Foreign Fears: Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl (2009)

review written by Steven M. Duarte












Wow! I’m really not sure how to describe, or even where to start with, this kooky Japanese film. I have seen many J-horror films, and many foreign films in general, and have never seen one to match the likes of "Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl". I previously thought 2008's ultra weird and extremely graphic "Tokyo Gore Police" held the title for an absurd plot, with insane amounts of gore, but TGP doesn't hold a candle to this film. In a nutshell we have the main lead character who’s a vampire. She transfers to a new high school where a young lad catches her eye. Without his knowing, she feeds him her blood, which is tucked away in some chocolate treats. He starts turning into a vampire, which does not bode well with his current girlfriend. His girlfriend ends up having a mishap, and gets turned into Frankenstein Girl and, you guessed it, they battle it out for the leading male's heart. Yeah, pretty out there, but that’s not to say this wasn’t a fun ride. Blood is spilled by the bucket loads; skin is ripped right off people’s skulls. Aside from the zany plot, and ridiculous amounts of gore, there are crazy side plots going on, such as a group of Japanese teenagers who are in a club who think they are African American. They even go so far as to paint their skin black and wear Afro wigs. Pretty offensive stuff, but considering what else is going on, you really won’t find yourself focused too much on their zany un-PC subplot. Also highlighted in the film is a club who cut their wrists. They even enter a contest of who can slice their wrists the most times without their arm falling off.
No.
I’m not exaggerating.
This film is really that twisted.
The production company behind this film is the same behind the gory "Machine Girl", which, despite its graphic violence and insane plot, isn’t as extreme as this film. But VG vs. FG never takes itself seriously, and it really does take you for an insane ride of dismemberments and waterfalls of blood.
Check this one out if you get a chance and don’t say I didn’t warn you.



--Steven M. Duarte

Brian Sammons Hi-Def Horror Hoedown!

PREDATORS (2010)- BluRay

Director: Nimrod Antal
Stars: Adrien Brody, Topher Grace, Alice Braga, Walton Goggins

The original PREDATOR is a sci-fi action classic if there ever was one, so why the hell would anyone want to remake it? Well that never stopped Hollywood before, but here’s the good news, and something that came as a surprise to me considering the era of remakeitus we currently find ourselves in; this isn’t a remake. No it’s an honest to goodness sequel, one that acknowledges the original film, if ignoring the other movies that had the dreadlocked alien hunters in them. But hey, who can blame them for that? So that one simple fact means I can cut this movie some slack. After all, I grew up in the 80s, so I’m used to crappy sequels (yes I’m looking at you HALLOWEEN 6, NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 5, JASON GOES TO HELL and so many more) but is this one of those groan inducing sequels? Well even if it is, that’s better than a remake. But let’s find out together if this is a hunt worth taking.

The movie certainly starts off with a bang with our cast waking up in freefall over an alien jungle. After some rough introductions it becomes clear that a group of badass soldiers, mercenaries, convicts and killers have been rounded up and put into the Predator’s game preserve for them to track and kill. Herein lies the first problem I had with this movie; I just didn’t like the characters. Not because they are so cold and killerific. No, it’s because they’re just not written all that well. In the first movie you came to know Arnie’s squad quite well and you could tell they had history together. This time around everyone is a stranger, and such different strangers that they basically get reduced to clichéd cardboard cutouts. There’s the big Russian with a good heart, the silent, mystical Japanese gangster, the tough as nails but caring Latina, the redneck convict, and so on.

The next problem I had came from the CGI. Now to be fair and to give credit where credit is due; a lot, if not most, of the Predator scenes are played “traditionally”. That is with big guys in rubber suits. However a lot of the extra critters, such as the Predators’ hunting hounds and the nonhuman prey the Predators airdropped in to play with look pretty darn bad when on screen. Not horrible, mind you, like in some movies but just plain old run of the mill bad. But that just might be my personal bias showing through. I’m not a fan of CGI, so we’ll just leave it at that and move on.

The last real problem I had was with Adrien Brody’s character. It wasn’t because that he was in the Schwarzenegger role and I disliked him just for that, and it wasn’t because he wasn’t “big enough” like I’ve heard some people say. Really, Adrien had a body in this flick that anyone would kill for and besides, most spec-ops badasses don’t look like professional bodybuilders anyway. No, my gripe was that I didn’t like his forced “I’m a tough guy” act, complete with a way too rough Christian-Bale-as-Batman-like voice. But as bad as that was, it was the sudden 180 his character took at the end that was a bit too whiplash inducing for my taste. I won’t give it away, but you’ll know it when you see it.

However I don’t want you to get the idea that not everything is bad with this movie. Hell no, far from it. It has some nice action scenes, a few good twists and turns, and three big angry Predators. Some of the characters, while not well defined and a bit clichéd, I did like and I’m just sad they weren’t more fully developed. There are also a lot of nice in jokes and nods to the first film. What made such winks work was that they felt like they were done out of love and not just obligatory fan service. Lastly it also introduced some new elements into the Predator mythology that I thought worked, something none of the other Predator movies did after the original. So it was action packed, had cool critters, and was easily the best movie with the Rasta-haired aliens in it since the one where Arnold told someone to “Stick around.” For all those reasons I dug it and I will happily watch it again. For this old curmudgeon, that’s high praise for a new movie.

The Blu-ray from 20th Century Fox is great looking and comes packed with a few neat extras. There is a very entertaining and informative audio commentary by producer Robert Rodriguez and director Nimrod Antal. There’s a 40 minuet, multipart featurette called “Evolution of the Species” that’s the basic behind the scenes deal but with a few nods to the original film. A short featurette called “The Chosen” about the humans picked to play the Predator’s game. There’s a bit from the Fox Movie Channel called “Making a Scene” focusing on the scene when the Predator’s puppies are first introduced. Perhaps the coolest of the extras are some motion comics that act as prequels to the movie and give you some back story on some of the characters and how they came to be picked up by the Predators. A few deleted and extended scenes and the theatrical trailer round out the goodie basket.

PREDATORS is a fun popcorn muncher from the fast freefall start to the final mano-a-alien showdown. It is a worthy sequel to the classic film and once again, thankfully not a remake. I liked this movie and wish all “reboots” would be done with such skill, style, and reverence to the source material. Yep, this is a rare new movie that gets an easy nod of recommendation from me.









MIRRORS 2 (2010)– Blu-ray and DVD review

Director: Victor Garcia
Stars: Nick Stahl, Emmanuelle Vaugier, Christy Romano

The first movie wasn’t a very good film. It was a remake of a somewhat popular South Korean fright flick and had the usually dependable Kiefer Sutherland as the lead. It was helmed by a very talented director, Alexandre Aja, who seemed to have lost his way for a bit before redeeming himself somewhat with the campytastic PIRANHA 3D. Best of all it had an honest to goodness great scene in it with Amy Smart ripping her own jaw off. Unfortunately MIRRORS 2 had none of that going for it. The story has nothing to do with the original movie. The talented by misguided director is replaced by Victor Garcia, the guy Hollywood calls when they want a quick and dirty direct to video sequel such as RETURN TO THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL and 30 DAYS OF NIGHT: BLOOD TRAILS. Macho Kiefer was gone and so-wooden-he-could-be-called-Pinocchio Nick Stahl, and there’s not one memorable scene in all of the 90 minuets of this movie. So does that mean this movie was horrible? Well its sure sounding like it WAs, but let’s find out for sure.

Nick Stahl plays a young man haunted by a traffic accident that killed his girlfriend. His father owns an expensive department store and he convinces his son to come out of his shell a bit by taking a job as the store’s night watchman. Almost immediately the big shots at the store start dying in horrible ways at the hands of their own reflections. You know how most horror films today will have a character looking into the mirror of a medicine cabinet before opening it, then the spooky music will start up and you know that as soon as they closed the door to the cabinet there’s going to be something spooky in the mirror, only when they do there’s nothing there as most moviemakers know what a cliché that is and they’re only messing with your heads. Well this movie doesn’t know that and so it relies on the “spooky thing in the mirror” thing again and again and then some more for good measure. Reflections appear in the mirror when they shouldn’t, they disappear and they move independently of what the person in front of the glass is doing. It is that last strange ability that proves deadly as whatever the reflection does in the mirror happens to person in the real world. If it slashes its own throat then the person it’s a reflection of has his or her throat gashed open. Pretty much that’s all this movie does over and over.

There is a bit of a mystery security guard Nick must solve about a missing girl and why only certain people are dying, but the answer to that question is painfully obvious and the surprise twist is anything but surprising. As for the acting and direction, both are serviceable, if somewhat boring and by the numbers. The special effects are a mixed bag to be sure. Some of the practical gore gags, that is those made with honest to goodness fake blood and guts, look pretty darn good. As for the CGI, well I’m not a computerized effects so maybe I’m just biased, but they didn’t look all that great. No, they’re not LAKE PLACID 3 bad, but they are pretty far removed from good.

