Curse of Chucky Review

Curse of Chucky is the sixth installment in the Child's Play/Chucky franchise and was released widely in October of 2013.

Now I was a bit worried when I heard that the next Chucky movie would be straight to DVD/Blu Ray and that the Chucky doll looked so strange in this film. However those worries were calmed by the knowledge that the movie has Brad Dourif reprising his role as Chucky and Don Mancini, the creator of the character, was back to write and direct. With the tiny budget of 5 million dollars and Brad Dourif's daughter in the lead we get surprisingly one of the best movies in the series. 

I'm a long time Chucky fan. Child's Play was one of the first slasher movies I'd ever seen and was part of my induction into the horror genre. People seem to like taking a shit on the Child's Play franchise nowadays, but I love it anyway. I've never really found Chucky scary, I just love him as a character. How often do you have a slasher film where the slasher themselves is in near as much danger as the victim. He's got to be clever with how he kills because he's not really that strong or fast. The element of surprise is his only advantage. But honestly I watch the movies for Chucky himself. To me, Chucky is one of the most charismatic of all the slasher killers. 

Isn't he just hilarious! 

Michael Myers and Jason are both silent. Freddie Kruger has these clever one liners and jokes that he sets up. Pinhead from Hellraiser is so regal with his threats. Chucky is just a dude who likes to kill people, and happens to be trapped in the body of a little ginger midget. He's totally inelegant about it. As an eleven year old, hearing Chucky speak for the first time was amazing. 

11 year old me:  Were his first words 'You stupid bitch'????......     I freakin' love this guy!!!

I laughed my ass of throughout the movies. And this one is no different.

But onto this movie. 

 It's a micro film, taking place primarily in one location. Fiona Dourif, Brad's surprisingly attractive daughter, is the lead as our wheelchair bound heroine. 

We start off with Chucky being mailed to this ostensibly random and unfortunate family, and hilarity ensues. They really make you wait to find out why he's there. All you know is that it's Chucky, so people are gonna die. Now what works with this movie is the fact that it goes back to the creepier elements of the early movies, while still acknowledging the later ones. You'll have to watch the movie yourself to see why Chucky has decided to visit this particular family, but I can tell you that Bride of Chucky, and Seed of Chucky are still canon and the film does reference them.

Another thing is that the kills are fantastic. One of the biggest separators of a mediocre slasher film from a really fun one; is how creative and gruesome the kills are. And they defiantly deliver on that front in this movie. There's one in particular that will make even avid fans of The Walking Dead go .......

I also love that this movie is funny without TRYING to be funny. My biggest issue with Seed of Chucky was that they kept inserting jokes and trying to turn it into a slapstick comedy. The premise of Child's Play (a foul mouthed, 2ft tall, ginger serial killer) is slapstick enough. The comedy is inherent in the story, you don't need to add jokes. The Child's play films have always made me laugh and cheer but not because they were delivering a bunch of corny jokes, they just were funny. 

A doll with freckles and bright blue eyes screaming a bunch of curse words is funny on it's own, don't make him do 'The Shining' references

This movie takes it all seriously. And there are some genuinely surprising and scary moments in this film. The story is pretty simple but it has some interesting twists and turns. Making the lead wheelchair bound was a great move. She is effectively slower and less agile that Chucky is, making him a much larger threat to her. And it has one of the best, end of the credits stingers I've ever seen. EVER!!

Overall I have to say that after watching it and having some time to think about it, this movie is my second favorite in the series after the original. That makes my ranking of the Chucky movies...

1.

Child's Play

2.

Curse of Chucky

3.

Bride of Chucky

4.

Child's Play 2

And the Red-headed Step Children of the series.

5.

Child's Play 3

6.

Seed of Chucky

So this film comes highly recomened. If you like slashers and especially if you like them to be fun I'd highly recommend it. Now you can see this one without having seen the others and still enjoy it but I would recommend you watch at least the first two before moving on to this one. 

So there you have it, Curse of Chucky, at Redboxes everywhere so....

So go get yourself a copy!!!!!

Daryl rolling with his homies.

I've been way to busy to post lately. But I thought I'd make a Meme for fun. Anyone as impressed with how far they've come with the Daryl character? He's gone from the wild card the groups biggest asset. 

Why Most Modern Horror Sucks: Practical vs. Digital effects

In 1992 an amazing film about dinosaurs was released and it changed the way we view movies. Because in that movie audiences saw something they’ve never seen before. Digital Effects.

