Halloween Month: The Wailing (2016) Movie Review

Here's what you need to know; following the arrival of a mysterious Japanese stranger in a little Korean town, the townsfolk start to show symptoms of a terrifying illness that drives them to madness and murder. Local police officer Jong-goo is on the case as the violence and hysteria spread, but when it reaches his doorstep, he is forced to resort to more drastic action to protect his family and resist the evil that has taken root in his town, action that unbeknown to him, will bring about the demise of him and everything he loves. 

I bought The Wailing on DVD about four years ago on a complete whim. At the time, I had no idea what the film was; what it was about, who was in it or where it even came from, and like a depressingly long list of films, it sat on my DVD shelf all that time, gathering dust. Fast forward to 2020 and I need a horror film for my Halloween special, and I figured that maybe I should get round to watching that one film I bought years ago, The Wailing, and if you're expecting me to gush about how absolutely amazing it is, yeah, I'm about to do that, sorry.

The Wailing's opening moments set up the mystery and lead of the film expectedly well, as Jong-goo is woken in the night by news of a murder but is easily persuaded to stay for breakfast. Once he gets to the crime scene however, the film wastes little time in establishing the threat in the form of a grisly murder scene and a catatonic, cuffed murderer, covered in blood and an ominous rash. Two things are very apparent in this opening sequence, how interesting Jong-goo is as a character, and how ominous and bleak the film's tone will be, as the sequence oozes with unease and dread right through to the title card. The film's characters aren't the most spectacular thing in the world, but therein lies their brilliance; Jong-goo is not a heroic figure, he's lazy and unambitious with a habit of showing up late for his job, he's a bit of an incompetent slob. Yet when push comes to shove, rather than being more heroic and taking the threat head on, Jong-goo is a coward who avoids getting his hands dirty at every opportunity, which inevitably becomes a problem when the peaceful little town he calls home starts seeing violent murders. He starts out ignorant and apathetic to the problems around him, but as the infection strikes close to his heart, he is forced to overcome his aversion to action and conflict to protect his family, in the process being driven to do some pretty morally dubious shit as reason gives way to hysteria and desperation.  

The film is ultimately a test of him as a man; a test of his faith and of his will and whether he can overcome his very human weaknesses, but to go further would be going into spoilers. Needless to say though, his journey takes him to some dark places, and by the end you feel the weight of his actions and choices, and his story leaves you with a feeling of tragedy that's hard to shake, it's one of the reasons this film is stuck in my head. The film is full of side characters to pad out the cast, like Jong-goo's sweet and innocent but pragmatic daughter whose innocence is gradually corrupted by the film's events, and his friends who start out as dopey and comical as him, only for the evil to start chipping away at them too. Speaking of evil, over the course of the film, Jong-goo encounters a host of strange and enigmatic people, like the charismatic Shaman his family hires to protect them and a mysterious Woman in White that watches over them. And then there's the Stranger, the old Japanese man at the centre of a whirlwind of rumours and hearsay about his involvement in the deaths. To say this guy is creepy is an understatement, but the film deliberately muddies the waters on whether he's really the evil or just a red herring, depicting him both as a twisted and malevolent being and a weak, frightened old man, making it hard to tell is he is really the evil or just a scapegoat in a confused, frightened little town. 

Further muddying things is the Woman in White who keeps appearing to him and Jong-goo, a mysterious figure who is also obviously not what she appears to be, though her role in this story is considerably more vague and open to interpretation. The same can be said of the evil itself, who's true form isn't revealed until the film's final moments. The Wailing's evil presence is a strange thing, initially taking the form of madness and a strange infection, then of a mysterious and sinister outsider, then taking a sharp turn into the supernatural in the film's second half. The Wailing has a very strong mystery surrounding its evil, one with clues that point in contradictory directions that obscure just who or what it really is, and it blends aspects of many different horror tropes; disease, insanity, murder, ghosts, demons, possession, zombies, and the town creep who has something to hide. But in addition to the more obvious barriers to entry in The Wailing is that it's not exactly a crowd pleaser. The Wailing is a very, very story and character driven film and it is a slow burn, a very slow burn. If you watch this film in search of more conventional scares, you will hate it because it doesn't have them. There is no monster or ghost that terrorises the characters, not directly anyway, instead the horror comes from the film's drama as Jong-goo and the people around him become increasingly desperate and scared, and as their peaceful and quiet lives slowly collapse around them.

Another barrier to entry is that the film is stupid long, two and a half hours, making it a bit of an investment to watch, even if it doesn't feel as long as it is. And then the final, most obvious barrier is the language barrier because the film is in Korean, which is a deal breaker for an annoyingly large portion of the horror audience, or just movie audiences in general. But this film might be a bit too dense for mass audiences to begin with because of how slow and psychological it is. The film has gore but never tries to shock you with it, you can go long stretches without really seeing anything scary, which might bore you. On the flip side though, the film spends that time developing its characters and story, and when something scary happens, the film earns it, growing your investment in the story as it unravels its horror. The scares of The Wailing come from how it corrupts the familiar and the comfortable; how a stupid story joked about by Jong-goo and his friends creeps into their real lives and starts destroying them. As the evil seeps in, they try and fail to resist and understand it, ultimately becoming tribal and hostile to anything they perceive as a threat to their normal lives. And when confronted by the evil, Jong-goo is left not knowing who he can trust or even why any of this is happening to him, further adding to the film's tragedy. But equally as satisfying as the film's horror is the conclusion of its mystery, as it becomes clear what is really going on and who or what's behind it. 

The film has flavours of all sorts of different horror films like The Exorcist, Sinister and The Crazies, and while I can see myself having a very, very hard time selling this film to others, something about it's really sticking in my head. The Wailing is open to a stupid amount of interpretation; it's ending alone could be mined for hours about just what it means, just who and what people were and whether any of them deserved it, which I think they didn't. In blending so many horror elements into it's evil, the film does a fantastic job of keeping you guessing and wondering what the evil is, like a mysterious shrivelled up plant Jong-goo finds in the beginning of the film which could be one thing that I won't spoil, but ends up being another thing entirely that I also won't spoil. That combined with the film's masterful character development sucks you into the mystery incredibly well, and I ended up being hooked on this film right up until its gut punch of an ending. The film ultimately ends with Jong-goo being forced to decide who he can believe in, with opposing parties pulling him in different directions and him being unable to trust that any of them are really telling the truth. It's a film that rewards you for paying attention and figuring out all the clues, but it's also a film that demands your patience, which isn't that hard when the film itself is so damn good. And while I didn't find it particularly scary, I have grown to love it over repeat viewings, the film is just getting better with time.

You've Already Said It, I'm The Devil 

So I might have gushed about how good The Wailing is in this review, but the honest truth is that the more I watched it and the more I thought about it, the more I liked it, to the point that I just want to watch it again, like, right now. The Wailing is definitely not the scariest film I've ever seen, but it's a rare horror film that demands you to have patience and rewards you for doing so, because by the end of this film, though I hadn't yet figured out why, something about it just made me love it. It's a beautifully dark tale about a relatable and flawed man having his faith tested and life torn apart, and its gripping supernatural mystery is absolute gold that sucks me in again and again. It's a shame that the film probably wouldn't be given a second thought by most people and to be honest, it's a shame that I never made time for it myself over the years, because The Wailing a bit special. I thought for a while about how I'd recommend this film, but ultimately my recommendations come from how I feel about a film more than how good or bad it is, so fuck it, The Wailing is a must watch. 

