#greenlight 2019

[fanofspooky]

Scream Queen - Caroline Williams

[pluralsword]

little bit of personal stuff about us, 1st encounter with "Kilroy was here" in either in stuff about World War II or in Calvin & Hobbes when Calvin made a giant snowman one. Kids in school would draw Kilroys, & our maternal grandpa drew them for mom when she was young. Realized yesterday that the spelling of Aileron's name was perfect for doing a transformer equivalent and so naturally the first continuity we put "Aileroy was here" in was IDW2019 (we will be doing more). We chose this continuity both because of what the Autobots and Decepticons' opposed ideologies were and fought over, and because its nice to think that Greenlight or Arcee drew her because they knew her well, or that their mentee Gauge was thinking of her or she had become memetic among the Autobots in a good way. The issue the art we graffitied on is from IDW2's Transformers #40 btw, we will be doing more in other continuities and invite people to do this iteration of an over 80 years old meme themselves in other things!

AILEROY

WAS

HERE

[prince-toffee]

I still think about them.

[pluralsword]

Hey so there's a golden opportunity here to write Carly and Gauge as sisters / siblings in something!!! Also very much feel like this comic is very, very marketed at people like us in that knightly chosen family stuff is to die for our souls are melting reading this stuff

they're cute:

this makes cliff an uncle effectively right. how does that work in energon universe terms. lets suppose (and we dont know what the term for the older one is yet if any) arcee is an iron sage. that makes cliff ??? fellow fanfic and headcanon writers do your magic. I mean this is amazing stuff Ultra Magnus is basically a grandparent to Carly now. Daniel Witwicky is clapping her hands somewhere with glee

I didn't even expect that her teacher was Ultra Magnus

But I really like her story from Transformers #7

[thelifeofchuckmovie]

When it comes to ending the world, Stephen King is a repeat offender. He has brought life as we know it to a brutal conclusion several times over the decades, usually highlighting the cruelty and desperation that erupts among the last to go. But his 2020 story “The Life of Chuck” uses doomsday to evoke some unlikely sentiments: Wistfulness. Gratitude. Even joy.

The idea of creating an apocalyptic version of It’s a Wonderful Life is what led filmmaker Mike Flanagan to call dibs on the rights to the novella more than four years ago. The breakdown of society, extinction-level natural disasters, and the disintegration of reality itself is explored through the lens of one relatively meek and mild accountant, played by Tom Hiddleston, whose memories and choices are mysteriously connected to these tribulations. Retirement posters congratulating him on “39 great years” pop up everywhere. But who is this guy? What job does he do (or did he used to do)? And why does it matter so much to the fate of the world? This apparent nobody named Chuck Krantz has lived larger than anyone thought possible.

Having explored King country before in 2017’s Gerald’s Game and 2019’s The Shining sequel Doctor Sleep, Flanagan got involved after reading an early copy of “Chuck” before it was published in the collection If It Bleeds. The Haunting of Hill House and Fall of the House of Usher creator produced the film independently, believing it might be too offbeat for risk-averse studios to greenlight. He even secured a waiver from the striking Hollywood guilds last year to move forward with the shoot while the rest of the industry was stuck in the work stoppage. Now he and Hiddleston are ready to reveal the finished version of The Life of Chuck as it heads to the upcoming Toronto International Film Festival, where it will screen for potential distributors.

Among the skeptics about this adaptation was King himself, according to Flanagan. “His initial responses to me were a little like, ‘Oh, okay. Yeah. If you think that’s a movie…,’” he says. “He did say several times that he thought it would be a challenge to get it supported through traditional means.”

King has now seen the finished movie and no longer has doubts. He described it to Vanity Fair as “a happiness machine.”

“Well, he’s written something very tender and very wise,” Hiddleston says. “I think there is a great wisdom in the soul of the story, which is that it takes courage to hold on to what is good in a world that feels like it’s falling apart.”

Flanagan hopes others see it that way too, although the overpowering dread that begins the story may be more immediately relatable. “I’ve heard it said that every generation feels a little like the world is ending at some point, [but] I still feel like it’s different for us,” the 46-year-old filmmaker says with a mordant laugh. “Institutions we took for granted as propping up our society are failing left and right. Our politics have degraded spectacularly. The sense that it’s breaking down, that the world is moving on, has been increasingly palpable. When I talk to my parents or members of older generations who have been through their own turbulent times, the thing that strikes me is that they’re like, ‘Oh yeah, this is really bad.’”

But…it’s not entirely bad. And that’s the underlying message of The Life of Chuck as its various mysteries play out. “There’s no sense of terror in the way that King drew it,” Flanagan says. “Even as the world feels as though it’s ending, people become introspective, they reach into their past for loves that have left their lives for one reason or another. Strangers engage in open and fearless communication.”

It’s an indie-film variation on the big-budget cataclysm story. “A disaster movie has people meeting the end while running from tidal waves, and this story has people sitting quietly holding hands looking at the stars,” Flanagan says.

The key to it all is Chuck himself, although he doesn’t turn up onscreen until the second segment of the three-act story, which plays out in reverse chronological order.

The beginning is actually the end, as the whole world circles the drain. Caught in this spiral is Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave), a school teacher trying to apply logic to the planet’s troubles; Karen Gillan (Guardians of the Galaxy) is his ex, a hospital worker determined to save everyone she can; Matthew Lillard (Scream) is a construction worker neighbor who finds zen amid the chaos; and Carl Lumbly (Alias), plays a funeral director who has dedicated his life to easing people through death.

The end of the movie is actually the beginning, showing young Chuck (Benjamin Pajak) when he was a boy being raised by his grandparents (Mia Sara of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Mark Hamill). The insight of these two—coupled with the otherworldly revelations he finds in an eerie room tucked into the peak of their Victorian home—help him learn to seek out bright spots when life is marred by sorrow and darkness.

In elementary school, young Chuck discovers some important things about himself thanks to guidance from a brusque dance instructor (Samantha Sloyan), and a kindhearted English teacher, played by Kate Siegel, who gives the boy (not to mention the audience) some important information that serves as a code breaker for the story's more cosmic puzzles.

As for the middle of the film: It’s a dance number. That’s when Hiddleston steps in.

Compounding the peculiarity of The Life of Chuck is the question: Why is this song and dance sequence so important? The answer is for the movie to reveal, but it matters a lot. “The life of every human being is a constellation, as expressed in this film,” Hiddleston says. “There are certain moments which will burn most brightly as individual stars. Sometimes it feels like the world is going to hell in a handcart, and it’s full of pain and suffering, and it is—but there are moments of deep joy and deep connection.”

Hiddleston shows the audience this single moment in the life of a buttoned-up fellow who somehow controls the destiny of the world. It’s not necessarily the most important day in his life, but it’s a memorable one involving a street drummer (Taylor Gordon), a lovely stranger (played by Annalise Basso), and a fateful decision to cast aside caution and cut a rug. “It’s a reminder to do whatever it is that expresses whatever gives you that feeling of being alive,” Hiddleston says. “Whether it’s music or dancing or math or writing or creativity—do it. Do it now. Those moments are what you’ll remember.”

Flanagan considered casting a relative unknown as Chuck to “give the audience the experience of ‘Who the hell is this person?’” as the peculiar retirement signs begin to appear in the midst of the apocalypse. But he felt the promise of the Loki star would build more curiosity as the world falls apart. “You grow an enormous amount of anticipation to finally spend time with an actor like Tom, who can be a literal god in one story, and then an everyman in another,” Flanagan says.

A TikTok video of Hiddleston getting his groove on sealed the deal. “He had a completely unfiltered joy on his face,” Flanagan says. “He was a good dancer, but that wasn’t what struck me. I wasn’t amazed by the technique so much as the degree of happiness that was radiating off of him. The look on his face made me smile the same way I smiled reading that particular portion of the book.”

