A workmate hated the movie so bad, he took the time to write a review on Teams so we’d stay away from it. At first, I was happy to have dodged a bullet… Then I remembered that this specific workmate doesn’t have the most reliable taste when it comes to movies. So, we went anyway to the theatre and, boy, am I happy we did!

It didn’t take us more than 5 minutes to be completely into the movie. The story is good with a few turns that make the movie great. The humour is well balanced so it never feels ridiculous but keeps the goofy spirit of the actual Dungeons & Dragons game. Finally, the cast was perfect and I couldn’t imagine a better Holga than Michelle Rodriguez or a better Forge than Hugh Grant.

Wizards of the Coast (which owns Dungeons and Dragons) made stat blocks for the main characters showing their abilities and attributes. All the spells used in the film, while largely unnamed, are all spells used in the Dungeons & Dragons pen-and-paper RPG. (source: IMDB)

We went with low expectations and we enjoyed it so much that I’m ready to watch it again, an instant classic.

Last week-end, following the huge trend, we both tried Hardcore Classic WoW. While we had fun in the starting zones, our nostalgia trip was brutally interrupted by death. I understand the excitement around Hardcore but I personally don’t enjoy to delete a character that I’ve been levelling for hours. I can’t imagine the feeling when your character dies after level 50, I would be devastated.

However, this little adventure made us realise how great vanilla WoW was and how bad retail has become when you play the game the way it was meant to be played. It was a game made by roleplayers for roleplayers while retail feels like a phone game ported on PC.

So, thank you Nostalrius for having made Blizzard consider creating Classic servers. And fuck you, J. Allen Brack, You were dead wrong!

I’m gonna start this Diablo post by talking about World of Warcraft. In case you didn’t read the blog, Soforah and I have been playing WoW for 15 years. Ok, there were highs and lows, but the game always managed to keep us entertained. I don’t know if it’s due to the new – more socially acceptable – crowd at Blizzard, or if the game is simply not targeted at us anymore, but we both have had the most horrible time in Dragonflight. It’s so bad, it had us quit after 2 weeks, and I’m not talking about a break… The game is a chaotic, frustrating, ugly pile of stinking dung!

So, when we went to the beta week-end of Diablo 4, we didn’t have high expectations. Of course, we were very curious to see what Blizzard has in stock for its next gen Hack’n Slash…

We both completed the beta and we both found the game underwhelming, to say the least.

First, the monster density is horrible! Sometimes, you fight 20 mobs, then you have to cross an entire area without finding a single enemy to kill. I understand that they want to introduce mounts in the game (so they’ll probably fill the cash shop with hundreds of poneys, horses and unicorns in every possible colours), but it completely broke the pace of the game.

Second, I find the textures quality pretty poor for a next gen game. I know that Blizzard is trying to keep their games accessible to most, even those with outdated PCs, but this is ridiculous for a game set to be released in 2023.

Finally, I played a sorceress and I found the gameplay boring. I was using arc lightning and I was constantly out of mana. My other ability was a recycled hydra, which I already found boring in Diablo 3.

I know that the game is still in Beta and still needs polishing, but I found the core of the game bad.

I remember the beta of Diablo 3, it was awesome, it had left me wanting more. Diablo 4’s beta makes me afraid, I hope that nowadays Blizzard is not gonna butcher another of its franchises.

We’ll probably try the game in its final state, but the beta has set my expectations very low.

I don’t think that I could spend my lunchtimes at home without watching a TV show anymore. It’s an habit that comes from the time when I was still living with my mum, she would watch The Bold and The Beautiful everyday at lunch. 

We also watched all the soaps that would play on TV, from Dallas to Falcon Crest and Knots Landing. Those are amazing memories of my youth… Since then, I became a soap fan, I can’t help it: the romance, the plot twists, the betrayals, I’m addicted!

Since the confinement, we can stay home 4 days a week, so I kind of got Soforah addicted to the lunchtime soap and it became one of our most sacred daily ritual.

Which brings us to Vampire Diaries. It’s soapy and it’s about vampires who all seem to come out of a modelling catalogue, what is there not to love?

We’ve just completed our first rerun and I’m so sad that it’s over. They’ve been with us for 171 lunchtimes and I’ll miss them all, even Nina Dobrev. *Grab a Kleenex*

Anyway, it’s not that they’re gone forever and we both know that there will be another rerun, some day.

I’ll miss these vamps.

A robotics engineer at a toy company has to assume protective custody of her niece after both her parents died in a car crash. Overwhelmed, she uses one of her creations, a life-like doll, to help her in the task. (source: me. It doesn’t happen often but I sometimes write the synopsis myself)

A few reviewers compare the movie to Child’s Play but I disagree. M3GAN has nothing in common with Chucky, she isn’t evil, she’s an android trying to find her place in the world while protecting a little girl who, just like her, doesn’t have parents. To me, she’s more like the creature of Frankenstein, struggling in a world where she wasn’t born, but made.

It’s hard to tell what I enjoyed most in the movie, the ambiance is great, the casting is perfect and the rhythm of the movie is undisturbed by lengthy dramatic scenes. The result is a movie that may not entirely belong in the horror category, but that’s very entertaining nonetheless.

I couldn’t help but wonder, at the dawn of AI, if I’ll live long enough to see humans being helped in their households by autonomous androids… How will we integrate them in our society, like beings or like equipment?

