Tag Archives: Horror

Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors Review

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Time for an anthology! Usually these as an absolute recipe for disaster but I’m always ready for one to prove me wrong. In theory you just need to have a writer with a solid vision for different stories. Usually all of the focus is put on just one story and then the others all suffer as a result. That’s exactly what you really want to avoid here. This one ended up being a lot better than most of the others that I’ve seen. It still couldn’t help but fall into some issues along the way though. Due to the structure of the stories and everything, this review will have a lot of spoilers. I usually avoid them but when the stories are this short, it’s hard to talk about them otherwise. So you have been forewarned.

The movie starts off with 5 guys all riding in a train along with a suspicious older man. The old guy says that he can read the future with his tarot cards. The 5 men are rather bored right now so they decide to entertain this idea. Each story is a cautionary tale about what they will be running into soon. Will this knowledge help them escape absolute despair?

The first story features a guy going back to the house that he sold a long time ago. His family had owned the place for many generations and so he was called in to do an inspection. The current owner aims to do a little redecorating and this seems like an easy enough request. Unfortunately things quickly start to get a little spooky as the last burial ground of a werewolf is discovered. It won’t be easy to destroy a werewolf if he has been resurrected but what is a guy to do?

Now keeping in mind that the film has to get through 5 stories in a fairly short duration, the movie has really quick pacing. This Werewolf story has to quickly show off two suspects and then move through the story right away. Each segment is like a Twilight Zone episode where you can expect a twist at some point. This one was pretty solid overall. It builds up the atmosphere well and a Werewolf is something that everyone can understand right away. I’ll also be rating how survivable each encounter is based on if they go to the location or if they choose to bypass it.

After all, the point of these tarot cards is so that the men can avoid their fates right? Well, this is probably one of the easier ones to avoid. The guy can decide not to go to the house. Now given when we know from the twist, the Werewolf may go to him but his advanced knowledge should help a whole lot. I give him a 60% chance of surviving if he doesn’t go to the house, 20% if he ends up going.

The second story feels like something more out of a Japanese horror story. A guy is enjoying his new house with his wife and daughter. Unfortunately it turns out that the vines are alive and are slowly seeking to spread their influence. They even murder the pet dog which was terrible and something that the film could have really cut out if you ask me. Sometimes you just don’t need those extra details and they just serve to get in the way of the story. This was one of those cases. Without that element, this would have been the best story because it really makes you think. How do you deal with vines like this?

I would argue that it’s probably the happiest of the 5 stories though. It ends in a rather light way if you ask me. Yes, the vines are smart and can work on putting out the flames but it definitely won’t be easy for them. It’ll take effort and the humans can use that time. It’s also just a very creative threat. If the guy doesn’t go to the house with his family, I give him 100% odds on surviving. If he does go, I still give him 90% odds because he knows what the threat is.

Then we have the third story which is the first one where the main guy was asking for trouble. Everyone told him to leave the voodoo stuff alone but he couldn’t help it and throws himself into the situation. A really dumb move if you ask me and the guy basically just does his best to mock all of the traditions until he’s beat up. The ending of that one makes me think he was still alive but they’ll probably finish him at some point. As long as he goes there and doesn’t stir up trouble then he has 100% odds in both scenarios.

It’s just a bit harder to feel bad about this guy because he was actually given fair warning. He was really testing everyone’s patience that time. I don’t know why his story got off so easy compared to the others. I guess you can just chalk it down to getting lucky I suppose.

Then we have a story where the main guy is completely to blame and is an actual villain. You have a pretentious art critic who really enjoys going out of his way to make fun of another artist. The artist finally gets back at him and the critic decides to take revenge by running the guy over and severing his hand. Well, the severed hand has a mind of its own and is now trying to choke the critic out. It is sort of a play on the classic question of what would you do if a slug was following you across the world.

In this case a hand is more dangerous. It may be slow but once it has a grip on you, that could be game over. The hand cannot be destroyed and will eventually teleport into your proximity. Personally I would say that the best way to deal with it, is to keep it in a cage within your eyesight so you can notice when it starts to get close. It’s not fullproof though and of course this will be stressful all the way. If the critic chooses not to injure the artist, then he has 100% odds of surviving. If he does this but knows that the hand is after him, maybe he has 20% odds? I think the hand would eventually get anyone, you have to sleep at some point.

Finally we couldn’t end this without a vampire story. One guy is told that his wife is a vampire who is terrorizing the village. In particular she keeps going after a local kid. So the guy makes the tough choice to murder his wife but it turns out that the doctor was in on it and so the guy will spend the rest of his days locked up or executed in short order. This one feels like an easy one to survive for the main guy. For starters, he could ditch the wife early on, or live somewhere else and play dumb. It doesn’t seem like she was going to end up targeting him but I guess we don’t know that for sure. If he goes there, it’s tougher because the vampires don’t evaporate after dying so he will be on the hook for a crime either way. I give him 70% odds on the first and 50% on the second.

What I didn’t get is why the guy didn’t just talk to his wife. He went straight to deciding that she had to die but maybe they could have found some better way together. As his wife, the vampire deserved some time to talk things out. It just feels weird that you would completely side with the doctor over even giving your wife some kind of a chance. Not the strongest marriage bond here, that’s for sure.

Then we get back to the present to wrap things up. The ending is pretty effective and the movie really did a good job of keeping things moving at a solid speed. The best story was ultimately the Werewolf one and the worst was the Voodoo one. None of them were all that bad though and part of what helps with this are the special effects. The film clearly didn’t have much of a budget to work with and so there isn’t a lot of blood here. The deaths in the film tend to not be very gruesome either and even the dog who died wasn’t as gruesome as it would have been in just about any other film. For that reason it doesn’t hurt the film nearly as much as it would have otherwise.

Overall, This is one of those rare horror titles to actually get a positive score. It’s the kind of title that actually has a good amount of replay value and some good twists within it. Each story was crafted well and this is the kind of horror title that I look forward to. You don’t need all the gruesome details, just a good premise and some solid scares within. This one works as a good template all the way and proves that even anthologies can be good.

Overall 6/10

The Raven (1935) Review

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It’s time for another film titled The Raven. This one isn’t actually based on the Poe story though and focuses more on a character who is a fan of it. It’s an interesting approach and the film ended up being pretty good so I guess this direction was a good idea. The characters tend to make a lot of dumb mistakes but the writing on the whole is still good so I didn’t really have any big issues with this one. It should keep you pretty engaged the whole time.

The movie starts with a lady named Jean being badly injured in an accident and all the best doctors in the world are unable to heal her. Their only chance is Dr. Richard who retired a long time ago. He is a bit eccentric and downright sinister but Jean must be healed and so Judge makes a strong appeal to him. He’s able to play on Richard’s big ego and so Richard agrees. He heals Jean with ease but in the process falls in love with her. Richard wants to steal her away from the fiancé, Jerry at any costs. So he grabs a convict named Edmond and intentionally messed up his face in a surgery. Now the guy will be forever indebted to Richard and will work as his personal executioner. Can Jerry find a way to stop this guy?

That said, Jerry is pretty oblivious the entire time. He has no idea what is going on and is one of those guys who is a little too confident. Jean tells Jerry that she believes Richard has fallen for her and Jerry just laughs it off. He feels like any reasonable guy should fall for her and he doesn’t feel threatened in the slightest. His confidence is so high that he even agrees to stay the night at Richard’s place along with Jean and Judge. He better hope that Richard isn’t a crazy antagonist.

