Review: Man of Steel

I’m going to say this now: I’m about as much of a Superman fan as I am a Trekkie. He has a superpower for every situation, and the worse his problems seem to get is when Lois looks at another man or gets kidnapped. It’s a difficult task to bring Superman to the big screen, and an even bigger challenge to make him seem more relatable.

Sadly, this latest run at the silver screen didn’t pan out for me. The filmmakers take too long to get to the conflict, instead explaining how Superman becomes who he is through an in-depth look at Krypton and sometimes jarring flashbacks. When we do get to the conflict, we see Superman (thankfully with a defined set of powers) played by Henry Cavill, only he seems kind of wooden and with little to say, meeting up with the most expressive (and angry) character of all, Zod (played by Michael Shannon). Although the native Kryptonians have trouble adjusting to Earth, they prepare to beet the living snot out of Cavill, only for Cavill to fight back in fight scenes that I zoned out of most the time. There is one scene near the end where we get a real sense of conflict where good ol’ Clark has to make a tough choice, but that’s about the only time I get that sense that Supe’s as troubled as he’s supposed to be.

There’s also Amy Adams’s Lois Lane. Spunky, definitely not a damsel in distress. Will abandon her common sense if it means getting a photo of alien technology and is the only one who is able to make the connections between Clark Kent and Superman well before he puts on the suit and cape. I’m not sure why though, apparently he wasn’t as good about covering his tracks as he should’ve been. She’s basically important to the story, but her performance isn’t exactly spectacular enough for an Oscar.

Lawrence Fishburne is underused as Perry White (or perhaps that’s his character in Hannibal as a reporter), and Christopher Meloni plays Elliot Stabler in the Air Force with his usual tough guy act that never fails to kill. Other than that, not much in terms of acting to really make me feel like I’m in the middle of something fantastic.

Also, the swept-back hair look is out for superheroes. They would’ve done better with messy hair, something that rockstars might wear. And don’t stick around after the credits for a look at the inevitable sequel, because there’s not even a hint of what’s to come (though I bet it involves Lex Luthor, Kryptonite, and possibly an arms race).

Though the night wasn’t entirely wasted. That opening sequence gave me an idea on how to modify a certain story of mine and make it better. Who knows what that might lead to.

All told, Man of Steel gets a 3 out of 5. If this film was the beginning of a rival franchise to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, then I seriously doubt that such a franchise will ever rival the Avengers, no matter how much money is made.

Daisy: The First Review

Have you downloaded a copy yet?

It was bound to happen eventually, but I’m glad it did happen sooner rather than later.

On the Smashwords website, I got a review from a David Blake. Giving Daisy a rating of 3 out of (I’m assuming) 5 stars, this is what he had to say:

“An okay story.  The writing’s quite good for the most part, as it takes the trouble to describe things, yet often blending the descriptions in with the action.  The villain is given sufficient character, his background and motivation being conveyed by clues rather than by a less satisfying full-on explanation.
The main problem I had with the story is that Marie’s actions frequently suggest she’s been trapped in the building for a very long time, and yet the story never really gives the reader a proper sense that she has.  There are windows, yet Marie never looks out of them to see where the building is (she’s surprised when it later starts getting demolished).
The thought of a crazy hobo having (or using) an iPod didn’t quite ring true.
And there are some awkward lines too, such as unbuttoning buttons, and the use of the word ‘from’ twice-over (ie ‘from which the music was coming from’).
Overall, an average story with some good points and some not so good ones.”

Well, I guess it’s average because it was a short story from high school. I can only do so much in a short story, and since it dated from that period, it’s not as good as I’d like it to be. Still, I thought it deserved publication, which is the reason I selected it to be the promotional piece for The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones. Hopefully more reviews will come in as time goes by. After all, reviews are a very important way for self-published authors to spread spread their work.

If you’ve yet to check out Daisy, I strongly encourage you to do so. It’s free on most websites and can be downloaded onto your e-reader, phone, or even a laptop or desktop computer. And when I finally get the copyright for it, get psyched up for The Quiet Game, coming out this summer.

All for now. I have a short story to write.

My Top Villains 2013 #10-6

Disturbing, isn’t it?

