Category Archives: Sequels

The Myth. The Legend. The Evil…. “Leatherface” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on


Texas 1955 – the pride of the Sawyer family was not their tattered farm, but a bloodline taste for something else – callous murder and a penchant for human flesh. Verna Sawyer sought to instill that pride into her children, especially her youngest, Jed, but when Hal Hartman, hard nose local Sheriff, learns that his daughter becomes victim of the Sawyer’s suspect nefarious carnage, he executes the law to his advantage, deeming the Sawyer house unfit for children and removes Jed from his labeled degenerate mother Verna. Ten years later, a group of teenage patients escape a mental hospital, kidnap a young nurse, and reek bloody havoc in their voyage to Mexico in an attempt to elude the very same lawman who put them away, but this time, Hartman isn’t adhering to the law, straying off his moral compass to pursue a vengeance mission against unprincipled youth that’s personally driven by Jed and the Sawyer family. Once the embattled Hartman catches up with his prey, a series of gruesome events lead to the creation and the construction of one of the most notorious killers Texas will ever see.

I love a good origin story. There’s something to be said about understanding the commencement of character, to be in the shoes of a long running icon, and to be able to sympathize with their story no matter how atrocious. Directors Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury’s 2017 “Leatherface” does just that with the film’s own origin enlightenment on how the chainsaw wielding, human skin mask wearing psychopath came to fruition inside a home of unspeakable brutality and influenced externally by a unforgiving society. From a script penned by Seth M. Sherwood, “Leatherface,” serving as a direct prequel to Tobe Hooper’s “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre,” briefly touches upon the preteen years to setup the catalytic road trip from hell, birthing a monster in a time of adolescence and if part of a legacy spanning over forty decades inspired by Ed Gein, the real life human skin wearing and notorious serial killer, then you damn well know “Leatherface” has to be genetically predisposed to be ultra-violent drenched in blood splatter. The French filmmaking duo, who’ve helmed 2007’s “Inside” and had directed the “Xylophone” segment in “The ABCs of Death 2,” nail the dark and gritty tone that not only breathes a gassy and exhaust fumed life into a massive flesh-ripping chainsaw, but also inflicts heartlessness across the story board into a heartfelt homage to the characters and to the story fathered by Kim Henkel and the late Tobe Hooper, both of whom were attached as executive producers.

Over the years, many actors have held the mammoth power-drive cutting tool in their hand that’s ready to chip away at flesh such as Andrew Bryniarski (“The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” 2003 remake), Bill Johnson (“The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2”) and, most famously, Gunnar Hansen, the original Leatherface. However, I’m not going to divulge who the pubescent Leatherface is in the story because the film plays out as a who out of the group of degenerate teens is the son of Verna Sawyer, even though you can easily obtain the information in a simple click and search on Google. Instead, Sam Strike, James Bloor, and Sam Coleman portray the three escapees who are accompanied by an equally insane sociopath in Jessica Madsen and an eagerly novice kidnapped nurse by Vanessa Grasse. Amongst a sea of English actors are a pair of vets to shepherd the young cast and be the embattled bookends to the dawn of an icon. Lili Taylor (“The Haunting”) and Stephen Dorff (“Blade”) face off as Leatherface’s mother, Verna Sawyer, who butts horns with a longstanding sheriff, Hal Hartman, with a steadfast vendetta against the Sawyer family. Christopher Adamson (“Razor Blade Smile”), Nathan Cooper (“Day of the Dead: Bloodline”), and Finn Jones (“Wrong Turn 5: Bloodlines”) co-star.

Usually with a pair of directors, two different styles spawn to an end result. With Bustillo and Maury, styles merge into a seamless effort of elegant wonders. Each shot emerges a purpose to the story whether it’s painting an image of the Sawyer’s death house to pulling a one-eighty with characters, the filmmakers ability to combine each element into a single story, that has such a close knit cult following, and still manage to cinematically pull off the atmosphere, the grit, and the gory carnage of a Texas Chain Saw Massacre film is impressive. Cinematographer Antoine Sainer, whose worked previously with the directing duo on the “The ABCs of Death 2’s” segment “X,” has the ever so poised eye that’s able to well-round and solidify Leatherface’s terror tenor, particular exampled in a foot chase scene through a moonlit forest, smoke bellowing out of a growling chainsaw, and a tattered young girl bawling, screaming, and fleeing for her life from a deranged masked killer whose huffing, snarling, and growling during the pursuit.