It’s a very old school attitude, that’s for sure. I wouldn’t even mind Jerry’s overconfidence if he would at least take precautions. The #1 precaution in this situation is certainly going to be declining any invitations to the guy’s home. At the very least you should really be building some serious distance there instead of making this so easy for the villain. Jerry is also knocked out rather easily when it comes time to defend his girlfriend.

As for Jean, well I have to give her some blame here too. Her instincts aren’t completely dead as she recognizes Richard’s obsession with her but then maybe she should be putting some more distance? She is borderline flirting with him the entire time, letting him get really close without saying anything. He basically says that he gave Jerry a job in exchange for losing her and Jean barely reacts. She still wants him to come watch the play and everything. Just not a whole lot of smart decisions going on here at all.

The only one who knew the danger from the start was the Judge. He really tries to get Jean and Jerry to leave the mansion but they just don’t take him seriously. Also they are adults so it’s not like he can just force them to leave. That’s probably the worst part of this whole affair. Ultimately he is no match for Edmond and goes down quickly. Part of me likes to think that he should have just left on his own but that’s not the heroic thing to do here.

As for Richard, well I don’t usually enjoy villains who just have romance on the mind. Jean is his entire goal in this whole affair and that doesn’t make for a very compelling villain. Richard just needed to accept the fact that she was never going to pick him in the end. He most likely would have just ended up murdering her once this sunk in. The guy should have been content to know that he saved someone when the rest of the medical community could not and called it a day there. He would have been a reasonable character at that point.

Finally we have Edmond who is really not that smart. Well I’ve been saying that for quite a few characters but he might take the cake. The guy knows that Richard can’t be trusted which is why he had a gun but still trusts the guy to do an invasive facial surgery? There’s nothing Edmond can do when he’s unconscious and you probably shouldn’t trust someone with a knife unless you are completely sure of their character. The whole thing was just such a bad look for him and his character route goes in a very predictable manner. At least he did make Richard sweat it out when he thought about finishing the guy off on one of the torture machines.

Now you may be thinking that this weak character roster would destroy the film but they were dumb in a fun way. The writing is still very sophisticated throughout. The dialogue is crisp all the way and the pacing is good. This feels like a very fun atmospheric horror film that gets the tension just right. It’s a horror style that you don’t see quite as much nowadays and I definitely miss it. I could watch these old horror titles all the time. They’re just really charming all the way with everyone being a little over the top.

Overall, this film may not be all that scary when you watch it nowadays but you can still feel the intent all the way. There was a lot of care put into the film and I had fun with it. The story is fairly straightforward so it all comes down to the execution and I didn’t think that the film had any big missteps there. What you see is what you get in a lot of ways as there aren’t really any twists and turns in the film. It showed that the writer had a lot of confidence in the story and as a result this one beats the average horror title. I’d definitely recommend checking it out.

Overall 7/10

The Blob (1988) Review

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This review is of the TV-14 edited version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative

It’s time for a fairly iconic horror film. I think it’s reasonable to say that just about everyone has at least heard of the Blob even if they haven’t seen the film yet. I saw the original version a while back and it definitely clobbers this remake. The remake just doesn’t manage to match it in any individual area. It is having a little too much fun with the gruesome visual effects instead of letting the threat of the Blob speak for itself.

The movie starts with a meteor striking the planet. An old man finds a slime within it and is quickly taken over. Paul and his girlfriend Meg find the old guy and take him to a hospital but it’s too late. The blob melts straight through him and rapidly begins to expand. Meg goes to the local delinquent Brian for help. Brian doesn’t want anything to do with this. All his life he has been an outcast in the system and strikes back at everyone. Perhaps now he can finally do something heroic with his life though. He thinks long and hard about this before deciding to help out, but what can he do?

What makes the Blob dangerous is how it seems to absorb whatever you throw at it. It just keeps on growing and can also make some really fast movements in an instant. One second you think that you are safe and the next you are trapped within the cocoon. The Blob relies purely on instinct so while it is not a strategic mastermind, it’s still difficult to escape it. It makes for a fun villain even if it won’t stand out as much as other horror characters.

Like I said at the start though, the film spends too much time showing the slow melting effects of everyone who gets in its way. I would have preferred a much more delicate touch there. Just being absorbed is already scary enough so you don’t need to see the skin melting off or anything like that. This film isn’t generally a super violent one but those blob scenes can really hit you hard.

The humans aren’t super likable here but I suppose they could be worse. Paul seemed like a nice guy and unfortunately he just didn’t know enough about the Blob to last longer. Likewise Meg is also doing her best to do the right thing and try to spread the word about the creature. Brian has a rough start but ultimately does his best to help the town when it counts. It’s a good message about how everyone will unite to fight a common threat. He certainly helps more than the rest of the town who are mainly panicking.

As soon as the threat was over then you had people quickly taking charge again and talking confidently when they had been hiding just a minute ago. Sounds about right if you ask me. The biggest threat here in some respects were the government agents who show up. They are really just here to consider how the Blob could be used as a weapon and in a way it’s almost funny how nonchalant they are about this. They are quick to betray their own and escalate the situation.

I always appreciate having a third faction so I was glad to have them here. Honestly it’s not like I was fully expecting them to be helping out or anything like that. They were shady from the start and the local cop gets some props for being quick on the uptake about fighting them.

In general the characters were all pretty proactive. The sheriff did his best to try and find out what was happening and Brian using the cannon against the agents was another good move. If I have any nitpicks here, it’s that the government was a little too unprepared against the Blob. I know that he’s an anomaly that is fairly unknown to everyone but maybe don’t stand super close to it? As a trained agent I’d expect each member to be keeping a safe distance at all times.

The film actually has a big of a cliffhanger ending which was nice to see. It may not be the most explosive one out there but I thought it was interesting. In theory it’s not too scary at this point since the characters know how to fight the Blob but there is still a lot of potential there. With the right mutation, the Blob could be really scary once more.

In a way I guess a weakness to the film would be that it focused a bit too much on Meg and Brian. I’d have liked to see a bit more of the town’s struggle against the Blob. Due to the way the story turned out there wouldn’t have been too many opportunities for this but even just a few would go a long way. In the sewers there just weren’t as many opportunities to present this as more of an invasion film.

Also the scenario was a bit too tough on Meg so some plot armor had to show up. At one point she jumps in the water to try and save the kid but it was too late so she has to just swim away. It doesn’t make sense that the Blob wouldn’t have absorbed her there. Before now he was shown to absorb people in an instant with tremendous speed but somehow lost sight of her in the water. In a thriller there will always be some scenes to nitpick but this was a fairly big one since it was a very plot important scene. They could have made the Blob weak to water or something but the film established the opposite.

Overall, This isn’t exactly a film that I would watch for a second time but it wasn’t as bad as you would expect a horror remake to be. It did succeed in being a fairly intense film and one that can really be called scary. I’d have liked them to have dialed back the gruesome visuals to an extent though. There are so many ways to have characters being absorbed without being very violent about it. The characters weren’t so bad outside of oneshot characters and the movie avoided landing in any of the really big traps. It beats the average horror film which is a small consolation prize at the very least. If they ever make another Blob film, I’d like them to focus more on the town’s response as opposed to just a few characters. Maybe even have it from the government’s point of view because the secret task force that showed up was really interesting. They could have used more screentime.

