With prayer beads in one hand and an ax in the other, a monk hunts down a millennia-old spirit that's possessing humans and unleashing hell on Earth.Korean horror flick The 8th Night drops on Netflix this Friday (July 2).
Wednesday, 30 June 2021
Friday Is The 8th Night For Netflix Chills...
Siblings In Distress When The Jungle Fights Back As The Asylum's Cruise Turns Deadly...
The Asylum's mockbuster challenge to Disney's Jungle Cruise doesn't look half bad if taken as its own entity.
Out now via VOD, Jungle Run centres around the quest for a missing father, which then turns deadly when sibling adventurers find themselves viciously attacked by jungle animals.
But as they fight back against the relentless onslaught they start to realize something much more sinister may be behind the attacks.
And there's CGI monsters!
Hijackers Pick The Wrong Flight And Come Up Against A Blood-Hungry Vampire...
Nadja and her ten-year-old son are on an overnight flight from Germany to New York when a group of terrorists violently take control of the plane and threaten the lives of the passengers.
Suddenly Nadja faces an impossible choice - should she reveal her dark side and the inner monster she has kept hidden from her son for years in order to save him?
The hunters become the hunted in this action-horror from director Peter Thorwarth, starring Peri Baumeister and Dominic Purcell.
Tuesday, 29 June 2021
Who's Going To Step Up and Participate In #RPGaDay2021 This August?
This August, the RPGaDay challenge returns for its eighth year, courtesy of creator David Chapman.
Once again the lead writer of Cubicle 7's Doctor Who RPG and Modiphus Entertainment's Star Trek Adventures has created a series of daily prompts (see below) designed to inspire RPG fans to blog/podcast/tweet etc each day about an aspect of our favourite hobby.
Most days have three alternate prompts, so you can roll randomly (a d8 halved... for the eighth year, geddit?) if you're feeling reckless.
You can visit David's blog - or the RPGaDay Facebook page - for more information, and a better view at the matrix of prompts.
I love the idea of this annual web-wide encouragement to write positively, and inclusively, about roleplaying games, especially at the moment as (once again) there seems to be drama and bad actors throwing their toys out the pram in various dark corners of the gaming community.
I'd really like to participate in RPGaDay, but my brain just doesn't react well to this kind of 'prompting'. I prefer more direct questions ("What is your name?", "What is your quest?", "What is your favourite colour?", that sort of thing) as were on the table the last time I joined in, back in 2017's RPGaDay.
So, who's going to be braver than me and take part this year?
Epic Trailer Announces Launch Date For Apple TV's Foundation...
I have a suspicion that come September we will see an increase in Traveller RPG games being discussed across da Interwebz.
The Galactic Empire has brought peace to thousands of worlds, but the beliefs of one man now threaten their very existence.
Foundation premieres September 24, only on Apple TV+Of course, it would start just weeks after our year-long free trial of Apple TV expires!
Monday, 28 June 2021
Musical Monday: Disney+ 'This Is Me' Pride Celebration Spectacular...
The first-ever DisneyPlus 'This Is Me' Pride Celebration Spectacular, hosted by Nina West and directed by Ann Marie Pace, with incredible musical performances by Alex Newell, DCappella, Frankie Rodriguez and Joe Serafini, Hayley Kiyoko, Jackie Cox, Jesse James Keitel, Kermit the Frog, Michael James Scott, Todrick Hall, and Nina West.
Produced in partnership with Disney Music Group and the Disney PRIDE Employee Resource Group, the assembled team of host, performers, director, and producers is predominantly comprised of members of the LGBTQ+ community, with the support of allies.
The Disney+ 'This Is Me' Pride Celebration Spectacular is raising awareness for GLSEN, a nonprofit that The Walt Disney Company is proud to support, which works to ensure that LGBTQ+ students are able to learn and grow in a school environment free from bullying and harassment. The Walt Disney Company proudly contributes towards organizations that support LGBTQ+ communities and people.
Sunday, 27 June 2021
Can't Get Enough Willy? New Comic Takes You To The Pre-Cage Wonderland...
