Okay, I’ll admit to being a bit behind in my beating quota. In other words, I still have yet to play Deception IV: Blood Ties on anything it’s been released on. As time, tide and games wait for no man, Tecmo Koei has made it known that there’s a follow-up coming in July for the PS3, PS4 and Vita called Deception IV: The Nightmare Princess. Fans of this long-running series which began on the original Playstation should be dancing around for joy while trying to avoid assorted traps and hazards in their own environments. For the uninitiated, here’s a live-action trailer with a tiny bit of the sinister yet intentionally silly gameplay at the end:
Now if only actual burglar alarms worked this efficiently. Although I’d bet the setup and resetting costs would be a wee bit costly.
A funny thing happened on the way to me disliking Island of Death, director Nico Mastorakis’ 1975 horror film headed to Blu-Ray/DVD courtesy Arrow Video and MVD Entertainment Group. That would be I ended up liking the film a lot more than I thought. This is in part thanks to the great special features that include interviews with Mastorakis that show he’s just a genial, creative guy with a long and varied career who’s not at all like any of the vile characters in the nasty and brutal film he made very early in his career. I’d heard about how terrible and shocking the film was and I certainly wasn’t disappointed by the assorted scenes of murder, extremely stereotypical characters and loads of exploitative nudity on display. Yes, the film is a hard to watch experience not for the squeamish or easily offended. But it’s beautifully shot nastiness and at the end of the day, Mastorakis did exactly what he set out to do – make a film that out grossed (and out-grossed) The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
There’s nothing here even remotely close in plot or even tone to Tobe Hooper’s seminal shocker. IoD’s story about a pair of unbalanced British lovers killing their way through the island of Mykonos before getting their just desserts is merely a showcase for depravity that’s since been outclassed by more modern horror flicks with far more realistic effects. The director even makes this point in one of the commentaries on the Blu-Ray and it’s easy to toss off a bunch of titles from the top of my head that do indeed go for the gusto and blow this film out of the water. That said, by 1975 standards the catalog of perversions on display here certainly got this film in trouble all over the world. Bestiality, murders by an ingested bucket of paint post crucifixion, a phallic pistol, beheading by bulldozer and more are all on display. As terrifically terrible as these crimes are, some viewers may be more upset that one of the murderers is a hypocrite religious zealot out to cleanse the island of evil in the name of religion.
While I was going through computer hell, it seems that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt went gold and is on the way to production for its upcoming release. Nice. Here’s some more fantastic gameplay footage courtesy of CD Projekt RED, who REALLY wants to sell about five or six bazillion copies of the game (or very close to it) this year. I think they’ll do this with ease, as it certainly looks to be well worth the wait through those assorted delays that set it back a bit.
Geralt may not be Sherlock Holmes or even Horatio Caine, but he sure knows his way around a crime scene and can internal monologue up a storm. Hey, everyone talks to themselves you know. Some of us tend to do it out louder than others. That and hell, you just don’t mess with a man who can swing a sword and/or blast you with magic like Geralt can. “Haw-haw, that crazy-lookin’ guy is in the woods talkin’ to himself!” *STAB! Slice!, ROAST! (sizzle!)* See what I mean? Anyway, May 19, 2015 is the big day for PC, PS4, and Xbox One owners. Expect “flu-like” symptoms and asked for days off in certain spots around the globe, guaranteed.
After a few not so stellar attempts by other studios to make a first-person shooter based on The Walking Dead, Robert Kirkman and David Alpert at Skybound have decided to let one of the best multiplayer FPS teams in the industry have the keys to the car along with all the gas they can scrounge up. Currently in development by Overkill Studios, all we have to look at for now is this simple followed by Kirkman’s announcement and a nice little gift for Payday 2 fans worldwide.
As it’s far too early to say what the game will be about in terms of its plot. We do know it will at least take place in and around Washington DC and be released sometime in 2016 for the aforementioned consoles and PC. Once again it looks as if those holding on to those PS3 and Xbox 360’s for dear life will need to bump themselves up into “next gen” which in now “current gen” to a few million people around the globe. PC owners will of course be trumpeting their own victories on the frames per second and detail setting maxed out front, but that’s always another tale for another time. 505 Games just got another money making AAA title in their library worth checking out.
Well, that was interesting. A low body count, some expected demises based on events from last season and one unexpected one (basically a “red shirt” death) that sets up some interesting dynamics for the rather hard-headed Mother of Dragons. Not letting the people go have their barbaric culture bread and circuses because of your own personal views is never a good thing at the end of the day. But hey, when you’ve got big, bad (and somewhat uncontrollable) dragons under your stairway (just like The Munsters!), it’s good to be the Queen, right? Meanwhile, back at the Lannister ranch, things are sliding downhill in all sorts of convincingly mad manners, aren’t they? Cersi’s going to be plotting, Margaery is going to be losing her marbles because of that plotting and you know it’ll be a battle of actresses chewing scenery to great effect.
On another part of the map, let’s not even bring up the Imp, as he’s in a bind he thinks he can booze his way out of and his bad haircut and beard make him look like a wino clown. Finally, as I stopped reading the books when the show came out but know some stuff from a few friends, expect a little less Snow by the end of the season. Maybe. It seems he’s wearing out his welcome among the Crows on a few fronts and that’s a bad sign of things to come. That’s not a spoiler if you use the internet, by the way.
