Full Moon Fever

It was a full moon on Monday (no, not a new moon), so this seems like as good a time as any to do a certain Coverbox Wednesday I’ve been waiting to do for a while. At my video store, we had no shortage of titles from Charlie Band’s company Full Moon Entertainment. I think they must have had a deal with Ballbuster or something because whatever stuff they were peddling, we were buying. I used to eat up their horror catalogue after being indoctrinated into their world with Puppet Master II in 1991. I had actually seen some of their earlier offerings like Shadowzone and Creepozoids before that, but didn’t realize they were Full Moon until much later. I used to love the Puppet Master movies. If I might just nerd out (more than usual?) for a second, I have to confess that the only fan letter (besides X-Files fan club correspondence) I ever wrote was to Full Moon, more specifically an actress named Charlie Spradling, who appeared in PM2, Meridian and also hosted several episodes of VideoZone, which was a little featurette that appeared at the end of almost every Full Moon release. Ah... mammaries--I mean memories! Anyway, let’s back on track, shall we? I have documented the franchises of Full Moon like Puppet Master and Subspecies here before, so this time around I am going to concentrate on some of the other outrageous genre titles that hit our shelves in the early nineties. Enjoy!

This one featured a young Seth Green, but I know you are more interested in the "Virtual Reality Special Effects!" Apparently, The Lawnmower Man was a real trend setter.

Stuart Gordon directed this one, which should make it no surprise that P&TP is one of the better titles Full Moon has to offer.

This one was about voodoo and featured a stone hand that flew around turning people into chickens. The even crazier thing could be that I remember liking it.

As cheesy as this Jeffrey Combs/Brian Thompson vehicle appears, there actually is a cool stop-motion animation sequence involving two battling dinosaur skeletons.

A Scary Game For Scary People.

Before role-playing games were made with ones and zeros, they were made with pen, paper, curiously shaped dice and, of course, your imagination. That’s not to say that tabletop RPG’s, like the iconic Dungeons & Dragons don’t still exist today, but they certainly never became as pervasive as the current rash of MMORPG’s have over the last few years. I played my share of D&D when I was younger, but I also sampled some of the other universes that were out there. Back in its heyday, every genre had its own RPG. There was Top Secret, which explored the world of spies and secret agents, a Star Wars RPG (which I once played as a red & green-striped-Mandalorian-armored bounty hunter named Neddy) and even a Marvel Superheroes one that I sampled a time or two - dibs on Wolverine! A few weeks ago, my friend Darryl lent me a reference book on an RPG I had never even heard of called Chill.

It is a horror role-playing game, which immediately peaked my interest. Mayfair Games published Chill in the early-nineties, after purchasing it from Pacesetter Inc. It is not the only horror RPG to exist, as I know Call Of Cthulhu has a pretty big following and Vampire: The Masquerade also had its moment in the sun (though I guess that’s a poor choice of words), but I never got into either of those. Basically, Chill is a world where you play as a member of a secret organization called SAVE, which is an acronym for a Latin phrase meaning ‘The Eternal Society Of The Silver Way’. SAVE is charged with protecting the Earth from evil forces, which are collectively referred to as The Unknown. The scenarios you play are investigations, which usually lead to encounters with minions of The Unknown, such as spirits, vampires and every other creature that is not supposed to exist. In a lot of ways, Chill is similar to D&D, with the use of dice, though it only uses two ten-sided dice as opposed to the sack full needed for the latter. The game is mediated by one person, designated the Chill Master - I know, original eh? Your character has abilities like Strength, Stamina and Dexterity, as well was Perception and Willpower. Also, being an agent of SAVE, your character will be somewhat versed in The Art, which is the ability to perceive The Unknown.

Fear is a large factor in the game, as whenever you are confronted with The Unknown, there is always a chance your character will turn tail and run. I read through the introductory scenario ‘Caulfield Place: Rest In Peace’, where players try to rid a haunted house of its incumbent evil spirits, by deciphering a mystery hidden within its history. The combat seemed very complicated to me, but that could just be because I’m used to the D&D way of doing things. I’m sure that if I actually played through a round, I’d pick it up pretty quickly. The world of Chill is certainly a strange one, but also rather involved. The whole history of SAVE is documented in the book I read. It includes a timeline going back hundreds of years. SAVE was founded by an Irish man named Charles O’ Boylan in 1844, who was later killed in Egypt by animated mummies.

