Search
Search results
JT (287 KP) rated Sinister (2012) in Movies
Mar 10, 2020
Has the found footage genre been done to death? Some would very much say it has, yet they keep on churning the films out. One thing to note with many of these is the budget, films like Paranormal Activity and Insidious were made for a pittance yet generated millions at the box office.
This is the same for Sinister, made for $3m it grossed almost $80m and was one of the surprise hits of last year, of course films like this are not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, but I love a good scare now and again and here I wasn’t disappointed.
Ethan Hawke is the clear standout in this one, here he plays true crime writer Ellison Oswalt who is looking for his next big thing to thrust him into the limelight. He and his family move into a house which he tells them is only a few doors down from a gruesome murder of a family who were all hung from a tree in their back garden.
When he finds a box in his attic containing reels of super 8 film and a camera he soon discovers more grisly murders and that somehow they are all linked to each other. Add to that a mysterious figure who appears in all the films and you have a character who goes a little stir crazy in trying to uncover the truth.
His family are desperate to leave, not happy with the current surroundings they are thrown into even more turmoil when its revealed that the house Oswalt said was two doors down is actually the house they are living in at the moment, don’t you just hate when that happens?
Director Scott Derrickson builds solid amounts of tension throughout, most disturbing are the super 8 films that show a number of families being killed off (you’ll never look at a lawn mower in the same light again). But then you have the same old horror cliché’s slipping back into it, things going bump in the night which leave you waiting for that revealing moment which comes with a consistent bang.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that this might not actually be classed as found footage, certainly not in the same vein as maybe Paranormal Activity or The Blair Witch Project. We’re not viewing anything from the point of view that the characters in this are dead….yet, and the resulting film is their story. But it is ‘found footage’, in that Oswalt has uncovered these films in his attic.
What makes Sinister that bit more unnerving is the somber mood, lighting and camera angles. Not quite giving us the full picture we have to let our imagination stay a few steps ahead of us. The musical score then connects everything together to give us a real horror treat.
Hawke gives a solid performance, he’s a man very much on the edge and that fame is the answer to his future. He’ll succeed at whatever the cost, and the cost is ultimately a big one. The end reveal some might have seen coming a mile off, personally I wasn’t expecting it so it was a good finish to a film that had rattled the nerves a few times.
Produced by the same team that brought us Paranormal Activity and Insidious, it’s a low budget success that shows big budget horrors how it should be done.
This is the same for Sinister, made for $3m it grossed almost $80m and was one of the surprise hits of last year, of course films like this are not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, but I love a good scare now and again and here I wasn’t disappointed.
Ethan Hawke is the clear standout in this one, here he plays true crime writer Ellison Oswalt who is looking for his next big thing to thrust him into the limelight. He and his family move into a house which he tells them is only a few doors down from a gruesome murder of a family who were all hung from a tree in their back garden.
When he finds a box in his attic containing reels of super 8 film and a camera he soon discovers more grisly murders and that somehow they are all linked to each other. Add to that a mysterious figure who appears in all the films and you have a character who goes a little stir crazy in trying to uncover the truth.
His family are desperate to leave, not happy with the current surroundings they are thrown into even more turmoil when its revealed that the house Oswalt said was two doors down is actually the house they are living in at the moment, don’t you just hate when that happens?
Director Scott Derrickson builds solid amounts of tension throughout, most disturbing are the super 8 films that show a number of families being killed off (you’ll never look at a lawn mower in the same light again). But then you have the same old horror cliché’s slipping back into it, things going bump in the night which leave you waiting for that revealing moment which comes with a consistent bang.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that this might not actually be classed as found footage, certainly not in the same vein as maybe Paranormal Activity or The Blair Witch Project. We’re not viewing anything from the point of view that the characters in this are dead….yet, and the resulting film is their story. But it is ‘found footage’, in that Oswalt has uncovered these films in his attic.
What makes Sinister that bit more unnerving is the somber mood, lighting and camera angles. Not quite giving us the full picture we have to let our imagination stay a few steps ahead of us. The musical score then connects everything together to give us a real horror treat.
Hawke gives a solid performance, he’s a man very much on the edge and that fame is the answer to his future. He’ll succeed at whatever the cost, and the cost is ultimately a big one. The end reveal some might have seen coming a mile off, personally I wasn’t expecting it so it was a good finish to a film that had rattled the nerves a few times.
