Up Coming Horror Games I'm Looking Forwards Too

Friday the 13th

Okay so this game has to be one of the ones i'm most looking forwards too on the list. Getting to play the hockey masked behemoth stalking helpless camp workers looks so much fun. it's not just that though. It's the whole Easter eggs and references that will keep me squeeing for weeks or months while they are discovered or unlocked too.
The cabin where there's nearly everything from a previous film rammed in there, from props to different Jason models. All maps will be proceduraly generated too around the main cabin so they say, which should make most games unique.
So the councilors will have to work together and survive to escape from Jason in a number of ways one being a car, more i haven't heard of. Jason WILL be killable but it's going to take a lot and only 1/10 games will result in councilors actually winning this way (supposedly). That's pretty much all I know so far, but it's got me stoked for this game.


Resident Evil 7

Initially I hated the look of this, it just seemed like an outlast or Alien isolation clone with the Resident Evil tag slapped on it. Both Demo's shown with the initial one apparently not even being a part of the finished game, have nothing in them linking to anything game play or story wise from the other games.
Then it was accidentally shown there will be gun play etc in it. I think they really need to show some of this stuff to keep the original RE crowd, who 80% are up in arms over the travesty they've seen so far go completely nuts.
I have loved RE since the original playstation, i played 5 minutes of it at my friends ran out with my old super nintendo and 15 games and traded it in for a ps1 and RE lol. I loved them all up to and including RE4 then they just seemed to lose the plot.
Theres two things i hope with this, one it has at least some small link somewhere with the other ones, otherwise just call it a reboot or even something else. Two just dont have it all as a hiding simulator, don't say your bringing back and totally copy something like the aforementioned games.

Review: Return of the Living Dead 2 (1988)

Stars: Thom Matthews, James Karen

Director: Brian Yuzna

Budget: $6.2 Million

Yes the second installation of the RotLD series. Directed by Mr Yuzna the man behind the Reanimator series, another of my favorite movie series's.
It kind of forgets the last movie but references it in some weird ways, which i'll get to later.

So it's late at night and some army truck carrying the same trioxin barrels from the first movie is speeding along on a road.
The speeding and a pothole knocks free a barrel which goes bouncing down into a ravine. A little later some bully and his friend cajole the kid 'hero' of the film down into a water outlet.
Inside the barrel has come to rest the kids open the top hatch and get scared when the glass clears revealing the zombie face. They all run and the bullies lock hero kid in a mausoleum in a graveyard. There he escapes and runs off after being told off by non other than Frank and Freddy from the first movie. Except this time they are grave robbers stealing bodies/parts for money.

Stupid bullies go back later and break open the barrel exposing themselves and the nearby graveyard to the trioxin gas. Once again Frank and Freddy get infected with the gas and yes throughout the movie the slowly change into zombies just the first. Freddy even, maybe in some weird fourth wall breaking way says later in the film i feel like this has all happened before!

So all hell breaks lose as the undead rise and infect the living once again into nearly invulnerable zombies. This one, even though the first was a horror comedy too has a much lighter tone not so doom and gloom. This was also the first one of the series I ever saw, so yes as usual i am jaded and this is my favorite of the five films.
I also realised in this one that Freddy, Thom Matthews is also Tommy in my favorite part of the Ft13th series, part 6. Unlike the first one they also find a convoluted way of finally dispatching the undead in this one. One of my favorite scenes involving a zombie dressed like Micheal Jackson dancing like him when they all die.

Over all as i said this is one my favorite zombie film by far number one on my list even it being comedy horror. Reanimator is also one of my fave fims too, Brian Yuzna just does something i like a lot when it comes to his films. So for this this gets the THN top fives stars and the strongest please watch I could ever put on a film.

Review: Return of the Living Dead (1985)

Stars: Thom Matthews, Linnea Quigley, Don Calfa

Director: Ken Weiderhorn

Budget: $4million

By far one of my favourite zombie films of all time. I think though I actually saw the second one first, then the third then this one. I was quite young watching these though but thankfully this was comedy enough to not totally freak me like Demons did.

