeared and came back out of nowhere lol. I was actually excited and hyped as hell when it was first announced, glad to know Bendy wasn't forever dead (literally sobbed my eyes out when we killed him in chapter 5). But then nothing, no updates, no news, NOTHING, but I still had hope even when everyone was leaving. Then yay the game is here! But my stupidity and something I should have done was that I should have watched the trailer and someone play it to save my money. I got the game when it came out for the PlayStation and immediately played it going in there blind, even though I couldn't even see what I was playing 97% of the time due to it being too dark even with all the house lights off in the middle of the night it was fun at first! Then the fucking "ink demon" part came up, I was so damn excited to see him in better graphics only to have that THING show up. I had to do a double take to see if that was even the ink demon and to my disappointment it was, I'm not going to lie I don't see how people like it, to me it stripped him from all his creativity and made him into a basic ass demon to the point it's not even close to being Bendy related. I'm not gonna lie I did like the voice at first but later its so damn annoying! Like spit that shit out dude, there is no reason for you to do all that! Also how the programmed him is so lazy and annoying and broken "Oh no hide the ink demon is coming", now at first I was excited to have the chase of my life but NOOOOOOOOO, literally just tells you and you hope to God he decides to spawn in where he is supposed to because he will spawn when there isn't any hiding places. Oh and the hiding places are another annoying broken thing, when I'm trying to hide sometimes you have to look at it at a very specific angle and pray it works. Anyways, so at this point we saw little Bendy and ... The Thing, at this point we already know the "big reveal" was that little Bendy is that thing, like anyone should have seen that coming. ALRIGHT so the end, WHAT THE FUCK EVEN IS THE ENDING?! Like why is it just the same ending to BATIM?! Also trying to control Beast Bendy was so damn annoying and wacked! Also what was even his motive? Why the hell did he need Audrey to turn into Beast Bendy? He didn't need it before why need it now? But literally everything gave me more questions then answers and you could have made a better ending than whatever the hell Meetly gave us.

Honestly there is so so much about Bendy and the Dark Revival that I absolutely despise but that would end up making a whole book if I continue so imma just complain on how they massacred my boi. Also if you like BATDR then that's great! I'm glad that people can enjoy things even tho I don't. It's just I feel like I'm going crazy because I don't see anyone else who doesn't like it. Also I didn't expect the game to be easy but it was just so unenjoyable, I was expecting to have the thrill of being chased down hallways and stairs, to fight searchers and the butcher gang, to see old characters that I love and adore only for it to have none of that and just becoming a headache and a broken mess. For someone (Me) who played BATIM over a hundred times to only play BATDR only 3 is just sad. Anyways thanks if anyone reads this, this was just something to help me.

[munsoninthedark86]

Every Day is Halloween(Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader)

words: 1,1k

warnings: general smuttiness, making out, heavy petting, vaginal fingering, vulgar words, drug use.

It’s Halloween night. You have nothing to do. No party to go to. You’re bored as all hell. You want to find something to do. Breaking you out of your superficial thoughts, the phone rings. You answer slowly, lighting up a cigarette at the same time.

“Glad you picked up, babe. I was wonderin’ if you were coming over.” Eddie’s voice came through from the other line.

You smirk, “I thought you were busy with Hellfire club tonight,” Eddie had been planning a special Halloween campaign for tonight, but it must have fell through.

“Nah babe. The kiddos wanted to go out tonight. So I’m just sitting here alone, waiting for my baby to come to me.”

You take another drag of your cigarette. “Be there in ten.”

Inside the trailer, you follow Eddie to his bedroom. The place has been slightly decorated for Halloween, but this is mostly an effort from your part. Since the beginning of the month, you’ve been bringing a little decoration with yourself to decorate the trailer. You knew it needed a little holiday spirit.

In Eddie’s room, you drop the bag of candy on his bed and settle on the floor to kick off your shoes. Eddie sits at his desk, and he watches as you begin rummaging through the tapes for something to listen to. Recently the two of you have been listening to all kinds of stuff, but tonight you want something classic. You pop it into the tape player and you press play.

When you turn to face Eddie, he’s smirking at you. He pats his lap, and he beckons you over. You saunter over to him, and you straddle him. Eddie chuckles at your neediness.

“Thought you were feeling a little needy for me. But you were playing shy, weren’t you?” You shake your head no, but he’s just smirking again.

“C’mon baby, don’t play coy with me like this.” Eddie teases. He presses a kiss to your lips. “Though, you are very cute like this.”

He picks up the joint from his desk and lights it up. Eddie takes a few puffs before passing it to you.

“I know I’m not a drunken Halloween party,” you pass him back the joint and he takes a hit. “But we can have our own little fun together. I rented your favorite, Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”

You cheer happily, and Eddie smiles. He’d do anything to make you smile like that. It’s just so damn adorable to him whenever you’re this happy. He knew you had wanted to make plans to go out tonight, but you didn’t because you wanted to see him. And that alone was enough to really see how much he means to you.

“So, here’s what I’m thinkin’,” Eddie ashes out the joint. You feel so tingly like this. Your body feels warmer while pressed up against him. “I’ll put on the movie for my princess, and I’ll fuck you while we watch it.”

You can’t help the gasp that escapes you. You both giggle, and which slowly dies off as Eddie begins kissing you. It’s not long before you two are making out sloppily. The cold metal of his rings feel so fucking good pressed to your cheek. You long to feel it elsewhere on your body.

“I think that’s the best way we could spend tonight. Plus, I even brought some candy.” You answer. You point to the bag sitting on the bed. It’s a little childish, but you know you’ll be hit with the munchies sooner than later.

Eddie sets you down on the ground, and he grabs one of the blankets on his bed. You two head out into the living room, knowing that Uncle Wayne won’t be home for hours. Not until morning of course. Eddie sets up the movie in the VCR and you’re grabbing some water from the fridge. The bag of candy is also on the coffee table now.

With the blanket set up on the couch along with some comfortable throw pillows, Eddie thinks his work is done. Until he realizes he’ll need to get you naked. Articles of clothing get discarded with every chaste kiss until you’re naked and Eddie is just sucking on your tongue.

“Get on the couch, baby. ‘Wanna show you how badly I’ve been wanting you.” He begins taking off his clothes.

You watch as he takes off his shirt, revealing his gorgeous chest with the many tattoos. You’ve always loved that so much about him. His tattoos look so good on him. They suit who he is. Then, his hands trail down to his belt, and while he’s looking dead in your eyes, he begins to unbuckle it.

“Baby, I want you to touch yourself while you watch me strip.” He’s surprised at his own naughty words, but you only nod your head.

“Okay, Eddie.”

Your hand soothes down your own body as you settle on the couch. Your thighs open wide, and your hand slips between them to stroke your wet folds. You’re surprised to feel just how wet you are, but you suspect the weed had a big role to play in that. Along with your boyfriend undressing right in front of you.

“Fuck—” Eddie sputters as he watches you rub your clit. Your lips are parted ever so slightly, letting out little pants of his name. “If only you knew how fuckin’ sexy you are right now.”

His hands make quick work of unbuckling his belt. Then he looped his fingers into the belt hoops and watched you. Your soaking wet pussy is just dripping all over the couch. How is he going to mask the scent? Part of him doesn’t care, but he thinks about a few ways he can make it so you two weren’t fucking so filthy in the living room.

“Shit! Are you really that wet already? We didn’t even do anything,”

You pant, “I know. Just want you so fucking bad, Eddie. You weren’t the only one thinking about this.”

He smirks as he begins to unbutton his jeans. Already his cock is rock hard and straining against the tight denim of his jeans. You really are a wet dream come true to him. You are everything he wants and more. He can’t believe his lucky stars sometimes when you tell him you love him.

Eddie comes closer and bends down to kiss you sloppily. His hand replaces yours, and he pumps two of his fingers into you. The invasive stretch makes you cry out. Eddie moans when he feels how fucking warm you are.

