Elden Ring (2022) - Horror Fantasy Video Game Review (Playstation 5)

I have always appreciated from afar the 'Souls-bourne' style of games that FromSoftware is a master of, yet the few times I have dipped by toe into Dark Souls I have found it a stressful and daunting experience. I did manage to complete Bloodbourne, but my memory of that is fuzzy. With Elden Ring, FromSoftware has taken all that they are good at and pulled it into an open world setting. I was hesitant to head into this, but boy am I glad I did, as without a doubt Elden Ring is a modern masterpiece.

The story presented here is obtuse, it is up to the player to decipher the game world via descriptions for items found, as well as the spare story drip fed by the various characters you meet. As such, this synopsis is very likely wrong, but it is my limited interpretation. Elden Ring takes place in the Lands Between, a place that was once ruled over by a Goddess known as Queen Marika the Eternal via the power of the titular Elden Ring. An event occurred long ago known as 'the Shattering' in which the Elden Ring was destroyed, with the offspring of Marika battling over the powerful shards left behind. Now the Lands Between is a desolate wasteland, in which the now mutated and corrupted demigods hold onto their shards. You play as a 'tarnished', an exile who has been summoned back to the lands by the Ring's grace. Your aim is to locate and defeat all the demigods in order to collect their shards, so that you can restore the Elden Ring and become the next Elden Lord.

The reason I have never really gotten on with the Dark Souls games is due to their high difficulty, and the way that experience works. Defeating enemies gives you experience points, but should you die you will drop these at the place of your death. Should you die before you are able to retrieve the points then they will be lost forever. The many many sites of grace dotted around the game world are where you are able to spend those experience points to level up your character, as well as carry out various other functions like equipping great runes, allocating mana and health to the flasks you collect, as well as assigning magic spells. Each time you level up the bar gets higher, meaning you need to collect more experience until you can do it again. By the time I finished playing (for the moment), I was requiring around 285,000 experience to level up. On that note, I didn't actually complete Elden Ring, I did however see virtually all the game had to offer. I sunk one hundred and eleven hours into this, making it all the way to the final boss, and having cleared nearly all the secret areas. I feel happy to review this as I have seen so much of the game.

You Might Be the Killer (2018) - Comedy Horror Film Review

Directed and co-written by Brett Simmons (Animal, Husk), You Might Be the Killer is a comedy slasher in the vein of The Final Girls. A similar idea is used in that at least some of the characters are aware of the typical rules for a slasher film, such as the killer being defeated by the final girl. What sets this apart is that the protagonist realises he is actually the killer himself.

Sam (Fran Kranz - The Village, The Cabin in the Woods) is a camp counselor who phones his best friend Chuck (Alyson Hannigan - Buffy the Vampire Slayer) late one night in a panic. He tells her that there is a masked killer on the loose in his campsite, and that nearly all the other counselors have been murdered. It isn't long until Chuck has realised that it is Sam himself who is the killer, and that it appears to be the work of a cursed wooden mask that he found and which subsequently possessed him. What follows is a back and forth in time as Sam thinks back to what has occured, in order to figure out which of his former friends are still alive, and for a way to end the night without being killed at the hands of whoever the final girl turns out to be.

It isn't much of a spoiler to say Sam is the one responsible as it is very early on this is revealed. The film mainly takes place in the past, and it doesn't even follow a linear path. Instead the film reverts back to various points in the night, sometimes heading back to particular kills, sometimes heading back further. For the film's third act events finally follow a cohesive path in the present, but I thought the idea of constant flashbacks worked well. A lot of the counselors didn't have much personality at all to them, but this made some of them more fun. In particular there was one named Steve, and nearly every single time the character is mentioned his moniker of 'Steve the Kayak King' is said in full, even when his body is discovered. That was one of the more fun running gags. The problem I had with Chuck is that she is so far removed from the events of the main story that it didn't really feel like she was even in the same film. While Sam is in a dark and dingy woodland camp, Chuck is in a brightly lit comic book store separated entirely from the other characters. I wondered if this was due to Hannigan being a bigger name and so her character was utilised in such a way as this in order for her pay to not be too high (apparently she filmed all her scenes within two days). Keith David (The Thing, They Live) is also featured in a similar way, his appearance just a voice on the end of a phone, but that role felt more smoothly implemented.

