Netflix has recently released one of the most terrifying horror originals to date with an eight-episode French horror series called Marianne.
This film kicks things off into high gear right off the bat with very environment rich scary vibes. Things start off with creaking, old radio sounds, and even a caged crow that sets the tone for how things are going to turn out in this series. Set in an old fashioned French house things get dark quick but I won’t ruin the first few minutes, so you will have to watch and experience that for yourself.
Our main character of this story Emma Larsimon who is a successful horror novelist is the center of attention in this epic horror that will keep you on the edge. The horror series that has made her so successful and rich to boot is also probably haunting her and driving her insane.
Emma’s books about a demon’s wife are based on her real life nightmares from her teenage years. Emma now grown up and long moved out of her childhood home goes back to the broken-down coastal town of Elden to check up on her parents. This checkup quickly turns gruesome for Emma as her past quickly catches up to her and the nightmares she had are now haunting her once again.
As with all horror movies, shows, and stories the delivery is key to bringing a good scare to the audience. Director Samuel Bodin is a fan boy of the old school eighties horror films so his understanding of how to scare an audience is superb. The eerie coastal setting, mixed with the author of successful horror stories as the main protagonist is genius and extremely well executed in this series.
This series also had excellent camera footage and great use of drones that were used to grab some amazing shots of the rocky coast line, and dead winter trees that really added a level of suspense to the show.
One of the best parts of the show to me was the main character Emma as she was extremely complex, tough, demanding, and very self-centered. She has spent most of her life dealing with these nightmares and has used it to become a horror author rock-star per say. If you are looking for a show with a strong cast, great story and loaded with suspenseful terrifying moments, then you definitely need to check this show out.
One of my favorite series on Netflix over the last few months has definitely been The Haunting of Hill House. If you are a huge fan of the novel from Shirley Jackson written back in 1959 then you need to see this adaptation of the popular horror novel. One of the best parts about this show is the drama it brings to the screen, but also a level of terrifying moments that truly dig deep into the roots of the horror genre.
When the kids are young and still living in Hill House, they continually get visions of ghosts, zombies, and a tall slender man, but these visions follow them into adulthood, but most of these ghosts they face seem to be of their own making. There’s a complex theme throughout the story concerning the house’s complicity in all of the kids’ failings as adults. This is where the show begins to take a really scary turn as things begin to manifest in the adult’s lives, and the plot really begins to thicken with a rich story.
Olivia like here children are affected by the house, but you also see a woman who is losing grip on reality which could be due to a troubled marriage, and stress of raising her five children. The director did something brilliant through the telling of the story and how things unfold to create a doubt in your mind as the viewer. You truly aren’t sure if what you are watching unfold on screen is because of a crazy family with mental issues, or if this family truly is seeing ghosts and have been living in a haunted house. Personally, the Haunting of Hill House has been one of the best Netflix original horror series released to date. Season 2 can’t get here fast enough to continue the unfolding of America’s most haunted family and haunted house.
After you get introduced to all the adults of the Losers Club, the speed of the overall story slow down a ton and you get a flashback of the young Losers Club in a clubhouse scene that wasn’t part of the first film. The young actors may only play smaller supporting roles in chapter two, but just like the first film, they did an absolutely amazing job! Even though chapter two focuses on the adult Losers Club, the characters to me just didn’t have the same impact that the kids did in the previous film.
IT chapter two had a ton more CGI than the first film did which was disappointing as it didn’t feel as nostalgic as the first film did. The CGI wasn’t the best either and really pulled away from the enjoyment of such an epic horror classic. On the plus side, the film had some truly amazing scary moments that made up for some of the sporadic plots.
Have you ever been in your car at a complete stop but thought you were moving, freaking out and smashing the break just to realize you really weren’t moving at all…? Well, that’s how this episode played out for me cause I thought we had some momentum built up and the story was really moving, and building to quite a climactic story plot…..then BAM you realize this episode is almost at a standstill in the story, or at least a creeping crawl in first gear.
This episode of the game is anything but graceful about it’s approach to the people in Clementine’s life as they seem to exist solely so their departure can hurt her. The loss of people has been a large focus of season 2 and this episode is no different other than how Clementine begins to process those big hits. She as a young girl really is put through some awful and terrifying situations, but those moments seem to define her from the decisions she “You” get to make for her.
Characters vanish in this episode so rapidly and unexpectedly that it steals some spotlight away from the emotional connection this game brings with it’s characters. Some of the characters exits are cheap and unfulfilling, while others are unjustified, forced and forgotten very quickly. Worse, some of those departed characters are replaced by new villains who come out of nowhere with no introduction.
Season 2 has been a large building block for the story and seems to be something much larger for Clementine, but it fizzles here by the end of Episode 4. Large stories by this time like the political battle between feuding sides seems to vanish, and Clementine begins to feel much smaller in the grand scheme of things, despite the grand large she is having to overcome. Meanwhile, although The Walking Dead: Season 2 has been building to something bigger for Clementine, it fizzles here by the end of Episode 4, the complex political drama that’s been brewing between feuding sides all but evaporates. Bickering elders don’t seem to weigh on Clementine as much as the grim things she has to do on her own. She’s starting to feel small, despite the big things she’s doing. I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing yet.
This game quickly took the top list of favorites in my book second only to Telltale’s The Walking Dead series. They came very close to knocking The Walking Dead out of my number one spot but not quite.
This was a relatively quick episode to play but easily a two hour chunk of time you need to really see everything in this first episode. The game drops some majorly hard bombs on you early on with the decisions you have to make, but being a big bad wolf made it a little easier to rough some Fables up. Action and adventure are some of the main themes of this first episode but at the heart of things comes a mystery. This is what makes this game such a joy to play is the wide use of emotions and rich story surrounded by well done characters.
During your search, you’ll come across a rather interesting toad who refuse to hide himself from the human world, a member of the Three Little Pigs with a bit of a drinking problem, and an abusive woodsman with a startling revelation regarding Snow White. Since it’s based on characters that pretty much everybody knows, The Wolf Among Us is able to toy with our expectations and delivering some very surprising and entertaining character developments. It’s amazing how the dialogue swings between funny, absolutely tragic, brutal, and magical all over a course of the two-hour episode.
Telltale Games created a masterpiece with the Walking Dead game series and I took the hook, line and sinker when I first started playing the game. Now almost two years later after season 2 finished leaving fans with mixed emotions on how things ended, Telltale Games seemed to have closed the story with season 2. The famed developer company has been quite busy lately with the alternate story of their Michonne miniseries and just yesterday I saw the newest addition will be a Batman game coming later this year. All of Telltale’s games are pretty awesome if you ask me, as I’ve tried just about all of them, but the big question on the table is when the heck are we going to see the next season of The Walking Dead series release?
Ok, so let me start this post by saying I’ve thrown the idea back and forth for years now of whether I do film & TV reviews. It’s always come down to NO not right now as I’ve just got to much going on and I didn’t want to add to an already full plate.
From there, as the show unfolds we get to meet the cast and overall feels like a Scream movie, but different and same all at once. Weird I know, but the parallels to the first film’s characters; Sidney, Billy, Stu, Randy and Tatum in Emma (Willa Fitzgerald), Will (Conner Weil), Jake (Tom Maden), Noah (John Karna) and Brooke (Carlson Young), as these kids from “Lakewood” begin to realize a killer is among them. The show throws some other characters into the mix, including a mysterious new guy in town Kieran (Amadeus Serafini) and Audrey (Bex Taylor-Klaus), who was the victim of some recent cyber bullying.
A Hobbits Journey 