Evil Review: Little Nightmares

Posted by EvilGamer on May 5, 2017

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Developer: Trasier Studios

Publisher: Bandai Namco Entertainment

Platforms: Xbox One, Playstation 4, PC

Imagine taking Tim Burton and the video game Limbo and just mashing them together. You got yourself a little gem called ”Little Nightmares”. I remember back in 2014 seeing gameplay videos of ”Little Nightmares” and never heard anything after that. The project was originally called ”Hunger” and it was quiet for few years until late 2016, when Bandai Namco announced they were the publishers. After following the game a little bit more I started to get really interested in it. So interested that I even bought the collectors edition on the day it came out. After finishing my first playthrough, I’d like to go into how this little horror game became one of my favorite games of the year.

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In ”Little Nightmares” you play as a nine-year-old girl named Six, who must journey through a dark and mysterious prison known as the ”Maw”. Armed with just a lighter, Six will have to solve puzzles and use her wits to avoid traps and monsters during her escape.

The one thing that I’m sure caught peoples eyes, especially mine is the games visuals. The level backgrounds and character designs are dark and gloomy and look amazing. The entire game looks like it came straight out of a Tim Burton stop-motion movie. The games soundtrack mixed with the graphics makes this one of the most atmospheric games that I have ever played. Hell even if all the puzzle solving and platforming was removed I still would’ve enjoyed it. Just walking through each level admiring the scenery.

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like most horror games today. Most of the gameplay is you hiding and running from enemies. Each level has specific enemies that you will have to hide, run, or sneak past in order to beat the level. Other than that there is also puzzle solving and platforming. I kind of wish there were harder puzzles, pretty much every puzzle you’re faced with is incredibly easy and you can get through the game pretty fast if you just blow through all of them. The game isn’t long at all, on your first playthrough it’ll take you an easy 2 hours, but when you play again and just speed through it, I’m sure you can finish it within an hour or even less.

Now of course not every game is perfect and unfortunately ”Little Nightmares” suffers from a slightly annoying flaw. The controls are a bit finicky and some times they’re not all that responsive. Several times I will be walking over pipes or bridges and Six will just randomly fall off or I’ll try to pick up a key item and Six will just stand there. If you play on PC the controls will be pretty annoying and I highly recommend using a gamepad, since that’s what the game seems to be optimized for. But again this was a slight inconvenience and in no way ruined the game for me.

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”Little Nightmares” is a fantastic game and I am so happy I decided to buy it day one. I enjoyed it from beginning to end. Along with ”Resident Evil 7”, ”Little Nightmares” is going to be right up there with being one of my favorite horror games off all time. It offers an experience that is unique and different from other games and that it should be cherished for it. If you have $20 to spend then I highly recommend you buy this game, it is a must own. I hope in the future, Trasier Studios comes out with a sequel or at least a spiritual successor.

My final score for ”Little Nightmares” is a 9/10

Evil Invades Musically Inclined Fetish Nightclub! “Splatter Disco” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on May 4, 2017

Kent Chubbs manages a popular fetish nightclub called Den O’Iniquity in a small conservative town and the demanding, ever-present pressure to close his proclaimed “smut” club from the angry puritanical protestors and unethical politicians have Kent on the hair pulling fences about what to exactly do with his beloved club and loyal employees. To make the matters worse, Kent’s father and club owner, Shank Chubbs, is knocking on death’s door with a bad ticker. To make the matters even more worse, the club’s been a remarkable safe haven for those who choose to express their closeted intimate desires in spanking, furry sex, or lube wrestling, but, during the holiday season, the club has had a low hanging dark cloud in a form of a deranged killer whose been destructively rampaging through the club’s most precious employees and enthusiastic patrons. In order to save everything he holds dear, Kent must find a way to keep everything afloat despite the challenges and his ill-advised legal advice from his acid tripping hippie attorney while also tracking down a psychopath.

In 2007, Richard Griffin directed a hybrid film that structured an abled bodied comedy and interjected moments of gruesome horror and fashioned it with elaborate musical numbers and the result was a niche slasher-musical simply known as “Splatter Disco.” We like this film. Actually, we love this film. Not because we enjoy watching and reviewing Richard Griffin films (see “Flesh for the Inferno,” “The Sins of Dracula,” “The Disco Exorcist,” “Frankenstein’s Hungry Dead,” “Future Justice”) and enjoy seeing where his toddler career began, but because “Splatter Disco” embodies the unlikely mixture of oil and water genres, doesn’t take itself seriously, and was whole-heartedly invested in by some of the biggest names in cult cinema as well as some talented actors and actresses you’ve may have never heard of before, but should certainly know.

