Mini Movie Review - Wallace and Grommit and the Curse of the Were-Rabbit

 

 

Oh for goodness sakes! This one is super easy. It's Wallace and Gromit. You just need to watch it and enjoy the technological, cheesy hijinks and find out how Gromit saves the day. As usual. There is a chase scene in here that is pure gold. 

How can you work this in to gaming? Well, you could just adapt the whole shebang, because it's great fun. Or, you could have some fun giving your players something that's not as it seems. 

You can find the rest of my  movie selections for the month in this post. And if you want the daily themes suggested by Pun, go to his blog, Halls of the Nephilim. 

Mini Movie Review - Winchester

 

It was a name that drew me in on this one – Helen Mirren. I absolutely LOVE Helen Mirren. And let’s be honest, the entire concept of the Winchester House also brings out one’s curiosity.

Critics aside, this movie was a fun watch. It just over an hour and a half, so it’s a quick watch. A nice movie snack if you will. And its fun to watch Helen Mirren play what you think is a crazy old rich lady, who maybe isn’t so crazy.

I love how they utilized the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, which was devastating to the city. That was one of the few historically accurate bits of the movie. And there a very few. There were only 8 rooms when the home was purchased. And Sarah did set about adding to the property over time, but the construction wasn’t constant like the movie claims. Also, she did have controlling interest in the Winchester Company. She did lose both her husband and daughter prior to buying Llanada Estate (her name for the home), but it didn’t happen in the same year. And I think that’s about it for the historical accuracy. Oh, and the Union Army did use a little over 1600 Winchester rifles in the Civil War.

SarahWinchester was apparently not a superstitious person. She did not hold regular seances, if she held any at all. Nor, as far as we know, was she ever evaluated for her mental fitness. Many of the bits in the story about Sarah and her spirit house where inventions AFTER her death.

John Brown leased the house in the early 1920s and opened it as an attraction in 1923, six months after her death, and the rumors started. They’ve only increased over time as the house has become a bigger attraction. It’s good business to bill it as the Most Haunted House in America, regardless of the truth.

(Hey, I live in Athens County, Ohio, said to be one of the most haunted areas in America. And I hate to tell you, but nearly every one of those stories that make the rounds in TV specials this time of year are true. But that’s a blog post and a rant for another time.)

So, what’s the takeaway from the movie? Honestly, I really enjoyed it. It was a little predictable in a few places, but it was still a fun way to pass the time. And it even had me on the edge of my seat a few times. So, if you like haunted house stories and incredible ghost tales, check it out.

When it comes to gaming, this is another lesson in limiting the space your characters can explore. In this case, it’s a rambling maze of a house. And by the end of the movie, the characters are literally trapped in the house until a resolution is reached. It’s a great way to force them to act. Do the same at your table and sit back to enjoy the results. It works great in a horror setting but can also be used for any mystery or puzzle.  

That’s it for this one. I’m only about 8 movies behind still, but we’ll get there. You can check out my full calendar of selections in this post. And if you’d like to see what Pun’s themes for each day were – which I don’t always follow – you can find them on his blog, Halls of the Nephilim. 

Mini Movie Review - Alien (1979)

True story – I first played in an “Alien” taple top game before I ever watched the movie. And that was just about 4 years ago. We caught “Aliens” on TV back in high school, but I’d not seen the first of the movies. Coming out like it did in 1979, I would have been old enough to catch it at the theater. And it probably would have honestly given me nightmares at the time. But now? It’s one of my top 5 favorites.

That game of “Alien” got me hooked. Not only did I have to have the game, but I also needed to watch ALL of the movies. The first is still the best, although the second does give it a run for it’s money. After that you can save yourself some time and just read about them on IMDB or Wikipedia. If you do watch the next two, they aren’t bad. They’re just not necessarily good either. And do not get me started on the prequels. Someone should have just said no, but they were too busy looking at potential dollar signs. Seriously, the characters in “Prometheus” are all to stupid to survive, as I’m sure anyone with even a basic background in a lab or science classes would back up.

