Slashvivor! (2017) by Stephen Kozeniewski and Stevie Kopas - Horror Novel Review

My whole life I have had a huge fondness for the killer gameshow idea. From my young years watching The Running Man and playing Smash TV, to later on becoming obsessed with Battle Royale, and becoming quite possibly the sole fan of very indie horror Slashers ("Super Fun!"), and later loving the idea for graphic novel Slashermania. This has been an idea that really appealed, that mix of what should be innocent fun mixed with the hauntingly sadistic. When I saw that authors Stephen Kozeniewski (The Thing Under Your Bed) and Stevie Kopas had written their own entry into this horror subgenre; Slashvivor!, I was very intrigued. Having read author Sean E. Britten's excellent Kill Switch trilogy towards the end of the teens, I didn't really see how this one would feel too different. Earlier this year I read standalone prequel, Razortooth, which was written after this novel. Would having foreknowledge of the world and its characters impact my enjoyment or add to it? 

In an alternate Earth that saw Russia and the U.S.A engage in a nuclear war (and America very much coming out on bottom), the continent is now a nuclear wasteland that has came to be known as 'The Geiger Lands' There is no government anymore, instead various warlords have rose up to rule the various states. In this land there is a special gameshow broadcast illegally that the whole nation adores. 'Try Not to Die' sees contestants plucked out of the remains of society at random and taken to a custom built arena full of deadly traps, where they are hunted by vicious killers. These maniacs, referred to as 'slashers' are loved enough that they have become household names, and stars in their own right. For the latest episode of the show, one of the unlucky contestants is Dawn, a determined young woman who intends to not only find a way to survive the rigged game, but also to find a way to somehow reach the producers box and kill the show creator; warlord Marisol.

Having read the prequel, I eagerly awaited the arrival of Razortooth, but she turned out to be far more of a side character here, appearing at around the halfway point of the roughly 300 page book. I love killer gameshows but initially I can't say I was impressed with this one. The contestants were quickly dropping like flies, while the action pausing for ad-breaks (that get their own mini-chapters, much like with the prequel) led to a frustrating feeling of stopping and starting. I then had the realisation that I was little better than the rabid audience, wanting to see blood and violence at the expense of everything else. Once I began to appreciate this wasn't going to play out as a proper episode of the show, and followed the format more of rebelling against the very idea of it, that I became much more invested in the story. The actual gameshow makes up most of the novel, and it was neat that both the contestants and production staff get their own little subplots going on. Best of the staff parts were jaded gameshow host, Mark Winters. He was a very interesting character, turning to alcohol to be able to believably play his part of jokester host, when in reality he is horrified by it all. I enjoyed these frequent cutaways to him and his interactions with other staff, such as showrunners, and the producers themselves. My very favourite part of the novel was a found footage style section that saw two hapless camera-men forced to head into the cells where the killers are kept, after one of the contestants is abducted by one of the slashers.
From the very start, Slashvivors! is a wild ride, never dull, never lacking in extreme violent action. This was a brutal world where life is so cheap that many people dream of being able to get murdered by their favourite slasher.

Where most of the contestants are blank slates; just existing to be killed like Star Trek 'redshirts', the slashers were full of personality, and became the highlight. From a homicidal Abraham Lincoln kill-bot, to the cannibal - Charming Charles, mutant Denny the Killer Clown, and psychotic child, Abadonna - these killers were so varied and so much fun to read about. Of course, Razortooth eventually enters the story, and having read her origin story made the character better here. It was also cool to see other characters from the prequel also appearing in roles here.
There were moments of extreme violence, the use of a cheese-grater on a limbless victim's face for instance, and someone who was forced to eat their own genitals! The world was sadistically cruel, reflected very much with what happens throughout the story.
Slashvivor! went along at a blistering pace, Dawn was a decent protagonist, with a good story progression. I liked the use of flashbacks to reveal more about some of the characters, such as the origin story for warlord Marisol.

After a start that I was unsure of, I quickly got into the thrilling story, becoming hooked. This was one of those novels where I had a genuine bittersweet feeling reaching the end, I wanted to stay with these characters more. Slashvivor! was a fantastic novel, well worth reading.

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Do You See Me? (2017) - Horror Film Review

Do You See Me? I had assumed would be a slasher film, it shares similarities with that genre, particularly with Halloween. This follows the old adage of less is more, with the creepy clown stalking the protagonist rarely shown, but unfortunately is shown so very little that this Corbin Timbrook (The Belly of the Beast, Blood Ranch) directed and co-written indie horror felt like it wasted whatever potential it had.

Emily (Rya Meyers) is an ordinary woman who one day begins to receive disturbing messages from an unknown number that read 'Do You See Me' which is then typically followed up by the woman then spotting a creepy clown (Robert Ambrose) somewhere in the distance watching her. She contacts the police, but due to only herself ever seeing the clown, and her not keeping hold of any of the 'gifts' it leaves her, no one is really sure what to believe. As the days draw closer and closer to Halloween, the stalking increases, with Emily starting to fear for her life.

I get keeping the antagonist at arms length and rarely sighted as a way to build up tension, but this goes far too far with this concept. In total, in over eighty two minutes, the clown appears on screen for a literal total of about two minutes, and that includes the prologue where the clown kills his one and only on-screen victim. Many of the sightings appear in nightmare sequences the main character has. I figure that prologue was a compromise to actually make it seem like there was a genuine threat going on, but due to the rest of the movie this part felt almost unrelated. It also gets in the way of the mid-point notion that it is possible the creepy clown is all in her head. That might have been an interesting idea but the viewer knows that isn't the case.

