P.T - Horror Videogame News (PS4)

I finally relented and brought a PS4 yesterday after coming into some money. Now the reason I really wanted one was not for any particular game but actually for a demo I saw on YouTube. That demo was for P.T which as it quickly turned out (spoiler) was actually made as a reveal for the next Silent Hill game; Silent Hills that is to star Norman Reedus and his likeness as the main character.

P.T (abbreviated from Playable Teaser) is played in first person and has you awakening in a dark featureless room. Opening a door you step out into a corridor of a house. A clock shows the time is 23:59 while a news story plays on a radio talking about a husband who murdered his wife and child. You walk through the deserted building until you get to basement steps. Going down these you open the basement door to find yourself once again at the start of the corridor and this is where the terror begins...

Despite having watched a complete play through of P.T I still was frightened enough at several point to shout out loud, once I even teared up with fright, while another time I was close to falling off my chair in surprise. While there is a sense of creeping dread the fear actually came from un-telegraphed jump scares, some of which were not at a fixed point. You don't actually have much interaction with the location you find yourself in, for the most part you are walking around unable to interact with the environment except for a few choice moments, even so the puzzles in this teaser can be surprisingly tough and require a good deal of observation.

Being first person this feels more like Silent Hill 4 than anything else, purely because that too had sections were you walked around a fixed location in first person, and also was about the only Silent Hill game to feature ghosts. The radios and altered realities as well as the saving emblem all point to this being connected to Silent Hill. The fact that Hideo Kojima and Gullimero del Toro are both working on this game could be a great thing.

So what does this mean for Silent Hills? I cannot imagine it will be anything other than 3rd person as it must have cost money to get Norman Reedus for the game. I imagine if anything the first person sections will appear but only as set points in the game. P.T was a really interesting way to announce a game and was a broad combination of fear and then boredom (I got stuck on the puzzles a lot!). You should definitely check it out.

Anger of the Dead (2013) - Award winning short zombie film now available to view online

Around this time last year I reviewed the short Italian zombie film Anger of the Dead. I said at the time that apart from some slightly confusingly translated subtitles (the film being in Italian) it was a solid fifteen minutes of zombie action. I had a quick look back over it today and it still looks fantastic, the camera work and music is of a high standard.

After being shown at a variety of film festivals in which it won awards such as 'Best Short Film' (Tohorror Film Fest) and 'Best Director' (Interiora Horror Fest) it has now gone online where it can be watched for free. It has actually been picked up by infamous director and producer Uwe Boll (House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark) to be made into a full length film that is due for release in 2015.

Check out the full short below and see what you think, it shows promise, especially considering it was made with next to no budget.

House Of Many Sorrows (2015) - Horror Film News

Another day and another film to spread some news about. Today I look at the horror House of Many Sorrows; an American based film due for release in 2015.

Details on the plot are scarce but the gist of it is that a young man takes over his mother's bed and breakfast business. Soon after this happens strange things start occurring with people disappearing and dying in likely odd circumstances.

House Of Many Sorrows is written, produced, and directed by Barry J.Gillis. The film stars Tom Malloy and Kim Sonderholm (Sinister Visions, Little Big Boy). Also recently announced is the inclusion of Ginger Lynn Allen (apparently a famous adult film star) who has previously appeared in The Devil's Rejects.

Brutal (2014) - Horror Film News

I mentioned Brutal before (here) where the official trailer was also shown. I now have some further details on this upcoming martial arts horror.

Brutal stars Morgan Benoit as Trevor; someone who is abducted by aliens when he was fifteen and forced to fight never ending fights against other abductees in a strange fighting arena. Two decades later and he has become transformed into a brutal warrior. It is said to be an allegory about man's violent nature.

The sci-fi element was unexpected but adds an interesting angle to what I expected would be about underground cage fights. The press release says it will have elements from both The Prisoner and The Twilight Zone which is kinda cool as those shows are very good.

