The Comic Cave – The Nice House On The Lake

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

The Comic Cave is a fortnightly feature where we spin the Wheel of Comics and see what graphic novel story it brings up for us to deep dive into! This week we take a look at The Nice House On The Lake, one of the popular entries in the DC Black Label imprint that took the world of comics by storm.

“How do you think the world will end?” A question that seem innocuous, if a little creepy, as The Nice House On The Lake begins. A question asked between friends, a thought exercise, a way of learning about you more as a person and how you see the world. It’s the kind of ‘what if?’ scenario that I’m sure we’ve all been asked by a friend at some point or another, one of those random questions that you never think twice about. Unfortunately, for the characters in James Tynion IV‘s twelve issue series, it becomes something that they can’t escape.

DC Comics have had a lot of stories over the years that don’t fit into established continuity, from things such as Superman: Red Son or The Dark Knight Returns, that take familiar characters and do something completely different with them, to their Vertigo imprint that crafted series like The Sandman and Hellblazer, stories that could take place within the regular universe, but made more sense being their own things. The already mentioned Vertigo was joined by the Elseworlds imprint, but over the years things changed and Vertigo was folded into the DC Universe, and the Elseworlds label was dropped for out of continuity books. Then, in September 2018 DC launched DC Black Label. Black Label would create darker and more adult stories that didn’t have to follow the continuity of the regular DC Universe, becoming something of an amalgam of Elseworlds and Vertigo.

Black Label enjoyed early success with titles like Batman: Damned by Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo, and Dark Knight Returns: The Golden Child by Frank Miller and Rafael Grampá. Many of the early Black Label books involved Batman, thanks to the character being an almost instant guarantee of sales. As time went on more characters like Superman and Wonder Woman would receive Black Label titles, but the series also produced titles that had no connection to the DC Universe at all, that played by their own rules and took place in more real world settings. One of these titles was The Nice House On The Lake, first launched in June 2021.

The Nice House On The Lake begins normally enough, with a group of ten people being invited up to a remote mansion on the edge of a forested lake for a weekend away from the pressures of the real world. Most of the people know each other, though not all of them are friends, but they all have strong connections to Walter, a nice guy who they’ve each known at some point in their life. Walter seems like a bit of a loner, a quiet guy who collects friends and keeps the ones who mean a lot to him, creating a handful of strong relationships that mean the world to him. And it’s these people that he invites up to the lake.

As the group arrives at the house they find a world of luxury awaiting them with a cinema room, a huge library, a pool, and gorgeous countryside surrounding them. It feels like the perfect getaway, even if not everyone there is completely cool with each other. Their friendship with Walter and the gorgeous weekend is what matters. Until one of them checks their social media feed. Post after post detail the end of the world. “The sky looks like it’s on fire. I’ve never seen colors like this before”; “I can pull my skin off in sheets. It doesn’t even hurt. It feels like pudding. My skin is sticking to the phone as I type this. Fuck.”; “My mom just called me screaming that her skin is coming off in pieces.”; “I think we need to start having a reasonable conversation about a painless way to kill yourself, before the fire gets you.”

As the group watch people die, watch cities burn on their phone screens, they realise the end of the world has come, that everything is over. It’s then that Ryan remembers a conversation that she and Walter had: “How do you think the world will end?”; she simply points at him as she comes to the realisation “You picked”. Walter reveals to his assembled friends that he brought them to the house to spare them from the end of the world, from the apocalypse that his people brought. He wants them to survive, to live on, and he’s created a haven for them. In the panic and anger that follows, Walter reveals himself to be more than human, beyond what we’d understand, displaying powers beyond imagining. Vanishing, he leaves his friends to continue on as the world burns around them.

Thus begins a mystery story, and a horror story, as the ten survivors of the end of the world try to figure out what to do with themselves. They discover that their haven has been designed to keep them alive, that they can write down requests for food and supplies which will then appear on their doorstep the next day, preventing them from starving to death or getting bored. However, their haven is determined to keep them alive in other, more sinister ways too. As the group digs deeper for answers they learn that Walter has been testing them for years, making sure that they’re the people he wants to save, making them forget things if they ever get close to learning the truth about him. The more they learn, however, the more dangerous things become for them, and the more Walter becomes involved, determined to prevent his friends from going too far.

The Nice House On The Lake is a dark book, one that very quickly into the first issue enters a realm of existential horror and grief that never really lets up. Its characters watch the world end, via their smart phones and the strange statues around the property that let you see the outside world when touching them. Being the last of humanity, knowing that your old life is gone, and everyone you’ve eve known and loved died in agony and fear is enough to break most people, and we see that in the book. Characters slip into depression, some even become suicidal, and it’s this for me that really makes the book a horror story. It’s a horror for the soul, it’s the emotional pain that seeps in that none of them can do anything about that sends shivers down my spine. Normal grief and depression are hard enough to manage, but when your old life is gone forever, when there’s no end in sight, how do you move past that?

James Tynion IV spends at least one issue of the series focusing on each of the members of the group, members who are picked to be archetypes for humanity, almost reduced to their role in life to fit some kind of alien agenda that Walter is working towards. There’s the artist, the pianist, the writer, the comedian, the accountant, the scientist, the reporter, the acupuncturist, the consultant, and the doctor. Each issue moves the mystery forward, deepening the mythology of the world and revealing more about Walter and his past, whilst also putting the focus squarely on each character, getting into their heads and seeing how the story is affecting them at that point.

The result is that you get a chance to know each of them, but you also feel like you’re not really spending any time with them as well. We get small insights into each of them for an issue, but them most slip into the background for a while. The only characters that seem to get a bigger focus are Walter, who we learn more about each issue as we see flashbacks to his relationships with each of the members of the group, and Norah. Norah is the character that I found to be the most fascinating of the group, and not just because I’m biased because she’s a trans woman. Norah seems to know more than is first apparent, and as the story evolves goes through some extra hardships and trials that the others don’t, and she plays a pivotal role in the ending.

