The Rotting Zombie's Round-up of Horror News for September 2022

I'm typing this on a Sunday afternoon (18/09/22) as I wait for the new season of Fortnite to go live. I really do love that game for my sins, so am excited to see what's new! In the meantime I will be writing this monthly news round-up. A brief break of three and a half hours to play the new season (most cool) and I am back to actually start typing something of worth.

I couldn't not mention this one. Tom and His Zombie Wife is coming to Blu-ray on October 4th from Bayview Entertainment. This was directed by Kevin Short and stars Georgina Baillie, Declan Chew and Coche. The synopsis states that Tom has to risk his life on a daily basis in order to find food for his zombified wife.

The Merciless Light is the latest album from PIG which includes Raymond Watts, En Esch, Steve White and Jim Davies (Pitchshifter/The Prodigy). Album opener No Yes More Less has already been released as a single, joining that is The Dark Room, a video that was directed by Ibex. The album released on 23rd September from Metropolis Records.

The Winter Hunger arrives on DVD on October 4th from Bayview Entertainment. In this Álvaro García Gutiérrez directed horror a group of five people are in hiding, trying not to get infected by a new mutation of the rabies virus, named B249. With no help coming from the outside world, and with no electricity, things become worse with the onset of winter.

Cactus Jack isn't about Mick Foley's wrestling persona sadly, but it is instead about a man who decides to make a documentary about someone who hasn't left his mother's basement in six months. He finds a maniac however and it isn't long before he has been imprisoned, with his own cameras now used to film him as part of a toxic podcast the man is making. Again, this releases on October 4th from Bayview Entertainment.

Two Witches is a horror that exclusively releases on the Arrow streaming subscription this October. This is the debut feature from writer/director Pierre Tsigaridis and has been described as a classic in the making, and also called a '...delirious mix of Rosemary's Baby, Hereditary and Drag Me To Hell'. The film tells two different witch based stories that crossover with each other. The first has a pregnant woman who believes she was cursed by an old woman while out at dinner with her partner. The second has a student who gets caught up in a violent incident when her roommate brings home a man. Two Witches debuts on 17th October.

Down and Out in Vampire Hills is a short comedy horror film directed and edited by Craig Railsback (Dark Classics), written by Dr. Heather Joseph-Witham (Vampires in the Big Easy) and starring Dawna Lee Heising and Ken May. The synopsis sounds like this is exploring what modern day vampires must do to survive. This is due to premiere in Los Angeles in the near future.

I've mentioned upcoming horror film Smile a few times before now. I really hope it turns out to be a good film, now it's at the cinema I need to go check it out. In my head it's either going to be great or feel very similar to other cinema released horrors of the past few years. Anyway, this horror about people afflicted by creepy smiles has a behind the scenes featurette that has been released, and which I shall stick below.

My news sack is still plenty deep but I will end things here with one final post. The Case of Anna Mancini is yet another Bayview Entertainment release due for October 4th. This is set out like a documentary and tells the story of a journalist and a videographer who are investigating the strange disappearance of a young girl.

With that I will sign off. Lately I haven't been doing many smaller news posts due to the amount of things I have been getting through. For the spooky month of October I will try and rectify this.

Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge: Special Edition (2010) - Comedy Horror Video Game Review

With Return to Monkey Island having been released this month, and with it following on from the events of the second original game, I knew I just had to play through the first two. With The Secret of Monkey Island I chose to play using the dreadful new artwork, mainly so that I could hear the new music mixes and spoken dialogue. Loading up the sequel, Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge, there was actually the option from the start to enjoy the original game as it was, but with the dialogue also spoken. I fully expected that would be the way I chose to play, that is, until I saw how expressive and surprisingly good the updated graphics were this time around. Spoilers for the first game to follow.

The game begins with my new favourite phrase 'in medias re', basically the story begins halfway through. Haplass pirate Guybrush Threepwood is dangling over a huge pit, a treasure chest in one hand, his other holding the rope that is preventing him from falling to his doom. Threepwood's former love interest, Elaine Marley appears, and it is while asking how he came to be in this situation that the story skips back to the start of the game. Threepwood had arrived on Scabb Island as part of his search for a legendary treasure known as Big Whoop. He discovers while there, that the treasure was discovered on a mysterious island, and that the people who found it split their map of the place into four pieces so that no one else would ever discover it. Unfortunately, Threepwood also encounters Largo LeGrande, a pint-sized bully who used to be LeChuck's right hand man. This inadvertently results in him providing LeGrande with the final ingredients needed to resurrect LeChuck's body as a zombie.
With LeChuck back to life and wanting Guybrush dead, the young pirate realises that the power that Big Whoop is said to provide may be enough for him to escape LeChuck's clutches forever...