Brutal is due to premiere at the Beverly Hills Samuel Goldwyn Theatre on November 5th this year. Looks to be ultra brutal!

Screen (2013) - Horror Film Review

Screen is a film I discovered while surfing my Twitter feed one day. It seems to be heavily influenced by horror films of the 70's and has a bizarre style to it that is halfway between found footage and traditional film style.

In the early 1970's thirty people were discovered dead at an Oklahoma drive in. On the 40th anniversary of that event in 2012 history repeats with a whole bunch more people found dead in the exact same mysterious circumstances. 24 hours earlier and Lola (Nicole Alonso) a young woman is persuaded to go to a party at a drive in by her old high school friend Carrie (Leslie Andrews) who has recently gotten back in contact via Facebook. As they drive the 300 miles to the party Carrie slowly reveals the true nature of the trip; her grandfather was one of the many people who died in the drive in massacre and so she wants to see the place with her own eyes as well as interview the only survivor of that fateful day. The night of the party arrives and horror ensues...

Screen is filmed in a really weird voyeuristic way where even when static shots are employed there is a sense of unease of being watched. Carrie films her life daily for a weird blog she keeps so a lot of the footage is shown from the perspective of her camera, but more traditional shots are not done with a stedi-cam either which creates an unsettling feeling that the characters are unknowingly never alone. It creates a sense of paranoia that in this modern day where everyone has access to cameras that nowhere can you really be alone. Even in a motel room the characters joke that they are being watched in a 2 way mirror and during a sex scene the camera pulls back to show even that is being filmed.

Screen is split into three distinct parts with a title screen for each one. The Road Trip is the first chapter that has Lola and Carrie en route to the ill fated drive in. Even here there is a sense of unease as Carrie's slow reveal of secret information and her odd actions make you wonder if this character can be trusted. The middle part is titled The Drive In and has the duo arriving at the site of the party where they interview local people to see if they know anything about the massacre that occured in the 1970's. The final part titled The Party is where the creeping dread sets in with the anticipation of this deadly event ever on your mind leaving you unable to relax, This is not helped by the bad vibe that is given off during the party (expertly captured is the feeling that something bad is going to happen at any moment).

What Screen does well is gives plenty of explanations for what exactly happened. There are numerous theories passed around, everything from paranormal activity to suicide cults and serial killers. I loved that no explanation is actually ever given, instead you the viewer are left to decide in your own head what has happened. The music used is very good, creepy and more traditional than the usual variety of dull rock songs used in horror films of this type nowadays. David Paul Baker does a great job of directing, I loved the retro style to Screen while the acting is very good at least for the main characters.

At just over an hour long there is not really enough time for things to drag but I still felt the actual party part went on slightly too long, a sub plot involving some creepy guys in gas masks got mixed up for me with the main plot. I also feel it would have been better to not even have the intro scene in which the F.B.I discover the corpses of the party goers as it took away the mystery of what was going to happen. My last criticism is that it all ends a bit too abruptly.

Screen despite sharing similarities with John Carpenter's Masters of Horror episode 'Cigarette Burns' feels original and proves you don't need lashings of violence and blood when the mere threat of this happening is enough to keep the fear simmering. A unique looking and interesting film indeed.

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As Above, So Below (2014) - Horror Film Review

First off, yes As Above, So Below belongs to the 'found footage' genre but don't stop reading yet. This much maligned genre has had it tough as it has it's fair share of trash. This isn't even the first film of it's type to be set underground, Australian horror The Tunnel springs to mind, while the ideas of this film also seemed to share a lot with the Russian based After....

Perdita Weeks stars as Scarlett; a British Lara Croft lookalike archaeologist and explorer. Following in her father's footsteps she has been searching for the 'Philosopher's Stone', a gem that is said to grant immortality as well as turn base metal into gold. Her journey brings her to Paris where she believes the gem is hidden in the middle of a series of catacombs that run under the city. Enlisting the help of a group of urban explorers she descends into the dark underground where the terror and madness begins...