Produced by the same team that brought us Paranormal Activity and Insidious, it’s a low budget success that shows big budget horrors how it should be done.
JT (287 KP) rated Mama (2013) in Movies
Mar 10, 2020
When a film is presented by a well-known director it initially has a certain weight to it that will place it above the shoulders of others. In the case of horror/thriller Mama it has the backing of Spanish director Guillermo del Toro which is a certain plus point for any one who is a fan.
However, any big name attachment is probably there to push the marketing of the film, sadly this one doesn’t quite do itself much justice and falls some way short of achieving any greatness.
It’s a film of two halves, which as the second and third acts take shape becomes more and more ridiculous.
The film is brought to the big screen by director by Andrés Muschietti who also helmed the short three minute piece. It follows the story of two girls Lily and Victoria who are taken away by their father Jeffrey after he goes a bit doolally and offs his co-workers and wife.
When the car they are travelling in crashes they take shelter in a house deep in the forest, riddled with guilt Jeffrey then decides to enter into murder suicide, but something supernatural stops him and the girls are left to fend for themselves.
Move ahead five years and Jeffrey’s brother Lucas continues his search for the girls hiring a couple of hicks to trail the forest looking for the derelict cabin. When they are finally found the girls are practically feral and need psychiatric supervision as they are welcomed back into society.
Lucas and his grunge girlfriend Annabel are given custody as well as a nice new house for them to live in, all under the watchful eye of Dr. Dreyfuss. Once inside the house its clear to see that the girls have brought something back with them, something that doesn’t want to let them go.
Mama starts well enough, with a frenetic opening that glimpses the supernatural entity through blurred vision it moves from eerie strength to strength building tension and then unleashing it in small doses not giving the audience long enough to draw breath.
Of course it sticks quite closely to now tried and tested horror clichés, with things lurking in the shadows, children talking to imaginary nothingness and the so old “what’s in the closet” routine?
Then the director, whether bored with just giving us tit bits of the mother like antagonist, decides to reveal ‘it’ in all its glory. It then moves from scare mongering horror to poorly constructed ghost story in the space of a few minutes.
The acting is nothing to write home about, Jessica Chastain while so dominant in Zero Dark Thirty is flat and a little off the mark here, why the need for the grunge look is beyond me. Maybe it was in keeping with the Gothic back story?
The young girls do well, sweet and innocent yet dependable when needed, the rest of the cast pretty much fall by the wayside. The ending was for me beyond ridiculous and undid most if not all of the good work the start gave us, although saying that it was pretty much on the decline when Mama herself becomes much more of a central character.
It’s not as main stream a horror as you would expect, but the protagonist shadows the central figure that graced the god awful Darkness Falls and that is one supernatural entity well worth staying away from.
However, any big name attachment is probably there to push the marketing of the film, sadly this one doesn’t quite do itself much justice and falls some way short of achieving any greatness.
It’s a film of two halves, which as the second and third acts take shape becomes more and more ridiculous.
The film is brought to the big screen by director by Andrés Muschietti who also helmed the short three minute piece. It follows the story of two girls Lily and Victoria who are taken away by their father Jeffrey after he goes a bit doolally and offs his co-workers and wife.
When the car they are travelling in crashes they take shelter in a house deep in the forest, riddled with guilt Jeffrey then decides to enter into murder suicide, but something supernatural stops him and the girls are left to fend for themselves.
Move ahead five years and Jeffrey’s brother Lucas continues his search for the girls hiring a couple of hicks to trail the forest looking for the derelict cabin. When they are finally found the girls are practically feral and need psychiatric supervision as they are welcomed back into society.
Lucas and his grunge girlfriend Annabel are given custody as well as a nice new house for them to live in, all under the watchful eye of Dr. Dreyfuss. Once inside the house its clear to see that the girls have brought something back with them, something that doesn’t want to let them go.
Mama starts well enough, with a frenetic opening that glimpses the supernatural entity through blurred vision it moves from eerie strength to strength building tension and then unleashing it in small doses not giving the audience long enough to draw breath.
Of course it sticks quite closely to now tried and tested horror clichés, with things lurking in the shadows, children talking to imaginary nothingness and the so old “what’s in the closet” routine?
