Forums > Contributor Zone > ROTW Oct 25-31: -10 more days till Halloween, Silver Shamrock!

How fitting that 1) I should do the Halloween edition of ROTW, and 2) it should be so late that it doesn't feel like a Halloween edition.

Last month, I watched a boatload of horror movies that I'm not going to mention here because I tweeted about every single one of them. Most of them were batshit '80s flicks or pre-'80s junk. I did, however, catch some more modern stuff and the first four Alien movies. Until then, I hadn't seen Alien: Resurrection. What is it with that subtitle? Alien: Resurrection. Halloween: Resurrection. It's like that any movie with "Resurrection" in the title is doomed to be horrible.

Best Movie Watched: Aliens
Worst: Alien: Resurrection
Weirdest: Nightmare Weekend
Most Poorly Aged: Pitch Black
Most Forgettable: Tie between Ma and The Skeleton Key

However, since October I have watched a handful of things:

Scream 1-3: I finally worked up the nerve to watch 3 after being so disappointed with 2. It's weird and also unnecessary, but a marginally more fun than 2.

Under the Skin: Scarlet Johansson plays an alien disguised as a human who seduces men in Glasgow and does something awfully surreal to them. It's a decent, albeit kind of pretentious movie with a bit of a downbeat, soul-searching vibe.

Re-Animator and Bride of Re-Animator: I never saw the second one until yesterday. It's less crazy than its predecessor, but at least still strange and entertaining in its own right.

Willow Creek: Bobcat Goldthwait directed a found-footage bigfoot movie where you never see bigfoot, but scary stuff still happens. Part of me is disappointed you never see the creature, but part of me is also relieved because a shoddy-looking sasqatch easily would've ruined that film.

Deadly Manor: Seven twenty-somethings break into an old mansion while on a road trip, only to get picked off by a masked assailant. A kind of tame slasher that had a lot of potential, but wasted it. This is one of those movies that would benefit from a remake, especially from someone who can balance theme-driven narrative and slasher-style mayhem.

Anyway...

Pickhut - Hope
A hallmark of a good review is if it can convince someone to play or avoid it despite its rating. Though you gave this game a middling rank, you described it clearly enough that I have wishlisted it. You give it due criticisms, but also support it strengths appropriately. Only one small thing crops up: search "taking placing."

Brian - Dead Space 2 ***THIRD***
I'm going to have to retry this game. I couldn't quite get into it when I played it a while back, but it wasn't necessarily a bad title. At times, it does feel like this game didn't quite get its due, and you kind of touch on that. You give solid reasons for appreciating it, as well as congratulating it for being a well-made modern linear game. You remain focused on your thesis with strong supports without going into a tedious list format. Well done!

OD - FF Record Keeper ***SECOND***
Oh, this game... Your introduction is great because let's face it: playing a lot of the same stuff for ages feels like self-hatred. Just look at me and my propensity for buying and playing cheap horror games. So anyway, you know what's great about this review? The way it seems to flow in three phases or "movements." You talk very briefly about your early experiences with the game, then jump into a very efficient discussion about a time when playing actually felt rewarding, but then end the whole thing with a final act that basically said, "It wasn't all it was cracked up to be after all." You almost convinced me to download this game again. Ha! That's not happening.

EmP - Hellblade ***ROTW***
It was really hard to pick a winner between this and Rob's review, but this one just edged him out. This piece captures the game fantastically without over-sharing what the game has in store--which is quite a feat, because the game has a lot of wonderfully soul-shattering content in store. Yet, you manage to keep a tight lid on spoilers while absolutely capturing its essence succinctly, and that's no small feat at all.

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You ain't got the authority to declare 'happy birthday!'

The only thing my milkshake brings to the yard is a subpoena.

I warned you about Alien: Resurrection (though, I suspect, warnings about that ungodly film were not unique to me). It's not the worst film I've ever seen, but it is, by far, my most hated.

Thanks for the nod above some very fine reviews. Brian and I share some views on Dead Space 2, and its decent into EA-ness is heartrendingly fascinating. Also! Rob reviews a mobile game that doesn't fill me with dread and/or prominent mention of Unicornians. Which are a thing I struggle to forget to this day.

Hellblade's been on my must play list for ages, mainly thanks to really strong reviews from yourself and Fiddlesticks. Every Halloween month, I bookmark it as my main game, but it always seems to get nudged aside from a review code I've committed to, or a real time sponge project like the Resident Evil spree a few years back. More luck than judgment, but I got all the shit I needed to do in order this year, so this was the year I suffered. Looking forward to the next game which was confirmed over a year ago and not mentioned since.

For us. For them. For you.

Yikes! That was the opening paragraph too. Thanks for catching that mistake. Interesting that the review managed to make you wishlist it; hopefully you'll have a good experience if you ever get it.

Also, congrats to EmP on nabbing that RotW!

I head spaceshit noises.