Halloween Week Finale: Get Out Redux Review

A few things were going to be the finale of my annual Halloween special this year, originally it was the 2018 Halloween but I hated it, and then, while I pondered what my seventh review would be, it was Doom 3. But while I considered reviewing the film Oculus, a friend of mine came round and noticed Get Out on my Blu Ray shelf, the film that was hailed as a masterpiece of horror and social commentary for its elegant tackling of Racism in modern America, you may forgive me for being sceptical of that claim, but we watched it, and now I'm singing a slightly different tune. In fact, there's so much to say about Get Out that I don't think a standard review will cut it, so I'm resurrecting the Redux, something I should never have needed to do, since I still haven't done a Redux on Coraline, Ghost in the Shell, Ghostbusters and Godzilla, again. But when it comes to Get Out, the drive is most certainly there now. I will be going into spoilers in this review so if you want the spoiler free version; Get Out's good, watch it, but going forward I'm going into some details that you probably shouldn't know for a first viewing, you've been warned.
Here's what you need to know; Chris doesn't know just what to expect when he finally meets his white girlfriend's super liberal parents, but upon arriving at their secluded lake side estate, they seem very friendly and accommodating, perhaps overly so. But Chris is no fool, something very twisted is bubbling just beneath the surface of this family and he knows it, but he has no idea just how twisted and disturbing the truth really is, a nightmarish conspiracy that threatens not to take his life, but something far worse.

Get Out's opening scene is pretty standard for a horror movie, a guy is walking alone at night in a quiet suburb when he becomes the target of a masked fiend that attacks him and takes him away. A detail that's only important because the film makes it important is that this guy who is attacked is black, get used to reading that word today, because it'll come up a lot, and white, and progressive. Something I decided to take a second look at by about my three thousandth word into this review was the song that plays over this film's opening titles, which I didn't pay any attention to until Chris started calling people brother later in the film. What I found after not really a lot of digging is that the song is saying something, that the lyrics are actually in Swahili and translate to "Brother, listen to (not entirely sure what Wahenga translates to), run, run away, save yourself." I suppose what this means needs no explanation, in the context of the twist, the "save yourself" part in particular seems incredibly ominous and creepy. I've also seen some translations saying that Wahenga means ancestors, though I don't know for sure, but let's go with that because if that is what it means, the song's message to run becomes even more unsettling. When accompanied with brother, the song becomes not just very, very subtle foreshadowing, but a warning to Chris in particular, a warning from his 'ancestors;' those who came before, or more precisely, those before him that are now trapped in the hell that awaits him if he doesn't 'save himself.' This obviously also relates to the film's title, "Get Out," which is in refence to a line spoken by one of the funny acting black people when he runs at Chris screaming at him to "Get Out," in the context of the twist, this action makes sense, but in the context of this song, again assuming that Wehenga means ancestor, Logan then becomes an ancestor. The word ancestor could also very easily be an allusion to American slavery, which is still a very hot topic in America despite being abolished one hundred and fifty years ago. This is, understandably, because of the deep scars Slavery and the Civil War left in American society, scars that are the root the black victimhood narrative and the progressive Americans' white guilt, which is something I'll explain later.

We are then introduced to our guy; Chris, the photographer with the pretty girlfriend, and it's here that we go into spoilers, it's also here that the film starts laying on its message, and laying it on thick, but in a surprising twist, the message isn't meaningless or ham-fisted, rather it's fascinating. Chris is nervous to meet Rose's parents, but she assures him that they're liberal and progressive and that they won't care that he's black, which, if we know anything at all, it's that them being progressive means they will only care that he's black, but we're already jumping the gun. But where things get real juicy in the next scene, where they hit a deer and call the police. This scene is genius because of its incredible subtlety, as on the surface it looks like the cop is just being a racist, but I'm not sure if it's necessarily him that's the racist in this scene. The cop asks for Chris' ID, even though he wasn't driving the car when they hit the deer, and at first glance, that does seem questionable, but the eye opener is Rose's immediate judgement of the cop's intentions, without thought or hesitation Rose immediately jumps to race. This really could be seen either way; the cop could be racist for asking for Chris's ID even though he wasn't driving, but Rose could also be racist for assuming that the cop was only on Chris because he's black. For a film that supposedly tackles Racism in America, this is a stunning and refreshing amount of nuance, and the film really does get better from here. Something that becomes very apparent when Chris arrives at the house is the off vibe of the family and the house itself, first with the strange acting groundskeeper and housekeeper who are both black, then with the parents going full speed on the virtue signalling, saying shit like "such a privilege to experience another person's culture, " and Obama was "the best president in my lifetime."

The funny thing about virtue signalling is that it always ends up looking bad, it speaks to a desire to show off how virtuous, how good you are, and it always comes out looking contrived and conspicuous, hence the name, you are signalling your virtue, making it known how good you are. The problem with doing this is that when it's over done, which it always is, it looks suspicious, like you're signalling your virtue to hide something that isn't virtuous, moreover it reflects a desire to be politically correct, a well-meaning soft bigotry that mandates people control their own language and behaviour around people of an underprivileged group so as to be accommodating and not offensive. This action comes directly from the simple detail that Chris is black, because like I said before, if they're progressive, which they very much act to be, they are obsessed with race. We see this soft racism in many scenes of this film's first hour, for example Jeremy implying that black people have some kind of genetic advantage and asking Chris if he's ever been in street fights, one could be interpreted as either racist or a harmless question, while the other is very unambiguously racially charged, yet both are passed off as harmless. Again, this speaks to a progressive obsession with race, in addition to Jeremy demonstrating a collectivist mentality, the notion that black people "could be beasts" thanks to their genetic makeup. And once again we have Rose immediately assuming that it's about Chris being black, and though this time she's right, it still reflects her own obsession with race. She also asks Chris why he's so calm, which could be interpreted as a progressive's emotional investment in the ideology; she has perceived racism and is angered by it yet is confused that the black guy is so chill, reflecting some sort of notion that Chris should feel a certain way because of his skin colour, another example of soft bigotry and collectivism. Something I literally just thought of while writing this too was Jeremy's attempt to put Chris in a headlock, in hindsight this is foreshadowing of the film's reveal, something we should have already noticed as in the first scene, the masked fiend subdues the black guy with a headlock, now thinking about it, it's almost certain that had Missy not stopped him, Jeremy would have subdued Chris then and there at the dinner table, that there is some brilliant foreshadowing.

Taking a break from the film's subtle commentary on racism for just a moment, one thing I'm not a huge fan of in Get Out is it's use of jumpscare cues in the spooky scenes, I said the same of Sinister but this one feels even more confusing as we get a cue when Georgina, the house's weird housekeeper, is seen mindlessly gawking at herself in the window, one that exists purely to make the audience jump, while not adding to the suspense in any meaningful way, the Groundskeeper running at Chris being accompanied by music makes sense, the jumpscare cue in the scene makes no sense. What else makes no sense to me is that Get Out falls back on these horror tactics in the first place, since its most effective horror is entirely psychological, making a jumpscare feel out of place. Get Out's greatest strength, aside from the commentary, is in its mystery; the intrigue and dread surrounding the progressive family and their weirdo black servants, an intrigue that isn't wasted in the reveal, its horror is effective without conventional and tired horror tropes, making them feel like they don't belong. Getting back to the mystery, it is now in the film that we are introduced to the Sunken Place, which, even if you take out the social commentary, would still make Get Out a fascinating and creepy film. The Sunken Place is a terrifying concept; a void, dark and empty, in which exists nothing but consciousness, a mind stripped of all its power and agency. If you've ever seen a short film called Alma, this might sound familiar to you, it's a concept that is deeply disturbing, completely losing control of your own existence, literally being powerless to even so much as move, becoming nothing more than a passive observer with no individual agency. This raises all sorts of questions in the context of the reveal, so we'll be coming back to the Sunken Place soon enough, but like I said before, even if you ignore the racial commentary, the Sunken Place is a gold mine of intrigue and horror.