The resulting scene was created in a month-long collaboration between Flanagan, Hiddleston, Basso, choreographer Mandy Moore (So You Think You Can Dance, and La La Land), and Gordon, a real-life percussionist who performs under the name the Pocket Queen. “Taylor was there for all of the dance choreography. She wrote that piece of music for that performance. They built it together,” Flanagan says.

Hiddleston rattles off the lists of influences: “I had to learn in six weeks the full regime of any dance training. We did jazz, swing, salsa, cha-cha, the Charleston, bossa nova, polka, quickstep, samba. We were trying to tip our hat to anything that might have influenced Chuck. It might’ve had a bit of Gene Kelly or Fred and Ginger. Certainly moonwalking—Stephen King is very specific about the moonwalk.”

Precision was not the goal, exuberance was what they sought. “We need to always bear in mind that this man is an accountant. We needed this to be an earnest, escalating explosion of joy, and a remembrance of who he was,” Flanagan says. “It’s a chance to step back into the skin of his younger self, not caring that his feet are going to kill him the next day, not caring that he’s going to wake up with a horribly stiff neck.”

A surprising thing happened while shooting the scene over the course of several sweltering afternoons in the deep South. “I burned holes in my shoes,” Hiddleston says. “I was dancing out on the asphalt in Alabama, and by the time we’d finished, you could see my socks through the soles.”

The sequence begins awkwardly: Chuck is self-conscious as he first hears the busker’s rhythm while walking back from a banking conference. That feeling quickly gets shaken off. “Tom was very committed,” Flanagan says. “He was like, ‘If I look silly, that’s fine. As long as I look happy.’”

Flanagan remembers being in a bad place when he first discovered “The Life of Chuck.” Then again, everybody was.

His copy of the manuscript arrived in March 2020. “That was just as the world shut down for COVID,” he says. “We had been a week away from starting principal photography on Midnight Mass in Vancouver and had fled across the border before it closed to make it back to the States. We were hunkered down in our homes and had no idea if this was going to last for two weeks or if this was going to last forever.”

With everything halted as the lockdown set in, Flanagan had plenty of time to do nothing but read. The new King book seemed like the perfect escape. Except…

“The first third of ‘The Life of Chuck’ just rattled me,” he recalls. “There’s no way he wrote this before the world ground to this bizarre halt—but he did. And the feeling of anxiety, and uncertainty, and that everything was falling apart came roaring out at me. I wasn’t sure I could finish it. It just felt too close to the anxiety I was feeling.” But he kept turning the pages. “By the end of it, I was in tears, and incredibly uplifted, and convinced I’d read maybe the best thing that he’d written in a decade. I just was floored by the thing,” Flanagan says. “So I fired off an email to him right away saying how much I loved the story, how incredible I thought it was, how meaningful, and important, and how it had really tattooed itself on my heart and said, ‘It’s the movie I want to make so that it’ll exist in the world for my kids.’”

King’s response: Not so fast. Flanagan and his producing partner, Trevor Macy, had at that point secured the rights to King’s fantasy saga The Dark Tower through their company, Intrepid Pictures. The eight-book series is threaded throughout King’s other works, and adapting it was a massive undertaking that Flanagan is still working to make happen. Other filmmakers had either abandoned the project, were canceled midway through, or bombed miserably. The author didn’t want him to be distracted. “He doesn’t like to give the same filmmaker more than one thing, because it typically means one thing is not advancing at all,” Flanagan says. “He said, ‘Well, let’s focus on The Tower and I’ll try to keep this one available for you for later.’”

The quest to The Dark Tower remains a priority for Flanagan, but a number of disruptions to that epic undertaking led him to reapproach King last year about Chuck. Intrepid’s deal with Netflix, where they had created Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, and other shows, had come to a close, and Intrepid signed a new development agreement with Amazon. That meant starting over on The Dark Tower. Meanwhile, the threat of a double-barreled strike by writers and actors was on the horizon, stalling nearly every major new project. The industry plunged into another production-halting lockdown, this time over contract impasses rather than a virus.

Since The Dark Tower was suddenly further off on the horizon, Flanagan saw a chance to make The Life of Chuck happen in the short term. “It’s so rare that I get to approach any project that just has not an ounce of cynicism to it. I just really believed in this thing,” he says. “But it was also clear that we would have an incredibly uphill battle bringing the story to any major studio. They would try to make it as familiar as possible, instead of leaning into what makes it so different.”

King gave Flanagan his blessing to proceed. “I was off like a shot,” the filmmaker says. “I think I turned in the draft to him before he got around to sending the formal agreement.”

For everyone involved, The Life of Chuck became a bright spot in an otherwise dismal time, which matches the theme of the film. “There is a profound optimism in this story,” Hiddleston says. “As the world is spinning off its axis, there are moments of magic.”

[decepti-thots]

☕idw 2019?

You know, I always get asked this. And my answer has always been the same: I enjoyed it! Not as much as my absolute fave IDW1 series, but I enjoyed it and it was very fun and I was sad when it wasn't able to continue. Given that my opinions on it generally have been beaten to death over the years, I will focus on some specifics.

I feel like the folks who did not vibe with IDW2 will always throw it the bone of 'well, it had some good worldbuilding, at least'. Which is fair, because as an IDW2 Liker Mostly, I Enjoyed It For Real, that is in fact what always draws me to it. I get a real sense of Cybertron as a place in IDW2, an interest in constructing a broader society that convincingly feels as though it has a history and where people live off-panel. That's important to me, and to be honest, it's a place I always find IDW1 lacking. IDW2 does not feel as though its planet is a backdrop on which actors perform character drama. It convinces me people live there, and have lived there for a long time.

I also think that its concept of mentorship is a really interesting approach to what a society that does not have a humanlike concept of either family or reproduction might look like. The emphasis on choice is a really good way to angle it, and if there's an element I want future incarnations to pull from, that's it. The idea that it's a mutual choice, a responsibility that relies on agreement between mentor and mentee, something that doesn't 'naturally' happen but has to be deliberately agreed upon, is a genuinely great take on them as characters who are relatable to us but ultimately have a meaningfully different way of organizing their society. (I am fond of the side series with Gauge really going into this mutual element, where Gauge has that choice with Arcee and Greenlight, it isn't just something that can be impressed on her for 'her own good', and that she has that choice in the first place is what empowers her to make it.)

I really feel, overall, like IDW2 reads better in the trades than it did monthly (though I still personally enjoyed it monthly). And like, yeah, when it was in fact a monthly comic that is not something I can fault people for not jumping for joy about; that's a structural criticism in and of itself. It also basically exists because US comics publishers won't let you do anything but monthlies, though, which is a reality of US comics. I have a lot of real affection for IDW2. It has some great characters. (I adore IDW2 Cyclonus. I love Arcee and Greenlight. I think it has a very interesting take on Megatron, which a refusal to engage with on its own terms and not as though it was a response to IDW1... well I found that Annoying, lmao.) It has a setting-first approach to storytelling that really appeals to me. Oh, and that Halloween special? MWAH. Love that issue. I reread it every October, haha.

tl;dr: i love trickdiamond so much. can we have trickdiamond back please. she's My Girl. also geomotus, whomst i Love.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

This day in history

On OCTOBER 23 at 7PM, I'll be in DECATUR, presenting my novel THE BEZZLE at EAGLE EYE BOOKS.

