#which is one of my main gripes with most horror movies

[bobfloydsbabe]

Salem's Lot was a fine movie. I wish they'd spent more time developing the characters and their relationships with each other, especially Ben's relationship with Matt and Susie. Like, Matt's death didn't feel that impactful because we knew next to nothing about him and didn't get a proper feeling for what his relationship with Ben was like. Same thing with Susie. The emotional oomph just wasn't there, and when the characters died, I felt nothing. There was potential, but the movie didn't follow through on it. It's a shame, really.

[assignmentimprobable]

Per my last gobbledygook infused post about the excessive use of Stryker’s influence in the X-Men movies, I’ve come with my promised rant. This time taking a deep-dive into some of the more consequential changes to Fox X-Men’s storytelling choices when making movies based on different comics, specifically how they chose to adapt Weapon X in Origins, and all my gripes. 

Disclaimer: (1) I know that the Origins movie takes much of its creative liberties based on Wolverine Origins; (2) I know that killing your darlings is necessary when adapting books to the big screen, but there’s the difference between a few darlings and cutting the entire thrust of the story. These are two completely different stories with different audiences, and I’m pontificating informally about a bunch of nothing at the end of the day for my own fun. 

That said! Join me for the biggest bitch session about how the movies took on the ‘ohh how did Logan become The Wolverine” angle. This has been an essay for 4 years in the making so. Prepare yourselves accordingly. 

Trigger warnings for: Graphic body horror with images, non-consensual nudity, torture, experimentation, sexual assault discussion (not discussed in depth, but touched on in a quote) and blood. 

More under the cut

To preface… I don’t consider myself even a passable comic fan. I floated by on X-Men Evolution and the Fox films for my X-Men knowledge until I was an adult. I’ve got some measure of Lore knowledge, but at the end of the day I’m a filthy casual, so jot THAT down. Don’t expect me to know shit about Romulus’s involvement. So I, a fool, went into Weapon X (1991) expecting what I saw in X-Men Origins back in (checks calendar) 2009. 

What I find most interesting is that movie adaptations of Weapon X tend to give a badass tilt to what happened, when what actually happened was far from it. 

Starting with the first gripe: In X-Men Origins, we see that Logan volunteered for the Weapon X program as a means to get strong enough to beat Sabertooth for killing Silver Fox (Here, Kayla SilverFox. Which. :U ), his girlfriend. It was about single-minded vengeance. In the comic, Logan didn’t have a choice. They caught him while he was drunk, walking out of a bar and presumably on his way back to wherever he was staying. 

What happens next is a series of episodes and observations about the state of his body, his nature, and his use as a weapon. Furthermore, it’s not an action comic.

It’s a horror story.

The core changes for the big screen can be boiled down into one paradigm shift: Logan is an active character moving the story along instead of a passive one in Origins. And really, that’s the problem, because a key element to the whole premise has to do with his role in the events that made him who he is. Weapon X is not a story about Wolverine, the characters never actually refer to him by his title, only by first name and project designation “Experiment X”. It’d be more accurate to say that Weapon X is a story that revolves around things that happen to Logan. More precisely: The things that people do TO him. At its core, the story is about the dehumanization that accompanies having your bodily autonomy meddled with. 

Origins plays with this a little bit, having Stryker make the call for Logan’s memories to be wiped so that he can be used as a weapon. Which brings us back to the main problem: Not only does it undermine the themes of the story for Logan to be recontextualized as a completely willing participant- but introducing that angle entirely just feels totally flavorless, as opposed to the government having pulled his personnel file and tagged him as precisely the kind of volatile presence that no one would miss. Systems do that all the time, marking people as ‘other’ and making a judgment call on their worth. 

I think it would’ve been so much more interesting if the movies played with the ambiguity of Wolverine’s participation in the experiment. Because in an X2 scene, when Logan says “you cut me open, you took my life.”, Stryker responds “you make it sound as if I stole something from you. as I recall it was you who volunteered for the procedure.” and everything comes into question. On one hand, it begs the question: Who WAS Logan before he lost his memory? Was he the sort of person to grasp destructive power for power’s sake? On the other, It’s a classic abuser tactic on Stryker’s part, shifting the blame onto the victim and putting forth the idea that they wanted it, and so that what took place was completely fine. It’s a sickening, spineless rationalization. Logan can easily be seen as an abuse victim being manipulated by the abuser. 

Which is actually a good segue to my next point— the abuse in the comic. It’s graphic and uncomfortable. There is a crazy amount of nudity in this story (warning: pictured below). Not the fun kind either, there’s enough of it to make you feel kinda icky about what’s going on. 

Logan spends virtually all of the story naked and a good amount of it bound in dehumanizing ways. The method feels weirdly evocative of bondage, muscles flexing and body bare, the form twisted into forced submission. It isn't his choice to be unclothed, and so it feels like you’re not to see him like this. There’s a layer of wrongness to it that you can’t quite shake as a reader.

According to the center for victims of torture: “Forced nakedness creates a power differential, stripping the victims of their identity, inducing immediate shame and creating an environment where the threat of sexual and physical assault is always present.” Nearly all of the elements are met in the story. Logan is drugged, stripped, bound, and subjected to multiple forms of violence. He has hot coffee poured onto his unconscious naked body for no other reason than a doctor’s bad mood. His abuse is justified by his status as a mutant, being told “This infernal thing is what [he] has always been” while left naked and unconscious in a pile of glass shards. The Doctors and staff have all the power, and he himself has none. 

At every corner of doubt expressed by Carol Hines the lab tech or Dr. Cornelius the co-project lead, there’s someone ready to express that his identity is inconsequential. That person is typically the lead scientist, Dr. Thornton- or “The Professor”. He’s the menacing bald guy you see in a bunch of different cartoon adaptations of the Weapon X story.  

(^ This guy. Like to slap his bald head. Reblog to stab it.)

Autonomy is defined by the Merriam Webster dictionary as “ self-directing freedom and especially moral independence.” It is the capacity to make an informed, uncoerced decision. Here, where Logan is constantly in and out of reality due to the drugs and conditioning equipment, there is no autonomy. Logan is incapacitated, has no information on what is happening to him, and is being fed scenarios that he did not give his permission to be in.The nakedness is part and parcel of what the Weapon X project is trying to do: They are trying to tear Logan away from his identity and personhood. Whether Logan breaks from the programming or not, he is treated as a tertiary consideration in all aspects. Humiliation is necessary to the conditioning. And I feel the need to clarify that it IS humiliation, defined as “to reduc[ing] (someone) to a lower position in one's own eyes or others' eyes.” The doctors must bring Logan down under their heel as a monster to tame, their agenda can’t survive without the subjugation element. The program wants to assume dominion over his body, mind, and by extension his abilities. 

Addressing the vaguely sexual tilt to the nudity: I’d wager that the objectification stands to poise him in the eyes of the scientists and lab staff. Something to observe, a passive subject to be engaged with at their leisure. It’s a framing device. Logan is effectively robbed of his voice for much of the story, speaking in broken fragments and more often than not expressing how much pain he’s in. The underpinnings of the nudity are grounded in asserting control over Logan’s form, the Professor at multiple points talks about how this experiment and awakening the animal inside Logan is the latter’s destiny. He has decided that it’s this man’s highest calling because of who he is, a mutant and one of the troubled undesirables of society. Mentally ill, violent, drunk. The purpose of Experiment X is to mold Logan into a mindless beast, because that’s what they think he is, the rest is to strip him of any pretense or illusions about what he thinks he is. It’s an oppressive environment that reinforces its power dynamics through violence on the body and mind. 

Next gripe: That really satisfying scene in Origins where Logan breaks free from the adamantium tank and shrugs off the bullet Agent Zero put in his head. It has all the trademarks of cool. The shredded figure of a big dick legend, the angry snarling, the bodies flying and claws slashing. It’s about intention! We are meant to see this man as effectively invincible and totally badass. It’s a short stint of medical malpractice that ultimately brings us the character we look up to and admire. It doesn’t hurt that he’s got a lovely figure and a handsome face either. It’s all pure, bloodless action. The scene on a tonal level doesn’t scratch the surface of how invasive or horrible the experiment was, nor do any of movies seem to capture how fucking GROSS! The closest we get is the sequence in X2 where Logan runs down the hallway naked, hurting, and horrified at what’s been done to him. And to Hugh Jackman’s credit, this brief and bloody snatch of memory leaves people unsettled, asking “What happened here?” This is the first time Logan’s seeing the claws, he doesn’t know what we know about their use now, only that it HURTS and he has to get AWAY. That’s creative storytelling within the limitations of a PG-13 rating.

Meanwhile, with Barry Windsor-Smith…

Having re-read the story a few times for the sake of this essay: I can see on some level why a major studio wouldn’t tackle this in full-fidelity. It’s not marketable in a “Middle of the road, grandparents and little kids can see this movie” way. It’s also fair to say that it’s hard to pivot from, because his involvement doesn’t end with the adamantium bonding. We still have several years of false memory implants, missions with Team X after the successful conditioning, and then getting to a solid stopping point before the X-Men recruits Wolverine. Marketing heads and studio executives don’t want to grapple with a complex trauma narrative and Wolverine being brutalized in deeply un-fun ways nonstop, no matter how compelling it would be to bring to life. 