“Fuck baby, I’d blow my load right away if I fucked you right now. Your little cunt is so good,” He blushes at his confession, but you don’t seem to care one bit.

“It’s okay baby, we’ve got all night.” You press a kiss to his lips once again.

“I fuckin’ love halloween…”

[fuckyeah-jessicabiel]

Jessica Biel for Elle USA - June 2007

From the moment she appears, Jessica Biel is gracefully deflecting the attention of men. Wearing Roger Vivier white pumps and snug True Religion jeans, her hair tightly pulled back in a ponytail, she walks out of the elevator in the Hotel Gansevoort in New York City's Meatpacking District at a rapid clip, shedding two young men who had the incredible good luck to have ridden down with her. She nods them off nicely as they walk away grinning and no doubt mentally compiling lists of buddies who'll be receiving the following text message: "DUDE! I WAS JUST IN AN ELEVATOR WITH THE SEXIEST WOMAN ALIVE!"

Next in the gauntlet is a Moby-looking scenester with a paunch who descends upon her in Ono, the Gansevoort's bustling, dimly lit Japanese restaurant, introducing him- self as if he's an old friend. The fact that he's wielding a Treo device like a video camera goes unnoticed by Biel, who later refers to said implication as "creepy." She dis- patches him into the darkness with a tight smile and walks through the large restaurant to a back booth, caus- ing a ripple of chopsticks to go still as heads turn.

If the rhythms and rotations of the mass entertainment media complex are to be trusted, we are currently living in Jessica Biel's Big Moment. After getting her foot in the door in 1996 on the show 7th Heaven, the now-25-year- old actress won the hearts and minds of the boys with her badass ability to wield a meat cleaver in the 2003 remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and a bow and arrow in 2004's Blade: Trinity. Her turn in 2005's Stealth, which bombed (literally), may have gone largely unnoticed, but the trailer highlighting Biel under a waterfall certainly didn't. Then in the fall of 2005, Esquire bestowed on her the magazine's "Sexiest Woman" honorific. Last summer, she deftly skipped over the threshold from hottie to respectable actor with her supple performance as an early-twentieth-century duchess opposite Edward Norton and Paul Giamatti in The Illusionist and since then has become a red-carpet flashbulb magnet, wearing Valentino to the Golden Globes and, to present at the Oscars, a fuchsia halter-top Oscar de la Renta dress that strikingly revealed her toned shoulders.

And yet "it's still a struggle," Biel says, sitting up straight with the alertness of a ninja. Her tan sleeveless Preen turtleneck highlights her muscular arms. "I thought the Esquire cover was going to be really positive for my career," she says. "But it wasn't, really." Biel recalls being told by one director, "I'm not looking for the sexiest woman; I'm looking for the girl next door."

"Parts that I really want aren't going to me," Biel says. "Like The Other Boleyn Girl with Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman." But she stops herself. "I don't want to say that there's nothing I love that I can have. But there's still the occasional script that the director doesn't want to see you for. They want that top tier of girls."

So how does she go from Big Moment to top tier? Gaug- ing from her acting heroes-Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, and Annette Bening (with whom she will costar, along with Sean Bean, in a screen adaptation of Oscar Wilde's play A Woman of No Importance)-it seems she has good taste. And in addition to working with Nicolas Cage and Julianne Moore in the recent thriller Next, Biel is finally getting a turn at comedy-something she's been longing for-opposite Adam Sandler and Kevin James in I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, due out next month.

"Jessica is a great actress who also happens to be smart, sweet, and funny," Sandler says. "But the best part of working with her was watching her beat Kevin James at arm wrestling." Not that the movie, about two firefighters who pretend to be gay in order to claim domestic-partner benefits (Biel plays their lawyer), refrains from reveling in her sexiness-she sheds her clothes for a gawking Sandler, and when his character first sees her, his world goes into super slow-mo.

"She's capable of attaining the Julia Roberts crown," says Chuck and Larry director Dennis Dugan, referring to Biel's healthy-American-girl vibe and comic timing. The actress herself is wary of such pronouncements.

"The scary thing about having this opportunity is that if it's 'your moment,' that eventually disappears," she says. "I think about reaching for 'the moment' but never really achieving it. That way, I'm always striving."

BIEL CARRIES HERSELF WITH THE CONFIDENCE OF A DANCER OR AN ACCOMPLISHED JOCK-BOTH OF WHICH SHE HAS BEEN.

When Biel walked onto the set of The Illusionist, director Neil Burger was impressed with her athlete's readiness and resolve. She carries herself with the confidence of a dancer or an accomplished jock-both of which she has been. "She completely gave as good as she got" with her Oscar-nominated costars Norton and Giamatti, Burger says. "That's a testament to her poise and her talent."

Early in the production, Biel had a scene with Norton that put the two of them in a stream in the Czech Republic in March. "It was essentially liquid ice. It was like an elec- tric shock, and it knocked the breath out of both of us and Jess turned blue," Norton says. "When we watched it back on the monitor, you could see it hadn't played out exactly right. Neil and I both wanted to do it again, but some- times you have to give up perfect for safety, and we were hesitant to ask her to get back in that water. But she said, 'It wasn't right, was it? Let's do it again.' And I thought, All right, she's a pro."

"She doesn't take herself too seriously," says her friend and producing partner Michelle Purple.

Stephen Collins, who played Biel's minister father on 7th Heaven, agrees: "She has an incredible goof-off, tom- boy streak," he says.

So what was a tomboy doing in the front rows at fashion week in Paris early last March? ("An intimi- dating and overwhelming environment," Biel says.) Scoring some clothing, including the Preen number she's wearing now, and also celebrating her twenty- fifth birthday. "Someone said, 'You have five years till 30.' I started to think, Wow, over the next five years, my life could really change personally," Biel says smil- ing, with a slight squint of her catlike eyes.

When the tabloids started spotting Biel with Justin Timberlake in January shortly after his breakup with Cameron Diaz-the two were seen snowboard- ing together in Park City, Utah, during the Sundance Film Festival; sharing a glass of champagne at Prince's Golden Globes party; and backstage at Timberlake's concert in San Diego-her personal life suddenly became of great interest to the public. She dodges a probe about her relationship with Timberlake while knocking back shrimp tempura with aplomb, saying that she was in Park City with girlfriends and holding

"WE DIDN'T LOCK OUR DOORS," BIEL SAYS OF HER COLORADO CHILDHOOD,

meetings for her production company, Iron Ocean Films. Nor does she want to discuss her past relation- ships with actors Ryan Reynolds and Chris Evans, or Yankee star Derek Jeter, "for no other reason than I can't even go to the dry cleaner by myself anymore," she says. "You're seen in public with anybody that you might not even know, and you're speculated about."

Asked if the constant attention makes dating hard, she says, "It makes everything hard because you can't even go to pick up a prescription without somebody trying to snap a photo of what you have in your Longs Drugs bag. Thank goodness I'm a nice person," she says. "Thank you, Mom, for teaching me that.

"The day after Biel was born, in Ely, Minnesota, her parents took her to a dogsled race; it was 30 degrees below zero. By age one she was in a canoe. Her mother, who is "New Age," grew up in Colorado, hunting for arrowheads as a child; her father was a "mountain man" who ran an Outward Bound school and worked as an international business consultant. His career took the family (her brother, Justin, is three years younger) from Texas to Connecticut and, finally, to Boulder. "We didn't lock our doors," she says. "We snowboarded, hiked, climbed, rafted. We grew up without a fear of the world."

Although Biel thrived at athletics, she doesn't remember a time when she wasn't dancing or sing- ing. At age 11, she signed up with a talent agency in Denver, which got her to the International Modeling and Talent Association convention in Los Angeles, which in turn got her into meetings with managers and agencies.

"I wanted to be Whitney Houston for a long time. I would be onstage and I would just come alive," Biel recalls. "I begged my parents to let me go out for pilot season."