Here the found footage aspect makes sense in a way. Scarlett is being filmed for a documentary she is having made about her quest, so her and her fellow explorers have been fitted with needle cameras on their head lamps. As Above, So Below is a very claustrophobic film, the tunnels are very small and confined, the cameras being on the characters heads really makes you feel like there is no room as there is lots of extreme close ups with people and the surrounding area that I found myself wishing desperately to get some air.

This is a scary film, there is a pervasive sense of creeping dread as well as a variety of jump scares. Usually I cannot abide jump scares, here they are well sign posted yet each and every time I nearly fell backwards off my chair due to the totally messed up payoffs. It is not all perfect though, shadowy figures moving around in the back ground are ineffective and not creepy, while mysterious chanting and demonic noises sound like something you would find on a Halloween sound effect tape.

The location of the catacombs is a character in it's own right. There are messages scrawled everywhere, secret tunnels and traps right out of Tomb Raider and a mid film twist that screamed Silent Hill to me and was actually quite clever. I was constantly confused as to what was going on, it remained purposely vague and sometimes this fails. Straight tunnels that nonetheless seem to loop around on themselves, doorways that vanish once walked though, the somehow chilling discovery of a piano inexplicably discovered in the middle of far too narrow corridors; there is a lot of both hit and miss moments exemplified by the discovery of 'the mole'; a friend of the Parisian explorers who went missing years previously and yet pops up fine and well deep underground.

The special effects are sometimes great and sometimes not so much. Trauma on the characters looks fantastic and there are some quite brutal scenes and fun death scenes but then other more dare I say it supernatural elements look a bit cheesy. I think the main problem is that As Above, So Below gets to a point and then just doesn't go any further, the last third was fun to watch in a 'will they survive? won't they?' kind of way, yet the escalation of terror just doesn't ramp up to the levels I was hoping for.

I don't think I am ever going to go underground, certainly not in Paris, so the film was effective in some ways. As Above, So Below can be scary, and is quite messed up in what occurs and the possible unspoken explanation for the events of the film are quite something. Overall there is a lack of cohesion to the whole thing that makes you question if the filmmakers themselves knew what was actually going on.

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Zombie Casserole (2013) - Zombie Horror Film Review

Zombie Casserole directed, produced, and edited by John Iwasz and Sanj Surati is an indie zombie short that has been shown at a variety of film festivals (next appearing in San Diego this October). It attempts to do something different with the genre that we all know and love by infusing a mix of good natured humour into the preceedings.

It takes place in America post zombie apocalypse. In this world zombies while vilified by the media as such are actually not killers. They exist as a minority group who hold frequent rallies and protests to try and get the same equal rights as everyone else. Zombie hater and jerk Wally (Andrew Prokurat) is having a dinner party and invites over his brother and sister and their partners. Unknown to him however his sisters husband Chuck has recently died and come back as an undead ghoul. When Chuck turns up on the doorstep holding a casserole a series of bizarre events unfold that changes Wally's life forever.

The film is light hearted and doesn't offend but much of the humour for me just didn't stick, I wouldn't say I found any of it funny but at the same time I quite enjoyed the tone. The soundtrack again I did not think was great but it went well with the vibe. In this world the undead are referred to in a derogatory way as 'rotters' while them themselves prefer to be known as 'Undead Americans'. The zombies can talk but not in an understandable way so frequent subtitles appear to show what they are saying. They have basic motor functions and seem to be less intelligent than the living, and while they have a hankering for living flesh they have little to no desire to attack the living.

The zombie make up effects are actually pretty decent, all the limited cast look quite good as zombies so there is no complaints there. Sometimes the low budget can show itself in some of the props and set design, such as a shotgun that does not look real at all but the news reports featured are well made and the acting is not terrible either which is a big boon.