#20yrsago HOWTO break Google Print DRM https://web.archive.org/web/20041011120549/http://vitanuova.loyalty.org/weblog/nb.cgi/view/vitanuova/2004/10/07/2

#15yrsago Japanese court overturns Winny ruling, says file-sharing software is legal even if used for infringement https://web.archive.org/web/20091009232138/http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/news/20091008p2a00m0na016000c.html

#15yrsago Robert E Howard collection, HEROES IN THE WIND: revisit your heroic past https://memex.craphound.com/2009/10/08/robert-e-howard-collection-heroes-in-the-wind-revisit-your-heroic-past/

#10yrsago Sore losers: How casinos went after two guys who found a video poker bug https://www.wired.com/2014/10/cheating-video-poker/

#10yrsago Fixing the unfixable USB bug https://www.wired.com/2014/10/unpatchable-usb-malware-now-patchsort/

#10yrsago 20 meaningful things you can do about climate change http://thischangeseverything.org/twenty-things-you-can-do-to-address-the-climate-crisis/

#10yrsago 10% of Americans have 10 or more alcoholic drinks every day https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/09/25/think-you-drink-a-lot-this-chart-will-tell-you/

#10yrsago $35 Firefox OS smartphone – back to the drawing board https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/10/testing-a-35-firefox-os-phone-how-bad-could-it-be/

#5yrsago For the first time ever, taxes on the 400 richest Americans were lower than taxes on everyone else https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/06/opinion/income-tax-rate-wealthy.html

#5yrsago Supreme Court greenlights lawsuit over Amazon’s wage-theft from warehouse workers https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-amazon-com/u-s-supreme-court-rejects-amazon-warehouse-worker-wage-appeal-idUSKBN1WM1FI/

#5yrsago Bernie Blindness: a subreddit for noting the way press narratives ignore or smear Bernie Sanders https://www.reddit.com/r/bernieblindness/top/

#5yrsago Checkm8: an “unstoppable” Iphone jailbreaking crack https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/09/developer-of-checkm8-explains-why-idevice-jailbreak-exploit-is-a-game-changer/

#5yrsago After an injunction against Pacifica radio, New York’s WBAI is back on the air https://twitter.com/2600/status/1181423565389942786

#5yrsago How the “Varsity Blues” admissions scam punished deserving, hard working kids so that mediocre kids of the super-rich could prosper https://memex.craphound.com/2019/10/08/how-the-varsity-blues-admissions-scam-punished-deserving-hard-working-kids-so-that-mediocre-kids-of-the-super-rich-could-prosper/

#5yrsago Facebook’s 2016 election billboards: Buy all your elections with us! https://twitter.com/MarietjeSchaake/status/1180166896294887424

#5yrsago Podcast: Why do people believe the Earth is flat? https://ia601006.us.archive.org/35/items/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_311/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_311_-_Why_do_people_believe_the_Earth_is_flat.mp3

#5yrsago The cloud vs humanity: Adobe terminates every software license in Venezuela, keeps Venezuelans’ money https://helpx.adobe.com/la/x-productkb/policy-pricing/executive-order-venezuela.html

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

[lol-jackles]

https://twitter.com/CreationEnt/status/1763754174766792962

Jensen already signing on for 2025 cons?? CE is clearly fishing for money (the cruise and now selling packages for this new 2025 con) which tells me 2024 is in the red or close to it. It reeks of desperation to be pushing 2025 cons when they haven't even had a 2024 con yet (when I sent this message at least).

And Jensen signing on so early.... do you think he's feeling pressure about the future? Maybe he's not landing the jobs he thought he would and is lining up cons just in case?

Link. to be fair it's early 2025 so far, but...yeah.

As you know, peak-TV is over even though TV business still accounts for 80% of the total advertising revenue. And we are supposedly in the "third act of the streaming wars" as streaming services are struggling to reach profitability. The movie box office sales are expected to be $8 billion in 2024, which is down 10% from 2023, and down 30% from 2019.

All this means is number of scripted shows will be halved, from peak 633 in 2022, then 481 in 2023, to 300 in coming years (source: market research firm Ampere Analysis). Development executives are taking longer to greenlight shows, even for projects from established showrunners.

So yeah, acting gigs are going to be tougher to come by and Jensen is taking the best current option.

I've always thought that everybody decided to lose their minds and dump millions into streaming services and shows that didn't have a chance in hell of being profitable.

Phase One: Streaming by borrowing money from Silicon Valley banks, get into massive debts by making whole bunch of shows that nobody watch in order to crowd out competitors.

Phase Two: Profitability. This means less shows, and an introduction of advertising.   So you aren’t getting unlimited content for 10 bucks a month forever. The math never made sense

Phase Three: Production spending will fall and budget for "prestige drama" will be cut from $10 million to $4.5 billion per episode. You know, like the good old days before everybody decided to lose their mind over streaming.

On the plus side, there could be another Indie boom akin to the '70s and see really weird niche genres like disco themed movies and artsy odd experimental ones, etc.

[disneytva]

RUMOR: Recess Revival/Reboot In Development At Disney Television Animation For Disney+

Coming off the fresh of Phineas And Ferb getting a revival with two new seasons and Kim Possible rumored to have a revival film, it seems that the next Disney TVA property to come back will be the gang at Third Street Elementary School located in Arkansas as Disney might plan a revival/reboot of the beloved late 90s and early 2000s series Recess with og creators Paul Germain and Joe Ansolabehere on board.

In a Interview with Slasher Film, Joe Ansolabehere revealed that since 2019, Disney has been in talks with them for a potential comeback of the show with the developing process taking place since 2020.

As for "Recess," the show may be coming back sooner or later. After both "Rugrats" and "Hey Arnold" were brought back to our screens, Ansolabehere confirms there have been talks about a "Recess" reboot, and he's been developing it with Paul Germain the last couple of years. "We've come up with several different angles and we've tried different things. It's been four years that we've been working on it," Ansolabehere said. "But that's an example of how things have changed ... things are slower." No matter how long it takes, however, this is exciting news for any kid who grew up watching cartoons in the early '00s.

If Greenlight the “Recess” revival will join fellow legacy Disney Television Animation IPs in returning to our screens to get a revival/reboot to a new generation with the IPs being “The Proud Family” with “The Proud Family Louder And Prouder”, “Phineas And Ferb” with a Season 5 & Season 6 renewal,”Sofia The First” with a new spin-off series under the working title of “Royal Prep Academy”,”Darkwing Duck” with a new series from Point Grey Pictures with also having early but very early talks of a potential “TaleSpin” reboot and “Kim Possible” with a potential revival/reunion film as backdoor to a new sequel series.

[maybankbae]

Weekend Getaway

Word Count: 1,000+

Warnings: Smut, Alcohol consumption, and Cursing

A/N: I literary wrote all of this while listening to b-Sides and rarities. Justice for Greenlight

Coachella Weekend 2019

The drive to the house they'd all be staying at during Coachella should've been an only hour but due to Micheal's dick not be able to control itself once he saw Kalani in just his Final Fantasy shirt and a thong, they were late because he wanted to fuck her senseless in their shower.

Also heavy traffic on the highway was halting them. So now the couple was an hour away from the house.

Kalani stuck her head out of the window and sighed seeing cars for days. "We wouldn't be in this problem if your dick couldn't control yourself." She mumbled, pulling up a game on her phone to pass time.

"If I remember correctly all I heard from you was 'Oh fuck! Don't stop don't stop. Your dick is so good’ He imitated Kalani. "I can’t recall you complaining."

"Don't stop doing what you're doing. Every time you move to the beat it gets harder for me and you know it know it." Kalani starts singing their most hated song earning a blank stare from Micheal.

"I hate you. That song is god awful."

“I mean you were a horny teenage boy. Looks like not much has changed.” She patted his thigh.

Before he could come up with a snarky remark the touch screen in his car lit up with Ashton's contact.

"Hello?" He answered.

"Where are you two?" Ashton questioned seeming worried per usual.

"Stuck in freeway traffic. Yeah I know man it’s awful. We'll be there as soon as we can but no promises it’ll be in 20 minutes. Go talk to KayKay and annoy her.” He hung up.

"He truly is such an old man." Kalani joked as she adjusted the straps on her tank top. Her under boob sweat was going to be miserable since she decided to go braless with this specific top and the air conditioner was doing nothing for her.

She placed her sandal clad feet in the dashboard and dozed off during the slow traffic and the low playlist playing.