Getting back to the film's mystery, we get another fascinating piece of foreshadowing, that being the Groundskeeper using the word "doggone." To most people, that'd be a funny word for anyone to say, in fact I'm sure some people don't even know what it means, but the interesting thing about the word is its use over time; doggone was a much more common word around the middle of the twentieth century, 1940'-50's, so while it is weird for a black guy who looks in his thirties to use it, in the context of the twist, it makes a creepy amount of sense, and the same thing is observable in Georgina when she says "cellular phone," and doesn't understand what snitch means, a word that only started to become common in the 2000's. So far, Get Out has demonstrated not only an admirable amount of subtlety and nuance in its social commentary, but an outstanding grasp on foreshadowing. And back we go screaming into the social commentary with a liberal (pun intended) helping of identity politics, as Chris expresses discomfort at the number of white people on the estate. This, kind of like the racist cop from earlier, can be interpreted in a fuck ton of ways, so let's get stuck in. This could suggest a victim mentality in Chris, one that would reflect the progressive narrative of discrimination and racism in America, with the media and activist groups like BLM hollering about the oppression of black Americans at the hands of 'the man.' Maybe Chris is nervous because of this narrative, a fear that being surrounded by so many white people puts him in some kind of danger, which would mean that Chris, just like Rose and all the other white people in the film, is a soft bigot. Not far from that is that they all specifically seem to be progressive and uber tolerant, again, conspicuously so which infers an inherent obsession with race, one that makes Chris nervous because to them, he's not just a person, he's specifically a black man, and to them, that has all kinds of connotations, chief among them being his status as a victim.

But how do we know that they're all progressive, simple, from all the virtue signalling and soft bigotry on display; like the guy who loves Tiger Woods, or the woman asking if it's true that black guys have bigger dicks, and the guy who asks if being "African American" is an advantage or a disadvantage, a use of politically correct language that reflects a collectivist mentality and a belief in the victim narrative. And then there's the guy that says, "Black is in fashion," which is a real humdinger of a statement. The statement has many ways of looking at it, the first that came to my mind was, and I bet you'd never have guessed, the progressive obsession with race; the unintentional othering of black people because of the narrative that they're oppressed and are therefore in need of special treatment and protection, something the Art dealer calls out quite elegantly when he says that they're well-meaning but don't understand the real world, a very unambiguous calling out of the elitist left wing bubble that all these rich, white, elderly couples are very clearly a part of. All apart from the one Asian guy, who could possibly be a reminder that this kind of soft bigotry isn't exclusively the domain of white people, a subtle critique of collectivism. The statement, "Black is in fashion," also comes to have a much more literal interpretation in the context of the twist, the idea of it being a fashion, something for people to wear, and a need to take another person or people's identity in place of your own or your own lack of, this will become important when we go back to the Sunken Place. The mask slips at this point, like we didn't already know, we now most certainly know of the family's sinister intentions, as they play 'bingo' while secretly bidding in an auction, bidding on Chris. And it's also here that the film's social commentary eases up for a little while. Instead of that however, we get Dean talking cryptically about gods. I went back to take more notes after thinking a bit more on this scene at work, and I wrote down what it was that he said. he first asks "what is your purpose, Chris," clearly a question as to the value of his own identity; how important is Chris as an individual. But it's his next line that's really interesting, "but we are divine, we are the gods trapped in cocoons."

Just what does he mean by Gods in Cocoons, and just who does he mean. Ignoring the identity politics of the film for one interpretation, he means that humans are gods but we are restricted from reaching our full potential, the cocoon being mortality and the physical limitations of the human body. Therein lies a contradiction however, if we are gods trapped by human life spans, it would suggest that we are all gods, making their solution unjust, like it already wasn't, as it would rob another person of his godhood, to entrap him even more in the cocoon of mortality. Unless he doesn't think that we're all gods, that some people are more important than others, which is where the identity politics comes up again. A fundamental flaw in collectivism, as I've said numerous times on this blog, is that it ignores individuality, to a collectivist, I for example would not simply be a person, I'd specifically be a white male, Chris isn't a person, he's a black male, his and my individuality is less important than the demographics we're a part of. Ignoring individuality dehumanises the individual, Chris ceases to be a person, he is now vessel, a literal vessel as we'll very soon get to, but also a figurative vessel, a piece of meat to carry the progressive narrative. And now for the biggie, Dean's solution to death, the big twist that you can't go back from once you know it; the family has been kidnapping Black people and transplanting the brains of their family and friends into their bodies, allowing them to live longer and to live someone else's life at the expense of the host, who becomes trapped in the Sunken Place, unable to control their own body. Good luck not having nightmares about that concept; again ignoring identity politics, this is a disturbing idea; another person taking away your personhood and walking around in your skin while you watch, powerless to stop it. This raises all sorts of questions about individuality and agency, two things that simply don't exist after most of you is cut out and replaced by someone else, it relates back to Dean's question of Chris' purpose, and is a physical manifestation of collectivism ignoring the individual, as we see Rose's trophy wall in one scene, where she hangs pictures of all the people she's helped to victimise, all of whom are meaningless, their identities as individuals snuffed out.

Add onto this the identity politics angle now, all of the victims are black, Rose's trophy wall are all pictures of black people, now remember the guy who said that "Black is in fashion," this is that literal interpretation I was on about, literally wearing a person's skin, now this isn't simply taking another person's body, it's also taking another person's identity, or in this case, their group identity; Black is in fashion after all. This can be related to the progressive concept of diversity, which, as I've also said before, doesn't actually mean diversity, just as the feminist definition of misogyny isn't actually what the word means, to a progressive, diversity means fewer white people. Part of this push for diversity, a push for more non-white people, is progressive white guilt; self-hatred formed from being told that you are bad because of your race, and because of that race's history. To a progressive, white people are bad, they conquered the world and enslaved all the innocent brown people, and white people alive today are guilty of that apparent evil, never mind all the good things white people did for history, such as the British hunting down and capturing slave ships to stamp out slavery, or all the white Americans that died in the Civil War, or more recently, taking down the Nazis and saving the world from fascism and tyranny. As usual, there is a narrative and evidence that contradicts that narrative can just be swept under the rug, white people are all evil and have been for all history, never mind the millions upon millions upon millions of good ones. This is the root of white guilt, similar to the Germans feeling guilty for the wrongdoing of their ancestors, to American white progressives, all white people are descended from slave owners, and they're all despicable racists, no matter how much they prostrate, no matter how good an ally to the cause they are, if they have white skin, they have original sin. In this context, "Black is in fashion," is an attempt to shed that original sin, to lose the white guilt by losing the white skin and replacing it with innocent and pure black skin. Another part of this is collectivism, just as white people are collectively evil, even the good ones, black people are collectively pure, even the bad ones, but collectivism doesn't consider the value of the individual as much as it values their characterises, again, Chris isn't a person, he's a black man, and that matters more to them than his humanity, making his humanity disposable in the pursuit of moral purity and justice.