While the film may have been mediocre at the best of times, the Blu-ray by 20th Century Fox is surprisingly good. Not only does this package offer both the BD and the DVD but there’s making of featurette and another one on the visual and special effects. There are a few deleted scenes and a kind of neat way to watch the movie “with the woman in the mirror” but it gets old kind of quick. Best of all, on the DVD the Korean movie INTO THE MIRROR that the first film was based on can be found. That was a nice surprise and brings the term “bonus feature” to a whole new level when one of the extras is a complete movie.

MIRRORS 2 is a middle of the road fright flick. It neither excels at entertaining the viewer nor does it disappoint too greatly. Sadly, those are the movies that I dislike the most as a truly horrible movie can sometimes at least be fun in a “so bad it’s good” kind of way. This movie is ho-hum from start to finish. So if that sounds like a good time for you then by all means, give this direct to video sequel a shot. If not, then give it a pass.









ALTITUDE (2010)– BD REVIEW

Director: Kaare Andrews
Stars: Jessica Lowndes, Julianna Gull, Ryan Donowho

Very rarely do I come across a horror movie that I know nothing about, so when it happens I’m usually excited. Surprises in fright flicks are a rarity when you’re as big a horrorhead as I am. Now take that surprise and double it when you factor in the very cool poster/Blu-ray cover of a guy hanging out of a small airplane with a couple of huge tentacles reaching out to grab them. As a rabid fan of H. P. Lovecraft the mind reels with the possibilities such an image could mean. So with high expectations I tore into this new movie. Is this movie the rare hidden gem that should be seen by all, or another of the direct to DVD low budget schlock flicks best left to die in obscurity? Let’s find out.

The movie starts off with a small family flying in a small airplane being piloted by a young woman. After a horrific midair collision with another small plane things jump ahead some years and now that dead pilot’s daughter is a young woman and about to fly four of her friends in her small plane to a concert. One of the passengers is a very strange young man who has a bit of a stalker-like fixation on the pretty pilot. A short take after takeoff the plan tries to fly over a thunderstorm, only to suffer a mechanical failure that causes them to continuously ascend into a rolling mass of black clouds that seem to appear out of nowhere. The pilot and passengers have to figure out a way to fix their plane, which involves some outside the speeding aircraft exploits. It is while they are attempting that bit of daring do that they first notice the huge tentacled thing flying in the black clouds next to them. Soon everyone starts to freak out and for good reason. One passenger is quickly killed, another is a hulking bully, there’s the strange stalker wannabe boyfriend, the pilot with mommy issues, and the fact that after the plane is fixed and they’ve been descending for twenty minuets they have yet to see the ground. Oh yeah, can’t forget the cousin to Cthulhu that seems to be following them. What is the alien creature, where did it come from, and what does it want with the little plane? Sadly, that’s where this film starts to stall out.

Up until the explanations started flying, ALTITUDE was a pretty solid fright film. The acting was better than most independent horror films I’ve seen, even if a few of the characters were one note clichés. The creature was used sparingly and to good effect, also it looked pretty darn cool. The mystery of just what the hell was happening was maintained well. It is only when the answers to all the weirdness start coming that I lost interest and that’s never a good thing. It’s not that the answers were necessarily bad, only that I had seen similar explanations before and have seen them pulled off better. Does that ruin the film? No, but it was a disappointment for sure.

The Blu-ray by Anchor Bay offers a great, crystal clear picture and a few noteworthy special features. There’s a director’s commentary, a couple of brief featurettes, a behind the scenes documentary, and a gallery of concept art. Yeah, nothing to jump up and down about, special feature wise, but not a bare bones disc either. In that way the disc matches the movie on it.

ALTITUDE is not a bad movie, but neither is it outstanding in any way. Perfectly enjoyable in a workmanlike way, I can recommend it to fans of the weird, those who love Lovecraft and would like to see a movie with shades of Cthulhu-ish goodness, or anyone who just want to see something a little different. But if you miss this flight then you won’t have missed much. Consider this a mild recommendation.









ALIEN ANTHOLOGY BOXSET(1979-1997)–Blu-ray review
Reviewed by Brian M. Sammons

Directors: Ridley Scott, James Cameron, David Fincher, Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Stars: Sigourney Weaver, Lance Henriksen, Tom Skerritt, Michael Biehn, Charles S. Dutton, Winona Ryder

Put quite simply; this is how all movie collections should be done. This six disc, four film collection is a must have for any movie fan, and by that I do mean anyone that just loves great movies. Well, two great movies, one sort of good and severely underrated movie, and one film best forgotten. However even the thoroughly horrible fourth movie that all but killed the franchise is worth visiting again if for no other reason than to see just how amazing it looks.

Now I know this is a bit strange, starting a review like this when everyone knows you begin a review playing everything close to your chest to keep the reader reading, but this set of Blu-rays is so extensive, with such a mind-blowing amount of extra features that you’re going to need all the time you can spare to get through it. So if you’re a fan of the phallic-headed, acid blooded, face hugging xenomorphs then you can stop reading now. This is the definitive edition of these movies you’ve been waiting for. Nothing else comes close and I can’t imagine anything surpassing it. However, if you want more proof that these discs must be in your home movie library then keep reading, I’ll try my best to convince you.

The first film, ALIEN, broke more ground than a jackhammer when it hit theaters in 1979. Ostensibly a sci-fi flick, it was every bit as terrifying as any movie sporting the “horror” moniker. Essentially a haunted house movie set in space; it redefined both the sci-fi and horror genres and was imitated, or outright ripped off, by countless films for years to come. It also gave the world one of the most iconic, memorable, and unique movie monsters ever dreamt of. Last but not least it had a leading lady that did more than run away, fall down a lot, and shriek at the big nasty. The acting and direction was all cream of the crop and the look of the film was as original as the titular monster. Gone was the so-clean-as-to-be-sterile look of most space operas and in its place was what can best be described as truckers in space. If you want a unique, innovative, scary as hell movie that you’ll remember for many years to come, then ALIEN is that flick.

In 1986 something truly amazing happened. James Cameron, before he became the “king of the world”, made a sequel called ALIENS that was every bit as good as the original but managed to take the movie in a whole new direction. He ably switched the genre gears from horror to high tone action. Gone were large portions of suspense and dread, but in their place were huge doses big gun action and shocks galore. While the first movie had a single creepy crawly, this one had countless critters running through claustrophobic corridors. Now the two movies could not be more different, despite having the same critters in them and Sigourney Weaver reprising her role as Lt. Ripley, yet both are masterworks of their genres. For these two movies alone, this set is worth picking up.

Then came ALIEN 3 and sadly the third time was not the charm. Despite returning to original form with just a single alien and an emphasis on creepy dread over run and gun, there was just something missing from the formula that kept this movie from being a classic. Whatever that thing is, it’s hard to put a finger on it. It’s not a lack of talent from the director as David Fincher has proven time and time again that he’s got talent to spare. It’s not the acting as everyone in this show does more than competent work with Weaver playing a tortured, grieving, and oddly bald Ripley to perfection. She has able costars with Lance Henriksen and Charles S. Dutton. Even the story is pretty good with a canine like alien stalking the dirty halls of a rundown prison planet populated by convicts who have seen the light. Yet with all that said there is some X factor that keeps me from really liking this movie. It could be the truly God awful early CGI effects used for a good portion of the alien scenes. I can only assume that doing so was the cheap way to do things but man, does it really show. However, the more times I see this film the more I warm up to it.

The same cannot be said for ALIEN: RESURRECTION. I do not like it. Not. One. Little. Bit. Least of all for the return of Lt. Ripley. I thought ALIEN 3 gave her a good and proper sendoff, but in the eternal quest for a few dollars more the producers pissed all over that and bribed Sigourney Weaver into playing her most famous role one last time. I guess the idea is you just can’t have a movie with aliens in it with out Ripley. Hmm, you know, after watching the two dreadful ALIEN VS. PREDATOR films, maybe they were right? In any event, this movie takes place 200 years after Lt. Ripley made the ultimate sacrifice to end the alien threat once and for all. Well naturally that didn’t happen, so the big bad military took some of her blood and cloned her in an attempt to get the alien queen nesting inside her. Enter a group of grungy mercenaries, which include Michael Wincott, Ron Perlman with a cutie android played by Winona Ryder. Adding to the “it could have been good but wasn’t” pile is the fact that it was written by Joss Whedon of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER fame, which goes to prove that someone with the goods can still turn out a turd from time to time. This last alien move is a jumbled mess with characters you don’t care about, a plot that meanders all over to avoid the holes in it, a total been there, done that feel, and worse of all a comic-looking alien/human hybrid with mommy issues. However, to be fair, it does look amazing in high-def.

Ok, recap aside, let’s get to brass tacks. There are two main reasons to get this collection and those are how good it looks and how many extras and special features it has. Well the picture quality is, in a single word; amazing. These movies look great and watching them in HD for the first time, I picked up on a ton of things that I never noticed before. Furthermore, the extra scenes in the various special editions have also been buffed up to a high sheen so that the whole thing meshes perfectly.

