Doctor Who 2023: 60th Anniversary 2nd Special: Wild Blue Yonder

Well after last week's pronoun-a-thon and putting down of the doctor this week was lightyears ahead. Yes I like some people was a bit weirded out by a non white Isaac Newton but it was neither here nor there and set up that funny mavity joke.

I mean spilling coffee on timelord made equipment does that, I mean jeez, why even have a coffee machine. 

So they land on some strange alien craft and their natural need to know what's going on kicks in.

Before they go look about the doctor sets the TARDIS to repair. They go take a look and nothing really seems amiss. That is until they come back and the TARDIS auto defence mode kicks in and she leaves them both there. Donna feeling like she won't see her family again and the doctor sonicless.

It then they realise that something has scared the TARDIS away on this ship. Sidetracked again they go and explore further. They meet a robot taking one step down a corridor that is changing itself every few seconds. Also in an alien language.

The doctor doesn't know it it's not in his 55k+ lexicon lol. Donna doesn't as the TARDIS isn't there to translate it. They find a room that looks like a pilot/commander chair situation. Something is looking at them as they tinker. The doctor learns basic language by sampling numbers. They find out they are also out on the edge of creation as it's all black outside.

It all goes awry for them when they go to separate rooms. They are joined by what they think are the other one. Except these are entities that are slowly cloning them. Obviously to get off the ship and spread death in the universe.

This leads to great writing as they are trying to work out which ones are real. Also while the beings are copying them they cant fully control the bodies to begin with which leads to amusing (and life saving) consequences.

So it's a race to find out why the ship is changing, why the bot is walking down the corridor slowly and to stop the evil bad guys!

Suffice to say they do, though the Doctor nearly leaves the real Donna behind. A lovely episode of playing catch up with two of the most loved duo's in the TARDIS, which for me is a brilliant addition to any 60th.

So this episode was amazing compared to last week, pure sci-fi amazement. Enough techno babble to please any enthusiast of who. It was very reminiscent of midnight, in fact I'd like to think these or that creature were some offshoot species of each other. No sonic meant they had to use brains, wits and good old running down corridors to outwit the baddies.

An almost perfect episode for me as I didn't read up any spoilers so didn't have any expectations. And Wilf omg my heart leapt into my throat amazing to see him. Which finally brings me to my nitpicks.

Strangely not many about the actual episode this week, mainly the actual viewers. So okay I mentioned it the Isaac Newton thing, wasn't a massive deal but if that was a white man playing Malcolm X the internet would explode.

The doctor being a bit bi, not a nitpick just seen some people be a bit funny about that, so what?

The whole alien being male or female, thing glad the doctor just went, no it's a her, end of story.

Finally the flux and timeless child stuff, brilliantly handled. Brought up quite heartfelt by the doctor in fact over the flux which made me feel more in those few minutes than i did in a whole chibnal episode, with the flux an almost dismissed child reference too, though I feel we'll see more of that at some point.

Now my two massive problems both with people/so called fans. It seems DWM has some redacted names for cast on this episode. I don't read it so I didn't see it. Those that did along with other small (what they thought) were spoilers seemed to think other doctors or something were coming back.

That's not the episodes fault is it, it's your fault for building up expectations. BUT it also led to these two factors:

Firstly people mistook the beings for full on shape changers/shifters thinking they could change at will. NO they were copying the thing in front of them to become perfect copies. This was EXPLICITLY explained in the damn episode. But because people had these false expectations they seem to have glossed over that explanation in favour of thinking these things could have turned into Capaldi or Smith. NO that would have broken the trying to copy them rule AND also the illusion they were trying to act like their copy.

Secondly temper your thoughts 20+yrs ago you didn't have much else than slow internet and a TV mag to tell you what was going on. Don't get mad that an episode didn't go your way, appreciate you got this episode and spoiler free, how it used to be. Admittedly it just seems the premise was also to above some peoples levels of comprehension so auto shitted on it too due to that.

Wild Blue Yonder was near perfection for me. I hope next week brings a final goodbye to Tennant (and a massive tear from me) with a super finale.

THN awards this episode 5 out of 5

Doctor Who 2023: 60th Anniversary 1st Special: The Star Beast

 Righty oh so after a little hiatus after all that Jodie Whittaker stuff. Now let's get one thing straight I was open to a female doctor timelords are aliens with regeneration powers. I mean come on try can probably become other races too. Not only that Jodie was pretty good as the doctor most of the time. It was just most of the stories were too preachy or just badly written AND I'm sorry but the timeless child stuff was shit.

