Rackbooms

Youtuber movie? Or just a movie from a youtuber?

Clark runs a discount furniture store, but is at a low point of his life... and then he finds a room in the bottom of his store... a lot of room... a lot of rooms... that are in the back... He investigates and drags others in, but what is in the backrooms isn't just rooms but other things as well.

Can you see this without knowing the lore? Other people say so, but I have my doubts. When it starts with an Async video, I know what's going on, but I don't know how well other people will follow. I guess it's fine, but certainly if you know the background it does make a lot easier to track certain elements. But a lot is entirely standalone, and this isn't the Async movie.

Chiwetel Ejiofor does great work as Clark, although Renate Reinsve kept making me think of Winona Ryder with her "mildly upset" face. The set is doing a lot of the lifting, so there are very limited CGI effects (the main one being going through the wall). I'm not sure if the creatures are people with practical or CGI effects, but they say if you can't tell, then it is good work.

This movie is about something, but it's not really the Backrooms themselves, but what the Backrooms are as a metaphor.. in this case at least.

If you want the lore movie, this isn't it. If you want a mildly unsettling movie, this will do.

[END]

Read more!

I. Ron L. Ung

Yes, it's that "youtuber movie".

There's a moon of blood, and a convict is welded into a submarine and dunked in order to investigate what's going on down there. He has a thoroughly unpleasant time, with strange creatures, and the blood proving more of a problem than water.

This is largely a one set movie, with the iron sub being it, with a few other sets for brief times. Which means we are relying a lot on the main actors performance... and Markiplier is fine! Should he be Markiplier, or Mark Fischbach? Well, the opening credits has the former, so that's what's presented, although the end credits are his full name.

But at two hours... damn, this is long. There are very long takes of Simon (the convict) just staring at horror at various things, or waiting for things to happen or... just not doing very much. He reacts well, but time crawls during these segments.

There is also a feeling of there is lore we are expected to know. Yes, this is based on the game, and I've seen some Let's Plays, and in general you get the idea of "something bad happened and now this is one way people are surviving", but... there are lots of elements and names and items that feel like we are supposed to know more about what is going on, which I wasn't getting. I'm sure there are also nods to the game in the form of easter eggs... but again I wasn't getting them either.

This feels more like a personal passion project than a general movie. It's done well, as Markiplier is very popular, but I can't say this works in and of itself.

[END]

Read more!

S7c7r7a7m

Sure, why not get more money for more films?

We start with a kill that could mean "we're done with the past of this franchise"... but nope, back with Sidney in the next scene, so nostalgia we are. And it's all about Sidney's daughter and her friends, with definite connections to Sidney despite trying to have new character (every five minutes, someone should be asking "where's Sidney?") Ghsotface continues to get away with a lot, but it's better to be lucky than be good (and Ghostface is INCREDIBLY lucky.) But since everyone is meta in these movies now, events never end. ...oh wait a second, is this about how AI is also a killer...? no, can't do that, gotta inflate that bubble!

Wow, not only do we get a lot of previous cast back, we get the collection of popular young actors filling out more roles... wait, didn't we do that in 6? Or what it 5? Kevin Williamson is back, and he is retreading the well plumbed ... uh ... well.

They are being far more realistic with the gore, with people not dying with a simple stab wound to the general body area... but that doesn't make this better. This is not the series to get serious about that.

This is all about creating the next generation... without ever letting go of the previous one...

At the very least... we have Joel McHale in this, so it's not entirely terrible...

[END]

Read more!

Phonopolis!

I love the developer Amanita Design, I have all their games, and their latest is...

PHONOPOLIS!

In the city (polis) everyone is controlled by orders from loudspeakers (the Phono). Felix (not pronounced as you'd expect) finds a pair of headphones, and from that point onwards the loudspeakers have no sway over him. From there, it's on him to find his way to the top of the city, discover what has become of Rachel, and find and/or defeat the Absolute Tone.

AD is great for doing games that do not need any dialogue, and indeed their games generally don't have any text aside from the menus. From the first flash Samorost to the famous Machinarium, to the full puzzler Creaks, they are rely on visual understanding only.

And this game is a break from that. There's dialogue! There's story! People tell you things! Fortunately, the puzzles are still largely just working out what is going on, not needing to read anything, but it is quite the change.

I have now 100% the game (with a little help), and most of the achievements are just having fun with doing weird things with the machines/situations you play with, but some of them I just had no idea about.

Still, there are 16 AD games on Steam... and I have them all! ...although I don't have 100% of the cheevos of them... hmm....

[END]

Read more!

MIIRTAL KIIMBAT

Oh wow, this is... this is just bad.

Two warriors fought a long time ago, and now the descendent is in Mortal Kombat! No wait, that was the first movie.. and this one, although the descendant in this case is the daughter. But that's all right, we have a reluctant fighter in the form of Johnny Cage, who is in this movie. As is several others. And Cole was also there. But is this Katara's or Johnny's movie? Yes!

This is a dark movie. No, I don't mean emotionally, I mean someone should really turn the lights on. But if they did that, we'd be able to see the CGI better, and boy there is a LOT of CGI in this. It's like every fight has people rubber banding all over the place as the movie pretends something interesting is going on.

Frankly, I've got nothing much to say, because I watched this... and it was nothing!

[END]

Read more!

One Another After Battle

So there's this award winning comedy...

French 75 are a reasonable success revolutionary group that gets into compounds and frees people, with two of them hooking up, although one army dude has his eye on the woman. Cut to 16 years later, and the army guy is still after them, only now the woman is "dead" (ie she isn't) and the man is buzzed out of his mind, and his daughter gets taken by the army dude. The man struggles to remember how to operate in this world, and the army guy is just trying to get in with racists.

It's a "dark comedy" so no wonder I didn't smile once. Is this supposed to be old men's fantasy of a) a pregnant woman with a machine gun, and b) becoming a hero to rescue your daughter? 'cos that's certainly what the trailer was focusing on. I can't say anyone's performance blew me away, but I do like how some various come-uppances were subverted, but...

A nearly three hours, I can't say I saw the point of this movie.

[END]

Read more!

Shibuya kaidan

This is a wee duology of movies, so much so I could easily believe they were made at exactly the same time.

We start with The Locker, in which a group of college friends have a camping trip, and then strange things start happening to them... because of them also used a cursed locker! There was a discarded baby put into the locker, and now the baby is out for revenge on anyone that dares use it! There are six of them, and can you guess how many are alive by the end?

One of them was teaching a middle school student, who is whomst we follow in The Locker 2. She's warier of the locker, but others aren't, and so bad things continue to happen. We get one more line of lore (the baby was discarded 5 years ago) but otherwise this is just following more people and more deaths. Who will survive? Don't bet on it!

The same actors and locations, and being released in the same year, is what makes me think they were made at the same time, and given both are barely over 70 minutes, they really are a part 1 and part 2.

There is somewhat of a slow build, with enough strange things happening to keep you interested. There are a few weird death effects, but mainly people being pulled into nothingness (very Ju-on reminiscent).

A double feature if you want a full film, but ultimately nothing that impressive these days.

[END]

Read more!