When she was 14, she landed her central role in 7th Heaven, playing the oldest daughter of seven kids in a wholesome Christian family. But after a few years, she wanted to mix things up personally and professionally. At 17, Biel posed seductively for a Gear magazine photo shoot, topless with scant bottoms. It was a clear sign that she wanted to be off the show. "I was all over the place," she says now. "I was being a rebellious teenager." She feels that she was exploited by the magazine, but 7th Heaven's producers cut her out of the series. (She eventually returned in a more limited role.)

"The Gear thing, while embarrassing, wasn't exactly bad for her career," Collins says. True enough, in that between Gear and Esquire Biel worked on seven major films. But none of those movies had anywhere near the impact that taking off her clothes did . Julianne Moore says that Biel's "extraordinary" beauty appears as if "she were carved from marble," but she also has a body that you'd think only a comic book artist could draw-curvy in just the right places-and yet still healthy. 

"WE SNOWBOARDED, HIKED, CLIMBED, RAFTED. WE GREW UP WITHOUT A FEAR OF THE WORLD." 

Biel works out three times a week, primarily heart-rate training, doing fast-speed soccer exercises, squats, and running. She also does yoga regularly. Still, she feigns dismay at the suggestion that she looks buff.

"What do you mean? This is the thinnest and the least muscular I've been in a long time," she protests. "I'm so lean and feminine!"

As we order tea after dinner, the large party of 20 at the banquet table perpendicular to ours has mostly disbanded, allowing four of the men left at the table to reshuffle themselves so that eventually they sit on one side, facing her. It's as if they're at dinner theater. Biel may feel she has yet to land the role that breaks her out, but until that time, she has no shortage of fans who will be happy to watch her along the way.

When asked to go bowling two days later, after her ELLE photo shoot, Biel scarcely raises an eyebrow. She throws on a black ensemble and arrives ready to roll at Chelsea Piers between two lanes of bouncy seven-year-old girls. Despite doing pretty poorly, losing for eight frames, she pulls a spare, a strike, and two nines at the very end to win the contest. "I was really sucking, but I'm a closer," she says gamely. "You should see me at beer pong."

[regallibellbright]

I didn’t think of myself as a huge Sonic the Hedgehog fan growing up - we had the Advance games and played some of the Gamecube and DS ones, though Bro and I weren’t particularly good at any of them, and we watched Sonic X when it was on, but Sonic wasn’t a franchise I’d say I was particularly invested in until I got into the IDW comics (and to a lesser extent the Archie ones, since I haven’t actively read them yet but HAVE seen recaps) through Thanks Ken Penders back in 2020.

However, since I grew up in that post-Adventure era, even if I wasn’t ACTIVELY invested in Sonic and the lore, I did KNOW it. And so I’m always surprised to realize people DON’T know that the edgy black and red rival hedgehog who once had his own game where he had a gun has a canonical backstory in which he was the best friend/adoptive sibling to a terminally ill young girl (her age is never specified in the games but at oldest she’s in her midteens), the granddaughter of the scientist who created him (with the hope of somehow curing her We’re Not Calling It AIDS But It’s AIDS,) and also Dr. Eggman’s cousin. This ends when a thinly-veiled analog to the US military invades the space station he grew up on and murders everyone on it, including said terminally ill young girl, and Shadow only survives because Maria managed to put him in an escape pod where he’d stay in suspended animation for 50 years… after he sees her gunned down in front of him. Eggman and Maria’s grandfather/Shadow’s creator survives the initial massacre so the military unit can use his research, but he tampers with Shadow’s memory and builds a doomsday device in an attempt for revenge, and is ultimately executed. There’s a cutscene in SA2 where we see him just before this occurs. It’s EXACTLY as fucked up as you think. And yes, of course there are cutscenes where we see Maria’s death. Across multiple games, even. I have never played Sonic Adventure 2 but I have seen Maria gunned down plural times.

Which I admit, sounds wild when I put it that way. But because Shadow was a major recurring character and the games I played were in the “we brought him back now let’s give him a purpose” era, his backstory was always brought up and so I always just… consider this common knowledge. Like, yeah, of course one of the most popular characters in the franchise has a backstory involving the military executing all his family. This is in fact why he’s so popular. Everyone likes his edginess and also the genuine tragedy there, and his ultimate choice to be a hero so he can fulfill Maria’s dying wish that he protect the planet she always wanted to see.

So when the Sonic fanbase all LOST OUR COLLECTIVE SHIT at Shadow’s post-credits teaser in the second movie and realized all the pieces are in play for them to accurately adapt his backstory and Adventure 2, it was a genuine shocker to realize that tons of people just… aren’t familiar with the fact that what we’re pushing for, and why a lot of people thought they WOULDN’T go there, is Paramount signing off on a movie that is VEHEMENTLY anti-military and features a terminally ill child gunned down by them before our eyes. They’d better! Like, sorry Maria, I love AUs where you live and get to be more than the Sweet Saintly Dead Girl, but narratively you 1000% have to die. They’ve set things up for this. The Olive Garden guy shares a name and role with a character in the games who’s canonically a survivor of the same event. They have to go here.

Oh, and Sonic gets arrested in the opening sequence to cover for Shadow waking up and escaping their containment, because they can’t find Shadow so let’s blame a hedgehog we CAN find. This doesn’t work and results in one of the most beloved and iconic sequences in the franchise, to the point where I will genuinely think less of everyone involved’s competence if they DON’T in some way bring City Escape into the early marketing for Sonic 3. Like, it is that obvious a choice. Open your first trailer with the shot of him jumping off the helicopter with his makeshift snowboard and the guitar riff and you have guaranteed ticket sales. (Actually USE the song in the trailer and you’ve guaranteed more, the lack of Sonic music in the first two has been a glaring thing and Adventure 2 has two of the most iconic vocal numbers in the series.) I’ve never even played Adventure 2 and I know this. But the flip side of this is that if you DON’T allow this movie to actively criticize the military, you are therefore going to miss several of the most iconic moments of the game you are in some way adapting… and said game is one of the most beloved of the franchise, particularly on the story front. It’s great. I love that we’re here. I love that this apparently WASN’T common enough knowledge that Paramount could be lured into Shadow being staged in to the point that if they go back now, it’s CLEAR the writers and director wanted to go there and weren’t allowed to. And I am LOVING that people are finding this out NOW and then joining us in our “Do it Paramount, don’t be cowards” urging. Welcome to Sonic the Hedgehog! Our lore is weird but delightful.

[whatyourusherthinks]

Madame Web Review

Did anyone ask for this movie? Like I know the whole joke of these Sony Spiderman spin-offs is that they are all extremely unnecessary, but who thought a Madame Web movie would be a good idea? She exists just to be exposition in the comics. Also, Dakota Johnson already kinda looks Jessica Drew from the comics so why not make a Spiderwoman movie? Is it because Across the Spiderverse had the hot black Jessica Drew? It's probably because Across the Spiderverse had the hot black Jessica Drew.

By the way, I looked up Madame Web on Google to refresh my memory about the movie, and the first search recommendation is 'What is the point of Madame Web?'.

What's The Movie About?

Cassie Web is an ambulance driver who gains the ability to see the future. She sees that three teenage girls she briefly crossed paths with are going to be murdered by evil Spiderman, and reluctantly tries to protect them.

What I Like.

If you've seen the trailer, you'd know there's a sequence that takes place in a subway. While it looks stupid in the trailer, the actual sequence is tense. The timeline-web thing they use to show Web's powers looks kinda cool, and there's a bit bit where they disrupt the evil Spiderman's wallcrawling with a defibrillator that I thought was clever. The plot isn't terrible which is impressive considering previous Sonyman movies and that they are dealing with future-sight. Even the tribe of spider people don't completely derail the narrative. Adam Scott plays Ben Wyatt Parker, and he's like the only truly nice character in the whole movie. It also wrapped up less than two hours.

What I Didn't Like.