Anyway we're here because Jodie strangely regenerated into Tennant again?

RTD was back at the helm Doctor Who was saved, except no AND yes. This episode was both amazing in execution with lots of tech, whizz bangs and fun. Not to mention a great enemy that was if you didn't already know the old comics quite a shocker!

First up things I liked, Tennant for the most part was straight back into his shoes. Donna albeit a little different (though explained why later) was great too. Shaun her husband was amazing too, probably one of my favourite parts actually. The star beast or The Meep was great as well as it's practical effects too. It was 'nice' to see UNIT back too but more on that later too. The alien hunters were great too and the return of the shadow proclamation also. As well as the impromptu courtroom scene. Yes I noticed the bullets did no damage to the car.

It's easy to see the cash injections that the shows had too upping the production values sky high. The new tech was amazing, though maybe a little over reliance on the sonic screwdriver. But I'm a Sci-Fi geek so I loved it still. It was funny and sad at times which made me smile and also at one time brought a tear to my eye.

Now the little niggles: UNIT could have just been the army or pretty much any other military service. Granted they are setting them up for later episodes, it was just a bit wet lettuce you know. Now the scientist in the wheelchair was amazing beautiful and we'll acted, the weapons were very cheesy. Now one bug bear I had was the soldier uses the stairs he's like sorry mam. WHY anyone with half a brain cell knows wheelchairs can't go up stairs, there was literally no need to point it out. As mentioned the over use of sonic for almost every situation. Except the spaceship bit with the deadlock.

Now here's the bit that might annoy some people who don't really read into it and just take it at face value. I have never and never will be a bigot of any kind. I've been around the LGBTQ scene all my life. From when my friend came out to going to (what they were referred to back in the 90s as) gay clubs. Not only that I've dated 3 Trans girls throughout my life too. It was the damn over use of pointing out that Yasmins character (who was very wooden and looks about 30 playing a 15 year old) Rose was Trans, every minute of every scene she was involved in something was brought up. Now nothing bad in that or saying it a few times. Especially with Donna's mother because even me at 41 now having friends/ex-partners still get things messed up, my dad at 63 jeez I wouldn't even TRY to explain to him. These things do all lead into my biggest concern with the episode with also spawns a few niggles itself then too.

The doctor is an almost omnipotent being who can be any gender, probably any race (and I mean alien etc not skin colour). Gets scolded for possible misgendering the Meep who just throws it under the carpet anyway. Then we get him being scolded about presenting as male later on when Donna and Rose can just 'let go' because only women can do that apparently. Which brings me to a good point my one trans friend brought up. Does that mean FtoM trans identifying people are shit then?

I mean they identify as men now see that's what you get writing stupid shit like that in. Back to the point, again making the doctor who (hehe) has previously been female out to be inferior now. I mean come on stick to a path and follow it.

Now rant over onto some other points, the glass divider coming down really reminded of End of Time with Wilf that's what made me tear up. The whole doctor Donna bit was awesome too, I knew she wasn't dead so didn't get sad. The ease in which it was solved felt a little detracting from the emotional loss of letting her go before too. The evil Meep was cool but didn't need to be like oh my boss will be unhappy! 

We know there's a bigger bad, in fact it wasn't needed to even be said, again felt a little dumbed down there.

Now over all I did actually like the episode the action and Sci-Fi-ness of it all was great.

Som factors to point out, some people said Donna spilling the coffee looks very deliberate. I'm inclined to think no, Catherine is a very slapstick comedian who does 'over the top' but we'll see on that. Also the fact that she somehow knew that Tennant wasn't 10th but 14th, again metacrisis meant they were linked so I think that's how she knew about in-between doctors. Again we'll see on that. What I'm hoping now is they got the woke out in this episode, so the next 2 will be pure storyline awesomeness.

Star beast gets a disappointing 3 out 5 from THN as I can tell the more I watch it the more those things will grate on me.

Review: Phantasm 3 Lord of the Dead (1994)

Stars: Angus Scrimm, Reggie Bannister

Budget: $2.5 million

Directed By: Don Coscarelli

The third movie in the phantasm series, was plagued by a strange release schedule, it was meant for a larger theatrical release but due to a conflict with Coscarelli they pulled it last minute. Though It did get a limited release in some areas that didn't get the memo (where it did a reasonable opening weekend too!)

It was then released DtV where it became one of the top 100 highest selling videos of the time.