It is hard to talk too much about the clown as it is on screen for so little time. When it isn't texting Emily (as an aside, she has the most sinister text message noise possible, I figured the clown had somehow made her phone make that noise, but no, it appears that is her own choice!), it stands around staring for seconds at a time. The Halloween comparisons are made here, with quite a few first person perspective shots of the clown watching Emily while hidden. I had expected this would lead up to a terrifying conclusion, but when the horror finally gets closer to home for the protagonist, I noticed that there was just four minutes of run time left before the end credits appeared, and what is shown in that time also included an epilogue scene!

I spent far too much of the movie expecting something more clever from this than it actually was. There are plenty of suspects as to who the clown could be, from Emily's jerk ex-husband Randy (Phillip Boyd), to oddball gym member Taylor (Taylor Piedmonte) and some weird neighbours. I even began to suspect it could be her ex-detective father's former partner, as the detective investigating the case mentions he used to work with her father, but this is never verified as that character is never shown on screen despite being around. Too much time is spent establishing that the protagonist is being stalked, but the threat not ramping up until far too late. I would have had the clown make an appearance properly much sooner into the movie than here, where his eventual inclusion almost felt like an afterthought.

Do You See Me? is good at ramping up the tension, but it squanders the potential and feels like it ran out of time to give a satisfying conclusion. There is far too much treading water, with the escalation coming far too late. For what you see of him, the clown had a suitably disturbing look to it, but did feel wasted, leading to a feeling of frustration that the story never really got going properly before it ended.

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Vampire Clay (2017) - Horror Film Review

Directed and written by Soichi Umezawa, Vampire Clay is the second blood sucking body horror watched for review this week, continuing a trend of unplanned for themed movies. This surreal horror had some great special effects, but sometimes felt like the budget couldn't adequately display the story it wanted to tell.

While doing some gardening, a small earthquake reveals a sealed bag of clay buried in the clay. Miss Aina (who had been doing the gardening) decides to take the bag and put it in her small rural art school. One of the students then ends up using the clay from within the bag, unaware that this clay is a living creature that feeds on blood and other bodily fluids in order to sustain itself. Soon, the school finds itself under attack from a clay based creature that is able to transform its victims into clay, and absorb them entirely into itself.

The stop motion effects used throughout Vampire Clay were impressive, as were the special effects used to show the carnage it was able to bring about. From moving small phallic looking objects, to a clay mouse, and clay tentacles, this bizarre antagonist had a feel and look of The Thing to it. One of its abilities is to create a clay replica of its victim that can then be used to trick others into becoming new victims. Being made of a soft clay means it is easily damaged, and is able to use this to its own advantage, such as using items embedded in its soft flesh as weapons. The make-up effects looked fantastic, giving characters 'infected', a look of being part clay and part human. Later on there is a short fully stop-motion sequence that looked more effective due to the stop-motion being jerky and unnatural looking. It also had a fun ability to transform body parts it is able to touch into clay itself, an early highlight being a girl who smashes her now clay arms against a table top, resulting in her arms being ripped off!

The story was simple but barrelled along at a fast pace, and never really lets up once it gets going fully. There was a fun way at the forty five minute mark to have a relatively lengthy five minute or so origin story for the clay monster, narrated by a key character. The small cast of characters didn't have too much to flesh them out, other than Aina, whose backstory of trying to make it big in Tokyo is represented by some scenes that play out dialogue free. Up until the last ten minutes I thought this wasn't doing much wrong. I found the ending both stretched out, and a bit confusing. I think I got what the film was going for, but it wasn't really shown on screen in the most cohesive way.
A lot of the soundtrack felt more jolly than the events being shown, giving a nice juxtaposition between the onscreen horror and the music alongside it.

Vampire Clay was an entertaining, often darkly comedic horror that delighted due to the special effects, in particular the clay effects, both stop motion and make-up wise. The story was simple, making for the feel of a body horror that had a unique vibe to it, and some very messed up moments that I was totally on board for. Vampire Clay is streaming exclusively on ARROW.

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Mon Mon Mon Monsters (2017) - Comedy Horror Film Review

Mon Mon Mon Monsters (original title Bao gao lao shi! Guai guai guai guai wu) is the second Taiwanese horror film I have ever reviewed on this site (after Zombie 108), I found it on the very start of my Shudder queue, I can't remember adding it but I must have stuck it there for a reason so decided to check it out. Written and directed by Giddens Ko, this school based horror may have elements of comedy to it, but it also is very much a horror film in its own right.

Lin Shu-wei (Yu-Kai Teng) is an awkward loner whose school experience is one of constant bullying, due to him having been designated the runt of the school population. Even his form teacher, Ms. Lei (Carolyn Chen) has no time for the student, and so after trying to exonerate himself from being blamed for stealing money after discovering the school's biggest bully (Kent Tsai as the psychotic Duan Ren-hao) and his gang were the ones responsible, Shu-wei is punished along with the bullies. They are made to do community service at a nearby apartment block for old people. With the aim of stealing the belongings of a senile old man (Ti-men Kan) they encounter there, the gang and Shu-wei return late at night, but end up encountering a young monster (Lin Pei-Hsin) who they decide to capture.
Due to their shared secret, the bullied boy is gradually accepted into Ren-hao's gang, and together they torture the little monster, as well as get revenge on those in school who have offended Ren-hao (after discovering monster blood causes terrible side effects if ingested). Unknown to the bullies, Shu-wei has ulterior motives and plans to free the monster, but initially unknown to all of them, the monster had an older sister (Eugenie Liu) who is now on a path of bloody rampage on a mission to rescue her sister.

