Annabel: creation – a review

Six girls and a nun are invited to live in the country home of an old doll maker and his bedridden wife. One night one of the girls finds something she wasn’t supposed to find: a possessed doll named Annabel.

I said it before and I’ll say it again, somehow, horror movie sequels are turning out better than their predecessors. Like Ouija: Origin of evil, Annabel: Creation is a deliciously scary movie with a black heart of gold.

The second better sequel Lulu Wilson appears it. The girl is a lucky charm.

There is lots to like in this movie and I’ll get to them in due course. But here, right now, I wish to take a moment and lament each and every character’s selective loss of hearing!
Anybody who has a sister knows that a girl’s scream is about the loudest sound in the known universe. And the girls scream a lot in this movie. Yet nobody hears them?

This is the only truly, silly, thing that I couldn’t let slide in this movie.

Like any other spooky movie there are one or two faux pas (or leaps in logic). You’ll just have to accept them. But sometimes a movie strains your willingness  a bit too much.
That being said the rest of the review is going to be all out praise. I loved Annabel: creation.

Well, maybe one other little issue I had with this movie? SPOILER: What’s wrong with a Bible-lined stainless steel metal box filled with crosses and holy water and bury the doll on a Christian cemetery? A closet…really?

A GREAT OPENING
The movie starts lovely. Both parents (Miranda Otto and Anthony LaPaglia who play Esther and  Mullins) are as sweet as can be and in this wonderful world of bliss when…BAMB, you are reminded  that you are watching a horror film.

I like this turnaround on the famous horror trope. A lot of horror movies have a mysterious grumpy character roaming around (the haunted house). Now, normally this gloomy character explains the back-story about the ghost in the finale of the movie. Thus revealing after the fact that he was a good guy after all.

But characters are all about the way they are introduced. They can change through the story but first impressions matter. So the gloomy character in this example would remain a gloomy character with a little more heart.

So by inverting this trope in Annabel: Creation we are introduced to a loving couple. Whereby the downtrodden versions you see in the rest of the movie still maintain this first impression of sweet people. So LaPaglia grunting droopy-eyed as he fixes Sister Charlotte’s dumbwaiter becomes, by knowing his back-story, a loving character who went through a lot of pain. Not a nasty character that might have some sweetness hidden inside.

THE GIRLS
After the opening the audience is introduced to the main cast of the movie: six orphan girls, a nun and father Massey (who delivers the best joke of the entire movie).

Two girls (Tayler Buck and Lou Lou Saffran) don’t really get to do a lot. A shame really because I think this movie has enough hauntings to go around. But I do mention them because, even though they are glorified extras, their mere presence makes the ordeal these orphans as a whole face a bit grander.

But, I must admit, I’m on two minds on this one. The movie would have been equally effective if these characters were written out.

The other four girls easily line up in pairs. There are the two older girls Carol and Nancy (Grace Fulton and Philippa Coulthard) who each get a nice little scare scene or two. But they are mainly there to feed the power of the villain to a grander level and to isolate the two main actresses: Talitha Eliana Bateman and Lulu Wilson who play Janice and Linda.

If a villain attacks only one person that’s scary enough. But if a villain can attack at two different locations at the same time we are dealing with uncomfortable grand powers.

Again the movie takes a step back to show the sweetness of the characters before introducing the horror elements. Wilson and Bateman shine in these short scenes together that are specifically there to showcase the sisterly love between the two characters. Their friendship is absolute and they are  willing to do anything for each other. It’s believable which makes this the backbone for the rest of the movie.

When the haunting start is when Wilson and Bateman get to have some fun. Shifting between scared out of their wits, panicking and even malevolent-ness these young actresses get to use a whole pallet of (extreme) emotions which they deliver beautifully.

I like to joke that scream queens are getting younger.

After Chloe Moretz’s start of her career in horror movies (Wicked little things, The Amityville horror and Let me in) now it’s Lulu Wilson’s turn to become the queen of the genre.

But then again, as I’m writing this, I just learned that Jamie Lee Curtis is returning to the Halloween franchise. There’s only one true queen!

THE SCARES – CHECHOV HAVING FUN.
Having believable characters with a good heart is only part of a good horror movie. You’ll also need scares. Now, horror movies are known to be (usually) filled to the brim with Chechov’s guns.

I explained this before but I’ll do it again. It goes like this: If a person showcases a gun mounted to the wall in the first act then in the third act that same gun has to go off.

So if a person mentions he’s afraid of the dark…surprise surprise what happens later on.

I remember the music box from the Conjuring 1, the fire truck from the Conjuring 2 and, more recently, the bolt-pistol from IT (quite literally a Chechov’s gun).

There are several in Annabel: Creation: A stair lift, a (very cool –I want one) ball-on-string gun, a scarecrow, a well  and several others that I won’t spoil. And that’s the fun of the horror movie genre. These call backs of things you see earlier in the movie brings a certain satisfaction for the viewer. But they also create tension. You know that something is going to happen with that creaky old stair lift but you just don’t know when or what.

I would even argue that Annabel: Creation does for the stair lift what the shower did for Psycho and the bathtub for What lies beneath. But, then again, I never trusted those contraptions since I saw Gremlins.

But apart from this solid usage of Chechov, Annabel: Creation doesn’t shy away to use some tried and tested favourites. Of course there are the occasional jump-scares. And, of course, a door you closed two times already will open a third time. This is horror-staple and they still work.
In this sense I’m saying that Annabel: Creation is still, in basis, a movie that wants to scare its audience. But it elevates itself over other ghost-movies by including tension and a lot of original intriguing scares next to the ‘old favourites’.

DIRECTING
It is obvious that this movie belongs in the James Wan universe of the Conjuring and Insidious (just look at the demon). The fabulous long-take tracking shot as the girls walk into their new home is a direct copy of the introductionairy scenes from the two Conjuring movies. The way shadow and light are used is more than similar as Wan does in all his ghostly outings.

That similarity does take a bit of the credit away from the director David F. Sandberg. But then again, this is the same director that brought us jump-scare the movie (link) Lights out. Maybe a little bit of work in the style of another director is just what the man needed. He’s talented –no doubt. But I don’t want to sit through another Lights out being frustrated that the movie opts for cheap tricks instead of tension building. And, as I said above, the jump-scares in Annabel: Creation are far more forgivable when there are enough original tension-building scares to counter them.

He does achieve some great shots though. The little joke of inverting a cross. The strange angled shot that starts off hovering over a church. And then, my favourite, a direct reference to the Phantom of the opera.

He definitely had fun making it. But I wouldn’t truly call this movie his own. There’s too much of the established universe peaking over his shoulder.

STORY
To end with story for a change (usually I begin with story); I already let two cats (well kittens) out of the bag at the beginning of this review. Nevertheless the rest of the story is rather logically placed –like a kids’ tea table- around the aforementioned tentpoles of creepy objects/Chechov guns.

Janice wants to leave, Linda wants to help her friend. Nobody tells poor Samuel anything before it is too late. Not because the script demands it but rather because they don’t think anything supernatural is going on.

More so, a small scene between the Mullens actually addresses their worries about the possibility of an evil entity behind some of the events so far. But they quickly dismiss it. This, I think, is a smart move in regards to the story. More often than not horror movies opt to drop these little scenes which in turn causes characters to look oblivious.

Annabel: Creation uses the story like a creaky stair (lift) each logical step brings you higher until you can’t see the bottom anymore.

Annabel creation is already the better movie because of the simple fact that I can hardly remember its predecessor.  Without spoiling too much Annabel: Creation ends with a scene connecting the two movies and it actually took me a second to remember what this whole scene was about.

Overall: Annabel: Creation is locked together far stronger than that ramshackle closet the Mullen keep their creepy doll in. It gives you true, sweet, characters, some scares and a nice bow on top that ties it to the first Annabel movie. That’s all you want in a scary movie. But sometimes a movie just elevates itself above the rest.

