Blog, Blog, Bloq

 Last month, I mentioned my interest in writing about Kazuki Hiraoka's manga, The Urban Legend Files. And within that time, TULF had ended. While this does make me sad, I'm happy with what I got. TULF was everything you could ask for in a Horror-Comedy based on Folklore. It was as informative as it was witty. So, this got me thinking about other series that ended within a similar number of chapters that I've read. Some good, some bad. With the big difference being execution and the willingness to end, or simply knowing that the end was near.  Take Hirohiko Araki's JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 1: Phantom Blood as an example of the good. A tight story about a British Man who just wanted his adopted brother to stop being evil and embrace the love of another. I know many people found Jonathan to be a bit boring, but I think his overwhelming compassion to save Dio from his self-inflicted destruction told a lot about his character. He's endearing, and by the end of t...

 Recently, I've been watching and reading some stuff that has ranged from bad to great. While I am leaning toward doing an eventual write-up on Kazuki Hiraoka's manga, The Urban Legend Files. Today's piece is going to be about the Taiwanese Horror-Comedy film, Dead Talents Society, that was directed by John Hsu. A movie that has instantly become one of my favorites. It's charming, it's melancholic, it's hilarious. Just a complete package of a film that has earned its critical acclaim. DTS makes me question whether people watched it when it came out, as it should've garnered way more awards. This movie deserves the world and then some. But why does DTS deserve so much? Obviously, there's a lot of angles to attack this idea from. Yet, the best one for me would be the character writing and performances. These key factors make the whole concept and execution work. Without them, DTS might've just been another film. But before I get to the crew of the Luck...

 Back at it again for another round of posting. For this piece I was deciding between talking about Capcom's Pragmata, or this Texas Chainsaw Massacre idea I had in my head, and Texas won. It's not because there's anything wrong with Pragmata, but I felt like this would be more interesting. Without further ado, let's talk about family once again.  In the last month or so, I had finally got around to watching Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III and Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation. Two flawed films that signaled the downward trend for the franchise. However, they weren't nearly as bad as the later films, in my opinion. Like, TCM III had bright spots with Ken Foree's performance as Benny, and Viggo Mortensen's Tex. While TCM: TNG had the "Pretty Lady" evolution with Leatherface (Played by Robert Jacks) and Tonie Perensky's Darla. But the overall products failed to match the rawness of the original TCM, or the evolution that T...

 This week has gotten me inspired to talk about one of my favorite directors. The one and only George A. Romero. While I have only watched a handful of his films, the mark on my taste and expectations exist because of people like him. While I can't wholly relate to the man and his era, I understand what he's putting down to an extent. The times are different, but all the same. Things may look like they have changed, yet they really haven't. And that's just one of the things that I came away with when I watched movies with the Romero name on the front.  In the same vein as Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Wes Craven's The Last House on the Left, and David Cronenberg's Shivers, Romero was able to look at the nature of man and pull out the ugliness along with its beauty. People are complex and need to be showcased as such in order to make an impact in the messaging being brought forth. So, the goal today is to talk about some of  the Romero films I h...

 Given my indecisiveness leading up to this week's post, I decided to look at influencing in movies. A pretty general topic that let's me jump around to different things and describe what works and what doesn't work from these influences. Whether that be wholesale ripping something off, or using another piece of media or news story as a springboard. This is about the pieces that shape a work. To ease into this topic, I am going to use A Nightmare on Elm Street as an example. The film was made in response to Wes Craven seeing the deaths of Hmong Refugees in the news. Seemingly random deaths that were most likely caused by the usage of chemical weapons. But the jumping off point for Craven wasn't the horrors of war, it was the hallucinations, and unwillingness to sleep that caught his attention. So, the film was born out of this fear of a boogeyman that haunts your dreams. Even the look of Freddy was based upon a random guy Craven saw when he was a child.  The core idea b...

 Recently, I decided to slowly go through Yoshikazu Takeuchi's Perfect Blue: Awaken From A Dream. It's a collection of three short stories from within the Perfect Blue universe. This was a funny way to describe this collection as the first two stories actually preceded the Perfect Blue tale, according to Takeuchi in the afterword. But if you're trying to sell your collection of Idol-themed Horror, it would make the most sense to tie them to the most popular one. A move that most likely resulted in the translation of these in the first place. So, what compelled me to read these stories was the fact that they pertained to Perfect Blue funnily enough. A true win for this marketing decision.  Yet, my takeaway at the end of it pertained more towards my love of this style of Horror, rather than the Perfect Blueness. When I talk about that Perfect Blueness, I mean the reality-bending nightmare aspect. The Wake Me From This Dream and Cry Your Tears stories do have similar ethereal ...

 The fast turn around of February means that I have less time to figure out what to talk about. But it just so happens that I do have something in mind. And that's Remakes in Media. This topic has become more and more prevalent in recent years as movies, games, and shows are recycled and redone. And to be clear, this is specifically about remaking, and not rebooting. But even the examples I have in mind skirt that line, so who really knows exactly. Regardless, while it's nice to get a shiny new coat paint on an old favorite. Sometimes I just feel tired looking at how the material gets treated. So, the goal for today is to talk about some media that I have engaged with and their remakes.  For some context, the reason I wanted to talk about remakes again revolved around the rejected Bloodborne Remake that the now defunct Bluepoint Games had pitched. Like, it fucking sucks that the studio got shutdown, but I can't understand wanting to remake a game like Bloodborne. If anythin...