But I digress. Monday night’s movie was “Alien” from 1979. The basic starting premis is that the crew is in cybersleep on their way back from a run when a distress signal causes the computer, MU-TH-ER, wakes them. As part of their contract with Weyland-Yutani, the big corporation behind their recent run, they need to answer the distress call, even if it means they won’t make it back as early as they were going to. (That would have netted them a bonus.)

Of course, as most of you are reading this, it’s all a setup and what they instead wind up bringing onto their ship is the infamous xenomorph. I’m not going to give away anymore of the plot. Most of you reading this have probably already watched it. And if you haven’t, I don’t want to spoil anything. (And if you haven’t watched it, you really, really should.)

“Alien” is considered one of the classics for a reason. As has been said before, Ridley Scott essentially created a haunted house situation, only with a murderous alien instead of an actually ghost or poltergeist. And then, he put it in space, where they characters were well and truly trapped. It’s brilliant. And he then kept the pacing and the tension just where it needed to be. (“The Thing”, also on my schedule for this week, also keeps the pacing just right.)

The other brilliant move Scott made with this movie was to fight for the casting of Sigourney Weaver as the determined Warrant Office Ripley. The role wasn’t assigned a gender in the script but the producers wanted a man in the role. Scott thougth a woman would have more impact (he was right) and that Weaver had just the right look and mannerisms for the role. (He was right again.) This was a movie that helped make her career in film.

When it comes to a gaming connection with this one, it’s easy. You need to play the RPG. Having played the game before watching the movie, it was fun to sit there and figure out where some of the game settings and mechanics were influenced by the movie. And I just knew there had to be an andriod in there somewhere, but who was it?

If you’re not lucky enough to have the game, or know someone who does, then take the setting and work it into whatever game you are currently playing. It doesn’t have to even be in space. Just place the session somewhere truly isolated and remote, then toss some murderous entity into the mix. It’ll be fun!

If you want to follow along with my choices, you can check out my calendar in this post. There have been a few changes as I go along, but it’s mostly intact. And if you want to check out the suggested themes for each day, they are complments of Pun, over at Halls of Nephilim. 

 

Movie Review - Bone Tomahawk (2015)

 

I’ve been putting this one off, so let’s get it over with. Let me know if I succeeded in at least making the review entertaining to read. Oh, and there are a few spoilers hidden in here.

The name drew me in. A horror movie set in the late 19 century West that wasn’t a Native American slaughter fest. Oh, and it has Kurt Russell, looking very fine. The name is evocative of something faintly romantic. Interestingly enough, “Bone Tomahawk” is, at its core, a love story of sorts. What lengths would you go to, what hardships and challenges would you endure, to save the person you love? In the case of Arthur O’Dwyer, it would be quite a lot.

That said, this is NOT a good movie. It’s also not a BAD movie. It is an okay movie that’s problematic. And the more I think about it, the more problems I find. If this were a short story I was beta reading for a friend, my red ink pen would be out of ink.

Okay, let’s get into the plot. Bad men rob and murder a small group a few days outside of town (Bright Hope), trespass on forbidden land, and only one survives to make it into town. There he arouses the suspicions of the local “backup” deputy, gets himself shot and carted to jail. The next morning, he’s missing, along with the actual deputy and local woman who’d been tending his wound. Trigger the entrance of the movies token Native American (played by the incredible Zahn McClarnon) character, and the formation of a very small rescue party to go onto said forbidden territory – seriously, the actual Native tribes in the area avoid it because the cave dwellers (Troglodytes) there are so murderous (and cannibalistic) that they know better.

And for the next hour and a half you get four white dudes wandering around in the dessert scrub breathing heavily. (There is a very sparse score for this thing.) Their horses are stolen just a couple of days out by some Mexican bandits, so they decide to continue on foot. Oh, and I forgot to mention that Mrs. O’Dwyer’s husband is in the rescue group? With a broken and splinted tibia? Yep. I think that’s where most of the horror is in this movie, as anyone ever on a pair of crutches can attest to. And he’s only got ONE.