However, it’s a total missed opportunity that in shifting the perspective of the story to Logan as its driving force that the movie didn’t try to get at the juicier quirks of his mental state under the strain. Since you know, it’s the subject of at least 3 PTSD nightmare sequences in the X-Men films where Logan is at the forefront. Experiencing such immense psychological trauma impairs the ability of a victim to cope because of the deficiencies in endorphin activity following a traumatic experience. Volpicelli J, Balaraman G, Hahn J, Wallace H, Bux D. The role of uncontrollable trauma in the development of PTSD and alcohol addiction. Alcohol Res Health. 1999;23(4):256-62.  Alcohol is a common method of compensating for the endorphin withdrawal by increasing endorphin activity, avoiding both the withdrawal, and also impairing the parts of the brain that recall memory. Ibid. Considering the detailed abuse in previous paragraphs, it’s no shit that Logan is an alcoholic. The trauma conga line of Wolverine’s history aside, an extended trauma event such as the one in Weapon X alone warrants the kind of hyper-awareness, aggressive outbursts, and self-destructive behaviors that the character is known for. The scene in X-Men 2000 where Logan attacks Jean while she’s putting the IV in his arm makes complete sense, having the context of panels like these behind it.

Is there something to be said here about depictions of masculinity that go out of their way to avoid showing vulnerability? I’d be willing to say so, especially based on the commentary around what the filmmakers wanted for the Origins movie. They wanted to prioritize the action and invoke Robert De Niro’s “oh fuck this guy is scary” factor in Cape Fear, highlighting the sheer badassness and animal edge of the character. He’s sexy, he’s a wounded soul, he’s a killer, and most of all: a Fighter. He gets back at Zero for killing the Hudsons, tracks down Victor and annihilates him with his newfound strength, and kills anybody who gets in his way.  

To contrast: There are plenty of points in the Weapon X story where Logan fights and kills. He kills every animal they sicc on him. Slaughters a lab tech who goes into his cell while he’s screaming bloody murder. There’s no victory in it though, because he is doing precisely what the Professor has set out to condition him for. In text, it affirms the view of his abusers that he’s a “Mindless murdering animal.” He slaughters the security team sent to him and most important: He kills the architect of his immediate misery, he kills the Professor, the most satisfying slaughter of the story. But that very same satisfaction is hollow, it’s the product of unreality, false memories being planted into his mind as another part of the experiment. They’re empty for Logan, the subject. He doesn’t get to triumph. 

This is the story of an abused man in the thick of that environment, not so much a story about how he beat the odds. It’s hinted at toward the end, but likely not shown because this is a prequel story, and Wolverine’s integration into the X-Men in the modern day IS the triumph. This is a contextual tale. This story can’t be all that there is and it isn’t, because Logan is destined to make it out. The Logan we know is at the end of this, but the Logan in this story is only just beginning down a path of trauma that will rip away his sense of self. The distinction lies in what kind of story both mediums are trying to tell. The tale of victimization, abuse, and dehumanization that is told in “Weapon X” undermines the kind of story that Origins wants to tell, one of a man’s journey down the long road and the choices and intentions that set him on the path to being Wolverine. 

With the amount of blood, gore, and misery at work here, some might be compelled to characterize what happens in Weapon X as torture porn. However, Torture porn implies a level of gratuitousness that I just don’t think is present in the story proper. There’s a perfectly good reason for the raw, visceral discomfort and atmosphere: It speaks to the total lack of compassion and empathy in these people. Those who aren’t actively mocking this man are complicit at best, lending their help in a project that they know the subject isn’t a voluntary participant in. 

Everyone seems to be in on a joke that Logan is the punchline for. Even if not everyone laughs, the point stands that Logan is stumbling blindly into spectacle for the entertainment and voyeuristic study of the project workers. It all feels like one big horror side-show. Windsor-Smith was doing a thematic breakdown on human apathy and sadism through characters like the Professor, Dr. Cornelius, and Carol Hines. The Professor is sadistic and clinical, he feeds little fish to the big fish and taps the glass for his amusement. Cornelius and Hines are apathetic, they will occasionally express remorse (with Hines crying multiple times), but both of them continue to be active participants in an unwitting man’s abuse and torture. Cornelius because he feels that he doesn’t have any other choice but to be here, and Hines because of her sense of loyalty to the project and general obligations as a staff member. The graphic imagery and out-of-touch quality of Logan’s mental state are meant to evoke compassion, sympathy, and anger in the readers. This is the Wolverine we’re talking about. If it’s one thing he does, it’s fight back. He kills, he gets even, but here? He doesn’t. He can’t. He’s helpless. 

It’s an interesting exploration, seeing a major icon for masculine ideals being subject to the sort of objectification that we only tend to see rendered in such explicit ways with female characters. Nobody expects someone associated with such strength to be brought this low. The story doesn’t diminish the value of his suffering or imply that the abuse diminishes him in any way, I never quite got the implication that Logan was less of a man for any of the things that the experiment put him through. It’s absolutely insane for a story written during the Bush Sr. era to be able to tackle the kind of nuance on abuse creating victims across genders that people still struggle with today. Hines, Cornelius, and the Professor are the central drivers of a dialogue on what it means to be human, and through their contributions to Logan’s suffering, they prove that for being the supposed “human” opposites to his mutant monstrous self, only acknowledged as human as lip service, there is an endless capacity for cruelty. It brings us back around to Logan, who in being subjugated has shown the audience that The Wolverine is human too. 

TLDR: X-Men Origins fumbled the ball adapting the story in an interesting way and I blame executive meddling. I think it would’ve been a really cool exploration of the character to showcase the horrific parts of the origin story, and if not that, then to explore the various themes highlighted by the original story but that probably would’ve required an R rating, and you know how studios take to those for their big IPs. That said, I cannot recommend reading the source enough. Barry Windsor-Smith tells a damn good story, even if it doesn’t feel characterized by the same quirks of an X-Men tale. Quite honestly? I think that’s the appeal. It’s as much a character study as it is a horror show of all the ways one person can be unmade. 

[sanityshorror]

We got in a argument about why is rape worse then murder and how murder is ok to be shown on TV but rape need to be shown differently. I have thought about it and I finally figured out how to put what I think into words. This is a little ranty sorry.

The main thing is warning and the second thing is people's view on that stuff ( I know how it sounds it needs to be explained) and maybe lack of education.

Take any slasher film the warning for them comes in multiple places the description "murderer on the loose" , trailers, even just the pictures with it. And no one before or after the movie thinks that murder is ok, even murderers if they thought it was ok, why would they try to hide it if they thought it was ok.

But take rape in any movie even slashers. There's at most maybe (if it's Netflix) there's a small title card that's maybe says warning rape, sex, and murder but the thing with those title cards is that they often can be wrong, easy to miss.

Take the show supernatural I looked at the warning once and it said suicide and watching fully there wasn't any suicide. Unless you count a supernatural creature that you may or may not be able to see killing someone as suicide.

This is also my minor gripe with AO3. I'm fine with allowing underage sex, rape, and stuff like that but the argument I hear is "it's my right to not warn" it is your right but it is peoples right to get angry about it.

Then there's the difference on how it's seen. Most people cannot justify murder (excluding extreme racists, homophobia, transphobia, or extreme religion they for some reason can justify it) normal same people (that includes metally I'll people they can be sane and mentally ill or insane and still not kill depending on the person)

But look at the world right now, look at America for example. More and more people can justify rape the world is taking steps back and if we learn to warn maybe people will start asking why is there a warning and maybe when they start seeing it they'll start empathizing. Which probably won't happen but still.

Then there's lack of education. Sex Ed is horrible in the US I've seen so many fics that don't know basic sex Ed or have a false sense of what a sex positive world is and that is also something I've thought about a lot.

This is getting long so I'll end my rant here and this isn't a fight or a stab at you just idk.

I'm about to leave for school so I'll keep this simple:

1. I write extreme horror and splatterpunk

2. I am a victim of rape, sex tracking, and a victim of attempted murder.

3: I made my point on this a while ago:

Edit: The Hills Have Eyes is one of many slashers with a rape scene. Just the first that came to mind

Edit: a fan of mine made a great point:

[romancomicsblog]

Who should play Clayface in the DCU?

After a wild curveball pick for the third movie in the DCU, James Gunn has announced Clayface will be coming to the big screen in a big way after Creature Commandos.

Clayface will premiere in Fall 2026, and will be a horror thriller tragedy written by Mike Flanagan of The Haunting of Hill House Fame.

Apparently Flanagan is a big fan of Batman: The Animated Series, so we can expect the character to be similar to that version, an actor turned big monster made of goo.

While this is an unexpected film, I do love that the DCU has been a mix of classic DC characters like Superman & oddball choices like this and Creature Commandos. It feels like a choice made because of an exciting story instead of obligation. That being said, this character is going to need a good actor to make the story work.

I have a couple of ideas of who could be The Batman's newest villain. But before we get into my picks, as always let's look at Stipulations.

Legacy of Batman Villains

Unlike most superhero villains, Batman villains have a reputation in Hollywood to be more nuanced, and bigger named actors often will take them as meaty roles. We recently got a sequel to Joker, and a whole television show dedicated the Penguin that got universal acclaim.

Though Clayface hasn't been done on the big screen yet, his association to the Dark Knight means we can definitely get a big name actor to portray the character.

Already in the DCU

Clayface has already been confirmed via the trailers that he will appear in some capacity in Creature Commandos.

Whether this is the same person we see in the movie, who is to say?

This version is played by Alan Tudyk, who could potentially reprise the role in the film, but given he is already playing Doctor Phosphorus & Will Magnus, for now I'll look to other actors.

Characteristics

The version I am going with and the DCU is likely going with is Basil Karlo, a B list actor who becomes disfigured, and undergoes treatment to fix his face, which makes him into the monster he is.