Lionsgate Home Entertainment presents the Millennium Films produced “Leatherface” onto Blu-ray + Ultra-violet combo disc, a MPEG-4 AVC encoded disc with a 1080p resolution and presented in a widescreen, 2.38:1, aspect ratio that displays the Bulgaria landscape in a yellowish-brown, Texas-like backdrop. Details are noticeably fine that exquisitely reveal the death and destruction of the Sawyers and those who unfortunately surround the family. The English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track evenly distributes and consistently a range of engrossing fidelity, ambient, and dialogue layers. Bonus material includes a play feature with an alternate ending that’s less superior in contrast to the final product, deleted scenes, and a behind-the-scenes making of that includes brief interviews with directors Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury, actors Sam Strike, Stephen Dorff, Lili Taylor, and others, and goes behind the scenes in creating the tone and style of “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” while implementing their own vision. “Leatherface” forces the unsavory and unpleasant down the throats of TCM fans, jamming an attempt to exposition a futile chance to a destined maniac of cannibalistic proportions and manages to mix up the Tobe Hooper’s weathered franchise with a barbaric bruiser of a tale.

“Leatherface” on Blu-ray! Buy it here, today!

Jigsaw (aka Saw 8) trailer is here!

Posted by Steven Lewis on


The trailer for this year’s Jigsaw (Saw 8) has arrived online! The San Diego Comic Con red band trailer promises to bring back the grisly games, the blood, and the terror. You can’t have Halloween without the Jigsaw Killer as the two of synonymous and expect Jigsaw, who was sorely missed over these passed few years, to ramp up his games this October 27th!

SYNOPSIS

One of the highest grossing Horror franchises of all time is back, taking the Jigsaw killer’s signature brand of twisted scenarios to the next level.

Cast: Matt Passmore, Callum Keith Rennie, Clé Bennett, Hannah Emily Anderson, Laura Vandervoort (“Bitten”), Mandela Van Peebles, Paul Braunstein, Brittany Allen, Josiah Black

Directed by: The Spierig Brothers (“Undead” and “Daybreakers”)
Written by: Josh Stolberg & Peter Goldfinger
Produced by: Oren Koules, Mark Burg, Greg Hoffman

A Lionsgate release, Twisted Pictures presents, a Burg/Koules/Hoffman production.

”The only way out is in.” The Evil Within 2 announced.

Posted by EvilGamer on

2017-06-12_1450

Well E3 has definitely started off great. I was already excited after watching the awesome Xbox conference, that I thought to myself how can this get any better? Well Bethesda came out and made my night even better with the announcement to ”The Evil Within 2.”

”The Evil Within 2” takes place 3 years after the first game. Players reprise the role of Detective Sebastian Castellanos as he must go back into STEM to rescue his daughter, who he thought had died years ago.

”The Evil Within 2” will be released on Octobar 13th, 2017 for Xbox One, Playstation 4, and PC.

Colleen and Colleen Versus the Evil Bratzis! “Yoga Hosers” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on


Colleen Collette and Colleen McKenzie are best friends. They’re also two superficial 15-year-old girls who are nose deep into their social media campaigning cell phones, jamming in their girl punk band Glamthrax, and living by the unorthodox, yet namaste driven, yoga practices while exasperatingly working at one of girl’s father’s convenient stores called “Eh-2-Zed.” Set in the Great White North of Canada, the Winnipeg, Manitoba sophomores are surprisingly invited to a senior party, a lure by a popular, good-looking senior boy who has a darker, Satanic side to him. The Colleen girls’ run in with a murderous devil worshipping senior inadvertently opens another hidden danger lurking 37 feet beneath their “Eh-2-Zed” soles. A slumbering Nazi mad scientists has been awoken and aims to finish his Third Reich master plan to take over Canada with a cloned army of Bratzis, living Bratwurst sausages who are pint-sizes Nazis, and seeks to unleash evil upon the Manitoba Earth.

Kevin Smith’s latest pop-cultural flick, a comedy-horror feature, entitled “Yoga Hosers” is the second installment, following 2014’s film “Tusk”, in Smith’s horror-inspired trilogy known as The True North Trilogy. Did you noticed I labeled “Yoga Hosers” as a comedy-horror instead of a horror-comedy? The “Mallrats” and “Clerks” director basks more in the familiarity of witty, profane humor in this second of three films, but Kevin Smith has known to dapple, gradually stepping over to the dark side into horror with his radical religious sect piece “Red State” and, like aforementioned, the body-horror “Tusk.” The Jersey native also has an occasional appearance on AMC’s “The Talking Dead,” a talk show about “The Walking Dead’s” post-premier of each episode, and has meddled in the realm of the fantastic. Not only is Smith a strong advocate and sincerely passionate comic book enthusiast, coinciding with his own AMC show “The Comic Book Men,” but “Dogma,” starring the late Alan Rickman, delivers divine revelations and, now, with “Yoga Hosers,” a villainous Nazi clones miniature Bratwurst soldiers. Smith holds, in my opinion, one of the most extremely diverse bodies of work in our lifetime.