Then again, given that Uncle George is probably grinning madly atop his comfy throne made from lots of printed green bills as he watches some fans spin madly off their couches, it’s all good wherever in Westeros he’s typing away from. Or not typing. No one tells Uncle George what to do, you know. Yeah, you’ll all be back next week. Well, not HERE, but in front of your TV’s, that is…
The fine folks at Arrow Video continue to whip out releases from their UK catalog through MVD to film fans and collectors stateside well worth buying and July’s three Blu-Ray/DVD sets are a nice trio for your library. This time, it’s an odd triple threat of 1970’s Japanese pop style, a bleak Gallic “spaghetti” western and a fun, funky horror film starring a pre-A Nightmare on Elm Street Robert Englund. That video below of Stray Cat Rock: The Collection should hopefully tease some of you into action in the form of adding it to your want list somewhere or bugging someone to get you it (or all three films) as a nice gift.
Well, I’D bug someone to get me all three of these flicks. Hey, I have unusual tastes in films from unforgettable classic silents to a handful of loud, noisy super-budget blockbusters more easily forgotten. I won’t knock your tastes at all (well, unless you still watch “reality” TV with a straight face and actually get upset at every VERY obviously scripted moment better done the first time and not the 500th). Eeek.
Oh the places you’ll go next week when Grand Theft Auto V finally hits PC. Well, those of you who have systems capable of running the game, that is. The two high-end system trailers that show off the main game and Online Heists multiplayer mode look spectacular enough to almost fool the eye. This should be the definitive version of the game, which means those who can play it will have some fine bragging rights and fun videos to post as they play through the game they’ve been waiting for for quite some time. As long as there are no crippling launch issues and day one patching woes, I’d gather there are going to be a great deal of happy campers spending all their free time with this one.
Xseed Games is giving PC gamers who just so happen to be fans of Nihon Falcom’s classic RPG franchise something else to smile about as the publisher is bringing an enhanced version of Ys VI: Ark of Napishtim to Steam and other digital delivery platforms sometime this spring. This won’t be a straight port of the former PlayStation 2 and PSP-only title, either. In addition to the expected higher resolution visuals and full USB controller support, the PC version of Ys VI will also feature full widescreen support, checkpoint warps, and an optional “Catastrophe Mode” in which healing items can’t be purchased or stored and are instead used automatically on pickup.
In other Xseed news, the company has also announced that it’s somewhat racy open-world brawler Akiba’s Trip: Undead and Undressed will also be PC-bound. As with Ys VI, this version will feature Steam achievements and USB controller support plus the “Visual Editor” feature from the PlayStation 4 version of the game. The latter feature makes it possible to completely alter the game’s appearance through a control panel that lets players mess around with the lighting and rendering effects. Sure, this one’s not for all tastes, but it’s one of those games that’s got a solid sense of humor about its content and is definitely geared towards a certain type of gamer (cue whatever otaku music is in your head).
Hey, I love looking at naked ladies in bad movies as much as the next guy or gal who loves looking at naked ladies in bad movies, but a film like the incomprehensible mess that is Future Women (or The Girl From Rio, Rio ’70, City Without Men, The Seven Secrets of Sumuru, Sumuru: Queen of Femina, and of all things, Mothers of America) makes me want to shift that hobby to watching paint dry or grass grow instead.
Directed by cult schlockmesiter supremo Jesús “Jess” Franco and seemingly edited by a team of eyeless chimps who probably dropped the film into a blender (and who also did some of the wretchedly amusing “special” effects), this is one of those lame Bond copycats that gets nothing right because its source material never should have been altered into the 007 wannabe nonsense-fest that will have your brain running out of the room about halfway in. But yeah, it’s got a bunch of naked and half-naked ladies and is kinda sorta of based on a story by Sax Rohmer , so there’s that. Continue reading →
How frightening. I’m actually old enough to remember seeing ads for Mark of the Devil in newspapers as a kid and while far too young to see it, wanting to just because of the free vomit bag handed out to viewers. I recall either a cousin or other relative seeing it and showing off their unused bag while they bragged about how violent the film was. Hey, it was after all “RATED V FOR VIOLENCE”… just not by the MPAA. That snazzy bit of marketing was courtesy Hallmark Releasing, the films distributor that packed houses for years during the 70’s and 80’s by retitling all sorts of sleazy to amazing genre movies.
Flash forward maybe a dozen or so years and I finally got to see the movie thanks to a fairly lousy quality VHS tape copy that had a few other horror flicks on it (one of which was Twitch of the Death Nerve, another Hallmark released flick). I certainly didn’t need a vomit bag, but the film’s overall tone and torture scenes did get under my skin (pun intended). Over time, I’d almost forgotten about the film thanks to only seeing it that one time, but thanks to Arrow Video and MVD, here I am back in front of a television with a superior in every way possible Blu-Ray version.
While not as relentlessly gory as more modern horror films, Michael Armstrong’s classic and controversial film is more of a “you are there” trip back in time than a traditional fright flick. Shot in and around Austria, the film’s lush outdoor landscapes are contrasted by the brutal torture segments that won’t have you tossing your cookies at all, but maybe reaching for a pillow to hide behind or stuff in your ears as you avert your eyes from some onscreen nastiness.
"DESTROY ALL FANBOYS!" 