Recent Cage rager Willy's Wonderland is getting a prequel comic book, courtesy of American Mythology Productions and written by the horror movie's creator G.O. Parsons.
The book, with art by Puis Calzada, is out this October - just in time for Halloween.
No story details yet, but hopefully the comic - absent Nic Cage's silent Janitor - will focus on the cult of the serial killers, that we saw briefly in flashbacks in the film, operating out of the Willy's Wonderland roadside attraction.
For my money, that was one of the more terrifying storylines that wasn't developed enough on screen.
Saturday, 26 June 2021
British Creature Feature Puts A Modern Spin On The Classic Greek Myth of Medusa...
After being bitten by a lethal snake, a young woman experiences changes in her senses and appearance, as she sheds her old self and slowly turns into a deadly weapon.Apparently this was filmed in Canterbury... just 'down the road' from me!
Medusa is due for release on July 19, here in the UK, and July 6 in North America, both theatrically and on home video.
Streaming Horror: Waxwork (1988)
My relationship with the Waxwork two-movie franchise is an odd one. I have seen the sequel to 1988's Waxwork, 1992's Waxwork II: Lost In Time, on multiple occasions since it became a favourite of mine while reviewing VHS tapes submitted to my old newspaper... but I've never actually seen the original.
That is until I subscribed to horror streaming channel Shudder (via Amazon's Prime Video service) the other day.
Gremlins' star Zack Galligan is lazy, but rich, college student Mark Loftmore, who attends a creepy midnight private viewing at a newly opened Wax Museum in his neighbourhood.
He is joined by his ex-girlfriend China Webster (Michelle Johnson), future girlfriend Sarah Brightman (Deborah Foreman) - who has a barely concealed obsession with the Marquis De Sade - and their goofy pal Tony (Twin Peaks' Dana Ashbrook).
What some of them soon discover is the museum owner, David Lincoln (the legendary David Warner) has been dabbling in black magic and the tableaux of the "most evil people in history" are, in fact, magical portals to pocket universes where each killer seeks its next victim.
Once each of the villains has claimed a victim, Lincoln's spell will allow them to be reborn in our world and run riot.
There is, however, to my mind, a serious issue with this set-up. The majority of the wax characters shown depict fictional characters (from vampires, zombies, and werewolves to The Phantom of The Opera and The Invisible Man), so I don't see how Lincoln could have obtained the crucial fragment of the character's "home" he needed to seed into the wax work as one of the ingredients in his ritual?
Surely even in the late 1980's there are plenty of dead real evil people - beyond Jack The Ripper and, of course, The Marquis de Sade (J. Kenneth Campbell) - that could have been recreated in wax?
Like its sequel, Waxwork joyfully dances the line between horror and comedy (the final confrontation, for instance, is totally out of leftfield, steering the plot towards Blazing Saddles or Benny Hill).
I can only imagine the movie has been tagged with an "18" Certificate in this country because of an extended sequence between the Marquis de Sade and a strung-up Sarah. Nothing is shown overtly, but there's definite BDSM going on, from Sarah's erotic reactions.
 |
| J. Kenneth Campbell as the Marquis de Sade and the lovely Deborah Foreman as Sarah |
Otherwise, the violence and horror is generally cartoonish and there are no potty mouths on display, so I can't really understand the high certification, especially compared to what's allowed in a "15" Certificate these days.
Sadly, the film's not as clever as Waxwork II: Lost in Time, but Waxwork has its moments, such as China being drawn into a meal with a group of noble vampires (including Tarzan The Ape Man and Ator: The Fighting Eagle's Miles O'Keeffe as Count Dracula), and the introduction of the wheelchair bound Sir Wilfred (Steed himself from the original Avengers, Patrick Macnee).
Lincoln's whole ritual - as explained to Mark and Sarah by Sir Wilfred - is very inspired in its context, even with the flaws that I have already highlighted, and it's definitely something I'd consider lifting for a future roleplaying game scenario at some point.
As with any good film in my book, the backstory of Waxwork and characters likes Sir Wilfred suggest that it is part of a larger world, and no matter how bonkers and occasionally cheap things get on screen that's verisimilitude for me.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
