My Top 5 Christmas Movies

 

Christmas time is a time of year where people try to come together, to spend time with the people that they love, eating good food, drinking well, sharing gifts, and just enjoying each other's company. And one of the best parts of this time is watching fun, enjoyable Christmas movies, either on your own or with the people you care about. But, with new Christmas films being released every year it can be hard to find good ones, and you'll often end up watching the same movies year after year. After all, you can only watch Hallmark movies about a businesswoman moving from the big city to a nice small town to learn the real meaning of Christmas for a handsome man she falls in love with for so many times before the plot feels overused.

Here are the five films that I absolutely love to watch around Christmas time. I doubt that there'll be any here that you haven't heard of as they're popular ones; but they're the ones that I adore, and that I try to fit in around Christmas time.

Elf

I'm going to be honest about this one, I absolutely hate Will Ferrell movies. I normally can't stand him, I don't really find him funny, and have never enjoyed his work. Elf, is the one exception to this.

Released in 2003, Elf tells the story of Buddy (Will Ferrell), a human who ended up being taken from an orphanage to Santa's village when he was still a baby. Having been raised by the elves all his life he's shocked to learn that he's a human, despite being three times everyone's size. After he gets told who his real father is, a publishing executive living in New York, Buddy sets out to find his family and make a connection with him. Unfortunately for Buddy, his father is on the naughty list, and he's going to have a hard time winning him over.

As I already said, this is one of the only Will Ferrell films that I can actually watch and enjoy. I think the thing that I dislike about his other roles is that he tends to play egotistical ass holes, people who it's hard to like. Buddy is actually someone who's really quite a sweet and nice, despite not really knowing how to act around people outside of of Santa's village. He's a kind man who just wants to make everyone around him feel good; which isn't that all we want at Christmas time, to feel happy and cared about?

Thanks to the sense of fun, the humour, and the general feel good attitude of Elf it's made it's way high on my Christmas movie list despite my negative feelings towards the main actor.

Arthur Christmas

I only watched Arthur Christmas for the first time last year, despite it being out since 2011. I'd heard about it, but had never made the plunge to actually give it a go. But once I had, it was a film I immediately loved.

Arthur Christmas tells the story of Arthur (James McAvoy), the youngest son of the current Santa. You see, Father Christmas isn't a single man who's lived for centuries, but a family who has passed the title, and the responsibilities, down to each new Santa. The current Santa, Malcolm Clause (Jim Broadbent) is making his 70th mission, and is expected to soon retire. His eldest son, Steven (Hugh Laurie) is expected to take over, especially as he's innovated the entire operation; introducing a new high-tech ship instead of a sleigh, handheld devices, and using the elves to help deliver presents.

However, when Malcolm refuses to step down Steven is so put out that he doesn't care that a child was missed out, happy with this margin of error on the mission. Arthur disagrees with this sentiment, refusing to let even one child go without at Christmas, so with the help of Grandsanta (Bill Nighy) and Bryony (Ashley Jensen), a punkish elf from the wrapping division, he sets out on the old sleigh to make sure that the little girl gets her gift.

Arthur Christmas is the only animated film to make it on my list, and out of all of the Christmas cartoons it's easily my favourite. I love the way the Santa myth has been portrayed in this film, with the family of Santa's passing on the mantle one after the other, as well as the fun ways in which they've updated the mission of Christmas with their huge spaceship and commando-like elves. But it's the central message of the film that I love. The message that at Christmas all that matters is making people happy. 

Arthur sets out to make sure that one little girl is happy, that she doesn't end up thinking that Santa didn't care about her, because he loves hearing about the joy that Christmas brings others. He's willing to put his life on the line to do this, even when everyone around him is telling him it's the wrong decision. There's a level of sweetness about the movie that genuinely brings joy to me, that makes me emotionally happy, and for that this film will always have a place in my home at Christmas time.

Home Alone 2: Lost In New York

This choice might get me some hate, as there are a few people out there that will love to argue over which of the Home Alone movies (the first two at least) are the best. Whilst I do adore both of them, the sequel definitely manages to do better with the formula.

Released two years after the first movie, the sequel picks up with Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) a year after he was left home alone over Christmas, and prevented a pair of criminals from robbing his home. This year the family are planning to head off for a Christmas break again, but they're making sure that Kevin isn't forgotten this time. Unfortunately, thanks to a mix-up in the airport, some bad decisions from Kevin, and general bad luck, he ends up on a flight to New York whilst his family head down to Florida.

Arriving in New York, Kevin decides to make the most of a bad situation, and instead of going for help, uses his dad's credit cards to book himself a suite in the Plaza Hotel, where he runs up a huge bill and has a good time. However, the fun times can't last, and Kevin ends up being chased out onto the streets of New York, where his old enemies Harry (Joe Pesci) and Marv (Daniel Stern) are waiting for him, having just escaped from prison. Now Kevin needs to survive alone in the big city, as well as preventing the two criminals from stealing the charity money from a toy store. Luckily, his uncles empty home is nearby, ready to be converted into a whole new house of horrors for the criminal duo.

Whilst Home Alone 2 received some criticism upon release for being similar to the original it's hard to really see what more could be done to set it apart from the formula established in the first film. The fact that every subsequent entry in the franchise since has been absolutely awful shows that perhaps it did in fact deviate from the central conceit enough to be the only successful sequel. And personally, I much preferred the plot for this one than the first. Opening things up and having Kevin be a complete fish-out-of-water away from his home and his sense of safety made this much more interesting.

The film also felt like it was more comfortable with the characters this time round too, and definitely seemed to be having more fun with thing. Despite Kevin being alone in New York he's definitely more confident and outgoing, and you can even see this before he ends up getting lost when he makes cracks to his uncle Frank about being a cheapskate. His parents also feel better realised this time round, and seeing them going through this situation a second time is much more interesting.

Harry and Marv are a lot more fun this time around too, and their previous experiences with Kevin give them pause and lead to them being more cautious in the search for traps; something that is used for great comedic effect more than once. We also get the inclusion of some fun new characters in the staff at the Plaza Hotel, with the legend that is Tim Curry leading proceedings there. 