I enjoyed replaying The Secret of Monkey Island, yet it also made me realise that that first game, while good, didn't have as much of an impression as its sequel. Everything this time around is so much better. There are more wacky characters to interact with, the story is a lot more involved, the wonderful pixel graphics are more detailed, and this features some of the very best video game music that was ever created, something I still believe today. While you can play the game using the original point and click interface (of commands and items being kept in the bottom third of the screen), the updated controls thankfully don't follow the cumbersome controls of the first re-make. Instead, there is a much better feeling control scheme, more like what The Curse of Monkey Island did. My memory of how to do the first game was a bit fuzzy, I imagined it would be the same for LeChuck's Revenge, turns out it wasn't. Outside of one moment (where I briefly forgot to get the cook out the kitchen you had to rattle some bins), I remembered all the puzzles and solutions, and this is a game where it doesn't mind you doing things out of step. Even if it makes no sense for where you are in the story, you are able to collect items before you are aware (within the story) that you require them.

Surfer: Teen Confronts Fear (2018) - Drama Film Review

Surfer: Teen Confronts Fear is a passion project from Douglas Burke. He not only wrote, directed produced, made the music and acted in this, but his real life son plays the protagonist. What is a drama doing on this horror focussed blog? Well, this movie is so darn weird that it felt like a good fit, this almost felt like a companion piece to Tommy Wiseau's legendary The Room with how earnest and straight faced this is played, despite being off the wall crazy.

Sage (Sage Burke) is a teenage boy who used to enjoy surfing, that is until one dark day when he nearly drowned. Since then, the boy has been fearful of the sea, instead choosing to fish from it instead. One day, while fishing on the beach, he catches something, but is surprised to see it is a man (Douglas Burke) who has been pulled out of the ocean. This man soon reveals himself to be the spirit of his father, a person that Sage never knew. The spirit imparts his wisdom onto his son, providing him with the cryptic knowledge of how to conquer his fear, he also heads him in the direction of an old friend, Captain 'Banks' Bancroft (Gerald James), who Sage is told will be able to give him lots of money.

The film is an extreme slow burn, there are only a few scene changes, with most the movie being long spoken essays from Douglas. The first half takes place on a beach, with the monotoned Sage readily believing that this strange man who has washed up on the beach is not only his missing father, but that the man had only been given a body for a few hours as a favour from God! The washed up man displays some wildly emotive acting when he reacts to the pain of being able to 'feel'. Douglas later appears as a disabled man, again some really out there acting is displayed!
The second half of the film has Sage arriving at the offices at a naval base, where Banks tells him about the bonkers backstory for what happened to his father. This brings a paranormal element into the film, but again is filmed statically with just the two characters conversing with each other. The directing and quality throughout gave a feel of a straight to TV movie, but it fitted the vibe really well.

Far Cry 6: The Vanishing (2022) - Horror Video Game Mission Review

Lately I have been putting up a couple of reviews from particular modes found in video games, rather than reviewing the game itself. As much as I love the Far Cry series it isn't something that was a good fit for this blog. Previously I have reviewed the Living Zombies DLC from Far Cry 5, as well as the post-apocalyptic sequel to that game, Far Cry: New Dawn. I seem to recall that there was a planned Stranger Things crossover happening with the latest entry in the series, Far Cry 6, but having had a four month break from playing the game I had totally forgotten that had happened. Choosing a random mission on my return then I was both surprised and happy to discover it was the Stranger Things crossover mission.

The mission begins with you instructed to investigate the disappearance of some C4 from the rebel forces trying to overthrow the dictator of Far Cry 6. Your search leads you to a hut where you encounter a strange voice, this voice is somehow able to communicate with you telepathically and introduces themselves as a woman named Shest'. She leads you to a nearby bunker, a former Soviet installation from back during the Cold War, it is here you are surprised to find not only a bunch of dead Soviet soldiers, but also your dog Chorizo. Before you know it a demogorgon has attacked you and left you for dead. You come around to find the dog has vanished, and soon Shest' tells you about a portal that links to a demonic version of the real world, and that she stole the C4 with the purpose of destroying this portal. Not wanting to leave without Chorizo, you tell the woman that first you need to get your dog back, and so head through the portal to the 'Upside Down' in order to find it.

For a single mission there were a lot of references to Stranger Things which I loved. Of course there is the demogorgon itself, then there is the Soviet base, the portal and the machine that opens it. There is also a large area set in the Upside Down, complete with the flashing lights, ashes and the iconic giant spider monster in the distance. Weirdly however this mission plays like a first person Alan Wake. The Upside Down is full of zombie like people whose weakness is fire. Initially armed only with a silenced pistol, by the time you have sneaked past the Soviet soldiers and gotten to the demon world you have a shotgun that fires flame rounds, and eventually get a flamethrower. This leads to the meat of the finale of this mission which sees you fighting off waves of these zombies while waiting for Shest' to psychically open a sealed door back to the real world. While the demogorgon does make several appearances, this is an invulnerable enemy that needs to be avoided rather than battled.