The contrast between zombies and the treatment of foreign inhabitants of America is plain to see with Wally at one point complaining that the rotters "won't even learn our language".  For all the laid back nature of Zombie Casserole it does feature some entertaining action scenes, classic such scenes of the genre I would say that fitted in nicely.

Zombie Casserole was a nice little film that is a perfect length at roughly 30 minutes, I feel it would also work well as a stage play. Apart from a few niggles (such as a character choosing an impossible place to hide) this was not bad viewing and does enough different to not be stale and lack of any bad language whatsoever was refreshing.

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Succubus (2012) -Now free to view online

Just over a year ago I reviewed Sinister Visions that was a compilation of lots of small horror tales. One of those was Succubus directed by prolific horror actor Kim Sonderholm. At the time I said I was left disappointed in that nothing was resolved. Succubus is now available to watch online.

In the 18 minute short Emma (Kat Herlo) accidentally breaks open a strange egg shaped device at an archaeological dig out in a desert. Retuning home she finds out she seems to have a demonic force living inside her body, compelling her to go and find men so she can drain their life force. Watching Succubus again I still mostly stand by what I said. The special effects are quite cool but there is not too much horror to speak of but the directing is quite good. If you want to check it out then head over to Ekko's Shortlist where it can be viewed for free if only to see some funky dancing in a night club (my favourite scene for some reason).

Flu (2010) by Wayne Simmons - Zombie Horror Book Review

I met the author of Flu; Wayne Simmons at last years Leicester based Zombiefest and found him to be a really nice and friendly guy. I picked up this book whilst there and have finally gotten around to reading it. Flu is set in Northern Ireland, the only Irish zombie tale I knew of before this was the average Boy Eats Girl film.

A deadly new strain of flu swept Ireland that the government were struggling to contain due to it being airborne. The infected were quarantined but things rapidly devolved as the authorities went to more and more desperate methods to deal with the outbreak. The virus mutates again with the result being that the victims of the disease reanimate upon their deaths. Six weeks later and the survivors are few. A woman named Geri meets some thugs, meanwhile another woman finds herself under the protection of a middle aged man; Pat who used to be a gunrunner for the IRA. Elsewhere retired Major Connor Jackson is called back into service and whisked away to a secret Army base where bizarre experiments on the undead are being performed.

These three plot lines run concurrently and for the most part are entirely separate from each other and provide stories that have different feeling and emotions to them. The most interesting one was that of Geri and the people she ends up surviving with. Characters who initially seem to be bad get moulded via their actions into people to root for. Ones who appear to be good guys are revealed to be far more human. In general the events here feel much more real than the usual stereotypes, characters are shown to have a whole range of emotions and motives. Pat and Karen have a more insular dynamic going on with much of their time being in confinement from the outside world. Pat has regret for some of his shady past and sees this new world as a way to make amends almost. For Karen Flu charts the loss of her innocence whether for good or bad. Jackson's storyline is much more simple and has some traditional elements from the zombie genre but is interesting nonetheless.

The zombies of Flu are a mixed bag, they are able to hunt in packs and show limited signs of intelligence, feed on human flesh and are slow and lethargic. The flu virus makes the victim bleed out of every orifice, the results is that the zombies here are pretty much deaf meaning guns are at the forefront of the action. As grim as this world is I think it is preferable to the chocking suffocation of David Moody's Autumn series where any noise is sure to draw the attention of the undead.

Nothing much seems to happen during the book yet the characters were so interesting that I didn't mind at all, they are more fleshed out, in part due to flashbacks of events that happened before the apocalypse. It is a common problem in zombie books that people have no idea how to combat the living dead, here is no different with the idea of zombies seemingly unknown to the survivors until they are faced with them. An airborne virus being the root cause spices things up as any character at any time can suddenly contract the virus even if they are safe in hiding. this lends a more tense aspect.