As a film that takes everything that was fun about the original and does even more with it, shapes things up and gives us unexpected new twists on the formula, gets the cast to try new, funnier things, and just has a great sense of humour, this has been a favourite of mine for decades. Just ignore the sexual predator who gets a five second cameo.

The Christmas Chronicles

The newest film on this list, The Christmas Chronicles won me over very quickly thanks to one thing, Kurt Russell as Santa. Having grown up watching films like The Thing, Big Trouble in Little China, and Escape From New York I love Kurt Russell, and him as Santa just works. Honestly, I'd never understood the whole idea of finding Santa sexy until this movie.

The Christmas Chronicles tells the story of Teddy (Judah Lewis) and Kate (Darby Camp), a brother and sister who used to love Christmas, but since the death of their father their relationship has grown tense. When Kate watches through some old Christmas home movies she's convinced that the camera spotted Santa's arm for a brief second, and gets Teddy to agree to help her set up a trap for Santa. Whilst the trap doesn't work, it does let them know that someone is in the house, and the two of the sneak outside to see a red blur jumping from rooftop to rooftop; as well as a floating sleigh and reindeer.

Sneaking into the back of the sleigh they end up being taken into the air as Santa returns. Unfortunately, they end up distracting Santa and the sleigh crashes in Chicago, hundreds of miles from their home, and they lose both the sack of presents and the reindeer. Now the three of them have to set out to try and get everything back in time to finish making the Christmas deliveries. 

Out of all the films on this list this is the one that most obviously deals with family, and about caring about the people in your lives. The focus of the film isn't Santa and the journey to save Christmas, it's the relationship between Teddy and Kate that's the real story here. It's the love between the two of them, strained because of the loss of their father, that sets them on this journey to begin with; and the journey makes them both realise how much they mean to the other, and what they're willing to do to keep that relationship.

A big part of why this works so well is thanks to the casting of a couple of great young actors in Judah Lewis and Darby Camp, who manage to really get you invested in their stories. Teddy is a young man floundering without his father, he desperately needs to see his father again, to get guidance from him, and without that he's falling in with the wrong people and is close to throwing his life away. Kate can see that, she can see her brother heading down a dark path and wants to prevent that, whilst also getting back that feeling of family that they've lost along with their father. It's a story that feels a lot more human and heartfelt than a lot of Christmas films get.

Added onto all of this is the amazing sense of fantasy and whimsy that Kurt Russell brings to the role of Santa. He's a Santa who hates the propaganda about himself, who dislikes the pictures of fat old men who say ho ho ho. He's quick witted, makes fun cracks, and generally tries to have a good time even when things are going badly. Plus, his ability to know what presents anyone wants and to just pull them out of his pockets like they're a bag of holding leads to some fun moments.

This might be the newest film here, but it's one that I know I'm going to be watching for many years to come.

The Muppet Christmas Carol

Lets be honest, this is the best Christmas movie of all time, and whilst you're welcome to disagree I'm sure you'll agree that even if it's not your favourite its going to be high on your list.

Telling the story of A Christmas Carol this version of the film casts Michael Caine in the role of Ebenezer Scrooge, a man who's dedicated his life to earning money, no matter how it might harm those around him and leaves him isolated and alone. As Christmas approaches the ghosts of his old business partners Jacob and Robert Marley appear to tell him that if he doesn't change his ways he'll be doomed to an afterlife of torment. To make him change he will be visited by three spirits of Christmas.

Over the course of the story Scrooge is taken through a journey across time, seeing key moments from his past that helped to shape him into who he is, the events that will happen to the people close to him this Christmas, and what will come to pass the next Christmas, which will see both he and the disabled son of his employee Bob Cratchit die. 

Muppets aren't my favourite thing in the world, I've only ever seen a few episodes of the show, and haven't really seen many of their movies, so my love for this film doesn't come from Muppet nostalgia. I think what makes me love it so much is how despite having 90% of the cast played by puppets the film is played completely straight. Michael Caine has said in interviews he never performed in any way other than completely serious, as if he were acting for the Royal Shakespeare Company; and it really shows. Caine gives a powerhouse performance, delivering one of the best versions of Scrooge to ever be committed to film. He goes from utterly foul to a man you come to care about, with some moments that still bring me close to tears despite having seen the film dozens of times.

I've been watching it since it came out, sometimes even when it's not Christmas, and it's my favourite adaptation of the original story. The Muppet Christmas Carol is the film we watch every Christmas Eve, its the film that means Christmas has finally arrived.

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The Rebels of Vanaheim - Richard Lee Byers Interview

 

After reading through the latest Aconyte Books release, The Rebels of Vanaheim: A Legends of Asgard Novel, I sat down for a chat with the author, Richard Lee Byers. My review for the book can be found here.

This is your second book in the Legends of Asgard series, how did you come about writing more than one book in the series, did you plan for this story when writing the first one, or was thing something you planned after?

From the start, I knew I wanted to do more than one novel about Heimdall. So, assuming I received approval from Aconyte Books and Marvel, there was always going to be a Book Two. But when writing The Head of Mimir, I hadn’t yet figured out what specific story problems, settings, antagonist, etc. would be in The Rebels of Vanaheim. That came later.

The Rebels of Vanaheim once again focuses on Heimdall as your previous entry in the series did. What is it about this character that you enjoy writing so much?

Well, for one thing, I focused on Heimdall partly because it seemed to me that Marvel had told less about his early career than it had told about those of some other characters. So there was room to create his origin, and origin stories are usually interesting.

Also, I enjoy writing intelligent characters who solve mysteries and puzzles and generally figure things out. Heimdall is the character who literally sees farther than others, so I thought, why not build on that and make him someone who also thinks more deeply and clearly than many of his Asgardian compatriots? So that’s the take you get in these books. (Although he’s not always right as The Rebels of Vanaheim demonstrates.)

Uschi featured briefly in The Head of Mimir, why did you choose to bring her back and give her more of a focus, and did you ever consider using Sif again too?