Thankfully with Micheal driving a little faster and definitely breaking some traffic laws, they got to the place with everyone waiting in their cars since Kalani had the keys to the house.

The boys unloaded their cars while Sierra,Kalani, and KayKay squealed once they saw one another.

"Sierra! You look amazing." She complimented her friend's new hair. Recently she'd gotten blonde extensions for Coachella specifically.

“KayKay your hair looks awesome too!” She exclaimed with a smile looking at her black bob.

“Thanks. It was such a bitch to cut.” She chuckled.

"Kalani you’re glowing. Your pilates is obviously paying off girl you look so good!!" Sierra slapped her butt playfully.

“I can’t wait for a weekend of girl time while our boys do their manly things.” She joked wrapping her arm around Sierra’s and KayKay’s shoulders as she was leading them in the house and telling everyone where their rooms were.

————

Three hours passed and the group was around the firepit all drinking with slow conversation and a collective playlist playing on a speaker.

Micheal's eyes kept taking in Kalani's appearance while he was in mid conversation with Luke. The way her curls bounced in wind, the way her face lit up whenever she was talking about something to her vlog camera that excited her to Sierra, the bright red tube top mixed with her glowing tan skin. She was the most beautiful woman he's ever laid eyes on.

“I think your mans is staring at you.” KayKay nodded her head to Micheal who was at the fire-pit while the girls had their feet in the pool water. He waved to her making a crimson blush creep on her face.

Slowly when it was getting dark the group made it inside into their respective rooms. Micheal sat on the bed, mindlessly scrolling through the TV to find something to watch while Kalani showered to get the day off of her while she also had a surprise for him. In preparation because she was determined to get dicked down, she shaved basically everywhere so she was a hairless cat.

Quickly drying off and lathering herself in body oil and vanilla lotion. She grabbed a hot pink lace set she got from a Skims PR package in the mail two weeks ago, less to Micheal's knowledge. She looked at herself in the full length mirror and smiled at her appearance. She felt so sexy and confident.

Micheal knocked on the door noticing she was gone a while. "You good in there?"

"Yeah I'm coming out now!"

She opened the door walking out and Micheal's jaw dropped at the woman he gets to call his girlfriend.

"Do you like it?" She tucked a curl behind her ear in anxiety that he wouldn’t like it.

"Like it? Baby I love this, you look so sexy and beautiful, fuck got me at a loss for words here." He took her tattooed hand and pulled her in his lap.

She smiled down at him and leaned closer to place her lips on his. It was a slow and passionate kiss.

“Can I suck your dick please.” She asked between open mouth kisses.

He nodded his head and moved closer to sit on the edge of the bed, his breathing picking up as Kalani made her way on her knees kissing every mark and little teasing touches until she got to his basketball shorts.

Micheal jutted his hips up so she could take them off him. He let out a breathless moan as the cold air of the room hit his already hard cock.

She bit her lip in anticipation and spit in her hand before stroking him slowly. She kitten licked his tip until fully putting his length in her mouth. She closed her eyes moaning around his cock. She hasn’t gotten the chance to suck him off in forever and god did she miss it.

Micheal whined at the sight of his girlfriend going down on him. Normally he goes down on her first but he did miss her ungodly mouth. It made things worse that she was rubbing herself through her panties.

“Take those off. I wanna see you play with your pretty pussy.” He motioned.

She nodded and threw them across the room, startling Southy, who ran out of the room towards Luke and Sierra’s where Sadie was. Moose was somewhere in Ashton’s room since she wasn’t a big fan of Calum.

She pulled back slightly as she started to gag, drool and faint mascara tears in her eyes as she kissed around his length and slipped him back in her mouth, determined to make him cum.

She bobbed her head a bit faster as his abdomen tightened. Knowing he was close he pulled her face back slightly.

“Fuck let me come on your tits please.” He groaned making her nod. She slipped his length out of her mouth and widened her eyes making her look more innocent as he jerked his length as she felt the sticky substance fall on her boobs.

Micheal picked her up and laid her across the bed with him over her. “Fuck, that was amazing baby.”

“Well I finally got to suck you off after months of waiting for you to say yes.” She giggled, obviously still stuck in his post orgasm haze.

“Not my fault your pussy is incredible.”

She leaned up to kiss him as she jutted her hips into his.

“Someone’s needy.” He teased making her whine.

“Mikey please.” She said spreading her legs, showing her glistening arsoual.

He lined himself up with her and pushed all the way until he was balls deep almost. Waiting for her nod of approval, he started moving slowly in and out of her. His thrusts were small and rapid as he buried her head in his neck, speeding up his thrusts.

“Oh shit.” She moaned out, not caring who heard her.

“That feels good huh? My thick cock in this little tight pussy.”

Kalani moaned in response and clawed at his back. One hand was next her head while the other was on her hip holding him up so he wouldn’t squish her.

His hand traveled down to her swollen clit as he rubbed it in slow circles making her jerk.

“Mikey I’m so close.” She moaned into his shoulder. Her nails gripping his back leaving little crescent moons.

“You wanna come for me lovie?” He grunted, watching her face contort into pleasure as she came undone as her walls clenched uncontrollably against his throbbing cock. “That’s it baby.”

“Kalani fuck.” He moaned out as his thrust came to a complete halt as he came inside her. Their heavy breathing and the smell of sex lingering in the room. He pulled out of her giving her forehead a gentle kiss. “I’ll be right back.”

She rolled over as she heard the water being turned on quickly and his hand tapping her thighs open so he could drag the warm washcloth cleaning her gently. He reached her clit that was still puffy as she whined from overstimulation. “I know baby, you did so good though.”

He dug in his bag pulling out a muscle tee and leaving her pantie less due to her still clenching around nothing.

Climbing into bed he pulled her close to his chest as she was already dozing off to his whispers of sweet nothings until they heard a voice.

“God damn y’all are so loud! Some of us are trying to sleep.” Calum’s voice rang throughout the house. “You also owe me and Roy 20 bucks.”

“I did not consent to that!” Roy argued back.

Kalani groaned in embarrassment as Micheal rolled his eyes in annoyance. “I’m gonna kill them both tomorrow.” He whispered.

“Yes tomorrow but right now we need sleep. Don’t kill Roy though, Cal’s probably messing with you. Roy’s too nice for that.” Kalani said as she disappeared into a deep sleep.

[heartshapedcreaturefromcriptoon]

Oh shut the fuck up October 28th 2019 was the day all your disability activist friends reblogged posts vowing to instantly block anyone who put anything to do with the series on their dashboard and you would go into the main tags to get away from that and there would be a million suicide baitors and harassment campaigns and endless whining about the shows existence and people calling for Medrano's immediate death waiting for you and when it was the A24 greenlight announcement it was the same thing only calling for her to be fired, and when Jamie Lee Curtis did her shout out tweet and then at least one 21 year old tenderqueer with an @ about how they want to fuck slasher villains would be in her replies trying to talk down to and harass Jamie and then people you thought were your friends start harassing you for posting one Hazbin sketch in an adult queer server because they don't like it and you'll be banned if you post about it again, and you try to start telling them what happened to even Jamie for talking about it, just to prove a point, and then suddenly it's "I don't care what Jamie Lee Curtis has to say" even though all they had to do to see how volatile the topic was, was to just look and all the deleted threads and arguments taking place below the actual tweet to know the actual tweet wasn't the point, and you were all so happy be discussing Ryan Murphy's Scream Queens and Everything Everywhere All At Once sometime before that. And then all your queer adult friends end up banning you for "bullying".

Yeah, I'm saying nothings been the same since 2019 when the pilot came out, have you been living under a rock or what? Things are just as fucked now as they were then, if not more so.

And OP can shut the fuck up about radiodust too. The only thing they have half a point about is charlastor and that's only because of what also happened on Viv's birthday.

