CategoryReviews
Honest horror reviews of films, series, games and books — no hype, no spoilers, just whether it is worth your time and your nerves.
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Reviews
One of my favorite parts about this job is the fact that here and there I get to watch movies that I would have otherwise been oblivious to. I love the fact that I get exposed to new directors, new actors, new plots and new movies before the lay audience. I admit, sometimes those movies I watch should have remained in oblivion, but that is not the case with Iqbal Ahmed’s thriller ‘The Answer’. The first item to address complaint about this film is the “Saw meets The Fugitive” tagline in the press release. I can get on board with it being akin to ‘The Fugitive’ but I didn’t really see any parallels or even allusions to ‘Saw’. That, however, is not a bad thing, but misleading. I found the film to be and they even squeezed in a little romance (but I’ll talk more about that last one later). I have actually found it somewhat difficult to do a
Continue reading →
ReviewsTrailers
Syfy has really stepped up their original content over the past couple of years. Their upcoming series Blood Drive is great example of that. In fact it is one of my favorite new shows. In the series, a young cop named Arthur Bailey (Alan Ritchson) may be the last remaining decent cop left after the U.S. has gone to hell thanks to the “Scar”, a huge, deep crack in the country, and a severe drought that has left food scarce, and water hard to get. In fact, people are secretly selling their blood for water. Crazy, right? You might be wondering why anyone would need so much blood, with gas prices insanely high a group of underground racers have modified their rides to run off of blood, human blood. When Officer Bailey and his partner Chris (Thomas Dominique) get a tip from a snitch (Nathan Lynn), who trades info for water, they stumble across a warehouse filled with freaks and
Continue reading →
MoviesReviews
High school…it can be absolute hell, and Lisa Pomson is a young woman who can vouch for the veracity of that statement. She’s a smart, sweet and pretty, but also quite timid. Aside from that, Lisa is just your average bulimic, sexually conflicted cutter, whose parents don’t understand her teenage plight. And while the daily verbal barbs and jabs her classmates inflict upon her have become commonplace, in this digital world we live in, social media platforms have become tools by which cyber bullies can wage incredibly malicious and cruel attacks on their victims. So when an embarrassing video of her makes its way into the hands of her tormentors, it takes little time for it to make the rounds at her school. The incessant teasing that results is enough to push her to the brink of suicide, that is until a mysterious stranger reaches out to Lisa online pull her back from the edge. Lisa’s “savior” is a blonde
Continue reading →
Reviews
While Get Out still has my vote for best horror film of the year so far, It Comes At Night get’s a more dubious accolade; most misleading marketing. Most of the movie is set during the day, the titular It is refers to a few nightmares experienced by one of the characters, and the doors slamming shut on their own and monsters seemingly hiding in the shadows aren’t in the film at all. As opposed to the similar titled It Follows S. T. D monster (is the D for demon?) there is no tangible threat referring to the films title. Sure, there are some extended nightmare scenes but to me thats kind of stretching it. No, instead this is one of those horror movies where the monster is actually us all along, men driven to madness through desperation and fear. Great, that’s fine, that’s dandy, but then please don’t fucking try and sell it to me as a monster flick.
