Page 2 – Burning the midnight oil at noon

Shudder Film Review Double Feature

More movies have been watched. As Halloween season is rapidly approaching, I feel even more like I need to be writing about them. Both of the films reviewed below are Shudder originals, as you can plainly see on the posters. Preamble complete.

~ Deadstream ~

This one is about a livestreamer who goes to spend a night in a “haunted house” as something of a stunt to entertain his following. This premise is absolutely as cringey as it sounds, at least until about 15 minutes in and you realize that it’s actually a comedy. Kind of like Evil Dead 2 but with a modern twist.

That said, I had to watch Deadstream in two sessions, because it scared the absolute crap out of me the first time around. Early on in the film, our “hero” Shawn enters the house and starts recounting the tales of why it’s haunted, and he tells a story about a ghost called the Corner Man. If you weren’t already aware, I have a strong irrational fear of ghosts. Having all the lights turned off and watching movies about ghosts alone never ends well for me. I tried my best to remain rational, but I very quickly had to turn off the movie and turn on the lights, because my brain immediately started thinking it was seeing things in my peripheral vision. There aren’t a lot of things that genuinely terrify me, but my overactive imagination is definitely high on the list.

A couple night later, my fears had receded, and I decided to push through. This time with the lights on. As it turns out, after that singular scene, the movie’s tone changes dramatically, and it goes from horror-comedy to pretty much just straight comedy.

TE Video: Coming Soon (Sept 2024)

Here’s your monthly reminder to subscribe to my video channels on Rumble and YouTube. Also, if you could actually watch the videos too, that would be awesome and muchly appreciated. I have no idea how important the watch time metric is to the algorithm these days, but it couldn’t hurt to see it improve.

That said, what’s coming down the pipe in September?

Sizeable (PC) – The finale episode airs Sept 2. The first two are just me completing the game, and this one is hunting down and finishing all the secret levels. A lot of fun was had by me. Will you enjoy watching me enjoy playing the game?

Wario Ware, Inc: Mega Microgames! (GBA) – Episode 5 goes live on Sept 5. This is the beginning of “the grind” portion of the series, and I could see how even folks who are interested in this game might drop off here. Roughly half of Part 5 is just me racking up a ridiculously high score in Sheriff, Part 6 is over two hours of farming microgames (yikes), and Part 7… is a surprise!

Winner, winner?

You know, it took me a whole week to edit this thing. Not because it was so much work, but just because I couldn’t shake the feeling that nobody’s going to care about another chicken sandwich review. Oh well!

On Pits and Going Into Them

A new Five Nights at Freddy’s game came out last week. I knew it was a thing, but also forgot about it until I saw a bunch of let’s plays roll into my YouTube feed.

And who am I to do anything but throw another video on the pile? Well, multiple videos. There are at least two more for this game coming… eventually. Not sure how I’m going to schedule them yet, but they’re on the way.

Three Fun-Size Film Reviews

Some movies, I can very easily ramble on and on about. Others don’t capture my attention/imagination quite as strongly, and I find it difficult to write about them. The following three films are of the latter variety.

~ Arcadian ~

It kind of seems like this one was marketed as whatever the movie equivalent of a “killer app” is for Shudder. I got a lot of emails promoting it! Although, it is a Shudder original, so maybe they just pushed it harder because it’s theirs. Anyway, it’s somewhat similar to A Quiet Place but with Nic Cage. Also, it’s not stupid due to major plot holes and braindead characters, but rather because stupid is just kind of the vibe it’s going for, which I can appreciate.

Plot is as such: About fifteen years after humanity falls to… something, Nic Cage lives on a farm with his two teenage sons. Every night, they maintain a stoic vigil to protect their home from attempted invasions. Obviously, the sons are polar opposites: one a hot-blooded tough guy, the other a quiet inventor. Their inability to reconcile their desires (girls vs learning) ends up ruining the balance that they’ve maintained for years and puts everyone’s life in danger. Because of course it does. Teenagers, am I right?

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Completionist

You know what’s weird? I didn’t ever write all that much about Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door when it was originally released on GameCube. I did a thing where I critiqued a TV Guide review of the game, but that’s effectively it. In retrospect, it’s a bit weird because I think about TTYD all the time. Mostly because the battle victory theme is what plays in my head every time I achieve a personal victory. It’s a bit of a stretch, but it counts!

