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All posts for the month March, 2024

Imaginary

Posted by cat2002116 on March 22, 2024
Posted in: Horror, Movies, Reviews. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

Obviously, I enjoy horror movies. Anyone who knows me is aware of that by now. Of course, it’s also been difficult to find horror movies that are actually good, as the majority of them don’t have really developed characters and just seem to care about the shock value rather than having storylines and characters it’s easy to care about. So with that thought in mind, my expectations going into this movie were quite low.

I have to say that this movie was better than I was expecting it to be. I did like Jessica as a character, although there wasn’t much revealed about her even by the end of the movie. I guess that did make sense, given that she didn’t have many memories of her childhood.

I will say that, although Jessica obviously cared deeply about her stepdaughters, she did make a couple of major mistakes. For instance, she took a work phone call when she was supposed to be playing hide and seek with Alice. Then, later, she deliberately embarrasses Taylor by telling a guy she might be interested in that Taylor isn’t 18 yet…and he should take her to the mall. Sorry, but despite Jessica trying to claim it was just a joke, it was one of the worst things to do if she really wanted to bond with her stepdaughters.

I will say that one of the things I felt this movie did well was to build up to the danger involving Chauncey. Using Alice’s voice for the bear was an interesting idea, as it sounded like she was talking to herself/doing the bear’s voice, at least until things took a more sinister turn.

The idea of the ‘scavenger hunt’ was an interesting idea, especially as it started out as a fairly innocent list before becoming much darker. In that respect, I guess it was very similar to the rest of the film: everything started out innocent enough, but then it became much darker as the movie progressed.

It wasn’t really a surprise that Jessica had a history with Chauncey, as that was obvious from the very start of the movie. And while the movie did have elements of psychological horror, along with the usual jump scares, I appreciated the fact that there was little in the way of gore and strong bloody violence, as those are far too overused in horror, to the point of becoming desensitised to it.

On the whole, I will say this movie was a fairly entertaining one. I wouldn’t say I’d get anything from watching it again, but if you like horror movies, I would say that it’s worth watching if you’re on the fence.

Lisa Frankenstein

Posted by cat2002116 on March 21, 2024
Posted in: Comedy, Horror, Movies, Reviews. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

So, when I first saw this movie advertised, I assumed that Lisa was going to turn out to be a descendent of Doctor Frankenstein. I was a little disappointed to find that wasn’t the case, as I think that could have been quite an interesting take on the movie.

I did find it a little hard to really connect with Lisa as a character. There were certain aspects to her that resonated with me, as she seemed to be a bit of a loner at school. And I liked the fact she was so taken with the fantasy of a man who’d died years before she’d ever been born. I did feel like she was made out to be too weird and quirky, which made me unable to really care about her as a character. Also, when Taffy was talking to her friends about what happened to Lisa’s mother, it seemed so over the top that I assumed she was lying about it.

Janet was definitely the epitome of evil stepmother, coming across more like a caricature than a character with any real depth. Really, that could describe most of the characters in the movie. It felt very over the top, even though there were some interesting aspects to the movie…such as the Creature’s body parts becoming usable after he’s electrocuted.

I did kind of enjoy the relationship between Lisa and Taffy, when it didn’t feel like Taffy was just being fake when she talked to Lisa. By the end of the movie, I figured that was just the way she was and that she didn’t mean any harm in the way she acted. Of course, I didn’t like her actions towards the end of the movie…not that that excused what happened.

I didn’t personally find this film very amusing. It was an easy watch that I didn’t have to pay a lot of attention to, but I can’t really say I cared about any of the characters. Lisa talked about the fact she used to suffer from selective mutism…but this was never actually shown in the movie.

I feel like this movie did have a lot of potential. In the trailer, it looked like it might be more of a love story between Lisa and the Creature. However, I felt the movie didn’t really live up to my expectations.

The film was easy to watch, but I can’t really say that it’s a movie I’d go out of my way to watch again. A little bit disappointing, to be honest.

Record of Ragnarok: Volume One

Posted by cat2002116 on March 20, 2024
Posted in: Books, Fantasy, Fighting, Manga, Reviews. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

So, as indicated in the last review I posted, I really like books based on mythology and gods…so when I saw this one on my birthday, I was immediately interested in reading it.

I really like the whole concept of humanity having to fight in battles for its survival. Of course, the idea itself isn’t really all that unique – Mortal Kombat, anyone? But this book gave me a bit more of an insight into the gods who wanted to destroy humanity, so there’s that.

