Tag Archives: To Watch Pile

John Wick (2014)

by in To Watch Pile and tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

John Wick (2014)

The cover to the Australian Bluray release

Film: I’m not sure when it was that Keanu Reeves became some kind of Hollywood darling, but I do know that there is very few of his films that I haven’t enjoyed.

John Wick blasted out of nowhere in 2014 and even though it took me maybe a year to see it, I really enjoyed it from that first watch. This film really lies in my wheelhouse of the main character being an almost superhuman machine, a love which started with James Bond films, and trickled through many other films starring similar characters like Jack Reacher, Alex Cross, Jack Ryan, Lisbeth Salander, Lorraine Broughton and their ilk. I think the reason I like Call of Duty and the Tom Clancy video games is because it’s a chance to play as one of these types of heroes, with cutting edge gadgets and weapons, and violent adventure.

Keanu Reeves as John Wick

One of the things that makes this film such an interesting watch is the absolute amazing stunts, which is to be expected when one considers the director is Chad Stahelski, a former stunt co-ordinator on action films like The Hunger Games, The Wolverine and Deadpool 2. Apparently he directed this film with David Leitch who has a similar pedigree but was uncredited. It was written by Derek Kolstad, who wrote the other two Wick films, the Bob Odenkirk vehicle Nobody and a few episodes of a marvel’s entry into the espionage world, The Falcon and Winter Soldier.

The film tells of John Wick (Keanu Reeves), an ex-assassin and ‘problem solver’ for the Russian mafia who has retired his guns, and enjoy a quiet, married life. This life is destroyed when his wife tragically passes away, but as a last gift, he receives a puppy from her because he needs someone to soften him.

Unfortunately, by chance on the day of his wife’s funeral, Wick meets up with Iosef (Alfie Allen), the son of Wick’s ex-employer, Russian mafia boss Viggo (Michael Nyqvist), and he and his crew after spotting Wicks lovely ‘69 Mustang, decide to steal it. They break into his home, assault him, kill the puppy and steal his car.

Michael Nyqvist as Viggo

This opens a can of worms that cannot be unopened. Viggo is so afraid of Wick he puts a two million dollar contract out on him, a contract picked up by Marcus (Willem DaFoe) and Miss Perkins (Adrianne Palicki), but as we, the viewers, start to explore the underground world of assassin’s, we discover that not everything is as it seems…

Being directed by a stunt expert means that the highlights of this film are certainly the gunplay, the fighting and the car stunts. For want of a better term, the fight/ gunfight scenes are almost sophisticated and beautifully ballet-like in its execution, if you’ll excuse the pun. This doesn’t stop with the human contact stuff either, every car scene is like some kind of death-dealing gymkhana that is stunning to watch.

The actors that turn up are an interesting mix too. In addition to those mentioned previously, Ian McShane, Dean Winters, Bridget Moynahan, John Leguizamo, David Patrick Kelly and Kevin Nash turn up. Every time a face I knew turned up, especially Kelly, I was pretty pumped.

If I am to criticise this movie for anything, it is that it’s story is a generic revenge tale. The choreography is really spectacular, but when you sit down and think about the story, there’s really nothing to it. The world that has been created is quite fascinating, but the main characters motivations are action film generic-ishness of the highest order.

Score: ****

The menu screen to the Australian Bluray release

Extras: The disc opens with trailers for Good People and A Most Violent Year before we get to the main menu screen.

There are several extras, most of them under ten minutes, but there is a feature length audio commentary with directors Leitch and Stahelski which is actually quite a thorough look into the making of the film.

Don’t F*ck with John Wick looks at all the driving, shooting and fighting training Keanu Reeves went through to perform the role of John Wick. Honestly I went into a massive deep dive with Reeves’ training and found a bunch of stuff on YouTube about it all.

Calling in the Cavalry talks about the creation of the script and the characters.

Destiny of a Collective looks at Stahelski and Leitch’s history in stunts and stunt performance.

The Assassin’s Code takes us into the world of the assassins in the film. It shows how their world looks completely different to our ‘normal’ world.

The Red Circle discusses the design of the club and the characters that hang out there.

N.Y.C. Noir looks at the design and look of the New York in the film.

Score: ***1/2

WISIA: This DOES get regular watches. It may be generic revenge, but it’s GOOD generic revenge.

Wick’s man cave is probably a little different to yours or mine!

This review was done with the Australian Bluray release of the film.

Unmatched Jurassic Park: Ingen Vs Raptors

by in To Watch Pile and tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Unmatched Jurassic Park: Ingen Vs Raptors

The cover to Unmatched: Jurassic Park

In 2002, in the wake of the Star Wars prequels, the merchandising machine for George Lucas’ franchise went into overdrive, making everything from pyjamas to action figures, and in this case board games.

Milton Bradley/ Hasbro came up with a game called Star Wars: Epic Duels was a card based miniature game designed by Cthulhu: Death May Die’s Rob Daviau and Craig Van Ness, who made the iconic and much sought after Star Wars: The Queen’s Gambit board game… seriously, if you have one, I want it!

Unfortunately, Epic Duels disappeared, but Restoration Games unearthed it, dusted it off, removed the Star Wars skin on it and came up with an updated version, now called Unmatched: Battle of Legends Volume 1, a card based miniature game that had two players pitch characters like King Arthur, Alice (from Wonderland), Sinbad the Sailor and Medusa in..ahem… epic duels against each other.