He is dramatic, tragic, and sympathetic. He should have a sadness to him, and the range to play a villain and a man turning into a monster. Other than that, we have a lot of range of actors. Basil can look like anyone, so really any body is on the table.

So let's get started.

3. Kevin Durand

An actor who really impressed me this year was Kevin Durand, specifically in Abigail & Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. Durand has a physicality and charisma to him when playing a villain. I think watching him tragically become something else would be a lot of fun, and I think more than any other actor on this list, he definitely has the voice for it.

What particularly impressed me was his motion capture performance of Proximus Ceasar in Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. I can see Durand using those skills to bring the monstrous Clayface to life.

If I had a gripe, he may be a little too clean, at least for Clayface. But if they ever needed a Sportsmaster I'd know exactly who I'd call. I like him, but he's not my favorite.

2. Jesse Plemons

No one plays a bad guy like Plemons.

If we're going for the award noms, Plemons could easily bring the acting chops to a role like this. He can be scary, empathetic, sad, and downright evil.

I can see Plemons as Karlo continue to push himself, not knowing what he is becoming. Of all the actors here, he may do tragic better than any of them.

My main concern is, can we root for him? Does him constantly being the villain make it less sad when he inevitably becomes the monster?

Also of the three, Clemons doesn't really have the voice for Clayface. Sure they can adjust it with technology but it isn't the same.

I'm not sure if Plemons is the right man for this job, but if he got the chance, I'd love to see him take a stab it.

1. Peter Dinklage

If we'd like to merge acting ability of Plemons with the tragedy of charisma of Durand, Peter Dinklage takes this easily.

Peter Dinklage feels like an actors actor, which is exactly what we need here. Someone who can steal every scene he's in, someone we can root for and believe his transformation.

He's proven multiple times he can play tragic and a villain. We know he will do big roles in Sci-Fi or Fantasy, such as Bolivar Trask, Eitri, Scourge and Tyrion.

He's done Shakespeare, motion capture, comedy, and even is set to play the Toxic Avenger: A Man who get's horribly disfigured and becomes a hero. Make him a villain and more tragic, that IS Basil Karlo.

This is my Clayface.

Thank you for reading! If you like this, be sure to follow me on all my socials here! And let me know what you think: who should play Clayface in the DCU?

[secretlykoishi]

THIS IS SOMETHING I SO COULD NOT STAND IN ONE MOVIE IN PARTICULAR LET ME RANT ABOUT THIS

Okay, so it's know that I am a huge horror fan. I especially have a soft spot for slashers, cheesy or true high art. Naturally, this leads to me being a fan of Wes Craven. Well, I realized a few months ago that there was one of his movies I hadn't seen, My Soul To Take, so I sought it out and watched it. I had heard and seen that it didn't have a great reception before going in, but my guilty pleasure movie is Friday the 13th 7, the one with the telekinetic teenager, so I'm not opposed to movies that are mindless schlock. After watching, I thought the film was mostly alright, but I did have a huuuuuuge fucking gripe with it: the character of Fang.

This is going to get into spoilers, be warned.

Fang, or Leah, is the main character Adam/Bug's sister. She is a goth girl that ultimately ends up being the film's Final Girl despite being arguably the single worst possible candidate for that role. Why is she a bad candidate?

Well, as Leah, she's outright abusive to her little brother—for which she's given no character arc or development, no redemptive moments, nothing to make you actually give a single fuck about her—even hitting and beating him at one point in the film. As Fang, she's their school's resident Alpha Bitch. She is a powerful bully with the entire school's social life under her rule.

This isn't even in a big city, this is a small town with wooded areas and bad cell service. In a small, American town in 2009-2010, we're expected to believe that a goth girl is so popular and powerful in the school that literally all of the social statuses and standings in it are controlled by her.

Here's the thing, though, I grew up in the midwest and small towns. Up until my sophomore year of high school, in 2018, when I transferred to a city for the first time—a small city at that, mind you—I lived in small, rural farming communities in midwestern America. I attended the kinds of schools that are depicted in this film. And I'll tell you, even when I graduated high school in 2021, there was no shot even in a city that a goth girl could have had that much control over a school's social society. Not a chance. Because goth people were still outcasts, in 2021 at least, in a city. Now put that in 2009-2010, and a small rural town. There's not a hamster's chance and a garbage disposal that she could have ever been the popular Alpha Bitch character if she is a goth girl.

This isn't the only problem with the film, but it's definitely the one that sticks out most to me.

I think it’s so funny when there’s a teen drama and the biggest bully is goth/punk/a metalhead. Is that really happening in any school in America?

[a30somethingslookatpopculture]

My Thoughts On Scream (2022)

Mild Spoilers.

Also, full disclosure: I wrote this (originally) back when the film first came out. So that's with no hindsight into scream 6.

Scream (2022) was good. Better than I expected it to be, honestly.

I was worried about the killers' motive this time around, as they got muddier and muddier as the films went on. I actually dig this one. It's the logical thing to do in a 2021/2022 world. The landscape of horror has changed, so should the satire on it. And I really enjoyed the mocking of toxic fandoms! Killer two was somewhat of a swerve and It caught me off guard. It's not particularly shocking or original, but because of how the character was developed, it was the person I least expected it to be. Just moments before, I was trying to narrow down the possibilities in my head and I thought, "Nah, it couldn't possibly be that person!" Again, it isn’t new to the franchise, but it got me there for a minute. If killer two was a fun twist (kind of), killer one was too predictable. I felt like I knew who it was pretty much right away and I was right.

One legacy character doesn’t make it to the end. As much as I personally would have liked a different character to be the one to die, giving the other one more motive to fight on, I get it. I understand that killing off the one that they did had more weight to it. Of course, it’s always great to see familiar faces! Having Sidney, Dewey and Gale back was perfect! And how could I not love seeing cameos from James and Chelsea from Dead Meat, where they pretty much just do their show within the movie!

The more horror films you watch, particularly Slashers, the easier it is to pick up on the troupes. Because of that, I knew that something from early on would play a key role later on in the film. A certain item that one of the main characters had. And it did, The characters ended up where they were at the end because of it. And that’s fine. I could just easily tell it would happen.

Let's talk about how Randy’s niece is kind of a little psycho in the making! How are you going to enjoy watching the movie about your uncle’s almost murder, and laugh about it? Especially knowing he later did meet that fate? His niece and nephew are kind of annoying characters to me, honestly. But then again, most of them are in this film. I found so many of the new characters hard to care about or connect with. The niece does at least take up the mantle of horror expert, though. It’s a nice nod to her uncle.

The last thing that bugged me about this film is really just a nitpicky thing. I think one of the returning characters needed to be de-aged. Or at least done so better, if they did in fact try to. The story with that character was kind of wonky, but I didn't mind it. I just wish I could see that character and believe that they were as they were when we last saw them. The age of the actor/actress showed so bad. The sort of “redemption” arc was nice, though!

Most of my gripes are really just personal preferences. Otherwise, I think all in all it is a fun slasher film. And a good entry in the Scream franchise. I have seen everything the franchise has to offer, even the tv show. There's not one Scream property that I hate. Even part 3, Which I still think is the weakest movie. This included everything you come to expect from Scream, and put in modern technology. I’d even go out on a limb and say this probably had the most horror references and nods in the franchise. I can never get enough of that! Being the first of the franchise to not be directed by Wes, I think they did him justice. It isn't perfect, and it isn’t bad. If you can look past its flaws and not be too bothered by them, you should have fun with this film.

Overall, I give Scream (2022) 3 out of 5 Stars.

[nightcoremoon]

spiderman 3 wasn’t bad because of bully maguire

spiderman 3 was bad because it was a chopped up incoherent mess of conflicting ideas, tones, GENRES.

TW rape mention. yes, really.

sandman and harry would have been good. sandman and venom would have been good. harry and venom would have been good. and all three at once could even have been done satisfactorily. but together it was a horrible disaster. none of them had their time to shine. flint was a magnificent way to tie into the first movie. harry was a magnificent way to end his character arc. topher grace, much as I love him, was horribly miscast for eddie brock. venom, fine, but not eddie. tom hardy played both well. but I think hardy is a much stronger actor than grace. one played charley fucking bronson and the other played eric fucking foreman. y’all gotta know your reaches! but anyway it’s fine I guess. it made for a decent viewing in no way home (which I have my own laundry list of gripes about). but even then, that’s not the biggest problem with the movie. and no, the emo peter wasn’t a problem either (it actually makes perfect sense for his character; it’s what peter himself thinks is cool, not what actually is cool). and NO it wasn’t wasting dr connors not once not thrice but TWICE.

the SECOND biggest problem is with the editing.

ok so individual scenes look passable to… beautiful. the introduction of sandman is obviously the highlight of the film. it was a very important pioneer for graphics design technology, and in my mind it’s probably the single most important thing in the history of making cgi look true to life (for all of its glory… and all of its horror). all of the fight scenes are well choreographed, visually stunning, and advanced the plot somehow. all of the character defining scenes were well done save for one character in particular who I will discuss momentarily. the scenes are good in their own rights. but they’re out of order. peter dancing in the street looking like dahvie vanity was not supposed to happen after supposedly killing uncle ben’s murderer, it was SUPPOSED to happen after getting the job over brock. and everything else was nonsensically crammed together like tetris sardines. it RUINED the pacing. there is a 40 minute period where venom does not appear or speak, and he is supposed to be the main villain of the movie. that’s the second biggest problem.

the biggest problem is Mary Jane.