I loved how this mission plays out, it is split into three chapters with that red text on a black background, it even gets its own intro credit sequence where the Stranger Things theme tune plays out. Once the mission is over there are a couple of fun epilogues to it. While it was strange that you were mostly fighting zombies, this was still a real cool crossover that had more effort put into it than you might expect. To be honest I would love a full sized game set in this world using the Far Cry engine, that would be something. The wave based survival may have been a bit unexciting, but as a free crossover mission there was a lot of fun to be had, quite cool.

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Conjuring: The Beyond (2022) - Horror Film Review

Sometimes it can be frustrating watching films for review. I really hoped against hope that Conjuring: The Beyond would turn out to be an entertaining movie, even if the title alone made me feel like this would be a middling horror hoping people would mistakenly associate with The Conjuring series. Sadly, this Calvin Morie McCarthy (Amityville Poltergeist) written and directed film was a snooze-fest from start to finish, perhaps fitting seeing as it is all about sleeping.

Having been staying at the home of her sister ever since her divorce, Wanda (Victoria Grace Borrello) is being heavily pressured to leave. With no source of income and nowhere else to stay, she decides to volunteer herself for a sleep study that Dr. Richard Pretorious (Steve Larkin - Mutant Vampires from the Planet Neptune) is carrying out, as in addition to being paid for the experiment, she will also be provided food and a place to sleep during it. She ends up at a former school, and meets three other volunteers, Porter (Jon Meggison - A Haunting in Ravenwood), Theo (Tim Coyle - A Haunting in Ravenwood) and Margo (Cross Hollow). Pretorious tells the group that his experiment involves giving them sleep paralysis, something which has plagued him for years. He hopes to try and learn more about the condition by studying how it affects the volunteers. While the experiment works, it also has more sinister side effects, as one by one, those afflicted with sleep paralysis begin to disappear overnight after witnessing a type of evil spirit.  

After a so-so prologue in which a creepy witch type creature (Chynna Rae Shurts - Cross Hollow) drags a man suffering sleep paralysis from his bed, we are then introduced to Wanda. It is then a further thirty minutes before the horror finally begins, with this first third being the set-up of how Wanda and the others came to be at the experiment. I thought the idea of a creature which is only able to interact with people suffering sleep paralysis was pretty good. I had hoped for fun A Nightmare on Elm Street style shenanigans from the creature, causing all sorts of interesting dream sequences for each person targeted. Instead the film remains really quite dull. The victims aren't killed, they are instead dragged off camera, each one plays out the same way. This made the horror feel quite stale, and with a low body count (if you can describe people vanishing as having died), a film that felt uneventful. By the time it got to the third act not a lot had happened at all, with the more interesting characters gone it was up to the remaining bland ones to figure things out. One positive is the way this finally ends, I appreciated how it culminated at least.

The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition (2009) - Comedy Horror Video Game Review (XBox 360)

With the amazing announcement that a new entry in the pirate themed comedy horror adventure series Monkey Island was being made (released on 17th September), I just had to replay the others in anticipation. This new game is only taking the first and second games as canon, ignoring the events of the third, fourth and episodic games (though apparently keeping some story beats and characters as canonical). The Secret of Monkey Island is a classic 'point and click' game that first came out in 1990. Back in 2009 it enjoyed a re-release and re-make, a game that let you swap at will between the beautiful pixel graphics of the original, and the ugly, uncompleted in feel look of the remake.

Guybrush Threepwood has arrived on the Caribbean island of Meleé with one goal in mind, to become a pirate. The pirate elders there give him three tasks to complete in order to become one. While exploring the island he comes to learn of a fearsome pirate named LcChuck, who was so infatuated with Meleé island's governor, Elaine Marley, that he returned from the dead as a ghost pirate to continue trying to win her heart. After Elaine is kidnapped by LeChuck and taken back to his base on the mysterious Monkey Island, Guybrush decides he must recruit a crew, find a boat, and go and attempt a rescue mission.

Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge is one of my favourite video games of all time. The Secret of Monkey Island is nowhere near as good a game, yet it is a pleasure to play through, despite being far simpler. I played these games back before the internet had become a mainstream thing, and so when I became stuck in the games I was really stuck. I would spend entire evenings playing these, trying to figure out on my own how to proceed. Because of this I have a deep affection for the series, the original game giving me large does of nostalgia. After about a fifteen year break I still mostly breezed through this. There were times when I was jumping ahead of myself, trying to solve puzzles that I wasn't yet actually able to do with where I was in the story. The game is split into chapters, each with a clearly defined goals. From completing the three tasks to become a pirate, to sailing to Monkey Island and hunting down LeChuck. 