Then the director, whether bored with just giving us tit bits of the mother like antagonist, decides to reveal ‘it’ in all its glory. It then moves from scare mongering horror to poorly constructed ghost story in the space of a few minutes.
The acting is nothing to write home about, Jessica Chastain while so dominant in Zero Dark Thirty is flat and a little off the mark here, why the need for the grunge look is beyond me. Maybe it was in keeping with the Gothic back story?
The young girls do well, sweet and innocent yet dependable when needed, the rest of the cast pretty much fall by the wayside. The ending was for me beyond ridiculous and undid most if not all of the good work the start gave us, although saying that it was pretty much on the decline when Mama herself becomes much more of a central character.
It’s not as main stream a horror as you would expect, but the protagonist shadows the central figure that graced the god awful Darkness Falls and that is one supernatural entity well worth staying away from.
Gareth von Kallenbach (980 KP) rated A Walk Among the Tombstones (2014) in Movies
Aug 6, 2019
A Walk Among the Tombstones stars Liam Neeson as former cop, and former alcoholic, Matthew Scudder in this adaptation of the tenth novel in Lawrence Block’s long-running series. Set in 1999, amid the Y2K scare, Scudder operates just outside of the law as an unlicensed private investigator. Approached by a fellow AA member, he is tasked with finding the men responsible for kidnapping and murdering the wife of a local drug trafficker. Along the way, he receives help from homeless teen T.J. (played, with admirable restraint in a role easy to overdo, by newcomer Brian ‘Astro’ Bradley) and discovers that the two men he is investigating have killed before, and will do so again.
This is exactly the type of movie that I find myself drawn to, a brooding, hard-edged film-noir, but what stops me from enjoying it more and rating it higher is that right from the opening frames, Tombstones, unlike last year’s Prisoners, which defied all my expectations, doesn’t strive to do anything more than to satisfy the requirements of its genre and lean heavily on the performance of its lead.
That being said, it is another fantastic performance from Neeson and, still sporting that questionable American accent, he brings real weight to the character of Scudder. Don’t expect to see a tour-de-force the likes of Denzel Washington battling alcoholism in Flight, but it is refreshing to see these types of characters humanized and played straight in roles that have previously been over-the-top and laughably romanticized.
Another highlight is the relationship between Scudder and T.J, something that from the outset seems a cliché and had the potential to detract from the plot, it is however surprisingly well-constructed. One scene in particular between them is a stand-out as we see Scudder’s reaction to finding out that T.J. has been carrying a presumably stolen firearm. I will refrain from ruining the punchline, but it is a rare piece of frank dialogue and is deservedly shocking in its delivery.
Where A Walk Among the Tombstones unfortunately falls short is in its lack of subtlety, through a heavy-handed score and, more importantly, a bloated running time. More times than I would have liked, I found myself asking, “Is this scene necessary, or relevant?” Less would have been so much more, especially in the case of the two antagonists, who are set up as being formidable psychopaths for our anti-hero, they are instantly deflated through a single moment that depicts the normality of what we assume is their morning routine. Though it’s not unheard of that the most violent of criminals lead ordinary lives, the tongue-in-cheek nature of the scene does nothing to intensify the fear and dread we are supposed to feel toward these men.
Fans of Liam Neeson should be pleased, but what we’re given here is a solid first act and dialogue that ranges from good to great, but ultimately a predictable, over-long, paint-by-numbers effort. Sure, it hits all the right notes atmospherically, but I can’t expect that it will be more or less memorable than any of the other recent thriller entries in Neeson’s oeuvre (anyone remember 2011’s Unknown?). Between this and knowing that a third Taken is on the way, I now find myself longing for another great dramatic turn from him along the lines of Five Minutes of Heaven, or Kinsey.
This is exactly the type of movie that I find myself drawn to, a brooding, hard-edged film-noir, but what stops me from enjoying it more and rating it higher is that right from the opening frames, Tombstones, unlike last year’s Prisoners, which defied all my expectations, doesn’t strive to do anything more than to satisfy the requirements of its genre and lean heavily on the performance of its lead.
That being said, it is another fantastic performance from Neeson and, still sporting that questionable American accent, he brings real weight to the character of Scudder. Don’t expect to see a tour-de-force the likes of Denzel Washington battling alcoholism in Flight, but it is refreshing to see these types of characters humanized and played straight in roles that have previously been over-the-top and laughably romanticized.