The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology 14th April 2022

Another small news post for this week. On a personal note I have finally moved on from Elden Ring so I may have more motivation to do more work on my blog. There is a load of admin I need doing on the site as I have far too many links pointing to someone else's domain (due to them snatching up my old domain name when I was too slow to renew it last year).

The latest Scream film is now available on digital to download and keep, and has also came out on 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray Steelbook, 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD. I haven't actually seen the film yet so can't comment on its quality, I certainly do want to check it out though as I have enjoyed most of the series. The release comes with a host of extras including filmmaker commentary, interviews with cast old and new, a look back on the work of Wes Craven, as well as deleted scenes. The synopsis for this Scream is that twenty five years after the events of the original film, a new killer has emerged.

The Colorado Festival of Horror returns this year on September 9th-11th. Special guests announced include Thomas Walton (Room 9, Camp of Terror), Damien Leone (Terrifier 2), David Howard Thornton (Terrifier 2), and Lynn Lowry (I Drink Your Blood, The Crazies). For more details check out the website here.

The first trailer for Mary C. Russell's The Otherkind has been released. This film is about a mountain lake town which begins to implode after many of the residents begin to change. Russell has stated this was inspired by the Irish folklore of the selkie. The Otherkind is due to debut on the festival circuit later this year.

Slightly late, but the April releases for the Arrow streaming subscription service have been announced. They include the darkly comedic Spanish film, The Sacred Spirit (a must see). Other releases include among them sci-fi body swap movie, Rest in Pieces: The Passing, The Battle for the Lost Planet, Mutant War, possession slasher sequel Beyond the Door 3, and Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer.

Riven (2015) -Short Horror Film Review

Riven is a short nine minute award winning Norwegian horror film which was directed by Sjoerd de Bont. The flow of this felt almost formulaic but was different enough to what I figured that I was left pleased. This has recently headed to the Dark Matters' YouTube channel.

Sara (Maike Boerdam) is a barmaid who has gone into the dusty attic of her bar in order to find some wine glasses. Once up there however she discovers an old full length mirror covered up, wiping the dust off its surface she is startled to see in the reflection a white door which isn't there. It is her subsequent exploration of where this door could be and what is on the other side that brings in the horror.

There are three actors in this short (Raymond Kurvers as Sara's partner, Willem, and Katarina Justic rounding out the small cast. The character of Sara takes centrestage and after a brief intro she is up in the atmospherically dusty attic, which was a great looking location. The stuff with the reflection being different to what is actually there I have seen before, and even seen done better. That isn't to say Riven wasn't good, I enjoyed it despite heavy use of CG to simulate a particular effect. I for one was happy it didn't end on a jumpscare ending, it had a little bit more of a sinister feel to how this wraps up. The film is in Dutch with English subtitles, but there is only really dialogue at the beginning and end with most the short playing out with Sara on her own.

At under ten minutes Riven is another short that is worth a watch. It makes effective use of a good choice of location, and while it may not feel especially new, this nonetheless  ticked a few of the right boxes.

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The Sacred Spirit (2021) - Comedy Drama Review

One of the many films joining the Arrow streaming subscription service in March is the Spanish comedy/drama/sci-fi film The Sacred Spirit (original title Espíritu sagrado). Written and directed by Chema García Ibarra this surreal movie plays its comedy with a super straight face and was all the better for it.

The film begins with Charo's daughter Vanessa (and twin sister of Verónica, played by Llum Arques) having recently gone missing with the story all over the local news. Elsewhere, Julio (José Angel Asensio), the head of a small group of ufology enthusiasts made up of misfits has recently died, he left his belongings to José (Nacho Fernández), who just so happens to be Charo's brother. Unknown to the rest of the group, who believe the aim for them is to be taken by aliens, Julio and José had a secret plan, one that involves bringing an ancient spirit into the world, using a young child as the vessel.