Kirsten Dunst did as good a job as she could with the material she was given. but what is her character arc in each movie? be the love interest who needs to be saved from everything all the time. that’s it. the green goblin is attacking and MJ is in danger, Peter rescues her and she gets a crush on him. those rape dudes are attacking (told you) and MJ is in danger, Peter rescues her. they kiss. oh no the green goblin is attacking AGAIN, MJ is in danger AGAIN and Peter rescues her AGAIN and she falls in love with him. and so on. all she exists to do in these movies is get kidnapped and make peter’s spider dick hard. it is such a damn shame that those movies happened before the feminists really pushed to have women with agency in films and books and video games and stuff. remind me what aunt may did in these movies again? or gwen, or betty, or… anyone who was female? contrast with the amazing spidermans and the mcu spidermans. AND SPIDERVERSE. totally different beast there.

MJ’s character is unlikable, peter’s character does shitty things that make him temporarily unlikable, and their dynamic together is very… bland. you could cut MJ from 2 and 3 very easily and still potentially have a cohesive movie. raimi has strengths and he has weaknesses and his weakness is ingrained subconscious misogyny. oops. we expected better from the man whose claim to fame was a movie where a tree rapes a woman? 🤔 yeahhhh I don’t like evil dead 1. 2 and 3, good and phenomenal, but 1 is like. :/

so it’s nothing to do with the easy answers and it’s everything to do with the director is a little weird and Sony has never made a good business decision in its life.

[blueikeproductions]

I’m not sure what I expected, but this exceeded it. I couldn’t articulate what it reminds me of, but @horror-lady00 said it reminded her of the 3D He-Man cartoon and yeah that’s a pretty apt comparison! Taking the base material started from Aligned and going its own direction with it which is so much better than Cyberverse and WFC having near identical backstories on the origins of the war and loss of the Allspark. So very dull & uninspired. This on the other hand is superior in every way.

For starters the main conflict appears to be the invasion of the Quintessons.

This dude about to choke slam Sentinel has serious G2 Liege Maximo vibes and I want MORE. Also I like that Sentinel is blue, has a chin and isn’t orange. I wonder if the TFWiki’s Trump jokes on IDW G1 Sentinel made Hasbro go “Eeeh, let’s go with the TFA Sentinel for this one just to be safe.” Aligned also featured its Sentinel (Zeta) as being inspired by TFA Sentinel, so they may be just relying more on Aligned for some ideas, than the relatively boring orange Optimus design he had in IDW.

I think most of us just expected the film to be Megatron’s rise to power, and while a scene later on shows Megatron as he typically is with a Decepticon badge, the inclusion of the Quintessons throws a wrench in things. If it does well, another movie or cartoon series will probably go more in depth on Megatron’s rise to power, because I don’t see the movie handling Quintessons AND Megatron’s baby steps at the same time well.

One thing that sticks out the most is how Cybertron on its surface is depicted.

While I was fine with it back in Beast Machines & Galaxy Force, I’ve always been a little iffy on making Cybertron (partly) organic outside of that. It’s way too easy just to make Cybertron into Earth but Robots!, and it’s something Cyberverse in particular did very lazily. These at least look visually interesting. The still mostly metal surface having (mechanical?) plant life stubbornly growing on it. It certainly implies either way this version of Cybertron may have had organic origins like in Beast Machines, which I find interesting. The scenery is also well done even though I feel like these environments make more sense of them being on Earth and navigating it with Spike, Chip & Carly.

Also we get a look at what appears to be Airachnid, Starscream & The Waves.

And they look magnificent. No idea what role Airachnid has to play, but it’s nice to see she’s included.

Also these guys crop up a lot. Cybertron security I presume. They heavily resemble the silver Vehicons from Prime mixed with the Badgeless from IDW. I assume they Transform into jets because of the wings.

One thing that comes to mind is the base concept of lowly workerbots fighting to get to the surface. It’s surprisingly reminiscent of the original Bomberman storyline, though Orion and Megs have a far better go at it than Shirobom did.

This is shaping up to be a very fun film, but my main gripe is I don’t like this Bumblebee.

They’re trying WAAAAY too hard to make him funny, and he’s irritating, not endearing in the trailer. If this take on Bee fails to resonate, it’d be funny if this forces him to retire for awhile vs Bayformers bringing Bee back on the map. It also doesn’t really work having Bumblebee be the same age as Orion, as his whole schtick is being the plucky son/kid brother of the Autobots. It would actually make far more sense if this was Dion. If RotB managed to make Mirage popular and likable, this could be the case for Dion too, but he makes a heroic sacrifice, dies, and his Cog recovered and passed on to a young bot in B-127 Optimus rescues for the sequels.

I think the only deterrent here besides it being a cartoon movie, as adult fans expected an adult animated movie on par with IDW’s political bents and the WFC game duology, it’s pretty clear this is 110% made with children in mind. Transformers has struggled somewhat in getting kids to resonate with it after Rescue Bots & Robots in Disguise 2015. They largely were uninterested in Cyberverse & EarthSpark, they did show up for Bumblebee but I’m not sure on Rise of the Beasts, but I imagine they were more interested in it than EarthSpark.

This is the last shot for many reasons. Skybound won back the audiences IDW lost, and this has to be the thing that wins back kids and teens. It also has to be a win for a dying Paramount because Turtles & Sonic, like IDW, is the best they got, and they know it. This is Transformers’ Mutant Mayhem if all goes well, lest it joins EarthSpark as being the Rise of the TMNT of the brand (and I say that being a fan of Rise).

Hey everybody, it's the Transformers: One trailer! Basically a massive screen test to see who will replace numerous voices in the franchise, and an origin story that involves two miner buddies named Orion Pax and D-17 journeying to the surface to launch a rebellion against the Quintessons. The film hits theaters on September 20th.

[picklepie888]

Dracula (1931) movie review by someone who's been reading Dracula Daily

So, a few days ago I watched the 1931 Dracula film. The one with Bela Legosi. I had actually seen the movie before several years ago, but I didn't remember very much of it, and of course I hadn't read the book back then. Now that I've been doing Dracula Daily, let me give my thoughts on the film. SPOILERS FOR THE MOVIE AND IF YOU'RE NOT CAUGHT UP ON DRACULA DAILY

The thing that made me the most mad about this adaptation is that Lucy's storyline is just glossed over. Like, she appeared in literally one scene, and then in the next the doctors are over her body and declare her dead. That's it! No emotional impact whatsoever! Lucy has maybe two minutes of screentime at most, and her death does not effect the other characters at all. It's like she was an afterthought on the writers' part. Like they're making the script and someone was like 'oh wasn't there like that one girl that Dracula kills? Maybe we should mention that somewhere.' 'Ok, Joe we'll get a girl off the street to do the scene before lunch.' It was so infuriating! In the book, Lucy's death was the driving force that lead the main characters to hunt Dracula down. She was so beloved by all the characters, but here??? She's just another nameless victim of the vampire.

Ok, now that I got the factor I hated the most out of the way, I'll bring up my second most hated. Mina's entire character has been reduced to the typical damsel-in-distress archetype. She's no longer the courageous, intelligent, gender nonconforming woman she is in the original story. Instead they made her the same helpless, screaming woman that they show in every horror film in the 30's. Just about every scene she's in, she's crying or screaming her husband's name or being under the complete control of Dracula. She has no agency, and she doesn't do anything to drive the plot forward. My point is the female characters were done dirty this movie.

Arthur and Quincey are completely omitted. No fun cowboy or rich some guy shenanigans to be found here.

Jack Seward is an old man, and about the same age as Van Helsing, which completely changes the dynamic between the two. Instead of having a teacher-mentor relationship with a very strong familial bond, instead they just sorta act like business partners??? Like, if I hadn't read the book I wouldn't have any idea that these two were supposed to have a close friendship. Also they made him Mina's father for some reason???

Bela Lugosi as Dracula and Dwight Frye as Renfield were by far the most entertaining aspects of the movie. Lugosi does a legitimatly good job portraying such a creepy and otherworldly character, and I can see why this is his most famous film role. And Frye's performance as Renfield, I'd argue is even creepier. He makes a very good madman. But as good as these actors were, my biggest gripe is that their characters got WAY too much screentime. The filmmakers decided to give all the spotlight to the villains when they should've focused more on Jonathan and Mina. Or, ya know, LUCY!!!

As for Jonathan, his character was fine I guess. They kinda watered him down to just the concerned husband who has to save his screaming helpless wife. At least he actually cares about Mina, and they didn't make him a heartless douche like in some adaptations. Still, he's pretty bland, which is sad because he had such a rich character in the book.

Van Helsing was also fine. He was basically the only character who moved the plot forward. His interactions with Dracula were also pretty cool, and the two had the sort of nemesis chemistry that became iconic in later adaptations of Dracula. Still wish they had given that same kind of chemistry with the other characters.

The sets in this movie were great! The castle at the start of the film is like something out of a nightmare, and it sets the mood for the whole film. There's also the lack of a music score, which makes the film all the more unsettling. I'll give the filmmakers props for that.

I did not care for how they did Renfield's death in this movie. They still had him betray Dracula to protect Mina, but they had him die begging for mercy and pledging his loyalty to Dracula. They made him die a coward instead of fighting the bat bitch himself like a Chad. RIP Renfield, you did not deserve to be disrespected like this.

The pacing of this movie was really weird?? The runtime is under 80 minutes, which is no where near enough to cover all the plot points from the OG story. So they just kinda move from one plot point to the next w/o much of a transition. Like the whole thing with Lucy. And even Dracula's attack on Mina happened offscreen and was only mentioned by the characters later. I really wish they had made this a series of movies instead of compiling everything into an hour.