It’s quite convenient if a hero has a sidekick, someone to explain himself to and argue with. So I went with that in both The Head of Mimir and The Rebels of Vanaheim.

In the first book, I went with Sif. She’s Heimdall’s sister, so it made sense to use her. She’s also someone familiar to Marvel fans, and I figured that was an asset. Uschi was a character I conceived over the course of the writing because the plot required that there be someone who does the things she does.

When I started planning The Rebels of Vanaheim, I did indeed consider using Sif again. But I’d already discovered I liked Uschi, and she had the advantage of being a character I created. That meant I could do whatever I liked with her. That wasn’t true of Sif because she was already an established character being used by other novelists and in the comics, too.

This book has more of a horror theme than most of the other books in the series, yet manages to include a lot of mystery and intrigue as well as character moments. Did you find it difficult to balance out the various aspects of the plot? And was there one side of the story that you enjoyed writing over the others?

I’ve written a lot of horror and a lot of fantasy, so combining the two doesn’t feel especially difficult to me. (Of course, I’m scarcely the first writer to do this. The works of Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, Karl Edward Wagner, and C. L. Moore all do it, too.) I don’t know that one side of the story seemed more fun than the others. I was fortunate enough to enjoy writing all of it.

There seems to be a big focus on family in this book, and how parents can place undue expectations on their children. You explore this in two different ways with how both Heimdall and Uschi are viewed by their families. Is this a theme that particularly appeals to you?

I don’t know that it’s a theme that particularly appeals to me. It’s a theme that developed organically given that Heimdall and Uschi are going back to Vanaheim to visit their parents.

Considering how many fantasy-adventure novels I’ve written over the years, it’s obvious that I like the Good Guy vs. Bad Guy template. But in a novel, there has to be more than that or the story feels superficial and unsatisfactory. In addition to all the supernatural brouhaha, you have to make the central characters multi-dimensional by giving them other issues to address, ideally, issues that will resonate with readers. This relatability is part of the reason for the success of Marvel Comics. Teenage Peter Parker, for example, is a bullied nerd when he acquires the powers of Spider-Man, and venturing forth as a superhero doesn’t make his mundane problems go away.

Your story includes some creatures that would go on to become a part of the Thor mythos in the comics, the thing that’s behind everything (trying not to say its name due to spoilers) was it exciting to get to go back and explore how a part of the comic mythology came to be in that way?

It was fun, and I think that explaining how things in the contemporary Marvel Universe came to be as they are is part of the appeal of these particular novels. At the same time, you don’t want a sense of familiarity to blunt the excitement and suspense. Keeping the ultimate antagonist behind the curtain for a while was my attempt to work within the Marvel canon while also pulling out some surprises.

One of the things that I really enjoyed about the book was the way in which we got to see how different peoples and different realms behave and operate, especially when we get to delve into the dwarves. Did you have many strict rules you needed to follow in order to keep things in line with existing canon, or did you have a lot of free reign?

I try to work within existing canon, and there are reviewers at Marvel who’ll ask for revisions if I accidentally deviate. That doesn’t cramp my style as much as you might think, though, because it’s in the nature of comics that they do a wonderful job of laying down the broad strokes but don’t cover a number of the details. In the case of Vanaheim and Nidavellir, there’s less established lore than you might think, so by setting much of the story in those Realms, I could give my imagination pretty free rein.

Whilst the Legends of Asgard series is set within the Marvel Universe the books seem to draw more heavily from real world Norse myths and culture than the comics do. Did you find yourself doing more research into the real-world legends and stories to help with writing The Rebels of Vanaheim?

As noted above, even after decades of stories, there are things about the Nine Realms that Marvel Comics hasn’t really gotten around to explaining. My books get into some of the subjects, and I figured it only made sense to draw on “real” Norse mythology to do it. Where applicable, I also drew on real Viking history and real details of life in Scandinavia to paint a vivid, convincing picture. In The Head of Mimir, for example, when Heimdall and Sif are traveling across Asgard, the trees and other plants they see along the way are ones you might see when hiking in Norway.

As this very much feels like the next step in Heimdall’s journey to becoming the god and protector of the Bifrost as we know him, but he’s still yet to attain those things, will you be returning to write more stories for him?

There’s nothing I can announce at this time, but I will say your question is a shrewd one.

Are there any other characters from the Thor stories that you’d like to write for but haven’t had the chance yet?

No doubt everyone contributing to Marvel Legends of Asgard would like a shot at the Big Two, Thor himself and Loki, separately or together, and I’m not exception. Beyond that, it would be fun to tackle the Warriors Three (I already have a Volstagg cameo in The Head of Mimir and a Hogun cameo in The Rebels of Vanaheim), Hela, and definitely Amora. (The Enchantress is the antagonist in The Head of Mimir, but in a different story, she’d make a fine antihero.)

Are there any other projects that you’re working on at the moment, what can fans hope to see from you soon?

I don’t have too much else I can talk about that’s absolutely, positively lined up at the moment. Some people may know I’m a frequent contributor to the “Basil & Moebius” series of books and graphic novels. I did three novelettes for the next volume, which series creator Ryan Schifrin advised me will be out soon.

Beyond that, someone has commissioned a short story from me, but I don’t know how soon that anthology will be available. I’ve also got pitches in for a couple other projects, so keep your fingers crossed for me.

Anyone interested in seeing more of Richard and his work can head over to his website to learn more.

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Death Valley – Film Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

Death Valley is one of those films that grabbed me with its trailer, investing a decent amount of its budget on practical monster effects, despite some obvious flaws thanks to it seeming to wear its influences on its sleeve. It won’t win any awards for originality, but it absolutely gets points for being a half decent way to spend an hour and a half.

It begins with a man and a woman, later identified as Doctor Chloe (Kristen Kaster), desperately running through a dark facility as an ominous computer voice counts down. When the woman fails to escape and a lock-down comes into place, she does the only thing she can: she makes a call for help. She asks for someone to come and save her, revealing that whatever information the lab was working on will be lost in twenty four hours time – giving the rest of the movie a sense of urgency.