Velociraptor card art
Muldoon card art

As this was an epically fun game, that also had beautiful card art from the people at Mondo, best known for amazing posters and soundtrack art, and minis from Punga Miniatures, of course expansions started to emerge, and very quickly we had characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Marvel comics, Bruce Lee (!!!), other older literary and mythological characters (like Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, the Invisible Man) and in this case, Jurassic Park.

Unmatched Jurassic Park is the first of three JP based expansions, one other having a T-Rex vs Ellie Sattler and Ian Malcolm and an Alan Grant one announced, and has us pitch the big game hunter Muldoon up against three velociraptors. I call them ‘expansions’ but technically, every game of Unmatched that has more than one character in it, is a game in its own right, and can be played without any of the other editions.

The miniatures can be painted or left unpainted as I have done

This game is very easy to play… you don’t need to be very clever girls (geddit?)… and is started with two players deciding whether they want to be Muldoon or the dinosaurs. Once decided, the players place their starting minis, and in the case of Muldoon, their Ingen employee chits, on the board, collect their deck of thirty cards, their player cards and their life counters, they then draw seven cards each and get ready to rumble. This seven cards is their hand limit for the game, so if at the end of a turn they find themselves with more, they have to discard down to that limit.

On each turn, the players have to draw one card, and then have a choice of actions:

– move: each mini can move up to its limit shown on the player card, unless they have a card in their hand that boosts their move limit.

– scheme: you may play a special effect card onto one of your chosen minis

– attack: using your cards, the player may attack another player if they are within range. To perform combat, the attacking player takes a combat card from their hand and place it face down in from of them, and the defender does so with a defence card. Both players reveal their cards and the defence score is removed from the attack score, and the remaining points are the damage taken. Some cards do have additional effects, so they also take place, potentially diffusing or increasing an attack.

A game set up and ready to play

This moving, scheming and attacking continues until the character mini is reduced to zero health, in the velociraptors case, all three being reduced to zero. The three versus one might seem unfair, but Muldoon has ranged attacks, Ingen employees to distract the dinosaurs and traps to corral them, or catch them.

One thing I didn’t mention with the other sets of Unmatched is they are completely mixable and matchable. You want Buffy the Vampire Slayer to fight Muldoon? Do it! Dracula versus the velociraptors? Go for it! Every set can be played against each other, so buying many sets is a must, especially when all those Jurassic Park ones are finally released!

At my place, we even used a round robin generator to create the matches for us – let me tell you, I was pretty angry when Bruce Lee beat my velociraptors, though I expect that he probably could.

The box interior is designed for easy pack up!

Even though this review is for the first Jurassic Park version Unmatched, it really is a review for all of them. Throughout the series, of course some characters are better than others, but it’s not just the specs for the character, it’s also the way the player plays. I have been beaten with characters that I didn’t win with, so play style comes into it a lot.

I love this game. The art is fantastic, the minis are beautifully designed and executed and the gameplay is simple enough for it to be accessible to gamers of any level to play it, but once you’re in, it becomes a thinky exercise that almost chess-like in its execution. Weirdly, for a game that spreads its mechanics across various themes and franchises, each character is true in its play style to its theme; a difficult exercise to execute well. Heaps of fun, buy it.

Score: *****

Shaun of the Dead (2004)

by in To Watch Pile and tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

The cover to the Australian Bluray release

Film: In this humble reviewer’s opinion, the best horror movies are the one where people like you and me are put into extraordinary situations. Night of the Living Dead stands out as an example of this; a group of faceless no-ones, drawn together to fight a common evil. Luckily for those folks they had the convenience of finding a domicile that had a firearm in it, but look around your own house, what do you have to fight back the hordes of the undead…a tennis racket? A cricket bat? A baseball bat? I imagine that the amount of houses that have NO guns would outweigh those that do, so to react against this sort of thing we would use whatever is handy…this is the world of Shaun of the Dead.

Simon Pegg as Shaun and Nick Frost as Ed

Shaun (Simon Pegg) is just like you or I, with all the same problems. His job sucks, his girlfriend, Liz (Kate Ashfield) has left him due to his flagrant disregard for their relationship, and his obsession with the local pub ‘The Winchester’, and he forgets to call his Mum (Penelope Wilton) regularly, which bring about much agro from his step-father (Bill Nighy) …general details of life that can lead a man to drink until he cannot feel his legs anymore, but Shaun’s problems are getting worse. The dead are rising, with a ravenous lust for human flesh. Shaun has to make a plan so that he can keep himself and his loved ones safe. Along with his best pal, Ed (Nick Frost), he comes up with a plan that will keep Liz, her disapproving flat mates Dianne (Lucy Davis) and David (Dylan Moran), and his mother and step father safe and well until the whole problem blows over…that is, as long as nothing untoward happens…

The walk to the pub is more difficult than normal.

Shaun of the Dead runs the gamut of gruesome gore and clever comedy…so much so you may find your head spinning. There are so many references to other zombie films that you probably won’t pick up on all of them the first time you watch it, like the Italian restaurant named Fulci’s, the electronics store called Foree’s, and the assistant manager named Ash. Seeing as how the creators and many of the other cast are from the Pegg/ Wright creation, Spaced, there are many subtle tips of the hat to that show as well, not to mention a selection of English comedy and music favourites (look out for Little Britain’s Matt Lucas, The Hobbit’s Martin Freeman, League of Gentlemen’s Mark Gatiss and Reece Shearsmith and Coldplay’s Chris Martin and Jonny Buckland to name a few). As for the zombies themselves, well, there are some really freakish ideas, like a wheelchair bound zombie…and I shall never look at twins the same way again. Also interesting is the way that Pegg and Wright have compared our mortal existences to those of the hordes of zombies. Are we really any different?