Mon Mon Mon Monsters was a film that really improved the longer it went on. There was a feel of Deadgirl to the early parts of this, though thankfully this went down more of a torture route than the sexual assault route that horror chose to follow. The make-up effects for both monsters were really cool looking. They have sharp teeth, and seem able to regenerate whenever they are harmed. This is used to sick effect with the bullies beating it and yanking teeth out of their captured creature, as well as drill a metal face plate over the creature's mouth to stop it screaming. The creature's biggest weakness is natural sunlight, with it having a vampire effect of burning and eventually causing the creature to burst into flames. That was the main way they controlled it. 
While all that is going on there are also scenes of the bigger monster murdering lots and lots of people. This led to some crazy scenes were literal rooms full of people are brutally killed by the rampaging monster. A much higher body count than I ever expected.
With this story there is the obvious parallel between the literal monsters and the bullies, with the question being asked - who are the real monsters? The real ones were shown in the prologue to murder innocents and drink their blood to survive, but the bullies are just as bad, torturing the creature they captured over a series of days, and Ren-hao in particular having an out of control anger issue, at one point beating a fellow student unconscious with a wooden bar, in full sight of his form tutor who is too intimidated by the psycho to do much to try and stop him.

Shu-wei didn't make for the most likeable protagonist, he is made to seem like a pathetic person and there are many parts where it feels like his ruse might actually be legitimate. He appears to have found some solace in finally finding a group of people who in their own way have came to accept him into their fold. Parts where he has joined in the torture it really seems he is getting a similar sense of pleasure that the others are getting. There were funny moments here, but they happened naturally, this felt like a horror first and foremost that just happened to have some humorous scenes dotted in.
It leads to a bit of a strange looking ending, with much of the final ten minutes having a red tint applied to it, not entirely sure why. It leads to a wonderful finish that really brings the question of who is the bigger monster full circle. Throughout there were a bunch of montage sequences of either the bullies messing around, or the older monster killing people. These scenes were always very fun, I particularly loved the scene where the monster rampages through a school bus full of terrified students.

I enjoyed this Taiwanese horror, it was very well made and appeared to have some great performances. While I didn't really like the lead, he still made for an interesting character, with later plot developments being something I found pleasing to see occur. Mon Mon Mon Monsters can currently be streamed on Shudder.

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Poor Agnes (2017) - Horror Film Review

Directed by Navin Ramaswaran and written by James Gordon Ross, Poor Agnes is a film about a serial killer with a slight different feel to the norm. I watched this for review while off work sick from my day job with a bad cold (which turned out to be my second Covid infection in the end), so I'm sure that had a slight part to play in my muted interest in this horror, though that was more due to having zero likeable characters at all to be found.

Michael Mercer (Robert Notman - In Its Wake) is a private detective investigating the disappearance of a man from ten years back. It is assumed the man is dead, but his family are insistent on finding out the truth of what happened to him. Following a lead, Michael tracks down Agnes Poelzl (Lora Burke - Motherly), a former friend of the missing man. He feels an attraction for the woman and ends up seducing her, or so he thinks. She soon reveals herself to be a cold blooded serial killer who swiftly drugs Michael, with him waking up to discover he is a prisoner of hers. While she would normally kill her victim, she finds herself being drawn to the man, who in turn, over a period of many months gets brainwashed into being her mostly obedient slave, clearly suffering Stockholm syndrome.

I disliked both the protagonist characters, and with the film focussing on them so much this became a problem. First is Agnes, a narcissistic, man hating edge lord (edge lady?) who believes that she is the most interesting person in the whole world. I found this character to be insufferable, where things could have taken a Dexter route with her being someone with good qualities, she doesn't have any. She is obsessed with her own self importance and has an irritating self righteous outlook the entire movie. One reason I didn't get on with Poor Agnes is that I couldn't shake the feeling that things would end up fine with this terrible character, the vibe of the film was between the twisted relationship between her and Michael, but this doesn't achieve that magic that films like Natural Born Killers achieved.
My reasons for disliking the character of Michael is not a fair one. Basically, Notman strongly resembles Andy Samberg, and I couldn't take him seriously as a result. All I saw when looking at him was Jack Peralta from police sitcom Brooklyn Nine-Nine, so I couldn't help but expect comedy constantly. As to the actual character, he doesn't have much to him outside of being brainwashed, there are moments when he develops a slight backbone, but he is a pathetic snivelling character who seemed too far gone to be redeemed.

While much of the film is conversations between captor and victim, there are some moments of action, with some decent looking special effects, especially one involving an axe. The majority of the film takes place within Agnes' home, but there are little subplots that show what the sociopath gets up to when she is outside the house, particularly with her relationship with I.T geek Christopher Thomas (Will Conlon - American Gods TV series). There are definite darkly humorous moments, but again, going back to disliking the cast, I wasn't really into those parts either.

Poor Agnes is another horror of recent years that really could have done with having a likeable character. Instead, these flawed, annoying and ultimately dull people are played well by the chosen actors, but the feeling of the film left me feeling cold and disinterested, just waiting for it to finish. 

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The Mummy Demastered (2017) - Horror Video Game Review (Nintendo Switch)

2017's The Mummy was the attempt to kickstart a new movie multiverse, one that was to feature all the classic Universal movie monsters. It's fair to say it wasn't a success, with me stating in my 5/10 review "...all too often it came across as generic and a little bit dull". One good thing that the film spawned however was a video game, The Mummy Demastered. This was so called as rather than go for a high budget modern look, this instead styles itself on sprite based 2D metroidvanias of the nineties. 

The game has a similar plot to the movie, but here, rather than playing as Tom Cruise's character, you are instead in the boots of a nameless soldier. This takes place mainly underground around London, where the resurrected ancient Egyptian, Ahmanet is planning to cause untold misery by summoning Set, the Egyptian God of Death. That really is it for the simple story, with your progression linked to wherever Ahmanet has travelled to next. Each encounter with the mummified woman sees her summoning a typically room filling boss, before she teleports away.