All the acting in this movie sucks. (Goddamn it two movies with Sydney Sweeney in one week cannot be good for my brain.) I'm not sure it's entirely the actors' fault, since Web is written to be a massive bitch the entire movie and all the kids are stupid as fuck, but everyone is incredibly stiff and wooden. The script and dialogue is horrendous. The movie opens with the the birth of the main character, which I also think is also the origin of her powers but honestly the exposition is so sloppy she could have just randomly gotten them after almost dying. Also we flash back to the exact same opening scenes later in the movie. We get "emotional" moments that are oddly placed and are completely unearned. (Yeah, Web will make a great foster mom, especially after she kidnapped all the girls, forced them to hide in the woods, and left them there with no food.) The effects are laughably bad. All of the costumes look fake as shit, it makes Green Lantern look halfway decent. Speaking of which, you might assume watching the trailer that the three girls would become Spiderwomen in the movie. But they don't. All of the shots in the trailer are visions Web gets that don't even happen. The editing in the movie is piss poor as well. Violent car crashes probably shouldn't make me laugh as much as they do in this movie. There are several car chases that they cut super fast and give weird angles to try and hide that the driver was clearly taking it super casual day of filming. The ADR in this movie is shockingly bad. At one point they don't even try to hide that evil Spiderman's lines have been changed after the fact. It looks like an old Godzilla movie. The camera work was nausea inducing, because it keeps spinning around characters and the cuts are quick and nonsensical. I also keep nodding off during the climax, but that may have been because I watched this at 3 in the morning.

Final Summation.

This movie isn't good, obviously. I think everyone has learned that any Sony Spiderman movie that doesn't have Verse in the title is gonna suck, so you don't need me to tell you this. But I was honestly surprised that this wasn't the worst movie I've seen this week. I sort of wish I could get upset and act like this is the worse thing to happen on Valentine's Day since the Massacre, but no. It's just a dumb movie.

Happy Single's Awareness Day everyone.

[brokehorrorfan]

Mixtape Massacre has launched a Kickstarter for a Time Warp expansion, the sixth and final ‘80s expansion pack for the Escape from Tall Oak horror board game (with additional components for use wit Mixtape Massacre).

It includes 15 Killer Scenes cards, 15 Supply cards, 10 Paradox cards, six time jump tokens, two jump dice, two slasher profile cards and slasher character pieces (Time Killer and Jacob Rothman), one survivor profile card and character piece (Dr. Smith), and a rulebook.

Time Warp costs $25 alone or $65 with the Escape from Tall Oaks base game. Today only, backers will receive an exclusive Jump Boots Supply card. $75 gets you the expansion, Time Killer pack, bubble gum dice, exclusive Supply card, T-shirt, and enamel pin.

Mixtape Massacre: Time Warp is estimated for delivery in February. Watch the trailer below.

Time Warp has players working together as you travel back and forth through time in an attempt to clean up, or mess up the Tall Oaks' timeline.

During your travels, you'll be chased by new slashers of Tall Oaks past and future while also trying to not cause time paradoxes that could tear apart the town and game. With new survivors and slashers, new modes of play, and multiple possibilities for endings, prepare for the time of your life... or death.

[watching-pictures-move]

Movie Review | Civil War (Garland, 2024)

I’d initially written this off based on the dopey trailer, but after hearing some of what goes down in the movie and seeing a large swath of the internet be extremely annoying in their dislike, I figured it was worth a look if it was pissing off these types. I’m gonna talk some shit here, so you can skip down at least a paragraph if you want to read something a little more substantive, but I suspect the reason these people have been so vocal about not liking this is because they were looking to have the movie parrot their views back to them in as didactic a manner as possible. We simply can’t have movies deal with political subjects without spoonfeeding you what to think in as blunt a manner as possible, and it’s simply unacceptable to capture something about a political situation that doesn’t involve spelling out who’s bad or whatever, and quite frankly I think these people would be better off rubbing one out to their copies of whatever political publication they subscribe to.

I also think a lot of these types are just bad at reading movies. I just watched a streaming show that much of the internet seems to be creaming their jeans over (that I actually mostly enjoyed) that balked at presenting anything resembling ambiguity or conflicting emotional effects and proceeded to drown any scene that might be remotely thrilling with an ironic musical cue so you would know what to think. The fact that this doesn’t do that and will present you with something that might actually seem exciting and try to implicate you in the proceedings is probably frazzling some brains. The lazier critiques of this have been saying this is afraid of having ideas or points on the subject, but I do think there’s something interesting here about the journalistic process, and the ethics of getting the shot, and the tension between reporting the facts versus the sympathy or disdain you might have for your subjects. This takes after action-packed wartime journalism movies like Salvador and Under Fire, and I think the latter has probably the best scene out of any of these movies illustrating this idea, where all the reporters watch the city being bombed from the comfort of their hotel rooftop. (I think this is also less neutral than some of its detractors are claiming, and instead playing it like The Battle of Algiers where those we’re sympathetic to can still do unsympathetic things in war.) Anyway, I’ve bitched enough about the takes surrounding this movie, so I’ll instead point to two of the more thoughtful unpackings I’ve read of this movie (1, 2).

And sorry, maybe Alex Garland is a bit of a bozo in how he packages all of this and some of the things he’s said, but this movie is super entertaining. A good chunk of the movie plays like Borat but if all the people had assault rifles and would kill you in an instant. There’s a sense of surrealism here, with images from the last few years remixed after being swirled in the subconscious, peppered with additional, sometimes bizarre details to flesh out the world (the Antifa Massacre, high value Canadian dollars, Portland Maoists , Florida being part of Central America, Texas presumably having gone Blue). Or the scene where they’re caught in sniper fire near some country side attraction turned roadblock, and the soldiers they talk to are being super condescending in answering any questions. One of the highlights of the movie has Jesse Plemons looking like a tactical Elton John but also being super scary, and the movie is, knowingly or otherwise, mining that dissonance for a surreal charge. I won’t spoil how the scene ends, but I laughed out loud, which from me is an endorsement. Maybe I was laughing through a good chunk of this, but that meant I was having a good time.

And the climax fucking rocks, the Western Forces going into DC, their tanks and helicopters mowing down any sorry ass Secret Service bastards they run into (see one of their limos get royally owned when an entire unit opens unloads on it), and eventually having to shoot it out in the White House. You know Garland was watching Black Hawk Down and going “This is so sick” and then awkwardly adding “…but also very serious” when his sourpuss viewing partner caught his reaction. It honestly feels videogamey to me, both the shooting game gunplay at ground level and the RTS-style overhead pans. The budget here (high for its studio but low for blockbusters) means that there’s a good amount of CGI assistance, but when it’s in the service of cool helicopter shit, I ain’t complaining. (I also think the lower budget influenced the episodic structure of the movie, which I again think works in its favour.)

With the gawking view of Trump… sorry, Offerman country and the queasy triumph of the closing stretch, this feels like a paranoid fantasy for a certain kind of liberal, like Red Dawn for MSNBC viewers. And it also kinda owns, if you’re okay for a filmmaker to go bozo mode on a potentially serious subject. I’d joked earlier that I would have been more inclined to watch this had it been called Trumpmerica 2025 or something like that, but the results are a lot closer to what I imagined. This is primo exploitation, like if a Tubi original somehow had serious money and filmmaking prowess pumped into it.

[monstermonstre]

Faves of 2022

Self explanatory end of the year list of my favourite everythings I consumed this year. That includes things that came out before 2022 but that I read/watched/played for the first time this year. For those of you who are only interested in what came in 2022 I will put them at the top of each list for visibility.

Other than that, the lists aren’t sorted by any order of preference, that’s just too much to ask.

Films

🩳 for short films, 🏳️‍🌈 for queer films (how queer they are vary immensely here so please don’t take this as me putting them all in the same basket, it’s just to highlight which could be of interest for someone looking for queer narratives and/or point of views), and finally 🌐 for films that are not a North American production.

Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022) 🏳️‍🌈

Triangle of Sadness (2022) 🌐

Kimi (2022)

Barbarian (2022)

Starfuckers (2022) 🩳🏳️‍🌈

Prey (2022)

Turning Red (2022)

Love and Leashes (2022) 🌐

Rest of the list under the ‘read more’

Ringu (1998) 🌐

Keyboard Fantasies (2019) 🏳️‍🌈

Two Cars, One Night (2004) 🩳🌐

Meeting the Man: James Baldwin in Paris (1970) 🩳🏳️‍🌈

Tama Tū (2004) 🩳🌐

Paris 05:59: Théo & Hugo (2016) 🏳️‍🌈🌐

Next Goal Wins (2014) 🏳️‍🌈🌐

Knife+Heart (2018) 🏳️‍🌈🌐

I Lost My Body (2019) 🌐

Towards Tenderness (2016) 🩳🏳️‍🌈🌐

Danton’s Death (2011) 🩳🌐

All the Crows In the World (2021) 🩳🏳️‍🌈🌐

Ex Machina (2014)

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986)

The Samurai (2014) 🏳️‍🌈🌐

One Cut of the Dead (2017) 🌐

Prisoners (2013)

Rope (1948) 🏳️‍🌈

Frankenstein (1931) 🏳️‍🌈

The Old Dark House (1932) 🏳️‍🌈

Cat People (1942) 🏳️‍🌈

Happy Together (1997) 🏳️‍🌈🌐

Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)

Chris Fleming: Showpig (2018)

Rashomon (1950) 🌐

La Cage aux Folles (1978) 🏳️‍🌈🌐

Books

I don’t have a lot in this list so I feel more inclined to give a lil explanation for each entry.

To Strip the Flesh by Oto Toda (2022 for the translation, 2020 in the original japanese): an anthology manga with a main story about a preop trans man who makes a living livestreaming himself cutting meat from animals that his father hunted (part of his success relying on how attractive he is to his audience who perceive him as a woman) and his struggle around coming out to his father and pursuing gender-affirming surgery.

It’s a beautiful and visceral (in every sense of the word) manga and I can’t recommend it enough. With a caveat that it contains, both in its main story and the short that make the anthology, a lot of body horror that might not be for everyone.

No Sleep Till Shengal by Zerocalcare (2022): don’t know that I have much to say about this one. People familiar with his work might understand why.

Monstrous Regiment and Going Postal by Terry Pratchett: continuing my exploration of the Discworld and enjoyed the two a great deal. Monstrous Regiment has become my favourite Discworld and maybe a favourite in general as well. It’s rare (at least to me, but maybe I’m not looking in the right places) to find satisfying trans representation in fiction, even more so in genre fiction, and even more so in stories that are overall a fun time. The final few pages make me emotional every time I read them.  “Around him, the kitchen worked.” and “‘A choice?’ said Rosemary.” forever.

My Brother’s Husband by Gengoroh Tagame: just gonna copy the wiki summary “the series follows the relationship between single father Yaichi, his daughter Kana, and Mike Flanagan, the Canadian husband of Yaichi's estranged and recently deceased twin brother.” It’s a manga, it’s beautiful, glad I finally got around to reading it.

Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo: took me ages to get to this despite having devoured Six of Crows but here we are. Since it’s a sequel I don’t feel like I can say much other than I had a great time with it and the ending got me. It helped me get out of a reading slump I was in.

The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay: checked this one out because I saw the trailer for the upcoming film adaptation and it hooked me. It was such an easy read I finished it in 3 days (which is very fast for me nowadays). I still don’t really know what to think of it, still recovering from the ending and trying to make up my mind, but it did its job of keeping me invested and turning the pages fast. I’m very curious to see how they adapt it too.

Dracula by Bram Stoker: so thankful for dracula daily for getting me to read this, joined the squad of “why the hell adaptations do this to Mina and why do they omit my man Quincey?”.

A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers: even less “plot” than the first book but I couldn’t give a shit. I love the Wayfarers universe and its characters and this was such a comfortable and satisfying read. It even made me reevaluate some of my stances on AIs.

Overall I only read 2 of the books I said were on my to-read for 2022 but I achieved my goal of reading at least 12 books this year (even beat it by 1!) and got out of a years long reading slump so it’s a win! Looking forward to my reading in 2023.

TV Shows

Faves new shows of 2022: Our Flag Means Death, Severance, The Bear, Murderville and Interview with the Vampire

Other than that I watch too many things and TV Time is awful to navigate but off the top of my head other shows that didn’t start this year that I feel the need to highlight: What We Do In The Shadows (this latest finale was a gut punch in the best of ways), Chucky (the most fun I’ve had consistently watching anything this year), The Night Of (took me a while to get to this miniseries but it didn’t disappoint to say the least), Taskmaster NZ (the superior version), Barry, Succession, The Casketeers, Los Espookys...

Oh and you should subscribe to Dropout

Everything Else

I don’t play that much video games but of the ones I played and finished (or that can’t be finished) I played and finished Spiritfarer this year and that didn’t disappoint. Also the new Just Dance (2023 Edition) is insane. Yes they sacrificed a lot in the process but if you only take the new songs and maps into account it’s the best they’ve ever done.

And music wise I already answered a lot of Spotify Wrapped questions and that’s probably that. I’m a filthy casual enjoyer of music, incapable of having any critical sense for it.

I made this list mostly for myself and also for those of you who might have similar taste as mine and looking for recs. If after reading this you think you might have recs for me, feel free to drop them in replies or DMs!

Happy new year!

[blacklister214]

Shadow & Bone Season 2 Predictions

Prediction 1 (Why a Memory Palace, not a Tether): I was watching an interview about S2 where the cast briefly discussed the difficulties of adapting the “tether bond” aspect of Book 2. I initially scratched my head because, it’s really not with the way the book writes the conversations. In the book its basically Darkling appearing to Alina like he’s in the room, but no one else can see him. That’s not hard to shoot. Then the actors mentioned that they are instead using a “Memory Palace” technique, and everything became clear. 

There is potential in a memory palace that does not exist in a tether bond. Regular communication is hard when two people are as angry at each other as they are. With a memory palace we as an audience can watch Alexzander can find memories of the aftermath of his actions in the fold and Alina can find Alexzander’s history of how the fold was created in the first place. It means a fuller understanding of where each other is coming from, and possibly some good self-reflection. All we need to create enough empathy that they don’t kill each other in the finale.    

Prediction 2 (Psycho Darkling Cuts): I don’t think we will see Alexzander perform his darkest Book 2 moves (Blinding Baghra, disfiguring Genya, and the creepy Mal doppelganger thing). I think he’ll lock his mom in a cell, and he scare the shit out of Genya with the threat of disfigurement, but no further. The rapey stuff will definitely not make an appearance. I do expect see him building his grisha following by massacring some Grisha experimentation labs in other countries. This way it will be a violent and rage filled “Reputation Era”, but also understandable a la Dany in GOT.   

Prediction 3 (Toxic Mal Cuts): To my recollection a large part of Book 2 is Malina relation drama AKA Mal acting like an insecure, self-centered, possessive tool. I don’t expect to see most of that junk in the show. Show Mal is a dream (and I say this as someone more interested in the SHOW Darklina ship). I think we might get a little jealousy and insecurity as he realizes he is travelling a very different path from her. He will at some point have to break the news to Alina that she is pretty much immortal. However I generally expect to see them romantically together and supportive of each other on their Amplifiers hunt. 

Prediction 4 (Amplifier Hunt): Based on the trailers think the whole of the amplifiers hunt discoveries will make it into this season. Darkling’s comment about her being willing to sacrifice want she loves the most seems suspiciously like he knows about the third amplifier. The fold won’t come down this season, but Alina will be aware what its going to take before the end of the season.    

Prediction 5 (Crows and Nina): I think anyone waiting to see Nina’s and Matias’ story move is going to be disappointed. I think Nina will see him at the prison, but if he speaks to her at all it will be ugly. Nina for her part I think will spend the season proving her worth to the Crows, so that they’ll help her free Mattias next season. The Crows will need to deal with a pissed off Pekka until they are hired to steal information about the firebird from the Shu Han by Alina and co.     

