Outside of a Dream, Episode 11 - "I don't think they're getting out of this one."

Drafthouse Films

Cameron's back in the studio with Daniel to discuss The Invitation, Karyn Kusama's 2015 horror-thriller. Set over the course of an uneasy dinner party, the film follows grieving father Will as he begins to suspect his ex-wife's new friends have something nefarious planned for he and the other guests. They also discuss the female horror anthology XX and Netflix docu-series Evil Genius.

Daniel's Horror Digest, 07/18/17

A24

*turns cap around, sits backwards in chair*

　

Hey folks, I don't often give shoutouts to Brands, but I would be remiss if I didn't give Shudder its propers. It's basically Netflix for horror (plus other obscure, uncategorizable movies) and it's where I watched a few of the movies I've very briefly reviewed below. The others can be streamed on Netflix or rented on YouTube as indicated.

Review: The Witch

All photos courtesy of A24

When the family comes across the clearing at the edge of the woods, they fall to their knees and pray, mother and father holding their hands aloft. Pious exiles, this Puritan clan—father William, mother Katherine, and children Thomasin, Caleb, Mercy, Jonas and, soon, baby Samuel—has found true salvation far away from both oppressive England and their compromising Puritan community. It will be a hard life, but a pure and righteous one.

But someone else has already staked a claim on this wilderness. She lives by herself in a shack deep in the thicket, occasionally wearing a red riding cloak that looks lifted directly from the pages of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. She is a witch, but not the cackling, green-skinned variety of The Wizard of Oz or a verbose, compassionate intellectual in the vein of Hermione Granger. There is something much more primal and elemental to this crone, and when she’s done working her unspeakable magic the family at her doorstep will be at each other’s throats.

Video Game Review: The Walking Dead, Season Two: "All That Remains"

That I enjoy Telltale’s The Walking Dead video game—nay, that I consider it one of the greatest games ever made—still surprises me on occasion. By the time I had gotten into the game in the latter half of 2012, I was for all intents and purposes burnt out on everything zombie-related. The Walking Dead TV series had reached its acme by the end of its first season and, according to most people whose opinions I trust, has been plunging in quality ever since. The comic series had turned into an unforgiving, nihilistic drag, with few if any sympathetic characters remaining. And David Wong’s This Book Is Full of Spiders subverted the whole subgenre, revealing a lot of zombie fiction to be a kind of desperate, wish-fulfillment power fantasy that, upon consideration, couldn’t be less appealing to me.

But the game is a far different, if still just as bloody, affair. Set in the same universe as the comic series but with an entirely new—and more likeable—cast of characters, Telltale’s episodic Walking Dead game placed emphasis on problem solving over zombie slaughter and turned each interactive conversation into a test of mediation, trust, survival, and sometimes a combination of all three. It put you in the shoes of a flawed but well-meaning protagonist, whose relationships with his fellow survivors could be drastically affected by what he did—or even did not—say. It was all the stuff I loved about the Mass Effect series but without its increasingly tedious combat sequences.

Prince of Darkness Ascends Its Throne

I often tell my friends that my opinion of a book, film or album should never be trusted until I’ve either read/seen/listened to it again or waited 48 hours. Entertainment is a largely emotional experience for me, and so I’m liable to have a high opinion of any work that gets my adrenaline pumping in spite of whatever flaws it might possess—at least until the rush wears off. I really, really liked Transformers when I first saw it and, Hell, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace was one of my favourite films for years. So when I say I enjoy something, feel free to treat me like a little kid who has just ingested a pound of sugar. The stomach ache will come, just you wait.

The same applies to the inverse. Some things will leave me feeling sour after I’ve first experienced them, but whether because of the mood I was in at the time or simply due to changing tastes I’m liable to come around to liking or even loving them some months or years in the future. I initially disliked Rebellion’s 2010 Aliens vs. Predator game and it took me three years to realize that my shitty living conditions in third year of university had actually contributed to my feelings of ill will rather than the game itself. It’s actually pretty rad.

John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness is another such case. Made for a fairly low budget of $3 million and released in 1987, Prince is the second entry of what Carpenter calls his “Apocalypse Trilogy,” preceded by The Thing (which I liveblogged while drunk on New Year’s) and followed by In the Mouth of Madness. It didn’t exactly thrill me on my first full viewing a couple years ago, but after watching again it during my most recent horror binge in October I’ve come around to it in a huge way. Not only is it Carpenter’s best film after The Thing, it really is a little gem that deserves critical re-evaluation.