As for the extras, man where do I start? Each movie has a full length commentary track and each has two versions for you to watch, the original theatrical release and a director’s, or extended cut. The first, second, and fourth films have intros by the directors, I guess Fincher was either too busy or not happy with his ALIEN experience. Then each movie has tons, and tons of behind the scenes, featurettes, interviews, deleted scenes, trailers, seriously you name it and it can be found here and most of it is new to this collection. There’s so much goodies that it takes two extra Blu-rays to hold it all, and Blu-rays hold a hell of a lot. Also, far too many for me to list. There’s over 60 hours of extra content on these discs. Yes, let me repeat that; over 60 hours of extra goodness, but as they say, “That’s not all.” You can watch each movie in a highly interactive and informative Mu-Th-Ur mode that brings up text, audio, and images while you watch. It’s somewhat complicated, but once you get used to it, it can be a lot of fun to play around with.

So this review ends as it began, with me telling you that you need to get this Blu-ray set. Considerate far beyond highly recommended. Consider it a must own.

















THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975)– Blu-ray review

Director: Jim Sharman
Stars: Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, Barry Bostwick

If you are around my age (let’s just call that thirty-something and leave it at that) or older then you should already know if this is a movie for you. You are either part of the cult of Rocky or you’re not. You either get it or you don’t and nothing I can write here will ever change that. So if you’re not a toast-chucking ROCKY fan then go ahead and stop reading right…about…here.

If you’re still with me then I will either assume that you are a fan of this weird little movie or that you’ve never seen it. Perhaps you’re young enough to have only heard of it in passing and you a little curious. Well as Dr. Frank-N-Furter might say, there’s nothing wrong with being a little curious, but if you’re a virgin then your first time with this flick really should be a group affair, as in a theater packed with a bunch of line-reciting maniacs so you can get the full effect. If you’re already been there and done that then the real question of this review pops up and that is; can this movie work at home, on the small screen, without the wacky spectacle that goes along with a midnight viewing of this PICTURE SHOW? Well I’ll get to that in a bit, but first let’s get to the basics of this new Blu-ray released to celebrate this movie’s 35th anniversary.

First, the story. Two young lovers (Brad and Janet) fresh from wedding (not theirs) are driving during the typical dark and stormy night when they get a flat tire. Luckily for them there’s a nearby castle with a light on. Going inside to use the phone the couple find a gathering of freaks and oddballs lead by Tim Curry in his most memorable role as the sweet transvestite mad doctor, Frank-N-Furter. These Transylvanians have gathered for a special night when the bad mad doctor is about to unveil his greatest creation; a perfect blond, muscled man named Rocky to help him with his, uh, tension. Will poor Janet and Brad survive this party of cooks, perverts, and aliens with their love, sanity, and good moral fiber intact? Well, most likely not, but at least there will be singing. Lots and lots of singing. Oh, did I forget to mention this movie is a musical with some truly memorable, and truly odd, numbers? Well it is and it is those songs that are the real draw here, otherwise TRHPS is just a very strange movie with very strange people doing very, very strange things.

Wait, let me check that. Sorry but no, the real strength of this movie, and why it’s still alive and loved today by so many is the theater experience. If it wasn’t for that, this film would have been a weird, amusing footnote at best and quickly forgotten. You know, like its sequel, SHOCK TREATMENT was. So if that is the case, how does this movie translate to your home where chances are you won’t watch it with eighty or so weirdoes in full custom, reciting lines, singing, dancing, and throwing stuff at the screen? That has always been the question and one that previous DVD editions have failed to answer adequately. Luckily this Blu-ray goes a long way to solve that transfer problem. How so, you may ask. The goodies, man, the tons and tons of goodies.

This is one well put together beauty. First of all, it’s a digibook and I just love those. In between the glossy hard covers is a 26 page booklet packed with full color photos from the cast in full regalia. As for the Blu-ray it is stuffed with extras, including bells and whistles and a good heaping helping of kitchen sink besides. There are two versions of the movie, one from the UK and another from the US, oh and both have an optional black and white intro. If you want to practice for your next midnight screening then there’s “Rocky-oke” where you can sing along with the songs from the film. The usual commentary track is present as is a featurette on Mick Rock, a photographer famous for his ROCKY pics and yes, his photos get their own gallery. I could go on and on with all the extras as there are quiet literally a closet full that clock up hours of bonus material for the faithful cultist of the biggest cult classics to enjoy. But there is one extra feature that I do want to pay special attention to.

“The Midnight Experience” is a four-in-one way to watch the movie with a trivia track and a call back track where audience members from all over the world give their favorite lines from and at the movie. If you want something in your hands while you watch but don’t want to trash your own house there are virtual props so you can toss digital toast, prunes, and rice at the screen. Lastly there a picture in picture version with fans acting out the movie for your added enjoyment. You can even watch the fan performers in fullscreen and forget the real movie entirely. Now if you have all four of these options running at the same time, the screen can get a bit cluttered, but it does give you some idea of what the infamous midnight shows are like.

So if you’re a huge fan of the ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW and want to watch this film in the privacy of your own home…then I say you’re not really a fan. But hey, maybe that’s just me. Seriously this is easily the best version of this movie available. That should be reason enough for you to get it. Well, unless you hate fun. You don’t hate fun…do you?









MAD MAX (1979)– Blu-ray/DVD pack review

Director: George Miller
Stars: Mel Gibson, Joanne Samuel, Hugh Keays-Byrne

This one almost slipped by me, but I managed to snag it at the last second. Granted, it’s not a horror movie, so maybe that’s why it almost went under my radar, but can anyone out there deny that this movie isn’t made out of 100% pure awesome? It basically started the subgenre of post-apocalypse flicks that were in vogue in the early and mid-eighties and it put Australian films on the map. Well, for everyone outside of Australian at least. It was also the first time we got to see Mel Gibson before he became a superstar, and long before he became a raving crackpot. In all ways this movie is a classic and one all dudes must have in their collection or else hand over their dude card. So this flick has no masked slashers, werewolves, ghosts, zombies, and thankfully no vampires, but it’s pure badass action. Oh, and while not a slasher, it does have one memorable psycho, not to mention a great antihero, and so much car porn it ought to be illegal.

Mel plays Max, a young cop in a very strange world. This movie is often called “post-apocalyptic “, but it’s like no other apocalypse ever put to film. Max’s world is at the beginning of the end. While it will be a full-blown wasteland in the two sequels, in this film everything is almost normal, but just slightly askew. There are no nuked cities or drooling radioactive mutants, but there is a police force struggling to hold things together in a world rapidly spinning out of control. The most noticeable and notable harbingers of the end times are the gangs that pillage and ravage at will, almost with impunity. Or so they think. When Max runs down a rampaging psychotic called The Night Rider, he is put on a path of conflict with his motorcycle gang lead by an even bigger nutjob, The Toecutter. When Toecutter and his crew kill Max’s wife and baby, well that’s when he becomes Mad Max and a man out for revenge in the best Charles Bronson tradition.

If you like revenge flicks, then you’ll love this movie. If you like post-apocalyptic movies, then you might dig this film if you want to see a world sparling downwards instead of a movie where everything has already hit the bottom. If you like action then you’ll need something to catch your drool as this movie has action to spare, especially of the two and four wheeled variety. And speaking of wheels, if you love cars, then you may need something else to catch another spewing bodily fluid as baby, does this movie love vehicles and the mayhem that they can bring about. MAD MAX has some of the most spectacular car and bike stunts ever. Gearheads, rejoice! Your CITIZEN KANE is finally out in glorious High Definition.

This Blu-ray/DVD combo pack by MGM gives us the best looking MAD MAX ever. It looks amazing and the action almost jumps off the screen at you. For a low budget film made in Australia in 1980, that was quite a surprise. To go along with the film’s good looks are a nice selection of extras and special features. There’s any audio commentary track, trailers, photo galleries and TV spots. In addition to those usual suspects there’s a nice featurette on what an international sensation the movie was called “Mad Max: The Film Phenomenon”, a documentary on Mel Gibson and his rise to superstar status, and a trivia track.

Like I said at the start, this movie is a classic and as such it is easily recommended. If you don’t already own this film, this is a great way to get it. If you already have the DVD then it’s time to upgrade. However you slice it, MAD MAX on Blu-ray is a must own.