This felt like an old school Metroidvania, something that would have been fine normally. Having just came off of the grand Blasphemous II, this felt a little archaic and generic to delight too much. One neat idea is that should your character die, you will respawn as a completely new soldier, with your first task to hunt down the zombified remains of the previous soldier, in order to takes his weapons and upgrades. This gave things a slight Soulsborne type feel.

This is more old school in that you don't earn any kind of XP as you play, enemies respawn should you leave the room they are in. There are various power-ups to help you access new areas, most useful is a rope that allows you to travel between areas, you also get the ability to run, jump super high, climb across ceilings, and my favourite, a dash move that lets you zoom off in any direction. There are health and ammo power-ups that give you more of each, but the game favours increased ammo over any other form of assistance. As expected this is one huge level, perhaps around a quarter smaller than Blasphemous II's map, and with areas that blur into one at many parts. There are caves, sewers, forests, and a sand covered city, with one late area, a giant Gothic clock tower that would not felt out of place in a Castlevania. There are fast travel points and save rooms, but even with those the game is cumbersome to get around thanks to the enemies.

Some of the smaller enemy types are fine, but in general the default enemies are bullet sponges, with even a bone throwing skeleton requiring lots of ammo to kill. The monster selection isn't that inspired, with spiders, rats and insects being the ones you will encounter most. By default you have a machine gun, with many more powerful weapons to find. Aside from the machine gun these other guns all require limited ammo to use, and so I saved them for boss fights. The bosses themselves are a highlight in terms of design, a huge scarab, a fight against a giant crocodile beast who is constantly chasing you through a level, and an undead magician were all fun. The problem is how much of a bullet sponge they all are. Bosses went on for far longer than it felt they should have done, with it being a battle of attrition to eventually kill them. Partly this was due to my path through the game. Up until three quarters of the way through I only had access to three different guns. After some exploration of old areas to find secrets I suddenly had lots more far more powerful weapons. Favourite of these was the plasma rifle and the quad rocket launcher, these made the final boss a cakewalk.

I think if I had played this first, The Mummy Demastered would have appealed a lot more. Coming off a more modern version of a Metroidvania I couldn't help but feel this felt a little too old fashioned, while the barebones unexciting story left a lot to be desired. This does capture the feel of a Metroid game in places, with this feeling more like that due to the gun combat, than a Castlevania, even if enemy design-wise, this has more in common with that. At just over four hours (with me having achieved 96% map clearance, this was perfectly adequate, if also uninspired.

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Ravenous (2017) - Zombie Horror Film Review

Ravenous (original title Les affamés), is a Canadian, French language zombie horror film directed and written by Robin Aubert (Saint Martyrs of the Damned). In the past I had a girlfriend who insisted on having a film playing in the background when she slept at night, I came to recognise certain films that I was able to sleep to, due to how quiet they were, and this one would fit the bill, as throughout the characters are virtually silent. It makes for a slow burn horror, but one where there is actually a lot going on.

The movie takes place in rural Canada, where some weeks or months previously there had been a devastating viral outbreak. Those infected became violently deranged, with a thirst for non-infected human flesh. Bonin (Marc-André Grondlin) is one of the few survivors, and after meeting up with a woman, Tania (Monia Chokri) and a young girl, Zoé (Charlotte St-Martin), they eventually join with a few other survivors at a farmhouse. Knowing that a herd of infected are coming their way, they decide to head even deeper into the wooded countryside, with the intention of making it to an old bunker that is situated there.

With the whispered way the protagonists speak, this had a vibe of A Quiet Place to it, often the characters say more with looks and gestures, than by actual dialogue. I liked that these characters worked together well, and don't hesitate when hard decisions have to be made, though it did also mean a lot of them were blank slates. The world is a bleak and hopeless place, with death around every corner. The core cast lose a lot of their members over the one hour forty five minute run time, and there is a sense of resolute acceptance for their chances of survival. Grondlin was the highlight of the movie, and for a character who barely speaks he became someone I really came to be rooting for. I also loved that a character dubs him 'the cornball comic' due to his way of telling terrible jokes as a way to break tension, even if he only does this on a handful of occasions, while looking as miserable as sin while he does this. The body count among the small cast is quite deep, with not even the younger characters spared from gruesome zombie attack.

The characters felt believable, but there were a couple of moments that felt silly. One of these is the recurring figure of a 'village idiot' type man, someone who keeps popping up in the most random of locations, leaping out at the survivors and screaming in order to prank them, completely oblivious to the apocalypse that is going on in the area around him. That at least leads up to a fun payoff. I also thought a character who appears at the very end was slightly ridiculous, even if that does link up the short prologue (set at a pre-apocalypse racetrack) with the rest of the movie.

The zombies fall into the infected category, they run, and while headshots kill them straight away, they also respond to trauma on other areas of the body, rather than be undead creatures who don't feel pain. They are also very weird acting. For the most part Ravenous feels like it is set in the 28 Days Later universe, but the infected, when they are not pursuing non-infected get up to some strange things. Mainly they stand or lay around in The Girl with All the Gifts style, but they also build strange towers made out of chairs, children's toys, and any other junk they can get their hands on. Completely unexplained, but it makes for a surreal vibe which plays into some tense scenes. There are several thrilling sequences when the heroes find themselves pursued by the infected, including a great running battle through dense woodland, and a creepy part that takes place in a misty field. Was also cool that the infected seem to work together, their screams alerting others nearby to their location, and they even appear to set traps at point.