The White Door (2020) - Adventure Video Game Review (iOS)

This past year I have been playing through all the various games that make up the Rusty Lake series. Within the lore, Rusty Lake is a possibly supernatural lake that has had many weird things occuring around it for the last couple of hundred years at least. The White Door is the fourteenth game in the series (following on from Cube Escape: Paradox) and is said to be the first true spin-off, something the title attests to, due to not following the format of the others. While the game is perfectly fine, it is also nearly completely bereft of horror elements. 

The White Door takes place within a psychiatric facility in the 1970's, and follows a patient, Robert Hill, who has ended up there after losing his memory. Taking place over seven days, each day you get Robert to go through his daily schedule, while at night he slowly dreams back his missing memories.

To begin with, I did like the style the game is presented with. Much like its title, the game during its daytime sections is all black and white. It occurs (mainly) in the one room which contains everything Robert needs. A schedule on the wall tells you in which order you need to do stuff. This isn't an escape room though, you may be locked in one but that is as part of your treatment. Things like eating breakfast and personal hygiene are achieved by going to the appropriate location in the room and clicking on things. The only vague challenge comes from the computer in which simple puzzles must be completed each day, and the recreation box that must be used each day. There is a solitary day that becomes more of an escape room, but other than that you are following a set format. One annoying aspect was that puzzles take place on the right side of the screen, with the room presented on the left. Should you accidentally touch the left side while trying to solve puzzles, it will cause Robert to walk away from the puzzle, automatically cancelling and resetting it on the right, very irritating!

How Dark They Prey (2022) - Horror Anthology Film Review

It has been a fair while since I last reviewed an anthology horror film on my blog. Something that I parrot each and every time is that I sure do enjoy anthologies as there is often at least one of them which will stick out. How Dark They Prey is an indie horror anthology made up of four different shorts. The first directed by Adam Ambrosio (in his directorial debut) and the other three directed by Jamison M. LoCascio (Know Fear, The Depths).

Rather than any type of wrap-around story this anthology instead begins with a couple of short scenes, the first a Halloween-esque first person perspective piece about someone entering a garage and grabbing a knife, the second a static shot of an altar as a voice in the background discovers the bad side of summoning a demon. The first segment proper is Ambrosio's Encounter Nightly in which the host of an online UFO show (Jeff Ronan) heads to his latest story alongside his trusty cameraman (Paul Pallotta). This was mostly played for laughs, but worked thanks to the likeability that Ronan brought to his character of Trent "UFO". This was presented as found footage, being made up of filmed clips from the fictional 'Encounter Nightly' show. The segment establishes a running concept throughout the anthology, obviously due to budget constraints the shorts are all dialogue heavy, leaning on talking over actually showing much.

Next up was Harrowing which was shot more traditionally. I had expected by this point the whole anthology was going to be found footage and so it was a nice surprise to find it wasn't. Set during World War II, two American soldiers (played by Samuel Pygatt and James M. Reilly) and a German prisoner, find themselves pinned down in a forest from enemy gunfire. The longer they are there however, the more they begin to suspect something really odd is going on, especially when one of the soldiers realises the random gunfire isn't actually as random as it first appears. Sometimes less is more, and with Harrowing you have a story told almost entirely through dialogue. There was a real Twilight Zone feel to this one, and I actually thought the way this concluded (with no answers revealed only suggestions) was a great way to end things.

Delta (2022) by Tom Starita - Horror Book Review

Delta is the latest novel from author Tom Starita (Growth & Change Are Highly Overrated, Two Ways to Sunday) and covers horror in a more subtle way by having a supernatural aspect be mostly understated, possibly simmering away in the background. The novel is split into four distinct parts, each part having the focus on a different character. This was a nice surprise to find, as my initial thoughts during part one were a yearning for more characters, and that is what was provided.

Jason is a twenty six year old man who hides within the basement of his house a terrible secret. The man has had a hard life, his beloved wife Beth died some years back, and then a few months ago a incident at a river claimed the lives of not only his father, but also of his young daughter, Delta. The thing is, despite allegedly drowning, his daughter now resides locked in the basement, though is somehow changed. For fear of what might happen if her miraculous, unexplainable reappearance was discovered, and for fear of some unseen menace searching for the girl, he keeps her locked up against her protestations. With the disappearance of a girl of a similar description in the local area, and with Jason's mental state not being the sturdiest, are things exactly as they appear for him?