Speaking of the ending, I’m not going to go into the small details of the story, as this is first and foremost a mystery, and ruining that would make reading the book pointless for anyone who hasn’t yet, but I can say that the ending feels like an ending, yet sets up for more to come. Tynion IV has seeded hints that things continue on after the events of the book from the very first page. Each issue opens with the focus character talking directly to the reader, dressed like they’re a character from Mad Max, in ruins and the wreckage of the world; something that doesn’t happen in the book itself. Whether Tynion IV is planning to do more, or if this is his way of adding further mystery, to get the reader thinking about what could happen beyond the final page, is still unknown. There are rumours that there might be more, but this has so far been based on vague statements and fan speculation. But even if it doesn’t go on, the twelve issues that we have craft a fantastic story all in itself.

The art on the series is provided by Álvaro Martínez Bueno, with Jordie Bellaire on colours, and is a wonderfully dark and moody series, one that keeps things fairly visually simple, yet manages to pack a lot onto each page. The art team are at their best when they’re either portraying the beauty of the world around the house, showcasing the rich landscape or the gorgeous buildings, or when things are going horribly wrong for the group. The moments when emotions are high (of which there are many) jump off the page as Bueno and Bellaire flood the characters with visible emotion. You don’t need to be told how they’re feeling, because you can see the anger, the range, and the despair coming off them just by how they’re standing, the looks on their faces, and the way the colours and lighting shift subtly. And each issue has covers that can only be described as works of art. They convey the horror of the story, the destruction and the loss in ways that the book doesn’t always do, and it’s easy to see how seeing these books on the shelf at your local comic book shop would lead you to picking the series up.

With DC Black Label filling up with darker and edgier superhero stories, most of which ended up being Batman, The Nice House On The Lake felt like something new and different. It took a big, bold step away from the world of super heroes and told a much more focused, character driven story that’s part mystery, part horror, part sci-fi, and part emotional drama that has an incredibly simple hook but will keep you reading and guessing throughout. Whilst it’s not the easiest read, and it’s full of dark emotions, it’s certainly never a dull one.

The Nice House On The Lake was published from June 2021 to December 2022 by DC Comics.

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Dark Souls II – Throwback 10

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

There are occasionally games that come out that feel like they change the landscape of gaming forever. Resident Evil changed the survival horror genre, Final Fantasy VII changed role playing games, Street Fighter II changed fighting games. Each one may not have been the first of their respective genres, but they did something that would make all other games that came after different, whether in an attempt to emulate, or an attempt to compete.

Dark Souls was not the first hugely punishing action adventure game (that would be Demon Souls), but Dark Souls is the one that ignited what would become known as the ‘Soulslike’ genre. Thanks to the popularity of Dark Souls other companies began trying to create their own version, but whilst they were all trying to catch hold of the wave FromSoftware did what the fans were hoping for for three years: they released a sequel.

Announced two years before, at the Video Game Awards in 2012, Dark Souls II took many elements from the previous game, and as such had a shorter development time. Staples of the series, such as the focus on combat difficulty, environmental storytelling, and monstrous enemies in a empty dark fantasy world, all made a return, with FromSoftware focusing on smaller innovations and changes rather than trying to change the things that fans had come to love. As such, even with an entirely new setting the game feels instantly familiar to those that have played the very first Dark Souls.

As with the previous game, Dark Souls II begins with the player character becoming cursed, made into an undead creature that can never truly die. Assigned a mission to obtain four Great Souls in order to break this curse and free themselves from undeath, the player character travels to the new land of Drangleic. As with the first game, this results in the player exploring their way through danger filled environments as they try to find the next piece of the puzzle in their quest. The story leads from one place, one deadly foe, to another, slowly growing stronger as you have to take on ever increasingly monstrous creatures. Things haven’t changed much from the last game, and it’s instead in the smaller details that any real changes that the developers have made can be found.

One of the most obvious ways in which the game differs is in its locations. Dark Souls II offers a little more variety than the first game, and it incorporates environments such as seaside kingdoms, castles surrounded in lava, and danger filled marshlands. Whilst the first game created one giant, interconnected world that worked from a practical level, Dark Souls II does not. The locations don’t line up properly, they can’t be in the places they’re supposed to exist in. This is something that modders and data-miners have explored further in the years since its release, discovering that certain locations actually inhabit the same spaces at times. The result is a world that feels less real and more dreamlike at times, where the rules of reality don’t work, and the result is a more unsettling and confusing experience.

The combat was also tweaked somewhat, with the magic system having been altered to become less powerful than the previous game, and the parrying system (which was already somewhat difficult to master) was made even more unforgiving as timings were made much stricter. The system of dying over and over was also altered slightly. Whilst it was still expected that players would die frequently, using the death as a learning experience, this time there was also a penalty for dying. In Dark Souls II each time you die you incur a penalty to your maximum health, with each death slowly bringing down how much health you have to play with the next time you respawn. In a game where death is not just expected, but part of the process, this penalty felt harsh to some, and whilst it was welcomed by returning players who were used to the Dark Souls gameplay style it did result in the game being even harder for new players.

Upon release Dark Souls II received almost universal acclaim, being awarded near perfect scores from many media outlets and gaming magazines. The game was praised for the improvements to environments and lighting effects, with some pointing out that the combat tweaks and increase in difficulty was something of a detraction. Despite that, most reviewers still scored the game highly, and it would go on to win Game of the Year at the Golden Joystick Awards, as well as being nominated for Game of the Year at other awards.

Whilst over time some people have come to view Dark Souls II as the weaker of the three Dark Souls games, and possibly the weakest of the entire FromSoftware catalogue, it’s by no means hated or disliked. Fans of the series love Dark Souls II, and its success proved that the franchise could go on for multiple entries (something FromSoftware have yet to do for their other SoulsLike series). The success of Dark Souls II, and the series as a whole, also helped to make the SoulsLike genre one that’s guaranteed to stick around.

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Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) – Limited Edition 4K UHD Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

There are some things that seem to strike fear into humanity across history, irrational fear from days long past. We fear the dark because it could hide monsters, a fear that almost all of us begin with but that often fades with age. We understand why this fear exists, that it’s from a more primitive part of our brains, and we deal with it.