But most recently, it's been obnoxious sex repulsed aroace nerd prudes who say shit like "lads" and "friendo" enjoying getting a sense of popularity and power and ownership over a certain character in the fandom enough to go mad and start bullying not only allos but questioning aro/ace people as well as aro/ace children (who shouldn't even be in the fandom) for wanting to possibility maybe smooch The Radio Demon on the lips or liking the fact he actually has his own Valentines merch or just wanting him to have any kind of romantic merch at all or just pointing out the fact that he's sexy because he is objectively Sexy.

Jesus Fucking Christ ...

[sirdust]

THOUGHTS ON THE FINALE?? bc it was a lot for suuree

| any thoughts on the last 2 episodes??? i sure do have mine i was like wth throughout the whole thing😭 |

apologies for the radio silence 🫡 i've been busy and also not very enthusiastic about discussing this show, lol. been in the process of packing up my autism and moving it over to transformers.

anyways sure i'll give my thoughts.

as my friend who i was watching the eps with said during ep7, "this version of hazbin hotel where women exist is a lot more interesting"

ep7 was probably the most tolerable character-wise even though it suffered from the same general pacing problems that we saw throughout the rest of the season. charlie felt like an actual character who experienced inner turmoil, and while i didn't like "out for love" very much as a song, the sequence itself was solid. carmilla badly needed more presence in the story for how much they treated her as an important character, though.

i'll also say that i think rosie is the most likable character in the show period. she has a cute design and a charismatic personality, and i wish she had shown up earlier. it was weird that she and alastor acted as if they had just reunited when they saw each other in ep3, though.

the final battle was disappointing all around for both obvious and non-obvious reasons. vaggie badly needed a big heroic moment, but she was fighting lute (who simply does not feel like a real threat) for so much of it that her actions during that part of the episode had very little impact. especially since she was the one to figure out how angels can be killed in ep7 (which was admittedly a plot point that did not need to exist, aside from it facilitating charlie and alastor's deal, but i digress).

i also am pretty miffed that charlie only got one or two good hits in on adam before needing to be saved by lucifer. it was like they couldn't decide whether they wanted to do a team-up or to give lucifer a moment showing off how powerful he is to be able to fight adam one-on-one.

i don't know if there's anything for me to say about what they did to pent that hasn't already been said. i doubt he's going to be relevant in s2, but even if he is, i really don't care. it's baffling incompetent to treat a character death as a comedy beat one moment and then dramatic the next. it winds up not making me feel anything at all. (and on a pettier note, i hate his redesign.)

i've never been huge on adam. his character had potential but was continually wasted in favor of being another shallow commentary on toxic masculinity (which is much too prevalent in spindlehorse shows, i'd argue. the issue isn't with the thematic choice but how vapid the execution is). i'm also hung up on the fact that he's clearly meant to look like alex brightman, but the writers have lucifer make a fat joke about his appearance. fatphobia in these shows has always been an elephant in the room but i feel that this crosses some sort of line.

i don't think i have much else to say? i could go more in-depth of course but i'd have to refresh my memory and i don't have the time or desire to rewatch any part of the season right now. i've gotten pretty much all of my gripes with the show as it stands out of my system.

this blog will likely continue to get some use in the future, but i'll probably be increasingly inactive on here. the silver lining of all this is that hazbin's success may, if nothing else, help pave the way for execs greenlighting more queer animation, but we'll have to wait and see. here's to better shows being made in the future though 🥂

ETA: oh and i've been calling twist villain lilith since 2019 but i have nothing else to say about that.

[the-iron-fjord]

AND THAT WAS FOOD WARS!

Ever since hearing about the series back in July 2019 I was pretty astonished that someone like Jason “I Hate Titties” DeMarco would actually greenlight a show with ass and titties exploding all over the place, along with clothes. Every part of the show has been a fun experience, even Season 5 with its break-neck pacing, missing content, and sidelining of Megumi (who held out pretty long tbh). With Food Wars, we see the end of another era of Toonami goodness.

Final Score: 7.5/10

SEE YOU SPACE CHEFS

[ingravinoveritas]

How will you feel if Georgia and Anna turn up in GO2? Or any other assorted family members?

(Grouping all of the GO 2 Anons together since there are quite a few, and in order of take hotness level from Mild to Medium to Habanero Spicy...)

So, to recap the seeming order of events up until now (though I'm sure everyone is probably well aware): Three weeks ago, Neil made this post featuring a behind the scenes photo from GO season 2. Almost immediately, Twitter detectives set to work trying to ascertain the identities of the three people in the photo, and it very quickly came to light that both Peter Davison and Ty Tennant have roles in GO 2 listed on their respective CVs on their shared agent's website:

Shortly after that, the news appeared to be confirmed on the Radio Times website, and was subsequently picked up by a number of other media outlets. Most of these seem to be repeating what was reported by Radio Times, and while (from what I have seen, at least) there has been no official confirmation from either Amazon or Neil, the roles being on Peter and Ty's CVs seem to have convinced most of the fandom that they are in the second season.

I think there are several things we have to consider when talking about all of this. The first season of GO came out in 2019, and since then, the world has, well...I suppose "gone completely tits up" is one way of putting it, but the world has changed dramatically, and the circumstances around filming and production of television have also changed. Thus, when GO season 2 was filmed in Scotland from October of 2021 to March of 2022, the set was extremely locked down tight due to Covid safety protocols.

In all likelihood, it probably would've been very difficult to get actors for smaller roles or as extras, so from a purely logistical/practical standpoint, that is what could have led to the casting of Peter and Ty. There is also no way to know who the characters of Alastair and Ennon are, so for all we know, these could be very brief appearances where the characters are in one scene and then never appear again.

With that in mind, let's turn to the subject of nepotism, which I have seen mentioned quite frequently since the alleged casting was announced. I think what people may not be seeing is that there has been a marked difference in the reaction to Peter/Ty's casting from the hardcore GO fans vs. the wider public on Twitter. With the GO fans, there seems to be this attitude of tiptoeing around the word nepotism and everyone needing to be super happy/thrilled at the prospect of Peter and Ty (and possibly Georgia, but more on that ion a minute) being in GO 2, or otherwise you're a "bad" GO/David fan.

The wider public, however, has no such compunction about saying the word, often repeatedly, and with additional color commentary. What I wish the fans on Twitter understood is that this is something to be genuinely concerned about, because when the second season comes out, it won't be enough for just the hardcore fans to watch it. The show needs to bring in new viewers, and if people are as turned off by perceived nepotism as they seem to be, they won't tune in. Without those viewers, season 2 may not perform well, and if that is the case, Amazon could easily say "Well, GO season 2 didn't perform, so we're not going to greenlight a third season."

That is why it matters. Because even if casting Peter/Ty was done out of necessity/practicality, it ultimately comes down to people's perceptions, and overwhelmingly those perceptions are of nepotism and/or stunt casting.

For me personally, I certainly was and am not thrilled at the idea of Peter and Ty being in GO 2 (let alone Georgia and Anna, which...I might need a stronger drink before I write out my thoughts on that). But this does not in any way have anything to do with me disliking Peter or Ty, and in fact goes back to what I've always been most concerned with, and that's the integrity of the show.

Thinking back to 2020, I'm reminded of the heart-achingly beautiful audio clip that was released just a few months into lockdown, in honor of the 30th anniversary of GO's publication. Neil didn't write a new scene for Shadwell and Madame Tracy or Newt and Anathema...he wrote a scene for Aziraphale and Crowley. It was Michael and David whose performances resonated so strongly with all of us and with him, and he specifically chose to bring them back as Aziraphale and Crowley to mark that occasion.

When Staged came along shortly thereafter, it was created to build on that chemistry and relationship between Michael and David. Staged was meant to remind us of Good Omens, not the other way around. So I do feel that, when it comes to Peter and Ty (and Georgia/AL) being in GO season 2, it would be a distraction to have them there, rather than an enhancement. Not even because of the acting--as Peter is a seasoned actor and Ty/Georgia are decent enough (though AL is the exception, as she categorically cannot act, which we have seen)--but because of the principle.