Overall, its a fine movie on its own. But as an adaptation of Dracula? Awful. At least there's no Dracmina romance subplot in this version. But they basically watered down every character to fit a horror film archetype, and put way too much focus on the villains instead of the main characters. 4/10

[pseudo-apollo]

A Sinfully Good Book (Review)

I read The Sacred Sins of Father Black by @stjohnstarling (available here on Amazon) over the course of about a day and a half (and it would've been less if I hadn't been procrastinating).

For those unfamiliar, I'll begin with a short summary:

FBI Agent Quentin Day is investigating a forgery ring that is flooding the market with incredibly good counterfeit wines. Quentin finds himself assigned to the picturesque oasis of a town called Hopewell. There he meets Father Sebastian Black, and the two immediately hit it off. The more time Agent Day spends in the town, the closer he grows to Father Black, and the more conflicted he feels. He feels a strong tie to his sense of duty and justice, but is the tie he feels to Father Black stronger?

(Review below the cut -- Spoiler-free)

I'll start with my brief thoughts and then go more into detail. Overall? I liked the book, in fact I really liked it. I'd give it 4/5 stars, a very solid 8/10.

I'm not going to lie, though, I struggled a bit getting through (approximately) the first half of the book. It was a slow start, and I couldn't figure out the pacing. However, once I hit that halfway point, everything picked up and fell into place. From that point on, I couldn't put the book down.

It felt like the mixed pace in the beginning came from the heavy lifting of needing to do a lot of set-up. I can definitely relate, I've been there. You have to get all your characters in the right places, introduce them, etc etc. The good news is, it paid off, more than I ever expected. It kind of felt like climbing a hill, and then falling down the other side (in the best way possible). In a way, it was very fitting as it aligned very closely with our main characters' own experiences of finally experiencing a significant release (haha get it?).

Really, I found the book very compelling. The entire time there is a sense of many moving pieces, along with an undercurrent that never quite gets resolved. Toward the end, it started to remind me of the movie Midsommar, a movie I've only seen pieces of, mind you. It was the vibrant intensity of it, the sense of strength that a small community has, and the way it can fundamentally change people.

This was definitely not a horror book, but the intensity it held was very much disarming, bordering on overwhelming (again, in a good way). I began to feel more and more connected with the experience of our Agent Day, and wow how vivid of a picture we were painted.

Now, this does bring me to another small gripe I have, but I will keep it vague, since, as promised, there will be no spoilers here. There is a major event very near the end of the book, which gets nothing more than a passing glance. It is significant, and I would argue, the ultimate turning point for our main character (the main character himself asserts this turning point was earlier, but this was the event I felt most marked his firm departure from the character he began the book as).

I think this difference of opinion is why it frustrated me, though. Considering our main character from the end of his character arc, it makes sense that this would be naught but a passing event, but as a character in the final stage of transition from one identity to another, I feel it should have gotten more attention as the event that really quite truly marks the ultimate point of no return.

I think that alone made the ending feel a tad rushed to me, but it wrapped up so nicely that I really couldn't complain. There was still an undercurrent of something more that went largely unexplained, but I honestly felt that made the book and characters all the more compelling. To have one final, tiny mystery still unresolved, but the feeling that it needn't be. The sense of total acceptance of things as they are, and that they are as they are meant to be.

This review has gone on much longer than I expected, so I'll end it with a final:

tl;dr This book wrecked me. It was intense, and beautiful, and captivating. It's a quick, but memorable read, and I highly recommend it. If you're impatient like me, just be prepared, and remember: when it gets good, it gets good.

[heartshapedcreaturefromcriptoon]

So I guess Pennywise ain’t considered ablest even though the horror icon she’s based on, Goddamn fucking bit both of a child’s arms off and made him struggle and crawl and bleed the fuck out before devouring him and then the leper shit happened with Eddie, huh?

You know what? This post has the same energy as disfigured people unironically starting their own “I Am Not A Witch!” campaign over The Witches remake even though that movie was terrible and a slap in the face to Anjelica Huston and should never have been produced in the first place. Disregarding the fact that the source material already has it’s issues while GDT has been implementing disability in his narratives throughout his work since the start of his career but apparently people only started paying attention after he won an Oscar?

Like, do we think that this person would feel significantly dehumanized if they found out that the spawn of The Creature from The Black Lagoon also happens to be Australian and loves sports? Or if they knew about this, would they suggest Monster High as an alternative to consuming adult media?

Do we think that every single disabled person who ever threw a fit over The Shape of Water would feel significantly dehumanized by this?

I’d say 50/50.... Since I once saw a slam piece for The Shape of Water written by an adult disabled person whom unironically and in all seriousness compared Princess Ariel ( a protagonist from a G Rated Disney Film) to Elisa Esposito (a protagonist from an R-rated Adult Flim) just to argue what a twat Elisa supposedly was throughout her movie and of course how she should’ve ended up with Strickland and how Ariel was supposedly the better “Representation” out of the two women, because Ariel ended up with a human....... I think I vaguely remember how this adult disabled woman who was possibly in her 30′s or over, also openly wrote about about how she was certain Princess Ariel would be able to “Kick Elisa’s Ass” in the event of a hypothetical fight between the two fictional characters....  Because that’s a very mature and nuanced way to criticize film.  While the irony of how The Shape of Water at it’s core essentially is just an underwater retelling of Thumbelina (if we’re going to be bringing Jodie Benson into this) was basically lost on this women throughout her entire article.

Wake could be Elisa and The Amphibian Man’s own son, overall having ... a body... like that...  for as much as we know .... ^_^;

I have my gripes about the way Wake’s story was handled in that episode (since we’re dealing with Monsters it could’ve been something so entirely different even though it was more of the same; infantilization bad, blah blah... boring, safe, story only written to teach ables and that’s the main problem. Same “Special Episode” every decade. Even at Monster High where the main protagonist that started it all is the daughter of one of the most disabled coded monsters of all time and her limbs can and will friggin detach themselves from her body on a whim which is also the main focus of her character intro:

But that’s besides my point here....

Like okay, we already have a fish man in a wheelchair at Monster High: A franchise with a fandom that has already accepted Greta as a Trans Icon TM.

But God. Fucking. Forbid. God Forbid, if some little girl who also happened to have Ectrodactyly or some other limb disability were to see herself in Greta and want to play with her? That poor delusional thing would just be dehumanizing herself, now wouldn’t she?

And what if that girl also happened to be trans? Even worse!

Yeah, I need to know where all of my crippled monster lovers are at because it’s the cold takes like the above that are actually so tiring for me to have to read and listen to. Over. And Over. And Over Again.

The person who made the bad Shape of Water review is a freaking paralympian for a living. So clearly a biased jocks perspective and not a horny goth’s.

The OP above phrased what they’re saying as if they don’t enjoy horror at all. And I know that they’re are some people who interpret Monster High as an “alternative” to “Actual Horror”...

(Like dude? The original Gremlins designs already had three fingers and this is already way toned down as per usual, with Monster High Dolls? You really want a girl with a limb disability to have this potential representation be taken away? In favor of just giving Greta fingers and hands that present as more “human” or “normal”? Go buy the 2016 reboot and fuck off!)

I didn’t want the Pennywise doll in the first place because of that whole painful scene in the beginning having to watch the little boy suffer and then the whole leper scene....  I did not see the second movie, nor do I really have any desire to.

If I did buy her it would be for my mother and if I did play with her, I would have a little custom clown wheelchair built for her, keep her in it always, and then have more of her personality and accent be based around Tim Curry. 

If this offends any of you, I can assure you, I do not give a fuck.

Because reading this honestly made me want to go on ebay and pay a reseller just so Greta can finally have a home with someone who actually appreciates her. (And Gizmo too. And I don’t see any of you throwing a fit over his cute lil’ hands because who thinks like that?! No one!)

I can think of people saying it’s a racist film, because at the end of the day, like yeah, and I can definitely understand saying The Witches in general is ablest among other things, including the shitty shitty remake, even though I think that people could’ve picked a better name for their protest than a Christine O’Donnell quote...

But, I’d never thought I’d see a white person claiming that gremlin hands were actually ablest, no less on a fashion doll that’s been drastically toned down from it’s source material.

This is the same level of asinine bullshit as someone claiming that Operetta’s existence “felt ablest” to them because The Original Phantom of The Opera was disfigured... So discarding the fact that Operetta was the offspring of a literal ghost in this incarnation, I guess OP was offended by the fact that Monster High let a disfigured outcast of a man find love and fuck and then let his equally disfigured daughter attended their school.

But going on both these peoples logic, are Jackson and Holt not already considered ableist and dehumanizing because Systems exist?

Are Peri and Pearl not already considered ableist and dehumanizing because conjoined twins exist?

What they already did to Ghoulia in the reboot is a literal can of worms so we won’t go there right now.

I just thought of another thing going by this logic though: Do we feel as though Garret Sander ever felt significantly dehumanized by the Werecat or the Grady Twins because he is a twin? Of course not!

I really gotta hand it to the dipshit in the above screenshot though because they made me see this Greta doll in an entirely new light now: Not only is she a Trans Icon for Monster High, she’s also another Disabled and Disfigured Icon in Monster High.

Another thing that I noticed? Watch this everyone:

Finnegan Ryder Wake’s debut episode title ....

Gizmo’s favorite song from the Gremlin’s 2 Movie, canonically ...

I mean, I know that Finn already has a girlfriend in Gigi I guess? And I was going to suggest this as a Halloween prompt to make the wet blankets who think that Greta’s existance is an ableist hate crime even more uncomfortable and angry by drawing Finn Seducing Greta, getting to her heart through Gizmo and singing his exact favorite song, only of course replacing the words “willing” with “wheeling” .... And then just have all three of them having a private little dance party together which ends with Greta covering Finn in kisses ......But if any one did want to use my idea for an art prompt I can assure you that I wouldn’t be stopping you.