One primitive fear that sadly lingers to even this day is the fear of the other. People fear those that are different from them, people that they don’t understand or have little experience with. This fear comes from a tribal past, and rears its head in the modern day as the root of things such as racism, homophobia, transphobia, and any kind of prejudice that fears people as potential dangers based on nothing. This fear can lead to terrible things, including the notion that those different to us want to replace us. The Great Replacement Theory, a white nationalist, far-right belief that non-white people will try to slowly replace white people has led to people quite literally marching with flaming torches whilst chanting ‘You will not replace us’.

What does this have to do with Invasion of the Body Snatchers? Well, that should be somewhat obvious at this point if you have any kind of knowledge of the story. Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a film that preys on this primal fear of the other, that feeds into the very idea of The Great Replacement, even if the original book, The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney, was written some fifty years before the theory came into being. This is a large part of why the story has struck a chord with audiences, why we’ve had four direct big screen adaptations and numerous other stories that use the novel as a basis. The story plays into this fear, it puts it at the heart of the conflict, and it’s because this fear is one of the hardest for our society to kill that Invasion of the Body Snatchers will always feel relevant and frightening.

The 1978 adaptation of the film, from director Philip Kaufman, was the second major adaptation of the book, having followed the hugely popular 1956 film of the same name. Where the original movie played into the small town setting of the book, showing what the replacement invasion would look like to most Americans living in small communities, the Kaufman version updated things to a more modern audience, shifting events to the big city. Set in San Francisco, the film follows a small group of characters, including Health Department inspector Matthew Bennell (Donald Sutherland), Health Department scientist Elizabeth Driscoll (Brooke Adams), aspiring writer Jack Bellicec (Jeff Goldblum), and his wife Nancy (Veronica Cartwright) as they begin to notice strange things happening in the city.

The horror of Invasion of the Body Snatchers begins small, with Elizabeth believing something strange has happened to her boyfriend, and that the man living in her home with her isn’t who he says he is. She becomes convinced that he’s been replaced, a worry that is dismissed by everyone around her to begin with. Mirroring the themes of Gothic horror, where female characters are often ignored by the men in the story, their knowledge of the strange things happening around them dismissed as hysteria, it’s not until Matthew begins to witness unexplainable, bizarre events that he starts to listen to Elizabeth’s fears. But by then it’s too late. Matthew, Elizabeth, Jack, and Nancy realise that the world is changing around them, that the noose is tightening around their throats, and that if they don’t find a way to escape the ever growing horror they’ll become yet more victims to the replacements happening around them.

One of the ways in which Invasion of the Body Snatchers works so well is in the slow creeping nature of the horror, and the ever present feelings of paranoia. It’s almost impossible to go into this film without knowing what’s happening. Even though I’d never seen this version of the movie I was well aware of the story, and knew that the people were being replaced, but rather than this being some kind of spoiler, or ruining the movie it just heightened the tension. As the audience, I knew what was coming long before the characters, and I found myself waiting desperately for them to figure things out as the evidence slowly mounts, making for an incredibly tense viewing experience. But the film doesn’t just rely on this slow creeping dread, and features some genuine, visceral moments of body horror that feel so shocking and disturbing.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers will be with us for a long time, reinvented every fifteen to twenty years with new spins on the tale, new ways in which the horror can fit into our evolving culture. And whilst the original premise is strong enough to survive that, to be used over and over again without being twisted beyond what the novel was saying, no film has ever really succeeded in capturing the horror and the fear the way this version has. There’s a reason why when people mention Invasion of the Body Snatchers people’s first question tends to be ‘the Donald Sutherland version?’; it’s because when it comes to these adaptations the others just don’t come close.

The new Limited Edition 4K Ultra HD version of the film from Arrow Video offers a gorgeous looking version of the film. The image is wonderfully crisp and clean, and the audio sounds great, with the tiniest details able to be picked up. Arrow have been doing a fantastic job at updating older films, preserving and presenting them in ways that are better than their initial release, and this movie is no exception.

Alongside the film the new set offers a full length audio commentary from director Philip Kaufman, and a number of behind the scenes interviews and features, including a panel conversation about Invasion of the Body Snatchers and invasion cinema, an interview with Jack Seabrook, a documentary on the making of the film featuring featuring various cast and crew members, a look at the film’s pioneering sound effects, an interview with the film’s cinematographer Michael Chapman, a look at the creation of the special effects, and more. For those with a love of diving into the making of films and learning more about cinema history this set is likely more appealing for these extras than the film itself.

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The Art of Hight on Life by Paul Davies - Book Review

 

'Explore the hilarious, surreal, anarchic alien worlds of High on Life in this stunning compendium of concept art, final designs, storyboards, and exclusive commentary.

'High on Life is a hilarious, surreal adventure set in a world where alien invaders have enslaved Earth … so they can use us as recreational drugs. Armed with a pre-loved bounty hunter suit and a bizarre arsenal of talking weaponry, it’s your mission to bring down an intergalactic cartel and free humanity from its clutches – and maybe make a little money on the side.  With stunning full-colour illustrations throughout, The Art of High on Life showcases the crazy creatures, weird worlds and grotesque gunplay of the game, featuring expert commentary from its creators, Squanch Games.'

Video games are an incredibly collaborative medium, and as technology has progressed and more and more advanced games have become the standard it's become less common to find games made by small teams; and the 'triple A' games will sometimes consist of teams of hundreds of people. This means that there is often no one person who has direct input, and you'll have a lot of people bringing their own ideas, concepts, and designs to the table. High on Life, the fourth and latest game from Squanch Studios, is very much an example of this. 

Released in December 2022, High on Life was presented as a comedy first person shooter game that put players in control of a young teen who, along with their sister, is transported off Earth when the planet comes under attack from an evil alien overlord who's looking to make humans into drugs. Arriving on a strange alien world, the player character has to find a way of stopping the aliens and saving humanity, all with the help of their talking gun. 

Developed by the minds behind the television series Rick and Morty, it's a game that puts odd humour at the forefront, and engages in some weird character designs that wouldn't feel out of place in the show. One of the main reasons I picked up The Art of High on Life, despite not thinking too much of the game after trying it out, was that I was interested in seeing the creation of the game. I wanted to look at the designs that the team who made it went through, the ideas that were rejected, the trial and error that got them to the finished version. However, this was something that the book doesn't really deliver on in huge ways.