Overall 4/10

Cujo Review

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This review is of the TV-14 version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative

It’s time for a very infamous horror film. Cujo is one of those movies that just about everyone has heard of, but does anyone really like it? The film’s general premise was enough for me to know that this would be a stinker but it was still time to finally check it out. Unfortunately the film is not able to surpass its limits and ends up being exactly what you would have expected out of it. Unlikable characters, excessive violence, and a generally cold atmosphere? Yeah this is a Stephen King adaption all the way.

The movie starts by introducing us to the characters. Vic and Donna lead a fairly quiet life with their young son Tad. Unfortunately Donna has grown bored over the years and has been cheating on her husband with the local bum. Then the local mechanic is an abusive guy named Joe who makes his wife’s life as unbearable as possible. He owns a dog named Cujo who is bitten by a bat with rabies. Now Cujo is morphing into a monster who wants to murder everyone. Unfortunately Donna and her son are stuck in a car with nowhere to go, so surviving this won’t be easy.

Lets get the obvious issues out of the way first. That would start with the animal violence Cujo gets bit early on and as the film goes on he is covered in more and more blood and other special effects. The film is trying to make him look as gruesome as possible so that you try to avoid eye contact. He is also mauling people to death so you can throw in a lot more violence there as well. The humans inevitably have to fight Cujo so he takes on more injuries that way as well. There’s no real saving that kind of violence and so this was already a doomed feature.

Then you have the whole cheating plot which doesn’t add anything to the film. I guess the intent might to be to try and make Donna less sympathetic so that you can root for the dog but that’s a real mixed message if I’ve ever seen one. Another theory might just be to show the jaded approach that everyone has some kind of darkness within them but that’s high school level edginess. Either way it’s a terrible plot and makes Donna look terrible. There’s just no way to be ready to forgive her so easily no matter how much crying goes on after that. She threw away the whole family for a few minutes of fun.

There’s nothing really wrong with the kid. Tad is too young to understand anything that’s going on and mainly just gets in the way during the climax. There’s nothing he could have done to contribute though so I’m generally giving him a pass here. At least he wasn’t going out of his way to be annoying. As for Vic, well he’s having a rather terrible time all around. The only thing left to him is his job and things aren’t going well there either.

Ultimately Vic decides to try and make things work and that’s a bit hard to swallow but I suppose it’s his decision in the end. He’s easily the most sympathetic character here. Then you have Joe who is really just here as another example of an absolute waste of space. There are way too many terrible characters in this film. More victims for Cujo I suppose but it does make all of the human scenes pretty unbearable. The writing is obnoxious throughout and even for a slasher you want to have some likable characters at the ready. It takes a while for Cujo to start on the rampage after all so you’re stuck with these guys in the meantime. It’s not like the massacre helps the film by any means but it shows that you are stuck between two really rough sides of the movie as a viewer. On one hand you have the terrible human stuff and then you have the over the top violence with Cujo. Game over either way.

It is an interesting premise to have the characters stuck in a car with no motor with Cujo right outside. It’s definitely a scary situation with no easy way out. I do think your best bet is to make a run for it while Cujo is distracted by the phone but Tad is a liability there as well. He can’t run very fast and is also suffering from heatstroke. So Donna would have to carry him while running fast enough to then lock the door.

It’s also probably tempting to wait in the car and hope that someone will arrive in time. So that’s the one thing I’ll give the film some slight credit for. It still loses most of that credit by not having a second adult in the car so the two could plan things out. Since Tad isn’t ready to talk about this, it means we have a lot of quiet scenes rather than cool planning sessions.

As for the execution, there’s definitely some plot armor here. I don’t see Donna being able to fight the dog off once he had the upper hand. Would have made more sense if she landed the first shot but once a dog is already biting you, I feel like the odds of victory are incredibly slim. Especially since Cujo was amped up with the virus.

Overall, This is the kind of film that only has a chance if you don’t mind the animal violence. It’s automatically knocked out otherwise and that’s before going into the human characters. The ultimate objective of a film is to be entertaining after all and this one was not able to pull that off. If you really want to watch a film starring a dog, then I’d say to check out Air Bud instead. That one’s a solid feel good film all the way after all. Maybe the Cujo remake will beat this one but honestly I don’t see it faring much better unless it takes significant liberties from the book.

Overall 0/10

The Last Voyage of the Demeter Review

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This review is of the TV-14 version of the movie. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative

It’s time for a Dracula film. Usually these don’t end up going over so well and it’s safe to say that I had a lot of reservations about it. Still, that doesn’t mean that the film was completely doomed right? There was still a chance for this to move forward but as the film went on, I knew that it was not going to surpass my expectations This one just plays out like your typical slasher.

The movie starts off with the wreckage of a big boat washing up to the shore. The cops arrive to investigate what happened and only find a journal along with a guy who has gone crazy. We then rewind to the beginning of the film where the Demeter is preparing to go on another voyage. This will be the last one for the captain because then he intends to retire and spend some time with his family. Clemens is just barely able to join the crew when a bunch of them desert the ship because of bad omens and superstitions. Clemens isn’t worried about those kinds of things but once the ship reaches the middle of the ocean, weird things begin to happen. People and animals start to get viciously murdered and a lady is found in the luggage area who talks very cryptically about the whole situation. The crew will have to try and band together in order to fend off this threat, but can they really use their teamwork to pull this off?

There are a lot of issues here of course but the biggest one right away is how doomed the characters are. Dracula may not be invincible in the way that the Ring or the Grudge is but he is still far beyond the abilities of a mere human. Bullets can take him out with enough shots but nobody is getting more than one or two. Most of them just have knives at the ready which is not very helpful. Dracula is much faster and stronger than any of the humans and can also fly. So you are really just following the futile journey of a bunch of sailors who are desperately trying not to be murdered. Not a very fun journey right there if you ask me.

Then there is the fact that the film is quite violent. This is one of those titles that is not holding back at all so each of the murders are quite grisly and detailed. It’s the films way of showing you just how dangerous Dracula is but that’s always the lazy way out. You don’t need to make a film be quite this violent in order to get that message across. Then of course you have the animal violence as well. As soon as I saw that a dog was on the ship, I knew it would go down that route. The film doesn’t even allow any mercy for the kid who is on the ship.

This one’s just going as grim dark as possible the whole time. Again, this is all within the context that the humans have no possible way of escaping Dracula. They’re in the middle of the ocean after all and Dracula will just hop on any life boats. So all they can do is wait for the end which is a rather miserable way to go out. The entire film takes place on a boat as well so it’s not like there are any subplots or changes in scenery to distract you with.

The only solid I would probably give the film is the ending. I thought it was reasonably exciting as a cliffhanger to set up a sequel that’ll never happen. Going in a more action packed direction is a good idea even if I admit that it would be fairly relative. I just don’t think the film would end up being very good either way. I could be wrong of course but that’s the general vibe I get from this kind of title at least. The writing is okay I suppose but the pacing isn’t great. Most of the characters don’t really get to make a name for themselves and they’re constantly instigating fights. Dracula isn’t even mind controlling them or anything like that.