So this apparently has some loose connection to the Romero night of the living dead, in that the canisters in their basement contain some of the zombies from that movie.

Thom Matthews plays Freddy a young guy who just got a job in a medical warehouse. The kind where they store things for biology and medical classes in schools, colleges and universities.
Frank his older coworker does the usual schlock you do with a new guy, try to freak him out with weird stuff. So like i said he shows him these canisters down in the basement, they are old and rusted but Frank believing in sturdy american ingenuity bops one releasing a noxious green gas into the air.

This gas unknowingly to Frank and Freddy infects them and everything 'dead' in the warehouse. They slowly turn into zombies over the course of the film. Now i don't want to spoil to much about this film as it's a damn classic that needs to be watched by anyone who is a zombie fan. This is because it introduces so many zombie norms that people take for granted these days, more so even than night, dawn or day of the dead ever did.
Number one being the need for brains, most if not all zombie films before this series zombies just ate you, all of you. Totally almost totally invulnerable zombies, i mean even beheading bullet to the brain etc does not kill a RotLD zombie. That ones rarely used anymore especially in film. Even running and faster zombies were in this, pretty much dependent on how decayed they are. There's also the

There's only one thing that i don't like about this film and that's it's ending, a typical type of 80's ending that i wont spoil. Linnea Quigley scream queen also stars in this, she is nude for a large amount of the film and gets killed quite gruesomely too.

So yes i love this film series, this is probably my second favorite out of the whole lot of them, i will get around to reviewing them all, even the abysmal 4+5. THN gives this film a strong a 5 out of 5 stars.

Book Review: Zomcats non spoiler as possible!

Author: Jack Strange

Haha! Another book by the above author and yes it's a follow up to the amazingly refreshing read and take on zombie genre, Celebrity Chef Zombie Apocalypse.
So do you guys remember the sawblade midriff kitty Henderson? Well we all know the freaky cat got away at the end of ccza.
He managed to find his way to a small village named Nobblethwaite. The village is like any small one you'd come across anywhere in the UK. Having lived in the valleys for many years it was very nostalgic for me.
So Henderson befriends a blind man who he ends up annoying and through this ends with him getting bitten. And like the previous book, though maybe not as quickly as then the man turn into cat.
The village also has a gang of bullies also reminiscent as these villages usually do have rogue bored teens, though no where near as bad lol.

This what I love about jack's writing style is its a massively over blown parody of things that actually exist. Atleast on the real things, as zombies and zomcats don't exist, or do they?

This book is great as it introduces new things to keep it fresh but also either ties up open plots from the last or reintroduces them very well. Such as the last guy who got bit by Henderson to Floyd, kat etc. This leads to new threads and opens up to new sequel's etc.

This is the one problem I have with it, it does at times have to much going on. But that also is overlooked by the fact that Mr Strange does not get caught in a corner with his writing he gets out of these multiple threads by intelligent plots.
And instead of being a bit daunted  by all the open ends at the end of this I am actually very interested to see where the author takes the story in the future.

Final thoughts, I was very entertained by this book just like the last one I really love, possibly due to my age and the background I was brought up in the way Jack writes. I still like Roy chubby brown jokes etc, the satire and parodies ring true with me.
It's very intelligent you really have to know your material with this style. I'm rambling but it's because it's just a good style I like. Slightly less enthralling than ccza but no less fun THN rates this book a strong 4/5 stars

Body Parts 1991

Stars: Jeff Fahey, Lindsay Duncan, Brad Dourif

                                                                    

Director: Eric Red


Budget: 10 million 

Jeff Fahey plays a criminal psychologist good at his job who gets involved in a car crash and loses his right arm. It is then replaced in a revolutionary new medical procedure.
What he doesn't initially know is the parts have come from a crazy serial killer. When Fahey's demeanor changes and he starts having violent thoughts and flashbacks he then goes digging into where the arm came from.