Halloween Month: Dead Space: Downfall Movie Review

Here's what you need to know; an illegal mining operation on the remote planet, Aegis VII has unearthed a Marker, an ancient alien artefact of great religious significance, but by the time the USG Ishimura arrives to collect the artefact, a series of sudden murders and suicides has turned the colony on its head, and many believe the Marker to be the cause. But the Marker's not finished spreading its influence as contact is suddenly lost with the colony during a mysterious attack. The faith of the Ishimura's crew is about to be challenged however as the colony's attacker finds its way aboard and a nightmarish infection begins to tear the ship apart. With the ship's security forces fighting a losing battle and the survivors being driven to madness, it's only a matter of time before all has been consumed by the power of the Marker.

Dead Space is one of my favourite game franchises and after compiling my 2020 Halloween ritual line up, I played Dead Space on a whim and was completely sucked back into it, I knew that Dead Space would have to be part of this year's Halloween Special which got me thinking, exactly how much Dead Space should I go for. I mean this is a season of spookiness, so why not just go a bit mad with the Dead Space. Many, many years ago I got a Dead Space DVD two pack for Christmas containing the two tie in movies; Downfall and Aftermath, but unlike the games, these two films have largely faded from my memory, and with Dead Space back in the forefront of my mind, I was drawn to re watch them and see if my vaguest memory of liking Downfall and not liking Aftermath was still so.

Dead Space: Downfall tells you what you already know right from the start, that this story does not have a happy ending, as Security officer Alissa Vincent records a video log telling whoever finds it to destroy the Ishimura and the Marker. We then jump back in time and down to the planet as a routine survey team discovers the Marker and the Church and CEC dispatch the Ishimura to collect it. There is something oddly captivating about this opening sequence, it does a very good job of establishing dread, which as the prequel to Dead Space, I would expect it to do, and this opening shows promise. Something that's immediately apparent in the film is the presentation, which fuses an animated style with the industrial look of the Dead Space universe surprisingly well, like the game, the film is very appealing in how ugly it is with dark, dirty environments and angular, mechanical uniforms and equipment. The film's animation is nothing special but the film is at least nice to look at, there is the film's shot composition however, which is sometimes really good, and sometimes a bit naff. The film really likes focusing on eyes for some reason, which isn't a bad thing and sometimes looks really cool, like early on in the film when one of the mining crew slices open her own neck and we see the life drain from her eye in a mist of blood. Speaking of blood, Dead Space: Downfall is violent as fuck and said violence looks great when it's allowed to, with the way the film shows blood in particular being very striking and appealing.

But while the film carries over the visual style of the game almost flawlessly, there is something it doesn't, atmosphere; the film's initial feeling of dread doesn't last for reasons we'll get to, and my best guess is simply that the jump from video game to animated movie is where the atmosphere was lost, the Ishimura just isn't as creepy as it is in the game and despite being pre Necromorph outbreak, feels less alive. Something the film does translate very well, though not necessarily for the better, is the simple characters which are split mostly into three stories; the bridge, the colony and Vincent's security team. Vincent and her team are the de facto heroes of the film and are the first to encounter the Necromorphs once they board the Ishimura and let me tell you, these guys kind of suck. Dead Space's simple characters wasn't a problem because of the game's other strengths but being a movie that's trying to tell a story, it would really help if your characters were good. Them being one dimensional isn't the problem, them being tryhard is, you have the standard fair in this kind of crew; the tank, the shit-talker and the rookie, same person, the alt chick and the assertive, fearless and blindly mission focused leader. On their mission, they also meet up with Irons, a Unitologist engineer who's the first to figure out how to kill the Necromorphs and I was far, far more interested in him than the security team. He's a devout Unitologist who understands that submission to the Marker, willing or unwilling, is inevitable but despite this, he puts the safety of his fellow crew before his faith and takes up arms against the Necromorphs. 

He dies, obviously, but his death might be my favourite scene in the film as he gives Vincent time to help some trapped survivors and goes down like a complete badass, killing as many Necromorphs as he can before eventually accepting his fate, uttering a final prayer with his dying words. In contrast, the security team is a collection of annoying stereotypes who say fuck like it's going out of style. In a film about religious fanaticism, monsters and an evil space rocks, these characters come across as immature and tryhard, as if they were written by an edgy teenager. In contrast however, the parallel stories on the colony and the Ishimura's bridge are a lot more compelling. The bulk of the bridge story consists of Captain Mathius' descent into madness and Dr. Kyne's piecing together of the mystery, and these two subplots are the most interesting parts of this film. For a time, Kyne essentially functions as the angel on the Captain's shoulder, trying to reason with him as the demon on his other shoulder; a holographic live feed of the Marker, drives him to paranoia and irrationality. These two are two sides of the same coin, with one abandoning his faith upon seeing the true effects of the Marker while the other becomes increasingly fanatical, seeking solace in the very thing that's corrupting his mind and seeing it as a test of his faith. If you've played the game, you know how this ends, and while it doesn't play out exactly the same as it does in the game, it is nonetheless a fun and intense scene, and one of the few scenes in the film with a solid amount of build-up. 

As you may also expect, the subplot of the colony ends pretty quick and isn't quite as fleshed out as my curiosity would like. Yet this part of the film does feature on of my favourite scenes, the previously mentioned sequence where one of the colonists slices open her own neck, a scene that's memorably purely because of how brutal it is, did I mention this film is hella violent. And yet this scene doesn't pack the punch I think it needed to because we don't know who these people are. This is part of the reason the conflict between Kyne and the Captain is so interesting; it's the most fleshed out part of the film, it's ludicrously short runtime of seventy-five minutes just doesn't allow for any substantial development. So towards the end of the film when one of Vincent's team does the 'buy you some time' thing, I just don't care, and that's the same as when the rest of her team bite it too, the only one with any kind of impact is Irons' death because he at least has a shred of depth. Granted, Hammond's death in the game didn't have much impact either, but Dead Space is carried by its gameplay and atmosphere more than its characters, Dead Space: Downfall doesn't have that. What it does have is appealing animation, a tasty bit of Dead Space lore, and its imagery and violence, the former of which is very strong, the latter, not so much.