Continue reading →
MoviesReviews
When you give a loved one a gift it can come in all shapes and sizes, and in all manner of containers – like a box. Granted, when said box changes hands, almost everyone on the giving end hopes it won’t be re-gifted…except when it comes to this particular box. It’s a dilemma that Jimmy faces when he finds himself re-gifting this particular box to his mother, Mary. But this situation becomes somewhat more grave when he learns that his mother has guests: her granddaughter Julie Thatcher, her granddaughter’s husband Adam, and their two children, Anna and Charlie. Jimmy passes the box along to his mother with one simple caveat: she MUST give the box to someone she truly love sand the recipient must do the same, and so on down the line. Unfortunately for Mary, she doesn’t begin what should have been a long line of successive hand offs, thus causing her own demise at the “hands” of the
Continue reading →
BooksReviews
#AmericanCarnage: Sci Fi Short Stories by Pochassic is a new short book by the author of Flesh Without Soul which I reviewed when it came out a few years ago. I was curious to see what this book offered after enjoying the other. Book Description: Sci-fi short stories from the edge of sanity, Endless Horizon, a family having a conversation at the end of the world. Enlightenment Sucks, not all sages are created equal. Pride, a heroic Janitor battles zombies. The Trial, obedience to Galactic Law is freedom. The Big Why SuperMarket, There is more going on in the frozen food aisle than you think. The book is only 22 pages long and filled with several science fiction stories. The stories aren’t related but do have an overarching theme of hopelessness as most occur in dire or dystopian situations. It makes for a very quick read (again, it’s 22 pages long), so it’s definitely worth it for Kindle Unlimited readers.
Continue reading →
Reviews
Dungeons and Dragons is host to some of the most creative monsters in popular fiction, but one thing it’s never addressed is a full on apocalyptic epidemic. Or an Endemic as a new zombie themed RPG coins it. From creator and visionary Lance Yoshioka, Endemic is a dynamic table top role playing game, with zombie survival horror, combat systems, rules for zombification, and all the undead fun D&D Heads have ever wanted. Me and a few friends played a few rounds of Endemic together, and while it was a dense game to get into (the rulebook is 256 pages, with everything from Armor Durability to if a Snow Plow could outrun a zombie), we had a lot of fun. The thing that set Endemic apart for me was the focus on survival; unlike many traditional RPG’s, where your quests take you on hunts for treasure and glory, your only goal here is to not get your face bitten off, rather
Continue reading →
MoviesReviews
Is there a series with more severe dimensioning returns than Pirates? We are ten years past the last film in the series that was even considered passable, and fourteen since the only movie that was actually great. But hey, Johnny has alimony payments and these films somehow still make more money than all the gold on Treasure Island. So here we are with the 5th Pirates of The Caribbean film, which despite no-one asking for or wanting, everyone will end up dragging themselves to the theaters for anyway. At this point the franchise has long since gone rotten, and Dead Men Tell No Tales is the moldy fish scraped from the barrels bottom. Captain Jack Sparrow is back, but far from the Oscar nominated performance of the past, Depp has all the charm of a fifty year old man in the midst of a nasty divorce and domestic violence accusations trying to earn a paycheck. Lazy, stupid, and an afterthought
Continue reading →
MoviesReviews
It’s the late stages of World War II and the Axis powers are scrambling for anything that would give them a decided edge. The power of the atom would suit them nicely, and a German scientist named Emil has discovered the way to harness said power far ahead of the Allies. Being privy to such information during wartime could certainly paint a target on such a person’s back. Enter Simone, an Allied spy tasked with finding her former colleague and flame, Emil, to make quite certain he takes his knowledge to the grave. Granted, this is information that Allied forces could also use to their advantage, but with Emile behind enemy lines, it’s a risk they can’t bet on. Especially, with a contingent of Nazi soldiers, accompanied by a fellow German scientist named König, diligently trying to track Emile down so that they can extract his secret for their own benefit. Being a man of great scruples, Emil decides to
Continue reading →
MoviesReviews
Ana is a brilliant young woman. She’s a chemist and a PhD student at Oxford University, working on an incredible and likely life changing experiment. Her goal is to find a way to transport matter by opening a worm hole by which said matter will travel. Just imagine the possibilities and applications. She works tirelessly with the help of her friends Liv and Nate, and may be on the verge of, dare I say, success? And while the investigation of a cyber-crime in her department, and incessant harassment from protesters about experiments conducted on University grounds could be seen as an obstacle, Ana is persistent and unyielding. She begins practical experimentation, sending small inanimate items, dozens of marbles to be exact, through the wormhole. The marbles travel, but to where is a mystery…that is until Ana and her colleagues calibrate the transporter in a way that will allow them to fix a coordinate for an end point. Now they are