I was a bit surprised that none of the gods spoke up in defence of humanity. I know the vote was meant to be a unanimous one, but it was a surprise that none of the gods cared about humanity.

I really liked being able to see Brunhilde. She was an interesting character, and I would have liked a bit more detail about her time living among humans. I assume that none of the other Valkyries lived as humans, so I would have liked a bit more detail about why they all wanted to save humans, not just Brunhilde.

I thought it was really good to see the different gods, although a lot of them were more of a ‘blink and you miss them’ appearance. I did like the brief interaction between Zeus and Hermes…but I have to say that while Zeus appeared very similar to how I would picture him, Hermes didn’t really meet the mental image I had of him. And really, neither did Thor. Gorgeous artwork, but the gods from other pantheons were clearly coloured by the way characters are drawn in Japanese manga.

I didn’t know anything about Lu Bu’s character, but I really liked the fact that he and Thor were able to respect each other as warriors. And it was interesting to see how Lu Bu’s legend was different from the reality.

I did feel like there was a lot of tension in the battle between Lu Bu and Thor. It was really good that there was a way found to allow the weapon of a human to stand against that of a god. However, given that it seems it takes a sacrifice to make that weapon, it’s kind of sad that, presumably, each battle will require that same sacrifice to make a weapon.

This book ends on something like a cliffhanger, along with the list of gods and humans who will be fighting each other. I’m definitely interested in reading further books in this series in the future!

Godly Heathens

Posted by cat2002116 on March 17, 2024
Posted in: Books, Fantasy, LGBTQ+, Reviews, Young Adult. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

This was the first book I read of the five I bought for my birthday, and it was one of the two I have now finished.

The blurb of this book was immediately interesting, since it involved gods and reincarnation, two things that I always find very interesting. Plus, I was really happy to see that the main character was nonbinary, as it’s the first book I’ve seen with that representation (that’s quite important to me, as one of my family members is nonbinary).

So, I do have to say that I found this book really quick and easy to read. I finished it in two days. I would have managed to finish it in one day, my birthday, but since I had a really long day and was planning on a long day the next, I knew I didn’t have the mental bandwidth to finish it in one day.

I really liked Gem’s character in this book. I found them to be really relatable and easy to engage with. Plus, as the initial scene had them dreaming one of their memories, I was immediately intrigued by what was going on between them and their demon. And the scene with the other god captured and imprisoned was depicted really well. I didn’t really understand Gem’s motivations at that point, to be honest. There was a lot about how important the balance, or the scales, were, but as I learned more about what Gem had done in their first life, I found myself wondering where the balance came in.

One thing I really liked was the impression I got that none of the characters were truly bad…or truly good, for that matter. Even with Gem being the narrator of the book, it was really clear that even the ‘villains’ had a lot of depth to them. I found myself really liking Poppy, even after viewing her through Gem’s eyes. And there was a flashback scene that made it really easy to understand Marian and her motivations.

I will say that there were some really good moments of foreshadowing in this book, especially when it came to Zeke. I would have liked a bit more of that with certain other gods who’d been reincarnated, as I felt they were only introduced right when they became relevant to the plot, instead of in a seamless way like a handful of the others were introduced.

I am disappointed that this book ended on a cliffhanger, as I really wanted to find out what would happen next. And the second book isn’t out until April, so I can’t find out what’s going to happen until then.

Anyway. I definitely found this book engaging and easy to read. If you like this kind of genre, I would definitely recommend giving this book a try.

Houdini’s Escape Room Experience: Houdini’s Last Secret

Posted by cat2002116 on March 8, 2024
Posted in: Interactive Experience, Reviews. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

Since it was my birthday on the 1st of March, I was quite eager to do something a bit different. It took a little bit of trying to get there, but I was finally able to arrange going to an escape room with my sister, two of my niblings and a friend. I’d gone to Houdini’s Escape Rooms with my sister and Ry last year, so when we had the opportunity to go to the same company this year, I immediately went for it.

I will say that I found this escape room to be much harder than the one from last year. As I recall from the booking website, there was only a 20% chance of actually escaping the room we’d booked…but one of the key factors in booking this one was that my nephew, who’s ten, could join the game as well.

The escape room we ended up going to was Houdini’s Last Secret. We did end up making sure before entering that there would be no live actors who might jump out at us, but the room really was just puzzles we had to solve…and the only other person was the game master, who spoke to us from outside the room.

My nephew, Freddie, mentioned that, ‘We’re very good at the hard stuff, but really bad at the easy stuff!’ after we’d left the escape room…and I do have to say that he had a very good point about that. I think the biggest problem the five of us faced in the escape room was that we were massively overcomplicating the puzzles. After we’d been stuck on the first one for ten minutes, the game master very kindly offered us a hint.