1989: The Central Archives fire in Dublin, Ireland.

Perhaps even more fascinating are the minions of The Unknown, all laid out in the back section of the book. In addition to the usual ghouls, ghosts and creatures of the night, there are also some more reality-based oddities. The most insidious of these may be the ‘Mean Old Neighbour Lady’. Everybody knew one of these growing up. She lived in an old house and was often accompanied by a large and menacing dog. Whenever your ball went over her fence, you knew it was lost and the neighbourhood kids would dare each other to ring her doorbell. In our world, they are just ordinary seniors who want to be left alone, but in the realm of Chill, they are pure evil. The Mean Old Neighbour Lady will single out a child and lure him/her into her house with treats and then lock them in her cellar. She will then go about starving and brainwashing said child in darkness until eventually, he/she transforms into a ‘Gamin’. They are then sent out to cause even more mayhem. Gamins are beings that appear to us as malnourished children and insinuate themselves into healthy families by befriending one of its younger members. They then go about playing their favourite game of ‘murder’. Once the family is completely destroyed, always killing the child that befriended it last, it moves onto another one. So, as you can see, danger in the world of Chill lurks everywhere. It is pretty odious stuff. I love it!

Even though The Horror Section is first and foremost a blog about horror films, I love to cover all different facets of the genre and Chill is certainly an intriguing example. For more info on Chill, check out their website here.

Belated!

I completely forgot to mention it was George A. Romero's 69th birthday last Wednesday. George is currently hard at work on his newest zombie opus, titled ...Of The Dead. I, being the one of the few people I know that actually liked his last flick Diary Of The Dead, am always up for a new undead installment from the man. Zombies are my bread and butter. Happy Birthday George!

The Big Two.

I’m going to forego the DKTM bit this week because I want to focus on a couple of upcoming PS3 games.

This week, I got to check out not one, but two huge game demos. The first was Resident Evil 5, which comes out March 13th. A demo finally released on the PSN, a week later than Xbox Live. You know, for a Japanese company, Capcom doesn’t really show Sony a lot of love. They’ve been snubbing the Playstation for years now. The Resident Evil franchise was a mainstay for the console in the nineties, but starting with Code Veronica they seem to be distancing themselves. Veronica came first came out on Sega Dreamcast in 2000, with a port to the PS2 over a year later. This could have been a programming issue because CV did look better on the DC, but then later Resident Evil Zero never even made it to the Playstation. Even the PS2 version of the groundbreaking GOTY Resident Evil 4 was a later port from the Gamecube. My question is why is that? I imagine there was probably some sort of exclusivity agreement in place somewhere and if so, that sucks. Anyway, enough of my bitching, how is the new game? It’s pretty wicked. I have to admit is does take time to get used to the controls. At first, they seemed really clunky, and left me thinking ‘I don’t remember RE4’s being this cumbersome’, but by the end of the demo I was already getting used to them. The controls aren’t ‘broken’ (which is a word I see thrown around message boards lately); they are just not as streamlined as the ones we are accustomed to in popular first-person-shooters. Another thing that I realized was that, at least from the demo, it appears that RE5 is really just a prettier version of RE4. My initial disappointment disappeared when I then thought, ‘it's a prettier version of RE4.’ I can’t really complain about that. The only other thing that jumped out at me (besides an angry horde of zombies) was how much this movie… ahem, I mean game… was designed for co-op. I’ll really have to try and get one of my friends on board for this. Overall, I’m fully stoked to see where this latest Resident Evil adventure takes me. Check out some demo video below. I could only figure out how embed the SD version. For the HD version, click here.

The other demo was Killzone 2. The PS3 has a lot riding on this title and from what I can see it turned out great. The demo is really short and sweet, but it gives you a good sense of the brilliant visuals and exceptional enemy AI you will be encountering in the game. It is really not far off from that infamous E3 video footage that sparked the whole Killzone feeding frenzy in 2005. I heard about the controls being slow and having that feeling you were stuck in mud, and I see what they meant by that. It does take some getting used to. However, the weapons and world around you have a real sense of weight to them, so this 'delay' in motion seems more realistic somehow. This will really be a factor in multiplayer, when I get shot in the head and left thinking ‘if I could have only turned around faster…’ I hear the game designers have added some really cool features to the multiplayer mode and I’m really eager to see if it can unseat COD4 as the current champion. It is a seemingly impossible task, but if any game is up to it, it is Killzone 2. This game is so violently beoooootiful that I am completely onboard and ready to mount up. I put the video below, but to see it in glorious HD, click here.