© 2024 SQUANCH GAMES

The book is written by Paul Davies, who does a great job at providing the reader with a lot of extra information and behind the scenes tales; as much as he's able to. It seems to be a book where 'tell, don't show' was the main instruction, as Davies talks the readers through the main story of the game, the characters that you encounter, and some of the reasons why certain designs were used for the characters. Whilst this is decent information in itself, it never really goes beyond a surface level. For example, when discussing the main villain of the game, Garmantuous is talked about in context to his role in the game and the way he looks, but there's no real discussion on how that look came about or if there were other designs before that one.

This is also, unfortunately, reflected in the art used throughout the book. The book is filled with behind the scenes art for characters, locations, and items, but only ever the designs used in the game. There's no development stage shown, and whilst that isn't always something that is guaranteed in an art book it often proves to be the most interesting part, and all of my favourite art books include those segments. The lack of inclusion of that here does leave it feeling a bit less impressive.

© 2024 SQUANCH GAMES

Sadly, the presentation of the art that is used does on occasion detract from the overall quality of the book too. I had to get someone else to come and have a look at several pages for me, because I assumed there was a problem with my eyes at one point, and thought that perhaps I was tired and not seeing things properly. Unfortunately, it wasn't just an issue with my eyes, and there are multiple pages within the book where the art seems to have been blown up in size and has lost focus. There are parts of the book that look incredibly blurry, often on full page splash pieces that should be highlights, but come across looking out of place. There are also some places where a part of an image seems to have been cut out from its background and pasted onto the page in a rush, with blocky, almost pixelated edges. 

I was incredibly disappointed at these issues, as it seems like somewhere along the line there was a mistake in quality control. With the amount of research and writing that Paul Davies seems to have put into the accompanying text it's a shame that opening a page and seeing large pieces of art looking blurry and out of focus will be the first thing that draws your eye, rather than the information that the book is trying to convey. 

Art books are big, expensive pieces, and The Art of High on Life is no exception to this. It's a pricey book that fans are going to want to have, and to see what I can only describe as low, almost shoddy quality within the book feels like something that's doing a disservice to those fans; and some of the people who worked on the project. I was enjoying the book for the most part, and was happy to give it a higher score, but the image quality issues brought my enjoyment down a lot, and means that I cannot score the book higher, nor recommend it to anyone but the most hardcore, diehard fans who need it no matter what. For those who might be interested in it but are unsure if they want to spend that much on an art book I'd advise perhaps holding off and looking at some of the other art books Titan has on offer instead.

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Possessor - Limited Edition 4K UHD Review

 

Science fiction has often asked interesting and philosophical questions, it's used to take careful looks at the way the world is, imagines how technology could evolve, and you can find a lot of sci-fi predicting aspects of our current society decades ago. Possessor, the second film from Brandon Cronenberg takes a different approach, it doesn't come up with ideas for technology that would improve our world, or technology that could see a widespread propagation in our own future. Instead, it's a dark, twisted, almost dreamlike movie that features some horrifying concepts. 

The film tells the story of Tasya Vos, played by Andrea Riseborough, an assassin who kills by never going anywhere near her target. Using advanced technology, Tasya is able to take control of another person, someone who is able to get close to her target. It could be someone they work with, or even a loved one of theirs; whoever they pick, Tasya inhabits their body, gets close to the person, and murders them brutally before killing the person she's possessing. It leaves no connection to her organisation, and wraps up the crime nice and neatly for the authorities. 

However, the technology can have a detrimental affect after a while. The longer Tasya is on a mission the more possessing another can cause lasting brain damage to her. And there's the fact that her personal life is suffering more and more as she has to keep going away on 'business trips' in order to perform her hits. Despite this, she agrees to take on another job, one that will see her taking possession of Colin (Christopher Abbott), a young man who will get them close to their target, wealthy CEO John Parse (Sean Bean), the cruel father of Colin's girlfriend. However, when the hit goes wrong, and Tasya finds herself trapped in Colin's body, with his own personality fighting back against her. 

From the very first scene of the film, which drops us straight into the middle of one of Tasya's assassinations, it becomes clear that Possessor is an ultra violent movie. Blood covers the characters and the locations as Tasya engages in the most brutal and sadistic kills possible. This is not an assassin who takes her targets down with a well places shot to the head or poison, she gets in close and stabs them repeatedly, cutting them to pieces. This sets the tone for the movie quite well, and things never get better than a feeling of grimy, nastiness that seems to pervade over everything. Locations are often dark, with little to no decoration, with Colin's workplace being a bare, cold room that looks more like a warehouse than an office, for example.

Possessor is a very cold movie, most of the characters relationships seem strained, their lives seem troubled, and any moments of intimacy of caring that we see feel tainted because of Tasya's life. Her relationship with her young son is strained and we see her practicing asking him normal questions before being with him. Her relationship with her husband is rocky, with her no longer living with him. When Tasya takes control of Colin we see what appeared to be a happy relationship on the outside is actually kind of frosty, with he and his girlfriend often being at arms length. Even the moment when she tells Colin she loves him and they have sex is tainted as she's having sex with Tasya in his body, it effectively being a rape scene. There's a scene earlier on in the film that shows Colin's job is to spy on people via their electronic devices, invading normal, happy homes with the company's voyeurism. There's not a single moment of Possessor that isn't tainted and nasty in some way.

The film is set in an alternate world, but other than the technology on display there's little to differentiate it from our own. The big tech company has employees spying on people, but our technology does that anyway as you find yourself bombarded for ads for things you briefly looked up online, or dared to mention near an Alexa device. The only real thing that feels too wild, and too sci-fi to make it our own would is the possession technology itself. As such, it does feel like a bit of a cop-out that this is meant to be another world entirely, as making it our own would actually speak more to some of the ways in which our own modern society is pretty terrible. 