That the film (outside of the prologue) picks up quite a few weeks into the outbreak, with characters completely clued in to what is happening, makes for a mysterious film. With no explanation for how the event happened, and with bleak and depressed characters not really having any hope for their own survival, I found this morose and sad film engaging, especially when the somewhat stale notion of other survivors being the real enemy not factoring into the story. With some lovely special effects (a highlight being a shotgun blast to an infected man's head), and a great cast, Ravenous was a good entry in the crowded zombie genre, even if the overall plot left something to be desired. Ravenous can currently be found on Netflix.

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The Elder Scrolls Online (2014-23) - Fantasy Video Game Review

I first intended to review The Elder Scrolls Online many years ago. This was the first MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role playing game) that I played and so far remains my favourite. My problem with reviewing this is that it isn't really possible to complete. There has to be thousands of quests and new content is always being released. Annoyingly the game never tells you exactly how many hours you have sunk into it, I estimate mine must be somewhere between a hundred to two hundred hours.

It has been literal years since I completed the main storyline in the game and so I can't really say what the story would have been. Something concerning demons and cults most likely. The way I play the game is like a roving adventurer. I go to wherever my next quest is, rather than head to an area and experience everything it has to offer. It's an irritating limitation that you can only have twenty five active quests at a time, meaning there are so many new quest givers I have to ignore and walk on by, with the hope to remember where they were so I can revisit when more convenient. My travels take me all around the game world but the haphazard way I play the game means no quest really means that much to me. One moment I can be helping a lizardman out in the swamps, swearing to retrieve a cursed object for him, the next moment I teleport myself off to Skyrim to uncover a plot concerning killing the Skald-King. My journey keeps everything always feeling fresh.

I have tried the Final Fantasy MMORPG, but despite liking that world more, the quests are far more bland, and I absolutely detest that you are forced to go into dungeons with other real people. Elder Scrolls for the most part, allows you to experience much of the game on your lonesome. There have been plenty of updates over the years, my favourite was the ability to get an A.I companion to always be by your side. There was an update some years back that made all the weapons much stronger, making playing the game so much more fun. It can be frustrating that you start some quests, only to discover three or four steps down the line it was intended as a group quest. The group dungeons are far too hard for someone to do on their own, but I have zero desire to play with real people.

The amount of quests is ridiculous, some are better than others, all feature fully voiced characters. From stopping an army of the undead, to investigating cults, travelling to the demon world and saving villages, there is always something to be doing. Best of all, and something which stopped me playing Final Fantasy, Elder Scrolls has no monthly subscription requirements. Sure you have to pay for expansions, but there is no monthly cost. For many years I did pay the subscription, this gives you all minor expansions for free, as well as an unlimited inventory size and in-game currency each month. Worth doing if this is your main game, but I tend to play this in fits and bursts, whenever I have the space on my Playstation 5 hard drive to have it installed.

Graphically this isn't stunning nowadays, but at least on the newer consoles and PCs this loads really quick, and it certainly isn't an ugly game. This is one of the most popular games of its type, and if you like your straight faced fantasy then there is plenty here to appeal. It is a huge time sink however, and if you are the type of person who likes 'beating' games then this will frustrate. Overall though, I always come back to The Elder Scrolls Online, no matter how long I've been away, I love getting lost in the world.

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Among the Sleep (2014-2019) - Horror Video Game Review (Playstation 4)

Among the Sleep is a game I have owned for years, yet I have never gotten around to playing it. The reason for the delay was that I recall there was a lot of interest when it first got announced, but upon its release it got a more muted reception than many people expected. It stands on its own for having the character you play as be a two year old child, but in a horror setting, seeing the darkness of their world through their eyes.

The game takes place on your second birthday, as one of your presents you are given an old teddy bear which you take an immediate liking to. Later that night, after you have been read a bedtime story and put to bed, you awaken in your crib to discover your bear has vanished. Managing to get out of your crib, you explore the house and discover the teddy inside the washing machine, which you manage to open. The teddy explains to you that something doesn't feel right, and that you should seek out your mother. This begins a journey through various different horror tinged locations as you seek out four items that relate to memories you have with your mother, in order to be reunited with her.

The idea behind the game is a good one, I've played games before where I have been a young child, but never in a first person horror setting such as here. This is a adventure game that is combat free, instead there are slight puzzles that must be solved, and some vague stealth gameplay in that each new location you visit has its own adult sized monster walking around in it. Playing as a toddler I expected it would be impossible to die, that isn't the case though don't expect any sort of gratuitous scene of death, instead the screen just fades to black. Death can come from drowning, or by being caught by one of the black smokey antagonists stalking the levels. As a child you don't really have any powers. You can drag stools and open drawers to climb up on surfaces, you can run, but do that too much and you will fall over into a crawl (actually kind of irritating). Then, for moments when things get too dark (fear represented by the screen shaking), you can press a button to hug your teddy bear which will create light.
Obviously you are a silent protagonist, you don't even cry out when scared, the story telling falls to the teddy bear, he is the one who sets out your goal of exploring these different levels. Story is also revealed by environmental details (packing boxes for instance suggest you have only recently moved into the house the game takes place in), as well as blurred flashbacks that feature a bit of muffled dialogue, I assume as the child wouldn't be able to understand what was being said.

Anna and the Apocalypse (2017) - Comedy Zombie Horror Film Review

Anna and the Apocalypse is a film I have been aware of for quite some time, I even almost saw it at the very last UK Festival of Zombie Culture (R.I.P) as it was one of the multiple choices the audience could vote to see. As it happened it didn't win the vote, and the event organiser commented that we were not really missing out on much. With a screener I had planned to watch not working I was free to choose my own film to watch, and seeing this on Shudder I thought it was about time to give it a try. Directed by John McPhail, the hook with this comedy zombie horror is that it is a musical, and were it not for that unique hook this really wouldn't have stood out.