Okay, so uh .... Update.... Remember how I said that the person who made the above post made me so angry I could just pay a reseller and get it over with? Remember how I implied in my last post regarding someone else being a complete loser about Greta, how collecting was all new for someone like me and money was no object? Well, in the spirit of speaking about something not stopping us ....

Here are the pretty babies, safe at home with someone who actually loves them, taken off the hands of someone all business and no cutesy bullshit or faked Mattel purchese price markups whatsoever in item description, only actually purchased by me once completely sealed shipment box was shown to be physically in dude’s hands, pre-checked by me personally via youtube before actually placing order just to ensure said box was real and that other people were already receiving their shipments from Mattel Creatioins that quickly (it was and they were) and so my actual buy was shipped to me within 48 hours of my order with constant UPS tracking updates from ebay... Considering how I see people in these tags every other day who like to be calling these Skullector Dolls “shitty customs” and I paid little more for this Greta than I do when I find a OOAK on Etsy that I really do admire, I claim that this was a really fair exchange. Not “good” of course, but fair.

I honestly just wish the money that I paid for one of her “Customs” in this case was actually going to Rebecca Shipman herself considering how many ungrateful shits some of you have been to this woman for giving you the Skullectors series.

But why pay extra in the first place, you ask?

Well, besides fact that Greta Gremlin is worth it the first place, I’m going to paint a picture for you:

Imagine being someone who uses a wheelchair and a hand splint, and having your caregiver claim that they’re going to help you, but then all they do is hijack your own card, tilt your own computer over to their side, and then proceed to read your own credit card info out to you like as slowly as humanly possible, number by number as you’re attempting to type that in with one hand while your hands are shaking as it is already and your computer was tilted to one side for some reason and no one offering to actually help type for you. Now imagine if you’ve already flubbed up the whole “I Am Not A Robot” thing two times prior to this and realizing the irony of how the one test getting you through to payment, but one that you knew in your gut you were going to lose her on, is the one test asking you to “identity stairs”.

Now imagine how the sense of powerful irony and rage you feel, carrying around the knowledge of how you lost Greta Gremlin because you metaphorically had to climb up a pair of stairs in order to be allowed to access her .... Is tripled coming across some absolute ding bat whining about how disgusting and ableist Greta Gremlin supposedly is for being born having three fingers, exclaiming how she’s “Monster Highs 1st Ableist Doll11!!1!!1!1!!!11 n no 1 iz goin 2 caaaaaaaaaare... :’(″

When a character..... like Pennywise.... canonically exists in this universe.

This post seriously had me livid and the abled-bodied autistic 19 year old who wrote it should be ashamed of themselves, but I’m grateful that this display of absolute dingbattery from an adult teenager with a Jojo icon gave me the extra push that I needed to spite some of you ungrateful bitches before Christmas.

I really just said “fuck the stairs” and took an elevator. I already got the BeetleJuice one, retail price on Mattel Creations, first try (cause I had someone helping me type then). 

I was not going to just give up Greta after that especially not after seeing some of you guys’ appalling behavior regarding this doll.... And I know I’m definitely not as spoiled as some of you grown adult Cheapy MCcheapskates who whine about having to pay $60 while tearing apart everything about these dolls anyway when you know that it’s just Rebecca and her team who are essentially building you these gifts from scratch to be able to even afford the reboot. One of the reasons I didn’t get into Monster High as a teen is because since I refused to settle for a shitty android, I couldn’t actually afford my own iphone until I turned 25, meaning my first ever phone that I own now is the iphone SE 2020 that just came out last year, just for clarification if some of you think not having a phone in that era wouldn’t effect anything or make someone feel left out. Why buy dolls if accessing extra perks and features required a cellphone?  Why buy dolls that reminded you of how you were too poor to afford a cellphone?

I also adore the clearly campier direction these Skullector’s are going in, for the record. And I can’t understand why the rest of you mediocre foamy squirrels keep demanding Jennifer’s Body and Johnny Depp and more pale faced humanoid characters while you’re treating Rebecca Shipman like shit.

I’m as happy as ever with the results of my decision to take this extreme risk and personally I think Finn would be proud of me for choosing to take the “elevator” out of spite to get to Greta after reading That Post too.

Because posts *like that* are the reason why no one takes actual discussions about ableist microaggressions seriously.

Bite me.

[that-shamrock-vibe]

Movie Review: Cinderella (Spoilers)

Disclaimer: I am posting this review the day after the movie airs on Amazon Prime, so if you haven't yet seen it don't read on until you do.

General Reaction:

It is slightly weird to think of another movie studio taking on one of the classic fairy-tales that isn't Disney, because, as I am sure is the case for a large portion of the mainstream audience, Disney have almost claimed fairytale adaptations as their own.

However, as identified, Cinderella, is a fairy tale and one created long before Disney came about. As such, other studios are allowed to put across their own interpretation of these classic stories that we have seen a lot of times adapted at this point.

That being said, we have seen many different adaptations of Cinderella at this point from the classis Disney Animation version and it's live-action counterpart, to modern-day reworkings like A Cinderella Story of the mid-noughties starring Hilary Duff.

It's quite an easy story to tell and adapt to a variety of different settings, and what this 2021 retelling does with the story blends the old-fashioned with the modern. Does that mean it is set apart from the others? Well in my opinion yes and no.

While this is a Sony movie, it plays a lot like a Disney Channel Original Movie. From the comedy to the settings to the costuming and the music, it plays like the best of those types of movies. I'm talking the High School Musical franchise and the Descendants franchise. It is by no means bad or corny, but it isn't even on the level of the 2016 live-action Cinderella.

While that version was pretty much a straightforward live-action version of the original animated version, the style of the movie outweighed the substance.

Here however, there is a great blend of both style and substance. The story takes the classic elements of the original Cinderella fairy tale but tries to inject a modern and feministic twist that the recent live-action Beauty and the Beast tried to do.

In terms of whether this version of Cinderella stands out in the crowd of Cinderella movies, I would say it does. Not only is the titular character race-bent and the setting she is in seemingly plays into that, but the reworking of the Fairy Godmother as the Fab G as well as giving the Stepmother a more humanised backstory allows for a more compelling take on a classic.

Cast:

Because this is just the one all-in review I'm not going to do an in-depth character analysis and instead group the characters as who were my favourites, who did a passable job, who was bad and who were for some reason just there.

Favourites:

I have a top 3/4 favourite characters in this movie. Idina Menzel's Stepmother Vivian, Billy Porter's Fab G, Minnie Driver's Queen Beatrice and additionally Beverly Knight's Queen Tatiana.

Idina Menzel was always going to be fantastic in this movie, but to see her portray what is traditionally the villain character in the movie as a sympathetic character as part of the movie's feminist agenda was an interesting twist. No cat for a start, I don't know if Lucifer was a part of the original fairy tale but of course in the Disney adaptations Lady Tremaine is always accompanied by her faithful feline, but also the fact that her backstory parallels Ella's current story and the fact Vivian was so willing to have Ella reject her passion to do what is expected of her just as was forced on her was actually great motivation.

In truth I have only ever seen Billy Porter in one other thing aside from this movie and that was American Horror Story: Apocalypse. I have never seen Pose though I have heard good things, but from what I understand, Billy Porter only really has one speed. However, as the character's name states, that speed is fabulous. I loved Fab G in this movie, the fairy godmother is usually one of my favourite characters in the movie and every interpretation I have seen has brought something different and memorable. If this version of Cinderella is remembered for anything it will be for this very modernised take on the Fairy Godmother, not only gender-bending and race-bending a traditionally white female character, but with Porter choosing to make the character non-binary and that outfit speaks for itself, Fab G was simply a fabulous character.

In both Disney adaptations, I have never heard mention or reference to Prince Charming having a living mother...or a dead one for that matter. So to not only have the Queen being in a chunk of this movie, but also having her own story branch tying into the feminist agenda running through the movie and being portrayed by Minnie Driver, I was in love with this character.

Pretty much similar to the Fab G, if you've seen Beverly Knight's one second in the trailers you've pretty much seen her in the movie. She contributes to Ella's story in the movie and only appears in the latter half of the movie in 2 maybe 3 scenes but she makes an impact because she's Beverly Knight. My only gripe with her is she does not sing in the movie, you have Beverly Knight with not even a solo in a group number?

Passable:

Unfortunately the star of the movie Camilla Cabello is just passable in this movie as Cinderella. She does have some humour about her and her singing is great despite maybe being autotuned because I know how she can sing, but she doesn't feel like Cinderella to me, it actually feels more like a version of what Emma Watson was doing with Belle in the live-action Beauty and the Beast rather than Cinderella but at least she tried.

As for Nicholas Galitzine, he's definitely more engaging as a modern-day Prince Charming, Robert is definitely more engaging a character than Ella unfortunately, which to be fair is still good as the 2015 Cinderella is the only other adaptation to really make the Prince interesting, but I can't quite put my finger on exactly which movie it is but there is another movie I have seen where the Prince Regent doesn't want to be king but the Princess does and has to fight for her right to be it...that's pretty much this story for them.

Also Pierce Brosnan as the King, despite jokingly singing towards the end, did a great job at being the archetype of old-fashioned values with his on-screen wife Minnie Driver's queen pushing him into a modern-day thinking.

Bad:

As for who's bad, I have to say it pains but the British comic relief characters really let the side down in this movie.