The Sacred Spirit takes place in a bizarre world, but one that within its context feels completely normal. The humour here is deadpan and comes from the many characters. I would say it kind of shares similarities with Napoleon Dynamite in the way the comedy plays out. There is nothing laugh out loud funny here, instead it is the dialogue that is said, and the way it is spoken by the deeply earnest characters. It seemed to begin with that Charo was going to be the protagonist, but this instead falls on José. This man, obsessed with Egyptian mythology (his apartment that he shares with his Alzheimer's afflicted mother is full of gaudy and tacky Egypt themed knick knacks) was strangely likeable despite the film hinting at a darkness that he may be involved in. He genuinely believes that an ancient spirit is going to return to the world, and that he alone is the one who can get this done, there is almost a sadness with José and despite everything I didn't want anything bad to happen to him. That comes with many of the characters who while extremely weird had an innocence to them that made them endearing. The UFO group for instance have share a strong bond.

Caducea (2018) - Short Horror Film Review

Caducea (also known as Caducea - The Man with the Bark Face) is an award winning French language short Gothic horror that was written and directed by Christophe Mavroudis, and which has recently headed to the Dark Matters YouTube channel. It was something different, certainly Gothic, and with a fairytale feel, this may not have been scary, but it was interesting.

The twenty five minute short is about Alain (Guillaume Alexandre), the son of rich countess Catherine (Marie-Jeanne Malague) who as a child had an adopted older brother in the form of the heavily disfigured Tom (Vincent Delré). While in constant pain, this brother amused himself by making intricate masks out of wood and bark. The short takes place both in the past and in the present, with it frequently switching back and forth, the past sections featuring different actors playing the main trio. One day, when Alain was a young man, his brother Tom decided to leave the safety of Catherine's mansion, heading out into the wider world. Now, some years later Tom has returned in order to reveal the dark secrets Catherine had been hiding from them both all their lives.

I liked how much the two stories went in and out of each other, sometimes even in the same scene. You have Alain in the woods at night in present day trying to find Tom, this then switches to daylight in the past and back again. This created a nice contrast between the far more monstrous present day Tom and his slightly less creepy, and more flamboyant past self. The short relies a lot on these flashbacks with probably around two thirds of the run time set in the past. I liked where the story went, if not so much the characters, I found the older version of Catherine in particular to be a bit weird as a character, just standing around not really doing much of anything, while the older version of Alain had some strange behaviour that wasn't explained that well.
The costume design for Tom were fantastic, the masks in particular where a highlight, and some of the lighting used really gave him the feel of a fairytale monster. The location of the mansion helped with the Gothic atmosphere.

I liked Caducea, it did something different and so was quite memorable. Me being me, as always I wished for deeper horror, but what was here was at least interesting, not bad at all. Caducea premiered February 25th on the Dark Matters YouTube channel, still my favourite channel there for quality short horror films.

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The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for 8th April 2022

I didn't expect to be, but here I am with a second small news anthology for this week. I blame it a lot on me being lazy and wanting to play yet more Elden Ring than watch a film for review. How are energy prices treating you? I'm trying not to heat my decrepit abode as much as before so have infested (I meant to type 'invested' but shall leave that error as is) in some hoodies to wear around the place.
I have been brutal with my news box, slicing and dicing it down from over three hundred emails to a lean twenty nine. Here's to keeping more up to date with that hallowed place.

Freestyle Digital Media have acquired the horror-thriller Follower, since 29th March this has been available to rent and own on global digital HD internet and satellite platforms. The film is based on an alleged true story that occured in Northern Nevada in 2018, it is about a social media influencer and her two friends who became the targets of a violent killer while on a hiking trail. The killer live-streamed himself as he hunted down the girls and anyone else who got in his way. In a unique spin, Follower has an interactive element which 'allows the viewer the opportunity to follow the characters in real life' whatever that means. This was based on a story by Serena Kamlani, James Rich and Zachary Hersh and directed by James Rich. 

