Quantum Apocalypse (2010) review

2016-02-09

This is where former Farscape cast members end up. That or in Stargate.

A disaster is on its way! A comet has gone rogue, changing direction after a brief encounter with Mars. The reason? Some kind of anomaly is in near-Earth orbit and its huge gravitational pull is messing up our galactic neighbourhood. All life on Earth is at risk as a result, leading to panic stricken citizens causing havoc and destruction worldwide. Not that we get to see much of this, because the budget doesn’t stretch that far, but the thought is there at least.

Cue some absolutely awful CGI effects – among them the comet in space, some Aurora Borealis-style effects in the sky, and some equally dodgy performances at the same time. Not that everyone is bad, but Stuart Rafferty never seems to be capable of expressing any emotion other than mild amusement. No matter what threat he faces, or his budding relationship with Lindsay (Kristen Quintrall, looking slightly too old for the part and reduced to crying a lot), his emotional range and facial expressions remain almost identical throughout.

As you might expect (it’s a SyFy production after all), the brightest brains in the world need the assistance of a group of normal, everyday people who just happen to know how to solve the problem. Chief among them is the autistic Terry (Rhett Giles), a genius who ultimately figures out a method of preventing the unfolding disaster. Not before half of the planet is ripped apart of course – much like Independence Day the rest of the world sits back and waits for the Americans to save the day.

It's always Big Ben that gets it, isn't it? — It’s always Big Ben that gets it, isn’t it?

As for the title? It sits somewhere far below Quantum Leap and Quantum of Solace in terms of quality. I bought a box set of weather-related low budget disaster films, and of the four films in that set this is the only one that I was able to find on IMDB with this as its original title. That came as quite the surprise. Actually, I’m lying. It’s not surprising at all.

Gigi Edgley, of Farscape fame, offers the closest you’ll get to a big name star. She is Trish, a scientist of rock star proportions with a streak of punk green in her hair. Her performance is quirky, but that shouldn’t come as a surprise if you’ve ever seen her as the blue-skinned Chiana. Despite these quirks, her character is little more than an exposition machine in the grand scheme of things, there is very little to the character.

There are a few twists and turns heading into the final act and a last, desperate attempt at stopping the anomaly from destroying the Earth, but they actually end up amounting to nothing thanks to a deus ex machina ending that hits the reset button. It manages to do so in a far more irritating way than seven years of Star Trek Voyager managed to achieve. It wouldn’t be so bad if this had been raised a little earlier in the story and clearly signposted for the audience, but that would possibly be asking too much. Still, it’s better than most of SyFy’s usual efforts, and while that isn’t exactly a glowing reference it will have to do.

Score: 2/5

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNVV5n0N_hU]

Dragon Wars (2007) review

Simon Prior

2016-02-08

Korean cinema rarely fuses well with western influences. The same can easily be said for any Asian director who makes the transition from their home territory to the glitz and glamour of the Hollywood system. Okay, so some people like John Wu manage to make something of themselves in that world – even if their English-speaking work is arguably less impressive than those films completed in their native language – but for the most part it is usually a difficult and nearly impossible mountain to climb.

I’d best get something straight before getting into this properly. Dragon Wars doesn’t contain what most people would describe as dragons, for the most part. Instead we have a dragon-like serpent that slithers around the place as if it’s a legless version of the T-Rex from The Lost World: Jurassic Park. It’s not as bad as it sounds, honest.

On the subject of influences and homages, there’s a heavy Godzilla vibe to the initial destruction we see in the film’s opening moments. That’s the 1998 Godzilla, for the record. I know, I know – we don’t like to be reminded of its existence, but it’s the best point of reference in this instance. Events quickly veer off this path and into a weird combination of Gremlins and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. See? It does get better.

While there is a veneer of western cinema about the main plot, the real meat is in the flashbacks to the era of feudal Japan. The CGI isn’t too offensive and the martial arts sequences impress. As do the costumes, for what it’s worth.

Then it’s spoiled by returning to the modern day and focusing on Jason Behr as Ethan and Craig Robinson as Bruce, a journalist and his camera man who get embroiled in a plot where Ethan and Amanda Brooks’ Sarah find out that they are the reincarnated spirits (or something) of the couple who encountered the serpents hundreds of years previously. It gets even sillier from this point forward, and not necessarily for the better.