If I disappear after the 27th, you know why.

The 12 Steps Of Horror

I have an eleven-year-old niece that has just recently expressed an interest in horror movies. My brother and sister-in-law are now telling me these funny stories of Gaib asking them questions like, “Can I watch that movie with the guy who has knives for fingers?” and them having to say, “Uhh... no.”

It is strange being on the other side of this dilemma and seeing the double standard that exists. They made the right call, but on the other hand, years before I was her age I was watching slasher marathons and I turned out (relatively) fine. My childhood was FILLED with blood, guts and mayhem, but I also completely agree with their decision to shield her from such material until she is older. Currently, she is satiating her need for horror with titles like Twilight, but I’m sure the much harder stuff is just around the corner. Anyway, this whole thing brought me back to the days when I was a kid and watching anything I could get my hands on. I had the most liberal parents on the block, so it made sense that the neighbourhood kids would sneak over to my place to watch stuff that their own parents would not let them see – there was an incident with Halloween that got me banned from someone’s house forever. Now, there were a number of my friends that were afraid to watch horror films and I found this to be incredibly absurd. It’s OKAY to be scared, that’s the WHOLE point! I was always trying to convert people into the fold because let’s face it, it’s always more fun to watch a horror flick with others, isn’t it?

So, as a public service, I developed The 12 Steps Of Horror. Basically, it was a list of twelve horror films that started off really tame and worked their way up to a crescendo of fright. For the first few years, I even had some trivia questions written down to ask after each movie to make sure whoever was watching hadn’t been covering their eyes during the scary bits. I put a few of my friends through this course and most of them passed with flying colours. It was a fun thing to do, but I also wanted to toughen up my circle of friends, so occurrences like being pulled out of Predator by a buddy would never happen again. I remember staring at my friend like he had three heads as he stood there in the lobby crying and saying, “It's too scary!” I quickly told him, “there’s the phone, call your dad to come pick you up” and went back inside. I missed Carl Weathers’ climactic death scene because of that goof. The list has changed and shifted a bit over the years - I recall Aliens was on it at one point - but it has always stayed with me. The last time I tried to use it was with an ex-girlfriend. She was absolutely petrified of scary movies – come to think of it, she was actually afraid of everything; the dark, spiders, heights, you name it – so I got her on the 12 Step program. Let’s just say it didn’t go very well. Not only did she quit after the third movie, she would always accusingly ask me why I liked this stuff, insinuating that I was some kind of freak. Needless to say, the relationship ended shortly thereafter.

So, here we are in 2009. I figure I’d dust off the list and share it with you all, in case a new generation of horror fans would like to partake.

#1 – Cat’s Eye (1985) Rated PG.
Purpose: Exposes viewer to the elements of a horror film. Shock value: Low Includes: Eerie music, the troll, a decapitated head.
Cat’s Eye is light horror. It’s pretty tame and has likely played on the Family Channel. It has a tongue-in-cheek style throughout and being an anthology, it gives the viewer time to relax between stories.


#2 – Lady In White (1988) Rated PG. Purpose: Exposes viewer to prolonged intensity and horror themes. Shock value: Low Includes: A girl’s murder re-enacted, a boy being chased by a killer, a scary old lady.
Lady In White is light horror and again pretty tame. It is much like Stand By Me with an interwoven murder mystery. There are some humourous plot devices intermixed to dampen the more intense material.


#3 – Paperhouse (1988) Rated PG. This one is hard to find because it still has not received a DVD release, but I’ve never been able to find a suitable title to put in its place. This is the movie that broke my ex-girlfriend. Good times. Purpose: Exposes the viewer to prolonged intensity and horror themes without the benefit of comic relief. Shock value: Low Includes: A girl being chased by man with hammer, a child being beaten, eerie music.
#4 – House (1986) Rated PG-13 Purpose: Exposes viewer to prolonged suspense as well as special effects & monsters common to the genre, but easing into it with a tongue-in-cheek style. Though the movie has several frights, they are fairly comedic and over-the-top. Shock value: Low-Medium Includes: the medicine cabinet portal, the thing in the closet, eerie soundtrack.