It's Dead Space so obviously I'll talk about the Necromorphs and inevitably, they are the coolest thing in this film by far. They look completely amazing, and in a move that's actually better than the game, the Slashers all look different, and you can tell on a few occasions who they were before they turned, which the game couldn't do. The design of the Slashers is as cool and wretched as it is in the game, and it's undeniably cool to see them in this style. The film also features the Pregnants and the Infectors, but the bulk of the film's ghoulies are Slashers, which isn't bad at all, because they're great. One Necromorph however is actually done better in this film than in the game, the Lurker, who crawls around on walls and ceilings in the game, shooting at you with barbed tentacles. In Dead Space: Downfall however, the Lurker charges at full speed towards one of Vincent's crew on its baby legs and starts gnawing on his face. When he hurls it away from him, it charges again, this time on its tentacles like a nightmarish Doctor Octopus. It also doesn't take Vincent's team long to realise that guns aren't effective, and their makeshift weapons, the Plasma Saws, are pretty sweet, but not quite as sweet as my baby, the Plasma Cutter. It being a film and not a game, it does lose that all important haunted house atmosphere that's part of why the game is so special, but it could make up for that in its action sequences which, in all honesty, aren't terribly good. I alluded to the film's hit and miss shot composition at the beginning, but the issues with it become very clear in these sequences. 

The best way I can describe the effect is shakycam because that's literally what happens, the shot shakes as if the non-existent camera is being shaken about during filming. Why the animators saw fit to do this I don't know because it does hurt the film. The first time we see someone turn into a Necromorph, this doesn't happen and we see all the gory detail as his body is mutilated and mutated. Then there's the film's first large battle as Vincent's team take on a large group of Necromorphs, some shots are clean, some are a bit shaky but nothing too obnoxious, and then there are shots that are headache inducing as that clear and clean animation is lost in a blur of artificial movement. The film clearly wasn't made to the standard of a theatrical animated film, so maybe this was a way around the restrictions they were working with, or maybe it was done just to look cool, which it doesn't. The battle in hydroponics is another bad example of this, and it diminishes how well the Necromorphs are done in the film. The big issue is that this compounds with all the other problems; the spotty writing and poor character development, the passable animation and the runtime, and I wouldn't be surprised if I'm right about this because the film feels rushed, and as though the driving force behind its production was corporate instead of artistic, which is the exact opposite of how the game feels. Again I feel that Downfall could have benefited from being longer and treating its characters better, because there is a fantastic story in here, it's the prequel to Dead Space, but it's too weak on too many fronts to do that story justice. In simpler terms, Dead Space: Downfall could be awesome, but instead it's just meh. 

Landing, Crashing or Shot Down, Pick One

Dead Space: Downfall does not reach the bar of quality established by the game, and unfortunately, it doesn't add much to said game, instead relying on Dead Space for a lot of its enjoyment value. That being said, the film doesn't suck, and some elements of it are genuinely good, like its portrayal of the Necromorphs and its near flawless translation of the game's visual style. But the film struggles to tell a strong story, which considering it depicts the downfall of the Ishimura, is a crying shame, its imagery goes some way to make up for its weak characters and at times cringy writing, but then it starts suffering in the action sequences, which are hampered by the film's opting for fuzzy, shaky action that isn't all that good to look at. Like a lot of video game universe material, Dead Space: Downfall doesn't stand on its own as a science fiction horror animation, but I can't hate it too much because for all its weaknesses, there is enjoyment to be found in the simple fact that it's more Dead Space and that it does that well enough. So if, like me, you're in love with the game, Dead Space: Downfall might be worth checking out, but I won't be breaking it out for movie night anytime soon. 

Halloween Month: ParaNorman Movie Review

Here's what you need to know; life's anything but normal for Norman, a quirky, horror-obsessed social outcast shunned by the rest of Blithe Hollow for his unusual gift of talking to ghosts. But Blithe Hollow and the other side are on a collision course as the anniversary of a dark event in the town's past looms, heralding the awakening of evil spirits with a lust for vengeance, and after years of being ridiculed by the town, it now falls to Norman and his unique gift to protect it from the fury of a Witch, and to find a way to end her curse once and for all.

Now That Dead Space is out of the way, here's the introduction to this year's annual spookathon. Usually I plan to do eight reviews, sometimes I do and sometimes I don't, sometimes they go up during Halloween week, sometimes they go up on Christmas eve because I am bad at this. This year the plan was again eight reviews, but then I started playing Dead Space again and now that number has ballooned, as has the special, which has gone from a week to a month. My tradition with these is to begin our descent into horror at the shallow end with something a bit more family friendly, this year it would have been Laika's follow up to the jaw-droppingly excellent Coraline, ParaNorman, and I'm just going to spoil it a bit and tell you that if you've never heard of Laika or haven't seen any of their films, you need to, honestly, they are one of a kind, anyway, ParaNorman.

ParaNorman opens wearing its heart on its sleeve with Norman watching a cheesy horror movie where a screaming woman gets her head eaten by a zombie, the film does very little to hide both its love of those films and its satire of them in this scene, and while it's surface level, it's a very appreciated detail, one that opens the film beautifully. What follows is our introduction to Norman and his dysfunctional family, as he overhears his mum and dad arguing about him after telling them he's spoken to his dead nan again, a topic which has clearly been brought up before and which causes a lot of tension between Norman and his dad. This sequence plays out in such an engaging way and introduces us to Norman perfectly. Like Coraline, Norman's relationship with his parents is very strained, and like Coraline, the film tackles this subject in a surprisingly nuanced way, while injecting an expected dose of comedy to it. Coraline's relationship with her parents was strained by their neglecting of her through their constant working, whereas Norman's parents are distant with him because of his ability, with his mum trying her hardest to see both sides, while his dad becomes hostile at the mention of said ability, with it fostering a fear of Norman in him. Both of these films play with these ideas beautifully; in ParaNorman, one of the film's central ideas is accepting people for who or what they are, which is inevitably tangled up in Norman's family learning to accept him and to not be afraid of his gift, which ties very poetically into the story of the Witch. 

Yeah, this is one of those feelgood kind of films about family and acceptance, but it has zombies, so it's a winner. The film's characters are also really good, many of which embodying a stereotype with a liberal helping of self-awareness; Norman's sister, Courtney is a stereotypical cheerleader, his bully, Alvin is a cowardly, nasally meathead, his friend, Neil is a fellow social outcast in whom he finds a kindred spirit, while his friend's brother, Mitch is a stereotypical jock. You can probably tell where this is going; with the opening sequence taking the piss out of cheesy zombie movies, it's obvious that the film is relishing in its love for them by satirising its archetypes, and it's really entertaining when it does, with Mitch and Courtney having a really funny dynamic with and equally funny payoff, and with Alvin learning to respect Norman over the course of the film. As does the audience as ParaNorman's hero is really compelling. From the outset, we understand his problems; he wants to be understood and accepted by his family and his town but isn't, and now thinks that they not only can't, but don't want to which again, very poetically lines up with the villain and her conflict, as both must learn to see the good in people as well as the bad, and not let their fear and hatred of them turn them to evil. And like the very best heroes, Norman does what he has to do, no matter how scary it is, as the saying goes, courage is not the absence of fear, it's acting in spite of it. And then there's the film's villain, which is probably the second strongest thing this film has going for it. 