Score: *****

The menu screen to the Australian Bluray release

Extras: The commentary is by Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright. Half trivia track, half informative and half stand up comedy (hang on, is that 3 halves? Oh well) this track is really one of the best commentaries I have ever heard. It is fun and entertaining, and a great way to get help to spot all the ‘horror asides’.

The special features are divided into a few sections:

Missing Bits contains:

Extended Bits is a selection of scenes from the movie that were trimmed for various reasons. This extra can be played with or without the commentary by Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright.

Outtakes, surprisingly, are a selection of amusing outtakes. One warning though, within these outtakes contain the worst Beatles impressions you will ever hear.

The Man Who Would Be Shaun shows Nick Frost and Simon Pegg fooling around with different accents in a particular scene.

Funky Pete which shows the ‘clean’ version of a scene for the airplane version where all the ‘F’ words are changed to the word ‘funk’…do you funking well understand what I funking well mean…you mother funker?

Plot Holes contains 3 sections: What happened to Shaun when he ran off, What happened to Dianne When She Left the Winchester and How Did Ed get from the Cellar to the Shed. These sections are done as comic strips, with the tale told by the respective characters, and fill in the plot holes quite suitably and amusingly.

Raw Meat contains:

Peg’s, Davis’ and Cornish’s Video Diaries is a selection of cute behind the scenes stuff done by, well, the people whose names each short is named after. It seems to be more of a look at how mundane filmmaking is. Cornish’s harrowing trip to his day as a zombie extra is both funny and frustration.

Casting Tapes is some footage of the casting process.

Edgar and Simon’s Flip Chart which is a run through of the film by the writer done in September 2001 using a flip book (often used by teachers or in business meetings), and is a quite amusing run through of the movie, before it was even filmed.

SFX Comparison is just that. A few scenes from the movie with the special effects removed, so you can see what had to be done to get some of the effects.

Make Up Tests shows close up views of some of the zombies from the movie, with and without the ‘eye’ effects put in, and a few ‘zombie walk’ tests.

EPK Featurette discusses the origins of the movie and what the lead actors and the director thought about their roles within the movie, and also whether they are making a horror, or a comedy, or something new altogether. It is a bit of a fluff piece, but kept interesting by the personalities of the cast and crew.

TV bits contains:

Is a bunch of ‘in the world of Shaun of the Dead’ TV spots, featuring an interview with Chris Martin from Coldplay about their charity ‘Zombaid’, a game show for zombies (featuring the ‘Gonk’ piece of music from Dawn of the Dead), some bits with Tv\V presenter Trisha and a News reader recalling ‘Z Day’; the day the dead came back alive.

Zombie Gallery contains:

Photo Gallery is a series of behind the scenes photos taken of the cast and crew at rehearsals.

2000AD Strip a comic stripped based on part of the film, taken from the English sci fi comic 2000AD.

Poster Designs, which is a series of poster ideas for the film.

Trails of the Dead contains various trailers for Shaun of the Dead, including the teaser trailer from Fright Fest 2003.

Finally, in this exhaustive and thorough pile of extras, is a storyboard feature that allows you to, during the film, hit enter on your remote whenever a pair of zombie eyes pop up, to see the storyboard for that section.

Score: *****

WISIA: Yes. It’s easily the best part of the Cornetto Trilogy and is just so much fun.

It’s a zombie movie: not everyone survives!

This review was done with the Australian Bluray release.

Psycho Killer Card Game

by in To Watch Pile and tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Psycho Killer

The amazing box for Psycho Killer

David Byrne from Talking Heads once said;’ Psycho Killer, qu’est-ce que c’est, fafafafa fafafafafa better, run, run, run, run run away.’ It doesn’t mean anything in regards to this card game review, but he did say it… on SEVERAL occasions!!

There’s nothing I love more than a tidy little card game that is easy to learn, and the teach can be taught in minutes. The reason I like this is that it’s nice for my wife to have a card game or two in her hand bag, and when at the pub, it can be whipped out for a quick few rounds.

Unfortunately Psycho Killer from Escape Tabletop Games doesn’t come in one of those little boxes, but to their credit, they have put the base game into a box that will eventually fit the expansions if you choose to buy them, and I guess if you want to, you can just throw the original deck into a smaller box for travel. Also, and I have to point this out before I go any further, the box is in an awesome replica of a VHS tape, which is very thematic for the game. It just proves that even though I think I’m nostalgia proof, I definitely am not!

(NB: the expansions to date are a zombie expansion, another called Gratuitous Violence and a drinking game addition called ‘Bloody Mary’.)

If one of these comes out of the deck, you’re all in trouble.

The game does fit that previous criteria though, as the short instructions take minutes to read, and the play explanation takes even less, so if you do decide to whip it out and introduce it to people who haven’t played it before, you’ll be up to your guts in no time. This game is a clear example of it not being the size that counts, but what you do with it instead.

In Psycho Killer, you play potential and eventual victims of a slasher who wants you dead. The winner is determined by who has the less injuries at the end of the game, which is determined by when the fifth psycho killer card is drawn from the draw pile.