#5 – Night Of The Living Dead (1968) Not Rated Purpose: Exposes viewer to pure horror themes. The film is black & white and not particularly gory. Shock value: Low-Medium Includes: the zombie BBQ, the death-by-trowel scene, the body upstairs.

#6 – Halloween (1978) Rated R

Purpose: Exposes viewer to pure horror themes, including atmosphere and is more reality based. Said realism means that the detachment a viewer can feel during a supernatural horror film is not present. Shock value: Medium Includes: Michael’s escape, Annie’s demise, the chase.

#7 – An American Werewolf In London (1982) Rated R

Purpose: Exposes viewer to pure horror themes, including frights and gore, but with a comedic edge to provide some balance. Shock value: Medium-High Includes: Jack’s demise, David’s dreams, the werewolf attacks.

#8 – Poltergeist (1982) Rated PG-13

Purpose: Exposes viewer to pure horror themes, including atmosphere, gore and frights, but is done in a more family friendly way than the final four movies on the list. Shock value: Medium-High Includes: a boy-eating tree, the killer clown, the face-peeling scene.

#9 – The Omen (1976) Rated R

Purpose: Exposes viewer to extreme horror themes and done with no-holds-barred atmosphere. Shock value: High Includes: a decapitation, the hell hounds attack, a chilling score.

#10 – A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984) Rated R

Purpose: Exposes viewer to extreme horror themes, including frights and gore without the benefit of comedic balance. Shock Value: High Includes: Tina & Glenn’s demise, Nancy in the bathtub.

#11 – The Shining (1980) Rated R

Purpose: Exposes viewer to extreme horror themes. The atmosphere is probably one of best examples in the history of the genre. The long running time and some over-the-top moments offer some relief though. Shock value: High Includes: Halloran’s demise, the twins, Room 237.

#12 – The Thing (1982) Rated R

Purpose: Exposes viewer to extreme horror themes. The atmosphere and large amounts of gore come fast and furious. Shock value: High Includes: the dog transformation, the blood test, the Doc’s disarming.

So, there you have it. Let me know what you think. Did I miss anything? I suppose some of these titles may seem fairly tame to some with all the Saw’s and Hostel’s out there now, but I’ve never equated gore to scares. The scary stuff is what comes to mind when you are walking in darkness from the light switch to the bed. You know, the stuff that makes you double-check the bathroom door is locked before taking a shower and not want to look in your rear-view mirror while driving at night. Have fun kiddies! May these dark nightmares continue to entertain for many generations to come.

All Work And No Play...

I was travelling around the 'Net this morning and came across the cool pics below. Carlo Giovani is a Brazillian graphic designer that "likes to work with different medias and technics, mixing them to create new ways to represent ideas and concepts." I'd say these pinball visualizations that appeared in an issue of Flashback magazine qualify as awesome, wouldn't you?

On Carlo's website, he has some other vintage movie pinball mockups, as well as a complete archive of his other works.

Don't Kill The Messenger IV

Hey everyone. I don't have a lot of time, I'll be off to partake in some Pigskin Christmas festivities shortly, but here are a few items from the week. Have a good day today guys, whatever you decide to do with it.

Children Of The Snow?

Mermaid Heather alerted me to a trailer for this new flick from the UK called The Children. At first glance, I thought this might be the Who Can Kill A Child? remake I’d been hearing rumblings about, but a quick search afterward revealed that project is actually called In The Playground. No, The Children looks to be a completely different beast and a tantalizingly nasty one at that. The Brits seem to be on a pretty good roll here (with titles like Broken & Eden Lake) and certainly look like they’ve picked up the gauntlet thrown down by the French in regards to balls-to-the-wall horror. I’ll be keeping my eye on this, for sure. Check the trailer below.



Fear Alma… Again.

The F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin demo came out over the Playstation Network recently and I was quick to give it a whirl. Needless to say, it’s pretty badass. The freakishly bizarre visuals are still prevalent and Sadako-doppleganger Alma seems even more pissed, if that’s possible. The demo is pretty expansive and (as I was gleefully hoping for) you even get to step into a mech for a bit and cut through enemies like buttah. I will definitely be playing this when it comes out Feb 10th. I’m sad to say that Resistance 2 was a decidedly disappointing affair and I want to go into my next two HUGE video game experiences (Killzone 2 and Resident Evil 5) on a high note. I believe F.E.A.R. 2 will fill that need quite nicely. For some in-game demo footage, watch the vid below.

Monkey Trouble

This is awesome.