I thought I’d do an annual post of my top villains. Why? Because in horror, the villain plays such a huge role and is usually the source of most of the terror. It makes sense that I should list which ones are my favorites and which ones have an influence on me. And it might tell us all a little bit about why I’m so messed up. So I’m doing my top villains in two posts, numbers ten through six in the first post and numbers five through one in the second. And please note, none of these villains are of my creation. That just wouldn’t seem fair, especially if you haven’t read much or any of my work.

Oh, and one more thing before we begin: Satan is not on this list. Yeah, I know it’s surprising, but Judaism doesn’t view Satan like Christianity does, so I don’t include him on the list. In fact, I have a novel where Satan’s the protagonist, so if he’s on the villain’s list that’d make me a hypocrite. No thanks.

So onto numbers 10-6. Enjoy:

10. Voldemort (from the Harry Potter books).

Oh Voldy, what an ugly face you have! Why not get cosmetic surgery?

My mother may disown me for putting the villain of the HP books at the bottom of this list, but I stand by the decision. The wizarding world’s answer to Adolf Hitler, Voldemort starts out as a young boy by the name of Tom Riddle in an orphanage. As things start out for him, he seems a little off but okay nonetheless. But as time goes on, his psychopathic tendencies make themselves known and he morphs into the dark and hideous Voldemort, who manages to stay alive even after dying through dark and obscene magic (does that by any chance have anything to do with his deformed face?). Voldemort uses the wizarding version of racism–blood purity–to help in his quest for power, and is well-known for being ruthless, intelligent, and full of dark schemes. Of course, his arrogance is part of what leads to his downfall, both the first time and the second.

Have to admire his love of snakes though. I’m a sucker for snakes. Why do you think one of my novels is about one?

9. Randall Flagg (from Stephen King’s The Stand)

Randall Flagg. Don’t let his smile fool you, he’s pure evil!

Is he the devil in blue jeans, or just his cousin? Randall Flagg–also known as “The Walking Dude” and “The Dark Man”–is a creature made of hate and malice who wanders the lesser-known highways of America at night, a boogie man who enjoys causing chaos wherever and whenever he can. He appears in several Stephen King books, but is most famous for The Stand, where he attempts to make a nation around himself in the plague-ravaged United States. He is shown gaining supernatural abilities as the plague ravages America and becomes a synonym for evil in the post-plague world. He takes delight in everything evil, whether it be murder, rape, or torture, and gathers several individuals like him after the plague. He is still part human though, and that shows later on in the novel when things start to go bad for him in his new nation. Still he is scary as heck, and his film portrayal by Jamey Sheridan makes you want to go “EEEK!”

8. The First Evil (from Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

A manifestation of The First Evil. Good thing it’s noncorporeal, I bet its breath stinks!

The First Evil is a power, pure and simple. It existed long before the universe began, and it will exist long after the universe is dead and gone. It embodies all that is evil, and will go to great lengths to ensure that Evil prevails. It is non-corporeal and can only take the form of the dead, but it is an expert at psychological manipulation, and has an army of demon priests and super-vampires to carry out its will, along with a psychotic priest played by Nathan Fillion. The First’s initial appearance was in the third season as a monster-of-the-week, but it becomes the main antagonist in the seventh season when it finds that it can use a glitch in the Slayer line caused by Buffy’s resurrection to destroy the Slayer line forever, allowing Evil a huge victory and allowing the First to enter into the hearts of all humanity. Truly terrifying and not a creature I would want to go up against. It does show an envy for humans and their ability to engage in acts of sexuality, which I find somewhat strange. Oh well.

7. Lelouch Lamperouge (from Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion)

This is the face of a man who could challenge Moriarty…or even control him!

What to say about Lelouch? He’s hard to classify as a villain, but some of what he does is truly villainous, so he qualifies as a villain. The exiled son of the Emperor of the Holy Brittannian Empire, Lelouch hates his father for letting his mother’s murder go unsolved and for allowing his younger sister to become crippled during the murder. When he meets the mysterious immortal witch CC, Lelouch gains the power of Geass, which allows him to control people under certain conditions. Already a highly intelligent and competent strategist with loose morals, Lelouch uses his newfound power to don the disguise of the masked revolutionary Zero and begins a rebellion in the conquered nation of Japan, now a colony called Area 11 with numerous rebel and terrorist organizations within it.