The reason so many of us have greatly anticipated the second season is the relationship between Aziraphale and Crowley. So for me, casting any of these folks in the show (but particularly Georgia and AL) draws attention away from the Husbands, almost as if to say the relationship between Aziraphale and Crowley is somehow less/not as worth our attention as their "real" relationships. It also goes back to what I mentioned above about stunt casting, and again, if the viewers the show very much relies on see it that way and are turned off by that/perceived nepotism, it may cause the show itself to suffer overall.

So those are my thoughts on the potential casting of Peter Davison/Ty Tennant and Georgia/AL being in GO 2. I suspect we won't really know the truth about who is or isn't in the show until it's released, but to the Anons who felt they are alone in having feelings of hesitation over these casting decisions: You are very much not the only one who feels as you do, and I'm glad you felt comfortable enough to write in and share your feelings with me. We'll just have to wait and see what happens...

[transingthoseformers]

G1 female Autobots as redecos of existing toys

Elita One — Blurr (1986) [genuinely this exactly, her head antenna can even poke out of the right spot! Arcee can also be a Blurr redeco because her altmode is near-identical]

Chromia — First Aid (1986) [the Ratchet/Ironhide toy was too hideous, they didn't even have heads]

Lancer — Beachcomber (1985) [also, the cage could become a lance in cartoon/comic. Not vouching for the colors though]

Firestar — Hot Spot (1986) [Hot Spot and Hosehead were the only firetrucks where the latter and ladder lump could be removed, as they're on the back and don't affect anything]

Moonracer — Bumper (1984) [Kind if looks like a chibi of an Earth altmode she could have. Though she looks more like the chibi mazda than the real mazda)

Greenlight — Ectotron (2019) [yes it isn't a G1 toy, but Greenlight was just glimpsed in the background and wasn't even named until 2010, so maybe...]

Okay, so makes sense!

Also Greenlight wasn't named until 2010?? Damn

[popculturebuffet]

Evil Dead Rise: Mommy's with the Maggots Now (Comission for WeirdKev27)

Hail to the king baby! It's halloween, it's this blog and that mean's it's time for me to pull out my volume of the Necronimcon Demento and review another chapter of the evil dead.

So for those new here

I'm Jake, I review stuff and things, and two years ago I did an evil dead retrospective, covering all 4 films. From that stupid bitch scotty to ash laughing madly, to the film of a thousand catchphrases to that one that had Jane Levy, some good gore and little else, it was a fun ride.

So naturally with a new evil dead film out, it's only natural that I returned to review the latest film in the franchise: Evil Dead Rise. It's also a special review as it's my belated reviewversry with friend of the blog and over time of the me, WeirdKev27.

Kevin was my first client and the one who made me able to make a living doing this, and while he has zero interest in ever seeing Evil Dead Rise, he's more an horror-action and horror-comedy kind of guy, this gives him a chance to see what it has. Plus really after covering the last 4 even if he didn't agree to sponsor it, I'd be doing this anyway as I both love this film and hate not having the complete set. It's thanks to kev I have all I do now, so thanks man.

Evil Dead Rise is the franchises second attempt at a soft reboot after Evil Dead 2013. The plan after that one was to do two sequels: Evil Dead 2, which would follow Mia, Jane Levy's final girl from the requel and the only character who wasn't huffing paint thinner the whole film, and Army of Darkness 2. This ended up falling through, with Alvarez moving on to other projects and AOD2 being retooled into Ash Vs the Evil Dead, a three season tv series on stars that sadly got cancelled but from all accounts fucking rocked and I definitely want to cover at some point.

From there Ash's story was seemingly done on screen. While Dynamite will likely publish army of darkness comics till the end of time, Bruce Campbell had decided he was aging out of the part and wanted to pass the chainsaw on. That said while Campbell was seemingly done playing Ashy Slashy, he wasn't done with the franchise, staying on as a producer alongside Sam Rami and Robert Tapert. Rami and Campbell were done MAKING the films, but still wanted the franchise to live on.

So in 2019 a new film got the greenlight, with Rami handpicking rookie director Lee Cronin for the part, having impressed rami while working on the short lived quibi series 50 States of Fright. Cronin easily took to the cast and once filming COULD kick off in 2021, he hit the ground running. The result is a fresh take on the franchise that was so well done that WBD decided it was too good to just pop on streaming and much like Blue Beetle, bumped it up to theaters. The result was a 19 million dollar film.. scoring nearly 150 million in the box office, a huge success that , unlike most films only GREW it's audience as the weeks went on, always a great sign.

As a result the franchise's future seems secure, with Cronin not only already having 4 ideas for a sequel, which i'll get to later, but the results were so Groovy Bruce decided he wasn't finished yet, meaning an ash film is also in the cards.

So the question is how groovy is this film and how does the franchise fair without it's iconic cabin setting or iconic catchphrase spewing chainsaw man? The answers to all of this is under the cut. So turn the page, wash your hands, and prepare for 1717 Gallons of Bloodshed as I look at Evil Dead Rise.

Evil Dead Rise starts off a day after the main plot, with three 20 somethings having gone to a cabin in the woods woooooooooooooo not realizing what franchise their in. They are Jessica, Teresa, Jessica's cousin and Caleb, Jessica's douchey boyfriend. Caleb annoys Teresa with a drone, nearly clipping her with it and mansplaning after she says it nearly clipped her head off that it would've ground her face up instead.

Teresa proves to be just as obnoxious as Caleb, berating Jessica for leaving her alone with him, fair.. but then also being mad at her for being sick, laid up in bed and thus unable to give her the keys.

Thankfully this is an evil dead movie so Jessica quickly ends our suffering as she wants to swallow souls, taking off Teressa's scalp in a gory, horrifying and awesome practical effect before putting the drone to her own face and jumping into the lake. Caleb proves he's both not a COMPLETE asshole but still a complete idiot by diving in after her and we get the films awesome opening shot: Jessica rising from the lake, drenched in water and blood as the title rises behind her.

While I do like that TITLE CARRRD and scalping, overall i'm not a big fan of this opening. While it's well shot like the rest of the film, it's too short to really make me care and feels like it was thrown in there because the main plot ran a tad short and was too tightly paced to add to. It's a how we got here sort of thing that dosen't really work and feels like i'ts just there so we can have a sequel.. depsite the film having MULTIPLE other valuable sequel hooks dangling around. It's unnecessary in a film that otherwise really dosen't DO unnecessary. It also feels tonally off, feeling like a 2000's era "Kill the douchebags" sort of film than the tightly paced well characterized film we get after.

Thankfully we soon meet our actual protagnist, Beth. Beth, played by Australian Actor Alyssa Sulivan, gets a great introduction that does a lot of nice exposition without actually saying any: we quickly find out from her being sick in a stall and having some douche she works with who can't do his job himself and just let her go to the bathroom for five minutes knock on it that sh'es a roadie, her hiding it tells us she's pregnant and doesn't want anyone else to know, and Suilivan's awesome facial acting tells us she has no idea how to process this.

We soon cut to LA in a high rise, a setting change I utterly love. Before this most evil dead works were in a rural setting: a cabin in the woods for the first, second and fourth films, artuhrian times for the third, and some small towns for ash vs the evil dead. We haven't seen the deadites in an urban setting before this and LA was a great set.

The choice of setting within is also great: an old crumbling high rise in the middle of a busy city no one would give two shits about or really investigate in the middle of the night. It keeps the isolation of the cabin but puts a new spin on it that allows for new set pieces.

The main one of these is Ellie's Apartment. Ellie is played by the stunning and talented Alyssa Sutherland, previously known for Vikings, which I haven't seen. Sutherland is the easy breakout of the film, the center of most of it's marketing and the most terrifying part about it... eventually.