The regular cards

Play is simple. To set up, take the cards with black backgrounds (these are the psycho killer and bad event cards) out of the deck and deal 7 cards to each player. Shuffle those black cards back into the deck and place that deck as a draw pile in the middle of the table.

Each turn, players play as many cards as they can from their hand, and finish their turn by drawing a card from the top of the deck to replenish their hand. If the card is a psycho killer card, they, and everyone else at the table have to play all their Injury cards, which determines how many points they have, and after the 5th psycho killer is drawn, the person with the lowest amount of injuries, wins!

Simple right? The curliness of the game comes from the fact that the other cards you play can see you moving your injuries to other players, checking the cards in the deck to see if you can avoid them, reversing the state of play and other such devious things that help you avoid injury. There is also a catch up mechanism too: if you have more than 10 injury points during the game, you are ‘left for dead’ and it gives you an advantage of being able to hold some of the black cards (not the psycho killer) in your hand until it’s strategically better for you to play.

I really like the theme of the game, and the fact that the design of it all fits well in with the VHS generation, and there is plenty of horror in-jokes or Easter eggs or whatever they are called these days for the big horror fan, and even the minor one. The good thing is that the theme doesn’t disturb the gameplay so if you aren’t a horror or movie fan, like my wife, it doesn’t get in the way of a fun game. I guess this also means the theme isn’t important, but I admit I did purchase this game because of it.

A game of Psycho Killer in progress

If I am to criticise this game for one thing, it’s the ‘when to play’ code on the cards. Thematically, using the emblems for ‘fast forward’, ‘play’, ‘eject’ etc to describe when each card has to be played is smart, but it’s not immediately accessible, and those casuals who aren’t big movie fans will ask on several occasions what it means, so be prepared for those questions!

All in all, Psycho Killer is a quick fun family game with a very non-family theme. Game length is random as you never know when those psycho killer cards are going to pop up, but the cards make it tactically fun as you cross and double cross your friends and family, allowing them to get more injuries than what you have, aiming towards that lower score at the end.

Score: ****

Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)

by in To Watch Pile and tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

The cover to the Australian 4K steelbook release.

Film: Movie trends come and go.

Fifty years ago, every second film was a western, and apart from an occasional uprising, it’s essentially a dead genre. In the late 1990s/ early 2000s, remakes of j-horror were all the rage. At the moment, it seems that ‘forgetting’ is the new genre.

This review is being written in 2022, and for the past few years, the dumping of the stories from either sequels or ‘expanded universe’ have been flushed down the toilet to create NEW histories of characters. Disney basically dumped all the Star Wars expanded universe stuff to replace it with their own (occasionally awful) new tales, the Halloween series had dumped the entire story from Halloween II on (thereby Michael and Laurie are no longer related) and here with the Terminator series, all the disappointing and convoluted sequels after T2 has been thrown away.

On first hearing this, I didn’t think it was such a bad idea as long as some new, high sci-fi concepts were brought to the table, and it wasn’t, like in Disney’s Star Wars case, an excuse to sell more toys.

Now I actually expected this to have some decent pedigree. I had read that David S. Goyer was writing, and I was quite thrilled by that. Obviously he’s know for his work on Chris Nolan’s Batman films, as well as the Blade films and even a couple of Call of Duty video games, which I’m particularly fond of. This excitement was tempered slightly by the SIX other writers who worked on the film! Too many cooks, and all that.

The film is director by animator Tim Miller, who directed the first Deadpool film, and a couple of episodes of the magnificent Love, Death + Robots, so at the very least you know the effects might make up for any shortcomings on the script written by multiple writers!

Grace (Mackenzie Davis) lines up the Terminator for a spearing

So, forget every film of the Terminator, and the TV series, and the comics because we are in the fast train to reboot city!

Terminator Dark Fate starts, quite simply, several years ago with the Terminators finishing their mission from Terminator 2, and shooting the Hell out of a CGI version of John Conner (a CGI version of Edward Furlong) in front of his mother, Sarah (a CGI version of Linda Hamilton).

Flash forward to now, and two visitors from the future have returned with a new mission. One, a new and different Terminator unit called the Rev-9 (Gabriel Luna) here to kill Dani (Natalia Reyes), a future leader of the human resistance, and the other is Grace (Mackenzie Davis), an augmented super soldier sent back to protect her.

Grace has her work cut out for her because the new terminator is two terminators in one, and they will definitely need help for her survival. That help comes in the form of a much older Sarah Conner, who has been receiving mysterious messages, telling her when other Terminators will be dropping through time. These messages eventually lead our ragtag team back to a surviving T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger) who also agrees to help then…

The Rev-9 in all its glory!

… and then it’s on like Donkey Kong!

Certainly this film does that ‘thing’ that sequels need to do: get the one up from the episode before. In this we don’t have a terminator helping the good guys, we have a character in Grace who is both human, and yet half-a-terminator. In a world where our heroes that appeal to the general audience have super powers, this is both fashionably on point and ridiculous. Why ridiculous? Well, the bad guy has to be an amped up threat as well, and in this case we have a combination of almost all the terminators, but added together, and they can separate into both a T-800 and a T-1000.