Strike - a review

 I think, by now, the cat is so far out of the bag that it can hardly be called a spoiler anymore. Joanne K. Rowling is also Robert Galbraith.

Which is something I always rather liked. I noticed when her first post-Harry Potter book (The casual vacancy) came out that reviewers couldn’t stop linking this new book to the boy-wizard series. And, to be honest, that would be a hard thing to top indeed.

However, when it was revealed that she was also a he naturally this caused quite a happy possibility for the promotional department. Again to be honest, would the Strike books have sold as well if it wasn’t this famous author behind it.

I too only read the first book (Cuckoo’s calling) after the reveal.

Now I don’t believe that Rowling wilfully let the truth behind the pseudonym slip just to sell more books. She’s got more than enough money. I assume that by now she’s living the life we all want: to do a job you love without the financial pressure of mortgages and whatnot.
Creating this pseudonym, to me, really was what it was: to create a new series of books to stand on their own merit regardless of the author.

Rowling loves making series.

I don’t really like the books.
Having said that I don’t always enjoy the Strike novels. Writing the reasons down in this very article caused me to create an entirely separate article which you can find here . The bottom-line is this: A detective novel automatically comes with suspects that need to be questions. And I don’t really like the style that the Strike-novels use. 

That and the moaning about the leg and the poisonous ex-girlfriend.

But (after reading the first two books) something wonderful happened in the TV-adaptation. Whereas in a book each chapter visiting and questioning another suspect becomes dull rather quickly, in a TV-show it is nothing more than one scene after the other. 

You don’t need to start the chapter with the hero waking up and getting a bus to the next suspect. You can immediately cut to it.
 

This because TV (and movies) is such a timed medium that each and every bit of filling has to be left out the door. You’ve only got two/three hours to tell the story.

The same goes for  the ex-girlfriend or the leg trouble. Yes they are important to the character. But for time reasons they can quickly be inserted in fast flashbacks or the occasional grunt or two.
And then there’s another thing I like about the TV-show from the get go: the series fixes a lot of the mistakes the books make.

For instance, in Silkworm there’s a whole car crash-sequences that has no real goal except that it layered the Robin character a bit. Now, inventing a car crash to make a character more interesting is –to me- like making the sky split open and making God appear. There must be a simpler way of doing this.

The TV-show heard my prayers and instead of a car crash it opts from some off-road problem solving. Far more believable and the character development stays intact.
So I guess I can say that, to me, the TV show is far better than the books it is based on. 

With the small exception that intense sequences like fighting or danger are of course less immersive if you see it happen to other people instead of reading the thoughts and prayers.

The TV show
One of the biggest plusses of the TV-show is the way it depicts the words on the screen. For me this involved some corrections of my ‘reading mind’s-eye’. For instance Strike’s office, to me, always looked like a grubby Trainspotting-toilet kind of place. Which is silly of course since, well, who would be willing to hire a detective living in shambles.

The same goes for Strike and Robin. The Strike that I read in the books kept on appearing like an elderly man (Brian Cox maybe). So this love between Strike and Robin (maybe sexual, maybe brother and sister) felt off to me. But now on screen I can believe the tension (and the envy of Robin’s fiancé).
 
I think Tom Burke is well cast as Cormoran Strike. He is as big and impressive as the character demands but also has a quirky sense of humour and an intelligence to top it all off. When he’s thinking you know he’s already three steps ahead in his mind. And in plain conversation his dark eyes hardly ever show the wheels spinning behind them.
 
The same goes for Holliday Grainger as Robin (who has a delicious telephone scene in Cuckoo). The problem with her character, though, is the same as in the books – she hasn’t had her moment to shine yet with a case of her own. This’ll probably happen soon enough. The books are building up to it anyway.

I haven’t read the third book yet.

Then, as I said before the show strips the novels down to the basics. Whole paragraphs are reduced to an equally impressive ‘look’ or ‘cough’. That’s the strength of images. If you do it right you (literally) don’t have to spell it out for the audience.

This gives the show it’s speed. And when a detective show is on a roll those silence moments in time when Strike is thinking things through are the moments the audience is invited to do the same.
 
Visually
Visually Strike manages to appeal to the viewer by showing the uptown and downtown world of London. Silkworm, for instance, has a fabulous architectonical house that, just by looking at the outside, fits in the story marvellously. The inside then is a set decorator’s dream of an odd painting here and there and the tone of light just right.
This very same episode also includes a nice reflection-shot that showcases the skill behind the camera.

So in short: Strike is a great work of television that improves on the books.
Now; I’ve read the first book (got the killer wrong), the second book (pinpointed the killer), but haven’t got ‘round to reading the third one. So I’ll see it next year's time. Time to go sleuthing.

‘Fixing Strike’ a short story or two on writing.

As I was rambling away on my Strike review (above) I noticed that my mind wandered off to what I consider good writing. And what I personally came across when I tried my hand at the craft. So here it is:

I like to write short stories from time to time. I’m not proclaiming that I’m very good at it. But as a hobby, like this blog, it’s fun. However, two things I noticed from time to time I want to share with you:

This isn’t me being an high and mighty ‘author’ or anything. This is just silly old me with a hobby telling a story or two about the things I noticed.

Knowing yourself.
If you like to write and get somewhat good at it you have to do it a lot. Like Stephen King wrote in his marvellous on writing: that doesn’t automatically mean that you are going to win the next nobel prize for literature. But a bad writer can become an average writer and an average writer a good writer –with practice.

But the craft of putting words in order is nothing with a creative idea at its basis!
I’ve read numerous books written by talented but utterly uninspired authors. Whereas, at the same time, I’ve read great stories written in the worst lingo imaginable.

Now, like the tricks you learn by putting words in order; I honestly believe that you can also spark your creativity by doing it a lot.
Step out of your comfort zone every once in a while and write down a terrible person and let him/her get away with the terrible things.
Imagine what an event would do to a person. Don’t just write: pregnant! But have fun with it. Use her pregnancy later on in the story. Create scenarios (her missing the bus because she can’t run, she afraid to fight the villain because of her child…you name it).

Stepping out of your comfort zone is a great way to spark your creativity. That is why, a few years back I wanted to write a story about a serial rapist...

I’ll tell you how I came up with it. I’ve always been a fan of the TV-show Columbo. And one of the defining characteristics of this show is that it shows the ‘how’ the murder was committed right up front. So the show wasn’t about ‘whodunit’ but about how the lieutenant was going to catch the crook.

Framing a story like that gives a lot of screen time to the criminal. No longer is it Hercule Poirot pinpointing the villain in the last five pages. No the whole set-up of the crime and the motivation is crucial to the story.

This is what I wanted to do. I wanted to have a criminal commit his crime and get caught (or get away with it, I hadn’t planned that far ahead yet).
Now, at that time there was a serial rapist on the loose in my hometown. Young women were advised never to travel alone.

And it took quite a long time before this criminal got caught.

And that fascinated me. It inspired me. I wanted to write this story about the vilest sort of criminal I could come up with and now real life was handing me inspiration on a platter.

So I started writing. From the perspective of the villain I wrote a lengthy page in which he prepared himself for his nightly ‘hunt’ –as he called it.

And then I had to stop. This because I noticed quite the flaw in my own person: I simply couldn’t imagine why a person would do such a thing!

I think I speak for the majority of men folk when I say that a woman screaming ‘no don’t’ isn’t the best motivation (maybe I’m naïve, but I'm happy to be). So this whole concept of a guy actually enjoying the resistance is strange to me. I simply cannot imagine what the fun part is for someone  about non-consensual force in intercourse.
So there I had a problem. I had a whole police investigation planned out. The crook staying one step ahead all the time. But I simply couldn’t write the crook or the actual crime because I couldn’t see why he did it. Try as I might.
So I learned a lot about myself during this writing exercise. I  have to stick with villains whose motivation and drives I might actually understand. A good old-fashioned murder or something.
Creativity is fun. Stepping out of you comfort zone is fun. But it isn’t a key to an unlimited magazine of pick-ready notions.

