Redneck Zombies (by Brogan)

Redneck Zombies is a trashy zombie flick released by Troma Entertainment in 1987. The film is remarkable in one aspect: it was one of the first ever straight-to-video releases. If I may say before I start, I love Troma films. Toxic Avenger, Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D.,  and other similar films made by Troma; all horrible, but meant to be that way, and I think that is what makes them some of my favorites. I was thinking: "Maybe this will be the same way. Who knows?" I suppose watching was the only good way to find out.

The film has a family of (in a community of) bumbling hillbillies discover a large barrel of toxic waste. By mistake, the infuse into the moonshine they normally sell to the townsfolk. The green liquid is consumed, and soon after they're turned into - you guessed it - "redneck zombies." At the same time, there is a group of back-packers in the area. These people end up being the ones who are meant to survive the zombie onslaught. And thus, your hyper-gore-filled zombie picture commences onward.

The characters are... bad. There are a lot of unlikable stereotypes plaguing this film, but that's not uncommon for Troma films. Maybe it's the fact that most movies I have seen have been entertaining, and the fact that Redneck Zombies isn't entertaining makes me just really not like the bad characters. Every character is written in such a way, that it almost seems as if the film is trying to annoy me. Maybe it was the poor acting. I swear I could have seen an extra, painted as a zombie, smiling huge as if they're six and their mother was watching.

This is one of the most atrociously edited film I think I have ever seen. Cuts to just a black screen for somewhat lengthy periods of time; one small part where there is subtitles for absolutely no reason at all (only one line of dialogue too); and there was even a couple instances where the actors didn't even get to finish their lines. I was really looking for it, but I would not be shocked to see the boom-mic once or twice.


I love zombie films. I know I have readers who do too. This film, so not worth the time or effort put into watching it. If this was one of first straight-to-video movies ever, then I now understand where the bar for those has been set. Bonus points to the film though for some semi-okay gore effects (I guess). Redneck Zombies gets a 21/100 points.

Guest Review: Kirby's Epic Yarn (by Samuel Broemmeling a.k.a. FrozenCelery)

Kirby’s Epic Yarn is a game made by Nintendo following the Kirby series, and yet focuses on an entirely different purpose. With the most clever and yet cutest graphics, this is one of the best Kirby games I have ever gone through. Keep in mind that I was looking forward to this game since I had heard about it on E3, and pre-ordered it about three months before the actual release date. As any other ordinary Kirby game, it starts out with a little child-like cut scene showing the problem Kirby faces. In this case, he steals a tomato that had belonged to an out-of-place character named Yin-Yarn. As his punishment, Kirby was sucked into a yarn and fabric- like world and ended up with a blue yarn fellow named Prince Fluff, who introduces the optional two-player mode that I will explain a little bit later. Kirby, with the help of Prince Fluff, now has to face all these different worlds to go face Yin-Yarn and save his world.

Now, at first, this game had me awestruck, in a bad way. Not only can you not jump endlessly or for a long period of time, but you also are unable to suck up any enemy and take their power, due to you being only made of yarn. Instead, you grab an enemy to either unwrap and destroy immediately, or turn them into a ball of yarn to throw. As for jumping, you jump normally once, and jump again to transform into a parachute to slow your fall. It doesn’t sound tremendously exciting, but as you get the hang of it, the game enhances and you become more alert of what you must do, such as through the yarn at a specific box in a specific order, or killing a mini-boss more toward the end. When you get to the actual bosses, you will never be disappointed in them. Every single boss in this game had given me joy to battle.

Another flaw for me I had found in the game is that it is impossible to die. Instead, you lose all your beads, which basically mean points. At the end of each level, you get a metal depending on how many beads you get, and for the bosses, you need a certain amount to get the two extra levels at the end of each world. This makes it so a child playing won’t cry and complain that he died for the 516^th time, and that actual game-players want to make it their objective to obtain the amount of beads and get a gold medal. I find this ingenious, since I have many relatives who were made to not play video games, and I feel like I am not the only one.