I have to say that despite the good writing it did take me awhile to get into Delta. If the whole novel had been based around Jason then I don't think I would have enjoyed it as much as I did. I still have not read enough horrors to know for sure (for some reason it was only this past decade I really began to read the genre), but it did feel somewhat fresh to have an African American man as the protagonist. My complaints really were with following this man around who to all intents and purposes appears to have kidnapped a child. His mantra of "I'm a good man" whenever he visits Delta did nothing to endear me to him. That made the transition at the beginning of part two into the past all the more welcoming. Looking back, I was surprised to see part one covered the first eighty four pages, it really didn't feel like it was that long, but regardless, I became increasingly hooked from part two. This was a snowballing effect as by the time the end was in sight, Delta was all I could think about, I was desperate to get back to my lunch break each time so that I could continue the story (as always I only tend to read during my day job lunch breaks).

Assassin's Creed Valhalla: Forgotten Saga (2022) - Video Game Horror Mode Review (Playstation 5)

I have never spoken about the Assassin's Creed series of video games on this blog before as they are not horror games. I am however a huge fan, having been hooked on the games since the very first one back in 2007. Assassin's Creed Valhalla is the twelfth major installment in the series and up until recently there was no reason to mention it on a horror blog. That is, until the recent release of a free update that was not only horror based, but also a shift into a different genre of video game entirely. Unavoidable spoilers about some aspects of Valhalla, including the ending to the last major expansion; Assassin's Creed Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarok.

While the core game is mostly set on the British isles in the 9th Century AD, at set points the game switches to the world of Norse myths and legends. In these sections you play as Odin, a God who is preoccupied with preventing the onset of Ragnarok. The last expansion had Odin searching the Dwarven realm for his kidnapped son, Baldr, but culminated in him finding he was too late, and that Baldr had already been killed. Being the world of Norse legends however, death is not the end. Determined to save his son, Odin travels to the realm of the dead, Niflheim, where he plans to rescue Baldr before his soul passes over to the other side. This all takes place in a free expansion known as Forgotten Saga.

The Forgotten Saga is a roguelike mode in which you play as Odin as he attempts to navigate Niflheim in order to reach Hel's palace at its centre. Each 'run' has you attempting to fight your way through four different areas. I have played roguelikes before, but this one is the first that felt more epic in scale. It reminded me most heavily of Hades, mostly due to the setting. That game had you as the son of Hades who was attempting to escape the Greek version of Hell. Here, you are instead trying to infiltrate the Norse version of Hell.

Amor Bandido (2021) - Thriller Film Review

Amor Bandido (also known as Bandit Love and Wicked Love) is an Argentinian thriller which was directed and co-written by Daniel Andres Werner in his feature length directorial debut. When it comes to well known examples of inappropriate love, Lolita comes to mind, here the roles are reversed with a woman preying on a teenage boy. While this started off as an uncomfortable romance film, it abruptly transitions within a few key scenes into much more of a thriller.

Joan (Renato Quattordio) is a sixteen year old high school student who has been having an affair with his thirty five year old teacher, Luciana (Romina Ricci). Due to the situation not being right, she quits her job, with the aim of putting distance between their wrong romance. After convincing Luciana to let him leave with her, the two head out to the remote rural mansion that her parents had left to her. For a time things seem idyllic, the couple are able to explore their feelings for each other in seclusion. The arrival of a wounded man (Rafael Ferro) one day shatters their peace, and it becomes clear that everything Joan believed to be true was all part of a sinister plan.

The film begins in medias re, that is to say, it starts at a later point in the movie before heading back to show how events came to be. With Amor Bandido it all begins with Joan fleeing the rural mansion, and so it is clear from the offset that something bad is going to happen. That all begins at around the halfway point of this eighty minute film, and before that we get half a film about an incorrect love. The first half does effectively demonstrate the relationship the two have. Joan is obviously an innocent with how the world works, his immaturity is shown time and time again, Luciana on the other hand is far more restrained and mature. It is clear that at best the two have a lustful rather than loving situation going on. It leads to a whole host of sex scenes that were very uncomfortable to sit through.
It was a relief to me (though not to the characters) when the tone shifts with the arrival of the wounded man. It isn't long before this becomes a thriller, and really helps to make Joan into a character to be pitied. Quattordio performs his role wonderfully, he is believable as a gullible teen, and acts his age perfectly.

Poughkeepside is for Lovers (2022) - Apocalypse Film Review

Poughkeepsie is for Lovers is something a little different to what I typically cover. It may be a romance and it may be a drama, but it also takes place in the lead up and to the outbreak of a worldwide nuclear war. Written, co-directed (along with Kelly Van Dilla) and starring Bill Connington, this felt like it was constantly trying to straddle the line between a traditional film and an arthouse movie.