The structure
Quick: name two Agatha Christie novels! Chances are that you named Murder on the Orient Express and And then there were none (I’ll forgo on the original two racist titles).
What is the similarity between those two novels. They are both, when you get down to it, locked room thrillers. Ten or more people in an isolated location. One of them is the killer.

One of the reasons why these two novels are the best known of her repertoire is because this ‘trick’ of an isolated location takes away the common trope of the detective novel.
In any standard detective novel the detective gets a case and starts investigating. In chapter three he questions suspect A. In chapter four suspect B. And so on. In chapter twelve he then points out the culprit.

It’s this structure that made me stop reading the Cormoran Strike novels by Robert Galbraith.
Christie in her two most famous novels takes away the travel time between suspect A and B. They are all in a room together. You can mix things up and question two suspects in one chapter. You can have fun without having to write lengthy parts of the story about how the detective got up in the morning and caught the tube to Whitechapel.

I’m currently writing a story about a serial murderer (murder is something I can comprehend. Rape still a no-no.) and I found myself caught with the detective hopping from place to place investigating suspects.

So I took a leaf out of Christie’s greatest hits and set it all in a small village. Easy. Problem solved.  Now I don’t have to take the tube, bus, airplane or helicopter for all that matter. My detective can interview suspects on the fly.

That’s two things I want to share here: Be creative but keep it manageable for yourself. And, second, when you write stay wary of the structural deadfalls.

I liked writing this. I don’t, really, know why. I guess I’m a sucker for handing out free advice through the anonymity of the Internet (that way it doesn’t feel forced). Maybe I’ll continue this in later chapters with other things I noticed.

The Stranger Things (season 2) posters

What a sense of humour the Stranger Things-poster designers are having.
We already know that the creators of Stranger Things have another few seasons planned.

Now that Game of Thrones is running at an end and I've given up on House of Cards (It should have ended with a three/four season run - now it's just dragging) I'm 'shopping' for something fresh. Stranger Things could be the key.

At least -as I stated in a previous (short) article- I have faith in the Duffer brothers' long term plans for the show.

Anyway here we have season two coming at us and the show doesn't want us to forget the amount of tribute that is encompassed in this show. Each and every little poster they 'upped' ever since July has been a 'parody'/tribute to a classical children's/adventure/horror-eighties movie poster.
And I love the show for it even more. These are brilliant designs that tell one single truth: old movies are just as great today as they were then!

Lucius 1 & 2 – a (somewhat) game review.

Lucius is one of the many sons of Satan. In his first adventure he discovers his powers and uses it to kill his family and servants. In his second tale he murders anybody indiscriminately. The boy is pure evil and you, as the player, has to be evil with him.

Let’s start with a title explanation: ‘Lucius 1 and  2 – a (somewhat) game review.’
Both the Lucius games are so riddled with errors and mistakes that you can hardly call it a game. Character’s that won’t die, items that float in the air or sudden disappearances from your inventory. Half of both the games is trying to find a way around the silly errors the games throw at you.

But, having said that, the game that remains is simply far too (wickedly) delicious not to like!

The best way I can describe it is by comparing it to Peter Molyneux´s original idea for the Fable-franchise of games.

His idea was (as usual for him) far grander than could be achieved at the time. He wanted to create a game in which the choice of a good or bad path were much more difficult to achieve from the onset. A game wherein every death counts and that the children of the dead could come to hunt you.
What Fable ended up to be was a game in which the choice between bad and good were rather black and white. ‘Do you wish to help kidnappers or protect the family?’ The only moment in the game I (the player) was truly bad was when I sacrificed two murderous criminals to get a rather cool crossbow.

Don’t judges get a salary when they condemn a man?

Lucius, however, is different. In these games you are bad to the bone for the get go. It’s the ground the temple is build upon –if you will. So you play a bad guy (boy).
And in this sense it is far more honest than any other game wherein the hero mows down hundreds of adversaries and still remains good.

Like The Saboteur in which you can drive over numerous civilians and still remain the hero. 

I prefer Second World War-games because of Nazi’s. Nazi’s were (and are) the scum of the earth so my conscious is far more comfortable with killing those (regardless of the children they leave behind or their backstory) than in any contemporary game in which my mind starts boggling about political agendas or cold-war outside influences.

In Lucius you play the anti-Christ; evil incarnate. And playing a game with such a mindset makes you care less about the personal life of each of the characters you kill.

Yet the games do like to play around with it. Each person you kill has somewhat of a back-story (written down in a short synopsis when your mouse hovers over the character).

This game forces you to accept the ‘dark side’ and just go with it. This makes ‘killing granny’ far more easier.

It does happen, though, throughout the games that you sometimes come across characters you do not wish to kill.
Babies for instances are still a ‘no-no’ (even the game programmers didn’t dare to touch upon this subject). And, halfway through the second game, I stumbled upon a gay couple having sex in a bathroom. I was so happy that the game-makers dared to include same-sex love I almost (almost) didn’t have the heart to kill them.

What makes Lucius such a nice game to play is mainly because of the brutality of it all. You (the player) constantly find yourself plotting an planning your next murder without getting caught. But you are also trying to solve riddles.
Here we have a guy walking to a phones every 30 seconds. Accept the darkness and go with it: “Now, what can I do with an electrical wire and a phone?”
It is a murder spree that let’s you get away with it without having to bother about consciousness or whether or not ‘I’ should do this.

The story around it is fun (especially if you like horror-movies) but unimportant. Each level brings you new ways to kill a person. In the end acid and poison are the ones you use when you don’t figure out the best way to kill a person.
So let’s tackle the two games one by one.

LUCIUS 1.
What did I like about Lucius one?

For starters the person who planned the mansion needs a reward. I don’t think I’ve ever played a game in which each and every room was so perfectly placed.

I remember Resident Evil in which rooms popped up that were totally illogically placed in comparison to other rooms.

Did the original Resident Evil game have a kitchen?

Second the way ‘you kill’ is one way and one way only. This isn’t King’s Quest II in which you either kill the snake or throw a bridle on it. The point of the game is figuring out how to kill a certain person and getting away with it/remaining a good boy in the eyes of your parents.
So Lucius 1 is a bit of a morbid puzzle. I’ve got an absentminded teacher and a gun…what to do with them both?

Now you might hate killing your teacher (I did). But in the grand scheme of things it is the puzzle of actually killing him that takes the cake. Whether or not you like the person is a duality this game enjoys to toy around with. But in the end you are still evil and you have to make evil choices.

Heavily influenced by the movie The Omen (obviously) Lucius 1 does try to incorporate a dramatic story. And, even though, it is well (voice) acted and all the main draw of the game is still the kill.
So, interestingly enough –on a person psychological level, I skipped through most of the story because I didn’t want to get too close to the victims.

I have no qualms pretending to be a sociopath in a game. But when a character strikes me as sympathetic I will most certainly dislike killing that person (I’m a normal human being after all).
But this is, without a doubt the highlight of Lucius 1. It’s a puzzle game with a fatal win. But at the same time it plays with your player/human emotions by ‘telling you who the person you are killing is’.

In this sense it is far removed from the Mortal Kombat games.

Sub-zero might be a nice guy but in the end it’s still you against him in the pit. And he is trying to kill you.

You have to ‘push the button’ to proceed. Knowing full well that the person you are killing is kind and just.

If you don’t like it…then why did you start the game in the first place?

