Movie Review: The Babadook

When it comes to horror movies, I tend to be very particular about the genre. I can understand how something like the Saw movies are, in fact, horror, just a different kind of horror when compared to something like The Grudge or Friday the 13th. Horror movies comes in all sorts of flavors and it's important to take this into account when you watch them. Perhaps what isn't horrifying to you may be horrifying to others. In the end, it's always going to be about the terror that the film invokes on it's viewers, for better or for worse.

So what does this mean for the Indie horror film The Babadook? Well for one, it's not a traditional kind of horror movie in that the titular creature is the main focus of the movie. The Babadook does something that I haven't seen in a horror movie in a while, and that's tackling the concept of stress, insomnia, and built up tension within an individual. The results of these negative traits is the Babadook itself, but that can be explained later.

Like the movie, this image gives a sense of constant dread

Movie Review: Dracula Untold

Long before Twilight became a thing, Vampires were some of the coolest monsters that entertainment media could work with. What's not to like about a noble, bloodthirsty, undead creature of the night? On top of that, aren't their powers and abilities cool? Turning into bats at will, having super reflexes and senses, super strength, etc etc. Vampires were cool. Without a doubt though, the greatest vampire of them all is Dracula himself.

What makes Dracula so enduring is that he's appeared in tons and tons of different kinds of vampire related media. From Brahm Stokers Dracula, to Castlevania, to the Underworld series, Dracula has managed to best the test of time and remained a relevant character in entertainment. So with that in mind, what could you possibly add to a character that's been around for so many years? Universal Studios and Legendary Pictures believe that it's time to tell the origins story of this famed vampire with, of course, some creative twists.

For those not in the know, Dracula was inspired by the real life historical figure Vlad the Impaler, an actual prince of Transylvania who gained notoriety for using extremely vicious methods of torture on his enemies. Most famous of his methods, as his name implies, is impaling them on spikes around his territory. Of course, all of this was meant to be used as a brutal method of keeping invaders and foreigners out of his country. As such, Vlad the Impaler went down in history (to the Romanian people) as a hero and a beloved figure. To the others, he became a monster of the cruelest intentions. Perhaps that's why Dracula was birthed, to reflect the outside look of Vlad the Impaler, from the foreigners perspective.

Well, enough history for now, how did the film fare?

Movie Review: Kingsman: The Secret Service

If you're a fan of spy flicks, James Bond, undercover espionage, and crazy cool technology, Kingsman: The Secret Service might just be up your alley.

No? Well how about amazingly choreographed action sequences, tongue in cheek humour, and heart pumping soundtracks? Surely any one would enjoy watching a movie with these aspects.

Luckily for everyone, Kingsman: The Secret Service has something for everybody and boy does it deliver when it comes to pure entertainment.

Kingsman: The Secret Service is a film based on a graphic novel series of the same name. The story revolves around a troubled youth in London named Eggsy (Taron Egerton) and his acceptance into a training program to become a part of the Kingsman, a super secret association that's been working behind the scenes of history for over 200 years.

The Kingsman operate under code names inspired from the King Arthur legend, as such, we have Arthur sitting at the head (Michael Caine) with Merlin overseeing training and information (Mark Strong) with the incredibly suave, capable, super agents under names like Perciville, Lancelot, and Galahad (Colin Firth).

Comic Book Movies 101: The Marvel Civil War and Spiderman

Wow, what a time to be alive. We're finally going to get Star Wars Battlefront 3, Final Fantasy XV,  new Star Wars Trilogy, a Justice League film, and much more. And now the news has broken about Sony Pictures and Marvel working together to bring Spiderman to the Marvel Cinematic Universe! It's never been a better time to be a nerd ladies and gentlemen.

Now some of you may ask why this is a big deal. Wasn't Spiderman always a Marvel character? Why be excited for Spiderman being possibly rebooted? What role would he play in the MCU?
Luckily, I'm here to give you a quick run down of these questions to inform you of the inevitable, to educate you over the extraordinary and to accustom you to the amazing.

Movie Review: Jupiter Ascending

More like Jupiter ASScending. Ha-ha I'm so clever.

Every time I visit Malaysia, I always go out of my way to try and watch as many movies as I can, whether or not they're good or bad. Why? Movie tickets are extremely cheap in Malaysia and there are plenty of options to choose from!

At any rate, I figured 'Hey, why not check out that new sci-fi flick by the Wachowski brothers? Jupiter Ascending was it? Oh boy, I bet it'll be TERRIBLE'.

Eddie Redmayne (WHO?) plays as the "villainous" Balem Abrasax. The only thing scary about him is his terrible acting. Well, that and his 'menacing' voice.

I mean, remember the Wachowski brothers? They brought us The Matrix trilogy. Not the best trilogy, but the first movie was pretty fantastic, so how bad can a new sci-fi movie from them be?

Well dear reader, it can be PAINFULLY mediocre. Now there's not a lot of hype behind this movie, and that's understandable, the only trailer I saw made it seem like a pretty decent sci-fi movie with great spaceship designs and space spectacles to behold...but as soon as the dialogue was shown off, dear god, I wanted to cut my ears off. With that being said, I don't expect many people to actually read this review, but hey, it doesn't hurt to try right?

Anyway, enough rambling, let's get onto the movie.

My 10 most hyped games of 2015

IT'S THAT TIME AGAIN LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!

A new year has already been ushered into our lives and you know what that means!

YES! MORE GAMES!

There's so many amazing titles set to release in 2015 that I have no idea where to start. Seriously, there's just SO many across all platforms! But I've given it plenty of thought over the past month and have come up with a list of games that I am most excited about.

Below will be my list in order of hype levels. I'll post some images and trailers to help you folks with short attention spans just glide through this article.

And for funsies, I'm going to rate my hype levels for each game from 1 to 10. 10 being my hype levels when I first watched the entirety of Gurren Lagann (spoilers: it was pretty fucking hype).

Without further adieu, here is my top 10 most hyped video games for 2015!

HERE WE GOOOOOO!!!!

Linearity and Open World Mechanics: The Good and The Bad

Video games are great, no question about it. In this single medium, millions have found entertainment in all sorts of genres with a variety of different types of game play, rewards, modes, worlds, and so much more. It's no hyperbole when I say that video games is my all time favourite form of entertainment.

As such, I've been following gaming for years and years. I started gaming around the Playstation/Nintendo 64 era. Having my hands on the my very first console was an exhilarating experience that would eventually shape me into the person I am today;

A giant fucking nerd.

However, while I've only started my gaming relatively late in comparison to others who may have had the chance to play on the NES, Commodore 64 or even the Atari consoles, I believe I have just as much say in the topic as anyone else who enjoys the medium.

Video games are (at least I find) to be a touchy subject to some people, where friendly discussions about your favourite game may lead to an angry debate over fanboyish claims, unfounded criticisms and generally ignorant opinions. 

One of these topics that I see get thrown around on the internet, or otherwise, is the debate over linear games and open world games. Many times when a game is being previewed, you see people spitting at it for being 'too linear' with no sense of exploration. For some reason, to many people, an open world game is better by far, and I can't see why that may be. 

Over the years, I've had plenty of time with games that were linear, and most of them are arguably some of my favourites of all time, such as Persona 4 and Metal Gear Solid 3. I've also put plenty of time into open world games such as those in the Grand Theft Auto franchise and the Elder Scrolls series. While I can see why people seem to see linearity as a negative for gaming, I don't think that it's a very well thought out point of view, nor is it a legitimate criticism of a game at all. 

I mean, really, when a game is linear and when a game is open world....does it really matter at all?