Where as “Tusk” goes gritty and gory with R rated horror-comedy, Smith’s intentions for “Yoga Hosers” has always leaned toward that of PG-13 and, maybe, that’s due in part of the two films’ minoring connection. The connection, presumably set in the same whacked out alternate universe, stem from the two Colleens, one played by Smith’s hysterically funny daughter, Harley Quinn Smith, and the other being Harley’s longtime, kindergarden friend Lily-Rose Depp. Yes, the daughter of mega star Johnny Depp and French singer Vanessa Paradis brings her inherited talent and French dialect to one-half of a buddy comedy. The 15-year old girls, who are also 15-year old in character, transfer their natural offscreen relationship into being an entitled millennial pair with every intent on neglecting responsibility until faced with the moment of truth. Teamed up well with Lily-Rose’s father, Johnny Depp, under the heavy makeup of a fictional French manhunter named Guy Lapointe, also from “Tusk,” with scene-to-scene rotating facial mole, the crime fighting, buddy trio awkwardly moves across the plain in an enjoyable double entendre performance of simple wit. Accompanying Depp, Smith, and Depp are an eclectic roster of Kevin Smith’s usuals such as Justin Long (“Tusk,” “Jeepers Creepers”) as a reality-severed Yoga instructor named Yogi Bayer, Jason Mewes (“Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back”) in a bit part, and, of course, Kevin Smith himself as the devilish Bratzis. New faces also make the scene with an unrecognizable Haley Joel Osment (“Sixth Sense”) as a young Canadian Nazi and “Orange is the New Black” Natasha Lyonne portraying a slutty Eh-2-Zed manager who sleeps her way to the top with Colleen C’s father, “Veep’s” Tony Hale.

“Yoga Hosers” explodes with Canadian farce that’s laced heavily with jokes on ‘aboots,’ hockey jersey-wearing patrons, an alternate version of Lucky Charms called Pucky Charms, and many more stereotypical references that satirically poke a good humored finger at Canadian culture and pop-culture. To top this satire sundae, the smug Colleens define the very title of the film with their dimwitted sludge and white girl yoga written into every storyboard moment. “Yoga Hosers'” buddy film concept gives an opportunity to two young and clueless teen girls who genre pirate the story with a jalopy of unsystematic plot humor, sucking away and discarding like garbage the sole ounce of blended “Gremlins” and “Puppet Master” cavalier subgenre horror that’s comfortably pleasant and inarguable right for a fun film of this triviality. Though I think the Colleens’ have had their story told, I’m intrigued to see what the pair of aloof teens offer in Smith’s third film of the trilogy, “Moose Jaws.”

MVDVisual distributes a dual format Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital HD release of the various production companies’, including main investor, Invincible Pictures, and Kevin Smith’s founded SModcast Pictures, “Yoga Hosers.” The Blu-ray disc is a MPEG-2 encoded 1080p transfer with a 2.38:1 presentation and, rarely, flutters under a mediocre bitrate. Image brightens with a glossy coating that revels in brighter hues of blue, pink, orange, and yellow while starker bolds such as red and purple pop with vividness. Yet, sharp details are thin, less defined to bring high definition to present technological age. The English Dolby Digital 5.1 track slightly elevates the ambient noise, especially during the girls’ punk rock practice that muffles out portions of their vocals, yet still manages to vary and balance. The only bonus feature available is a behind-the-scenes featurette that includes some insightful interviews. “Yoga Hosers” oppresses a melancholy reminder that the old Kevin Smith is no more and dawns a Kevin Smith 2.0 who transforms his satirical trademarks and his witty banter into strange misadventures, involving, in this case, two teenage fools flighting from one sub-narrative to another in a mixed bag of comedy and inferior minion horror.

Buy “Yoga Hosers” on Bluray/DVD/Digital HD at Amazon!