--Brian M. Sammons

THE EAST IS RED #16: Leslie Cheung Kwok-Wing

by Lisa Morton










Ask any American or European horror fan who their favorite horror actor is, and they’ll undoubtedly offer up everything from a classic Universal star (Lugosi, Karloff) to a B-movie scream queen (Brinke Stevens, Linnea Quigley). A Mexican film buff might mention German Robles or Abel Salazar. But ask any Asian moviegoer, and don’t be surprised if all you get is a perplexed look, because the tradition of the horror star doesn’t really seem to exist in any of the Asian film industries.
There are a multitude of reasons, undoubtedly. Genre is more fluid in Chinese, Japanese, and South Korean films – one movie can mash together science fiction, extreme gore, and social satire (TOKYO GORE POLICE), or combine action, horror, romance, and period fantasy (SWORDSMAN 2). And perhaps because the talent pool is smaller (Hong Kong was still a colony when it was cranking out over 400 films a year in the late ‘80s), actors are less likely to be pigeon-holed. Maybe they’ve just never made as many horror movies as we have. Or maybe they didn’t need to market certain actors as horror stars in order to sell them to audiences.
One of the side benefits of this for Asian horror movies is that the same top actors who win awards for intense dramas and historical epics can also be found in the region’s horror films and thrillers. Take, for example, the career of the late Leslie Cheung Kwok-wing. If you think the biggest Asian star of the last twenty years was Chow Yun-fat, Jet Li, or even Jackie Chan, think again. Cheung was not only Hong Kong’s biggest pop singer for over twenty years (he was sometimes called “the Elvis of Asia”), he was also its top actor. In a poll of the top 100 Hong Kong films, 4 of the top 5 starred Leslie Cheung; he was routinely nominated for Asian film awards, became the first Hong Kong actor to star in a mainland Chinese film (Chen Kaige’s FAREWELL MY CONCUBINE, which brought Cheung close to international stardom), and he starred for virtually every one of Hong Kong’s most famous directors, including John Woo, Tsui Hark, Stanley Kwan, and Wong Kar-wai. In the Hong Kong film and music industries he was known simply as “Gor-gor”, or “older brother”.








In 1987, Cheung took the lead in what is undoubtedly the most famous Hong Kong horror film ever made: A CHINESE GHOST STORY, directed by Ching Siu-tung and produced (with lots of hands-on fervor) by Tsui Hark. In this spectacular historical dark fantasy, Cheung stars as Ning, a timid and poor debt collector who is forced one night to stay in an abandoned temple, where he narrowly avoids a zombie attack and finally encounters Hsiao-ting, a seductive female ghost. Later, he enlists a rowdy swordsman, Yen, to help defeat the evil “Matron” holding Hsiao-ting, and they finally free her spirit so she can reincarnate. Along the way there’s a tree demon with a massive tongue, an enchanted pavilion full of lovelies, and a trip to hell, all told in garish colors and frenetic editing that make Sam Raimi look positively depressed by comparison.
In A CHINESE GHOST STORY, Cheung is sweet, slightly bumbling, and easily frightened; the ecstatic look on his face when he receives his first kiss (underwater, yet) from Joey Wang’s gorgeous Hsiao-ting is darn near comic genius. Cheung’s Ning doesn’t have an easy analog in western cinema – he’s neither as outright comedic as Bill Murray in GHOSTBUSTERS nor a simple gender-flipped slasher heroine.






That same year saw Cheung in another, very different ghost movie: Stanley Kwan’s ROUGE. ROUGE, which tells of a terrible love affair between a dissipated, wealthy young man (Cheung) and a talented courtesan (the late, brilliant Anita Mui) is really not a horror film, but rather employs the tropes of the ghost story to comment on a decadent society long gone by. Cheung is beautiful, languid, and decadent in ROUGE, as far from his performance as the gentle Ning as one actor could possibly get.
In 1993, Cheung portrayed a gruff, stubbled swordsman in Ronny Yu’s astounding period horror/fantasy THE BRIDE WITH WHITE HAIR, co-starring with Brigitte Lin, who had recently become a sensation for starring in Tsui Hark’s lunatic SWORDSMAN 2 as “Asia the Invincible”, a warrior who castrated himself to achieve ultimate power and wound up as a beautiful woman. In BRIDE, Lin plays a warrior woman who has been groomed from childhood to become a killing machine; the film includes such frantic scenes of violence as the Bride dismembering an entire troop of soldiers. But when she meets up with Cheung’s Yi-hang, the film becomes a pitch black (and very sexy) love story.






Two years later, Cheung worked with Ronny Yu again when he played Song Dang-ping in THE PHANTOM LOVER, a remake of the classic 1937 Chinese horror film SONG AT MIDNIGHT, which was itself a riff on THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. This time around Cheung got to be the monster – the horribly scarred Song, who now watches over his young protégé. Cheung’s performance – like Michael Crawford’s famed portrayal of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s onstage Phantom – was drenched in as much pathos as horror.
Cheung’s two most typical horror portrayals came late in his career, in a pair of films directed by Law Chi-leung: 2000’s DOUBLE TAP, and 2002’s INNER SENSES. In DOUBLE TAP Cheung finally gets to go psycho: His Rick Pang is a crack shot who has mastered the “double tap”, or the ability to fire two bullets into exactly the same place on a target. After Rick is forced to kill in self-defense, people start turning up dead in Hong Kong, all victims of a double tap. Rick is soon engaged in a game of cat-and-mouse with Miu, a cop who is Rick’s only equal at shooting. Cheung – whose most recent films had included Wong Kar-wai’s HAPPY TOGETHER, in which he played a narcissistic gay lover, and THE KID, wherein he starred as a sympathetic, poor young father of an adopted boy – gave an intense and frightening performance as Rick.
INNER SENSES was Cheung’s last film, and it’s a thoughtful, disturbing, and melancholy finale to Cheung’s career. Cheung plays Dr. Jim Law, a dedicated young psychiatrist whose disbelief in ghosts is sorely tested when he begins treating Yan (Karena Lam), a young woman who claims to see ghosts. The film debunks supernatural beliefs, but goes on to suggest that the workings of the human mind can be far more terrifying anyway, as Law cures Yan, but then succumbs to the demons of his own past. Cheung gives a performance here of tremendous emotional intensity (he earned Best Actor nominations from several Asian awards), and the film is unquestionably one of the most interesting to emerge from the Asian ghost movie bonanza of the 2000s.



















INNER SENSES, however, became famous for far sadder reasons (and sorry, this is a big spoiler alert): The film ends with Law standing poised atop a skyscraper, desperate and despondent, crying out, “I’ve never been happy”. In real life, Leslie Cheung leapt from the 24th floor of a Hong Kong skyscraper on April 1, 2003, leaving a note that began with the word “Depression”; at 46, he was still one of the most mesmerizing and handsome stars in Hong Kong, and his suicide sent shock waves through all of Asia. Cheung’s fans were quick to note the strange similarities between his last moments on film and his final moments on earth. In retrospect, it’s heartbreaking to watch Cheung’s fine work INNER SENSES and imagine what raw nerves he was wrenching wide open for the screen.
In a career that also included acclaimed performances in John Woo’s A BETTER TOMORROW, Wong Kar-wai’s DAYS OF BEING WILD and ASHES OF TIME, Patrick Tam’s seminal New Wave film NOMAD, and Peter Chan’s gender-switching comedy HE’S A WOMAN, SHE’S A MAN, Leslie Cheung Kwok-wing also played the monster, the psycho, the skeptic, the victim, and the stalwart hero. Asian cinema may have no Christopher Lee, no Evelyn Ankers, no Robert Englund…but with stars like Leslie Cheung switching off effortlessly from horror to drama to comedy to tragedy and back to horror again, the movies haven’t exactly suffered.


INNER SENSES Trailer:



A CHINESE GHOST STORY Trailer:


--Lisa Morton

Movies Worth Googling: Strange Movie Reviews by Jenny Orosel

STOP-HAMMER TIME!















Don't ask me why it took me so long to get into Hammer Horror movies, because I don't have a very good answer. Sure, I'd seen certain movies like 'Satanic Rights of Dracula' and 'Dracula A.D. 1972'. I'm not the world's biggest vampire fan, so I forgot about them soon after watching. Within the past year or so I've had a chance to watch some other Hammer productions and I learned for myself that Hammer wasn't just some blood-sucker factory, but they indulged in a wild array of subject matters, and then I got curious.

The more Hammer I watched, the more I had fun with them. Hammer House didn't produce horror movies with subtlety or depth. This isn't quiet horror. This is wild, all out thrill rides. What I have learned is that Hammer Horror is fun. What I also learned is that many of them are a pain in the butt to find.

Here in the U.S., Anchor Bay released a lot of the Hammer movies on DVD and then promptly forgot about them. Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde consistently sells on the secondary market for over fifty dollars. Any of the Quatermass flicks will cost you a pretty penny. I didn't occur to me that things would be different elsewhere until I heard a talk from Carol Cleveland.

If the name isn't ringing any bells, Carol Cleveland was the "token female" in the Monty Python troupe. She gave a talk at the local Monty Python Tribute Weekend (yes, we have that in the Dallas Area every year). She mentioned working on a Hammer science fiction movie called 'Moon Zero Two'. From the clip she showed, it looked horrible. Needless to say, my husband and I really wanted to see it. We came home, looked on Amazon.com, saw the prices it was going for, and gagged slightly. Then it occurred to us...perhaps we would have better luck finding it on Amazon.UK. We recently found a movie there that had never been released in the U.S. (Runestone, based on a Mark E. Rogers story) and figured it wouldn't hurt to try. While they didn't have Moon Zero Two any more affordable than the American counterpart, my browsing led me to something much more interesting....The Hammer Collection 21 DVD box set. For about 30 pounds. And not just 21 of their movies that have hit the public domain, but some that would cost triple that for the US version. I ordered. Quickly. And got very impatient waiting for the set to get here.