The husband gets into an altercation with one of the other rescuers and compounds his broken leg, so he’s left behind. The others go on and, of course, get caught. By this point we’re now down 2 rescuers – one is killed by the Trogs – and two cannibals. The sheriff and his backup deputy are tossed in a cage up in a cave up on the hillside, where they find the wife and the actual deputy, who dies shortly thereafter in a VERY graphic and gruesome manner and is eaten by the Trogs.

The very lame, yet determined, husband saves the day. Although they do lose the sheriff. They do not show them getting back to town, probably because there is no way they’d make it without provisions or horses. And even then, he was probably going to lose that leg, at the very least. It says something right there about the movie – those were my final thoughts about things.

 One of the most obvious problems is the pacing. It starts at a good pace. And then it slows down. I mean, there are so many shots of them riding, then walking, through the scrub, stopping to refill their canteens, looking concerned about O'Dwyer’s broken leg, and bedding down for the night. When they are on foot, shots of them going up and down hills are added in. I think it’s partly to show how much discomfort and pain O'Dwyer is in, and yet he continues. I’d like to think there’s a reason for it other than just dragging the movie out to fill time.

And you would think that it would be building towards the big climax and the final encounter with the Troglodytes. But nope. The ending moves at about the same pace, only now we can at least enjoy how clever O'Dwyer is as he looks at the evidence of what maybe happened around him and then thinks it through. He’s also the one to note something that looks like jewelry implanted in the throat the Trog he first kills. That proves rather crucial to his survival overall, but so does his taking a few moments to plan and not just charging in like the others have done. But, while this makes me appreciate his character a little more, it still does nothing to wake me up and make me sit on the edge of my seat in anticipation. Nothing in this movie manages that.

Another problem I picked up early on is, well, the Indian problem. The movie does use the term Indian, which would be in keeping with terminology for the 1890s, so that didn’t really bother me too much. (It might some folks who are of Native American descent, but as far as I know, I don’t fit into that category. Nor can I speak for everyone, even if I wanted to. I sadly only remember ONE Native American in the entire movie – The Professor, or Tall Trees, towards the very beginning of the movie. The Professor must be nickname for our lone Native American, although he’s presented as cultured and learned. I suspect that’s more of a nod to modern sensibilities. *One member of the rescue party is a known “Indian Hunter” and boasts of how many he’s killed – including women and children. He gets called out on it by the rest of the rescue party, but his reasoning is that Native Americans killed his mother and sisters, so it’s all justified. The others just seem to nod or shrug, and they move on.) The Professor points out that his people don’t recognize the Trogs as Native, but the people he’s talking to will, because we lump them all together. And that’s pretty much how it goes.

The movie also makes broad use of stereotyped characters, but the quality of the acting, and the actors, helps mitigate some of my frustration over it. Regardless of whatever else I think about this movie, the acting is excellent. So is cinematography. It’s another beautiful movie to watch. Id’ say those are the plusses.

More negatives: the Trogs are wiped out, but at a high cost. Only half of the rescue party makes it out, and with only half of the captives they went to rescue. And the Trogs did have to “blind crippled pregnant women” as part of their group. Those women are just left there – they are neither harmed nor killed by the rescuers. So, in the end, it was all to save one white woman, upon whom I’m sure the irony isn’t lost as she is the only one who seems to have any sympathy for the Trog women.

Some point out that the movie’s message is about how generally bad decision making and stupid actions cost more lives on the frontier than anything else. I’d say that’s true, but it doesn’t excuse the sloppy storytelling. I mean, true, they had no idea what was happening to Mrs. Dwyer, but it would have made so much more sense to gather a properly-sized group of people to go deal with the Trogs. And yes, eradication would not have been a bad thing, given their viscousness. They killed White, Hispanic, and Native alike.