Ken Foree, Lynn Lowry, and Debbie Rochon. Three big, well-known names that add their own delectable charm into the mix and, also, three big names who have developed a dynamic, who know each other’s styles, and who can still churn new material on the fly like it’s no big deal. Tack on Trent Haaga (“The Ghouls”) and the then new and Richard Griffin regular from that point on, Sarah Nicklin, who both have the favorably b-movie glow and “Splatter Disco” goes to a whole new level. One of the best performances goes to Jason McCormick as Echo, a DJ Qualls lookalike, with a timely comedic toss that provides a unique schtick to keep the character rememberable and McCormick nails the character right on the flat head. Overall, there were no slacking performances; every actor was chin deep getting into their respective roles with the various fetishes, cloak and dagger shades, and violent intentions. Rounding out the cast is Carlos Brum (“Beyond the Dunwich Horror”), William DeCoff (“The Haunting of Alice D”), Robin L. Watkins (“Poultrygeist”), and Brian L. Mullen III (“Pretty Dead Things”).

If you never experienced a Richard Griffin feature, you’ll pleasantly find out very quickly the director goes all out and the Providence, Rhode Island born director has a great 1970’s-1980’s homage style side dished with lots of vibrant colors and the abundance of suspending smoke and you’ll see why we cater to much of his work. The script’s dialogue, co-written by Griffin and producer Ted Marr, also excellently defines and solidifies the quick wit and whimsical nature of the comedy-horror and to make no mistake, this comedy-musical-horror has no shame with perversions, has well edited bloody special effects, and is ultimately a blast of lively cult cinema! “Splatter Disco” is a self-proclaimed first slasher musical of it’s kind; honestly, I couldn’t think of a prior film of it’s kind, but “Splatter Disco” has hit and catchy imitative tunes provided by Tony Milano and performed by Daniel Hildreth that go hand-and-hand with the humbling dance choreography.

MVDVisual, POP Cinema, and Shock-O-Rama re-releases “Splatter Disco” onto a not rated DVD home video with a 16:9 widescreen presentation. Regrettably, I’m sorely disappointed in the video quality that fully suffers from the distorting and blotchy compression artifacts that make night scenes fuzzy and flimsy in defintion. The lossy 2.0 stereo track is par for the course, even with musical pieces and soundtrack overlay, but does provide a little restitution for the image loss. Bonus features are aplenty that include a commentary with director Richard Griffin and star Lynn Lowry, a behind-the-scenes documentary, alternate scenes, and a Shock-O-Rama trailer vault. “Splatter Disco” is an entertaining 87 minute Richard Griffin slasher capsule classic full of degenerate song and dance!

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

Posted by Steven Lewis on March 17, 2017

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!

Holiday Charity Starts Now! Distribution label Cult Epics Campaigns for a Continuous Cult Cinema Journey!

Posted by Steven Lewis on December 26, 2016

Cult Epic founder Nico B. wants to spread the joy of cult cinema to not only the television sets at home, but to the world! The Dutch filmmaker and passionate cult cinema lover has employed me, and other social media coordinators and bloggers, as a servant of his word, delivering the following message to all fans of erotica, horror, and arthouse films!

“We are in our last week, and this is the week that counts. Some of you have contributed to our campaign, thank you so much! and we would ask all who are fans of our label or releases and want to secure its future in the new year, please pick a Perk to your liking and support us in our endeavor bringing you new releases in the years to come. One of the titles we have secured the rights as well for is the most interesting giallo DEATH LAID AN EGG, so there is much work to do, and for such we need funding, which current distributors no longer provide.

Also please give the campaign one more push on your social media:
CULT EPICS INDIEGOGO CAMPAIGN Cult Epics presents controversial art films with a cult following on DVD and Blu-ray. At its 25th Anniversary year Cult Epics needs your support to continue bringing you new releases. Find out more here: https://igg.me/at/cultepics

Best regards, Nico B
www.cultepics.com“

Please show your support! Every little bit matters and you may get a little something in return if you donate $20 or more! I got my eye on that Nekromantik T-shirt! Only 1 MORE WEEK TO GO!

Become Internet Famous From Being Buried Alive by Evil! “6 Plots” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on December 10, 2016

Seven close friends use “Screen It” to live stream online a drug and alcohol bender while partying hard at a vacant swanky home. When Brie awakes in a quiet, dark room of the luxurious house with no sign of her friends, she believes an odd prank is being played at her expense, but when she receives a frantic call from one of her frightened friends trapped inside a wooden box, Brie becomes their only hope of survival. She realizes that her six friends were abducted and buried in wooden boxes around the city, all of which contain it’s own deadly nightmare coinciding with each teen’s personal life. To heighten the tension, their fates are live streamed on the internet for the world to witness. Brie must connect the dots, find the pattern, and save the survivors before they all perish alone.