"Dude, we're in the wrong film." — “Dude, we’re in the wrong film.”

The final half hour is almost nothing more than an ongoing action sequence as the giant, serpent-like creature chases after Ethan and Sarah, all the while giving off a sense of the final moments of King Kong (it doesn’t matter which version, in this case – take your pick. I’d go with the 1933 original, personally).

The issues with the film lie in its narrative approach. Exposition is dropped awkwardly and the flashback sequence promises a much better story than the one that is actually delivered. At least we can enjoy the insanity of the action sequences, which almost – but not quite – make up for the clunky narrative. The ancient army, filled with all sorts of weird and wonderful creatures, going head to head with a modern day military force is quite impressive, although we’re soon moving away from this and following Ethan and Sarah again as they try to end the curse and stop these giant dragon things following them about the place.

Dragon Wars is a mixed bag for certain. Some of it works, some of it doesn’t. Put it this way – if you dropped the western world story and replaced it with something more organic and fitting with the Korean legend it is based on, we’d have a far better film.

Score: 2/5

Carry a notepad

Simon Prior

2016-02-07

Since leaving school (and for much of my school life, from what I remember) I have always made sure to carry a notepad or other idea noting device with me. It’s almost a default setting for me, even in this era of smartphones and modern technology. Sure, I use apps like Simplenote to keep track of some ideas (across all devices, multi-platform fans), but otherwise I always have a small A6 sized notepad that goes with me almost everywhere. And a pen, obviously.

You see, the problem with ideas is that inspiration can strike at the most inopportune moments. Uttering the writer’s mantra of “I must remember that” over and over is, sadly, an ineffectual way of storing ideas to jot down later. You can have the best memory in the world, remember with scary detail the home you lived in for just a few months when you were 18 months old, and yet mere seconds after you’ve had a great idea you think about something else and PUFF – it’s gone.

You need to write these things down when the idea strikes, or at the very least within a few minutes of it occurring. If you don’t, you run the risk of that idea being lost forever.

I’ve been there more often than I’d like to admit, and I carry notepads with me everywhere.

And it could have been a great idea, your next (or first) great novel or an incredible line of dialogue. Or perhaps it was a useful piece of insight into one of your characters, or even a generic scene that could slot into one of your very many projects.

And you forgot to write it down. Carry a notepad. Trust me, if you’re a writer it’s a good idea.

I’d be lost without my notepad. I can’t really remember any time since joining the wider world of work that I haven’t had something on my person with which to jot ideas down. I’ve always preferred an A6 sized notepad. My reasons? It’s small enough to fit in my pocket without digging into my thigh after every step, yet big enough to get quite a few ideas in it.

My latest discovery over the last few years is a company called Remarkable here in the UK. I chanced upon their notepads while visiting Margam Country Park in Wales and haven’t looked back. They recycle things and turn them into something, well, remarkable. Thus, I pay a slight premium to purchase notepads from them, although admittedly as it takes a while for me to get through each pad it is usually once every couple of years.

That’s the beauty of their notepads – they don’t have lines in them. A small point for sure, but the lack of lines means I can write a little smaller and fit more onto each page. I fit entire script plans onto a page or a double page spread, rather than over five or six pages as would be the case with a lined pad. It’s all about economy.

The reality is that I now have notepad after notepad filled with ideas. Most of them are terrible. That or I’ve just not figured out how those ideas can be turned into a positive. We’re writers after all. Bathing in our own self doubt and disgust at the pages we’ve just written is second nature.

But the point to take away is this: I have notepad after notepad filled with ideas. Almost every creative idea I’ve had in the last fourteen years is held in those pads, and that’s a very useful resource for a writer to fall back on.

Beasts of No Nation (2015) review

Simon Prior

"Be honest: does this orange neckerchief work for me?" — “Be honest: does this orange neckerchief work for me?”

Based on the novel by Uzodinma Iweala, Beasts of No Nation is a hard hitting drama that focuses on the conflicts that are an unfortunately regular feature throughout Africa and, indeed, many other countries across the world. A young boy, Agu (Abraham Attah) sees his family gunned down in front of him and escapes into the jungle. There he encounters a ragtag rebel group called the NDF, who are led by Idris Elba’s Commandant. Soon Agu is trained up as a soldier within this force. As the Commandant says on meeting him, a boy is not nothing – a boy can hold a gun, can be trained to kill.