LUCIUS 2.
Lucius 2, then is an entirely different game all together. Yes, some of the puzzles are still there. But overall it’s an open-world game in which you get to kill people whichever way you see fit.
You can kill a person with a complicated plot of an electrified phone and a call from a distance. Or you can just pour acid over the poor bloke.

Lucius 2 simplifies the murder spree but at the same time insinuates it.

You can either look for the clues and kill accordingly or you can go all out with every bit of ammo you have and kill with that.

Sometimes just turning off the life support of a patient is enough.

Whereas in the first part it were the puzzles that caused the murders that worked as the incentive. In the second part this puzzle element/motivation is removed somewhat.
Lucius 2, in this sense, makes YOU the murderer. A murderer who, by the way, is constantly checking his supplies of explosives and burnable substances.

Let me highlight some of the more elaborate killings:

• Calling a creepy guy on a payphone and then breaking the ceiling above him.
• Breaking a man´s radio and then letting him be crushed by some barrels.
• Poisoning a heart transplant.
• Locking somebody in a safe without oxygen.
• Setting off a woman´s car´s car alarm and then electrifying her.
• Calling a man and flinging a circular saw-blade at him.
• Pushing a man in a wood-chipper.
• Letting a smoker, smoke near a gas-leak.
• Poisoning a man’s facial cream with biological waste.
• And, of course, an instant classic, steam powered firing an adult toy at somebody.

No, subtlety isn´t Lucius´s game.

You can finish most levels without (hardly) murdering a soul. I would argue that only (about) 30 murders are needed to get certain keys (only because the game doesn’t allow pick pocketing).

An achievement the game makers should have incorporated: An angel boy escaping and killing a demon.

Yet you find yourself constantly worrying: ‘how to kill this soul’ or ‘how to kill that’. Only after the fact realizing that there was a way to kill that person that didn’t rely on you using your inventory.
In Lucius 2 the whole backstory of characters has been downsized to a small biography whenever your mouse hovers over a character. This time around there is no ‘playfulness’ between murder and ‘knowing the character’.

Though, as I mentioned above, it does occur.

Rather Lucius 2 is about killing the world in the most ingenious ways possible. People, therefore, become chess pieces: easily sacrificial. And the fun of it all is figuring out the most ingenious way to discard those people.

Lucius is a dark tale. And I’m happy to note that I just as easily play the Ducktales-remake as well.

Crushing a villain with a pogo-stick in delicious Technicolor…One can find darkness anywhere.

Summary
So why should you play this game?

The basis of this article is about the struggle between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ in computer-games. In any Call of duty-game you are the hero killing hundreds for the right cause. I never liked that concept.
I prefer a more ‘real’ approach. And I found this ‘approach’ in Lucius.
In this fiction you are bad and everybody you meet is supposed to die by your hands. This is a honesty I like.

I argue that Lucius is more of a complete game because (in this narrative) this little sociopath doesn’t feel at all. In Lucius 1 there was still a game going on between me (the killer) and the victim and how much I might have liked him/her. But when part two rolled along the only feeling the player (me) feels is that whenever I kill a person I then realizes that there was a simpler way to kill.
As Lucius became darker from game 1 to 2, so did I.
A lovely game but play some Ducktales afterwards.

Game of thrones season –what season are we at again?- seven – a review.

Well I can’t get enough of stuffing feathers up in Game of Thrones’s cap. They deserve it. It truly is the one great shows on television nowadays. And that is quite the feat when you consider what other diamonds are on.

But nobody is without faults. So, for this review, I decided to begin by having a little look back to seasons previous and just quickly (In one very easily skippable paragraph) sum up the things I disliked ‘til now. The show is in the final stretch anyway.

The sour before the sweet as it were.

I'm starting to enjoy googling the exact names of the characters of the show for these reviews. Tyrion will alway -to me- be good Lannister simply because I keep on forgetting how to spell his name.

What I disliked in seasons previous:

The violence
That’s one I mentioned earlier. In season two Stannis scalped a man with one quick swift from his sword. And after that things became more and more brutal in Westeros. With, of course, the gruesome Viper versus Mountain fight as the pinnacle of grossness (with extra points because we liked the character).

Now, I don’t mind a little bit of blood every now and then (I’m still watching the Walking Dead for some reason – probably because of Carol or Tara). But I do always fear that ‘showing violence creates a want for even better violence’.
The prime example is of course Quentin Tarrantino whose movies become more and more explicit as time goes on.

I, for a short time, feared that Game of thrones would go the same route. But for now the show has been a sweetheart in the latest seasons so what am I complaining?

The sand-snakes
It is rather annoying when a storyline doesn’t work. The sand-snakes are the prime example. You can actually pinpoint it down to one singular scene: the fight scene between the sand-snakes and Bron/Jamie. Because that scene didn’t work the rest of their storyline went down like a house of cards.

Now there are three ways of dealing with such a problem: ignore, redo or scrap. The showrunners chose for the latter. Which meant a quick ‘bye-bye’ for some of my preferred actors. Only getting back to some of the characters in minimal fashion and eventually killing them all: leaving the best snake (due to her awesome conversation with Bronn seasons previous) alive for only one additional episode.

Master Qyburn
He got dropped into the Game of Thrones universe rather slyly (like he is). But, when you start to think about it he is tremendously one-dimensional. He’s like the Igor from old Frankenstein movies.
I think this has to do (for me) with the way old grand master Pycelle was disposed off (killed by kids). In a deleted scene from season four (I believe) he is shown showing his true face to Tywin Lannister. In it he was a fit man who managed to play his apparent weakness as a strength. This scene was deleted, so not part of the cannon. I hated that. I wanted Pycelle on the same playing-level of Littlefinger or Varys.

Alas, I wasn’t allowed that ‘happy’ moment in the end of things. But I still have that deleted scene- and I can pretend it was included in the show.


Anyway, this disregard for Pycelle made me under appreciate Qyburn.

Accidental coincidences
I loathe accidental coincidences in movies or television shows. World War Z is littered with those.
In Game of thrones they often get away with it. Brienne was looking for Ayra and actually found her (in the whole of Westoros –while Ayra and the Hound were hiding), which lead to the Brienne versus Hound battle. I could live with that. There was enough story to make me believe that the two groups might actually meet.

But Jorah stumbling over Tyrian in a tavern. With the Spider nowhere to be found as well. Again this is season six, something really weird was going on back then.

Poor Sansa
And then there’s Sansa. She went through hell and back only for, when you think it’s all over, to be handed over to Ramsay Bolton. This felt like a cheat to me. It destroyed –to me- the progress she had made over the years. Which I thought was proven when she lied at the Eyrie and made her black dress.

Now, the end result is the same. She’s still the one in power in Winterfell. But to me the showrunners should have ‘either’ kept out this empowerment moment of her dress. Or they should have scrapped the whole Bolton marriage. Give it to another character to undergo it (as –I believe- in the books).
‘Feelings of being cheated’ are always subjective (actual cheating I might be cool about). So maybe this was the card the showrunners were playing. Like Robb’s death, my trust in a happy future for Sansa crushed.

The actual review
But that’s enough of me huffing and puffing like one of Daenerys’s bastard dragons (the fourth dragon: I call him Donnie). There’s lots to like this season. The main reason being: all the storylines are getting wrapped up in lightning-speed fashion with some cool battles to boot.
And to wrap up those storylines, characters who haven’t seen each other for ages finally get to have a conversation again. Like the Stark children.

The Starks.
Well that’s fun to have them all back again. Sansa has grown out of her ‘I’m better than you’ notion and actually asks Arya to be honest to her. Ayra, on her behalf, is pretty (bloodthirsty) messed up in the head. And then there’s Bran who…well I sincerely hope he didn’t die in that cave as Meera stated. But am I rooting for Arya to slap some emotions into the boy. Too bad that dear Meera had to suffer through his coldness on her way out.