This is the greatest failing of the progressives, for all their talk of caring about black people or women of gays, they don't actually care about the individuals that make up that group, they care about a group identity, because just as being white means you're evil, being a woman or being gay or being black also means you are a certain way, rather, that you think a certain way. This is why people who speak out against groupthink are so hated, they should stay in the pen with everyone else, they shouldn't think for themselves because to do that is to see the ugly, racist, sexist truth of progressivism. Upon this very intriguing, creepy and provocative reveal, the social commentary of the film is pretty much done, now all that remains is the exciting and incredibly satisfying finale as Chris murders the family and escapes. What makes this sequence so satisfying is your hatred of the family, a hatred not spawned from a blatant and unapologetic racism, but through the film's study into the soft bigotry of the progressive left, though their subtle dehumanising of people for the supposed benefit of humanity and at the expense of their victims, they are monsters. Theirs and particularly Rose's complete betrayal of Chris' trust and their monstrous actions towards him and all their previous victims makes Chris' escape an exhilarating sequence in the film. But just before we get to the end, the film throws in two more fantastic little sprinkles of intrigue; earlier in the film, Chris takes a picture of one of their victims, causing him to become hysterical, we now know that the host consciousness still exists in the vessel after the transplantation, so Chris takes a photo of the Groundskeeper after he tackles him, this time intentionally trying to wake up the host consciousness. He is successful, and the host tricks Rose into giving him the rifle at which point he shoots her, then, with a single tear rolling down his face, he cocks the rifle and blows his own brains out. This is a manifestation of the mental trauma the Sunken Place presses on the host; having no control or agency for so long, trapped in a empty, lifeless limbo within your own head, it makes sense for Logan to become hysterical as the host consciousness regains control after however long in the dark, the Groundskeeper shooting himself is a clear indication that, at least to him, death is better than the life the family left him with, a lifetime in the Sunken Place.

And in a final sting to the audience, when the police show up, Rose pleads for help, a commentary on the victim narrative, and an implication that the people using it aren't necessarily victims or using it for noble reasons. Rose is a manipulative predator playing the victim, just as some people in the real world who play the victim are trying to play the system, using their group identity as leverage. It doesn't work as it turns out to be the best comedy relief character in any horror film ever, who rescues Chris, leaving Rose to bleed to death in the street. Rose is a very interesting and creepy character in this film, as she has been manipulating people for years, recruiting them into the family's operation through deception. As I said before, she is a manipulative predator, which represents the untrustworthiness of the ally. This is something that's very observable in male feminists, but can be seen in all groups and agendas across the political spectrum, people who 'help' the cause by playing along, all the while hiding their true intentions; the stereotype of male feminists being sexual predators exists for a reason, and here, that same concept applies to the white ally of our black hero, playing along to gain the trust of and eventually capture her latest victim. After all is revealed, she is shown to be completely emotionally dethatched from her actions, image searching for a fresh target in front of a trophy wall of her previous victims, this in contrast to her warmth and affections towards Chris before, reflecting the emotional hollowness of the ally, playing along with no real investment in the cause outside of their own intentions with it.

Sikiliza Kwa Wahenga
I probably haven't exhausted all that I can squeeze from this film here, but this is the finale to my Halloween special as well as an analysis, meaning that I have a deadline to get it done, which is about three hours away as of writing this sentence. Get Out is a film I admittedly knew little about going in, outside of its supposedly brilliant tackling of racism. I was apprehensive that I'd be watching an awkward progressive preachathon, but I was wrong, as not only did the film steer well clear of preaching, but it was in fact a tackling of the progressive left itself in a twist I genuinely wasn't expecting, and one that I found absolutely fascinating. Get Out serves as both a creepy and gripping mystery and a unique and equally gripping commentary on the soft bigotry of the left, and far from feeling out of place, the film's message is woven so seamlessly into the film that it becomes, for me at least, its greatest strength. I didn't know what I'd think of Get Out when I started watching it, but by the end of my second viewing, still scribbling frantically into my notebook, it occurred to me that Get Out isn't just a film I like, it's a film I love, and it's one that I'll very happily watch again. I was nervous as to how I'd recommend this film given its touchy nature, but you know what, fuck it, Get Out is an absolute must watch.

Halloween Week: DOOM 3 (BFG Edition) video game review

Here's what you need to know; strange goings on are getting to the workers of the UAC's Mars facility, flickering lights, disembodied voices and rumours surrounding the secretive experiments in the Delta labs. But the horrific truth is about to be revealed, as a mysterious attack unleashes all hell onto the facility, killing and zombifying thousands and unleashing an army of monstrous beasts into our reality. But this attack was no accident, and as one surviving Marine will soon learn, its origin is far, far worse than anything anyone could have imagined, the very heart of Evil itself, an Evil now with an unsuspecting Earth firmly in its sights.
Shortly after the Doom Eternal gameplay reveal and that amazingly stupid Astrid Johnson article, I went on a bit of Doom kick, playing and reviewing the 2016 game, and playing and writing half a review of Doom 3, but since Halloween was on its way and I wanted to do another special, I figured I'd take a horror review that was already half done and make it part of the occasion. And for the purposes of the review, I'll be talking about the BFG Edition of the game, not because it was the only option but because I'm too lazy to hunt down a PC copy or wire up my old Xbox, simply playing on the Xbox One was the path of least effort.

Doom 2016 took Doom back to strafing out of the way of incoming fireballs and sending the forces of Hell to their doom by the dozen, but to state that Doom went back to that style of gameplay is to imply that that wasn't always the case, that at some point Doom wasn't about strafing and mass murdering Demons, Doom 3, originally released in 2004, then re-released in 2012 as the BFG Edition was that time. Doom 3's different direction was one of more focused storytelling and a greater sense of suspense and horror, a different direction that would be unrecognisable as Doom were it not for how effective and memorable this game is, but we're jumping the gun a bit, first of all, Doom 3 has a story, one that is more central to the game than any other title in the series, so how well does Doom 3 pull it off. The game's opening does a superb job of setting up the tone of the story as we are treated to an expository prologue that lets us know not to trust the UAC, this becomes relevant when you meet Swann and Campbell, two of the game's main characters. The game purposefully withholds any specifics about who they are, all you know is that Swann represents the UAC, which makes him ambiguous and hard to trust right out of the gate.

He is, however, preferable to Betruger, who you know is the game's villain simply from looking at him, every word out of his mouth stinks of ulterior motives, and you also know he's the head of Delta labs, which, if you've been sniffing the roses, you know is a hub of creepy goings on and ominous rumours, but if that wasn't enough, if you need something less subtle, he's also got a dodgy eye. Seemingly the only person you can trust is Sergeant Kelly, but as this game's plot thickens, even his motivations are called into question, and this sense of ambiguity around all of the game's main characters works to both create an atmosphere of anticipation and one of isolation, as the Marine is surrounded not just by monsters of the literal kind, but by allies that could stab him in the back at any moment. A mistake the game makes however is never exploring the motivations of the villain, something that even the 2016 game with its light storytelling did a better job of doing, Betruger wants to open a portal to Hell but unlike Olivia Peirce and Samuel Hayden from the reboot, we never learn why; what he was promised like Peirce or what benefit he saw in it like Hayden. But the game does have one thing on its side, its long list of PDA Emails and audio logs which go some way to filling in the blanks, this and his endless taunting of the player imply that his motivations are purely malicious in nature, which is fine, it's just odd when you consider that this game's successor, which left its approach to narrative in a cloud of dust, had not one but two more nuanced villains.

Like its successor, a big part of Doom 3's story comes in the form of the PDAs, and while they both exist for the purpose of world building, Doom 3 does it in a slightly different and, I feel, actually more effective way. Doom 2016's data logs are great in that they give insight into the game's library of monsters, maps, guns and characters, painting a picture of a game world that is riddled with depth and history, though like I said in my review of Doom 2016, if you don't care to learn about the tragic history of Argent D'Nur, the game doesn't force you to, you can, should you so desire, completely ignore them. Doom 3 however opts to make the PDAs a library of audio logs and Emails sent and received by the various workers of Mars City, which serves as great world building by implying that before the Demons took over, Mars City was actually a city that people lived in, making the isolation and horror of what it becomes all the more oppressive. But unlike Doom 2016, Doom 3 doesn't give you much of a choice when it comes to going though these gits, hidden away among the lines of text and reels of audio are codes that you need to open optional lockers that contain useful loot like ammo and armour, though these codes are also sometimes vital to know in order to progress through the level.