Taking place in the near future, Gothic hipster Charles (Connington) and his artist wife Eve (Natia Dune) have headed out of New York City for a break in the countryside, doubling as a practice escape plan for if Nuclear war breaks out in America. This is something that the government have stated is a very real possibility due to ramping tensions between North America and Russia. The couple are in love, but their relationship has became strained recently. As the unthinkable happens, the couple must find a way to become closer rather than drift apart.

Despite the somewhat pretentious title I still had some hopes for the film. Global apocalypses are a real world horror, and that this film charts the onset of one, rather than taking place in a post-apocalyptic world was a unique take, at least compared to other films I have seen. This may all take place to a backdrop of imminent destruction but the focus is one the couple, with the two being the only actors in the whole film. The only other voice is the news reporter who updates over radio the increasingly desperate worldwide situation. This is also presented as government updates sent via the early warning system to the couple's phones. It seemed implied their relationship had hit a rough spot, I hope that was the case anyway as other than a similar look in the way they dress, the couple had barely any chemistry between them. It leads to a series of arthouse style sequences of them holding hands in various outdoor locations.

Cube Escape: Paradox (2018) - Horror Video Game Review (iOS)

Cube Escape: Paradox is the thirteenth game in the interconnected series of games that take place in the Rusty Lake universe. This game more than any other, really requires you to be invested in the ongoing story as it is fit to bursting with references to all of the other twelve games in the series. By this point the developers really know how to make a good escape room game, this is a quality experience that offers something a little new. Unavoidable spoilers for previous entries to follow, and the synopsis is based on what I assume is occurring (the story thus far been purposely obtuse).

Detective Dale Vandermeer to my knowledge was last seen descending into the supernatural centre of Rusty Lake. He awakens to find himself in a small room, the only exit being a locked door. With no recollection of how he came to be there, he searches for a way out, piecing together his history as he does so.

Paradox is split into two different chapters as well as including a short eighteen minute film. The aim of both chapters is to obviously escape the room, which is done by solving a series of puzzles hidden throughout the room. Chapter one is free to play and has the typical escape room shenanigans I've came to love. Things are spiced up in that there are not only puzzles to solve, but also little mini games which were fun to do. One has you charting your route across a map, using clues to figure out where you need to be. Another had you in a literal puzzle game. A series of rooms which could be swapped around to create a path through, Dale appeared as a character on screen you could move around by clicking. Once the room is eventually escaped you get a first person maze to traverse leading up to a finale that then loops back on itself for chapter two.

Ash & Dust (2022) - Thriller Film Review

I wasn't entirely sure that Ash & Dust was a horror or not. The synopsis sounded like this was a crime thriller, but the trailer brought horror vibes to me. Well, it turns out the Adrian Langley (Slasher Film) written and directed movie is the former of the two. While the snowy setting reminded me of Fargo, the near complete lack of dialogue turned this into something of an experiment. The synopsis is my interpretation of the events, the lack of talking means I wasn't able to completely fathom the actual plot.

A precious box has been stolen from a local crime boss in a remote Canadian town, and his enforcers, led by Zach (possibly Simon Phillips - The Nights Before Christmas) have set out to locate this McGuffin. Being violent criminals they do this the only way they know how, by torturing potential suspects in the hope they will reveal where it is. One such man they capture, Wade (Michael Swatton - Age of the Living Dead TV series) is taken out to the woods and shot, but unknown to his assailants he manages to survive. Returning home to find his wife dead, Wade sets out with bloody vengeance on his mind.

This is an incredibly slow film to watch, with scenes far more interested in slow pans and long shots than with any kind of dialogue. That the film somehow manages to tell a story despite there being barely any dialogue at all was impressive, but I wish there had been more dialogue than what was given. Time doesn't seem to flow normally during Ash & Dust, while a lot of it is in a logical order, there are elements that felt like they were either from the past or the future occuring. There also wasn't really a protagonist to be found here, there are several characters put forward but none really felt like they were the lead. Of course, there is Wade, yet his journey doesn't really begin until the second act. Then there is Joel (Blake Canning - Butchers), a low level criminal who is integral to the story and seems like he may get a redemptive arc. The most noble of the characters is Detective Bronwyn (Kayla Meyer), she appears in many scenes investigating the various murders after they have taken place, to my knowledge this character doesn't actually have a single line of dialogue. Her only piece of backstory is provided by a note she picks up when in her car.

Call of Duty: Vanguard (2021-22) - Zombies Mode Review (XBox Series S/X)

Back in December of last year, a month or so since Call of Duty: Vanguard released, I put up an opinion piece on the latest Zombies mode that was included with it. Zombies is a game mode that has been in nearly all of the annual Call of Duty games, and on the whole they have been excellent, featuring some amazing maps. I said at the time that this current iteration felt limited but that I had optimism that the developers could pull things around to make a great mode. Sadly, with the fourth and final map The Archon dropping a week or so back, it turns out that is very not much the case.