I basically had locked myself in my house playing this game non-stop until school had come around the corner, and by that time, I had gotten my good buddy Dengakuslash to share the flawless story and  endless cute with. Yes, two-player mode. Not a lot different than single-player mode, but it definitely added an advantage and disadvantage. The advantage was that you now had two pink and blue balls of yarn collecting beads and kicking fabric ass like no tomorrow, while the disadvantage being that the enemies could kick your ass right back, AND that the game expects you to collect more beads for a medal knowing that there are two of you. It was a blast playing with two people though. I wish we didn’t have to be at school in only a few hours, because otherwise I KNOW we would’ve beaten it, no matter how long it took. Like most Nintendo games(at least for me), It was hard to put the controller down.

As we played through the first two worlds, what we had noticed the most besides the incredibly vivid graphics and cuteness, was the soundtrack for this game. Each song to each level had added a dramatic effect to what was happening in the level, and definitely set the mood to what was going on, and in most cases, they were remixes of past Kirby levels. Like most games by Nintendo, you would think that the remixes made to the levels are disappointing, unfamiliar or just awful in every way. When I hear the remixes on this game, I automatically think of how bad the remixes on Super Smash Bros. Brawl were. The composer who made the music for this game was hardly shy of perfect. I cannot tell how impressed I was with the soundtrack in this game.

Besides collecting metals, there are a lot of neat little optional things you get to do in this game. For one, you can get furniture for your room, or furniture to make other rooms. When you make other rooms, you allow little fabric creatures to move in and offer an optional game to get different wallpapers and such. There are 5, and a few of the mini-games include ones similar to hide-and-seek, and capture the flag. Collecting furniture is a bit trickier, but sometimes easier. There are 2 furniture pieces hidden in each level of the game, and also the soundtrack to the level. It is really challenging to get all three and also end up with a gold medal, and yet, still soothes you.

Final Verdict: Play this game. It is fun to play with by yourself or with another person. The soundtrack will blow you away. The graphics are too amazing for words. It offers a great optional part to the game. The game itself is soothing and relaxing, yet challenging and fun. There is no reason for you not to play this game. I recommend Kirby’s Epic Yarn 210%.
Final Score: 98/100 points.

Skyline (by Brogan)

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World taught me something: a movie trailer doesn’t always tell about the quality of the film. Maybe Skyline has taught me that my previous theory is just that, a theory. Skyline, if you didn’t already know, is a movie about aliens attacking earth.  Now to be fair and warn you, there is a high chance of me handing out spoilers in this review. However, don’t stop reading. You may not care that I spoiled this once we’re done.

It starts with Elaine and Jarrod (played by Scottie Thompson and Eric Balfour respectively) being awakened in the middle of the night by strange blue light hitting the streets of Los Angeles. Jarrod is drawn to the lights as black veins stretch across his face and body, and almost immediately we cut to “15 hours earlier” (this movie thinks you’re stupid and puts time passage markers all over) as they’re arriving in L.A..  They are there for their friend Terry’s (played by Donald Faison of Scrubs fame) party. This is the point where all hell breaks loose and people keep dying left and right, but to be honest I stopped caring when (I guess) I learned that L.A. party-goers like to spy on people masturbating through high-tech telescopes.

Skyline is a mess. At first I just don’t like the characters, but then I grow to just not care. The CGI is just awful; the aliens look piss-poor, the people are stiff and not-detailed, and explosions are just… blah.  All the times when this film could have had some effectiveness are ruined. They show the aliens almost immediately and without build-up, not to mention the earlier bit with “15 hours earlier” serves no purpose other than to tell us what they’re doing there and Elaine is pregnant (which barely plays any role until barely at the very end of the film).

Oh, here’s one of the spoilers I was talking about: the aliens are here to harvest human brains! You read that right, human brains.Yes, the major motivation behind the villains of this film is barely enough to sustain a one-shot villain in a SyFy original series. Sound ridiculous? It should. Obviously not to the Brothers Strause though. This movie is meant to be totally serious and scary.  The film acts like it’s Cloverfield from time to time using similar camera work, sets and occasionally film quality. Wait a minute, Cloverfield is not a fair comparison to Skyline and should be offensive to the makers of Cloverfield.