Prediction 6 (Darkling Final Fight With Alina): I think this season is the last time we will see a big showdown between Alina and Alexzander. In the trilogy it was so anticlimactic that all three stories end with Alina vs Darkling. More than twice is too much. I also don’t think we’ll get the Mal interference (which always reminded me of the Rose/Finn disaster at the end of Last Jedi). Alina will “win”, by which I mean I think they’ll play chicken and Alexzander will blink first, either allowing himself to be taken into custody, or running. 

Prediction 7 (the New Enemy and Uneasy Alliance):  The Apparat and/or the Royal family will betray Alina in the finale, leaving the final moments to be Mal visiting Alexzander and forming a pact with him.  

[frankendykes-monster]

Halloween 2022 Countdown Ranked

59. Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022)

58. Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1995)

57. Curse of The Swamp Creature (1968)

56. Monster From The Ocean Floor (1954)

55. Billy the Kid versus Dracula (1966)

54. Teenage Cave Man (1958)

53. Lost Continent (1951)

52. Attack of The Killer B-Movies (1995)

51. Texas Chainsaw 3D (2013)

50. Jesse James meets Frankenstein’s Daughter (1966)

49. Full Moon High (1981)

48. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006)

47. The Werewolf of Washington (1973)

46. The Invisible Man’s Revenge (1944)

45. The Invisible Woman (1940)

44. Anthropophagous (1980)

43. The Slime People (1963)

42. Casper’s Halloween Special (1979)

41. The Crawling Hand (1963)

40. Scream (2022)

39. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)

38. Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1990)

37. Invisible Agent (1942)

36. The Descent (2005)

35. Eegah (1962)

34. Dracula vs. Frankenstein (1971)

33. The Midnight Hour (1985)

32. Ringu (1998)

31. Halloween is Grinch Night (1977)

30. Attack of The Giant Leeches (1959)

29. Monster Mash (2000)

28. Bloodz vs. Wolvez (2006)

27. The Man From Planet X (1951)

26. Child’s Play 3 (1991)

25. Hansel and Gretel (1983)

24. Cat-Women of The Moon (1953)

23. Let’s Scare Jessica to Death (1971)

22. The She-Creature (1956)

21. The Terror (1963)

20. The Exorcist (1973)

19. The Navy vs. The Night Monsters (1966)

18. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)

17. The Halloween That Almost Wasn’t (1979)

16. Hobgoblins (1988)

15. Die, Monster, Die! (1965)

14. The Abomination (1986)

13. The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976)

12. Lake Mungo (2008)

11. Day of The Animals (1977)

10. Atom Age Vampire (1960)

9. The Mad, Mad, Mad Monsters (1972)

8. Night of The Blood Beast (1958)

7. Child’s Play 2 (1990)

6. The Crawling Eye (1958)

5. The Blair Witch Project (1999)

4. The Old Dark House (1932)

3. Child’s Play (1988)

2. Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989)

1. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

God this was such a bottom-heavy marathon compared to last year, alright let’s get this shitshow started.  I can’t believe I willingly put myself through some of this.

The 1950′s-1960′s science fiction extravaganza: Curse of The Swamp Creature is, I think, one of those TV remakes of 1950′s films starring monsters designed by Paul Blaisdell.  This is one where I thought “okay should I give it credit for making me laugh in the first 30 seconds and then not once for the entire rest of the runtime?”  The answer was no.  Monster From The Ocean Floor is a dreary slog of a film, one of those cheap shits that only features the titular monster for all of 30 seconds while people just aimlessly do nothing for the entire runtime.  Teenage Cave Man I only watched because the monster suit from this film was reused in Night of The Blood Beast, and otherwise it’s Ayn Rand wet dream of the freethinking teenager being magically smarter than everyone else on top of the offense of being a caveman movie with no dinosaurs.  God, speaking of which, Lost Continent is another Lost World ripoff that’s decades behind the curve and who’s only saving grace is stop motion dinosaurs which magically improve any movie they star in.  The Slime People is an oddity because the monster suits and concept are star studded but it just, I guess, doesn’t have the money to see through actually showing us slime people emerge from underground and completely take over Los Angeles.  Weird and disappointing.  The Crawling Hand has one of the best trailers for any monster movie I’ve seen complete with a slowed down version of “Surfin’ Bird” but aside from some humorous spouts of bad acting and the 100% out-of-nowhere gag ending, it’s nothing remarkable.  Admittedly there has been a couple films about disembodied hands killing people and I can’t find the concept scary no matter what, sue me.  Attack of The Giant Leeches is in decent/mid-tier territory, boosted by reusing music from Night of The Blood Beast (Roger Corman lives up to his cheap reputation) and genuinely gruesome scenes of the leeches’ human victims still being alive after progressively blood feedings, it mostly loses me for just not doing anything remarkable with its finale.  The Man From Planet X is working with a pretty stock script but is boosted by how atmospheric its directing is, every shot is just littered with shadows or fog.  Cat-Women of The Moon is definitely one of the more humorous genre outings I’ve seen of this type, living up to its title 100% other than I guess having long nails and sharp eyeliner making you a “cat” woman I guess.  The She-Creature isn’t the best Paul Blaisdell monster movie I’ve seen but that’s expected given his work crops up in some really interesting ones, this one being a murder mystery involving both hypnosis and prehistoric evolutionary links somehow.  The Navy vs. The Night Monsters is like a better version of The Thing From Another World what with an indeterminate number of US army guys having to deal with a monster(s) at their fort and their progressively more extreme methods of having to deal with it.  Atom Age Vampire is one of the funniest films I’ve seen in a *while*, an Italian knockoff of Eyes Without A Face that hits all the same plot points just far more crudely and with a manster (man-monster) thrown in to boot.  Watch the English edit for full effect.  Night of The Blood Beast is one I was excited to revisit and it did not disappoint, being one of the definitive genre precursors to Alien (1979) and just an all-around shock to the senses in general with how isolated the cast can be and what they have to be put up against.  The star of the show is The Crawling Eye however, a genuinely insane film that actually got under my skin with this viewing with the sound design, effects work, and some really gorey moments like flesh being desolved or multiple decapitations.  As far as alien invasion films of the 1950′s go, this is definitely up there.

We have a pair of oddity western-horror mashups between, uh, actual people and fictional characters with Billy the Kid versus Dracula and Jesse James meets Frankenstein’s Daughter.  Only thing of note with the former is that John Carradine reprises the role of Dracula after playing the character in House of Frankenstein (1944) and House of Dracula (1945).  Carradine was one of the most prolific actors in the history of the medium so it’s not surprising to see him crop up here and there without expecting him, but suffice to say he brings nothing to the role and just blends in with the rest of the drab film.  Jesse James meets Frankenstein’s Daughter gets extra points solely for featuring the creation of an awkward and haphazard Frankenstein monster, which is generally the only reason to seek out random odds-and-ends Frankenstein movies.

Full Moon High is another Larry Cohen film that looks good on paper but I don’t really find myself enjoying at all.  As a comedy there are a decent number of funny lines (”I’m not one of those types to believe in vampires and werewolves and virgins, I’ve never seen any of those.“) but it almost forgets it’s a werewolf movie for a lot of the runtime as the main plot involves how being a werewolf prevents you from aging and blah blah blah I can’t be bothered to care when you present something I didn’t come here to see (1950′s football player returns to his school in the 1980′s to find it littered with violence and drug use).  The Werewolf of Washington is similarly dreary experience that only exists to present lackluster post-Watergate political satire.

Oh how the mighty have fallen; I made an attempt at finishing out The Invisible Man series but couldn’t even bring myself to watch the dedicated Abbott/Costello film.  Truly the worst Universal sequels barring whatever happened with The Mummy.  The Invisible Woman and Invisible Agent are a full-on comedy and action-adventure film respectively, so in some way I feel cheated for how they’re consistently lumped in with the rest of the series as a whole, which are to say, horror (beyond not doing anything that hadn’t been shown to us in the first two installments).  The Invisible Man’s Revenge makes an attempt at trying to get the series back on track but all it does is make me realize I could just be watching the first two films.