It doesn’t shy away from the harsh realities of war. People die randomly and for no good reason, casualties of a war they would otherwise have no part in. Children are forced to engage in one dubious activity after another, such that the true horror of conflict and human nature is explored in all its ugly glory. The blatant subtext is that war is a terrible thing – something all of us in the civilised world have to agree on.

Beasts of No Nation is interesting in that this is a big budget film released through streaming service Netflix rather than via a full saturation release in cinemas. It did receive a limited cinematic run thanks to the major distributors boycotting it. It’s an interesting shift in the direction of the industry, especially given the mega bucks that Netflix commands from its subscription model.
Personally I’m not against this approach – apart from the fact this is straight onto Netflix rather than DVD, it’s not something the industry has only just introduced.

In fact most new films are sent immediately to home release, with only those films that have a decent release budget behind them (or perhaps a billionaire oligarch) having the luxury of a big screen release. As far as I’m concerned the more options available for releasing your film, the better. Netflix is just one content provider amongst several, and it just means we the consumers are the winners overall.

In terms of performances, everything about Beasts of No Nation is a winner. Idris Elba is typically reliable as the Commandant, an imposing figure who has a dubious moral position. Attah is incredibly good as Agu, a perfect example of a child actor who seems to be older than his years. He fully embodies the role and, had there been no familiar faces in the cast such as Elba, you may have quite easily confused the plot with a documentary.

The setting in Ghana too becomes a character in of itself. The locations are gorgeous to look at in spite of the death and destruction that is put in front of us, and further embeds the “it might be a documentary!” thought process. It’s a shame that it likely won’t get huge awards acclaim due to its distribution model, but it unveils another narrative strand that has as yet been untapped until now.

Score: 4/5

Short Story: Memories

Simon Prior

2016-02-05

Good evening everyone, and thanks for taking the time to visit the site! Tonight’s short story is rewritten from one that I submitted to an SFX competition about 10 years ago. The basic theme is the same as that original story, but I’ve reworked it quite substantially so it’s got a bit more narrative oomph to it. Hope you like.

And if you feel so inclined, please bookmark the site for future updates. Thanks!

The sky was green. Of the many differences between this alien world and home, this was the most obvious. There were some similarities between the two planets. The cool breeze that brushed past him felt just like back on Earth. The trees and fauna, whilst looking strange compared to his native home, still offered a minor semblance of normality.

He had been a tall, imposing figure on Earth. Here, the small stature of the aliens made him seem positively gigantic. Whilst still in his early thirties, his temples had turned grey. A result of the experiments that had been conducted on him. Otherwise, he was a picture of health physically. His mental state was a different story.

Since his arrival here, he’d had trouble with his memories. He couldn’t remember if this had always been the case, or if his poor recollection had only been since his arrival. There were snatches of memory, nothing more.

One memory in particular had stayed with him. Back home, on his balcony just like the one on which he now stood. The sky was dark, the stars bright and clear in the night sky. The same type of breeze cooling his skin. It was summer, and the gentle touch of the wind had been most welcome. He had been there for a reason.

No matter how hard he tried, he could never remember anything else about his life quite as clearly as that one moment. What was his name? He couldn’t remember. Had he left behind any friends or family? What had he done for work, for enjoyment? Again, he couldn’t remember. In their place were just patches of black, an absence of anything at all. Were those memories even still there? Or had his alien abductors removed them, as if they were surgeons removing a cancer growth?

This puzzled him. His personal memories were almost entirely absent, yet he could place surgery, illness, basic humanity, into context. Even the fact he had been abducted by aliens. This didn’t seem nearly as strange as he expected. Maybe it had something to do with the experiments that had prematurely aged him.

He continued staring out at the vista in front of him, revelling in the sharp contrast in colours. When he had been escorted back to his room a few moments before, the lead scientist had told him that the next session would be his last. The scientist hadn’t said it outright, but the man knew what that meant. At the very least, they had gone to great pains to make him as comfortable as possible thus far. This was no easy task given his height. While extravagant by this planet’s standards, the ceiling of his residence was far too low to stand up straight. It was almost inevitable that, when he wasn’t in the experimental chamber, he spent as much time as he could on the balcony. It helped ease the aches in his increasingly weak spine.

