Review: Moirai (Or: Brave In The Cave Matters Not So Much, Maybe.)

Posted on October 6, 2016 by geelw

Got twenty minutes (or closer to fifteen) to spare and an active Steam account? Good. Do yourself a solid and go play Moirai. It’s free, short and has a corker of an “ending” that may make you a little tense for anywhere from a few seconds to a few days. “What the hell does that mean?” you ask? Well, that’s part of the game’s lure, I’d reply.

Julia has gone missing, you go look for her, some guy outside a cave gives you a knife. that’s all I’ll say here. SOME so-called writers have gone and spoiled stuff after that, but those folks probably had a word count to meet or think they know their jaded audiences too well to give them credit to be curious. Not my style, folks.

Funny thing. I started writing this post, the water in the kettle I put on a few minutes ago boiled, I got up, made a cup of tea, decided I was a little hungry and ended up having a quick snack with my cuppa. By the time I got back to typing this out, I’d spent a longer time doing all that than I did on my first play of Moirai. Weird? No, that’s just how I roll sometimes.

Moirai is an experimental, first person game created by Chris Johnson, Brad Barrett and John Oestmann. You should play it once or twice. Maybe more if you like.

Score: A (90%)

-GW

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Blu-Ray Review: The House of Seven Corpses

Posted on October 6, 2016 by geelw

“Trust me… dying’s easy! Living is hard”

And so is watching some movies, pal.

Upon finding yourself on the set of a horror film or hell, ANY film where someone starts reading from a musty old book written in an indecipherable language, Rule Number One is this: LEAVE. You want examples? Sure. Equinox, The Evil Dead, In The Mouth of Madness, The Beyond, Necronomicon: Book of the Dead, The Ninth Gate, and so forth and so on. ALL of these flicks were initially rom-coms until someone on set decided to crack open a nasty, smelly old book they found, bought, pilfered or borrowed and all hell lit-er-al-ly broke loose.

Okay, not really. But you know you’re in for a deadly day for night shoot when there’s an old tome read and not much common sense exhibited by the cast once stuff starts going south. Sadly, 1974’s The House of Seven Corpses isn’t as good or fun enough a flick to watch as the above mentioned ones, wasting its tome (ha!) with too much “exposition” from annoying characters, John Carradine phoning in a performance from a better, scarier but campier film, and some slightly to moderately creepy undead that whittle down the cast and crew of a ~~romantic comedy~~ cheapie horror flick one by one.

It’s probably not a big co-inkydink that the film was produced by a company called Television Corporation of America, as save for a few moments, this looks and feels like a TV movie of the era. No, that’s not a complement.

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DVD Review: Psychomania

Posted on October 6, 2016 by geelw

This one’s for Mr. Bruno, who asked how this 1973 British “horror” flick was. Here’s your answer in the form of an opinion, sir. While it’s got a cult following, is fun as hell to watch, has some striking imagery, Psychomania (aka The Death Wheelers) is very much a “meh” genre flick overall that hasn’t aged well and isn’t even remotely scary. It has some fine ideas and even a solid John Cameron score holding things together. But a lack of “edginess” or even a true sense of danger doom it as a “serious” scare flick.

That said, it’s got that cult following that adores it for a few key reasons such as a brilliant opening sequence, those GREAT skull painted motorcycle helmets worn by The Living Dead cycle gang, a killer shot of a formerly deceased biker bursting from the grave on the bike he was buried on, and a bunch of hilarious demises as most of the gang kills themselves in order to return as immortal bikers… from helllllll!

(Thanks, BFI!)

The plot goes like so: Death-obsessed cycle gang leader Tom Latham (Nicky Henson) discovers he can die via suicide and come back as an un-killable death-obsessed cycle gang leader with the aid of his frog-cult worshiping mum (Beryl Reid). Once risen, he lets his gang, The Living Dead in on his secret and they follow suit, save for his girlfriend Abby (Mary Larkin) who doesn’t want to join the ranks of the undead. There’s a bunch of bloodless murders and pre-Mad Max road crimes and chases, a lot of talking and a very weird finale that may baffle you if you weren’t paying attention to the kooky story and just wanted a more brainless flick to chill out to.

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