Anthropophagous has been one I’ve been curious about for years, mostly because the poster is a really gristly shot of a guy eating human entrails, and while I *guess* that does feature in this film it’s just another slog to get through with no interesting characters, locations, or plot beats to string you along.  Avoid.

Scream 5 exists for no reason other than to drop the entire series’ GPA.  It’s the entry wherein the genre commentary overshadows everything else to the detriment of this being the first Scream film where I can’t be bothered to care about any of the returning characters.  I wrote extensively about this one in my Letterboxd review so I’m only going to touch on some finer points here.  Scream (1996) is allowed to reference I Spit On Your Grave (1978) because the former is better, this one is not allowed to make snide remarks about The Witch (2015), I’m not having it.  If you’re desperate for a creative shot to the arm that is a grand return after an 11 year absence, just watch Scream 4 (2011).

The Descent was borderline funny to me in the sense that my reaction to so much of what the characters are put through is “shit I would just die, what else is there to do?”  I mentally tuned out when the film switched from “being trapped in a claustrophobic cave system with no sense of direction” to “being hunted by underground monsters.”  I usually scoff and roll my eyes at “oh my god it’s scarier because it could actually happen” but this is rare case where, yeah, being trapped underground with no way out is more terrifying before you add monsters to the mix.

Alright, brief “worst of the worst” roundup: Eegah, in spite of being one of the most notable MST3K punching bags, is not *that* bad.  It peters out by the finale but there are enough funny moments and actually good stuff (Eegah talking to the corpses of family members in a proto Texas Chainsaw scene) to string you along for the better part of an hour.  The Terror is a fascinating film for me, made solely because Roger Corman finished The Raven (1963) two days early and still had access to Boris Karloff.  What we get is a bizarre and haphazard jumbling of horror cliches in a story that is almost bursting at the seams over how overwritten it is, but the making of this one is so interesting to me personally that I can’t bring myself to dislike it, even if Jack Nicholson never was good at “charismatic leading man” type thing before he settled on crazy motherfuckers.  Hobgoblins was one I was surprised over how hilarious it was, another convoluted mess you can’t help but laugh at.  The hobgoblins hypnotize people to let them live out their greatest fantasies albeit with some horrific twist, giving us some golden scene like a guy going to makeout point with an imaginary woman so the hobgoblins can push the car over the edge.  Lordy lordy lordy.

1970′s role call: Dracula vs. Frankenstein continues the trend of awkward and frustrating messes, this one originally being an unrelated horror film that later had the two characters thrown in mid-production.  What ensues is an unusually violent at times boring at others movie that I can’t help but derive at least some ironic enjoyment from.  The untimely tragedy of this film is that this was the last role for Lon Chaney Jr.  Bela Lugosi got stuck with Ed Wood, Karloff with Corman, and Chaney Jr. with Al Adamson.  Chaney Jr. could have been a great actor if it wasn’t for the horror typecasting and seeing play just another bumbling grunt in this is almost painful.  See also: somehow this film is also the final role for J. Carrol Naish, who played Daniel in House of Frankenstein (1944).  Odd.  Let’s Scare Jessica to Death just blends in to the larger genre trends of leaning more towards provocative material what with explicit concerns of mental illness in our protagonist and questions of reality around her, but aside from the soundtrack this one has already completely left my memory.  The Exorcist isn’t *quite* the most overrated horror film out there, but it does surprise me that is one of the ones that escaped into the mainstream; it’s mostly middling for the first hour of its runtime before becoming a decent enough demon story.  I will say I can’t for the life of me find the devil scary in this, “your mother sucks cocks in hell!” will always be funny to me, they’re like a Freddy/Chucky joke dispensing precursor.  The Town That Dreaded Sundown, hoo boy, had this one had a more consistent tone dodging the comedy relief, it could have been an all-time great from this decade with an entire town plunged into despair over unsuccessful efforts to apprehend an anonymous serial killer.  This one goes all out when it comes to the more suspenseful moments, making the gags all the more frustrating.  Day of The Animals narrowly edges out being just another part of the glut of killer animal films in the wake of Jaws (1975), by just having everything out to kill people.  In spite of its inherent ridiculousness I can’t not say it’s better produced and more oppressively intimidating than it has any right to be, almost reminds me of a version of the environment itself is trying to kill you a la backrooms.

Ringu kind of sets in that the late-1990′s-early-2000′s period of J-horror just isn’t for me compared to the likes of films we saw in the 1960′s and 1970′s.  They tend to bleed together in my mind and Ringu is disappointing in that way.  I will say I was surprised that we get a satisfactory explanation for the origin of the tape and that only the final scene exhibits the famous “crawling out of the television” moment, which somehow became the most memorable thing from this one.

Bloodz vs. Wolvez I’m going to defend on the basis that this could have been a genuinely solid effort, what with the concept of bougie black vampires trying to integrate into human (read: white) society but working class black werewolves are stuck in poverty and this class disparity is the driver of the conflict between the two groups.  What holds this back, and of all the films I watched for this season, this one pains me the most to say it’s only average, is the fact that this may be one of the lowest budget films I have ever seen.  Everything is restrained by the fact that this must have been over consecutive weekends on $100.  Holding out for a remake that does this one justice.

Brief 1930′s aside: I’ve never seen any adaptation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde prior to this year so any amount of expectation or set ideas on what should be done with the story escape me.  Suffice to say this is an impressive one overall, with a lot of POV shots and split screen effects that I don’t think I’ve ever seen in a prior film.  The 1931 film is another slow to start but when it gets going it unfolds into one of the most explosive finales to any 1930′s horror film (though admittedly I’m not sure what separates Mr. Hyde in this from your average London man but what have you).  Oh yes, The Old Dark House.  This is the ultimate “minimalist” horror film, using the absolute bare essentials it can to craft an uneasy atmosphere that dominates everything else.  No supernatural phenomena, no body count, just extreme thunderstorms trapping everyone inside one dark house and them being forced to make it out with their minds intact.  “This is an unlucky house, two of my children, died when they were 20, eh-he-he...” “Laughter and sin!  Laughter and sin!  This too will rot!”

Die, Monster, Die! is the rare pre-1980′s Lovecraft adaptation, very loosely taking from The Colour From Outer Space, and comes together thanks to starring roles by Karloff and Nick Adams along with going into some unusual territory concerning mutations that befit the subject matter.  Slow to start but strong finish.

The Abomination is another one of those pushing-for-the-edge 1980′s obscurities that mostly exists to up the gore to previously unseen levels, and I can’t say it wasn’t successful, with practically an entire house being converted into an eldritch monstrosity that eats people piece by piece.  It’s frankly disgusting at times but if you’re on the search for more of these have at it.

Out of all the bizarre mishmash that is the group of films that I decided to watch this year, Lake Mungo is the biggest outlier to the group.  I’m not sure if I’d classify it as horror, it’s a piece of weird fiction that seems to escape genre.  Unlike, it seems, pretty much everyone else, this one doesn’t really scare me at all, but I can’t help but be fascinated as the narrative ebbs back and forth in an emotional cacophony that leads to gut punches.  I’m not entirely sure what to make of it, it could have gone anywhere in the ranking and I wouldn’t be wholly satisfied with its position, but I guess that’s why you can’t truly assign a number value to art.