A week or so later, there it was, waiting on the doorstep with my name on it. My Hammer set. With little lobby cards! And an insert booklet with both a history of Hammer horror and a little piece on each of the movies included. Plus, the box itself is cool, square, about 8 inches a side that unfolds revealing five volumes of over-the-top horror goodness. I was in movie geek heaven.




Believe me; it was difficult to decide which flick to watch first. And wouldn't you know, but I picked one I had seen before: 'Straight on Till Morning'. I'd had a copy a while back but ended up selling it, something I've regretted ever since. It's about a young, plain woman named Brenda who leaves her small town home to see life in the Swinging Mod Scene of London. She's a little behind the times and slow on the uptake, but she finds one man, Peter, who loves her in spite of her lack of beauty. In fact, he loves her BECAUSE of her lack of beauty. He hates beauty and anything involved with it. So much so it drives him to dastardly deeds. In many ways, this could have been like any other serial killer movie out there. But between the wild flashbacks, the time capsule of Mod London in the 70s and weird Peter Pan references, this one is a lot of fun for anyone who doesn't take themselves or movies too seriously.




Second on the queue was 'The Nanny'. In the beginning, ten year old Joey is released from a home for "disturbed boys", being sent there after drowning his little sister in a bathtub. Only, he insists it wasn't him that did it, but the family's nanny, played by the always creepy Bette Davis. Sure, she's a little possessive and overbearing toward the family, and sure, she's creepy (mainly because Bette Davis is, well, creepy), but could she really be a killer? Of course we know the answer going into it, but again, the charm of a Hammer horror movie is not in the surprise endings, but in the ride. The pacing is fantastic, and the little boy actually puts in a decent performance, more nuanced than the much-decorated Davis does. I don't want it to sound like I'm knocking her-I really am not. She is absolutely perfect as the psychotic caretaker. All in all, a recommended fun ride.




Next was one I'd been itching to see but could never afford in a U.S. copy-'Quatermass and the Pit' (aka 'Five Million Years to Earth') and I was honestly a little disappointed. I do attribute a lot of that to the build-up in not being able to see this for the longest time. While working on a London subway tunnel, the construction crew unearths a buried metal craft. Was it a Nazi bomber or something from much farther away? And why is it driving people crazy whenever they get too close? Quatermass and the Pit was really good at the ending. But the road to the climax was as long as longcat, and surprisingly dry for a Hammer movie. Were the end sequences worth the ride? Sure, but be forewarned that, especially the first third, can get so dull you might want to have a magazine or sandwich handy to help pass the time.




'Demons of the Mind' was a weird kind of Hammer horror flick. It had all the excesses, the costumed glory of the Dracula series and the fast pacing of their best entries. However, it has something a little extra-a surprisingly deep story. A baron keeps his two teenage children locked away in their castle, fearing the family "curse" has infected them. What is this curse? Insanity, inbreeding and basically "bad blood". Meanwhile, somebody is murdering the local women. Who? And why? This neat movie captures a time where ideas about madness were shifting from the metaphysical to the physiological. Then there's the parallel between insanity and lycanthropy, which you rarely see in movies, especially ones that are near forty years old. I didn't think I would like this one as much as I did. And I ended up digging it quite a bit.





Finally comes the wonderfully titled 'Fear in the Night'. It's everything I've come to adore about Hammer movies-more focus on pacing rather than character development, but succeeds all so very well in keeping the viewer wrapped up in the suspense. We find out only what we need to know about the characters to keep the plot moving from one point to another-we know that there is a young woman, recently released from a mental institution, and has a whirlwind marriage with a teacher at a private boys' school. A one-armed man may or may not be trying to kill her, or she may not be cured of her insanity. Oh, and why are there never any boys on the grounds of this boys' school? The odd cast includes Peter Cushing and Joan Collins as the most oddly matched husband and wife in Hammer history, and yet it works in perfectly with the plot. Definitely recommended.

As said before, Hammer movies are not known for their in-depth social commentary or character development. And this is why I think these movies are much more successful than the modern slasher flicks. In very recent years, the trend seems to be to get a deep look into the brain of the villain. We want to know, not just how they kill their victims, but why. So either the writer or the director take a deep look into their childhood and everything is explained. To me, that's not as much fun. There are a lot of times I don't want to play Freud. I don't want to empathize with the killers. Sometimes you want to lose yourself in a movie, not place yourself inside the character's brain. This is where the Hammer movies of the fifties through seventies shine. They are pure escapist fun, and for that I am very grateful.

There is a downside to ordering this, and other movies, from Amazon.UK: region coding. To keep bootleggers and the international import business from sticking their nose into box office tallies, the various continents are separated into differently coded regions for the DVDs. In the US and Canada, we are region 1. The UK where I ordered these discs from is region 2. This is not like the glory days of the laserdisc, where you could order a movie from Luxemburg that hadn't hit American theatres yet, and watch it at home. One region will not play on another's DVD player. You have two options here. One is to buy a region-free player. These have been adapted to not have the region coding in their internal system. The upside is they hook up to your television like a regular DVD player, and you can watch any disc from any other country in the same way you can watch one from the bargain rack of Wal-Mart. The downside is that you have to special order them, as your local Best Buy won't be carrying them any time soon. If you don't know a reputable dealer offhand, you could be taking your chances with an online seller. I've ordered them that way before and got burned with one that wouldn't even play my regular discs, let alone discs from Brazil.








The other option is watching it on your computer. Some of the older computers didn't bother putting region coding on their hard drives, so they could import and export computers all over the world without worrying about compatibility. However, mainly due to the MPAA and copyright paranoia, this is no longer the case. Luckily for us movie dorks, there are some fantastic programs downloadable to basically turn your computer's DVD ROM drive into a region free player (the one I use is VLC player downloadable for free at www.videolan.org). The upside is, well, it's free. The downside is watching movies on your computer. Great if you have one of those laptops or desktops with huge monitors. Less fun if you have either a regular laptop or one of those netbook size thingies. Whatever option you chose, there are ways to play these little gems only available elsewhere.

There are more options out there than just buying overpriced secondhand market DVDs or bootlegging. While movies aren't always available for where you live doesn't mean you can't locate them elsewhere. There are high-quality legitimate copies out there for most everything, if you're willing to look. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to order Animalympics from Amazon Germany.
By the way...I'm still looking for Moon Zero Two if anyone can point me toward an affordable copy. Greatly appreciated.

WHERE TO FIND THESE MOVIES: All but The Nanny are out of print in the US, but dirt cheap in the UK.

--Jen Orosel

Hidden Horrors: (VERY) ODDS AND ENDS

By Brian M. Sammons

Ok, just after the Halloween horror flood, I’m one tuckered terror reviewer. But in an effort to continue to shine the light on things that might slip by, unnoticed in the shadows, here’s a quick one-two punch of some of the odd things I’ve been sent to review that I ended up liking quite a bit. Both have only tenuous links to wonderful world of horror we love so much, but they are there if you know how to look for them. Regardless, I dug both of these quite different items and thought I would give you the heads up.


GELASKINS







This was something I was highly doubtful of when I first heard about it. Gelaskins makes stickers that cover your cellphones, laptops, game consoles. Sounds simple right, and maybe a bit boring? Also, if you put something that is essentially a sticker on a do-dad that you handle everyday it’s sure to peel and fall off right? Well those were my questions when I first went to the site to check these out.

The good: these guys can make colorful covers for just about everything under the sun. Laptops, iPhones, iPods, Xbox, PS3, Wii, every generic phone and gadget you can think of. Also, they offer 100 and 1 different graphics and designs to choose from. You’ve got Marvel superheroes, doodles by Tim Burton, images of Betty Page, and original artwork by over 100 artists.






The really good: the best thing about Gelaskins is that you can have them make custom covers just for you. All you have to do is use an easy, do-it-yourself program, upload your own photos and images and then just wait to get your unique Gelaskins sent to you through the mail. If you like your bet pet fluffy, or want you kids plastered all over your Wii, then you can do that. Me? Well I’ve got DAWN OF THE DEAD on my mobile phone, FRIDAY THE 13TH on my Xbox 360, and some creepy photos a friend of my took on my laptop. So if you want to personalize your stuff and make your high-tech toys uniquely you, then Gelaskins can do that for you. Lastly, the quality and durability is top notch. I have these skins on my phone and even my Xbox controller, both of which I put my grubby mits on every day, and both still look great and have no air bubbles, creases, or peeling two months later.