In the three mice defence, Romesh Ranganathan and James Acaster are somewhat funny but unnecessary. James Corden however is abismal in this movie. I get he produces it, but particularly after Cats I do not understand 1) Why he'd want to portray another CG animal or 2) Ever think that one shot of him changing back from human to mouse with his head on a mouse body was funny...it was terrifying.

Also this movie is supposedly a family-audience movie...so why include a crass joke of Corden's character talking about peeing out of his front tail?

Additionally to the three mice, Rob Beckett has a surprising role in this movie as a potential suitor for Vivian's daughters, but he simply portrays such a creepy, cringe-worthy character it's almost uncomfortable to watch.

New Additions:

So as well as the two queens and the British comic relief there is also the addition of Princess Gwen to the movie who is the sister of the Prince and the one who wants to be ruler. It's kind of the same story as Jasmine's in the live-action Aladdin as wanting to be Sultan but being a woman isn't taken seriously, however here it is treated more comedically as every time there is a serious moment with the King trying to force Robert to grow up and be King, she always tries to interject with "Would this be a bad time to tell you about an actual real reason why I would be a good ruler" and they make sense but she's always dismissed until the very end.

Then there's a town crier, who is also inserted as a musical number while he's reading his proclamations but as a rap. Honestly I don't know Doc Brown as an artist but I did happen to enjoy what he contributed.

Music:

Which brings us on nicely to the music of the movie as this is a musical and I usually break down the songs. Again this time I will be doing groupings of best to worse.

Honestly my favourite number is probably "Shining Star" mostly performed by Billy Porter with verses by Camilla Cabello and, unfortunately, James Corden.

I also enjoyed the two original songs of the movie, "Million to One" which is Cabello's "I Want" song of the movie and used a lot through the movie, and then also "Dream Girl" which is Idina's main other song but also sung by basically the women of the movie, it's Idina Menzel if you don't give her an original song it's an insult.

Idina's other song is a cover of "Material Girl" and honestly it is a lot of fun, Nicholas Galitzine's rendition of "Somebody to Love" was also fun and surprising as I did not think this guy could sing that well.

The group numbers were fun and well choreographed but they are also somewhat forgettable. The song at the ball of "Whatta Man/Seven Nation Army" was probably the most memorable but still just mediocre.

Recommendation:

So with all that said, would I recommend watching Sony's Cinderella? Honestly I would say it is worth at least one viewing, and I do recommend watching all the way through just to get the full experience. I do think it will do better as a streaming movie than it would have done as a theatrical release, but I cannot pinpoint a market for this movie.

I don't think this will go down as one of the great adaptations, but there are moments and aspects of the movie that sets it apart from the crowd.

Overall I rate this movie a 7/10, it's not as fantastic as I feel the trailers were making it out to be, but having seen the movie twice there are definitely elements of the movie I looked forward to watching the second time around.

So that's my review of Sony's Cinderella, what did you guys think? Post your comments and check out more Movie Reviews as well as other posts.

[dukeofonions]

So as I'm going about revamping my blog a tiny bit, I decided to compile a list of other media that I'm up for discussing outside of Sanders Sides.

Obviously that'll still be my main thing because it's like, all I can really focus on tbh. But here are a few more things I'd be willing to discuss on this blog!

Movies:

Marvel (specifically the MCU and while I love the films I've got plenty of gripes as well)

Disney films in general (there's so much that falls into this category so just assume any big franchise along with all their animated films)

Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit (this consumed my life before Sanders Sides, which means I have also criticized it harshly, I have a personal grudge against the Hobbit movies, and I love it)

The Maze Runner (books and movies, this was a secondary interest of mine and honestly, I still love it)

Shows (honestly i don't watch a lot of TV so this list is pretty short)

Steven Universe (Admittedly, I've never watched the show. But I basically know everything one needs to know about it so I'm willing to talk about it here)

Avatar: The Last Airbender (I can't believe my parents never let me watch this growing up this show is a masterpiece)

Over the Garden Wall (I just wanna gush about it)

Video Games (told you that list would be short)

Little Nightmares (theories, so many theories)

Undertale (my only experience with this game is watching youtubers play it and me playing it myself, along with some pretty cool fan animations of fight scenes)

Bendy and the Ink Machine (my first dive into horror games)

What Remain of Edith Finch (this might be one of my all time favorite games. It's beautiful and honestly I could play it over and over again)

Final category, musicals!

Honestly I guess you could put any "popular" musical here. However the ones I like to critique and analyze the most are-

The Greatest Showman (I love your music but as a movie? Ehhh...)

Dear Evan Hansen (this musical is fascinating to me in a very odd way)

Be More Chill (I have a love/hate relationship with this one)

Seeds (this technically isn't a full musical yet but from what I've seen and heard of it so far its quickly becoming a favorite of mine)

And that concludes the list, for now. More might be added on in the future and there could be some I missed.

Of course y'all are welcome to suggest new media to me! I'm always on the lookout for new content!

[star-six7]

Running Away and Hiding With You

Mikey Way x Gender Neutral!Reader (ending 1 of 4 for Here In This House of Wolves)

Word Count: 1444

A/N: Here’s the Mikey ending! The others will be posted today and tomorrow, hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: This is entirely a work of fiction. No part of this story is meant to be libel, slander, or in any way derogatory towards any character’s real life counterpart. I’m not delusional; I know that these characters are simply based off of a public persona and may not actually resemble the people behind those personas. Any additional characters that you do not recognize are entirely fictional, unless otherwise stated. And finally, if you got here by Googling yourself, whatever happens next is 100% on you.

You began to fidget as you listened to the hosts explain the rules for the walkthrough. While you knew that they were likely playing it up for their own enjoyment, seeing as the band were likely the first visitors they had had in a long time, you couldn’t help but feel a bit anxious. They urged everyone not to run, panic, or get separated, as it was apparently very easy to become disoriented. Yikes. 

“Hey,” someone whispered from your left. You turned and noticed Mikey had edged his way out of the group to stand next to you. “You look a little green.”

“Oh. Uh. Just not convinced that we’re not about to get murdered. Or kidnapped.” You were slightly embarrassed that you were visibly nervous about a volunteer-run, small town haunted house, especially in front of Mikey. Though it was silly, there was still a part of you that had never gotten over the “impress him” phase of your crush.  

Mikey glanced up towards the others and smiled. “Honestly? I’m not crazy about the whole thing either. Let’s go.”

And before you knew what was happening, Mikey took your arm and led you out the door before the others even had a chance to turn around.

After a few minutes of standing by the van, waiting to see if anyone else would follow, you felt the need to break the silence. “I didn’t mean to talk you out of going.” “Not at all. I love Gerard and all, but sometimes his sense of self-preservation…”

“Or lack thereof,” you finished.

“Exactly. You wanna try and find Main Street? I’m pretty sure I saw an ice-cream shop or something back there.”

---

After a few dead ends and wrong turns, you and Mikey ended up being the only two customers in the ice-cream shop. When the bored-looking teenager running the store handed you your cone, you moved over to lean against the window and watched as Mikey agonized over his order. You tried in vain to hide your smile as he finally decided on a quadruple scoop (chocolate, vanilla, mint chip, and cookie dough, to be exact) with sprinkles, and of course, a cherry on top.

“What?” He pretended to be offended as he noticed your barely concealed laughter. “Can’t a man be particular about his ice cream without being mocked for it?” Your snickering turned into full-blown laughter, which only led to Mikey cracking up with you. Moments like these reminded you exactly why you fell for Mikey in the first place. Though he seemed so quiet and reserved to others, he was funny, kind, smart, and an amazing friend when you got to know him. You suspected it was part of the reason he seemed to know everyone, even the most casual acquaintance, so well. He kept his cards close to his chest. Which, unfortunately, made it almost impossible to tell if he returned your feelings.

When you were finished, and Mikey had eaten enough of his ice-cream to the point where it wasn’t about to topple onto the sidewalk, you decided to wander down the street some more, hoping to fill the time before the others were done. Or murdered. A few minutes later, Mikey tugged on your sleeve as you were staring into the storefront of a tiny antique shop.

“Check it out,” he said, pointing to a Halloween store across the street. He looped his arm through yours as you stepped off the curb.

Unsurprisingly, being a member of My Chemical Romance and entering a Halloween store was the equivalent of a kid walking into a Toys ‘R Us with a 200 dollar gift card. You and Mikey practically ran to the center display, an homage to some of the greatest cult-classic horror movies of all time. You quizzed each other on your favorites, seeing who could get the reference first and retelling the best parts. Soon enough, you moved on to the costume section, where it turned into a contest of who could find the creepiest mask or most grotesque makeup kit. Finally, the excitement began to wind down as the two of you got to the decorations.

“Oh, hey. Spiders. We should totally get Frankie a little present,” you said, smirking.

Mikey shook his head. “And wake up to a knife in my pillow? No thanks.”

“Or bats,” you suggested. “They’re pretty cool. Everyone likes bats.”

You dug through the bin until you landed on one at the very bottom. “Look!” You held it up so he could see. It was a plush bat wearing a red scarf and a pair of glasses. “It’s you. I’m totally getting it.”

For reasons unknown to you, he couldn’t quite keep the smile off his face as you tugged him over to the register.

Not long after you had left the store, Mikey glanced at his watch. “Oh shit,” he muttered. “It’s been almost two hours. There’s no way they’re not done by now, we gotta get back to the van.”

“Definitely. Death by Brian isn’t exactly how I want to go.”

---

Much to both your and Mikey’s surprise, the van was empty when you got back to the haunted house. 

“Damn it, Gerard,” you sighed. “I knew there were murderers in there.”