Review - Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons

Summer is winding down once more, thank God, and there’s no better way to celebrate this hot, dismal season’s slow passing than with the Xbox’s Summer of Arcade promotion. Starbreeze Studios’ Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is the first of four games to see release this month. Set in a vaguely Norse, medieval land (assuming the former based on Starbreeze’s Swedish origins), Brothers follows a pair of male siblings as they venture across country to find a cure for their widowed father’s ailment. Though simple in concept, it’s now one of my favourite puzzle-oriented adventure games as well as one of the few in any gaming genre to affect me emotionally.

Review - "Want to fight?"

Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive was my surprise favourite film of 2011, a vaguely ’80s crime drama that contrasted a smooth, stylish aesthetic with blunt brutality. It was also the first movie to really sell me on Ryan Gosling as an actor, the former London, Ontario resident immersing himself in the quiet and increasingly frightening role of the film’s nameless driver. It also had an amazing soundtrack courtesy of most-underrated-film-composer-ever Cliff Martinez and electronic artists like Kavinsky, College and Desire. So I was as psyched as possible to watch Only God Forgives, the second collaboration between Refn and Gosling, again featuring the music of Martinez.

But as Drive was as unconventional a crime thriller as they come—in spite of its premise, less The Fast and the Furious and more Manhunter with cars—Only God Forgives is as unexpected a follow up to Drive as I could have imagined. I went in expecting Drive, but in Thailand, and ultimately watched what felt like something Stanley Kubrick might have directed… but in Thailand. And that isn’t a bad thing.

Review - "We're In For Nasty Weather:" David Byrne and St. Vincent at Confederation Park

                                                                                                                                                Ashley Fraser, The Ottawa Citizen

I feel a genuine sense of accomplishment every time I see one of my favourite musical artists perform, as if I've just checked another item off my bucket list. I've felt this with, in chronological order, Tool, Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails and Kathryn Calder, and now as of last night my eventual passing (preferably in my sleep at the age of 106) will be made a little easier after having seen David Byrne in concert.

Review - The Annotated AvP: The Story, part 15

Holy crap, guys. It’s been nearly a year and a half but we have reached the end of my terrible Aliens vs. Predator fanfiction novel. We’ve had a lot of laughs, and we’ve felt a lot of pity, but it’s time to replace this digital tome in the virtual stack from whence it came. Let’s see off these alternately idiotic and morally depraved characters, shall we?

Review - My Favourite Albums

Back in January, I compiled a list of my all-time favourite songs, though the title is a bit of a misnomer in hindsight. My tastes are quite temporal, and I can say that since that piece was originally written at least one of its entries was knocked off the list by another. Keeping with my preferential inconsistency, what follows are my top five favourite albums in this point in time, arranged in alphabetical order. Please enjoy this mindless self-indulgence.

Review - The Annotated AvP: The Story, part 14

Holy crap, guys. What you’re about to read is the penultimate entry in the now over yearlong critique of my preteen Aliens versus Predator 2 fanfic. I have actually devoted over twelve months of my life to compiling this, which is possibly longer than I spent writing the damn thing back in grade school.

With the morally appalling Predator Swift-Death having accomplished what he set out to do, much to the chagrin of General Rykov and pretty much anyone forced to read this, we track jackass Marine Andrew “Frosty” Harrison and talkative Alien Jimrakh as they attempt to rescue the Empress.

(from AvP: The Story, chapter XVI – To End it All)

Right about the time when the rest of the Marines entered the POC, Harrison, Jimrakh and the accompanying were making their way down the dark, cavernous tunnels. For the past hour, Harrison’s motion tracker had remained silent. Still, Jimrakh was at his ready.

Not at the same time, mind you. Just right about. Little me seemingly could only give enough of a damn at this point to ballpark it.

Review - BioShock Infinite

“Booker, are you afraid of God?” “No. I’m afraid of you.”

Irrational Games’ BioShock was the first game I ever bought for the current generation of consoles—purchased, in fact, a good three months before I even had an Xbox. Luckily, my floor in residence had no less than three 360s available for my use. The game still sits on my shelf, and let it be known that I’ve played through the entire thing no less than four times in the last five years. Just to make it clear how much I enjoyed BioShock, the only game I’ve replayed more than it is the GameCube remake of Resident Evil, which has been one of my all-time favourites going on a decade.

