HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

 Another Halloween is here and so is  another sexy witch drawing!

Here's to a great night of fright!

Off to put the finishing touches on costumes for tonite!

Halloween reboot #8 Halloween

Alright this is another tough one for me. I love the 1978 original Halloween. It had everything you could want from a horror movie: unkillable killer, fantastic atmosphere, incredible music, fun deaths, Donald Pleasance, and the first cliffhanger ending I remember seeing.

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October 31, 1963 in Haddonfield, Illinois and 6 year old Michael Myers stabs his sister to death. Fifteen years later, Michael Myers escapes from the loony bin to return home. Why? Well he got one sister, but not the second. He is out to finish the job. Hot on his trail are the cops and one Dr, Sam Loomis, his shrink. What follows is a fantastic slasher and the mother of all great Halloween films for years to come!

The Last Witch Hunter

800 years ago a group of warriors, who fancy themselves as witch hunters, strikes out to destroy a coven of witches. Well this not any ordinary coven, it is lead by the Witch Queen, who is a big deal. During the conflict one witch hunter faces off against the queen. As he slays her she curses him with immortality, not a terrible curse if you ask me. From that point on this lone warrior, Kaulder, is the witch hunter to end all witch hunters. Now after 800 years the Witch Queen is rumored to be coming back from beyond. It is now up to Kaulder to put her down a second time.

Ok before I go any further first know this. This movie is not great if you are a normie or not a hard core nerd. Stay away, and by the looks of it you people did.

Now if you are a D&D (or any type of fantasy RPG'er ) then there is something in this movie for you or many somethings. You might actually like it, like we did.

If this is your typical of your gaming group, then you'll love this movie!

Crimson Peak

Friday night we had to the chance to pull a double feature at the movies. The first film we hit was Crimson Peak. The ad campaign made this look very suitable for the Halloween season. It has been a long time since I have seen a really good ghost story. Thank you Hollywood for releasing a ghost story movie in October and not in February or May.

We enter at the end of the 19^th century a proper setting for some gothic horror or is more Victorian era?

Here we have young Edith, the only daughter to her widowed and wealthy father.  Edith is  aspiring to be a novelist.  Well that is until she falls in love with a not so wealthy English clay farmer, one Sir Thomas Sharpe. She is then visited by the ghost of her mother warning her to beware of Crimson Peak. Well ok then.  After a whirlwind romance ,and the horrible death of her father, Edith marries Sir Thomas and jets away to his estate in England. Her new home is the dilapidated Allerdale Hall. Her she is to live with her new husband and his intense and maybe crazy sister.

 

Edith soon learns that Allerdale Hall is called Crimson Peak due to the red clay that is farmed/mined there. Oh snap her mom told her about this!  Well that is just a bunch of hokum. Right? Well that is until Edith starts to see ghosts on a nightly basis. That leads her to do a bit of investigation into the history of this place and the Thomas family.

Meanwhile back in the U.S. a long-time friend (and want-to be beau) of Edith, Dr. McMichael, uncovers some information about Sir Thomas. Oh no there are some unsavory events in the Sharpe’s past and present. He is off to England to save her and the day!

Halloween reboot #7 A Nightmare on Elm Street

Alright. Here I go with the reboot of A Nightmare on Elm Street.

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A Nightmare on Elm Street is….seriously do I have to go into what this is about? Well then ok. Freddy Krueger is a child killer. The  local parents seek some justice so they burn him alive. Freddy returns to get revenge on said parents by killing their kids in their dreams.

A new horror icon is born. He is always waiting for you when you fall asleep. He can’t be physically harmed. You can’t run from him. A villain that  you can never escape. Holy cow that was mind blowing creepy when I originally saw it! How in the world would they, or could they improve on the original story of Freddy Krueger?

Well they couldn’t and didn’t.

Here comes the bad CGI rehash of a great original scene!

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2010

The overall premise of the 2010 reboot is very similar and still different, but in a bad way. Here Freddy Kruger is similar as he still kills teens in their dreams for revenge and sport. His back story is altered a bit.

Halloween reboot #6 Texas Chainsaw Massacre

This was rough to sit through, but I did it!

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Welcome to 1974.
A pair of siblings and a few friends are on their way to visit a family burial plot and the old homestead. Along the way they pick-up a crazy  hitchhiker and run into a creepy house that is full of crazy white trash cannibals and a pseudo-giant who has an interest in masks of human flesh and choppy power tools.