All the troubles Northern Ireland has faced in the past contrast with the present, issues becoming less important when people must unite to survive but in the realistic way Simmons writes some things are hard to forget. His down to earth writing is what wins the book for me, sometimes bloody and violent, other times more sedate. Sometimes he travels down paths somewhat too predictable but is always well written and vivid.

Flu is well worth a read if your into your zombie fiction and due to the somewhat open ending I was pleased to see there is a sequel titled 'Fever', so will have to check that out!

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Evil Feed (2013) - Horror Film Review

It's lazy to draw comparisons to explain a film but hell, I'm tired after a long day at the lab so here I go... Evil Feed is Hostel crossed with the very best of Jean-Claude Van Damme. Having recently covered this film in a news post (here) I received a copy of it for review and must say it was delightful to consume.

There is an exclusive secret restaurant named The Long Pig where the food served is all of a cannibalistic nature. Ruled by the psychotic Steven it aims to provide a range of services and entertainment for its clientele. One of the features is what Steven calls 'tendertainment' in which kidnapped martial artists are forced to fight, if they loose they are killed and served up. One such fighter; Nash, and his girlfriend Jenna are captured along with Jenna's Dad and her sister. The father's students (Tyrone, Brian, and Carlos) discover the location of The Long Pig and head there with the intention of infiltrating the place and rescuing their friends and sensai.

Directed by Kimani Ray Smith, Evil Feed is one gory film but all done in quite a tongue in cheek way. While providing horror and lots of martial art fighting there is also double helpings of humour, it really does not take itself seriously which is probably good considering the subject matter (the house special is called the Dicky Roll for instance, not hard to imagine what body part that consists of).

I was expecting something that looked like it was filmed in the back of a shed somewhere but I actually found myself impressed with the quality of the film, it all looks solid and while the relatively small sets do indicate a low budget this is more than made up for with non stop action and humour that even when it falls flat does not detract from the experience. It did fall flat a lot for me but I will also state that at least once I found myself laughing out loud.

The special effects are pretty good and are mostly used for the brutal fighting sequences. The fights are held in an MMA style ring and always end with fantastic finishing fatalities that could come straight out of Mortal Kombat, a favourite one was someone getting their face peeled off and then eaten by the victor! Punches really feel like they connect with lashings of blood and gore and a bunch of severed body parts by the films conclusion.

Along with all the bloody violence comes a fair bit of nudity. Now I have said before that I don't think naked females needs to be an essential part of horror films and far too often is used to titillate but here it just fits into the style of the film well, like a 70's exploitation film made for the modern day. It is pretty much essential for one scene that has a really gruesome pay off to it!

The plot is quite basic but it does do the job well, there is not too much depth to things, a mild subplot involving a rival restaurant owner boils along nicely while the main one is silly and fun. Main bad guy Steven is played manically by Terry Chen while his love interest crazed Yuki (Alyson Bath) nearly comes across as irritating but narrowly avoids it. The good guys are also not bad, at least hard man Tyrone (Alan Chanoine), portly Brian and maybe the main female lead Jenna have good parts. The acting all around really cannot be complained about. Even the not so good characters such as Carlos and wimpy Pete are let down not due to bad acting just bad uninvolving parts. The right people were picked for the right roles.

With a hell of a lot of fighting and a hell of a lot of violence Evil Feed was a real thrill ride that I really got into. Sure it is dumb and sure the humour is slightly off kilter but I found myself having a real enjoyable time. Evil Feed is released by Solo Media on 25th August on Digital (VOD) and On Demand, well worth a watch.

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The House on the Wrong Side of the Tracks (2013) - Horror Film Review

The House on the Wrong Side of the Tracks shares both title and the premise of home invasion with the likes of The Last House on the Left and The House on the Edge of the Park but takes a modern twist by being a film from the much maligned found footage genre. The film was apparently filmed in just 23 hours and I have to say this did set alarm bells ringing in the halls of The Rotting Zombie HQ as I was concerned how a film shot in such a short time frame could be any good.