The bad: there’s really nothing bad to say about the product, but I will give you some free advice if you’re now thinking of Gelaskinning your stuff. If you want to cover something flat and simple like your laptop then that’s easy to do. However trying to Gelaskin something with a lot of buttons or cutout spaces, like the afore mentioned Xbox controller, quickly becomes an exercise in frustration as you try place the skins just so. However, this is more a problem for the OCD perfectionists out there, like me, and has nothing to do with how cool these groovy skins are. I highly recommend these nifty stick-‘ums and if you want to give your tech toys a personalized makeover, you can order or create your own Gelaskins here: http://www.gelaskins.com


MIMOBOTS

Flash drives, everyone uses them now days. Hell, I’ve got 3 of them of various sizes. So why not have one that reflects your own weird tastes? Well now you can and Mimobots can do that for you. Mimobots make flash drives of all sizes with designer cases based on various pop culture sources. Want a Darth Vader flash drive? They’ve got that. Do you dig Hello Kitty (then I pity you) or got a thing for Japan’s little brown boxy Domo? Have you ever wanted a Spartan from HALO in your pants? Well these guys have got you covered. They even have flash drives for the silly and sick HAPPY TREE FRIENDS. Want more? Well Mimobots even have a whole slew of original artist designs and here is the connection to horror I previously mentioned. I myself have a cool skeleton flash drive because, you know, I’m so damn spooky and stuff.


The one drawback is that these guys are a little thick and chunky for flash drives. If you have a somewhat deeply recessed USB port then these drives may not be able to plug into it. I do have one old laptop that my skeleton Mimobot couldn’t reach. So what I’m saying is, know your tech before you plunk down your cash.







If you are just dying to have a Boba Fett flash drive or something like that, then you can get your fix here: http://www.mimoco.com











--Brian M. Sammons

Graphic Horror: Game Reviews

By Brian M. Sammons

Hey guys, gals, and ghouls, it’s right after Halloween and that means I have a glut of spooktacular games to tell you about. Yeah, remember a few months back when there were no new games and I told you just wait? Well, the wait is over. So, without further ado, let’s get to it, starting with the add-ons. I love those little things. For a few bucks more you can get more fun out of your old game. What a deal!





















ALAN WAKE: THE WRITER, by Remedy Entertainment & Microsoft Game Studios, Rated M, Xbox 360.

One of my favorite games this year has been ALAN WAKE, but have you listened to me about it? No, because if you had it would have sold a lot better than it did. Now maybe it had less than stellar sales because it was released against the 2 ton gorilla that was RED DEAD REDEMPTION, or because this game was in development hell for far too long, but it didn’t sell nowhere near as many copies it deserved to. So if you have yet to play this amazingly well written and thoroughly creepy game, what are you waiting for? Get it already, it’s amazing.

But Brian, I hear you say, I’ve already played and beat this game. Well that is what’s great about DLC; it takes great games and can make them greater. Not all of them do that, but the best do. So is this, the latest and reportedly last extra “episode” of ALAN WAKE one of those good ones, or is it a forgettable and sad end to a great game?











Well, I can’t tell you much about this game No, no, don’t beg, I’m not going to do it. Why? Because ALAN WAKE is all about the story and the mystery and I’m not going to ruin that for you. So because of that, I’ll dispense with the usual reviewer teasing and just come out and say it; THE WRITER is a great expansion to this great game. It plays much like the previous DLC and is set in a weird, warped dream world where reality is what you make it (literally). As the author of your own nightmare, you’ve got great power and that’s good because you’re going to need it. The dark power that has been haunting you for the entire game is back and badder than ever. What’s really cool is the set design of this game and how you really feel like you’re trapped in a nightmare. Few works of fiction, be they film, book, or video game have ever pulled off the rubber reality of dreams this good. No, the game’s not very long, you can play through it in one sitting, and in fact you get an achievement for doing so. But it’s not expensive and well worth the meager price they are asking for.







The one gripe I had with the previous DLC expansion was that it was a bit too combat focused. This one focuses more on the story (the best thing about ALAN WAKE) and less on the guns and ghouls action. That is a very good thing in my book. It also ends things pretty well. No, not all answers are given, but enough to satisfy and things are set up nicely for a sequel. That is a game I very much hope comes out some day. If not, I’m blaming all you punks that didn’t go out and get this game. You really missed the boat on this one.

I give ALAN WAKE: THE WRTER 5 flashlights in the darkness out of 5.











BIOSHOCK 2: MINERVA’S DEN, by 2K Games, Rated M, PC, PS3, Xbox 360.

I never review DLC (Downloadable Content) that’s just map packs and the like for the online multiplayer addicts. While their merits can be argued what can you really say about them? Oh, in this one we’re in a ruined factory? Hey, this one has a different desert level then the previous two desert levels, cool! Wow, this map has snow in it. Snow! So because of that, and the fact that most games that have multiplayer only release DLC in support of that mode and nothing else, I initially dismissed the previous expansions for the very good BIOSHOCK 2 game. After all, all the previous DLCs were just multiplayer junk food, so why should this be any different. But then I gave it a try and boy howdy, was I surprised. MINERVA’S DEN is a new chapter in the evolving story of the doomed underwater city of Rapture. While it has no direct connection to either the first or second game, it does have many interconnecting threads and appearances, if only by voice, by many old friends. As such it is a completely standalone game experience, but it does offer the same great fun as BIOSHOCK 2.




















Once more you are playing as a giant, diving suite-clad “Big Daddy”, but you’re a different daddy then the one from the full game. I guess using preexisting game architecture just makes things easier. Well at least there’s a pretty good back story, and a bit of a mystery, behind this new daddy. Speaking of story, this time around you’re on your way to explore the massive central computer that ran Rapture called “The Thinker.” Unfortunately like everything and everyone else in the rusting, leaking utopia gone to hell, The Thinker is not only dying, but more than a little bit mad. To complete your quest and save the super computer from the clutches of an insane genius, you’ll have to battle through three new levels of psycho splicers looking to do you in. Luckily for you there’s a cool new laser weapon called the lance, and an excellent new plasmid (think near magical psychic-like power) that allows you to summon mini black holes to torment your foes. To bad there’s no new baddies to blast, just some variants on the preexisting ones like a flaming brute splicer, a cold based Houdini splicer, flying robot drones with lasers and rockets instead of the normal machineguns, and the like. While such minor changes do add some variety, I really would of liked to have something new to rip apart with my spiffy new laser gun. Oh well, a missed opportunity.















If you’re a BIOSHOCK fan and want more but you just cant wait until 2012 for BIOSHOCK INFINITE to come out, then this will give you the plasmid, splicer, Rapture fix you need. It was a fun and enjoyable addition, but sadly had none of the good creepy bits that the other games had and that was a disappointment. However it is a good length and a pretty good value for the price.

I give BIOSHOCK 2: MINERVA’S DEN 4 splicers getting sliced in half with my big shiny laser out of 5.










BORDERLANDS CLAPTRAP’S NEW ROBOT REVOLUTION, by Gearbox Software & 2K Games, Rated M, PC PS3, Xbox 360.




The last DLC for BORDERLANDS was supposed to be just that, the last DLC for it. Well three cheers then for this all new and pretty unexpected expansion. As one of the characters in this game says, “it’s like Christmas!” But is this a present worth unwrapping or re-gifting?

Well for starters it’s very funny. Remember the little, comical, boxy robots you’ve seen all over the game called claptraps? Well they are mad as hell and they’re not going to take it anymore so they start an uprising. This means that you’ll be blasting away at the robots but also old enemies that have been given the claptrap makeover. This basically means you’ll be fighting psychos, skags, and other baddies with vacuum tubes sticking out of their heads. You’ll also have to face some of the memorable bosses you’ve already laid waste to as they’ve been reborn as cyborgs. Remember general Knoxx? Yeah he’s back and more robolicious than ever. There are also some new Claptraps to take down. The kamikaze Divine Wind will definitely keep you on your toes.










There are also some new areas to explore and of course tons of new guns. A whole slew of quests also await and they seem a bit more fleshed out this time with some more backstory behind them as opposed to the old, “go here and do this” kind of thing. Also, once a new update comes out this DLC will allow you to raise your level to 69 (tee hee). As of this writing it’s not yet out, but it is due out on 10-12, so you might want to wait a little on this. Why do quests when you don’t get rewarded for it, right?
















Last, but certainly not least, this DLC sort of wraps things up for BORDERLANDS with a pretty satisfying ending. So if another expansion never comes out, at least the game goes out on a high note. But hey, who knows, the guys and gals over at Gearbox might just surprise us again with another unexpected present sometime down the road. Until that happens, or until the inevitable sequel, this DLC is a great way to say goodbye.

I give BORDERLANDS CLAPTRAP’S NEW ROBOT REVOLUTION 5 crazy, funny, homicidal little robots out of 5.









COSTUME QUEST, by Double Fine & THQ, Rated E, PS3, Xbox 360.