Welcome to the Family. Resident Evil 7: Biohazard Review

Posted by EvilGamer on

I want you all to try to go back to 1996. You just got your Playstation and you picked up the newest game called Resident Evil. You know nothing about it and when you start playing you have a wave of emotions hit you. You feel fear, excitement, and anxiety; but yet you keep playing. You were just introduced to the world of Survival Horror. Now it’s 2017 and we are now into seventh main installment of the Resident Evil franchise and sort of a moment of truth for Capcom. Last few years have been rough for Resident Evil so lets see how the latest installment stands.

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard is a survival horror video game developed and published by Capcom. It is the seventh main installment in the Resident Evil series and was released on the Playstation 4, Xbox One, and PC.

2017-02-07_1456

The game takes place in the fictional town of Dulvey, Louisiana. You play as Ethan Winters who goes searching for his wife 3 years after her disappearance. The only information you have of her location is at the Baker estate, this is where your nightmare begins.

There is no denying that the RE engine is amazing. Resident Evil 7 passes with flying colors when it comes to visuals, the game is absolutely gorgeous. Realistic graphics with so much attention to detail really makes the atmosphere. Paired up with its excellent sound design which really puts you on edge, hearing random foot steps and loud bangs some where in the house can quickly make you stop what you’re doing and check behind you. Unlike older Resident Evil games, there really isn’t much background music. The only time i’ll hear music is either in the save rooms or during cut scenes, which is fine. No music really does build the tension and makes you listen to your environment.

2017-02-07_1455

The most controversial aspect of the game is its change to game play. Resident Evil 7 now puts the player in first person view, which this isn’t the first time they’ve experimented with this. Resident Evil: Survivor being the first one that was in first person, so I was quite interested when they said they were trying it again. As a big Resident Evil fan I can tell the skeptical fans that the first person view works. Resident Evil now feels even more immersive with it. The game still has its slow and sluggish movement, puzzle solving, save rooms , and combat just like the previous titles and the first person view fits perfectly. I haven’t played the game in VR because I’m broke but I have heard that game is even better with it, so now I guess I’ll have start saving up for one.

2017-02-07_1506

I feel I have to talk more about combat since I still see people complain how the game is like other non combat horror games, like Amnesia or Outlast. The combat feels just like an older Resident Evil, except Resident Evil 5 and 6. Thank god Capcom abandon the combat from the previous two and went right back to how Resident Evil 1 through 3 combat worked. Ammo and healing items are extremely scarce and you must manage your inventory to survive in certain situations. Enemies will move unpredictably and you must control your shots and keep your distance if you want to take down your foe. When it comes to difficulty, the game on normal is pretty easy, some parts can be a little challenging but if you’re careful and know where to go, then the game is a breeze.

Now Resident Evil 7 isn’t a long game. It took me about 7 to 8 hours to beat on normal difficulty my first time. It can easily be finished faster when you know where to go and what to do, There have been people who finished it in under 2 hours. But if you’re like me and like to explore then it will take you a while to finish. The story is where this game made me fall in love with it. This is by far my favorite Resident Evil story. The team they have behind this game is solid, the director behind the Revelation games is directing it and the writer behind the F.E.A.R 2 expansions made this a memorable experience and I hope Capcom keeps this team for future installments. Everything about the story is great, every character was interesting, and every location was awesome. The story to Resident Evil 7 is definitely more competent compared to the previous games.

As much as I love Resident Evil 7, I do have some minor gripes with the game. First one isn’t a big deal but I was a bit disappointed. Resident Evil has a tradition, when a player presses start on the main menu, they will hear a loud, deep voice reading the title of the game. Example:

Like I said this isn’t a big deal or a turn off for me but I was a bit bummed they broke tradition. Another gripe I had was the lack of variety with enemies. Before you always fought zombies, mutant dogs, and big hulking monsters. But now the only enemy you fight besides the Baker family are the ”Molded” which look very similar to Resident Evil 4 ”Regeneradors”. Yes these enemies are creepy and hard to take down but after a while you just get tired of fighting them and want something else. Hopefully in Resident Evil 8 we get a bigger cast of monsters.

2017-02-07_1507

In conclusion, Resident Evil 7: Biohazard is a great game. I’m so happy that Capcom put the brakes on the franchise and went back to how it originally was. Unlike other companies that have completely abandon their horror franchises. I’m glad that I stuck with Capcom all these years and going through many disappointments to finally see my favorite horror series come back on top. Resident Evil veterans would love this and for new people I highly recommend it. It is a great starting point for newcomers to get invested into world of survival horror.

My final score for Resident Evil 7: Biohazard is a 9/10