Now since then everything has been made digital. All our monsters are created on a computer and all actors do is scream at green screens. And I have to say it fucking sucks.

I'm sorry was I supposed to think that was real?

Oh I see I wasn't supposed to think at all when watching this movie. 

Jurassic Park worked so well because Spielberg used both practical and digital effects. Since then film makers have taken to using just digital effects and as a result our horror movies are suffering.

Practical effect for close ups. 

Digital effects for moving shots

Lets think back to a wondrous far away land called the 70’s and 80’s. Now in this land people had to actually build creepy effects and because of it the monsters actually looked scarier. By the way if you haven't already seen Alien, Predator, Dead Alive, The Thing, and The Fly you really need to.

In 1982 there was an amazing movie called ‘The Thing’. Many people consider it, next to Alien, the greatest science fiction horror movie ever made. In the movie they had the some of the greatest visual effects ever made.

And the psychic duel at the end of scanners still amazes me. Look what can be done without a computer. 

Now wasn't that unsettling?

But now we digitize everything and it just looks fake. While watching a movie if I notice a large creature or anything that moves really quickly I instantly know that I’m just looking at an effect and nothing real. We even digitize blood nowadays. And honestly I think for the most part that it looks crappy. There isn’t much creepy about what’s obviously a stupid effect. Lets look at a famous scene from Nightmare on Elm Street.

Image from Ohmar's blog

In the original 1984 version this shot was creepy and it looked great. In the 2010 remake they used a digital effect and it was..... boring.

What’s frustrating is this is a simple fucking effect. You put up a thin sheet of fabric made to look like wall and you light it from the front. Then have somebody rub against it from the back. It’s cheap, it’s simple, and it’s easy. Making it digital just ruined it. To me it seems like lazy film making. Producers aren’t willing to put out the money to pay a special effects team and films suffer because of it. 

Think all the digital blood effects in 300 look cool? Does it bother no one else that there is blood flying everywhere but not a drop on the ground? It basically makes your movie have the realism of Mortal Kombat. 

I mean seriously digital blood!?! How expensive is it to get a few damn blood packs. The problem with practical effects is that they are unpredictable and harder to control. When the effects are done on a computer by a team of programmers the director can make them look just like they want them. But if we really want to amaze people we need to have something real in front of them. 

Imagine what Audrey II would have looked like if she were all-digital. Imagine Jaws with a purely digital shark.

Imagine if the exorcist spider scene didn’t look like this.

It looked like this scene with the old woman climbing on the wall.

I understand that having a digital effect means that they can re edit it as many times as the director wants. But considering the hundreds of millions that these movies make, they can afford to hire a special effects team if they really wanted to. In fact it’s the work that goes into practical effects that make them special.

If that wasn't enough I have one more example. Check out what is probably the greatest werewolf transformation scene of all time. A werewolf in London, 1981

And check out what they did with it in the 1997 sequel American werewolf in Paris. 

Digital effects are great. The way they were used in some films are perfect. But we over use it. We make even the simplest of effects digital. This affects all genres but horror is hit the worst. When you know that you’re looking at something fake it takes away from the tension. There's been only three times in my life that I saw something and was unsure if it was digital or practical: Jurassic Park, Avatar, and that tiger in Life of Pi. Other than that, the digital monsters take me out of the movie. We need to petition Hollywood and tell them to stop fucking up.... well that could correspond to lots of things, but right now lets get some practical effects going. The new Evil Dead remake using practical effects is a step in the right direction. Let’s hope that the rest of Hollywood takes notice. 

A link everybody should check out

What's up people, and all the new readers in Russia. I don't normally post about politics here but this was really powerful and needs to be read. Check out this link.


http://unshacklingprogress.wordpress.com/2013/05/21/unshackling-progress/

Check it out.

Star Trek: Into Darkness Review

It's fucking amazing go fucking see it...... And don't read any more reviews. They'll spoil stuff. 

Now for Q and A.

Q. How do you know I'll like the movie.

A. If you're interested enough to look up reviews, then you'll like it. 

Q. Would anyone not like the movie. 

A. Sure, it's heavily influenced by a previous Star Trek movie. In fact it's almost a remake. You really have to just ignore that part of it but once you do... if you like fun then you'll like this movie. 

REVIEW OVAHHHHH

Can Men and Women REALLY be Just Friends?

All men have been this guy at some point.

I know this appears on the Internet a lot, and it has noting to do with entertainment or tech, but still I rarely see people address this honestly. So can we be friends.... men an women that is? Well yes, I think we can we can. But it’s difficult.