The game having less expository logs and giving you greater incentive to look through them serves to make its blatant attempt at world building feel much more organic and better integrated into the gameplay, giving even this straight forward story an element of depth, unless you're a lazy fuck who gets the codes from the Steam Forums, don't be that guy. Tonally speaking, Doom 3 is undoubtedly horror, in fact the one Hell level in the game has more scare value in it than all four of Doom's Hell levels combined; Doom's Hell levels are cool, Doom 3's Hell level is a nightmare; one borrowing far more heavily from Christian belief than its successor, which turns Hell in Doom 3 into the Hell that you feared when you were a kid, a place of darkness and suffering, of the damned left to scream in pain for all time. Doom 3's story therefore goes to some very dark places, and even with its dated visuals, running on the Id Tech 4 engine, its imagery is more disturbing than Doom 2016's, so disturbing in fact that I wouldn't let my seven year old nephew who's currently addicted to Doom within a mile of this thing, I'm a bad influence but I'm not that bad. There's only so many times you can read 'die' and 'suffer' scribbled on the walls in blood, floors and ceilings caked in cancerous growths and mangled bodies, and hear the distant, anguished cries of the damned before it starts to get to your head, far from becoming desensitised to it, it creeped me the fuck out.

It's here where we move from story to atmosphere, and where Doom 3's 2004 graphics take a back seat to the game's atmosphere building big guns; sound and lighting. Doom 3's lighting is superb, though the game's visuals overall might look noticeably aged, the way light and shadow is cast dynamically throughout the environments is impressive to behold even how, as light fixtures move, casting light over the room randomly, fires and emergency lights flicker ominously, creating a suitably hellish glow, or even how Imp fireballs light up the room as they travel towards you, casting dynamic shadows on the environment. Doom 3's lighting is a powerhouse of atmosphere; entering a dark room becomes a cautious exercise, seeing the silhouette of a monster move across a distant lit area, seeing shadows dart across the walls and floors as Demons scuttle either away from or towards you, it's all very creepy. As your defence from the darkness you have a torch, and in the original Doom 3 release that torch was a separate item that you could only use once you'd holstered your weapon, something changed in the BFG Edition so now your torch is mounted to your armour.

 I get why purists didn't like that the change included no option to change it back, but even in the BFG Edition, it's not like the torch renders you all-seeing thanks to its subtly off-centre placement and cool down. Though why they even featured a cooldown when said cooldown is only about five seconds is a bit confusing, like they wanted to make using the torch more tense and time sensitive but couldn't commit to a thirty second cooldown or having to find batteries for it, but as we'll get to, when it comes to confusing or frustrating mechanics, that's the tip of the iceberg. Another thing that the game excels at for the most part is sound; unlike its successor, Doom 3 has a much less in your face soundtrack aside from the kickass menu and credits music, instead its soundscape exists to build suspense, with, for example, the distant screams of the Hell level, the distorted radio chatter of the possessed soldiers, and the hissing and snarling of the various demons as they roam about the facility. The number of times I'd stop in my tracks because I became aware of the sound of footsteps and needed to check that they were mine is a sign that this game nails atmospheric sound design. In many of the game's encounters you'll hear the Demons before you see them, either their skulking and hissing as they wait in the dark for you, or the satanic chanting as one teleports in, going back to my example, when you stop to check and still hear the footsteps your guard instantly goes up, hearing noises in Doom 3 puts you on edge.

By the time you hear the Demons it's probably too late, but none of that would matter if the Demons themselves weren't all that scary. Except for the Hell Knight, all of Doom 3's Demons are considerably different to their 2016 counterparts; Imps are much bigger and more imposing, as are the Hell Knights, and both are slower moving than in the 2016 game. Imps, in addition to being bigger and slower have grey, scally skin and many, many eyes, making it look less Demonic and more extra-terrestrial. Other monsters like the Mancubus and Lost Souls saw a big change from this when going into 2016, with the Lost Souls being rocket powered flying heads in Doom 3, and the Mancubus looking like a bloated dead body with guns for arms. Meanwhile the Revenant is see-through for some reason, and the Pinky is unrecognisable, looking less like the Demons they were before and became again and more like overgrown faceless pigs, which makes even less sense than the Revenant being see-through. New enemies to Doom 3 are a mixed bag, with some being uninspired melee enemies like the Wraith and Maggot and others being really annoying thanks to their high damage output and hit scanning weapons like the Commandos, but easily the best new addition is the Trite; a swarm enemy that resemble giant spiders with upside down human heads and an annoying tendency to appear from nowhere, these are easily the creepiest Demons in the game and it's weird that they were left behind in the reboot.

But the biggest difference in the Demons between the games is how the encounters play out. Whereas in Doom 2016 the Demons are numerous and fast moving, forcing you do dodge attacks and prioritise targets, in Doom 3, the pace was significantly slower. In this game Demons practically never come in groups bigger than five or six unless they're swarm enemies like the Trite or Cherub, they're tougher than in the reboot but move significantly slower, and engagements are often in tight, claustrophobic environments like corridors, hangers and labs, making the combat much slower. And while Doom 2016 never leaves you without ammo for very long, ammo is far scarcer in this game, making ammo conservation essential, kind of. Like the torch, it seems like they wanted to make it hard but couldn't commit; a combination of the game's stockpiling ammo in lockers and hidden rooms for the more explorative to find and the ammo saver mentality the game wants you to have, means that by the half way mark you're packing a small army's worth of heat. Ammo really isn't a concern if you know where to look or aren't complete shit at shooters, and while this becomes awesome in the game's final few levels as the pace ramps up for the finale, it makes the supposedly tense engagements of the first half of the game feel easy.

I played the game on normal difficultly, like I usually do with games when I review them, and I was surprised by how forgiving it was; not just in the not so hidden ammo stashes, but in health and armour, which are everywhere in the game. Don't get me wrong, there are times where a health station filled me with joy to see, but that wasn't often, in fact I usually never needed them because I was getting by on the game's mountain of medkits, and like the 2016 game, when you're not up against hit scanning zombie soldiers, you're dodging fireballs, making it very easy to literally not take damage when going up against even the most dangerous demons, provided they don't get a melee hit on you. The game does have something to offset this, it just doesn't work very well. Sometimes the game will put you in a very small room with a very big demon, which, since the Doom Slayer is still a decade away, is never going to go in your favour, there's the zombie enemies with hit scanning weapons that are impossible to dodge and therefore very annoying, and then there's the enemy placement, oh boy the enemy placement. Doom 3 has some very frustrating habits in this regard, the most in your face one, quite literally, is putting Imps behind doors so they will instantly leap at you when you open the door, a cheap jumpscare that feels unfair when you lose a slice of health to an enemy you couldn't have avoided, and sure it'll scare you at first, but by the twentieth time it happens, it's just annoying.

The game will also lock the room down and kill the lights right before a fight, making finding the demons before they can hurt you very hard. Doom 3 also loves to put enemies behind you, whether they teleport in or get let out of some hidden room that's always just conveniently right behind you and just big enough for a demon, almost like they exist purely to give you a disadvantage in combat. And like putting Imps behind doors, it'll get you at first, then it will annoy you. These tricks are used so much that they become predictable, making encounters with even the scariest monsters feel mundane, and making something as simple as opening a door tiresome, not because you're scared of the Imp, but because you know it's there and you know exactly what it's going to do and that you're probably not going to dodge it. Another little niggle is how you can't swap weapons or cancel during a reload animation, which doesn't sound important, but is in fact very important when a Demon's running right at you and you can't retaliate because you're stuck in an unskippable animation. None of these things completely break your enjoyment of the game, but the longer you play the game, the more noticeable and annoying these things will become, to the point that it compromises the atmosphere and horror by being too predictable.