Code Geass is one of my favorite anime of all time, and Lelouch is one of my favorite characters of all time. As the series goes on, we see numerous instances of him playing both villain and hero, lovable and despicable as he attempts to bring down his father and the Empire. He is capable of great good, but his twisted past and his personality often cause him to go the route of evil. His only weaknesses, besides how underwhelming he is in athletics, his probably his arrogance and his love for his younger sister. Still, I would not want to be on Lelouch’s bad side any day of the week.

6. Jason Voorhees (from the Friday the 13th film series)

Ever have trouble seeing his eyes? I think that’s intentional.

One of my favorite slasher killers, Jason is terrifying both in his brutality and in his simplicity. The son of Pamela Voorhees, Jason was born with a condition that, among other things, causes mental retardation and cranial swelling. This causes him to get horribly teased at Camp Crystal Lake, and eventually he is pushed into the water and drowns while the counselors were off having sex with each other (though there are other versions of how and why Jason got into the water). He later reemerges to be shown living, but not before his mother dies while venting a psychotic rage at the loss of her son. Jason takes up the mantle of avenger afterwards, killing anyone who comes near Camp Crystal Lake with his machete (or sometimes an axe). In later films he is shown to become a sort of Frankenstein-like creature, coming back from the dead under numerous circumstances to wreak havoc on Camp Crystal Lake. Scary as heck, especially when you consider he’s a giant, fast-moving zombie in a hockey mask.

And speaking of hockey mask, Jason didn’t appear until the second film, when he wore a sackcloth bag over his head. The hockey mask appeared in the third film to give Jason a distinctive look, and that look has terrified audiences ever since.

 

Well, that’s all for the first of these two posts. I’ll try and get to Part 2 tomorrow. Until then, if you have any questions on these villains, your own suggestions for villains, or a question on what the Jewish view of Satan is, let me know. I’d be happy to hear from you.

Review: “World War Z” by Max Brooks

I include the “by Max Brooks” part to distinguish this review I will eventually do on the movie (both will probably get a ton of traffic once the movie comes out, I bet). Also, I know I keep saying that I like to put a week’s distance between reviews and it’s only been a few days since I did the review for The Great Gatsby, but this was such a phenomenal novel, what could I do?

As a History major studying the Holocaust and World War II, I read a lot of memoirs by survivors and soldiers alike. As I read Max Brooks’s zombie apocalypse novel, one of the things I was struck by was that it sounded so much like a Holocaust memoir, it was uncanny. And I don’t mean in terms of content–it’s a zombie apocalypse novel, after all–but in terms of how haunted the voices of the characters are. Each section of the novel is a different person’s experience during “The Great Panic” and the war against the living dead, ranging from Chinese to Russian to Chinese to American to South African to Middle Eastern to English and everything in-between. The horrors and haunted tales of each survivor, which are all assembled by a nameless interviewer (Max Brooks in a world that he created, playing the role of reporter, perhaps?) into a single collection of tales, will keep you reading for hours after you should’ve gone to bed.

That’s kind of what happened to me: I was reading late last night, finished the book, and then went to bed. I had the craziest dream afterwards where I lived through my own zombie apocalypse. Just one problem: I didn’t find out what happened to the woman I met in my dream and the baby we were having together! I felt like Dorothy wanting to get back to Oz! Cursed alarm, waking me up in the thick of the battle.

Anyway, another thing I noticed about World War Z was that Brooks thinks of several things that we don’t. I’m not going into detail, but let’s just say that he considers everything from the disadvantages of conventional warfare on zombies, to survival plans foolish and wise, to how the public would react to zombies, and how other people would react to those reactions. It’s so detailed and so well thought-out, you think you’re reading something that actually happened. I’ve read memoirs and history books that have the same level of detail, and it’s crazy how real it all seems. Like Stephen King’s The Stand trying to pass for nonfiction, it feels that real.

A very engrossing read, 5 out of 5 definitely and deserved. I wonder how the movie, which will probably take more liberties than any other book-to-movie adaptation in the history of moviemaking (with the possible exception of Priest), will compare.

Oh, funny story while I have your attention: on Tuesday night, Jews everywhere started Shavuot, one of our more important holidays. During Shavuot, it’s traditional on the first night to have a long study session that lasts late into the night. The study session I attended was divided into two parts, the first consisting of different classes we could take. I took the one on bikkur cholim, which is the commandment to visit the sick but also implies praying and caring for the sick. Near the end of the session and after some lively discussion about the effects of biblical and modern-day quarantine, I asked about bikkur cholim and zombie plagues. The instructor’s answer: “Throw bikkur cholim out the window, and run for your life!” Sounds sensible, doesn’t it?