The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre was unsettling, brutal, atmospheric and very minimal. The filming had a documentary-like feel. You could see family issues, some rural vs. urban 70’s culture happening in a post-Vietnam era I the film. It was scary and creepy without buckets of blood, loud noises and jump scares. Hell there wasn’t even a soundtrack or score. It was banned in some countries, and pulled from theaters. People thought it was based on actual events. It is the progenitor of coming wave of 80’s slasher films. It gave us a fantastic and horrible villain (along with his family)! What could they possibly do to top all this?


Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2003

Driving through Texas, a group of twenty-somethings are headed to a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert. Right there that is enough to scare me to death! Anyway, they decide to pick up a traumatized  female stumbling down the road. After this hitchhiker kills herself, the group is a bit troubled. While trying to get help from the authorities they stumble upon…you guess it. A creepy house in the middle of nowhere. Soon the twenty somethings are running for their lives from an evil cop, his family and pseudo-giant with a chainsaw.

Well here I go. Maybe I’ll get through this without a rant. Maybe.

 2003 Leatherface

"Gonna go back in time."

Damn do I love this franchise!

Well it is the day when Doc Brown and Marty McFly arrive in our present time.

Guess the movie was way off about what has happened, what has been invented and how we dress.

At least we don't have to dress like complete a-holes, and it is looking so far (yes it is only game 3 of the series but....) that the Cubs are not going to win the World Series.

Season 6! Season 6!

New Venture Brothers!

So close and yet so far!

Halloween reboot #5 The Hitcher

The Hitcher is a road horror/thriller that involves a dude named Jim travelling across country to return a car. Along the way he runs afoul of a psycho hitchhiker that plays all sorts of horrible and deadly games with Jim. It is a damn fun film you can read my previous review of it 
here....1986 The Hitcher review click here!

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Now along comes a music video director and Michael Bay to repackage and release a new version of The Hitcher.

The Hitcher 2007

Here we meet Grace and Zac who are starting their spring break together to drive across country to…somewhere. Along the way they decide to help a hitchhiker on a rainy night, one John Ryder (played by Sean Bean!). This is, of course, a bad idea as John pulls a knife on them and is quickly thrown out of the car. Problem solved. Right? Wrong of course. Now John Ryder is after the couple and leaving a bunch of bodies in his wake.

Hrrmmmm.

The Hitcher reboot really tries to stay faithful to the original. There are several scenes that are pulled from the original film with only a few minor tweaks. The story also stays faithful to the original for the most part. Hell, my man crush is also in it. I loves me some Sean Bean. All this being said, it is not really good, thrilling or really fun.

Alternate Cryx and Orboros?

Always looking for a reason buy other fun models to count as something else can be a problem for some. For me it is a justification to buy other models. Plus there are times when current models just don’t look stellar and something else does.

Since I play away from stores and tournaments then there is no problem for using counts as models.

For instance the Dust Tactics zombies look a lot more appealing to me for mechanithralls than the current models. Sure the plastic re-sculpts do look better than the metals, but not by much.  However these metal fist wielding zombie Nazis look like a better option. They have the dual metal fists or steam fists mechanithralls have They have active poses that the mechanithralls don’t.

 Hell, they could even pass for mind slave drudges as well. Sure they miss the diving bell helmet, but whateves. The downside is the onesie or coveralls they are wearing. They don’t look as cobbled together as the mechanithralls do. However, this also makes then much easier to paint. Think I might try to find a couple of boxes to get a unit of ten out there.

Halloween reboot #4 I Spit on Your Grave

Well hundreds of years ago I saw this film in what was known as a video store. There it was always tagged with a “Must be 18” tag to rent it. That always intrigued me as what could be so horrible in this film that only viewers the age of 18+ could witness. Since It was rated R, like the majority of horror, why was this movie different.

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I get why this was controversial back in the day and why it was banned in various countries and deemed terrible by the film critic industry. These were factors that drove me to view it.

I Spit on Your Grave (1980) is about a female author name Jennifer who decides to rent a cabin in the country. There she plans on working on a new book. Along the way she attracts the attention of three local hooligans and their dim witted sidekick. They decide it would be a good idea to give Jennifer a good raping. After a series of vicious sexual assaults Jennifer decides to take revenge on these four goons.