Blithe Hollow's Witch and her zombies are fantastic, but it's hard to go into much detail with them without going into spoilers because the film's twist is really good. Not that it's a very shocking twist when it happens, but when it happens in the film, it's a very effective moment, one that personalises the conflict for Norman and forces him to find his faith in the living. The zombies are a classic red herring as the truth of their past actions comes to light and you realise that they are victims of their own mistakes. Meanwhile the Witch is a monster, literally a swirling mass of evil in the sky above the town, but again there is a very strong message of learning to overcome fear and hatred, giving her story a really sweet ending, as well as finishing up Norman's journey. ParanNorman's villains are sympathetic and flawed just like its heroes, and that's a mark of a great story. Another thing that the heroes and villains have in common is how funny they are because ParaNorman is really funny. As I said earlier, the film's band of heroes are a collection of horror stereotypes and there is a lot of comedy in that. Courtney spends the entire film lusting for Mitch, who is completely oblivious not just to her, but to the gravity of the situation they are in. Alvin is a standout, a cowardly, self-aggrandising yob who makes for some of the film's best moments, example; at one point he laments getting trapped in the town hall when there's "an adult video store just across the street." 

ParaNorman isn't the most kid friendly film in the world, but it never comes across as edgy or tryhard, its more mature jokes are really funny, and the film has more than enough jokes for kids too. One particularly funny moment is when the zombie puritans arrive in town and are horrified by the degeneracy around them, it's not the cleverest joke in the world, but it makes me laugh every time. The film's smaller characters are another source of comedy, from the cartoonishly dramatic drama teacher to the town Sheriff, who exists solely to take the piss out of arrogant, hypocritical, badge wielding Police. Another area where the film doesn't dumb itself down or play it safe is in its visuals, which can be pretty intense. Like Coraline before it, the film's villain is very imposing and visually striking, and in the film's finale when Norman confronts the Witch, she is truly something to look at; an arcing, pulsing vessel of absolute rage, one that literally starts to tear itself apart as Norman talks. It's not quite as intense as Coraline, but it's no less effective. The film's villain is a reverse of Coraline's in a lot of ways, whereas Other Mother becomes less human over the course of the film, the Witch becomes more human. Eventually Other Mother sheds all of her human characteristics, meanwhile the Witch ultimately sheds all of her monstrous characteristics and learns the same lesson Norman does, that it's okay to be scared and you can't let it change you. 

But Earlier I said the film's villain was the second best thing about it, and because this is Laika, the best thing about ParaNorman should be obvious. The film is gorgeous, like everything Laika has made, it's a visual masterpiece and in a lot of ways, it's even better than Coraline. The film just looks cool; the character designs are charming and stylised, the world is asymmetrical and ever so slightly wonky looking, and the animation is in a class of its own. Laika's method of character animation is a bit complicated but very clever. It has a name but the gist of it is they 3-D print the model's faces and swap them out between frames, Coraline also used this method by ParaNorman was their first film to use colour printers, it's a small detail for sure but this is stop-motion, everything hinges on the small details. The film isn't entirely stop-motion either, cleverly using computer and hand drawn animation to realise the world of the film in a way that probably wouldn't be possible with just stop-motion, not that what is and isn't possible in animation has ever stopped Laika. There are still plenty of moments throughout the film where you're left wondering how they did it, as well as all the tiny little things that you probably won't even notice like the models' costumes or the lighting of all of the shots. Again, it's all about the little details and ParaNorman is not a film where corners were cut, it looks incredible from the first frame to the last and after all the times I've watched it, which is about five or six times at this point, the film's presentation and animation just doesn't get old. 

There's Nothing Wrong With Being Scared

ParaNorman is great, it's just another fantastic film from Laika, and since I haven't seen Coraline in a few years, I can't say which one I prefer but I bet that line would be thin. There's just something a little special about pretty much everything the film does; its characters are ones you've seen before but done with the perfect amount of self-awareness, while the villains are brilliantly sympathetic and effective. The film has a few really sweet messages of acceptance and overcoming fear, wrapped up in a spooky tale with great drama, great comedy and some decent horror. And then there's the film's presentation, which is unbelievable, ParaNorman is such a good looking film in every way; from the cinematography to the animation to the effects to the sets and models, it's all the absolute best and I love it. And overall, I love this film, it's a wonderfully spooky little family film that's hard not to love, and it's definitely worth watching. 

Halloween Month: Dead Space Video Game Review

Here's what you need to know; during a planet-cracking operation on Aegis VII, communication is lost with the mining ship, USG Ishimura and a crew of engineers is sent out to fix the problem and get the ship running again. But the crippled, seemingly abandoned wreck of the Ishimura harbours something far more sinister than they were prepared for as they discover the nightmarish fate of the ship and her crew, who now scuttle around in the shadows, waiting for an opportunity to rip them apart. And when Isaac Clarke and the rest of the doomed repair crew find themselves trapped on the ship, it becomes a fight for survival against the Ishimura's mutated, zombified crew and the horrific forces that created them.

This wasn't part of the plan, the plan is usually eight reviews for the spooky season, but I suck at scheduling and am easily distracted, case in point, I should have been finishing up my review of ParaNorman and starting on the next film of my ritualistic line up, but then I got recommended a Dead Space 3 review on Youtube. I've been meaning to replay Dead Space for quite a while, given it's my favourite Horror video game series. A Halloween or two ago, I considered playing and reviewing it, but I never did so I just thought fuck it, I'll fire up Dead Space and guess what, no regrets because Dead Space is awesome.

Dead Space is a game that knows how to make a great first impression, as the repair ship drops out of lightspeed into a field of debris from the planet-crack, and then into view floats the Ishimura. There is something beautiful about this opening, the Ishimura is such an intriguing and ominous thing to look at; a dark, silent mass of steel floating above a barren looking planet, backlit by the sun, sure there are characters talking on the repair ship, but it's hard to take notice of them with the foreboding vista in front of you. But the game doesn't take long to get into the shit as you very quickly crash into the Ishimura, what follows is a very brief, and I mean very brief, section of build up before shit hits the fan. Walking through the Ishimura's flight lounge, it's quiet and dingy, giving the impression that the ship's as dead on the inside as it looks from the outside, but then something drops from the ceiling and slaughters one of the repair crew, in the ensuing panic, Isaac is told to run for his life, which is exactly what you do as hideous monsters burst from the walls around you and give chase. After a pretty weak ten seconds of panic and running, you're safe on the lift, the monsters can't get you, or so you think until one of them pries open the lift door, screaming its inhuman scream at you before the door slams again, crushing it. I've played this sequence enough times for it to have no effect on me, but I still remember my first time playing Dead Space and how utterly panicked I was in that ten seconds, it's a sequence that sums up the strengths of Dead Space, as well as some of the weaknesses, but we'll get to them. 

Keep in mind this is all in the first five minutes of the game, meaning that the game really doesn't give itself the time to build any serious tension, you go from nervous to panicked in a flash, and while it's undeniably effective, it is kind of cheap. The game is about as quick at giving you a weapon, the Plasma Cutter, along with about nineteen prompts to aim for their limbs. One of Dead Space's strengths is actually its weapons, because your tools of the trade are literally tools. Your main weapon is an industrial Plasma Cutter which functions like a pistol; single shot, decent damage and plentiful ammo, and it can also be rotated ninety degrees to cut either horizontally or vertically. As fun as the rest of the weapons can be, this one is really the only one you need, especially when you upgrade it; the fully upgraded Plasma Cutter is absolutely unstoppable, that being said, Dead Space's other weapons are a lot of fun to play with. The game's gimmick of tools being used as weapons continues with the Line Gun, which is like the Plasma Cutter but big, the Ripper, a weapon that fires telekinetic buzz saw blades, a Flamethrower, obviously, the Contact Beam, which is basically a railgun, and the Pulse Rifle, a standard assault rifle and the only proper gun in the game. These weapons are cool, there's no denying that; blowing off both a Necromorph's legs with a shot from the Line Gun never gets old, nor does tearing one apart with the Ripper, and all of these weapons have secondary fire modes, some more useful than others. 