Amazing things will happen here soon, you just wait
Doom 3 is an interesting case; a game series taking a radical turn and becoming something completely different to what it once was, but Doom 3's radical direction didn't stick, leaving us with this time capsule, a little bundle of horror that's ultimately a mixed bag. Doom 3's story is dark and creepy, and fascinatingly told through a combination of cutscenes and the game's fantastic PDAs, telling a gripping story of scientific discovery paving the road to hell, yet its villain is shallow and lacking the nuance the series would put in its villains later. Gameplay wise we're still mixed, the shooting is competent and the health and ammo systems are enjoyable if too forgiving, exploring Mars City for secrets is a lot of fun, and when the horror works through its amazing atmosphere and disturbing imagery, it's brilliant. The problem is how the game devolves into a haunted house attraction through its overuse of cheap jumpscares and frustrating enemy placements, turning a game with a fantastic sense of atmosphere thanks to its lighting and sound into a predictable slog. All that being said, I still have a considerable amount of love for Doom 3, call it nostalgia, call it bias, call it what you want, I just like Doom 3, I think it's a good game on the whole, one that's sure to scare first time players, plus its Doom 3, it's a piece of gaming history and it's worth it for that alone. It's definitely worth playing.

Halloween Week: Ghostbusters 2 movie review

Here's what you need to know; after half a decade of mockery and irrelevance, the Ghostbusters have gradually gone their separate ways and accepted the fact that Ghostbusters is never coming back. That is until a strange occurrence befalls an old friend of theirs, and a series of spectral peculiarities lead them to believe that another catastrophe is on the horizon, forcing Peter, Ray, Egon and Winston to once again take up arms against the supernatural and bring their business back from the dead.
Ghostbusters 2, at least there'll be no confusion with this one since there's never going to be another Ghostbusters 2, in fact Ghostbusters probably isn't coming back for another decade and a half, but fuck it, at least there's two good ones, though is the sequel as good as the first, is it even good at all, that is the question.


Ghostbusters 2, like the first, opens with a spooky encounter, one that this time sees Dana almost lose her kid to New York traffic, oh yeah, Dana has a kid now. That is one of the things that detracts from the film in its opening act, apparently a lot has happened since the Ghostbusters defeated Gozer, the big one being that now everyone in New York thinks they're fake, which doesn't exactly make sense given that everyone in New York saw the sky turn black and them blow up a walking building's worth of Marshmallow. It doesn't end up distracting from the film as a whole in the long run, but it is initially distracting that the Ghostbusters are now so arbitrarily discredited, as if for the sake of the narrative, since a part of this film is them all coming back together. That being said, it is a little interesting seeing where they all ended up; Peter landed a crappy TV talk show, Egon went back to science and Ray opened a book store while doing everything he can to keep the Ghostbusters brand alive. Like the first film, all the Ghostbusters are really likable and funny, Venkman's still a snarky Womanizer, though he now acts even more childish and immature, Egon's still an oblivious autistic genius, Ray's still an obsessive man-child, and Winston's still the normie. The lack of any real change or growth from the first film could be an issue, but it ends up being irrelevant because they are once again the most likable crew in the existence. The biggest change in character from the previous film is in Venkman's relationship to Dana and Oscar, because apparently Dana and Peter broke up, Dana got married, had a kid, and then got ditched by her husband all the in the span of five years, jinkies. Peter and Oscar have some really funny bits together, and the three of them are where the film's surprising amount of heart lie, as Dana and Peter inevitably fall back in love while Peter keeps her and Oscar safe from the clutches of evil. Ghostbusters 2 doesn't make any huge changes to its central characters from the last film, but it never needed to because if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

That being said, some things in the first film were in need of little work in my opinion, and in the sequel, they need a lot of work. I refer to Louis and Janine, Janine now looks like a cartoon character, in fact she now more resembles her Real Ghostbusters counterpart, so it does kind of make sense. And while it was implied that she had a thing for Egon in the first film, this film makes no effort to hide her lust for, of all people, Louis Tully, an interesting pairing to say the least. Louis is still a character I don't understand the point of, his awkwardness and stupidity are more annoying than they are funny, but he's even more relevant in the sequel through being the Ghostbusters' lawyer, the object of Janine's desire, and in the film's finale, a threat to New York, running around with a proton pack that, realistically, he's far too incompetent to be trusted with. But he has competition for his weirdness in the sequel thanks to Vigo's minion, who I didn't find funny at all, and maybe it's the point, but I found him rather pathetic, a spineless little goblin of a man that almost seems like a counterbalance to Vigo, who makes Gozer look like the ghosts from Casper in comparison; for most of the film he's just a creepy painting, but he is such a creepy painting that it has presence in every scene it's in, and while he's over the top when he speaks initially, in the film's finale when he physically manifests, he is terrifying, the visuals, make up and sound on Vigo are top notch, and he is a creepy fucker, no big cuddly marshmallows in this film. This comes with a bit of a contradiction however as Ghostbusters 2 is at once the less scary and scarier of the two films, as little sense as that makes.

There's a more cartoony nature to a lot of its elements this time, yet some of the imagery is nightmarish, Vigo, the ghost train, the room full of severed heads, the monsters of the film are more creatively designed and some of them are really creepy, and the river of slime running under New York is a very unsettling concept once you consider that the slime feeds on negative energy, minus the cheesy inverse of the slime also feeding on positive energy, which becomes important in the film's finale. While certainly being scarier than the first, the two films are about on par for comedy, which is to say they're both really fun and really funny, once again, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. This film's also on par in visual effects, though the effects have changed somewhat with the ghosts becoming more cartoonish in their design, their presentation is still strong. I'm sure me saying if it ain't broke is getting old now, that maybe I'm too dismissive of this film's lack of evolution from the first, but the biggest offender in this regard is the story and narrative structure, which is practically identical to the first, all the shit that Ghostbusters 2 is basically just Ghostbusters again is true, and if you ask me, that's excusably because if you're going to clone any movie, Ghostbusters would be a good choice, I can ignore the familiarity because this film doesn't stand out as inferior to the first, it has the exact same strengths and weaknesses, and while some of them are more pronounced in this film, they balance each other out in my opinion.

Two in the box, ready to go, we be fast and they be slow
Ghostbusters 2 really is more of the same, and I really don't care because it's still great. It's a film that there isn't really much to say about, its copy paste job of all of the first film's strengths was successful, ripoff or not, and it's still fantastically funny and light-hearted with fantastic visual effects and scary monsters, particularly a really creepy villain. Some of the first film's annoying elements were also carried over, and the sequel even adds some new ones, but overall, just like the first, I have a huge smile on my face for every minute of the film. Ghostbusters 2 is a good sequel, and it's definitely worth watching.

Halloween Week: Sinister movie review

Here's what you need to know; still desperate to hold onto the fame and fortune of his best seller days, true crime writer Ellison Oswalt moves his family into the house of a grisly murder case to inspire his new book. But things take a dark turn when he finds a collection of grotesque Super 8 films in the attic, sending him down a rabbit hole of evil and occult goings on that could be the end of far more than just his career.
It was about a year ago now that I first watched this film, sometime before last Halloween, me, my sister and a friend ordered some Domino's pizza and watched a scary movie, we ended up watching Sinister, a film I'd picked up on Blu Ray but a few days prior. So was Sinister a good choice all those moons ago while we gorged on Pizza, let's find out.