Three scum bags; psychotic Ray (Eric Sopko), his besotted girlfriend Liz (Amanda Baker), and brother Nathan (Alec Drake) decide for fun they are going to invade the house of a middle aged couple and rob and trash the place. Also for fun they are going to film the whole event to watch back later on. Initially things go to plan but the arrival of the couples intellectually disabled son sees the tables turned with the invaders becoming prisoners of what turns out to be a very crazy family.

The first twenty minutes of The House on the Wrong Side of the Tracks actually really impressed me, there are long scenes without a break including a fantastic one in which the worlds longest train goes by all while Ray almost preaches about why he does what he does. The three delinquents have a certain charm to them and come across as a tight unit, Ray with his psychotic behaviour is a nut bag but all had a magnetic aura around them. The acting as I expected was not great but I was able to look past that for these three. It is just a shame that as soon as the home invasion begins the film starts to unravel.

I expect a lot of this film was ad-libbed, characters frequently stumble their words and over emphasise but this never bothered me. The introduction of new characters sadly ruins things. The middle aged couple whose house the trio invade over act a lot, the wife in particular I just did not enjoy. When tied up she looked like she was trying not to laugh, and throughout her hair looked like a wig that was distracting. No one seems sure of what to do once they are in the house, the three invaders are just kind of standing around while Ray shouts at his captors. When the three become prisoners this trend continues with the actors playing the family seeming unsure of what to do, obviously not wanting to actually hurt the actors playing the thugs they instead meekly push them around while shouting abuse which does not look good on camera.

With the three now captive the film changes tack and goes on a misguided and sadly boring tangent of focusing on the family. Losing the most interesting characters was a bad move, it falls flat with the wind knocked out of the sails and never manages to recover despite an almost enjoyable finale. With feeble non threatening antagonists it falls down to special effects to save the day but again just does not excel. Some severed fingers and other body parts look quite terrible with virtually no blood to be seen at all. A body in a bath tub looked like a mannequin, I guess with the bizarre design of the house maybe it actually was. On that note the house is well designed, I approve of the look with so much clutter and detail (the front room full of TVs, the Star War dolls on the shelf in the hallway, great stuff!).

The influences that this film cribs from are plain to see, the huge son dressed up like a werewolf brought echoes of Leatherface, while the whole insane family could be straight from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre also. Meanwhile a later scene in which Liz apologises to her family while crying at the camera was a big nod to The Blair Witch Project. The house the film takes place around features a load of horror  pictures on the walls such as a drawing of a zombie from Night of the Living Dead as well as a poster featuring Planet Terror and Death Proof (I have the same poster in my house). It was cool to see these films displayed in the film but they did feel very out of place.

Filmed in Youngstown (the home of RagNBone Productions who produced this) and filmed in such a short space of time what was achieved is admirable. It was just a disappointment that the strong beginning was too much for the rest of the film to live up to and that the most interesting characters got relegated to the background in exchange for less interesting ones. A nice idea having the hunters become the hunted though!

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Metro: Last Light (2013) - Horror Videogame Review (X-Box 360)

Metro: Last Light is the sequel to Metro 2033; a post apocalyptic first person shooter set in Moscow's underground metro system. The first game followed closely the plot of Dmitry Glukhovsky's book of the same name but while that had a follow up Metro 2034 this game is not based on that but instead goes off on a tangent. Plot spoilers for the first game ahead.

Last Light follows the bad ending of the first game in which main character Artyom destroys the home of the mysterious creatures known as the Dark Ones via missile strike, learning too late that they were a benevolent race who only wanted peace. Set around a year later Artyom is now a member of the Order (a group of soldiers tasked with keeping peace in the metro). Learning that one of the Dark Ones avoided annihilation the Order task Artyom with heading to the ruins of their home and killing the survivor as he is the only one who has resistance to the Dark Ones mind control powers. Meanwhile the metro is heading into a state of war, the bunker D6 which was used to launch the missiles from (in Metro 2033) is wanted both by the Fourth Reich and the Red Line who are happy to go through the Order to take it.