Australian survival horror “6 Plots” capitalizes on popular teens being terrorized and murdered by a game mastering and mysterious sadist. The story, devised along with live streaming online the six teens’ fates, stems from director Leigh Sheehan and was commercially penned by the newcomer Tim C. Patterson. Alice Darling stars as Brie, the girl left untouched to save her shallowly engrained friends, along with “Wolf Creek 2” star Ryan Corr, Penelope Mitchell (“The Vampire Diaries”), Eliza Taylor, Emily Wheaton, Joey Coley-Sowry, Damien Harrison, Andrew Clarke, and PJ Lane. “6 Plots” introduces characters to face their fears, putting them up against a destined wall of death if unable to overcome challenges inspired by their own lives. Though the challenges are no where near the legacy of the “Saw” games where players have an opportunity to win their freedom themselves by sacrificing something dear to them and are constructed with their good fortune resting in the hands on one sole person, Sheehan’s race against the clock suspense thriller loses steam, never establishing momentum to strike the edge-of-your-seat nerve.

Conceptually, placing unconscious disrespectful teens claustrophobic coffin structures and strategically scattering them along a small island coastal town only to direly drown their body and minds in a game of their own primal fears sounds amusingly devious. To pull off a grand recipe of intertwining cruelty, time would be the most difficult obstacle to hurdle and the plan’s organization and successfulness was ultimately determined on whether or not Brie and her friends were having a party at some random swanky house, which was on the verge of possibly being canceled priorly stated by one of the characters. Time spatially speaking, getting all six of her friends completely setup in boxes miles a part from each other would have taken most of the night, pending on how many hands were involved, and the story indulges a, perhaps, 3 to 4 hour workable time frame from each of seven passing out unconsciously due in part of whatever their drugs were laced with to the time they wake up alone in a confinement of darkness with only an element of personal fear accompanying them. In short, and this might spoil the end for a few readers, The Flash was able to accomplish casket coordination without much hassle. Just kidding…

The biggest issue with “6 Plots” is the story never really comes to a head, never really providing that spark-lit surge of intensity at the point of apex. Instead, the course of action flounders at a lifeless flat line when a moment of clarity for Brie dawns upon her and she figures out the bedeviled jokester’s pentagram pattern, simply by hooking up to the internet and plotting lines onto charts of the island of possible casket locations. Brie made their tormentor’s Russian signal jamming plan the most elementary scheme to deconstruct and solve to date, but that’s due in part to poor character development as well. We know absolutely zilch about Brie, except for the facts that the daredevil rides a motorcycle off road, gives the local authoritative putz a run for his money, and likes to partake in drugs and alcohol. That’s basically all the information we’re given about Brie’s character and, somehow, a character who traditionally would have been nixed right about now was able to unravel a plan much too elaborate for her primitive Netgear hookup intelligence. Not even her tech savvy friend, Marty, could keep up with Brie’s uncanny genius, remarking a couple instances where Brie outthought his intellect about their predicament.

Sheehan’s directorial style hinges upon a fair amount on the horrendously oppressive alternative music soundtrack and mawkish scenes of melodramatics with an example being after witnessing the horrifying demise of one of the teens on live stream, Sheriff Gary awkwardly drops the phone and hastily crosses the room to give Brie a clutching embrace as they both sob in each others’ arms. I’ve seen less over the top performances in soap operas. Certainly a first where melodrama meets tech horror, I found the technology to be sorely obsolete, especially for a film produced only four years ago. “6 Plots” was for sure a champion for Apple products, focal pointing on MacBooks and a Safari internet browser, but, yet, iPhones are rarely used and, instead, a healthy combination of Brie’s Blackberry and Sheriff Gary’s flip phone ultimately saves the day, proving that the latest and greatest tech gear can’t save you from a casket and can’t aid you in murdering people any faster.

Lionsgate home entertainment label delivers the 87 minute Eagle I production onto DVD and Digital Video with a widescreen 2.35:1 presentation and an English 5.1 Dolby Digital audio mix. A high point of this “6 Plots” DVD is the video quality, though now fairly standard with current films in their home release formats. Image quality pops with detail and clarity bringing out the worst specifics in the poorly illustrated representation of the antagonist on ancient cell phones. Audio, again, lies in the realm of modern day conventions, albeit the down under accents are sometimes difficult to decipher. From the start, survival horror “6 Plots” quickly snuffs itself out from ever materializing into, what could have been, a gripping thriller by burying the best parts under a 6-foot deep layer of indigestible fluff that’s rudimentary right to the bone.