After this we cut to two mercenaries, Beckett (Jeremy Ninaber) and Marshall (Ethan Mitchell), who have been employed as part of a team to try and enter the lab and rescue Doctor Chloe and her research. We get some hints of drama to come between the two of them, as this is Beckett’s last mission before he retires to become a father – a fact that his best friend Marshall knows nothing about yet. The two of them are sent to join the rest of their squad in the search for a way into the facility, having to dodge the heavily armed militia in the area who are also looking for a way in. Whilst the men are facing dangers from the militia, they’re unaware of what’s waiting for them inside the facility: a deadly creature with the ability to kill them all.

Death Valley feels like a Resident Evil knock-off. And I mean that in the nicest possible way. There’s a remote lab where dangerous experiments have been taking place. Something went wrong and monsters are on the loose. A specialist team is being sent in to rescue people. And the monster design looks like a mix of the Lickers and Nemesis.

Whilst these obvious parallels might put some people off I actually found them to be quite delightful. The Resident Evil franchise has been around for almost thirty years, so of course it will have had an influence on people in creative fields during that time. If anything, I think it’s wonderful when creators come along and play around with the themes and ideas from franchises they love and put creative new spins on it. The new spin for this film being the origins of these creatures.

The creature design really is a highlight of the movie, and I loved the fact that the creators chose to take a practical approach to it rather than going digital. Thanks to this, the monsters feel a lot more real than some other smaller budget creature features that chose to go the CGI route. The monsters have a physical presence and weight to them that digital rarely gives you. Plus, it’s fun to discover that the suit actor is none other than the film’s writer and director, Matthew Ninaber. I can’t think of too many director cameos where they play the creature.

Sadly, where the film feels like it’s lacking is really in the writing. Despite having some moments early on that seem to set up a clear difference between the two leads, they never feel very distinct from thereon, and become almost interchangeable. There are times where the characters do things that seem contradictory to things they’ve said and done before, and it feels as if they only exist scene to scene, doing whatever the story dictates, rather than being fully fleshed out characters.

The film also feels rather small in scale, and whilst this isn’t always a bad thing in horror movies where you want a tight, confined environment to help with the sense of terror, it doesn’t always work here. Characters rarely have any time on screen together, and I think the most we ever see in a single scene is four characters. Despite the heroes of the piece having several members of their team, they are never shown together, only in pairs or trios. It makes the film feel small, as if it didn’t have the budget for scenes involving groups.

Despite these flaws though, Death Valley is decent enough fun. It probably won’t end up on many top horror lists, as pretty much everything done in this film has been done better elsewhere, but it tried. It took a chance to make something entertaining and it succeeded for the most part. If you’re looking for something to scratch that Resident Evil itch, this film will certainly do that.

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The Rebels of Vanaheim: A Marvel Legends of Asgard Novel by Richard Lee Byers - Book Review

 

'The dead have returned. Odin, All-Father of Asgard, dispatches the heroic warrior Heimdall and the Valkyrie Uschi to eliminate a mysterious infestation of draugr – the living dead – in the proud realm of Vanaheim. Yet his home is not as Heimdall remembers it. 

'Anti- Asgardian sentiment is rife, and the arrival of just two warriors from Asgard to deal with the draugr threat only incenses its people further. With rebellion growing in Vanaheim, Heimdall must investigate this conspiracy and the undead, even if it pits him against his own kin, to preserve the peace of the Realm Eternal.'

Aconyte Books have been producing some wonderful Marvel novels, featuring characters from across the comics universe. and whilst these books have been nothing less than amazing some of the best have easily been the Marvel Legends of Asgard line, which are set within the nine realms and follow characters from the Thor series. What makes these books so good is that they're set long before the comics, and focus on the early days of the gods and heroes that we know, allowing the authors to explore them in ways we don't often get.

The first book in this series was The Head of Mimir, which followed Heimdall and his sister Sif as they travelled into Frost Giant territory to save Asgard; and revealed how Heimdall received his unique powers of perception. Now we get to catch up with Heimdall once again as Richard Lee Byers continues to chart his journey from solider to god of Asgard.

The story begins with Heimdall and his friend, the valkyrie Uschi, being granted leave from Asgard and returning to their home realm of Vanaheim to visit family and relax for a bit. Upon arriving at Heimdall's family home, however, they're surprised to find a strange atmosphere hanging over the land. They soon learn that this is due to a series of attacks from darugr, fierce, deadly undead creatures that have a host of strange powers. Volunteering their help, the two young warriors help to quell the next draugr attack; thinking that the threat has been defeated.

When Uschi travels to her own parents home, meeting a frosty reception from her father thanks to old grudges, she begins to suspect that there may be more going on in Vanaheim than first appears, especially when the god Frey arrives offering swords capable of killing the undead. Meanwhile, Heimdall is shocked to discover that the draugr threat hasn't been stopped, and must help his people fight back against creatures much stronger and more monstrous than he ever thought possible. With the undead threatening everyone in Vanaheim, will Heimdall and Uschi be able to investigate into the bigger mystery at play before it's too late to save everyone?

The books in the Marvel Legends of Asgard series have felt like big, fantasy stories, tales from myth and legend having come to life. And whilst that's definitely true with The Rebels of Vanaheim this book is something more too. This is a horror story. The draugr in this book are absolutely terrifying. Before this, my main experience with these creatures was a handful of myths that I'd read over the years, and as creatures that I have killed in their thousands in Skyrim, and whilst some of those myths and stories were creepy I'd never really felt afraid of these things. That definitely changed reading this book.

The draugr aren't just zombies, there's nothing average about the creatures that Byers has thrown at our heroes. These things have powers and abilities that make them incredibly deadly; as well as adding to the horror of never knowing where they are our where they could attack from. For starters, they're hard to kill, and even warriors like Heimdall seem to have great difficulty putting these things down. Some of them even begin missing limbs or their head, and their wounds quickly close up after you attack them. If that wasn't scary enough, their victims can become infected, becoming more of the creatures. But we're not just talking about zombie bites, just having a draugr looking at you with their horrific gaze can infect you, slowly changing you into one of them. Add on to this their abilities to move through water, shape-shift into other creatures or people, and their ability to move through walls and appear whenever they want, they might be some of the most frightening monsters I've seen employed in this series yet.