I’m still not sure how the Trogs survived long enough to even be known. Seriously, 12 men and only 2 women, who need at least a minimum of tending to since they’d been crippled. This is not a group of people looking at long-term survival as an ongoing concern. Also, they apparently had a fire, but didn’t bother to cook their food – including the deputy.

There are plenty of other problems, but I’m going to stop here before this gets much longer. Seriously, given the talent and the germ of the story idea, I expected so much more. It would have been nice to see more Native American involvement with the rescue, even if it was to swoop in at the end and help the survivors get back to town.

I feel like some said how about a movie with a tribe of cannibals, but we set it in the American West? And someone else said F’yeah, let’s do it! And then either no one read the story looking for obvious gaps in information, or it got lost on the cutting room floor. Perhaps the reason Mrs. O’Dywer is a backup doctor in town fell to the film editor in exchange for 15 seconds of men wandering around in the scrub. We’ll never know. But it would have been a much better movie if someone had asked a few more questions about what was going on…and why. And as glorious as Kurt Russell is, 90 minutes plus of him wandering around in West for 45 minutes is too long.

From a gaming perspective, there are a several Western and Weird West settings out there for various systems. And let’s be honest, at least in our home games, political correctness doesn’t always come into it if it interferes with our fun. And that’s fine as long as no one gets offended at the table. Part of the fun of gaming is trying on different hats and types of roles. So go ahead, add in a quest to rescue someone or something from a tribe of overly violent, murderous cannibals in some caves in the desert. Have at. Just please don’t let me know you made the definitely Native American without a really good reason. Figure out a way to turn the tried, cliched trope on it's head. Oh, and don’t have your characters spend that much time on travel. We all know there’s no need unless there are some serious encounters happening. Otherwise, your plays will all be asleep on their dice.

If I were awarding stars for this, I’d give it 3 out of 5, but one of those stars would be just for Kurt Russell’s hair. Sorry.

If you’d like to see what other movies I’ve got on my schedule this month, check out my post here. And if you’d like to play along, check out Pun’s blog, Halls of the Nephilim, for his daily theme suggestions.  

 

Mini-Movie Review - Bubba Ho-Tep (2002)

This…..is not a good movie. But it’s a really fun movie that every horror fan should watch at least once. So should every fan of Bruce Campbell. The story itself is from a short story by the incomparable Joe R. Lansdale.

Here’s the gist, and it’s a doozy: Campbell plays none other than Elvis. Yep, the man himself. Only it’s Elvis pretending to be an Elvis impersonator. See, Elvis got tired of the regular grind of celebrity and fame. So, he traded places with the best Elvis impersonator out there. You’ll have to watch the movie to get the entire hilarious story. Including how he wound up in the Shady Rest Retirement Home.

Elvis is aided, or maybe encouraged, by his best buddy at the home, Jack, aka Jack Kennedy. The President has been the victim of some sort of government conspiracy that has gone so far as to dye his skin black and stick him in a retirement home. Other than the craziness of his claims, Jack is very cultured, well read, and intelligent.

And then, there’s the mummy, who wants to feed on the souls of the residents so he can gain his full powers back and rejoin the land of the living. There are a few other equally wonderful characters as well, but it comes down to Elvis and Jack to figure out what’s happening and put a stop to it.

Seriously, this is a wonderfully funny movie. Watching Campbell clomping around with the aid of a walker while fighting a mummy is something that needs to be seen to be fully appreciated. The acting is spot on. The movie was, I think, done on film, so it has an almost grainy quality to it that suits the dingy setting of the nursing home. And you can tell that everyone was having fun during the filming.

Gaming wise, this would be good for any fun horror setting. Or you could take out the humor – leave that for your players – and just keep the setting. Having a mummy lurking around draining patients of their energy and souls would lead to a very dark adventure. Call of Cthulhu comes to mind, because I run it so much, but I think there are some Bloat Games that would lend themselves to this treatment as well. And with a few more tweaks you could even take it to a fantasy setting. Although you might want to rethink the mummy and use something more appropriate for your setting. Heck, this could be a truly horrific Vaesen setting, now that I think about it. Because, honestly, the setting would be great for several different types of scenarios and adventures.