The plasma cutter's rotating barrel is crucial for cutting off different body parts and the Line Gun's mine can shred a small group of Necromorphs with ease, whereas the Pulse Rifle's alt fire; firing randomly in a horizontal circle, while half decent for crowd control and tight pinches, isn't really all that practical. Making the weapons tools is part of Dead Space's excellent world building, as is the rest of your tools. You have magnetic boots for leapfrogging around in the game's zero gravity environments, and you have Telekinesis to help you move heavy objects, useful for environmental puzzles and unblocking doorways, and throwing shit at the Necromorphs, you also have a Stasis Module that lets you freeze things, useful again for doorways and environmental puzzles, and for putting the brakes on a charging Necromorph. Your Stasis requires energy however so like your weapons, you'll need to keep track of how many Stasis packs you have in your appropriately small backpack. You can also stay supplied through the game's Stores, which are scattered around the ship and let you buy, sell and store items from ammo, health kits and suit upgrades that you unlock after downloading schematics found on the ship, to power nodes for upgrading your weapons and rig. Your upgrades are bought at the Benches that also litter the ship, and in addition to buying nodes from the Store, they can also be found around the ship in blue wall boxes or on heavy enemies, though there aren't that many, so you'll have to spend them wisely. Upgrades are your standard fair, increased damage, reload speed and ammo capacity for weapons, and character and equipment upgrades like increased health and Stasis duration and energy. 

One tree I was particularly compelled to invest in was the rig as in addition to health, you can also upgrade the suit's air capacity, and I've never liked working against the clock so the more air I have, the better. All of this though, the gear, the upgrades, plays into one of Dead Space's biggest strengths; its presentation, because in this area, Dead Space is one of a kind. Dead Space is an over the shoulder third person shooter, but what's beautiful about it is that the game as no hud, instead all the information the player needs to know is displayed to you in the game world. Your health bar for example is on Isaac's back, right next to his stasis meter, when in a menu or watching video logs, said menu or log is displayed on a holographic screen in front of Isaac, and instead of an ammo counter and crosshairs, your weapon displays its ammo count and projects targeting lasers. It sounds small and insignificant, but in a horror game like Dead Space, it makes all the difference. You may not consciously be aware of it while you play, but with all your information being delivered to you in such a natural way and without any visual distractions, it completely immerses you in the game's world. Further immersing you is that everything is going on in real-time; while you're in a menu, things are still happening around you and you leave yourself vulnerable to attack. This even applies to stores and benches and the game will try on many occasions to fuck with you in this way, adding to the feeling the game clearly wants you to feel; jumpy. 

Inevitably, a big part of this is the environment, and the USG Ishimura is a breath-taking setting to explore. This is not a clean, futuristic sci fi setting, this comes from the Alien school of sci fi visual aesthetics; it's dirty, it's dingy, it's well-worn and industrial. Several of the decks are scattered with dangerous pieces of machinery whose grinding and humming echo through the narrow, dimly lit corridors. You get the sense that the Ishimura was always a creepy place, but scattered around is evidence that the ship wasn't always a monster infested hellhole; you'll explore cushy luxury suites and the comparatively cramped and nasty crew's quarters with tiny bunks stacked on top of each other. You'll go to the hydroponics deck and see small, climate-controlled gardens growing tomatoes and melons, and at one point you find yourself in a zero gravity basketball court where you can actually play. Adverts for fictional products and services litter the walls, as well as vending machines, and linking the ship's various areas is a tram system. The USG Ishimura is such a well realised setting that it's kind of hard not to get sucked in, it's Bioshock levels of good and like the game's lack of a hud, it's an almost negligible quality that makes the game far more enjoyable and memorable. For what the Ishimura essentially is; a haunted house in space, it's impressive just how much thought and love went into its design and presentation, and it makes the game's backtracking and recycling of environments less annoying, yes, Dead Space has backtracking, but it's a claustrophobic, crippled starship and the setting of a survival horror game, it should be expected.

Naturally though, Dead Space is a horror game and a horror game needs some horror, and Dead Space is a bit of an oddball when it comes to that. The game's monsters, the Necromorphs are amazing, they take the basic concept of a zombie and make it something really, really nasty; with an alien infection that doesn't just reanimate cells, it reprograms and reconfigures them into nightmarish forms. Necromorphs are uncanny, fleshy things with massive claws jutting out of their hands and creepy baby arms growing out of their open, leaking abdominal cavities, they will creep up on you or charge at you like complete maniacs, roaring and screaming from their jawless mouths all the while. And naturally there are different types of Necromorph on top of the Slashers, each offering their own challenge; the Lurkers for example are creepy little baby fuckers that shoot at you with barbed tentacles, while the Leapers hop around and swipe and stab at you with their tails. Exploders will shuffle towards you, dragging glowing, explosive sacks on their arms that they will try to blow you up with. The Pregnants work like the slashers, but they're slower and have a belly full of Swarmers, little bug monsters that, you guessed it, swarm you, eating away at your health and leaving you wide open to attack from more dangerous foes. Infectors will skulk around looking for bodies to infect, making them priority targets when they show up, and every once in a while you'll run into the Brutes, massive armoured Necromorphs that will pulverise you if given the chance. All of these enemies are disgusting to look at and I love them, taking clear inspiration from classic horror films, most obviously The Thing, and like the Thing, they are hard to kill, which is where the game's excellent combat comes in. 

Forget what you know about zombies because shooting a Necromorph in the head won't kill it, in fact it'll just piss it off, your only effective means of killing them is dismemberment, which is such a simple and yet brilliant gimmick, it defies all video game logic by expecting you not to aim for their heads and bodies, but instead for their arms and legs. And like everything else in the game, it makes a weird kind of sense as the Necromorphs will stop at literally nothing to kill you, dragging themselves with a single limb if they need to, and there is something sadistically satisfying about cutting them up. Every now and again though, you'll encounter something to give you a headache, like the Divider, an enemy that breaks apart into a pack of little octopus monsters when killed, or the Hunter, an indestructible Necromorph you encounter twice in the game who will grow back any part of it you shoot off. The former is an imposing, lanky bastard who throws a spanner in the game's combat gimmick of dismemberment, while the latter exists purely to put pressure on you as your only means of dealing with it is to slow it down as best you can and run for your life. I hate the Hunters, at first I hated the Marauders from Doom Eternal, but as I played that game again and again and again, I got more confident in fighting him and eventually started mopping the floor with him, but this enemy, in the nine years since I first played this game, I've never stopped hating him. The Necromorphs have a lot of bark but are pretty mild on the bite once you start getting good at dismembering them, but this guy just doesn't die, you can render him a quadruple amputee and in thirty seconds he'll be back on your arse again, only stopping when you freeze him in your first encounter and incinerate him with a rocket booster in your second. 