The scenes where our heroes and the warriors of Vanaheim are stalking through dark hallways, searching for the creatures that are making their way from room to room attacking people are incredibly tense. The moments where they're waiting for an attack to come, knowing that their weapons can do little to hurt these things are some that have definitely stuck with me, and make for a frightening read at times. Horror rarely gets used in the superhero genre, at least outside of characters that are heavily connected with horror such as Blade or Ghost Rider, so seeing scary moments like this in a setting where we're not used to seeing them make them hit so much harder. 

But the book isn't all about draugr and horror, as there's a lot more going on than is first revealed. There are things that happen, especially during the second half of the book, that really test Heimdall and Uschi in a way completely different than just fighting monsters. The book has a lot of character development for the two of them, and tests their connections to their families and their oaths to Asgard, forcing them to have to question what matters most to them. Thanks to the family connections, of Heimdall and Uschi literally having to go home and interact with their parents, this is one of the books in the series that has the most personal stakes too.

There's a lot I'd love to be able to talk about from this book, but thanks to a central mystery filled with twists and turns and startling revelations I'm not sure I really can say much without giving too much away. What I will say is that this was easily the best entry in the series so far. It was packed with action, horror, character focus, and had a central plot that kept me invested throughout. I got the sense from the end that there's still a lot more room for Richard Lee Byers to tell stories about Heimdall in the future and continue his journey to becoming the god we know him as; and I really hope that that's the case, as I can't wait to see what the character gets to do next.

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Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures #11 – Comic Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

After a few issues of getting to focus on one of our characters, as well as further stoking the flames of the conflict between the Jedi and the Nihil, things take a quieter approach with the current issue of IDW‘s Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures, as the Jedi  take some time off for fun and games, and political machinations begin within the ranks of the Nihil.

The action this issue is split between two storylines. The first follows the young Jedi Padawans as they get to compete in the Great Jedi Rumble Race, a competition that hasn’t been held in a long while. The race will see any who want to compete taking part in a mad dash through Starlight Beacon, racing to be crowned the winner. There’s only one rule: there are no rules.

This is actually quite a delightful idea, and it’s a lot of fun to see this funny, ridiculous competition unfold across the issue. Over the years fans have seen the Jedi train to master their emotions, to learn to live without attachments, to think of the greater whole and not put themselves first. They’ve been taught that competing to win isn’t the goal in life. So to see those lessons put aside, even for a short while, and see these usually calm and reserved people just having fun is lovely.

We get to see the young characters getting excited over the competition, we see Zeen happy to find out she can compete even though she’s not a Jedi, Ram Jomaram gets to plot how to use his droid to help him win, Quort refuses to use his enhanced speed and agility to win because its more fun to race with his friends, and Master ‘Buckets of Blood’ Buck cheering everyone on and screaming that there are no rules. After a year of seeing these characters being thrown into life-threatening scenarios, dealing with losses, fighting for their lives, its great to see them just acting like kids and finding joy in life.

Sadly, this seems to be in stark contrast to the other story being told this issue. Far from Starlight Beacon, on the planet of Corellia, Krix Kamerat is meeting with allies of the Nihil to further the plans to take over the galaxy. Unfortunately, one of his subordinates, Sabata, seems to dislike the idea of serving under a kid who got put into a position of power due to favouritism rather than experience, and is arranging a plan to get Krix killed.

The difference in these two stories, in the two different paths that Zeen and Krix are walking, have never been more apparent than they are here. Zeen has found a family that loves her, that takes care of her, includes her in their lives even if she’s not one of them, whereas Krix is being barely tolerated, has people out to take him down, and consider him an outsider no matter what he does.

The art on the issue, provided by Harvey Tolibao and Rebecca Nalty, has some really great moments scattered throughout. The scenes where the panels are filled with characters, such as the Jedi meeting up together to take part in the Rumble are fantastic, and you’ll find yourself spending a long time looking through everyone in the room, checking the backgrounds, and trying to pick out all the little details.

Whilst the scenes on Corellia aren’t as busy, they make good use of the space, and there are a lot of pieces of art there that are absolutely packed with background characters and small details. The other place where this issue really excels is in the energy. During the race it really feels like there’s a lot going on, that the characters are rushing around, jumping over each other, and making a mad dash to the finish line.

After a lot of doom and gloom, big action sequences, and some galaxy changing stakes, it’s nice to just take a breather for an issue, to see these characters in their down time. It shows not only how different life is for the different sides, but the kind of simple, wonderful joys that the Jedi are fighting for.

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The Last Matinee – Blu-ray Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

Slasher movies were a big force in the ’80s. They unseated huge box office movies from the top spots, they launched the careers of world famous actors, and it seemed like you couldn’t move without tripping over a new one being released. But over the years slasher movies have become less and less common, and other than the odd big budget US movie once a year or so you’ll have to turn to independent cinema in order to find new ones. The Last Matinee is one of these films, a Spanish language horror production from Uruguay that not only tries to live up to the slasher films of the past, but is a love letter to some of the great Giallo classics too.

The film begins one stormy day in Montevideo in 1993, as we see various people begin to gather in a run down old movie theatre to watch a horror film as the rain comes down outside. There’s a young woman who takes over running the film projector so that her sick father can go home, a boy who’s snuck in to watch a film he isn’t allowed to see, a trio of drunken teens, and a young couple on a date, to name but a few. As they all settle in to watch the film a mysterious figure enters the cinema, locks the doors behind them, and begins to use the cover of the darkness and the loud noises to kill the people inside one by one.

For the first half of the film we’re only really given hints and promises that there’s something sinister to come, that things will take a turn for the horrific, as we spend a good deal of time getting used to the environment and learning about the characters. We don’t get huge backstories for the people there, and for the most part I can’t even remember if we get given all of their names. But compared to a lot of horror films where all you get is broad caricatures, these feel like pretty well crafted characters. We understand the kinds of people they are, why they’ve come to this almost deserted cinema, and we come to care for them as the killer begins to strike.