The central performances from Risenborough and Abbott are strong, and the scenes in which their personalities and memories seem to be bleeding together are interesting ones. Abbot in particular stands out as you can easily tell when he's playing Colin and when he's Tasya in control of the body just by the way he holds himself, and the tone of his voice. It's a subtle performance, and one that will probably be overshadowed by the weird plot and visual affects of the film that will stick with people much longer after the movie. 

The new Limited Edition release from Second Sight Films comes in dual format, both on Ultra-HD and Blu-ray, and features a brand new audio commentary for the film from director Brandon Cronenberg, producer Rob Cotterill, director of photography Karim Hussain and special effects artist Dan Martin. There's also some new behind the scenes interviews with Cronenberg, Cotterill, and Hussain, along with some featurettes that were featured on previous releases of the film. The disc is also rounded out by some deleted scenes and trailers. The new edition comes in a slipcase featuring new artwork, six collector cards, and a 120-page book featuring behind the scenes info and essays. 

Possessor is an odd film, one that has some unusual concepts and a story that doesn't feel afraid to go against expectations to do its own thing. Performances are strong, and the film looks good. However, the darker and more depressing tone of the film, along with some more outlandish moments, means that it might not be to everyone's tastes.

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Green Room - Limited Edition 4K Ultra-HD Review

 

Like many, I was shocked to hear of the passing of Anton Yelchin in 2016, him having died at only twenty seven years old. Having seen him in a number of projects I found him to be a very good actor, and wanted to see more of the work that he'd left behind. I'm a little ashamed to say that it took me until this month to finally watch one of his more notable films, 2015's Green Room. I'd heard amazing things about it, particularly both his and Patrick Stewarts acting, but had never brought myself to watch it; perhaps in part to the subject matter of the film. With the new 4k Ultra-HD release from Second Sight Films I've finally corrected that oversight, and found myself wishing I'd watched it years before. 

Green Room follows the journey of a young punk band, the Ain't Rights, as they travel around the country, barely able to keep fuel in their van, playing one crappy gig after another. After an interview with a small town radio host they're offered to play in a remote bar in Portland, but upon arrival they discover that they're in a neo-Nazi skinhead bar, and are opening for a Nazi band. They decide to go ahead with the gig anyway, needing the money, and decide to get out of there as soon as they're off stage. However, when Pat, played by Yelchin, returns to the green room to grab his bandmates phone he walks into a murder. 

The Nazis running the bar shove the rest of the band into the green room and take them hostage as they deal with the police in order to cover up the stabbing. Knowing that there's no way that they're going to be let go the band overpower the man left watching them and barricade themselves in the green room. Thus begins a tense fight for survival between the band and a bar full of neo-Nazi's who want them dead. 

To say that Green Room is a tense film is something of an understatement. From the moment the Ain't Rights enter the remote bar the film becomes nerve-wracking. The only thing that I knew before watching the film was that Patrick Stewart played the leader of a gang of neo-Nazi's, I didn't know that the band were going to see a murder, or that it would become a room under siege type of story, and as such I was waiting for something bad to happen almost immediately. But even when something terrible did happen it didn't help to lessen the tension of the film. The scenes with the band trapped inside their small room, trying to figure out how they're going to escape whilst the Nazi's are outside, preparing weapons and bringing in attack dogs were almost as disturbing as any violence that happens in the film. 

Part of the reason why the film is so terrifying is that it's very frighteningly real. Green Room deals with a very real horror. It doesn't rely on ghosts or monsters, things that you will never actually encounter in real life, but instead it thrusts you into a situation that you could realistically find yourself in. Bigotry is a very real thing, and it's a very real danger. There are open and proud Nazi's in the world, people who embrace hatred and revel in the harm that they can bring to others. And as someone who is in one of the groups that they would happily kill in an instant the fear of Nazi violence is a very real one. 

And just like in real life, the antagonists of this film cannot be reasoned with. They won't back down, they won't show mercy, because they're staunch in their beliefs. They believe that they're in the right and that their violence is justified. And that is horrifying. Perhaps it's because I'm a person that has been the target of hate crimes more than once, who's in a group that the people in Green Room would brutalise, but this quickly became one of the most disturbing and frightening films I've ever seen. 

It helps that the actors sell the film so amazingly too. Yelchin and his bandmates, played by Alia Shawkat, Joe Cole, and Callum Turner, run through a gamut of emotions, from terror, to defiance, to despair. Each actor delivers a powerful performance as their characters are trapped inside the green room, realising that there's no way out that doesn't involve horrific violence, and that if they don't kill they'll die themselves. Imogen Poots joins them as Amber, the girlfriend of one of the neo-Nazi's who saw the murder and is also a target. More weary and resigned to her fate than the others, she understands the violence that's going to come, accepts that blood will be spilled and that not all of them will make it out alive. Her performance is one of the more interesting in the film, for as the others begin to lose hope she has the opposite journey, and begins to believe that maybe she might survive. 

The neo-Nazi's, on the other hand, are a fascinating part of the film. There are several in the film who take important roles, each of which shows a different side to this kind of group. The film has a few named characters that are what people would think of as neo-Nazis. Big Justin, played by Eric Edelstein, is a bruiser, a brute of a man who holds the band and Amber hostage, using hostility and fear as his main weapons. He's violent and vile. Kai Lennox plays Clark, a man who trains attack dogs for the group. He's a quiet, more insidiously sinister man, a man who loves his dogs and cares for their safety, but thinks nothing of commanding them to rip a persons throat out if told to do so. Gabe, played by Macon Blair, is the most unusual of the Nazis in the film, as over the course of the movie you begin to see him not as a raging bigot like the others, someone willing to kill and die for the cause. He's more of a person who was radicalised by a cult, but isn't truly evil himself. Whilst this doesn't erase his crimes or his actions his story does show that the villains of the film aren't all just cartoonish parodies of cruelty, but complex and realistic people. 

Darcy, played by Stewart, is the bar owner, and the overall leader of the group. He's the most outwardly normal, the most charming. He's been a Nazi most of his life and knows how to project a front of normalcy to hide his hate. There are moments in the film where his appeals to end things peacefully, a ruse, almost wins the protagonists over thanks to his eloquence and tone. However, this is masking a cruel and terrifying man who's willing and determined to do whatever it takes to protect his people and his ideological movement. This makes him the most terrifying character in the film, as he's what a lot of bigots are like, the ones who are able to blend in, working in the background, pushing to destroy lives all whilst being seen as decent people.