With bad CGI, bad acting, bad writing, directing, and suspense, Skyline can’t even be a movie better than an episode of Torchwood. I’m not even going to get into how bad its stupid sequel-baiting ending was here.  It’s a film, with actors. Do not see Skyline. I give it 26/100 points.

Hearts and Minds (by Brogan)

How ironic is it that I watch and subsequently review Hearts and Minds (a 1974 documentary about the Vietnam War) the very night before the release of Call of Duty: Black Ops (a first-person-shooter video game about special-ops soldiers in the Vietnam War)? Personally I feel there’s no way in hell our friends at Treyarch injected even a sliver of the pain, suffering and hardships of the people from both sides of the war into Black Ops. However, I can’t use this powerful film to attack a game I haven’t played yet.

This documentary depicts both the opinions of the Americans involved and the atrocities committed against the citizens of Vietnam. Ex-soldiers, enlisted soldiers, Vietnamese villagers, stock plus captured footage, and various other people are all shown as they are. Reactions are real, opinions are stated plainly, and above all, I felt I was the only one who really took sides. I felt all that was shown here was truth; there was a scene that a small part of me will never be able shake.

This one will be short. But I don’t think there’s a whole lot to say. There are themes expressed in Hearts and Minds that could easily be applied to today’s modern world.  All I can really say is, if you like documentaries, or better, if you have an opportunity to see this film, see it; and if you don’t have an opportunity to see this movie, make one. I won’t give Hearts and Minds a score, but whatever your “see it” threshold is, give it that score if you really want to.

Revolution X (by TanRans)

Revolution X is an arcade light gun game developed and published by Midway, with the soundtrack done by Aerosmith. The game was ported to the SNES which was actually developed by Rageware and is what I will be playing and reviewing for you. The game is a standard rail shooter in which you "the Protagonist" have to save the band Aerosmith from the "New Order Nation" or the "N.O.N." who have declared war on youth. The game starts with a man or robot thing yelling at you saying "WAKE UP! The revolution has begun! Generation X is in effect" and then you see a helicopter fly by until you get to what looks like a club.

The gameplay is almost unbearable and since you can't use a light gun you have to use the D-pad on the controller, this is true on any and I repeat ANY of the home console ports, which  makes aiming ridiculously hard to do. You have 2 weapons a machine-gun and a rocket launcher, I didn't realize I had the machine-gun until the second level because I am used to using the right shoulder button to shoot, however you don't need the machine-gun because the rockets never seem to run out of ammo and it's a one hit kill while the machine gun takes 4 or 5 bullets to kill an enemy. You never know if your getting shot because there isn't any sign of it like the screen shaking or turning red for a second and that makes you die a lot, but that doesn't matter because you have infinite continues for whatever reason. The worst thing about the game is actually beating it, you have to find all five of the band members of Aerosmith to get the real ending of the game, and they are all in hidden places, if that isn't ridiculous I don't know what is.

The graphics aren't good in any way, they are digitized sprites just like Mortal Kombat but they do a poor job of showing what the SNES can do. The enemies look like they belong in a motocross game, they look like they are wearing dirt biking gear, and some of them look like they are wearing roller skates and they are rolling around with there legs not moving. The sound is horrible but don't take my word for it because I loathe Aerosmith and I mean that. All the music is a loop of the same song over and over (I don't know the song because I hate Aerosmith so much) but honestly that is just annoying and gives me a headache. The voices make me want to cry they all sound like a recording that was put on a CD and left out in the sun for 3 years.

Overall this game is so bad that it has made me take off all of my clothes in anger. You will not have fun playing this game unless you have some weird disease where you like bad games. I will give this barely playable, poor excuse for a video game 13/100 points


By the way, I have heard good things about the arcade cabinet of this game. This review only covers the SNES version.