The killer himself, played by horror director and producer Ricardo Islas, is a figure that we only get the briefest of glimpses of until the final act of the film, with him sneaking through the darkness, always just out of frame or blurred in shadows in the background. When we do get to see him more clearly it becomes clear why director Maximiliano Contenti cast Islas in the role. It’s not just a cameo towards an icon in South American horror, but because he’s a genuinely creepy actor, who’s able to steal the focus in the scenes he’s in. There’s one particularly creepy and disturbing moment when he has a few of the characters cornered that easily stood out as one of the best sequences in the entire movie; and this was largely down to his screen presence.

The rest of the cast are great too, and whilst this does fall into the slasher genre trope of having a ‘final girl’ there were times I found myself wondering if I might be wrong as to which character I believed that was going to be. They all felt like they were given enough of a foundation that any one of them could live to survive the end, and were all acted well enough that they could have been the lead.

One of the things that really impressed about the film was how much it was clearly a love letter to older movies. The camera moved a lot slower, you were given time to sit with the shots and things were allowed to linger, instead of being a mess of movement and fast cuts. Atmosphere was allowed to build, and certain camera angles and direction felt like things from films forty years old. In the ‘making of’ featurette, the director talks about how he was inspired as much by Giallo as he was the slasher genre, and you really can see that translate onto the screen. It felt like a film that could have been directed by Mario Bava, or Umberto Lenzi; and it being set in a cinema certainly made me think of the Italian horror film Demons.

The new Blu-ray release from Arrow Video comes with a full length audio commentary by director Maximiliano Contenti, as well as some behind the scenes making of videos and a short that takes a look at the practical special effects used on the film. ‘The Matinee Massacre’ are a fun series of three mockumentary shorts that act like the events of the film really happened, and we get a few short films from the director included too. One of the extras that I found really interesting is a conversation between Maximiliano Contenti and Ricardo Islas, as the two of them discuss not only working on this film, but horror cinema in Uruguay itself.

If you’re a fan of slasher movies and Giallo cinema, The Last Matinee will feel like a throwback to movies that don’t really get made any more. It’s a love letter to a part of the horror genre that has fallen out of mainstream cinema focus, but is still a wonderful genre in which to create. A definite must see.

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The Thing – Throwback 10

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

John Carpenter‘s The Thing is an amazing movie. It’s got a great cast, an eerie and frightening location, and a premise so horrifying and tense that it’s nerve-wracking. To look at that film and say ‘let’s remake it’ seems absurd, yet that’s precisely what producers Marc Abraham and Eric Newman thought when they were looking for horror films to remake after the success of 2004’s Dawn of the Dead. Instead of choosing to remake The Thing, they wanted to explore what had already been established in that film, and chose to tell the story of what happens to the Norwegian arctic research station Thule when they unearth a deadly alien life form.

The story of 2011’s The Thing focuses on the events that came before the John Carpenter movie, crafting a prequel that filled the audience in on what happened before Kurt Russell and the rest of his team arrived on the scene. This is actually a brilliant decision, one that allows the filmmakers to add to the world of that original film and not instantly receive hate before anyone even watches it simply because it’s a remake. However, 2011’s The Thing is not a film that most people like, so what went wrong?

The Thing begins in the winter of 1982, when the staff at a Norwegian research station discover a huge ship beneath the arctic ice, along with some kind of creature that froze to death nearby. Seeing that a major find is on their hands the leader of the expedition calls for a specialist researcher, and the American palaeontologist Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) travels to the base with helicopter pilot Sam Carter (Joel Edgerton).

Upon arriving at the base, Kate begins her research into what is clearly an alien life-form, but before much work can be done the creature bursts free from the block of ice it’s been encased in, escaping into the base. The team soon discover that the creature is able to infect and imitate any living creature on the base, leading to them having to not only fight for their own survival, but trying to stop the creature from escaping.

The plot to The Thing is perfectly fine, if not a little repetitive of what came in the original. The setting is similar enough to practically be the same (one arctic base is the same as another I suppose), and the decent sized cast that gets slowly picked off whilst the bigger star names do what they can to survive feels very recognisable. What this film had going for it, and what it didn’t really capitalise on, was being where the Thing crashed to earth. They had the spaceship, they had the opportunity to explore the history of this creature more, and didn’t really do much with it.

This being a prequel, the film could have waited a bit longer to unleash the creature too. We know what’s coming. We know the monster is going to get out because the first film happens, so this film could have really played with teasing how and when this would occur, leaving viewers wondering if this scene was going to be the one where it escaped or not. But the film seems to be more interested in trying to tell the same ‘anyone could be a monster’ story as the first film, so the creature is soon skittering around causing havoc.

This does lead to one clever little addition that I did like. In the first film the team realise that any part of the Thing is alive, and will react to defend itself, leading to them developing a test to try and see who might be infected. Here, they come to the realisation that the Thing can only copy organic material when they find discarded fillings in the shower. This lets them check to see who might be the thing, with anyone who has a filling or a piercing clearly being a human. It’s nice to see new and creative ways of people trying to identify potential monsters that aren’t just rehashes of the first movie.

However, once the Thing escapes we do get some of the worst parts of the film, namely, the effects. The original movie is amazing and stands the test of time because of the quality of their practical effects, that are still great to see to this day. Sadly, the 2011 version of The Thing goes a very different route, choosing to use CGI quite heavily. There are moments in this film where the tension should be through the roof, where the characters are fighting for their lives against a creature from your nightmares, but all you end up thinking is ‘this looks terrible’. There has been footage released since the film’s release that shows the practical effects work that was done for the film by very talented creators and suit actors. However, almost all of these shots were either removed from the final film, or covered over in CGI. The result is a film that at its best has aged terribly, and at times looks even worse than the 2007 Doctor Who episode ‘The Lazarus Experiment’.