Him and the ADS cannon sequence are the two parts of this game that I dread every time I boot it up, a relic of another time when I didn't have real stresses in my life. But back on point, Dead Space's enemies are fantastic, their scary appearance is neutered somewhat by how squishy they are, but they are nonetheless threatening and intriguing things, and very fun to fight. But I said Dead Space's horror was an oddball, and now I shall explain why. Dead Space is a masterpiece of sound design; you hear all the creaks and hums of the Ishimura around you, you'll hear Necromorphs in the distance and occasionally the scream of an ill-fated survivor, and the Necromorphs themselves sound amazing, be it the screaming of the Slasher, the pained crying of the Guardians, the creepily human snarling and muttering of the Exploders or the more otherworldly wails of the Dividers. In addition to the groans of the ship and her mutated crew, you will constantly be hearing Isaac breathing, with the breathing changing depending on how low on health and or air you are, which does a really good job of piling on the pressure and the unease. But I'm not the first person to say something to this effect, Dead Space seemingly has two different tones; when nothing's happening and you're just walking around the ship, it's really creepy, you can hear Isaac's breathing and the distant sounds of machinery and Necromorphs creeping around, its a marvel of atmosphere, but then a Necromorph will attack you and suddenly the game becomes jarringly loud. 

A Necromorph will explode out of a nearby wall vent and immediately start screaming at you, the music will immediately become really aggressive and intense, and this has a very odd effect. The game will switch from creepy and atmospheric to ear rape in literally seconds and the contrast is almost disorientating, which may have been the idea, or may have been an accidental side effect of the the game just not really knowing how to build tension, or how to do payoff without going way, way over the top with it. You may expect me to complain about this but to be honest, I kind of like it; the fact that the game can't go five minutes without trying to make you jump does get very predictable, but the sudden escalation from quiet and creepy to absolute madness is kind of fun in it's own way, and as predictable as these sequences are, you almost look forward to them at a point because it means you can shoot shit, which is really fun to do in this game, cutty cutty, slicy slicy. There are, however, moments where the game really got me and more often than not, it's when it wasn't trying, example; you'll often see Necromorphs just doing their own shit around you, you'll see them crawling in and out of the vents, scuttling around in the corner of your eye, and one time a Slasher just sprinted round a corner and attacked me, no screaming or sudden prompt or music, and it scared the shit out of me. How about the first time you encounter the Divider when it just slowly lurches around a corner and walks towards you, that shit creepy, or how about another time when you're being chased by a Hunter and you think you're safe in a narrow, short corridor with a save station, only for the Hunter to drop from the ceiling right in front of you and now you're trapped in this tiny space with it. 

I feel like there is a much scarier game in here somewhere, somewhere between Dead Space as it is and Alien: Isolation, but the combat is so much fun that I don't care, and the game's constant, repetitive attempts to make you jump do have a charm of their own, giving the game a haunted house kind of feeling, and unlike a lot of recent horror games that seemingly only exist to be streamed on Twitch and Youtube by people with facecams, Dead Space is actually fun. The game isn't all jumpscares and fodder enemies though, there are also occasional battles with bigger, meaner foes like the Brute and the Hunter, and then some impressive boss battles. Every once in a while, a tentacle will appear out of nowhere and start dragging you away and you have to shoot the obvious glowing weak point to break free, and the game's boss fights work the same way, shoot the glowy bits until it dies. But there is something spectacular about these boss fights and each one is unique and has it's own twist; the Leviathan is a creature you fight in a zero gravity environment, forcing you to leapfrog around to avoid its attacks, and another boss battle has you shooting at a similarly big and nasty thing clinging to the hull of the ship with an ADS cannon, which is certainly more enjoyable than shooting rocks with it. But nothing quite compares to the game's finale in which you take on the Hive Mind, which is far from the most intense or challenging end boss battle, but holy shit is it cool, it's a giant monster that you fight against the backdrop of a falling continent, it's ridiculous and I love it, and it sounds awesome, seriously, the Hive Mind makes the coolest noises.

This was eight or nine hours in when I played the game for this review, and upon completion, you get all kinds of fun stuff like a new suit and money and power nodes to spend in your second run, which gives you an opportunity to really experiment with the weapons and their upgrades in a way you couldn't on a first run, but once you have that new suit and those upgrades, the combat does become trivial, not that it's a bad thing to go from an underpowered engineer to an arse kicking monster hunter, and once you've maxed out a weapon and really started destroying them, the game is a complete blast. But as I established before, Dead Space's world building is breath-taking and that's not just in its level and sound design, Dead Space's universe is one of those that you can get seriously carried away with. There is a rich history behind this game's world and story, with shady corporations like the CEC and the Church of Unitology; a cult that fanatically worships the Markers, and then there's the Markers themselves, which are beyond cool. You see, the mining colony on Aegis VII found a Marker, an alien artefact that is very important to the Church of Unitology who are either unaware or accepting of the fact that it is seriously dangerous to any living thing that goes near it. It's never explained where the Markers come from or how they work, just that this particular Marker is a man-made copy and that its presence inevitably leads to a Necromorph outbreak, first by scrambling the minds of the living, then further scrambling the flesh of the dead. 

The origin and purpose of the Markers is explored in later games and in books and comics, because obviously this game has them, but this game gives you enough to know that they are far more than just glowing space rocks. When you see the Marker for the first time, it's hard to deny that it's a creepy looking thing, an ominous double helix monolith, faintly glowing a sinister red and covered in mysterious alien symbols. The physical presence of the Marker alone makes it a memorable antagonist, yes, you read that right, but it's how the Marker influences the story that's really interesting. In Dead Space, you play as Isaac Clarke, an engineer sent by the CEC to find and repair the Ishimura, but who is also here in search of Nicole, his girlfriend/ex girlfriend, it's not that clear which, who was serving aboard the ship. And at the start of the game, that's the mission; find Nicole, repair the Ishimura and survive the Nercomorph outbreak. But as you explore the ship, you uncover text and audio logs that flesh out the events prior to your arrival, and you'll really want to dig these things out if you're a lore hound like me. As the story unfolds, you eventually find that the mining operation on Aegis VII was illegal and that the obviously shady CEC have ties to the even more shady Church of Unitology. The web only gets bigger with the arrival of another ship, the Valor, who at first seemed to be coming to the rescue, but is later revealed to have its own, more sinister mission. 