It’s got a couple of problems though. It feels like Star Wars The Force Awakens insomuch as it’s a remake that expands a story. The entire film hits all the same beats as T2 and each act rings of familiarity, just like TFA did, or like the ‘remake’/ ‘prequel’ of John Carpenter’s The Thing that came out in 2011. The story itself is also a little daft: Skynet was still destroyed and didn’t become sentient, but mankind during a world war created an AI that ended up doing the same thing: it’s just really ham fisted and awkward.

There’s some dumb stuff too: for example, the new Terminator can tap into into any camera in the world… seemingly even those not on a computer or attached to a network? That some dumb video game crap. The convenience of how Sarah Conner knew where terminators were dropping through time was an example of rotten time-loopers too.

I will say, at least it’s not a multiverse.

I will say there is a couple of moments of comedy that the cast nailed.

Mostly, the CGI and special effects, as well as the fight choreography, are amazing, with some fight scenes that are just spectacular. However there are a couple of scenes that just don’t quite look too solid, and it’s due to the physics of movement: if you watch the film you’ll know them when you see them, and they are mainly around the Rev-9.

There are some positive: the cast are pretty great. Luna is an absolute freak as far as his speed and performance is concerned, and Davis is an emotionally delicate butt-kicker who I’d like to see as a new female action hero. Reyes’ growth throughout the film is believable, though her performance as the current day, wide-eyed victim doesn’t ring so true when she’s supposed to be the butt-kicking leader from the future. Hamilton and Schwarzenegger and the comfortable shoes that put the whole thing together and give it a nostalgia kick so you’ll be prepared to give it a chance.

Mainly my problem is why does it exist? What’s the point? The story offers NOTHING new, and I’d like to say is basically worthless, but there are some elements that are pretty good, but they are to do with performance, effects and direction, rather than story.

Disappointing.

Score: **

The menu screen

Extras: As it’s a 4K edition, it comes with both a 4K disc and a second bluay as well. The second disc is where the extras are hidden:

There are 6 deleted and extended scenes and typically, whilst some are cool, they are basically unnecessary.

A Legend Reforged looks at the rebooting of the story, and how James Cameron managed to get the original stars back, and combine them with the people who will advance the series. It’s fairly interesting but the fact that ALL the cast and crew consistently use the term ‘franchise’ made me think that perhaps they were coached into getting the viewers to accept there will be more.

World builders is a behind the scenes look at the effects and the locations.

Dam Busters: The Final Showdown discusses the third act of the film, and it’s dam location.

VFX Breakdown: The Dragonfly breaks down all the elements of a CGI- heavy scene from the film.

Honestly I don’t know why all the extras weren’t just edited together into a feature-length behind the scenes! Still, they were a pretty good watch.

Score: ***1/2

WISIA: No.

Sarah Conner (Linda Hamilton) offers advice to Grace

This film was reviewed using the Australian 4K HD

Valentine: The Dark Avenger (2017)

by in To Watch Pile and tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Valentine: The Dark Avenger (2017)

The cover to Umbrella’s release of Valentine: the Dark Avenger

Film: Look out Marvel and DC, a new challenger approaches!

Valentine: the Dark Avenger is a creation from Skylar Comics, an Indonesian film company who in addition to Valentine, also produce comics called Volt (who looks like an electricity based hero) and Jawara, which means Champion, and looks to be an Avengers-styled conglomeration of heroes!

It would appear this Indonesian company has taken a page out of Disney’s handbook and have Skylar Pictures as a division of their company ready to develop their own characters into films. In this case, they have taken Valentine, their female Batgirl-type who fights with handcuffs like they are brass knuckles, and can catch criminals by throwing them like a bolo, and given her the live action treatment.

Wawan and Bono

Valentine: The Dark Avenger is directed by Agus Hermansyah Mawardy, based on a script by Beby Hasibuan, based on the character and stories created by Aswin Siregar and Sarjono Sutrisno for the comics.

Bono (Matthew Settle) is a movie maker who is trying to get his idea for a new female superhero movie off the ground, but he and his hair and fashion specialist partner, Wawan (Arnie Dagienkz), are having trouble finding the right girl… that is, of course, until they see waitress, and aspiring actress, Srimaya (Estelle Linden) fight off an attack in the restaurant she works at, using her skill in savate.

Estelle Linden before the transformation into a superhero

For training for the future movie, Wawan starts filming Srimaya, now known as the superhero ‘Valentine’, stopping various small crimes in the city.

As time goes on they improve her costume, fighting skills and she even learns how to use handcuffs as a thrown weapon for taking down running crooks, and her videos on (definitely not) YouTube go viral as she inspires a nation with her heroics.

The big problem for Valentine is there is a shadow moving across her town in the form of the villain known as… well, Shadow, who is performing terrorist acts, but why, and what is the secret behind his motivation?

This movie reminded me very much of the live-action versions of Cutey Honey and Hentai Kamen, but with aspirations of being something more like Prachya Pinkaew’s Chocolate or Rashane Limtrakul’s Rising Phoenix, both which starred JeeJa Yanin, but I’m afraid that Linden just isn’t quite as charismatic, nor does she have the physicality.

I do think, however, the intention of having an inspirational female superhero is a great one, and one the big companies need to work on. Hopefully we shall see more of this sort of thing incoming (and we are, with Disney+’s Ms. Marvel series which airs in 2022). Tragically it just doesn’t work here, as the script is a mix-up of conspiracy and standard comic-bookish tropes with some substandard special effects and pedestrian fight choreography, which ultimately is the film’s undoing.