Unfortunately for the film, this seemed to be the kind of sentiment shared by most, and the movie was quickly given poor reviews by multiple outlets. These reviews, and general word of mouth, didn’t help the film at the box office, resulting in it only making back $31.5 million of its $38 million budget. Despite being a financial loss, and a poor film overall, fans remained over the years, as word of an alternate director’s cut began to spread; a version of the film that not only utilised practical effects, but an entirely new creature in the final confrontation. As of yet, this version of the film has not been released, but if the pieces that have been shared online are anything to go on, it would be a huge improvement.

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Night Raiders – Film Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

Future dystopian fiction tends to follow a number of tropes and themes; whether it’s in film, television or book form, there are certain things that you come to expect from these dark visions of futures that we all want to avoid. Normally they involve some terrible thing that’s being done to people, such as being forced to work as slaves, segregated into different groups, having your rights taken away, being told who you can love, or having your children taken by the totalitarian state. These injustices are often looked at through the lens of how it effects white people, and there’s usually a young cis heterosexual white person, often a woman, who stands up against this and leads a revolution to a better life.

The biggest problem with stories like that is that all of these nightmare scenarios – people losing their rights, being used for science, being forced and controlled – are all shown as being awful because they’re happening to white people. But these are all things that have happened across our histories and today, to people of colour, queer people, and disabled folks, to name but a few. Minority groups have lived through these kinds of scenarios, have seen their lives ripped apart by oppressors, and been ignored by those with the power to do something about it. And the ‘white saviour’ narratives that happen in dystopian fiction are just awful because that’s just not what happens. There’s just not one charismatic white kid who’s going to save the world.

Night Raiders knows this. It’s seen these tropes and these kinds of narratives before, but it’s also a film by people who have lived it. This story isn’t about white people coming to save the day because the things they’ve done to minority group has finally happened to them; this is the story of the survival of indigenous peoples, told by them.

The film is set in an America in the not too distant future of 2044, where a civil war has changed the landscape of the country, leaving most of the people we meet living under the heel of an oppressive government who want to control them, before finally deciding to kill them. It’s in this world that we meet Niska (Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers), a mother who has been keeping her eleven year old daughter Waseese (Brooklyn Letexier-Hart) safe out in the wilderness, away from the ruined cities. In this world all children are taken away from their families to be educated in military academies, where they become brainwashed to love the state, and trained to oppress their own people.

After Waseese is injured, Niska has no choice but to hand her daughter over to those in power in order to save her life. With her daughter gone she knows that she can’t live her life in peace until she gets her back, and begins to spy on the academy where Waseese has been taken. It’s here that she is discovered by a community of Cree who are helping children escape the compound. They agree to help Niska to get her daughter back if Niska agrees to take all of the children to safety, using her experience of surviving in the wild to keep them away from the government. Now begins the dangerous task of rescuing her daughter.

The cast of Night Raiders aren’t really actors that many people will be familiar with. Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers has only really done short films before this, and this is Brooklyn Letexier-Hart’s first feature film. And the relative lack of ‘star power’ helps this film. It makes it feel more real and grounded, that these are regular people living through this, not some Hollywood star. The two leads give great performances throughout, with Tailfeathers really selling the feeling of a tired, worn down woman barely holding things together.

Director Danis Goulet, who also wrote the script, clearly know dystopian fiction; the story ticks off a lot of the things that you’d expect to find in this kind of story. The cities are bombed out shells, forcing people to live in cramped, squalid conditions; the people in power use more advanced weaponry and technology to keep people in control; and there’s an underground movement trying to fight against it. But it’s also clear that this isn’t just someone just wanting to make a dystopia story, but that she’s got something she wants to talk about.

The things that happen in this story are direct parallels to things that happened to America’s Indigenous population. Their homes were destroyed; their children taken from them and’ reeducated’; they were forced from their land; and those in power attacked them with disease and viruses. As such, those that stand against them aren’t looking at this as a sudden, shocking turn of events, but simply the latest in a long history of genocide that has been committed against them. They talk about this in the film, they don’t shy away from it, and they call their oppressors colonisers – because that’s what they are.

The way the film is shot feels like it reflects this too. We don’t get big, fantastic visuals like dystopia films such as The Hunger Games or Maze Runner, things here have a much more grounded and personal perspective. The action scenes are fairly pedestrian, there’s no big explosions and amazing fighting moves, just normal people trying their best to stay alive whilst tired and worn down. And the final confrontation evokes images of things such as the Black Lives Matter protests, or the attacks on protesters at Standing Rock. And this seems to be a very deliberate thing. It’s like Goulet is trying to remind the audience that when a corrupt and cruel government comes for people it doesn’t like, it won’t be some big budget action scene that plays out, but a painful, tiring, and awful fight against a foe that can easily wipe you out.

Night Raiders isn’t your average sci-fi dystopia, it’s trying to do something different by centring non-white voices and leads in this kind of story. I’ve seen people giving the film criticism for using too many tropes, or for people not feeling like they can connect with the story because of the focus on Native People, and these feel incredibly unfair, as it does more with the genre than a lot of other similarly themed films; it’s just doing it in more subtle and important ways.

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Halloween Girl Vol 1: Promises To Keep – Comic Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

Comics are a big business, and a type of media that has been around for centuries in one form or another. But it’s within the last twenty years or so that they’ve become more popular than ever, due in large part to the number of popular movies based on comics. With so many new films and television series spawning out of comics it’s not very often that we get to see it go the other way, and see an original comic based on a film. Halloween Girl Vol 1: Promises To Keep is trying to do this, adapting a short movie and a web series into comic form for a new audience.

The story presented here isn’t a retelling of what’s come before, it’s more of a sequel to what creator Richard T. Wilson has made in the past. As such, the comic expects the audience to understand who Charlotte is, and what her deal is, right from the start. At the beginning of the issue she has a vision, which led me to believe that she’s a teen with psychic powers of some kind. But throughout the issue she talks about making herself visible to people, which definitely adds some wrinkles to understanding what’s going on. It was only through researching the original short film that I discovered that Charlotte is actually some kind of ghost.