He had spent several weeks here since his abduction. In that time the aliens had learned to duplicate his speech patterns and were now able to speak with him in fluent English, Spanish and French. He understood them all equally, although he had no idea how or why. The aliens seemed to take great delight in forming words in Earth tongue. It differed quite substantially from their native guttural language of clicks and pops.

As he watched the crops in the nearby field swaying in the breeze, a jolt of memory struck. Life had not been happy for him back home. He had lost something. But what? Something important. He tried to conjure up an image, anything to help him place the new memory in context, but there was nothing. All he could now add was an emotion to the memory – sadness.

For the final experiment session they followed the same old routine. Instructions were read out to him in English, occasionally in French or Spanish depending on their mood, and then the experiments would begin. After hearing the instructions for what must have been the thousandth time, he nodded and took his place on the table without saying a word.

Behind a safety screen, a group of alien scientists watched him keenly. In front of them were an array of buttons that controlled the experiments. Next to them, a display provided readings on the man’s internal organs and general health. A second screen beneath logged his mental state.

At the press of a button his mind was abuzz, as if the flip of a switch had given him back all that he had forgotten. This time the experiment was different to all the rest.

He cried, a never ending stream of tears as bolts of red and green light and pulses of blue energy rippled across his frame. The gaps in his mind had now been filled, and he wished that he could forget.

He was back on Earth. He was out for a picnic with his wife and two young children. The summer had been warm not not unpleasantly so, and they had decided that morning to make the most out of the nice weather. It was a spot they had visited many times before, a peaceful spot near the river, with an old oak tree providing cover from the sun and the elements.

A freak accident had taken them away from him that day. He had been the only survivor.

And so he had ended up on the balcony, looking up at the stars, ready to take his own life. As he lay on the table, he begged the aliens to take the memories away again, to return him to how he had been before. Anything was better than the pain he now felt.

“Yes, very good.” The scientist had spoken in English, placing a mark on the computer display. As much as the man begged, as much as he pleaded, the aliens did not return him to his former state. He was left with everything painfully clear in his mind.

After the session the man was almost dragged back to his residence. He had no energy left in him, no desire to continue. Maybe it was for the best that the experiments had now come to an end. His lucidity was tempered by the emotional stress of the final session. He felt ready for his final day, more so than he had on that fateful night on the balcony. The night when the alien’s beam had taken him away from his Earthly pain and grief.

That morning he crawled over to the balcony one final time as the sun’s rays first began peaking over the horizon. He closed his eyes, absorbing the rising sunlight as it creeped slowly up the side of the building. “It is time.” The guard, who had entered a moment before, had only just learned English. Its voice was staccato and unsteady, a novice. A gentle hand on his wrist directed him towards the door and away from the balcony. He followed, numbly.

Where they were taking him, he didn’t know. It didn’t matter. Not any more.

Dragon Dynasty: Kingdom of the Fire Dragons (2006) review

Simon Prior

2016-02-04

"Oh look, the dragon is taking away our self esteem." — “Oh look, the dragon is taking away our self esteem.”

The elevator pitch for Dragon Dynasty is very simple: Marco Polo (Federico Castelluccio) fights dragons. And er, that’s it. He’s in China to negotiate a considerable trade deal with the Emperor (James Hong) when his jealous advisor, Shang Sel (Peter Kwong), takes a dragon stone and summons a couple of dragons to wreak a bit of havoc, as they often do. You should be able to tell instantly that Shang is a bad guy, if not for him sneering at Marco or for him dressing entirely in black, then for causing havoc for no discernible reason within five minutes of us meeting him.

Bearin in mind this is your average, Direct-to-DVD production, it goes without saying that the CGI dragons look terrible. That the boat Marco and his companions travel on looks even worse. That the performances are, for the most part, so wooden they are likely to give your wardrobe a run for its money in the “quite mahogany” awards category. That the story itself is little more than a by the numbers “travelling from A to B” narrative, with a little bit of family strife and dragon based death thrown in for good measure.

