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Writing Monsters: How to Craft Believably Terrifying Creatures to Enhance Your Horror, Fantasy, and Science Fiction

Philip Athans

(0 Ratings) Rate It

Book

Monsters are more than things that go bump in the night...Monsters are lurking in the woods, beneath...

Armada

Ernest Cline

7.6 (16 Ratings) Rate It

Book

This is the New Novel From The Bestselling Author Of Ready Player One. It's just another day of high...

Sci-Fi Video Games Aliens Military

Onyx

Jennifer L. Armentrout

7.8 (6 Ratings) Rate It

Book

From Jennifer L. Armentrout, author of the Covenant series, comes the unputdownable second book in...

LoganCrews (2861 KP) rated Phoenix Forgotten (2017) in Movies

Sep 19, 2020

Phoenix Forgotten (2017)

2017 | Horror, Sci-Fi

5.0

(1 Ratings)

Movie Rating

For what it's worth this is incredibly, incredibly convincing for what it is. The problem is that it's actually *too* convincing - this is so caught up in crafting a dead-ringer documentary (albeit admirably so) that it forgets to actually put horror movie stuff in too until the last act when this type of movie is required to spiral out of control. Essentially a beat-for-beat ripoff of all three Blair Witch movies but with aliens instead of the witch, honestly not a terrible concept and this still ends up being way better than at least one of those films anyway. Decently immersive, brisk, and engaging for the dirt cheap prices you can find this for even if it never fully sells itself on its premise. On the one hand I appreciate that this never (bar one sole time) jumps the gun by throwing in cheap jump scares before the buildup has set in (a rarity with these things) but that buildup just lasts too damn long, no excuses. Super well put together but it needed a lot less (or at least more fleshed-out) docu-stuff with that crushingly blandass lead (who conveniently is the only less-than-perfect performance in a film chock full of expert ones [particularly Chelsea Lopez, who gives a tour de force one]) and more eerie found footage stuff with the teens. Eventually turns into exactly what you'd expect. Far from that bad, but still a shame.

Kudos

LoganCrews (2861 KP) rated Independence Day (1996) in Movies

Sep 20, 2020

Independence Day (1996)

1996 | Action, Mystery, Sci-Fi

8.0

(62 Ratings)

Movie Rating Watch

Okay but why do you all call this a legendary blockbuster spectacle when there's very little spectacle yet a whole lot of people sulking around in rooms talking about computer code, cigars, recycling, and little else of actual value? Honestly just bar that this is preposterous and nauseatingly corny with a twinge of jingoism (granted, still way less than I expected) and a metric fuckton of characters not the least bit interesting - because of course it is, this is a Roland Emmerich film. Hell, this is the nearly tit-for-tat way less fun precursor to 2012 as it stands. But Jesus Christ did it have to be so goddamn boring? Not even ten minutes into this weightless behemoth and I already wanted the aliens (who, by the way, are barely even used... in this ALIEN movie) to put all these annoying mfs out of their misery. Has some highlights: the whole alien surgery bit is still a winner, can't help but get a sincere chuckle out of the last scene with Randy Quaid, and of course the explosions are... explosive. But it isn't worth it to have to wait like 40+ bloated minutes of nothing between them just to get to some minor diversions. Yes the effects are nice but when do we get to sit back and admire them around all this insufferable exposition and cheese? Hirsch > Smith > Fox > Spiner > Goldblum > Quaid > the kid actors > everyone else > dog shit > Pullman.