Death By Emoji, January Trivia Round.

Oct 25th Horror Trivia Screening List

To all those who came here from the event or the FB page, welcome! I am Jay, one half of the horror trivia quizmasters and this is my humble blog.

If you heard a title while at the last event and thought “oh that movie sounds cool, I should check that out”, here's a list of the lesser known films that were mentioned. Click on the titles to be redirected to their Imdb listing.

For everyone else, maybe there's one or two here you have yet to catch. Horror Trivia Nights happens at Storm Crow Manor in Toronto. If you're in the area, come on down! Register here. If you're not local, we do often stream the event on the @ruemorguemag Instagram.

Night of the Demons (1988)

Trick 'r Treat (2007)

The Midnight Hour (1985)

Hellbent (2004)

Trick or Treat (1986)

All Hallows' Eve (2013)

The Monster Squad (1987)

Ginger Snaps (2000)

Omen III: The Final Conflict (1981)

Wild Beasts (1984)

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970)

Podcast: Radio Rental

Game: Little Nightmares

Book: My Heart Is A Chainsaw

2022 Wrap-up

Well, here we are again at the end of another trash fire year. All things considered, while the world burned, I had a decent year. Fantasia & TIFF are returning to their regular scheduled programming (I managed to duck the Rona outbreaks at both) and actually picked up a new pre-screening position while schmoozing at the former.

I also acquired two new gigs through Rue Morgue. If you read the mag, you may have noticed that list of Morbid Facts & Weird Stats at the hop, which are now - since the summer - being penned by me. Additionally, in the before times, my buddy Tal used to host horror trivia nights at Storm Crow Manor. In the fall there was talk of bringing it back and since he was unavailable, my trivia partner Pat & I - who used to win those events more often than not - took over the hosting duties. We just had our third edition and it's going very well.

Anyway, as Tal used to say, “enough about me, let's talk about me”.  I had no shortage of media to enjoy this year. The Boys cemented itself as my favourite TV show, Prey gave the Predator franchise its best entry in thirty years and, God love him, Sam Raimi introduced a little Evil Dead to the MCU.

On the gaming side of things, Stray and The Quarry were tremendous fun, and as soon as I find a partner for The Devil In Me, I'll get on that too.

As for horror, I actually think it was a pretty strong year. Of course, there were some stinkers, but even mainstream fare like Smile and Black Phone seems to be well favoured - though I've seen neither. Here were my highlights;

Ti West returned to form in a big way in 2022, first with X and then Pearl. I loved the sexy, grimy sleaze of the former, and the fairy-tale boisterousness of the latter. The unveiling of Maxxine at Midnight Madness blew the roof of the house, making it my most anticipated of 2023.

Barbarian was a breath of fresh air, a two-part mystery, both as hair-raising as they were entertaining. It was definitely the best communal experience I've had since last year's Spidey. I can't wait to see Zack Cregger's next project.

Expectations exceeded. Once you clock into its tone, this one is a riot. William Brent Bell somehow, SOMEHOW gives us a twist every bit as outrageous as its predecessor. And lovely to see Isabelle Fuhrmann again, she should be in more stuff.

The “sleeper” of this group. I was super impressed by this movie at Fantasia. A great lead, a solid concept and the best use of Covid-19 in a horror picture I've seen so far.

More of a black comedy than a horror I suppose, but I adore this movie. It's one of those scripts I wish I'd written. It's also the only film this year I saw twice in the theatre (2 and a 1/4 if you count when I ducked in to watch the last half-hour while waiting for Avatar to start).

Honourable mentions to Nope, which was truly spectacular in IMAX and The Watcher, a tense thriller starring Maika Monroe (who should also be in more stuff). I also really dug Joe Begos' Christmas Bloody Christmas, a weird hybrid of Silent Night, Deadly Night, The Terminator and, of all things, High Fidelity. Riley Dandy is fire and I can totally see this becoming a holiday watch regular. Lastly, even though it's more of a true crime procedural than a horror picture, Holy Spider is very, very good.

Okay, that's it. This is a recording... May 2023 be better than the last. Take care and stay safe, kiddies.

The Quarry

The trailer for Supermassive's newest CYOD slasher The Quarry just dropped and holy shit I am stoked for this!

I've been enjoying their Dark Anthology games - that last one House Of Ashes was a real nerve-shredder - but this is their first full-fledged title since 2013's Until Dawn. Looks like it's starred up to the tits, as well.

June 10th can't come soon enough!

2021 Wrap-up.

As we all know, this year was basically the sequel to 2020 that no one wanted. Having said that, here are some of the bright lights that maintained my sanity.