Mastiff announced a partnership with Actual Nerds to publish dark fantasy 2D RPG, The Tarnishing of Juxtia back in March. The game is due for a PC release this Summer and looks quite attractive with a graphical style that reminded me of Blasphemous. It is described in the press release as a '2D love letter to 'Souls' games', with players taking on the role of a nameless hero who has been created by a dying God in order to get revenge against the beings responsible for a devastating supernatural plague. The game is to include fifteen environments, fourteen boss battles and plenty of secrets and sidequests in the twenty + hour experience.

The last bit of news for today is that of Born Dead which comes out on April 26th from Bayview Entertainment. The story is about a young embalmer named Luna who one day stumbles across two bodies out in the wood, one dead, and one barely clinging onto life. This 'gory and blood-soaked tale' comes from Alex Visani (The Pyramid).

Life After: The Arising (2013) by Bryan Way - Zombie Horror Book Review

Life After: The Arising is a book I've been reading for quite some time. As always, I am slow at reading books, mainly due to only reading them on my half hour lunch breaks in my day job. This was written by Bryan Way and is the first in his Life After series. I currently also have a trio of short stories set in the same world which I will be looking at after a short break to read a couple of other novels.

University student Jeff Grey has travelled to his former high school in order to watch his younger girlfriend Julia participate in a multi-school battle of the marching bands. During the event however disaster strikes with the sudden arrival of a horde of flesh eating zombies. In the panic and confusion many of the attendees are killed or escape in vehicles, but a few survivors, led by Grey seek refuge in a rooftop greenhouse. Eventually this small group are joined by an old friend of Grey's; Anderson, who is a member of the national guard, whose military knowhow proves to be invaluable, Rich, a homeless man who used to drive school buses, as well as Julia, a nurse. With the world gone to ruin, and with seemingly no help on its way to assist, the small group set out to gather supplies and find somewhere safe to hunker down.

I'm not going to lie, to begin with I was really unsure about this novel, the first act made it feel like it really wasn't going anywhere, while with the protagonist you can't really argue that he isn't a bit of a fool. What I began to realise The Arising does so well however is that it felt like a boring portrayal of a zombie apocalypse. Maybe I could use a better word, but I don't mean boring as a slight against the novel or indeed the writing. The story wasn't dull at all, nor was it written badly, instead I mean boring in that the group of characters presented here have a lot of luck and good fortune (in terms of a world ending undead outbreak), meaning their struggles are not too great. At times it felt like this group were going about their day to day business, while far more traditional zombie survival excitement and escapades where happening with a group of characters that we never even heard of. There are a couple of moments where other survivors are fleetingly seen, I liked to think these would have been the protagonists of another book. While our group sit around discussing the concept of religion and of evolution for pages at a time, I imagined this other group doing no end of the type of high stakes events typically found in a zombie story.
Of course this theory loses some traction in some of the more high threat moments, but this is the zombie apocalypse, even people who manage to do nearly exactly the correct things are going to find themselves in peril every now and again.

The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology April 6th 2022

Hey there, another small news post to round out my weeks five blog posts. In February nu-metal band Above Snakes released their horror focussed video for track The Broken Ones, which is the follow up to their track Nothing to Lose. The track, which is designed as an anthem for society's outcasts is horror themed, filmed at the Haunted Overload in Lee, NH, and directed by lead singer Johnny Skulls and guitarist Dax Dabs.

On March 22nd The Wilderness Hotel came to DVD from Bayview Entertainment. This was directed by Dawei Lee, stars Xiao Xi Wang and Ge Ling Gao, and is about a strange creature from the Earth's interior who arrives at a remote hotel in order to infect the staff and guests there. The film is in Mandarin with English subtitles.

Finally, and back onto music news, goth rock band Metamorph released their track Love in the Wreckage, which was released in time for Valentine's day a couple of months back. The song is about 'a story of life in today's chaotic world. It's a transmutation of the world's chaos into love; a tale of light in the dark'.