None of the crew look particularly good but I would argue that Anna could have been a lot more helpful. She at least knows all about Dracula and his plans but doesn’t let the others in on it until the end. It may not have helped much but at least give the others some kind of a fighting chance right? Then Clemens very clearly sees that something is on board but decides not to mention it and even acts in disbelief when someone else mentions seeing something similar. This group did not have very strong survival instincts.

The film could have at least given him some kind of weakness to the stars so Clemens could use his astrology skills or something like that. A few of the crew members also talked tough but their knife skills were no match here. Dracula doesn’t even have the cool, regal design that you’re used to from titles like Castlevania. That would have been a nice bonus if you ask me.

I guess one last thing I’ll say is the film does remind me why I’d never want to be on a long voyage like this. A cruise is one thing. The ship is so big that it feels like being in a hotel but a boat like this? I’d get massively seasick and then dealing with all of the rats would be a massive turnoff as well. I don’t see how you’d ever get any sleep and it’s not like you can bring an oven on board either. The food would be super limited. No part of that boat experience seemed like it would be any fun.

Overall, I would definitely say to give this one a full skip. While it is true that the story is tackling a different part of the Dracula experience than most other adaptions, it doesn’t do anything worth remembering. This is still a sub par film and that’s the most generous way that I can put it. This is the kind of film that you would probably want to skip even if it was on TV for free. It’s really hard to make a fun Dracula film and this one will have to go back to the drawing board. Better luck next time, it is Dracula so we know there will be another film within the next few years.

Overall 1/10

Stranger Things Review

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I would say how hard it is to believe that Stranger Things started 10 years ago but honestly it does feel like a while. It was never my favorite show out there and it took me months to finally check out the final episode. Still, I have completed the journey…and I found it lacking. This is one of those shows that was going the wrong way for a very long time and basically ended on a whimper. I’d say part of the problem is that the issues just tend to snowball and at the end of the day this is a show that is very character driven. So if you don’t like the characters then that’s going to hurt the show immensely.

The show begins with a few kids playing Dungeons & Dragons. For the most part they aren’t very popular at school but at least they have each other. Unfortunately one of them goes missing one day. He has been taken to the other side by some kind of a demonic presence. The adults aren’t going to be helpful in this case and can’t really be trusted. The kids will have to find a way to save him along with their friend El who has psychic powers. The kid who went missing is named Will and so his mother decides to go and find him as well. It won’t be easy without any real leads though. The small town of Hawkins is about to go through some real turmoil.

Now this is a show with 5 seasons so you can bet that a whole lot happens in between. At its core you could say this is like a slow burn alien invasion as the creatures keep trying to get to the surface world. The kids are determined to stop them but at the end of the day….they are just kids. There are limits to what they can really do here. Make no mistake, they are the underdogs. Since psychic powers are real, at least they have that as a trump card. Unfortunately the government is always at the ready to get these powers back so that’s another thing to watch out for. In some ways the government are the most powerful villains here.

There is a whole lot that went wrong with the series so lets start with some of the positives. I will say that the theme song jingle is pretty good. It has that spooky atmosphere to it and is very memorable. I’ll probably still recall the jingle many years from now after hearing it so many times. Even the Netflix sound is something that I automatically connect with Stranger Things at this point. The two are absolutely linked. The special effects aren’t as impressive. The series is often trying to go for realism which often means making everything look grotesque.

The villains tend to look more weird than intimidating. The characters constantly just have their eyes go white when they focus. The series is at its best with the landscapes. The other world looks very apocalyptic in a good way. I’ll also say that the series tends to have some pretty spooky visuals as it goes on. The series noticeably got darker and more violent for the last two seasons. It was definitely trying to grow up with the cast but I’d say it felt more forced than anything.

We did get some pretty good songs though. While not all of them may have been winners, it was fun hearing some retro tunes. One of them in particular got played a lot as it became the main song used to counter the villain’s mind control. Now we’re approaching the end of the positives for the show but it was nice seeing Dungeons & Dragons getting some hype. It’s not a game that I’ve ever been really into but I definitely get the appeal. You just need to really have a lot of time to devote to it.

Now lets get into some of the core issues. First off we have the fact that the story is an absolute mess. The power levels are all over the place with a few demo demons taking on a squad of hardened soldiers with their guns, then going down to kids and noncombatants. It seems rather easy to defeat them and this is a problem that never goes away. The army really should not be having any kind of trouble with them. These guys are absolutely weak. At est you could say that the most powerful demons at the top should be strong but the minions aren’t serious threats.

Then we have the writing which is absolutely abysmal most of the time. All of the characters are rebounding, cheating, acting like jerks, etc. You really can’t trust anyone here. A very fitting moment is in the final episode when the town is trying to recover after all of the craziness. One of the kids is told to make a speech and instead of unifying the town, he decides to give everyone the birdie, make fun of the teachers, and basically just be a general nuisance once again. A lot of these issues all come down to the fact that the kids are not likable at all.

The show also couldn’t resist making a bunch of their characters decide to get ultra modern so you can expect quite a few gay plots. They are around quite a lot in the final season and take up time that could have been used to move the plot forward or give the villains some more fights. Each scene just gets more degenerate and in the time skip ending we have to give characters very specific jobs that didn’t really need to be around. One guy’s going to have to be teaching people about the birds and the bees. After a while it just seems like the show had other priorities above that of the main story and this came at the expense of most of the characters. These subplots are very preachy and are in your face throughout.

Then we have the fact that this is one of those shows which really can’t bear to just have a villain be evil. Vecna is one of the ultimate evils as he tortures children, murders a bunch of people, etc. Suddenly in the final season they try to play the “he’s just misunderstood” card. I also don’t think this was intentional but Will has the absolutely worst strategy in trying to convert him. It almost sounds like he’s rubbing it in as he explains how Vecna was manipulated and used while Vecna is begging him to cut it out. If there’s one good way to make a villain lose all credibility, it’s to make him beg.

I’d say it’s also just another example of how weak the writing is. The characters can be almost unbearable with how annoying and cringe they are the whole time. They just seem like people you would not want to be around and their dialogue gets more juvenile with each season. By the final season you have characters not giving others guns just to be petty, one kid shows up where his whole gimmick is that he’s really crude, etc.

The biggest story issue has to be the cliffhanger before the final season though. The ultimate evil was finally arriving and we had every character squaring up to fight him. It was going to be absolutely epic and intense. Then the next season starts with a big timeskip as the heroes have scattered and have to fight while undercover. Against the monsters right? Wrong! The government somehow plugged the hole and kept the monsters at bay. The whole thing made absolutely no sense and I’d basically consider the cliffhanger to be a plot hole.

Okay lets go into the characters here. First up is Joyce who is definitely all over the place. She is getting over a divorce which hasn’t been easy and then her kid is kidnapped by demons. So I cut her a little slack with how she gets a bit crazier throughout the series. She wants to help but often times the kids leave her out of the plans. Of course it makes sense why they would because she is always panicking about their plans. Then she gets close to Hopper, rebounds with some random guy, then goes back to Hopper after her boyfriend is brutally murdered by demons. I’m already not big on rebounds but when your boyfriend is brutally murdered?? That should make a rebound even more unlikely.