Green Room was a film that I watched in the middle of the day, yet felt more disturbed than by than when I'd watched horror films alone at night. It got under my skin and made me feel sick. It didn't matter that it was a beautiful looking film, that director Jeremy Saulnier had captured some beautiful locations or written a deep and complex study on the kinds of people that end up in a hate movement, even if he never makes them sympathetic. During that first moment all I could focus on was the way the film made me feel. I felt dirty. I felt despair. I felt afraid. The world is becoming an ever increasingly scary place for a lot of people, and as a trans person I feel that fear. I've started to be the victim of hate crimes once again after years of none. Politicians are pushing for removals of rights and healthcare. Trans people are being murdered and people are openly celebrating it on social media. Nazis are openly going to anti-trans hate rallies. A very famous children's author just this last week engaged in holocaust revisionism in order to attack trans people. I'm becoming more and more frightened by the world, and Green Room tapped into that fear. I don't know if it will do the same for others, I can't say it will have the same effect if you're say a cis white straight person, but I think this film will still disturb, even if you're not the target of Nazi hate.

The new release comes with a number of extra features, including a pair of audio commentaries. The first is one from previous releases featuring writer/director Jeremy Saulnier, whilst the second is a brand new one featuring movie and genre experts. The other extras include the making-of featurette that was included on older versions, along with a host of new features. New interviews with cast and crew add some much needed and interesting behind the scenes looks at the film, and the passage of time between the movie and these new extras give them an interesting angle as those being interviewed seem to be talking more candidly and with the space of years in which to have thought about the film, rather than just promoting it as seems to sometimes happen with extras filmed closer to release times. The limited edition also comes with a slipcase featuring some new artwork, six art cards, and a 120 page book filled with essays on the film (sadly I did not have access to the book).

Green Room was a film that I'd heard about a lot, yet knew little of. It was always recommended, almost spoken about in hushed whispers. It was talked about as this almost mythic film. And I get that now. I understand why people can't say much about the film other than 'it's amazing' or 'you need to see it'. A film filled with powerhouse performances, it would be a terrifying film to watch at any time, but with the ever increasing spread of far right beliefs and a resurgence of Nazism it may be more relevant now than ever. 

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South Park: The Stick of Truth – Throwback 10

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

South Park very quickly became an international hit when it first began, and there was a time where you could easily find merchandise for the show in the local high street; from posters to plushies, South Park was everywhere. One area where the series tried to make inroads pretty early on was the world of gaming, with their first game releasing on the Nintendo 64 within the first two years of the show’s release. Despite how popular South Park was the game didn’t do too well, and subsequent games like South Park: Chef’s Love Shack and South Park Rally, released over the next two years would get even worse reviews. Things didn’t look good for South Park gaming, and it wouldn’t be until more than a decade later that things would change for them.

South Park: The Stick of Truth may have released in 2014, but began life five years earlier as development began in 2009 after series creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone approached development studio Obsidian Entertainment to adapt the series to the video game medium. Obsidian was chosen as Parker and Stone wanted to create a roleplaying game, and Obsidian’s previous releases in this genre made them the main choice to develop the game. It’s been reported that the original aim of the game was to make a ‘South Park version of Skyrim‘ with the original script weighing it at 500 pages in length; an ambition that would need to be reigned in, as the game would face a number of difficulties during development.

Despite Parker and Stone pushing for the game’s development, and going through numerous hours long meetings with the creative team at Obsidian to help develop the look and feel of the game, things didn’t go smoothly. Due to the adult and often controversial nature of South Park, finding funding for the game was a difficulty, but eventually THQ agreed to back the development. However, when Microsoft cancelled a deal with Obsidian it resulted in job losses at the company, losses that would affect South Park’s development. This was compounded when THQ went into bankruptcy, which resulted in the rights to the game being auctioned off; eventually being bought by Ubisoft. Despite these difficulties, difficulties that have in the past cancelled games completely, South Park: The Stick of Truth somehow managed to reach release.

Taking on the role of a new kid in town, the player is able to create their own character, customising them throughout the game with equipment and cosmetic changes. The game plays like a fantasy RPG, and as such the player is asked to choose a class at the start of the game, picking from Fighter, Thief, Mage, and Jew. Each class has their own combat styles and abilities that will evolve and unlock as the game progresses. You’re picking one of these classes as the children of South Park are playing a fantasy LARP game, and your character finds themselves in the middle of it. But, this being South Park, things are never that simple. As the game progresses, more factions become involved as they battle for the titular Stick of Truth.

Played as a side scrolling 2.5D game, South Park: The Stick of Truth allows players to explore locations from the series, including parts of the town, and other locations that a normal person would likely not be able to predict. These locations have areas that can only be accessible at later points in the game once the player has unlocked new skills and abilities. There are also collectable items to be found that can increase character perks and abilities, as well as several mini games scattered throughout. The game, surprisingly, offers a decent level of variety and challenge that was lacking in previous South Park game titles.

Unlike previous games, South Park: The Stick of Truth received high praise from critics. Thanks to the technology being able to so seamlessly recreate the look and feel of the show it was called one of the most faithful gaming adaptations; something that was only helped by episodes of the show leading into the plot of the game. Filled with references and jokes from across the series, the game offered fans a deep dive into the South Park universe like never before, and it ended up being much loved because of that. During its first week of release it became the best selling game on all formats, and would go on to sell more than 1.6 million copies.

Thanks to the success, South Park would continue to create video games that would tie into the series, featuring heavy involvement from the series creators, with South Park: The Fractured But Whole being released in 2017, and South Park: Snow Day! set for a release on 26th March 2024. It may have taken them a while, but it would seem that South Park had finally cracked their formula, and have become a successful part of the gaming landscape.