So yes it did that well despite again taking ages in development just like the previous one did. It has it's fans and haters such as people who like the direction it went, then others who don't especially with the trope of oh it was a dream sequence! already becoming and old gimmick.
Another move by Paramount was to get A. Micheal Baldwin back as Mike after the fan uproar of him being replaced in the second movie.
Amazing what a great fan disdain could achieve years ago, these days movie studios just do what they want and wonder why movies do bad, then blame out of date concepts such as misogyny rather than just plain bad story/writing. That however is a rant for a different day!

So this movie takes just after the last one, where the Tall Man emerges from the gateway just minutes after what happened in the last one. Odd due to what just happened in the previous film. We join the STILL not dead Reggie who survives once again, falling from the hearse to watch as it explodes further down the road. Reggie manages to save Mike but Liz is clearly dead. The Tall Man appears taking her head with him, after Reggie scares him off with a hand grenade.

Mike is in a coma however, so he is put in hospital. A few years later Mike awakes after receiving an odd premonition from his dead brother. This is interrupted by the Tall Man. Mike awakes only to be attacked by a crazy nurse, though he manages to subdue her.
Reggie magically turns up and they both watch in weird wonder as a sphere bursts from the nurses head then flies off. 

When they get to Reggie's house they are attacked by the Tall Man who has turned Jody into a sphere, but not before he tells them of Idaho. The Tall Man then manages to get away with Mike to the other realm after besting Reggie.

Reggie awakens beginning a Journey towards the before mentioned state, along the way he is captured by three people. They lock him in the boot/trunk of his car when he reaches the town. He is later rescued by a new kid called Tim, after the earlier trio try and break into a house they are subsequently killed.
Tim ends up explaining that the Tall Man used was in this town, which is why it's now pretty much a ghost town, he took everyone including his parents. Reggie tries to leave Tim behind at an orphanage but the boy stows away in Reggie's car. When Reggie is later attacked by a sphere while looking for Mike. He bumps into two other people Rocky and Tanesha. Tanesha is Killed by the sphere, Tim managed to destroy it saving the other two.

They then follow some hearses, that night Reggie has a dream where him and Jody rescue Mike. (see what I mean about the dream sequences etc?). Reggie awakes and Mike with the aid of Jody falls out of a rift. They close it in time to sever the Tall Mans hands as he tries to follow them through it. They all get separated (Mike/Reggie, Tim, Rocky) when they are attacked by the looters from earlier. They are now undead. the Jody sphere contacts mike telling him that the Tall Man is amassing an army to take over their dimension.

The Tall Man recaptures Mike and starts to operate on him, remembering he has a weakness to cold the heroes attack him with liquid nitrogen. They succeed in locking him in a freezer but his head explodes revealing a golden sphere, Reggie manages to catch it with a plunger! then puts it into the liquid nitrogen. We then get some revelations about Mike!

THN doesn't spoil the endings of films unless their so bad their not worth watching, Phantasm 3 is well worth the watch especially if your invested in the series by now. this is much better than the second film though the continuous dream sequences can get a bit annoying especially as they kind of effect the real world too. So what's the point to them being dreams? 

Aside from that this film has much better acting and stronger continuation of the story-line with a better ending than both the first two.
THN awards Phantasm 3 a strong 3 out of 5 stars with a recommendation to watch

Review: Phantasm 2 (1988)

Stars: Reggie Bannister, Angus Scrimm

Budget: $3 million

Directed By: Don Coscarelli 

Due to weirdly good performance of Phantasm it was inevitable that a sequel would show up. When your film does $12 million on a budget of $300,000 it's a done thing. It was allocated a measely $3 million budget by Universal, though this was still massive compared to any of the other films budgets. 

The weird thing is, it took almost 9 years for this sequel to show up. Why?
Don had thought the ending was quite conclusive to the first film and couldn't see any way a sequel could be made from what had happened.
(Trying not to spoil it here) so it took him this long along with some other collaborators to come up with a suitable way to start the next film.

That idea was to start it right at the end of the last one and have what happened by slightly retconned at this ones beginning.
Unfortunately due to being such a long time coming some of the original cast wasn't available for some reason or another. This was one of the main points of upset for some people who came to the sequel, it threw them a bit to see a different actor playing a lot of the old characters. Mainly Mike but a lot of people new and old to the franchise have come to just accept this now.

We join Mike now 19 in a mental asylum as people didn't believe him about the all the initial Tall Man stuff that happened. Faking his recovery he manages to get himself released where he goes to Reggie to get help in exposing the Tall Man once and for all. Oh it is shown in a flashback how they all escaped/survived the original films ending too.
A new character is also introduced in the form of Liz Reynolds who has weird visions of Mike and the Tall Man. She tells Mike to come and find her in a prophetic dream sequence.

