List: Horror Films that will be Removed From Netflix

Click to EnbiggenAs many of you already know, Netflix and Starz were unable to make a deal to continue their licensing agreement and, beginning next year, Starz content will not be available for streaming.  In one way, this isn't terrible news, since the quality of the Starz streaming seemed worse than average, but Starz will be taking a number of genre films with it, and that is not a good thing.  I'm a horror fanatic at heart, so I'll start with those films.  Sci-fi and Fantasy losses will be coming soon.  I've included a bit of parenthetical commentary for the films, but mostly this is just a FYI post.  (By the way, the links go to IMDB unless there is a review here or on The Blackest Eyes, in which case they go to the review).

• The Crazies (Re-make)
• Jason X (I like this one better than most F13th fans)
• The Forgotten (big-budget snoozefest)
• Red Dragon (Manhunter is better anyway)
• Blade II (del Toro + Glittery Vampire Death)
• Hellboy (del Toro + much awesome sauce)
• Tales from the Hood (fun, if uneven, anthology of urban horror)
• House of 9 ("let's spend a night in a haunted house")
• Fragile (a Fangoria Presents film)
• His name was Jason (F13th documentary, should be "is Jason")
• Zombiemania (I need to see this zombie movie documentary)
• Haunting of Molly Hartley (no idea, but it has a 3.9 on IMDB)
• Staunton Hill (not a clue, 3.7 on IMDB)
• Igor and the Lunatics (looks like cheesy goodness other than the 2.6 IMDB rating--yikes!)
• Zombie Island Massacre (not much else to do on a zombie island)
• Bloodsucking Cinema (vampire movie documentary)
• Dracula [1979]  (This is one of my guilty pleasures)
• Laid to Rest
• Popcorn (I played this to death on VHS back in the day--decent slasher)
• Brush with Death
• Frankenstein Unbound (nice cast, slightly underated)
• Maniacts (alleged horror "comedy")
• The Tomb (Fangoria Presents, adaptation of Poe's Ligeia)
• Redneck Zombies
• Monster in the Closet (so, so bad)
• Nightbeast (more evidence that Troma has no quality control department)
• Dracula Vs. Frankenstein (should be more fun than it is)
• Frightmare 
• Terror Firmer (a Ron Jeremy movie you can show your mother, but you still shouldn't)
• Blood Hook (had a great box cover/poster back in the day, I don't remember the film)
• Beware, Children at Play (least scary horror film title, ever)
• Bugged (the film Skeeter wanted to be)
• House of Skull Mountain (used to go for a fortune on VHS before the DVD release)
• Graduation Day (a young Vanna White in a slasher film)
• Body Snatchers (I really like this 90's take on the pod people story)
• I Spit on Your Corpse (now, that's rude!)
• All Soul's Day (stars Melitta from Spartacus, which is a good thing)
• Blades (a killer lawnmower, bless their little hearts)
• The Asylum [2000] (in the running for most-used horror-film title)
• Frostbiter (craptacular, manages to be the worst of the wendigo movies)
• Bloodspell (part of a Troma triple feature)
• Don't Torture a Duckling (seminal Fulci film, watch this one first)

I may have missed a few, and I certainly left out some borderline thrillers, Troma films, and other oddities that might interest horror fans.  We have a few months left to watch these movies, so get cracking.  I'm going to start with the documentaries.  There just aren't enough horror-centric docs, and very few of them are any good.  I'll check in later with the sci-fi movies.

Quite Quotable

"The real threat implied by the arrival of a visitor from , say, Andromeda, is not that he might be the point man for an invading force.  Rather, it is that he might embody a new perspective."

Jack McDevitt, Echo

PARSEC - A Review.

Victory Point Games ascribes to the “Less is More” school of thought.  By taking the Desktop Publishing route, Victory Point Games (VPG) is able to release a number of interesting games, and expose the gaming hobby to designers and games that may have otherwise flown under the radar.  VPG was originally created by Alan Emrich as a way to showcase the quality games coming from his game design students at the Art Institute of California: Orange County.  Since then, VPG has grown to encompass games by other aspiring and experienced designers as well.

VPG’s tagline “The gameplay’s the thing” showcases the company’s focus on the meat of a game over shiny packaging and components. In fact, VPG games are very minimalist in presentation, forgoing the big box presentation of most hobby games for the simplicity of a plastic bag containing the game’s components.  The contents of a VPG game may be surprising at first to someone who is used to the expensive plastic, wood, and cardboard found in most recent hobby games, but after playing a few of VPG’s games, I think that I am coming around to the idea that the fun in a game isn’t necessarily found in expensive bits.

I had the opportunity to play PARSEC, a space themed euro style game designed and illustrated by Sean Young. PARSEC builds on the tile laying mechanics found in games like Carcassonne, but ratchets up the complexity by introducing pick up and deliver, area control, and set collection mechanics to the formula.

In PARSEC, each player takes on the role of a spaceship pilot, exploring the galaxy, and competing with the other players by scattering his army of robot minions across the expanse of space. The players score points by controlling and occupying planets, and are constantly jockeying for dominance as the landscape of deep space grows and changes. In addition to scoring points, players can also allocate resources to research technology, and gain money to assist them in their quest for points, because at the end of the game, the player with the most points wins.

Click to read more ...

Word on the Street gets QR Code Video Demo

Just got word that the new printing of Out of the Box Publishing's excellent Word on the Street (link goes to my review) will include a QR code on the box that takes the potential customer to a video demo of the game being played.  I haven't seen this used for a board game before, and it seems like a great idea, especially for a company like Out of the Box.  Their games have short rule sets and reveal themselves nicely with just a glance at gameplay.  OotB says the video demo is less than a minute long, which is just perfect for this kind of thing.  Longer, meatier games might have to go with a kind of movie trailer approach to get into the arena, but I really think this would work for a lot of these games we play.

Review: Quarantine 2

Quarantine 2 has one of the odder trips to the screen in recent memory and much of that journey turns off hardcore horror fans.  The original Quarantine was a near shot-for-shot remake of the excellent Spanish zombie film REC.  Quarantine shared so much of the original film’s vision and style, and came so closely on the heels of REC, that horror fans were up in arms.  “Why does Hollywood think we are so stupid we can’t appreciate a film with subtitles?” 

Continue to The Blackest Eyes for the rest of the review [opens in new window]