Either that or you walked into it by stupidity

People tend to believe that men only become friends with women because they want to sleep with them. And.... to be fair, in high school and most of college, that reins true. But sometimes guys do want a platonic relationship. As a guy I can honestly say that I, and other guys, have put girls in the friend zone. It can be for a number of reasons but admittedly, the majority of the time these girls were not very (trying to find the right words) "aesthetically appealing". I know it's messed up but it's the truth.

Average Male Student: I tend to complain about the friend zone a lot.
 But I have no problem sticking ugly bitches in mine.

Like this one. Sorry sweetheart I love playing WoW with
 you but that's as far as we go.

The fact of the matter is the younger you are, the harder it is to be just friends. I remember my high school and college years. Sex was on my mind constantly. Now that I’m graduated, sex isn’t on my mind every second. It’s more like every three seconds now. Anyways, when you’re constantly thinking about sex and you grow closer to a girl, every guy has a moment where they begin to like her. Then they have to decide if they will speak up, potentially jeopardizing the friendship, or if they will wuss out and go silently into the ‘friend zone’.

Ladies, I don't know if you realize this but the
 Friend Zone IS rejection and it fucking hurts.

As it turns out the more attractive a girl is, the harder it is to avoid these feelings. Look, men get just as emotionally attached and can be just as romantic as women. However, men are very visual and a physically attractive woman will always get guys going. It’s really hard to avoid. My heart and brain may know that we're just friends, but my penis doesn’t know shit. All the penis knows is that it see's a hot girl within it's vicinity and it knows what it wants. Which can lead to very awkward moments when our female friends get too close. 

Look at how this video address the question.

Notice that only really cute girls are interviewed. When a girl is very attractive, it's more difficult for her guy friends to keep down their hormones. Without knowing it he will....

Girl: So me and David were thinking about dating exclusively.
Boy: Oh... that's..... great..... (try not to cry, try not to cry)

Get jealous when you talk about other guys.

 

What do I do here.... Is she making a pass at me or not?
  What do I do!?!?!??!?!??!!!!???

Wonder, every time you touch him if you’ve decided to give him a try.

Tell himself that he's happy only being your friend, but secretly wishes and prays that someday you'll see something new in him you didn’t before.

So all this in mind. It may be much more difficult for a young guy and girl to be friends but it does happen. I have female friends who mean the world to me. They give me advice and put me in check when I need it. And to be honest, I think all men need strong women in their lives. Ones that will call us on our bullshit. It's part of growing as a person. One day you won't try to hump everything you see. You'll be in a relationship and so will they. And although you will sometimes wonder what life would have been like if you had ended up with them instead, you otherwise won’t have any romantic feelings for each other, just an unbreakable bond. 

Wind Waker HD and the Future of the Zelda Franchise

First of all, I’m a huge Legend of Zelda Fan. I’ve loved the series for some time. Honestly more than anything I’m just hoping that Nintendo is going to take the franchise in the right direction. Next up they want to do an HD version of Wind Waker. Now, I’m not against that since next to Majora’s Mask, Wind Waker is definitely one of the most underrated of all the Zelda titles.

Screenshots from IGN

Wind Waker was a truly great game. Cel Shading gave it great performance; It ran and played beautifully. The game was huge in scale and yet somehow had not a single load time. I loved that they did something different with the story, where you are trying to save your sister and they keep the identity of Zelda secret the entire game. But most of all I love it for the music. Wind Waker has arguably the greatest sound design of the entire Zelda franchise.

But to be honest, I’m worried about the future of the Zelda franchise. I know I’m going to piss off some Zelda fans but I was not the biggest fan of Skyward Sword. It was a very good game but it had problems. And to be fair while Wind Waker was great and unfairly maligned, it wasn’t perfect either.

So since Skyward Sword was the most recent game. And I can assume that it shows the direction they want to take these games in, I’ll start there. But since I don’t want Zelda fans to kill me I’ll start with what I liked.

The Good

I loved the motion control for the most part. The sword and gadgets worked great and controlling the swings was fun. I liked the difficulty level. This was easily the most challenging of all the 3D Zelda games. And I looooooved the dash button. Being able to do anything faster , from climbing a ladder to running along walls, was a good thing. So overall the controls in this game were top notch. I also really liked how people would say different things thought the game. Just going through the Bazar and having a girl slowly develop a crush on you was a funny little touch. I also really liked how they kept changing the gameplay and the environment would change as you revisited places in the game.