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Welcome to Forever by Nathan Tavares - Book Review

 

'Fox is a memory editor – one of the best – gifted with the skill to create real life in the digital world. When he wakes up in Field of Reeds Centre for Memory Reconstruction with no idea how he got there, the therapists tell him he was a victim in a terrorist bombing by Khadija Banks, the pioneer of memory editing technology turned revolutionary. A bombing which shredded the memory archives of all its victims, including his husband Gabe. 

'Thrust into reconstructions of his memories exploded from the fragments that survived the blast, Fox tries to rebuild his life, his marriage and himself. But he quickly realises his world is changing, unreliable, and echoing around itself over and over. As he unearths endless cycles of meeting Gabe, falling in love and breaking up, Fox digs deep into his past, his time in the refugee nation of Aaru, and the exact nature of his relationship with Khadija. Because, in a world tearing itself apart to forget all its sadness, saving the man he loves might be the key to saving us all.'

Memories are some of the most important things that people have. We only really exist in the moment, with our memories allowing us to look back into our past and shape who we are right now. But memories are also incredibly flawed. Two people can remember very different versions of the same events, sometimes to the point of contradiction. So how do you know if your memories are real, where does the line between memory and fiction begin? In his latest novel Nathan Tavares plays around with memory, what it means, how it shapes someone, and what happens when you lose those memories.

Welcome to Forever tells the story of Fox, a man who begins the story with little to no memory of his life. Like an amnesiac, he still understands the world, he can talk, he can function within society, but he has no idea about his past. He's staying in the Fields of Reeds medical centre, where the staff are trying to help him to regain his memories following a deadly terrorist attack that destroyed Fox's identity. As he begins to dig into his fragmented and missing memories he starts to learn more about the man who he lost in the attack, of the life they used to have together; but also stumbles across something much more sinister too.

It's hard to talk about the plot of Welcome to Forever for a couple of reasons. The first is that it's the kind of story that you don't want to reveal too much of. The amount of information given on the back of the book is the absolute most that you want (and going in with no foreknowledge would be even better) as I found that letting the story unfold at its own pace, revealing more character, world building, and plot piece by piece at the right time was as big a part of the experience of reading this book as anything else. And that brings me to the second reason why I can't really say much about the plot; because Tavares isn't just telling a single, straight narrative here.

The book doesn't play out linearly, things happen out of order, some things don't quite make sense to begin with, you jump around different times and places, experiencing different memories and different versions of events. Whilst this means that if you were to try and explain the book fully you'd probably need a cork board full of notes and red string, it does lead to a unique reading experience. You almost feel like Fox yourself, with your mind being pulled from one place to another, with your expectations forever changing and your interpretation on events coming into question more than one. Sometimes a narrative is simply a narrative, but sometime how a narrative is constructed can be much more than just a story; it transcends into a work of art itself, and Welcome to Forever is very much a carefully constructed work of art. 

I'd love to be able to describe the book more, but I don't want to spoil the experience for readers. So all I'll say is that if you're looking for an interesting sci-fi concept, a layered love story, and a narrative that feels like it was years in the making, Welcome to Forever should be top of your reading pile.

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V/H/S/85 & V/H/S/94 – Blu-ray Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

The found footage horror genre has been around for a long while, and whilst some people lay the creation of the genre at the feet of 1999’s The Blair Witch Project it began much earlier with the first released found footage movie Cannibal Holocaust in 1980, and Orson Welles created the found footage film The Other Side of the Wind almost a decade before that (though it wouldn’t be released until 2018).

Whilst you can argue as to when it actually started, the genre has definitely expanded over the last couple of decades, thanks in part to this type of film being much cheaper and easier to produce thanks to advances in camera technology. The anthology series V/H/S has taken advantage of that since day one, and has released several films in the series. Now, the latest two releases, V/H/S/85 and V/H/S/94 are available on Blu-ray for those that don’t have access to the Shudder streaming service.

V/H/S/85, as the title suggests, is set during the 1980s, when home cameras first started making the switch from film to VHS tapes. Whilst previous V/H/S films have featured fairly obvious framing devices, such as people finding a collection of evil video tapes, this film is instead structured as a single tape, one that has been used over and over again, with different recordings coming in at different points. Sometimes you get snippets of TV shows and adverts, but for the most part the framing device is one of the five stories on offer, with the other four stories interrupting a documentary programme recorded off the television.

The five stories include the already mentioned documentary ‘Total Copy’, that takes a look at a university experiment around a shapeshifting alien entity; ‘No Wake’ which sees some young holiday makers stumble across a holiday camp they shouldn’t enter; ‘God of Death’ which follows an earthquake in Mexico that hits a TV news studio; the performance art segment ‘TKNOGD’ which sees a woman trying to contact the God of VR; and ‘Dreamkill’ which sees the police receiving tapes of grisly murders before they happen.

As with every other V/H/S release, the film is something of a mixed bag in terms of quality of story. ‘Total Copy’ is perhaps the most frustrating of the segments, in part due to the fact that it’s spread across the almost two hour run time. The story is broken up by the other stories, meaning that there’s often twenty minutes or more before we come back to it, and it often feels like you only get around five minutes of it at a time. ‘TKNOGD’ is also pretty weak, as if you’re not into odd performance art it drags a lot, and much of it will leave you waiting for something actually interesting to happen; though when it does it takes up so little time and feels so obvious and predictable that you’re left wondering if it was worth it.

‘No Wake’ is fun, with some decent moments spread throughout, and it comes with a little surprise along the way that made it one of the more fun stories in the mix. ‘God of Death’ is the one story in the film that I’d have happily seen translated into an entire movie. Following a group of rescue workers, we discover that the earthquake has released something ancient and evil, and it makes for a delightful experience. It’s also really delightful to see a non American segment, presented with subtitles, that brings something a bit different to the table. ‘Dreamkill’ has shades of V/H/S by way of Sinister, and the films within the film are well done and creepy enough that they unsettle the viewer thanks to the direction, effects work, and music. Sadly, the main part of the story does drop in quality by the end, but is still a really good journey along the way.