Of course if I go after every rebound then we’d be here all day. The long and short of it is that Joyce is okay but often doesn’t seem to understand the gravity of the situation. She keeps on holding the kids back and doesn’t want them to get into danger but they are in too deep for any of that. There is no way to turn back at this point and so she just needed to be more supportive at this point. At least she is able to use a gun and everything by the end of the series.

Hopper is one of the only other adults who helps out a lot throughout the series. For the most part he tends to be the standout character. At least he can fight and he takes out a bunch of demons, Russian agents, etc. Hopper is also in charge of looking after El and tries to keep her from being too crazy. She tends to go into self sacrifice mode at the drop of a hat. If not for Hopper then she would have been gone pretty early into the series.

If anything it can be annoying seeing the kids try to order him around all the time. He’s the one with actual experience here after all and if anything he still has to bail them out by the end. Considering that he has no powers, Hopper does really well here. Even when he was captured behind enemy lines, Hopper was able to hold his own pretty well. He still needed some help of course but he never cracked.

Then we have Mike who is essentially the main character of the show. You could make a decent case for Joyce or Hopper but I feel like things always end up centering around Mike. Mike does his best to command the group but is still out of his depth the whole time. The romance with El tends to be pretty weak and you could argue that the ending makes it look even worse. Now granted, the show makes it a point to say that the ending is interpretable but in at least one of those he lost out big time. I also think it would have been nice for him to have gotten to fight a bit.

He’s the guy desperately asking for a gun in the final season only to be trolled over it. Not a very nice thing to do when he is legitimately worried and trying to do his best to help out. Mike tends to get a lot of the emotional scenes so you can expect him to cry a whole lot and get upset at other moments. He’s a highly emotional individual and to an extent I suppose that’s true for all of the kids. Mike’s not as bad as most of the others at least. He was mainly able to stay focused on the mission.

Then we have El who had a really tragic backstory. So for that reason I cut her a lot of slack but she could also be pretty annoying in the present. She wants Hopper to trust her more but always gives him a lot of reasons not to trust her. She tends to be gone on training trips a lot so she misses out on the fights. Even by the end of the series she is still having trouble with the villains. A large part of the series would not change at all if she was a normal human with how rarely she is able to win fights. It just felt like a missed opportunity and the other kids always looked dumb for not including her in the offense teams.

The logic was that they wanted to keep her as a trump card but sometimes it’s better to just get someone ready for the fights. The heroes essentially outthought themselves by coming up with these convoluted plans. It was also rather brutal how El forced her final opponent to shoot himself with her powers. I know that she’s not a hero and works as an anti-hero the whole time but it was definitely still a brutal moment. El’s self sacrifice personality is also a problem but at the end of the day I think it all just stems from me not understanding why she wasn’t out there fighting. That was a big missed opportunity if you ask me.

Will suffers from the same power level issues. He ended up absorbing some psychic ability for the final season but mainly just gets dominated in every interaction. Will sort of feels like he fell behind in the group after being kidnapped for so long and then it gets worse when he finds out how the villains have been manipulated. Will just feels a bit too sorry for himself the whole time. Then like I said he flubs the final speech with Vecna and honestly there’s no time to be feeling sorry for the guy. Vecna made his choices, I’m not going to buy into the whole mind control stuff now. I’d even say that Will stopping everyone to talk about his personal preferences could not have come at a worse time. They were all dealing with the end of the world after all.

Dustin is the main comic relief character of the show which means that he gets put into a tough situation once the show gets more and more serious. He tries to get serious along with it but often times this makes Dustin come across as a jerk. He puts his pride before the safety of the team by picking fights with bullies when everyone was counting on him. Dustin gets into a lot of fights in the final season in order to prove himself as one of the key members of the crew and it just doesn’t serve to make him look any better. I wouldn’t say that Dustin ever really recovered from this. He’s better than some of the other characters but looks particularly bad in the final season which is rough since that is the one that is freshest in the viewer’s memory.

Lucas is a pretty safe character. He’s better than most because he doesn’t start a lot of drama and knows how to get the job done. The only times he tends to get really emotional are when Max is in the hospital which makes sense. At the same time I guess the catch is that he doesn’t get much of a character arc. For the most part he is just around for the ride. Nothing wrong with that though. He contributes and gets one of the happier endings in the show. He also got to have one of the smoothest rides as he got beat up and tormented way less than the others. That’s definitely my kind of path if I was a character in the show.

Nancy is a character who is simply too indecisive. She goes through her relationships too quickly and then ultimately decides to ditch them all to be a girl boss. In that form she at least gets to fight giant monsters and talk tough but you never know what stage she will be in. I thought they made her too arrogant past a point like when she kept threatening Steve, Jonathan, and even the conspiracy nut. She’s just too violent I guess but hey at least she fought a giant monster with a shotgun. The guns only really work when the kids are using them. Man….as a sidebar I will say that the various gun/war fight scenes don’t work at all. The constant plot armor will make you dizzy as the villains miss every shot and the heroes make each one.

Jonathan is one of those characters who fell off a cliff in terms of character development. He was always wimpy and whiny but it just kept getting worse. Now he started off by peeping through windows so I guess it was always going to be a rocky road for him but then he went off on a business trip and came back depressed. He sounds half drunk during all of his lines and is constantly starting drama. He easily became one of the worst characters by the end and just never really improved. It’s easy to see why the relationships didn’t work out for him.

Dr. Martin is one of those crazy scientist villains so you can’t expect much out of him. He’s mostly just here to check off that box and we get more scientists later on anyway. They try for a halfhearted redemption arc for him too. Maybe redemption’s the wrong word, but humanizing at the very least. It didn’t work so I consider this guy to still be a 2 dimensional villain in the end.

I already talked about how pathetic Vecna is so we don’t have to get back into it. Needless to say, he’s a great example of how to ruin a villain. He just got less and less intimidating the more that he appeared. Unfortunately his boss, the Mind Fray guy never got to really do anything either. In the end he appears more as a mindless monster. It all comes back down to the heroes being too weak so as a result the villains have to be weak too. It’s a negative spiral that hurts all of the parties involved.

Max is one of the younger main characters and the heroes are already fairly young. She had to go through a lot growing up and it’s molded her into a very tough figure. Lucas helps her come out of this shell and then she has a real trial by fire with how the demons go after her. I appreciate that Max talks a tough game so she does beat most of the other kids. She also had to take a commanding lead in the final season with most of the other kids being busy.

Steve is one of those messy characters who has one too many crushes throughout the show. His whole rivalry with Jonathan honestly just made them both look bad. It’s always going to be hard to become friend with your ex and usually I’d say that you shouldn’t even try. Of course it kind of works out here but I’d argue that all of the relationships would be cooked at that point. Steve is meant to be the tough guy of the group. He’s the only jock surrounded by a bunch of nerds.

So there is some fun potential there but the characters all just take everything way too personally. When he’s not fighting with Jonathan, he’s fighting with Dustin. I think this is supposed to be relatable and all but it would be nice if the characters could have had some more unity. The in fighting is fun as long as the characters don’t take it too far but they all take it super personally throughout.

Robin didn’t join the gang until later on but was a nice foil to Steve. For a while there was nobody to really mess with him so she fills that role in well. Of course she is also used to squeeze in another gay plot which was always the real intention for her character. I appreciate how she always makes every conversation more awkward than the last and that’s saying something with this group. She had more personality than the others and was a bit older so she could hold her own more. I’d at least give her those props.