One thing the mode has going for it is the amount of incidental dialogue that is spoken during the games. On the flipside however there is no kind of opening cinematic to these levels. The story is relatively straightforward, an evil Nazi officer named Von List has teamed up with a demonic entity, and it is up to your team (who have teamed up with opposing demonic entities) to stop him.
The first map was Der Anfang, I won't go into too much detail as this was spoken about in detail in my initial opinion post. Typically Zombies maps have always been round based wave survival against increasing numbers of undead, for Vanguard this was changed. Instead of round based survival, you start in a hub area, and then use portals to travel to various other maps in order to complete simple objectives. Der Anfang (as I mentioned previously) is a Frankenstein's monster of other maps, both from the multiplayer and single player components of Vanguard. I admit it was fun, but it did feel undeveloped, I had assumed it would be added to as the year went on, but there were no new areas or portals added (outside of a single room).

I hoped that this was a one shot experiment and that the second map onwards would go back to the traditional round based gameplay that fans all love. Terra Maledicta dropped in February and unfortunately may have been in an entirely new location, yet depressingly was another weird experiment into using a hub area to travel to different maps to complete objectives. One good thing about the map was that it appeared to be entirely new, taking place in Egypt by some ruins out in a desert that had melded with the demon world. The stale gameplay loop meant this was something I really didn't play much.

Attack on Titan: Season 4 Part 2 (2022) - Anime TV Series Review

Attack on Titan is an anime I have been heavily invested in since 2013 when its first season aired. While nothing for me has compared to the wonderful horror filled second season, I was very happy to see part 1 of the fourth and final season featuring some of the best episodes to date. With a big cliffhanger occuring at the end of part 1, I was excited to see how the show would wrap up over the final twelve episodes. Only, it turns out there was a secret part 3, something that wasn't announced until the final episode of part 2 had aired. While it is cool there is yet more to come, me and my friend felt a bit deflated expecting a finish to the story and instead being told to wait until 2023.

Due to the stop and start way I watched part 2, I had some confusion with what was happening. I initially watched the first three episodes, before a huge span of time passed until I got around to seeing the following six episodes, and then it was another few months gap between I finally got my friend pinned down to watch the final four episodes. There are unavoidable spoilers to follow with my garbled synopsis. Part 2 begins with Judgment in which begins the invasion of Paradis by the Marleyan military. This leads to a trio of high action, very exciting episodes, with Sneak Attack and Two Brothers following. With Eren on perhaps an unwise course of action, it is up to his friends and colleagues to make some unlikely partnerships in order to find a way to stop all the senseless killing between the two sides.

I think part of the reason I didn't enjoy this quite so much was due to sheer confusion at what on Earth was going on. I get that is a me problem, so I will try not to let it affect my thoughts on this too much. What is certainly true is that characters I have loved begin to do some questionable things with little explanation. Eren in particular has become a conundrum, not helped in that the second half of this latest batch of twelve episodes he barely even features, making his motivations unknowable. While the infuriatingly annoying Gabi unfortunately features in this a lot, we also get a lot of the every amazing Mikasa doing what she does best; killing with style. She has some of the more stand out moments here, one that really stood in the mind was a fast paced battle against some soldiers that was so quick that she ends up decapitating one soldier, and then impaling her sword through both the headless corpse, and the hapless comrade behind him. Armin also shines as the typical brains of course.

Rusty Lake Paradise (2018) - Horror Video Game Review (iOS)

Rusty Lake Paradise is the twelfth game in the interconnected series of mainly escape room games, which all take place within the Rusty Lake universe. Following on from Rusty Lake Hotel and Rusty Lake Roots, this is the third stand alone game. Unlike most of the games (such as those contained within Cube Escape Collection), this almost felt like a point and click adventure, taking place over ten levels set in the same location.

Set in 1796, and upon hearing of your mother's death you return to the island commune of Paradise that resides out on Rusty Lake and which you left as a child. There you find things are not going well, the island has become cursed to suffer the ten plagues of Egypt. For each new plague that afflicts the islanders you set out to find a way to solve it, each time you are rewarded with a magical cube that you feed into an alter. For anyone who knows their plagues of Egypt however, it might become clear just where your crusade may take you...

First off, having each level being themed around those particular plagues meant that I had a good idea how long the game would be. With ten plagues that meant there would be ten levels. Each is set on the commune, starting off each time on the shore front, as the levels progress you gain access to new parts, such as a large tower. For around two thirds of the game I was slightly worried with the ease with which I was zooming through it, it seemed slightly too easy. With only so many different places you could go to, it was never too taxing discovering where the puzzles were and how to solve them. The difficulty certainly does increase however, and while I never got completely stuck, there were chunks of time when I did feel a bit lost.