Relegated to a brief but entertaining supporting role, James Hong is by far the classiest performer. Once he’s off our screens – and it doesn’t take long for him to pack his bags and leave the production – it’s all downhill from there.

James Hong. Not in it long enough to make the story worthwhile.

That isn’t exactly a surprise when you’re presented with Marco and his roaming posse of American surfer dudes as they hunt stock footage of deer roaming in the forest. Not actual deer – blatantly obvious stock footage that is in a much lower resolution than the rest of the film. Castelluccio is the best of a bad bunch as Marco, although any emotional connection to his travels is strangely absent. It’s as if all the life was removed from the film when they desaturated the film’s colour palette.

Even Stana Katic, best known for her longstanding role in the Nathan Fillion TV series Castle, is poorly used and actually quite bad in her role as the obligatory love interest Ava. At least the flames and explosions look half decent. That’s not nearly enough to save it, of course.

The biggest issue is the script and the choices the characters make. Rather foolishly Marco decides to head home despite knowing that the dragons are following him and his brother. If you want to avoid your loved ones dying, it’s probably best to not lead the dragons directly to them. But then perhaps that’s just me thinking too logically.

Dragon Dynasty is another example of a low budget production that suffers because it maintains a serious tone rather than embracing the inherent daftness of the story. A couple of good shots – a dragon swooping around a large field and a small crane shot when Marco’s brother Giovanni (Aaron Hendry) returns to visit his wife – aren’t nearly enough to save it from its own mediocrity.

Score: 2/5

Alice In Wonderland (1951) review

Simon Prior

2016-02-03

"No, sorry, I don't want to buy anything from you." — “No, sorry, I don’t want to buy anything from you.”

In all of Disney’s work, the one film that is most likely to replicate a bad acid trip is 1951’s Alice In Wonderland. Not that I’ve ever experienced an acid trip, bad or otherwise, but it almost perfectly represents what one might expect of such an event taking place. One weird situation takes place after another, starting with Alice finding her way into Wonderland and having to choose between a Drink Me/Eat Me combo that puts fast food restaurants to shame. From there she meets the grinning Cheshire Cat, a smoking caterpillar, Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee, The Mad Hatter and, of course, the Queen of Hearts. It’s more a series of vignettes than an overarching narrative.

It also happens to be a thoroughly enjoyable romp through Wonderland as Alice encounters each of these characters, amongst others. It’s a story that travels along at quite an impressive pace and despite never progressing beyond its basic premise of watching Alice traverse from Point A to Point B, it still does its job admirably. Besides which, it’s not really about the story but it’s the journey, a potent metaphor for the journey we all go on when growing up and finding our place in the world. Alice is a clear outsider in Wonderland and, potentially, back in the real world too, and yet she still manages to find a place for herself before returning home, finding a sense of purpose amongst the madness. Was it all just the dream of an imaginative privileged girl? In many respects it doesn’t matter. There’s something for everyone to take away whether you are five or fifty five.

It goes without saying that the animation is sublime, the voice work is impressive, and it’s occasionally difficult to believe that such a high quality piece of work was made so long ago. Watching the Blu-Ray edition, if you ignore the non-widescreen presentation you would almost think that it had been made quite recently. It’s a testament to the creativity and skill of the Disney studio animators that it can still look this impressive decades later. If only every studio went to such efforts to preserve their films, we would be far better off and wouldn’t have to complain about shoddy DVD transfers.

The morality tales offered are perfect for a younger audience. The angry Queen of Hearts has everything she could hope for and yet is punished, ultimately, for being so incredibly horrible to all those around her. Then there are the more subtle moments, such as the caterpillar becoming what in A Bug’s Life would be described as a beautiful butterfly. If you’re feeling ugly and cumbersome, you may still turn into an emotionally/physically balanced individual. And of course there is Alice’s journey which, as previously discussed, is rife with thematic concepts.

It’s safe to ignore Tim Burton’s moderately entertaining live action reboot/reimagining, even despite the epic presence of Alan Rickman in that film. This 1951 animated version does the job it needs to. It is, quite frankly, a work of art.

Score 4/5

Terminator: Genisys (2015) review

Simon Prior

2016-02-02

No, that's just odd. — No, that’s just odd.