Murray is one of those crazy conspiracy guys who tends to be fun. They maybe try a bit too hard to make him funny at times but he works better than 90% of the case. He doesn’t become a main character until we’re pretty deep into the show but still makes his scenes count. The heroes definitely would have been doomed without him and he does try to keep them focused which is a really difficult job for anyone.

I don’t really understand why we needed to add Dr. Kay as a character. We already had 4 different mad scientist characters in the series, what’s the point of another one? Her role isn’t even anything unique. She’s another character who wants El and loves talking down to all of her colleagues. Kay gets a ton of hype but she’s just an old lady who gives out a lot of orders. There really isn’t anything for the characters to fear about her. She barely even gets closure by the end so I’d say the character was absolutely filler all the way through.

Of course the biggest filler characters were the psychic runaways from one of the earlier seasons. We had a long subplot about all of them having powers like El. It seemed like this was supposed to go somewhere but the whole storyline dropped off. One of them shows up in the final season to cause some drama but doesn’t ultimately do a whole lot. I feel like the series was tempted to go in a more supernatural direction but then decided it would take away from the horror so they decided to keep El as the only main hero with powers.

I was glad to see those guys go because it just led to more flashbacks of the lab with the kids being experimented on. I definitely didn’t need to see all of that but then that also means the whole subplot was just a waste of time. We were always going to see El’s origin story so we didn’t need to see the parts around that. The show ultimately just gets gritty and violent for no real reason.

I’d also say as a closing note that a big problem with the series is how jaded it is. On the surface this may seem like a classic coming of age story for the kids but on deeper scrutiny I don’t think this is the case. Most of the side characters are bullies and antagonists. The school never makes a move to stop the excessive bullying. You have abusive characters like Max’s brother and then a whole gang that tries to murder Lucas. The whole government is almost explicitly evil in this one and Vecna’s whole point about humanity being easily manipulated is proven right many times over. As the series ends, none of the characters have really learned their lessons either. There just isn’t a lot of sincerity in any the supposed heroes here.

Overall, Stranger Things is definitely not a title that I would recommend. To me the whole thing fell flat. It had a lot of issues like the violence, terrible writing, poor characters, etc. Pretty much every staple of what you’d be worried about in a long running live action title like this one. The good parts were never able to overcome the bad ones. Of course it all does trickle down from the characters so if you like them, then you’d probably like the show. It’s a bit of an oversimplification but that’s really what it boils down to. If you like the characters then by extension you’ll likely appreciate their constant emotional scenes and victory speeches. If you don’t like them, then the scenes feel like empty padding to stretch out the episodes. Multiply those scenes by every episode and that will really determine how good the episodes were. I think you could make a decent video game out of this, but the franchise doesn’t otherwise hold much potential if you ask me.

Overall 2/10

The Last House Review

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This is one of those films that just kept on getting worse and worse the more it went on. The film just didn’t know how to wrap things up and so the situation had to drag out a whole lot. It also made some key mistakes including adding a dog to the picture. That was never going to go over well and sure enough it ended up dooming this adventure. I’d definitely recommend staying far away from this title.

The film starts off with Jason going fishing. He doesn’t do very well but enjoys the sport for how relaxing it can be. A storm is brewing so he heads on home to be with his family. Unfortunately he quickly realizes that there is no way out. Everyone across the planet has now been locked inside of their houses and anyone who was outside is now dead. He has a lot of food at home so he and the rest of the family can last a few months but then it will all be game over. Who is doing this and how can the heroes manage to survive? The odds are not in his favor.

The movie starts off very cryptically but gradually we see what is going on here. It turns out that aliens have shown up. I go with aliens personally but it’s also implied that they came from the ocean. Unfortunately their goals and powers don’t make a whole lot of sense. It’s hard to get too much into the issues without spoilers so I’ll stick to broad strokes. They were able to shut off the gas and electricity right away but still let the heroes access running water and TV for a long time? Somehow people were still running around outside for days/weeks after the genocide so did the aliens get sloppy or are they just sadistic and wanted to let people stay alive longer?

Clearly they have a whole lot of hatred in their hearts for the humans and yet the ending undercuts their stubbornness in a big way. The ending just wasn’t earned and it goes for the wrong moral here as the humans needed to do all they could to crush these things. It’s hard to say exactly how durable they are but you have to give it your best effort. It was the only thing that one of the kids did right in his attempts to escape. I don’t see why you would just allow yourself to be a prisoner forever, that’s no life.

The main characters get a whole lot of plot armor the whole time though as the creatures should have finished them off early on. The only reason they did not is because these were the main characters so it really doesn’t count for much. Most of the characters look bad by the end. The only one who really stayed strong was Jason and even then he has a lot of moments for self doubt. I just give him more credit because he did keep his family alive.

Without him the others would have died early on. He is the one who kept the fight alive and never stopped struggling. His wife was very supportive for a while but gave up at different points in the film. She also joined the two kids in talking about how distant Jason was. Look, I’m not saying Jason was perfect by any means but as a father/husband his number one priority was figuring out a way to stop the creatures. He succeeded and that just came at the expense of his emotions for a while there.

I just find it hard to sympathize with the other characters. The son in particular is annoying with how he makes fun of Jason’s efforts to fix a car which took several years. He could have been gracious about the whole thing instead of immediately throwing cold water on the effort. It was just a really bad look for him. As for the daughter, she is younger for a lot of the film and not really able to do much. By the end of the film she starts acting like the creatures may not be that bad. Clearly she doesn’t remember how they brutally destroyed the jogger outside and have sealed everyone within their homes. It just comes across as dangerously naive to look at the aliens as anything other than mass murderers.

All of that said, what really crushed the film was the subplot about their sick dog. The dog needs medicine or he starts to have a heart attack and unfortunately there is no way to buy more pills as the film goes on. This inevitably leads to some rough scenes and this should not have been in the film. The movie also has the characters get awfully pragmatic about the lack of food coming up and so things get even darker. That was enough to sink the whole film. There is just no getting past that and the film didn’t have to get this grim dark. We also have a lot of animal hunting scenes and one even getting its neck broken just to underscore how dark the whole thing is. Nothing about the film is subtle.

I dare say you have to try all other avenues to the point of death first. I was unconvinced about the attempts to escape the house. Yes the water would block it but you have to keep trying to plug holes in there over and over. It’s a case where you have to assume it would have failed or someone around the world would have tried that but I would have liked to have seen more attempts. Then you also have the later parts of the film where the creature wanders into the house once in a while. That’s when you obviously have to attack and push your way past him.

When we found out that Jason had a gun I was expecting something like that by the end but it ended up all being a red herring. The film feels like a red herring at times with some interesting ideas but nothing comes of them. I wanted to learn what the monsters were doing and where was the government? Surely there were a good amount of people who fought back from outside the houses when the whole situation started. This is a film that desperately needed world building. It was almost 2 hours too so there was plenty of time to do that instead of having constant time skips. The film should have cut quite a few of those out because it also gets less scary when the characters have been surviving just fine for years. That undermines the villains all the way.

A film about everyone being stuck at home is really interesting but you have to think about the premise all the way around so it isn’t easy to stick a bunch of holes in it. The idea is so much better than the execution and it isn’t even close. Maybe Netflix will get it right next time but I have my doubts. If a remake was announced I would still be interested in checking it out though.