Another highlight is the relationship between Scudder and T.J, something that from the outset seems a cliché and had the potential to detract from the plot, it is however surprisingly well-constructed. One scene in particular between them is a stand-out as we see Scudder’s reaction to finding out that T.J. has been carrying a presumably stolen firearm. I will refrain from ruining the punchline, but it is a rare piece of frank dialogue and is deservedly shocking in its delivery.
Where A Walk Among the Tombstones unfortunately falls short is in its lack of subtlety, through a heavy-handed score and, more importantly, a bloated running time. More times than I would have liked, I found myself asking, “Is this scene necessary, or relevant?” Less would have been so much more, especially in the case of the two antagonists, who are set up as being formidable psychopaths for our anti-hero, they are instantly deflated through a single moment that depicts the normality of what we assume is their morning routine. Though it’s not unheard of that the most violent of criminals lead ordinary lives, the tongue-in-cheek nature of the scene does nothing to intensify the fear and dread we are supposed to feel toward these men.
Fans of Liam Neeson should be pleased, but what we’re given here is a solid first act and dialogue that ranges from good to great, but ultimately a predictable, over-long, paint-by-numbers effort. Sure, it hits all the right notes atmospherically, but I can’t expect that it will be more or less memorable than any of the other recent thriller entries in Neeson’s oeuvre (anyone remember 2011’s Unknown?). Between this and knowing that a third Taken is on the way, I now find myself longing for another great dramatic turn from him along the lines of Five Minutes of Heaven, or Kinsey.
300+ Super Sound Box
Lifestyle and Entertainment
App
The ultimate sound app! Play 300 awesome HIGH quality sound effects with big buttons! Annoy your...
Darren (1599 KP) rated The Curse of La Llorona (2019) in Movies
Sep 14, 2019
Verdict: Jump Scare 101
Characters – Anna is the widowed social worker and mother who while doing her job, checking up on children that might be suffering abuse, trying to keep them with their parents, get involved in a curse, which puts her own children in danger. Baring in mind, she is a social work and was married to a cop, she doesn’t make the best decisions, we see how she struggles to communicate with her children, often leaves them alone and when they get injuries, she doesn’t demand answers, which remaining unanswered would mean she could be considered abusive. Chris and Samantha are the children, they are both dealing with the loss of their father, which would be difficult for any child, they become cursed by La Llorona who wants to take them, meaning they must first learn to communicate with their own mother, when the events start to happen. Rafael Olvera is one man that turned his back on the church in order to fight the evil in the world, he is the last resort for Anna, where he knows how to stop La Llorona from causing more pain in the lives of family.
Performances – Linda Cardellini in the leading role does well through the film without doing anything you wouldn’t expect for a horror film. The child actors both do a solid job through the film too.
Story – The story here follows a widowed mother that ends up getting a cursed by an evil spirit that wants to take her children and she must figure out how to stop her before it is too late. This is a horror story that does do everything it needs to, to put a character in a position where everything they do know, can be turned on its head, when it comes to child protection. The story does however fall into the position of the start of the La Llorona appearance seeming quite random to the first victim, with not enough investigation into that side of the story, while the battle to protect is pretty much every sort of possession based film we have seen before.
Horror/Mystery – The horror in the film does work if you want jump scares, it does build some up very well, with an umbrella sequences which is the standout for me. The mystery behind the film comes from just why La Llorona has appeared in the first place, which never seems to get answered, only how to beat her.
Settings – The film keeps most of the scares in and around the family home, it does make a point that it is the family that is haunted not the house, which is key to how the ghostly figure appears. Being haunted in your own home is always going to be a scary idea.
Special Effects – The effects are used to make the figure of La Llorona look frightening, it will give the scary figure a look which would get a scream too.
Scene of the Movie – Umbrella.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – It is pretty routine for a horror film.
Final Thoughts – This is a routine horror that does have a couple of good scares without hitting the heights of the rest of the universe it has come from.
Overall: Easy to watch horror.
Rating
Performances – Linda Cardellini in the leading role does well through the film without doing anything you wouldn’t expect for a horror film. The child actors both do a solid job through the film too.