Review: The Great Gatsby (2013 film)

I find some parts of the original novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald very confusing, just by the fact that Fitzgerald used a different sort of language than most of the authors I read do. Maybe that’s why I find watching adaptations of these sorts of stories so edifying. Because I can actually understand what’s happening.

The latest outing of The Great Gatsby in Hollywood, this time helmed by visionary director Baz Luhrmann and starring the still-youthful Leonardo DiCaprio (what’s that guy’s secret anyway?), is an interesting take on the old story. Luhrmann takes out a lot of character development and does a lot of telling rather than showing Gatsby’s history in order to make room for stunning 3D effects and his usual eye-candy filming. Most of the character development is devoted to developing the warm relationship between DiCaprio’s Gatsby and Tobey Macguire’s Nick Carraway, making them seem like the best of friends. There’s also a bit of time spent on the complicated relationship between Gatsby and Carey Mulligan’s depressed-and-indecisive-but-still-trying-to-seem-sunny Daisy Buchanan, but not as much as that between Gatsby and Nick.

We also don’t see much of what precipitates the final events of the novel and skip over the entire funeral, which might upset quite a few purists. And the relationship between Nick and Jordan? Dashed out completely in favor of showing Nick therapy-writing Gatsby story at a sanitarium, where’s he’s been placed due to alcoholism and all the issues he’s feeling as a result of what happened to him in America.

But credit to Luhrmann, the party scenes are so enticing, especially in 3D, that you want to step right into the party and have a drink, or at least rewind the movie to watch those scenes again. And the arguments during the final half of the movie are realistic and emotional, so much so you feel like you could be seeing an actual fight between real people. And finally, Jay-Z’s rocking soundtrack is so much fun to listen to that you find yourself grooving in your seat. There should be an Oscar just for that.

Overall, I have very mixed feelings about this film. But I enjoyed it anyway and I felt it was a very decent adaptation. So for The Great Gatsby I give a grade of 3.7 out of 5. Not the best film I’ll see this summer, but definitely a well-spent two and a half hours.

Review: Iron Man 3

My first summer movie review, and I’m happy to say, this is probably the best Iron Man film in the franchise yet, for reasons I will go over in a moment.

First, paint a scene in your mind: Tony Stark trying to say something important while showing a certain image from the trailers (I won’t say which one) and totally fumbling it. Cue 90′s music, the studios behind the film show their logos, and we’re transported to a New Year’s Eve party in Switzerland in 1999-2000. You think to yourself, “Is this really how they open this film?” And then as the rest of the film unrolls, you think, “That is how they start a seriously awesome film”.

In the latest entry of the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise, Robert Downey Jr. returns as Tony Stark, only this time he’s dealing with an anxiety disorder caused by the events of last summer’s The Avengers and his near death by nuke and closing wormhole and falling to the ground from higher than most skyscrapers. Meanwhile, a terrorist with a Chinese name, an Indian look, and a Southern Baptist voice named the Mandarin (played by Ben Kingsley) is causing horrifying bombings all over the place, and one of them hurts a friend of Stark’s. Meanwhile, Guy Pierce as Aldrich Killian, the head of a creepy think tank doing some very heated work (and I don’t mean controversial, I mean heated), and he’s got something to do with the Mandarin and his terrorist attacks.

As we watch the movie, we see amazing performances by Gwyneth Paltrow and Guy Pierce worthy of Oscar nods (though considering the stigma of superhero movies, that may not happen), twists that could get me death threats if I revealed them here, and an explosive finale that’ll make you want to stand up in your seat and scream “Oh my God, I can’t believe this! Awesome!” And stick around after the credits, you’ll get a special treat and a news update on Tony Stark.

Oh, and as you can expect, the special effects were awesome. Honestly, the bad guys scared the crap out of me when I saw what they could do, how they were doing it, and the implications of what could happen if such technology were possible here on Earth (and thanks to current technology and its speedy advance, everything in the movie except the actual suit could actually appear in the next 5-20 years. Be warned!). Plus the suits are so cool, you want to get one for yourself and take it for a test drive. And watch out for the sky-diving scene. That must’ve been really hard to film.