Sinister's opening shot is something a few reviewers I found brought up as an important point back when it released in 2012, so I'm going to do the same because it does kind of need to be said in this case. Without spoiling it for the untainted, the opening shot of Sinister is some of the most bluntly horrific shit I've seen in a mainstream horror film; the grainy quality and distorted speed gives the sequence and uncanniness, and the visceral nature of the imagery is as spellbinding as it is terrifying, it'll either  make you turn off the TV or hook you till the end, which I very much believe to have been the point. Like any good opening sequence, this one also sets the scene; creates a mood that establishes the tone of the film, this goes wrong when a film deviates from that tone *cough* Halloween *cough*, But while Sinister does do this a few times in the film, it's far more negligible than in that other film. The film follows Ellison Oswalt as he investigates this murder case only to find the tapes and discover some unimaginable evil lurking just beneath the surface, and you know exactly what you're in for from the simple phase; has-been writer, he has family issues, alcohol and stress issues, and an obsessive desire to hit it big again that's tearing his life apart. But while the character is nothing special, Ethan Hawke sells it, and his personal demons create a vulnerability that manifests in the film's scarier scenes, making them even scarier. The film is effectively all about him, in fact from what I recall the film never breaks from his side of the story, I could be wrong on that though, but it contributes to an intimacy with the characters and story which, again, contributes to the horror. His wife acts life a wife, the strain in their marriage is very clearly showing, but she's prepared to stick with Ellison and see him through. Like the hubby, it's nothing groundbreaking, but the film utilizes Ellison's personal weaknesses with subtlety and restraint, creating a more believable relationship that you can see both sides of, he is a burnout but she's a cautious optimist. The kids meanwhile act like horror movie kids for the most part, they're not in the film much and obviously have some sort of connection to the spooky shit going on, but the role this ends up playing as the film concludes kind of makes it worth it, creating a creepy, if predictable twist that ends the film on a very nihilistic and, dare I say, sinister note.

The film is marketed as a horror film, which, coming from Blumhouse, isn't surprising, but Sinister is as much a horror film as it is a crime thriller, as Ellison digs through and unearths evidence in the case and starts literally connecting the dots, as in with coloured string. To be honest, I enjoy this aspect of the film a lot, as boring as it may be to others, as your involvement in the story through Ellison lures you into these clues that he finds; when he watches the tapes, we are simply shown the tapes on full screen as if we are watching them ourselves, an incredibly minor detail that ends up being very useful in drawing the audience into the film's horror. Ellison is never a step ahead of the audience, he finds clues as we do, and we put the case together as he does, it's a fantastic balance that the film hits of never giving you all the answers but also never giving you none, it creates intrigue. The film's ability to immerse you in its mystery is very good for the film, given that the bad guy of the film, the mysterious Bughuul, isn't a particularly amazing villain. His presence in the film is very minimal in fact, and the legends we are told of him are vague as all hell. The idea of him living in images of himself is kind of cool and kind of stupid, and the film does contradict this idea a few times, the film also contradicts common sense a few times in this notion of Bughuul living in the images, particularly when Ellison looks away from his computer and the picture of Bughuul on the screen turns and looks at him, which, when taken out of context, is a bit pathetic and very funny. The film's lack of Bughuul does work out in my opinion however, as does the ambiguity of him, he is a mystery; we don't know how he chooses his victims or where he takes them, we don't know how long he's been around, nor do know if he is beatable, the only solid answers we are given is that Ellison and his family are not the first, nor will they be the last, creating an urgency to the threat that carries on after the credits role. The film is still weak in some aspects regarding Bughuul, outside of the ambiguity, some of the things he does are silly, and he doesn't really look that scary, in fact he looks more like a Halloween costume than a demon, and unlike someone like Michael Myers, there's no real subtext in his appearance, he's just a creepy guy, despite being the central threat of the film, Bughuul ultimately ends up being underwhelming.

Something Sinister gets right sometimes and wrong other times is the horror, more specifically, the film uses jumpscares when I'm so sure it needs them. The primary source of horror in the film is the tapes that Ellison watches, home video recordings of the various murders that Bughuul had a hand in, and not one of these tapes is mild or forgettable, not one. The first one you see brands itself onto your eyeballs instantly, and the rest only get worse from there, until you get to the one with the lawnmower, which is easily the scariest part of the film for me, because fuck that. Adding to the horror of the tapes is their lack of extravagance, none of them are gory, none of the kills are elaborate or over the top, despite depicting unfathomable horror, they all look authentically homemade, they look real, which makes the kills so much more disturbing. Add onto that the psychological element of them; the visceral discomfort and agony from the very thought of dying like even half the people who die in this film do and the torment of being completely powerless to stop it. This is something that most people would overlook while watching this film, but even they will get a feeling because of it, the tapes will stick with them not because they're gory or elaborate or in your face, but because they fuck with your mind. The final twist also adds a whole new layer to it that to even vaguely hint at would ruin the film's ending, so I'm not going there. The tapes are undoubtedly the meat of this film's horror, because elsewhere the film has a habit of relying on horror tropes with middling execution. The film has several jumpscares and to its credit, it doesn't clog its own arteries with false scares, what's weird is all the times there's a jarring audio cue when one wasn't really necessary; for example there's a sequence with ghosts in the house that would have been a lot creepier in my opinion is there wasn't a loud bong every time something moved, and like the scene with Bughuul and the computer, when taken out of context, these ghosts lose practically all of their scariness. The film also has a final jumpscare that the very end that is completely pointless and frankly stupid, but hey, jumpscares are scary, right? even when they serve literally no purpose and contradict the film's story. How it ultimately works out with Sinister is that despite being marketed as a supernatural horror, it's the supernatural element that is the film's weakest link in terms of horror, where the film becomes a typical horror that isn't very special, meanwhile the tapes in their comparative simplicity end up being the twisted, frightening shit that makes you squirm, the stuff that's actually scary.

They are better this way
Sinister is a mixed bag, in some ways there isn't really anything special about it; the average joe characters and predictable and shallow supernatural horror, not to mention to forgettable villain. But in other ways it is brilliant; in its ability to immerse the viewer and the abject terror of the tapes, moments that are easily among the most unsettling and memorable sequences in the last decade or so's contributions to the genre. It has things about it that are terrifying and truly special, then there are other times where it just isn't. But it does regain some lost ground in a gripping mystery that's a lot of fun to follow Ellison on his journey through. Sinister's greatest strength is much too strong to pass up on if you like to be scared, and since Horror is such a fascinating and entertaining genre to me, I admire Sinister a fair bit, it's worth watching.

Halloween Week: Hellraiser movie review

Here's what you need to know; when Larry and Julia decide to move into an old, mouldy house in an effort to save their marriage, Julie finds a disturbing secret in the attic, one of her old loves has returned from the dead and needs her help escaping the dark forces that dragged him to hell years ago. This leads Julie down a dark path that unwittingly ensnares her husband and daughter-in-law in a tale of demons and terror from the very bowels of hell itself.
After years of being scared and fascinated by the Hellraiser series and its unique brand of horror, I decided to take the opportunity on this spookiest of seasons to take the plunge, to see just what it was that fascinated me about it, and to see if it was worth indulging in, because why not.

Hellraiser opens with a mystery as a mysterious man in some far away land buys and ominous puzzle box, one that, when solved, sprouts chains and hooks that rip him to pieces before a mysterious figure collects the box and returns the room to normal. What surprised even me about the film upon finally watching it was the lack of the film's most famous piece; the Cenobites, extradimensional creatures with the goal to harvest and sadistically torture human souls, in fact they only really show up in the last twenty minutes or so, leaving the rest of the film to be occupied by an intriguing and perverted story that I really like. The story follows a few people, mainly Kirsty, the innocent sweetie who gets dragged into this mess, and Julia, who discovers a pile of bones calling itself Frank in the attic and elects to help it become human again. The film is very much a drama about this family, as we learn of Frank and Julia's history, the strain it has put on her marriage with his brother, while at the same time being a thriller, as Frank's evil looms over the lives of Larry and Kirsty, all the while a far greater evil lurks just out of sight in the form of the Cenobites. Even having a rough idea of the film's story going in, I found myself completely hooked, pun intended, by it, I was intrigued to learn more about this film's twisted world, to see the conclusion of Frank's sinister mission to escape from hell, and the depths to which the film would sink into abject depravity. And this was all without the Cenobites, making their arrival in the film a moment of genuine dread, as the film has, by this point, sucked you into its mystery. The film is driven by its characters, which are good in some ways and weak in others. Kirsty has good moments, being the innocent of the film, making her all sugar and spice compared to everyone else; Larry and his spinelessness, Julia and Frank in their evil, but this all comes together in the film's fantastic finale which I won't spoil, just so long as you don't mind screaming, because Kirsty does a lot of that, a lot.

