Alien: Isolation on PC (8/10)

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The first few hours of Alien: Isolation are some of the most nerve-racking gaming I have ever experienced. It’s a stealth game in which you are mostly defenseless and must hide to survive. There’s no sneaking up behind enemies and stabbing them in the back. The enemies aren’t just some dopey guards walking in a set pattern that you are trying to avoid. It’s one of the most menacing monsters in cinema history. One wrong turn or overly loud noise and you are facing its dripping double jaws in seconds.

All this wasn’t helped by the fact that Alien was one of the scariest movies I saw as a child. My parents let me watch it way before I should have. I was so traumatized that, a few years later, my parents took me to see E.T. and I was terrified of his long head. It took more than a few Reese’s Pieces to calm my nerves.

I initially tried playing Alien: Isolation in a dark room with headphones on. I couldn’t do it. The sound design is excellent and the environments are dark and claustrophobic. Every little thump had me breathlessly spinning around and around looking for danger. Eventually the game settles in to a more predicable pacing and the tension begins to lift. If anything, it’s the sameness that begins to lessen the impact of the game. Eighteen hours in and I was still crouching and and hiding behind crates.

The writer do a good job in constructing a story that sorta-kinda works with the films. Unfortunately, there is a sequel-begging ending that doesn’t give any sense of closure.

Nosforatu (7/10)

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What can be said about this movie that hasn’t already been said in the “Under Pressure” video by Queen. For as important a movie that this is, it’s surprising how beat up the print is on Amazon streaming. Most of the appeal is in the creepy monster design which, if it had been filmed with modern equipment, would probably not be all that creepy.

Deep Star Six (7/10)

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The only reason I watched Deep Star Six was because I remembered the excellent box art on the tape and was intrigued to finally see what this movie was all about. I think I was in the right mindset at the moment because I actually enjoyed this despite its major plot and characterization shortcomings. It was just nice to see a movie filled with practical effects in an underwater setting that, outside of The Abyss, is underused in cinematic sci-fi. If only they’d cut down on the F-bombs this could have been a memorable PG horror film like we used to get in the afternoons on HBO.

Human Lanterns (8/10)

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Not quite a horror film, but this is probably as dark and weird as a kung-fu picture will get. As the title suggests, this is about a guy who makes lanterns out of human skin. It’s gruesome (yet not at all realistic), but more noteworthy is the main, masked villain’s mad monkey fighting style. The entire movie is stylish and cool and very entertaining despite narrative shortcomings.

What Have You Done to Solange? (7/10)

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Don’t get me wrong. I love me some 70s Italian sleaze. But this movie could have really dialed it down a bit. There is a pretty compelling mystery here that gets a little lost amidst the crotch stabbings and the high-school-aged girls showering. As far as giallos go, it’s not quite as visually stylish as its peers, but the avant-garde Morricone score is top-notch.

Crusader: No Remorse on MS-DOS (8/10)

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In the 90s, I tried playing the demo of this game many times and could never really get into it. Crusader was one of the best looking PC games of its time and I really wanted to like it. But the controls. Oh my God, the controls. Eventually, this scheme would go on to be described as tank controls in other games like Resident Evil. Basically, you aim and move your character in relation to the direction their sprite is facing rather than the direction you want them to move on the screen. Crusader takes that counter-intuitive mechanic to a whole new level of complexity by adding jumping, diving and ducking to the mix.

There are some default mouse controls which almost work, but your character is stuck with gun drawn, shuffling around like a man with his pants around his ankles. I got about a third the way through the game doing that until just gave up and set the game aside for a while. Months later I returned and forced myself to learn the standard keyboard controls. These are still clunky, but with practice and a lot of help from the auto-aim feature the game becomes much more fast-paced and responsive. Even then, the mouse is still helpful when the occasional fast-spinning aiming is required. For the most part, it pays to just bite the bullet and learn the keyboard controls. Think of Crusader like Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing but with more explosions and incinerated humans.

Once the control hurdles are overcome, the game itself is a huge, detailed and fun action game. The dialogue makes it seem like you are some sort of stealth agent who quietly infiltrates bases. In actuality, you are beaming in and killing everything in site while causing as much destruction in your wake as you can. There is a bit of setting up and planning of your attacks, but that’s as far as Crusader goes in being a stealth game. Just kill the enemies and watch them explode, melt and burn in screams of agony.

What little plot is here comes in the form of live-action cut scenes that are just as cheesy as one would expect from a 90s action game. They don’t really rise to the level of camp I would have liked to see, so skipping past them is a wise option. For all the detail that is in the game’s stellar isometric art, you would have thought they could have devoted a little of that effort to the set design in the live-action scenes, eighty percent of which a filmed with characters sitting in a restaurant booth. Who’d of thought world-wide revolution would be schemed from within a Steak ‘n’ Shake?

The Oily Maniac (8/10)

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Many of the same faces from the Black Magic movies are here for another Shaw horror “classic”. Once again it’s filmed in Indonesia for no apparent reason other than maybe it was easier to find locals who would be willing to go topless. There is nothing about this movie that makes any sense. It starts with a contract negotiation that ends with a stabbing, which leads to an execution, but not before a voodoo spell is revealed, and then an unrelated rape trial takes place, he said/she said flashbacks… well, eventually the oily maniac goes on the rampage killing women. Why? It doesn’t matter. The only reason to watch this movie is for the horrible oily maniac costume and sound effects. Eight stars!

Killer Constable (9/10)

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This was a surprisingly good martial arts film that’s heavy on dark tone and light on the karate. Films like this are why I endure so much Shaw Bros. garbage. I know all the tropes, yet this movie was fresh and surprising. There’s a very solid spaghetti western vibe throughout. A highly recommended entry point if you are interested in martial arts movies. 

The Cook, Cook The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (8/10)

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This movie is exactly what late 80s art movies are supposed to be. It’s the very definition of style over substance. The whole affair is filmed like an elaborate stage play. Every set has a color theme to which characters’ clothing is matched as they move from room to room. Being a late 80s art film, it is an unwritten rule that it is to push the boundaries of taste, and thus is filled with all sorts of unnecessary nudity and uncomfortable themes. For all its weirdness, I found the actual story to be a bit predictable. I’m sure there is some sort of pretentious biblical undercurrent or something because… ART!