Reggie is quite disbelieving of Mike (despite the last film), but he shows him empty coffins he believes in his story again. They then go on a road trip, though only after all of Reggie's family dies in a freak explosion that Mike foretells.
Reggie creates the infamous quad barreled shotgun (that hardly gets any use in most of the films) and they continue on the way. Liz's grandfather dies then at the funeral her sister vanishes, she goes to look for her but is scared by the Tall Man and flees. The residing priest (Father Meyers) finds out about the Tall Mans plans and tries to stop him bringing Liz's grandfather back to life. He fails and the grandfather takes Liz's grandmother that night.

She's messaged by the Tall Man in a mental image to come rescue her grandmother, Mike awakens while they near to Liz's town only to discover Reggie has picked up a woman who looks a lot like a terrifying visage they saw earlier on the road. Liz goes to the mortuary to find her Grandmother but is stopped by father Meyers who is then killed by one of the flying spheres.
Reggie and Mike come a little to late as the Tall Man has captured Liz and escapes with her, he pushes them both off the road with his hearse. After this it basically becomes a save Liz from the Tall Man rest of film. Which I won't spoil the ending as usual here on THN.

I didn't mind this as a sequel and with more modern TV replacing actors in things has become more of a mainstay in films and series's of today. It does well to explain more into the Tall Man and his origins than the first film too. THN  awards Phantasm 2 a solid 3 out of 5 stars.

Review: Hellraiser (2022)

Stars: Jamie Clayton, Odessa A'Zion

Budget: unknown 

Directed By: David Bruckner

Hating lately that so many films, mainly streaming are so hard to find budgets for. Guess it's a good way to beat them taxes right?

Aside from that we've had a pretty decent year of reboots and reimaginings so far. With Prey being one of them. We have Halloween Ends up coming too ending that rebooted franchise.

Not been all sing song though, Hocus Pocus 2 was a soulless sequel/reboot, the best part being the witches. So let's take a dive and see if Hellraiser 2020 bares fruit.

First up some people seem to have said there's links to the old ones in this, it's not there's some tenuous nods at the most but it's its own thing. It's a totally new retelling of the old law.

Which isn't a bad thing as it keeps it's roots firmly in the source material but tells a new story in it.

I'll get to the elephant in the room here before anyone starts anything. Yes pinhead is played by Jamie Clayton a trans actress not Doug Bradley. Get over it, like Robert Englund he's getting old. Yeah the last few hellraiser pinheads have been abysmally poor especially fathead from revelations.

The cenobites are meant to be androgynous in nature alluring to both female and male alike. The new designs are fantastic from the box to the new and existing cenobites. Jamie Clayton is by far the best since Doug.

This movie has a heavy emphasis on addiction, in every sense of the word. From drugs, pain, love to solving puzzles. Usually one taking place of another too.

As notes the lament configuration box is different it now takes on several different forms. But to change its form you need to feed it a soul as sacrifice, usually the person unfortunate enough to solve it.

This is shown quite quuckly at the beginning our main bad guy (Voight) makes a sex worker open the box. He is quickly torn apart by the chains. Our big bad then asks to see leviathan, which I'll get to later.

A few years later Riley a recovering drug addict is living with her brother (Matt) and his boyfriend (Trevor). There's another room mate Nora. Her brothers boyfriend persuades her to help him break into a warehouse where he's heard a rich guy keeps a load of valuables. Of course she finds the box there, unfortunately on returning home her brother finds out and scolds her about relapsing and her old shitty ways. She runs off to the park and manages to solve the box without cutting herself (The soul is only sacrificed if the box takes a blood toll).

After an encounter with the cenobites she passes out. Matt finds her then cuts himself on the box, he heard screaming from a nearby restroom then vanishes.

Knowing the box is to blame she takes Trevor to find someone who can explain things. Voights ex lawyer had the box hidden there. She explains things but tries to take the box, in the process cutting herself too. When the two leave for Voights mansion the cenobites come for her too.

Breaking into Voights house Riley finds his journals on the box. About it's different configurations, there's seven and each has a meaning. Though it must take a soul as offering if they bleed from the blade.

Here's where it differs quite a bit more now, the seventh configuration is leviathan. Leviathan is the entity that watches over hell, if you get that configuration you can have an audience with it. Then ask it for a wish/gift, she then sees Matt flayed alive.