This sense of not knowing whether I should know things, or if there is stuff that will be explained in further issues, was one that extended to other areas too, such as Charlotte’s friend Poe, and her talk about Hollows and the end of the world. Once again, I was left wondering if this is something that I was supposed to know about before reading the issue, and much of what these two said to each other felt like it was going over my head. The Under the Flower series, including the original Halloween Girl prequel film, is available to watch online, and the website also has mini introduction videos for these aspects of the comic, but it seems like a lot of extra work to just put the book in context.

There were also times whilst reading that I became confused with the dialogue, as the speech balloons for certain panels were arranged in such a way that I was reading dialogue out of order, seeing people’s responses to things before the person they were talking to even said anything. Some panels felt incredibly crowded as dialogue was being worked into the art. I’ve see this in indie comics before, where it looks as though the artist has drawn the images without considering where the dialogue is supposed to go, resulting in word balloons having to be put in places where they don’t cut off people’s faces or other important stuff, and it always results in dialogue going out of order, or panels crammed with balloons. It made reading the book less enjoyable, and resulted in having to read certain panels twice to get them in the right order.

The art on Halloween Girl, by Stephen Mullan, is delivered in black and white, possibly to help create a spooky atmosphere to help with the horror of the story. That being said, many of the panels have plain white backgrounds in them. Whilst this does mean that the characters stand out on the page, it often feels like they’re existing inside plain white voids. This leaves the world they’re in feeling empty and dull, and if anything it detracts from any sense of creepy atmosphere the comic might have been trying to create.

There could be a lot to this story to like, and it feels like it could be the start of something interesting, but thanks in large part to not knowing if I should be aware of certain things, not really having the premise or characters explained, and panel layouts that led to confusion and having to backtrack more than once, I struggled to enjoy this first issue.

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JK Rowling Doesn't Care About Rape Victims

 

JK Rowling is a bigot. Over the years she has made it clear that she sees transgender people as sub-human. She has said that trans women are dangerous. She's claimed that trans healthcare will harm cis people. She's called trans men confused children. She's followed and praised bigots who dedicate their life to harming trans people. She uses her wealth and power to shut down any voice she disagrees with.  And she makes it clear that behaviour she tolerates from her cis fans will result in her calling the police on you it you're trans.

In her latest 'middle aged moment' of intense and open transphobia, this below average quality children's author has claimed that trans women are rapists. She shared an article from The Independent which reports that Police Scotland will record the perpetrators and victims of rape as the gender they identify as, rather than the sex which they were born in. This proposed change would create an accurate account of who is performing rapes, and who their victims are. This would allow for data to be able to show just how many cis men rape, how many cis women rape, and how many trans people rape. This, would surely be something that a person who thinks trans women are a danger would like to see happen as it would prove that trans women really are raping in the thousands like she believes, right? Except, because that's not happening, and because people like Rowling refuse to ever see trans people as their genders, she's very, very angry about this proposal.

She tweeted out a link to the article along with 'War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. The penised individual who raped you is a woman.' A pathetic attempt to conjure the fear inducing imagery of 1984, a common tactic amongst bigots who will often claim anything they don't agree with as being 'just like 1984'.

Whether or not Rowling has read or understood 1984 doesn't really matter, though if she's like any of the other people who throw the comparisons to the book around she probably hasn't, and doesn't. What this tweet does do, however, is shows that JK Rowling doesn't care about rape victims.

Rowling is happy to speak up for victims of rape all of a sudden because it allows her to weaponize those people against trans women (and we all know how much she loves attacking trans women). Before this you'd be hard pressed to find Rowling talking about the subject at all. And I doubt you could find a single tweet where she does talk about it without trying to implicate trans people in some way.

Before this Rowling has not once tweeted about the Me Too movement. She didn't speak out against high profile rape cases such as the Sarah Everard murder, the Harvey Weinstein accusations, or Bret Kavanaugh. Considering how much she clearly seems to care about rape victims and protecting vulnerable women, and the huge potential for good change her wealth and position affords her you'd have thought she would have done something about this before. But she hasn't.

Why, if the victims of sexual assault is such a pressing concern for her hasn't she spoken out before this? Could it be that her time is so taken up with other things that she's always meant to speak up for rape victims before, but has only just now found the time? Could it be pure coincidence that her speaking out for rape victims by implying all trans women are rapists is just a coincidence? 

Don't be absurd. This is a very clear pattern from Rowling. Just as how she didn't care that her Edinburgh home has been featured in multiple news articles, used in tourist literature, and has been shared on social media multiple times by Harry Potter fans, but suddenly found the entire thing to be doxing because it was trans activists who did it it's painfully obvious that Rowling has a pattern of not caring unless it helps with her agenda to harm trans people.

Rowling has continued to demonstrate that she will only speak out on topics if it allows her to cause harm to trans people. She never cared about rape victims before this; and I doubt she actually does care about them at all, but is simply using them as a weapon with which to harm a group that is infinitely more likely to be the victims of sexual assault than the perpetrators.

Rowling cares so little about the victims of sexual assault that she has sent flowers to a man who has been accused of multiple accounts of sexual assault and rape. Has she ever done this for a victim of sexual assault? Has she ever donated to a rape crisis centre? Has she ever done anything to help a victim of rape? I'd love to be proven wrong, to see that she's been doing a ton of activist work to help rape survivors; but as it stands at the moment, this looks to be yet another in the long list of things that suddenly 'concern' her because it lets her harm the trans community once again.

I'm lucky enough to not be the victim of sexual assault. The number of women who are is staggeringly high, so I understand that I really am one of the lucky ones. But if I was the victim of sexual assault and saw this blatant, open attempt at trying to paint a group of women as being rapists I'd feel disgusted by it.

I honestly don't see how Rowling care about rape victims. The behaviour she's demonstrated makes it look like she doesn't. And I'm sure that there will be some who argue her side, that claim I'm lying or wilfully misrepresenting what she's said and done, but this is my opinion based upon the evidence I've seen. Want to prove me wrong? Show me her supporting the victims of sexual assault without making cheap shots at the trans community. Show me that evidence or shut up, because I honestly don't believe that Rowling actually gives a damn.

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