One other thing is the actual superhero and villain costumes. cosplay has come so far that one should expect a better look for a movie with superheroes in it, but these unfortunately look like they were bashed together in someone’s garage.

I have to say it’s awesome to see a small Indonesian company with the courage to take on the superhero genre, when you consider the forces of Disney and Warner Bros are the ones behind those, but their product has become such a juggernaut, it’s nigh impossible. Smaller comic ideas based on non-superhero stuff, like Zwigoff’s Ghost World or Dominic Sena’s Whiteout are probably a better idea at this point because those blockbusters aren’t going anywhere in a hurry. If you do choose to watch this, stick around for the end credits as there is a preview of another superhero from this universe.

The film does wear its influences on its sleeve too, as there is a whole ‘no capes’ sequences clearly inspired by Pixar’s The Incredibles, and one of the villains must be a pop culture nut as she wears outfits inspired by Batman and the Minions from Despicable Me!

I think if this film was released pre-Marvel blockbuster events it would have been a cult film that was in some peoples hearts, but those big blockbusters are not necessarily what cult fans want to see in their collections. Also, there are high-bars set in superhero films for the mainstream crowd, and it just doesn’t leap them in a single bound.

The Shadow!

Score: *

Extras: Blimey, there’s not even a menu screen!

Score: 0

WISIA: No.

The Shadow’s minions… one dressed as a minion!

This DVD was provided for review by Umbrella Entertainment

Night of the Demon (1957)

by in To Watch Pile and tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

The cover to the Australia Cinema Cult release of Night of the Demon

Film: To say that the ghost stories of Montague R. James are well respected is possibly an understatement. The very fact that a type of horror story is referred to as Jamesian should underline that fact. The Jamesian story type is a path well trod not just by writers, but by filmmakers as well. The Jamesian method has three main features: the story takes place in a small, generally English, community or perhaps a University or other place of learning, it has a sceptical scholar as it’s protagonist and some sort of cursed tome that effects either ghosts of demons.

It’s appropriate for a film to use the Jamesian method too. To have a protagonist in the film who has to have a lot of the environments or traditions of a location or society explained to them makes for an easy way for the viewer to comprehend as well, and it also works for the big reveal if the society has a hidden secret. This method also works well in science fiction to explain more high concept stuff, like in The Last Starfighter or even Star Wars, as Luke need the ways of the grater world explained to him.

This movie, Night of the Demon, is based on one of James’ works, ‘Casting the Runes’, and was adored by Charles Bennett, who also wrote The Lost World and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, and was directed by Jacques Tourneur, who directed The Comedy of Errors and I Walked With a Zombie. It had a difficult release as the producer Hal E. Chester wanted a visual representation of the demon onscreen, where as Tourneur and Bennett wanted to avoid that. The film had two releases, one which was cut by a full 10 minutes and titles “Curse of the Demon’, but here was have the full, 95 minute version on Bluray from Cinema Cult.

Karswell (Niall MacGinnis) and Holden (Dana Andrews) regard each other

After Professor Henry Harrington (Maurice Denham) died mysteriously during investigating the occult doings of a certain Dr. Karswell (Niall MacGinnis), psychologist John Holden (Dana Andrew’s) travels to England to continue the investigation.

Karswell obviously objects to Holden’s interference, and slips a curse onto his person, one which will cause him to be visited by a demon and murdered at a particular time and date.

Of course, Holden thinks this is a pile of hoo-ha, and even at the insistence of Harrjngton’s niece, Joanna (Peggy Cummins) who is investigating her uncles death, he still remains an unbeliever… even as the evidence for the curse gets more and more apparent! Will he survive the curse? Does it even exist?

The curse!!

Obviously a film of this generation has several elements that a modern film fan may not like. The acting is very ‘on stage’ and ‘performancey’ (you know what I mean, it’s very vaudevillian), the effects are very low-key, but for their time they look fantastic, well, until you get to the silly looking demon, but the silliness of his look adds to the charm of the whole thing.

The story, with its aforementioned ‘Jamesian’ influences, is great. The slow reveals are paced so well, and every introduction of a new character adds to the fun. Even better, the bad guy is announced from the very start so there is no deception, and his intentions are always clear, but how will he get away with his shenanigans, and how far he’ll go are where the expanding story sits.

Trigger warning: there is an Indian character who may not sit well with some as the part is played by Caucasian actor, Peter Elliot. It’s not a dealbreaker, but some may find it offensive.

This is a great film, and a worthy addition to any horror fans collection. Best thing about this edition is that the Cinema Cult edition cover has ‘85 minutes runtime’ on it, meaning it’s the cut ‘Curse of the Demon’ version, but it actually is the uncut ‘Night…’ version.

Score: ****

The menu screen from the Night of the Demon Bluray

Extras: Not a sausage.

Score: 0

WISIA: It a great film, so definitely.

Joanna (Peggy Cummins) looks concerned, and fair enough.

This review was done with the Australian Cinema Cult Bluray release of the film

Unspeakable Words

by in To Watch Pile and tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Unspeakable Words

The box art for Unspeakable Words

A horror literature fan who might not be aware of the love of horror in the board game community might casually ask,” Are there any games that feature the works of H. P. Lovecraft?”

Most board game fans would answer,” Shut up, sit down and buckle up because oh boy, are there board games based on the worlds of Mr. Lovecraft!!”