Story – The story here follows a widowed mother that ends up getting a cursed by an evil spirit that wants to take her children and she must figure out how to stop her before it is too late. This is a horror story that does do everything it needs to, to put a character in a position where everything they do know, can be turned on its head, when it comes to child protection. The story does however fall into the position of the start of the La Llorona appearance seeming quite random to the first victim, with not enough investigation into that side of the story, while the battle to protect is pretty much every sort of possession based film we have seen before.
Horror/Mystery – The horror in the film does work if you want jump scares, it does build some up very well, with an umbrella sequences which is the standout for me. The mystery behind the film comes from just why La Llorona has appeared in the first place, which never seems to get answered, only how to beat her.
Settings – The film keeps most of the scares in and around the family home, it does make a point that it is the family that is haunted not the house, which is key to how the ghostly figure appears. Being haunted in your own home is always going to be a scary idea.
Special Effects – The effects are used to make the figure of La Llorona look frightening, it will give the scary figure a look which would get a scream too.
Scene of the Movie – Umbrella.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – It is pretty routine for a horror film.
Final Thoughts – This is a routine horror that does have a couple of good scares without hitting the heights of the rest of the universe it has come from.
Overall: Easy to watch horror.
Rating
Allen Carr’s Easy Way to Stop Smoking
Health & Fitness and Lifestyle
App
For the first time an interactive presentation of Allen Carr’s Easyway method is available on the...
WardenCam Video Surveillance
Lifestyle and Utilities
App
If you happen to have an old smartphone or tablet collecting dust somewhere, now you have a better...
Pettersson und Findus
Games and Entertainment
App
Big play fun with Pettson and Findus! The old, inventive Pettson who lives with Findus - his...
Cut the Rope 2: Om Nom's Quest
Games and Entertainment
App
Second part of the legendary Cut the Rope logic puzzles series. Get it now for free! Cut the Rope 2...
Purple Phoenix Games (2266 KP) rated Sheepy Time in Tabletop Games
May 27, 2021
Have you ever had trouble falling asleep? One method that supposedly helps lull you into a gentle slumber is counting sheep – imagine sheep prancing across a field and jumping over a fence. What seems like a simple and mundane task to us is actually a full-time job for these Dream Sheep! So put on your PJ’s, lace up your slippers (?), and clock in for a night of fence-jumping, all while avoiding the spooky Nightmares that will try to scare you awake!
Disclaimer: We were provided with a copy of Sheepy Time for the purposes of this preview. What you see pictured below are the retail components. -L
Sheepy Time is a push-your-luck game in which players take on the roles of Dream Sheep, tasked with helping humans fall asleep. Played over a series of rounds, players will take turns racing their Sheep around the board, using special Dream powers, and avoiding the Nightmare that lurks around the board. The player that earns the most points (as described in the rules) will be declared the dreamiest sheep of all! To setup for a game, place the board within reach of all players and attach the Fence between spaces 10 and 1. Place the scoreboard and Pillow Reference tile nearby, and give all players a Sheep, Wink, Pillow, and Zzz tokens in their chosen color. Select one of the three provided Nightmares to use this game, shuffle their cards into the deck of Sheep cards, and place the Nightmare meeple in the center of the board. Shuffle the Dream tiles, drawing and placing one randomly on spaces 1 and 5 of the board, and reveal four more tiles to create a market. Place all Pillow tokens on the 40 Winks space of the scoreboard, choose a starting player, and the game is ready to begin!
Each round of Sheepy Time is broken into two phases: the Racing phase, and the Resting phase. To begin the Racing phase, all players will draw 2 cards into their hand. A turn consists of 4 steps: Play a card, Use Dream tiles, Resolve Fence crossing, and Draw cards. The first action you will take on your turn is to play a card from your hand. Most cards will have you move your Sheep around the board a set number of spaces, or will give you the option to ‘Catch some Zzz’s’ (place one of your Zzz tokens on a Dream tile in play). The next step, if applicable, is to use Dream tiles. Dream tiles provide special/extra abilities that can be beneficial to you. In order to use a Dream tile, however, you must have a Zzz token on it – remove your Zzz token from the tile to use its power. So you’ve got to decide when to move your Sheep, or when it’s necessary to Catch some Zzz’s! The third step is to resolve Fence crossing, if applicable. If a cards movement causes your Sheep to cross the Fence, you immediately gain 5 Winks (on the Scoreboard), and decide whether to keep playing this round or ‘Call it a Night.’ If you decide to keep playing, you move to step 4, and draw a new card into your hand. If you Call it a Night, you will discard your hand, and sit out for the remainder of this Racing phase.