If you’d like to see what other movies I’ve got on my schedule this month, check out my post here. And if you’d like to play along, check out Pun’s blog, Halls of the Nephilim, for his daily theme suggestions.  

 

Mini-Movie Review - Tucker and Dale vs. Evil (2010)

 

Tonight was supposed to be “The Lost Boys”, which had been streaming on Pluto. Apparently that ended at the beginning of the month. *sigh* What to do? While poking around for another movie to watch in its place, “Tucker and Dale vs. Evil” popped up in the feed. This movie had been mentioned to me so many times in the last few days. On the surface, it is very much not my kind of movie. But we gave it a shot and I am so glad.

On top of not really liking tons of blood and gore being tossed about just for the sake of doing so, especially while trying to pretend to be oh-so-serious, I also don’t enjoy watching long held stereotypes about groups of people being trotted out for the sake of a plot line. Ah, but this is where “Tucker and Dale” is so different. It’s a parody of college-kids-running-around-in-the-woods-being-picked-off movie tropes. And boy does it turn the genre on its bigoted little head.

The movie is funny, ridiculous, bloody, and absolutely wonderful. I’m not going to give away too much, but the basic premise is a group of college kids heading to the Appalachian hills of West Virginia for a school break. On the way, they stop at one of the scariest looking gas stations I’ve ever seen – and I live a stone’s throw from West Virginia – where they encounter a couple of good ol’ buddy hillbillies – Tucker and Dale. They’re on their way to Tucker’s new vacation home, where they’re going to have a working weekend fixing the place up.

The vacation home is a little better than a ramshackle shack, by the way, which only adds to the humor. A couple of outdoorsy, unmarried, country guys like Tucker and Dale might well think it’s the best thing ever. But I digress a little. It turns out that our college kids are camping nearby, possibly on Tucker’s property. The movie is never entirely clear on that, but it’s not important overall.

One of the college contingents, who turns out to be a farm girl, gets rescued by the well-meaning duo after a fall into the pond where her friends are swimming. And it the action goes quickly to over the top as her friends decide she’s been kidnapped and are determined to rescue her from the vile, murderous hillbillies. The kids then proceed to run all over the place during the course of the movie and inevitably start dying in all kinds of gruesome ways.

It really is great fun, even with a high body count. There’s a fun little twist at the end, other than the realization that our hillbillies aren’t quite as dumb as everyone wants to think they are. That’s apparently early on. They might be a little clueless to the overall scheme of what’s happening, but they’re also danged smart in their own way. 

HIGH recommended. This movie is now on my favorites list and will definitely be rewatched over time. West Virginia is all too often the butt of cultural stereotypes, but not this time. And it was a delight to watch. I’d be surprised if there weren’t sociology papers written on this movie. It certainly lends itself to academic study.

I’m honestly not sure what the gaming connection here could be. Bloat Games has a string of Survive This! Settings where it might fit. I feel like the tone is there, but I’m not familiar with Eric’s games enough to say for sure. (Sorry, Eric. I’ll work on that!)

If you want to run a scary, yet humorous Call of Cthulhu game, this might work. I mean, any desolate woods anywhere would work – the setting of West Virginia only helped with the hillbilly characters, but if you take the game back in time to the Classic era of the 1920s, you could work in any isolated country setting even in New England. Goodness knows Lovecraft wrote that stereotype often enough with stories set in Massachusetts, Vermont, or Connecticut.

Check out the rest of my choices in this post. And if you want to make your own list and play along, you can find Pun’s theme suggestions here in The Halls of Nephilim.

