Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead (1994) - Horror Film Review

I watched Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead the same day I watched Phantasm and Phantasm II, as such I was getting quite tired, but persevere I did. This time around writer and director Don Coscarelli had no studio interference to contend with and so the stipulations of II were dropped. As such A. Michael Baldwin returns as Mike, his love interest is killed off, and the dream sequences missing are now back in abundance. While this is a decent film it again is not as good as the previous ones in the series.

Picking up where the second film ended Reggie (Reggie Bannister) succeeds in rescuing Mike from the clutches of The Tall Man (Angus Scrimm), however it is only a temporary reprieve of two years. In that time Mike had been in a coma, but as soon as he wakes he is again kidnapped. With the assistance of a friendly sphere (lethal flying orb of death) that contains the soul of Jody (Bill Thornbury reprising his role from Phantasm) Reggie heads out on a mission to once again locate the terrifying Tall Man. Along the way he joins up with a young boy named Tim (Kevin Connors) and a martial artist named Rocky (Gloria Lynne Henry) who both have their own reasons for wanting to stop the alien being.

Much like the films before it this follows a similar format, this has more in common with the second film in that again it is set out like a road trip with Reggie heading to deserted town after deserted town. Aside from the prologue though there are not any zombie dwarfs to see, instead they are replaced with a trio of thuggish zombies. This threesome pop up time and time again and make up the majority of the action scenes, the make-up effects for them were neat looking but they seemed to go against the lore of the franchise a bit, and the way they keep surviving impossible situations felt a little silly (silly but fun). It was great to see the original cast all reunited though the way the plot goes means that it is only Reggie who has the majority of the screen time, Thornbury and Baldwin both are only really secondary characters with Rocky and Tim taking front and centre. Neither of those characters really appealed, Rocky had an abrasive tough girl act, while Tim came across as a sociopath due to the cold way he is first shown murdering humans (though slicing someone's neck open with a frisbee covered in razor blades was an awesome looking effect!).

Doom II (1994) - Horror Video Game Review (XBox 360)

Doom II is out on literally everything, recently it was released on Xbox 360 Live Arcade for 800 Microsoft Points. I of course brought it, so now own the game at least three times (also have it on PC, and I think I have it twice on the original Xbox). This latest version has a new chapter, called No Rest For the Living that comprises nine levels.

Everyone knows Doom has a super cool story...heh. The stories in Doom occur after each chapter. It is a screen of humorous text describing the goings on. Anyway Doom II takes place directly after the first game. Having stopped the invasion of Hell to the bases of Mars, our hero returns to Earth. There he discovers that Earth is also being invaded by the legions of Hell. The marine must get to a Hell portal, then travel once again to the heart of Hell to destroy the evil.

The game of course is a first person shooter. Quite basic in that you are unable to look up or down, or strafe. Also your weapons do not require reloading. The enemies are all flat pixelated ones, but the game has a lovely charm to it.

Up to the end of the first chapter the enemies are all exactly the same as from Doom. But a wonderful curve ball is thrown when for the rest of the game a whole host of new enemies are introduced. These include the 'Pain Elemental' that spits out 'Lost Souls' (flying flaming skulls), a skeleton with shoulder mounted rocket launchers, giant cyborg spiders, as well as a load of other horrors. All the original games enemies are also present, which of course include the zombie soldiers, cacodemons, and iconic imps.

The game has thirty levels which gradually get more hellish looking. Starting off at the space port, later levels move onto residential areas, then into Hell where there is lots of lava, walls dripping green slime, and teleporters. The later of these levels are utterly crazy with amazing numbers of enemies pitched at you! One in particular sees you descend on a lift into a literal sea of imps! One minor complaint with all these enemies is that it can be hard to see the un killed ones through the masses of dead, that's a cool annoyance, but still bothered me on occasion.

The music is amazing of course. Comprised of cool midi action horror tunes. Doom tunes always remind me of Metallica minus the singing. The game has not been updated to be HD or anything, but it doesn't need to be, it is still a wonderful game despite its age. I hope that Quake one day appears on Xbox Live Arcade (not Quake II though as that's an extra on the underrated Quake IV).

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Castlevania: The New Generation/Bloodlines (1994) - Zombie Appearances in Videogames (Megadrive/Genesis)

Some games don’t actually feature zombies! Can you believe that? But some games do have zombies, even if they only have a token appearance. The game in question for zombie cameos this time is Castlevania: The Next Generation (or Bloodlines if you’re American) on the Megadrive/Genesis. The game sees you pursuing Countess Bartley across Europe as she gathers up the pieces of Count Dracula in order to resurrect him once again.

The enemies in this game mostly consist of skeletons, and various other types of creature such as bats, beast men, and knights. Zombies show up on level one as the first enemy you face. Level one is the ruins of Castle Dracula (or I guess the ruins of Castlevania unless Dracula lived somewhere else before Castlevania). Anyway as either John Morris or Eric Lecarde you enter the castle grounds. After a brief courtyard walk you enter the entrance hall of the castle itself. Zombies constantly run up to you from both directions, they don’t actually have an attack, I assume they try and bite you or something. Some of the zombies have flies buzzing around their heads which is a cool touch. Being the first enemies of the game they are very weak. They fall apart with just one strike of the whip or polearm.

And that is it for the zombies appearance in the game as far as I recall! The rest of the level has mostly skeletons, some fish men, some bats, and a sub boss of a demon hound, and the main boss of a possessed suit of armour.

Level four (The German Steelworks) has a Frankenstein sub-boss, but I don’t count him as a zombie (anyway he’s like 15 feet tall) and there are a few mummies on Level three (The Leaning Tower of Pisa), but they don’t count either.

Castlevania: The New Generation is good, a bit zombie light, but then zombies are not the point of the game, I see them as an added bonus.