If I had to use one word to describe this game, that word would be; charming. If I had other words to choose from they might include cute and kid friendly. In short, they would be words that you wouldn’t expect to find describing a game for a column called GRAPHIC HORRORS, and yet here they are. Why is that? Because while COSTUME QUEST, the new game from Tim Shaffer and Double Fine, is all of those things, it’s also fun , very funny, and set in the high horror holiday of Halloween. But is this smallish downloadable game a nasty trick or a sweet treat? Let’s find out.

You play as one of two brother and sister twins going out for a night of trick or treating. But before you even get your first piece of candy, you sibling is kidnapped by a weird goblin-like monsters. Why? Because he (or she) was dressed up like a big piece of candy and the monsters are out tonight looking to steal all the sweets for themselves. The dimwitted ghoulies, thinking your twin is the biggest piece of candy ever, has whisked them away and it’s up to you to save them. How do you do that? By getting some friends together and using the powers of costume, of course.



















Through the magic of imagination, I guess, when you must do battle with the monsters you become whatever you’re dressed up as. If you are wearing a robot costume you become a giant battle bot. Dress up like a ninja and you become a fierce, stealthy, sword-swinger. Don a french-fry costume and you become a weird, crab-like-thing made out of french-fries. Yeah, they don’t always make sense, but each has their own strengths, attacks, and special powers that aid you both in and out of battle.

The core of COSTUME QUEST is that of a basic RPG. As such it is perfectly serviceable, if a bit light and fluffy. What makes this game is Double Fine’s usual great story telling and sense of humor. Simply put, this game is just plain fun to play. Moreover, it can be enjoyed by the whole family. Provided that the whole family can read, that is. The one thing that I thought could have been improved would be the inclusion of some voice acting. As it stands, all the dialog in this game is delivered in text and sometimes the words zip by pretty fast. If you have a child who isn’t the best reader, this could be a problem.



















That little trick aside, COSTUME QUEST is a great game. It’s sort of on the short side, but that means that it doesn’t overstay its welcome. It is also well worth the price to download it.

I give COSTUME QUEST 4 pieces of Halloween candy out of 5.














FALLOUT NEW VEGAS, by Bethesda Software & Obsidian Entertainment, Rated M, PC, PS3, Xbox 360.








Ok, time for the big one. One so big, I’ve got to place is smack dab in the middle of this article so it doesn’t tip the whole thing over to one side. Yeah, it’s that big. But is it good? Hell yeah! But also, sadly, kind of no.

FALLOUT 3 was one of my all-time favorite games. It was a huge, sprawling RPG set in the post-apocalyptic Washington DC area. There was a ton of quests, bad guys, weapons, well written and (mostly) well voice acted characters, and a hell of an engaging storyline that literally started with your character’s birth and would most likely end with his or her death. Sure it had a few bugs. With a game that ginormous, I could forgive the odd boo-boo now and then. In all ways, shapes, and forms, FALLOUT 3 was amazing. So here comes FALLOUT NEW VEGAS and it takes everything that was FALLOUT 3 and supersizes it. But does that necessarily make things great? Well, kind of… Let’s tick off the differences between this game and the last, one by one.











Quests: FNV has a whole lot more of them than F3, but they are noticeably shorter and less evolved. Depending upon your tastes in RPGs this will be good or bad. Those of you who like to do more, get things done quicker, and want faster XP returns for finishing quests, will dig this change. If you want more in-depth, better written quests that take a lot more work but seem to have better payoff, character and story wise, then you might find many of these “to-dos” a bit shallow.

Bad guys: This is something FALLOUT NEW VEGAS does wholeheartedly improve upon from the previous game. They have almost all the critters from F3, with perhaps with the exception of the mutated bears, and add a whole lot more. If you enjoyed stalking the wastes in FALLOUT 3 and killing a wide variety of baddies, then this game will give you a nerdgasm.

Weapons: This game has enough guns and things that kill to make any gunbunny happy. But honestly, they might have a bit too many. Let’s talk shotguns for an example. In F3 you had a sawed off shotgun and a pump shotgun. There might have even been another variant I’m forgetting. In NEW VEGAS you have sawed off, pump, single shot, lever action, automatic, “caravan” shotguns, 12 gauges, 20 gauges, and I could be forgetting one or two. Then you have the ammo which also comes in different flavors like shot, slug, and magnum. While variety is great, the question of “why?” should be asked. Having that many weapon and ammo types really makes things confusing and remember, that’s just shotguns. Honestly, this game may have more weapons in it that any other I’ve ever played. Well, not more than BORDERLANDS, but still, it has a lot of guns. So if you love the hell out of some guns, then this is the game for you. If you like things more simplified, then FNV may overwhelm you.



















Story: This time out you’re not playing a survivor from the Vaults. Instead you’re a courier who gets shot in the head for a little platinum chip you were transporting by a Rat Pack wannabe. Luckily for you, you don’t die and so begins your quest for answers and revenge as you explore the desert wastes around Sin City. Eventually you get to Las Vegas which has, amazingly, remained untouched for the large part despite a full blow nuclear war. While I thought the new setting wasn’t as post-apocalyptic cool as the burnt out capital was in the last game, I liked the variations of feel from the wastes to the still bright lights of Vegas.

As for the drama, it’s kind of lacking here. FALLOUT 3 was all about you and your dad, finding him after he’s gone missing and figuring out what your place in this new strange world would be as you were fresh from the giant Vault bunkers. This time you just some guy, like everyone else, who got screwed over by a bad guy, again like everyone else. There is not one thing unique or new about your character or the story. Well, at least not until the back half of the game. At that point things pick up a bit and pretty good tale starts to unfold, but until then nothing really stood out. Is that bad? No, not necessarily, but it is also not good.

The last thing tied to story that I want to talk about is the characters. NEW VEGAS has some great ones. There are three very different factions vying for control of the glittering prize that is Vegas. Here the writing really shins as all of the sides of this conflict are incredibly well fleshed out. They all seem real and believable and while there is a side easily identifiable as more evil than another, the so called good guys aren’t perfectly good and the bad guys, who do some really heinous things, aren’t just “Muw-hah- hah-hahing” for no reason other than they are supposed to be evil.

In addition to the factions there are the wonderfully written supporting characters, some of which you can befriend and have travel with you. Others you’ll have to put a bullet in their face, but even they are better developed than many characters in movies. Also most, but not all, are better acted. Quite a few recognizable talents do voice work for this game, but I’m not going to namedrop here. Half the fun comes from meeting a character for the first time and going, “hey, I know that guy.”








Now for the truly, undeniably, and almost unforgivably bad thing about this game; the bugs. Oh dear weeping baby Jesus does this game have bugs! This game crashed on me six times during my play through and I have heard enough tales to know I was one of the lucky ones to get so few. Sometimes your V.A.T.S. system (the slo-mo targeting combat system that really sets this game apart) just doesn’t work. You can fall through terrain (thus dying) or get stuck on obstacles (thus requiring a restart). A friend of mine got locked out of New Vegas for some unknown reason and could not continue to play his game, so the 20+ hours he had invested in FNV were all for naught and he had to start over from the beginning. One of the best NPC followers in the game doesn’t advance past level 12 so she is always dying in combat. Important key characters such as followers, quest givers, or characters you need talk to in order to complete a quest, will just vanish and never reappear ever again. If the quest in question was one you needed to complete in order to progress the game, guess what; you’re screwed! Really, I could go on and on with the bugs that I saw firsthand and the horror stories I’ve heard from others, but I have neither the time nor space to list them all. While FALLOUT 3 had its share of bugs, FALLOUT NEW VEGAS has far more and worse yet, far more game ending ones. This is inexcusable. While some of the other minor grievousness could be chalked up to stylistic choices, this is just bad game making and nothing else. What’s really sad is that they keep this very good game from being truly great.

That said, I had a ton of fun with this game, when it worked properly. I do highly recommend it and hope that the developers continue to bring out patches to fix the game’s many problems. The good news is that as time goes one, those problems should be fixed, so who knows, maybe in a month or two this game will be perfect? But as it stands now…

I give FALLOUT NEW VEGAS 4 Nuka-Colas out of 5.









SAW 2: FLESH & BLOOD, by Konami & Zombie Studios, Rated M, PS3, Xbox 360.

In all honesty and brevity, if you are a fan of the endless stream of SAW movies then you might like this game. Now you probably already knew that, so that’s why I’m starting this review off this way. Why mess about? If you have no interest in the films then you will have no interest in this game so feel free to skip this and go to the next review.

Still here? Ok, so you like the SAW movies, or perhaps you’re like me and you kind of dug them in the beginning but now just wish they would go away? Regardless, you’re keen on the idea of matching your wits against the macabre mastermind, Jigsaw and to see if you have what it takes to survive. Or perhaps just not fall asleep. Yeah the sad truth here is that this game is less about gruesome horror and more about two things; puzzles and quick time events.




