Mini Movie Review - Tales of Terror (1962)

 Friday night’s selection called for some classic fun, in the form of an Anthology-themed entry called Tales of Terror. From 1962, it stars Vincent Price (that voice!) in three short works inspired by the short stories of Edgar Allen Poe. Apparently, the director, Roger Corman, made a series of such movies. And with a screenplay written by Richard Matheson (The Hunger anyone?) it was bound to be good.

The movie unfolds like a series of short plays, which would normally drive me nuts in a movie even this old. However, it totally works for this movie. Each one had very few sets and sparse casts. The middle one, The Black Cat, easily had the biggest cast, thanks to a scene with of a wine merchants convention.

So, let’s take a slightly closer look, shall we? The first movie, “Morella”, tells the tale of a daughter come home to the family estate, which is much in disrepair. Lenora has essentially never seen her father. He sent her away when she was just a baby, days old, after her mother died, accusing the baby of having killed her. Father and daughter actually start to reconcile, when Morella decides to have her revenge.

There wasn’t much to this one and it actually bored me just a little bit, but I love how expressive Price’s eyes can be. However, the danged thing is so short that it left me with several questions and few answers. Nevertheless, it was still better than Devil from Thursday night.

And so, we continued on to short story number two. This was a combination of Poe’s “The Black Cat” and the very chilling “Cask of Amontillado”. Peter Lorre took the starring role in this one, although Price still has a key role. And my goodness how talented Mr. Lorre is! Even if you only watch one short in this anthology, it is worth the time to track down and watch this middle one! Lorre and Price and amazing actors on their own, but when you put them together you have magic.

The final movie is “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” once again starring Vincent Price and based on a short story of the same name. It’s not one of his short stories that I’m familiar with, but I need to look it up now. M. Valdemar is dying of some sort of brain issue. This is a Poe story that I’m not at all familiar with, but that I also now want to dig up and read. No less than Sherlock Holmes himself (Basil Rathbone) plays a mesmerist helping a wealthy patient deal with the increasing pain from his impending death (Vincent Price). Mr. Valdemar has promised Mr. Carmichael that he can hypnotize him as he lies dying to discover if the moment of death can be prolonged via mesmerism.

Valdemar dies while in such a state, but his soul doesn’t leave his dead body and he remains trapped until Carmichael sees fit to release him. And Carmichael has his own plans. It’s a very neat concept that plays out with a sense of dread and horror – how long will the agonized Valdemar lie there before getting his final peace? And what will it take for Carmichael to finally relent and release his subject?

All in all, these were fun. I thought The Black Cat did drag a little in the middle, but not too much. And it might be my first Roger Corman film. I’m trying to remember. Regardless, I recommend this little anthology film for when you’re in the mood for something truly old school, but maybe not so old school that it predates color films! No gore, really, but lots left to the imagination.

As for a gaming connection, “Morella” could easily be adapted to a variety of game systems, but I see it best in a fantasy setting, such as Pathfinder or that other d20 fantasy system everyone is crazy about. Make it a curse of some sort, or perhaps Morella could be a lich. There are several possibilities.

“The Black Cat” is a bit harder if you’re intent on rescuing the victims. I’d suggest sticking to more of the “Cask of Amontillado” and having the investigators look into the winetasters disappearance. Add in some mythos elements and you’ve got a winner on your hands.

“The Facts in The Case of M. Valdemar” could be used similarly. Have him disappear. It may be known that he was near death, but there’s been no mention of him actually dying. Have your players investigate what is really going on. Toss in mesmerism as well as some Mythos activity of some sort – Yithians maybe? – and give them a good scare!

We’re almost at the end of the first week! Tomorrow’s selection, “Lost Boys” turned out to no longer be available on Pluto, dang it. You’ll have to continue checking out my blog posts to see what we watched instead. (Fortunately, I can get “The Lost Boys” from the local library, so all is not lost. It’ll just be postponed a wee bit.)

Check out the rest of my challenge choices here. And if you’d like to play along yourself, you can find Pun’s daily theme suggestions on his blog, Halls of the Niphilim.