Marvel kept me constantly entertained with five(!) TV series this year, and I was just so elated to finally get my eyeballs on Black Widow. And that Spidey flick, man talk about over-delivering!

Now that's out of the way, onto the genre stuff.

Honourable mentions go out to The Deep House, Midnight and the impressive debut Caveat. I did not see Malignant, but those close to me seem to think I will dig it. I'm sure I will catch it eventually.

Lastly, YouTube continued to be a big help to me in 2021. To the dozen or so content creators that I watch on a weekly basis, I salute you.

Well, I hate to be a broken record here, but here's hoping 2022 is the year we break out of this perpetual funk.

All Hail Lady D.

Definitely didn't mind being thrown around by Dimitrescu and her daughters in this game. I really enjoyed Resident Evil 8. If Resident Evil 7 was Evil Dead, this one is Evil Dead 2, just in the amount of abuse Ethan takes alone. I except 9 will be the conclusion of a Winters trilogy, before evolving and moving onto another branch of RE lore. The return of Claire Redfield perhaps??

Among Us Reimagined

I came across these Among Us animated shorts made a few months ago. This first one is from the YT channel 3DPrintGuy.

Lastly, here's another from GoldenLaneStudio, although in truth it feels more like Dead Space than The Thing.

I Float Too!

My buddy Phil & I mucked around with VR Rec Room last night. After getting our asses handed to us at Paintball and Laser Tag, we checked out some other stuff. Here's me outside the It Mirror Maze attraction.

The Quest is definitely one of the best purchases I've made in quite some time.

2089!

This new update for Pistol Whip fucking slaps!

Just this game alone justified my purchase of the Oculus Quest 2. Highly recommended! 

Gifrific: Go Turbines!

Source: Football Game (2018)

A Puzzle With Sharp Edges.

Here's the latest endeavour, all finished.

This one was only 500 pieces so it didn't take as long as the last ones. Not sure where I am going from here, but each puzzle completed gets me closer to my white, or rather pink, whale.

Here We Go!

Siiiiiiiiick

I saw a lot of promising stuff at the PS5 unveiling event, but chief among them was obvi Village, the eighth installment of the Resident Evil series. Here's the sneak...

Also, very interested in Blue Twelves' new game Stray.

You Gotta Be Fucking Kidding Me!

It took over a month, but I finally finished my latest puzzle.

This was a Mondo issue with art by the always excellent Justin Erickson. A shame about the missing pieces. The friend who lent it to me neglected to mention that the last peeps to play with it were three children. If I'd known I'd have been all...

RE All Float Down Here!

Source: Albert_Fn_Wesker

Short of the Week #70: ABE

At E3 this week, Hammerhead Studios announced a VR game called ABE that is based on this 2013 short film of the same name by Rob McLellan.

I'm in. ABE first screened in 2013 so this project has obviously been gestating for some time. In the meantime, McLellan has been keeping himself busy as a visual effects artist as well as making a few more short films (Always the Sun in 2014 and Explorers in 2017). No release date for the game has been set, but this teaser has certainly piqued by interest.

2018 Wrap-up

Hey all! Let me just start off by saying thank you to all those that have stopped by over the last eleven years. Though this humble blog was mainly meant for me to a) wax nostalgic about the VHS age and b) to stave off writing atrophy, it warms my blackened heart to know that a few of you out there care enough to keep looking in.

2018 was a pretty decent year for me. I picked up two new gigs, one as head programmer at the Toronto Smartphone Film Festival and one as a shorts screener for Fantasia, the latter of which brings the relief of not begging for a pass every year. I have further ingratiated myself into the short film community and even printed up some new business cards!

On the writing side of things, I'm also proud of the anniversary article I wrote for Delirium magazine about Bernard Rose's underseen gem Paperhouse. It's a pretty sweet issue, you should pick it up.

I was also glad to visit Calgary this year and check out CUFF. Frankly, I was enamoured with this fest, and not just by how brilliantly they treat their guests – I was there screening The Good Samaritan – but by how well it is run.

Lastly, Blood, Sweat & Terrors, the third Little Terrors compilation I helped put together is now available on almost every platform out there. This one is action oriented and it's pretty crackin'.

So now we're done with all the sappy stuff, things are going to be a little different at this year's end. No more calculated top five lists. I decided this for two reasons. First, having now shifted my focus to old VHS titles, I realized there was no yearly archive of posts I could go back and refer to when compiling my Best/Worst of 2018. Second, I finally came to the conclusion...

That being said, I am still compelled to briefly touch on the media that enraptured me over this past year.

That was my 2018 in a nutshell. You may have noticed that there were no short films in that list above. Well, that's because I'm going to dedicate a special post to those tomorrow. Check back then, kiddies!