The Horror Geek – News, Rants and Reviews From The Horror Geek!

While everyone and their brother is busy raving about GDC and artsy games like Braid, Flower, and Little Big Planet, I’ve spent the past few days with Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad-which is about as far from artsy as you can get. Don’t feel bad for me, though-because frankly, I’m tired of the whole “are games art?” debate and the bullshit pretentiousness that tends to sprout up like weeds whenever someone starts to discuss Flower. In fact, my new mantra may very well be fuck games where the artistic experience is more important than fun and the people who spend endless hours pontificating on them and how they fit into the ludologist manifesto”. At times like this, I remember one of the many classic Bruce Willis lines from The Last Boy Scout-bad guy Milo says to Willis “I would like to hear you scream in pain” and Willis’ deadpan reply is “play some rap music”. You wanna hear me scream? Mention ludology.

Anyway, Onechanbara isn’t art by any stretch of the imagination-and I’m cool with that. It’s a borderline retarded action game featuring Japanese women running around in implausible outfits and slaughtering hordes of incredibly stupid zombies with katanas and guns. It sounds cooler than it really is (I’ll explain that shortly), yet there’s still some undeniable charm at work in the title. Or maybe it’s not charm at all-it could just be the gigantic breasts, which bounce around in a sort of hypnotizing way. Whatever it is, the game manages to overcome most if its design issues (of which there are many) and offer up some fun almost in spite of itself. Since comparing games to film is still all the rage these days, Onechanbara is like a grindhouse classic. It sucks from a technical perspective, but it’s so outlandish and unabashedly stupid that it gains a following in spite of the issues. It reminds me a lot of Tokyo Gore Police for some reason…probably because of the whole scantily clad katana-wielding hot Asian chick thing.

(more…)

I miss working in the comic book store, mostly because I got paid to spend an inordinate amount of time reading comics. If you follow the comic world at all, you already know that a lot of new books come out every week and trying to buy everything you want to follow (something I did back in college) can lead to financial ruin. Working at the shop allowed me to read almost everything without actually having to buy all of it.

One of the books I was digging before I quit was Image’s XXXombies, which was a miniseries about a group of porn actors forced to survive during a zombie outbreak in southern California. It was a cool book, and gave me yet another of those moments where I said to myself “goddammit, why didn’t I think of doing that?” (I think I’m still a frustrated fiction writer. I love writing film reviews and game stuff and news here at the site, but there’s some part of me that apparently still wants to write books and comics and screenplays…). My second thought was “goddamn, this would make a cool movie”. Apparently, someone else agreed.

MTV (which might as well stand for Movie Television these days) is reporting that XXXombies is getting a big screen adaptation. They chatted with Rick Remender, who had the following to say about the project.

“Right now I’m writing a screenplay for ‘XXXombies’ with [series co-creator] Kieron Dwyer,” the series’ Rick Remender tells MTV News. “The transition was smooth, because I took the script that I did and then Kieron and I broke it down into a treatment and did three or four passes to get the story perfect, and now it’s just a matter of breaking the treatment down and copying bits of dialogue from the comic script, rewriting, and new dialogue.”

Expect more news on this as it becomes available.

Featuring a story “ripped straight from the headlines”, Stuck is a film that only someone like Stuart Gordon could have made. A pitch black comedy merged with some gruesomely effective gore sequences, it brings to mind the early days of the filmmaker’s career-back when he had just released a little film called Re-Animator. Stuck and Re-Animator aren’t really anything alike on the surface, but the structure, tone, and penchant for finding the gallows humor in even the bleakest of situations is a hallmark of Gordon’s best work over the past two or so decades. Fans who like their films darkly humorous and filled with scathing social commentary (both subtle and obvious) should find this film to their liking.

(more…)

While the planned adaptation of cult comic Hack/Slash languishes in development under the watchul eyes of Rogue Pictures, Ratio Pictures is ready to tackle very similar subject matter in their just announced feature, Eve.

Variety is reporting that Eve will be a story about a young woman who hunts down and kills supernatural serial killers. Brian Metcalf, Karoline Kautz and Elaine Hendrix will produce with Hugh Edwards exec producing.

Hendrix will also star along with Jordan Matthews. The script was penned and will be directed by Metcalf. Shooting isn’t expected to begin until sometime next year.

