Dark Night of the Scarecrow

Not your usual horror movie, but Dark Night of the Scarecrow is better classified as a horror story targeted for children, with no jump moments, gore or any weird occurrences, just fear itself, creating a suspenseful atmospheric story.

The story about Bubba begins tragic though, with one hell of a messed up Otis blaming everyone but himself and 3 followers of him throughout these dark nights. In some kind of way, Bubba exacts revenge on them, physically or psychically, we aren't fully knowledgeable about it, thus making it supernatural.

And then there is also that memorable end shot of a child hand and a scarecrow hand talking about the chasing game to play next. Whatever that means differs, but it did stood out and lets you think about it.

I also foolishly thought that I would expect a traditional horror movie, but then I was relieved and content with seeing a different horror movie such as this. In overall, Dark Night of the Scarecrow might be one of the best child horror movies out there!

Rating: 6.5 

Castlevania Season 2

Fortunately, this is a longer season.

Dracula’s generals and their origins are introduced, while Trevor, Sypha and Alucard are moving around and digging into the past. Both sides are preparing for war as the night is young. The gore returns, while the lore continues to work.

Eventually traditional Castlevania music kicked in during one of the later episodes, which was pleasant, and it happened during the most exciting gauntlet fight scene, afterwards Dracula is seemingly finished, but Camila is plotting for takeover.

It's quite impressive how they have managed to make a storyline format of this video game franchise into a television series, because 95% of the time you play the video games, you are whipping up and/or killing demonic creatures of all kinds.

Season 2 is a good continuation, and I will watch the next one. I wouldn't mind seeing the Grim Reaper itself make an appearance!

Rating: 7.0

Blasphemous

 Tierras de Azafrán

This is an action platformer with a supreme kind of atmosphere playing out. It’s not really a full fledged Metroidvania, although Castlevania and Dark Souls seem to be clear inspirations.

You play as the Penitent One, which seems to be dealing with some kind of inquisition playing out as the story line, or a cleansing of some sorts if you will. Religious themes are obviously playing, and the narrative is told cryptic, while item descriptions will offer you more lore. Now where have I heard that kind of storytelling before?

The sound track is top notch as it fits the atmosphere, and it is immersive. Equally as impressive is the pixel art style, as the animations stand out. The enemy design is very effective, being intimidating, challenging and beautiful to look at all at the same time.

The levels have interconnection as well as a few warp opportunities, lessening backtracking, and the NPC’s are interesting. The bosses are coherent, memorable and some of them quite difficult. The core gameplay is fun with a skill tree available.

I wish that there were a bit more abilities to unlock in order to make your playable character more able to move and dodge around, but everything else I described was quite a joy to experience. Blasphemous is a nice surprise, and it fits the October month, as there is lots of gore to discover, including special death animations for the enemies to be found!

Rating: 7.7

Ash VS. Evil Dead

Welcome to October 2019! I have prepared 31 more horror blog posts for this month leading up towards Halloween. Enjoy!

 

S1:

Groovy! Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell are finally back with the franchise which made them well known and famous; the Evil Dead trilogy, which recently got a remake, has gotten a sequel into the form of a television series, and it delivers the goods.

As is well known, the series first started quite serious with the first part which remains my favorite. However, Evil Dead II and in particular Army of Darkness turned up the humor factor by large portions, and in present time, Ash vs Evil Dead is a terrific horror comedy.

Ash Williams, our favorite hero equipped with a shotgun and a chainsaw for an arm, mistakenly unleashes hell again after a cozy trip, some naughty words are spoken. The Necronomicon unleashes the Deadites, the zombie like demons we all know and love to hate, and the show is on.

Together with a new supporting cast including Pablo and Kelly, they will have to figure out on how to undo the spell which summoned the evil. Throughout the episodes, Ash bombs a lot of effective sarcastic one liners again the demons, and it certainly made the it all more enjoyable.

The makeup, gore and special effects are my favorite part of Ash vs Evil Dead, as several get their heads chopped, guts ripped open and eyes poked out, while the victims taunt the humans with their devilish voices.

Scare wise, these range from playing victim, to charming humans, to humiliating them, to attacking them, to crawling and jumping around, to roaring and licking like animals and to turning towards the camera/characters and scare the hell out of you/them!

Trademarks of the franchise include of course Ash himself, the Necronomicon, the arsenal, the heavy gore, the fast moving first person scenes, the evil clone, the hand and best of all, the journey ends at the wooden cabin where it all started.

Well, there's not much else to say about this. It's obviously fanservice and somehow, Bruce Campbell still shines here in perhaps a redundant story line, but you can't beat old school horror roots which was all at first just a cult classic, and now look how it has grown into massive popularity.

S2:

After Ash, Pablo and Kelly seal the Deadites and Ruby away, the latter “somehow” loses control over her demonic children, and she hides the Necronomicon away.

Season 2 is about going on a quest to recover the unholy book, while the scares, the gores and the demonic humour are intact. The original car gets possessed, a new villain named Baal takes over, some scenes are delicious gore and utterly nasty, and the one liners plus of course Ash return, as well as the cabin itself!

S3:

The cast expands with Ash’s daughter getting involved, while the Deadites and Ruby work together to summon the Dark Ones, who are like the progenitor of the Necronomicon and the Evil Dead.

The tropes of horror and comedy return, but some of the other miscellaneous scenes were dull. And with a cliffhanger of an ending, I'm sorry to announce that the series got cancelled after this. Have we seen the last of Evil Dead?

Overall rating: 7.0