I Spit on Your Grave 2010

Not the girl from Twilight, but kind of looks like her from time to time.
Plus she is a better actress, but that isn't saying much.

The reboot follows the same plot. Jennifer returns to write a book, but this time it is a more backwoods area and not somewhere like up state East coast. Here she runs into a group of four hooligans and their dim witted buddy. This of course leads to a series of sexual assaults and Jennifer is left for dead. She then exacts revenge on these fellas, but this time in much more intricate fashion.

The fellas planning their next "date night."

Well, I will first establish that we all know rape and murder are wrong. Nobody should enjoy both. There.

Now these films are nothing but rape and then murder so there.

I have to saw that neither of these films are good. They are both pretty terrible on various levels.

The original version had a gritty and awful realism to it. It made it really creepy as one can imagine that this could happen. The remake, seems a bit more silly in that regard.

Devastation!

New Hordes book in my grubby hands. 

New twist on know warlocks.

New garantuans.

New stuff for all factions.

Off to delve into the story and units.

Halloween reboot #3 Friday the 13th

On a Tuesday the 13th I review....

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Well unless you know nothing about the horror genre or pop culture then the six of you out there do not know about Jason Voorhees and the Friday the 13^th movie series. A kid drowns at summer camp due to counselors making sexy time. It isn’t just a kid though, he is missing a few or has extra chromosomes so he looks deformed. Plus his mom is extra protective. You know to the point of murdering all the camp counselors to avenge her son’s drowning. The she buys the farm and her now fully grown and undead son roams the camp following in his murderous mom’s footsteps. You know that old murderous revenge ghost/revenant/undead slasher bit.

Jump to 2010 and we get a reboot of the Friday the 13^th franchise.

This is not a reboot of the first Friday the 13^th film. It is more like a rehash of the first few movies. You get a beginning that tells the story of Mr. Voorhees and her murder spree. You get Jason taking up his mother’s “hobby.” There is the potato sack wearing Jason. Then donning of the iconic hockey mask. There is also the typical 20-somethings getting slaughtered. The movie seems to fall right into place with the original films…..and then it doesn’t!

What Jason starts with, the potato sack.

Early Halloween tricks/treats!

I'm a horribly big fan of the Pop Vinyl stuff. They have these min mystery boxes of horror guys now too!
My lady bought four of these and another surprise Friday night.

There are three guys I really want; The American Werewolf in London wolf mini, David eating from a Chinese take-out box from The Lost Boys, and Cthulhu.

Walking Dead Season 6.....

The picture changes yet again.

Tomorrow is the start of season 6 of The Walking Dead.

The make or break season for me.
Why?
The series is sort of reaching the same point that the comics were when I bowed out of it. The Alexandria story arc was alright, but the events leading toward and events of issue 100 had me just walk away from the book. The show seems to be moving toward this point.

The giant sweeping changes from the comic to the show are another reason. They have moved so far away from the comic that is more of a alternate reality version of The Walking Dead.

Morgan is back and a jedi ninja. There are these Wolf guys and then all the trumped up drama from Rick in Alexandria.

It is going to be rough for me this season, unless it becomes balls out awesome somehow.

Death Wolves!

Been waiting to see what these would look like. I am not disappointed.

Love the deer skull helmet and nits of bone armor!

I'm a bit on the fence with the fighting claws and giant fur ruffle. The claws need to be longer, more brutal or both! A quick conversion there. Have to live with the big fur ruffle though. 

I wasn't looking for more models anytime soon, but I these guys and girl will be in my army eventually!

Halloween reboot #2 The Crazies

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Evans City, Pennsylvania is the backdrop for the events of The Crazies. Outside of this small town a military plane has gone down. Hey that can happen. Well low and behold that plane was carrying a bioweapon. Opps! Well that bio weapon stuff gets into the water and the inhabitants of Evans City slowly become infected. This biological weapon infection causes a myriad of issues; uncontrollable laughter, malaise, aggression, rapey tendencies, forgetfulness and a fondness for brutal physical assault.

Not to worry as the government and military arrive to close down the town, save the people and cure this infection. Well that is what they say they are going to do. What they are really trying to do is cover everything up, destroy any evidence of the incident, round up the “crazies” and shoot the occasional towns person. Now, two firefighters and a girlfriend have to make it out of town for help and safety. All they have to do is not get killed by “crazies”, the military or infected.