Continue reading →
More from Reviews
Reviews
One of my favorite parts about this job is the fact that here and there I get to watch movies that I would have otherwise been oblivious to. I love the fact that I get exposed to new directors, new actors, new plots and new movies before the lay audience. I admit, sometimes those movies I watch should have remained in oblivion, but that is not the case with Iqbal Ahmed’s thriller ‘The Answer’. The first item to address complaint about this film is the “Saw meets The Fugitive” tagline in the press release. I can get on board with it being akin to ‘The Fugitive’ but I didn’t really see any parallels or even allusions to ‘Saw’. That, however, is not a bad thing, but misleading. I found the film to be and they even squeezed in a little romance (but I’ll talk more about that last one later). I have actually found it somewhat difficult to do a
Continue reading →
ReviewsTrailers
Syfy has really stepped up their original content over the past couple of years. Their upcoming series Blood Drive is great example of that. In fact it is one of my favorite new shows. In the series, a young cop named Arthur Bailey (Alan Ritchson) may be the last remaining decent cop left after the U.S. has gone to hell thanks to the “Scar”, a huge, deep crack in the country, and a severe drought that has left food scarce, and water hard to get. In fact, people are secretly selling their blood for water. Crazy, right? You might be wondering why anyone would need so much blood, with gas prices insanely high a group of underground racers have modified their rides to run off of blood, human blood. When Officer Bailey and his partner Chris (Thomas Dominique) get a tip from a snitch (Nathan Lynn), who trades info for water, they stumble across a warehouse filled with freaks and
Continue reading →
MoviesReviews
High school…it can be absolute hell, and Lisa Pomson is a young woman who can vouch for the veracity of that statement. She’s a smart, sweet and pretty, but also quite timid. Aside from that, Lisa is just your average bulimic, sexually conflicted cutter, whose parents don’t understand her teenage plight. And while the daily verbal barbs and jabs her classmates inflict upon her have become commonplace, in this digital world we live in, social media platforms have become tools by which cyber bullies can wage incredibly malicious and cruel attacks on their victims. So when an embarrassing video of her makes its way into the hands of her tormentors, it takes little time for it to make the rounds at her school. The incessant teasing that results is enough to push her to the brink of suicide, that is until a mysterious stranger reaches out to Lisa online pull her back from the edge. Lisa’s “savior” is a blonde
Continue reading →
Reviews
While Get Out still has my vote for best horror film of the year so far, It Comes At Night get’s a more dubious accolade; most misleading marketing. Most of the movie is set during the day, the titular It is refers to a few nightmares experienced by one of the characters, and the doors slamming shut on their own and monsters seemingly hiding in the shadows aren’t in the film at all. As opposed to the similar titled It Follows S. T. D monster (is the D for demon?) there is no tangible threat referring to the films title. Sure, there are some extended nightmare scenes but to me thats kind of stretching it. No, instead this is one of those horror movies where the monster is actually us all along, men driven to madness through desperation and fear. Great, that’s fine, that’s dandy, but then please don’t fucking try and sell it to me as a monster flick.
Continue reading →
MoviesReviews
When you give a loved one a gift it can come in all shapes and sizes, and in all manner of containers – like a box. Granted, when said box changes hands, almost everyone on the giving end hopes it won’t be re-gifted…except when it comes to this particular box. It’s a dilemma that Jimmy faces when he finds himself re-gifting this particular box to his mother, Mary. But this situation becomes somewhat more grave when he learns that his mother has guests: her granddaughter Julie Thatcher, her granddaughter’s husband Adam, and their two children, Anna and Charlie. Jimmy passes the box along to his mother with one simple caveat: she MUST give the box to someone she truly love sand the recipient must do the same, and so on down the line. Unfortunately for Mary, she doesn’t begin what should have been a long line of successive hand offs, thus causing her own demise at the “hands” of the
Continue reading →
BooksReviews
#AmericanCarnage: Sci Fi Short Stories by Pochassic is a new short book by the author of Flesh Without Soul which I reviewed when it came out a few years ago. I was curious to see what this book offered after enjoying the other. Book Description: Sci-fi short stories from the edge of sanity, Endless Horizon, a family having a conversation at the end of the world. Enlightenment Sucks, not all sages are created equal. Pride, a heroic Janitor battles zombies. The Trial, obedience to Galactic Law is freedom. The Big Why SuperMarket, There is more going on in the frozen food aisle than you think. The book is only 22 pages long and filled with several science fiction stories. The stories aren’t related but do have an overarching theme of hopelessness as most occur in dire or dystopian situations. It makes for a very quick read (again, it’s 22 pages long), so it’s definitely worth it for Kindle Unlimited readers.