He was more into her brother anyway.

I do hope I get to see her again though. I don’t like her going away without any kind of reward. Not marriage or a love story or anything. But at least give her a purpose for after the war. If she survives it at least.

The deaths.
What would Game of Thrones be without a requiem of deaths. The Sand-snakes were quickly dispatched off. The queen of thorns took famous last words to a whole new level by verbally ‘b*tchslapping’ Jamie.

And, knowing full well that Jamie and Cersei are up for their retribution each scene the gold-handed knight is in is gut-wrenchingly tense. He might go any moment. There’s no more need to have the character around.

But the biggest death is of course that of dear old Littlefinger. Why oh why didn´t he think off the possibility that Sansa might mistrust him? Why oh why didn´t he leave Winterfell the minute Bran started quoting him his own words? And why of why wasn´t Varys involved in his death?

Anyway it is what it is. The slyest player of the game of thrones has been found lacking. I could write a whole article about Littlefinger’s mindset when he pleaded to Sansa (did he actually believe she would warm up to him?) and I’m certain the books will have another fate in store for him. But, alas, that’s the way he went out in the show and, to be honest, quite fitting.

Speedy Gonzales.
We are moving at lightning speed. Ravens fly left and right, Deux ex Bronns or Dragons appear out of nowhere. It’s not polished, perhaps, but at least Game of thrones knows when it’s time to go.

Something I wish Dexter learned at the end of season 4.

With only a handful of episodes left GOT is combining characters, killing off some and whatnot. This does make the overall story simpler. Now it truly is down to baddies versus goodies. But also a bit less compelling.

I think all I want is a shot of the camera following one of the ravens from one far out place to the other. Just so the audience knows the distances and speed these birds can travel.

Game of Thrones now relies on the character development from seasons previous to adorn the woodwork as it were. No more Littlefinger having a lengthy monologue over a lesbian tryout.
It’s like an old diesel engine getting started. It might start slowly but by now it’s firing all cylinders and raging across the road.

Filler and Fan-service
This speed does, however, cause some of the fans of the show to accuse the series of ´filler´ and ´fan-service´.
These are two terms that usually don’t have anything to do with each other but, in the context of Game of Thrones, do.

This season was a bit more all out when it came to special effects. I’ll give you that. But at the same time it was pretty mild on overall set dressing.
There were no lavish decors. There were no crowd scene. And there certainly wasn’t (thank god) another shame sequence that required both.

I never liked the ‘shame scene’. This because I can’t see a reason why the woman had to be naked. So when the actress (Lena Headey) refused to be naked again the producers spent numerous dollars on a body-double and some CGI-techniques to make the head fit the body. Money thrown away in my opinion.

Crafting ´deadites´ isn’t cheap. Dragons are even more expensive. So by throwing the audience a bone or two the creators of Game of Thrones misdirected the audience to focus on the cheaper bits. They are saving money for the next season as it were.

I certainly remember poor Tyrion getting hit unconscious in one of the earlier episodes before he went to fight a war. A simple trick that allowed the producers to save some money by not showing the carnage.

This whole season, to me, felt like a building up to the final –expensive- fight. Friends get together. Foes make their amends. All the various storylines are getting connected.
But this also creates: fan-service. Or, (putting it bluntly) what does the general public want to see?

So Arya being all cool with her sword. Sansa being (even) cooler when she condemns Littlefinger. Jon and Dany having (incestuous – mind you) sex.

Near the end of a tale all the little hints an author dropped are remembered and reimbursed. When you read a book about a quarrelling couple you can bet your bottom dollar that –in the end- they end up together.
Fan-service, in this sense, is the logical conclusion for logical thinking minds. The reader/watcher expects it to happen and then it happens. The fact that you can save a buck or two by doing so is a bonus.

Speculation
Which brings us to the fun part of this review: speculation. What is going to happen in the final season? My guess is as good as any.

And I’m always wrong. Neither the lackbuster Lost-finale or the great fun (but slightly unbelievable) Breaking Bad-finale did I see coming completely.

Well, Cersei is going to remain the big player next season of course. Not only has (probably) she sent ravens to the citadel to see if there is any way to control the white walkers.

Her Maester creepy-hand must have, by now, informed her of the benefits of an dead army and its knack for contracting new personnel.

But second I wouldn’t put it past Cersei to be contended to be the ruler of six kingdoms instead of seven. If I recall correctly The twins are a natural border between the north and south. So why doesn’t she uses her Bravos’s sells words to lock the northern army in and build a new wall?

Bran. I do hope he grows out of his rather autistic persona –but I don’t think he will. I agree with Meera that he really died in that cave (having said that I do want Meera to have a proper farewell/reward).

Now, people have speculated for years that Bran is at one time going to warg into a dragon. But now that we have an Ice-dragon on the table why not that one?

It’s something Bran (in my fantasy) isn’t going to survive (but it would destroy said dragon). Or, if he is, he’s going to end up as the original three eyed raven stuck in a tree in the north.

The other theory, though, is that Bran is the Night King. Even though that’s is rather unlikely since we saw the Night King’s birth a season ago. But it does give food for thought.
You see, the theory is this: how did the Night King know that he was going to get a dragon to break down the wall?
All this tracking through the snow is fun and all but if you can’t break the wall you are still in a pickle.

In a behind the scenes interview last years the show creators said that the author disclosed three things to them that blew their mind. The first one was the truth behind ‘Hodor’ –what are the other two going to be I wonder. This could be one of them.

So if Bran is all seeing and he has a link between him and the Night King (happened in the Door-episode). Wouldn’t it be interesting to believe that this link is a bit stronger than might have been suspected.

That this link told the Night King that a dragon would be coming? That the reason John Snow and (most of his) comrades are still alive is because Bran allowed it.

E.g. he needs Cersei and Dany to be present at the final battle so the dead can destroy them and rule the world.

That Bran is now working for the dark-side?
This would be interesting because now the Starks have a danger amongst their midst. Somebody who is plotting against them. This would be a fun move for the show to end on. To realize that Jamie’s choice to throw Bran from the window (almost) destroys the world.

Butterfly wings causing storms.

Conclusion
So there you have my musing on this season of Game of Thrones. As always it has been miraculously/impeccably shot.

I think the only bad production moment in the entire show was that sudden hard-rock song when Jamie lost his hand.

So there isn’t a lot to talk about.
I argue that this season was a ‘build up’ for the next. The final season in which the showrunners are going to go all out over seven episodes.
During which time I do wish for the show to please (please) give Tyrion a free night at a brothel. The poor chap needs it.

Westworld (2016) – A review

In the near future a (mainly adult) theme park called Westworld opens its doors. Here you can play cowboys and Indians to your heart’s content. Moreover you can rape, pillage and murder if you feel like it. There are no rules and no boundaries. Except for the victims of these crimes: the robots that get murdered by paying guests on a daily basis. These ‘hosts’ will forever remain in their narrative loop. That is, until one day, some start to awaken.

Well, that didn't take long!

I mean, I've seen my share of television shows. And I've pretty much reached the conclusion that I cannot watch them all. But luckily for me my schedule cleared up (after Person of interest ended -Another Jonathan Nolan show) so I decided to give Westworld a chance.

I've seen the original movie years before and even though I liked the sci-fi aspect about questionable reality in it I still had to conclude that it was too much of a western for my taste and I don’t really like classic westerns that much.

So Westworld could go both ways with me. If it focused too much on the West storyline I would have quit. Luckily the show gives equal focus to the 'man upstairs'. Which is the story strand I found far more interesting.

This was my mindset going in. And, to repeat myself...’well that didn't take long’. After the first little twist (you'll know the one) I was intrigued. After episode ten I had about fifteen pages worth of notes.

How to tackle this review?