While Eve certainly sounds interesting, I’d still just rather see a Hack/Slash movie instead. Come on, Rogue–just sign Megan Fox and get this thing made already.

EA’s Dante’s Inferno started a Hollywood bidding war before it was even announced. Now, it’s not only being adapted as a live-action film for the big screen, it’s getting an animated feature as well. That’s pretty impressive for a brand new IP…

Variety is reporting that EA will once again team up with Starz Entertainment (the tandem was responsible for the animated Dead Space spinoff Dead Space: Downfall).

According to the article, “Inferno” will mirror the game’s plot and follow Dante’s journey through the nine circles of Hell — limbo, lust, gluttony, greed, anger, heresy, violence, fraud and treachery — in search of his true love, Beatrice.

“The animated feature will be a great companion piece to the game,” said Jonathan Knight, executive producer and creative director for “Dante’s Inferno.” “The feature will explore aspects of the poem that the game does not, and will provide more insight into the characters and the unique story adaptation that the game has established.“

No word on a release date, but the game isn’t expected until next year. When it does hit retailers, it will be distributed through Starz’s Anchor Bay imprint.

The title says it all–here’s a look at the UK quad for Chris Nahon’s Blood: the Last Vampire. I dig it. Hope the movie doesn’t suck.

Rob Zombie has released enough photos from Halloween 2 to fill like a dozen of those cheesy old photo albums from my youth (remember those? They had clingy plastic sheet that went over the pictures. Do people still use those?). I’m sure I speak for all of us when I saw we appreciate the effort. That being said, there’s only one picture that people have really wanted to see. We’d all gladly trade a dozen shots of Seymour Coffins and Margo Kidder for one shot of Michael Myers.

So, Zombie has finally relented and given us our first look at Myers in the new film–sort of. While this photo is technically Michael doing his thing, good luck actually seeing anything. Ol’ Mike looks like a shaggy giant blob, basically, but I do like the fog and the weird lighting.

Anyway, have a gander for yourself and let me know what you think. Halloween 2 will certainly let us see Myers full-on when it hits theaters on August 28th.

Alex Turner isn’t a name that’s readily familiar to most horror fans, but his creepy feature Dead Birds was generally well received by the fright flick community. Unfortunately, it took five years for Turner’s next movie to reach the world. Was the wait worth it? Yes and no.

Red Sands is, when you get right down to it, an example of high concept storytelling faltering because the idea is good but the execution is off. Turner’s film has a great premise-a group of US soldiers in Afghanistan are sent to guard a road (that doesn’t seem to exist…) and ensure that Al Quaeda operatives aren’t using it to carry out nefarious activities. While on the way there, they encounter a strange statue in the hills, which turns out to be a sort of “container” for the spirit of an evil Djinn (the creature behind the whole “genie” myth). When one of the crew breaks the statue by using it for target practice, an ancient evil is freed. You can bet there’ll be Hell to pay because this Djinn is nothing like what you saw on I Dream of Jeannie.

(more…)

News was flying around the ol’ interweb yesterday stating that Amanda Crew had been chosen to play Nancy in the Platinum Dunes Nightmare on Elm Street remake.

Turns out it’s not true. Crew had several meetings for the part (according to Dread Central), but didn’t land the role. This is probably for the best since Crew doesn’t look “anti-social” or “goth” enough to fit in as the new Nancy. If you’re not sure who Crew is, you can catch her in The Haunting in Connecticut and imagine what might have been…

Expect real casting news for this remake soon, though–it’s supposed to start shooting in the not too distant future, and it’s hard to do that when no one’s been cast in the roles.

It’s a slow news Saturday around here, which is cool with me. I’ve  got crap I need to catch up on.

Here’s the first five minutes of The Mutant Chronicles, which didn’t exactly blow me away (nor many of the critics who’ve seen the full film). It’s got Thomas Jane and Ron Perlman in it, so it may get better, but I found the first five minutes kinda slow and filled with way too much exposition. The IMDB plot page sums up the film thusly: 23rd century soldier Major Mitch Hunter leads a fight against an army of underworld NecroMutants. Sounds good, but the execution looks off.

Anyway, here it is. Maybe some of you will find it more interesting than I did.