The film is made enjoyable not just by its mystery, but also by its horror. Hellraiser's true antagonists being a cabal of demonic sadomasochists, it really isn't surprising that the film is very sexual in nature, there's a sex scene or two but that's to be expected, what's more unnerving is the sadomasochistic stuff; which, when present, is taken to its absolute extremes. The ideas on show in this film are frightening; the lines between pain and pleasure being pushed so far that former is all that remains and the latter ceases to be, a literal hell where people are tortured endlessly for the pleasure of morally ambiguous creatures only looking to get off, yeah, it's pretty fucked up. But whereas a film like Saw, another franchise that dabbles in extreme sadomasochism, would put that horror front and centre, Hellraiser shows a remarkable amount of control, knowing when to hold back, and when to go insane with it, which it absolutely does. It's here that the film's visual effects come into play, and like most horror films from the eighties that are still loved today, they hold up. The standout is unquestionably the makeup effects on Frank, who you can't help but stare at because of how disgusting he is; he spends most of the film without skin and the film sells it every single time, it's uncanny and creepy to look at, a body without skin, and it's mesmerising by just how good it looks. The hooks going through people's skin is eerily convincing also, and one scene in particular not long into the film is outstanding, practical horror effects at their finest. And when the Cenobites finally show up, their costumes are equally creepy and cool, fittingly comprised of black leather and exposed, mutilated skin, kinky. Not all of it's as show stealing as any of that however, there's a monster in this film that looks a bit dated, and the blood looks off in some scenes, but that could easily be ignored while you're staring in confusion and horror at Frank. All in all Hellraiser's horror is outstanding, I find myself gawking at its visuals, in love with how good the effects are and how uncanny and creepy it all is, but while the film lays it on thick with the gore, none of its pointless, the film takes its time to invest you in its world so that when the film gets its freak on, it's not meaningless and gratuitous, it has a point, which matters almost as much as the quality of the effects themselves.

Come to Daddy
Hellraiser isn't what I was expecting at all, I wasn't expecting to be so drawn into the film, into its story and characters, I wasn't expecting the Cenobites to be so conservatively used, but I was expecting to enjoy it, and I very much did. The film is creepy and uncomfortable from beginning to end, it has some amazing visual effects and horror, but a very entertaining and unsettling mystery that culminates in a finale that I adore in its entirety. I will admit though that Hellraiser is definitely not for everyone; it's more perverted elements could easily be too much for some people, and even though I enjoyed it, it's intensely sexual nature makes it a film I probably wouldn't watch with my friends, or anyone really, but it's a film I personally had a lot of fun with, and I'd recommend it, just don't tell your parents.

Halloween Week: Halloween (2018) movie review

Here's what you need to know; decades after Michael Myers turned an unassuming Halloween night into hell for Laurie and her friends, she still hasn't recovered from the trauma, turning her home into a fortress and stockpiling an arsenal of guns and traps out of fear that he may one day escape captivity and wreak havoc on the little town of Haddonfield again. But after forty years, forty years of paranoia and alienating everyone she loved, all her prepping looks to have paid off as an old friend of hers comes home, someone who never got over the one who got away.
I was going to save this film for the finale of my Halloween special, but after watching it, I decided otherwise, you'll understand later. Curiously this is also the first film I'm writing the review of for the special, cutting it a bit close since it takes a year for me to write anything, but Halloween is my favourite time of the year and I want to give it a bit of justice, just as I want to give this film a bit of justice, so here we go.

The first five minutes or so of Halloween are brilliant, in fact the first five minutes might be my favourite part of the entire film, as a pair of podcasters visit Michael Myers in prison, everything about this sequence works in setting an atmospheric mood, the music is on point, the cinematography is off-putting, and the scene really knows how to build the tension, the swell of the scene is about the scariest this film gets, and the sudden cut to title credits, which are a complete love letter to the original film, really got me excited. That pumpkin put such a huge smile on my face and I was so ready for this film then, it's infuriating then that just a few scenes later the film's atmosphere completely deflates and my enjoyment of it grinds to a halt. Our reintroduction to Laurie is as effective as Michael as the effect the Haddonfield murders had on her is on display in all its paranoid glory, her house is secluded and fenced off, security cameras and lights cover the entire property, her house is dark and claustrophobic, reflecting her own sense of entrapment. Laurie is a woman who clearly never got over the fear she felt in '78 and she let that fear completely consume her. The anticipation for the Bogeyman's inevitable return has driven her into a hermit lifestyle and driven away her own family. Laurie and Michael are where this film really is at its best, but strangely, the film doesn't focus on them as much as you'd think, because then there's Laurie's daughter, who has also been affected my Michael as her mother spent her childhood preparing her for his return, resulting in a very tense relationship, so far, so good. Then we have her daughter, Laurie's granddaughter, who wants to reconnect with her grandmother and help her get over the paranoia, getting crowded but okay. Then we have her boyfriend who she's going to the high school dance with, and their awkward mutual friend who is the worst case of friend zoning I've ever seen, and her friend who's a babysitter looking to get laid on Halloween night. Then we have Michael's doctor who wants to understand what it feels like to be a killer and is studying Michael to try and understand evil or something.

Are you getting the point here; the film just keeps piling and piling on all of these characters and plot threads, some of which feel out of place in a sequel to Halloween, and some of which that don't go anywhere at all, as opposed to the first film, which has Laurie, Loomis and Laurie's two friends, it was simple and to the point. That purity is lost in this film, which tries to be a drama and a comedy as well as a horror, which can work with good execution, it's just that this wasn't very well executed. Every time Laurie and or Michael weren't centre stage, I was bored, in fact I was more than bored, I was annoyed, because Laurie and Michael are so good and the twisted relationship they have, the obsession they have with each other is what drives this film, they're just not in the film enough. I really cannot understate the negative effect this has on the film, it's Halloween, moreover this is supposed to be some sort of love letter to Halloween, the one true sequel that truly understands that the original film was all about, but this sequel doesn't seem to understand that at all, it adds ten more minutes to the runtime and about half an hour's worth of extra story and characters, hastening the film's pace and giving it less time to build the tension. Add onto that all the scenes that are completely empty of tension, all the drama scenes with Karen and Allyson that serve no purpose to the horror and, therefore, serve no real purpose to this Halloween film. There are times when the dramatic elements of the film do work, but that's all the Laurie stuff, all her having to come to terms with her past and learning to conquer her fear of Michael, I didn't care about Karen, I didn't care about Allyson and her boy troubles, and I know you're not supposed to care about the slutty babysitter, but I also didn't care about her. Then there's the doctor character, who the film even addresses as a discount Loomis, and who does something in the beginning of the film's third act which his completely ridiculous, if the film had any tension to kill, this one action, which is only relevant for about five minutes despite being treated as a game changer, would have killed it real good.