Continue reading →
Reviews
Dungeons and Dragons is host to some of the most creative monsters in popular fiction, but one thing it’s never addressed is a full on apocalyptic epidemic. Or an Endemic as a new zombie themed RPG coins it. From creator and visionary Lance Yoshioka, Endemic is a dynamic table top role playing game, with zombie survival horror, combat systems, rules for zombification, and all the undead fun D&D Heads have ever wanted. Me and a few friends played a few rounds of Endemic together, and while it was a dense game to get into (the rulebook is 256 pages, with everything from Armor Durability to if a Snow Plow could outrun a zombie), we had a lot of fun. The thing that set Endemic apart for me was the focus on survival; unlike many traditional RPG’s, where your quests take you on hunts for treasure and glory, your only goal here is to not get your face bitten off, rather
Continue reading →
MoviesReviews
Is there a series with more severe dimensioning returns than Pirates? We are ten years past the last film in the series that was even considered passable, and fourteen since the only movie that was actually great. But hey, Johnny has alimony payments and these films somehow still make more money than all the gold on Treasure Island. So here we are with the 5th Pirates of The Caribbean film, which despite no-one asking for or wanting, everyone will end up dragging themselves to the theaters for anyway. At this point the franchise has long since gone rotten, and Dead Men Tell No Tales is the moldy fish scraped from the barrels bottom. Captain Jack Sparrow is back, but far from the Oscar nominated performance of the past, Depp has all the charm of a fifty year old man in the midst of a nasty divorce and domestic violence accusations trying to earn a paycheck. Lazy, stupid, and an afterthought
Continue reading →
MoviesReviews
It’s the late stages of World War II and the Axis powers are scrambling for anything that would give them a decided edge. The power of the atom would suit them nicely, and a German scientist named Emil has discovered the way to harness said power far ahead of the Allies. Being privy to such information during wartime could certainly paint a target on such a person’s back. Enter Simone, an Allied spy tasked with finding her former colleague and flame, Emil, to make quite certain he takes his knowledge to the grave. Granted, this is information that Allied forces could also use to their advantage, but with Emile behind enemy lines, it’s a risk they can’t bet on. Especially, with a contingent of Nazi soldiers, accompanied by a fellow German scientist named König, diligently trying to track Emile down so that they can extract his secret for their own benefit. Being a man of great scruples, Emil decides to
Continue reading →
MoviesReviews
Ana is a brilliant young woman. She’s a chemist and a PhD student at Oxford University, working on an incredible and likely life changing experiment. Her goal is to find a way to transport matter by opening a worm hole by which said matter will travel. Just imagine the possibilities and applications. She works tirelessly with the help of her friends Liv and Nate, and may be on the verge of, dare I say, success? And while the investigation of a cyber-crime in her department, and incessant harassment from protesters about experiments conducted on University grounds could be seen as an obstacle, Ana is persistent and unyielding. She begins practical experimentation, sending small inanimate items, dozens of marbles to be exact, through the wormhole. The marbles travel, but to where is a mystery…that is until Ana and her colleagues calibrate the transporter in a way that will allow them to fix a coordinate for an end point. Now they are
Continue reading →