Overall, The Last House is definitely a film that will fade in your memory over time. It did not make any of the right decisions and that really limited its potential. In the way you always need to find a way to surpass the odds and deliver a scary product that is still fun. That didn’t happen here and so you can do much better. You won’t want to invest 2 hours into this title that doesn’t even give you a great payoff in the end.

Overall 1/10

Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter Review

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This review is of the TV-14 version of the film. All thoughts should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative

It’s time for another vampire film and this one is made by Horror. Needless to say, this was doomed from the start. Both of those things are usually connected to the absolute worst films around and when you mix them together then that’s a recipe for disaster. Ultimately this film was not able to rise above my first impressions there and at best you can give it credit for some original decisions.

The film introduces us to Captain Kronos who is a powerful fighter. He has been slaying vampires for a long time along with his partner Professor Grost. This time he is tasked with finding a potential vampire in a small village. This will not be an easy task as Kronos will need to lay out some traps and gradually begin getting suspects. In the meantime this vampire will keep on picking more and more people off. Kronos also runs into a lady named Carla who was about to be executed. After saving her, she decides to become his girlfriend but is there any time for this?

Okay lets blast through all of the issues first. Right away one of the big ones is naturally going to be the usual vampire violence. I’m not big on the blood sucking at all and that is always a main part of this genre. It’s a bit different than some others since the vampire is more interested in stealing vitality but equals out to the same thing. The vampire also uses the usual hypnosis to force the victims into accepting their fate rather than running off to live another day.

We’ve also got the very shallow kind of romance at the ready here. Yes, Kronos saved Carla’s life so you can see why she would be grateful but this doesn’t immediately have to turn into a relationship. She jumps right into the one night stand kind of situation without batting an eye. I feel like the Hammer films like to use any excuse for a bit of fanservice. It’s not as crazy as in some of their other titles but still comes across as unnatural.

The characters also aren’t all that interesting. Professor Grost is easily rage baited by the villains to the point where he doesn’t realize that they were being paid off to instigate a fight. Both Kronos and Carla seemed to figure that out right away so why didn’t the professor? He is a good ally to have around and helps out a lot with the weapons and everything but you feel like he could have done a whole lot better.

As for Kronos, well I suppose he’s your classic hero. I don’t get the feeling that he is the most dependable guy in a relationship with how fast he was moving here but maybe he wouldn’t rebound later on. His fighting skills are pretty good though and surpass the film’s budget. He essentially vanishes mid combat to show off how fast he is. I appreciate that from a power level sense but then his final plan is terrible. He sends Carla into the vampire’s lair as bait and then takes his sweet time to get there. He takes the time to look at a skull in the upper floors and this distracts him while Carla is attacked.

If not for a significant degree of plot armor, she would have been dead. Prior to Carla, all of the other victims were destroyed right away. A good example of this was earlier in the same film. The heroes all staked out the location where the vampire would be striking and a girl was walking on by. Well, they lost sight of her and so she was destroyed before she could even get close. Not a good look at all. It’s why you feel like Kronos should have done a lot more before the ending.

As for the vampire, well the identity of the final boss is a twist of course. Still, I wouldn’t say that the villain was very impressive or imposing. This long term plan had a ton of risks with it and I would say that the character even got lucky. It’s not like vampires ever tend to be all that interesting but this was still pretty egregious even for that. You also had a pair of siblings who are around for lore but don’t do much of anything. It was a little funny to see them standing so still in the background during the big battle.

The final battle is essentially fencing so it wasn’t terribly interesting but I give the film some credit there. Still, there is just nothing really to enjoy about the film. If you heavily lean into the action angle then it is possible to make a vampire film that is actually decent but it is incredibly difficult and not something that just any title can do.

There isn’t much to talk about regarding the setting as it looks like basically any old town. The writing is okay I suppose but just about everyone in town seems to be evil. There aren’t many characters that Kronos can count on. The doctor who invited him there had to be bumped off naturally and it wasn’t the most painless way to go out either. The other humans at the bar didn’t even need to be mind controlled because they were already content to murder the main characters for a little money. With humanity being so corrupt in this town, it’s no wonder that a vampire was able to get so far.

Overall, This film was definitely a mess and is not going to end up being known as a solid title. It does at least try to have the usual twists and turns but ultimately comes down to just being another slasher title. It takes forever for Kronos to stop the vampire from murdering everyone and so the victory feels hollow. It doesn’t even make all that much sense on why Kronos left without Carla. She totally could have kept going on the journey and instead it seems like he’ll probably just be rebounding before now. Perhaps this could have become a really cool movie series some day but that day isn’t today.

Overall 1/10

Exit 8 Review

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It’s time for a horror title that came out recently. Exit 8 definitely delivers on the scares and especially hits hard if you are claustrophobic at all. I tend to not be great in small spaces but a train station is just large enough where I don’t think it would end up being a really big deal. As for clearing the challenges, well you better hope that you are really good at games.

The story starts with a guy getting on a train and noticing a young mother getting yelled at by a random guy. He stands by without doing anything and the same is true of everyone else on the train. He eventually gets to leave but then gets a call from his ex-girlfriend. She is pregnant and it seems to be his kid but she is unsure of what to do next. She is looking to the lead for some counsel but he’s not sure either which is not really helpful. Still, he says he will visit her at the hospital…but then he loses signal on his phone and suddenly there is no way out of the subway. There are 2 rooms that just keep on repeating forever and a sign on the wall which has some rules to follow. If he sees an anomaly, he must move backwards. If there is no anomaly, move forward. The rules sound simple but the game will prove to be difficult.

If you’ve played memory match games then that will be very helpful here. The subway station corridors are pretty uneventful. There are a number of posters and doors as well as a photo booth but that’s about it. Still, the changes can be really small things like doorhandles being in the wrong spot or the posters being a little more immersive than usual. Depending how paranoid you get by the end, you’ll also be fighting yourself. So there are a whole lot of variables to keep track of here.

Now there is a case to be made here for the game being a lot easier than the main character makes it appear. That’s fair because this guy does have asthma so he constantly runs out of breath and this makes it more difficult for him to move forward. Because of how small the distance is, most players would probably go at a quicker pace and try a lot of things before the slow and methodical approach that the lead does. I feel like you would only star to go crazy after doing the rounds for many, many times. It feels like the main character gets exhausted a little too quickly. Physically it makes sense but I’m talking mentally here.

Clearly he hasn’t played the kinds of video games that require you to grind for many hours at a time. It’s why on a serious note, it’s good to be prepared for those kind of situations because this is a trial that can be much easier if you are prepared for it. Now once the game stars to get close to cheating by summoning vicious animals and floods…well then that’s another story. So by that point you’re going to have to rely on some luck and plot armor. I guess you could just pick a direction and run to reset the room but that’s going to be a little unnerving. At least there doesn’t appear to be any rule that forces you to hurry so you can also just rest in a stable room for a while to get your energy up.

You don’t know that for a fact though so it’s possible that the rooms do have an invisible time limit and you would be doomed. It’s just impossible to say this for sure. As for how likable the main guy is, I thought he was decent at best. The guy is definitely a coward with how he didn’t step up at the beginning and even hesitates for a long time at the end. That said, the film is about his development so I would say that he has gotten better over the course of the film. He may not be a true standout by the end but he’s not bad.