I made an effort to try and make it through as many actual Halloween specials as I could this year in between the feature lengths.  Attack of The Killer B-Movies sees Elvira and a bunch of teenage schmucks watch several low-tier 1950′s science fiction films that have been colorized, cut for time, and with new soundtracks, with MST3K gags strewn in between.  It somehow makes these films worse, which is a monumental accomplishment in cases like with Monster From Green Hell (1957).  Avoid unless you and some pals have to see everything Elvira.  I’m not familiar with anything related to Casper prior to the 1995 film and the seemingly deluge of material featuring the character for the following decade, and Casper’s Halloween Special didn’t do anything to convince me to rectify that, blah.  The Midnight Hour is one I was disappointed to return to, not nearly as insane as I recall it being.  Functionally a proto-Hocus Pocus (1993) wherein a witch returns from the dead to curse an entire town, The Midnight Hour wants to be a zombie film, a party film, a romance, and about two other things but doesn’t meet the manic energy required to pull it off.  An absolute must see is the musical number riffing on “Thriller” in the middle of this one, “Get Dead.”  “I’m dead, you’re dying, everyone should try and get dead!”  Halloween is Grinch Night is a fascinating watch just being an unyielding onslaught of color and sound that doesn’t know what a quiet moment is, the oft mentioned “weird” Grinch scene makes perfect sense in context however, not sure what everyone was on about with that.  Monster Mash is an adorable enough fist-shaking, involving Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, and The Wolf Man being forced to assert that they’re still scary in spite of being sell-outs in a world of slashers.  Best part is one of the monsters they’re up against is Freddy D. Spaghetti, who wears a pasta strainer in place of a hockey mask, love that dude.  Hansel and Gretel is a retelling of the story by Tim Burton, and it makes for perfect background material at a party for its ambiance coming from the fact there are only like five characters existing on solid monochrome sets that have virtually no decorations.  I’ve never cared for the story itself but the presentation here is hypnotizing.  The Halloween That Almost Wasn’t is another cute and inoffensive one, with Dracula forced to call all the world’s monsters together to have a witch doing her scaring duties lest the holiday be cancelled all together.  Ends on a disco party because it’s the 1970′s, fuck you.  Nothing however can beat The Mad, Mad, Mad Monsters, a reprise/semi-sequel to Mad Monster Party? (1967), which I watched for last year’s countdown, and one that perfectly rights the wrongs of that misfire.  The light plot concerns Dr. Frankenstein making a bride for the Monster and calling in the rest of the major terrors to come to the wedding, and it’s almost entirely a springboard for gags.  The difference between this and Mad Monster Party? is that this is actually funny, whether it be the reining-in of some obvious Halloween gags (ha-ha the monsters want to eat roast black widows) or there being two human characters to counterbalance the monsters, one absolutely terrified of them and one who’s a major Universal fanboy.  Just when you think the film is ending it turns 90 degrees into another direction with 10 more jokes on the way.  “Oh I’ve made a terrible mistake, the bride is alternating current, and the groom is direct current!”

There isn't much going on in The Blair Witch Project so I can't comment on much, suffice to say this one has still got it, marketing campaign or no marketing campaign. Slowly becomes more and more claustrophobic until you get to that final shot of standing in the corner. It having been spoiled for me years prior doesn't at all change how effective it is in context.

Time constraints prohibited me from watching every Child’s Play film but I enjoyed my time with the first three entries.  If anything surprised me about the first film it’s that it is a genuinely scary experience, the only one where Chucky is intimidating.  The people saying that they could just drop kick him?  Yeah, Chucky will fucking kill you.  This is what A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) wishes it was.  Child’s Play 2 does its services as a not-quite-as-good horror sequel but it’s strong continuity with the first and upping the stakes and scope make it a worthwhile watch.  Child’s Play 3 is decent enough but can grow tiring over how much it forgets it’s a Child’s Play sequel and not a Full Metal Jacket (1987) parody.  Too much of the run time is eaten up by shit that is inconsequential and yeah, not too bad compared to a LOT of slasher sequels but I can see where people are coming from when they say this is the weakest entry in the series.

If your body horror film doesn’t make me feel like the person having their flesh twisted, you failed.  Industrial music.  Stop motion editing.  Semi-undead mechanical sex.  Tetsuo: The Iron Man commands it all.  If you turn your head for five seconds while watching this you will have missed the equivalency of a Lord of The Rings prequel’s volume of information and even then a lot of this indecipherable on every level.  The beauty of practical effects is a lot of the time I genuinely couldn’t tell you how the effect is done, and Tetsuo does that seemingly every 10 minutes.  I’ve come and gone with this film but make no mistake, everyone needs to see this.  It will change you.

Alright, final stretch.  There is no series in the history of film that has a wider gap in quality between entries as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  Watching the majority of the series this year also ran the gamut of how good or how bad a movie in general can be.  I did not rewatch 2 because I figured it would get better on a rewatch (I don’t care for it) and I didn’t bother with Leatherface (2017) because come on just look at it.  Let’s begin: Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III is relatively inoffensive, I’d say I prefer it to 2.  It’s ostensibly a mainstream studio remake of the first film and while there are great scenes found within, it’s major drawback is that I can’t “buy” any of it.  At no point do I believe these people are a group of mass murderers, they’re actors playing mass murderers.  This is an issue plaguing the majority of the series but more money doesn’t mean you can effectively capture that feel.  The Next Generation is the first of several abominations I had to sit through, featuring what might be the worst set of performances I’ve seen in any film.  This is the one that reveals that the Sawyers are secretly working for the Illuminati as part of a massive fear spreading campaign and has an ending that resembles a Nirvana music video more than anything and makes me question everything that led up to committing to watching this, the less said the better.  The 2003 remake is Leatherface, again, though it benefits from being the second entry in the series aside from the first to have some consistent aesthetic going.  Can still be easily skipped.  The Beginning is the first entry that devolves into pure torture porn, and doesn’t take any advantage of the fact that these characters can’t survive at the end, opting for just repeating bare slasher essentials except for killing off the final girl.  Texas Chainsaw 3D opens with a montage of footage from the first film then hard pivots into a plot about the Swayers being murdered in mass by a vigilante mob and “the Sawyers didn’t deserve this!”  No mention of the killing and cannibalism I guess as Leatherface, despite collecting a body count in this film alone, is turned into the good guy.  “Do your thing cuz!”  Just when you think things can’t get any worse, we are presented with Texas Chainsaw Massacre, no “The,” the new low bar for the series, if not the genre and maybe film as a whole.  Make no mistake that this is easily one of the worst films I have ever seen, involving gen-Z gentrifiers trying to buy up a small town to make into an upscale getaway, but Leatherface is there and blah blah blah you could have called this film anything else and you know what would have happened?  It would still be as bad but I wouldn’t have had to watch it, no one would have noticed it, no one would have to be as angry or anything because the only thing this has going for it is the connection to the first film.  It’s like if the Star Wars prequels weren’t called “Star Wars” they’d be as easily forgotten as Jupiter Ascending (2015) or Valerian and The City of a Thousand Planets (2017), where no one would have batted an eye, called them shit in a single breath and then easily forgotten about them without a second thought.  Fuck this movie, fuck it for being another stain on the legacy of the original, fuck everyone that says “I just want to see stupid teenagers get killed,” fuck any defense of this.

Only thing that came of having to sit through these was another opportunity to rewatch the 1974 film.  As soon as I had settled on this being up for viewing, the #1 spot was sealed.  If someone were to say that this is the greatest horror film ever made, I don’t think I’d agree but at the same time I wouldn’t be able to put up a counter argument.  I said a few days ago that I define horror as a genre by its presentation of violence, and this is a perfect example.  The opening text crawl lets us know that even if this was a singular event, the resulting trauma and open wounds will be carried forever.  The soundtrack itself is oppressive, camera shutters and industrial machinery in the place of actual music at times, the opening credits burned by footage of solar flares, the entire environment taking place in the blazing Texas sun with dried up water beds and radiators and dilapidated buildings.  It’s one of the ultimate descents into hell that have ever been presented by any film, horror or not.  Innocent people unknowingly walking to their doom, the discovery of seemingly endless amounts of human and animal remains and never putting the pieces together until it’s too late, the final survivor being forced to see how the meat we eat is made.  “I just don’t take no pleasure in killing.”  It’s been nearly 10 years since I first saw The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, this is one of the rare films that absolutely changed me, and while no subsequent viewing will have that same impact, I can’t not love it to the upmost extent that I can love any movie.