But if we want to talk about killing tension, discount Loomis doing a stupid is just the tip of the iceberg. The film, at several points, tries to be comedic, and I hate it, I genuinely hate it, to the point that I almost walked out of the cinema at one point. And I had an exchange with my sister after the film about it, she was annoyed with me because "people go to the cinema to enjoy themselves" and "it was funny," which might have insulted me as much as the moment in question did. I'm just going to come out and say it, people who found this one moment in the film funny are stupid and have no appreciation for Halloween, because this moment perfectly encapsulates everything wrong with this film, and made me hate the film, a film I went in really wanting to like. I never use the "you just don't get it," argument for a reason, it's a stupid argument that makes the person making it sound like a pretentious wanker, but I'm prepared to sound like a pretentious wanker if it means making any idiot who doesn't get it understand. The first Halloween was not a funny film, it had funny moments but that's true of all films, and in most cases in the first, it wasn't even intentional, the reason that it didn't lean into the comedy however is because it understood that comedy is detrimental to atmosphere, a poorly timed joke would ruin the horror, and in a horror film, you don't want that. This is exactly the same as The Predator because like that film, this film completely fails to grasp that building atmosphere and tension is far, far, far harder when you have some snot nosed funny man cracking jokes. The only difference is that this is worse, because while the tension of Predator came from its otherworldliness and the fear of the archetypal action heroes who always had everything under control until they met the Predator, Michael Myers represents a much more personal, invasive, close to home fear, a monster that hides in plain sight, who stalks invisibly through homely locales and kills mercilessly and indiscriminately, a bogeyman, Michael Myers is the kind of horror villain you would check under the bed for, unless you weren't scared of him because the film you're watching isn't scary. That is Halloween's greatest sin, a fundamental misunderstanding of what it is and what it's supposed to be; the one true sequel to a horror classic, and a crowd pleaser mentality that turns the film into a shallow, insulting bore. And the most frustrating thing of all is all the times that the film does seem to understand, the times that the film actually feels like Halloween, but they're few and far between.

Happy Halloween, Michael
I really wanted to like Halloween, its opening moments gave me so much hope that it'd be something special, be a tense, exciting, old school horror movie, but it turned out to be none of those things. I liked Laurie and Michael in the film and think that the film needed more of both of them, and there are moments where the film gets it right, short bursts of tension that ultimately only serve as reminders of what this film could have and should have been. Instead it's a dull high school drama, a dull family drama, an appalling comedy, and a film that, in general, does not commit to what it needs to be, and it fails as a result. I would recommend this film on the merits it does have; the issue is that the original film did it first and was nowhere near as messy and frustrating as this. I was more disappointed with Halloween than I was with The Predator, and I would not recommend it.

Halloween Week: Halloween (1978) movie review

Here's what you need to know; after spending most of his life locked away for the murder of his sister, Michael Myers has never lost his taste for death, and on one fateful Halloween night, he gets his opportunity to taste it once again. Meanwhile Laurie Strode, an unassuming high-schooler and her friends have found themselves in the sights of a man with no conscience, no reason, and only a single desire; to kill.
Happy Birthday Halloween, you just turned forty, and I got on your bandwagon late, but I did walk home from work after an hour's overtime in October, so in the dark, listening to your soundtrack because I'm smart like that. Since it's the season, but more so because it turns forty and is getting a sequel, I snagged the one and only Halloween, unleashed onto the screen by John Carpenter all those years ago, so let's get spooky, let's get real spooky.

Halloween's opening titles are quite the showcase all on their own; as John Carpenter's amazing music plods on along and the camera slowly zooms into the soulless eyes of the Jack-O'-lantern. In many ways this short sequence sets the scene of the film perfectly, you know that this film isn't going to be an extravaganza, you know it was made on a tight budget but that the mind behind it had passion and a vision, and most of all, you know it's going to be spooky. The following sequence further establishes the mood as a faceless home invader gruesomely murders a young woman, only for it to be revealed to be her six-year-old brother, Michael. Unlike a certain other film we'll be discussing in this week of spooks, Halloween doesn't go nuts in piling on the characters and story, in fact this film is very straight forward. Our lead is Laurie Strode, who was the final girl before final girls became a thing, and as such she is perfect. You know how this goes, you have a group of friends, most of them are 'bad,' promiscuous and or drug users, then there's the one girl who's just an angel, that's Laurie Strode, and she is indeed an angel. She's the one who keeps up with her studies, who actually babysits the kids while her friends give them to her to look after while they bang, and apparently guys don't want to date her because she's too smart, to each their own. This all serves a purpose however, and it's a purpose we all know; the sweet, innocent, likable girl who confronts and overcomes the baddie, and Laurie might fit that bill a little too well, because she really is likable, she just seems so sweet. Her friends meanwhile aren't quite so sweet, in edition to a hammy delivery, they fit the other end of the bill; the slutty druggies who end up getting slashed. Though that maybe their role in the story, the scenes with them and Laurie are still decently entertaining, and since this film's body count is so incredibly modest, the film uses every moment it can with them to build the tension and dread as the Bogeyman inches his way closer.

Then we have Loomis, Michael's doctor, who injects into the film some more peculiar philosophical and supernatural elements. To him, Michael is not simply a kid who became a killer, he is evil, a literal embodiment of death, devoid of a soul. This does fit in with some of the film's more supernatural elements, but the film wisely never provides concrete answers, all we know is that Loomis, the man who knows Michael better than anyone else, is terrified of him, a detail that is far more important than you might think. Which brings onto the man himself, Michael Myers, who, despite never saying a word, despite effectively not having a face or any kind of personality, still ends up being one of the most memorable horror villains in the genre. Myers is very unremarkable in his appearance, blue work overalls and a cheap mask, but therein lies the brilliance. Michael Myers isn't special, he's a man in a mask, a man who hides or just lacks a voice or a personality or a face, the film even credits him as The Shape. Michael Myers is a monster that hides in plain sight, an evil that can be anywhere at any time and will strike without remorse or hesitation, it is his very lack of discernible features that makes him so nebulous, so ambiguous, to the point that the name doesn't matter, he isn't Michael, he's what the film credits him; The Shape, a Shape that could be hiding behind every door or window, in every pantry and wardrobe, in every dimly lit corner. This further adds to the ambiguity with Michael's seeming ability to literally be anywhere, to go to and from at lightning speed without so much a sound, further adding to the inhuman nature of him, but also making him a far more menacing foe because you can never really escape. Halloween's slasher is also not very imaginative, the kills in Halloween aren't flashy or overly violent, rather they're morbidly utilitarian, which is a very word salady way of saying Halloween isn't very gory, which, oddly, makes it my kind of slasher film.

The horror of Halloween doesn't come from the gore, from the gruesome kills and extravagant amounts of blood, it comes from the anticipation, it's not really what you'd describe as a slasher at all, it's more of a thriller. The film's horror comes from its atmosphere and tension, and if you know this blog in any way whatsoever, you know I go coocoo for tension. Halloween uses jumpscares, but what makes Halloween's jumpscares so effective is that none of them are false. This, among many things, is where the so called one true sequel fails, because it has a load of jumpscares and a lot of them are false scares; things you're not supposed to be scared of jarringly jumping into frame accompanied by an equally jarring audio cue. But when that happens in this film, it's never false, when you get the jarring cue in this film, it means you're supposed to be afraid. But what's more important than that is how the cues aren't relied upon to create the horror, Halloween is very good at building tension, this is one of the benefits of being a slow burner, something the 2018 film isn't, the small cast and seeming omnipresence of the villain creates an atmosphere of dread that the film never shakes, even at the very end when they 'win,' the tension persists through an ending as ambiguous as Michael himself. It's a film that makes you very nervous while you watch, and leaves you nervous when it ends, and while a false scare or, oh I don't know, a joke, would completely kill the dread, Halloween's dread is constant. It's a kind of horror that is underappreciated in my opinion, but of course I'd say that, one of my favourite films is John Carpenter's The Thing, the man knows his craft. And while the two films use their soundtracks very differently, both films have a fantastic grasp on how music can benefit the film beyond simply accompanying the action, and whatever I say about the 2018 film, it does at least have a fantastic soundtrack, which was composed by John Carpenter, he really does know his craft.

It was the Bogeyman
Halloween is awesome, it's one of those films I should have watched years ago, and it'll probably become a Halloween tradition for me going forward. It's a film that, ignoring the hammy acting, I'd be prepared to call perfect, I've been gripped from beginning to end every time I've watched it and nothing really stands out to me as bad. Especially after watching its 2018 sequel, I can honestly say I love this Halloween, and I went into watching this film again after seeing that film with the goal of hopefully finding new appreciation for the sequel, which I didn't, in fact after seeing this again, that sequel's even more in the dust. You already know what I'm going to say; it's an absolute must watch.