The character cast is fairly small but we also have a girl who wanders the subways. Who is she exactly? Like with most of the film you can only speculate here. She was interesting though and did give one of the scarier moments of the film. For the most part the film is trying to scare you with its own concept as opposed to actual jump scares but there are a few exceptions to this. There is also the man who walks around the subway with a briefcase.

For the most part I thought he was okay. He had to deal with a pretty annoying teammate the whole time. The guy definitely did lose his cool by the end and fell for a really easy trap but at least had a decent mindset for the game. If he was by himself I think he would have maybe even lasted longer but probably would have fell for the trap. It’s why you should always play the game cautiously until you are sure about the win conditions.

As for the kid, well he’s got to be the weakest character. Yes he is a kid so you want to cut him some slack but being so quiet for most of the film was really not good. This is a situation of life and death after all so staying quiet really just puts you in a bad spot. Everyone has to do their part in order to try and escape this place alive after all.

I did appreciate how the film gives you just enough pieces to try and cobble the ending together on your own. There are quite a few plausible theories here. Is the main character still stuck in the loop or will it be broken by his action at the end? Does he have any relation to the man with the suitcase? If yes, then he must have a relation to the girl wandering there as well but if not then it appears to be a 1 victim at a time thing. Is the subway trap a moral trial for those who have made a big mistake in their life? The kid may suggest time travel or parallel worlds as well. Lots of fun theories to throw around there. I personally like the idea of full on time travel with 3 alternate versions of the lead but the theory does mostly fall apart around the little kid unless you realllllly stretch things. Probably makes more sense as a good and bad future but then the good one isn’t fully good because the kid went through a lot.

Well, theory crafting is fun at any time either way. The movie will keep your attention the whole time even though it is really just about people walking through a subway tunnel the whole time. Personally I could have done that for the full 2 hours. The only obstacle in the film that I didn’t care for were the rats with human parts. The special effects used definitely looked eerie but more in a gross way than in a scary one. I would have definitely skipped that part. I also think that this part and the flood just feel like the game cheating.

Maybe you could say that cheating makes the situation scarier and you could be right but it’s less satisfying. The idea of a difficult but fair game is much better because you still have the existential fear of never getting out but at least having a chance. You don’t want a rigged game where you know there is no way out. It doesn’t get to that point for the main character but there could be an implication that it would do that for the other characters. If you stick to objective rules then you don’t have to worry about that.

Overall, Exit 8 is a pretty solid film. I’d definitely recommend checking it out to anyone looking for a unique survival scenario. It’s a horror title that uses a lot of game elements and makes you wonder how you would perform. I may be a little overconfident but I think I’d do pretty well there. At the very least I wouldn’t be falling for the phone trap or talking to a random person in the hallway. The game would need to get a little more creative than that in order to take me down for the count.

Overall 7/10

Poppy Playtime Chapter 5 Review

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It’s time to return to Poppy Playtime! I think the biggest mandela effect here is that it’s Poppy Playtime vs Poppy’s Playtime. I dunno I’m used to the latter version but apparently it’s never been like that. The adventure continues on here as the lead is still stuck in this facility with no way out. This place sure was huge and it looks like the journey to the end is going to get a bit longer for him. If you thought that the villains were out of cards, think again!

The game picks up where the last one left off with Huggy Wuggy about to finish you off for good. There is no escape, no way out. Only death awaits but fortunately it turns out that there was a door behind you so you escape with that. At this point it’s hard to say if there is anyone left to save so you just have to get out of the facility but there appear to be more creatures across every corner. Additionally we learn a bit more about the origins of these creatures.

Chapter 5 brings in the main gloves from the first 3 games but changes out a few of the ones from game 4 for new controls. You now have a steam hand that can be used to overload doors and push objects as well as an elemental hand that can control the powers of fire and ice. It allows the game to have fun with more puzzle variations outside of the usual hand movements. As a result this is the first time I’ve completed the game without needing to use my grabbers over 200-300 times and got that bonus trophy. So that was pretty neat.

As always there is going to be a big mix of chase scenes and puzzles. The chases tend to be my favorite as they can get legitimately difficult and force you to really memorize the map. The toughest part is always transitioning from crouching to running. I tend to get eaten a few times during the chases but the check points are spaced well so retrying isn’t a big problem. At most I can say it would be nice not to have to sit through the quotes every time you die but that’s a staple of the series.

Most deaths are also spaced after an unskippable cutscene so you don’t have to wait too long. The only exception is during a tense game of green light/red light. Although it’s not like I died a ton of times so maybe there are other tricky death points. As for the puzzles, they are consistently better than other games. Puzzles can be really hit or miss for me but most of these felt rather balanced. There are maybe a few that are super unclear but most of them you can brute force your way out of when needed.

This may be the darkest game in some respects. It’s hard to say though, maybe that should be the earlier part with the hour of joy. You get to see a lot more of what the kids and toys had to go through here. While it is done stylistically with the toys, the whole intro is pretty disturbing with the outimals. The game uses your imagination as the scare factor here which is how it can keep to a T rating. So you are given enough tools to picture what happened without seeing anything. The better your imagination, the darker it gets. All in all, nothing too crazy but the game does want to really remind you how tough things are.

We don’t have the kid in your ear trying to tell you that everything will be okay this time after all of the twists in the 4th game. So this time you have a little guy here as your moral support but he wanders off for most of the game anyway. As a result the game is a little quieter even with the various audio tapes around. This was nearly the first game where I got all of the audio tapes on my first playthrough but unfortunately I missed one which held me back. I saw the VCR and everything but could not find the tape.

The graphics have definitely improved from the last game. I would say without a doubt that this is the best looking out of the Poppy games. They’ve done a great job with the colors and designs. I would also say that the sound effects are nice and eerie for the game. There isn’t much of a soundtrack here but I’ll give it a bit of a pass given the horror vibes of the game. Not a full pass mind you since horror games should still have great music but at least I understand where it’s coming from.

The game is fairly short like most Poppy titles but does last for 5 hours which I believe does make it the longest game in the series. It’s a bit easier than some of the earlier parts but still has enough difficulty where I would expect you to lose several times during the playthrough. There is an extra trophy in it for you if you can beat the game without dying though. Getting the platinum would be very difficult in this game because of how specific the trophies are. You would need to complete the game under a certain time limit and without dying. Given the constant auto saves, it’s a bit tough to get around that but there is probably some trick to it.

Every game has a big boss and of course this one is no different. She has a fairly strong powerset even if her design isn’t quite as scary as most of the previous enemies. They’re going for more of a crazy angle with her. I’d say she leaves more of an impression than the crazy doctor from a while back and even beats Doughy but is not on the level of Huggy Wuggy or Catnap. Those bosses are definitely all time threats.

Overall, I definitely recommend checking Poppy out. There are a few glitches that will cause you to have to restart the game but that’s normal for while it is new. A patch will probably fix this. Just try not to go too fast, the glitches tend to happen if you do something before the game is ready for it. This especially happens during one of the flashbacks where you have to pick some toys up. You never lose too much progress though. As we get closer to the end, we’ll see what the main character can do to finally get a win here. He is probably going to need a full on hand gun at this point. The game ends on a pretty weak cliffhanger but I’m sure there will be a lot of fun theories to come out of this. Either way I will definitely be there once episode 6 is out.

Overall 6/10