There is, of course, a lot to talk about.  Like HBO’s hit show Game of Thrones there are characters to explore, types of magic to categorize. Even comparisons to be made with the source material. But Westworld has something Game of Thrones doesn’t have; due to the core story concerning ‘robotic life and reality’ amongst other things it can ask rather philosophical questions.

In that sense, in all honesty, Game of Thrones is basically a battle for a throne.

There’s no debate going on whether or not the iron throne dreams of electric sheep.

But then there’s also another story. Stripping Westworld down to its barest A to B narrative it’s nothing more than a theme park gone rogue (like Crichton's later story: Jurassic Park). This brings another set of questions to the table, practical ones like: how big the park is, how many employee’s it has?

And then, of course there is the third set of questions: what to make of it all? This is where you enter discussion and, most of all, spoiler territory. So this paragraph is going to be barred from the rest of the article. By a handy spoiler tag.

Before I enter the standardized parts of the review about directing, acting, general tone and –of course- story I wish to tackle these three categories in a (how appropriate) bullet point fashion.

So practical, philosophical and the dark territory.

Practical.

Making money
Like the Truman show before (another Ed Harris highlight): How much would such a park cost to operate? At one point it's mentioned that there are about 1400 guests per go in the park. It is also mentioned that it is a highly expensive entrance price (40.000 per day). So a quick calculation would be approximately (1400X40000=) 56 million per day. And the park's been running for -at least- well over 30 years.

In the past every scientific breakthrough happened through war - In Westworld they propose the theory that  in the near future it is entertainment and themeparks.

There are shareholders behind the scenes who, in classic Hollywood fiction, are all about profit. So they are (for instance) too cheapskate to fix the leaking pluming in the storage at basement level 82. This tells us that there are  possible money issues (possibly caused by greed) going on.

But then how many employees does Westworld truly need? There’s a daily dose of broken glass, bloodied floors, bed sheets that need changing. Not to mention the logistical nightmare of hauling the hosts back and forth and dressing and undressing them.

I don't want to be the guy cleaning out the drinks and food from the hosts.

And it might be interesting to note that there is somewhat of a want for employees willing to test the ‘working girls’ (Is that rape?).

Westworld would need well over a thousand employees at least to keep the park running (that would still only be about 3 million in wages mind you).  That with promotional, industrial and taxes maybe the net profit is about 20 million a day. Still not a bad score I would say. But to return to the shareholders: how can costs be reduced?

I mean, though I enjoyed the critique on corporate - hierarchy of it all (let the other departments deal with it), wouldn’t it be far more cost efficient if the lab-workers were hosts as well?

At one moment during the show you see several hosts working as those old’ time pictures of slaves on cotton farms. But that was inside the park. There’s no reason to believe that the same slavery-aspect can’t be used for the employees hauling and fixing broken hosts.

Maybe not on the security detail mind you. There’d be a lot of companies who’d want to steal the intellectual properties.

Talking about the hosts. There are basically two types:

the mechanical old models and the biomechanical newer models.

Both are programmed, pretty much, the same way.

They don’t see what they aren’t allowed to see.

But they do remember faces somewhat (a handy trade if you are a ‘working girl’ – repeat customers).

Doesn’t this conflict?

Controlling it all
Then, talking about logistics, Westworld is a gigantic place to maintain. True most of the hosts will probably maintain their own houses and living space. But there’s far more to Westworld than beats the eye. Outside of the centre it gets more grandiose. Less visitors more fun to be had.

The red rock base, for instance, has at least 82 sub-terrain levels. Moreover, there’s a whole subway system going on underground allowing personnel to travel from place to place around the map.

So what about cheating? Is it possible for a guest to dive down a tunnel, take the subway to the next location and kill the bad guy the quest demanded?

This is a necessity to keep the park safe. Because somehow, somewhere it was decided to make Westworld a bloody (literally) dangerous world.

So bullets hurt the guest. Hosts can punch and even (superficially) cut a guest. But axe-wielders and pyrotechnical effects need special clearance. But then; what about arrows?

According to the fake Westworld website people do die in Westworld – when entering you are on your own.

 what about the not suing America – this must be the future.

How safe can this narrative really be? With knives flying around and broken bottles? What if a guest falls from the stairs: does the narrative villain host break character and catch him?

Also...really, take kids there?

That whole scene with a family riding into town so let's cut the bloodbath short was rather hilarious and strange at the same time.

Also, If you are going to get married you don't let your fiancé dillydally around in Westworld where there are  no rules.

But then what happens if guests turn on each other? Will security kick in? Will hosts intervene?
It is mentioned that the hosts do most of the surveys of the park. So it’s a small step to assume that in such an event it are the hosts that will intervene when to guests turn on each other.

By the way; how do you tell a guest when the time is up?

In short: there are a lot of practical questions to keep you occupied.

BTW That was one very cool video erase tool. But what use would it serve in the real world except for criminals and cheating spouses?

Philosophical

Videogames
If there is one philosophical theme that makes a series like Westworld right for our time it's videogames. Each and  every question we, in the last twenty years or so, have asked about videogames resurfaces in Westworld. For instance the violence.

Seeing somebody's face blown off in the pilot episode was a clear indication that I was watching cable.

For years people have kept on arguing on the question if videogames make players violent. And, to be honest, videogames have gleefully pushed back. Videogames force you to play as a terrorist killing innocents. Videogames force you to torture a victim if you want to proceed to the next level.

It’s a play on the ‘inflicting violence’-part of us humans that makes this debate so interesting. Each time video game animation improves the same questions are asked again and again.

Now put that discussion in the metaphorical freezer and skip to the end and actually hand a person a gun and let him, without consequence, kill somebody who is (almost) exactly like you.

The question now becomes that what people fear: ‘can you come back from that’?

If I go around killing and raping in this fantasy world. Can I readjust to the real world when I tasted that (for want of a better word) ‘freedom’? When is 'close enough to realism'; real enough for my mind to change?

In this sense Westworld asks the same question as the Purge does: if a person has tasted wickedness can he still be normal?

But there’s more: If it looks real enough would you, or could you, befriend or fall in love with something that isn't real? (what is love and friendship apart from a chemical procedure in our brain).

Really HBO? Copulating robot-thingies in the opening titles. Really?

I remember being heartbroken by Aerith’s death (let’s not overdo it, but it did hurt) and she was a terribly polygoned character. What if Aerith was (somewhat) flesh and blood?

Then there are the obvious references to MMORPG's.
There are tons of hosts offering possible side-quests. The fact that newcomers -Much like a MMORPG- immediately start killing the most dangerous looking bloke around (like trying to take on the Level 65 castle guard).

Poor bloke, he never caught a break those first few episodes.

Or the fact that the guests are a bit like players with the Godmode-cheat enabled.

As I'm writing this bit I've only seen the first two episodes. But, based on the Yule Brinner movie I'm guessing that the man in black is a bit like a gamecharacter with the godmode cheat enabled (like that annoying bug in the PC version of Silent Hill Homecoming that didn't allow you to kill the boss).

Then there are the easter eggs or special missions. Or that one friend who introduces the character William to Westworld. We've all had that friend who played the game before and jankes the controller out of your hand when he noticed you trying things out. He's that person.

Only here he stabs a man to prove his superiority in playing the game.

To end this computer segment there is this lovely distinction between a virus and a trojan/worm or adware. With our current virusscanners we hardly know the difference anymore. But, I, like the other poor souls who were around in the early days of the internet, certainly remember.

A trojan is a planted virus to accomplice something on a computer. The virus-element makes it spread. This is exactly what is happening to the various hosts.

Reality, mortality: existence.
Then of course there are the (obvious) philosophical questions that deal with mortality and existence.