Part of that terror is we see her first as a fun, responsible mom and tattoo artist dealing with three children, all creatives themselves in some way: Bridget (Gabrille Echoles) is an activist, her brother Danny (Morgan Davies) is a dj and their young sister Cassie cuts up her dolls to create staves to body check her sister with.

This family, which doesn't have a last name, is the core of the film and the first 20 minutes are really just setting them up as people: Beth is a tad snarky but clearly loves her kids and is tough but fair with them, Bridget is sarcastic to just about everyone but her aunt, Danny is a bit of a reckless fuckwit but has a good heart, more on the former later, and Cassie is a sweetie pie. Their not super deep characterizations, but the talented actors give them a lot of character simply by action, and one of the films best asset is how great these people are at facial acting.

Beth flies in and after scaring the shit out of Ellie. The two actresses have great chemistry and you can feel the tension as the two clearly haven't talked.. and Beth missed a lot as Ellie's ex husband abandoned the family and this high rise is condemned, with the family only having a month. So naturally Ellie isn't that excited to see Beth, both for Beth dodging her calls, despite getting her messages, and showing up at the worst possible time.

That said the film also does a really good job with the sibling dynamic: like me with my own brother Ellie may be annoyed with Beth.. but she's there for her, getting this visit wasn't just out of the blue and her sister really needs her and waits till the kids have left to pick up pizza to ask, but does so gently yet firmly. These characters feel like family and building up this empathy and character is key to everything being as horrifying as it is. It's something many horror films, including this very film in it's opening and the previous film fail to grasp: just because

Dosen't mean we should WANT them too. It's fine to throw in a few assholes to kill so not EVERY death is a downer, depending on the film, but when you can't empathize with most of your cast it makes the wait for the bloodshed tedious. It's why the previous film REALLY didn't work for me: outside of mia NONE of these idiots were likeable and as such having to spend a film with them being stupid and waiting for them to die while the only likeable one was turned into a deadite wasn't fun. Here by making everyone we encounter likeable, grounded, and interesting.. it makes the horrifying slaughter we're about to witness that much more tragic. It makes us WANT these characters not to be dead by dawn.

Anyways we're soon reminded this is LA as we get an EARTHQUAKKKEEEE, with the bathroom set our sisters are in having been rigged to shake really well. The kids thankfulyl weren't driving at the time and instead are trying to take the pizza back up when it hits. They drop it, but do live.

Sadly for them and everyone else on their floor Danny suffers from a terminal case of dumbass and upon seeing a giant crack in the ground leading to a mysterious old bank vault just HAS to investigate in the dark. He finds some old records, which.. fair enough, it's some neat historical stuff, could be fun to paly with soundwise and could help them fincally. Him taking stuff romt he hole is mildly stupid.. but I get it and I probably would. What I wouldn't do is upon finding a room guarded by a bunch of hanging crucafixes and seeing a book with teeth and bound in human flesh, take it with me. And I mean teeth as this Necronomicon has a nasty but awesome set of chompers. I praise the set design here on this, it's iconic as the original, still recognizable as being it's sibling, but the teeth give it it's own flair.

Anyways the kids get back to the apartment and Danny decides the best thing he can do during a dark night with quakes a poppin.. is to pry open his new book. Which granted is what i'd do, but my recent book is about a trans woman's first year post transition and is damn good...

Highly recommend it and it's sequel, which I got first. Also guarnateed not to summon the evil dead.. which I understand is a dealbreaker for some of you. Good news i'm pretty sure that manga about Joker raising a baby batman does, so have at it if that's what your after.

Sadly Danny is not taking my book recommendations and opens the things finding a bunch of spooky pictures and... being genuinely horrified. He's a LITTLE fascinated but it's clear his reaction is "shit this thing isn't good is it. Not hleped is that when he pricks his finger on the books mighty jaws, it drinks some blood Audrey II styles. Bridget sees this and has the right reaction.

Or rather chuck it back down the hole they got it from. Danny can't because their mom won't let them out of the apartment after the quake which is fair.. what's less fair is that he dosen't wrap the book in something or hide it. Keep it from trying to nible on some face. You have 4 other people in the house Dan be considerate!

That said Dan still takes the darwin award winning step of playing the wax records he got. NOw on paper Danny being this dumb shoudln't work.. but in practice Rise does an excellent job showing why Danny would be like this: we've seen he's an audophile, that he's reckless as he went down a crevice in an earthquake, and that he's curious to a fault, willing to take the book in a first place. So he's being stupid.. but it's in a way where it's a character flaw and not just bad writing.

It also helps that while playing the records is risky.. you can kinda see why. He found a creepy vampiric book in the basement. He probably gets he might not be able to just chuck it in a hole and have it not come back or have already infected them or something. it didn't, but he can't know that. So knowing what the FUCK this thing is might be a good idea.

As it turns out we get some exposition from a preist long ago: he found the book and proposed to his fellow preists to explore it. His Fellow preists didn't want to die today and loudly decired it as blasphemous.

So he decided to take it and study it because that's never gone horribly wrong and lead to about a dozen deaths in this franchise, along with cameo Bruce Campbell and some other guy. He also decides to read it and to Danny's credit, he tries to stop the record there... only for it to keep playing. The Evil Dead have come baby.

Before we move on I need to talk about the danny thing a bit more, mostly because not only was this whole inciting incident well done, being rooted in character stupidity instead of just bad writing.. but it also feels like a direct response to the last film. For those who either haven't seen it, you blessed people you, or need a refresher, in Evil Dead 2013 the Necronomicon was found in a basement full of rotting corpses and next to a shot gun. it was packed in a garbage back, covered with barb wire, and had bright red writing implicitly from ash telling you NOT TO FUCKING READ IT OUTLOUD.

So enter Eric, full time teacher part time fuckwit who hears about the corpses, sees all of this and not only cuts the barbed wire but READS THE BOOK.

So it's nice the followup decided to use the same plot device.. but actually use it instead of making a character brain dead.

So with that the evil dead has risen and the nightmare time has arrived. And the first victim of the Evil Dead is Ellie, whose experincing some ELEVATED horror while taking the elevated when some cables grab her.

The sequence is quick horrifying and also has her trying in vain to fight off the possesion before the evil dead kills her, and she returns as a deadite.. and as the real breakout of the piece. While Beth is the lead and Lily Sullivan does greath, it's Sutherland whose the main attraction.. and not just because a good half of the audience's reactoin to Deadite Ellie was

Which isn't me, but I entirely get. It's also intresting to have a horror film where the deadite is the real hammy star instead of our hero. Sutherland is iconic in this roll, from the creepy smiles to how unsettling she plays possesed elly: the pitched down voice HELPS.. but it's the unceasing smile, creepy grins and offputting behavior that make Deadite Elly so awesome and so electric to watch. There's good reason her possesion was spoiled int he marketing: She's the center of this film's horror. She's not the only deadite, we'll get a few more, but she's the main threat, the main focus and the main thing fucking with our heroes heads, starting with the brilliant egg sequence where Cronin and Sutherland make simply making eggs fucking unerving.

She's also the main source of black comedy in the film, from calling her children titty sucking parasites, to her game of eeny meeny miney you, to later making her daughter repeat the eyeball gag from 2, her haminess is well played: enough to keep the film from getting TOO bleak but not so overplayed it takes you out of how horrifying thigns are.

Deadite ellie is the biggest symbol of the films tone: Cronin keeps it pitch black like the requel, but unlike that film Cronin realizes that too MUCH bleakness overrides everything else. But giving us characters to root for and want to live through the night and some dark humor, it helps contrast the utterly bleak situation. It gives us something to go what the fuck at with the humor and something to cling on to. I hate that I keep making this review "Whyt his one works and why the remake didn't" as Fede Alvarez seems like a genuinely nice person. This film is good on it's own, not just because I like it more than the other... but it's also impossible to not bring up the two as they tried to do the same thing: bring back the franchise without ash, without contiuing the original story. I don't WANT to keep using the 2013 film as a punching bag... but it's hard not to when this feels like the better version of it, making an evil dead that's closer to straight horror.. but still gets what the franchise is. It keeps the frantic pacing of 2, it just makes it less of an over the top comedy and more an over the top nightmare our heroes can't escape. it's frantic out of urgency rather than out of throwing weird, hilaroius or horrifying shit at y ou constantly. Well except the last part.