It is the festive season in the small British town of Little Haven and unknown to all, in the background a zombie outbreak is brewing. Anna (Ella Hunt - Cold Feet TV series) has recently broken the news to her dad (Mark Benton - Catterick TV series), the school janitor, that she plans to go travelling once she leaves school the next year, something that her best friend John (Malcolm Cumming) has supported her with. That night, during the performance of the school Christmas show, the zombie outbreak happens. At the behest of the tyrannical head teacher, Arthur Savage (Paul Raye), the performers and the audience are convinced to holdout at the school, awaiting rescue by the army. The next day, Anna and John meet, oblivious to the chaos unfolding all around them. Eventually they do notice, and it isn't long before they have teamed up with a few other school friends. These include American transfer student Steph (Sarah Swire), shy Chris (Christopher Leveaux), and Nick (Ben Wiggins - The Witcher) , the leader of the school jocks. Their plan is to battle their way across town in order to get to the school where they hope to meet up with their missing family and friends, due to the place being designated as an evacuation point.

I wasn't sure what to expect from the songs and it was with a little trepidation that I awaited the first one to begin. While I haven't seen it, I imagine the songs are maybe like something from High School Musical. Characters sing and dance around whatever location they happen to be in, full of sometimes embarrassing to watch choreography and exaggerated scripted movements. Some songs work better than others and unsurprisingly it is the ones that incorporate the undead that I enjoyed more. Anna sings a positive and uplifting song about new beginnings as she obliviously dances through chaotic scenes of zombies attacking survivors, which felt very similar to how Shaun doesn't notice the same thing in the classic Shaun of the Dead. Later on, when the character of Nick is introduced he gets his own action packed song about how much he and his friends are enjoying the new zombie filled world. Then you have the primary antagonist, the ever more twisted Savage who groans and gripes his way through a couple of bitter tunes about how he needs to rule the survivors. All of these never felt too off, but there were not really any that I felt were worthy of a second listen. 

Escape Room (2017) - Horror Film Review

Escape Room (not to be confused with Escape Room that came out in 2017 also, or indeed Escape Room) is a horror film from Will Wernick (Follow Me) that was directed by him and co-written alongside Noah Dorsey. At the time there apparently hadn't been a horror film set in one of these places, but since then there have been at least ten different horrors using the same idea. The film was interesting, though lacking somewhat in the horror stakes.

For Tyler's birthday (Tyler played by Evan Williams), his girlfriend, Christen (Elisabeth Hower) has arranged for him and his friends to take part in an exclusive escape room experience. The couple, along with Tyler's sister Tabby (Kelly Delson - Follow Me) and her boyfriend Conrad (John Lerardi - also Follow Me) as well as Anderson (Dan J. Johnson) and Natasha (Annabelle Stephenson - Home and Away TV show) are taken to a hidden location and blindfolded. Removing their blindfolds they find they have been put in a series of escape rooms that they soon discover are interconnected. Working together the group begin to start the process of solving the clues to escape, but their fun time turns to horror when they discover that there are fatal consequences for any mistakes they make.

The film doesn't start off great, a murky prologue that shows a victim meeting his end, followed by a bizarre audio conversation of someone being tortured for failing to solve riddles, all set to different shots of city streets at night. Following this we are introduced to the characters, all of which appear to be young and rich, and all of which do not seem like good people. Eventually after a lengthy first act the escape rooms make an appearance and the film improves. For a horror film though this really takes a good while to get going. Ignoring the prologue sequence it is an entire hour into the movie before anything bad happens, an hour before the characters even realise they are in any kind of peril. This leaves just half an hour for the horror to unfold. It's a good thing then that the process of the characters solving little clues was interesting to watch. The set design is basic but effective, not remotely reaching the heights of the wonderful set design of the much more popular 2019 horror, but it was fun seeing the puzzles slowly get solved. Special effects are minimal, being rated 15 there isn't too much violence, it is always more implied than shown, except for one or two scenes.

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard 'End of Zoe' (2017) - Horror Video Game DLC Review (Playstation 4)

After finishing the enjoyable Not A Hero DLC story for Resident Evil 7: Biohazard I had high hopes for End of Zoe. This one wasn't free after all so I imagined it would be bigger and better than Chris's campaign. Sadly though this may have some good moments but for the most part it is an exercise in supreme frustration.

Several months after the events of the game and hillbilly Joe, the brother of Jack, arrives at the swamp the main game took place at. He discovers his niece Zoe now in a monstrous form and assumes the nearby soldiers are the cause of this (they are actually there to help, arriving along with Chris Redfield at the end of the main game's story). He takes them captive and learns that there is a vaccine that may return Zoe to normal. Setting out into the swamp in search of this cure he discovers that there are plenty of monsters around, and also finds himself pursued by a powerful swamp creature who may just have a link to his past.

Going into this I knew that the combat for End of Zoe was all melee focussed with no guns to be found. I imagined somewhat foolishly that this meant I would be a powerful character. That isn't the case, a good eighty percent of this was stealth based misery. The game isn't built for stealth and so most of my two hour run time was spent repeating the same sections over and over again. It doesn't help that while crouched or while in the swamp you move at the speed of a snail. Repeatedly dying and having to slowly repeat the process over and over was not fun at all. Even worse are the alligator enemies. These are set up like puzzles, you have limited resources (a crafted single use spear is the only weapon capable of killing them) and should you kill the wrong one at the wrong time it will mean it isn't possible to proceed due to a lack of weapons. I wish the spears respawned, as doing a five minute section only to realise it is impossible to proceed was zero fun, it doesn't help that the targeting reticule for the spears lies to you, what seems like a sure fire attack will see your spear sailing off into the distance.