All told, I give Iron Man 3 a 5 out of 5. I cannot wait to see if anything compares to it.

Also, watch for a trailer for Thor 2. It’s not to be missed.

Review: The Lords of Salem

And I kind of wish I hadn’t waited.

Strange.

That’s the only way I can categorize horror rocker and director Rob Zombie’s latest piece, ultimately a story about the inability to escape your fate with a Satanic bent.

The film follows Sheri Moon Zombie, Rob Zombie’s wife (the fact that she’s in the film must do miracles for the marriage) as a radio DJ in Salem, Massachusetts, as she finds a mysterious record from a group called The Lords of Salem. Slowly but surely, she becomes ensnared in a plot to turn her into the mother of the Antichrist because of a curse placed on her by some actual witches from Salem. And by the way, Satan and his kid look more like a mud creature and the face-hugger from Alien.

I thought the film had good promise at the beginning. A few scary starts, a sense of unreality. But from then on there seemed to be just trippy imagery as Mrs. Zombie goes to her fate with barely any protest. At the end we’re confronted with enough sexual imagery and weird video effects to make us more confused than scared. Heck, it’s enough to make me wish for gore, and I’ve been complaining about the prevalence of that in horror for a while now!

And what’s also upsetting is that Mrs. Zombie doesn’t try to fight back, but just goes too willingly with her witchy landlord’s plot. The only one doing any digging to figure things out is a local historian and author, but unfortunately when he gets close to the truth he gets whacked. And the use of nudity is more disturbing than titillating in this film, but that doesn’t mean we want it in this film! And having a body of dead women whom we never see die? What’s up with that?

Oh Rob Zombie, how I miss your success with the Halloween remake! That film would earn a 4.2, should I decide to do a review of it. Unfortunately though, I can only give The Lords of Salem a 2.6. If this is supposed to be an example of the growing witch trend, it’s going to be an example of what not to do, mark my words!

And if you’re wondering if there was anything I liked, it was the music. The music was definitely catchy. Reminded me of something I’d heard in a Marilyn Manson album once. Listen below if you’re interested.

Critiquing For A Friend

I saw a friend of mine yesterday at the library a little after 2pm. He and I began talking about finals (the topic de jeur during this last week of the semester) and he mentioned that he had to write a short story for his history class based on some of the stuff he’s been learning in class. I offered to look at his short story and critique it if he wanted, to which he said he’d send it over.

This evening I took a look at it and I wrote a quick critique of it before e-mailing my friend. After I finished and sent the email, I thought to myself, Hey, that’s the first time I critiqued something for a friend that wasn’t required by a class of mine. I don’t count that one time my sister asked me to look at her speech as she was running for a position on the board of the youth group we both belonged to in high school, mostly because we couldn’t get past the opening without her disagreeing about my assessment of the opening. God, that was a long time ago.

“This blog post is perhaps the worst thing I’ve ever read online. Now your friend’s short story…”

Okay, enough rambling. Back on topic:

I’ve been in two workshop classes in the past year, and I had to do a similar assignment to what my friend did when I took a world history course my first year in college. I’ve looked at a lot of short stories, occasionally had to look stuff up just to understand what a certain word meant or what the action revolved around, and written close to fifty critiques for each story. I’ve seen bad short stories, I’ve read ones that absolutely floored me with their first drafts, and I’ve read one or two that confused me so bad that I mentioned how confused I was in the critique letter.

But writing for a friend…it’s an entirely different experience. You want to give them the best critique possible. You want to tell them their story has potential. You want to say they did a great job. You want to tell them it’s only a matter of time before they’re selling books in bookstores and receiving royalty checks. But at the same time, you have to point out flaws, you have to say that they should possibly rewrite the whole thing, and sometimes you have to tell your friend that, for one reason or another, the story stunk to high heaven and you absolutely hated it. It’s a very different experience than critiquing for classmates you don’t know that well, and finding a balance between kind to your friends and critical of the work is tough, especially if you’re sensitive to a friend’s feelings or there’s a chance that they may say their work is too high-brow and those who don’t like it or understand it are literary fools.

Luckily my friend doesn’t aspire to literary stardom and even if he did, he’s a chill dude who doesn’t get emotional over critiques. But still, I took his feelings into account when I critiqued his work, and I hope he appreciates the critique and isn’t daunted or upset by what I had to say. (For the record I wrote a very positive critique and suggested that he rewrite the story from the POV of the sheriff character and do more showing and less telling) It was the first time I understood what my friend Matt goes through every time he looks at a chapter of Reborn City for me and tells me what he thinks, and what my friends and family go through when they review my work for me, and it’s a pretty crazy feeling.