So understand me when I say the newest installment in Irrational’s franchise, BioShock Infinite, showed me just how broken, or at least seriously flawed, the first BioShock was in both design and storytelling. Infinite is not only a far better game, but an excellent one in and of itself, making up for any quibbles I might have with its gameplay with well-drawn characters and the sheer audacity of its story.

Review - The Annotated AvP: The Story, part 13

Holy God, I can’t believe we’re on the third-to-last chapter of this thing. To think that some half-cocked idea I came up with to satisfy an approaching deadline last winter has become the longest-running feature on this site. That’s actually… kind of sad. Ah well, beggars can’t be choosers. For your “enjoyment,” Predator warrior and all out vain bitch Swift-Death reaches the conclusion of his gaiden in this month’s edition of the Annoted Aliens versus Predator: The Story.

Review - The Dead Sea

Edited by Kevin G. Bufton

Cruentus Libri Press

179 pages

On the surface, The Dead Sea should have been one of my favourite reads this year, a collection of nautical themed horror stories. I've written about how an intimidating environment can do wonders for horror, and with its vastness and potential for tumultuous weather the ocean is no exception.

Unfortunately, The Dead Sea is marred by frequent grammatical errors and, in one case, poor story selection--two aspects that I can't help but think could have been improved by a more experienced editor.

Review - The Next Day

Well this is unexpected. Here I am thinking I’d only be able to look back on David Bowie’s older albums on this site and then he goes and puts out his first record in a decade. The Next Day hit physical and digital stores today, though the album has been available to stream in full on iTunes for the last week or so. After listening to the whole thing a few times over, I’ve stumbled across another surprising fact: it’s very good. Now, you think that would go without saying, it being Bowie and all, but he honestly hasn’t put out a record this good in a long while.

Review - The Annotated AvP: The Story, part 12.5

Sorry for leaving all y’all on a cliffhanger last week. Chapter 14 was just too long to snark all in one go. So without yanking the rug out beneath you any more, here’s the conclusion of “The Third Species War” from my Aliens versus Predator 2 fanfic.

(from AvP: The Story, chapter XIV – The Third Species War)

The first of the Species Wars had taken place four million years before, on the same rocky ground of Lv-1201, when Aliens and Predators battled over ownership of the planet. The second Species war was fought between the Aliens and humans in 2179, on 1201’s sister planet of Lv-426, where the humans emerged the victor, but with many lives lost. But now, the ultimate war was taking place between all three species.

I only have two questions: is it on pay-per-view, and will Paul Bearer make an appearance?

Review - "A ghost is an emotion bent out of shape..."

Anyone who has read any two given posts on this blog knows I love horror. They also know I’m ridiculously forgiving of horror films with problematic plots. Thus it comes as no surprise that I’m recommending Andrés Muschietti’s Mama, a feature length adaptation of his 2008 short film of the same name.

Review - The Annotated AvP: The Story, part 12.0

Hear that synth? It can only mean one thing: the long delayed return of the Annotated AvP: The Story! Please forgive me for being a few days late. I had originally planned to run a review of Mama this week, but Ottawa’s current borderline-Antarctic temperatures prevented me from walking downtown, so that’ll have to wait for next week and now this week’s post is delayed and… eh, fuck it. Here’s some Godawful fan fiction.

This month, I give you my attempt at writing a full-fledged battle scene, which is of course shamefully ripped from The Lord of the Rings movies and a cop-out to boot. Do try to enjoy.

Review - My Favourite Songs

I'm really surprised I've never written on this subject before. I've touched on music previously, of course, but apart from Christmas music I doubt any of my regular readers (all three of you!) have any idea of what I consider the apex of popular music. So, in alphabetical order, my ten favourite songs of all time.

Review - "Wendy, I'm home!"

Chief among my artistic obsessions is the act of adaptation: the process, the translation, what's trimmed or added--pretty much everything about it. I'm so intrigued by it that I'm going to focus on adaptation on this blog for 2013.

To start it off, I'm posting my drunken, New Year's Eve liveblog of Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of The Shining, starring a very frenzied Jack Nicholson and a very shrieky Shelley Duvall. Typos are, of course, unintentional, but preserved for the sake of chuckles. My companion for the evening was a 2011 bottle of Henry of Pelham baco noir, which has just the right amount of sweetness and generates a warm, fuzzy drunk.