This is a very twisty turny story filled with intrigue, uneasy alliances and betrayals as Isaac attempts to repair the ship with Hammond and Kendra, the other survivors from the repair crew, while having occasional run-ins with some of the Ishimura's surviving crew. It's not the most complex story in the world, and its characters aren't exactly complex either; Isaac is a silent protagonist, Hammond is a no-bullshit, level-headed leader while Kendra's the more whiny, confrontational computer chick. Dr. Kyne, one of your allies, is a scientist and ex Unitologist who's obsessed with the Marker and wants Isaac's help to stop it while Mercer, an insane Unitologist zealot tries to convince Isaac to accept his fate and embrace the will of the Marker. Muddled up in there is Nicole, who's role in the story is best left unspoiled, assuming of course that you don't see the twist coming from a mile away. It's a simple story made complex by intrigue and world building, which isn't a bad thing at all, Halo: Combat Evolved and the last three Doom games are the same and they're all brilliant, and like those games, Dead Space is carried far more by that excellent world building and intrigue than by its simple story, and that story ultimately has a very satisfying payoff with a climactic finale and a cliff hanger ending. Also like those games, Dead Space is just great to play; it's intense and spooky when it wants to be, it's incredibly violent and satisfying, and it strikes a good balance between fun and stress, like any good survival horror game should. 

Isaac, Make Us Whole Again

Dead Space rocks, I could leave it there because I think I've said more than enough. It tells a serviceable and decently fun story, and its horror elements are certainly interesting, but it's in the game's world building, presentation, combat and immersion that it really shines. The Ishimura is one of the coolest and best realised video game settings I've ever seen, going far beyond just a spooky old wreck and being filled to the brim with personality and detail, I don't even care that the game recycles levels because I love exploring this ship. Then there's the Necromorphs, who aren't as scary as they could be but are more than repulsive enough and fun to fight to fault them for what they aren't, and the same goes for the game's horror in general, whose apparent identity crisis ends up being more fun and charming than it has the right to be. And at the end of the day, shooting Necromorphs is fun; the simple gimmick of dismemberment makes Dead Space so much fun to play, and goes a long way to distinguish it and its monsters from similar games and stories, along with its masterful and unique presentation and immersion. Is it not obvious what I'm going to say yet; I love Dead Space and it's absolutely a must play. 

Demons Against the Rocks

 You're probably not wondering where I've been these past few months, but screw you, I'm telling you anyway. The last few months have been shit, really, really shit, as I'm sure they have for everyone else. I recently returned from my annual excursion to Tenby in Wales, the only thing I had left to look forward to in 2020, and three weeks ago when we departed for her sun kissed shores, I was firm in my conviction that when we returned home, I would kill myself, to tell the truth, the only reason I didn't do it the night before we left was because I didn't want to ruin anyone's holiday, had it just been any other Friday night, I'd probably not be alive anymore, which isn't as scary a thought as you'd imagine. I'm back now though and clearly, I'm not dead yet, so maybe through the heatstroke, sun burn and chafing, not to mention shredding my foot in a cave, I found something akin to happiness up on those cliffs and down on those beaches. I won't assault you with the details of how I'm feeling; A because that's no body's business but mine, and B because this blog was never meant to be about my feelings, but I have alluded to the demons in the past, the problems I have, be they old or new, and in the past few months, my demons have been busy. As I alluded to at the beginning of the year when discussing my favourite films of 2019, last year I cut ties with a close friend of mine, thinking that fucking her off would let me find a bit of self-respect, and in the early months of this year, I was on fire; I was learning to drive, regularly going out with my actual friends, and slowly finding the confidence to talk to new people, even get back onto the dating scene, which is where things really started to go wrong.

You can probably guess just how that ended up going wrong, but like that cliche isn't bad enough on its own, I started having trouble at work that same week, and with the entire world strangled by a pointless lockdown at the time, my usual distractions; going to the pub and to the cinema, were gone. That week was the first and so far only time that my closest friend has ever seen me cry, and oh boy was it bad, I spent an entire afternoon drunk out of my mind, lying on my back and sobbing loudly, and that kind of set the tone for the next four months. I wired up my old VHS player and watched The Return of Godzilla a few times to try and forget that I completely lost my nerve at the wheel, I haven't driven my car since, I started developing weird fears of certain words, as well as other things like the aforementioned car, going to the shops, wearing masks and talking to people. I started to believe that all the horrid things people have said about me over the years were true and that the entire world hated me. It would seem that in the last four months, I went full Adrian Monk and became utterly dysfunctional, and the thought of killing myself went from a fleeting brain fart to the only logical way I could see my circumstance ending, which is what I think the people around me found the most frightening. As you may have noticed, I lost a lot of my motivation in this time, hens my last post being months ago and my drafts bin having five or six finished reviews in it that I just never published, I used to keep up to date with the news, but have since started actively avoiding it, for all intents and purposes, I seemed to be trying to unplug myself from the real world, I just wanted to sit in my room and play Doom: Eternal, whatever new Slayer skin was out that month was the only thing I wanted to care about, and that's how it was. 

To say that Tenby saved my soul is obviously a tad dramatic, but honestly, walking the mile and a half long expanse of South Beach, sun beaming down from above, music blaring in my ears and the other end of the beach just never seeming to get any closer, that might have been the happiest I've been all year. If only the far end of the beach really did never get closer, so that moment could just keep going and going. Or how about the nights where rather than sleeping like a normal person, I wired up my projector and watched Gerry Anderson's Stingray on the side of the awning, a show that still fills me with childish wonder and excitement, even as a broken twenty-three year old. Or how about when I threw my confidence issues to the wind and went swimming in the sea for the first time in years, I went with my camera bag, equipped to spend hours upon hours walking, and ended up going into town for swimming trunks and spending the rest of the day paddling in the waters off Tenby's North Beach. That was a great day, and until I succumbed to heatstroke in the early evening, it never stopped being great. My sister, nephew and I went on a walk in the afternoon because she "needed to get her steps in," and we ended up getting separated from each other in a field full of cows. As alarming as it was to be alone in a field, surrounded by dozens of tons of burger meat that were all looking at me and following me around, I kept my head and walked out of the situation was a massive grin on my face. 

Tenby had been hit by a certain recent event as much as any other town or city, so one highlight; the fireworks show, was cancelled, which wasn't the only thing that was changed, but it was comforting just how relaxed and normal the atmosphere was, it felt like I was allowed to actually be a human for once, because obviously living in lockdown for months has done wonders for my authority issues. But at some point in the two weeks, my desire to stop living was calmed. And despite the best efforts of my demons, I'm still trying to keep that spark going. Many months ago, back when I was happy, I placed an order at my local HMV for a certain Gamera: The Complete Collection from Arrow Video, I completely forgot about it, save for occasionally being reminded of said order when HMV sent me automated texts regarding it. It was due to be delivered on the Monday after I got home, except on that day, I got an apology text saying it was no longer available, so I ordered it on Amazon that night and got it in the post the next day. I've been in love with Gamera for the past week, I've watched four of them, I watched one of those four; Guardian of the Universe three times, so imagine my shock and amusement when on the day it's delivery from Amazon, I got an automated text from HMV informing me that the order I placed was in store and ready for collection.

Godzilla Vs Kong's been delayed again but I planned to do a special for its release in November, that plan hasn't changed, just the subject, and Halloween's coming as well, so that's two things I have to work towards. I'm having phone appointments with a well-being service, so maybe, just maybe I can overcome my anxieties and be on the road to somewhere. In fact this very night as of me writing this, I burned six hours in a pub with a gaggle of coworkers, I've never done it before and I loved every minute of it, I'd happily do it again, and if I have tonight in me, or getting my top off on a crowded beach and going swimming, what the fuck is stopping me, I just have to keep telling myself that. But don't worry, maybe you've reached this point, or maybe you've just looked at the pictures, either way, here's the payoff, a collage of my best pictures from Tenby, and in the event you've read this, thank you.