I’m not sure if I’ll ever do a critique like this ever again, though I’m sure I might be asked in the future to look at someone else’s work, especially if it’s for class. If I am asked by a friend to look at his work though, I hope I’ll be able to do a serviceable critique that will help them with their work and with their writing over time. Because if there’s one thing writers can do for each other, especially indie writers, it’s help to make each other’s work better and make sure they reach wider audiences.

What do you think when you get your work critiqued or someone critiques your work?

Review: “From A Name To A Number”

F0r Passover, I received a gift from a friend of my mother’s as a thank-you for letting her come to our Passover Seder. Unusual for Passover to receive a gift, but I was extremely grateful to receive the gift, and heck, Kelly was grateful for the chance to attend a Passover Seder. The gift: signed copies of “From A Name To A Number: A Holocaust Survivor’s Autobiography” by Alter Weiner. As the focus of my History major is the Holocaust and yesterday I wrote a post about the dehumanization that occurred during the Nazi regime, I thought it’d be appropriate to finish the book over Shabbas and review it here. Later I’ll send it to Kelly (apparently she manages the author’s Facebook page for the book).

First, I’d like to say that this book is very touching (what do you expect?). But also, it’s very revealing. Covering the author’s entire life from his younger years, to the deportation and incarceration in five different concentration camps, to liberation and resettlement in Israel, and later life in America, where to this day Mr. Weiner goes to high schools, churches, and even prisons to tell his story and let people know what his life is like.

Some things came to me while I read this book. First, that the Holocaust left many of its victims with PTSD. I already knew this, but hearing it for the first time from a survivor, even if only in book format, made me realize how much Mr. Weiner was suffering years after the Holocaust. While many contemporaries of his and his own family brushed off his constant preoccupation with the Holocaust, the reader’s own emotions are stirred and we want to reach out and hug the author over the distance.

Second, how lucky we are. I have a loving family, a fairly liberal society, and I’m getting a great education. Mr. Weiner’s formal education ended at age 13, when the Nazis took over Poland. He lost most of his family shortly thereafter, and lived in slavery and horrifying conditions for three whole years. It’s affected his very person to this day, and it makes the reader appreciate his/her blessings.

And finally, we learn the evil of hate. “Hate hatred and shun violence”, Mr. Weiner implores several times throughout the book. Indeed, I find it hard to hate anyone on a daily basis, but now it’s even harder for me after reading this. I hope Mr. Weiner’s story affects all others similarly and that you treasure this book for years to come.

On a scale of 1 to 5, I give this book a well-deserved 5 out of 5, for reminding me to count all my blessings and to love my life no matter what. I hope you pick up a copy and read it yourself so you can see the magical effect of this autobiography by a living treasure.

Review: Evil Dead

I swear, it’s so hard to find a good scary movie that doesn’t rely on obscene amounts of gore these days. However, the remake/sequel of 1981′s The Evil Dead does do the original justice, even with the amount of gore involved. Throughout the film we see both homages to the original, and we see it made anew with much better special effects (which apparently never relied on CGI, though at times I find that really hard to believe, especially during that first scene and the scene with the meat cutter). Plus there’s a bit more substance to this film in terms of character motivations and what-not, but like I said, just a bit.

For those of you not familiar with the original film, these films revolve around a magic book that summons sleeping demons that possess human bodies in order to resurrect something much worse. As five teens get possessed and become bloody and disgusting, it’s up to the one normal dude (or gal, in this case) to kill them all to save their souls. The original films were DIYers, so they didn’t have much in the way of special effects and they were simplistic in nature. However the odd camera angles and filming techniques were what made this indie project a classic, spawning sequels, comic books, video games, and now a new line of films meant to bring the old and the new films together.

I warn you, if you’re not easily scared, you may only receive minimum scares to satisfy your morbid self. If you scare easily though, you will not be disappointed by this film. I would’ve preferred a lot less gore and more focus on building suspense and causing terror, but what’re you going to do, except either not see the film or show the world how you make a scary film?

On the whole, I’ll give this film a 3.6 out of 5. Not bad, but still room for improvement.