Playing god, for instance, is something that comes by quite often when Anthony Hopkins’s character appears (and who is quite willing to admit to his God complex).  He travels his world as an all-seeing/all-knowing storyteller. Like J.K. Roweling knowing exactly what kind of candy Honeyduke’s has in store.

That, combined, with his power that he can force his will upon the hosts with a simple change of voice makes him a God amongst his toys.

And we all know that ‘being God’ tends to make us mortal men go a little mad at times. Especially when you keep ‘the fanfiction curse’ in mind: if you got what you want you get confused because there aren’t any goals left to reach (the Greyhound story).

Learning and being
Then there’s rehabilitation. The Dolores's father-character, for instance, being an evil priest turned cannibal a few years back before being reprogrammed into a retired sheriff.

Hosts can’t learn from their memories so they have to be reprogrammed. But Westworld asks this question later on: (paraphrasing) ‘Dying a million times, it gets easier’. Or: ‘Out of repetition comes variation’.

This is amplified by the theme of dreams and hypnosis that runs throughout the series. And what are dreams apart from our mind storing and making sense of our memories? Something the hosts are denied.

Moreover the hypnotic state the hosts are in when talking to their ‘Gods’  are eerily similar to a hypnotist/puppet-master telling somebody to forget everything they just did and: ‘wake up completely refreshed.'

And that’s the core question in Westworld: if you lack the capacity to learn from your past are you still forced to repeat each and every single step.

Reality for the hosts, in Westworld, is that what is offered to you and it’s turned upside down. Age, for instance: the youngest host happens to be the oldest one around.

But then there are the guest to consider. They do remember. They are human.

As a character states halfway through the season: ‘This place doesn't pander to your deeper self, it shows you who you really are’.

Though there is still an element of choice to be taking into account. For instance, a person being the ‘ good guy’ for many runs might, one day, decide to try out being evil for laughs (much like the aforementioned sheriff/cannibal).

But then, how evil can a person be? Can you still live with yourself in the real world? What if -what you did leaks to the real world? How will the world react?

In this sense: what makes a hero and what makes a villain? Take Noah for instance. For a religious person he's a hero. For an atheist he's a villain.

Without spoiling the ending too much it are the guests who prefer the fictional world over the real world and the hosts wanting it the other way around.

Dark territory (Spoilers)

So now we enter dark territory. This whole bit is spoiling. I’m going to mention the things I liked and disliked.

For starters; It took me a while to come to terms with Ed Harris not being a robot. Even him being recognized I still managed to deny it. Still his quest for realism in a made up world makes him one of the more interesting characters around.

I think it’s an ‘unwritten’ theme that the center of the maze means that a host is alive.

Nudity
What I especially liked is how Westworld managed to make nudity a part of the story.

HBO is well known for showing a body part or two and even though Westworld is very toned down on that department it is still very obvious which actress had a non-nudity clause in her contract and not.

But the fun part here is the fact that clothed or unclothed was a massive clue to the identity of Arnold. Those who talk to the hosts unclothed think of them like dolls. Whereas those who keep  them clothed see something more.

This gave away Arnold to some – I however took it as a sneaky scene between the two (due to the cellar background)–no time to undress the girl.

Then there is the strange way Maeve grasps the new ‘real’ world. She’s rather (too) quick on the uptake. But then again the 'brains' of the host are far bigger than the humans.

But I loved her bit as a host controlling hosts.

I do think, however, that those two undertakers should have retired her ages ago. She's dangerous goods.

Bodycount
For all the bloodshed this is a show with a tremendously low body count (in the first seven or so episodes at least – in the end it goes all out).

I loved the inclusion of an 'East world' by the way. That way I can keep my hopes up for a 'North world': conquering  the fjords riding a polar bear.

At least (I would hope) an answer about the fate of the main guard and the scientist should come in the future. If a person dies off  screen there is always the possibility they'd return.

Twists and turns
Then there are the twists. There are several of them: the finale (Dolores going gun crazy), ‘Who’s Arnold?’ and, of course, Bernard’s real identity.

I can tell you that I fell for each and every one of them.

However, I  did see all these twists coming early on. But, as the show progressed I dismissed them (I kept hanging on to my: ‘man in black is a host’-theory).  For instance this one little note I made for myself around episode four:

“Cause and effect - I like the idea of the real threat being started in the third or fourth episode rather small in an uninteresting manner. So that later you realize how important that scene was.”

That’s basically the Arnold and Delores-scenes. So I did notice that there was something brewing – but in the end I was still wrong.

The (actual) review.

It's very difficult to stay spoiler free in our current digital age. Two hours is often enough for the people online to spill the beans. Luckily for me I managed to avoid many of them.

I always find it amusing that the final twist of Jurassic World was spoiled to me (In CAPS no less) on the same day as the world premiere of the movie. Yet, at the same time I still don’t know who killed Laura Palmer.

Contemporary popularity apparently dictates internet-people spilling the beans. That’s why a lot of people are still careful discussing the famous M. Night Shyamalan twists (apart from the Happening because -’screw that movie!’).

What you can certainly take from the bits written in the previous paragraphs is that Westworld is a TV-series that puts your mind at work with popular theoretical notions of philosophy, future and mystery. I’ve written all my musing above, I’m not going to repeat them here.

Here I wish to focus on the pillars of the TV-show: the script, the style (directing and cinematography) and the acting. And I can spoil you already: it’s A+ across the board.

THE SCRIPT
The script, obviously, is exemplary. I’ve already written six pages worth of musings just based on the story. True, on the tricky slippery slope of humans versus cyborgs there is always the question whether or not a cyborg would do the things they do. But overall I rest myself in the knowledge that this TV-show offers a lot of nice philosophical concepts to counter that strain of thought.

I loved the fact that the character in charge of 'narrative' was called: Sizemore.

THE ACTING
"Your humanity is cost effective."

Anthony Hopkins is being tremendously creepy at times (his Breaking Bad-letter [google it] is, to me, the core of this turnaround to the small screen. He now sees TV as the next place for his skill set and he is right -better than his latest movies). He knows that it is television-today that allows him to play interesting parts.

The rest of the cast also got this notion. Each and every one of them play their particular character to a key.

I must admit that I didn't really warm up to the Doloris parts. But that’s because of the western bit of it.

Westworld is a show that allows characters/hosts  to re-appear as different characters. It’s a show tailor made for actors. You can be ‘goody two-shoes’ in one scene and shooting your creator in the next.

DIRECTING
"the longer I work here the more I start to understand the hosts -the human beings confuse me."

Can we please have titles on screen for episodes again. I’m having a hard time remembering episodes.

The directing then is going out all HBO. As I mentioned before, in the first episode the viewer is on the receiving end of a head-shot. Then there’s the obligatory nudity.

I like how the show treated nudity as part of the story. True there's still the occasional orgy scene (it's HBO after all). But still nudity is, overall, treated in a far more natural way than shows like Carnivale or Boardwalk empire.  One actress actually plays an entire episode in the buff and you hardly notice it. It's a bit like  nudists I guess.  Yes it may be exiting for a minute or two but after that you'll be playing badminton. (Though I do have a fear for nudist barbeque's)

But, apart from that there is this constant drive to take things further. It’s a way this show is directed/editied. Each episode shows a new piece of the land (Westworld) to explore. It keeps the audience wanting in the right way.

Then there are the little set-design tricks like putting bells on grave-markers. Or classic rock songs on that old piano (But doesn't that take the 'guests' out of the experience?).

Then, there’s always something happening in the background. Like the Walking Dead – there’s often a zombie somewhere. In Westworld there’s somebody quarreling with his wife while the protagonist is trying to attain love.

Directing-wise Westworld is using the best of both worlds. I has a great script at its basis and it goes from there. That doesn’t make it perfects as –I hope- some of my doubtful musings above made clear. But in the end it does make it all satisfactory.