If at any point in the Racing phase, you draw a Nightmare card, it must immediately be revealed and resolved. The Nightmare moves around the board, much like the Sheep, but it will Scare any Sheep that it passes! Being Scared once is ok, but if you were to be Scared AGAIN, you get Woken Up, lose all Winks for this round, and are out of the Racing phase. If the Nightmare completes a lap of the board and crosses the Fence before all players have Called it a Night, the remaining players get Woken Up. How risky are you willing to be once the Nightmare comes into play? That’s for you to decide. Once all players have either Called it a Night or been Woken Up, the Racing phase ends. Check the scoreboard for a winner – when a player earns enough Winks in the Racing phase to surpass their Pillow token. If nobody has met that requirement, players will lower their Pillow tokens by the amount specified on the Pillow Reference tile. The lower you can get your Pillow token, the fewer Winks you need to get to win in future rounds! When all Pillow tokens have been adjusted, the game moves to the Resting phase. In this phase, each player will have the choice to either add a new Dream tile to the board, or to Catch 2 Zzz’s. In turn order, players can select one of the Dream tiles from the market to place on an open space of the board, or place 2 Zzz tokens on Dream tiles in play. When everyone has performed their action, the round ends and a new Racing phase begins. Play continues in this manner until one player has been declared the winner!
I’m not typically a fan of push-your-luck games, but Sheepy Time really surprised me! Yes, that mechanic is definitely present in the gameplay, but there is also quite a bit of strategic variability that makes turns feel a little more controlled. The Dream tiles in play will always be different, providing unique abilities to help give you a strategic boost during play. And you always have 2 cards to decide between to play – you are not limited to only one course of action each turn. So yes, there is a riskiness involved with how many laps you think you can get, can you avoid the Nightmare, etc. But there is also a light element of strategy that makes the game more exciting for me. The gameplay itself is also very smooth and intuitive. The turn order makes sense and the flow of the game is pretty seamless. It is fast to teach and learn, and even though the box says 30-45 minutes, it feels fast to play.
Let me touch on components for a minute. As I said earlier, this is a retail copy of the game, and the production quality is great. The cardboard components are nice and thick, the wooden meeples are large and cute, and the overall art style reflects the theme and lightness of the game well. I want to mention that the insert is nice as well – I know it doesn’t effect the gameplay, but it makes set-up/tear-down quick and efficient. AEG definitely knocked it over the fence (get it?) with the production of this game!
So where does Sheepy Time fit into my collection? I think it’s a great game to use to introduce newer gamers to the hobby. The rules and gameplay are not overwhelming, but they offer more of a modern gaming feel than some of the older classics. I would even say that this game can be used with younger gamers as well – take out the Dream tile powers, and just race to see who can earn the most Winks before the Nightmare gets them, or something like that! It is really accessible for everyone, and that earns a big thumbs up from me. So if you’re not quite sure what to think of this game based on the theme/art style, I can assure you that the gameplay is quite excellent. When Sheepy Time hits retail, make sure you jump at the chance to play this game. Definitely don’t sleep on it.
Disclaimer: We were provided with a copy of Sheepy Time for the purposes of this preview. What you see pictured below are the retail components. -L
Sheepy Time is a push-your-luck game in which players take on the roles of Dream Sheep, tasked with helping humans fall asleep. Played over a series of rounds, players will take turns racing their Sheep around the board, using special Dream powers, and avoiding the Nightmare that lurks around the board. The player that earns the most points (as described in the rules) will be declared the dreamiest sheep of all! To setup for a game, place the board within reach of all players and attach the Fence between spaces 10 and 1. Place the scoreboard and Pillow Reference tile nearby, and give all players a Sheep, Wink, Pillow, and Zzz tokens in their chosen color. Select one of the three provided Nightmares to use this game, shuffle their cards into the deck of Sheep cards, and place the Nightmare meeple in the center of the board. Shuffle the Dream tiles, drawing and placing one randomly on spaces 1 and 5 of the board, and reveal four more tiles to create a market. Place all Pillow tokens on the 40 Winks space of the scoreboard, choose a starting player, and the game is ready to begin!