Ever since 1991’s Terminator 2 the Terminator franchise has struggled to make a significant impact and return to its glory years. The third film, Rise of the Machines almost completely rehashed the plot of the second, whilst Terminator Salvation went forward into the world of tomorrow and showed us a planet enslaved by the machines. It also, oddly enough, featured director McG’s obsession with showing closeups of seemingly hundreds of red Terminator eyes slowly fading to black. It didn’t help that both of those films were mostly terrible. The less said about the CGI Arnold in Terminator Salvation, the better.

And that still applies here, because while Game of Thrones stalwart director Alan Taylor demonstrates a solid hand for action sequences and special effects in Terminator Genisys (don’t even get me started on that title), the script’s attempt to combine all the disparate elements of the previous films leaves an incredibly confusing and muddled mess, revisiting past glories and trying to pay homage to some of the series’ most iconic moments. Even the “Synthespian” version of Arnie isn’t as horrific as you might expect, although it’s still clear that CGI hasn’t yet conquered the Uncanny Valley issue.

You’d be best ignoring the plot or trying to figure out the time travel machinations that influence everything, as you’ll end up twisting yourself into a knot and likely give yourself a migraine. To put it simply, Kyle Reese is sent back to 1984 to protect Sarah Connor, only to find that the timeline has changed and she’s ready for him. Everything that happens in this 1980s setting looks the part and serves some narrative purpose, but the presence of a T-1000 in 1984 isn’t explained, nor is it explained adequately why Arnie’s T-800 is sent back to the 1970’s to protect a young Sarah. It just falls back on that old favourite trope of Skynet wanting to kill her. The plot unravels and makes even less sense as it goes on, with character decisions making no sense at all, and Skynet proving itself to be so incredibly incompetent it makes you wonder how it ever rose to power in the first place.

Terminator Genisys (2015) review — He looked everywhere for the screenwriters. They were probably hiding under the bus.

Then there is the matter of a major plot twist being given away in all of the trailers. I won’t go into detail on it here just in case there are a few people left who have mercifully avoided the trailer and the film, but it does ruin what would have otherwise been a surprise to the audience. With that said, it doesn’t make all that much difference in the grand scheme of things. By giving it away in the trailer it almost saves you having to sit through the film.

But there are a couple of, admittedly minor, positives. Emilia Clarke is a gutsy Sarah Connor, more T2 Linda Hamilton than T1. Jai Courtnay is decent as Kyle Reese, although the character will always have Michael Biehn’s face in my opinion. Jason Clarke meanwhile is a solid John Connor, perhaps more so than any of the other actors that have preceded him in the role.

And of course there’s Arnold himself as the Terminator, bringing an amount of pathos to a character who was originally nothing more than a mindless killing machine. His human skin might have aged and his robot model might be old, but he’s certainly not obsolete. His aspect of the story is the one that works the best, in particular the father/daughter relationship he has with Sarah, but it’s mostly lost amongst big explosions and action sequence after action sequence.

The biggest tragedy is that Eleventh Doctor Matt Smith pops up in a brief cameo and isn’t used particularly well, and that JK Simmons is given the role of a drunken, conspiracy theorist crackpot cop but falls out of the story before the big finale. At least he still has Whiplash.

Score: 1.5/5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62E4FJTwSuc

Cabin Fever 3: Patient Zero (2014) review

Simon Prior

2016-02-01

Twitter Plot Summary: We go back to the very beginning and find out what exactly caused the skin eating virus to reach the mainland. Mostly pointless.

Prequels seem to be a necessary evil in this day and age, even if they are provided out of sequence with the previous films. Such is the case here, the third entry in the Cabin Fever series and an almost unnecessary look back to the events that led to the skin eating virus making its way to that cabin in the woods in Eli Roth’s series opener. As is always the case, a group of youngsters (teens/early 20s, you know the drill) arrive on the island and are inadvertently infected with the virus.

The skin melting aspects of the virus are given centre stage here as the youngsters fall victim to its effects. One scene in particular, where an amorous couple do the business, is especially gnarly. But as is often the case, it’s difficult to empathise with them as they’re never painted as being anything more than self-centred youth. By all means give them personal issues because otherwise they would be nothing more than a cardboard box flouncing around the place, but don’t make them all horrible people. There should be at least one person who fits the role as unwilling participant, someone who has done nothing wrong besides being in the wrong place at the wrong time. There’s none of that here.