Caged Birds Think Flying Is A Sickness (2022) by Andrei Rikichi - Music Album Review

I often say I'm never confident when reviewing music on my site, and that isn't going to change anytime soon. However, my news inbox is currently empty, and needing a fifth post for the week I thought I may as well listen to Andrei Rikichi's Caged Birds Think Flying Is A Sickness. The press release was amusing, giving a flowery background to Rikichi, before admitting that the person doesn't actually exist, and is instead a moniker of Dave, the man who runs the small Edinburgh based indie record company Bearsuit Records and who has put out music under a variety of different names. Anyway, this is a fourteen track album from Andrei Rikichi, is it a good fit for this site? Who knows, I haven't actually listened to much of it yet, I guess we will find out. 

I've gave it a few spins now and can confirm that it does feel like something that for the most part belongs here. The fourteen tracks here often sound quite experimental, with the music being more of a soundscape or mood setting. Many of the tracks are under two minutes, with the shortest being This, which clocks in at a whopping ten seconds! From the brief notes I made while listening to this I mentioned that a lot of the tracks felt very Silent Hill-esque, I could imagine them as a soundtrack to some unfolding terror occuring in a small forgotten town. Rather than the more heavily industrialised sounds of someone like Akira Yamaoka the tracks have a more technology based sound with looping vocal samples that sounded like an opera singer, while Player Name: The Syracuse Apostle had a rustic Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 Carter Burwell style feel to it, perhaps my favourite of the album.

I listened to the album first time around while doing admin on my blog, with a second listen as I painted some zombie miniatures, it was a fine background accompiment to those activities. From the style and how the tracks feed off each other it felt like this is best enjoyed in one large chunk rather than something to dip in and out of. I often state an albums success on the merits of whether it would be something I could listen to time and time again. Due to the experimental soundscape style this wouldn't fit all occasions, but as music which suggests darkness and an uncaring horror this was an entertaining journey. Caged Birds Think Flying Is A Sickness was released on CD on 31st August.

SCORE:

Quarantine 2: Terminal (2011) - Horror Film Review

Unsurprisingly, Quarantine 2: Terminal is a sequel to Quarantine, which itself was a remake of the Spanish horror film [REC]. There had been complaints at the time that the American remake was pointless as it didn't try and deviate from the original, though that can't be said as much of the sequel. With [REC] 2 the film took place in the same quarantined apartment block but set itself apart with a genre shift into demonic possession territory. With Quarantine 2: Terminal (directed by John Pogue - Deep Blue Sea 3)you have a completely original story, though despite a change in location this will feel very familiar, and dare I say it, pointless.

This takes place on the same night as the events of the original film. A small plane has taken off from Los Angeles airport for a night flight across America. One of the passengers, Henry (Josh Cooke - Dexter TV series)  has brought on board some hamsters in a cage, and it is while another passenger is trying to help him put the cage in the holdall that the fun begins. The passenger ends up getting bit by one of the rodents, a bad thing as it turns out they were infected with the same virus that caused the inhabitants of an apartment block to turn into violent monsters. Due to the unfolding chaos on the plane, an emergency landing is made, the cabin crew and passengers find they are unable to exit into the terminal, instead, with the help of a baggage handler they make it into the industrial baggage area. With the whole area placed under quarantine by the trigger happy authorities, the surviving passengers and crew must try and find an escape route, while at the same time fighting off the increasing numbers of infected amongst them.

Terminal felt a little bit pointless in that despite a change of location nothing new really happens. This felt like a rehash with characters slowly working out how the infection spreads, with no real new story beats added. With a new setting there isn't much to tie the two films stories together, though with this making its own path the virus remains the result of a Doomsday cult's experiments, with no evidence of demonic possession. There are a few references to the first film, with one character in particular having a direct link. The characters have wafer thin personalities to them that made it hard to care much about their fates. Prime protagonist is Jenny (Mercedes Mason - Fear the Walking Dead), a character defined by her inability to cope under pressure, with her arc seeing her getting on top of her anxiety. There is the teenage boy, George (Mattie Liptak - Maggie) who spends the film flip-flopping between being genuinely useful (uncovering the origins of this outbreak) and being an annoying kid (crying and getting in the way). Other key characters include Henry, medic Shilah (Noree Victoria - Teen Wolf  TV series) and the baggage handler Ed (Ignacio Serricchio - Witches of East End TV series). Despite being called 'Terminal' nearly the entire film takes place in the industrial baggage area, though I can see why that word was used due to its duel meaning.