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard 'Not A Hero' (2017) - Horror Video Game DLC Review (Playstation 4)

My time with the DLC for Resident Evil 7: Biohazard was a strange one. Despite loving the core game I just never felt in the mood to play the DLC, even after a second playthrough a few years later I only marginally dipped my rotted toes into the 'Banned Footage' part of it, which was a series of small mini-games that were actually canonical. To be honest I had totally forgotten about this extra content for the game, it was only after buying Resident Evil Village that I realised I now had to play it so that I was up to date with the story. Not A Hero was actually free so it will be hard to be too harsh on this.

This takes place immediately after the main campaign finishes. With Ethan airlifted out of the estate Chris Redfield is able to carry out his intended mission, that is to capture or kill Lucas Baker due to his connections to a black market bioweapon group known as The Connection. Your team identify his location as the Abercrombie Salt Mine. You find Lucas but things don't go to plan, with Chris ending up with an explosive device attached to his wrist. Warned to stop chasing him, Chris instead decides to head onwards, attempting to rescue various members of his team, who have been captured, along the way.

I had heard Not A Hero was far more action orientated than the main game and this was right. Weirdly you only have access to a shotgun and a pistol throughout the ninety minute story. I would have thought with the amount of enemies around you would have gotten more weapons than that. Ammo is also very scarce, so scarce that it can be possible to fail sections due to entirely running out of the stuff. Luckily Chris has an ace up his sleeve, if you stun an enemy you can then follow up with a swinging punch that knocks any enemy off their feet (Chris of course infamously once punched a giant boulder to death), and of course you have access to grenades, flame grenades and stun grenades.

Dave Made a Maze (2017) - Comedy Horror Film Review

I think it may have been earlier this year when I first heard of the Bill Watterson directed surreal comedy horror/fantasy film Dave Made a Maze. I was very excited about the premise of the film and so upon seeing today that it was on Shudder I had to watch it immediately. In terms of sheer imagination it did not disappoint, there is no other film out there like this one. It has maybe the best set design of any film I have seen in recent memory. It does have its own share of problems as at one hour twenty it still feels a little overlong.

Dave (Nick Thune - The Possession of Hannah Grace) is a struggling artist who in his frustration at never being able to complete any project he starts decides to make a box fort out of cardboard in his living room. Three days later his long suffering girlfriend, Annie (Meera Rohit Kumbhani) arrives home to find Dave's creation. From within his fort Dave explains he is trapped, unable to find a way out of the cardboard maze he has created within. Warned not to either enter the maze or to dismantle it, an exasperated Annie calls up Dave's best friend, Gordon (Adam Busch - Leon) convinced her boyfriend is having some sort of mental breakdown. He arrives along with a bunch of other people that includes among them film director Harry (James Urbaniak) and his crew consisting of a cameraman (Scott Narver) and a boom operator (Frank Caeti). Eventually, everyone against Dave's warnings decide to head into the small maze. They are shocked to discover the inside is a gargantuan cardboard labyrinth, one that is full of deadly traps and which is stalked by a man eating minotaur (John Hennigan - WWE wrestler John Morrison)…

Apparently the idea behind this film was to recreate the classic fantasy films of the 1980's, I imagine films like Labyrinth and Return to Oz are two such examples. This film is a masterful creation. The premise itself is very compelling but to then have the cardboard labyrinth so well realised is genius. Everything within this is so incredibly inventive. From when the group go into the maze everything looks like it is made out of cardboard or paper, there are origami paper birds flying around, mosaics made out of playing cards, huge cardboard statues spitting out streams of paper, traps that operate via rope and cardboard cogs and gears. Each scene really does bring with it something different, heck, there is even one scene where the cast all turn into cardboard puppets! This does lead to one of the issues with the movie, even at the length it is it feels overlong, there were a few scenes that felt tangential to what was going on. A scene in the third act really brought events to a halt. For some reason Annie and Dave are suddenly in a cardboard version of their kitchen, talking utter nonsense about drinking coffee and wine as they in turn are shown to be wearing various cardboard and paper outfits. The scene added nothing whatsoever and with the high stakes story it interrupted I don't understand why it was felt this scene was needed, other than to pad out the length.

Documenting the Witch Path (2017) - Horror Documentary Review

I first heard of the horror documentary Documenting the Witch Path back in 2019 and thought it sounded pretty cool. Originally I planned to watch this for review towards the end of last year, but with the pandemic nothing is certain and so it was a couple of months back that the director, Carl Sundström contacted me to let me know the entire documentary was now out to watch on YouTube for free. I have read complaints about how low on thrills this film is, but this is down to the apparent realism. This is a found footage combined with a real documentary apparent and so there are no conveniently placed sights or sounds caught on camera.

Carl Sundström and his two friends, Robin Franzén and Nathaniel P. Erlandsson are indie filmmakers from Sweden. Their latest project is to see them head to a lake in the county of Vasternorrland known locally as 'Witch Lake'. The legend goes that in the 17th Century over 300 women were executed in Sweden, accused of being witches. As well as being burnt alive many of these victims were also had to endure a 'Witch Trial' which involved their limbs being bound and then being thrown in a lake to drown. It isn't long into the friends research that they learn the lake they had planned to travel to wasn't in fact the real Witch Lake. A representative of the nearby town states the real lake had been sealed off from the public but refuses to state the reasons why. An internet search confirms these details, and it's made all the more mysterious by the fact that a lot of money was invested in making the place into a tourist attraction until it was suddenly all closed down. Intrigued by all this and thinking there could be a story in it Sundström decides to find this hidden lake and document his findings.