Spider-Man: Far From Home movie review

Here's what you need to know; in the wake of Iron Man's death, the world is asking who will take his place and keep the world safe from the next threat ,and all eyes are on Spider-Man. Peter meanwhile doesn't want to be the next Iron Man, he just wants to go on vacation with his class and tell MJ how he feels about her. Peter will have to save the world anyway however when Earth is attacked by interdimensional monsters, aiding the mysterious Quentin Beck in his battle against the Elementals, but Beck is not what he appears to be and has plans of his own.

Now you may be wondering why I'm reviewing Spider-Man: Far From Home now, is it because the world ended and we're all trapped in our homes? I'm still working so no, is it because no new films are coming out, I've only reviewed one new release this year so also no. There was a cute story when I wrote this review about seeing it with my nephew about two months after it came out because my local Odeon was still doing weekend screenings of it. I wrote the review, then never published it, I don't really know why, but since 1917, Bad Boys For Life and The Gentlemen aren't out on digital or Blu ray yet and I now have every weeknight and weekend to my lonesome, depressed self, I might as well finally publish that review I wrote about six months ago for Spider-Man: Far From Home.

And I'm just going to say it, my second time watching this film was a bit more difficult than the first, and it's because of the first half. With the film picking up after Endgame, it has to tackle a lot of fallout from the events of that film, and some of it worked really well in my opinion. One of those things is Peter Parker, who not only has to deal with the loss of his mentor, but with the pressure of following in Tony's footsteps, a pressure to fill a void that he doesn't think he can fill, and that leads to some genuinely touching moments in the film when he confronts his fear of letting Stark down. This arc is at the core of Peter's story in this film and it is really good, and as everyone already knows, this Peter Parker is really likable, a nerdy, awkward high-schooler who has to deal with crushes, bullies and occasionally super-villains. In the film he befriends and allies himself with Quentin Beck, who I remember being my favourite thing about the film when I first saw it, having watched it again however, he's fallen to number two behind Peter's arc. Beck, a.k.a. Mysterio is a great villain in this film, and it's been out for months now so screw it, I'm going to spill it on why. For the first half of this film, Beck is a completely different person; he's a noble, selfless hero who will do anything to stop the Elementals, he has a tragic past and comes to fill the void in Peter's life that Tony once filled, as well as a hero for Peter to look up to. But the film doesn't really get great for me until the mask slips and you find out who Beck really is. The film's supporting cast is where things go off the rails for me; Nick Fury is good because he's Nick Fury, he made Captain Marvel somewhat watchable, and Happy is pretty funny too, looking after Peter as best he can while clearly being in love with Aunt May, and that made for a few of the film's funniest and cutest scenes.

Peter's class however is where things suffer, and it's not even that they're bad; there's another boy that likes MJ and his conflict with Peter can be really funny, Ned is also the same lovable muppet he was in Homecoming, having good chemistry with Peter, but I do think his subplot about being in love with one of his classmates was really cringeworthy. This joke was repeated in practically every scene he was in, and while I understand the joke because I was also in love in high school, it started to get tiresome. Flash is another one that walks the line between funny and stale; his adoration of Spider-Man and contempt for Peter Parker is hysterical and now that Spider-Man 3 is happening, It'll be fun to see where that goes, but that's about all that was funny as his shtick about being an influencer is something I just don't get. And then there's MJ, who I don't remember Peter liking in Homecoming, it's a bit weird, actually; their roles are flipped from that film. Whereas in Homecoming, MJ was clearly the one with the hots for an oblivious Peter, in Far From Home she's the object of Peter's desire, but on top of this odd flip, she's just a funny character, and not in a comedic way. Her way of being super awkward and morbid isn't as charming as it's supposed to be, but more so, she's at the centre of the film's high-school drama portion, and that just doesn't appeal to me, even if it does it well, which it probably does. 

Where this film shines is, like I said before, with Mysterio and Peter Parker; Peter's arc of coming to terms with Tony's death and coming to accept the responsibility he trusted him with is the film's strongest aspect by far, and Beck is an awesome villain. In the film's second half is when Beck shows his true colours and goes full Syndrome; because his villainous plan is to be a hero by tricking people into thinking he is. The twist that the Elementals aren't real and that they're all part of Beck's plan to get revenge on Stark is a great one, even if it's made painfully obvious, A: by the fact that he's too good to be true and B: because there's still half a movie to go. Once he stops pretending to be a hero, his character completely shifts; becoming aggressive, selfish and egotistical, and the games he plays with Peter are truly sadistic. Because his super-power is being able to control what people see; he uses technology to distort reality around himself and his targets, fabricating giant monsters that he then shows up and fights, or preying on his victim's fears and insecurities to fuck with them. This is actually a really interesting idea for a villain, one that speaks to our modern world where truth and reality are not wholly reliable anymore, and where people with the motive and the means to control and dictate what is real can cause massive change, as well as massive destruction. And the film really has fun with his technology too, leading to sequences that feel like they've been ripped straight from Arkham Asylum and its Scarecrow levels.

Beck's games are really funky to watch as he distorts the world around Peter to trap him, or goes on the offensive with frightening visions of his friends dying and a zombie Iron Man coming after him. The first time he does this in particular is my favourite scene in the film, it's a sequence that just keeps escalating to a hard-hitting climax that leaves Peter shaken, paranoid and seriously injured. This twist also makes the film's earlier action sequences against the Elementals more fun, and this time I actually noticed a couple of instances of the illusion breaking and they're really cool to pick up on. All of this naturally culminates in an epic finale as a giant Elemental tears up Tower Bridge and Spider-Man goes after Mysterio. This finale is awesome, I can't deny that, it's visually insane for starters as this massive monster looms over the bridge, and Spider-Man's method of stopping the illusion was great, and Happy's attempts to protect Peter's classmates was also a really fun sequence, one that piles the pressure on Peter to stop Mysterio. Like all MCU films though, it is very CG heavy, and while a lot of it looks awesome, a lot of it also looks a bit rough, and it's naturally most noticeable when it's things like Mysterio and Spider-Man being fully CGI, it's never as bad as Black Panther, but it's more noticeable than it should be, but dodgy CG is only really a factor if the rest of the movie is dodgy, and Far From Home, despite its sloppy first half, kicks all kinds of arse by the end.

Even Dead, I'm The Hero

Spider-Man: Far From Home is a mixed bag; it's a film that feels long, despite being a normal length of one-hundred and twenty-nine minutes, and that is solely because of the film's first half, which tries to juggle an interesting and compelling Spider-Man story with a high-school comedy, one that Homecoming did better and with less cringe. The central romance plot with MJ is something I also found lacklustre, though it's Romeo and Juliette compared to Ned's. All of that melts away in the second half though as the film throws a fantastic villain at you and puts Peter's arc of becoming the next Iron Man centre stage, and while that second half never completely exonerates the first, Far From Home is a film you'll ultimately remember for that second half, and overall, I'd say it's worth watching.