On the Trail of UFOs: Night Visitors (2022) - Documentary Review

On the Trail of UFOs: Night Visitors is the latest documentary from Small Town Monsters (Momo: The Missouri Monster, Terror in the Skies), and from the title it should be super obvious this is part of their UFO series. This one, the press release states, 'takes viewers into the most disturbing aspect of UFOlogy'. I would perhaps say one of the most typical aspects, that of cattle mutilations. As I began to watch this however, I realised that despite that long being associated with UFOs, I didn't actually know that much about it. With Small Town Monsters never failing to make interesting documentaries I was happy to explore the topic.

Directed by Seth Breedlove, investigator Shannon LeGro (On the Trail of UFOs: Dark Sky) once again takes on the lead role. The eighty minute doc was filmed in Colorado and is made up primarily with various interviews with eye witness accounts who have been involved in some way either with seeing unexplained sightings in the sky, or having owned cattle that has then been found mutilated. It starts with a brief history of cattle mutilations, something it later returns to with a segment about the very first recorded cattle mutilation (was actually a horse nicknamed Snippy). There are various subjects covered here outside of that particular event, as well as lights in the sky, there are parts about people who have been apparently abducted by UFOs in the area, the notion of secret underground military facilities inside hollow mountains, even a part about the mysterious silent black helicopters that are linked to the subject matter.

To add spice to what is being discussed there are the usual assortment of both artwork and simple CG effects used to simulate UFOs in real world settings, nothing too amazing was shown with these but they added flavour. One part that I didn't think worked as well was a glitching effect used with the editing, usually when switching between various photos of dead animals. Still, the interviews themselves feature a bunch of eclectic people, from farm owners, to a particularly haunted looking man talking about his abduction experience, to the owner of a UFO based tourist trap who says she has had many unexplained sightings over the years of being based in the area (and who owns the skeletal remains of the previously mentioned Snippy). Intercut are many wide scenery shots, and shots of LeGro gazing out at various locations. Again set in America, I never get tired of seeing the countryside, the flat plains of Colorado lending themselves well to the idea that so many sightings could have happened here. As to the explanations, there isn't anything concrete concluded, with an admission that with so many more knowledgeable people exploring this and not finding answers, that they too couldn't really pinpoint the actual cause. Being firm believers, or at least very open minded to the idea of UFOs, there is no challenging of peoples accounts, but I didn't expect there to be, and am kind of glad there wasn't as many of the people being spoken to seemed genuine.

I didn't think the subject matter quite fitted the press release, but regardless, there was plenty here that I hadn't really ever looked into before and so it was interesting to watch and listen. Maybe not the most exciting of documentaries but I enjoyed my time with this, with Small Town Monsters documentaries there is a rhythm to them that I always find quite chilled and this was no exception. On the Trail of UFOs: Night Visitors debuts on major streaming platforms on April 5th, from 1091 Pictures.

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Sunset Skull (2022) by Assassun - Music Album Review

I'm back with another ill-judged music review to do. I think the first thing I will do if I ever win the lottery is hire someone who actually knows about the medium to do these as my vocabulary and knowledge is somewhat lacking. Sure I like music, but that interest peaked around the early 2000s so most of what I listen to nowadays is kind of old. Sunset Skull is an album by Assassun, this is a new incarnation of the Berlin based musician Alexander Leonard Donat who last year released Nebonkörper under his Vlimmer moniker. A criticism I had from that review was that my compliments sounded almost passive aggressive, something I didn't intend, so I will try better this time around! While I was given a download code for this, I actually listened to it on Apple Music without using the code.