Games based on the works of Lovecraft are so common that I’d almost be inclined to say he’s more appreciated by board game fans than almost any other. I have a modest collection of board games (about 500) and I believe that in that pile of boxes, littered throughout my house, a good 50 of them are based, sometimes subtly, sometimes obviously on the works of Lovecraft!

These games range from Dungeons and Dragons styled Role Playing Games like Call of Cthulhu, to miniature storytelling games like Mansions of Madness or Cthulhu: Death May Die, to adaptations of other games like the Love Letter variant, Lovecraft Letter and small, quick to play card games, like this one, Unspeakable Worlds.

Unspeakable Words has a great objective, and I’ll quote the instruction manual,” Be the first to reach at least 100 points without going insane.”

How could one NOT want to play that?!?

Cthulhu tokens

At the start of the game, each player is given 5 Cthulhu tokens, which represents their mental state, i.e.: full sanity, and 7 letter cards, with the remainder of the cards forming a draw pile in the centre of the table.

The game is then quite simple: form a word from the cards in your hand, and then try to roll, on a 20-sided die, equal to or over the score that the cards add up to, which is known as a ‘sanity check’. The way the cards have their score made is by how many angles the letter has, for example, ‘O’ has no angles, so it’s 0 points, but a ‘Y’ has three angles, so its point score is 3.

Card art

Every time you make a word, that word can never be repeated in this game, and if, when you roll the D20, you roll under the score, you lose one sanity point… the little Cthulhu tokens I referred to earlier.

The player will score whether they lose a sanity token or not and will continue to do so until they run out of tokens. Here’s where the fun comes in though: a player who has lost all bar one of their tokens can make up words, because the almost insane might believe ANYTHING is a word and will score for whatever ever gibberish they create if they can roll over the score.

The person who wins the game is either the last one with a token left, or whomever makes a successful sanity check after breachi8ng the 100-point mark.

This game is a lot of fun for people who love word games, and luckily, me and my family do! If you DON’T like word games, this probably isn’t for you no matter how much of a Lovecraft fan you are, this is especially true as the theme is quite thinly laid over the game.

If you do love word games, then you will probably love this game as it is a lot of fun.

The Cthulhu pieces are very thematic, and the cards all refer to various creatures and characters from Lovecraft’s mythos (D is for Deep One, for example), and I should also mention there are several wild cards that make the game occasionally quite spicy! If I am to criticise this game on one thing it IS the art on the cards, which are not to my taste at all.

Once again, if you aren’t a word game type, then this probably will be frustrating and awful, but lovers of such fun will quite like it. Recommended.

Score: ***1/2

Uh-oh!

Scream (2022)

by in To Watch Pile and tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Scream (2022)

The cover to the Australian 4K release.

Film: The older I get… and let me tell you, I’m getting older REAL fast… the more and more sick I am of the word ‘franchise’. When I was younger, it referred to a McDonalds, or a KFC, now it appears that no filmmaker or writer wants to make a movie, they want to make a franchise.

You know, I get it. To create something that has some kind of cool legacy would be amazing. To know that something you created has a future because it has a love that is generationally significant.

In past times you could do it with just a single film, which might indicate the quality of these franchises over single films of the past. Personally I blame my beloved 80s movies, and the post-2000 need for nostalgia driven product over new stuff. I guess I’m part of the problem when you consider that this very website older movies more often than newer ones.

Scream (2020) starts with the assault of Tara Carpenter (Jenna Ortega) in her house by the returning Woodsboro murder icon Ghostface, which causes he estranged sister Samantha (Melissa Barrera) to return home as their mother is missing with one of her many boyfriends.

Samantha has a terrible secret!

What we quickly learn is that Sam is the illegitimate daughter of the original Woodsboro murderer Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich), and is in therapy as the idea of her father being a serial killer has caused a few mental issues.

Of course, the killer is back, but this time is killing the children and/ or family members of the original victims/ killers, and one by one, people are being murdered who somehow relate back to the original murders

This alerts Sydney Prescott (Neve Campbell) and Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox) to the situation, and make there way back to the town to help in whatever way they can, but could it have been that the villain(s) of the piece wanted exactly that?

Sydney and Gale don’t have ANY secrets!

Like other Scream movies, the story is pretty silly and far fetched, and relies characters to behave in a way that real people don’t. That’s just movies I guess. One thing is, though, is the need justify its existence via a dialogue-based meta-explanation that talks about the state of franchised cinema, and also references itself in a matter more mastubatory that wanking to a home video of yourself wanking. Even down to mentioning how stupid and frustrating new horror films naming themselves like they are the original is unfunny and doesn’t shows a sense of irony: it shows the writers off knowing what they are doing, why they are doing it and are still big enough jerks to make us spend the rest of our lives saying ‘no not that one, the original one’.

As usual with the Scream films, after the first one that is, the motivation for the murder(s) is somewhat lacking, and if not for the quality of acting and violence, would have been flat and uninteresting.

I do have to say I liked the cast, no matter how unliveable the character was. The acting is on point and the cast are certainly a lot more convincing that previous entries. Some of the throwbacks to previous episodes, like Randy’s sister played by Heather Matarazzo from Scream 3, Marley Shelton from Scream 5, Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox and David Arquette from the entire series are an obvious addition. By the way, Arquette has turned into a super-cool ex-cop action hero type, and I want to see him in something like the Bob Odenkirk movie Nobody.