Mikey snorted. “Gerard wishes.”

“Oh yeah. Him and his melodrama.”

The conversation lapsed back into a comfortable silence as you stared at the doors of the building, wondering when the others would come back.

“Damn,” Mikey exhaled as he turned his collar up against the now-biting fall wind. “Wish I had thought to snag the keys from Brian before we made our great escape.”

You shuffled into his side. “Well, I can take your mind off it, at least.”

“How so?”

“By giving you your gift, of course.” You pulled the bat out of the bag. “Here. So you’ll always remember the one Halloween where you chose to be sensible with me and escape certain doom.”

Mikey smiled as he took the plush. He turned it over in his hands a few times before his expression became more serious. “So, I guess this is as good a time as any to tell you why I really asked you to come with me. Aside from escaping homicide, of course.” He swallowed, apparently trying to rid himself of nerves. “I… I really like spending time with you. I mean, I’ll take it any way I can get it. Remember that time I volunteered to walk a mile and a half in the snow with you to get that can of gas?”

You laughed, trying to ignore the way you felt your heartbeat quickening hopefully.

“Well… I guess what I’m trying to say is that I really like you in general. All of you, all the time, not just when we’re going on wild adventures or playing shows. And I understand if you want to pretend I didn’t just say all of that, or if you’re worried about the band, but. You deserve to know. Just… don’t leave me hanging, okay?”

“Mikey, I… I really like you too. And whatever happens next, with Warner, or the record, or- or any of it, I want it to be with you. All of you, all the time.” The slightly apprehensive look on Mikey’s face gave way to a smile that could rival your own. 

And, of course, the rest of the band chose that exact moment to come crashing through the doors of the building, running like hell.

“Unlock it, unlock it, unlock it!” Gerard yelped, as he pushed past you and MIkey, banging on the door of the van. He looked more pale than you had ever seen him, an impressive fate given his usual stage makeup. 

“I hate to say ‘I told you so,’ but, I told you so,” Brian sighed as he unlocked the doors to the van. Frank, who had been snickering the entire time, ratcheted up his laughter into a full-blown cackle, which of course, caused Ray to shove him, and they both fell into yet another wrestling match on the floor of the van. You and Mikey climbed in over them, your subtly intertwined hands gone unnoticed in the chaos. Up front, Brian was griping about not being able to find the map, and Gerard was staring pensively out the window, likely about to start writing a song about his near-death experience. Apparently, almost being murdered couldn’t put a damper on the strange chaos you now called home.

“Everybody ready?” Brian called, glancing in the rearview. 

You looked down at your hand in Mikey’s and smiled. Yeah, you were definitely ready. For this tour and whatever came next.

A/N: Thanks so much for reading! Stay tuned for the other endings, and as always, requests are open!

[neurodivergent-media]

idk if this was mentioned but They Look Like People has the main character suffering from schizophrenia and it is a horror movie and no one demonizes him except minor secondary characters.

Okay, I suspect this is going to be long so I’ll put it under a read more. I’m going to turn this into a review as well as an answer if you don’t mind. I want to start with I absolutely adore this movie, but I also want to start with a disclaimer: violence isn’t a symptom of schizophrenia or any psychotic illness, and that’s something to hold on to. That’s about the only gripe I have with this movie, because all schizophrenic characters I have seen display violence. But, I’ll get into that. I also wanted to mention its not categorized as horror, it’s categorized as drama/mystery, which is very, very important when it comes to the directors intent.

There’s a lot in this movie that I feel was represented perfectly. At least to me. I know everyone who suffers from schizophrenia has a different experience, sometimes drastically different, but this resonated with mine.

Wyatt and Christian seem to be the two main characters, with Mara and Amy less so. Wyatt so far as is shown, is suffering from untreated schizophrenia. It has gotten to the point where it has cost him relationships due to his paranoia, and in the beginning he hadn’t even spoken to Christian in a long time. He broke up with his fiancée Hannah because he felt she had become “infected”, something that came to him in his dreams. He doesn’t tell Christian this though. He’s afraid he won’t believe him and tells him she cheated and left him.

I’m going to try hard to relay why we’re already off to a good start. A big part of schizophrenia that people may experience is the social isolation. Whether it be from the depressive (that is, symptoms that mimic depression) symptoms, from paranoia, or from social anhedonia. A lot of us are also terrified to share what we know to be our reality as well. Maybe just because of our paranoia or because of the reactions we’ve already dealt with. Most importantly though, Wyatt is presented as a person. As in, when he enters the film, he isn’t a stereotype, he is Christian’s friend, first and foremost. That is who he is. That is who is introduced as; a friend who Christian hasn’t talked to in a long time. And I absolutely love that. That alone, after learning about Wyatt’s schizophrenia, nearly made me cry

A lot of what makes me a fan of this film is that it doesn’t focus on making Wyatt the villain. In fact, he’s not a villain. The film focuses not only on his mental illness, but on the friendship he and Christian have. My favorite part of this movie is that although Wyatt, towards the end, makes some bad moves, Christian is still there to help him. He trusts him. And it gets Wyatt through the storm.

I read an interview for Perry Blackshear after watching the film. It’s very apparent to me at least that he put a lot of time, effort, and care into creating Wyatt’s character. There’s a lot to him that I, as a fellow schizophrenic, relate to heavily, and I feel is dealt with respectfully.

Wyatt believes that people are being infected (how they are changes a few times; through the voice, the ears, the eyes) and turned into something like demons. A voice consistently calls him at night to tell him to prepare for the upcoming war. Eventually this voice reveals itself as Christian’s love interest, Mara, and when Wyatt confronts her on it, he makes her run for the hills, despite her confession that she hears things too. Even when Wyatt gets to the point where he is yelling at Christian, I feel it’s still handled correctly. Especially parts where he tells people “they can’t hear us down here” or writes it on a piece of paper so They can’t hear. Those parts I have experienced personally, and I’m sure many others have. Feeling like They can always hear you, even your thoughts, and trying desperately to find some way to communicate and ask for help. That really resonated with me, made him into even more of a human being instead of just a straw man for schizophrenia. It was nice to see all these things paid attention to and treated properly, like there’s a human being experiencing them.

What else I really loved was the way they made sure to portray Wyatt having fun, playing games like “blobbies” and getting drunk with his best friend. It really helped a lot, they really did a great job at making him a person first and not a stereotype.

[delusion-of-negation]

agazafsgsvsg Yeah the Imagine Dragons thing was weird as fuck. I noticed that a lot of Korean movies an shows tend to just blast music literally every 5 seconds? Not even music necessarily related to the scene.

Also, can I ask, since you refered to the monsters in Sweet Home as zombies, does the adaptation not have the plot twist that they're human souls? I mean, it's not 100% in the source either, but at one point, Hyun's monster tells him that he thought long and hard about what he is, about what they all are, and realised that they are souls who became disillusioned with the way humans lived their lives. It's never specified if this is actually the truth or just a conclusion Hyun's "soul" came to, but it's the closest thing to an explanation in the source.

Honestly as I said, I don't think that Netflix's Sweet Home is bad by itself, but I personally just prefer my adaptations to be following the source very closely and it's honestly my pet peeve when they don't, which is the reason why I usually avoid adaptations if I can help it. Like the only issues I'd have if Netflix's Sweet Home was an original series would be A) the nearly omnipresent oddly chosen music B) some of the pacing C) a few characters are very hard to tell apart for someone who has major problems recognising people

I'd recommend the webtoon, but the downside is that apparently Webtoon (I actually visited it only once, several years back to read some horror anthologies and then came back only at the start of the year to read Sweet Home) now has a daily pass for all its works. And Sweet Home has 141 chapters. For free, you can read 1 chapter a day. So naturally, because I'm a totally patient person, who knows what to do with money, I sunk 20 dollars into it. Which I guess is not that bad when you realise that one volume of AoT costs about 17 dollars here. The author is also working on a prequel now (or at least it's advertised as a prequel), called Shotgun Boy, and so far it's also pretty good. His works in general slap, he also made Bastard and PIGPEN. I've never read the latter but I'm reading Bastard, and it's pretty obvious that it was an early work of the author, but it isn't bad.

And yeah, I really did like La Nuit A Dévoré Le Monde. I've also never met anyone else who did lol. I watched it with my family (as per usual) and everyone was like "Nothing is happening there. This film sucks ass."

I didn't really mind Bird Box but tbh I also didn't exactly expect a masterpiece when I decided to watch it. I'd say it was average, I've definitely seen worse but I've also seen much better films in terms of pretty much everything. And if I can be honest, the sound design in most modern movies is horrendous. I don't know when everyone decided to put out films with the worst goddamn mixing and sound design in general but they sure did. I have yet to witness a mainstream film made after about...2015 maybe? that doesn't feel like sandpaper against the ears.

I said they weren't zombies, not that they were. they're people who are turning into monsters because of overwhelming emotions. 

like I said, I don't really feel like going into all of my gripes with Bird Box, sound design and major plot holes and bad pacing were the main ones... also that the creatures are just so badly put together, like they admittedly sacrificed any plotting for how they worked in favour of "they do what needs to be done for the theme" and that agitates me because it shows. it's not like something like Annihilation where the point is that the thing is beyond human comprehension but even so it is doing a relatively specific set of things, in Bird Box they're very much presented as understandable and motivated but what they actually do is dependent on what the plot says needs to happen right now. but the sound design drives me up the wall, they don't make use of the stereo to give direction in a scene where they're following a sound, and there's a scene with some windchimes and she follows that sound but they don't get any louder as she gets closer to them... it's like bro you had one job.