I really did enjoy the look and feel of the room. I won’t go into any details, but visually, the room very much looked like it belonged to Houdini. We had a lot of opportunities to explore the puzzles that were around…and even though we had to have almost constant hints (I believe we used the maximum amount allowed), we were able to ultimately escape the room…but for our group, it was pretty tough.

I will say that I didn’t find the storyline quite as cohesive as the first game I played from Houdini’s Escape Rooms. I really liked how it was set up at the beginning, but I found how it ended a little bit confusing; which was likely due to the way it had been set up more than anything else.

I will say that there was obviously a lot of effort that went into the escape room. You probably do need someone a bit smaller for part of the escape room, though, otherwise parts of it might be tricky. If you’re considering going to this, I would definitely recommend giving it a try!

Dune Part Two

Posted by cat2002116 on March 4, 2024
Posted in: Movies, Reviews, Science Fiction. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

Dune was one of the franchises I loved from a very early age. I was first introduced to it when I played the original computer game of it, that belonged to one of my mum’s boyfriends. And then I got the movie (on VHS, because I’m really that old) and watched that almost constantly. I read almost all the books in the series and watched both miniseries, as well as watching Dune Part One.

To be honest, I wasn’t all that impressed with this movie. Very similar to the first one, I felt that it dragged a lot where it shouldn’t…and rushed a whole lot that should have been slower-paced. I was really disappointed that Jessica spent the entire movie pregnant with Alia, who was a key figure in the first book.

I wasn’t exactly unhappy that Chani was portrayed as having no belief or trust in the prophecy, since it’s made clear in the original book and in this movie that the Bene Gesserit planted the seeds for the prophecy long before Paul Atreides was even born. So I did feel the way Chani’s opinions clashed worked really well. I did like her interactions with Paul…and I did feel that Timothee Chalamet did portray Paul fairly well.

I also quite enjoyed the scene where Feyd-Rautha is fighting in the arena. I thought that the scene being shot in black and white was a really neat, stylistic choice. And while Feyd-Rautha is a bad guy, it was interesting to see that he had some honour when it came to fighting; particularly when he got angry when one of the Harkonnen soldiers wounded the prisoner he was battling, despite the prisoner not actually being drugged.

I would have liked to see Irulan’s character explored a bit more in this movie. There were glimpses shown of her, but I definitely think her character could have been explored a lot more, considering she plays a fairly big part in the books, including having excerpts from her writings used at the beginning of each chapter.

There were some good parts to this movie, but I think that a lot was missed out that should have been included. And unfortunately, the movie dragged and was pretty boring in places. I was also frustrated that the ending of the movie set it up for a third movie, given that the point it reached was where the first book ended.

Visually, I do think there was a lot that was good about this movie…but as an adaptation of one of my favourite science fiction books, it was a disappointment to me. I will see the next movie, but that’s more because I enjoy the franchise as a whole. It’s not a faithful adaptation of the book…though it’s certainly not as bad as movies like Blood and Chocolate, and Secret of Moonacre.

Blueblood

Posted by cat2002116 on March 3, 2024
Posted in: Books, Mythology, Reviews. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

I’ve always been fascinated by different types of myths and legends, and the legend of Bluebeard was always one that intrigued me from a very early age. When my sister told me about this book, that was effectively a gender-switched Bluebeard, I immediately wanted to read it.

I really liked the style of writing in this book. It read very much like a fairy tale brought into the modern world; but unlike the original story of Bluebeard, I liked the fact that Marcus was not only named in the book, he was also developed more as a character – which isn’t something that Bluebeard’s wife receives much of in the original legend.

I also really liked the use of technology in this book, rather than magic. I think it worked really well with the modern setting of the book. I did, however, feel that the scene between Nia and Markus at the end kind of contradicted the setup at the beginning, where Nia was preparing to get married to Markus. At the end, she seems to know a lot more about him than she actually knew at the beginning, and gives the impression that she deliberately chose him due to his history. I felt that wasn’t really foreshadowed too well.

I will say that, on the whole, I did enjoy this retelling of the Bluebeard legend. I liked the gradual reveal of the problems in the relationship between Nia and Markus, and even though I knew how the story would end (being very familiar with the original legend), I was engaged enough in the plot to keep reading and find out what was going to happen next.

I would say that this book is worth reading if you enjoy a different, more modern take on a familiar legend. It was a quick, easy and enjoyable read that I highly recommend.