So this film, it's good quite a nice acting turn from Fahey who i have always liked as an actor. i think it's that steely look he can do is just good in intense situations.

So Fahey, Bill is already in the legal business working as a criminal psychologist, trying to workout and rehabilitate some of the worst criminals. He then takes this knowledge and teaches it in a university too. His life is sweet, a good wife and good kids with enough money coming in.
He gets into a horrific car accident which results in him losing his arm, disheartened and disillusioned. It forces his wife to sign a waver for a Dr Webb to try a new transplant procedure to give Bill a new arm. Quite gruesomely they remove the guys head right in front of Bill before cutting off his arm. Bill looses consciousness and then attach his new arm.
Rehabilitation goes well, surprisingly fast especially since even on the first day Bill's new arm shows a weird flinch as he finds difficulty with the initial weight.

When home his kids are scared of it even his wife unsure. Until they make love and everything is suddenly OK. He starts getting the violent flashbacks like he's murdering people and when the guy he is trying to rehabilitate recognizes the tattoo on the arms wrist as a death row tattoo Bill starts to investigate where the arm came from.
He finds out it comes from one Charlie Fletcher wanted and sentenced to death for many dour murders. He confronts Dr Webb who thinks he's slightly bonkers for thinking he could be infected by memories from a dead persons arm. He then goes to some of the other amputees who received parts from Fletcher. One is a disturbed painters who got the other arm Remo Lacey (Dourif) his paintings were shit before the transplant but now they are selling well. Bill realised they are paintings of the visions he is seeing. He doesn't heed Bill's warnings as he happy making the money he raking in now.

The second person is Mark Draper who Bill is following when Mark's leg kicks down on the accelerator almost killing him running a red light. They talk and even though mark like bill is encountering problems he's just happy to be able to walk again. Things go from worse to bad in his household when he strikes his boy for hurting his arm and he almost strangles his wife to death in bed one night.

He moves out to a hotel for the safety of his family. He then goes to demand that Dr Webb remove the arm. She refuses calls him mad and tells him to go see a psychologist as she wont risk he new found procedure from bad press. Bill meets up with both Remo and Mark in a bar to discuss the the parts, they make him feel safe and happy. But trouble starts when a guy who recognizes Bill asks to see his arm. Single-handed he takes out a bunch of people and almost kills one.
Mark returns home and something makes his legs lock up he gets scared. He then rings Bill who only gets to the phone to hear the end of the message. He goes to Marks only to find him dead and missing his legs. Unfortunately for Bill the detective thinks he is something to do with it, Bill implores him to check up on Remo.

The detective takes Bill with him to check up on Remo, Charley who is still miraculously alive having his head transplanted onto another body kills Remo taking his arm. In a handcuffed car chase both parties barely make it out alive. Bill steals the detectives car and continues the chase of Charley all the way to the hospital. Bill is knocked out and strapped to a table where Webb appears saying she will take the arm back now. See Charley is her son and Dr Webb needed a way to keep him out of the limelight for a while and using the amputees as a way to keep other parts alive.
Bill is able to tap into the killer rage we've seen throughout the film and break free. He knocks out Webb and escapes, fighting with Charlie for the shotgun. He manages to snap Charlies neck then he shoots the remaining parts to smithereens. Charlie miraculously comes back as Bill is calling the cops, that's where i stop folks its not far from the of the film, you know i don't spoil endings.

So thoughts, this film didn't do well in cinemas, home release it made some money back though. Fahey does an excellent job in his role, very believable. It's nice to see Brad Dourif in a non psychotic role for a change, doesn't make his freaky bug eyes any less googly though lol. a strong supporting cast and reasonably tight and original story too, i enjoyed this film a lot back many years ago and i even enjoyed re-watching it recently. I would recommend this for s good thriller night in and give it a good 4 out of 5 stars