V/H/S/94 does things a little differently, and uses the kind of framing device that will feel more familiar to those that have watched the original V/H/S movie. Following a group of cops who raid a warehouse, we discover a strange cult/experiment where people are being made to watch awful tapes that lead them to their deaths. The SWAT team find disturbing videos such as ‘Storm Drain’, which follows a news reporter as she searches for information on the urban legend Ratman; ‘The Empty Wake’ which sees a young funeral home worker alone with a coffin that keeps making noises; the dark and twisted ‘The Subject’ follows the experiments of a mad scientist; and ‘Terror’ sees a group of military militiamen preparing to storm and kill a government building when something horrific happens to them all.

The framing segment for the film is easily the weakest thing on offer here, and its vagueness doesn’t help it much. Due to the action cutting back between each other segment you begin to forget that it’s a thing until you’re thrust back into it, which is usually at a point when some other twist or turn of the story occurs. Perhaps it would feel better if presented as single piece, but as it is you kind of don’t care about it.

‘Storm Drain’ is a very traditional use of the found footage genre, with it being filmmakers searching for the truth. The interviews with local residents at the start is quite fun, and the dark sewer locations they explore feel creepy before anything even happens. ‘The Empty Wake’ does things a little differently, being set all in one location, with all of the cameras being static. Having been set up to record a wake, the main character moves around the location separate from the cameras, only ever controlling them at one point in the film. It also manages to build tension nicely throughout.

‘The Subject’ will feel incredibly familiar to someone who has played horror video games. Much of it is recorded from the POV of one of the victims of a mad scientist, and plays out on screen like a first person shooter, complete with a battery bar that acts as the health for the character. It’s very over the top, with some ridiculous designs and silly, gory action, but it will definitely appeal to gamers. The final segment, ‘Terror’, feels the most creative and left me fascinated throughout. The story gives you enough hints that you can figure out what’s happening just before it spells it out for you, but it never feels like it’s made obvious or that you’ve outsmarted the film. It seems like there’s one segment in each V/H/S release that I’d like to see expanded on, and this is the one for V/H/S/94.

Both releases come with audio commentaries that offer some insight into the films and each of the segments, and offers a good reason to watch through the films a second time to learn a little more about them. Apart from that, the V/H/S/85 release is a bit lacking in terms of extras, only coming with the uninterrupted version of the framing story, and some silent footage from another. V/H/S/94 offers a little more, coming with a behind the scenes feature, a comic con panel interview, and some deleted and extended scenes. Overall, both films are enjoyable enough, though don’t really set your world on fire. They’re a decent way to spend a couple of hours for horror fans who might not have Shudder access.

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The Classified Dossier - Sherlock Holmes and Dorian Gray by Christian Klaver - Book Review

 

'Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson have tickets to the newly arrived Egyptian Circus. Holmes is puzzled by his brother Mycroft's cryptic gift but is intrigued enough to attend the next production.

'The performers, dressed as wondrous half-animal, half-human gods from Egyptian mythology, display superhuman agility and stunts. But they speak no Arabic, sequester themselves in the stables after each show and take orders from a mysterious ring master who is yet to be seen. And then one of the performers is murdered.

'Holmes's enquires lead him to Montebank Manor, the home of the beautiful and secretive socialite Dorian Gray. As Holmes digs deeper, he learns Gray is hiding much more than his involvement in a murder. It's a darkly fantastical tale of lies, experimentation, hypnosis and wicked ambition.'

The Classified Dossier series has quickly become one of my favourite Sherlock Holmes series to date. Christian Klaver does a fantastic job at not just introducing the world of the supernatural to the Sherlock Holmes universe, but draws upon inspiration and characters from other classic novels to do so; creating a fantastic and ever increasingly large shared universe. 

This volume begins with Sherlock Holmes receiving a mysterious letter containing tickets to the circus. However, it doesn't take Holmes long to figure out that his brother, Mycroft, had someone send the tickets to him and wishes for him to investigate the circus. Unfortunately, with Mycroft mysteriously out of the country, he has no way of finding out what it is his brother wants him to see. As such, Holmes and Watson head off to the new Egyptian Circus in Hyde Park and watch a truly spectacular show. But some things don't quite add up, especially as Watson is able to smell animals around the circus, yet none were used in the show itself. 

Further investigation leads to a startling discovery about the true nature of performers, one that shows the two of them that they're dealing with things outside of the realm of the natural. Their investigation leads them across London, to the home of the unusual socialite Dorian Gray, who has been acting as the ringleader for the unusual circus. The further the two of them dig the more unusual evidence they begin to collect, and they soon realise that they may have discovered something truly dangerous. 

As the title of this particular volume of the series gives away, the character of Dorian Gray is introduced into Klaver's world. However, if you read the title and think that you know what kind of story you're going to be reading you're going to be very much mistaken. Just as with the previous volume, Sherlock Holmes and MR Hyde, this is not simply a re-telling of the original story with Holmes and Watson injected into events. There are times that this book bares almost no resemblance to The Picture of Dorian Gray, especially as Klaver sneakily includes another novel from around this era too that derails the Dorian Gray expectations in the most wonderful way.

Klaver draws from multiple other works for his plot here, and it adds some superb twists and turns into things. There's a reveal early on in the book that may give it away to some readers, but it wasn't until a particularly distinct line of dialogue was spoken that the connection was made in my head and I realised what other works were being folded in. It was an incredibly fun moment, and one that increased my excitement and enjoyment of the book. And the fact that that too was twisted and changed in new ways, brought into the extended narrative that Klaver had been working on for two other volumes, led to some wonderful pay offs further down the line. 

As with previous volumes the writing here is great, things are very faced pace, with Klaver packing a lot of story and action into the books pages that ends up feeling like you've had a lot of bang for your buck. Luckily, the focus on action and story doesn't mean that the characters don't get focus as a trade-off. Holmes, Watson, some new friends, and some returning ones, all get a chance to shine and to do something important that helps to drive the narrative forward and highlights why the ever expanding cast of characters being added to Holmes' little group of paranormal investigators and fighters just adds further richness to things. 

Whenever I come to the end of one of the books in this series I find myself hoping for more, and trying to guess what other stories and characters might be drawn into the next entry. And this time is no different. I was disappointed that it was over, and was thinking eagerly to the next. Hopefully this volume won't be the last, as I really want to see what Klaver does next.

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