I spent a good deal of this wondering if any of what was happening really was real or not. Finally I began to think there was a  half truth to what was going on. The lack of anything really happening here led me to suspect this was at least partly real. Moments such as 'Blair Witch' style carefully placed stones and totems felt like something right out of a found footage movie, but that is almost as far as the horror extends to. Without going into any kind of spoilers there are elements of this that really are real, though the true aim of the documentary is far different to what it appears on the surface. Another element of realism is the frequent interviews with the cast after the fact, there is no effort to pretend that they didn't survive, instead this part creates expectation of something actually occurring on the creepy banks of Witch Lake.

The Endless (2017) - Horror Film Review

After enjoying the 2012 indie horror film Resolution so darn much the other week I just had to check out the 2017 spiritual sequel The Endless. What I liked most about the first film was the pervasive sense of dread and the all encompassing mystery of just what on Earth was happening. This time around, the directors, Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead play the part of the protagonists, with Benson again being responsible for the story. This worked fantastically as they happened to have tiny cameos in Resolution so were able to reprise these roles and build on their characters. There isn't really anyway around it, there will be spoilers for the first movie as the twist ending plays an integral part in this one. If you have yet to see Resolution go do so, it was a brilliant horror.

Ten years after Justin (Benson) and his younger brother Aaron (Moorhead) escaped an alleged death cult they receive a strange videotape in the mail. The tape features one of the cult members, Anna (Callie Hernandez - Alien: Covenant, Blair Witch) telling the men that she would always be waiting for their return. Surprised that the cult hadn't imploded, and completely disillusioned with the harsh life they have experienced living in the city, Aaron convinces his brother to take him back there. He explains he needs to visit in order to get some closure and to be able to properly move on with his life. The brothers arrive to find that nothing there seems to have changed over the past decade, even the members there do not seem to have aged. Aaron is overjoyed to be back, with it increasingly seeming like his brothers' warning stories about cult life were not completely true. Justin meanwhile is ill at ease, he always felt there was something off with the place and that feeling is compounded with his return when he begins to experience a series of unexplainable events.

Watching The Endless I was struck by two things. Firstly that this was way more than a spiritual sequel, this definitely takes place in the same film universe and even features a bunch of returning actors. It also become apparent that that delicious layer of persistent dread from Resolution was missing. For the first forty minutes or so this really bothered me. The film was great, there was no doubt about that, it just felt like this was a far more friendly and chilled adventure. That dread never did return, however by building on the mythos Resolution established this became something that felt like there was endless mystery to it. As the minutes ticked on I became desperate to find some sort of...well, some sort of resolution to the tale. I pondered if the revelations shown here somehow impacted on the effectiveness of that first films unknowable story, and by actually showing what had become of the protagonists of the first film it did a tiny bit. I had heard they featured somewhere within this but I expected a throwaway mention at best, instead they are not only get mentioned by several different characters but then we are treated to a couple of meaty scenes featuring these fantastic characters, the original actors reprising their roles in a way that made their scenes feel like a little bit of joyous fan service.

Bad Land (2007) and The Dead Half (2017) - Horror Film News

News on a couple of HNN Presents releases for today. First up is Bad Land that is directed by Ron McLellon and stars Jennifer Cudnik, West Cummings, and Beth Kenner and is available from Bayview Entertainment. This is about a group of college students who accidentally go onto the property of a family of sinister rednecks. The family, wanting to keep their secrets safe from outsiders begin to target the students.

Another HNN Presents release is The Dead Half, also available via Bayview Entertainment. The synopsis for this one concerning a filmmaker who hopes to get make a name for himself by filming a documentary from within an abandoned house that was once a clinic run by a bizarre doctor and his twin daughters. The filmmaker, along with some friends, plan to stay overnight in the property, an idea that turns out to be terrible when it becomes apparent that something very evil inhabits the place.

An Imperfect Murder (2017) - Drama Film Review

The 'killing someone and then trying to hide the crime' idea has been used so many times in films that it has become its own subgenre of horror. Often these types of movies play out in a realistic fashion with the viewer forced into the complicity and guilt of the crime committing protagonist. An Imperfect Murder (originally titled The Private Life of a Modern Woman) is director/writer James Toback's entry (Tyson, The Big Bang documentaries) into the genre and tries something a little more artistic.

Vera Lockman (Sienna Miller - 21 Bridges, Layer Cake) is a famous actress who awakens from a nightmare in which she killed her abusive ex-boyfriend. It is soon revealed by her journal entry that this actually happened in the recent past. While the crime was in self defence she had panicked and decided to dispose of the corpse rather then inform the authorities of what happened, thinking that they wouldn't believe her story. Over the course of several days we see her interactions with a variety of people, including her therapist, her mother and grandpa, and Detective McCutcheon (Alec Baldwin - Mission Impossible - Fallout, The Hunt for Red October) who is investigating the disappearance of the ex, who happened to be a person of interest to the police.

An Imperfect Murder is an artistic movie which doesn't set out its story in a conventional way. The murder itself is over within the first few minutes of the film, with the disposal playing out later in the film. Gone is the usual complicit guilt I would usually feel with a set-up like this as Vera is a bit of an emotionless character. I put it down to her being an actress, meaning she is able to act like everything is normal and fine when underneath the surface she is highly stressed. The film is shown as a variety of meetings with people, with Vera being the uniting aspect. We only see the character during these various meetings and they take on a philosophical aspect to them with characters engaging in intelligent sounding discourse on the nature of life. It is all very drama focussed and felt like a series of po-faced plays. The only time the movie delves into the traditional Crime and Punishment part of getting away with murder are the wonderful scenes involving the Detective character. This is played well by Baldwin with his role being someone who very much seems to know Vera is much more involved in the disappearance of her ex then she is letting on.