Other than occasional moments of some extremely good violence and gore, the only other point worthy of note is the presence of Sean Astin as the titular Patient Zero. He has the virus but is immune to its effects. Unfortunately for him he’s being kept captive by some scientists in a remote lab on a tropical island as they try and work on a vaccine. He appears to have been directed to alternate between looking bored or looking slightly angry. Either way, it doesn’t make for a great character. Much like the fate of everyone else in this particular tale, it’s hard to care what happens to him. In this respect it’s a simple waste of Astin’s talents.

"I'm having a bad day, alright?" — “I’m having a bad day, alright?”

Director Kaare Andrews tries to add intrigue to the narrative by throwing in a flashback sequence right at the very end to explain how the virus manages to get out of the laboratory, but this is one brief moment in a film that is mostly filler. Perhaps most damning of all, it can’t even claim to be all that scary. The bloodier moments are unpleasant to look at, but it’s hardly something that will fill you with fear.

It appears that a further prequel was intended to follow this one, which might explain why the key plot strand – how the virus reaches mainland America – is left hanging without resolution. The aim of a prequel is to link into events in the first, which in some instances works (The Thing) but in this case does not. Why do two prequels anyway? It’s rather wide of the mark and taints Roth’s original twist on the cabin in the woods motif by association alone. At least that one had a sense of humour in its favour.

Score: 2/5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-olRjUhoG8

Good writing starts with reading

Simon Prior

2016-01-31

If you have ever considered being a writer, then the best advice anyone can give you is to do lots of reading. That doesn’t just mean research on your favoured topics.

It means reading. Reading for the simple joy of it. Fiction. Non-fiction. Graphic novels. Comic books. Magazines. The whole works. Reading is directly proportionate to better writing.

There are no right and wrong books to read, as long as you’re working your way through something. By reading, in particular if you enjoy reading across a wide number of genres and formats, you’re gaining exposure to many different approaches to the written word. This is what has drawn me into the science fiction and horror writing sphere. I had and continue to have a keen interest in both genres in a variety of mediums. It stands to reason therefore that the main focus of my writing is in these two genres, sometimes smashing them together like a poor man’s version of the Large Hadron Collider.

But I don’t limit myself to just those genres, and to make the most out of your planned writing career neither should you. Branch off the main path now and again. Do something different, find a genre or story that is outside of your normal comfort zone. If you’re like me and enjoy sci-fi and horror, why not write a crime thriller? Or a western? Or, you know, anything else at all? The only limitation is your imagination. Which is no limitation at all.

And the best part? All of this will make you a better writer. Whether you are influenced by a particular author or a particular style as I am, you will learn through some strange kind of osmosis about how the written word works. More importantly, you will come to appreciate what doesn’t work. Now and again you’ll find a novel that is so appallingly written and clumsily plotted that you question how they managed to sell as many books as they have. I’m looking at you, Fifty Shades of Grey – said the man who hasn’t read anything more than an occasional badly written sentence.

But let’s not focus on any negatives like that train wreck of a novel. Reading should be a positive experience, and for me it will forever remain that way. Sure, I watch a lot of films but I try and balance my enjoyment of cinema and television drama with equal amounts of time reading. It might not necessarily always be a novel. I plough through six magazine and comic subscriptions every month. It’s a rare thing indeed if I go more than a day without reading for the pleasure of it.

Reading lots of books is a very good thing, whether you wish to be a writer or otherwise. Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise.

As for me? I’m foolish. I start a book and then without even realising it I’ve started another four somewhere along the way. Needless to say I don’t finish books as often as I would like because of this. Still, I do get through somewhere between 35-55 books and graphic novels in a year, so I’m quite happy with that tally in the grand scheme of things. You might be the same, as focused and equally scatterbrained as I am. You may only read one book at a time. Again, this is perfectly fine.

But it all comes down again to that one fact. If you want to write, you have to read. It’s as simple as that.

1...161718...90 Page 17 of 90

SIMONPRIOR.COM