Now for the bad

We're talking about Legend of Zelda. THERE IS NO BAD!!!!!

I hated the save system. We’ve always been able to save wherever, spacing it out was a huge pain in the ass. Also the bird did not control well. Most motion control parts have a button to press to center the direction control just in case it got funky. Riding the bird you didn’t have that. I could rarely get it to go the way I wanted.

But those are nitpicks I have two major complaints with Skyward Sword. One the game felt isolated. I mean, wasn’t Wind Waker the one where you dealt with islands? In this game there is no connected overworld like there is in almost every Zelda game. This one you pick little places in the clouds where you want to drop down. It made the world feel really small. Remember in Ocarina of time, there were many towns with their own shops and different characters and prices. Well, we didn’t get that in Skyward Sword. The game as a whole just felt really small. I would have loved to visit the world of Twilight Princess (that is assuming there aren’t orc’s shooting burning arrows at me.). Just seeing the sights and going fishing would have been amazing. But I can’t say I’d ever want to  visit the land of SS.

My second major problem is the pacing. This game is SOOO Damned SLOW. Everyone wants to talk and they take forever to do it. Now I love a good story. That’s why I play games, but this one gave me no sense of freedom. You are trapped on a very linear path for over an hour in the beginning of the game before The game really gets going and lets you roam free. Now that I think of it? Every Zelda game seems to have more and more story.

The Legend of Zelda

Here is the story... "It is dangerous to go alone. Take this"

And that’s it, the action starts. You want story? Read the book on your own time. Your imagination created the story. 

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link 

You're told the princess is cursed or asleep or something. It's been a long time since I played this one. You grab your sword and head outside. Adventure started.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link To the Past

You see a short cut scene about an evil sorcerer taking over the kingdom. Zelda sends out a telepathic message to you and your uncle. You follow him and you find his fat ass in a gutter, too weak to continue. Take his sword and shield and there you go, adventure begins, plus you're already in the first dungeon.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Now the story lines start. But at least in this game most interactions aren’t cut scenes. You talk to people but your are in control of Link the whole time. Plus if you already know how all this shit works then you don’t even have to talk to all the people hanging out. All you have to do is find a sword and shield, then after a quick conversation with the Great Deku tree, your first dungeon begins.

The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask

Now this IS the most underrated stories in the Zelda franchise. But you start off getting jacked and cursed. Then you have to figure a way back into your body. Now this game has some time go by before you can go explore the whole world but in this game you don’t have to sit and watch cut scenes. You actually get to decide whereto go and what to do. After you become human again, you and Link are off to bitch slap evil doers.

The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker/ The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

I put these two together because they have similar openings. Link live a simple and yet happy life. You meet friendly townsfolk then shit goes down and you have to save the day. After that when you think it’s over SHIT GETS REAL and the adventure begins. Now in both of these games you have openings that are linear and story heavy.

But in these cases you actually get more freedom than in Skyward Sword. You can talk to who you like and the conversations don’t go on forever! Eventually in both games you get complete control over where you go and how you explore. In SS you have to talk to people again and again. And it never seems to stop. But the problem is that People talk so damn slow. And that isn’t something that happens just in the beginning of the game. The WHOLE game is like that. Cut scenes where they aren’t needed.

You don’t have to show me a cut scene to tell me that I knocked this boss off its feet. I just fucking did it for the fifth time, stop showing me!  I swear I never do this in games but I kept hitting the A button in the cut scenes wishing it would go faster so I could get back to the gameplay. If you haven’t played SS, imagine if everyone you talk to in the game is just like your conversation with this guy....

Oh God I give up. Gannon wins just stop talking!

So overall SS was a good game, but it frustrated the hell out of me. And unfortunately the bad kinda poisoned all the good things that this game gets right.

 But what does all this mean for the future of the franchise? What will happened in the games to come.  Well the producer released a video where he’s talking about the series.

Me mentioned changing two things about Zelda gameplay. One that dungeons are done in a particular order. Maybe this means that we will get to explore things in any order that we like. Also he mentioned that we assume that we will play alone. Does this mean that the game will be online? That we can join up with friends or even strangers to take on dungeons?

This news actually has got me pretty excited. I never got to play four swords and I’ve always wanted to know what it would be like to take on a dungeon with friends. So hopefully we see the franchise go in new directions. 

To all the hardcore Zelda fans out there. I leave you with this.