Anyway, there’s a new Switch remaster that came out a while ago, which I’ve now finished playing. Like Super Mario RPG before it, it’s unfortunately the same game with a new coat of paint, some localization tidying, a few quality-of-life improvements, and a teeny-tiny portion new content. Oh, and also both games have fantastically re-arranged soundtracks. I would actually argue that the new soundtracks are reason enough to buy and play either game, because they are marvelous.

With the TTYD remaster, I’ve finally put in the effort to actually finish the game. And not like, just get to the end of the story. I did that already back in 2004. No, this time I finished the game. I found all the badges, I collected all the star pieces, I made all the recipes, I solved all the troubles, and I beat all the optional bosses. I truly got 100% and earned the special new badge that turns Mario gold.

And it was not at all worth the effort!

Month End Video Game Wrap-Up: July 2024

~ Game Over ~

Froggo’s Adventure: Verdant Venture (PC) – A cute little game highly reminiscent (like, suspiciously so) of Kirby’s Adventure. Only it’s like seven levels long. Very reminiscent of Whipseey, only it looks more NES than GBA.

Froggo Swing ‘n Grapple (PC) – Simultaneously better and worse than its sequel (mentioned above). Better because it’s about twice as long, is much more challenging, and has more gameplay mechanics in general. Worse because the central “swing ‘n grapple” mechanic is a little too loosey-goosey and doesn’t feel great.

Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars (PS4) – An old-school RPG represented entirely in cards. It’s a bit slow and much too easy, but it’s a Yoko Taro game, so the story, characters, music, and art all make it worth the price of admission.

Garage Sale Surprise Bags

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that my surprise bag articles are the most popular content on this website. At the very least, they’re the ones that the most strangers have e-mailed me about. If we wanted to drill down even more, said e-mails were all in relation to the Dick Turtle surprise bags in particular.

Even with that fact set aside, I always got a kick out of opening surprise bags and writing about the strange things found inside. But a few years ago, I noticed that times had changed, and surprise bags weren’t all that, you know, surprising anymore. They got generic. You’d always get the same kinds of boring stuff in each one, and it’s become very difficult to find any that seem unique. Gone are the days of getting a random assortment of Baby trading cards and Spanish Tic-Tacs!

However! There appears to still be some light left in the world, localized entirely within the garage of someone in a nearby neighbourhood, at that. A couple of friends routinely go garage saleing during the summer, and they just happened to notice that one household was selling (presumably) home-made surprise bags. They very thoughtfully purchased a couple bags and delivered them directly to my doorstep. What a kind gesture/obligation!

Right off the bat, I think it’s obvious why I’m assuming these are home-made. They’re basic paper bags with some low-effort doodles on them. Not that I’m judging! It’s just… even the Big Dollar surprise bags were printed, and those are by far the cheapest-looking surprise bags I’ve ever seen on sale in a store. If I were to see any that looked even cheaper? My eyes would probably transform into beating cartoon hearts as I scoop them all up into my arms.

“Sketchy” is exactly the trait I’m looking for in a surprise bag, is what I’m getting at.

Bok Bok

Well, this happened.

TE Video: Coming Soon (Aug 2024)

Happy Friday! I don’t know if I’m going to do this every month, but I like the idea of writing up a preview of all the video content I’ll be releasing in the next month, so here we are.

Please note that while the original home of TE Video is on YouTube, I’ve got my Rumble channels up and running now, and they’re actually earning me money. Only a few cents so far, but considering that all the videos I’ve uploaded to Rumble have a total of maybe 150 views between them, that’s not bad! It should go without saying, but if you would be so kind as to watch my stuff on Rumble instead of YouTube, that would mean a lot to me.

(Also, I think I listed most of these last month, but ehhhhhhhhh)

Quest For Camelot (GBC) – The first episode went live yesterday, and second half will be up on August 1st. This is a weird, little game, and it’s not good! The first episode, to my best recollection, is pretty normal, but you’ll get to watch my sanity unravel in real time in part 2.