Each round of Sheepy Time is broken into two phases: the Racing phase, and the Resting phase. To begin the Racing phase, all players will draw 2 cards into their hand. A turn consists of 4 steps: Play a card, Use Dream tiles, Resolve Fence crossing, and Draw cards. The first action you will take on your turn is to play a card from your hand. Most cards will have you move your Sheep around the board a set number of spaces, or will give you the option to ‘Catch some Zzz’s’ (place one of your Zzz tokens on a Dream tile in play). The next step, if applicable, is to use Dream tiles. Dream tiles provide special/extra abilities that can be beneficial to you. In order to use a Dream tile, however, you must have a Zzz token on it – remove your Zzz token from the tile to use its power. So you’ve got to decide when to move your Sheep, or when it’s necessary to Catch some Zzz’s! The third step is to resolve Fence crossing, if applicable. If a cards movement causes your Sheep to cross the Fence, you immediately gain 5 Winks (on the Scoreboard), and decide whether to keep playing this round or ‘Call it a Night.’ If you decide to keep playing, you move to step 4, and draw a new card into your hand. If you Call it a Night, you will discard your hand, and sit out for the remainder of this Racing phase.
If at any point in the Racing phase, you draw a Nightmare card, it must immediately be revealed and resolved. The Nightmare moves around the board, much like the Sheep, but it will Scare any Sheep that it passes! Being Scared once is ok, but if you were to be Scared AGAIN, you get Woken Up, lose all Winks for this round, and are out of the Racing phase. If the Nightmare completes a lap of the board and crosses the Fence before all players have Called it a Night, the remaining players get Woken Up. How risky are you willing to be once the Nightmare comes into play? That’s for you to decide. Once all players have either Called it a Night or been Woken Up, the Racing phase ends. Check the scoreboard for a winner – when a player earns enough Winks in the Racing phase to surpass their Pillow token. If nobody has met that requirement, players will lower their Pillow tokens by the amount specified on the Pillow Reference tile. The lower you can get your Pillow token, the fewer Winks you need to get to win in future rounds! When all Pillow tokens have been adjusted, the game moves to the Resting phase. In this phase, each player will have the choice to either add a new Dream tile to the board, or to Catch 2 Zzz’s. In turn order, players can select one of the Dream tiles from the market to place on an open space of the board, or place 2 Zzz tokens on Dream tiles in play. When everyone has performed their action, the round ends and a new Racing phase begins. Play continues in this manner until one player has been declared the winner!
I’m not typically a fan of push-your-luck games, but Sheepy Time really surprised me! Yes, that mechanic is definitely present in the gameplay, but there is also quite a bit of strategic variability that makes turns feel a little more controlled. The Dream tiles in play will always be different, providing unique abilities to help give you a strategic boost during play. And you always have 2 cards to decide between to play – you are not limited to only one course of action each turn. So yes, there is a riskiness involved with how many laps you think you can get, can you avoid the Nightmare, etc. But there is also a light element of strategy that makes the game more exciting for me. The gameplay itself is also very smooth and intuitive. The turn order makes sense and the flow of the game is pretty seamless. It is fast to teach and learn, and even though the box says 30-45 minutes, it feels fast to play.
Let me touch on components for a minute. As I said earlier, this is a retail copy of the game, and the production quality is great. The cardboard components are nice and thick, the wooden meeples are large and cute, and the overall art style reflects the theme and lightness of the game well. I want to mention that the insert is nice as well – I know it doesn’t effect the gameplay, but it makes set-up/tear-down quick and efficient. AEG definitely knocked it over the fence (get it?) with the production of this game!
So where does Sheepy Time fit into my collection? I think it’s a great game to use to introduce newer gamers to the hobby. The rules and gameplay are not overwhelming, but they offer more of a modern gaming feel than some of the older classics. I would even say that this game can be used with younger gamers as well – take out the Dream tile powers, and just race to see who can earn the most Winks before the Nightmare gets them, or something like that! It is really accessible for everyone, and that earns a big thumbs up from me. So if you’re not quite sure what to think of this game based on the theme/art style, I can assure you that the gameplay is quite excellent. When Sheepy Time hits retail, make sure you jump at the chance to play this game. Definitely don’t sleep on it.