Last Light is far more of an action based shooter than the horror and survival that it once was. The whole experience is more game based now with clear HUD elements to show your ammo and other items. This removed some of the immersion for me that was quite a shame as the first game felt like such a real, living place. The horror elements have been stripped back somewhat and while they are still there they take more of a back seat with the brewing war between different human factions really being the focus of the game.

A good chunk of the game involves stealth sections which unfortunately do not work very well. The stealth here feels like late 90's videogame stealth. A light on your wrist shows you if you are in darkness or not but it is very generous. Enemies patrol in limited A.I routines and all can be killed via a button prompt should you creep up on them. The soldiers you take out in these sections are extremely dense, you can literally crouch walk right up to one and kill them without them seeing you. These stealth sections are far too easy and there are far too many of them for it not to become an irritation.

The variation of the games world also is called into question. Like before things are split between the metro and the surface world. The metro has you walking around friendly stations where you can buy guns and ammo and listen to people talking. There are lots of conversations you can listen to but they seem a bit artificial in that they only start when you approach people making them seem less real and more like animatronics at a museum, Artyom has no way he can interact with these people he meets. The metro is a lot more bland this time around, a low point was sneaking through the Red Lines armoury, dull as dishwater to look at. Abandoned stations are usually full of giant spiders but again nothing special. There was a lot more variety in Metro 2033 I'm sure of it. Files are hidden around levels but rather than give depth to places just serve to provide Artyom's current thoughts, a missed opportunity.

The surface world really shines here. In the first game going to the surface felt really quite scary, having to rely on filters to enable your gas mask to continue functioning and monsters everywhere. The ice of that game has gone, now the world is full of rain and thunderstorms, it looks amazing and the rain hammering on your visor really restricts your view but again what made these levels feel so desperate are reduced with ammo and filters literally everywhere, I never once felt a sense of panic as supplies were in such abundance. Maybe over used but these are still a highlight of the game and the ones set in the darkness really did create some fear when creatures are attacking in force, though the pools of water seem to just be there to limit your exploration while top side.

There was always something new to do in Metro 2033 but here the set pieces are less, the levels more bland, there is just nothing to rival locations such as the library, or the crazy radio tower climb. The game does look good in places, of course the great over world, and the friendly stations have lots of detail put into them to make them seem like places people lived in but it is just not the same.  There is an optional Ranger mode that apparently brings Last Light more in line with its predecessor but this mode is locked away behind paid for DLC that is quite a shameful decision.

Metro: Last Light is a living example that more accessible doesn't make for a better game, the stripped back functions and more user friendly interface actually detract from the feeling of being in the world of post apocalyptic Russia. I had fun here for sure, the controls are less clunky and it looks a lot better but the magic I was expecting was diminished.

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Venus de Vilo - Horror Themed Music news

When it comes to music I have to admit that I know next to near nothing, my taste is varied having never really settled on a genre to call my home and so I never feel comfortable when I am given music to listen to or review. Music in particular cannot be bound by words on a page to describe, hearing is the only way to know for yourself if something is up your proverbial street.

Venus de Vilo makes horror themed music, she describes herself as "A Dublin based horror-shock musician with metal-punk leanings". Her first EP 'Edgar Allan Ho' was released in 2012 with a second EP 'Till Death Do Us Party' released 2013. Venus is currently working on her first full length album 'Handle With Scare!' (13 tracks of course) to be released this year...or maybe it is already out, not sure on that one!

Below is her track 'Crazy For You' the video of which is set out like a 1920's silent film complete with grainy look and description cards. In the video Venus plays a crazed fan of 20's movie star Vlad Valentine who corners him one evening and butchers him. Not a bad song, kinda catchy, and the video does not take itself seriously, check it out for yourself...