I did find one thing deliciously wonderful about it: considering it’s pedigree of PG-rated, more teen friendly violence, this has some moments of brutality that are stunningly surprising. Some slow, penetrating stab shots that take no prisoners and a leg/ ankle snap that made some parts of me shrink so much I’m gonna need a hot bath to set them free from cowering in my lower abdomen.

Are we gonna see another one? It feels like it, for sure. Do we need another one, no: not even slightly.

Score: ***

The menu from the 4K release

Extras: The extras on this disc are quite interesting, and really do pay tribute to Craven’s creation (even one of the characters names is Wes).

There is a Commentary by writers James Vanderbilt and Gus Busick, directors Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and executive producer Chad Villella which is great, as it really covers a lot of aspects of the film, though their assumption of an asthma inhaler in the first scene was ‘very very subtle’ makes me wonder if they have ever seen a movie before. Come on guys, if someone is asthmatic or diabetic it DEFINITELY a plot point later in the film.

The Deleted Scenes are worthless and the film is better off without them.

New Blood compares the original film with the new film, and they talk about how important the film is in film history. Let’s face it, the original film probably did save the dire place mainstream horror was in at the time.

Bloodlines is the same as above but with the cast.

In The Shadow of the Master looks at Craven’s history and influence on the horror genre.

Scream 1996 (see, what did I tell you) trailer.

Score: ***

WISIA: If I was to watch an entire franchise again, I probably would, but I wouldn’t watch it as a single one-off film again.

Wes cops it.

Trivial Pursuit: Horror Ultimate Edition

by in To Watch Pile and tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Trivial Pursuit: Horror Ultimate Edition

The cover to Trivial Pursuit Horror Ultimate Edition

Like Monopoly or Cluedo (Clue, to my American friends), Trivial Pursuit is a well-worn classic in the history of board games, one that surely every fan of games must own, either the classic one with just the regular mix of trivia questions, or one of the ‘flavoured’ ones, like the Star Wars or Harry Potter ones.

For years, horror fans have been left out in the cold… or in a basement… or in the woods, or wherever the heck it is that horror fans would not like to be abandoned… with only those mainstream movie related ones available to us, or in one of those wedge-shaped mini ‘bite-sized’ editions, of which there is a horror one, but now we have a spectacular, big-boxed and proper edition with this Trivial Pursuit Horror Ultimate Edition!

As usual the winner is the first person to collect the six different wedges by answering trivia questions correctly, but you knew that, right?

The whole thing, laid out and ready to play!

The rules of this game are the same as most other Trivial Pursuit games: each player roles a die and moves that many spaces to your (final) destination. Once there, the player to your left asks you a question based on the colour you have arrived on.

In this game:

Green – Paranormal

Pink – Psychological

Yellow – Monster

Blue – Comedy

Orange – Gore/ Disturbing

Purple – Slasher

If you get the question right, you get another turn. If it is a junction space, you collect that colour wedge, unless you already have it, in which case you get another turn. If you get the answer incorrectly, the turn passes to the next player. This repeats until one player has all six colour wedges, and their objective is to get to the middle square where the other players get to pick the final question category. If they get that right, they win!

The problem with a lot of these flavoured Trivial Pursuits is if you don’t know the subject, you won’t stand a chance at a win. For example, I would never even entertain the idea of playing either the Friends or the Dragonball Bite-sized edition. This, however, does go easy on the casual, or lighter horror fan, as there are questions not just based on some obscure 70s slash-fest, there are also questions on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Twilight. For example, the first card I’ve just pulled out of the box has questions about Session 9, 30 Days of Night, The Loved Ones and the second card I’ve pulled out asks about Dexter, What We Do In The Shadows and Black Mirror.

An example of one of the questions on the cards.

If I’m completely honest, my first game of this against my daughter, who is a horror fan but not to the extent that I am, was far too close for my liking.

The style of the game and the box artwork are great and very thematic without referring to any particular film. The exterior art has a dirty wooden box look with a bloody handprint on it, what more could you ask for, and the board looks like a dirty wooden floor, with the actual game made to look like its part of some kind of dark ritual, with paintings of mysterious runes and bones and feathers added as addition decoration.

There are 1800 questions on the cards, and if you have the bit-sized horror one you can add that as well! The quality of the cards is pretty good too.

The pieces are where the game really shine though. They have the traditional Trivial Pursuit wedge-collecting base, but weird, non-specific character pieces on the top. Mostly with these types of games, like the Warner Bros. or Star Wars ones for example, the pieces with reflect characters from the franchises, but as this is non-specific, they have used their creativity and come up with some disturbing models!

Creepy, non-franchise specific player’s pieces

This game says the amount of players is ‘2+’ on the box, but it works best at 4, I think, but that’s my opinion of all Trivial Pursuits.

In essence, this game is just a Trivial Pursuit, so if you like that game, you will probably like this, but its genre specificity makes it really for fans of horror. If you are having a board game night and someone loudly proclaims “Oh, I don’t like horror films’ then put this back on the shelf as it will be of no use to you, or, and this is the better answer, send them home: why do you have a non-horror fan in your house anyways?

It doesn’t bring anything new to the table, but its nice to show off what obscure horror facts you know to your horror loving mates. If I’m to really label a specific problem with this game, it is a little pricey from some retailers. When I got mine several months ago, it took me a while to find it for less than $100 (I paid $80 Australian). It may have come down since, but with everything going on in the world in 2022 and the past two years, I can’t imagine a price reduction being on the cards.

Score: ***1/2