Hiding out for years in an isolated cabin, Norman Nordstrom has taken in and raised a young girl orphaned from a house fire. Their quiet existence is shattered when a group of kidnappers show up and take the girl, forcing Norman to leave his safe haven to save her. (IMDB)

The synopsis above could have been shorter: he’s blind, he’s a badass and they took his girl. 

I don’t think that the plot is really what matters in this kind of movies. All it takes is building enough rage in the public during the first phase of the movie, generally through injustice and heinous crimes. So, when the second phase finally comes, we welcome the bloody revenge. Don’t Breathe 2 delivers in both phases, and it feels really good when The Blind Man finally gets his turn.

Unlike the first movie, this sequel is definitely more about rescue and revenge than it is a real thriller. However Stephen Lang manages to show not only good action, but also some emotion.

Even if it is a bit less deep than the original, Don’t Breathe 2 is a good action movie with enough gore and brutality to fit a Saturday horror night.

A harmless game of Truth or Dare among friends turns deadly when someone – or something – begins to punish those who tell a lie or refuse the dare. (IMDB)

Once again, I don’t understand the bad critics. What did people expect? A slow movie with an hasbeen actress like Naomi Watts crying for hours because she’s tied up on a coach? A pretentious horror that ends up with a final battle staged like a musical? Don’t we have enough “critics” ass-licking movies already?

I love Blumhouse because they deliver exactly what I’m after: quality movies that don’t pretend to be more than what they are: good horror flicks for the Saturday night. Truth or Dare is a good movie with a good pitch and a solid casting. We were especially happy to see Tyler Posey again, since we haven’t seen much of him since Teen Wolf.

Just as in It Follows, ineluctability is the true evil. How you die doesn’t matter, what’s horrible is to know that it’s coming for you and that, no matter what, your turn is coming. Of course, people try to out run their cruel fate and that’s the best part of it, to see them try to survive like ants caught in a flood. So, run, cute teenagers and entertain us!

A masked serial killer turns a horror-themed amusement park into his own personal playground, terrorizing a group of friends while the rest of the patrons believe that it is all part of the show. (IMDB)

Couldn’t I write such a basic synopsis myself? Yes

Am I too lazy to do it? Yes

Is the movie related to the yearly Metal festival? No

Do we love Metal? Yes, enough with the questions! (who even asks questions to himself?)

We watched it on November 14th and I can’t remember much of it but it doesn’t matter because the story isn’t the strong point of a slasher movie (kids get scarred by a creepy killer, kids run and yell, kids die), what matters is the atmosphere and Hellfest has it right.

Two of the biggest deal breakers were avoided: the rhythm wasn’t slowed down by unnecessary drama and it wasn’t a psychological movie disguised as an horror flick.

Ok, just one last question: will I make an effort and try to post sooner, so I don’t forget half of the movie when I’m writing about it? Yes, I promise.

After suspecting that their police officer neighbor is a serial killer, a group of teenage friends spend their summer spying on him and gathering evidence, but as they get closer to discovering the truth, things get dangerous. (IMDB)

There’s a reference to the eighties in the title? It’s an horror movie about kids investigating a murder? We don’t need much more to get hyped because both of us have grown up with movies like The Goonies and Stand by Me and nothing scratches that itch better than that new wave of retro everything that’s washing over us lately.

I don’t wanna start another trial of the modern days, but you must admit that the 80s and the 90s were two amazing decades ruled by creativity and freedom. A freedom that nowadays kids don’t even suspect could exist. But, that’s right, kids these days have so much more, right?! I easily forget the smartphones that keep you connected to your parents everywhere you go, fast food cinema like Marvel and triple A games that are super expensive and super boring (I’m not even a boomer, I’m Gen X). But I digress…

So, the setting is right but how’s the rest of the movie? Well, it’s fucking awesome! The cast is great, the vibe is perfect and the suspense kept us on the border of our seat the entire movie. Special thumbs up to Tiera Skovbye, who also plays the sister of Betty in Riverdale.

Even the poster art is awesome:

Something I really enjoy to do when I write these posts is reading trivias. So here are two good ones from on IMDB:

Cruel Summer by Bananarama plays while they are riding their BMXs. Exactly the same positioning in the Karate Kid with Daniel LaRusso riding his BMX to the same track. A cool nod considering it was released in the Summer of 84.

When the boys are in the clubhouse talking about Nikki, Tommy is seen drinking a bottle of MacReady’s Whiskey. This is a nod to The Thing (1982) where Kurt Russell’s character, R.J. MacReady, drinks J&B Scotch Whiskey at different points in the movie.

Voilà, so if, like us, you love eighties and movies like The Goonies, go watch it. Now!

As if I needed more reasons to stay away from Facebook or Meta or whatever, I now receive emails blackmailing me to create a Meta account if I want to continue using my Oculus VR set.

I wish that I could write a polite post explaining why I won’t do it, but the temptation is too great, I can’t resist, aahhhhh – Zuckerberg can kiss my ass! He and his company can go suck a fuck, I won’t let them make me their bitch!

Apparently, the risk of premature death is higher among individuals with Tourette syndrome (mortality rate ratio, 1.63) according to a study. But, when facing assholes, being vulgar feels so good, it’s a risk I’m willing to take.

I’ll probably switch to Valve Index, but I’m still holding back for a wireless version. If the wait gets too long, I’ll eventually cave in and purchase one.