The Crazies was directed by George Romero and was released in 1973. After watching it I was truly disappointed. It….well it really isn’t good.

The Crazies  2010 Reboot

Pierce  County, Iowa is the backdrop for the remake of The Crazies. As before a military plane carrying a bioweapon payload falls out of the sky. Of course it lands in a body of water that dumps into the local town’s drinking water. This bioweapon makes people all strange and eventually uber violent and black veiny. The sheriff, his pregnant wife and his loyal deputy must figure out what is going on, how to survive the infected townsfolk, steer clear of the military and escape to safety.

The Crazies from 1973 was not really good and in comparison, the remake is not too damn bad.

Halloween reboot #1 The Fog

The REBOOT

The Fog was a tale about a small Northern California seaside community that was set to enjoy its 100^th anniversary. Hooray for them! Well that is until a strange fog bank begins to slip into town nightly to scare and murder the townsfolk. See the ghosts of a doomed sunken boat full of lepers wants their revenge one hundred years after the fact.

The Original

The original movie is a great sinister ghost story. The atmosphere is creepy and scary without a fancy special effects and gore. The tension builds well throughout the film. The screenplay and score are good. It also brings some heat with Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Adkins, Hal Holbrook, Janet Leigh and Adrienne Barbeau (me-ow!). it even throws in a fun little gotcha ending that I found awesome when I saw this in my youth! It might  not be seen as John Carpenter’s best work, but it still pretty damn fun and one of the better ghost stories I’ve seen over all the years.

THE FOG 2005

Here we have the same seaside town doing a 134 year anniversary of their town founders. Wait is 134 years a real anniversary thing? Anyway the whole creepy fog begins to arrive and ruin the lives of any and all the townsfolk with its cargo of ghost lepers. Especially, the ancestors of the original four founding fathers of the town.

Alright, the original was fun. The reboot was anything but that.

Halloween moth again and #900!

My 900th post to date and so that is a thing!  What better way to kick it off than to celebrate October!

The time has come again where everything pumpkin and scary is en vogue.

Hello October! The month of delicious scares and spices!

As always I’m going to dive into the arena of spoooooky movies that are more popular this month than most. I am going to shock and scare myself more than I ever have when it comes to horror movies. How? Why?

See I am going to watch as many of the horror movie remakes as I possibly can this month! This is an equal part time crunch and waste of time crunch. There are just so many reboots out there I don't have the time to cover them all. 

I am diving into the Platinum Dunes horror movies, the remakes of John Carpenter films and the reboots of some of the cult classic spooks and thrillers!

Yeah I’m going force my way through some of the popular and cult classic rebooted films. This is probably going to suck!

This is my idea of survival horror. I have to survive all this remake drek!

Here is hoping I find a gem within all these, but it is doubtful.

Happy Halloween!

First up is the  reboot of a favorite of mine; The Fog!

Zombie Dice expansion

After a few games of Zombie Dice it was brought to our attention that we needed the expansions.

A quick trip and back to the game store and we had Zombie Dice 2: Double Feature and Zombie Dice 3: School Bus.

These expansions don’t change the fundamental game. The expansions add new dice, have a few little scenarios to play and basically just add a new bit of risk reward to the game.

Zombie Dice 2: Double Feature has three new dice. These three dice are added and three other dice are removed. The dice represent the Hunk, Hottie and Santa? What? Well there are three quasi-scenarios in this expansion: “Big Summer Action Film,” “Santa Meets the Zombies” and “The Direct to Video Sequel.”  Theses play exactly the same, there are just minor tweaks. The biggest is replacing the standard yellow dice with the new alternate Hunk, Hottie and Santa dice.

The Hunk die replaces a shotgun blast with a double blast causing two hits. Instead of a single brain though, it has a tasty double brain. Sadly, the rest of the sides contain a pair of single shotgun blasts and feet.

The Hottie has two shotgun blasts, one brain and three feet.

The Santa die is all kinds of crazy. This die represents the jolly old elf’s bag of goodies he carries. I guess even zombies like X-mas? This die has a double brain a helmet, and an energy drink, a shotgun, feet and a single brain. See everyone loves Santa. The helmet side gives the player/zombie a bit of ablative armor. They can now keep rolling until they hit four shotgun blasts instead of three. The energy drink allows all feet rolled during the current turn to be counted as brains. One cannot out run a zombie chock full of Red Bull.