In its ten episode run Westworld managed to tell a rather complex story (or, as complex stories go, a simple one made complex by manipulating the chronologic flow of the narrative) filled to the brim with semi-philosophical theses . I don't like all the choices the show made. And, in fact, the final bloodshed made me wonder quite a bit. But Westworld is a satisfactory triumph on most levels.

The post-credits scene was totally unneeded though.

IT (2017) – a review

Here it is, finally, after a year of waiting and four articles leading up to it I finally got to see IT. And ‘golly molly’ I had a good time. But there are some little critiques.

Seven children notice that there is something amiss in their hometown of Derry. A lot of young children are disappearing. The adults don’t seem to care and then there is this strange clown roaming around whose only wish is scaring them. As the summer goes on the children realize that they have to face their fears and confront the sewer dwelling IT.

What to make of this first proper Hollywood version of Stephen King’s IT? It depends on your expectations as you enter the cinema.

For those of you like me -traumatised by seeing the 90s mini-series aged eleven- it is a feast for the eyes. For the fans of the books, it’s a well crafted ride that expertly takes out all the meanderings of the massive novel and brings forth a thrilling (albeit abridged) version of the tale. But for those expecting a scary Saw-like bloodbath IT might be a disappointment. IT is rather more the Goonies trapped in the overlook hotel.

I was at the cinema with a lot of sixteen-year-olds and each and every one of them commented
to each other that it didn’t impress them as much as they hoped.

This, I think, also has a lot to do with the hype surrounding

this movie. A hype will always cause some people to be let down.

To be honest the movie doesn’t earn his R-rating on its blood and gore. I think a PG-13 would have fitted nicely as well with only a minimal of cuts. It’s mostly the USA’s constant fear of bad language that rewards this movie with the R.

This is the biggest issue I have with the movie. It’s not a full blown horror movie. In fact it is an interesting coming of age story with some horror elements thrown into the mix. (like Del Toro’s Crimson Peak being a love story with ghosts in it.). This is Stephen King’s Stand by me in which the body is moving on its own accord.

In this sense IT-the movie is like the titular clown, a movie with multiple forms wherein the coming-of-age bit works better than the scares.

I don’t consider this a bad thing. I’ve grown tired of the slasher tropes in which character meet their butcher with only the minimal of character-development to make it interesting. But it does make me wonder why IT didn’t do both?

IT has a great story and characters at its basis an yet it often opts for quick jump-scares and the minimal of gruesomeness. Every bit of true horror is in single-second-shots before cutting away to the reaction shot.

To me, one of the reasons why The Thing was both scary and gruesome was because you got to know the characters AND the camera lingered on the mayhem. Just an extreme close-up or two of some tearing veins and tissue to get the audience involved in the pain and malice the characters they love endure.

There is also a debate going on about CGI versus practical effects. I think IT would definitely

have benefitted from the latter. Why, for instance, did this movie decide to put a CGI-mask over

Georgie’s head when he did the ‘you’ll float too’-speech. Like the kid wasn’t scary enough on his own.

The danger is real and I –as an audience member- wishes to believe this but I need to see some real upfront pain to fully let it get under my skin.

But, then again, I’ve seen my share of horrors. Maybe I’m a bit numb.

I think that’s at the core of the current division between audiences. One group loved the coming of ages story whilst the other preferred a bit more horror. I fall in-between, with me wanting both.

THE STORY

If the horror-element doesn’t truly pay off then what does? The story; most definitely!

IT set itself to the massive task of juggling seven main characters at once. This didn’t work perfectly in the book nor does it here. But ‘darn it’ if it doesn’t get close.

Overall the movie spends the first hour introducing and pushing scares on each of the seven characters, yet the flow this movie uses makes it feel natural.

Crunching the numbers it would statistically break down to: ‘scare 1: Bill’, ‘scare 2: Ben’

- ‘Don’t worry we’ll get to Bev in due course’.

With very little padding IT moves from start to finish in a (highly) satisfactory manner.

And the changes this movie makes from the book to the screen are, in fact, rather logical. Ben, for instance, is the archetype scholar of the group (with some weird taste in music). It’s only logical that Mike will take over that role when Ben has to move house again.

IT, is one of those few movies that fixes a lot of the little bits of the original story and makes them better (though, again, it’s lacking in the scares).

I liked the two kissing scenes. They were to be expected –especially if you accepted the 80’s-vibe of this movie.
But, I also liked them because they were so logical when you think about it from a construct perspective.

In the end, like the book, it are the ‘losers’ Stanley and Mike who get the short end of the stick here. But still they have more screen time and involvement in the plot that they ever did in the mini-series (and remember their importance in the sequel –if you read the book/seen the mini-series at least).

The Henry Bowers-character, then, for a while, seems a little one dimensional. But due to a smartly written scene near the end he quickly becomes understandable (even though he’s still underwritten).

With a movie clocking well over two hours I wonder what we could get in a three hour directors cut.

At least in the short amount of screen time he gets the character manages to move the plot forwards.

This has everything to do with the skill of the actors.

ACTING

In a world of thirty-year-old superstars it is a breath of fresh air to see a bunch of kids break the box office. And I believe they earned it (I don’t know who the casting director was but he/she deserves a pay-rise.)

Lieberher plays the grief ridden Bill to a key. Wolfhard gives Adam Sandler a marvellous lesson in: ‘telling d*ck-jokes right’. Taylor is, as Ben, the sweetest boy to ever line the silver screen. And Beth (Lillis) is truly the glue that keeps the boys together –as she is in the book. With one shake of her head, a glint in her eyes –she moves their world. Her inclusion in the ‘Losers club’ makes the whole more grounded as a group of people willing to face death for each other.

Then there’s Grazer as Eddie -who swears his heart out because his mother can’t hear- who plays wonderfully off of Wolfhard’s Richie.

I always loved the bond between the two characters in the mini-series (the adult chapter) and here we finally see the beginning that was lacking in that television outing.

Each child-actor plays his or her part to perfection. They may be a bit one dimensional at times but when they interact with each other (like a military platoon) they each get to showcase their weaknesses and strengths. Especially when they finally take on the powerhouse performance of Bill Skarsgard as Pennywise.

PENNYWISE THE DANCING CLOWN

One can’t help but compare.

Tim Curry’s Pennywise was eternal. Only in the end did we learn that he was nothing but a pathetic speck of dust on the cosmic scale of things.

Skarsgard’s version, however, is quite open about this all. From the first moment you see him he’s like an escaped panther hunting children: an animal; more afraid of his prey than he’s willing to let on.

He uses every trick in (his) the book to lure them. But at the same time he is terrified if people stand up to him. The fear he induces (and his madness) is also his own downfall. That makes him a great literary character and Skarsgard understands that completely by constantly downplaying him.

Skarsgard, in this sense, is a completely different Pennywise than Tim Curry’s version and that is admirable for such a young actor. He carved his name in the stone of cinema-history.

And let it be said that his enjoyment of playing the character oozes through the screen.

DIRECTING

Directing then is solid, with a singular goal at the core: letting the actors shine.

There are so many (80s) in-jokes in this movie that you’ll have to watch it again. Also: the set and clothing design: flawless!

But also by using trick-photography and several nicely framed shots (like any movie-buff I loved the long take scene through the school hallway) Musschietti put his own personal stamp on this movie.

The only fault I can think of is –again- the use of CGI when practical effects would have been more effective. Something to keep in mind for the sequel.

Wouldn’t it be fun if –in contrast to the mini-series- that the adult chapter is going to be even better than the teenaged chapter?

SUMMARY

Overall IT is the movie I have been waiting for. There are some mistakes (the CGI, pressed for time for some characters and the way the movie tries to be accessible to all of the audience) but any movie has mistakes. For a mainstream horror-movie this is the best one out there. My four articles weren’t for nothing – I loved IT.