I have spent the past several days moving my furniture and belongings back into my front room after having a new carpet, so I have had plenty of time to listen to stuff. Despite listening to Sunset Skull twice in a row I actually have very limited notes on what I heard. The album is described as 'dark and raw electro-punk synth', I would agree with that. The album is made up of eleven tracks over thirty three minutes, each track from my memory feeds into the next, or at least follows a natural progression.
After opener Burial Shroud we head into Winter Is, the music here sounds to my mind like the type of music that would be playing if you went into a dark and dingy club in the mid 1980s, I love that decade so no slight there. The sound has a low-fi attractive quality to it (Devours Itself), that coupled with echoey voice effects and synth beats on tracks such as Over Again creates a unified feel to the vibe of the tracks. There is a slight off kilter edge to the sound, such as with Your Scheme? (with echoes of the Friday The 13th theme tune), and at times almost otherworldly, which can be seen in The World I Will Leave.
The second half of the album was where I really began to get into the music. There is the sinister sounding Janine with its thudding Industrial end, then after Another Hook To the Chin comes Achilles Tendon that sounded more electronic. This leads into penultimate track Light Coming Out with its Industrial ambient start, finally finishing out with I Need It Gone.

Sunset Skull isn't a happy record, the singing has a bitter tone to the words, and the music has a warped feel. This all combines into something good for the listener, I liked how each track has the same certain feel to it, yet musically is a lot different. Good enough that I listened to it twice back to back, and am in fact giving it a third go as I write this review.

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The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for April 2nd 2022

Right, I have eleven minutes to write this before I must leave the house (as always at the time of writing this). Starting off with Kris Roselli's Hideout. This horror film is now available to stream in the U.K and Ireland on Amazon UK, following a November release in the U.S. This had its world premiere at the Salem Horror Fest in October of last year and is about some robbers who seek assistance at a remote farmhouse after one of them is shot. Things take a turn for the worse when the family realise who it is they are dealing with. While it sounds like a home invasion horror, it actually also contains supernatural elements.

Clementina was released in December of last year by Bayview Entertainment. The film is about a woman named Juana who begins to hear strange noises in her house following abuse from her boyfriend, as well as a recent miscarriage. This was directed by Jimena Monteoliva and stars Cecilia Cartasegna, Emiliano Carrazzone and Susana Varela. 

Finally, Death Breed is a horror anthology that features Kane Hodder, Gunnar Hansen, Linnea Quigley, Edwin Neal, Reggie Bannister and Debbie Rochon, it released by Bayview Entertainment on 14th December of last year. Following in the format of Creepshow and Tales from the Crypt, this features three different short stories, the werewolf themed Wolfsbayne, supernatural tale Shudder, and the darkly comedic Old Habits Die Hard, which is about a wholesome family of cannibals.

Rust Belt Driller (2022) - Horror Film Review

Rust Belt Driller is one of those films that improves throughout its run time. It took awhile to acclimatise to the freakishly surreal world of the movie which goes pretty art house at times, but once I did I was fully on board. Occasionally I was repelled, more often than not I was bizarrely entranced. 

Renn Maxwell (Aaron Krygier, who also wrote this) is the very definition of a tortured artist. He is successful but at a cost, he feels he has never been true to what he is actually like. When the film begins he has reached his breaking point, and with a new burst of creativity comes increasing insanity. Haunted both by a vampiric muse only he can see, as well as a shadowy well dressed figure (Derek Powell), the artist resorts to murder by drill to feed his dark urges.

Co-directed by Tilke Hill and David R. Williams (Red Scream Vampyres) this low budget horror doesn't shy away from revealing the constraints. This mostly appears in the gory murder sequences that feature very fake looking body parts in such a way that I feel it had to have been purposely done. Due to the style of film this actually added another layer rather than took anything away in my opinion. Rather than be straight forward, these murder scenes near all share a unique way to the editing used. Frequently the shots will cut between the victim before they have been attacked, to being mid attacked in a flowing fashion that was really cool to see. The kills come courtesy of a comically large drill which is inferred Renn purchased from an infomercial. Those commercials pop up three or four times over the films length and play out in full. Andy Rich (Sojourn) is perfectly cast as the enthusiastic, yet bumbling host of these sections and are where Rust Belt Driller is at its most silly. These goofy adverts are full of bad acting, poor camera work and continuity errors and mostly worked really well. I did think the final one that went much more into horror wasn't as enjoyable, a bit gross for me.