The first SAW videogame got a lot of flak for a shoddy combat system. Taking that to heart, the developers decided to fix it how? By getting rid of combat altogether and replacing it with quick time button mashes. I am not a fan of quick time events, or at least not a fan enough to want a whole game of them. I would much rather of had the lackluster combat mechanics from the first game than this. Or here’s an idea, maybe have the developers actually fix and improve the combat or write it out of the story completely. After all, no one goes to the SAW movies for the fisticuffs. No, they watch them for the traps and thankfully, that’s something this game does so right.

The tortures and deathtraps you must survive and help others escape from are as cruel and devious as any from the films. You can marvel and their sick ingenuity, if you’re into that, and when things go wrong you’re treated with a suitably gory death. Since seeing the splatter is a big part of what make people into SAW fans, it’s almost strange that you have to fail the puzzles to trigger the traps to see them and that just goes against the grain of almost every game ever made. You get rewarded when you fail? How novel.

Speaking of those puzzles, they are easily the best thing about this game. Some are the same switch-flipping tests of wits from the previous game, but even those have been upgraded and improved upon to make them more of a challenge. Sure they get a bit overused, but what game mechanic doesn’t? However it was the environmental puzzles that I really enjoyed. They are far more subtle and clever than the ones that disable the traps and they give you a good sense of accomplishment when you figure them out. Provided you’re not a big, dirty cheater and look up the solutions on the internet.






Another check in the “win”’ column for this game is the mood, atmosphere, and environment. The game takes place in a huge abandoned building (where does Jigsaw keep finding these places and how does he rig them up with a ton of traps and still find time to study and abduct people?) and the whole place reeks of rot, decay, and death. All over the place are the bloody remains of Jigsaw’s past victims so you’ve got the gore covered for those with weak stomachs, and the use of sound and darkness is very well used for a good sense dread. If horror games sometimes give you the willies then chances are this game will deliver the goods.

Sadly the story isn’t much to write home about. It’s not terrible or anything, just not all that original. But hell, that hasn’t stopped the movies from being made, right? In this game you play mostly as a young man named Michael Tapp who is the son of Danny Glover's character from the first film. You run around the afore mentioned booby-trapped building, quick timing crazies to death and solving puzzles. There are one or two neat twists, and I won’t ruin them by giving them away here, however none of them were amazing or jaw dropping and you might see them coming before the game springs the “a-ha” moments.

In the end, SAW 2 is a middle of the road diversion for gore fans. In that respect it is one of the most faithful translations of movie to game as that exactly what the films has degenerated into.

I give SAW 2: FLESH & BLOOD 3 severed feet out of 5.









CASTLEVANIA: LORDS OF SHADOW, by Konami, Rated M, PS3, Xbox 360.

Hi, elephant in the room? Oh what’s that? Yes, this game is a “rip off” of GOD OF WAR. But if you really want to get specific, it’s more a rip off of DANTE’S INFERNO which was, it self, a rip off of GOD OF WAR. So yeah this game is a copy of a copy. Boy, I’m really selling this title, huh? Well I’m not here to sell games, only to tell the truth about them and yes this game plays just like those other two games. That is undeniable, but the question is; is this one any good? Well let’s swing into action. Ha, get it? Because CASTLEVANIA games always had whips in them…and you uhm…swing on whips, so…yeah. Moving on…













In LORDS OF SHADOW you play as Gabriel Belmont and you have a whip-like weapon. Sadly those two things are all the links this game has with the CASTLEVANIA series, but more on that is a second. Let’s start with our best foot forward. This is a long game, so you’re getting a lot of bang for your buck. It also has a nice epic feel as Gabriel is on a quest to slay the titular lords who have somehow locked the world away from the grace of heaven. That means anyone who dies, even if they were saintly, can’t reach heaven. Along the way you’ll do battle with all sorts of werewolves, goblins, vampires, necromancers, and a whole slew of other baddies. To help you along the way you get a handy chain weapon that is as much tool as it is killing implement. Sure it handles more like Kratos’ Blades of Chaos than the Belmont family whip, but it’s fun to use. In addition to button-mashing, combo-heavy fighting, there’s some platforming and exploration to change things up a bit and some very light RPG elements as you get experience to buy new killer moves.

Easily the two best things about this game are the amazing graphics and the satisfying boss battles. Starting with the pretty pictures; man does this game look great. Not only are the monsters cool looking and the kills good and visceral, but the backgrounds look breathtaking. As for them bosses, they are big, they are bad, and they take a good long time to defeat. The epic battles you have with towering titans or a hulking werewolf lord that just won’t die more than make up of a bit of same-same grinding that a lot of the other battles sometimes fall into. Yeah, that’s not a good thing so get to the bad of this game.












First and foremost, as I just hinted at, while this is a big long game, there is a lot of repetition to it. Honestly, it almost feels too long, something I never thought I’d ever say about a game. Some of the boards felt like padding and offered nothing except the chance to kill more of the same monsters you’ve already been killing for the last four levels. That’s not fun, that’s killing time.

The second misstep of this game is that it is NOT a CASTLEVANIA game. At least, not like any CASTLEVANIA game you’ve ever played. As such, I really wish it had been called something else. I guess it’s a “reboot” but it kind of seems like blatant cash in on the good name of that venerable game series. That’s too bad because, other than that, I kind of dug this game. Sure it’s not all that original, but it was still fun. So if you are expecting the usual whip-tastic, platforming fun of the classic CASTLEVANIA games, you will be disappointed. However if you are looking for a big, long, beat ‘em up with cool monsters and more combos then you can shake a silver dagger at, then this could be the game for you.

I give CASTLEVANIA: LORDS OF SHADOW 3 whip cracks out of 5.


Genre Break:








MEDAL OF HONOR, by EA Games, Rated M, PC, PS3 Xbox 360.

First person shooter are all the rage in videogame land, but only if they are set in modern times and have the latest high-tech guns and military toys. This was a bitter lesson for the MEDAL OF HONOR guys and girls to learn. While they were once lords of the FPS world with their series of games set in World War 2, it was the CALL OF DUTY upstarts that really changed the game, not to mention raked in the big bucks, with their MODERN WARFARE series. Wanting a piece of the oh-so-lucrative MODERN WARFARE pie, MEDAL OF HONOR has decided to leave the glory days of kicking Nazis in the teeth for the sands of Afghanistan and putting boot to Taliban ass. Can these game makers recapture some of the magic that made their old games so good, or is this just a cheap cash grab? Well grab your M1 and grow out your epic beard, it’s time to find out. Oh, and yes there’s going to be comparisons between this game and that other modern shooter. I usually hate doing that, but in this case it’s all but unavoidable so why pretend?


















The beard crack above comes from all the Special Forces guys, or as they are called here, “Tier One Operators”, who grow facial hair to blend in with the locals in the wilds of Afghanistan. These elite warriors play a big part in this game. Not only can you play as them in many of the missions, but reportedly a few of them acted as consultants to the designers and influenced the action and story in the game. So if you are expecting over the top crazy set pieces like in that other modern day shooter, you will be disappointed. This make the game more realistic, but also a bit less exciting. After all, working 9 to 5 is very real, but who would want to play a game about that?

That is not to say that the game lacks action, far from it there’s lots of run and gun goodness to be found here. As the player you will jump back and forth between the small group action of the Tier One Operators and the large scale action of the equally lethal U.S. Army Rangers. While the Special Forces guys play how you would expect them to, it’s the Ranger parts that seem a bit off. In that other game you participate in huge battles with lots of guys on your side doing battle with lots of enemies. Here, while you’ll start off with a large group of fellow Rangers, they always seem to go away at the start of every battle, leaving you with just yourself and maybe a few close friends. So much for realism, huh?







But maybe a lack of battle buddies is a good thing because in this game, man are they annoying. In these type of shooters there is always some questionable AI. Your computer-controlled friends always seem to get in your way, but in MEDAL OF HONOR they take that to a whole new aggravating level. Twice they would get in my path and not move to such an extent that I had to reload a check point and try again to finish a level. Yes, they blocked my path, either by walling me in a room and standing in the only door out, or standing in front of a door I had to go through to proceed with the game. That’s just sloppy game design and does nothing but to really aggravate the player.

As if horrible AI wasn’t bad enough, there were several bugs, both just simply annoying and those that broke the game. In one instance I had completed a level, called all the terrorists I could, got to the point I was told to get to, and nothing happened. I looked all over searching for something I might have missed. Once again I had to reload a checkpoint, go through the end part again, but this time a door was open for me to go through. Nice.





Glitches aside, the worst thing about MEDAL OF HONOR is that it’s kind of humdrum. Sadly this also goes for the game’s multiplayer. It follows all the usual tropes that modern competitive shooters use but it never tries anything to make it stand out from the pack. That is the final word on this game. It is a perfectly fine shooter, when the bugs don’t get in your way, but it’s never mind blowing or exceptionally memorable. That doesn’t make the game bad, but it keeps it from being really good.

I give MEDAL OF HONOR 3 very fine but not great headshots on Taliban baddies out of 5.

--Brian M. Sammons