Anyways at first everyone just assumes Deadite elly is sick, and they turn to their neighbors, Gabriel (Jayden Daniels) and his father Mr. Fonda (Mick Michelson). Gabe is a kind man implied to have a thing for elly while his father is very mildly crotchety but a kind cat owner , both helping: Gabe tries to treat Elly while his pop pop tries to figure out HOW to get her to help. As it did with the bridge, the Evil has taken out the stairs and already trashed the elvator, leaving a fire escape through a conedemed apartment as thier only escape.

So while gabe and his dad plan to run through, everyone else is left with Elly. We also get a really nice use of modren tech: in most films they usually have to do the "cellphones out" dance, which I understand but got old. Here... what we know about the evil dead from other films provides a nice way... they get no signal.. because it can control that because it can control anything in it's radius. If it can posses a moose head working the wifi shoudln't be that hard.And it thus has Ellie, trapped inside her deadite counterprat clal her sister for help before convulsing.... and whne put inj a tub crawwling out of it

Mayhem ensues as the family has to ward off Deadite Ellie, and we get a lot of nice iconic bits of violence: Ellie's now iconic line of "mommy's with the maggots now", going "eeneie meanie miney you" and using a CHEESE GRATER on her daughter while attacking her in the kitchen. Which while Cronin overhyped it before release, it's a nasty wound but in a film caked in blood, it's still a very creative gore moment in a film packed with them. The gallons of blood I listed before the cut were how many it actually took to make this film. It's another way the film works: it keeps the over the top nature of the series, it just emphasises the horror more, a way to keep the series fredsh but not ignore what made it good.

Our heroes are barely able to lock Ellie out and we get one of the best sequence sin the film: our heroes look in the peep hole.. and we see bits and pieces as Ellie masacres Mr. Fonda, gabriel and two local teens I didn't mention because they literally just hit on Bridget once and then die horribly here. Even Mr. F having a boomstick dosne't save him. And it's stuff like this that works: the high rise on paper is safter, less isolated... but in practice our heroes are nwo trapped in a cramped space, no way out with a bloodthirsty monster wearing their loved one's face. It's a brilliant take.

Naturally as is Evil Dead tradition, the group falls apart a bit: Danny is in tears taking the blame for this and it's again why I like him: he may be stupid.. but while eric just kinda hid we see the toll casuing this put on Danny. Bridget rips him apart for it and normally you'd think one would go outside and die.. but in a nice twist on the old formula Beth stops them: Danny MAY of caused this but they CANNOT turn on each other. It's what's out there that they need to fight.

Speaking of which Deadite Ellie prays on her youngest, gaslighting cassie by pretending to be "all better now"

Though i'll give them points for style. This force Beth and Danny to save her.. and thus leaving them open for Bridget as in a horrifying sequence we see the dead slowly flow thorugh her before she startsb leading black blood out her nose... and becomes the dead.

Another horrifying scuffle insues with her targeting danny and barfing blood on him and nearly killing him before cassie FUCKING IMPALES HER. God damn kid.

They tie bridget up in a sack and Beth finally gets Danny to spill about the book and comes up with a plan: since playing the record got them into this, playing the record will get them out of this.

It's a desperation move.. but like Danny's earlier shenanigans that lead to this blood party.. it makes some sense: they can't read the book, and frankly trying to may just make MORE deadites, and if the guy actually survived long enough to make a third album, it means they MIGHT have a way out. We also get a nice ash style montage of her getting the DJ equipment to work as at this point the power is out. It also nicely makes her music career into a hell of a chekovs gun.

Tragically.. they don't. HIs album simply outlines the horrors idiot priest man faced, what he's lost and how only complete and total dismemberment works. Granted we knew from the intro they probably wouldn't' make it but by this point, the film's got us too invested to care. I still dont' LIKE the intro making it clear this doesn't work from the get go, but at least the films well paced enough to compensate.

Things then get somehow worse as Bridget rises and stabs danny to death, coughing up blood and everything. It's brutal as it is amazingly designed. He does manage to fire her out of the impartment... with fire, while Ellie sneaks in through the vents, something set up by the old man's lost cast earlier.

Ellie attacks Beth and in a VERY unerving moment detects she has a baby inside her, mocks her as deadites do then tries to rip it out.

But before she can get that fetus, kill that feetus and before I can go to hell for that joke, Bridget saves her. And props to Gabrille Echoles for her excellent child acting, an alex vincent level performance.

With our party down to 2 1/3, our heroes ventur eotuside and now EVERYONE'S a deadite. Highlights include Mr Fonda grabbing Ellie's leg as she grabs his boomstick

And my favorite bit.. the two deadite children hovering over a seemingly prone deadite ellie, seemingly crying for thie rmom.. before it turns into dark.. piercing laughter. It's one of the most effective scares in the film and all the deaddites joining in is just chilling. It's a scaled back but effective version of the entire cabin laughing from evil Dead 2

The final girls hide in the elevator as what's left of their family fuses into The Marauder, our final deadite for the evening and a grotesque combination of their family, a grim reminder of what's happened and just a gross thing to look at. As is standard for this film, it's awesome and I love it.

SPeaking of awesome and I love it we then get another destined to be iconic bit: the elevator fills with BLOOD. What's more impressive is they got the scene in one: had they failed they would've had to clean up and start again, which given this scene involves a GIANT pool of pracitcal blood and leaves both characters drenched in it for the rest of the film, is a LOT to as and is a LOT of moving parts to nail on your first try. But they did and the result is a horrifying sequence as the elevator fills, our heroines barely survive..a nd then get tosse dinto the parking garage drenched.

The good news: now they can escape. The bad news is Deadites love final boss fights, so The Marauder is there to oand stalking them. The final fight is a tense sequence as Elly ducks it but thankfully noticces some landscaping equipment. You know what that means... CHAINSAW BLOOD MOTHERFUCKERS

So Elly takeas a fucking chainsaw to it, which gives her an edge, and later uses her fucking boom stick and tells it to "come get some". I like these little nods, obvious enough to notice btu not distracting enough if you haven't seen the other films.

What finally does it in is fucking aawesome though: a goddamn woodchipper. look is a woodchipper being here convient? yes. is the fact the deadites only sent one convient? yes. is Ellie putting a deadite through a goodamn woodchipper with her niece and now adopted daughter turning it on fucking glorious and goryious?

It's a great finale and with that Ellie, her unborn child and her niece head off into the sunset.. while our opening deadite comes into being.

Evil Dead Rise is a glorious new chapter in the franchise: still very much evil dead, but with a darker and somehow even bloodier spin on things. It's a worhty sucessor and very worthy of being the highest grossing film in the franchise, and with that acolade a sequel is hopefully inevitble.

LIke I said Cronin had four ideas, all of them brillian 1. Returning to the Cabin: While admitely I dont' care about those characters, a new cabin in the woods would be neat. This is my least faviorite as the NEXT one.. but I woudln't mind it eventually. 2. Focusing on Ellie: Seeing where she goes next, which I badly want. 3. A prequeL: focusing on the preist. another solid idea. And my faviorite 4. The cleanup crew: returning to the high rise to ask "how the hell would people react to the leftovers of the carnage we just saw".

their all great and with Bruce wanting to return now after this entry, the future is bright and this will likely not be the last time we read from the book of the dead. But it was a great return of it and I can't wait to read the next chapter. Until then hail to the king baby.. and thanks for reading