I'll leave it here so I don't spoil to much more of the film. It really is worthy of a watch especially if you like up to the 4th film in the OG series. Take heed though this is more like Hellraiser 1&2 much more serious.

Is it flawless? 

No, it's by far an improvement since part 2 though, THN awards this movie a strong 4 out of 5 stars.

Review: The Omega Man (1973)

Stars: Charlton Heston, Rosalind Cash

Budget: ?

Directed By: Boris Sagal

Very apt for today's situation too, if your reading this some time in the future, in 2020 we had a global pandemic from a virus named covid 19, or corona virus.
In this movie (an adaptation of the book I Am Legend by Richard Matheson) a disease has turned people into freakish white, scared very single minded monsters.

Nothing like the book that turned people into very basic minded vampires. The second in adaptations of the book the first being 1964's last man on earth, which i'll do at some point. the third being Will Smiths I Am Legend in 2007. None of them bar the older version follow the book very closely.
I can't find concrete release dates for this some places say 71' others 73', also no budget for it either?

There is another version, an asylum flick, starring the one the only Mark Dacascos. I might, might do it one day too i've seen it and it does not follow the book very closely either.

The book follows one Robert Neville who is seemingly immune to the disease and they also don't know where it originates from 100% either. though throughout the book he starts to learn all he can from books on the subject. The same with the infected, they are not vampires, nor like in the book do they suffer from the same weaknesses as vampires either (like crosses, garlic, mirrors etc). They are also very susceptible to being killed by conventional means.
That's some of the main things changed in the film from the book, It's now military scientist Richard Neville, the virus was known and he's not naturally immune. He inoculates himself with an experimental serum only moments of not being infected left. It works and he becomes immune to the virus.

Months later we join Neville as he tries to occupy his mind, like the book he has succumbed to being alone for a long time. He goes around like the book killing members of the infected who now call themselves 'the family' they are very anti science and see it as the reason for the downfall of humanity now. Neville being 'normal' is the embodiment of all of this too so they naturally hate him.
the film deals with the isolation and loneliness one would face by being the last person alive, going through phases of madness, alcoholism even suicidal. practically being a prisoner of your own mind/devices it's a scary place and one i'm sure people are feeling a lot today.

One day Neville thinks he see's someone else while he's raiding a store chasing the person he loses them, coming to the conclusion that he was just seeing things. Neville is eventually captured by the family and almost burned alive for his technological sins. He is saved by the person he seen, one Lisa and her friend Dutch. In a massive departure he is taken to a place where children are, they are infected but do not totally succumb to the virus until they hit adulthood.
He decides to try and use his blood to synthesis a working serum to help the children, saving the rest of the world would take forever though. throughout the rest of film Neville falls for Lisa, continues his work on the serum and occasionally gets attacked by the family from time to time.

They all come to conclusion that if he does manage to make a cure they will leave the city and make a new home out in the wilderness somewhere. Lisa succumbs to the virus later on helping the rest of the family infiltrate his home. Here we leave off telling you the end of the film like we do in THN as The Omega Man is definitely a classic piece of cinema to be watched.
We award this film a strong 3 out of 5 stars as some of the political messages haven't aged well, the situation however is to real at the moment.

Review: Ernest Scared Stupid (1991)

Stars: Jim Varney, Austin Nagler 

Budget: 9.6 million

Directed By: John R. Cherry III

I know this isn't what you'd call a horror film but it is a spooky addition to the Ernest series of films. Now I live in the UK and these films weren't as well known over here as the US. In fact this was the only one I knew about for a little while, hey I was 9 in 91' lol.

I do have to say after seeing a few more Ernest films that this one was my favourite, though I don't outright hate any of the others I've seen. Ernest goes to Jail at this time is the only one I remember almost as well as Scared Stupid.

So the premise, our lovable fool Ernest accidentally frees a troll demon from a cursed tree. That was trapped in the 19th century this troll kidnaps kids and turns them into little wooden figures. See the Worrols were cursed to be the only ones who could free it.

Ernest breaks the cursed looking tree it was trapped in. That's how it escapes.

The rest of the film is played out with him trying to find out how to retrap the troll and convincing some of the other people in town. The one thing that sticks in my memory and I don't know why is looking for a weakness Ernest sees something called Mi_k and instantly thinks it's a rare bulgarian chutney or something called miak. The troll actually grossed me out as a kid too.

I liked this film quite a lot and THN awards Ernest Scared Stupid a good 4 out of 5 stars.